2011 Resolution: Part 4 of 12 – Robie Creek

Posted on May 3, 2011 by twsobey

I had never run a half marathon before Robie. Last summer, Matt convinced me it would be a good idea to run Ragnar with him. I was volunteered to run the second longest set of legs at a total of about 34 miles. The first leg was 14 miles, so I technically ran the distance of a half marathon in a race once before but it wasn’t really the same.

There were four of us who ran Robie “together” and by that I mean we all arrived at the start and left the party at the end at the same time. We didn’t really run it together, but it was fun all the same. This year’s theme (there is always a theme at Robie) was pirates. Mel had the best/only traditionally pirate outfit of our group. Dom had a shirt proclaiming her status as a 14th generation pirate, complete with her great-great-great…grandfather’s pirate flag. Matt decided to take the debate of Pirates vs Ninjas to the race and dressed as a barefooted ninja. Unfortunately for him, they regraded the road with extra gravel since we did our practice run. That slowed him down a bit which was thankful for since it meant I could keep up with him. I decided that maybe they didn’t mean pirates of the high seas but rather pirates of the interwebs so I attached a floppy disk to my shirt and wrote “You wouldn’t steal a car” on it. Not many people got the reference but that made it funnier in my mind.

The race started with some bad Jimmy Buffet covers and a little swash-buckling community theater. After the first half mile, the course takes you past a fire house and all the helpful firemen were out front offering bacon and donuts to anyone running, but with 12.6 miles and a nasty hill still to go, there were few that were interested. As we left town, we climbed through some neighborhoods in the foothills. At about mile 2, there was a slight downhill and since I was wearing shoes, I was able to get ahead of Matt. After that, it was just a quick 11 miles to the finish. The only real drawback about this run was the weather. I was expecting cold and rainy so when it turned out to be warm and sunny, I wasn’t prepared, and I have a nice tan line across my forehead to prove it.

In the end, we all had good runs. I finished in 1:52 and Matt was five minutes behind me. It turns out that despite finishing about 50th in my age group, I still finished in the top 10% of runners overall. That seems to be where I’ve finished every race so far this year. I’ll have to work on getting to the top 5% soon. Considering the winner finished in 1:18 (about the time I crested the hill at mile 9), I still have plenty of room to improve. But the race felt good and there was enough beer at the finish to make up for the last race. I’m already looking forward to next year and figuring out an even more obscure costume idea.

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2011 Resolution: Part 3 of 12 – Les Bois 10k

Posted on April 30, 2011 by twsobey

I’m falling a little behind on these, but the running is still going well. In March, we ran the Les Bois 10k race from Fort Boise up into the foothills and back. It was the largest race so far with over 200 people running. As the weather gets warmer, more runners are participating, but I guess that is to be expected. It was still a little cold that morning and started to rain half way though, but all the runners seemed to be having a good time. On the way out, we kept climbing hills which didn’t feel as good as I had hoped. It had been too wet to run on the trails recently and road running just doesn’t prepare you for hills. For the 3 miles of hill climbing in this race, that wasn’t too big of a problem, but it signaled that we should train on more hill before Robie next month.

The race went well and I kept a good pace throughout. On the downhill section a few high school kids passed me as they tore down the trail with no fear of knee or ankle problems. I remember those days. At the finish, they had the usual array of fruit and breakfast baked goods. I half jokingly asked what was vegan and to my delight, they had vegan muffins (also gluten free muffins, but I was less interested in those). I tried one and went back to tell Dom about them to try to help her finish strong, but she thought I was lying to get her to run faster. As it turned out, the muffins were so good, I didn’t see the beer sitting on the ground under the muffin table. Oh well, I guess not every race this year is going to end with a cheap beer at the finish line.

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2011 Resolutions: Part 2 of 12

Posted on March 16, 2011 by twsobey

Life had been busy recently, but it’s March and I’ve already done three races. The second race of the year was exceptionally informal. It was the Boise Hashers “Men R Pigs” run. Special recognition had to go to the guy who ran all 4.4 mile with the better part of a pound of cooked bacon pinned to his shirt. By the end, it all looked pretty gross. There were about 80 people in the races so it was a very nice size.

We started in a park on the green belt near the foothills so I assumed we do mostly trail running so I wore my Vibrums. Turns out, that was a flawed assumption. The entire race was on roads. Running barefoot on roads is hard on your calves even if the Vibrums protect the bottom of your feet. Hills also makes the calves work harder so this course of all roads and mostly hills killed my calves. I kept telling myself that if I got to the top of the main hill (which never seemed to end), then my calves could rest. I had forgotten that when running barefoot, downhill is just as hard as up and maybe worse.

