Five for Friday

Okay, I apologize in advance for this post since I'm a little buzzed up so I will bombard with a bunch of photos. Yes, I actually remember to take them every now and again.

1. Bellin Run - I have not done a race recap for this and let's just say there is a reason why. I have run this race the last 5 years and while I love running the same course as some amazing world athletes and every type or run/walker there is, it just didn't do it for me this year. They hit 20,000 registrants on the mark but I was not able to meet up with anybody I knew and it was humid from the start. The temps were great but I forgot to bring along my nutrition and endurolyte pills and it failed me. I struggled from the get go with heavy legs and the humidity hit me about 2.5 miles in and I had to take a few walk breaks to get me to the finish.

 I felt the spectators this year were lacking in support as compared to prior years. Although there was an outside Zumba class about a half mile in, the crazy crossfit people doing burpees around 4.5 miles and some really annoying guy that had way too much energy for me that day seemed to be around me the entire race!!

I still PR'd by about 4 minutes but it was hard earned.

5K Split: 28:48

Time: 58:37

Overall: 4624

Gender: 1645

Division: 261

I was at least able to run into some people I knew after the race at the Fleet Feet tent and it finally started to sprinkle. It felt so nice at his point in time! I do love the amount of sprinklers the residents have going during the race and I think I managed to go through all but one. And the ice at mile 3.2 was amazing, it went in my bra immediately and lasted until the finish.

2. I love it when my flowers bloom, Asiatic lilies are probably my favorite and they are just starting to bloom. I had white in my bridesmaid bouquets and oriental in mine, if only the damn rabbits would quit eating those ones!!

3. My container garden is actually turning out this year! I live in the city and the rabbits are ridiculous around here (see above point), so I tried to do containers on our deck last year and the drainage sucked in those planters and I kept forgetting to water them. This year I am watering these at least once a day and they have a cool reservoir on the bottom to help contain extra moisture and I am loving it. Pretty soon I will have cherry tomatoes to eat. I planted Big Wisconsin Tomatoes, Roma Tomatoes, Cherry Tomatoes, Red, Yellow and Jalapeno Peppers, Green Beans and Zuchini. Pretty soon I will actually get to enjoy the fruits of my labor!!

4. The Longest Day - Being with Kim and Rachel this year was amazing.....I made sure to make it out for the 5am start (although it was cloudy and could not see the sunrise) and I stayed all the way to the end at 9pm. I was happy to actually be able to run in the evening as last year my foot had issues, which was the same the issue I had after my marathon...go figure, and I logged an astonishing number of 31.5 miles. This paled in comparison to the 42 and 48 miles they ran and I am just amazed at their strength to keep running no matter the adversity. We got a bracelet for each mile we ran and I definitely racked those up!

Mother nature gave us all kinds of weather to deal with on this day..... humidity, thunderstorms, wind and sun.......we ran through it all. I was a little scared to see that after an hour in the rain my feet looked like old man feet! It seriously hurt to walk on all the folds of skin, who knew I had that much extra skin on my feet.

5. We are  having some crazy storms here tonight, I went to watch my brother play softball and only a few minutes after I got there, it was coming!! The weather was calm and then within seconds it was 30mph winds creating a sandstorm in the infield. This was about 30 seconds before it hit.

Round 2 then came awhile later and we all decided to head home but the lightning with the sunset made for some cool effects.

And this had been my life for about the past year with my car, I'm too cheap to get it fixed so I use GPS or guestimate my speed....just a little harder to do in this situation!!

Hope you all have a fantastic Friday!! I only have to make it through 2 days next week and then I will be living in paradise for the next 5 days or so. I cannot wait to spend time at my cottage finally this year and literally not have any advanced technology! That is unless I make the 20 minute trek into town to try and find some wifi....best excuse to get out of work and on call emergencies!