Run Photo of the Day 5.10.11: Pointless stairs

In a park near our house.

Run Photo of the Day 5.8.11: Happy Mother's Day

Nik, I, and my mom spent Mother's Day morning in Mattapoisett, Mass., running the Tiara Classic 5K. Friends of ours had told us this was a flat & fast PR-worthy course. No free T-shirts, but you can't have everything.

Mom's gotten strong. She warmed up before the race by knocking out a few burpees.

Then she & Nik did some squats to loosen up the ol' quads & hammies.

It paid off with PRs for both Nik & myself, and mom was just 2 seconds off. But it's Mother's Day -- I say she can have the 2 seconds as a gift.

New episode: Boston Mini-Vacation

Spend the weekend in Boston with 4 Feet Running! Known in the metro Boston area as Faw Feet Runnin. In this very special episode:

- Nik and Dan drive to Boston and get a wicked good paaakin space

- They get ready to run the Poco Loco, a 13-mile group run of Boston and Cambridge along the Chaaales Rivah, with Steve Runner, Zen Runner, Eddie Marathon, Chris Russell, Tim D., Tim C., Jay and Deb Kumar, Kelly, Jim, Ninjarunner, Kevin Z., Alett, and special guest appearance by John Ellis

- You will barely hear from any of those people because of technical difficulties

- Find out what Nik & Dan have been doing since December, and where they're going in 2011

- Dan's now unemployed. Will work for food (though I'd prefer to work for money)

- Talking skepticism with Steve and jazz with Zen Runner

- A walk through the park in the Fenway, and then a walk through Fenway Park

- Put on your mittens and long underwear, Satan: Nik attends her very first Red Sox game

- Dan gets super-excited while praying in The Cathedral of Baseball

- More of that appalling 4 Feet Running sound quality you crave

Thanks for listening! Enjoy!

[Direct download link]

Before we set out on the Poco Loco, we all heard a safety speech from Zen Runner. From left: Tim Doiron, Deb Kumar, Kelly Davis-Orr, Jim Snyder.

Adam gives us the lowdown on the course.

From left: Steve Runner, Eddie Marathon, Jay Kumar, Neal Bearse, who is clearly not paying attention to the safety seminar.

Steve gave Dan a pack of Phiten brand titanium stickers. You stick them on your body and there's some magical healing power that will, according to the pseudoscientific nonsense on the package, "increase your performance." So he put one on his brain. It did not work. 

At a brief rest break in Cambridge, Steve looks out over the Charles River.

Nik stands in front of the Charles, with the John Hancock Tower behind her.

John Ellis once caught a fish this big. 

Kevin Z., Adam, and Tim Cleary hang out during a brief rest break by the State Police barracks, about 3.5 miles into the run.

Jay Kumar and Nik were among the faster people in the group, so they helpfully waited for the slowpoke Poco Locoite (Dan).

After the Poco Loco, the whole crew went to the Sunset Grille and Tap in Allston. Check out this parking job. This isn't Nik & Dan's car -- this is Jim Snyder's. He drove us there and snagged this spot right outside the bar, parallel parking like a champion. It was truly a miraculous day for everyone's cars.

The day after the Poco Loco, we visited Boston again and walked through a rose garden on our way to Fenway Park.

Nik in front of a mural inside the stadium. Dan made her wear the hat.

Yawkey Way outside the stadium is packed with pedestrians, and it's one of the only places you can walk around on the street with a beer.

Our seats were in the right field bleachers and were actually very nice. Click the panorama to see it larger.

This cat was great -- he kept yelling orders toward the field, started several chants, and here he's singing all the lyrics to "Sweet Caroline." He was evidently 100% sober, too. 

The place erupted into ecstatic cheers after the Sox won, 3-2. And to think, this wasn't really an important game.

Dan was all set to come back the next day.

Afterward, we went down to the field and walked along the warning track. We got close enough to the Green Monster to touch it. It feels pretty much like a wall.

Dan was very excited, and wanted to steal various bits of the field including these signs.

Even Nik enjoyed it too, although she remains baseball-agnostic.

Run Photo of the Day 4.25.11: Scenes from a creepy 9-miler

I went on a solo 9-mile long run, taking a route I sketched out on Gmap-Pedometer.com, but had never actually ran before. It was a tough, hilly route, but I thought I'd get out and see the sights. 

Like the city's Industrial Park. About 2 miles of the run was through our mostly deserted and kind of spooky Industrial Park. A few businesses call it home and all, but I didn't see anyone at all for about a mile and a half, and didn't hear any noise except my own feet and an occasional bird. The road is long and straight -- if someone decided to chase me for some reason, there'd be nowhere to go. These are the things I think about on the run. Also, see that thing that looks like a mountain in the background? That's a landfill.

I ran south along North Main Street, which was much pleasanter.

Then I spotted this thing in someone's front yard. It's a star shape made out of sticks and twine, and the dog from "Family Guy" seems to be hanged from the center. What is this, some Wiccan ritualistic sacrifice? The rest of the house looked a shambles, with dirty windows and peeling paint and dead bushes, so quite frankly I ran the hell away from there.

On my way home, I cut through a park by our house. I've been thinking about hiding a geocache somewhere in there (my first hide), so I decided to scout for places that might be safe, interesting places to share with people. Instead I came across this: it's some sort of abandoned building inside the park. I've seen it there a million times, because I've walked through this park more times than I can count, but I never actually went up to this building before. From the outside and front, it looks like some kind of shack. Behind it, the wood has rotted away and you can peek through to see the interior. We've got what looks like an old sofa, chair, oven and stove, possibly the remains of a bureau. There were several rooms  in here I could see into, all full of trash and rotted furniture. I also got the hell away from here ASAP, because there's a definite willies vibe coming from there. Also, I didn't know if anybody -- or anything -- was living in it. It's the kind of place you can picture some monster crawling out of and dragging you inside to make a meal of you. It probably didn't help that I was listening to Stephen King's It on my iPod at the time.