Drugs are mostly fun at first

I’m going on day 5 1/2 of being sick.  All symptoms point to the flu.

As I sit and wallow in my flu symptoms, surrounded by mounds of tissue, boxes of drugs, and drinking glasses, (looking a lot like Signs up in hur) I try and tell myself that I won’t be sick for forever.  This soon will pass and I will crazily think, GEE! Having a couple of days off from work and lying in bed might actually be fun! 

To help me keep my chin up,  I have signed up for a running challenge.  And, I think you all should join me so we can be running/walking buddies!

Go here to Run, Eat, Repeat to sign up!  Or you can click on the green thingy that says “Pile on the Miles” right there on the right hand side. Basically, It’s a running/walking challenge for the month of November that is designed to keep you moving and piling on the miles versus the pounds of turkey and pumpkin pie. Ooh AND and ANNNDDDD there are prizes!!!  Please and thank you!

 

Speaking of prizes, do you know anyone that has every won the lottery?  Like personally, and they’ve won over a million dollars?

I do not.  I’ve pretended I’ve won the lottery before and spent the money in my mind.  That was fun for a moment or two.

Do you get the flu shot every year?

I’ve had the shot twice.  One time I got the flu, the other time, I did not.  Odds.  I gots them!

Pardon me, but is that your lung on the floor?

Gesundheit – is all about the sneeze and not the cough, but I have been sneezing too, so in short, just deal.

The German word Gesundheit passed into local English usage in areas with substantial German-speaking populations.^[1] The expression is first widely attested in American English as of 1910, about the time when large numbers of Yiddish-speaking Ashkenazi Jews immigrated to the United States. Stolen from Wikipedia’s Responses to Sneezing

I am loathe to admit that I have a cold.  I’m no doctor but I always self diagnose with help from old wives tales the world wide web of wonders.  I think it has settled in my chest, which for runners means I have quite a bit of time to map out murders craft projects.  Because of this new medical emergency, your attention must be diverted from my toenail woes.  You are welcome.  Time to focus people!

According to Runner’s World, and pretty much everything else I’ve ever read about running with a cold:

Red sky at morning, sailors take warning;

Red sky at night, sailors delight.^[1}

 

Wait a minute….well, the one from Runner’s World doesn’t rhyme.  Pretty much, if it’s above the neck, you’re not a wreck (meaning, get out there and run you dope…unless you’ve got a fever.) If it’s in your chest, you need to rest.  And since I just made it rhyme, why the heck has no one thought of that before?  Unless I don’t know any better and I’m a moron.  Which could totally be the case.

So here’s what I’m trying to do in between coughing vital organs right out of my body:

• Pounding Zicam by the truck load.  Strawberry chewables are fave.  The dissolving ones and the spray are Nasty with a capital N.
• Drinking lots of water and EmergenC.  Do NOT get the “lite” version!
• …And trying every other trick that I can find on the internet.  All was fun and games until I had avocado smeared on my face and then realized I had accidentally clicked on “How to sooth a dry face.”

Not me

What do you say in your fam when someone sneezes?

Usually, I say bless you while mimicking the sound of their sneeze.  Try it.  Fun times.

Have any cold remedies that you swear by?

I’ve tried swallowing a clove of garlic, but I only ever swallowed the one clove and that was it.  Probably needed more?

Shanks for the memories

Good golly, time seems to fly.  Let’s do some bullet points!

• Last night, I was on my way to get some gasoline for my ride, stopped at a light, and glanced in my left side mirror and saw three policeman helping a man up that had fallen into the street.  Then I realized, they weren’t helping him up and that they had actually tackled him into the street.  Then my light turned green and the end.

• I made White Chicken Chili again.  I could eat this every week.  The peeps in my family, not.  Boo on them.
• The baby quilt I’m making is frustrating all good crafty quilting thoughts out of me.  I’ve only ever used my machine to piece a quilt.  This time, I tried using it to quilt.  Very frustrating.  I’m ripping out and starting almost over.  Thus, no quilt for our weekend trip to go meet the new BABY!!
• Running, I would say that I’m currently obsessed with all things running.  I’m very happy to have another race on the schedule so I think I’ve avoided the post marathon blues to a degree.  The only downside is that I want to run run runnnn!!! and my body is saying, let’s chill for a few.  Chill as in, I feel the first few panicky tickles of a cold in my throat.  And sleep.  I want more sleep and need to be a little bit more cutthroat with those in my life to make sure I get it.  As in, let me sleep or I will shank you in your throat.

Hallelujah, the end!

