Has it really been a whole week since my last post? What a slacker. Not much to report I guess, this being the "dog days" of summer and all. Saturday Jenn, Carol, Martin and I all piled in Carols brand new 2010 Jeep Wrangler and headed out to her family condo in Concan for some much needed time on the river. It was great, but exhausting. The 4th of July is this weekend so hopefully there will be some good goings on to write about. I believe we are going to Pleasanton hang out with Aunt Jeanne and Uncle John, which should be awesome as always.

I am all moved into my new office, now I have to figure out what to do with it. I have the same things I had in my cubicle but the office is so big it looks so sparse, it's actually kind of depressing, but, I do have my surround sound speakers set up so I can at least get some good tunes going. I'm going to need to get some color in here.

Saturday, run. Sunday, ride.

Chipmunks Motivational Corner - "Running is the greatest metaphor for life, because you get out of it what you put into it." -Oprah Winfrey

Today's "Shirt of the Day" is the event T-shirt from the Carrabbas Classic Half Marathon Relay Jennifer, Carol, Betty and I participated in on Saturday. It was a great event, and my team-mates all did really well. I wished that we could have sampled the food that Carrabbas brought to feed the runners but the line was too long and we were all too hot, hungry and impatient to stand around and wait.

This is a picture Carol took of Betty and I waiting for Jennifer to finish her leg of the relay.

Sunday we went for a 60 mile bike ride to Rebeccas Creek Rd. Now that it is over and I have had a day to reflect on it, I'll say it was an awesome ride. Very challenging. While we were doing it I thought it was the worst idea ever hahaha. I'm glad I did it. I'm glad it's over. I can't wait to do it again....weird how that works.

MR. HAT GOES ON TOUR

Took my new Cocked-n-Locked® fitted cap on a whirlwind Promo Tour. What follows is a pic-tography of some of our exploits. Enjoy.

Dublin TX celebrates having the oldest Dr. Pepper bottling plant in the world. One weekend out of the year the town of Dublin is officially renamed Dr. Pepper TX. During their annual birthday bash they have charity running events, the Tour-De-Pepper bicycle ride, booths, arts, crafts, classic cars and of course all the free Dr. Pepper you can handle. The official Tour-De-Pepper T-shirt. Dublin High which is the site of Tour-De-Pepper packet pickup(try saying that 3 times fast).
Jennifer holding the hat at the starting line and the hat waiting for Jennifer at the finish line.

A very talented "Sand Artist".

Not sure who commissioned this statue but I think it was ill-advised and more than a little creepy.

On the way home we stopped for some authentic Texas Country BBQ. Think Rudy's except even better and even more expensive(about $65 for 5 people) pricey but very, very good.
It was a great road-trip, just like it was last year and I cant wait till next year to do it all again.

BORED AT WORK

"Chipmunks Motivational Corner" today is for my sister Kristan, but also applies to anyone else who doesn't think of themselves as "runners"; "The only difference between a jogger and a runner is an entry form." - George Sheehan

Well, I'm in the office but that is about the extent of my "working" today. There is absolutely nothing going on. I have posted a picture of my latest project...."The Rubber-Band Ball", 5 inches and 3 pounds of awesomeness. The mouse and Superman Pencil are for size reference points and the Dr. Pepper is just a segue into my next adventure; getting out of town on Friday and heading to Dublin, Tx which for one weekend a year is officially renamed Dr. Pepper, Tx but more about that when I get back. Anyway back to the grind, I just found 2 more bands under my desk.

Edge falls

Awesome ride today. Jennifer, Betty, Uncle John and I did a nifty little 60 mile loop from Bullis County Park to Edge Falls to Kendalia and back to Bullis. We traveled a bunch of roads that I do not know the names of so I won't even bother to try I'll just post the pics and call it a day.

