Nine feet...

Ok, well maybe more than 9 feet... But not much. Today I will do bullet points:

* I am very out of shape, cardio-wise.
* my sports bra makes my boobs itch.
* running laps around my house is WAY easier - and less boring - than jogging in place
* I did a combo of the two last night for five minutes and thought I would die.
* I then had to walk for about another five minutes just to get my heart rate back under control.
* I know my nine (OK call it 90) feet is nothing compared to Emily's 9 miles but I was glad I did it.
* I don't want to have bariatric surgery. It scares me.
* I am going to give myself one more year before I go talk to a bariatric specialist.
* in the meantime I am going to get back to working HARDER at losing weight.
* GoWear Fit and Body Bugg are made by the same company. Why would they make two of the same thing instead of making one as good as it possibly can be?
* I bought one - GoWear Fit, not body bugg.
* I am REALLY going to need you all to keep after me to exercise. This means that if you have a suspicion that I am sitting on my two ton ass doing nothing you should call me and tell me what to do instead.
* this was written on my iPad. Hee hee.

Nine miles

So my mileage isn't quite what Sarah's was this week -- I ran about 6 at the gym total this weekend, and nine today, plus one time on the elliptical for a total of 20. But mine was all on foot so I don't feel so bad. ;-)

Actually, my run today was AWESOME. It was great. The best I've had in forever. First of all, my previous maximum distance to date was 8 miles, and this was 9. It wasn't on the trail, unfortunately; the kids were home and unsupervised so I had to stay close to the house (which also turned out to be convenient for water breaks and one emergency potty stop). Two blocks in three different directions nets me a loop of just over a mile, so I just ran the loop eight and a half times. There's only one hill in that, and it's not too bad, though it's enough to count for something. But it's not a challenging course. I kept moving, though, so it counts!

I also found myself running much more smoothly than usual a few times. Running turns out to be a lot like singing. Or childbirth. The less effort you put into it the better it goes -- though, of course, I think you have to have some minimum level of fitness (in all three cases, I believe) for that to be possible. But on these nice, long, flat stretches, I found myself telling myself to relax into my stride, and I found that I could lengthen it and cover more ground with less effort.

I don't have much soreness after this run, either -- I could feel my leg complaining (more on the shorter stride than the relaxed running!) but it didn't get progressively worse.

My time in the end was 1:32:47. I was aiming for 1:40, so this was a LOT faster than I expected. Yippee!

Half a mile

After logging all of my activity for the week on mapmyrun.com I came up about a half a mile short from last week's total (short swim day, plus the Bike to Work Day route added a bit to my usual commute distance), and I couldn't let THAT stand, could I? So my exercise yesterday was taking Davey for a walk, which turned out to be not that much exercise. I wore my heart rate monitor and my average heart rate was all of 106 bpm, which I think doesn't even get up to the "light" exercise qualification. Maybe it does.

In any event, I got in my distance and another mile and a half over it, but now I'm annoyed with myself because I should have gone another .78 miles in order to hit 40 miles for the week!

Legs. Tired. Sweep.

The "sweep" is Connor's contribution. It's what he says when he didn't "sweep" for a couple of nights--he burrows into a pillow and says "sweep, sweep." He doesn't like his new mattress (actually he's fine with the new mattress--he just doesn't like it that it's not his old mattress. New is different. New is not good.) so the first night he just fought and screamed and refused to get in bed until he finally passed out and we put him in bed. The next night he didn't fight, but he also didn't go to sleep until close to 2 a.m. The third night he woke up at 2 a.m. Last night, finally, he got a normal night's sleep.

Anyway, that's not the point of this post. This post is for me to whine about how trashed my legs are. I biked to work yesterday and swam at lunch, and I'm very grateful that the swim portion of the triathlon comes first or else there'd be a lot more people drowning. I only swam the length of the race (1 kilometer) but could feel that after the ride into work my leg muscles were just not happy with this new activity, even though they had had several hours of rest AND two chocolate not-Berger cookies. Then when I got on my bike to go home I was really worried for the first mile that I'd have to call for a ride home--I felt so tired and wasn't sure I'd be able to make it. Fortunately I warmed up pretty quickly and the ride home was fine after that (with the exception of the idiot in the Gutter Guardian van who narrowly avoided hitting me (on purpose, mind you) and then told me to get on the sidewalk). But now I feel like I don't even want to walk more than 10 or 15 feet at a time. This is disturbing--the work I did yesterday was roughly what I'll have to do during the August race (10 miles more cycling, but no running, so that about evens out) but I don't remember being this tired the day after the race last year, which means I still have some serious conditioning to do.

The good news, though, is that I burned about 1,700 calories through exercise alone yesterday. That has to be worth a five pound weight loss, right?

That frustrating waistline

The battle continues. With age I've noticed my waist and stomach expanding despite working hard against the bulge and gravity.

I have lost a tad bit in my waist -- or the belly bulge. That loss has given me hope that I can trim down around my waist.

For awhile I was in a bad habit of having a beer or two after work but have pretty much cut out any alcohol consumption during the week. I've had a lot of weekend activities -- parties and the like -- so if I want a beer or some wine I drink on the weekends. But honestly, I don't have much tolerance for it anymore. Two beers and I'm happy.

Otherwise I have all the pieces in place for a great exercise program so now I need to execute.

I bought new running shoes and, so far, have used them for mostly walking. I was having a really bad time with my right hip and lower back so I got a massage from my wonderful therapist, Victor, and that helped immensely. But it's still nagging. Honestly I think if I can get back into a routine of hiking, biking, walking and some running it will improve. That's the theory I'm trying to prove, at least.

I had planned to go for a bike ride last Sunday but it rained. I actually bought a big pump to get enough air pressure into my tires. I've ridden on softer tires and it's hard, hard, hard.

The other problem is work. I'm really busy. But Congress takes a week off next week and I'm going to try to get into a routine. Now this is where I sound like a broken record.

I'm promising myself some new clothes, which I desperately need, if I can trim down a bit. I'm hoping that will provide some additional motivation. We'll see.

And today?

Back up to 147. Hah! But I suspect this has a lot to do with an excess of grilled cheese and a deficit of activity. I'm going to have to work double today to stick with my workout plan for the week. Either that or I'm going to have to declare this week a low mileage/rest week.

