Crash and Burn-Live and Learn

Catchy title, eh? 

Sunday was a fabulous day. Janean and I took our bicycles out to Smithville Lake, they have put in several miles of great trails that are worth checking out, and rode about 11 miles. Less than 4 miles in there was a bit of a problem though, I crashed. Not your typical fall off the bike crash, but the kind where I didn't have enough for breakfast crash. Good to know for Sunday's "big" ride. I had a bowl of cereal and an english muffin, I knew to get a hotdog while we were at the gas station, but I just didn't feel like it. It was ugly, I took up a lot of time just sitting there eating a clif bar and drinking all of the water. Then Janean had the nerve to say, "you have bodily limitations." Man, what a jerk, I'll show her bodily limitations. I'm not really sure what I mean by that, I just need to work on distance stuff more, you know, train this old body and stuff. Maybe at Sunday's bike ride I can score one of the jerseys for the diabetics and steal their snacks. After nearly swacking some deer and squirrels, we made it half way and ate some beef jerky. We rested for a few minutes, then headed back. The ride back was much better. 

I can't wait til I have a real bike and some of those sweet bars that stick out the front so I can relax a bit (the point of the photo). There were a few tricky hills, but we somehow made it all the way back to the truck and felt really good about the whole ordeal. I'm really excited to do more "long" weekend rides this summer.

Slippery When Wet

I've been MIA and give my apologies. I know everyone is checking in everyday and facing some serious disappointment when they see I've not posted anything new.

My exercising had been dwindling to only a couple of times a week, that's the truth. Mostly bike rides, some running. Now that it's warming up, we are going to the lake quite a bit (3 out of the last 4 weekends) which means I'm getting to swim again. I'm pretty excited about that. But there seems to be a problem.

I've somehow injured my foot. I can't think of anything that I did that would have caused it to hurt so stinking much. It started a little over a week ago, right under my big toe near the first "knuckle". It would go away then come back several hours later for a few hours at a time. It wasn't too big of a deal, but over the course of last week it started hurting a ton, more in the arch and stuff. On Saturday I was swimming, with a 4 year old (thank goodness we had life vests on), and it cramped up so bad my foot looked weird and I could hardly move even my leg. My toes were all stuck in funny positions and stuff. I've tried wearing different shoes, but none of that has helped. Anyone have any ideas what could be causing this or what I can do to help it heal? Staying off of my feet and resting is out of the question, lucky for me, I still have a job, for now.

The Tour De Cure is in 2 weeks and I sure want this awful pain to be gone for it.

Geese and Hills

I'm going to start with last Thursday. It rained pretty much all last week, some minor flooding, bla bla bla, the midwest. So on Thursday, It looked like it had stopped raining so I grabbed my stuff and popped onto my bike. I was wrong, it was still raining, not pouring, but definitely heavier than a sprinkle. That wasn't even the worst part. Drivers of cars seemed to be in their own world, like they didn't have a roof and were just trying to get inside. So as soon as I could I got my butt off of the roads and onto a paved trail. Oh goodness, there were geese all over the place. So there was this one rather huge goose in front of me and I of course tried to be polite and say, "hey goose, here I come." MISTAKE! It totally chased me. I don't know if you've ever been chased by a goose, but it's incredibly frightening. They honk honk honk, stick their nasty little tongues out and flap their wings out at you, and do it all with a big poofy chest. I of course screamed my head off and went flying off of the trail (it's a good thing I still am only using a mountain bike). I thought for sure it was going to take flight and knock me off of my bike. I didn't dare ask another goose to let me through on the trail after that, I instead drove through a lot of muddy grass.

I recently watched a video that told me how to pedal properly. It increased my speed by about 1 mph and made me less nervous about a real bike. It's really funny how everything I've been doing, swimming, running and biking, I've been doing wrong all these years.

I wish we lived some where flatter. These hills are really annoying. I'm trying to focus on just going at a steady pace, but that's really hard when there are such steep hills around every corner.

That's really all I have that's even remotely interesting to talk about right now. I've mostly been focusing on bicycling lately since the Tour de Cure is coming up (my family rules and through just them I've raised just over the minimum). I miss swimming. My future at Hallmark is looking a bit brighter, but I still won't know much for a couple of weeks.

Heard it Through the Grapevine?

