Random

Small Bump in the Road

I’m sick. Who catches the flu on day 2 of “flu season”? I thought I was doing so well at staying healthy this year but alas the rainy and cold OSU game on Saturday, the late night out on Saturday night and general overall busy-ness did me in. So I’ve missed 5 days of work and have spent the week on my couch. Blah. I had a tiny amount of energy today (I even left the house for Chipotle, mmmmm) and now I’m ready to be healthy and back in my routine. Okay that’s enough of a pity party for me. A short list of what has had my attention lately:

I watched Ellen today and the founder of TOMS was on. Buy a pair of shoes today and TOMorrow someone who needs a pair of shoes will get one. One for One. They look like extremely comfy shoes for a fantastic cause so I will definitely be checking those out. They are also just getting started into sunglasses and when you buy a pair of sunglasses someone else gets the gift of sight – either glasses or cataract surgery.
I’m doing a Bible study at my church, A Quick Journey Through the Bible. It’s from Jeff Cavins’ Great Adventure series. I’ve done one of his studies in the past and I’ve attended one of his speaking engagements. He’s a fantastic speaker and his book My Life On the Rock was a great read. A Quick Journey Through the Bible is only an 8-week study and unfortunately I had to miss this week….
Speaking of books, I read two easy ones this week to try to keep my mind off the body aches. This week I read two of The Uglies series by Scott Westerfeld. Both Uglies and Pretties were good and I’ve found myself now thinking in pretty-speak “That’s bubbly!” I want to finish the series but if I buy another $10 book this week, Nick might not be so thrilled with me. I need to start frequenting the library. I seem to be reading a LOT of teen dystopian series lately. My favorite series thus far is Hunger Games (a million times better than Twilight. Seriously, Katniss is a MUCH better role model than whiny, clingy, vapid Bella.) Other series that were good include The Declaration, Divergent (waiting for the second book to come out), Matched (I’m looking forward to Crossed on Nov 1), and the Maze Runner (I only read book 1. I’ll eventually read the others).
Steve Jobs. What an icon. He’ll be missed.
Waiting for Baby George – I’m excited to meet my new nephew. At the moment he seems to be nice and comfy and not in any hurry to meet all of us. At this point, he can take a couple of more days, I’m too sick to hold a newborn!
The only two good parts of Halloween are the cute kids in costume AND candy corn.
Hiccups. This is the fourth time I’ve had them today. Ouch. Once Nick had the hiccups on and off for days when we were in Jamaica. He tried everything to get rid of them. The culprit turned out to be sugary alcoholic beverages!!
NyQuil. It’s time for my next dose and some sleep.

I’m hoping to be back at the gym next week. I haven’t decided if I’m going to re-start my 6-week challenge or just finish the last two weeks that I have left.

Bike, Run, Set Goals, Swim, Triathlon, Working Out

Half-Way To Finish

Week 3 of my 6 week challenge has been the toughest so far. As I write this I think every muscle in my body is sore and achy and I’m fighting the urge to go to bed at 8:30 pm on a SATURDAY. This week I (stationary) biked on Tuesday, Wednesday was swimming, yesterday (Friday) was the Jillian workout video and today I ran 2.75 miles plus walked an extra 1.5. To reward myself for finishing week 3, I bought this Red and Grey Sweaty Band. Go Bucks!

Besides wanting to complete a triathlon in 2012, one of my other motivations when I started on this 6-week self-challenge was a recent article I read in Self magazine. The article was on Alison Sweeney who has been one of my favorite stars for a very, very long time. Alison Sweeney plays Sammy Brady on Days of Our Lives and she’s on the Biggest Loser. I’ll admit that I’m an in-the-closet Days of Our Lives Fan. I really get a kick out of watching when I’m sick or need some entertaining and slightly mindless TV. I started watching Days way back in high school when I would go to Jenny E’s house after school and we would watch while she gave me everyone’s back story. I was hooked. The nice part about Days is that I can skip for 3 months and STILL know what’s going on.

Anyway, back to the Self article on Alison Sweeney. In the article there were two quotes that jumped out at me. The first, was from Alison’s husband, Dave, when he said to her, “Why do you complain? You’re beautiful already, but if you want to do something about it [her weight], do it. You pursue your career, but you don’t attack your weight.” That really resonated with me. I spend all this time working, talking about work, thinking about work but how much time to I really spend doing anything about losing my extra pounds or planning healthy meals? So I gave my workouts an extra high priority and I schedule them on my calendar a week ahead of time and rarely move them. I might decide to bike instead of swim, but I still do a workout AND I make sure to leave work at a decent time to get to the gym before I get too hungry for dinner.

The second quote from the article was from Alison herself:

As soon as I made it about being healthy and shifted my focus away from the scale, the weight started to come off,” says Sweeney, who still doesn’t use a scale. “I keep track of my body by how my jeans fit—and how I feel.”