Yesterday I was supposed to go swimming at lunch, then run today, then nothing Thursday (it's commencement so I'm dealing with that all day), then swimming again on Friday or biking to work, depending on how the weather is and what I feel like doing.

Instead yesterday at 10:30 I got a call from Brian--he was taking Connor to school after his gammaglobulin infusion and the damn car wouldn't start. Again. We thought we had fixed this before, but apparently we hadn't yet poured enough money into this thing. So I went home to rescue him (he also had to be at HCC for a 1:00 exam) and as soon as I got there, he got the other car started. So we decided that I'd take the station wagon back to work, he'd take Connor to school and run some errands before his exam, and then if I had difficulties starting the car in the afternoon he could come help me out. Sounded like a good plan to me, or at least it did until the car starting hesitating and lurching just as I was getting on the ramp for I-70. I made it over the ramp (just barely) and the car died along the side of I-70. I hate cars.

I managed to get the car started again, and lurching and threatening to die the whole way, I made it back to Catonsville to the garage where we had it two weeks ago (no small feat--once you're on 70 you can't exit until Ellicott City, then I had to turn around and go all the way back to Catonsville). I pulled up, left the car in front of the shop (there were no parking spaces and they told me to leave it there!), where the mechanics were forced to look at it quickly because THEY couldn't get it started. Stupid car. Turns out it's a cam sensor (a little known piece of essential equipment that mechanics make up in order to charge you $364 for ten minutes of work. Or at least that's my guess.) and we'll get the car back probably tomorrow or Friday.

Brian met me at the garage and since it was getting close to the time when he'd have to leave for his exam anyway, we decided to get lunch next door at the new grilled cheese restaurant. Yum. But probably that sandwich (never mind the sweet potato fries) was all the calories I needed for the day--thick sourdough bread, lots of gooey cheese, pesto, balsamic vinegar glaze, roasted red peppers. Really yum.

By the time I got back to work I had been gone so long that there was no way I was getting to the gym, so I gave up on exercise for the day.

Today, though, without a car (Brian has another job interview--at this rate maybe he'll be employed by Christmas) I rode my bike to work. I think I might go swimming at lunch today (since I left my gym bag here last night I have all the stuff) so I can get two days' worth of exercise in one day. Then if I swim again on Friday and run on Saturday I'll be caught up to where I planned to be.

146.5

But I almost forgot to weigh in! The phone rang just after I went to the bathroom this morning and from then on my day was in full swing. I had actually poured the milk on my cereal before I remembered to weigh myself. I had to run upstairs while my breakfast was getting soggy! If it hadn't been a Tuesday I wouldn't have bothered. But there it is. I've had this same weight two days in a row, so it's probably accurate. I'm relieved to see a number in this range, after my post-Poland high weights. I haven't had to do anything special to get back to this. It's still a couple of pounds up, but that's more reasonable than the 5 or so I thought I was seeing.

Yesterday at the gym I tried doing my run/walk on the track instead of the treadmill, thinking that the unnatural pacing on the treadmill when I walk is causing the problem with my calf. But by the end of 30 minutes on the track my calf still hurt. So I think it's just irritated and is going to keep on being so for a long time -- I didn't run for nearly two weeks, which is supposed to be plenty of recovery time for an ordinary pulled muscle, but it still acts up. Phooey.

I was pleased to find that I fell very comfortably into a 57 to 59-second loop when I was running; it's a 1/9 mile track, so that's faster than a 9-minute pace. Of course, the walk section canceled out the few seconds I gained on that 9 minutes, and then some, so I only finished about 3.2 miles in the half hour, but I'm definitely not complaining. Running on the track is boring as all get-out, though. It's too short a loop to be remotely interesting, but I can't completely zone out the way I would on the treadmill. I was listening to a podcast and only caught half of it, I fear. On the treadmill I get most of it and on the road I listen to music. The track sucks -- too boring for just music but too much work for a podcast.

I forgot to weigh-in

In spite of the fact that it was my first thought today. I forgot by the time I got to the bathroom. Oh well - I don't particularly care what my daily weight is. Or even my weekly weight. I know it is a good 100 pounds above what it should be. Maybe I will do my weigh in days once a year instead of once a week. Maybe seasonally. I will weigh myself on the first day of each season. Yeah - that sounds about right.

So I went to the doctor yesterday. She said that I am actually retaining water up into my calves and shins. She made me do a pee sample. Yuck. She said that there was blood in my urine - which could be because of the urinary track infection I have (joy), or it could be something else. She took blood to check my kidney and liver functions and to also test my potassium and sodium levels. I wonder how long I have had the infection? Shea told me LAST SUMMER that there was something off on my bladder meridian. However, she told me that because my big toe felt swollen. It still feels swollen, but I have learned to live with it.

I am on day three of doing situps in the morning. Again, I say it can't hurt.

I found another farm near by that does community supported agriculture. It is Springfield Farm. They also have eggs and meat and stuff - including bison. I so like the idea of eating locally. Aparently there is going to be a big farmer's market at the Timonium Fair Grounds on Wednesday afternoons beginning in June. YAY!

145.2

I'm not sure I'm willing to accept that as an official weight for weigh-in day. While losing two pounds in a week is reasonable, this weight drop happened overnight (except for that one day of 145.4 last week)--my last two weights (Saturday and yesterday) were 146.6 and 146.2, so I suspect I'm more like around 146. It also doesn't really surprise me to lose a pound between Monday and Tuesday. I often COUNT on that weight loss, but only because I overindulge on weekends. This weekend I didn't overindulge, so I didn't expect a loss from yesterday to today.

You know how they say that you can't target particular areas to lose fat from your body? You can tone areas up, but fat loss happens all over. I don't think I'm buying that anymore. I just took my waist and hip measurements last night and compared them to about six weeks ago, and my hips have lost an inch and a half (half an inch smaller than when I was 135 pounds, btw) but my waist hasn't lost anything (one and a half inches larger than 135 pounds). I really need liposuction and a tummy tuck.

.18 miles away.....