At the top of the hill, I was in sixth place, but people with padding in their shoes went much faster on the downhill. I kept pushing to keep up with them and managed to finish eighth overall. A respectable finish, I thought. The downside was that it hurt to walk for most of the next week. Oops.

As with all hash events, there was beer at the finish. This was the second race of the year and the second to end with cheap, bad beer. The first race was Michalob Ultra and this one was MGD. We’ll see how well that tradition continues going forward.

My phone battery is almost dead so the third race will have to wait for another time.

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Yeast

Posted on February 10, 2011 by twsobey

There is something wonderful about the simplicity of good bread. None of the ingredients taste good on their own but mixed, the the magic of yeast and baking that makes it delightful. This is not a new insight but rather something that comes to mind every time a fresh loaf comes out of the oven.

I’ve recently got into baking bread. I started with the basic five minute artisan and then did some additional research and experimentation from there. I don’t know how many loaves I’ve made so far, but it’s still such fun.

Tonight we bottled wine while nibbling on the fresh bread. Between the beer, wine and bread that we make at home, I’m impressed with what the yeast can do to seemingly boring ingredients. So, here’s a cheer for yeast.

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Train from Shrewsbury

Posted on January 28, 2011 by twsobey

When we were moving from Cardiff to Ironbridge, we spent a weekend visiting the town. On the train back to Cardiff, the train goes through Shrewsbury. There is a nice wine shop in Shrewsbury that does tastings on Sundays and as we pulled up to the platform, it was obvious that several people wait to get on had been there. As the doors opened, four guys in various states of inebriation boarded the train. They were all laughing about some inside joke and looking over their shoulders. As they took their seats, the doors began to close and someone casually made his way out of the shop and onto the platform. It quickly became obvious that he was part of this group. He spotted his friends dumbfounded that they were on the train and he was not. As we pulled away, one of them got a call from him. Turns out it wasn’t as funny leaving him behind since he was the designated drive and the only one with keys. Oops.

After about 20-30 minutes, we came to their stop and for the first time since they got on, they were quiet. Granted they were still chuckling but clearly trying hard to keep the volume down. Three of them rose to get off the train. The fourth had fallen asleep on the train. As the other three got off, someone woke the remaining man who jumped and raced off the train just before the doors closed. As the train continued on to Cardiff, I started wondering how many people they started the day with. We had only seen them for half an hour – they seemed like they had been going most of the day – and had almost lost two members of their party.

After moving to Ironbridge, we did stop by and visit the wine shop. It’s a nice place right on the high street and if you get the chance, well worth a visit. Ours wasn’t as much fun as their visit. We made it home with all the people who started in our group.

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2011 Resolution: Part 1 of 12

Posted on January 28, 2011 by twsobey

I’ve never really been into New Year’s Resolution. In fact, I can’t remember ever creating one except perhaps for an assignment in elementary school and this year isn’t all that different. Late last year, I realized that I run significantly more (and more regularly) when I have a race I’m preparing for so I thought I should try to register for more races. I started looking at the online race calendars and noticed that most months had at least one interesting or fun sounding race. Maybe I should run a race every month.

I had this idea in late November or early December, but no one asked me about it then so I kept it to myself. Of course everyone has to ask about Resolutions around the first of the year so instead of my regular answer of, “I figure you can change anytime you want and there’s no significance to the New Year, so I didn’t make any,” I decided to tell a few people about running these races. Well, turns out that Dom thought this sounded good and now we’re both doing it.

Attempt 1: I decided the best way to start in on this pseudo-Resolution was with an early race and there was one New Year’s Day. I hadn’t trained for it which sort of defeated the whole point but I had been running and I was going to do it. Checked the web the night before for start time (noon), ate an early breakfast, put on my running shoes and went out in the 8 degree weather for a “fun run.” Unfortunately, when I got there, they were taking everything down. Turns out the site I looked at was wrong and the race started at 10. Oops, not a great start to the running year. Oh well, there was one more race in January.

Attempt 2: The only other race in the area in January was the Freezeout Hill Challenge last weekend. We both got up and drove out to Emmett in the freezing fog that morning, got a little lost, but eventually found the race. It was a small group, only about 100 runners between two distances. We both ran the longer race which was supposed to be 6.5 miles but they said was more like 6.6 or 6.7. The toughest part was the middle which was about 1.5 miles of continuous hill climb followed by another 1.5 miles back down. By then we were all warm, but you wouldn’t have known it by looking at the runners, everyone had moisture from the fog frozen in the tips of their hair which looked pretty cool in the finisher photos.

