My Mom Rocks

It's that time of year when my mom's gutters get full of leaves (on her house - in case there's any confusion) and so I help her out. We've come up with a system that works well for us. I start by climbing up a rickety old ladder my Dad used when he was in construction over 20 years ago, then she hands up the yellow broom and then her leaf blower. I dig out the thick sessions, sweep out the rest and then blow the crap out of it all. It's fun.

Today was a beautiful fall day, so I was excited to be on the roof. Plus I had baked a bit this morning so I was in a good mood. And it's always fun to hang out with mom. So I had her take some photos.

I was feeling pretty "high and mighty" as it were. :)

Yep - this is my normal look during this event. The fun part is when the wind would blow back the leaves down my shirt, into my bra, and sometimes even down my pants. You gotta love leaves.

My Halloween costume. Oh wait, maybe this is just me on a normal day. :)

My mom rocks... she raked the whole backyard and then sucked up and mulched all the leaves, then stuffed the leaf bags and took them to the dump. And she's in her 60's. She's amazing and makes me really happy. Love her! She amazes me every day!

Marathon Weekend

Last weekend I ran a nearby marathon. Normally I run my TCM, but I had to work that weekend and I think I was (am) still a little bitter about it.

First, let me just say that it's amazing how things sometimes just don't go your way. The morning started rough - not the race, the morning as a whole. The night before there was a huge party downstairs in the hotel which kept us up until 2am. Actually, I think I slept through the first stint, woke up briefly at 10:30, then again at 12:30, then 2, then 3:30 then 4:30 when we had to get up anyway.

The hotel had set up a shuttle for runners to leave at 6:10 - 6:10! for an 8am race? UGH! I spent most of the morning going back and forth between skirt and tights. I ended up opting for skirt because I knew by the time the marathon was finishing up (for me) I'd be uber warm. But not realizing that the starting area had almost zero shelters (one bus stop was available but packed until about 7:30, and porta potties which I hung out in as long as I could), I should have gone with the tights. Hindsight...

Anyway, the race started out great. I loved it! I was cruising (for me) along the first mile with the 5hr pace group because I didn't want to start out too fast, but I was feeling awesome. I didn't think I really picked up pace but suddenly I was about 50 ft behind the 4:45 group and still feeling awesome. My mind was clear, I was loving this, I started doing the math of how to finish strong at 5:13 (my goal) because I knew I'd fall back a little, but still staying strong to stay just behind the 4:45 group.

This was working great, even up the 5mile hill (I even said to a woman after she said, "you conquered that hill!", "There was a hill?" with a grin - I felt great.) and then I hit the down hill, left turn slope between 6 and 7 and my knees started screaming. Uh oh.

I made it down the hill, walked briefly and then headed up the immediate steep hill on the other side. I almost made it up without walking, but had to accommodate a bit for the knee pain. Got to the top and I was now about 200 ft behind the 4:45 but still in front of 5. Okay, i can do this.

And then the knees began their gradual pain and spasm frenzy. At 10 I was passed by the 5hr group. At 13 I wanted to drop but didn't know where MS was or how to get a hold of him for him to know (i don't run w/ my phone - he had it and was biking to meet me along the route). So I pressed forward. At 14 I met MS, way behind 5hr but ahead of 5:30 and I could walk, but when I ran the jarring would move the pain around my knees. But I kept pressing forward.

Also during this time I realized that I had tied my shoes when my feet were cold, and so as my feet heated up and swelled up, the shoes were just a wee bit too tight and with that pressure caused pain on the tops of my ankles (right where the tongue meets the leg). That wasn't fun either.

Just before 17 I met up with MS and had a mini-breakdown for a mile, sobbing, trying to run or at least shuffle, and freaking out about my time. I was still okay having passed 15 at 3:05, but I was still freaking out. He biked ahead to meet me at 18 which was at the bottom of this really steep hill which is where my true breakdown occurred. He helped me through that and then rode ahead to find a medic and an ace bandage for my knees.

