Running Shoes - I buy everything the minute before they stop making it

Running shoe 1 - Brooks Radius. It's so old I can't even find it on the internet. I found it at one store before they stopped making it.

Running shoe 2 - Brooks Axiom 2. Had one pair before a model change.

Running Shoes 3-5 Brooks Axiom 3. I thought I'd finally found one they wouldn't discontinue. Sigh. 

Running shoe 6 - Brooks Dyad. Not pictured because it gave me the most incredible blisters ever. This is the pair I wore for my first marathon.

Running Shoe 7 - Brooks Ghost (3 maybe) - they still actually make this one but I don't wear it because I changed my running gait and need a different shoe now.

Running Shoe 8 - Asics Gel Speedstars. Even Asics abandoned me and doesn't make this one anymore.

Running Shoe 9 - Brooks Launch. Slightly more shoe than the speedstar and less shoe than the Ghost. And then they stopped making it.

Running Shoe 10 - Brooks Green Silence. Also on the block to get axed in favor of the Brooks Pure Connect project. These may be my favorite shoes ever. Least favorite laces as they always come untied, but fantastic shoes. I may try to buy one more pair before they go away.     

Friday Bike Ride

The weathermen keep threatening us with winter up here.  It's silly when they can drive me insane by just putting clouds in front of the sun.  But they seemed determined about this weekend.  The weather this weekend looked so discouraging that I did an extra workout today, in addition to my run.  Since I had this glorious run and the sun was still shining, a 20 mile ride seemed like the thing to do.

This ride was broken into several parts, almost completely on bike boulevards or trails.  I stopped a few times to snap pictures but took most of them while I was moving because I am a badass.  Seriously though, can a biker please tell me is there like a special camera for biking or something?  Using a phone to snap pictures while riding is impossible.  I need a button to hit, not some icon on a touch screen.  Personally, I use my Canon PowerShot which is at least six years old but I'm happy it still has a use.  (At least it has a higher resolution than my iPod.)

Part 1 - River-Lake Greenway to Lake Hiawatha to the creek trail.  The RiverLake Greenway is such a good idea in theory but a bit of a clusterfuck in its delivery.  So much so that the city eventually just painted a bike lane on the immensly more rideable 42nd street only two blocks away.  It makes me a little sad that they didn't put more effort into the Greenway when a couple small changes would've made a big difference.  (Get rid of all the stop signs for the bikes.)  Sigh. 

Part 2 - West River Parkway.  I hadn't really been on the parkway since Marathon Sunday.  The bike trails have been paved over in the last couple of years so the ride is really smooth.  There were other people out today but not so many that the trail was crowded.  A few serious bikers rode by me and a few people were out walking their dogs.  Below: see how the biker (me) has a shadow?  That requires sunshine. 

   
Part 3 - Midtown Greenway.  The Midtown Greenway (the one everyone has heard of) is like the jewel in the Minneapolis bike system.  For very good reason.  It's 5.5 miles of bike and pedestrian only trail.  It does cross roads in a few places but it's largely protected from traffic.  A seemingly small thing that makes this trail so much better is the paint job clearly shows where east and west bound bike traffic should be and the space reserved for pedestrians.  Some of our other shared trails lack this feature and it makes a big difference. 
They're doing construction on the Greenway in a couple places.  The Sabo bridge is closed which seems to be an eternal state of affairs.  I think this time it's related to construction on an electric plant near the bridge and not the bridge itself that's broken right now but that's happened too.  Also, there's some craziness around Lake Calhoun, but I'm told that will ultimately lead to a much better situation for land and trail use at that lake, a situation that could use some addressing.

 

Lake Cedar, Luce Line Trail and Kennelworth Trail - some of my favorite places ever.  I think I like this part so much becuase I found it on one of my first bike rides.  That first ride gave me a lot of confidence and for some reason I associate that feeling with Lake Cedar.  I've also had some really good summer long runs around the lake and on those trails.  The view into downtown is spectacular.  I also love that the trails separate into three paved paths, one for inbound bikes, one for outbound bikes and one for inbound and outbound pedestrians.

Lake Calhoun, Lake Harriet and back to the RiverLake Greenway - my camera was starting to die by this point.  I only charged the battery for about five minutes before I left.  Also, I think there's still sand in the mechanism that retracts the lens.  Sand would be from this day.  Lake Calhoun's bike path is in dire need of repaving.  Maybe once they get the chaos between Calhoun and Isles over with, they'll come repave this thing.  Harriet was short and sweet on this trip; I've spent some time there recently so that's okay.  And the RiverLake Greenway.  Sigh. This portion of the greenway the road is such a mess.  It's a such an experience of potholes and manhole covers and chewed up pavement.  Youch. 

