Keep On Keepin' On ...

Nothing really newsworthy to report today, but I suppose I can scrounge up enough for a post. My morning workout was the most sweat-producing workout I can ever remember. Totally soaked. All good.

Earlier this summer I submitted all my favorite recipes for an A.L.S. Cookbook which has now been published. It will be available for sale at the A.L.S. walk (10 AM Saturday at Silver Lake) next weekend ($18) or if you want a copy, shoot me an email and I will contact my friend Georgia.

4 of us gals are now planning to run the Nike Women's Marathon in San Francisco next October. If we get in the lottery that is. With the way my luck has run (I've never gotten in one) we will have to make alternate plans. :-(

Justin and Jan Murray once again offered me pears from their pear trees.

He said that the plum crop was really poor this year, so no plums. So ... in a few days I will have some canning to do! Thank you again, Justin and Jan. I think this is the 4th year in a row they've shared their bounty with me.

A couple of notes from my 78.55 mile bike ride last Thursday: 1) When I rode from Rochester to south of Rock Dell backwards from the direction I usually ride it, it looked SO much different. Hardly looked like the same route. 2) I had 2 water bottles with me and that wasn't enough for almost 80 miles. So I needed to refill them. I was out in the country when I ran out. I thought about going over to the High Forest truck stop, but didn't want to leave my bike outside, unlocked, and didn't want to bring it inside. So I thought maybe I could find some public place in High Forest (pretty unlikely). On the north side of H.F. I saw a nice new house with a bunch of kids playing out front. Looked like a day care crew. So I pulled in the gravel drive and asked the lady of the house (looked to be 30'ish) if I could use the hose to fill my water bottles. Well, she said, "Let me take them inside and fill them on the fridge." How nice. She actually filled them with crushed ice and cold water. Nothing could have tasted better than that ice cold water after having been drinking 80 degree water for a few hours. I offered my profuse thanks and was on my way. As I peddled along, I decided I'd like to thank her somehow so tonight I'm making some cookies to bring by. I don't know as she'll be able to give them to her day care kids, but I would like to thank her somehow. So I will drop them by tomorrow (I will give her my name in address in case it's weird to be getting cookies from a stranger) as I am most likely going to be running into Stewartville with my sewing machine ...

I've had this unfinished quilt for many months now and am finally finishing it. Today I pin basted the layers together.

I'm going to quilt it with monofilament thread, but that has been giving me trouble on my machine. So I think I will bring it into All in Stitches in Stewartville (they sell Pfaff machines) and have Sandy or one of her gals get it set up correctly for me. It's something in the thread or bobbin tension tension ... I get these huge loops of top thread underneath and the bobbin thread can just be pulled right out.

Here's the deal on the General Mills cereal at HyVee this past week (thank you Lin for the heads up): buy 6 boxes and get $10 off and a coupon for $6 off at your next visit. Well, they had 8.9 oz boxes of Cheerios for $2.69 and also had 14 oz boxes for $2.69. Go figure. So I got 6--14 oz boxes for $16.14 and an immediate $10 off at the checkout. And a coupon for $6 off my next visit, so the net cost was 14 cents. Even if you discount the $6 off coupon (which I've already used), 6 large boxes of Cheerios for $6.14 is a very good deal. Eric is the Cheerio eater around here.

I finally gave in and ordered a new iPod from amazon.com. It's hot pink (though it looks red in the pic).

 My old one was so unpredictable ... sometimes I could power it on, sometimes not, I could never power it off (I had to either let the battery run out or if it was a lucky day, I could get to a menu and spin down to the last song and play it and then let it power off after a period of time), I could never back up to the previous song, and sometimes I could spin forward/adjust the volume but sometimes not. Very frustrating.

We had a very productive LUABC meeting on Sunday. (John, me, Lin, Laura, Kristin, Angie, Amy). John was havesting his Bee's Knees honey and couldn't get away. :-)

The event is going to be held at Mayo High School next year, which we feel will be a good change. But it means a new course, and 2 courses to certify. My punch list: getting prices for chip timing, pricing thermoses  and insulated lunchbags for giveaways, getting a Rochester Women ad/story and typing up the minutes. The current board was re-elected unanimously: Laura--Chairman, John--Vice Chair, Lin--Treasurer, myself--Secretary. We discussed the silent auction and are going to revamp it this year. The things that sold the best and got the most money were baked goods, so next year it's going to have a "foodie" theme--baked goods, food baskets, donated meals, etc. We won't be giving away cookies with the food, but they will be available for sale/auction. I have a feeling I will be baking up a storm. :-)

Running options this week: Team R.E.D. Thursday at Bear's Den in Byron, long run at the RAC at 7:00 AM Saturday. Meet at 6:15 AM if you want 4 extra miles (for a total of 20).

