Fitocracy and throwing down the gauntlet

Fitocracy.com is this really great website for "gamifying" fitness. You log and track workouts of all sorts, then the game system applies point values to your workout. The workouts can be weight routines, running, dance, even things like taking the stairs. The site was created by a couple if formerly out-of-shape geeks who found it easier to make fitness fun by thinking of it as leveling up their lives. There are quests and achievements to chase which provide bonus points as well as badges to show off your prowess.

It's a great site for encouraging people to get fit and the social network aspect builds support and encouragement. Personally I've found it to be great motivation to actually track my workouts, as well as encouragement to branch out and try some weights or yoga or other new activities.

The latest feature is the ability to challenge other members to duels. You pick a length of time and see who can run the most miles, lift the most weight or earn the most points during that time period.

This has been a great new tool and has created a lot if excitement on the site. Personally, I've taken the opportunity to throw down the gauntlet against one of the biggest names in running on the site, fellrnr, for a monthlong running mileage challenge. Fellrnr, aka Jonathan Savage, is an ultrarunner of no small skill. He cranks out marathon mileage like most people crank out three milers. I may be the first person to have the nerve to take him on. Realistically, I don't have a snowball's chance, but I think the daunting challenge will provide some kickstarting motivation to take my running up a notch or ten. And who knows what could happen in a month... there are few things I relish as much as a challenge!

The Mazer Cup International

This past Friday and Saturday the Mazer Cup International was held here in Boulder, Colorado. The MCI is one of the biggest mead competitions in the world, that it's held practically in my backyard is pretty exciting. That I was able to get Friday off from work to judge meads at the competition meant exactly one thing... it was Mead-mas!

it's hard to know exactly where to start with the Mazer Cup. I guess the question of how I came to be judging is as good a place as any. While I've been studying for the Mead judge's certification of the Beer Judging Certification Program (BJCP) and have made a point of tasting and evaluating every new mead I come across on top of my sampling of my 30+ batches of my own mead, I didn't expect to be accepted when I volunteered to judge due to the fact that I haven't yet taken the MJCP. Two things played in my favor though. The first is that scheduling an MJCP exam is apparently quite a challenge, so many judges don't have the certification. Secondly, through a combination of illness and other unfortunate circumstances the MCI was short on judges so being available locally on short notice played out in my favor.

That said, in spite of my lack of certification, I think I acquitted myself quite admirably and the conversations I had with the other judges supported that, as I was able to pick out flaws, subtle flavors and give the sort of helpful feedback that I would have expected to receive myself from the other judges for my own mead. It can be a lot harder to objectively judge something you have labored over yourself.

Friday was the commercial competition and I spent the morning judging braggots, which are a beer/mead combination. many of the beer components were barrel aged, which is popular in brewing these days. And for good reason as it adds a lot of great complexity to the flavors of both mead as well as beer. The highlight was a triple barrel aged braggot composed of a stout made with caramelized raisins aged in whiskey barrels, an American brown ale with plums aged in a French merlot barrel and a wildflower honey aged in an oak barrel. Simply put, it was spectacular. Not surprisingly, it went on to take gold.

That afternoon I moved on to tasting sack strength dessert meads. There were a lot of entries and the alcohol content was high so we took our time, but ultimately we came across a mead made with Polish buckwheat honey that was just... amazing. It was everything you could ask for in the style, sweet without being cloying, with a great alcohol/sweetness balance and wonderful complexity to the flavor of the honey.

Finally I wrapped up the evening with a set of dry traditionals which were quite good, but as I'm not much of a fan of dry meads none of them stood out so well for me as the other categories.

When day one was over though, I was left tempering the expectations for my own entries for the homebrew competition. While I really enjoyed my own meads, they didn't have the technical nuance that most of the meads I had sampled possessed.

