Comments (2)

By kilax, November 9, 2010 10:43 am

Just documenting that commenting turned itself off again.

I am so effing sick of this. I cannot figure it out.

I am noticing it happens every two weeks, on Tuesdays, if that means anything.

Update: I talked to my hosting service and they are the ones turning commenting off, because of “spam,” but they won’t tell me much about it. Great.

The old code didn’t work so I used this:

UPDATE wp_posts SET comment_status = ‘open’;

Comments closed on purpose.

Comments (35)

By kilax, November 8, 2010 6:28 am

What do you think is in this bag that I am taking to work today?

Something that warrants this face:

Yikes. Maybe nothing warrants that face. And I should especially rethink putting it on a public blog.

The bag has three old pairs of running shoes in it. I mentioned two weeks ago that I was going to recycle three pairs of shoes. I put the shoes in a bag in the garage and they just sat there. I wasn’t very active about looking in to a way to get rid of them… but it was sure on Steven’s mind! I told him I would look in to it last week, then, lo and behold, I saw a posting on our internal work website last Thursday asking people to bring old shoes in for the Nike program that turns old shoes in to turf on playgrounds (which I have mentioned before here). At that point I had no excuse!

I think the reason I wasn’t looking in to it (because sheer laziness) was that I feel bummed getting rid of these shoes. They have history!

My first pair of running shoes are in there – the Asics GT-2110s:

Those were good shoes. I ran my first 5Ks (in 2007 and 2008) in them. And never had any injuries. Goodbye Asics GT-2110s!

Next are the Brooks Adrenaline GTS 9s. My first pair of Adrenalines.

I ran our first half marathon in these, and kicked butt.

That doesn’t even look like me! Who is that girl?! Damn. I want my legs to look like THAT again. Less with the arm flailing while running though.

I always thought these were kind of ugly, and as you can see on the left shoe, the shoelace eating monster got to them (that would be Data). But they were still good shoes. Ta ta!

Any my third pair of Brooks Adrenaline GTS 9s.

I am on the fence with these. They were so pretty. I loved the red and the design at the toe of the shoe. But I wore these for most of this summer with those stupid Spenco inserts, and those things were a pain. Can you tell how much the heel wore down on these?

Good riddance.

I still have my second pair of Brooks Adrenaline GTS 9s* at home (they are my “muddy running shoes”),

my Brooks Adrenaline GTS10s* that I wore for the marathon (and a lot of other races, actually),

a pair of Asics (GT-1120s) in my gym locker at work, and my new Asics Gel-Cumulus 12s.

Phew. I feel better now, after writing all of this. Ha. What a waste of time though – this post and looking through all of my old pictures took me an hour! At least I have them well documented so I can go back and see them if I want to.

Do you get sad about getting rid of old running/athletic shoes? Or not at all? Do you think I am losing it?!

Funny note: I took pictures of these shoes at home this morning, but they were too dark so I retook them on the train. Think the other passengers thought I was being a weird-o?

*Even though the guy at the shoe store told me I should get rid of all my Adrenalines and not even wear them for walking!

Comments (17)

By kilax, November 7, 2010 9:50 pm

My next race is the Clear Water Outdoor’s 6th Annual Turkey Trot: 10K on November 20.

Day 379 | November 1, 2010: strength + yoga

I did a quick strength workout during lunch, and the YogaWorks Beginners DVD at home after dinner. I put on my workout clothes as soon as I got home, to make sure I actually did yoga. The trick seemed to work! What tricks do you use to encourage yourself to exercise?

Day 380 | November 2, 2010: cross

Recumbent Bike Time: 45:00 | Distance: 7.22 | Average Speed: 9.6 mph | Set on “Forest Ride”

Day 381 | November 3, 2010: 5 m tempo run + strength

Visibility when running in the dark is key!

I ran a quick 4 miles then followed up with a 1 mile cool-down. I counted our walk on the new trail as a “warm-up” for this run. Here’s a video of the trail for those of you who like videos:

My right ankle felt sore, like it was bruised, since Saturday, which is why I waited until Wednesday to run. It must have just been a bruise, because it went away by Friday.

