Swirl scared me today. I didn't expect him in the dryer...it brought back the horrible memory of my dear cat, Charlie, and his tumble in the dryer. Thankfully my parents realized he was in there and he didn't die. But he was injured. Dad lied and said he fell down the steps. Mom woke up and told me the truth.

Swirl is very silly, the dryer wasn't even warm...those clothes have been in there all week so it was probably cold. 

It was a very emotional day. We said good bye to our fellow band member and friend Mary Rehaume. She passed away unexpectedly earlier this week, she was in her 40s. A lot of members from the Eden Prairie Community Band, members of the St. Hubert’s musical ensemble (she played there too), some her students and other people she had touched played the recessional music. There were a lot of us, it was a full band! We played in the gathering area of St. Hubert’s Catholic Church in Chanhassen. It was so nice to see such an outpouring of support for her. And the family and friends stood around and watched us play. It is really hard to play trombone when you are crying! I was touched by the family waiting for us to finish our songs…and then they clapped for us. It was a very fitting end for somebody who was so involved in music. I think she was looking down and was proud.  Heaven got one of the best flutist I know! She will be missed!

After our frigid 5K run, we rushed home to shower and change and get ready for our drive to Wisconsin. It was the annual Knights of Columbus Gala at the Catholic school. We went last year too so this is becoming one of those annual things I guess. The food was good; pork roast, beef tips in gravy, potatoes etc. I talked to a lot of people but most people were shocked to see Mike. Many haven’t seen him since he lost the weight. We stayed a lot longer than last year. We didn’t leave until after the drawing at 10:30.  Anna won the $200…lucky duck!

Sunday morning we had quiche and killer brownie for breakfast…the brownie wasn’t really for breakfast but it was hot and gooey so I had to eat some. Shortly after that we got chicken from the Chicken Q fundraiser. It was good, not the best but good. I love chicken from a Chicken Q. Yum! We played a couple games of Yahtzee and then we had our taxes done. It was a good weekend with lots of food. 

Wednesday (Ash Wednesday) I need to start my crash diet because in 26 days I have a dress I need to fit into! :)

The February race is in the books and as expected it was the coldest day of the month so far. What is it with me and this racing curse? The weather has been awesome all month but bam we get hit with a cold front that drops the temps below zero and the wind chill at -23 degrees. It was COLD!

The course was at Lake Harriet, the same course as Reindeer run…but we ran the opposite way. I don’t like running this way. I like the Reindeer run way. I’ll get to why in a minute.

The Start and Mile 1

There was not a warming tent, so we all huddled around each other to stay warm. Not cool in my book. The start was fine, no big fanfare, just go. The first mile was my fastest; it was mostly down a slight hill so that isn’t surprising. There were the usually walkers who decide to start in the front and then walk down the middle of the course. I love that people are out there walking, it is great! But please don’t walk down the middle of the course! ARGH! So I had to weave around them. Sometimes I couldn’t get around so I had to walk too until I could get a clearing. It really makes me angry, especially at the beginning of a run! My first mile was under 11. Yes! Under 11 again, it has been a while!

Mile 2

The second mile started out ok. I was really hot after the first mile but thankfully I didn’t strip any layers off. At the half way point we were on the south side of Lake Harriet, the very exposed side of lake…with a north wind. Yikes! It was COLD. The sweat didn’t help either. It was a rough time. The wind also caused drifting of what little snow we had and it was on the path so we  had to trudge through snow, while trying to avoid the northern wind. It was a miserable time.

The Last Mile and Finish

After battling the wind for about a half of mile, we encountered the couple hills on the course…this is why I like Reindeer run better. I don’t want to run hills after running most of the race. I want the hills in the beginning. With the cold and my lack of training, I was having issues breathing so I had to walk a bit. I was upset but really I couldn’t keep going. My last mile was my worst (I accidently hit the lap button on my watch that is why it has a .38 mile lap…oops!). I was very happy to see the finish. There really wasn’t much fanfare at the end either. You cross the finish line and wait in a longish line for water and food. Overall my race was ok considering I haven’t been training like I should. I finished at 35:24. My pace was faster than the last 2 races too so that makes me happy. And if I didn’t have to walk!!!I could have been under 35 again. Darn that cold!

Pictures

  

Before pictures...all bundled up!

  

After pictures, not so bundled up and icy faces

Maps and Stats

We are eight days into February and over two weeks since I last wrote anything worthwhile. And really not much has happened…except we had the flu run through our house and our furnace stopped working twice in one week. So yea it hasn’t been the best couple of weeks…or really year!

