3.14159265...

Happy Pi Day, everyone!





Total miles: 6.28
Total time: 1:08:17
Average pace: 10:52
Pi symbols worn: 1
Baggy-pants-and-backwards-hat-wearing guys who literally jumped in surprise because they hadn’t noticed a runner coming up behind them: 1
Ounces of water consumed: at least 60. (It was 80 and sunny out.)
Pollen particles inhaled: no idea, but everything outside looks like this:

(Yes, those are flower petals. The air even TASTES like pollen.)

Happi pi dai!

It's pi day! So I chalked a giant pi on myself (and several smaller ones) and went to run 3.14 miles.

I might have run longer, but 1.) Hal said only do 3 miles today, and 2.) I was meeting Mr. Angle for lunch and I'd gotten up a tad later than expected.

Anyway, so, yeah, aimed for 3.14 miles but overshot. Maybe. My usual routes are either 0.945 mi, or 1.275 mi, so I thought, okay, one long, two short, and then maybe a few extra feet depending on how spicy the satellites are feeling today. I heard my phone tell me when I'd run 1.0 mi, and then 2.0, but I thought I might have missed 3.0, so I pulled my phone out to check about a block from my house--so about where I thought 3.0 miles should be--and I got this:

Whoops. Bless me, mighty Virtual 12athon Overlord (overlady?), for I have sinned. I ran an extra six-hundredths of a mile unwittingly. Maybe.

Also, it was really fast. If it would have been a real 5K, I would have beat my old PR by quite a bit.

Afterward, I showered REALLY FAST, drove down to eat lunch with Mr. Angle, and then went to the haircut place, to do this:

Yep, I donated 10 inches of hair. Not that my hair is particularly visible in any other picture I've ever posted on the blog (when it's long, I usually keep it tied up), but now I look like this:

It's a very refreshing feeling, having hair that isn't down to my waist anymore. And just in time for lovely weather! It's in the 70s here. In Minnesota. In March. Yeah.

12athon: Month 3(AA)

I don't even know why I'm writing this. You should just read RWB's entry. It's way more awesome than mine, because she is way more awesome than I am.

I mean, really. She did TWELVE different challenges. I'm happy that I did two, and one was sort of by accident.

You're still here? Well, okay, then.

I did the Dirty Dozen and Naturalist challenges, the first of which entails wearing 11 extra gross pieces of clothing and taking one off per mile (and then presumably stripping off everything else you're wearing at the end in disgust, which I did, but there are no pictures of that, thanks). The Naturalist challenge just means I ran in shoes with a 4mm drop or less.

Here's the proof on the Dirty Dozen:

Here's the proof on the Naturalist challenge:

Here's the story:

I live on top of a hill, sort of, and it's pretty gross out, so I didn't want to throw my clothes straight onto the ground. Instead, I figured I'd pull my car out and park it at the foot of the driveway, and then fold my clothes neatly and lay them out in the back seat. Well, then I got to my car and found that my husband had deposited his tuba in the back seat, which nixed that idea.

Well, okay, and to be fair, anyone who thought I was going to fold my clothes neatly doesn't know me very well. But I digress.

I did, as a matter of fact, park my car at the base of the driveway, and then found a 1-mile route (it involved running my 0.95-mile route and then running around the cul-de-sac in a sort of victory lap) with my phone, which was coincidentally Mile 1. After that I thought I was going to die, because I was wearing about 97 million extra layers of clothing. Ewww.

I mean, I looked like this when I started:

I hate running in baseball caps. I really do.

Anyway, so, here it is, mile-by-mile:

Mile 1: OH GOD I FEEL LIKE A SAUSAGE.
Mile 2: Removed green Old Navy 'ActiveWear' supposed wicking hoodie. No real issues.
Mile 3: Removed gray cotton Race for Justice 2011 shirt. Still no issues. Finally marginally comfortable.
Mile 4: OMG TINY DOGS TRYING TO EAT ME. Removed black Columbia fleece sweatpant things, and was now officially out of pockets. Damnit. Tied my keys to the drawstring on my next pair of pants.
Mile 5: Kid asked me for directions. I gave him wrong directions, but I didn't see him again, so it was all right. Also got a blister about this time, but nonetheless, took off pink hat. FINALLY. Went inside to get bandaid and had to re-think strategy re: shoes at the end.
Mile 6: Removed purple sweatband, which was probably the dirtiest item of clothing that I was wearing. Ew. Glad to get rid of it, despite sweat.
Mile 7: Got rid of blue short-sleeved shirt, which I was wearing under a blue long-sleeved shirt. This was my best mile by far; I felt like I was wearing the right amount of clothing, finally.
Mile 8: Got rid of black capri-length cotton pants, which left me in gray knee-length sweatpant-y things. Still okay.
Mile 9: Realized it was my damn socks that were causing all the problems, but afraid to get rid of them, so removed white H & M tank top/camisole.
Mile 10: OKAY THEN. Got rid of left sock. Originally I was going to take off both shoes at the same time and run a lap in socks, and then the last one in bare feet, which is why I was wearing icky socks from my dead-sock pile (I recycle a lot). That would necessitate running three miles in a sports bra and shorts. Sure, fine, whatever. Then I realized there were a lot of teenagers around and since I don't look like RWB with my shirt off (seriously, she has rockin' abs), I did one sock at a time, instead.
Mile 11: BYE BYE RIGHT SOCK. I should have done that at, like, mile 2. Felt sooo much better.
Mile 12: Got rid of shoes. Bad idea. Should have gotten rid of shirt, or glasses, or pants, or ANYTHING but shoes. Too much gravel. Tried running in the grass, but that made my feet numb, and I figured the damage from gravel was a lot less permanent than the damage from frostbite, so. Anyway. Last mile took me a half hour. I'm fine now, though.