He found one at mile 20 and wrapped my left one which was hurting the worst at the time. That helped and I was able to shuffle some more off and one. At 21 we wrapped the right knee but he taped it a bit tight so we had to pull that off at 22. After that I was on my own. I couldn't risk anymore stops for time - I just had to keep moving forward.

So the rest of the race was shuffle-walking and trying to press forward. Every hill was supposedly "the last one" which was pissing me off. I love volunteers, don't get me wrong, but know the route people! The last part was also a lot of backtracking (at least how i felt) and that sucked. I also don't think we needed to run through the little barnyard part in the park but whatever.

One of the bikers, Hartman, rode with me 24 to the end which was great. He kept my mind off of things while he asked me questions about training and which marathons I really like (TCM!). I ended up finishing, but so not with the time I wanted. I know I finished and that's a great accomplishment but I'm not making my 5hr time that I really want. And the race official's were still nice enough to give me my finisher's shirt and medal even though I was 5 minutes long. But considering my Garmin had it at 6.41, I figure I deserve it. :) Yeah, official time 6:05:23. Sucky.

I did decide that this is way too late in the season for me to run. My mind isn't completely in the game as work tends to encompass my life in October, so if I can't run TCM, or something no later than a week after that, I won't be running one that year (or I'll have to run earlier). But I'm not running this one again. It was decent, but the hills were way too brutal on my knees.

One happy thought - this was a weird year for me...but a good one. I ran 4 new races - Fargo 5K, Fargo half, Jack 15 and now this one (on top of my Irishman in March and 10K in May). That's a step up for me - a girl of routine. But I think next year, I'll be back to my normal routine. I do know that I don't have to work during TCM next year, so at least that one will be on track. Now, I just need to rest for a bit and then find a decent training program and use it. I also have about 20-30 pounds to lose, which would help immensely. But for now, I just need to rest and get better.

Running with friends

Got to run with my friend, Eric H., today! Woot! We haven't seen each other in few years (since grad school) so we spent a lot of the run talking, which is great for people who can run fast and talk. I'm not one of those, so I struggled and made Eric walk a lot more than he usually does. But it was great to catch up! And a beautiful day for a run.

One fun moment, we're coming to the end of our run so I wasn't sure if I was hallucinating or not, but I could have swore I saw a woman on a bike coming toward us with a snowy owl on her shoulder. Then I thought it must just be a white plastic bag wrapped around something and sticking out of her backpack. But THEN as she got closer it turned out to BE a bird - a parrot we decided - a white one. We weren't sure but it sure looked that way, so Eric turned around to confirm. Yep! How insane is that? And of course, neither of us had a camera so you'll have to take our word on it.

Eric also brought me a scotcheroo as a treat. Each Thursday he goes to his local coffee place and has a scotcheroo and posts this on FaceBook. So every Thursday I "live vicariously" through him. Long story, but that was a tasty way to finish a great run. Now I owe him cookies. :)

Women's Expo

Mom and I have a standing date for the women's expo that's in town. I take the day off and we go early to camp out in hopes of getting one of the free 200 gift bags. So far we've done well in getting them.

This year, we got there around 10 (the doors open at 2) and we sat, chatted and played some cribbage while we waited. Once we got in the doors, we bee-lined for a corner to go through our bags. Last year we didn't until we got home and we discovered there were a bunch of coupons and specials IN the bag that we didn't get to use because we were supposed to take them to the booths directly. So this year we made a point to go through the bag first.

But this time, there wasn't much in the bag for coupons, but we did get some cool stuff. The expo itself was fun. Mom and I always have a good time at this, and it's fun to have a Mom/Daughter day.

And we have our calendar's marked for next year. :)

Jack 15

Ran 15.28 miles this morning. Just for fun. Yep. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Truly though, I used this race as a training run. I have a marathon coming up in 4 weeks and I needed a decent, forced if you can call it that, long run.

The race was interesting - very small and also a relay. Most of the 100 runners were running the relay of varying amounts. Only 35 or so of us ran the full thing. I don't mind relays but when I'm running behind someone, using them as a guide to keep my pace going and then they stop at 7.5 and their super-speedy boyfriend takes over the last half, it's a little dejecting.

