Canoing on the Potomac

I know I've been MIA... not that more than four souls on the internet even know about this little blog! But just since you've waited so long and so patiently, I have decided to reward you with some pics!!

Last Saturday was gorgeous and we took a canoe out on the river.... which means I sat in the canoe while Adam paddled us around :) :) :)

The good old days are now, now, now. What I think about is now. This is the moment I have waited for. This is it. These are the good old days.

Aging Well With a Fitness Icon
92-year-old muscle man Jack LaLanne shares his wisdom about aging gracefully.
(You can see LaLanne in action in a short video here.)

Check out this article, photos and video of Jack LaLanne, who won a Lifetime Achievement Award in May. To celebrate his 65th birthday, he swam pulling 65 boats filled with 6,500 pounds of wood pulp in Lake Ashi, near Tokyo. For his 70th birthday, he towed 70 boats with 70 people 1.5 miles against the current in the Long Beach, Calif. harbor. For his 95th birthday, he'd like to swim from the coast of California to Santa Catalina Island, more than 20 miles offshore. But Elaine says, somewhat in jest, that she'll divorce him if he tries.

What the World Eats

This is really interesting. Look how many packaged foods the US families eat. And all the beer and cold cuts in the Germans!

http://www.time.com/time/photogaller...626519,00.html

I always try to hold my breath in a cloud of someone's smoke...

WHO urges smoking ban in public places

May 29, 2007 02:19:28 PM PST

The U.N. health agency on Tuesday issued its strongest policy recommendations yet for controlling tobacco use, urging all countries to ban smoking at indoor workplaces and in public buildings.

"The evidence is clear. There is no safe level of exposure to secondhand tobacco smoke," said Dr. Margaret Chan, director-general of the World Health Organization.

Tobacco use is the world's leading cause of preventable death, accounting for 10 percent of adult fatalities, according to WHO. It is responsible for 5.4 million deaths each year, a figure that is expected to rise to 8.3 million by 2030, the agency says.

Increasing numbers of nonsmokers will also die unless governments take action, WHO said in its 50-page report. It said governments of both rich and poor countries should declare all public indoor places smoke-free, by passing laws and actively enforcing measures to ensure that "everyone has a right to breathe clean air, free from tobacco smoke."

At least 200,000 workers die each year because of exposure to smoke at their offices and factories, according to the U.N. labor agency. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency estimates that about 3,000 deaths from lung cancer each year occur among nonsmoking Americans.

"This is not about shaming the smoker. This is not even about banning smoking," said Dr. Armando Peruga, who heads WHO's anti-tobacco campaign. "This is about society taking decisions about where to smoke and where not to smoke."

He cited Ireland and Uruguay as governments that have successfully tackled smoking by creating and enforcing smoke-free environments. Legislation of the kind has proved popular among both smokers and nonsmokers, according to WHO, whose policy recommendations set broad goals for its 193 member states but are not legally binding.

Almost half the world's children — some 700 million — are exposed to air polluted by tobacco smoke, particularly at home, WHO says. The agency made its recommendations on the basis of new reports by the International Agency for Research on Cancer, the U.S. surgeon general and the California Environmental Protection Agency.

WHO said in 2005 that it had stopped hiring smokers, as part of what it termed its "public lead" in the fight against tobacco.

Valerie Waugman - inspiration

Check out Valerie Waugman's workout in this video.

Where'd I leave my lifting gloves? I've got a date with some iron!

http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/valerie10.htm

Some day my arms will look like hers.!!!!

Out of the box progress

I have not blogged because I do not think anyone reads here! That and I have some things running through my head that I don't feel like I can talk about here. That and I am boring and have no life besides the gym and my job!!

I am doing 4 lifting circuits and 4 HIIT sessions per week in this phase of my workout. It is hard. If I want to have a whole day off, which I think I need, I have to double up two of those days with lifting/cardio... and after I lift, I just feel too wasted to get anything out of a HIIT session!

I did not get my HIIT session done yesterday after lifting. Once again, I just felt too tweaked, even with a serving of breakfast oats in me before my workout.

Today's workout
I did a treadmill session today: 25 mins, 5 one-minute interval rounds w/ 2 minute recovery.

My speeds were:
6.0/8.5, 8.6, 8.7, 8.8, 8.9!! Which is officially the fastest I've ever gone on the treadmill. And to be honest, this felt a little too easy so I think next time I will try all my intervals at the higher speed, and go up to 6.1 for the recovery.

