The Austin FOOD & WINE Festival took over Auditorium Shores for two days, showcasing all kinds of famous chefs and local vendors. Originally I wasn’t going to attend (due to seemingly exorbitant ticket prices), I was able to win some passes thanks to Twin Liquors! With two entries, but Evelyn out of town, I scrambled to find some friends who had no plans this weekend. Luckily two were free to divide and conquer. Onward to the festival!
This weekend Austin gets to play host to the Austin FOOD & WINE Festival. It’s a spin-off of the famed FOOD & WINE Festival held annually in Aspen. Saturday and Sunday the festival will take over Auditorium Shores to showcase locally- and nationally-famous chefs doing what they do best. To unofficially kick things off, the Salt Lick made for the perfect venue to prove you can’t have too much meat and alcohol in one place. This is Live Fire!
Thanks to some Twitter motivation, Ev and I are embarking on The Push Up Challenge. The brainchild of @melruns and encouraged by Austin Fit Magazine, the idea is simple:
Day 1 – Do 1 push up
Day 2 – Do 2 push ups
Here’s where it gets tricky
Day 3 – Do 4 push ups
Day 4 – Do 8 push ups
<
p>Each day double the number of push ups from the day before. Take this all the way up to 100 push ups (or for the binary-minded, 128 push ups). It’s a daily goal, not an in-a-row goal, so it’s fair game to break them up. Just get them done, however you need. After that you can keep increasing or just
stay at 100 per day. The choice is yours. Good luck and get started!
Hey Hey! Big news on this small blog! Next week one of Food Network / Cooking Channel’s new TV shows, Eat St. is coming to Austin! Big deal. you might say. Well, what if I were to tell you that yours truly just might make an appearance on the ol’ boob tube? Looks like I got your attention*.
With Eat St. coming to Austin, Facebook has been all a-Facebook Twitter has been all a-twitter with excitement. Tony at Food Trailers Austin has been amazing at keeping the public informed of what’s going on. You can find schedules where the Eat St. crew will be and when. And like I said, I might even make an appearance if things work out they way they should! Things kick off tomorrow (Tuesday, 5/17) at The Jalopy around lunch time at 15th & San Antonio.
Stay updated with Eat St. and all their mobile goodness in Austin and beyond on Facebook and Twitter @EatStTweet.
*let’s be honest, the only thing that got your attention was the word “boob”
Hello, My Lone Faithful Readers,
I feel like we have forged a strong relationship over the last 18 months and I want to share something personal with you — something known only to those who I hold very near and dear to me I think would care. As I am sure you have guessed, running is a bit of a hobby. I dabble. But it is not the final frontier.
“What!? What is this nonsensical nonsense?” you exclaim.
Well, my friends, fear not. Running will still be a part of the master plan; it just might have two friends to tag along (which is more than I can say for myself…). I realize I still haven’t said what I’m saying, so I’ll say it right after I finish saying this.
If there’s one thing I remember from The Lion King it’s that Simba and Elton John’s love child, Pumbaa, is one heck of a meerkat you have to respect the circle of life. In a nutshell, you’re born/built, you live/function, you die/die — thanks, Disney, for that life lesson. This holds true in animated lion movies and running GPS devices alike.
No need for me to remind you, but just in case, on the smallest off chance,
if your phone alarm, calendar alert, backup phone alarm, and personal assistant all failed you: today is National Running Day. And what does that mean exactly? Well, I’m not quite sure. What I do know is that I saved some cash registering for a race. I just signed up for the San Antonio Marathon (11/14/10) using a coupon code (RUNDAY) to save $15! It’s only valid today though, so don’t wait.
After some research I learned that National Running Day is an effort to make people more active in the name of health and fitness. That sounds good on paper,
but I’m not sure that we have any health and fitness issues. I mean, I can come up with examples (here and here) of how fit our country really is! Honestly, running 4 miles (burn about 500 calories) and eating a dozen donuts (about 2,400 calories) is a sure-fire way to drop the LBs. Just thinking about it is making me tired and hungry. And come on, with ad campaigns like this, who needs a National Running Day?
