thehappycat.net

Current Mood: Playful

Current Mood: Athletic & Happy

Ya, I had one and it was gud.

It’s been slightly hectic since my last post. Work has picked up some, I’m running still, I bought a bike, and I’m moving in with Brandon next month if nothing catastrophic happens with his job.

Running

It’s been going pretty good. It will always be hard for me and I’ve come to accept that. Monday I had the fastest run yet for my 4.15 mile lunch route. Wednesday I accomplished my fastest mile pace but turned around after 1.5 miles and walked back because my legs were sore and I was mentally having a rough day from the start. I blame the sore legs on the new bike, which I’ll talk about next. I also purchased a new pair of running shoes so they might have been causing some aches. RoadRunner sent me a mailing saying Nike was discontinuing the shoe that I’ve been buying so I went and got another pair before they’re gone. The inserts I get tho have already been moved to a new model and are slightly uncomfortable. I’m giving them some time to see if I get used to them or not. But for today I brought in my old shoes because I know nothing hurts with them on.

Biking

Check it out!

It’s awesome. Did I spend more than I wanted? Hell yes… Am I currently regretting it?… Newp. God, these things are expensive. I had no idea. When I bought my mountain bike I got it for $700. It’s decent enough, I saw them go all the way up to like $4000. Road bikes go up to like $8000, that’s like a third of the price of my Jeep!

Everyone I chatted with who bikes said shell out a bit more now and I’ll be happy with it for much longer. So it’s a carbon frame which is so light compared to my mountain bike. I can easily lift the entire bike into the back of my Jeep. I made sure to get the 105 components. There were a few other component names mentioned that were better but then the bikes started to get into the $3500 range. So I got the bottom end of the good bikes from what I understand.

I rode it 6 miles on Tuesday during lunch. My butt still hurts… as well as my legs are very achy in various places which is why I think I failed on my Wednesday run. I got 10 miles out of it yesterday in the same amount of time since I’m starting to get more comfortable with it. It’s way different than my Huffy from when I was a kid!

There are some bike groups that ride on the weekends that I’m going to start going with. That has always looked fun to me and they are free and have a wide range of experience. Unfortunately, the weather has been pissing on San Diego on the weekends. I believe this Saturday is no different looking at the forecast. There is a Sunday group but I think they may be slightly too advanced for me so I may just wait until next weekend to try the group stuff.

The lunch path I’ve been doing is pretty neat and off any areas with motor vehicles. I’m too scared to go on the street until I manage a few rides with those groups. The lunch path tho is long with some hills that make me put forth effort. They even pass some wildlife! I’ve seen a snake, a rabbit (not the fluffy bunny kind), and a chipmunk! I’ve also slaughtered many caterpillars. I apologize every time I notice if I hit one. Not that it cares at that point but still… trying to keep the karma good.

Moving

Looking forward to moving. Hopefully everything goes according to the plan I don’t have. Brandon is kinda in flux at the moment at work. I’ve already given my notice to my apartment tho and I have to be out by the 31st. Stuff like this is why I apologize to the flattened caterpillars. See? Karma. I should be on the good karma list right now and hence I know this is going to work out well and I will have a place to live come April 1st…

Oh and then this is what happens when boys bake.

Giant jars of marshmallow fluff gravitate towards their mouths.

And when they can’t reach the bottom?

But real work was done too! See!?

Ya, he’s pretty cool still.

Current Mood: Happy

I love long weekends. We don’t get enough of them in the year. This long weekend also happened to be over Valentin’s Day.

Friday night was pretty chill. Brandon’s roommate made enchiladas so we ate, drank, watched movies, then crashed.

Saturday Brandon went surfing and I took some pretty lousy pictures. I think I was messing with some HDR stuff earlier and I think I messed up my white balance. That’s totally fixable in post but the shots themselves weren’t anything worth mentioning unfortunately anyways. Later we went and saw The Wolfman. I personally didn’t care for it but Brandon liked it. I prefer more stylized werewolfs like in Underworld or Twilight: New Moon. We’ve been having bad luck seeing good movies lately!

Sunday we decided to head up to Santa Barbara on a whim. We drove up the coast and stopped a few times along the way to check out waves and such.

In front of a biker type hangout. LOUD!!!

You know, I got that awesome Samsung camera that has a display on the front so you can take pictures of yourself easier. It proved difficult tho when you bf towers over you. I wouldn’t change that for the world tho.

I like this picture a lot. Except for the bird shit all over the rock!

It was an awesome but long drive. We left about 11am and got there around 7pm. Unfortunately there was some sort of convention there and that topped with it being Valentine’s Day made it impossible to find a room there. So we ended up grabbing a nice dinner and head back south a bit so find a place to stay.

Sunday we headed back and decided to take the freeway for a shorter trip. So much driving is TIRING and our butts were numb from sitting! We took a small detour though and drove around Hollywood and Beverly Hills. Definitely glad I don’t live there. It looks miserable and not worth the money.

San Diego is the best!

