Booze Running Brazil

Blindd-Bling, or actually Blindd-bang

2009-02-17T22:37:00.007-03:00

Blindado is the word for Bulletproof: So I went shopping this week for bulletproof cars with my boss. His apartment building was robbed by a crew of 20+ armed guys in 4 cars that got the event going by kidnapping one of the doormen at his house at 6:00am then using him to gain entry to the basement. Anyway, to make a long story short, he is looking at getting a bulletproof car so his wife feels it is safe enough to leave the house again.

The whole thing reminds me of a scene in Blood Diamond where Leonardo says...

Blind-bang...the one thing you know for sure, is that if you hear a metalic tap-tap-tap on your driver side window, it is already too late...that is, unless you have one of these

Armoured car level 3a. Stops everything up to a .45. The only way to fly...

Of course, if you roll down the window, or open the door, your car is no longer bullet-proof, so there are differing opinions as to whether the protection offered outweighs the attention attracted when people see you have a blindado car. You make the call...if your city looked liked this:

Would you drive in one of these with, or without, the added protection (and the 1000 lbs it adds to you car, essentially cutting it's useful life in half)?

Yes, that is a Kevlar convertable. As if you had to ask...

Wine: Anyway, I had a crap bottle of Portuguese red this week that was so shitty I couldn't even be bothered to pull the bottle out of recycling, but did buy a couple of nice Trapiches to run a taste test to publish to Steve Runner since he made a mistake correlating two bottle of two very different blends from their vineyards.

Running: Missed a run during the week due to travel but got in a 10km on Saturday and an 18km on Sunday, both at night, both slow, but I was happy I am basically up to half marathon distance in week 3 of my training program. I have some fast intervals planned for this coming week so that will hurt, but stay tuned for how long it takes for me to really feel like I am in shape, despite cranking out an 11 miler, I still feel sluggish and heavy on my feet.

More soon - prob Thursday. Cheers folks.

Schmitty, a Brunette and a Llama go for a long run

2009-02-09T23:14:00.009-02:00

Beers: Saturday, after catching a movie at the mall with the wife, I put a double-reverse-spin move on her as she entered a shoe store, heading off to the grocery store to look for some new beers. Much to my surprise I saw two offerings from a brewery in the south of the Brazil (Porto Allegre) I had never heard of before . Down here, the farther south you go, the further away from the equator, the colder it gets and the more people of German decent you find, thus, in theory, the better beer.

First of the menu was Schmitt Ale. As you can see from the picture it looks like an unfiltered ale, although the label made no mention of filtering (or the lack thereof), I was initially impressed that the color as a nice amber. Since 90% of Brazilian beer is typical yellow piss lager, it was a rare sight. Sadly things went down from there, there was no big hoppy flavor as the color might suggest, it tasted largely soapy and was otherwise unremarkable. The ingredients listed a bunch of shit that doesn't make the Reinheinsgebot so I should have known, but hey, the list of ale's here is shorter than Tom Dashcle's tax return, so it was worth a shot.

Next up, the chance to add another Brazilian brunette into my warm, loving, waiting hands.

Now, you may be saying, but does it make sense that some ex-kraut, living in Brazil, made an Irish Stout with a French pin-up girl on the bottle and called it "La Brunette" ("La" being Spanish not Portuguese)? Normally this would raise a red flag or two, but since the list of Stouts made in Brazil is shorter than even Castanza's Shrinkage, I had to give it a go.

Of course, no attempt at cheating goes unpunished, and it would appear the flavor of this beer was inspired by the post-kiss-cringe that only the nicotine-stained halitosis-heated tongue of a parisian hooker. Kissing an ashtray made of an old car tire pretty much wraps it up.

Lets move on.

Quara Torrontes - Quara is a vineyard in northern Argentina (Salta) and makes a bunch of tasty wines. NONE, more delicious than the Torrontes. It give a little bit of sparkely pop (but not in a way that sounds as ghey as the phrase "sparkely pop") and is more like a pinot grigio than a Chardonay or a Sauv Blanc. The wife and I can put away this stuff like there is no tomorrow and at R$24 something a bottle my guess is that it can be found in the States for under US$15. If you see the llama on the bottle, go for it. If they also have the Quara Reserva Torrontes, pay the extra few bucks cause it's worth it.
Weekend's Runs: Got in an easy 10km on Saturday pushing the munchkin in the Ironman stroller. This was a really slow recovery run from Thursday's tempo and the legs really didn't have much life in them. The park I run in has a ton of Pitanga trees which are a small red fruit that makes great juice and even greater caipirinhas, and so all the locals were picking them as they took their laps around.

Sunday's Long Run: This was the first of the "Race Simulation" runs on my plan. 10k easy follow by 5km at HM pace +30 secs. The 10km felt fine, easy but still much faster than Saturdays, I changed a diaper and downed a gatorade after the ten, then upped the pace for the 5km. I held okay 5:15 (versus a 4:45-4:50 that I wanted) but since it was now in the 90's and sweltering, I figured the fact that I felt loose and with some spring meant more than the actual time.

I'll be in meeting in downtown Sao Paulo for the rest of the week so looks like treadmill runs for me, but maybe I'll sneak something in worth of some picture taking. At the very least I should be getting some nice corporate dinners so all is well, catch you later this week when I'll have put in the first work out or two on the 100 Push-up Challenge I am doing with SQ.

The Bachelor Pad

2009-02-05T21:13:00.005-02:00

The Bachelor Pad: So, I got a new job last October that is just under 100 miles from my house. In the Greater Sao Paulo area you basically have two choices. Live and work in Sao Paulo city (3rd largest city in the world after Tokyo and Mexico City) and spend 90 minutes going 8 blocks in your car, or do anything possible to avoid the city, which in my case was taking a gig that meant spending 90 minutes going 100 miles one-way.

Since spending 3-4 hours a day in one's car (even speeding on an otherwise scenic road) is the very definition of losing one's soul, I am subletting a room in a 2 bedroom flat in the posh neighborhood of Campinas (the Philadelphia of Sao Paulo) about 8 blocks from my office. Since most of my time here involves running, drinking beer, blogging and otherwise surfing sites the wife is not so fond of, I am currently refering to it as the Bachelor Pad. As mentioned previously, I know I need a better name, but ManCave, just doesn't fit. I'll generally be sleeping up here two nights a week which makes getting in my speed work a lot easier.

Tonight's Tempo Run: 8km with 5k at tempo. Per the Ryan Hall training plan, tonight was supposed to be the first Hard Tempo run which basically is at Half Marathon pace (or 4:30 per km). I averaged 4:54 per km and felt very sluggish. Last week's 5k Moderate Tempo was at 4:4o something so I am not all that pleased with the run. My legs could still be somewhat tired from the intervals on Tuesday, or some baby-crying induced sleep deprivation maybe to blame. I'll just try to keep shedding off the lbs I gained over the past 4 months and hope the speed comes back.

Instead of my standard Strawberry-Pineapple-Orange Juice smoothie I tried a Mixed Red Fruits smoothie today. I saw the lady pop the pre-pulped frozen berries out of the freezer then blend them up with some freshly-squeezed OJ. The lack of freshness was apparent at the first sip so I ended up blending it with some grape gatorade I had in the car. Needless to say I'll be heading back to the Tutti-Frutti (yeah the name is ghey, but it's soo good).

Ok - I'm going to crash early, but next week is looking like lots of meetings in the city so I'll let the company spend some cash on fancy hotels and figger out how to ensure I get my runs in.

Cheers.

Back to the Blog - Setting up 2009

2009-02-03T22:54:00.006-02:00

What's up? Okay, so it's only been since August that I updated this bitch. Mostly I was unhappy with the Seven Pillars theme, was searching for a more catchy title and was doing fuck-all for training. Also I switched jobs, had a kid, and ended up getting a second apartment near my office (more on the Bachelor Pad later).

Booze Running
Since I'm now working in BioFuels (sugar-cane ethanol for cars, cane cutting pictured above) I figured I had professional cover for putting booze in the blog title, since I've now signed up for the SP half and the Rio full (and actually got off my ass and started training) had to throw running in there, and since all my travel is to the middle of nowhere sugar-cane fields in Brazil, the stories forthwith will chronicle the intersections of these activities/locations/saturations. The pic below is of a capivara that was swimming in Lagoa de Taquaral where I do all of my mid-week runs)

Since my office is 150km (90 something miles) from home, I'll be updating the blog once or twice a week on the nights I sleep up here from the "Bachelor Pad" (yes, I need a better name for this too) which also are the night when I'll be doing intervals (mon or tues) and tempos (wed or thurs). My post-run ritual is to get a fresh fruit smoothie from these guys after every run. Tonight was fresh strawberries and pineapple blending is fresh squeezed orange juice.

Running in Brazil:
I've run about 10 races in Brazil in the past two years. Some great, and some that remind one that Brazil still has a way to go. My two favorites are the focus of the next six months of my training. I will be running the Sao Paulo Corpore Half Marathon that runs from the U-Sao Paulo campus to Parque Vila Lobos and back and is a flat fast course, well organized and usually features a number of bands along the way.

2009 Training
I am using the Ryan Hall 10 week training program that was in a 2007 edition of Runners World USA magazine. It features intervals every Tuesday, alternating moderate/hard tempo runs on Thursdays and alternating weekend long runs with "Race Simulations" that are usually 10k warm-up followed by 6-10km of race-pace + 20 seconds per km. It will be, without question, the most speedwork I have ever done but I like the alternating workouts to keep things interesting. From there I will do Pfitz 12-55 leading up to Rio. I am looking to drop my PR from 1:44 to as close to 1:35 as possible. I have a 10k at the 4:30 pace I need to hold to hit 1:35 so, in theory, it's doable. I also want to improve on my first marathon last year of 3:55 to something under 3:30 which is dropping from a 5:30 per km pace to a 5:00. Also doable (provided I drop some of the beer-calories I've conveniently stored around my gut).

Tonight's run: 2.7 km warm-up (one lap around Taquaral), 5 x 1 km intervals on 4:30 with 60 secs rest. I ran 3 last week averaging 4:33, today I averaged 4:36 but felt worse, could be due to getting about 90 minutes sleep on Sunday after the Super Bowl, or just the generally pains of getting my old ass into shape. Hard tempo on Thursday 5k on 4:30 should be interesting, I held 4:44 on the moderate 5k tempo last week so the forecast calls for lots of huffin and puffin.

Ok - that's enough for now. See you Thursday

How to tell you are running in an Emerging Market (+2 new wine reviews)

2008-08-20T13:25:00.012-03:00

Emerging Market Running: So last Saturday I head out for a morning run and decide to check out a nice stretch where they are building a road to connect some new housing developments to the main highway (The Dutra). I had to stop to take this picture as it struck me that it said 1000 words about development in developing countries:

Yep, great big piles of horse shit, laid fresh, in the path of the asphalt-laying machinery. I usually get in one run a week along this stretch which has the back of 2 gated communities on the left and a big nature preserve on the right, but I have to say this was the first time I saw completely unattended horses just eating their way along the shrubs on the right.

Here is a better shot of the horses themselves. There were about 6-8 of them and there did not appear to be anyone keeping an eye on them. There is a cow grazing pasture just past the cement wall on the left, but I have never seen horses there before.

The run itself was half fun/half not, as once the road construction ended the road turned into a complete mud pit. I stopped once to take this pic:

But only turned around once I almost lost my shoe in 8-inch deep slop resulting in the following pic:

As mentioned above, on the right of the trail is a publicly owned nature preserve (which you can see part of in the top-banner photo). Technically it appears the reserve is closed, although there are some visible shanty-houses (a mini-favela) and one runner once warned me that there were illegal pot-growers in among the native vegetation. There is a sign at a visible trail-head that warns, "Attention: It is prohibited the traffic of pedestrians, cyclists and automobiles". I am trying to decide now if climbing through the 2 strands of barbed-wire is worth the beautiful trail run vs getting shot at by pot growers risk:

I will probably check it out next Saturday just for shits and giggles. Being a large gringo in running clothes should at a minimum have the growers think I am a potential customer rather than a member of any local law enforcement.

2 Quick Wine Reviews:

2007 Uxmal Malbec (Argentina) - I had a bottle of this at an Argentinean steak place in São Paulo and it was ok. Was the 3 cheapest bottle on the menu and was drinkable, but not really offering anything of note. I debated adding a "rule" that said, if your wine from Argentina has a name that makes you think of a pyramid in Mexico, then move on, but it sounded just a touch too harsh.

2006 Altosur Cabernet Sauvingnon: This was the second bottle that we ordered at the same meal as the Uxmal (5 drinkers at the table) and it was markedly better than the Uxmal. Firstly it supported my "rule" that any wine from Argentina with the word "ALTO" in it is going to be good. Also, the Altosur is a brand from the Finca Sophenia winery which makes some outstanding top-end wines. This is an export-only brand (label in English and Spanish) and was quite tasty. While I don't recall exactly what we paid for it, this brand is positioned about 2 steps down pricewise from their flagship brands. I recommend anything these guys produce and the Altosur line is a nice entry point.

Coming soon: I ran a 20:59.59 5k on Sunday and will post a race report as soon as I see if I make it into any of the on-line photos. Per two posts below it was a lap around a shopping mall so I didn't take any pictures myself.

Best Interval Workout Ever

2008-08-05T20:28:00.003-03:00

Quick Note: Well it didn't generate any comments, but I stole and did a minor rewrite of Squirrel's post about putting down a DB runner on the FDR drive after it was revealed that some other blogger on RWOL Marathon Race Training board had taken it and passed if off as there own. It wasn't my most creative effort, but I got a chuckle out of it.

Last week's wrap up: I would call last week my first real week of running after the marathon. Totaled 50km/30 miles including a 5x1km interval workout and a good 10 miler on Sunday.

Starting the Ryan Hall Half Plan: Today was the first run of the Runner's World Ryan Hall Half Marathon training plan, and of course I scrapped what was written and did what I wanted. Not a big deal as the plan called for 6x800 at half marathon pace and I did 5x1km at almost 5km race pace as training for my sub-20 minute 5km attempt in 2 weeks. I pretty much stick to the plan for the rest of the week which all easy runs and a 6km Tempo.

Best Interval Workout Ever: I essentially always run the same interval workout: 5 x 1km (w 1 min rest between each km) and have been tracking the results over the past few months to see if the workout acts as a good indicator of 5km performance.

The first 3 were leading up to the 5.6km race I ran which produced an estimated 20:21 5km split time. The last two were Thursday and today and today was without question the fastest interval workout of my life. I am very pleased that the drop off was not too drastic and that I avoided the side-stitch that brought about the 5min+ interval last week (amazing what not eating like crap the day of an interval set can do). I'll do this workout once more next Tuesday and try and get the total under 20:30 then rest up and see what the body has in store for the race.

More soon. I've been off the sauce for awhile now so hopefully should see some weight falling off shortly.

