Pining for the Fjords

Did you read Part 1?  Here it is! When last I blogged, my buddy Tara and I had just finished the fantastic Sandia Crest Half Marathon, and we'd met up with our support crew (Chris, Ryan, Jan, and Dale) at a local Albuquerque institution to replenish all those calories we'd burned. So many green chiles! After breakfast, it was back to the house to shower and change, and then the four of us (Chris, myself, Ryan, and Tara) headed out in Ryan's fancy new truck to sample some of the city's finest microbrews.  We started at the west side tap house of one of ABQ's best known breweries, Marble Brewing. Filling out our flight cards. We also grabbed a pizza from the food truck you can see above, and it was great! Hooray for buddies and beer! Glamour shot! Another beer glamour shot! I don't know what other people use the "Profile" setting on their iPhones for, but this is pretty much it for me. Marble was gre...

The Burque! Thanks, New Mexico Department of Tourism's website, for the great picture! As all of my loyal blog readers know by now, I love to run.  Actually, scratch that.  I LIKE to run (an awful lot), but I LOVE to eat.  In order to stay a reasonable size, I balance all of the aforementioned food and drink with lots of running, and the easiest way for me to stay motivated and lace up my shoes is to sign up for a race.  When I heard that my buddy Tara won the lottery (the lottery to sign up for the race, don't get too excited) and would be running the full New York Marathon in early November, I figured she'd need to run a half marathon as part of her training plan somewhere in mid-September, and I asked if she'd let me tag along. Said buddy Tara and I, getting ready to run Thankfully, she agreed, and we started looking at options.  Since Phoenix is still as hot as the 7th circle of Hell in mid-September, we looked elsewhere, and we found som...