Six for Saturday

I know, I've been falling behind on my blogging again. I REALLY need to update my side panel and pages too. *smacks hand* Bad blogger! Oh well ...

(1) One (1)

I SEVERELY procrastinated getting in my long run today. I just felt so sluggish (must have been all that hilarity from my cousin's wife's surprise birthday party last night) I didn't know if I could do it. Most of my aches and pains were probably mental too. I swear I told myself "I'll just get one more thing done and then I'll go run" half a dozen times. Finally, I decided I just had to go do it. By then, it was too warm and sunny to be running the roads around my house so I made the 10-minute drive over to the river and the old towpath trail.

I amazed myself. Once again. As soon as I started running and finding my rhythm, all the aches and pains disappeared, my lethargy melted away, and I realized I mentally needed this run just as much as physically. On long runs, I normally won't eat, drink, or take any walk breaks for the first 3 miles (sort of a mental training thing for 5ks). Today, I reached 4 miles before I even thought to take a sip of my Gatorade. By then, I was almost to my favorite halfway point ...

PS - I can't believe how low the river is right now! You can walk all the way across in a
couple places! Kind of hard to use the river as a post-run "cool down" when the water is super
shallow and almost 80*!

I finished off my Gatorade, ate a couple of my Power Bar Energy Blasts, and took off again. I slowed down twice on the way back, once to dump the water from my smaller bottle on my fuelbelt into my handheld bottle (I'm more likely to drink if it's in front of my face) and once because I somehow got a rock down in my shoe and I wanted it out before it snagged my sock or I stepped on it wrong and hurt myself. 9.58 miles (distance PR) in 1:50:58. That's an average pace of 11:34/mi.

(2) Two (2)

Is anyone else using Earndit? I've been using it for a couple weeks now and I'm loving it. From the website:

Sometimes we could all use a little extra motivation to exercise. While you’d think that the allures of better health and a leaner body would be enough to kick us into action, the reality of the matter is that they’re not. In fact, behavioral economists have a scientific explanation for this called "hyperbolic discounting".

In practice, hyperbolic discounting means that humans discount the value of a reward that occurs far into the future, preferring instead a more immediate reward even if its absolute value is less. For example, if I gave Harry the option to receive $10 today or $20 in a month, he’d probably choose $10 today even though it’s financially wiser for him to get $20 in a month. Hyperbolic discounting is the reason why better health and a leaner body down the road are not compelling enough to make us exercise today.

So we’ve created a system that gives you more immediate rewards for your exercise. Our hope is to foster a more active lifestyle in each of us, and in turn play a small role in improving the health of our users.

Go exercise. Get rewarded. You earnd it.

FAQ

It really is easy to use. Mine syncs with my Garmin Connect. When it comes to the "rewards", there's some awesome stuff. You can earn stuff for yourself or you can donate your points to a couple causes Earndit champions. I decided as soon as I started on the site that I would donate to every cause before I scored anything for myself. So far, I've donated to Heifer International, Shining Hope, and Christmas in July for US Troops (which is near and dear to my heart).

(3) Three (3)

I've been spending a LOT of time with Roadie lately ... and I love it. I'm slowly cleaning and fixing things as I find issues and riding further and further each time. My butt still hurts if I spend too much time in the saddle, but it's getting better. There's no ache right after a ride, but you can bet I'm feeling it the next time I sit in that saddle again. I think I'm developing a "groove" in my butt. lol.

(4) Four (4)

I've been noticing a bunch of these showing up around our yard lately ...

Yep, that's a hole. Big enough I could shove a garden hose down it. And yes, that really is our backyard right now. We live on the edge of the Oak Openings Ridge (basically, a giant ridge of old sand dunes) and we've NEVER [in the 21 years we've lived here] been able to grow a decent lawn. And this summer's extreme heat has burned the heck out of any grass we DID have out in the open areas. Up around the house, you can tell exactly how far the water spreads out after exiting our downspouts and where is shaded most of the day. Those areas are the ONLY green in the yard, expect for the trees.

