With editing in place, the playlist was setup to finish with ‘Wet Sand’ around 1:45 (1 hour and 45 minutes). As it turns out, I ran this a bit faster, so I finished before that song ended.

Two nights ago, I was joined by 3 others(Su, Chris, Julian) in the arduous education of beer.  This was not a feat for the feint of heart or those lacking in sufficiently talented livers.  This class is a little different than the others.  You only get 8 beers to try because of the high alcohol content.  When you factor in the pre and post class drinking (and you do all of your course work), the night becomes a wee bit fuzzy.  Anyway, just a heads up that the beer descriptions get a lot shorter at the end analogous to the increase of talking and the decrease of comprehension.

As always, the event was hosted by Greg Browne (who is the brewmaster at Mickey Finns).

1) Smuttynose Barleywine

Malty but not that sweet.  ABV: 11%.  I thought the lady on the bottle label was pretty ugly.  This is a bottle conditioned beer which means that more product is added as some of the beer evaporates.  It was a fine starter, but nothing brilliant.

2) Anchor Old Foghorn Barleywine

Very malty, smooth and rich.  ABV: 8%.  This beer is only released once a year.  It was first released in 1975.  Greg mentioned that this shows how long Anchor has been in the game and how unusual it was in that time to release such a craft beer in the US.  I think this was the beer of the night.

3) Lagunitas Olde Gnarleywine

Hops on the nose.  Crazy fruity flavors, really makes you go wow.  ABV: 11%.  This was a very interesting beer.

4) Avery Hog Heaven Barleywine

Had what I would call a roastiness to the flavor.  Hops and malts very balanced.  There were flying pigs on the bottle label.  I thought the beer was great.

5) Moylans Moylander Imperial IPA

Resiny.  2x Hops, 2X Malts (than I guess their regular IPA).  I really didn’t like this beer.  Even the bottle label was busy and not good.  There was a lot of beer tech talk going on.  Something about how hops are natural preservatives.  Then Julian said something about “hop oiling the bitch”.  Not really sure what it all means and that’s one of the many reasons (not the least of which is my laziness) that I don’t brew my own beer.

6) Three Floyds Dreadnaught Imperial IPA

Very hoppy, not much finish.  I consistently get confused with the name/flavor of this one and the Behemoth.  But make no mistake.  The Behemoth is an awesome beer; the Dreadnaught not so much.

7) Arcadia Hop Mouth Imperial IPA

Buttery popcorn flavor (which apparently is considered a defect by beer enthusiasts).  Defect or not, it wasn’t very good.

8) Great Divide Hercules Imperial IPA

Very smooth, not too hoppy.  I would say this was my 2nd best beer of the evening.

9) “Pineapple Express”

Greg brought in a special brew that he basically dubbed Pineapple Express.  I suppose there were supposed to be some kind of pineapple flavoring but I don’t really remember.  ABV: 11%.  It wasn’t anything special except for the fact that it was home brewed.

It was a great night of drinking/talking and of course learning about 2 of my favorite styles of beers.  I can’t wait for the next class (as long as it isn’t brown ales).

So today I finally did my first run since the ill-fated Marathon.  I felt really good.  Not sure if it was the cold weather, the new shoes, or just eating lots of greasy foods throughout the week.  Whatever the key factor, I’m just happy to be running again.  I shouldn’t have much difficulty with the upcoming Turkey Trot.

My goal for the winter will be to try and run 3-4 times a week with an emphasis on long, slow distance.  The cold and snow won’t stop me.  And I think we will have a lot of the former if not the latter.  Come the spring, I should be in good shape to start attacking the race scene.

So yesterday Apple had it’s 1.5 hour keynote about mac software.  The market reaction was pretty flat and I think in review I’m surprised by that.  I think the stock price should have dipped.

The keynote started with a long description of how great the Mac was by Tim Cook (COO).  I don’t know if was trying to channel Steve Jobs, but he kept saying amazing and fantastic and it sounded very contrived.  It goes without saying that I’m not a big fan of sales numbers and all of the powerpoint mess that they were doing.

