Head Stands to Relax??

Melissa and I have been observing some rather strange behavior from Julia over the last couple of weeks. For some reason she has started doing head stands up against the furniture. She does this while watching tv, or while in her room or while waiting to use the computer etc. We asked her why she was doing this and she said it "relaxes her". Very strange!

Sick Bay

Well the bug that took down Lea last week while I was out of town has now taken down Nicolas, Julia and Sara !! Sara had a particularly bad case and spent the whole day in bed. Julia on the other hand seems to have my constitution and was slowed down and a bit cranky but quickly recovered. Unfortunately Melissa and I are showing the early signs of the same cold/virus but that did not stop me from going for a 14 mile bike ride this morning in less than 50 minutes! Motor on!

Shaking with the Quakes

Today we added a new chapter to our sports experiences by going to the San Jose Earthquakes game courtesy of my boss who had 6 extra tickets for the game (recall we have Sara staying with us). The "Quakes" as the are affectionately know are part of Major League Soccer (MLS) in the U.S. This is an up-and-coming league and features ever improving talent and more and more international talent as well.

The Quakes play at Santa Clara University which is not too far from our house. Today it was a glorious sunny day in the mid-80's and they were matched against the New York Red Bulls.

Andy has great seats, right near mid-field about 8 rows up. It is close enough that you can hear the coach yell instructions and the players yelling to each other. It was a great game and the Quakes were on the offensive most of the game. Unfortunately they gave up an own-goal at the 3 minute mark but really kept pressure on and eventually got an equalizer at around 16 minutes.

The kids, especially Lea, really liked it and she was paying close attention to the action. They had lemonade and hot dogs from vendors so they did not starve. There were several large groups of regulars with drums, flags and singing songs that almost gave this the feel of a game in Europe, though the quality of play wasn't quite there.

The game ended in a 1-1 draw but featured lots of quality play, break away's, near misses etc.

I don't think we will ever buy season tickets (unless one of the kids goes crazy for soccer) but I do think we will try to go to a game from time to time, especially a night game if possible.

Too much?

A friend of mine Darren (not one to withhold an opinion) recently told me that I was blogging too much about my exercise and not enough about the kids! While that is probably true for the family readers I like to "put it in print" - to write down my accomplishments so that I can go back and look at them sometime in the future to see how far I have either progressed or fallen.

So I'll take the ding and try to do some more family blogs but that said I did ride a bike 10 miles and run a 5k this morning in less than an hour!

I must say I felt pretty good about that!

The Dark Knight is Awesome!!

Yesterday evening we took one of our rare nights out and went to see the new Batman movie called "The Dark Night". This movie has been getting a huge amount of hype and has broken many box office records and I really wanted to see it on the biggest screen possible.

I have to say that despite all of the hype and build up that it exceeded my expectations by a large margin. This was an incredible movie that pulls no punches in terms of the action, in terms of the plot and the twists and the acting is great.

And, And, Heath Ledger's performance of the Joker is truly amazing! I think he has given the definitive interpretation of the Joker which will stand for a lifetime just like the Peter Sellers Inspector Clouseau in the Pink Panther original movies.

Melissa was originally hesitant to go and see it but after the movie she admitted that she thoroughly enjoyed it even though she had not seen the previous movie "Batman Begins".

I highly recommend you see this movie in the theater to soak in the complete experience.

Little Man and Big Heat

Last night we were sleeping somewhat restlessly when Nicolas woke up screaming "daddy where are you?, daddy where are you?" Both Melissa and I ran into his room and he was burning up! It appears that he has the same thing Lea did earlier this week where she had a high fever, aches and chills. Fortunately with Lea (and hopefully with Nicolas) it only appears to last 24 hours.

Starting the day with a 10k

Well my workouts have been going reasonably well and I've finally started to feel like I was back to the level prior to all of my travel in May/June. As proof, our (regular exercise group) got an extra early start at 5:45 and went for a long run. I ended up going for 6.5 miles which is just slightly longer than the 10K I ran a couple of months ago.

I think it is pretty good when your training run is now the length of races you were doing just a few months ago!

Hopefully my joints can hold out for that kind of pounding!

