So ... 10?

Ok my wife is now officially one of those running freaks. She wakes up early in the morning on the weekends to get ready to go out and run. She is so excited about it that she actually wakes up earlier than planned because she couldn’t sleep any longer. I, on the other hand, will drag myself out the door in the morning if I absolutely have to. I enjoy running in the afternoon (you know after the sun has actually decided to wake up). Well stupid me, I say to my wife “So, you mind if I try to run with you Saturday morning?” You see Emily is training for a half marathon. I’m training for … well I just kind of go out and run sometimes. I have a goal of the half marathon in December, but the full motivation hasn’t completely hit me. So anyway, Emily is going to run 10 miles. I at this point have never run more than 5, and in the past 3 months have not run more than 4, but I wanted to give it a try. So this is a little recounting of how that all went down.

4:00-5:30 Emily wakes up. I can’t give you the exact time because I like most normal humans on Saturday was not awake.

5:30 She wakes me up and has to put up with quite a lot of whining complaining and pulling the sheets over my head.

5:35 I drag my sorry rear out of bed and start getting dressed.

5:40 Dressed. Yeah that’s right. It doesn’t take a long time to get ready. I still don’t recall the whole ordeal, but I ended up decent enough to walk out into public, and I even remembered my iPod.

5:50 Leave the house. I follow Emily to the car (still complaining at this point) and get into the passenger side. I believe I was heavily under the influence of sleep and in no shape to drive.

6:00 Arrive at the track. Emily wakes me up and informs me that I should stop complaining because she is usually out here at 5:00. Ha 5:00 yeah I always think hmmm it’s 5:00AM let’s go run!!!

6:05 Start running

Ok so we are going to start this run and I position myself right behind Emily because she is going to pace me the whole way.

The Run (from my perspective)

Start – Everything is great. Working out the kinks in the legs and getting everything going because I haven’t run since Monday. I had a real busy week and had planned on running Friday night, but some friends really twisted our arms and talked us into going to get hibachi.

Lap 1 (each lap is a mile) – This is nice. It’s pretty cool outside and the humidity is low. I enjoy the birds that are flying around, and I nod and wave to the people we are passing on the track. This isn’t so bad. I’m getting into my pace now.

Lap 2 – Ha this is nothing. I could run like this forever. It would be nice if my shoes weren’t full of water now, but I guess the whole track can’t drain perfectly. Oh and the birds are still flying all around.

Lap 3 – Yep right where I need to be. 3 Miles is kind of my standard run now, and this feels great. There is a breeze that has kicked up on the last quarter mile and cooled us down even more. Just grab the water bottle on my way past the bench and take a sip to prepare for mile 4.

Lap 4 – Throw the water bottle down next to a lamp post and keep following Emily. I’m starting to feel the run now. There is a good sweat worked up, but my breathing is nice and even. I wave to the people we pass and give a head nod or say hello.

Lap 5 – Well now I’m starting out into my furthest distance. I figure alright just follow Emily. She’ll set the pace all you have to do is follow. This lap goes down no problem. We pass the bench that marks the end of the lap and I start to feel good about myself. 5 miles down oh yeah, and that’s when it hits me YOU”RE ONLY HALFWAY DONE!!!!

Lap 6 – Well the body is now starting to fall apart. The nice running form has now been replaced by a little more of an awkward lope. I look in front of me, and there is my lovely wife just gliding along listening to her iPod. I notice the birds again and nod a hello to a couple of people we pass.

Lap 7 – Oh yeah feeling it now. I grab my water bottle from beside the lamp and swig a good bit of water. That’s nice because now I have water belly. I still stay right with Emily and try to focus on nothing else. Only 3 more laps to go.

Lap 8 – Well now pretty much everything hurts. The thought of stopping and watching my wife keep running I now the only thing that is keeping me going. I see some strange kid with a hornets hat on walking the opposite way down the track. I wonder if I can get his attention and have him bump into me so I can fake an injury and have to stop. That about the time it hits me. If you’ve run a long ways before, you know what it is, but let’s just say I was in danger of becoming a “real” runner. I can’t stop now though, the bag with the “supplies” is way across the park, and besides I can’t stop this close to the end. The fried rice will just have to hold on. Oh well I’ll just keep going.

