Gazelles On Crack

Are you guys sick of my corn updates yet?

Ha! Too bad. We have more corn updates (and general garden goodness).

The exponential corn growth is starting to slow down a bit I think.

The good news? I no longer have to wear clothes for these pictures & can now fulfill my dream of naked gardening! ha ha.

Carrie Corn is still the tallest, measuring in at 62″ yesterday (a 7″ growth from last week), and the exact same height as me (according to my driver’s license, anyways).

James Corn is about 29″ tall - 5″ taller than last week. He looks so healthy, but just not as strong as his brothers & sisters. There is a pretty good selection of tall corns, though, so I think I’ll end up with a decent crop.

In fact, there are some exciting things happening in corn world!  (I know these pictures are going to embarrass them, but that’s too bad. It’s one of the joys of parenting.)

That is a wee corn tassel starting to poke up out of Carrie Corn! She’s hit puberty and is now changing in ways that made me wish I had a film to show her.

Also, another picture of Carrie Corn:

It may be hard to see, but I promise you that there is the very, very beginning of a tiny ear of corn there. My baby’s growing up! *sniff*

Other corns are starting to tassel as well, but Carrie is the only one with a baby corn ear place.

And for the rest of the garden:

conjoined pumpkin twins

a few of the nearly 3 dozen visible tomatoes

baby jalapeño

Baby cayenne peppers

And, just in case you wonder why I bother with all this gardening stuff:

The green beans, the broccoli, the potatoes, the parsley & the onions on the burger all came from my garden. The architect makes all our bread usually, but this is a leftover bun from our party. Soon, the peppers & tomatoes will also be from the garden. And I really have made cheese in the past, and am definitely going to give it another go again soon. However, I don’t think I will be slaughtering my own bison any time soon, so the meat will have to continue to come from the market!

This was a delicious meal - one of the all-time best (although not sure if it beats last summer’s best lunch ever - photo at the bottom of the page).

June Goals

1. Start getting my weight training in minimum 1x/week. (fitness) - complete success. I did weights 1x/week, got in lots of push-ups & ab work as well as continuing with my yoga practice. I feel really good about this one.
2. Stick to budget for one entire month (finance) - This includes actually putting that money in savings. - Again, complete success. And, it turns out that when I stick to my budget plan, I end up having money left over to spend on fun things. It’s so weird.
3. Track calories in/out for one entire month (weight/health) - also 3A) Only weigh once a week. - With the exception of a couple of days, I tracked the calories in & out all month. And lost 3.2 lbs. Which isn’t a ton in 4 weeks, but it’s better than no lbs lost, right? I was not successful with 3A - I’m still hopping on the scale waaaaay too often. Lately, it’s been out of joy, though.
4. Work on the Friday/personal days (personal) - Well, now that I’m back in school, this has been happening with the schoolwork, so success?
5. DO NOT FREAK OUT ABOUT HAVING A PARTY (personal) - mostly fail. I semi-freaked, and didn’t eat any food (what if we ran out?), but did not worry about running out of alcohol. That was unfortunate.

July Goals

1. Run a good, strong half marathon on 7/4, get in all of my long runs for my first month of serious marathon training, and continue to get my tri-training & cross-training in (fitness/running)
2. Continue to track calories with a weight loss goal for July of five pounds down from where I am now (health)
3. Stay on top of schoolwork (school)
4. Get all retirement accounts to live in the same place (finance)
5. Go camping at least once (personal/relationship)

For some reason, I have a blank mind today. I’m sure it’s nothing to do with the work load (both job & school). I have now decided that I loved last week’s schedule of only working two days, and can’t wait for the architect to get re-employed and make eleventy bajillion dollars so I stay home & live the dream of not working very much, and instead having my workouts be my part-time job. Between that & grad school, I would stay busy enough, I think!

I was looking at my workout stats today, since today is the last day of June, and the last day of the first half of the year, and the last day of the fiscal year (although probably not for everyone).

Not including this afternoon’s run (I’m finishing up Wildwood after work! woo!), I have already exercised for 32.25 hours this week, and will likely get in about 60-75 more minutes tonight. That equals nearly 33.5 hours of exercising in just one month (not including any yard work that happened). That is six hours more than I exercised in May, and an average of just over an hour/day. I feel pretty good about that. I think that, despite my whining about my lackadaisical June workout schedule yesterday, that maybe it wasn’t so much a lazy month, just a lower mileage month due to all the other stuff I added in that I wasn’t doing before (swimming, biking, lifting weights).

So - in conclusion, go me! Also, send money so I can continue to work out a lot without having to worry about where my next pair of running shoes are coming from.

Now, if only my doughy midsection would pay attention to my workout schedule, and get all flat & smooth & hot looking.  That would be super awesome. I would like to rock a bikini (where no one will see me, of course) this summer.  Also, my tri-suit is a little on the tight side (for wily boob-wrangling purposes), and I don’t think I need to carry a spare tire for the sprint-distance bike. So, still working on project abs. Project hot legs=success. Project firm arms=coming along nicely. Project nice ass=initial approval from interested parties.

