Life

By kilax, July 5, 2018 6:03 am

• We had such a relaxing Fourth! I worked out in the morning while Steven worked, then we grilled and chilled, including a NAP!!! We made tacos for dinner and watched Red Sparrow. It was a much welcomed relaxing day after not having any downtime last weekend.
• Data did not appreciate the fireworks we could hear from our house last night though. Poor little dude.

Data hiding in the closet

• I was gone three of the weekends in June, and had house guests for the other, so last weekend was the first weekend we were both home in a while. And we were BUSY – doing a bit of yard work, errands, and starting a backup sump pump project in the basement (we have two separate sump pumps and we’re installing back-ups to both). I was exhausted Sunday night, and grateful to have a day off in the middle of the week to chill.
• Khali has been my alarm clock lately! I like to wake up at 5:00 am, and every morning, she is on my chest at 5:00 am, purring and gently waking me up. (Except yesterday, when she thought I wanted to get up at 3:30 am…)

Link to Random Thoughts Thursday 185

Running + Training

By kilax, July 4, 2018 10:39 am

Well, that’s obvious. We all know running is the sport I prefer to participate in the most, but what I mean is running is my sport to follow. To watch. To be enthusiastic about. To be inspired by.

This is a relatively new hobby to me! I didn’t grow up in a family with a tradition of following sports, and I was never as in to it before, as I am now. Instagram and podcasts have made me a much more engaged follower. I’m not able to watch events live (no cable!), but I read and hear about the athletes getting ready for them (on their own accounts and in interviews), and read and listen about it (and sometimes watch it!) later.

I realized I was super in to it when my parents were visiting and I spent the end of a run telling my Dad about this year’s Boston Marathon and what went down on the elite side and the theories about why (thanks for listening, Dad!). Afterward, I thought “why am I able to retain that random information? Well duh, cause I am passionate AF about it. And it inspires me.

So yeah, I’ll just be over here, listening to a zillion different podcasts and following all the runners on instagram! And geeking out about what I am reading/listening to with my friends.

No related photo, but here’s when I met Meb the first time!

Life, Rants

By kilax, July 3, 2018 10:39 am

Last week Mica told me about an icebreaker she participated in where you had to say what you’d want your superpower to be. She asked me what mine would be, and I said never getting sick or injured (so basically, amazing immunity and invulnerability).

But even when I said that, I knew I’d think about it more, and come up with a superpower that was communication based. I don’t want to be able to read people’s minds (um, NO THANKS) but wouldn’t it be amazing if there was a way to share information and ideas, instantly, without words, so that the other person understood them, even if they didn’t agree with them? And you could do the same with their information/ideas?

So much gets lost in communication, because of human error, laziness, and greed (hoarding information). And I’m guilty of being lazy with communication from time to time. I get so tired of constantly communicating. SO, SO, SO tired of it. The deciphering. The begging for information. Sharing the same thing over and over. Trying to find a way to explain something to someone. Trying to find the person WITH information. (Mostly talking about work here, ha.) So. Much. Adulting.

So I can see many instances in my professional and personal life where this “superpower” would come in handy. Of course, I’d want to be able to turn it off and on!

Running + Training

By kilax, July 2, 2018 7:11 am

Two weeks after running Grandma’s Marathon, I had a really obvious DUH! realization about why I felt down in the dumps after the race.

Like, REALLY obvious.

A photo from this morning’s run

The race made me doubt myself. Not the “can I do this?” self doubt I’ve talked about before, but “should I be doing this?” and “am I meant to do this?” self doubt. Should I be out there running marathons if I have such a weak mental game? Why couldn’t I keep up my goal pace for more than 15 miles? Why’d I let falling get in my head so much? And so on.

I had some icky feelings post race but hadn’t identified them as self doubt. The feelings were lingering without me realizing what they were.