Next up was a (long) review of the new iLife version.  I like the apps, but I was not compelled to spend $50 on the software or buy a Mac just to get the new version of iLife.  Don’t get me wrong.  I always think I’ll make a great vacation movie (and the trailer templates were neat), but I lived through the practicality of actually trying to get enough raw video during a vacation.  In short, it’s a pain in the butt.  Maybe video capture on the iPhone 4/3GS makes it easier, but only time will tell.

Fortunately, things got interesting with a demo of Mac OSX 10.7 aka Lion.  I’m really a big fan of full screen interfaces.  I think the one window model has really been invigorated and all apps need to jump on board.  As a developer, Xcode 4 can’t arrive soon enough.  While watching the keynote live, I kept thinking of this other video I saw more than a year ago.  I think there is a big push to focus on one task at a time (which doesn’t preclude multi-tasking).  People don’t like distractions (unless of course they are bored with the focused task, but that’s really an entirely different issue).

Next up was Mission Control.  I think this is a great idea to merge all of the window management concepts.  Again, the video comes to mind.  I never really got into spaces because it was kind of a pain to know what was going on.  Maybe this is the silver bullet to solve window management issues.

Mac App Store.  About time.  Now I run as much beta software as the next programmer, but I like the idea of a standard and vetted apps that get vetted, updated and installed auto-magically.  It really makes sense to have that process be as turnkey as possible.  As a developer it’s great because you don’t have to worry about library incompatibilities of the hardware/os version because the application meta data (and the app installer) will do all of that heavy lifting.  As a developer, I like the idea of a well known marketplace (but I’m still not keen on Apple eating 30% of my lunch).

One last thing: new Air hardware.  I really love the look of the Air notebooks.  I think Apple nailed it with the unibody design several years ago.  I just wish that Apple and I could agree more about the priorities of the devices.

The good:

• full size keyboard
• high res screen
• 2 usb ports
• re-install software on usb stick (very cool)
• 4 GB RAM (finally)
• Flash only storage (with base at 64GB)

The bad:

• Too heavy
• Slow processor

I really don’t need a 30 day standby on anything.  This includes my iPad.  Until I never have to plug it in, it will never be long enough.  I would rather have the laptops be lighter (2.3, 2.9 pounds) and give up all of that crazy battery weight.  I can’t believe that they still put in a 1.6GHz processor.  I’m pretty sure that’s the original one from several years ago.  That is just crazy slow.  Especially when the plastic mac book still for sale at $1000 has almost 2x the power.  I know they need to make money, but really it’s a bit ridiculous.  In hind sight, I guess Apple and I agree more than not and time will tell if I get a notebook (to replace the ipad as my home theater remote?).

For reference, I’m attaching result data.  Here is the runkeeper link.

Since I don’t know if the Chicago Marathon site will remember everything, I’m attaching the relevant timing/result data.

participant

race info

splits

(aka the marathon that will live in infamy)

So yesterday, I finally did my second marathon.  In short, it was a terrible day for me.  One thing went wrong after another.

Here is a recap of the day’s timeline:

– 5:40 get up

– 6:30 leave the house

– 6:45 dropped off at wells/jackson, have to walk east to the start line

– 6:55 get in the port-a-john line (because it’s better to take care of this before rather than after) (lack of a certain item left me unhappy)

– 7:19 get out of port-a-john and hear the national anthem playing.  Try to get in the chute.  Have to walk south to finally enter.  Keep trying to walk north.

– 7:28 finally get to pace group.  No sign of Ken or Pete.

– 7:30 race starts

– 7:36 cross the starting line

– 7:40 ish left foot hits a pot hole while crossing under michigan ave.  I twist my left ankle and hit the ground with my knees and hands.  I didn’t see the pot hole because it was extremely crowded.  Like a wave on a rock, a bunch of runners broke around me.  And a few tried to help me up.  I sucked it up and started hobbling forward.

– 7:50 my left thumb is still killing me from the fall, but I finally catch up to the pace group.  At this point, I also realize that similar to the Shamrock Shuffle, the GPS runkeeper couldn’t quite handle the huge underpass in the beginning and gave me more mileage than was my due.

– 8:04 I cross the 5K marker at roughly 27:19 which was the same as in the Bucktown 5K

I lose track of the time, so I will start talking about it at milestones.

