Running Around the Maypole ~ the May Dingo Thread - Page 21

[Nemesis]

I have been MIA, but Jen!  Yes!  We have booked a lot of our summer already -silly, I know!- but this fall I will make it out there!!  I must! 

Beautiful pictures!  I am jealous of all the space! :)  Things are still pretty small here due to the weather and my lack of focus this spring.  I have easily killed 2/3 of what I planted and I am slightly happy about it.  I can't deal with it all this spring! I have cut back my hours at Target quite a bit (thank you, supervisor!) but I am still having trouble keeping up.  Ok, off the computer to make soap today! More later!

I have been running!  For reals!

[JayGee]

Great races, Gaye, Real and DrJen!!!!! 

No time for more, but I did manage to do a 60 minute spin class this morning (which end up being 75 minutes since I arrived 15 minutes early)!

[sparkletruck]

Weight intervals this a.m. for 75 minutes. Woke at 5:40, got lunch packed for ds who has one more week of school due to snow days this winter, did a load of dishes, packed dd2's supplies for swim lessons, made breakfast for everyone, got myself together and then woke dh at 7am so I could head to the gym. Good weights, I'm getting stronger!! F*** my hamstring though. Constantly bugging. Is this it forever!!?

Gaye and real - that sounds so fun and satisfying You both pushed when you thought you couldn't or wouldn't

Jaygee - thinking of you. Glad for a good spin class!


More later... lots to do

[sparkletruck]

oh and Gaye, my friend was doing a tri in Austin this weekend and UPS lost his bike too!! He had to find one to borrow, but bike shops were out b/c the tri is such a big deal. Luckily he had a friend with friends. Nightmare!

[LaLaLaLa]

doctorjen--Wow, a trophy?  I'll never be fast enough to earn a trophy.  Wait, what's the highest age group?  Maybe then.  Is there a 90+ group?  I'll win that trophy someday. 

tjsmama and real--Nice racing!  Real, I'm impressed with you deciding to just push through and ignore the asthma.  Those times are incredible.

Mosquitos are crazy here, especially in our yard, but I'm having a surprising reaction to them.  I feel them bite me and am itchy, but the itch almost immediately fades.  Usually bites make me want to scratch all of my skin off, but as my skin has grown more sensitive to other things, is it possible to have become desensitized to mosquitos?  That would be awesome for this summer.

Yesterday the kids and I did go out hiking without DH.  I didn't even wake him up or tell him we were going; I just made trail mix and chose a path and went.  We drove six minutes to the start of a trail that leads to the highest point in our town.  Which isn't very high.    There were several interconnected loops in the woods, though, one that went to these scary lookout rocks with a sheer drop next to them, and another one that went past this glacial chasm.  We followed a couple of different paths and were out there for a couple of hours.  The best part for the kids was stopping and eating trail mix, but I consider it a victory just getting them out there, despite their motivation.

It turns out that our town of under 9000 people has about fifteen marked hiking trails through conservation land.  I believe the people in town are doing that snobby thing where now that THEY are in, they are fighting tooth and nail to make sure nobody ELSE builds new houses and moves in here.  So they turn all of the buildable land into conservation land and plunk hiking trails onto it.  It looks like we'll have lots of exploration to do this summer.

When the kids and I got home from hiking, I showered and then announced to DH that I was taking the rest of the afternoon off.  I went to a coffee shop and ordered a frozen drink and spent two and a half hours writing and reading, which put me in a much more pleasant mood to tackle the evening.

Today I got out and ran just over seven miles.  When I was half a mile away from being back home again, an old guy in a pickup truck pulled up beside me with his window rolled down.  "You have nice arm motions there," he critiques.  I thank him, as compliments on the way I look while running are few and very far between.  "Are you a long distance runner?" he asks.  I tell him that I'm working on the distance.  He replies: "I've run the Boston marathon six times."  I look at him and laugh, out of breath.  "Boston?!  I'm not that much of a distance runner yet."  He chuckled, waved, and drove away.  It made me smile the rest of the way home, about runners and connecting with someone and getting an unexpected compliment from a stranger. 

