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This Saturday we tackled our first 4000 foot peak of the season. Since I had gone to the Red Sox game the night before, we didn’t even try to get an early start. Sometimes it is nice to linger over coffee, catch up on sleep, and roll up to NH at our leisure. We set off at a purposeful pace, but managed to avoid rocketing out of the car and up the trail.

I had been lobbying strongly for a hike – really needed to clear my mind of work and house stuff, and nothing seems to do the trick as well as a steep ascent. My breathing picks up to a heavy but steady pace, my mind focuses on where to place my feet, and the spectacular views are all that’s distracting when we’re on the way up to the peak. Wildcat A fit the bill perfectly for an early season hike.

Beej and I agreed that 19 Mile Brook Trail is one of our favorites. Its gradual grade for about 3 miles is a perfect warmup, and it follows the brook but has nice bridges to avoid tricky stream crossings.

Beej at a stream crossing

It was my first hike trying out MapMyRun for distance and elevation, and it worked pretty well. I was also breaking in my new Keen hiking boots, which I’d used for snow shoeing but not for dry trails before. There were a few bugs but we wore Bullfrog so the didn’t bother us too much. The weather was perfect, sunny and clear but with a bit of a cool breeze, and comfortable in the shade.

Carter Range from summit of Wildcat A

I classified this as an “epic” day not for length but for capturing all the best parts of hiking. It was a clear day with surreal looking clouds and gorgeous views. As we descended we heard a helicopter supplying the huts that had just opened for the season. We stopped by the Red Fox for dinner and a beer, now one of our standard post-hiking spots, on the way home. And we were both a bit sore the next day from the effort. Ahh.

Once we decided to put our house on the market, life changed a bit. Suddenly we wanted all those little projects we’d been putting off to have been done last year. We immediately started cleaning and de-cluttering the first floor, and made a list of things we needed to do. The first weekend we completely cleaned the living room, from wiping down the walls to hand scrubbing the floor to vacuuming the couches. While I was mostly working in there, Brian was doing the same to the library, packing up books and wiping down all the shelves, putting away all our CDs, and scrubbing that room. He also took a weekday to completely clean the upstairs bathroom and get it staged (new white towels, linen closet shelving to hold our countertop full of “stuff” and a new shower rack).

Mary had planned a visit right in the middle of our preparations. Fortunately, she’s a work week veteran and was game to help us. We spent almost an entire day on the kitchen, and boy was it nice to have the help! We again packed up things we didn’t think we’d need in the next few months, cleaned and wiped down every surface, and she even cleaned all the little bits of cat kibble out of the cracks in the floor. While we were working on the first floor, we had a contractor come in and do a bunch of odd jobs that had been piling up – repairing some siding and flashing around the living room window, putting up new wood downspouts, replacing the sill on the kitchen window, replacing the cracked banister finials, plastering the chimney in the attic and patching some plaster in our bedroom. He did excellent work and was quick! Note to self – in the future don’t wait 10 years to get all those little jobs done. It’s totally worth having a handyman come in and do it. That evening we enjoyed a nice clean 1st floor, sipping some vintage Road Trip Orchards wine and playing Settlers of Catan.

Over a few short weeks, the house has gotten into the best shape of our tenure. One day Brian fixed the gate on the side of the house so we now have a fenced in yard. Another evening the front closet got cleaned out, with winter coats taken to the cleaners or packed away. Another day, Brian cleaned the office and then the exercise room. In between, painting touchups were completed and the window boxes were planted. Frankly, Brian did most of the heavy lifting since I could really only help on weekends. On May 16, our realtor came through and gave us the “thumbs up,” and our house officially went on the market May 18. We’ve now completed over 50 tasks from our “to do” list, including all the top priorities.