– 5 mile marker I take my first Gu gel because my energy level isn’t great

– 10 mile marker I take my second Gu gel — still feeling tired.  Hard to avoid all the people sprinkling water via hoses.  Didn’t factor that in to my iphone.  Had to try and stay in the middle of the street to avoid water damage

– 12 mile marker the pace group begins to pull away from me.  I basically took too long in the aid stations and didn’t have the energy to catch up exactly

– 13 mile the voice control on my iphone keeps activating.  This is because the headphone controls got too much moisture.  Unfortunately, this has happened before.  It was so annoying that I had to take off the head phones and pack them away.  I was still carrying my iphone in hand.

– 13.1 mile (halfway) I actually cross the line pretty much on pace, so the pace group was arguably going a little fast.

– 14 mile pace group is still in my sights, but my fatigue and lack of music is really taking me out of the zone

– 15-16-17 mile sun and heat are really building up.  I’m having a lot of trouble moving and I walk a bunch.  As a side note, I’m a crappy walker.  Old people (80+ years) walk faster than I do, so it really starts to eat at my pace

– 18-19-20 mile I’m moving like crap and really off of my pace.  I’m supposed to meet Su and friends at 18th and Halstead so I try to get some steady pacing going.  I see them and I’m pretty sure I looked like death jogging.  Not exactly a Kodak moment.

– 21-22-23 mile  I really feel like crap and am mostly walking.  Gatorade, water, gel, bananas.  Nothing seems to be able to give me back energy.  The sun is really beating down on me and the shady spots are few and far between.  I went to completely walking after simultaneous blisters burst on my left and right big toes.  For some stupid reason, I didn’t go to an aid station to get it wrapped.

– 24 mile text Su not to meet me at 18th street (25.2 mile marker) because I wasn’t really in mood to race anymore; however, I wanted to finish and earn the medal beer.

– 25-26 mile  I can’t believe how long this Michigan leg of the run is when you’re walking at turtle speed.

– 26-26.2  I sprint at 50 yard dash pace so that I can feel good about something at the end.

4:41:46  cross finish line

– few minutes later, drink some water and some gatorade, have half a banana.

5 min later start drinking a wonderfully cold and refreshing Goose Island 312 beer.

20 min later try to get up to fetch another beer, feel woozy, sit down

20 min later try to get up to fetch another beer, feel woozy and nauseous, on request guy next to me fetches someone with a wheel chair to take me to the med tent

I passed out on the wheel chair and dropped my iphone, but it was recovered.  After lying me down on a cot, they start stuffing me with ice like a sausage.  It feels really good.  They said my blood pressure was low and want to give me fluids.  It’s safe to say that I appreciate the help from the med tent, but I think the nurse who had to prick me 3-4 times (and failed on all of them) really ought to think about a new profession.  The better nurse gave me an IV in the back of my palm and that really hurt.  The best nurse finally added an IV to my forearm and that was much better.  I went from being too hot to too cold so all of the ice was removed and blankets added.  It was not the best “hospital” experience to say the least.

Finally, they let me go and I had to walk pretty far to get picked up by Su and Sandi.  My original plan of walking back to 18th and State was aborted (obviously).

So why did it all go so wrong?  I have a few theories:

– My lack of running before the race.  Because of the foot problems I had from the long practice runs, I wasn’t allowed to run for almost 2 weeks right before the race.  This not only got me worried, but really removed a lot of conditioning from my body.

– I hadn’t done a long run using the new orthotics.  I think that created the blister dilemma and really had me running in a different form than I would have liked.  I think the answer is that I need to abort the Nike Frees (even with the orthotics) and go back to a more supported shoe.

– My stomach had been bothering me since Tuesday.  I never really shook it until maybe Saturday and that really hurt my attitude as well as being able to stock pile the right foods in my body.  I (stupidly) ran a 2 mile run on Saturday 3pm to help with the stomach.  Though it did help with that, I think it wasn’t the best thing to do about 16 hours before the big race.

– The pot hole.  I think this really changed my stride.  Post race, my left ankle is severely swollen and makes walking and climbing stairs very difficult.

– The weather.  Regardless of all of the above, had it been a wonderful 40 degrees, I think that I could have pushed through a lot of things.

In summary, am I whining a bunch about what happened?  Absolutely.  Now I can put this mess behind me and ponder whether I’ll do it again.