But back to the holes ... I finally figured out what they were when I saw some movement around one of the holes yesterday ...

Cicada killer wasps. I guess they prefer really loose sandy areas for their burrows ... and they hit the jackpot with our yard. I actually took THIS picture today, but the one I saw yesterday was in the process of dragging a cicada down the hole. It was pretty cool to watch. I was a little nervous about having wasps this big in our yard, but then I did a little research. Apparently, they aren't aggressive. I accidently put that to the test his morning with this guy in the picture. I was sitting under our pool deck fixing something and this guy flew over and landed on me several times. I brushed him away every time and he never got aggressive.

So, I'm still not completely comfortable with them, but now I'm more interested than scared. We'll see what dad has to say about them when he gets home. I'm pretty sure his reaction is going to be drowning the holes in wasp killer spray and then flooding them with the garden hose, but we'll see.

I'd take these guys any day over the ant assault that's happening in our kitchen right now. The really nasty thing is that the ONLY place they show up in the kitchen IS ON THE COUNTER!!! No matter how clean we keep it, they seem to flock to the area around the sink. Mom put out "bait traps", but that would require the ants taking the material back to their colony. Dad, brother, and I have the philosophy that they shouldn't make it that far. We're having ant-smashing contests and spraying (probably way too much) chemicals. And it's lead to some pretty spectacular arguments over who left dirty dishes in the sink ...

(5) Five (5)

With the parents gone this week and my brother spending most of his time packing up his apartment (he's moving into a house with friends for the next school year), I've been trying to balance "cleaning out the leftovers" and eating healthy. I've ended up with some interesting creations too ...

Ramen noodles with soy sauce, tuna, celery and grape tomatoes. It was pretty good, actually.

(6) Six (6)

I've talked before about taking aluminum cans to the recycle center to pay for my race registration fees. I made my latest run this morning. 43lbs of metal brought me $17.52. The price of aluminum went down again. Drat. Oh well. It's better than nothing and I'm lucky my half marathon will be small and cheap. :)

If we're friends on DailyMile, you know how often the neighborhood munchkins have talked me into riding bikes with them up to Oak Openings (they aren't allowed to go that far alone) for the sole purpose of picking up cans for me. I love that they want to help me and the environment at the same time. I always hope I'm setting a good example for them and this is one of those times I know I am. It sickens me, though, that I can completely clean the 2-3 mile stretch and we can ride by less than a week later and still pick up SO many cans, almost exclusively beer.

I could have waited a bit longer to take the cans in, but dad went on one of his rampages before they left on vacation. With the bags out of the garage, it's one less thing he can blame the ants on. It'll take me a while to build up enough of a stash again to out-grow the old garbage can and worry about bags sitting around. Though, hopefully I can find a semi-steady job soon and I won't have to be so concerned with collecting them for money.


Oh well. The parents will be home sometime tomorrow so I'll be spending every waking moment until then scrubbing and cleaning and organizing. Mom is having surgery on both her feet this week so we want to have the whole house cleaned and stocked before then. I think the plan is to take a MASSIVE shopping trip and cooking marathon the day before. I can cook for myself, and dad can cook for himself and mom (usually), but we're all a bit particular about our food (different medical issues, I refuse to eat beef and starch every night, etc.) that it's just not a good idea to have dad in charge of food for everyone. Or me, for that matter. lol


PS - At what age is counting down to your birthday "immature"?

Larabar Yumminess and Boot Camp!

So, I won Stefanie @ Run On!'s Larabar giveaway a while back and I had a present waiting for me in the mail yesterday (I told you, I love our mail lady. She brings me fun stuff) ...

