Miscellanies Debris

With the last three posts, I felt like I was kind of on a roll. I had taken a break from school, and we had some fun things to talk about. August 1^st came and I started school, Hannah started a new job, and my job became really busy. The last thing I wanted to do was come home, get on the computer and BLOG…..but I want to keep in the habit, so I’m going to post some random items – hence the BLOG title.

Food

One of the things that Hannah and I decided we could do to improve our fitness level is to eat better. We eat alright, but we could do a lot better. We decided that we would plan out our meals and only buy food items related to those meals. We’re still not perfect, but we’ve gotten a lot better. I found a couple of food BLOGS that are pretty good and have been getting some ideas from them - like grilling vegetables. One of my favorite dinners is fish tacos with mango salsa. I took a picture of it, but it’s difficult to make food look good in a digital format so I decided to skip it. Here is the recipe:

Fajita size tortillas (we use the whole wheat kind)

White fish (halibut is best, but tilapia is much much cheaper and still tastes ok)

Mango salsa:

- 1 Mango cubed

- 1 Avocado cubed

- Juice from 1 lime

- ¼ c finely chopped cilantro

- Salt to taste

It’s best if the salsa sits for at least an hour, but it’s good any time.

Training

As I look back on last years training schedule, I learned a few things. First I think trained a bit too much – rather I trained in the wrong way. The over all volume was good, but I would stack difficult workouts back to back and sometimes three and four in a row. My body never had adequate time to recover. Next year I will plan things out better. I’m think of joining a virtual training site that will out line the types of workouts I do and when.

Second, I need to do more brick workouts. A brick is doing two specialties back to back. For example: bike / run, swim / bike, lift / run. Stacking workouts really helps to train you for the fatigue of a race. Hannah and I did one on last Saturday. We swam and then biked home from the pool. We took it easy, but it was really fun.

Memories

I like to listen to music when I work out, and don’t want to listen to the albums time after time, so I’ve been listening to some mixes. My friend Jon is a huge music buff and has made me two fantastic mixes, and I recently made one I’m enjoying. I like it because each song invokes some sort of memory. Some of the memories are very specific and others are references to a block time in my life. Below I’ll list the songs and the associated memories. *Note – it is somewhat embarrassing for me to admit that I like a few of these songs….but I do…..there I said it, I’m out of the closet. **Note – keep in mind that these are song that I run to, and I need to run to up beat music.

1. 99 Luftballons (Nena) - This was the fist music video I ever saw and Tim showed it to me.

2. Come on Feel the Noise (Quiet Riot) – Playing video games at Bullwinkle’s pizza

3. Rock you like a Hurricane (Scorpions) – watching John Unzicker and Cory McPherson play guitar with their way cool mullets

4. Round and Round (Ratt) – Dustin Jacobson turned me on to this song after his trip to Seattle

5. Owner of a Lonely Hart (Yes) – going over to the Eakins house. Mark played this song for me on his brother Bob’s record player

6. A New Level (Pantera) – coming down from snowboarding in Derrick Jensen’s van with this album blasting the entire way. We waited 15 minutes to make a left across traffic, and everyone was getting really upset because some of us had to work that night. We finally had an opening, and Derrick popped the clutch and stalled the car. He was so mad he let out a string of profanities and punched the windshield…it shattered….Derrick was REALLY upset then. Brad leaned over to me and whispered “whoah, Derrick is pissed……but that was SO funny.”

7. Hunting Humans (Misfits) – no specific memory to this one, but anyone that can sing those lyrics in the voice of a crooner gets extra points in my book.

8. Mannequin (Firehose….not FireHOUSE) – Brad Hartman…..how does he find these cool bands? Brad was always ahead of the curve on that kind of stuff.

9. State of Love and Trust (Pearl Jam) – again no specific memories, just a time period in my life.

10. London Dungeon (Misfits) – This is one of my top 3 favorite snowboarding albums. I never get tired of it. I probably listened to it every time I went to Brighton in 93.

11. C’mon C’mon (The Von Bondies) – This is a recent memory. Jon told me about these guys, and I remember being surprised at how much I liked them.

12. Corduroy (Pearl Jam) – Hanging out with John Unzicker in the middle of winter at his and Noah’s cabin in Juneau.

There are more songs on the mix, but I’m usually done running at 12.

Here is a random photo of our trip to the dinosaur exhibit at the natural history museum.

And now your moment of ZEN….

Since I was waxing nostalgic I decided to post my favorite Alaska Airlines commercial.