But my first hour was awesome. I was averaging a 10min/mile pace. Seriously! I finished mile 6 at 1:01. How insane is that? That really took me by surprise - especially since part of that - a couple miles or so - was on gravel! Thank God I have been training on gravel. That really helped.

But my next hour was rough. I really dropped in pace and motivation. My head wasn't in it, I was struggling to keep a decent breath, and I had a stitch in my side that would not go away. So I was at about 10.5 when I hit hour 2 and met up with MS.

The last hour went better. I realized if I got my pace back up I could almost make my same time I had in a half marathon 2 years ago. I was off by a minute or two for that mileage, but it made me feel so much better. My pace wasn't as bad as I thought. I was doing pretty well considering. So my mojo came back and I did better for the last hour. And I was able to pass one more person (granted he was, like, 90, but still) and that helped too.

The finish line was kind of pathetic. And there wasn't chip timing, but overall it wasn't a bad run. One of the bad things was that we were running to a specific landmark which you could see at mile 10.5 - that sucked because you knew to where you were running, but you also knew just how far away it really was. Uffda. It was at that point that I got a little sad that I don't get to run TCM next week. The best part of that race is that you don't see the finish until you're almost right on top of it so it's always there to look forward to reaching. Today, I just kept looking at the finish and wondering why it was taking me so long to get there.

Anyway, I'm happy with my time (2:56:18) and after today the meals will get back on track to help me get ready for the marathon. I'm hoping for a good time this year. I need it and I've been working hard for it.

Gearing up! And a woot!

I finally figured out my Garmin and I CAN get my splits once I download or upload, rather, my info to my online tracking. WOOT! So the watch stays and will be used.

Tomorrow I'm running a race that is 15.2 miles. It starts in a small town (at the funeral home - which I really think should be the finish line) and down some highways and finish at the next town's college campus. It should be an interesting run. I've read ONE review which said, "This is a great race if you like rolling hills. And I mean a lot of rolling hills." So hills it shall be.

MS is schlepping for me tomorrow again. Yay! It'll be nice to have him to run to. And with my new watch it should be great. A race report will come tomorrow! Woot!

So I've been "woot"ing a lot lately. I'm not sure how this got into my vocabulary, but I kind of like it.

So WOOT! :)

Best quote from last night:

MS was talking with his friend SMC last night about my new toy and apparently SMC had asked him if I liked running enough to spend the money on a Garmin or something. MS said, "She's addicted to it. She just sometimes needs a kick in the pants to get going." And with that tapped my butt with his foot and mouthed, "Get moving!" with a smile.

So I did. :)

New toy

Over the weekend I bought a Garmin. A Garmin 110, to be specific. A lot of my running friends have one version or another and I thought maybe it was time for me to suck it up and get a decent running watch - one that calculates my pace for me, one that can tell me how many calories I burned, one that automatically laps each mile (or however I set it up) so I don't have to push the button. So I took the plunge.

And I love it!!! Last night after MS and I got home from Kari's (where we watched the Cowboys-Niners game) it was just too beautiful to not run. So I headed out with my new watch in hand (or on my arm as it were) and gave it a whirl.

So of course, I started out too fast and had my first mile, on loose gravel, in 9:31. Holy crap. That scared me and had me out of breath so I walked for a bit to regroup. The rest of the run was awesome and I discovered that, per the Garmin, my run is 4.07 miles instead of the 3.77 I usually map it out to be. YAY! More miles!

The only drawback, and maybe I can figure it out, is that now that my run is done, I can't go back and look at my splits. My friend Sara's does, but she has a 210. I'm not sure I like that part. Maybe when I upload my runs, the splits will show up. If not, I may be taking it back and shelling out more money for a higher version. If it does, then I'm good. Most of the higher models have a lot of bells and whistles that I just don't need, so why waste the money. And maybe my splits aren't that important - just the overall pace, which I get. Maybe. :)

Ba-lloon

Everytime I hear the word "balloon" I think of Mindy from "Buttons & Mindy" on Animaniacs (or was it Tiny Toons?). Anyway... the way she said it always made me smile. I was trying to find it on youtube but of course I can't remember the episode and I'm at work so I shouldn't be doing that anyway.

