It's time to update your feeds, bookmarks, sidebars, and for those truly devoted fans (the ones I love the most) time to get a new tattoo.
After almost wonderful 4 years with the amazing Jeff at BTT, I decided to get my own domain, taking me one step closer to fame and notoriety.
So ....
Here it is ...
My mind and body fell into a dark disparaging depression with the realization that I would be losing an hours sleep.
It could of been some type of flu, but I like to think my mind got sad over the lost hour and decided to make me want to sleep an extra 47 hours in the next 3 days to make up for it.
Thursday I felt like crapola all afternoon. Like I hadn't slept at all the night before, when I had at least 6 blissful hours of slumber. I was supposed to meet the girls for a training session, but cancelled. Instead of a grueling and laughter filled hour of muscle torture I went home and crawled into bed.
I slept for 3 hours, got up ate soup, watched Survivor and ER, then went back to bed and slept for 8 more wonderful hours.
Friday I was tired all day.
Tired!
Which sends my overactive paranoid brain to google to diagnose my symptoms. This never turns end well. I am either iron deficient or have 3 days to live. If you are using the computer as a doctor you tend to lean towards the latter.
I had a couple beers with J on Friday night, and was in bed* by 8pm. Which is really sad if infact I have only 3 days left to live it up.
Saturday morning there was a talk by a Naturopath at the running store before our run.
Perfect timing.
All my hypocondriatic tendencies were deflected from self diagnoses to an actual professional.
I've made an appointment with the Naturopath which in all seriousness I think will be quite educational. It's at the end of the month.
I started to feel better Saturday and getting up Sunday morning wasn't the horror I thought it would be. I felt pretty good and did 8 miles, which I was very happy with.
I'm feeling almost 100% back to normal again today. I'm also wondering if it has something to do with drinking coffee again. Since mid-January I was limited to one cup a week, but it's Roll up the Rim** time, and I've had a coffee*** everyday for the last week.
* alone
** A yearly promotion at Tim Hortons, you roll up the rim on your cup and you could win money, a car, computers, etc ... so far in nine attempts I have won one coffee.
*** I left my coffee theory to the end because I am loving having a coffee everyday again, it completes me. I really don't want my tiredness to be linked in anyway to caffeine.
Normally speed work is indoors at the university track on a Tuesday night. This week it was outdoors.
When I was packing my bag of running stuff, it was deceiving sunny out, making me think it was warm. So I didn't pack a hat or headband-ear-protector-thingy.
When we started the run it was (-18/-4).
We had a warmup (which made me colder than before), then 3 loops of a 1.5 mile route around the park.
At the end of loop one, my ears were throbbing, so I ran the second loop with my hands on my ears, screaming ".... la la la la can't hear you"
By the end of loop two it felt like an axe was impaled in my forehead.
When I got back to my car I put the heater on full and stuck my head as close to the vent as my lack of flexibility would allow.
The non-ice-cream headache lasted til almost 11pm. My head must be pretty dense to take that long to thaw!
]]>I love a challenge ... well ... unless it's the Ab Challenge with the smiley happy model, that just makes me want to stick hot pokers in eyes.
Chandra has put together The March Boot Buster Challenge!
What I like about this type of challenge are the points. You get points for everything. Well almost everything, all the good things that we should be doing. Exercise, eating well, drinking water, even stretching.
Here's the point system:
Exercise Points:
1 point per mile walked/ran
1 point per 15 minutes of "other" cardio (ie spinning, kickboxing, step, etc...)
1 point per 15 minutes weight training or pilates
1 point per 30 minutes of yoga or stretching or abs
Healthy Eating Points:
1 point for every 3 servings of fruit/vegetable eaten
1 point per 24oz water drank (max of 16oz can come from tea/coffee)
Yesterday I racked up 13 points. I love obsessing about the points. I've already calculated what I could potentially earn today and the rest of the week, then I re-calculate my total points if I drank the equivalent to a small lake of water, and ate nothing but vegetables.
I realize this makes me appear slightly unstable. Don't worry I am completely aware of the new level of insanity I have reached. As long as your are aware you aren't really crazy ... right?
It's 11am, I've been playing with my point spreadsheet, downloading the cycle schedule and checking my mileage for way too long. I wonder how long my enthusiasm for points and my status as employed will last?
