Oh the Humidity!

This isn't my real Enchanted 10K recap.  This is just a quick post to point out that it is February, and for the second year in a row this particular weekend is unseasonably hot, humid, and terrible.  How do I know?  Photos don't lie...

2013 vs. 2014

I actually think this morning might have been worse than last year.  After all, it was only a 10K and my face is redder and bangs more stalactite-like.  You can also see a dry spot in last year's purple shirt.  I'm pretty sure I didn't have an inch of dry fabric on me this morning!

Anyway, I figured I would do the side-by-side with today's picture, since tomorrow I'll be wearing a visor and not have bangs showing for my second Princess Half Marathon.

PS - I was so excited to be able to recycle last year's feathers! They are now hanging from my rear view mirror, so that probably means they are retired.

Tower of Terror 10-Miler, Times Two

Oh hi, guess what! I ran ten miles last night.  You're probably wondering why I didn't tell any of you in advance that I would be running.  Truth is, I didn't find out for sure I'd be running until Thursday.  I was given the opportunity, and despite my hip muscle issues I said, "well, I'm scheduled to do an 8 mile training run this weekend anyway...what's another two?"  Literally, those words. 

Who IS this crazy girl?

It turns out my hip (which was still bugging me on Friday) was just fine when I woke up Saturday.  And unlike the miserable weather last year, it was under 80 degrees (barely) and less than 90% humidity (by about 5%).  There was even a breeze...once or twice.

I'm not going do recount the whole course - lots was unchanged from last year - but I did manage to get the two pictures I wished I had gotten last year: the skeleton wearing a race bib and the lady whose sign made me cry last year.  I actually stopped and told her I remembered her and thanked her for being there. 

Despite my lack of training, I felt strong for nearly the whole race.  For the first two miles, my pace was actually below a 14 minute mile, and I knew I needed to slow down.  Unlike last year, when the first two miles were my hardest, I was pretty miserable from miles 3-5 this time.  I was actually getting chills, so I shortened some of my run intervals until I cooled down a little bit.

My stats from last night:
5K split: 45:51
10K split: 1:36:30
Finish: 2:39:27

I'd like to pause here to point out that my net finish translates to a 15:57 minute/mile pace.  This is the first long race where I finished faster than a 16 minute/mile!  I also beat last year's time by nearly 4 minutes...even though I stopped to talk to the lady with the sign and stopped 2 miles later to hug Matthew at the medical tent where he was working.

Overall place: 8189 of 9478 finishers
Division place: 838 of 1003 finishers

Some day I'll be fast enough to run one of these races and stop for pictures.  There were a few characters last night I regretted not being able to stop and pose with - the evil queen from Snow White (in wicked witch form!!!), Jack and Sally from Nightmare Before Christmas, and Hades from Hercules come to mind.

I was on my own this year, mostly due to my last-minute registration, and I made some decent decisions I want to note for future reference.  Rather that wear a belt pack, I stuck with shorts with pockets (and a tight drawstring).  In one pocket, I kept my little boxes of Craisins - my race fuel of choice - and in the other pocket, I had a snack-size zip-top bag with my ID, credit card, and spare car key (my purse was in the trunk of the car with all my other stuff).  I safety pinned the bag inside the pocket, and then "locked" it in by pinning the pocket closed.  I also pocketed a folded Disney merchandise bag, mostly because they fold flat quite nicely.  That bag stayed in my pocket until after I crossed the finish line, and then I pulled it out and put the bottles of water and Power Ade, snack box, and other assorted stuff in it.  It's tough to juggle 18 things at once, especially with post-hot-race sausage fingers, and the bag made it so much easier to navigate post-race.

...and of course, no race post would be complete without a tally of assorted injuries.  I have some random spots of friction burn in weird places - the underside of one arm and a few patches around the bottom of the bra I was wearing.  I have one blister: a nickel-size one near the hot spot from my old shoes.  And of course, most of my leg and foot muscles are stiff and achy.  My ankles are also cracking a lot.  My worst injury actually took place on Friday and was aggravated yesterday.  At some point I got a piece of dirt or gravel in my shoe and did a lot of walking.  A blister formed under my second toe, right where it meets my foot, and popped.  It's not a place where a bandage would ever stick, so the best I could do was slather it with Neosporin.  Judging by the damage there now, I'd say the original blister rubbed itself even bigger, and another blister might have formed underneath.  It's angry red, and hurts like a mo-fo when I wiggle my toes, but I think a few days of Neosporin and socks will cure me.

