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By kilax, July 31, 2018 6:36 am

Highlight of the Week: Riding Day 7 of RAGBRAI with Dad, Gina, and Steve!

Monday | July 23, 2018: 4 m run + teaching strength class
Loc: hood, Temp: 74°/74°, Time: 38:51, Pace: 9:42 avg, Difficulty: easy, Felt: swollen
Strength: plates and kettlebells mixed mode and boxing, Felt: good
Tuesday | July 24, 2018: 7 m run
Loc: VP Woods Loop, Temp: 79°/77°, Time: 1:09:57, Pace: 9:59 avg, Difficulty: easy, Felt: good, hot
Wednesday | July 25, 2018:
Thursday | July 26, 2018: 10.5 m run + massage
Loc: Redbox return loop, Temp: 69°/71°, Time: 1:44:40, Pace: 9:58 avg, Difficulty: easy, Felt: good, still swollen
Friday | July 27, 2018: teaching strength class + 1,008 yd swim + 3 m run
Strength: plates and kettlebells mixed mode and boxing, Felt: good
Loc: FitNation, Time: 20:42, Pace: 2:03 min/100 yd, Difficulty: easy, Felt: great (post massage swim)
Loc: hood, Temp: 65°/67°, Time: 29:11, Pace: 9:43 avg, Difficulty: easy, Felt: good, wished I had more time to run!
Saturday | July 28, 2018: 3.5 m run + RAGBRAI Day 7
Loc: Coralville, Temp: 56°/56°, Time: 34:31, Pace: 9:52 avg, Difficulty: somewhat easy, Felt: good, glad to wake up the legs
Loc: Iowa City to Davenport, Temp: 63°/77°, Time: 5:22:54, Pace: 13.7 mph avg, Difficulty: easy, Felt: great
Sunday | July 29, 2018: 11.5 m run (last 7.5 with Gina and Dad (on bike))
Loc: Guttenberg, Temp: 58°/62°, Time: 1:49:35, Pace: 9:32 avg, Difficulty: mostly easy, Felt: great until the last mile!

Notes:

• Our next door neighbor rides his bike all year long (never with a helmet, sigh) and I often see him while running. On Monday, I saw him twice on my run. The second time I saw him, he did a 180° turn in the street in front of an oncoming van. I didn’t see him ride by after and wondered if he was talking to the van because he knew the person. Then the van eventually drove off and I saw my neighbor and his bike on the ground. I was worried he got hit, but he told me he fell, because he turned and didn’t see the van. Sigh. I wish he’d wear a helmet and use a mirror. We live by roads with high speed limits, and he worries me!
• Ugh, my Monday run felt somewhat miserable because my feet and ankles were so swollen from my mosquito bites. Blah. Does that happen to anyone else – you feel your bug bites affecting your run?
• Then, Monday night, I fell down a few stair steps and messed up my legs even more. Yay!
• But I got a massage Thursday and that helped BIG time, thankfully!
• I had to share a lane for the end of my swim on Friday and WHOA that was difficult. I felt like I was going to run in the to wall each time the other person went by. It would be good practice for a triathlon if I had any interest in doing one.
• RAGBRAI Day 7 was a blast and I felt great for the entire ride! I will blog more about that in a few days, hopefully!
• We’ve been having cooler weather in the mornings and it’s such a treat! Gina and I ran Sunday, not knowing how far we’d go, but kept going because we felt so great (until the last mile for me where my body said “no more!,” ha).

Link to Training Week 457

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By kilax, July 27, 2018 9:21 am

THIS IS NOT A DRILL. The kittens are actually coming home in one week!

Get ready to be bombarded with photos and daily updates!!!

I told Steven is looks like someone dipped their fingers in paint and ran them down this guy’s back!

I feel extremely guilty they’re ready to come home but “stuck” at the vet’s office (we couldn’t bring them home because of our travel schedule). But, if there is one place for them to be, being loved on by everyone at the vet’s office is a good place. Right? RIGHT?!?!?? Sad face.

The love is already pouring in for our kittens – they’ve received a few gifts and giftcards in the mail! We took some of their gifts to play with them last night and holy cow do they have a lot of energy. It’s going to be fun (CRAZY) times in our house!

