Tuesday, February 26, 2008

Woo Hoo

WH has had a couple of promising job interviews and might be getting an offer soon, and we just found out today our tax refund will be good enough I can get the treadmill I've been lusting after!


That means a return to actual paychecks, health insurance, and not having to carve out 90 minutes to get in a 30 minute run! YAY!!

Sunday, February 24, 2008

Just A Tease

A couple days ago I got my chores done, got the baby fed and realized I had a couple hours before I had to start dinner. So I decided to carpe diem.

I went to my "new" gym (same as the old gym, but smaller and with less services). First time in a gym in about 4 months... first genuine attempt at running in nearly a year.

I ran some easy(ish) intervals. Top working pace was 13:20, which is good for me regarldess of the circumstances. It even felt a little slow, but I wasn't dumb enough to push any harder than that.

It was wonderful. I worked hard enough to actually need the bottle of Nuun I'd brought and to feel like the trip was worth it.

And. Right there in the middle of it all.... I gots me a leetle bitty taste of the ooooh so elusive Runner's High.

Just a Tiny. Little. Taste.

Like one of those bite-size Halloween candy bars. Decadent and delicious and really nothing but a tease.

SO. Worth it. And SO. Making me want to keep chasing it down the rabbit hole.

(Several days later my legs are still bitching me out over the incident. Seems THEY were the only part of me that remembered the whole 'haven't run in a year' thing. But I'm sure they'll forgive me and I'll be able to climb the stairs again soon enough.)

Wednesday, February 20, 2008

Making it Work. Maybe.

I kinda sorta think I found a time slot when I could probably work out. At least, work out in the limited scope of the equipment I've got at home. (Which means no swimming or real running or real biking.)

Baby Bear has started waking up very consistently around 7, eating, then falling back asleep for 1-4 hours (usually 1-2 hours, but sometimes I get lucky).

I could get up and work out as soon as he's done eating around 7:30. Should, actually. It would fit into my regular work schedule too - everyone I work with knows I don't answer the phone before 9 or book meetings before 10.

What I have been doing is going back to sleep for another hour or so to make up for the sleep I lose when I'm up feeding him at midnight. If he's still asleep when I finally feel functional then I tiptoe around, getting in as much housework as I can.

So, on an average day, for as long as he continues to sleep in this pattern, it would appear I have the time to get in some exercise.

Now I just have to DO it.

Saturday, February 16, 2008

Newest Prized Possession

Because I geek out about equipment for my other big hobby as I do about tri gear. : D

It might take me a year or two to save up to buy each one of these beauties, but they are soooo worth the wait.

That's 8 inches of carbon steel goodness, baby!!

Thursday, February 14, 2008

Body Glide Moment

So, last night the baby took an extra long nap and I decided to sneak in a quick elliptical workout.

I grabbed my iPod, got in 30 minutes on the machine (incidentally, 15 minutes in I was telling the dog how much harder this was than I remembered) and hopped into the shower. As I soaped up, there was a distinct - and sadly familiar - burning sensation on the back of my arm.

Ooooh da shame.

I gots da Chub Rub.

Haven't had it in ages. At least, not on the backs of my arms. I'd lost enough weight and gained enough muscle tone that my upper arms lost several inches, and I thought that problem had long since been eliminated.

Apparently the whole torn shoulder ligament thing, followed by the ban on swimming and weight lifting, followed by the crappy couldn't work out for months pregnancy... had an impact on the ol' triceps.

I seriously never thought I'd need to break out the Body Glide for a quickie in my own bedroom...

Sunday, February 10, 2008

Too Pretty to Eat

The other night I was staring down some of my biggest problems (my currently insatiable appetite, my corresponding inability to lose weight and a fridge overflowing with leftovers and the recent organic veggie delivery). So I got creative. Did you know it's possible to use 7 vegetables in one dinner? And use the leftover rice, leftover chicken and the last of that cranberry apple chutney we canned last year?

I love it when I'm basically cleaning out the fridge and still manage to make something that's incredibly healthy, low calorie and too pretty to eat.

Friday, February 08, 2008

One Problem Solved

In the weeks since my gym closed and kicked us all out, leaving me desperate for a pool, I started asking around about its sister facility in the next town over. To my absolute frustration, over the last 3 months I received the following contradictory reports:

- it does not have a pool (from quite a few people, including ones who claim to have been there)
- it has a pool, but it's smaller (from an employee)
- it closed at the same time as my gym (from the Parks and Rec people)
- it's still open but is struggling financially and changed its rate structure (from an employee)

I finally gave up trying to get the information secondhand and drove my ass over there after yoga today. It's about twice as far as my old gym but since it's through a rural area with no stoplights it only takes a few minutes more in travel time. (Oh, and I totally got lost on the way trying to take a shortcut. I was 10 minutes from my own house and had to call my BF to ask for directions. Good times.)

Anyway, there is a pool but it is smaller (about 40 feet long). But, doesn't have all those pesky water aerobics classes to interfere with my swim workouts! (Bad for other members, great for me.) AND, my favorite part... this gym has one of those secret entrances from the locker room to the pool so you don't have to parade through the lobby in a bathing suit.

The part about rate structure was true, too, but in a good way - they cut memberships in HALF to compete with the newer chain gyms going into local strip malls. So I paid for WH too, and it still cost less than my single membership before. Added extra bonus - the new manager at this gym was the old assistant manager at my old gym and kind of a friend of mine (in an 'occasionally go to the same parties' kind of way). So she not only waived the join fee, she told me I can bring the baby to the pool any time!

So, Yay! It's not like I've got time to actually use the pool right now, but at least I can officially come down off the "there's nowhere to swim" ledge. It's about the worst possible pool you can imagine and it's not in a convenient location, but at this point water is water and for 30 bucks a month I'll take it.

Thursday, February 07, 2008

Painful Reintroductions and New Math

Well, it had to happen sooner or later. The Little Geek decided to take a nice long nap this afternoon, so I decided to let the laundry sit for another day to make it sooner.

After 7 months of it hanging from the ceiling and 2 weeks of it staring at me from the trainer, I got back on the bike.

(Well, first I almost fell over trying to get back on it. THEN I actually got back on it.)

Ho. Ly. Crap. Did that ever hurt.

I eeked out a cadence of 75 rpm. Just. Barely. And that was after 5 minutes of warming up and scraping out 60 rpm in a pathetically easy gear.

There was a screaming contest between my saddle contact parts and my quads, which was nice. It kind of made me think about what women have dubbed "pregnesia." I mean, I remember starting out on the racing bike a few years ago sucking, but I don't remember it hurting quite this much.

And while I was at it, I learned some new math...

Original poochy tummy + aerobars = not great but doable
Newly extra poochy mommy tummy + aerobars = So. Not. Happening.

And I got all this crunchy backed, ouchy bottomed, burny quad goodness for the low, low price of 5 miles in 20 minutes.

Oy.

Monday, February 04, 2008

RIP

My computer died yesterday. It's DEAD dead, in a "my, what a lovely doorstop" kind of way.

Thankfully the automated backup ran Saturday night, so I didn't lose any business files at all.

BUT. I lost The Calorie Nazi.

And I didn't just lose the application, I lost all my data, including all my personal recipes and food preferences I have so painstakingly spent the last year adding in.

All the rest of my personal files were backed up. We just didn't realize those files weren't in my primary directories (the ones we have on the back-up schedule).

So, I have to go spend money I can't afford to buy a new computer today. And then spend the next week or so going through the torture of setting it all up the way I like. And then I'll get even MORE behind in blogging (at this point Google Reader would be better off just slapping an infinity symbol on my unread post count) and, ya know, the other general online stuff that really matters : )

I will revive The Calorie Nazi. I think. But it's going to be painful and time-consuming. And not just because the keys that I need to download the software without buying it again were among the lost files. I'm in a weird place with the diet and exercise right now - motivated but overwhelmed with the lack of time to act on it - and it would be reaaaaally easy to let him rest in peace.