There’s several topics I’ve wanted to cover but haven’t had the chance to since I took the last two weeks for Ragnar and was slammed this week. I’m going to list the ones I remember here so that I have them and you can get a sneak preview of coming attractions:
-March Book Review
-April Book Review (Note: Finish April book)
-Knee injury
-Food allergy

I’m sure there’s more, but I’m running out of time and brain cells. Also, the May resolution update will be folded into the June one.

Actually, looking at the list above, it’s kind of sad, so maybe I’ll just jump to new topics anyway. Who knows, anything could happen.

Yeah, I think that seals it, I’m gone. Hope everyone is doing well!

Weight: 226 Loss: 4 lbs – Running Yearly Mileage: 210.5 miles (+0 miles) Last year-to-date: 158 miles – Words-to-date: 36605 (+289)

So when we last left Van 2 was out on the course and my van, Van 1 was heading towards the area of our next major exchange and was looking for some grub. Greg and I, from having the major exchange in the same area last year, and Tom, from living in the area for a decade or so, knew that there were no food places local to the exchange point, so we continued down the freeway until we found the next major shopping center (only a couple miles). A promising area emerged, so we wheeled into a parking spot and prepared to go our separate ways for food. Unfortunately it turns out that the shopping center had felt the effects of the economic downturn and half the food places were closed. Most of us found our way into a very busy and understaffed Juice It Up, where we sated our hunger with smoothies (wait, can you do that?). I also had a terrible reheated pretzel, but I was invoking Disneyland rules for this trip.

Oh, right, you’re probably going to want me to explain what Disneyland rules are (unless your my friend on Facebook and happened to see my post that day). My rule at Disneyland: eat everything in front of you at every meal, as you never know when you’re going to get to eat again. (The addendum to that at Disneyland is: It probably also cost you an arm and a leg, so get your money’s worth.) There, aren’t you glad I explained?

We still had an hour or so to wait until it was our turn to resume the festivities, so we decided to wait at the exchange. Every year there is one major exchange that wins the award for worst setup and parking, and this one won it for 2013. We wound up parking in another parking lot down the street after orbiting the completely full one next to the exchange (which we wound up being evicted from about the time I was heading up to wait for our runner). Tom, being familiar with the area, said he used to come down here and run, and I should get a nice tailwind for the majority of my run. While my first run had only one turn, a left from the beach onto the wash trail, this run had a grand total of two(!), a right and then a left in fairly close succession at the beginning of the run, otherwise it was six miles of straightaway.

Here’s where I make a quick sidebar for the best joke of the trip. Understand that this was the best joke in a van of five sleep deprived guys and one woman (who for reasons I will explain later was better rested than us men), so it’s pretty bad. In fact, it’s probably not worth the sidebar. But I still laugh thinking about it, so here you go. At one point in all of our navigating the area around the I-15 and Lake Elsinore, Danny turns to Tom and asks, “Are you the Thomas from Thomas Guides?” to which Tom immediately replies, “No, I’m the Tom from Tom-Tom!” Thus was Tom called Tom-Tom for the rest of the trip.

Why the sidebar? Well, I received the slap bracelet and started my run, appropriately taped up now that I had time to prepare for this one. About an eighth of a mile in I reach the first turn which is across the street, and I had to wait for a light . . . the longest light on planet earth. It felt like five minutes at least, which probably meant it was two and a half to three minutes, and we accumulated a few runners waiting there since it was a large, fairly busy street. Finally we get to cross and I turn right . . . into one of the strongest headwinds I have ever experienced. It was hard to move forward, let alone run. I made a point to mention to Tom-Tom later that while his navigation was generally spot on, his weather mode wasn’t very accurate. After another quarter of a mile I made the left turn and proceeded down the straightaway, with the wind coming across and whipping around occasionally rather than being steadily at my back. Despite being straight, this was actually the most difficult and mentally challenging of my runs, as it was just a continuing rolling hill with more up then down. I’d crest one hill to see a short decline and then the start of the next hill. Despite very much wanting to stop and walk multiple times over the last couple miles I managed to force myself to the hand off, where Danny and I completed our only successful one motion slap bracelet transition.

And there I was, already two-thirds of the way done. Evening was fast upon us, as I was the last runner who started during the daylight hours and thus did not have to wear a reflective vest, headlamp, and tail light. Night hours ran from 6:30 pm to 6:30 am, though, so it was pretty much guaranteed that I’d be wearing the gear come my last leg. Everyone else’s leg went pretty smoothly, aside from Tom-Tom’s only major navigational error that put us on a winding two lane road with no opportunity for turning around that took us a couple miles out of our way. We decided he just wanted us to see both Indian casinos in the area so we could compare, and we still made it to the exchange in plenty of time to meet our fastest runner Manny, so we didn’t give him too hard of a time (uh, right).

Our legs took us well into the night, and by the time we sent Kristin off on her leg it was right around midnight. Thankfully it was pretty much straight downhill and there were plenty of people running as well. We passed a long string of blinking red tail lights and also a camper. Well, plenty of other vans too, but the camper happened to be parked off to the side and also happened to contain Kristin’s husband Rick, who had driven down to meet us after he finished work for the day. We all met up at the next exchange and sent Greg off for the final leg of our second round, a brutal uphill climb to the Welk resort which was serving as the halfway point like last year. Whereas we spent last year sleeping on the side of the golf course, this year we split a suite so that everyone could grab a shower and some shuteye. Since we had five guys and one girl in our van (compared to van 2′s four women to two guy ratio, and the two guys were married to two of the women), Kristin asked if it was okay if she stayed with Rick in the camper and then met us at the start of her final leg. I knew it wouldn’t be an issue and also envied the fact that she’d be able to skip the three am wake up call. I agreed to text her when the runner ahead of her was underway, which would probably be closer to eight or nine in the morning.

The men (heh), however, had to get moving up to the resort. Lynn was kind enough to put my name on the room, so I was dropped at the front desk and acquired a key and towels. Greg still had at least twenty minutes left in his leg, so we made our way to the suite and met the second van loading up for their leg. They raved about the place and I walked in to see why. It was bigger than our condo, with the front door opening into a dining area with the living room behind it, a giant kitchen which stretched to my right and back a ways, and a bedroom and bathroom on the left side and the right side. By the time I had remembered everything from the car and had seen off the other van our first member was in one of the showers and two others had decided to go retrieve Greg from the exchange point down the hill. With that taken care of I claimed the other shower (which alone was bigger than the bathroom at our last apartment), got changed, and then climbed into one of the two beds in the bedroom on the left side, shutting the door but not latching it. I heard the others return with Greg, set my phone to turn the ringer back on at three in the morning, and eventually drifted off for a little sleep (seeing as it was nearly one in the morning already).

