Summer Friends and Family Fun

The last two weeks have been focused on family and friends and garden and work.  Last in the priority scheme has been working out.  We visited my hometown, celebrated all the family summer birthdays, and then my niece came for a 5 days visit full of bay area fun.

Yet another outdoor summer dinner:

Deviled eggs and quinoa bacon tomato salad

Workouts have still been happening, but only between the other stuff, in a functional, maintain basic fitness, kind-of way.

One of my favorite Mission Murals we saw on the 

niece's chosen site-seeing trip in SF

I did 25 miles over 2 weeks (so half my normal mileage) including 4.5 miles of run-walking with a bestie in Norcal in the heat and under the smoke that was just short of dangerous, 2 small but not lame track workouts (7X400 @ sub 9/mile pace in one and 5X0.25 at 8:41 and 0.5% treadmill incline in the other). My niece was nice enough to join me on a Sunday AM 75 minute hot yoga class that *KICKED* *MY* ASS*.

The beautiful beaches of Half Moon Bay.

The longest continuous effort I made was 7 miles run (11:46/mile) before packing up my bags to go to Philadelphia for a wedding where I hid from the humidity and walked about 3 miles total over 3 days, including a quick indoor gym workout where I did random core interspersed with TM speedwork.

Tomatoes, cheese & bread.  Heavenly.

The wedding was for a close friend of our family with whom we'd lost most contact in the last few years.  It was awesome to be there and reconnect with the groom, meet the bride, and see the extended family.  We're so glad we went and are hopeful this will lead to a sustained reconnection.

The harvest we came home to!

The garden has actually been taking quite a bit of time between trimming, harvesting, watering, weeding, and preserving/gifting food -- it's not really a work-out, but it is one of my favorite hobbies (plus it pays food-related dividends), so I'm happy to trade time spent running for time spent with the plants.

Pimientos de padron y tomates! Sabroso!

The only "race-like" effort I put in over the last 2 weeks was a late-for-the-plane sprint through the airport for a few minutes.  I felt fast and strong (if a bit ridiculous), despite the huge purse and backpack I had to manage.  I arrived at the gate to E (who'd gone ahead while I checked the bag) motioning that I could stop and I kind of wanted to keep going.  But, I was also happy to see how quickly my breathing recovered -- yay interval training!

I love dahlias and it was peak season at the Golden Gate Park

Dahlia Garden during our site-seeing tour.

The next 3 weeks have me homebound, gardening, working, and hopefully getting in some good workouts, with a 5K on labor day weekend and a 10K the weekend after that.

You Might Think I'd Get Tired of Tomatoes

It's peak harvest time for our garden right now.

My weeks involve hours of harvesting and trimming back the plants to keep them healthy.

And, since 80% of our garden is tomato plants right now, that means lots of tomato-based meals, as well as canning and roasting and gifting.

This tomato (an heirloom varietal called Coustralee) probably weighed over 3 pounds.

Even with the efforts at tomato management, sometimes we just get to enjoy ridiculousness.

This is that Coustralee tomato, sliced.

One of my favorite meals in the world is sliced high-acid garden tomatoes with fleur de sel and a robust extra virgin olive oil. 

Wok-fried padrones, eggplant (with cheese & chili flakes) & garden tomato salad -- Californian Summer Dinner at its finest.

 I probably have it about 2 out of every 3 days when we're at home during peak tomato season.  And it never gets old.

Gazpacho (Californian-style instead of Adalusian-style) & Padrones 

-- another perfect Californian garden dinner

Essentially, I'm barely keeping my EVERYONE-IS-TRAVELING-IN-AUGUST travel envy at bay with the garden and delicious meals I can make from it (hence all the photos).  

In running news, I'm taking a couple of easier running weeks due to social obligations.  Last week was 19+ miles, most of it running, all of the running in the 11 min/mile or faster range, which was nice to see.  The goal for this summer has been to drop my paces, and Parkrun 5k PR failure notwithstanding, it appears to be working, generally, in my training log.  Here's to hoping the 3ish easier down weeks will just be good recovery/maintenance and if I can fit in a couple of solid workouts each day ideally it will set me up nicely for my September 5K and 10K.

Enjoy your August! 

Happy Californian Summer Week

We're having a mild Summer.

Look at all that green fruit!  

Typically, at this point in the Summer, at least 1/3 of it would be ripe (red, yellow, purple/brown, orange, etc.).

While the cool temps have slowed down the tomato development, it is wonderful for my running.  Most days, after I have my coffee and clear my email, it's only in the low 70s when I head out the door.  If I really wanted to optimize, I could get out in the mid to high 60s early in the morning, but because I am heat sensitive, I do like to train in some heat during the Summer so that I can enjoy the performance boost I get from the cooler temperatures of Fall races.

