Fall is that you?

 Seriously, stop teasing us and just come on in fall!  This is the last week before school starts, or what we are now getting use to as school.  We are eating up every last minute of it and enjoying our extending spring break.  Although I am ready for some alone time where I don't have to listen to stupid youtube videos or the bleeping and blooping of video games.  I love my son so much but 6 months straight of having him 24:7 has been a bit much for me mentally (moms of multiples, I honestly don't know how you do it).  

Don't mind the dog hair under he chair LOL!  We celebrated National Dog day with three very spoiled pups curled up and watching the Eco Challenge race.  Have you watched it yet? I know I am behind most in watching things, but it's thrilling and exciting and makes me want to do adventure racing IF I could handle heat a tad bit better.  I would be one of those racers who on day 2 is already in serious heat stroke judging by the way I have handled this summer and training.  

Had some late nights at the office and some rough days.  You don't own a small business, it owns you, and we are clawing our way through our first four years of being a business.  We have both learned SO much and continue to learn.  Some nights the best course of action after a rough day is go have some tasty brews and start fresh the next day (hopefully minus hang over LOL).  

Found out i was famous yet again.  KSU holds on to any footage they take for any reasons and they tend to reuse it.  This footage was originally for a commercial we did a few years ago that funny enough was on the jumbotron at the KSU football games.  Now, I am in a video for student recruitment on the homepage for KSU  (don't tell anyone that I was certainly not a student when this was shot). Sepia tones really bring out my freckles LOL!  

A little bit of summer and a little bit of fall.  Ready for my pumpkin beer and pumpkin coffee!

The weather has honestly been weird.  Super hot during the day with heat indexes in the 100s.  70s in the morning with one morning having no humidity and the other during the week being in the high 80s but both doable for us and the dogs.   We are still trying to get 4 runs a week in with one long run.

Also still trying to be brave and do the gravel bike rides.  Last week left me a little nervous and defeated but I was ready to come back for more and hoping for a little less hilly route.  We went back to our old route (THANK GOD) and we only had one big hill and one smaller hill.  Much better for wussy me who likes to ride my brakes down hills.  The scenery was amazing and we saw a few historic sites again.  We talked about ghost stories the whole way back and had such a good time minus one spot of crazy hard rocks.  Then it happened. I had forgotten my safety glasses and it was pitch black dark so I couldn't wear my sunglasses.  We were biking back and I ran through a spider web (ON THE FREAKING ROAD) that had a bug or something in it.  The something in it went into my eye and began clawing my eyeball to death.  My only response was to rub as hard as I could till i got back to robin's house where i could douse it with water.  Never found the offending whatever but boy did it hurt.  Glad my hubby wears contacts so I could use his solutions to make my eye not feel on fire.  Will have my safety glasses in my pocket to put on next time FOR SURE!

Had storms Saturday morning so no long run, plus I had had a few beers the night before knowing it was suppose to storm, so slept in and enjoyed a lazy morning.  Had lunch over in St. George and then came back and did some chores around the house.    Finally couldn't take it anymore and headed out on my bike for 10 and then changed quickly, grabbed the dogs and got a quick 3 before we headed to the track again for practice.  

 

We had what I would call productive practices.  The car is resisting us on any changes and we just can't get it dialed in lately.  It's frustrating for all of us, especially Andrew.  Now that he has a car that is super fast and is easy to work on, having a car that isn't can be a little tough.  

My plan was to get up early and get in 10 before races but after another late night of practices, I decided to sleep in and run post races.  Yeah, I know, bad idea.  I do need all of my senses when I score so it is very important that I am not sleepy.  We somehow screwed up a line up last weekend and while it was a rookie class, so doesn't matter how we placed them, it mattered to the parent and to the kiddo and I get it.  We had our normal two heats and two features.  Andrew had not practiced his Jr Animal car (the burgundy 18 above) but he had practiced his Jr Honda car (black and green pictured in the practice picture).  We are still trying to figure out best set up and we are still a work in progress.  I do feel like he is pushing the car now and driving hard, we just need to figure out how to deliver the best set up.  Basically long story short, Jr Animal he started on the pole in the heat and finished 3 out of 5.  The top two cars are running 6.4 seconds per lap and he is running 6.79.  We have to figure out how to get more out of this car.  In the feature he started 3rd since we didn't invert and he got passed by 3 cars so ended up 4th.  He ran 2nd most of the race but again, their cars were just set up better and faster.  He did a little better in Jr Honda this week and that was the big point we were trying to make with him.  If we are going to sell this car, it has to be pushed and look sellable (we already have someone interested, YIPPEEEE).  In the heat race he finished 5 out of 7 with a 7.05 being his fastest lap (fastest car ran a 6.88).  In the feature he  raced hard, made it through some wrecks and finished 4th out of 7 which put him in 3rd for the points for the day.  Again he ran a 7.09 and the feature winner ran a 6.77.  

