Lucas Ridley » Running

How to | Chia Fresca (Iskiate)

Lucas — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 16:20:02 +0000

I decided to share a wonderful drink I discovered when reading Born to Run. It’s called Iskiate in the book and is otherwise known as Chia Fresca. It’s main ingredient is the same Chia seed that you used to grow your Chia pet as a child, or maybe even as an adult. The big selling point is the seed’s nutritional value, which the book describes is like eating a salmon steak with spinach. So it tastes sweet and it’s good for you!
[box type="shadow"]It’s very simple: combine Chia seeds (8 tbsp), Sugar (4 tbsp), Warm water (3 c), and lime juice (2 limes) – then refrigerate – but you might want to stir intermittently while it’s initially cooling down in the frig so you don’t get big chunks. That is the recipe I use, I’m sure you can find others out there, I know I found one that suggested putting a little rum in it to make it like a mojito.[/box]

I just bought some Chia seeds bulk for fairly cheap, see below for links on where you can buy them. It’s definitely cheaper than the green grocery in town.

Here’s a link for a 3 lb bag of them: 3-pound-chia-seed-internet-special

Interested more in the book “Born to Run” :

Video | Finish Line Fail, Hilarious (to me)

Lucas — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 02:53:02 +0000

Here’s the back story: So in 2002, when I was a freshman in college, I was on the cross country bus headed to another race. Some people were asleep, some bored with the long drive so we started putting in random VHS tapes our coach had. One happened to be the NCAA D3 2001 Nationals race.

We watched the races with mild enthusiasm as it’s hard to keep track of who is in what place on a video like that, all we were looking for was our alumnus, Jed, who was in the race. Then towards the end this incredible moment happened. Watching the finish line these guys are tearing through trying to make All-American, which is top 25, and we see this guy fall down over and over again, then a guy with huge chops can’t even run in a straight line. We must have rewound that clip a million times with our team peeing in their pants they thought it was so funny! Sad part is if that first guy could have kept it together till the finish line he would have been an All-American.

Ever since then I thought, someone must do the world a favor and get this on the internet. Well, 8 years later, today is that day. I would like to thank Media Enterprises who is responsible for taping the race and Coach Heitzenrater for preserving the VHS to DVD.

Like I mention in the video, I have a lot of respect for what those guys were doing. On one hand it is absolutely amazing that they push themselves to those limits, then on the other hand it is absolutely hilarious to watch. I don’t know if it’s just a runner thing, if maybe no one else will think this is funny. Maybe it’s because I have an idea of what they’re going through that I can laugh at it. Either way it’s hilarious to me.

Hope you all enjoy and stay tuned for more coming very soon.

Below is just another funny running-related image. This one is from our conference meet a few years back when we almost ran over a photographer and you can see a couple of guys flipping out on her. I’m to the right in the image looking bewildered over at those guys.

Depauw guys flipping out on the photographer for being on the course.

Blog | It’s On

Lucas — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 02:31:51 +0000

I’m making a public decree for no other reason than I will be held accountable for this promise besides just making a private promise to myself: It’s On.

What I mean is that after a long break from competitive running in college, I am going to start training again with the intention of running a 5k on the track this spring. There I said it, now there are many miles to run to get there.

If you want a good running log website, I use running2win.com – there’s every single thing you could imagine to include in a running log on there, but you only fill out what you want to of course. Look for me on there if you sign up, my username is ‘Lucas,’ how original is that.

If I run below 16 minutes for said 5k then I will be very happy. I’ve always had a goal of running under 14 minutes, but the closest I came was pretty far off at 14:51 (4:46 mile splits). I always thought I’d train really hard after college and get there, but then I found hang gliding.

Coming home from work it was a no-brainer, slog off some miles running around, or fly through the air. Now doing free lance work I think I will be able to do both.

See below the picture for my PR’s (personal records) if you’re interested.

This is from the 1500 my senior year, I had ran the 10k the day before so my legs were all wacked out - I ran the first 400m in 60, think I managed to finish with around a 4:03

PR’s:

1500m: 4:01 (4/26/2003)
One Mile: 4:27 (4/8/2006)
3000m: 8:36 (4/21/2006)
3000m Steeple Chase: 10:00 (4/2/2005) *placed 1st and was first and last time running that event, in the snow
5k: 14:51 (4/15/2005)
8k (cross country): 25:44 (10/15/2005)
10k: 32:40 (4/22/2005)