What if...

Often, when K and I are driving places, I start asking what if questions. For example, what if you were stranded on a desert island and only one food grew on that island. What would you want that food to be? Or, what if you had to choose between Sadie and Lily, who would you choose? Or, If you were exiled from the U.S. and had to move to another country, where would it be? I think you get the drift.

Today, while running errands, I think I came up with the toughest question I have ever asked(yes, even tougher than choosing between Elvis or the Beatles).
The question is: if you could put together the greatest rock band ever, who would be in it?

You must choose,
1. A lead singer
2. A guitar player
3. A bass player
4. A drummer
5. if you want, you can also choose a keyboard player.

BUT, you can only choose one member from an existing band. For example, I could not choose Eddie Van Halen and Alex Van Halen because they are in the same band. However, you can choose a former member of a band if that person is no longer with the band. For example, I could choose Eddie Van Halen and Sammy Hagar because Sammy is currently not in the band. But I could not choose David Lee Roth and Eddie because Roth is now touring with Van Halen.
Hopefully the rules are not to confusing.

Currently, my lineup is as follows

1. Drummer- Alex van Halen (Van Halen),
2. Bass- John Paul Jones (Led Zepplin) or Living I would choose Sting
3. Guitar- Jimi Hendrix, Living I would choose Eric Clapton(since I can't pick Eddie)
4. Lead Singer- Mick Jagger(The Rolling Stones)
5. Keyboards- Billy Preston( the 5th Beatle) or living I would choose Art Neville

Who Would you choose?

Take Two!

Sunday morning, 5:30 AM. We woke up, got dressed, loaded the cooler, and hit the road. It took right around an hour to get to Norco. We were happy to see other cars pulling into a parking area at the spillway. As it turns out, there were around 1500 runners in the race this year. The course was just over 3 miles. The first mile and a half was on top of the levee. Even at 8 AM it was hot and the Sun was brutal. Naturally, it was humid as hell. I wanted to start a little slow and pick up speed at the end. looking back, this was not the race to do that. When the race turned off the levee and down into the woods the trail quickly narrowed to about 2-3 feet wide. That made it very hard, if not impossible, to pass people. We were basically running single file through the woods. I kept thinking of the Creedence Clearwater Revival song "Run Through the Jungle". Well, to make a long story short, I won the race. As you can see from the picture, I smoked the competition. I'm just kidding. The winner finished the race in about 15 minutes and some change. I finished about 20 minutes behind him.
It was a lot of fun running through the woods. I figured I would get pretty muddy, but it's been pretty dry this week. There was only one big mud hole, I went around it. I heard several people saying that it's a lot more fun when it's sloppy. I suppose I will run it again next year, hopefully in the mud.
A few side notes. first of all, Voodoo BBQ was giving away pork sandwiches afterwards. That was a huge letdown. There was no sauce to add to the meat and it really needed it. Also, there was no water being handed out after the race, or at least I couldn't find it. Luckily, there were Pepsi products. I prefer Pepsi so that was good. But, they were pouring it from 2 liters into little paper cups. It had no fizz, not cool.
All in all it was a good morning. K and I got free Phidipidees t-shirts(I am a shameless build board, give me a shirt with your name and I'll wear it). But, Sunday I was supposed to do a 7 mile long run as part of my training for the 10 mile race in Oct. So I ran 2 more miles when I got home. Then, a quick shower and back to bed. Well, I hoped you enjoyed my story. Have a great day.

Pre-race warmup!

