41:55

Hell yeah, that's a slow ass time for a 5K!

Like a cool 13+ minutes slower than my 5K PR  on the road (which is also not the fastest but let's only kick me once while I'm down) and a horrifyingly slow pace also in the 13s BUT, I finished 7th in my age group.

7th, people. That's a single digit place, you know. That's better than I've placed in any race. Ever.

Why yes, that WAS slow.

So there were only 20 other chicks in my age group? SO FUCKING WHAT, I ask you. It's Above Average. Which I like. Because until this race I've always been solidly Average.

And in the overall rankings, I was still Above Average, even when there were dudes and younger people factored in. 43 out of 149. Again - yay for Above Average.

Above Average Big Finish, too. Just for Bubba.

Also Above Average? The entire race. It was grand. Not as grand as running this mostly single-track, steep, muddy, woodsy trail all by myself in 30 degree weather grand, but grand nonetheless.

When things are good, Peace Signs are made. When things are bad, this face is made.

Of course, all the inefficiencies I was concerned about beforehand were totally realized in full color and light of day, but to that I just say, "Duh."

I mean, obviously when you get race emails where the coordinators are all, "Hey, as long as everyone carpools there will be enough parking," everyone is going to totally not carpool because they'll all be thinking that everyone else will carpool so they might as well just drive themselves and WHOOPSY all the lots are full and then you have to take the shuttle that has the heater blasting while you sit behind some woman who smells distinctly of Five Guys Burgers, but whatever. I cared not. And I made two friends!

OK, so the nice woman who chatted me up on our face-meltingly hot shuttle ride into the park remains nameless, but she was so super friendly and was an ass kicker who was running the half marathon (Yikes. Not with THAT elevation chart.) and so I consider that a friend made. And when I decided that I'd rather walk the half mile through the woodsy roads back to my car after the race rather than stew in my shweaty gear on the Hell Shuttle, I made friends with a man named George who'd had no idea that this was a steep trail and was horrified by the experience.

I was just impressed that there was a person out there who was so bold as to NOT look at an elevation chart for a trail run before the race because, as you all know, I'm the chickeniest of all the running chickens and therefore not only analyze the elevation and course maps beforehand MANY MANY times, but also like to go out and test run them so that I'm not all, "What the beef is up with this steep ass hill that makes up half of my race?"

So, props to you, Mr. "I Didn't Look At The Elevation Chart" George, for not passing away when you saw those switchbacks appear at Mile .2 into your 5K. Me? I probably would have shit myself and gone home.

However, I did not do any self-shitting because TEE DAH you know I checked out that course personally beforehand so that no big secret hills would crop up and surprise me. I don't like surprises that come in hill form.

This is where everyone ELSE saw the hill and freaked out. I was just excited there was mud to splash in.

And I'll tell you what - pretty fucking glad I ran that course a few weeks ago because the whole time I was hauling my sorry ass up through switchbacks and muddy stairs to the halfway point/turnaround, I did not despair because I knew I was going to get to turnaround and run like the god damned wind back to the finish line.

And I did.

It wasn't quite as fun as running it alone, since swinging one's arms wildly while descending at great speeds is sort of dangerous when the trail is a foot wide and you are trying to pass people going down while dodging people coming up, but when you get to an open space where you are without obstacles and free to bolt, it's pretty fucking awesome.

I don't have any photos of my downhill runningness to prove this awesomeness, so you'll just have to take my word for it. Perhaps too fast for the cameras to capture? Perhaps.

So, yeah - good race. I will do more of these trail races. I will also do more trail running because, unlike every other time in my running life when I've avoided hills because of the steep uphill pain involved, I now find that OH RIGHT there's the downhill side that totally rules.

Also, you sometimes get to splash in the mud, which is really fun if you're a four year old on the inside.

Jada is also a four year old on the inside.

Why do I hate myself?

I'm a little disappointed in you people, honestly, don't you realize that my first ever trail race is less than two days away?

I need pep talking!

I need sympathy!

I need the ability to run uphill in the mud for more than three consecutive steps.

OK, so you probably can't help with the last one and, given my recent rantings, you're probably not giving up too much on the first two, so I guess I'll just be going at it on my own this Saturday morning when I go back out to the trail that tried to kill me, but only after it's been raining ALL. WEEK. LONG.

Folks, it's going to be muddy. And the course is mostly single track. And most of that single track has a sheer woodsy drop off on one side just perfect for "disappearing" newbie trail runners like yours truly right here.

Yeah - that's right. I might not return from this shitshow and you know what? You're just going to have to figure out a way to live with yourself.

In other news, I think the race will be totally fine.

Yeah. I was just being dramatic.

I mean, sure, it's going to be muddy, and Bubba won't be there to cheer me on because he'll be trying out his new telemark skis in Tahoe like a fucking traitor so when I slide off into the never-never there won't be anyone at the finish line going, "Have you seen some crazy ass bitch in a Steamboat beanie running real slow on the course back there?", but I'm actually not too stressed about the race.

No, I'm more stressed about the parking situation and the 5K Turnaround because, as it turns out, it's a lot harder to plot a trail race than a road race given there's not always a good spot to set down a cone for a turnaround when the trail is a foot wide at mile 1.5. And, since this is happening in a back mountain trail rather than, like, downtown San Jose next to the Shark Tank which has parking for tens of thousands of people willing to wear turquoise, I may have to take a shuttle in addition to driving to this place.

The inefficiency is starting to get to me is what I'm saying.

You know, because driving for 30 minutes and then waiting for 10 minutes and then shuttling for 10 minutes and then walking for 5 minutes all so I can run three miles seems a little dumb and harkens back to my distance rule: If it takes longer to drive to the thing than it does to run it, you may consider abandoning the idea altogether.

