Super gardenblahblahblah. Prepare thyself.

It's been all of five minutes since I last yabbed about the garden, so my thought was why not start up again?

Everyone's super interested in the color status of my cherry tree and how big the tiny tomatillo #1 is getting and are the beans on their lines yet obviously so why make you wait?

I'm glad we have things like this in common. It makes my unending yabbing seem more interesting since we can share in the joys of WHAT THE FUCK IS UP WITH THE JELLY MELONS.

I'm sure you agree.

And while I'm assuming that everyone is exactly like me, aren't you pissed you used that weird hair product yesterday and your hair is so gunky today that it had to be ponytailed?

I KNOW, RIGHT?

Ugh. Annoying. Not annoying like I was going to get up extra early and wash and blow dry my hair on Hair Does Not Get Washed Friday, but still, it's annoying. And, I'm sorry to tell you, but you look like a Jack-O-Lantern when you ponytail your hair. Just saying.

Thankfully, the garden was much more photogenic this morning when I went out there to see if some miracle had happened to bring forth the much anticipated arrival of the jelly melons.

I took this picture on 4/30, but it looks exactly the same today, so I figured, why bother pushing the button on the camera again. Waste of time is what that is.

And also thankfully, I passed a bunch of other plants on the way to the Jelly Melon Failure that were doing impressive things that made me feel like less of a Garden Failure.

Because there's no failure on the cherry trees.

And, while it's not food, I love lavender when it's getting ready to bloom. And when it's fighting off the advances of the overbearing Santolina to do so. Fight fight fight!

Also in the "Not Food But Still Good" category is this Penstemon I picked up a natives nursery. It's all alive and shit.

Here are a few artichokes we haven't eaten yet. But their time is coming for sure since we've been on a mad artichoke frenzy. Meaning, we've eaten them for dinner 3 nights this week. I also realized that WHOOPSY I planted two different kinds of artichokes which is weird because I didn't realize that there were different kinds of artichokes. Hmpf. Neato, I guess.

I'm what she thought she was getting. The other one is the weird one.

The apple tree continues to impress with its monkey ball-sized fruits hulking out in five or six different places on the tree. They're fuzzy like monkey balls, too, which is fairly amusing. Not that I've touched a lot of monkey balls in my day. Or, come to think of it, even seen any in real life, but my imagination is a wondrous and inappropriate place and remembers stuff it sees on the Discovery Channel when images of Mike Rowe aren't crowding everything else out. Thexy.

*cough cough*

Jeff is looking about the same, likely because I haven't given him any new tires to grow into and have basically stopped paying attention to him. Not that he needs my attention, mind you, but I feel guilty for holding back additional vertical acreage and don't do much inspecting or rummaging around his leaves. I figure, as long as the leaves look healthy, he'll be OK and whenever he decides to flower, I'll knock him over and steal his goods.

Kindly keep your hands off my goods, ma'am.

The Black Krim tomato, along with the two Better Boys, are doing exceedingly well and have reached the tops of their small inner cages. How people ever managed to contain tomato plants with just these weeny cages is beyond me. I put them inside the big Real Deal Tomato cages and they disappear in a few months. I mean, I totally heard one of the plants making fun of how short its cage was the other day.

Seriously, he was all, "Hey, Mike - I like how you're wearing your cage as a belt now. Really slimming!" and Mike (the tomato, obviously) was all, "Yeah, Tim, this thing is a total joke. I'm SO the boss of this cage. Try to contain me, will you!"

Why are they named Mike and Tim? No idea. That's just what came out when I hit the keys with my fingers. Funny though how it totally works - am I right?

We're mouthy tomatoes and we've outgrown our inner cages. Beware.

Now, yes, it would probably make sense to call the tomatillo plants, Tom, but for some reason, to me, they're girls. Which also doesn't make sense because of the whole "two to tomatillo" thing that would imply that one must be a male and one a female in order for natural biological physics and things to happen properly, but I've told you how my head is a bizarre little wonderland, so for now, they're girls. And they don't have names. But they're pretty and they're growing a lot and I'm in love with their lanterns.

Again - bizarre, inappropriate, etc in my head.

We grow our own ornaments. Too bad we're not around at Christmastime.

Plus, how can I pay attention to naming these plants when they're doing incredible shit like growing tomatillos inside of these adorable lanterns? I can't, is how. I am very easily distracted.

It's hard to tell, but this is way bigger than a few weeks ago.

