If you’ve been reading my blog for any amount of time you may notice I talk a lot about the trails in the county I live in. Particularly the trail closest to my home – the Millennium Trail. I did not realize how much I talked about the 2.5 mile portion of this trail near my home until I decided to do a bit of research on my blog and found a ton of posts mentioning it -

6/27/10 – When I found out they were building the trail
9/14/10 – Still waiting for construction to start
10/21/10 – Construction has started and I declare any new home for us must be near a trail
11/3/10 – I get anxious and say the trail looks ready to run on to me
1/9/11 – Oh wait, that bridge is not finished
1/23/11 – I decide the bridge is ready enough for me to use
8/3/11 – There is signage on the trail
8/5/11 – I use the trail to commute to the train
10/16/11 – Rainbow on the trail
10/30/11 – Vandalism on the trail

Those were the ones I found before I got tired of looking! Yikes. Excited, much?

Part of the the portion of the trail near our home was never finished (a 600′ section in the middle and the 1300′ start of it) because of easement debates. I read in the local paper* in the beginning of April that they finally came to an agreement on this and were going to finish the trail! EXCITING! I cut out the article and put it on our kitchen door so I could see it every day. <– dorky

Eventually, this trail so close to my home will connect to 20 miles of completed trail. And eventually it will be a 35 mile trail! All the need to do is build a few tunnels and get some more parts of the trail going…

Anyway. This post is starting to not have a point. Oops. Back on track…

Whenever we would ride on trails that went near people’s homes in the past , I would always say “It would be SO COOL to have a trail in your backyard! You could jump right on the trail to run/walk/bike or you could people watch from your home!”

Would you want a trail that close to your home?

And now we will have that. I can see the extension to the trail from my office and bedroom windows! Since Steven works from home every day, and I work from home quite a bit, we have been able to see some of the construction. Steven said he felt the house shaking yesterday - it’s that close!**

They had to redo the sidewalk to make room for the trail. And they had to kill some trees. <– sad

The trail wraps around the “marsh” (we call it the swamp, or if you say marsh, you have to say it with a Boston accent) in our backyard.

View of our home.

She had dumps like a truck truck truck…

Would you want to watch the construction of a trail being built or do you think that is boring?

*Why did I have to read this in the paper? Why was it not on the forest preserve website? What if we did not get the paper?
**Should I be worried our house was shaking?

I am on to you, you little bluberry terd. Kim does not eat mold. In to the trash you go. Besides, I walk by a bagel place on my way to the office.

Eww. This bagel was gross. Maybe blueberry bagels are just a bad idea?

When I told Steven the blueberry bagel tried to trick me this morning, he asked why I didn’t just cut the mold off. Uhh… because the thought of eating something that had mold in it makes me want to vomit.* Would you cut the mold off and eat it?!

Yes, I just wrote a post about blueberry bagels. If a moldy bagel is my only “problem” today I will be really happy!

A photo of Data from this morning just because:

*Similar to how banana peels touch anything other than a napkin make me want to vomit. Steven discovered this fear of mine yesterday and thinks I am bizarre.

The decision was easy – I am not a drinker and don’t have wine in my house (maybe Erin can help me with this problem?), so a run it was. 

The run started out a bit ho hum. It was in the mid 80s and really sunny. But right after the second mile, when I was about to cross a street, Steven drove by on his way to the post office! What a funny coincidence! That made me smile. 

Then in my seventh mile, when I was running along one of the major roads, an SUV honked at me from behind, then when they drove by a woman was hanging out the passenger window waving at me. It was one of my running club peeps cheering me on! That really made my day and that mile ended up being my fastest. 

I wasn’t going to write about this run, but it was really exciting for me to see people I knew on the road. It gave me a boost and lifted my spirits. 

Then I made it home right before a short downpour. Talk about good luck (running in the rain would have felt nice though, I am sure). 

Because every post needs a picture, here’s one of the trail by my house from today

Lately I don’t have much to talk about except running. It’s kind of the steadiest, surest thing in my life right now (of my interests I mean, not relationships). I don’t think of this as a running blog. I think of it as more of a life blog. But maybe May will be the month of running talk. It’s either that, or me bitching about a lot of stupid insignificant crap. Take your pick! 

Ugh.

Why do I even try?*

Monday: 1, Kim: 0

*The sad thing is, I DID try to make my hair look nice this morning. Usually I don’t even brush it before I go to work. I need serious hair help! Let’s look on the bright side… only one more day IN the office this week. The rest are work from home.

Monday | May 7, 2012: 9 m run (4 + 5 with Bobbi, and GRCers Stephanie and Stacey)
Loc: Grant Woods FP, Temp: 63°/62°, Time: 36:31, 49:32, Pace: 9:07, 9:54 avg, Difficulty: medium (hills + humidity)
Tuesday | May 8, 2012: 6 m run (with Amy and GRCer Carrie)
Loc: North Branch Trail, Temp: 69°/68°, Time: 1:01:20, Pace: 10:13 avg, Difficulty: medium
Wednesday | May 9, 2012: strength class
Strength: dumbbell circuit, Difficulty: medium
Thursday | May 10, 2012: rest
Friday | May 11, 2012: strength + 4 m run (with GRCer Yvonne)
Strength: all sorts of torture, Difficulty: medium/hard
Loc: Grayslake, Temp: 75°/76°, Time: 34:13, Pace: 8:33, Difficulty: medium
Saturday | May 12, 2012: 23 m run
Loc: Around town, Temp: 62°/57°, Time: 4:14:01, Pace: 11:03 avg, Difficulty: easy
Sunday | May 13, 2012: 5 m run (with Erin)
Loc: Forest Park/Oak Park, Temp: 57°, Time: 49:34, Pace: 9:54 avg, Difficulty: easy

Lessons learned:

• A 8:30mm pace is not feasible (for me) for a June 9 half if the temp is >65°.
• No Lo mein before a fast run. No blueberry bagels before a long slow run. 
• Vegan fig newtons work really well for long run fuel. 

