Too early or not early enough?
To be thinking about holiday gifts?
Usually I am all ready for Christmas by November 1. I know. I am one of those people.
Oh! And I don’t mean ready in the sense that I have my house decorated and meals planned and gifts purchased. Ha ha ha. No.
I mean ready, in the sense that I am excited for it! Feeling gung ho about it!
Well, it’s November 11th, and I am still waiting for those feelings to kick in. The holiday still seems far away, even though it isn’t.
I’m not feeling grinchy or anything. I was super excited to get my first Starbucks red cup drink last week.
I’m ready for the radio station to start playing holiday tunes. I’m greatly looking forward to watching holiday movies with my mom when she visits in a week. And somewhat looking forward to outlet mall shopping with her, ha ha.
And that’s probably the big thing that is making me feel like I am not in my normal holiday mood – the gift ideas. I usually only have a few presents purchased by this time in November and some ideas for the rest, but this year, I have very few (I have an idea for one friend, and a few for Steven). And I am not feeling too excited about present research.
Because of that, and because I think it’s a fun idea, I asked a few friends if they wanted to do “experiences” this year instead of gifts. A spa day. A hotel and a race the next day. Spending time together. Making memories. Ha ha, queue cheesy music here—>!
Luckily, the friends I talked to about it really liked the idea, and didn’t seem to think it was somewhat (only somewhat) what it feels like to me – a cop out. But the thing is, the friends I asked are the friends I would have no problem finding gifts for, and kind of gift to all year long. They’re the people I feel really excited about having a day planned out in the calendar to spend with.
And researching races and other things to do with friends is a lot more appealing to me, right now, than researching gifts. Ha ha, that is probably because another reason I don’t have Christmas-brain yet is because I have marathon-brain! I am so focused on that December 14th marathon, that 11 days after, I’m going to be like “Christmas, what?!??!?!” Ha ha.
Do you get in to the holiday mood? About what time of year?
An option to stand
Where you work, do you spend most of your time sitting or standing? Do you have the option to switch from one to the other?
Don’t worry, this isn’t going to become a lecture on how sitting all day is killing us and negating any exercise we do, ever (we’ve already discussed that!).
My day job is actually in office design, and it excites me that one of the current popular trends is adjustable work-height desks. So, throughout the day, you can move the height of your work surface so you can sit or stand (sometimes this is a function of the desk itself, and sometimes, it’s something you put on your desk, and sit your laptop on).
I really hope this trend sticks around, because I like the idea of being able to adjust how I am working. In fact, I do it now, at the office and at home. Neither place is fancy enough to have a moveable desk height (manual or automatic), but I have bar height surfaces at both locations that I do use when I feel like standing – typically in the afternoon at home, and last week, at work when I realized how sore I was from my self-inflicted DOMS. Ha ha.
Chair for Data to use to keep me company
Now, just don’t ask me how I feel about the trend of treadmill desks… I still need to try one before I can form an opinion. Yeah, that’s it!
Training Week 264
Highlight(s) of the Week: Teaching the new strength class, a surprisingly fast 5K, and lots of company on my runs!
Monday | November 3, 2014: 5 m run (w/Kelly) + 8 m run + teaching strength class x2
Loc: Grayslake, Temp: 41°/41°, Time: 47:54, Pace: 9:34 avg, Difficulty: easy, Felt: great
Loc: Millennium Trail to Nippersink FP, Temp: 58°/57°, Time: 1:16:54, Pace: 9:37 avg, Difficulty: easy, Felt: hungry
Strength: Two dumbbell, Difficulty: medium, Felt: hyper
Strength: Two dumbbell, Difficulty: easy, Felt: great, excited that my new class was so fun!
Tuesday | November 4, 2014: 7 m run (w/Kelly)
Loc: Grayslake, Temp: 53°/54°, Time: 1:10:13, Pace: 10:02 avg, Difficulty: medium, Felt: challenged by the wind. And by my stomach, ha ha.
