Just Stuff

Well I am back to the Internet world after a great visit with my sistah and all of her little people. ha. We looked at many houses, ate many cookies, drank much tea, and laughed over kid-sayings. Good times.

Ran 70:00 easy today, and was followed by a couple of dogs. I can't stand being followed by dogs. It drives me nutso. Anyway, it was a very comfortable run, although not fast at all. I guess I do not care very much because I have 2 doubles coming up on Thurs. and Fri., as well as plenty of tempo work to do on Saturday. Time enough for the hard stuff. I like to enjoy the easy stuff. In the mean time I'll try to come up with something worth reading.

Ewwwwwwwww

Nasty day out there. When I left to run, it was 52 degrees, not bad, but very humid. Danielle went with me and we took off to warm up, and I didn't really feel like it was going to be a good day, so I was surprised to start off at a 7:20 pace and it felt comfortable, so I stayed with it. Unfortunatlely, during the run, the sun came out and the temps shot up about 15 degrees, retaining our 100% humidity, or 400%, whatever it was. So I ended up with a 7:32 pace for the 40:00 tempo run, a little dissapointing, but I feel that if it hadn't been so humid I would have done much better. So overall, still not a terrible run, but then again, I was so much faster the beginning of the year, so that is still somewhat frustrating for me.. Not a very positive post, eh?

In other news, Ethan finally tested his boundaries enough to find out what happens in the Lantz home when disrespect happens. He made fun of his teacher today, so he has been pretty much grounded all night and he received a spanking and was required to write his teacher an apology note. He's grounded to his room, poor kid, I feel bad for him, but I just don't want him to grow up to be disrespectful, and hopefully he will remember this for some time.

It's good to be back

I guess I consider today sort of a mark of being "back" to running. I have not missed a day since Oct. 25th, and I have run over 50 miles per week for a month. I had a 95:00 run on tap today and estimated that I would get in 10.5 miles, and surprised myself by getting in 11.3 miles with the last 2 miles at 7:38 and 7:32. It seems like last time I was running 50 mpw, it was harder for me, or made me more tired. I don't really feel very drained to be honest. Of course, I am not running very much "meat" right now, just a tempo and a few intervals through the week, and my "long runs" are not very long, but still. It's good. I feel really good.

The weather has been downright weird, and it doesn't feel very Christmasy, if you want to know the truth. It was 50 degrees and fog as thick as pea soup when I ran this morning. The temp was great, but I could have done without the "mist."

meh, this is getting boring..... zzzzzzzzzzzz...........

Brrrr!

You know, I think we are all a bunch of wusses in Arkansas. It's freaking 40 degrees out there and we're all huddled up inside talking about how cold it is. I'll wear shorts to run in down to about 20 degrees for the most part, but how often does that happen? Not much as it seems like our climate is slowly moving closer to Tropical. The warmer the winters get, the bigger babies we are. Before you know it, we'll be whining about 60 degrees, wishing it were 80. Yesterday, it was supposed to be in the mid-sixties and we topped out at 38. It seems like my run was over before I ever got warm. Then there is the big question of over dressing for a run. You do not want to overdress for a run because if you overdress, you will get sweaty, and when you get sweaty, that cold 35 degree, 15 mph breeze suddenly becomes quite COLD and you suddenly find yourself in a similar situation to running in a cold rain. Wah! Cry me a river. Seriously though, this is the time of year I love to run. I can always run faster and get warmer, but in the summer, there is no escaping the heat!

These Two are not Related.

The Circle

There is a circle that exists in running and it happens thus: You train hard, you start to get grouchy and negative and tired, you get injured, that makes you mad, then you accept it and move through it. Then you heal, and you can run again which is exciting and fun and you just want to be out running all the time, so you do. Then you start to get tired and grouchy, and then you.....

