It’s the weekend of Riot Fest, so I’ve been standing around for two days listening to bands and I’ve got one more day of standing around scheduled for this afternoon. And I’m undertrained for the three half-marathons I’ve got coming up in the next month. So… makes let’s go knock out an old friend of a 5K.
Time: 28:22
Pace: 9:08
Overall Place: 706 / 2167
Place in Gender (Male): 459 / 906
Place in Divsion (M45-49): 32 / 76
The Ravenswood 5K is not precisely our neighborhood race, but we spend enough time in the Ravenswood neighborhood that the race has the same transformative effects that a good neighborhood race does—we get to see the neighborhood in a different way by running down the middle of the street instead of driving or walking on the sidewalk. It’s a small thing, but the different perspective is always an eye-opener for me.
Also, so many of our friends do live in the neighborhood that we seem to run into people we know at every turn.
I started the race with Erica, who was kicking off her season with the run, and then spent the rest of the race trying to catch up to Shaun, who had Stella in a running stroller. Shaun thought I was ahead of him, and was trying to catch up to me. Neither of us ever saw the other, but the chase meant we both had pretty fine times.
Time: 28:42
Pace: 9:15
Overall Place: 884 / 2498
Place in Male: 584 / 1106
Place in Division (M45-49): 64 / 157
I don’t believe in numerology, but I do believe in number fun. I turn 47 on my birthday this year, which is a prime number. Both 17 and 2017 are both primes as well, as are 2 and 3, the day and month of my birthday. So, it only seemed to make sense to run 13 miles (another prime!) for my birthday this year. The F^3 Lake Half Marathon was the closest half. (There’s usually a non-branded Super Bowl race, the “Big Game 10K” or something, closer to my birthday, but nothing this year.)
When you’re running a winter race, you almost kind of hope for snow, just to make the photos really dramatic and cement how hardcore you are. The weather didn’t cooperate in that regard—it was plenty cold, but just overcast and grey. I’m a little undertrained (as usual), with a mild case of pneumonia over the holidays that didn’t help, so I decided to be sensible and just tuck in with the Chicago Endurance Sports 2:20 pace group. That worked out really well—I just looked it up and I guess was a new PR in the half marathon. Thanks, CES.
Time: 2:18:41
Overall place: 1287 / 1789
Pace: 10:36 min/mi
Place in Gender: 694 / 842
Place in Division (M45-49): 93 / 115
In 2016 I did:
So we’ll call that 20 shows.
I also read 15 booksand saw 46 movies.
I ran 718 miles, biked 130 miles, and swam 6 miles and completed 14 races.
I posted 56 photos on Flickr, posted 485 tweets, and made 28 blog posts here at FuzzyCo and 13 at Chicago Flag Tattoos.
Numbers from 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010, 2009, 2008, and 2007.
I’ve long documented the movies I’ve watched each year. Below are listed the 46 movies I watched in 2016. This year I became a full-time employee of NetherRealm Studios, part of Warner Brothers Games, and so I should note that my movie watching choices are personal and do not reflect anything about my employer.
It’s becoming something of a Gerdes family tradition to run the Evanston Flying Turkey 5K on Thanksgiving day. Erica wasn’t feeling too hot this year, so she slept in, but the race is so close and at a reasonable time (a 9am start) that it was easy enough to slip out of bed, drive up and run the race, pick up coffee and breakfast at Hoosier Momma, and be back before Erica was up.
Time: 29:50
Overall Place: 842 / 2308
Place in Sex: 533 / 1065
Erica, Disco, and I ran the World’s Largest Corn Maze 5K back in 2013 and were looking forward to doing so again this year, with Zach subtituting in for Disco. Unfortunately, the race was rained out on it’s original date and Erica was unable to make the rescheduled time. But Zach and I went out and had a great time.
The biggest difference from our last time at Richardson Adventure Farm was that this time the whole place wasn’t shrouded in mist. It’s quite a lovely place when you can see it all.
