on new beginnings

OK, that is a little dramatic, but I am getting moving.

Per last Friday's little psycho drama (its a bigger deal in my head than I typed out), I started getting my butt in shape Monday.

I forgot to weigh myself, but Princess Charming and I got up early to start week 2 of Insanity (more on that later this week) - Monday was Cardio Power and Resistance. The morning after that was a whirlwind of showers, a trip to the doctors, walking the dog, packing my lunch and getting the train in 83 minutes from the Stop button on the DVD to getting on the train). When I got to work, I dusted off my online WeightWatchers account (WW, you should thank me for all these years of $16.95/month!). I know the drill. I actually eat pretty well outside my dessert habit - especially in emotional eating moments - really my issue is I just eat too much (well, I did at some point. My weight has been stable for 1+ yr so I guess now I eat too much to lose weight?). And, well, the emotional eating habit! hah.

Then when I got home, thunderstorms were rolling in. Sort of. There was thunder, but no rain. Then rain, but no thunder. Repeat. This nixed the dog park, and left me on the couch (see cake incident). Around 8, it stopped raining, and I took the Best Bladder in the World Dog (over 12 hours folks!) out to pee and for a run, thinking we'd do 2 miles and then I'd drop him off while I did 2 more. We did half a mile. Around the 1/10 mark, the wind picked up, and my fearless wonderdog started giving me the look of "Are you Freaking kidding me??" so we swung around the block. I dropped him off and headed out.

Two blocks later, the skies opened and I headed back. This is a terrible idea.
I walked in to a VERY excited dog - sheshomealreadywhereismyboneiwassoworriedwhereismyboneshellgivemepeanutbutter!
Then it stopped raining. So I went back out (after giving the dog more peanut butter).

3.25 miles to go.
Since at this point it was about 8:30, I decided to take my stand-by route since I know lighting/turns/traffic well and run it a lot with the dog in the winter (aka the cold dark mornings and evenings).

Around the 1/2 mile mark, drizzle. Hm. OK. Can Garmins get wet?
Now this is a funny question, seeing as I've had my Garmin since Christmas of 2007 - so 2 years and at least 1000 miles of outside running. I've never run with it in the rain. See, I'm kind of a pussy about training. Its hot. Its cold. Its humid. Its wet.
Can you imagine the conversation I had in my head to stay out at this point? It was along the lines of
"Dammit this is bullshit you should go home"
"What? Today is Day 1 of a freaking 10 week half marathon program. 10 weeks you lazy ass who didn't pick a longer program. Don't screw this up Miss "I'm going to get in shape and break 2 hours again"!"
"Are you freaking serious?"
"YES. Would you miss rugby practice for this?"
"Well, no, but maybeImeanI'mnotexactly22anymoreandrunningaroundin45degreerainfor2hoursonafieldwithnograsskindablows "
"Shut up, its July not October and you know you'd go and hell just pretend its a game. This isn't bad."
"OK this wouldn't totally suck for a game since its not cold."
"See! Keep running"
"Ugh. At least we're not going to scrum 103842 times in the next 20 minutes."

And so by now I'm around the 1.6 mile mark, or the turn around point, also known as the I can stop talking to myself (in my head, thank goodness) about what a wimp I am being. Keep in mind I've run most of the last mile with my wrist rolled up in my now soaked sleeve - since it changed from drizzle to pouring - and I am sure the entire neighborhood thinks I am nuts (I may or may not have tested holding my watch in my shorts and decided it was way uncomfortable).

And now it stops raining.
Good, right?
Sure.

Except now I am running home in a soaked tee shirt (tech tee, thankfully), semi-squishy shoes, and really floppy wet hair, since I opted against the hat and also neglected to being a hair tie (thinking my headband + short hair would be ok sweaty/wet, duh).
This aggravated me more than it should have.

Until I realized it was dark. Like ominous dark. The kind of dark you get when a thundercloud that is vaguely brown rolls overhead. Now, for the new Jersey kid in me, this is no problem. For the person who lived in Illinois for two summers including one where a steel plant 5 miles from my apartment met its demise via tornado, this is an issue. Coupled with my bizarre, sudden fear of a dog darting from around a dark corner (no idea why I decided to be paranoid about this tonight) I was almost having heart palpitations for the last mile.