I am in the exciting phase right now - I am not hurting any more and running finally feels good again. My legs feel strong, my air is coming easily and I am enjoying every minute of moving my legs. To be fair and honest, I have healed faster and more completely than the last time I got hurt. I am not sure if that is because I was more relaxed about it, or didn't hurt myself as badly this time, or what? You tell me. Regardless, I am thankful. Here is where I turn all mushy and junk. I think this is what injury is for. It's a time to take a break and bring you back to a more thankful frame of mind, quit taking advantage of what you have. Sit up and appreciate what you have been given. Give thanks to your Creator for making your amazing body in such a way that it can heal itself. Be thankful for the knowledge available to you on nutrition, massage, rest, fuel, all of the things that keep us on the roads. In my own journey, when I lose sight of these things, I will become negative and unappreciative, and this leads to my injuries. I will not lie, I have made bad choices that have no doubt contributed to being hurt, but the rest of what I have written is truth. We have these gifts, whether we notice them or not. Our humanity is really His Miracle, there for us all to see.

Anyone who knows me also knows that I am not going to be all rainbows and butterflies all the time because that's just not real life. Stuff happens, we get down, and we don't want to get back up again. Today, however, I see the bright side of life, and I am thankful for that perspective.

p.s., someone should take away running because it's obviously done damage to my brain. Perhaps permanent damage.

Googling

In my wildest dreams, I never thought that Googling would be a real word referring to a real activity. When I was a teenager working at McDonald's, people started talking about The Internet and I scoffed. I rolled my eyes, and made fun of it because it was way to geeked out for me. It just seems so fitting that you can actually Google something, and it means that you have really done something for real if you like to think of it like that because after all it's on The Internet so have you really done anything real with any substantial proof? Did you come away with some concrete evidence of your search? Have you ever thought about how you as a child of the 60's, 70's or 80's would think of the Internet jargon that we use today?

Recently Ethan has discovered how to Google. He is only in kindergarten, but on a fast track to reading, and it's really quite amazing. The other day, we came over to the computer, and a Google window was open. He had been intending to do a search on Monster Scorpion, and into the dialog box was typed, "monstr scrpn." That's pretty dang close to monster scorpion. I was afraid he wouldn't learn to read as quickly as Abby. Silly me! And who would have thought that Google would be a teaching tool for reading? HA.

His favorite things to Google are scorpions, aliens, and Spider man. He is always over here trying to sound out what he wants to Google, you can hear him trying to sound out Spider man and his little fits when he doesn't quite get it. Anyway, this morning I came over to the computer and a window was open to this link: http://www.taxes.state.mn.us/forms/m11b_06.pdf . To be honest, I really was thrown for a loop. I had no idea what anyone in my household could need of this document, so I asked Brad what he was doing with it. He was equally as dumbfounded as I. 'Course, he's pretty sleuthy as guys go, and it didn't take him any time at all to figure it out. Lying on the desk was the DVD case to MIIB (Men in Black II). You will notice on the top right hand corner of the Minnesota Revenue 2006 Insurance Fee form is "M11B". I think he might have actually been looking for:

Good Runs Do Happen

For the last 3 weeks, my hip has been pretty much fine, and my coach has doubled my weekly mileage, which I am excited about, but the beginning of this week my legs were pretty dead. I took a couple of runs really slow to allow a little extra recovery, and today it finally paid off. I did an easy run of about 50:00, taking it really easy and did my 4X100 strides, which felt freakishly fast. I had programmed my Garmin to split them automatically, but I guess I goofed it up because it only split one off which was at a 6:08 pace. Looking at the Garmin program, you can see where your pace dips and peaks, and on all of those 100's I was getting under a 6:00 pace. Everything just felt so nicely recovered and strong. I enjoyed it. Hoping that it bodes well for that tempo run tomorrow! Things are looking up finally on that front, it's exciting!

Conversations of Two

I went house shopping for my sister today, and it turned out that I had the opportunity of enjoying the company of my 6 year old son. I was quite pleased. On the way to meet the realtor, we had some very deep thought provoking conversations.

