Break from Bucharest

In less than 4 hours, I will be on a Flight to London, the first leg of my trip to Schenectady, NY to meet Dana and Maria and visit the Jutton side of the family. I'm looking forward to the break and seeing the family. Also, I should be returning with a new pair of running shoes and a brand new GPS watch the talk about (I know you're excited).

Feelin' Hot Hot Hot

It was in the 90's every day this week in Bucharest. My coworkers tell me it will be hot until September. I ran after work Monday and Tuesday. I was really feeling the heat on Tuesday, so I'm not sure that I'm ready to run 2 days in a row in that kind of heat. The only good thing is the lack of dog trouble. The Bucharest strays are just lying around everywhere in this heat. They look at you and you can see it in their eyes. They want to chase you soooo bad, but they don't have the energy to move.

Evening Run in Parcul Titan

Yesterday, I waited until about 8:00 pm to run and it wasn't too bad. The good thing about the Bucharest summer is how quickly it cools down at night. By 8 pm, the temp was only about 82 and it was dropping. The only bad thing - Everybody in Bucharest was in the park, it seemed. The place was packed, which required alot of attention on my part to avoid running over kids, rollerbladers, skateboarders, soccer players, etc.

Well, that's it for now. I may check in from New York, or I may not.

Carb loading in Romania

For a runner (or any other person pretending to be an athlete like me), carbohydrates are important for energy and recovery. Here's one of my favorites in Bucharest:

This bad boy is called a Shaorma. I think it came from the Middle East, which is not too far away. The main ingredients are a pita-type shell, grilled chicken, french fries, garlic sauce, pickles, and some kind of green stuff (could be lettuce or cabbage) to make it appear healthy.

What's most interesting to me is how the chicken is kept heated at the Shaorma stand. When you order, the guy will cut the chicken off this thing with a large knife.

Shaorma's come in 2 sizes, mica (small) or mare (large). I usually get the small, but the one you see on my plate up there is a large. I was having fun talking to the Shaorma guy in English and Romanian and forgot to say "mica". I couldn't finish it, since it weighs over 1 lb. Even the large shaorma costs only a 120,000 lei (about 4 bucks).

I guess in the end, it's not really "Carbohydrate loading". It's more like "Everything Loading".

Summer Begins

I hope you enjoyed my "filler post", ha ha ha. Not much is happening on the running front right now. I'm still mainly doing shorter runs and working on my new running form. After doing some more research, I'm thinking about changing running shoes which I would do while in New York. I ran after work on Monday and Tuesday and really felt the heat. This past weekend while I was camping with the missionaries, the temperature began to warm up. It was around 90 F for both runs this week. I may just deal with the heat, since there is much less dog trouble at this time of day as opposed to the mornings. The dogs just lie around everywhere when it gets hot like this and they barely move. That's all for now. I'll try to check in next week before my visit to the states.

Sunday Morning workout.

Sunday morning before church is usually not a great time for a workout. But, since I'm waking up so ridiculously early (5:00 am or earlier) , I have nothing else to do.

Friday's run was ok. My calves are still really sore from working on this running form change. I've read several articles on the net, and it looks like I can expect this for about 2-3 weeks. Not really fun, but I'm into this running thing for the long haul. Better form now will hopefully mean better knees years later. I'm quite certain I pushed too hard on my first run last Saturday, and that hasn't helped things. The good thing about the run this past Friday was that it was dog-free.

Today's run also featured minimal canine activity also. I passed a few that barked, but they kept their distance. Nothing else has been really exciting about these last few runs. I've run them all in the same place in Parcul Titan where the brand spanking new pavement is. Right now, I don't think my calves can take the abuse of the Lacul Titan route where the pavement and trails are rough in spots. Hopefully, when the calve issue goes away, I will try out some new running locations that I've been promising you guys. The weather each morning has been great with temps in the mid to high 50's. The high's for June so far have been in the 70's at midday here in Bucharest. Nice.

Steve's new workout

See this metal bar on the left? There are tons of these things located around the apartments. The Romanians use them to beat the dust out of their rugs. You may be thinking "Oh, how interesting". However, Steve J doesn't think that way. He looks at the metal bar and thinks "Cool! I can do pull-ups on those!". So I did bust out a couple of sets of pull-ups after my run today when nobody was looking (not that I would care...)

I know, I'm a nut. But, if you've been reading this blog for any length of time, this is nothing new.

Early Mornings in Early June

Saturday's run

On Saturday, I got up early and ran early. I've been waking up pretty early since daylight savings started. In Bucharest, there is about an additional 1:15 hrs of daylight when compared to Greenville. The early morning in Parcul Titan is very peaceful for running for the most part. There are very few people and very few dogs. The only exception is this:

I think people take their unfriendly doggies out this early due to the fact that there are less people around (and no children at all) for them to try to eat. On Saturday, I passed a HUGE doberman who made an aggressive growl and scared me half-to-death. The owner lady quickly grabbed his collar before her "puppy dog" added a little Fillet-O-Steve to his Saturday morning breakfast menu.

