GrumpysMonkey

We all have numerous people in our lives. Friends, family, acquaintances… Since we started on Twitter for Cook Local, John and I have had the opportunity to greatly expand the number of people in our lives.

Some of these people are friends. Some are not. Oh don’t get me wrong, none are enemies, but some of them we’ve connected with and others are merely people we communicate with on a regular basis about food.

Some of these people are ones that we’ve just connected to strongly on an almost immediate time scale. We were with one of those such folks last night. She’s gone to live in Washington, D.C. now (for work) and we were with her last night for her going away party. I can’t really explain the connection. It wasn’t anything in particular, but some people you just know are “good people”. Good on every level. They’ll do anything for you, even when they only know you a little. They bring light into your life.

She is one of those people. Luckily her job brings her back to Seattle regularly. I hope we’ll be able to keep in touch now that her home base is 3000 miles away.

Well, sort of.

Unless you’ve just met us recently, you probably know that we are runners. We ran a marathon back in June and loved it. Well, all except the pain part. Running 26 miles hurts. But we’ve heard rumors that there’s a way to run without pain. That in fact, it was a way that humans have been running for generations and generations. This way is barefoot.

Well, not entirely barefoot.  Minimally clad is more of an accurate term. We just finished the book Born to Run. This book tells the story of a tribe of super-runners in Mexico who can run exceedingly long distances with no major knee, foot, leg, or back problems. They run their entire lives.

Here’s just a small piece of the theory behind how these super-runners run.

The foot is designed to absorb impact. It is why it is padded in the ball of the foot. But most runners run striking on their heels. The heel has very little padding comparatively. Plus, when you land on your heels, you are hyper-extending your knee and  unbalancing your body.

In addition, when you land on your mid-foot, as you land, your foot figures out how to balance itself and also figures out whether or not your footfall is stable. This can help prevent injuries.

John follows people on Twitter who run this way and he’s been interested in it for a while. After reading the book, I couldn’t wait to try this. You see, I’ve had a variety of injury issues. None overly serious, but ones that have limited my running progress.

While searching for people in this area who teach this style of running, we found out that Barefoot Ted, who is featured heavily in the book, actually teaches in Seattle. So last weekend, we had an intro session with him.

VFF Shoes

Wow. This is a very different type of running. You use muscles that you have never used running before. I was very sore for a few days afterwards. We have exercises to do to strengthen our legs and feet and we need to start running minimally clad very slowly.

So onto that minimally clad part. John has to watch his feet because of being diabetic. Plus, it is damn cold out there some days. So we have invested in “barefoot” shoes. These are Vibram Five Fingers (VFFs).

These are not the exact shoes we ordered. These are ones I borrowed from a coworker (after washing of course) to try them out. They aren’t all that warm, but they do allow you to walk and run with just a tiny bit of protection from sharp objects while still using the barefoot principles. We’ll be starting with quarter and half mile runs in these this weekend and next week (our shoes don’t arrive until Wednesday) and trying to build up our stamina “barefoot”.

Our goal is to run the Jingle Bell Run in December in our VFFs.

If you’re a Seattle Tweater, join our team! We’ve got 4 members so far and as added incentive, we will be picking up Frost Doughnuts for after the race. Doesn’t a salted caramel doughnut sound like a good incentive for running 3.1 miles?

Today was the first really nice day in Seattle. It was over 70 today. The sun was shining all day. I had to dig out the shorts and the sandals. It was absolutely amazing. Look at the forecast for the next two days!

Mon
Apr 6

Partly Cloudy

70°
44°

Tue
Apr 7

Sunny

68°
43°

I know that it won’t last. It’s too early for the sun to be out to stay. But starting now, we’ll have more days like today and less days like last Monday when yes… it snowed.

So how did I celebrate the sun today? I gardened, went to the farmers market, opened ALL of the windows, and just now, we sat outside in the backyard and had a glass of wine and a snack. It is amazing what a little vitamin D can do for the energy levels.

I heard the other day that Trattoria Mitchelli, a local Pioneer Square restaurant will be closing any day now. In this economy, a restaurant closing isn’t a huge deal and the last time we ate at Mitchelli’s, they had definitely gone downhill.

However, this still saddens me just a bit. You see, it was at this restaurant, years ago, that John and I had our first actual meal together. Long before there were any romantic feelings between us, we sat across from each other at an MVP Summit dinner and had our first non-software related conversations. It’s a simple thing, and in the years between that conversation and our falling in love, I rarely gave that meal a second thought. Lately though, I’ve thought of it regularly.

