Tuesday, March 22, 2011
We’re back at work this week and back to work on our fitness goals. It’s less than 5 months to the Tour de Cox and our vow renewal.
We’ve been enjoying life a lot and not working out nearly as much as we should be. It’s time to get back on our bikes in earnest.
Sunday, February 27, 2011
Took a 30 mile ride on my “new” Bianchi road bike with Ceecee this morning. I actually bought it a few months ago, but have barely ridden it over the winter. We had a great time, but part of it didn’t quite go the way we planned.
We rode from our loft out to the trailhead for the Frisco Line Trail, which is about 7 miles, and we planned to take the trail for an indefinite distance from there. This is the trail where Ceecee ran the half marathon right before our marriage fell apart
According to the map, it runs for about 43 miles total and we were just going to ride until we were ready to turn around. What we didn’t realize is that it turns to gravel after 8 miles. Since we were on road bikes, we turned around there.
Even so, it was a fun ride and it was by far the longest I’ve gone on my Bianchi since I bought it.
On a much funnier note, we were checking out at a store later and saw on the front of the newspaper that a prostitution ring was apparently busted in the building right across the street from our loft. Who knew?
Thursday, January 27, 2011
The weather was nice enough to take our bikes out today, so we got in 12 miles after work. Well, let me qualify that. The weather was nice enough FOR US to take our bikes out. Of course there are cyclists who ride year round regardless of weather, but we are not those cyclists. We’re wimps when it comes to riding in the cold.
Anyway, it was a nice ride and the first time we’ve been on two wheels in a while. This weekend, we’re taking an unscheduled restoration trip to St. Louis. After what went down Monday, we need to get to our city and fix some hurts and disappointments. I’m a little scared of what fallout there might still be, but we’re also really committed to seeing ourselves healed, whole, and as strong as can be, so I suspect this is going to be a blessing on multiple levels.
Saturday, January 22, 2011
Well, we survived the Resolution Run this morning. It’s a 5K sponsored by a local running store and they give you a $25 gift card to spend there, so it’s almost like the run is free. We had to tiptoe over the ice, so our times were terrible, but my knee held up, so that was a win. I didn’t push at all, but I was glad not to have any pain.
Friday, January 21, 2011
Still dealing with some leftover fallout from our separation. Ceecee forwarded me an email from that guy who has still been contacting her, I thought he was pretty much gone, but she sent it to me this morning and was very apologetic. It was another of those “Can we talk?” messages. It’s not like she hasn’t repeatedly told him to leave her alone, so she didn’t need to apologize for it, but I asked her if she would allow me to get involved now.
Before this, she always asked me not to, but today she said to go ahead, so I replied to it. Maybe this will be the end of it.
Tonight we’re going to a little local place called Tony’s Famous Spaghetti. We’re calling it “pre-race fuel” since the 5K is still on for tomorrow. It’s really just an excuse to eat there because it’s good and inexpensive, but pre-race fuel sounds good. There’s still a layer of an inch or two of ice on the road in a lot of places, so this should be interesting in the morning.
Thursday, January 20, 2011
We got our snow day and had a lot of fun. We walked through the snow to this little place called Homegrown foods where they sell local produce. The actual reason we went was for homemade peppermint marshmallows. It’s not far from downtown and we also went to The Cup, so it’s a very unhealthy snacking day.
We have a 5k on Saturday, which will probably be cancelled due to the snow on the ground that won’t be melted by then. I haven’t run that far since my injury, so I wanted it to be a chance to see where I am in my recovery.
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
There’s good eating, and then there’s good eating! Lately, we have been eating extremely well! This is not good for our physical fitness and running, by the way. I mean, we are supposed to be maintaining a certain level of fitness and eating and drinking whatever we want is not exactly compatible with that. Even so, we are enjoying life immensely right now.
There’s supposed to be a big snow storm coming in, so we’re prepared. We made sure we had groceries on hand and those groceries include orange juice and bubbly I made Chile in the crock pot this evening to eat tomorrow (and the next couple of days, potentially) and Ceecee made pan seared tuna and scallops in butter and garlic for supper tonight. Now we’re just crossing our fingers and waiting for the phone call to tell us that there’s no school tomorrow.
Saturday, January 8, 2011
First Friday Art Walk was a lot of fun last night. The weather was great and we didn’t really have any plan. We just walked around and took it all in. There were some kid rockers playing “crazy train” in the downtown library. None of them looked older than about 13, but they weren’t too bad.
Ceecee has still been swimming a lot and we’re working out pretty regularly again. We don’t have anything specific that we’re training for, so our workouts lack direction somewhat right now. I’ve been trying to gradually increase my running distance and testing out the knee. So far, so good, but I haven’t pushed it, so I don’t really know.
Wednesday, December 29, 2010
Had a nice run through the streets of Dodge City this morning. It’s one of our least favorite places for a plethora of reasons, but it’s where Ceecee’s Mom and Step-Dad live and close to my daughter as well. We’ve hardly worked out or trained at all recently, so we decided we better do some running while we’re here.
Dodge City was where we lived when my spiritual decline really began. We only moved there because we felt that God was calling us to. We went through a painful church split and a number of other things that caused a lot of bitterness for me. We were victims of numerous property crimes, had some falling out with people we had been close to, and got into financial difficulties with two houses that we owned.
Although it was wrong to do so, I blamed God and began to shut down. I started shutting off my emotions toward Ceecee as well, although I didn’t entirely realize it. We finally left and moved to Missouri as kind of a plea to be allowed to go and try to start over somewhere else.
This afternoon, we went walking downtown and through the old neighborhood. We reminisced and romanced and it was wonderful to be in a place where we had gone through so much frustration and pain, but now had overcome it and were in such a different place, both literally and emotionally. We had endured everything that had come against us and come out of it more in love and better people than we had been before.
Thursday, December 23, 2010
The drive to Tennessee today was fun and uneventful. We had a small Christmas this morning with just the two of us before we got on the road. We opened our stockings (yes, Santa still fills them even with no kids in the house) and exchanged a few gifts. Even that was part of the restoration tour as we exchanged cycling jerseys we had bought for each other. The meaning in that gesture was something that only we would understand and it also kept us pointed toward next August’s Tour De Cox, the day we will also renew our vows as the culminating moment of the restoration tour.
The Restoration Tour 