A Lesson Taught. Quick Uruguayan Beer Review

2008-08-02T10:43:00.011-03:00

A Lesson Taught: I headed out and picked up the Marginal Paraiba trail 2km into my run at the bottom of the trail around Avenida 9 de Julho. Being a weekend, being Vila Ema and not being totally sunny dry weather, plenty of people were out. Parents, pot-smoking teenagers, kidnappers, and of course, hot female runners all littered the path. Nothing serious, just base building to get my legs ready for a big week that would be starting tomorrow. I started enjoying the view as I was basically out for an evening jog. About a half a click up the path along the marginal, I caught up to another runner. This happens all the time, and usually, despite what I may have posted previously, I pass without incident. But, I don't know what's up with me. Maybe I have developed some sort of booty-attractor when I run. Something that draws women with great bundas from their daily activities and brings them into my run...the most personal activity in which I partake. But once again, another runner's insecurity and frankly, need for approval infringed needlessly on my run. I swear to god, this shit may need to stop. And it needs to stop relatively soon. Today I only punished myself, but one of these days I'm gonna end up punishing the other runner at the same time, and I can't have that. I'll explain.

Like I said, I caught up with her about a half a km up the path. The other runner was a quite a fit twenty-something. A chick decked out in a full spandex running suit, on a day where I was wearing shorts and a cut-sleeve shirt. A woman who, most likely had headed out the door that afternoon with every intention of validating her body by the stares of male runners over the course of 4 or 5 km. A woman who apparently didn't want to be passed. A woman who would teach me a lesson.

I was almost bowled over when, as I attempted to pass her, she accelerated with almost a finisher's sprint to avoid being overtaken. Are you serious? C'mon lady, I'm not out to stare at your bum-bum (just to take a peek), get in my final miles for the week and head home. It's not like I was pushing the pace to get past her either. Simple math shows that she was ahead of me, I was catching her, therefore eventually, given constant speed is maintained on both ends, I would pass her. It isn't rocket science. It's how things happen. Anyway, this isn't the first time this had happened, so rather than try to antagonize the situation (or antagonize it outwardly, I should say) I decided to play the passive-aggressive role. I sat on her. About 10 meters off her. Holding my pace and not wavering whether she sped up or slowed down. Childish? Maybe, but not nearly as childish as turning a Sunday afternoon recovery run into a race. Besides, it's much more fun to see how long she would make me stare, than to ruin my run by suddenly surging.

So I sat. For about 2.5 km up the marginal, I watched this sculpted beauty hold the same routine: sprint, ease up for about two or three, look over her shoulder for my appreciation, slow enough to let me get within about 1.5 meters, and then repeat. Seriously, this happened over and over and over as we continued along the path into what, I firmly believe was for her, uncharted territory. It was classic. I never really wanted to pass her (the view was exceptional) because what fun is that? I just wanted to see how hard she would push herself not only further physically, but distance-wise as well to catch me staring/smiling approvingly at her hindquarters. The fact that she kept looking at her own hiney made me wonder just how much longer this little game was making her run. I decided I would play until I got to the point where turning around and running home would get me me 7 km needed for 14 for the day and 85 km for the week. So we ran.

The thing about the path, as you may have seen in my pics I posted a few weeks back, is that it is fairly narrow and there are very few "bail-out" points. Unless you want to dive in the Paraiba River or jump into traffic on the viaduto, you're running or you're stopping and turning around. As we ran north I could tell she was getting nervous. It was fantastic. I kept checking her gluts at the km marks to make sure I wasn't staring at the tushie too much . I didn't want to trouble myself, only her. After all, she had interrupted my run, my me-time, and she had to pay.

Finally when we got up to about Avenida Faria Lima., there is a bridge that juts out into the marginal--it's one of those spots that's normally populated by skateboarders, maconha-smokers and banditos--she bailed out. She took the hard right and headed out onto the bridge. I was tempted to actually follow her out there, but that would've been childish. I had made my point by never getting caught looking, despite the temptation. She had attempted to indulge her pride and in the end had ironically run herself too far out and too down thus making it home in a more worthy condition, better sculpted to be appreciate later for what she had "accomplished". As I continued north I snuck a peak back to see her run immediately deteriorate to jog, to walk, to hands on knees. I laughed, ran about a quarter km more, and then turned around and headed home. I looked for her when I passed the pier, but didn't see her. I never passed her on the way back either so it leads me to believe that she was still hanging out there on the pier catching her breath and asking herself whether it was worth it. No matter what she did, she had to run back into the same headwind that I was now running in. I took solace in the fact that Mother Nature was taking over where I had left off. ;)

Beers from Uruguay: One of my local deli's had two flavors of beers from Uruguay on sale, and due to their 600ml bottle (South America's answer to the 40 oz) I decided to give them a shot. I have avoided trying these for awhile basically because they are contradictorily priced as a premium product, but are a lager looking beer from Uruguay (sorry, but a country not known for premium products). Anyhoo...The Patricia was the kind of creamier lager that Heineken and Stella attempt and the Norteña was just you average lager that tastes great when ice cold on a sweltering day at the beach, but in your apartment on a Tuesday afternoon, really doesn't have much to offer. The Net-Net is enjoy when in Uruguay, drink Bohemia when in Brazil.

20 Days to Breaking 20 Minutes

2008-07-30T14:06:00.003-03:00

August 5k PR Attempt: So I signed up for a local 5k today that will be run on Aug 17th. It's one lap around a local shopping malls, so while not beautiful or differentiated in anyway, it looks to be flat, fast and hopefully a small field.

As mentioned in some posts below, the last 5km race I ran was in June and actually turned out to be a 5.6km race where the KM markers will all placed wrong (horribly wrong at that). Since I finished in 22 something minutes, I extrapolated that the 5k split was 20:21. Now hopefully I get to validate, and more hopefully, beat that mark in 3 weeks.

20 Days to Breaking 20 Minutes: For training I won't actually do anything different than what is in the Ryan Hall training plan for the Rio Half. I may up the intervals a bit to have them be closer to 4:00 per km race pace but the overall mileage and doing tempo runs on 4:30 should be fine. I just like that I get to write a super cheesy RunnersWorld magazine cover headline for a blog post.

On the Wagon: Since weight loss is a key factor in hauling ass in a 5k (or any race for that matter) I will suspend drinking until the race to drop that extra 1-2 lbs that will make a few seconds difference. I'll still post some wine reviews as I just need to get the pics off my cell phone so stay tuned.

This Week in Running: This week is my last week of base training before starting the Ryan Hall Half program so all nice and easy runs. I ended up taking the weekend off and had a good 10k on Monday and a 50 minute run yesterday (maybe 5 miles of mixed trails & roads). Today I'll get in a 5k walk with the stroller and then do abs/planks when I get home.

Despite the fact that I think I will never wear the shirt, I am pretty excited about going hard for a PR.

Choosing Wines by Countru + the Clos Pegase 2003 Cabernet Sauvingon

2008-07-26T09:22:00.008-03:00

Wines by Country Groupings: There exists four groupings of countries that I have developed over the years of drinking my way across the world:

Grouping 1) Best Value/Lowest Chance of Getting Ripped off: Argentina and South Africa. I have spent about 6 months in each of these countries and their wines are simply fantastic. While I make no guaranties about a US$5 bottle, any bottle in the US$12 range is going to be a nice wine, and anything over US$25 should knock your socks off. You can read my Argentinean selections on the right, look up Simonsig, Kleine Zelze and Raka as some great producers from South Africa (I know for certain the Simonsig Pinotage is available in the States and is a fantastic bottle).

Grouping 2) Great Expensive Wines/Lots of Garbage: Spain and the U.S.A. Both of these countries dedicate massive amounts of grapes into largely undrinkable table wines that are best ignored, or in the worst-case scenario, used in sangria (where the 7-up and fruit mask the horrible taste of the wine itself). At the US$12-25 level there are not many steals of a great bottle. However, both countries (I've spent almost 2 years in Spain, and am from the US) produce some really outstanding wines, but immediately price them through the roof to avoid any confusion with the $3.99 jug wines that 99% of the market drinks. A Rioja like El Puntido, which we had at Arzak in San Sebastian after I asked my wife to marry me, is an example of a great wine that would be a steal and a half at $30-35, but is never to be found for under $50.

Clos Pegase 2003 Cab Sauv: is another example of a fine, fine bottle of red that is priced at the $50 level, and is worth it, but just enough that you wish it was a bit cheaper and thus available for enjoying on a more frequent basis. I have been to the Clos Pegase winery in Napa Valley twice, and it (along with Joseph Phelps) is one of the most beautiful places to visit in the valley.

I bought this bottle when I was in the States last June and it has been quietly relaxing in my wine fridge waiting for a moment worthy of cracking it open. Since yesterday was my 18-month wedding anniversary, and I was making some steaks for me and the Mrs., I decided it was time.

I opened the bottle and immediately decanted so as to allow a fair amount of oxidation/breathing before drinking. I knew the wine was going to be big, bold and full of complexity so a minimum of 15 minutes of breathing is essential to allow the wine to open up and reveal all it has to offer. Diving in too fast for any wine at this level (and really any wine over $15) mean missing out on all the good stuff. The biggest surprise was that the nose was huge in Terrior, exactly like the dusty, farm smell you get after walking through the vines in Napa for an hour or two. The legs on the wine went straight up to the top of the glass and stayed there. It was indeed an impressive display of American audacity.

As you can see in the photos, there was a decent amount of sediment in the bottle after I decanted. I was quite pleased to see this, if for no other reason than it makes me think the bottle has been sitting around for an extended period of time waiting to be appreciated, and that is calls back to the old French wines long before the days of excessive filtering.

Interestingly, Clos Pegase dedicates a page on their website to explaining the how/why of sediments in their wines and is quite an interesting read.

Group 3) France: I have been to France 3-4 times but almost always for work and usually for less than 48 hours. While I always buy wines when I am there, using every word of French I know to either talk cabbies into taking me to a wine shop, or to get good recommendations from the wine shop owner, I can't say I know enough about specific vineyards. Generally, the French have their shit together when it comes to making wines, so as long as you follow my rules about never buying a bottle with pastel colors on the label, or where the words Reserve are in bigger letters than anything else, you can trust that the wines are priced correctly and that the more you spend, the better wine you are getting.
NOTE: If the word Table Wine (Vin de table) is on the label, don't expect much and don't pay more than $7. France's system of Appellation Controlle, Cru, Gran Cru, is a good guide to quality.

Group 4) Wines from Countries I have never been to: Italy, Australia, New Zealand. Sorry, I've never been there and have not gotten around to drinking any of your stuff. Now that I am in Brazil there is next to no wines from these places available anyway, and with the 100% import duty, for sure the price/value equation is shot. Technically I can add Chile to this list since I have never been there. I do drink the occasional Chilean but as noted in my rules, Argentina kicks their ass everyday of the week and twice on Sunday.

Upcoming South American Wines: I have about 400 new Argentinean and Chilean wines whose photos and reviews I need to upload, and then add to the ranking on the right. Maybe sometime this week. The gist of the reviews will be that there is further confirmation that any Argentinean red with the work ALTO/ALTA/ALTOS/ALTAS is a rock solid selection. We also got two bottles of Carménère wines from Chile (one expensive, one not) that I'll pair up with a mean shortly and give a full review.

Runs: Quick recap, today is Saturday and I have gotten in 3 runs this week as part of bast training. Nothing special but a 10km, 12km and 5.5km. I'll get in some today and a 10 miler tomorrow. I feel like garbage for the most part out there, but the legs should come back shortly.

Okay - We are doing some serious BBQ-ing here today so I gotta run and make some BBQ sauce. I have a rack of pork ribs in the fridge that I slow-baked for 2.5 hours last night covered in a home-made dry rub and are looking awesome

A wholely unexpected 10k - Race Report

2008-07-21T15:17:00.003-03:00

Previous 2008 Races: Prior to the past Sunday's 10k I had run 5 races in 2008. Two half marathons in downtown São Paulo where I ran fine along urban courses that didn't offer much in terms of scenic beauty, then a 9km trail race and a local 5k (that was actually 5.6km) that were total disappointments both in their organization (or lack theirof) and/or course planning (I hate course that choose to be boring). Alas...just as I was losing faith in my adopted country's ability to put on an interesting and dynamic race, I have run the two most beautiful and enjoyable races of my life. The Rio Marathon (see below) and a local 10k in my little suburb of São Paulo.

The São José dos Campos 264th Anniversary 10K: I found out about this race from one of those little scraps of paper stuffed in the bottom of the goodie bag, which lead me to a local running website I had never heard of, which has exactly 4 lines of text and a link to register for the race. The race info gave no details of the course or set up other than to mention that a shirt and medal were to be provided despite the fact that the race was Free. A race being run by our socialist municipality with no additional funds from race fees was cause for alarm in my book, especially considering how much I hated the 5(.6)k race I ran with a $25 fee a month prior.

Training: I can describe my training for this race in one easy word...squat. Since the Rio Marathon I have run 3 times, each for less than 40 minutes, all at a speed where a cripple with a hangover could easily have outpaced me.

The course: As mentioned above, the only detail offered prior to the race was that the start would be at the Parque da Cidade (City Park). I have run several times in this beautiful park but was concerned about 2 possibilities:
1) The 10k was going to be in the streets near the park, which meant running through a really bad part of town with a guarantee of at least getting fireworks shot at us and at worst getting actually shot at (drug dealers don't like attention/interruptions).
2) The 10k was going to be several laps around the 1600m running path that is inside the park.

Arriving Sunday Morning: Since I had done fuck-all for training, but still felt obligated to gun for a PR, I went back and forth about not showing up for the race. Since it was free, and the 1500 spots filled up in 2 days, I felt I had to go. I woke the wife and daughter up, dragged them to the car and off we went.

Much to my pleasant surprise: When we got to the park, they had extra parking squared away, a race pavilion was up and running, and best of all, it was clear they had laid out a course all through the park that did not include doing loops of anything.

My first thought was relief, with the 10k now officially a trail run, I was under no pressure to live up the post below about test 4:30 per km as a race pace for my upcoming half-marathon training. This brought a huge smile to my face and I instantly relaxed and started enjoying the pre-race activities and taking pictures with the wee one.

The Start: We all lined up at the start, since it was a free race all the local high school and college track teams turned out, they even drummed up two Kenyans to keep things interesting. My only complaint about the race was that once everyone was in the starting coral, the announcer decided to invite all the women (maybe 200 of the 1500) to the front so they could start first, "for their safety"?!? Considering there were maybe 20 elite women and 180 housewives, the entire rest of the field start booing and laughing as watching 180 women get trampled by 1000 faster age-groupers was no-one's idea of safety. But, the gun sounded and off we went.

The Race: Since I was now in full mental-relaxation state, I was pleased just to let the legs turn-over and enjoy the beautiful trees, lakes and foliage of the park. It just about spring-time here so some flowers were blooming, the temps were 18C/65F and the sun was shining. For the first 3km there were no km markers and I was mostly just trying to get in front of all the slow fatties who gunned it at the start and were pealing off after the first mile+.

The First Marker: at 3km there was the first km marker. I checked my watch and saw 13:27......
Thought One: hey wait a second...that is 4:29 per km!
Thought Two: fugg, now I have to finish this race hard

I keep the leg turnover where it was and went through the half way marker at 22:40. While this was technically 10 secs off my target pace, were were running on trails that included some sandy sections so I had to further admonish myself saying, "hey if this was a flat road you'd be going even faster, so no wussing out now!"

