The best two credit class... EVER!

Physical Education Activity Program 231 - Marathon/Distance Training, Tuesday/Thursday 7:20 - 8:35 AM, Shell.

Honestly, if I had been forced to train on my own for my first marathon, I'm not sure I would have made it to the starting line. Looking back, it was about 16 weeks from the start of this class until I ran the Madison Marathon on May 27, 2007. During that time I ran somewhere north of 800 miles on treadmills, a 200m track, an indoor football field, bike paths, walking trails, sidewalks, roads and who knows where else. Through every step of those four months, either literally or figuratively, were my classmates,

A quick way to find out if you can get along with someone is to hold them captive in the same spot for extended periods of time in a stressful situation. Though that may not describe our situation 100% accurately, if you run the same pace as someone,and are forced to go on two separate hour long runs with someone each week... you get to know them pretty quickly. Thankfully I had a few people that ran at my pace who were very talkative and friendly.

We did fartleks in the Shell, hill repeats just off Monroe St, and a lactate threshold run that took us from the UW track to Picnic Point to the Union and back to the track. There was even a 20 mile run that our instructor led that was followed by breakfast at Mickie's. Sadly, I couldn't go to that as I was stuck taking the Fundamentals of Engineering test... (That's done me a lot of good hasn't it?)

It wasn't all running. A good 75% of what I know about the human body I got from that class. Subject matter included nutrition, injury prevention, and even a little bit of human physiology. Even beyond that, we had the opportunity to teach kids in an after-school program about running, at the end of which they had the opportunity to participate in a track meet. I'd like to think that maybe a couple of them found some of the same joy that I get from running.

The last piece of the class came eight days after I walked for my college graduation. That would be the 2007 Madison Marathon. Some other day I'll describe that race, but that can wait.

Today's run: No run. MMRD (Mallards Mandated Rest Day)
Today's beer: The Great Dane's Mallards Pilsner - Don't get me wrong, it's a good beer, but I'm just not a big fan of pilsners. They remind me too much of Miller Lite and the so called "American Lager". The beer is smooth and not overpowered with hops, and would make a good choice on an 80 degree day (not so much when it's 54 at first pitch).

• Skippy's Rating: 4 out of 6 Beer

The Little Guys That Grew Up... Part 1?

Every brewer started small. A single batch of beer. A hope. A dream. A little bit of insanity to think that they could make a living off of brewing beer. For a lucky few, they realize that dream and run their own microbrewery. Maybe they become "famous" in the small town that they live in. For a select group, their hopes and dreams bring them national and worldwide recognition.

Regional Craft Brewery: An independent regional brewery with an annual beer production of between 15,000 and 6,000,000 barrels who has either an all malt flagship or has at least 50% of it's volume in either all malt beers or in beers which use adjuncts to enhance rather than lighten flavor. (Read the last half of that as a brewery that makes beer that they try to make flavorful, not dumbed down.)

New Glarus Brewing - New Glarus, WI

If you're from Wisconsin, you already know about New Glarus. What more could I really say that you don't already know? Probably not a lot, but I'll give it a try anyway.

New Glarus Brewing was founded in 1993 by Deb and Dan Carey. Initially located in an abandoned warehouse, the beer was brewed on used brewpub equipment. In 1997, New Glarus was lucky enough to purchase around $1 million worth of brewing equipment from a retiring brewer in Germany for only $24,000 (the brewer was happy that his equipment wasn't going to scrap).

One of the interesting things about New Glarus is that they only distribute in the state of Wisconsin. (They used to distribute in the Chicago area, but were basically told to go blow themselves by a distributor that bought out their distributor.)  In 2011, New Glarus was the 28th largest brewery (19th biggest craft brewery) in the United States. Think about that. They distribute to one state, and not a huge state at that (20th largest population). Sure we've got the German heritage thing, but still!

With their new brewery that was opened in late 2008 (which was made to look like a Bavarian Village - take that Epic!), New Glarus now has the ability to produce up to 100,000 barrels of beer a year, all of which will be sold in Wisconsin. (Quick math, that 100,000 barrels is the equivalent of just over 33,000,000 12 oz bottles.)

