Overheard in the kitchen

Grind asks the loudly whining cat, "Ophie, what do you want?"

"For us all to cry a river of tuna," calmly answers Gaslight.

Wha??

Damn that Red Rex.

Quick question...

Let's say... if YOU were a member of a large running club, and this running club sends out a fairly thick monthly newsletter containing columns about various things.

Some of the board members of this large running club have to write a montly column for said rag containing newsy bits and other interesting ideas and facts.

What would YOU want to hear about? Hmm?

Speak now or be forever annoyed at what corny poetry I come up with.

Pain in the rear **revised**

Ok, so I cleaned up the title a little out of consideration for anyone who might have a live link to my latest post (Jonathan!).
But seriously-many runners I know have ass issues from time to time. Hamstrings, glutes, poriformis, whatever. You know what I'm talking about. The 11 thousand images on Google tell that it's a seriously common problem: a pain, waaay up at top of your hammie- an insertion point.

I had great fun in picking out just the right one, too, I might add.

Last Sunday after a brisk 11 (or was is 12? I don't know), I ran the hash that afternoon. Decent pace-never went too nuts- but my right butt muscle was so locked up. Really painful and quite annoying. I took the week kind of easy, thinking maybe some biking and easy running would let it heal.

Since San Antonio is not getting any further away, this Saturday I brought it up a notch to 14 miles with WayneFit. Ye-ouch.

"Hey Wayne," I begin, as he looks at me attentively, "do you know where I can get a new hamstring?" A group chuckle ensues, and his first suggestion is acupuncture.

I have no fear of acupuncture, but I did remember and mention" Isn't that what turned Superman Matt's calf into a giant, black knot?" Wayne didn't remember is that way, but I clearly did. Olya then mentioned Jim Guillory at the Houstonian. No pain, she says.

Yes, I'll send you his info, which Wayne-o promptly did. "Tell him I sent you." Of course, I tell him.

So today I went to see Mr Jim. When someone does Muscle activation therapy, they move your legs and/or arms around and have you resist the way they pushing or pulling. If the muscle he's testing isn't firing, you just won't be able to hold your arm, leg, foot, toe, or whatever in the direction you want to. It's like some freaky slumber party game.

Nooooo! I don't want my foot to go down!

Anyway, he does this for everything within reason, which is great, because as a middle-aged runner (OMG I said it), I knew I had more than one weak spot. As a matter of fact, he' bend my knee one way, turn my ankle another and tell me which way to resist- and I'd start to grin. I KNEW which movements I wouldn't be able to make just by the way it felt.

Runners spend a lot of time going forward. And a little up and down, maybe. If we don't do yoga, pilates, kickboxing..something with lateral movements in it, those muscles quit communicating with our brains and sorta quit.

Bad muscles! Communication GOOD!

So we'll see. It's Wednesday, and time for 9.5 with my bayou guys. At Guillory's advice, I took a 600mg IBU for the inflammation, which was the only ache still there when I got up from the table. That and some Tai Bo oughta do me.

Maybe I'm cured. The next week will tell...

And a plus is that I LOVE the Houstonian! When Grind gets rich and I retire I will spend all day there.

**I've been getting deep tissue massages for some time now, and this spot is a challenging one to reach. And I l.o.v.e. them !! Usually the nice lady has to lean all the way into my right butt cheek while balancing on her elbow. Whew boy, hurts so good!

The guy who performed the Muscle activation technique works on everything-my right glute, quad, and hip flexors (among other things) weren't paying attention and doing their jobs, so the poor little priformis was going all of the work for them. No amount of ice massage was going to wake their lazy asses up. In M.A. T. , the muscles are palpated at their insertion points. He retests, and usually they have begun firing again. It's EERIE.**

Flashback to 1978

And I dare you to not smile:
\

Houston Press Music Awards Festival

Sunday afternoon we hopped on the bikes for downtown to see the "60 bands on 10 stages" of the Houston Press Music Festival.

