Friday Randomness

My husband Jeff has been bicycling in preparation for our upcoming duathlon and this morning he wanted me to unearth the scale from its hiding place so he could weigh himself. This was AFTER he'd showered, dressed in jeans, ate breakfast and downed several cups of coffee. I was all "that's not how you weigh yourself" - but then got to wondering...IS that how you weigh yourself when you're not a chronic dieter? Hmmm...

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On Wednesday night, when I was preparing everything for our "big salad" dinner, I had the brilliant (if I do say so myself) idea of prepping extra so that I could have a salad for lunch at work the next day. Witness the beauty of a traveling salad:

Ready to assemble:
Romaine lettuce, turkey, marinated asparagus, cucumber, strawberries, mushrooms, green onions, toasted pecans, Gorgonzola cheese, Newman's Own Lite Balsamic vinaigrette

Ready to eat!A forkful of goodness!
(Yes, I eat lunch at my desk - that way I still get paid!)

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Both Sunny and Barbara gave me one of the funnier awards that has been floating around blogland lately - the "Creative Writer" award. The general rules are that you have to list seven things, with only one being true, and let your readers try and guess which is the truth. Here goes:

1. I was in a Trident gum commercial when I was in college.
2. I dressed in the Humboldt State marching band uniform, carried cymbals, and marched with the band into a football game at San Francisco State to avoid paying the $2 entrance fee.
3. I marched in the Capitola Begonia Festival parade dressed as Raggedy Andy when I was a teenager.
4. I had my own sailboat as a teenager.
5. My favorite books as a child were the Anne of Green Gables series.
6. My first "real" job (where I got an actual paycheck) was at Baskin Robbins 31 Flavors.
7. I piloted a Cessna airplane all by myself as a teenager.

I'll reveal the one true statement in my next post...can you guess which one it is? Thanks, Sunny and Barbara, for giving me this award - it was fun! I'm supposed to choose other bloggers to pass it on, but I hate to leave anybody out, so consider it open to anyone who would like it!

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Finally, I'd like to leave you with an image that has been seared into my brain since Sunday's 5K:

Kelly and I referred to him as "Santa Claus"

Wednesday Workout Update

It was Tabata week.

Insane.

For those of you lucky enough not to be familiar with Tabata, it's where you do one exercise for 20 seconds as fast as you can, then rest for 10 seconds, then repeat...eight times. I did not think there were enough different exercises to merit three days' worth of Tabata, in both the gym and cardio, but apparently there were. Here's just a partial listing:

• flat bench press
• leg press
• calf raises
• squat thrusters
• seated rows
• crunches
• dumbbell curls
• ab dolly crunches
• box jumps
• kettlebell swings
• tricep dips
• mountain climbers
• boxing
• spinner
• rower
• ball slams

I'm sure there were more; my brain is fried. Three days in a row of Tabata. In the gym, we would keep track of our reps and the lowest one is what counted, so you tried to never have a bad set. Most of the time I would pick a number to hit depending on the exercise and if I had a couple of seconds left before time was called, I got a little extra rest. I did ok for the most part, but guess which was my worst? Yep, those dastardly box jumps. They get me every time! I did a couple sets of four (I know, impressive, lol) and then had a mental breakdown and only got one in. At least I recovered and went on to finish the rest of the sets with four each, but ugh, that one just kills me!

I went into Monday's workout feeling really good, considering I ran a 5K the day before. Jenny and I got to talking before the workout about how we need to get our running speed up a little, and she suggested that since we would already be sweaty after the workout, why not go for a quick run? Sounded like a great idea to me, so after the first day of Tabatas, she, Jeri and I headed out the door to see how fast we could run a mile. We started out at a pretty good clip, but when I asked Jenny to see how long we'd been running, and her watch said only a minute and a half, we quickly revised that mile to a half-mile. Hey, we were tired! Anyway, we ran a half mile in 5:05, which was good...but on that day, I don't think we could have kept up our pace to hit a mile in 10:10. Still, it will be a good goal to work toward, as there are more races in our future!