...from 100 self-propelled miles this month. Not bad! Of course, if I were a "real" cyclist I'd be doing that in a weekend, but my cycling these days is minimal and my mileage there low (but still most of the total: 63.75 miles). 5.64 miles of swimming, 30.43 miles of running. Brian was all for me going back out and running to the end of the street and back to hit 100 miles exactly yesterday, but I figured I'd get there soon enough. Total distance in April was just 75.5.

My weight last week was funny: 147, 147.2, 147, 145.4! Normally I have to have a stomach virus to drop that much in a day. No idea what was up--I was certainly hydrated enough (or at least the same amount of hydration as normal, and it wasn't especially hot so I wasn't sweating off weight. Of course it went right back up the next day.

It's raining again. How dare it? I ran yesterday afternoon in a drizzle (alternating with yucky humidity) but it wasn't too bad because I knew I could go home and shower. I didn't bring my shower stuff to work (I only shower after swimming usually) but I don't want to do the treadmill again today. I had to do that last week and I remembered how much I hate it! It's not as bad as swimming, but it's so boring. The weather forecast for this afternoon says just cloudy, but then, it says that for now too and it's most certainly raining.

It's been a while

I can't remember the last time I posted. I check in and read posts regularly, and I comment, but I don't really feel like I have a lot to contribute to this group. Oh well. 8-)

Anyway, yesterday morning I woke up with my back stiff and sore. My new sleep mask makes it hard to turn over - it shifts and ends up PLUGGING up my nose, instead of allowing air flow into my nose. So I tend to not move around a lot at night now. So I wake up with a stiff back. So, yesterday I decided I would try the concept of stronger abs make a less sore back... I did 50 sit-ups first thing in the morning. Now, I don't know if it was because I worked my abs, or if it was because the crunches I did stretched my back, but I had FAR fewer problems with my back hurting yesterday than I have in the past several weeks. YAY! So - I did 50 crunches again this morning. It was harder to do the 50 today than yesterday - but 50 is nothing compared to the 250 I used to do! So I will keep at it.

My feet/ankles are swollen again. It was my feet yesterday - and my ankles today. I think it is weird the way it happens suddenly. I can feel them puff up. They feel like water balloons as well as look like them. Everything is tasting salty again too. Or, actually, my MOUTH is tasting salty. I am going to call my doctor as soon as I finish this post.

And now I am finished.

Happy Bike to Work Day!

Never mind that I haven't commuted by bike since November--I wasn't going to miss the ride this morning. I would have felt like a real idiot driving to work when, for once, I have no obligations that require me to be off campus today, no activities after work that require me to be home by 5:30, and the weather couldn't be any more perfect. I left early so I could have time to stop by the Howard County rally (conveniently held at the mall, which I pass on my way to work) and get my bag of goodies--a bunch of stuff from Howard Transit (ruler, pencil, pad of paper, stress ball--not sure what they have to do with cycling), another free t-shirt, and the best goodie: a Choose Cycling bumper magnet. I love these magnets--they are designed to look like the irritating Choose Civility magnets that are all over Howard County (part of the irritating Professor Forni's Civility Project--the guy makes me want to tear my hair out) and it takes you a minute to figure out what these ones say. The bag all this stuff came in is also nice. Last year they had tote bags and I think they figured out pretty quickly that people on bikes would have a hard time carrying a tote bag. This year it's a lime green drawstring backpack. Much better. I'm wishing now I had also picked up a bagel--I grabbed an apple because I wasn't hungry and was feeling virtuous, but now I'm wishing I had something more substantial.

So 14 miles down this morning, another 13.5 this afternoon and I'll have gotten a great workout without having to really think about it.

(Lime green text to match my bag and t-shirt.)

Inexplicably good run

Yesterday was sprint intervals again, and let me just tell you--the novelty has worn off. I like new types of workouts the first few times I do them because they take some concentration and that makes the workout seem to go faster. But after a few times, I get bored and want to move on to something else.

Yesterday I just didn't want to do the sprint interval workout, but I kept lying to myself--to make myself get to the gym at all I told myself that I could just do a regular run, and once I was running I told myself that I only had to do the sprints for just that section of the road and then I could continue with a regular run. But then the other half of my brain would convince the first half that I really needed to do these sprints, with the promise that after another week of doing this workout I could ease off it a bit and focus more on endurance.

But a couple of things happened that were odd. First, when I put on my heart rate monitor in the locker room, my heart rate was well below what it normally is. Usually when I've walked to the gym and moved around getting changed and putting my stuff away, my heart rate will be around 90 - 95 bpm. When I put the HRM on, it registered 69 bpm--that's my normal resting heart rate (what I get when I sit still and breathe calmly for a few minutes). So that was odd. Then during the warmup section of the run (I run a little less than a mile before doing the sprints) I felt good--the usual tightness at the start worked itself out quickly, and then the running felt very smooth. But most of that section is downhill, so that was no big deal. During the sprints, it was still hard going as usual, but I was just as strong on the last sprint as I was on the first, and during the recovery sections I was able to jog a couple of them instead of walking (still walked most). The mile run back to the gym was also a surprise--I ran the whole way and the long hill at the end barely registered with me.

The real shock came when I entered the workout on mapmyrun.com. The route was slightly changed from what I've done in the past because this time BOTH gates to the track at HCC were locked, so I added a section of the run checking out the gates before heading back to the road to finish the run. When I entered the route I found that it was slightly longer than the route I did last week (3.83 miles instead of 3.7), but I did it five minutes faster than I did before--a gain of nearly a full mile per hour in speed (6.2 mph instead of 5.25--my normal tempo pace is 6 mph, but the interval workouts go slower since I'm walking so much of the route).

So I don't know what happened to speed me up like that (or more to the point--lower my heart rate so that I could work harder at the same level of effort). I haven't cut back on caffeine, I've been getting the same amount of sleep, I'm still waking up every Monday in a panic at the thought of everything that needs to be done, and am still eating the same diet. The only difference yesterday was that instead of my usual cheese and crackers and fruit for lunch, I had leftover homemade chicken soup with crackers. And while I'm willing to ascribe near miraculous powers to Dad's chicken soup recipe, I don't think one bowl would do it (well, two--we had it for dinner the night before).