This is why we race though.  I had a fleeting thought about packing up and rushing home so I could run.  Then I saw him playing and I just didn't want to leave.  These kids race their hearts out on the track and then play like nothing happened.  We adults could learn so much from them.  For that reason, I did not get a long run in this week and I am not sad about it.  

Have a great week! I am looking forward to school starting, cooler weather, and a long weekend!

Humidity and sleep

 

Started out the week with a bang!  Storms cleared everything off of our front porch and then some.  Still not as bad as what hit Iowa.  Have you see the pictures?  WOW!  Glad that some of my Iowan friends are finally getting power back.

Kind of disappointed.  Andrew earned a new Lego set and everything including instructions is on an app.  I wanted Legos to keep him off of a screen and now he is back on a screen.  It's a cool set, very interactive, but still.  With the very real possibility of online learning again this school year, anything done off of a screen is a good thing.  If we have to do 6.5 hours at a computer, I may scream and cry daily.  Seriously.  

  

Then we found out that the set we bought needed a "starter set" in order to work properly, so Andrew wanted extra chores to earn it quickly.  I do all of the yard work and honestly I figured it wouldn't hurt with the proper safety gear and instruction to teach him how to mow now.  And yes, he smiled the entire time.  It's so cute when kids think chores are fun.  I have always had a hard time letting him do chores, because I have a very specific way I do most things (Type A all the way), so letting him do things means extra work for me.  Well, I am trying to put that aside and let him step up and do more around the house.  Not going to lie, it's an internal struggle for me, but also I am tired and need help since hubby doesn't have the time to help me with any type of house or yard work.  

Was so excited to see 60s in my weather app until I also saw 92% humidity.  Dang it Kansas, knock it off.  The humidity fog was so heavy that it was hard to breath and enjoy the cooler weather.  At least the dogs got to get out and got a free bath in the process.  

Tried a new eating place that opened up over at St. George.  It's funny, when we moved here, we had 0 BBQ joints and I went through serious withdrawals.  Yes, there is KC BBQ in KC, but we are about 2 hours away from KC,  and meat smothered in sauce is not anything I like.  Anyway, we finally made it over for lunch time and it was AMAZING!  It was Alabama BBQ, which I had never heard of (just means covered in red sauce that is tomato based, who knew), but the naked meat was amazing and the sides were SO GOOD!  We had the best fried okra EVER!  We can't wait to go more often and support yet another great BBQ joint in our immediate area.  

I was trying to take a picture of the humidity fog, but this is what I got. Not a falling star, just my camera phone doing weird long shutter things.  It was 60 degrees, but 90% humidity!!!!!!!  I am SO done with humidity.  I can't even enjoy the cooler temps because I can't catch my breath, and my pace is still super slow because of that.  Sigh.  Someday it will be fall and I will rejoice.  

Looking matchy matchy for my gravel bike ride.  We did a MUCH hillier, much more trafficked gravel road, and honestly I hated it. I  am not a fan of going down huge rock covered hills. I have a vision of hitting a pot hole or a rock and going over my handlebars when I go fast.  For that reason, I ride my brakes going down big hills and get quite behind the group.  Of course i catch up on the ups, but then they whiz past me and I get behind again.  I was also not in shape for this ride, so post ride I was spent!  Of course the next morning i woke up with a stabbing pain in my groin area, so decided to take a day off and rest and make sure this wasn't something more than just typical soreness from doing something I haven't ever done before.  Since I am not on a training plan, why not.  I did tell my running partner that i think I would like to run Thursday mornings again, so that I can't use the bike ride as a reason to wuss out on my run the next day.  