Distance: 5.0 | Start Temp: 50° | End Temp: 42° | Time: 47:07 | Avg Pace: 9:25 | 1: 9:16 | 2: 9:19 | 3: 9:11 | 4: 9:05 | 5: 10:12

Strength + Stretch (done during my lunch break):

Day 382 | November 4, 2010: cross

Bike Time: 45:00 | Distance: 7.71 | Average Speed: 10.28 mph | Set on “Forest Ride”

Day 383 | November 5, 2010: 5 m run

bbbbbbnmbbbb <— Data typed that. Thanks Data.

Steven rode his bike with me for the first 1.25 miles of this run, then went back to the house because it was too cold. It was kind of cold – 30°F. I wore capris, Under Armour long-sleeved cold gear, a shirt over, a head band and gloves and felt okay. I think a jacket might have been nice to have on.

I ate too much candy at work during the day and was feeling it. I got a bad side stitch a mile 1 – I cannot remember the last time I had one! And my stomach cramped up for the entire run. And I threw up a bit on my shirt. I took a picture of that, but I’ll spare you.

Lesson learned – no more candy.

This is what our “backyard” looks like. I didn’t run there. I am just a poser!

It was dark for most of this run. I was all excited to get home early and run in the day light, but my train was 20 minutes late. So I could only see where I was running for a little bit. Sigh. I am not sure if I like running in the dark this year. And this run was before Daylight Savings Time ended!

Distance: 5.0 | Start Temp: 33° | End Temp: 30° | Time: 49:38 | Avg Pace: 9:55 | 1: 9:54 | 2: 10:06 | 3: 9:49 | 4: 10:04 | 5: 9:41

Day 384 | November 6, 2010: cross

Steven and I took a 3.8 mile walk to explore the new trail by our house. I am surprised by how much of it is already laid out! The black top continues past our house quite a bit, then stops at about a 3/4th of a mile. Then we had to walk through the brush for a bit (maybe 1/10th of a mile) but caught right back up with the crushed limestone portion of the trail, which continued all the way to 1.85 miles. At that point, it stopped at a huge drop-off where they are going to build a bridge. The construction people left their tools out and had some strings set up to indicate where the bridge will go:

Taking this walk made me SO SO SO SO SO excited for the trail to be completed… in a year. I can’t wait! There are some very interesting parts that go through the forest. And… it’s quite hilly (for Illinois – it starts at our house at about 794 ft above sea level, tops at 809 and goes all the way down to 747)! It should be challenging! Here is the exaggerated elevation profile:

Here is one of my favorite photos of the trail:

And a gallery of photos below if you want to see more. If you click on them they get larger, but in this window. I wish I knew how to do some sort of scroll over pop-up thing!

Day 385 | November 7, 2010: 14 m run + yoga

This 14-miler started out as a fun, stop-and-go, exploratory run. I started at Independence Grove and headed north on the Des Plaines River Trail. After running for 3.5 miles, everything I was seeing was all new to me – hence the buttload of photos!

I stopped to take in the scenery and take a photos. Yes, I even take these silly running shots:

They actually help me see how effed up my form is – I tend to have my legs bending out at the knee a lot. Pretty sure that is NOT good.

I took about 200 photos. Do you think I just need to put my camera away and run? I like doing exploratory runs like this, but I wonder if I should be more “serious.”

I just included this image because if you click on it to make it larger, you can see some of the roller coasters at Six Flags Great America in the photo (toward the middle under the power lines)!

There were so many people on the trail! It’s crazy that I saw no one during my last long run in Iowa. I saw over 100 bikers, at least 10 runners, a few walkers, and even some guy on weird roller skate things and some horseback riders!

I was loving the first 8-9 miles of this run. It felt great and easy!

But this run was also “exploratory” for another reason – I was trying nuun electrolyte tabs, as well as taking two GUs, instead of one (to avoid the mid-run slump). I can say that I was VERY happy with the GUs (especially Chocolate Outrage – it tasted SO GOOD cold) but NOT with the nuun. I took 16 ounces of it, and 8 ounces of water, which I thought would be enough liquid. During my last 12-miler, I only drank 16 ounces of water! But the nuun made me feel more dehydrated and extremely thirsty. I ran out of liquid at 10.5 miles and was struggling to make it back to the car. And what made it even worse is that I was running by water… so, so thirsty!

