I see a half mary in your future......

Only 3 more days until the Maine Marathon.  I am running the 1/2 marathon.  That would be 13.1 miles, for those not in the know.  I can't really believe it myself.  If you had asked me a year ago if I would ever run a half marathon, I would have laughed in your face.  In fact, a friend did ask me, and I did laugh.  But here I am.  It may not be pretty, or it could go quite well.  We'll see.  I figure if I run 9 minute miles I should be able to finish in under/around 2 hours.  That is my hope. 

September has been a down month for training though, so I'm a little worried about that.  It has just been crazy with all three kids doing so many activities, I haven't had a lot of time to get my runs in.  Not to mention, it's dark at 6:30 p.m. now.  I've been doing a lot of this:

Big sissy!

and this:

manimal!

and some more of this:

Yes!  That is Princess in the all white shin guards!!

Playing a sport!!!

So unfortunately, there hasn't been much time for this:

Not the old lady with flabby skin look--no, there's plenty of time for that.  I mean the running part.  So we'll have to see what happens.  I'm not going to have a cheering squad for this one, I'm flying solo.  I have to be there at the ass crack of dawn and then Big Sissy has her first AAU basketball game an hour in the opposite direction at 9:30 a.m.  If I run like the wind and leave right after, I should be able to make her second game.  That will be my motivation.  Plus, it looks like it's going to rain.  Figures.  Get that shit done and get the hell out of there.  That is my mantra for this race. 

See you all on Monday after I am a half marathon finisher! 

It's not easy

Oh, Nike.  How I love your ads. 

Anything worth doing is not easy.

Is that a telomere in your pocket or are you happy to see me?

I <heart> weekends.  Even weekends that are jam-pack filled with things to do.  And even weekends that I have to go to continuing education.  Yes, us doctor-like people still have to go to 'school' to keep our smartness license to practice.  This allows us to stay abreast (ha!) of any new treatments.  Clearly from my last post, there are not any English related classes.... but that's another subject.  Anyhoo, so I went to class on Friday and Sunday.  Friday's class was all about neuroanatomy and brain lesions/tumors.  Very important stuff but very tedious.  Besides that, the lecturer was so dry and had that God-awful southern accent with the drawl, that I could barely understand what he was saying.  Sunday, on the other hand, was a great lecture with interesting topics and an engaging lecturer from NYC.  (Which has it's own drawbacks, but at least I could understand him.)

Ok, so to get to the point of this babble.  I won't bore you with all the detiails of the lecture, but at one point he began talking about how important exercise is for the overall health of your body, and eyes!  Well, duh you say.  But he went on to say that people who 40 minutes of exercise 3-5 x week have longer telomeres than those that did not.  (English please?)  Telomeres are like the plastic tips on the ends of your shoelaces. They are the ends of your chromosomes and protect the chromosomes from fraying and sticking together, which would scramble an organism's genetic information to cause cancer, other disease and death.  (source for all information in this post about telomeres)

Over time, telomeres get shorter with each cell division.  When they get too short, the cell can no longer divide and then dies.  This process is associated with aging, cancer and death.  One of the diseases associated with the shortened telomeres, is glaucoma.  Glaucoma is an eye disease that is caused by higher pressure in the eye.  It damages the optice nerve and causes side vision loss and eventually central vision loss.  Those that exercised regularly, were able to lower their eye pressure by 3-5 points!  Imagine!  A free treatment for glaucoma. 

So, long story short, all this exercise you do DOES play a role in keeping you healthy and cancer/disease free AND can help you keep your eyesight as you age.  Even if you don't care about being fit and not taking a million pills for diabetes, hypertension etc, most people are very concerened and worried about losing their eyesight.  And here is a free treatment to help you avoid glaucoma.  Free!  Grab your sneakers and walk, run, jog, bike whatever.  In the words of Nike,  Just Do It!!  Then you will be the envy of all your friends for your long, luscious telomeres.  :)
 

dumbass

So I am a dumbass.  My entire life I have been spelling definitely as definately and thinking it was correct.  I am not stupid and I consider myself to be a pretty good speller so this was a shock to me.  Want to know how I found out of my incorrect spelling?  Texting on my phone.  My freakin' blackberry phone told me I was spelling it wrong.  How stupid did I feel.  Not to mention that I actually thought the phone's spell check was wrong.  So I googled it.  (Seriously, what did we ever do without google??)  Yup.  Wrong.  Me, that is.  Not the phone. 

Guess I'm not the only one though, since it is on the 100 most commonly misspelled words list. 

Ok, so here's another dumbass thing I've been doing my whole life that I just found while googling (there it is again!) grammar/spelling mistakes.  Apparently, i.e. does not mean 'for example' like I thought.  That abbreviation is e.g.  The abbreviation i.e. means 'that is' or 'in other words'.  So I have been using that term wrong my whole life as well.  Good God!  Did I learn anything in English class? 

