Comments (33)

By kilax, June 8, 2010 6:03 pm

I am usually so far behind in reading blogs that when I do get around to leaving comments, I am leaving comments on multiple posts, that could be days old… all at once. Is that annoying? Does it annoy you when people leave a lot of comments on multiple posts on your blogs within a few minutes?

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I just wonder because that seems to be the only way I can stay caught up. And that is with skipping the stuff I don’t feel it’s necessary for me to comment on.

I may have asked this before, but when do you read blogs?

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I read them while commuting on the train. So, being in DC for a week really screwed me over in that regard! It kind of screwed me over in a lot of ways. It totally threw me off whack, schedule-wise, health-wise and work-wise (unfortunately) and coupled with two back-to-back weekend trips to Iowa, I am feeling overwhelmed and worn out. But I swear, I can see the light in the end of the tunnel!

Anyway, I am curious about your blogging habits/thoughts. I am not stressed about being behind in my reading, I just miss it!

Comments (26)

By kilax, June 6, 2010 2:08 am

Are you guys sick of reading my walking “race” reports? Don’t worry, I have good news: I’ll keep this one short, there is only one more after this, AND I am skipping the weekly recap again, so you don’t have to worry about making it through that.

Yesterday was the My Waterloo Days 5K, which I signed Steven and myself up for a few weeks ago when I knew we were going to be in Iowa for the weekend and my legs didn’t feel like crap.

Fast forward to this week, my leg(s?) is (are) still messed up, and I saw a doctor Friday (more on that below). He told me to go ahead and walk this 5K and next week’s half marathon, but not to run unless I wanted to aggravate my leg more.

Steven was a good sport and walked with me, even though it was raining. I thought it would have been nice to actually run in this rain!

Mom, sister and me – do we look alike?

And, my parents, sister and her boyfriend even came to watch us walk. How boring for them nice is that? I was so excited they were there. Who is your favorite spectator?

I thought Steven and I did really well for walking. We averaged 13:43 minutes overall and had negative splits. And we decided we were the first place “walkers” since the people in front of us would walk, then jog a bit when we caught up to them then get some space between us and start walking again. We walked the entire time. Ha ha.

I will admit, I missed running. I did a bit of mall walking to be funny and that aggravated my leg. Smart move.

Update: Garmin Connect Link here

Distance: 3.10 | Time: 42:31 | 1: 14:16 | 2: 13:40 | 3: 13:16 | 4: 1:18

So, what did the sports medicine doctor say on Friday? Well, like every other first appointment with a doctor he couldn’t figure out what was wrong with me and concluded that I need more testing. He did have some ideas and suggestions (this is for a left leg that is sometimes locking and pulsing with pain).

Ideas:

• I may have bursitis in my left knee (meaning a sac of fluid is swollen there)
• My interior right shin may still be healing from last summer (wtf?)
• My exterior left shin might be the beginning of a stress fracture, but is unlikely
• I overpronate more on my left leg
• Running slower may have messed up my natural gait and put too much stress on my joints

Suggestions:

• Get over the counter inserts for the Adrenalines
• Take a few vitamins to up my calcium intake
• Ice for 15 min 3x a day, rest and take 4 ibuprofen 3x a day (already doing this)
• Continue to stretch and use foam roller (2x up and down each muscle group per day, every day)
• Steroid shot in the knee

We decided that I should get a lower leg bone density scan and see what is going on, before we develop a plan of attack. The scan will be on Thursday and I will meet with the doctor again on Friday (if my boss approves the time off). Hopefully nothing will show up and he will just tell me to take a few weeks off, then start back up (hopefully not too slowly). And for the good/bad news:

Good news:

• Overall, my muscles are not tight
• I am feeling optimistic
• The doctor said that taking time off now should not prevent me from running the Chicago Marathon – that’s all I wanted to hear –  let’s hope I can get him to repeat that next Friday

Bad news:

• I feel like I am being selfish by being so concerned about this, and that is may be a waste of my time and money. There are more important things in life than running, right?
• I have to walk a half marathon that I really wanted to run. At least I get to do it with Tori!

Comments (35)

By kilax, June 4, 2010 5:44 am

Are you typically early, right on time, or late to events you have to attend (including work)? Or is your punctuality not something that is typical for you? Is it more random?

This guy must really be running late for work if he is on the beach!

I try to be early or right on time to everything I attend – work, work meetings, meet-up with friends… and I always try to arrive early at races I am running! Being late to a scheduled event causes me extreme anxiety, even living in an area like Chicago, where you have no control over whether your train is on time, or traffic (and how late it will make you).

I often think I try to be so punctual because I remember waiting to be picked up from school and school activities when I was a kid (sorry, mom) – and I didn’t like it. But I think it is respectful to show up on time to most things, unless it’s a party… and even then, I have a hard time showing up too “late”!

Comments (42)

By kilax, June 2, 2010 5:17 am

It’s been about three weeks since I tortured myself by running 10 painful miles* then using a hoe for 3 hours Steven and I planted our seeds/bulbs and a few things are popping up!

Okay, mostly onions:

some cucumber:

uh… green beans (PLEASE PLEASE GROW YOU LITTLE GUYS!):

And what has the potential of being lettuce** (my mom told me it’s not a weed if it grows in a straight line right where I happened to plant seeds):

Now, I have something really exciting/creepy to show you guys, but first, I must show you Steven’s watering technique:

(That is before we got smart and brought empty cat litter containers)

There is a big container of water for the gardens (and they village says they water twice a week) but the container is at least 100 feet away from our garden… which is a lot to walk when you have to make 5 or more trips carrying 2 full cat litter containers of water!

So we’ll have buff (or, buffer, for me) arms by the end of summer.

On to the exciting/creepy – when we were first planning our garden we decided to grow sweet potatoes, BUT, could not find the little starter spud things for them anywhere. Since Steven is super resourceful, he figured out how to make them at home.

You cut the bottom of a sweet potato off, and put it in a jar so that part of it is above water and part of it is below, like so:

We started the sweet potatoes on 5/8/10

After a few weeks, they start to look really creepy (picture taken 5/29/10):

They grow out these vines called “slips” as well as create roots through the potato.

Slip

Potato roots (and you can see a slip starting to grow)

After the slips grow, you take them out of the potato, put them in water, then the slip grows roots. Then you can plant the slip. We still have a ways to go. Only one potato seems to be a go-getter. The others are lagging.That’s okay – we still need to buy and plant tomatoes and peppers! It will be a late harvest!

I must be getting in to this whole “gardening” thing since I am watching the forecast and hoping for rain (okay, that might be because I don’t want to haul water…).

Any sweet potato recipes to share? I don’t think I have ever had one.

*I am not celebrating National Running Day… as I cannot run.
**Or as I told Holly this weekend, salad. Yes, I am growing salad.

Comments (20)

By kilax, June 1, 2010 5:03 pm

Sometimes I just have to write a whiny post, save it as a draft, and never publish it. Maybe in a few months I will stumble across it and get a good laugh.

Do you ever write out posts just to get things off your chest, and never use them? What do you feel like whining about today? Please tell me, becuase my whining seems unwarranted.