Yes, what a lot of you told me is true - once you run your first 5K, you get the bug! In fact, while we were doing the GLOW run, Jenny told me about an upcoming duathlon, where you run a 5K, bike 12 miles, and run another 5K. The cool thing is that you can do it as a team, and she and her husband are going to do it - so I talked to Jeff about it, and he's in! We ladies will run both 5Ks and the men will do the biking. I've already told Jeff that he has to get that bike ride done fast, as the race is only open for 2.5 hours and god knows I will need a lot of time to get that second 5K done! Hence the need for speeding up our running times.

Jenny and I are also going to do a 5K on March 27th, which should be fun and also some good practice for the duathlon, which is April 10th. And if we can swing a free hotel room (Jeff accumulates points for all of the travel he does through work), I will sign up for the 6K that Kelly and her family are doing on April 18th. If it weren't for my work schedule, I would sign up for more, but with me working on Saturdays, it really puts a crimp in running these 5Ks.

I have never been a participant in sporting events - I've always been a spectator. I've willingly and happily cheered on my sons in soccer, karate, baseball and football, and have gone to more high school football games than I can count. So for me to be the one doing the sport is just such an amazing thing...and it's fun! Why did I not know how much fun this could be?!? I guess maybe I'm making up for lost time, or on a pink cloud of running - but either way, I'm going for the gusto!

Blogger Run Day Recap!

Blogger Run Day was a great success, with a bunch of you running on March 7th! Here's a recap - you can click on the links to read everyone's stories. Thank you all so much for participating and making this so much fun - I loved knowing that while Kelly and I were running our 5K together, so many of you were also running that day!

Beth did her 5K with a 17% improvement - nice work!
Debby ran her best mile with a time of 10:35 - she is speedy!
Destination: Athlete cut off 8 minutes from her record 10K time - congrats!
Errign ran nearly 4 miles on her treadmill, without stopping, in 41 minutes - way to go!
Fran ran her first race of the year, a 4K through the woods, and finished in 26:51 - wow!
Hotch Potchery ran her half marathon in under 3 hours - congratulations!
Jen got her bad self to the gym and ran a 5K on the treadmill - great job!
Kelly not only ran her 5K in 39:13, she ran for 2 miles straight without stopping - woohoo!
Lori ran 3 miles for fun, with snow on the ground - now that's dedication!
MizFit was a princess and ran (and finished!) her first half marathon, at Disney World, no less!
The Merry ran 3 miles on her own - good job, Merry!
Robin, who thought she would be sidelined by illness, rallied at the last minute and ran the Disney princess half marathon - so glad you got to do it!!!
266, on an impulse, joined us and ran a fast 5K after midnight - glad to have you along!

Poor Kyle was rained out - he has been a real go-getter with his C25K training and I know he was disappointed to miss the run. Next time, Kyle!

Armadillo Dash 5K Recap!

What a fun weekend! From meeting Happy Texan Kelly and her husband, Chuck, on Friday night, to running my second-ever 5K on Sunday - this has just been a blast!

After dinner - we left the table before remembering to get a picture!

We met up with Kelly and Chuck at Luigi's, a fun Italian restaurant. As we pulled into the parking lot, Jeff asked me how would I recognize her - I was all "I've seen her picture on her blog" - and you know what? She looks just pretty in person as she does on her blog! The fun thing is that with all of the blog and email interactions I've had with Kelly, I felt like I "knew" her already...and after preliminary hugs, we fell right into jabbering away. It was a great dinner - she and I ordered the same thing, chicken Marco Polo (go check her blog for a picture...Chuck took one) and the conversation flowed nicely. Chuck is funny and sweet and as my husband put it later, "obviously really likes his wife" - what better compliment could there be? After dinner, we went over to our local frozen yogurt place (did I mention there is no calorie counting in blogger meet ups?) where we had some tasty treats and I finally found someone who would put one of the more perplexing toppings (to me) on their yogurt - Chuck braved the sweetened condensed milk...and liked it! After more laughs and good conversation, we parted ways until Sunday morning.

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And now, the Armadillo Dash recap! First, I have to say that I was a lot less nervous about this run, although I had a moment of panic and started to sweat profusely when I went to pick up my race packet on Friday. But looking at my pretty race t-shirt and bib with the timing chip calmed me down...plus I got some free GU and lip balm - score!

