adventures in oz.

Despite having 90+ tornadoes hit the state of Kansas this weekend, there were no casualties and only some minor injuries. Well done Kansas weather teams, well done.

It's hard sometimes to take tornado threats seriously where we live, especially for me since I work in the media and am saturated by media and news all day, every day. Just like Floridians don't worry about Hurricane's and Californians are used to Earthquakes. Kansans don't usually sweat tornadoes.

That said, this weekend was the first time I can honestly say I took a threat seriously. As in I didn't go outside to watch the sky. Well I did, but only BEFORE the tornado got within a few miles of our city. We actually prepared for this one, albeit during those five minutes we were watching a 1/4 wide tornado head directly toward our part of town. But we prepared nonetheless. That was a first.

In a funny twist, we were supposed to go camping this weekend with a group of friends. We made the last minute decision (all being long-time kansans knowing our weather 'threats' could turn out to be a bit of wind and some sprinkles) to nix our camping trip and instead get together for an indoor campy meal. In our friends' basement. And I can honestly say (especially since this storm wasn't fatal) that we were all relieved the storm ended up coming through, it made us feel like our decision to forgo our camping trip was worthwhile.

So, we stuffed ourselves with Taco Soup (our typical camping dinner fare), some Island Park beer (wall cloud stout to be exact, in keeping with the theme of the night of course) and s'mores. All while tucked away in the basement waiting out the storm.

*roasting a marshmallow by candlelight. indoor camping at it's finest. no comment on how many i ate, let's just say my workouts this week may be a bit more intense....*

Parts of Wichita did get pummeled, a tornado did come through and rip things up. Thankfully the tornado took an abrupt turn before moving into our neighborhood. The extent of the damage at our house included one snapped Iris and a few limbs scattered across the lawn. The parts of Wichita that got the worst of it were more industrial than neighborhood, which I suppose is better. Although a few neighborhoods did get severely damaged. Seeing some of the pictures it's actually pretty incredible there were no serious injuries.

 

*ariel view of just one of the several damaged buildings on spirit aerosystems campus*

 *this little guy did a full flip! an airplane at the kansas aviation museum*

 *the worst hit neighborhood in wichita*

 *another wichita neighborhood* 

Ariel photos are all from kansas.com photo galleries.

Happy Monday, and cheers to a good running week! Oh and I guess it's Boston day, good luck Boston runners! Soak up those well deserved 26.2 victory miles!

easter sun run 10K. calling it the 'sun run' might be a stretch....

So. Here's the thing. I have two race reports to do. And really, you know what I realized? If I myself don't care THAT much about posting on my races? Does anyone else? Chirp.....chirp..... But... I keep this blog as a virtual scrapbook of my races, so post I must. I should take pictures of my ACTUAL race scrapbook that I started when I first began racing in graduate school. BRILLIANT.

Moving on. I'm doing this all out of order. I'm writing this race report before I get I write about my LAST race. Meh. I think we are all okay with that here. Wouldn't ya'll rather see pictures of my dog anyway and hear about my meltdowns? I thought so.

Nonetheless. Race report. I knew I wasn't in true racing shape. As in I was well aware no matter the racing conditions (i.e. nice cool rainy weather) I wouldn't be setting a PR. I was right. However, I did meet my goal of running the 10K in under 50 minutes. So I'll take it. I would like to shave two minutes off of my 10K PR, and I am confident that will happen in due time. Once I've trained longer than a few weeks in preparation for it.

It was a chilly, yet humid (this can only happen in kansas, of that i'm sure) and very stormy morning. My faithful racing buddies showed up to my house pre-race and we sat around listening to the rain and piddling about until we decided to head over to the race. Because we aren't scuuuuured of a little rain. Plus the lightning had (mostly) quit by that time.

As for the race itself, the rain managed to stay away for most of the race, it spit at us a little toward the end, then the rain started again once we were heading out after the race. And I managed to maintain a nice even split of 8 minute miles. You know how I roll, keep the run pace even steven. If there is one thing I love, it's an even final split.

