Fracturing Rocks and The Perks of Running Small Races

I ran in capris this morning - I can't remember the last time it was cool enough for capris. It was pretty exciting.

It was actually cold in our house this morning. Just ask Buddy.

We no longer have a dog, just a blanket that moves occasionally.

There's a big rock in the yard that's in the way of construction. Rather than spend a ton of money to have an excavator come dig it out, Tom bought this crazy stuff called Dexpan that expands as it dries and fractures rock.

He poured it into several holes that were drilled into the rock yesterday, and this morning there were definitely cracks!

The cracks grew more by this afternoon, and then Tom went to work with a couple of metal wedges and a sledgehammer.

He pulled these chunks off. The chain is there because those pieces are so big he dragged them out of the hole with the Jeep.

Now it's about half the size it was. There will be another round of Dexpan to try to break it down even more.

The really weird thing is that the Dexpan crumbles in your hand once it's dry. I have no idea how a crumbly powder can fracture rocks.

In other exciting news, my GU supply has been restocked.

Plus there are 25 GUs in the box and there are only supposed to be 24, so I win.

I also got the Oatmeal's book on running.

I already read a bunch of it, and it's hilarious.

Oh, and I didn't share this here yet - apparently my finish time was enough to place 3rd in my age group on Sunday!

It pays to run small races ;)

Marathon Training Week 12

This week was a bit of a mess, training-wise. Construction started on the house, we had record temperatures, and honestly, my motivation kind of dropped this week. I'm hoping to hit reset next week. It's the last tough week before the taper, and then I will apparently be running a marathon...

Monday: Cross Training. Does playing/swimming around in a friend's pool count? Because that's all I did on Monday. I also ate a lot, because that's what happens every time we go to their house.

Tuesday: 5 miles. Tuesday was the first day of construction on the house, it was also so hot that we broke records. I did not run. I did move a bunch of furniture out of the living room and tried to avoid going outside.

Wednesday: 5 miles. It was still really hot on Wednesday, and I was not organized enough to wake up early to run. Tom and I ended up doing a quick run in the evening up to the park near our house and back. It was still hot, but we figured it was better than nothing. 2.17 miles @ 9:20

Thursday: 5 miles. This run started out very whiny and grumpy. Right as I hit my halfway/turnaround point, it started absolutely pouring. I love running in the rain, and the second half of my run was not only much happier, it was much faster too! 5.04 miles @ 8:54

Friday: Rest day. I debated adding a run on Friday to make up for the rest of the week, but I knew I had a half on Sunday, so I ended up just taking the rest day.

Saturday: 8 miles. Holy procrastination, I did not want to run. At. All. I put this run off for way too long, and decided to cut it a little short so I didn't go into my half on completely exhausted legs. And ok, I also wanted to be done by noon because I had college football to watch. Priorities. I hated everything about this run, and felt like I was running through water. 5.03 @ 9:36

Sunday: 12 miles. I honestly don't even feel strongly enough to write a full recap about this race. I ran the Putnam County Fall Classic this morning. It's a little small-town race (so small there were only 4 porta-potties!), but it was really well organized, and one of the only races I've run lately that started on time. The course was really pretty, but a lot hillier than I expected it to be.

I started out feeling pretty good. I was cruising along, not even really pushing and knocking out miles between 8:26 and 9:08 pace until around mile 7. The sun came out and I hit a serious hill. I may as well have been running in sand. Everything felt hard, and my right hip started hurting. I walked through water stations, and up some hills. I make it sound really awful, and it felt pretty awful, but my slowest mile was only 10:39, so it's not like I was really dragging.

I managed a bit of a sprint at the end because a woman decided to try to pass me on the last downhill, and I was not in the mood to be passed. She didn't pass me.

I was really mad/disappointed after I finished, but I think a lot of it was the weather. My heart rate was really high the entire race, so I think the heat/humidity hurt me more than I realized at the time. Now it's time to get back into training mode for my last pre-taper week.

13.1 miles @ 9:29

Miles this week: 25.34

It's Only 13 Miles

So, I'm running a half marathon (The Putnam County Fall Classic) tomorrow. It's weird, because it sort of feels like a non-event after my 20 miler last weekend. I mean, obviously I am planning on pushing and seeing what I can do, but it's only 13 miles.

It's all relative.

I'm so disorganized that I almost ran out of GU and had to go in search of a local store that would have it. Luckily, I remembered that I had one stashed in my car and I found one in the bottom of a box, so I'm good to go. Now I just need to get some before next weekend's long run.

I also realized that it will be my 10th half marathon, and my 4th for the year. This is definitely my biggest running year so far.

I had a pretty terrible run today. On the plan it was supposed to be an 8 mile pace run, but I was going to take it easy because of the race tomorrow. Then I didn't leave the house forever, it was humid, and I felt like I was running through water. I was moving pretty slowly and my heart rate was through the roof.

It was dumb.

I ended up running 5 miles, and I was grumpy the entire time.

Now I'm charging all my electronics, updating my playlist, and deciding which shoes to wear.

The  nice thing about tomorrow's race is that it's only about 20 minutes from our house, so I don't have to wake up insanely early to drive anywhere.

Buddy has been enjoying the break in construction activity and catching up on his sleep today. He's not a big fan of all the change.

A Construction Photo Dump

This week has been a little crazy. Construction started on the house on Tuesday, and we've been busy! I tried to write this post at several points throughout the day, but I keep getting distracted. I decided to just give you the highlights, rather than no post at all.

The roof was quickly pulled off the living room.

We were pleasantly surprised to discover some perfectly salvageable hardwood floor underneath the dirty living room carpet.

The side door was moved so the living room ceiling could be taken down.

It's crazy how fast demolition happens.

