Balled, derailed

I am not sure how much I will get to blog once my dad shows up so I figure I’ll do what I can now.

Saturday morning we timed a race.  It was our first time timing this particular race, they held it last year as an untimed “fun run”.   We ran into a few issues as is normal the first time the club does a race.  The parking area, registration area, start line and finish line were all a considerable distance away from each other making the race logistically difficult.  I only had a few minutes to get the finish line timing equipment running before the first runner crossed because of the long walk from the start line.

We also seemed to be short of hands to both set up everything and tear it down which is never a good thing.  We worked through the issues and pulled off a decent event I think.

Ali again on Friday made a strong effort to get a lot of stuff done around the house.  We had more than usual to attend to since I also wanted to give the grass a once over so it looked decent for our visitors.  Saturday afternoon we finished up the cleaning, mowing and weed whacking.  We had a compressed schedule because of attending the Pet Lover’s Ball.

They were having the ball at yet another location this year, they seem to move it around yearly for some reason.  It didn’t take long till we saw the first dogs accompanying their owners into the hotel.  Ali has bugged me about bringing our girls for a few years and I always didn’t want to because I thought it would be too big of a distraction.  Nicki would want constant protection/reassurance and Sadie would be like a bull in a china shop.

Well this year it might have not been too bad.  They had a much larger area designated for the silent auction unlike last year where you felt like a sardine jammed into a much too small room.

The silent auction didn’t have too many items that excited me.  We did actually bid on one item, a private box suite for an Everblades hockey game.  The suite would hold up to 10 people.  It also included a hockey stick autographed by the team.  We were in the bidding up until the last minute or so but the dollar figure went above what I considered reasonable for the package so we backed out.

This year was a sit down dinner with assigned tables.  I got stuck sitting next to an old lady who was a freelance writer for the newspaper.  I found her annoying as she was constantly trying to wedge herself into conversation with me and as the night wore on I got really tired of her unflattering remarks about the gay couple that was at our table. Old coot.

We almost had a meal issue.  Ali said she made a verbal reservation with one of the Humane Society staff so she didn’t get to officially chose the vegetarian dinner option.  She figured she could just request it.  She told the server she was a vegetarian and needed the all veggie plate.  The server said she wasn’t sure if they had any of the vegetarian meals left but she would check.

Well out comes Ali’s meal, a piece of steak and some scallops.  The server said they didn’t have any veggie dinners left which made no sense.  Unless these were tv dinners made in a microwave it should not be too hard to throw some vegetables on a plate.  So Ali sat there with a plate in front of her she wouldn’t eat.  For what each ticket to this thing costs it seemed pretty ridiculous that they couldn’t accommodate her.

Well just as Ali was chowing down on a roll which she thought would be her meal the server comes back out with a vegetarian plate for Ali.  Crisis averted.

The best part of the meal was the desert.  The service overall was disappointing.  Before the meal they came around with wine.  They served everyone but two people at our table but then emptied a bottle and didn’t come back until like a half hour later.  At the end of the meal they asked if I wanted coffee, which I did.  They gave me a cup, cream and sugar but never came back with the actual coffee.  It was pretty lame.

The live auction items didn’t seem to draw the big bucks I am used to seeing.  I bet the 5 items that went up didn’t raise 20k between them.  I left the ball thinking that this year’s event overall would probably be at the bottom of the list for me.

Sunday morning I wanted to get a long 10 mile run in.  Ali planned to bring her bike and ride while I was running.  My plan was to run an even bigger outside loop this time, pushing my cross over road up to Logan Blvd instead of Oakes.  On the way there we dropped a bottle of water at the intersection of Logan and Vanderbilt Beach Road, thinking that was approximately the half way point.

I wasn’t real happy on the way there when I saw the car outside thermometer was already reading in the mid-70’s.  The higher temps paired with what felt to be decent humidity was going to make for a difficult run.

So I headed out, not feeling very into the run.  It was one of those days that running with someone would definitely help.  Nonetheless I tried to push my pace,  with the idea of what is required for a two hour half marathon in my head.

Right from the get go the run was uncomfortable. The bright sun and rising temps made me heat up quickly.  I still managed to hit the bottle drop spot which was around 4.75 miles in a little over 40 minutes. Once I stopped to drink I realized I felt a strong urge to pee.  I tried to casually walk over behind a row of hedges where I dropped to my knees and then bent over at the waist to conceal my urination from cars that were driving by.  I am sure it looked ridiculous.