First stop- Flying Saucer. Get a good beer, buy tickets, get our bearings. The band, Sugar Bayou, played some toe-tapping bluegrass. I spotted the McQuillens on the dance floor and spun around with them a few times.

Now to go and see about a friend...look, it's the BASS PLAYER!

Next up, pedal over to see Rubbin the Boy Wanker play with his band 80 Proof at the Real Sammies (not the same place as Sammy's) over next to Brewery Tap. They play 80's style rock- not so much the dancy-stuff like Devo and Lauper; think Billy Idol and The Cars.
See Rubbin jam!
The band also sports an Owen-Wilson looking keyboard player. I do wish he was more of a front man on "You May be Right" as I tend to associate Billy Joel with the piano. For some reason.

Their singers are quite talented, too.

Crazy back-tat photographer. I have no problem with tattoos, or back tattoos in generally, It was just H-U-G-E.

Now, back to the Saucer for Scattered Pages. The Press described them as influenced by Johnny Cash and The Ramones, so how can you go wrong? They were awe-some. Scattered Pages on MySpace
http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=31853757

Their first couple of tunes were fast and rockin'- I wiggled around quite a bit.
As you see, the lead singer was channeling Chris Isaac, and there is nothing wrong with that!

For the 4th show, Grind and Anal 101 carefully studied the schedule. After little debate, we went down the street to Dean's Credit Clothing. I think it was Frenchy D who suggested The Wiggins, listed as "experimental", but I won't hold him to it.

Keep experimenting, buddy.

Because no one REALLY expects me to shut up about this:

Ok, so I am a big fan of Roberta's Running Notebook, featured every Thursday in the Chron. Every week I read, and sometimes her ideas are discussed on Sunday long runs, etc.

But THIS week, whoo boy.

She posted an article dsicussing the Houston Marathon Board's recent announcement that the masses of early starters will no longer be tolerated.

Great, I'm all for it. But why didn't they announce this in January?
Anyhoo, back to Roberta- she wrote as unbiased a story as possible, and guess what?
People decided to comment! There were 45 postings when I felt I had to butt in with this response:

oneFirstimer86:
There has always been a time limit. Starting early is cheating. Every year I drive from
the Heights to the GRB and pass hundreds of walkers from the mile four
marker (at 530!) all the way into downtown. What time did these people start?

My only issue with the marathon's recent decisions is that they should
have stated them back in January when 2009 registration began. I personally
encouraged friends who were on the fence about running to go ahead and
sign up, because hey, nothing to lose right? They'll refund your entry and
transfer it to another lucky runner!

"Any event that is discriminatory
towards a person due to how long it takes for them to finish a race is downright
pathetic. It truly disappoints me. The most disgusting thing about this entire
incident is the partial refund walkers will be receiving after they have been
unceremoniously booted from an event in which they have been a legitimate part
of for the last five years."

Oh really? Have you run other types of races? Or researched other marathons?
Some 10k's have time limits from 1:20 to 2:30. Many 5K's have time limits of 1 hour of less. Is this discrimination or realistic?

Austin
Marathon: 7 hours
Dallas White Rock 6.5 hours
Gramdma's marathon: 6 hours

If you look on the Marathon Guide website,
http://www.marathonguide.com/features/Articles/2006RecapOverview.cfm,
there is a breakdown of cutoff times for about 300 marathons. The majority of them are between 6 and 7 hours, with the next largest group being 5-6 hours. There are,
however, 40+ marathons with longer time limits, and according to the site, only
15% have a time limit of 8 hours or greater.

BTW: There are, of course,
many making unseemly comments. From both sides- I think a few from both groups
(pro and con the decision) feel attacked. That is not the point of my post.

You know what I find amusing? Every week Roberta writes this column,
usually without anyone's notice to comment. This issue has sparked 46 comments so far, granted many from multiple posts. I with the Chron would put a link to
her on the sports page-not buried in a search.

People of all levels train hard for the marathon. Oh, and some don't, but that's another story. The point is, training to finish within the time limits is a good goal. Are the early starters being respectful to the 6 hours marathoners, struggling to keep running and earn their rightful finisher's medal?

