Everybody has a plan, until...

Oops, the easy training run for the Monumental Marathon turned into a couple minutes faster than last year and my second best half marathon time. Screw it, I've two weeks to recover.

Fado face

Fadista Aldina Duarte, whose face, in my opinion, is as magnificently expressive as her music. Look it up.

Almost there

21 miles this morning, all I have to do now is not hurt myself before the Monumental Marathon in Indy 3 weeks hence. Oh yeah, and have a beer.

Now that's what I call idyllic

Sitting under a shady tree drinking Founders All-day IPA listening to Shinyribs, I think I finally found my calling.

I must be in the front row...

Rodd and Kathy and the Blind Boys of Alabama at Stubb's. Our seats just suck, heh, heh, heh.

Crafty

Craft beer tent at ACL, best invention ever!

A modest proposal

I don't understand why we keep having to argue about this Affordable Care Act thing. The problem is easily solved. Just let the sick people without coverage die and everybody will be covered. I can't believe nobody is promoting this simple and obvious... Oh, wait. Never mind.

Doesn't know when to quit, and why should he?

I was talking to this guy before the Wabash Heritage Trail half marathon yesterday. He was running the full marathon. He admitted to being "in his early 70s." Then his buddy (another old(er) guy, wearing a shirt that read "Ran a marathon in every state. Twice.") told me, "Yeah, and this is his 132nd race so far this year." I shook both their hands and said, "You guys are my heroes."

Bay Jay, bad bad!

Bad Jay is quarterbacking the Bears today.

Leg up, one foot at a time

Put 18.1 miles on them today, 5 before the Wabash Heritage Trail half marathon and 13.1 in the mud and rain.

Saturday night devotionals

I don't need to go to church in the morning because Rev. Peyton (and his Big Damn Band) is giving me all the preaching I need. And there's beer.

When opportunity knocks

So say I'm running along and I see Danny Hope and Nancy Reagan lying in a ditch. Of course I stop to kick Danny Hope. It's not like I'm going out of my way or anything. And if I have time, I kick Nancy Reagan, too.

Nice guys finish happy

End of the North Face trail half marathon in Wisconsin Sunday. I could have smoked that 10K runner at the end, but I was happy not to be a jerk about it. Then they gave me a free beer and a brat, which they probably would have done anyway. Still, not being a jerk made it taste better.

In Bears ghetto

They're making me sit over in the corner to watch the Bears, but I'm doing it.

Happy birthday to me

Birthday yesterday North Face Endurance Wisconsin trail half marathon tomorrow. Because time will catch me eventually, but the wanker is going to have breathe hard to do it.

Born this way

As far as I know when I was born about this time XX years ago I wasn't standing in a bar with a pint listening to master bluesmen play, but it would have been appropriate.

So long big Z

I lament the passing of Zelmo Beaty, fine center, worthy foe and memorable villain for those of us who rooted for the Indiana Pacers when the ball was red, white and blue.

Birthday greetings to Mr. Rollins

Listening to Mr. Sonny Rollins, 83 years young today, play Salvador on This is What I Do always makes me have happy feet. And then, I get to listen to the rest of the CD. Happy birthday S.R.

I got it Al

The unboxing, just so my old pal Alan Lee knows.

Spooked, but it could be the booze

Why is it that whenever I walk through here I think a about The Shining?

Hanging in the bar at West Baden

It's kind of like drinking in the Astrodome, or the Duomo.

So begins the 33rd IOSF

It's on! When will it ever go off?

Twerk this

I always twerk at the end of a race, if you count bending over my knees, ass pointed at the sky, and gasping for air.

B3 or be square

A Mound Builder IPA and I wait for my man B3 god Tony Monaco at the Uptown Jazz and Blues Festival.

You gotta be comfortable doing it

Let's rock! Suiting up for the Southwestway Trail 15K.

Hot and sweaty

That big glass of water I drank before running this morning was gone by the time I got back.

Kids these days

In the older building where my office is located, in an older restroom where you have to push a handle down to flush the urinal, kids frequently don't because they have grown up in a world where urinals routinely flush themselves. It annoys me, yes, but more than that it makes me feel sorry for them. They never experienced the thrill of dodging Jarts, either.

After the Nearly Sane (depends on your perspective) half

I like a race that personalizes my number--and puts a beer opener in my swag bag.

No gnomes here, just us zombies

New in the butterfly garden, where I saw my first butterfly, briefly, today. What can I say, I'm just not a garden gnome kind of dude.

Punt, pass, kick it ain't

Arrive Indy from San Diego 1:30 a.m. Drive to Chicago, arrive 4:30 a.m. Shower, pin number on shirt, nap 30 minutes, get up, stretch, suit up, walk/jog about 2 miles to start line, run Big 10 Network 10K--2 minutes 14 seconds faster than last year. Followed by shower, lunch and collapse. Later, beer.

Late lunch

Sampler at Neighborhood (a San Diego bar suggested by the Big C). Pliny the Elder second from right.

He's Rapid Roy on that guitar

Listening to Lenny "Fuzzy" Rankins play the blues at Jim Croce's wife's bar. I think Jim would have enjoyed it.

Candye is dandy

Tonight... Candye Kane. I've been waiting for this all my life.

Night, night sailor

I have to say the room Purdue arranged for me at the XSEDE conference is not the greatest.

With an ocean view no less

I could probably get used to running along San Diego Bay with the sun coming up.