• My favorite New Glarus beer: Dancing Man Wheat

The first time I tasted Dancing Man, I completely understood the name. Dancing Man is a Bavarian Hefe-Weizen that is full of flavor with a kick of cloves and cinnamon. This is a summer seasonal that should be available very soon at your local liquor store (in Wisconsin). Please do yourself a favor and pick up a six-pack. If you don't like it, please bring the rest of that six-pack to me. I'll even pay you for it.

Lakefront Brewery - Milwaukee, WI


Lakefront is nowhere near the size of New Glarus, and they may not brew their beer in a "Bavarian" village, but neither of those affects the taste of their beer.

Lakefront traces it's roots back to 1987 and a man deciding that he could do something better than his brother. (Sounds like that start of many stories that end in an emergency room...) Russ and Jim Klisch eventually turned this sibling rivalry into Lakefront. The original brewery was located in an old bakery building on Milwaukee's north side. This building housed the brewery as it grew from 72 barrels in 1988 to almost 3,000 in 1998. At this point, Lakefront decided it needed a new home and found one in an old power plant that the City of Milwaukee was considering tearing down. This building at 1872 Commerce St in Milwaukee is still home to Lakefront as it has grown to produce almost 18,000 barrels of beer in 2010.

Lakefront makes many great beers, but they make a couple that are worth pointing out for their uniqueness. The first is Organic E.S.B. (Extra Special Bitter), which as it's name implies, uses 100% certified organic ingredients. The second is New Grist. New Grist is a pilsner style beer that is completely gluten free. Made with sorghum, hops, rice, water, and gluten free yeast, it was the first beer to be certified gluten-free by the USDA.

• Pumpkin Lager

It's been a while since I've had Pumpkin Lager (maybe that's because it's May, and this is definitely a fall beer...), but it has a very distinct taste to it. Honestly, it's almost like you're drinking Pumpkin Pie. The beer is heavy on cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, and of course, pumpkin, but it all works together with the malty body to produce a wonderful beer. I highly recommend this come October.



Today's run: 7 miles - 50:41 - Ran at the Princeton Club. I really needed an easy flat run. I got half of that... I need to learn how to run slower when I'm tired...

Today's beer: Capital Hop Cream
I spent about ten minutes standing in front coolers at Steve's tonight trying to find one that jumped out at me. Well Capital, you caught me with the name. I'm a fan of IPAs and we just brewed a cream ale a couple of weeks ago, so I figured I'd give it a shot. Well, I am thoroughly unimpressed... Cream ales are typically a light beer that doesn't have much hop flavor to it (we added one ounce to our recipe), so the beer in general is a juxtaposition of two opposite styles. The beer is a light copper color and has a herby aroma to it. The initial taste is piney and doesn't mesh well with the cream ale base. Thankfully the taste as it lingers isn't hoppy. (To make the beer they made a cream ale, and while it was in secondary fermentation, they basically boiled some hops in water and added it to the ale.) In the end, it seems like they tried to make something different, but the hop choice just doesn't mesh in my book with the cream ale base.

• Skippy's rating: 3 out of 6

The Stupidest Thing I'll Probably Ever Do Running

I can't swim. Well, I can probably swim a little bit, but I freak out when I have water in my face, so I don't get very far. This is the part where you say, "Chris, you should really learn how to swim!" Which then makes this the part where I respond, "Yes, I really should, but if I learn how to swim, I'll end up doing a triathlon, and if I do a triathlon, I'll end up doing an Ironman. "(I'm not sure if there's anything beyond Ironman in that If You Give a Mouse a Cookie string... If there is, God help me.)

So this is my Ironman...

39.3 miles. Two days. Walt Disney World. Goofy's Race and a Half Challenge.

When I decided I was going to start blogging again. I was trying to figure out exactly what I could write about day after day. My first thought was to write about my training for these races. I realized I couldn't go that narrow in focus, mostly because I realized I would have nothing to write about once winter starts to set back in, as there isn't much to say when you're running on a treadmill repeatedly...  That and nobody would have read anything I wrote...

Saturday, January 12, 2013 - Half Marathon

Both of these races start at 5:30 in the morning. If the running doesn't kill me, the 3:00 AM alarms will. If you've ever been to WDW the two maps will make sense and probably make you shudder in a little bit of fear for me.

