Category: Health

The 4th

~ meh ~ 6 Comments

The 4th of July is quickly becoming one of my favorite days of the year.  And I don’t even like fireworks.

First off, they line the entire main street in town with these little tiny American flags.  I have no idea how long it took someone to do this.

Secondly, Wednesday off work.  WHATTUP.

Then of course was the BG 10K.

I ran the race last year as part of an 11 mile training run.  This year, my long training runs are over (YESS!!) and I haven’t done a very good job at keeping my running up to par, so this time around it was just for fun.

To make things even more fun, it was almost 80 degrees with 87% humidity at 7am.

My entire in-law family did the race.  Paul ran with his dad, and my sister-in-law and ran with their mom.  I ran with my friend J whose goal was to not walk at all (she has been known to take this race out a little too fast) or barf before mile 4.

the starting line

I absolutely love love love this race.  To me, it embodies the all of the good things about living in small-town America.  Most of the run is through downtown and on one main tree-lined road.  Everybody and their mother is out, either running or hungover on the side of the road supporting somebody.  The entire course is lined with people cheering and little kids holding signs and the owners of the houses along the route hosing you down.  There is a band at mile 4 wearing boating hats and that plays When the Saints Go Marching In.  Everyone is in a good mood.  Every time I run this I feel like I’m in a movie.

Anyway, J and I made our way down the vomit-lined chute (the heat was a problem) without walking once.  There was also no barfing, and she PRed by like 2 minutes.  Win.

For my sister-in-law, 10K was the furthest distance she had ever run by like 2 miles.  She came in at just over an hour…and ralphed at the finish line.  Another win.

Because the temperature just kept going up and up, after the run we headed over my sister-in-law’s boyfriend’s mother’s pool (get that?) where we lounged around and his mom served us post-race spiked lemonade and snacks.  It was…amazing.

And of course the evening ended with America-inspired dessert.

Special shout out to my sister who is serving over in Afghanistan and celebrated the 4th by getting beat in a 5K run by a bunch of Spaniards at her base.  I asked her how it was and she said, “Hot.”   Which probably trumps the hot we felt here.

How to prepare for a race in the heat

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The long taper into the 4th of July 10K continues.

This weekend it was over to Denver to visit some friends.

…where, like most of the country, it was blazin’ hot. We avoided the fires, but it was still too hot to run. So I figured the best preparation would be a lot of walking

…in between breweries.

Which resulted in the impulse purchase of a cheap pair of sunglasses that look almost exactly like the ones I already have.

hipster

And a few tasty snacks to cool us off.

And some of this.

I’m ready to PR.

Small and Tiny

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Paul asked me the other day, “Have you seen our raspberries?”

We planted our berries over a year ago, and the raspberry bush is the only one that survived (Spike ate the blueberry plant and the blackberries just never came to fruition…literally.)  So the fact that this plant was producing its first berries was pretty exciting.  I told him, no, I hadn’t, and he said, “I tried one and it was DELICIOUS.”

So yesterday when I was out feeding las pequenas and watering the garden, I stopped by to take a look at these delicious berries.

They are about the size of my pinky fingernail.  I am (kind of) surprised Paul ate it.

So while our chickens have been producing mondo eggs, our produce seems to be taking an alternative route.  Much like the tomatoes, our berries appear to be dwarfed.  It has been brutally hot here, and we haven’t gotten a lot of rain, so maybe that’s why.

And speaking of our eggs (which I promise, will stop soon), this morning Romy unleashed one egg to rule them all.

Those eggs next to it are the big ones in this picture.  It weighs like 5lbs.  A monster.

It’s going to be a hot hot weekend almost everywhere.  Stay cool and be sure to hydrate before you recreate.

Trials

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The European Cup (Paul is obsessed), Olympic Trials (craziness in track and field), NBA draft (huge for Kentucky), the Tour de France (starting this weekend)…it’s an interesting phenomenon watching all these amazing athletic feats going on while your own body slowly turns into a pile of mush.

This past week from 8-9pm every night has been devoted to watching swimming.  I really think I enjoy Trials more than the actual Olympics. They are so fricking exciting.

And while the whole Phelps/Lochte thing is so overdone, and Rowdy Gains and Dan Hicks feel the need to sit in each other’s laps while they announce (see above), there are moments like this:

breeja larson winning the 100 breast, first time an A&M swimmer has ever won at olympic trials

…and this…

matt grever’s family celebrating his olympic berth (picture taken by a friend who is attending the event…awesome)

…and this.

first olympic team for both of them

I pretty much tear up after every race.

So far I have been the only one home when they’re on, so I settle in with Spike and a box of popsicles (it’s been like 90* here at night, ridiculously hot) and yell and cheer and scare the dog while slowly making my way through the box.  It takes a lot out of you. And kind of feels like exercise.  I recommend it.

P.S. Germany just lost to Italy in the European Cup.   It’ll be a sad night at the in-laws.

Eggnormous

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Tired of these titles yet?  Never realized there was SO MUCH TO TALK ABOUT when it comes to eggs, did you?