Though, I'm sure I'll still go. It's the first trail race after all. It wouldn't look good if I pussed out at the last minute and blamed it on the commute. Lame.

So, Saturday morning, I will go commute round trip for well over an hour so that I can run for half an hour and cover myself in muddy woodsiness.

FUN TIMES.

I do hope you'll wish me luck or at least not hope for a report of a foul-mouthed race participant at the Summit Rock 5k/10k/Half last seen sliding face first off the course being chased by a mountain lion.

Yay.

Understood. Now don't puss out.

You guys are funny, you know that?

There I was thinking that y'all were bored of my holiday rantings and, perhaps, could use a year off from my Let's Talk Shit About Holiday Decorations pastime while I think up new four letter words, but NO - you like it.

You like the abuse. I guess I should have known.

Well, let me just say that, thanks to comments here, on Facebook and in the greater blog reading community (Hi, people I didn't realize read my blog until I put up this post and ruined your holiday good times!), that I get it.

You want holiday decoration rantings and that is what you will get.

Understood.

BUT - caveat time - I'm not saying boo about Christmas lawn and house decor unless something out there strikes me as newly different and freshly fugly in a way that it did not in previous years. Then I'll say something. And you can feel free to send me your pictures (finnyknitsATgmailDOTcom) to see if anything around your neighborhood fills that bill.

Until such time though, I will save my holiday ranting space for finishing up what I started last year when I invented (yes - I'm that good) the Festival of Ugly Menorahs and then I'm going on a rant to end all Hanukkah decoration rants about the general fugliness of all things Hanukkah decorate-y and celebrate-y and I'm taking you all down with me.

You with me? I thought so.

Whores, all of you.

Firstly, let's finish 2009's Festival of Ugly Menorahs by first remembering what the hell that is here, where I stopped at Night Six: The Night of Holographic Ugliness, and then going from there.

Festival of Ugly Menorahs: Night Seven
The WTF?! Night
(Where There Aren't Any Actual Flames, Just Pipecleaners)

Festival of Ugly Menorahs: Night Eight 

The Night We Light the Menorah and Eat Everything in Site. Including Maybe Some Old Gefilte Fish Because, You Know, This Is Going To Sound Weird But Suddenly It Sounds Kinda Good...

There. That was a cleansing and refreshing way to start a new year of criticizing the world for creating holiday decor to shock and destroy our retinas.

The thing is, contrived Hanukkah ugliness is not limited to menorahs. And, frankly, I feel as though I'd be doing you a disservice if I didn't expand your Hanukkah horizons to include some of the greater offenses the world has ever seen created with a Star of David, dreidel or marshmallows.

Marshmallows? Yes. Marshmallows. Though surely you've seen this great blue wonder circulating your Facebook news feed courtesy of your amazed and horrified "Friends".

From cakewrecks.com

This was the creation of the sadistic and I'm-Not-So-Sure-She's-A-Real-Human-Girl Sandra Lee in a moment of blatant anti-semitism.

Just watch this and try to tell me that she's not sending subliminal CHEAP JEWS LIKE GROCERY STORE ANGEL FOOD CAKES AND TOTALLY NON-KOSHER MARSHMALLOWS ON THEIR HOLIDAY BUFFET TABLES. I AM A NAZI SYMPATHIZER. messages.

 

See, you can't. It's just so obvious. And I think I can see an armband under that sweater of hers. Meanwhile, did she just goosestep to the sink? I needn't say more.

The thing is, her hate clearly extends beyond Jews, Hanukkah and canned icing (did you see how much food coloring she added? I think I grew a tail from the toxicity just from seeing that with my eyeballs) since she has examples of her hate in cake form all set up at the beginning, there. Specifically, this Kwanzaa Hate Cake and this surprising Christmas Hate Cake.

But those are easy examples of ugly Hanukkah-ness. Sandra Lee is obviously the Bringer of Dark Times Made from Angel Food Cake, so I will try to make my point with some, perhaps, lesser known...cue the daunting music...

Crimes Against Jewmanity

You like how I just did that? Made up a batshit crazy name for this rant? Yeah, sometimes I'm good like that. Made it blue, too, just in keeping with the theme. I do it all for you, friends, and no need to clap - you're very welcome.

Anyway, just to spread the blame around a bit, let's see what our Asian friends over at Oriental Trading Company think Hanukkah means when expressed in glitter and pipe cleaners.

"We found this under the sink - let's touch it!"

"What have we done?"

Oh. Did you think I was kidding about the pipe cleaners? Because I wasn't. It's a common mistake thinking that leftover household refuse makes for ideal Hanukkah decorations. Just because something is blue and free doesn't mean that Jews want to bend it into The Holy Shape and hang it from the...wait a minute...this is an "ornament kit". From what, may I ask, does a Jew hang an ornament? Surely not a Christmas tree. But if not that, then what? You know Hanukkah bushes are just an invention of the Hallmark corporation or maybe some cheeky douche playing around at Cafepress.

I'm going to go ahead and call this effort from our Asian friends a clear miss amidst a sea of terrifyingly clear misses. Though, I'm not sure what I expected from them. They do focus a good bit of their holiday business on the sales of Jesus' back alley abortion kit.

What? Too much? You said you wanted it, so don't get all, "Ooh, Finny, no fair taking the lord's name in vain or misconstruing the purpose of His shepherd's crook", because you asked for it.

Meanwhile, I kinda like those undies. Feel free to send me some as a Hanukkah gift. And quickly now! It's over in just a few sundowns. (That's what we Jews call, "Nights", just so we're clear.)

Now, before I leave you to craft your scathing If I Would Have Known How Evil You Were I Never Would Have Said Anything comments (turncoats), allow me to share one more example of a Crime Against Jewmanity.