Furnace problems

So after the Scurry Flurry, our furnace went out. Thankfully it was warm enough that our house didn’t get too cold. We called the emergency CenterPoint Energy Home Service Plus line to get them to come out and fix it hopefully. Well they came out and we had heat again. Yay! That last 2 days. I woke up Friday morning and it was 60 degrees in our house again. Dammit! After work we called again…and again, thankfully it was somewhat warm outside so it didn’t get too cold in the house. This time and older guy came out and did a lot more work on it and bypassed some switch and presto we have heat. He also did something else ot the furnace so we aren’t losing heat in the furnace room and it has made a huge difference. No new furnace required yet. Whew!

Murder at the Prom

Last Saturday we went down to Mankato for Ethan’s play, Murder at the Prom. It was good. The story was…different…I’m not sure what part of town this high school was in considering everybody had hand guns but whatever. Here he is in his Col. Mustard (from the Clue game) prom outfit:

Super Bowl

The rest of the weekend we didn’t do much…I had work to do…yes work. I even worked during the Super Bowl, on my couch. Speaking of the Super Bowl, I’m not much of a fan and didn’t really care about the game but we watch it anyways on a "delay" so we could fast forward through the game and watch the commercials. Eric kept saying this game had to go into overtime. I reassured him it did not. He continued to say that this game went into overtime and again I would said no. On the third (or tenth) time, I told him the final score was 28-24. I was sick of him saying that it went into OT. Well that was the worst thing to say…as soon as I said it, Seattle kicked a field goal and Eric knew who won (and he wasn’t happy). I told him if he just trusted me when I said it didn’t go into OT instead of badger me…this wouldn’t have happened. But the only way to get him to believe me was tell him the final score which had a difference of 4 and would confirm it. Oh well.

Tuesday

So on the way to work on Tuesday Eric says, I don’t feel so good. Hum. At 10am my house calls me. Yep, Eric is home, sick with the flu. That is fine, I thought, I’ll just take the bus to the park and ride and he can pick me up. Nope, he is too sick to pick me up. Well, how the heck am I supposed to get home?  There used to be a shuttle that would go from the park and ride lot into town (the park and ride is 7 miles from the main/old part of Shakopee, dumb…I know!) Well on 1/1/15, Shakopee Transit was taken over by MVTA and the shuttle bus no longer exists (I found that out 2 days later…MVTA has horrible customer service). Thankfully, my director overheard my conversation with Eric specifically, my comment that “I’m not walking 7 miles in cold, blowing snow to get home.” She offered to give me a ride home. After waiting an hour for her bus (it was an hour late!), we rode the bus to her house in Bloomington (with the snow took almost 2 hours). And then she drove me home. She lives just on the other side of the river so it wasn’t too far but Eric better be appreciative!! My commute home was 3 hours.

Fast forward to Friday.

I thought I was in the clear. Eric was feeling much better and I didn’t catch it yet. That changed quickly. I went to work Friday, feeling fine. By 10, I wasn’t feeling the best, by 11, I was in tears wanting to go home but Eric didn’t respond to my emails or phone calls. By noon, Eric finally called me and took me home. I slept the rest of the day and Saturday too. It was a rough week!

But I lost 5 pounds...Thanks Eric!

Runs: 14

Miles: 36.3
Races: 1 (Flurry Scurry 5K 36:20)

Outdoors: 8
Indoors: 6

Longest: 4 miles
Average Pace: 11:58

2015 started out terrible. I didn’t get off the couch until January 9th and I had a rough start back into running after so many days off. That is part of the reason my month was so low on mileage. I didn’t want to go out there and do a 5, 6 or 7 mile run without properly building back to that distance. I know Eric said that 9 days is nothing but I don’t want to get hurt and then be forced to sit out. 

I had one race this month, the Lake Minnetonka Flurry Scurry. I’m not happy with my time. But my average pace was faster than the horrible Resolution Run in December. My weight hasn’t really come off this month so I’m still luging around an extra 9 pounds of fat.

I hate January. However, we were lucky as the temperature were fairly mild. But I hate running at night in the winter. I can’t see ice patches. I know excuses! My pace got a bit faster than December but I did very short runs in January which are generally faster. We will see how the next month will be.

Trophies for January

There are some new trophies out there. The first three I’ve never seen before. The first one is “Race Speed: Fast company. You earned 28+ per minute for 50 minutes.” (I’m not sure what that means but it sounds good.) The second one, “Mighty Monday: You beat the Mondays and topped your Best Monday.”  So that one is cool. And the last new one is “Supersonic. We felt that one. You earned 18+ a minute for 30 minutes, 3 times a week.” (I’m assuming that means I had 3 hard workouts this week)