Reminders for next week:

• Working from home all day does not mean I should be gone all evening running. Maybe I will write more on that later!

Links:

• I lovd J’s post about balancing running and being a newlywed. 

I run slow for my long runs. Pace is not important to me right now. I was thinking the other day about how I have a tendency to pack my schedule so full that I am constantly racing the clock to get from one thing to the next (a bad habit I am trying to stop). I don’t want all of my runs to be a race against the clock too! The only time I want to be concerned about is having a good time. Okay, and making it home when I tell Steven I will so he is not worried about me. 

I am more excited by the fact that my body will let me run so far and so long, and feel so good, than about pace. And it also feels really freeing not to have a goal race on the calendar. I can run a stupid amount of miles one week, and not worry about how it will tire me. I can also run a really low amount of miles and not worry about sticking to my schedule. Maybe the less I am obliged to run, the more I do? Ha ha. Doubtful. I love a good training schedule too. But there is something nice about running until I feel like stopping (I wanted to keep going today!). 

This isn’t coming out right (typical) but I am just trying to say that I am in a really good place with running right now. I’ve been running a lot of different places, with different people, and getting me away from the monotony of my neighborhood has been good for me. And today I got to do one of my favorite things on my long run – explore!

I love running in Gutternberg, IA, because you can run from my parent’s cabin to the downtown area, all around the city, and back, and it’s not a very long run. It’s really fun to see the city that way. 

I always wanted to explore the city I live in that way, but thought I couldn’t, because there are more cars on the road, and I didn’t think it was safe. But today I was able to do that, with careful planning on when to run on trails, and when to run on low-speed limit streets. By the end, I had run on two trails, through two forest preserves, on many streets and through at least two towns! I really enjoyed the long slow run, and just wanted to share it.

I am new to having a smart phone and haven’t downloaded a ton of apps, but there are some I use more than others – Camera, iTunes (for downloading podcasts straight to my phone), Facebook (even though it’s so buggy), TWC, Amazon, Starbucks, and Shazam. 

I also have specific Photography and Running folders with some apps that I use a lot. For Photography, I mostly use Camera+ for its timer and some filters. I use Sketches 2 to draw on photos. In the Running Folder, I use Pace Calc to calculate pace (ha ha), Glympse to let Steven track me while I run, and LCFPD (Lake County Forest Preserves) to get info on all the trails I run. 

I use my Reference folder a lot too – mostly Wikipedia and imdb.

There are some apps on the iPhone that I never use, but cannot delete, so I put them in a folder called “Crap I Don’t Use.”

Well, most boring blog post ever. But maybe you will tell me about some interesting apps that you like. Since I clearly need more ways to waste time!

By the Earring Monster (aka Data, Sir Poops a Lot, Dates, Poopy Pants McGee).

This morning I was trying to sleep in (until 6:30) and Data decided I needed to get up at 6:00. I tried to ignore him. My alarm went off at 6:30. I hit snooze. Then Data put his mouth around my diamond stud earring and pulled it out of my ear.

I woke up saying “No! No! Noooo!!!” Steven woke up wondering what the heck was going on. I was too shocked to say anything. All I could think about was the fact that I had already lost and found one of my diamond stud earrings once, and that I did not want to go through Data’s poop to find it (although I would).

I turned the light on and frantically looked around the bed for my tiny earring. Luckily, I found it. No poop digging for me. Phew.

But now I know not to sleep with earrings in anymore. Sigh.

What creative tactics have your pets used to get you out of bed?

My favorite race picture was easy to choose. It’s from the first year I ran the Wisconsin Half Marathon (2009) with Steven. It was my first half marathon, I was in awesome shape, and I felt great. I finished that 13.1 and thought “gimme more!”

I look at this image (and the rest from that race) quite often for inspiration. It reminds me of the time when I was beginning to fall in love with long distance running, taking great care of myself, and spending a lot of time running with Steven (prepping for the race).

Wait! Why isn’t Steven in the photo? Let me tell you… I had to go to the bathroom since the race started, and at mile 10 I saw a bathroom and finally went. Steven continued ahead and I caught up with him (in 1.5 miles). We finished our first half running 9:00 minute average miles, which was a big deal for us!

Anyway, there are A LOT of race photos I love, especially of those I have run with friends, those that hold PRs, my special NYC moment… but this is the one I look back to again and again for inspiration (and hope that I can be in that good of shape again someday).

Do you find yourself looking back to a certain older photo of yourself for inspiration?

Let me know if a pink sock of mine somehow ended up with your stuff :)

To which his response was:

You will receive my demands in 24 hours. I suggest you meet them… or you’ll get your precious sock back in… less than ideal condition

Of course, I panicked, and immediately called on a close friend for help:

That was no luck. Terrorist Andrew responded:

I don’t take orders from flying rats

Sigh. I tried a plea from the sock’s twin. Okay, he was mocking a bit:

Again. No luck. I decided to wait the 24 hours for the demands. In the meantime, the sock was threatened with seam rippers and, gasp(!), scissors.

The demands seem simple to start – I must provide the race photos from Saturday. I asked for assurance that my sock was safe before sending the photos and here is what I got this morning:

What the heck?! He does not look happy or safe! He has a gag in his mouth and the search bar on the screen says “Help me, Kim, you’re my only hope!”

Terrorist Andrew ensures me that he is safe – as he has “clearly not been cut or bleached and he’s gagged…”

Sigh. I don’t know what to do. Should I send the photos? What will his next demand be?!?!?!