Rant Update and More Shopping

First off, it was hotter than Hades today!

Last night, my 9 pm run was wonderful. I felt like I could do 10 miles but had to come home to put the kids in bed and clean up from dinner so I only ran 3. I'm a night owl. Plus, my sleep was all screwed up because I got home at 3:30 am yesterday then only slept 4 hours. I didn't truly feel awake until about 6 pm... then I couldn't go to sleep so I was up til 2 am.

I had a conference call for work today from 7:30 am to 9 am so I didn't get out the door to run until 10 am. My intent was to run 10 miles. No go. I did a very UGLY 5 miles. I didn't even run all of it. Somewhere after 3.5 miles I had two bouts where I just felt the need to walk for no particular reason except my legs hurt, I was HOT, I wanted to lay down, etc. I think it was about 80 degrees when I got done but you could wring all my clothes out. It was just miserable.

So... 5 mile run today.
Now it's pouring rain. I'm going to try 10 again tomorrow.

Before my run, the store manager from CVS called me. She apologized profusely about that cashier's behavior last night and told me I was totally right. She also pulled the transaction numbers that I was concerned about and verified that no additional charges were on my credit card. Looks like the cashier tried to re-ring the transaction 3 more times, maybe in an attempt to figure out how to ring the gas card, and voided all of them.

Well, it was back to CVS today for some more shopping...

I am a Diet Coke addict. I also won't pay more than $2.50 a 12-pack for Diet Coke. Usually I stock up when it goes on sale around whatever holiday is next. This time, the Diet Coke supply didn't make it to Memorial Day. We ran out about a week ago. I thought I could hold out til this weekend but I started getting the shakes and broke down and paid $1 at Meijer yesterday for a 2 L bottle. I know. Pathetic.

So today I discover on my coupon forums that the Diet Coke 12-packs that CVS has on sale this week that are part of the "Buy $30" gas card deal are giving you credit for $5 a 12-pack (which is how much it is this week if you buy one) but if you buy 4 at a time, it only costs $12. So, essentially, you are getting an $8 "free" credit for every 4 12-packs.

The limit is 3 gas cards. The amounts carry over, meaning, yesterday when I bought my items, I got credit for $35.94. That means I had $5.94 carry over and I needed to spend $24.06 for my next gas card. I ran out to CVS this afternoon and got another package of paper towels and 4 12-packs of Diet Coke. That should have put me over $30. Well, I got $20 credit for the Diet Cokes as planned but somehow the $5.94 that should have carried over from last night disappeared altogether so I was still about $5 short. It looks like the whole deal on my ExtraCare Card reset... meaning I could do the deal 3 more times if I wanted to...

So now "think" I told myself... get 4 more 12-packs, that gets me another gas card and $15.49 will carry over. Then get 4 more 12-packs for $12 but that gets credited for $20 so I'll get another gas card...

Back out the gas cards and I paid $45.53 for all this

I ended up with 12 12-packs of Diet Coke, 4 6-roll packs of paper towels, 2 18-roll packs of toilet paper, and a gallon of milk for $75.53 and received $30 in gas cards.

I could potentially earn one more gas card since the deal "reset" on my ExtraCare Card but I'm probably set for now.

Next stop was Menards. They have 5-pack brats on sale for $1.99. This is a great price by itself. I had a $5.88 Menards rebate check so I got 3 packages and paid $0.09.

Final stop was Walgreens to try out some "new" things. They have Velveeta Cheesy Skillets for $1.99. Buy one and get a $2 Register Rewards (RR) i.e. fake Walgreens money. I bought one and used $1 worth of Balance Rewards points (Walgreens rewards program) so I paid $0.99 and got $2 in fake money. Then, I bought 2 bags of Lancaster caramels and a package of Ramen noodles. The noodles were a "filler" - I had a $1.50 coupon for each bag of caramels and I wanted to use the $2 RR but at Walgreens your item count has to match your coupon count so I needed a cheap third item or "filler." The caramels were $3 each; buy 2, get 500 Balance Rewards points. Ramen noodles were $0.39. Total for second transaction was $1.88.

$2.87 for $8.38 worth of food plus 500 BR points

 

The kids had to try the "new" food as soon as they got home. The Lancaster caramels are really good. The Velveeta Cheesy Skillet was bleh.

 

Finally, I got rid of 34 books... that were left over from, ahem, college...

 



My husband majored in English and I minored in it so we had doubles of a lot of books since we both took classes together... back in the late '80's! They all went bye-bye today.