You could wear a patch on your jacket, but this is WAY easier to spot as a sniper.

Yeah. I don't know what they were going for here either, really, except that someone in the Hanukkah Decorations and Finery department had come to the end of their Turn All Christmas Things Into Hanukkah Things By Making Them Blue or Menorah Shaped and what they were left with was a baby Jesus in his manger and a Santa hat.

So, in lieu of trying to fashion a Santa yarmulke or something else that doesn't 100% make sense, they just said:

Santa Hat

     -Santa

+Menorah

-----------

Hanukkah Hat

and then called it a day by raking the baby Jesus into the shredder.

Hey, these party decoration people are coldblooded - don't give me your judging eye.

So, yeah, Hanukkah decorations are just as bad as I remember from my childhood and aren't getting any better, as these few examples heartily prove, so I'm sure I'll be back to scare your eyes back into their Holiday Decoration Nightmare seeking sockets soon enough.

Just a reminder: no pussy comments. You made your bed, now you can friggen well lie on it and look at these things and laugh.

Just so you know...

I used to do this thing every December where I'd make fun of my neighbors' holiday lights and make random assumptions about what those lights said about them as people and what their choices in decorations said about their sanity.

All in all, these things I was saying weren't complimentary or even civilized and, no, I'm not about to apologize or say that I regretted saying those things.

Please. Who do you think you're dealing with here? Check the header...yeah. You're home.

No, I won't be apologizing because HELLO ugly fugly fucked up decorations are just that and the people who put them up all over their homes as if to say,

"World - in case you didn't know by looking at me leaving my house in my ordinary Honda Civic wearing suitable work attire and drinking my coffee out of a reusable travel mug - I am, in fact, out of my fucking mind and have the taste the lord gave to a jackal. I lose all reasoning skills when the holidays approach, and because I'm a poorly adjusted adult without any personal interests to keep my mind entertained, I begin celebrating Christmas in October and do so by first covering my house with all the atrocities you see here. Do not come calling about these decorations until Valentine's Day, as I plan to wallow and jubilate in the glow of their visual holocaust until that date.",

should be called on the carpet for their wrongdoings.

Some people are sick fucks, is what I'm saying, and they advertise this fact at the end of every year with blinking snowmen and giant flashing snowflakes hung from tiny spindly trees and big bubblegum colored lights strewn across their yards in such a fashion that calls into question motor skills and rational thought.

But you know this. Because I've shown you pictures and given you commentary and, as I realized it recently after being reminded that it was nearly time for the Fugly House Contest again, basically said all I can say.

So, I won't be doing any verbal destruction of neighborhood holiday decorations this year. Not formally anyway. And it's not because I've been tamed into submission or *HORRORS* converted into a holiday decorating fiend myself, it's because I don't want to be redundant or boring. So, unless I see something that warrants special attention (there is one house that comes to mind, but mostly because I'm almost certain I could get them arrested for a felony based on some offenses they're committing with their decor), I'll probably stick to my other favorite topics like running, eating kale, watching fava beans grow and maybe knitting a thing.

Because that's not redundant or boring at all.

I still try to do craftiness. Really, I do.

I tried to remember when I'd last posted anything vaguely crafty that I'd done and couldn't remember, so I went back and looked at the archives and LO it was in October.

Friends, I don't know about you but that seems like forever ago.

And didn't this used to be a crafty blog at one point? I mean, I thought it was. But then I also used to knit and well, that hasn't happened in youjustgofigureitoutforyourself. Yeah, that's a while.

Oh well, I'll knit again soon. And maybe a blanket! It's cold in here! Because the fancy new fireplace isn't working properly and we've resorted to blowing our faces off instead! That's a horrible story for another day!

For now though, let's look at craftiness.

Perhaps you remember the debacle with the apple pie filling, yes? Well, I'm no longer classifying it as a debacle because, for once in my life as a Professional Crafting Disaster, all the pieces fell into place without having to wreck any perfectly good supplies or hurl any scissors.

I know. It's a big deal.

See, the idea, which I'm sure you can imagine on your own but I'm going to describe for you anyway, was to dispatch a truckload of apples given to me by the Nice Neighbors in the form of canned apple pie filling via the Miraculous Apple Machine and then gift them to a chosen few friends and relatives at the holidays alongside other preserved goodnesses like pickles in relish, chip, spear, mini gherkin and whole DILL form (don't let me catch you making sweet pickles, devil people) and apricot jam and then cards outlining to whom we donated the monies we might have used otherwise to buy them shit they don't need.

Yes, we're those kinds of gift-giving assholes. The ones who give you a card saying that a "gift has been given in your name to X organization" instead of buying you a new gadget for your kitchen or sexy lingerie or whatever it is you're supposed to be giving your relatives at holiday time.

See? You don't want me giving you gifts anyway.

I planned to make fancy labels for these As Close As You're Going To Get To An Actual Gift gifts from a printing service, but when they showed up a wee small for my tastes, I decided I'd figure something else out. Eventually. And then I'd package them up somehow and send them somehow and, well...I forgot about it for a while.

And then yesterday happened and I settled all my canned goodness debts by making up some tags with good old (SHITTY EVIL I HATE YOU WINDOWS 7) Microsoft Office, some glue, fabric scraps too cute to throw out and embroidery thread I've never used.

So, the random preserves went from this:

Randomly preserved garden and neighborly donated bounty.

To this:

Suitable for door and mailbox ditching.

Not bad, right?

I mean, yes - I took shittastic photos, but it was early this morning and I just wanted to make sure I had photographic evidence of the crafting event - since OBVIOUSLY you whores wouldn't just believe me if I told you due to my latency with crafting - but still they look pretty cute.

I think.