I then did a dumb thing.  Tony had to go into work Saturday morning and work with a crew and I decided based on when he needed to leave, I would rather wait and run later than try and get any early.   When he got off work around 10 ish, I thought, what the heck, go out and get your 10.  It was feels like 85, but the humidity was low, so I figured I would do two 5 mile laps and just carry my water bottle and not my pack to stay cool.  I got about 2.5 miles out and felt good and had plenty of water, so I kept going.  BIG MISTAKE.  Around 3.5 miles out the wheels fell off and I started feeling like I was going to puke.  I somehow stupidly thought well if I can at least get to 4 I will stop and turn around and walk the rest of the way back.  I made it to 4 somehow, but then the walk back was painful.  It was hot, dusty, and I had to really watch my water.  My hubby was in another town with my kiddo, so not near enough to come pick me up quickly and both of my running partners were out of town.  I decided to try power walking as long as I didn't feel like I was going to pass out and ended up making it back.  Four mile of my walk run and 3.4 miles of power walking.  You would think I would have learned my lesson from previous experiences, but you know, I am not the sharpest tool in the shed sometimes.  

Long run day number 2.  Decided even though Sunday was a race day to coffee medicate, get up super duper early, and head out to try and get 8-10 running miles.  Robin and I got 10 no problem and enjoyed the cooler temps and the lower humidity.  

So this is going to be a little long winded so grab a beverage , get comfortable, and welcome to my brain.  We had another race weekend with both cars.  We had not practiced the above car, which is his Junior Honda car.  Ever since he has had success in his Junior Animal car (the maroon one), he has been down on this car.  He doesn't like the way it handles, he doesn't like the way it runs, and he has just given up trying to drive it hard.  I was SO excited when I saw in random draw he had drawn pole position. That would at least let him get out and run some laps in clean air until he caught up to the tail end cars.  We have some AMAZING drivers in Jr Honda, some kids that this is their second year doing this class and they have confidence, amazing cars, and that competitive edge that Andrew doesn't quite have yet.  He held on for a little bit but then those cars caught up and he got passed down till he was in 6th place.   He did hold off 2 cars to finish in 6th, but not great effort honestly, but he is 8 so who knows what goes through his head.  We didn't invert the field, meaning that he started 6th and again he quickly got shuffled to the back where he just hung out and drove the slowest laps ever (fastest in the heat for him was a 6.955 compared to a 7.4 in the feature).  It was very obvious he was NOT trying and that is our only criteria, YOU HAVE TO TRY.    Very disappointed and will be doing lots of practicing for sure this week with this car.  This car is not crap and he has to believe that.  We are going to get another car like his Jr Animal car ordered (same chassis) as i guess chassis are different and kids can find one that they like more than others.  We are blessed to have the money to do so and we can sell this car as I have mentioned before and get money back but dang it, if we do this he'd better drive his BUTT OFF!

Next up was Jr Animal, his maroon car.  He had an amazing practice with this car during the week, turning a 6.4, which is truly the fastest he has ever pushed this car.  Again he had a lucky pole position and got a great start pulling away quickly.  He had about 16 laps of leading AND passing which is so good for him before one of the veteran racers caught up to him and passed. I would have liked to see him race her a little harder and not give up so quickly, but he managed to hold off the car behind him and get 2nd place.  He was SO excited as were we!  He raced his BUTT OFF!  Again we didn't flip the field, so he started outside pole.  Here is where it gets super tricky.  The inside pole sets the pace BUT the inside pole can also jump the start IF the flagman feels they accelerate too quickly.  The inside pole was charged with jumping the pole twice, which meant she went to the back.  Then Andrew was on the pole and jumped the start.  Sigh. He got the black flag, which totally scares him to death, so the next three or so starts, he wouldn't go and the outside pole car was charged with jumping the start.  He moved to the back which moved another racer up to the outside and we finally got the race started.  Andrew held first for about half the race and the other two veteran cars caught up to him.  He didn't put up much of a fight and let them take 1 and 2, but held onto 3rd spot and finished strong. I am sure he was tired, there is no telling how many laps they did trying to get that start right.  

Overall a pretty good racing day, just have to figure out how to convince him in his head that the green and black car is not crap, it's still a good car and he can still race it hard.  We are getting a new car, however, it may not be here till the end of the season dependent on when we  get it ordered.  We expect the same amount of try in both classes and are tickled pink he is being competitive and trying hard with one but we expect that from both.  

Hope you have a great week!  I can go on and on but stopping there so I can get this posted and done:)

Night runner + comfort zones

 

My running partners get me.  They both have had these amazing hand made shirts made for me over the years.  Robin had shirts made for our race that got canceled.  This is SO true!

Watching his races.  He would only watch his good races and that is a step in the right direction as he use to not want to watch any of it at all. BTW, we put absolutely no pressure on him to win, to just do his best yet he puts a ton of internal pressure on himself.  I am starting to see hues of me in him.  This is not good :)

 

Night run thanks to hubby's schedule right now and not wanting to run on the mill.  Chasing the sunset and the meteors.  