I have resigned to Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays being EARLY mornings for the next month ... no matter how little sleep I get the night before (maybe 3 fitful hours, broken up, last night) ... and how much hassle getting through those days are. First of all, I felt like I was packing my car for a weekend away, not just a random Tuesday. I had to have warm workout clothes, cold workout clothes (and my running shoes), normal day clothes, shower stuff, my laptop gear, my school gear, and about 3 meals worth of food since I'm going to be on campus late too. Somehow, I ended up needing all 3 of my research binders and 2 notebooks at school today too. Dad was leaving for work as I was loading my car and he joked it looked like I was going to start living out of my car like I did during rowing season in high school. I just glared and turned up the heater while I waited for the windows to defrost (it was 35 degrees this morning!).

There were only 3 of us in Boot Camp this morning, which was great since 2 of us were new (and it was only 6:15am, so I wasn't exactly a friendly ray of sunshine). The instructor seems nice (in a distant sort of way) and was able to quickly and easily correct any form flaws I had. Apparently I'm in much better shape than the other 2 women so he made a couple things even harder, just for me. Yippee. (Can't you just SMELL the sarcasm? lol.) Everything was set up in a circuit and we rotated "stations" every 45 seconds. I really liked the mix of cardio, strength, and drills. I even got reacquainted with a foe I thought I had left behind in high school ... burpies. Ewwww. Actually, the whole class reminded me a LOT of my old rowing days ... on the days our coach actually paid attention to our off-season cross-training (Sorry, Dave, you know I appreciate how much you did during racing season, but you were nearly worthless during winter conditioning). My arms were a little achey and my legs were a little shaky by the end of class. And I wore a grin all the way to campus to get in some extra cardio and a hot shower at the student rec center. I may change my mind later, but I kinda wish this trainer was cheaper so I could continue with him after my month is up. I have a feeling this month is going to be VERY good for me. I need to take some time after every class to write down (and describe) every exercise we do so I have a chance of replicating the workouts after my time there is up.

Happy First Day of Spring!

I'll be honest ... I totally forgot today was the first day of spring until I heard it on the news last night. Here in the Midwest, we had late winter/ early spring all winter and then just jumped straight to summer sometime last week. It's crazy. Saturday, I had to dig out the box with my (non-workout) shorts in it!

First off, someone asked how long my hair was BEFORE it got chopped ... since it's been in a perpetual bun or ponytail for the past 5ish months ... so here you go ...

Secondly, I found these lovelies over the weekend and decided I needs to make some cookies for St. Patrick's Day:

OF COURSE I'm not eating the cookie dough.
Who do you think I am, my grandmother's granddaughter? Haha

They spread out a little more than I would have liked (and were a little too soft), but they were pretty darn yummy. I bought some mint chocolate chip ice cream and Mint Bailey's at the same time I bought the m&ms. Talk about a mint overload! Between all the mint, the alcohol, and the emotional upheaval, Saturday night was interesting.

I DID get a run in yesterday, but it was a hot, short, miserable slog through the trails at Wildwood Metropark. The dune trail was great (despite the people traffic), but I decided to make a loop of the meadow and found the biggest mud ball in the park. Myself and another girl who was running the same route made use of the hose attached to the wall of the visitor's center to rinse ourselves off from the knees down before going anywhere NEAR our cars. Oh, and to the teenagers we interrupted: your "secret make out place" isn't so secret. You're right along the main trail for runners in the park. It's a gorgeous day, as people are getting off work. Don't be surprised when you get "caught". And don't be a couple pricks and start screaming and cursing at the runners going by who couldn't give 2 $#!@s about you hiding from your parents and making out. End rant. *rolls eyes*

A while back, one of the neighborhood kids I occasionally babysat when they were younger got a "real" mountain bike for her birthday ("It has shocks and everything, Jess!"). If you saw my post from last weekend with the picture of me laying on the deck after my race, same girl who took that picture. Anyway, I promised her back when she got the bike that I would take her over to Oak Openings and ride a trail with her this spring if she stayed up to date with her homework and she stayed out of trouble with her parents (she reminds me of myself at that age, defiant and moody). When she saw me come home from riding last week, she got really excited and reminded me of my promise. I remembered. And I reminded her of her part of the bargain. Today, she showed up with a note from her mom (no joke) and a copy of her weekly homework "report card". Since it was TECHNICALLY spring and she IS doing really well and it was a GORGEOUS day (it reached the low 80s!), I told her to go home and change into old clothes. She just screamed and ran home, excited. I was already changed and ready to go by the time she got back.