Him: Is it hard to drive?
Me: Well, it's not really hard, but you have to pay very close attention and always watch in front of you or you could run off the road.
Him: I don't think I'll be a very good driver.
Me: Why not?
Him: Because I just keep looking out this window instead of where we're going.
Him: How old do you have to be to drive?
Me: You have to be 16 to drive.
him: How old are you?
Me: 30
Him: I'm going to start driving when I'm 31 then.
Me: You will probably start driving when you're 16.
Him: Are you a grown up when you're 16?
Me: No.
Him: How old are you when you're a grown up?
Me: 18.
Him: Then I'll start driving when I'm 18.
Me: You will probably want to start driving when you're 16 so that you can go over to your buddies' houses and play basketball......
Him: and football and soccer (he is smiling)....
Me: yeah. And I'll just tell you to be home in time for dinner.
Him: What does that mean?
Me: That you make sure you get home when it's time to eat dinner. (LOL)
Him: I'll get a fast car.
Me: What kind of job are you going to get to pay for your fast car?
Him: What do you think I could be?
ME: Anything you want to be
Him: What kinds of things are there to be?
ME: Well, you could be a airplane pilot in the Air Force....
Him: Yeah. I'll be that. I'll be in the Air Force and when I get home from work, I'll change my clothes, and then I'll go and see my little boy and I'll just rough him up. I'll just go in his room and if it's clean and everything, I'll just pick him up and throw him around like this ------> (shows how). But I'll just leave out the spanking stuff, I'll just throw that out right now. Like this------->>>> (shows how by picking up something imaginary and throwing it towards the window)

A Tuesday Run

2 posts in one day, who knew?

So it's been a long injury. It's so hard to even feel fit or like I'm a runner when I'm hurt. I was hurt in July, somewhere in my hip flexor and opted to take the more natural rout of healing, steering away from doctors, x-rays, MRI's and the like. Truth be told, it has healed much sooner than the last time this happened, but it has also lead me on a journey of trying to figure out how to keep it from happening again. I'm not happy when I'm not running, ask anyone who even slightly knows me. I just need that time outside to get my heart rate up or I basically just go into hibernation. I will take this time to apologize to everyone who I have not socialized during my injury and I'm aware of how selfish it is.

Anyway, today I had a 40:00 run with 6X3:00 hard/2:00 easy to do. I felt really strong, and my garmin said they were around 6:50-7:00 pace, which is good, it signals sort of a come around. No, it's not what I had been running in the spring, but that would just be a miracle, so I'll take what I can get. I ran at about 11:30, so I was trying to figure out how to avoid traffic, so I opted to park at Fred's and run an out and back down 1st street. This worked really well with no turns, and it being really straight and not very hilly. It was a little windy on the way back, and I did get a bit slower average for those repeats, but I expected that.

I am hoping to be in fairly decent shape by December and run a 5K to judge where I am. After that I plan to run the 3M Half Marathon in Austin, TX, and I am hoping for a hefty PR. All of this is assuming things go as planned, of course, but it's good to think positive. It's nice to have the heaviness of injury lifted from my thoughts. I like to run fast and push myself to my limits. Any of us who run at all are going to have an injury regardless of what we ask of our bodies.

More On Running

I guess I should write something about running. It's just that running is so irrelevant. It's such a "so what?" thing. Related story follows.

I like to put my day together like a puzzle in such a way that there is no backtracking, and no wasted gas. For this reason, I found myself in WalMart yesterday in my running clothes, an orange top and gray shorts. I'm a very bad WalMart shopper. I inevitably end up with a bunch of stuff I don't need to buy. Once again, I find myself in the fabric department, AS IF I need any more fabric. My fabric situation is ridiculous. (I'm a quilter) Anyway, I had decided to make something for a family member for Christmas, and was in the process of gathering up the required notions, when a GUY pops into the fabric, a bit too cheerful, and says to me, "HI!" As is common to my personality, I mumbled a nearly undetectable reply and turned away - hoping to send some negative body language. Something I must add is that body language does not work with all people. For some reason there are people in this world who did not study body language, or their parents did not teach them body language, or they have bumbled their way through life under the supposition that they don't need body language, or for whatever reason, they just don't use it. I think this was one such person. I wandered around a bit more getting what I needed, and wound up by the cutting table at the same time as him, as he was plopping down a bolt of orange fleece. He grinned at me and indicating my orange shirt, he said, "THANKS FOR THE INSPIRATION!!" I am using caps here because everything he said was so emphatic. Again, I used the same type of reply, barely audible acknowledgement, and turning away, a negative, or at best neutral reply - the negative and positive cancelling each other out. A short lived relief of his pursual ensued, and once again, at the end of my wanderings, I am faced with the guy again. He brightly asks me if I run much, but this time I had a terminal response in that I did agree that I ran a bit, and then turned away, and left the store.

