Yup, there’s been a lot going on in the past few weeks and I am SOOOO tired.

I moved in with Brandon this weekend. Spent all last week packing up my apartment after work. Brandon would come over and grab a few boxes each night and move them over. Then Saturday we had movers come to get the large things. I have many large items it seems… Is this more than most?:

• sectional couch
• futon
• queen size bed
• 2 book shelves
• 3 dressers
• glass entertainment center
• computer desk

It never seems like that much but it took them 2 hours to get it all down to the truck and another hour to unload it all. Whatever tho, it was worth the money and also worth us not breaking our own backs! We still need to unpack and such.

The garage is currently packed with stuff so neither of us can park in it. Brandon did get these awesome surfboard racks tho that hang the boards on the wall to clear up some space. Those look really awesome mounted! So we’ll slowly unpack over the next week or so. I still need to clean the old place but I’m hoping to get the majority of that done tonight. I need to turn the keys in by Wednesday anyways.

Now, hopefully Brandon won’t get transferred anywhere immediately.

Running still sucks. I hate it. I dread attempting it today as I’m still tired and sore but I only ran once last week. Cycling however is going swimmingly! I get faster each time and this coming Saturday I’ll try one of the longer rides with one of the local cycling clubs. I’m excited for that, those are pretty enjoyable.

Then in 2 weeks I go home and visit my parents for roughly 10 days! I’m stoked for that as I haven’t been home in a LONG time.

And when I get back… I want to BAKE! I’ve not done that in forever since it’s generally a weekend thing and I was rarely hanging out at my place on the weekends. Cakes incoming!

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.

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.

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!

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.

Another weekend comes to an end.

Recap as follows:

Friday night I took Brandon out to dinner to celebrate his promotional awesomeness of Captain. I’m sure I’ve mentioned that a few times already, hehe. But now I have pictures!

I really like this picture of us.

The wine was good…

Really good!

Brandon eying the foodage. He got Blue Crab Crusted Mahi Mahi, which are hiding behind my Crab Cakes.

This thing was in fire when I took the picture! Wish the blue flame came out.

Saturday is kind of a blur for some reason and Friday night really wasn’t that crazy to induce memory loss… We pretty much just chilled, rented a movie, and made yummy chicken quesadilla’s for dinner. And a bit more wine.

Sunday was pecan pancakes and the Superbowl! Go Saints?! Ya, go SAINTS! OK, so I only cheer for them because they are Brandon’s team. But that’s one of the best reasons I can think of.

This week I changed around my diet some. I increased calories at the advice of some people and I also tried to reduce my carbs to be about 50% rather than the almost 60% they were before. Even with some of the bad eating over the weekend there was nothing horrible number wise. Workouts were good too except I didn’t get something in over the weekend like I wanted.

This week I’ll be sure to be a little better with it.

So that was all the fun and good, but I guess it can’t always be like that… Isn’t it amazing how we can be such punks to the ones we love at times? I was totally this at a few points in the weekend. I hate that. It bums me out. Everyone does it here and there I suppose. I’ll assume the most important thing however is making it a rarity. So I’m not gonna sit here and make excuses why I acted (or at least think I acted) that way but I will be sure to keep myself in check and not let small things make me snap at the people I care more than anything about. I’m 99% happy right now and I want to keep it that way.

Oh well. So now I’m just finishing up some laundry and preparing myself for the work week ahead. Light of the end of this weeks tunnel is a 3 day weekend however!!! I love 3 day weekends!

So that’s the name of their large ice cream anyways. But have you tried this?!

If not, you must go grab yourself a Coldstone Ice Cream Cookie Sandwich! It is AWESOME!

Funny that this post comes right after the post where I was wondering if I should sign up for a gym? HAHA.

But this is how amazing Brandon is. Showing up announced at my place at 7:30pm bearing creamy ice cream between soft and chewy chocolate chip cookies. It was the perfect-ist little surprise ever.

There are 2 more awaiting their fate in the freezer but they’ll at least survive until the weekend.

Just roughly 32 hours ’til the WEEKEND! Friday night I am taking Brandon to dinner to celebrate captain-hood. We’re going here:

to eat:

It has some great reviews on Yelp. I’m pretty sure we are going to have a great time! I can’t wait!

Since this post seems to predominantly be about food here’s an interesting thing I noticed the other night… Every time I cook some form of turkey, last night was a turkey burger, the tortoise wakes from his deep slumber and sits in his dark habitat looking out at me. Doesn’t do it with salmon or the jambalaya I made the other night. It’s happened 3 times now though with turkey burgers and turkey meatloaf.

What does this mean? He’s a herbivore. Nevertheless, it’s pretty cute. He’s all curious about what’s going on so I give him some more of his food and then he goes back to sleep. He’s not getting my turkey damn it.

And now for the last thing about food. Tonight I’m making a yummy Maple Salmon for dinner as my attempt to get fish in my diet at least twice a week. I actually remembered to take it out of the freezer before I left for work.

Things are good!

Oh how I hate the gym. Though every year I seem to consider it again. I have no problem working out on my own and honestly don’t need a gym… Except for the fact that I want spin classes. I get a decent amount of enjoyment out of them.

I’ve been through this 3 times now at L.A. Fitness. I’m getting emails from them currently for no initiation fee and $20 a month. All classes are included in this fee. The problem is I can’t get there to spin at lunch w/o taking nearly a  2 hour lunch. To go in the evening meant I’d have to get there at least 30 minutes early just to wait in line to make sure I got a bike. So again a 60 minute spin class turns into a 90+ minute ordeal.

No to mention some of their instructors were not what I liked. I don’t want to punch air on a bike.

I used to do the 5:45am classes and would consider those again… But just not at L.A. Fitness. I think 3 chances are enough.

Across the street from where I work there is a nice gym. I called them up the other day to inquire about classes and membership. They said I would have no problem getting a bike at lunch, the evenings I should come a little early, but Saturdays are the really busy spin day. I’m fine with that, I’m not spinning on a Saturday.

Price? Well here is where I need to start wondering if the fun I get out of it is worth the price. It’s $95 a month for a membership and unlimited classes or I can pay a flat $125 for 10 spin classes only, no other gym usage. Honestly with that break down I might as well just pay the monthly membership. But is spinning really worth that? It would be a better experience than at L.A. Fitness for sure…

Seems kinda pricey… but maybe it’s inline for a smaller more people oriented gym. I’ve never tried a non-chain gym.

Worth a shot? I dunno. There’s a lot I could do with that $95, none of it would be useful of course. I was having this chat with a coworker the other day and said that’s $1200 a year on a gym! He responded some people spend that same amount on Starbucks…

I guess I should see if I can pay for just one class and see if I like it. Maybe I’d make use of the rest of the gym, who knows. I just know I have a free one in my apartment building that never holds my interest because I’d rather do other forms of workouts.

Maybe I’ll stop by there during lunch and chat with someone today.