I tried to mentally tough it out for the last 3 miles, but I failed. I even switched from podcasts to music to pump me up – it was only partially successful. I stopped a few times. At least my body felt good!

I wonder what this would look like with leaves on the trees!

So, for my next long run, I will probably make sure to drink LOTS of water the day before (didn’t drank as much on Saturday as I normally do on the weekdays) and only take 8 ounces of nuun, to give it another shot. Otherwise, one of you will be receiving the rest of it!

Run stats: I wore the Asics Cumulus 12s. I drank 8 ounces of water during the run, and 16 ounces of water with Tri-Berry nuun. I ate a Chocolate Outrage GU at mile 5, and a Jet Blackberry GU at mile 9. I walked 1-minutes at miles 5, 9 and 12. I stopped A LOT to take a pictures. I wore capris, Under Armour Cold Gear, and a long-sleeved top. I wore gloves and a head band. I took the gloves off at .5 miles, but put them back on at mile 6. I took the gloves and the headband off at mile 12. I think this outfit was too hot for the end of the run, and I should have removed the top layer. My lips were chapped toward the middle of the run – I put chapstick on at mile 9 but it was too late. And annoyingly, I kept having to adjust the hydration belt for some reason.

The good news is, I wore the Moving Comfort Juno bra, and it’s a bid padded s0… less nipping! Hooray Moving Comfort! Two Thumps Up! Plus, no chafing (I used vaseline)!

I did the YogaWorks Beginners DVD late at night. It felt really good. My muscles were getting sore toward the end of the day!

Distance: 14.0 | Start Temp: 36° | End Temp: 52° | Time: 2:30:49 | Avg Pace: 10:46 | 1: 10:40 | 2: 10:47 | 3: 10:52 | 4: 10:44 | 5: 10:38 | 6: 11:01 | 7: 10:27 | 8: 10:47 | 9: 10:41 | 10: 11:23 | 11: 10:36 | 12: 10:20 | 13: 10:28 | 14: 11:17

Week Summary: 24.0 miles

This was another good week, getting workouts in. But again, I think it is crazy that I have to work out during lunch and sometimes at night to get everything done that I want to. I need more time in the day!

Even though I don’t particularly care for yoga, I can tell I am becoming more flexible! I can bend forward further when touching my toes, and my heels are getting closer in the ground in downward facing dog. That’s encouragement to keep working at it!

Comments (15)

By kilax, November 6, 2010 2:56 pm

It’s been awhile since I blogged about the Garden Project. What happened? Well, as I mentioned in my last post about the garden, we were getting pretty busy and not making time for it. Then, the end of August and most of September were pretty awful for us. Steven wasn’t even here most of September. I visited the garden once in September, and today was the first time we have gone back since then. It was time to clean it up and dig up the sweet potatoes!

So, here is what the garden looked like when we got there:

Yeah, I know it looks bad, but not as bad as the gardens around ours:

I am not sure if those people ever used their garden at all!

We picked as many weeds as we could felt like and hauled them to the designated weed area:

All done!

Yeah. I am kind of doubting we will get our $10 deposit back.

Enough about the stupid weeds. The fun part was the first thing we did when we got to the garden – dig up the sweet potatoes!

Remember that we started them from slips in our home? We started growing them indoors on May 8th and planted them on June 22nd.

I hope we did not dig them up too late (they only survive one frost, I think)! They look good!

I was squinting because the sun was so bright!

It was fun digging around in the dirt looking for them – like finding treasure!

And we dug up a lot of them!

I hope they taste okay. I’m not that familiar with sweet potatoes, so I am not sure what they should taste like. I’ll let you know if they turn out any good!

If we still live in the same area next year, we will probably grow a garden again, but be smarter about it. We’ll start crops earlier in our house, and only plant the things we really liked from this year – cucumbers, tomatoes, green beans, peppers (if they’ll grow) and maybe sweet potatoes. We’ll probably use some sort of fertilizer and put something down (newspaper, etc.) to keep the weeds from growing.

