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By kilax, March 13, 2016 4:51 pm

Highlight of the Week: My three year Efit anniversary! Lots of runs!

Monday | March 7, 2016: 6 m run + 7 m run + teaching strength class
Loc: hood, Temp: 59°/60°, Time: 50:20, Pace: 8:23 avg, Difficulty: easy/medium, Felt: good, hot, thirsty
Loc: to VP Woods, Temp: 63°/60°, Time: 1:02:41, Pace: 8:57 avg, Difficulty: medium, Felt: good, understandably tired
Strength: one dumbbell circuit, body weight circuit, boxing with pads, Difficulty: easy, Felt: good
Tuesday | March 8, 2016: 7 m run
Loc: to VP Woods, Temp: 58°/58°, Time: 1:06:29, Pace: 9:30 avg, Difficulty: easy, Felt: okay, but too warm!
Wednesday | March 9, 2016: rest
Thursday | March 10, 2016: 6 m run (incl. 4×400, 2×800) + 20 mins strength
Loc: hood, Temp: 44°/42°, Time: 49:33, Pace: 8:15 avg, Difficulty: medium/hard, Felt: good minus heartburn
Friday | March 11, 2016: teaching strength class + 10 m ride (w/Tina) + 12 m run
Strength: one dumbbell circuit, body weight circuit, Difficulty: easy, Felt: good
Loc: Rollins Savanna/Millennium Trail, Temp: 31°/31°, Time: 56:51, Pace: 10.6 mph Difficulty: easy, Felt: good, cold toes!
Loc: to McClory and back, Temp: 42°/40°, Time: 146:29, Pace: 8:52, Difficulty: easy, Felt: good minus heartburn
Saturday | March 12, 2016: 6 m run + teaching fitness boxing
Loc: hood, Temp: 29°/38°, Time: 53:26, Pace: 8:54 avg, Difficulty: easy, Felt: good
Strength: boxing and Lebert/body weight, Difficulty: easy, Felt: good
Sunday | March 13, 2016: 8 m run
Loc: to VP Woods, Temp: 46°/44°, Time: 1:10:23, Pace: 8:48 avg, Difficulty: easy, Felt: good, minus that wind!

Notes:

• This is the first year since running the New York City Marathon in 2011 that I didn’t enter the lottery – I kind of forgot about it! Then I saw people posting that they got in (or not) on Facebook on Tuesday. Aww. It’s such a great race!. I’m excited for the people who get to run it!
• I’ve seen some other people running on some of my routes! This makes me feel better – that other people think the routes are safe enough to run, and that I am not the only one annoying drivers by running in the shoulder.
• Dad, Will, Julie (Will’s sister) and I all registered for Day 7 (Saturday) of RAGBRAI this week. YAY! I am hoping Gina and Andrew will sign up, too!
• Ahh, DST. You effer. Is everyone else ready to be completely messed up for two weeks while we get used to the time change?
• I was planning to hit 60 running miles this week but I woke up with a massive headache on Sunday – probably from the shift in weather, and maybe from the paint fumes on Saturday – and had to get extra sleep to get rid of it. So I cut my run back due to (even more!) lost time. Maybe I can try for 60 again this month (although I have a lot more commute days in the next two weeks so that will be tricky!).
• Steven put the TV up in the workout room this weekend! The room is close to being “finished” (for now). I am looking forward to showing it, when it is!

Link to Training Week 333

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By kilax, March 12, 2016 6:52 am

For the past three nights, Data has had a late night date with his new friend, and I finally got a picture of them together:

They decided to bring the party outside our bedroom window last night – that raccoon was VERY close to us, ha!

As long as that raccoon stays out of our attic and doesn’t destroy anything… he is welcome to visit. But that he’s hanging out on the second floor balcony has me a bit suspicious.

Sorry for all the odd reflections – flash was the only way to capture him!