Undestructable

How many darkest moments and traps
Still lay ahead of us
How many final frontiers
We gonna mount
And maybe no victory laps
But if you stepped on path of sacred art and stuck it out through thick and thin
God knows you become one
With undestructable
--Eugene Hütz

Every journey starts with...

Monumental Marathon training starts the same way as Illinois Marathon training, by putting a foot out the door. Warmer weather, however, about 65 degrees warmer according to my training log for Jan. 2.

Great morning for a run

Nice romp in the Water Drop 5K at Wabash Riverfest this morning, which makes 9 races in the last 8 weeks. I have to take a break from racing now or someone will call for an intervention. Not to mention that Indy Monumental Marathon training starts Monday.

Open for business butterflies

New butterfly garden, although the only thing I've seen in it so far is a chipmunk.

Well, they were new shoes

Before. After.

My name is mud

I got your Tough Mudder right here bub. End of the Brown County trail 15K (which is actually a 10 miler).

Wetter is better

Let's race trails.

Life is short, run fast(er)

I just don't know how my life spiraled down to a point where this is the case. I was 3 minutes 16 seconds faster in the second 3 miles of the Firecracker 6 than the first and it makes me very happy.

Firecracker 6 receipt

>

My receipt.

My new bible

Of course I wanted to drink with Sena all night, but the bible (this bible) says a righteous man will hit certain paces in the Firecracker 6 mile in downtown Indy tomorrow morning and so, being a more or less righteous man, I will go to bed (relatively) early and try to hit those paces.

Sena and the brew

This beer and Sena Ehrhardt, priceless.

Butterfly welcome mat(s)

Butterfly garden waiting to be planted, if the rabbits don't get it. But I like running with the rabbits when we're the only ones up before the sun mornings.

Cleveland and a quarter sighting

White shoes, white belt, white hat, I say it's still a full Cleveland. If you've got the tie, too, it's a Cleveland and a quarter.

I scoff at your StairMaster

The 100 steps that ended the Waterfall Trail 10K this morning (after a bunch of hills, ravines and lots of mud). That's just mean. Satisfying, but mean.

OK, not that horse, but hey...

I kicked this guy's ass, but he was magnanimous about it.

He's going so down

I think I can take him. Waiting for the track to clear before the Hoosier Park 8K this morning

Geared

Packing for the weekend. Doing a double: Hoosier Park 8K Saturday ( on the horse track no less), Waterfall Trail 10K Sunday.

Happy (and fast) Hog Jog Saturday

I kicked this guy's ass and knocked more than 3 minutes off my best 10K time. After the 35th annual Flora Hog Jog this morning

Ahhhhh

Where's that beer you promised me?

Now that's a post game

What you get after the Wholly Hell Trail 15K, Chicago dog and a cold IPA. Hell? Hell, I may run it again and get two.

Breakfast of champions

Breakfast of champions, and old(er) guys who will finish somewhere around the middle of the pack.

Happy National Running Day

I was going to run and then I found out it was National Running Day, so I ran. You can't even make this kind of shit up.

That's why they call it a "trail" race

It's a trail race buddy, don't tip-toe around the mud, baja it. After the Tales-N-Trails 5K Saturday at the Tippecanoe County Amphitheater. I took a detour (also know as a wrong turn) in the woods so it was actually more like 6K.

Beep, beep

I felt like a real doofus running with a metronome this morning, but I have to say it was oddly hypnotic.

And a month after the marathon...

I raced in Indianapolis today. Here is my "car." (Altra Superiors, I love these shoes.) The track was a little muddy, and rocky, rooty and hilly, too.

Things I only get from Portuguese lessons

O menino tem uma fantasia de leão. Personally, I wish the kid would shut up about it.

Mind thumbing

The real problem with having a gash on the end of my right thumb is that it mitigates my advantage over lesser animals, especially cats. (I'm thinking of you Larry, you thumbless bastard.)

Because if you're going to be crazy, be really crazy

I used to take these thousand mile plus wilderness canoe trips and while I enjoyed taking the trips what really floated my boat was the getting ready for the thing, the logistics, if you will. Now, I find that this is a primary attraction of running a marathon, the months of preparation leading up to the actual running, and having run a marathon two weeks ago, and currently running in limited increments, and carefully, to recover, I find I sorely miss the excessive self abuse. So, may the gods allow, I am just going to have to run another one this year: Monumental Marathon in Indy we have a date.

Another jazz fest in the bag

Taj Mahal with tubas, followed by a hot shower, followed by a cold Bayou Teche LA-31 Biere Noire. Not a bad evening, not bad at all.

And the gods said, let there be the blues

Don't bother me, I'm at church. Satan (Sterling "Mr. Satan" Magee of Satan & Adam) playing the blues on Sunday morning at jazz fest.

Faces in different places

Then again, Maxine.

Rock and bowling, also drinking

They have bowling here, and beer and Amanda Shaw and Tab Benoit playing on stage. I hope I haven't like died and gone to heaven. Then again...

This fellow is crazy for the lady in red

Ana Popovic in her soulful dress playing her soulful, bluesy, scintillating, searing, soaring guitar, plus beer. I'd say just shoot me now because it can't possibly get any better. But hey, there's still two days of jazz fest left.

Abita #1

Ahhhhh! That first cold Abita the first day of jazz fest.

Running, more like shuffling

Always a bit if an adventure those first couple miles after going 26.2.

Buddy Bolden awaits me

I'm comin' Buddy, soon, put the Abita on ice.

Walking tall, and stiff

I think it is safe to say I'm going to wish I had gone for the one-level condo for the next couple days.