And hopefully the contents of these pretty cute gifts will soothe the raging hatred that arises when the recipients read the We Gave Your Present To Babies With Cholera In Haiti and To A Wolf In Colorado note on top and they realize that there won't be any holly bedecked thong and push-up bra set from us this Christmas.

Not that we've ever given that in the past, but it does seem like a good way to let people down easy with regard to gift giving. In fact, we should have been doing that all along. Giving people absurd and useless gifts, I mean. Because then giving donations in their name to worthwhile organizations would come as a relief and create happiness instead of coming as a disappointment and creating homicidal tendencies.

Oh well. I can only plan so much, you know.

Trail Run #1: Too happy to fight. Too sore to walk down stairs properly.

I'm sure you remember one million years ago when I said I wanted to try trail running instead of spending the rest of my running days slamming my body and joints against concrete.

You remember.

Well, last weekend I finally - after over a year of saying I was going to and then NOT doing so - went for a trail run.

What finally got my dead ass up off the concrete and shoved me out the door at 8am on a Sunday morning bound for the Santa Cruz mountains? The cold dark foreboding threat of failure, of course.

And by that I mean that I signed up for a trail race that's in two weeks and immediately after signing up for it, knew I'd have to at least go try it out once before race day. I'D HAVE TO. Otherwise, cue the public shame and all.

After hitting 'Register' I also went and ordered trail running shoes, because my good old Brooks Adrenalines weren't going to cut it on the leafy, muddy, rocky, tree-limb ridden trails around here. Oh no. They are cut out best for dodging shitty holiday drivers making sharp rights in traffic while NOT AT ALL looking out for pedestrians.

They also work well for bumper kicking, in the event such violence is necessary (like being nearly hit by a car making a shady right turn, for instance).

But, because I have no imagination/fear change/EXTRA FEAR blisters, I just got the I'm A Tough Guy off-road version of Brooks Adrenalines - the ASRs - with the fancy leaf/snow/rain icons on the lacing rig. They're basically my Adrenaline GTSs, but with teeth. Like, the soles have teeth on them - that's not some clichelicious description of suped up running shoes because that would be sad. And unimaginative. And I don't want to be those things.

Also, comfy ankles in tall socks. WEIRD.

Anyway, I'm not going to go into a full review of these shoes right now because I've only worn them on one trail run, so I don't feel like we're BFF yet. I don't know them like I do my GTSs who are like a best friend to me. The GTXs are like a friend of a friend right now. I like them, because they are friends with a good friend of mine, but they haven't held my hair or made up a good story about why I missed work yet, so they're still under review.

But they did get me through my #1 trail run attempt without a single slip, fall, crash, slide off a mountain side or even a stubbed toe, so they've got that going for them.

My hips, quads and calves though? HOLY.

Dudes, I'm sore.

As it turns out, and much like I suspected, trail running is hard.

And, when you want to be running but you're faced with a switchbacking hillside, the act of running is almost more than my ass can muster. And then there are times when I had to resort to hiking, which is what I called it because I figured if I was in the woods and hauling my ass up a hillside, I could at least call it hiking since there was a forest and mud involved. Calling it walking would have insinuated that there was leisure and comfort involved, neither of which would have been accurate.

So, for the first mile and a half of my big old three mile run (shut up) in the woods, I hiked the uphills as fast as I could, and when the fucking thing leveled out for three steps or more, I'd run again. It went on like this for a mile and a half and when I hit 1.5 Miles on the Garmin, I turned my ass around faster than you can say FUCK THIS and ran down in half the time it took me to get to the top.

Elevation charts shaped like triangles are bad news.

And it was AWESOME.

Let me describe.

You know how sometimes you are watching one of those nature shows on, like, Discovery or something, and they show a deer or mountain lion or wolf or some kind of graceful running creature just dashing through the woods?

The thing, let's imagine it's a mountain lion because that's what I was imagining even though the thought of it freaks me out now a little bit, is just racing along with the trees blurring in its peripheral vision, the wind whooshing by its ears, its legs just kicking out the ground below and spraying leaves and dirt behind?

Yeah, that's how it felt to run down this hill. It was fucking great. Not that I looked like a graceful creature, but I felt like one and that's what matters and since no one else was out there, I'm going to pretend I did.

I'll say this - in all my time running on concrete and sometimes gravel and rarely sand, I've never felt like it was "fucking great". It's been enjoyable, peaceful, relaxing, invigorating and scenic - but never FUCKING GREAT and certainly not legitimately fun.

This was fun.

OK, it looks like "dying", but it was fun. At the end. Running downhill.

Though, the kind of fun you have to earn by first dragging your sorry rear to the top of the hill to begin with. Much like backcountry skiing, where you don't get the benefit of the lift doing all the work but do get the fun of riding down a lovely slope without a bunch of psychos littering your path.

Did I mention that I didn't see one single solitary other person when I was out there? Seriously. Not one.Though that could have been because it was 32 degrees when I got out of the car and it had rained all day the day before, making the trails muddy and slippery and covered in leaves, but whatever. I care not what keeps people out of my face.

Though I could have used some help with the camera on my phone. Slippery bastard.

Had I run the streets of San Jose, I can tell you with 100% certainty I would have seen other runners. And bikers. And people walking three abreast on the sidewalk with double decker strollers and dogs on flexi-leashes strung out over all passable walkways. And then there would have for sure been near misses with crazy holiday drivers who were hell bent on murdering people in a mall parking lot.

But in the woods, there was no one. And, to recall my scary parallel with mountain lions, there weren't any creatures to speak of, really, either. I heard a few hawks and I saw, like, two squirrels, but it seemed like the whole mountain was still hiding out after the rainstorm, so I had the hills to myself.

Which was good, because then there wasn't anyone to be all, "Why are you wearing trail RUNNING shoes if you're just going to hike, there Miss Sweaty Monster?"

