June Two. Day Two to the Dash.
National Running Day is over, but that doesn’t mean you can’t still get out there and run! If you did it yesterday, go do it again today! Here in Chicago it’s pretty nice right now. Not too hot, and perfect for going outside and working up a sweat! I will be leaving the house shortly to do just that. Thank goodness the Warrior Dash has obstacles to break up all that running! Yesterday was not my proudest day of exercise. The good part is that I managed to get my son out there and moving, but, the sad and pathetic part is, that I struggled with a measly ¼ mile. Really. I was a plodding old lady. Apparently running once a week for varying distances and so inconsistently is not the way to train for anything. Maybe my theory about eating all the junk in the house and drinking all the wine before starting the summer shape up was not as brilliant as it seemed. I probably should have just threw all the crap away. Oh well, too late now! We did manage to squeak out 2 miles though. So we are about to go do again. I really only need about 3.2 miles in a row. Easy peasy lemon squeezy. Be back later.
Hot in the City….
It is Sunday, May 23, in Chicago. It’s a blazing 90 degrees and I have been drinking margarita’s all afternoon. This is my first post, post-nursing, first year. I am done for the summer! Passed successfully the course, the final and the final-final for the past year of material. I will be enjoying this afternoon and evening and start reading some more stuff on Monday. It’s recommended. But, no pressure so its really more for fun. Haha.
Anyway, let me rewind the week, but fast-forward the boring parts (zip it Amanda…some people do not think this is ALL boring like you…har har) anyhoo…let’s see…oh yes…my sister (Amanda) squeezed out yet ANOTHER child into this world…good job! Welcome Everet Jase! Congrats to the family!
I passed my classes, I registered for fall, I paid for fall (lots of money I don’t actually have…and don’t even qualify for using student aid…but hoping for good luck with some working scholarship money, and I bought some lottery tickets also as a back up plan.
Saturday, myself and the family (kids and bf), babysat for the new bean so my sister could go to a wedding and try to wear sexy clothes and drink for the first time in 9 months. She looked cute but the alcohol didn’t take. She tried her best but we are thinking that the bartender thought she was still a pregnant lady and gave her non-alcohol drinks! We have to get that baby weight off! Which leads me to our next big thing…Warrior Dash! It is coming fast and neither of us is ready and I don’t have a baby as an excuse for my chub…only fast food and laziness. So that means you get to follow along on the progress all summer! I may have pictures…they are guaranteed to be funnier this year because they have that same wall for me to not be able to climb over again AND a new net-wall-army-thing that I will probably never get my big booty up on. So you’ll definitely want to stay tuned.
After the babysitting, 3 am, yikes, and an hour drive home, we get to bed at 4. Kids leave at 11 ish to go to an other-family-thing with their dad, and I get the idea to go for a nice bike ride with the bf, you know, get a jump start on the massive diet and exercise program that begins tomorrow for this entire household. The “Summer of Slim”, the “Focus on Fat”, the “Abolishment of Adipose”…we need a catchy slogan for my program, especially since we will all be crying by Tuesday about how hungry and tired we are of this horrible plan…and how we’d rather just stay fat…no no, not this year. My goal is my son. Slim by seventh…that’s good too…hmmmm….anyway, it’s happening and I will be unliked for some time this summer.
Back to the bike ride…we decided on a modest 9 miles (thank goodness the bf doesn’t listen to me, because I first suggested the 19 mile loop we were doing last year, which we would still be doing right now). So, to the trail, on the bikes, riding, riding, riding, sweating, hills, 90 degrees, more hills, sweating, still riding…9 miles is really long, even on a bike, if you haven’t done it in a year, finally down to 2.8 left, I was like, what???, man I thought we were done, but we made it back to the car and even went past and back to make it a nice even 10 miles. Felt good. Felt sexy, in that sweaty, I-just-exercised-don’t-I-glisten-in-the-sun kind of way! And then driving home we go right past this Mexican restaurant with awesome margarita’s and I said that’s what we should do…have margarita’s for the rest of the day. So we change, drive back, drink margarita’s, eat guacamole and enchilada’s with green sauce, and watch the Hawks win it for the city! But the fun doesn’t end there….we need home margarita ingredients!
To the liquor store…got it all, Tequila, mixer, salt, limes….and more heat. It’s still like 80 something outside, no air conditioning inside, wouldn’t put it on anyway because it’s only May, and it’s 8 o’clock pm. I’m on, like my third glass, but it’s hard to tell because it’s never really an empty-fill thing, it’s more like a continual addition to what is already in the glass thing. At any rate, it’s lovely, and it’s getting hard to type or see, because dusk is upon us here in the Midwest. My kids should be home soon. Dirty and sweaty from their day and needing showers for school in the a.m. Well, shower for one anyway…the girl broke her arm again and is limited to baths with her cast sticking out…I have pictures!