So far, I don’t mind keeping things tidy and clean. It’s good incentive to put things back where they belong. We’ve only gone to the attic twice to get something we’d packed away. Now we just want the right buyer to come look at the place! Hopefully after Memorial Day, the house hunter traffic will pick up. In the mean time, we’re enjoying Newburyport, living in a clean de-cluttered house.

For years we’ve been considering a kitchen and bathroom renovation. When a key benefit of staying in a hotel is the ability to shower without water blasting Beej right on top of his head, you start thinking about ways to make it an every day occurrence. Our kitchen counters are well worn, and the cabinets could use a refresh as well. So, we figured while we were exploring bathroom renovations, we’d just see what it would cost to do the kitchen and bath together. A few months ago, we had a couple contractors and a designer in to look at our place and tell us what they could do.

The short answer to bathroom renovations was to dormer the roof. While we have no philosophical problem with changing a 300 year old roofline if it meets our needs, we weren’t too keen on being the ones to pull the trigger on this house. We started looking at places that had already been renovated, and that opened the can of worms: We’ve been in this house almost 10 years. How have our needs and priorities changed, and what do we value now?

I love being able to walk around town – to terrific restaurants, the library, coffee shops, and various errands like the CVS. It’s made my commute bearable to be able to leave my car in the driveway all weekend. But the commute has been wearing on me, and my first week of multiple meetings in NH brought the commuting discomfort to a new level. Instead of going to NH once a month, I’m expecting to go at least once a week due to my new position, and on those days I’ll spend 2.5 – 3 hours in the car. We value having those 10 hours a week to do something else.

Obviously a soaking tub and nice shower are high on the list. We cook a lot, often together, so the kitchen layout and features are important. We also need a guest room for friends and family to stay over, and another full bath would be really nice.

We enjoy entertaining, both casual get-togethers like cookouts and football, as well as fancier dinner parties. This house has been a good place for that, particularly with the landscaping we’ve done in the back yard. We definitely want to keep a fireplace, a formal dining room, and a casual living room where we can watch TV.

Even with this list of attributes, the idea of finding a new place seemed more hypothetical than real. I was still having trouble envisioning a place I would like as much as our current home. So, a few weeks ago, we went to a bunch of open houses and started exploring towns along the Rte 3 corridor. In our first trip, we saw several homes in Lowell, one in Chelmsford, and one in Groton. The first one we saw in Lowell convinced me that we really could find a place closer to work that would fit our needs, so we decided to put our house on the market.

We traveled to St. Marys, Ohio for their annual Arbor Day tree planting this year. It was time to plant a White Oak for Grandma just across the parking lot from Grandpa’s tree.

Grandma's Tree Plaque

As in past years, there was a class of little kids who arrived to help.

Kids help at tree planting

We raked the mulch around Grandma’s tree.

Grandma's Swamp White Oak

And checked on Grandpa’s while we were there.

Grandpa's tree

We also got to see Sue while we were in town, and enjoyed a nice weekend in Indiana visiting my parents, my brother, and seeing our friends Hans and Dawn.

I’ve been keeping up the reading this spring, despite being on a bit of a book club hiatus.

I finished The Secret Handshake by Kathleen Kelley Reardon, a recommendation from a colleague who runs the Women’s Forum at work for our sector. It was practical and instructive, without being preachy. It’s one that I’ll definitely read again.

In the car, I “read” Marley and Me by Josh Grogan, read by the author, so it was a truly authentic autobiography of his young adult years, marriage, children, and of course life with his beloved dog. It was funny and touching.

I also “read” Drive by Daniel Pink. If you want the 10 min summary, I recommend this YouTube video. My peers at work watched it and have been discussing the ideas, particularly how a government contractor having to follow “Motivation 2.0″ labor reporting guidelines can create and maintain a “Motivation 3.0″ culture.

For Book Club we read Dance Lessons by Aine Greaney who is a local Newburyport author. She actually was the “writer in residence” at our church for a time, so I believe the book was written there! The story was full of interesting characters who are real, but also evolve, and I can’t recommend it enough. Aine is coming to our book club discussion, too. Yay! (But that’s also been the reason for hiatus – we want to find a time that we can all attend.)

