RACE REPORT: Brew Dash 6K 2018 & SOL FEST

TRAINING LEAD-UP

Monday, Jun 11:
South End Pub Run.  5.1 in 41:21, 8:03 average.  Started slow with the group, then sped up.  Hot, at 90 degrees at the start.  Shade and a couple of sprinkles suddenly came about halfway, though, and wind felt somewhat better.  Usual perceived hard effort, though not a crazy pace.  Good heat training for Brew Dash.  My body craved running today, since it's been about 2 weeks since a run (with a GORUCK in between).

Splits> 9:01, 8:10, 7:55, 7:47, 7:42, 0:46 for 0.1

Tuesday, Jun 12:
55 min strength session

• Pullups: 7.5, a record
• Plank: 4 + 2.5 + 2.5 min
• Abductor/adductor Leg Lifts: 80/120
• 6 in: 75 + 75s
• Squats: 100
• Crunches: 300/side
• Pushups: 20
• Single Leg Squats: 2x100 (shallow)
• Dumbell row pushups: 20
• Lower Leg Extensions: 125
• Assorted Dumbells

BREW DASH

Beer + Running, all the yes.

It was a warm morning, but I had a confidence booster from this week's hot South End Pub Run.  The course started with the wide Main Loop, then went to the Lake Loop.  I started at the front, was passed quickly by 4 women adn lots of men, got passed by 1 more man 1/4 of a mile in.  But after that, I was passing people.  One woman at 1 mi, 2 more @ mile 2, and the third at mile 2.5.  I realized that I was in first at the end of the Lake Loop, during the out and back.  It was a nice surprise, since I've gotten 2nd, but haven't won a Brew Dash before.  I knew that if I could hang on to the pace, I'd have it, since the others had already slowed.  I pushed hard, to be safe. 

They had a unique prize this year... an awesome stein!

 

DEEP WATER SOLO

After the race, I filled the gap between then and the start of the beer festival Sol Fest with my first visit to Deep Water solo.  It's like bouldering, but you can go high, because when you get to the top, or if you fall off before getting to the top, you drop into a deep pool of water.  To make this work, the wall is slanted backwards a bit, which makes it more challenging.  

After the orientation and safety class, you get the remainder of the 30 minutes to climb.  I wanted to start with a more challenging one at first, since the start is when I'd have the most strength, and I wanted to see how I'd do.  I got a decent way up.  When I dropped, though, I was slightly leaned forward, and hitting the water from that height feels like a little punch to the gut.  The lifeguard had recommended pencil diving it.  I see why.  After that, I always tried to go straight down, if not slightly leaned back.  

It was tiring, but fun.  I only got to the very top of one or two.  30 minutes is a good amount of time.  I don't have the endurance in my arms to make it much more than that, anyways.  

SOL FEST

They renamed the beer festival to Sol Fest this year.  Maybe it's meant to appeal to women a bit more.  I liked the layout this year.  They spread things out a bit more, giving you more space to meander through the festival, without feeling too crowded.  You could enjoy things a bit more.  They had tables where you could enjoy your drinks, and live music, too.  They used to condense everything in a 1-block space.  I like that more breweries are doing sour beers.  It was great for the hot day.  Love all the beer swag, too!

PB&J in NC

I've been looking forward to having my sister visit for a while.  The last time I saw her was over Christmas and New Year's in 2017.  My dad and family friends also came to visit.

On Wednesday, Jun 6, we went for a little swim after work.  Surprisingly, it was my first time at the subdivision pool, even though I've lived here for 2 years.  It's nice, though maybe too short for legit lap swimming.  You can still get in a workout, though, I suppose.

 

Thursday, my sister came.  We kicked off the long weekend with doing an Escape Room, my second ever.  With the help of some clues, we got through!  It had some fun and cool elements.

 

I took Friday off, and we went camping in Asheville, mostly for the experience of building a campfire and sleeping in a tent, and because I had secured us some tickets for a Sierra Nevada tour and tasting.  

We stayed at Lake Powhatan.  The campsites aren't on the lake, but it's a small walk to the lake, where there's a little beach area where kids can play.  It's a nice little getaway.  Not terribly far, like some other sites we were considering.

I was hoping to put my GORUCK Constellation + Expedition fire making lessons to use.  I started with my flint + steel striker, but that didn't catch on my pine straw and grass straw and leaves.  We could get sparks, but nothing would catch.  Plan B was waterproof matches.  There wasn't a working striker sandpaper thing from what we could see, though, so we broke a few matches before giving up on that.  Plan C was a lighter.  Even that took a few tries to get going, but we got the tinder to catch.  After that, I was able to use the Expedition skills to gradually add our prepared stacks of increasingly large pieces of wood.