For those curious few: yes, I did go for a run on today’s fine National Running Day. An average 5 miles in 120% humidity.
| Distance | 5 Miles |
| Time | 42:18 |
| Pace | 8:28 min/mile |
| Average HR | 154 bpm |
This here blog has been getting cozy at its current address for nearly a year now and is thinking of upgrading to someplace a little less on the west side* running-only. Why you ask? Well that will all be answered in more detail in an upcoming post. The long and the short of it is that I’m hoping to break into the triathlon scene, and so I’d like to have a more balanced blog presence.
I’m also thinking of dropping the “.wordpress.com” and buying the website address. I know what you’re thinking.. “But Mike! Don’t bother! Your blog is already my homepage, so it doesn’t matter!”
Believe it or not, there are still a few people on the Internet who do not check my blog before anything else. Anyway, I’d like to get your feedback on what my new website should be. Some of the facts to consider are:
Here are a few options to vote on, or feel free to add your suggestions in the comments! (Please add suggestions in the comments, I’m stumped for other ideas!)
*We’re movin’ on up, To the East Side, To a deluxe apartment, In the sky, etc etc.
Still no race on the calendar, but that hasn’t stopped me from hitting the pavement. I’ve been getting out there 3 – 4 2-3 times a week, bright- dark-and-early (stupid Spring Forward). I’ve been heading out on my regular 7.68 mile (yes, exactly 7.68, so says my GPS) route most mornings and take on the rest of the day per usual. However, something comes over me on the weekends that is both awesome and unrecommended. “What can be both awesome and unrecommended?” you ask. Drugs! Grand Theft! Unprotected Chess! Country Music!* Teletubbies! I’ll give you a moment to get all the inappropriate comments out of your system.
Anyway, the awesome / unrecommended item I am referring to is, on the weekends, I seem to run like people are chasing me. What I mean is, I run nearly as fast as I can for as long as I can. Case in point, this last weekend, for no reason, I started off a little too quick (8:00 min/mile) and only got faster. Why? Because it is awesome. I even sought revenge upon my archetypal (GRE word) nemesis whom you may remember from my Power Suit post, and flew by a girl in a 2009 Boston Marathon shirt. (Ev pointed out she was probably 2/3 of the way through a 22-mile run, but I still passed her!) Makes me feel like I’m racing every week, in which case I am the winner! (and loser, I suppose). “It’s not recommended to run so hard too often. You should slow down”. Yea, that’s what you say if you’re a Teletubby you hate fun.
Perhaps it’s because I’m awake for a few hours instead of a few minutes before running, or just the change to warmer weather (thank you again, Global Warming, for raising Earth’s temperature so quickly**). So for now, I’ll take pleasure in these long, fast runs, and continue to challenge myself as if I’m racing each weekend. Rationality be damned! I will not slow down!
Last Saturday’s Run
| Distance: | 12.34 miles |
| Time: | 1:36:57 |
| Pace: | 7:51 min/mile |
| Average HR: | 161 bpm |
*Country music is neither awesome nor recommended.
**Some uninformed types might call this “the seasons changing from Winter to Spring”. Ahh, ignorance, such a beautiful thing. Suck it, Al Gore***.
***Thank you for inventing the Internet.
I’ve had a wonky sleep schedule this week. Actually, the schedule has been fine, but my body hasn’t really been sticking to it. The past 3 nights I was lucky enough to see the clock at 3:31am, 3:15am, and 1:52am. Not ideal, and it left me more tired than usual. Well this morning I got my rear in gear, despite sleeping lightly, and trekked out for a gloomy 7 miles.
I threw on my power suit: Chicago Marathon finisher’s shirt and Marine Corps Marathon hat for that extra “I’m better than you” feeling and headed out the door. The legs felt surprisingly strong considering some nagging tightness in both calves throughout the week. Cruising along and exuding awesomeness through my attire, I felt pretty high and mighty. Until…
POP! My bubble was burst.
Heading
towards me was a girl wearing an unmistakable yellow Boston Marathon shirt. For the uninitiated, the Boston Marathon is the only race you need to qualify for by running another race within their qualifying times. Fast qualifying times. Like times that I don’t think I’ll be hitting… ever.
And just like that, my “power suit” was nothing but any old shirt and hat.
| Distance: | 7.00 miles |
| Time: | 57:54 |
| Pace: | 8:16 min/mile |
| Average HR: | 158 bpm |