For the rest of the race I used the pick-someone-ahead-and-pass-them method of holding pace. I made one mistake in the last 500m when I thought the finish was right as we approached the pavilion, but alas the organizers had their last laugh (at my doubting them specifically) by wrapping a lap around the pavilion at the end. I sprinted half a click too early and had to dig deep not to die and give away my potential PR right in the last steps.

Well, despite getting passed (and passed badly) by two guys in the last 10 meters who I had passed 300m back, I held on for a Personal Record 45:17. For reference the last 10k race I ran was in Nov 2006 and I ran 52:02, since then I have multiple 10k splits under 50 minutes as part of half-marathons, the best coming in last years Rio Half when I went out in 46:07. Considering this was on trails, I am shocked and really really pleased with the time. I negative split the race in 22:40/22:37.

I thought for a second this might have been good enough for a decent placing in my age group, but when they posted the results it was clear the presence of every track club for miles meant no extra hardware for me. I came in 431st overall and 68th in the 35-39 age group. To give you some idea, the winner was a 29 year old Brazilian who came in at 28:39 and the top 14 runners were in under 30 minutes.

The post race festivities had a moon-walk, other kiddie rides, a classic car show, and a dance or two by the local Brazilian-Japanese dance associations celebrating 100 years of Japanese immigration in Brazil. They were nice enough to pose for a picture.

I start my Rio Half Marathon training tomorrow and am pretty psyched about putting in all the speed work I have been blowing off for the first half of the year.

So, if I ran a 45:17 (essentially exactly 4:30 per km pace) after a 3 week recovery, should I reset my Half-Marathon goal for something even faster?

Me and Ryan Hall - 13 weeks to the Rio Half Marathon

2008-07-14T20:40:00.005-03:00

Firstly - thanks to all who added comments below. As Squirrel likes to point out in his blog, you can only dwell on your last race for so long (good or bad). I agree, although for me the time-frame is however long it takes for all the race photos to get published. While I like the ones I've posted, I am still waiting for that perfect shot, therefore-hence-ergo, I need to get in some more races.

Goal Setting for the Rio Half - The Rio Half is on October 12th (perfectly timed for the World Wide Half Marathon) and is the second half of the course from the Rio Marathon (so still all beach, just minus the zen-quiet bits). I ran this race last year after doing a 12 week SmartCoach training plan and went from a 2:03 first half-marathon to a 1:45. My splits for the 1:45 however were far less than ideal (by 5k it went 22/24/27/27/5, or going out in a 46 flat 10k and coming back in a 54 min 10k). This is the error I wanted to avoid in the two halfs I ran earlier this year and was successful (a 1:44 and a 1:46 both with only 1-2 minute drop between 10k's. I mostly attribute this success to the 4 months of base training I did leading up to the races (ie not doing any speedwork whatsoever is great for resisting the urge to shoot out of the gate).

As mentioned below, I want to drop below 1:40 for the half this year, and in kicking around training plans, staring at pace charts, and more specifically, plugging my 20:21 5k split into MacMillan's Calculator, I've come up with the following for a training goal:

1) I'm going to do the 10-week Ryan Hall Long-Training program printed in Runners World. It has a ton of speedwork (intervals, moderate and hard tempos and lots of race pace runs), and varies every other weekend between a long run and a Race-Pace run. Weeks average around 45 miles per week which should be plenty.
2) I'll be basing everything off running 4:30 kms (yeah, that is a minute faster per km than the marathon, but only 30 secs faster than the splits for the past 3 halfs).
3) 4:30 per km = 1:35 half finish so nice round numbers both for the finish time and the splits.

We'll see how things go but I am pretty comfortable that I can crank out the workouts where the intervals are a bit faster and the tempos are at, or just over that pace.

First test - 10k this Sunday: There is a little local 10k this weekend that was free, so I am signed up and will attempt to even split on 4:30's for a 45:00 10k. This would be a PR and a great indicator that my above-stated goal is right on. I have no idea what the course will look like so stay tuned. It could easily be a cluster-fuck like the 5.6km 5k from a month ago but since it's free, I won't complain much.

Last Rio fotos -- I swear:

Couple more race pics

2008-07-08T10:36:00.004-03:00

The various race photo websites are still uploading shots over a week later (which I find most annoying) but at least Ativo.com (the Brazilian version of Active.com) had a good selection, including one of me with J.C. (km 41):

Finishing photo with Sugarloaf mountain in the back:

I have a 10k race on the 20th so I'll end my post-marathon recovery rest week today and get out for a few miles. No real plan since the race is in 2 weeks but I'll get a couple 10 milers, some intervals and maybe even a tempo run. Stay tuned.

Revised Rio de Janeiro Marathon Race Report

2008-07-07T11:29:00.005-03:00

The race below is a clean-up, expanded, more detailed, race report from my first marathon, the Rio de Janeiro Marathon held on Sunday June 29th, 2008. I've added a bunch of new photos and a good number of links to YouTube videos for some great Brazilian music that can act as great background music for reading the report (although the music I listened to during the second half of the marathon was all hard rock/African).

Background music: Firstly a quick little traditional samba that (like the marathon) starts slow and tranquil, then picks up and hits a nice little rhythm. Quinteto em Branco e Preto (Quintet in Black & White) Xequeré.

Some more videos: since samba itself is not one of my seven pillars
Vanessa da Mata - AiAiAiAi, Vanessa da Mata with Ben Harper - Boa Sorte/Good Luck, Sergio Mendes & Brasil 66 - Mas Que Nada (1966) , MPB4 e Roberta Sá - Cicatrizes/Scars .

Race Prep: Good solid base training from mid-December through two half-marathons (march, april) getting from 25 mpw up to about 45. Did maybe 1 or 2 tempo runs before taking 5 weeks off around the birth of my daughter (mas o menos 4/15-5/22). This was around some of the less-than-positive spring marathon reports on RWOL and I thought, ok, I took too much time off, I'll die out there, and canceled my plans to run my first marathon in 2008. Then along came the June Challenge and I cranked out a 52-mile week and a decent 20-miler (3:45) and thought, sheeit, I doubt I will piss blood while I'm out there so decided to go for it. The 5 weeks prior to the marathon looked like this:
Race Strategy: My initial goal (like in December when I actually thought I would follow 18/55) was to shoot for around 3:30 (ie 2x my half PR of 8min miles) but my real thinking leading up to the race was...how fast can I go an not kill (or soil) myself? I settled on 5:30 per km (9 minute mile-ish) as something I knew I could do for 20 miles no problem, and hoped the marathon gods would show mercy over the last 6. 5:30 per km is a 3:51 finish so I hoped that even with dying a bit at the end I had a 9 minute buffer to break 4 hours.

Ok - now that we have dispensed with the boring stuff...on to the race itself:

The course: The course was point-to-point, almost perfectly flat and is 100% along the beaches of Rio de Janeiro (my favorite city in the world):
The thing I will remember most about the race was how totally tranquil the start was and how everyone ran in near total silence for the first 15km.

Got on the buses at the finish around 5:45, made it to the start around 6:30. Recreio beach is one of the last in the city and it was just us and the surfers enjoying a beautiful sunrise:

Only 1838 total runners in the full, with another 12,000 in the half marathon/family 6km. 18C/64F at start (yes, there were snipers in the helicopter)

(always one DB jumping the fence to get up front)

The first 15k was along a stretch of beach where there is a lagoon/nature reserve on one side and the beach on the other. With no hotels/apts along this part there were no crowds, but I wouldn't trade the view and the silence for anything:

The half marathon marker was at Barra da Tijuca beach (Praia do Pepê) and I hit it right on pace (plus a minute or so to snap pics/take a leak), I felt great, cracked a huge smile and threw in the ear buds (mix of Rush, Ozzy, RHCP, G&R, Johnny Clegg) and kept the turnover turning over.

Kms 22-32 went by quick and we were now on Ipanema beach where the crowds picked up, and the race had bands/DJ's every 4km for the rest of the way crossing over to and along Copacabana.

I was feeling great up until the course turned off the Atlantic beaches for the final 3km along the Guanabara Bay beaches of Botafogo and Flamengo. My thighs started burning pretty good and I was doing some serious huffin-n-puffing to hold pace for the last bit, but held it together enough to keep passing people through to the finish.

Result: 3:55.25 total almost exactly even-splitting a 1:57/1:58. I basically held exactly 5:30 km with the extra 4 minutes coming from 2 quick breaks, the one hill and fighting with stupid granola bar wrappers .

I was/am SUPER happy with the result. I surprised myself in how much I really was enjoying myself along the way. Since the pace itself (in the beginning) was not so tough I really took in the whole experience and it was gooood.

I may be addicted. The thought process of picking a one-mile pace you can do one of, almost without sweating and then trying to run 26 of them without dying is most intriguing.

Thoughts, Observations... As first marathons go, it is hard to imagine one better than Rio. Under 2000 runners in the full but with the infrastructure/after party worthy of the 14,000 total runners. Buses left on-time in the morning, water stations ever 4km, couple gatorade stops, free Exceed gels at 2 places and great volunteers. One who went above and beyond the call of duty, untying my shoelaces at the end to recover the timing chip so I wouldn't have to bend down to do it). While the end of June is technically the middle of winter in the Southern Hemisphere the 08:00 starting temps were 18F/64F but signs along the way showed temps of upto 30C/86F in the sun between 12:00 and 13:000.

The quiet, zen-ful start is something I will never forget. I have never been around so many Brazilians being so quiet in my life. Also, the combination of sweat, suntan lotion, Gatorade, caked-on-salt etc made for one impressive B.O. as I recovered after finishing.

Here are a few closing pics:

Race Medical Staff:

Toni Garrido , lead singer of Cidade Negra gave a free concert at the finish (Sugarloaf mtn in the back)

The B.O.P.E. (as seen in a movie you must see Elite Squad ) was on hand for security

Goodie bag was solid (ugly shirt, free pasta, cool hat & water bottle)

I thought the medal was ugly, but my daughter seemed to like it just fine.

Secret of my success: Steve Runner , or more specifically Episode #99 - Marathon Fueling . The podcast contains a formula based on body weight and race pace to calculate the number of calories you need to replace per hour to avoid hitting the glycogen wall during the final miles of a marathon. My number was around 300 calories (X 4 hours = 12 GU's). While I felt a little silly at the start with pockets stuffed with trick-or-treating, it did the job. You can download it from iTunes (link from his homepage)

My Actual Fueling: I had 9 GU's in the house before the race figuring I would buy the rest at the expo. Since they only selling Asics and additional race t-shirts at the expo, my pockets at the start with stuffed to the max with the following:

2 Speedo Light Energy bars
2 Nutri granola bars
9 Vanilla Bean GU's

I ate all of that plus probably 3 (maybe 4) of the Exceed Boost Gels they were handing out along the way. Basically I was taking one every 20 minutes for the first 3 hours, then one everytime I felt like it over the last 12km.

Eating the energy bars is the only thing I did for the first time on race day and indeed I won't do it again. My stomach was fine with them, but it was too distracting to open them with sweaty hands and chewing and breathing heavy just don't go together.

Like I said, I was wicked guilty of trick-or-treating my way through the race.

Liquids - I drank 2 10oz water cups at each water station (so about 4 cups per hour). I can't say the 6 oz of gatorade total from the 2 gatorade stops contributed much.

One Week Later: A week has pasted since the race. My legs were sore the first couple days (I took maybe 3 Aleve) but nothing all that remarkable. Today is Monday and I will get out to run a 5k or so today, but I can't say I have felt like strapping on the shoes at all this week. I have a local 10k on July 20th that I would like to run a sub 45:00 so we'll see if I can get some life back in the legs by then.

Again, a big thanks to all for assistance, guidance and motivation.

Nissan Xterra Brazil Nightime 9km Trail Race in Angra dos Reis - Rio de Janeiro State

2008-07-01T10:44:00.006-03:00

Technically this race was 3 weekends ago so before the porn-stashe 20-miler, but it took forever for the race pictures to get posted on-line so I have added them into the report I wrote up on RWOL. This report is really about getting to the race and not the race itself (which was kinda boring), unexpected off-roading when the highway you are one all of the sudden runs out of asphalt is just one of the little reminders that happens from time to time that there is still plenty of developmental opportunities here in Brazil.

Part 1 - the negatives (the race itself)
The race was promoted as a night-time extreme 9km trail race with "tons of surprises" and the following hills* "(*subject to change)"

As soon as I got to the race, I could see the course was changed to going out through a pasture and back through the woods (I figured okay, the hills & good stuff will be in the woods during the second half vs the first half as sold in the graph above)

For some unknown reason (I even emailed to ask and got a "thanks for your suggestion" reply) they changed the course again to 1/3 paved roads, 1/3 dirt roads & 1/3 cowpie pasture that was flatter than Sandra Bullock in Miss Congeniality 2. I was pretty pissed that the most exciting part of the race was 4 stream crossings in 6 inches of water and that there were zero hills, but I guess, I did get in a nice tempo run (placed 79th of 277 in 46:32).

Here is a quick shot of the start (shouldn't be too hard to guess which one is me)

Part 2 - The good stuff (getting there)
I should have known that the race sponsored by Nissan Xterra would provide driving directions that weren't just nice easy highways, I have driven to the beach a ton of times using the first two roads on the left and they are normal nice highways, I decide to take the last highway on the right thinking it will be the fastest (ha ha ha, as I was to soon learn).

Road started off nice enough, flowers along the sides and no traffic:

Then I see this sign (hmm...what does sinuosa mean?...can't be anything good)

Yep, sure enough, it turns out about 12k of the 60k (pictured in red in the map at the top) is still unpaved. Considering going back meant missing kit-pick-up (and an obvious adventure), I drove on...

Making feel better was an 80-year old grandma driving a 1970's VW bettle going up-hill, but what do I see around muddy-rocky blind turn number 43? A motorcycle down...
The motorcyclist, other than a very irate looking wife, was fine so I drove on

Quick video of my crappy Chevy sedan going off-road

I made it through, only scraping the crap out of the oil pan once, and was most relieved to be back on asphalt and finally seeing the water

After making the left onto the beach road the views are great (Angra dos Reis is known for the many small islands that you can bounce between, each with its own little beach/beach bar).

Rolling on the Rio-Santos Highway

The race was held at a very nice beach-front resort hotel. The main event was a tri (ocean swim, mountain bike, trail race) with a separate swim during the day, and the trail race at night. A couple of vendors made up the outdoor "expo":

Beach was as good a place as any to kill time before the race:

Nissan did have a selection of cars/trucks to take out for test drives:

I took out a Nissan Frontier 4x4 pick-up which we did get to take off-road:
(race was all on field on left, sadly not including the hills in front/on right)

Stream in video from test drive is same as was crossed during race (in pics below)

As mentioned the race was horribly anti-climatic as only half-way through did you realize you were heading back along the same flat roads we came in on and that you could have gone out much faster.

They did have a big rave/party at the end with free beer, Red Bull and peach iced tea, but I had to head home so didn't stay for much of it.

I would go back again to do the full Tri and spend the whole weekend, driving several hours each way to race in cow dung probably was not actually worth it.
Lady Tri Top 3 (2 Brazilians and 1 Argentinean). The Mens Tri had American Brian Speed in third place.

