If You Have to Smell it to See if it is Still Good ... (and a Race Report)

... You should probably throw it out.

Yep, I am talking food here people.  My wife, Annie, learned this lesson the hard way over the last 24 hours.  She found some eggs in the fridge and they were well past the re-stock date.  She, however, decided that after a closer inspection with her nose that they were, in fact, consumable.  This decision will go down in Annie's mental file cabinet as an extremely poor one!

The poor girl has been hit with an awful case of food poisoning!

So that is today's life lesson:  Toss your old food out to avoid violent vomiting!

• I cannot wait until the Superbowl today!  As many of you know I was born and raised south of Pittsburgh and even though I live in Texas now I am still a huge Pittsburgh fan.  My house has Steelers, Pirates, and Penguins gear all of the place.  In my gameroom/pain cave I have prints on the walls of all the old and current stadiums.  I also have pictures of past Super Bowls hanging around.  I have about a dozen Steelers jersey's hanging in my closet and I spend the absurd amount of cash on the DirecTV NFL Season Ticket every single year.  As a matter of fact, the only reason we still have DirecTV is because of the NFL Season Ticket.  I have a Hines Ward and a Troy Polamalu Bobble head that takes a prominent seat next to me during every game.  Terrible Towels are a plenty in my residence. My pugs even have Steelers apparel.  To say I am excited for this game is a complete understatement!

• Yesterday was a festival at the local YMCA.  It is called Bridge Fest (they shutdown the big bridge over Lake Houston) and is always a big event here in Kingwood.  They have a bunch of events going on but the highlight is a 5K race over the bridge that has about 1000 people run every year.  My Tri Club (I am the VP) decided to setup a tent at the event to create awareness and drive membership.  The plan was that Annie was going to drive down and meet my friends, Mike and Patrick, and hang out at the tent while I ran down from the house which is about 5miles.  Then I was going to run the 5k at an easy pace for another 3.1 miles and then run home.  Total miles: 13 - long run complete for the week.  Well this plan went out the door when the rotten eggs resurfaced (literally) for Annie!

• I had to drive to the event because I could not run with all the Tri Club gear and my bike so I decided to run the 5k a little harder than originally planned.

• Bridge Fest 5K Race Report:  It was about 25 degrees (much colder with wind chill) at the race start.  I still have a little bit of difficulty remaining from the bronchitis of last week and this could really be felt breathing in the cold.  About 20 minutes before the race started I decided to go for a quick warm up run in the opposite direction.  I started off and sort of lost track of time as I ran about 2miles.  When I got back all the racers were already lined up at the start and were packed in like sardines.  I was able to finesse my way up to about the middle of the pack but had a TON of walkers and kids ahead of me when the gun sounded.  It took me a solid .5 mile to find some running room and I lost a considerable amount of time weaving in and out of slower runners.   I picked it up during the last .5 of mile one and my split was 6:40.  I was trying to average 6:15-6:20/mi so this was slow and meant I was going to have to pick it up if I had any chance of finishing sub-20minutes. I made the turn around at the halfway point and realized the only people in front of me were about a dozen Cross County runners from the high school, a guy probably in his late-20's, and my friend Adam (in my AG) from the Tri Club.  I was hurting as mile two was done at a sub-6 pace in order to get back the time lost but this gave me a boost and I kicked it in and told myself it was going to hurt but would be over soon so just hold on.  I caught up to Adam and chatted for a second but I was hurting and talking was not making it better so head went down and I suffered until the end.  My lesson learned was that I still hate 5k races!
• Garmin Time: 
• Distance: 3.18mi 
• Time:  19:54 (missed PR my 12 seconds)
• Pace:  6:15
• Age Group (30-39):  2nd Place
• Overall:  ?  (These results are all unofficial as I left to take care of sick-girl before the awards and they have not been posted online.  A friend called to tell me I won the AG).

• After the race I went home and took a little nap and then went and completed the additional 10miles required for my weekly long run.  My legs felt awful the entire run.  It was so bad that I actually used an iPod for the run - I never use an iPod for my runs.  Good news is that I got through it.

• When I finish this post it is to the trainer for a 3hr 45min ride.  On the movie queue is Inception and Piranha.  I am concerned Inception might be too deep for the trainer.  Might have to watch South Park or The League on DVR.  Mindless is better when the trainer is involved. I do not share this concern about Piranha - it looks awful!

• Annie is feeling better this morning.  She is still sleeping but told me when I woke up that she was better but tired.

• I am so happy this week is behind me.  It was trade show week in Houston so I had to spend Thursday and Friday standing at a booth for my company at the George R. Brown Convention Ctr Downtown.  My feet were killing me for both of those days.  I had to miss two swim workouts because we had an ice storm and it took me like 2 hours to get to downtown on Thursday and Friday.  In Houston the majority of our major highways have elevated on/off ramps and these suckers freeze and make traveling treacherous.  This is why it took so long for me to get in and out of the city as we could only use back roads and when I say "we" I mean a few million other drivers!  It was awful.  

• After yesterday's cold morning the sun came out and it was 65 degrees.  This was awesome.  Up until I heard a weird sound outside the house under the kitchen window.  I walked around and my sprinkler pipes had burst.  Water was shooting 8ft in the air.  This happened last year during a deep freeze and it is a HUGE pain in the ass.  I walked to the street, turned off the water, walked back to the house and turned off the sprinkler connection (needs to happen in this order), walked back to the street and turned the water back on and then announced to Annie that we are not going to have sprinklers until after Ironman - suck it green lawn!

Time to go suffer on the trainer!

Thanks for Reading,

Jeff