every walk is a sort of crusade
After two rocky legs that made for zero sleep, our flight from California landed in Louisville at 8:30 this morning. It was a quick drive back to Lexington, hop in the shower, a coffee the size of my head, and then off to work for back-to-back meetings all day. Wheeeeeee.
Sorry there aren’t more details at the moment, but I’ve gotta go faceplant in my pillow. More to come soon.
Paul put a little addition on the chicken coop.
Aaaah, rain. It is raining this morning. We got a few afternoon storms mid-week and the heat finally started to mellow out, thank goodness. Without our usual rain everything was starting to get all brown and parched…and look a lot like California. I was worried the garden wasn’t going to make it. Our flowers out front are dried husks of what they used to be.
So sad and ugly. That used to be a beautiful big blue delphinia bush. Some of the herbs took a serious beating from the heat too, especially the cilantro.
Our back lawn is brown, which is gross. And the chickens eggs the past few days have been smaller than usual, which is weird, so I’m blaming that on the weather too.
Speaking of the chickens, the whole time we’ve had them they have laid their eggs in their respective places: Romy is usually in the corner in a nest, and Michelle has been laying them from her perch in the coop. Yesterday morning I went out and found this:
Aw, nest love.
But not all is lost in our garden. The basils and oregano are hanging in there.
…and of course, the tomatoes. We had our first real harvest the other day.
They’re still small and they have a seriously weird shape with a pointy end, but they are tasty. And the Kentucky Colonel mint is kickin ass and taking names. That stuff grows like a weed. And with the rain scheduled to hang around this weekend, I’m hoping by next week things will start to perk up again.
This weekend we continue 2012: Year of the Airplane. Tonight Paul and I are hopping on a flight…TOGETHER…out to CA. He is done with boards (but his scores don’t come back till next week…so don’t bring it up) and we are spending a week at my parents place where my plans consist of laying in the sun and eating avocados.
But first, off to U of L to take a final for an online class I’ve been taking. Don’t be too jealous.
This is a really great story about a local Kentuckian serendipitously making his way to the World Series of Poker. If you have a minute, it’s worth the read (Dad, especially you.)
Yes, that’s right. Hotness to the max.
Weather forecast for today…and yesterday, and the day before that, and tomorrow: too hot to move with lots of humidity.
The good news about the heat is that it’s PERFECT weather to go enjoy a swim outside now that the public pools are open. And considering I’m registered for the Big Shoulders 5K open water swim in Chicago in September and have swam exactly twice in the past 5 weeks, this pool motivation is a good thing. Got a long swim workout with Allison on the calendar tomorrow morning to get the ball rolling.
Time to get back in the water. Aw hecks yeah.
The secret to these pools is to get there early, before the hairballs and bandaids take over.
Speaking of sporting events, BIG FAT SHOUT OUT to everyone who is racing the 70.3 in Munice, IN tomorrow. Please don’t melt. Remember, ice is your friend.
I’ll leave you with A Midsummer Evening’s Walk With Spike: In Pictures.
We got about a block before he plopped down and wouldn’t move. So he got carried home. Fortunately his baby pool was waiting for him there.
And yes, for reals. Dog ice cream. WTF Marsha.
Enjoy the weekend, stay cool.
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.
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.
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.
And a few tasty snacks to cool us off.
And some of this.
I’m ready to PR.
A The Roots / Carly Rae Jepsen jam session with preschool instruments. What more do you need on a Monday. The rainbow xylophone is clutch.
Per one of the comments, Questlove (bottom left) tries to play the recorder upsidedown around 2:32. Hilarious.
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.
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:
…and this…
…and this.
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.
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.
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.
Rambulatory Ambulatory 