8 miles

on the treadmill. kicked my butt. It took me 95 minutes, so it's not like I was speedy freakin' gonzalez or anything, but I spent the last half hour or so looking for a reason to get off early. I started with the rationalization at about mile 5 or so. It went something like this:
"I've already done 30 minutes.... that's all I really set out to do... I could call it good now...."
"I'm not going to get a message today anyway, not at 12:00 minute miles. I could call it good now..."
"I could always just get on later tonight, and do a split run..."
and so on. But I gritted my teeth and stayed on that stupid machine, and finished the scheduled 8 miles, all at once. And my reward? Besides knowing that my body is stronger than my mind sometimes?? I got Lance again, congratulating me on my longest run to date. Gotta love that!

So now I'm synching up the iPod to transmit a week's worth of info to Nike+, and also to load a few more iTrain tracks in -- I find the 30- and 40-minute tracks really entertaining and they keep me interested on my shorter timed runs. Can I always keep up with them? Hell no, but at least I try.

Maybe that's what I should re-name this blog to -- "At least I try."

Oh, and yes, I'm late to the party (per usual), but my friend at work lent me Season 1 of "The Office" (American version, with Steve Carrell), and I am a convert. LOVED it! She's promised me Season 2 when I'm ready for it, and then I'll have to add it to the DVR list.

randomness

Because 32 degrees and yicky rain is cold and messy enough to keep us all in hibernation mode and we're all going a bit stir-crazy right now, you get a mind-dump of random bits of nothingness:

• Elder Child made the "A" honor roll at his new school for the 6 week period. He got a little metal dog tag (their school mascot is the Huskies) as a reward. He was pretty excited about it -- we were thrilled.
• TDP DinoBoy must be half-monkey. Honestly. The child is incapable of sitting still. Even while sitting in my lap reading before bed, he's in constant motion.
• I've become a cold-weather wimp. Haven't run outside since Christmas day. I've thought about it plenty of times, but as I stand out there waiting for the Garmin to synch up, I change my mind and hit the TM.
• There's a lot of junk on my new iPod, I've realized. Way too many Journey, Night Ranger and Loverboy songs and a lot of Depeche Mode b-side stuff. don't get me wrong, I loves me some Journey, Night Ranger and Loverboy, when the time and place is right. But they don't quite do it for me while I'm on the TM.
• I still haven't gotten the oven fixed. But the 2-burner countertop cooktop is sufficing for now. And the microwave. Can't forget the microwave.
• Mr & Mrs. Smith is a funny movie. And Brad Pitt, regardless of how sordid and nasty the stories/circumstances about how his marriage with Jennifer Aniston ended, is still pretty dang hot. Goofy and hot.
• Hannah Montana is a cute, fun and SAFE show for the tweens. If you have any tweens, you know of what I speak; if not, check it out the next time you want random silliness. They do a lot of spoof scenarios -- they did an episode where they made fun of the whole Tom Cruise/Oprah thing. And it's directed by Fred Savage -- how can Kevin Arnold be wrong?

gotta run -- need to bag up the boy's leg for his bath. He still has a dressing on it for the next two weeks, even though the stitches are out now. He's got a walking boot, and can start to put weight on it a little more now.

not as unique as I thought!

This is what comes from a lazy Saturday hibernating and hiding from the latest "arctic blast" of rain and cold (or what counts for cold here in N. Texas). I found this wandering around the Interweb, over at Flatman's:

HowManyOfMe.com

There are: 2 people with my name in the U.S.A. How many have your name?

Now I have to make lunch for the boys and prepare for a nice, long nap. Then, later, 5 miles on the treadmill. Tomorrow, 8 miles on the 'mill for a weeklong total of 25 miles in 6 runs this week. Yee-haw!

wah! no message today!

for the past two days, I've gotten a little inspirational message at the end of my treadmill workouts with the Nike+ iPod thingy. First, I got a shout-out from Lance Armstrong at the end of Sunday's 90-minute "run,"* congratulating me on my longest workout to date. Um, yeah, it was the 2nd time I'd used it. Anyhoo, it was totally unexpected and kinda cool.

Then last night, I was supposed to do a quick recovery run, but the iPod found one of my Grace Lazenby iTrain tracks instead of BareNakedLadies or Aerosmith. I ended up joining in with the intervals because it sounded fun. She had us "joggers" up at 5.6-6.2 mph for a bit of it, so I ran 2.5 miles much faster than the slogging 5.0 mph runs I'd done previously. At I was rewarded with Paula Radcliffe coming on and telling me what a studdette I was for recording my fastest mile time yet. Um, yeah, it was the 3rd time I'd used it. Anyhoo, still caught me by surprise, and still kinda cool.

