Red Dirt Harriers

Another week gone by and another birthday too. Supped on my b-day at an Ethiopian place up in the city, Queen of Sheeba, which was really good. The berbere blend that they used was pretty mild but there were a pretty good number of menu options and a full bar. I also managed to dine at both Irma's locations this week and I must say I appreciate the concept, a tasty diner style burger, rings, fries, or okra and a quality selection of beers without too many frills. On Friday night, I headed up to the OKC art museum to watch Control, a film based on the life of Ian Curtis of Joy Division. It was a pretty dramatic show and did alot to provide a glimpse into the vivid and emotional life of this pop icon. On Saturday, I headed up to the meeting and open house of the Oklahoma Food Coop. This was pretty neat and while I'm sure it is a much smaller enterprise than those taking place in other states, it is unique in the fact that it is carried out to directly link the producer and consum...

Hit the road to the Big D for a couple days. I have been having some mild tightness and sciatica issues in my left hamstring, which isn't anything out of the ordinary but after driving a manual car and hitting traffic, I was really stiff. I called it a night after a quick sampling of the Hennepin Brewery Saison, which was very solid. I got up early to head over to White Rock Lake and jump in a 15k race. I was wanting to get 20ish miles in, but ended up doing a long warmup, 10 mile steady run(banditted the race) and quick cool down for about 16.5-17. Temp was just below freezing but the the windchill off the lake was in the single digits and I felt none too stellar even while wearing more clothing than 75% of the other idiots out there. When I got to the car, my buddy Ging from Thailand via Enid, OK just happened to spot me and so we headed out quickly after I managed to avoid a slight mishap and altercation with some Mercedes driving broad. That afternoon, I headed over to the Dall...

Hit the road in the supposed 8 degree windchill this morning, which I'm going to call bs on, for a steady 16ish miles. I actually felt pretty good, if a tad stiff after yesterday's easy running. Hit up another 30' jog w/ skolnick after seeing Dan In Real Life at the $ theater. I rate Steve Carell's latest flick as a B-. Jokin, if you're reading this, I stopped by to check on you at the shop but no dice and it looked a tad busy I might add- almost like Gus needs to hire another strapping young shoe jockey. So with the colder weather and lack of funding I'm currently recieving, I have become interested in utilizing the public transportation in Norman. Conveniently, there is an apartment stop just up the way from my house where I can then make it over to the south oval. I assumed that this was either a free route or cost 50 cents. Turns out that even though it's a CART bus, it's only available for use by students, you can't even pay your way. This pisse...

Thanks to Sallah Hussein for that gem. Well as luck would have it, my legs do hurt but I think I have an explanation for that. I seem to be a bit slow right now with all the miles. The long run on Sunday was not devastating but I ran enough yesterday that I still didn't feel fresh by the end of the day on Monday. Typicallly, I like to wait to work out until Wednesday due to the volume I am putting in but I moved the workout to this morning because the weather is supposed to turn nasty tomorrow and I didn't think it would be too tough. I pulled out the old 10x half mile w/ ~1:30-2:00 jog, but intentionally set the goal time of 2:40, which is about my goal half marathon time for next month. Anyway, I took a few repeats to even get under 2:40 and then just felt like I was working alot harder than I should have been to run pace. I did the work and so I'm just going to treat this like a pretty high density block with a steady long run, a total of 16.5 on Monday with some hill pr...

Rapped up a solid week with 120 miles. Got in a 10 mile marathon effort run, a Mono fartlek at the rec fields on Friday, and then was put through my paces by Jordan on Sunday morning for a steady 20 spot. Last night, John's special lady friend Heather treated us to a tasty dinner with some central coast wine, coincidentally. Then we headed over to Joe's Taverna for a brief interlude. I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that the new Shiner Black, while not being an inherently bad beer, is pretty much exactly the same as a regular Shiner Bock, despite its mysterious "black lager" classification. If I were to recommend a quality beer that I've had lately and which might be aptly categorized under the heading to this entry, it would be either of two fine central coast produced ales- the hysterically hopped Lagunitas IPA or the North Coast Brew Co.'s Trappist style Belgian Ale which I sampled immediatley prior to a run on Saturday. If you cannot make it ...

Back from the great beyond- all parts, California. I got a little bit of everything in: a stop at Polly's for coffee on a couple occasions, wine tasting in Napa, celebrity treatment at a top-notch French restaurant, and some excellent scenery and running. I spent the first couple days in Long Beach and got a solid 20 miler in running from my uncle's house all the way down to Huntington Beach and Bolsa Chica. Next up was a stay in Escalon just north of Modesto, which is serious orchard country with trails in every direction and fresh fruit stands all over the road. From there we headed to Napa to stay with my dad's old UCLA roommate. He took us to 2 really nice wineries set in amazingly lush hills. We then had dinner Chez Jeanty which offered traditional French fare. It was a great experience as we were treated by the owner to several dishes and desserts in addition to what we ordered. I had Coq Au Vin, but also sampled sweet breads, escargot, pate', and crepe suzette...