Saturday was the homebrew portion of the competition, which is when things got more interesting. For one thing, I had to stay alert to make sure I didn't end up judging my own categories. For another, some of the homebrew submissions were... less than stellar. Usually the problem with these was that there was something wrong with the process, such as bottles that hadn't been properly rinsed before bottling (one tasted like Dawn detergent, yikes!). On the other hand, many of them were very adventurous in ways the commercial entries weren't. Some examples include meads made with peppers, and meads aged in bacteria infected barrels to produce sour flavors. Almost every entry provided lessons on things to do and things not to do.

On top of all the meads though, were the people. I don't think it would be a stretch to say that meadmakers are the nerdy oddballs of the brewing community, and that's ceainly not a knock as I'm a nerdy oddball myself. There were a lot of folks from the new England area, which was really great to see, and a lot of volunteers from the nearby area. There were entries, and entrants in attendance, from Canada, Sweden, Slovakia, Germany and Poland and I found myself with a group from Poland and Germany at the awards reception dinner. I dusted off my few remaining Polish phrases from my visit eight years ago (I can't believe it was that long ago) and generally tried to get to know them, which is tricky in such situations.

Soon enough though, it was time for the awards to be presented and for the anxiety in the room to step it up a notch...

Muscle Restoration Therapy

I've been off my running game for the last several months due to an injury that I recently acknowledged was plantar fasciitis. Yup, the dreaded PF. Pretty sure I got it as a result of ignoring some of the cardinal rules of running by adding too much mileage too fast and not giving myself adequate recovery time. Stupid things to do and I ought to know better.

I DO know better, I just didn't listen.

After a chance encounter with Mark Van Akkeren I decided, on his advice, to see Josh Shadle at Tri-Massage (http://tri-massage.com) for some treatment. Mark warned me to bring something to bite down on for the treatment, boy do I wish I had listened.

Josh began by asking me about my problem and the symptoms, and what had been done to treat them. I'd been doing plantar stretches, calf stretches, foot massage with a plastic spiky ball the size if a golfball and icing my foot.

Then he moved on to a series of muscle tests to determine where the weakness in my musculature was that caused the PF.  He found the deficiency pretty fast and began to, painfully, loosen up the affected areas.

The problem, he explained, isn't my calf or the sole of my foot (which he barely touched). Those are symptoms. The calf muscle was overworking due to another imbalance on the outside of my lower leg. The muscles and ligaments there were weak and tight and not doing their job, so other parts of my leg picked up the slack and got overworked.

He loosened up and activated the tight, weak areas and showed my some self-massage to do frequently throughout the day to keep them loose and active.

And that was that. Do the self-massage and I should be fine. No follow up should be necessary. If it's not feeling better in a few weeks, go back for some more deep massage, but usually that's not needed.

But Josh, when can I start running again? Any time. The next day if I like. Running should help strengthen the now loosened and activated musculature. Just take it easy, be smart and do the self-massage often. Ten times a day or more.

I'll admit to being slightly skeptical. It couldn't really be that simple, could it? But this morning the pain in my foot was significantly reduced. My leg feels like hell from the massage, but that's not unexpected, I've had deep tissue massage before and I know the price. If this is the price for health and running, I'll pay it any day.

Muddy Mesa fun

Recently my Saturday run has been up south on Ninth, then along the Mesa Trail in Chautauqua. It makes for a hell of a climb to start and Mesa is a great place for 'quick feet'.
Last week my 90 minute run brought me a respectable 7.5 miles. When I was finished though, I knew I had more in the tank and vowed to get to 8 miles in the same time this week.
In between this week and last, there was the small matter of the first snowstorm of the year here in Boulder. Twelve inches of snow fell, turning Mesa trail into a snowy, icy, slushy, muddy mess.
In spite of this, I still managed to pull off 8.04 miles in the trail nastiness... and I still felt spectacular. Next time I do that route, I'll see if I can push it to nine miles instead.
I also decided to take some video of my feet during one of the descents, being curious to see them myself. I've also posted the video for your viewing amusement.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nm5vN99lnew&feature=youtube_gdata_player

My loss

I don't normally talk about personal stuff here. Running, architecture, cycling, mead making, n+1... these things are important to me in their way, especially running, but they're not personal. This isn't that type of blog.