[Mel38]

La4: I love your story of connecting with another runner. I bet it made his day, too.

And regarding your mosquito question, I think yes, it is possible to get desensitized to them. It has been my experience since moving here that I now also have practically no itch left after the initial bite. This has not worked for the no-see-ums, though, which still leave me itching like crazy for the first few months of summer.
 

Originally Posted by LaLaLaLa 
 is it possible to have become desensitized to mosquitos? 

[memiles]

I'm loving reading about you bad-ass racing dingos.  Way to run fast, mamas!  

This day can be done any time now.  It started with getting C off to a 5 day school trip to the Olympic Peninsula while juggling the new routine of a babysitter for E on my clinic mornings.  Then off to the office, where we had a meeting with a client where we had to risk her out of her very wanted and fought for homebirth hopes.  Then in the afternoon, a first appointment with a transfer mom at 23 weeks, where we couldn't get heart tones.  She said something about the same thing happening at their last appointment in their old town, where the OB passed it off as too early......so we send her in for an u/s, only to find out the baby had passed 7 weeks ago.    

To add insult to injury, I raced out of there to make it to hot yoga, to find out that the 5:30 class has been cancelled.  For good.  When I signed up for the unlimited classes ($25 a month, instead of $5 per class), there were 7 hot classes a week.  They are down now to 3, only one of which works with my schedule.  So I get on the stairmill and stew for a while, then go downstairs and tell them I am cancelling the unlimited hot yoga.  She misunderstands me and pulls out the paperwork to cancel my membership.........so I let her.  I had been thinking for a while about going back to the Y- activities for the kids, friendlier people, far cleaner, the indoor track for worst case scenario runs, the pool and swimming lessons.  Plus, DH signed up for a Biggest Loser type deal at work, and he had mentioned last night that he would be far more likely to work out at the Y (3 minutes from home) than the other gym (15 minutes, and away from the other places we go in town).  I'll believe it when I see it, but I want to give him the opportunity.  Plus the prize for the contest is a full home gym, and he has enough weight to lose that he totally could pull it off if he wanted to.  A girl can dream, right?

Now I just got a text that Ellie needs GF cupcakes for her soccer party tomorrow (gee, thanks for the heads up!), so I had to send DH to the store to get supplies.  What I really want to do is either collapse into bed, or attend a beautiful, cleansing birth that reminds me all is well with the world.  But instead, I'll bake.

[tjsmama]

Oh, memiles. What a sucky day. I hope tomorrow is a complete turnaround for you!

drjen~ Great race! Although I am cracking up just a little at you being a "masters" runner now...you're not old enough for that! And seriously? The wedding is this weekend?! When the heck did that happen?? Oh...can you add the Courage Classic Bike Tour to the race list for me? July 23-25.


One day of orientation down, way too many more to go. It wasn't awful, it just was long and boring. I give the HR trainer a lot of credit, because she's doing a pretty good job of keeping it as interesting as she can, but I was seriously struggling. I really just need a nap, but it's not going to happen anytime soon. In good news, my streak of taking good ID badge photos continued and is now at 4!

I think I need to lay down the law a little bit to the nanny in the morning. In a completely nice way, of course. She just hasn't been doing a great job of cleaning up around the house lately. I know that *I've* been so busy that I haven't been cleaning MY stuff up, but add DS's books and toys all over the place, and it just makes it that much worse. She was really good about it for a long time, but not as much lately. I'm at my limit, it needs to be cleaned up before she leaves for the day.

Did I mention that my quads hate me today? Ouch.

[sparkletruck]

I dug up this article http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/18/magazine/18estrogen-t.html from remembering reading it last year which has got me and scared On the up side, it totally validates my experience, and I asked dh to read it for his medical opinion but also, ehem, to validate my experience. Anyway, I cant say for sure but it fits me to a T, at least the past 6 weeks. I seriously suspect I could be starting perimenopause at 41, 'cause a chronic health condition and a chronic knee problem that prevents me from running away from all this isnt enough (cue the violins ) For anyone interested in an insightful article on "the change" , this journalist is one I really like; she's thorough and well read and I like her voice. Plus she's from my alma mater and was one of my irl bff's advisors in grad school

So I'm trying to find a doctor; a PCP I guess. Ive never had one, and Im not really sure who I should see. Dr. Jen? An FP? An Endocrinologist? A Gyno? Seems like a lot of the endo's Ive read about do a lot of diabetes....