Three good habits

It seems to me that if I tried to do everything in a day that you're supposed to do to maintain your physical, emotional, and spiritual health then I'd spend all day doing those things and not other things that I have to do, like laundry and work. So if I'm exercising, eating lots of fruits and vegetables, and drinking plenty of water, then I'm probably not flossing regularly or getting enough sleep. I think my maximum for good habits is three--if I try to add in any more good habits beyond that, something else is going to drop off. Of course there's a good argument to be made for the things I have to do being a big necessary part of the whole physical, emotional, and spiritual health picture. I can't imagine I'd have much of any of those things with no income. And not doing the laundry would lead to a deterioration in my physical health after some time. And surely playing on Facebook is good for my emotional health, right?

Another day at the pool yesterday. Another mile swum (is that a word?). At this point I could probably do the triathlon tomorrow if I had to (I'd need a wetsuit, though. It's chilly out there!), although I'd be pretty beat up at the end--I've got all the distances down for each event, but haven't put them together yet this year. I wanted to do a bike/run brick over the weekend but only did the biking part, so I'll have to try to get to that this weekend. Last year I didn't really start doing those until July, though, so I'm doing o.k.

Stressing in a big way = overeating!!!

I have a stats final to take Friday and a big presentation to get done for Monday. I can hardly stop stuffing my face! The stats test is really upsetting me. It is 9 am and I have already had a handful of potato chips. Blah! I have done pretty well so far, but I am really nervous about the final because we are not allowed to use the stats software package we have been using all semester. I wish I would have just skipped learning the package and just did all the problems by hand so I was more confident now going into this test. I am going to spend some time today figuring out how badly I can perform on the final and still keep my A, and worst case scenario, drop to a B. A B! The horror.

I watched the Biggest Loser last night. The last 4 people ran (sort of) a marathon. If a 300+ pound man can finish in 6 1/2 hours, I can get by butt outside and run a mile and maybe walk a second mile. The one guy finished in 4 hours. I thought that was pretty awesome considering just a few months ago he was SUPER heavy. I am still struggling with foot pain; it is pretty clear I need to find a better doctor to assess the situation.


Well, I am wondering if going for a run now would help clear my mind to study some more and to work on my presentation, or if I should hold off on the run until later and use it as my wind down for the day. Ugh. Now I am stressing about how to relieve my stress! What a cycle.

149

So I'm right back to where I was. I dropped down to 146 on Sunday morning, but it climbed back up in a hurry. I was very careful about my diet last week but let things fall apart over the weekend -- this wouldn't be that bad if I recovered immediately on Monday, but this week (as is typical for me) the bad eating habits carried over to Monday as well. Bleah. Today's weight is my weekly wake-up call, so I'm back to watching it. Until the weekend.

Yesterday I went to the gym and realized I couldn't face the pounding of the treadmill yet, so I did 45 minutes on the elliptical instead. It's been a while since the last time I used the elliptical so I'm not certain I picked the same level I've been doing -- it felt right at first, but in the end it felt like an easier workout than I was expecting. So I might be in better shape, or it might be that the elliptical is so much more gentle on my joints that it just seemed easier by contrast. The calorie count on the machine was certainly a lovely number, though!

147

So not quite a half a pound down from last week. At least it's a loss, so I'll be happy with that.

Running yesterday was no fun, as predicted. Even worse--they appear to have gotten cable in the gym at work so the televisions were set to two ESPN channels, Fit TV, and CNN. I liked the regular broadcast stuff better! We don't get a choice for what we watch--there are 4 TVs up on the wall and the staff sets the channels and sometimes turns on the captioning and sometimes not (not that it matters--the captions seem to run about five seconds behind the broadcast) so I do my best to ignore them, but it's hard when they are so big and right in front of you and there's nothing else to look at. I hope the weather improves.

I did my back exercises last night so now my back is feeling temporarily better. I need to get more diligent about those exercises--I slack off doing them and my back feels worse, then don't WANT to do them because my back feels bad. It's so counterintuitive to work that area so hard when it's already in pain--my body overrides my brain too easily.

Just testing Blogger from the iPhone. It doesn't work here, either. :-(

But if I go to the "Edit HTML" tab and tap the text window a bunch of times, it seems to work.

My iPad will only let me type in the title box. Shoot.

Well rested

I took two days off--Friday and Sunday--to give myself some downtime and potentially avoid injury. On Saturday I rode 19 miles, which was great except for the rough road. Lordy, they should give some warning! They had "roughed up" a section of road about two miles long in preparation for repaving, but there were no signs warning that this section was coming up (at least not from the end where I got on--when I got off there were big electronic signs warning of road work) and I had no idea how long it was going to last. I think if I had been warned that it wasn't going to end until I got off the road, I would have turned around after a couple hundred feet and gone back the way I came! As it was, every bone in my body got shaken up and rattled around and I said a lot of bad words. I kept expecting bits of my bicycle to fall off. I planned to go for a run after that, but ran out of time - Brian had to be somewhere about a half an hour after I got home. But I think there was enough interval-y about the workout (lots of hills) that it'll count towards that goal.

It looks like today's run will be on a treadmill--the rain is pretty steady out there. Phooey. Time passes much more slowly on the treadmill. Or maybe just being forced to watch daytime television makes it seem that way.

Back at it

I hadn't run (or exercised formally at all) since two and a half weeks ago, when my calf was acting up. While we were in Poland I managed to get 10,000 or more steps every day that we were touring (my peak was 26,000!) so I was getting the heart health but not the marathon conditioning. But I was a little nervous about getting back into the running because of this numbness and soreness I've been having. Still, I felt if I waited any longer I'd be impossibly behind on the marathon training program, so I decided yesterday I'd get back into it.

I ended up doing the full 7.5-mile run that I missed from last weekend -- I thought it would be too hard to get to it mid-week. But I found that I had lost a LOT of conditioning. Instead of a run/walk, by the end it was more of a run/walk/jog/walk over any 5-minute period! The first 10 minutes out on the trip, my endurance was fine, but my stride felt all wrong. I was stiff and lopsided and couldn't get a good rhythm. But after the first mile I have a nice, long downhill, and I found my stride there. So by the time I got to the turn-off for home, where I had to decide to quit with a 5k or commit to a long run, I felt pretty good. It was hot (nearly 80) and because of the length of the run I held my pace back as much as I could. Even so, by the time I turned around to head for home with about 2 1/2 miles to go, I was pretty wiped out. So long as it was flat or downhill, I could keep the rhythm of running for 4 minutes and walking for 1, but the hills were brutal and I had to walk some or all of them. I did still find the energy to run the last two tenths of a mile (which were flat), so I hadn't completely knocked myself flat, at least!