]]>This afternoon a friend called, she is joining the gym and needed some cute workout gear to motivate her to go. Totally logical. I relate completely.
So off we went to Lululemon.
The purpose was to find her cute outfits, she headed to the changing room and I brought items for her to try on. This worked for 2 minutes. Then I started loading my arms up with things for me ... oops.
I ended up buying these two ...
a bright pink zip up jacket and the most fantastic running shirt ever invented.
the jacket ...
and this (SPF Shrug Tech), at first glance it looks like a long sleeve running shirt. But it's more than that, so much more than that. It's a tank and a detactable shrug. That's right, two in one. So on a coolish morning you start out with both, then as you warm up, take of the shrug ... brilliant! If that's not enough, the sleeves have thumb holes.
I love it!
]]>Since S was out of town on business I was the stand in.
Last night was a lot of squats and lunges, lunges and squats and kicking, making today a lot of standing.
It was a great workout. I really like the interval style workout and the time flew by making fun of each other ... okay D making fun of me.
But today ....
OUCH ...
When I have to sit, like say on the toilet (and yes I have tried to imagine a way of doing it without sitting), I get halfway down, butt muscles spasm and I drop with a bang. Which is a lot less painful than getting up is!
I am going to mask the pain in my arse with copious amounts of alcohol.
]]>The one and only mention of the challenge is when I said I was going to do it.
Flashback to January 19th (time travel just like Lost)
Wooo hooo sign me up! I'm in! I'll the Self Magazines Ab Workout three times a week for a month.
This will be so much fun!
January 20th ... living room floor ...
Workout on my laptop screen. Have to keep getting up and re-reading the instructions.
It might have been the instructions or my interpretation of them, but I couldn't seem to grasp what I was doing.
The Jeannie
Targets: Sides (obliques)
Kneel with forearms one on top of the other. Keeping shins as planted as possible, slowly lower hips to left, allowing torso to bend right as you sit on left hip (as shown). Squeeze abs to return to start. Repeat to right to complete one rep. Do 12 reps.
I'm a visual person, if someone shows me I get, or even if there were two pictures I think I would understand better.
I found it really frustrating.
I did the whole workout - well my version of it.
... three days go by ....
why did I sign up for this? I'll try again.
The second time was better and worse. I didn't have to refer to the computer screen as often, but I've decided I hate this workout and don't want to do it.
Complete 3/4 of workout half-heartily.
... a week after that ...
Watching celebrities with flat stomachs and guilt of ditching the program forces me back to the floor.
I don't even bother to open my laptop. I just do 3 sets of crunches. I like simple.
Self Magazines Ab Workout - review
I didn't like it. It just wasn't for me. The pictures and explanations were complicated and confusing. Most of the exercises were new to me so that didn't help. Plus the girl in the picture is always smiling. It's unnerving. Who smiles when they are doing an ab workout.
]]>I hadn't anything planned for today, especially running. I'd run on Saturday and Sunday, but when I got up this morning the sun was shining, the temperature wasn't too cold. I couldn't resist.
I headed out to do my 5k home loop, but missed the turn off cause I was singing (out loud and out of tune) so I ended up doing the 7k loop. Todays run was the best of the three this weekend.
Feel free to praise ...
]]>Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
My ideas always seem great when they are conceived.
Matty in cycle gear. Okay so no bike or anything to do with a spin class. Really just an excuse to post a pic of Matty.
The class starts at 6am.
My alarm goes off at 5am.
Then I press snooze til 5.27am and convince myself that the torture device they call a seat will be miraculously re-invented by lazy boy today.
It never is.
I was so tired this morning after class I had to break my 'coffee only on Saturday' rule. The hair netted staff are not morning people.
I'm in the office 45 minutes early on cycle days, except there is no one here to witness it. I've sent out various trivial email to impress everyone with the time, and cut me some slack when I doze off in our 9am staff meeting.
]]>It's not a chain.
It's not reasonably priced.
It doesn't provide great customer service, actually the service is slow, and the staff are rude.
It has two things going for it.
Location
It's in the building. You don't have to risk your life and extremities venturing out in Canadian winter to get your java fix.
Entertainment
It's always an experience. You either get yelled at or ignored. We have an office pool each day on what it'll be. They are not so much "Hi, what can I get you?" and more a sharp 'yeah?" followed by a long piercing stare. The staff love there jobs.
