This Past Week's Runs

I was able to squeeze in 2 runs this week, after missing running on the fourth Sunday in a row. Monday's run was down to the weird building again with the toxic gases sign. This time I ran past it and through the corn field, which was why it was much longer this time. Then Thursday, run was a night run through the neighborhood. Here are the stats and pics.




Monday:
6.9 miles in 58:43 which was a pace of 8:30 ppm
872 kCal









Thursday:
4.53 miles in 35:58 which is a 7:56 ppm
571 kCal

Some Provocative Statements...

It's a little sports heavy this time:

• College athletes should be insured 100% by schools. Athletes should also be allowed to work if they wanted, 10-15 hrs/wk at a set hourly wage for all student athletes.
• The Chicago Bulls will make the Eastern Conference Finals!
• A K-Zone should be used to track pitches to grade umpires instead of replacing them completely. Must achieve a 75-80% accuracy rate of balls and strikes. Also, tie in percentage of called outs overturned by replays. If umps can't stay above 80%, send them down to the minors!
• Donald Trump should buy the Buffalo Bills and move them to Toronto! 
• Some in Chicago claim they believe that Adrian Peterson used HGH to rehab his torn up knee. NOT MY WORDS, just the rumor on the street!
• Climate Change is real! Example:  Chicago, IL on 4-14-14, had a High of 64 and 1.4" of snow. WHAT?!?
• Tesla Motors is where the car industry should go! All Electric!

• I'm behind on Game of Thrones, so I don't know what's going on!
• Still have yet to try a Waffle Taco, don't know if that's a good thing or bad!
• I want to backpack from Chicago to Minnesota! I also want all the gear to go with that!
• My stomach has been upset without have any Psyllium Husks this week!

Everything Jack Bauer

As far as I'm concerned, May 5th can't come soon enough.  Many of us have waited years, for Keifer Sutherland to reprise his Emmy winning role as Jack Bauer, and now its so close. So for any on you who aren't familiar with the show, I have a one-stop shop for everything Jack Bauer, to get you ready for the upcoming season. Keep checking back here for more info, news and trailers for 24.

I also found this link to win a trip to FOX's 24: Live Another Day Premiere Party!!

Watch the trailers - 24: Live Another Day

                                          

Here are the Super Bowl spots, if you wanted to watch again!

Look back at the previous seasons!

Season 1 Recap

Season 2 Recap

Season 3 Recap

Seasons 4 Recap

Season 5 Trailer

Season 6 Trailer

Season 7 Trailer

Season 8 Trailer

Tuesday's Top 10... a day late

So I've thought long and hard today to figure out what my Top Ten Sports Rivalries would be. I always hear people talking about what the best matchups are, but never really saw a list. Even though I'm sure ESPN has done a list at some point, I just never saw it. I'm sure some of you may disagree, please do. I've consulted with others to help shape my list and have been advised to stay away from my own bias of rivalries, otherwise we would have Minnesota and Chicago teams littering the entire list.  So I hope you enjoy and debate.

TOP TEN SPORTS RIVALRIES

Honorable Mention: Any In-State Rivalry like Oregon v Oregon St., This list would have been much longer.

10. These are my favorite rivalries including my favorite teams:

• Minnesota Vikings v. Green Bay Packers
• Minnesota Twins v. Chicago White Sox
• Chicago White Sox v. Chicago Cubs
• Minnesota Wild v. Dallas Stars
• Minnesota Gophers v. Wisconsin Badgers
• Chicago Cubs v. St Louis Cardinals

9. Notre Dame Fighting Irish vs. USC Trojans Football

8. Los Angles Dodgers v. San Francisco Giants Baseball

7. Celtic v. Rangers Football (Soccer)

6. Army v. Navy Football

5. Los Angles Lakers v. Boston Celtics

4. Tom Brady v. Peyton Manning

3. Michigan Wolverines v. Ohio State Buckeyes Football

2. Duke Blue Devils v. North Carolina Tar Heels Basketball

1. New York Yankees v. Boston Red Sox

*NOTE* - I did not watch every one of these, sorry if they aren't the best quality.

This Week's Provocative Statments

I'm going to try to make this a weekly habit of giving my take on events all over the spectrum of news, and give people a chance to react or comment on topics that could be controversial to anyone depending on where you stand. First off let me say that if there is anything that could possibly offend you, it wasn't intended, but in all reality I really don't care if I do. This is just for fun, and I hope everyone takes it as such. This first go around might be a little timid by me. Well here goes.