 
 

Friday Long Run

The sun has been an elusive friend these past few weeks, so when I saw the weather forecast and woke up to bright sunshine, I knew I had to get out.  This is my longest run since the marathon, a whopping seven miles.  I decided to hit my favorite Lake Hiawatha and Lake Nokomis route.

Running - It felt great to be out.  My body was all "I remember how to do this, this is nice".  I've been doing so many 1-mile runs lately that it felt wild to be all "pace yourself, slow the hell down".  Like a true marathoner, I did remember how to pace myself and the run got easier and easier as the morning went on.  I was so happy to be out, and so not concerned about my time, I snapped several pictures with my pathetic little iPod camera. 

A couple of views from Lake Nokomis.  Above - downtown in the distance.  This is one my favorite views of downtown.  One day I will snap a picture with a better camera so you can all zoom in and feel the love as well. Below is the smaller beach on the lake.  The willow trees are the only things that still have green leaves.

Above - At Lake Hiawatha.  They remove the lifeguard chairs at the end of the summer but leave the lifeguard boats at all the beaches; I assume in case of emergency.  I don't know if the boat is chained to anything.  (That would kind of defeat the in case of emergency purpose.)

Below - at Cedar and 42nd Avenue; this locations newest incarnation is the Pupuseria.  It's been about five things in the past five years.  I have no idea why businesses don't do well that that corner.

 One last look from the lake.

What's in my blog roll - T

Check out part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4 and part 5 if you haven't yet.

The Heavy Table reviews local restaurants, and sometimes regional places in Duluth or farther away as well.  Sometimes their RSS feeds and stories are weird and I skip them, but I've found a few cool places with this site and have a new respect for food trucks as a business as well.

The TSA Blog - TSA are also known as "airport security" for those of you not in the USA or who don't fly often.  Sometimes this thing is hilarious.  "We found 72 bombs and firearms this month".  They don't give away too much on their procedures and sometimes it is a mouthpiece for their PR machine.  "These backscatter things are fiiiine, don't worry".  But as someone who flies several times a year I think it's interesting to read and understand these people's jobs.

ThinkGeek - What's New  Yes, I totally do get this feed; I rarely buy any of the stuff though.  I've actually only bought a couple things from the site including some cookie cutters and the measuring cup plunger which were presents for my Pooky Bear who loves to bake cookies.

TorrentFreak is great for the more tech-savvy or tech-curious amongst us.  Learn all about what is bit torrent, how to use it and more importantly how not to use it.  It's also got a look at the current issues surrounding bit torrent, like countries that try to block torrent sites, how internet providers are treating torrent traffic, and legal issues in multiple countries related to the protocol.

The Turtle Path is written by a (non-local) elite ultra marathoner.  Those people are even crazier than marathoners which you wouldn't think was possible until someone's all "let's run a race that's four times as long as a marathon".  It has race reports from some fairly big ultra races, some of which I dream of doing some day in my life when I'm even faster and fitter and more of a mountain goat.  (So, no particular timeline for that goal.)

The Athena Diaries is one of the first running/athlete blogs I found.  I'm constantly entertained by the snark and the honesty of the blog.  Also, this chick is now an ultra marathoner as well.  Bat shit crazy.  Congratulations! 

Workout Wednesday - How to fix a leaky faucet and replace a toilet fill valve

As a single lady, living alone, there's some things that are a bigger accomplishment for me than for other people.  Fixing stuff that breaks seems to fit in that category.  I still remember the first time I successfully replaced a light switch.

I was thoroughly troubled last night when my toilet wouldn't stop running.  A quick inspection of the tank revealed something called "the fill valve" was spraying water in a way that was definitely incorrect.  I had a neighbor come over and verify.  Then we used the emergency shut off so it didn't run all night long and I started some internet research.  Home Depot opens at 6am!  I prefer Ace - The Friendly Place which opens at 8am in my neighborhood.  (They are really good there about actually knowing how to fix stuff and explaining it to me.)  Then I found some great youtube videos, this one is the best and I watched it a couple times last night.  It gave me some serious confidence that I could actually handle this situation.

 

I stayed up Tuesday night watching election results and was shocked when they broke into my local news coverage to report that Ohio had been called as a blue state and then showed everyone in Chicago going nuts.  I went to bed shortly after that.  When I woke up this morning I found the rest of the election results (including two constitutional amendments in Minnesota) and made sure they didn't do a flip-flop call on Ohio.  Here was the scene when I went to bed.