Ding, ding, ding! My scale was becoming my enemy. I can’t believe how much contempt I had for an inanimate object and how much power it had over me. (Ironic side note: Could this be due to the fact that I work for a weights and measures company?). I also realized I didn’t own a scale until Nick and I registered and received one for our wedding. I never had one. So three weeks ago I stopped weighing myself and concentrating instead on how I feel. That number in the morning no longer has control over me or my entire day and it’s pretty awesome.

The best part about all of it is that I noticed this week that I’m yanking up my jeans because they are falling down. I could get very used to this! It’s easy to get past the sore muscles if there’s a visible payoff. I’m half-way to the finish and I can’t wait to see how I feel at the end of only 6 weeks. At the rate I’m going, I suppose I’ll need to buy a smoking new pair of jeans; probably another pair of (smaller) IT Jeans from My True Fit.

Bike, Run, Set Goals, Swim, Triathlon, Working Out

6 Week Challenge

I’m 2 weeks into a 6-week challenge that I set for myself. It consists of 4 workouts a week:

Swim – alternating weeks of long swims and sprint workouts
Run – slowly building on my running distance. I made it 2.25 miles yesterday with an additional 0.25 miles after walking a bit.
Biking – slowly building up on distance on the stationary bike at the gym. I finished 9.25 miles this past week.
Jillian Michaels 6 week Six-Pack – this one is the one I procrastinate the most. I sweat, a lot.

This past week was a bit crazy at work with very long days and late, long dinners out so I had to end the week with three workouts in a row. Friday – Swim, Saturday – Run and Sunday (today) – Jillian. I am sore and tired and definitely need a recovery day tomorrow.

Oh did I mention I set some rewards for completing each week’s worth of workouts? My childhood piano teacher calls this “Set Goals, Get Goals” It’s nice to be able to motivate myself to run that extra 1/4 mile with the reward I have planned! The first two week’s rewards were some new make-up. I think this week coming up will be a new Sweaty Bands since having new workout gear always motivates me to want to workout again.

Entertainment

Ironic Comics

I typically start my day with a quick glance at dilbert.com (it’s ironic how often some of these ring true) and Monday, Wednesday and Friday I check out xkcd.com a site with funny, intelligent and witty comics (that I sometimes need Nick to explain to me, HA!).

The most recent comic from www.xkcd.com that had me cracking up:

Where I can order the one on the right? Just kidding! And it’s a terrible idea anyway seeing that it will just encourage MORE thieves to target us (our house was broken into in May. Lucky us.)

Speaking of our house break-in, this comic appeared about 2 weeks after the idiot made off with our 30-lb fireproof safe containing all of our identifying documents (birth certs, Social Security cards, Passports, Marriage certificate, etc.):

Stupid thief. I want my jewelry back, especially my Buckeye earrings that I wish I was wearing today to the Ohio State football game!

Accomplishments, Run, Triathlon

Becoming a Runner

I am not a runner. I’ve said this for years and years. I’ve always preferred sports that had short sprint bursts like tennis or volleyball and sports that are easier on my knees such as swimming or working out on a EFX machine. I’ve struggled to understand those who can lace up their shoes put on some tunes and run for miles at a time and get excited to train for their first marathon. When I run, I hate the sounds of my raggedy breathing and the feeling that I am the slowest runner in the world.

When I first considered this “do a triathlon” thing I realized that I needed to give running another chance. Shortly after this realization, I read an article where the author wrote about how she started running and mentioned that running started with a single step and built from there. So I decided to start with just 1/10 of a mile. Funny enough I ran 1/2 mi that first time, on July 5, with very little effort and I was surprised at how easy it felt. I quickly realized all of the swimming I’ve been doing has built up my lungs to a decent capacity for other forms of cardiovascular exercise.

I successfully ran 2.0 miles last week in 19:39. Not a fantastic time yet, but it felt good to reach that 2.0 mile mark. Now I want to repeat it a few times and see if I can bring down my time a bit so today was another run day and I ventured out late this morning prior to the OSU game. It was BRUTAL and I struggled to finish the 2.0 miles. I need to be a bit smarter about when I run and what I eat before. Today it was 91 degrees and I ate peanut butter toast beforehand. BIG mistake and I’ve felt awful all day from it. Lesson learned.

Also today Nick and I had a conversation about paradigm shifts or the way we view situations as human beings. So often we use phrases that start with “I want to be…” instead of realizing that most of the time we could substitute “I AM a…” Our conversation didn’t mention running at all but I’ve realized that I can apply it my running and instead of continually saying “I want to be a runner” or “I’m not really a runner” I need to start the more positive “I AM a runner” and stop at that. There’s no need to add a “but” clause to that sentence and I don’t need to add disparaging comments about myself. Everyone started somewhere and I’m happy with my progress from 0 to 2.0 miles in these 8 weeks. Now I just need the weather to get cooler and to avoid peanut butter toast before I lace up.