The half marathon starts in the parking lot of EPCOT and makes it's way north to the Magic Kingdom, going past the Ticket and Transportation Center and Contemporary Resort before making a loop through the Magic Kingdom (including running through the Castle and down Main Street, before heading back to EPCOT where you make a loop around Spaceship Earth before finishing back out in the parking lot.

If you ever want to run a flat fast half marathon, I honestly can't think of a better place to do one. The only way to run 13.1 mile with less elevation change is to run on a track or a treadmill. The course has a grand total of 49 feet of climbing in 13.1 miles. 49 feet! If you look below, I had 216 feet in my 6 mile run tonight, and that was as flat as I could find on the west side of Madison...

This would be a great way to kick-off a family vacation at the happiest place on earth, unfortunately, it's only the first third of the stupidest thing I'll probably ever do running.

Sunday, January 13, 2012

Welcome to day two... Another 3:00 AM alarm... Another bus ride to the EPCOT parking lot... Another run to the Magic Kingdom... (Honestly, what the hell, didn't I just do this?) Thankfully, a little over eight miles in, something different. Not just from the previous day, but a new addition to the WDW Marathon. We get to run around the WDW Speedway! I put in the exclamation mark not out of excitement, but it seemed to be the only piece of punctuation that fit... Sure it's a race track that once held IRL and NASCAR truck races, but honestly, it's an odd shaped tri-oval track that has an outer wall, a few random buildings in the middle, and no grandstands...

Anyways, we're now a little over 9 miles through the race and we get to my favorite part of all of this, mile 11 contains the WDW sewage treatment facility. I'm really looking forward to that! Back on course *ba dump ching* we will then make our way through Animal Kingdom, and I'm praying it's cooler at 7:00 AM than it has been any other time I've been there. Otherwise I'm just going to stand in the single rider line for Expedition Everest until the park opens.

Leaving Animal Kingdom we're at about mile 14, a few miles later we hit another new part of the course this year, the Wide World of Sports. Here we actually get to do one thing I do find neat, we get to run around Champions Field, which is the spring training home of the Atlanta Braves. Supposedly there are going to be exciting surprises at mile 20 because it's the 20th anniversary of the WDW Marathon. Unless it's a giant wind tunnel pushing on my back, honestly, I won't care that much.

Now we're getting to the fun part... If you've run a marathon before or have heard me talk about any of mine, you know what I mean. Miles 20-22 take you back out into the swamp one last time (just what I want when the only thing I can feel in my legs is pain... SWAMP! If it's hot I wouldn't be surprised if someone went alligator hunting with them self as the bait...) before you get into Hollywood Studios (or MGM Studios for those who have short-term memory loss). From what I can tell you run through the backlot area here, not sure how I feel about that, just get me in and out and closer to the finish...

Leaving DHS at mile 23 will probably make me laugh a bit. My family and I have stayed in the area between DHS and EPCOT a few times, so I know the area well, and I've ran along the lakes numerous times. Hopefully I won't fall on wet concrete like I did the one time though... (painted cement + water + plant foot not under center of gravity = fall) But I digress... past the Yacht and Beach Club, into the World Showcase, quickly through Future World, under Spaceship Earth one more time, and done.

I need an ice bath just thinking about this...

I haven't found an elevation profile for this exact course, but my best guess is that at most there will be 200 feet of climbing. Which once again, is less than I ran in 6 miles tonight. In comparison, the map of the Chicago Marathon I found had 256 feet of climbing, and that's a notoriously flat course.

Unfortunately, you'll probably still get some of those training blog posts, but I'll try to make them somewhat interesting. I promise.

Today's run: 6 miles - 43:09 - Apartment to Capital Brewery (side note: I have a running route that has a turnaround right outside Capital!) - I just wanted a flat six miles after yesterday's workout... Unfortunately the west side of Madison doesn't understand the word flat. I can't get more than a mile from the apartment without hitting a substantial hill... So this is the profile of the flattest route I could find...