I was rocking the Count of Monte Cristo goatee for this race which looks bad-ass in this picture

But I think I ended up looking more like Will Ferrell during the actual race (the headlamp was included in the race-kit but the white strap gave the race pics a nice 70's cheesy touch:
If you want to see more pics they are up at http://www.xterrabrasil.com/ (click Resultados, then Fotos 2008).

First 20 miler

2008-06-18T12:02:00.005-03:00

Quick recap - Saturday I ran the XTerra Brazil 9km Nightime Trail Run. I'll do a full race report (with pics and videos) as soon as the race pics are posted. I did an easy 3.1 miles on Sunday for recovery (and because it was in a torrential downpour) thus deciding to move my long run to Monday.

Monday's Run: For a little more quick background, I decided just before Xmas that I was going to run my first marathon in 2008. Started base-training in December with the intent to get my weekly mileage up to where I could start 18/55 with no big deal. All was going well until mid-April when my child was due and helping the wife took priority over running. Pre/actual/post birth took 5 weeks out of 18/55 (essentially killing most of the long and tempo runs). However, since I am "on sabbatical" I started running everyday during the last week of May and have felt really good getting back up to 13 milers, doing intervals, etc. That said, I decided to use Monday as a test to see how much of my previous fitness was available.

The plan walking out the door was to run 30km/18.3 miles or until my legs gave out on me and I had to walk. As it was the 10th day of running in a row for me (previous best was 5 days straight) I knew it was going to be slow, but I said, lets see what the legs give us and go from there. I brought a GU-Vanilla Bean for every 5k.

I did the first 27k along the 1.05 km running trail as the hospital park near me (see pic a few posts down) which went along fine. Uneventful first 10km @ 6:20 or so per km, second 10km was also pretty uneventful except that my pace was definitely dropping after 16km/10 miles. Lets call the second 10km average around 7min per km. The park closed at km 27 (by which point my turnover still felt pretty good but was going 7:30 per km). From there I decided I could finish out the run by doing my 5k loop and ending up right at my front door.

At this point I was over 3 hours (longest time-on-feet-ever) but still had no signs of cramping or any pain (just a really short stride from tired legs). I ran the last 5km finishing in 3:45 for 32km+ a bit. I was pretty happy that I ran my first 20 miler, using 6GU's and small sips of water from the water fountain every 3km and ended up not feeling bad at all really.

I was a bit surprised to see some blood on the socks, but all the toenails are still attached so it is all good.

Oh yeah, what did I use to motivate myself for this long run? One could point to this podcast interview with Brian Sell from The Final Sprint.com, or it could simply be due....to rockin' the porn-stashe...

The Dinner and The Damage Done

2008-06-13T13:59:00.007-03:00

Dinner: Thursday was "Dia de Nammorados" in Brazil. Directly translated it means Couples Day and is the Valentine's Day of Brazil. I got the traditional flowers and card for Mrs.Lank and we went out for a nice lunch with Lankette. As going out to dinner is a touch harder with a new-born, Mrs. Lank invitied over 4 friends for dinner (singles or people in long-distance-relationships).

I decided to cook up some black-bean chili and corn bread so they could try some good American eats. The Chili recipe was based on this one from Epicurious.com but I used only beef, added a can of Guinness, and since I didn't have any actual chili powder (I realized this too late to go to the store) added some spicy paprika, curry powder and dry rub. I made the corn bread muffins using the generic recipe from Betty Crockers stardard text, and added a can of whole corn kernals. I subbed the 1/2 cup of processed sugar for brown sugar which made them darker than the standard yellow (but were super tasty).

All the ingredients ready to go in the pot.

Everything in the pot (browning the meat with the garlic, onions, peppers and spices)

Here is everything on the table. Mrs. Lank made some split pea soup as well, but I didn't try any of it so can't comment.

Damage Done: 3 bottle of Cab Sauv met their maker last night. We started with my last bottle of 2001 La Garde Cab Sauv (the best bottle of the night), then hit a 2006 Finca Flieshman Roble Cab Sauv which was surprisingly drinkable. I did open the bottle and leave in the fridge for 30 minutes before decanting and serving. Last on the menu was a 2005 Concha y Toro (Chile) RESERVADO Cab Sauv. Most Americans will know Concha y Toro as the 1.5 liter bottles (jugs) of wine you used to buy for $10 in the 90's to impress your friends at a dinner party that you didn't just drink beer and Jaeger. Since the memories of the nights have faded more than the effects of the corresponding hangovers, I have never been a big fan of CyT wines. I knew going in that this bottle was the worst of the night (and since we got 2 bottles as gifts) I figured it was best to get rid of the swill on people too drunk to notice the difference.

Since, once again, I woke up with a huge headache I am officially back to hating Concha y Toro wines (although their Trio series has one decent bottle) and back to having a generally negative opinion on Chilean wines vs their Argentinean competition.

NOTE: Anytime you buy a bottle of wine. If the word RESERVA/RESERVE/RESERVADO is in a larger font than any other text on the label, move on, someone from marketing at that company has more power than the winemaker.

Further Damage Done: I took a rest day yesterday as lunch out/cooking/baby care/dinner party sucked up all the hours for a run so my goal of running everyday in June is out the window. Not a big deal really as I'll still come close to 45 miles for the week and will get in a good 10 miler on Friday.

Pre/Post Run Malbec

2008-06-11T23:06:00.003-03:00

Run: Easy 5k to recover from the intervals yesterday and save some for a good long run tomorrow. Didn't wear a watch and spent most of the run trying to tell if it was fireworks related to the futbol match or gunfire.

Wine: A fellow runner stopped by the flat to see the wife and baby so we cracked open a bottle of 2005 Trivento Reserva Malbec. Trivento is the Argentinean equivalent of Concha y Toro from Chile. A huge industrial vineyard that is, on occasion, drinkable.

I was expecting worse (the wife bought the bottle at Sam's Club) but maybe being a "reserve" made it actually decent. I had two glasses with dinner, then did my easy 5k, then had a glass after, and true to all cheaper wines, it was much better once left to breath for 30 minutes.

This wine may actually be available in the States so if you see it for under $12-13 bucks, I'd say give it a whirl.

Tuesday Intervals - Part 3 of 5

2008-06-10T21:20:00.002-03:00

Run: Tonight was the third Tuesday in a row I have done my intervals workout of 1 mile warm up, 5x1000m w/ 60 sec rest, 1 mile warm-down. My goal going in, considering I am still feeling the 50+ miles from last week in the legs, was to hold each one under 4:20 and improve a bit over the total 5k time from last week. Much to my surprise the results were faster, and by a decent bit.
Here is the table:

Interval Sets	30-May	3-Jun	10-Jun
km1	4:49	4:21	4:12
km2	4:47	4:18	4:04
km3	4:32	4:22	4:11
km4	4:31	4:22	4:15
km5	4:08	4:12	4:11
Theoretical Total	22:48	21:38	20:53

As mentioned previously, I don't know much this workout will act as an indicator for my 5k race in two weekends, but I am seriously hoping it is at least close.

Spare the Toro, Broil the Pig (then deep-fry for effect)

2008-06-09T23:46:00.003-03:00

Mileage PR!!: Got in a great 21km/13 mile run on Sunday. Held 6:00-6:10 kms from start to finish which is MP +22%. I could have kept going but figured since I was already above double the mileage of the previous week I should call it a run at the half-marathon point.

The week looked like this:

Monday	5.0
Tuesday	5.0
Wednesday	3.4
Thursday	12.0
Friday	5.4
Saturday	8.8
Sunday	13.0
Total	52.6 /86km

I will probably come in just under 50 for this week as I have the race on Saturday, but I will look to extend Sunday's long run. Also, since it is Monday night as I write this, the June streak is in-tact with an easy 5k tonight.

Sunday Brunch: One of Mrs. Lank's friends and her 2-year-old daughter that came for Saturday's dinner party stayed the night, so we opted to drive down to one of the "Fazendas" that are huge restaurants with some version of a working/petting zoo/farm attached.

As posted in L&O, they had a massive bull available for your kids to take a lap around the parking lot in, along with horses, ponies, ostriches (well you couldn't ride them), then all sorts of small critters for petting.

The thought did strike me that this was probably one of the only large-scale restaurants in Brazil where a cow of this size could make it through Sunday brunch without being quartered, cleaned and grilled. His salvation, is due wholly to the sacrifice of a large number of pigs:

The hot buffet was heated by a proper fire and hot fireplace bricks, when filling your plate one has to be careful not to run into one of the staff adding of the telephone pole sized logs to the fire.

Okay, go ahead and guess, how many kinds of pork are pictured?

Let me be clear, I have no idea and I was there for hours, maybe the close-up will help (yes, the lasanga had ham).

This bad-boy was the piece-de-resistance. Whole pig, cleaned, stuffed with a cornbread stuffing and baked. Apparently when the meat is tender and cooked, they pour a hug bucket of boiling hot oil on the skin to get the good pork-cracklings/rinds just right. I have to say it was a bit over the top on the heart-disease-for-no-good-reason scale.

Saturday Off-Road 8.8 miler and

2008-06-09T22:47:00.004-03:00

Run: I posted this pics on L&O but is was such a fun 8.8 miler they are going up here too. The mud looking road is where some road construction is going on near my place and the road splits a cow pasture on one side and a marsh/swamp on the other. The other pic with the nice tree is along a horse field and a gated high-end housing community. The run itself wasn't fast or anything but did the job to get in some mud running and log something over 8 miles.

Super heavy layer of fog was out in the early AM

You can see the cows on the ridge line on the right, the marsh is on the left.

This guy was hiding in the irrigation ditch along the road above, didn't notice him until I was half way through taking a leak.

You can see the marsh behind this makeshift "conference table"

A horse field is on the left and a gated community on the right.

Wine: We had a dinner party Saturday night were we had 2 bottle of a 2001 La Garde Cabernet Sauvignon. This wine (specifically this wine with this exact label) was one of the best Argentinean wines in the late 1990's. When I first worked in Latin America from 1997-1999 I would bring bottle after bottle back to the States to use to impress girls at our Adams Morgan rowhouse in DC. Many a fine night (we called the "wine roundtables") were had drinking the 1996-1999 vintages of this wine. The 2001 is sadly, the last year that really captures that same feeling. Back then it was a kick-you-in-the-teeth Cab that was so good you instantly dropped out of the conversation, tilted your head back into the glass to really absorb how good the wine was. Since 2001 they changed the label to a white background, dropped the gold medal and any real desire to make it a distinctive wine. I have one of their 2004 blends that was fairly expensive so sometime in July I may break that open.

Moral of the story: If you find a bottle of La Garde that looks like this, buy it, if not, skip it.

Running throught the old hospital grounds / Hot Date

2008-06-06T23:35:00.006-03:00

RUN: I did an easy 5+ mile run with 10 striders mixed in, 2 per km from km3-7, and it felt pretty good after yesterday's 12 miler. I think I am on pace to make this week my first 50 mile week ever. That thought is so cool I may actually go check and see if I can sneak into the Rio Marathon at the end of the month. Shit, I doubt I will piss blood, so how bad could it be?

Here is the Gmaps photo of the historic hospital where I do a bunch of my runs. It has a measured course of 1050m so is great for intervals, tempo runs and anytime I don't feel like fighting traffic.

Apparently this week in Environmental Awareness Week so they set up this little tunnel thing with informative posters on the running path as well as several wildlife photos along the route.

Why Brazilian Unions broke by vow of sobriety: So the bus drivers union has been on strike for the past 3 days, leaving our nanny unable to get to work. Mrs. Lank smartly decided that to balance out the work week that the nanny should sleep over Friday night and help prepare for some entertaining we are doing this weekend. Boom! We can go out Friday night on a hot date. I had a great Bife de Chorizo (argentinean beef steak) and a bottle of the #4 Malbec on my list. True to form, it was fantastic and re-affirmed it's rank on my listing (also was the least expensive Malbec on the wine list).

Chick Pea and Black Beer Soup / Unexpected 12 miler

2008-06-06T01:17:00.005-03:00

Eats: The wife put a big bag of dried chickpeas in water overnight last night so we did what we always do when cooking bean soup, go through fridge and throw everything that is remotely appropriate into the pot and cook up some tasty soup.

Cultural Issue: I go to grab the last Bohemia Black beer that is in the fridge to pour in the soup and Mrs.Lank is like wtf is that about. I explain that all good bean soups need beer (yer farting anyway) and she gives me a raised eyebrow and tries to determine if I am joking. Before she could decide, Lankette starts crying and as Mrs. Lank turns to tend to her, in goes 3/4 of the can. Being a nice hubby, I gave her the rest in a frozen mug.

Back to the soup: 1 large bag garbanzo beans soaked overnight, 3/4 chopped onion, 6 cloves of garlic, 3/4 can dark beer, 1/2 cup of chopped carrots (because they weren't getting any fresher in the fridge), a cube of vegetable stock powder and a chopped up linguica portuguesa (pork sausage). Dice everything up into chunks, throw some olive oil in the pan, heat sausage, onion 7 garlic. heat until a little brown, then all carrots & beans. stir a bit, add beer, stir some more, add 1 liter of vegetable stock, simmer until beans are nice and soft. 5-6 hours for tonights batch, although we were eating small bowls after I got back from my run (2:05 12 miler).

Stuff in pot with beer and stock on right ready to be added.

Finished product. It is seriously tasty.

Run: 12 miles of LSD. I set out to do 10 miles after planning a run on G-Ped but left later than I wanted so doubling back on a muddy-dirt road lost its appeal so I had to run a bit further to get back on the actual paved roads to resume my route. By the end of the run I ended up with an even 12 miles and I was not all that tired (it was slow, but evenly so). The dirt road is along a big marsh so I saw two little owls that were cool and had several bats dive-bombing near me, which was less cool. Looks like I can get in 45 miles this week which would be equal with my best ever. Feeling good running. Stay tuned. I really want to PR this 5k so don't actually plan on doing anything over 10 again until after the 22nd.

Rio may get the Olympics - Easy Recovery Run

2008-06-04T23:02:00.004-03:00

Run: 3.4 Miles, easy recovery jog around the neighborhood. I did include some decent hills and routed the middle around the big green field that is in the center of the bairo.

Google has a great, easy-to-use, application called http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/
where you can map your runs using either street maps or sat images (great for getting accurate distances when you are cutting through parks, yards, trails, etc

Rio Running for the 2016 Games: Rio de Janiero is my favorite city in the world. The beaches, the natural beauty, the food, the women, are really un-matched. Both the Rio Half and Rio full marathons are 100% along the beach and are point-to-point. Can't beat that with a stick. Rio held the Pan-Am Games in 2007 and things went more or less fine. The stadiums and athlete village all got built on-time and were world-class facilities. All money for improving the roads, subway, transport magically disappeared, so at the last minute the mayor decided just to close one lane of every major road in the entire city to Games-Related traffic (buses, specially licences cabs, and official vehicles. As you might imagine, this fucked 99.44% of the cities population but sent any Olympic-Decision-Committee members home thinking traffic wasn't bad at all. Here are two quick shots of the big stadium they built:

There is one note. Aside from Mexico City, it is the second most fucked up city for crime in the Americas. The amount of drugs that pour through Rio brings drug violence that makes the Crips and the Bloods look like a bunch of school-girls having a slap fight.

