exercise

Happy New Year!

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I don’t really do resolutions, so I refuse to feel guilty about not going to zumba tonight.  Another day won’t kill me.  We didn’t have a party this year, but Chuck and Jess came over, we had dinner,  we played games (Cards Against Humanity is as fun as advertised, and I will absolutely NOT play it with my parents – sorry, Mom), missed the ball drop because the NY Times live feed froze, stayed up a while talking about Chuck’s job hunting plans, and then we all collapsed.  Speaking of Chuck’s job hunting plans, my one sorta kinda something like a resolution is to get my own hunt going.  There.  I guess I do have one.

Trying out insufferable

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I feel virtuous.  I RAN to my polling place this morning and voted and then ran home.  I exercised my rights as a citizen of this country while exercising.  (John did, too.)  I am proudly wearing my “I voted” sticker, which has so far managed to stay stuck to my sweater, so EVERYONE knows how citizenly and more-civic-minded-than-thou I feel today.

And with that, I think my period of insufferableness (insufferability?) needs to end.  I’m tired, and I’d like to take a nap.

Ow

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Still achy this morning, but it occurred to me that maybe my legs are achy not just because I didn’t pay attention to my pace yesterday but maybe also because I spent several hours standing around in heels while trying on bridesmaid dresses with Emily AFTER being stupid about my speed.  I thought running through the ache this morning would be good for me.  Maybe it was.  (It’s hard to say.)  But that wasn’t the only reason I ran this morning.  (It wasn’t even the main reason.)  Mostly, I ran because I felt obligated to.  I spend so much time complaining about how I don’t like to run in the dark that I just couldn’t pass up an opportunity to run at my usual time (just before 6am) and see the sun.  It was nice (if a little cold).  Also nice?  John told me that I looked super-skinny in my running clothes.  I think I’ll keep him.

Fall perfection

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I was a little too ridiculously happy this morning.  Maybe it’s that extra hour of sleep, except no, that can’t be it.  John and I deliberately set an alarm for 7 today.  7 felt like 8, which is when we usually get up (or when we usually aim to get up – sometimes we miss), but wasn’t.  Because it was 7.  So we used the extra hour this morning to get up and run.  And that was fantastic.  It was a little chilly to start (mid-40s), but I ran a little over 5 miles, and by the time I got halfway, I had my jacket wrapped around my waist and was running in just a tank top.  (And pants.  I swear I was wearing pants.)  It felt great.  And the sky was blue and the sun was shining and all the trees are changing colors and I had a silly grin plastered on my face because it was all just so beautiful.  Of course, my legs are a little achy now, but that’s my own fault – I got carried away and ran a bit too fast, considering that I haven’t been running as regularly as I should.  I’m paying for that.  But still – happy!

My new obsession

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The new Athleta catalog came today.  I want everything in it.  (I bought a sleeveless dress last spring – love it.)  They have a whole travel clothes section, and just looking at the pictures makes me want to pack up and GO.  I’d like to be a well-dressed (but still comfortable) traveler.  I want to go for walks in fields and hikes in forests and strolls on wintery beaches wearing the chicest of chic travel clothes.  (Hell, I’d dress like the Von Trapps crossing the Alps if I thought I’d be warm and comfortable enough.  Who needs chic?)

I would totally wear Liesl’s hat.

Of course, there are some ridiculous assumptions in their descriptions.  They’ve got a cowl neck tunic-length cashmere sweater (beautiful, of course, and not cheap), but the description assumes you’re going to want to wrap yourself in it after your workout.  Who would put that on when they’re still sweaty from a workout?  Maybe they mean you’d want to wear it after you shower, but then it’s just clothes, not post-workout clothes.  And the picture shows a woman in a yoga studio with her mat hanging from her shoulder while wearing that sweater.  I get sweaty during yoga, but maybe she doesn’t.  Maybe if I had 15 cowl neck cashmere sweaters, I’d feel comfortable designating one to be my sweaty post-workout comfy sweater.  Maybe.

