It's SNOWING!!!!

OK, we are back from vacation, it's the middle of April, and I wake up to 3 cm of snow on the ground - the world has turned white! And it is predicted that a bunch more is due tonight and tomorrow. I blame global warming, and in turn the Republicans. :-)

Vacation went pretty well, although it was not as relaxed a vacation as I would like. We started off to go visit my Mom, which had recently returned from Florida. She was quite sick when we got there, and after several hours of "visit", we ended up taking her to the hospital for general breathing and fluid electrolyte balance problems. They admitted her for the better part of the week. We delayed our trip to Washington for a day to help out and visit with her, and then proceeded to drive southward.

The trip to Washington when reasonably smoothly. Nina's electric wheelchair was waiting for us in the hotel. First, a bit about that. Something this is pretty impressive is that all of Washington is completely wheelchair compatible. Every street corner, every Metro, every bus, and every building (OK, excluding some old motels, like the one we were staying at) has a system of ramps and elevators. An electric wheelchair will run for 25 km, and can turn completely around in a space of about 80 cm. So Nina was actually the fastest walker of all of us, at around 7.5 km / hour.

The weather was a bit cold, but that is not surprising for April. We arrived late on Monday night (about 11 pm). After a bit of a late start, for the first day we got oriented. We took the Metro (our hotel was about 800m from the stop) to the Smithsonian stop, and then walked down the mall. We visited the Washington Monument, the (new) World War II monument, the Lincoln Memorial and the Jefferson Memorial. And all around we visited the cherry trees, for which Washington is famous. Most of these were "past bloom", but some species (they had ALL sorts) were either in bloom or starting to bloom. Very pretty. After all this the tired travelers returned for a late 9:30 pm dinner.

On Wednesday, Nina and I went and did some exploring and birding on Roosevelt Island, which is a quiet oasis on the river. Nina found a pair of pileated woodpeckers nesting, and the two of us saw quite a few other birds. We then wheelchaired back to the Metro (which is probably 4 km away from the Metro) and visited the Mall about the Capital building. There we were very surprised when Nina recognized Camille, the French exchange student at Fairport, and her family. In huge Washington, what is the chance of this happening?

On Thursday, we visited several museums that form the overall Smithsonian institution. The Smithsonian comes as close as we have to our national museum. It includes fifteen separate museums that cover almost everything. And it covers a vast expanse of land also, with most museums falling within a 1 km x .5 km rectangle. We started in the brand new Museum of the American Indian, then went to the Freer Gallery of Art, which features Asian art and some assorted American Art. By then we were starting to run out of time, but Gwendolyn and Nina did get to spend 1/2 hour in the Museum of Natural History.

Friday was departure and travel day. We packed our hotel room and then went to the Washington National Cathedral. This is an amazing beautiful cathedral with some amazing stained glass. It deserves more than a brief mention, but this will have to do for now.

After the Cathedral we started the 8 hour drive to Lakewood to visit my Mom once again on our way back to Rochester. She had been moved from the hospital to a nursing home for rehabilitation, and we visited her there. She sounded much better, with a functioning brain and all. She is still a bit weak and still has quite a bit of congestion in her chest. There are actually quite a few issues that we are going to have to resolve with her, but they are not a subject for this blog.

After that, back home to Rochester. We arrived this morning just after midnight. Now it is time to clean up the house.

Oh, and I forgot to mention - I fly out this afternoon on a one week business trip to San Diego. Life is a bit too busy.

Happy Easter!

For many in this world, Easter is THE primary religious celebration, marking the Resurrection of Christ after a three-day (so that say, I count 36 hours or so) entombment. In fact, this year Orthodox Easter and western Easter.

Christ is Risen, Hallelujah, Hallelujah!

Today also marks the primary celebration of another very different religion - the Celebration of the Half=price Chocolate Easter Bunny Sale. Yes, folks this is when it happens. Thousands of unloved, chocolate bunnies will be freed from their supermarket prison as the masses, with their credits card arrive to snatch of everything shaped like a rabbit, bunny, chicks, ducklings, eggs (don't forget the eggs!) or lambs. All will then be sacrificed, being eaten, part by part, in slow and painful bites. Actually, there is one humane act - the head is bitten off first. Poor things!

Anyway, amusement put aside, we are spending Easter in Jamestown, NY. The original plan was to visit my Mom for a day, stay the night, and then leave the following morning to drive our way to Washington, DC.

Well, after we arrived, we found that Mom was actually in pretty bad shape. To make a long story short, we admitted her to the hospital yesterday. She was just feeling rather crummy and having a hard time breathing. As a result, we will spend another day here to visit, observe, fix up the house and generally hang out.

When we left Rochester yesterday, everything was green, and the temperature was around 0 (we are having a really cold spell at the moment). Usually when you drive south, things get warmer, with less snow. Not in our region. Rochester is very near Lake Ontario, and is warmed by it. And my Mom lives near the east shore of Lake Erie (another great lake) - and the wind blows over the length of this lake and produces snow near her.

So, as we drove (about 240 km), it started getting colder and colder, and the ground gradually turned white. After a bit there was 3 cm of snow, then 5 cm, and eventually up to 10 cm. At one point on a country road I pulled over the car to look at a head of Bison (!!!) The problem is, when I pulled over, I didn't realize that there was a small ditch that was covered in snow, and down we went. We were stuck until a truck came by and pulled us out.

Other than that, not much has happened. So to be continued...

Running program for spring

(First, my apologies in advance. I am going to start my seasonal flurry of running posts - it is an obsession, after all! But if you are not into this, just skip it!)

Talk about starting behind! I am almost 5 kg over my baseline weight, and have not been running much this winter. I also want to at least run once again in the Corporate Challenge race in the end of May. This year I don't expect to better my best time, as I am not going to be quite as fit), but hope to run at least 7:30 per mile. So here is the plan:

• Phase 1 - get my basic fitness level up, and overall make myself less prone to running injury. This means running 4x per week, 5 or 6 km per run. Emphasis is not speed, but not quitting. Goal is to get my resting heart rate down consistently below 48 beats / minute. I started this last week, and hopefully by mid-April I will be there.
• Phase 2 - build base endurance. Run 4 x per week, two easy runs at 5km, one middle run at around 7, and a long run at 8+ (working up to 10km) at least once per 2 weeks. Every two weeks either the 5 km should be a medium-fast run, or interval work. This phase will continue throughout May. Now, here is the hardest part of all - by race day, I need to be down to 174 lbs (79 kg). Nearly impossible - but I'll try!
• Possibly run a 5K race one or two weeks beforehand - don't run it too fast (or I will quit running before Corp. Challenge - my normal reaction to running races "hard"). Aim for 7:45 per mile average.
• Run the Corporate Challenge. Expect to have an terrible, non-fun time and feel sick for the next day or so. DON'T INJURE!

OK, so far I have been doing well enough. In the last 6 days I have run 4 times - twice 5 km, the other two 5.5 km. Today I did a pretty hard run (enough to feel pretty crummy afterwards), over an uneven grass path (mostly flat) for 3.5 miles are around an 8 minute / mile pace. 5 hours later, while writing this my heart rate is 54, which is pretty good, given there is still heart rate recovery going on.