Marathon Thoughts

90% of me wants to run a marathon.

10% of me wants to sleep in on Saturday and Sunday mornings, relax on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons, to forget the stretching and the warms ups, the strength training and the cool downs.


I ran a half marathon as part of a relay team with my brother, way back in 2004, as a sophomore in college. I was young enough and confident enough to just do it. I didn't really train for it. I had run 10 miles around a lake on summer vacation and 10.5 miles on Thanksgiving morning without any training. So I figured, what's another 3? My training runs were on trails, up hills, no miles, just time. I went on one long run, 7.5 miles, on country roads around my college. Was I worried about not training? Uh, nope! In fact, my dad, some of his running buddies, and my brother's girlfriend were all running the full. It felt like Andrew and I were just wimping out with the half marathon.

So I did it. I came home on October Break, packed a bag, and hopped in the family van for a trip to Columbus. I picked up my goodie bag with my way too huge tee shirt, ate carbs, and tried to get a good night of sleep. I got up, ate what Shelley ate, jogged to the starting line, and tried to stick with her 8 minute mile pace. And I did, for about the first 5 miles. After that, I lost her and just kept running along. Racing normally makes me nervous, but I didn't have any expectations for myself. I was just doing it to do it!

I'm not exactly sure what my time was. If I remember correctly, there was some disparity between what my watch said and what the split was recorded as. I think the posted time was 1:52. I attributed that to the fact that I had to untie the chip from my shoe with stiff, cold fingers in order to transfer it to Andrew's shoe. Then I kept jogging until I found my mom. When I found her, the first words out of my mouth were "Thank God I'm done." If you know me, you know I don't take the Lord's name in vain, but it just popped out. Truly, I was thankful that this run was done, but I was so embarrassed that I said that! I was exhausted, freezing in my shorts and long-sleeved shirt, and I wanted nothing but to sit in a blanket and sip hot chocolate. I think I was even crying a little bit. My mom congratulated me and gave me my warm clothes and probably even got my hot chocolate as I hobbled around on stiff legs. We watched the rest of the racers come in, my dad and Shelley both qualifying for Boston.

If only I had known that running 13.1 miles was really an accomplishment. With other people in my life who had run so many complete marathons, I felt like my half was hardly noticed. (Typical middle child for you, huh?) And, without really training hard for it, I guess I felt like it didn't deserve to be noticed.

And, if only I had known that my overall pace of 8:30 minutes/mile was really quite decent. I look back at my 19 year old self who ran 8:30 minute miles without thinking much of it and wish that I could get some of that speed back. In my memory, it was effortless, although I'm sure something about running up and down the Houghton hills had just a bit to do with it. Now, a few years wiser, I realize that 13.1 miles is crazy for some people even to contemplate. It can be a huge accomplishment. My husband recently ran a half, as did two sisters-in-law (one on each side), and I think of how proud I was of them!

So I'm talking myself into running a marathon. No, I don't think it will be a fast marathon. I'd need to do a lot of speed work for that. No, I don't think it will compare to my dad if he does the same marathon, or my sister-in-law who is gearing back up into marathon shape after the birth of their first baby. No, it wouldn't compare to Dan, who is also considering running the same marathon. But it would be my first marathon. It'd be my declaration that I can achieve my goals, that I can be that woman who follows through with a training plan, that I can run 26.2 miles.

I'm just about there. The visit to this website to sign the next 4 months of my life away.

But I really just want to know: what does the tee shirt look like?

Dan's Best Ever Kale

Just in case you get some kale in your own summer vegetable adventures, this is how Dan prepared it.*

Saute some chopped sweet onion and red peppers in a tablespoon or two of olive oil. Add a partial package of frozen green beans. Stir them around. Dump in a few (too many) red pepper flakes. Search the cupboard for some chicken stock and add a cup or so. Throw in a few raw almonds for crunch. Let the concoction simmer for a few minutes. Meanwhile, wash and stem your kale and toss it into the pot. Saute until the kale cooks down, about 5 minutes. Enjoy!

*Confession: I tried to micromanage him through his recipe after I asked him to make it. It's a bad habit of mine -- asking Dan to do something and then jumping in to take over. These were various sentences that a fly on the wall might have heard: Aren't you going to use a whole package of green beans? Why did you add whole almonds? There are slivered almonds in the freezer! Don't you think you should wash the kale? The salad spinner is in the fridge. How are you washing it?

I need to show Dan that I trust him in the kitchen, and with a few more experiences like these, I'll zip my lips in anticipation of the tasty results.

CSA: Week 2

Week 2 for the CSA rolled around, and I have to admit, I was dreading it a little bit. The problem was that we still hadn't eaten some of our CSA veggies and yet other store-bought veggies were hanging out in our refrigerator too. It was one of those goofy weeks when we ended up not eating as many meals as I had planned -- out to dinner, leftovers, and a meal not on our original menu. Added to that, this week the entire box was ours because of M & M's generosity, although we still shared some of the bounty. So there were no tears because the box wasn't overflowing. In fact, I was a little relieved.

