Being for the benefit of Mr. Kite

In honor of The Beatles songs being available to stream, I decided to draw a little picture.
Ok, fine that's a lie.  To be honest, I've had The Beatles in my music library for years, so really the ability to stream has no affect on me.  But it seemed like a good lead in.  The truth is, I heard the song on the radio today on our way home.... Hahahaha ok, that's probably the last reference I'll make, here's the point.  I heard the song on the radio and as I was listening it made me think of the Starry Night painting.  Now, I'm no Van Gogh and I have zero ability to paint in that style, but I thought of the little houses in the village, and the idea for the picture just kind of came to me.  It didn't come out exactly as I hoped, but that's mostly because I used watercolor colored pencils, which I rarely use, so the lines are sort of half blended in some places and kind of harsh in others.  But the idea is the same, so for that reason, I do like the final product.  Without further ado, here's the picture, before and after. And yes, I listened to The Beatles while I worked on it.

End of the line

So I did that 20 mile run on Wednesday and haven't done any running since then.  Way to go me! Alright, I know that's a terrible way to do things, but it's a super busy time of the year, so I haven't really had the time to go out and add in any extra runs.  But walking the dogs has been enough in terms of getting some type of activity in.  The only real problem is that I keep eating candy and desserts when we go out, which is not something I usually do.  In fact, Ryan and I rarely get dessert because we're almost always super full from our regular meals.  Must just be because it's Christmas.  

This year for Christmas we decided to try something new and went to Newport, instead of New York City, like we usually do.  It was a nice little trip, but it was very foggy out and we couldn't really enjoy the town.  Which is too bad because it was also a nice 68 degrees, so it would have been a good day to walk around and check out some lights.  Oh well.  We got a room in one of the old mansions on the Cliff Walk and left the balcony door open overnight, so that was nice.  I mean, the bed was super uncomfortable, but having the ocean right there was nice.  The sunrise the next morning was pretty too.  Maybe not as nice as the sunrise from the day of the marathon, because it was still a bit foggy, but I had a much better time being in Newport this time around.  Just like every other city in America though, there's nothing to do on Christmas Day because everything is closed, so we just ate breakfast and went back home.  I am glad we skipped New York City this year though because I'm sure it would have been packed with people.  Last year was bad and it wasn't nearly as warm, so I can only imagine how many people were out this year.  I'm not a fan of not being able to move on the sidewalks because they're so crowded, so going to empty Newport was much better.  If you're going to NYC for Christmas, I definitely suggest going during the week, and not the week of Christmas.  I know a lot of people can't take time to just go and do that, but it is so much less crowded and you still get to see all of the same decorations.  Plus, Bryant Park always has some great little items in their pop-up shops and when it's super crowded like that, you can't get close enough to check anything out. 

As far as gifts go, we don't do a lot of buying in this house.  It seems silly to buy gifts when we both see where the money is being spent.  It's not like you can keep it a surprise anyways.  But I did get a nice leather notebook holder, which I really like.  It's Harry Potter themed, because Ryan is smart like that.  I got him a Qalo ring, because his ring is not workout friendly, and it's too big for him anyways.  If you haven't heard of the Qalo rings, they're just silicone bands, very inexpensive as far as rings go, and are good for people who work with their hands a lot, or for someone who is working out.  You can check them out at qalo.com if you're super interested. 