$100 fill up and it is not full!!!

The other day I took our SUV to the local Shell station to fill it up. It had gotten un-naturally empty so I knew it was going to be a big bill with the current prices.

What I wasn't ready for was my credit card cutting me off at $100 and my tank still 4 gallons from being full!! Oh my!! I'm old enough to remember filling a car for < $1 a gallon and although that was probably not a natural low price it was still nice.

Wow!!

Our dog "Buddy" is back...

A few weeks ago we had two dogs at the Kreisa dog kennel and it was actually a lot of fun. Yesterday we got one of those dogs back (boy the owners sure take a lot of vacation!).

Buddy the Great Dane mix is back for another week long stay. We love having Buddy in the house because he is such a cool dog and makes Melissa feel more secure (me too). He is great with the kids, letting them lay their head on him, chase him around the yard etc. He is also a good walking dog, never pulling on the leash too hard and basically pretty good with other dogs.

If/when we ever get a dog I think I would like one just like Buddy.

Still at it

It has been a few weeks since my last post, a longer gap than I like. During the last couple of weeks we have had visitors but I have been able to keep up with the exercise routine. One funny thing is that in the same two week period I had one person give me a hard time about my running pace (9-10m miles generally) and one person express concern that I don't over do it (see previous post). So if this were an election I guess I would be about right!

It's not though and yesterday we went and pushed it even harder with our routine. We rode bikes for 7 miles, stopped, ran for 32 minutes, then got back on the bikes and rode for another 8 miles.

So I figure my total workout was a 15 mile ride and 3-3.5 miles of running all before 7:30am. Not a bad way to start a Saturday!

Pain Given Out in 3 Minute Intervals

Today the folks I have been running with introduced me to one of their more masochistic routines which really wore me out.

It is pretty hard to find hills in Santa Clara (it is pretty flat) but they found an area along a trail that we run which goes up and down from trial level to river level and back. Basically in a 1/4 mile stretch you go up, down, up, down where the hills are about 60yds long up and down with a very short flat stretch in between. It does not sound like much but believe me it is.

The plan today was to run 12 intervals on these little hills. The interval times started off at 3:20, 3:00, 2:40. Basically we started slower and built up doing each interval twice totalling 6 runs, and then repeated the whole thing.

You can pretty easily finish the first couple of intervals faster than 3:20, so you get about 30+s of rest in between. But... then the intervals get shorter and you get more tired, meaning you have less time to rest. The other folks are in better shape than me so they always had at least 10-15S rest in between. Me on the other hand got pretty tired after the first 5 intervals and found myself needing to start right away after finishing. Whew!

In the end I was so tired that I only lasted for 10 intervals. So I ended up with basically 30 minutes of straight hill running (oh by the way we ran to and from the hills, about 3/4 of a mile each way). Supposedly this will make out flat runs faster. I am not sure if I was working old muscles in a new way or new muscles in an old way but either way it was painful doled out in 3 minute intervals. I'll have to try it again just to see if I have improved.

Big Dog - Little Dog

I've already blogged on my dog policy earlier this year and we continue to follow that. This week due to a slight scheduling snafu we happen to have two dogs at the Kreisa kennel. The first is a regular - Skittles our lovable and slightly wall-eyed Shih Tzu who is very spunky and pretty sweet. Now Skittle probably weighs 10-15lbs (the amount of weight I still want to lose) and stands 8 inches at the shoulder. He is very much a lap dog and can often be found there if you sit down.

Our second visitor is a part Labrador part Great Dane mix named Buddy. Unlike Skittles, Buddy stands about 3 ft at the shoulder and looks Nicolas straight in the eye. He has what I would call a typical Great Dane temperament and prefers to take it easy. (although Skittles has gotten him in a playful mood of late). Buddy could for example easily grab something off of the counter where as Skittles can only wonder at the treats that lie above his domain.

The other day we took the two for a walk which by itself was somewhat comical just because of the difference in size. It was made all the more funny when we let the kids have the leash and Nicolas was at one point walking Buddy. It looked like he should be riding him!

So far the two dogs seem to be getting along well, neither taking too much notice of the other.