At the end of the day though, nothing can stop me from smiling with pride at what I have accomplished.  Last year, I trained for six months for this race.  This year, I was in shape (well...more in shape) enough to do it at the last minute.  AND I got a PR!  And now, my first ever race medal has a little brother.  Pretty sweet, right?

Next Races:

December 1: Space Coast Half Marathon

December 7: Orlando Half Marathon

December 14: Tap 'n Run 4k

February 22: Disney's Enchanted 10k (day 1 of the Glass Slipper Challenge)

February 23: Disney's Princess Half Marathon (day 2 of the Glass Slipper Challenge)

March 2: (tentative) Excalibur 10-Miler

Cotton Balls Dipped in Pea Soup

I took this picture at about 7:20 this morning at the entrance to my development. Even if you can't tell from the photo, let me assure you that the visibility was crap. And believe it or not, aside from a few clear patches, the visibility was this bad or worse for my entire drive in to work.

It was panic-inducing bad. Like driving through cotton candy... or cotton balls... or pea soup... or cotton balls dipped in pea soup.

It reminded me of a news story my mom once told me about a bridge that was destroyed by a boat in heavy fog (a Google search leads me to believe it might have been the Sunshine Skyway?) and cars kept driving right off the road into the water because they couldn't see that the road in front of them had disappeared. All my life, I wondered how a person could be so stupid as to not know the road was gone.

At one point this morning, when the fog was at its thickest, I was convinced the road in front of me was going to disappear. Now I understand.

On the bright side, driving slowly and concentrating on the white line painted on the side of the road made me notice all of the frost on the grass. I wish I could've stopped to take a picture of some feathery marsh grass that was thick white and sparkly. It was pretty awesome.

And speaking of taking pictures, I'm going to try to take and post a photo a day in 2011. Whether terrible camera phone pictures (dear Blackberry, yours is the worst camera phone I've ever had. love, Jamie) or planned outings with the camera, I think it'll be a fun and easy way to document the year.

Open Sesame

The windows! They're open!

The downstairs windows are open, and with the ceiling fan on it's perfectly pleasant in the living room. Upstairs, all of the windows are open, and all of the doors in the hallway are open too. However meager the breeze, I am determined to suck in the fresh air as much as possible.

Sure, it's still 80, but it feels like fall to me!

Tropical Depression

It's raining.

It's been raining for the better part of the last four hours.

I drove home in a downpour.

And it's dark and gray.

There's a reason I live in Florida. Sure, it rains most days here, but it only rains for 1/2 hour! Days like today (and tomorrow I hear) just make me blue. Maybe blue-gray. And so, as Tropical Depression 16 dumps misery on us tomorrow, I'll be here wallowing in the weather.

Silver Lining

Well, Penn State lost. By a lot. But I went in expecting Alabama to score way more than 24 points. I'll take the moral victory! Not every cloud has a silver lining, but some have rainbows. I won't complain.

Elphie won't complain, either. She's had a great day of sunbeams and cuddling and trying to kill her brothers. No matter how big she gets, she'll always be my tiny baby girl.

Scenes from the Pond

I was out back last night during the end of sunset chatting with the next door neighbors when Pond Log appeared in the middle of the pond and made his way toward us. He's getting less skittish than he used to be, but we went inside long before he was close enough to be a worry. I had the camera, (because I originally went outside to take a different picture that totally didn't turn out) and snapped a few pictures.

I left this one as a wide-shot because I thought the pretty sunset colors made the alligator a little less menacing.

This picture was a total accident. I didn't realize the flash was on, and as a result the photo was way too dark. Of course, the glowing eye impressive enough that I decided to keep it!

The last photo is one of those that didn't come off the camera in a timely manner. I took it a few weeks ago, and the storm front was so defined it looked fairly armageddon-ish. The storm turned out to be pretty minor... at least here. I imagine someone got walloped!

