50K… canceled!

By: Matt Frazier

As you can probably imagine, I was pretty bummed to find out on Thursday night that the Frozen Foot 50K that I was planning to run on Saturday was canceled, due to “unforeseen circumstances.”  Maybe the snow in the forecast played a part; I’m not sure if people do ultras in the snow. And it did actually snow, which (in my opinion) is fun.  And I know my dogs like it.

So, looks like I’ll have to wait until January 2nd before I can officially call myself an ultrarunner.  On the bright side, the snow made us feel kind of Christmasy and wintery, so Erin and I stayed in and watched three consecutive TV movies Saturday night.  This kind of behavior, incidentally, is what you should look for if you ever suspect a Terminator has dispatched me and assumed my form — I usually hate watching movies and can rarely sit through one, let alone three.  But like I said, it was snowy.

To go along with the cozy winter theme of the day/night, we made this French onion soup from 1,000 Vegan Recipes:

We cheated a little by using real cheese instead of vegan parmesan, but still, this soup was far healthier than normal French onion soup with those floating globs of gruyere cheese that I find kind of gross anyway.  And that’s an Ezekiel sprouted-grain roll floating on top, rather than the sliced French bread that was called for in the recipe.

Beer disaster

Remember the beer I brewed last week?  Well, I came home the day after brewing to this lovely sight:

In trying to write a caption for this photo, I got as far as Oscar the Grouch and vomit before I made myself stop.  Apple, anyone?

What happened, if you’re interested, is this: yeast eat sugar to produce alcohol and carbon dioxide.  While some of the carbon dioxide carbonates the beer, the rest must escape, through a valve in the top of the fermenter that prevents air from getting in.  Well, the valve clogged with foam, so I had to rig up a tube-and-bucket blowoff, which is actually not too uncommon.  But something went wrong; either the tube clogged or got a kink, and the carbon dioxide could only escape by blowing off the lid and causing Mount St. Helens in my kitchen.

The worst news is that the lid was probably open like this for a few hours, and it’s very easy for bacteria to spoil the beer if they have a chance to get in.  I’m keeping my fingers crossed, and in a few days I should have a pretty good idea of whether the beer will be any good or not.

Where’s the giveaway?

If you showed up expecting the SIGVARIS athletic recovery sock giveaway, fear not.  Since the 50K was canceled, I didn’t get a chance to try them out yet.  I’m hoping to get a run in tomorrow, then try them out and write the review/giveaway post.  So look for that one mid-week.

And a warning: I have my big oral qualifying exam to become an official Ph.D. candidate on Friday, so my posts (and running) will be spotty this week.  But after Friday, I’ll be on winter break and it’ll be more NMA than you can handle.

Enjoy your Monday!