• I'm disappointed I didn't get to try the new Waffle Taco from Taco Bell yet.  
• To the fear mongers, Malaysian Flight 370 crashed, it wasn't hijacked.
• I'm not a fan of women calling into sports radio, but I'm glad they are fans.
• I don't pay attention to financial news unless its a Thursday, the rest of the week is guessing what numbers will come out the next Thursday.
• I've never seen "The Empire Strikes Back" or "Return of the Jedi"
• Burger King has the worst coffee!
• I've seen a man fall into a pit of human feces.
• I feel that all college athletes should be compensated aside from just scholarships, as long as it doesn't take scholarships away from regular students, it should come out of the university's pocket, ie. sports revenue funds 
• I don't drink enough water, and neither do you. 
• Put some cinnamon in your coffee, its good.
• I'm more of a fan of the English Premier League then Major League Baseball.
• I miss coaching track at Benilde-St. Margret's
• The Vikings will not take a QB with the 8th pick in the NFL Draft
• Dayton will win the national championship!

Well this is the first run of this, hopefully I'll be a little more creative next week.

Comfort Food Ideas

I know I haven't put much up on nutrition and food, but I thought I would drop a couple ideas for easy cheap comfort food meals. Last week, I made this Burrito Pie, which I found on Allrecipes.com. It was great for dinner as well as filling me up at work as lunch. The amount posted in the video ended up with 6-10 servings, depending on the size of your helping. If you are a fan of Mexican food, you will love this and make it many more times.

Otherwise, I was thumbing through my Everyday Italian Cookbook from my favorite chef, Giada de Laurentiis.

I found a recipe I'm going to attempt to make this weekend. I think it looks delicious, lets hope it turns out. I picked this one, because it looked like I had most of the ingredient at home and aside from the prosciutto, it didn't look too expensive to make.

                                         Here's the recipe for Chicken Saltimbocca:

I Gotta A Basketball Jones...

My weekend was full of college basketball. I know I wasn't the only glued to the TV, or actually for my it was my phone. I found the March Madness Live App, which you can watch all games if you have a cable provider otherwise you get something like 5 hours of any network access, then once your time runs out you can watch any game that's being played on CBS. Needless to say I used it non-stop. 

With all the upsets, I wonder how many of you still like your brackets? 

I have too many brackets to say that I called all the upsets, yes, I got lucky on picking Dayton to the Sweet Sixteen, and on a couple other of the first round games. My Final Four is still alive (Louisville, Florida, Arizona, & Michigan St.) and other then Duke, my Elite Eight teams are still kicking. Wait, I had Villanova in one of my brackets to the Elite Eight.

Now I have to try to get another group of peeps to see if there is any interest in a Sweet Sixteen Bracket. This way its a fresh start for all of you who had a Kansas v. Wichita St. Final match-up. Good Luck for all of your brackets in the upcoming week!!

This Week's Workouts

After a long lay off of nothing, I'm slowly getting back into getting my runs in. It also helps that I have signed up for the Soldier Field 10 Mile, it forces me into running so I don't waste my money when I show up downtown and can barely finish. Anyways, here is what I've done over the last week.

SATURDAY - 4.05 Mile Run, After many months of missing the Naperville Riverwalk, I managed to squeeze in a run while Vanessa had an appointment. It was fun running along the river's edge and listening to the high water crash against the shores.

SUNDAY - Nothing

MONDAY - Nothing

TUESDAY - 25 Push-ups, I've been able to knock out some push-ups on my breaks at work.

WEDNESDAY - 50 Push-ups

THURSDAY - 4.37 Mile Run, I ran along Theodore Ave. & Ridge Rd. in Plainfield after work. Night runs are always nice because the temps are a little cooler and its very quiet. Even though I had the headphones on, I still enjoy a run with no one else out and chasing my shadow from the moon light. Also did 90 Push-ups at work

FRIDAY - So far today at work I've knocked out 100 Push-ups. Ive been keeping track of all my Pushups on the dry erase board in the conference room. I'll also try to use the dumbbells that my co-worker has in his office to do some curls, shrugs or lunges when I have the time.


UPCOMING WEEKEND:

Not much planned this weekend, after all the activity we did last weekend, I still feel as if I need to catch up on sleep.Probably will sneak a run in on Saturday and if I can get up for one on Sunday, Ill be happy. I hope everyone has a great weekend. Until next time...

March Madness

As we enter Day 2 of the NCAA Tournament, we are all staring at the TV or our brackets. We all hold our breath and watch for 2 weeks, the 19-20 years battle each other for that "One Shining Moment". One of the most exciting 48 hours of basketball with all the Cinderellas attempting to fit into their glass slippers.