Finally, I'd like to take a moment to recognize the Google Support Store.  The fingerprint sensor on the back of my Nexus 5X stopped working on Wednesday night.  Now, I know that's not a huge deal, as the phone works fine without it, but it's kind of like buying a new car and having the radio controls on the steering wheel stop working one month in. Sure, you don't NEED those controls to work the car or the radio, but you paid for it, so you obviously want it to work.  Basically that's how I feel about the fingerprint sensor.  I don't NEED it, but the phone is only a month old, so there' no reason why it shouldn't work.  Anyways, it was being weird, working and then not working with no particular pattern.  So on Christmas Eve morning I contacted Google/Nexus Support to get some help.  The person helping me gave me a few different options as to how to solve the problem, all of which worked short term, but not in the long run.  I was sending back emails with the results of each test, just to keep the support store aware of the situation, as it doesn't seem to be a common problem.  If you're wondering, first they had me clear the cache in regular settings.  After that didn't work, I tried rebooting in safe mode. When that didn't work, they had me reboot in recovery mode and wipe the cache that way, which worked until I opened an app or connected to a charger.  Finally, they had me do a full factory reset, which again, worked until I opened an app or connected to a charger.  In a weird turn of events, for a while, the sensor worked when the messenger app was open, but that stopped working too.  So, finally, we've decided to replace the phone.  The point of all of this though is that this was a two day project through email.  I sent an update on Christmas Day, not expecting any type of response, because after all, it is Christmas.  Instead, the woman who was helping me answered almost immediately, in the middle of the day, and continued to exchange emails until we landed on the replacement option.  Now, I live with a person who does his work every day of the year, holidays be damned, but he's an exception, not the norm.  He responds to his customer emails throughout the day, and probably even did it on our wedding day, but I didn't expect other people to be like that.  Maybe Google makes them work, but I doubt it.  So, if you still aren't convinced that Google is way better than Apple, there's another point in the Google column.  I mean, I've never tried contacting Apple on Christmas Day, so maybe they're just as helpful, but I'm going to assume they're not, because that's how I roll.  

Alright, I'm going to wrap up this unnecessarily long post now.  Enjoy some pictures of the Newport sunrise and my lovely Christmas present.

8 days remaining in the yearrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

You have to read that in the Bruins' announcer voice, otherwise it's just nonsense.  If you've ever heard the 1-minute warning at a Bruins game, though you know what I'm talking about. Mostly I just didn't have a better title though.  I hate those cutesy little sayings like Christmas Eve Eve, or Festivus for the Rest of Us, since technically neither of those are real things.  I mean, sure, it's the night before the night before Christmas, but let's not get into making that a thing, like we did with Black Friday.  Let's all agree to just leave the holidays where they are and not add on any more superfluous days.
Ok, so I know that probably reads like I'm not into the holidays, which is not true, I'm a fan of Thanksgiving and Christmas, as much as the next person, even if this year is so un-Christmasy we might as well be on the West Coast.  No joke, tomorrow it's going to be almost 70.  I don't know how people on the West Coast live like this, to be honest.  I hate to say it after the winter we had last year, but I miss the snow.  At least a little flurry. Heck, I'd even take just a cold day.  But you know what? Today I ran outside in a tank top.  Yes, in Massachusetts in December, I'm out burning up the miles in a flimsy lightening dry tank.  Sure, this is great running weather, but it's not great Christmas weather.  In an ideal world, it gets cold and snows for Christmas and then in January everything goes back to being 50 degrees.  Although not having weather like this until well after winter, my mind keeps thinking about all the awesome spring activities and I have to remind myself that we're still far away from that end.  School's not even close to being over and there's a lot more winter left before we make it to spring again.
Enough about all this though, back to the running.  I finally managed to stop putting off my 20 miles and get it done today.  Much like the Taco Bell Crunch Wrap Supreme, I am good to go now.  I figured that with the 15 on Saturday and the 20 today, I'm all set for Louisiana.  Today's run was a good one, finished in 3:02, not bad considering I joined up with Cynthia and Madilyn for some middle miles, which meant slowing down for the stroller. (Secretly I'm ok with that and might actually look forward to the slow down!) Even then, it wasn't much a slow down, maybe a minute on per mile, if that.  Include the hills in that and Cynthia gets way more credit than I do, because I doubt I could make it 3 with a stroller, let alone 6, at any pace! Unfortunately my headphones died at mile 19, which is always a bummer, but usually the last mile is the easiest one to power through anyways, because you know at the end of that mile, you're actually done.  It does raise the point again of finding good wireless headphones that can actually hold a charge.  I didn't even use the headphones for the entire run, I'd say maybe for 2 hours total.  Sure, I used them on Saturday and didn't recharge, but I think on Saturday I used them for just over an hour, so if that's an indicator of battery life, they still wouldn't make it through the rest of the marathon with me.  Hopefully I'll be so speedy on this nice flat course that I'll outrun my headphones charge.  Ok, that's highly unlikely, but I think this is definitely the course to hit the 4 hour mark.  I know you're not supposed to run your first half super fast, but if I can get the first half done in 1:50, that leaves just about 2 hours for the second, which I know is do-able.  If I don't get the first half done in 1:50, I can still break the 4 hour mark, but I'd really have to hold a steady pace the entire run, which may be do-able, but I don't know, because I have yet to run at a solidly consistent pace.
While we're on the subject, I know that the experts say to run your training runs around a minute slower than your expected pace, but I just can't figure out how to do that.  When I go out running, I just go. For example, my first 9 miles today were around the 8:30 mark.  Which is definitely not a minute slower than my expected pace.  I'd say that's pretty spot on to my expected pace.  But they weren't consistent 8:30s, they went all over the place from 8:03s all the way to 8:53s. Sure, I had to stop to cross some roads and chug up some hills, but still, there's no consistency there.  Then my last five were back in the 9:00s, 9:03, 9:07, etc.  How does one go out and run slower than their marathon pace and still expect to be faster on the day of the race anyways? That doesn't make a lot of sense to me.  I know that races are different, there's crowds and cheering, etc, but I don't think I could do all of my training runs at a 9:30 - 10:30 pace and still expect to come out blazing in January.  Maybe it's just me though.
Sadly, I have no pictures for you today.  I do have this little life lesson that you can live by.  Sure, it says board games, but replace that with basically anything you're doing in life, and the results will be the same.  Pretend for the sake of this post that it says running instead of board games, and you'll really understand me.  And with that, Merry Christmas!
I'll try to get in one more before the end of the year, but in case I don't, Happy New Year!

