Friday, September 21, 2007

more runnin'

Another race last weekend and I had a disappointing finish - like 20 seconds slower than my first race. The thing is, I thought I was running a faster pace. The route was as flat as it gets around here and the weather was cool, sun shining, beautiful day, I felt good, BUT....I paced myself with two old guys that looked to me like they were running good. I finished just in front of one of them, the other right behind me. What does that teach me? Find some young guys the next time.

Let's see, not much else has been going on. I've got a couple of 6.8 mile runs in this week. I've got to get cozy with these longer runs so I get do that 10K in November. More importantly for now though, I need to figure out how to speed up my pace. Surely I can manage an 8 minute mile. There's a 5K in two weeks I want to do. I haven't committed yet. It's on a Thursday night meaning Erin will miss karate unless I can round up a driver. Also, it's our last karate class before testing. I think I'm good but Jerry has major concerns. I told him he doesn't have to run the race with me but he insists that if I'm running it, he's running it. I got another tip last night and I could have gotten one for gee-chew-hyong-ill-boo (not spelled right, I assure you) but I didn't ask to. It was a bit of a blow to Jerry's ego when I one-upped him, I thought two-upping him would be too much damage.

It's a perfectly beautiful day today, I wish I were out on a course somewhere knocking the little ball around. But no, I have a few minutes of my lunch break left so I'm going to go find some wild turkies, hawks, snakes, or something. When I come back, plenty more junk to dig into. I'm getting an extra lotto ticket before tomorrow night.

Thursday, September 13, 2007

Unusual Fruit

I took a picture of the weird stuff I bought at the Farmer's Market last Saturday. The little round striped things are called plum-grannies, and the yellow melon is a canary melon. The big thing in the back is a watermelon, which is not usual, but it was sitting there and I didn't move it. The shiny monkey head behind the canary melon is probably one of the most unusual things in our house, but it didn't come from the Farmer's Market. It came from Sarah's imagination and hands.


We cut into the canary melon last night. The center looks like a cantalope and the rest looks like a honeydew. It smells like a honeydew, but it tastes like...neither one exactly. It tastes pretty good actually. In fact, Erin tried it and liked it. She won't eat any kind of melon at all, so it was suprising to me that she was willing to even try it. Here is a picture of the canary cut open.

I also bought butternut squash but those aren't usual, and I didn't take a picture of them. Today is Thursday and I haven't cooked them yet. I hope they don't rot before I get around to it. I could see it happening, but hopefully not.

Sunday, September 9, 2007

First Race Ever, Fraley Festival

I ran my first race ever this past Saturday morning - the Holy Family 5K mall run. I was number 234, which is a number I was happy to get (I like the way it looks, don't you)? I knew I could run the distance, and I knew I wasn't going to win my age division (especially since I was the oldest my division), but I had butterflies anyway. I felt like I was running a slow pace (mostly ran in the last half of the pack), and finished in the last third I think. Anyway, my time was 29 minutes 34 seconds, and my goal was to finish in under 30 minutes, so I met my goal. It was a lot of fun and I had to jump in the car after I crossed the finish line, drive back and pick up Emily to take her to dance. No stretching out and today I'm so sore I can hardly move. The race was a lot of fun and there's another 5K next Saturday that I hope to run as well. Erin has a tennis tournament and the kids have an academic tournament we are supposed to work at, so I don't know if we'll have time for a race.

I took the kids to Carter Caves to go camping Saturday night. The Fraley Festival was going on, and we heard some awesome musicians. Sarah was there and she came up to the campground to have burgers with us for supper. She brought her banjo and her pal, Brett. Soon, a whole bunch of musicians wandered over and they started playing and it was totally awesome! There was a base fiddle player, a mandolin, 2 fiddles, 2 banjos, 2 or 3 guitars, and they were all masters (yes, Sarah, if you're reading this, I consider you to be a master...you sound great to me)! I could have sat there all night listening to them. The playing broke up around 11:00 or so, but we got a great 2 or 3 hour concert. One of these days, I hope to learn to play the base! At 5:00 this morning, I heard rain on the tent. Memories of last year's trip at Grayson, where I woke up with 2" of rain on the tent floor and all the sleeping bags and pillows sopping wet. Not this time though, we were under trees and the rain was light - very pleasant to listen to as it pitter-pattered on the tent over our heads.

And, the post wouldn't be complete without mention of plum-grannies and canary melons. I went to the farmer's market and bought these items since I'd never heard of them before. I will need to post pictures of these, but I suppose I'll have to take the pics with my cell phone since I still haven't found my camera cable. Plum-grannies are edible, but the guy told me they're better just to leave sit on the kitchen counter and let them smell sweet. They do smell very good. I bought two of them and I can smell them as soon as I walk into the door. The canary melon is a bright yellow, smooth melon. The farmer told me they are green like a honeydew, a very sweet melon, but doesn't taste like honeydew or cantalope. I will take a picture of it before I cut into it...tomorrow.