I awoke to the door being thrown open and Tom loudly telling me to wake up. Apparently, and extremely unsurprisingly, his first two gentle attempts to wake me had not done the trick (once I get to sleep, I generally sleep like a rock). I also heard him say, “Hey, there was another bed in here?” A fact that I later pointed out he knew, but apparently in the haze of everything they forgot and so two people shared the couch bed and I ended up with the room to myself. Not that it mattered, since we all only got a couple hours of sleep anyway and we were all tired enough to sleep where we fell. It was ten until three and I saw that I had missed a phone call from Lynn, who had apparently tried me (didn’t answer due to the volume not yet turning on), then Danny (who did answer but did not sound sufficiently awake), and then finally Tom (who wound up getting the rest of us up). I woke up fairly cranky, complaining about the shorter time period we had in the suite (sadly for us, it broke that they got the suite while we were running 44 total miles and we got the suite while they were running 22 total miles), and it took me the drive over to the next exchange to get back up to speed and back into the proper mindset. Thankfully I don’t talk much when I’m tired, so I don’t think too many people noticed (aside from my complaining on Facebook, which I retracted later).

We pulled into the exchange with a few minutes to spare, but not enough time for me to find my head lamp (which showed up when I unpacked afterwards, of course). I instead grabbed the small, ultra-powerful flashlight I brought and ran with that instead, which worked just fine. My final leg was positively windy compared to my first two, I had to make five (gasp!) turns. It was nice and cool around four am in Carlsbad, so I was able to run the last leg with minimal discomfort, my knee still taped from the second run. I was definitely counting down the last few miles, but was unwilling to stop and walk seeing I was so close to the end and accomplishing running the whole thing on a knee that required a lot of rest and tape heading into the event. My final pass once again bounced off Danny’s wrist (apparently I don’t have enough practice with slap bracelets), but he was kind enough to retrieve it and head off into the night.

We managed the rest of the legs fairly well, with Kristin and Rick beating us to the exchange point for her leg in plenty of time. We started looking for food and coffee during the third runner but were always stymied by location, hours, or a detour every place we went. We finally pulled into the final major exchange before the finish at the Torrey Pines glider port, a place we had the final major exchange at last year but I couldn’t remember for the life of me until we were somewhere around the Welk Resort (oh yeah! The big dirt lot!). It is serviced by one two lane access road which got pretty bogged down by vans, just like last year. We handed off to the second van for the final time and went to make our way out of the lot when we were stopped at the entrance. A fire truck came out of the line down the opposite side of the street, pulled a fifteen point turn in front of us, and then headed back out the way we were going. We followed it and then prepared to finally acquire the food we were desperately desiring at this point.

I had taken the food reins as van captain and someone familiar with the various joints in San Diego. Originally I was going to point the van at Hodad’s in Ocean Beach, since the course went right by the front door, but I found out a couple days before that they were going to be closed from 11 am to 5 pm that day. I never found out why, but did know they were filming there a lot that week, so maybe it was related. I had heard of a couple breakfast places when Jess and I came down the week before, so I suggested them. One of the van members had been to the Broken Yolk and wasn’t impressed so we instead headed towards the Hash House, which was only a few miles away and in the general direction of the finish line. Everyone else seemed to have the same idea since it was now mid-morning on Saturday, as when we drove by the front door the line wrapped back on itself several times over. We were hungry now, so it was time to fall back on other options.

Jess and I have a favorite pizza joint in San Diego, Pizzeria Luigi, so I plugged it into my phone and found out we were just over a mile from one of the two locations. We pointed the van in that direction and a few minutes later made a right turn onto a small street with a restaurant on our left . . . a Mama’s Kitchen or something like that. I looked at the GPS and verified we were in the right spot. This marked the fifth or sixth time we had been denied food in the last few hours and we were getting cranky. Right before we turned onto the small street we saw that the street ahead was being blocked off for a street fair of some sort. We turned around joined back on the main street towards the festival when someone in the back said, “Hey, Pizzeria Luigi!” Yup, it was just around the corner from where we were directed. I don’t know if it moved or we were being directed to the back door. We drove past the street fair to loop around and discovered it was a beers of the world festival, which peaked the rest of the van’s interest. It took us a while to find parking due the fair, but having done so we trekked back to the pizzeria.

And it was soooo good. I got the meatball roll that Jess and I love so much, but unfortunately takes a while to make. Pretty much everyone was done with their slices by the time I got mine, but they were still enjoying their various beverages and we weren’t in a hurry to go anywhere. Danny wound up ordering one too after putting away a couple slices, and we were all able to relax a bit. It was determined that when we left it was no longer necessary to check out the festival, we were satiated. Someone suggested we find a park to rest at like we had earlier and I remembered that the finish line was at the park we could see from our hotel the week before, so I suggested we just head there. It would be a few hours yet before van 2 would be at the finish line.

The finish line park fit the bill perfectly and we actually got to park in special lot due to the Excursion with the roof rack not fitting in the underground parking. We checked out the festivities a bit and then decided to rest in the shade at the edge of the park by the water. It was pretty awesome and most everyone dropped off to sleep for a while. I, of course, still have trouble sleeping during the day, and it turned out that Greg did too, but I had a flash of inspiration as to what we could do. I remembered that the last two legs of this year’s relay were actually combined into one last year, my infamous eleven mile leg. I also remembered that square in the middle of that leg was two giant hills that stretched for a mile. Why don’t Greg and I drive over and encourage that leg’s runner (it turned out to be Stacey) up the hills. When Greg heard about this and we realized who the runner was it turned out that they had dated for a couple years and Greg knew that she HATED hills. We had the plan and the destination, now we just needed the keys. Danny proved a little more difficult to rouse than we expected, but we secured the keys and started to make our way to the hills (or, as I called them last year, San Francisco in San Diego). I knew if we just tried to trace the legs backward that we’d be square in the teeth of downtown San Diego traffic, so I directed us back out along the edge to the freeway and cut back over to the general area that way.