It's tricky to get the laundry, to get the laundry done on time, it's trickyyyyyyyyy

You feel me? I bet you do.  At first I planned on cleaning the house/doing the laundry yesterday.  Instead, I took a 2 hour nap. Then I watched football with Fries until bedtime.  Not a single cloth was laundered yesterday.  Since I'm on winter break though, it's totally ok, because I managed to clean the house AND do the laundry today. Except that it's still not done and now it's almost bedtime.  It's a true life struggle, I can never time my laundry right to be done before bed.  I always end up either having a load leftover to do the next day (which never gets done), or a load left in the dryer, which doesn't get folded until the following week.  Am I alone in this phenomenon?  Whatever, I have more important things to do, like re-read books I've read a hundred times before.
Enough about my domestic inabilities though, back to the running.  On Saturday I was GOING to run 20, but I'm really bad at mapping out routes.  Instead of running 5.5 to meet Cynthia, I only ran 3.5, but it was good enough.  We were going to do 10 together, but only got out 6.  Then I did the 3.5 back, plus 2 more, for a grand total of 15.  Which is lovely and all, but not the 20 I planned, so guess what I have to do tomorrow instead.  Right now I'm not interested in doing any number.  I'd be happy to go to bed and not have to wake up and go running or workout or do anything active, and just eat everything in sight instead.  Unfortunately that's not a reasonable lifestyle, so off I'll go tomorrow, even if it is going to rain.   Side note, what's with the Nespresso commercial?  Am I supposed to believe that George Clooney and Danny DeVito are hanging out drinking high-end pod coffee? Yea, right.  Nothing about that commercial makes me want to even consider drinking Nespresso.
Not much else happening on this end.  I'm losing my Fantasy Football match-up, which makes me real angry, because I've been in 1st place the entire season, and the guy I'm playing just HAPPENED to have a real lucky game yesterday.  I feel like 2008 Tom Brady right now. I'm also thinking about different things I can do for Boston fundraisers and have come with 3 solid options.  1) Host a paint night or similar and charge people $30 for a spot. 2) Take donations of old baby clothes and toys and re-sell them as an online yard sale type thing. 3) Beg out front of Stop and Shop.  Ok, fine, so number 3 isn't REALLY a solid option, but it's there if I get real hard up.  So if you have any other ideas, you just let me know what those options are. In the meantime, enjoy this picture of me leaving Cynthia at the end of our 6 miles.