But once I identified the feelings, I instantly felt better (okay, and the endorphins of being two weeks post race and working out more helped too), because I understood why I was feeling crummy, and could counter those feelings with logic*.

This isn’t a cry for validation, at all! It’s a celebration of acknowledging a feeling, and the action of doing that helping get through it. I tend to be someone who runs (ha ha) from certain feelings (read: eats their emotions) so this is good for me!!!

*Logic as in, “yes, keep running,” and “you had bad luck that day, it happens,” and “keep working on your mental game, girl!”

Running + Training

By kilax, July 1, 2018 8:41 pm

Highlight of the Week: Working out more! Doing well in the heat! Going on a longer ride!

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Monday | June 25, 2018: 7.5 m run + teaching strength class
Loc: VP Woods Loop, Temp: 59°/59°, Time: 1:15:10, Pace: 10:01 avg, Difficulty: easy, Felt: good, annoyed with traffic noise
Strength: body bars and soft balls, Felt: good
Tuesday | June 26, 2018: 3 m run
Loc: hood, Temp: 62°/64°, Time: 31:08, Pace: 10:22 avg, Difficulty: medium, Felt: dead legs
Wednesday | June 27, 2018: rest
Thursday | June 28, 2018: 10 m run
Loc: VP Woods Loop, Temp: 61°/70°, Time: 1:41:10, Pace: 10:07 avg, Difficulty: mostly easy, Felt: good
Friday | June 29, 2018: teaching strength class + 1,218 yd swim + 5 m run + 15 m bike
Strength: body bars and soft balls, Felt: good
Loc: FitNation, Time: 25:51, Pace: 2:07 min/100 yd, Difficulty: easy, Felt: good
Loc: VP Woods, Temp: 92°/93°, Time: 51:44, Pace: 10:20, Difficulty: easy, Felt: surprisingly good in the heat
Indoor Ride Time: 1:01:05, Pace: 14.7 mph avg., Difficulty: easy, Felt: good
Saturday | June 30, 2018: 35.5 m bike + 3.5 m run
Loc: MB/88th Loop, Temp: 79°/82°, Time: 2:16:32, Pace: 15.6 mph avg, Difficulty: easy-ish, Felt: good, just a bit beat down with the bumps, then wind in the end
Loc: VP Woods, Temp: 93°/93°, Time: 34:41, Pace: 9:55 avg, Difficulty: easy, Felt: fine except bugs on my face and sunscreen in my eyes!
Sunday | July 1, 2018: 12.5 m run
Loc: ML/VP Woods Loop, Temp: 78°/80°, Time: 2:15:02, Pace: 10:48 avg, Difficulty: medium, Felt: decent for the humidity/dew point!

Notes:

• I think my Monday night class liked the workout! During class, someone even said, “Who hates Kim?!” Ha ha ha, love it.
• My legs were DEAD Tuesday morning. Wednesday is typically the only day I take off from running, which makes Tuesday the sixth day in a row of running, and yeah, I was feeling it. I thought I’d do speedwork on Tuesday because it was going to be the last cool morning of the week, but I passed on that bad idea. I’ll need to find a new speedwork day if I keep Thursdays as a long run day.
• All the big “fly around your head in circles while you run” bugs are out. Yay… not.
• It felt good to get back in the pool! I hadn’t gone in three weeks!
• Into the wind during the end of my Saturday ride, a fellow cyclist passed me and asked if I wanted to draft off of him for a while. How nice! I lasted maybe half a mile at his 19mph pace!
• I’ve been running with my shirt off when it’s so hot, and I didn’t think ahead about the fact that that would mean I have no where to wipe my sweaty face! I had a painful experience Saturday when I was sweating so much that my sunscreen was running in my eyes and I couldn’t relieve it (I tired pouring water in my eyes and that didn’t help). I’ll have to use the less runny sunscreen next time, and bring TP.
• With the hot temps at the end of the week, I tried hard to stay on my mental game, repeating mantras like “I love running, I am a strong runner,” and “your legs aren’t tired, you’re just hot.” It’s cheesy, but it works for me, so I am going to keep at it.
• Monthly recap time. In June I ran 140.7 miles (22 runs), cycled 58.5 miles (2 indoor rides, 1 outdoor rides) and swam 3,444 yards (3 swims) (these are my lowest numbers in all three disciplines, all year! Ha! That is what taper and race recovery will do to ya). My coldest run was 47°F and my warmest was 93°F. I did 2 tempo workouts. I taught 7 strength classes and 1 fitness boxing class. I ran one race, Grandma’s Marathon.