Really it doesn't make a point, except to say that running is irrelevant. At the end of the day - it was only 55:00 out of a 24 hour chunk, and can't be quantified as anything. So you're a runner - so what? There are a lot of runners. What else are you? Is the rest of you good and honorable and kind? Do you make anyone else happy? Do you show your people that you love them?

Don't know, but at the end of the day yesterday, I had two feelings. One was an unsettled feeling about a man shopping for fabric, and the other was a satisfied feeling that I had bathed my chickens just before the cold weather arrived.

A Day in the Life of a Carpooler

So this week it is my week to carpool, and though it does make for a tad bit longer of a week, it does provide great material. FYI, I deliver 6 children to school on my week, 5 girls and 1 boy, MY boy, the youngest. Yesterday was his birthday, so imagine one little 6 year old boy in the car with 5 girls ranging in ages from 7 to 12.

This morning, I delivered my middle schooler, then I delivered my junior-higher, and next stop was the elementary where I would deliver the remainder of my goods. The drill is that Ethan scoots over and gets out and flips the seat down for the last 3 girls to get out. They are 8, 7 and 6. As Ethan was flipping the seat down a teacher arrived behind him for some much needed help and assisted the girls out of the car. After doing so, she looked at Ethan and said, "Don't worry, they can't kiss you today, they're already inside." Then she looked at me and said, "They kiss him every day, and it makes him so mad..."

It's Saturday, for Crying out Loud

Ok, it's been a few days, but in my defense, the last week has been C-R-A-Z-Y.

Hello, my name is Ginny. I'm an introvert. I have been around people for a week, solid, and I'm going nuts.

So one day last week, can't remember which day, one of my sweet little carpoolers had the unfortunate experience of getting carsick. In my car. In the seat belt receptacles of my car. In the stitching of the leather seats of my car. Underneath the seats of my car. In the - er - places where the seats attach to the "metal" part of my car. In the carpet of my car. Well, ok, so this is not so bad because my car needed to be shampooed anyway, and also because my husband recently purchased a shampooer for me. How sweet. Only one TINY little drawback - the prospect of dealing with someone else's kid's puke. yeah. Lovely. Ok, so when I dropped her off at home, her mom seemed very embarrassed (which I would have been also) and ran out to mop up most of the mess, and most of the chunks. Thank god. Still. The smell. Was. Unbearable. Even after I spent 3 hours shampooing the vehicle, it still had a bit of funk, but what can you do? I discovered things I didn't even know my car would do in the process of cleaning it out. My shampooer had a nice little shampooing crevice tool which came in handy when I found a little pool of puke that needed to be sucked up. I think it's ok now, but the kids might be irrevocably scarred....

Night Time Carnage

It is getting creepy in here. Since we lost our dear old Aussie, we have become over-run with critters. It is almost like Shally had them all held off to the border of our property and as soon as she vacated the premises, they converged upon us in a ravenous stupor. A couple of weeks ago, we were awakened to the sound of cackling chickens in the middle of the night, which is ALWAYS a danger sign with poultry. We jumped out of bed in our t-shirts, slapped on some boots and stormed the chicken pen, shot an opossum with a 22 and this has been the beginning of what I shall call The Great Battle of Marsupials. In the days that followed, we have caught an opossum and a raccoon in the live trap and relocated them to other areas which I am not sure were receptive to "extra animals" but I digress... (By the way, the raccoon was a fluke, I'm not stupid enough to think he is a marsupial) Last night was probably the worst yet. Again, we were alerted to a cackling chicken pen in the dark of night and again slapped on our boots and.... you know the rest. The only twist to this repetition was that Brad eventually gave up the hunt and took his gun back to the house. Almost immediately, I found the marsupial soldier poking his pointy little nose out of the top of the chicken house grinning with his pointy little teeth. Brad returned at this point sans gun and proceeded to beat it to death with a mag lite. Now don't turn me in to PETA people, this was a CHICKEN VS MARSUPIAL situation and someone had to go. I felt it incumbent upon me to delegate the ethical treatment to my chickens in this particular situation. I told Brad that I had no idea he was capable of such carnage. A few minutes after this shindig, we ran a live possum off of the front porch where he was dining on cat food. What next?