Not again

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I think I might be getting sick.  I can’t tell yet if it’s just seasonal allergies, but since John just got over the flu, I’m a little nervous.  My head is a little (not a lot) congested, my throat is sore enough to hurt when I swallow, the lymph nodes right under my jawline are swollen, and I think I had a fever for a little bit during the night – I woke up freezing and shivering and went scrambling for socks and warmer clothes and more blankets.  Everything but the fever could mean allergies – that stuff happens to me every spring.  And fall.  And at random times throughout the rest of the year.  I was planning on running today, but I think I’m not going to.  We have a 5K with Jess in less than a week, but I gave up any hope of a good race a few weeks ago.  Running today wouldn’t help that much, and a day of real rest might.  So I’m going to do nothing.  Almost nothing.  I might go to the library with John.  Maybe.

Good morning

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I’m off to DC for work this morning, and I didn’t want to get up early enough to go to the gym for a real workout, so I decided to make it a yoga day.  I don’t feel like what I did counts as working out since I didn’t do it for long,  but it felt nice.  It was quiet and peaceful and full of stretching.  And I think I needed it to balance out the very stressful dream about traveling to Peru.  We were packing to get ready for the big vacation, but I couldn’t remember the name of the town or area in Peru we were going to, so I couldn’t look up the weather forecast, and I didn’t know what to pack.  I was scanning my email for the details, but all I could find were pictures of goats, and none of them were captioned with the name of the town.  Very stressful.  Then John’s alarm went off, and I bolted upright, arms flailing, totally startled awake.  I hate alarms.  I needed yoga.

Now I’m eating my breakfast of granola and yogurt, listening to the yoga station on Pandora (which is great until the ad breaks – jarring), and glancing at the clock to see how much more time I have before I have to get in the shower and get moving (not much).  But that way leads to rushing and stress, and who needs that?

Happy Place

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During the meditation part of yoga class last night (my favorite part), I was thinking* about doing yoga at home.  I always mean to do it the rest of the week, but I never do.  Then last night, I realized that since we put the desk away (the one I had the puzzle out on – the table wasn’t big enough and the puzzle was going nowhere, so I quit), there’s a ton of open space in the library (that used to be the dining room).  It gets all of the morning and midday sunlight through the east window and the bay windows, so it’s a cheerful, sunny room, and ZOMG I’m going to do yoga in there!  Isn’t that just disgustingly perfect?  Yoga in a room with sunlight streaming from windows all around?  So I tried it this morning.  At 6:30.  Flaw #1: it’s still dark at 6:30.  Flaw #2: it was pouring down rain.  Actually, Flaw #2 was just fine with me.  I found a yoga station on Pandora, and that kind of music combined with the rain beating on the windows was very relaxing.  Then I lost all my zen peacefulness when I kicked the baby gate on my up the stairs and pulverized the toenail on my second toe.

*I don’t think I’m supposed to think during meditation, but it’s hard to just be.

 

Too much time off

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Yoga is good and I shouldn’t skip it two weeks in a row anymore.  I had good reasons (Halloween, then my lizard transformation – okay, maybe Halloween isn’t a good reason), but still.  Tonight was hard because I haven’t done anything remotely related to yoga in three weeks.  Except stretching after running (which I haven’t done much of, either).  I stretched.  Except not today.  I don’t remember stretching this morning.  Okay, none of this is making sense, and it doesn’t really matter since I’m back on the yoga wagon.  Except for next week, since it’s the night before Thanksgiving and we’ll be on the road.  But after that, I swear I’ll go regularly.

Looking less lizardly

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I’m able to hide my mutation now (for the most part), so it’s back out into the world I go.  I also tried lotion today, and that seems to be going well.  I was supposed to stay away from lotion in case it aggravated my already tortured skin, but after four days at home with the heat on, my skin is SO DRY.  And I figure if lotion is okay, then maybe sweat is okay, and maybe I can exercise again.  So I might go to the gym tonight.  Or maybe just run tomorrow morning.

