Don't rain on my parade

I was stoked to hit up Corral Trail again yesterday after work. I had my bike stuff in the car, changed in the office bathroom, hopped in my car and headed out.

I decided that if I didn't want to be a rage monster, I better stop at the grocery store and get a snack. I ran in and bought some Cliff Bars and strawberries. As I headed back to my car, I happened to glance up at the sky.

It looked pretty ominous.

As I did not have any rain gear, I made the executive decision to head to the gym instead. This is how I felt about that:

This was my first time running since my ill-advised 3 ish miler with two sprained toes. My toes haven't really been hurting lately, so I thought they were good to go.

Not so much. At least this time I quit after a reasonable 1.8 miles. Who would have thought that two small toes make such a difference? At least I can still lift, so that's what I did.

At my gym there is a "Ladies Only" training area with a couple of treadmills, ellipticals, bikes, some weight machines, and some dumbbells. I usually do most of my work out in the main area, but lift in the "Ladies Only" area because the weights are almost always not being used. The dumbbells in this area only go up to 25, and, as of yesterday, I graduated to the main weightlifting area.

Yay for me and my increase in strength!

Things to do when the weather sucks:

1. Go outside anyway. As a born and bred PNW-er, there are not many outdoor activities that I haven't done in the rain. Running, biking, swimming, kayaking, beach volleyball, hiking, camping...I've done all of them in the rain. In fact, I'm pretty confident that 80% of the times I've been camping, it's poured rain at least one of the nights.

Raining so hard in NorCal that this picture turned out blury.

Rainy hike in Hawaii.

It rained so hard the tent fell over in the middle of the night!

2. Watch awesome things on Netflix Instant. Specifically this- Nature: Wolverine: Chasing the Phantom. Ridiculous name, awesome movie. You won't regret watching this nature documentary, unless you hate awesome things. You may regret not being born a wolverine, though. Other awesome things on Netflix Instant: 30 Rock, Veronica Mars, and Dexter.

3. Plan your next trip. Either for realsies, or a dream trip. I've google mapped my route for "National Parks of the American Southwest" several times, as well as the timeline for my next trip to Santa Barbara.

A little of this...

A little of that.

3. Go beer tasting. Most reasonable size cities have at least one brewery. Fact: my home town has one, and also a population of 600. Go to a brewery and get the sampler. If the brewery is super small, they might give you a tour and explain everything you ever wanted to know about brewing. Fact: this will happen if you visit Golden Hills Brewing Company, and you will also be quite likely to run into my dad. Try the Ben's Brown.

Beer from Seabright Brewery in Santa Cruz, California from KJW and my California-to-Washington-Brewery-Camping-Road-Trip.

4. Go to the gym, work out your glams. Well, work out all of your muscles. You'll need them when the weather starts getting nice. When I was 15, I could squat 235 pounds. Now I can squat much less. But I am working on it

5. Write in your blog. Some certain people don't update your blogs enough! Start.

Oh no! It's winter!

Didn't anyone ever tell them not to carry umbrellas in 30 mph winds?

My goal is to capture an inside-out umbrella picture.

It's raining so hard!

But I get to wear my rainboots!