TnT's Workout Blog

We have some heavy downpour and hail storm while driving down to the Tennessee-Alabama border. It only sprinkles a little when we start our hike, but soon enough the rain intensifies significantly. We are relatively well prepared so we don't get cold even if we are soaked.

Two couples come up and warn us about the slippery conditions on the trail. It takes us two hours to hike down 3.5 miles --- the last half a mile is the most dangerous, which leaves us wondering if we'll ever going to get out of there. The bottom is quite an impressive place, but one thing never occured to me is that it is hard to see the Walls through the full foliage. All the pictures in the web I've seen have been taken in late Fall, so there are practically no leaves in the trees or water in the bowl. Now the amphitheater is full of water. Imagine that in the picture with the little waterfall in the background there is a 30 meter vertical rock wall just behind the trees!

When driving down from the mountains we hit the thickest fog I've ever seen. The road was barely visible for ten meters ahead. And some locals even drove without their lights on.

Afterthough: I've been under the impression, from the locals' opinions and my own observations, that more north and west you go in this country, the friendlier people are. Tennessee definitely is an exception to the rule! The people were amazingly nice and unreserved everywhere. Is it the whiskey?

Tennessee was also so clean --- there was no roadside litter. Either they just don't dump their garbage by the roads or they actively clean the shoulders. Either way, it is admirable. And what a disappointment to return to Hoosier country.

After a three miles we hit a series of longish up and downhills in Iroquois Park. The latter killed my toe. I made it around the Churchill Downs, but at the 10M marker I sought a ride to the Finish line --- running was too much pain. The guy at the Aid station could not leave his stand until the very last runners and walkers and crawlers had passed by, and he was not able to contact the guy with the pick-up vehicle. So, I ended up waiting there and freezing for two hours in order to get back downtown. If I'd known that I would have limped my way to the finish line. Thanks to the aid guy for lending me his jacket to keep me warm! The temperature had slumped about ten degrees at that point.

Tomi made it much further. Around 22-mile marker his legs started cramping, and he ran out of energy. He arrived at the finish line about the same time as I after taking a quick shower.

Once my toe has healed we need to get to running much longer distances than we tend to do, if we ever want to try a marathon again.

We are quite impressed with most of their beers. New Albanian beers were too high in alcohol, but my idealistic beer drinking mind applauded to their idea of charging 15 cents more for a chilled glass and prohibition of any domestic light beers --- some European light beers are available but for ridiculous prices. On the downside I can mention that beer and brewing still seems to be purely manly business since no one talked to me, neither the bartenders at BBC nor a brewmaster at the nice small bar in Bowling Green we visited the following night.

The pictures below are from the breweries we visited and from downtown Louisville. We stayed at the historic Galt House. The ingenious water installation is located in the lobby of the Galt House's east tower.

I'm happy that I can at least start the marathon on Saturday. And if the toe won't get much worse than it felt today, I'm pretty positive I can finish, too. Actually, it should get much worse in order to hinder my running. I just need to be careful in downhills. And try to keep my thoughs off of the pinky.

Tomorrow we'll do a nice and easy bikeride if the weather is not too bad; we are supposed to have some thunder and rain tonight and then some freezing temperatures tomorrow. Let's see how it turns out.

Bottom road is what it sounds like; relatively flat and the pavement is in terrible condition. Unlike here in town, where birds wake us up early every morning, out there it was disturbingly quiet sometimes. We did see some vultures, though. And smelled the carcasses.

We worked out some nice uphills, so hopefully that'll do something to the quads, if not improve our speed.

The pictures on the right: Muscatuck National Wildlife Refuge, and Tomi with the GPS.

And now to the bar to watch Indiana Pacers in their first playoff game against New Jersey Nets. Go Babe!

And the Pacers win!

We ended up having quite a bit of core exercise today. We finished with a little bit of stretching.

Somewhat shorthanded we reviewed the four-hand reel. Then we went on to practice the slipjig; we did the lead-around, side step and the new step we just learned a couple of weeks ago. Unfortunately, my nerve problem did not give much break and it was quite painful to go through all that. The new step is quite pretty, though.

The last 30 minutes we spent on doing the 'crap step' --- common lead-around for hard-shoe reels --- a side step, and then the reel step we learned a while ago. It was fun to get to do that a little faster, but then again ... my right leg does not take much impact and bouncing. We had a nice and long cool-down --- that's something my right leg enjoys a lot and it is supposed to be good for sciatica.