Our haul on Wednesday included:
1 bag of "chard"
1 small bag of broccoli
1 bag of kale
1 bag of garlic scapes
1 bunch of green onions
1 qt. and 1 pt. of fresh strawberries

The strawberries were beautiful, ripe the entire way through, perfectly red and juicy. As I had spent an hour in the blazing heat on Monday with Bethany picking about 10 pounds of strawberries (and had spent the previous evening making them in to jam and strawberry cotulis), I knew that I couldn't hoard these berries. We made a date to share them with Mike, Mary and their boys over some strawberry shortcake with freshly whipped cream. Can we say delicious?

As for the garlic scapes, I decided to make them into another pesto, similar to what I did with the garlic greens. I've decided I like basil pesto more, but since I needed to use these, it worked! It's a pretty strong flavor, but it jazzed up our pasta.

The green onions went into our Pasta and Italian Sausage Veggie Extravaganza. That was solution to the way-too-many vegetables conundrum, and oh my goodness -- it was fantastic! Pasta from the cupboard, asparagus languishing in the fridge, red peppers purchased for a dish we couldn't make (see next paragraph!), green onions, leftover garlic greens pesto, and some bulk italian sausage, all topped with some Parmesan cheese made a fantastic dinner. (We ate the broccoli as we prepped for this meal, after a short 13 mile bike ride.)

And the chard, a whole bag of which we still had from the previous week? Well, last week it was called chard, but it looked a lot more like lettuce and much less like the pictures of chard that were posted online. And in this week's newsletter? It was dubbed lettuce. We were much more willing to eat that, and most of it was consumed in our chicken salads on Saturday evening.

The kale is wilting in our fridge for a few more minutes, but I'm going to give it a whirl in a variation of this recipe. Dan searched for "best kale recipe ever" when he learned that we had gotten this in our share, and I think that mixing the kale with beans (but skipping the mushrooms, of course) will make it a bit more palatable for the two of us.

The last thing in our share was a bunch of flowers. Dan was probably right when he called them weeds, but they have been brightening up our apartment all week.

Hope your adventures in summer eating are as delicious as ours have been!

CSA: Week 1

School is out for the summer! And now that I have some time to myself again, I'll report on life here in Dayton.

Dan and I, along with our friends Mike and Mary, joined a CSA this summer. A CSA, for those of you who don't know, stands for Community Supported Agriculture. We sent a farm a check before the growing season began, and they use those funds to operate their farm. Then, every week from May to September, we get a crate of fruits and veggies, which we split between the two of us. It's a great way to support local farmers without the hassle of winding my way through the Second Street Market every week. It also forces us to get creative with veggies that I wouldn't usually buy.

So this Wednesday, I stopped by the pick-up location and met George, a guy with dreads who I assume to be the farmer. He handed me a crate filled with this stuff, which we split, as best as possible with M&M:

A bunch of garlic greens
Green onions
Swiss chard
Chinese cabbage (all ours)
Boston Lettuce (all theirs)
Strawberries (mostly theirs)
Granola (all ours)
1 dozen eggs

He assured me that the crate will fill up with additional veggies as the season goes on, but after all the rain we've been having, they are still light on produce. That's why we got the homemade organic granola and the farm-fresh eggs.

So, how am I doing on using things this week? Well, so far I really haven't (oops!). Dan ate the granola for breakfast, so that's gone. I used one green onion in my quesadilla yesterday. But here are my plans for the rest of it.

Sunday: Eggs & Bacon for breakfast. (I love farm fresh eggs. They are infinitely better than store bought.)
Garlic greens pesto (They had some on the table when I picked up the crate, and their newsletter provided the recipe. It was delicious and a very vibrant green.)
Monday: Stir fry with the Chinese Cabbage and Green Onions
Tuesday: Something with the chard! Maybe this, although sometimes the texture of sauteed spinach grosses me out and it's kind of the same sort of things. And by that time, our chard is 1 week old. But we've to eat it. I'll let you know how we use it up.

What the heck?

I wanted to take a brief moment and let everyone know that all of this rain stinks.
Mountain biking this Spring has been very difficult. A series of Wednesday night races have been postponed, rescheduled, pushed back, and officially cancelled for the Spring. No racing.

The two main areas around here are closed whenever the trails are too messy for riding, which is both good and bad, but they also have been closed. No mountain biking.

The 270 miles of paved off-street bikeways are located along the river corridors, so guess where they have been? That is correct, hiding their faces covered up by water. When the water levels do go back down the wonderful paved off-street bikeways are then covered with layers of mud. They dry up and eventually get cleaned off, but still...no bikeway biking.

Road riding you ask? You bet, but that too has been challenging this year. It has been raining a lot, and I am sick of it. The next few hours will sure to be wet. Check it out.

Lord, you said you wouldn't flood the whole earth again, which I am thankful, but could you save some of this rain for July, August when we need it and it is 1000 degrees outside? Thanks.