Come back and see me tomorrow as I run, purge, and shop some more!

Rant

 

This is one of my favorite images. It pretty much sums up my mood tonight.

I went to CVS to do a simple deal - buy $30 worth of advertised products, get a $10 gas card. Pretty simple. I bought $31.45 worth of product and used $3.75 worth of coupons so I paid $27.70 (pre-tax) and a $10 gas card coupon printed.

Then... this cashier that I've never seen before tore the coupon off the bottom of my receipt and told me I couldn't have it because I used coupons for my transaction. Ummm... I've been a CVS shopper forever. I have never had someone tell me I couldn't have one of their advertised deals because I used coupons on the deal. In fact, if the total to trigger a deal is post-coupon, the register won't print the coupon. I told the cashier she was wrong and that the $10 gas card coupon was mine because it printed on my receipt and no one at CVS has ever taken (torn!) something off my receipt and kept it. I figured if something had changed with their policy, she would call a manager over to back her up. Instead, she started futzing around the register... re-rang some of my items, wanted my credit card back for a return (??? I think), then did some more futzing around, and finally handed me a gas card. Then, she tells me that when she rang my order, the register told her to keep my coupon. ??? So the register prints a coupon and then flashes an alert to the cashier to keep the coupon it just printed? I called BS on that!

I left with all my items and the gas card like I'd planned. The more I thought about it though, the more concerned I got about what had just transpired. I was positive that that cashier was just making stuff up. Plus, why did she have to re-ring my order? All she had to do was scan the gas card coupon that had printed on my original receipt that she still had in her hand. I was worried she had re-rang my transaction at a higher price. I finally called the store and talked with the manager. The manager agreed and told me that that should not have happened. She was going to look at the transactions and try to figure out what the cashier did. So I guess I better now... but WTF! Why do people act like that? I am sick and tired of cashiers that don't understand how coupons work and make up stuff on the fly.

OK, rant over.

I got 3 miles in at 9 pm tonight.
Threw all my old newspapers and 3 months worth of expired coupon inserts in the recycle bin.
Hoping I have time for a longer run tomorrow.

A Week in a Life of an Aspiring Age-Grouper, Mom, Home Manager, etc...

This coming weekend will be my weekend. My weekend to race... and work.

I haven't really had a good running week since the 500 Festival Mini-Marathon. This is how my past week went...

Saturday and Sunday - Rising Star dance competition with G all weekend. No running at all.

Monday - 3 little miles
Tuesday - went to check out some trails...

I had planned to do 5-10 miles. Lots of firsts. First time I ever took my phone with me on a run. I figured since I was by myself in the middle of nowhere I better have a phone in case I turned an ankle or something. First time with a fuel belt. I needed something to stash my phone, plus I got thirsty when I ran the trail the week before and since the trail is a 10 mile loop I pretty much had to carry what I wanted with me. First time with a hat. Normally I can't stand anything on my head but the thought of ticks or tent worms dropping on my head convinced me to wear a lightweight cap.

the woods were lovely

 

saw this guy on my trail



 

All was going well until a bug dive bombed my left eye. I got my eye closed in time but it stung me right next to my eye. It burned so bad I couldn't get my eye open. I didn't think stumbling around on a rooty trail with one eye was a good idea so I ended up cutting my run short and only got 4 miles in.

 

Wednesday - 5 miles in the morning, then saw my chiropractor to get my legs stretched out. I was planning to run further but it started pouring rain and I figured I'd just run more the next day as I'm not following any kind of training schedule right now and just running what I feel like...

 

However, in retrospect, I should have run more!

 

The soupy ice cream was the tip off. My daughter went to get some ice cream after dinner on Wednesday night and it was soup. Maybe the freezer door hadn't been shut all the way? The refrigerator was making noise and the lights were on... but after a few hours it was obvious it wasn't cooling anymore.

 

My husband and I debated whether to try to find someone to fix the compressor vs. buying a new fridge. Ours was 13 years old. We decided to get a new one. We lost all the ice cream but I was able to get most of our food in the basement refrigerator - the avocado green side-by-side that won't die. The previous homeowners had tried to sell it to us when me moved into this house 13 years ago. We told them we didn't want it. When we moved in, we found that they had left it anyway.

 

Thursday morning was spent pricing and shopping for refrigerators instead of running. We finally purchased one two hours before I had to go to work.

 

Friday I got home from work at 4 am. Slept for a couple hours but then got up because the new refrigerator got delivered at 11 am. Next couple hours were spent washing and assembling the shelves in the new refrigerator and moving the food back in.

