JEWS & BREWS

This blog, like a lotto machine, sucks balls. It’s Wednesday, and I’m already a week behind in my running chronicles. And so much has happened this past week: After being single for 33 years (Yes, I CAN wear white at my wedding), I met the girl of my dreams last Thursday. We met at a SAVE THE WALES rally. No, that wasn’t a typo. This rally wasn’t about saving WHALES, but rather preserving that beloved constituent country located within the United Kingdom. Hey, I adore cetaceans, and my two favorite movies are ORCA and HOW STELLA GOT HER HUMPBACK, but I’m all about Celtic pride.

Anyway, I met Todd last Thursday. (Isn’t Todd a strange name for a girl? She had an Adam’s apple, too. And a penis. Isn’t that strange? But I digress.). Then we got engaged on Friday. We got married and went on our honeymoon on Saturday (we stayed at a lovely Econo Lodge in Camden, NJ). And then Todd was hit and killed by a Marlboro truck on Sunday. (See, cigarettes REALLY do kill people!)

Anyway, I’ve been sitting shiva since then, and that Jewish week-long stage of mourning reminded me of last Wednesday, when I went to the Blind Tiger for Shmaltz/HE’BREW night. I first tried their Genesis Ale and Messiah Bold years ago because of the shtick factor, but actually enjoyed the beers, and have become a supporter of theirs ever since. Their anniversary beers and RIPA kick tuchus, and they also have a line of Coney Island beers that has recently been expanded. Check out their websites (www.shmaltz.com & www.coneyislandlager.com) for more info, because I ain’t spending the time right now describing all of their beers. As you know, I’m a very busy man, and I’m still grieving the loss of my wife of one day (Todd!! Why you, Todd?!?!). I’ll just say this: Their beers are good, they use LOTS of different malts and hops, and they get you drunk. What more do you want? Anyway, this shegetz decided to take a day off from training and instead get shickered at the Tiger. So, you can call me a meshuggener, but this goy boy had a great time trying their new beers. (Sorry if my Yiddish is a little rusty.)

Here is a list of what I imbibed. Mazal tov!

ALCOHOL
1 Coney Island Lager (16 oz)
1 Albino Python (16 oz) (A wit I ACTUALLY liked—and it’s a lager!)
2 Human Blockhead Lagers (24 oz)
1 He’brew Rejewvanator (12 oz)
3 Train beers (2 Sierra Nevada Stouts, 1 SN Porter) (36 oz)
3 Lagunitas IPAs (36 oz)
1 glass of wine

RUNNING
Jack shit

SLEEP
4 hours

SPOUSAL DEATHS

1 TODD (R.I.P.)

THE LONELINESS OF THE LONG DISTANCE RUNNER

Wednesdays or Thursdays are the long-run days for Louise and me, but since she’s still sunning it up in California, I’m doing 14 miles today solo style. Louise has assured me that she’ll be doing her long runs while she’s away. Louise is also full of shit. Fifty bucks says that while I’ve been huffing these long runs alone these last two weeks, she’s been boozing it Ray Milland LOST WEEKEND-style in Cali. And what timing, too. Louise has missed a 95-degree running day, an 85-degree 10-mile run, another humid day with heavy showers and Wednesday’s long run had me getting pelted with rain throughout the 2-hour ordeal. I put an ad in the classifieds looking for a new running partner, but terminated it when I realized that Louise will be returning with bottles from various West Coast breweries. Yes, I am a bitter man. But I am also a fickle one. Good beer heals all wounds and remedies all damages—except for cirrhosis of the liver, and perhaps head trauma.

RUNNING

14 punishing miles

ALCOHOL

5 beers at the Blind Tiger (1 pre-running Bear Republic Racer 5 IPA) (approx.68 oz)
2 train beers (24 oz)
3 Lagunitas IPAs (12 oz)
1 glass of wine

SLEEP

4 hours

TUESDAYS WITH MAXIE

One of the things I’ve discovered about writing a blog is that it’s like a relationship: It takes a lot of time, a lot of effort, a strong commitment and the sex isn’t always satisfying. Wait—scratch that last part. But the rest is true. So, it’s Sunday, and I haven’t put in the time, effort or commitment to this blog. Maybe I need couples counseling. Anyway, I’ll use several posts to recap my training week.

Tuesday: I was going to make this a running rest day and just play basketball, but my dog, Maxie, dictated otherwise. Here’s a picture of her. She’s rabid, hates people and likes to rip off squirrels’ heads and leave them on my doorstep, but I love her anyway. Actually she’s a six-year-old boxer-pit bull that I got from the pound. And she LOVES to run. She saw me getting dressed up for basketball and hounded me until I agreed to jog with her. Like all of my dealings with women, she wears the pants in the relationship. I’ve got to learn to say NO to women, because they’ve certainly learned to say NO to me.