Wednesday | November 5, 2014: rest
Thursday | November 6, 2014: 5 m run (w/Kelly)
Loc: Grayslake, Temp: 46°/46°, Time: 49:12, Pace: 9:50 avg, Difficulty: easy, Felt: good, happy to work out the DOMS
Friday | November 7, 2014: teaching strength class + Full Moon 5K
Strength: Body Bars, Difficulty: easy (mostly observing), Felt: good
Loc: Zion, Temp: 41°/40°, Time: 23:41 (23:29 official), Pace: 7:38 (7:34 official), Difficulty: mostly easy, Felt: great/strong
Saturday | November 8, 2014: 7.2 m run (w/Bobbi, part of Efit Run/Walk Social)
Loc: Independence Grove, Temp: 43°/44°, Time: 1:12:45, Pace: 10:06 avg, Difficulty: easy, Felt: great
Sunday | November 9, 2014: 18 m run (middle 8 w/Bobbi)
Loc: Savanna to McDonald Woods and back, Temp: 36°/42°, Time: 3:08:02, Pace: 10:27 avg, Difficulty: easy, Felt: mostly good (just super frustrated with the wind at the end, and struggling with a headache)
Notes:
- Holy cow, I had DOMS so bad late Tuesday and Wednesday, from teaching those two Monday night strength classes. Lesson learned (derrrr) – don’t go all out when teaching back to back classes, Kim!
- But! The new class went really well! The students are a lot of fun and they picked it up quickly! I’m looking forward to working with them again this Monday.
- Next week is my first (of two) peak weeks of training and I am really excited! I am doing a virtual half marathon on Tuesday and a 22 miler on Saturday! Fun fun fun!
- The forecast is calling for some lows in the 10s and 20s next week! That is totally fine with me – if the wind mostly goes away. Ha ha! Would you rather run in “cold” temps or in warmer temps with high winds?
ZB Run Squad Full Moon 5K Race Report
Well, this race ended up being a total surprise!
Ha ha, not a surprise that I was doing it (quite a few from my multisport club had been planning on doing this Friday night race for awhile) or how the race was organized, but my personal effort!
In my mind I was going to do speedwork once a week in October to prep for this race. In reality, I did it once – I’ve made long, slow miles my focus.
So come race day, I looked up my time from last year on this course (a different race but several in the Zee Bee Run Squad series use the same course) and saw I ran a 25:27. “If I have a really good day, maybe I could beat that,” I thought. But I really had my doubts about maintaining 8:00 minute miles.
The race started just after 6:00 pm and I took off, feeling great. I glanced down at my watch and saw a mid 7:00 pace. “Crap! I went out too fast! I can’t maintain this!”
But I did for two miles (7:24, 7:35), and felt awesome, like I was hardly working. It wasn’t until I started to get the typical stomach cramp right before mile 2, that I slowed down, running that mile in just under 8:00. My legs and lungs felt good but my stomach said no – I need to try a tip my friend told me after the race – breathe deeper to get more air to my diaphragm.
I sped up to a 6:38 pace for the last tenth because I heard someone coming up behind me – ha ha, they totally had more energy and passed me! Luckily, my time, 23:29 was still good enough for 2nd in the 30-34 age group! Woo hoo! I wasn’t sure I’d ever place in that age group!
We had six Efit runners and everyone did really well – we had five age group placements!
And Kelly, my running partner, got a PR, and Dawn got her first ever age group award! Awesome!!!
I really enjoyed doing this with the Efit crew. Ha ha, especially cause there is a hella long (hour+) raffle before awards and it was fun to hang with friends during that!
The last race in this series is in four weeks! I wonder if I’ll have another surprise then. Ha ha, just kidding – I won’t get greedy!
A few other notes:
- I ran with my headphones and the beats helped! Although some songs worked better than others. Weird.
- They ran out of adult sized t-shirts in this year’s race shirt and offered a shirt from last year. A nice offer, but I don’t need more shirts, so I got a kid sized shirt for Kelly to take for her kids. I liked the design and phrase on it!
- Ha ha, I also sent Kelly home with my raffle prize – I won the same thing as last year.
- (TMI) I had the taste of blood in my mouth for most of the race. Weird? I think I may have spit up a bit too, after. That could just be my nose being all dried out. I am fighting the beginning of a cold this week and spend most of the night sneezing, after the race.
- I wore my Asics GEl-Lyte33s and think the lighter shoes gave me a mental (and maybe physical?) boost!
- I studied the course map a bit so I could run the tangents – that helped!
