HardCORE, Maize Maze, Calendar

HardCORE workout is going very well. I am wondering when Jamoosh is going to give us something HARD to do finding that I am able to get ALMOST all the way through all of the exercises without stopping. Surprisingly, the bicycle thing-a-bob is what kills me. Yes, it is the SECOND one on the list. Tonight I will think about doing them in reverse order and see what happens.

Yesterday 4/5 of the family went to a Corn Maze in West Danville, VT. We'd been there once before in 2007 and had a wonderful time so we thought we'd give it another go. For kicks, I wore my Garmin 305. Yea. well, to see what happens when a 13 year old and a 4 year old lead you through a maze, click on this link and then use the 'player' feature in the upper right. We found out later that some friends of ours did the same maze in 48 minutes. It took us the better part of 2.25 hours. Luckily Dad overpacked the backpack (as USUAL) and we had plenty of water and snacks to keep us going. Everyone did well, and I only lost my marbles once, which i think is an improvement over the first time that we went. So....win!

Calendar. Some one messed with mine. According to the calendar on my wall, today is 30 AUGUST. If you look outside, or better yet GO outside, it is JULY something or other, most likely the 10th. This is a good thing, actually, because since it is really JULY, I can still undo some of the bad mistakes I made when the calendar read JULY (during which time it was most likely MAY). Just sayin'.

So it is a new week, I'm working on some projects at work (aside from the blog), and am planning on actually trying out the cereal that I won a few weeks back from Carissa. There is a rumor that I'll get to test a piece of fitness equipment, too, but I am not certain about that. We'll have to wait and see.....

How is YOUR week shaping up?

fun foto friday

B-Man ready for a dinner time run!

No, that isn't my a$$. puttin' out fires as 'training'. ahhhh...

http://mysocalledfabulouslife.blogspot.com/2010/08/beer-bike.html


Jamoosh, ya GOTTA have one of these.....
 

quick little TTT

1) the Hug I got this morning before leaving the house.
2) the Hug I got this morning before leaving the house.
3) the Hug I got this morning before leaving the house.

O'Soy Review

First off, the disclaimer.
I bought this product with my own money (yes, my wife and i have a joint account, so it was OUR money), no one sent it to me (ew!), i had no coupons (or at least i didn't USE any), and perhaps most importantly no animals were harmed during the testing of this product (except perhaps one of the cats, when i dumped her out of the kitchen chair so that i could plop down and eat. ok, fine, i ate standing at the sink (ZERO CALORIES!))
onward.....
Most weeks I go through a big tub of Stonyfield Organic Fat Free Plain yogurt as breakfast. I could probably do through more, but I am trying to limit portion size. At least when people are watching. I typically mix in some Kashi Go-Lean CRUNCH and mebbe a banana or some strawberries here or there. I choose plain because it is lower in sugar content and doesn't distract from the flavor of the cereal. But when B and I were running errands last night, I saw this on sale so I thought I would try it and let ya'll know what I think. (lucky.you.)

OOPS. wait. flippin' BLOGGER. (the person, not the program). this ISN"T what I tried out (although i DID take advantage of a little treat back on 4JUN). ok, here, without further ado, is what I tried:

I dunno if you can read the whole container, but below "O'Soy" it says: Organic Soy Yogurt and Smooth and Creamy and then Vanilla. Well, i can't officially vouch for the organic part, but it certainly IS smoooooth and creamy. but not the creamy that leaves the roof of your mouth coated with some slippery stuff. And as for vanilla...well...kinda. The first difference that i noted (when compared with my regular, afore mentioned choice) is the smell. It just didn't smell the same. not in an "oh, hey, i think this milk is sour...here, smell it" kind of way, but just enough to make me notice. mixed well in the cup, no watery whateverthatis on the top. creeeeeeeamy and smooth. (which is how it should be labled. C comes before S. just sayin') My tounge was happy with it, too. Nice, rich texture, abit thicker than regular, but not as thick as the eversopopularthesedays Greek yogurt. I offered some to T, but she muttered something under her breath about what a wack-job I am very nicely declined the offer. So i had it all to myself. I will say that the flavor/texture/smell took a little getting used to, but by the bottom of the cup i was wishing that I had picked up a few more. maybe as a treat some day, like the Chobani 0% I enjoy.