It's also easy to get distracted when a plant is tickling your ass. And how do I know this? Because the nasturtium have grown through the seat of my Garden Spying chair and *tickle tickle* I keep swatting them away thinking that they're a bug trying to burrow into my anus while I watch the beans.

Totally disturbing.

I'm just glad that all my Bean Staring has finally resulted in a bean getting its slow ass on a line. Because the low germination rate and resulting begging-of-bean-seeds-from-neighbors was starting to get me down. I'm just glad that the beans succumbed to the shame of being outperformed by the neighborly donated beans and decided to get their act together. Because my idle threats weren't doing the job.

We are very impressionable.

The lettuce/bean/cucumber trio bed is actually starting to come along now. Which I know because I'm spending this weekend thinning the lettuce for salads and hauling away superfluous cucumber seedlings to new Forever Homes. And by Forever, I mean until the fall when they die of their own accord. If you live in the SF Bay Area and want a cuke seedling grown all haphazard like by yours truly, let me know. I may have a few left after this weekend's adoption fair. The lettuce, however, not up for grabs. We are going to start eating salad for breakfast.

Sorry, Bubba.

Take two, they're small.

Red leaf.

Green leaf.

Red and green leaf.

We're all about variety.

And since they're always some unexpected guests at the party, plus shit going on in the garden that I tend to miss while staring intently at the melon bed and making loud curse-heavy threats, I took a swing around the rest of the yard and was happy to find that the other plants are doing something.

I believe this *something* is called, Growing Kumquat Leaves.

This *something* is called, Taunting the Snails.

This *something* is called, Making Parsley Grow in the Spot Where the Sprinklers Overshoot the Lawn.

This *something* is called, Oregano Taking Advantage of the Cherry Tree's Soaker Hose.

And THIS *something* is called FUCKING RHUBARB HELL YEAH.

Sometimes I'm shocked by what these plants do when I am not around to supervise. Sort of pushy, I think.

Anyway, that's all I'll bore you with, garden-wise, right now. Though I should do a little update soon on how the front yard meadow is coming along because, um, it's coming along. 

Yay! I'm maybe not a total failure with meadow grass and wildflowers that shouldn't really need human help to grow properly! What an accomplishment!

*Sigh*

But Bubba said he really liked it and if his fancy lawn doesn't work out in the backyard, maybe he'll plant a meadow like my front yard one. 

And at the thought of planting hundreds more grass plugs in the much huger space in the backyard? There was nothing but the sound of crickets. Because...obviously. PAIN IN THE ASS.

Biking to work and other unrelated topics.

Today is Bike to Work Day, for those of you who haven't already been bludgeoned to death with its forthcoming as I have, and while I would have loved to ride my fab bike to work today, I instead chose to drive my car because LO the car wash service is back on campus and TEE DAH my car is covered in bird doots and filled with Jada hair.

It is impossible for my car to be grosser than this. It needs a bath pretty bad. And vacuuming. And waxing. And, truth be told, it could use a new headlight and a big hug, but we're not going to push our luck with the car wash guy. He's so super friendly and plays reggae at 8 am and I love it so I'm not going to be insulting his good humor by requesting he embrace my vehicle in such a way. That would be rude.

*Sigh*

But, since everyone around here was all drunk with I'M RIGHTEOUS FOR BIKING TO WORK WITH ALL MY COWORKERS I wrongly assumed that the roads would be free and clear but sadly that was not the case. Even I, with my carpooly stickers, encountered some incredible traffic on the freeway and I think that's the world's way of saying, SUCKAH.

Or, since the world isn't a bitter bitch like I am, it's probably just a gentle reminder about the fact that I keep saying I'm going to "ride my bike once the weather gets nicer" and, yes thank you, the weather is officially "nice", now.

So what is this post about? Who the hell knows!

I mean, it's a little bit about how I've been hiding my purchase of a road bike from y'all for some time now and also how I have been quietly considering moving my butt into multisport events like a duathlon since I closed the books on the sub-60 10K, and in order to train for such things I've thought whimsically of riding my bike to work even though it's kinda far (15 miles each way) and I'm sure I'll get creamed by something useless like a Ford Focus or at least fall off my bike in front of other people, so there you go.

