I love Team Steam!

Today's workout:

-1 mile warm-up, along the creek (this seems like a standard thing)
(a short rest)
-2.6 mile timed "endurance and strength" run: along the creek, in the cemetery like yesterday's 2 mile, then an extra 0.6 up a very very very steep hill! Very steep. (I assume my chip times will be posted tomorrow.)
(3 min or so rest)
-2.6 mile repeat.

Total: 6.2 miles!! Yay! And it feels great. My hamstrings felt really tight the first 5 miles or so, but then they finally relaxed a little. I met and talked and ran with two different women, which made running soooooo much more enjoyable than it has been. This really confirms for me that I am a social runner, and may as well get used to running with a running group. It seems to be a really friendly group. The coaches are great--very encouraging in a not-drill sergeant kind of way. :)

Today was much cooler weather (46F) than Tuesday (75F), which was the hottest run I've had since last year. It's really pretty, where these runs are. Wooded, winding creeks we're always crossing over, lots of old nice pretty trees. Ahh.

Running again

Last night I attended the first night of the season of Team Steam, a running group in Peoria that trains for the Steamboat Classic. I had in my head that this was your average casual friendly running club, and while, yes, they are friendly, they appear to be anything but casual. They distributed timing chips for our shoes and were told to bring them to every workout!

The first workout:

-1 mile warm-up
-interval training: 2 min, 4 min, 2 min, rest, 2 min, 4 min...I lost track.
Then:
-2 mile timed trial!
Cause they wanted to see how we'd perform on 2 miles after our muscles were fatigued. I've never heard of such a thing.

Boy, am I out of shape!! My time: 20:47. (Which, amazingly, is a pass for a woman of my age group on the Army Physical Fitness Test, a whole 66 points. But still sucky compared to where I was a year and so ago.) When I finished, I almost threw up. When I got home, Frank was quite concerned, "you don't usually look like this when you get back from a run." My face was beet red.

Oh, Tuesdays and Thursdays are going to be fun!

Mosaics and a Pin Wall

After almost 3 years of thinking about it, I've finally started working on mosaics. Here is my new work space in the basement:

(Sig never passes up a chance to be in a photo.)

Here is a picture frame:

And the coasters that are just about finished, as soon as I figure out why they're shedding sand. I was experimenting with different colors of grout: white, beige, and black:

A hot plate, pre-grout:

Also in progress are 2 clocks, a mail/envelope holder, and (still only in the idea stage) my first picture mosaic which will (hopefully) be a gift. Sometime this week I want to check out the tile store at the bottom of the hill by my house...I hope they have a discounted remnants bin or the tile equivalent. :)

Last weekend or so my mom visited me in Peoria for the first time. Frank and I took her to the one museum in town--the Lakeview Museum. They have a little of everything there: an observatory, some art, and a children's section! We looked at the art, watched a movie on black holes, and then played in the pill wall. This is us in a wall of many many pins...

runyogameditate

Time: 10:15am-ish. Maybe we ran for 45 minutes?
Sunrise: 6:04am
Sunset: 7:37pm
Phase of the moon: Full moon, 99% Full

Temperature: 58F
Descriptor: Overcast, but then the sun came out and I wanted my sun glasses.
Dew Point: 52F
Humidity: 91%
Lake Temp: 48-50F. Yikes. We're going to start swimming in a little over a month! It better warm up!

Route: Around the track at Loyola. It's a 300m track. We did quite a few 300m repeats and 122m repeats and a couple 600m. We were running fast (by our own standards).
Approx Distance: Not sure.
Running buddies: Matt, Eric, Pete
Clothing: Pants I bought for Europe, blue Patagonia shirt. Once the sun came out, I wanted to take my shirt off, but didn't. The boys were wearing shorts and t-shirt. The temperature really dropped once we left ANF. Poor Matt. He looked so cold.

People tally: There were some kids running around the track. A mom and college daughter walking on the inside track, an older couple, and one man walking.

