Double the mileage from July?  Wow.  I would be worried but I feel good and strong and I stuck to the prescribed plan of action (missing just one run and not adding any extra mileage for the entire month).  However, I am finding that I am not mentally in it.  Most of my runs feel great, but mentally I don’t really look forward to them.  For the most part I get over it within the first quarter mile and things are good, but on the longer ones the lack of mental toughness means that come mile 14, 15, 16, 17 and on I start to get lazy and more willing to take a walk break (or completely come unglued like my 18-miler on Sunday).  In the grand scheme of things, it doesn’t really matter.  But if I want to run a good marathon (and hopefully do better than my last two outings) I need to find some steely resolve somewhere.  Anyone know where I can pick some of that up?

September isn’t going to be any easier, with a somewhat insane travel schedule on the horizon and two 20-milers that are due before the actual race, I am a little scared for how I am going to stay on track. Keep on keeping on I guess?

Sometime in the semi near future I will post pictures of my new kitchen floor that went in almost a month ago.

On an unrelated note does anyone else think Brian Williams looks like Guy Smiley? I mean, it bothers me.  Well I guess it’s not so much the resemblance that bothers me but rather his cartoonish eyebrows.

You know how long it’s been since I baked some sort of confection from scratch? January. That’s eight whole months.  Does anyone realize that my only real stress relievers are running (currenlty limited), baking (non-existant) and drinking with friends (and there’s only so much vodka in the world)?  Given this state of affairs, I am sure you can imagine how off I feel.  It’s funny, I hadn’t realized how much this affects me until I started to get really excited about having my stove hooked up again  and then realizing my excitement stemmed not only from having a lovely new kitchen floor and the ability to boil water and thusly make coffee again, but also so I could start churning out some freaking cookies and cakes.  Oh happy day.  Now I just need to move my accoutrements and ingredients back in my kitchen and we’ll be ret to go.

Although there is talk about replacing the stove. It is an eyesore, but it cooks true.  Dilema, do I go for the pretty over the function?

The area where a stove should be. Also a very savvy way to protect oneself from an open gas line.

Sixty miles for July.  Measly by normal training standards, but ok for me considering I was coming off an injury at the beginning of the month.  This training season is going to be ridiculously conservative taking into consideration the calf issues I developed in June.  I suppose that’s ok.  Just let me run a good race, finish and get that Tiffany necklace!

I am having trouble motivating myself to do anything other than run, i.e. I haven’t been cross training at all.  I know this is what I need to do in order to stay healthy, but I can’t seem to get myself to do it.  I’ve cross trained a grand total of 4 times this month.  I didn’t miss a run, but I didn’t go to yoga and I didn’t lift a damned thing either.  Not sure what my issue is.  Last year this time, I would have cross trained four times in one week…and loved it. Ugh.

I am feeling good on all of my runs though. I’ve dropped down to three to four times a week so as not to over train and I am actually ENJOYING my tempo runs.  Usually I hate them as it requires you to run at a pace that is slightly faster than you are comfortable with, ie mildly painful.  However with my lower mileage, I am finding myself looking forward to them.  I doubt much will come from it, meaning I don’t think I will get faster or anything but I do hope they are going to help me feel somewhat comfortable out on the varrying elevations of San Francisco during the race.

Although I think my newest obsession will help on that front too.  Once a week I’ve taken to adding the stairs behind the Lincoln Memorial that go down to Rock Creek Parkway to my 3 mile easy run.  It kicks ass and I love the throbby way my quads feel afterward.

There is a 12-miler this Saturday, longest one for me of the season. I tried hitting twelve last month and that’s when my calf started acting up, so fingers crossed…

If you are ever feeling a lack of disgustingness in your life, I suggest that you rip up your old kitchen floors.  And making sure that your kitchen is more than 60 years old will help you achieve maximum grossness.