More #3 Marathon Deets

Race day morning, I woke up at 4am and did everything right.  Everything that relates to fueling and well all that other fun stuff you do before a big race.  The one thing I didn’t do so well was waking my hubs up on time.  What?!  I gave him roughly 20 minutes to get himself together. haha!  Whoops!  I thought he was a big boy and he had set his own alarm.  Then I just lost track of time.  Doesn’t matter.  We still made it there with plenty of time to find a free parking spot, walk six blocks to our corral, stand in a long line for the porta potty, and even then, he still had time to walk all the way back to the care for our sunglasses and chapstick.  We had already started the race and he’s like, “Hey, I grabbed your cherry lip balm too, btw.”  Greatest husband of the year contender right there!

Uh so…I take really crappy awesome pictures right?  Here’s the start line…

and here’s a pirate or two…

  And here’s what we got at the finish.  The end.

Isn’t the shirt cool?  I kind of feel like a distant relative of an Olympian when I wear it! I mean, Kara Goucher and I both have brown hair, right?

Haha!  JK!  I know you wanted to hear a mile by mile break down of the marathon, right?  Hmm, well let me summarize…

• We started out great.  It was a little chilly and my fingers finally started warming up around mile 3.  My nose didn’t stop running until around mile 18.  At the start, it was in the low 50s maybe?  Perfect weather.
• The first half of the marathon, we felt great…stopped to pee twice.  My hubs added on a few seconds to our time because he went around a spot and wouldn’t go through a grassy area that looked muddy.  He didn’t want to get his shoes wet.  Our splits were good, not too fast and feeling great.
• Mile 13 my calves started to cramp a little and it was a long stretch to the next aid station for water.  Mile 15 I stopped to stretch while the hubs pit stopped.  I didn’t have to go….very unlike me.  Up the bridge, but not like last year where I ran the whole thing.  I made it though yet didn’t feel the elation on the other side.  It was warm, my nose was still running like crazy…was I seriously getting a cold on marathon day?!  Magically, it stopped running around mile 19…right about the time my quads started to crazy cramp up and I thought my legs could fall off.
• Then I stopped sweating.  I didn’t realize it at the time but I was suffering from moderate dehydration.  I’m never dehydrated, and yet I chose to run without liquid, like I had done the previous two years. BUT I failed to calculate the 20 degree spike in the temperature.  Normally, I take in a couple of ounces of water each mile, race day….it was down to every 1.5 to two miles and it was too late for me.  I was dumping water on myself now at each station to cool myself down.  The down hills were nice because even though it hurt, it didn’t hurt as much.  In the last 6 miles we passed 141 people (Race stats….no, I wasn’t counting) and only 11 people passed us.
• The last 6 miles were the worst and my confidence in my training wasn’t there.  I knew I hadn’t trained like I wanted to.  I also had the guilt of running with my husband in his first marathon and I was worried he would be disappointed in me and it would affect his race negatively.  At one time, I started to tear up and he barked at me that there was no crying yet.  Later we laughed because a lack of tears is a sign of dehydration…I claimed that’s why I was able to keep it together.  He just wanted to run a marathon with his wife and he didn’t care about the time except that it would be really cool to beat my time from last year. Awwwwww….

A couple of other weird things:

I completely forgot all my running mantras.  I realized it on the course yet it still did me no good. 

I might have broken my iPod too with all the water splashing.  I’m too scared to test it out.  It’s not the battery.  Maybe I just confused it? 

The state of one of my toenails is also in a precarious situation.  It may or may not make it.  I will be sure to keep you informed.

Afterwards, on our trip home, I drank and drank and drank…which thrilled the hubs with all the potty stops.  My appetite didn’t return until about 7 hours later which made my annual Yogurtland tradition kind of a disappointment and also our first trip to 5 Guys a little sad.

I warned you that I wouldn’t stop talking about the marathon for a whole year, so I bet you can’t wait for my next blog!

For you runnerds:

Split	Time
1	11:35.6
2	11:27.0
3	11:37.7
4	10:14.5
5	11:37.0
6	10:48.3
7	11:01.3
8	10:58.8
9	11:26.9
10	11:13.4
11	12:09.3
12	11:35.7
13	11:06.9
14	11:41.5
15	11:59.5
16	15:40.1
17	12:21.2
18	11:55.3
19	14:10.6
20	13:14.4
21	13:15.6
22	12:58.8
23	11:29.2
24	13:34.5
25	12:37.3
26	13:18.6
27	04:50.2
Summary	19:58.9