Since I was already planning at trip to the hardware store, I took a look at a faucet that's been giving me issues for a long time.  It drips and drips.  We've replaced the washer in it once (and by "we" I mean Qat Lady while I watched) and it looked like it needed to happen again.  I was thwarted early on in my mission though when I couldn't get the screw off the top of the faucet.  No amount of liquid wrench, banging, or attempting to grab it with vice wrenches did anything.  Oy.

 

I headed over to Ace and met a really helpful girl who talked to me about all my problems.  The toilet seemed like an easy fix.  The faucet on the other hand... Suggestions included soaking it in liquid wrench, banging a lot, or "just break the faucet".  Since it's a metal faucet that last option won't work.  Sigh.

When I got home, I liberally applied more liquid wrench and let the stuck screw soak all that up while I dealt with the toilet.  I did have to watch the video one more time, just to make sure I was doing one thing right and I read the directions that came with what I got.  That repair was amazingly straight forward.  It really only took a few minutes, just like the video said and it was all done.

 

The sink, on the other hand, is a little more discouraging.  It should be a five minute repair job but there's a few confounding factors.  I think ultimately someone in Minneapolis should recommend me a plumber who can fix this so I can move on with my life.  Here are the confounding factors for my drippy hot water faucet:

• I can't get the screw off the top of the faucet.
• The screw is brass and softer than metal should ever be so it's easy to strip.
• The screw is brass and softer than metal should ever be so it's impossible to grab with a vice wrench and turn that way.
• The faucet is metal so "break the faucet and we'll get you a new one" is not an option
• The emergency water shut off on the sink does not work all the way.  This wasn't an issue when we replaced that last washer, but I can see it might be if a plumber has to do actual stuff to my sink.

After the plumbing adventures, I headed out for my mile run and 'plank to failure' - made it to 1:15 today which is big.  It's been raining and crappy here, so the ground was all messy for my planking.  After that I was feeling not so good so wound up taking a long nap on the couch and hoping to feel better.

 

Workout Tuesday - Vote

First off, thanks to League of Women Voters of Minnesota and Vote411.org for helping me figure out who to vote for.  It took me a full ten minutes to vote for all the judges on my ballot and I never would've gotten there without you.

Today I got up and it was raining.  Seriously - going insane from lack of sunshine.  I'd originally planned to hit the gym later in the day but things sort of got away from me.  Instead I ran my mile and then jogged over to vote.  I got in the polling place and got my ballot straight away.  There was even a booth open for me to use.  I pulled out my iPod (which had my ballot I'd made over the weekend) and got to work.  Hilariously, I had to wait in line to put my ballot through the machine and get my sticker.  We use scantron forms so there is a papertrail, but each form goes through one at a time and it takes a while.  The sticker is the best part of voting.

I was feeling so good after voting that I did what I think was about another mile of running, bringing my total to two miles.  I then did a plank-to-failure, but not to failure just to 1:10.  Boom.

What's In My Blogroll? Brought to you by the letter S

Check out here for earlier letters in the alphabet.

S get's it's own post.  It's a great letter of the alphabet.  Think of all the great words that start with s.  Of course that's the one you thought of first!  But also "speed" and "skill" and "swimming" and "swift".  There's also words like

SpoilerTV an incredibly useful site that tells me all kinds of things about television shows.  What shows do I watch?  Maybe that should be it's own post? 

Star Tribune or "the Strib" as we call it up here, is the Minneapolis newspaper.  St Paul has it's own news paper.  It's a good source of local news, especially road closings and "this famous person is going to be here today so don't even try to go downtown".

Streets.MN is a blog dedicated to talking about transportation, land use, etc.  It's so much more relevant since I started riding a bike and actually care about things like 'bike lanes' and paving projects.  It's also interested to see how decisions get made at a policy level like "this street is maintained by the city, but this street is a thoroughfare that gets county money, and this one is even bigger so it's maintained at the state level".

Steve In a Speedo?! is one of my favorite blogs ever.  Steve in A Speedo is a local runner/triathlete who is also a photographer.  The blog has great pictures as well as training tips and reviews of local and regional races.  The "Friday Funnies" are also great time killers.

A Solid Week of Working Out

Apparently I was in a grumpy mood this week and didn't blog too much.  Sunday has apparently fixed that.  I'm getting better all the time.  I swear.