Step one in replacing the kitchen floor = ripping up what was already there = absolutely nasty

Going in, we knew that the floors were linoleum. We also knew (or were 95% sure) there was at least one other floor underneath that linoleum. Bossman Mom and resident HGTV expert informed us that we could not lay tile over the existing floor because in order for things to be sound, you cannot have more than two floors laid down at a time. Apparently the previous owners did not have the same knowledge because we ripped up two layers of linoleum and one layer of peel-n-stick flooring.  I am guessing that one of those linoleom layers was the original floor…it was almost indistinguishable as a floor, but a hint of octagonal pattern peeked out at us once we pulled out the stove.  It took us (read: Dad) about an hour to rip out each layer using a combo of brut strength and a crowbar. He did find a wedding  band in the mess.  Makes me wonder about all the past owners of this place, what were they like? What did they do? Why did they install the front door’s chain lock on backwards?

Once all the big pieces were ripped up and thrown out on the lawn, we tried to chisel out the stubborn pieces so we could get to the nice (I am using the term loosely), even concrete base.  After thirty minutes work only cleared an area about the size of a piece of toast, we knew what we had to do.  We had to go find a ho(e). A professional that could blow through that mess quickly. Heh.

A field trip to the Ho(me) Depot, turned up several options. I didn’t like the look of the ho(es), plus they were expensive! But what I did spy was what looked like a garden version of an over sized ice scrapper, it looked perfect for scrapping hardened gunk off concrete and it was only $12!  Done.  Screw those $20 ho(es)…who needs ‘em?

Back home with my new weapon (I seriously think it will replace the hockey stick that currently resides next to my bed), three of us took turns scrapping crap off the floor.  Being that this was last week when it was 100 degrees outside and that I don’t have central air, just two wall units neither of which is in the kitchen, it was ridiculously sweaty work, scrapping up that floor.  It took most of the afternoon getting the floor into something we could use.

Next step was to lay down the subfloor, we used 1/2″ backer board to keep things level with the wood floor in the dining area and to help retard anything the decides it wants to grown under the tiles.  Dad and little bro D scored and snapped the pieces in place and then D and I slapped down the mortar to cement in the backer board.

Viola! A sub floor.

Next: Laying the tiles.

Read about my electrical woes and more kitchen renovation adventures by clicking here.

Two years ago we hooked up. To be honest I was looking to you to fill a void in my life. I spent a little time trying to repair that void myself, but without much luck I ended up turning to you. We started out fast–upgraded, international flights here and there and even though things were shiny and new we were content to spend most of our days together at home. Granted, we each had our own space but aren’t the best relationships like that? I really thought we’d go far together, so I am sure you can at least try to imagine my astonishment when you ran out on me last month. Even more so to do it at the airport, as we were about to get on the plane! I mean what did I ever do to you to deserve that? Sure, longing for the one before you may have caused a strain, but I was getting over that. It had been two years for God’s sake, I was committed to YOU! What’s even worse is that I can’t even pinpoint the vaguest reason why you’d wait until we were at the airport to jet out on me…just after security, before I put my shoes back on? Why? Why then? Was it the hint of superiority I exuded after skipping all of the long lines at Dulles, using my Premiere flight status to my full advantage? Minor infraction if you ask me. Plus I know deep down you enjoyed that perk too. Hell, were you offended by the odor of my feet as I removed my shoes to step through the metal detector? It’s not like we hadn’t done that together a handful of times before. I just don’t understand. I saw the older gentlemen behind me, and I saw they way he looked at you. Was it him? Was the thought of staying with me so atrocious that you decided to just leap into his arms, leaving me stranded?

You, of all people, leaving me at the airport before our trip to London. It’s…it’s unacceptable!

And do you know how much trouble you’ve gotten me into with the State Department, my job, TSA????

Yes I am still renovating. Yes, it’s true that the kitchen is still not finished. After halting all work for June (too much travel) I am gearing back up again for a renovation session this weekend with the family.

I believe I left you with a big pile of granite tile in my living room. Well, those tiles are now permanently residing as my countertops and that shiny Kohler sink is officially installed. The glass shades for the overhead pendant light fixture were also finally purchased. So things are starting to take a turn for the pretty.

The installation for the counter and sink took three days–one and a half that I was present for. Mad props to the family, they are amazing.