 

out with the old

 

in with the new

 

For some strange reason, the new refrigerator made me happy! Maybe it was just the newness of it. It's like I didn't know I wanted a new refrigerator until I got one, then I realized I really wanted a new refrigerator. Maybe it's because I got to purge out all the old rotting forgotten things from the old fridge and start fresh with the new one.

 

everything in it's place

 

No running Friday either since I got done putting food away right as the kids got home from school. G and I then spent the entire weekend at the Ticket to Broadway dance competition. We were there from 7-10:30 pm on Friday night. Saturday I squeezed in a 3 mile run in the morning before heading back to the competition and stayed there until 10:30 pm. By Sunday, I was dead! We drug ourselves out of bed and went back to the competition. We got done "early" at 9 pm so, again, no running for me on Sunday.

 

G at Ticket to Broadway





 

So that was my week - two dance competitions, a trail run gone bad, a new refrigerator...

 

This weekend I signed myself up for a crazy triple header race on Saturday. It's all part of my race series... 4 mile trail race at 8 am, 5K at noon, and 1 mile run at 5 pm. Then I have to be at work by 7 pm for a 12 hour shift.

 

Why am I so crazy? The latest points standings in my race series came out. Going into the year I wanted to win my age group. Now, with almost 5 months down, I am finding myself in second place overall!

 

 

With the Memorial weekend triple header, if you do all 3 races, you earn 8 bonus points. If I run, I'm fairly sure I can win my age group or better in all 3 races. That nets at least 20 points. A 20 point points swing is HUGE. I am currently leading my age group by 15 points.

 

So here are my goals this week...

1. Run or do something very active every day

2. Get rid of something from my house everyday

3. Blog a little about it everyday to stay accountable

 

Today I ran 5 miles and threw out more outdated food from my kitchen. Now it's off to work!

A Target Quickie

I've been so busy running lately that I've fallen behind on some of my couponing. I'm catching up this week! Here's a quick and easy Target deal I did yesterday to pick up a few pantry and freezer staples. It's certainly not health food but it's handy to have something for the ravenous kids who seem to have hollow legs.

So, two easy deals...

1. Market Pantry pasta sauce is on sale for $1 a jar this week. There is a printable Target coupon on the Target webpage HERE for $1.50 off 3 jars. So, get 3 jars for $1.50.

2. California Pizza Kitchen frozen pizzas are on sale for $5.00 each. Target is running a deal this week where if you buy 2, you get a free box of Outshine bars. You can use both a Target coupon and a manufacturer's coupon on the same item. There is a Target coupon for $2 off 2 California Pizza Kitchen pizzas on their webpage HERE. There is a manufacturer's coupon for $1.50 off at the California Pizza Kitchen webpage HERE. You can print 2 coupons per computer. So, buy 2 pizzas and 1 box of Outshine bars for $10.00. Use the Target coupon and 2 manufacturer's coupons for $5 off.

3. I brought my own reusable bag for another $0.05 off.

$6.45 for everything pictured

 

I'll probably do this deal a couple more times this week. If you're not familiar with the concept of stockpiling, you can read my prior post here. The most difficult thing about couponing is that it is a very fluid time sensitive endeavor. You have to keep up with the deals. If I would have purchased everything pictured last week without coupons, I would have paid $18.84. I saved 66% this week by getting the items on sale with a promo and a coupon stack ("stack" meaning you are using 2 coupons legally on the same item.)

 

That's all for now. I'm off to run some trails today!



500 Festival Mini-Marathon Recap... Perspective

I had pizza and Diet Coke as my pre-race dinner Friday night...

Yup, training manual went totally out the window for this one. Karma was not with me. It's been said that what really matters is what you eat and how you sleep 2 nights before your race - that would be Thursday night.

I was suppose to work 5 pm to 2 am. Well, so much for good sleep. I slept in on Thursday morning, then planned to at least have a nice pasta dinner before going to work. I was standing in the grocery store at 3 pm picking up supplies for dinner, thinking I could rush home, fix dinner for everyone and be out the door by 4 pm so I could be at work by 5 pm. Cell phone rings and the ED number pops up. That's never a good thing. "Do you know you're suppose to work today?" It's our ED coordinator calling. "Ummm... yeah... at 5 pm." Nope. I was suppose to be there at 2:30 pm. I had read my schedule wrong. Crap.