It was an A- workout week, which was wonderful: 1 day off, 2 track days of 3400 total speed each (including a 9:04 mile -- so close to the sub 9 goal, but not quite there), 1 easy 6 miler, my 36 minute jump-rope calisthenics insanity, a bike/yoga day, and one workout of 5 minutes jog; 20 X 1 min hard/1 min walk; 5 minutes jog.  There were also several hours of gardening, yardwork, and late night resistance tube/stretching work -- I'm quite glad that these things are making it back into my routine, and hopeful that they will contribute to me avoiding re-aggravating my picky left leg.

Red lentil soup, garden zucchini tzatziki salad and rosé -- Summer heaven.

Tonight's dinner is gazpacho, with 80% garden ingredients, which is likely to go into the weekly rotation for the forseeable future.

Garden gazpacho!

In other news, one of the many guest room visitors we regularly entertain took us out to dinner at a local ramen joint.  The portions were huge, so I took home 2/3 of my noodles/veggies/meat as well as my dipping sauce.  Last night, I made zoodles, tossed 'em in with the leftovers, added the dipping sauce and some water, brought it to a boil and then had the genius idea to portion the boiling soup into our bowls, and crack an egg in each, cover with a lid, and let the egg poach.

HAHAHAHAHAHA! That was not the expected outcome!  Thankfully, the broth was hot enough to cook the eggs once we broke them up.

Tomatoes: The Work Pays Off

The garden is out of control this time of year!

My first "real" tomato harvest of the season was this weekend, and it was almost entirely cherries (with one blossom end-rot thessoloniki).

Oh, happy day!

I sliced those cherries and we enjoyed caprese for dinner -- the first one of tomato season, but definitely not the last.

Isn't this just such a gorgeous sight?

I had purchased soft mozzarella to keep in the fridge so we could be sure to enjoy caprese the day of the first harvest big enough to feed us both.  It was wonderful, although now that the waterfall of ripening has started, I can switch to buying fresh mozzarella in water (and, I really should calendar a date to make it from scratch before the end of tomato season).

First tomato harvest caprese -- Sunday night dinner.

Today, a little more than 24 hours after the first harvest, I harvested again.

First ripe plum tomatoes and full-size medium thessoloniki.

From here on out, every few days, I'm going to be going out and pruning like crazy and harvesting.  This will likely be the last week where we only have enough for us.  Starting next week (or the week after that), I'll begin gifting tomatoes (and cukes and all sorts of squash), and probably, the first weekend in August, I will get to spend a long weekend day canning (and saving seeds for my seed bank).

Have I mentioned this is my favorite time of year?

I save the seeds in the Summer and then freeze them.  I start the seedlings in January or February.  I water them and put them under grow lights and hit them with a fan in the garage (still planning to build a hothouse...) until late spring when I can bring them outside.  I transfer them in and out of the sun until it is warm enough to leave them outside overnight.  I plant them in late spring once the danger of frost has passed.  And then I water and prune and put the cages out and weed until now, when they finally bear fruit.  Tomato harvest season is a reward for 6 months of effort and I enjoy it so very much!

Running is similar in ways.  It often takes months of sacrifice and effort before you see the benefits.  There are things out of your control (weather, pests, birds, squirrels, viruses), but you just do your best to control the controllables.

Right now, I'm in a dedicated running effort period that's a new one for me.  I'm focused much more on getting in a few fast hard workouts or races a week and letting the rest of the workouts just balance with my life as makes sense.  If I get in 2 hard running workouts in a week, I call it a success.  This is partially because  I'm starting to focus more on total body fitness as opposed to just running fitness, and this means that my running mileage has taken a hit in favor of more total body workouts.

I finally made it back to the yoga studio for the first time since December last Friday.  I'm hopeful I can get back into a once a week yoga-studio pattern again, as once I'm in the habit, it's much easier to keep it up.  I've also been pretty good about keeping up a once a week jumprope/calisthenics workout.  I'd love to bump this one up to twice per week, but realistically speaking, once is great and I want to reward myself for the good stuff I'm doing rather than set goals that are unrealistic and be bummed when I don't hit them.  So, an A+ week for me these days would be 1 yoga class, 1 jumprope/calisthenics session, 2 hard running workouts, and 3 easy runs with relatively healthy food.  I get an A- if it's just 2 easy runs, which, since I took a rest day today, is the best I can do this week -- wish me luck.

Peachtree week's mileage was 20 including twice around the 3.4 loop in the North Georgia mountains with 500+ feet of climb post race.  I consider that workout a success if I average sub 15 minutes per mile, and I did on both, so yay!

Last week's mileage was 25 including 3.5 miles of hills in the Atlanta heat, 4X800 at the track, a good run/walk workout of 0.5 w/u; 10 X 1min hard, 1 min walk; 0.5 c/d and quite a bit of walking during the week to round it out.

My left leg is still a bit spotty, but I've been trying to stretch and strengthen -- I've taken to doing shoulder rehab exercises as well as stretching and strength at night while I watch my latest obsession: Bosch.

