And to Think That I Saw it on Mulberry Street

I've been putting off posting anything for weeks because I've been in a February Mood - you know, that uneasiness and dissatisfaction caused by those warm spring-like days that are then followed by a good dose of winter.  Nothing seemed to be going right and everything was causing me too much stress.  Unfortunately (I guess) our mild winter has extended well into March and it's still not completely spring.

One of my many stresses has been my running.  I finished the couch to 5K (yay for me!) then I got sick and had to take it easy for a week or so.  Since then I've felt unmotivated to run, but I've done it anyway - very slowly and badly.  It's been very discouraging.  I decided that today I should start the Bridge to 10K which starts off where the other program left off.  10 minutes of running + 1 minute walking, repeated 4 times, plus a 5 minute warm-up and 5 minute cool-down is a huge time commitment for me, but something had to change so I thought I'd try.  I run at home.  About 8 laps around my driveway is one mile.  There are lots of interesting things out in the country but after doing this since October I think I've pretty much seen everything there is to see from the driveway.  Then today, on about my 4th lap, I looked up and saw a zebra.  Well I suppose it's not really a zebra but a zebra crossed with a horse or donkey or something like that, and it was just as surprising as seeing a real zebra.  Some new neighbors moved in this weekend and we saw their full horse trailer, but never saw what came out of it.  It was really a pleasant surprise and it made my run go much better.

I carry my phone in my pocket when I run so I got a picture of my new friend, but I had to zoom in too much so it didn't turn out very good.  Hopefully he'll get used to seeing me and will come closer to the fence one of these days.

My Crazy Heart

I've finally come out and told people that I've been trying to run.  I don't run very fast or very long and I've been struggling a little with how weak and tired I feel while I'm running.  I haven't been gasping for breath or wheezing or anything, but the sensation was kind of like being out of breath.  On Wednesday, just for fun, I took my pulse right after I finished running.  It was 183.  That seemed a little high but I wasn't really sure.

Thursday I went to the doctor for a routine check-up.  I told her I was feeling more out of breath than I thought I should when I run.  She went through a series of questions about my breathing, then she asked about my  heart rate.  I told her what it was, then told her I recently lost a cousin because of an enlarged heart.  She sent me straight to cardiology for an EKG, then to radiology for an x-ray, then had me come straight back to see her.  (By the way, I love my health plan - all this was under the same roof and only took half an hour or so.)  She looked at my EKG print-out and said it looked good, then showed me my x-ray on her monitor and said my heart looked healthy and normal.  Then she ordered a treadmill stress test for the next day.

Friday morning I had my stress test.  I wish I had watched a youtube video of a stress test ahead of time so I would have known what to expect.  I was supposed to fast for 4 hours before the test, which seemed like no big deal because I hadn't been eating breakfast before I run and the test was in the morning.  I just ate dinner as usual on Wednesday then went to the doctor Thursday morning without eating.  That was my first mistake.  I should have gotten up at 5 am and eaten something, or scheduled my test for later in the day.  They were running a little late and by the time I got on the treadmill I hadn't eaten for 16 hours. My next mistake was being afraid to start running.  They kept speeding up the treadmill and I kept walking faster and faster.  I was afraid if I started to run my pace would be off and I'd fall off the treadmill.  You know, kind of like when you step on or off those moving sidewalks at the airport - or am I the only one who almost falls every time?  Anyway, lets just say the test was definitely stressful!  I had to ask to stop which was kind of humiliating.  The nurse practitioner who administered the test said I was too out of shape to run and I should just walk so I didn't stress my heart so much.  I really didn't like her.

Now back to the no breakfast thing for a minute.  I've learned from my own experience that eating dairy products before exercising doesn't work well for me, and from a friend's experience that eating a box of cheeze-its before exercise isn't good either.  Somehow I took that all to mean that I shouldn't eat before I run.  A friend of mine suggested I eat oatmeal before running, so on Saturday that's what I did.

Saturday morning I asked my husband to run with me.  We ran along the creek by our house, which was great because it's too secluded for me to run there alone.  I had oatmeal in my stomach and my new heart monitor strapped to my chest.  It was a warm, beautiful morning.  I set the monitor to beep when my heart rate got above 180, which was really annoying because it beeped the entire 25 minutes I ran.  I maxed out at 194, but was able to hold a conversation with Rick the whole time and I really didn't feel tired.  In fact, I felt amazing!  I think it was the oatmeal.