Our route actually landed us at the end of the mile of hills, so we got to drive through them back to the beginning and Greg got to see exactly what I was talking about. I was much happier I was in a car this time and not running them. We hadn’t seen Stacey yet but were pretty sure we hadn’t missed her and, sure enough, we got to the base of the hill, turned right, and there she was running toward us on the other side of the road. Thankfully despite the fact that the area is still hilly it’s still laid out in a grid, so we could just move over one street and then cut up and criss-cross the route or drive along it depending on what we needed. Technically this part of the course was “No Van Support” which meant we couldn’t get out or give the runner water or anything, but that wasn’t our plan so we were still within the rules. She didn’t see us at first, nor the first time we stopped on an adjoining road, but when we parked at the summit of the first hill and waited I got to see an awesome double take as she realized who we were. We waited a little bit and proceeded to the top of the next hill, surprised at how well Stacey was killing it, we only beat her to the top by a little bit. It was as she was passing that I realized she was holding something out to the car. I reached out from the passenger side and came back with her sunglasses, and she kept motoring on. I made note to ask why she wanted to get rid of them later, as it was quite sunny out.

It was at this point that I knew we had to start heading back if we wanted to clear the traffic across the downtown area. We followed the runner’s path back and made it in plenty of time. The second van completed their last exchange (Stacey to Lynn) and had to fight their way back, making about fifteen minutes before Lynn came into view. In the meantime we all gathered up, donned our sunglasses (because we were finishing in the daylight as opposed to last year), and capes made by Jess from kid’s aprons, puffy paint, and much painstaking care. They featured a sun with our team’s initials (B.T.L.Y.) and our slogan “Run for Boston” as this was one of the first events since the tragic Boston Marathon bombings. I wore a black and white Boston Red Sox hat in tribute for the entire race. You know what, how about I show you instead:

I turned in one of the group pictures to show off my cape. I actually wore the cape during my first run too, just to get everything off on the right foot. I was the only one who pinned it though, everyone else tied a loop and wore it true cape style.

And that was it, we crossed the finish line together around 4:44 pm in a far better time than last year and a better time than we were projected to based on our paces. We celebrated, took pictures, distributed the medals, and then grabbed two lukewarm Dominoes pizzas (but they were free and we were hungry, so they were awesome). I asked Stacey about the sunglasses and she said that they kept slipping down her nose and she was tired of pushing them back up and would rather squint, which made perfect sense to me. We took one last tour through the swag tent, packed everything up and headed for home.

The ride home was fairly uneventful and surprisingly light on traffic considering we were heading into the tail end of rush hour traffic. I did see something interesting just outside of Carlsbad, looking to the east I commented, “It’s not everyday you see a hot air balloon in the sky.” Then we came around a bend and saw this:

I’m guessing they were from Temecula, and it sparked interest in a group of friends going to a balloon festival at the beginning of June. As for the van, we made it back the church safely, dispersed to our separate cars, and went home to sleep.

Weight: 226 Loss: 4 lbs – Running Yearly Mileage: 210.5 miles (+4 miles) Last year-to-date: 145 miles – Words-to-date: 36316 (+3690)

Every once and while you talk with a friend and you know exactly what you can do for them in a moment of frustration. In this case it was, “Okay, I’m demanding that you drop the kids at my place tonight for a couple hours.” Sometimes, you just need to have a couple hours with your husband to talk, vent, cry, whatever. That is hard to do with 3 kids under the age of 7 under foot. So the kids, A., M., and E. were left to spend some quality time with Aunt Jess. Matt had already decided to go to a movie that night so it was just the 4 of us. We ate dinner, talked about foods we love and foods we hate, why hot fish is apparently the opposite of cold pizza (??), and what to do for the rest of the evening.

Me: Well, since we just decided to hang out tonight, I had something I was planning on doing before. Do you think you could help me with it?

A: What was it?

Me: Well, I have this project I am trying to do. Before Christmas-time, I want to try and make a 100 different foods!

A and M: WOW!!! That’s CRAZY!!!

E: Ababa ba babab bbab ababa kitty. (This was pretty much what I got out of him most of the night with different nouns at the end of each “sentence.”)

Me: I know! So tonight I need to work on my project, do you think you could help me make some brownies?

They for some reason did not hesitate to agree to help. By the way, I really kept trying to call them “special brownies” all night but catching myself. That’s all I need, for A and M to tell grandparents they helped me make special brownies.

Besides brownies, they voted for movie night, so we picked out a movie…A. was out voted so the Pirate Who Don’t Do Anything was our movie for the evening. Normally, when the kids watch a movie over here, it’s because the adults are hanging out, so they are used to watching TV in our bedroom. As it was just us, I put the movie on in the living room which confused them for a moment. They jumped on to the couches, they proclaimed “It’s like a REAL movie theater!!!!” I made us popcorn, but when I handed it out they said “Wow, it IS just like a real movie theater! We just need root beer!!” Not sure why… but hey, why not! “Guess what I have in the fridge?” Yep, Aunt Jess is cool like that (and it also aware that the root beer we buy is caffeine free and they were only allowed 1/2 a glass.)

Now that we were all set up, and since A lost her movie vote, so her and I headed to the kitchen (which if you have been to our place you know means she was still able to watch the movie), to make the brownies. First we lined a cupcake pan with paper liners. Then, she followed the directions on the box of brownie mix (I poured the water and oil, she told me when to stop). A finished mixing while I made the oreo peanut butter ”sandwiches”. Basically, you take an Oreo, put about a teaspoon of PB on top, then another Oreo, then another teaspoon of PB and place it in one of the cupcake tins, PB side up. Once all 12 of those are done, we poured about 1/8th of a cup of the brownie batter on top. Then you bake them at 350 for about 20 minutes. When you’re done, this is what you get:

Yep, pretty much chocolate awesomness.

M took a bite of hers and her eyes about bugged out of her head. “Those are GOOD!”

The best reaction though, may have been from my bosses daughter the next day. Things have been so stressful at work that I brought some in for us to enjoy. True to Leta’s character, she took some home to her kids. I got a text message that night from her saying that her daughter had to tell me THANK YOU and they were “rhapsodic”. The next day I was told she had never seen her react to food like that. Her whole family in fact.

