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!

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!

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!

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.

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!

February Totals

Swim: 0 (baaad)

Run: 26.1 (almost a marathon, and more than January, which is awesome for a shorter month)

Bike: 164 (best part- some of this was ridden outside! woo hoo!)

Other: 13.2 (ie elliptical, stair climber, walking hills etc. I wish that I had some way to track snowboarding or hiking with my bike distance, because the other number would definitely be higher).

I was pretty good about lifting at least twice a week. Less good about yoga twice a week, but I think I did at least once a week. I worked on speeding up my runs, and I'm pretty confident that I did at least half my miles at a 10 minute mile pace.

I was definitely better about tracking my spending this month, and, what do you know, I came much closer to my budget targets. I also reached my goal of not buying any new clothes in February, I'm going to try to extend that through March, making an exception for technical gear (but staying within budget!) and maybe a dress for KJW's wedding.

I think I was definitely more social this month, while sticking to my budget for socialization, but I could be better about accepting invitations. I got outside to enjoy the outdoors a bunch this month, with snowboarding, running outside, and doing some mountain biking in Santa Barbara. The weather is just getting better and better (though not today, nasty mix of rain and snow) and it's staying light out for longer and longer. I love it! I can't wait until I can bike to work.