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By kilax, June 6, 2011 5:57 am

We finally got our act together (really, just had the time) to buy tomato plants on Sunday and plant them, along with our other seeds, in our garden.

We have a 20’x20′ plot in the local community garden. This year, we decided to plant 16 tomato plants, two rows of green beans, two half rows of cucumbers, and two half rows of sugar snap peas.

Steven does all of the planning and planting – he is better with precision and detail than me.

And I am the raw power. RAWR!

Here is everything planted – the tomatoes, green beans behind them, cucumbers to the back left and sugar snap peas to the back right.

The red line is not there, I just added it so you can see the boundaries of the garden.

We are getting things in pretty late this year. Last year we had our seeds in in the second week of May, and our tomato plants in maybe 3-4 weeks later. We will just have a late crop this year!

I want to keep better track of my time spent in the garden this year, so I will note that it took us about 30 minutes to select and buy plants, and about three hours to do the work in the garden. And then there are all of the hours I spent dreading it all week…

Seriously, does anyone out there like to do yard work?

It is fine once we get out there and get in the groove, I just have no idea what I am doing.

Other garden posts from this year:

The Garden Project: It’s Back

Comments (11)

By kilax, June 5, 2011 6:05 pm

Day 589 | May 30, 2011: rest

Day 590 | May 31, 2011: strength class

Tuesday night was my last group strength class! I am happy not to have the weekly commitment anymore, and am really excited about personal training… but I will miss my classmates! I should see most of them at the speedwork sessions, if I ever get my butt to one.

I was worried I would be too sore after the marathon to do our boxing and medicine ball workout,  but I actually felt pretty fabulous! I think getting my body going helped work out the kinks. I still suck at doing pushups with one hand on a medicine ball though.

Day 591 | June 1, 2011: cross

Recumbent Bike Time: 30:00 | Distance: 4.33 | Set on “Manual,” Resistance Level 5.0

Day 592 | June 2, 2011: 3 m run

I ran out and back to the Shedd Aquarium during my lunch break. I noticed I hit the 1.5 mile mark in 13 minutes and thought “How am I running so fast?” I quickly discovered on the way back – the wind had been at my back! The last mile and a half was slower. I think my third mile split was messed up though. I kept running and running and the distance was not changing on the Garmin. Hmm. Silly Garmin.

After the run my right outside knee was bugging me a bit. Time to get back to the foam roller! I am not sure why I thought I should STOP foam rolling after the marathon. Duh to the uh.

Distance: 3.0 | Start Temp: 62° | End Temp: 64° | Time: 27:11 | Avg Pace: 9:02 | 1: 8:28 | 2: 8:55 | 3: 9:45

Day 593 | June 3, 2011: strength (personal training) + 4.5 m run

Brian came over for my first personal training session in the afternoon and kicked my butt. We just used handweights and a bench, but did a lot of core work (and dynamic movements) that made me feel like I could throw up. I was pooped by the end! In a good way.

Later I took Data on a short walk. I don’t count that as exercise, but don’t have many photos for this week and thought I would throw this one in:

In the evening, Bobbi came over and we suffered through the three Hs together – heat, humidity and hills. I was so excited to show another runner the new path behind our house… so I tortured Bobbi by making her run the hills on it. Sorry Bobbi. She actually kicked my butt on them! It was a tough run overall. She had an achy calf and my knee was still bugging me, and the heat! Ugh! But, it was all good when we ended and Steven had homemade deep dish pizza in the oven for us. Yum!

Distance: 4.5 | Start Temp: 84° | End Temp: 80° | Time: 50:03 | Avg Pace: 11:07 | 1: 10:16 | 2: 10:39 | 3: 11:42 | 4: 12:08 | 5: 5:15

Day 594 | June 4, 2011: strength (personal training)

I had my second personal training session Saturday morning. We used kettlebells, the bench, and these fun soft balls that seemed to be filled with sand. I liked working with those, although, I got so sweaty I wondered if I was going to accidentally let go of one and throw is across the room.

