Did you miss me?

Narrator:  "Previously on 'Run Fatbrent Run'..."

Drinking DURING a Marathon

Eating Lots of "Food"

...and a general history of underacheiving.

For my first trick, I ran the Bigfoot Snowshoe Race again.  It's been a cold ass winter, and this year's snowshoe race really had some deep snow.  The trail itself turned into a one shoe wide, single track nightmare of a workout for a good chunk of it, and it felt like doing a sobriety test (one foot in front of the other) in snow for 6 miles.  Here are some of the highlights....

The Back of Me

The Front of Me

The Front of Me (more excited to be finished)

My Wife with Me, My Frozen Beard, & Frozen Ear Flaps

Now We're Both Done...

...And We're Both Excited

Then We Ate Pancakes...

...And took a long walk down the frozen beach

Other Highlights Not Pictured: 

1) Trip to Right Brain Brewery where I queued up "F*** the Pain Away" (Peaches) on the jukebox at Right Brain Brewery while we were the only ones there.  Ten minutes later, when the song plays, two families with young children had walked in.  Also, no photos of me apologetically telling the bartender what was about to happen in hopes that she could somehow stop it from playing, or photos of my friends (but not my wife) laughing.

2) My wife getting food poisoning, and laying in bed for the whole second night we were up there.

3) Seven Monks Taproom, Left Foot Charley's, Brewery Ferment (!), Low Bar (vampires?), Jolly Pumpkin, and Hotel drinking.  With the wife down and out, and me spending every summer up there with my family until I was 22, there's not much I haven't done, but breweries, pubs, etc....I needed made my rounds.  It was a lot more fun than staying in the hotel and watching Eddie Murphy movies or cooking shows.

4) The additional people we brought with us this year (also the ones guilty of staying in and watching Eddie Murphy and America's Top Naked Hibachi Bizarre Cake Nightmares: Most Extreme Elimination Challenge Edition).

5) All that time we spent in the pool and hot tub, especially after 10pm, when no kids were allowed.

Narrator: "Next time on 'Run Fatboy Run'...."

Winterläufe

Ho Ho Ho, I'm Freezing My Dickens Off

First off, belated Merry Christmas and Happy Hanukkah, Yule, Kwanzaa, Solstice, Saturnalia (anyone?), Festivus, Snoggletog (wait...this is from an animated movie), and anything or nothing everyone else celebrated.  I know I could say "Happy Holidays," but that's kind of a cop-out.  I don't believe it is a phrase of true inclusion.  I'd like to think if someone told me Happy Hanukkah, I'd be like "Heck yeah, buddy, light 'em if you got 'em."  By "'em," I mean Menorahs.

Myself, I'm a Christmaser, but if anyone's throwing a party celebrating any holiday (any time of the year), send me an e-vite.

Anyway, back two weekends ago, I did my annual Santa Run.  Unfortunately no Mike this year, but Jason and I did it up well.  They changed the route a bit to include more of downtown and I loved that.  Being that my Spartans were playing Ohio State in the Big Ten Championship Game, I refused to not cover up a bit of that red with some Michigan State green (which, for the record, changes shades all the time).

Here are some photos of that:

Though it didn't double again, the run grew by about another 300 people

Pre-Race Shot

Lining up at the start

Off we go

One of the final looks at Genesee Towers (Flint's tallest building at this time) from Saginaw

Genesee Towers again in the distance

Almost done, and joining back up with the 1 milers

Action Shot

Finish

Sleigh Shot

Run, run, as fast as you can, you can catch me, I'm immobile and made of wood!

I also made a gameday decision to do Run Like the Dickens.  I decided at 4am the morning of, got a few winks, woke back up at 7am, and drove through a mini-snowstorm to get to the race only about 15 minutes before the start.  Plenty of time.

I was a total moron and forgot my snow cleats and wore the Nikes I already hate, but now have completely flat bottom soles.  So I was doing my best impression of Super Mario Bros. 2, World 4, running but not moving all that much.

That dude is excited

5K taking off

Dickens Run is very very dog friendly

10K lining up

Bee People!

I found a Corgi.  His name is Scooter.  I stopped to pet him.

