Grubby hands, cherry picking, wearing down the tread on the road and in Quicken.

These last few days have been quite beautiful weather-wise. I was inspired on Thursday to don my running shoes, leave my front door and surpass my personal best record of 5.5 miles, and found that I went 7 miles without ever begging God to strike me dead on the pavement. My sister Kirsten is training for a Marathon next month, and she gave me good counsel on the physics of running efficiently. Furthermore I picked up a heart-rate monitor on a good sale, and was delighted to find out that I can go much, much further than I thought I could. My mind gives out way before my body does, turns out. More than any other training technique for running/biking/swimming these days, that reinforcement from the Polar F6 has sent me much further in workouts than ever before. 

I am working towards a mini or 'sprint' triathlon in August. That means a 1/2 mile swim in murky open water, 15-20 mile bike, and a 3-4 mile run. I got up at 6:30 am on Saturday morning, stopped at Peet's for a coffee, and joined a local bike club on their 26 mile ride through the flats of Oakely/Brentwood. I was the only person on a hybrid bike, but nevertheless I kept up my speed. I was especially grateful for the wider tires since we passed over many cracks in the road. A road bike is not in the picture for me or John, but I'm no pro anyway. Just doing this for health and fun.

 
Today the family went swimming at the sports club. I wore a swim cap for the first time since 3rd grade, and my heartrate monitor of course. I thought I was going to peak out of my personal heart-rate zone in the water because I felt I was working hard, but before I could do that, my arms got terribly tired. Duh, swimming is all about upper body strength. I think swimming a 1/2 mile translates to be about 16 laps. I did almost that today, and plan to be adding more swim sessions ala Michael Phelps this month.
...pause...
Just realized I left a popcicle behind my laptop here in hopes that Savi wouldn't see me eating it when she ran over there. It's totally melting, but mostly in it's plastic wrapper. Yummy melted sugar goodness!

Ok I'm back to writing about the sports club. After watching John get totally sunburned as we watched Savi play in the water, we headed over to the U-pick Cherry Farm owned/run by my first cousin-sometime-removed, Bud Laird. It was nice to meet family we had never met before, and they were very nice to us, pointing out the best picking trees on the property. This was John and my first time picking our own cherries, and we plan to go back soon, as cherry picking ends in 2 weeks.

Savannah fell asleep on the 20 min ride home, and I headed out back to handle a nasty mess in the worm composter. Somehow a legion of grub worms took up residence alongside the red worms, and I spent an hour sifting through the compost to extricate those little white squatters. John came along to tag-in, and spent the same amount of time sorting. He even set the grubs out on a large tarp in the yard for the blue birds to find, but alas they did not come and he placed them all in a sealed container until trash day on Tuesday.

Now what could be funner than finishing the grub sorting, getting dinner ready, having a cold glass of tasty water and rubbing aloe on John's back and face? How about plugging the family's modest summer budget into Quicken? Nothing beats that and I am so jealous, you reply emphatically. 

Other interesting additions:
1. John's school closed for summer last Friday.
2. Golden Bough's new cd will be released on 6/19, called "Celtic Love Songs"
3. Our tomato plant is over 7 ft tall!

Comments

[Cactus Jack Jessen]

Kathy--
Your writings are always so fresh, well-written, and interesting. I love'm inasmuch as they never fail to weave lots of everyday fun & fascination into you and the family's activities. Just catching up on some of your postings, so forgive the late comments. Keep on truckin', and remember to keep a weather eye out for dem gators. . . .
-Cactus Jack

[Jen]

good for you for your training efforts...that's fantastic. i remember when you were living at the org building and running loads. yay for school being out. hugs to you john and savi