I also realized today that I have run more miles in 2009 (414 after tonight) than I did in all of 2008 (400), which is kind of cool. I mean, I’m not 6 miles away from 1,000 miles (like some crazy women), but I am going to get pretty close (trying not to be jinx it by being too positive) to my goal of 1,000 for the year. I will have to average 98 miles/month for the rest of the year, which might be a wee bit difficult Oct-Dec, but I’m hoping my July-Sept mileage makes up for it. If I meet all of my planned miles for the next six months, I will be at about 1070 for the year…and that would be fantastic.

But, going forward, I will be running distances I’ve never attempted before, and have already beat my previous record, so it’s all a success from now on! Nothing but mileage records from here on out!

I hope everyone else is feeling as positive! What’s your best accomplishment for the first half of 2009?

But not here - you’ll have to go visit the Chic Runner to get all the deets on the $75 towards Zensah compression products. I would prefer it if you DIDN’T enter, because that would lessen my chances, but I did promise to link to the contest, so here it is.

Last week’s recap:

June 22 - June 28, 2009

Monday - trail run, 10+ miles - Check! I did 10.1

Tuesday - swim + mountain bike + push-ups - Check! I swam 1,000 yards, including a set of 800 yards for the 1st time in ages, did an 11.2 mile mountain bike ride with the architect, in which we averaged 8.8 mph, which I was pleased with because my legs were trashed from the previous day’s run & the morning’s swim, and did my push-ups as well - 71 total, in case you care.

Wednesday - weights + easy 3-4 mile run - Weights, check! run, no. my legs were a little wiped out from the Monday/Tuesday workouts, did my push-ups…

Thursday - yoga, maybe a bike, push-ups - Yoga, check! Did not ride, and did the push-ups on Wednesday, so none today.

Friday - trail run, 10+ miles again - Check! I ran 10.75 miles on Wildwood, meaning I have only have 1.75 miles left of Wildwood trails to be able to say I ran the whole thing in 2009! Go me!

Saturday - mountain bike ride, a little further than Tuesday’s, push-ups - Hmmm….I did ride my mountain bike. Not on a mountain, although there was a small hill. And I did ride it to the Organic Beer Fest. Which involved lifting glasses of beer to my lips, which is almost like a push-up, right? Right?

Sunday - long run, 8-10 miles - I did run - 5.15 miles (to even out the week’s totals). I got super lost in the neighborhood I was running in, and couldn’t find any good places to run that weren’t suburban neighborhoods with streets that have never even seen a straight line. The only roads I knew I wouldn’t get lost on were super busy roads with no sidewalks, so I cut my run short.

I ended the week with:

26 miles run

1000 yards in the pool

21.9 miles on the bike

Overall, nearly 12 hours of fitness related activity! Nice to have to only work two days!

June 29 - July 5, 2009

This is a taper week, so I will likely not get 12 hours of exercise in this week.

Monday: strength training (45 minutes), elliptical (15 minutes)

Tuesday: six mile easy run

Wednesday: braving the gym post-work again for a swim & bike brick

Thursday: three mile easy run

Friday: rest day, I think

Saturday: Foot Traffic Half Marathon!

Sunday: swim/bike - I am comtemplating riding my bike to the pool, and then riding home on Leif Erickson. We’ll see how trashed my legs are after the half mary. I may just try for an easy recovery swim.

Before my last half marathon, the only activity I did in the 7 days leading up to the race was one 90-minute yoga session. This time, I have activity planned every day, albeit lighter than usual activity. We’ll see what strategy works best for me.

Half Marathon Goals

I did not train nearly as hard in the last eight weeks leading up to this half marathon as I did in the previous 3 months before the 2009 Hippie Chick Half.  I think that I only did one speed workout, and one set of hill repeats.

I didn’t get in as many miles, either. I ran 100 miles in April, and only 124 in May & June combined. I am not sure how those changes will affect my running on Saturday. I have put in about the same amount of trail miles in May & June (46.25) as I did in March & April (40.18), but I’m just not sure what my legs are going to be doing on Saturday.

I have two shorter runs this week (six & three miles) that I intend to run pretty easy. My yoga class is on hiatus this week, too. I guess my main goals are:

1. Finish strong

2. Run smart (last time I was dehydrated, didn’t carry my water, and sabotaged my pace by not taking enough water)

3. PR (of course, who doesn’t want to PR?)

I’m not sure I can PR with the lackadaisical training I’ve been doing, but I think I can still come close. Even on my long trail runs, my pace is pretty consistently coming in 12 minute miles or less, and on my shorter runs, I’m definitely averaging about a 10 minute mile most of the time….I need to average between a 10:18 & 10:23 minute mile to beat my last time of 2:16:57.

But, if I don’t, it’s not a big deal. There will be another race, I’m sure.

S0 - thoughts on my taper week plans & goals? What are you doing this week?