Lap 9 – Yeah I pretty much sound like a Clydesdale at this point. It’s a good thing Emily has in those headphones because the sounds coming from me would be nothing short of scary. I grab the water bottle again, but I don’t dare take a drink. I’m really depending on the air coming in through my mouth at this point, and drowning on the walking trail at the park is not high up on my to-do list. Of course there is my lovely wife still gliding along. I notice those stupid birds again and completely ignore everyone I pass on the trail. I even start to wonder if I could trip Emily and pass it off as an accident so that we can stop this madness. I know that’s a terrible thought, but when you’re pushed hard enough your body goes into survival mode.

Lap 10 – As we pass the bench again my soul climbs out and goes to collapse on the bench. It’s smart enough to know its limits. My stupid body on the other hand has this pride issue. The rest of that lap is kind of a blur. I think my iPod was still playing and Emily may have turned around to make sure I was still there, but there is no good way of knowing. And then there a couple hundred yards away is that sweet bench that marks the end of this suffering (and of course my soul lying curled up asleep, which I immediately go back to collect).

So we finish. Emily is all excited and walking around. I’m trying to figure out the best place to crawl off by myself and die. We walk over to finish off the run with some stretching. Emily is happy and moving around a lot. I’m trying to keep everything inside of me… well inside of me. My hip is now popping, my left Achilles tendon has started a fire just above my heel, and my knees are not big fans of staying locked in place. We stretch and I drag myself back to the car where I can be chauffeured back to the house so that we can shower change and head to the “Donut Hole” for breakfast with some friends.

So now the plan I guess is to follow that maniac back out there again next Saturday for another round of “fun” to prepare for the Jazz half-marathon.

Back on Track

OK short post. Ahhh finally had a good run. After a few months of no running/bad running I have finally had a good run. The leg is feeling much better, so hopefully the training is back on track. 13.1 here I come. Just not real fast. I think the weather had a lot to do with it because it felt awesome outside tonight. The stretches past the lakes were a bit muggy, but the back of the subdivision was almost cool. The only downside is the typical Louisiana nights. You spend the whole time wiping bugs off your face while you run (much less fun on the bike), and I actually got one stuck in the corner of my eye. Do you know how hard it is to pull a bug out of your eye with sweaty fingers while trying your best not to lose your pace? Well if outside around here I'm sure you understand.

On another note, the saving towards the new road bike is going well. Fingers crossed!!

So what does the Spillway taste like?

If you’re like me, that title would strike you as kind of odd, and until the other day I would have agreed with you. I mean, who tastes the spillway? That place is gross, nasty, and smells funny. Well the other day I learned how the spillway tastes.

Let me set this up for you a little bit. First, Emily and I started riding mountain bikes back a few weeks ago. So I had never “really” ridden a mountain bike before. Sure when I was a kid I had the bike that I rode around the neighborhood that had 12 speeds, a water bottle, and really cool yellow hand shields. All of which were absolutely necessary at the time, because we did some pretty hardcore bike riding up and down the street. Anyway, once we got our bikes we decided to take them out to Baton Rouge and do some riding, and it turned out to be really fun. We went back to BR a few more times and then up to Ruston with a couple of our friends (shout out to Damon and Scarlett). So in total, I had logged about 5 bike rides before my trip to the spillway.