It’s funny that Data doesn’t have the same reaction to the raccoon as he does to Denali or the deer. He growls at them (and hisses at Denali and tries to swat him/her), but he sings his excited “bird” song to this raccoon and chases it around like they’re playing. I wonder how many more late night dates they’ll have.

Data seems to be settling in to the new house quite well! He’s been eating like normal and using his litter box regularly since we moved in. He’s found all the sunny spots to lay,

and since I took him outside for the first time this week, he’s been crying to go out every day. I see lots of walks in our future.

He does seem to be spending A LOT of time sleeping in the bedroom… and I wondered if he was depressed or something. Then I remembered he’s a cat. And that the bedroom is a safe spot during all the construction on the house! He hasn’t hidden under the bed in a long time, so that’s good!

Comments (16)

By kilax, March 11, 2016 4:13 am

Updated 5/6/16 – SPOILER ALERT! We had to have the system I mentioned installing below (aerated) taken out, and the hydrogen peroxide one put in.

Part of the contingency of buying our house was that the bank (that owned the house due to foreclosure) inspect the septic and well systems and fix any issues with them. The septic tank had to be replaced and there’s money in escrow in case the drain fields need to be repaired (which is supposed to be inspected one month after living in the house – we’re pending an appointment to get it checked out).

The well tested with flying colors! Water is safe to drink/use. No issues there.

Except one.

The sulfur.

That rotten egg smell.

We couldn’t handle it. Ha! I am surprised people LIVE with that. We first thought the smell might go away after living in the house a bit. Nope. A few days after moving in, we had the well chlorinated. That made the smell go away for a few days, then it came back.

There was an existing water treatment system in our house (that wasn’t running). We had someone come over to look at it, and give us a quote for a new system (if needed). They suggested draining the old system. That made the smell even MORE intense.

Old system – the two blue tanks were the filters (water heater in the middle)

Eek!

I felt better when I talked to people about this, and heard that it is common with wells. “Oh yeah, my parents are on a well, so we don’t shower there.” “I had lots of friends on wells growing up, and they got used to the smell!”

We don’t plan on getting used to the smell (especially since it gets in your clothes… AND SMELLS LIKE ROTTEN EGGS – did I mention that?!) and we don’t want to be the house no one wants to visit because of that. And, I’d like to drink my water instead of buying gallons of it (I know it’s okay to drink, but ick).

So we had three different companies give us quotes for three different systems! The options were:

• An aerated system – least $
• A hydrogen peroxide system – $$
• A chlorinated system – most $$$

All of the systems used carbon filters. Each system was a different price, had different service plans, and required filters that could need to be changed every 3-10 years, depending on how hard your system is working! The aerated system gets out the sediment and gets rid of the sulfur smell, the hydrogen peroxide system does that and kills some bacteria, and the chlorinated system does all that and kills ALL bacteria. There’s more to it, but this is the gist of it. (And note: EVERYONE tried to sell us a water softener, but we’re not sure we want one, so we’ll wait on that.)

In the end, we decided to try the aerated system. It’s what our neighbors have, and it worked for them. Steven had a glass of water at their house, and it was fine. And, we’d like to try the system with less chemicals.

New system – filter on the left

We had it installed on February 26th and the sulfur smell left the cold water right away! Yay! I drank out of our faucet for the first time since moving in!

Steven drained the hot water heater to try to get rid of as much of the sitting sulfur water as possible. And… we still had some scent of it. Sigh.

The treatment system is set to “recharge” (clean the filter) every three days. We set it to two. Still smelled sulfur a bit toward the end of the day. We set it to ONE day. The most frequent we’re willing to go.

Ugh.

We had the installer come back and we talked to him about it. He had some ideas to try before we get a completely new system. He thought maybe there was still sulfur residue in the pipes, and that chlorinating the well would get it out.

Last time we had the well chlorinated, we paid someone to do it, but this time, we did it ourselves! You basically pour the chlorine in to the well, then run a hose back in to the well to make sure the chlorine is going through the system.

Our well is not what I picture in my head when I picture a well. I think of the typical storybook well, ha!