The road trip to marathon #3 – Portland, Oregon

Our marathon weekend started out with a short 5 plus hour drive with the husband o’ mine. In case you missed it, my hubs was running his first marathon with me.  And probably his last one. *sad face*  The drive caused some anxiety and I tried not to take the mishaps we encountered as a sign of what was might come.  Let’s see….we almost rear-ended a car in front of us, that instead of getting into the turning lane, it didn’t.  He just stopped right in the middle of the highway in a 55 mph section.  S saw the whole thing, brake lights, turning signal…then I showed him a bag of jalapeno jerky I bought him…we looked up and the car hadn’t moved over into the empty turning lane.  It was scary how quickly it all happened and how quickly things could have changed. The next mishap wasn’t so dramatic and just involved a very large tire that a semi truck lost and was dangerously in the middle of the road.  Lastly, we had a very large rock from somewhere nail our front windshield.  We now have a pretty nice chip that is almost an inch in diameter.  All this happened within the first 2.5 hours of out trip.  Thank goodness that was the end of the driving drama.  (Well, except when our GPS took us on a mini, yet scenic, detour of Portland.)
We made it to the expo with plenty of time to spare.  S was great and really let me wander around looking at everything.  It’s the only race expo I’ve been too x3 and I don’t think you could call it big…but I thought it was just the right size.  It seemed to me that there were more goodies there than last year?  Or maybe I was just a little more bold in snagging the free samples.

The participant shirt, my new free Nuun water bottle the nice guy gave me when I purchased a new to me flavor of Nuun.  The verdict on the grape Nuun is that I love it but I’m slightly weirded out that it’s not purple in color.  I’ll take no artificial colorings though over purple any day…it was just odd at first.  Some of the samples were from the hubs that he gifted to me as he’s not a huge fan of anything with the word “healthy” on it.  You also don’t see a few packets of fruit snacks that I had already eaten along with the samples that you had to consume there.  I’ll tell you more later about these fabulous snack bars we had there though.  OMG!

I had a celebrity sighting in the form of a blogger…and by celebrity, I mean…another normal person with a blog and I just happened to recognize her.  I didn’t say hi because I thought that would make me a weird stalker.  I told my husband and he said I was stupid and then tried to help me find her to say hi.  No luck.  I ended up stalking her on twitter instead.  We connected and all is restored in the land of crazy running bloggers.
After the expo, we went and found our cheapy hotel room.  I didn’t care it wasn’t so fabulous.  It was cheap, only a 15 minute drive from the start AND they were super nice and let us extend our late checkout to 2pm with no charge.  Hellooooo post race shower and ice bath for FREE!  Our dinner plans were changed rather last minute due to a certain college student not wanting to hang out with old people.  When will they learn to take advantage of free food?!  Fine then!  We ended up going to a better place than we would have gone…Claim Jumpers.  The main reason being that it was close to the hotel and something about some sports casters that the hubs always listen to…they eat there…blah blah blah.  I don’t remember names or any other part of the story.  That’s what a slice of cake that is bigger than your head will do to your memory.

Guess how much that slice of cake cost?

I was very pleased with my dinner choice too.  Some sort of parmesan crusted chicken breast and the obligatory spaghetti with marinara sauce.  It was delicious yet I managed to put half aside for after the marathon.  (Turned out that I took a couple of bites and then tossed it.  No appetite until later in the evening.)

I’ve told you before, my photography skills are something to be admired.

Back to the hotel for an early 4am wake up call for me.  I’m pretty sure I was asleep by 9pm.  Not too shabby!
To be continued….

Happy things…and a marathon tomorrow!

In just ONE day, I will run my 3rd marathon.  I’m kind of wishing that I had trained better.  I told myself last year that I would.  I can’t really pinpoint why I didn’t either.  Oh yeah, because I’m a lazy runner!  I’ve already started telling myself that, next year, I will train smarter and run faster/better/more amazing.  I better start talking to myself in a different tone of voice then to make that happen.
Speaking of happy, here are a couple of things that are making me happy at the moment. (I wasn’t really speaking of happy stuff.  That was just a really stupid way to transition to a completely different topic. I’m cool like that.)
The worlds very bestest cake parfait…yep, cake!

I carefully selected the breakroom table and fridge as the backdrop for this photo session.  To impress you even further, an Avon catalog can be seen if you peer through the tines of the plastic fork.  Amazing photography skills?  You bet!

Friday was supposed to be margarita lime cupcake day Friday…but alas, the bakery had every other flavor BUT the MLC, as I like to call it…because I’m hip to the cupcake lingo.  So, my eyes landed on the cake parfait.  I don’t know what sucked me in more, the pretty little mason jar, the yellow string, the fresh fruit?  (Thanks to Joel, he gave me his mason jar too.) Whatever it was, it was the best $4 that I have spent all week.  Unless you count the $4 that went towards the $6 package of jalapeno jerky I bought for my lovey.