And that's a relief because I didn't come ready to fight someone in the woods. I was too happy.

Don't make me fight you!

28:57*

So, yes, that's a sub-29 5K PR, as I'd hoped for as a result of all my self-torture with the fartlekking. Something I decided was necessary after I tried out a 5K tester a month or so ago and found myself barely able to hold on to a decent pace that would put me even close to a sub-30 for this year's turkey trot.

As you can probably imagine, the terror was intense.

How could I go from hitting my sub-60 10K PR to blowing my 5K PR in a few short months? I mean, I know *how* - I'm lazy and haven't been training properly, just running around aimlessly and most of the time without my Garmin to scold me - but *how* I'd be able to handle it mentally, well, that was another story.

So, when I resorted to fartleks in order to get my pace down, it was an extreme moment in the world of me running. Because fartleks are painful and torturous and when I started them, it was the first really chilly morning (in the 30s) and I nearly lost my lungs in the process.

I coughed for hours. It was grody.

Anyway, the reason there's an asterisk by that time and that is because it is my unofficial time as recorded by my Garmin rather than the time recorded by the chip attached to my bib which was pressed against my chest thanks to the crush of 15,000 people trying to get across the starting line.

See, every year I've run this race it's been different. The first year, back in 2007, there were about 6,000 people (at least 1,000 more than they expected) and it was your garden variety over-attendance related shitshow. Think; people everywhere, low grade hysteria and vague smushing at the starting line.

Then, in 2008, I went to Kansas City and ran in the snow and I can't remember what my time was but I do remember that it was snowing and that was a new idea and a cold one. The race itself was pretty well organized and no smushing happened. That, I remember, because it was a first. Much like running in the snow.

Last year, in 2009, I was home and so I ran the turkey trot again here and because I'd had a lot of running going on through the year and needed something to shoot for on turkey day, I got my sub-30 5K PR. It wasn't cold at all and I was over dressed. And pretty smushed at the starting line because everyone ignored the pace signs and the stroller whores lined up at the front of the race so that when the starting gun went off, they were mowed down by a lot of people who were going for crazy PRs like sub-18. I was certain that because of that mayhem, we were going to see a little better organization at the starting line this year but HOLY CRAP was I wrong.

This year there were 15,000 people, many dressed in costume, all dressed in some variety of cold weather running attire because it was 32 degrees at gun time, pressed into an airless block of human pressed against the start line.

Large women wearing turkey hats with strollers standing on the feet of elite runners in split-side shorts and wraparound sunglasses pinched between burly firemen in hooded sweatsuits and Oldie Hawns wearing Christmas sweaters.

And there wasn't a pace sign to be seen. Not a one.

It did not bode well.

I'm not sure why everyone who was walking the trot decided they needed to be at the very front, but I have to assume it had something to do with their minds trained for Black Friday murder sprees at Wal-Mart and they'd just gotten ahead of themselves and lined up at 3am at the start so they could get across the line to be first to buy a Tickle Me Wii or whatever for their 17 kids, but I can't be sure.

The only thing I'm sure of is that they were at the front and forming a jiggly, clucking barrier between legitimate runners and the race course.

Not to say I'm a *legitimate* runner or anything, but between the stroller pushers and the families walking five abreast with their arms linked, I was starting to wonder if I was going to be able to run at all or escape from the fleshy monster of 15,000 people trying to squeeze through a space big enough for maybe a dozen people across.

It would have been super great to have some pace signs. Or even more super great to have some useful instructions coming from the overhead speaker which bleated complete nonsense for the 20 minutes leading up to the race. Something like, "If you're walking or pushing a stroller or wearing a costume that's wider than you are tall, move your ass to the back of the pack so that you don't block people who are going to try to kill you anyway."

Something like that.

But no, we were left to duke it out at the start. And we did. And because I was busy duking it out and couldn't get to the point where I could lift my arm to hit the Start button on my Garmin until I was a handful of yards past the starting line, I am using my Garmin time rather than the race time as my official time as my way of giving those race organizers the finger.

And also because this way it means I got my sub-29 5K PR.

I'm such a cheater.

A really good vegetarian thing we had in Munich. No, really. [Recipe]

I guess the first thing you think of when you're going to Munich, or Germany for that matter, isn't "Oooh! I wonder what kind of great vegetarian restaurants they have!" because, duh.

Frankly, until our local friend suggested we get on the U-Bahn and traipse across the city to this "vegetarian place that's one of only two in the city and supposed to be really good", it hadn't even occurred to me that vegetarians (or vegans, as our friend is, for that matter) could even survive in the Wurst Everywhere capital of the universe.

Seriously, friends, to estimate that I ate 50 wursts during our short stay in Germany would probably not be much of an overstatement. Also, I love wurst. And beer. And pretzels. And maybe I shouldn't get carried away here because none of those things (well, maybe beer) lived at this vegetarian restaurant we visited when we slowly stepped back from the biergartens for one single solitary meal at the behest of our lovely wurst-free friend.

I think Bubba and I would have been perfectly happy to eat wurst, pretzels, beer and maybe some Obaztda at every meal, three meals a day, for a week. Or, for that matter, the rest of our fucking lives, but it's probably good that we didn't and won't because can you imagine the fatness? Yikes. It would be extreme.

This is Obaztda and it is The One of pretzel spreads.

Anyway! One day we ate a meal that didn't have any meat, in a really nice little restaurant run by one very enthusiastic and sweet woman and in this restaurant we had a soup that we've been talking about ever since. The moment I tasted the soup, even, I knew I was going to have to recreate it at home. To the point where when the nice and very busy woman came back to see how we liked it, I very nearly held her hand while asking her for specific details about the making of the soup so that she couldn't run away.