The holes are all dug for the post footings. Both the builder and Tom have fallen in these holes (on different days). I haven't gone anywhere near them.

It has to get worse before it gets better.

I ordered a dumpster yesterday and they ever so gracefully plopped it in the driveway this afternoon.

Between the record heat earlier this week and the construction, I'm a little off on my training for the week. I've managed to get in 2 shorter runs (a 2 and a 5 miler), but at this point in my training cycle, I'm not too worried about a couple of missed runs. Especially short ones.

Steamtown is one month from tomorrow! I can't wait and I'm also totally not ready at the same time.

Marathon Training Week 11

Oh, hey! I have been very busy spending all my time hanging out with Tiny this week. We picked her up at the airport on Wednesday, and I've barely touched my computer since she got here. There has been a nice balance of relaxing and visiting at the house, and playing tourist around the area and down in NYC.

I managed to have a pretty successful week of running (I did skip one run) and finally hit that notorious distance of 20 miles.

Monday: Cross Training. Monday feels like such a long time ago, but my training log insists that I did an hour of yoga on Monday.

Tuesday: 5 miles. It was super humid out, but I was much less sore from my (short) long run than I was last week, which was nice. 5 miles @ 9:41

Wednesday: 8 miles. I woke up early to get this run in before work. It was cooler, but still humid out. I had a serious negative split and came up a little short on mileage because I was running out of time and had to book it back to the house. 7.46 miles @ 9:23

Thursday: 5 miles. I was very busy visiting with Tiny, and it was also ridiculously hot out, so Thursday ended up being a rest day. And an eat saltwater taffy day, because Tiny brought some from Oregon.

Friday: Rest Day. Squeezed in Thursday's 5 miler on Friday. I didn't write any notes about this run in my training log, so apparently it was pretty uneventful! We also did a little hiking around on our property. 5.03 miles @ 8:52

Saturday: 5 miles. This run didn't happen. We took the train down to the city to take Tiny to some touristy places. We had lunch at Katz's deli, rode the Staten Island Ferry so she could see the Statue of Liberty, and made a quick stop at Central Park. We walked all over the place, and were pretty much on our feet all day. Totally what you're supposed to do the day before a long run, right?

Sunday: 20 miles. I turned my alarm off in my sleep. I never even heard it. I woke up to the coffee maker beeping. It was still mostly dark out, and it was actually almost cold. I managed to get out the door at 7 and began chipping away at the miles. I mentally broke it into two 10 milers: 10 miles out, 10 miles back.

I actually felt pretty good for most of my run. I was better about taking in fuel than I have been, and had my audiobook (The Pillars of the Earth) to entertain me. The last couple of miles were a little warmer than I would have liked, since I started a bit later than usual, but I did it! And holy cow, the elevation!

20 miles @ 10:29!

Miles this week: 37.5

Let The Chaos Commence!

We got our building permit yesterday! 

That means this house full o boxes is about to become a crazy construction zone! Work is starting next week sometime, and should take about 2 weeks...for this part of the project. We have several different phases of construction that are going to happen.

The first project is the addition! The part of the house on the left in this picture (which is the back of the house) is going up and will be the same height as the rest of the house. The addition is going to have our master bedroom, two bathrooms, and some normal stairs up to the attic.

Right now the attic stairs are ridiculously shallow and just a tad bit better than climbing up a ladder. They're also red with pink walls.

For reference, my heels are up against the riser here.

I spent some time vacuuming dead ladybugs up in the attic today so we can actually use it to store some things during the construction. Our attic is where all ladybugs on earth go to die. It was disturbing.

Buddy has no idea what's coming.

And on top of everything else, I'm ridiculously excited, because Tiny is going to be here TOMORROW!

We have been friends since the first week of college and I haven't seen her since our road trip took us through Oregon back in 2013!

Possibly 2007?

That's too long.

Marathon Training Week 10

I'm a pretty big fan of cutback weeks. I hit my mileage this week, and had a couple of good runs.

Even though my pace hasn't been where I want it to be (I'm still blaming summer weather and the hills around here), some of the hills that I run all the time haven't felt as steep lately. I'm not saying that the hills aren't tough, but I feel like I'm finally feeling stronger.

Monday: Cross training. My lazy yoga game is still going strong. One hour of yoga, followed by some headstand practice where I didn't fall right and tweaked my neck. It was better after a few days, but it definitely put a damper on some of my runs.

Tuesday: 5 miles. My neck was sore from my yoga wipe out and my legs were sore from my long run. I mostly just wanted to stop the entire time. 5 miles @ 10:04

Wednesday: 5 miles. I felt way better for this run. My neck and legs felt a lot better, and it was a little cooler out. I'm so ready for fall to get here. 5.06 miles @ 9:21

Thursday: 5 miles. Remember when I was insanely tired last week? I made it until later in the week this time, but it caught up to me again. I may have actually napped for a little while this time. Tom insists that I was asleep at one point, but I didn't feel like I did.

Friday: Rest day. I decided to get Thursday's run in on Friday. It didn't feel amazing, but it was faster than earlier in the week. There was a noticeable difference as the soreness from my long run subsided. 5.03 miles @ 9:10

Saturday: 8 mile pace run. This run made me a little nervous. I wasn't sure if I was going to be able to hit a goal pace (9:00) since I haven't been very speedy lately. It ended up being a really good run, and a nice boost of confidence. 8 miles @ 8:52

Sunday: 13 miles. You know you're marathon training when you say, "I only have 13 miles today." Only. I guess it's all relative! This run definitely felt short compared to last weekend's 18 miles, It was a pretty uneventful run overall, though I could have done without the humidity. 13 miles @ 10:18

Miles this week: 36.09