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By kilax, June 20, 2016 6:25 am

We bought sleep masks for our Alaska trip since the sun will be up for so long and we don’t know if the places we’re staying will have (blackout) shades.

Ha, the company name makes me laugh.

What kind of place doesn’t have shades?! Ha, secluded places in the wilderness. Places like our house…

We don’t plan on getting shades/window treatments for our home since there is no one around to “see in” and since the views are so nice. There are only two reasons* I can think of for shades – to block the western sun from hitting the television in our living space, and to keep the early rising sun from disrupting our sleep too much in the bedroom.

But I can just wear the sleep mask to help with the second issue!

Ugh, but that doesn’t stop Data from bugging me as soon as the sun’s up. He needs a little cat sized sleep mask!

*Unless our stuff starts to get hella faded… then we may have to get some! And we have temporary shades we can put up in the guest bedroom for guests who prefer shades. 

Comments (6)

By kilax, June 19, 2016 4:51 pm

Highlight of the Week: Feeling good running in the sun and heat.

Monday | June 13, 2016: 5 m run + teaching strength class
Loc: hood, Temp: 69°/66°, Time: 47:27, Pace: 9:29 avg, Difficulty: medium, Felt: heavy
Strength: medicine balls and airex pads, Difficulty: easy, Felt: good
Tuesday | June 14, 2016: 8 m run + 10 m ride + 10 mins strength
Loc: DPRT, Temp: 65°/70°, Time: 9:53, Pace: 1:19:07 avg, Difficulty: easy, Felt: good, legs still heavy for first 5
Indoor Ride Time: 36:15, Pace: 16.6 mph avg, Difficulty: easy, Felt: good for the legs!
Wednesday | June 15, 2016: rest
Thursday | June 16, 2016: 5 m run (incl. 1/2/3/4/5 ladder)
Loc: hood, Temp: 68°/66°, Time: 44:44, Pace: 8:57 avg, Difficulty: medium/hard, Felt: great to start, tired at the end
Friday | June 17, 2016: teaching strength class + 7 m run
Strength: single dumbbell and boxing, Difficulty: easy, Felt: good
Loc: Chicago Lakefront Trail, Temp: 74°/73°, Time: 1:05:09, Pace: 9:18, Difficulty: easy, Felt: good
Saturday | June 18, 2016: 12 m run
Loc: DPRT, Temp: 56°/71°, Time: 1:58:27, Pace: 9:52 avg, Difficulty: hard then easy, Felt: so tired (sleepy) then better!
Sunday | June 19, 2016: teaching fitness boxing + 3 m run
Strength: Boxing pads and gloves, Difficulty: easy, Felt: good – already sore at the end of class!
Loc: Grayslake, Temp: 83°/83°, Time: 28:28, Pace: 9:28 avg, Difficulty: easy, Felt: good

Notes:

• I’ve been taking my old running shoes to the Nike outlet – they have a program where they tun old shoes in to running track. Well, used to have a program that did that – I took my shoes there Tuesday night and they informed me they no longer do that! Bummer! I hate to just throw the shoes out (and not recycle them) but they don’t qualify for a reuse program – they’re too far gone. Maybe I’ll find something else.
• The seed corn on my foot started hurting again this week. Ugh. I’ve used the pumice stone a few times since I first blogged about it, but I think I need to make sure I do it a few days a week! It helped when I used it after my Saturday long run. I also got some corn healer/remover bandages to try!
• I’ve been stupid tired this week. I felt so sleepy and slow when I started my long run on Saturday I told myself I’d turn around at 3 miles if it didn’t get better. Luckily, I started to feel better and kept going, but decided to cut back my total weekly mileage and go home early and take a short nap. Ha. Sooooooo sleeeeeeeeeeepy.

Link to Training Week 347

Comments (9)

By kilax, June 18, 2016 2:27 pm

Aww, I wish there really WAS three Datas.

Yep, Data is still staring out the bedroom windows at night. The bugs are attracted to the light in our bedroom and spend all of the time the bedroom lights are on banging against the window. Some of them are big and loud, so it’s very entertaining for Data!

