Small Progress Is Still Progress

Every time I think *my* part of the work on the remodel is done, something new comes up.  This experience is sort of like a treadmill, actually.  You do quite a bit of work, but you don't actually go anywhere.  It takes faith to believe that the effort on the treadmill will actually pay off in the real world. 

But, finally, we have some visible progress in the real world.  We have the rough electrical done, the drywall is up, and most of the cabinets are installed.  Ta-Dah!

I'm going to love using these cabinets!

This week's surprises involved a cabinet that was made incorrectly, an accidentally dropped hammer that chipped the top of one of the cabinet doors (they offered to replace it, but the effort to order a new door and wait to get it installed may not be worth it), and the complexity of our city's odd lighting requirements (much more than is required by Title 24, but if we want to pass inspection, it's what's required).

A big part of what I've had to do for the remodel is shopping.  I realize many people would not complain about this.  Many people love shopping.  But, I do not.  I actually hate it.  So, I try to do it as quickly and rarely as possible.  Only, when doing a kitchen remodel there are a million variables and details associated with each purchase and if you get a purchase wrong it won't work.  (Yes, I'm aware that there are remodel consultants who will manage much of this for you, but at the end of the day, we've still got to make the final decision, which means we need to feel comfortable with the information, which means a consultant wouldn't save us all that much time, and definitely would cost more money...)

I'd already spent quite a bit of time researching and purchasing countertops, tiles, appliances and cabinets.  Last week, between work and running commitments, I did still more shopping after learning more than I wanted to know about countertop polishing and installation on-site services, sinks, faucets, and water heaters.  The last step in the process is the fun of actually placing orders, and trying to devine how reliable the delivery estimates are, as well as how likely it is that yet another surprise will cause the schedule to slip -- essentially it's a big guessing game about how much extra time I needed to purchase.  If stuff arrives early, it's in the way.  If it's late, work can't happen until it arrives.  This, my friends, is a large part of why everyone complains that construction schedules are impossible -- there are *so* many dependencies, and very little is parallelizable!

The shopper-hater in me is happy to report that there is only one last detail that remains to be researched and purchased (until the next surprise, of course):  kitchen cabinet hardware.  Once they are picked out, I should be relieved of the shopping duties and will be solely left to managing the logistics of moving deliveries and timing of stays out of the home to match the ever changing schedule.

On the running front, this week was a big one.  I hit 43.72 miles for the week -- a volume high for the year.  In doing so, I fit in 15% sub 10 minute miles, and, my 3-day high (F-Sa-Sun) hit 31 miles this week.  I'm particularly proud of the weekend, which included 7 miles at target pace (low 10s/mile) with a friend on Saturday and 19 long slow miles of hills today (1249 ft total ascent, 1100 descent) in 4h10min.

And just like that, I've crossed the psychological threshhold.  I know I can run the entire marathon in my current state of fitness and health, if extremely slowly.

I've learned over the years that this long run mental barrier is a big one for me.  I've had decent success with the Hanson's Brooks training plans in terms of fitness, but my one complaint about them is that I need at least one 19-20 miler to test my ability to continue running for the larger part of a marathon.  If I don't get that, somewhere around mile 17, I start to fall apart.  Knowing that there are 9 more miles and that I haven't run anything close to the total distance in training just destroys me.

So, I've modified my personal training plans to always include at least one run of that length.  Once I've confirmed that I can actually sustain the physical and mental effort of running for multiple hours, I'm in a much better mental place for the remainder of the training cycle.  And that's where I am today.  Excited about the possibility of how much I can improve between now and race day.  Which is pretty cool.