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By kilax, November 16, 2018 6:17 pm

Woo hoo! My new blog is up! Check me out at kimhastheruns.com!

My new blog design is by Riss Blog Design (Riss Design), which was recommended by Shelley (I liked Shelley’s redesign so much I asked her who did it!) I love the design Rissa came up with! It’s modern and runner-focused, but not cheesy. And I love how bright, fresh, and clean the page is now. Go check it out!

Here’s how you can follow me:

• Via RSS feed (or on Bloglovin’) with https://kimhastheruns.com/
• On Facebook here – click on the “Follow” button to get notifications when I post.
• Via email – click through to my page and enter your email address on the right side of the page where it says “SUBSCRIBE TO BLOG VIA EMAIL.” You’ll get an email to confirm you want to follow.
• By remembering to look at it, ha

I bought the url “kimhastheruns” in December 2012 because I thought it would be easier to remember than “ilaxstudio” when I told people about my blog. And… it took me six years to act on that. <— Go me.

So, why “kimhastheruns”? Because:

• It’s easier to remember than ilaxstudio
• My last name hasn’t been Ilax for ten years, and my blog is no longer “studio” (design) focused
• I like to run
• I like toilet humor

And there ya go!

Let me know what you think of the site! And you can find this week’s Random Thoughts Thursday and San Francisco! (part iii) & Vegan Donut Tour! there!

Thanks for following me at my new url!

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By kilax, November 15, 2018 6:57 am

I have two posts ready to publish – Random Thoughts Thursday and part iii of our San Francisco trip (which you may have noticed was up and taken down yesterday) – but I am going to hold off on posting them here. All of the content from ilaxstudio was transferred to my new domain yesterday, and if I post them here, I will just have to repost them there. All the comments will be lost.

So hopefully the new domain will be live soon, and the posting can recommence!

Khali says, “Ugh, whatevs.”

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By kilax, November 14, 2018 12:42 pm

This is part ii of my San Francisco recap. You can read part i here! Looks like there will be a part iii because this got a bit long!

SATURDAY!

On Saturday I got to run in Golden Gate Park, which awed me. I already said this, but I’d love to run there again! And to do a race there.

We got Arzimendi Bakery for breakfast, and I had the vegan focaccia (yum). Normally I’d share food pics with you, but none turned out. So I will share other mediocre pics instead.

After we fueled we were off on a long walk through a few neighborhoods, with a planned end at The Painted Ladies near Alamo Square. On the days we walked a lot, we got about 18,000 steps in. We both enjoyed walking so much and seeing things that way – that’s how we prefer to explore!

Mica asked us what we were most surprised by in San Francisco. I said the size – looking at it on a map, I didn’t grasp how big of a city it is. I understood we’d take public transportation and get rides places, but I thought things would be a littler closer together (this is not a complaint!).

Steven said the variety of neighborhoods. He thought things would be more homogeneous, but there are distinct neighborhoods and architectural styles. He compared it to New York City, and I agree. And we don’t mean to offend San Franciscans – I am not sure if they hate the NYC comparison as much as Chicagoans do!

Our walk included stops at Hot Cookie (yum), a yarn store, Cha-Ya (vegetarian Japanese food, also yum), KitTEA Cat Cafe (just to watch – made me miss my babies even more), and Blue Bottle Coffee.

We walked up a huge hill to see the Painted Ladies and when we got to the park, Mica said “Don’t look yet! Don’t look!” until we got up a little hill in the park “Okay, you can look now.” Ha ha.

We didn’t reenact the Full House intro as planned (ha), but it was cool to see these homes we saw so many times watching that show in childhood.

Mica had told us that the show intro implies the park is a lot more open and I totally get what she meant – there was a group of trees in the park that make it feel more cramped than the TV does. Ahh, TV magic. That’s show business, baby <— put that line in solely to annoy my snis.

After hanging out at the house we went back home and ordered Patxi’s Pizza. I appreciated that they had a vegan deep dish! Even though it made both of us gassy muah ha ha.

Then we watched San Andreas (we wanted to watch something “set” in San Francisco) and played more Overcooked 2 to STAY AWAKE BECAUSE WE HAD MIDNIGHT THEATER TICKETS!