Just enough snow to slip on, not enough to grip on

Downtown Holly

Decked out Christmas House

Welcome to Freezy Beards

All Done

As I came down the finish corral, I heard a voice behind me say, "I'm coming to get you, Tardis!!!"  I did not let him get me.  I was happy about that, and about someone knowing I had a Doctor Who hat on (though I wasn't very pleased with Matt Smith's final episode as the Doctor on Christmas Day).

I spent an hour in a cafe in Holly drinking Chai Latte and warming up with a bowl of Chili.  I was frozen in place you don't even want to know about after that race.  After that I hopped over to see the Detroit Model Railroad Club in Holly.

I got the insider's tour, as I have a former co-worker friend who's a member

After that, the holidays got a little weird.  The ice storm knocked out a lot of people's power.  Ours went out Saturday at 4am.  With no power, I went downtown to watch the Genesee Towers implosion Saturday morning.  It was actually quite a party down there, and I ran into my friend (and neighbor) Ken.

Ken and I with GT in behind.

Here's a link to my implosion video, if you're not offended by some loud girl that says "sh*t" too much and says it once in conjunction with "balls"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oi_d1eblrL0&feature=youtube_gdata_player

Now you see it....

...now you don't.

 We spent the night at my MIL's place, after stopping at my BIL's (power also out) Sunday night, and her power went out.  It added a little frustration when the Lions did their thing and eliminated themselves from playoff contention, but not much, because I expected as much.

Lions Santa, wearing the classic bag-over-head throwback uniform

We tried to run my FIL's generator at our house Monday morning, and we could get everything to fire up, except the furnace.  So, being out of ideas, I just went outside and started taking photos of the beautiful scenery covered in ice.  I wasn't going to let a 45 degree house temperature keep me from realizing there's still beauty in the world to be seen.

After that I took our corgi for a walk

...and when I got back from that.  I heard the sound of a running refrigerator.  Then, I felt warm air coming up through the vents.  We were back!  I couldn't contain my excitement and ran all over the house flipping switches and turning on anything that might throw out heat.  I was going to get all the degrees I could, in case this was a temporary restoration.  However, we stayed on, and with my whole family also being out, and us supposed to host Christmas, this was a much-welcomed break.

Merry Christmas

With everything going on, this was probably the least prepared and most financially modest Christmas we've ever had, but it was also the most thankful I've ever been.  I was just happy to see my family and happy to be warm.  I was also happy that, with heat, we were able to fulfill our duties of dog-sitting our friends' Corgi, who we just had to give back today.  I didn't want to.  She was a sweetie, and she really took to me.  Nobody else give me your dog to watch.  I'm warning you, next time I just may keep it.

So, yeah, a fairly hectic, nomadic Christmas, but we had it a lot better than many people.  We had places to go to keep warm, and were not out as long as many others.  Some people are still out, and many just got back on yesterday.  Our initial estimate was to be out until today, so I'm thankful that we were back 5 days earlier.

I've seen estimates of total outages, state-wide at over 600,000.  That's a lot of people and businesses.  There were crews brought in from all states to help us, and I appreciate everything they've done and continue to do to bring people back.  Hopefully, today, as the ice on the trees melts, another branch won't fall loose from its icy hold and knock us out again.

Happy Thanksgiving!

So, I'm going to start this by saying I sprained the hell out of my ankle.  Was it running?  Well, that depends if running away from your dog in the house, slipping on a rug, and going down in a heap counts as "hurt while running."

Anyway, I still hurt, but screw it, I'm running on it.  You know how I work by now.  Tuesday was my first day back.  It was dicey, but at least it was dry.  However, that was just a test run to see if I wanted to run the Mott Park Turkey Trot in Flint.

News is here :)

There was no way after last year I'd do Detroit.  I just didn't want the hassle.  I also didn't want the hassle of going to the bank, so I partially paid my $10 entry fee in change.

When I got there (only about 10 minutes before the 9am start), I was in shock.  There were a lot of people there.  Last time I did this race, there were maybe 100 or so.  This year there was over 450, and they completely ran out of shirts, except for 2X, which I gladly accepted, because I'm too lazy to pick up an XL from Bauman's next week.  Oh wait, I have to pick up my Santa suit for Santa Run anyway...dammit!