I didn't hold her hand though, because that would be stalker-ish and I've been told that's a no-no. Also, I have been told that Germans are not "touchers" and, so, holding her hand may have garnered me an awesome kick to the face. Who knows? Those guys can be a little unpredictable what with the drinking and all. Even the vegetarians I bet.

Enough about that though. I don't want you to get the impression that all the Germans we met or left un-molested in the city were anything other than lovely and non-abusive because they were. Probably because we didn't try to hug any of them or hold their hands.

See! I can learn! Also, I learned that when you step onto an escalator, say when you're coming up from the subway for instance, you better get your ass over to the right if you plan to stand there like a useless lump because GOD HELP YOUR MOTHER FUCKING SOUL if you're standing on the left when a trainload of Munichers want to descend the escalator of their own volition and find it blocked by your dumb foreign ass.

This is Germany, friends, and there are rules and those rules are to be followed OR ELSE. You know. It's Germany.

And, as another aside, I love this about Germany because I love rules and I love them more when people follow them because then everything works so well and then you can accurately predict when your train will arrive because the schedule says it will be there at 12:03 and hot damn if it doesn't show up at the stroke of 12:03.

Not 12:02. Not 12:04. 12 FUCKING OH THREE.

Love you, German People - you make my heart sing with your efficiency. Also, your beer, wurst, pretzels, biergartens, bike lanes, Oktoberfest, Black Forest, flowers planted in every window, ham and...what the hell was I talking about again? Oh yeah, vegetarian food.

So, this thing we had at the one of two vegetarian places in all of Deutscheland was the boring sounding, "Pumpkin Soup" which sounds boring like I said.

But, I do love fall soups, soup in general and pumpkin, so I was basically already going to order it until the very nice and busy woman running this show all by herself told me that it was thickened and made creamy with marscapone and then topped with pumpkin oil and pumpkin seeds.

I would like you to sit there and appreciate that EVEN THEN, after she told me these delicious sounding details, I stillSTILL did not try to hug her or even touch her arm meaningfully as if to say, "Thank you, nice Germaness, for creating this masterpiece of pumpkinness that I am sure to love. I am certain that it will enrich my life and, in so doing, will add an unexpected element of joy to our vacation."

No, that would have been too much. So I didn't do it. And I want for you to recognize the significance of it.

OK, we're done with that now.

So, we had the soup, and it was fantastic and we also resisted licking the bowls because we were sure there must be a rule against doing that because, in addition to being Wurst Land it's also Rules Land and our working theory was that if you *thought* something might be against the rules, it probably was and you'd be best to avoid enraging the rules.

Don't do it! They do not fuck around! We are told, anyway. We don't speak German, so what do we know about anything.

Anyway, as you know, we went on with our vacation and ate many other delicious things (which were mostly not vegetarian at all) and then came home and I thought about this soup.

Every time I saw a pumpkin (which is a lot because people around here grow them in their front yards and also it was Halloween and now it's nearly Thanksgiving) I thought of this soup.

Even when I saw one in a tree in Freiburg.

So, this weekend I went out on a hunting expedition for the ingredient I thought would be findable at Whole Foods, land of the niche food bullshit, but alas went home with unrequited pumpkin oil desires.

So sad.

ButBUT I did find marscapone and that's the real key ingredient here and FOR THE LOVE if you like pumpkin and you can handle marscapone (super dairy and fatness) please make this soup. And if you can't find pumpkin oil, please don't despair, because I made the soup without it and it was good.

Like, ruuuuuuuuuully good. Like, when I asked Bubba whether he wanted to have pork chops (his fave) tonight or just have reheated pumpkin soup and arugula, he didn't even blink an eye before he shouted, "PUMPKIN".

Which is big. The man loves pork chops and he's calling for pumpkin before pork chops. That's what a crazy person would say. OrOR someone who loves this soup.

And, I had to love it, one bite of the soup and I was magically transported back to that cutesy little tiny ass restaurant in Munich with the darling gal in her Dirndl offering up her little menu with Kürbis soup right on there. (For the record, I have no idea if it said Kürbis, because, again, I don't speak German, but I assume it did because that's what it was. Whatever. Stop looking at me like that!)

So, don't you want to make this? Because it's really easy. And, for real, only took about half an hour from start to finish.

AND I bet, if you don't have a starter for your Thanksgiving dinner and want to be all festive and shit, you could make a big pot of this soup and serve it up before having the barftastic turkey (if it's not smoked, I do not like it) and everyone will still be your friend even after they've eaten themselves into a painful Thanksgiving food coma.

Though, they SHOULD be your friend already if you just cooked and served them a giant meal. I mean, who are these ungrateful guests that get pissed that they're so super full from the great food you just slaved over for them? Jerks.

Pumpkin Marscapone Soup

Adapted from this recipe

My changes in bold

Ingredients
1/4 cup butter, salted, whole
1 cup chopped onions
1 tablespoon minced garlic
1/4 cup dry Sherry
3 cups vegetable broth
2 teaspoons dried thyme

1 teaspoon dried thyme leaves

1 Tablespoon fresh thyme leaves
3 cups pureed pumpkin
1 cup mascarpone cheese
Much salt and some black pepper to taste 

White truffle oil

Salted roasted pumpkin seeds

To make
1. Melt butter in an 8-quart saucepan over medium heat. Add the onions and garlic and cook until an aroma develops. Add the sherry and cook until it is reduced by half.

2. Add broth, dried thyme and thyme leaves and pumpkin puree, and simmer on medium-low heat for 20 minutes. Stir in the mascarpone cheese until incorporated completely. Add a good amount of salt (DO NOT UNDER SALT, DAMN YOU) and some fresh ground pepper to your liking and serve hot with a bit of truffle oil, fresh thyme leaves and pumpkin seeds on top. Plus, some fresh hot No-Knead Bread.