If you could have one type of produce fresh all year round, what would you choose?

I think it would have to be green beans. I am still disappointed we didn’t yield a very big crop!

Would you be interested in seeing a break-down of the cost of the garden?

We saved all of our receipts to keep track of the cost, but I haven’t compiled it yet. I can if you guys are interested!

For fun, here are links to all of the other Garden Project posts:

Getting Started
It’s Alive (I think)
I’ll do that tomorrow
We never have to weed again, right?
It’s Edible!
Can we grow anything other than cucumber and zucchini (and sometimes green beans)?
We have tomatoes!
We specialize in miniature food!

Comments (24)

By kilax, November 5, 2010 5:09 am

What do you think of holiday wish lists – tacky or useful? Do you make one for anyone? For whom if so? What is on your wish list this year?

(Not my wish list – one I found online)

I find wish lists extremely useful. Sometimes, I want to give someone a gift, but have no idea what they would like, so a wish list can give me ideas, or at least get me going in the right direction.

Of course, I have that internal struggle of “Why do I want to buy someone a gift if I don’t even know what they would like or want?” Ugh. I am very much of the mindset of wanting to buy people things they want, but when I have no idea what that is AT ALL, I feel like I am kind of missing the point.

We always give a wish list to my dad’s mom, because she asks for it. In fact, last week I asked Steven to start working on his wish list, because I figured my grandma would ask for it – sure enough, she did when we saw her last weekend! Sometimes we share a list with my mom and Steven’s family. Of course, then you have to split up the list so you don’t get duplicates of things – does anyone else split their wish list?

I have a lot of running stuff and a few movies on my wish list this year.

Comments (46)

By kilax, November 4, 2010 5:01 am

There was a health fair at work this week, and I went to get my body fat percentage tested. It’s something I’ve always wanted to know. Unfortunately, they were using the bioelectrical impedance analysis (BIA) method, which isn’t very reliable (or so I hear – the guy doing it said it’s accurate within a range of 3%). It sends a small electric current through your body, and the faster it goes through your body, the less body fat you have (the current travels faster through water/muscle than fat). But the results can be all skewed depending on what you drink, eat, etc. Anyway –

I held this device with my arms out in front of me:

The result? 31.7% body fat. Whoa. And, I am at a “high” risk with a BMI* of 28.5. Here is what wikipedia thinks my body fat percentage should be:

Are you calling me obese, wikipedia? Really?! Really?!?!?!!?

Honestly, I am not surprised. I know I have fat on me. Hello. I can grab my stomach. Check out my left arm, and the left side of my stomach in the photo below.

Buah ha ha. Jiggle jiggle! I was really hoping they would just take out one of those calipers and grab my arm or stomach. I wonder if my health insurance would cover a real body fat analysis test. I am curious to see how accurate the 31.7 number is. It’s probably pretty accurate. I am jiggly.

I would like to do this test in a year, to see if anything has changed. The optimistic person in me hopes that I can get down to a healthy weight, but the realistic person knows that the weight I am at now has kind of been my body’s setting point. I am athletic, I feel comfortable with my body… so there is no rush to lose weight. I’ll get there when I get there.

The good news is, I also had my blood pressure tested, and it was 120/80 (and that was after I found out I am at “high risk” for… something).

Have you ever had your body fat percentage tested? What was your percentage? Did the results make you want to change anything about your current lifestyle?

*I have never really taken BMI seriously.

Comments (18)

By kilax, November 3, 2010 8:20 pm

On Monday the new trail by our house looked like this:

And today, it looked like this:

They put blacktop down! I am really surprised to see blacktop on the trail, since all of the Lake County Forest Preserve Trails are crushed limestone. Maybe this is just one layer?

Either way, seeing this actually made my day! Steven and I took Data on a walk to enjoy the new trail. Data really liked it. Ha. Can you even see him against the black background?

We walked pretty far, enough to check out the entrances they added from the neighborhood (one of two new entrances):

and where the work on the trail ends at this point:

In the distance, you can see the trail continues in to the woods.

