Day 145 of 30+ Day Running Challenge

GO San Francisco GIANTS!

Ok, now that THAT is outta the way . . . sorry Brent, but the Tigers are going DOWN!

My interest in sports teams are a bit scattered:

Baseball: Diehard Giants fan since I was a youngin'. Too many games to recall going to with family.

Football: Didn't much care for it. One day decided to finally support a team and the Browns had come back to Cleveland so . . . Go Browns!

Hockey: I've always loved watching hockey. Something about guys the size of linebackers smashing each other at totally unsafe speeds and then skating away as if (almost) nothing had happened. Only to pay that mofo back by smashing back into him at an even more unsafe speed . . . with a high stick thrown in for good measure. But the funny thing is, I never really had a team I'd follow. Only because it was rarely shown on TV here on the west coast. At least until the Sharks came to San Jose. I had moved to Phoenix around '95 and the Coyotes came to town the next year. I got lucky and was able to grab a ticket for the first home game . . . which I somehow lost on my move back to California in '97.
GO 'YOTES!

Sorry. That was a bit of a ramble. The point is that the Giants are in the 2012 World Series against the Detroit Tigers. I was expecting the Tigers to take Game 1 with Verlander on the mound. But I guess that LONG rest they had was a bit too long and made them lose a bit of momentum. Game 2 was last night and that was a definite battle. GREAT game! I just don't want a repeat of 2010 with a seven game series. TOO much of a nail biter there.

Why the extra bit of info? Brent at RunFatBrentRun "nominated" me for Liebster Award. And now I can't see or hear about Joseph Leiberman without giggling about his comparison to Emperor Palpatine!

What does that nomination get me? Nothin'. It's just a bloggers version of a chain mail. But a fun one!

 Let's get on with it:
11 Facts about myself:
01: I hate hot weather. Phoenix pretty much taught me that. You don't want to do ANYTHING in that weather! Hence number two.

02: Before moving to Phoenix, I was an extremely fit 175 lbs. Out of high school in 1992, I kept myself in shape. I had a car, but preferred my bicycle for around town.

03: When I came back to Salinas from Phoenix, I was nearly 300 lbs. Bad food, alcohol, stress . . . all contributing factors. Not an alcoholic, but pretty damned close. Then again, maybe it was denial?

04: 2007 I was diagnosed with hypertension and near diabetic. The reason I went to the doctor was because I thought I was having a mild heart attack. I was experiencing pressure in my chest and my heart would be racing as if I'd just run as fast as I could. And that was with me waking up in the middle of the night to hit the can!  After the diagnoses, I was like "FUCK THAT! I've got some changes to do!!!"

05: I cut out all simple sugars in my diet. I had to learn to drink my coffee black, blechh!

06: I learned to LOVE black coffee! I discovered sooo many flavors that were masked by all the cream and sugar I'd add my cup. I stopped drinking crap beer . . .

07: No more Corona, Miller High Life, etc. I began trying out new beers. My favorite brew now is Stone's Arrogant Bastard Oaked! But sometimes you want a good IPA, so I'll grab a Sierra or to REALLY bite ya', a Stone Ruination.

08: Along with the diet change, I began moving again. Only because I threw out my back in the most improbable way possible. It was the end of the day on Friday after a pretty hard day making mushroom test trays and we were cleaning up. The test lab had been washed down and we were just drying it up with floor squeegees. I was squeegeeing (is that a word?!) the floor when my back went out. I barely got to my car and because it was the weekend, I had to wait until Monday to go see the doctor. Yeah. I'm a moron. I waited until Monday. I made myself a promise not to let this happen again, if I could help it.

09: I brought my passion of bicycling back into my life! I used to Frankenstein bicycles for shits'n'giggles all the time. If I had a camera back then, I think I'd be famous with the crap I put together. I went and hit up garage sales and found some decent parts and put together a decent crappy bike. After getting used to that I decided to buy a "good" bike and bought a steel Surly CrossxCheck. I've got her tricked out with a nice black Brooks B17 leather seat, a Nitto Moustache bar, too many mods from stock. I'll have to get a picture of her to post on here. She's my baby.  Steel is real!

10: Bicycling really helped a lot. I dropped some weight, I felt better . . . but I wanted more change. In the spring of 2010 the YMCA began a program to train people for the first annual Salinas Valley Half Marathon. I joined up. And I discovered that I couldn't run for shit. I had horrible shin splints throughout the training, but I completed my half marathon in 3.5 hours.

11: I discovered Born to Run after trying to figure out how to stop shin splints and began looking for a minimalist shoe. I found the Merrell Trail gloves were about to be released in February of 2011 and got them. I've been running in minimalist shoes ever since with nary a problem (except for the once when I screwed up my foot with pulled tendon).