Here's what went down this week:

• Monday I went for a run after work, around 1.25 miles and then went to the Magna Challenge for what was ultimately my last meeting.  We learned about Tabata workouts which I'd heard of but never tried.  Rounds 1 and 2 were fine but I could see Round 4 being a killer if you did it that long.
• Tuesday was the day I officially resigned the challenge and also thought it would be the day I gave up my "run a mile every day" thing since the two were related.  But no, there I was at 8:35pm in my reflective vest and yesterday's running clothes, running around the blocks to get my mile in.  I was all "it hasn't even been a month, don't stop now".
• Wednesday the alarm went off at 530am, I turned it off and rolled over, completely skipping Water Running.  Wednesday night is a Team:Work meeting.  We had an insane number of needs to work on.  Me - keep everyone happy.  Runner 1 - can do something more challenging than the Couch to 5K.  Runner 2 - stuck in traffic and so needs a place to meet us in the midst of the run.  Speed Walker - needs to be moving for 85 minutes and needs to start early.  Okay.  Ultimately we found a few blocks to run/walk around that had easy parking for our traffic challenged friend.  Speed Walker did her own thing.  Runner 1 and I did the 90:30 (jog 90 seconds, spring 30 seconds) speed workout for 24 minutes.  With warmup and cool down we worked out for 40-45 minutes.
• Thursday I meant to get up and take a run in the morning but opted not to because I was still tired and hated waking up.  I was able to head back to my regular Thursday routine since dropping Magna.  It was great to hook back up with everyone in Circuit and the workout was challenging as usual.  Then I ran my mile around the track and got done just in time to head down to Zumba.  I missed all of these things so much.
• Friday I did my first true "brick" workout with my Mountain Bike ride followed by running, just enough to get the mile in.  Also, I must be taking the Dreidel Dash seriously because I made a training log for it.
• Saturday I did an actual run, 4 miles, no music then Plank.  I'm hesitant to say these shorter faster workouts are improving my overall speed, but not willing to rule it out either because I did notice my time was faster for that run than before, but not by much.  At the Challenge we were always told to do "plank to failure" at the end of our workouts.  Since the "to failure" part gives me panic attacks (when am I going to be done?  How long have I been up here?) I decided to try and hold it for 1:00 which is a lot for me.  Done.  I saw tons of Vote No volunteers out canvassing the neighborhood and tons of signs on my run too.  Thank you!
• Sunday was another Brick workout and then Plank.  The run was either slower or hurt more, not sure which.  The plank lasted five seconds longer than the day before.  I did a thing where I had one foot down, then the other, for about five seconds at a time.  It took my mind off things.  Is that cheating?  I feel like one foot is physically harder but mentally it was so much better

 

Sunday Bike Ride

I went for a long bike ride today.  I am aware that every weekend where I can ride a bike may be the last one for a while so I'm trying to get out.  November is also the month I typically stop running, almost completely until my traditional Thanksgiving Long Run.  I'm trying to keep up the cardio until then.

After fixing my bike yesterday I was all excited for a ride.  The weathermen were telling me there would mostly sunshine with a few clouds.  There was going to be very little wind.  The temperatures were going to be in the 40s.  Sounds perfect.  The weathermen lied about almost everything.  They were correct about the wind speed being very low.  There was no sunshine.  So much so that I wonder if I'm going insane and losing the ability to sense light.  (Hello Seasonal Affective Disorder).  The temperature was 40, not "in the 40s".  I went for a ride anyways.

It was basically a nice ride and I was happy to be back on the big comfy bike, air in the tires and all.  I did an unusual amount of this ride on the roads though; something I'll need to correct next time.  For today I work bike shorts, sweat pants, sock liners and wool socks, thermal shirt, vest and a wind breaker coat.  I did wear gloves.  I also wore the clear 'sunglasses' that bikers (and I think some speed skaters) wear to protect my eyes from the wind.  The glasses were great except they fogged up the moment I stopped moving which made the above mentioned traffic lights even more interesting.

First view of the day - RiverLake Greenway (I sometimes call it the 40th Street Greenway) - heading over 35W towards Nicolette Ave.  There's a cool view of downtown from this bridge; I'm not sure why I took this picture instead.

Bryant Avenue bikeway.  I try to never operate a motor vehicle on this road.  It's legal to drive on the road but designed for bikes.  As such there are a ton of bikes and it's not fun to be in a car in that situation.  I always try to ride my bike here; it's a really good connector from the RiverLake Greenway to the Midtown Greenway.

I found my way past all the construction that got me turned around on Friday.  From far away it looked like the whole Greenway was closed.  Not so, just an exit ramp to Dean Ave, but they did a good job of making it look really serious.

Lake Cedar: It's been waaaay too long.  I can't actually remember the last time I saw the lake but I'm sure it was well before the marathon.  It looks cold and lonely with no swimmers or boaters or fishers.

