Chicks in the Hood

We have been contemplating getting chickens for a while now. It's been unfortunate of course that our friends had to evacuate, but the silver lining to this smoky cloud has been the visit of these lovely ladies.



Beautiful birds



They have been the object of Daisy's interest for a couple of days now.




They've had the same effect on Skye.



However, some of the realities primarily their poop, tempered her enthusiasm.




Skye's nicknamed this one Oreo.






Farmer Jon and friends. Just hanging with our little evacuees.




Goodnight sweet chicks.

The Rest of Saturday

After the shortened run, and doing a little of this and a little of that, Skye and I went off to visit a friend in the hospital, to be followed by another visit to a friend who lived in La Crescenta.

Upon our arrival, I mean like immediately upon arrival, they got the call that they were to evacuate, as in a mandatory evacuation.




These were pics taken before we got to their house.



This as well




They were setting up the barricades as we were leaving.

We helped our friends pack up what they could including 5 chickens, 2 cats, a rabbit and a frog. And then we all high-tailed it up to our place.




Skye grabbed this pic as we were heading out. Great shot, check out the helicopter.




The view of the fires from our house, many, many miles away.

A Short Tough Run

There were a number reasons I thought that today's trail run might be tough. For a variety of reasons I hadn't run at all in two weeks, yesterday I had a most intense and exhausting Jui Jitsu training session, and it was my first caffeine-free run. What I forgot to factor in was the little heatwave we're having, as well as the air quality, due to the numerous fires. Even though Sullivan Canyon was many miles away from the fires, the air was thick where the smoke had settled in the canyon. As I made my way out of the canyon, I could feel the heat escaping the ground from the sweltering day before.




The air on the ridge was actually much cleaner thanks to the ocean breezes. For all of these reasons, I decided to cut the run short at 10 miles around two hours worth.

Hodgepodge post

A Little is Good, A Lot Must Be Better

As is often the case, I took what was a lovely time. (a quiet BBQ evening with one other family) and rationalized that multiplying that would logically increase the loveliness.

Don't get me wrong, I did indeed have a lovely time and am so fortunate to have so many friends that don't mind the lateness or pot-luckness of mine, but I definetly pay the price. This was my Facebook Update (a rare thing for me) on Sunday morning.


Jon Danniells had a lovely almost last day of summer BBQ last night and is in full rehab mode,already missing caffeine. After getting most of the kitchen cleaned up from last night's festivities. Skye and friends made pancakes from scratch and scrambled eggs. A second wave of cleaning up and now desperately missing caffeine. Put away Bloody Mary mix with sweet sadness.

Within 20 minutes of the post, the mother of one of the young chefs upon coming to pick her up presented me with the wonderful gift of 2 energy drinks, which like the bloody Mary was put away with sweet sadness.

Later on that day, friends who couldn't make it by the night before, asked about dropping by to catch up. Of course, was the answer, we had so much food from the night before jamming up the fridge. So I fired up the grill again, sans caffeine and booze and had another wonderful evening with food and friends.

Biking in Los Angeles

I have tried commutting around Los Angeles in the past with varying levels of success. It doesn't help living on top of a hill, surrounded by arterial streets that are almost like highways.

But regardless I was bound and determined to kill a few birds with one big stone. We would be saving gas, cutting down on pollution and getting some exercise, especially with our big hill, there not called the Baldwin Hills for nothing.

The ride to the Marina where we were doing a P/E Movement class with a bunch of our homeschool friends, was a little hairy at times. But it was mostly downhill and there was a marine level fog that made for a cool ride.

Coming back....



Not the most welcoming entrance(in our case exit) to a bike path.

We took a different route back, the bike path along the LA River. At some point signs said it was closed for construction. We forged ahead. We would deal with getting out of the "closed" bike path when we had to. What followed was like a ride through Escape from LA or something equally post-apocalyptic. Debris and clutter was strewn all over the place and the every inch of concrete seemed to have graffiti on it and unfortunately the cool artsy stuff.


And we were east of the Marine layer by now, baking under the hot August sun and running late.

We survived and were actually on time to Skye's class.


No Caffeine !!!!!!!!!!!!

