Fab Ab February and Zipfizz

I've seen this calendar floating around Pinterest and Twitter for about a week now, but it has finally found it's way into the blogosphere: Fab Ab February.

For someone who has never done much core work or is just getting back into it, this is awesome. Since I'm not exactly in that category, I'm adjusting this plan for myself. I'll still be doing what is in the plan, but I'm going to do it MULTIPLE TIMES! I haven't decided how many yet since I just jumped on the bandwagon last night (hm, I seem to have jumped into a lot of things yesterday), but I'm thinking it'll probably be 4 or 5.

Another thing to check out on twitter is #plankaday. I've been participating for a couple weeks now and those darn @plankpolice have already caught me not logging my planks once. In my defense, I was logging into Twitter from my Blackberry (the mobile site, not the app) and I WAS tweeting. It just wasn't going through. *grumblegrumble*.

A while back, Steph @ Run On! hosted a Zipfizz giveaway and I was one of the winners. And guess what came via UPS last night ...

I don't know how Robbie, our UPS guy, found our porch and doorbell last night in the dark without hurting himself (we hadn't turned the outside lights on since we were all home already and weren't expecting anyone). But, then again, he HAS been here a LOT the past couple weeks. Between my running/ Amazon stuff, mom's stuff from catalogs, and dad and bro's new parts for the motorcycle, we've been getting packages either from UPS or the postal service pretty much every other day. LOL. I was so confused when Robbie said the package was for me, but then I read the side of the box and did a little happy dance. As always, be just laughed at me. Anyway, I've never tried Zipfizz before so I'm a little excited. My first bottle is in front of me right now (orange soda flavor) and I have 2 different coupons from Zipfizz in my email inbox for WalMart as soon as I decide which flavors I like the most. I was digging around on their website last night too and I'm LOVING that they WANT you to send back the tubes for recycling when you get 100! I'd probably do that even if they WEREN'T offering a water bottle. I think I'm just going to keep the box the bottle came in and put them back in there. :)

I'm really excited to see if I could take these on my backpacking/camping trips. Normally I can't function in the morning without my caffeine or energy drink. When I'm home, it's normally Diet Coke [parents aren't fans of the smell of coffee]. At camp or the bf's, it's coffee, but I need creamer and stuff to make it palatable (can only drink black coffee when forced at knife-point). I've tried taking canisters and packets of mixes on the trail before, and some are ok [G2 in the single-service packets = live-saver], but this MAY be an easier option. We shall see.

- - -
2.2.12
I appreciate my ...
Hands! I saw the Kohler commercial last night with the "Hands can do so many things" song and it got me thinking. My hands have so many scars, but each of them is a story, a chapter in my life. I have callous scars from my years of rowing, dog bite [the one and only time Patches EVER snapped at me], burn from working concessions for my friend's student government campaign, burn form the first time I made dinner with my "bf", the scar(s) from the surgeries on my finger after breaking it playing flag football, and so many more. It simply blows my mind to think about all the things my hands have done over the last 25+ years.

Who I appreciate ...
Another corny one, but Brad Paisley! I normally turn on my stereo to listen to Bob & Tom as I'm getting ready in the morning, but I accidently had the country station on this morning [stupid tiny buttons on the remote]. I wasn't feeling great when I got up, but as soon as I heard Brad Paisley's "Old Alabama", I started smiling and singing along. I love that song. I grew up listening to Alabama, have ALL their albums on my iPod, and even got to see their farewell tour when they played at the Lenawee County Fair years ago. Thank goodness mom had already left for work since I'm sure I looked and sounded like a fool, but it made my morning!

The Good, The Bad, and The WTF?!

Today was an interesting one, to say the least.

1) I DID get to talk to advisor-man, and he agreed that it would be best to just pay for a credit hour this fall and get the stupid paper finished (*grumble*$#!@ data*grumble*). Neither one of us want me to walk away from my Masters. He and JB are leaving Saturday for a week so I'll have that time to just sit at home and get stuff done.

