3 weeks until training!

It's quickly approaching.  I have 3 weeks until I officially start training for the Cleveland Marathon Half Marathon.  This will be my first official Half Marathon since I was sidelined with the kidney stone last year.  I'm both nervous and excited.  My weight has managed to hang around 152 with minimal running in the past few weeks.  I don't like that I haven't run as much as I had planned this winter, but let's face it, it's too cold.  We had a stretch of cold weather with sub-zero wind chills.  We've had a few winter storms that have left us buried under a lot of snow.  This is the time of year when people give up on shoveling their sidewalks, just like I have!  It's too much since we've had some warmth in between (and I did run then!) that melted it a bit, only to refreeze and form a layer of ice before the next foot fell.  

I normally would run at work, but combined with the economy and the weather, I'm sticking to a working lunch to try and stir up more business.  I can't buy running shoes if I can't sell labels!  I am planning to run either tomorrow or Sunday as the temperatures rise a little bit.  I'm hoping it takes care of the residual snow on the street that has blown from one side to the other.    

All in all, I'm looking forward to getting back out there and running.  I look forward to warmer weather running.  Heck, I will settle for one pair of pants instead of 2!  That's not too much to ask for, is it?  Anyway.  That's the story.  I'll be back blogging more and more as this snow goes away and my feet are smacking that pavement again.  I've got some mileage records of my own to beat from the summer.  I've got a few months to make up for from the fall.  I've got a lot of ground to cover!   I will post my training schedule soon for all of you to see my progress.  It's going to be fun!  I hope you all join me again!

Snow and an orange dog!

This is Nora after she seemingly found her prize at the bottom of the hole.  I still don't know what she was after!  You can see above her body the imprints in the snow from her hopping along.  She can't run but she can hop and jump pretty far to get to the shallow snow behind the house.  

She is still going.  I bet it's buried dryer lint from our lint trap explosion downstairs!

Finally.  We are done with the hole and our attention has gone elsewhere.  I believe now she's looking for deer.  Don't miss poop alley along the fence in this one.  That's the path that goes as far as the garage for her to potty in.   I guess it's not fun to stand in nearly 2 feet of snow when your legs aren't even that long!

HA

Ok.  So I was going to post a picture of Nora and all of the snow we have, but some installed flip for mac, and I don't know how to use it!   So... I will try that later.  Now, I have to let her out and go to work.  Have a great day!

Lazy Blogger

I'm going to try to blog more as things happen.  Right now, I'm just so stressed out with the economy and my poor sales.  I'm am looking to get another job, possibly full time to counter my pitiful sales at the moment.  I'm really hoping that things start to turn around because I'm so tired of the stress that it's placing on me.  

I hope that everyone is still doing well.  I read blogs, but can't comment for some reason at work.  Here's wishing everyone a safe and productive work week!

brain fart

It took me forever to log in this morning because I totally forgot my password.  DUH!  Anyway.  I've been here, but a bit busy with life.  We finally got out of the super deep freeze that we've been under and the ice has melted off of the insides of my windows.  I worked out on Thursday on the elliptical at work and nothing since.  Last night while out celebrating a birthday, we got hit with more snow.  I have about 6 inches to clear out of my driveway once my neighbor returns the snow blower.  I am not sure if I am going to run downtown or not tomorrow.  We were down there last night, and the sidewalks were just so slushy and slick.  I watched a half dozen drunk people take spills into snow banks on the side of the road.  That was quite amusing, until I almost did it myself, completely sober!  The drive home was very snowy, and it seemed like they didn't get anything plowed.  Of course, I don't remember them predicting this snowfall until I watched the news last night while we were out.  I had already known it was snowing like crazy when we left!  All last week they kept predicting more snow fall, but we never got more than a half inch.  

In other news.  Nora's paw is healing up quite nice.  She pulled 2 sets of staples out and I had to keep fighting with the vet about bringing her in.  Last Sunday, when I thought the cut was open, I took her back to the Evet.  They told me it was healing fine and to pretend that I was never there.  I thanked her profusely, because I would die if this bite was going to end up costing 500+ instead of the 400 I was already at!   Nora is back to her perky, whining, up in the middle of the night self again!  

