Tuesday's Bulleted List

Oh, hey! I thought it was Wednesday, but it's Tuesday. So I made a bulleted list.

• I have trouble keeping my plants alive. If they need to be watered more than twice a month, SOL. Currently, I have one live plant, one dead plant on my desk. Guess which one is the succulent.

KJW and my failed herb garden.

• Yesterday I bench pressed with 25 pound dumbbells. I felt impressive.
• I also kicked ass in spin class.
• It's snowing right now.
• I'm a subtle fake ginger right now. Inspired by my former roommate and all around kick ass person, Jennifer, and her awesome new hair, I'm thinking of kicking it up a notch. Maybe this:

• Tomorrow at our work retreat, we are having a Rock gift exchange. It's like a White Elephant gift exchange, but only featuring rocks. Too bad my most awesome rocks are in Washington.
• I need to go to yoga tonight. Blog world, yell at me if I do not go to yoga.
• It is snowing here today, it is 91 degrees in Orlando. 11 days. I am so excited!

Brick, dumb as a (or what not to do after a low mileage month)

For a variety of reasons (moving twice, dogsitting, laziness), April was a low mileage month.

Like 23 miles of running, 27 miles of biking and some elliptical low.

May is going to be different, I decided. I'm going to get after it. After all, Tri Training is really kicking into gear (despite the fact that I haven't yet decided exactly which tri(s) I'm doing).

Definitely this one

Monday, I went to spin class and did upper body weights. I felt awesome afterwards, tired muscles burning, endorphins high, etc. So yesterday I decided to do a brick; I did 15 miles of biking, then immediately ran a 5 k at my typical running pace.

Screeeeeech! (That's supposed to be a record scratching sound.)

What was I thinking? I know that for many people, that's nothing. However, I'd only biked 30 miles total in the last month, and I hadn't run more than 2 ish miles since mid-April. Then I did core work.

I'm feeling it in my whole body today. Sore arms: check. Sore legs: double check. Sore abs: check. Sore eyes and nose: check (thanks allergies!) So I will be taking it easy tonight, with either some light spinning or elliptical-ing and maybe some lower body weights.

In other news, the new headphones I ordered, Skull Candy Full Metal Jacket Earphones in Chrome, finally came. My impression so far:

I wore them for my workout yesterday, and they fell out constantly. Like, even while I was sitting on the spin bike, I had to readjust every couple of minutes. I almost gave up running in them. Luckily, they came with 4 other rubber-ear-thingy options. I put the smallest ones on this morning, and they didn't seem to feel much more stable when I tried them on.

I'll give them another shot with the different rubber pieces before I decide whether or not to keep them. Luckily, Skull Candy has a pretty generous return policy, or so I hear. I paid $21.99 for these, I would hope that they could stay in my ears.

Quick Weekend Update

I'm officially moved into my new place, and I'm almost all the way unpacked!

Favorite thing: Full-size (maybe even extra big!) shower. The shower at my old apartment was one of those standing shower stalls, in size extra small. It was impossible to bend over and remain in the shower. Thus, leg shaving decreased to about once a month. Sorry, people at the gym who are offended by ladies with body hair.

In addition to being huge, the new shower has super sweet decals. I'll take some pictures tomorrow. Hint: they are pond themed.

While I was sad to see my dog BFF Lassen go back to his owners, I'm glad to get back into the routine of going to the gym after work. My April work out stats were pretty sad.

I got this week off to a good start and went to spin class, then lifted afterwards. My deltoids are sore, in that most awesome way.

I hope everyone had a good weekend, and look forward to pictures of my awesome shower!

March Totals

Bike: 101.5 miles, down from 164- It's obvious I've been skipping spin class lately, isn't it? After being cooped up inside all winter, it's so hard to go to an indoor class now that it's been nice out, so I've been running outside. It's not quite nice enough to bike outside yet, since the trails are still under about 2 feet of snow, at minimum. But if I want to be in good enough shape to really enjoy them when summer comes, I'd better get reacquainted with the spin bike.

Run: 29.3 miles- up from 26.1- At least 10 of these miles were done outside! Yay! Giving up on the American River Half and backing off of the running has been good for me, I think; other than the random knee pain I had yesterday while spinning my knee hasn't really been bothering me. I'm still having issues with blisters on my arch. Any suggestions?

Other: 29.7- This includes fun things like snowboarding and cross country skiing, and less fun things like the elliptical.

Weights: 35,145 pounds lifted! I calculated this by multiplying: number of sets x number of reps x pounds and adding them all together. Yes, this means I track all of the weight I lift. It helps me make sure that I'm progressing at a reasonable rate and actually increase the weight I'm lifting. Plus, it's fun to figure out exactly how much weight you're lifting. It adds up pretty fast!

Goals for April:

1. Go swimming!
2. Ride my bike outside
3. Lift weights twice a week (50,000 pounds maybe?)
4. Spend less money
5. Find a place to live
6. Get my back fixed and improve my asthma

I'm addressing two of these goals immediately. I have a chiropractor appointment this afternoon, and my parents are visiting, so my mom and I will be going swimming this weekend. Since it's supposed to snow tonight/tomorrow, I better enjoy this sunshine while it lasts!

Weekend Update

I'm in the "F's" and my arm is already sore. Maybe I'll teach myself to write left handed.

I rearranged my workout schedule this week, and moved my rest day to Thursday. It was my roommate's last night working at The Divided Sky, an awesome restaurant/bar in Meyers, which is a small town a little outside of South Lake Tahoe. If you are ever in the area, check it out! They have really delicious, mostly organic food and a ton of really good vegetarian options. I think that I'm going to go back there tonight for a bluegrass concert.