After the run, I played basketball for a while. It killed my knees, but there’s nothing like hearing the swish of the net as a three-point shot is sunk. Of course, I’M not the one making the shot, but it’s still nice to watch other people playing the game well. After doing my Shaquille O’Neal impersonation and going 0 for 20 at the free-throw line, I call it a day, head home and console myself with some Lagunitas IPAs.

RUNNING

Approx 1 mile; plus 50 minutes of basketball.

ALCOHOL

(9) Lagunitas IPAs (108 oz)

SLEEP

4.5 hours

THREE SHEETS (AND PEOPLE) TO THE WIND

“But now I am cabined, cribbed, confined, bound in
To saucy doubts and fears.”
—Macbeth (ACT III, iv)

No, I’m not having second thoughts about whether I should go with bolognese or marinara for my pasta dinner tonight (“saucy,” get it?), but rather, like Shakespeare’s infamous Scotsman, I’m haunted by a decision and course of action I took 6 weeks ago. No, I didn’t commit regicide. I’m referring to embarking upon 21 weeks of marathon training. I’m up to Week 6 now, and I feel older than Methuselah—my legs hurt, my knees hurt, my head hurts (well, I can blame beer for that last one).

My Dad once told me that he didn’t raise me to be a quitter, but since I didn’t meet my father until I was 31 (he abandoned my mother and I two hours after I was born, and reintroduced himself to me solely because he needed my passport and one of my kidneys), he REALLY didn’t raise me, so I have no issues with quitting. In fact, I’m quite good at it. Let me give you a rundown of this last week, and maybe you’ll better understand my dilemma.

Flashback to Monday:

Although I treated myself to a couple of growlers of Captain Lawrence Double IPA and their 2008 St. Vincent’s Dubbel on Friday and Saturday, I, like God, rested on the seventh day, and abstained from sex and alcohol on Sunday (I didn’t really have much say about the former). Louise was on vacation with her boyfriend Bob in California, and the weather in NYC, for the second Monday in a row, was bad. The Perfect Storm was brewing, the clouds above an ominous black as furious and wrathful winds exacted their vengeance, forcing panicked pedestrians to flee for safety—and their very lives. A violent, lethal shower was imminent. Impending death was guaranteed to any audacious souls foolish enough to brave the elements. And fools there were. Three of them: Pete, Susan and myself. We would represent the depleted Team Tiger tonight. Laughing in the face of death, this trio of racing warriors stepped out of the Blind Tiger and into a turbulent…


Enough with the purple prose. The weather sucked, the three of us put up with the wind and getting wet for 40 minutes, and then we returned to the Blind Tiger for some beers. So maybe I was exaggerating for effect a little bit. If you think my description was misrepresentative, you should check out my on-line dating profile. So I hit the Tiger with Pete and Susan (including 1 beer before the run; I was running late, so I didn’t have my normal cocktail trifecta), and then later on met up with some friends to get pie-eyed at the teneleven bar on the East Side.

Tallies for Monday:

RUNNING:

5 miles

DRINKING:

11 BEERS

• Lagunitas Censored Ale (12 oz)
• Bear Republic Racer 5 IPA (16 oz)
• Captain Lawrence St. Vincent’s Dubbel (6 oz)
• Smuttynose IPA (16 oz)
• La Caracole Nostradamus (12 oz)
• Arcadia IPA (12 oz)
• (2) Brooklyn East India Pale Ales (24 oz)
• (3) Lagunitas IPAs (36 oz)

SLEEPING:

4.5 hours

I finished my last beer at 2 a.m., went to bed at 2:30 and woke up at 7 a.m. on Tuesday to go to work.

Once again, my wordy post is becoming long-winded. (“Wind” seems to be the theme of this post.) I will get to Tuesday’s misdeeds tomorrow. Auf wiedersehen for now, my friends.

CHAPTER TWO: IN WHICH OUR INDUSTRIOUS YOUNG HERO DISCOVERS THAT IMBIBITION AND EXERCISE ARE GOOD BEDFELLOWS

Two days in a row. Wow. I’m a blog addict. Like a Robert Downey Jr. in LESS THAN ZERO addict. But at least I woke up this morning with all of my clothes on—and in my own house. But I digress. Let’s move on with the story, and excuse me if I do little PULP FICTION shifts back and forth in time—I want to try and keep things interesting. So, when we last left our lovable hero (that’s me)…

I believe it was October (sorry, I’m bad with dates, just ask any girl who has gone out with me) when TEAM TIGER made its auspicious debut. About 467 people showed up (actually, it was probably closer to 12), and outside the bar, a posse of paparazzi were taking pictures (not of us, but of Britney Spears, who had just driven her SUV through the storefront window of John’s Pizzeria across the street).

It was 7:30 and time to hit the West Side Highway for the 40-minute run, and I was feeling pretty good—especially with three beers in me. That’s my pre-run regimen: 2-3 beers, starting an hour before race time. And I ain’t downing Bud Lite Lime bottles, either. I’m talking serious ABV microbrews here: Imperial IPAs, barley wines, Imperial Stouts (I once drank 3 Dogfish Head World Wide Stouts—close to 20% ABV—before a run, blacked out during the jog and woke up three days later naked on the deck of THE INTREPID).

As my dad once said, “Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.” I know Benjamin Franklin is credited with that quote, but my Dad said it first. And my Dad should know a thing or two about beer, because he was a world-class drunk. I just find that alcohol makes everything better—from running to improving your memory to driving your car to operating heavy machinery.

Flash-forward to present day:

Sorry, I was getting bored with that trip down memory lane. It must be my ADD. I’ll get back to Team Tiger’s first run later on. So there are two reasons I’m doing this abominable blog: 1) I’m running in the Chicago Marathon in October (for once, I’m not joking), and I want to chronicle all of the dangerous, demented and detrimental (sorry for the alliteration, it must be my DDD) things I do as I unconventionally prepare for 26-plus miles of pain and agony; and 2) I want to chronicle all of the bad food and good beer I consume along the way—especially the Team Tiger brewery sponsors who are contributing to our kick-ass retro running uniforms (more on that later).

This posting is getting too long and preachy. I don’t want this to become the ATLAS SHRUGGED of blogs. So I’m going to avoid pulling an Ayn Rand and wisely NOT delve into a diatribe concerning laissez-faire capitalism, and will instead continue the colorful adventures of intrepid young Allan in another post. Speaking of intrepid, did I ever mention the time I woke up naked on the deck of… Oh, sorry, I already did. Beer does make MOST THINGS better, but I probably should cross memory off that list.

DRINKERS WITH A RUNNING PROBLEM

I hate blogs. Let’s just get that straight from the start. I understand why people do them, but I think, for the most part, that they’re self-serving, egotistical, uninteresting and unfunny accounts of boring peoples’ humdrum everyday monotonous existence. So, why am I writing one? Well, in addition to being a drunken reprobate, I am also a steadfast hypocrite. Pull up a seat, and I’ll tell you the beginning of my story, the immortal tale of how I ended up writing this godforsaken blog. It’s a little slow and dry at the start, but I promise some rollicking good times as things progress.

I drink. A lot. There’s a bar in the West Village on Bleecker St. called the Blind Tiger. I go there. A lot. Louise is the cook there. She drinks, too. A lot. And she, too, goes to the Blind Tiger. A lot. Of course, that’s because she works there.

Louise is a scratchy-voiced, two-fisted gal who would be right at home in a Howard Hawks film. She looks like Drew Barrymore but talks a blue streak like Jack Nicholson in THE LAST DETAIL. She’s a real card. A pisser with a hollow leg—two of them, in fact. Anyway, it’s a Sunday morning in early September, and I’m hungover and on the L train and heading home after crashing at a friend’s place. Then the train gets stuck. That’s when I see Louise, who is hungover as well, and heading to a New York Road Runner’s race in Central Park.

We had been bullshitting of late about how much time we spend drinking and not doing anything healthy—like exercise, sports, extreme fighting, King Crab fishing in Alaska—and Louise had been talking about forming a running club at the Blind Tiger. But we wanted the club to be run OUR style: No health nuts or running zealots. We wanted our club members to be beer-drinking, out of shape, overweight, fun-loving folks. No Prefontaines in THIS group.

So Louise and I get stuck on the friggin’ L for like an hour, and it’s during that time we come up with TEAM TIGER: DRINKERS WITH A RUNNING PROBLEM. The team would meet at the Blind Tiger every Monday at 7:30 (now 7) and go for a 40-minute run on the West Side Highway. Afterward, we would reward our noble effort with copious amounts of alcohol. The idea was brilliant—not quite as groundbreaking as the discovery of fire, but definitely more revolutionary than the invention of the wheel and the sports bra.

And so the legend began…

As for why I’m writing this crap down, I’ll get to that in my next entry. Origin stories suck. That’s why SPIDER-MAN 2 is better than the first movie. And why I STILL KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER is far superior to I KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER. Ugh! I hate all this exposition. I’m quitting now while I’m behind. But, trust me, things will get better—and funnier—I hope. In fact, after writing my first entry, I have to say I kinda…

Nah. I STILL hate blogs.