March flowers...

Usually March is pretty chilly, and we long for the coming Spring. This year, spring has come and there was no messing around. With it comes, the heat, and the rain unfortunately. It was in the 80's most of the week, and then this weekend it cooled off and rained, for what felt like all weekend. March showers bring March flowers; that's how the saying goes, right? Here's a couple random pictures of flowers I've taken, usually while out walking Maddog around my neighborhood.

We had planned to go to a St. Patty's festival, but got rained out. Ended up trying out a couple new places to eat though, which was fun. I did get to go riding on Friday before the weather came in, and I also planted a couple tomato plants and a few herbs. Mint, lavender, oregano, and rosemary. We'll see how they do in the pots on my porch. Times like these makes me miss having a backyard.

Running, riding, and green

Friday included some riding. I got passed and left in the dust by a 45+ yr old guy. I started out feeling strong, and then that happened... but it was good ride. Nice weather, good trails, and legs felt good. Had dinner at an Indian restaurant, which was a steal on a LivingSocial deal, and was really quite good and finished the evening very nicely.

Of course I played disc golf, but I did try out a new course. There's a relatively new course on the University of Richmond campus that I hadn't played yet, so Maddog and I went to check it out. The holes are considerably shorter and most of the course is in the woods, so it's a different style than Bryan parks long, open holes, but it was fun to try a different course. There was plenty of water in the pond and streams so the dog was happy and dirty, which meant he got a bath afterward.

Saturday of course was St. Patrick's day. Lots of expectations for people to wear green and get drunk. I went to a friends house to see the progress on the house renovations and let the dogs play around for a bit.  Saw the movie titled "Jeff, Who Lives at Home" which I hadn't heard of, but without TV, I don't see many trailers. It was actually really good. I enjoyed it. Lots of really funny parts, and quick comments. Some drama as well, since it wasn't strictly a comedy. Good all around. 

With the weather the way it is (scary nice) it felt like a good day for some spring cleaning on Sunday. I reorganized my "gear closet" and have set aside some stuff to be donated or trashed. Went for another run, and my calves are absurdly sore. With softball season coming up, I went to the batting cages again with a friend and then got in some throwing and a little fielding practice. Fought off the Sunday evening doldrums letting Madison play with a couple more dog friends, sitting out on the deck, practicing handstands and watching a little Bela Fleck and friends. 

Donors, chili and adventure movies

The WSJ had an article the other day scaring people out of being organ donors. Fear mongering is everywhere. Along with the "red meat causes cancer" article in my other post, this takes a little information, and distorts it into something horrible and scary, and people read this and think to themselves they are better informed. Keep digging folks.

Friday night Richmond hosted the Banff Mountain Film Festival. Tickets sold out incredibly quickly even though they recently started charging a nominal fee for tickets. I just wish they'd make the other videos available for distribution. The only video I've been able to find that we saw part of was All I Can. Close to 3 hrs of outdoor adventures, from skiing to kayaking and trekking 10,000 kilometers following the footsteps of Genghis Khan on a horse with a dog for 3+ yrs alone. Crazy. Very cool films.

For those of you who know me well, it's a good thing you're sitting down... On Saturday, I. went. for. a. run.
Yeah, I know. I signed up for this Primal Mud Run a few weeks back and started "training." I feel like I'm in decent shape, with biking and some occasional climbing and recent re-entry into lifting and I don't do a whole lot of sitting (except at work). But I figured I needed to get my legs used to the motion of running for more than half a block with the dog. So I went for a run that was just a hair over a mile. I went all out and wore my barefoot shoes (no I didn't pay nearly that much for them), which means you end up running a bit more on your toes and your forefoot absorbs the impact instead of your heels. All I can say is that my calves are still sore on Tuesday. The race is only 4 miles and there will be plenty of stops in between to complete the obstacles, but I'm starting to think I'm glad it's not any longer. Need to work up to a couple miles without wanting to amputate my legs the day after.

The dinner party Sat. night was really nice. Met some more really nice people who are also into climbing and biking and had a great time playing "Catch phrase." An intense team game where you give clues to your teammates about the phrase you're given and they have a short time to guess the words. There's lots of yelling, laughing and acting by some. Good times. We had chili for dinner, with a nice addition of homemade hot sauce and dried cherries. Turned out really well! And dessert, was delicious too! Good food, good company, good times.

Ice cream causes drownings!