So, Mica and Harrison love The Room, this horrible 2003 movie set in San Francisco that has a cult following because of how bad it is (the 2017 film The Disaster Artist is about making The Room). Mica was STOKED when she found out it would be playing while we were there. I really think that is what she was most excited about – introducing us to it, because she knows we love to laugh!

And laugh, we did.

But first! We had to go to Target and get spoons. There are framed pictures of spoons in the movie, and whenever you see them, you yell “spoons!” and throw spoons up in the air. So fun.

When we got to the film, we found out the writer/producer/director/star Tommy Wiseau was there. It made me happy to see Mica and Harrison excited about meeting him! I still had no idea what he was like, and just thought he was polite and goofy (in a fun way).

So the movie didn’t actually start until after 1:00 am! There was a long line for people to meet Tommy and get autographs, then he did a completely goofy question and answer that got me really excited for how wacky the movie would be.

And oh, it was. I understand the obsession with it. I want to go again! It was a blast to learn the cues for all the things to shout, chant, or do. Steven and I both laughed so hard, at the movie and especially at the audience.

(The movie is about a love triangle between two friends, with bad acting, bad lines, inconsistencies, horrible sex scenes, and just so much ridiculousness.)

We got home so late! Past 3:00! But it was totally worth it! We fell asleep while repeating and laughing at the different lines from the movie. Side note: and we watched The Disaster Artist Monday/Tuesday night when we returned. Steven had seen it and liked it, and I hadn’t yet!

This is getting long so I’ll write a part iii about our last day(s)!

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By kilax, November 13, 2018 5:05 pm

We’re back from our San Francisco trip! It was our first trip (EVER!) to California and we had a great time! We followed our favorite city vacation schedule style —> do things all day and chill at home at night.

Mica*and Harrison made this trip possible for us – Mica used airline points for our flight out there (thank you!!!), and we stayed with them (thank you!!!) in the Inner Sunset neighborhood.

They were such gracious and thoughtful hosts, making our vacation effortless and relaxing by figuring out how to see and do the things we wanted, and by having suggestions for activities and meals. I normally do this sort of planning and leading when we travel and it was amazing to have someone else take charge. And how lucky that we got to experience so much of San Francisco through two of its residents!

Side note: that’s something I’ve been working on getting better at for when I have visitors – presenting tailored ideas for what to do, see, and eat. People can take them or leave them, but I personally appreciate having options presented.

Anyway!

We arrived in San Francisco Thursday afternoon and left Monday morning. I’ll break the recap in to two posts, so you aren’t completely bombarded with photos.

THURSDAY!

We had an easy flight from Chicago to San Francisco. It was nice to be on a plane with built-in entertainment consoles; I haven’t seen that in years since I’m usually on shorter flights. I watched Ant-Man and the Wasp, and Mamma Mia 2, and the time (thankfully) flew by.

Mica met us at the airport and we took a Lyft to her place. We hung out, got a bite at Peasant Pies, (delicious) took a short walk through Golden Gate Park (stunning) and then hung out and ordered Mexican food from Papalote Mexican Grill (amazing).

I was a bit out of it due to the longer day – being up at 5:00 am central time and staying up past 10:00 pm pacific time, but I got enough sleep that night and felt fine the next day!

FRIDAY!

When we woke up Friday morning Steven asked if I smelled smoke. We wondered if someone nearby was burning something. Sadly, it was from the Camp Fire wildfire. You could smell the smoke most of the day, and it was extremely hazy, as you’ll see in the photos below. I had been somewhat considering a run, but when Mica told me it was advised not to run with all that smoke, I was fine with that! (We saw so many people wearing face masks all weekend.)

Friday was our super touristy day! We had a short list of things we wanted to see/do in San Francisco – go to Alcatraz, see the Golden Gate Bridge, ride a cable car, see the Painted Ladies, and eat all the food (including a vegan donut). So Friday was our Alcatraz, Fisherman’s Wharf/Pier 39 (figured we might as well walk through), Ghiradelli Square, and cable car day.

