Scary, Wet, and Cold 5K

Friday night Ford and I went down to dowtown Westerville for the Dead Celbrity 5K hosted by Run Wild Racing. This was a brutal halloween race. The course consisted of spooky twists and turns through a haunted park on a narrow bike trail that was flooded in most places. The splippery cobblestone streets provided an additional hazard as the rain came down in freezing, ghoulish droves. High winds on the return trip along with bottlenecks along the narrow trail resulted in slower than normal times. I was satisfied however with my standing given the conditions. I placed 28th out of 320 finishers with a time of 21:37. That works out to a blazing 6:58/min mile! Wow, I wonder what I could do if I quit smoking.

Jammimg with the Family

Saturday Steph and I headed over to my little sister's house to watch the buckeyes destroy Mighigan State. I was a little dissapointed that Michigan State didn't put up more of a fight. It was kinda boring to watch. we can only hope that the bucks will actually battle a team that can put up a good fight here in the coming weeks. Right now it's no doubt that the bucks are deservedly ranked the number one team in the nation. Nobody can touch this unstoppable super power that represents my alma mater -- The Ohio State University! Go Bucks!
We got bored of watching the complete domination and decided to head to the basement for a little jam session. My mom and dad tooks turns on the bass while Mike handled the drum kit. I played lead guitar while my sister took the mike. We were able to crank out a suprisingly good rendition of "Have another Beer" by Tree of Snakes. Stephanie was nice enough to take some pictures.
Tree of Snakes will be playing at the Saint James Tavern on Saturday Oct.21st at 10pm. The cover is only $4 and the band is super-high energy so it should be a lot of fun. Come on out and enjoy some great beer (they have Bell's Two-hearted Ale on tap!!!!) and enjoy some great music.

Good Friends and German Beer

It was great to hang out with my good buddies Jeff and Ford at the Haufbrau house in Chicago. After one of those huge liters of German Dunkel I actually thought I was in Europe. Ford actually chugged a Liter. I'm not sure what the alcohol percentage is on these but one was enough for me since I had to drive back to Columbus that night. Thank God for GPS because otherwise we'd still be there. Chicago traffic is a lot of fun.

Chicago Banco Popular Half-Marathon

This is how you would look after busting out 13.1 miles in 1:49. The race started at 7:30 am which is 6:30 Ohio time. In order to get there in time I had to get up at the crack of Cooter Brown. It was a long day. I can't really think of a better way to start the day than running a half-marathon. (well I can but this blog is family friendly) The first 5 miles I took it real easy. At 6 miles I felt so good that I started to pick it up and by mile 8 I was clipping along at a 7:20 pace. I picked it progressively from there for a strong but exhausting finish. Ford ran a very respectable 2:11. Unfortunately Christina was the victim of the Chicago tansit system and missed the start of the race by 20 minutes. She'll be running with us again in Indianapolis though.

Chicago Deep Dish Pizza

Steph and I headed down to Gino's Pizza off of Michigan Ave in Chicago to try some original Chicago cuisine. Deep dish pizza is awesome. It's kinda like a lasagna pie. Per the girl at Gino's reccommendation we added a solid piece of thick sausage across the top. Probably not the healthiest food in the world but damn tasty. The best part of the night was eating the deep dish while watching the buckeyes stomp the Iowa Hawkeyes 38-10! The buckeyes controlled the game after the 2nd quarter. It could be a champsionship year again for my alma mater.

Haufbrau House = Good Beer!

On Sunday night me, Jeff, Ford, Steph and Christina went down to the bars near Wrigley Stadium in Chicago. Our mission was to check out the Goose Island Brewery-- which we did. Goose Island has some great beer but the real treat was stopping in at Haufbrau House on Clark Street and enjoying some incredibly delicious German lagers. I normally hate lagers but these were great.
One really cool thing about Haufbrau house is the size of the beers. The standard order is a giant 1Liter stein! Needless to say, just one will give you a healthy buzz. I have a new respect for the classic German Beer wench that hoists 6 of these heavy beers around at a time. The Saint Pauli girl is not only well-endowed- she's strong too.