Holy crap. Having the right shoes can definitely make a huge difference. I normally just use my trail running shoes for various excercise related activities. However, since I’m running in a relay, and by “a” relay I mean “the” relay, out in SFO (feel free to donate, it’s tax deductible!), I figured I should go a little bit more professional, especially since I normally have a hard time running long distances on pavement.
Well, I bought the shoes on Monday, a pair of Saucony ProGrid Triumph 5’s, and this morning was the first time I was able to try them out. Now, I’m not sure if it’s because I’ve been running a lot with hills on the treadmill and this was the first time this year outside or the new shoes, but I was able to go >2x further this morning than I ever had been able to outside. Plus, I was hauling or at least it felt a whole lot faster than I normally go. The best part was, the parts of me that normally hurt when running on the pavement for long distances, didn’t. In fact, nothing really hurt. I just kept crossing more and more streets since I wasn’t hurting like I normally do.
Next loop will be up to Addison to make it 7.5 miles. Hopefully I’ll do that tomorrow or Friday now that I’ve broken in the shoes. Plus, now that I know that 5 miles is not that big a deal, I’m going to start running to the gym and back. What’s really wierd is that I’m actually excited about this. I thought I wasn’t going to be in that great of shape for this relay, but now I’m not too concerned. I just want to be able to hit 10 miles or more prior to shipping out, since I’m not doing any hilly stuff.
After going downtown on Friday to go look at the stores (and hordes of people) with my family, I headed downtown for a wedding (congrats Bree and Eric!!). The wedding and reception were great and they did an awesome job on both. I can’t believe how far away I am from going through all that now. Anyways, I was staying at a friend from work’s Mom’s place both Friday and Saturday night. After the reception (sometime after 12), I almost decided to drive all the say back to Chicago (and yes, I was sober since I had been taking pictures all night). Let’s just say my mood was less than stellar.
However, it’s a good thing I didn’t because today, my friend, the men from his family, and I went down to Oakland, IL to shoot some clays. There’s a shooting range right off the highway, and we did a round of 100 Sporting Clays. It was amazingly a lot of fun. For both my friend and I, both residing in the Chicago area, this was the first time. In fact, neither of us had shot a gun since we were both under 10.
To both of our suprise, we did quite well. He got a 47/100 and I got a 36/100. Not too shabby for the first time around in the cold drizzle. While I don’t see myself doing this on a regular occasion (that could get expensive really quick), it is definitely something that I’d do again. Oh, and damn those rabbits are hard.
Wow, I haven’t posted here in about, oh forever. Regardless I hope everyone had a wonderful Turkey Day with friends and/or family. This year it was at my place. It was tight, but we made do. :)
When I first moved up here, I was very excited about living in the city. I think the excitement has started to wear off. That’s not to say that I want to move out to the suburbs or anything drastic like that. I think it’s more than I’d rather move somplace where I can do more outdoor things that I’m in to. After going on vacation to Canada and Montana, I realized that I like it out there a lot more than here.
The ability to go climbing, hiking, biking, skiing, etc really has its benefits. Stuff that’s a lot more difficult to do in and around the city. There’s only so many times I can take the same paths or the same indoor climbing gym. That’s not to say that I haven’t been walking about everywhere again, but at the same point, the city streets are a little bit different than the rockies…
I love buying things on the internet. For a lot of things, it doesn’t make sense, and for others you have to take a bit of extra time. However, you usually always find a better deal online. Plus there’s the challenge of finding that better deal, and still try to use a somewhat reputable retailer.
Oh internet, I love you so.
I received my $500 check (I thought it was going to be a Home Depot gift card) from Lending Tree last week. That was what I was waiting for before buying blinds, since I can’t go wrong with free money.
A few weeks ago, when I was in “the Depot” getting other things for my place, I stopped by their blinds section to see what they had. I knew I wanted wood blinds. They would just go very well with all the other wood accents in my place. I originally asked if they had samples that I could take home and look at. They don’t. Can someone explain to me how that works? Well, I went through and looked at types/colors. I found I really liked the Bali colors, along with the Hunter Douglas Genuine Wood blinds. Well, I liked the Hunter Douglas ones until I saw the price associated. Needless to say, the genuine wood blinds, as opposed to simply stained basswood ones are significantly more. Think $500 as compared to $150. Since I needed 4 windows treated, and I was getting $500 free, I figured I’d like to buy more than one for that price.
I didn’t really do much past that, since I was still waiting for my gift card to come. Once the check (to my surprise) finally came last week, the search was renewed. I was talking to some people at work, and one of the ladies mentioned she had just purchased her wood blinds from Blinds.com. So, I went and visited the site only to find that I could order free samples! Now, I didn’t know if they were wood samples, or simply a printed paper, but something is better than nothing.
Needless to say, the samples came in yesterday, and they were actually pieces of the blinds. I had ordered quite a spread just to see how everything looked. Well, I ended up getting Bali Northern Heights with the Wheat (1710) color. They should be here in two weeks, probably when I’m on vacation over the fourth.
July will be a good month for the condo: blinds and the couch will arrive! Now I’ll have a place to sit, and some privacy! Woohoo!
Yay! I finally have a proper bed now. Just delivered and setup. Now I just need to wait like 6 more weeks before the couch comes. It’s coming together. Slowly. Next thing is waiting for my Home Depot gift card and then buying wood blinds for the place.