World's Strongest Woman

World's strongest woman?


Dump it!

Progress...

The backyard wasteland.


There's all that grass! Also note the remnants of our steps and the little pile of gravel we get to carry around back.

Grass

Pulling up sod is hard work.

We worked for a few hours yesterday, and got about halfway. Unfortunately, we didn't get it done by the time the rest of the materials are arriving, so the driveway will be blocked for a day or two.

Craziness!

The results for the 5k were posted over the weekend. Official time: 25:17.

The crazy part is that through some combination of turnout and demographics, I ended up placing 2nd in my age group! Unfortunately, there were only awards for the first place finishers in this race.

We're also looking at putting in a patio in our backyard. We were traveling up to a store in Delaware (the city, not the state), and Meredith had printed out directions from their website. We followed the directions one step at a time, as you normally do. We turned onto Sandusky St., right in the middle of downtown Delaware, and Meredith asked for the next direction. I said, "That was the last one". She asked what the address was, and I looked at the paper, only to find out their directions just ended at "Delaware, OH". Not any particular *place* in Delaware, just the city.

So, while successfully getting us to Delaware, the directions failed in one minor detail. We ended up pulling into Kroger and calling Meredith's parents, who had gone to the same store recently. The directions from her Mom's memory (Past some trailers, over a railroad track, and along a windy road) were heartfelt but not very useful. Eventually their modem (they do still exist in the wild) found us some real directions and we got there. :)

Success!

I managed to hang on for a personal best in the 5k last night, unofficially finishing in 25:20 according to my watch. I went out pretty fast - I was at 7:45 at the first mile mark, 16:00 at the second mile, and then I must have slowed down after that. The race was slightly downhill on the way out and uphill on the way back, so that's not too surprising.

I had Meredith's dad in sight for a little more than half the race, which is encouraging. He ended up beating me by about 3 minutes. Apparently the first place guy in his age group beat him by only a few yards...close call! The race director told him that he can retire from running when I beat him in a race. :)

Neither Meredith nor her dad like Chipotle, so they both picked up free burritos for me. Now I have lunch for the rest of the week!

5K Race Day

We're headed over to downtown New Albany for a race tonight. It'll be my first 5k of the summer season. My personal best is a 26:06, which is about 8:24 per mile. That's a bunch faster than I've been running the longer runs, but I think I'm in better shape than when I set that record.

I'm actually a little nervous. I feel like I'm supposed to do well now that I'm in training. I'm so bad at pacing myself that I worry I'll go out way too fast, or so slow that I can't catch up to where I need to be. I guess we'll see how it goes!

(I just have to keep reminding myself that there's Chipotle at the finish line...)

Eight Mile

I did 8 miles again this week, to get back on schedule with the training group. I ran with some slightly slower people than my normal pace, so it felt pretty easy. The only difficult part was how humid it's been lately around here! I needed gills to get enough oxygen coming up the hill at the end of the run.

I got an M&M bar at the end of the run. It was good.

We also made some progress on our secret project last night. Hopefully it will be complete within a couple weeks, and I'll post pictures. :)

More Flowers

More flowers from around the house.


More blue flowers...


Flowers from Meredith's hanging baskets.

House Pictures

Our lilac bushes by the corner of our house.

Here's the ladder shelves I made for our upstairs bedroom.

And, as requested, the newly blue wall!