I recommend trying this out and adding it to your 'treats', and tossing out the chips and dip. Well, maybe not tossing the chips and dip. and whatever you do, don't toss your cookies......just sayin'.

as an aside...see that mug? yep, T and I designed it for her daycare. we had shirts made, too. i am thinking of getting a hoodie, too. winter's right around the corner (unless you live in the mid-west. what's up with your weather these days?).

peace, yo!

healthy...

first off, a big shout out to Jamoosh for concocting this hardCORE workout torture ritual. thanks. heaps.
second, but more importantly, a gigantic THANK YOU shout out to TLW. (+1, me).
here, in part, is why:
at the house, we are once again in "get rid of $h1T" mode, and we spent some time on Sunday going through closets and piles and such. my side of the bedroom closet was about ready to be overhauled, so after I got my hazmat suit on and had T stand at a safe distance, I dug in.
amoung the discoveries were 2 Adidas running shoe boxes, both EMPTY, both sized 8.5. but....one actually fit INSIDE the other. i was amazed. really. i pondered it for quite some time before continuing with the process. other things were found, several useless, many keepers. and herein lies the rub:

I came across a small stack of photos of various things in my 'previous life'. (this is how i often refer to the time when I was married to my ex-wife, and even to times before that). one of them was a picture of one of our (ex-wife and I) old houses. without thinking twice, i tossed it onto the pile of stuff destined for the trash. never gave it a second thought, except perhaps wondering why or how it had managed to survive undiscarded for the past 7 years.
FFWD a little while, and I am unfolding a pair of jeans from the floor of my closet, put there by me about 2 months ago. i have developed little worn spots in the seat, near the pockets, so i had taken them out of circulation. did i toss them? no. i left them in the closet for consideration at a later date. well, today was that day. i unfolded them. looked at front and back. looked over at T. she was looking at me oddly, but that in itself isn't odd, so i continued to examine the jeans. they weren't anything 'special'. no sentimentality attached to them whatsoever. Just a cheap pair of jeans. knowing me, i probably only spent about 15 bucks on them, and that was probably 5 years ago. can you guess what i did with them? that's right, i folded them back up, and started to put them back into the closet. WTF?
I looked over at T, nearly crying, and said, "why do I do this? i have NO trouble wiping out certain things from the past, like pictures of my old house, but can't seem to be able to toss out EFFING BLUEJEANS WITH HOLES IN THEM?" (i didn't shout, but i did emphasize the words). she replied, very calmly, as if she had been waiting for years to say it, "because you get rid of things that cause you pain. you don't discuss them, you discard them at the first chance you get, and try to get rid of them. (or something very, very similar to that. probably more eloquent, but the jist is still there). you need to face them, move through them, and get rid of them, so that you have room for all of the GOOD in your life now."
i lost it. i cried. i sobbed. she's right. as ususal, i must say. i don't face my evils/fears/hurts/etc. i try to sweep them away, and they take up too much room. my present life is bursting....BURSTING I SAY with goodness. Wife. Family. House. Job. those and more. yet i am often too pre-occupied with wrongs in my past to truely be able to appreciate the rights in my present.
and that, in itself, is wrong.
serendipidously, today i received a request to join a network (?) on linkedin. i rarely go there, and had used it a few years back to find some business collegues. the request was from a running coach, Jill Bruyere,  whom i had never met. are any of you working with her? so anyway i went to her site and poked around a bit before joining her 'network'. she had two blog entries about 'rules for life'. it was a list of 25 things, broken into two lists. Numbers 13 and 17 made me think. They made me think enough to write this blog, so if you are bummed that you read all the way through this for 'nothing', well....blame Jill. nah, blame me. I can take it. Oh! what were #'s 13 and 17? I will share them with you now:
13. Make peace with your past so it won't spoil the present.
17. Forgive everyone with everything.
i shall try.
thank you for sticking with me through this post. i am on my way to better mental health, thanks to my lovely and loving wife, who I should have listened to better almost 25 years ago.