Going cold turkey with the caffeine and alcohol has been a pain. This healthy stuff sucks. Actually cutting out the beers and cocktails has been nice, but the caffeine......

I had no idea how reliant my body had become on this innocent, readily available, many varied means of consuming, DRUG. I do love caffeine and we will someday reunite, but it has been an eye-opener (bad choice of words) as to how much I need the shit to be ok.

It has been a battle to keep moving.



Hanging out up in a tree at our local park day. Being anti-social, but also it was incredible to climb up in a tree and be able to lounge about, even reading 12 ft above everyone else. I thought it might bring out the kid in me, particularly some of that kid energy. Rather it brought on dangerous waves of nostalgic memories.

17 miles-The Short Run

After the first few miles, I was feeling heavy and sluggish and then it started going uphill and I felt worse. I hit mile 8 and felt great for the next nine miles. I was done a little after 9.



A quick pic at the midway point.

And then the week began and I was racing and behind and late several times a day, one day after another.

A ton of it was chauffeuring Skye all around and that is important, I know. But it makes me wonder. You know, the whole mid-life crisis thing growing and fulfilling itself. Oh and I was also doing a lot of organizing for the upcoming SDSA Emmy party. And there was a lot of other stuff, and stuff and stuff

And I am exhausted beyond belief and I have barely touched the bunch of stuff that was supposed to be about me...............



I guess.

Aerial Arts Come Home

We've been doing an aerial arts class once a week in Eagle Rock, a bit of a commute but well worth it. We were having so much fun and it was sure one hell of a work out, hitting muscles I didn't know I had. So why not rig something at the house. We've got lots of room and high ceilings.

It made perfect sense to me.




Skye's working it out.




And just hanging out.



Skye's a little concerned about what I had to do to make it secure.

Cindy I promise to patch the ceiling.




I got lucky cause I found some 2 x 12 beams almost exactly where I needed to put the rig.

Perfecto!!!!

So now it's time to train.

The Race Schedule

Ok, here it is, I might throw in a 10k here or there and maybe some other little fun races but here is where my little mid-life crisis relapse has taken me.
The Great Urban race is one that Skye and I will be doing together on our road trip adventure.
Great Urban Race Dallas--October 3

My race partner on the last LA Marathon thought the Malibu Marathon would be a good one to try next. I said I might train with her but I highly doubted I would be doing another marathon.
Malibu Marathon-November-15

Then I came up with this notion that I would use this marathon as a training run for an ultra-marathon. And then I saw the Death Valley Marathon, that looks fun and surreal.

Death Valley Borax Marathon-December 5

This will be a real test, not only is it 50 miles but its 50 miles on trails and lots of hills.

Avalon Benefit 50 Mile Run-January 16th

Just enough time to recover to run my good old friend the LA Marathon. It will be my 6 time running it.

Los Angeles Marathon--March 21, 2010


Sign up and join me.

What a difference a day makes

Or more like a day and a week....
Last Saturday I ran 10 miles all the time cloaked in a dense marine layer fog. It was cool and made for a relatively easy run. So when I geared up on Sunday, I decided to take half as much water as the as the week before. Last week the water itself weighed 7lbs and sloshed around the whole time, and I had more than half of it left over, so this time out I took much less water.





Last week I could barely make out the fence much less the mountains in background.


Photo Ops
More like photoOoops, I was taking pictures here and there and sometimes when I'd stop I would stop my timer. Well one time I ended up forgetting to start it back, so I ended up doing and out and back instead of a loop so that I could figure out how far I ran. I could figure out the overall time by my start and finish times.

14 miles 2 hr. 49 min. So pretty much on pace. I added a third of the distance and it took around a third longer. Not bad especially considering how much sunnier it was.





Last week you could see maybe 20 feet past the sign.




I ended up running to the other side of that mountain on the right.




Of course that also means you have to run back. That last picture is take from the trail that cup the left side of that mountain.



I knew there were beautiful views to be had.

If I can run 5 miles every hour, well that has me finishing a 50 mile run in 10 hours which is 2 hours before the cut off.

Of course I know that the first 20 miles for a marathon are pretty painless for me, it's that last 6 particularly miles 22-25 that are almost unbearable. How that translates to 50 miles on hills and trail, I am scarred to surmise.

