Run Log: November 2014

Here Comes December!  Winter has been here for a while now, at least it's sure felt like it.  Yesterday's 14 mile run was brutal ~ the temperature wasn't so bad, around 30 degrees, and the wind wasn't horrible ~ but I never got warm.  Ever.  My fingers were non-functioning sticks when we finished.  It was hard to take off my clothes to get in the shower.
Then today, it's in the 60's.  But, I know this won't last!
Run Club has run in snow & really high winds this month.  And we've decided that Monday we will pack our run gear and make a game time decision each week.  We have a pretty solid core of 4 people & it's a lot of fun.

November Totals:

133.47 miles for the month {WOW}
1069.8 miles for the year 

581.92 miles for my blue Brooks Glycerin 12 ~ Whoa ~ that's a lot of miles.  Good think I'm going to Ladies Night at Second Sole on Wednesday to buy me a new pair of kicks!

Training for:  The Cleveland Marathon on May 17, 2015  {my 20 week plan starts 12/29...but I'm already running like it's 10 weeks out.  Going to keep it here for the next 8 to 10 weeks}

My WEIGHT:  So, I guess I lost a little bit.  Didn't want to get on that scale this morning, but I did with my clothes and glasses on {swear that adds some}  137.6... I don't know what to say about that as I just eat whatever & don't really stop & don't really plan to.  I'd LIKE to be a couple of pounds less...and not have this roll around my middle...but I don't really want to DO anything about it.

Some interesting facts:

Longest run this month: 14.13...and I was sore after.  It was GOOD to feel run sore; it has been a while.
Favorite place to run this month: The Turkey Day 5k, when we turned onto the bike path & everything was covered with snow & the runners were just plowing through it.  It was beautiful
# of books I read this month: Three
Monthly mileage record: 155.46 ~ August 2013!  WOW
Highest mileage ever-at-one-time:  26.2 ~ October 13, 2013 ~ Northern Ohio Marathon

PR's:
5K: 22:30 (Run For the Grapes 9/28/14}
10K: 50:13 {Run for the Hills 6/22/14}
10-miler: 1:21:29 (Hermes Cleveland 10-miler 4/28/12)
half-marathon: 1:44:58 (Northern Ohio Half Marathon 10/12/14)
marathon: 4:01:04 (Northern Ohio Marathon 10/13/2013)

#26 Leaving Everything Most Loved

The last Maisie Dobbs book ~ #26 Leaving Everything Most Loved by Jacqueline Winspear ~ I love it and a I hate it when I come to the end of a series. This was another good Maisie Dobbs ~ but the book was full of endings also.  Maisie closed up her business and her employees found other jobs and James & Maisie went their separate ways, but with a twist, which makes me hope there will be another book.  I want to know her decision regarding James.
But it is also a good place to end a series.  A new adventure may not make for good novels!

I don't have quotes or first or last lines...as the book left my Kindle a few days ago.  

Black Friday

For the first time ever I went shopping on Black Friday.  I really think that the crazy people shop On Thanksgiving and the middle of the night, because the two places I went were fine.  Granted, Lowes and Madison Peebles aren't the hot bed of shopp on deals...

We got a great deal on a grill at Lowes and shirts for Patrick "business casual" at Peebles.  

No actual Christmas shopping took place, and I need to get on that!

And, I heard a tap tap tap in the mud room this afternoon...looked out the window & saw this:

A woodpecker pecking away on our deck railing. Huh. 

Turkey Day

Lots to be thankful for this Turkey Day.  Patrick is home, which just feels right. But, he wanted no part of running ~ so only three Bartons (from Madison ~ two from Newbury) rand in the fourth running of the Turkey Day 5k.  Driving to the Central YMCA on Thanksgiving morning ~ in the falling snow.  It was 30 some degrees and big fat wet flakes were falling from the sky.  It was absolutely gorgeous.  I've also gotten my pre-race routine down ~ which is comforting & makes it so I don't feel like I'm going to wet my pants at the start line.  30 minutes out I drink my pre-race drink & get in line for the bathroom.  Then I do a little warm up jog.  Today it was all about making sure I would have good footing.  It was slick.  Found that running in the snow was better than where it had melted.  Decided not to wear my music or my watch.  It was kinda freeing and I really enjoyed watching the snow fall on the stream of runners.  I didn't set the world on fire ~ but it was still enough to win a pie for the second year in a row.  This year's looks much more appetizing than last year's too.  And there was additional bling...another coffee mug.  I'm getting quite the collection :)

Now we're off to Newbury to eat and eat.  Gotta love this tradition we've been a part of since the beginning four years ago!

Snow day #1

The phone didn't ring before my 6:00 alarm. I laid in bed a few minutes...and it still didn't ring...so I checked the tv ~ Ashtabula was closed, but nothing in Lake.  I showered, dressed, make-uped, and as I was feeding the dogs & watching the weatherman live from Madison, the phone rang.  Guess the decision maker watches channel 3 news.

So I had a very productive day:

Cleaned out the workout room & closet. (For a house that doesn't have any mice, there was a lot of mouse poop I'm that closet)

Ran 6 miles at the Y while listening to episode 7 and half of episode 8 of Serial.  

Watched most of my DVR'd shows

Paid bills

Went out for lunch and dinner

It was an amazing snow day!!