I ran again this morning, a little longer and still pretty slow.  My heart rate was between 180 and 190.  I didn't feel as good as I did on Saturday, but it was colder with a little bit of rain and wind and that kind of annoyed me. I didn't feel overly exhausted or breathless.  Yep, definitely the oatmeal.

Yes, I was disobeying the orders of that dumb nurse practitioner, but this morning I emailed my doctor and gave her the details of my last two runs.  She then gave me permission to run as long as I slow down to a walk if I feel lightheaded or completely out of breath.  It sounds like a good compromise to me.  For now I'm going to keep using the heart monitor and I'm keeping a journal of how long I run, my heart rate, how I feel, etc.  We'll see if my heart rate lowers as I get in better shape.  It may just be that I have a freakishly fast heart.

C25K Update

I've been torn between documenting my running progress then having to admit failure, and not documenting it then not having a good story to go along with my success.  My fear of public failure has won out so far, so other than a couple brief mentions on this blog I've kept mostly quiet on the subject and only told a few people.  Now that I've had some degree of success I think I can share what I've accomplished.

I started in the middle of October.  (Here's my first post.) The first week wasn't too bad, except that I was so sore after the first day that I hobbled around for a couple weeks.  The second week was a little harder, 6 90-second jogs alternating with walking.  Looking back that sounds so easy, but at the time it definitely wasn't.  Sometime in those first two weeks I read somewhere that it was ok to repeat weeks if you didn't feel comfortable moving up to the next level.  I think that's the only thing that kept me going.  I don't remember which weeks I repeated or how many times I repeated them, but last week (which was somewhere around my 14th week) I was still on the week 5 workout.  The week 5 day 3 assignment was to walk for 5 minutes, run for 20 minutes, then walk for 5 minutes.  Honestly, I didn't think I'd ever be able to do that!  But last Friday I finally decided to try.  And guess what - it didn't kill me!  It didn't even make my legs sore!  Sure I was out of breath a little, but that's what happens when you run.  This week I did all the week 6 workouts.  Today I ran for 25 minutes.  Monday I'll tackle week 7, which is three more 25-minute runs.  Week 8 is 28-minute runs, week 9 is 30-minute runs, then I'm done with the program and I can do whatever I want, as long as I keep running three times a week.

These are my new friends.  I bought them after meeting my goal of walking / running for three months.  I almost feel like I should name them, but I'm not sure if a pair of shoes gets one name or if each shoe gets its own name.  I hope to spend a couple of good years with these shoes and wear them out.  I can't say I love running.  I don't even really like it.  I might actually hate it while I'm doing it, at least for the first 5 - 10 minutes.  I love the feeling I have when I'm done, though.  When I've accomplished something I didn't think I could do, something I couldn't do a few months ago.  I love that feeling so much that I almost can't wait until Monday, when I get to run again.

Happy New Year

I thought I should post something at the beginning of the year for no other reason than to hold myself accountable for what I may or may not do this year.  I'm not making any resolutions because that implies changing my life in some way and I pretty much like my life the way it is.  I do, however, have a short to-do list. Or maybe it's really more of a keep-doing list.

1. I'm going to keep exercising. My couch to 5k is going very slowly, but at least it's still going.  After almost 3 months I'm only on week 5 of the program, but that's mostly because I've been repeating weeks, not skipping my workout.  As a reward, if I'm still doing this in 2 weeks I'm going to buy myself a good pair of running shoes.  I thought I'd put my reward in the middle of January to make sure I stay motivated through any winter weather we might have.  There were a couple of below-freezing days in December (or was it November?) and I survived those with a couple extra layers of clothing, but I still haven't decided what I'll do if it rains.

2.  I'm going to keep sewing, although I have no specific plans in place yet.  I have a couple of projects I need to work on for Ashley this month then I'll do something for myself.  I have some vague ideas but I'm not ready to commit to any of them yet.

3.  I'm going to make bread.  Lots of bread.  This was pretty much our dinner last night:



I bought the book "Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day" and I'm having lots of fun with it.  Now we can have warm bread for dinner almost every night.  Good thing I'm running, to work off some of this bread, right?

