Tag Archives: autumn

Weekly Race Shout-Outs and Defying Logic

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Sending Fast Thoughts To:

New York Runners Dominick and Beth. I hope everything goes smoothly for you in the city! This is Dominick’s first marathon, and after following his training, I am probably just as excited for his race as I was for my own.

Lindsey who is running her first marathon this weekend!

Tracie who is running her marathon this weekend.  She’s incredibly prepared to dominate!

Shanterella who is running her first post-marathon half in South Africa!

Jac who is (hopefully) running a half marathon this weekend!

Rachel who is racing a 6 miler in Scotland (which makes something like race #6 in a month)

GOOD LUCK OUT THERE!!! And remember the time change! 

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Yesterday my sister called so she could figure out my estimated marathon finish time using linear algebra.  She’s a college senior/engineering major.  The variables (right? variables? factors?) were the average weekly mileage in the 8 weeks before the race, my height, and my weight.  According to her estimations, I should have run a 3:45 race.  Apparently I defy logic! AND math isn’t always right.

And the equation obviously didn’t take into account all of my miserable 800′s and the near perfect Chicago race conditions. I should have been a mathematician.

Meanwhile, after a few days of coldness last weekend, we’re back in perfect “springtime” type weather.  The biggest bummer has been that by the time we get to our evening runs after work, it’s pretty dark (I’m not looking forward to Monday).

(Oh, by the way, I appear to be pretty healed up! I’m still taking things slowly, but I can run without any issues.  Hooray!).

But, the sunsets at our run time have been amazing.  We decided to run along the river on Tuesday because it is the prettiest “most autumny” area right now (the majority of trees in the city are right along the river).  I  mean, I realize compared to most places with lots of trees, our fall isn’t quite so lovely, but I was excited to see our New Mexico version of fall this week.

Action shot!

I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend! We’re initiating Giuseppe into the family racing tradition.  More on that on Monday!

Our Pumpkin Picking Country Goodness Adventure

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McCall’s Pumpkin Patch in Moriarty, NM (about 40 miles east of Albuquerque) has been around for over a decade.  For some reason I hadn’t heard of it until this year. I told Aaron I had to go to a corn maze.  He found this place through a Google search.  Once I found out that I could get a corn maze, pumpkin patch, AND hayride all in one place, I knew  we had to go to McCall’s in order to have any hope for a perfect Fall.

McCall’s Pumpkin Patch was a little out of control (in a good way, not in a chaotic, scary way).

If we had kids, they could have taken a ride on the cow mobile, jumped on a giant pillow, fed goats, fed bunnies, raced rubber ducks, gone down a giant slide, mined for gemstones, and drove pedal carts.  Hello, kid heaven (and Aaron heaven)!

Aaron WOULD get stuck in the mud!

But, since we didn’t want to be the weird creepy adults that do the kid activities at the pumpkin patch… without actually having any kids, we decided to keep to the more socially acceptable “adult” actitivies…The Corn Maze, the Hayride, and the Pumpkin Patch excursion!

Shoulda taken a left at Albuquerque...

The corn maze was shaped like Bugs Bunny…at least that’s what we were told.  From the inside it just looked like a bunch of corn stalks.  It kind of felt like being back in Michigan with all that corn everywhere. Aaron was our navigator, and he managed to know where we were at every turn (I was too busy taking pictures of corn to notice).  We definitely had some families following us around, mooching off of Aaron’s navigation skills.

At night, they have a haunted corn maze.  As much as it has always been a life dream of mine to experience the feeling that I’m about to get murdered with a chain saw while in a dark corn field in the middle of nowhere, I think I’ll pass.

The hayride takes all the happy pumpkin seeking people from the main activity area to the pumpkin patch.  Turns out Aaron is allergic to hay.  Oops.  Other than his throat closing up, the ride was cool, but I kind of felt like we should have been singing country songs or John Denver or something. “Country roads, take me home, to the plaaaace I belongggg.”