- The results for this race are all over the place – last year, the winner of my age group ran it in 29:25. This year, it was 22:09, me at 23:29, and third at 31:18. You never know who will show up! I feel lucky I placed!
- The results and free (!!!) photos were up late last night, after the race! I love that!
- It’s funny (to me, that) this is the second “Full Moon” 5K I have done this year!
- Time to get smaller shorts. You can see in my finish line pic that they are creepin’ way up my leg. Classy. Ha ha. And that smile? That is because last year my finish line pic looked like this.
Random Thoughts Thursday 68
- I love it when I am trying to learn more about a program at work by reading a brochure about it, and find my name listed under contacts, as an expert on the program. Um…
- It feels like Steven and I haven’t seen as many movies in the theater this year as we have in the past – only ten so far! On Tuesday we saw Interstellar on the IMAX. I enjoyed the story (minus one hokey bit) and liked the acting and the music (when it wasn’t too loud <— old lady alert). And it was a MILLION times better than the last thing I saw in the IMAX – Gravity. Uhhh. Shudder. Ha ha. I hope Interstellar is an Oscar nominee, so we have a head start on seeing the movies on that list. Ha ha.
- I’m going strong with re-learning Spanish – I am on a 53 day streak on the Duolingo app! I finally hit a snag, though, when it came to re-learning verbs in past tense. The app started me off with all of the irregular verbs and I was having a hard time remembering how to conjugate the normal ones! Luckily, I bought this book that xaarlin recommended, and it’s helping me! A few people have recommended I use a Spanish tutor (for conversation) as well. Hmm… maybe if I keep it up! Right now, it is really rewarding to work on it a little bit each day!
- The hardest part about getting a tattoo (for me) was not soaking it under water – luckily that ended a week and a half ago! I LOVE taking way too hot baths and it was hard to go without one for two weeks (ha ha, I still showered!). (And okay, okay, not scratching it was hard, too – it got pretty itchy!)
- After running with music made me feel so energized last week, I decided to make a playlist for the 5K I am doing this Friday night! I mostly chose electronic songs – those seem to get me going the most!
- All the pictures in this post blow, so here is a fun one! Can you believe I didn’t buy that sweater?! Did I ever tell you guys about the person who contacted me last year after I posted this, asking me to sell that sweater to them? They told me they contacted every Target and they are all sold out, so I should sell them mine, cause they really need it. Um, what?! No one needs a cat sweater. Not even me!
Would you have worked out with Mom or Dad?
From last December to May of this year, one of my Monday night Efit students (and friends!), Dawn, also brought her oldest son (a high school junior) to class – to take the class, as well!
From last May – Dawn and her older son two in from the right
Dawn’s older son left the class in the summer and has now “graduated” (hee hee) to one-on-one sessions. But this Monday, her younger son started taking the class with us!
From Monday – Dawn and her younger son three in from the right
I have to say, I think it’s pretty darn cool for high school students to be taking strength classes with a parent. I mean, it’s one thing to know that your parent works out, and to simply be encouraged to do it because they do as well, but to see them in action? And workout side-by-side? Neat-o! I think that is so fantastic!
Oh, and let’s note, to like your parent enough to work out with them (and in public! ha ha) says some awesome things about your relationship, too!
In high school, would you have worked out with your mom or dad?
I actually did in high school – my dad played volleyball with friends one night a week, and I went with him several times. I really enjoyed that one-on-one time… and learning lots of colorful language!
October sky
If you follow my blog’s Facebook page, you know I like to share photos of sunsets and sunrises (and… the sky in general, ha ha). On many occasions, the glimpse of a beautiful skyscape has caused me to pause a run, or pull over my car and stop, or get out of bed and go outside, to enjoy it and snap a photo for memory.
Is anybody else crazy about documenting the beautiful sky? (if you are, share your pics on my blog Facebook wall or email them to me!)
Luckily, my friend Kelly is just as obsessed as I am, and we are constantly sharing our sky photos with one another. Or alerting the other person if they need to find their way outdoors or to a window right meow so they don’t miss something great.
October was a such a beautiful month, and I did share a large amount of the photos I took, but when I was doing my monthly photo frame activity, I realized seeing them all together made me feel happy, so I decided to put them all in one spot so I can look back at them whenever I want. Maybe I will make this a monthly post (doubtful, ha ha).