I could be a red and splotchy version of Nightcrawler

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I look like a lizard.  Like a salamander.  Or maybe a newt.  It’s awful.  Apparently, I’ve found another antibiotic I’m allergic to.  Sure, that’s only two now, but one of them is amoxicillin, and that rules out everything in the -cillin family, which I think includes penicillin.  (So someday I’m going to die because I need medication I can’t take because I’m allergic to it.  Yay for me.)  At least with that one, the reaction I have isn’t visible to anyone.  With this one (bactrim), I turn into a lizard.  A lizard on fire.  Ooh, like a salamander!  (I knew there was a reason I went for that one.)  Seriously, though, I look scary.  The doctor said I shouldn’t exercise for a few days (because I shouldn’t sweat – weird, right?), so I’ll be fat and scary.  Good combination.  Too bad it didn’t happen right before Halloween instead of right after.  Built-in costume.

Roxy is still wearing her lampshade, but she’s doing much better.  We gave her a break from it for a lot of yesterday (because we were home and could watch her), and we only had to stop her from licking her paw a couple of times.  I’ll probably be home with her a lot this week.  I don’t want to go out in public like this, so I will most likely work from home.  Today is a sick day.  Morning with the doctor, home for now, another appointment this afternoon – too disjointed to be productive at work.

Man, if I have to look like a mutant (and I totally do), I should at least get some cool superpower.

Get off my lawn!

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I think I’m getting old.  My back hurts (lower back – it’s felt achy and a little twinge-y since my last Muscle Blast class two Mondays ago).  My left arm was tingling off and on for almost a week (it’s stopped now) because I think I pinched a nerve doing a handstand in yoga class (a week ago Wednesday).  I make grunting noises when I lunge to get over the dog gate at the bottom of the stairs, and worst of all, I was SO over Halloween after about the tenth group of kids.  I lose patience for that quicker every year.  All we were doing was handing out candy to the kids who came by.  I can’t imagine how the parents of 8 or 9-year-olds must feel, trailing their kids down block after block.  I mean, when they’re 3 or 4 or 5, they’re totally adorable, they need your help, and they get tired fast (very important, that).  Beyond that age, can they even get tired out?  It’s exhausting just thinking about it.

I missed the very beginning of the evening because I had to take Roxy to the vet.  Once again, her paw was bothering her and she licked it so much she made it worse.  Yay for obsessive dogs.

Here’s my sweetpea last night at the vet:

And here she is today, completely miserable in her Cone of Shame. The sock just wasn’t working this time.

Can you believe it’s almost October? What the hell is that about?

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I took Riley with me on my run the other morning – huh.  Feels like several days ago, but it must have been just yesterday morning.  It’s only Tuesday.  Shoot me.  Anyway, a deer got really close to us.  I think he wanted to play.  It was cute, but Riley was a little freaked out.  The deer was following us down the trail, and Riley kept checking it out over his shoulder, ears pinned back.  It eventually ran ahead of us, and he calmed down, but it made for a very exciting morning.

We don’t get out much.  Actually, part of why I’ve been MIA is because I did get out over the weekend.  Went home to visit Mom and Dad and Corey and Mindy and Mark and Gaby and Candy.  Watched a gaggle of six-year-olds play soccer, found that I’m a natural at soccer myself (when one of those six-year-olds is the goalie), picnicked by the lake, played catch, flew a kite, got sunburned, went for a run – and that was all on Saturday.  It was a whirlwind weekend, but I got to see everyone (for not long enough, but it was better than not going).

And now it’s the work week, the last week of the fiscal year, when everyone freaks out, and I have to go to DC every day.  Here’s hoping next week is better.

Wiped out

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I went for a long-ass bike ride this evening and hey, ass was a good word to bring up because mine is not happy with me.  My wrists, shoulders, and upper back aren’t too pleased, either.  I’m thinking long-ass (almost 13 miles) may have been a little ambitious for me, since this is not my sport.  Also, my bike doesn’t look anything like the bikes serious cyclists ride.  And there are a LOT of those around here.  We’ll just see if I can walk tomorrow.  Oh, and I have a headache.  I think I should just go to bed.