No wonder no one reads my blog--they must all think I am an idiot.

So I will take this blog space to review some common spelling and grammatical errors.  For those of you that are a dumbass like me.  (I know there's something wrong with that sentence as well, but whatever.)

Common Spelling Errors

definitely  not definately

ridiculous this stumped me for many years

a lot  two words not one

affect  verb

effect  noun

accept  don't mix these up--this one is to receive willingly

except  to exclude or leave out

i.e.  means that is or in other words   I am going to the place where I work best, i.e. the bathroom.

e.g.  means for example   I do not know how to spell many words, e.g. definitely and ridiculous.

your, you're  just learn it, for cripes sake

their, they're and there  another one that everyone should just know already

loose  That noose is too loose on your neck.

lose  You will lose your shirt because you suck at poker.

apparently  if you read my unedited original post, you will know that I spelled this word wrong too

This list could go on and on.  I suppose I'll add to it as I come across more words that I do not know how to spell or use properly.  Now on to your regularly scheduled program.



P.S.  I am adding this after posting the original post.  I was informed that I also spelled apparently wrong.  In my post talking about spelling errors!!  Seriously.  I. Am. A. Dumbass.   

Blogger's Block broken by a Squirrel

I'm sure all of you have had it one time or another.  But I have had a case of blogger's block.  I haven't really had a thing to write about.  Maybe it's all the other stuff I've had on my mind lately and how busy I've been.  I hope to get back in the swing of things again and hopefully not bore you all to tears. 

I took the day off on Friday to go with my son's 1st grade class on their field trip.  (Hopefully, that gets me off the hook for future field trips.....)  The class went out to Squirrel Island for hiking and storytelling and lunch.  What a great day!  Fall weather has definitely arrived and it was a brisk 40 deg on the boat ride out.  Brrr!  But the temperature went up nicely as the day went on. 

Squirrel Island is a little island just off of Boothbay Harbor and in the summer it is filled with 'people from away'.  Most of them have left for warmer weather now, so the island was pretty empty.  Just 1st graders and some carpenters and painters.  It was so beautiful. 

There are no cars on the island, I did see a couple of work trucks and tractors, but most of the time groceries and supplies for building or repair have to be brought in by boat and then they use wagons to bring the supplies to their home.  It was quite a long walk to the other side of the island so I kinda felt bad for those who had houses on the side away from the boat landing.  Kinda.  But not really.  Guess if they can afford a house out here, they can probably afford to pay someone to cart their stuff to their house. 

One of the many beautiful houses we saw that had views like this:

Not too shabby, huh?

Remember when there were telephone booths (or even just pay phones) for when you needed to make a call?  Well, now you can hardly ever find a pay phone, let alone a telephone booth.  Squirrel Island has a telephone booth, but with a twist.  Here's the phone booth:

No phone anymore, but wait, if you look carefully......

There is a cell phone plugged in so that if you have an emergency, you can still make a call!  Isn't that a freakin' riot?  I laughed right out loud when I saw that.  And at another phone, there were even directions.  Just in case you didn't know how to use the cell phone!  Funny stuff.

Towards the end of our trip, we got to visit the fairy village.  Basically, it is a collection of fairy houses in a very wooded, mossy area.  The kids LOVE this part.  Even the tooth fairy has a summer home on Squirrel Island. ;)  Manimal and his best friend made their own fairy house.



All in all, it was an awesome day!  Manimal had a great time with his friends, and I had a great time talking with the parents.  There are really some super nice people who live around here.  Best friend's mom--you know who you are!  Oh!  And the other best part of this day was that I got up and went for a run at 6:30 am and got that 3.5 miles out of the way first thing in the morning!  I wish I had the opportunity to run everyday at that time.  It is just perfect out there.  When you need to be to work by 8, 6:30 is just too late. (Work is 25 minutes away.)  And it's almost impossible for me to get up and function any earlier.  6:30 a.m., I can do.  5:30--no freakin' way. 