A Small Kind of Adventure

As I mentioned yesterday, we decided to take a minor day trip to our old stompin' grounds today. This is only 2.5 hrs each way, so 5 hours of driving. Nice. I am not a morning person. We rolled out of bed at 3:30 am, and I was not being a very nice person, but we loaded up in the little red Jetta and set off. About 3 miles down the road, I started complaining that I wished I had brought a little kennel for the pup. ha. The Man Of The House does not have a very good time back-tracking, but back-track we did. Now back in the car, pup in kennel, I felt a bit more settled, but still had the "I forgot something" black cloud over my head.

FFWD: I slept through the drive.

Arrived: In-laws house, and realize I forgot my running shoes. This pretty much cast a whole new black cloud over my already PMS-induced bad mood.

FFWD: I feel asleep again on MIL's couch and slept until 9:30. HA.

At this time I spring off the couch, feeling guilty and wondering what I have missed in the last 3 hours. The first thing I realize is that the kids have taken the pup to the pond. OK, so someone reading this must not realize the significance of taking an Australian Shepherd to the pond. A long-haired dog vs. a muddy, scummy, algae-infested pond. Yummy. Black. Slimy. Dog-Heaven. Oh boy.

During a little chat with my MIL, she offered her Jeep for me to drive to my parents' house. Side note- there is no way a person is getting a Jetta down their rather "out of the way road" and the term road I am using loosely here. My MIL also mentioned that she was telling Abby that she was taking some cucumbers over to her brother, and not to go wandering off (since the lame-mommy is asleep). To which the ever-witty Abby replies, "Well, Grandma, I NEED a cucumber before I have a nervous break down." HA HA.

Upon arrival to Nana's house, we indulged in the much needed morning cup of tea (you will discover this is a ritual for me, a necessity for me, uh, I could really get dramatic about it). We were just going along having a splendid visit when Ethan plants himself in front of Poppie and says, "Watch this, Poppie, I can blink with a different set of eyes." *after this he blinks very hard and then opens his eyes very widely* The overall idea was that when his eyes opened, they were different eyes than when he closed them. I guess it loses a lot in the retelling, but it was downright hilarious.

After much serious discussion which I need to stimulate my brain, I reluctantly left Nanna and Poppie's house back to MIL's house and was surprised to find Brad back from the mountains, un-bear-bitten, un-snake-bitten, all bones in tact, un-hog-attacked, and by all counts, virtually unscathed. WOW. Not even dehydrated!

FFWD: We arrive home; I drove about half the way. Brad really prefers to be the one driving. The time was actually a little after 7 and since I had not done my run yet, I basically dashed into the house, changed clothes, and went for my run. The run was actually pretty good, felt even and fluid which has up until this point not really been the case. I am not after speed at this point, that will come in time. I did actually think as I was just jogging along easily that I had better enjoy it because when all is healed, I know it will be back to work.

Thoughts on Wasted Days

I often have grand plans for weekends. It seems like weekends are limitless chunks of time which can be filled with all of the activities that did not get accomplished through the week. When will I ever learn that a weekend is not going to accomplish anything big or fantastic? It should be viewed more accurately as a chunk of "family time" and anything that does not "get done" is just water under the bridge.

My big plan for this weekend was to shampoo Abby's bedroom carpet and paint the kids' bathroom (red). Did this happen? No. It did not. The one factor that I always fail to include in my plans is the status of other people's desires and needs. Couple that with a good side of "Ginny distractions" and you get nothing done.