Today my right hip is achy and my hamstrings are tight. I'm eager to get back to the gym this week so I can do some easy runs on the treadmill, and so I can get back to my step class (where I'll have a new teacher -- what a nuisance!) which will get me back to some upper body work and proper stretching.

I'm pretty sure I need to see the doctor about this problem, but I'm procrastinating on it! I wonder if I should just schedule a general physical and bring in my whole laundry list of complaints. It would be a few weeks before they could schedule it, but it would be worth it to get everything done properly. I get my annual each year with my GYN, but I haven't had a full physical in years.

Running

I ran again today while I waited for the Sears guys to bring my new washer, dryer and refrigerator. I only did a mile again; I am trying to be gentle with my feet AND my motivation. I should have a fair chance at running 4 days in a row this weekend. We are booked fairly tight, but at no point do I have to be two places at the same time, so that is progress!!

Even though I ran, I did consume way too many pistachios afterwards. Damn pistachios. I may skip lunch though since I am very filled up and not showing any signs of being hungry. So I guess if you over induldge, at least do it with something that is actually filling.

I am so tired I am considering a mid day nap with the beagle. I should be working on ALL sorts of stuff, but I think I may give in to my body and just go rest for a bit. I think I'll set the clock for an hour.

THe new washer we bought is a front loader. Very strange machine that plays a song when it turns on. I have the first load in it right now...I stared at it for like 10 minutes trying to figure out its process. LOL.

Charlie bit me!

I'm feeling a little like the older brother in the Charlie Bit Me video, only instead of a bald baby brother I have these workouts--I run or I swim and afterwards I'm thinking "that really hurt!" So what do I do? Willingly and knowingly, I stick my finger back in the mouth. I go back out the next day and put myself through more pain. I swear, the pool laughs at me afterwards too.

Knowing that I'm on the edge of overtraining (my muscles hurt a lot more than they really should) but also knowing that I wouldn't be able to get to the pool today, I went swimming yesterday when I should have been taking a rest day. I told myself that I'd only do 22 laps (race length) or maybe 25 because that seems like a better number. But when I hit 25 and my shoulders and triceps were aching I thought, well, it's only another 8 laps to get up to a mile. So I did another 8 laps. And last night I really hurt.

Today I woke up with a sore throat and stuffy nose and still achy all over, so maybe my extra achiness was the onset of this cold (it's been going around work--I'm one of the last to catch it. I think the only person still healthy is the woman who has been on jury duty this week) and not just from overdoing it with exercise this week. So today is my rest day, and my Airborne ingestion day, and I hope by tomorrow (mid 70s and sunny!) I'm up for another round of pain.

It's summer again

I need to go find my running hat that I bought last year when I got fed up with being blinded by sweat during my runs. I've been so spoiled the last month and a half with our wonderful low humidity--even when the temperature was higher than it was yesterday, I didn't sweat buckets (or maybe I did but it all evaporated like it's supposed to instead of dripping into my eyes). Seriously, it wasn't that hot yesterday but the humidity in the afternoon (about two hours before the storms hit) was awful. By the time I got back to the gym my hair was a big mass of frizz and I was drenched head to foot. And it hadn't started raining yet.

Yesterday's run was another bunch of sprint intervals, about 3.7 miles total. I was back out on the road for this one, but reduced my sprint distances since that so thorougly killed me last week. This time I was sprinting from one lamp post to the next, then walking to the next one. Sprints took me about 20 seconds, so it was something less than 100 yards between posts. My warm up run in advance was longer than planned--I went around the cross country track instead of heading out of the parking lot as I normally do, but the end of the track was locked where it meets up with the road/sidewalk, so I had to backtrack, which added a quarter mile to the total run. I'm sure I looked like an idiot too, running down that track and then back up the way I came, but I would have looked like more of an idiot trying to jump the fence.

Back to the pool today (right now, really--I'd better head over there) and then I get a day off tomorrow! This will be 7 days in a row for me, which I didn't intend but it just kind of worked out that way. I'm hoping that I can take off tomorrow, do a brick on Saturday, then take Sunday off too.

Vicki's getting a new pair of shoes

Now that I've read Sarah's swimsuit disintegration post I'm happy to report that I took the plunge and went online last night and ordered a new pair of running shoes.

I shop at runningwarehouse.com -- great prices and free 2-day shipping. I like the whole *almost* instant gratification idea. I'm looking forward to their arrival -- I'm sure the box will say "no more excuses lazyass." haha

Seriously though, I can't believe Sarah got 18 months out of a swimsuit. Chlorine is like acid and eats them quickly, usually in several months. You could've been swimming and the suit would've spontaneously combusted. At least you would've been in the water. haha

I'll be back to report soon on my lazyass fitness plan. Maybe I should open the Lazyass Fitness Club. haha

My swim gear is giving up on me!

You know how Facebook and Amazon know exactly what you're thinking and which sites you're browsing all the time? I think there must be some kind of similar internet link with my bathing suit. I know it's a year and a half old and I've worn it hard that whole time, but it was holding up really really well--no problems with losing its elasticity or getting thin in spots or anything.

On Monday I spent some time reading about swim equipment (best materials and designs for practice suits--that kind of thing) and then on Monday night when I hung up my suit to dry I noticed it looked like it was covered with a kind of white powder. I thought maybe I had dropped it on the basement floor or something, or maybe it picked up eraser dust from Claire's homework table (I was drying it on the back of the chair for that table) so I didn't think about it. But last night when I took it out of my gym bag, I saw the same thing and it was obvious that this was the fibers from the suit itself breaking down before my eyes. I've never seen something break down so quickly! It went from looking new to being saggy and ill fitting in two days.

At least I know what kind of suit to replace it with: exactly the same one I got before. Hey, if something can hold up for that long with no problems, I'm not about to try a new or different product!

