It's my cat in a box

When I get packages, it becomes Christmastime in Spencerville.  It doesn't matter what shape or size the box is, he wants in.  I barely had the stuff in the box out before he had hopped in.




I have a picture of him squished into my sink somewhere.  The sink is small, he's big so my sink looked like it had a white, furry muffin top.

Silly kitteh.

Snow, snow, snow

The white stuff is here and it's probably here to stay.  As a result, I've run approximately zero miles this week.  But it sure hasn't been from lack of trying!  Every day this week I planned on going but I either had to work late or it was too stormy to go.  So frustrating!

We're heading down to Iowa to visit Josh's grandma next week.  While we're there, I'm planning on visiting a specialty running store to see if I need to change shoes.  I'm still experiencing some mild discomfort in the lower calf/Achilles area and I'm thinking that my shoes might be too firm in the heel.  They say have video gait analysis, so I'll run for them on the treadmill and see what they have to say.  It's supposed to be nice in the area next week, so I'm also hoping to get some runs in, too.

On the way back, we're going to stay the night in Madison, WI and visit the New Glarus Brewery, which is located just South of Madison.  New Glarus's beer is not sold in Michigan (BOO) and we're only able to get it when we go to Wisconsin or Minnesota.  So, being able to visit the brewery is a real treat.

In home improvement news, I bought a whole-house humidifier which arrived today.  It'll attach to the furnace and, in theory, bring the humidity level in my house up to a normal level.  I have forced air heat and it's so drying in the winter.  My skin is itchy, my plants need constant watering and everything is staticy, including my cats!

In new website news, Josh finally got everything moved on to the new feep.org server and he's looking into installing my blogging software.  Maybe I'll actually have my domain up & running by the end of the year.  If I do, you, my loyal reader(s), will be the first to know!

Ooof

I think I might be dying. Or dead, I'm sure sure which. 

After a 4-ish mile run, I decided to finish it off by tackling Sixth Street again.  Man, that hill is tough.  My goal was to not stop when I reached the top of each block, but rather do a little recovery jog down the street until my heart felt like it wasn't going to explode.  On Tuesday, I made it up three blocks, but stopped between for 30 seconds or so.  Today, I made it two blocks using a recovery jog and then I had to switch to stopping and did two more blocks before finishing up with a half-mile recovery jog back home to give me a five mile total for the day. 

I walked into the kitchen dripping in sweat, face beet red and utterly exhausted.  Josh looked at me and said "Holy cow, how far did you go?" or something like that.  What I suspect he really wanted to say was "Holy cow, you look like death.  What the hell did you do?" but he values his life too much.

Ugh, I'm exhausted and my legs are throbbing.  Time for drugs and sleep.

A whole lotta nuthin' going on

I haven't had much going on lately, with running or life.  I've been trying to run three times per week, but the weather hasn't been cooperating so I've only been getting in two.  Oh well, I guess it's better than nothing.

Last week I set new PRs for 3 miles - 29:37 (first mile 9:25!) and 4 miles (40:41).  When my run was over I checked my watch and thought..how the hell did I do that?  Crazy, but I'll take it!

We got snow over the weekend.  I don't know what the official accumulation was, maybe a couple of inches.  Either way, it was enough to make my running path very slick for my Tuesday run.  I must have looked like a drunken goofball slipping and sliding down the trail.  Since I took it slow, I decided to throw in a little hill work at the end.  I usually finish my run with a cool-down walk up Sixth Street in my neighborhood.  It's three steep blocks up to my street.  So, I figured I'd try running a block at a time and see how far I'd get.  I really wasn't expecting to make it all the way up, but I did!  I felt like my lungs and head were going to explode at one point, but I did it.

Until next time..

The weather hates me

How come it only rains when I want to run, not when I have to run?

Stupid weather.

The weekend update

I'm slowly getting back in the running swing of things. I'm kinda planned on a pre-dinner 10-miler on Thanksgiving day, but I'm not going to push things as I have been off for a month.

Today I planned on heading out for a quick two-miler, but some frustrating work-related news really had me wound up and when I reached two miles, I felt like I needed to keep running. I quit running when I realized that I wasn't consumed by thoughts of the day. So, I ended up with 3.25 miles in 37:37 minutes for 11:33 minute/miles.

Weekend update:

On Friday we went to Diwali Night, a dinner and performance put on by the MTU Indian Student Association.

The dinner was awesome, here's a shot of my meal, other photos in the gallery:




The performance was okay. It got too long and a bit after-school special-ish, which was definitely a beer buzz killer.

Saturday we had dinner at the Michigan House and then went to the Ghosts of the Great Lakes Music Festival at the Calumet Theater. Three folk rock bands played for three hours or so. Good times!

Up this week, trying to figure out what to wear to a Halloween party on Friday. I'm thinking going as a pregnant nun might be fun. ];->

And my legs were like... WTF??!!

I had an annoying day at work and kicking my cats is not a optional stress-relieving activity, so I decided I might as well go for a run.

I should add that the last time I ran was for the Fox Cities HM on September 21.  That's over 30 days.

My legs were obviously enjoying their hiatus and they were like...

WTF do you think you're doing?  After everything you put us through this spring and summer, you want to start this shit again??  We're on vacation!

In fact, if you insist on continuing with this ridiculousness, we're going to make each one of our muscles complain loudly.

Bwahahahahah.

And that pretty much sums up my run.  Well, that and 3.02 miles in33:50 for 11:13 average pace.

Oh yeah, it was also nasty cold and windy.

Afterwards, Josh and I went out for a healthy dinner of Bell's Oktoberfest and popcorn at the Dog.




YUM.