So to make a short story long, I figured that after my extensive experience on 5 bike rides that I was pretty much an expert at this stuff, and the spillway didn’t scare me at all. This should be a piece of cake. WRONG!! Well the trails aren’t exactly technical. It’s kind of twisty and thanks to the rain (about time) it was a bit slick, but none of that really mattered. I’m settling in to the trails, and getting a feel for their layout. Also, the trails here are named (with cool little street signs). About 1.5-2 miles into the ride I enter the “5 minutes alone” trail. About a minute later it opens up into a pretty straight stretch, and I start to build up speed. Then I see a log laid out across the trail in front of me. Now Damon taught me how to jump tree branches and things like that that lay down on the trail, so I figured I had this. It would be the largest one that I had jumped since it was about 12-14” in diameter (I went back and checked later and it’s about that size). Approaching the log, an experienced rider would have made a couple of observations. First, SLOW DOWN because you really don’t know what you’re doing here. Second, there are no marks on this log. The first is self explanatory, but the second is something I should have learned by now. If bikes have been going over a log, the crank tends to cut into the wood as the bike passes over it. So unless everyone had been completely bunny hopping over this thing (and I don’t think all the riders out there can do that) no one has really jumped it. Well that didn’t stop me. I built up speed, got up to the log and pulled up on my front tire and …… What happened next is kinda blurry. I remember a really bright flash of light, and then I started pushing myself out of the middle of the trail. Best I can figure, my front wheel didn’t get quite high enough, so my bike stopped immediately. Since I can’t quite stop that fast I went over the handle bars. Now don’t worry, I broke the fall with my face. I flipped so fast that I didn’t even have time to get my hands off of the handle bars.

Now I’m sitting on the side of the trail gathering my thoughts and composure and trying to do a check.

1. Face – still there and it hurts
2. Nose – not broken (good thing I have a small nose because if not it would have been broken) but full of mud
3. Hands – Check (perfectly fine because they didn’t even come close to touching the ground)
4. Arms – Check
5. Legs – Scraped but good
6. Eyes – Must be something wrong. I saw a flash of light and now there is light and dark intermingled. Oh wait; my sunglasses are smashed crooked on my face. Eyes – Check
7. Mouth – also full of mud
8. Ears – Yep got mud in them too

I’ve kind of given everything a once over and made sure I’m not really bleeding. That’s when I look at my bike and realize it’s now facing the opposite way down the trail. Ok so that was what landed on me. (Bike – Check) All in good working order. So I sit on the side of the trail a little longer to gather my composure. And what’s the first thing I think? “Man nobody got to see that. That would have been awesome. I wish I had a video.” Ok not the normal thoughts for that situation but come on. Who wouldn’t want to have seen that? It would have been nice to at least have a friend there to laugh at me.

Once I felt around to make sure everything was at least close to the same place, I climbed back on the bike and went back to riding the trails (little more gingerly this time). I finished out (didn’t do the teeter totter cause I wasn’t really feeling good) the rest of the trail and headed back to my truck. Once there I looked in the mirror to make sure nothing screamed “HE JUST CRASHED HIS BIKE!!” Other than a little scratch on my nose and upper lip, along with a strange bruise on my forehead, I was in good shape. My helmet now has a cracked visor, but that really doesn’t affect much.

So to answer the original question, the spillway tastes like nothing I’ve tasted before (or ever want to again for that matter). It’s a good mix of wood and rancid dirt, with a slight hint of animal matter that builds at the end (props to the “Next Food Network Star” on that description).

Wee Complex

Ok so we’ve all heard of the “Wee Complex” (my phrasing). This is that when something is small it seems to try and overcompensate or overcome the size by being much more aggressive. It cracks me up, and I really enjoy seeing all the evidence of it right here around my neighborhood.

Today I’m out for a run, and as usual I round the corner at about the ½ mile mark and there is the little Chihuahua with the deepest bark. It’s always there waiting on anyone to pass by so that it can scream at them to let them know just how “bad” he is and how he owns this area. I’m serious about this bark too. I mean I’ve got two 60 Lb labs that don’t bark like that. But, that is a normal occurrence. Nothing out of the ordinary there, it’s just the Same Ole Same Ole.

So now for the reason for the post… I’m cruising along listening to music and not really paying attention to anything else when all of a sudden I hear this awful screech or squawk or whatever. I get to looking around and that’s when I see about a 14 Lb, fluffy, black cat doing its best to blend into a brick wall. I mean this thing is pressed into the corner of the garage area and I know its summoning its chameleon skills, but to no avail, black just don’t blend in to red. Then I see where the sound is coming from. There is a little bird (aka. “rat with wings” as Emily would say) that is screaming its head off. I watch as it dive bombs this poor cat, which I guess got a little close to the ole nest. The cat’s running for its life from this 4 oz bird and I can’t help but laugh. As I passed, the cat had worked its way under the car and the bird took up its perch on the gutter to watch. HEHE I do believe there may have been a little trail that was following that cat, and I don’t think it was water.