Today is an exception. I've felt the pull to share this for a while, and I've decided that ignoring that pull is just not healthy.

So...

A couple months ago my grandmother passed away. 

She had been sick for several months and went downhill quickly and suddenly. So suddenly that in spite of moving up my flight to visit her twice in the 4 days before I flew out, by the time I arrived she had been asleep for a while. In the 24 hours that ensued, I barely left her bedside, I stayed awake all night waiting and hoping she would wake up long enough for me to at least tell her that I love her. She never did, and she passed away right before I left. I'm no stranger to death, I worked in a nursing home as a CNA for a year. I got to know death better than I would ever want or choose. I sat there and saw her draw that last breath... I saw it and in seeing it I knew it would be her last.

My grandmother was a paragon of the loving grandmother stereotype. A feisty little old lady who let nothing slow her down. She knit and crocheted and taught all her grandkids to cross-stitch. She baked goodies, and gave warm, soft, loving hugs that could take away any hurt or pain in a moment. People would practically come to blows over batches of her fudge. She welcomed everyone into her home and wanted nothing more than to cook you a hot meal. The most important things to her were being a mother and a grandmother (and a great-grandmother). That was how she identified, it was who she was. So much so that in her last night, she called out in her sleep for my grandfather. Not by name, but rather, "Dad... Dad..."

She was not perfect. She was human. She would sometimes gossip unpleasantly and like many of her generation, some of her attitudes towards people who were different were outdated and unfortunate. Generally she was aware of this though, and tried not to impart those views on us.

I don't think I ever fully realized how truly special my relationship with my grandmother had been until that last visit to see her. One of my cousins, who had been practically raised by my grandmother, along with her sisters because their mother was divorced, came up to me and told me she was sorry she had always been so resentful of the special relationship I had with gram. I had no idea my cousin had been resentful or envious, and I hadn't realized until then just how special I had been to my grandmother.

I think back on my memories of her and the pain is sharp and hot and frightening, but I reach for them anyways. I think of her bringing me to the bus stop on my first day of kindergarten. I think my other grandmother was there as well, though I'm not totally sure. I remember her coming to my first half-ironman, my mother flew her out to Colorado and kept her to the shade of the 100 degree heat that day. Somehow Gram was the one who spotted me coming out of the water. A few years later she was cheering at my ironman... was that really just two years ago? I think about sitting next to her at the kitchen table in the morning, talking about school, work and my romantic trials and tribulations. She'd fill me in on how everyone was doing in the family... Tell me about bowling every Monday night (at 87 years old). I think about talking to her on the phone the last time and hearing her slipping away and her crying...

Every time I think about these things I feel like something inside of me breaks, and every time the pain is sharper instead of duller. Still, I go back to them because I miss her so badly. Even when she wasn't nearby, I knew she was there... and now she's not. All I want is to have her back.

The Name of the Metheglin

In my last post I mentioned a metheglin that was inspired by a well loved book. The book is The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss. In it, the protagonist is served a mug of metheglin, which he describes thus:

I took a drink from the tall tankard to give myself a chance to clear my wits, and something wonderful happened in my mouth: cool spring honey, clove, cardamom, cinnamon, pressed grape, burnt apple, sweet pear, and clear well water. that's all I have to say of metheglin. If you haven't tried it, then I am sorry I cannot describe it properly. If you have, then you don't need me to remind you what it is like.
 

Being a bit of a crazed mazer, I immediately decided I had to try making it. I did some research into how the various spices and fruits were used in other recipes to get a grasp on what proportions to start with, since I had done very little experimentation with spices before, and settled on a recipe. I put about a week into deciding this before finally going out and buying myself myself some high quality ingredients and went to work.

