Tag Archives: Pride Stride 5K

I Do Do a Blog Post

Well, this is embarrassing.  I last posted on Sunday, and today is Thursday.  I just didn’t do it.  The opposite of Nike’s famous slogan?  Never mind.  The point is, I felt I couldn’t just quietly start over again with a normal post but wanted to post a kind of I’m sorry for being such a schlub then try to follow up later today with a “real” post.

The winter of my discontent?

I’m calling this a Non-Sequitur Thursday so looked in my Media Library for an unrelated photo.  My deck sure doesn’t look like this these days.  For one reason, it is covered with junk, most of which actually could belong there if I cleaned it up and arranged it in a pleasing fashion.  And of course there is no snow; I suppose if I did not mention that somebody would chime in in a didactic fashion pointing it out (you know who you are).   Will this post be a lament of Things Not Done This Summer?  SAY IT AIN’T SO!!!

“After all, somebody has to clap as I walk by.”

Just to remind myself I did so do stuff this summer, I share one of my favorite rehearsal shots from Four Old Broads on the High Seas, the play I was in at Players of Utica (perhaps you read a few of my blog posts about it).  The fact is, we never do all that we plan or want to.  The point is to enjoy what we do do (teehee: I said doodoo).

And another picture of me!

I know: the picture of plastic poo would have been a good one to share at this point, but I did not feel like searching for it.  Instead I share this fun picture of me before the Pride Stride 5K in Little Falls in June.  I later gave the skirt and wings to my great-niece Evie.  They didn’t really fit me, although I stretched a point for the sake of being a well-dressed runner (see what I did there).

Ooh, look at me, over 300 words.  I have got my blogging mojo back!  All I need is a headline and I am on my way!  That is, my way to more Mohawk Valley Adventures to blog about.  And maybe to clean off my deck.

 

Post Pride Stride Post

Well I am home from running the Pride Stride 5K in Little Falls, NY. In all, I feel I did not acquit myself too badly.  Of course, as regular readers know, what I do is called running only by the most generous definition of the term. Then again, I think it is good to be generous.

Who couldn’t be proud of this outfit?

As usual the most stressful part was getting there.  I got out of bed betimes, had coffee, made sure I ate with plenty of time for my nutritious breakfast to digest.  The second most stressful part was waiting for the race to start, especially when my carefully planned nutritious breakfast began to unsettle my stomach.  Luckily that passed.  I had some delightful conversations with the other runners prior to starting.  I was only disappointed there were not more of them.  I commiserated with one of the organizers about this.

Once we got started, the stressful part was worrying if I would get lost, especially when almost everybody went WAY ahead of me.  I managed to keep two runners in sight: a guy in a pink unicorn outfit (wish I had a picture of that!) and a lady with a better rainbow skirt than mine. I was a little worried about losing them till after the half-way point.  I managed to catch up and, miracle of miracles passed them!  I think the fellow in the unicorn outfit was finding it awkward to run.  It was one of those blow-up kind of suits.

I had to turn around a few times and ask them, “Which way?”  Then the pace car came back and led me to the finish line.  I finished strong! At least for me.  I cheered for everyone coming in behind me.  I couldn’t believe there WERE people behind me!  Unfortunately, race endorphins do not last long.  I drove home subject to a case of Post Race Letdown.

This is actually a photo I was saving for Waste Not Want Not Wednesday.

Who me, drown my sorrows?  Actually, I may have a glass of wine with friends later, but I do not plan to tie one on.  I took the above picture, because I liked the Art Deco bottle.  I share it now, because I have not found another opportunity to use it.  Incidentally, my post race letdown is passing and I am wondering with what I should challenge myself next.  Will it make a good blog post?  If so, I hope you’ll stay tuned.

 

Too Lame Or Not Too Lame?

It is the day before the Pride Stride 5K in Little Falls, NY, and this blog never became All Pride Stride 5K All The Time.  I have obsessed a little about it in my head, of course.  You’ll have that.  For today, I can talk a little about the run and my preparations for it, but mostly I am making a Lame Post Friday post.  For one reason, I am tired.  I do not know why I am so tired.  I have not done much today.

I took a run.  I decided to go just about half of a 5K.  It went pretty well.  My body did not protest too much.

That just made me flash on “Methinks thou dost protest too much.”  Is that the right quote?  Isn’t it, “Methinks the lady doth protest too much.”  My Complete Works of Shakespeare is under the coffee table (what? where’s yours?).  I wonder if I can find the quote.  It’s from Hamlet, as theatre geeks recognized at once.

Random picture while I see if I can find the quote.

I found it!!!  The Queen says, talking about the play Hamlet has devised, “The lady doth protest too much, methinks.”  I’m glad we got that cleared up.

But is it a mundane post?

This is the picture I flashed on when I first detoured into Hamlet.  The so-called random picture is Weird Al Yankovic and friends as monks in Galavant, a wonderful, tragically short-lived musical TV series.  It actually does relate, because I played a monk in my first Shakespeare play with LiFT, Little Falls Theatre Company, Much Ado About Nothing.

So I haven’t talked too much about the 5K, have I?  No matter.  It would only make me more nervous.

 

I Do Run On

How did it get to be Tuesday already?  I thought it was still the weekend.  No, no, I remember that yesterday was Monday, because I thought I could take a half hour or so to listen to Phil Arcuri at the Herkimer Downtown Chowdown.  I had to cover a Village Board Meeting in Ilion at 5:30 so couldn’t stay longer, but at least a little Phil would be great, and I could make a blog post after the meeting.

Well, um, no.  Apparently they cancelled the Chowdown.  They posted it on Facebook, but I missed it.  Rats!  And I had done very little else during the rest of the day. Now Tuesday afternoon is waning and I have again done very little.  I did run on Monday.  It was not much of a run, but any run is a good run to have done.  Today it was raining in the morning, and I was busy writing up the meeting I went to yesterday.

Feet don’t fail me now!

This is about the time my blog should be turning to All Pride Stride 5K All The Time.  I have three days before the big day!  Ideally I will go for a long run tomorrow, at least three miles.  However, I think it is supposed to rain.  I ran three miles in the rain at least once.  I can do it again.  No promises if there is thunder.

In the meantime, I have at least babbled on for over 200 words of another placeholder post.  I shall feel free to continue to call myself a blogger.  The Pride Stride 5K, incidentally, is part of the Little Falls Pride Celebration.  Many activities are planned for Saturday, June 14 in Little Falls, NY. For more information, you can check out their Facebook page.

 

Even Blogging Is Getting Harder!

What a wasted week I am having!  Tuesday I ran two miles, thinking I could make a Two-Mile Tuesday post.  I had pictures on my phone, which I transferred to my Media Library, thinking to do a Waste Not Want Not Wednesday post.  I spent at least some time each of those days staring at the blank Add Post page on my WordPress site.  Alas, to no avail. In fact, I experienced great resistance to logging on today, Thursday.  By the way, I ran three miles, wanting to have another Three-Mile Thursday, like I did last week.

I swear it was steeper when I was on it.

This is one of the hills I ran up on my run this morning.  It doesn’t look very impressive, does it?  I ran up a steeper hill next, which I do not have a picture of.  That hill continued up to Herkimer College, by some dorms in what I call the Kick Butt way to the college, because there are like three steep hills with flat(ish) spaces between.  Ahem, I did not run up to the college.  I made it up one stretch of steep then turned around and ran back down.  Later I ran up a couple more uphills.  I tell you, they do not get any easier.

Random picture, just to show something cheery before I start whining.

I learned to run in the Army, and I loved it, because it seemed that I just magically got better at it.  All I had to do was do it.  It was awesome!  Since the army, I have stopped and re-started running many times, usually because weather or work schedules made it difficult and I am notoriously lazy.  Each time I restarted, I found I was able to build myself back up to where I had left off with little or no problem.  I will admit that at no time have I ever run particularly fast.  Still, I was able to run the Boilermaker 15K several times (not in a row).

Until this year.  I decided early on not to try for the Boilermaker, but I am signed up to run the Pride Stride 5K in Little Falls, NY on June 14.  Why oh why, do my legs feel like overcooked macaroni?

Me before the Pride Stride in 2021.

Don’t mind my Old Age Existential Angst.  I really do not mind being your friendly neighborhood crazy old lady.  I only get a little disconcerted when my body behaves in what I consider a perverse, contrary fashion.  For example, if I am running on a regular basis, I feel I ought to be able TO run on a regular basis, and none of this complaining from my legs and lungs that, “We’re not going to maaaaake it!” (said in a pathetically whiny tone).  Or at least a little less complaining.

In the meantime, I see I have done plenty of complaining in this blog post, and it has run longer than my usual posts.  Considering I missed two days of posting, I think that that is not bad.  Once again, I thank you for tuning in.

 

It’s Never Too Lame!

Once again I make my Lame Post Friday blog post on Saturday morning.  I thought about making it last night, but bed seemed like such a good place to be.  It’s been a difficult week, although it has had its good points.  Nothing is all good or all bad, I hope.  At least, I hope nothing is all bad.  All good, I would like to try and see.  There is some half-baked philosophy for you.  We are used to finding the silver lining in bad times, or at least it is a good idea to do so.  Do we ever look for the fly in the ointment in good times?  Are there any other hoary expressions I can throw in?  Really, me, “silver lining”?  “fly in the ointment”?  Have some more coffee.

Ah ha ha! Coffee can be evil!

I throw in a random picture while I go get another cup of coffee.  I do not want to speculate on whether coffee is or can be, in fact, evil.  I put the caption because I believe that coffee mug looks malevolent.

Since this is my second cup of coffee,  one might think I had just rolled out of bed, but that is not the case.  I got up prior to six and went for a run.  The problem with running before coffee is that sometimes I forget to make coffee.  I had my recovery beverage of chocolate milk (it’s science!), made myself an egg sammich for breakfast…  oh yes, coffee. Ahhh… coffee.

I got rained on during my run, off and on.  Now it seems mostly on, so I am sorry about the local events going on today, for example, Little Falls Pride 2024 and Dolgeville Violet Festival. I had been thinking of running the Pride Stride 5K in Little Falls.  There used to be a 5K associated with the Violet Festival, too, but I don’t know if there still is.  How uninformed of me.  Anyways, I am not in 5K shape at this time.  I am in shape, though, because round and puffy is still a shape, you know.

I don’t think these two are in 5K shape either.

Here are Bonita and Bonaparte to wish you a happy Saturday.  I will never be as skinny as Bonita.  Puffy little Bonaparte is more my speed (almost literally).  I suppose I am not as cute, although my husband, Steven used to think so.

 

Pre-Rehearsal Post About PRIDE

This is another Pre-Rehearsal post, and I ain’t got much, time or brain. However, I do have a community event I would like to plug in advance: Little Falls Price Celebration. It is this Saturday, and I intend to go. I just now went to their Facebook page and copied the following:

Little Falls Community Outreach (LFCO) with Rainbow Club hosts our 2nd annual PRIDE celebration on Saturday, June 11, 2022 in downtown Little Falls!!

Rainbow Club is an LGBTQIA+ youth support group through Outreach that meets weekly to discuss issues and receive support. They are the driving force behind Little Falls Pride!

Event highlights:

– Pride Stride 5K – 9AM
– 1/2 Mile Kids Fun Run – 9:45AM
– Pride Celebration (Burke Park) – 10AM-4PM
– Pride Prom (Little Falls Youth & Family Center) – 6:30PM-10PM
– After Party! (The Renaissance) – 10PM

Outreach will host guest speakers, drag story hour, performances, music, food, activities, lawn games, support and love. This all-ages event is a great way to bring awareness to our LGBTQIA+ community and stand together in solidarity. 

Back to me now. Last year I ran in the Pride Stride 5K. I wonder if I wrote a blog post about it. This year, running is off the table for me. That is really OK, because after I ran, I was tired and I went home. This year I will be able to walk around Burke Park and check things out. I saw a picture of a rainbow fan on the Facebook page. I hope to purchase one for my very own. We will probably miss the Pride Prom and After Party, but I hope my friends who attend will share copious pictures on Facebook.

For more information on the Little Falls PRIDE, you can visit the Facebook Event, https://www.facebook.com/events/1069664747098358. As for me, I have to go to rehearsal.

Fighting Lightheadedness and Autocorrect

I guess posting in the morning is a thing with me these days. Right now I am fighting the lightheadedness that periodically plagues me, but you’ll have that. (You know what else you’ll have: autocorrect putting capital letters where you don’t want them! I hope I manage to go back and fix them all) (And yet autocorrect let stand “fiz” for “fix”) (but I digress).

Where was I? Ah yes, making a Throwback Thursday Post, although since it is actually Friday morning (although my WordPress timestamp may not agree), we could also call it a Non-Sequitur Thursday. Or even Lame Post Friday! But let us not get bogged down in labels.

I contemplate myself.

This is only throwing back to June, when I ran in the Pride Stride 5K in Little Falls, NY. I am no hand at taking selfies.

I’m in the background of this one.

Here is a theatre throwback! It is Matt Powers mingling with the audience in Secrets at Suiter House, a murder mystery we did to benefit the Herkimer County Historical Society.

I’m not in this one.

This is a weird shot from December 2020, which of course was a kind of a weird time, for me and for others. I was taking a walk trying to get pictures of Christmas lights when I saw this leftover Halloween ghost. Or was it?

I see I have reached 200 words (in another officious autocorrect action, that almost read “00”). Score! I do not always reach that self-imposed goal these days. I hope you enjoyed my pictures. Thank you for tuning in.

Not Much Scatter After Stride

I put off my post about Friday’s fun time at Fratello’s Pizzeria in Frankfort again in favor of a Scattered Saturday Post. In my defense… OK, I have no defense, at least none that I feel like retailing (is that a proper use of that word? I feel sure I have seen it used that way) (on proof-reading, I think I mean “relating” but leave the malapropism for entertainment purposes).

I was up early this morning, gearing up for the Pride Stride 5K, part of the Little Falls Pride event hosted by Little Falls Community Outreach. A stop at the dollar store Friday night helped me with my rainbow-y outfit. I tried to take a selfie.

Me trying to figure out my phone.

I tried twice.

My usual cheesy grin.

Here is an interesting thing: it seems I can add a caption when posting from my phone. Funny, I can’t do much else with this phone. But never mind my technological challenges. On with the post.

Only there is not much more to post. I was kind of wiped out after that run. I guess that means I did it right. Depending on your definition of right. I cannot argue these philosophical questions now.

On the brighter side, I have shared two silly pictures, plugged the Pride event, and perhaps amused my readers (or do I flatter myself?). I say Happy Saturday! I hope to see you all again on Wrist to Forehead Sunday.

Running to be Ready

It was a little faster than a Tuesday Trudge but not fast enough for a Tuesday Trot, but this is my Running Commentary Post. I often say that what I do is called running only by the most generous definition of the term.

I was quite determined to run today, despite the heat and humidity, because I am gearing up for the Pride Stride 5K in Little Falls this Saturday, June 12. It is part of the Little Falls Pride event hosted by Little Falls Community Outreach. I do not expect to run very fast, but I expect to have fun. And it is a cause I like to support.

Knowing I will not run very fast led the devil on one shoulder to say things like, “It doesn’t really matter if you run or not. Why torture yourself in this heat? It probably won’t even help.” I ignored such ignoble thoughts.

The humidity was pretty horrible. It was like trying to run through bath water. Or maybe dirty dish water. Breathing was not much fun. Never mind. Persevere. I veered a little way into a lawn to sniff some lilacs. That was nice. Some lilac bushes are over, but these two bushes were nice.

On my drive home from work, I had noted some nice bushes of light pink peonies. I planned to run by those and take a sniff. I did not remember exactly where they were, so it was a nice surprise when I saw them.

I kept glancing at my Garmin. It tells me what rate I am currently running, which leads to some disappointment. For example, I vary from a 15-minute mile to bursts as fast as a 10-minute mile (I know, not very fast in the ultimate scheme of things). So it is an average. So my Garmin may say I am running at a 12:20 pace, but 13 minutes have passed and I still haven’t gone a mile!

However, I try not to worry about how fast I go. I usually try to run for a certain length of time, not a specific distance. Today I ended up running for 24 minutes, 1.8 miles. In addition to smelling lilacs and peonies, I petted one nice dog. I was running through Meyer’s Park and saw a dog I had petted before.

“There’s that nice dog that likes to be petted!” I said, sprinting across the grass. The dog looked happy to see me and sat sweetly while I petted her and called her a good dog. I also greeted her person and wished him a nice day, to which he responded in kind.

I hope to run at least one more time before the 5K. For more information on Little Falls Pride, you can visit the Facebook event or Little Falls Community Outreach page.