Try try again

So we decided to try to have another baby. 

We aren't having one at the moment, but since the internetz have been helpful to me in term of reading stories, I feel like should reciprocate. 

In early fall 2013, I did my battery of bloodwork again (I had done it in 2010 shortly before my wife got pregnant; I did one IUI that year). I did an HSG as well, and got a stamp of approval. 

Since I appear to be quite healthy, we went with a natural IUI cycle. My instructions were to use OPKs and go for a check and IUI (due to our spern availability we are just doing one IUI per cycle, not the two this clinic does as standard). 

I'd been "practicing" for a couple of months, and never got a positive OPK. So, this cycle, I peed every 6 hrs. I had one sorta kinda positive around lunchtime, and on the advice of the on call doc, who I called sort of in a panic when my evenin OPK was very negative, I went in the next morning. Bloodwork and ultrasound confirmed ovulation was imminent, and we did the IUI, but alas no luck. I did burn through a lot of HPTs testing out my trigger and looking for anything though...

To be continued...

Hartford Half Marathon

I haven't written this up because its a little depressing, but this was my slowest solo half ever. I have been dealing with achielles tendinitis this fall, and this was a painful and super undertrained run. But I finished. And the race itself was lovely. Good course support, decent scenery, beautiful weather and a great finish zone. This was also the first time I stayed in a hotel near the start/finish and that totally kicked ass. 

The medal was kick ass and huge and heavy too. 

2:20:16. Less than 50th percentile. Oh well. Better luck next time!

Garage, issue 1

Our garage is in sorry condition to say the least. It really should be demolished and rebuilt, but we'd never get a permit for a two car garage one foot from two property lines on our 5000 sqft lot. So, renovation is the only option. 

We decided to start with the wall with the most visible wood damage (rot of the lower (sill plate?) beam on the floor and obvious water staining on the (apparently thrice replaced) wall covering. 

Before, in the storage section from the door

Before, from the left stall: 

After, same vantage points:

We decided to go with a big header and open the space up. It took about 6 hours of hard labor, but I am pretty pleased with the job so far!

Also, shout out to the Forester for getting all the lumber home on the roof, and props to us for getting that 10"x14'x3" header into place on our own. 

kitchen complete

We finally "finished" the kitchen a month or two ago with the addition of the kick plates under the cabinets. Since that took 18 months or so, it is only reasonable I wait a while to update the blog.

It's not the most impressive kitchen in the world, but it's what we could do without moving an entire bathroom, stairwell, or losing a bedroom. So some (fabulous cell phone) before/afters...

The view from the back door...

Before....

 

 After,  complete with sippies on the drying rack and lunch bags on the counter.

 You can just see the fridge in the right hand side of this photo. The kitchen didn't HAVE a fridge before - here's the wall where it is now...

back on the wagon

A short 2 week goal to stick to Weight Watchers. Starting at 176.2 yesterday.

motivation? 10k on Memorial Day and my 58:22 time from 2012 to beat.  Based on my last half marathon time, I should be able to hit a 57:12 (9:12 pace) 10k.

So McMillan tells me I should be training at 9:23-9:50 steady state (which is, uh, faster than my run this past weekend), 1:55-2:02 400s and 4:00-4:11 800s.  I guess I should knock out some speedwork this week and next...I'm thinking two interval sessions, a short run and a 6 miler this weekend, and the same next weekend (with the race on Monday). Reasonable? I hope so.

NJ Half Marathon

More later, but a quick recap...

2:07:32.  an over 30 PR by 1:13 (I think, it was at least 60 seconds!). Still 15 minutes over my lifetime PR, but for how little I train, this is ok.

Overall Place

2690

of 5347

Womens Rank

1410

of 3352

Age Grade

51.59%

Pace

9:45

mins/mile

NYC half details

Part 2 of 2. The wordy follow up to the much more exciting picture recap.

The NYC Half is a NYRR race, and has grown a TON since I was first registered for it in 2008 (when it was still in July. And I didn't run it because I broke my foot 3 days prior. Womp Womp.).  As you would expect (marathon debacle aside, though I suspect a lot of that had to do with Bloomberg and not NYRR, but guess who took the fall?), it was what you'd expect from NYRR. Clean, polished, well organized and such.

Pros:

• Terrific course
• great corral set up (including potties in each corral, which made a last minute pit stop enroute to the start line easy)
• relatively fast start for a 20k race (took me about 20 minutes to cross, and the streets were moderately full the whole way, so I think this was appropriate spacing)
• TONS of water, every half mile or so
• Did I mention the awesome course?
• Fair amount of spectators
• Tons of photographers (if you're into springing for race photos. some of mine were ok, but I am not buying)
• Great baggage system
• Good weather (30s, dry, not windy) considering the weird winter we had

Cons:

•  kind of weird demand to be in corrals 30 minutes in advance of start time
• TIGHT finish area
• finisher bag had a sport drink, water, and pretzels. Disappointing. I expected a banana and a bagel.
• Medal was so-so

I had a decent race, especially considering I was only 70% trained or so (running theme with me, pun intended, ha ha). I did 90% of my long runs and 30 or 40% of my midweek runs. My Garmin was all over the place, I assume due to the city influence, but here's my splits:

5k: 29:33
10k: 1:00:10
15k: 1:31:20
20k: 2:02:07
Finish: 2:08:42 (9:50 pace)

Age/Gender: 927/1679
Gender: 4134/7609
Overall: 9402/14535

So overall a somewhat sub-average finish, and still no where near back to my 2008 sub-2 hr half time, but for sub-par training, respectable. And no tears, no frustration, and I enjoyed the race, so that's a win.