Bird of the Day

What do we have here? This little guy really befuddled me this afternoon. Something about his behavior made me think he was a juvenile, but not so young as to need parents watching over him. And I knew I'd never seen a bird that looked so much like wet newsprint before.

After reading descriptions of every dark-feathered heron at allaboutbirds.org, I finally decided he's a little blue heron, probably about a year old. And how did I come to that conclusion? Well...

It is the only heron species in which first-year birds and adults show dramatically different coloration: first-year birds are pure white, while adults are blue... Enters adult plumage in the first spring after hatching and may be pied white and blue.

So I guess you could say he's in his ugly duckling phase right now. It's a good find for me, since I've only seen a little blue heron out there once or twice before.

In related news, it's been raining a lot this week. The pond is way swollen. Compare these two photos, taken back in April (with the ducks) and the yesterday:

OK, so maybe they don't look so vastly different in the pictures, but trust me. There's a lot more water out there now!

Hurricane Season

It must be Summer in Florida. The afternoon thunderstorms have started, and we've already had some doozies! Of course, June 1 was the official start of [insert dramatic music here] Hurricane Season 2010.[end music]

My favorite Orlando Sentinel columnist took a very scientific approach to hurricane season. He spoke with hurricane experts including a psychic, a monkey, and his two children and compared their results with Dr. Gray. How did they all do? "Generally, when it came to picking storm numbers for 2010, Gray went high and the monkey went low. The psychic and little Maxwells were smack in the middle."

I guess that means I'm hoping the monkey is correct. Apparently buying a house has made me incredibly sensitive to hurricane season. Also, living a few hundred yards from Turnpike construction during hurricane season has made me paranoid. The last thing I need is an orange construction barrel flying through my window at 90 mph!

Halftime

I'm watching the Super Bowl. OK, I'm mostly watching the commercials, but it's turned into a pretty good game. I decided that I most certainly did not need to watch The Who perform during halftime, mostly because I knew I needed to put something up here.

I have a great weather-related bird picture to share, but not until I have more time to edit and upload it. Maybe after the game?

If you're looking for me in the next two hours, I'll be that lump between the sofa and the green fuzzy blanket.

Frost (Doesn't) Bite

On may way from my car to the office yesterday morning, I saw frost on the grass. And I couldn't believe what I was seeing. So I stepped on the grass. It crunched under my feet.

I almost cried.

It turns out for a (it's-not-my-home-anymore-but-I'm-still) homesick NJ transplant, frost can be every bit as wonderful as snow. It brought back a flood of memories I wasn't expecting. While snow reminds me of sledding and snowball fights and other fun things, frost brought me back to waiting for the school bus and other normal every day activities.

And now that I've seen the frost again (they say there might be some tomorrow morning because there's not going to be wind tonight), I'm ready for some nice moderate 60-degree weather.

Assorted Nuts

Today's post is really more like a handful of Tweets. Enjoy the odds & ends!

* Why is it ok to talk about puking your guts up or having a splitting headache, but not ok to tell the world about the extent of your diarrhea? It bugs me. Sickness is sickness. Poop is so misunderstood.

* Speaking of sickness, I went home sick halfway through my shift last night. My stomach still hurts, though I'm being careful to feed it a steady diet of bland foods and a distinct lack of dairy. Scott was having stomach problems last weekend (manifesting differently from my own), and we thought it was the fault of the pork nachos. But given my stunning digestive pyrotechnics yesterday (hat tip to "10 Things I Hate About You" for my favorite euphemism), I'm starting to think perhaps it was viral. I'm back to work today. I'd rather take the day off, but if I do that I'll lose my holiday pay.

* Scott and I had a miscommunication regarding our late-November feast. It seems I didn't tell him the ingredients I needed for my cheesecake. And so the poor guy went out in the rain today to buy me a graham cracker crust, caramel topping, and 2 bricks of cream cheese. I was going to make the pie this morning, but I'll try again tonight. I just wanted to get it done and out of the way so I don't have to jockey for oven space at a later time.

* As I mentioned, it is currently POURING! I won't be complaining though. Yes, it's so uncharacteristic of me. I won't complain about this one day of rain because it is a cold front. Tonight we'll have the windows open and in the morning, I might actually be using a blanket. I guess I should find a jacket and umbrella...