hard core, day 2-3

good morning. 40 past midnight here. wide awake. not sure if i will ever sleep again...but i digress.
wednesday was supposed to be my second day of hardCORE workout. it wasn't. i ran with a stroller instead, and then something else happened at night (no, not THAT. the antithesis of that, actually) and so i didn't do it. so i told myself that i would do it on thursday morning, at work. but i had forgotten that i was scheduled to provide coverage in the ICU for 2 hours, so that didn't happen.
and then along came thursday evening, and i did some household chores and the workout didn't happen. (are you sensing a pattern?) so after i finished a level on Lego Batman (our 4 year old has me hooked!), i decided to read some blogs.
of course....i saw links and mentions of the hardCORE workout that i had committed myself to do. so i did wednesday's workout at 0010. it was invigorating. really. quick workout that got my heart pumping and made me notice that i REALLY need to work on my sternoclediomastoids. (highlighted).
i just can't seem to disengage them. odd, too, because i can pretty much disengage everything (and some people. sometimes, though, it has been thought that i have disengaged, when really i haven't. this is NOT a good place to be). there i go, digressing again. dammit.
thanks for stopping by. today is Friday. should be my 3rd day of the workout, so it looks like i'll somehow cram 2 into 1, or is it 2 into 3?
mebbe in the wee-smalls i will find a picture for FFF.
make it a great day.
-gene-

whatever. seriously.

i WAS going to post the following "pre" pictures, but I am not.

pre HardCORE, post sprints 8-18

pre HardCORE, post sprints 8-18

why not? i almost don't give a crap about running or fitness or anymore. i still do, but am questioning my enthusiasm for sharing.

I hope everyone has a great weekend.

-gene-

are you hardCORE?

me, either. i blame it on years and years worth of staying up late eating bon-bons, feet up on the cat  couch while watching re-runs of Suite Life Barnaby Jones.

As you know (from seeing the disappointing array of pictures) I was in Vegas last week, and totally missed the build up to the HardCOREClub. I did, however, see about 5 minutes of some other type of "club" in the casino at Caesar's Palace as I was walking through to go to the library and study geology. Honest. What? oh, sorry.....

So yesterday I printed off the 13 torture regime workout schedule, and procrastinated into the wee hours before bed to try to get through the list. Well. I should have thought it through a bit more (as ususal), because the workout had my heart rate up AND my body temperature elevated to SUN. Yea. my wife affectionately refers to me as her 'heater', since i can, on a normal February day, provide enough heat for the both of us (TWSS). well, sorry about last night, dear (twHs....). i'll try to do this earlier in the day on wednesday.

In accordance with the guidelines, my days will be MWF. Why not? My calendar seems pretty VOID of other workouts on those days (because i am lazy).
Here, too, are my before pictures, with what i think will be my after pictures, too.

that's right. be jealous. i have a WHOLE KEG, while others strive for only a 6 pack. pshaw.

before this 'challenge', this is the only PLANK i had heard of...

this is pretty much an inside joke, but it is ALSO pretty much what i look like doing the things. ok, actually.....

yep. this is me. except with grey hair on my head, too.

so off i go, to get this.....that's right, a 12 pack.

Pictures.....

for now, here is a slide show of some of the photos i took in LV, NV. if you want to see more, let me know in the comments!

i wonder what kind of bar this is?

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mob @ escalator, stairs almost empty. it is epidemic here!

If I strip for you, will you strip for me?

-Adam Ant-
In the morning, TLW and B will be dropping me off in Manchester so that I can get on a plane and go to Baltimore so that I can get on another plane and go here:

Tonight, while packing, i noticed that i have almost as many running clothes and such as I do clothes (and such) for work. I hope i have a good time. If i have access while I am gone, i will try to post. Otherwise, stay tuned for a post-business trip report next weekend.