DAY 1 - We started on a Saturday, ripping out the old Formica counters and cutting the substrate to fit. This was tough because it was pouring outside which meant dear old Dad wanted to make the plywood cuts indoors. Circular saw + plywood + my dining room was going to equal a mother load of sawdust. And I am still battling sawdust from refinishing the freaking cabinets, so needless to say I was getting a little worried. Plus, I had to leave the install to go attend Buggie’s Graduation BBQ and who knows what fantastical things they might have decided to do in my absence. Fortunately, there was a break in the weather, so they were able to make the plywood and backer board cuts outside. Phew.

While brother and I headed of for the party, Mom, Dad, bother-in-law and little sis all stayed and cut and fit the plywood and backer board in. So for the next day, we started with this (look how big the space for the sink is!):

DAY 2 — We started by marking the cuts on the tiles. We would turn them over and run a pencil along the cut line and then tape off the section of tile that need to be cut away. The countertop opposite of the one in the picture above is almost a perfect square without any cutouts so we started there. My Dad cut all the tile himself, save for the pieces my brother did towards the end of the day (not that we didn’t TRY to have Home Depot make two tricky cuts for us, but they were, shall we say, not helpful in that area).

After all the cuts were made we dry fit the tiles into place to make sure everything was kosher and all nice and even. Most of the cuts were right on, just a few needed some shaving either on the tile saw Dad was manning outside, or the hacksaw my brother was using for the slimmest of cuts. Once we determined that everything was going to fit, it was time to mix the granite mortar mix. A project little bro and Mom left me and Dad to take care of. Looked simple enough, the instructions were in the form of a pictogram (which I should have taken a picture of, but didn’t). The pictogram showed a measured amount of water to be poured in a bucket and then the mortar mix to be added to the water, and then constant and vigorous stirring for a specified amount of time–thusly creating a type of cement. We measured the water and poured it in the bucket. Check. Dad lifted the 50lb bag of mortar mix and started pouring it into the water-filled bucket while I stirred in a very witch-cauldron-stew kind of way. Check check. Before Dad got half of the bag of mix in the bucket it became obvious that if we were to continue, stirring would immediately have to stop, for there was clearly not enough water to keep things liquidy and the cement, she was getting harder by the minute. We added some unprescribed water and continued our quest, only to hit another cement wall, literally. Dad and I silently determined the pictogram was bogus and we were officially going to do this off the cuff. I added more water.

Dad (yelling): What’s this stuff supposed to look like?

Mom (referencing her bank of HGTV knowledge): It’s supposed to have the consistency of peanut butter.

Dad (looking into the bucket as I am stirring): Chunky or Smooth?

Mom:

Me: Giggle

It’s obvious that we are too loose for peanut butter, so we add a bit more mortar mix in, much to my chagrin because damn, this shit is hard to stir. And the prescribed stir time is something like twelve minutes so every time we tinker with the recipe we start the timer over.

I lift up the stir stick (we are using a broom handle) to test it’s consistency, and it’s a little drippy. Dad tells me to keep stirring while he adds a little more mix in and again restarts the timer.

Me (tiring fast and groaning): Dad, you stir. My abs hurt. (Seriously, you had to stir with your whole body)

Dad (taking the stick): Wuss

After a minute and a half Dad is sweating. He tests the consistency, it’s definitely thicker, but it’s still a little drippy. Dad wonders aloud if peanut butter would drip off the end of a knife. He then determines, aloud, the no, peanut butter should not drip.

Me: Not true! My natural peanut butter is very drippy.

Dad (yelling): Is it supposed to be like natural peanut butter or the regular kind?

Mom (yelling): What? How the hell should I know!

Me: Giggle

Dad’s stirring is slowing so I take over. It’s getting thicker. We start taking two-minute shifts. I try to entice my freakishly strong brother to come stir, he takes two turns around the bucket and hands us back the stick. This shit is hard. I mean have you ever mixed cement by hand? Heysoos. Here is the bane of our existence that day:

So we finally get to peanut butter stage. Now it’s sloppy time. Using a 1/4″ x 3/8″ x 1/4″ trowel we slap that stuff on the counters and start laying tile. That apparently is a large grooved trowel, good for getting a good grip on the tile, but hard to make adjustments once you’ve laid it down. So we spent the next hour pushing and wiggling to get our lines and corners straight.  Mortaring is oddly like frosting a cake. I like it. I take pride in making nice trowel lines.  Can you guess which picture shows my mortar job?