You can click on a photo in the gallery to see the whole thing (then use your back back button to come back since that was the extent to which it would let me code the gallery). With the exception of the Milwaukee and Chicago photos, all of these are taken near my home! It’s so beautiful where we live!
A few new things
It all started when I had to go to DC for work at the end of September. I was looking through my closet the weekend before the trip, and while I had almost everything I needed for the trip (save a new pair of flats and gray pants that fit), I realized that I’d had most of the “work” clothes in my closet for years and years. They hadn’t been updated in forever.
This makes sense. I work from home a lot, and typically wear jeans and a t-shirt or sweater. Why invest the money in new work clothes?
But glancing through old photos, and posts on the blog made me also realize I’ve been wearing a lot of the same “street” clothes for two, five, seven… nine plus years!
Of course, it’s great to buy things that stay in style and you can wear that long (solid color sweaters, classic cut dresses, whatever), but some things just needed to go. T-shirts that I loved the print on, but were a bit smelly and stained in the pits. Things that faded. Shoes that were cheap to start with and nicked up.
So back to DC. I ended up going shopping the weekend before my trip and picked up a few pairs of pants, a few dresses, and a few new tops (okay, and a few “summery” items in the hope I can use them in warm weather next year!). I ended up wearing a new pair of pants, a new top and an old blazer the first day of the DC trip, and a old pair of paints, top and blazer the second day. And I was happy to use old and new.
But the seed was planted. Ha ha!
Since then, I have gone shopping three times, which is A LOT for me. Once on my own during my lunch break at work, and twice with my snister when she was visiting.
Part of me feels funny about it, because, like I said, I don’t dress up that often, and also… I don’t care a lot about what I wear. Or my appearance.
But! Part of me does like dressing up for work, and sometimes looking cuter when I leave the house.
So it’s been fun. But it still makes me feel weird to have new things hanging in my closet.
The good thing is that it forced me to get rid of that old stuff to make room!
Are you like me, and more likely to update a few things in your closet at once? Or do you do it more frequently?
Of course, I didn’t even mention work out clothes. Ha ha. Those get updated a lot more frequently. It is crazy tights season – gotta watch out for new fun prints!!!
Training Week 263
Highlight of the Week: Fitting in some weekday runs despite a loco 4+ hour (total for the day) commute!
Monday | October 27, 2014: teaching strength class
Strength: body bars, Difficulty: easy, Felt: tired/meh
Tuesday | October 28, 2014: 8 m run
Loc: hood, Temp: 64°/60°, Time: 1:18:29, Pace: 9:48 avg, Difficulty: easy, Felt: great, annoyed with the wind
Wednesday | October 29, 2014: 8.5 m run
Loc: hood, Temp: 46°/45°, Time: 1:24:29, Pace: 9:56 avg, Difficulty: easy, Felt: great, still annoyed by the wind
Thursday | October 30, 2014: 10.1 m run
Loc: hood, Temp: 34°/34°, Time: 1:39:09, Pace: 9:49 avg, Difficulty: easy, Felt: good, happy it wasn’t windy, ha ha
Friday | October 31, 2014: teaching strength class + 4 m run
Strength: body bars, Difficulty: easy, Felt: peppy
Loc: Millennium Trail, Temp: 37°/36°, Time: 37:45, Pace: 9:25, Difficulty: easy, Felt: energetic (somehow not annoyed by 25mph winds
Saturday | November 1, 2014: 21.6 m run (w/Bobbi for second quarter)
Loc: DPRT, Temp: 35°/39°, Time: 3:43:58, Pace: 10:22 avg, Difficulty: mostly easy, Felt: good, tired for the last few miles
Sunday | November 2, 2014: 3.3 m run
Loc: Millennium Trail, Temp: 29°/33°, Time: 31:55, Pace: 9:41 avg, Difficulty: medium, Felt: decent
Notes:
- Woo hoo! October was my first (and maybe only) 200 mile month of the year! One more high mileage month before the marathon in December!
