Since D and I are headed to running camp in another week, we took some inventory of our gear and made sure we have a good experience in Wyoming. My husband LOVES to shop online for running shoes, so we had him get us each a new pair. New shoes remind me of an older blog post about Sharpies. I'll be adding the date to our new shoes when they arrive. Today is July 12 and technically not quite the mathematical middle of summer just yet. This hasn't stopped the Back to School ads from starting... I wonder if Stephanie will make s stop at Office Depot for new Sharpies?
Soon we will restock all sorts of supplies, but for this week, just running stuff. We have plenty of shorts and socks. Our shoes are on the way. I will be packing most of our food because GF food can be hard to find. If anyone has some good ideas for travel-friendly gluten free foods, please comment. Happy runming! Missee
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In a time when many people do not wear a wrist watch, I am the odd one out. I like to wear a watch. I would even go as far to stay that I am dependent on my watch. Other people seem happy to use their cell phones to tell the time. I don't have my cell phone with me all of the time. I prefer to use a watch. My everyday watch of choice for the last 10+ years has been the Timex Ironman. It is just a regular stopwatch. I have owned a few of these. Sometimes I have to replace the band or the battery. Eventually, I end up replacing the watch. It was time to replace the watch again. After a lot of online browsing, I decided to purchase the Garmin Forerunner 35. This is on the low end of features (and price) for Garmins, but it is just what I was looking for. It is a good GPS running watch, it tracks my daily steps, and it looks enough like a regular watch that I can wear it as my wrist watch. The Forerunner 35 has large screen so that it can be easily read. There are only four buttons, no touchscreen. It will give me my mile splits and it has an auto pause feature that works well. I have a lot to learn about my new Forerunner 35. I have found that YouTube videos offer a lot of good information on this watch's features. It is always fun to get a new running gadget!
Happy Running! -Stephanie Summer weather hit hard in central MN the past few days. Highs in the mid 70's and low humidity suddenly gave way to low 90's and dripping wet humidity. I am not a fan of hot, hot weather ever, but never for running, and certainly not for grooming afterwards. Those days when I still feel sweaty stepping out of the shower are not good! I don't look too wet here, but was actually soaked from head to toe complete with sloshing shoes. I have somewhat wavy hair hair by nature meaning it's never quite curly or straight. At one time, I used to try a flat iron, but it's way more work to try to straighten it than to blow dry with a diffuser and let it be wavy. In this weather, any amount of diffusing still leaves me feeling like this: I often wonder if the soft waves I had in my air conditioned house end up like this when I get past my front door: Since I am lucky not to have to go into work very often in the summer, I generally revert to ponytails most of the time. They keep the frizz behind me, hair off my neck and make wearing a hat easy to shade my face. Also, there is no AC in my part of the building so when I do go into the office, casual dress is allowed when school is not in session.
Do do you have any summer hair tricks to tame my unruly locks? How about any products you swear by when the humidity gets high? Feel free to add your comments! Happy running! Missee Fresh fruit is a summer luxury in Minnesota. You can't find fresher fruit than what you can pick yourself at local farms. My kids and I went to a berry farm recently to stock up on fresh, delicious strawberries. If you live in southwestern Minnesota, you might want to check out our favorite strawberry farm here. We came with two boxes of berries, some jam, pectin, and a strawberry cleaning tool. After cleaning the berries, we ended up with a large bowl full of strawberries to eat with dinner, some berries for a strawberry dessert, and a gallon sized bag of flash frozen berries for smoothies. Happy Summer! -Stephanie
Happy Birthday, America!!! Today is the day we celebrate the freedom from the British and the establishment of a new country. When you look back, it was some incredible imagination and courage from the Founding Fathers to embark on that journey. When we were in Boton for the marathon in 2012, we saw the church that Paul Revere used to send out visual messages..."one if by land, two if by sea." Imagine how hard communication was without radios or phones!!!
All these years later, we still celebrate freedom. How about some running-related freedoms:
There are many more ways that runners enjoy freedom. Add some to our comments section. Happy Independence Day running to you--Missee The Green Lake 12 Mile Road Race in Spicer was today. Here is a little recap of the race... As Missee mentioned in her post yesterday, there is a great cafe in a town nearby the race. We went there last night to enjoy a pre-race meal. Their gluten free menu was wonderful. I had a delicious flat bread pizza on a gluten free crust. This cafe is known for their dessert selections. Can you guess which one is the gluten free choice? If you guessed the muffin, you are correct. It doesn't look as impressive as the desserts selected by my family, but it was very tasty. We decided to stay in a hotel in Spicer the night before the race. That ended up to be a great decision as the hotel was across the street from the race registration and finishing area. How awesome is that? I was able to check in for the race, bring my race shirt back to the hotel room, and then walk to the block to the starting line. My family ate breakfast at the hotel before walking across the street to watch the finish. The race shirt was charcoal gray and had this fun saying on the back. While I waited for the race, I was playing "Word Cookie" on my phone. It is a word game like Boggle in which you create words from the letters given in the pan below. After I had created two words in the puzzle below, I laughed. I guess I was ready for a "fun run." The weather was beautiful! It was 59 degrees and sunny at the start with a light wind. Surprisingly, it was actually pretty warm on the course. There were plenty of water stops along the way and several homeowners had sprinklers to run through if you needed to cool off.
My plan was to run the first five miles at a 9:00 pace and then decide if I could speed up or if I would need to slow down. I actually finished with an 8:51 average pace with every mile under 9:00, so I was pleased. My fastest two miles were 11 and 12. Overall, I was happy with the race and would definitely run it again! The Green Lake 12 Miler is a well run race. There were about 250 runners and the mood is festive. There are gently rolling hills throughout the course and plenty of shade cover. I appreciated the large number of homeowners who came out on an early Sunday morning to cheer on the runners. I will hope that my sister is able to do this race with me next year and that maybe I could even talk my husband and/or running partner into joining me. Happy Running! -Stephanie Tomorrow, Stephanie and a lot of other brave souls will compete in the Green Lake 12 Miler. I feel a little guilty that she's running this one alone. I had intended to be running, too, until my injury. B and I did it last year and found it to be well organized and low key. I think Stephanie will do super! Last year, D and I met Stephanie and her kids at a delightful little cafe in New London which is near Spicer where the race will be. We enjoyed the food and especially the dessert. It's not open Sunday so Stephanie and her family are going there tonight for some pre-race carbs! Our MN summer weather had been favorable for running. The race starts early, so let's all hope it's on the cool side. The course goes once completely around the lake, so light winds would be perfect.
Good of luck to all the runners. I'll be watching for results! Happy running--Missee |
AuthorMissee and Stephanie are two Minnesota sisters and moms who love to run. We are not experts in running, parenting or anything else, but we do have years of experiences that may be helpful or entertaining to others. Archives
May 2020
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