I have lots and lots and lots more stuff to tell and write and show and post, I have missed so much since Easter because of school, but I shall have the whole summer to amuse my loyal fan base!
I also have pictures but cannot post any because I am not typing this on my computer where the pictures are. My computer is trying to get reconfigured for better speed and quality of content. So this will have to be good for now.
I have money to post! I have found alot of spare change in the last few months. I have saved it all for you in one location so I can total it up and be very dramatic about it. And I have Cool Words galore thanks to my girl…she has been saving them and is anxious to start helping me. I have Warrior Dash training, and PF 5-Mile training, and get-my-son-slim-by end-of-summer training and healthy cooking (?) attempting, and music! Music music…I have been so slacked…playlists and inspiration….you do not want to miss any of it!!
Also I want to thank my followers, particularly the one who sent me the notice about the creator of my favorite coffee cup…the New York Coffee Cup….we are happy to serve you…blue with gold trim….passing away recently. I have the Time magazine write-up abut it and him and the iconic piece of history he left behind. Thank you for keeping me informed when I cannot! If you want to see more about the cup, click here, NYCC, and if you just want more, I will be back soon with all the good stuff…hopefully late late tonight or tomorrow once the computer is fixed, the kids hit school and I hit the gym (training starts NOW), I also need some healthy food items in the house…we are down to coffee, 4 slices of bread, almond and rice milk, and eggs…which I am going to go boil right now for tomorrow.
Until then, have another drink, maybe one more for tonight, and enjoy the heat wherever you are. It’s good to be back! Cheers.
Running 55 and Under!
Labor Day Weekend! Scenic 5 (Mile)! We did it! I know it’s been a week but I’ve had school. I’ll always have school…but for now this is about the race.
If you have been following along, I was running five miles fairly easily. In about an hour or less depending on traffic lights. (I said easy–not fast)
So I was pretty confident I could do under an hour, for sure, in the actual race. And I did! And thanks to my running partner, Wayne, I was able to aim for 55 minutes or less. And I got that! My official time was 54 minutes and 32 seconds. I consider that pretty good. I was ninth finisher in my age bracket. I made the top 10! (In my age bracket) (Oh and did I mention that there were only 17 total IN my age bracket…) HAHAHA. I don’t care! It still counts!! I was 304 out of 372. That’s pretty funny too! I was on page 8 of the results. Next year, I’m going for page 7. Oh yeah. High hopes! Small steps! Also, I almost threw up at the end. I really hate when that happens! When I crossed the finish line, I started dry heaving. I felt bad for the nice woman who was trying to give me my finishing medal. She’s reaching out, I’m dry heaving, she’s recoiling in horror…I got it together and was fine in a few. Luckily I never eat before I run. Lucky for all of us. That’s probably enough gross stuff.
Wayne did good too. First race for him, and he ran coming off of surgery and an ankle injury, and I still couldn’t beat him! I was actually slowing him down but he (kindly) said he was speeding me up! True. Thanks Wayney! He beat me by two minutes! He was on page 7!! Curses!!
Next year. There’s always next year. Here are some photos. Forgot the camera, but I always have my phone.
The line up to start.
Wayne. (In black)
Me. I have to laugh at this because my hair and leg makes me look like I'm just speeding across the line, robot-style, all 9o degree angles, but in a movie and in slow-mo, and really I was just trying not to be sick. Funny.
Don’t Read TIME Magazine!!
Or NewsWeek, or any of the other kind of magazines that make you think about the world and problems and issues and things that are important to life and living here in America and on Earth. If you do, you will only be sorry. Like me.
I feel bad because I did read the TIME magazine this morning, BB (Before Burrito’s) and before Bike Riding, and it makes the silly stuff I talk about all day seem kind of lame. I should have a point or a view and opinions and controversy. But I don’t. I have ideas. But then I see a colorful bird in a tree or a strange frog on the sidewalk and I forget all about deeper issues.
I really do have a master plan, and I do have some really good life improving ideas, but I need to get through school first so I can start earning the kind of money and hooking up with the right kind of connections to put things in place. Plus, I have to get my kids up and ready for high school. That’s their first step toward all of the rest of the education they are going to be required to have to make any kind of difference in this world.
I bring it up now, because I am going to be posting stuff that I get from the “smart” mags along with the usual crap I get from the internet and the gossip mags my brain absorbs like a dried up jellyfish. Plus, I may be suffering some kind of post-exercise-nature-beauty-world-love withdrawal, as the coffee and vodka (not together) courses back into my veins and displaces all the healthy-oxygen-clean-pure-blood, but it takes time!
And! I have some International New Features I want to post! The BF’s good friend from work just moved to Germany with her hubby and sent an e-mail and photo’s that are absolutely out of this world, funny and brilliant and real-world people perspective of other places on the globe. And she said I could post it all here!