After attaching my bib to my shirt and chip to my shoe, I got everything else together - a ziploc bag with some bars (Lara and Luna) for after the race, extra safety pins, lip balm, camera, sunglasses, visor, water bottle and banana (for before the race). I am nothing if not prepared! Then came the sleeping (not). I was like a kid waiting for Santa Claus - I tossed and turned all night! Oh well. Got up at 5:30 am, showered and dressed, and we finally left the house at 6:26 am. Now, we live one mile from where the race was held. The road outside our subdivision was going to be closed on race morning, as well as the entrance to the park on that side, so we had to go about three miles out of our way. Figured we had PLENTY of time to get there and meet up with Kelly and my workout peeps. Well, 2,000 runners converging from three directions onto one little road was insane - it took us 30 minutes to get there! Texting and phone calls were flying - I calmed down a little once Linda said that they had to delay the start of the race last year due to heavy traffic. Next year? We will walk to the race.

As it was, we got there around 7:05 and the half marathoners, which were scheduled to start at 7 am, started at 7:09 am. We had time for a few pictures, and then the horn sounded and we...slowly made our way to the starting line - dang, there were a lot of people there! I think we crossed it close to a minute and a half into the race, but since our shoes were tagged with timing chips, it really didn't matter.

Kelly and Shelley - Blogger Run Day!

My workout peeps - Jeri, me, Karen, Jan, Linda and her son Reagan

Look at the crowd! This is how far back we were from the start line!We finally crossed the start line and were off!Kelly, me, Jeri - hitting our stride!

The 5K race route had to be changed due to road construction, and while they gave us an updated map when we picked up our packets AND had people directing us, it still got a little confusing. Linda and her speedy son, Reagan, were well ahead of us, and a couple of times we passed each other going opposite directions (it was fun to wave to people you knew). Well, just before Kelly, Jeri and I came across the two-mile marker, Reagan came up from behind us...and as I shouted "Go Reagan, Go!" I thought "wait, that can't be right...he was far ahead of us." I caught up to him and he said "I've seen that sign before" (meaning the two-mile marker) - and I was all ut-oh, you ran this loop again. He then realized that he had made that loop several times already - poor kid! Well, at that point, Kelly and Jeri took a little walking break, so I just ran ahead with Reagan. It was nice, actually - I got to talk with him about baseball (he had practice later that afternoon) and it brought back memories of when my son Sam played. And actually, my pace increased while running with Reagan because he is so fast! I knew Linda would be worried about him, since he WAS close behind her until he got on the runner's roundabout, so I tried to keep up with him for the rest of the race. Here's a map of the route - you can see the last loop could be confusing:

Click to enlarge - the big loop is what I have renamed "Runner's Roundabout"

You know what's fun about running with a ten-year-old boy? Hurdles. He jumped every traffic cone on the way back down the road toward the finish line! Love his energy! I got a second wind as we came close to the park, and kicked it into high gear and RAN! I didn't realize it at the time, but there was a mat positioned a couple of hundred yards from the finish line and when I crossed it, my chip was read so they could announce my name - and that was VERY COOL to hear as I ran toward the finish line!

That's Reagan in the white shirt in front of me - I'm clapping - not real sure why!

Woohoo, crossing the finish line!!! My chip time was 38:10; I finished 396th out of 592, was 29th in my age division, and my pace was 12:14.
Finish line - I love the look on my face! (picture taken by Kelly's husband, Chuck)Right after I finished - no tears this time, just smiles.

Two sweaty bloggers - 5K finishers!We did it!!!

After we recovered a bit with some water, orange slices, bagels and such, we went back to the sidelines of the finish line so we could wait for the half marathoners to come in. The first guy was way ahead of the rest - he must have been flying the entire race! We cheered and clapped as everyone came in, but kept our eyes on the clock...Brad was running his first-ever half marathon, and his goal was to come in under two hours. Finally we saw him - and just in the nick of time as he finished in 1:58!!!

Run Brad, Run!
This is one happy finisher! (photo by Chuck)

Reagan, Linda, me, Brad and Betsy (another workout peep, although she did not get the memo about wearing our purple shirt, lol!)

Did I mention how much fun this was? Oh, I did? Well, it really was great! In fact, I noticed a few hours later that I had actually bruised my finger by clapping so much for all of the half marathoners! Good times, yo.
Come back tomorrow for a Blogger Run Day recap - by then hopefully I'll have updates of everyone who ran.

