I didn’t get up early enough yesterday to beat the heat, so I skipped my run and did my upper body workout. Even that was torture. It was in the 90s for two days in a row. Friday it hit 100. I went outside for two minutes to water my plants and came back inside dripping with sweat. All the baking chocolate in the house melted. I had to stick it in the fridge so now I have a couple bags of chocolate bricks. I’ll have to have my brother-in-law come up and put the AC in the kitchen window again. I’d do it, but I’m very small and the AC is very heavy and a move like that could kill me.
Anyway. It was 75°F by the time I got down to the track this morning. It wasn’t too bad at first; there was a slight breeze blowing off and on. By the time I got to the third interval, I was drenched and wishing I was running towards a large body of cold water. If I hadn’t been so overheated, I think I might have been a little bored with the run. I think maybe this week I might try Week 3. It’s going to be in the 60s, so woohoo.
To sum up: nothing to report except that I need to get my ass out on the track at the first sparrow’s fart if I don’t want to die from heatstroke.
For breakfast this morning I had a couple slices of fresh pineapple. I’ve hated pineapple my whole life, but suddenly ... I don’t. It’s not my favorite fruit in the world, but it’s all I had available so I ate it. Craving vitamin C, I guess. Haven’t had lunch yet but it’ll probably be a bean burrito or something.
I keep having dreams about the U.P. I haven’t been there in...nine years, but I miss it terribly. The first time I went was 1996 with my then-boyfriend, his niece, his older brother and his girlfriend. It was a memorable occassion for me because it was the one and only time we ever went on a trip together. I won’t get into that, but suffice it to say, I fell in love with the place. I never realized until I started looking at the atlas, how much area we covered on that trip. We left Chicago and drove all the way up through Michigan. I remember being excited about this because my birth mother lived in Saginaw at the time. (I ended up meeting her almost exactly one year later.) We stopped in Marquette to get gas, if memory serves. We camped in the Ottawa National Forest (specifically, Sylvania, near Loon Lake), but we spent a lot of time in the Porkies. I’ve got a picture of me and the niece with Lake of the Clouds in the background. We went to Iron Mountain and Ironwood. And then there was the Presque Isle River. We did most of our hiking there. Did a lot of swimming, too. Got leeches stuck to our toes. We stopped at Manabezho, Nawadaha and Manido Falls, which were gorgeous. At Manido, you can walk pretty far out onto the rocks and get close to the water. There was a big, swinging bridge at one point. I pretty much ran across it both ways. Bridges make me nervous. Helloooo, Lake Superior! As a Midwesterner, I’m ashamed to say I’ve only seen three of the five Great Lakes. One night, we all went out by the lake and lay in a circle and watched the most amazing meteor shower I've ever seen. The sky up there is so clear, I can't even describe it. It's unbelievable.
The next time I saw the U.P. was three years later. Different boyfriend this time around, and we stayed at his family’s cabin on Oxbow Lake (in Wisconsin) rather than camping in the forest. And I had Tank with me, too. Funnily enough, we ended up going to Presque Isle and walking across the same damn bridge.
Hey, why don’t I shut up? I guess I just really miss the Midwest. The PacNW is beautiful, but the people here are different. Portland doesn't have that "home" feel to it. No block parties, no illegally turning on fire hydrants in the summer. Now that I’m (kind of) over my fear of flying, I’d like to fly back to Chicago and visit. I’m also planning on flying out to Pittsburgh in the Fall to visit my BFF (picture taken when she was 11 and I was 13. She’s on the left. This was the last time I was taller than her.) Either that or she’s coming out here. I told my sister that we should take a trip to the U.P. I really, really want to go to the Boundary Waters in Minnesota, too. And while I’m there, stop in to see the wolf center. My friend, Hillbilly Mike went up there a lot and he never shut up about it. Paddling around in his canoe. I don’t think he camped, he just slept in his car. I’ve been wanting to go for over ten years now.
