Operation Mickey

As I mentioned yesterday, at least one mouse was visiting my home.  Being not at all cool with those arrangements, I'd set a bunch of traps to remove said visitors.  Late last night as I was falling asleep I heard one of the traps fire.  That didn't take long.  But no way was I going to go deal with the situation at that exact moment.  I'll just dream about it instead.

So I had this dream...
I woke up to a big black rat in the trap.  The mouse trap wasn't quite strong enough to kill the rat, but the rap was quite trapped.  So when I came into the living room to turn on the television the rat made eye contact with me and rolled it's eyes as if to say "this is ridiculous, can I go now?"  Because I had no desire to address a live trapped rat I just left it there.  In walks a live possum.  That thing looked at me too, before it sat on top of the rat in an attempt to keep it warm and comforted.  I got an eye roll from the possum too.  And I'm all "how did a possum get in here?!?" and "what is going on?!?" 
So I start chasing the possum.  It's not in a trap, it can run.  And it runs into some door that I didn't know existed that leads to the stairs and the people who live upstairs, but also to a window in the stair well.  The window is notable because everything else in the house is nice, but this window is in disrepair.  It's opened and the screen is straight up torn out.  Which leads to a discussion with my roommates about getting the house fixed.
To recap - I had a dream where I made it someone else job to fix the house but never delegated emptying the rat from the trap. Priorities?

Back in real life, this dream kind of woke me up.  Shortly after I woke up, I decided to go face Mickey.  I reasoned it was early enough, my brain was probably still too tired to figure out what was going on so that would make it less awful. Why?  I think the big black rat comes from the imagery in this video which I watched yesterday to figure out how to load the traps.  It's one degree less obvious than you'd think.  For reference, the rat in my dream was slightly larger and less plastic than "Mister Mouse" but roughly the same in all other aspects.

The internet also tells me that rats are about evaluating the clutter around you, relevant because I spent so much time last night cleaning.  Possums are about taking a passive stance in things that are happening around me.  I love the imagery of my dream of the Possum coming in and laying on top of the rat.  Trumped.

Productivity Saturday

So, late last night I swear I saw a mouse run across the floor.  I don't think it was the wine.  This event helped me plan my day today.

5am: Wake up, it's dark but I have to pee.  All I can think is "I hope the mice are hiding right now".  
5:01am - think "I should turn off my alarm.  I don't want to wake up for real in 2 hours" and then do so.
9:45am - Mo starts to vacuum and wakes me up for real.  God bless vacation.
10:00 - 6 Mile run.  I'm still not totally loving heart rate training.  I'm back into trying to keep lower heart rates and moving so slow it hurts.
12:45 - meet friends for lunch.  Hello Biscuits and Gravy. 
2:00pm - So this is why we don't go to Home Depot on Saturday.  PS - Home Depot does not have compost pails but they do have mouse traps.
2:30pm - Walgreen's does not have my shampoo/conditioner.  I hate shopping on Saturdays all together.
3:00pm - I think I met the girl who has been responsible for several police calls to my building.  Her name is Laura.  She was perfectly nice to me, and let me know she was only using one washing machine, the other four were open.
3:01pm - Let the cleaning begin.  First I did the kitchen.  Because mice.  I didn't find any mice nor any poo nor other signs of varmints.  I put away the dish washer, got the counter top totally clean and everything put away, did all the dishes, cleaned the stove and toaster oven, etc.  As I was starting to do the floor I had to change out the laundry.  I got basically the whole house clean, and it was lovely. I also got all the laundry hung/folded/put away. 
5:00pm - Operation Mouse Trap begins.  I used moldy mozzarella as my bait.  The instructions said peanut butter.  All I have is almond butter and I refuse to use something that costs $10/jar for rodent bait. 
5:30pm - I sat down on the couch.
6:00pm - I do not want to cook food in the kitchen.  The dishes are clean, the counters are clean, the floor is clean.  I must go out to seek food.
7:00pm - Himself and I head out to Sober Fish and had a lovely dinner.  We agreed that we had an excellent server tonight.  If we go back I hope we get her again.
9:00 - Got home.  Nothing in the traps.  Not sure if happy or sad.
10:30 - Blog.  Plan tomorrow.  Not sure when to run.  Because it's cold outside now, but cold is still sometimes better than Treadmill.  

Tuesdays on the Run

Trying something new, thanks to this site for the prompt:

Do you run with music? 
Outdoors - typically not. Here's a brief history.  There was a point where I never thought I'd do any runs without music, so the progression has been quite shocking.  The best part is not having to make so many playlists to keep myself interested and not frustrated by music.
Indoors on the track or treadmill - Hell yes.  Music is essential to my sanity.  There has never been a moment when I was all "maybe I'll try to give up the music completely".  When I'm inside, it's on and it's loud.

What’s on your playlist?
Pandora Latin Workout Playlist is important.  This is only usable when I workout with my phone, and when there's signal.  There's a part of my gym that is like a cave and gets no signal of any kind.  Long time favorites include Bad Romance - Lady Gaga and Echa Pa'lla - Pitbull ft Papayo.  Newest addition is Bring it Back - Shy Carter ft Aleon Craft. 

Heart Rate Training - Again

Did you know you can biomechanically be running and only moving at a 15:00 mile?  I do.  Because Z2 running is awful.  I was looking back at this blog to find encouraging stories of improvement from my first round of heart rate training.  I'm disappointed that I never wrote how utterly frustrating it is, and how slow it forces me to to run.  I should've said that before.  I keep trying to remind myself there was a time I couldn't run a 15:00 mile with a heart rate below 150, so keeping it around 135 is a good thing.  But some days, I just want to go. 

Mio Alpha: Last April I got my first heart rate monitor.  It was a plain watch that paired to my iPhone.  It had some downsides, particularly that it didn't work with any apps that tracked indoor running, but I thought it worked quite well and I was happy with it.  Until it broke 1 week before my A race this year.  Sigh.  The wrist band is the part that broke, but the monitor won't work without being strapped tightly to my wrist.  Sigh

Garmin 225: The day the first thing broke, I got myself over to REI and bought a Garmin.  I can't believe I never owned one of these before.  This thing is way more sophisticated than the original heart rate monitor and I enjoyed putting it through its paces.  One of my favorite features is the display of 'heart rate zones' complete with pretty colors. 
One the other available features are in depth training plans on Garmin Connect.  (I have yet to decide if I like this feature.) There are training plans that are heart rate based (vs a traditional distance/speed based plan).  I was checking them out in advance of my 2016 races, and all the plans have significant amounts of time running in zone 2.  Z2 is not an intensity to which I'm accustomed.  And it's slow.  Like, I mean, SLOOOOOOW.

I haven't started the actual training program yet, but it's clear to me the Z2 runs will be my Achilles heel so I'm trying to practice them now.  I'm still seeing this as part of my race recovery time.  As Z2 runs are considered "recovery runs" it seems appropriate.  Hopefully this time around I post more about the heart rate training progress.  And hopefully it becomes less frustrating this time around, as it did last time.