Friday Wrap Up and Sock Winner!

First things first - the Thorlo/Experia socks giveaway. Wow, what a lot of entries! I think this was the most popular giveaway yet - y'all know the value of a good pair of socks! Without further ado, the winner is:

EricaH!!!

Erica, if you will please email me with your shoe size and mailing address, I will forward the info on to Thorlo so they can mail you your new socks! Congratulations, and thank you to everyone who entered...I wish you all could have won, as these socks are really great!

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Lately, I know it seems that all I've been writing about is exercise, and I hope I'm not boring you too much. It's pretty exciting for me to be doing all of this crazy stuff - things that I never, ever thought I would be doing. Working out with weights? Cardio?? Running??? Seriously, sometimes I look at my "before" pictures and shake my head in wonderment - that person was so not into exercise at.all.

The flip side of this is that I am still dieting, still trying to lose about 15 pounds. So...how's that going, you ask? Well. Not good according to the scale. I will admit to being more than a little frustrated at not seeing those numbers go down, especially since I am still being really watchful about what I eat (weekly trip to the frozen yogurt shop excepted), and of course, I'm working out three times a week and running, for cryin' out loud!

Why haven't I gone all ballistic? Well, even though the scale does not change, my body is. My legs are getting smaller and I fit into size 8 pants now. So take that, stupid scale. Also, about six weeks ago, I had Brad measure my fat blob (the extra roll of fat above my waistline) with body-fat calipers, and last Tuesday he remeasured...and I had gone down 5mm! Apparently there is progress happening; it's just not showing on the scale. After listening to my frustrations once again (poor Brad gets to hear it a lot from me!), he suggested that I take a scale vacation. And you know, that is a darn good idea. So the scale has been banished. I'm thinking for at least a month, but you never know. In the meantime, I'll keep on working out, running, and watching my calorie intake while eating healthy foods. I'm pretty sure that my body will continue to make good changes, and eventually the scale will catch up...right?!?

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Blogger Run Day is just about here! A lot of us bloggers will all be doing runs on Sunday, March 7th - and while Kelly and I will be running together in person, we all will be virtually running together. I feel such a connection with all of the runners, and such acceptance into their slightly confusing world (splits? yassos? taper? tempo? BQ?) - I admit that I don't know much, but I do know that I like this running thing. And I'm glad to have so many of you along for the ride - good luck to everyone who runs on Blogger Run Day!

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Tonight I will have my first blogger meet up - Kelly and her husband Chuck will meet Jeff and I for dinner! I'm so excited to finally meet her...pictures will be forthcoming, along with my Armadillo Dash 5K recap (I can't believe I'm not nervous about the race yet) - woohoo, wish us luck!

Wednesday Workout Update - Picture Edition

What a wild day we had on Monday - Brad had a special workout planned for us - an entire hour in the gym, doing an "Extra Filthy Fifty" - because apparently just a plain old "Filthy Fifty" (50 reps of each exercise, for time) wasn't enough! Linda grabbed her camera and caught us in action, so I'm glad to be able to share with y'all a little bit of what we did:

Me doing a chest press, Brad cheering us on, Jenny doing tricep curls, Jeri doing burpee/box jump combos.

Please note that Jenny and I wore our GLOW run t-shirts with pride on Monday!

Jenny doing some sort of pull ups (I think they had a name but I've blocked it out); me doing a walking plank where I would move my feet to each side of the stepper and then back on. Kathleen doing a kettlebell row (that kettlebell is 26 lbs!)Kathleen doing the burpee/box jump combo; Ashley doing the kettlebell row; Jeri doing the burpee/box jump combo (it took a while to do 50 of these!)Kathleen flying through the air with her box jump!Me finally doing a box jump - more on that later in this post....and she sticks the landing! ::cheers::My favorite picture: Jenny beating the tar out of a punching bag. This was the most fun out of all the exercises!