Those of you who ready this blog frequently may remember that I was going to run the "spillway classic" trail run today. Would you like to hear how it went? Well, it went as follows.
Last night, Friday night, I was excited about about the race so I laid out what I was going to wear. Knowing that I would probably get muddy I packed a bag of extra clothes and a towel. Everything was set so that we could get up at 5:30 and special-K and I could be out the door at 6:00 AM. We went to sleep a little later than planned but I actually slept until 5 minutes before the clock went off. I was "woked up" by Sadie's leg kicking me in the bladder. I think she was having some sort of dream of chasing a cat or squirrel(the other white meat). At any rate, her leg was a' twitchin'. Naturally I got up before the alarm. after taking care of something I laid back in bed for 2 minutes till the alarm went off.
I had no problem getting up. I brushed the old tooth, sort of brushed some of my hairs, deodorized myself and headed to the extra bed room where I had my clothes laid out. While I was getting dressed, K was doing the same plus making herself some coffee. She got ready and with coffee in hand headed for the computer to check any e-mails that may have rolled in since we last checked. I loaded up a cooler with Gatorade and some granola type bars and we were about ready to go. I went into the computer room to say that it was time to go and to get the brochure for the race which included the directions. I looked at the cover, then at my digital watch. I noticed that the race was for 8 AM, we had 2 hours to get there. That would be plenty of time. Then I noticed that the race was on July 20th. Today is the 19th. The friggin' race is tomorrow.
Needless to say I have felt like an idiot all day.
K tried to go back to sleep but since she had already put the java into her system it took a while. I figured that since I was already dressed and very aggravated I may as well go for a run. I did 3.5 miles at a decent pace. I got back home and showered, laid on the bed and we finally fell back asleep. We probably napped from 7:15-9:00Am. Then we woke up and had a great breakfast of eggs, bacon, and biscuits which powered us on a hot garage sale binge. Sad news, no good deals. But, we did get a great deal on some metal star string lights at Big Lots. Before the 4th of July they were $9.00, today they were$.90. That's right, 90% off. we bought 3 boxes.
Looking back I guess this hasn't been the worst day ever. Seriously, 90% off. That's Awesome and you know it!
I'll let you know tomorrow or Monday how the race turns out.

The Woofer & Lil' Bit Show

I'll let this masterpiece speak for itself, enjoy!

It hurts, it hurts!

Right now I am not sure why I run. I was supposed to do a 7 mile run today. I got up a little after 7 and slowly got dressed. At about 7:45 I headed out the door. I haven't run anything close to 7 miles since I ran 6 miles at the crescent city classic way back in April. Since then my longest run has only been about 3 miles, and that was a month ago. But, since I started a new training program and it said that I am supposed to run 7 miles, i was gonna run 7 miles. My plan was to run(slowly) the first 3.5 and then do a combination of running and walking the second 3.5. I mapped out a 3.5 mile loop last night.

So I started running and the first 3.5 I felt pretty good. I thought to myself, "this isn't bad at all". Then came the second half. When I started the second half I was a little tired. But, I kept running(slowly). Then I thought to myself that I still had a long way to go so to prevent hurting myself I should do the smart thing and take a walk break. The one thing I definitely don't need to do right now is hurt myself. So, I walked a little and ran a little. But, every time I walked, it got harder to start running. Luckily I have pretty good will power. Nonetheless, It was hard to run after walking. Looking back, I think it was the right thing to do. I may have been able to run all 7 miles but if for some reason I would have not been able to do it, then it probably would have lessened my confidence.

I made it the whole 7, actually 7.2 miles. I am proud of my self not only for doing it but also being smart enough to not kill myself by running the whole thing. Wow! I actually used my brain, good for me.

Now that might seem like a feel good story to you, but I ain't done yet. When I got back to the house I was pretty tired, my legs and feet were very tired. The lady next store was outside cutting her grass. My grass wasn't terribly high but I was planning on cutting it in the next couple days. K-love was inside cleaning the house, mostly the messes that lie in my wake, so I figured that I might as well at least cut the front yard since I was already sweaty. I did cut the grass. I started around 10 am and finished around noon, not exactly the coolest part of the day. Now my legs are killing me, my feet absolutely hate my guts, and my whole body in general just isn't pleased with me. On the other hand, the yard looks nice, but the back will have to wait till tomorrow. That makes me think that my yard is like a mullet, short and neat in the front, long in the back, or as they say,"business in the front, party in the rear".