I write this to say watch out. Small doesn’t mean weak, and there is now a black cat with a hairless butt that could testify to that.

Can't get no face time!!

OK so it’s time for the first real post. I’ve had a blog for a few weeks now, and oddly enough I figured out that it wasn’t writing itself. So, I figured I would give a write-up about Emily and I met/dated or whatever. Some of you may have already read about it on Emily’s blog, but here is the real story.

Emily and I first met my freshman year at Louisiana Tech. I had joined the ABS (Association of Baptist Students, and we went to Farmerville (yeah I know I was thinking the same thing the first time I heard it, but what can I say I’m from Pride) to participate in a hayride/caroling “event”. Well when we get there we meet up with some of the youth from our ABS director’s church. It just so happened that Emily is one of them (I’m taking her word here). Well we played the game chubby bunny which is Latin for stuff marshmallows into your mouth into you actually suck marshmallow juices into your lungs. Emily just so happened to be the one that was shoving the marshmallows into my mouth (someone has to help because at some point your own body says “no you can’t put any more marshmallows in” so someone else has to shove them in). As luck would have it, I have an extremely large mouth, and not only did we win, we lapped the nearest team. Well after that you have to get rid of the marshmallows, and now you can tell that I was not in the least bit worried about impressing her. It’s hard to look cool when it looks like the Stay Puft Marshmallow man is crawling out your mouth. So yeah I really don’t even remember meeting her that night. Pretty embarrassing, but oh well she’s not offended.

A couple of years later Emily started college and also came to the ABS. Please keep in mind that I still didn’t remember who she was, but oh well. Over the first few months, we became friends and hung out with our typical group of friends (great times and good friends). I have to admit that come the November/December time frame I was interested. Now here is the kicker. She didn’t think I was interested in her because I actually thought my friend Keith (look you got a shout out) was interested in her. I mean they went everywhere together and hung out all the time. So, following the guy code, I decided not to interfere. If Keith liked her, I wasn’t going to get in the way. It took a few weeks before a few of my really good friends kinda cornered me at my house and said “so you know Emily likes you right?” I’m like “WHAT? I thought Keith liked her.” And then they all laughed at me. Boy that’s not humiliating. So now, cool she likes me.

I thought the next part would be easy. Just ask her out. The problem is that my “good friends” were always around us. I couldn’t get her alone to ask her for anything. I’m old fashioned, so I wasn’t going to do the phone thing. If I’m gonna ask her, I’m gonna do it face to face. Well then the opportunity arises. She invites a few of us to her house to hang out. So I do what everyone did at that time, I burned a “Napster” disc with some good music to listen to on the 45 MINUTE DRIVE (sheesh I never thought we would get there, because we actually turned on roads without lines). So I’m driving up there in my truck with Micah and Keith and I think to myself, “self, if you leave this CD inside you will have to go back in by yourself to get it.” SWEET I know how I can get her alone to ask her. Well we show up at the house and her Mom makes some sweet cheese dip and Quesadillas. That’s awesome because they were great. I would almost have started dating her just to eat her Mom’s cooking, but I digress. We get ready to leave, I check on the perfect placement of the CD on a writing desk just inside the door, and we head out to the truck. What happens you ask? Well I hear Keith behind me say “Oh hey you forgot your CD. Don’t worry I brought it with me.” ARRGGHHHH

So that plan was thwarted, so I had to start plotting again. Most of you probably don’t realize just how hard it was to get one on one time with our group of friends. We went everywhere together. Anyway, we go to this David Crowder concert (he rocks), and while we are there I “steal” a light off of her keychain. I figure this way I’ll have to bring it back to her or something. After the concert, we all go back to our house (mine and my two roommates) and just hang out. Well, Emily leaves and heads out to her jeep, so I make my move. I follow her outside and give her the light back and then say something really profound, earth shattering, and memorable like “So uh would you uh like to maybe uh go to dinner sometime uh you know if you want to?” Well to my relief she said yes, and U turned around headed inside only to hear her set off the car alarm because she forgot to turn it off (hehehe).