I walked for a bit after this and did some stretching and some work with the foam roller (calves are knotty!).

Reflections on progress
As I was cooling down, I was thinking about how much progress I have made since January. I tried to keep up with physical activity while I was going through my cancer treatments, but I had to back off the intensity of everything. I still went in the weight room when I could and "lifted" really light weights, just to keep my body moving and my muscles remembering what they are supposed to do. I tried to keep running, then eventually had to stop that too and just walk or pedal on the bike. Before my surgery I was running about 30 miles a week. It was sad to watch myself detrain. I'll never forget going on a walk and my HR being like 175 just walking uphill and my HR monitor was beeping like crazy and I had to stop at the top and bend over to catch my breath and stop myself from passing out.

Before my radiation, I had to stop taking my thyroid hormone altogether and become severely hypothyroid. I won't go into what that was like, but it was not fun. It was hard to get off the couch. I couldn't remember whether I'd cracked one egg or three. Without any thyroid hormone, your body just starts to shut down because your cells can't get any energy! Once pedaling on the bike, I remember looking down at the display and I was pedaling at level 2 and barely like 50 rpm's or something and I felt like I was climbing Mt. Everest. I got off the bike and just cried.

When I started to get better, the first time I tried to do an "interval" on the step machine, I went for 1 minute at a moderate level 7 and then had to get off the machine because my HR just would not come down under 170 and it freaked me out! Of course, I almost passed out b/c all the blood drained out of my head once I abruptly stopped.

Aaannyyway. I don't want to belabor the unpleasants, I just wrote all that so y'all can get a sense of why I'm feeling proud of how far I've come!! It's been almost 5 months and I'm feeling really healthy, and I ran at 8.9 today!

Legs are sore! I'm progressing in my lifts and the single-leg exercises Cosgrove has me doing right now are getting "easier" - LOL.

Gym Faux Pas?!
Oh, I know gym people will appreciate this story...

So I'm at the gym yesterday doing OVERHEAD SQUATS (which I consider to be a pretty hard-core exercise!). I'm holding a bar OVER MY HEAD with my arms locked out, doing squats. And in the middle of my set, this scrawny guy comes up to me TO ASK ME IF I'M USING THE SMITH MACHINE.

Dude.

a) I'm doing overhead squats.
b) I'm doing overhead squats (no, I'm not using the smith machine, genius).
c) I'm doing overhead squats (are you CRAZY?! don't talk to me in the middle of my set! I could get HURT... or you might when I throw this bar at you!!!)

LOL!

Also, another fitness related rant? Can the sports store please employ SOMEONE who knows about lifting equipment??? I'm there looking to buy lifting straps (b/c I can deadlift more than my grip strength allows on some sets) and an employee comes up to see if I need help.

Me: "Sure, I'm trying to decide if I need these padded ones or if I'm fine without the padding... the padded ones seem a little big on my girly wrists."

Guy: "Um, when I used to lift," (ed note: he's maybe 18) "I just used gloves."

Me: blink blink... "Ok, thanks."

Eventually he went off to get his supervisor who didn't know anything either. Nice.

Ok, that's enough ranting for one day!!!

Weird Week

Workouts are going pretty well, even though I've been avoiding the jump squat workout... it's soooo hard! I don't like jump squats, but I only have one more week before I start a new workout. Yay. I've added weight to most of my lifts and it seems like I just keep getting stronger, which is great! Now I need to focus on getting some of this fat off so I can actually wear my summer clothes. It seems like some of them shrunk over the winter in my drawers... And people, I am NOT buying bigger clothes. No. That is not an option. I've been all over the map with my nutrition this week. When I start to feel burned out, I justify poor eating. I'm due for a vacation! I haven't really had a vacation in more than a year! I took a lot of time off with the cancer stuff, but that doesn't really count for a vacation... I need to plan my trip to FL to visit my sister!!! Yesterday I got my hair cut and I think today I will go have a pedicure and manicure. My toes are looking frightful! I still haven't downloaded those pictures from my camera... maybe I will do that this evening.

I'm all out of sorts...

We finally made it out to Sugarloaf on Sunday and did the 5 mile loop. It was so nice! The weather was perfect - a little windy and chilly when we started out, but it warmed up and by the end my t-shirt was soaked. The sky was so blue and clear, the view was amazing. Usually it's a bit hazy. That always wipes me out good though, and I was pretty baked the rest of the day!

