Fat Ass Five

Boo and I might have spent New Year's Day, yesterday, in a rather non-traditional way - shopping for carpets - but there is a tradition in Vancouver that can knock you back substantially more than a hefty Visa bill.

The Fat Ass Fifty.

It's a run that meanders through the streets of Vancouver every New Year's Day. The "Fifty" refers to the kilometres being run. I'm not quite sure what the "Fat Ass" refers to, because you won't find many of those aforementioned body parts on any of the runners taking part.

As you might have gathered, neither Boo nor I partook in the run. This'd be a life-long non-starter for Boo. On the other hand, I did consider it - to the point of packing my running gear on New Year's Eve. A particularly nasty rain storm and a late New Year's Eve put the kaibosh on that run - but that was also over a decade and maybe 30 pounds ago.

We've been receiving some rather extraordinary e-mails lately from Merlot Boy, down under. Seems that, after he finished his visit to our fair shores back in September, he's gone on the wagon and stepped up his own running and training - resulting in a loss of 25 pounds. Personally, I'm not sure I've ever heard of an Aussie that doesn't drink - at least not for three months straight, but he swears by it. He's so hyped by all this that he's gearing up for another half marathon and toying with the idea of his first full marathon.

Now, I can hardly give up drinking - this goal of 2001 bottles is taking long enough as it is - but being buoyed by Merlot Boy's success, I did go for a bit of a jog (not exactly going fast enough to call it a run nowadays). I'll call it the Fat Ass Five. It might have been a bit off on the "five" part. I went somewhat further than 5 km but I know it wasn't 5 miles. I know, however, that I got the "Fat Ass" part pretty much down pat.

318. 2005 Blasted Church Merlot (VQA Okanagan)

To toast Merlot Boy's success and to celebrate my first run of this Olympic year, we pulled the cork on one of the wines that Boo and I served at our anniversary reception a couple summers back. I keep thinking that I'll do a post about the wines that we chose, but it won't happen with this wine. I think there might be one or two left that aren't on The List yet.

I was glad to see that the wine had held up for another year. Four years is hardly a long cellar life, but it wasn't that long ago that you wouldn't even think of laying a BC wine down in a cellar. Plus, there was still plenty of life left to the Blasted Church.

Just like there are still plenty of miles - hopefully - left to both Merlot Boy's and my running.