Now I’m reading a book on Agile Project Management and I’m actually loving it. It captures the kind of philosophy and practices that I use, so now I have a vocabulary around what our group is seeking in a PM and how we want to operate.

I’m ready to say that spring is here. Sure, the crocuses started blooming a few weeks ago, but it can also snow in April. Beej and I decided to take a minor short cut into spring and visit Washington, DC for a long weekend. We were missing the Kennealy crew, flights to DC were pretty cheap, and when we booked it looked like 60s in DC and snow in Boston – plenty of reasons to get out of town. It turned out that DC wasn’t *much* warmer than Boston, but at least it didn’t snow.

We arrived on Thursday night and were met with wagging tails and wet noses from Atticus and Ronan. We enjoyed plenty of quality time during the weekend with “the boys” especially Ronan, who at 14 is an amazement. He has tumors on his tumors but can still pop a “wheelie” when it’s dinner time. Atticus is as friendly as ever, and still manages to find the strangest “safe” spots to curl up under furniture. We caught up with H and B, then headed for bed.

Friday we enjoyed the cherry blossoms on the mall and explored the Smithsonian’s American History Museum. Our favorite was definitely Julia Child’s kitchen, but we also liked the historic house from Ipswich (hey look, it’s just like our house!), the American President (you know, we definitely need a Ceremonial Host-in-Chief who’s different from the person who get’s real work done), the First Lady’s dresses (and shoes!), the Gunboat Philadelphia (close quarters with 40 of your closest friends), and learning about the atomic age (better living through Chemistry!). We enjoyed a hot pretzel from a street vendor, grabbed a water, and headed over to the Art and Portrait Gallery.

We agreed that in addition to just enjoying art, it often makes us think differently, and after a few hours perusing different genres and media, we definitely had a lot to reflect on. From the “typical” historical portraits to modern studies of sports figures, Kate Graham, large format photography, and futuristic ideas, we had a lot to absorb and consider.

Then, it was time to watch the Red Sox. Note that I can only blog about it now that they’ve actually won a game. Opening Day was disappointing, despite the excellent venue and company at First Down and dinner at a nearby Thai restaurant.

Saturday went at a slower pace. We took our time over breakfast and eventually headed to Mount Vernon for a walk, only to be forced to turn back due to rain. We did drive past the building so we could see it through what was now a rather torrential downpour. Great weather for napping! Then we headed to another sports bar to watch the second Red Sox loss and some NCAA tournament games. Then Sunday it was time to head to the airport and back home.

Other signs of spring:
– Not thinking twice about running in shorts on Thursday, and getting the “pack” together for a noon time run at work
– Spring peepers! We heard them while strolling along the Eastern Marsh Trail in Salisbury yesterday
– First trip to Kimball Farm for ice cream! Even though it was chilly by nightfall, the place was packed with all windows open and about 10 people deep in each line
– First bike ride of the season today

Can daffodils and tulips be far away?

My first observation is that blogging about books is really motivating my consumption! I have four more books to blog about before the official end of March.

I liked Exuberance – it was a bit belabored, but followed a number of interesting people and their enthusiasm for discovery. It inspired me to focus more on what I’m passionate about. I gave the author credit for exploring the question of whether there is a down side to exuberance (so often those who have this trait are also manic) and why the study of positive emotions and mental health is so much less studied than negative pathologies and illness.

