Steve in a Speedo?! Gross!

Friday Funny 2605: Weird Things

>> Friday, June 12, 2026

I actually love this.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Lots more funny things posted all day long on SportsAndLaughs.tumblr.com.

"Bean Boozled" While Camping with the Kids

>> Thursday, June 11, 2026

I just got back from 4 nights at Lake Vermilion State Park with my boys, niece, and nephew. (Check out lots of recent posts on my Instagram.)

On one of our last nights there, we tried "Bean Boozled" where we didn't know if we were eating tasty or gross jelly beans:

youtu.be/EJF9LAJHqGM

(Click the link to watch a bigger version.)

Photos from the 2026 Brian Kraft 5K

>> Monday, June 08, 2026

There were no "official" photos, but people kept sending me pics that they saw me in after the Brian Kraft 5K. Here are a few from phriz_b on Instagram:

Me and Doron near the finish.

Close-up. I couldn't catch him.

A few pics from the start.

A friend / neighbor on the Mill City team sent me some photos from one of their team photographers. She teased "twisting like that is a good way to throw your back out" as I was shouting HI to my wife early on in the race because I thought she didn't see me:

Maybe about 0.3 miles in.

Close-up.

The next shot...

... and the close-up. My wife had seen me, but I just didn't see HER seeing ME.

And then a few from him from the finish:

Again, still trying to catch Doron.

Hurtin. Just before the finish.

I also bumped into Nicole who I hadn't seen in a while. (I ended up lining up right next to her hubby Jamie.) Jamie told me I'd be proud of her shorts, so I was excited to see them post-race. They had a sweet floral pattern:

Nicole in some bright shorts laying down a sub-21!

And just 2 more pics from race buddy Suzie from the start:

Milling about. I'm somewhere back there between
the stop sign and tree just to the right of it.

Right at the start!

Here's my race report from 2 weeks ago if you missed it!

A Good Long Run (Resetting Post-Race)

>> Saturday, June 06, 2026

I had a good long run this week, and it may be due to a phenomenon I wrote about a little in 2021 but even more back at the end of 2020.

I've posted about some crappy long runs lately, and I've just been feeling STUCK... like I could never get into the next gear, even though I thought I had another gear there!

Nearly 2 weeks ago was the Brian Kraft 5K, and I did about how I thought I would. I took it easy the rest of that week, and finally did a normal long run (with harder miles in the middle) a week after that race (so earlier this week). I started that run with heavy legs even though I didn't know why because I did no endurance workout the day before, I did a shorter/easier bike ride 2 days before, a run with just a little effort 3 days before, so my last REAL effort was a harder bike ride FOUR days before this run... I should have been fresh. But I powered through the heavy legs and ended up posting some decent splits. Here are my half-mile splits run harder in the middle of an 11.3 mile run:

3:14, 3:15, 3:08, 3:08, 3:03, 3:05, 3:06, 3:03, 3:09, 3:05, 3:01, 3:00

= 37:23 (6:13.83 / mile)

Mile splits of 6:30, 6:16, 6:09, 6:10, 6:15, and 6:01

That was my first time dropping below 6:20 pace for those "hard" miles in 4 weeks, and my fastest "hard" miles since running 6:12 pace in mid-February! That was 15 weeks ago... about 3.5 months of running slower than what I ran earlier this week! (Going back before that OK run 4 weeks ago, most of my "pace miles" were in the upper 6:teens and sometimes in the 6:20s.)

Again, as I posted about in 2021 and spelled out more back at the end of 2020, I think racing hard "resets" something in my body and mind. I don't know what percentage is PHYSICAL and what percentage is MENTAL, but it's some of BOTH. So that 5K last week helped to reset things, and then I had my fastest long run in 15 weeks.

Splits 5 - 17 were my faster miles. (Half mile splits.)

Heart rate shows that I ran harder from mile 2.5 to mile 8.5.

This phenomenon doesn't always happen, as here's a post from 2022 that shows me getting SLOWER during the first 2 long runs after a hard race. But it happens more often than it doesn't, and hopefully it's set me on a better track for my training.