I chugged the small 12 ounce bottle of water until it was empty.  I was a bit concerned that was the only hydration I would have for the rest of the run.  I also downed the first of the two energy Goo packets I brought along.

So I took off again.  After stopping to drink my body was not real happy with running again, I was feeling more drained than I would like to be at the 5 mile mark.  Eventually the water and Goo kicked in and helped me push on.

This loop is tough mentally because it is just a big huge rectangle.  You would see your turning points far off in the distance but they looked so far away that it was discouraging.  I tried to combat that by using short term visual markers, in my case light poles, each of which may have been a couple hundred feet apart.

So as I was running long, feeling more miserable as I went, I was trying to figure out how far I would have to run yet once I got back to the water park.  My rough math said if half way was a little less than 4.75 miles then I should have somewhere between a half and three quarters of a mile to go once I get back to the park.  Ok, I can do that regardless I thought to myself.

So as I am back on Livingston I keep pushing through the discomfort, pushing to keep my pace up since I knew I only had a short distance to go once I reentered the park.  So I turn in the driveway look at my GPS and see 8.34 miles.  The shock of that number instantly short circuited my mental toughness and I stopped instantly, the idea of trudging close to another two miles shut me down.  As I stood there I wondered how the F I could have misjudged the distance so badly.  I realized if I would have continued back to Immokalee Road I would have then hit the true halfway point.

I was pissed.  Once I stopped my legs turned into cement and felt like they wanted to cramp, I was severely short on the amount of hydration I needed to run in those conditions.  Twice I started to run, trying to just suck it up and run to get my intended 10 miles and twice I stopped less than a 1/4 mile after starting.  My legs felt awful, my mind felt awful, I pulled the plug.

I saw Ali who was riding her bike around the park and told her I was done.  I trudged back to the truck and drank whatever water we had there.

It was a very disappointing run overall even if I did manage a 8:55 pace for the 8.5 miles I wound up running.

After the run we ran into Michelle and the kids. We also saw Matt and his little boy Zach.  I told Matt I could have used him out there as a running partner.

Inside the pool we hung with Michelle and the kids a bit.  We sat at the bottom of the waterslide as Parker got to take his first ride ever, he was finally tall enough. He was so excited.   After Michelle went down with him the first time, I took him up the second time.  His excitement made me remember how I too thought water slides were the coolest thing on Earth when we first got to try them out at Rehoboth Beach many decades ago.

Ali and I got some swimming in.  Ali swims 3 times a week but I have not done any swimming since the water park closed in September.  Ali’s practice has definitely made her a much better swimmer.  Her and I were doing pretty much a similar pace for most of the laps although of course in the end I always made sure I finished slightly ahead.  I put in a 1000 meters total at around an 8:30 per 400 pace.

After the water park we made a pit stop at Lowes.  I needed sod to repair the circle around the one landscaped areas.  The dogs love to run around this spot and in doing so they destroyed the grass, it was bare sand.  We also picked up a few other items.  When we got home I quickly placed the sod, took a shower and we were right back out the door to go to the outlets.  I wanted to get pants that fit as I mentioned earlier last week.

I scored 4 pair of pants at Gap.  32 x 34’s were actually long enough although the 32 inch waist is rather big on me believe it or not.  I noticed all of the pants fabric felt much thinner than my older khaki’s.  I can only assume this is intentional so they wear out faster.  Oh well, it’s nice to have pants that don’t look like I am wearing a sack.

We scored a couple clothing items for Ali so her shopping itch got scratched as well.

When we got home I was so tired it was ridiculous.  While Ali made supper I laid down for a mini-nap.  Ali was making a vegan recipe I found for sweet potato burgers.  She also made some “chips” out of one of our rutabagas.  She had mixed results.  The chips tasted decent but baking them in the oven didn’t give them a chip texture, they were mostly soft and mushy.

Ali said she really liked the sweet potato burger but for me it seemed to lack flavor for some reason.

We both were in bed shortly after 9, exhausted.

Dad called me and pushed back his ETA by a day, he should be showing up Tuesday instead of today.  He doesn’t like to push pace when driving and driving in the dark for him is very difficult at this point.  He was only in North Carolina as of 3pm yesterday and he was planning to stop driving around 5.

We got word back about our tax return.  We are getting a decent number back but not nearly as much as last year as a result of the unexpected running club 1099.