Night Terrors

Reading Between the Tweets

I sent a bunch of rapid-fire Twitter messages this morning, and there was so much more to share that I thought I would use them to add color to the story of my morning.

Scott woke up around 5:00 this morning, and was surprised that I was still asleep. I woke up about 5 seconds later. The cause? Sideways rain was pelting our bedroom windows. These windows are north-facing and don't usually get direct impact rain. The rain was pretty surreal due to the near-strobe-light effect of constant lightning. I couldn't believe how bad it was out there. Scott went to the living room to turn off the computer, and I turned off the cable box in the bedroom. But it was so bad (sounded like we were inside a tin can) that we (I) decided to check the weather for a tornado warning. There was no tornado warning - just one cell directly over our home that was red and pink on the radar, though you couldn't even see the color until they turned off the lightning strike display!

This was the worst nighttime thunderstorm I had seen since the week I spent in Casselberry with my Great Grandmother when I was in junior high. I was terrified. As the storm was winding down, I joked with Scott that I was going to get on the floor and sleep between the bed and a pile of laundry baskets, just in case the roof crashed in. We fell back to sleep right around 5:30, having survived the crazy storm.

6:20: flashBANG! I think the lightning actually woke me up a split second before the thunder shook the walls. "Holy shit!" It's not that I wanted to yell. It was involuntary (sort of). I was NOT going to be awake and terrified by myself. This storm was worse than the first one, and that lightning strike was CLOSE!

If you thought waking up to 5am t-storm was bad, try 6:30 lightning strike followed by bldg fire alarm going off!

At first, we didn't know it was our building. It was a funny alarm, beeping twice, then a feeble chirp, and then it would stop for a few seconds. Right away, we thought that it was another building, but that it was a shorted out alarm. We heard the fire truck come into the development and decided to get out of bed and investigate. Upon opening the door to the living room, I nearly jumped out of my skin to the sound of a loud CHIRP! coming from the alarm right above my head! "Oh...I guess it's our building."

Side note: firefighters in full gear stopped to say good morning when they passed us in the hall!

We decided to put on more clothes - an undershirt and pair of shorts for Scott, and a bra and change of pants into less pajama-like black lounge pants for me. We couldn't go out on the balcony due to the continued sideways rain (having lived through a few hurricanes, I can tell you the rain and wind was just as bad this morning) so we wandered out into the outside hallway. We were walking towards the back of the building when we heard very heavy footsteps on the stairs near our door. And lo, there were two firefighters in full gear stomping up our steps! As they passed us, I was waiting for them to "rescue" us or something. Instead they said good morning, and kept walking. Thank goodness. Not only had we wandered outside without shoes, cats, keys or wallets, I wasn't even wearing underwear! I imagine they were just as confused to see us.

Another side note: not sure who's more spooked, me or the cats. I'm not hiding under any furniture, but I think I'm also staying awake.

Even now, Elph and Milo are extra cuddly. When we came out during the second storm, there were no cats. Then Elphie came out from under the blue chair, and Milo appeared from wherever he had been hiding. Kilo came out when he was sure the danger had passed.

update: channel 9 a-hole weather man just said this storm wasn't severe. wtf???

The storm let up a little bit, so Scott turned on the TV in the living room while I was sending out my rapid-fire tweets. I wish I knew what the criteria was for "severe" thunderstorm. If not high winds or sideways rain or thousands of lightning strikes, then what?? I'm sorry that I called the smiling guy an a-hole, but he shouldn't have marginalized my terror. Had this storm hit downtown Orlando or Seminole County the way it hit us, they would've been running wall-to-wall weather all morning.

At 7:00, we went back to bed. I finished one book* and started another, and Scott fell right back to sleep. At 7:45 I stopped reading, and decided to try to fall back to sleep. At 8:00 on the dot, just as I finally sunk into my pillow, I woke up to a low rumble - the unmistakable sound of a riding lawn mower. That's right, the lawn guys were back, mowing our swamp! I managed to fall back to sleep, and barely flinched when the alarm went off at 10. I woke up for real at 11, but only because I have to leave for work by 12:45.

Speaking of work, I should really go blow dry my hair.