Another side note: people were super opinionated with telling me what to see and do in San Francisco when I told them I was going. A lot of people love the city and want to share the love! But a lot of people don’t know me, like the random Lyft driver from the week before who told me to skip all the touristy things and just go up to Napa Valley. Um, no, dude. That’s you. That doesn’t appeal to me, except for the scenery. And I am not going to go to San Francisco for the first time and miss all the landmarks.

Anyway (again).

So off to Alcatraz we went! It was so cool watching the island come in closer view on the boat!

Our limited knowledge of Alcatraz Island is all from the movie The Rock and what little I read in the guide book, so I found the self-guided audio tour of the penitentiary very informative, interesting, and well-done. I have bad hearing, and get distracted in a group with a guide, so an audio tour is perfect for me.

The views of the city, Bay Bridge, Golden Gate Bridge, and surrounding areas from the island are remarkable… if only we could see them through the haze. We couldn’t even distinguish the bright color of the Golden Gate Bridge! Nutso!

But we still enjoyed touring all the buildings on the island, and seeing the different trees, plants, and flowers. At one point I was looking down at the choppy waters wondering what it would be like to be a criminal trying to escape by jumping and swimming and my snis text me (at that exact moment) “Don’t fall off the island snist.” Her snister senses were definitely tingling!

We went to Boudin at Pier 39 for a late lunch of sandwiches and all decided it was like an overrated Panera. We also tried some mediocre cookie dough (at DOUGHP).

*Not actually legit

The most interesting part of that area was watching and listening to the doofus-y playful sea lions (despite their horrible smell)!

Oh! And Steven made a smashed penny (with a cable car design) for his collection.

We walked through Ghiradelli Square to see if there was anything interesting there (no), then got our cable car tickets.

I think we waited in line for an hour for our ten minute ride but we didn’t care because the weather was nice and we had each other to chat with.

The ride was unremarkable – it was super crowded inside and we couldn’t see anything, except the top of Lombard Street at one point – but it was fun to do together.

(This all sounds very negative but we were having a good time – my point here is that I wanted to check out the tourist trap areas and confirm they weren’t for me – they weren’t. We’re more in to walking around random neighborhoods and discovering things. But I’m grateful we got to see what they were like, and on a Friday instead of the weekend.)

We took a Lyft home and walked to VeganBurg for dinner with Harrison when he got home from work. It’s difficult for me to decide on a meal when I go to an all vegan restaurant – I’m used to combing the menu for the one or two things that are vegan or that I can customize to make vegan! We enjoyed it (once we picked out our meals).

We stopped for ice cream at The Ice Cream Bar, then went home and played Five Second Rule and Overcooked 2… until midnight! Overcooked 2 is ADDICTIVE. And stressful. I hadn’t even heard of it (we don’t use our very old gaming system and I don’t stay current with the new games (although I do know what Red Dead Redemption II is, thanks to my brother-in-law Will)). In the game, you work with a team to create dishes at a restaurant. At first you’re just chopping vegetables for salads, but the meals become more complicated and obstacles are thrown in your way. It was super fun but I feel bad about yelling at people to get out of my way in the kitchen. Ha ha. Mica knows about my competitive-ass nature when playing games, so it’s all good! And we went to bed feeling (somewhat) successful as a group (okay, there were some moments where certain people were just spinning around in circles with the fire extinguisher).

Gosh, that game obviously made a good impression on me since I wrote so much about it!

More on the rest of our trip in part ii! (see part ii here)

*Mica and I have been blog friends since March 2009

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By kilax, November 11, 2018 10:44 pm

Highlight of the Week: Running in San Francisco!

Monday | November 5, 2018: 7 m run + 3.2 m run + teaching strength class
Loc: Lakefront Trail, Temp: 46°, Time: 1:10:03, Pace: 10:00 avg, Difficulty: easy, Felt: good, thankfully!
Loc: Lakefront Trail, Temp: 47°/49°, Time: 32:27, Pace: 10:09 avg, Difficulty: easy, Felt: good
Strength: Lebert and dumbbells, Felt: good
Tuesday | November 6, 2018: 3 m run
Loc: hood, Temp: 45°/46°, Time: 29;13, Pace: 9:43 avg, Difficulty: easy, Felt: good
Wednesday | November 7, 2018: 4 m run
Loc: hood, Temp: 38°/38°, Time: 39:14, Pace: 9:48 avg, Difficulty: easy, Felt: good, but frustrated with the wind
Thursday | November 8, 2018: 2 m run
Loc: hood, Temp: 33°/33°, Time: 19:34, Pace: 9:46 avg, Difficulty: easy, Felt: good
Friday | November 9, 2018: “rest”
Saturday | November 10, 2018: 3.5 m run
Loc: Golden Gate Park, Temp: 49°/53°, Time: 37:18, Pace: 10:39 avg, Difficulty: easy, Felt: great
Sunday | November 11, 2018: 3.5 m run
Loc: Golden Gate Park, Temp: 62°/62°, Time: 37:22, Pace: 10:41 avg, Difficulty: medium, Felt: okay, a bit out of breath