I don't know why I tell these stories but I hope someone, somewhere gets a chuckle.
I am supposed to do another 7 mile run next Sunday but I am going to run in the spillway classic trail run on Saturday. That's 3 miles so I'll probably just do 4 miles on Sunday, maybe 5 if I feel like a bad-ass, and I never feel like a bad-ass.

Oh yeah, I found out that there is a group that runs 3 miles every Tuesday night. That meet at Happy's Irish pub in Baton Rouge. There run starts and ends at Happy's to be followed by 2-for1 pints till 10pm. Sounds like my kind of crowd, except for the beer thing. Maybe they have an excellent Irish root beer on tap. I'll let you know.

The Mouse and the House

Wow, I'm actually sitting still long enough to update the blog. It has been a busy month for us and with school starting in a month I think I better do some hardcore relaxing. OK, I wont really be relaxing this month but I will definitely be slowing down.

Here's what has been going on.May 31st was my last day at Down the Bayou High School, it was also the day that we dropped Sadie off at puppy prison for a 10 day stint. I tried to think of it as a doggy hotel but face it, she was locked up in a little cage all day, that's a prison. But,we couldn't bring her to Disney world with us so it had to be done. That's right, we went to Disney World. We drove from the bayou to the north shore, Dropped off the head(Sadie that is) through our stuff in the Camry, waited 2 hours for the old man to get home from work, then headed east stopping to sleep somewhere around Tallahassee. Woke up the next morning and had a wonderful breakfast at the local "Po' Folks". Now that's my kinda place. We proceeded to Orlando, Where moms rented a house in a nice little resort community. Luckily it was a big house because there was a total of 14 of us staying there. We visited Disney's Magic Kingdom, Epcot, Animal Kingdom, Hollywood Studios(formerly mgm studios) and Universal studios. It was quite hot but quite fun. It was great having Bix roll with us for a couple days. We swam at the house and I even went running a couple days around the neighborhood. But, With all the walking we were doing the running was just a drop in the exercise bucket. I think I lost about 5 pounds on the trip. I have reclaimed my lost poundages since returning. There were lots of fun moments but the singular moment that stands out in my head is definitely Bix singing Ring of Fire at Karaoke. I'll never hear that song the same way, it was awesome.

When we got back we got back to Sportsman's Paradise we stayed an extra day on the North shore, The guy who lives across the street from the parents works in The Big Easy and rescued a puppy he found wandering the streets. But since he already has two full grown German Shepherds and a baby on the way, his wife said he couldn't keep it. K-love fell in love with it and now our family has grown to be a quartet.

The reason we stayed the extra day was that we had to cruise up to Capital city to close on a house. After signing my name 600,000 times they handed over the keys. We proceed to our new house and I made sure the plumbing was up to standard(if'n yo know whats I's sayin').

We then went back to the bayou, Packed and loaded the truck, and relocated, with the help of Keithy, Jules, Butch(my Dad), and DJ Woofer(my brother), to Capital City.Since arriving we have built a fence which was more difficult than originally planned because the ground here is like concrete. We painted the kitchen, dining room, and living room. We got a new bed(yippee). And other little odds and ends. We have more that we plan to do but were gonna take a little break for now, at least until next payday. Mad props to Tom and Jeri, The Indianians, and K-Renee on the fence job.

I also found a job. I was offered a civics position at Dutchtown High School. I am excited about being a Griffin. First I have to figure out exactly what a griffin is. I have attended some meetings and am about to start planning for the upcoming year.

I haven't run in about a month. So, 2 days ago I started training again. The 2 runs that I have gone on have felt pretty good. Although I am not nearly where I want to be in my fitness I feel like I will be progressing pretty rapidly. Starting to day I am on a 14 week training plan to prepare for a local 10 mile race in October. After that I will start a 16 week training program for the Mardi Gras Marathon on Feb. 1st. Well, I guess that brings you up to speed on us and since I'm not used to sitting in one place long enough to write something this long my bum is starting to hurt. I guess that means this post is over.


But don't worry, I've got plenty more to tell you about over the next couple of days.