Swing Time

Skye and I are continuing our Aerial Arts training.

It is a huge amount of big fun, even if it leaves me sore for a couple days. Here's a little clip of us learning just basic swinging.

It is harder than it looks. Once you start swinging the momentum makes it tough to hold on. It takes some good grippin'.





Really it is harder than it looks. Not to mention we had just finished spinning, which left me a little green around the gills.

Trails in the City

The Other Hills

Not Beverly Hills, not the Hollywood Hills, but the Baldwin Hills are where I go to run. It's a mere 7 minutes jog from our house. And then its off to Kenneth Hahn park and miles and miles of beautiful trails, all in the middle of the city.




There's downtown sitting in a magical mist of clouds.




There's my trail running horizontally from the right moving across to the middle of picture and then there's La Brea coming up from the right side.



Another shot of La Brea. Hard to believe we're in the middle of Los Angeles between downtown and LAX.

10 Miles of Trail.... 40 more to go

I got out to an early morning start. It was 6:30 but not nearly as dark as it looks here. But early enough that I did not see anyone for the next hour.




The first 3.5 miles were a relatively gentle incline.




Tranquil and beautiful.

But then it headed up and out of Sulivan Canyon and it got pretty tough. But at least it was cool, a little brisk even.



This climb hurt. I've ridden and ran this trail before and there is usually an amazing view.

After climbing out of the canyon, I took a fire road to link up to the Nike Missile site.



You can see the platform in the mist. Very eerie and cool, a tad unsettling.



More "amazing" views.




Westridge Trailhead. I felt fine after 9 miles, the steep descent down the streets were hard on th joints. A couple of times I had to run backwards down hill to lessen the impact.





Lions, tigers and bears, oh my. Ok lions bobcats and deer.

For my first long trail run, 10 miles in 2hrs, not bad. I am looking to finish the Avalon 50 miler before the official cut-off of 12 hours. That shouldn't be too hard, right?

What have I gotten myself into?

The Weighting Game; And Size Matters

Yes, I have been obsessing on my weight. And no the scale has not been kind. And yes I am keeping in mind the many whys as to this frustrating phenomena.
I have been hovering in the 196 lbs to 198 lbs zone for a while. I have been less than strict in my diet. Part of it is that I hate dieting, and another is that it seems I should be able to eat whatever I want with all of my physical activity. Intellectually I know the numbers but still it just doesn't seem to make since. So maybe it's a good time to review some basic numbers.

There are 3,500 calories in one pound of body fat.

Walking 400 calories per hour
Weeding 400 calories per hour
Jogging, 6 mph (10 min./mile) 920 calories per hour
Jumping rope 1140 calories per hour

Thusly you must expend 3,500 calories in excess as you normally would to shed a pound of fat.

Here's another interesting way to look at it. A person with 15 percent body fat has approximately 90,000 calories of stored fat. However the body can only store about 1,200 to 1,800 carbohydrate calories for energy and exercise. What that means is basically at a steady jog you're good to go a couple of hours before you get even close to torching of any fat.

This is a gross simplification and more importantly it is isolating the activity as opposed to looking at the days caloric intake and output. But in a nutshell, while all of my FUN activity is getting me in shape and that is really the ultimate goal, it is taking time to lose pounds.

You factor in that muscle weighs more than fat and I should be thrilled by my progress. I mean I see the changes in the mirror and in the ways my clothes fit. But I am still in a shade away from being classified as a "Clydesdale" in many running events and that tends to make one feel a bit hefty.

Size Matters
So in the running community I am seen and classified as being large, towards the heavy end of the scale. However, I just purchased a pair of swimming trunks. I held up the XL and they seemed ridiculous. I tried on the Large and still way too much room. The Mediums fit. They fit well. I thought is was a fluke, maybe just the brand or that pair of shorts, something. Until I tried on a pair of yoga pants, different store, way different brand, but the same conclusion. Now I know I have been slimming but I haven't fit into mediums since probably high school. I then looked at one of the sizing charts and realized they had basically changed the scale. A large was now a medium, an XL would be a large and XXL would lose one X and simply be an XL. Because of America's growing waistlines, we've had to change what constitutes being small, medium, and large.

Wow! That was eye opening.