Today's Run (Tuesday 6/6)

The jury is still out on my plan to run in the mornings. I had to come to a dead stop today after 3 dogs came after me as I passed the restaurant, Casa Rustica. Every restaurant and farmers market here seems to have their own stray dogs. The reason is simple. They feed them. It doesn't take a rocket scientist (even Steve J) to figure out that the dogs are going to stay where the food is. They also become quite territorial about their home, especially at night. I've had very few problems during the day, as most of the dogs are sleeping. I guess I'll see if I can find a different route to the park in the morning that is doggie-free.

Steve's new running style

No, this doesn't mean I'm going to start wearing hot pink shoes and spandex shorts (to the disappointment of Romanians everywhere). After consulting with Coach Nathan on my running form, he suggested fixing my stride before really getting into the half-marathon training. Basically, due to my big 'ole feet (thanks ma!) and other factors, I'm hitting very hard on my heel when I run. This, according to Coach Nathan is putting undue stress on my knees and slowing me down (like I'd notice). So, in the spirit of running geekness, I took his suggestion and started working on my form this week.

For those non-running geeks in my audience, this basically means I am now twice as sore as normal, since I am using my massive leg muscles differently than I usually do. I figure in about a month I will either have a better stride or I will have injured myself trying - I'll let you all know either way.

Steve's "McGuyver Moment"

Yesterday was a rough day. Dana and Maria left for the U.S. I got laughed at while running (again). Yeah, it was rough. But it got worse. Later yesterday evening, I checked my fancy-schmancy running geek GPS watch and realized the battery needed charging. So, I got out the power supply, hooked it up and plugged it in like I always do. And what happens? Nothing. There was no indication of charging at all. After a quick bit of troubleshooting, my blood ran cold as I realized my power supply was dead!

Running Geek with no GPS - "Oh the humanity!"

What was I going to do? This power supply is a special power supply that came with my fancy-schmancy GPS watch. How will I find one in Bucharest? Am I doomed? Will I never know the precise distance and speed of my runs without "measuring" the distance the old way? Will this running geek ever get to use his mapping and graphing software ever again???

Suddenly, a thought came to mind - Bucur Obur Market. Yes! They have everything from fresh fruit to mountain bikes. From stereos to live chickens. We profiled Bucur Obur in our family blog on April 15 HERE. So, I headed to the market after work today. Since Bird Flu is a big news story here, I decided to skip the live chickens and just focus on the power supply.

Mixed Results and technical decision making 101

Well, with a little luck, I found a booth with a bunch of power supplies. Unfortunately, there was no exact match. I needed a 400 mili-amps with 5 volts. The closest one I found there was 500 mili-amps and 4.5 volts. After a serious 30 second technical evaluation, I figured "What's 100 mili-amps and 0.5 volts between friends?" So I bought the power supply anyway and headed home. This is where things got interesting...

Before I finish, those who don't know me very well need a little background to fully appreciate what happened next. Anyone who knows me, knows that I have very little hands-on mechanical ability. And the only thing worse than my hands-on mechanical ability, is my hands-on electrical ability. That's what makes this next part so amazing.

All jacked up with no place to plug

Ok, so I got home with high hopes and opened up my new power supply. Right away, I noticed the problem. The dead power supply has a specially shaped jack which plugs into a special receptacle on my fancy-schmancy GPS watch. This way, the company which makes the fancy-schmancy GPS watch forces most running geeks to buy their fancy-schmancy power supply also. None of the jacks on my newly purchased ($6) power supply matched. So, get this: I actually came up with a plan to cut the cords on both power supplies and splice the dead power supply jack with the new power supply cord. With nothing but a pocket knife and a rusty pair of pliers, I went to work...And...(I know the suspense must be killing you) Here is the result:

That my friends, is the sight of a happily charging fancy-schmancy GPS watch and the tools Steve used to make it happen. McGuyver's got nothin' on me - nothin' I say.

Stay tuned for the next episode when our hero, Steve J, returns to Bucur Obur Market for electrical tape and battles the evil bird-flu powered live chickens....(to be continued...ok I'm kidding on that).

Only the lonely...blah blah blah dum dee doo waa

So Dana and Maria are flying back to the states right now. I dropped them off before heading to work. I'm definitely going to miss them. My family is basically a part of who I am, so I'm incomplete when they're not with me (I know - so sappy, Everyone just say "Awwwwww" and we'll move on). At least the work day was somewhat interesting. After months of struggling with the Romanian bureaucratic nightmare, my 2-year (yikes) work visa application was finally accepted today. I should be able to pick it up next month.

Today's run

After coming home to a depressing empty apartment, there was no doubt I was going to run today. I headed out for an easy 3.7 miles in the newly paved section of the park. I usually run around the lake, but it is nice to change things up. Besides, with the smooth pavement, I can actually run with my head up. There just isn't too many places in Bucharest where you can do that! Another plus was the temperature. It only reached about 70F today, which is about 10 degrees cooler than my last 3 runs.

The only noteworthy Bucharest-moment of this run was the 4-5 teenage girls who basically stared at me like I was an alien as I ran by. They then proceeded to bust out laughing as soon as I passed them. I should be used to this by now, but I guess I felt more out-of-place than usual today.