JerBear Shares: July 2012

I feel like all I do anymore is write “update” blog posts. But Danielle was whining that I need to blog asap, or she’s going to cut me, so here I am. IN BULLET POINT FORM-ish.

Last weekend I biked 52 miles in the Okoboji ride. Following arrows on the road is hard thus the extra 2 miles in my 50 miler. It was hot. Last I saw, the heat index was 106 or something painfully hot like that. From 9am-2pm I drank over 80 oz. of fluids, yet did not have to pee until well past dinner time. Please keep in mind that I sweat 1/10^th of what I do while running, as I do biking. Gross. Big thanks to Aaron and Mike who kept me company, and joined in on my delirious singing on the latter miles, something to the effect of “my lady bits hurt, and my butt hurts, and I’m HOT.. doo deeee dooooo!”

10:15 breakfast brat, natch.
I got to spend the 3^rd and 4^th of July with my bestie Jenn and it was glorious, but of course not nearly enough time, as it never is. Someone needs to stop living in the jungle on the other side of the planet ASAP… ya know?

I hope Jenn has all the cute pics, this is the only one on my phone. *sobs*
The other night I asked Kyle if he would come snuggle with me, as I was having a bad day. He looked at me, looked at Ollie who was snoozing away in between us, and indicated that we be “vewy vewy qwuiet” to sneak out without her. We crawled in to bed and giggled about our swift escape. Ok, I giggled, it’d be way weird if Kyle giggled… not much of a giggler. We joked that it felt like we had a kid that we were trying to sneak out on. We enjoyed 5 minutes of alone time before someone woke up and likely had a panic attack that we weren’t there anymore. “MOOOOM! DAAAAAAAAD! WHERE’D YOU GO? COME BACK! I MISS YOU! GAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!” Our Ollie girl is a little bit of a spaz when it comes to our attention, can you tell? (just like her mama, whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat?!!? Ok yeah. I’m a spaz for attention too, I must admit.)
It’s been hot as hades here and running sounds like 0% fun. I’ve been going pretty strong with one run a week, Monday nights, 5 miles. It’s become a running joke, actually (heh…running joke.) I’ll be lacing up my running shoes and Kyle will say, “Whoa?? You’re going running? How far??” And then he’ll remember it’s Monday…. “Oh.. enjoy your 5 miles!” This week I bucked the trend. It was 100+ with a gazillion percent humidity, so I decided to take my 5 miles to the gym in my apartment. Ugh. The treadmills may be as old as me in there. My footfalls are SO LOUD that I couldn’t hear the TV over my plodding along. 1.25 miles later I called it good. I planned to wait until 9 when I dipped below 90 but then I got invited out for beers at Old Chicago. That’s one thing I *can* do in the heat.
Marathon training starts in approximately a month, so I think my time of “d!ck!ng” around should probably be coming to an end. Meh. I am excited to start running again, but glad I’m not having to get “serious” for the next month. I’m kind of enjoying this break. I have started doing some targeted strengthening exercises to strengthen my glutes, hammies, hips, so hopefully I can avoid injury for once.
I got an invitation from the Mizuno Mezzanni project, and received my free Wave Riders in the mail today. That means, that along with my heavily discounted Kinvara 2’s that I just purchased, I’m now hoarding 3 pairs of running shoes in my office at work. I used to really like the Wave Riders, and ran the Vegas Marathon in them. But when the newer version came out in Winter 2011, I *hated* them. Speaking, I still have a pair of them in pink, size 8 if anyone wants to buy them for cheap. They have 5 miles on them. Anyway, given my extreme ability to break while running, I’ve been thinking that I could stand to run in a more “substantial” shoe, especially for long runs. I’ve wanted to try to Wave Riders again, but after being burned with the pair a few versions ago, I couldn’t fathom plunking down $100+ to see if they’d changed. I’m pretty excited to see if they fill the previous long run shoe void in my heart!
I’m still riding a 4.0 wave after getting my grade for my June class (quickly raises the roof with excitement). Oh p.s. I’m trying to bring “raising the roof” back so feel free to get on board with that, spread the word, etc. It was a children’s materials and services class, and further solidified how badly I want to be a children’s and young adult librarian.