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By kilax, July 26, 2018 6:39 am

• My birthday is next week, so I am treating myself and my bestie coworker is treating me to a manicure today!!! How sweet!
• As a present, I bought myself two pairs of running shoes. Because of my extreme supination, my running shoes only last to 200 miles IF I’m lucky. And I run around 1,500-2,000 miles a year, so I need 8-10 pairs a year. I was telling my snis all this and she asked me to estimate how much I’ve spent on running shoes this year, which inspired me to start tracking it (and back track it) so I don’t get tooooooo ridiculous with how many shoes I keep around.
• Sad news – last week there was a fire at a famous landmark near us, the Pyramid House. The humans in the family got out okay, but one dog did not, and four fire fighters were injured. I’ve heard there was over three million dollars in damage, and that the family plans to rebuild – but that could just be a rumor. See more here (pdf here) if you’re interested.
• I finished My Fight/Your Fight and am now reading The Last Time I Lied, the second book by Riley Sager (I read his first book, Final Girls, this month too!). It was interesting reading My Fight/Your Fight with Rousey saying she was never going to lose a fight, but to know that she did right after the book was published. I hope she writes another book in a few years about how that affected her and if it changed her mentality!

• This guy showed up Tuesday! And according to my brother, his name is Hector! Seeing him really made me want to open the cat house back up (<— searching for that link brought up a lot of Snow pictures and upset me a bit).

Link to Random Thoughts Thursday 188

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By kilax, July 25, 2018 12:27 pm

4 things people comment on when they see me in the summer

1. The amount of scars on my legs*
2. How dark my skin is
3. My funky tan lines
   
4. All my mosquito bites

I know I have more skin showing in the summer so these things are more apparent, but, come on people, do you need to say something?

4 things annoying me at work right now

1. When someone modifies the agenda to shorten the lunch break
2. When someone argues with me about doing something THEY were supposed to do
3. When I’m left off a meeting to review something I designed
4. People sharing personal information they shouldn’t

Thankfully I’m off for a few days starting tomorrow! I need a break!

4 “tricks” I use

1. Put your pet’s food in a boot tray so the spills/messiness are contained
   

   I’m not messy; I’m a lady

2. Put important dates in your calendar and set up reminders – people are super touched when you remember!
3. I’ve mentioned this before, but use body glide to prevent summer chafing when you wear dresses and skirts
4. Don’t think you’re gonna make your step goal for the day? Modify it to a lower number for that day only and keep the steak going! Ha! Muah ha ha. Hee hee.

Ha, not “life hacks,” but I had to share, especially the last one.

4 of my “special” “talents”

1. Taking super speedy showers
2. Remembering names and dates
3. Navigation/knowing where I am
4. Photoshop

I’ve found myself saying “it’s one of my special talents” a bit lately, so I had to put those here!

*Last year, someone asked what all the scars on my leg were from, and I said all the mosquito bites I picked as a kid and as an adult. I said “I wish I would have listened to my mom and not picked them!” Then this person called their child over, pointed at my legs and said “this is why you shouldn’t pick your mosquito bites!”… so happy to be an example… … …

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By kilax, July 24, 2018 6:29 am

One happy, one sad with a happy ending, one wtf is he doing, and one wtf is wrong with me.

One happy story

Athena, mother to our kitties, is in her forever home at Bobbi’s! She went home yesterday and is adapting well. I can’t stop smiling when I look at the pictures of her chilling in her new home! And I can’t stop asking Bobbi “how’s she doing now?” “now?” “what’s she doing?” Ha ha.

One sad with a happy ending story

This one is about amphibians so skip it if you want!

When I ride my bike in the basement, I often see shadows and movement in the window well. I assumed it was chipmunks climbing in and out (sigh) then one day I saw this guy hanging out and realized it was frogs!

I thought nothing of it until the next time I noticed a frog was in there and was trying to climb out and kept falling. So after I got off my bike I went outside and got two frogs out of there, and saw that there were several frog carcasses.

Ugh, I felt horrible that they were getting trapped in there and dying. (I think they’re climbing around in the hostas around the window well and fall in). So we put a “ramp” in for them to climb out, and I’ve been checking each day for trapped frogs. So far, so good.

One wtf is he doing story

I think Data is taking playing “the floor is lava” game to an extreme. For a few weeks, he’s been obsessed with sitting on tables and counters. And recently, he’s been trying to move from one raised surface to another without touching the ground. When he does touch the hardwood or tile floor on our first floor, he can only stand it for a little bit before bolting upstairs and getting on the bed.