Here are a couple more photos from the Square Lake Sunday ride ... such a pretty spot.

That's all I have. Good night.

Rochester Half Marathon Recap

It was a whirlwind couple of days getting ready for the Half Marathon and 5K which took place on Saturday morning. First of all ... kudos to Jen and Jean for the most excellent job they did organizing the race. I deem it a huge success.

It started with me baking a batch of what else ... cookies ... for the volunteers.

Mid-morning it was off to Running Room to meet Jen and Jean to make a few stops (DM&E office, Minuteman Press, Bread Baker) before picking up the U-Haul truck. We stopped at Jen's house ...

and then my house ...

 to pick up supplies before heading to the RTC shed ...

 to pick up race equipment.

Lots of stuff to haul around. It would have been a LOT more work without a truck. Then it was off to Panera for lunch ...

 before setting up for registration/packet pick-up at Running Room later in the afternoon. I got 103 registrations on Friday evening and I believe there were 70 more on Saturday. Wow ...

Henry Walker's boys Ari and Bjorn each enjoyed a cookie :-) before heading to the playground before their ride home (all the way up to Quarry Hill!)

Saturday dawned with a 5:00 AM set-up starting time. The sun wasn't up yet, but there were already volunteers setting up at the finish line. There were lots of volunteers who gave a large portion of their morning (actually, several were there from 5:00 AM until almost 2:00) to the cause ... thank you one and all.

After setting up the food and medical tents, it was off to the start line

 to do race announcements and fire the starters gun.

Thank you Maddie and Eric Woodford for singing the national anthem before the start. They did great!

And then ...

they were off!

The early miles took the runners through historic Pill Hill and around Plummer Circle.

Cruising the 13.1 miles through Rochester the fastest was Ben Kamif of Minneapolis.

The Civic Center park is a lovely spot for a race finish.

Tom O'Leary

I chatted with Marie Boyd and Gloria Jansen for a while

Tom and Karen Williamson

The Lappi family

Before we knew it it was time to tear it all down until next year. Thank you to those who stayed for tear-down and clean-up. They're not glorious jobs. And by that time everyone has had enough and just wants to go home and put their feet up. Thank you clean-up crew ... you rock.

When all was said and done (at about 2:30), Jean, Julie and I headed to Beetles for a sandwich, decompression, and a race recap. Then it was off to the couch for me until late afternoon/early evening when I just had to get in a bike ride.

THANK YOU to everyone that volunteered in any way and THANK YOU to everyone that ran!!

Just a little blurb about my day today ... 3 good workouts, including some intervals. Picked 12 pints of raspberries. Yum. They're my favorite. My oatmeal will be extra special in the morning. I noticed on Feedjit that someone arrived on my blog from CNN.com .... hmmm. I can't find a link out there but it is what it is.

Thought for the day: Life is a trial mile by mile. Yard by yard it's not so hard. Life is a cinch inch by inch.

Good night.

So Easily Forgotten

Early AM brought a road trip up to Square Lake, a very pretty area up near Stillwater. Trevor was going up to do an open water swim and ride the bike course in preparation for the Square Lake Triathlon on September 12. (I'm calling the rematch between Trevor and Dan Strain the Square Lake Square Off. Ask one of them the story about last year. :-)

Jen, Dan, Andy (with medal) and Trevor at the Rochester Half yesterday

He welcomed the company and I love a road trip. So off we went. The early lift-off was necessitated by the fact that Trevor had to catch a 1:20 flight to Boston. On the way up, he shared a funny little story with me which he gave me permission to post. His wife Helen just bought a new bike and she was having a few little issues with the saddle. One day Trevor came home and found two Dr. Scholl's-type heel gel inserts Saran-wrapped to the side of her saddle for comfort. :-) So funny! And clever. :-) Anyway, we arrived at Square Lake without incident.

I decided that I just didn't feel like getting into my wetsuit at 7 AM for a chilly swim, so I decided I would take a few pix and just toodle around the area while Trevor swam.