School starts in three weeks.  Time to start the 2nd grade review.  Glad that we had reading help all summer and an amazing tutor.  He really has turned a corner with his confidence on his second grade skills and I am SUPER proud.  

Night running = lots of bugs that fly directly into your eyeballs.  This means safety glass running until the crops are harvested on our running route.  

Not sure why I have such a goofy look on my face, but first group gravel bike ride!  We did 6 out and 6 back on a road I had not been on and had fun.  Rockin Robin went with me so I wasn't all by myself ar the back.  The group keeps a 10-12 mph pace and I can't quite hit that on gravel, but they were very kind to check in with us and not leave us behind.  A few times when the gravel was packed down, I was able to manage the 10 mph limit.  I feel like we will be going on more of these bikes rides, especially if we are only running 4 days a week.  Both Rockin Robin and I have certain bike rides on our bucket list like the Dirty Kanza and Bike Across Kansas.  I also now have bike jerseys. Rockin Robin's brother in law passed away suddenly and he was an avid biker.  He was a smaller man, so some of his gear fits me and some fits Rockin Robin.  I am glad we can honor his memory by wearing his gear on our rides.  

With no long run planned on Saturday and no car races, Andrew and I planned an adventure.  First we went to a local dairy that provides our area with the best milk.  They make their own ice cream onsite and it is heavenly.  

They weren't doing tours but we could go see the babies and talk about cows (something my little city slicker kiddo knows nothing about).  

Next we went over to Milford Lake to the nature center.  We didn't know if it would be open due to Covid, but it thankfully was and lucky for us, there were little to no people there when we got there.  They had a butterfly garden that was magical.  

The insects seemed very use to people, so you could get super close to get pictures.  They also had a fish hatchery with outdoor runs, but you could only see in the water of one of the runs to see actual fish.   Next, we visited the center itself.  They had all kind of animal/reptile/insect exhibits like the roach house below.  

The roach house was FULL of roaches and it was super cool.  Whomever made this was super creative.  Here is a close up of one of the very armored roaches.  

There was also an outdoor exhibit of raptors including a kestrel, a barn and barred owl, and a golden and bald eagle.  There was a super cute playground we did not let Andrew get on (major angst about that one from the kiddo) and a nature trail that went down to the water and around to some bee hives and back to the center.  The few people that was there were wearing masks and being very careful to stay apart.  We ended our visit to Milford by heading over to the lake and the tubes to watch people catch fish and got to see a guy catch a HUGE catfish.  

We ended up back in Manhattan at the Manhattan Brewery.  This is a new tasting room opened up by several past KSU football players.  They brew their own beer there and they have tasty and unusual snacks.  You can order food from other local downtown eateries and bring in and eat if you want to.  Again, tables were super spaced out, you wore you mask in and while not eating, and they were cleaning constantly.  

We tried different brews to see what we liked.  I wished they had a taster set of all of their brews, but I didn't see that as an option on the menu.  We tried the Brute porter (my favorite), the Juicy (a hoppy pale ale), the Peachy Wheat, and a beer mix called the Pontyz Painkiller.  We weren't quite ready for dinner, so we had some snacks including their bar mix (peanuts, pretzels, and rye chips) and the key lime mix (amazing mix of yogurt covered pretzels, lime candies, and cashews).  We were in a sitting type area with comfortable chairs and they were playing 90s music from my college days, which brought on many sign alongs by patrons, which I loved.  In the end, even though I picked 2 beers that had low ABV, I was a little too tipsy to drive, so we headed down to the Tall Grass Taphouse to have dinner.  Since I was done with beers by then, I ended up getting a crowler to go.  We ended the night watching Rocketman FINALLY and loved it as I knew I would. 

  

We moved our long run to take advantage of the cooler temps on Sunday.  The dogs were able to stay with us most of the run. Stella did the entire 15 and Ebby and Kitty made it about 10.  While it was cooler, the humidity was still above 90 the entire run and just sapped my energy.  

We knew that storms were possible but were not suppose to hit until after our run.  Imagine our surprise when we looked back to the west after going most of our run to the east and seeing dark clouds and lightning!  Our lightning trackers had not gone off so luckily it was striking more than 25 miles away but still scary to see it.  The storms split and went around us, so we were able to get our full 25K on the gravel.  