I will say that I think the ingredients I used did have something to do with those reactions though.

1) Ghirardelli’s Dark Chocolate Brownie Mix

2) Trader Joe’s natural creamy peanut butter (which is AMAZING PB by the way. It’s the same stuff they use in their dark chocolate PB cups.)

So I would recommend using those to make these. Overall though, we’re talking brownie, oreo, and PB… how could that EVER be bad?

So to recap, an evening at Aunt Jess’ consists of Veggie Tales, popcorn, root beer, and brownies with oreos and PB…. because that’s how I roll.

Short review tonight. As much as I loved this recipe while eating it, a long work week as apparently broken my brain and left me with little to say about it.

Growing up, my dad had this one dish he would make that was his. He could copy mom’s recipes, or follow back-of-the-box type of stuff, but for whatever reason Oven Fried Chicken was dad’s specialty.  This recipe is not as good as his, but for the several I have tried since getting married, it’s the best one I have made. Using the “Shake and Bake” method (Matt helped!) it didn’t take long at all to get into the oven.

The recipe itself calls for Progresso Italian breadcrumbs (which is actually what dad uses if I remember correctly), but I only had plain panko. Not wanting to make a special trip to the store, I just added some garlic powder and Italian seasoning. I think I actually preferred this to the finer Progresso crumbs (Sorry, dad). It made them super crunchy, even more crunchy than most fried chicken! Given that I just bought something like 8lbs of drumsticks at Costco, you can bet I’ll be making this again!

Image courtesy of the Pioneer Woman as my camera appears to have eaten it….it was quite good.

I’m not sure why, but a couple weeks ago I had this craving for coleslaw. It was starting to get warmer outside and it sounded so cool and light. I ordered it out a couple times, but it’s never quite satisfying because the majority of places makes their cabbage slaw with shredded carrots. I have a carrot allergy, thankfully it is not so severe that it will kill me and cross contamination isn’t an issue, but I will get severe ill within 30 minutes of ingesting them. I need to pick through and analyze each bite for stray carrot pieces. Even with all that, there is the nagging fear of what if I missed a piece. I can get away with a couple stray pieces but any more than that I have a reaction. I can never simply enjoy it. So I finally decided to just make my own.

This slaw was a great blend of flavors and had a very nice balance, not too tangy, not too spicy, not too sweet. I had mine a top of a hot dog and it was delicious! I’m not a big “slaw dog” fan (carrot concerns aside) because I think most of those slaws are too wet and soggy. This one is cool and crisp so it provides a great contrast. The recipe itself shows it on top of a shredded pork sandwich which also sounds amazing! Matt usually prefers wet and soggy coleslaw (i.e. KFC) but he said he really like this version. This will certainly be a common summer side dish this year!

I ran my first half marathon in September 2009. I ran my first (and so far, only) full marathon in March 2010. That was about the same time that I was approached by one of the people in my life group to see if I could fill in for a team member that had to drop out of the upcoming relay. Having just finished all my marathon training, it sounded like fun. Little did I know . . . Since completing my first Ragnar in April 2010 the stats are as follows: 0 marathons, 2 half marathons (Disneyland Half Sept 2012, Rock and Roll LA Oct 2012), 3 Ragnar Relays (2011, 2012, 2013). Needless to say, I was hooked.

If you haven’t read any of my previous Ragnar blogs (and if you click the little tag at the bottom of this post you’ll find there’s been quite a few in the last year and a half) I should probably take a minute to explain what is going on. If you know the drill, feel free to skip the rest of this paragraph. The Ragnar Relay series started 10 years ago in Utah and has grown in to a States-wide phenomenon (with the first Canadian race being run this year). It is a continuous relay, covering around 200 miles (this year was cut down to “just” 195) and being spread over twelve runners separated into two vans of six each. If you are crazy (and I am not yet), you can enter an Ultra team that has only six runners, with every runner doubling up on their legs. There are 36 legs total, each runner running three times. The first six runners start off, then the sixth runner hands off to the next van of six runners, whose last runner hands back off to the first runner in the first van, and repeat until the whole distance has been covered. It usual takes anywhere from twenty-eight to thirty-eight hours to complete, with our teams usually in the low thirties. Yes, this does mean you have people running at three in the morning (actually one of my favorite times to run).

I captained Van 1 this year, which basically meant I was in charge of making sure everything went smoothly. That was going to be a challenge at the beginning since I had to get up at four in the morning, and we all know I’m not a morning person. We were meeting at 4:30-4:45 to load up the car (a team member’s Expedition) to make it down to Huntington Beach by our start time of 6:30. It turns out that Huntington Beach is further away than I remembered, even with no traffic, as we were pulling into the lot around 6:15 with several long lines between us and the race start. I was the first runner, so I made sure I had my shoes on and forewent taping my knee in the interest of time; I’d have to do the first leg in the knee brace I was wearing for back up instead.

Timeout for a quick aside: this is the fourth year I’ve done the relay and I’ve run a different set of legs each time. The first year I was in Van 2 and runner number 7, the second year I was in Van 1 and runner number 3, last year I was in Van 2 and runner number 9, and this year I’m back in Van 1 and runner number 1. I’ve made it my goal now to run this race for the next eight years and run each as a new runner number (the alternating Vans pattern does not have to be maintained). I’m already a third of the way there!

At 6:28 when they called our team number at the starting line and we were a ways back in the third (and final) line with a safety briefing ahead of us after that I made my first executive decision as Van Captain: you people deal with this while I go run! I am well familiar with the safety rules and didn’t really need to be present, so I stripped off my warm ups, changed my shoes, put on my bib, and ran to the starting line. They were running a few minutes late but were about to start things off, when I realized that I didn’t have the timing chip. Now we had never used a timing chip before, but I had been told there would be one this year, so I sent Greg (who had accompanied me to the starting line) back for it. The race started and I hung around the line for thirty seconds or so, then asked the people working the line if it was okay if I started a little late, as I was just waiting for the timing chip.

“What timing chip?”