Pillar 6 - Movies: There are several great movies that highlight this dichotomy between the rich and poor, the clean and the junkie, but by far, the best is Tropa da Elite (or Elite Squad as released in the USA). Here are a couple Youtube trailers with English subtitles to get a feel for what it is like. For me, this is the best movie ever to come out of Brazil and if you can find it, bring everyone you know to see it.

Trailer with subtitles:

Translated Scene (warning, graphic violence and unfiltered truth)

Leeks, Fennel, Potatoes and Faster Intervals

2008-06-03T20:27:00.007-03:00

Run: I did the same intervals workout I did last Friday and had a pleasantly faster result. Being the second interval workout this go-round the comparison looks like this:

Interval Sets	30-May	3-Jun
km1	4:49	4:21
km2	4:47	4:18
km3	4:32	4:22
km4	4:31	4:22
km5	4:08	4:12
Theoretical Total	22:48	21:38

Total run of 5 miles (a touch over 8km) for the day. I am going to do this workout at least once a week until my 5k on the 22nd and see how good a forecaster it is.

Potato, Leek & Fennel Soup: Per the post yesterday I ended up with some leeks in the search for rhubarb, and since it is winter here (freezing the local Brazilians with temps of 11C/52F) I decided to make the only thing I've ever hear leeks being used for, Potato Leek Soup. I used a blend of this recipe and one from a Williams Sonoma cookbook call SOUP. The book called for adding fennel, the web called for using parsley. Since there was fennel in the house, that is what went in the soup. Most notable here is that there is no cream or cheese or anything other than fresh veg, some olive oil and vegetable stock. Looking back, it is actual vegan. Oh well, feel free to add some bacon for flavor, or some cream for thickness if the thought of vegan cooking is as repulsive to you as it is to me.

I started with a great looking pot of wholesome, natural goodness, perfectly in synch with my philosophy/pillar of eatin'

1lb, potato, 1 fennel bulb, 2 leeks, 5 cloves garlic (I threw in the potato skins as well)

Leeks looked good, split longways then chop in 1cm cuts
Here are all the ingredients before going into the pot. Garlic, leeks and olive oil first (5 min), then the fennel and potatoes (10 mins), then the stock, salt, pepper (simmer 20 min)

I pureed the finished product to give the flavors a final blend and make for a thicker soup. Came out good, next time I'll add more potatoes and less fennel to give it a more potato flavor, but for sure no bacon or cream are needed. Enjoy

Unhappy Thoughts During Hill Repeats

2008-06-02T21:42:00.002-03:00

Monday's Run: After yesterday's "doubles" of a 5k and a 10 miler, I wanted to do an easy 5.5k warm up and then get in some hill repeats to start prepping the legs for the Xterra Trail Run. As you can see two posts down the altitude changes are not drastic in total up/down meters, but it has 3 big near-vertical climbs that are where the men will be separated from the boys. I did 5 hill-repeats on the steepest hill near my house (a 600 meter loops) and had the unpleasant thought that even though the uphill is about a 20% slope, it just ain't steep enough.

I am debating making Saturday or Sundays long run just a 2 hour grueling session on the hill loop alone and see if the legs actually fail at some point. Stay tuned.

Anyway I am logging 8km/5 miles for today even though the total was a touch over.

Rubarb: There was a thread on peoples favorite pie on L&O. I mentioned Rhubarb Pie is my favorite (actually it is second after Blueberry, but I digress) and I wondered aloud if Rhubarb could be found in Brazil. There is a word for Rhubarb, Ruibarbo (pronounced huey-barb-o), but none was to be found at our local Friday farmers market. Instead Dona Penha returned with some nice leeks wondering if they could substitute.
Bad news: They can't
Good news: I'm making some Potatoe, Leek, Fennel soup tomorrow. Stay tuned.

First 10 miler and some tasty CousCous

2008-06-01T21:23:00.003-03:00

Run: Got in a 10 miler this evening. It was my first run over 10k in at least 4 weeks so the plan was to take it out easy and see what the legs offered up. It was very cool for Brazil (of course it is "winter" here) 14C/57F so I was the only one to be seen in shorts and a t-shirt running by people wrapped up in full winter coats, scarves and hats. Nothing exceptional to report about the run other than that the legs held up will and I more or less even split the run. I was most pleased that I just had a relaxed cruise the whole way through with no getting tired or big drop-off in km splits after the first 10k. 6:14 avg km which is MP+30%.

Eats: My wife made a tasty couscous by essentially cooking up a whole box of plain couscous, adding some cinnamon and curry powder, then raiding the fridge for every bit of leftovers and some fresh veggies, pan-fried them all up and folded into the couscous. This one has chicken, corn, eggplant, onions, squash, cashews, and some garlic. I highly recommend this simple recipe as a great way to freshen up some leftovers or whatever happens to be in the cupboard into a tasty, inexpensive meal. Note: Dice the eggplant in small cubes and pan fry with some olive oil and a decent amount of salt to get it to soften up just right

Pillar 1: The June Challenge

2008-06-01T09:40:00.004-03:00

The June Challenge: RWOL (see links) is having a North/South mileage challenge in June and I have decided to extend this to add in a few other elements. In June I have challenged myself to the following goals:

1) Get in at least 150 miles (breaking previous PR of 140 something)
2) Drop as much weight as possible with the goal of breaking my 21:56 unofficial 5k PR on JUne 22nd
3) Run everyday in June at least 5k (3.1 miles)
4) Have an extremely productive month of job searching with the goal of being in at least 2, 2nd-3rd round interviews by July

Starting Data:
Weight: 215 lbs (I ran Rio Half last year at 205, I think the full six-pack would show at 199)

First June Run: At 00:08 I snuck out for a quick easy 5k to be the first to post miles on L&O for Team South. I was a bit hesitant as running at midnight on Saturday night may not be the safest thing to do in Brazil, but luckily it was a nice calm run. 28:18 or 5:39 per km.

Here is one of the little parks I run by on my 5k loop that acts as the start to almost any longer run. It is 400m around with markers and generally has local teenagers making out on the benches or in their cars.

A new beer/appitizers (petiscos) place opened up along my route. While the deck looked inviting and the location excellent, I could smell the deep fryer working from the middle of the street, which may be a deal killer for making it a local.

Pillar 2 Eating: Banana Nut Muffins

2008-05-31T12:11:00.002-03:00

Banana Nut Muffins: As you will see, I am a huge proponent of eating natural whole foods and completely avoiding any food that was either frozen, or came from a factory.

One trick I have is when your bananas start to get a little past their prime for eating with your morning granola, they are actually perfect for using in either baking or in various desserts.

After my last trip to the farmers market (which is every Friday near me) we had a stack of bananas they were getting fairly mushy. I looked up a quick recipe an www.epicurious.com (www.foodtv.com works just as well) and chose this one Banana-Macademia Nut Muffins.

I swapped out the refined white sugar (against the Pillar) and used all brown sugar, used walnuts cause that's what was in the house, and vanilla instead of nutmeg. Next time I will swap out most of the butter (also not really part of the Pillar) with apple sauce which will both cut down on unnecessary fats but add more natural goodness (note - have to find an applesauce down here that does not have high-fructose corn syrup as sweetner). I also chucked all the nuts in the mix and sprinked some granola on top, more for visual effect than tasty.

For the first muffins I've baked in quite some time they came out great. This and other banana bread recipes will be explored rather than wasting money (and wholesome goodness) by throwing away browning bananas.

Bananas before (at the feira):

Bananas After: in Portuguese muffins de banana com nozzes

Pillar 1 Running: I am psyched this week as I signed up for the Nissan Xterra Trail Run, which is a 9km - nighttime run on trails in a most beautiful part of the Brazilian coast called Angra dos Reis. Headlamps are included in the race fee along with shirts with your name printed on the back. The elevation (in meters) looks like this:

So is fairly mean and nasty up front, but gives some back towards the end. I am doing this race more for the experience of it as Nissan is throwing a TON of money behind the event, and it is being held at a $500 a night resort hotel (yes, I am staying at the $50 B&B down the street). I am focusing June's efforts on a 5k that is being held about 6 blocks from my front door. It is a perfectly flat course so I am hoping to get a respectable official 5k time, since all my real 5k's have been unofficial Virtual 5k's on L&O.

Friday's Workout: I did a mile warm-up, and 5 x 1000m with 60 secs rest, mile warm down last night. Since I took most of May off and only had 2 runs before this one I was unsure of how fast I could turn them out. I took the first out on what I figured was 75% effort and came in at an ok 4:49 (4:40 was my tempo pace when marathon training). I brought each one down from there and finished with a 4:08 which is either right at, or below the 5k pace I want to run on June 22nd. As a baseline I was pleased with the workout. I did 3x12 push-ups and some light ab work when I got home. Abs/back felt weak so need to do a ton more prior to the Xterra.

Unimed 5k Race Course:

Reworking the Blog - anybody like the new name?

2008-05-28T22:30:00.003-03:00

So, it has been far too long in updating the blog. First my ex-employer (yes, I took a severance package) shut down access to blogspot, then the birth of my daughter (Mom and daughter are doing great), then having my folks down in Brazil for two weeks to take a gig or so of pictures with their new granddaughter all combined to essentially take away most of my on-line time and most of my running time (which was fine).

Obviously the above reasons/excuses put an end to my plans to run either the São Paulo or Rio full marathons in June, but I am fine with it as the one thing I learned doing 18/55 was I may have to break down and start running with an iPod cause I was getting pretty fuckin bored on runs over 2.5 hours.

As I may have mentioned elsewhere I was bored out of my skull at work and saw the end coming about a year ago so was filling the voids in my workday with excessive posting on L&O and then editing/posting pictures on this blog. I choice not to add more than just running reports, wine reviews and general bullshit to ensure my corporate masters would not catch on. Now that I am free of the burden of corporate bullshit, I can expand the range of things discussed here, add more personal details/stories/pictures, and Step One: get a better name.

I got out for a easy 5 miler today (8km) and spent the entire run thinking about a better name than the current crap name Lankyruns. I was coming up short on catchy short names and all any title with the work Brazil sounded lame. One of by best buddies just moved to Saudi Arabia so I thought about just dumping this blog and starting one with him to compare and contrast living in the two most cultural opposed countries in the world (with a cool names like SaudivsSamba or FromRiotoRiyahd) but he didn't want to read about all the shit he can't do while over there so that idea died.

There is a great book called The Seven Pillars of Wisdom (by T.E. Lawrence) which is Lawrence of Arabia's journal telling of how he united the Arabs against the Turks in WW1 (and goes a long way to show how Britian is to blame for historic problems in the Middle East not the Americans, by I digress). In true American fashion I figure I can steal his title, and abuse the premise and relaunch to fit my own needs.

Thus. The Seven Pillars of Samba is the working title going forward and I will set up some quick-links on the side to explain my positions on each of MY seven pillars (which I may change as we go) and lay out some rules, guidelines, and cautionary tales about each.

The (initial) Seven Pillars are:
1) Running - pics, training logs and race reports for training and racing in Brazil
2) Eating - my preference for whole, natural foods and the search for the best of eats down here
3) Drinking - reviews of Brazilian beers, wines from Argentina, Chile and (maybe) Brazil.
4) Road-Tripping - travel tales both local and longer-distance
5) Reading - books from all over the world that help shape my perspective
6) Movies - suggestions for movies from outside the States that are worth finding with subtitles
7) Bullshitting - my catch-all category for telling the stories generated in pursuit of the first 6.

Stay tuned. Plenty of good shit to come.

Accurate Reflection of Fitness - São Paulo City Union Sugar Half Marathon

2008-04-13T22:56:00.003-03:00

São Paulo City Half -

Tempo Líquido: 01:46:59 - 2.5 minutes over PR

Classificação Geral: 1439/5273 - overall
Classificação Faixa: 267/785 - age group
Classificação Sexo: 1369/4404 - men
Ritmo: 05:04 min/km - 5:00 is my target MP, so not the worst run in history

As mentioned below, I've missed a bunch of runs lately and paid the price in this morning's race. From the first KM (5:04) I could feel there was no pop in my legs and that my idea of going out way too fast and trying to hold on for dear life was already right out the window. So it was back to my original (and I mean from December 2007) plan of using the race as a MP run.

I held on okay for the first 10k coming in right at 49:00 which left the door open for perhaps a PR (by a second or two), but alas, there was nothing in the well for the last 2km to bring it home. Second 10k in 52:00 and a really slow 6 minute last 1.1km rounded up for the 1:46.59.

Was my slowest half (Rio 2007 was 1:45, SP Intl 2008 was 1:44) but they are all pretty close so I can't call today a disaster.

Here are some pics:

No traffic on the Marginal Pinheiros - this never happens

Race started on campus of University of São Paulo, 2nd best place to run in SP

Kit pick-up before race always better than interrupting my Saturday

They had a special VIP area with waiter service if you paid an extra fee, I did not

Women had the "Espaco Mulher / Womens Area" with couches and private portapotties, I dunno if it was free or not. Looked cool though.

Mens winner was from Kenya - Kiprono Mutai Chemwolo - 1:04:06 (or two minutes slower than the half split for the guys running London

União Sugar was one of the big sponsors so we got sugar in the goodie bag and this company rep was giving out cups of Passion Fruit juice and some ads on sugar.

Post Race meal at a great Argentinean place, salad bowl was lined with jamon serrano..mmm

Big plate of steak - was so so so so so very good.

Had one glass of Argento 2006 Cab Sav - buy it now and cellar for 2-3 years and it will be great.

Good solid schwag - shoe bag, nice t-shirt, good medal, cookbook/calendar from the sugar company, sugar, massage oil, Kleenex Aqua (whatever that is) and some food.

Finishers medal with some notable buildings from São Paulo (not that the race ran by a single one of them).

Upcoming Sunday Half Marathon

2008-04-09T23:34:00.004-03:00

Good News: I have had no booze since my last post, 2 interviews and send an unknown number of resumes.

Bad News: I have had 2 weeks of missing run after run. From a 40 mile week 3 weeks ago I've had a 14 mile week and a 23 mile week.

São Paulo City Half: Is on Sunday. The good news is I am well rested and feeling pretty good. I ran a 22km run on 5:46 avg pace (almost perfectly split km per km) on Monday (Sunday's long run) and will get in some speed work this week.

This will be the first race I have done in two successive years. I ran last years on no training (15 miles per week, maybe) and went 2:03. I even split 6:00 kms and had that moment of de-mystification where I realized the distance was not a killer by itself and I needed to train to try and throw some speed behind the distance. I am going to go for a 1:39.59 which will make for a 20 minute+ difference from last year. Can I do it considering the missed workouts? We'll see.