 
Today's beer:  Widmer Brothers Rotator IPA Series: Spiced IPA

If you're looking for something different, this will definitely fit the bill. This beer was brewed with Black Tea, ginger, cinnamon, cloves, anise, black pepper, and cardamom, which I can safely say are not typical ingredients in beer. All of these, a whole bunch of barley and a ton of hops, make for a very unique spicy flavor.

• Skippy's Rating - 5 out of 6 beers (if I'm only drinking one at a time, any more than that and the tea taste would get to me)

Wisconsin's Finest - Part 1?

Every day we are peppered with advertisements for just about everything that you can think of; cars, movies, and clothes just to name a few. Unfortunately (or fortunately depending on how you look at it), the microbreweries that I want to talk about today won't be found peddling their beers during Monday Night Football or Dancing with the Stars, the cost of one of those TV spots would likely blow their entire advertising budget for the year. Instead, they rely on beer festivals, word of mouth, and maybe a print ad or two in the right magazine.

Microbreweries
- A brewery that produces less than 15,000 barrels of beer per year with 75% or more of its beer sold off-site.

Central Waters Brewing Company - Amherst, WI

Central Waters was founded in 1998 in Junction City, WI. Two friends, Mike McElwain and Jerome Ebel started the company in a vacated building that they had spent two years remodeling. They initially produced their personal homebrewing recipes, including Ouisconsing Red Ale, Happy Heron Pale Ale, and Mudpuppy Porter. Eventually Mike and Jerome sold Central Waters to their brewer Paul Graham and Clint Schultz. These two oversaw the expansion of both the production and lineup of beers produced by Central Waters. In 2007, Central Waters moved to a new facility in Amherst, which allowed for even greater expansion in their production. In 2012, the brewery will produce approximately 10,000 barrels of beers, which means within a few years we likely won't be able to call them a microbrewery any longer.

Central Waters currently produces 18 different beers, which includes seven year-round offerings and 11 seasonal beers.

My favorite Central Waters beer: Ouisconsing Red Ale

Official Website 

Lake Louie Brewing - Arena, WI

Lake Louie is the smallest of these three breweries I'll talk about today with a production of just over 4,000 barrels in 2011. Lake Louie started in 1999 when it's founder Tom Porter basically went through a mid-life crisis and decided he needed a new challenge. (Sidebar: His last name is Porter... What took him so long to start a brewery?!?) So he came up with a business plan that somehow said a brewery could be profitable on a 3 barrel brewing system (93 gallons), and went on his way. In his first full year of brewing, he produced 106 barrels of beer, and more than doubled that in his second. In 2002, he expanded to a 15 barrel brewing system, and by 2007 the production capacity had grown to 2,000 barrels. Lake Louie is now available throughout the state of Wisconsin and is well on track to exceed the 4,000 barrels produced last year.

Lake Louie currently offers five year-round beers and five limited release beers.

My favorite Lake Louie beer: Warped Speed Scotch Ale

Official Website

Tyranena Brewing Company - Lake Mills, WI


Unfortunately, I cannot find much information on Tyranena... I do know that they were founded in 1999 and that the name supposedly is from a Native American tribe that called the lake that Lake Mills sits on (Rock Lake), Tyranena. (This is from their website, so take it with a grain of salt, because based on the website, it seems the most important thing to them is having fun.) Tyranena has a current brewing capacity of 45,000 barrels per year, but has a fermentation limit of 6,000 barrels per year, which keeps them in the microbrewery category. I would not be surprised to see them move beyond this number in the very near future, and like Central Waters, out of the microbrewery category.

Tyranena currently makes six year-round beers and six seasonal beers. In addition to those 12, Tyranena will release what they call Brewers Gone Wild beers randomly throughout the year. These beers are as they put it, "Big, Bold, and Ballsy". As of this post, they are currently brewing Dirty Old Man Imperial Rye Porter (aged in rye barrels).

Side note! In early November of each year, they put on the Tyranena Beer Run, which includes both a 1/2 barrel and 1/6 barrel race (1/2 marathon and well... 1/6 marathon, ~4.37 miles). For some reason I have not done this race yet. I don't know why, but it is on my calendar for this year. Tim Kowols, if you read this, unless you have prior plans for Saturday November 3rd of this year, you should come. We have a comfortable air mattress that you can use.