Then you have to run all the hot and cold water in the house in a certain order. Then not use your water for 24 hours (as to not put too much chlorine in the septic tank). Then drain it all out after 24 hours, and run all the hot and cold water in that order, again.

Fingers crossed this helps… otherwise, we might be getting a different treatment system installed!

Comments (12)

By kilax, March 10, 2016 6:27 am

• YAY! The first floor bathroom work will begin at our house today! Work includes: swapping the location of the toilet and vanity (and doing associated plumbing, flooring, lighting, electrical, etc. work) and installing the new bathtub and shower surround. YAY! YAY YAY YAY! YAY!

Bathroom “before” picture

• Did anyone else watch the final episode of Downton Abbey? It was nice how they tied everything up but… eh. I wasn’t in to it much the last few seasons. After they killed off Matthew I just didn’t love it as much. The first few seasons were my favorites.
• Remember when I talked about that article that said we think of our future self as separate from our current self and that is why we sign up for stuff we don’t want to do? I didn’t mention that I didn’t feel like that was applicable to me – I almost always say no to everything. Ha. But… I did see the research mentioned in another article about anger (pdf here), and interestingly, they mentioned how sometimes we make bad eating choices now because we aren’t thinking about how future us would be affected by it, and… yeah. That is totally me!
• Here’s an article I do agree with – “The worst kind of boss is not the one who’s always a jerk” (pdf here). Basically, it says that people would rather have a boss who is predictable – if they are going to be a jerk, be that way all the time. No Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Not your best friend one day and throwing you under the bus the next. Have you worked with people like this? I sure have (not my current boss!). And that is why I agree with the article – I’d rather just know what to expect than have it be a guessing game each day (or as my coworkers and I would say “whichever way the wind is blowing today…”).
• Are you getting sick of me talking about our mailbox? I was just so excited to see mail in it on Monday! Not driving to the post office is saving me so much time!!!! Woo hoo!

• Data woke us up making strange noises at 4:00 am today. He found another friend! Not a mouse, but there was a raccoon (or something raccoon sized) hanging out around the house. We saw it walk across the porch then off in to the woods. EARLY AM EXCITEMENT!!! (It was hard to wake up my cat alarm showed up a an hour or so later.)
• We set all the bird feeders up this week! And far from the house – so hopefully we can watch, but not invite any of those critters in. I have a feeling I am going to be seeing a lot of squirrels and other non-bird creatures eating out of these. Maybe that is what attracted the coon!

Link to Random Thoughts Thursday 89

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By kilax, March 9, 2016 7:30 am

Every once in awhile, I buy my breakfast and lunch when working downtown, instead of bringing it. Laziness, not wanting to schlep it all, not being able to prepare it at work, lunch dates, chlorinating the well and not wanting to wash the dishes when you get home (that’s today, ha) are all reasons.

And every once in a while, I think “gawd, I’m paying how much for xyz?!”

Like, $3.45 for this oatmeal, when I pay $2.00 for 20ish servings at home. That bugs me, a bit. But not enough to not get it, obviously. And I do appreciate being able to buy oatmeal at all!

It’s funny that that bothers me, but many other costs don’t.

An expensive Starbucks drink? It’s a treat! And I can’t make it taste like that at home!

The expensive vegan restaurant across the street from my office? Again – it’s a treat and I am definitely not able to bring in a lunch like that to eat.

But a regular meal out? Sometimes I do think “Steven could have made this better at a fraction of the cost.”

Or when I have to stop at a big box grocery store (for convenience) that isn’t ALDI? “Why is everything so EXPENSIVE?!?!” Ha.

We all pick and choose what we’re willing to pay for convenience, right?!

I’ve been thinking about this frequently, because we’ve been much more mindful with our finances (not that we were horrible before, but you know) since starting to save for buying the house. Less frivolous purchases, less eating out, and so on. And… it feels good. I’d rather save money for the big things. But still get my Starbucks. Ha.