I flew home, threw everything in the refrigerator, made a peanut butter and jelly sandwich to take with me, and went to work. Showed up at 4:15; only 1:45 late, apologizing profusely to the guy that had to stay over since, when you're an ED doc, you can't just leave until the next person shows up. On the plus side, I got off at midnight. On the negative side, I couldn't get to sleep when I got home and ended up staying up til 2 am anyway.

So... no good sleep or meal on Thursday. My foot still hurts. I've only run 3 times since the Derby. This race had disaster written all over it. Why not just keep going down that spiral... I had fun at the Expo on Friday but stayed too long. Didn't get to take myself out for the nice lunch at Noodles & Co. like I had planned though since I ran out of time and the kids would be coming home. Got home and decided it was too much trouble to make dinner. Pizza Hut and Diet Coke it was. Dairy. Grease. Carbonated beverage. All the stuff I usually avoid 3 days pre-race. I took my Imodium and Gas-X and prayed for no bad results.

What's 13 miles anyway? I've done training runs way longer than 13 miles this year. I didn't do any really special prep for any of those runs. What's the big deal? Except... I want to run fast.

Saturday morning was the usual pre-race ritual. Up at 4 am. Sitting in my favorite parking garage by 5:30 am eating my peanut butter sandwich, banana, and Gatorade. 900 trips to the port-a-potty just outside the garage...

Finally, it was race time. For some reason our corral this year was so crowded. I almost didn't get into the corral but ended up worming my way in. The start was the usual congestion and I did my usual freak-out-and-run-too-fast mile...

Mile 1 - 8:11
Mile 2 - 8:30
Mile 3 - 8:48

I knew I started too fast so I backed off. Then, when I tried to speed it back up, I realized I really didn't have that much gas in my legs. I was going to try and average 8:20 miles but figured out right away that that wasn't going to happen.

Mile 4 - 8:32
Mile 5 - 8:36

So now I'm feeling a little better and I'm waffling between trying to keep my pace around 8:40 or 9:00. I'm worried though because I'm breathing a bit hard and that's never a good sign when you're only 5 miles into a half marathon.

Ate my Espresso HammerGel before entering the Motor Speedway. Broke another rule - never eat something new on race day. I wanted to get PowerGels at Blue Mile on Friday but they were all out. Some guy had come through and bought out everything the store had the day before. I should have gone to another store but I didn't feel like it. I asked what the next thinnest gel they had was, then bought one.

Mile 6 - 8:41
Mile 7 - 8:49

I ran 8:37 pace when I did 1:53 at Mill Race last September. I was going to try and at least beat that but now I'm thinking that's not going to happen either. Well, I'll run under 2:00 today. Do I just bring it on in under 2:00 today or should I try and beat last year's time?

Mile 8 - 8:57
Mile 9 - 9:09

Oh crap, if I don't get my act together I may not even make 2:00. I know 2:00 is right around 9 minute pace. I'm horrible at runner's math. I just know I need to speed up.

Oh... and then I almost puked up my gel remains. That came out of nowhere. The feeling went away as suddenly as it had appeared (thank goodness)!

Mile 10 - 8:50
Mile 11 - 8:55
Mile 12 - 8:43

I'm looking at my watch at this point... I ran 1:55-something last year. It's going to be really close. Can I beat my time from last year at least?

Mile 13 - 8:47
last 0.1 - 2:16

I ran one second faster than last year.

 

 

Overall Place: 4601 out of 25,524

Gender Place: 1171 out of 13,509

Division (F 45-49) Place: 79 out of 1325

Post-race photo with speedy Trena

As bad as my race prep was, I'm happy it went as well as it did.

I think it's all about perspective. Last year, I was ecstatic with my time. I ran better than I had hoped. This year, I was hoping for more.

Like I wrote earlier, it's funny how things can change over time. During my race I was thinking how just about a month ago, I ran 10 miles at 8:32 pace with an 8:15 tenth mile and felt great. Now I was struggling to keep it under 9:00 during a race.

I think there are peaks and valleys in training. A month ago I was at a peak. Now I'm down in a valley...

I have thought about trying to qualify for Boston 2015 again this summer. I actually found a marathon in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan on August 30th. Labor Day weekend. Then I nixed that idea. I want to try and go white water rafting with my family that weekend.

When I got back to my car after my race on Saturday, there was another race flyer on my windshield. Last Chance BQ.2 Marathon, September 13, 2014, Chicagoland. Flat course. Pace teams 4 minutes below each Boston qualifying standard...

