Coffeehouse and running

     Had a  very interesting day. It started with a jump back into running. As I have posted before, Beth and I had started a couch to 5K program at the tail end of the summer and it was going pretty well for both of us. In fact I had gotten through week 7 and was about to finish up. That's when the running hit a roadblock. First Beth got sick.Then I "thought" I was getting sick. This created a really good excuse each day why I should NOT run. It amazes me how even after making such strides, that decision came so easily. And let me make this clear so Beth doesn't feel bad... her being sick did not stop me from running, it was just my convenient excuse not to run. Well needless to say after 16 days of inactivity, I finally said to myself," Enough. It's time to go running again." So yesterday I laced up the shoes, headed out to the fields and began running. I figured I would have lost where I was at so I dialed in a run from earlier in the program and told myself to not push it. To just go with what felt right. After the first 10 minutes I felt great so I kept going. After 20 minutes I still felt great so I kept going. Finally made myself stop after 30 minutes. I did not run fast at all, probably did 2.25 miles in that 30 min. but I was amazed at how easy it was. I even had the energy to get home and do the yardwork I have been neglecting. The ironic part of this is that I just got up about 25 minutes ago and my nose is stuffed up. yeesh.

     Now on to the other news. Last night was the first coffeehouse of the year. Over this past week I had decided to do a song with Chris (science teacher), Will (science teacher) and Evan (music teacher). We were going to do "Little Lion Man" by Mumford and Son. I was planning on playing my mandolin (I think I am becoming the mandolin guy at the coffeehouses). This is a really good song and I highly recommend listening to it if you get a chance. Anyhow, Will ended up not being able to attend so Chris, Evan and I decided to perform Crosby, Stills, and Nash's "Teach Your Children Well". Unfortunately Jerry Garcia is dead and couldn't provide the lap steel guitar intro. I chose to try playing my banjo ukulele that I got in Nashville Indiana two summers ago. I think it came out pretty good. We had virtually no practice time so I was experimenting with my strumming patterns a bit in the song. I wish we had more practice time because at some points I really like how I was counterstrumming to the guitar. Here is a link to the performance on my Youtube channel:  Under New Management

You may wonder what the Under New Management is all about. When the Coffeehouse program started at CHS it was run by our history teacher Bob Damon. It ran for a few years and then he had to move to the Boston area. He passed the torch over to Chris and Will. This is the point when I was first learning to play guitar and mandolin. In my first performance the teacher group that performed started calling themselves "under new management" and we have stuck with that.(note that they may have started calling themselves this BEFORE I started playing with them, I wasn't there to tell...."

On a final note, we have started having interest from a few students and quite a number of faculty to start a ukulele club at school. I love this idea and can anticipate some awesome performances in the future.

Today Beth and I plan on getting away to do some leaf peeping and visit Quechee Vt for a little bit of antique shopping. Maybe I can find an old gibson mandolin for cheap :)