Archive for October, 2008

Autumn in Seattle has been sunny and relatively warm, perfect for enjoying the city and its lovely scenery. So when Todd told me he was leaving work early on Monday, i said “we’re going on a field trip!!”  No brownbag lunch required.

I’ve wanted to go to the Olympic Sculpture Park with him, but our weekends have always been busy with other things.  And everytime I’ve been there, it’s just been me running through, so I’ve never taken the time to stop and enjoy the park.

He got home at 5:00 (after an hour on the bus) and we headed out for our field trip.

First stop: Uptown Espresso.  

Next stop: 

We spotted an open bench on the edge of Elliot Bay and sat and watched the sun set behind the Olympic Mountains as we discussed our days.

The park closed a 1/2 hour after sunset, so we’ll have to make another trip back to take time to look around at all the art.

After a couple more stops browsing furniture stores and trading in old video games, we walked back home for dinner, which ended up being ‘make your own meal’ night.  Beef & bean burritos for Todd, spaghetti for Katie, ice cream for all.

for those of you coming here from runrunkitkat.blogspot.com ….. welcome to my new blog home.  isn’t it pretty?

thanks to my awesomely computerific husband, all i really had to do was find a layout i liked, make some minor tweaks (ie: my Seattle header) and he pretty much took care of the rest.  he’s savvy like that.  i <3 my geek.

i’m making a conscious effort to keep on keepin’ on with my blog posts during this transition.  but if you’ve missed anything, every single one of my old blog posts is now on this site [wow, i've been at this for 3 years], so feel free to catch up or jump in right now.  

i will still be keeping my previous style of posting random bits of my life and my running updates, so don’t fear (or hope for) any significant changes.

As I was running by the UW football stadium on Saturday morning, the air was permeated with the smells of bacon and the enthusiastic cheers and laughs of college students who sacrificed sleep for tailgating time.

It made me nostalgic for my days of college football tailgating. While I don’t miss it so much that I want to be out drinking beer and eating burgers with them, it did make me remember all the great memories I made with friends and fellow Wildcat fans during my 4.5 years at K-State. Tailgating was an important part of my college days– behavior I’ll never go back to– but something I have such fond memories of.

I especially recalled the morning several of us woke up at 4:30 am (unheard of for normal college students) to walk to the stadium and wait for an hour behind the barricades……sprint to the stadium gates…..stampede down the stairs to get prime spots….and then wait another 2 or 3 hours for the live broadcast of ESPN’s College Gameday from Manhattan, KS to begin. (yeah, this was back when our team was ranked in the Top 10…not so much the case in recent years)

I’m pretty sure my friends and I never got on tv, but who cares? We were part of a faithful following of crazy fans who devoted our Saturdays to supporting our team.

I went back through my photo albums for some good memories.

Tailgating before the 2000 Big 12 Championship vs. OU.

I was a cheerleader at heart. But I was too tall and about 30 pounds too heavy to make the real squad.

Junior year tailgating with girlfriends.

With my brother in his notorious I Eta Pi gameday apparel.

Hard to believe some of those were 8 years ago.

Eat ‘em up, beat ‘em up, K-S-U!

I get to enjoy a 10 mile run on a lovely fall day.

He gets to sleep in until 10:30.

I decided to go back to my old ’stomping ground’. Its been awhile since I’ve ran the Lake Union Loop and up through UW on the Burke Gilman trail. It was nice, the sun came out and all the vibrant leaves made for a colorful start to the day.

We’re off to tour several apartments today. Should be fun.

You know those little things you avoid talking about because bringing up that subject always ends in disagreements? (ie: I don’t talk to my husband for hours…yep, that’s me, totally passive-agressive)

That 800 pound gorilla sitting in the room?

The thing that you can’t seem to discuss without getting frustrated?

*hand raised real high*

Yeah.

We have one subject that we tiptoe around.

Her name is Silvia.

Todd talks about her every once in awhile, shows pictures of them when they were younger, smiles as he remembers all the wonderful times they had together. She was there for him in high school and college, he even moved her to Seattle when he got a job up here. She was perhaps his first love. I think our best man’s toast was more about her than me.