3 things plus

I was just sitting around the other day and was thinking about all sorts of things. Three things really. One of the things I was thinking about was pride. I think the thoughts started in small group, but it stuck in my head nonetheless. Pride: How we all struggle with it and how all sorts of folks are prideful, myself included. I thought about how facebook is basically one big pride statement, sure they call it status, but we basically type what we want others to think of us. And this is the weird disconnect part...I also decided the other day that people like great stories, we like to hear what other people are doing (facebook), what they are listening to, taking picture of, and how they are feeling. All of these things can happen on facebook, which is probably why it is such a great success. And this leads me to the third thing that I was thinking about, I like to read some blogs. I like to read what other people are doing to keep them inspired, what great adventures friends are taking, and how they are coming along. This led me to think that some folks also just like to read about the general day to day, which gave me the idea that I should document my work day via photographs. I enjoy knowing what other folks are doing from day to day, so hopefully someone enjoys seeing what I do from day to day. So...the following is a general day in the life of day, hopefully with no prideful "I wonder what people think of me" thrown in. I will even through in some thoughts that go through my head.

Part of my breakfast. I generally eat fruit, homemade granola, and hot tea. Juice if we have it as well. Sometimes I get crazy and eat some frozen waffles.
Then Fido gets to go for a walk. He hates the camera and tries to hide when it comes out, but he does love treats, so I held one above the camera with my free hand. He likes his walks in the morning. I try to get in 40 minutes, but sometimes it is only 10.


And then I suit up and get ready to go to work. Work is .8 miles from our front door, so sometimes I bike and sometimes I walk. I generally bike though so I can come home for lunch and have more relaxing time.
And this is the outside of our office building. The big graphic makes it really easy to give directions, "Yep, just turn left and our building is on the left with the big outdoor graphic on the front" It is rather nice, but these are also the only windows in our first floor cave office building.

My desk/cubicle. I have no neighbor right next to me, but I do have some folks over the walls. I spend a fair amount of time in here, but I can always go outside and work, even if it is on office stuff. My chair is my favorite color, but it doesn't stay up at the correct height. It leaks air or something and sinks down by the end of the day. The office safety team says my chair should be at the correct height for proper office ergonomics, but my chair sinks throughout the day. Maybe I should shed some extra pounds. It is annoying.

And this is the inside of the Second Street Market. I had to go here as part of work to promote cycling and man the MetroParks booth. It was a welcomed change. I enjoy getting out in our parks and meeting new folks.

This is the booth I was working. I was there to promote cycling in general but specifically our new bike hub downtown. It offers secure bike storage, shower facilities, lockers, and close access to downtown businesses for the bike commuter. (Did I sell you on it?) It is a nice facility, come check it out sometime. I was glad to work the booth, but I was hungry as I sat here over lunch. I forgot my lunch at home and I had no money to purchase something, so I waited and went home afterwards.


And this is where I got sick of taking pictures. My afternoon was filled with me finishing up a presentation and setting up for that presentation. My day is filled with all sorts of random things, but most days I do go home for lunch. I let the dog out and watch trash TV or the news. I then bike back to work and finish out my day.

I know this is weird again, but I just posted about my day and talked about being prideful in the same post, talk about irony. I do hope you enjoyed seeing what one (half) of my day looked like.

Now I must go research more about Subaru's and their tire oddities, but maybe more about that story will come tomorrow.

Sunday Morning Pancakes

As a kid, one of my favorite nights was when my mom would let us have reading suppers. This would involve everyone bringing the book they were currently reading down to the dinner table and reading through dinner. Even my parents would join in, and secretly, they were probably glad to have a dinner time with no fights.

The only way dinner got any better was when we would have breakfast for supper. There's nothing like pancakes, bacon and/or sausage, eggs, pure maple syrup, and a big glass of cold milk enjoyed at dinner time. Apparently, Dan didn't like breakfast for dinner as a kid. He thought it was cheating, but he's changed his mind after we got married. PHEW. There's almost always what we need for breakfast-for-dinner in our cupboards, fridge, and freezer, so it's a good thing he doesn't mind when we indulge in this delectable meal for dinner.

Although this time we didn't enjoy these pancakes at dinner, I love this recipe for its healthy spin. They are hearty and wholesome without tasting too healthy, and sprinkled with a few blueberries (picked this past summer and frozen in bags) they are a great start to the day. Hope you enjoy them!

Whole Grain Pancakes*

3/4 cup whole wheat flour

1/2 cup oats

1/4 cup wheat germ OR 2 tablespoons flaxseed meal & 2 tablespoons oat bran

2 tablespoons sugar

1 tablespoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 1/3 cups milk

1 egg

2 tablespoons oil

Combine dry ingredients together. Mix wet ingredients and add to dry. Let set for a few minutes as the griddle heats. Sprinkle with blueberries when cooking pancakes on the griddle. Enjoy!

*Perhaps this recipe is courtesy of Aunt Amy? The baked oatmeal wasn't (oops!), but I think this one is. Tell me if I'm wrong.