ANYWAY...I digress. So yesterday I got some bad news at work. Not really bad because for the person it directly affects it's a great thing, but for me it sucks a$$. It's a long story and I can't & won't go into it here, but it sucks.

So last night as I was falling asleep I was dreaming about a balloon. It was purple and it was rising up into the air. Suddenly it popped and my hand, which was holding MS's (yes, I know - ewwww!) flopped up and down on the bed and I jerked awake.

It was disturbing so, as has been the theme as of late, I looked up what dreaming about balloon's means:

from dreamforth.com:
To dream of balloons represents deflating aspirations and difficulty in life. Something in your life could spiral downhill. Balloons are also indicative of an overinflated ego. Black balloons signify depression, especially if they are falling to earth.

To dream of a rising balloon means that situations in your life are working to elevate above you. This is your inner yearning to break free of it. Balloons within dreams also signify gatherings and joyous parties. You should revisit your inner youth.

If a balloon pops in your dream, this represents an aspiration that has not yet been realized. This could also be indicative of pressure in your life that is becoming unbearable.

and from sleeps.com
To dream of seeing balloons in your dream indicates a dashing of hope on any and all fronts, business or love, as well as a general falling off of all kinds of businesses you may be involved in. If you are ascending in a balloon this is an omen of especially frustrating conditions in your life.

The latter seems real - dashing of hope and frustrating conditions. Oh well. It's not the end of the world, but it does suck and right now, as I kept telling the person who told me this yesterday, "I'm not happy."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=19TBzy81Mac

Running

Last Friday I had to complete my fitness assessment for work. So this is situps, pushups and a 1.5 mile run. I also had to have my waist measured.

My waist measurement was my scariest moment. I've yo-yo'd so much this year and last week I was back up, which isn't good. So measuring my waist was scary. Luckily the gals measuring measure differently than I do and measure smaller, so I was good.

Up next: situps and pushups. Last year I struggled with these but this year I rocked it. 51 situps with so much ease I could have kept going. 40 pushups that were a little more rough (I rested more than I needed or should have) but still that was 12 more than last year at this time. Woot!

Then I had Casey pace me again and this year my goal was 14:30. Last year I was sloooowww, and I needed to improve that this year. So 14:30 was the goal. We started out and I felt really good, and at one point she even said, "Um, you're about a minute faster on pace than you wanted to be...we should slow down a bit." So we did...but we were doing great. I was even able to talk a bit - a minute bit that is. :)

The bad thing was my shins were cramping which wasn't fun. And then the last half my quads started to get tight. But we kicked it in and I ended up finishing in 13:47.

!!!!!13:47!!!!!

I'm so stoked! Last year was 15:46... almost a full 2 minutes off my time from last year. AND it's my fastest time in the last 5 years, and probably my fastest ever. All day I kept saying, "13:47!" at random moments.

So at least, despite my weight issue, my legs are strong and my will is powerful. 6 weeks to Mankato. :)

Mini-vacay

MS and I took a little road trip this week so we could meet up with his best friends (and so I could get approval). So we headed to the hills for some fun. It was a nice relaxing couple of days with no worries, lots of fresh air, and great people to be around.

MS's best friend took this photo...happiness all around.

And more

This is almost getting funny...yet they aren't.

So last night's dream found me in a hospital waiting the impending birth of my mom's newest child.

Yes, you read that right. My Mom was pregnant in the dream.

She was just about to pop and so we...

You know...nevermind. This one is just disturbing on many levels - it wasn't just mom, there was another family there who had a horrible moment. I remember the other lady was wearing a white basketball uniform with green lettering being carried by two guys into the next room and her toenails were watermelon green. After that, the rest was just sad.

Nevermind.

