197 miles/29:06:42.

What did you do this past weekend? That's nice. Oh, me? What did I do? Not much - I just ran in a 197-mile relay.

Crazy! you say, and I was inclined to agree with you. Until this weekend. Because it was SO much fun that I kind of forgot about the whole psycho-ness of the event. Even before I had finished running my first leg, I was planning for next year.

So, Hood to Coast. It's the aforementioned 197 miles, from Oregon's Mt. Hood to Seaside (the coast). Each team has 12 members (split into 2 vans), and every member runs 3 legs of the relay. Some legs are harder than others. I had the easiest leg overall (I promise that I did not ask for the easiest leg! I waited until everyone had selected their legs and mine was the only one left!) - leg 4 (6.95 miles at 4 PM, in 85 degree weather), leg 16 (3.3 glorious miles at 2 AM [yes, 2 AM!], in 60 degree weather), and leg 28 (4.2 miles at 11:30 AM, in freaking ridiculously hot weather).

This was on about 2 hours of sleep, total.

Clearly I'm not explaining myself well enough, because even I don't think this sounds like fun. But it was. (Don't I look happy?) Everyone decorated their van with their team names (we were Nice Guys Finish Last), and there were some fantastic names/decorations/costumes. Our arch nemesis was My Dixie Wrecked (say it to yourself...but not out loud, if you're at work...) because they started at the exact same time we did, and we managed to keep up with them for most of the race. (They were a group of guys who grew matching sideburns/moustaches for the race, and their second van advertised "moustache rides" for 5 cents.) Lest you think it was all smutty, there was also the heroic Snakes In A Van, who gave me an ice-cold bottle of water during my last (uphill) leg.

And AFTER the race! Well, that was filled with bacon (seriously, we went to a breakfast place called Pig 'n Pancake) and Swedish fish and Trader Joe's peanut butter pretzels (the best post-run food EVER) and beer (obviously) and a cabin complete with a proprietor sleeping on the couch (even as we discussed loudly how it was incredibly weird to have some strange guy sleeping on the couch) with no less than 6 taxidermied animal heads (the buffalo/bison/whatever looked so surprised - like, "OMG! You have a gun!").

Anyway, it was awesome. We are getting a team next year. You should come too.

On notice.

Trader Joe's, I'm looking at you. You are now on notice! I went to your Capitol Hill location tonight, and not only were you out of lavash bread, you were out of my new lavash bread replacement, whole wheat pitas! AND you were out of my favorite frozen wild salmon! (And screw Michael Pollan, I was ready to buy some non-sustainable pink-dyed farmed salmon. But you didn't have that either!)

In other news, tonight was my last night of class. End Kate's Summer of Suckiness (TM)!

This weekend will include a wedding shower, a delicious brunch, hopefully some good food and drink, and perhaps a going-away party.

Since [you've] been gone.

What? I've been the one that's been gone? Semantics. I love that song. (And I'm not ashamed to admit it, because Ted Leo loves it too.)

So I thought I'd make a list of stuff that I've found noteworthy in the past few weeks. Most are awesome things, but the first is super-sad, so that averaged the list out to "noteworthy."

No more Kozak's trivia! This is incredibly sad. First the EMP, and now this. I don't have a trivia home anymore.

It's a bird, it's a plane... No, it's Kate the Supertaster! That's right, I'm a supertaster. Last week my cooking lab class had a guest speaker who told us all about taste and sensory perception. Part of her presentation included testing for supertasters. We put a chemical-saturated scrap of paper in our mouths, and 3 people in the class (myself included) all made a terrible what is this crap? face. (It tasted absolutely disgusting.) The majority of the class was like, eh, not so pleasant, and then a few people didn't notice anything out of the ordinary. As you've probably guessed, the people with the overblown reactions are supertasters. I think this is awesome, and I've been bragging about it for a week. The weird thing is, supertasters aren't supposed to like bitter things (coffee, dark chocolate, broccoli, grapefruit), and I love all of these (however, I do use cream in my coffee - and, if I'm going to be totally honest here, my absolute favorite coffee is Dunkin Donuts with cream and 2 Equals, and not some fair trade organic stuff from Victrola). I asked about this, and the presenter said we could train ourselves out of our natural preferences (hence I think the Victrola stuff is "better," so I drink it, plus there are no Dunkin Donuts in this stupid state).

Ken Jennings' blog! It's great! You should read it.

The Mugs are coming to Seattle. Holy shit am I excited. THREE performances! Do you think they need a place to stay while they're here? (I am kind of serious about this.) And Boston people (I'm [virtually] looking at you) - they'll be at Bill's Bar on Monday. (For those of you who don't know, the Mugs are an extremely talented band from Brooklyn. Coincidentally, their members also happen to include 2 alumni of my favorite a cappella group.)

We now have a Tivo-like thing. OMG it's amazing. I have already set it to record the next season of Laguna Beach.

And with that, good night!

Meat cake!

I know it's terrible to resume blogging after a 3-week hiatus with just a few links, but I (semi-) promise that I'll write more soon.

For now, meat cake! And another meat cake!

Seriously, how awesome is that?

(via megnut)