For now though, here’s my stuff: We rode those bikes, in the rain (it stopped now and then) for 19.2 miles! Once we got out there the actual trail was a bit longer. Took us One hour and 45 minutes. Not bad for ups/downs/traffic/road crossings/the requisite work phone call (BF is on the job) and a stop to take a picture of an old cemetery that was there in the early 1900’s. The sign explains it, but the Forest Preserve acquired the land with the cemetery on it and chose to keep it as it was. History and all. Now you can say the site is educational and we can both feel better.
There were power lines too! Giant, humming, massive towers that were really crackling in the rain. I was so in awe of being that close and riding underneath all of them that I forgot to take any pictures. It’s probably good anyway. I would have pulled my phone out, aimed it up at the wires and got electrocuted when an arc of electricity shot out and grabbed the cell killing me on the spot. That would have sucked.
See? No sense of world. Ooooh…power lines. Electricity. Well, without it, we couldn’t type or read this, so….it needs to propped!
Anyway, if we go back tomorrow—which I’d like to—I will get those pics. It is pretty amazing. I know people that live by them don’t necessarily think so, but I don’t have my brains getting fried on a day-to-day basis…or…?? Just kidding. Seriously. I don’t really think brains are getting fried just because of power lines. You don’t need to live by the high wire to get the high if you know what I mean.
Also, in case you were wondering, I think I successfully burned off all the cals from those terrible, but delicious burrito’s. I checked the internet for an exercise calculator and it says I did. Now, what’s for dinner? Let me finish my vodka lemonade and think about it while you look at pictures of headstones and a sign.
Every excuse in the book…
For why it took me a dismal 47 minutes to run around 3.7 miles.
1. The air temperature was 87 degrees at 3 pm.
2. There was no wind.
3. And no shade.
4. The sun was blazing down like hellfire.
5. I had a rock in my shoe.
6. And a cramp in my leg.
7. And a weird pain in my ankle going down to the bottom of my foot.
8. I have my period.
9. I have my period.
10. I just ran 5 miles yesterday.
11. The direction I ran has more of an uphill slope almost the entire way.
12. I still have a scorching sunburn on my chest from the weekend. (Sport bra was rubbing and causing blisters)
13. My earphones kept falling out.
14. Or pulling too tight at the neck. (Tucked in my shirt collar and thru the sleeve to my arm band)
15. Wispy hairs kept sticking to my face.
16. Sweat was dripping in my eyes.
I could probably keep going but it won’t change the fact that today’s run was made on sheer willpower alone. Seriously.
I had zero desire and zero strength to get around. At the one mile to-go mark (going backwards from the norm), I wanted to stop. And I don’t mean just stop running. I wanted to completely stop and lay down on the track. I was actually arguing with myself about NOT stopping. Telling myself, I could not just stop right there and I really couldn’t sit down much less LAY down on the trail. Besides the car was still a mile away, and how did I think I was going to get there?? I’m like, just go. Just keep going. Breathe in, count steps, count breaths, whatever…here comes a tree, here comes another tree, ¾, ½, ¼, here’s that garbage can, here’s that pink kid croc shoe that somebody must have lost yesterday, I can see the car, keep going, don’t throw up, here’s the port-a-potty, the parking lot, the car, you made it!
And now I am home again. Almost forgetting…that’s how it gets you! Exercise is only hard at the time. Otherwise it feels pretty good.
And since I’m feeling successful and numb, here’s those pics I mentioned earlier. See how I buried them way in here! You gotta be a fan to get the good stuff! Thanks Jay for taking such a flattering picture! And thanks Amanda for that concerned face while helping me over, making it look like I weigh 300 pounds! I love you guys! Ann Or Ex E Uh! Next year! (I posted them full-size for that extra added chuckle)
I'm much more flexible, and not THAT heavy, but I still couldn't have made it over myself. Next year. Little jog, little skip, up and over! Take that, horrible waterproof disposable low speed film camera (with unfair sharpness and clarity).
In my defense, my butt is not really THAT huge. It LOOKS huge, that is true. But it's the angle. The shorts. The other shorts. I am MUCH better looking in real life. And thinner. I swear!
Today was kind of slow and stiff…and not in the good way (sorry)
The second day is always harder. You’re stiff, you’re sore, you don’t want to be outside…and it was nice and hot and sunny.
The sky was beautiful. I took pictures of the globe we were running in…but those will have to wait. Have something secret to do tonight. So I’ll be back tomorrow.
Know that Mason did good today. He made it all the way around (3.6 miles) and even ran about one of those miles!
And we saw some kind of weird looking frog. Kind of thin and sparkly, brown skin with gold pin stripes and black spots. He could jump far in a single leap. Picture below.
See you all later!
just shy of pretty 