The Snowball Effect

What a full day!! Started the day by doing a little sewing, generating another load of stuff for the church rummage sale, and then, finally ... my workout. In brand new asics 2140s. Warmup, then 10 x 1/4 mile: 1:27 1:24 1:25 1:21 (PR) 1:23 1:22 1:25 1:24 1:25 1:26 Total mileage for the morning: 13:66 My legs were still kind of tired. Also, when I have a cramping "episode", the next time I run it feels like someone took a baseball bat to my calves. I could feel it during the last few 1/4s so I didn't go beyond 10. Beautiful morning for running. I wish we'd had this weather on Sunday!!

When I got home, I shampooed all the carpets in the house. What a job!! The shampooing is the easy part. It's moving all the furniture and other stuff that's work!! It took about 4 hours, but totally worth it. The carpets look so nice now. And it was great to get everything moved and the carpets all vacuumed, too. Here's where the snowball effect comes into play: with everything away from the walls, now I want to wash all the walls. And there are a couple of places in Eric's room where the walls need a little patching. And then painting, of course. And cleaning/dusting all the baseboards. And further reducing the amount of "stuff" that sits around. (I'm totally into purging of "stuff" these days.) And so it goes ...

I got the machine from Ace Hardware. Strange as this sounds, I just love walking around hardware stores. There are so many interesting things down those aisles. Parts for just about everything you can imagine. And then some. :-)

Went to Great Harvest to get a loaf of bread (and a slice of Whole Wheat Cinnamon Chip--yum!) and then to Thee Only Shoe Repair to see if they could fix my purse. No go. He said they could make a new strap, but that would cost more than the purse cost to begin with. Time to retire it, I guess.

After that, I couldn't wait to sit down ... so I went for a bike ride on the Cannondale Supersix. I had a great ride. Felt strong and feisty. :-) Rode 32.18 miles. It rode really nice, very much like the Trek Madone, but I did not like the saddle. Pressure where there shouldn't be pressure. And I wasn't wild about the handlebars. But it's a very nice bike. I have to make a decision one of these days. Saw two foxes and 3 wild turkeys on the ride.

Congratulations to Chris Koch and Rob Mitchell who completed the Sawtooth 100 mile trail race this weekend. (Chris said it was actually 102.6 miles). There were 75 starters and 25 finishers. Ouch!! They finished 10th and 11th in about 33 hours 30 minutes. I can't imagine running for that long ... even in a whole week!! And congrats to Daryl Saari, Lynn Saari and Sara Lovett who also ran the 100-miler, Jim Benike who ran the 50-miler, and Matt Schrader and Jim Mason who ran the Moose Mountain Marathon.

And congrats to Dan Strain on competing in the Square Lake 1/2 Ironman Tri on Sunday. A warm day for them, too. Dan said that unlike what usually happens, he said, "The swim went great, the bike was good, and the run was horrible." Unfortunately, Dan and I are fellow campers in Camp Cramp. We both cramp pretty much all the time, especially in the heat, in distance events. I think maybe Dan has been able to complete a marathon without cramping (but maybe not...) I, however, have never been able to run a whole marathon. :-( Always, always have to stop because of leg cramps. :-( It just varies as to when they start and how severe they are.

Shaun Palmer is running Walker North Country (marathon) this weekend. Go, Shaun!! Hope it's cooler than it was last weekend.

Tomorrow, back to the pool. Then I need to can tomatoes. And I'm having lunch with my friend Leslie, which should be fun. We have lots of catching up to do!!

Out of news for today. Time to sew.

Quote for the day: "The way to gain a good reputation is to endeavor to be what you desire to appear."

Have a good one!!