Well, that answered that then. I found Greg heading back to me, about to say there wasn’t one. I told him we were good and started, a little late but on the way. It took a quarter of a mile or so for my knee to warm up fully and I had to run with a water bottle again (see my first run last year, but I still wasn’t going to make the mistake of two years ago), as I didn’t have time to set up my belt, but at least we were out on the course. Thankfully we were running next to the beach and the attendant changing areas/bathrooms for the first couple miles, as the fact that I didn’t go pre-run started to catch up to me and I could take a minute to take care of that around mile two.

After the first couple miles, the course then cuts inland and begins the trek towards the Inland Empire (obviously not all on my leg). This initial stab eastward follows a biking/running trail that parallels a large inlet/water body that seems like a giant wash. It is long, straight, very boring, and easily one of my least favorite places to run. It feels like I’ve run at some point in this wash every year, even the first year when the course went started in Ventura instead of Huntington Beach, as my last leg just happened to fall in the same area, but I don’t think that’s true as I’m not sure how that would have happened last year when I was runner 9. I did have to run a different part twice (for a much shorter distance) during my two Disneyland Half Marathons, as the path is how you get from Honda Center to Angel Stadium without getting run over. Needless to say, I am not a fan, but was glad to only be doing a few miles there. Oh, and have I mentioned the smells? You know what, I think it is time to move on . . .

The first exchange point was located in a dirt lot that abutted (heh, abutted) the path but required running down a steep hill to get to the chute, which my knee was not particularly happy about. My team was present and I handed off to Danny, not quite slapping the bracelet hard enough and having it bounce off his arm to the ground (we only managed one clean exchange out of three, but oh well). I took my customary few minutes to cool off, change shirts (have I mentioned how much I love the giant Ziploc bags on these things, just chuck all my soaked clothes in there and don’t worry about it), and we were off to the next exchange.

Much of our navigation for the first set of exchanges was just along one main street with small side jaunts to each of the exchanges as we were just following the aforementioned wash. We were early to all of our exchanges so no one had to wait in the chute (unlike what happened to me two years ago, ::cough::, not that anyone in my van was on that team, and it only happened once). After sending Greg off (he was runner 6, so the last in our van before meeting the other one), we made our way to the first “major” exchange (where the two vans meet) and braced ourselves to find parking. Major exchanges are always terrible parking, so it was understandable when I missed the entrance to the park due to the suspicious lack of vans. We apparently hit the park at a sweet spot, and actually got a pretty good parking spot. We tracked down the members of the other van near the chute and awaited Greg’s arrival.

A little while later Greg came in and Aaron (runner 7) was off. The total time for our legs was right around four hours, and we made our way back to Van 1′s parking spot (about half a mile worse than ours) so that we could see them off and also pick up the van decorations that they had which we would be using to adorn our vehicle. With the goods exchanged we bid them farewell so they could make the next exchange and headed back to our vehicle for some decorating and to figure out what we would do with our downtime. It was about halfway back to the van that I remembered the whole reason I was runner 1 this year, I had to teach!

The class I teach meets on Fridays, and that does come into conflict with the fact that Ragnar starts on Friday every year. The first year of Ragnar I hadn’t started teaching at CSUN yet, so by the time I was hooked on it I had to figure out a way to juggle both. My original idea a couple years ago centered around separate cars and meet ups, but that just wasn’t going to work with time frames (and particularly traffic) involved. Inspiration then struck, this is a class that featured an introduction to all types of computing skills, so how about a day where the class met online to discuss online classes (someone find Jenny and point this out to her, as it’s the best example of “Meta” that I’ve been able to come up with). With my trust cell phone as a wireless access point and my laptop to access the online environment, I’ve been able to run several years of successful online sessions from the comfort of a van. Added bonus this year, I had a laptop with a working battery, so I didn’t have to plug it into the van! Of course, this all works better if I remember to do it. Thankfully I did so with a couple minutes to spare and was able to get back to the van and online (with some minor technical difficulties) to kick off class only five or so minutes late. Historically the students have enjoyed the class and claim to have learned quite a bit, especially since I use a feature (online chat) that most professors forego in their class. We wrapped class up after forty-five minutes or so, as they have additional online work in the form of a project I assign them through the traditional class page that they could work on for the remainder of the time. Some of them were having too much fun, and it took a while for everything to wind down.

In the meantime my fellow teammates were decorating the van around me and then decided to wait for me before heading back over to the various goody tents back by the exchange. I finally managed to usher most everyone out of the class and was able to behold everyone’s work. Most amusing to me was the list of teammates on the side of the van, the furthest rear window on the passenger side listing “Tom/Greg/Matt” on the top row, “Danny/Manny” on the second row, and then “Queen Kristin” (our lone female in van 1) added to the adjoining passenger door. After all was said and done I asked Tom why he ordered everyone that way, as I was a potential order to it but was convinced he didn’t think the same way I did (it wasn’t by runner number, as that configuration mapped out to 3/6/1/2/4/5). I was correct, as the pattern I saw was alphabetical order by length of name (don’t ask, it’s probably a problem in my brain), while the reasoning for the order that was explained to me was:

“First I put Tom, because I’m Tom. Then I put Greg, because he’s in my Life Group. Then I put you, because you’re leading. Then I put Danny because he’s driving. Then I remembered Manny’s name (we had various connections in the car, with some of us knowing people better than others. Needless to say we were a lot closer by the end). Then I was out of room and had to give Kristin a special nickname to make up for it.”

And that is how Kristin got her nickname for the rest of the trip.

Coming back from that little rabbit trail: we went to the goody tents, picked up various beverages, looked over the swag tent, where nothing jumped out at any of us, though I already have a bunch of it and they weren’t carrying the sweater I wanted there. Like last year, I wound up ordering what I wanted online with the free shipping code they sent out afterward. Actually, Kristin showed interest in the track jacket, but I merely bring that up to setup something later. After we were satisfied that we had seen everything we needed to, it was back to the van. Since we still had plenty of time before the next major exchange and no desire to proceed further inland until we had to (I was having traumatic flashbacks to the 105+ degree heat from last year, though forecasts put things in the high 80 to low 90′s range this year), we rested on a nice shady hill directly behind our van for an hour or so. Eventually I mentioned that we might want to track something down to eat, so we loaded up and headed towards the next exchange, intending to find some food in the area.

Alright, then, nearly 2400 words and we’re only a third of the way through. I’m going to call this one: To be continued.