- During my runs in the dark this week I was thinking how good it is for me to run without daylight… because I don’t stop as much as I do when it’s light out, to take photos! Ha ha. Although, I did stop at the house for water, and one time, ended up petting Data for a few minutes. Oops. (Data is so cute – whenever I run before work he watches out the door for me the entire time – ha ha, just kidding – I know he’s watching wildlife and blowing leaves)
- Speaking of stopping for water, it’s getting to be that (colder) time of year where I can be lazy about carrying water. In the summer, I’ll carry my handheld for a three miler! In the fall/winter, I won’t take it until I am doing six or more. How do your water carrying habits change between the hot and cold months?
- I have been remembering my electrolyte tabs for my long runs! And now it’s the Vaseline for my nose I am forgetting (I need it in the winter – my nose gets chapped)! I should just put it by the tabs, ha ha.
- There was a skunk sighting this week. Sigh.
- On Friday we had 25 mph winds with 50 mph gusts, so I did something I haven’t for almost two years – wore headphones for my run (to block out the wind)! The headphones succeeded in making me feel more annoyed with them than the wind (they are bluetooth and I had to carry my phone for the songs to not cut out – my vest pocket/bra wouldn’t work). But once I got them to work the beats gave me a speed boost. Maybe I’ll wear them for my next 5K!
- I got sick to my stomach twice during my long run this week, I think, because of a Clif Gel I took. It’s one with 100 mg of caffeine, which gives me a huge energy boost, but bothers my stomach. Gah. I wish the flavors with OMG ALL THE CAFFEINE didn’t have to be chocolate-y or coffee-y!
- I stood up for quite a few hours after my long run, working on my computer. I think being on my feet really helped my recovery!
- So many bullets this week! AHHHHH!!! Last one, I promise. For my past two long runs (and several random runs) I’ve turned my Garmin to a screen that only shows overall moving time, rather than showing that plus distance and pace. This allows me to focus on running naturally, rather than worrying about pace. A lot of people talk about running “naked” (sans electronic devices like this) for the same reason, but I still like having the data for later. Do you ever run with a GPS watch but ignore the stats during the run?
Well, I’d rather talk about it than do it…
Ha ha, are you wondering what that title is in regard to?
During my work week I discovered one of the contractors assigned to the project ran the Chicago Marathon this year. Naturally, running and exercise related conversation ensued. Which I enjoyed, but felt bad about during and after – I didn’t intend to dominate a group conversation with a topic only a couple of people could participate in.
So later I apologized to my coworker about it, and she said, well, what the title says – “Well, I would rather talk about it than do it!”
Which of course, was a funny way to respond and it made me laugh. But then I got to thinking about the comments the other people listening to the running-talk were adding, and it was all comments about why they can’t exercise, or why they don’t, or how lame it is.
Sigh.
I am unfortunately used to these kind of responses when people find out I am vegan. The most common responses are why people don’t do it, or how they never could. Or how good meat tastes.
It gets old, ha ha.
Do you have any interests or hobbies that gets a response like this?
But back to exercise. What’s with the exercise-shaming? In a society where more and more people are reported obese each year, why are people making fun of those who take the time to work out?
Really, why, when people share a passion or hobby, do people come back with things that are wrong about it, or why it would never interest them?
I’ve written about this before. And I will say the same – when someone tells me about an interest of theirs that I don’t share, I ask questions. I try to learn about it.
Anyways.
The funny thing is, while I talk about exercise a lot on here, I don’t, much at all, at work. I don’t tell my coworkers about upcoming races, or the classes I teach (save for my fave coworker that I can talk to).
So it is exciting when I find someone I can talk to it about! I mean, just like you get excited when you find anyone who shares a similar interest. And yes, I have more interests than running!
Dressed as Chewie for Star Wars Day.
The good thing about spending so much time with people though, is that you find out a lot of things about them, so while my coworker doesn’t have any interest in exercise, I found out she is a huge Star Wars fan and likes heavy metal. So those are things we can talk about, amicably.
Hi! I’m Kim, a 40-something-year-old living in northeastern Illinois with my husband Steven, and our cats, Khaleesi, Apollo, Starbuck, and Eddard aka Ned. My current main hobbies are running, painting rocks, flying, reading, and eating. I follow a vegan lifestyle and work in an account management role. I write about a variety of topics and consider this a “life” blog – a place I can share anything that’s on my mind. Please visit the “About” page to get a better idea of who I am! 🙂