And I woke up Monday morning with a serious pain in my right hip. Probably from the combination of jump squats followed by a 5 mile hike the next day. I decided to take Monday off from the gym, but I was still feeling it this morning!

Plus I had a really shaky workout. I kept feeling like I was about to pass out, and had to sit down and take long rests in between sets - definitely the worst workout I've had recently. I think I was dehydrated? My heart was just racing. I made it through. I also had trouble doing the cable rows because my arm is pretty bruised from where I had blood drawn on Monday. Seriously, I think this lady did it on purpose, I really felt it when she jabbed me! Usually you don't feel hardly anything, if the person knows what they are doing. It seemed like she stabbed the needle in harder than necessary and I was like, OW, that hurt!! And she goes, (in this sugary voice) oh, but I didn't mean to hurt you. I'm like, yeah... whatever. Anyway, it actually made the rows really painful to do!

AND, to top all that off? The mother of all zits has taken up residence RIGHT in the middle of my eyebrows. It never ends.

Bad Blogger....!

Despite what you may have surmised by this point, I did not fall and break both of my hands!! I've just had a busy couple of weeks. I flew in from Ottawa late last night where I was attending an intercessional of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) and meeting all sorts of interesting new people from all over the world, plus seeing my French friends again who I met in Paris last month. Being a diplomat is so fun :) - but the downside is that my job takes up an extraordinary amount of my time and energy. Like all of it on some days. I work 9-10 hour days, plus the 1 hour commute (30 mins each way) and add on my 30-40 minute workouts each morning and 8 hours sleeping (I cannot survive on any less without a major meltdown, my body really wants more!) and that leaves only 4 hours each day to cram in the rest of existence. You know, like fixing and eating dinner and breakfast, making my lunch for the next day, showering and fluffing, and blogging, reading, tv watching, socializing, making phone calls, etc, etc. It's not enough. I cannot comprehend how people do this with children??? I don't know if I could manage it. Because after the work/commute/work-out, my energy for the day is pretty much depleted and I'm in my must-retreat-into-self-to-stay-normal-because-I'm-hopelessly-introverted mode.

Don't get me wrong, I am not complaining! I LOVE my job. Love. It. But my life does often seem unbalanced to me. I do worry about it sometimes and wonder if I'm missing out on something or if I should make a change? But I'm having too much fun at work to think about changing my job right now, even though I daydream about moving back to Arizona to lead hiking and rafting trips in the Grand Canyon or something like that - it's that part of my spirit that doesn't get enough stimulation these days pulling on my heart-strings. And part of the reason I run and lift daily to stay sane, even if it's not a hike in the woods, is because it's still the place where I can get totally unplugged from the "rat race" and just focus, just breathe. Ya know?! I don't think about a possible "other life" too much because it's just not time yet.

Last week I had my mom in town and I finally got confirmed as a real bona-fide Catholic. I was in my "anti-anything that seemed like authority phase" when I was supposed to get confirmed back in high school. Going through cancer treatment was such a deeply spiritual experience for me that this seemed like the right time to do it. I knew if I didn't go ahead and do it while the cancer experience was fresh in my mind, the inspiration would fade as life keeps getting back to "normal" and other things take up my attention. I still have lots of problems with religion and dogma, but confronted with my mortality, I really drew a lot of peace and grace from the Catholic faith I grew up with and I see it somewhat differently now.

I read something recently about how the Celts spoke of "thin times" when the space separating heaven and earth is "thin" (or the divine and mortal or however you want to conceptualize it). For me, that's what having cancer was like - from the moment I was diagnosed until pretty recently - my life was in that "thin place". Maybe that just sounds strange, but it felt like I was on another plane of life. I wonder if other cancer patients feel this way too?

I'm doing really well with being a survivor and the thyroid stuff too. I finally these last few weeks am starting to feel really healthy again -starting to wake back up to normal life. I still have complaints and issues - my hair falling out, still adjusting to the hormonal changes, the extra fat, the pain in my neck (literally!), the emotional/psychological issues - but mostly it's getting better all the time.

I devoured Lance Armstrong's cancer memoir in about two days. There is something so universal about cancer - even though what he went through was WAY worse than my experience. Mine was pretty mild compared to his!