Some random pics:

Saw a police helicopter taking off

And wondered the odds on this guy landing on me as I passed

Officially on the wagon

2008-04-01T08:57:00.004-03:00

No More Booze: Not that this is a big deal but I got a couple issues that mean proper sleep, nutrition and training are getting moved up on the priority list. A brief recap goes something like this

1) My first kid will be popping out somewhere between May 1-5 so drinking alone while the wife watches isn't exactly being a good husband
2) I need a new job so focusing evening time on resumes/cover letter/job search activity has a far greater return than blogging about red wines from South America
3) As kid is popping out I am thinking of moving up my first marathon to the São Paulo Marathon on June 1. This means I will cut a month out of training and give up on 3:30 as a goal, but will still get in my first marathon this year. I am guessing I will still be good to go for going under 4 hours so stay tuned.
4) Another half PR - I have missed a few runs since the Half where I PR-ed a few weeks back. General tiredness, job search and pregnant wife all are causes but since the course for the next half is wicked flat, my chances for a solid PR (ie get down to 1:40 ish) are pretty solid. Also since this will be my last race before the baby and baby may mean no marathon, I want to really put a capstone on the best months of training I have ever put in since mid-December

Anyway...here is a shot of the last bottle of wine (quite a good one btw) and I killed the bottle of Chivas Regal we had on the bar (still one left in the closet from the wedding a year and half ago).

Random Weekend Pics

2008-03-31T10:20:00.009-03:00

São Paulo: Here are a few random photos. Blew off both runs this weekend so will make up the 16 miler tonight.

Another cardinal rule: if map of cow acts as menu, you will be eating well

Some artist made these large plastic bottles to highlight the problem of trash that gets dropped on the streets only to be washed into the river during rains. I actually think people like the colors so much they may throw more crap out their windows,

Or just let their kids hang out the window while going 50mph down the Marginal Tiête

On this mornings commute I could only think about how willing I was to trade places with any of these mutts.

I Lied...Chile has produced one good bottle

2008-03-28T09:43:00.003-03:00

Wine: I got home and realized I had a bottle of Carmenère sitting in the fridge that I had bought last weekend at a gourmet shop in my little suburb. Carmenère is a French grape from Bordeaux/medoc that was lost after the USA saved the French wine industry in the 1860´s when a root virus almost wiped out all the vine stocks in France.

To make a long story short. The Chileans had swiped some vines before the plague and had for 150 years been growing them thinking they were merlot until a French tourist in 1990 on a vineyard tour realized the leaf color of their "merlot" was actually indicative of the lost carmemère grape. DNA testing and smart marketing ensued and now Chile is producing some fine medium bodied-Bordeaux like wines, and trying to build the grape as a brand the way Malbec is synonymous with Argentina.

While this bottle was on the expensive side R$55 / US$32 it was delicious. Firstly it caught me off guard as I had obviously trashed Chile as a wine producing country not 12 hours before and secondly I was impressed at how nicely it opened up over the hour or so it took me to drink the whole bottle by myself. As mentioned above it comes off just like a medium bodied Bordeaux good for just about any kind of food or cheese pairing (I paired with Chinese pork buns). Perhaps I´ll buy another bottle or two over the weekend in the lower price range and see if they hold up to the expensive bottle where one should expect this type of performance.

Just a quick shot from the drive home yesterday:

Another Crap Bottle of Chilean Wine

2008-03-27T10:48:00.003-03:00

Wine: I don´t know why I keep trying to find good, cheap, complex bottles of red from Chile. I have tried and tried and Argentina kicks their ass every single time. I´ll probably keep searching anyway but here is another bottle that despite being R$43 (US$24) offered really nothing worth talking about. I should have known better as the bottle broke a couple of my cardinal rules of wines

Cardinal Rules:

1) Any bottle of wine with pastel colors on the label will suck.

2) Any bottle with modern and/or cheesy artwork on the label will suck

3) Any bottle from Argentina with the word Alta or Altas in the title will be excellent.

Toro del Peidra 2004 Gran Reserve Cabernet Savingnon - bland

Wednesday morning pics from Tuesday nights run

2008-03-26T14:39:00.014-03:00

Tuesday Run: I was still a bit sore and generally not feeling like a tempo run so swapped Wednesday´s recover 8km with Tuesdays tempo run. I was again out in the middle of nowhere and since I was running at night decided against the un-lit farm roads I like running on in the morning. I followed the town roads (with street lamps) and made my way from the little B&B where I say to the little town Jesus statue. Rolling hills, barking dogs, mountain bikers and delivery men lined the route for what turned out to be a great run. I drove the route this morning to get the exact measurement (7.3 km total) and took some pics.

Took a left our of the driveway of the Pousada (B&B)

Enjoyed some nice rolling hills along a ridgetop

Saw plenty of the half built houses with one room built for the family and whatever amount of construction materials that could be afforded in the yard (and usually a dog or two for protection)

Sad shot of someones front yard where 5 of 7 trees had been chopped for no apparent reason (2 remaining pictured)

Little one room church with some nice flowers

View from the top of the ridgeline to give an idea of the overall hills on this run

Turned around at the mini-Christ the Redeemer statue

Took a shower back at the Pousada (yes, it is very common to have an AC current powered shower head if you want a hot shower). This one was acceptionally reassuring.....not.

The breakfast spread at the pousada: Fresh rolls, cheese, cream cheese, butter, poundcake, melon juice, hot coffee with hot milk.

Shot of the cow pasture next to the entrance to our factory.

More pics from the road

2008-03-25T16:09:00.001-03:00

Runs: I´ll get in 14km with 7 at tempo tonight. All my recent runs have been at night so no good new pictures to share. I´ll do 8km recovery in the morning so hopefully will find something worth to capture and post in the morning.

Roadside pics: When I go out to one of our factories I have about a 100 mile (145km) drive through the rolling hills outside São Paulo. I set the car on cruise control and listen to 9000 podcasts from ESPN, WFAN and of couse, Steve Runner. These were all taken with my 2mp cellphone at about 120kmph/70 mph so excuse the poor quality/dirty windows.

Which do you pick: Lake house as pictured or apartment on beach? TBD

Who says Montana is big sky country? We got that right here in São Paulo

Bob the Builder shot of a hill getting destroyed so more condos can get built

Apparently there are deer here, although I have driven this road 200+ times at all hours of the day and never seen one.

Safety on the roads and in-auto gender preference

2008-03-24T16:58:00.001-03:00

Rest Day: rest day after 4 straight days of running. Will go for a swim afterwork with Mrs. Lank (by swim I mean splash around with beer in hand, not actual net spending of calories)

Random Pictures: Here are a couple shots from driving around recently

Ahh, gotta love that extra safe feeling when passing one of these doods.

and, if you´re wife/ladyfriend is always demanding to drive, here is an option you may consider

Perfect 3 Day Weekend = First 40 mile week

2008-03-23T22:37:00.001-03:00

Friday: Slept till noon, had a great piece of cod with safron risotto for lunch, then did a 10 miler at dusk around the 1 km loop at my local park. 5:51 km average.

Saturday: Slept till noon, had a great feijoada lunch (brazilian black bean stew), did an evening 6km recovery run.

Sunday: Slept till noon, had a great pasta buffet for lunch, ran a 24km medium long run.

Splits played out like this: 2:19. 5:48 average = MP+16%
1st 10km = 59:35 1st 12km = 1:11
2nd 10km = 57:43 2nd 12km = 1:08

1	6	1	28
2	6	4	77
3	6	6	54
4	6	1	83
5	6	10	46
6	6	8	37
7	6	3	94
8	5	52	37
9	5	51	19
10	5	14	56
11	6	7	34
12	5	43	27
13	5	39	63
14	5	27	25
15	5	26	72
16	5	27	31
17	5	40	45
18	5	48	6
19	5	56	14
20	6	16	84
21	5	39	26
22	5	30	41
23	5	35	15
24	5	26	12

Quick Upload of some Pictures

2008-03-20T09:18:00.000-03:00

Run: will do 5 miles when I get home.

Pictures: My stupid fucking company blocks uploading to flickr but allows uploading to Blogspot, totally blocks photobucket, but allows viewing to flickr, whatever, I am so out of here as soon as possible.

here are some shots I want to post on L&O today:

Catching Up + Boobs

2008-03-19T09:33:00.001-03:00

Weekend Off: Due to 5 days of non-stop rain, some residual tiredness from the half, the getting home a 03:30 Friday night from the airport and general lack of initiative I skipped both weekends runs. I am hoping this will not be such a big deal as the long run was scheduled to be 23km which is no biggie (27km is my longest from base training).

Tuesday Run: Back in the saddle, I did 13km at my local 1km loop with ten 100m sprints sprinkled in 2 per km for the last 5km. I like doing this rather than just doing the striders at the end of the run, but for no reason other than I feel stupid running back and forth around the streets right near my aprt. Good run although the fartleks did make me pretty tired by the end. Bad diet/St. Patty´s day is likely to blame.

Boobs: Just to drive some traffic from MsLara post. Here is a pic of some art near the dessert menu from where me and the misses had lunch on Saturday (a fine file in madeira wine redux)

Other Friday pictures of how boredom and alcohol can meet to make for great blogging

2008-03-15T00:13:00.001-03:00

we'll start a clock:

Lank Lanky in Rio aeroporto:

Step One = dream of the simple lifestyle of the fisherman

Getting to get TG going, even thouh she knows

and then

and now

First Tempo Run of 2008 - and it was good

2008-03-15T00:00:00.001-03:00

Thursday Run: 13km total, 6km at LT per Pfitz. I was staying close to "praia do pecado" in the little oil town north of Rio, but was happy to find they had measured off a 1km stretch of beach front that allowed for good team building. Hit right on the 4:43 I figured was the LT rate for me.

Other Pictures (not-work related):

How to recover - Lanky in Rio Style

2008-03-14T23:52:00.001-03:00

Recovery Tuesday: took Monday and Tuesday off. Tuesday mostly because I flew to Rio in the early morning, had several meetings (including the coconut milk sponsored legal review pictured, followed by a four hour drive to Macaé, the oil town that serves about 50 offshore platforms off of the norther Rio coast.

Recovery Wednesday: I should say that of the 3 other half"s I"ve run, I felt the least amount of post-race-muscle pain this go around. I ran 6km on 6:00 for recovery on Wednesday and moved Tuesday´s planned tempo (LT) run to Thursday. Nothing special to report about the run.

Here is the shot of Sugarloaf, from the rental P.O.S. Chevy Celta, or from the end of the Rio Hlaf/full.

SP half report - more shortly

2008-03-09T22:23:00.001-03:00

Ran the São Paulo International Half Marathon this morning after 13 weeks of base training and wanted to see how things would go vs the Rio Half last year.

If you want to skip the detail below, I PR-ed by 40 seconds on a tougher, rolling hills course (winner, base training).

Training differences:
SP 2008 - 13 weeks of base training, building from 15 miles a week to 35. All slow (between 5:30-6:00 per km), not a single tempo/interval run. Longest run 16.5 miles.
Rio 2007 - 12 week SmartCoach Half plan.

Strategy Differences:
SP 2008 - First 15km on 5:00min/km, see what was left during last 6.1km.
Rio 2007 - N/A

The Race:

6000 runners, some Kenyans (winners Eunice Kirwa & Kiprono Mutai) and most of the big names of Brazilian distance running were there (Athens bronze medalist Vanderlei Cordeiro de Lima was second), led a well organized event. The race was two laps around a 10.5km course that started at Pacaembu soccer stadium and lapped around an elevated causeway. Not the most beautiful course, but plenty of water/gatorade. 24C/75F and cloudy for the first 10km, 28C/82F and sunny for the 2nd half/finish.

Splits by 5km
1) 24:21
2) 24:35 (48:56 10km)
3) 25:10
4) 25:01 (50:11 10km)
5) last 1.1km 5:30
Total: 1:44.40 (pending official chip time)

Wrap up:
First km was 4:30 so I basically spent the first 10km telling myself to slow down (that was a first). Felt pretty good at 15km, but not good enough to start gunning from 6km out. I was pretty confident I could PR, but knew it would not be by a lot. I ended up really pushing from 2,1km out (ie the last uphill) and came in about 40 seconds faster than Rio, essentially holding on to the minute I put in the bank during the first 10km.

I am very happy with the run. I did a much better job even pacing and came in exactly at my MP target for the total run (4:59.11 average, including the last 0.1km).

Thoughts, opinions, ramblings:
-- Saw a guy poop himself at km8 (could Pascal be a mixed-race 50 year old Brazilian)?
-- Got squishy-brain endorphin rushes at 11km and 18km.
-- I feel like I could have gone another 5km holding pace but have my work cut out for me to hold it for another 21km
-- Hearing/seeing the Brazilians on both side of the loop [strike]go ape sheit[/strike] cheering on Vanderlei as he tried to close on the Kenyans was pretty cool.

On to the pictures:

Starting area

Kenyans warming up

Elite women's start

Finishers Medal

Lady finishers got roses for intl women's day

Ice cold water for everyone = sim, ice bath for Lanky = não so much

and free cereal bars

Back at home we threw some BBQ on for my father-in-laws birthday

and enjoyed a few cold ones

Jardiniera Grill - the greatest place on Earth

2008-03-07T15:11:00.001-03:00

Churascarias: Churascarias (meat places) also refered to as Rodizio´s are one of the greatest things about living in Brazil. If you live in Newark, NJ you can find some great small ones, or there are few decent chains around the US. As good as you may find them, none come close to the real thing -- Jardineira Grill in São Paulo.

Wine: 2004 Luigi Bosca Cabernet Savingnon Reserva, Mendoza, Argentina ($35 at restaurant prices)....in three words....Out Fucking Standing!! Jardineira Grill has a walk in glass-walled wine cellar and the bottle came out perfectly chilled. I was pleased to see this bottle on the menu at such a reasonable cost so quickly ordered one up for me and my cousin. The wait staff tried to bring the 2005 but I was most pleased after I despatched the sommalier to find the 2004 as listed on the menu and he did indeed find the 04. It was pure pleasure right from the first sniff. A nice big cab sav with Mendoza written all over it. Full nose, good staying power on the tongue and more than strong enough to stand up to the 3-4 cows were were going to eat (and the chicken, pig, boar and lambs that also met their makers...and salmon, and shirmp...well you get the idea). This is going in the number 1 slot easily knocking off the Norton (granted it is 2x the price, but still very reasonable).

Unexpectedly Great Trail Run

2008-03-07T14:49:00.001-03:00

Thursday Run: We had an off-site training class where the entire mgmt team of my company got locked in a hotel in the middle of nowhere Brazil. I was resigned to 2-3 runs on crappy treadmills but was pleasantly suprised when the front desk staff said they had extensive mountain biking trails behind the hotel. 06:00 the next morning I was shirt-off, gatorade in hand and off for a 10 miler.

Right about here is where I knew the run was going to be a good one.

Got the 6 Feet Under theme song in my head right about here...

No blood, but plenty of dirt to wash off before hauling to make it to the start of training.

Weekend Result

2008-03-04T13:26:00.001-03:00

Weekend Update: Here is a quick photo-journal of the weekend´s activities:

Drove into São Paulo city for an ultrasound with Mrs.Lank and baby girl

The medical center had a paid magician wearing a blue suit and white shoes keeping people entertained while waiting (never seen that in my travels).

Caught a glimpse of baby girl

actually a pretty nice little Saturday, looked at some curtains, stuff like that, Bed, Bath, & Beyond, I didn't know if we'd have enough time...

Hit a couple baby stores, where re-arranging the stuffed animal displays into scenes of graphic horror is my favorite pasttime.

