Long Ways

Last Sunday I ran 23 miles. NEVER have I run 23 miles. It's a long way. But I had to do it because I have to do these long runs to prepare for my marathon...only 32 days away now. It actually went quite well. I prepared for it in the couple of days before, eating right, drinking enough to be hydrated properly (I had to pee five times during that run since I was so well hydrated), and getting back from a football game in Monroe soon enough Saturday night to allow me to get enough sleep before heading off at 6 am Sunday morning. I ran slowly because the purpose of the long run is to build endurance. Speed in not important. You save the speed work for the shorter runs during the week. So I ran about 3 minutes per mile slower than I would have for the actual race, going at a 3:1 run/walk ratio: run three minutes, walk one minute. I ended up with an 11:07 per mile average, almost dead on three minutes slower than the 8:05-8:15 pace I want to do at the marathon. And I felt very good afterwards. I did some errands and took my niece and her boyfriend out to a quarterhorse ranch that a cycling buddy of mine owns. They seemed to like that a lot.

I also signed up Jonnene to do the 10K run that will be held in conjunction with my marathon up in Washington, DC. We had thought the race was filled with their 10,000 runner limit but a notice came up on FaceBook that fifty spots were open so I grabbed one for her. The nice thing for her is that she'll start her run (at a different location but the same finish line) the same time I do but she'll be done soon enough that she can go back to our hotel, clean up, and come back out to see the last part of my race. She'll be done in about an hour while I'll still have 2 hours and 45 minutes to finish my race...if I do it in the 3:45 time that I want.

The bathroom is coming along and the tile should start going up by Thursday...I hope.

The countertop to the vanity has arrived and was installed.
The undercounter sink was attached, too.

The shower area has had several coats of waterproofing "stuff" applied to the concrete board and surrounding sheetrock. It's almost ready for tiling once the copper pan is attached to the floor. You can also see the two insets on the wall where we will be able to put shampoo bottles and things like soap.
It'll be nice.

More Bath Pics - Part II

In case you didn't know, we've been in the process of renovating our "master" bath...oh, you DID know. Well, okay, here's the latest pics of the work in progress.

One more look at the vanity and tower before paint was applied.

Jonnene takes a look inside the cabinet. This shot also gives you an idea of the size of the room we're dealing with. The cabinets are not as deep as to allow a little more room to manuver.

The travertine stone tiles are stacked up in the carport waiting to be applied to the shower walls and the bathroom floor.

One last look at the bare studs in the shower area before they are covered up tomorrow. Also a look at the painted walls and ceiling in that direction.

The painted cabinets and walls. The granite counter top will go in next week.

A close-up look at the trim tiles we'll have in the shower area. They are manufactured by an Australian company, Maniscalco, so we had to have it!

View of the entrance to the bath where a pocket door will come out of the left hand side. We'll have to do some painting on the walls, I guess! Hey, there's dogs outside!!!

More Bath Pics

The vanity and tower have been installed!
Coober checks them out. Hope he doesn't "mark" them!

Here's a better view of the tower (I don't know what else to call it). It has two drawers at the bottom, cabinet doors with shelves inside, and an exposed storage area at the top.
These will be painted later. They had primer put on them today so now they're all white.

At the bottom is the vanity with center drawers and side cabinets...and drawers up top, too. The counter top with the sink will be installed later. The counter will slide between the vanity and the tower. Power outlet is that little hole in the wall. The sink will be at the left with the mirror and lights around it. The place is starting to take shape!

More Renovating, More Running

Updates....yeah, updates. Sort of a busy weekend. Not in the way you count the number of things you did in a space of time but the time it took to do some things. Such as Jonnene running her long run of 7 miles on Saturday and I did my long run of 20 miles on Sunday. I had never covered 20 miles on foot ever in my life and it really got tough the last 2-3 miles...I'm sure I walked more than I ran at that point, had already run out of water, it was hot and humid, and I still managed to average 10:46/mile. I thought I'd be slower! For Jonnene, her knee started acting up on her about 2/3's of the way in but she turned in just shy of an 11-minute mile pace.

There's also some family health issues that we're having to tend to but that's our job as the kiddos to do the things that need to be done.

The bathroom renovations are still underway....shall be for a while longer. More pictures below:

Sophie and Coober sometimes get to check out the mess in the bedroom.

The custom-made vanity unit and tower came in and are waiting to be installed eventually.

Here's the original entrance to the master bath after the demolition was finished.

And now the smaller version of the entrance after the sheetrock has gone up which will feature a pocket door.

A downward view of Jonnene as seen from the ceiling rafters before the wall boards go up.

Looking toward the shower area after we got down to the studs and after the plumbing was worked on. You can see the drainage ports for the shower and the toilet on the floor.

Same area after the sheetrock has been put up. Light/vent/heater will be installed in the hole in the ceiling. The exposed areas will have different wallboard put up to make that area waterproof and then the stone tiling will be put in.

We left our names and the date on the inside of one of the walls for someone to find someday in the far future when the house is renovated again or torn down...hopefully many decades from now!

Looking towards the entrance after the demolition was finished.

Same view after the pocket door framework and a stout header board was installed as well as the framing for the door jam.

A much cleaner look with the wallboard in place! Now the mudding begins followed by texturing of the walls to prepare it for paint (we have to finalize our colors soon).

We moved ourselves to the guest bedroom while this is going on. But above is our master bedroom with all the stuff, the old mirror (which we'll have cut to size and reused in the bathroom), and boxes of bathroom fixtures. The bed has a tarp on it to keep the dust off and the closets have been covered with plastic sheeting for the same reason.

The Renovations Begin

I know, it's been just over a month since my last blog entry! Sorry. It's harder to maintain this thing than I thought it would be. But I won't ignore it...I might get on a roll and make you wish I hadn't started this thing!

First off, I'm still training for my marathon in October. I've had a setback with some pain in my left calf muscles and we haven't been able to truly figure out what the problem is. I've scaled back my running to give it a chance to rest but I think I'm about to start ramping it up. Some runs the thing will hurt like crazy and other days it'll sorta hurt and then go away. Like this morning...I ran 6.8 miles at a 8:14/mile pace and had little problem. Ran 16 miles last Sunday, little problem. Ran an easy 4 miles last Wednesday...that sucker hurt like a you-know-what. I ice it every day, Jonnene will rub it down, will do the elliptical machine at the gym, and I often wear compression socks...seems to help. More to come on this little adventure.

We've started our renovation on our master bathroom! It sorta sounds silly since our "master bathroom" is the same size...small...as our guest bathroom but we're trying to make it look bigger by taking out the soffets and the dividing wall/door. Should be interesting. In the meantime we've moved into the guest bedroom to avoid the dust being kicked up. Here's some pics of the job:

Looking to the left after I removed the shower head and most of the fixtures last Monday.

The work has started (last Tuesday)! The toilet is gone and most of the plumbing disconnect has taken place. Also, the electrical has been removed...you can see the working light hanging from the ceiling.

Same angle with EVERYTHING ripped out! Sheetrock goes in next week.

This view is from the inside of the shower looking to the right of the bathroom. Drawer handles are gone as is the toilet paper roll holder.

Same view with everything gone and demo'd down to the studs. Next week the plumbing will be adjusted and new electrical will go in. The room's nice and large when there's nothing in it!