"That day, for no particular reason, I decided to go for a little run. So I ran to the end of the road. And when I got there, I thought maybe I'd run to the end of town... For no particular reason I just kept on going..."
- Forrest Gump
Lauren and I completed the Big Lake Half Marathon last weekend. For no particular reason, I've allowed myself to become convinced not only to run these long distances, but to actually pay for the privilege of doing so. And even more alarming than that, I actually had a blast doing it.
The weather was awesome this year (as compared with the 40 degree hailstorms of the past two years), and for the first time, Lauren and I got to run together. Two years ago I was in no shape for it, and last year Lauren was out with an injury. So this was very cool, and gave us a chance to finally complete it as a team. We came up a few minutes short of our goal time of 1:45, but still finished with a very respectable 1:48 (Lauren beat me by a few seconds with a great kick on the last 1/2 mile). I'm feeling pretty good about that effort -- we both finished in the top 25% of the 1200 runners.
Next up is training for the 100 on 100, and a few shorter races which will be mixed in. Hoping to get on my road bike pretty soon, as well to get geared up for a sprint triathlon or two later this summer. I'll start working on my Forrest Gump beard later this spring. :-)
"Broken hands on broken ploughs, broken treaties, broken vows,
Broken pipes, broken tools, people bending broken rules.
Hound dog howling, bull frog croaking, everything is broken."
- Bob Dylan, "Everything is Broken"
I've been putting in nights and weekends trying to catch up on some house projects and, while I find that to be a fun pastime, I doubt if I could recall a more frustrating few weeks in terms of progress vs. effort. First off, I'm a little overwhelmed, because, like any good Vermont skier, I pretty much gave myself weekends off for the past 5 months. All good for my mental well-being, but not so much for knocking things off THE LIST. I can deal with having too much to do, but I have never seen so many things just break all at once. My projects now have projects, and naturally, are all dependent on one another.
"Its been a rough day. I got up this morning .... put on a shirt and a button fell off. I picked up my briefcase, and the handle came off. I'm afraid to go to the bathroom."
- Rodey Dangerfield
It starts with our laundry room, which has a half-bath, too. We wanted to upgrade it anyway, but had our hand forced by a rotten subfloor. No worries -- necessity is the mother of invention. We wanted a tile floor, which is fun to do, but pretty time-sensitive/time-intensive. So I ripped everything apart, fixed the floor and laid the tile. So far so good, but tough timing when you are talking about being without a washer/dryer for any amount of time. Got to grouting the tile on Tuesday night, only to find ONE tile that did not cement to the floor properly. Naturally, this one is right where the toilet should be, which means not only delaying the project to cement a new tile in place, but also that I can't work on putting the toilet back in for a few more days. I can work around that, though. I figured I'd start working on the area where the washer/dryer are. But before I can do that, we need to do all the laundry in the house, right? Well, we got through 4 of the 37 loads which needed to be done and then the drier died. So, an entire day of Dryers 101 for me, which ended with taking a $140 gamble that one of two problems would be the root cause and proceeding with ordering the replacement parts. Everything is now pushed back a little farther.
I can deal with all of that, though, because I know it is spring and my next time sensitive project is the weed patch we affectionately refer to as our lawn. I managed to get the early spring fertilizer down on time, and it actually looks like we need to mow. Naturally, the lawn tractor will not start. So, on to the John Deere website to learn how to clean old gas from the carburetor and tank... Looking forward to my weekend.
I still need to find time stain our pool deck, clean the pool, fix our leaky roof, hang a birdfeeder, and do the spring cleanup work on your yard. I'm sure I'll have that wrapped up in time to enjoy our yard for at least a couple of hours before the cold weather comes in the fall. Oh yeah, and I committed to helping a friend build a barn, and have a giant pile of rough timbers waiting for me in the garage. At least nothing has broken on those projects yet.
We're also thinking about trading our current vehicles for something more fuel efficient. Nice for the wallet as well as the environment, right? Except that the hood release on my truck is broken. Tough to sell when you can't let someone look at the engine. Maybe we'll start with selling the Jeep, then? Oh yeah, that needs a new idle air controller, spark plugs, and ball joints. Just $1000 or so to get it ready to sell. Fun.
The good news is that I still have a day job which is also insanely busy with things to do and fix. Naturally, my laptop has been crashing for the past 2 days. The best part is that I have 3 days of customer travel next week, followed by a weekend away. I can easily envision myself finding 8-12 minutes of free time to devote to all of these projects in the next week.
With all of that in mind, I have at least had the good sense to begin training a new apprentice:
I'm hoping he can get up to speed pretty quickly and working on the leaky roof...