Yes I'm posting here at 5:30 a.m. because after lying in bed for half an hour I figured I might as well tackle some of my list.

#1: Dingoes
#2: Submit my resume & cover letter through email, which I was directed to do yesterday after finally finding the school I'm applying to, which is tucked behind another building, that if you dont see, ehem, and miss the turn off, you get stuck on a busy road that takes you over the river to the far other side of town, thank you very much. In other words, the invisible school is the last exit to brooklyn.
#3: Fill out purchase agreement for a house that I drove by yesterday, took dh driving by and scouting (because he figured out that it is empty), and finally saw with a realtor yesterday afternoon, because as we were leaving said house another woman drove by/around it slowly and wrote something down and got on her cell as she parked across the street (yes I spied on her as I got in my car). We're bidding without representation and we have competition Gotta get on it

Dr. Jen - that you rallied to do the race with that other doc and you al got medals. So cool

RR: rest day here. Question: Friday is a weights day, and both dd's are here. I can take dd2 to child care but not dd1 (aged out). What do I do with her? Make her bring a book and sit for 75 minutes in the weight room with me? We have other plans that day so I cant really take her to a friends at 8:30 a.m. for 2 hours ...

[JayGee]

memiles ~ what a day!  The Y sounds like a better option anyway.  On a good note though, your FB thread about naked men at births was killin' me this morning

Lala ~ all those hiking trails sound awesome!  Enjoy your exploring this summer

Gaye ~ congrats on making your fundraising goal!!! 

sparkle ~ is there a lobby or somewhere she can sit to read?  Sometimes my DS will bring a book or his iPod and just sit in the lobby while I workout.  I check on him occasionally, but he's fine.  Does your gym not have a room for older kids?  Our new Y has a "Rec Room" for ages 7-14 with a climbing wall, computer games and Wii/Kinect.  That menopause article is really interesting.  Honestly, 41 isn't too early.  Do you know when your Mom started?  I asked mine but she was on HRT for 15 years and has no clue .

RR ~ I started my morning run plan this morning with 30 minutes at 6:00am .  I hope to do this Monday-Thursday mornings through the summer to avoid the heat and humidity.  Plus, I'm a morning person, so getting up at 6:00 when DH gets up for work just makes sense.  I'm also making it an "all 3 sports" day with a swim after school drop off, and a group ride tonight.  I'm getting back on my wagon.... dammit!  Today is the kid's last day of school!  They go for 2 hours and then we're having a picnic and heading to the pool with the neighbors to celebrate .

P.S. Can you tell that Kay was picking my emoticons for me this morning?

[sparkletruck]

Jaygee - on the 30 minutes. Excellent way to get moving! I forgot about that when you were down; I start with small goals (like, "I'll just ride for 20 minutes") when I'm feeling in a funk, and the 20 usually turns into more .... or not, and then at least I did 20 and feel good about that.
Thanks for the note. It's not that it's horribly early, especially because I have such a wonky menstrual history that it actually makes a lot of sense, it's that it's too early for ME. I JUST started having a regular period after I weaned dd2 2 years ago, and I mean for the first time in my life. Until then it had been random and VERY infrequent. I have really been enjoying the estrogen; the energy and mood lift and libido!! Now that I have a regular cycle I see what Ive been missing all those years (I thought it was just cramps and bleeding ) HRT in some form is a very real possibility, and I am scared of the unknowns. As for my mom, I try to avoid talking to her as much as possible. There is no way in he** I'd talk to her about this.
The gym does have an older kids room but there is never anyone in it, so she would be hanging out by herself, which i like less than her just sitting near me with her book...

[JayGee]

You're so right about getting out there and getting moving, sparkle.  Thank you.

