W.W.R.H.D.

This year for Christmas/ birthday Sydney gifted me a whiskey advent calendar. 24 night’s of whiskeys from a little online store called givethembeer.com

I did a little Instagram series reviewing each one. There was a lot of interest. I had a good time.

Here is a list of the whiskeys in the order I sampled them. Except for a couple I threw away. I also tasted each one on a scale of 1-10. 1 being yuck! 10 being oh, hell yes! Enjoy!

Mystic Trinity:7.                           2nd Amendment:5

First Responder:4

Whistling piggyback bourbon:7

New Riff:7

Bulleit rye:8

Wilderness Trail:6

Pendleton:6

Crown Royal blackberry: 1

Four Roses:8

Abasolo:9

Fraser & Thompson:6

Clyde May’s recipe #2:8

McConnell irish:6

Gentleman Jack:8

10th mountain:4

Skrewball peanut butter:8

Ole Smoky salty caramel:9

Keeper’s Heart:7

Johnny Walker black label:8

So there they are. Most of them. Also, i can’t remember exactly what i rated each whiskey in the moment. What i put down here is close, I’m sure. It was a fun gift. I recommend it if there is a whiskey enthusiast in your circle.

I turned 50 this year. Is fine. I love it. Last year I had a minor breakdown. A midlife funk? An existential crisis? I was down, is all. I felt like I hadn’t done anything important with my life. It was bad. I felt bad.

This year was different! For no particular reason! Although, a lot of good had happened this year. I proposed to Sydney. She said yes! I finished a big challenge and ran farther (further?) than I ever had before. It’s been a fun, fun year.

Celebrating was barely on my mind. I thought, far too late as usual, that I should do something. It’s 50 years after all. A big landmark age. True middle age. We should throw a big party! Sydney asked if I was going to do a big run. I had not thought of that. I’ve heard people do it, but I’ve never been one of those. It seems so…far! But after much hemming and hawing I decided yes. Yes I will! Run 50 for my 50th. 50 kilometers. Because 50 miles would take all dang day and I don’t like that.

We made an event through our hype group and invited all our friends. There was a good turnout with a few people doing multiple 6 mile loops.

I feel very lucky to be in such good shape at 50 years old. To have so many friends is a true blessing (not religious) and for those friends to be so enthusiastic about running this ridiculous route around the neighborhood is amazing.

I finished the final loop after about 7 hours. The final mileage was a little long at 33 and change. That has to be good luck, right?

The whole celebration was fantastic. I hope we do more things like this.

Happy holidays and seasons greetings!

100 miles is a lot. It’s far, it’s intimidating, it’s difficult.

The Bad Dawg Ultra is an easy 5 miles out, 5 miles back, with aid stations at both ends and in the middle. The course begins and ends with a big hill. The elevation profile makes it look downhill out and uphill back. That description is technically accurate, but not complete. How can I describe it? The uphill parts get steeper and longer as the day goes on.

The weather was brutal. The “feels-like” was well over 100⁰ Fahrenheit all day. They say it was record breaking. I don’t know. Maybe? Running in that heat and humidity certainly wasn’t comfortable.

For most of the race I was handling myself well. I never lost my appetite. I was drinking fluids. I felt good. I was having fun talking to the other runners and volunteers.

I sat and relaxed at the aid stations, trying to stay cool-ish. There was really no relief from the brutal heat. There was a slight breeze sometimes, which was nice. I kept telling myself: when the sun goes down, then it will cool off. Just keep it together until night.

Night came, the sun went down, and whatever drop there might have been in temperature was cancelled by a dramatic increase in humidity and a complete lack of any kind of wind.

It was a dark and steamy night…

So I quit. I got back to the start/finish and begged Sydney to not send me back out there.

She took me to a nap area and had a medic look me over. The professional advice was that i was suffering from heat exhaustion. After a nap, we got in the car and got out of there. We decided we can pick up our gear in the morning.

In the end, out of 30 starters only 5 finished the 100 mile race. Good for them, they are much tougher than i am. I eventually recovered.

This was very humbling. I still have a lot of work to do if I’m going to finish the 2 big races in October.

A happy by-product of big training for the events this fall is improved performance all around.

I can’t say my performance would have been better if I used a distance-specific training plan. I’ve never been that technical. I’m a volume guy. I feel like running a bunch of miles is the best way to train. I’ve been running a lot. Not as much as I would like, but a lot. And I’ve been getting nice results.

The corporate challenge 10k was spectacular. I would have preferred to do the half marathon, honestly. I didn’t get to choose. I’m okay with it. The teammates that ran the half ran so fast! Everyone on the team did well. I feel honored to be included. I did my best. Literally the best 10k result so far. I beat my previous best by 2 minutes. I was disappointed at first. I thought I could win the whole thing. The competition was so tough! The course was so tough! I gave it everything I had and finished in 26th place. Very respectable finish.

Still riding the high of the great 10k finish, Sydney and I ran the whiskey run 5k. I was torn between racing and running with Sydney. We decided to run to the start. That way we could both enjoy some of the whiskey samples. Or friends from the hash house harriers showed up. That was a nice surprise. I decided if should race and give it everything I had. Competition was fierce, but a lot of the real speedy people were at a different race. I started too fast, as usual. I held on to the too-fast pace for the first mile, but I needed to stop there on account of a family of geese crossing the street. I was still near the front. There was a young guy who had first place locked up. I still had a shot at a top spot. I ran out of gas at the water stop. Luckily, I had enough time to catch my breath and attack the downhill. My record for a 5k is too fast to beat, but I did get a 20-minute finish. That was good for 7th place, and first in my age group.

Some more races are coming up, and I’m still training very hard. I’m excited to see what happens!

Training update and recap

The running mileage for this week was a solid 35. Not massive. But consistent. For most of April, the weekly average is around 45. Really good beginning average mileage. There have been a couple of shorter races leading up to an ultra this weekend. Nutrition hasn’t been great. I’ve been eating junk food and drinking booze again. Not a lot, but after 75 days of abstinence it has an effect. Mentally and emotionally I’m feeling good. I’ve been very distracted with selling my house and applying for different jobs and different positions at my current job. All of that is about over. Whatever happens next, training is the main focus through May.