The meal was fantastic. Cheesy lasagna, Randy’s homemade wine, and a shared caramel dessert thing that was so sweet that neither of us could finish it. After dinner, the MVPs (and John and at least one other softie) all walked back to whatever hotel we (the MVPs) were at and everyone said good night. The evening was one of those amazingly perfect nights where nothing overly special happens, but everyone has a good time and everything just happens the right way and everyone goes home happy. 

So even though I had no plans to return to Mitchelli’s any time soon (or at all), I still kind of liked the thought that it was still there.

We were supposed to be in central Mass today. In fact, in about an hour we should have been going out for dinner with John’s family to celebrate his parents 50th anniversary! Unfortunately, we are home in Seattle. Why?

That’s about a foot of snow on our patio. It snowed last Wednesday night. We got about 3-4 inches and lots of ice. This meant that on Thursday (the day we were supposed to fly out), we couldn’t get the car up the hill. So we called JetBlue and moved our flight to Friday night (for free… they were allowing anyone flying through Boston that day to reschedule for free).

On Friday, we put chains on the car and drove up the first street and parked. Ok, all good, we can use the chains to get up the second hill. Except for the fact that the chains fell off. Apparently we have crappy chains and we didn’t put them on very well. So we got stuck again. We trudged back home, resigned to lose some money on our flight since we’d have to cancel. But then… the phone rang. It was JetBlue. They CANCELLED our flight to Boston that night. So, we got a full refund! Turns out Boston had a ground stop and they weren’t letting any inbound flights take off.

At that point, we resigned ourselves to spending Christmas at home, alone. We’d love to be in Central Mass. We’d love to be with John’s family.  I love his family. I would love to be with them for Christmas, even moreso since we haven’t seen them in a whole year (well, we saw his parents this summer, at least that’s something). But we haven’t seen the kids or his sisters in a year. But, at least we got a full refund on the flight so we can find a time this spring to go back.

Sunday was supposed to be the day that Seattle basically closed for business. Winds, snow, freezing rain… it was supposed to be Snowpocalypse 2008. For what it’s worth, every time we get snow here in Seattle, they dub it snowpocalypse. Seattle just doesn’t operate in the snow.

So yesterday morning, we bundled up and went walking for coffee, lunch, and supplies for the next few days. It was lovely out. Cold, clear, and very icy. But I managed to walk about 2 miles without falling, a huge feat for me.

We split up after lunch, since John walks a lot faster in the snow than I go and he went to the grocery store. He came back home carrying a Christmas tree! My wonderful husband carried a 4 ft Christmas tree home (along with a huge and heavy bag of groceries) well over a mile!

We’ll decorate it today since… well… we’re pretty much trapped in the house. It started to snow about the time I got home after lunch yesterday (3:30) and it just kept snowing most of the night. We’ve got about a foot total so far and it’s off and on snowing again today.

Hopefully we’ll be able to leave the neighborhood in a car by Tuesday. Reports are that it should warm up just a bit by then. Right now it’s 30 and that’s the warmest it’s been in a few days. But we’ve got enough food, enough liquor, and plenty of blankets and logs for the fire. I’ve got a few days to figure out what to make for Christmas dinner. It will be a quiet Christmas, but we’ll be together, and that’s what’s important. It’s too bad we can’t spend Christmas with either of our families, but we’ll be with both of them in spirit.

Overnight, Seattle turned into a snowbound white winter wonderland. This would be absolutely wonderful if we didn’t need to get on a plane in about 7 hours. But we’ll deal with that in a few more hours.

This morning, however, I managed to fulfill my snow fantasies. See, growing up in California, I’d never gotten a chance to make a snowman. So John and I went out and played in the snow for about half an hour.

1. We just picked up our bibs for tomorrow’s half marathon and a number of our friends (ok, that number would be one) asked if they could track us somehow on the run.  One of the cool little applications John has on his google phone is a GPS tracker that will allow you to track us.  So, he’s going to carry the phone while we run, and you can follow us (hopefully) at http://www.instamapper.com/ext?key=6207536769144993735. We start running at just about 730a pacific time (that’ll be 1030a for those of you on the east coast), so feel free to watch.
2. Speaking of the google phone, John and I are about 80% of the way through writing a tech book on the Google phone.  If you’re curious, click on through and buy it.
3. We put in an offer on a house. Offer has been accepted. Now, we wait for the survey.