Muggy Morning Melange

Sorry. Here you go. I'll make it easy....
Melange: — n
1. a mixture; confusion
[C17: from French mêler to mix. See medley ]
I honestly don't know where i pulled that word out of, and I am not sure I want to know. Let's just blame it on endorphins, shall we? Moving on, then.....
Yes, weather here is strange. We have a saying here (do you have this, too?), "If you don't like the weather, either drive 10 miles or wait 10 minutes." Nice evening chill last night, but then on awakening this morning the air seemed heavier than..well...just heavy. So I started the coffee pot and then headed out the door. I found my mp3 player a few days ago (SCORE!), so it, Teri Garmin, RoadID, and I set off for a little run. Not having any real goal for today (except to get out of bed=win), I decided to let AudioFuel decide.
180 Max Pyramid Interval it was. The first part is a 5 minute warm up, and today's route took me up hill. I was going along at a fair pace (based on effort, not speed), and it STILL took me 2:30 to get to the top of the hill. wtf. but i felt ok. so i pressed on.
I won't bore you with the details of me sucking wind on the sprints alternated by me sucking slightly less wind on the recovery portions, but I will tell you that I ran the whole thing, even the uphill 'bits', which were about HALF to 3/4 of the route (out and back, so i guess it is really only HALF. whatever. join me, and you might agree on the 3/4ths part.)
ANYWAY.....i was supposed to be doing intervals based on driveways or telephone poles as I had suggested this to Jeff. Realistically, though, given our geography and rural-ness, I'd be dead on the side of the road still. Whose idea was it to BURY utility lines? wtf. I hope that Jeff had better luck than I did.
Interesting things seen on the way: road kill. skunk and.....SQUIRREL!
I wonder if he was like...hop, hop, hop....ohoohhhh...lookit them acorns over there, across that black river....YUM!....hop, hop, hop...huh. what's that noise? hop, hop....FORD!...............
my apologies to my sensitive readers out there. but c'mon. seriously. ever wonder what they were thinking? no? meh.
After the sweat/slug fest, i showered and got ready for work. didn't matter. still soaked. took forEVER to stop sweating and dry off. good thing i am camping in this office aloooooone.
Make it a great day.

weather or not....

when i was in the Army, we had a saying, "it doesn't rain in the Army. it rains ON the Army." i have ever since adopted that as my philosophy where the weather is concerned. it just happens. i don't plan things around it, i don't get upset if it is raining or freezing cold or swealtering hot. it just is.
my not paying attention to weather reports doesn't sit well with my wife, however. she has a daycare to run, and the next day's weather weighs heavily in her deciding how that day will go; nice weather, kids outside. not so nice...well....inside it is! i try to pay attention, but it is rarely a success.
today, i am camping out in an office, reading all kinds of manuals and .ppt files about my new job, etc. when i stand up to stretch (which, if i am under video surveillance would look like i have ants in my pants i get up so often) i can see outside.
and it is raining. not a deluge, and not a misting, but a nice, steady summer rain. the kind that makes people with gardens say, 'well, we really needed that rain!"
and i can't help but wish i was outside IN the rain, being rained ON. doing whatever. or nothing at all (ha). alright. time to get back to work. another meeting looms at 1300, and i won't be able to get up and walk around during it.
how do you feel about the weather? does it dictate your activity level, or do you just take it in stride?

and i ran

have i used that title before? sorry.
i got out of bed this morning and ran. only 4.82 miles, and it took me 43:04 minutes, but it was 4:56 FASTER than the last time I ran the same route, only a few weeks ago. I guess that half of a medium Pizza Hut pizza last night did me some good! (ha!)
I couldn't find my mp3 player, so i had to run in silence. not much fun on the road, to be sure. in the woods, i prefer no music, but on the road i get really bored without it.
Happy with my run today, and looking forward to running again tomorrow morning! Got wind throug FB that one of my cousins also went out this morning. She has started a Couch-2-5k plan. Huzzah! Has anyone else started/finished one? Have you blogged about it? I'd like to send her your way, so that she has some inspiration. Who doesn't like to be inspired by others? I do!
alright, enough for now. at work today, my final scheduled shift in the ICU. starting tomorrow i will be in "Nursing Administration". Florence Nightingale help us all......