Seeing all these bugs reminds me of being at my Grandma’s place on the Mississippi River in Guttenberg, IA. She also has a lot of glass in her house and the bugs swarm the windows at night when it gets dark and the lights are on.

When the bugs are really bad – like during mayfly time –  her community will turn off the (very few) street lights on her street, as to not attract them.

Do you guys know about mayflies? Their eggs are laid in water, then they sink to the bottom and stick to plants and stones. They take a few days to a couple of weeks to hatch and will spend up to two years in the water before emerging as an adult fly.

Christina showing off her mayfly friend

And that is when shiz gets cray. They all seem to emerge at once, resulting in swarms of mayfly blackouts. One time, Steven and I were driving to Guttenberg and we thought the lights were out on a bridge – nope, they were just completely covered in mayflies.

Luckily, the mayflies only come out in this big batch once a year, and they only live a few days! And apparently, 18 trillion (?!?!!?) of them hatch along the Mississippi River each year. They’re actually good for the ecosystem, but ew, ha ha. They don’t creep me out too much, but one time, my dad and I were going along the river (me running, him biking) and we came across a swarm of them and they were all over us! That definitely inspired us to get moving faster!

Comments (7)

By kilax, June 17, 2016 3:07 pm

… but the commute sure does! And being around so many people.

Where we live now is such a stark contrast to the city. Very, very, VERY quiet, peaceful and calm. The opposite of a city. We have to leave our property to see or hear anyone.

Which makes going to the city a day (or sometimes, two) a week a nice change of pace.

But it’s the consecutive days of commuting and being around so many people that does me in (especially in a training environment). I’m not sure if I was this introverted before, or if living in the (essentially) country for four months has done it to me*, but I feel completely drained/exhausted after several days of interacting with people all day long. Which is where I am now, after completing a final round of training. I just need some quiet and alone time!

And I bet some people would visit an area similar to where I live and say “get me back to the city!” Ha!

The good news is, I am done with all that crazy work training and have some days off work coming up. Yay!

(The bad news is my boss just mentioned an assignment to me that will require a lot of travel, but hopefully it will be spread out!)

*Gradually working from home more and more days a week probably has done it. Now I can’t imagine commuting every day full time anymore. My quality of life wasn’t the same when I was doing that. 

Comments (16)

By kilax, June 16, 2016 6:08 am

• My day job is in the design (interior architecture) industry. That means going to NeoCon, a several day design exposition and conference for commercial interiors at the Merchandise Mart in Chicago (I only went one day this year). All that intro is to tell you I saw this office jungle gym yesterday at NeoCon and ME LIKEY!!!! It’s called the BuzziJungle, by BuzziSpace. You basically climb in, and sit wherever! Don’t you think your office needs this?! Mine sure does!

• I ended up completely starting over with the dishcloth I started Tuesday (I was only 14 rows in, so, no biggie d) so it would be more tightly knit. I thought I was going to finish it last night but I had to do work when I got home. Maybe I’ll finish it on this morning’s train ride! Or maybe I’ll nap. Ha.

• Work has been frying my brain something serious lately. Pair that with days in training where I am trying to get my regular work done and pay attention to class, and I am SO brain dead. Blah. I can’t wait for vacation! I really need a reset.
• It’s too hot out (for me) to wear pants or jeans to work (and not suffer from my sweatiness). Time to bust out some of the last few boxes I haven’t unpacked since February – summer skirts and dresses! Woo hoo! Let the legs breeeeeeeeeeeathe!

• Ugh. The bugs out here. Those are NOT moles on my neck in my post run picture below. It’s not so much that the bugs gross me out, just that I wish they’d stay off my body/stop flying around my head. And summer hasn’t even started yet… muah ha ha.

Link to Random Thoughts Thursday 102

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By kilax, June 15, 2016 6:45 am

I picked up some yarn on Saturday to knit a few dishcloths.