Our first date was on January 19 2001, and I didn’t even have to look at her blog to figure that out. I purposely didn’t tell my roommates because I didn’t want to have to get ragged on for a while and answer a million questions, but when you start looking for the iron (yep throwing in the dryer won’t work this time) in three guy’s house, they figured something was up. Well I made it out mostly unscathed and drove to pick her up. We went to Copeland’s in Monroe (another 30 minute drive). Well so I’m pretty much a broke college student like everyone else, but I have my debit card and enough money in the bank to cover it. The problem is, we sit down and are looking over the menu and that is when I realize that there is no MasterCard at the bottom of the menu. American Express? Check Visa? Check MasterCard? NOPE. Well so now I’m doing the check you wallet under the table thingy and I realize that I have about $20 in my wallet. All I can think is “please please order cheap and let the waitress not mind that she’s about to get stiffed.” Well as luck would have it, she orders just a salad, and I didn’t even have to ask her to. So I order something cheap too, and when we’re done I ask if she wants dessert knowing that if they don’t take my card I’m in trouble. She says that she’s stuffed. I’m so distracted I don’t even take notice of the fact that she ordered this itty bitty salad and didn’t eat it all. Anyway, they ended up taking my card WHEWWW. That would have been a rough way to start the whole dating thing. “So do you have any money? Cause if not, we get to do dishes or I get arrested or something like that.”

Now you would think that the date would pretty much be over, but no. I now went back to Farmerville and met her entire family. That’s not that big of an exaggeration, because I was meeting cousins and Aunts and Uncles. So to return the favor, she had to meet my entire family the next day (they had come to watch a choir program we were having). Any of you who have had the pleasure of meeting my family know that we aren’t exactly what you would call a “quiet” group. Well Emily gets a little bit different of an impression. Once my family gets to my house, we settle in to start talking and telling stories (same ‘ole same ‘ole). Emily come pulling in a few minutes later and is about to walk into a room filled with a good portion of my family. She opens the door and that’s when my little brother Adam turns around and greats her with “Hey I’m Adam, Jace’s brother.” Ok so you think big deal he said hello, but to my family we were all like “HOLY COW ADAM TALKED TO SOMEONE.” You see my brother was a little shy (not nearly as much so now thanks to his lovely wife). Adam didn’t really initiate conversation, so my family is just floored. Now Emily looks around a room of complete strangers that are all staring open mouthed and not saying a word. That was great. Oh to be inside her mind while she thought they were all staring at her. Priceless

So we date for a while, and really enjoy hanging out together. Now, I’m going to include this part because I thought this was great. I’m out at her house one night, and her Mom decides to make us some Rice Krispies treats at like midnight (see note about her Mom’s cooking. YUM). We eat them and hang out for a while and then I head back home. As I’m going to unlock the door to my house, I hear one of my roommates (Gary) asking my other roommate (Rob) where I am. So I open the door and get the opportunity to meet my new mom aka Gary Hickman. Gary sits me down on the couch and begins to ask me why I am running so late. I say “what?” He then begins to lecture me on staying at a girl’s house that late. I tell him that her Mom even made us Rice Krispies treats at midnight, and that It’s no big deal. That’s when he says, and I quote, “That’s because ain’t nothing good happening between a guy and a girl after midnight.” Wow I just got a lecture from my roommate. SO do I drop it? No I argue like I would with my parents. I say, “But Rob stays at Lynette’s late.” That’s when Gary comes out with a line that followed us through college. “Sure but they’re established.” Ha that was great.

So that’s how the early days of me and Emily started.

First Cut

OK so I'm not a real blogger, but if my wife can do it, I'm going to give it a shot. So welcome to the blog (both people who will actually read this). It promises to be sporadic and possibly short lived, and please excuse the blatant CCR ripoff.

More to come ...