Right now I am procrastinating about going over to the gym. Alwyn Cosgrove must have drank a whole cup of evil right before he wrote this workout he has me doing in this phase - it involves a giant set of jump squats, push presses and good morning's. With no rest in between. JUMP squats, people! I have never in my life been so close to hurling in the gym as the first day I did this workout. I cleaned one of the E-Z bars (already weighted) onto my back for the squats and GM's instead of using the longer regular squat bar so my center of gravity would be more compact and balanced. When I finished my last set, my arms were so baked that I just stood there like, oh shit, how am I going to get this bar off my back, I don't think I can do another overhead press!!! (I was not in a rack). You can always do more than you think you can - thank god so I didn't have to drop the bar on the ground off my shoulders!!!

Anywayyyyyy - wouldn't you be procrastinating if you had to go do those on Saturday morning?!! Alas, my workouts were all screwed up because of being in Ottawa for the week (although our hotel did have a little gym!) - I would normally not put this workout on SATUrDAy!!! :( Weekends are for R&R (mostly) or really FUN exercise like hiking or trail-running :) LOL. oh well.

Our hotel. No I am not kidding.

I'll post some pics tomorrow of Ottawa and the 7 foot tall bishop who confirmed me!!!

Picture from the race

Here's a picture of me with family at the race. I'm related to all but the girl and guy second and third from the left. The rest of us look identical, I think, including Cara's husband in the neon jacket, who is only related to the rest of us by law!

Lazy Weekend??

I saw this on Maggie's blog and just spent an hour making my own doll - I'm easily amused. This is the most productive thing I've done all weekend! (Thanks, Maggie!)



Click here to make your own doll.

Lift Strong

As a cancer survivor and gym geek, obviously I am delighted to see this! Especially since I'm following one of Alwyn Cosgrove's programs right now!


I mentioned before that Alwyn is a two-time cancer survivor - he underwent a complete stem cell transplant in June of 2006. After recovering, he decided that it's time for the gym rats to join in the fundraising efforts to support cancer research, without which he would not be around to design brilliant lifting routines and amuse us with his often hilarious and always informative writing on fitness and nutrition.

He got more than 50 trainers and fitness writers to contribute to the book, LIFT STRONG, which turned out to be so long that he decided to release it on a special CD-ROM compilation rather than pass off printing expenses. The digital book is a collection of fitness training secrets and advice from some of the biggest names in fitness and also includes Alwyn’s email diaries documenting his account of everything he went through during cancer treatment. 100% of the proceeds go to the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society.

It's only been a week since LIFT STRONG was launched and already they've raised more than $10,000!

There will be a cure someday. We will look back and be horrified at how we treated cancer "before" - by cutting into and poisoning the body. It's efforts like this that are going to get us there!

Perfect Sunday

We did not end up hiking Sugarloaf on Sunday since it snowed Saturday night in MD and we didn't want to risk bad conditions on the trails. Instead we went for a stroll along the Potomac River. It was still a little too cold to be really nice (for me at least), but it was good to get some fresh air. It was my rest day and I had to force myself to not work out. I needed the day off, but it's so routine for me to exercise that I feel weird when I don't do something!

Then I went home and ended up taking a big nap! My sister gave me these hand treatment mittens for my birthday. They have inserts that you warm up in the microwave, and you put this cream all over your hands, then put your hands in plastic bags, then in the warm gloves, and you just relax! It's quite brilliant, really, because (as I realized once I got them on) with the mittens on your hands, you literally can't do ANYTHING! I sat down and I was like, I can't even turn on the tv!! I can't make a phone call or read a book, I have to just sit here??? I almost took the mittens off, but then I decided, you know, that's the point. Just SIT here for 5 minutes. Of course, I promptly fell asleep! zzzzzzz Nothing like a nap on Sunday afternoon.

I woke up in time to go see 300, as we had planned. I thought the movie was great. I have to reiterate what everyone all over the internet has said a thousand times already - those guys were ripped! It was like the quads and abs show, since they didn't wear any real clothes the whole movie. Basically you get two hours of watching 300 of the buffest men on the planet alternately kicking ass and standing around in the equivalent of underwear. What plot?? Haha!

Is it April or November???