I'll run San Antonio too, this year. From this website: there will be cutoff points enforced along the route. Marathoners must reach the mark at 10.7
by 11:30 a.m., which is an 18 minute per mile pace.

Last year brought us the two most positive changes the marathon board has made: start line corrals and registration transfers. I fear that this year's decisions and announcements will completely overshadow this.

I wish the some of the runners commenting hadn't gotten so condescending and
nasty. I sorta feel like it makes us all look bad.

Kind of like the cheating walkers make the others look bad.

Big day in Newfoundland

Congrats to Houston Hashers Seigfried & Roid, Stop N Blow, and *Eargasm on their first 70.3.

That's months of hard work, plus the pain in the butt of air travel with your bicycle.

Fire Tunnel, Dogma and the fabulous off spring were in attendance as athletic supporters.

JohnBoy, already an accomplished 2X Ironman, also finished. I should hope he kicked their tails!


*In exile in Saudi

Wearin' out the library card

Gods in Alabama by Joshilyn Jackson

My review

rating: 5 of 5 stars
This the second Joshilyn Jackson book I've read this month, and I've loved both of them. Nothing says "the South" like Karo Syrup and a dark family secret, and this book delivers.

See the link to right that says "Woulda Coulda Shoulda"? That's the blog where I learned about this author. The women are friends. And I must say, I held out thinking that the novels would be light and airy.


They aren't.

View all my reviews.

Special Run today

Posted for some friends of mine:

**The Tornados Running Club is hosting a Benefit Run, Saturday, July 26th at5PM to raise funds for Cornelio GaribayCornelio suffered a broken ankle a couple of weeks ago, he has no healthinsurance and will be out of work for about 3 months.

For those of you that don't know Cornelio, he's been a mainstay of theHouston running community for a number of years. Cornelio has lived andraced in Houston for over 20 years. He ran track and cross country forClear Creek High School and received a scholarship to run for San Jacinto.After his college career, he joined the Navy. Cornelio is still one ofthe top runners in Houston and runs for the Al Lawrence Running Club.

This non-competitive, untimed run consists of two, roughly two mile, loopsthrough part of the HoChiMinh Trails.We will meet by the baseball fields at the Picnic Loop, south of MemorialDrive, across from Memorial Park.There will be one water station as you emerge from the trail between thefirst and second loop.We will provide post-race refreshments including at least one keg of beer.

There is no cost for this run, but we will gladly accept donations, 100% ofwhich will go directly to Cornelio.Additionally, you will need to sign a waiver form the day of the race.

We look forward to seeing many of you there!


**Disclaimer: Attending this run, or posting to this blog, for that matter, does not in any way mean to blame one party or another or "take sides", if we're being all junior-high about it.

If you've ever been in a rough spot, I think you can empathize with Cornelio. I know that I do.

An Engineer's Guide to Cats

Saint Arnold Scavenger Hunt Pub Crawl

Number one- Kiss that monkey














Number Two -Bagwell










Number three- World's Fair



















Number four- Edinburgh Pub Crawl














Number Five- Democrats















Number six- Balls!
















Number seven-Gargoyle

Cheerful teammates,um pubcrawlers.

Oh noes, mangoes!

I love mangoes, but they do not love me. Not the fresh ones, anyway.

We bought a case of them at Canino's last weekend, and I already have the severe cafing on my mouth that I get from cantact with their juice.

I sliced them all up today, and ate a few. Soo nummy! Must go wash face NOW.

Sigh.

How's My Summer?

I've been reading my tail off!

A Paper Life by Tatum O'Neal

My review

rating: 4 of 5 stars
Wow. Poor Tatum. Ryan O'Neal is an evil bastard. Seriously, like needed to be picked up by CPS, E-V-I-L. After that berating, it's no wonder Tatum and her brother are both addicts and she married that other narcissist, John McEnroe. Sheesh. It's enough to make you stop watching tennis. Oh wait, I don't..

Tatum wasn't even sent to school as a child and AFAIK, never graduated. Ergo, it's a quick, easy read.