It was an easy drive out to the Farm and we got there early enough that I got to meet some of the locals:
I’m coming off a cold and a couple weeks off running, but I gave the run a really strong effort this morning and I felt good about getting through the thing without ever biffing it. There really are over 200 turns and it’s not always obvious which way you’re going until you’re right up on a turn. My time isn’t too bad for a regular 5K.
Zach has been on an even longer hiatus but gave it a great effort as well and came in second in his age group and got an extra medal and caramel apple. Last time I ran the race I complained that the Farm activities weren’t available until 10 am—this year because of the reschedule, the Farm isn’t actually even open anymore and so Zach and I hightailed out of there as soon as he had collected his awards.
Time: 28:06.4
Overall Place: 104 / 718
Pace: 9:04 min/m
Place in Gender: 74 / 266
Place in Age Group (M45-49): 8 / 27
There’s not that much to say about the Monster Dash 10K that I haven’t said in previous runnings: they do a good job of running multiple distances on the same day and have really nice jackets.
The one difference this year was that now for two races in a row I’ve had timing chip issues. In this case, I just don’t have a time from the race at all. I ran, I swear! Look, you can glimpse me in the crowd in the photo above. A total glimpse of Fuzzy!
Latte, our dear sweet old bag of bones, passed away today. In 22 years we were only apart for a few months in 2004 for the “great freeze-out disaster” so she really was one of my longest relationships.
Liz and I adopted Latte from the Tippecanoe County Humane Society in 1994 at the same time as Mustapha. We named Latte after the espresso drink for her beautiful brown Tortoise Shell markings.
I don’t recall her being especially small as a kitten, but she never got much larger. She never weighed over 5 pounds and people often thought she was still a kitten.
She never really liked being held, but especially when she was young she loved being petted and would essentially pet herself if you held your hand out at the right height. Our friend Tracy came over to do laundry one time and reported that Latte went back and forth under her outstretched hand for about 40 minutes without stopping.
She liked being up high, and in the octagon house in West Lafayette she’d often oversee the living room from the bannister of the third floor space. Whenever she could find an opportunity to get some height, she’d take it.
She was often quiet and unassuming. She got out of the apartment once and we thought we’d lost her to the world, but two days later she turned out to be just sitting in the basement storage area on a box under the stairs. She wasn’t yowling or complaining—we only found her because one of the neighbors reported finding some cat turds down there and even when we were calling for her, she just sat quietly on the box until we found her.
For most of her life she played second fiddle to the other cats around. Mustapha was such a big character that he took most of the attention during the 14 years they shared. When Erica brought Parker into our family in 2004, Latte and Parker did not get along, but Mustapha seemed to act as a mitigating influence and we would occasionally find all three cats sleeping on three corners of the bed, something rare enough to warrant a photo.
When Mustapha passed away in 2008, Parker ascended in the cat hierarchy and tensions rose between Parker and Latte. To give the spry Latte her own sanctuary from Parker, we set up “Latte Land” atop a sideboard with her food and water and a cat bed. Visitors for rehearsals in the dining room will recall Latte calmly watching from her cat bed.
When Parker passed away almost three years ago, Latte blossomed a bit. She was already 19 years old at that point, a tremendously old age for a cat, and our mission became “keep the old cat comfortable for the few short months we probably have left”. Where she had confined herself to Latte Land for a number of years, she began to follow us around the house and wanted to be where we were. And Erica really worked on her socialization and while she never really became a lapcat, she sit on the couch and sleep in the bed between us, nearly cuddling. She also got pretty good at shouting at us when she wanted food or attention.
As people say is common with cats, she remained spry up until a few weeks ago—clambering up to Latte Land for food and water and to sleep. Once the decline began, it was rapid. I stayed up with her last night trying to keep her comfortable and just enjoying her company and she was euthanized this morning.
She was a stick legs-fur pants, a little lady, our sweet little dummy. She’ll be missed.