It's almost a 2-mile ride up to the park, so I had her ride in front of me and set the pace, mainly so I wouldn't be tempted to push the pace and tire her out too early. It gave me a good chance to watch her ride and get an idea of how her balance was and how well she shifted gears. I was impressed. She held the pace pretty steadily at around 10mph the whole time we were on the road. Once we got on the trail, she handled the mud and "hills" really well. I had to remind her to slow down a little bit through the standing water if she didn't want to end up COMPLETELY soaked, but I was really proud of her. She never complained and really seemed like she enjoyed it. She didn't even complain when I told her we needed to clean off the bikes before we put them away. According to my Garmin, we pulled out a little over 8.5 miles in 50 minutes. I consider that pretty darn amazing for a girl who has never ridden outside her own neighborhood (the girl, not me). I don't know if she'll want to go again or not, but I'm sure her parents didn't have any problems getting her to go to bed tonight :)

Oh yea, and we got a little muddy ...

I guess it MUST be spring ... mom's flowers are officially blooming. :)

Happy Spring! :)

PS- Happy Birthday to my big sister's (well, she might as well be) husband who turned 30! Luckily, he has coworkers and friends who have just as twisted a sense of humor as he does ...

Simple and Satisfying.

Oh Em Gee! YOU GUYS! I just HAVE to share this!

I always love when my parents are out of the house for a couple days and I get free reign in the kitchen. I can cook things that they can't/ won't eat and I can be more careful about eating HEALTHY. [And not have to defend myself when I don't eat the amount my dad deems to be "normal".] Knowing they'd be in FL all this week, I've been stalking pinterest recipes for probably a month now. I found this and thought it sounded interesting ...

Turkey Wrap with Cucumber and Cream Cheese from Rachael Ray

It sounded simple enough (another requirement for most things I make when I'm on my own) and I KNEW I had the basic ingredients already.

Basically, cut up some cucumber and mix in into some cream cheese.

I didn't have tortilla wraps, but I figured these would work just as well. Mom and I are both in love with these things.

Spread that cucumber and cream cheese yumminess onto your bread-product of choice and layer on some of this stuff.

 I may have been a bit of a pig and layered it up. *innocent smile*

And then you get this ... or some approximation thereof ...

So simple.      So healthy.      So good.

Not going to lie, I made sure I had room in my stomach for dessert ...

Mom knows the only way to (slightly) slow down my near-inhaling of the Samoas is to store them in the freezer, so that's where they were all stashed before she left town. Plus then they aren't sitting out on the counter, calling to me, begging me to eat them every time I walk past the kitchen. :)

They're Gone! And some other stuff.

Did anyone else see today's Schwaggle deal before it completely sold out? 50% off a Fuelbelt Revenge R20 in electric lime, silver, or juicy o'reily (purple with lime green accents). The silver and juicy o'reily were sold out by the time I got on, but I managed to get a electric lime (probably the color I would have gotten anyway. lol). Woo hoo! I've been looking at these for a while now and have just been waiting until I had enough Amazon credits to buy one. Since I only had to pay $20 for the Schwaggle deal and then $7.95 for shipping, I'm not going to complain about spending real money. I probably will eventually buy another bottle or 2 to put on the belt (they're only 7 ounce bottles) and a bigger pocket, but I'm just glad I got what I did for such a greta price. As soon as the wind dies down a bit, I'm taking my bike to get fixed up and ready for the season and it doesn't have a water bottle holder on it, so this will be nice to use for that until I work up to running longer distances where I'll need more water. I can't wait to get my new Fuelbelt and try it out. :)