1. I have a road bike. Now you know.
2. I am thinking about signing up for a duathlon. If you've done one and have thoughts on it, now's the time to spill your shit.
3. I've been clicking around in Google Maps using the new Bike feature trying to find a workable route. 
4. There's no Farmshare Project this week because, if you'll remember, I was off gallivanting drunkenly with Africankelli last week so gave the whole share to my neighbors since Bubba had to defend the Taco Bell empire with his stomach. Scary.

Not that the farmshare has anything to do with getting my buns on the bike, but you're flexible like that and I imagine you can take the wild swings in my consciousness.

Also! I saw one of my purple podded pole beans grab on to its line today, so there's that. Garden update, too! CAN YOU HANDLE IT?

Sorry, maybe that was too much in one post.

Thankfully, I don't judge a place by its cops.

Since I decided to extend my post-race break week through this morning's run, I will get my exercise today in the form of typing about the exercise I did get over the weekend, in the form of hiking. In Idaho. With Africankelli.

And, since you know me so well already, I'm not going to deny that much of my exercise also came in the form of me procuring gin, diet tonic and buckets of hotel ice for vacay G&Ts.

That's exercise, y'all, and I don't want to hear otherwise. I had to walk in my robe and slippers all the way down to the lodge bar and then carry back a heavy bucket of ice to our room EVERY. SINGLE. DAY.

I don't know how I manage. Honestly.

I very much liked Idaho.

Though, more specifically, I liked Boise, Ketchum and Sun Valley.

We did lunch and shopping in Boise followed by driving through a lot of scrub brush nothingness until we got to Bellevue > Hailey > Ketchum > Sun Valley.

I accept this lunch of local trout, beer and the Idaho potato.

Wherein I was pulled over for speeding in a rental car > we imagined we saw Bruce Willis > ate, drank, shopped, rode bikes, hiked, hot spring-ed and made lewd comments about their river (Big Wood) > ate, drank, spa-ed, hiked and tried not to get too close to The Dangerous Swans, respectively.

You can totally sense their bloodthirst.

Before we go on, though, I'd like you to know that while I was pulled over for speeding (though, is 38 considered speeding? I kinda don't think so.), I don't think it's possible that I was actually speeding since I was:

A. Pulling out of a gas station from a dead stop.
B. Driving a gutless POS rental car with 65 horsepower.

But, since the gutless POS had the added feature of a flashing, "Hi! I'm a tourist! Fuck with me!" sign on its hood, to the side of the road I went with the bubble lights of the state police just a-flashin' behind me. After which I endured a session of 20 questions the likes of which I've never known and was accused of being Suspicious with a capital, "S", even though there was, for once, ZERO suspicious activity going on in the car.

Meanwhile, Ketchum and Sun Valley were groovy.

That's Kelli viewing Ketchum from her spaceship's front deck.

We hiked some of the infamous Mount Baldy and around the Sun Valley hills.

A wild beast made that footprint. Fun.

I got Kelli all liquored up with local booze.

Bardenay Gin - Good.
Drinking in the bathtub - BETTER.

Drinking in bed - best.

We rode bikes around. (Though they didn't have cup holders to accommodate our cocktails. Boo.)

I put my foot in hot water made naturally from springs that smell like farts.

We sat in big chairs because it seemed like the thing to do and I'm sure no one else has ever done this before.

We put on clothes other than hiking ones and went out in public to find cocktails and food.

There was also a good bit of shopping, which was made all the better by this apparent season called, Slack, where all the tourists abandon town between ski season and summer and leave freaks like us to shop killer deals and eat Slack-priced meals without making reservations or having to lock up our skis.

If you're a spaz and like being surrounded by tons of annoying tourists, please, by all means, go to Sun Valley in the On Season, and I'll take this same town when it's sleepy and friendly and offering me 20% off of the awesomest sweater coat I've ever seen/bought/wearing right now.

It was a grand time in keeping with our yearly tradition of girlish debauchery and Kelli has even more photos if you're interested in seeing these same pictures from another angle and with better composition.

And now I'm going to go sober up because I've got a fishing trip soon which will involve me drinking like a fish rather than me catching any fish and after this grand weekend when I became closely acquainted with the new adult beverage known as a Gin Buck, I need some time off from the bottle.

Wow. I didn't realize how much of a lush I sound like until just right then.

The Farmshare Project: Week 5

Since I'm going to be peacing out of this joint all early birdly tomorrow morning for my yearly escape with Africankelli, I'm doing the Farmshare Project deal today.

Early. For you people.

Because I love you and don't want you buried under a monster pile of chard.