Surprisingly I didn’t completely blow it in the food department. It wasn’t the healthiest by any means but when I tallied up the numbers this morning I stopped feeling so guilty. So the weekly health and fitness recap looks like:

I didn’t get as much workout in as I would have liked but between feeling like shit Thursday and a long weekend where we were out of town for two days I’m happy.

No workout Monday either obviously so I’ll try and make that up the rest of the week and I’m sure this weekend we’ll so something active. I bought a Camelbak and I’m really excited to use it! I got it for $40 at Sport Chalet since it was the 2009 model. Can’t beat that!

Awesomest Valentine’s Day weekend ever.

Time to work I guess.

Current Mood: Sickly

Wow. Never in my life have I ever been in such pain as I was yesterday. By some miracle (aka Tylenol 3) I survived.

Without getting into the gory details… My employers medical insurance sucks. A prescription I’ve been able to get between $10-$20 at SOE was now $40 here. After a year of that, or $480 dollars later, I decided to switch to something else that was cheaper. $200 bucks and lasts for 5 years, feel free to guess what it is if you’d like. Anyways, I cannot believe how much that freaking hurt to do. I felt nauseous the rest of the day. In fact I almost pulled over while I was driving back to work because I felt so sick. I ended up just grabbing my stuff and going home. Miserable I tell you.

I have a super high pain tolerance too I think. I mean if it’s pierce-able, I’ve pierced it. Nearly my entire back is tattooed. Only took one Vicodin after getting my wisdom teeth out and that was just because they highly suggested me to take it. Never took anything for the surgery on my shoulder. Had to take a little bit of whatever they gave me after I got my ear drained last year. In general tho, things don’t hurt me… more just minor irritations.

So with all these things I’ve had done and never taking the medication I had a lot stored up. Thank god I did because it came in handy yesterday. Advil wasn’t cutting it.

I feel mostly human again today so I’m gonna try and run at lunch. I’m disappointed I didn’t get a workout in yesterday but I guess it’s just one of those unavoidable things.

Now just to make it through today and then a nice long 3 day weekend! No idea what we are gonna do yet. It’s Valentine’s Day on Sunday so I made some goodies for Brandon . Not the goodies I wanted to make because I felt too horrible last night but I think these turned out ok and he should like them. I have no idea if he reads this blog or not, so Brandon if you read this… expect to get goodies.

Let’s get this day moving!

Current Mood: Happy

Or trying to at least!

I went running on Monday at lunch. Yeah, I know… I’ve tried this running thing before. I have a love/hate with it. I want to do it, I’m just so bad at it.

This time I’m going to try and go about it the right way… Tho what is the right way?

In the past I’ve totally been the cause of my own failure. I know my body has impact limitations due to some injuries yet I pushed it. Probably too far. There was a point I was doing 6 mile runs 3-4 times a week (with 3 mile runs other days). That’s cool for some people. Apparently not for me, at least as fast as I ramped up to it. I compounded this excessive running with NOT stretching as much as I should. I’m old, I’m feeble due to gymnastics… I should know better. I certainly know how to stretch well. I’m not sure if it was just laziness or the fact that since I am still so flexible that I figured I didn’t need to stretch. Either way I was dumb not to.

I wasn’t eating enough so I fatigued myself. I totally aggravated the labral tear in my hip. I was running the most boring route possible, Miramar Road. I mean come on, I live in San Diego, I’m sure I can find some place a bit more scenic to keep it interesting.

Until this past Monday I hadn’t run for several months. During that time span I’ve changed my diet to be way more balanced. I’ve rested my hip enough to where it rarely hurts. And I’ve been walking at a fast pace to keep up some form of cardio.

Maybe this is just a better way since right is different for each person? Well whatever, this is the cardio plan:

• Run 2x at lunch during the work week
  • stretch, stretch, stretch damn it!
• Walk 2x at lunch during the work week
  • stretch, stretch, stretch!
• Buy single spin class passes and do that once at lunch during the work week (if I choose not to rest that day); or if it’s raining
• Hike or run with Brandon on the weekends if we don’t go surf or something else

The run on Monday was nice albeit hard. I lose endurance so quickly it’s pathetic. I went with a coworker and we ran 4.15 miles, I won’t share the time because it’s embarrassing. It was a nice scenic run in Del Mar past a bunch of houses I will never have enough money to own and we looped back once we reached a highway that overlooks the ocean. Much better than the 18-wheelers on Miramar. Check out the evil hill:

I’m still sore but it’s all muscle soreness which I’m fine with. It probably didn’t help that I went home and did a ton of lunges during my evening workout! There was a little kink in my left ankle for some reason half way thru the run which I’ll pay particular attention to before the next time I go. The hip feels great!

I’m interested to see how this plan affects me along with my evening workouts. There are so many different philosophies about where your heart rates should be for different results. My runs will put me in my max range, the walks will put me in my fat burning range, and the evening workouts vary depending on which I’m doing but it mostly focuses on strength anyways.

I just need to remember to push myself within my healthy limits and keep in perspective that I am not a runner. I’m not training for races, not trying to beat my times or anyone else, and not trying to rack up crazy amounts of miles. I just run.

I’m feeling positive about this about this more relaxed approach.