So that's that. My finish time (according to my garmin, that i whipped out and used for the first time since last year) was 49:43. Trying to get the official results this year has not been successful.  They aren't posted on the race website or anywhere that I can find. So the official results will remain a mystery for now. 

 *post-race with megger and sheller (and the back of 2Slow4Boston's head....)*

best part of my day. helpers.

I have a few race re-caps, some logging of my workouts last week and more to blahg about. For now, just a tidbit about the best part of my yesterday. Since I worked too late last night to make it to hot yoga I decided to just get some yoga in at home.

Whenever I do anything on the floor at home--whether yoga, stretching, what have you--my cat Franklin and my dog Milo feel the need to 'help' me. They are excellent helpers.

You can't tell but Milo is generously gnawing on his bone and Franklin is walking back and forth and back and forth underneath me reminding me he is, point of fact, also in the room. Letting out his tortured sounding meows of pain (i.e. he is screaming: STOP WHAT YOU ARE DOING AND PAY ATTENTION TO ME YOU A-HOLE) isn't enough, he has to walk under me, shove his big cute kitty head into my legs and let me know he is ready for dinner. Or water. Or to be picked up. Or to be let outside. Or he is protesting that there was a sunrise that morning. Or that he is sick of the Kardashian's. Or that the Republicans are totally screwed in this election. Or that CNN won't let him be a corespondent. The list goes on.

Clearly my animals live a painful existence, especially considering how I allow them to freely wander, gnaw on bones, cry at me, head butt my legs, flop and roll all over my yoga mat, when I'm trying to doing yoga. ROUGH. LIFE. But dammit, do I love those manimals.

scrapple.

Get your coffee.

Remember that date we made a few weeks ago to meet back here and assess my training for my spring goal race? Guess what? Assessment time, who's excited?!

Scrapple. My term for the fact that I am scrapping my spring goal race. For a few reasons. Mostly due to the fact that I will now be out of town the weekend of the Wichita Half marathon. I am also calling scrapple because even though my speedwork is going really well and my paces are dropping, my endurance for a half just isn't where I want it to be. While these facts have never stopped me from joining in a race before... well. Times-a-change-people. My decision making process when it comes to racing is far different than it was a year ago. So, no spring goal race. No spring half.

Instead I'm going to continue training and continue with my speedwork and run an early summer half marathon in Kansas City for kicks and giggles. I aim to run my goal half race in the fall.

I have goals that I'll talk about later in regard to my summer training. Boiled down, I want to get faster. Because I like running fast. Because that is my version of some fun runnins' people. More to come on that some other time.

My plans this week for running do include a 10K on Saturday, and I'm afraid to say that because I haven't raced a 10K in so long. I have no high hopes that I will defeat my previous PR, but I am going to give that 10K my best effort on Saturday. I am also going to attempt to beat AP, he's a boy. So wish me luck. I want to see him whimper at my victory. Trust me, so do you. If I win, gloating pictures will be posted.

Despite last weeks difficulties I did manage to get in some good runnings and a nice day of speedwork. My weekend was filled with running with my girlfriends, walks with my dog to the local coffee shop and a few bike rides. It was refreshing. Just what I needed. I am ready to tackle life again. So far this Monday is proving pretty good, in fact I just came back from a 5 mile run that felt pretty fantastic and invigorating. I love it when a run is like that!

Tracking my workouts here is something I like to do, so the official training schedule for Hospital Hill begins now. Side note: I've wanted to do this half marathon for ages but just never got around to it. I am deeming 2012 the year for doing races "I've always wanted to do." BRING IT! 

Week 1 of HH (hospital hill 1/2) Training: 
Monday - 2.5 easy miles with Milo
Tuesday -  30 Minutes Elliptical and 30 Minutes of Total Body Weights and Abs
Wednesday - 2.5 easy miles with Milo
Thursday - 6 Miles of Speedwork w/ 3x1 Mile Repeats @ 7:19 pace
Friday - Off
Saturday - 2 mile walk with Milo to get delicious coffee's and a 30 Minute Bike Ride
Sunday - 5 Miles with the girls, 30 Minute Bike Ride

Embrace the scrapple. Cheers to a happy week of spring runnings fellow interwebbers!