More dreams

This one was short but by far my favorite.

Last night I dreamed that K showed up unexpectedly, because she sensed that I needed to be with a dear friend, and she brought the Nikanator along. It was great. After big hugs from both of them, K went to get Nika something and Nika yelled out, "Don't forget to bring one for Sara!"

My heart was all warm and fuzzy.

Miss you all - K, E and Nika. :) *hugs*

Car

I dreamt about a car again last night. This time my mom and dad were helping my 2nd nephew to buy a car. We were in the cities and met up with some guy who had a parking ramp in his basement where he stored the cars he sold. He had ONE for sale - a dusty rose colored 4-door wagon of sorts. It was kind of ugly but my 2nd nephew seemed to like it and so we took it for a test drive. I sat in the back seat behind the driver, my nephew, who pushed the seat back so far and then leaned it back so far that I could poke him all the way down his back. Weird. That was about the excitement of it.

So after all these car dreams, I decided to look up what this all means in a dream dictionary. I don't take a lot of stock in this but it's been 3 car dreams in a week so something's going on in my brain (besides poor diet).

So here you go:
To dream that you are driving a car denotes your ambition, your drive and your ability to navigate from one stage of your life to another. Consider how smooth or rough the car ride is. If you are driving the car, then you are taking an active role in the way your life is going. However, if you are the passenger, then you are taking a passive role. If you are in the backseat of the car, then it indicates that you are putting yourself down and are allowing others to take over. This may be a result of low self-esteem or low self-confidence. Overall, this dream symbol is an indication of your dependence and degree of control you have on your life.

So in a couple of my dreams I was navigating my life - but apparently not well if I'm driving an AMC Pacer in one and a truck that I can't keep in the right lane and end up running over trees and boulevards. Uffda. Of course later I looked up truck and here's what that means:

Truck: To see a truck in your dream suggests that you are overworked. You are taking on too many tasks and are weighed down by all the responsibilities.

Well that's completely true. This past week (weeks) has been rough. It's end of fiscal year for us and we're constantly trying to tie up a bunch of loose ends on top of continuing training for a big training event we have coming up in a week that I have no idea what I'm doing for it. I'm slowly going insane. No...I may already be there. I'm sure this isn't helping my blah feeling today either. But what do you do?

Blah, icky day

So it's been 17 years. Yep, 17 years since my Dad died. 17 years to the day, to the day of the week even. It's been kind of a slap in the face, which shocks me after all these years. I'm not weepy sad, just blah sad. It just kind of sucks that he's not around anymore. So much has changed that he's missed, where we've missed having him around. It's just sad.

Weird dreams

I know that my eating habits influence so much more of my life. This week has been awful for food. The other day my lunch was a Snickers and Diet Dew. I've been eating a lot of Jimmy John's too, which isn't necessarily bad, but not really good either.

But when my dreams turn wacko I know I need to work on what I'm eating. The other night I dreamt that I traded in Morty for this:


Yes, that's an AMC Pacer. But mine was purple. PURPLE. I know...I'm struggling here.

Last night, I dreamt that I was borrowing RAC's truck and I struggled to drive it because it was SO big that I couldn't turn it down the right road. In fact, at one point, I went around a building, in through the delivery door and parked in the popcorn store where I wanted to go. Somehow the truck fit in the store with no damage to the store at all. When I got out of the car, a pilot I know (who had a full beard - odd) told me he had watched me drive outside and was thankful that he hadn't gotten hit since I almost took a tree when I went over the boulevard to get the truck back in the right driving lane. Whatever. Then I looked for popcorn (because it was supposed to be a specialty popcorn shop) and all the place had was 4 boxes of factory popcorn, but a whole refrigerated case full of various kinds of cheesecake. So I ordered a chocolate covered cherry topped cheesecake. I wanted it in a box to go but the lady didn't understand me, so I ended up just taking it out in a small paper dish thing.

Yeah, I need to eat better. Help.

Notes to self

Don't write down on a running log that you're going to run later in the day because you know it's never going to happen.