With our hard-won fire, we made turkey hot dogs and marshmallows.  We also sipped beer.  I only brought 2 between the two of us.  It would've been nice to have a couple more.  I'll know for next time.

We set up our 4-person tent, with the luxury of having our car full of stuff next to us (vs. having to backpack our stuff in for miles).  There were bathrooms and even showers closeby, too. We were only there for one night, too, so water or tons of food options weren't a concern, either.

Temps were decent.  It was warm during the day, but not overwhelmingly so.  At night, it didn't get too cold, either.  The floor was hard because we were on asphalt with not much padding, but it didn't impede sleep too much, and I wasn't sore the next day.  My sister had wanted to play card games and stuff as it got dark, but I was ready to sleep.

The next morning, we didn't feel like trying to get a fire going again, and we had plans to meet my dad and the family friends at Sierra Nevada, so we cleaned up, packed up, and went off.  

It was my second time at Sierra Nevada.  It's an impressive facility.  Beautiful and thoughtfully made.  Lots to do and see.  I think the free pre-booked tours that they do these days are shorter than the ones they did a year ago, maybe to fit in more people.  Still pretty cool and worth the trip and up there on the free brew tour scale.  

 

You get to experience different kinds of hops.  You can see copper-covered kettles, and do a quick run-through of the rest of the brewery.  It ends with a guided tasting, though only for 4 beers now, not 8 like last time.  That's probably ok... 8 was kind of a lot to get through in a short time.  Maybe 6 is ideal.  4 doesn't give you as much breadth.

The wait for the restaurant for Sierra Nevada would've been more than an hour, so we drove out a little bit to the White Duck Taco Shop, which had all kinds of exotic taco flavors.  A tasty and fun little place.

 

 

 

We went for a little 2.9 mile hike at Dupont State Forest, on the Triple Falls & High Falls trail, with the 5 year old in tow.  She's ridiculously full of energy, though, so this was no issue at all for her.  I rucked it.

The next day, we went to the Whitewater Center, for rafting, zip lining, lunch, rock climbing, and ropes courses.  We packed the day full.

 

We finished the day with another escape room, with a different company.  My sister said that this was one of the best that she's seen in the 20-ish Escape Rooms that she's done.  The clues were reasonably intuitive.  It's an interesting night-time event, though... sure gets your adrenaline up right before you need to sleep.  The host was really nice and helped us through with clues when we got stuck, to make sure we had a good time.

Hyperspeed PB&J in NYC, CLT USNWC, and Stint at Home

I had a layover in Newark on my way home, so I visited my sister for a couple of hours.

We...

1. Cooked dinner (shrimp scampi over zucchini noodles)

2. Grabbed a geocache in Harlem

3. Shared a bottle of beer while watching Destinations on Netflix (a show about 2 guys who took a year off to travel the world.  It's interesting to hear about others' approach to traveling.  One guy embraced culture, tried to learn the language a bit, and he was trying to help this other guy, who was the opposite, to see the light)

 

 

4. Went to Times Square to catch the Midnight Moment, where they synch up several of the monitors to show something special and interactive.  This one was about a jungle, with inverted colors, so you had to look at it through your phone to change it back to normal colors.  It was pretty cool.  Also browsed/shopped at the M&M store, Disney Store, and Sanrio store.

 (we're suckers for cute things and for Disney)

5. Slept for a couple of hours

Sunday, April 17

I landed in Charlotte, where I went to the USNWC for SUP, rafting, and a 6.2 mi run.

The 40 min SUP session was relaxing and fun.  Rafting was better than I expected.  We got to do the loop a few times, which was more than I expected.  I did 6.2 in 10:20 average on the trail, a green one.  In the evening, it was beautiful there.  A section had something that looked like blue bonnet flowers, although they grew down from trees.  Different sections of the trail had different moods.  After 10 days in the metropolis of Tokyo, going back and forth from the tiny hotel room to the office, it was good to be back out in nature again.

That week, my parents visited, and we got to go to an advanced screening of the Huntsman: Winter's War, which exceeded my expectations and was great.  I will buy the DVD when it comes out.  I recommend it.

 Friday, April 22
7.6 in 1:05:33, 8:33 average.  Run at the park before my flight.  Relaxing to be outside again.  I did a Zombies run.  It was good for me to get a bit of speed in.  I can feel that my fitness has declined.  I haven't been too concerned, since I'm not really training for any goal races.  And it's good for the body to have periods of rest.  The run was long and was hard towards the end.  It felt good afterwards, though, and makes you wish you could do it every day.  My lungs feel so much more flexible afterwards.