While I'm thinking about it (and since I never got an answer on twitter from anyone), at what distance/ time do you start carrying something OTHER than water on your runs? GU? Snacks? Hammer gels? My longest runs were my 2 8-milers and even with a good breakfast before-hand, I was STARVING when I got home. Even last night after the 3-mile group run, I INHALED a Subway foot-long like it was nothing. And it was healthy (a BLT with extra lettuce and green peppers), so don't give me that look. I think I've finally pulled myself out of my junk food binge earlier this week. Darn mom for bringing home a bunch of my favorite candy and then leaving all the leftovers from her Tastefully Simple party sitting out.

I DID enjoy mom's Tastefully Simple party, though. I got to see a couple of my favorite people, family friends, and mom's work friends (some who have known me my whole life). My friend Steph even brought her son. Xander is a 19-month old monster, but in a cute way. Some days he's horribly sick and won't let anyone but Steph anywhere near him. But Monday night, we were buddies, playing with (and breaking) one of my gnomes, eating everything we could get our hands on, beating on the garbage can like a drum, tickle monster, playing peek-a-boo around corners. I may not want kids of my own (for now), but I love getting to spend time with my friends' kids. :)

Oops! And ignore how my eyes look like they're crossed.

My parents are officially on their way to Florida. Dad and I worked into the wee hours of the morning on the trailer and getting the motorcycle situated (they're heading down to Daytona Bike Week after stopping at dad's aunt's place and our [Grandpa's] FL house). Being a smart-aleck (dad would say something else, but I'm TRYING to be clean here, lol), I left them a note on the counter to find this morning saying "Have fun, be good, and don't you dare wake me up. I can charge a plane ticket and rental car to your credit card and beat you to the FL house." When I came downstairs around 8am, there was an air horn and a note from mom, "You don't know how close you came to a 5am wake up call. Your father made it up the steps and halfway down the hall before I stole this and yelled at him." Haha. Yep, that's the kind of crap that happens in our family. Anyway, I spent the rest of my morning and early afternoon doing my normal "I'm going to be home alone for more than a couple days" ritual: laundry, run dishwasher, turn down the thermostat, check all the locks on doors and window ... check the gun cabinet and make sure the shotgun is cleaned and loaded. Hey, a girl's got to be prepared. Home alone in an apartment building where you're surrounded by other people and home alone in an un-attached house in a dark, "country" neighborhood (where your neighbors wouldn't know anything's wrong until the cops show up) are completely different. I'm not afraid to be home alone by any means (actually, I kind of like it), but it's better to be prepared. Call me stupid, but I'm more likely to meet an intruder with my shotgun than to call 911 and hide under my bed.

Yesterday was supposed to be my last speed workout before my 7k this weekend. Well, it didn't exactly go as planned. I knew if I wanted to do a real speed workout, I needed to get out earlier in the day and go run on the trail through town where I can count off distances on the electric poles, but that just never happened so I caved and went to Second Sole's group run. I originally decided I was going to take it easy and just focus on my form, but then I started off a bit faster than I would have liked and decided to just push the pace for all 3 miles. A 3-mile tempo run is almost as good as 3 miles including 2x800s, right? Right? *crickets* Oh well. I figured something was better than nothing and running that pace made me PAINFULLY aware of what parts of my body I need to take extra care of before Sunday. My mile times for the 3 miles were 10:35, 10:58, and 10:02. That second mile could have been much faster if not for the little "interruption". 