On a completely different note, it is 2 weeks until the Maine 1/2 Marathon!  Wow!  That has come up pretty quickly.  I am ready.  I have done 10 miles twice.  I can do 13.1.  Yes, I can.  I hope to keep a 9:00-9:30 pace.  That is the plan.  One more long run this week and then easy next week.  I can do this.  Happy Monday!

overwhelmed

Can you say, "bite off more than you can chew?".  Apparantly, I can and do.  All of a sudden September has turned into one crazy, busy month.  Here is a bullet list of what is happening in my world right now:

1.  3 kids
2.  As if #1 isn't enough, but my 3 kids are all doing 3 different things.
3.  Sissy field hockey.  Not a big deal as it's right after school and she's old enough to just go there herself.  But games are at 3:45 and she wants me there. 
4.  Princess does dance starting this week each Wed. at a studio 45 minutes away.  Often at the same time as the 3:45 games mentioned above.
5.  Princess is also doing field hockey. :)  Which I am soo happy about that I don't care how much harder it makes our schedule.  Practice Thurs. 5-6, games on Sat.
6. Manimal doing two different soccer clubs.  Which means practice Tues, Wed, Fri, and games Sat.  Often the same time as Princess' games.  ugh.
7.  Renters are out of our house.  The house is not in great shape.  We want to sell it ASAP.  Which means someone has to paint, clean gutters, fix porch, clean inside etc etc.  ugh
8.  1/2 Marathon is less than one month away.  This is when I'm supposed to be running the most, right?  And I'm running the least!  double ugh.
9.  Did I mention that I work?  Full-time?  At my own business?  ugh.
10.  Did I also mention that I do not have a maid?  Or a butler.  Or a chaffeur.  Thank goodness I have a husband who is awesome at cooking, and bringing the kids wherever.  Yay for hubs!!
11.  My roots are getting out of control.  I don't think I even have time to make it to the hairdresser.  I don't think I even have time for her to come to my house! 

Calgon!  Take me away! (older commercial reference for those of you under 40...)

On the plus side, the weather has been fabulous!!!  I did get another 10 mile run in last Friday.  It was great!  I'm pretty sure I can do this 1/2 marathon thing--just get me through the next few weeks without missing too many runs. 

What's shakin' in your neck of the woods?

Do you have too much to do and too little time?

Anyone know a cheap painter/handyman?

Winner! and three things thursday

1.  I am finally getting around to posting the winner of the Xperio Poloarized Lenses.  Random.org chose a winner:

True Random Number Generator

Min:

Max:

Result: 5

 

Which turned out to be Rachel @Running in Real Life!  Congratulations!  Send me an email with your address and such and I'll send out your voucher!  bouchard@midcoast.com 

 

2.  Princess has decided that she might like to try out field hockey!  Wow!  This is a momentous occasion!  That she is even considering trying it it amazing.  This is the girl who (although very athletic) refuses to do any sports at all.  So I just kinda threw it out there when I saw the paper for sign-up.  She really likes hitting around the hockey puck while skating and field hockey is similar to that so I thought she might like it.  She has agreed to try it tonight as long as her BFF is doing it.  BFF's mom said she would do it if Princess was doing it so perfect!  Practice is tonight so we will see how that goes. 

 

3.  Really bad running week.  Weather, school, early darkness--it just isn't coming together as far a milage goes.  I ran Monday during the day to miss the raindrops but nothing since.  :( boo!  Tuesday I had late work night, Wed. was pouring, today pouring in the morning (not that I would have gotten up anyway, but I like to pretend....).   Hopefully, I can get a run in tonight either during or after my daughter's field hockey.  I need to try to get another long run in this weekend.  Tomorrow might be the day for me to make up for all the missed runs this week. 

 

I hope your week is going a little better than mine!

 

 

second guessing

I have been thinking a lot about many things lately.  This thinking thing can be dangerous for me!  In my work, I come in contact with so many different people each day and we often get to talking about their lives and what is happening with their kids and families and such.  This then gets me thinking about my own family and how we do things and what we do.  Do you ever wonder if the choices you make for your family are the right ones? 

As an example, many families in our area are choosing to send their kids to a different school, an hour away, rather than attend the public school.  I always ask why and how they came to that decision and then I begin to wonder if I should be thinking about that for my kids.  Sometimes I'll scold myself for wanting to "keep up with the Jones' ", but I also wonder would my kids have better opportunities at a more prestigious school?  Really, does it even matter?  Is the school really more prestigious?  Is is just your perception because you have to pay to go there?   But if it does matter and I have the means, why wouldn't I do that for my kids?  See where this is going?  It's kinda a no-win thought process. 

So then I remember that I've been very happy with the public school thus far and that we are only talking about 6th, 3rd and 1st graders.  I'm not sure any private school would make that much of a difference at that level.  Maybe 6th grade, but certainly not 3rd or 1st.  Why do I even worry or think about these things?  I'm quite sure my parents never even had a thought about what school we were going to.  We just went to the school whose town you lived in.  That was it.  No dilemma.

This whole debate I'm sure will be amplified as we head to high school, (which one?) and finally college!  The opportunities to second guess myself will be endless!

Do you ever second guess the choices you make as a parent?

Private or public?

discuss.



Trifecta of shit.