Not that I'm providing any new chard recipes (here's an old one), but you know. Maybe you're afraid of radishes. WHATEVER. You have your problems and I'm here to not-really solve them by telling you what I did with *my* farmshare last week so maybe that will help.

Last week's box had:
Arugula
Broccoli
Carrots
Chard
Escarole
Fava beans
Green garlic
Leeks
Lettuce (bagged baby lettuce mix)
Red radishes
Spinach
Strawberries

And their fate was:
We ate them
Broccoli: We got broccoli? I assume we ate this somehow because it's gone. Though I don't recall the actual meal. Magic broccoli!
Carrots: Book club salad
Escarole: Book club salad
Green garlic: Book club salad
Fava beans: Fava hummus!
Lettuce (bagged baby lettuce mix): Book club salad
Red radishes: Book club salad and radish sandwiches (vague recipe below)
Spinach: Sauteed with garlic and olive oil and added to leftover Thai take out (spicy peanut curry).
Strawberries: Sliced and served with Green and Black's chocolate for dessert one night. (Thank you, Lera for the recco on the chocolate. GOOD.)


We stored them
Leeks

We let our neighbors take them all
Chard

We got more from our neighbors even though we didn't really need it but it looked good and the season's so sort that why not, right?
Fava beans (also went into the hummus)

Now, I realize that there's not a lot of help in this post regarding new recipes and What the F do I do with X vegetable, but that's the beauty that farmsharers come to realize like I did: It doesn't take long to work the vegs into different meals and things so that suddenly you really aren't all freaked out about the share showing up every week.

Perhaps I'm jaded this week because we're giving the whole share to our neighbors because I'm going to be out of town until next week (drinking vacationing with Kelli) and we all know that the only thing Bubba will eat while I'm out of town will be the latest combination of the five ingredients at Taco Bell, but still - I'm not all that scared of our share any more.

I wasn't even scared when two sets of neighbors approached me coyly while hiding giant sacks of fava beans behind their backs because HEY - I know what to do with a lot of fava beans, people, and that is: The Most Un-Cinco de Mayo Dinner ever!

Sadly, I forgot to download the photos of said dinner from my fancy camera that lives at home rather than my purse (the little digital lives in there - I can't be without a camera.), so I can't show you just yet, but maybe I'll remember one day and post the photos.

ANYWAY, The Most Un-Cinco de Mayo dinner was: 2 small radish sandwiches, fava hummus on matzoh and a gin and tonic.

And if you're curious how to make a radish sandwich, my way (which is probably the wrong way, but what do you want? I'm not French. Fuck off.) is to slice up some baguette, slide on some room temp butter, sprinkle on some kosher salt, stack up the radish rounds, cover with the other buttered slice of baguette and MOW intently.

Some of the radishes fall out, but you can quickly cram them back in your face and keep moving on the sandwich that only gets better as you go. And, while you don't have to eat fava hummus with your sandwiches, it does enhance the Super Vegetable Dinner significantly. Plus, the sharp Green flavor of the hummus works well with the semi-spicy radish sandwich, so there's that. And you're eating matzoh at a time other than Passover which gives the whole experience a pleasant absurdity that I enjoy.

Sure - you could PUT the hummus ON the sandwich, but then you wouldn't get to eat butter and since we're not all on Lipitor yet, I say go for it with the butter.

My doctor may disagree, but I haven't gotten any formal orders yet, so I'm sticking with the butter. But I'm eating way less meat! Hear that Doctor Whore? I haven't had bacon since January! Please lay the fuck off me when I'm in to see you next, kay?

Sheesh.

Anyway, enjoy your sandwiches, hummus, matzoh (if you have it hanging around in your pantry, too, making you feel all Super Jewy), gin and - if you're allowed - bacon. I will be back next week with a recount of our 5th (already? Wow. We actually ARE doing this every year. Go us.) annual Girls' Trip To a New Place.

Please cross your fingers that we get the Accuweather forecast...

...rather than the iGoogle, Weather Channel or Wunderground one.

Though, now that I've said all that, I'm sure we'll end up with something much worse.

And, hey, while I'm randomly talking about the weather, look at this weird photo I took the other day when I drove over the line in the calendar dividing April from May.

The world's way of saying, "You're going the wrong way, douchebag."

Jeff the Potato

So, you know how you hear a lot of "plant after all chance of frost has passed and when temperatures are consistently in the 70s" when you're sowing vegetable seeds?