My favorite Tyranena beer: Rocky's Revenge Brown Ale

Though whenever I think of Rocky, I think of the following...

Official Website


Today's run:  7 miles - 49:00 - FARTLEKS!!! (One mile warm-up @ 8.2, then three minutes at 9.5 and three at 7.5, repeated six times, last 7.5 was skipped and 9.5 was slowly ramped up to 11) Best run in a while. Nice to see how fast the legs can turnover.
Today's beer:  19 North Mountain Climber IPA - Batch number six (beer number eight) that we've brewed and the second recipe I've put together. I'll give a more detailed description some other time, but the Simcoe hops do a good job of giving this the typical IPA bite, but the Mt. Hood and Mt. Rainier hops give it a unique flavor and aroma.

• Skippy's Rating - 5 out of 6 beers

Ready... Set... The Gun.

At this point I've been running for about seven years. For the first few months the thought of actually racing never crossed my mind. Why would it? I was in the process of learning so much about myself I was downright afraid to add the extra variable of hundreds of other people running as close to me as possible.

I laugh at that now (but only because I've learned so much about myself throughout these past seven years... and that unless I crawl the race, I'm not going to finish last). Looking back, I've done 31 races since my first race, the MATC Turkey Trot, on November 5th, 2005 (results still posted here for good measure). I would never be able to remember all of these if not for holding onto my bib and sticking them in a binder that now resides on a bookshelf in our spare bedroom.

To this day I've ran... (If it doesn't have a town name in the title or listed afterwards, assume Madison)

5k - 6 - MATC Turkey Trot 2005, Jingle Bell Run for Arthritis 2005, Shamrock Shuffle 2006, Stampede Run (Arlington Heights, IL) 2006, Karner Blue Butterfly Festival (Black River Falls) 2006, Sausage Race (Milwaukee) 2007
8k - 8 - Crazylegs 2006-2012, Lincoln Park Turkey Trot (Chicago) 2008
5 mile - 3 - New Years Day Dash (Middleton) 2010, Madison College (fka MATC) Turkey Trot 2010, New Years Day Dash 2012
10k - 8 - Zoo Run Run 2006, Shamrock Shuffle 2007, Berbee Derby 2007, 2009 - 2011, Stampede Run 2008, 2010
1/2 marathon - 2 - Madison 2006, Karner Blue Butterfly Festival (BRF) 2008
Marathon - 4 - Madison 2007, Chicago 2008, Green Bay 2011, Flying Pig (Cincinnati) 2012

The list may seem extensive, but it really isn't a lot of races over the course of seven years. I should ask my friend Tim how many he's done in the same time frame, the number would probably be somewhere around three times as many...

Anyways... This was suppose to be about my first race... Since this took place 6 1/2 years ago, the details may be a little fuzzy. As I said earlier, November 5th. Saturday morning, typical late fall day, cool and crisp (but not bad from what I remember). The race took place out on the northeast side of Madison at Warner Park (where the Madison Mallards play, but the Duck Pond wasn't part of the course at all sadly) and was basically a cross-country race without teams. Extremely wide starting line, all run on grass with the exception of having to cross one wooden bridge. Vanessa and I did some warm up jogging (because she said we should) and eventually it came time for the race to start...

Everyone lined up shoulder to shoulder, the starter gave some final instructions, and then... the gun. Within half a second, I made the first of many mistakes I've made while running (probably not as bad as starting off on a Boston qualifier pace during the insanely hot 2008 Chicago Marathon, but that's for another day...). I took off on pretty close to a sprint over the first third of a mile (to about where the white downwards arrow is in the screenshot below that says Loop 1) and may have accidentally elbowed Vanessa right at the start... Whether this was a competitive instinct or me just not wanting to be in the crowd, I'll probably never fully understand, but it was dumb to say the least. I reached the top of the sledding hill below the Loop 1 arrow in approximately 10th place. If you looked at the results I linked above, I finished 76th. Let's just say that I struggled for the next 2.5+ miles, finishing in 22:06, which I'm pretty sure is my PSR (personal slow record), but I can't find the results from the one where I had to run a half mile through 4 inches of snow...