Notes:

• After my right quad felt so sore all weekend, and still ached Monday morning I was worried how my run would go, but it didn’t bother me at all! Yay!
• Gosh, the wind was terrible the first few days of the week. It seemed like a preview of what’s ahead for the winter. Time to start covering my face when I run!
• Both of my San Francisco runs were in the stunning Golden Gate Park, which Mica lives across from. The trees and flower types in the park were so foreign to me, I felt like I was in a movie set. I’d love to come back some day and run the entire park! And I’d love to do a race in San Francisco and run in other parts of the city! Maybe even try one of those large hills, ha!
• This was my first time running in California, so I get to mark off a new state on my “Race in / Run in” map! Yay!

Link to Training Week 472

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By kilax, November 9, 2018 10:21 am

Our local “lite” radio station switched over to holiday music yesterday! (Click through from email/RSS to take a poll on Christmas music!)

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Then this happened!

Eeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!

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By kilax, November 8, 2018 6:08 am

• My goodness, the story telling in Little Fires Everywhere was so good. I’d consider owning a copy of it, to cherish again. (That, along with Station Eleven, my other favorite read from the  year!). I really want to know more about what happens to the characters! We need a part II!

• I moved from that to a guidebook of San Francisco to somewhat prepare for our trip! Well, I also tried reading a novel called Ghosted but ditched it. The author spent way too much time describing the landscape, which drove me bonkers. And it was moving slow. That’s something I liked about Little Fires Everywhere – Ng didn’t go on and on about unnecessary details. It was super detailed, but with a purpose.
• Ha, on my Monday commute, another train rider was gushing to me when she saw my reusable plastic bag. She even got hers out to show me and told me about all the times she uses it. Love it!
• What is it with iTunes taking three attempts to get my playlists to sync? And it often rewriting them or missing songs? Grr.
• An update on our intruders – there’s been four of them so far and we’ve had them all relocated.
• Here’s some cute cuddling kitty pics!

Link to Random Thoughts Thursday 202

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By kilax, November 7, 2018 5:06 pm

One hundred thirty-four point six.

That’s how many miles I’ve run on these shoes.

And look at them. They didn’t just start to look like this today.

Sigh.

It might be time to figure out how to NOT land on my right heel.

I’m burning through shoes MUCH faster than I can afford, and it’s just not good for my body to run on them with so much of the heel missing.

UGH.

Wah.

P.S. All my running shoes wear like this.

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By kilax, November 6, 2018 6:12 am

During my annual review at work last week, one of my constructive criticisms was that when I am told to do something I don’t know how to do, I say “I don’t know how to do that,” then find someone who knows how.

The feedback was that time and time again, I’ve figured out how to do things I don’t know how to do, so when tasked with something like that, I should build on that past confidence to figure it out. And not say “I don’t know how to do that.”

Bottom line – they don’t want to hear “I don’t know how to do that.” Fair enough.

I know I need to change this instinctual response. I need to replace “I don’t know how to do that,” with “I’ll figure it out.” The first response is way too negative, and probably makes it sound like I am not going to figure things out, even though I always do.

And figuring it out will still involve, yes, me asking people who’ve done it before for advice. Because I don’t need to reinvent the wheel with most things I do at work. Especially procedural things. I prefer being taught. I prefer being efficient, when possible.

