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Very important disclaimer

Please be advised that the contents of this blog are opinions only (my opinion, the opinions of my family and the opinions of anyone else directly or indirectly involed in this blog). This is not an accredited training blog, nor is it an accredited anything blog. If you (and you) do anything that this blog says, or don't do anything that this site says not to do, and you get injured, sick or killed, you cannot blame me or my family or blame anyone else directly or indirectly involved in this blog. By reading anything on this blog (including this message) you are saying that you are a person who makes thier own choices in life and does not hold the writer of this blog, the writers family or any one else that may be directly or indirectly involved in the production or writing of this blog, responsible for your stupid and irresponsible behaviors, injuries, sicknesses or deaths. With that said, please enjoy my fun blog.

Sunday, October 31, 2010

Winner(s)!!! RoadID

Cool. I love to give stuff away.  a RoadID certificate is going to 2 contest entrants. Is it YOU?

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Congrats to SHEBAJC and *~* *~* Tracy! All I need is you to email me at nzeller at shaw dot ca and I will send you the Certs! Congrats!

As a special treat, I also have the results of the Belinda Carlisle or Rick Astley or Menudo poll from this contest.

Here are the results:

  • Belinda Carlisle –8
  • Rick Astley –1
  • Menudo –1

So Clearly, my main man Rick is the champion.

And I have a very cool playlist for my easy 5 miler next weekend, from your responses in the ‘One Hit Wonder’ Question.

  • martha and the muffins "Echo Beach"
  • Boys Brigade "passion of love"
  • Devo - Whip it!
  • Dead or Alive - You Spin Me Right Round
  • Devynils - I touch myself
  • Crash Test Dummies - Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm
  • Faith No More – Epic
  • Napolean XIV - They're coming to take me away
  • Wall of Voodoo - Mexican Radio
  • Eddy Grant - Electric Avenue
  • Tiffani - I think we're alone now
  • aHa - Take on Me
  • 8675309

Back to regular programming tomorrow night!

This photo from a couple years ago didn’t jump out at me as anything special. I started to play with it in Photoshop and what we ended up with is hanging on our living room wall as an expensively framed 24” x 36” art print.

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Incredible isn’t it? Click for larger. The cool part is, if you look at the first shot, all the colors are in there. I didn’t ADD anything to the photo, I just enhanced what was already there. (then converted it into a watercolour…)

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Oh, Halloween was a BLAST today too!  Traci loves decorating and I love her for it! The boy enjoyed it too.

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One more thing, sorry. It is Nov 1st here in Calgary and our forecast is spectacular for this time of year. It is presenting a problem though. The Lilac shrubs are budding out. Not good.

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Have a Safe Halloween!

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Saturday, October 30, 2010

sooooo tired… And Belinda Carlisle, What?!

I am worn right down. Not really sick, just worn out. I am pulling the pin on any training for the next couple weeks, except I may go to the gym and do some easy spinning on the bikes.

I have 2 races, one on the 6th. I am carrying my Big Canon XTI for this one though. It is for the photos, not the time. You see, it is a 5 mile night race, up a mountain in Banff and I have some really ambitious photography goals for that one. Think psychedelic man… with the glow sticks that everyone will be carrying. The second race is the Last Chance Half marathon on Nov 14th. I will treat it like a fun run. I will enjoy it and once it is over, I will set up a training plan for the Marathon in May. Anyone want to weigh in on what has worked for them?

Feel free to ‘last minute’ enter the RoadID contest, Click here for the entry page. 2 certificates will be handed out on Monday! And so far Belinda Carlisle is kicking Rick Astley’s @ss in the poll. Actually, Rick Astley only had one vote, and it came from Q on the Move. Yep… Tough guy and trophy husband Q.

Chris K and I have a contest we are putting on starting on Tuesday. You are going to like this one. ohhh I’m excited. (its not an Ipad.)

Happy Saturday! See ya tomorrow! (I may give you a hint about the new contest… what do YOU think we could have cooked up?)

Here. A photo I took of  a graveyard in SW Pennsylvania. Re-touched a bit…

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And a dreamy Great Horned Owl that came for a day a few years ago. He just sat there for 13 hours.  6 feet from our dining room window. I almost pooped when I opened the blind and there he was!