I was totally shocked to see snow covering the trees and cars when I stepped outside this morning. And it snowed a little bit on me just now when I came out of the grocery store! We are having some wacky weather in the East! I hope this means we are going to have a mild summer - that would be so nice. I only really like the weather here two or three months out of the year - April/May and Sept/Oct. The rest of the months are too humid and muggy or too cold!

I am so glad I don't have to run 8 or 9 miles this weekend like the last month or so!! In fact I haven't run at all since the race! Instead, I totally rocked my workouts in the gym this week. I'm feeling stronger and it's so nice to lift and not worry about having to be fresh for a long run coming up!

I've been doing Alwyn Cosgrove's total body workouts for the last couple months and I'm really enjoying them. The man is an evil genius. I spend half the workout cursing him and the other half feeling like She-Ra, Princess of Power, because I'm supersetting squats and weighted T-pushups and I'm dripping sweat and the lady (wasting her time) on the butt-blaster machine behind me is staring at me and I want to hurl and I want to quit, but I don't, I just keep on going... It's great!

I was a little skeptical when I started doing his programs because he doesn't schedule any isolation movements - it's all compound, multi-joint lifts and upper/lower supersets with varying rep schemes. You know, you kinda feel like the gym will implode or something if you quit doing bicep curls, but it turns out nothing much happened. I haven't done a bicep curl or a calf raise in 2 months! I wanted to see if I'd lost any strength, so at the end of my workout this morning, I picked up the 30# db's and banged out a few reps with no trouble. In fact, I feel like I'm developing a more balanced physique than I had before. And it's been a great way to rehab because I've been able to do lots of bodyweight and conditioning exercises that are just as challenging, but I think less stressful than high-volume intense lifting. It's a refreshing change of pace from the bodybuilding-style workouts I was doing before.

BTW, he's also a cancer survivor! :)

Everyone in my office seems to be on a fitness kick... Three of us ran in the Cherry Blossom Ten-Miler and there was much trash-talking before the race about who would beat whom (not from me, of course, I was expecting to run a 10:30 mile avg pace). I guess everyone wanted to join the fun, since now my office and our sister office are having a 5k challenge! At least 6 of us, possibly more, are going to run in the George Washington Parkway Classic 5k race on April 22, and we're going to compete in teams! We're even getting a trophy for the winning office.

That's not all... I've even got one guy following Berardi's nutritional guidelines and an integrated fitness program (weights, intervals, aerobics)!! I gave him Metabolism Advantage so he could try the workouts and he came in the next day with a cooler and 5 balanced meals and protein shakes! I think it's great. I also gave him Eating for Life because he seemed a little frustrated with all the meal planning - I told him not to try to make a bunch of huge changes all at once. I told him to focus on eating more frequently and eating protein every time, and to eat more fruits and veggies, and not worry about the rest right now. He told me yesterday he definitely feels better; he reports to me all the time, actually - telling me how his workouts go, how he tried suitcase deadlifts and now he's SO sore...! Haha... :)

Oh, I also have to tell you that yesterday evening I dropped a glass bottle of flax oil on the kitchen floor. Of course it broke and the oil spilled out everywhere, even under the fridge. Can I tell you how hard it is to clean OIL off lineoleum, especially when it's paired with broken glass?! Egads, it was awful. I finally used dishsoap. Cuts grease, right?! Ugh.

Sigh... I'm off to do more housework. Bah. Tonight we are going to the Easter Vigil at church and tomorrow Adam told me we could hike Sugarloaf if I want!! Happy Easter everyone!

That's! Just! Wrong!

Remember when I told you about the woman I saw power walking on the trail while reading a hard-cover novel? Just now at the gym, I saw a woman doing crunches on the swiss ball (half-assed, of course) READING A BOOK. The Bee Keeper's Daughter, I think it was... can it be that good?! Does anyone in other possibly more normal cities see people doing things like this or is it just in DC??

Also? When I left the gym? A light snow was falling. I shit you not.

That's Just Wrong!

1:38:40!!

A 9:51 pace. I can’t believe I ran it that fast! It was awesome, I had a great time! I was worried, of course, that I would feel tired, or it would be too hard, or I would get injured (or my previous injuries would flare up) – but none of that came to pass. I felt great, it was a fantastic run. It didn’t feel like ten miles at all, it went so fast. I didn’t feel like I was struggling until the last mile really – I was just swept along by the huge crowd. I maintained an even pace, I didn’t slow much throughout the race, although I did walk for a couple of minutes at one water station, partly because my heart rate was running really high at that point, having run uphill for about a mile and a half. Then came the turnaround, and the downhill quick shot to the finish line.

