Tag: running

Sailing over the Sandias

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 17 Comments
It was a warmish, slightly humid day, which must be fine for flying.
I was running through here earlier in the day and never thought to look up. Mostly I look down, for tarantulas, buzzworms and drunken Republicans.

This afternoon I cranked up the Vespa for a short runaround, just to keep the battery topped off, and as I putt-putted toward the Menaul trailhead I noticed orange windsocks fluttering in the parking lot.

Looking up, I saw a hang glider cutting didoes over the foothills, so I pulled over and snapped a couple pix with the old Canon S110.

Looks like fun, doesn’t it? But so does riding a cyclocross bike on Sandia singletrack, until you have that unexpected get-off.

There are lots of pointy bits down here on Planet Albuquerque, and as luck would have it I found one while running through this very area this morning.

A terrorist shrub stabbed me in the left shoulder blade with a broken limb as I lumbered through a rocky patch on Trail 365, my gaze focused on the water-scoured trail, which is studded with toe-grabbers, ankle-twisters and face-planters.

Maybe I would have been safer aloft. We’ll never know. I don’t even get big air on the bike.

11 o’clock blues

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 15 Comments
Say ‘ello to my leetle fren’, Espeedie Zapatas.

As I finished yesterday’s run I entered El Rancho Pendejo to wild applause and cheers.

I grinned, threw both hands in the air, and finally bowed before remembering that I’d left KUNM on to deter burglars and some pissant orchestra on “Performance Today” was stealing my thunder.

Well, it wasn’t as though I’d set a PR anyway.

And don’t believe your lyin’ eyes. No matter what that photo shows, I was not running in shorts. Well, I was, but they were under tights, and I was rockin’ two long-sleeved tops plus a tuque and gloves, too. I may be crazy, but I’m not insane. Cold out there! Colder than a ticket-taker’s smile at the Ivar Theatre on Saturday night.

Speaking of emotional weather reports, the forecast remains uncertain in Alabama. Talk about putting the vise grips on our mental health. I’m old enough to remember when we sent short-eyes to jail instead of the Senate.

April showers (March edition)

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 6 Comments
‘Twas a fine soft day at El Rancho Pendejo.

Boy, can I pick a day for a birthday ride or what?

Yesterday, three hours of cycling in spring kit; today, 40 minutes of trail running in tights, long-sleeved polypro, rain jacket, tuque and woolen glove liners.

But hey, I’m not complaining. This is the upper Chihuahuan Desert and we’ll take all the aqua fria we can get and then some.

Plus I got to watch the neighbors’ 2-year-old splashing happily in the puddles, and heard the first hummingbird of 2017 while walking The Boo. It’s all good.

 

Chow dog

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 7 Comments
From left, taters, tea, bacon and eggs. Not pictured: English muffins.
From left, taters, tea, bacon and eggs. Not pictured: English muffins.

Christmas Day was one chilly sonofabitch, with a nasty bit of wind, so naturally Herself and I decided to go out for a short run, reasoning that we could do anything, no matter how sucky, for a half hour.

You will recall that I have “run” exactly once since May, while Herself pounds ground a couple days a week and did a half-marathon back in October. So imagine if you will an elderly, portly Irish setter chasing a young border collie over hill and dale.

After such a massive caloric expenditure I felt compelled to prepare a pot of pre-Mexican hominy stew, and this morning topped that off with a mess of pan-fried potatoes, hickory-smoked bacon, eggs over easy, English muffins, coffee and tea.

And now I feel slightly sluggish for some reason. Probably the bonk. I should eat something.

Phys ed

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 18 Comments
Jogging in a winter wonderland.
Jogging in a winter wonderland.

As longtime visitors to the DogS(h)ite know, I will never be smart.

Still, “never” is an awfully long time. Especially now that a study indicates that running “seems to require a greater amount of high-level thinking than most of us might imagine,” or so says Gretchen Reynolds in The New York Times.

The study, published in a neuroscience journal, found that the brains of competitive distance runners “had different connections in areas known to aid in sophisticated cognition than the brains of healthy but sedentary people,” Reynolds recounts, adding: “The discovery suggests that there is more to running than mindlessly placing one foot in front of another.”

Well. Shit. Naturally I laced up the old runners straight away and toddled off for my first jog of the winter.

And … nothing. Bupkis. Still as dumb as a stump.

Still, I’ll probably keep after it. At least running gets you out in the open air. Like crucifixion.