Same Old, Same Old

MacTroll and I ended up leaving X-man (who had a case of strep throat last week) with KTDID on Saturday and flying off to California to look at houses. We toured six. Online two looked very promising, and four looked -- okay. In the end, One looked awesome, one looked okay (but was in the our second choice school area versus the first choice) and the rest were ugly to meh.

So we put in on the first house we walked through, but there were many bids, and ours did not get chosen.

We're going to go back at the end of May with X-man to look again (unless, while Joel's there) he visits a house that he finds fantastic.

In other news, I've been weeding the gardens and mulching (per our buyers' request). We have to leave everything else as is, and I don't want to look at empty garden beds for the summer, so I put in some mixed wildflowers today.

Tomorrow I'm going to walk/run the 10k at the Illinois Marathon. I guess I should be getting to sleep very, very soon for it. My race starts at 7:40ish a.m. I'm just going to turn on a low week number of couch to 5k and do it 2-3 times, and consider it a good workout.

I also started to track my walks with Lily. Since my surgery, I haven't walked her as much as I used to. And I've been kind of lazy about taking care of my workouts, so she's got some extra weight. I have reduced her food, but we've also been out a few times doing my old short running path (around 3.5 miles), but at a walk. I found a new Dog Walking App and downloaded it. This way, I can track the mileage and speed, without using my Nike run app, to track my walking workout.

Sweaty and Excited

I've been trying to keep up my physical activity since I finished my aqua running class and the H20 Bootcamp with Synergistic Effects in June. I've been attending the occasional Deep Water class at the Y. I've been on my bike and a stationery bike. I've been lifting weights (when I don't get bored of it -- I totally need to go to a class to get this stuff in. I don't push myself hard enough with the weights on my own) and I've been walking.

Mostly, I walk the same 5.5-mile path from my house down to the corner of Windsor and Prospect on the bike path and back. My goal by the end of the summer was to walk fast enough to theoretically be able to walk less than 16 minute miles. I've come close and then had some issue with my back or foot and had to slow down. But I have to admit that once the weather dropped to a normal temperature, I've been like a speed demon. And today, I averaged a 15'07"/mile time. That's good enough (if I can maintain it for twice as long) to walk a Disney Half Marathon.

Now that I know I can do it on significantly torn tendons (and probably shot ligaments) I have something to shoot for once all that damage is repaired in a few weeks.

The other happy I had was that I went to my weigh in yesterday at Weight Watchers. I had been up 1.5 lbs from my vacation to Montreal last week, but this week I lost that 1.5 and an additional 1.5, so I'm down 9.2 lbs overall in 3 weeks. Fifteen more pounds to go and I'll be where I was when I ran the half marathon in 2011, which is exactly where I want to be.

I've been putting together a food plan for when I'm laid up, so hopefully I'll be able to keep up the loss even with the giant cast on. :-) I think I'll have to change days/times I weigh in though to make it easier on MacTroll to drive me up there. I guess getting up at 6:30 a.m. to get me to a weigh in at 7:30 a.m. isn't his idea of a great way to spend a Saturday. :-)

And guess who starts first grade on Wednesday!

He Could Walk 100 Miles

X-man and I signed up for the 100-mile club at the Savoy Recreation Center. When I was running for the half marathon, I accumulated miles much, much more quickly than I do now. But since I've been limited to walking, biking and swimming, it's slowed down a lot. Mostly because unlike the Walk to the Moon competition last year, this program doesn't count other forms of exercise that's not walking or running.

Anyway, today X-man wanted to go mini putting. He was going to go with Papa yesterday, but the course was closed due to the weather. So even when the storms stopped, it was a no go (Papa made it up to him by taking him to Marble Slab. He was quite keen on the idea that X-man could totally direct him straight to the ice cream store from mini putt. :-)

I told him that if he stopped whining (because holy cow that's been terrible for the last two days), we could walk as a family to Old Orchard Links. He was great on the way there, but then he golfed 36 holes and was really tired walking back. He swore his feet were hurting him, so I told him he could walk barefoot after we stopped for drinks at Sonic, and we'd carry him over the roads where there was gravel.

He did okay. We even got to stop and wave at Rogers and see a train go by up close. The engineers waved, and he had questions about everything in the cars, as usual.

When little legs only walk .25 or .5 miles at a time, two miles is a lot. He's only got until September to finish it, and he's just past a half marathon (he started a month ago). So, I'm hoping that he enjoys the quiet time until dinner and then is still tired enough to fall asleep relatively early after bath. My plans are to finish laundry hell 2011, and MacTroll is going to mow the yard before it rains again.

That is after I finish rolling a frozen bottle of water under my heel for 15 minutes and MacTroll finishes watching Young Justice with X-man.

Walking

I took Riley on a walk at Meadowbrook this morning after dropping X-man off in the Panda Room. What I found reassuring was just as I was confused about what to dress X-man in for school this morning, others found just as confusing when getting themselves dressed.

I wore my usual walking pants, t-shirt and light fleece jacket. Sleeves are sometimes needed depending on the wind situation. Plus it was only 50 degrees when I dropped X-man off. 

But when I got out there and started moving, the jacket came off. I was warm. I was even sweating as I cruised through the park. Others biked or jogged past. One woman had long running pants, a long sleeve turtleneck and earmuffs. A couple had on heavy wool jackets with those wool caps that have the fleece ear warmers built in. A "professional runner" was in his leave nothing to the imagination running shorts and a tank top. It seemed everyone either thought it was freezing when they left the house that morning or was in denial that it had cooled off again. 

Either way, we got our (hope to be daily) walk in. Riley is currently passed out on the floor.