View all my reviews.

What's cookin', 2- leftover from last week

So after some thought, I decided that my creation deserved it's very own post, mainly because when I mention that I have made a veggie pie, people give me that "blink. blink." kind of look.



You start a bunch of veggies, including one of the "greens" variety, 2 pre-made pie crusts, (they generally come in a set), 3 eggs, about 1.5-2 cups of cooked brown rice, some feta cheese (okay, that's really optional) and your favorite seasonings.


As with any dish with the possible exception of ice cream, I start with a generous amount of olive oil and garlic. Here, as you see, I have already added carrots. Start with these as they 1) give the pie a nice sweetness to balance the bitterness of the greens and 2) they take longer to cook (duh).


The next veggie to add is your fennel. Just chop it up like so, and add it to the cooking carrots after they have had a moment to themsleves. Five-10 minutes, maybe?


Rinse the leeks, then slice open, longways. Wash well as they soemtimes have a bit of mud between the leaves. Now chop into half moons.


Oh, and you should have already started baking the lower pie crust. Sorry. This time I used whole wheat, which might be a bit "earthy". I'll let you know tomorrow.



An aside: Gaslight does not make piecrusts. She takes them out of the nice bag and puts them in her own lovely stoneware piepan.


Here we dump, um, carefully add the chopped leeks and onions.




This week's leafy green of choice was Kale. Wash and chop. I've used collards, broccoli, rapini (that's a leafy Italian broccoli). Greens, while sometimes bitter alone, are great in this pie. Again, I think it's the garlic, carrots and crust that smooth the flavors over.

A buddy of mine said he only counts on having salt & pepper around.
"Not even garlic?" I ask. Maybe that's why he's so skinny!

Here's what I used:
cayenne pepper
salt
Italian seasonig
fennel seeds
cracked black pepper

Still pretty simple, right?



It might look a tad heavy on the cayenne to the untrained eye, but it was perfect!





After the veggies are cooked, put into a bowl and add your 1.5 cups of cooked brown rice. Combine and let cool for about 20 minutes.


Go update your blog or something. Go!






So it's been 20 minutes. Mix the 2-3 eggs before adding to the cooled mixture (you don't want to have scrambled eggs in your veggie pie).



Add some feta cheese. Amount and variety ar negotiable. Grind says he's used mozerella, too.


Now smoosh it all into the pie shell.

I didn't manage to get a shot of the trickiest part- dislodging the remaining shell from its tin and artfully placing it onto the top of your pie.

Be careful is my best advice.





See, over to the right, inside the oven?

I did manage it!

Now set the oven for 350, and bake one hour!

Niecelettes

Spent last week hanging with the sister in Charlotte, NC. These are her adorable offspring, ages 11 and 8.

Urban Adventure Race

I was a bum on Saturday, but I know what you really want to hear about :

RACING!

For some reason Grind didn't tell me about the Terra Firma Adventure race until Friday night. Skeered? we'll never know.

He and Asswipe entered as a male masters team for this race, which was going to be non-technical mountain biking, running, and knowledge of the landscape. A little odd, but ideal for hashers, no?

They began at Market Square with instructions to run to Allen's Landing to get the checkpoint information. Some you would need to run to, others (like Memorial Park) were to be reached on bike.

Having lived an active lifestyle in the inner loop of Houston for the past fifteen years seemed to have been as valuable a skill as being able to pedal your bike for this race. They did give out city maps, but how much help would that be finding the footbridge on Crestwood Drive?

Two other hasher teams competed as well: the F-mans were team Bad Livers, and still beaming form their recent relocation to the Sunset Heights, earned a fifth place in the mixed category.

Grind won the coveted door prize, the Park Tool bottle opener. It works very well, thank you. He's showing it to Eli and trying to convince him the share.

Narc and his partner Lan won third in the mixed masters category, I believe. He was not as nearly as grumpy as he looks in this photo.

The boys came in 6th overall and first in their division, and as you can see they are particularly euphoric. It was pretty amusing, actually.

Crap.