And there you have it.  Tomatoes are coming in.  Running is coming along nicely.  Summer is here.  All is well.

Peachtree Week -2.5

The garden is in great shape and I'm excited for the first ripe tomatoes, which I assume will arrive in a couple of weeks.

I'd been going with a week-based countdown for Peachtree.  But, July 4 is on a Wednesday.  Which means, my Monday start of the week leaves me with less than half a week for the final one.  So, I'll call this check-in Week -2.5.

Also, it just feels like we're getting closer to the 4th of July at a faster rate than I can describe and I think that's because the seasonal change makes everything Summer feel much more imminent.

I had a great week.  23.87 miles of walking/hiking/running with 67% running including a nice solid 9 miler at 11:56, some speedwork in the 8s & 9s, and 2 strength mile intervals between biking to the trail and back with E in the mid 10s.  The hiking was unplanned, but a friend texted me the night before and asked if I wanted to go hike the Stanford Dish the next morning while she was unexpectedly in town.   YES!  I love combining my workouts with catching up with friends.

Cross-training is an area of improvement -- I'm making the time and effort to do some stretching and rolling to try to avoid returning to my left leg hamstring/glute insertion issue.  I also ramped up to a very hardcore (for me) 30 minutes of 1:30/1:30 jumprope with calisthenics (pushups, scissor kicks/crunches, side lunges, knee thrust planks, dips, front & back lunge leg extensions, side plank leglifts, deep squats/cross knee to elbow, jab-jab-cross; pelvic bridge) -- my goodness does this workout kill me.  Plus, I fit in a bonus 12 miles of random biking (I owe E for this one, he prefers to bike as his transit and so I opted in a few times when we were going somewhere together).

On the food side of things, last week was the second week in a row where we slept at home all week.  This means I can cook dinner every night and do bulk food prep for freezing, which is something I love to do.  I absolutely love having frozen pinto beans, hummus, and other healthy home-made treats available for defrosted use.

Yellow squash noodles

Saturday night, we had a typical "let's eat the random stuff left in the fridge" before we go to the Farmer's market meal.  The ingredient that needed to be used before it went bad?  Yellow summer squash.  Examining our other ingredients, I decided to go with a carbonara-inspired dish that wasn't really carbonara at all.

Yellow squash noodles with a carbonara-inspired preparation 

of ground turkey, garlic, eggs, milk, and pepperjack cheese 

topped with fresh-grated SarVecchio (parmigiana-style hard cheese from Wisconsin) 

Like many of my food experiments, it was... good.  Not great.  Definitely not carbonara.  But a good meal that used up the ingredients we had lying around in a warm and yummy way.  It had been a while since I'd cooked with squash noodles and I'd forgotten that even if you salt them and let them drain, they do continue to give off more water when heated.  Perhaps next time I'll bake them before tossing them in the saucepan.

Summer is Almost Here (Peachtree Week -5)

E and I visited my hometown last weekend and built rockets with the kids at my mom's party. The next day, we set them off.

The kids are almost out of school.

BBQ season has started.

The tomatoes are growing like crazy and have officially overtaken the kale as the tallest plants in the garden.

My todo list for this week includes planting cucumbers, squash, eggplants & peppers.

I am happy, happy, happy.  I love everything about Summer *except* running in the heat.

And, running is definitely getting harder for this high-heat-generating human as the bay area temperatures start to rise.  Being near Sacramento just made it even more difficult.

Last week's hardest effort by far was 2 miles @ 10:52/mile pace, uphill back home from the rocket launch with my (much) younger sister in the 90F heat of my hometown.

Weekly mileage was less than 20, but I fit in a 7 miler followed by some decent strides as well as 2 other easy runs at paces that used to be a little harder, so I'm feeling pretty good.

I'm very much enjoying the scheduled workouts for the 10Ks.  They are easier to fit in, and I'm focused more on improving my speed than I have been in several years, which is a nice change.  Fitness comes in many forms, but being able to hold faster paces is a type of fitness I'd let go over the last few years.  My mantra had become "just get the miles done" because I found that if I had the added stress of a distance and a pace, if I didn't hit both I didn't get the feeling of satisfaction that I craved from my running hobby.

Being able to focus on racing 6.2 miles means more speed and strength work, and all of the results that come from that.  I'd been struggling with whether I was better off registering for the half or the 10K for RNR San Jose, but when I started plotting what the training cycle would look like I did not like the idea of double digit long runs in August or September, so I'll be doing the 10K and decided to pick one or more half-marathons later in the fall.

Open Space

After lots of big wide open spaces, we arrived in the Windy City!

I've written in the past about the connection, for me, between physical space, temporal space, emotional space, and mental space.

And then there's taste-space -- fois gras chocolates for dessert at Roister.  OBSCENELY TOO MUCH.

But this last week was the best manifestation of these concepts I've ever experienced.