Yeah, so that's totally useful information to absorb rather than completely ignore like I did because it was March 30th and don't you try and stop me from planting vegs now because we are well past our last frost date and I'll fight you.

And then it rained for a month.

So, instead of actually having to fight someone (because my idle threats are starting to pay off. Nice.) I just went ahead and learned my lesson the hard way by sowing seeds that didn't germinate because it rained for a month. Have I told you it rained all month? Yes. It rained all month because April was getting tired of being chastised for not producing the May flowers the last few years so GUSH. Which meant my heat loving seeds also didn't germinate. They also, according to my thorough finger-poking research, didn't rot in the soil as I was warned they might, so I guess they must have been either eaten by birds or abducted by aliens.

Which I guess is possible because why do we assume that if aliens made it to earth they'd just automatically abduct human beings? We're really big. What if their spaceships are small and they only have room for tiny things. Tiny things like Mexican Sour Gherkin seeds? You see what I'm saying here. My first sowing of seeds was abducted by tiny aliens in mini spaceships.

Makes total sense.

What also makes sense is that since it's been hovering precariously in the 70s for the last week or so, my second sowing of seeds has begun germinating, the apple, lemon and cherry trees have set fruit (!), the tomatillos are falling madly in love and producing fruit-filled lanterns thanks to some sage advice from my empty-lantern growing friend and my flip-flop tan is back.

And if you don't mark the return of warm weather with the reappearance of a flip-flop tan then you need to right some wrongs in your world is all I'm saying.  Free your toes! They'll thank you for it. Or threaten you with bodily harm if you don't get a fucking pedicure because EW.

So, all told, my garden is ready for summer and finally showing signs to indicate as much. Not that they all broke out their bikinis or flashed me their flip-flop tans, but you know what I mean.

Clockwise from the top: Gravenstein apples, Mexican Sour Gherkins, Purple Podded Pole and Kentucky Wonder beans, artichokes, nasturtium, Black Krim tomato, Burpee Bibb lettuce, cherries, tomatillo (with bun in the oven!), Lollo Rosso lettuce, jalapeno, Pickler cucumber.

You'll notice that there's no mention of watermelon or our Adopted Crop, jelly melons. That is because they apparently need one or more of the following: temps in the 80s, a miracle, fewer aliens looking for their long lost cousins. I'll let you know if they show themselves. OR, worst case, what sprightly and promising seedling replaces them when they refuse to grow altogether.

And now a story about the potatoes. Specifically, why I call them, "Jeff".

See, I worked with a Jeff at my college paper and, on Wednesday mornings, which was our deadline morning to get the paper out, he would roll in practically still wearing his bed.

Typically this would look like a 6'2" man in shorts (despite sub-freezing outdoor temps), an old wrinkly Tshirt, Vans and a filthy hat trapping his hair underneath like an escaped guinea pig.

Well, one day Jeff decided to forgo the hat and expose us all to the wrath and power of his untamed bed head.

To say that it was alarming would be a massive understatement. And his only response to our shocked faces was to say, "Good morning, friends. As you can see, I am no longer restricting my hair."

Much like I am no longer restricting the potatoes by adding more tires. I am just letting them grow as tall and crazy as they want because I can't be stripping the Prius of its wheels just so that I can grow another half foot of potato. Because you know that wouldn't be enough. I'd need a friggen semi's worth of tires to contain this behemoth now, and I'm giving up.

Live free or die, potatoes! AKA - Live an unrestricted life atop your limit of four tires. Enjoy.

And that is what happens when the mercury hits 70 degrees in NorCal.

Also this flip-flop tan happens.

OYW : Sew Along 2010 : May

Oh Donk,

What a fun adventure that Pampered Pooch Set thing was, eh?

This is a good reason for me to stick with my old mantra of Let's Not Dress The Dog (Halloween excluded because COME ON that's funny) and go back to trying to dress myself.

Another activity that can have equally tragic results, but at least history tells me that sometimes I can turn out something presentable.

In fact, I've worn lots of my self-sewn stuff without exposing my nether regions to coworkers, so I feel plenty comfortable forging ahead in this arena.

And, hey, there are some cute clothing-type patterns in this book, and, hey, one can cover a decent part of one's body with a yard of fabric (so as not to incite the likes of HR/the bobbies/neighborhood glares) so, hey, let's sew some clothes.