Comments (35)

By kilax, March 8, 2016 6:06 am

… how many left?!

Hopefully not many! I am anxious to get our food back in the Lazy Susans!

Data isn’t doing much for catching the mice, but he does let us know when they’re in the traps! (And tell us that is why he needs to be on the counters – to sniff them out.)

Side story: we originally had a quote in our FHA 203k work to build out a laundry room/pantry on the first floor. The kitchen doesn’t have much for food storage – two Lazy Susans, an odd can storage system, and the microwave shelf that I am using for storage.

I didn’t think that would be enough for my food hoarder ways! I was used to a closet for all my food, and dreamed of a walk-in closet with shelves. And thought it would be nice to have laundry on the main floor.

Then it had to be nixed from the budget. Darn. Then we found out we put aside way more money for close than we’d need and might be able to build it! Then we set up the office (where we were going to take space to build it) and decided we liked all that office space. Then we spent all the extra money (on many house things, including a water treatment system I still need to post about). So, yeah.

Back to using those Lazy Susans. I think they’re annoying (all that spinning to find my food – wah!) but… it does seem to be enough storage space. So I was wrong! As much as I’d love my walk-in food hoarder closet, this will work for now. It has to. Ha.

Funny what you think you’ll HAVE to change in a house, then you find out what you can live with and what you really need to change (the water, ha ha).

Back to the mouse!

So we found mouse droppings and a chewed off corner of a bag of tortillas last Wednesday. We took all the food out of the Lazy Susans and put it in grocery bags on the kitchen table. Then Friday night, I actually SAW a mouse run across our kitchen counter. Um, no gracias. We put all the food in plastic bins with lids that night. And went to look for no kill traps and didn’t see any.  Steven was telling our old neighbor, Troy, about it the next day, and he had some live traps we could use. Yay! We set them up Sunday night and got our first guest at 12:30 am this morning. I was up for some reason and heard the mouse go in the trap. Data did too, and ran downstairs, all excited. Ha ha ha.

We’ll release the mouse in to the beautiful countryside… far from our house. I feel bad dislocating him from his family! (I am not even joking – I really feel bad about these things – better than death though.) If we find more family members, we’ll make sure to take them to the same place!

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By kilax, March 7, 2016 6:21 am

Wow, today marks three years that I have been teaching strength classes at Essential Fitness (Efit) – my first class was the first Monday of March in 2013!

The coolest thing about being a fitness instructor is seeing your students grow stronger – in their strength AND in their confidence in what they can do.

The second coolest thing about being a fitness instructor is getting paid to do something you LOVE!

And I am really lucky that I get to do it at a place with a great boss and coworkers (and students!) that feel like family.

A little history – I met Brian, my boss, at a local running club event in early 2011. He’d had his business for awhile and came to do a strength training clinic and talk to us about the benefits of strength training for runners.

There was talk of starting a strength class for the club that year if we found enough people, and a place to do it. We did! In a friend’s basement! Ha! I started taking the group class in March of 2011. The class was in that friend’s basement until his wife told us to find a new place because we were smelling it up too much (buah ha ha). So we used a park district building for awhile, and I started doing one-on-one sessions with Brian, too. Eventually, over the summer of 2011, Brian had a studio built on to his garage at his house, and it opened in October 2011! Classes have been there, since!

In January 2013, Brian asked if I wanted to be an instructor. We worked together for a month and a half before I taught my first class*. I actually taught the Monday night class, and still took the Wednesday night class, and did a few one-on-one sessions with Brian for awhile after becoming an instructor, but I cut back on that all after several months. Now I teach the Monday night class, the Friday am class and weekend classes. I’ve had a few one-on-one clients that I see at the studio, too (none currently).

When I started teaching classes, A LOT of people asked me if I was going to quit my day job and have teaching be my full time gig. My answer then was no, and it’s still no, now. The amount I teach now is perfect for keeping me passionate about it, and that’s where I want to stay! We’ll see what the future brings!

