Random Monday Notes

No flowy, verbose post today (not feelin' it)... just a few random fitness notes that I thought you may enjoy:

Cincinnati (specifically Northern Kentucky) has a new running store!  I am so excited that Tri-state Running Company is now open in my hometown of Edgewood!  It's literally less than a mile away.  I am excited to find out about their training program.  While I enjoyed The Bob Roncker's Running Spot program last year, this might be a better fit for me.

Speaking of marathon training, I recently joined a running group on Facebook called, "I thought they said RUM."  Great name, and I loved that someone posted this hysterical and sadly accurate video:

I figured my fellow runners would get a kick out of it.... my favorite part: "You ran 15 miles on purpose?  You mean with your legs and feet?  I do not drive that far on my commute to work."  I can't tell you how many times I've gotten this same response to my marathoning, but it's almost as often as someone says, "I don't run unless someone is chasing me." 

Also this weekend, I was introduced to the world of Xbox Kinect.  It's much like Wii, but there is no controller.  It's hooked up to a camera, and you just use your body.  It is so different from any video game I've ever played.  My brothers and sister-in-law tried it out (my brother just got the system for his birthday) on Saturday and we had a blast.  First, we played a dance game.  I forget what it was called but I dominated, as a Zumba instructor righty should. 

After everyone got tired of me kicking their butts, we switched to a game called Kinect Adventures, which consisted of jumping over things, ducking under things, dodging things and reaching for things.  (Sorry, that's not very descriptive, but like I said, I'm not feeling very flowy and verbose today.)  On this game, the system takes photos of you while you are playing, which you can then download.  My brother Maury was able to post the photos directly to Facebook from the gaming console. I'm not sure what we're doing here, but I think he was winning.  (He practiced before we got there.)

The best part about the Kinect was that it was quite a workout!  I was sweating within five minutes.  I think if I got one at home that I would use it all the time.  Unfortunately, it's a little pricy, so I'm hoping that the people at Xbox will see my glowing review and send me one to thank me.  You don't think they will?  No?  Come on, Xbox, it's Christmas!

Urbanathlon & Around Chicago

As I mentioned in my last post, I wrapped up my business trip Friday evening, but before leaving Chicago I went to watch some friends do the Men's Health Urbanathlon yesterday.  It's very rare for me to actually watch a race, since usually I'm participating in it, but after being on my feet at the trade show all week this was a welcome change.

My friend Hansel, his brother Noel, and friend Sean were each doing one relay leg of the 9.75 mile race, which included both running and various obstacles, like this one that Noel had to do:

Noel did far better than he expected... he planned for about an hour to complete his leg, and ended up finishing in 25 minutes! Tired, but proud of his achievement:

After Noel was done, me, Noel, Noel's wife Ashley, and Ashley's friend Caitlin headed to the finish line so that we could see Hansel complete the final leg of the race.  (Unfortunately, there wouldn't be time to see Sean's leg, since these three are so lightening fast!) For someone who spends most of my Chicago trips out by O'Hare inside an exhibition center, it was nice to get to see some of the more beautiful parts of the city while we were walking:

At the finish line were the final three obstacles.  Leaping over taxibcabs:

Scaling a city bus:

And climbing a wall with a rope, (which I'm fairly certain I am not currently physically able to do):

Hansel rocked out the last obstacles, and the guys finished in an impressive 1 hour and 39 minutes.  That's about how long it takes me to run the distance without any obstacles!

After the race, we had lunch at a cute little cafe on Michigan Avenue called Gage.  I had a delicious turkey sandwich on a baguette with red onions, egg, and garlic aioli, a bowl of chicken noodle soup with tons of veggies in it (check out those carrots!), a boatload of fries (I couldn't eat even half of them), and a ginormous pickle:

After lunch, we walked through town and I got to see some more sights along the way:

As we headed back to Noel's apartment, (which was where my car was parked), we stopped at this cute farmer's market in his neighborhood:

So cute!  Makes me wish we had those kinds of things here in northern Kentucky.  After my fun morning/afternoon in Chicago with friends, it was time to drive home.  I got a ton of sleep last night after the long drive back, and am about to head out the door to get in one more long-ish run before next weekend's half marathon. Think I'll do about 9 miles... but I'm going to skip the obstacles!