Training for the 5K

Last December I found an invitation on Facebook to run a 5K. The Portland Shamrock run. After two weeks of thinking about it..I decided to go for it and so after some more research on how to train for a 5K. I made a commitment by signing up. Since then I have been training. My approach is to run 4 days a week and do yoga for cross training two days a week. Joined a fitness club and ran 5 minuets on the treadmill on January 3rd. Each week I add a few minutes to my run and have gone from .5 miles to just about 3 miles. It has taken courage, self determination and strength.

Today is the first day of March and the race is upon me. I have run 90% of the time on the treadmill in the gym and now am realizing that I must run the last two weeks outside. That is a daunting task for me. I feel very vulnerable self conscious and afraid that something might happen to me along the run. So I need to break through yet another psychological and physical barrier.

I wish that I had been journaling all along the way of this latest adventure.

I also realize that if it is going to happen I just have to go out there and get running....

So here I go!

Tis the Season

Has it really has been two months since my first blog? I wish that I could say that it has been that long since farmville... Our garden has been harvested, it is well frozen over. The war with the voles was fun and I think we may have won since there has been no sign of any burrowing creature for several weeks.



The Vole War:

My dear husband (heretofore known as dh) came home one day in early October with small bale of straw. I was so happy to have a nice decoration to put near our front door along with a scarecrow and pumpkin display. I soon found out there was a higher purpose to his recent acquisition. After 21 years of marriage I have learned that once my dh makes up his mind to do something there is no stopping the man. He and I both agree that you can take a man out of Cambodia however you cannot take the Cambodian out of the man. I cannot fault the guy after all he is a Pol Pot survivor and there are some kind of jungle warfare techniques that he will not surrender to mere childhood memories.



So it came as no surprise that I found him stuffing every small orifice in our yard with straw then pouring gasoline over the openings. I became an unwilling accomplice to his action as the fires were lit and the smoke began to rise. At one point we discovered what the term spontaneous combustion means as one small opening suddenly burst into flames without even one touch of a match. During this process I nervously eyed the neighbors windows hoping and praying that they would not have the privilege of viewing our most exiting yard work ever. They must have done a rain dance because we had a deluge of wonderful fall rain less than 10 minutes after the fires were lit and all ended well for us... perhaps it was not so great for the Voles but that was the point.



The entire process was repeated two day's later with all the enthusiasm of a 16 year old son. It made for a great family night adventure. So now when I go to look out onto our yard I see small areas of blackened grass along with a deteriorating garden, terraced lawns fruit trees and plenty of fall foliage.

Firsts

This is my first blog and I am just a little nervous about how this is all going to go. The motivation to create the blog is to cure my addiction to Farmville on Facebook and my amazing ability to waste time online.

Farmville is a silly little computer game where you grow, harvest and seed crops for points. You have neighbors who are also on Farmville and you visit each other's farms and help each other out for points. Then you move up levels. I pride myself on not getting addicted to TV or video games etc. I therefore wonder what my life has come down to when I am unable resist the urge to check my status on Farmville three times a day. I have a large family, number four out of eight. Four of my siblings are my neighbors. The sad thing is that I seldom if ever interact with in real life. We all play this game and our competition for levels is just a weird kind of sibling rivalry.

The other annoying thing about Farmville is that I work on that rather than my real garden. That needs harvesting before the Oregon frost hits. So it's not like I have nothing else to do with my time. My husband who loves to grow everything he can possibly think of was getting rather perturbed at me today as he was weeding and harvesting and I was playing on the computer. So after several threats, I joined him in the garden and now have a huge container of semi ripe tomatoes and carrots. It all ended up well.

Coming Soon....Our war with a Vole.