Ham Sandwich Indicted!

The Ham Sandwich and Grandma Nana at Christmas--would you believe Grandma's 89?--The Ham Sandwich is clearly blessed with some good genetics. It's the first week of January--so of course, the Ham Sandwich (along with every other yahoo on the Internets) is starting off the year with some sort of reflective piece about the changeover. Looking back, 2010 was pretty eventful. The year started with the ending of one relationship, but ended with the beginning of a new one. In the middle, I ran my best time in the Columbus Half Marathon, continued my quest to create delicious pickles, and ate--OK, drank--the hottest pepper in the world (well, until this came along). I visited (and ate delicious food with) friends and loved ones in Boston, Philadelphia, and Petoskey, Michigan, made enough baked goods to single-handedly keep King Arthur Flour in business, and brewed my first batch of beer. As for 2011, it's shaping up to be pretty spectacular. I'm headed to Nepal in Marc...

...was how I was described by the woman "running" behind me single file on this past weekend's mid-winter Bataan Death March. Thanks, lady. I was on this ridiculous adventure because my New Year's resolution this year is to run a 5K every month. I figure it'll keep my occupied/in quasi decent shape (providing I actually do some training), and will give me a chance to increase my collection of performance t-shirts. Last Saturday marked the January race--the Fantastic Frigid 5K, squeeking in on January 31st. It was definitely frigid, but fantastic may be a bit of a stretch. The course was basically a 3.1 mile run through 6-12" of snow, with a layer of crusty ice on top. My goal, aside from not getting frostbite (it was 8 degrees), was to finish without tripping and falling into said snow. Which, for the record, I accomplished. It did however, take me just under 59:00 (by far the worst time I've ever run a 5K!!!!), since I spent large chunks of time trudg...