Life in East Peoria - Week 1 Installment

As predicted, the weather was 72 degrees and sunny on Tuesday.  Perfect for strapping all my stuff to Frank's flatbed and moving it south out of Chicago.  

The drive seemed loooong after a late night of packing, early morning of massaging, mid-day delivery of my bed frame to a third floor apartment in Uptown (yes, that's right, I sold my bed frame!), and a couple hours of carrying the big heavy boxes downstairs and strapping everything down.  Before leaving, I fed Frank some "hippie food" = tofurkey slices on sprouted grain bread with spinach and vegenaise.  Sweet pickle relish and mustard seemed to make it tolerable.  (This is to be one of my new hobbies, finding meals that are agreeable to the both of us.)  But, just in time for rush hour, we headed out of town...long drive...and we arrived in East Peoria to a lightening show which thankfully didn't turn into a rainstorm until just after we'd finished unloading all my stuff.  

We've spent the last few days unpacking, sorting, and rearranging.  We've had a few fun projects.  

• We took a sledge hammer to an old cell phone of mine.  The one the kittens tried to kill a bunch of times, that I'd dropped in a smoothie...it's totally dead now.
• I helped Frank solder on a new switch to an old broken electric guitar that he now has up and running.  Yay!  That thing is super loud when plugged into a bass amp.  I may have to dig out my ear plugs.
• I used electric pruners for the first time to trim a willow-ish tree and then pulled a bunch of weeds, at the same time giving myself a--pardon my language--tramp stamp of sunburn.  Ouch!  It still hurts back there.  Next time, longer shirt or sunscreen above the belt line.  
  
• We determined whether or not a couple of boxes of old books are sell-able on amazon.  One I've been finding very interesting to read is, Those Wonderful Old Automobiles by Floyd Clymer, published in the 1950s about the automobiles of the 1890s to the 1920s.  So interesting how inventors and marketers were trying to figure out what the future was going to be for these horseless carriages.  
• Hippie food voted Most Tolerable by Frank that I've prepared to date: Thinly sliced baked teriyaki tofu pan/stir fried with thinly sliced onions and julienned carrots over soba noodles with Soy Vay Teriyaki Sauce.   Tempeh, seitan, tofu, couscous, lentil patties..these are ALL new to Frank and he's been really great about trying everything. 

*****

I've been on two runs:

Wednesday, May 13th, afternoon - 3.8 mile Run - around ICC

I ran in the afternoon/evening around the local community college.  It sucked because I haven't been running much lately, but here are the highlights:

• Scared 1 Great Blue Heron in a water retention pond so that it took flight to another corner of the pond
• Ran by 1 motorcycle class at the college
• Saw 2 other runners
• Ran though the horticultural lab at the college and felt a sense of "home" when I saw that the lab was a U of I extension.  Seeing that old Orange and Blue and familiar font was pleasing.  I'm looking forward to visiting Urbana-Champaign soon. 
• The third mile of the run is alongside a golf course, which is pretty and I like it.
• The route has a few gently rolling hills, which are more fun than the utter flatness of Chicago's terrain.  

Friday, May 15th, 8:06am - 3.8 mile run - around ICC

It was raining and 57 degrees outside; after an argumentative internal dialogue, I was able to get myself out of bed at 7:57am, into running clothes and out the door.   Of course, the rest is relatively easy, and, despite the cold rain (or maybe because of it), this run was much more pleasant.  I saw no other runners, no birds, no fun looking classes, but it never actually sucked and I never felt like I had to sternly tell myself to keep running, I just did.  

*****

Some of Frank's bandmates are runners and are going to be doing the Steamboat Classic 15K on June 20th.  It's supposed to have two monster hills in it.  The big shocker about this: the late registration for this event is only $25.  In Chicago, I doubt there is any 5K run that is less than $35, not to mention a long run like 15K!  So I'm tentatively planning on participating.  They also run with a local running club which I will consider joining.  

With this Steamboat event in mind, I've created the following long run plan with shorter runs filling in in the next few weeks.  If I stick to it, I'll probably do the Steamboat:

Sunday, May 24th - 6-8 miles

Saturday, May 30th - 7-9miles  (Eric, you game?)

June 7th - 8-10 miles

June 14th - Batavia Triathlon

June 20th - Steamboat 15k  (9.3 miles)

Tomorrow I've decided I need to start thinking about finding a job...