#25 King and Maxwell

I do fear this is the last King and Maxwell novel ~ even though a new character has joined the team...I wonder if David Baldacci will write another one (I hope so!)  #25 is King and Maxwell ~ number 6 in the series.  A very fast read ~ and I've been reading so slowly lately.  In this story the CIA and DOD and DHS all gang up on a poor guy to be the fall guy for a bad mission.  It's all very dark and sinister in the planning & frightening at how things along this line are probably happening daily within our government.  Michelle and Sean manage to narrowly escape being killed seven or eight times in very unbelievable ways...but it works for me in the fiction.

fl: Forty-eight hundred pounds.  That was roughly how much the cargo in the crate weighed.ll "Oh my God," Michelle said hopelessly.  "Yeah," said Sean, with a long sigh.

First Snow

It started with a dusting this morning & just kept on going. By 2:45, all after school events were cancelled & the first of the busses were really late. We didn't dismiss kids until 3:15 & there were still quite a few busses not there at 3:30.

7 inches of snow or more covered everything & I'm not sure the snowplow a remembered they are the ones who have to do something about that. 

I knew I didn't have a snow scraper...or gloves (seriously, where are all my gloves?). And my dear colleague cleared off my car for me (and I love the remote start on my new car). When I opened my door, what is on my seat?  But a snow scraper and a cute pair of gloves.  My husband is the best (even tho he cancelled my dentist appointment). 

The roads were horrible, but Jacob made it home safely (and duly frightened) and I am ever so thankful for my three mile drive home.  Most people were stuck for hours in traffic.  

It sure is beautiful

Weekend Fun

The high school football team made the playoffs this season ~ and even had home field for the first round.  We haven't seen Jacob march for a long time, so it was great that this one was at home.  We get to the game all bundled in our cold gear & a blanket to wrap in too ~ it was that cold.  We sit down and prepare to watch pre-game.  People are just wandering in & getting there seats...it's early yet, not a lot happening before the game starts...

Except the people in front of us.  Apparently they have been sitting in the bleachers for a while, maybe hours.  this was the mess BEFORE THE GAME EVEN STARTED.  They certainly had their money's worth in fun.  This just struck me as one of those things...I couldn't stop looking at the mess & wondering what kind of partying they were doing in the stands before I got there.  Because they were pretty tame fans while I was there.

The Saturday (after running our 13 miles in the cold & wind) we loaded up the car & drove south to Cincinnati.  This is our usie...it's really difficult to get a really tall kid and a really not so tall kid in one shot!

It was really good to see Patrick & Maggie.  Patrick took us to his new favorite BBQ place ~ Alabama-Q.  A little store-front with five tables (not so clean) and food served in Styrofoam to-go packages.  For $28 we all had a very good and filling meal.  Mike pointed out that it didn't even have a bathroom & we were probably glad for that!  I would eat their food again; I would just take it to another location to do so.

After breakfast with the kids, Mike & I went to Jungle Jim's.  I tried to get a selfie with one of the 'animals' out front. It was an interesting place ~ with even more interesting bathrooms.  In the middle of the store are two big port-a-potties... that enter into very nice bathrooms.  It's pretty freaky to open that door tho'.

At check out Mike thows these Cinnamon Twists on the belt ~ I can't believe he bought the Cinnamon ones ~ like he totally didn't read it & thought they were the Strawberry ones.  So I say, "Those are Cinnamon."  MIKE SAYS, "I know.  They're like breath mints, but candy." 

unrelated events

Today a coworker brought rice krispie treats made with peanut butter chips and chocolate chips.  They were pretty good with my coffee. And with my lunch.

In unrelated news, a binder clip can hold your pants together when the button pops off.

Halloween Weekend

I am a fairy princess!  Finally we were 'allowed' to dress up for Halloween & I became my true inner self ~ a fairy princess.  It was amazing

Trisha made Maple Bacon cookies with Maple Bacon frosting.  Notable because they are such a strange thing to come across at the Giant Eagle.  Fun that Trisha bought them to let Uncle Silly Mike try them...as he loves everything bacon.  They rather tasted like maple frosted donuts with a side of bacon.  Not a favorite, but not horrible either.

And we went to a quite chilly, and pretty awful {except that we did win} Browns game.  Had to leave at the end of the third quarter because I was frozen, so we listened to the win in the car on the way home.  Yes, I am a fair weather fan.  

And now it's November...officially Holiday Season in my book.

#24 Elegy for Eddie

Each Maisie Dobbs book gets better and better & I'm pretty sad, because I do believe there is only one more.  I love the historical fiction ~ it's a unique perspective to see WWII from the before it happened point of view.
#24 is Elegy for Eddie by Jacqueline Winspear ~ about the death of a 'simple' man ~ and how it leads to the necessity of keeping England safe from the threat of Germany and Hitler.  I do wish that Maisie would figure out her love life...but I like how the relationship with James was left at the end of this novel.  I guess Maisie is too independent to really be a married woman in the 1930's...

Quotes:
p55 ~ hail-fellow-well-met attitude {an interesting way to describe a trusting, kind person}

p222 ~ {I love the name} Elsbeth  {I do}

p337 ~ After the wary, however, in the early 1920's, the government had launched a series of advertisements aimed at getting the populating out into the fresh air, encouraging people to go hill walking, which some master of the slogan had abbreviated to "hiking".  {is that a true story of the birth of the term}

p341 ~ ...know he sailed close to the wind

p425 ~ even truth could bleed.

fl: Maudie Pettit pushed the long broom back and forth across the wet flagstones, making sure every last speck of horse manure was sluiced down the drains that ran along a gully between the two rows of stall.  ll: Each with their own thoughts.  Watching their world go by.