Four Things

The latest blog survey going around has you list four things in a series of questions. Of course I am jumping on the bandwagon because, as Bridget Jones would say, "I love quizzes!" I will try to restrain myself to the mandated four things....

Four names that people call me other than my own
KT
Counsel
Ms. Brice (my law partner, sometimes judges get us mixed up)
Kretchen (this is what my mother used to call both me and my sister, Gretchen

Four jobs that I have had
Babysitter
Summer cleaning crew
Temp worker (receptionist type jobs)
Law Clerk for a judge

Four movies that I have watched more than once
Bridget Jones's Diary
When Harry Met Sally
Sleepless in Seattle
Notting Hill

(Honorable mentions: You've Got Mail, Love Actually, Four Weddings and a Funeral. And I completely omitted Christmas movies; otherwise White Christmas, Holiday Inn, Miracle on 34th Street, and It's a Wonderful Life would top the list!)

Four books I'd recommend (oh there are so many!)
Iron War: Dave Scott, Mark Allen, and the Greatest Race Ever Run by Matt Fitzgerald
White Oleander by Janet Fitch
Moloka'i and Honolulu by Alan Brennert (yes, I snuck in two)
Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden

I restrained myself to only one running book! I have many more I could include. The others are all fiction. Even though my favorite genre is probably memoirs, my most intense reading experiences have been novels.

Four places I have lived
Tacoma, WA (college)
London, England (study abroad)
Washington, DC (internship)
Seattle, WA (law school)

Four places I have been
Five of the Hawaiian islands (Oahu, Maui, Hawaii, Kauai, Moloka'i)
England
Norway and Denmark
Scotland

Four places I have run marathons (I added this category)
Boston (Boston Marathon)
Bar Harbor, ME (Mount Desert Island Marathon)
Minneapolis-St. Paul (Twin Cities Marathon)
Hawaii (Honolulu Marathon and Kauai Marathon)

Four places I'd rather be right now
London
Hawaii (any island)
I can't really come up with anything else...it might be easier if I were doing this at work instead of home! As it is, any other option would require me to go out into the cold and change out of my sweatshirt and yoga pants, so....

Four things I don't eat (This one is hard because I pretty much eat anything and everything, but....)
Lutefisk (this is a Norwegian cod dish, and I just don't like it...but I could eat it if I needed to)
Pumpkin pie (I don't like it, but I made a pie with Kabocha pumpkin, and it's pretty good!)
Tapioca or rice pudding (I think it's a texture thing)
Liver, heart, gizzards (I don't think I like these things, but maybe with the right preparation....)

Four of my favorite foods
Wild Alaskan Salmon
Chocolate
Sweet Potatoes
Raspberries, blackberries, blueberries (possibly tied with watermelon, cantaloupe, honeydew)

Four TV shows I watch
The Middle
The Goldbergs
Modern Family
Black-ish

Pretty much keeping ABC Wednesday night in business--I DVR them and watch throughout the week if I don't watch on Wednesday. I also watch Once Upon a Time on Sunday nights and Hot in Cleveland on DVR (so bummed it's been canceled). And Orange Is the New Black on Netflix (I only watch about one episode a week so I haven't binged through the whole series yet!)

Four things I am looking forward to
Maui trip in January
Vancouver Marathon in May
Going to see Wild, the movie, in December
Three running movies coming out in 2015! McFarland, USA (cross country, big studio, Kevin Costner, opening in February); Tracktown, the Movie (indie film set in Eugene, created by runner Alexi Pappas and her boyfriend/business partner); the Boston Marathon film, a documentary directed by Jon Dunham. Exciting!

Four things I am always saying
"Jeez Louise"
"Awesome"
"What?" (People mumble.)
"Grande Americano, light room."

So there you go. A few of my favorite things. What are your four things?

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Ten Years

It's been ten years since my last blog post...not really. It just seems that way. I really fell off blogging, mostly because of computer struggles. My iPad app wasn't working, my laptop at work was dying (finally replaced a few months ago), and uploading photos seemed to get harder and harder. My adult ADD would not tolerate sitting around trying to make things work.

But I did get the new laptop, my iPad is all updated, and I don't know about pictures yet but we'll see how that goes. If I ever write another post after this.

Here's a super quick running update for 2014. I started working with a coach in hopes of regaining some speed (I was really burned out after all the fall marathons on 2013). I made some decent progress in the spring with strong half marathons. Then I ran the North Olympic Discovery Marathon on June 1. I thought I had the potential for improvement over 2013. Turns out I did not. My 2014 time was virtually the same as 2013--actually three minutes slower but I'm giving myself a break because they changed the course so that the first half was quite a bit harder than before. I think my second half might have been faster this year than last. But that hardly matters, my overall performance was basically mediocre (4:31). Still, that was substantially faster than my last three marathons in 2013. And even though the NODM course was harder (I would call it a moderately difficult marathon overall), it is beautiful, and fun, and I would recommend it to anyone. I probably won't run it again because my fate seems pretty much sealed as to time. I wouldn't mind running the half, though. And I'd be happy to take another trip to the Olympic Peninsula.

NODM was on June 1, and I took a week off to recover, then started running again. Then I hurt my knee. I still feel it's ridiculous that I trained for and ran a marathon (not to mention 15 marathons before that) with no problems, and somehow got injured in a minor training run. To try to make a long story short, I tried to keep running after my knee hurt, I probably made it worse, I saw my doctor, a PT, a sports doc, had X-Rays and an MRI, and was tentatively diagnosed with a meniscus tear than was probably more due to wear than traumatic injury.

So for the rest of June and all July, I stopped running. I used the elliptical like it was my job (ask me about elliptical workouts that will kick your butt), started bike riding long distances, went to weekly spin classes, and even went swimming sometimes on weekends when it was hot enough. And did PT exercises, core work, and yoga. (Still, I managed to gain a few pounds over the summer.)

In August I was able to start run-walking. Running was so hard! My legs felt heavy and foreign to me. Eventually it got easier and I was able to run "normally" (though slowly) starting about in September. I'm up to 13 miles and on November 30 I'm doing the Seattle Half. With no expectations. Over the summer I had to miss four half marathons that I had registered and paid for. Two of them I was able to transfer the registration to someone else, but Seattle RnR and Portland were a complete loss.

I am also registered for a marathon in December, but I'm not going. It breaks my heart a little bit (not just because of the money down the drain), but I am not a person who is willing to go just do a marathon when I'm not properly trained. I know lots of people do.

Also, this was supposed to be my big attempt at a long lost marathon PR, after a summer of hard training. That didn't happen (not as far as running goes), and I don't want to ruin my positive, optimistic feelings about CIM being my best chance for a fast marathon. Maybe it will be next year.

This has gotten really long, and I haven't even gotten to the topic from my title. "Ten Years." Ten years ago, November 2004, I was 39.25 years old and I decided to change my life (health and body-wise) by the time I turned 40. I'd actually had it in mind for a while, but (of course) procrastinated until pretty much the last minute. I don't know why this time it worked when it hadn't before, but over the next nine months I lost about a hundred pounds (estimating wildly here), and then after my 40th birthday continued on until I was about 10 pounds less than I am now. By the time I was 40 I was running and walking a lot on the treadmill. I took up outdoor running the following year, and haven't looked back.

How's that for covering my whole topic in one paragraph?



- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad