running, vegan shoes, gardens...well, another day in whoville

The goal yesterday was to run for an hour and a half. Now that I'm mostly training by time and not distance there is a certain amount of freedom by just going out and running, knowing I'll turn back at my halfway mark. Also, I've run just about every street in whoville and surrounding areas that I pretty much know how long it's going to take me to run a certain route.

After taking a few days off after the epic biking day to Golden Ears, I felt a little out of running-shape and a short run late on Friday indicated that I still have a long way to go before I'll be marathon fit (or even half-marathon fit). db was up for a longer run on Sunday as well and we planned to meet at the 45 minute mark so we could do the next 45 together. It was a sluggish beginning, middle and end for me, but I ran the full time and as it turned out did my required distance for the day (15 k). This was a slow pace for me though and only in the last km did I feel the strength to put it into another gear, probably because I was looking forward to going home and eating (db made this beautiful gluten free vegan banana bread that is fluffy and moist and oh so good with chocolate chips in it. Yum! He's an amazing cook. He really is. )

Anywho...I got the run done and that's the main thing. I've got the RVM on my mind and that's a good place to be right now.

We will have to save a small fortune just to pay for the ferry crossing. I'm wondering if it would not be better to fly there at this point! Just kidding.

We did get a little biking in yesterday as well just while we were running our errands. I came across these shoes from Simple that are vegan (of course) made of "Organic cotton uppers - Coconut buttons - Lined in bamboo - Natural latex pedbed with an organic cotton canvas cover - Natural crepe rubber midsole - Recycled car tire outsole - Uses water-based cements - 100% post consumer paper pulp foot forms." (from the mooshoes site)
I think they are just about edible. And they're so cute. Very comfy for biking and pretty much anything else.

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My daily garden tour (of our garden) takes extra time to check out the newly blooming pamjat serdsta clematis that was given to me by my friend tp.
Here it is with its first bloom. Initially it just had two buds showing, but now there are four and I'm hoping for more. It's not a vining clematis so I have it on this rather rickety bamboo tripod I've held together with some velcro plant ties. My hope is that it will get large enough to fill in the tripod and curve down around itself.

Four of my other clematis have no blooms (it's their first year here) but are doing well and two of them are mystery plants since they were also given to me from tp and she had at least 60 in her garden at one time so I can forgive her if she can't remember what's what.

Our raised beds are doing great!
Okay this isn't really the raised beds. They are actually behind these two planters (with tomatoes in them of course) that are here temporarily while our homeowners redo the front stairs. The planters usually go along the front walk of the house, but we had to move them when they wanted to tear out the crumbling concrete stairs.
This is the latter stage of the progress. It was all chunks of concrete all the way up the slope and they suggested that we now had our own Grouse Grind. Just in case you forgot, this is how our front steps use to look.True you can't see the crumbling concrete from this angle, but it was and the wood was falling away from the concrete face. This picture also is outdated since I've pulled back some of the mulch and revealed more of the rock that was underneath.

The top of the stairs is where our planters usually sit. In the end I think the result will be nice since they're going to put cedar steps in with a border and at the top there will be stone leading to our door on the left side of the house.

They've asked me to do some more planting in the back yard. There's a huge patch that they've covered with mulch and fabric that looks hideous and frankly I just wanted to focus on other areas of the yard so I've ignored it and left it as they set it up. Now they've asked me to get some greenery in there. I can choose the plants and they'll reimburse me. Off to the nursery I go! I can't wait to pull back the mulch and rip up that landscape fabric.