It’s funny I got this feedback right before a work day trip where I was going to do something I’ve never done before, and feeling nervous about it. How did I prepare? By asking people on my team who’ve done it before for tips and lessons learned. Did I say it was my first time and I didn’t know how to do it? To coworkers, yes. It’s almost like I do that to set expectations – hey, just a heads up, I have no idea how to do this, because I wasn’t trained on it, and never thought I’d have to, and don’t want it to be part of my job. But I’m gonna do my best! (Ha, not what I actually said…)

It all boils down to change being hard (and me being stubborn). My job is so different from when I started, and I understand why, but the new work doesn’t appeal to me. I work hard, but I don’t enjoy it. It’s rare I get excited about things at work anymore.

Luckily I work somewhere with lots of positions so I keep watching for something new! And yes, I can use a more positive vocabulary while I do so.

I just have such a hard time not saying what I’m thinking… or showing my reaction on my face even if I don’t say anything (ha, that was another constructive criticism years ago). But I can continue to work on that, and fake it until I make it at work!

No related picture, so here’s one from yesterday’s run

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By kilax, November 5, 2018 11:21 am

Can every weekend have an extra hour please? But without setting off our amount of daylight? Someone please figure that out. Kthxbai.

FRIDAY!

Gah, Apollo has been such a little turd lately! On Friday during a conference call (of course), I heard him pawing at the floor in the foyer and thought he was getting ready to poo there (he’s done that a few times). I stood up from my desk (still on my call) to try to see what was going on, and didn’t see anything, so I ignored it.

I forgot about it until later, when Starbuck started pawing at that area. “Why is she interested in that area too? Did he actually poop there?!” I thought.

No.

There was a slight paint peel on the drywall, and he was scratching at it, making it bigger, and getting paint all over the floor, which is what Starbuck was playing with. He also put those scratch marks in the wall, because, why not?

Sigh. He must be bored. I need to play with them more. LESS SLEEPING MORE PLAYING, YOU TWO!

I missed another exciting animal happening outside the house, after work – there was a fox in our yard! Steven said the fox walked down the driveway and went in to the backyard, left, and then came back.

Here he is:

A little closer:

I missed it because I was taking a nap after work. That Friday 3:50 am wake-up time makes me feel so crappy by midday. UGH.

But! I felt better after my nap and woke up to a text from Bobbi asking if we wanted to meet her and John for dinner! Sure! What a fun surprise date!

Sweet Tart Martini from The Shanty

SATURDAY!

I have a slight cold, so I got as much sleep as I could, taught Fitness Boxing, ran errands, then cleaned the house while Steven dealt with the leaves in the yard. You can see from the fox photo above that we have a lot of them. It was supposed to rain all day Sunday (it did), so we figured Saturday was the day to deal with them.

SPOILER – it was so windy Saturday night that the yard looked even worse than it did Saturday before Steven cleared all the leaves. Oh, nature.

Saturday afternoon/evening included a short nap, Walmart pickup, El Famous Burrito, and Argo. Exciting stuff!

SUNDAY!

I was pumped to watch the NYC Marathon at Bobbi’s Sunday morning! Edited to add: I regret not making an effort to watch last year’s race. We don’t have a cable package, so I can’t watch these things at home, and wish I could have seen Shalane win (I’ve tried to find footage of the event to buy, and haven’t). I totally messed up the eastern time conversion though, thinking I needed to get to her place at 10 am, not 8 am. Dafuq. Let’s blame that on my cold – I do that conversion ALL. THE. TIME. at work and don’t mess it up. Luckily I only missed a little bit of the race.

I could NOT believe Mary Keittany’s surge and the paces she threw down in the second half of the race. HOLY COW. Just WOW. I was ecstatic that Shalane was third (running faster than last year when she WON!), and that so many American women placed in the top ten!

I also enjoyed seeing my kitten’s mother, Athena! I brought a blanket over and it probably smelled like the kittens, ha. Hopefully it didn’t make her feel PTSD.

I ran an errand after watching the race, had lunch with Steven, and fell asleep during The Post. Then I got a bunch of crap done on my computer, took an epsom salt bath and read more of Little Fires Everywhere (whoa, just whoa), helped Steven make lasagna and zoned out during some bad movie.

It’s a glamorous life, but someone’s got to live it. Ha ha ha. But really, it was nice to have a free, somewhat lazy, weekend. I am aiming for longer naps (>an hour) next time though!