Thursday, August 12, 2010

A run, and two dumpers.

"Turn Joe Into a Runner" project, updated: Week 5 of C25k is complete, with a slow 20 minute jog. I know it doesn't sound like much, but for me, it is. I'm honestly kind of proud of myself, even though I was admittedly dogging it a bit on the run.

"Make Tasty Beer" project, updated: I'm bummed. earlier this year, I made two batches of beer with washed Cry Havoc yeast. Either I fermented WAY too warm, or the yeast was off, because both beers (a blonde ale and a 90 shilling-type ale) turned out amazingly estery.

Hpoing to recover the beers, I kegged them and let them condition for four months in the basement. Nope, still nasty.

I think it's time to dump 'em and move on. Sigh.
I need the keg space anyhow. Time to brew my Oktoberfest Ale and start thinking about holiday beer.

Monday, August 2, 2010

Just an update...

Well, the "turning Joe into a runner" campaign is going well, and I'm nearly halfway through the C25K program. One of the best things I've found is Letsyn's C25K Podcasts. They contain audio cues for when the walk vs. run intervals change, so I'm not looking at my watch the whole time I'm running. Instead, I load the week's intervals into a sound mixer (I like Audacity), layer in whatever music I want to use for my run, and write it out as an MP3 track I can play on my crackberry. Easy, peasy.

Brewing update? No news is no news. It's hard to get weekend time in the summer, what with kiddo's schedule and something to do seemingly every weekend. Fall is coming. I need to start an Oktoberfest soon.

Tuesday, July 20, 2010

Wow

What a beautiful morning!

It's been hot in Denver lately, with daily highs approaching the century mark. I've been running (well, OK -- lumbering, then) in the mornings. As I progress through the C25K program, the intervals start getting longer. Today was day 2 of week 2, or W2D2 in C25K parlance. I went around 2 miles (including warmup and warm-down walks of five or seven minutes per), with 90 second intervals followed by 120 second recovery periods. My overall pace (per RunKeeper) was 15:38, including the warmups.

Today's "run" felt really good. In previous days, I'd been getting winded, and often getting a small stitch in my side during the last interval. Not today! I felt like I was barely breathing hard at all.

Getting up early to run has me feeling pretty good lately. Why didn't I start running again sooner?

Tuesday, July 13, 2010

Hello, Readers!

It's been a long time, but I'm going to dive back into this blog a bit.

I've learned something important. Dudes with desk jobs and a hobby of making beer need to find something active to do. I'm currently a tub of goo. :sadbanana:

So, to combat the tub-of-goo problem, and in advance of my upcoming "big 40" day, I've started a running program. I'm following the "couch-to-5k" training program over at coolrunning.com, which has transformed a lot of tubs of goo into runners. I've done it before, and now it's time to do it again.

So far, I've done the first two workouts of the program, and I feel pretty good. When I was a younger guy, I was pretty active, and it feels good to be out there again. Hopefully, I'll be in shape enough that ski season won't kick my ass like it did last year.

As for beer content: The Dry Dock Brewing Apricot Blonde recipe makes a damn fine blonde ale, and I'm not a fruit-beer drinker. Also, I have my tickets for the GABF, and I'm volunteering as a greeter for the Friday session too. See you all there!