That right here (nice segue, huh?) is the cutest, tiniest pumpkin in the whooolee wide world!  When you hold it, you can’t HELP but talk to it in the itty-ist baby voice EVER!  My blond moment for the hour was that I had no clue, absolutley none, that a crazy normal person could actually grow these in their own backyard.  Whoda thunk?! Not me!  I just never actually considered where baby pumpkins came from. NOW, I’m very excited for next year as I want to grow my own little baby boos. Oh and WHITE PUMPKINS!  I bet I can grow those too!  Reminds me of the time I had three pumpkin plants take over my back yard.

See?  I gave you a nicer background this time….my day planner.  You are welcome.  I like to call this, “Tiny Pumpkin”.  It’s for sale.  Serious buyers only please.

Well, wish me luck on the marathon.  That’s all I will be talking about for the next year.  Especially if I’m able to meet my goal in running it under 5 hours.  I guess I should go pack since we are starting the road trip in a few minutes.

I’m a horrible blogger

Ahem.  Who’s been busy?  Raise your hand!  Who’s NOT busy?  Says no one ever never.  That’s not why this blog is horrible.  It’s horrible because there are no pictures, no recipe.  You really need to make the White Chicken Chili I mention….there will be pictures and a recipe.  Pinky promise.  Oh hey, I could throw in a couple of pictures that have made me chuckle…that I stole from somewhere.  Let’s do that and call it good for now. FOUND THE LINK TO THE White Chicken Chili.  It is AMAZING.  I SWAR.  See?!!  I’m only a little horrible now.
PS All pictures stolen from the wide web of the world.  And if you don’t understand the whole ermagerd thing, then you’re just not living with a teenager silly.
I just wasted about five minutes of my life trying to figure out how to add a folder to my gallery on my phone.  I have a habit of taking pictures of recipes I want to try.  And I wanted to separate the recipes out from the other stupid pictures I take.  Can’t do it.  Bummer.  I wonder if there’s an app for that?
Life has been whizzing by.  I’ve successfully finished painting the piece of furniture I picked up on the side of the road for $20 when the price tag said $25 but the dude didn’t want all of my scrounged change writers desk that is in our kitchen and a chest that was at the foot of my bed. Maybe you want to see pictures?

Not my desk.

I’m itching to paint my desk and filing cabinet now but did I mention a baby quilt that I need to get finished?  I tried to finish the baby quilt last weekend, but our one and only fabric store is moving to a bigger location and instead of moving the inventory they are selling it at ridiculous prices.  I did not have patience to wade through the bargain shoppers that were in line to score 90% off.  I also don’t do Black Friday sales.  Tells you something about my patience levels.
The other thing that drove me crazy last weekend?  I had a gift card to Dutch Bros.  I had no energy.  I think, great!  I will try one of the Red Bull infused drinks.  It was free coffee day, everyone in town that was not at the fabric store was in line and causing traffic jams for a stupid free coffee at Dutch Bros.
Running…I’m doing it.  Tapering, so far, has not been too nasty.  I haven’t decreased my mid-week runs…just the long runs are getting shorter.  I just ran my last long run of 11 miles.  Sunday is the big day.  I run slower that most people and I run faster than most people.  There, I covered both groups of people. I’d love to run #3 in less than 5 hours…so anything with a four in front of it will have me on cloud 9.  The time to beat from last year is 5:22ish.  First year was 6:05ish.  See? I improve.  I will just slightly kill myself to run it in less than 5 hours.  Slightly.
KT tape…in pink.  Just use it!  I taped up my right calf on Sunday using the “calf strain” instructions.  Guess which calf hurt and which didn’t after the run?  You can bet I will be taping both calves on Sunday!  I don’t know how that stuff works, but I’m a believer.  I guess it’s something new call science?

Not me doing yergah.

Over the weekend, I went all Betty Crocker.  I made White Chicken Chili…which is always amazing.  I have a precooked pizza crust made in the bread machine raring to go on Wednesday night, and I made two batches of apple crisp.  Not a fan as I did something wrong.  It tastes good, but it doesn’t look right.  I’m thinking the butter wasn’t cold enough when I cut it in for the topping?
That’s pretty much it.  I laughed because I came to work to relax.  The weekends have been really busy and I’m trying to squeeze in as much as possible before the weather turns me into a shut in.  I like the snow, I really do.  I like being inside with something warm to drink and candles glowing all around.  I’m going to like it a lot more now that I have a treadmill.  I should put candles around my treadmill.
Ooohh…must create a playlist for the marathon.  Kind of cutting it close.