Marathon Training: The Gibbs Method

I've decided, inadvertently, to try a brand-new method of marathon training. It may come as no surprise that I'm calling it The Gibbs Method.  Here's how it works. Sign up for a fall marathon and a winter marathon. Train for a fall marathon starting in the spring, following a regular training schedule with increasing mileage until you hit 20, and then taper. Run (or run/walk) said marathon in the fall.  Three weeks later, run a half.  Two weeks after that, run a 15 mile long run.  Finally, 4 weeks before the winter marathon, run another 20 miler.  No taper for your second marathon.
 In between these, run a random mix of mileage at varying paces, ranging from 1 - 13 miles. (I say varying paces because at this point in the year, it's very hard to find a consistent group of people who want to run long runs for no reason, and can hold the pace I want to hold.)  Add in short 3 mile runs on the treadmill.  These are for one mile warm-ups, one mile sprint intervals and one mile hill inclines. Your one-mile warm-up should be at your best pace, which should be faster than your marathon pace.  Example, my one mile warm-up is around a 7:40, my goal marathon pace is around an 8:50. Sprints should be done in 1 minute on/1 minute off intervals.  And by off, I mean, walking.  And by on, I mean a full out sprint, at least 2 minutes faster than your fastest pace.  Hills should be done on at least a 7 incline.  If you're only going to 7, you need to be running up that hill at your regular race pace, or a bit faster, for .10 of a mile.  Then you get to pause for 1 minute.  This is your pretend walk back down the hill, since you're not going to bother lowering and raising the treadmill incline every .10 of a mile.  Repeat for the full mile.  Now, if you want to get REAL crazy, you can go above a 7, all the way up to the highest incline setting on your treadmill.  For the one I use, that's a 15.  Be prepared to die if you do this. I can run up the 7 at a regular race pace of 8:30ish, give or take a few minutes, if I'm not feeling or really rocking it.  At the 15, I barely made it up the .10 of a mile in a 10:00 run.  It's a real challenge, but I like it, so I keep doing it.  Plus, I'm sure it will help when I get to Louisiana and there is nary a hill to be seen.  My legs and lungs will be all, "whhhhhhhattttt?So flat. NBD, we got this." Or, at least, I assume that's how it's going to go.  Just realize that after the first time, your calf muscles are going to feel like the fires of hell are burning deep within, and you might actually want to consider crawling up the stairs the next day.  That feeling goes away a little bit if you stretch and definitely gets better the more you do this activity.
To really complete this cycle of training, you have to throw in at least 4 days of cross-training activity that fully engage the rest of your muscles, continue to help you build endurance, and work your core.  That means something like Cross-Fit, bike riding, or, obviously, boxing classes.  Trust me when I say this method will never work if you don't do any sort of extra workouts with those runs sprinkled in.  Since I've yet to actually put this method to the final test, I can't say it will work for you either, so, unless you're looking for the lazy man's plan, I wouldn't take this to heart until I can prove it's worth in January.  After January though, if I do manage to hit that sub-4 marathon, I'm taking this plan to the bank. *patent pending*  Pretty sure this how the internet works, so now that it's official, no stealing.  Bonus points if you know that that is referencing.
Now that you have the inclusive Gibbs marathon training plan, I hope you're excited to check back in a month and see how well it worked out.  I know you are.  The good news here is that I did re-order some Tailwind, and if my Christmas list was taken seriously, I should have another bag on the way, which means I'll be solid for Louisiana and Boston.  I've always been convinced Tailwind worked, but I've never been more convinced than I was today, after not using it for a few months, and then using it again at boxing today. There was a serious upswing in my participation and endurance for the entire class, which is good, because I've been lacking in the push department lately.  Also, my poor little toe still hurts, and though I never saw a doctor about it, I'm pretty sure there's a break or a fracture in there somewhere.  However, it doesn't hurt enough to stop running or working out, and I was getting super bored not being able to do anything anyways, so I figure if it really starts to hurt again, I'll throw some tape back on it.  Because that's how I roll, and it's easier than actually doing anything about it.