I'm not having so much luck with my goggles. Brian bought me the pair I use for Christmas a year ago and they were beginning to get cruddy and lose their anti fog coating by the end of the summer, but were still serviceable. Now I think I need to replace them--they don't leak, much, but the visibility is down to just a small section in the center of the lenses, and the elastic bands are losing their elasticity so they are beginning to slip as I swim. But I can't seem to find a good replacement for them--I want to get the same pair all over again since they are about a million times better than what I had before (cheap pair of speedos from Sports Authority), but all I have is the name of the manufacturer and not the model name. When I look up that manufacturer I find a pair that *looks* like the pair I have, but it doesn't list anti fog coating as one of the features. But I'm hesitant to spend money on a brand/style I don't know since they might have a nice anti-fog coating but if they fit like the Speedos I don't want them. So I'm doing the only logical thing--buying two pairs. One pair of the ones that look like the ones I have but might not be, and one pair that comes highly recommended by other women that lists anti fog coating and UV protection but might not fit (they are all designed for women and say how great they are for smaller faces. But I have a huge head, so this might not be a selling point for me!). If they both turn out to be crap, I'm in trouble.

Stressing hard...

My running spell was broken by a very intense work/school schedule. I can't begin to explain how happy I will be when this semester is over. The sad part is that the next few weeks do not look any better. I have two big presentations coming up, and I have nothing finished yet for them. I have a number of maps that need to be submitted for a map gallery, and again is finished yet. Some aren't even started yet. And I have a final exam in my statistics class that I have no idea how I am going to pass. I can do the labs, etc, but I depend heavily on the book for guidance. I will only have my brain for the exam, and I think that will be really, really bad.

And the regular demands of our social life can be overwhelming; I try to keep up with everything that is going on, but I am not always that great about it. We have a baby shower to attend Saturday (people are really big into these coed showers) and it stinks because I don't really like the mother and father to be, but yet I am going to waste my entire Saturday afternoon on them. They are very snarky people, and the mother to be is fairly mean to Peter. I feel like I have to go because the party is being hosted by a good friend that I do like, and there is a whole separate level of drama surrounding that.

*Sigh* I think I need to refocus somehow. Anyone know of a good book to read for that? There has to be one. (I always chuckle at myself because every time I need help with something, I turn to Barnes & Nobles. There HAS to be a book for that!!!)

Making progress

My daily goal is to get in some cardio and some weight work -- so far that's working out pretty well. Now I just hope to start seeing results.

Age and gravity are discouraging but I'm fighting the good fight.

I've been getting up in the morning and riding the bike on the trainer or taking a walk. Then at night I'll do weights, etc. I've also been stretching in the morning and that's been helping with a few stiff muscles here and there from nothing more than sleeping.

Last night I went for a walk a bit later than I wanted so I ended up running for part of it -- surprisingly it wasn't bad. But I concluded that I definitely need new shoes. Mine are dead, dead, dead.

I also went for a nice hike on Sunday. I have no issue with walking and walking so I know I need to push myself for every workout to lose weight, gain strength and build endurance. Maybe I should train for something? Nah.

Enjoy the cool week!

149 and feeling terrible

I am coming off weeks of vacation-style eating. Poland was the worst for this -- kielbasa, pierogi, chocolate croissants for breakfast, and all kinds of junk in between. And alcohol (beer or wine, and once a shot of cherry vodka, which tastes like not-so-syrupy cough syrup) almost every day. And this was all bookended by airplane food, where you eat what they give you and it's best not to ask questions -- but unless it's absolutely awful I end up eating all of it because it's there, and what else am I going to do on a 10-hour flight? So now I'm up four or five pounds. If I hadn't walked more steps each day than I generally do on even a good exercise day I'd probably be in even worse shape, weight-wise.

But I'm not just feeling like I've had too much and gained a little weight. I also had caffeine three times over the course of the last week (in small quantities and judiciously, necessarily applied) and today I have a headache from that (Tylenol is helping it, though). And for some reason I'm experiencing some other weird symptoms that may or may not be related to diet and travel. I've had back pain at the waist on my right side when I kneel for many months now, and starting about two months ago I've also had a crick in my right shoulder just below the blade -- I woke up feeling like I'd slept on it wrong and it hasn't completely gone away since. I haven't exactly been feeling the shoulder pain, but I've been getting numbness on my right side -- my arm feels like it has fallen asleep up to the shoulder sometimes, and my right leg falls asleep at the slightest provocation. Once in a while when BOTH the right arm and leg are feeling numb, part of my left hand tingles, too. When I massage my right shoulder while my arm is numb, it hurts, though not terribly -- just more than squeezing the left side does. Sometimes my right leg aches instead of going to sleep -- I was walking funny for a couple of days. Everything feels functional, but it's uncomfortable. I don't know if this is a pinched nerve that is getting more irritated, and if the long airplane rides and carrying around a heavy backpack (over both shoulders, though; I do have that much sense) made it worse, or if this is something else. Maybe an injury from the running. But I haven't gone running in two weeks now because I was trying to get my right calf to recover. A Google search suggests it could also be a herniated disc. I was hoping a day or two at home without hauling stuff around would help with the numbness, and I felt great yesterday. I haven't had the leg pain since two or three days ago, but today the numbness is back, after a reasonable night's sleep in my own bed.

My inclination is to give it a week or two of normal living -- proper eating and exercise and sleep. If it keeps up or gets worse I'll call the doctor. But this feels expensive. A doctor may want MRIs and x-rays and physical therapy or chiropractic or acupuncture or massage. Ugh. (Not that a massage is ugh, but the kind mandated by PT is costly!) I wish it would just go away on its own!

147.4

That's more like it. I'm about two pounds down from last week, and it's the first week I've lost weight in over a month. If I could just keep up that rate of weight loss for another five or six weeks, I'll be in great shape! Unlikely, though--losing two pounds a week while simultaneously trying to gain muscle is probably not going to happen.