Recent storms have thrown branches and downed a number of trees on our running route. And butterflies are back. If they follow the same pattern as last Summer, we're going to see different species --- different colors and sizes and shapes of butterflies --- every week. Did I already mention that whoever had been camping by the trail for the first months of the year, has taken her/his residence somewhere else, and most of the trash as well? This is a relief since the area was becoming a junk yard.

The rest of the day is spent in following activities:

1. Potting herbs, oregano, thyme and rosemary, bought in Farmer's market a couple of weeks ago. They are still alive!
2. Washing windows, which is not an easy task with the mosquito nets and sliding frames. But eventually we figured it out.
3. Making Mämmi, a traditional Finnish Easter dish made of rye flour, malted rye and molasses. In old times they did not use molasses, but they let the rye sweeten in a warm place. Surprisingly, here in Bloomington where inside temperature reached +29C today, it was not enough to sweeten the rye. So, we added some molasses. Let see how it turns out.

We reviewed the slipjig lead-around and the side step. Then we learned a new slipjig step. We finished the class with the reel step in hard shoes.

The Sciatica is giving me really hard time. It does not bother me when running, since then I hit the ground heel first and legs are always facing forward. In Irish dance we are supposed to have legs turned out and knees crossed and be on balls of our feet most of the time. And that is something the pinched nerve can't take at all. It was a little easier with the hard shoes, but probably because I can control my feet movements better than in soft shoes.

We both made our personal bests; we improved about 3 minutes from our first half marathon in Indy 2003. The crowd in the beginning held us in 10:37 in our first mile and the next ones way above our projected target pace (9:10/mile). At the half way point we were 4:30 minutes behind our goal finishing time (two hours).

The marathon/half marathon route headed out and in and out and in from St. Louis downtown. It started around Anheuser Busch Brewery, and also toured amid the idyllic complex of old red brick buildings. We ran some significant up and downhills, not very steep but some very long. That was so unlike the Indianapolis Mini whose route is totally flat. There was no entertainment along the route either, but a respectable crowd cheering us.

The Gateway Arch is designed by the Finnish architect Eero Saarinen. It's another remarkable work of a son, born into a great artist family, whose life ended short; he died to brain tumor when only 51 years old. In case you are interested, the equation for the arch is here

At Morgan Street Brewery, located in Laclede's Landing, we tasted their Honey wheat, Irish Stout, Golden Pilsner, Winter lager and Oktoberfest, of which our favorite was Pilsner. Both darker lagers were buttery, and wheat very light, or rather, bland. Stout was dry but not outstanding.

We also ate at Morgan Street. We started with small Greek salads, which were really good but generous, and pasta for entrees. Tomi's Grilled Chicken & Andouille Sausage was tasty, but Tei's Linguini Primavera (in white wine and pesto sauce) was cloyingly oily. It may go without saying that the portions were huge.

At Schlafly we had some better luck with beers; their Pilsner, Pale, American Pale, IPA, Irish Stout, and Duppel were good and delicious, but Hefeweizen, the seasonal Vienna, Oatmeal Stout and Scotch Ale were not that good. While the first defied its style, the latter three were true but did not impress us.

Schlafly also had two hand-pull ales (real ales for Europeans): Pale and IPA. We could not agree on the taste of the pale; Tomi found some grapefruit in it, but to Tei it tasted like wheat flour soaked in water. The IPA was good, though.

The pictures on the right (top down, left to right): 1. Market Street towards the downtown St. Louis and the Mississippi River, 2. & 3. The Gateway Arch, 4. Swinging Fish in Laclede's Landing, 5. Beer sampler at the Morgan Street Brewery 6. Schlafly's old tap room, 7. Hand-pull ales at Schlafly. For more pictures see here.

These 45 minutes flew fast, it seemed we did not have time to do anything. Judging from how legs and arms felt afterwards, we did do quite a bit! We skipped the CardioCore again, since we want to spare our legs for this coming Sunday's half marathon.

As soon as we started our first fast lap, we heard thunder roaming in the distance. After two mile-long tempo intervals for the race pace, we planned to do two to four 400 meter intervals for little faster than the race pace. We barely started the first one when the downpour came without warning. We finished the 800 meters and put the soggy clothes on, and rode home. Then the sun came out.

We were positively surprised how easy it was to crank up the speed from the projected half marathon pace (9:10/mile).