Aside from all that, even though this week has been totally crazy, it's one of those weeks where I've simultaneously felt like an awesome teacher and an awful one.  Awesome because I just corrected the tests from the multiplication unit we just did in 4th grade and all the kids really rocked it.  They showed their work for every problem, they were using the BUS method, and the open responses were set up accurately.  It was a moment of YASSS for me.  But, then, it was also awful, because we had to cut half of the basketball team.  There's a couple of us coaching the 4th and 5th grade boys basketball team this year, and I guess we're real popular, because we had 38 boys sign up.  Yup. Apparently that's way too many, which I should have known, but knowing next to nothing about basketball, didn't really occur to me.  So in the end, the three of us got together and decided that the best thing to do was to cut some of the 4th grade boys.  The 5th grade boys get their spots automatically because it's their last year at the school, but the 4th graders had to go, unfortunately.  And if you think being a teacher is hard, try being a teacher who also has to tell 18 ten-year-olds that they can't play on the basketball team this year.  Because no matter where you teach, no matter how tough your students act, when it comes to something like this, suddenly they're all just 10 years old and crying in the hallway.  Oh, and how to handle that type of a situation is definitely not taught in any class you're going to take, so if you plan on being a teacher, you better be prepared to face that eventually.
 From experience, I've taught in all levels, whether as a sub, teacher, or coach, and there is ALWAYS tears.  And yes, this is an inner-city school, these aren't coddled little boys who are used to having everything they want in life.  They're tough kids, who understand and are somewhat used to disappointment, which made it even harder. I suppose I had another awesome moment yesterday though, when a third grader was super upset that he failed his eye test for the second year in a row.  So I showed him my contacts and talked to him about how I had glasses and had to wear them or the contacts every day.  He came back today and told me that I made him feel better about glasses after I showed him my contacts, so he went home and told him mom he needed them, and now he's going to get them next week.  Actually, these two paragraphs are a great example of real world teaching experience.  If you want to be a teacher and really understand what it's like on a daily basis, look no further.  This is it.  A series of events in which you feel awesome, awful, terrible, loved, and hated, sometimes all at once, and all in a 6 hour time block.  Throw in a 20 second bathroom break and you've got teaching. Of course, then you continue to worry about the kids long after they've left the school, and the feelings keep rolling in when you're correcting homework, classwork, or tests, and the scores are either amazing or terrible.
We did also have a nice visit from the Greyhound Friends Organization, which is out in Hopkinton, MA.  The third grade just wrapped up a unit on helper animals, and the Greyhound Friends came out with their dogs so the children could see and learn about them.  This is the second year they've done it, and it is awesome.  There's nothing cooler than dogs in school and the kids loved learning about the dogs and being able to meet and pet them.  If you ever need an assembly, I definitely recommend getting in touch with these people.
So that's everything from the past two weeks, I suppose.  Global warming, which obviously doesn't exist, has kept the temperatures around here in the 50s for a while, so that's real great.  Definitely doesn't feel like Christmas with this weather hanging around.  But it's great for running, so while I'm not a fan of the reason for the weather, or the lack of Christmas-y feelings, I do enjoy the extra time to run outside.
And now please enjoy some pictures of the Greyhounds and anything else I may find interesting at the moment.