2 & 3) I haven't signed up for my credit hour yet. I was waiting on an email from Karen to let me know if I needed to do anything specific to defer graduation to Fall. I already have my new Graduation Application ready to go, but there's nothing on the website about HOW to defer and our "Grad school liaison" didn't know either. If I don't hear from her by tomorrow afternoon, I'm just going to sign up for it  so advisor-man is still around if I need him to sign me into the credit (sometimes the computer system works, sometimes it doesn't).

4) I was pretty pleased with (part of) my run. The Roche de Bout parking lot was closed for repaving, so I had to use the Indianola parking lot 1/2 mile down the trail. I did my warmup by walking BACK towards RdB so I wouldn't cut too much into my actual running distance. I don't want to run past the River Bend shelter house just yet. Anyway, I started with just a comfortable steady run and went until I decided I needed a drink. I ended up going 1.77 miles with an average pace of 11:21. I walked for a bit while I took a drink and then took off again. When I got to the "Welcome to River Bend Metropark" sign, I knew I was 1/4 mile from the shelter house so I picked up the pace for 0.59 miles with an average pace of 10:43. It was nice to feel the power in my legs as I picked up the pace. On the way BACK to Indianola, I went at whatever pace. I was paying more attention to all the sick or dead trees along the trail than I was to my running. I didn't really care. I was still riding the happy from the first part of the run.

The "WTF?!" part of my day came when I got home and plugged my Garmin into my computer to upload the data to Garmin Connect. I saw the "Dear Customers, thank you for all your early feedback on the latest version of Garmin Connect. Unfortunately, we’ve identified bugs that need to be fixed before we redeploy the new features." right away, but then I noticed that my entire page was in ITALIAN!! Then, as I found the "account settings" and went to change it back to english, I noticed that though MY id was at the top of the page, I was somehow looking at the information of a 46 year-old Italian guy. REALLY?! I guess they DO have a glitch. I signed out and signed back in and that seemed to fix it, but HOW THE HE!! DID THAT HAPPEN?! Of course, my dad is looking over my shoulder and just laughing hysterically at how peeved I was getting. I was seconds from telling him where he could stick it. Even after I signed out and back in (and changed my password just in case), I was told several times "this info is forbidden". *Sarcastic glare* Uh huh. And then I refresh the page and it works just fine. Whatever.

I may have found a race for this fall, too. September 10th. Sunshine's Walk, 5k Run & Roll. Close to home, too. Apparently "base" is Monclova Elementary and the routes are W-C Trail for the walk and Black Rd for the 5k. Registration is $15 before August 31st and it all goes to Sunshine. Hmm.

5) I did Day 1 of Week 1 of my Push Up Challenge. It consisted of reps of 5, 6, 4, 4, and max-out. I'm doing the easier stance (knees on the floor instead of toes) for now. Maybe once I can do the 100 push ups with the easy method, I'll do it again with the correct form. Maybe. I need to be careful of my posture ALWAYS. My wrists already twinge. My wrists have never been very strong and my right hand in general hasn't been the greatest since I broke that ring finger in flag football. Yea, you read that right. Intramural flag football my senior year of undergrad. I grabbed for a guy's flag and my finger got caught in the elastic on the bottom of his jersey. Spiral fracture the length of the proximal phalanx (the 3rd bone up from your fingertip). Two surgeries and my wisdom teeth coming out within 3 weeks. It was a great semester. Oxycodone and Hydracodone and I were buddies. lol.

6) I'll start my plank challenge later tonight [I'm pooped right now]. I'll be doing the modified pose for this too (forearms on the ground instead of hands, but legs and back straight as always). I'm still deciding how I want to start and proceed since I can't find any good "plans" online. Does anyone have suggestions?

Today's Plan

Just so it's out in the blogiverse and I can be held responsible ...

1) Talk to advisor-man. The GPR equipment was sitting RIGHT in front of my desk in the lab this morning, so I know he's back in town. Hopefully he'll be in his office in about a half hour.
2) Sign up for my 1 credit hour (grrrrr) and pay the bill right away (even more grrrrr)
3) Find out what I need to do about my grad school/ graduation paperwork (at least I know who to talk to for this, if she isn't too busy)
4) Run (at least 3 miles ... on trails [shins are still achy from the road run Tues morning])
5) Start my one hundred pushups challenge (I did the test last week, time to start the reps)
6) Start my plank challenge