Weight: 226 Loss: 4 lbs – Running Yearly Mileage: 206.5 miles (+2 miles) Last year-to-date: 135 miles – Words-to-date: 32626 (+2375)

So when we last left, Jess and I were leaving Disneyland and heading south for an overnight stay in San Diego. We used Priceline’s mystery hotel to get a four-star hotel for sixty percent off and wound up getting a night at the Omni hotel. When we booked the room and the map came up I knew immediately which hotel it was; it was the hotel that connected to Petco Park, the home stadium of the San Diego Padres. We actually considered going to see a game, as the Rockies would be in town playing that night, but decided against it once a major brawl broke out between the Dodgers and Padres the night before, with one of their players charging the mound on an obviously unintentional hit by pitch and knocking one of our pitchers out for two months when he slammed into the pitcher’s shoulder. We weren’t willing to contribute any money to the Padres’ coffers after that. Still, it was a great location and guaranteed a unique experience, so we were excited.

Of course, being downtown San Diego, I had to relinquish our beloved and slightly dinged Yaris to the hotel and pay for the privilege of parking my vehicle somewhere. We went to the front desk and had our initial two double bed regular room upgraded to a king bed premium room by the very nice staff. We were on the 19th floor which, being in Southern California, didn’t thrill me, but I figured the odds of anything happening were minuscule. Thankfully (and hopefully obviously at this point) I was right. We got in the elevator and prepared to head up 19 floors, but just as the elevator was starting to pick up speed it then slowed to a stop again to pick up a very well, shall we say, lubricated party heading up the 21st floor penthouse. Finally the elevator shot us up to our destination and we emerged; I immediately noticed the building being a little more shaky than I would have liked. It seemed to die down once we were in the room, and it took a few hours for me to realize that was probably an effect of the express elevator on my legs more than any building instability issues. But back to the room, as it was one of the nicest that Jess and I have stayed in yet.

Above, from the front door looking in. Below, from the window looking back.

The room was a fairly standard size, if not a little larger, but all the items inside of it were top quality. What you were really getting your money’s worth for, however, was the view. I liked it so much so that I took pictures when we first got there and then again at night. We were directly over the Convention Center, with the Coronado bridge to our left:

And the south side of Downtown to our right:

Here are both again, from a different spot, later that night:

And I definitely had to take picture straight down, turns out nineteen stories is a long way up:

And then again, at night:

One of the most exciting random things, however, was that our room overlooked a small park behind the convention center, a small park that would host the finish line of the Ragnar Relay the next week.

We decided to hang around the room for a little while, as we knew there would be traffic coming into the area for the upcoming Padres game and didn’t want to have to fight it to get out. As the game was getting underway, we decided to give it a little more time before heading to dinner, but we definitely wanted to explore the hotel a little and to see if any of the action at the stadium was visible to us. The hotel is shaped like a puffed out sail, with one long round edge on one side, two skinny sides, and a flat backside. Our room was on the round outside edge, and the stadium was on a straight line behind us towards the front door of the room. We explored the hallway and found our way to the opposite side of the building and a large window which looked out over:

Yeah, we could see the ballpark.

We hung around for a few batters and hoped to see a ball hit into the outfield, as most of the infield was blocked from our view by the overhang which shaded the third base line seats. I did take the opportunity to take a picture of how far up we were again, and also the sky-bridge that connected the hotel and the ball park.

One of the Padre hitters fulfilled our request and drove a ball up into the air heading for deep left center field. We could track the ball perfectly as it made an arc that completed just over the fence out of the jumping reach of the center fielder. While I missed the fireworks in the first picture (you can see the trails on the left side of the picture, actually just behind where ball landed), I did not miss the columns of fire in the second.

Our curiosity satiated, we decided to explore the rest of the hotel. They took the connection to the stadium seriously, as I have nearly two dozen pictures of memorabilia that they have scattered through the first few floors between the restaurants, meeting rooms, and public spaces. And I only took pictures of a third to a half of it. Don’t worry, I won’t inflict them all on you here; when I get some time I’ll upload them to an album in the photo section of the site. I will share this one, which is one of the earliest baseballs used in the late 1800s.

We also found the roof top (sixth floor or so, not the penthouse) sitting area and pool, which both looked great at night. It was a little chilly, so no one was taking advantage of them at the time (well, there was one guy on his iPad in the Jacuzzi, thankfully he didn’t make the picture).

Satisfied that our wandering had finally killed enough time to get us out of the majority of traffic, we went down to retrieve our car from the valet. We then made our way to the western side of San Diego towards a place that one of Jess’ applicants directed us to, a barbecue joint named Phil’s (Point Loma edition, apparently the original spot). We were scolded for eating our way around San Diego (Hodad’s, Pizzeria Luigi, etc) and never having tried Phil’s, although that was primarily because we had never heard of it. Apparently we were the only ones who hadn’t however, as there is always a line out the door and a webcam that monitors said line. Not only that, but the building itself had helpful signs posted outside:

After waiting in line for the twenty minutes listed on the sign (it might have been slightly shorter) and talking to the nice hostess at the front of the line, we made our selections from the menu and then got some extra things to try. We might have gone a little overboard, but there were so many things that looked interesting:

Phil’s is best known for their baby back pork ribs and I’ll admit, when I first started eating them I wasn’t that big a fan. Jess asked how I liked them and I expressed my opinion, and she looked at me like I had gone insane. Turns out I was eating a slightly over-done end, and I’ll tell you from the second rib on I was hooked. They were definitely as good as advertised. Don’t need to get the beef rib or the Caesar again (The beef rib was good, but overshadowed by the baby back ribs. The Caesar just didn’t stand out and the dressing was a little weak), but everything else was well worth it. While it is certainly a tempting proposition with friends already down there and gorgeous weather, Jess and I are glad we don’t live in San Diego as we’d both weigh double what we weigh now.

After wrapping up our BBQ-fest, we adjourned back to the hotel. Going to bed, I found out why there were complimentary earplugs in our night stands, the train tracks that ran below our window were still in service and very active. One long train stopped for over a half-an-hour under our window and across an intersection, and you could hear the warning klaxon even up in our room. It finally cleared out however, and I was able to get some sleep (Jess had brought her usual earplugs and was well asleep before I was). Morning came and we spent as much time as we could in the room before checkout just before noon (pretty generous since check-in time started at three pm). On the way to our next destination Jess saw a park off the freeway that we decided to stop at, and take a little hike. Jess found a tree that had a fun branch and, from that branch spotted what we initially though was a snake, but wound up being a lizard with really tiny arms and legs (I think that’s a skink?).

