turkey day recap

Visited my mom for Thanksgiving, ate too much, blah blah blah. Something about the surroundings in that area will always be very familiar to me. I grew up amongst cornfields and this time of year, the fields are all pretty much bare. If you spend enough time around corn, you can start to designate certain times of the year based on what the corn is doing (right now it is not doing anything, but the rule of thumb is "knee high by the 4th of July," also in late summer and early fall the corn gets hard on the cob, which means you can throw it at passing cars if you are a bored adolescent).

Played chess against actual people (as opposed to a computer) over the holiday. I am 2-0 against a 1st grader, and 1-1 against a 5th grader. They are both very smart kids........I'm quite sure it is not the last time I will lose to the 5th grader. In my defense, he is a straight A student.

Did some light plumbing last night, installed a shutoff in my basement to an outdoor faucet that freezes every winter. It was only going to be a matter of time before a pipe burst due to the lines freezing so now, hopefully that is taken care of.

I must be losing my marbles, I am officially entered into the Hardrock 100 lottery which will take place in less than a week. If I actually get in, which most likely will not happen, I don't know what I'm going to tell the wife. Bottom line, that is a dream opportunity that any ultrarunner worth their salt would never pass up.

Finally, went running on the trail this morning with the dog. Very muddy but lots of fun, we saw the sun come up which is always well worth getting out of bed for.

more chess braggings

I should just retitle this thing Eric's Chess Braggings. I have upped the difficulty level and try to play an even mix of black and white. I also like to experiment with different openings and/or defenses.

did i mention............

.............that winning never gets old? In other news, congrats to the dude who broke Clifton's JFK 50 mile record yesterday. How people run that fast, for that long, I'll never know.

winning...........

............it never gets old

never say never

Isn't there a saying about never saying never? I just signed up for a 50k, which is in 9 days. My last long run was about 2 months ago in Utah. Nevertheless I am very excited!