I've had so much free thought (and super-weird free-association dreams).  Hours upon gloriously silent hours in the car while sitting as a passenger through South Dakota, Iowa, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, and tonight, Ohio.  5 new states for me (I only need 14 more to get a complete set!) and a world of internal musing and observation.

I'd never driven in to Illinois before!

Trucking is so important to the US economy.  Nothing like sitting in a vehicle on interstate mid-US freeways (or stopping at a rest stop, or chatting with motel workers whose families are supported by truckers) to drive that point home and cause you to think about how little we (city-dwellers) need to know or care about the infrastructure that makes our lives function on a day-to-day basis.

One of many random highway art installations.

Corn.  SO. MUCH. CORN.

The Memorial Union on the lake in Madison, WI.

The nature of friendship has been a big center of thought for me on this trip.  I feel E&I growing closer every day as we sit in silence for hours on end and share conversations and tidbits when we feel like it.  The level of intimacy and sharing is the maximum that introverts could have, and yet, it is predicated upon shared physical space and time.  Without the shared resources of place and time, we would not be as close.  Period.

Roister Fried Chicken.  Amazing.

I've also thought quite a bit about historical travel.  While I can keep in touch via cell phone, social media, etc, historically, those who had the souls of nomads (like me) had to choose to leave and abandon their loved ones in order to experience adventure.  This choice between (proximal) human connection and adventure actually still exists today, albeit in a more minor form.  The reality is, by taking the life route I've chosen, by making this trip, I've essentially become a bit (even more?) of an expat. There are very few people in the region I consider my "home" who have chosen a life like the one I've chosen this year.  I have selected distance from them, both in terms of physical distance and time, and also, emotional and mental distance.  Me and my obvious normative cohort have less and less in common every time I choose something that is not the norm for my region/demographic/gender/etc.  Much like those who chose to Go West back in the day, or those who leave their home countries for foreign adventure or just re-integration elsewhere, I find myself feeling like I have less and less in common with most of the people I used to think of as *my people*.

View up the Chicago River from Lake Michigan.

A long weekend in Chicago with family reminded me, yet again, that shared physical time/location really is one of the most important sources of human closeness.  I feel very blessed to have married into an extremely cool family.  3 days of walking (urban-hiking 8ish miles is exhausting!), eating, drinking and laughing with them reminds me that despite my unique choices, I still have people in my tribe who are close to me and with whom I can share important memories, we just have to seek each other out and make the effort to compromise on time/locations/logistics, ideally finding a solution that is realistically workable and psuedo-comfortable for all of us that meshes into a wonderfully awesome meld that wouldn't otherwise exist. 

And, on the obligatory workout report, mileage for last week with hiking, running, and walking/sight-seeing was a respectable 30.88 plus several workouts including upper body and core.

Missing the end of tomato season in California - BT.  

Family Fun

Yet Another Delicious Tomato-heavy Summer Dinner

Sister came to visit with my niece and nephew last week.  They are so adorable.  I would post a picture to show you just how adorable they are, but she is very careful about rarely publishing her children's photos online and asking friends and family to do the same, so I can't.

For work, so far, this August is *slow*.  Like crazy slow.  Since the beginning of the month, I've been getting roughly the same amount of emails in a full workday that I received in each day's busiest work hour in June (last month of the quarter).  

I'm not complaining.  It's been several years of full throttle work and it's nice to have an unexpected break.  It's not even the week before Labor Day yet! (A large percentage of my clients or opposing folks on deals go to Burning Man, so I can always count on a slow week prior to Labor Day.)

On the running front, this week was nothing impressive.  I continue to struggle to find time to fit it in and/or be motivated, but I cleared the doctor-approved minimum of 20 miles for a total of 24.74 miles, with much walking.  In terms of high-effort, there wasn't much, but I did huff and puff my way through a 3 miler with Sister while she pushed her 40 lb 4 year-old and 20 lb toddler in the double jogging stroller.  She ditched me on her way up one of the hills for an extra effort -- I'm blaming it on the fact that she's 6 years younger...  When I caught up, I offered to let her go ahead to finish at a faster clip, but she said, "No way!  How often do I get to run with my sister?  I'm sticking with you."  Sister is right -- time with family when you live far away is *way* more important that having the best workout you could on any given day.  

In that theme, I traded in my planned Sunday AM 9 miler out to the cemetery to visit Dad for a 1.84 mile walk around the neighborhood with Mom.

E and I went back to my home town on Saturday to have a celebratory birthday dinner with Mom and Brother.  We went to Peruvian food and it was delicious -- Mmmmmm... ceviche.  On our drive home, a childhood friend and her husband waved us down on the street (literally, an arm hanging out of the window while they passed us honking).  So they came over to Brother's and we all caught up.  It was such an unexpected and wonderful surprise -- I see them a couple times a year, but it had been 9 years since Mom had seen them and at least 2 or 3 years since Brother had seen them.  After the late night, I slept in and opted to walk and talk with Mom instead of going for a run -- It was definitely the right decision.