Passed by a store of religious icons that included both Catholic statues and some from Condomblé (the Afro-Brazilian voodoo). I may encounter bad luck for taking/posting this picture, stay tuned.

Picked up my cousin, had a nice dinner at our place (featuring my #1 rated Malbec the 2004 Norton DOC), then took him out to our local watering hole for some beers, live music and...cross-cultural communication. As you can see from his shit-eating-grin in the back, he approved.

Cross-cultural understanding extended until about 04:00

(ps, that is wardrobe function, not malfunction).

Sunday we headed up to the mountains (Campos do Jordão) to get some fresh air and good eats.

Ladies and gentlemen, your international moment of zen.....

We did a trail hike named after a famous Brazilian children´s book writer, Monteiro Lobato.

You think his characters add to children´s happy dreaming...or not so much?

Nice botanical garden on the grounds of the Horto Florestal

The town square features Swiss inspired architecture which can throw one off just a touch.

Aside from the Baden Baden brewery (which we skipped) there are awesome chocolate shops every 10 meters in the town square....all of which are just silly good.

A good time was had by all. My cousin headed off to the beach for a few days and we´ll meet up for a big dinner Thursday. Hope you enjoyed.

Sunday Run (on Monday) - that is it. I moved Sunday´s long run to Monday night and did 18km (11 miles) at MP+20%. Half-marathon on Sunday

Weekend plans

2008-02-29T10:36:00.002-03:00

Here is a preview of what this weekend may entail....some good links buried in there if you area every heading down this way.

First we´ll go to the brewery and stock up on supplies (Campos do Jordão, SP).

Then head to the beach (Ilha Bela, SP).

Nissan Xterra Triathalon and 10km trail run is June 13-15 and is in a gorgeous part of the coast between SP and Rio (Angra dos Reis, RJ).

Thursday 10 miler - Microcosm of Suburban Brazil

2008-02-28T09:55:00.001-03:00

Wednesday Dinner: Pretty solid sushi platter from a local joint. Brazil is celebrating 100 years of Japanese immigration this year (Brazil has the largest Japanese population outside Brazil) and being a great country for seafood, the sushi here is generally excellent. For about US$10 I got this "mini-combo" which was tasty and delicious. The owners must be Brazilian as I added up how much the individual bits would be if ordered separately and it was more than double.

Thursday Run: I added 2km to what is in 18/55 to make up for Tuesday and headed out along the country roads. Legs felt great after 2 night of solid 8+ hour sleep and the aforementioned sushi. Saw 4-5 of the gorgeous green birds (smaller than a parrot but still good sized) at km 3. First 3km were rolling hills that lead down to a flat 2km loop. I wanted to run 5 loops right at MP+10% (even though pete calls for easy) and came in at 54:47 vs 55:00 target. I finished the run 3km more rolling hills. Average speed for the run as a whole was 5:33 of MP+11% so all good. I´ll take the weekend runs nice and easy.

Some pictures from this mornings run:

Nome Popular: Maritaca, Maracanã
Nome Científico: Aratinga leucophthalmus
Origem: Brasil

Horse farm that is the turnaround point at km 2

Some beautifully deep purple flowers growing along side the road. Not quite iris´s but really spectacular

Lest you think all is beautiful, here you can see the non-close up of where those flowers are growing. The flat 2km loop is along municipal land and has illegal dumping in a couple places.

Woo Hoo!! Marathon Training Begins (and drinking stops)

2008-02-26T09:17:00.001-03:00

Run (Sweet!!): 18/55 began this morning. I ran 10km along the hilly route near our factory and sprinkled in 10 striders, 2 per km in kms 4-8. Only upon getting back to the office did I realize I was supposed to do 11km (7 miles) but who cares, I´ll make it up on Wednesday. As mentioned yesterday, I am very happy with the 11 weeks of base training so we´ll see how things go from here. Was a beautiful crisp sunny morning, first time I realized summer is starting to turn to fall here.

No Drinkin till Half Marathon: I am doing the São Paulo Intl Half next Sunday. I want to practice even splitting a half and will run as much of an MP run as possible. You can see it is pretty hilly so stay turned. I will go out the first 10km on MP (50:00) and see how long I can hold it. In a perfect world I´ll hit 15km still on MP then drop the hammer and see what the PR gods have in store for me.

Wrapping up Base Training and why Malbecs with the word "Alta" in the name are always good

2008-02-25T10:59:00.001-03:00

Base Training Recap: I designed a simple 11 week base building plan to get my milage & coniditioning up to the level required to start 18/55. Since I had not run very conisistenly since my half in September I started the first week with 3 5k~s and a Sunday 10k, then build from their essentially using the 10% rule and chucking in 2 cut-back weeks. At the end I did 3 miles less than planned but upped the longest Sunday long run from 22km to 27km and got in a mid-week 16km which lines up nicely for 18/55. My longest runs prior to this plan were the 2 official half-marathons I ran so now have 3 runs over 13 miles and I am not phased at all about doing a mid-week 10 miles. I weighed in this morning at 207 lbs (vs 205 on race day in Sept) so everything is pretty much going according to plan.

Friday Run: Get home from work whilst Mrs.Lank is still out. Threw on some running clothes to get in the 10 miler (16km) I couldn´t/didn´t do as I went on a business trip without the insoles of my Brooks Beasts. I was feeling fine as I walked out my door and proceeded to immediately twist my ankle in a pothole that was deceptively deep (the tall grass growing out of it should have been a better clue). Since this was the last week of my 11-week base training cycle I wanted to push the mileage up as high as I could and know that there was no making up 10 miles if I bailed on them at 8:30opm on Friday night. I walked it off and set off on the run. The run was slow but uneventful (6:08 pace or just over MP+20%).

Saturday: No-Run Ankle was hurting pretty bad upon waking up so I bailed on furniture shopping with the wife and figured I would feel better and get in a 10km at night. I was wrong. Pain/not bearing weight was bad enough all day to definitely skip the run. Bought some anti-inflamatories in the afternoon and essentially stayed in bed watching movies on my laptop the entire day. Bailing on the 10km meant that last week would be the mpw-PR for me (at least for a couple of weeks).

Sunday Run: After further medicating and resting my ankle I decided to head out and see what the running gods would allow for the weeks long run. As I suspected the ankle was not feeling great enough to push off much meaning I stated out at 6:30km pace (MP+30%) and was having pain in my hip socket for the first 8-9 miles. I was eating a GU after every 5km, had a gatorade at km 8, and bought a liter of water at km 19 which I drank a bit of every 2km´s for the rest of the run. I finished at 6:36 average pace for 27kms. Just under 3 hours total for 16.46 miles. Not fast by any means but very even splitting, no mental doubts (other than hip pain on km 8) and no real pain after. 27kms is the longest run called for in the first mesocycle and if I don´t sprain my ankle I am quite confident I will have a far faster time on the next one.

Wine: 2006 Alta Vista Premium Malbec - Mendoza, Argentina - R$35/US$17. I stopped by my wine store and did chat about is failure to provide R$35 bottles of similar quality to the Norton DOC. His response was the 2006 Alta Vista. I was somewhat skeptical, but being more wearing of having a bad R$25 bottle, I took his advise and tried this on for size. I paired it with some spicy chinese shimp and fried rice and was actually surprised by the full robust body of this wine (especially considering it is a 2006). Good big plum fruits that are the signature of a Mendoza Malbec with enough strength to hold the flavors on your tongue after swallowing. I will still say the Norton is the best, but this will be in the top 5.

Wednesday 10km - Recovery (and a decent Malbec)

2008-02-20T10:08:00.002-03:00

Run: I am now in the definite habit of blowing off Tuesday night´s run until Wednesday morning. This is probably more motivated by my travel schedule that usually has me sleeping near on of our factories Tuesday nights where the run is along back-country roads with next-to-no lighting, making morning runs with some sun much safer and more enjoyable, than any latent effects from Sunday´s long run. Regardless, I did a hill 10km today on 6:06 average pace. Slower than what I would have thought going out the door, but I felt no need to push the pace.

Wine: Finca Flichman Oak Aged Reserva Malbec 2005 Mendoza, Argentina. R$24 / US$12. My local wine store was closed (probably as the owner knows I am ready to yell at him for pricing everything too high) so I was happy to find a bottle of Finca Flichman 2005 Malbec at the lower-end supermarket that was still open. The 2005´s are now really starting to get to the point where they are ready to drink (I have officially banned myself drinking 2006´s as they just dissapoint) and the Oak-Aged tag caught my eye (time in barrel can often be skipped by Latin American producers as barrels are more expensive to have shipped from US/Europe.

My impression (I only had one glass before falling asleep) was that it was light off the tongue but was tasty and delicious. This would be a good wine for a blackened salmon, pork or basically any application where a pinot noir might be in order. This would be a great dinner party wine where you can load up 6 bottles and not break the bank. I will drink the rest of the bottle tonight and may update my thoughts.

I see dead people (in São Paulo traffic)

2008-02-19T19:10:00.001-03:00

Driving in São Paulo: I had to drive all over creation today visiting lawyers and saw 4 major, nasty accidents. Thre trucks that drove off the road for no apparent reason and one motorcylist layed out after an accident.

Can we wonder why? Does this sign have anything to do with it?

Okay, in the year and a half I have been driving in Brazil I have only seen one actualy dead guy (motorcycle driver laying in a pool of blood in the middle of the highway, I must have missed his crash by 1 minute as people had pulled over but the cops weren´t there yet, no helmet), but I see nasty accidents at least once a week.

The majority are trucks that have flipped, crashed or driven straight off the road. I attribute this to truckers doing massive amounts of drugs and falling asleep behind the wheel.

34km weekend (it was a great thing), and we talk beer for the first time

2008-02-18T10:17:00.000-03:00

Week in Review: 58km (35.3 miles) for the week which is a PR for me. Even running three days in a row, I felt pretty good through the entire long run on Sunday. I signed up for the São Paulo International Half Marathon on March 9th as a tune-up but can´t yet decide if I can equal my PR from September. I will have a much stronger base at race time, but will have done no tempo/speed work at all. Stay tuned, in any event, the goal will be to even split the race, not any particular finishing time.

Saturday Run: 10km around the 1km loop near my place. I thought I would go slow half recovering from the 14km Friday and half saving energy for Sunday´s long run but ended up right on 5:30 pace (or a touch faster as I missed the last km split and was kind of racing some guy that tried to pass me). Felt nice an easy so figured it was no big deal doing a recovery run at MP+10%.

Sunday Run: I figured I would go somewhere over 22km to set a distance PR. I was also resolved to do a much better job of fueling than I had on last weekends 21km. I ran 4 laps around a 6km loop at Ibirapuera Park in São Paulo. Was 80F at the start and around 85F at the finish, some humidity and some wind, but generally hot.

Loop 1 - 35 minutes - 500ml Gatorade at km 6

Loop 2 - 35 minutes - GU at km 8, refilled gatorade bottle with water and drank a sip or two every km

Loop 3 - 37 minutes - GU at km 14, another refill of water bottle

Loop 4 - 34 minutes - 2nd 500ml Gatorade at km 18, GU at km 20

5:52 average pace was comfortably under my MP+20% pace (6:00 per km) and I felt pretty good throughout the run. Legs a touch heavy at the beginning and a few slow km in the middle, but last two km were the fastest of the day 5:17 and 4:55.

Note - I have never smelled so bad after a run today. There was a 10km going on outside the park (lame baby blue t-shirt as race was sponsored by some new light yougurt.

Brazilian Beer: Generally Brazilians like drinking massive amounts of beers with the only criteria being they are a) cold and b) cheap, and if c) close to, or on, the beach then everything is golden. In the 10 years that I have been traveling to Brazil an increasing number of smaller "craft breweries" have opened, catering to people who a) knows that beer comes in more than one flavor and b) don´t need a pounding headache that inevitablly follows a night of drinking cheap beer. There are two kinds of micro-breweries in Brazil, the kind that get it like Baden Baden and Eisenbahn and the kind that think that slick marketing plus food coloring in the beer is all that is required (see Devassa). Colorado India Pale Ale - I went to a botequim (kind like a tapas bar, local low-key type joint ususally with one or two good house-special dishes) and found out another small local brewery has opened a few hours north of São Paulo. I tried their India Pale Ale. I poured a glass and was struck by how dark and think it looked, the color was abbout right but was cloudy to the point you couldn´t see through the glass. The smell was bright and hoppy so down the hatch it went. I was pleased that they hit the flavor window of what an IPA should taste like but the cloudyness was simply a signal that the texture was way too thick and heavy for an ale. I could easily see drinking two of these would leave anyone bloated and completely full. Net net I liked it, would say Colorado gets it, and I will try some of their other flavors next time I see their wares.

Decending Splits and a crap bottle of Chilean wine

2008-02-15T10:59:00.000-02:00

RUN: Friday morning after having a boar-meat sausage pizza and a bottle of otherwise forgettable Chilean Cab Sav (see below) I headed out for a 14km. This was supposed to be my mid-week medium-long run but got pushed to Friday morning as I just couldn´t stomach running the the pouring rain again. I had pretty much the entire bottle by myself sitting in my farm-country B&B room so may have still been legally drunk when I tied up my laces.

14km (8.5 miles) decending splits

6:43 (down the hill)

6:24

6:14

6:09

6:05

5:59

6:05

5:47

5:39

5:34

5:33

5:26

4:55

6:45 (back up the hill)

Got chased by a couple dogs, saw two horses just walking free eating grass which was a first, otherwise a nice dawn-to-daylight run.

Wine: 2005 Santa Alvara Cabernet Savingon. Rapel Valley, Chile. I really need to have a sit down with the owner of my wine store. This is the third dissappointing (in the sense it was overpriced, not actually bad-tasting) bottle I´ve had in a row at the R35/US$17 price point. Even though it was a 2005 I thought it was too flat and too young to be drunk. The first words that popped in my head were "cool-aid" although things did get better from there (or maybe they didn´t, I drank the whole bottle in about an hour so my judgement was shutting down as the wine was opening up). If you find this for US$8 a bottle it is worth a shot, but not more than US$9.

Redemption Lies Within

2008-02-14T11:14:00.000-02:00

Run: 10km on Tuesday was one of those surprise runs that reinvigorates a runner. My legs felt heavy after the distance-heavy (for me) weekend but after my normal 500-600m walk and a first km right on 6:00 I felt pretty good so started pushing just a bit. Km´s 2-9 were all right at 5:25 and I was happy that I was not having another run where that same little bit of push produced 6:00 kms. Km 6 is downhill and km 8-9 are uphills leaving km 10 as a straight shot with no cross-streets or traffic problems. Right when I hit my watch my legs told me to go for it and lets see what happens. I was surprising myself with a really fast turnover and felt really good going full-100%-speed for the first time since Dec 29th when I did a virtual 5k. Hit the 10km finish line with a last split of 4:08 (my fastest ever km split was a 3:54) so I was pretty happy.