My run yesterday was pretty good. I'm having some hamstring problems--seems to be just a slight strain and not a real injury but it was bothering me off and on during my run. And my heart rate monitor was giving me fits. You have to wet the contact points on the chest strap for the HRM, and normally you just use water to get you through the first minute and then you sweat enough that the contact points are plenty wet. In Maryland, where we can count on high humidity, that works well most of the time. But not yesterday--it was cool and windy with low humidity and as soon as I stepped outside to run my skin was completely dry. Usually on days like that I'll use a water based lubricant instead of plain water, but that lubricant was in my not-stolen gym bag, which I didn't get back until after my run. So for the first 10 or 12 minutes, my heart rate was stuck first at 155 b.p.m. and then at 79 b.p.m. So I have no idea what my real average heart rate was, but my overall time was good--my average pace was 9:48 per mile, 20 seconds faster per mile than the same run last week and 4 seconds faster per mile than my fastest time so far this spring. I don't know if that means the sprinting I've been doing has helped or if I just had a good day.

Looking forward to my run!

This afternoon, once I get this email done that I've been slaving over for a good 10 or 12 minutes, I'm going for my usual 3.5 mile run. But for a change, I'm looking forward to it. This is a normal, put-on-your-shoes-block-out-all-distractions kind of run. But I haven't done it for a week and I'm looking forward to a workout where I don't have to think about it while I'm doing it! Since the run last week I've done two sprint interval runs that take concentration and willpower to get through. I've done two swims where I have to think every stroke about how my body is positioned and where my arm is. I did one bike ride with mechanical problems and wind that took away all of the normal easy flying feeling of cycling. And now I'm back to this run. With any luck at all, it will be so uneventful and dull that it'll feel like a breeze. A nice, gentle breeze from behind, that is, not a 35 m.p.h. gust into my face.

Yesterday's workout was interesting. It was another sprint interval workout, but I was following a plan I found online that is done at a track. The total mileage is just over 4 miles, but a LOT of that is walking so it took over 50 minutes to do the whole thing. The sprint distances are roughly the same as what I've done on the road for interval training, but the recovery times are a lot longer and you're doing it on a track so it's all flat, which makes things easier. This workout has you alternating 100 yard/meter (not sure which I was doing--the track wasn't labeled so I'm not sure if it was a 400 yard track or a 400 meter track) sprints with increasingly short walking recoveries, so you sprint 100 meters, walk 400, sprint 100, walk 300, etc. down to 100/100 and then you start all over. My legs didn't feel trashed afterwards like they did last week (where I was doing more like sprint 100, walk 50) and the different recovery distances kept me on my toes so I didn't get bored.

I don't expect to see any change in my running speed or endurance today, but I'm assured that if I keep up with the sprint interval training, both my speed and endurance should improve within a few weeks. There might be a caveat on that assurance that this offer doesn't apply to middle aged women, but we'll see.

Back on track

I logged two more workouts this week--swimming on Friday (again a mile, this time faster, but only because I took fewer breaks. My actual swim time was the same) and biking today (my usual 17 mile route. It was hell out there today--it was so windy that I'd be pedaling in my granny gear going downhill and only managing 8 m.p.h. Very frustrating. The wind was also whipping all kinds of dirt and debris at me, so I kept having to stop to get crap out of my eyes. Still, it was fun. That's the great thing about cycling--even when it's bad, it's still fun!). I took Thursday off, which means I need to try to get out again tomorrow, I'm thinking for an other sprint interval run. I might go to the high school track for that--makes it a lot easier to judge distances.

It's 12 weeks until the dry run for the triathlon (where we do a practice open water swim in the lake) and 15 weeks until the actual triathlon. Time to get serious.

Dehydrated

OMG! You should have seen my feet! Mostly my feet - some my ankles, or maybe it was also my ankles, but in comparison to my feet they looked small. Seriously, my feet were so puffy that I thought I was going to get stretch marks on them!!


It started with the week of Kirsten's death. I was so dehydrated. I kept drinking water, but it didn't seem to help. Then I drove to VA and back, and that always leaves me slightly dehydrated. And of course you all know what a crazy humid weekend it was too. Sunday I was feeling mildly queasy and had to stop a few times on the way home from Blacksburg. Monday I was still slightly queasy, but not too terrible (easily blamed on my period). Tuesday in the middle of the night I woke up feeling horrible. I stayed up for about an hour. Then it just didn't go away. I stayed home from work then, and around noon I felt my feet blow up. Like balloons. I couldn't get them to go back down. I tried everything. My normal cure - drink two bottles of water and pee like a race horse - didn't work. I drank tons, but it wasn't coming through. I sat with my feet up, no help. Wednesday morning I started the day by drinking about 64oz water. I was hoping to reduce my feet before yoga. However, it wasn't until about 11am that any of it came through... and it wasn't enough to reduce my feet. In yoga I started noticing how achy and stiff my muscles were. Yoga actually seemed to help soften them up. I continued to drink water - and by yesterday the swelling had gone down some - but not completely by any means. However, all of the water I had been drinking finally started to "flush" through. Today my feet looked normal when I got up (they always look better when I get up, but today was the first normal day). They look slightly puffy now - but not anywhere near as bad as they had been.

What is our take away from this? Well, I have to start drinking more water more regularly. I knew I had been slacking over the winter - but I had NO IDEA it was so bad. My new resolution is to drink two glasses of water before I leave the house in the morning. If I start out drinking I usually can continue it. I also have to start walking again. I really think that part of the problem this time around was that outside of work I don't move around a lot. AND I HAVE A SEDENTARY JOB!

I just signed up for the 2010 season of CSA (One Straw Farm out at Boordy). I am excited by this. I really want to make more effort to eat locally and organically. I am OK with the organic part (Wegman's carries a lot) but local is harder. I hope to make more connections with the other vendors up at Boordy (fish, meats, dairy). I am also still trying to find someone to sell me eggs that come out of a chicken instead of a styrofoam box. I need to make a list of the foods I eat and figure out what I can do to filter in as much local food as possible. Maybe I will make this my summer project.