What did I eat pre-run? Multiple pieces of toast w/ Earth Balance, green tea w/ soymilk
How did I feel? Good. During one of the early 122m sprints, I think my right rectus femoris was about to cramp, but it didn't. It kind of whined the rest of the time but it actually isn't sore today (yet, I'm now writing this in Sunday). I could have run for a much longer time. My legs felt a little tired later in the day, but not overly so.
What do I like about running? Oh, it's fun to feel what your body can do.
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New Website!

I finished my website! Yay! I'm excited. Come see:

http://www.maryraven.com/

What do you think? Let me tell you, DIY website writing and designing when it's not your specialty is very labor and time intensive project.

Stay tuned for my runyogameditate routine report...

Also, I'll be in Chitown Nov 20th-23rd for birthdays and vegan thanksgiving!

:)

A Run blog, cause I need to get serious

Time of departure: 11:15am-ish

Return: 12:00pm-ish
Temperature: 43 F

Route: Around ICC
Approx Distance: 3.3 miles
Running buddy: 2008 Mix CD
Clothing: Athletic pants, sweat wicker, pink running zipper top

What did I eat pre-run? nothin'
How did I feel? Running sucks when you haven't been running. My left knee/ITB attachments were whining periodically. I was really slow for most of it.
What do I like about running? Running makes me feel happy and content.
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Since moving to Peoria, there have been a few necessary-to-a-happy-life things that I haven't established. One of those things is a running routine. Of course, it doesn't have to be running, it could be some other sort of fitness routine, but running is the best for a couple of reasons. 1) It's inexpensive. I already have all the shoes and gear I need. 2) I can do it on my own schedule at any time. 3) I already know how to do run, how to ready my body when it's cranky or isn't feeling quite right. 4) I can get fresh air and sunshine at the same time I get my exercise. 5) Running really is just the best. Nothing clears my mind as completely as a long hard run does...with the possible exception of a West African Dance class, but that is not an option here in central Illinois.

For awhile after my move, I really wasn't running at all. Then, a couple weeks ago, I started walking more, but still running less. Today though, I decided walking doesn't really do it for me. It's nice enough, it moves my blood around a little, makes my body feel a little less stagnant, but that's not enough for me. I remember talking to Eric way back when about running for the feeling you get after running. That post-run high. That's why I have to run, because running makes me happy. It's gives me a feeling of peace and contentedness. I feel calm in my joints and muscles and relaxed in my mind after a run. I can breathe deeper.

So, it was a beautiful fall day. The whole nice fall day deal: crisp air, golden-sunny blue skies, brown leaves scuttling across the pavement. And it's Halloween! A day of infamous bad weather! But it was a good day for a run. There's a cross country running course carved in amongst the cornfields on the ICC campus and it looked as though a big conference match and just ended. Hundreds of people were dispersing from that area carrying signs like, "Run, Joe, Run!" I picked up my pace running through the herd of running fans, otherwise, I was pretty much at a snails pace. Not my favorite speed to run, but I guess that's where you begin, when you're beginning again.

Merry Halloween!

Motorcycle Diaries - Part I

Since we live in a cold weather climate racing season is over. Which means it's time to start working on my dad's motorcycle! To remind you what it looked like, here are two "before" pictures that I took when we were loading it up in Frank's truck to take it home:

Here it is today after we spent two hours delicately eviscerating it:

Which was a very very dirty job. Thirty years in a damp dirty barn makes for a filthy rusty motorcycle.

There was 30 year old gasoline in the tank, too! The gas tube was rusted shut, so we had to dump it out the top--a messy job. And very foul smelling. Unlike the usual fragrance of fresh gasoline!

Other guts: the battery (cracked and completely empty of battery acid), filthy air filters, the side panels, spark plugs, and carburetors:

Next on the agenda: do some reading of the manual and figure out how the drive chain comes out. It's all very interconnected and how to disassemble it is not intuitive.

*****

I wanted sweet potato fries (again). They are so easy to make! And so delicious.

This is the recipe I'm very roughly following.

And, I was going to take an after-cooking picture...but they were too hot and yummy and I ate them all up already... Yum!