Overall, it was a great Summer week.  It's been a long time since I've seen Brother, Mother, and Sister in the same week.  Actually, it had been a year since last year's Summer celebratory dinner (where we were all together as opposed to this year, when it was in the same week, but not all together).  I wish we all lived closer.  

Summer Celebration -- The Gift That Keeps On Giving

Nice tomato harvest.  Not so nice phone-camera shadow...

So, Saturday, I cleared out the tomatoes from the garden and the haul wasn't bad (see above), but it wasn't *anything* like what I'm used to seeing this time of year.  I'd been blaming the crazy overcast May, June, and even minor rain in July, but finally, on this harvest, moving between the plants, even without sufficient weeding, I could tell that something was fundamentally wrong...

Uggghhh... Apparently, our automatic drip system timer died.  Who knows how long ago.  We tested it when we put the plants in, and a few times since, but we haven't really tried it much because it's been so loyally perfect.  Since 2008.  When we bought it.  And now?  It's silent.  The timer can click (which means, open the gates, water should flow) but nothing happens.  After a few minutes of trouble-shooting, I was hopeful that I'd missed something that E could find.  But no.  We came to the same conclusion.  This unit had a good 7 years.  And our garden has not been getting timed water for who knows how long - possibly 8 weeks.  (But don't worry, we still deliver cherry tomatoes to folks when it is important.)
 

Date night with E2 & P at the Grove.  More cleavage than I planned...

 A new timer has been ordered.  Plants that are dried beyond expectation have been watered.  And, for the second year in a row, we went to the Santa Cruz Shakespeare comedy that happened to be playing around my birthday. 

The beautiful SC Shakespeare redwood grove.  Last year for this venue.

Oh, Man.  This production was awesome.  Seriously.  If you think you don't like Shakespeare, as my Shakespeare professor at Cal said -- go to a good production of Much Ado About Nothing -- if you don't like it, you are right -- you just aren't a Shakespeare person.  But I dare you to try to be that person, it is so hilariously enjoyable.

You say birthday cake, I say deviled eggs with caviar.

Meanwhile, I have several friends who ran the San Francisco Marathon and the Big Basin 50K and I was proud of each of them.  Also, E2 and I went and cheered in person for Wharf to Wharf, which was interesting, in that we were somewhere between mile 1 and 2 and it was *very* crowded and folks were slowing down due to back-ups.  This race had previously been on my *to-do* list, but now, after seeing the crowds so long after the start, I'm not sure.  I may be happy to just cheer from the sidelines and deliver goodies to my neighbors.

One lunchtime harvest this week.  No complaints.

In other news, Summer is awesome.  The garden puts out great stuff.

In my complacency, my weekly mileage was a horrid 15.66 on my feet, including much walking.  For the folks who are wondering, yes, I do plan to do a 5K and a 10K in the fall.  I've been fitting in some random decent tempos and intervals, but really, I suck.  I did add 11 miles of biking and another couple of sets of calisthenics to the mix this week (including 20 minutes this AM -- 3X10 pushups, dips, abs, yoga, etc. -- it's gonna hurt tomorrow).

Essentially, I'm relaxed.   Happy.  About to go grab a new book and go to bed.  Ready for whatever next week brings!

Summertime...

E and I hosted some new friends for a dinner party tonight.

It's always fun and a little intimidating to host new people.  I got more dressed up than normal (which meant I was dressed down for most women in my situation, but still).  I spent time thinking about and preparing the meal.

In fact, I was quite proud of the menu, even if I did burn the bagel chips to the point of "throw-'em-in-the-compost" 

You might think that slicing and basting with olive and roasting bagel chips would be easy...

In my excitement to prep for dinner I forgot to set a timer.  By the time I smelled them, the bagel chips tasted like charcoal...

Thank goodness the rest of the meal was wonderful!

This! This is Summer!

Gazpacho (75% from the garden). Grilled okra (huge hit, first time we'd made it), shishitos (grilled, from the garden, huge hit) & eggplant (from the farmer's market, need to work on the marinade recipe). Sliced Cherry garden tomatoes (always a hit, plus we fed Guito as entertainment with one). Smoked salmon, caviar & capers (we're so Californian, we warned them at arrival and offered to grill sausage if they needed more animal protein, so I guess we aren't *that* stereotypically Californian). Goat gouda (double gold Californian gouda competition winner from our local farmer's market, always a huge hit), manchego (who doesn't like Manchego), & d'Affinois (if you like creamy cow cheese, this will keep you happy). Chateauneuf Du Pape (nice guest move!  We were very pleased and honored with what they brought.). Good olive oil, balsamic & fancy salt (all 3 of these are required at every meal in our house). Sliced baguettes (thank goodness I bought that baguette even though I didn't *need* it since I thought we'd still have the bagel chips...)

Summer!

I *LOVE* Summer.  The childhood sense of freedom and fun and running and sun and swimming and reading without school to interrupt is a feeling I look forward to each year.