Since I "rested" on Thursday, I went to spin this morning, and this is the first time I've been on a Saturday. I thought the class started at 8:30, so I got to the gym at about 8:10, thinking that I would have plenty of time to claim a good bike and warm up. Class actually started at 8:15, so I barely made it! I got stuck with one of the last bikes left, and I could not get my shoes to clip in at all. I must have tried for 5 minutes with no luck. I finally just gave up and put my running shoes back on and used the toe clips. I'd gotten so used to wearing my clipless shoes that it was quite the adjustment and so much harder! Especially on the hills.

I managed to get in a (sorta) brick and ran for about 15 minutes after spin class. I don't think I'd been to my gym on a Saturday morning. Waaaaaaay different crowd than the post-work weeknights group that I usually see. Several incidents of nearly Heidi Montag-level plastic surgery, fewer meatheads. Strange.

Now I am going to enjoy some more unrealistic ABC Family Melodramas about teen pregnancy, address more envelopes, and cook some lentils.

Sometimes I get to do fun things for work.

Today, I'm leaving to go to Nevada City for the Wild and Scenic Film Festival! The Sierra Nevada Alliance puts on an "On Tour" version of the film fest in South Lake Tahoe every year, and it's the first event I get to do. We're going to go scout films, and it should be really fun. Yvon Chouinard is going to be there!

Of course, because we are a small-budget non-profit, and we only get one free pass to the film fest, I have to volunteer in exchange for my film sessions. I get to work 6 hour shifts in the concession stand. Woo hoo!

I took Wednesday off working out to see Black Swan. It's great. Go see it. Not with your parents. I returned to Push with a vengeance yesterday. I finally remembered to

bring my clipless shoes to spin. They really made a difference, and my knees were less sore afterwards. I think they helped with my foot/leg position. Also, I am a little bit in love with my spin instructor. I did some run/uphill walk intervals on the treadmill. I don't absolutely hate the treadmill nearly as much as I used to, and I think the secret is that I need to vary the speed quite often, or I get super bored.

I also went to yoga. This is the first time I've been to a Thursday class, and, while it was good, the instructor is a little too "fill your hands up with rose colored energy from your heart chakra" for my taste. Oh, well. Cheapo yoga students can't be choosers.

Have a great weekend everyone! I know I am. I'm going to try to hit on Yvon Chouinard.

I'm spun

I used to go to spinning class at Western; I absolutely loved it, aside from the instructor's weird taste in spinning music. (Note: Dave Matthew's Band is absolutely not good work out music.)

I have now attended two spinning classes at my new gym, Push. Wowzers. It's a very different experience. 1. No DMB. 2. Much harder. 3. More than half the class wears clipless shoes. I didn't even know they made clipless pedals for spin bikes. 4. Way, way harder.

My goal for the next month is to go to two spin classes a week. I really like the instructor of the class that I went to last night and on Thursday, but I may switch it up to check out the other instructors. Another goal is to go to yoga at least once a week.

My two main hurdles in mountain biking are core strength and fear. I need more core strength to be able to stand up on the bike for longer periods of time, which I hope the spinning (lots of standing) and yoga will address. Aside from doing lots of riding (difficult with three feet of snow), I think that increasing my strength will help me have more control over the bike, and, therefore, decrease my fear. Additionally, I plan to do lots of visualization. It may sound cheesy, but it's totally worked for me in the past. I close my eyes and imagine a tough section of trail that I've crashed or had to walk around. Then I picture myself doing it perfectly. Repeat 5 - 10 times. I try to do it a couple of times per day. Honestly, it's really worked for me in past athletic ventures (shot putting, free throws, volleyball serves, etc.)

In other news, this song is the perfect spinning song. Go Flo Rida!

After spin class yesterday, I met my friends Katie and Karen at the bar to watch the Orange Bowl. Katie went to undergrad at V-Tech, and she made me an honorary Hokie for the night. Sadly, V-Tech lost to Stanford, but we did decide to become Monday night regulars at the Brewery. We also made a new (very drunk) BFF named Leyna. She was a font of information about all sorts of things: the best flavor of vodka (bubblegum), how to avoid a hangover when you are over 30 (start early, end early), best place to ski in Tahoe (Sierra-at-Tahoe), and wedding planning (elope). She and her equally hilarious husband also had created several new dance moves that they demonstrated for us.

EXTREME TEMPERATURES!

As of 8 pm last night, when I got home from the gym, we still didn't have power. This would have been a nice time to have my super awesome head lamp, but it went missing after some lovely people visited me in South Lake Taco. (They claim not to have it, but I'm not sure that I believe them.) Since I didn't have my head lamp, I made do with my mini-maglite. (I became pretty proficient at doing things while holding my mini-mag under my chin.)

As of 10 pm, when I was ready to go to bed, we still had no power, and it was about 19 degrees out. So, as any rational person would do in this situation (no, not go stay with someone who had power), I layered. I wore fleece lined wool socks, long under wear bottoms, a tank top, a long underwear top, a hoodie, and a fleece-lined hat. I even had some ski socks for my hands in case they got cold. Between my outfit and my flannel sheets, huge down comforter, and two fleece blankets, I was quite comfortable.

The power finally came on about 2 this morning, but, unfortunately, the pipes in our kitchen had frozen. I cranked the heat (which still hadn't come back on) opened the cupboard, left for work, and hoped for the best. Eventually my roommate came home and cranked the heat even more.

When I got home from the gym (spinning....urgh) it was about 90 degrees in the apartment. As I stand in the kitchen typing this, I am wearing a tank top and my smallest gym shorts. And I'm still a little warm.