Sigh.

The internet theorizes he is avoiding the floor because of fleas (nope), or he’s scared of something. He has been hiding in the closet a lot more than normal. Nothing seems to be wrong with his feet (that the floor would be bothering him). Poor dude. Thankfully, he is still going to the bathroom in the boxes on the first floor, but we had to move his food upstairs so he can eat off of the carpet (because he wouldn’t eat off the hardwood floors in the kitchen). If this continues, I’ll call the vet to see if he has any theories about what is going on.

One wtf is wrong with me story

Last night Khali was sitting on the carpeted stairs and I went to walk down them to pet her and fell and slid down several of the stairs on the outside of my left leg and the inside of my right one. Sigh. I have carpet burn, scrapes, and lumps under where I hit the steps. Oh, and did I mention it freaking HURT? I went to bed in pain. I feel better today, but pretty beat up. (Luckily I did not land on Khali – she ran up the stairs as I fell down, and is fine.)

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By kilax, July 23, 2018 6:21 am

Whoa, I was L-A-Z-Y this weekend! I enjoyed being lazy, but did think I was going to get a few more chores done… oops.

FRIDAY!

Friday started out crappy. I had a bad headache due to the pressure drop,

and was mostly out of commission. I told Steven french fries would make me feel better (???) so we went to White Castle to pick up some of their Impossible Burger sliders and fries.

This is only my second time EVER getting White Castle (the first time was also at this location). Question – is the service always so slow? It took fifteen minutes to get our four sliders and one order of fries. The first time we went it took about twenty minutes.

The sliders were good though! And the cold, thirty-minute old french fries did “help” my headache. We ate at home and watched the new Tomb Raider, which I was surprised to enjoy after all the bad reviews it got.

And the best part of Friday? The female kittens got fixed and the veterinarian said they were doing well!

SATURDAY!

I started Saturday with a short run and ride, then ran errands, then mostly chilled after. We finished watching Rock of Ages, made lunch, watched an episode of Mad Men, then I told Steven I was going to take a “disco nap” so I could stay up late that night at a party. Ha! (But really, it was necessary.)

I had made a hair cut appointment for before the party, hoping I’d be happy enough with the blowout to not have to do anything to my hair, but it looked flat to me. So I put on my big girl pants and located my curling iron (which I apparently have not used in the two years and five months we’ve lived in this house) and attempted to style my hair.

I NEVER style my hair. It’s either in a messy “bun” (not really a bun), a ponytail, or straightened. So I felt super proud of myself for attempting to, and not giving up. (I’m not saying it looked great, I’m just proud I TRIED.)

The party we went to was at our veterinarian’s office to celebrate their twenty-five year anniversary. We’ve been clients there for thirteen years, as long as we’ve had Data! There was food, speeches, dancing, and an open bar.

We sat with another client couple, and the wife was from Ames, Iowa, the town where we both went to college. So we chatted with them a TON, and of course, have some connections back in Ames, and locally.

We also visited the kittens while we were there (they’re ready to come home, but with our schedules, we can’t bring them home until August 2nd)!!! They seem SO BIG.

And I danced a bit while Steven chatted with some folks. We had a fun time and were heading out when the party ended at 11:00, then realized someone with a stick-shift car needed a ride home and Steven was the only one there who can drive a stick, so we ended up staying later and not getting back to our house until close to 1:00. I think we went to bed at 2:00. Eek!

SUNDAY!

So I kind of wasted away my Sunday after going to be so late and getting such odd sleep. I woke up at 7:00, was up for over an hour, then slept until 9:30. Whoa!

I finally got my butt out the door for a run, then we had lunch and watched Run All Night, had a FaceTime call with Gina and Steve to talk about RAGBRAI stuff, and mostly lounged and did a few minor chores that day/night. Again, oops! But I am glad we didn’t have any plans because I was out of it most of the day. Eh, it happens. There will be more productive days ahead.

Oh, and I don’t think I mentioned the party was outside… and I had my bug spray with me and forgot to use it right away. Sigh. My feet and ankles itch so bad.

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By kilax, July 22, 2018 5:14 pm

Highlight of the Week: Running with Yvonne!