My own sense of Summer isn't tied to the calendar.  Rather, there are several markers I look for and when enough of them have occurred, the weekends feel like I'm on Summer Vacation.

The heat is a big one.  And we haven't had much of that so far this year.

But Saturday, thanks to Jen, I drove out to Richmond for a fun race in the heat.  I'd registered for the 10K, but when I hit the end of the first lap I needed a restroom break.  So, I dropped down to the 5K, finished early, and waited for Jess or Kate (who were doing the 6 hour endurance challenge) to come through so I could accompany them on their next loop.

This meant I got to see Jen finish the 10K.  She ran hard, and I thought she was 3rd woman overall, but I must have missed one, as she ended up 4th.  She did, however, take first in her age group.  Actually, my time wasn't official since I changed races, but according to my Garmin, I ended up 2nd in my age group in the 5K, which was pretty cool.  Plus I got to do the second loop of my non-standard 10K with Jess, and I was next to her when she yelled, "Hey Kate.  26.3 miles!"  Just another day, another marathon, for Jess and Kate.

Check out that age group medal!

Sunday AM, I ran 2 miles with E in more heat, and then did another mile cool down on my own.  Total mileage for the week: 20.92.  Woo hoo, over 20.  Now to start actually training for my fall 5K and 10K...

Back to Summer.  Other things that pique my Summer Sense?

Eating collections of random deliciousness outside and calling it dinner.

Why yes that is leftover veggie burrito, cheese, olive bread and tomatoes for dinner.

Late night sunsets.

View from our backyard.

 The Farmer's Market bounty.

And yes, it's not healthy, but it's true: that first sunburn of the year.  Thanks to the Dirty Dozen running event on Saturday, I have slightly tight skin and my body knows its Summer.

Happy Summer All!

  

Minor Progress

The remodel continues to move a few steps forward and then a few steps back.  The major efforts this week involved all sorts of electrical work that we hadn't counted on doing.  Creative do-it-yourselfers... you really do make the gift that keeps on giving to the future owners of your projects...

As a result of the electrical stuff, we've lost the majority of the outdoor kitchen, so we're really relying on the kindness of strangers for things like laundry and cooking.  The good news is, once we pass the next permit inspection this week everything is supposed to move very quickly.  The bad news is, I haven't quite gotten around to ordering the sinks, faucets, hardware for the cabinets, countertops, or tiles.  So, I've got a big week ahead of me to try to get ahead of all of this supposed "quick-moving" construction (I'll believe it when I see it).  Thankfully, they still have to sheetrock and install the cabinets, which I figure has to include at least one more unforseen delay if history is any guide. 

On the running front, I did not hit all of my workouts this week.  But I did manage 38.5 miles, including 4 X 1 mile intervals at sub 9:50 and today's 15.1 including 1150 feet of climbing and descent (was supposed to be 17, but I was shot after the hills and slow pace resulting in almost 4 hours on my feet).  I also managed an additional 152 minutes of easy cardio (recumbant biking & elliptical) in the gym while reading on several days, which felt great and helped my confidence regarding my overall fitness.

Overall, I'm good, but tired.  I've been giving away tomatoes almost every day due to lack of canning and drying facilities, which has been very rewarding.  I've also started needing extra sleep, which is typical for me when I get closer to a marathon, but it requires more time, which is something I'm a bit short on.

What I'm not feeling (yet) is burnt out on running.  Given that I'm burnt out on work, the overhead of the construction/home life, and travel, I'm considering it a win that I'm managing to train and avoid burn-out so far in the midst of all that stuff.

Yes, this comfort I have with dialing back my workouts may result in a much slower than historic marathon for me.  I've made my peace with this and actually look forward to just enjoying Chicago to best of my ability.  Bonus, today I found out that another friend of mine is also going to be in Chicago.  So I'll have yet another person to bond with in Chicago, which should be awesome.

Also, Saturday, I attended the get-to-know you get-together for the Napa Ragnar team that was nice enough to include me.  I'm excited to do it -- it's definitely going to be outside of my comfort zone to hang out with a bunch of folks while running/driving/eating/sleeping for 36 hours, but I think it's going to be a great experience over all.  The party was a hit, our team captain is the bomb, and all the folks on my team seem like a fun group (plus my tomato salad was appreciated and I successfully gave away some tomatoes!).

I'm looking forward to my oh-so-not-standard last long run weekend before taper as a member of this relay team.  I'll be doing somewhere between 23 and 25 miles in 3 legs in 36 hours, which is nobody's ideal last long run before taper, but this is me.  And right now, when it comes to running, I'm all about *close enough*.

Transitions

So, a week or two ago, I finally admitted that we weren't getting any more lettuce from our spring garden:

The most bolted lettuce I've ever had in the garden

When the lettuce is exposed to too much heat and sun, it grows tall and bitter in its efforts to send up seed pods.  I can tell you from personal experience that you don't want to eat any of the leaves after this happens.  It's a sure-fire way to turn someone who is on the fence about leafy greens into dead-set opposition, they (both the leaves and the skeptical greens-eater) truly do become quite bitter.