4.  I'm going to clean my desk.  Ok, that's a to-do item, not a keep-doing item, but I thought I should put it on here anyway.  Every morning I say I'm going to clean my desk and then I don't do it.  I'm pretty sure I can manage to get it done sometime during 2012.  I want to clean my sewing room too.  And maybe paint it and redecorate a little.  That doesn't get it's own number on the list though because it's more of a wishful-thinking item.  I just thought I'd throw it in here so if I actually do it I can brag a little.

That's it.  That's as big as I'm going to dream this year.  Now I have to end this post because the picture of the bread is making me hungry.  Happy New Year everyone!!

December Skirt

I think I deserve extra credit this month. Not only did I finish my skirt before the end of the month, but I actually wore it to church on Christmas. Even more impressive, I bought a sweater and necklace to go with it so I have a complete outfit.  I think I've pretty much perfected this skirt pattern after using it several times this year.

I still haven't decided on my sewing goals for next year. The next few weeks will be crazy with work and church responsibilities so I may not even think about sewing until the end of January.

This is my first attempt at blogging from my phone so I apologize if things look funny. If I didn't need my computer for work I'd probably hardly ever use it since I can pretty much run my life from my phone.

November skirt

I sort of finished a skirt for November. Here's a bad picture of it.  I'm in a hurry and don't have time to try to get a good picture.  The skirt isn't hemmed so it's technically not finished, but I made the pattern myself and this is sort of a first draft.  I'm not sure I'll ever wear it so I didn't want to go to the bother of hemming it.  I'm trying to decide if it's worth the effort of taking it apart and fixing the things I don't like.  It might just be faster to tweak the pattern and make a whole new skirt.  I'll ponder that next week while I'm laying on the beach in Hawaii.  

A Cold Gray Monday

Today has all the makings for a miserable day.  Alex and Ashley went back to college yesterday after being home for five days.  It's cold in the house and I'm too cheap to turn the heat on when I'm home alone.  It's foggy outside and I may not see the sun all day.  And oh yeah, it's Monday.  But it's actually a really good day, for the following reasons:

1.  Persimmons

This picture of our persimmon tree was taken a couple weeks ago on another foggy morning.  Now most of the leaves have fallen, leaving probably 100 or so bright round persimmons on a scraggly-looking tree reminiscent of A Charlie Brown Christmas.  I decided I better pick some of the persimmons before they too fall to the ground.  I have a confession to make - I've never picked a persimmon from this tree before.  I usually let a friend pick them and have them all, but he didn't ask for them this year so I decided to acquaint myself with these strange little fruits.  I picked a few then hesitantly cut one up and ate it.  It was heavenly!  Crisp like an apple, sweet like a pear, with a little bit of a tropical-mango-type flavor.  So I went back out and picked another 20 of them.  I still have no idea what I'll do with all this fruit but I guess I'll figure something out.

2.  Exercise

I'm still plugging away at my Couch to 5k workout.  It's progressing very slowly and I've repeated a couple weeks and taken a few days off.  Last week I was wavering between giving up completely and going in for a check up to find out why I'm unable to run any length of time without feeling like I'm dying.  Today I had a breakthrough.  It's not my legs or lungs that keep me from being a runner, it's my mind.  When I'm distracted by thinking of all the things I need or want to be doing, I forget I'm running and I can go farther.  When I concentrate on time, speed or distance I psych myself out and think I can't do it.  I'm still much closer to "couch" than to 5k, but I'm making progress, I'm challenging myself to do something hard, and most of all it feels really good when I've done something I didn't think I could do.

3.  Spicy Food

I'm feeling a little bit of a cold coming on.  Maybe it's allergies instead, or maybe I'm just coughing and sniffing because it's cold in the house.  Whatever the reason, my favorite cold remedy is a spicy kimchi-flavored noodle bowl (a distant relative of cup-o-noodle or top ramen).  That's what I had for lunch today, with a few drops of sriracha added for good measure.  It was a nice hot bowl of throat-burning goodness and it made me happy.  

4.  Hawaii

Rick and I are leaving for Hawaii on Friday to spend a week vacationing with his dad and step-mom.  I really dislike flying but I think I can put up with it this time so I can trade 50 degrees and foggy for 80 degrees and sunny.  

I'm sure there are more things to like about today but it's still early and I haven't discovered them all yet.  In the meantime I think I'll start packing and I'll eat another persimmon.