Maybe because I hadn’t seen a store-bought egg in a while, but I didn’t realize how much bigger ours were.  When you put them next to each other (these are cage-free, vegetarian store bought eggs), R&Ms eggs look enormous.  You can’t even get the carton closed.

Speaking of food and fatness, since Hawaii I haven’t really been working out.  But now that I have more time in the mornings, I figured I would walk or ride my bike to work every day (haven’t driven once since I got back) and that would make up for it.

Turns out one hour of walking a day does not equal 3 hours of intense cardio in terms of calories burned.  Weird.

my “cardio” the past 3 weeks

So anyway, because I wasn’t totally stoked on my performance in Hawaii, I had been seriously considering doing another 70.3 in September at Cedar Point.  It’s a Rev3 event, and the race is supposed to be fun, the course is flat, and it’s not too far to travel.  I gave myself a week off to think it over.

One week turned into three and a half weeks, and yesterday I finally admitted to myself that I a.) was officially out of shape, and b.) didn’t really want to put in the training for another long race.  There’s something to be said for coming home after work and being like oh, guess what, I’m going to go for a short run, cook dinner, and watch 3 straight hours of Pretty Little Liars instead of a 2 hour ride on the trainer followed by TRX.

To counteract my feelings of extreme lardiness, I decided to sign up for something small, just to get me off my butt.  Good thing the Bluegrass 10K is next week!

An even better thing is my friend J is running it and is looking to hold a pace that I should theoretically be able to hang with.  So we’re going to “pace” each other.  (ie, I’m going to try to keep up and try not to barf all over/embarrass myself.)  I’m hoping my long taper and the superhuman eggs will give me some superhuman speed.

J has also issued a finish line photo contest, like the one we had at MiM.  Lucky for her, this happens to be my specialty.

If we do manage to finish together, it could be epic.

Tomaten!

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Our first crop.  I threw in a screw for size reference.  These things are tiny.  I don’t know if Paul is picking them too early of they are just dwarfed for some reason.

These were our tomatoes about a month ago:

They have since exploded.

And apparently they’re all roma (we forgot to put labels in the pots.  Oops.)

Enough of that gripping topic.  Today I jet off to Boston for my cousin Jess’s wedding. Family events with either side of my family always involve a million people and chaos.  They’re my fav.

Oh, and speaking of family, yesterday my parents celebrated their 44th wedding anniversary.  That…is a long time.  In honor of them, and since I can’t find pictures from the olden days, here is a picture of the two of them overlooking the ocean in SF last year…with me interrupting in the middle.  Just like real life.

…and to wrap up this pretty pointless post…enjoy your weekend.

I’m never gonna be a professional marathoner

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I didn’t see this ASICS ad when it came out last fall to promote the NYC Marathon, but it’s awesome.  A 60-foot interactive wall video in the Columbus Circle subway station that lets you race marathon Olympian Ryan Hall for 60 feet at his marathon pace.  Not to ruin the surprise, but basically nobody can keep up.  For 60 feet.  But what an inventive way to engage people.

And 4:46 a mile is totally absurd.

Egglightenment

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Paul is on a soft boiled egg kick.

Fortunately, we have this hand-crocheted egg warmer shaped like a chicken (a wedding gift from Paul’s German aunt, she made them), boiled egg holders, and special spoons to scoop the eggs out of the shell.  So at least we were properly equipped when his craving kicked in.

Apparently the Germans take their soft boiled eggs seriously.

We also happen to be overflowing with eggs (anyone local interested in some fresh eggs, let me know.)  Romy and Michelle are UNSTOPPABLE.

…and for your enjoyment, the best way to peel a hard boiled egg, courtesy of Tim Ferris.

Consider yourself enlightened.

Happy Monday.

Rambulating

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burp

I have been a lazy piece since I got back from Hawaii.  Largely because I have been (self-)prescribed rest to recover from my injury, I’ve worked out exactly 0 times.

I have, however, started walking everywhere I can…including the 2 miles to work and 2 miles home every day until I get back into some sort of schedule.  Rain or shine.  I figured that in addition to just moving, on the sunny days, if I wear shorts in the afternoon, it might help get rid of my attractive race tan lines that will. not. go. away.

Plus it’s a nice way to start and end the workday.

breaking free

Paul is 2 weeks out from Boards, so I’ve been seeing him just about never.  The chickens are still kickin ass and taking names, though Michelle has started laying her eggs from one of the perches inside the coop.  If the straw isn’t positioned correctly on the ground to catch the egg, it breaks.  So we’re working on a better answer to that problem.

Paul also moved Spike’s old doghouse into their pen and filled it with straw, hoping they’d start laying inside.  So far all they’ve done is go in every day and kick all the straw out.  Every morning, Paul goes out there and puts the straw back inside.  It’s a battle of wills.

Figuring out what’s up next this weekend.  Getting back into the swing of things.

Blowing in the Wind

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photo by liz kreutz, via

So, I didn’t say a lot about the actual race in my last post, but I was looking through some race day photos by sports photographer Liz Kreutz, and this one of Lance Armstrong does a pretty good job of capturing how strong the winds on the Queen K and the road up to Hawi were that day.  I was essentially terrified for 3 hours.  Those trade winds are no joke.

And below, the stupid lava fields.