Despite my Summer blog post, I'm actually very well aware of the current seasonal limbo.  We keep going from days of extreme heat back down to highs in the reasonable 70s like today, where we met up with friends for a run at 10 AM (something that would have been crazy 2 weeks ago when the highs were over 90F).

For me, the epitome of Summer is tomato harvest.

And right now, while we've got a good start, there's quite a ways to go (note the complete and utter lack of any color other than green on the tomato plants).

Same story with my running.  I'm aware that I'm actually training for and running two fall marathons.  But, truly, it's so far away, that nothing feels real yet.  I've got 17 weeks 'til Chicago.  In the meantime, I've got a visit from my niece and brother, a trip to Raleigh and 10K in ATL, a trip to NYC for family, a trip to Napa with family, a getaway weekend in Half Moon Bay, and a Ragnar Relay from SF to Napa.  There will be many long, long runs in there.  But right now after today's 6+ mile long run, it seems so unreal.  4 (Four!) X as long as today?  Really?  Best not to think about it.

This week, I made my way through 28.82+ miles on my feet, with much walking.  But, I hit a localized low point on the scale, which was a nice development (as I really do need to drop several pounds to have pleasant marathon experiences).

June is a rough month for work due to the end of the traditional fiscal quarter, so I haven't made it back to track club since before my last half marathon.  Instead, I did some tempo interval work and managed to fit in 14% of my miles this week sub 10 min/mile, including at least a mile total somewhere in the 8s, which feels good.

Today's run felt like a turning point, in terms of effort.  I started with 3.72 easy on my own, running in high 10s/mile on super low effort, and then I joined our recent every-weekend run and brunch group (E, C, G and me) and pulled off 2.9 miles of harder intervals 4:00/1:00 walking R/I with G, running the last one solo at a reasonable approximation of target marathon pace.  Nothing huge in terms of distance or speed, but a solid effort and one that left me hungry for next week, and curious about where my fitness actually is, which is a good sign.

In personal literary news, I ordered entirely too many books from the local independent bookstore and left with a very heavy bag on Saturday.  I think I have to cut myself off.  I haven't really counted, but between Harry Potter book I'm co-reading with my niece, Arvay's last shipment, E2's recent donations, a book or two from E, the required books for next book club (Dracula and The Hound of the Baskervilles) and my recent additions from the support-your-local-bookstore binge, I probably have 15 physical books in my current queue, not to mention the audio books in my wishlist.

And, on the linguistic front,  DuoLingo owns me.  I am fully engaged in their "game-oriented" learning approach.  I did sit down to work on the *real* textbook this weekend (as promised).  But, I've been a bit shocked to realize just how much effort I will make to play the silly games.  Given that it's just improving my grammar, vocabulary, and formal Spanish knowledge, I'm not complaining at all.

So there you have it, garden, running, reading, and language.  Add that E2 and I are doing well, I seem to be keeping the practice of law confined to 55-65 hours per week, we had some fun nights out with friends last week, BBQ season is in full swing, and we're looking forward to hosting the niece this week and that's my current life in a nutshell.  

A Little Variety

Last weekend, on our walk to Sunday night date night dinner, E & I stopped to chat with a neighbor who has some very nice plants (both edible and decorative).  I'd admired from afar what they'd done with the front yard ever since they'd moved in (you put chard in newly added soil along your sidewalk?  we will be friends).  So I was happy to see her out watering and to introduce myself.

As you may know, I love to garden.

And this is how I made my new friend, J, who is awesome.  She's the most foul-mouthed person I've encountered in a long time.  She's also a dedicated gardener, hippy, bee-keeper, greenhouse maintainer, and full-time mom of 2 (5 and 7).  Her spoken vernacular reminds me so much of many of my brother's friends from our hometown, which is a nice spice of variety that I rarely encounter in the bay area.  She's also super opinionated and open with her views (quite often very much in opposition to the norm in the bay area), which, frankly, is a bit refreshing.  I may or may not agree with her, but it's nice to be challenged to think and/or realize that others in the world see things from a different perspective.

Today, at 10:30 AM, our doorbell rang.  We ignored it.  I was working in my robe, trying to get enough done to justify heading out for an easy run before brunch/lunch and a much-deserved bloody mary.  E was working/puttering around the interwebs in his pajamas.  It was Saturday, we had no plans, and we certainly expected no visitors.

We heard voices and assumed it was a solicitor.  But, after a few minutes, there was another knock.  They were insistent!  I opened the curtains to peer out and saw J -- Holding a seedling in her hands.

Oh!  That's right.  I'd told her to stop by this weekend and I'd give her some tomato seedlings.

I love that she remembered and came on over.  I loved even more that she brought me a plant, too!  I yelled, "Just a minute!"  Threw on some real clothes and opened the door.