I don't mean to be a "Debbie Downer," but all of my plans are headed to the toilet. You have probably heard the news that Hallmark is cutting back. I won't know whether or not that means me for another month or so. In the mean time, I won't be renewing my gym membership, which means no swimming, and I can't register to do a triathlon because I don't know if I'll have insurance. The last couple of days have been really stressful, but I'm starting to feel a little better. My job has been my back up plan, I can finish school, but it's okay if I don't right away, bla bla bla. I don't even know for sure what I'm going to be when I grow up. 

Enough crying about that, it hasn't quite stopped me from exercising. It's temporarily stopped me from swimming and I won't be purchasing a new bike, but I guess I'll just have to make do. The new dumbbell thing is going pretty well, I'm going to be stuck at my little 5 lb weights though, because I can't be buying new ones, ha. The last couple of days I've just "ran" on the elliptical machine because I've been all "boo hoo I don't want to leave the house."

Things will work out. One way or the other, they will work out. The bright side is all the free time I'll have for getting into shape!

Tooting My Own Horn

I ran the whole Penguin Run (1.51 miles) today with only a few steps of walking!  Goose ran with me. We ran it in 14:39. I did not picture being able to run that far so soon, I'm pumped.  I may have walked more if he hadn't been there (Goose is the big dog, by the way). He kept us going at a pretty steady pace although a couple of times I had to make him go a little faster. That's probably why he wouldn't let us walk. He seemed to like it even though he got pretty hot. We keep wanting to get them haircuts, but the new trend is cold and snowy on the weekends.

I finished "Smart Girls Do Dumbbells" and did some strength training with some 5 pound dumbbells today. It was okay, a bit awkward, but hopefully I'll get the hang of it. Now I'm going to have to buy a weight bench.
 

Speaking of buying things, there's a chance I'm going to be laid off. Which makes me nervous that I won't have insurance, which would mean I wouldn't be able to do the triathlon. Which would be a bunch of crap. Hopefully things don't come to that though, although rumor has it. 

Shouldn't it be Getting WARMER?!

I biked today, it was snowing... I cannot express how irritated I am with the weather the last couple of weeks. I had to get all bundled up and look/ feel ridiculous. Any other day I wouldn't have gone due to the "extreme cold," but I had to. It's April for goodness sakes, cold shouldn't be an excuse anymore. 

I took the jogging trail assuming it wouldn't be crowded, I was mostly right. There were a couple of people letting their dogs run around on 30' leashes, probably with the same theory I had about no one being around to bother. I did ride on the road for one side of the park. I came upon a bunch of cars stopped waiting for their little riders to get out of school. There was a bit of a traffic jam with the people trying to get through. So I did what any bad ass in my situation would do and I cut through the muddy grass. I bet I looked super tough and they were all jealous.

Friday I biked and swam. Swimming is a lot harder after biking 3.5 miles, but overall it went well.

Saturday was the exciting part. Janean and I went running, scratch that, we went jogging... We ran the first mile in under 10 minutes. No stopping or anything. As we left, Janean said we had to, but I told her she'd be running without me, but no, I made it. I haven't ran a mile in that kind of time since middle school, I'm not exaggerating. 

For the most part, things are going really well. It's really exciting to actually be getting results. I just hope I can stay motivated. Oh, and I'm going to start some light dumbbell strength training this week. 

One more thing... Janean's mother signed us up for a 5k for the Good Samaritan Center. How exciting right? Ha, it's the 18th of this month and she signed us up to race. 

1/4 As Fast As Michael Phelps... Kind of

I swam 400 yards today. It was pretty fun. It took me right at 16 minutes. I'm  a bit excited and feel like I'm actually accomplishing something. Soon I might have an idea for my 500 yards and I'll be able to register! I'm eating like Michael Phelps too. It's pretty annoying. I mean, I eat quite a bit on a regular day, but all of this exercise has me eating so much. It's so hard to keep it healthy. After I swam, I ate two peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Thank goodness they were in my car or I would have cried. I didn't have time to eat again until 7:30 when I went to the cafe at work. I was starving. I had a chicken thigh and a chicken leg (don't judge my dark meat eating), a big serving of potatoes cooked up in rosemary, a large serving of green beans and my nightly milk. I ate it all up, then I got a hard boiled egg and half a grapefruit. I was still pretty hungry and ended up eating two cookies. Now I'm home from work and considering eating again.

Oh and here's something to ponder... CLICK ME CLICK ME!!!