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Friday, October 29, 2010

Only 55 more shopping days left!

All I want for Christmas is:

  1. All my race entries paid for in 2011. I’ll wear a shirt in your honour. And a hat. Just so you can budget accordingly, it will be about $1,000.00 not counting the entry and expenses of a destination race, so add about $6700.00 if you are feeling flush.
  2. A Garmin 310xt
  3. All the models of Ryder Eyewear. All. even the chicks stuff.
  4. A sub 4hr Marathon in May
  5. A 1:53 half marathon in April
  6. A trip to a destination race for the whole family. Paris, Las Vegas, Fargo… you know, the awesome ones.
  7. I’m good for Gu for a while. hold off on that.
  8. A Shoe sponsor. For my wife of course. Her internet name, btw, is Shoefoot Traci Z,
  9. An early spring and a dry summer for 2011.
  10. Lots of running apparel
  11. To get signed on a official tester for a couple major brands (and all the minor brands) of minimalist shoes for the winter. Who wouldn’t want a Clydesdale barefoot runner sending their product through the ringer in the cold Canadian winter and writing all about it on the internets?
  12. One Million Dollars. It won’t change me.
  13. Free Oil Changes and flat repairs for life.
  14. A new Canon EOS 7D DSLR with all the lenses. all.
  15. A new 39’ Fifth Wheel camper and a gas card.
  16. Peace on Earth and Good Will to All!

What’s on your list??

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20k Run on Sunday, looks like it may be nice enough for Barefoot! Who’s in?

RoadID contest ends on Sunday, Enter HERE!

Thursday, October 28, 2010

A couple things on the day before Friday…

1. I am still feeling worn down. Not really sick anymore, just tired. Going to try and get a good nights sleep tonight.

2. Over at Barefoot Neil Z on Facebook there is a BondiBand to be had. Like me first, then Like BondiBand. Then have 5 friends do the same and then put your name down in the comments of this posting. A BondiBand of your choice to the winner! I already gave one away today.

3. Ok, the statement below might come as a shock to some, as it comes from me. I am not a zealot when it comes to Barefoot running. I don’t preach to the masses. I answer questions when asked, I smiled when I get the funny remarks at races, I laugh with the jokes. I truly enjoy running barefoot and I do it for my very own reasons.

However.

You are not a barefoot runner, if you haven’t run barefoot.

And that's all I have to say about that.

I had this next photo queue’d up for the post yesterday, but I thought it might be too much of scenery overload, what with the Butchart Garden Photos. So here. One of my favourites of my favourites.

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And another… My 3rd favourite of all time… If you click on it, it will take you to the original size image, just because it deserves a good, close-up look. especially at the lightning in the middle. It is freaking AWESOME! I stood up on a hill for  hours snapping long exposure after long exposure, just hoping for something special. Success.

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There are many others from that night that are ridiculous, especially a series of pics that include a airliner making his way around this storm… here is a taste of that series of pics.

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Wednesday, October 27, 2010

Reader Mail!

But first Funny Wednesday Foto…

This is actually the only good reason to own a convertible in Calgary:

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Ok, on to running. I’m not. Still weak and tired after my terrible night on Monday. I did eat a full compliment of calories today, which was good as I could only get up to a third (700cal) yesterday. I am down 8lbs in  2 days as of this morning.

The *wOoT* moment of the day happened when I got this facebook message from Melanie McQuaid.

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The *bOo* moment came when I was told they can’t ship Island Nectar to Canada, that I'd have to take a standard flavour. How can I argue at 96 Roctanes, really? Still, I thought this was my Loophole to get some of the tasty workout treats.

And my question is, who does the sour grapes award go to?

OK, on to Reader Mail:

Adrienne said...

Is Stanley park like the U.S.'s Central Park? Looks awesome!!

A: Yes, Stanley Park IS like the U.S’s Central Park. It is located in the City of Vancouver and is actually an Island and yes it IS awesome! It is not, however, pictured in the last post. The picture is of Buchart Gardens on Vancouver Island, Near Victoria. Here are a few other images from our visit there 3 years ago.