But also, hey, I can't choose and it's about to be summer (or so I hear, I'm skeptical) and I always need a hundred more tank tops than I have so let's do a dealer's choice for the fabric de-stasher AND tack on an extra month so that folks who need a hundred tank tops like I do and also have every. single. weekend. booked in May and still want to make BOTH projects can do so without falling short of the one month deadline which we enforce so harshly and with great lashing of hamstrings.

(And now you realize I'm kidding.)

I propose we do this as follows:

My fabric de-stashing projectS from One Yard Wonders:
The Pintucked Top AND/OR The Summer Nightie

I don't think I have to tell you that the Summer Nightie could also be a Summer Tank Top even if you wear it over a wife-beater or other tank top as I plan to do as I can't be going bra-free lest I, once again, call attention from the authorities due to the boobage-floppage-exposage.

Wow. None of those were real words. Weird how I bet you all know what I'm talking about anyway.

And while I'm wearing one or more of my full-enough coverage tank tops, I will make and eat this pasta dish you so carefully tried and tested for our dainty tastebuds.

Kelli's fridge de-stasher: Summer Thai Peanut Pasta

I think these projects should ease us into summer pretty successfully and I'm fairly certain I'll be able to swing around to the photo pool by 6/30 with evidence that I can sew clothes that don't get me arrested and/or make food that will keep the farmshare under control.

But, just in case I sit down with these patterns and things start to go awry, DON'T PANIC, I'll be back here with my work-arounds or pea-brained ideas for how to make them work. Or how to completely reconstruct them so that they work for my purposes. Or how to make a pillowcase so that I can stuff the remains of my shredded project into something useful. Or how to strike a match on your front teeth and light fire to, say, bias tape sewn to cotton fabric.

We're all about answers here at Finnyknits! Or something like that! At least we drink a bit, so our ideas are amusing.

Who is this "we" and "our" I'm referring to, anyway?

Let's go on about starting summer, then. 

Cheers,
Finny

58:15*

Firstly, in order to stay true to my typical race report format, let me begin by saying:

Yes, that is a PR.

Yes, that is a sub-60 10K time.

YES, I WILL STOP BITCHING ABOUT THE SUB-60 10K PR THING NOW.

But, No, I'm not 100% satisfied with that time and I'll tell you why with a few carefully worded *s.

Though, before I go off on one of my patented rants, I want to first say that this was a great race for me. I felt excellent. My legs felt strong, I felt like a gazelle even though I looked like a wildebeest, my race pace was its best yet and I got that fucking :30 second monkey off my back which has been haunting me for two long and dark weeks.

HOORAY. But more on that warm fuzzy crap later.


*
You'll recall that I recently adjusted my training route so that I could avoid as many traffic lights as possible so that I could train to run a consistent distance because, "you know they don't usually throw in an 8 lane, 4 way stop light at miles 2.5, 4 and 6.1, now do they." 

And then we all had a good laugh at my expense because what kind of fucking idiot am I that I didn't realize this flaw in my training regimen was holding me back to the tune of at least 30 seconds. Hahaha, I'm such a retard and such.

Well, it turns out that SOMETIMES THEY DO. Stop people in the middle of the race to allow traffic to pass.


No, really.


Enter, the Workday Devil Mountain 10K and its impressively bad traffic management.


See, half of the 10K route traveled a busy street. Which they had strategically marked off with cones and retired policemen of questionable cognitive skills and physical ability directing the errant motorist by way of orange flags and colorful hand gestures.

Fine.

We ran this first half of the race unencumbered by the passing traffic and, despite the rolling hills on the purported "flat and fast course", all was fine in the world of Finny. According to Garmin, I was traveling at a respectable 9:20 pace and singing along to Volbeat. Swears and all. I was even allowing myself to be amused by the runners around me (hand carrying two bottles of water PLUS a hydration belt? For 6 miles? Are we in the Sahara?) and charmed by the man who was waiting for his wife at every mile marker (Sweet man. He barely looked annoyed).


Then the course took a sharp turn down the Iron Horse Trail, which is a fancy name for a concrete pathway that cuts between two blah subdivisions. Not super scenic, but whatever.

I actually quite enjoyed this trot down this trail given its gentle downward sloping grade and the fact that the weather was trying really hard to be perfect, until such time as we began to approach road crossing #2.