I am not a fan of virtual runs, simply because I don't like paying for distances I would be doing on my own gravel for free, but this one was fun.  The story behind this run revolves around Bonnie Jo, a runner on our Trail and Ultra running group on FB, finding a suitcase.  She posted a picture of the suitcase and asked if she should open it.  Well our group went nuts and said collectively in about 1000 comments YES.  The problem?  She didn't and somehow turned off her phone or didn't check FB for  like a day in which time we all went nuts asking WHAT'S IN THE CASE BONNIE JO??  We seriously lost our minds waiting to see what was in the suitcase (it was tied shut BTW making it even more intriguing).  She eventually went back to open the suitcase and it was full of empty liquor bottles and deflated soccer ball.  Out of the fun we had with all of this, a virtual run was born to benefit the Girls on the Run and I was in.  Super cute tank tops and shirts that were super soft, plus a really cute handmade wooden medal was the swag and I love them both.  I guess I can finally say I did a virtual run in 2020!

I am sad to report that we are not able to have a Girls on the Run team this year due to all the uncertainties, and i am honestly SUPER sad.  I get it, outside coaches are not a good thing, and we do race in Topeka on a weekly basis that puts us in contact with a different subset of people.  We had thought about a virtual season, but these kids have enough screen time right now to have to deal with yet something else being virtual.  Plus, many of them can not just go out and run from their houses.  They need safety in numbers so we will just postpone for the spring season and hope for the best.  

Have a great week y'all!

Thank you Kansas....sort of?

I am using this pandemic to find fun masks.  Here is one of my new ones :)

Woke up to 53 degrees but 92% humidity.  Actually had goosebumps on my arms while running.  I will take it!  5 miles with the dogs.  

A little post track practice food and beer.  Never been to the Blind Tiger but we will be back!  I mean you can't go wrong with a place that brews it's on beer.

Another cool morning run with Stella ella.  On our way back she started getting sick.  Her and boom had gotten into the very secure dog food container and indulged.  Boom had gotten sick the night before and seemed over it.  Stella seemed fine till we got almost done running and she started vomiting.  Unfortunately,  I had a 1.5 hour zoom call that I couldn't miss but as soon as I got done and got the piles cleaned, called and got her into the vet.

Some anti nausea meds and subQ fluids seem to get her fixed right up.  Wish she would learn from these times but she's a dog, she doesn't generalize.  

Boom got to substitute since it was yet another cool morning.  Supposedly these are going to end and I am super sad.  I am so ready for fall.  

Finally after a few months of Andrew not drawing at all, he finally is getting back into the groove.  Steamboat Willie minus the ship wheel.  

Another practice in the book.  More laps in the bank of experience.  Getting better at pushing the car and trying hard.

Here is a weekend recap to end this post. I did get a longish run in of about 7 miles, but it was super hot at SUPER humid at 5 am so we called it good at what we got.  I am fine with that, we have no reason to be pushing ourselves right now and getting sick/passing out.  I did lay back down and go back to sleep post run which was a very nice change.  We had a night race so post nap and post dropping the dogs off to be boarded, we loaded the trailer and headed to Topeka.  

I have a love hate relationship with night races.  I love the fact that it's fun and thrilling to race under the lights and that we kind of miss the heat of the day.  I hate the super late night with the early day the next day.  

Overall Junior Honda was kind of a bust.  Even when he had a good draw, he let people pass and was content to drive around in the back.  He ended up either 5th or 6th out of 7 every race, mainly because people wrecked and went behind him in the line up.  He had a chance to finish higher up after two kiddos wrecked and went behind him, but for whatever reason he let them pass him back.  The weird thing is, his car was consistently faster than the two cars in front of him and the picture above really shows how he drove Sunday.  We have been working on him getting the courage to get up behind other cars and let them know he is there before passing.  We got the bumper pushing part down, just not the passing, as I don't think they fear little Cautious Coleman.  He will get there, I do have hope.  Every weekend we are seeing small changes and this was the first two day show where he was pretty consistent all weekend with his level of try.

I love this picture so much.  He loves his Junior Animal Car so much that we might sell his junior Honda and get another chassis just like his Jr Animal car chassis.  He drove his ass off in this car, went almost 4 tenths of a second faster than his other car and passed people!!!!  I am not sure why this car makes him so confident since it is faster and harder to drive.  He made several passes in this car this weekend, although he started to loose his courage on Sunday and kind of let a few people by him to get 5th place.  He had a 3rd in the feature on Saturday night out of 5 drivers and a 3rd in the heat race out of 6 drivers on Sunday.   I am one proud momma of how hard he tried for almost 90% of the weekend.  

We made it through another 2 race weekend!  Tired but happy and ready to have a weekend off.  Have a great week!