Course Map

I learned quite a bit about myself and racing that day. Most importantly, you aren't going to be able to keep up with the guys who are super skinny and wear short shorts, and even beyond that, the race isn't necessarily with the people around you, it's with yourself. If you dig deep down inside and give it everything you can, you are a winner.

Today's run: 6 miles - 43:21 (treadmill at the Princeton Club, it was still in the mid-80s at 7:30 pm when I went to run... give me a break)
Today's beer: 19 North Excalibur Black IPA - This was the last kit that beer that we made (so third batch overall). Black IPAs are an interesting style of beer to say the least. They are a completely American style of beer, taking very dark roasted barley and throwing in a ton of hops. Due to our current use of malt extract, I feel that it lacks the complexity that you'd find in the malt flavor of a commercial brewery, but I think that it's a solid beer. If you're looking for a high quality Black IPA, check out New Glarus' Black Top IPA (only in Wisconsin) or 21st Amendment's Back in Black (21st Amendment is available on the west coast, in the northeast, and in Minnesota).

• Skippy's Rating - 4 out of 6 beers

Jimmy Carter Did Something Right/Brewpubs

In late 1978 Jimmy Carter signed into law a bill that repealed a Prohibition-era ban on homebrewing (for some reason after the 21st amendment ended prohibition, Congress legalized home wine making, but god forbid making your own beer...). This act legitimized the hobby of the homebrewing and set the wheels in motion that created the craft beer market as we know it today. (Craft breweries sold approximately 11.5 million barrels of beer in 2011, though that may sound like a lot, this only a 5.7% share of the beer market. This is an increase of approximately 1.4 million barrels over 2010 and a jump from approximately 5% market share. Thanks Brewers Association for these stats!)

I'll talk about the three main areas of craft breweries, Microbreweries, Brewpubs, and Regional Craft Breweries, in separate posts, as I could probably ramble on about each of them for far too long.

In the first one I'll talk a bit about brewpubs, I won't go into a full review about every brewpub I've been to, as that would really take to long...

Brewpubs
- A restaurant-brewery that sells 25% or more of its beer on site.

I don't ask a lot from brewpubs. If you bill yourself as a brewpub, I don't expect four star food, I don't expect white linen tablecloths, I don't expect rented tux like ties. I do expect that you try with your beers. I understand having "classic" style craft beers so that the non-adventurous beer drinker can order something and not be completely overwhelmed. (Think Crop Circle Wheat and Old Glory American Pale Ale at The Great Dane. Disclaimer: I will mention The Great Dane quite a bit in this blog, deal with it, it's awesome.) I do expect that you have a couple "out-there" beers. (ex: Tri-pepper Pilsner at the Dane) To me that shows that you want to push yourself and believe that you can create unique beers that taste good. I also ask that your food doesn't suck. All I need is something decent to eat, as unless it's 11:00 PM, half the reason I am in your establishment is because I'm hungry. I would prefer if you used your beer in some of your dishes, as this shows me that not only do you care about your beer enough to think it can be used while cooking, but you care enough about your food to integrate your beer into it.

So let's sum that up. Give me at least the option of a couple out-there beers and have decent food. (I should add on one more thing, make sure your staff knows your beer. They may not need to like it, but make sure they can tell you about it and help someone pick out a beer. I've nearly gone crazy a couple of times listening to a server stumble their way through that conversation.)

The little things that have added to brewpub experiences...
- Booklets with information about each beer at the table. The more detail the better. At the Rogue Public House in Portland (not technically a brewpub) the booklet was a large binder with information ranging from ingredients to food pairings. Extremely thorough to say the least.
- Schedule of future beers on schedule. What better way to get me to come back than to give a beer an interesting name and then tell me when I can come back and get it.
- Theme. This one is hard to describe, but I think you might know what I'm trying to say without stumbling through it. The Great Dane in downtown Madison has the old building thing going on. Hardwood floors, wood chairs, wood booths, brick walls, etc. Even the tiny staircase to the basement fits. Titletown in Green Bay is in a train station. You shouldn't try to be a sports bar (but please do have a TV or two tuned to sports), so don't decorate everything to look like Applebee's.