I found out that if you lay a pumpkin on its side and keep it there for a while, that side turns flat.  I had a bunch of flat sided pumpkins to choose from. I did find one I was quite satisfied with at the very edge of the patch, but then I had to carry all 11 pounds of it back through untamed pumpkin field/dirt/potential rattle snakes in my flip flops.   Eventually, after enough grunting on my part, Aaron felt sorry for me and carried both pumpkins back to the wagon.

McCall’s, the little farm attraction full of autumny goodness, turned out to be a fantastic way to spend a fall afternoon (plus it was about 80 degrees, so it was perfect weather!)   I got my corn maze, I got my hay ride, I got my pumpkin pie flavored salt water taffy, and I got my farm fresh pumpkin! My fall bucket list is close to complete, and I still have about a month to go!

 

ALSO…Giuseppe made it to Round 2 of Pet a Palooza and needs to make it to the next round before we can even hope to win.  You can vote for him HERE (and we appreciate it!).

How My Autumn Should Play Out

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I am constantly disappointed that my life isn’t more like a movie. 

For example, I want my Autumn to look like Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks’ Autumn in You’ve Got Mail.  Chances are this will be another disappointment because I don’t live in New York or own my own charming little children’s book store with the world’s quirkiest coworkers.  And Tom Hanks doesn’t love me.

However, I figure if I plan enough in advance, I can get my Fall to be almost as cool.   We’ve already gotten a good start by grape harvesting and going to Oktoberfest, and we have some big plans including a trip to San Francisco and the much anticipated half marathon.  I think if I get to do the following I can have a Fall worthy of a Pottery Barn picture if not a major motion picture.  I’m hoping to have a better showing than the 58% that got done off my Summer list.  (Also linking up with Neely and Amber at A Complete Waste of Make-Up for their Fabulous Fall Blog Challenge).

Not Really Ready for Fall

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I’m not sure when the world decided it was ready for fall, but all of the sudden, reminders of its impending arrival are everywhere.  Pinterest is filled with fall decoration/outfits inspiration, Spirit the Halloween Superstore is getting ready to open down the street, kids are back in classes or heading back to college, and suddenly the shelves are full of Oktoberfest beer. 

This makes me sad.

Didn’t we just start summer?  It feels like I looked forward to sunshine and warmness for months and it is almost already over again. 

This weekend I attempted to ignore the end of summer as much as possible.  It definitely helped that we got invited to hang out at a swimming pool on Saturday.

We gave Giuseppe a bath (which he was NOT happy about) in order to make him presentable.

We packed our beach towels and sunscreen (which unfortunately Lobster Aaron didn’t take advantage of until it was too late).

We got our mojito kit together.

We slowly introduced Giuseppe to the pool.

We cautiously tested the waters, and turns out, Giuseppe can swim! I don’t think he really enjoys being a water baby though (in the pool or the bathtub), but I think he could probably survive in an emergency situation if needed.

Ok, so I don’t know what the heck the big deal is about “planking,” but Aaron decided to get in on the craze…even though I think we’re too late because apparently planking is passe and “flagging” is the new cool thing to do.  Who comes up with this stuff? And what the heck is flagging?

So, after Aaron planked the slide, someone came up with the brilliant idea to have 3 men plank on it while someone else slid down under them (only 2 men fit).  Yeah…I don’t know.  But, everything went as planned,  friend Robin made it down safely, and I got some great pictures of the process!  Notice how I didn’t volunteer to be the one to go down the slide.

I will say that Sunday’s 7.06  mile run wasn’t the easiest after pool party food/mojitos/sunburn (another reminder why eating healthy makes running easier).  But splashing in the pool was a fun way to spend an end-of-summer weekend. 

Luckily, even if the world is anticipating the arrival of Starbucks pumpkin lattes, Albuquerque will hopefully still have warm temperatures into early October.  So with that happy thought, I will face the week and I shall glare at any reminder that summer is coming to an end.