I really have nothing new to report other than this stuff.  As I mentioned before, I'm kind of in maintenance mode.  I feel a little detached to the blog since discovering that Facebook is not blocked at work.  I hate not being able to blog from my desk when I have all the time in the world to sit and write.  At home, it's so hard to sit here for more than 3 minutes at a time.  So.. That is the update.  I'm alive, cold, and under a lot of snow!   I hope everyone is doing well during these long and boring winter months! 

Get ready for it

There's going to be a deep freeze this week.  What am I doing to avoid it?  I'm running tomorrow before the temps dip, and then I'll be hitting the gym at work for the rest of the week.  There's no sense in freezing my ass off (although, if it froze off my belly, I would be happy!) in order to keep my mileage going.  I consider the winter months as "maintenance months".  I do just what I can to get by and keep my training.  It's going to be March when the real work starts up!   

And again

I just got home with Nora.  She pulled set number two out of her paw.  I'm done.  It's not open this time, and I would just cause her more distress if I took her back to the Evet.  Instead, I'm going to go to the store get m&m's for the cookies I need to make.  

I did run today.  It was bitter cold.  It was a good run and a bad run all at the same time.  I cut it short because my lungs were cold and I overdressed a tad.  It was good because I needed it.  I haven't run because I had a sinus infection that is finally clearing up with the help of antibiotics!  YAY!  That's about it for me for updates.  We are under a snow warning now.  5-10 inches.  I won't be running in that!  

Here's an idea

How about putting the cone on your dog before leaving for the store.  If you don't, it results in another trip to the Emergency Vet since it happens 10 minutes after your regular vet closes.  I hope that this other 109 dollars will help with that lack of judgement.   

Officially retired

I have officially retired the first pair of white Asics 2130's.  I have decided that since they are the oldest pair, they are a little too dried out to run in anymore.  They have actually been downgraded to my gym rat shoes.  I made this decision yesterday when I needed to bring something with me to use instead of the running shoes that were already at work.  I was unable to run yesterday due to a follow up vet visit with Nora.  Turns out, she has some gunk in her ears and something growing out of one of her front teeth.  I can't remember what the vet called it, but eventually it will need to be cut away, and since she doesn't know which tooth its from, she will have to take out both teeth.  It's a small price to pay for my healthy baby.  I've noticed a considerable difference in her since giving her the ear drops and medications.  It's amazing what we will do for our pets!  

In other news, um.. Well, I don't have any other news!  I'll be running today after a week and a few days off.  I guess I just got busy with the holidays, a head cold and B's daughter.  I usually always make time to run, and I've even brought her with me, but we were just constantly running around.  Now that things are settled back down, and I'm back at work, I'm back to running.  Half Marathon training starts after V-Day.  

I'm sitting here drinking my coffee and rubbing Nora's belly with my foot under the desk.  She stands just so her belly rests on my crossed legs.  I really don't want to leave home.  How awesome would it be to work from home.  I could stay with my favorite person, dog and least favorite cats (Omar bothers the crap out of me all night long).  One day, I'm going to find something that I love to do and do it.   Ok.  I guess with that being said, I should get my butt out of the door!  I miss commenting on blogs at work.  I read them, but I never get around to commenting once I get home.  I hope to do that tonight!  

OK.  I'm done rambling.  I hope everyone is having a great day! 

Again?

Of course, this is completely running related.  My running partner has sustained an injury.    

That little bastard got what he deserved though for biting my little baby.  He is now sitting in my trash can waiting for the animal control to let me know if they will be picking up his carcass to be testing it for rabies.  If not, he will be then dropped off in someone else's Tuesday trash.  It's a good thing that my neighbor was home from C-bus and she was ready to clean up the dead rodent.  That's what he gets.  Now, 209 dollars, a cone, and a bandage later, Nora isn't resting as comfortably as I had hoped.   Let's just hope that this time she doesn't devour her whole bottle of pain medication, including the lid.  

5 days off

Before I knew it, I had taken 5 days off of running.  How crazy is that?  I'm running tomorrow and looking forward to it!   The ice has melted up and I'll wear Yaktrax just incase.  In other news, I'm down to 151 as of this morning.  I honestly have no idea how I'm doing it because I'm not being strict at all.  Just doing what I normally do.  Eat, eat, nap, run some, and eat ice cream in the middle of the night!  ha ha.  I really do need to stop that!  Anyway.  I hope everyone is having a great day!