Shirt of the day

First "Shirt of the Day" in a while. Not because I don't like the segment but because I haven't gotten any cool, funky or fun new Tee-shirts, so luckily today was the day my prize from a Blackberry Twitter contest came in...For those who don't have a Blackberry, first of all shame on you, secondly BBMe simply means Blackberry Messenger (me). It's cute and clever and only "we" get it but like I said there will be lots of random.

163 days to go

Well there is now only 163 days left until the 2010 San Antonio Rock-n-Roll Marathon. There is so much to do and I just hope there is enough time to fit it all in. Yesterdays training ride went very well. Jennifer and I rode out Scenic Loop Rd which is quite nice, it starts out with some rolling hills with a pretty steep incline to finish that portion of the ride. I'm going to have to go back and take some proper pictures sometime soon but all I could get were the two you see (both at the very top of Scenic Loop) which are not very "Scenic" although that is a pretty good picture of Jennifer's um, back-tire. After you crest the top of Scenic Loop you take a downhill right(see picture) and continue on to Kyle Seale which goes through an up-scale neighborhood that sits on a "thigh-burning, why did we go this way, holy-crap is this thing ever going to end" hill. And I loved every minute of it.

This was the shortest training ride so far, at just over 15.5 miles but it had by far the most challenging uphill climb I have yet to tackle.

Tonight we are going to either OP Schnabel or McAllister Park to get in a trail run because June 19th is the Carrabbas Classic 1/2 Marathon Relay so we thought a bit of cross-training was in order.

I will have a new segment of motivational quotes for my Sister and Brother-n-Law, Kristan and James Herrera, who are starting a summer 5k series in Bakersfield, Ca. I don't know yet what to call it maybe "Chipmunks Motivational Corner" after my niece Kendra, hmmm...... anyway without further ado;

"I always loved running...it was something you could do by yourself, and under your own power. You could go in any direction, fast or slow as you wanted, fighting the wind if you felt like it, seeking out new sights just on the strength of your feet and the courage of your lungs." - Jesse Owens

Memorial(Day) Weekend

As you may be able to tell by the pictures, this was an action-packed Memorial Weekend.

Family, friends, food, fights(on TV, not amongst ourselves), booze and bike-rides.

The weekend started off with Carol-Palooza IV or "The Bacardi Party". Did you know that Bacardi will come to your house with bottles of their delicious products and teach you how to mix some of their most famous drinks......for free? Me either, but of course Carol did, so that was our Friday evening. Unfortunately or maybe luckily for me I could only participate in 1 Mojito and 1 hand shaken Daiquiri because Saturday morning Jennifer, Betty and I took off on a 55 mile bike ride on the Helotes, Castroville loop. It was a great ride and The Red Dragons odometer passed 100miles!

After our ride we had alot to do, because later on that evening Jennifer and I were to host a UFC 114 Watching Party so after a quick shower and a well deserved lunch of FreeBirds World Burrito, I had to mow the lawn, Jenn cleaned house, then we went grocery shopping for the nights BBQ(Chicken, Brat worst and Chicken Spinach and Feta Cheese Sausages. mmmm!) The fights were OK I guess, I just really enjoyed having our friends over and I think they all had a great time.

Sunday was a pretty lazy day. Jenn and I met Carol and Martin at Stonewerks for a light dinner but everyone was still pretty worn-out so we called it an early night.

Monday was back on the bike for 25miles(a total of 80 for the weekend) on 211 and the "Hill of Death" on Bandera which is hard enough if you gather a full 30mph head of steam coming off the last descent of 211 but this day was compounded because a car was stopped at the light when we got to the bottom of 211 so we had to start up Bandera from a dead stand-still, which sucked, but no matter how much my legs burned I refused to give up and made it to the top with-out having to walk my bike at all....Jennifer of course was already at the top waiting on me hahaha! After the ride it was lunch then a long day of lounging around the house. To cap off a great weekend Jennifer even made me my favorite dinner...her famous Chicken, Broccoli and Shells. What a great weekend.