Link to Training Week 453

Life

By kilax, June 30, 2018 3:01 pm

How many days in a row can I blog about cats? ALL THE DAYZZZ!!!

I didn’t mention it, but when we visited the kittens on Thursday, Bobbi came with us to meet and play with them!

But she also came to meet mama cat…

… and today she went back and filled out the paperwork to adopt her! AHHHHH!!!!

I’m so excited! For many reasons – mama cat will have a loving home, Bobbi and her family will have a cat after she’s wanted one for years, and I will get to have a relationship with mama cat (and can tell the kittens to shape up or I am gonna “talk to their mom,” ha ha ha).

I was feeling especially guilty about mama cat not having a home yet (even though the veterinarian’s office told me they’d foster her and find her a home), because when I called the vet’s office once they told me they thought WE should adopt her. That they’d talked about families that would be good for her and they thought of us. Sigh. She’s the sweetest cat I’ve ever met, but I didn’t want to bring another adult female cat in to our home. And I didn’t realize how bad I felt about that until Bobbi told me they are adopting her and I literally felt so happy I teared up.

So, yay! So excited for mama cat and Bobbi and her family!!!

Life, Running + Training

By kilax, June 29, 2018 8:28 am

June was so busy, I’m mostly excited about resetting and slowing down in July! But, also:

• The kittens coming home! (We think this will happen in July)

• Seeing Anne and Terry when they’re in town
• Going on a bike ride with xaarlin to celebrate her birthday
• Riding Day 7 of RAGBRAI with Dad, Gina, and Steve
• Family vacation at the river
• Treating myself to a mani (and pedi?) for my birthday
• Swimming outside
• Seeing summer blockbusters
• Deep cleaning the house
• The scab on my knee going away

What’s on your list?

Books, Life

By kilax, June 28, 2018 7:31 pm

• We visited the kittens tonight! All six of them have been claimed for adoption, and just the mama cat needs a home now. She’s such a sweetie. I hope the right person finds her!

• I’m enjoying reading Deena Kastor’s story in her book, Let Your Mind Run. I can tell it’s a book I’ll read again, and I love that having my own copy means I can highlight it! (You’re not supposed to do that with library books, right? ha)

• Sure, why not?

View this post on Instagram

oh ma ga

A post shared by linz (@kyoto) on Jun 27, 2018 at 6:05pm PDT

• We have NO Independence Day plans and I’m so excited to CHILL (or, melt, since it will be in the 90s here).

Link to Random Thoughts Thursday 184

Life

By kilax, June 27, 2018 12:02 pm

OMG, ballpark dogs, yassssssssssssssssssssssssss

I enjoy baseball, but let’s not lie, a huge joy of going to the game is the overpriced junky ballpark food. What a fun treat!

I’d been looking forward to yesterday’s interleague Royals/Brewers game for a while! Miller Park (Milwaukee) is much easier to get to to see the Royals play, than “Guaranteed Rate Field” (ha, aka, The Cell, in Chicago), where they regularly play the White Sox each season. North we go!

Steven is from KC, so, we’re Royals fans 

Thankfully, Miller Park has a roof – Tuesday’s forecast called for heavy thunderstorms all day and that’s what we got – we drove to Milwaukee in pouring rain, walked to the ballpark in the rain, then got to sit in dry seats. Ahh. I kept saying how nice it was to be at a game and not have it be a million degrees, or have a rain delay.