So yeah, about that burpee/box jump combo. As it was easily the hardest exercise of the bunch, I decided to start off with them - get them over with while I was freshest. I did my first burpee, then moved to do the box jump...and froze. I could not get myself to do it. Stepped back, tried again. My body wasn't moving. Stepped to the side and did a practice one, then stepped back in front of the box and...no go. At this point I was holding up other people, so Brad told me to move on and come back to them. I went ahead and did all of the other exercises and then faced the box jump again. What the hell was wrong with me? I can do these - a month ago I did 50 in one day and then 40 the next day! It still wasn't happening, and I was thisclose to losing it out of frustration. Luckily Linda saw what was happening and started calming me down and talking me through them. At that point I remembered that the last time I did these, Brad had been adding extra height to them, using the 45 pound weight plates, and I fell when I tried to jump 14 inches (the standard box is 12 inches). While I didn't hurt myself, obviously it stayed with me. It took a few more tries, but finally I was successful.

It is amazing to me how much of this is mental. From doing something scary like a box jump, to going for a run and pushing past that voice that starts screaming "What are you doing?!? You aren't a runner! You can't go any further - stop right now!" - there is pushing your body to do something and then pushing the self-doubt out of the way, which for me takes more strength than doing the actual physical stuff!

Today I thought there was a good chance of getting to run during our workout, so I brought my running shoes with me. I don't like to workout in them because the soles are not as flexible as my Asics, but they are awesome to run in. Anyway, I ran on the treadmill and can't believe how much better that felt in my running shoes (I know, duh!). I felt GREAT and did 1.34 miles in 16:30 - starting speed was 4.5; ending speed was 6.4! This will be my last run before Sunday's Armadillo Dash so I'm glad to have such a good one under my belt.

After we spent our time on the machines, we played the "Deck of Cards" workout - Linda drew a card and we had to do whatever exercise matched it. For example, if she drew the eight of clubs, we did eight mountain climbers. It's a fast-moving, random workout that really keeps your heart rate up!

We hated to see a spade pulled!

Finally, here's a picture of my calendar for February - I didn't run as many days as I did in January, but my times and distances are increasing. It's fun for me to see the improvement!

...my glow sticks were still glowing, a couple of days after the GLOW run!

Thorlo Experia Sock Review and Giveaway!

First things first: My recap of the GLOW Fun Run is posted here. Thank you all so much for the wonderful comments - you make me feel like I've run a marathon!!! I forgot to post my time - total rookie mistake...what can I say?!? Anyway, I finished it in 38:45, which was pretty much dead on with what I have been running in practice. I was hoping to finish in under 40 minutes, so I'm happy with it. And like dieting, all I have to say is "onward and downward!"

Now, onto the Thorlo Experia socks...if you were with us last week (I feel like I'm doing a hushed voiceover for a soap opera, lol), you might have seen my write up of the Thorlo Experia socks that I bought, where I later discovered that I am not in the target age range to whom these socks are marketed. I joked about it, and somehow Tracy from Thorlo found my post and left me a comment explaining the socks and their marketing. She also issued me a challenge to try them out and post a review, which sounded like a fun thing to do!

I wore them for the first time on my GLOW Fun Run. I have to say that they worked perfectly for me in that I didn't notice them while I was running. Of course, I couldn't feel my toes, either...but that's because they had practically frozen while we were waiting to get started! About a mile into the run, they finally thawed out. But that's neither here nor there with regard to the Experias - had I wanted socks to keep my toes warm, I would have worn a pair of wool socks - but that would be kinda weird to run in. Anyway, they felt great - nice and cushy on the heel and ball of my foot, and the middle part that was tight over the arch was great - not too tight, but definitely supportive. Plus they looked cute - what can I say, I am that superficial!

Just to be sure, I wore them again on Sunday when I went for my recovery run (ooh, another running term). Once again, they worked perfectly - no bunching underfoot and yet they weren't so tight as to be uncomfortable. I like them. In fact, I give them SIX Toes Up!

Disclaimer: These are not Thorlo socks...you might recognize these rainbow feet from this post!

Now here's the fun part: Tracy has kindly offered to give a pair of Experia socks to one lucky reader! To enter, just leave me a comment letting me know what's the farthest you've ever run at one time...no distance is too short! Giveaway will close at 10pm CST on Thursday, March 4; I'll draw the winner using random.org and post it on Friday. Good luck, everybody!!!




FCC Disclaimer: Giveaway will be fulfilled by Thorlo, who will also be sending me a pair of socks as well. Review of said socks is all my opinion.