Pining for the Fjords

Need to catch up?  Here's Part 1 . When last I blogged, I'd traveled across the country to the greater DC metro area to see Toni, Robert, and Juliet.  We'd just arrived home after seeing a great show - Brain Candy Live! - and we were tucked up all snug in our respective beds. Friday, March 10th It took me awhile to fall asleep the previous evening (thinking about Harley coupled with my issue of not sleeping well the first night in a different place), so I slept in a bit on Friday morning, finally rousing myself only when I started smelling something delicious baking downstairs.  As I've probably mentioned before, Toni's an ace baker, so I knew something good was occurring in the kitchen beneath me, and I was right on point - a yummy cinnamon coffee cake!  Score!  I joined my hosts downstairs to chill on the couch for awhile as we planned our day. We'd been hoping to get tickets to see the new African-American Smithsonian Museum (I'm a sucker for prett...

As you might have seen on Facebook lately, I recently took a trip to the cold and blustery northeast to visit with my best friend from college, Toni, as well as her hubby Robert and their daughter/our goddaughter Juliet.  A great time was had by all!  Below, the first part of the details... Thursday, March 9th Chris was approved to work from home on Thursday so he could drive me to LAX first thing in the morning to drop me for my flight.  Since LAX is hit or miss when it comes to crowds, I erred on the earlier side; when he dropped me off two hours before my flight, I noticed that the first stretch of my travel, LAX to St. Louis, was delayed by about 15 minutes.  While this wasn't the biggest deal to me, apparently, that made my STL connection a bit too tight for Southwest standards, so the agent at the desk worked to change my flight to one that I had a better chance of making.  The new flight connected through Chicago Midway with over an hour, so I accepte...

In addition to the Nathan running vest I blogged about last week , I've also been trying out another new piece of gear: the JWalking Designs Running Kilt.  I've never been hugely concerned about the way my running gear looks, vastly preferring function over form; I picked up five pairs of Reebok running shorts (in sky blue) at an outlet around 12 years ago for $6 a pair, and I'm still using them (what?  They have three pockets each - two of which zip - and I'm never giving them up.  Ever).  My running shirt collection consists of tech shirts from previous races, with the notable exception of one Columbia shirt Mom bought me at an outlet a few years back, and my socks have all seen better days.  While I certainly don't begrudge anyone who really cares what their gear looks like, that's not my focus, and since I'm super hard on my running clothes, it doesn't make sense for me to shell out oodles of money for something I'll need to replace sooner rather...

Over my years of running, I've tried different hydration solutions, starting with very basic ones; at the beginning of my running career, I would just put a water bottle on my route and make loops around the same area.  While this works to a certain degree, doing four mile loops for a 20 mile run gets old really quick (and of course, you have to refill the water bottle somehow), so I started looking for a better solution to the hydration issue.  For awhile, I tried running with a Camelbak hiking pack with built-in hydration, but since it wasn't designed for all of the bouncing that comes with running, it wasn't comfortable. I then moved to this - the Nathan Intensity Race Vest, and it worked great for years: Behold the glory It worked great - Nathan makes some solid products - but over the years, due to its heavy use (and my need to wash it in the washing machine - that thing SMELLED after a long run), it gave up the ghost and the mesh around the shoulders ...