Get ready to love. 

I pre-emptively blame the Garmin for my personal failings.

Hey, remember when I said that I was going to CRAZY PART ALERT try to program my Garmin to beep me through my fartlek workout so that I wouldn't have to strain my eyeballs looking down every two seconds to see when I could stop sprinting and start throwing up?

You remember.

Well, MIRACLE, I did it. Program the watch, mind you. I did not, however, throw up - even though I got mighty close a few times.

Running at a pace that most runners find to be normal makes me nauseous, can you believe? Yes, this is because I'm very slow.

Anyway, whatever, I triumphed over the Garmin and forced it to do my bidding by acting out one of its main functions - intervals.

Oh.

So, you see, when I got this watch, I basically charged it up and then ran out the door, knowing only how to set the display so I could watch my pace. I didn't sit down and have a heart to heart with it and its owner's manual as I do with most every other technological contraption that enters my house. I mean, I've even had this little Coming To Jesus with the fucking mandolin and that doesn't even have a battery. Which, thank gawd because can you imagine? It would have killed me already is what I'm saying.

But with the Garmin? Quite possibly the most complicated time telling device I've experienced in my lifetime? Oh no. "I'll just figure it out as I go", I said.

Pfffffffft. Yeah, that's been real successful.

So, you'd think that once I realized that I was in over my head with this mysterious, beeping, I Am The Holder Of Many Secrets digital GPS device, I would immediately head to the file folder of manuals in my office and sit quietly in a well-lit room with the Garmin and its manual until I could accurately describe how to implement at least two functions it performed other than Tell Me The Time and Tell Me My Pace. Right? You'd expect at least that.

Hey! Me too!

Except you know what I did?

I just found a video online for how to set the interval thing and, after not even watching the whole video, ran out the door to try it out. Yay! I watched one minute of a three minute instructional video! I know everything!

I did not know everything.

Which became vividly apparently after I'd been "Do Workout"ing for more than five minutes with nary a beep to tell me to RUN or REST or WarmUp or CoolDown.

Yeah, that's because when you set this thing to do a simple interval of 2 minutes of RUN and 1 minute of REST with a WarmUp YES and CoolDown YES, you have to actually tell the thing when you're done running your WarmUp and ready to start RUNning and RESTing for whatever intervals you set.

What bullshit that this thing doesn't read minds. It can tell you your lat/long location (or I assume it can, I haven't looked up that feature yet), speed (confirmed it does this), elevation (after the fact for sure) and recently I found that it could YAY tell you about your mile splits, but it doesn't read my mind yet? Lame.

Perhaps it's like the heart rate monitor feature - you have to have a strap wrapped around your head to get it to work...

Anyway, to focus on my particular failings with the intervals feature - I went out to fartlek myself into an early grave without watching the entire instructional video, so I fartlekked of my own accord rather than with the assistance of the handy Garmin. Basically, I warmed up for a little over five minutes and when I realized that the watch wasn't going to tell me via beeping to do my intervals, I just kept an eye on the clock (so exhausting) and RAN for two minutes and RESTed for one minute and so on until I was within a few blocks of my house (and nearly barfing) and slowed it down for the CoolDown portion of the event.

Even though I utterly failed at properly utilizing the Intervals feature of my Garmin, I did fartlek and it did almost make me throw up in public and WHOA I took nearly a minute off my previous time for that same route.

I chalked it up as a minor success. Then I went inside and told Bubba I needed a stretcher ready and waiting for me after all forthcoming runs.

After that run, but before I set out a few days later for my next try at this fartlek business, I watched the next minute of the video to figure out why the thing never went from WarmUp to RUN and it told me I had to hit the Lap button to start the interval feature with the beeping and what not.

Oh. Makes sense, I guess.

So, my next fartlekky run was marginally more successful since I did a WarmUp for about two minutes, hit Lap and fartlekked myself nearly into a coma for 6 intervals (I told you I was a puss, what do you want?) before it lapsed into CoolDown on its own.

Wait? Why did it stop beeping? I thought I had one more interval to go? Yeah, no. If you program 6 intervals, thinking that it will do, say two minutes RUN and one minute REST for 6 cycles, you are wrong. It will do that for 5 cycles and on the last one it will just leave you on the rest cycle indefinitely. Then you hit Lap when you're done and only then will it play you the magical You Didn't Die! Hooray! song.

Fine.

So, that took me another run to figure out, but I got it down in time for my shortish long run last Saturday and, when I completed the interval portion of my shortish long run (which was the first 5K of my 6 miles), I hit the Lap button and got to enjoy the mechanical beepy You're Done song while I walked around with tunnel vision for a few minutes before resuming my run at a more human pace in the mid 9s.

I thought I'd conquered the Intervals feature of Garmin. I was wrong.

When I went out on Tuesday for my, now totally normal, bout with fartleks, I realized during one of the REST or RUN cycles that there was an extra piece of information I hadn't set and might actually be good to have: Target.

What it said was "No Target".

Running without a target or goal is not my style, folks - as you know. And to be doing something as torturous as fartleks without a target is downright retarded.

So, my goal for tomorrow's shortish long run is to figure out how to set my 2:1 intervals with target paces for both. What will those target paces be? Who the hell knows! I mean, I can only deal with one new feature at a time, so I'll likely choose those targets at random. Like 8:30 for a RUN target and 10 for a REST target because that sounds like it would probably even out to a 9:29mm pace over a 5K distance. In my head. If I don't think about it too much.

And, while I'm not thinking about it too much, there's also the possibility that "Target" doesn't mean "pace" or "distance" but something obscure like "heart rate". Officially, I will find that annoying if that's the case. Just want to get that out there.