Anyway. I’m going to my friend’s softball game in a couple of hours, so I’d better get my ass in gear.
Anyway. It was 75°F by the time I got down to the track this morning. It wasn’t too bad at first; there was a slight breeze blowing off and on. By the time I got to the third interval, I was drenched and wishing I was running towards a large body of cold water. If I hadn’t been so overheated, I think I might have been a little bored with the run. I think maybe this week I might try Week 3. It’s going to be in the 60s, so woohoo.
To sum up: nothing to report except that I need to get my ass out on the track at the first sparrow’s fart if I don’t want to die from heatstroke.
For breakfast this morning I had a couple slices of fresh pineapple. I’ve hated pineapple my whole life, but suddenly ... I don’t. It’s not my favorite fruit in the world, but it’s all I had available so I ate it. Craving vitamin C, I guess. Haven’t had lunch yet but it’ll probably be a bean burrito or something.
I keep having dreams about the U.P. I haven’t been there in...nine years, but I miss it terribly. The first time I went was 1996 with my then-boyfriend, his niece, his older brother and his girlfriend. It was a memorable occassion for me because it was the one and only time we ever went on a trip together. I won’t get into that, but suffice it to say, I fell in love with the place. I never realized until I started looking at the atlas, how much area we covered on that trip. We left Chicago and drove all the way up through Michigan. I remember being excited about this because my birth mother lived in Saginaw at the time. (I ended up meeting her almost exactly one year later.) We stopped in Marquette to get gas, if memory serves. We camped in the Ottawa National Forest (specifically, Sylvania, near Loon Lake), but we spent a lot of time in the Porkies. I’ve got a picture of me and the niece with Lake of the Clouds in the background. We went to Iron Mountain and Ironwood. And then there was the Presque Isle River. We did most of our hiking there. Did a lot of swimming, too. Got leeches stuck to our toes. We stopped at Manabezho, Nawadaha and Manido Falls, which were gorgeous. At Manido, you can walk pretty far out onto the rocks and get close to the water. There was a big, swinging bridge at one point. I pretty much ran across it both ways. Bridges make me nervous. Helloooo, Lake Superior! As a Midwesterner, I’m ashamed to say I’ve only seen three of the five Great Lakes. One night, we all went out by the lake and lay in a circle and watched the most amazing meteor shower I've ever seen. The sky up there is so clear, I can't even describe it. It's unbelievable.
The next time I saw the U.P. was three years later. Different boyfriend this time around, and we stayed at his family’s cabin on Oxbow Lake (in Wisconsin) rather than camping in the forest. And I had Tank with me, too. Funnily enough, we ended up going to Presque Isle and walking across the same damn bridge.
Hey, why don’t I shut up? I guess I just really miss the Midwest. The PacNW is beautiful, but the people here are different. Portland doesn't have that "home" feel to it. No block parties, no illegally turning on fire hydrants in the summer. Now that I’m (kind of) over my fear of flying, I’d like to fly back to Chicago and visit. I’m also planning on flying out to Pittsburgh in the Fall to visit my BFF (picture taken when she was 11 and I was 13. She’s on the left. This was the last time I was taller than her.) Either that or she’s coming out here. I told my sister that we should take a trip to the U.P. I really, really want to go to the Boundary Waters in Minnesota, too. And while I’m there, stop in to see the wolf center. My friend, Hillbilly Mike went up there a lot and he never shut up about it. Paddling around in his canoe. I don’t think he camped, he just slept in his car. I’ve been wanting to go for over ten years now.
Anyway. I’m going to my friend’s softball game in a couple of hours, so I’d better get my ass in gear.
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4 comments:
What's up with the heatwave? We're still pretty much freezing over here--today, we won't even make it to 60.
I know, right?? We'll be back in the 60s for most of the week. Woohoo! It's gonna rain tomorrow, but I'm running anyway.
Cool rain is much better to run in than sticky heat.
Amen, brother.
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