I got home and the sky opened up.
My dog again brought me the bone, then promptly passed out cold at my feet - I imagine he was pacing in stress the entire time I was gone (not to mention the hour + of thunder stress before our walk) since a half mile run isn't exactly his normal required activity.

Overall, 4.14 miles in about 40 minutes. Not too bad.

Oh, and Garmin 205s are water resistant. No need to look crazy next time (or use that as an excuse).

on jobs

I am currently sitting on the coach eating coconut frosting. Its from a can and not terribly good. At least I am eating it off cake, and not from the can.
I have this issue with emotional eating - see Friday's post - and apparently think the best way to solve my sad feelings about our lack of a baby, lack of disposable income, my student loans, our unsold house and the lack of a new job for me is to eat frosting. And a little bit of kind of dry cake. I am a terrible cake baker, which is sad because I'm generally good with the oven.

I vacillate a) being happy to be gainfully employed in a fairly low stress job where I have awesome coworkers and a pretty high level of flexibility and all the autonomy I can ask for (are you asking what I am complaining about??), though a pretty long (train, again what am I complaining about) commute and low salary (OK, that I can complain about) and b) being really fricking annoyed that I, with a masters and ABD from an extremely respectable program in my field, from an extremely respectable (and unfortunately extremely expensive) university, and a few years of work experience in a reasonably respectable position at said university have had 1.5 (one real and one terrible phone) interviews in the last 6.5 months. I have applied to 9 jobs at Rutgers and at least half a dozen elsewhere. And I'm really qualified for at least a third (I admit I am aiming high, see student loan debt issue above)!

I know I sound like a) a raving lunatic and b) an institutional egotist (really I'm not. I was a public school kid until my masters and all through my 22 grad classes was the public school voice of reason when people said things during case studies like "well, if I had that problem in undergrad, I'd go see the dean." What? What? What undergrad at a big state school knows who the Dean of the damn school is much less can REACH them?!) and c) a whiner.
Ok, I am whining.

I know I am employed and stable and all that crap, and am happy to not be on unemployment and all, but for a million little reasons I don't want to type out right now - see point A directly above - I really, really would appreciate a snazzy new job showing up on higheredjobs.com, made just for me. One that calls me when I send them my resume. (FYI to the almost-diploma-mill that sent me the employment rejection notice: You are the ONLY job that has explicitly rejected to interview me! I am insulted! I am guessing you can't afford the fairly piddily salary I want, but I want you to know I am insulted you had the nerve to reject me ON PAPER without even talking to me. I didn't want to work for you and your below average on the SAT students either. Blah. You could save money to hire someone decent by not sending out employment rejection notices by the way).

Whew.
I feel a little better now.
I guess I can put away the cake and get to the dog park.

time to get moving

Today is Friday, 7/9.

I have 10 weeks until fuel time for my fall half marathon.
and 7 until fuel time for our first rugby game of the season.

I really need to get my butt in gear.
Due to the heat (104? in Philly? WTF?) this week, I haven't run a bit, but I did do Insanity videos 4 days, so that is something!  Monday starts my half plan, and I'm starting stage 3 of my lifting program as well. This time I plan to do it 2-3 days/week...seeing as its taken me about 12 weeks to do 8 weeks of the program so far. Oops!

I am also, not kidding this time, going to get moving to drop the excess mass. I'm 5'6" and 172 today. My goal is 150, just under "overweight" on silly BMI. I am extremely self conscious admitting this "publicly" - well, admitting that I want/need to lose weight; I'll tell anyone what I actually weigh! - so perhaps this is good motivation to not be a doof and keep telling myself I can start over tomorrow?? :)

Readers, what motivates you to eat well and be fit? I think I need inspiration outside the packaged answers.

Onward!!

It is just about time to start training for the Philly Distance Run in September!!

One of the running bloggers I follow, Mrs.CJ, has just been invited to a racing team! I am so inspired since just 2 yrs ago she was running about my pace!! (In fact, her first half marathon was just a smidge faster than my 90 degree one, so perhaps I am a little faster than she was in early 2008?? Not that it matters since she'd SMOKE me now!)

I decided I'm going to use the half marathon plan in the new Runner's World for my fall half. It is aimed at a 2 hr finish time, my elusive goal since my first foot injury just shy of 2 years ago. Its not online, so I'm going to try to remember to scan it at work this week, but in essence it is 2-3 easy runs a week, one speedwork run (tempo or intervals) and a long run. Its a ten week plan, so I'm going to try to do most of the first week this coming week and basically do week 1 twice. Its going to be CRAZY hot for Philly though, so we'll see :)

Week 1 is 2 4 mile easy runs (10:30 pace), 5 miles tempo with three at 8:54, and an 8 mile long run (10:30 pace), so I think I'll look to do that with 6 or 7 instead this Saturday.

Maplewood 5K Race

I enjoyed reading the July 4 race recaps of my blogroll, so I figured I'd do one too!! :)

For July 4th this year, we ran a 5k! My dad and I had done one on Thanksgiving, and I badgered talked him into another!  Princess Charming's mom was visiting from Missouri, so she joined us as well (and pretty much dragged my mom through the course...see shout out to them in the Maplewood paper!!)

Pre-Race!!

This was a pretty tiny race - a last minute replacement for the 5 miler we had planned further south (which was deemed too far away for various reasons) - but I am in love with the community. There was a kids bike parade and a petting zoo and what looked like it would be a fabulous day of festivities to the evening fireworks. Definitely a town we can aspire to afford to live in when we move to NJ :)

I did my first mile in about 8:24 - awesome, right on the pace I wanted (I dream of a 24 min 5k...but am still seeking a 26 minute one!) - but that turned out too fast. Part of me will blame it on the heat wave we've begun again - it was at least 80 by 9 am Sunday - but I also know I am just a little thick and not well trained right now! Anyway, just past the first mile was a water stop....in the middle of a big hill. I stop for water - and wasn't about to skip it in the heat! - so it kind of broke up my pace, but the hill didn't help! My second mile was around 9:30, counting a short walk at 1.5 mile - I just puttered out atop that hill.

The third mile was about half downhill, so I rode that just under a 9 min pace. As I approached the park, I lost mental steam and stopped on the corner, thinking I had about 1/4 mile left, wanting to walk 30 seconds then sprint it in. Andddd then I turned the corner to see the finish 100 yards away. Oops. So I lost a few there. I finished in 27:17, pretty well under a 9 min pace. OK I guess, and at my goal of under 9 minutes/mile, but I need to improve!

I finished 1st in my age group! Of two. I don't think that counts.

Then I walked out until I met my dad - I picked him up about 1/2 mile from the finish and jogged back with him. My Garmin says we did a 13:20 pace together, so he gets props for consistency - he finished in 41:45, a 13:26 pace!  That's also over 30 sec/mile faster than our Thanksgiving 5k, in 35 more degrees, so I think that's an awesome improvement! In fact, for a guy who had a triple bypass in March 2009 and hadn't exercised in 35 years prior to that, I think he's doing pretty awesome!!

just before the finishers chute!

Happy 4th of July!!

We were lucky to have awesome weather and a nice shore breeze! A beautiful day with family & an old friend!

A car-ride nap...a puppy necessity for a busy day!

Wind in the ears = happy dog. Until the fireworks anyway...

lunching on a little table!

Mom & our fearless captain

lots of sunblock for us!!

I can't believe June is just about over...

What a quick month of weekends.

Our prom style photo from Greg & Jenny's wedding!

a quick trip to Santa Barbara, CA for me with the U23 All Stars

Staying 1/2 mile from the beach isn't too bad...

Then another wedding...

and another "prom" photo!

And this past weekend, I went to play some sevens...a second place finish, and a reminder that I.am.slow. But that I still want to play 15s this fall. A success, I suppose, if not for my time and wallet!

In other news, our house isn't sold (shocker) despite continual good feedback, and our listing agreement is up this month, but more on that in a different post.