31 km weekend (not such a great thing)

2008-02-11T11:17:00.001-02:00

Saturday Run: I guess I should not be suprised that a week that started with SuperBowl Sunday, included Carnaval and ended with having to take some visiting American from work out for a night of drinking resulted in the following:

a) a missed run
b) a crappy long run
c) a cut-short, crappy attempt at a recovery long run

After moving Tuesday´s 8km to Thursday, and then skipping Thursday´s 14km on Friday I got the oh-so brilliant idea to just add 4-5 miles to each of my weekend runs to keep the weekly milage whole. Naturally this meant doing to long-runs both of which, right at my all time long-run record. Since base-training had been going great up until now I figured why-not.

Saturday - I take off thinking I will do somewhere between 20-22km. Since I got home at 3:00AM Saturday morning I waiting until evening to do the run. First 10km are fine, although I stupidly raced some dickhead who tried to pass me on the 1km loop at the local park (4:50 split for that km, 10 second below MP), I felt okay. I waiting until 11km to drink a gatorade and started slowing down from there. I never had to walk but was going 6:20 pace by the end decided that 21.5 km (maybe a touch more) was enough. Since my three longest runs ever were half marathons this run technically was my longest ever, but felt like crap and my quads were shot at the end. Bad sleep, bad fueling are most to blame.

Sunday - After sleeping 12 or so hours feeling my legs twitching away, then lounging around the apartment waiting to feel some positive sign from my legs that they felt like going out again, I finally got out the door at 10:00 PM. I started slowly at 6:10 pace and bought 2 gatorades after km 3. I pretty much knew going out the door that getting in another 21km to keep to the weekly total was not going to happen but was hoping the legs would hold on for 16km (or 10 miles). Alas, I found myself walking after 8km, then decided I just had to suck it up and get to 10km then re-asses. I split a 7:10 for km 10 and packed it in. I honestly can not remember ever running so slow so called it quits and walked home (another km).

Net net - Well, the net net is I got in a decent enough effort on Saturday and a "recovery" 6 miles on Sunday so the weekly total, while not a record, looked decent enough. I also stepped on the scale this morning and was pleased with what I say (208 lbs) so perhaps all was not lost.

2 more weeks of base training - I have 2 more weeks of base training so will use last week as a cut back week and build milage up for the next two weeks and use week 1 of 18/55 as a cut-back week as well.

Soggy Thursday 5 miles

2008-02-08T09:58:00.001-02:00

Run: Seeing how running 4 days in a row was a complete non-event last week, and Carnaval fell on my normal Tuesday run, I decided to go 4 days in a row again. 8km (5 miles) tonight. We had a torrential tropical storm all afternoon making the farm roads where I run when I am in the interior essentially pure mud accented with deep muddy potholes and occasional large washouts. Of course it stated raining hard as soon as I started my watch so ended up being another run where I just got drenched from start to finish. Legs felt fresh after taking Monday and Wednesday off and "cross-training" by dancing for about 6 hours straight on Tuesday.

Wine: 2006 Alamos Malbec. Mendoza, Argentina. I bought this bottle as I remembered having it on a plane once and thinking it was not bad for plane-wine. Sadly, this is exactly what I still think about the wine. Priced at R35/US$17 it was overpriced. Tasted too light for a Mendoza malbec, like it had been watered down with a pinor noir. No real complexity, no evidence it had spent time in a barrel of any variety but otherwise drinkable. It was prehaps too young but did not give any indication that cellering a few bottles was a good use of you hard earned money. If you find for under US$10 I´d give it much higher marks.

Carnaval - No place for the unaccompanied married gringo

2008-02-07T18:38:00.001-02:00

Carnaval dos Gigantes: I may have mentioned below that Mrs. Lank went to the States leaving me to my own devises for Carnaval. This sucked. Carnaval is no place for the unaccompanied married gringo...yet, for you, I went. I selected the town of São Luis de Paraitinga which was written up in the New York Times as a great traditional carnaval where all of the music played is traditional marchinhas or carnaval marches mostly because it was within an easy drive from my place, but also as it sounded like my marriage vows had the best chances of making it out of there in tact.

I arrived at about 4:30 in the afternoon and the town was pretty packed with college aged kids, and some families. All told I would say about 5000-6000 people spread across the city square and a surrounding area of about 12 small-town blocks. Not too crowded, really great easy going vibe, and it has to be said, the place was stacked with hot chicks.

Every shop along the brightly painted, colonial streets had been converted into a beer and sandwich shop so I did as the Romans and cracked my first beer and started walking around getting the lay of the land. Some groups of kids were dressed in costumes, others holding signs offering free kisses, some serenading passing hotties with Top-Gun-esque serenades, all in all a great fun scene.

As often happens when I am walking solo around slightly inebriated Brazilians, they yell out "Hey Alemão!" which translated to "Hey big german guy!", being Carnaval more than one unrelated group of locals yelled out "Hey Schumacher!" refering to Michael Schumacher the retired Formula 1 driver. All in good spirit so I gave them the thumbs up a smile and kept walking.

Essentially the Carnaval in São Luis consists of a band that play on top of a tractor-trailer made out of speakers (called trio-electrico) taking a lap around the city every couple of hours playing a different marchinha. Everybody lines up behind the truck and dances through the town ending up in the town square. At about 10:00 at night the band jumps off the top of the truck and took up residence in the town centre gazebo and played well well into the night.

Despite being written up in the NY Times, as far as I could tell I was the only Gringo there. I talked with a solo Argentinean dood for a while and helped translate his way into flirting with a group of rather tall Brazilians.

At one point a very short, cute, girl who was carrying a huge umbrella asked if she could get up on my shoulders for a look around the square. Being now 6-7 beers into the evening I figured this certainly was within the confines of continued marital bliss so up she went. We ended up walking through the crowd (her now being a full 4 feet above the crowd) for a bit. All was well until she swapped out the big umbrella for an even bigger gay rainbow flag and started waving it like she was Bono on stage at Live Aid. I took this as both my queue to put her down and as vindication (since cheating with a lesbian is technically an impossibility, right?...)

Shortly there after I stopped off for a burger, then headed back home. I´ll post more pics later, but while certainly would have been better with Mrs. Lank, was a great little adventure and I probably only dropped about $20 the whole day.

Carnaval rules, going back to work sucks.

Super Bowl Sunday

2008-02-07T18:21:00.000-02:00

Run: 18km at Ibirapuera Park in SP. 3 loops around the fenceline. 500ml Strawberry/Passion Fruit Gatorade after first loop, 500ml water after 2nd loop. 5:45 km avg (15%+ MP) with last KM being fastest at 4:44. I always like pushing the last KM at an increased effort level, somewhere below tempo pace but letting my stride/turnover open up a bit. I was surprised at the 4:44 (what I will be using for tempo runs during 18/55) as I thought I was going slower.

Notes from Irish Bar: Newcastle on tap. May have to get bumped up in the rotation a bit.

Super Bowl Omens: Several omens foretold of the Giants victory.

1. Getting #56 as my check-out card number at the restuarant where we watched the game

2. Seeing Gisele Bunchen at the game (did Brady learn nothing from Romo?)

3. Having the Giants set the Super Bowl record for most time run off the clock on opening drive.

Nonetheless: I was on the edge of my seat with my heart pounding (much more so than on my long run) for the entire game. The place had about 200 fans there (99% Brazilian oddly enough) and went mad when the Giants won. It was great.

I ended up drinking a few beers at the in-laws until I came down off being so wired. Talked some smack on L&O then crashed until about noon on Monday

Starting off Saturday

2008-02-02T14:49:00.000-02:00

Run: Day 3 of 4 straight. 5 miles (8km) out to a great little park near our apartment. It has a 1km loop and is the grounds of an old colonial hospital that now is all park/garden. As I was running I saw folks picking the Jaboticaba fruit from the trees that line the path. Couple of very cute girls on the loop added some unplanned fartleks, but well worth the effort.

Brazil: It is Super Bowl weekend so I found a place that is showing the game tomorrow and will head to a Irish Pub in São Paulo tonight for some warm up beers. Place looks to have some excellent draft beers so stay tuned for reviews and more pics.

GO GIANTS!!!

Capivara Friday --> Carnaval Weekend

2008-02-01T17:08:00.000-02:00

RUN: 12km this morning back along the farm roads. Saw a giant (and I mean the size of a fat german shepard) capivara along one of the streams. Run felt nice and easy, lots of good hills as you can see in the pic. I didn´t wear a watch.

Weekend Prep: Looks like I will spend Super Bowl weekend in São Paulo city, then Monday-Wednesday at the beach scuba diving and going to a small town with a good street carnaval. I will post a ton of pics of all activities.

05:15 Thursday

2008-01-31T15:06:00.002-02:00

Run: Tuesday´s run seems to have been pushed to Friday so I decided getting in a morning run was best to allow more than just an overnight´s worth of rest. I´ll run four days in a row to keep the base building on schedule, but I don´t think I´ve ever actually run 4 days straight. Anyway, 10km this morning along my standard neighborhood route. Saw an owl, the paperboy chucking papers over peoples´ electric fences and a few other runners who all gave the runners wave.

Wine: 2005 Altas Las Hormigos Malbec - Mendoza, Argentina - R$35/US$17 - Very nice bottle that I enjoyed with some sushi on Tuesday night. Easily big enough to stand up to the wasabi assualt I was enjoying and perfect for use in liberal amounts while grilling beef. Very nice all around bottle. I will put just under the Norton on the value scale as it is a few bucks more, but a can´t miss bottle.

Podcast: Download a proper review of this wine and the Norton from here

Giants: I am a huge NY Giants fan, click here to hear the radio reply of Lawrence Tynes winning field goal in overtime against the Green Bay Packers.

Monday Dare Post

2008-01-28T11:38:00.004-02:00

Wine: 2005 Terrazas de los Andes - Cabernet Sauvingon R$35 / US$17. In a word, dissapointing. No where near big enough for a Cab Sav from Mendoza. Flat flavor/presense on the tongue, no development of flavor as it breathed. Not bad, just not good enough to justify the price. I will have to try the reserva and the malbec from them again.

Run: Rest day.

RWOL: Here is my attempt at the Dare Club theme for this week.

Pretty-much Perfect Sunday

2008-01-27T18:52:00.002-02:00

Run: 16 km/ 10 miles in Ibirapuera Park in São Paulo. Ibirapuera is the Central Park of SP and, without question is the best place to run in the city. There is a 6.1 km trail that goes along the fence line and is just set back enough from the main roadways that you are surrounded by trees and can easily convince yourself you are not surrounded by 17 million people. The run felt great, negative split 45min/43 mins ending the last 7km under 5:20 and the last km was the fastest at 5:07. I am using 5:00/km (approx 8 min miles) for my marathon goal pace so this was perfect (right at 10% above MP for the run as a total).

Post-Run: Had an ice-cold coconut water, freshly macheted open, after I finished up and headed back to the in-laws. My mother-in-law had made stewed pork ribs and a huge pot of chicken and potatoes. I stuck to the ribs, over rice, with some home-made hot sauce and was in heaven.

The post-run high, mixed with the food coma and wine buzz made for a great afternoon nap. Pretty much perfect...

Sunday wine: 2004 Norton D.O.C. Malbec - Mendoza, Argentina. To me this the best malbec you can get in the US$15 dollar range. Chill it just a touch, open and let breath for about 10 minutes and you will be rewarded with a malbec that sits perfectly between a Pinot Noir and a Cab Sav, with big open fruit that recedes just in time for you to reach for your glass again.

Saturday Lunch: Went out with Mrs. Lank and her parents for feijoada Saturday afternoon. Feijaoda is the national dish of Brazil, a think black-bean stew originally made by the slaves brought to Brazil to work the rubber plantations. In the past the stew would contain whatever meat-scraps the slaves could get their hands on, but now, every mother, grandmother and restaurant has their special mix of meats.

Pictured is the traditional plate, white rice, farofa (dried manioc), kale, deep-fried-bacon fat, a fried banana and of course the pot of feijoada. This feijoada contained pork ribs, pork sausage, and dried beef (carne seca). Mixed with some of the home made hot sause it was silly.

We had some Pernil (roasted pork shoulder) as an appitizer and a shot of Cachaça, sugar-cane distilled moonshine.

I chose one from Santa Catarina (state where Gisele Bundchen is from) and it was smooth, in that 85 proof paint-thinning kind of way.

Podcast: Generally speaking I am pro the war in Iraq, and any activity that brings democracy and the possibility of economic development to areas that are generating people who think terrorism is their only means of expression. That said this is a great podcast from a panel of journalists who have working in Iraq since before the war (including an iraqi doctor who became a journalist and documentary filmmaker) from Columbia University's school of journalism. Well worth listening to. Download.

Saturday

2008-01-26T11:52:00.001-02:00

Run: 8km/5 miles - loop around the neighborhood (start in pic at left,end at title pic) saw a house with 3 chickens and a huge white rabbit I never noticed before. Opened the legs up on the last km and hit a 4:54 (6 seconds faster than marathon pace) when I thought I was pacing for a 5:20. Good stretching before and after.

Brazil: The best movie to come out of Brazil this century is Tropa de Elite (Elite Squad) based on a true story/book written by one of the psychologist working for the heavy SWAT teams in Rio. I highly recommend you see, either via download or when it gets released where you live.

Friday

2008-01-25T15:34:00.002-02:00

Run: 5 miles (8km) through some farm roads in the interior of São Paulo state. Cloudy morning, 60 or so degrees, rolling hills, cows, horses, birds, chased by at least 5 different dogs. Had to be careful not to slip on mud, cowpies, and mangos that had fallen and gotten squished.

Brazil: There is a Japanese-Brazilian girl (25-ish) that sits outside my office. To her, casual Friday is show-off-my-new-implants-day. She also dies her hair blond. For some reason they put movie posters all over the company cafeteria and we got a small bag of popcorn for dessert.

Wine: 2006 Viniterra Malbec - Mendoza, Argentina. R$29/US$17 - Needs to age, not as good as other R$30 bottles. Presented good body, big plum, not as crisp as should be when competing with likes of the Norton DOC.

1	6	1	28
2	6	4	77
3	6	6	54
4	6	1	83
5	6	10	46
6	6	8	37
7	6	3	94
8	5	52	37
9	5	51	19
10	5	14	56
11	6	7	34
12	5	43	27
13	5	39	63
14	5	27	25
15	5	26	72
16	5	27	31
17	5	40	45
18	5	48	6
19	5	56	14
20	6	16	84
21	5	39	26
22	5	30	41
23	5	35	15
24	5	26	12

1	6	1	28
2	6	4	77
3	6	6	54
4	6	1	83
5	6	10	46
6	6	8	37
7	6	3	94
8	5	52	37
9	5	51	19
10	5	14	56
11	6	7	34
12	5	43	27
13	5	39	63
14	5	27	25
15	5	26	72
16	5	27	31
17	5	40	45
18	5	48	6
19	5	56	14
20	6	16	84
21	5	39	26
22	5	30	41
23	5	35	15
24	5	26	12

1	6	1	28
2	6	4	77
3	6	6	54
4	6	1	83
5	6	10	46
6	6	8	37
7	6	3	94
8	5	52	37
9	5	51	19
10	5	14	56
11	6	7	34
12	5	43	27
13	5	39	63
14	5	27	25
15	5	26	72
16	5	27	31
17	5	40	45
18	5	48	6
19	5	56	14
20	6	16	84
21	5	39	26
22	5	30	41
23	5	35	15
24	5	26	12