A model that Lance Armstrong rode at some point

 

My little Schwinn that I bought at Target. Not in the same league.  But I love it and I want a headlight and a basket.

I don’t like change

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My wonderful Wednesday nights at the gym are no longer.  My yoga class has been canceled (for lack of an instructor – all that drama drove her away), and my strength class instructor won’t be teaching at all anymore.  Tonight was the first strength class with the new instructor.  She’s not new to the gym, just new to Wednesday nights, and I don’t think I like her style of teaching.  (It’s not just because it’s different.)  The other instructors play music, and they use it to drive the exercises.  If we’re doing bicep curls, 2 counts up, 2 counts down, those counts are to the beat of the music.  They’ve chosen their songs for specific exercises, and it’s lots of fun.  This instructor plays music, but it’s irrelevant to the class.  She counts the exercises, but she doesn’t count evenly, and she ignores the beat of the music.  !  I can’t handle it.  Why would someone do that?  She subbed for one of the classes I was taking sometime last year, and I noticed it (and hated it) then.  She hasn’t changed.

I know.  My life is SO hard.

 

Best watch ever

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I bought the Garmin Forerunner 210 over the weekend (from my friendly local running store) and finally used it this morning.

It’s awesome.  I got the heart rate monitor, too, so I strapped myself in (watch strap, heart rate monitor strap – any more straps and I wouldn’t need clothes), synced everything up (found my heart, found my satellite), and took off.  I had a great run, but the coolest part about my new watch is that when I uploaded the details to the website (Garmin Connect), I got a whole bunch of neat graphs.

The top one shows how my pace varied over time, and I can tell that the downward spike is at the point where I had to wait a few seconds to cross a street.  The watch calculates all the easy stuff (average heart rate, average pace, stuff like that), but it’s also tracking elevation and calculating calories burned, and the website displays the details per lap (I set it so one lap equals one mile), and it’s just so COOL.

 

Only a little spooky

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The gym at night is a peaceful place.  I know I won’t work out tomorrow (going to visit Jess and Chuck – yay!), and Sunday will depend a lot on when we get home, so I figured I’d squeeze in an extra workout tonight.  Especially after IHOP for dinner.  The gym is open until 10pm on weeknights, and most nights there are still people there pretty late.  Not tonight, though.  I walked in at 8 and I had the place to myself.  It was kinda nice.  None of the TVs were on and neither was the music, so the only sounds were my own.  I could pretend it was my own private gym.  No annoying people allowed.

As if on cue, Riley came over and shoved his dripping head into my lap just then.  (He’s a messy drinker.)  I’ve got to pay him some special attention to make up for boarding him overnight tomorrow.

Good night!

What sadistic bastard invented stairs?

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You know what’s hard?  Biking uphill after yoga and squats.  I’m not sure I can get up the stairs.  I might have to crawl.  Or maybe I’ll sleep on the couch.

There are videos on The Daily What today that I’d like to watch, but they’ll have to wait.  I’d rather listen to John practice playing his banjo.  (Oh, yeah.  John got a banjo.)  Then I’ll figure out how I’m going to make it to bed.  Later, but soon.  Like maybe now.  No…almost.  Now.

 

They were right!

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Riding a bike (after 4 or 5 years of not riding) really is just like riding a bike!  Who knew?  I was a little nervous.  Corey laughed at me when I told him this the other day, but I’m afraid of going downhill.  Because our hill is steep, and it’ll be fast.  And what if I use the front brake instead of the rear brake and go sailing over the front of the bike and die?  I mean, really.  Last night, though, it was either walk or ride.  John needed my car to go to Home Depot, and I had a yoga class at the gym.  How else was I going to get there?  Besides the aforementioned option of walking.  John pulled my bike out of the garage, put air in the tires, and adjusted the front brake so it wasn’t messing with the front tire (See?  My fears weren’t groundless!), and I couldn’t very well back out then.  He even took it on a test ride for me.

The hardest part was uphill (because duh), and I just rode the brake on the downhill.  I wasn’t exactly graceful getting off the bike, but nobody was around to see.  Yay bikes!