Before

I saw one of my old classmate's parents.  They're always running together still, and they're in their 60s.  I think that's awesome.  They're still pretty fast too, and tend to win their age groups, which is more than I can say.  

Running Path

My wife and my first apartment together was in that brick one back there.

We were a little delayed by the kids' races (1 and 2 mile) and, of course, all the extra people that showed up, but we still got rolling only a half hour late.  Being worried about the ankle on frozen ground (off-roading on an old golf course) I ran my first mile very cautiously and came in over 10 minutes.  However, I made up a little ground on 2 to come in at 19:30 and finished at 28:30.  

After Photo

Since I was actually thinking I'd be lucky to even do the Santa Run when I hurt myself, I'm putting this one in the win column.  Also in the win column, getting a t-shirt and a medal for $10, not having to drive to Detroit, and being able to cross a finish line unimpeded.

Shirt and Medal

Honestly, if this race is this solid every year, I'm going to just keep doing it, because, in the words of Stefon....

"...this race has everything:" dogs in sweaters, a crazy wolverine fan man with a block M painted on his sweatshirt, people in turkey hats, people in bad Christmas sweaters, cheering 4-year-olds, registration in an abandoned golf clubhouse, free pie for winners, & an old man that's barking instruction loud enough for everyone without a megaphone

Afterwards, I had to rush home and start letting people into the house, because Thanksgiving (also my 34th birthday) was at our house this year.  Thanksgiving was as good as it could be, and we made our first turkey ever.  I hope yours was wonderful.

Tailgate Challenge

After the Detroit Marathon, I took some a little vacation.  The vacation was mostly from my diet.  I cut myself loose for about two weeks, and today's my first day starting to wrangle things back into control.  Surprisingly, I didn't take any time off from running.  That I was back at Tuesday, just two days after the 26.2.

Now when I say I cut myself loose, I don't mean any cute "oopsie, I had a carb" business.  I've pretty much been subsisting on corn dogs, buttermilk waffles, pizza rolls, every high calorie coffee-adjacent concoction from Tim Hortons, and any form of cherry cola I can get my hands on.  Anyway, I needed the break, and I deserve it.  However, I don't expect to continue this the entire winter like last year.

Saturday, I ran my first race since Detroit.  The Tailgate Challenge is not the biggest, best, or most organized race ever, but it's fun running around with the other racers decked out in their Michigan or Michigan State gear.  As a Spartan (Michigan State), with this race literally running through one of the University of Michigan's satellite campuses (which, in addition to MSU, is also my Alma Mater), you can expect to be completely outnumbered by Michigan Wolverines.

Like last year, they've abandoned the fanbases running against each other, clock-wise and counter clock-wise.  I wish they'd bring it back, but when you do see the rival colors ahead of you, it does make you want to catch and pass them more.  However, there wasn't a lot of that going on for me.

Not to sound like a total wuss, but 5Ks are harder than I remember.  Sure, I've ran that distance, lately, but not actually going for speed, and certainly not in the race environment, where you push just a bit more.  As far as that goes, my last 5K was in July.  I think I was about a 1/2 mile in when I started to get tired.

In the two loops of the 5K, by the end of loop one I was starting to feel pretty tired, and could feel the lactic acid starting to build up.  It felt like I was running in slow motion, and if I had to guess my time during the race, I would have guessed somewhere in the 30-32 minute range.  I couldn't close the gap and catch J, and I was shocked when the time was still well within the 20s when I finished.

I put up a conveniently rounded 27:30.  That felt good.

After, we tried to find an open bar, not realizing it was only like 10am.  Then we tried to find an open coffee shop, trying Brown Sugar and then Good Beans.  That didn't go well either.  J gave up and we decided to meet back at my house for a few beers and to watch some Premier League.  I worked my way over to Flint Crepe Company for a Butter Pecan Latte (again with the coffee calorie count), and met him back home for some Founder's Harvest Ale and some Bavarian Inn Dark (for the record, both are fantastic).

Oh, and, most importantly, Michigan State crushed Michigan so hard their team looked ready to break down and cry.