September 13th minus 18 weeks would be... May 11th. Next week. No, I'm not ready to tackle another training program. I am done with marathons until November.

Other than my foot hurting, my body feels good. But, I think I am just mentally exhausted on training plans and obligatory running. I haven't run since Saturday. I feel like I can feel my fitness slipping away. I really haven't had a "real" training week for at least 3 weeks. Part of me is panicking but the other part just wants to let it go for awhile. My problem with running though is, the longer I don't run, the easier it gets to not run.

All my "serious" Spring running is done for now. I'll start training for the Monumental Marathon on July 1st - the day after I get home from Western States.
 

 



Score!

I love race Expos. I'm the one that likes to just look at everything... check out all the booths... sample all the food. Today was no different.

First I picked up my race packet.

The 500 Festival Mini-Marathon is the largest half marathon in the US with a 40,000 participant limit. I'm not sure if it actually sold out this year but it is always very crowded. This year they are doing wave starts for the first time. Hopefully that will lessen the congestion. We are assigned to corrals A-Z depending on your projected finish time. I always start out of either D or E. The elites will start out of A. You had to have turned in a finish time of under 1:45 to get into the C corral. Maybe one day...  but for tomorrow, I'm just excited I made the first wave.

After picking up my bib, I looked around. I ended up buying this shirt...

front

 



back

 

My local running store Blue Mile had lots of running shoes for sale. I really need to replace my shoes. They had the Brooks Ghost 6 in my size on their sale rack for $89.99 (regularly $110). The color was gawd awful. Why can't they make running shoes in normal colors like blue or white? Anyway, I couldn't decide and then decided I would look online first to see if they came in any more palatable colors.

 

Next stop was the Goodwill store where I got my throw away jacket. Then I stopped by the actual Blue Mile store to pick up some gels. I had my three $10 gift cards that I'd won in my races this month. When you win the gift cards, you are told you can use them together, however every time I've tried to use them, no one at the store can figure out how to ring up more than one at a time so they always make me do separate transactions, hence I always end up buying a bunch of little things like gels. Today, just for kicks, I asked the guy at the register if he could combine them. I'd already picked out $10 worth of little things cause I was sure he was going to say "no." Surprise, surprise... he said he could do two together... but not three. Well, I really need shoes. "Do you have the Brooks Ghost 6?" He did. In the same gawd awful color. "Will you match the sale price from the Expo?" (They were marked $110 in the store.) He would. So I used $20 in gift cards for the shoes and got $10 of other stuff.

 



Overall, I'm pretty pleased with my purchase. I'm sure I'll have to replace these shoes in another 6 months anyway with some other gawd awful color! The photo makes the shoes look better than they do in real life. They have a fluorescent yellow-green tinge on the sides.

So I guess I'm ready to run tomorrow. Last year this was my goal race; the race that started my blog. This year, it kind of anti-climactic. Yes, I want to run 1:50. But, it's no big deal if I don't. I have run exactly three times since my marathon - one 5K and two easy 5 mile runs. My foot still hurts. I feel like I was in the best running shape in years going into my marathon 2 weeks ago. I have no idea how I'm going to run tomorrow. I've decided to go for it and go out at an 8:20 pace. I very well may crash and burn halfway through... but it won't be the first time! I never have been a very conservative runner.

It's Here!

It's here! My Indiana State Fair Open Class Handbook came in the mail yesterday.

I've been debating lately how much fair competition I want to do this year. I've already put in for my days off work for the County Fair but I think I'm going to scale back on the number of items because I was feeling seriously stressed last year, plus, G is doing her dance workshop again the week entries are due.

I've flipped through the State Fair book.. there are some new sponsored contests - a bacon contest sponsored by the Indiana Pork Producers, a cooking with maple syrup contest sponsored by Burton's Maplewood Farm, and a "eat well, live well" healthy cancer preventing recipe contest sponsored by the Little Red Door Cancer Agency. Also notable is that Pillsbury is no longer sponsoring a pie contest this year.

Again, I think I'm scaling back on some of the State Fair competition too. Reason number one is that I've already asked off for a huge number of work days for all my running related activities and I feel guilty about asking off for more. Reason number two is, as much as I love the adrenaline rush from the open judging events, the open judging last year was just not that great. Often there was only one judge, for the most part, the judges are making less and less comments, and then there was the judge that refused to eat anyone's bread in the Spam sandwich contest (deets here).

Overall though, I'm excited that Fair Season is just around the corner. Time to get cookin'!

I'd love to have some company too this year (that's you Isabelle).