A manual collator.  The best invention you didn't know you needed. 

Oh right, Google sent these awesome kits as a holiday gift for using ProjectFi.  It's a basic pack of Legos with instructions for how to make a phone stand or a cable organizer.  I went with the phone stand and I really do love it.  Plus they sent an extra power cable, since the Nexus uses the USB Type-C, which isn't commonly found yet.  Yet another reason to love Google. They're always thinking ahead.  What other company would send a second charger to every customer just to make their life a little easier? Thanks Google. 

Christmas, Christmas Time is Here

  I mean, sure, it's like, 60 degrees out, there's barely any lights around the neighborhood, and our tree is a little bit of a reject, but still, it's Christmastime.  That means it's almost Christmas vacation, which means it's almost time for the 20 miler.  Because what better use of vacation time than to run 20 miles.  There's not much else happening in the running world right now, but I do need to order more Tailwind stat.  Unrelated to anything happening here, I'm watching last weeks Saturday Night Live and I really have to say, Ryan Gosling is not a great live actor.  He's funny enough, but he can't keep it together very well.  But, more than I could do, so way to go you.  Plus, I suppose if you look like Ryan Gosling, you don't necessarily need to be good at what you're doing, you just have to look it.
Back to running now, I took a week off because I thought I had a broken toe.  Upon further review, it may have just been super bruised, but I don't really know.  It hurt for a while and was all purple but now it's just kind of red and doesn't hurt anymore.  So, back to running like nothing happened on that front.  I ran 5 today at an 8:04 pace and no water.  I clearly made a judgement error on that one, but it worked out fine.  I'd also like to take a moment to note how hard it is to keep a sentence flowing with Weekend Update on in the background.
Let's see, so aside from running, I've been sort of feeling a little bored of my workouts.  Here's the thing.  I'm Facebook friends with a lot of people that go to the boxing club and I constantly see updates about how hard the workout was.  Yet, I don't really feel like the workouts are that hard whenever I'm there.  Maybe it's because the workouts have to be beginner ready and I'm really past that stage.  Or maybe it's because I've spent so much time running that the short, hour long classes, just aren't enough.  Whatever the reason is, I figured that I needed to get some answers/results.  Doing what any good athlete would do, I went to the trainers and asked what I should be doing differently to get better results.  Smart move, really.  This was my answer: Climb the rope 3 times, run a fast mile before class, and add push-ups to the mountain climbers.  So, like any good athlete, I did that.  The rope climb was definitely the hardest, but I made it up.  Turns out that wasn't enough though.  Instead of doing a first round, I got bombarded by trainers and was told to do push-ups for 3 minutes instead of doing the actual round.  That was a lot of fun.  Until I couldn't do push-ups anymore and then still had to do them during the mountain climber active rest later in the class.  Today, after I ran 5 miles I was going to do uphill/sprint repeats on the treadmill.  Unfortunately, both treadmills were being utilized during the time I had, so I was instructed to do the row machine for 5 minutes instead.  Way harder than I thought it was.  Seriously, have you ever used a rowing machine and tried to keep it in the 2:00/500m range for 5 minutes? I have no idea what that means, but it was super hard.  I actually never got it down to 2:00, but I managed to hold it steady at 2:30, so I figured that was close enough.  Then I did a mile of uphills and was basically dead, so I wrapped it up and left.  But, I have to say, after all that, it was definitely worth it.  I actually feel like I did something again.  My legs are little tight, my arms are sore, and I have a giant blister on my left palm. A perfect ending.
In case you're wondering, I haven't run any new races lately, and probably won't run any before Louisiana, so you'll just have to put up with my mess of poorly flowing paragraphs and not very informative running information until then.  I'm sure I'll have a great update after Louisiana but sadly, probably not 26 selfies this time.  Don't be too disappointed, I just really want to get in under that 4:00 mark, and I don't think the selfies helped.  While you're waiting patiently for new running information though, enjoy some pictures from Winter Wonderland, the school's winter open house that held last night. It was a big hit.  And of course, I'm still taking donations for Morty.  As always, click here to donate

I was recruited to draw a Christmas theme at the Saugus Title.  For those of you reading this from out of state, or even out of the North Shore, there used to be a mini-golf course right down the street on Rt 1 that had a giant orange dinosaur visible to people driving by.  The orange dinosaur is well known around these parts, so if you're from here, it's kind of funny. If you're not, it probably doesn't make a lot of sense.  Don't worry, my January board will be better, if I'm still allowed to do it!

Got myself the Harry Potter coloring book and I love it.  Plus I made that little canvas, just because

Last weekend while I was babysitting I had to come up with a creative way to move the Elf on the Shelf.  Since the little girl I was watching wrote a letter to Santa, I made the elf a mail-box out of an empty Kleenex box. Of course I had to decorate the box to make it more Christmas friendly.

Boxing selfie with the other Ali and Brian.  

Santaaaaaa!

I feel like through this picture, you can really tell how well squats work. 

Our little Christmas tree.  The Nexus really does take good pictures for a phone.