*I became ACE certified in July 2013. I definitely needed Brian’s teaching and the class experience to understand what I was learning and pass the exam. Then I wonder how people get that experience without already having their certification… it just makes me feel grateful I have such a great boss who was willing to take me under his wing and teach me!

Comments (8)

By kilax, March 6, 2016 2:49 pm

Highlight of the Week: Waking up nice and sore from hard workouts. Somewhat getting my head out of my arse.

Monday | February 29, 2016: 5 m run + teaching strength class
Loc: town, Temp: 41°/46°, Time: 47:58, Pace: 9:36 avg, Difficulty: medium, Felt: sore, pissy
Strength: body bars and ankle bands mixed mode, Difficulty: easy, Felt: good
Tuesday | March 1, 2016: 13 m ride + 20 mins strength
Indoor Ride Time: 50:49, Pace: 15.4 mph avg, Difficulty: easy, Felt: good, still a bit sore
Wednesday | March 2, 2016: 5 m run (w/Bobbi)
Loc: town, Temp: 21°/23°, Time: 53:35, Pace: 10:42 avg, Difficulty: easy, Felt: great, so sunny out!
Thursday | March 3, 2016: rest
Friday | March 4, 2016: teaching strength class + 14 m run
Strength: single dumbbell & circuit, Difficulty: easy, Felt: good
Loc: to Lake Andrea, Temp: 33°/32°, Time: 2:08:56, Pace: 9:12, Difficulty: easy, Felt: good
Saturday | March 5, 2016: 2 m run + teaching Indoor Cycling + teaching Burn & Buff + 4.5 m run (w/Dawn)
Loc: Zion, Temp: 32°/32°, Time: 18:26, Pace: 9:12 avg, Difficulty: easy, Felt: good to shakeout legs
Indoor Cycling Time: 53:52, Pace: 18.1 avg, Difficulty: easy/medium, Felt: pumped
Strength: 3 sets: upper, lower, whole body with cardio intervals after each, Difficulty: easy/medium, Felt: good
Loc: Grayslake, Temp: 36°/36°, Time: 42:45, Pace: 9:30 avg, Difficulty: easy, Felt: good for the legs after those classes!
Sunday | March 6, 2016: 11.5 m run (incl. 4.6 miles trails + 10×1:00) + 5 m bike
Loc: DPRT, Temp: 36°/39°, Time: 1:49:05, Pace: 9:29 avg, Difficulty: medium, Felt: irritated, but better at the end
Indoor Ride Time: 21:19, Pace: 14.1 mph avg, Difficulty: easy, Felt: good

Notes:

• I had a crummy run the day after the 5K. I had a bullet here whining (more in depth, ha) about my sore right glute and the evil wind but right after I wrote it I saw this super nice post from Brian and it turned my mood around! It was definitely a sign from the universe to get my head out of my arse (and to think, “duh, your legs are sore – you ran a PR on hills and in to the wind!”) and look at the big picture.

• I forgot to mention that I got a massage two days before the 5K. I’ve gotten massages before my last few races and PR’d them all… better keep getting massages. HA!
• I rested from running on Tuesday. I hate taking the first day of the month off from running, but my legs needed it. And it was windy, again, GAH! I had a nice cycle and lift sesh, instead. (And really felt that core work for two days!)
• After months without a run date (and I mean MONTHS!) I asked Bobbi if she wanted to run together Wednesday during lunch break (she is practically my neighbor) and she came over, and we did, and it was fabulous! And I had a great run with Dawn after class on Saturday. Maybe I should be more social?
• I signed up for the Wisconsin Half Marathon this week! (Don’t forget to use WMKIM16 for $5 off the full or half if you sign up – disclosure: I get a free entry because 10 people used this code. Also note… I doubt I will ask for a code again, as they give codes out to many groups and less and less people use mine each year. The race is cheap and I can start paying my own entry again.) I really did not want to make this my goal half – it’s often humid and it destroys me, but I don’t think I will be in shape to race in early April. And I don’t want to race much later than mid May. Hmm, we’ll see. Time to quit talking about training and losing weight and actually doing it!