I am SO happy with my time!!! I’m really proud of myself for completing the race, and amazed that I was able to do so well on the minimal training I actually did. The weather even cooperated – it was cold before the start, especially since everyone had to metro downtown and wait outside for busses to take us to the Tidal Basin and then walk almost a mile from the drop off to the staging area. But once we started running, I warmed up even a bit too much. It was that perfect 50-ish overcast coolness – great to run in.

I’m happy to be done, too, and now I can focus on some other goals and interests. It’s not like training was taking up a whole lot of time (since, um, I wasn’t… training…) but it is an element of stress – especially the last few weeks of 8/9/10 mile runs that take days to recover from. Speaking of recovery, after the race I ate SO MUCH, and went for a massage and pedicure (a super birthday present from my parents!!) and that was the PERFECT combination. I was not even sore on Monday, I felt fine. Like I had run maybe 3-4 miles on Sunday, not 10. It was hard not to go to the gym and lift, but I made myself take the break, just psychologically I probably needed another day of rest.

Some of the things I want to accomplish this spring are:

Hike something new.
Visit somewhere historical in VA (maybe Williamsburg?)
Take a trip to Florida to visit my sister.
See muscle definition in my arms.
Do 10 pull-ups in a row.
Run the George Washington Parkway Classic 5k with my coworkers.
Get confirmed.
Finish 3 books (Water Music by T.C. Boyle, It’s Not About the Bike by Lance Armstrong, and Running with Scissors by Augusten Burroughs).
Start a Roth IRA.

By the way, the cover of Newsweek is a series about living with cancer – in line with the Edwards/Snow announcements of their recurrences. The main article is by a man whose odds of survival were only about 50%, but I still related to much of what he wrote, like:

“With no standard of care for this disease, each expert I managed to get on the phone had a slightly different take on how it should be treated, which I later discovered is common with cancer.”

“Physically, I felt OK; emotionally, I was in hell. A woman I knew who was dying of breast cancer told me that none of the pain she was suffering at the end of her life compared with that first month and the daze of diagnosis.”

“Like the 10.5 million other cancer survivors in the United States, I experienced a bit of extra stress last week. When Elizabeth Edwards's breast cancer recurred in her bones and Tony Snow's colon cancer recurred in his liver, the cold fear that many of us live with every day crept a little closer.”

“The only constant in cancer is inconstancy; the only certainty is a future of uncertainty, a truism for all of modern life but one made vivid by life-threatening illness.”

Definitely worth a read.

The forecast for tomorrow. Shit.

T-Showers

Sunday
High - 62
Low - 54
Precip: 60%

Showers early then thundershowers developing later in the day. High 62F. Winds SE at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 60%.

The Finish Line

I dug out my reflector vest and ran OUTSIDE this morning! On the trails! It was downright warm, which was sooo nice. It was 80 degrees here yesterday! That means the dog days of summer are fast approaching, when I will wilt for three months in the oppressive humidity. But for now? We have The Spring! I hadn't run outside in the a.m. in... gosh, months, I think. It felt good.

I wish I had another week to train for this race, just so I would feel more prepared. I wish I had the Europe week back! Not that I think I'd be faster or anything, but that I wouldn't feel like I'm just trying to squeeze out ten miles. I'm not really bothered that much by it... it's more my physical state and recovery!

I will just be proud of myself when I cross that finish line. I'm really glad I decided to go ahead and run the race despite not being physically ready for endurance training. It's like a milestone in my cancer journey - a symbol of survival and a gateway to the next big thing. The cherry blossoms will be erupting around the tidal basin, spring will be rolling around us in all its splendid newness, and I will finish the run on Sunday knowing that I am crossing more Finishing Lines than one.

Apparently running 10 miles is exhausting....

Oh boy am I feeling it. On Saturday after my ten mile run I felt weird and fuzzy all day. I was so tired, like bone tired, that I even had a hard time falling asleep. I was definitely not recovered on Sunday. I went over to the gym thinking I would do some upper body lifts, but I left after a few sets because I was THAT wasted. Even this morning I was still not feeling it and subbed out my 20 minute high-intensity cardio session with a low-intensity incline treadmill walk. I must be getting old :) (should I stop blaming this stuff on my cancer/thyroid now?)!! I have got to get a couple of runs in this week so my body is not so shocked and peevish after the race on Sunday! That's what you get for not running for a couple weeks and then jumping right in with a long one! Oh well. Not like I could have said no to the Europe trip...