It's what I felt like today. On a minorly related note, have you ever had the wine Red Rex?
It's a blend of seven of the yummiest grapes, evah!
OMG it's amazing. Well the first bottle was, anyway.

well fan-freakin'-tastic (sarcasm implied)

You know that I-10 expansion? The one that swallowed the parking lot of our favorite outdoor store , downsized community fitness centers, and destroyed and relocated restaurants in the Spring Branch/Memorial Area?

Yes, this one:

Not that there was an easy solution, short of making all daily commuters into the city from Cinco Ranch carpool or use public transportation. Imagine such a thing. It smacks of communism.

Ahem.

So I drove said freeway out to make purchases at my favorite Washington-based Membership Warehouse, where I bought fabulous looking fresh blueberries and Rainer cherries, by the way. Since the most of freeway ramps are still under construction, I exited Campbell Road and planned to take the feeder west to Bunker Hill, which is when the horrific truth hit me.

See, I take the Wirt Road exit for work. When it reopened this year, I celebrated with MUCH gladness and a possibly a Starbucks venti nonfat latte. From Kroger! On Wirt Road! Never had things in come together quite this easily on my commutes.

And then I tried to exit.

Exiting itself wasn't a huge problem- it the right turn that was made into a death-defying trick by good old TXDOT.

See that niiice loooong row of pilings that would soon hold up the Wirt Exit ramp? Well they descend about 100 feet from the corner! Nice, huh?

So they miscalculated, I thought to myself. Until today.

They are ALL going to be like that! Look at 'em! Campbell, Bunker Hill...it's literally an accident (or a million) waiting to happen.

I don't know about you, but if I am traveling to a location such as, oh, Campbell and Westview, I'd take the Katy Freeway to Campbell and make a right.

WRONG! Not unless you're ready to DIE, you don't!

This is great. Just great. Don't say I didn't warn you.

What's cooking?

Grind's Saturday creation: extremely dense cornbread

You may or may not be able to see all of the grains:
polenta
regular cornmeal
whole wheat flour
sesame seeds

Independence Day, part deux *revised with photos*

SURPRISE!

Little Toolbox has been fretting for months, nay, possibly even the last decade as how to best please Frenchy D on his 40th birthday. He's a social guy- he loves a party. Her? Not that much. Now she loves TO socialize, but a couple of friends, diamond earrings and several glasses of Riesling are her ideal party.

Then he tells her he doesn't want a surprise party. We'll see about that.

It was actually Grind's brainchild- he would "distract" the birthday boy with manly activities, then bring him back to our house for an alleged 4th of July cookout and dinner. Like we do together about 40 Saturday nights a year. Perfect!

The mission: Guns & Go-carts

The accomplices:
Grind and Ass Grabber

Oh, so we all did go out for a fancy-shmancy dinner at Mark's on his actual birthday. Totally blowing him off on Tuesday wouldn't make for a very nice surprise on Friday, now would it?

See? Lotsa friends. He was happy.

This is our ginormous porch-it continues around the corner. Good thing, since 70 people came.

Here he opens one of his several Bahrain-themed gifts:

And Old Faithful says she never takes a good picture!
More party guests:





The F-mans and Tai-Tai to the left

And after Gaslight stopped being grumpy about cleaning, moving furniture and decorating, here are the hostesses.

Happy Independence Day- part 1 *now with link*

Little Gaslight's day began like most of yours probably did- with a run. Yes, the Run Wild 5K just looked so sparkly and shiny that I could not resist its lure. For whatever absurd reason, I really like the winding street of its course. The blindness of what lies ahead thru all the turns seems to make the already abbreviated distance go by even more quickly.

Not to say that it wasn't painful. It is July, after all.

At Valhalla last week someone asked if I was running for a time-"No, I'm running to win!"* Come on people, it's going to be 80+ degrees- PR weather for sure. Anyhoo, you never know who's going to show for these holiday races, so it's SWAG (some wild-ass guess) as to how it would go.