Today's run: No run... Rest day
Today's beer: Unfortunately I didn't have a full beer today, I split a couple of 19 North beers with friends at my pseudo-niece's baby shower, but I'll skip a beer entry today

First Strides

Unlike with beer, I have no idea when the first time I ran was, which isn't that surprising. Though I'm sure if you were to ask my mother, the story you'd get from her would involve a boat show, Valley View Mall in La Crosse, and my grandfather sometime in 1986 or 1987. (Think about it for a second, the story doesn't go much further than what you're imagining right now, but it's pretty funny isn't it?)

I'll say it now, for the first 20+ years of my life, I hated running. Hated it. Absolutely hated it. I would run when playing sports, but if I wasn't chasing a ball around, there was no way I was going to run. Sure I did for the mile run in gym class, but let's just say, those never went well. (To put it nicely, I can't run a mile that slow anymore.) There were times that I tried running in high school and college, but could never keep up with it (usually it lasted a day or two).

I can vividly remember a beautiful spring day my freshman year of college (2003). I got back from class and decided I was going to go for a run to enjoy the weather outside. I had spent the last five months dreading going outside, why not go out and get the most out of it? I put on some shorts and a t-shirt, laced up whatever I had for athletic shoes at the time and left Chadbourne. I went up Park St to the Lakeshore Path and headed down the path. I felt great. I soon came to realize that most of what was making me feel great was the enjoyment of the weather. By the time I got out to the Lakeshore dorms, I was nearly dead. Looking back, I had gone at most a mile, but I was ready to collapse. I managed to walk/jog (soft j) my way back to Chadbourne. I have no clue how I felt the next day, but I do remember it snowed. I took this as a sign that I wasn't suppose to run...

I don't recall any attempts to start running until nearly two years later. Early in the spring of my junior year at UW I finally became fed up with myself. I was overweight and just unhealthy in general. So I started going to the Shell (the UW Rec Sports facility a couple of blocks from my apartment) in the morning. For the most part I rode a stationary bike or an elliptical. Some mornings I would play basketball. Nothing overly strenuous, but it was a start. Somehow I got it in my mind that I wanted to run Crazylegs that spring. For better or worse, I got sick in late March, never started training, and decided not to run. I can only assume how different I would be right now if I had run that race. My best guess is that it would have scared me for life from running, as my hour of elliptical in no way would have prepared me for running 5 miles across Madison.

Luckily, in late April, the pretty girl that I first met in the dish room at Chadbourne and I started dating. In the short amount of time before she left to go back to Illinois for the summer, I learned a lot of things about Vanessa, including her love of running and karate. After she left, I thought about things and one of those random thoughts was along these lines... Well Chris, you can't really afford to take karate lessons... but you do know how to run... you may suck at it, but with a little bit of effort, it'll be something the two of us can do together... And so a terrible addiction was born.

The first run I did after that was a one mile run on a treadmill at the Shell. I had no clue how far I could run, no clue how fast I could run, and no clue where this was going to lead. I started the treadmill and set it to 7.5 mph. I figured I could do one mile at 8:00 pace! Come on Chris! You're a guy! YOU CAN DO IT!!!... Fail. I made it 1/2 a mile and I was dead. I took a minute to catch my breath and hopped back on. I can't remember if I made it the other 1/2 mile in one shot or if it took two, but I did finish the run. I kept running a bit more every day or two, very quickly passing any resemblance of a running streak I had before in my life.

A few weeks after all of this started, I visited Vanessa in Mt. Prospect and we decided to go for a run together. (This is the reason I started running after all right?) So she picked a trail for us to run on (Des Plaines River Trail), we headed off to a hotel close to the beginning of a trail, and took off. This is where you'll get a slightly different story from Vanessa than you will from me. Vanessa will say that I struggled through all of the ~20 minute run and that she drug me along. I will say that she probably could have pulled away from me at any point, but I didn't struggle as much as she says. I had enough left for a kick! I couldn't have been in that bad of shape! (Note this was approximately a 20 minute run that we probably went short of 2.5 miles...) Either way, one thing is for sure, we'll both agree this was the only run that Vanessa ever drug me through.