Miller Park is such a nice stadium – I’d like to go back for another random game this summer! And the Brewers fans are so nice too! When we were walking on the concourse, wearing our Royals gear, a Brewers fan randomly said to us (non-sarcastically) “Welcome to Milwaukee!” and during the game, the Brewers fan sitting next to Steven was telling him how much he likes Kauffman Stadium in Kansas City, where the Royals play.

Now, it probably helps that the Royals were playing like sh*t! And I did hear the usual smack talking, but baseball wouldn’t be fun without that.

We went with Bobbi and John and had a good time catching up and joking around. Hopefully we can go to another game together this summer! (After we practice whatever group dance move is going to get us on the Jumbotron.)

But I’m not sure how much more I want to venture in to this area of Wisconsin this summer*, at least by highway. The highway to get there from our house is under construction, and probably twenty-five miles of it is down from three to two lanes for an indefinite amount of time (probably years, based on past experience). It’s not a big deal in the long run, but we’ve been driving through it a lot lately, and the congestion paired with idiotic driving is making us bonkers. B-O-N-K-E-R-S. We’ll be staying home this weekend!

Oh, and all that rain? We ended up getting over three inches of rain last night in our area, which made getting home after dropping off Bobbi and John interesting – one of the routes home was under water! Eek! Thankfully, that road was dry today. We’ve had 9.46 inches of rain at our house in the last month, and most of that was in the last week. Upcoming house project – new draining system for water off our driveway. So exciting. Stay tuned!

*Ha, I’d have to go this way if I do the October marathon there

And gawd, I’m exhausted from getting so little sleep last night. I planned to sleep on the train this morning but a coworker from my detail position happened to be riding my train and talked at me for most of the ride. Sigh. I feel raw. I need some down time. I need naps back in my weekends. I need to find a way to be a supportive person without feeling the stress of that person’s issues myself. I need Data to quit pooping on the floor in the foyer. I need my legs to quit feeling so dead so I can run my stress off.

Life, Travel

By kilax, June 25, 2018 6:30 am

Last full weekend of June, first full weekend of summer! Let’s do some summer-y things!

FRIDAY!

On Friday night we used our summer bowling passes for the first time! And realized Friday night is not the best night to go bowling (duh, Kim) – note taken. We also had El Famous for dinner, cause it’s right there, so why not?!

SATURDAY!

We drove to Waupaca, Wisconsin on Saturday morning to spend the day/night with Rachel and Kevin at a cottage on Rainbow Lake. The cottage has been in Rachel’s friend’s Kim’s family for almost one hundred years! I was hoping Kim would be there too and she was! YAY!!!!!

Rachel sandwich! Kim, Rachel, Kim (me)

We spent the day playing in the water, boating, and eating. There was lots of good conversation, and LOTS of goofing off. A perfect summer day in my book!

Steven, me, Kevin, Rachel

I enjoyed ignoring my phone and only took it out to take a few photos (and to text with Bobbi about the cats, since she was cat sitting)!

SUNDAY!

Rachel and Kevin kept telling us how beautiful the sunrises are off the lake! I grabbed a photo of it… then went back to bed. Yassssssssssss.

Rachel and I ran (yay!), made breakfast, then we all went on a boat ride,

and we left around noon. We encountered typical Sunday traffic in Wisconsin, so the drive home took longer than on the way there because of idiotic (don’t even get me started) construction and traffic. Ugh.

But we had a relaxing evening! We did a few chores, watched an episode of Mad Men, made a lasagna casserole for dinner (aka, when you want lasagna but don’t have the right noodles), watched a bit of W. and called it a night!

I’m glad we got to see and experience cottage life! Rachel’s been telling me about going there for years, and I totally get why she loves it! It’s such a relaxing, slow-paced place.