So I arose quite late - 8:00 and to my good fortune, it was still cool enough to run, so I got that out of the way and was definitely dreading the 40:00 bike ride, but it seemed only natural to get it out of the way as well. Well the run went good, I ran on the soccer fields as the soft surfaces seem to be more conducive to healing than the pavement. My little maladies did bug me a little, but nothing noteworthy. There were about 5,000 kids on the soccer/football/softball complex, all participating in their sports. I AM putting Abby and Ethan in soccer in the spring, kicking and screaming, ha. On the bike, I did feel strong, but kept thinking I was tired and wanting it to be done. It wasn't a bad workout on the fuel of one banana and some PB.

Puppy has not received much training today. We are still working on "spin" and she is doing it quite well with the lure, but will not do it strictly on cue. I am waiting for her to offer it to me and at that point I plan to shower her with treats which are tiny bits of hot dogs.

We did hit another obstacle. I had taken her out of her crate to go outside, and she did pee, but then when I brought her back in, she pooped on the rug. Well, we had discussed just shampooing the rugs, rolling them up and putting them away until the pup is trained. So you got it, I spent the evening shampooing the rugs and they are now drying on the trampoline. There ya go - I count that as an hour wasted.

Brad wants to go see his parents tomorrow. Their plan is to hike into the mountains and scout for a hunting trip. It's great that he can have this kind of time with his dad right now.

The painting and shampooing project has now been moved to a week project for next week between Grandparent's Day at school, and carpooling.

A Supposed Dog Trainer

Ok, so I'll write something. I'm currently laid up from running, only getting in about 20-25 miles per week if I'm lucky. It all started with the darn hip injury which has lasted about 3 months now, and then continued with a foot injury which has lasted about 2 weeks, give or take. I have my ups and downs about it, but when it really boils down to it, I'd rather be a runner and always getting hurt than out of shape and always getting hurt. That's my choice. We all make our choices, and I think we are all eventually gonna get hurt doing this or that, and I choose to get hurt running. How lame is that?

So this year is a totally different turn of my life. My youngest kiddo has started kindergarten, leaving me free during the day to do things like clean the oven, or hopefully at some point in the future, train really hard. Of course another option is that I can potentially train harder than I ever have, and of course potentially get hurt again, but as I've already stated I don't care. Before I was a runner, I once hurt my hip just jumping across a ditch. This kind of stuff happens.

At first, I found myself kind of wandering around wondering what to do - but it wasn't long before I found myself doing things like cleaning out the oven, quilting, and believe it or not - puppy training. Now I will freely admit that I can train the fun stuff like sit, come, stay, etc., but when it comes to potty training, I am clueless. I try to do it by the book, take her out at certain times, crate her at certain times, blah blah blah, but I am just not being successful in this endeavour. Granted, it is not that big of a deal, but for some reason excrement really makes me anxious.

For the most part, I have her figured out, how long she can hold it etc., but there have been one or two times that I have taken her out at the expected time to pee, and found myself in the yard a frustrating hour later waiting.... drumming my fingers... sighing... rolling my eyes... yelling... as the pup just tipped her head to one side at me as if to say - "Are you OK, you look really upset?"

The reason this is particularly frustrating to me is that I know she is the smartest dog in the world. She knows come, stay, sit, down, stand, and is working on spin. If she can have this much learned in 2 short weeks, why does she not know, "do it." WHY? The only plausible reason is that I am not as smart as she is. There absolutely has to be something I don't know or haven't figured out, or something that she knows that I don't. There can be no other logical explanation.

Along these lines, I am sure that my children are geniuses. I cannot fathom how or why this happened, as they surely did not get their genes from me. My 3rd grade daughter can read so fast, I have to tell her to slow down so I can understand what she is saying and my kindergarten son is practically ready for Algebra. Again - my dog, my son, and my daughter are smarter than I am. I'm 30.

Bottom line, I want to be running good again, I am getting to the point that I am longing for a long run, a good medium effort 14 miler would do me a world of good. Maybe I'd feel smarter after depriving my brain cells of oxygen for an hour and a half. Yeah, that's what I need.