Monday | July 16, 2018: 20 mins strength + 5 m run
Loc: VP Woods to Pine Dunes loop, Temp: 88°/85°, Time: 49:55, Pace: 9:59 avg, Difficulty: easy enough, Felt: sore legs at first then fine
Tuesday | July 17, 2018: 13 m bike + 13 m run
Indoor Ride Time: 47;55, Pace: 16.3 mph avg, Difficulty: easy, Felt: good, a bit annoyed with the sensor
Loc: Lake Andrea/Outlet Mall Loop, Temp: 76°/72°, Time: 2:09:24, Pace: 9:57 avg, Difficulty: easy, Felt: good, sore toe
Wednesday | July 18, 2018: 3 m run
Loc: Lakefront Trail, Temp: 75°/76°, Time: 29:21, Pace: 9:46 avg, Difficulty: easy, Felt: good
Thursday | July 19, 2018: 5 m run (w/Yvonne, incl. 3 tempo) + 10 m bike + teaching strength class
Loc: VP Woods, Temp: 58°/64°, Time: 43:58, Pace: 8:47 avg, Difficulty: easy, Felt: good!
Indoor Ride Time: 40:11, Pace: 14.9 mph, Difficulty: easy, Felt: good
Strength: Leberts & dumbbells, Felt: good, remembered to take it easy
Friday | July 20, 2018: teaching strength class + 508 yd swim
Strength: Leberts & dumbbells, Felt: good
Loc: FitNation, Time: 10:32, Pace: 2:05 min/100 yd, Difficulty: easy, Felt: not feeling it, gear issues
Saturday | July 21, 2018: 4 m run + 13 m bike
Loc: hood, Temp: 68°/67°, Time: 36:47, Pace: 9:11 avg, Difficulty: easy, Felt: great, enjoyed running in the rain
Indoor Bike Time: 53:22, Pace: 14.6 mph avg, Difficulty: easy, Felt: good
Sunday | July 22, 2018: 10 m run
Loc: VP Woods Loop, Temp: 68°/69°, Time: 1:39:58, Pace: 9:59 avg, Difficulty: mostly easy, Felt: fine, once I woke up!

Notes:

• Ugh, I had heartburn during my Monday and Tuesday 4:00 pm runs. I blame my afternoon snacks and the heat! No more bars as a snack (or, just no snack… whuuuuuuuuuuuuuuut?!??!).
• I actually ran with a friend this week, and it was lovely! Yay! I hope we can again, soon, because it’s nice to catch up… and she’s faster than me and I run faster without thinking about it as much.
• I ended up working out a lot less this weekend than I thought I would. A headache Friday kept me from doing any more after my swim, then I stayed up super late Saturday and didn’t get up early to do much Sunday. Oh well!
• I didn’t get to ride outside this weekend (it was raining a lot of the weekend, and I don’t ride in the rain), but I did get three indoor rides in. I feel ready to ride Day 7 of RAGRABI next Saturday!

Link to Training Week 456

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By kilax, July 21, 2018 6:26 am

I’ve been blogging for thirteen years as of today!

I started this blog in 2005 to document my college semester in Rome (in spring 2006), then liked writing and connecting with people so much, I stuck with it!

At first, I hand coded my blog, and didn’t add a way for people to comment. I just wanted to document my experiences. Then I saw on other blogs how fun it was to leave comments and interact with the blogger. So I added a widget to side of the blog that allowed people to leave comments, in general. I eventually added code to each post to comment specifically on that post, then in 2007, my blogger friends told me about WordPress and RSS feeds, so I bought the “Dummies” book for that, and the rest is history!

So, from the beginning, my blog was about documentation and story telling, and STILL is. I’m not here to make money, get free stuff, push an agenda, give you advice, or get “famous” (ha). I love and appreciate having a place to document some parts of my life, and I love the awesome surprise of it connecting me with people from around the world (pretty much what I said last year)!

So, again, thank you for reading! There’s not as many of us blogging for story-telling purposes as there used to be, and I appreciate all of you that still do! And I appreciate all of you that don’t blog but take the time to read this, and interact with me!

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By kilax, July 20, 2018 7:03 am

The sump pump project is completed! Yay! (Click here to read what a sump pump is and where you need them.)

Background: we have two separate sump pumps in our basement. One is for ground water and one is for water in our house (laundry, AC, etc.). The first one pumps the water outside near the pond, and the second one pumps the water in to our septic tank.

