Success!

Clambake success! Running at home, not so much... 1 out 2 is not too bad

We arrived home late Thursday night so we could run errands and help around the house Friday. After a Friday lunch that include some tasty margaritas (don't judge it was our vacation day) then ran errands. I don't think I sat down until dinner!

Saturday I woke up to my dad yelling at me to get up and get ready for breakfast on the Square; I felt like I was back in high school ;) Afterwards, the massive cleaning and setting up took place. Thanks to help from the entire family this year it came together quickly and there was time to relax before the party-goers arrived.

The boys made sure every single beer made its way into this cooler

all the clams ready to make their way to the steamer

the outside tables under the tent

Snacks Table! homemade caramel corn = YUM

I spent most of my time outside in the cold. It wasn't too bad with the fire and outside heater going. Plus, the tent helped block a lot of the wind. By the end of the night the last of the group (mostly family) had circled the fire pit to hang out, talk, and of course drink. Because that's what my family does best - eat and drink!

sister love

me and dad

The Sunday began the hungover clean-up which finished up with more food.

Now it's time to get back on a "normal" schedule of eating, running, and catching up on blogs ;) Well as normal as it can be since I will be traveling every week for the remainder of the year with the exception of Thanksgiving and Christmas/NY.

This and That

Weeding your dad's yard totally counts as cross-training - right? Well that's what I told myself yesterday ;) I had plans for an actual workout but they went out the window as it tends to happen especially when I'm at home. Instead I thought I would be the nice daughter and clean up the front yard the best I could since dad can't play in the dirt during chemo thanks to the whole compromised immune system. The yard is not done yet (I had to go watch my teenage step sister cheer as I didn't believe she could smile for an entire football game!) but I plan to finish before the end of my time here.

While watching miss s do her cheer thing I realized I am so glad my days of jr. high and high school have passed. I also told my dad I don't know how he sat through all my sporting events. I played 3 sports for most of my grade school/teenage life and more poor parents had to sit through hours of girl sports! Fred finally confessed my softball games were the worst; even worse than my 5th grade cheering days for pee-wee football :) Did any of you play a sport or were part of club in your younger days you can't believe you did?

So today I had to travel 2 hours to/from Toledo, Ohio for work. A lot of toll road driving for a short visit = long day. On the way home I decided to go a little out of my way to hit of the Towpath for my GA 11 miles. I like a nice out and back when I get into mid to high mileage and I can't seem to get that around Medina. Technical difficulties of all kinds ensued. First, I forgot my visor and headband so my hair (which hasn't been cut since March) was crazy style all in my face. Second, my garmin was dead even though I had just charged the dang thing. I decided to go off my best time estimate by my cell phone on the mileage. Luckily there were some sporadic mile markers along the path to help me guess a little better. So I have no idea what my pace was or if I hit 11 or went short/long. It was a nice, albeit a little rushed, run. I really need to take a camera my next time there (this weekend for my last 20!) so you can enjoy in the little piece of running sanctuary. Finally the run turned into a bit of a tempo run towards the middle miles. All I will say is thank goodness for real bathrooms along trails!

Long Weekend Wrap-Up

What a weekend in Ohio. More like a weekend plus a couple of days seeing as we left on Wednesday. Dad is staying strong and kicking the cancer's ass. He is tired from the chemo along with some other not so fun side effects but considering he had his 2nd treatment on Thursday he is doing pretty dang well. We made/ate a lot of food, drank a lot of beer, did some shopping and some boating, and I was able to run nearly my weekly goal. I did not however use much of the computer so now I'm behind on both work and your blogs!

Thursday I ran around Medina and did 10x100 repeats on the local jr. high track. I was close to my best friends parents home so I decided to run by to visit with my 2nd mom. After catching up with Mrs. D I finished the remainder of my 7 miles and headed home to a very annoyed husband and brother in law. Both were starving and waiting for me for a long time to go get lunch then to visit with Fred at the clinic. While running I passed only 1 other runner. It was strange running around the neighborhoods and not seeing all the active people like you do on the lakefront. Although everyone I passed (not working out) waved/said hello which was a nice change from Chicago where we pretty much all ignore one another on the path.

Saturday I had an early morning wake up call in casa de Bougher and drove 25 minutes to Peninsula, OH to run the tow path for my 16 miles - 10 at race pace before the house came alive. The path was hopping with running and cycling groups - it was awesome! I started to get giddy as I parked (for free!) in the overflow lot and headed over to discover a path new to me. I ended up falling in love with the new-to-me route! The day was cool and overcast with a threat of rain that only occurred as soon as I finished. The path itself was along a river and old train tracks, through woods, and different stations every few miles. There were paths branching off the main path but I stuck with the out and back to ensure I would not get lost :) Everyone I passed, which was a lot of people, waved/nodded/said hello. It got a lot tiring after the 1st mile as I found it difficult to find my happy running pace. Eventually I was able to focus and had an enjoyable 16 miles. Miles 7-10 were more of a struggle and I had some bargaining to do with myself to get through those miles but I rebounded and finished strong.