Day 595 | June 5, 2011: 5.5 m run

I met my running club friend, Yvonne, early in the morning for a run in the Rollins Savanna. We were both hoping to get out early enough to miss the heat, but it wasn’t as cool as it was supposed to be – and this particular path has hardly any shade (you can see how sweaty I was in the photo below!). Despite that, it was a great run. We ran the whole thing, and chatted the whole time. It just flew by! And my knee wasn’t bugging me at all. Yvonne went for another loop (5.5 miles) after me – I bet she ran it a lot faster than when we were running together! She is someone I know I can run with to get faster. She is naturally speedy – she ran her first half in 1:42:07 this spring and was 3rd overall and the second woman finisher! Her first marathon will be Chicago this October and I can’t wait to see how she does.

Distance: 5.46 | Start Temp: 66° | End Temp: 74° | Time: 52:56 | Avg Pace: 9:42 | 1: 9:25 | 2: 9:39 | 3: 9:51 | 4: 9:57 | 5: 9:43 | 6: 4:18

Week Summary: 13.00 miles

Wow. I think this is the first week EVER that I got three strength workouts in. That is awesome for me! I am so busy next week that Brian and I will only have one session, but hopefully I will still do the Shred, or something.

The heat is definitely slowing down my running, but I am going to try to fight it this year and not let it conquer me! I am pleased that I got three short runs in the week after the marathon. My body is feeling pretty good!

Comments (17)

By kilax, June 3, 2011 6:47 am

You know, Erin and I ran TWO half marathons together this spring (one and two), and the race photographers could not manage to get a decent photo of the two of us together. I was kind of bummed.

But the Madison Marathon? During which Erin ran the last 6ish miles with me as a bandit? Two great photos (of her anyway, and with the Capitol in the background!):

Maybe one of us should always run as a bandit?

Anyway, post marathon recovery has been good. I felt great by Tuesday night and went out for a short run yesterday. I will start training for the Milwaukee and NYC Marathons the week of June 13th. I will try to take it easy until then!

I have been thinking of a few things I need to do differently for my next marathon, a few “lessons learned”:

1. Do NOT use the Pedi-Bean to remove calluses from the bottom of your feet – they are THERE for a reason. I had one callus on the bottom of my left foot that I worked on rubbing down, and guess what hurt the most during the marathon? The bottom of my left foot. Where that callus was.
2. Eat a normal dinner/breakfast the night before/day of. I had crackers and fruit and a PB sandwich late the night before. Dumb. And there was no microwave in the hotel, so I didn’t have my normal breakfast (oatmeal). Also dumb.
3. Don’t eat junk food the week before the race. I did. And my bathroom schedule was all off. I didn’t have my normal morning poo and stopped to go three times on the course. Awesome. I still kind of think if I hadn’t stopped at mile 8 I could have stuck with the 4:15 pace group awhile longer. I am not saying the entire race, but at least a few more miles.
4. Don’t get so heavy. I weighed more during this race than the Chicago Marathon. This race was easier, but still, I was carrying that extra weight. Not fun.
5. Don’t get so cocky. Seriously, I thought I had this race in the bag, based on my awesome training. Not so much. And I thought the hills would be no big deal despite not training for them. 5a  – Train for hills. My next two marathons have hills, so I will be running them. There are actually a few hills near my home!
6. Support is KEY. It was so wonderful to have Steven see me and be so encouraging, and to have Erin run the last few miles with me.

I really want to get better at this. I don’t want to be someone who runs marathons but really sucks at it. I really need to up my mental game. On the way home, I said to Steven “Why are half marathons so easy for me, but fulls aren’t?” He pointed out that I told him at mile 11 I was not going to meet my goal – before the half marathon point. My heart just wasn’t in this – I gave up early on. I think I was looking for something to cheer me up and make me happy, and that was too much pressure to put on this race (and unreasonable too).

Here are a few photos that show my mixed emotions:

Note: those smiles are staged.

The first time I saw a photographer on course was when I was taking that GU in the third pic… that must have been mile 16? I remember thinking “I hope the only official photo of me from this race is NOT me taking this GU.” Luckily, they had a lot of photographers at the end.

After I wrote that, I looked at the picture and realized that was me drinking water very close to the end. I don’t have my belt on (I gave it to Steven at mile 22). So, they didn’t include the GU pic. That is good.

I have not been intentionally quiet here this week. I am just worn out (from not getting much sleep), and cannot think of much to blog about, besides running and exercise. I will do my best to not have this turn in to a solely running blog, but we’ll see what happens.