 We were unloading the bikes and Trevor asked if I'd seen a silver backpack in the SUV. Negative. Uh oh. No cycling threads. No swim goggles. No towel. I offered him my second pair of cycling shorts--size small Skirt Sports short shorts with pink stitching. He declined :-) but he did take me up on the goggles and towel. Trevor decided he'd cycle anyway ...

looking ultra cool in his cargo shorts and T-shirt on his super-fancy Quintana Roo tri bike!! Poor guy. By the end of the ride he had some serious chafing issues. After my initial toodling around, I came back to the SUV to put on my second pair of shorts over my tri shorts ... (my nose looks HUGE and that helmet has GOT to come down on my forehead)

as those just don't enough padding and I didn't want to be feeling those sitz bones for all those miles. I took my glasses off, put on the second pair of shorts (in hindsight I should have just changed in the car instead of wearing two pair) and then we were ready to roll. Wait a minute ... where are my shades? I looked everywhere. In the SUV. On the bumper. On the ground. And wouldn't you know it ... they were right where I left them ... on the bottom of the windshield at the end of the hood. Mystery solved. But we could tell this was going to be an interesting morning...

It was a very good ride in my book. Windy and very hilly. I didn't reset my bike computer after my initial toodling around so after subtracting the time and mileage for that from the final numbers, Trevor and I rode 29.8 miles in 1.48 hours for an average pace of 20.13 mph. On that course and with the wind, that was a good ride. My total mileage for the morning was 37.2 miles. At about mile 23 or 24 I think, this guy on a tri bike with a triple water bottle holder on the back, shaved legs, nice bike, nice clothes ... passes us. Trevor was pulling at that time.

 Well, I don't really like to be passed. At all. So after a few minutes, I decided we :-) or at least I :-) was going to chase this guy down. We were on one of the very few flat stretches of road on the course. He had about 1/8 mile on us so it was going to be work to catch him. Trevor tucked in behind and later said that he just smiled and knew what I was up to. I looked down at my computer during the chase and we were doing 22 to about 23.4 mph. I'm not sure how long it took to catch him, but when we did I gave Trevor a quick thumbs up. I don't know if it's proper cycling etiquette, but I tucked in behind him for a couple of minutes to recover. Then I pulled alongside him and told him he could tuck in behind us. He said no, that's OK but actually he ended up doing it anyway after we got chatting. I practiced my over-the-shoulder picture taking on the ride ...

Where ARE they?

THERE they are!

Turns out he is doing the Square Lake Tri also and is from St. Paul. His name is Matt and his company put up the dome at RCTC. Small world. Anyway, he was a nice guy. I asked him for a picture for my blog and he said sure.

We arrived back at Square Lake and Trevor said he could cycle for 20 more minutes if we wanted. Well, with his tight schedule for the morning I thought it was best that we just get going. We'd ridden the whole course. Good thing we left. On the ride home, Trevor found out that his phone was working and he could see some moisture behind the touch screen. The phone wouldn't do anything and he was leaving for Boston shortly where his phone would be an absolute necessity. I felt so sorry for him. I don't know how that part of the story ends. I'll text him and find out ...

You know what? I'm really enjoying all the cycling. Haven't tried running for many days (who knows ... I might be able to run just fine) and I have to say, I'm enjoying the change of pace. I'm not all hung up on or stressed out about not running, truth be told. There's more to life than running. I took this to show my cycle shorts tan line but it doesn't show up very well.

Anyway, that, and the line at the top of my socks and the nifty little circles on the back of my hands are dead giveaways that I've been spending lots more time on the bike.

When I got home from Stillwater today, it was just before 11:00 and I decided to go swim at the Y for an hour just before noon. The pool was quiet, which was nice. I had a good swim ... after having to purchase a new swim cap. Argghhh. Par for the morning. I'd left mine in my other bag and didn't feel like driving home to get it. So now I have a spare.

After the swim I was in need of a nap after getting up at 4:30 AM for two mornings in a row. At 3:00 I decided to finish up my miles for the day as I wanted at least 60. So I rode another 31 and called it good. That was a WICKED south wind this afternoon. I couldn't wait to turn around. And the cross winds were blowing me around something terrible. On the east/west stretches past Salem Corners and east of Salem Corners I could barely control the bike. But I got 'er done and I'm none the worse for wear.

I'll post the Rochester Half Marathon, Lace-Up stuff, and my HyVee bargain tomorrow. Bed is calling. First, a toenail update. It's an ugly nail. I'm not sure if it's alive or dead. The texture and color are definitely different than a healthy nail. I hope I keep it anyway, as protection for the nail bed. Time will tell.

Until tomorrow. Good night.