No, not exactly what you think.  Not the trifecta of bowel movements, but the trifecta of shitty food.  This weekend was a mecca of crap eating.  (Which you would think would turn into a trifeta of actual shit.  But not so.  Not with my weird bowel anyway.)  I have ruined about every good workout I did last week and probably this week (!), by the amount and quality of the food I ate this weekend.

It started out really good on Friday.  I got my 10 mile run in after work!  I only work until noon on Fridays, so I was planning to get my long run in before the kids got out of school.  I didn't have to rush as the hubs was around to see them off the bus, but I was still didn't want to take forever. 

I was ready.  I ate dinner the night before and had a good breakfast/lunch.  I was hydrated.  I had water for my run in the car and also some gummy energy chews.  There would be no bonking today.  I ran 6 easily, came back to the car, drank water, chewed three gummies and back out.  The next two were pretty good and the last two sucked.  I went from a 9:00/mile average to 10:00 and the last was 10:45.  ugh.  But I did it!  I finished.  Total time 1:42.  I think I might be able to run the half mary around 2 hours--maybe under??  We'll see.  I'll try the 10 again next week.

So, that night began my crap food festival.  We went to the high school home football game.  Which is where my family I ate dinner.  We ordered food for the family (2 cheeseburgers, chili and french fries), but no one ate much of anything.  Sissy ate 1/2 a cheeseburger, Princess wanted GRILLED CHEESE.  NOT A CHEESEBURGER.  Stupid mom.  Manimal just ran up and down the hill catching a football.  So who ate the food?  Obviously, I did.  I hate to throw out food and I was hungry from my 10 mile run, so I ate it.  Not the fries though.  Princess does like french fries.  Those were acceptable to her. 

The next day we had an all day shopping adventure which meant eating out again.  Restaurant (if you can call it that...) of choice was KFC/Taco Bell.  Side note:  Isn't it great that you can go to one spot and get fried, grease laden chicken AND fake taco meat tacos or burritos??  America is great.  Anyhoo, I enjoyed a snack bowl.  Which is basically fried chicken nuggets, mashed potatoes, gravy and corn.  Can you ask for a more nutritious meal?  Shame on me.

On to the evening and my finale.  We went to the local fair.  Need I say more?  Can you guess what deep fried pleasure I had there? 

Oh, yes.  Deep fried oreos.  They had a deep fried whoopie pie too, but I managed to resist.  (Next year...)  For the record, these are un-freakin'-believable!  No joke.  They are one of the yummiest things I have eaten.  I was fully expecting to turn my nose up at them and think they were gross and greasy.  Boy, was I wrong.  Totally yummy.  And worth every disgusting calorie.

Have you ruined a good workout by crappy food?

What's the nastiest, most un-healthy thing you ate this weekend?

Have you tried deep fried oreos or whoopie pies?

How to Spin Alone

I got to thinking yesterday while writing my month recap post about how I've kinda come up with my own spin class.  I think I could probably teach it myself!  Anyway, I thought I would post my made-up workout in case any of you end up without a class to attend and need to spin alone.  So here goes.

The bikes at the Y that I most frequent, do not have the cadance and time counter things on the handlebars.  A bit ancient, I know, and it was hard to figure out how to know how hard you were working at first.  It is easier with the cadance thing as you can target a certain cadance and then up the resistance as you go.  So keep in mind, that for this workout, I only the have resistance dial, no cadance counter. 

I always point my bike at the clock on the wall because I'll do a particular speed or resistance for a minute or 30 seconds and I watch the wall clock for that. 

--2 minutes warm up on resistance level 4
--Simulated hill climb which means increasing resistance of dial 1/2 turn every minute.  Starting at level 4 resistance and ending at a level 7 or 8.  It usually takes me 4 turns to get where I need to stand up.  I then go another 2 turns standing trying to keep the same cadance.  I do the same process decreasing the resistance.  This usually takes 12-14 minutes total.
--Sprints.  I will sprint at a 4-5 resistance for 10 second increments with 10 seconds easy for 1 minute.  Then 15 second increments, 20 second increments, 30 second and 1 minute of sprint.  If I'm feeling like an over-achiever, I'll repeat the process backwards.  5-10 minutes total.
--Jumps--I'll spin for 30 seconds on a 4-5 resistance then jump the resistance 2 full turns and stand up and spin at the same cadance for 30 seconds.  Then back down for 30 etc.  I will do 4-5 rounds of this.  4-5 minutes total.
--Single leg--to mix it up and rest a little I'll remove one foot from the clip and spin with one leg only for 2 minutes at 5 resistance.  Switch to the other leg.  4 minutes total.
--Cool down 2-3 minutes easy spin on resistance 4.

This gives a total of about 30 minutes of spinning.  Then I'll do my weights and floor exercises for 15 minutes before heading back to work to shower (oh, and work too...).

Do you have to make up your own exercise classes?

Do you have a favorite spin routine you can share with me?