Ya Heard?

What’s with people who refer to vegetarians as “veggies”? I’m not a vegetable. I am meat, 100% Organic, Grade A meat. I eat lots of vegetables, but this doesn’t make me one. I don’t think the same person who called me a veggie would like it very much if I referred to them as a pig, cow, or chicken.

“Oh, you’re serving sausage at the company picnic?
“Yes, a handful of pigs work here.”


This whole issue with me comes up every time my office put together any type of social event. This week has been “Carnival Week” at work. We deserved to have carnival week because of the tremendous profit our company made in 2009. Nope, we didn’t get a raise. What are you crazy we’re in a recession!! …The multimillion dollar raises are reserved for the men and women who don’t actually know what our company does. We got Carnival Week.

I’ll spare you the details of the whole week, but I will tell you that today’s activities included: Wii Bowling, some duck pond thing, and email bingo. Stop me if you’re getting giddy with excitement over this. On the menu was everyone’s favorite carnival snack...hotdogs!

About 2 hours after the pig snouts and chicken feet were finished eating their hotdogs we got an email informing all of us that, “There are veggie dogs too!” I thought to myself, this may be the compassionate thing that the administrative staff here has ever done however, it doesn’t make up for all the obscenely inconsiderate actions of the past. I refused the veggie dog, however, and demanded $4.50 from the 2009 profit as I could easily eat that much worth of meat aternative products.

For the sake of color in the post, this is my favorite brand of veggie dog...

Pigeon is the Key for Road Race Training to Marathon.

What?
It’s going to take a full month of intense training to really step up my performance in the Tau Kappa Epsilon 5k Road Race for Autism. this year. Since the date was moved up 2 weeks I only have a about a month left which leaves me very little time to log some outdoor miles.

So I’ve decided I’m going to go to Florida for a few days in order to train. I know what you’re saying right now… “It must be nice to be able to go to Florida on a whim just to run.” Well, you’re right it is. Actually, it’s no whim at all…

A few month’s ago my good friend Rachael invited some of my friends and I to visit her in Florida. She works with marine wildlife on an island in the Florida Keys called Pigeon Key (coordinates are 24.704118,-81.155308). I guess there is some house, in which we will stay, that employees can reserve free of charge. How could we refuse that offer? The only cost is the flight down (which we got at a steal) and food (which will be 5 days worth of groceries since there are no restaurants on the island). So basically, we're looking forward to 5 days of doing nothing. I think this will be the first time in my life that I’ve traveled to someplace beautiful and had absolutely nothing to do. Even if we wanted something to do there aren’t many options!

If you wanted to see Pigeon Key on a map, don't look up Pigeon Key, Key Largo FL. Look up the Pigeon Key Foundation on Google Maps. Zoom in pretty tight and pan a few inches to the left and you'll see it.

So how does this sound like an intense running regimen? Well, the next closest island to pigeon key is the highly regarded tourist destination of Marathon, FL. It’s a 2.2 mile bridge away and for the week will be my training facility. Each morning I plan on waking up before sunrise and running to marathon and back, roughly 4.5 miles.

Day one: I plan on a simple run there and back with no stops. As one would imagine it’s completely flat and so I am setting a very modest goal of 30 minutes, but I suspect I will come in with less time. Day 2: I am going to run speed intervals. 1 mile warm up jog, 30 seconds intense and 30 seconds rest to Marathon. Then 1 minute intervals for 1 mile and cool down jog for the rest of the way back. Day 3: same as 1, but 3 minutes less time. Day 4: Reverse the intervals. Day 5: If I get the guts I will try to do a 15 mile run to Bahia Honda State Park and back. Well see…. It is supposedly one of the best beaches in the continental US.

Ideally, I’d like to begin running early morning and be back to the island for some sunrise beach stretching.

I guess I'll be updating more about the trip in the coming weeks. I'm really exited to get down there.

Tau Kappa Epsilon 5k Road Race for Autism

April 3rd is the annual Tau Kappa Epsilon 5k Road Race for Autism. Last year I came in 7th place and ran my best ever time. This year I am determined to win and am confident that I can. I think on of the active brothers, Pat Hevey, won last year, but I mean that guy was trained by the military so it was tough competition.

My biggest competition last year was Ryan Dolan. He entered Uconn a few years after me and although we became great friends he loved to harass me about my weight. The abuse was horrible. Every comment I made was aggressively attacked by him with a slur against my size. The thing was that I was a perfectly normal weight and had no issue at all. He was actually about 40 lbs underweight. Well, I got my revenge as I blew him out in the last mile of last year’s race.

This year’s race was originally scheduled for April 17th which would have been much nicer considering it could be significantly warmer two weeks later. However, due to a scheduling conflict with the university the race was moved up to the 3rd. This is not only unfortunate because of the weather, but it also gives me 2 less weeks to train. Although I have been improving my endurance for the past year on a treadmill there is no replacement for running outside on natural terrain. At the rate this winter is going I may not be able to get outside until the first weekend in April which will be too late.

I have to think of something fast ……other than running in the cold.

Back on belt.

Just to get back in the swing of things I thought I'd hit you with a little fast break. Today I filled up my water bottle at 1:10pm and headed downstairs where those 2 business-type men were, as usual, in the locker room. Only this time they weren't stepping out of the shower they were tying their sneakers! Oh no! This means....Yes! They haven't started their workout yet and I would have the pleasure of exercising beside them and all their judgement.

I tried to think of all the possible ways this couldn't be true. Maybe they're going outside?...Nope too cold. Perhaps I'll run outside to avoid them....Nope, way too cold. I actually thought of just packing up and leaving the gym without saying a word. Reluctantly, I got into my shorts and headed for the far end treadmill. They fell in line beside me and away we went.

I thought it would be a good day for a quick interval session to avoid another personal encounter in the locker room for the post game show. I did the new Men's Health: Belly Off interval workout which is pretty much awesome.

3 min - warm up
.5 min- intense (I do 8.5 mph treadmill or 12mph elliptical)
1 min - recover (5.0)
X 3

1 min - intense
1 min- recover
X 4

.5 min - intense
.5 min - recover
X 4

3 min - cool down

Then I did a super set. The super set is like this:

Dumbbell Squat Thruster X 8 (15 lbs)
30 Push ups (10 close, 10 normal, 10 wide)
Dumbbell Squat Thruster X 8 (15 lbs)

Here's a video if you don't know what dumbbell squat thrusters are. Don't judge these people just focus the exercise. And try to do it with good form. Straight back - no wavering Explode from the squat and control the weight.



I got into the locker room first, showered, and was back here by 1:55 p.m.

How come it took me 10 months to see this?

Sorry for all the no-posts. Here's something for you. On the original album M. Ward sings the entire song alone. This is a bit different because Yim sings the main part. I hope you like it as much as I do...