One mile

That's how far I swam yesterday. Not a real mile, but a "swimmer's mile" which is shorter - 1,650 yards. I'm told that they call that a mile because it's roughly equivalent to 1.5 k, which is what they call the mile race in international competition (although why they don't call that the 1.5 k or the 1500 meter, I don't know. Swimmers are weird.). I was really, really slow, but I did it with only very short breaks of 10 to 12 breaths at four points in the swim, and I did ten of the laps with continuous freestyle. So overall, I'm pretty happy with how my swimming is coming along. My SI joint still hurts afterwards, but it doesn't seem that bad today. And I don't expect to speed up anytime soon since I'm still doing the swim essentially without kicking. But just knowing that I'll be able to get through that part of the triathlon is encouraging--back in late January I was really worried that I'd have to drop out of the race since even a couple of strokes of swimming was so painful.

And then I got out of the pool and discovered my gym bag had been stolen, but you all know that already. I want to know, though, why bad crap seems to happen to me when I'm doing something virtuous? If I spent my lunch break sitting on a bench and smoking while eating a McDonald's super size meal, I'd still have my iPod and phone and cute outfit. If I had slept in on Sunday morning last year instead of going to church, my bike wouldn't have gotten stolen. Clearly the universe is trying to send me a message, but for the record, I don't think "no good deed goes unpunished" is such a great message!

Tuesday (ahem) weigh in

So I'm only off by 24 hours--that's not too bad, is it?

My weight is from yesterday, though--149.2. I seem to be gaining .2 pounds per week with my current plan of "eat everything in sight and exercise once a week." Doesn't seem to be working really well, does it?

But my horrible deadlines at home and work are mostly over, so I'm back to my normal routine at work of hitting the gym (or the streets so far this week) four days a week. Yesterday and Monday were both running--on Monday I did my usual 3.5 mile run and was just dragging the whole time. It wasn't as bad as Friday, when I was poking along and barely making it up hills (aging sucks. Have I mentioned that before?) but it was still under 6 m.p.h. on average, so I really want to get my speed up. Yesterday I did sprint intervals--10 minute jog, then 15 or 20 minutes of intervals, then another 10 minutes of mostly walking. It was supposed to be a jog to cool down but my legs were killing me and still are. This is what I started doing last year around this time that helped my legs get too enormous for the pants I have on right now. It's amazing how hard that kind of workout is--the distance was the same as my usual run, it took more time to do it (lots of walking recovery time after sprints), but I'm completely wiped out now. But all the research says this is the best way to increase speed and improve endurance and do something with glycogen and lactate and VO2 capacity and whatnot. Whatever. It's supposed to make me not such a slow lump, which is my goal. But it hurts.

Today I'm back in the pool. You KNOW how much I'm looking forward to that.

Playing mind games with myself

First my condolences to every one on the loss of Kirsten. From what Sarah said it sounds like she's in a much better and less painful place.

I wish I had something even remotely positive to report in regards to my fitness/weight.

But I will make an announcement that winter -- for me -- is finally over. What does that mean you ask? It's been 90-bleepin' degrees. But I feel like I've been in multiple ruts with my fitness.

First, I'm stuck in this horrible winter routine of not getting the fresh food I need and want. The market starts Saturday and there should be a few veggies and fruits hitting the stands. So that should help.

But I just finally decided that the laziness about fitness and diet has to end now. I don't like my expanding waistline and it's definitely getting harder to reduce without crazy amounts of exercise but I'm ready ready READY. So May is a huge fitness month.

Second, my new job has been insane, in fact, beyond insane. When I started mid-March I made an immediate shift from a temp job into the new one. I was supposed to work a schedule of 11-7 or so but pretty much ended up getting out of bed in the morning, putting the computer in my lap and blogging like crazy. It was so hectic I had trouble getting to the Capitol. The big bosses were putting undue pressure on us to produce. A couple of weeks ago after an email exchange I didn't think I could deal with it anymore. Really. One month into the job and I knew I'd be burned out with 6 months.

That's when the reprieve came -- we (my colleague and myself) were told we'd be hiring two more people and we could reduce our workload. I felt the sanity returning. If that's possible.

I'm a creature of routine and I need some kind of schedule to perform at my best on all levels.

So that's the part I'm working on ... getting into a *good* routine and cutting this winter weight. I hope from now on to be able to report progress.

Another mile

Just ran another mile. 15:48 this time. I wore different socks and my heel didn't start to hurt really bad until 10 minutes or so. Last night I had regular socks on and the pain was pretty much from the first step. Tonight I dug out my Balega running socks and apparently they really do make a difference.

I did have some serious peg-leg type issues with walking first thing this morning, but after about 40 minutes it wore off. I imagine tomorrow will be the same, maybe worse.

2 miles, 2 days.

I ran tonight

I think it was the first time since maybe the St Patricks Day race 2007 downtown? I'm not really sure. It wasn't pretty, nor did it really feel that great, but I ran 1 mile. 16 minutes. I told myself I only had to do a mile so that I wouldn't come up with 12 million reasons not to do it. My right foot is a disaster. Any one know a good podiatrist? Maybe someone on the sports medicine side as opposed to the old people with foot issues side? My heel hurt like hell, and the joint where my big toe connects to my foot is still aching. Hopefully I can walk tomorrow.

But I did it.

Backsliding

Here is where I start to make excuses.

The past couple of weeks have been really, really bad in just about every sense of the word--major deadlines at work, major activities at home, and Connor quite sick on top of that, the result being that I've been eating badly (really scary bad PMS too!), not sleeping much at all, and not exercising. This week I got in one run. Last week I did two. And that was it, unless you count slow walking (proposed new form of torture: put terror suspects in ill fitting dress heels and have them stand for an hour, then slow walk in a tight circle for another hour, then back to the standing, then walking--that should be enough to put them in extreme agony and willing to give up any information just for the chance to sit in a folding chair!), which was my all-day activity on Wednesday (Claire's field trip), Friday evening (wine tasting event, where I drank no wine at all), and today (Girl Scout event). Right now I'm in so much pain (SI joint) and general achiness (all over) that I can't get comfortable.

My weight is creeping back up--148.8 last week, 149 this week. No idea what it is now. Probably back over 150, and I'm not happy about that either.

But things should ease up (at work at least) this week, so I can start taking lunch breaks again so I can get back to the gym. That'll also go a long way to helping my mood, which will help the incessant eating. I hate it when I KNOW I'll regret eating what I'm eating, but I can't stop myself from doing it anyway.