Training to Live

in case you missed it, part I is here, II and III were eaten by the universe. i’ll fill you in – there were 13 cobs of corn one week and a watermelon (that was possibly the most ridic) another week. plus all the usuals, of course. peaches, plums, apricots, maybe a few zucchinis here and there, etc. jon had to reinforce one of my panniers the other day because the connection mechanism that holds it onto my bike was getting loose. oopsies! i’m back in business now.

this is how i do it. big panniers and a spare bungee cord just in case.

the loot:

-cable + padlock

-2 bags of cheese curds from thornloe

-some temiskaming cheese (also thornloe. best cheese place ever!)

-a purple bag filled with my work clothes and other sundries (deoderant, comb, etc)

-2X 1.5L of seedless concord grapes, for a raisin making project

-3L basket of delicious peaches

-a big bag of italian plums for some plumjum (i’m currently making the bellaeats plum cake that we loved last year with my last week’s bunch)

this week i actually managed to restrain myself a little bit. i didn’t get any veggies, so we will probably hit up the saturday market. it was the last day that thornloe was going to be at my market, so they had some killer sales and i stocked up. dill flavoured cheese curds are amazing. is this just a canadian thing? at the HLS, when i talked about eating cheese curds, i remember someone looking at me like i was crazy. also when i described poutine…. it’s delicious stuff! really!

for supper tonight, jon made burgers with some beef we got from his uncle’s farm. these burgers were definitely in contention with the epic burger from chicago.

vs

ok. they were both really really good – grass fed beef is where it’s at! i couldn’t tweet about the one on the left and have it displayed up on a screen like at epic.

i have to say that was a pretty cool thing for them to have. the top three posts on the left and right columns were my dining companions: stina, mary and dawn. i couldn’t tweet because i didn’t have roaming data on my phone but i did when i got back to the hotel!

i have some chicago posts to catch up on. they’ll come. soon. eventually. i hope. this week has been kind of crazy.

i ran a 15K race last weekend. i have a 10K this week! i’m hoping to splash my 56:08 time out of the water! one more week of work and then i have a whole 5 glorious days off to relax at the cottage and farm. i have some fun projects planned for while we’re out there, so hopefully also some good blogging will come of that too! in the meantime, i better get back to my cake.

i am recommitting to this blogging thing. again. promise.

here’s what happened in february:

-i went to an awesome book event for one of my newest favourite books, that i have talked about here already: the happiness project. a conversation with the author, the amazing gretchen rubin, and heather from indigo.

i had just gotten to almost the end of my library copy by the time the book event happened, and i knew i wanted to buy my own copy. luckily this was the perfect time because i could have a chat with gretchen and get my copy signed! excuse the terrible pictures! it wasn’t me.

i am taking part in the 2010 happiness challenge, which comes with a monthly theme and weekly things to do (described in 2 minute videos by gretchen, every monday). so far we’ve done things like tackle nagging tasks, fight right, stop expecting praise and appreciation (the hardest), hug more, kiss more, touch more (my favourite). i can feel myself becoming a more pleasant person.

-i started seriously training for around the bay (which is in 21 days!!!) 30k race i am doing at the end of this month.

i’ve gone on 2+ hour training runs, i have done strength training a couple times each week, i’ve started interval training (yasso 800s!) and i have gone swimming once a week, every week since i last posted that i was going to try and get back into swimming.

our winter has been mild – perfect for outdoor runs but not so perfect for snowshoeing. we only have gotten out once so far (i fear this will be our only snowshoe adventure of 2010), but it was epic. 2.5 hours on the mountain biking trails of waterloo. my muscles ached the following two days!

today i’m up to a 21-25k run. i’ve got one more distance week left, and then i cut back in preparation of my taper before the race. edited to add- i ended up being out for 3 hours this morning. brutal. my knees hurt. happily i probably won’t have to do any more ridiculously long runs this year because this 30k race is the longest i am signing up for. everything else is half marathon and below.

soon i will start spending a bit more time on my bike, as the following race is the cyclocross st george to ancaster, where i will ride 35k through mud, rail trails, roads, single track and farm land.

-i went to a wake for a 16 year old who lost a battle with cancer. it was decidedly one of the most sad things i have done. my heart broke for his parents; no one should ever have to go through that.

-i got to interview and help select our summer intern for work. this was particularly exciting, as we went back to my alma mater for the interviews AND i was that summer intern myself, not too many years ago. we didn’t get our first pick, but i am pretty happy with the person who will be showing up in may. it definitely was an experience that made me feel old though!

-i went to a custom bike shop with jon to get his new bike spec-ed out, measured and designed. it was sooo cool! i wanted to share some pictures, but when we arrived, i discovered that my battery was completely out of juice maybe i’ll go back when we pick up the finished product and get some good shots. custom bikes are sweet, but i am definitely not enough of a for real biker to justify getting one, nor would i fully appreciate all the features. i would love a custom paint job though!

-last night, for the first time ever, i drove jon’s standard car home (about 12km) all by myself with no supervision – my maiden voyage. it was a little harrowing at times, since i’m a pretty new driver to begin with, and i’m still learning how to operate the standard vehicle. i stalled only once, drove in the wrong gear once or twice, but, all in all, it wasn’t too bad and i did not crash or die! someday soon i will get more comfortable doing this.

-i proofread jon’s mechanical engineering master’s thesis on deep drawing of warm formed aluminum. “what?” you say. yeah, that’s what i said too. after going through the 100+ pages a few times, combing carefully for missing commas and misplaced subordinating conjunctions, i still don’t really know what deep drawing is all about. that’s ok with me.

-i’m working on my mighty life list, inspired by maggie and karen. i’ll post it when i’m done. so far everything on the list (i’m up to #28 so far) is kind of epic. i think i need a few things that i can get started on right now. ideas?

-i pulled the ice cream maker out of hibernation for a batch of homemade cookies and cream (david lebovitz’s philidelphia vanilla with crushed oreos swirled in at the end). let me tell you, i have missssed ice cream. since we stopped buying it at the store, when i removed the freezer bowl from our freezer, our connection to the creamy cold treat was severed. i’m happy to have it back in my life.

-tomorrow i’m going to my first ever blog meetup (aside from the healthy living summit, which i guess was sort of blog meetup like) that angela is organizing in kensington market, a super cute area of toronto. i’m excited to meet new people, make some new friends (hopefully) and spend some time exploring the city. the weather is supposed to be gorge!

whew. that was long.

i may have gotten into a small bike crash this afternoon. the damage wasn’t terrible. i was thrown off my bike and i think i landed on my arms. i’m not exactly sure since it happened so fast and i don’t really remember. my arms are sore now, so i’m assuming they broke the fall. anyway, once i decided i was ok, i got up to check my bike. nothing seemed broken: there was only a dropped chain. i managed to get it back on the rings and pedal on.

when i got home, i had a closer look at myself:

nothing too terrible, just some scrapes and bruising. and a lot of chain grease.

then i looked in the mirror and had a good laugh:

it feels appropriate.