It took me about three and a half hours to complete all of this, what with the last lap being so long and having to take pictures and all, but hey. I'm definitely in line for the chocolate turtle!

Also, if you read this far, why? Go congratulate RWB instead.

March 12athon: 12 Challenges! (RWB)

I've been wanting to do a really crazy combination of challenges but just didn't have the time during the last couple of months. This month, though, I had a whole weekend free right before the 12th to prepare and then several free days afterward to recover if needed. I'd been kicking a bunch of different ideas around my head for a few weeks and I finally decided that I might as well just try to do them all! I ended up with 12 challenges on the list:


Baker's Diet Dozen - After 13 full-sized cupcakes back in January, this definitely seemed doable. I thought about making sourdough crackers for a savory baked good but eventually decided against it because of the amount of prep time involved. In the end, I settled on Buckeyes:



Beet Goes On - This one was easy since I'd made some pickled beets a few months ago and all I had to do was pour some of the juice out of the jar.



Chicken Eatza - As luck would have it, I had 3 whole chickens in my freezer when this challenge was created. I cut the wings off and made a spicy buffalo sauce based on this one - I added a bunch of Melinda's XXXXtra Hot Habanero hot sauce for more heat and a little bit of salt. If you find yourself in need of some wing sauce, I highly recommend making this one!



Diabolic Dozen - I really like eggs. The only reason I don't usually eat six whole eggs in a day is that the good ones can be a bit pricy. I used Emeril's recipe (using his mustard recipe, Julia Child's mayonnaise, and chipotle Tabasco for the hot sauce) because it didn't involve any ingredients I didn't already have on hand. They were seriously awesome. It was really hard to only eat one half at a time.



Dirty Dozen - I was out of town for almost the whole month of February and I don't have a washer/dryer hookup in my apartment, so at the moment nearly everything I own is dirty. An overnight low temperature of about 63 sounded a little warm for layering, but I figured I could tough it out if I only had to do one mile at a time.



Imelda Marcos - A couple of days ago, I finally got the pair of cheap tennis shoes I've been needing for a while. That brought me up to 12 pairs that are comfortable enough for running or at least walking a mile.

VFFs don't take up much room, either, so all 12 pairs of shoes fit comfortably in my old high school backpack.



Kriss-Kross - As long as I was doing as many other challenges as possible, wearing my three shirts, two pairs of pants, and shorts backwards didn't seem like it would pose a problem. I did write myself a note to remember to do jumping jacks every mile because I thought I might forget, though.



Masquerade - I thought about dressing up for St. Patrick's Day, but I don't have much green or anything with four-leaf clovers on it. A Google search revealed that March 12 is Plant a Flower Day, so I picked up a plant and some gardening supplies. (The mint isn't currently flowering, but this is apparently not a requirement for celebrating Plant a Flower Day and it'll flower eventually.)


After carrying the plant around with me for 12 miles, I put it in its new home in my window box. Hopefully mint plants aren't terribly susceptible to shock.



RUI: Double Fister - I was going to make daiquiris, but this is the plant I ended up picking out for Masquerade:


I didn't have any bourbon on hand, but that was easy enough to fix.

TK can totally hold his liquor.

Sisyphus - I was initially going to do this one some month at a track at a nearby park, but when I drove by said park a couple of weeks ago they were in the middle of renovating it and there were several bulldozers parked where the track used to be. It turns out that the block across the street from me is a quarter-mile around, though.

I like how the GPS satellites seem to think
I took a shortcut through a row of houses
for a couple of the laps.

Slacker's 12-Hour Race - This seemed like the best way to successfully ingest all the food from the various other challenges without feeling sick. I thought I'd have a lot of downtime between miles, but by the time I'd recorded my hourly video update, done the run and the jumping jacks, and eaten all the food, there was actually hardly any time left. I did manage to take a nap for half an hour somewhere around 8am, though.



Sunrise - I think I would've had to try harder to avoid this one than to do it since I was running every hour from midnight to noon anyway. It was a cloudy morning, though, so while the sky got noticeably lighter around 7:02, it wasn't the most scenic view I've ever seen.


I took another picture about 14 minutes later after I'd finished that hour's run and jumping jacks, but the view hadn't changed much.




Numbers:
Miles run: 12.02. Apparently setting the watch for a 12-mile 'simple workout' only works if it's done continuously. I was expecting a beep at 12 and didn't get one.
Laps run: 48!
Average pace: 15:23. I walked the two miles with the flip-flops and after staying up all night I just wasn't moving very quickly in general.
Run time: 3:06:27
Total elapsed time: 11:45:49 (12:14am - 12:00pm!)
Jumping jacks: 144