Today's run: 6 miles - 43:39 (treadmill at the Princeton Club)
Today's beer: Surley Bender - For those of you that don't want to follow the link, it's an Oatmeal Brown Ale from Surley Brewing in Brooklyn Center, MN. Very smooth, clean beer. (The extent of my adjective knowledge is very limited... sorry.) A little malty, but I like that in my darker beers. A little hint of bitterness from early hops, but I don't get much from any aroma hops they may have added.

• Skippy's Rating - 5 out of 6 beers in a six-pack (note: Bender comes in four-packs of 16 oz cans)

Beginning of Beer

Sadly (or not), I remember my first taste of beer. I can't remember how old I was exactly, but I was about 2 or 3 years old. My uncles were at our house (and likely other family members as well) and my dad and them were outside talking, drinking a beer, when I walked up to my father and did what little kids do, I reached up and asked to try what he was drinking. For some reason he let me try it. To this day I remember that it was a Miller Genuine Draft... and it tasted horrible. I also distinctly remember my father and brothers laughing at me after I tasted it... (note to self: possibly cause of many deep rooted issues)

Between then and college, I can't say I remember drinking beer. What I do remember about beer from then is that my father and grandfather would drink Old Milwaukee on Sunday's at car shows during the summer. My brain still has an imprint of what it smells like, though I've never actually drank one.

I didn't start drinking until late in my freshman year of college. Once I did I remember drinking typical crappy beer (Miller/Coors/Bud products, Mickey's, Colt 45...) and hard alcohol (Fleischmann's, etc.). At some point towards the end of my freshman year I went to a house party with a couple of friends out on East Gorham. To this day I wish I knew what kind of beer they had at that party. All I really remember about it was that it was a dark beer and unlike the MGD, it was delicious. From that point on I realized that beer actually could taste good. (Unlike what MillerCoors would like you to believe, as most of you know, Miller Lite does not actually taste great.)

Still being underage and living in the dorms my sophomore year, the different brands and styles of beer that I tried did not expand very much. I was introduced to Leinenkugel's and for a time, Leinie's Original was my beer of choice (but I'd settle for a Honey Weiss if I couldn't get O). I don't remember much else from around this time that would be considered important to the process of me becoming me (beer related at least), though those events could just be lost in all of the memories of the past 8+ years.

The two events that I can say were most important to my appreciation (and now love) of beer were my roommate Brian turning 21 (legal access to alcohol, even if it wasn't legal for me...) and obviously my 21st birthday.

There are two events that I can say were the most important to my appreciation (and now love) of beer:

Brian turns 21

Brian was my roommate for three years in college (somehow we didn't kill each other during that time). Brian will be brought up a lot as long as this blog keeps going, as all of the homebrewing I do takes place at his house. His love of beer has only fueled mine. So when he was able to buy beer such as Newcastle, Boddington's, and Sam Adams, it introduced me to a whole new world.

I turn 21

This one is pretty obvious. Being able to walk into a liquor store and know you aren't going to get kicked out is a pretty good feeling when you're 21. Also, it finally allowed me to try the beer at The Great Dane...

Today's run: 7 miles - 50:47 (treadmill at the Princeton Club, it was 90 outside with a 40 mph wind, I'm not running outside in that)
Today's beer: 19 North Dry Bones Weiss - (Updating as I didn't talk about the beer) Dry Bones was the part of our fourth batch of beer that Brian, John, and I brewed. It is the half of the batch that didn't go through secondary fermentation over peaches. The two batches turned out a little darker than I thought they would (I have since found a tool to calculate the beer's color), but it is still good. The carbonation didn't get to the level I thought it would as well. Enough complaining about my own beer.

• Skippy's rating - 4 out of 6 beers

Brew Day/First Day of Training

A beginning... and hopefully an end.

I've tried blogging before and failed miserably at keeping up with it... So what makes this different? Who knows, maybe nothing, but I've got to try. Being stressed out constantly from work has brought this on. I need a release.

I have two constants that bring happiness two my life (that aren't named Vanessa and Brogan). Those things are the beer that I brew with my friends and running. I would include golf, but living in Wisconsin usually puts a damper in that at least six months a year, this past winter withstanding.

Chances are, this blog will venture off of the beer and running topics at times, you've been warned, deal with it.