Mead is a product of patience, and I am not a creature of patience, so while it's been a fairly short wait for a mead, for me, it's been torturous and I've been half-convinced it was going to be a disappointing or even disastrous batch.

Last week I finally poured off an ounce to taste it since it had finally cleared. A bad batch? I couldn't have been more wrong. It was amazing. Certainly the most delicious thing I have brewed, probably the best mead I've ever tasted and maybe even the best thing I've ever tasted. Well, perhaps not, but I can't think of anything that compares, aside from my grandmother's fudge. I nursed that one ounce of metheglin for more than half an hour (the batch being only one gallon, I wanted to savor it).

 

That said, the batch wasn't perfect, or at least, not exactly what I was planning. The clove was a little stronger than I intended (though my fellow tasters enjoyed the clove) and it was overall sweeter than I had anticipated. The pear was almost indiscernible. The apple and cinnamon were right about where I wanted them, and I'm hoping that the cardamom will be more prominent once the clove is dialed back. Also, I forgot the grape entirely.

For all my nitpicking though, it is truly delightful and if I could never improve on what it is now, I would not mind in the least.

The only thing remaining was a name. With some of my meads, I've gone the amusing route for naming. My first batch was called the Hammer (in reference to a cult neo-classic musical video blog), one of my bacon recipes is Sir Francis Bacon Mead. For others, I've opted for simple, such as Traditional Honey Wine or Apricot Mead. In this case I'm going to go slightly sentimental and name it in honor of the friend who introduced me to the book which inspired the recipe. 

The name of the metheglin is simply Meadow Wine.

Mead Update!

Since my last posting I've been a busy mazer! Let's get up to speed...

Bottled!

First was a pumpkin pie mead that I started last fall. It's a little dry for my taste, but I've got quite the sweet tooth and i think it makes a nice break from my other sweeter meads. It's got a wonderful spicy aroma and bite to it. For that batch I made pumpkin pie filling from scratch and used that in the must.

I also bottled a traditional sweet mead, basically The Hammer but less sweet and less alcoholic.

Secondary!

I haven't moved anything too exciting to secondary, though I do have a quartet of one gallon batches that are ready for bottling. These include a peppermint mead, a saffron mead, an apple cinnamon mead and a metheglin inspired by a favorite novel of mine. The first two varieties are tastily dry, while the other two have been back-sweetened to taste. The metheglin is quite exquisite if I do say so myself.

Primary!

There have been a couple exciting new experiments slipping into primary. One is a show mead, which is a mead that uses just water, honey and yeast. No nutrients, cleansers or any other additives. It's very slow in brewing, but I'm excited about how it will go.

Another batch I'm particularly excited about is a batch of hops and hibiscus inspired by Viking Blod mead, a delicious Danish mead that I've had on a couple occasions.It started off as a 2 gallon batch but I think it will have to expand to 5 gallons because the hops and hibiscus are currently quite a bit stronger than I had intended. That said, it's still pretty tasty.

Apricot Mead

I've ben working on a troublesome Apricot mead for quite some time for a friend of mine. It fermented slowly (somewhat by design), was bitter, wouldn't clear... It's been a very tricky batch.

The clarifying has been my recent bane. I've re-racked it two or three times to get it to clear, heck, even just trying to get all the apricot chunks out. This past Sunday I decided to re-rack it again. To say this mead was not pretty, would be an understatement. Ugly would be a good description. It was a yellowish, milky color and it still had chunks of apricot in it. Overall it looked like something that had curdled and gone bad.

I siphoned the mead off, using a fine net as a filter (which I had done before with this same batch) into a clean, sanitized five gallon carboy. Then I added a clarifier, Kwik Kleer I believe, and tucked it away again. I always take the opportunity to taste a batch when I re-rack or do just about anything to it, but not this time. This wasn't a mead I wanted to look at, much less taste.