Heading onto the Luce Line Trail and into downtown Minneapolis.  There were a few other bikers out today; more and more walkers and still a couple people fishing from the shore.  As the seasons change there are fewer and fewer bikers.  You have to mean to be out here on a bike.  The walkers tend to stay steadier.  They're more of an all seasons breed.

After counting the bikers I saw on one hand, suddenly I was in downtown Minneapolis.  Downtown Minneapolis is the most confusing place on the planet.  Having no sunshine made it even harder to orient myself to what freaking direction I was moving.  I did fine some of the new protected bicycle tracks.  I liked them because there were no pedestrians to annoy me like I imagine there are during busier times.  I found a great view of city hall and eventually then found my way to Portland Ave which would take me home.

The Portland Ave situation is basically great until I wanted to take a left turn.  The bike lane is so wide and the right turn situation was handled really clearly at all the big intersections.  I knew when to look for cars, when they would/should be crossing the bike lane, etc.  And then I had to get out of that super big bike lane, across two lanes of traffic and take a left.  It was Sunday afternoon and the Vikings game was almost on so I had no problems, but I imagine that's a hairy prospect at other times of the week.

All in all, I got to try some new bike paths, especially downtown, and had a good day.  But I miss the sunshine.

     


 
 

I fixed my bike! Great Success.

I'm willing to admit publicly that a bit of FAIL is actually responsible for the biking fiasco that was this weekend.  And it was my fail. 

First a little recap on my biking history:

• Memorial day - I learn to operate my damn bike pump and head out for my first ride since 2004.  Today's fail was also related to tire inflation.
• Moments after that, I realize I love bike riding but perhaps a mountain bike is not the best choice for my current terrain and riding style.  I mean, roller bladers were passing me.
• I started dating a hybrid bike, not a true road bike, but it was only dating.  A friend had it and was getting ready to sell it.
• This bike and I went on several dates.  We checked out the greenway and the lakes (one of the few moments the Sabo bridge has been open all year), and I discovered Lake Cedar which became important to my long runs as well.
• Ultimately I bought the bike and made it a home.

Which brings me to yesterday.  I was trying to pump up the tires in my bike and I couldn't make the back tire take air.  This had actually happened a few weeks earlier and I ignored it then.  I thought I had more time to fix it, but nothing I did worked.  The front tire was fine, the back tire just wouldn't take air. WTF?  I wanted a bike ride so bad that I actually dug out my old mountain bike.  I rode that around for a while until I found construction and cut my ride short.  Actually, I was all "this bike might not be so bad in the winter if I made the seat a little higher; these tires are nice and fat and handle all kinds of road surfaces".  Mostly I was all still! Construction on the Greenway?!?

 
Today I decided to apply my considerable problem solving skills to the issue.  It was either that or take it to the bike shop.  I like the bike shop, it's just too much effort to take the bike on the bus and then transfer to the other bus, and then if they had to keep it...  Instead, I got my bike out and started paying attention to it.  Later I did internet research to confirm my "I can't believe I missed that" issue. Turns out the type of valve I have (yes, a Presta) has to be opened or closed before pumping air into the tires.  Yes, folks.  I really didn't know that before today. 

I pumped up my back tire, put the mountain bike back in the closet behind the regular bike and am making plans for a nice long ride tomorrow.  You know I was super proud of myself for figuring this out right?

Voting - You want me to what?

(Up front - not saying which side of these issues I'm on; this post is about something else.)  I was over at The League of Women Voters website, trying to figure out who I want to vote for Soil and Water Conservation district person (WTF is that?) and downloaded my sample ballot.  Something else on the ballot caught my eye.  Either didn't know or forgot all about this rule.

For constitutional amendments in the state of Minnesota, skipping the question is counted as a No vote.  So many thoughts racing through my head.  (This year we have two amendment questions: one asks to restrict the definition of marriage to a man and a woman; the other to restrict voting rights to those who have a photo ID.) 
Here's all my thoughts:

• Does this provide an incentive on the part of the people who write the question to be on the "yes" side or the "no" side of the issue, since all the people who skip that question automatically count as a No vote?
• Uh, what the hell, if I skip that question it shouldn't be counted as a yes or no.  I should have to actually vote on that question to have my vote counted.  That's just my opinion.
• Also didn't know the Voter ID Restriction amendment would require the state pay for free photo IDs for everyone.  Does this mean I won't have to pay a fee for my driver license if it passes?
• Is this language about "if you skip this question it counts as a No vote" used in states outside of Minnesota?