We proceeded to talk for at least 45 minutes about the sunflower seedling gift she'd brought (supposed to grow taller than me!), plus gardening and nature and the weather and cops and crime and her views on the law and contracts and construction and bees and praying mantises and ladybugs and greenhouses and her gift with seeds and, of course, guito and our mutual love of reptiles. 

All of this was peppered with her *extremely* colorful language.  Those of you who know me in the meat-world know that I can have quite a sailor's mouth.  I try to moderate it around children, but often I fail.  Even so, J puts me at my most unfiltered to shame.  Every 3rd or 4th word out of her mouth is a hearty invective. 

The funniest part of this whole exchange to me was realizing that I must have physically flinched every time she used the word "bitch".  I hate that word.  I am generally tolerant and unfazed by just about any type of curse words (other than racial or other minority-demeaning epithets, which she didn't use). 

But "bitch" just really upsets me.  In fact, I once almost left E at a party when we first started dating (and I'd driven him to the party and he had no car and we were at least 20 miles from his apartment) because he used the word "bitch" for the first time in front of me. 

Perhaps it's because I was raised in a family where this word was actually used in it's technically correct sense (my father had hunting dogs, and the term "bitch in heat" is actually a medically important condition that needs to be controlled for...).  Perhaps it's because every time I hear it, I think, "what's the male equivalent?" and when I can't figure it out my head explodes.  Frankly, I don't know why.  I just know that I viscerally hate it.

So, at the end of her visit, just before she left, she shared yet another story about her landlord, who she'd regularly referred to as "that bitch" or "such a bitch" and she said, "so I told the plumber... 'oh-no! You call that b...woman back.  You make her pay you for the work you did!'"

And I realized... wow!  She just self-censored.  It must be very obvious that I *really* don't like that word.  I'm not even sure I want to be the reason people self-censor.  I'd rather have a thoughtful conversation about the term and discuss whether she wants to use it after we consider why it bothers me so much and also why it clearly doesn't bother her.

But no, we didn't get there.  She made a huge linguistic effort on my behalf, so now I'm an even bigger fan of J than I already was.  We share so many common interests that are relatively uncommon, *and* she paid enough attention to my reactions (that I didn't even know I was having) to modify her language.

Sometimes life gives us such great unexpected gifts.  And today, I am consciously grateful.

Random

**GARDEN UPDATE**

Part of the explanation for the low mileage and lack of disciplined fitness commitment the last few months is how much work and how enjoyable it is to do gardening (and slow roasting, and sauce-canning, and gift-giving) when this is the weekend harvest:

**BIKRAM/RUNNING UPDATE**

Last week, I managed a lackluster 21.68 miles and it was clear that I needed to buckle down.  So, I drafted a training plan for SJ RNR. It required that I commit on a few levels.  I started with a difficult one for me, first thing -- Back to Bikram.

As scheduled on the plan, today, I sucked it up and returned to the Bikram hot room for the first time in almost 4 months.  On the drive in, I realized I was actually *scared*.  This studio is no joke, and they keep the room at a much hotter temperature than anywhere else I've ever practiced Bikram.

It was very interesting to recognize that I was scared but I was still going to do my best to execute on my plan -- I was going to walk in, buy a 10 class (3 month card), and I was going to do my best to stay in that damn hellish room for the full 90 minutes even if it felt like I was going to die.  (Let's be clear -- despite seriously considering an exit on multiple occasions during the class, I never actually felt anything like I was going to die, and if I did, I would have stood up and gotten the fuck out of there so quickly they wouldn't have known what happened. Sorry about the "do my best" hyperbole, but I had to engage in it to psych myself up for today's return to the hot room.  Forgive me.)  Also, I opted out of a ridiculous percentage of the poses, and, as per the Bikram thing -- I got hot enough to take off my shirt and I had to look straight into mirror and contemplate the current reality of my body in a sports bra and boy shorts while sweating and contorting.  Yup.  Bikram is hard-core on every axis.  I'm not sure if this is good or bad.  But it's true.

Somehow, while almost leaving at minute 44, I managed to stick it out for the remaining 46 and I left proud.  Exhausted.  Sweat-covered and ready to attack the rest of my day, which, frankly, seemed super easy after that madness.

Oh.  Right.  That's why I do this.

Also, in a magical coincidence, the rest of my day was super easy.  Thanks, clients! (Or Bikram-God.  Whatever.)

**GUITO UPDATE**

He continues to grow and he is super cute.  That is all.

**AND FINALLY**

If you know someone who regularly does canning, they probably have plenty of jars (and if they don't, new ones come with bands and lids), and they *definitely* have plenty of bands.

So, Public Service Announcement: LIDS ARE THE ONLY DISPOSABLE COMPONENT OF CANNING SUPPLIES! -- these are the gifts you should give your canning friends. (From me, with a cupboard full of bands and jars.  And a dearth of new lids in the midst of the canning madness that this Summer's prolific garden is causing...)