No one wants any dishcloths. And I won’t use them*. And the start of first one is kind of wonky because my hands are remembering how to hold even tension on the yarn. But I wanted something to do on our flight to and from Alaska, and after dinner, to keep my hands busy. And a dishcloth is a good place to start to remind my hands what to do, before I try something more complicated.

And yay, my hands remembered how to knit! I haven’t knitted anything since January, and I was excited to remember how to do it (again) without having to look anything up.

I’m also thinking about buying a copy of Shoe Dog: A Memoir by the Creator of Nike to read on the plane. Has anyone read it?

*Mica suggested saving them for gifts (pair with soap!) – which I probably will (well, if they turn out okay, ha!).

Comments (20)

By kilax, June 14, 2016 1:56 pm

I hit 1000 (well, 1003) miles run for the year, today!

Um, apparently, on the EXACT same day as last year. That was NOT planned. Ha.

I don’t have a goal for total miles run for the year, so consistency is fine with me!

What else happens on June 14th? My snister’s wedding anniversary! Happy Anniversary, snis! Pretty soon we’ll have another June anniversary in the family… my older brother’s wedding is coming up!

Comments (20)

By kilax, June 13, 2016 6:23 am

We went to our first (and hopefully not only!) baseball game of the year yesterday.

We missed the Royals when they were in Chicago in May to play the White Sox and this was our last chance to see them here this year (during the regular season, anyway…). Steven’s brother, Andrew, hooked us up with four tickets (we went with Bobbi and John!) as an early birthday present for me. Thanks, Andrew!

Our seats were in row 2, along the middle of left field. It was awesome to sit right by the field and see so many plays up close! It was hard to tell what was going on with the pitching (and funny to hear people around us saying things like “that was totally a strike!” – how could you possibly see it?!) but I would trade being in a more central seat, to being so close to the action, again. And Andrew even found us on the broadcast of the game:

Did you find us? Look for Steven’s beard.

Thankfully, it was mostly overcast yesterday, and only in the high 60s. It was in the 90s on Saturday, and all day Saturday (as we worked in our hot attic, ha!) I was thinking about how happy I was that Andrew picked Sunday’s (and not Saturday’s) game for us to attend. I have sat in a ballpark, drenched in my own sweat before and… eh. It’s no bueno.

All week I kept telling Steven how excited I was to get a vegan hot dog at the game. It got to the point that he asked me if I was more excited about that, than the game. Ha! No…

The hot dog totally lived up to my expectations. I love that ballparks have vegan options!

And I love that the Royals won yesterday – yay!

Having an interest in professional sports is new to me. It’s not something I was raised to do or ever understood. I wondered, “Why do people care so much?” To try to understand it, I just compared it to the way we all have hobbies we’re extremely passionate about that other people just will never get – but can definitely respect and still show interest in!

Then, I read this paragraph from an excerpt from Shoe Dog (a memoir from the Nike creator, Phil Knight) in the June issue of Runner’s World, and it explained it to me in a different way that makes more sense. Knight is talking about watching Steve Prefontaine race:

Knight was there to watch the game – not race, yet he felt like he was racing – he even felt sore afterward!

For many people, watching sports is more than a hobby. It’s living another life, like you do when you read a book. It’s a chance to get a taste of an existence that will never be your reality. Maybe it’s even a bit of an escape at times… with a definite guarantee that there will be times of highs and lows.

And that’s not where I am, but reading this really helped me understand sports culture a lot better!

Comments (8)

By kilax, June 12, 2016 10:30 pm

Highlight of the Week: An even effort on my long run!

