Wednesday, September 27, 2006

Weekend in KC

I spent the weekend in the Kansas City area. I needed to do some painting at the "house-that-won't-sell" in Overland Park, as well as a few other home maintenance tasks. It also gave me a chance to spend a little time with our son in Lawrence.

Saturday

I flew from Boston to Kansas City early Saturday morning. The kid (our son) picked me up at the airport and we stopped for some brunch on the way to the house. We met our realtor at the house and took care of a couple minor issues first, then went out to pick up the paint and a few supplies. After that I dropped the kid off at work. I spent the rest of the evening prepping the downstairs. I was pretty tired and ended up watching a movie while waiting for the kid to get off work ("Ice Harvest" -- interesting, but I prefer my movies a bit less gruesome). Then he and I drove out to Lawrence where we spent the night.

Sunday

The next morning I was up early, as DGC and I had made plans to run together. I drove back and we met up near the trails around 9:30. DGC started her Garmin and off we went. We did 8 miles out and back and according to the Garmin averaged 8:45 per mile. It was a good pace for me - just a slight pushing, but not so much that we couldn't keep up a conversation. And I think we talked constantly through the 70 minute run. It was great talking about past races, injuries, training, families, jobs, etc. The coversation then continued as we went for breakfast nearby.

I'll just say this about DGC -- she has no business looking so good after an 8 mile run.



I think only one of us looks like he ran 8 miles. Anyway, we had a great time and I look forward to meeting up again sometime.

I spent the rest of the day priming and painting. I was, however, distracted at one point in the afternoon when I looked out the window and saw this...



I believe it is a Cooper's Hawk. Anybody familiar with hawks? That's a squirrel it's nibbling on.

I stayed at the house that night as the kid had brought an air mattress over with a sleeping bag. It was almost midnight and I was ready to collapse. I unrolled the air mattress and began looking for the air pump. Nowhere to be found. I was so tired, I just crawled into the sleeping bag on the floor and fell asleep.

Monday

I woke up Monday morning a bit stiff, but rested. I almost immediately resumed painting. I knew I had a lot to do before I headed back to Boston. I took one break around 11:30 for lunch and then spent the rest of the day painting and then cleaning up. It was almost 9:00 pm by the time I had wrapped everything up and snapped a few pics. (How does it look?)



Drove back to Lawrence again, had dinner with the kid, and slept 4 hours on his sofa.

Tuesday

Early morning, we headed back to Kansas City to the airport. Seven hours later (14 hours after finishing the painting) I was back at my desk. Despite being dead tired, I went out for a 6 mile run in the early evening.

My left hamstring had been bothering me for a while (a literal pain in the butt), but seemed to be getting much better with my reduced training. But all day Tuesday I kept feeling twinges from it. I realized later that the slight flare-up was NOT due to Sunday's 8 mile run (followed by lots of painting and squatting down, etc.), but was aggravated by sitting on the airplane that morning. The hamstring felt GOOD both during and after the run. I can live with that. Slept very well last night.

Anyway, things are still going well with the rebuilding. Today was a bit of cross training (about an hour in the workout room at work).

C-Ya

2 Comments:

Blogger D said...

Oh please - now I have to post a decent photo of myself on my blog because they will be scared away by that one....

Geez - I live near your home here and I NEVER get to see hawks just outside of my window...I am so jealous.

Thanks for taking time to run with me!

9/27/2006 4:05 PM  
Blogger Toasty said...

Reminds me of doing the same thing with my dad. I renovated the kitchen and bathroom on a house I bought and dad came over and painted. He kept at it all day and I'm sure would have been as tired.

I'm jealous of you being able to catch up with DGC and enjoy a run together. Not sure what she expects a "decent" photo to be.

9/30/2006 6:23 PM  

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