That's probably a little more info and facts about me than you wanted to read . . . but anyway, onto the 11 questions posed by Brent to his nominees:

01: What kind of animals do you have and what are their names?
I have 4 ankle-biters (chihuahua mixes) and a pitbull.
 Chihuahuas: Baby, Pee-wee, Gorda, Princess. A random bit of info: When Gorda was born to Baby, she was the last of a litter of 4 and the still-born runt. A bit of CPR and she began breathing on her own. She grew to be the biggest of the litter and my favorite. I spoil that bitch!
Pitbull: Cici. She can't stand Gorda or Princess. She's also the oldest pitbull I've ever known. She's 14!

02: Do you have a favorite or "lucky" article of clothing?
More along the idea of favorite, I love my VFF Bikila shoes. I wish I could wear them everywhere, but the PTB's at work kinda frown upon toe-shoes. And the ladies get a little weirded out.

03: When you have a night to yourself to go somewhere, where do you hang out?
I know this sound a bit cheesy, but I love hanging out with my cousin and her kids (the "daughter" and my godson) and have a family night at her home. Bad food and a movie can't get any better.

04: What's the last movie you saw in the theater?
I had to really think about this one because I could remember right away. But the last movie I watched was Hit And Run with Dax Shepard. That was a really fun movie!

05: What's your guilty music pleasure?
Katy Perry. I'm sorry. I feel dirty now.

06: Do you have a personal catch phrase or motto when it comes to life? If so, what is it? If not, make one up . . . now.
Ooooh, what is THAT? (usually said right before doing something relatively stupid but not "illegal" and pissing off whomever happens to be with me at the time)

07: What's the ONE possession (not family or animals, they're safe) you'd grab if your house were going up in flames?
This one's easy, my backup drive. I have all my music and photos on there. It's so important to me that I have a backup of my backup that I bring home from work to backup, just in case. That should've been one of the facts about me. I don't want to lose any digital info that I've worked so hard to keep. And I also have another backup of the backup at home. They're all backed up once a week or whenever there is a big data dump occurring. Did I forget to mention that I'm called the Alpha-Geek at work?

08: Do you run outside in inclement weather? Is there a limit where you draw a line and say "Nope, not today", and do you switch to indoor exercise of some type?
I do run in inclement weather, like a downpour. If there is a limit to it, I haven't met it yet. But then again, my rainy day runs have been during summers and fall here. Our winters are relatively mild. The coldest we'll see is maybe 28 degrees, and only in the early morning. During the day, it'll creep up to 35. So maybe some ice, but not really. I wanna keep that streak going!

09: What's the most "jerkface" thing you've seen done during a road race from a fellow runner or even a spectator?
Hmm. Being that I haven't been in many road races and guessing most jerks would be at least in the middle of the pack and up, I haven't had the pleasure to observe said "jerkface" actions. But since you asked about the MOST "jerkface" thing done, I guess that would be a volunteer accidentally dropping a cup right before the runner ahead of me grabbed it.

10: If you were going to be turned into an aquatic animal, and there is no way to avoid it, what would you choose to be? Anything that spends the majority of it's time in water is allowed.
A sea lion. Those mofo's are awesome! They're the wolves of the sea. You get to be fat and it's GOOD for you! Go grub, lounge on a rock and take in some rays . . . just gotta keep an eye our for those damn "Free Willy's". They keep playing catch and eatin' up all your friends! Stinkin' orcas.

11: Have you ever been part of any kind of protest? And what was if for or against?
Yes I have, but we called it a demonstration. It was part of a Bike Week thing that we did here in Salinas. And I also participated in a Critical Mass in San Francisco. That was fun.

Now if I can count (and I'm pretty sure I can), I've just answered SIXTEEN questions from Mr. Pittenger. So with that being said, I'll skip that part that asks I nominate eleven other blogs. I don't read that many blogs and the ones I do are tech blogs and other blogs that are kinda crazy popular with a shit-ton of readers.

BUT . . . I will ask some questions for anyone who cares to answer them:

01: Why keep reading this scatter-brained blog? (yes, I gotta feed the ego)
02:  Have you considered running barefoot/minimalist?
03: In your opinion, what is the best scary movie you've watched?
04: What are you reading now?
05: What genre of books do you prefer?
06: Do you believe, even a little bit, that the world will end this year (2012)?
07: What is your opinion on the 2013 VW Beetle?
08: If you could move ANYWHERE in the world, would you eat their cheese? (I like cheese!)
09: Have you ever seen the ocean in person?
10:  Do you have a favorite sport (or sport-like activity) that you participate in?
11: And the most important question: What is your favorite brew (coffee/tea/beer)?

Whelp, that's it for me. I've been jumping on and off this computer all day. Gotta go soon and begin my weekend. Have a good one!

GD

p.s.
too lazy to check. run smiley :)