It was a lovely green area and a nice little walk to stretch our legs after driving and lounging for most of two days.

After that it seemed appropriate to continue the weekend’s minor baseball theme, getting lunch at an outdoor mall near UCSD and then catching “42″ at the Arclight there. It was a really good movie, the only complaints I heard going in was that it made the story a bit more mythical than it might have actually happened. I’m fine with that, I go to movies for my hero journeys and “42″ really delivered. Having a connection via rooting for the Dodgers all my life certainly helped. Even if you’re not a baseball fan, I definitely recommend it.

Finally it was time to top off our trip with a sojourn to Hodad’s, since Jess was going to miss my visit with my Ragnar van the next week (spoiler alert: our van didn’t make it to Hodad’s because they randomly decided to close from 11 am to 5 pm the next Saturday!). We had our usually awesome food, and I found that my name made it up on the wall!

Why Nebraska? I don’t know either.

With many great memories and full tummies (we probably won’t be doing Phil’s and Hodad’s on consecutive days again . . . whew!), we finally had to head back from our lightning trip down to San Diego. On our way back up the Interstate I saw five floating lights, which I remarked was probably LAX’s holding pattern. As we got closer Jess was the first to identify them, they were actually the floating fire lanterns like you see in Tangled (and, you know, apparently, real life). They drifted over the freeway and on past in a few minutes, much like our trip did. We had a lot of fun in a short amount of time, and spent Sunday resting and recuperating to get fully charged for the week ahead after many hectic ones.

Next up, though probably not tomorrow as I’m pretty booked, Ragnar!

Weight: 226 Loss: 4 lbs – Running Yearly Mileage: 204.5 miles (+0 miles) Last year-to-date: 127 miles – Words-to-date: 30251 (+1908)

Last weekend, Matt was away running the Ragnar Relay, so I decided to go check out Steampunk day at the Renaissance Faire with a friend. It was very cool to see all the costuming that people have come up with. Including a crazy awesome steampunk I-Pad case. I can totally see myself getting into the whole steampunk craze, but I just don’t have that level of commitment right now!

It was the first really hot day we have had here this season though, so we didn’t stay long. My allergies combined with the dry, dusty air and smoke from a nearby brush fire was also giving me a nasty sinus headache. After getting home, I did what most people do after a day like that… Took proper care of my Renaissance dress, jumped in a cold shower, and parked myself in front of the TV until my headache went away.

At some point, it dawned on me that Matt would still not be home for several hours and I should probably feed myself. Still having a bit of a headache, I really didn’t feel like thinking about what to make. Thankfully, I was catching up on episodes of The Chew and this was the recipe that was being prepared. After watching the segment, doing a quick mental inventory and determining that angel hair was close enough to fettuccine I wandered into the kitchen to make it.

It was a perfect recipe to make on autopilot. Quick, easy, simple. My only note, and this is a rule in general, use real Parmesan cheese, not the crappy green can stuff. Which is a good rule in general. I normally only use the 100% grated stuff for breading on chicken or something, but after reading this article the next day, Matt said that even that wasn’t an option any more, and I agree!! Sadly, I had a wedge of the real stuff in the fridge, but I was being lazy and cheap, and it was a mistake. The fake stuff clumped up in the butter  and was, in a word, blech. As the main problem was the cheese was separate from the sauce, I was still able to eat the noodles in what was essentially a butter-shallot sauce which was still good. I will say, it was similar to, but not quite as good as, the Creamy Garlic Pasta I made previously. This was nice though, as it was a traditional alfredo, it didn’t require any cream which I don’t normally have on hand. I need to make this again, the RIGHT way with real cheese, to truly give an opinion on it.

There is no link with this recipe because it was more a concept than recipe. I have seen several pins on Pinterest that involve using Quinoa instead of pasta for mac and cheese. The theory behind it is that it lightens it up calorie-wise and bulks it up nutritionally. The problem with using one of those recipes is that I really love my mac and cheese recipe. Instead of using someone else’s to test the concept, I just used my recipe and swapped 4 cups of cooked quinoa for the normal elbow macaroni.

I have to say, I wasn’t a fan. I love quinoa in salads and as a sub for rice, but it just doesn’t hold its own as a pasta substitution. It becomes lost in the sauce and brings a very odd texture with it. I should add, I hate over cooked pasta, so I usually under-cook my pasta for mac and cheese, that made this texture even less desirable for me. I can see that if you needed to make this change for health reasons, gluten or wheat allergy etc., how it could be a way to still enjoy something you love. With so many gluten/wheat free pasta choices available now though, I’m not sure I would go this route if Matt ended up falling into that category.

Since I somehow feel I should include a recipe in this post, and it is probably my “most requested” recipe. I will throw my mac and cheese recipe in. Basically, I was bored one weekend and decided I wanted to make “the best” mac and cheese, so I made 5 different batches until I came up with something I was satisfied with. This is what resulted…

Jess’ Mac and Cheese:

• 1/2 pound elbow macaroni
• About 8 strips of bacon (save 2 tablespoons of the grease)
• 1 tablespoon butter
• 3 tablespoons flour
• 1 tablespoon mustard (yellow or whole grain. Powder is fine too)
• 1 cup chicken broth/stock
• 2 cups milk
• 1/2 cup yellow onion, finely diced (I don’t mind the texture in the final product, if you don’t care for onion or pieces of it, you can shred it on a box grater)
• 2 cloves minced garlic
• 1 bay leaf
• 1/2 teaspoon paprika
• 1 large egg
• 12 ounces sharp cheddar, shredded
• 4 ounces smoked gouda, shredded
• Salt
• Black pepper

Topping:
• 3 tablespoons butter
• 1 cup panko bread crumbs

Directions
Cook the bacon until it’s crisp and save at least 2 tablespoons of the grease. Once cool, crumble into pieces.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Boil salted water to cook the pasta (about 2 minutes less than the package says).