Little more than a day later, the transformation has been dramatic. Where before it was a milky brownish yellow. Now almost all the sediment has settled and it's been revealed as an absolutely beautiful warm chestnut color that's begging to be sampled. When I went to check on it, I wondered where I had put it because the change was so complete. I didn't believe that was really the apricot batch I had looked down on in disgust the day before.

It hasn't completely cleared yet, I'll give it a bit more time to finish, but the next time my friend is over we'll certainly be giving it a try.

Stuff I Love - Vibram Five Finger

There are few things that have made running more enjoyable for me than my Vibram Five Fingers.
Early in my running days, while living in Boston, I gave barefoot running a try. The less than savory city sidewalks brought that to a quick halt and I found myself wishing I could just paint a layer of protective rubber on the soles of my feet. When I finally saw a pair of Vibrams, many years later, I was  instantly smitten. It took a while to get a pair, but now I have three.

It would be difficult to get into the exact reasons why I love them so much without going into a long discussion about barefoot running. Suffice it to say that if you asked me who designed the better foot, Phil Knight with his waffle iron or thousands of years of Evolution, I side with Evolution. Vibram Five Fingers enable evolution's work to apply seamlessly in the modern world. They fit like a glove, shed water faster than you'd believe, they're light and warmer than you would expect. I even ran in slush in them with less discomfort than in other running shoes which hold water next to your skin. I have also found them to be absolutely amazing for blister prevention. Beyond amazing really.
 
One complaint I have is that they seem to get stinky faster than most shoes. Fortunately, tossing them in the laundry is also less of an issue than it would be with other running shoes.  The other potential drawback is that they stand out and draw a lot of attention. This isn't necessarily bad, but when I'm out on a run I don't want to have to stop and explain how much I like my shoes all the time.

If I didn't love them, I wouldn't run the hundreds of miles in them that I have.

Focus: In Running & Life

I happened to pick up an article today at lunch on Scott Jurek from a year ago. As it turned out, it was the somewhat infamous King of Pain article, which I had never read.

The underlying theme of the article was focus. Having it, losing it, and trying to regain it. It was a topic I could appreciate as I've been having trouble with my own focus lately. 

Focus is important in running. A loss of focus is a factor in non-running mind. Focus is what got me through my 400+ miles in February. The lack of focus, and an ensuing breakdown in mental discipline, I have determined to be the core of my letdown in Moab. I felt a slipping of my focus this past weekend at the Horsetooth Half. I've even felt the loss of focus recently in my professional work.

So, I've lost my focus, now what do I do about it? There are a few things that I find to be important to regaining focus, as I've had to do before. Or perhaps they're all different facets of one thing. 

The first thing is, as the song says, to accentuate the positive. Find those elements in life that bring focus to your life. If you've wandered away from those things, bring them back, but be careful of overdoing it.

Second, eliminate the negative. Are there specific things that are distracting you or breaking your focus? Find ways to deal with them, whether that's moving away from them or integrating them more healthfully into your life or some other approach.

Third, and probably most important, is balance. For me, life cannot be one completely driven, focused action. To focus well, I need parts of my life to be unfocused as balance to the focus.

This is all common sense stuff of course, but sometimes I find it helpful to go over the basics in order to move forward.

The positive: running is a great focus for me. It's there, it's trying to do its thing, but stuff is getting in the way. The negative: there's a lot of stress built up over my performance in Moab. This is making me more stressed about my upcoming events and compounding itself.

What drove the loss of focus at Moab itself though? Balance. Rather, imbalance. I don't think I gave myself the mental break after February that I needed. After a month of real intense mental and physical focus, I didn't really let up. The physical tension I've felt lately is mirrored mentally. I need to take time to relax mentally.

Another important element here is the realization that I've simply taken on too much lately. I've kept myself so busy that finding time to unwind simply hasn't happened.

The prescription? Simplify. Cut back some of the clutter that's getting in the way. Then take that free time and keep it free. Goof off, relax, unwind, and give myself the mental break that I need.

And try not to think about what will happen if I don't get that focus back in time for the Leadman.