Oh my gosh, once we straightened everything out, it looked amazing! After all the tile was laid down we taped down the areas that might decide to move on their own…just so we didn’t run into any surprises as the cement dried overnight.

Day 3 — Now it’s Monday and I am at work, but the family is over at my house finishing the install. The tiles need to be grouted and the sink now needs to be installed. The grouting goes fine according to my mom’s play-by-play text messages. It’s the sink that causes a bit of a hullabaloo between the bro and the dad. Apparently it’s not the easiest thing in the world to go from a shallow-depth, single basin sink to a two basin version that is double the depth. Seems that new and confusing plumbing fixtures are needed. And as I was informed via screaming in the background when my mother called to confess their difficulties “[THEY] ARE NOT PLUMBERS!” Who knew?

Well they might not be plumbers, but they are geniuses and of course they figured it out and when I came home that Monday night, oh my god. It was amazing.

Here is a side by side of the before and after:

Next: This weekend that linoleum floor gets ripped up! More demolition, woo!

You can read up on My Kitchen Renovation (MKR) that has been slowly eking along by clicking here.

I am late in posting and low in mileage.

Thirty-five and change miles for June.  Not a good total for the official start month of marathon training.

Two things happened:

1.  Travel. I had a trip to the UK for work early in the month, but I had a plan–short, but frequent runs while I was away. I was even going to treadmill it if I had to.  Many, many things went wrong with this trip, to say the least.  The sum of these things resulted in 12+ hour days and complete mental and physical exhaustion.  So there was no running, at all, that week.

2.  Ouchy.  Two weeks ago I was out for a long run, a 12-miler on the Custis trail that was eventually headed to Upton Hill.  So basically straight up for 6 miles.  Well my calf only lasted 3.5 before I got the first hint of the stabby pains that have coincided with past calf injuries.  Trying to be smart and avoid a real injury, I stopped, tried to stretch it out (to no avail) and decided it was in my best interest to turn around and walk home.  I took a couple of days off, iced and such but two days later I could only get a mile in before the stabby stabby came back.

So, having been through the drill before, I took two weeks off to let the muscle fibers reweave themselves–hence sucky June mileage.  Now I don’t know what to do to get back on track with training. It’s obvious my body won’t let me overdo it, but mentally this is going to be hard. I’ve never been injured during training before.

I hit a decent four miles this evening w/o any pain so I think my self-prescribed time off was a good thing.  Now all I need is a plan.

Happy Bugeatah to all July 3 babies!

OMG Dan Koeffler just said to me “Good morning, if you are jsut waking up”.  Uh…I am just getting in? Is it still good morning to me? I donb’t know who Dan is, he is early morning man.   Did you know that Miller Light Chill is sweet as shit?

I am waking. Not tired.

[BUG] I am tired. I am sleeping.

Harumph.  I have no bloging partner.

I think I shall try toi embrace my tiredness.

Stool softner. FUNNNNNNNNNNNNNYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY.

Do not watch television at 4:30 in the morning.

tHE END.

Go Twins.

HOROSCOPE: LEO

Your friends and family might look to you for guidance now, but not necessarily for motivation to get ahead. Instead, the laid back Taurus Moon suggests a day of pleasant relaxation and rejuvenation. You can set an example for others today by doing what makes you feel good, whether it’s watching a movie, lying by the pool or taking a nature walk.

So I made the family head over to the Metrodome this afternoon for the last day of interleague play.  Well I didn’t so much as make them as I mentioned it to my grandmother as a possibility and SHE convinced the ‘rents that attending today’s Twins v. Brewers game was a must do. (Have I mentioned how much I love my grandma?) But last-minute tickets, awesome left field seats, a pre-game all-Mascot t-ball game*, and some kick ass nine innings made for a ridiculously pleasant day.  Especially when those nine innings meant a complete game shutout by Slowey, a stand up triple by way of a foul line hugging line drive, and Young’s two-run  HR dropped into our section. Oh happy day.

