Kiss me, I'm not Irish!

St. Patrick's Day is upon us, and I invariably do my best to ignore the whole faux Celtic mess. But this year, because I've been teaching a 5K running clinic, I'll be down at the Steam Whistle Brewery with my students racing in the Achilles St. Patrick's Day 5K Run. There's a post-race beer and bowl of "Irish Chili" for all the runners, with an expected temperature of just above freezing I think the chili will be the preferred recovery technique.

I just got a mad idea; I'm going to ride down to the race on my street bike! It will be about 12K each way. I've been reading Simon Whitfield's blog, SQWRACING, and he's posted a lot of bike training video footage that has me aching to feel some pavement under my wheels again.

Here's a photo from my iPhone: On Thursday I helped a makeup student friend out by being the subject for her makeup effects exam. The final "look" was a vagrant after a fight... I kept the makeup on afterward so I could surprise my son, and didn't end up removing it until my 5K clinic so they could get a laugh too. Click on it to see it larger!

Earlier this evening Chris and I met up with Sheryl and her grandson. We had a nice quick dinner at Spring Rolls and then headed over to the movie-plex to see Horton Hears a Who!. Only problem was that little Oliver got a rare stomachache and really wanted to get back to his Mum. That left Chris and I with pre-paid tickets to a kid's movie... We sheepishly took our seats and sat through some imaginative animation and flashes of clever dialog, but sometimes a good little story just can't be stretched to feature length. Of course Oliver's stomach returned to normal about ten minutes later, while Sheryl was driving him home. "Can we go back to see the movie with Chris and Ben?"

In a few minutes the first Formula One race of the 2008 season will begin down in Melbourne Australia. Brian and I are taping it, we'll watch it together after dinner Sunday night. No spoiler e-mails please! Looks like another McLaren/Ferrari season with BMW lurking in the shadows. Last year's rookie sensation, Lewis Hamilton, is on the pole for this race. Kimi Raikkonen, the 2007 champion, had a mechanical problem in qualifying and will be starting 16th. This season will have a night race in Singapore, and traction control has been eliminated. This promises to produce some hairy starts...

Listening to: Will It Go Round in Circles by Billy Preston from Ultimate Collection.