Unexpected double header, unexpected power loss, paying off
So again this week Ali asked me last minute about running with her after work. I was feeling a bit sore and stiff from my 10K the day before but I never want to be an obstacle when it comes to Ali’s training so I said I would run with her.
Ali came home with a fresh haircut and color, I liked both which doesn’t happen all that much. It’s a cute cut.
So even though it was overcast and drizzling we headed over to the track to do the run. This is the same track where Ali embarked on her running hobby many years ago. It is funny to think of where she started and compare it to today where Ali is training to run 26 miles, what a journey.
So Ali said her training plan called for her to run a hard 4 miles with a pace somewhere around 8:45 which is fast for her and no walk in the park for me. After a half mile of warm up jogging we started.
I was the “coach” monitoring our pace and calling out the 1/4 mile splits which were surprisingly below the goal pace. I was surprised Ali was keeping up with me but she said she felt good so we continued on. We finished up the 4 miles in about 33 and a half minutes which worked out to a very speedy 8:20 pace. I told Ali that if I was being honest, I didn’t think she had a shot of hanging with me at that pace for that long but she did. I congratulated her. I am pretty sure that was the fastest 4 miles she has ever ran.
I surprised myself a little bit being able to put in a decent run after doing a hard brick the day before. There was a time that I would absolutely not EVER consider running on consecutive days. I think the combination of my elevated fitness level and deflated body weight has helped me in that department. There were times in the last 5 years where I was walking around 20-25 pounds heavier than I am today.
Last night I was watching an episode of Wipeout on Hulu when the house went dead. It was raining outside but there was no thunder or lightning to speak of to cause an outage. Well the power didn’t come back on so we had to make some arrangements.
After bumping into several things I managed to grab a flashlight. Then Ali and I both set our Iphone alarms in the event that the power did not come back on. Finally since I was without the normal background noise of our air cleaner I loaded my white noise app on my phone so I could fall asleep. I have a very hard time falling asleep if there is dead silence. I woke up at 3:30am from the light of the tv, indicating power had been restored.
Man our upgrades from the past year are really paying some dividends when it comes to our energy use. The combination of new AC equipment, painting the house with a ceramic coating that reflects heat and replacing the water equipment with more efficient and less power hungry alternatives resulted in an electric bill that was less than $200.
For comparison sake, in the prior decade of living here in the brutal heart of summer it was quite common to get electric bills that were in the low $300’s. That is a huge difference. It makes both Ali and I appreciate the upgrades more, despite the dent they put in our wallet.
A former classmate and FB friend of mine whom I seem to be politically in step with posted this article from the NY Times about what exactly has gone wrong with Obama since he has taken office. I think it is very much on point. Yea it’s a lengthy read but worth the time.
In his efforts to appease he has instead alienated the group of people that were ready for him to rip out the foundation of corruption and catering to the rich that started the downward spiral over a decade ago. None of that has really happened. If anything the rich have managed to use their fortune to buy even more influence and use it to manipulate weak minds everywhere while at the same time crippling Obama’s ability to do much else but meet their demands.
This may be the last entry you see for quite awhile. Perhaps I can drop in a few while overseas as long as it isn’t too bandwidth hungry. I will be monitoring my data plan usage in Ireland like a hawk.