*Twins mascot T.C. has invited his mascot friends to participate in the annual mascot softball game prior to Sunday’s contest against the Brewers. Mascots planning to attend include Apple and Bee (Applebee’s), Wilbur the Pig (Famous Dave’s), SPAMMY (Hormel), Moe (Minnesota Daily), Thor (Minnesota Thunder), Crunch (Timberwolves), Viktor (Vikings), Starman (Star Tribune), Subman (Subway), Toucan Harry (Treasure Island Resort & Casino), Patches the Panda (SPIRE), Airman Andy (United States Air Force Reserve 934th Airlift Wing), Goldy Gopher (University of Minnesota), Peppy the Pizza Slice (Broadway Pizza), Roy (Bethel University), Alfie the Liver (American Liver Foundation), Fairborn and Fairchild (Minnesota State Fair), Colonel Ohmoopapa (Valleyfair), Bullseye (Target), Spirit (Qwest) and special guest Bernie Brewer from the Milwaukee Brewers.

Seriously the most pre-game fun I’ve ever had (outside of Joe Mauer getting stretched), I mean when Alfie the Liver took a face-planting dive into home plate for the tying run…hilarious.  Twins are now 8-0 in mascot softball.

Has anyone else noticed the airlines recent tactic of guilting passengers into paying attention to the safety video?  Do the flight attendants still even do the pantomime routine in conjunction with the video or are they just going with the little passive aggressive stabs made by the people on the video?  God, I really don’t pay attention to those things at all, do I? Although I do hear the not-so-subtle jab at our guilty conscious’ at the beginning of every in-flight safety announcement–hear it, and perhaps feel the tiniest twinge of guilt for about a nanosecond before I go back to reading my book, a trashy magazine (for you can’t read Real Simple or Women’s Fitness on the plane, nope just pictures of gorgeous clothes and accessories or paparazzi-filled pages will do) or trying to figure out the, what seems to be, anti-terrorist lock on the freaking water bottle I just purchased from Hudson News.  Shit, I’ll even read the in-flight magazine detailing the brand of soft-drink available to me at a safe cruising altitude before I watch that safety video again.

Well it seems United Airlines has turned to using extreme aural stimulation in addition to shame in order to force passengers to pay attention to the flight safety instructions.  On my most recent United flight, the safety video was so loud I literally could no longer read.  (Although I could write, hence this post you lucky Internet people you.)  The volume started out reasonably enough, but apparently there were not enough of us rapt with attention watching the United Colors of Benetton actors pretend to blow up life vests on the tiny screens above our heads, because about two minutes after the start, the sound was cranked to rock concert-like decibels. I imagine our little Lemming heads all turned up at the same moment to look at the screens (or more precisely to look for the origin of the offending noise) and lo, the noise (read: volume) went down.  Lulled back into normalcy with proper volume-levels, I assume all of our heads then went back to what they had been doing, that is NOT watching the video. And that is precisely  when the volume returned to it’s previous ear-splitting level and that’s where it remained until the stupid…er…informative video was over.

I know, I know the video is for my own good.  God forbid I trip over someone trying to exit the plane the wrong way*, I mean clearly Row 10’s nearest exit is behind them, but it would be just my luck (and my due for writing this post) that I would trip over that person from Row 10 and thusly impede my progress to MY nearest exit in the event of a water landing (although I seriously doubt any commercial aircraft in use today is capable of actually landing on water. But I suppose that’s neither here nor there considering we all know that landing is the farthest thing from what the plane would be doing in that scenario).  Anyway, I do not think my doctor would approve of the tactics employed by United Airlines. I know that my seat cushion can be used as a flotation device. No, I will not inflate my life vest inside of the plane. Yes, I will help any small children traveling with me only after I’ve helped myself.  I do look behind me and compare the distance of that exit to the one in front of me. I won’t freak out when my oxygen bag does not inflate and I have done enough yoga that I can put my head between my knees in the event of that unwanted water landing.  Just please don’t make me deaf and force you to bring back the pantomiming for my deaf ass.

*But seriously God forbid that I am ever forced to exit a plane other than by jetway or rolling stairway.  Not trying to tempt fate here, just yell back at the on-board staff controlling the volume this evening.