So today, I got on and cranked a steady 3.0 miles in 33 minutes, for a nice even 5.5 pace. Not the longest run to date, and not the fastest. So no message from anyone. Not LeBron James, even. Not that I know who he is. wah! All that running and no payoff.

*I put "run" in quotes because really I was just barely moving; I think I clocked a monstrous 7.5 miles in 90 minutes. Slow, slow, slow. Mostly I'm still in base-building mode and am just trying to get back into the habit of running regularly. Although, really, I've been running 70-80 percent of the days since White Rock anyway. They're slower than my normal runs, so I use that word loosely.

blogger help?

can anyone email me with tips on how to get a workout log in the sidebar over there? ---> nothing complicated, I just thought it might keep me on track with the goals to have to post them. Mostly the ones about weight/resistance training and 5X weekly RBS workouts. I'm about as non-technical as someone with the title of Director of Development Mgmt Systems can be, so if you do have any ideas to share, speak slowly and use little words. Thanks!

Goals, Goals, Goals...

(I was humming Motley Crue just then...sorry, I'm an 80s hair band freak, I know!)

OK, here we go. Goals for 2007. Coming up. Right after we recap 2006. First off, I remember something about 1200 miles of running. And a 5:00 or faster marathon. I can't put my hands on my hard-copy mileage log from January through May (egads!), but I know I ran 832.6 miles from May 1 through December 31. Did I run 367.4 miles in the first four months of the year? I'm pretty sure I didn't average 100 miles a month during that time, only because I am hard pressed to pile up that much mileage when I'm in heavy-duty marathon training. So I'm thinking I hit 1000 miles for sure, possibly 1100, but certainly not 1200. And we've gone over the 5:00 or bust thing already, so I'm not rehashing that here.

I"m sure somewhere in my 2006 goals was something about losing weight. And, um, not so much. Actually, I ended up putting on and taking off the same 10 pounds pounds all year long. But the trend was downward toward the end of the year there, so I just need to continue that direction, and quit the see-sawing.

All told, I'm not going to call 2006 a bust, though, since I did pull nearly 10 minutes off my marathon PR. And I finished two of them, even though that first one was really hard, bringing me to a total of five marathons under my belt. And I did run at least 1000 miles in 12 months. Not too shabby, but certainly it leaves me all kinds of room for improvement.

so... 2007. Just as a reminder, back in November I had these ideas about what I needed to do in the next three years.

• I have to learn to swim, and get that swim coach for me and for the Boy, too.
• I need to learn to shift gears on my Toys R Us piece of crap bike, but by next Christmas, on a real bicycle.
• I need to finish a sprint tri by June, an Olympic-distance by next Christmas, and then spend the summer of my 38th year doing at least one half-IM distance tri.
• I need to lose weight. Goal weight by the middle of next year (and this is not a joke, but some cosmic coincidence, I think) 140.6 pounds. If that means getting a trainer or nutritionist, then that's what it will take.
  
• I need to re-align my life to allow for the training.
• I cannot train for IM-distance with 11 hours a week spent in traffic, so that has to change. Somehow, I have to position myself to make that change in the next six months.

So, here are the 2007 goals and plan, determined as baby steps toward the big one that's looming large and scary a few years down the road:

1. Complete a workout (run/bike/swim) of 30 minutes or longer duration at least 5 times each week, for at least 48 weeks of the year.
2. Commit to weight/resistance training at least three times a week. This does not count toward the RBS workout goals.
3. Continue working with the nutritionist. The goal is learn to eat like an athlete so that I can fulfill my potential as an athlete.
4. By working with the nutritionist and completing the workouts as planned, the weight will come off, so that I can meet my goal of 140 & change by June 1.
5. Complete a fall destination marathon. Either Chicago or New York City. No time goal. Just enjoy the spectacle. For now, I'm leaving the door open for a possible 4th consecutive White Rock, but not committing to it yet.
6. Complete two half-marathons this spring. On the schedule are Cowtown Half in February and an inaugural women's race in Dallas in early May.
7. Swim well enough to finish 800 yards at a time without stopping. In water deeper than 5 feet.
8. Complete three sprint-distance triathlons. Right now, I've got Austin Danskin in June, IronGirl in July, and Longhorn Tri in Austin in September penciled in on my schedule.