• I subbed a class I don’t usually teach at Efit and wasn’t sure how’d it go… but I really liked it! And only made a few mistakes, phew!
• I felt so irritated for a lot of my long run on Sunday. I decided to run on the trails, which were a mix of snow and mud. It slowed me down, which was fine, but I kept getting rocks in my shoes and it was pissing me off. I stopped a lot to get them out. I’ll wear my gaiters next time! I felt better when I got back on the road back to do my intervals. I even saw another runner off in the distance! Maybe I’ll see them again and can say hi!
• February Recap!  In February I ran 165 miles and cycled 83.7 miles. I taught 9 strength classes, 3 fitness boxing classes, and 1 indoor cycling class. I rode my bike 6 times outside of class, and also did 3 strength sessions at home. My coldest outdoor run was 18°F and my warmest was 59°F. I ran inside 3 times due to cold weather. My mileage and amount of workouts were not where I wanted them to be, but I had a solid month of performance! Hopefully they get back to the amount I’d like them at as we settle in to the house more.

Link to Training Week 332

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By kilax, March 5, 2016 6:19 am

Time for odd (almost) spring running tan lines!

Capri tan lines. That’s a new one for me. I usually sport the crazy back tan lines and shorts tan lines (and the good ole inner elbow ones).

I just had this feeling yesterday, when it was so sunny, that capris might not be such a good idea during my run, for tan line reasons, ha! (They actually were a good idea for warmth though, as were the gloves and face mask that I used for the second, windier half of the run.)

Something exciting happened before my run yesterday – the mailbox fairy came! YAY!!!!!!!!!!!!! Eventually we’d like a fance brick mailbox (with a big box for packages) that matches the style of our house, but this is PERFECT for now! I can’t wait to stop our mail hold at the post office, and just walk 300′ to the end of my driveway to get our mail.

I hope our postal person doesn’t mind making the trip down our driveway to bring packages to the house. We’re hoping to catch them sometime next week and introduce ourselves and talk about it.

At the townhome, we had a huge communal mailbox, and everyone had their own box in it, and key. When you got a package, they either fit it in your box (TWSS?), put it in the big package box (and left a key for that in your box) or brought it to the door.

We order quite often from Amazon, and a few times our box was stuffed too full (with Amazon orders) to fit in the next day’s mail and the postal person left some notes for us… oops. I’ll make sure to get my mail on the daily at the new house!

Comments (25)

By kilax, March 4, 2016 4:03 am

We knew we’d had animals living in our attic because of the openings in to it. But hey, roof work (part of the FHA loan) started yesterday! Pretty soon those holes will be gone (and eventually the attic cleaned and new insulation installed).

Denali came over to supervise (we hadn’t seen Denali since February 22!).

Steven kept insisting he was hearing something in the attic. Suuuuure, Steven. Uh huh. Ha ha. Actually, one of his super powers is insanely awesome hearing, so while I couldn’t hear it, I believed he was hearing something.

Um, yeah.

The roofers must have screwed in some loose bulbs when they were working, and the front of the house was lit up really bright before we went to bed. We couldn’t find the switch to turn these “new”(ly found) lights off, so Steven went outside to just unscrew it a bit with his hand, and was greeted with this:

Oh, hai.

Yeah, that would be a flying squirrel!

Steven watched it scurry up the wall and back in to the attic.

I was thrilled he got photos and went between “aww, cute” and “eek!” for awhile, looking at them.

Then we talked about all the work it will take to get “them,” out. Yeah, if you have one flying squirrel, it means you usually have quite a few – they live in packs. And may be living in the walls.

And since we’re animal lovers we’ll have to find a humane way to get them out.

Then domesticate them so they can live with Data!

Just kidding. Then take them far far away.

Fun, fun, fun. Ha!

(But at least it wasn’t a ghost in the attic!)