While the pasta is cooking, in a large pot, add reserved bacon grease and 1 tbls butter over medium-low heat. Once the butter is melted, whisk in the flour and mustard and keep it moving for a few minutes minutes (you’re making a roux). Slowly stir in the chicken broth and milk, making sure it’s free of lumps. Then add the onion, garlic, bay leaf, and paprika. Simmer for ten minutes and remove the bay leaf. Do not let it boil or the sauce will break.

Temper in the egg. Stir in 2/3 of the cheddar and all the gouda. Season with salt and pepper. Fold the macaroni and the bacon into the mix and pour into a 2-quart casserole dish. Top with remaining cheddar.

Melt the butter in a saute pan and toss the bread crumbs to coat. Top the macaroni with the bread crumbs. Bake for 30 minutes. Remove from oven and rest for five minutes before serving.

It’s late and I want to get this up for the week, so I’m actually just going to focus on the first part of the adventure. I promise I’ll be more timely updating the rest of it, I’ll even try to get another post up tomorrow night (I know, I know, you’ve heard this before). Let’s get to the actual content though, rather than my excuses, and this should be fun since there are pictures too! Our adventure started when Jess and I decided at the last minute that since it was Spring Break (FAQ: No, we don’t get Spring Break off at work, the University is still open even though the students don’t have to show up.) and that meant I didn’t have to teach on Friday. Since I was (am) rehabbing my knee, I also decided that I needed to shelf Karate for the time being, since I can’t really jump on my right leg, so I didn’t have to worry about class on Saturday either. This meant we had a clear weekend! We took work off Friday and started to plan our getaway.

The first thing we needed was a location and a length of time. We went back and forth between going away for the full weekend or just splurging on one really fun Friday and Saturday. Poking around Priceline, we found one of their mystery deals, where the hotel was guaranteed to be in a certain area and the price was given, but you didn’t know the hotel until you booked. A four-star hotel in downtown San Diego caught our eye, and after deciding that 60% off was pretty good deal regardless of what hotel it was down there, we decided to put it all on one night and go for it. That, however, is a story for next time . . .

We had another destination Friday before we got to the hotel, a very familiar one with some unfamiliar friends. Disney has been doing this thing called “Limited-time Magic” where they run certain events for a week with unique experiences. The event for the week in question concerned “Long Lost Friends” where they dedicated a section of the park to characters that you don’t see out all the time. Jess really wanted to see them, being a unique experience and all, and my knee was okay with walking as long as it wasn’t for an extended amount of time. So we set aside a few hours at the park to go check out the characters and to also try out a dessert Jess had heard about that not a lot of people knew you could get by itself.

We arrived at the park right around noon and I had to go about the business of renewing my pass, since it had expired in January. At the booth, the cast member informed us that there was a special pass-holder only preview of the new Iron Man exhibit at Innoventions later in the afternoon. We made our way over to check out the line, but it was far to long for us to spend in with a limited time at the park. So we were off to the back of Frontierland, where they had set up several meet and greet areas for the characters you don’t see everyday. Here come the aforementioned pictures, and were going to break them up into groups for easy digestion.

The first group is characters that we didn’t see that I got bad pictures of just to say we caught a glimpse.

Okay, to be fair this is a good picture, but just as we got into line to see Jane and the one gorilla from Tarzan I’m supposed to remember, they went on break. Which was too bad, since Tarzan was one of the first movies Jess and I saw together. At the same time, so too went the three little pigs (the picture of them I got was bad enough I actually deleted it rather than inflict you with it), and sadly Scrooge McDuck. So sad, in fact, that I took a picture of their empty station before they changed it over just for the memories:

Woo-oo indeed.

Other characters we didn’t visit and I got bad pictures of included some from the Hunchback of Notre Dame:

The technicolor fairies from Sleeping Beauty:

Is that not what they’re called? I’m so bad with names. They looked like they were having a lot of fun, though. Also, another pretty good picture.

Finally, the coup de grace of bad pictures, Mushu’s back!

Yes, I mean literally his back. Jess actually got a better picture I was able to yoink:

Not much better though, turns out the line for Mulan was long! We waited in our own long line to see a group of characters which we both enjoyed during our childhoods. I’m getting all “Oh De La Le” just thinking about it. Yup, Robin Hood, that fox (no, literally), was on the scene:

If you can’t tell, Prince John was always itching to fight Robin Hood:

The line snaked back and forth, so we moving along the front of the set for a little while which was how we got these pictures. I started to snap another one when a young lady stepped into frame just as I was pushing the button. I immediately saw a box (from the facial recognition) light up as she turned back to whoever was behind her and I swear I couldn’t have gotten a better picture of her if I tried (Hey, I’m no Danny Baker, or Neil Johnson, or Meghan Christine . . . you know what, we know a lot of professional photographers).

Ignore the cast member getting jiggy with it on the right side of the picture, they were doing it a lot. Actually, everyone in the area seemed to be having a great time, ourselves included. Finally it was our turn to meet and greet and I promptly responded by doing my best Robin Hood impression and attempting to steal the Sherrif of Nottingham’s gold.

Now I’ll allow myself a moment of pride here (stop laughing), as Jess asked what we should do when we got up there and I had an epiphany mid-way through the line. After verifying that no one else ahead of us was doing it and I was truly a unique little flower (okay, you can laugh at that one), it was time for an archery contest!

Note Friar Tuck praying for the poor people behind the camera. Prince John had for some reason wandered away, and when he came back as we were leaving I drew my bow on him and he backed away sucking his thumb. It was priceless, sadly the cameras had already been stowed.

Another changing of the guard occurred when we went back to visit the RGB Fairies (still wrong? Dang.), and we wound up visiting some of our other favorite characters (well, Stitch is one of mine, at least):

I was on fire, as I suggested the surfing pose too. Finally it was time to grab some dessert before heading out of the park and down to our hotel adventure. Jess discovered a smore-molten brownie desert at the family style barbecue joint behind Big Thunder Mountain which you can apparently order apart from the giant meal. We did so, and were served this:

Yeah, it was as good as it looked, and, oddly enough, even better the next day (we were tipped off by the hostess who seated us that you could get a to-go box), at least for me. And then it was time for us to head out, as we had many more adventures to embark upon in next twenty-four hours, adventures you will get to hear about . . . later.

Weight: 226 Loss: 4 lbs – Running Yearly Mileage: 204.5 miles (+20.3 miles) Last year-to-date: 127 miles – Words-to-date: 28343 (+1382)