Azodiacarbonamide for lunch, anyone?

One cool blog:  100 Days of Real Food

There is only so much one can do to run faster and farther.  Sure, practice helps, and a pair of good shoes, and optimal weather, along with a great running path.  What do you do after you've taken care of all those external factors?  Look inside.  I've been doing just that, reviewing what I eat and how it affects my running.        Common sense tells us that good food must help, after all, garbage in ===> garbage out, right?  It's not so simple.  More carbs, ok, but what kind?  Protein, sure, but what quantity?  I've been doing a lot of research and personal experimentation with what I eat and how the run goes, and ran across this blog:


100 Days of Real Food, by Lisa Leake (pictured at left)


I have always thought of Subway as a relatively healthy fast-food provider, but, as Lisa points out, it's really important to pay close attention to what you choose when you eat there.  After reading her blog post I'm not sure I will be eating at Subway anytime soon.  I'm fairly nutritionally astute, but I never heard of this chemical, azodiacarbonamide, before reading the article.  Yes, according to Lisa, it's in Subway bread, and yes, according to Wikipedia it is a plastic component banned for use as a food additive in Europe.  No, I'm not hungry for a $5 footlong.


Thank you Lisa for your excellent blog!  I will be integrating many of your ideas into my personal health plan.  Keep up the good work!


Nec aspera terrent!


6/12/12 - 3.0 miles |  33 min | 5.4 mph | 331 kcal 
6/11/12 - 2.0 miles |  22 min | 5.1 mph | 198 kcal 

Whose house is this, anyway?

Look familiar?  This is a common "house sparrow".  I have had reason to find out the hard way why this variety is called a HOUSE sparrow.  One mean mama house sparrow has decided to make her house in MY house, or garage to be exact.  While it wasn't my intention to dwell this whole week on birds, they have made a major impression on my running.  It has always been my habit to take off and put on my running shoes just outside the back door.  See that little beastie to the left, there??  Doesn't she look harmless?  Well!  Not when she's protecting her nest, which apparently is in the rafters above my head, where I won't any longer be putting my running shoes on, at least not until all her children have flown the coop!

Nec aspera terrent!

6/10/12 - 2.0 miles |  22 min | 5.1 mph | 209 kcal 

Orioles here; where are the berries?

Outstanding photo of Baltimore oriole eating a mulberry
taken by Steve Creek

Everything that grows in Michigan seems to be out of sync this summer because of the weirdly warm spring. Many of the fruit bearing trees budded as early as March, then lost all growth when we had a hard frost at the end of April.  Current estimates go as high as 90% ruin for cherries and other Michigan fruit crops.  The mulberry tree in my neighbor's yard has about 1/10th as many berries as it usually does.

Orioles seem to have an affinity for tart mulberries.  Today as I finished my run and walked past the mulberry an orange flash flew by, sans berries.  I wonder... We Michiganders will have to pay more for fruit this year, and we won't be getting as much locally grown as we usually enjoy, but where will the birds go? I've had the pleasure of seeing bright orange orioles in that mulberry tree for many years.  I hope one bad year here doesn't mean that next year the Orioles will go somewhere else.

Nec aspera terrent!

6/9/12 - 2.0 miles |  22 min | 5.1 mph | 209 kcal 

Red-winged black attack!

Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds

Isn't the song of the red-winged blackbird quite beautiful?  Listen here...

song of the red-winged black bird

I've frequently enjoyed watching these birds perched on short trees and tall grasses in the marshy areas of my neighborhood and thought that their song is lovely.  Well, Alfred Hitchcock must have known something about red-winged blackbirds when he was putting together the classic horror film The Birds. I took a less traveled route home from my run today, past a swamp generally full of turtles, ducks, and a couple of muskrats.  Snakes, yes, but I have *never* had a problem with birds, until today.  Apparently I walked too close to the nest of a very protective papa.  This particular bird dive bombed me, and kept at it until I ran full speed about 100 yards from the attack!

I didn't know this before, but I found out today that what Wikipedia says is really true:  The Red-winged Blackbird aggressively defends its territory from other animals. It will attack much larger birds.^[18] Males have been known to swoop humans who encroach upon their nesting territory during breeding season.^[19][20]

No kidding!  Different route tomorrow, at least until breeding season is over.

Nec aspera terrent!


6/8/12 - 2.0 miles |  23 min | 5.1 mph | 219 kcal

Cut grass on the side of the road

I always wondered why 'they' wasted time cutting the grass on the side of the road when I was a kid, 'they' being whatever road maintenance department was responsible for doing the job.  I was responsible growing up for mowing most of our rather large hilly lawn, and I looked at the magnitude of mowing all the roadsides in the country with abject HORROR.  Can you imagine??

Then I became a driver, and I was grateful when I realized that visibility is the biggest reason for keeping roadside grass short.  The extra 3 or 4 feet of warning a driver gets from being able to see a car emerging from a hidden driveway or a deer darting from the underbrush just an instant sooner can mean the difference between a quick dodge and a major accident.

This year many of the roads have much higher grass than usual, bad for cars, and really bad for runners.  I always avoid getting too close to the grass because of snakes, but this year I wouldn't be able to run in the grass if I wanted to.  Some of it is taller than I am!  I'm not sure if the reason is budget cuts causing road maintenance crews to be cut back, or the odd growing season that began six weeks early knocking the mowing schedule off whack.  The high grass on one of my favorite roads has caused me to choose a different and more traveled road, but better visibility.  It's a safety trade-off, more visibility, or more traffic?

Nec aspera terrent!

6/7/12 - 2.0 miles |  22 min | 5.2 mph | 209 kcal

Semper Fi!

Run to Cadence with the U.S. Women Marines

Having trouble getting motivated to run??  Well, here's the perfect solution, especially on this 69th anniversary of the D Day Invasion.  I am in no way comparing casual running to what the extraordinary heroes who invaded the beaches of Normandy did.  The Marines weren't there, in any case; they were in the Pacific, still a sore point in some military circles, including my own family, with a niece who graduated from Westpoint, a nephew in the Air Force, and a sister who was a Marine.  I'm just paying homage to the fact that the Marines are renowned for their physical fitness, and after resting up for a month after beating my little sis at the Indy 500 1/2 Marathon (more on that in a later post), I'm back on my running regimen preparing for my next big run.  So is Kim.  Even though I managed to beat her by 3 minutes at Indy, she is feeling major inspiration and working out a lot with the hopes of leaving me in the dust at the next race. Not that there's any sibling rivalry here, but I need to do something to retain my lead!   Do you think this will keep me ahead of the pack?

Sound-off; 1 - 2; Sound-off; 3 - 4; Cadence count; 1 - 2 - 3 - 4; 1 - 2 — 3 - 4.

Stay tuned...

Nec aspera terrent!

6/6/12 - 2.0 miles |  22 min | 5.0 mph | 201 kcal