Don't NOT run in the morning just because you think you're tired. The run will do you good and you know you won't get it done later in the day.

When you wake up in the morning, RUN. Don't think about it, just go.

In summary: Run in the morning as soon as you get it up if you want to run at all.

1 mile

I ran a mile today.

In some circumstances that would be a profound statement, but usually for me this is just a warm up. But today, the good thing about this 1 mile is that I ran it in 8:59.

The pessimist in me figures that the "mile" we run isn't actually a mile, but maybe. I mapped it out on Map My Run and from corner to corner it's 1.05, so maybe. I really should get a Garmin so I can actually map what I run. For now, that's pretty damn impressive for me - especially, this morning when it was so humid the guys I was running with said it felt like running through soup.

But hey, the optimist in me says that this time is awesome. I'm excited that I could make it in 9 minutes because that means that next week when I do my fitness test for work, when I have to run a mile and a half, I should make it in 14:30 which is my goal. If I can make it faster I'll be stoked.

Today, I downloaded all my training since January 30, 2009, which was all my log (DailyMile.com) still had listed. Based on the latter, I'm glad I downloaded all of these today. I don't want to lose any more, and I know that I had more before 2009. So now I have something I can fall back on. It was interesting to see how much more I ran in 2009 (which was the year I had my PR for the TC Marathon). Last year I hardly ran at all. It's amazing I was even sort of able to finish.

So far this year, I'm doing well with running. I do need to get a few more miles in, but considering a year ago I ran a total of 10 miles in August and this month I ran 62, I think I'm doing better. And I do have a couple extra weeks before my marathon this year, AND I've been doing extra strength training which is great.

So I ran a mile. And today that mile was a PR. And I'm a happy camper. I can't wait for my long run tomorrow. It'll be less humid and I'm sure it will go well. And if it doesn't, there's always the next day and I'll learn from the run anyway.

Blogging...

Well, I guess that whole 24 days of blogging is out the window.

This month has been pretty crazy - a couple work trips, a lot of extra work shifts (Can you head the O'Jay's singing?), and a lot of just extra stuff. Every weekend has had something going on and if it hasn't, then MS and I have been trying to reconnect.

In light of the latter, MS and I spent one afternoon at a local lake so he could fish and I got 4 hours of minimally interrupted reading. He's also been working on (and finished yesterday) a clothes line for me. We've had lots of "discussions" regarding this project. I'll post pictures later. :)

And I've been running. My next marathon is coming up around the end of October, I think I have something like just shy of 8 weeks til the event, so running and FXB have been my life. I also signed up for a new race this next month - a 15.2 run where you start in one town (at the funeral home!) and run to the next town (a college town) and finish on their campus. It's all road racing which should be interesting with the cars that will be speeding by. When I signed up for that I was only one of 15 people who had signed up. Maybe I'll win a prize! HA! But apparently this has a lot of rolling hills which will be a good training run for the marathon.

Work is good...nothing exciting. Well some stuff exciting but not a lot. I've been working a lot of extra shifts to try to catch up on some projects, especially after being gone for 3 weeks. It's been helpful.

I think that's it. Not much going on in life, but I do miss writing. I need to do that more. I'll try, I promise. :)

Proud of myself

Being proud is a bad thing - it steams of arrogance. But I'm proud of myself that I actually blogged 23 days last month. Crazy! Let's see if I can get 24 this month. Ha!

Today was a good day. My mom had a hospital procedure today and asked me if I'd take her in and take her home when they were finished. I agreed. It's not that this is quality time with my Mom but we did get some time to talk when she was recovering and had a few laughs.

Then I got in my car to drive and drive and drive some more. I have a conference this week, so I'm about to embark on some good ol' fashioned learnin'. It should be fun, and a short week (which is good because I have a lot of work waiting for me back home).

And I'm excited that I'm writing here again today. Hopefully I can get back into this habit. I need to write...and more than just these mini posts I had last month. Slowly but surely I'll get back into this. I just need to get back into practice...kind of like I do with my planking. :)