I was running with a "friend" (I mean, I guess we're friends. We run together at group and chat and get dinner after) and we had a car pull up to us and roll down it's window. We, being good citizens, stopped and let the woman ask us where **** Street was. Neither one of us had never head of it, we don't live in the immediate area of Levis Commons. The woman got annoyed and took off. After another half mile or so, she turns up again driving the other direction and slows down AGAIN. "Are you SURE you don't know where **** Street is? It's right by the high school." I asked WHICH high school since there are SEVERAL in the area and I actually DO know where most of them are. She couldn't tell me which one and we repeated that we were sorry, but we didn't think we could help her. I mentioned that someone at the hotel in the middle of the complex might know or have a map to help her. The lady started calling us several names I won't repeat here, rolled up her window, and SLAMMED on the gas and took off. My friend did her best Stephanie Tanner impression ("How Rude!") and seemed to blow it off. I, on the other hand, spent the rest of the run thinking about those 2 several-second interactions. I don't mind interrupting a run to help someone, but when you're rude and obnoxious and make me STOP my run TWICE to deal with you, it ticks me off. How am I supposed to help you find some obscure neighborhood road in a part of town I admit freely that I don't know well when you can't tell me a major road nearby OR the name of the high school it's supposedly near? And then you're rude and verbally abusive to us after we ATTEMPT to help you, despite our lack of knowledge? Those are the kind of people who really bother me.

Ok, rant over ... I need to get better at not letting that kind of stuff bother me. I hold onto crap for far too long. The dishwasher is finally done, so at least I can mindlessly unload that and then start another load of laundry.

Weird Food Cravings ..

It doesn't matter how much I eat throughout the day, and when. I almost always get crazy cravings for breakfast food, mostly cereal of some kind, late at night (usually around midnight). Thank goodness mom and I always keep the house stocked with Frosted Mini Wheats or Special K Red Berry (or Special K Yogurt Bites) and 1% milk (dad can't stand skim, but I can't stand 2% anymore, so we compromise if both of us are going to be home).

Am I the only one? Any insight? Anyone else have a weird late-night food fixation?

Fitness Goals For The Rest of 2011

It's time I get back to LIFE. Seriously. I need to work out again for sanity's sake. Plus, Annie's wedding is 2 1/2 weeks away now. That gorgeous bridesmaids dress is hanging from my closet door right now, mocking me for my lack of exercise the past couple weeks. I've run a couple times, but mostly just rambling down the trials over at OO.

So, to re-commit myself, I'm writing out my fitness (mental and physical) goals for the rest of this year.

1. Blog at least 2x a week, even if it isn't about running. I try to keep as much of the personal ranting off here as possible (that's why I still have my Xanga, right?), but sometimes there is something that just needs to be said.

2. Run at least 3x a week. Simple enough.

3. Weights/ cross-train 2x a week. I'll be focusing on my arms and upper body until after Annie's wedding, and the pool is officially closed (*sob*), but I'm setting up little brother's playstation (that he didn't take to his apt) in the basement so I have a way to play my workout dvds where I actually have ROOM to PARTICIPATE. Maybe I should move my Wii down there too ... now to buy a balance board.

4. Complete at least 5 challenges every week on DailyChallenge. I'm on the "Active Life" track right now. Most of the challenges are extremely simple things like stretching or today's was doing 12 wall push-ups, but it's a nice reminder to get up and do something.

5. Be more conscious of what I eat. Eat to enjoy food and fuel my body properly. This takes effort because I'm a bored and nervous eater and I don't always make the best choices. I guess mom is going to work on dad (he promised to go on a diet after he realized he at 4 hot dogs for dinner before the football game the other night), but we'll see. I appreciate my mom cooking from scratch as often as she does (which is more related to HER health issues than to my diet), but portion control is a SERIOUS issue in our family.

There. I think those goals are reasonable. And 5 is a nice simple number. Not too many, but I'm not slacking off either. This will be a good thing. Any one else want to weigh in?

I should probably get in a decent late-morning snack/ early lunch NOW so I can run when I leave the lab this afternoon. *Looks around.* Yes! I still have instant oatmeal in my lab stash. *happy dance* :)