Well, if you’ve been following along, you know that we put an offer in on a house the other day. Well, we are not buying that house. There was some countering, but there was a pretty big issue. There was lead in the soil. There was so much lead, that the report actually said "soil isn’t suitable for growing any food that will be eaten and should not be used for a play area for children". WHOA!

So no house for us. We’ve seen just about everything on the market currently and nothing. so we’ll see what happens in the next few weeks. I’m not holding my breath. Not too many people put their houses on the market in winter and even fewer put their houses on the market in this economy.

The other day I blogged at how cool it was that Jefe from Austin Cantina gave me an onion slicing lesson while we sat at the counter for dessert the other night. Well, in his blog today (yes, the restaurant has a blog… a pretty decent one too), he writes that basically the entire kitchen staff has turned over recently and he’s running the kitchen almost on his own (their main cook left to go pursue his dream of working in the environmental field). They were decently busy when we went there, only one open table and the three seats at the bar, and Jefe still took time out to show me how to easily dice an onion.

That’s amazing service and someone who truly enjoys what he does. Finding out that they were completely and totally empty on Tuesday night saddened me. I think their food is excellent (though having never been to Austin I cannot speak to the Austin-ishness of it) and the welcoming feel I get every time we go there is worth its weight in gold.

So if you happen to be in Ballard and you need a place to eat, go to Austin Cantina. I don’t want them to close!

This
morning, I got up about 6:30 and John and I headed down to Green Lake
for the Iron Girl 10K race. I ran the 5K race last year with an
impressive (for me) time, so this year I wanted to do the 10K race.

I
was a little nervous about running a race so soon after the 13.1 miles
that we ran last weekend, but those worries seem to have been
unfounded. Here’s the race report.

We got there about 7:25. A
little earlier than I hoped. I hung around for a bit and then spotted
Beth, a fellow MetBlogger. We hung out for a few minutes, each of us
looking for other people, and then went our separate ways to try to
find said people.

I found John and we huddled together (for
warmth) for another 10 minutes or so. It was pretty cold with the
breeze that was blowing and a lack of sun right around the start line. 

One thing I was disappointed with was the amount of bathrooms.
They brought in the portables, but when you’ve got a race of ALL
women… 20 portables is NOT enough. The lines were easily 100 people
long. So I didn’t get a chance to use them (and kind of needed to). Oh
well. There were bathrooms along the course as well, but only those
that are permanent at the park (in other words, just a couple of stalls
in each one and lines at all of them).

The race is chip
timed, so you don’t have to worry about the huge lines to get through
the starting gate. I was towards the back of the pack, since I run
slowly, but that’s fine. I crossed the pads and I was off.

I
used the same type of schedule that I have been using for the past few
months: run 1 mile, walk 1 minute. I probably walked a little less than
a minute each time, but I did take a short walk break each mile. This
does several things. First, it gives your muscles a break. Second, it
lets you take water easily. Third, it helps with the motivation. I
could look down at my Garmin and see that I only had to run another .45
miles and then I got a break. It really helps keep the speed up.

I
actually passed some people this year! Running people! That’s amazing
for me. I felt pretty good the entire time. I had a tiny bit of knee
discomfort, but nothing major. Hips were a little sore, but again,
nothing unusual or major.

The second lap was a bit… odd.
First of all, the transition between the 5K and the 10K wasn’t well
marked. The 5K runners turned left and the 10K runners went straight.
But I had to actually shout out “10?” to the woman at the transition
zone for her to point me in the right direction.

A little
past the transition, they put us on the outer path around the lake, and
that wasn’t well marked as a race path. I wasn’t overly worried, as
there aren’t a lot of places I could have possibly gone off the course,
but another marker or two wouldn’t have hurt.

They
really needed one more water station. As it was, I had two small cups
of water. I do give them props for not filling the water cups too full.
Though this was why they needed one more station. I just didn’t get a
lot of water at each station. 

Towards the end of the 10K,
they did this weird loop thing where you very nearly ran in a small
circle for about .15 miles. It was just… odd. Then back around the
outside loop of the lake where again, a few more signs (especially one
that said something like 1/2 a mile to go!) would have been nice.

When
you cross the finish line, if you’ve hit the pads right, they call your
name. That’s pretty cool. Especially since it still makes me smile a
bit when people call me Patricia Eddy.

I saw John at the half-way point and he was waiting at the end. That
was nice. I really appreciate him getting up early to take me down to
the race.

Afterwards,
we walked around a little bit and got some samples of recovery drink
and electrolyte replacement. John bought me a running shirt (zebra
stripes!) and then we were headed home in a nice warm car.