11 Miles, 1654 Calories, and LEMONS!

When the subject line of a post consists of statistics, you know I'm blogging about another fantastic run, and this one is no exception. I hit the pavement in the dead of night at 4:32 a.m. today and continued running well into the daylight, achieving the above results according to my iPhone Runkeeper app.

Later this afternoon, I also had a glorious bike ride in the sizzling hot temperatures that I love so much. (Stats: 17.17 miles, 733 calories).

But where do the lemons come in? Right here!

We are just past the height of the citrus season here, and, well...as you can see I got a little carried away! It all started when Lynn brought home a few lemons given to her by someone at work. Maybe five or so. And we at first wondered what we were going to do with all those lemons. 

Last year we actually tried freezing some of the juice in baggies, thinking it would make good ice to use for beverages later in the year. However, we found that lemon juice doesn't really freeze well. It just turns into a slush that loses its flavor. By the time we found the long-forgotten baggies of frozen lemon juice a few months later, the only thing it was good for was to help freshen the garbage disposal.

This year I decided they weren't going to go to waste, so I started taking a few lemons a day and adding them to a blender smoothie concoction that I make myself for breakfast every morning. When added to my usual base ingredients (orange juice, oat bran, banana, spinach leaves, tomato, olive oil and Baker's chocolate) the lemons added a definite tang - and the kitchen also sure smelled great after peeling them!

Well, then I was hooked. There are numerous areas around my neighborhood where people put out piles of fresh citrus with "Free-Please Take" signs - because during the season, the trees rain fruit down and if it isn't disposed of in some way, the varmints known as "roof rats" will infest the area. So over the last couple of weeks, I've gone on regular "lemon-gathering expeditions," and the results can be seen above. Actually the above picture was taken a couple of weeks ago, and I've since used up that entire pile and am working my way through a second of almost equal size. 

I'm sure I'm getting more than adequate amounts of vitamin C in my diet now. And I haven't done this much puckering since my honeymoon!

Topless!

And with that subject line, my readership has just increased by 1,000.

Please stand by for a few minutes while we give all these new readers a few seconds to check out my post from yesterday and realize the obvious: yes, I was referring to finally not having needed a shirt for MY OWN weekly 10 mile run in the mountains this morning - from which I have just returned. 

OK, that did it - all the new readers just left. Whoops - my wife just signed off too! Understandable - she's got to listen to me talk about running all the time, so who can blame her for not wanting to spend all day reading about it too.

That leaves us with just three readers remaining. One of those is my mother, who always reads this and also usually comments, because...well that's just one of the things mothers have to do. (Hi Mom - looking forward to seeing you tonight!)

But this morning, it's those other two readers I'm going to talk about. I've come to find that after actually writing it, the second most fun thing to do with a blog is to check out the statistics. It's possible to get all kinds of information about just how many people are reading my posts, what sorts of computer equipment and web browser programs they are using to do so, and - most interesting of all - where they are reading my blog from and how they are finding out about it.

My blog doesn't get viewed very often. On average most of my posts get about eight views. At least four of those views are usually by myself - because I'm both a perfectionist who likes to tweak things until I'm sure they're perfect and a narcissist who loves to come back and read my own work once it IS perfected! Then I have my wife and my mother as mentioned earlier. So that accounts for six of those eight views. But I had been wondering about those other two.

It turns out that I have one reader who was referred to the site from another blog. I assume that means they got here by clicking on a link posted by the other blogger. The interesting thing was that this was a blog about diet and exercise. Ok, understandable - since most of what I talk about here is running and eating out at restaurants. But while searching that blog the other night, I tried to find the post or the link or the whatever that somebody might have clicked on to get to my blog - and found nothing. So was I just too lazy, giving up before I searched far enough? Or was a link there at one time and then later removed or archived? And if so, I wonder what it said? I mean, inquiring minds want to know. Was I referred to in a complimentary way - as in, "Here's a prime example of a super-buff guy who really works hard to keep himself in shape? (Despite the fact that we have no idea what he really looks like because he refuses to post a picture of himself?)" Or did they say something more like: "No matter how much weight you think you need to lose and how many calories you think you have to burn, you don't have to be like THIS kook who is going to grind his knees down to nothing before he reaches age 55 by running 10 miles in the mountains every Saturday?" Maybe it's just as well that I'll probably never find out. But to whoever you are from the diet and exercise site, if you're still reading this - and up to it - I invite you to post a comment letting me know. I really do wonder how my blog was used on that site.

The other reader is even more interesting. This soul hails from Malaysia. That's right - Malaysia. How did somebody in Malaysia find me? What did they enter in their search engine that led them here? Is this person a potential tourist who was seeking out a warm vacation and somehow grabbed on to something I said about Arizona, or Scottsdale, or hot weather? Maybe I'm going to have to do some Googling of my own on "Malaysia" - who knows - this other person might have a blog of their own that I might start following! (Especially if they blog about running). So, Malaysian reader, if there's anything you want to know from a resident's point of view about Scottsdale, I invite you to comment too - and I'll try to answer your questions as best I can.

Now to anyone still remaining who found me today only because you were searching on "topless" - please DON'T post a comment. This is a family-friendly blog and I want to keep it that way! Your cooperation is greatly appreciated! :)

97!

That was the high temperature today. WAHOOO!!!! But I guess I'm getting thin-blooded after nearly a decade here in Arizona, because it only felt like about 85 to me. Unbelievably, even though it was 70 degrees at the time of my early morning run this morning, I still felt too chilly when I attempted to do my first topless run of the year, and had to succumb and put a shirt on.  SIGH! 

Oh well - at least it's the weekend, and I'm looking forward to making another attempt at topless running tomorrow morning! I'm also hoping to see another beautiful thin crescent moonrise over the McDowell Mountains just like the one we had today.

(And you thought it was going to be a whole month before you saw me post anything here again! APRIL FOOL!)