Sure, I *should* go figure out how to set this and what to set it at and also confirm that Target is for pace and not for something else, but that can just be the fun little thing I come back to bitch about next week.

Oh, and I got my Turkey Trot bibb in the mail yesterday, so my bitching next week may include how I fucked up my Turkey Trot 5K time by failing to master my Garmin beforehand or because there was a gang of misfit pilgrims running arm in arm in front of me or because I had a warm up slice of pumpkin pie as race fuel, but you know it will not be attributed to my failure to train properly.

Obviously.

If you build it, they will maybe show up and fill it with honey.

Because I'm apparently working hard on my reputation as the neighborhood freak, I went out on Saturday and got my beehive.

No. That's not my hive. That's the President's hive and the photo was taken by "Chantal Foster, a 30-something web architect living in Albuquerque, NM." according to her blog. Thanks, Chantal! I like to fantasize about my own hive being so lovely and situated beneath such a nice tree! Because that in no way represents reality!

Right now my hive looks like this:

Yes, friends, that is a disassembled hive. To be specific, it's two disassembled brood boxes, honey super, lid and base plus 30 assembled frames and then some things that don't need assembling (THANK GOD) like the queen excluder and mouse gate. 

Don't know what the hell I'm talking about? Don't worry, you will. If you keep up with me through this process anyway. Don't know why I'm making such a big deal about assembled versus disassembled?

Let me explain.

See, I went over to my local beekeeping supply shop this weekend, which is really just a lovely older gentleman's garage, and had myself a little personal meltdown.

My plan had been to show up, point to an assembled but not painted hive, say "I'll take that one there, please." and walk out with the thing on a hand truck or something so I could go home and feel like a big man while I painted it all by myself yay!

Except that was not the case. As in so many other situations where you think there is just one product available but then come to find out there are a million variations on that product about which you suddenly have to know, care and make decisions. Much like buying our refrigerator, I didn't know that there were so many KINDS of refrigerators. 

I thought I could walk into Sears or Lowe's or whatever and just point to the one fridge on the floor and say, "I'll take that one there, please." and then walk out with the thing on a hand truck or something and then it turned into half a day of Bubba and me deciding whether we *really needed* an extra deli drawer or a shelf fit for party platters or a built in soda can rack and sub zero this and crisper that until I nearly shot myself right there in the store with a gun from the Outdoors department to end the pain and misery.

It was very dramatic and the Sears people didn't help matters with their I Will Have To Check With My Manager-ness on everything. Those people...but I won't get into that. You already know.

Well, this going to buy my beehive finally and after a long time of hemming and hawing was similar, but mostly only in the Holy Shit What Have I Gotten Myself Into way and without all the fantasizing about murdering an entire Sears sales staff. And obviously we weren't dealing with options like deli drawers. But OH there were options.

What the very nice elder statesman explained to me was that I could get a pre-built hive with brood boxes and honey supers and the frames all tucked inside and ready Freddy to go...this is when I nearly clapped my hands together and said, "Fantastic! I'll take it!"...but oh it's a lot more expensive than just building the boxes yourself. 

Oh. 

I was suddenly a little self-conscious about how much I was willing to spend on this thing and how much cash I'd brought into this man's garage. And I really didn't want to seem like the wussy girl that was all, "Oh, but I don't want to build things with scary hammers and wood glue" or the lazy girl that was all, "Oh but I just wanted to buy it ready built so I could go home and feel like a big man while I painted it all by myself yay!"

So, of course, I gave him the old, "Oh yeah, totally. I can build things. All that pre-built stuff is for pansies." and what not. 

Until he started stacking up all the rubber-banded parts and pieces that were going to, in theory, be constructed by my wussy girl hands into something resembling a bee hive.

Um, people, the pile was HUGE, and it grew minute to minute. 

I'll admit that when he announced that the pile I was looking at only took care of one brood box and its frames, I hit the brakes.

"Um, maybe I'll build the boxes but not the frames? What do you think?"

He didn't say it outright, but I believe the man was relieved to the tenth power. Because hauling out the stuff for one box worth of materials was nearly his final act. 

Dude's old, is what I'm getting at. And I didn't savor the thought that I was going to send him over the edge with my vain attempt at acting like a big man in his garage store. Because I'm not a big man, first of all, and because I'm of all things, lazy.

He was so nice, Mr. Beekeeper For Fifty Years, and helped me put together the parts for the boxes, lid and base ONLY and then gathered together 20 PRE-BUILT BY HIM brood frames and 10 honey frames and all the other little things I asked for.

And then I gave him every last dime I had in my wallet (seriously, thank gawd I didn't try to get the pre-built hive because I would have had to go to the ATM fo sho) and he helped me out with the boxes of Future Hive. He did, however, offer the service of a hand truck, but I declined because it didn't seem necessary given I wasn't at Sears buying a fridge. 

So. That's the explanation for why I have parts and pieces of a yet-to-be-painted beehive in my garage. Because I didn't want to seem like a wussy hammer-fearful girl OR a lazy ass, so I went with the happy medium: build the boxes myself and slide in the ready-made frames built by Mr. Beekeeper for a buck a piece.

Seems like a fair deal.

And wouldn't you know that when I was clearing off a big shelf near the potting bench for all my hive stuff, a bee ventured into the garage for the first time ever (seriously, never see one in there before) and flew right up to the frame I was holding and started picking around the cells like he wanted to move in and drop off some honey.

I'm not going to lie, I told him to come back in April and I'd have a room saved for him. And then I told Bubba that maybe, if I did a really good job building and painting the hive, a swarm would just show up and move into the hive without me having to buy package bees.

And then Bubba looked at me like he suddenly realized while all the neighbors regarded the way they did.

We'll see.