After that, I checked out The Notebook by Nicholas Sparks. After listening to adolescent girls last month, I was ready to hear a man’s perspective. It turns out I have seen the end of the movie with James Garner, but I didn’t know the story. This story kept me mesmerized, and I actually looked forward to my commute because I could listen to it. It was a wonderfully sweet love story, and I liked how it covered the hard times of life, not just the bloom of first teenage love or the stable love of elderly couples that makes one wonder how they arrived at the end of their lives, tied so closely together. The CDs came in a set with The Wedding, a companion book that follows Wilson, Noah and Allie’s eldest son-in-law, as he and his wife of 30 years fall in love again. I admit that I didn’t completely see the major plot twist coming, despite it being predictable. Again, a great story about people you “know” – the characters could easily be your neighbor or family member. It was also an admonishment to not let work and “life” get in the way of connecting with loved ones.

On a more serious note, our book club book for March was Rising Tide by John M. Barry, about the flood of 1927. It was fascinating – discussing topics of science, engineering, race, local politics, national politics, agriculture, southern society, economics . . . in other words, a complex and compelling look at what led up to the situation and how it impacts us still today. I particularly enjoyed learning about the origination on Civil Engineering, the early study of fluid mechanics of rivers, and influence of the first steel bridge in St. Louis on US steel production. I cringed to read how personal vendettas overpowered good science, and shook my head to think that the Corps of Engineers today may still retain some of the questionable policies of a century ago. It’s a long book, but I highly recommend it.

Then, on the lighter side, I just finished The Year of the Goat by Margaret Hathaway about the year she and her now husband spent deciding to become goat farmers. I absolutely resonated with their concerns, excitement, consideration and fascination with goats. I really enjoyed vicariously following them around the country to visit cheesemakers, farmers, breeders, packers, chefs, and gatherings of other goat people. Luckily, they settled in Maine and have a follow up book, Living with Goats, that I can pick up the next time I want to catch up on their adventures. I think my Dad would really like this book.

In the car, I started listening to The Women by T.C.Boyle, but I’m really not enjoying it. I don’t resonate with the characters and the reader’s voice is a bit grating. I’m not sure whether I’ll continue it or try another book on tape. In the mean time I’m enjoying some music from the mp3 player for a change.

Here’s the standard disclaimer and first paragraph from last years post:
Ever since approximately 1995 my friend Mike and I have been entering an NCAA bracket based on what would happen if the mascots were forced to battle each other. The discussion is always fairly comical and it gives us something interesting to root for in the first round since our own serious picks go in the tank early. If you’re looking for a new way to be interested in round 1 of the tourney, feel free to use our choices in your pool. We guarantee you won’t win any money with these!

Except that we were wrong. A friend entered the mascot picks into an upset pool and won largely on the strength have having the St. Mary’s Gaels (and their beefy mascot Gael Force One) in the elite 8 plus having the ever powerful Duke Blue Devils win it all. So we won’t guarantee you won’t win money with these picks, we just find it extremely unlikely.

On to the picks!

EAST

This year’s event was intentionally different than last year. First off, I ran half as many miles in the two months leading up to the event, in large part due to snow that encouraged snowshoeing and prevented safe running, as well as work demands on my schedule; I was definitely not out for a PR this time. Second, I convinced a friend (co-worker who is also from Indiana) to sign up with me, and then realized this would be his first half marathon! So I had a vested interest in ensuring he had a successful race. Third, I wanted to try another event that was focused on having fun and enjoying the experience, and in this case it meant being an encouragement to other runners and running with someone else at their pace.

I had high hopes for the weather, since we had 46 degree sunny days earlier in the week. Instead, the howling wind did not subside overnight, so I awoke to 17 degrees with 35mph wind gusts. I was awake before my alarm, re-calculating how long packing and transit might take, to determine when I absolutely needed to get up. I assembled my gear and puttered around the house, admittedly uncomfortable with preparing by myself (being Coach Su instead of relying on Coach Beej) and having butterflies for no logical reason (I increased the number of bathroom stops compared to last year). Of course I made it to the registration early, met up with my friend and his support crew, and was able to discuss what to wear and make a fueling plan. I even made a trip back to my car for a final chap prevention and shedding of extra clothes with plenty of time to spare.