Monday | June 6, 2016: 5 m run + 7 m ride + teaching strength class
Loc: hood, Temp: 77°/78°, Time: 48:08, Pace: 9:37 avg, Difficulty: easy, Felt: good, ready for rest day!
Indoor Ride Time: 28:19 Pace: 14.9 mph avg, Difficulty: easy, Felt: good (also frustrated with speed sensor, but fixed it after the ride)
Strength: medicine balls and airex pad, Difficulty: easy, Felt: good
Tuesday | June 7, 2016: rest
Wednesday | June 8, 2016: 6 m run (incl. 10×400) + 20 mins strength + 5 m ride
Loc: hood, Temp: 59°/60°, Time: 53:36, Pace: 8:56 avg, Difficulty: medium, Felt: decent (eventually tired quads)
Indoor Ride Time: 19:23, Pace: 15.5 mph avg, Difficulty: easy, Felt: PISSED I couldn’t get the TV or my computer to work
Thursday | June 9, 2016:: 4 m run + 7 m run
Loc: hood, Temp: 61°/65°, Time: 36:31, Pace: 9:07 avg, Difficulty: easy, Felt: good, enjoyed the clouds
Loc: to VP Woods, Temp: 63°/71°, Time: 1:06:03, Pace: 9:26 avg, Difficulty: medium, Felt: good, getting tired toward end
Friday | June 10, 2016: teaching strength class + 4 m run + 1.75 m walk (w/Steven, Anne & Terry)
Strength: medicine balls and airex pad, Difficulty: easy, Felt: good
Loc: hood, Temp: 89°/89°, Time: 37:48, Pace: 9:26, Difficulty: easy, Felt: good in heat, biggest problem was stomach
Saturday | June 11, 2016: 17 m run
Loc: DPRT, Temp: 70°/74°, Time: 2:54:22, Pace: 10:15 avg, Difficulty: easy, Felt: good
Sunday | June 12, 2016: 3 m run
Loc: hood, Temp: 64°/64°, Time: 27:54, Pace: 9:17 avg, Difficulty: easy, Felt: good, but sore toes!

Notes:

• Blah, it’s that buggy time of year. For a few weeks, I’ve had bugs flying around my head during parts of my run. ANNOYING! Leave me alone!
• I had my hottest run of the year (and hotter than any run last year) on Friday- 89°F! I actually didn’t feel horrible, which is great. (My stomach was another story – oops, too many Doritos.)
• I had one of those awesome long runs this week where you want to keep going! I planned an out and back and was supposed to turn at 8 but felt so good I went to 8.5. Ha, I know, an extra mile isn’t that much, but it was encouraging to feel so good when it was really humid and gross out. I am not training for anything right now that requires that kind of mileage – I enjoy running it, so I do. And it helps with the Doritos mentioned above. And my sanity.
• I was disappointed in the lack of (some) biker’s courtesy on the trails on Saturday. It’s so easy to warn someone you are coming up on their left. Do it. And don’t ride down the middle of the path and brush by them. Sigh.

Link to Training Week 346

Comments (15)

By kilax, June 11, 2016 9:55 am

A couple of years ago Runner’s World had a hot off the press tip for one of their “use running to lose weight” articles – during your runs, swish your sports drink in your mouth then spit it out to save calories! Recent studies show the sugars trick your brain in to giving you a boost without ingesting it!

Sigh.

Yes, let’s encourage disordered eating (drinking?). It’s not enough that you’re running – don’t you dare think of swallowing (ew)!

They’ve included this tip in their magazine every few months since then. Each time it makes me ragey. I can see encouraging skipping caloric beverages when not running, when not running for a long time, and spitting out during a run if your stomach is upset, but come on. I’m a runner who almost always needs to lose weight and I’m excited I finally found a caloric beverage that my stomach can handle on long runs – because it REALLY helps me get through my run. I’m swallowing it.

I drank and swallowed ALL of this Vitamin Water!

Ugh.

The funny thing is, the article in the July issue that made me think of this is actually an article I like, because it’s about a topic I wrote a draft post about a few months ago and never posted – decision overload (I’ll have to post that once this article is up on their website). And this time, they are giving the tip to do it for a boost of energy when you are NOT running, and to actually ingest the drink if you do need to replenish your glucose stores during a run. So… maybe progress?! I don’t know. I bet we’ll see it show up as a running “weight loss” tip again in a future issue – it seems to be a favorite of theirs.