In the years that we dated, Todd started spending less time with her, and she eventually just sat by and stayed mostly out of the way. Never made a move to win back the title of his favorite girl.

But I know she’s still around. Sometimes he even reminds me just how close Silvia and I are in his ranking of favorite things. Thankfully I always rank just a wee bit above her.

Oh yeah, Silvia is a car.

You may think “Its just a car, why get so irrational over it?” Ah, yes, excellent question.

But to fully explain this, I’d have to go back in time to when my Dad began collecting his cars (no time for that- it would take an entire book to tell about all of his cars). And then my brother followed in his footsteps. I’ve seen the stress it causes my mother and sister-in-law. I never wanted that for myself.

But sometimes, things work out in ways you never wished for. I fell in love with a man who loves cars. Just like the other two favorite men in my life.

*sigh*

I suppose I could learn to love Silvia if I’d have the chance to actually go for a ride in her or drive her somewhere, but instead she has been locked in a storage unit for the past several years. Gathering mold. Going nowhere. She has no seats. No battery. And her rent is not cheap. I liken it to flushing your money down the toilet every month. What is the use in having a car that doesn’t run? Why not get rid of it? Touchy subject indeed.

This past weekend, much to my delight, we put Silvia on a trailer and hauled her off to Idaho where she can be close to her grandparents.

We can go visit her whenever we want, which makes Todd happy. And we’re paying 75% less each month for storage, which makes me happy. Perhaps we can put that money to good use and get her some parts.

And sell her. Muahahahahaaa!

I kid, I kid. I know how much he loves her. And as long as he loves me more, I’m fine if they stay friends and keep in touch every once in awhile..

I have recently become a huge fan of this website. Can’t remember how I discovered it, but it’s a slight addiction right now.

Kitten War

Even if you don’t like kittens so much (*cough* jamie), you have to admit this is pretty cute. I do feel bad having to make one of the kittens a ‘loser’, but like the site states “all our kittens are winners really…”.

I even submitted a picture of our beloved Miles McCool (may he rest in peace), but either it’s still pending approval or the judges have decided he isn’t ‘kitten’ enough.

After all, he was maybe 12 (he never would reveal his real age to us) when the picture was taken, so that would qualify him more for the ElderlyCats War if they had a website for that.

He’s still a winner in my heart. Look at that ornery face. Even in his last days he was a playful, happy dude.

Vote for Miles McCool in 2008!
[That's the most political you'll ever hear me be]

Now that I have a little extra free time on my hands….no wedding planning or projects to fuss over, no full-time job to be bored at all day…I’ve taken this opportunity to get back to my love of training for races.

The annual Seattle Marathon is coming up quickly at the end of November, and since I enjoyed the 1/2 marathon last year, I really wanted to run it again this year. This will be my 7th half marathon, but the first one that I’ll be running a 2nd time. My training won’t be as gradual as I would like since I just basically started training about 8.5 weeks out, but I’ll make it work as long as it doesn’t kill my legs.

So far, so good.

This past weekend was sunny and lovely, we got to drive the convertible with the top down 2 days in a row!–- A rare statement for October in Seattle.

But I especially took advantage of the wonderful fall weather to do a long run yesterday afternoon. I’d planned on going 6 but decided to just push it a little further and run to meet up with Todd at a coffee shop he was going to be doing some work at. I like to call it the ‘lake-to-sound-to-steep steps-to coffee’ run.

It ended up being 7.7 miles, surprisingly at an 8:28 pace. And that was including all the annoying stop lights along the way and the painfully steep stairclimb through Pike Place market you see there right before mile 7.

Ugh.

But those stairs are so worth it after running along my new favorite spot. This is the second run I’ve taken down through the Olympic Sculpture park and along the Puget Sound through Myrtle Edwards and Elliot Bay parks.

It humbles and amazes me each time–- that we live in such a beautiful city and yet are just a quick run away from nature’s grandeur. The sun was hovering just above the Olympic mountains and lit up the water like fire. It makes a long run so much easier when you can watch the boats sail by and the waves crash on the rocks. I wish I’d had my camera.

I finished up at Uptown Espresso where Todd was, then we walked home, stopping at the grocery store for a couple items so I could make tacos for dinner. What a great way to finish out a lovely weekend.