And here is the view back toward our neighborhood – they are still working on that end:

I can’t wait to show my family when they come visit next week! And I think I need to do some exploring on the trail this weekend to see what the progress is over the entire proposed 2.5 miles. It looks ready to run on to me… with a little rough terrain here and there!

Comments (29)

By kilax, November 3, 2010 5:43 am

You’re probably all sick of hearing about the election and having people harass you to vote… but there are a few questions that popped in to my head during this election cycle that I am anxious to ask you!

Data is proud to vote. He always votes for the Gray Party. I think this year they were promising more meals in the day (don’t think it’s going to happen, Data).

When I was talking to my mom on Monday I asked her if she was going to vote. She said she would, especially since people fought so hard for the right for her to do so. I told her I was going to vote, but probably just along my party line. Then I thought about it – she was probably doing the same – but for a different party.

Question #1: Do you hold similar political views to your family members, especially your parents?

You don’t have to tell me what those views are – I just wonder if it is common or not to have different political views than your family. I know I have different political views than mine, and Steven probably does too. Luckily, politics rarely come up with my family, and if they do I just try not to discuss it.

Question #2: Should uninformed people vote?

I voted, but didn’t have much of an idea of what was going on. I don’t watch TV/the news, read the paper, or listen to the radio. I am never caught up on current events. I only know what is going on in the world if I see it on yahoo when I log out of my email, it is mentioned to me in person, or on someone’s blog. YES, it is like I live under a rock. I know. It’s not good.

Question #3: How do you stay caught up on current events? How did you decide who to vote for? Feel free to skip that last question if you want.

Steven found a good website that listed all of the candidates and he did some research for us. He filled out ballots and handed them to me when he picked me up at the train station. We discussed the candidates on the 7 minute drive to our polling place, then I went in and voted.

I could say that maybe next time I will be a more informed voter, but I don’t know if that will be the case. I am just not that interested in politics, which probably makes me a bad, bad American.

Comments (26)

By kilax, November 2, 2010 6:42 am

We went to Iowa last weekend so my brother Nick* could put new tires on my car. All week, before we got to Iowa, I kept telling Steven we had to make sure not to bump in to any curbs, as to not scratch up the new tires. You see, when we park in parking lots, we’re those people who park as far away from the store as possible, preferably next to a curb, on the right side of the vehicle**.

Yes, we baby our cars. And if I am getting new tires, I want them to look nice for as long as possible!

Chubby Tubby, showing no respect for the new tires by using them as a scratching post.

I know, I know – it’s just a car. Well, it’s NOT just a car to me. It’s the first car I bought for myself, it is expensive, and I want to take care of it. It irks me to no end how people disrespect each other’s property, especially cars. It’s inconsiderate and there’s no excuse for it.

I won’t have it forever, and yes, it’s just a physical possession, but while it’s mine, I want to keep it in good condition. And that is how I feel about all of my possessions – I earn money to pay for them, and I want to keep them in good change.

Do you baby your car (if you have one) or do you think “it’s just a car”?

I repaid him for an hour of labor with cookies and by paying for his race entry to the 5K – that counts, right?
**If you park with the curb on the left side of your vehicle, there is a greater chance that someone will park next to you, on your right, and open up their driver’s door and scratch your car. If you park with the curb on the right side of your vehicle, there is a chance that the person parking next to you may not have a passenger, decreasing the chance of scratches. I know, I know, this all assumes people park how they are supposed to in parking lots, which doesn’t always happen.

Comments (19)

By kilax, November 1, 2010 1:29 pm

I closed comments on my post from earlier today because I had three family members ask me if it was about them or another member of the family. No, it’s not. That is why I should not write crap like that! Sorry to transfer my stress to you all! I had a wonderful time with my family this weekend, like I usually do.

This whole situation (writing the blog post and taking it down) makes me think about what sort of presence I want to have online. Now that I am on twitter (kind of), I have noticed way more snarky content than I ever care to see, and I am noticing it in some blogs I read too. I don’t need those negative vibes in my life, because I have them in person already! And I don’t want to contribute to that online. So I’ll try to avoid those vague, whiney posts.