Thursday Thirteen: The Randomness Edition

These are completely random, stream-of-consciousness (and this is different from the rest of the blog how??), thirteen things I'm thinking about today:

I'm kinda sorta obsessed with this guy right now. Go Rangers! 

1. I love baseball.  We've talked about this before. But, really, I do love this game. Rainouts and off days make me grumpy. 
2. My next big race is a 10k. In July. That kinda freaks me out, but at the same time, I am enjoying it.  The marathons will wait. The trail races will wait. For now, I am enjoying being able to do things like meet my girls for breakfast on a Saturday morning, or sleep in on Sundays. It's refreshing, and it's helping me find balance in my life again. 
3. I used to loathe the treadmill.  So much so that I gave mine away.  But now, with this new training plan that requires specific paces for the speed work, I have forged a truce of sorts with the treadmill. It keeps me honest, keeps me from going too fast or too slow. Having baseball on the tube above me (see #1) helps keep me on it through my workout, too. 
4. that's not to say it's all rainbows and kittehs with the treadmill. I had an 8 mile long tempo run scheduled for Sunday. I knew I wanted to hit a certain pace, and I frankly didn't trust myself to do it properly on roads. So, with Hubs and a fully charged iPod in tow, I went to the gym and planned for 8 miles of running. After one mile, my stomach was in full revolt. After two miles, it had settled down, but I knew if I stayed on the treadmill I would NOT finish the run. I'd find someway, some reason to get off early (It's hot, I'm tired, is this making a weird noise? The guy next to me smells. Etc, etc.).  So, I hopped off,  handed my husband my towel and hit the streets for the six mile run home. At that point, I wasn't sure if I would hit my paces, and really, at that point, I didn't care. I just had made the decision that getting the miles in at any pace would be better than bailing on them because I wanted to tear my eyeballs out in boredom. So I ran the six miles home. And, what do you know? Hit my paces PERFECTLY!  BOOM! 
5. Somewhat related: Dear 24-Hour Mansfield, please for the love of Snackpacks, TURN ON THE FREAKIN' AIR CONDITIONER!! Thank you.  
6. About that speedwork... I've been to a couple of track workouts with my local running club, but timing-wise it didn't really work to have speed on Mondays after a long run on Sundays or a trail run over the weekend. So this new training plan with specific paces and intervals (400s? What?) is a brand new ballgame for me. I very much feel like I want to die when I'm done. Which, I am told, is evidence that I am doing them right. Yay. 
7. I'm only on week four of this traning plan but so far I'm liking it.  They are very hard workouts, no extra easy miles for the sake of getting mileage in. I definitely feel like I'm working during them. I am exhausted when I'm done, but at the same time, I feel stronger than I did just a few weeks ago. And the knee is behaving, which is most excellent. 
8. I need to learn to swim again. The training plan I have specifies swimming as a preferred cross-training method. I can dig that, except the workout says to do a specified number of "easy" laps in half an hour. With my swimming ability, that number of laps would take me about 90 minutes. No joke. So I'm working on. Slowly.  I ordered Total Immersion videos off one of the Fraggles, or Snaggles, or whatever those daily deal websites are. The videos come highly recommended by my triathlete friends, but I bet they work better if you don't leave them on your desk still in the wrapper. That's just a guess. 
9. My borrowed bicycle is hanging in the garage waiting for me to take it to the shop for a tune-up and new inner tube. Yes, I KNOW. I need to learn to change the tire myself. I'll get there. Soon. For now, I need to have it fit me properly. Baby steps here, folks.  But all my Frunners have gotten all up into cycling lately and it's making me slightly okay a LOT jealous. I remember riding my bike all around town when I was in college and home for the summer. It was fun. I want to do that again. I WILL do that again. 
10. We're going to Washington, DC for summer vacation this year.  A week in the Nation's capitol.  I can't wait. I'm glad the kids are old enough to appreciate the stuff we'll be seeing. I've been informed there will be at least ONE day of ghost tours at Gettysburg and/or other historic battlefield sites.  My kids rock. 
11. My oldest son was Peter Pan in his school's spring musical. We're pretty sure he was cast because his skater legs looked best in the green tights. The fact that for a kid with very little theater or musical training he totally nailed the part is really just bonus. Now, the little one wants to do theater camp this summer too. Also, we watched West Side Story together as a family the other night. Have I mentioned that my kids rock? 
12. My husband started driving the EBV to work some days after I got my Jeep this winter. It saves mileage on his mid-life crisis Mustang and is more fuel-efficient. He was in a 5-car pileup on the highway a few weeks ago, and thankfully, they said they could repair it. Still in the shop, though, so we will see how good a job they do with it. I really do love my new Jeep, but I gotta admit, I felt a huge pain in my heart when I saw the front of the EBV all crunched up. That car's been so good to me!! I'm glad we'll be getting it back. I miss seeing it's happy blueness in my driveway!
13. Work is always crazy in May. Always. This year is no different. Reason #42 I'm glad I have the new training plan that is less time-consuming right now than a full-out marathon plan that I would have to start yesterday if I was doing an early fall marathon. Sanity prevails sometimes around here, y'all. Sometimes. 

Marathon training hadn't left me much time for these girls. Must fix that!