Double-Crim and Title Defense

I know it's been a while.  I've been missing on canoe trip and many other things.  Long story short, rivers are really low, but we only were tipped by the 1000s of obstacles once, which made my wife and I very happy.  I lost my sunglasses for the 3rd year in a row.  High five for consistency.  Plenty of the homebrewed Oktoberfest was consumed, we got a bottle of the Sam Adams Infinium (which, though a commercial disaster, was pretty decent to me...though overpriced, no doubt), and there were numerous Oberon and Yuengling bottles lying around.  For the river trip (given glass is disallowed) we had Sierra Nevadas, Blue Moons, and Magic Hat #9.  Finding MH9 and Sierra in cans made me very happy.  Blue Moon, well, that was for my lady.  Lots of eating of brats, and much sadness for the loss of Ma's Girls Cafe, which is now closed somehow, even though the breakfast was awesome.  Not as awesome a trip with less people, lower water, and new owners at the campground, but we managed.  It might be time to change things up next year, though.

After the canoeing, we did our usual Tawas stop to see our favorite hippo.  Ignore my Hawaiian shirt and horrible Metallica Load shirt, I purposely dress awful for vacation.  It's my thing.  The townies make fun of the fudgey tourists so much that I feel the need to be an in-your-face stereotype of it.  The man to my right in this photo, who is from the North ensures me I'm doing a good job of that.  I can hear you thinking, "Yes, but you still bought that hideous Load shirt in the late 90s."  Stop it.

Wednesday J and I ran the 10 mile Crim route, back-to-back (and some change).

Start

After Crim #1

After Crim #2

If 20+ miles weren't enough Wednesday, I chased it down with an 8K race earlier today (yesterday now, since it's 2am).  I had an age group title defense @ the Ophelia Bonner (don't say it too fast or it sounds dirty).  I was a little tired from the long run, so I was a whole 12 seconds slower than my 8k PR last year.  Cut me a break though, because I did defend my turf....against the only other 30-34 guy that bothered to show up and run the 8K.  Had he ran the 5K (or either of us, for that matter) it would have been an automatic 1st.  Where is everyone?  This race has everything (best Stefon voice)...trophies, pissy people from my neighborhood mad about traffic keeping them an extra 10 minutes when they're trying to get home, student volunteers from Flint Northern that cheer you on with really good enthusiasm, watermelon and bunches of grapes afterward, stinking up and sweating all over U of M property, and human parking cones.  I guess I can keep winning this thing the next 2 years if you guys don't want to show up.  All I'm saying is, that you just have to beat a chubby guy running a little over 9min miles to get the 1st in 30-34....

They even match

Anyway, just thought I'd stay up way too late and update.  I haven't even put mileage into daily mile either, so I don't want some sort of worry about my running and/or living status while I'm ignoring the existence of the internet for the next 7-10 days.  Chances are you won't hear from me again until I finish the 2012 sequel of Warrior Dash, and I'll probably even have a race somewhere "Up North," before then.

Toodley Doodley