And then, it was time to go! My friend had run 13 miles the previous week at a 10 min per mile pace, so we started out conservatively behind the 9:30 pace group. I always miss the mile 1 split, but we came through mile 2 at around 20 mins, so considering we started about 45 seconds back from the start, was a good warmup. I encouraged him to eat a Clif shot at mile 4, but he decided that mile 5 would be better, and it did work out well; I ate a bit of Clif bar since I was feeling hungry by then. We stuck to our 9:30 to 9:45 pace until mile 7, when I learned that he likes to run hard up the hills – as I do! After that spunky sub-9 minute mile, we caught up with the 9:30 pacer and decided to hang with that group until mile 10. We walked every water stop and picked up gel again at the 8.5 mile point, which made a big difference over his training run last week in keeping up his energy level. And, the wind wasn’t too bad, so we were comfortably warm.

It was a great feeling to turn onto Rte 1A at mile 9 and know we were on the home stretch. My friend was tired but running strong, so I was happy to chatter about the beautiful mansions, the blue ocean, and the way the finish line was pulling us in as we cruised downhill with the wind at our backs. It was fun to be the coach at this point and feel like I had a good reserve. We took it easy for mile 12 but pushed a bit for mile 13, coming in at our fastest mile, an 8:12 into the finish at 2:05:06, a 9:33 mile pace.

Success! And a high five for my friend managing a 2:05 for his first half marathon. His wife and her friend were there to meet us at the finish, where we replayed the race highlights and did a little eating and stretching.

So what did I learn? First, that it really is great to share the joy of running with someone else. I’ve had so many friends do training runs with me, so many races where Beej paced me, many times when I felt like skipping a workout but having someone else to run with made it not only a priority but the highlight of my day. If I could give that to someone else, wow, totally worth it. Second, it doesn’t matter whether I am “racing” or “pacing” – my digestive system tells me I am nervous and excited just the same. Third: I can actually rise to the occasion and hold a pace. I know a couple of you will be shocked, and others will wonder why that’s even an issue. (You know who you are!) I now feel comfortable and would really enjoy pacing someone again in a long race. Lastly, walking those water stops was probably worth it in the end.

So what’s next? I am really itching to get back to speed work. Can I go out and do a speed workout by myself? That would be unprecedented! But all signs point to it being a necessity if I am going to do that structured training plan I talked about in January. I definitely am physically ready to get back to training if I can motivate myself to make the time. I am also thinking a lot about the McNaughton Ultra in May, another race where I could keep a steady pace but still push myself, and this time treat it more competitively.

For February our book club selected a book off the 100 best novels list, Day of the Locust by Nathanael West. It was odd, the characters more like caricatures and several disturbingly described scenes (a cock fight and a mob where a young boy is killed). I admit I didn’t much care for it, but I can understand the significance of this being perhaps the first popular novel exploring the dark side of Hollywood. And, now I have met the original Homer Simpson.

I also tried two books on tape; the first was The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold. I was initially enthralled by the story, but then grew tired of the drawn out “girl watching from heaven” tales and could no longer suspend my disbelief in the author’s view of heaven and how someone returning to earth for a short time would spend a precious hour. I feel like many of my friends have read this book or watched the movie, so I’m glad to have read it for that reason.

I also listened to The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd, which I thoroughly enjoyed. I liked the way the reader had a natural accent and didn’t seem to be overly serious about the book. I liked the characters, who were likable and realistic to me. I liked the story and the way it unfolded, not hitting one over the head with a concept or point. I thought the shape of the story was also good, moving forward and exploring relationships and evolutions of a character’s thought and coming to a tidy ending. Of the books I read or heard last month, this is the one I’d recommend to others.

But now, I admit, I’m a little tired of hearing about the world from the point of view of an adolescent girl. I made a bee-line for the non-fiction, so now I’m listening to Exuberance by McArthur grant winner Kay Jamison.