We had new sump pumps installed two years ago when we moved in. We have an alarm system in our sump pits that goes off if the water rises higher than it should, to let us know the pumps are failing. And we have a generator to keep the pumps going when the power is out, so it’s a secure system! (Last year, our power was out for almost twelve hours during a storm where we got five inches of rain! The generator kept the sump pump going, and our basement dry.)

We decided to make the set-up SECURER, by installing another sump pump (same model) in the pit, as back up. So, if the first one fails, the second one works.

We also decided to put covers over the sump pits, because: it looks nicer, it mutes some of the noise, and keeps some of the radon in the ground out of the air in our basement.

We began the project by demolishing the build-out around the sump pump that pumps ground water outside. We needed to demolish it to be able to get to it to work on it.

Then we started working on installing the back-up pump and cover on the other sump pit, which was more complicated because things in the basement drain in to it (air conditioner, water filter, floor drain, washer, sink, and dehumidifier).

We cleaned all the water out of the pit, and cleaned the floor around it, to prepare the lid to be glued on.

A lot of the project was staging the two pumps (one new, one old) in the pits, and staging the PVC pipe coming out of them. Because we added an extra pump, there’s now an extra pipe. The pipes have to join because they exit the house in the same spot. And they also have to have a check valve that keeps water from running back down the pipes in to the pit.

So, we’d stage it all up, drill the holes for the pipes to go through in the cover, stage it again, then glue the cover down and screw it in to the ground. Then we’d put grommets on the holes in the cover, get the pipes through (involving sanding them down, olive oil, and elbow grease), then do more staging to build the pipes up the wall.

Getting the first pit “set up” took about six hours three Sundays ago. Then Steven spent time during the weeknights finishing up the other connections in the lid, and screwing the cap on to the lid.

Here is what it looks like without the cap on it yet

We worked on the second pit two Sundays ago. It didn’t take quite as long because it has less connections going in to it. But it did fill up as we were working on it, because you can’t turn off the water going in to that pit like you can with the other one!

Ground water sump pit completed, with lid on the cover, and extension coming out for future connection. This is the area from the before picture above. 

Then Steven finished installing the cap on the lid two Mondays ago, then installed traps on the AC and water filter pipes last Saturday. The traps keep any smells or gases from coming up out of the drain lines in to our house systems.

Water filter line trap

I’m glad we had a break in the rain while we were working on the ground water sump pumps! The hardest part of this was probably getting the pipes through the grommets once they were in the covers. We both had to push on them to get them through! And then there was the mischievous pipe cutter that sometimes liked to cut or gouge things at an angle… I think that’s getting returned!

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By kilax, July 19, 2018 6:00 am

• I talked to the veterinarian on Tuesday and the females kittens haven’t been spayed yet – besides the restriction of weighing five pounds or more, they’re also trying to fit them in the pro bono surgery schedule. That’s okay with me. At this point we can’t bring them home until August 1st or 2nd due to travel anyway.
• The kittens are getting so big! They look huge in this photo Bobbi sent me from visiting them Tuesday!

I put white stars by the kittens that are ours. The other two are actually going to one family as well! The two others from the litter are already home. 

• All my current library books are non-fiction. I wonder how many of these I’ll make it through. My Fight/Your Fight and Chasing Excellence had a similar tone (which makes sense, one is about CrossFit, and one is about Ronda Rousey) – that being the best requires 100% dedication and sacrifice. I abandoned Chasing Excellence, but am enjoying My Fight/Your Fight.

• I thought I was picking up our next Book Club for Two book, Extreme Ownership, yesterday, but for some reason, the library canceled my hold, after it said it was being shipped. Wah. (I just requested it again…)
• Other people’s dreams are boring, but I have to share this one. Ha. I was in a Mad Men-esque office, and an important client was coming in. For some reason, I had on my “run all the miles, eat all the tacos” shirt. So I asked Joan (from the show) if I could go home and change in to a dress. She was very annoyed/upset with me.

• I should have added this to my Tuesday complaint post, but Google Gmail, how much longer are you going to have “contacts” under your left side drop down menu, if it just tells people to use the right side menu? Just take it away from the left side! That will teach me faster! (Maybe this is fixed in the new Gmail, which I am not using, since it doesn’t have Labs.)

Link to Random Thoughts Thursday 187