The weekly total ended up around 39 miles instead of the 43 planned. Although it's really bugging me I didn't hit my weekly total, tomorrow starts a new week! Plus missing 4 recovery miles will not be the end of me ;)

That's the weekend in a nutshell! I'm happy to be back in my own bed for the night. It was a long drive home after a tiring weekend. I'm really behind on work and this week I'm leaving for a 3 day trip to New Jersey then Hotlanta. I have a few more late nights ahead of me!

sleep does a body good

Due to my early morning wake up call Monday morning and no sleep despite my best efforts I ended up reverting to my 3 year old self. This included getting annoyed at everyone and everything around me, losing my train of thought easily, crankiness, and nearly crying. The crying happened when I couldn't open my bottle of diet pepsi. The cap was glued to the bottle and even scissors wasn't getting that sucker off! I have a nice slice and open sore on my thumb from my nearly 30 minute attempt at opening the dang bottle. Oh how I needed the caffeine; it just wasn't meant to be :) Later while sitting on the tarmac in Chicago because there was no gate available Jacob called me. He was making fun of me because I was acting all over dramatic about a regular occurrence. I snapped at him "Every little thing becomes a major catastrophe on only 2 1/2 hours of sleep" He just laughed at me - that didn't help ;) So after all that no workout Monday ;) Early to bed on Monday night and after 9 1/2 hours of sleep I was ready to go today! It felt amazing to sleep well and long. My body desperately needed it.

Thanks to all that sleep I had a pretty incredible 11 miles this evening. I maintained a 9:30 min/mile pace which is excellent for me! I felt incredibly strong and I can only hope this feeling follows me for the remaining of my training. We will see...

On the run today I decided to take some GU along for fuel as well as my new favorite drink - Zym. GU just doesn't do it for me anymore. It does in a pinch and does provide needed energy but I get so hungry on mid-long runs that it starts to hurt the last few miles. I feel as though shot bloks and GU chomps "fill" me up more or at least satiate my groaning pterodactyl stomach.

In other running related news I signed up for the Oak brook half-marathon on Labor Day. This will be my first half in nearly 2 years! Incredible... I've been meaning to run them over the past 2 years but some how I procrastinated in signing up, didn't ever get to training, or it just didn't work with my schedule at the time. I will have to do a bit of maneuvering of the schedule this time around to make it work that week. Pftiz calls for a 10K - 15K warm-up race on the Saturday of race week and there is a race on Sunday which would work better. However, I have a ticket to the BMW golf championship in Cog Hill that day. And I'm sorry but my boyfriend Tiger Woods takes priority on Sunday :) I'm also looking into another 8K race 2 weeks later. More on that later.

Alright off to pack for Ohio! I'm excited to see the family (even if not under the best circumstances). And I am super stoked to run a local trail. It will be a nice change of scenery even if it takes 45 minutes to drive in the morning.

Back to Reality

Okay so I came off a itsy teeny weeny bit whiny yesterday when overly complaining of my travel. I do apologize because I don't want to come across as this bitch who complains all the time. I have my days and all but not a total brat ;) It was a long 8 days with work people (some of who were extremely rude for no reason), little sleep, little exercise, boring meetings, and bad food that all just caught up with me. All was not horrible on Marco Island though. Jacob did come to visit over the weekend so I got a break from the work people for 1 1/2 days. We took in the sun and scenery and it was nice. The weather was gorgeous when I was able to get outside on breaks to enjoy it. And I got to run in the sand and expense fruity drinks to my company. So yeah there were good parts. But it is nice to be in my home office and getting back to my normal routine. My body is seriously out of whack! And now I can catch up on blogs and all my other stuff I haven't had a chance to get to over the last 8 days.

The 2 1/2 hour ride to Miami was interesting. The little old driver was super cute and very talkative. He kept pointing out alligators while flying down the road in this bus that has seen better days. Just to give you an idea on how broken this bus was the drivers side window fell apart and had to be taken down on the side of the road halfway through the ride. Crazy! Miami airport was chaotic as always. We were delayed but I made it home without too many further problems. Jacob picked me up and we got home and went for a short run. Left the garmin at home as I knew it wasn't going to be a great job on my part. And it wasn't. I am totally okay with it though and am happy to get the legs moving again.

4 in the snow

At home in Medina, OH. I used to hate this town that I grew up in. I love it now. Even though there is still that close minded small town-ness about it. Maybe it's because I come back so few times a year and can appreciate the town for what it is. So before we left today I decided after over a week of no running I absolutely had to run. It felt so good. I'm glad I got it in. It was slow going on the ice and slushy snow but really worth it. Really I don't know why I haven't run outside more. Got in 4 and am happy b/c being at home I know I will do nothing!

So we are almost ready to book our officiant but I am still up in the air. We were going to book a judge local to Chicago but he seems so "whatever"...We are not too religious even though I grew up Catholic. Honestly I would prefer someone get their license online (I'll pay) then marry us. Anyone game?