Sorry, no pictures yet, but much has happened in recent weeks.
J and I went to Alghero, Sardinia. I'll divulge more about that when we have the pictures uploaded, but while the weather did not cooperate so well, we got custom made sandals and a hand-crafted Sardinian blade from the local craftsmen in the area.
I've begun the slow process of repairing and replacing parts on my car. This past weekend, I replaced both control arms in the front of the vehicle as the car started swerving whenever I hit the brakes or started the gas. It is amazing how that solved the problem. I also had a bit of help from the Auto Skills Center guy considering we needed to cut one of the mount bolts and use two large pry bars with occasional hammering to get the heavily rusted arms out. It was fun, but the parts were expensive. Fortunately, the other parts that need to be replaced won't cost as much. I also recently learned of a German junkyard in the area, so hopefully I can get parts even cheaper in terms of cost. All told, this is our attempt at a middle ground between buying a new car and having all the replacements done by a dealer (which will cost more that the car is worth). I feel good about it because I get to learn car repair, I get to know more about the car, and except for the control arms all of the repairs are not immediately needed so the expenses can be distributed out over time like a car payment.
I got roped into training for a marathon. While those of you who know me are aware that I vowed to never do one again, here I am training for one. One thing I can say is that it is far easier to run longer distances with another runner than to go solo. Once I hit the 2 hour mark, it starts to get psychologically taxing. We've been training for not quite a month yet, and the race is in on the 6th of July in Zermatt, Switzerland. Fun facts about this marathon: it's all uphill with a grand total of about 5200 feet of overall incline (that comes out to about 50 feet uphill per quarter mile), one is supposed to get a good view of Matterhorn at about the 13 mile mark, and based upon YouTube videos of the race it looks to be a very beautiful countryside race. My running partner and I did 18 miles in about 3 hours yesterday (we're shooting to simply finish the race at a 10 min/mi pace). The majority of it was fine, but the last four miles were physically grueling. We have yet to do hill training, which we both view as a problem. There is not much for hills around here. I'm tempted to scale the pace back to 12 min/mi, but maybe we'll just shoot for a window of 10 to 12 instead. Someone else voiced concern about altitude issues. Considering that I hiked for three hours completely uphill to Eagle's Nest last summer without a problem, I think I can handle the altitude for this marathon.
Considering that I had to walk the last 5 miles of the only marathon I've ever done, I'm feeling pretty sure that I can finish this one jogging the entire time.
Next time I post, I should have pictures of Sardinia and more detailed stories from there for you.
1 comment:
Sounds like a certain amount of pain. I asked Beth if she wanted to go to Switzerland in July and she asked why? I responded that you were doing a marathon. She said you want to do a marathon in about a month and I said I could finish not compete.
I'm getting ready to start training for my 2nd half. 1.2 mile swim, 56 mile bike, and 13.1 mile run. There is a full in March that I'm kicking around the idea of doing as well.
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