I saw a note from ESPN, that after 4 games completed, only a little over 5% of the 11 million brackets, still had a perfect bracket. Most of that was due to Dayton's upset of Ohio St.



I feel as if I have the same Final Four as everyone, which I'm hoping doesn't backfire on me. With the seeding getting such grief for how teams ended up, but I still felt as if there were 4 dominant teams in each bracket.  In most of my brackets I have Florida, Michigan St., Arizona, & Louisville with each of them winning depending on my specific bracket.

I wish everyone the best of luck in their various pools, except for anyone in one of mine. Enjoy the upcoming weekend of basketball!

Check out how my brackets are doing here:

ESPN Bracket-Jack Bauer Pool
Yahoo Billion Dollar Bracket
Yahoo Interwest Work Bracket
Jiffy Lube Challange

Interwest Tools

Everyone should like the Interwest Facebook page!!

Super Bowl XLVIII Matchup

With the matchup all set for New York/New Jersey, we can finally start the fortnight of hype, which I feel I should contribute to. Since both teams are #1 seeds, and were favorite from the beginning, it all makes for a very compelling storyline. Seattle enter the game with the NFL's #1 ranked Defense, while Peyton and the Broncos trot in with the #1 Offense. All I keep hearing are mountains of historical stats on the networks, all that matters is that it should make for a fun football game to watch as well as all the other stuff that will be going on during Super Bowl XLVIII.



Manning's legacy rides on the outcome of possibly getting his second title and matching his brother, Eli. He's a no brainer Hall of Famer, but with Brady in this era with 3, Manning needs to get at least one more. By winning with the Broncos, Peyton would be the first quarterback
to win Super Bowls with two different teams as a starting QB





 Just playing in the game gives the Russell Wilson Brand name and lot more creditbility. It just adds more stats to stuff into his already impressive, yet short resume as a QB. His ability to keep plays alive with his feet have been one of many reasons his team makes it to this point.




I won't bore you with more number and figures, but I will leave you with my favorite note that I have come across. This is the first Super Bowl to host two teams west of the Mississippi River, since the San Francisco 49ers beat down the San Diego Chargers in Super Bowl XXIX. SF 49, SD 26

A Look At Week #3 Running

When looking back at Week 3, all I can see are cold runs. Of the four runs I went on. I was snowed on three times. The temps ranged from 19-45 degrees, while my pace averaged out to around 8:17ppm for all my runs. Not great, but not bad after taking a few months off. I'm trying my best to keep up with the mileage while making sure I keep a close eye on any aches or pains that don't go away. I've started slowly lifting again, only in 3 exercise grouping each time I go. I don't want too many muscle area to be sore when I run.




My best run was on Wednesday, in which I set multiple PRs for 1K & 5K.







On Monday when it was 45, I decided to wear shorts and it felt great. The only problem was that the Commissioners Park was full of melted sloppy snow all over the trail.




On my last run on Saturday it was snowing, so I decided to get a short video of the conditions. Here it is:

Meanwhile, on the same run I took pictures of myself at each mile marker to see if there was any snow accumulation, and there was.


Mile 1:


















Mile 2:

















Mile 3:

















Mile 4:



















Here are the maps of the runs this week, with the temp.

A Look Back At Week 3



















A Look Ahead To Week 4

Nike+ Pics:

The Past Few Runs

Here's a look at the start of my 24 Week Marathon training through the Nike+ app. The training lines up with a Race date of the weekend of June 14-15. If you get the app add me as a friend and we can help motivate each other.

My Runs To Date:

My Earlier Runs in the Neighborhood

Running With High Schoolers - 1.9.14

When running on a weekday around

 2:30pm you are bound to find kids out on the roads.

 I think I ran past a couple different
 track teams getting ready for the indoor season. You can see the greenest part of my run on the back half after I past a group of 5 young men and I took off refusing to let any of them to come close to catching up to me. Once I realized I wasn't being followed anymore my pace quickly declined. Longest run of the year so far.

Saturday Night Run - 1.11.14

  Another fun night run down Heritage Meadows Drive, you can see the green sprint runs I had at the begining of the third mile and again near the 3.5 mile mark. The roads were very clear and the temp was just above freezing so what snow was left after the rains hadn't iced over yet.  And as you can see below this was my best 5K, 1mile, & 1K.

                   

Balmy Sunday Sunset Run - 1.12.14

With the conditions finally giving some relief with temps in the 40s I ventured out for my 5 mile run. I headed west and ran in neighborhoods that I haven't investigated. Since the roads were finally dry I decided on breaking in my Race Blue Asics. It was a welcome relief not having to deal with slush under my toes.

Weekly Stats:

My Instagram Pics:

Here's week 3 so far: