REEEESE'S & Costumes

Halloween has come and gone, and I am five pounds heavier due to the influx of Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups that took over my diet. Jokes, jokes. But I did eat a ton of Reese’s a la Walt Pett every October. Aside from the candy, I’m not necessarily the hugest Halloween fan (luckily, candy plays a huge role, so I really like Halloween).

Dressing up isn’t my favorite thing, but I play the part if need be. A favorite costume for the children of Walter Pett was Bee Keeper and the white jump suit and mask you had to wear with it. It was easy enough, even if the suit for a 6 foot 2 inch man was a bit big for us. This year I was Zorro, and the drawn on mustache was legit.

While there are thousands of costumes out there, in the realm of running related costumes, there are only a few to consider. Halloween always falls around the Conference Championships for College XC teams, so here are some things for the college runner to consider for their after conference Halloween get-together:

1 – Be Usain Bolt. Get the arms. Get the outfit. Strike the pose. It is an easy and awesome costume. My brother Will pulled it off even if it was only because we had no other costume options.

2 – Dress up as one of your coaches. It will always get a few laughs amongst your teammates. But don’t wear it to a non-track event, then it won’t make much sense at all.

3 – Be an awesome runner that you know. My buddy Jonah pulled it off perfectly:

I knew I had made it when someone portrayed me for Halloween. Too bad I couldn’t make this list for you all before Halloween…

PANCAKE SUNDAES

I’ve mentioned before how when you run a lot, you get to eat some things that don’t seem very helpful (see Mike Krisch pounding a 5Guys Bacon Burger with a cream cheese slice inserted between the patties). Yesterday was one of those days. We have been hitting up cafés pretty much daily and yesterday we came upon a pancake house. I had been there before but didn’t see the greatest listing on their menu: the pancake with ice cream, strawberries, and whip cream. Mmmmmmm. Delicious.

So Elizabeth and I got that pancake (Maggie opted for tomato soup, rookie mistake), and then proceeded to scarf them down. I don’t think that Amsterdam is really known for their pancakes (more of a crepe to me, but a little thicker I guess), but it was some delicious stuff. As seen from the sequence of photos that follow, I powered through mine much quicker than Elizabeth and then was extremely disappointed when it was done. My Uncle David out in Cali has a food column that he writes called “Lick the Plate”. I desperately wanted to do so yeseterday.

About to head up to the track for some 300s, it should be a nice little Wednesday. Let’s Go!

Ps – Andrew Bumbi got a PR in the 3k last night in a meet in Liege – 7:51. Hopefully I can get him to come up to Amsterdam now because I’m starting to get bored.

View from Liz's camera. Started off even...

I take a commanding lead (don't think she knew we were racing...I didn't either, just was EATING)...

Dundee...

depressed...

Phitens and Heps and Peanut Butter Cups

It is rumored that Gilbert Arenas, the NBA star, tried out an altitude tent in order to help in get in shape for b-ball season. He decided that it was working too well, and that it felt like he was “cheating,” so he stopped using it. This is exactly how I feel about my new Phiten Titanium Necklace.

You may recognize the Phiten Necklace from Major League Baseball. A lot of guys use the thing that supposedly aids in recovery of muscles by increasing your circulation. I was pretty skeptical about the things, but then my roommates and I decided that we should start a new fad. And recovery necklaces were the route we chose.

Let’s just say that before I got my Phiten, my body ached at all times, and now I sometimes don’t even realize that I was just running for 20 miles at 6 minute pace. The thing just makes you feel great and recovered at all times.

And the fad has taken off. Will and Delilah up in New York have joined in. Kevin up in New Hampshire and Renee in D.C. have donned the necklaces. Hell, even Alan in Columbus has decided to join in on the Phiten Phun! And we all feel great. And yes, it is all in our heads.

And on top of that, my fastball has improved drastically since I started wearing Phiten.

If you do check my web journal often enough, then you saw that Columbia won HEPS this weekend in dramatic fashion. HEPS is an indescribable meet filled with emotion and heart. Somehow, men and women become heroes on this day only to return to their normal selves very soon after.

For an Ivy League runner HEPS has everything to do with it. It is a double sided sword, but the sharper side shines brightest. What I mean by that is this: Sometimes we put too much emotional energy into something like the Ivy League Championship that the rest of our season is compromised. However, I wouldn’t change a thing. HEPS is where you compete your balls off and nothing else matters. Times don’t matter, weather doesn’t matter, place is the only thing that counts.

HEPS is where every Ivy League school hates each other. HEPS is where every Ivy League school respects one another. HEPS is where Jimmy Wyner was DQ’d for celebrating. HEPS is where I became LBP as the chants roared through the Armory in 2007 when I won my first Heptagonal Crown.

In the end, I have supposedly moved on to bigger and better things, but HEPS will always have a special place in my heart.
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Just so I have a reason for the title of my entry…instead of dressing up for Halloween last night since all of my friends were getting back late from Big East XC, I spent the night eating REESE’S Peanut Butter cups…I have no complaints.

REEEESES

Sometime around February or thereabouts, I decided that it was time for me to have a nickname. I had taken to calling my roommate, Dan Nunn, Bacon, for his unusual habit of cooking bacon at increasingly odd times. I would return home from class a little after ten to the scent of that hickory smoked pig fat approximately two to three times a week. Bacon also had several other nicknames including Captain Mischief (self explanatory) and PAJC (for winning the Pan American Junior Championship 5k in 2005). Now, “LBP” is my nickname in the track world, and don’t get me wrong, I love the nickname, but I think I was a little jealous that Bacon had so many.

So, in going with the theme of food that I had used for coming up with Dan’s nickname, I decided to call myself Reese’s, after the delicious peanut butter cup candy bar. It wasn’t just Reese’s either, it was pronounced as if it were in all caps and with much bravado to it: REEESES. Being it a self-proclaimed nickname, I worked hard at making it stick. Speaking of myself in the third person at the cafeteria dinner hour became commonplace, as did sending out mass text messages to teammates while I was bored in class that simply read: REEEEEEESES.

And in time, it started to stick. One teammate told me that whenever she got a text that didn’t say REEESES, she was very surprised (I also got the sense that when she did get a REEESES text, she wasn’t extremely happy). But people started referring to me as my desired nickname, although they started to say it more in a way that seems to say: “Classic Reeses, at it again” and lacks any oomph. Sometimes it was even: “Reeses, gosh him again??” However, I was okay with this oomph-less moniker. So, to this day, and much to the chagrin of many of my friends who don’t agree with self-proclaimed nicknames, I go by REEESES…except for in the track world, where I am still LBP.

And trust me, this will all make sense when you remember that there are no Reese’s in Belgium. The reason that I gave myself the nickname was because I jam on a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup every night before I race. So, as one could expect, I was extremely disappointed to find that I would be reese’s-less throughout the trip. However, I came up with a solution.
I will going as Snickers the rest of this trip. However, since this is a mainly track trip I won’t have to worry about it too much, but feel free to call me Snickers. That is, until I make it back to the US.

And to top off the digression, had a good day in Ghent today, just an easy run and then found a coffee shop that lets me use the Internet there for free! Gonna head back tomorrow and do the same. Pre-meet tomorrow (which means waking up, jogging 3 miles, then waiting til the afternoon for another 3 mile jog with some strides mixed in) and finally racing on Saturday, I cannot wait. I put up a link to the coverage in the Belgium Links column on the right side of the page.

...Check back tomorrow for info on my clothing situation.