Let it be known that the Iron Horse Trail crosses over roads that, I assume, lead up into the subdivisions that sit perched on the sun-blasted hills of the East Bay, and traveling along the trail as we did, required three separate crossings.

Also, fine.

Based on crossing #1, I had no reason to believe that there would be any issue with the forthcoming crossings, but I would be sorely mistaken when I came within about 100 yards of crossing #2 and a confused looking young man wearing a safety vest and carrying one of the aforementioned orange flags began lightly jogging toward us murmuring, "Slow down, please."

Thinking he was surely joking and OH HA HA HA he's trying to get us into the spirit of the race by using the good old reverse psychology trick so that we all just race our little hearts out, I laughed (really) and picked up the pace.

Hey - I'm game for a some gentle chiding on a good day! Plus, I felt strong and, like, why not boost my pace a bit. Good show, lad!

I also became British for a moment which was weird.

But then I came upon crossing #2 where much traffic had built up on either side of the road and Retired Sheriff Crabby Ass was trying to block runners' paths by waving his orange flag uselessly and yelling, "Stop! You have to stop for the traffic!"

Wait? What?

Not only was I now traveling at a slightly faster pace with my new found motivation thanks to Mr. Jolly Good Time back there, but I was becoming pretty sure that I was going to nail my sub-60 time and had ZERO intention on stopping or slowing down for any. single. thing.

Even if that single thing was a Camry with a ferocious Indian woman behind the wheel.

So I, as did the gentle trotting souls around me, gave Sheriff Out of His Mind our own versions of the finger and proceeded to sprint ever so quickly through the crossing, knowing we were all a part of an event that everyone in the neighborhood would be bitching about because OH WOE IS US we had to sit comfy in our cars for a few extra minutes while some runners sweated by before our very eyes. 

Now, I don't know if this orange flag-waver every succeeded in stopping any of the runners, but during the moment when I believed I might be creamed by the white Camry revving its engine behind the flag like a bull in a ring, I did hit the Stop on my watch so that I could record actual running time rather than Time Spent Running And Then Sometimes Waiting for Grocery Shoppers To Return Home With Donuts.

I didn't actually stop running at any point, but I did slow down some and then immediately hit Start again as soon as it became clear that my specially honed traffic dodging skills had prepared me perfectly for this moment of racing.

And that is why there's an * next to my time waaaaaaaaaay back up there at the beginning of this post. Because, according to my Garmin, my finish time was 58:04, but according to the race's chip time, which did NOT account for the traffic stop, it was 58:15.

Mmm hhhmm.

I'm going to go with the good old, WHAT-ever on that one and move on to the warm fuzzy stuff because, at the end of the day, I killed my sub-60 10K goal time and got to come home without aching kidneys.

Which brings me to the highlights of this race which I'll bullet out all concise-like for those of you who don't want long-winded recountings of my mornings' adventures. Boo on you.

• I wore my new shorts and they were groovy.

• I went against the rule I just said I should never go against and tried out a new thing on race day, but it was OK because it was just one of those sweat-wicking hats and it was also groovy.

• I fueled perfectly for this race by eating a Luna bar on the drive out to the race (about 45 mins) and taking in about 8 oz of iced tea (Don't judge. I require caffeine.) I also had some water before the race started while I sat with Bubba at Country Waffles and watched him order biscuits and gravy because he's a cock.

I had the eggs benedict. HA! No.Can you imagine? Yarf.

• Super Big Highlight: There was a Country Waffles at the 5K/10K race split and Bubba snagged a patio table so that he could see me off from behind an enormous breakfast. I hear he made many friends in the 5K crowd as he offered them bacon strips as they rounded the corner.

 Us on the 10K course were offered nothing.

• I did a quick warm up trot from the restaurant to the truck and back to fetch some forgotten items and I think this actually helped me get the snaps out of my ankles and the rest of my body in the general running mood. I think I shall try this again.

Now, I know there are other highlights in there that pertain to the weather (glorious - 54 and sunny), my pace (best pace: 7:17, avg pace: 9:19), my well-being (my kidneys rested peacefully) and the fact that I was only elbowed once in the starting chutes (nice job setting up the self-corralling pace markers 2 feet apart, Race Organizers), but I'll stop boring you with the minutia of a 6 mile race.

Now that I have my sub-60 10K and sub-30 5K times safely stowed in my Active profile, I can start thinking about other things. Things that involve bikes, ropes, packs and starlit walks off a cliff.

At least I won't have to deal with too many traffic lights.