That's a bit of a list. I'm pretty close to making another change that will also move me closer to the big goal. But I'll make that one public soon enough. But, that's enough for today, methinks.

Thoughts? I appreciate any feedback, whether that be constructive evaluation of the goals or cynical "yeah, sure, knock yourself out." And any tools you've used along the way to help you with similar goals would be helpful, too. I'll be using SparkPeople to track nutrition (although the nutritionist has another program she'll be providing me the next time I see her), and I have an awesome new Excel log for tracking runs. I'll also be using the iTunes/Nike+ logs, mostly for the chunky simple graphs (though I have some questions as to how accurate the sensor is, but I haven't calibrated yet...that's a whole other post). So there. Happy New Year!

the boys' lookalikes

For TDP DinoBoy, the face recognition decided he looked most like Michele Rodriguez. At least they got the ethnicity right that time... I'm still not sure about Bette Davis being chosen. She didn't show up on the collage, but I think it went with the eyebrows for that one. Hmmm. And Isabella Rossellini???



More very, very odd results here. At least most of the matches were men this time around. except for Lohman as the primary match. But i see the resemblance there, for sure. very, very, very odd and very fun.

how odd!

I was going to post about my morning run, with the Nano and the treadmill, but i started wandering about the internets and found this at Heather's:



I find the results rather odd, that the software seems to think I resemble either Billy Jean King or Asian men and women.... Interesting and just a bit disturbing to think I might resemble an Asian man!

What I really enjoyed, though, was the results for Hub. The photo I used was of the both of us, and these were his "celebrity matches." Rawr! I have to say, I would take Ron Livingston and Dermot Mulroney anytime! and the Carson Daly thing cracks me up!



In a bit, I'm going to do the boys' photos, but I had to post this as soon as I saw it!

I gots it!

Just picked up the Nano today! As soon as I get it set up, I'll get the Nike+ stuff set up on it, and I should be ready to roll tomorrow -- wahoo! I am currently converting all the WAV files to AAC format -- the Shuffle did it automatically, but the Nano fills up on WAV files. Or something like that. I don't know the specifics. What, am I supposed to be some kind of technical wizard just because I'm in charge of my entire division's enterprise-wide software? Sheesh, expectations.

Meanwhile, Elder Child had some serious pain in his feet today, so I wasn't able to hop on the treadmill tonight like I planned. The combination of hobbling along on the "good" foot for 8 hours at school, no painkillers from 6:45 AM until after dinner, and the lack of ice on the foot pretty much created a perfect storm that set him into hysterics at about 8:00. Out of nowhere his "fixed" one started in with sharp pain -- I think he accidentally bore weight on it myself -- at the same time the "arch" in the left one started spazzing on him. Poor baby. He was nearly hyperventilating he was in so much pain. But we iced quickly, and got him some supplemental pain medication, and he was OK after about 20 minutes or so. During that whole time, though, he just wanted me to sit with him and keep him calm. Poor bubba.

What else? Not much yet. I'm still formulating the specific goals for '07. And I just realized that my goals for '06 were on the old hooha.org site, so I can't get to those posts. I remember vague concepts of what they were, but details escape me. I'll get to it soon enough, I promise; it's just that I'm having a hard time with re-entry into the job thing after such a relaxing time home with the kiddos and Hub. sigh.

Well, I'm off to bed to let the iTunes do its thing overnight. Maybe it will be ready for me tomorrow morning, for an early morning run..... Now, will I be ready for it???

Happy New Year!

2007. Fresh starts. New beginnings. yada, yada, yada.

I'll have a comprehensive list of goals up later this week. I'm not quite ready to commit to much of anything. And I still need to wrap up 2006 goals and progress toward such. For now, i'm still enjoying what's left of my vacation. By doing as little as possible.

BTW -- the Iowa game down at the AlamoBowl over the weekend was tougher than it had any right to be. And it was a nailbiter, and it was loud, and frenzied, and we had more fun than a set of 30-something alumni had a right to have. And hearing "The Eyes of Texas" and "Texas Fight" played by the Longhorn Band again (and again, and again, and again) was wonderful and took us back to our college days. And then on Sunday morning, driving back from San Antonio, we dropped more money at the University bookstore than we ever did as students. heh. It was greatness.

For now, I gotta run. Something about an "Arthur"/"Curious George" marathon on the DVR. Later!