My tendinitis turned out to be just a day-long irritation, it's feeling all better today. I actually injured my peroneal right before my surgery in November (I was SO sad I could not run before my surgery!) and it totally SUCKED because I literally could not walk on my foot. I thought I might have fractured something. It turned out to be a lucky time for that injury because I was forced to lay around recovering from surgery, so could not continue to exercise stubbornly like I probably would have done otherwise. And the peroneal injury prevented me from doing something retarded like trying to do cardio a few days after the surgery like I probably would have done otherwise! See, things happen for a reason.

That bout of tendinitis turned out to be not so bad, but I was off that same leg for a few months with illiotibial band syndrome a couple years ago. It was so hard to not run for months! That was when I swam - in the nice olympic size lap pool at the Texas A&M gym (gawd, we were so spoiled at that gym, and I knew it too: it was bittersweet to work out there knowing I would have to leave it all behind.... huge pool, spa, quarter-mile indoor track, full weight room, plenty of cardio equipment, a huge rock climbing wall, indoor basketball courts, etc, etc, etc. FOR FREE. -- let's not get technical about mandatory student fees --. I weep when I think about it.) Aaanyway, after some physical therapy (only $10 per session with a collegiate sports PT... maybe I should go back to college?!) my ITB finally subsided, although it still flares up every once in a while if I do not stretch diligently. Something must be off with my right side because I now have tendinitis problems up the whole leg!

Metro tires me deeply and tries my patience. I therefore avoid using it on the weekends when I don't have to (I would probably go downtown a lot more if I didn't have to ride metro!). But yesterday I just wanted to be outside in the glorious sunny springtime. So I decided to metro to Rosslyn and walk across the Key Bridge to Georgetown to go to church. I walked up the Exorcist Staircase, which I thought was appropriate, being that I was on my way to church. Yes, that's the real actual staircase from the movie - they filmed it in Georgetown! Freaky stuff.

This afternoon I got to go hear the Moscow Chamber Orchestra play a lunchtime concert at the State Department. Apparently it's the bicentennial anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between Washington and Moscow. Who knew?!

Random bits

I can't believe I've been so productive today! It's only 3 and so far I've been to get groceries, done three loads of laundry, including my sheets, re-made the bed, folded all the clothes, paid bills, mailed in checks to the bank, run ten miles...

Yeah, I'm wiped out from the ten mile run. The fact that I did it is nothing short of astounding. I have not run in two weeks! I brought all my running gear to Europe with me, but... um, yeah. It's impossible to get a cup of coffee before 7 in Europe, I discovered, and as for post-run recovery breakfast... a brioche just wouldn't have cut it. They don't scramble up eggs at the cafe. Plus I wanted to sightsee as much as possible!

It's really foggy and drizzly here today. The National Marathon happened this morning, and I watched some of the press coverage and got all inspired. I didn't want to put it off till tomorrow, so I just went. It was harrrrd. I wasn't sure I was going to run 10 miles until it was over. The first 7 were not so bad, but ouch. The tendinitis in my right leg is irritating me - both my ITB and my peroneal tendon. I put some HPQR on it when I got home - that horse stuff Adam's veterinarian dad gave me when I first injured my peroneal.

I had two Netflix of Gray's Anatomy that were sitting on my counter for weeks. I finally just mailed them back - unwatched. I should have done it earlier. I just can't bring myself to watch that show anymore. It brings back memories of the surgery and laying in the OR and being isolated in the hospital - I prefer not to have that all dredged up watching a tv show!

They are painting the hallways in my apartment. When I walk down the hall I swear I can feel the capillaries in my lungs dying, the fumes are so toxic! They are going to paint our doors on Tuesday, which requires leaving the door open for several hours. This deeply irritates me.

Earlier I had the biggest runner's high, but now my head feels all cloudy and thick. I'm not sure what to do with myself for the rest of the afternoon?! Maybe I will go across the street and watch a movie (yes, I live across the street from a movie theater!) - 300 is playing there, but I know Adam will want to see it and he'll be disappointed if I see it without him :(. Maybe a nap... zzzzzzzzzz.