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It still baffles me how incredible the place is… that is the Pacific Ocean right there…

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Now, to get a little scale to the size of the place, see the people upper middle, left?

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These photos are untouched. I couldn’t make them any better.

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This one was ‘touched’ a bit… This one you can click on for larger, and feel free to take it! Let me know if you did tho, ok?

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-Nellie and Jonathan said...

Well, I'll be flummoxed! I found your blog through Sue and Doug (Big Dawg) when they saw my blog post today about my barefoot wannabe run today :) You wanna see a newbie hoofing it?
Here ya go!
http://midlifecruiser.blogspot.com

A: (not really a question, but a cool deal nonetheless) Many of you know that I keep many internet places to hang out. It is because I can’t typically keep friends for very long because I smell funny love to blog about stuff, but typically don’t cross blogospheres too much. This one did tho, cross blogs that is. My Andrew Blog, follows a lot of RV’ers and I have made some good friends there. One such friend has a friend that tried Barefooting recently and this such friend steered said friend to my camping site, and thus over here! Cool story hey? Nellies blog is very funny too! worth a read. (they sold everything and now live out of their RV full time) They are in their 30’s…

Shelley said...

Good luck with the weight loss - you've got a good plan. Just know that apparently most people don't tend to lose much weight when training for a marathon (or a half marathon, as I'm discovering). But hey, anything coming off will be great, right?

A: I know that it is a common thought that it’s hard to lose weight during a tough training cycle. I am proof positive that it can be done. I lost 40lbs during the 16 week training cycle for my first half marathon. I was on Jenny Craig and all I did was up my calories on run days to keep me fuelled. The insatiable appetite that comes with training was quelled with copious amounts of water and fruit! I suppose it depends where you are in your weight plan, as I know it gets harder to lose, the closer you get to your goal. I have given myself ample time to get off on the right foot, prior to the main part of the plan, so hopefully my weight loss will be a natural and sustainable journey!

Glaven Q. Heisenberg said...

Lose weight? What? Tired of being Ukrainian?

A: Never! I do love me a good perogy at Easter! (and why does the MS dictionary not have a spelling for perogy. Here are the solutions it comes up with. Spellcheck = Fail although ‘porgy’ made me laugh a little’

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And finally an answer to my Gnome Problem…

A: Comes in this blog post from Reader Tiina of One Crazy Penguin. Thanks, I sent them in a cab with 6 bucks, a couple sandwiches and your address, let me know when they get there. On second thought, don’t!

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And here, just because I’m feeling good today. Photo is Circa 1998. My wife is so proud…

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Winner!

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Congrats Kelly4482! I already have your address, so look for your GU Sample pack in your mailbox soon!

In other news: It was Food Poisoning. I’m am pretty sure where I picked it up, but I’m not saying. I am feeling quite a bit better now, I ate a small supper last night (Chicken pot pie), and had a banana earlier in the day. All the previous evening and night I sustained myself on Powerade Zero, just to keep myself hydrated enough. There was a sale at Sobeys for the stuff and Traci had stocked up, thank goodness.

I should be good as new today, as yesterday I slept away most of the day, not getting anything done. But I feel better, so there’s that.

The RoadID Contest is still happening, and there are TWO separate certificates available to be won! I have a cool new product to review and give away. Have any of you ever heard of a Spa Mustardbath? yikes, I'm just a little afraid of this one… I’ll let you know how it goes…

Now: Make up a funny caption for this!

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And: Some of you will know the whereabouts of these next 2 photos… (ps, they are different places ;))

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Good morning!

Tuesday, October 26, 2010

Last day for the Canada GU contest

Hi,

Are you Canadian? If you are keep reading. If you are not I have posted this photo for you to enjoy while the Canadians are reading.

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Canadians, don’t forget to enter the GU Sampler pack contest. Its a good one, and just so you know, these are very hard to get up here in the Gros Nord du Blanc! (don’t hate me, Quebecquois… i tried)

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Today is the last day, and the winner will be announced tomorrow!

Good Luck!

(Ps, I lost 5 lbs overnight in my Running Losers challenge… not pretty but I’ll take it… only 4 more nights to go!!! *WoOt*) Hey HONEY? Where do we keep the desatin?