* Dave Barry's collection of columns, "Boogers Are My Beat." Even if you never liked his humor, I suggest you find this book at your local library and read the last two essays. They are, to the best of my knowledge, the only non-humor columns he's ever written. One was written the week after 9/11, and the other was written a year after. It made me realize that Dave Barry isn't a silly guy who lucked into a writing gig. He's a really gifted writer. And that last story should be required reading for high school kids.

Let's Discuss the Weather

Might rain!

Feels Like a Sick Day

Today is a regularly scheduled day off, but Scott's schedule was switched for his regular department meeting (which was subsequently cancelled, but he still had to go), so I'm home alone.

The sky is gray, and the apartment is so dark I'm about to turn on some lights.

And I had the worst cramps in recent memory this morning. I moaned, I whined, I medicated, I paced, I drank water, I cuddled with the heating pad, and I Wiied. I also spent time on the floor alternately laying on my stomach and curled up in the fetal position.

Alas, things are looking up. My uterus is slowly relaxing, and the rain has started. I love the sound of rain, especially when I don't have to drive or otherwise function in it.

Today will continue to be a pajama day. I'm doing laundry so that we don't have to worry about it tomorrow. The trade-off of me doing laundry by myself is that Scott will grocery shop by himself on Saturday. He doesn't know that yet. Shh... no sense bothering him at work!

Trapped in an Ice Cube

8:30 class this morning.

I left the house at 7:30, and was met with this:

Sunrise as seen from inside an ice cube.

That's a solid sheet of ice on my windshield. And since I live IN FLORIDA, I don't own an ice scraper. So I sat in the car drinking coffee and shivering and blasting the defroster. I might have had to sit less than 10 minutes, had I not also been out of windshield washer fluid.

All's well that ends well. I made it to class in plenty of time. And I don't have frostbite.

Fay Fay Go Away

It's still raining.

Storm's A Comin' Back?!?

Oh for the love of Pete!

So what you're telling me is that I should expect intermittent rain between now and Friday at the earliest?

I miss the blue sky already.

This photo was taken at sunset last night. The sky was the most peculiar shade of orange-ish-purple. Currently it's just plain gray.

Storm's A Comin'!

You know what my favorite thing to do on my days off is? I enjoy sitting on my tush and watching movies. If I didn't have to, I don't think I'd even leave the house most days. So there's a good portion of me that's quite pleased to see that we're going to be under water on Tuesday and Wednesday.

There's also another part of me that says "landfall at Ft. Myers? That's where Aunt Rose is!" And there's part of me concerned about Scott's family out in Polk County. And there's part of me worried about ME. Sure, there's no huge risk from tropical storm winds and flooding if you live on the third floor. Our roof survived all of the '05 hurricanes just fine. And inland, most of the fatalities are from driving when the authorities specifically told you not to.

I got Scott out of bed early* today (after he worked until around 4 am) to go grocery shopping so that we would have no reason to risk life and limb tomorrow or Wednesday. It was crazy! The store was certainly more prepared than I was planning to be. They took out the aisle of tacky tourist crap right in front and replaced it with a WALL of cases of little water bottles. The next aisle set up was all canned goods - tuna, vienna sausages, canned pasta, etc. It really wasn't any busier than when we usually shop, but maybe it just felt like that because they had more than half the registers open for a change.

Speaking of shopping early, I am ashamed of our trip today. We didn't eat before we left, so we ended up with oreos (hey - they were on sale, and who knows how long those banana ones will be around?), chips and dip, and some other random junk foods. Oh, and a bottle of cheap champagne for local news-related drinking games. We were going to get subs for lunch, but the local fire department made a line 6 deep. Apparently they felt the need to "rescue" the lunch meat. So instead we stopped at KFC on the way home.

So if the power goes out, we're good for a few days with cold chicken, cookies, cereal, junk food, and tuna sandwiches. Party at Casa ParkHopper!

Well, wish us luck. And take care of yourselves too!

* a little before 11:00

Note to Self:

Before deciding to leave the living room windows open over night, take 30 seconds to check weather.com and make an informed decision as to whether that is the best thing to do.

The AOL main page informed me that it was 39 degrees when I woke up this morning. That explains why, even with a sweatshirt on last night, I woke up with sore muscles from sleeping tightly in the fetal position!

oops!