Anyway, Dom and I both did well. We each took third in our age divisions and I was 11th overall. The best part of the race was the snacks at the finish. They had vegan chili. (And it was intentionally vegan rather than vegetarian that happened to also be vegan). I don’t remember the last race I was at that had vegan snacks at the end other than fruit and on a cold day like that, chili always tastes good.

So the first race of the year is done. It went well and we’re already looking at others. Since then, we registered for the Dirty Dash in August. It’s a 10k mud run and obstacle course. We also talked about running the Napa Valley Ragnar this year as a team of 12. And maybe even the Rock’n’Roll Marathon in Savannah, GA. We’ll see what the rest of the year brings but hopefully there will be more races like the second one to help keep my first “almost Resolution”.

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Directions, who needs ’em?

Posted on January 20, 2011 by twsobey

This weekend we went snowshoeing. It was the same place we went two weeks before when the family was in town for a visit, but this time we decided to make it a little more interesting. I’m not sure if you know this but snowshoe and cross-country ski trails are rated with the same system as downhill skiing. When the family was here, we went on the trails that were rated green and blue (easy to moderate), but when it was just us and the dog, we decided that the trails were too crowded. Of course we didn’t see anyone on the trails while we were out there but we knew other people had been there recently and therefore, they were too crowded. Instead, we decided to explore on our own and let the trails behind.

When we started out, we weren’t too far away from the trail, but were able to get into the deeper snow and just explore. This is the thing I like best about the winter equivalent of hiking, there’s no need to stay on trail. After about twenty minutes, we stumbled back on to the trail and followed it for a while to let the dog catch his breath. We then noticed on the map that we could cut through a short section and get into a new area with a different trail to take us back to the parking lot.

We started off trail by going down a slight dip, then it became less slight. Soon, it was steep enough that the snowshoes could ski down the hill a little. We were realizing that we were well beyond the greens and blues by now. As this section bottomed out and we started to go up the other side of the ravine, I was convinced we would be able to see the other trails from the top. This turned out not to be the case, but we were still confident we knew where we were going so proceeded down the other side.

Turns out that this side of the hill was even steeper. Trying to get a footing in the steep snow, I fell over with almost every step. The quick off-trail route was starting to seem like a bad idea and I wondered if maybe we should have looked at a topo map before attempting it, but how would that have been fun? I was starting to remember a few years back when I was working in Roanoke for a week. My friend Brett decided to drive up from Georgia to meet me. Neither of us had cell phones. I told him I was installing an exhibition in the mall and that was all the direction he had to start his eight hour drive. Someone asked how he planned to find me and he just told them that he knew I was in a mall in Roanoke. To the two of us, it seemed like that was more than enough information, but apparently to some people, that isn’t even a start. Well turns out there are (or were) two malls in Roanoke and he found me at the second one, but he found me all the same.

We eventually made it to the bottom of the hill, found the trail and ended up exactly where we had been aiming. It may have been the second valley rather than the first one we went down, but that just added to the adventure. I should probably stick with the trails a little more or find out more about the terrain before diving into the woods, but that just wouldn’t be as interesting.

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Ice Skating

Posted on January 7, 2011 by twsobey

The move from Florida to Ohio when I was nine brought a lot of changes. New school, new house, new friends and certainly new weather. I had rarely seen snow and never been on a frozen lake. That first winter, the pond down the street from our house froze and the whole family got ice skates. We learned the basics on that pond but also went to some of the hiking trails we walked the previous summer. The lakes near them were frozen as well and we would do similar loop trails on the ice. It was a very fun experience, but I rarely think back to it these days. It came up today as I walked into a co-workers office and noticed people in the distance gliding around. It’s been below freezing in Boise for a few weeks now and although the ponds don’t look it, some have frozen enough to skate on. There were two guys with skates and hockey stick slapping a puck around just outside my office window. It looked like fun. This weekend I might just have to look for a new pair of skates.

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Power of Play

Posted on January 6, 2011 by twsobey


I heard that the Idaho History Museum had an exhibition all about toys from around the world and decided to check it out this First Thursday. They had several interesting examples of toys and a few that you could play with. I was pleased to see that interactive element in the exhibition, but there seemed to be more text panels talking about the toys than actual toys on display.

The one display case that stood out to me was the case with cars. These cars had been built out of whatever material was around at the time. The one in the middle of the picture had an old shoe as a chassis. These cars reminded me of many of the inventions kids came up with while I was running Kids Invent. They were built with the creative problem solving and innovation we are desperate for students these days to learn, but this sort of activity rarely happens in classrooms.

I enjoyed the toys that were on display at IHM and was very pleased to see that they weren’t all in glass cases. I hope that the students who visit this exhibition are inspired to go home, pull out random “junk” and see what kinds of toys they can create.

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