Most 9th grade science classes teach that correlation does not mean causation. A lot of us tend to forget that sometimes. And even researchers with good intentions forget this and end up getting some egg on their face. The latest is this widely publicized research study that says red meat causes an increase in cardio vascular disease (CVD), cancer and mortality. I heard it on the radio driving in this morning too. What the media presents to the lay person is that the more red meat you eat, the higher your risk of death by CVD and cancer. Therefore to avoid CVD and cancer, cut out red meat.

What they don't mention is that the people in the study who had a higher death rate of CVD and cancer, where the same men and women that were "less likely to be physically active and were more likely to be current smokers, to drink alcohol, and to have a higher body mass index. In addition, a higher red meat intake was associated with a higher intake of total energy but lower intakes of whole grains, fruits, and vegetables."

So the obese, sedentary, smokers who don't eat enough fruits and veggies, end up dying of CVD and cancer, and because they also ate more red meat than the skinny, active, non-smokers, the red meat is what killed them.... really?! There's another classic example of this: ice cream causes drownings. Since people eat more ice cream in the summer, and drownings occur more during ice cream eating season, it must mean ice cream causes drownings. Right? Or maybe there was another factor involved, like people go to the pool/beach/lake more in the summer, spend more time in the water, and the likelihood of drowning increases. Ice cream has nothing to do with it. But ice cream consumption goes up, and drownings go up, and there is a correlation. But not causation. I'll continue eating my red meat, and veggies, and fruit and continue not smoking. Thanks.

 

Coffee, stink bugs and caving

Titling blog posts always takes me way too long. I always think it should be captivating and sum up the entire post in a couple words, but it never does, so I end up with a super simple useless title like the date or "weekends" so, I'm going to just start titling randomly. You'll just have to read the post to know what happened.

Todays title does have something to do with the latest adventures though. On Thursday, I emailed Chad and Andrew to see if they wanted to hang out. Andrew was out of town for the weekend in Chicago for work, and Chad texted me saying he had Friday off. So I met Chad at the Old Rag parking lot a little before noon. Maddog in tow, we hiked up through the woods to a, until recently, never before climbed area on Old Rag. The weather was cool, but nice enough to work up a little sweat on the hike up.

We made it to the wall and took a few minute break to snack and rest. As Chad was setting up the anchor, the weather took a turn for the worst and started raining. We hung out under a big overhang for an hour or so hoping it would blow over, but it became obvious we were going to be able to climb that day. So we packed up, and took most of our stuff back down. Chad left his crash pad since he was going back soon and didn't feel like lugging it back down. It was left out of the rain and hopefully out of reach of the mice which might like to use the foam in the crash pad as nesting material.

We ended up heading to the movie theater to see Act of Valor which was really good. I didn't realize the actors were real Navy Seals before hand, so I was a unfairly critical of their dialogue and banter. Knowing that, they did a great job. Really glad I saw it, and would recommend it. 

Chad's girlfriend Liz came up Friday night and on Saturday the three of us went caving. There's a hole in the ground somewhere around Martinsburg, WV that'll take you down a ways under ground. Through some smaller passages and mud covered rocks we made our way through the labyrinth into the depths to the center of the earth... okay, not really, but we did get pretty far down there. As my first caving experience, it was really fun. I'm told it was relatively tame in comparison to what "real cavers" do, but I thought it was awesome. We rappelled down about 40 ft at one point and had to squeeze through some pretty tight spots. Headlamps, rappelling and getting covered in mud. What more can you ask for?

 On our way back to Chad's we stopped for lunch at a surprisingly good Caribbean food joint, and peeked in to check out Big Bucks Bingo. Their website is about 100 times classier than the actual place. The blue haze of smoke coming from the doors, where close to 500 extremely out of shape people were all hoping for B-12, or N-7, was as intriguing as a car wreck. You really didn't want to look, but just couldn't help yourself.

On stinkbugs; Chad's house is a refuge for them. And they take advantage of his hospitality. To the point of extreme occupation. Dang stink bugs. So we escaped on Sunday too. We thought about going outside to boulder, but it was really windy and not all that warm, so we figured we'd be more comfortable and get more climbing in at the climbing gym in Warrenton. It recently opened and Chad's been setting routes, so we did a bunch of climbing and finished in the bouldering area. I felt weak and soft skinned, but it was fun and was great exercise.

On the way home I stopped by Karen's house to share weekend stories, let the dogs hang out, and had some light dinner. Another great weekend! Next weekend is already shaping up to be another good one, with the Banff film festival coming into town, Primal mud run training, and a dinner party. And why coffee in the title? Mainly because I was drinking some coffee when I started writing this post...