*meaning some also-ran age-group award, of course

I'm a simple girl. If I can have a hard run, a good cup of coffee, some breakfast, a beer AND go home with a little hardware, it would make me pretty happy. Gary's AR nature, um I mean attention to detail, makes this race run more smoothly than your average 5K

I'll not bore you with race details, but it went okay. Nearly 50 seconds off my PR (yikes!), but that seemed on par with everyone else for our summer-conditioning status and the heat.

The overall winner? Lilia Vasquez. How cool is that? I love it win a master's runner takes the big prize! I don't know Lilia, but she's always smiling and brings her mini-me daughter to races with her. I like. And 18:59, much less in that heat-WOW!

So I know that posting the photo took away your obvious suspense as to whether I placed or not, but I did earn and was able to utilize my hardware at the post race party (thank you Two Rows!)

Finally, a link to my craptastic photos (I'm number 243)

http://www.raceshots.net/08runwild5k2.html

I especially love the 3rd shot after the finish line, which although unattractive, truly expresses the discomfort at the end of a good race finish.

I heart Wednesdays

Grind can't figure out why I don't just go run in the mornings since I don't have to be at work.

Truth is, I get by with a little help from my friends.

Especially during the school year, worn down by unruly 13 year olds, lame leadership and teachers' lounge gossip, there are many days I want to collapse onto the sofa and sleep until dinner.

More often than not, though, I get my lazy butt up so as not to miss the pre-loop at Rice for my mid-week 9.5. Long miles on the sun-baked concrete straightaway of Braes Bayou may not sound like a good time to most people, but whether it's Bridge-to-bridge with the fast boys or a relaxed chat pace with Spyder, the bayou run rejuvenates me for the rest of the week.

I refuse to say that I'm obsessed or addicted to running, but more than anything, it's my biggest social outlet. All my running friends make me happy and help keep me motivated- you all know who you are. Thank you.

Massage today for the screamin' hamstring. I hope it helps for tomorrow's 5K.

Morning Hills.

No, I didn't go to either of the "public" hill workouts this morning: neither the popular Kiwi-Olympian led one, nor the highly-controversial, somewhat snarky, rhyming underground one. I think steering clear of the controversy is a good call on this one.

And by the way, if I was going to make a crappy comment, about EITHER party involved, I must say, I would at least have a pair and sign my name. 'Cause that's just plain cowardly. Not to mention mean. And probably sticking your nose in other people's business. But I'm not. No siree.

Anyhoo, I just met Nboaka and trail wench Helen out at Jackson Hill this a.m. for a workout.

30 min WUP, 5 X 4 minutes fastish, 10M cool down. Rog held up little sticks in his hand and we "drew" for leading each of the repeats. Thank God Roger drew the longest one so he only got one turn. Try following him. Go ahead. I'll wait. Hmph.

And Helen "Sidehill" Grant- she's crazy! She took the 1st and 4th repeats and really likes to run around trees and across the hills. The first time was fine, but on the 4th (after Roger wore us out-I was anaerobic 1:18 into the 4 minutes) I kept stepping in big holes.

Oh, Nboaka has a all-non-improved surfaces rule for his workouts, which explains the wacky terrain, right?

I think I led my repeats, 2nd and 5th for those bad at math, at a respectable pace. Since they are both faster than I am, I felt pressure to really push it. I chose fewer hills than Helen and a more reasonable pace than Rog, but I think it went okay.

Update from the Houston Marathon

Hi Gang,

The Chevron Houston Marathon and Aramco Houston Half Marathon are currently 84% filled.
We will be updating the website as frequently as possible to let you know where the registration numbers stand.
Please encourage everyone you know and who may be running with your group to register now.
Participants may register here: http://www.active.com/framed/event_detail.cfm?event_id=1514077.

Transfers will be available once we sell out. There will be a waitlist for new participants who wish to enter via transfer and we will match them with participants who have already registered, but are unable to run in January.
We will post more information on the website after we have reached our cap.

Best wishes,Erin

Erin McGowan
Chevron Houston Marathon
720 North Post Oak Rd.
Suite 100
Houston, TX 77024
erin@chevronhoustonmarathon.com