Today the staff were particularly angry.
I'm thinking it was the hair nets they are now donning. The lady with the perm was making hers work, although her circa 1986 bangs weren't inside in the net, which I am guessing defeats the purpose.
Anyway, what really worries me is why they had to start wearing the nets?
]]>My dedication is really unstoppable! I should have some outlet, a place where I wax lyrically about how wonderful I am, stroking my own ego ... oh wait I do!
The superbowl ...
I realize that I know nothing about football. It's like an extended episode of Lost to me. I don't understand, the points, penalties, the clock, or a thing called safety.
But I don't care, because
... anyone have any good recipes for groundhog?
]]>I was going to say since the beginning of January, but then I remembered besides for a 5k santa run, the half in Vegas, and a pub run where I was intoxicated for most of I didn't really run in December. So on the back burner since December. Except I really didn't train for the half, I did a couple 10 milers in November but that was it.
Really running has been number 26 on the priority list since crossing the line in Grand Rapids in October. That's over three months.
Not really shocking then that running feels well kinda tough. Add in the fact that I haven't run outside in three weeks. Yes that's right 21 days. I've run but on the treadmill, in the perfect climate while being entertained by Anderson Cooper or Oprah or on the indoor track for speedwork.
I've been living a very sheltered life, sheltered and happy, sheltered and warm.
All that changed this morning when I headed out. Out as in outside with the group. At first the fresh air felt great, but quickly it became hard breathing the fresh air because my cardio has turned to crap. Like cough up a lung crap.
You know the biggest draw back to running outside rather than on the treadmill, beside your ears freezing and falling off? When you have had enough on the treadmill, you press stop, step off, you are exactly where you started. Outside, you are miles from the start. Miles to bitch, whine, think up a new plan and wish you had money for a cab.
Running has moved up the priority chart with a silver bullet. My self imposed exile from the running world and the elements is over.
Tomorrow is February 1st, the first official day of training for the half in May.
]]>For 14 days I didn't really miss sweet stuff. It was here, at work, left over chocolate and cake, free for the taking 8 hours a day. I didn't touch it not once. Not even a sniff.
This week, it's all I can think about.
There were homemade brownies Tuesday night after speedwork. Those were easy to resist. I knew if I ate one at 10pm I would be awake all night. As delicious as they looked I needed to sleep more.
Yesterday we had a huge box of toffee here and today someone, someone I am affectionately calling 'bitch' has brought in a huge plate of homemade chocolate chip cookies.
The soft kind.
That melt and bend and whisper sweet nothings in your ear.
There is a wall, a desk and 4 metres between me and the cookies. I can smell them.
I could have one. Just one. But I want the whole plate. All two dozen. Then pass out in a diabetic coma. Heaven ...
Even the picture of this brownie makes me want to lick the screen.
]]>"large coffee, please"
15.5 hours of hot yoga
no meat
no coffee
no diet pepsi
no alcohol
no processed foods
no sugar
took my vitamins every day
Was it successful?
Besides for missing a hot yoga class on Thursday I would say this was a success, and much easier than I thought it would be. Not super, didn't feel tempted wondered at times why, but I didn't kill anyone easy.
It also made me aware of where I go wrong and why. Convenience, snacks, treats and I'll have a toasted bagel too please!
How do I feel?
I definitely felt good physically during the cleanse and in control. I didn't realise just how good I felt until it was over. The coffee was delicious, everything I thought, dreamt, fantasied it would be, it did not disappoint.
But afterwards I felt lethargic and lazy. I can't completely blame the coffee. I am sick today. Some sort of stomach bug that sprung to life at 3.56am this morning. Ironically, I felt great for 14-days and less than 24 hours, one large coffee and a bag of cadbury's mini eggs and I'm ill.
Go figure ...
As much fun as barfing and napping all day is, I like feeling good. So I am going to keep a lot of things or modify them to fit into life.
Continuing doing hot yoga but only 3 times a week.
Keep the diet the same but allow for flexibility.
Coffee only on Saturday mornings (unless it makes me feel like crap again)
Sunday is treat and diet pepsi day so something I've been craving I can have and wash it down with a dp. I wish I could say I'm I giving it up totally, but I can't, the thought makes me want to od on diet pepsi.
Now I'm going to have nap number 4 of the day.
]]>