I just bit the bullet and registered for the St. Louis Rock n Roll 1/2 marathon on October 23.  I've got some training to do!!!!

[kerc]

I had a crazy morning. You know the kind: get dd1 off to school. forget to send note reminding teacher to have her stay for chess club. Have a nice breakfast with dh, wake dd2, get dd2 to daycare. Drive dh to airport. Off to kohls to shop for my niece's bday gift (dh's brother's daughter). She's a pia to shop for and now 7, but reads like a 5 yr old and has every toy imaginable. I had a good idea, asked BIL about it and got zero response. <removed rant>.

Also need to buy a dress to wear to a wedding, but it turns out that the problem is that most dresses that are "in" are the style that looks bad on me -- makes me look pregnant and always has. Problem #2 is that I really just want to weigh about 10 lbs less around my midsection. So I buy a 15 dollar dress at Kohl's and commence shopping for sandals I'll wear again. Decide to punt and just wear something I already own.

Drive to Y. Realize I have no running bra, no headphones and nothing to read. Get on treadmill anyway,  Don't think, just run. decide I'm doing 3 miles, 30 minutes or 300 calories, whichever comes first. 3 miles is what I did. I hate running on the treadmill and really hate it when the older gentleman comes in wearing aftershave. ish. But I sure hope when I'm 82 I'm walking along on the treadmill, KWIM? Forgot towel. borrow towel, get a good look at my legs in the mirror there. Decide to run more often. Will I look better in the dress if I run the next 11 days until I go to the wedding?

Go to pick up eggs (CSA farm eggs we pick up every wednesday). Sidetracked by 4 different road closures. Get eggs. Drop off neighbor's eggs + mine at home. Get back in car.

Stop at trail shop. But myself a new purse (old one hit the dust long ago) + a skirt to wear to the wedding that I like better. Of course it was more money. Now it is 1:15 and I'm sitting here writing this to you. I have a meeting in an hour, need to refocus my brain.....

Back to running related:

a. I'm still considering the Columbus half

b. did anyone watch the biggest loser? I'm not obese, but I am 20 lbs above where I was when I had my kids. (ok I am 20+ lbs above where I was when I got pg with Erin, but that's not necessarily a good weight). I weighed myself monday while watching the show and I'm 165lbs. I want to go back to school this fall 150 lbs. Reasonable? For before Labor Day weekend?

Sparkle: You don't have a pcp? I suppose if you have a doc in the house stuff like strep throat doesn't necessarily get in the way for you. Myself, I like a pcp. But that said, my own pcp is a guy and I'd prefer if I had someone who was a nurse practitioner/midwife. But it is handy to have someone who knows the whole family.

Nic: You must be near the end of the school year. How's the packing going?

June thread anyone?

[bec]

Speaking of just doing it and getting moving!  I got to the pool last night with a friend who is going to be doing her first triathlon in a few weeks and really struggling with the swim (she can't really do a full lap free style).  She needed some confidence, so another friend and I suggested that she simply try to keep herself moving in the water for 30 minutes, regardless of stroke or form.  I went with her to swim laps while she did her thing.  Using mostly side and back stroke, she was able to propel herself for 30 minutes, and, while she lost count, I'm sure she was going for more than the goal of 600 yards.  I swam about 1200 yards, so am happy with that.  I was so proud of my friend, though.  I thought it a real victory for her!

Today, I spent time on the new elliptical at the gym.  Depending on your gait, it can be an elliptical or a stair stepper.  I burned over 400 calories in 35 minutes.  This evening is tri class.  It's the last class of the session, and we are having a smoothie party.  I'm sure there will be some sort of run/bike thing as well, but not sure what.  I'm sort of disillusioned with this tri class.  The teachers have had some weird and unnecessarily tough workouts that have had the effect of really demoralizing some of the newer, less experienced athletes (like swimming sprint pyramids, and long bike/run bricks in 40 degree rain), and they have not been as inclusive to some folks as they should be!  It's really been kind of upsetting.  Anyway, I don't know if I will continue with the class or not.  I feel like there are enough of us that we could informally train on our own together.

[Penelope]

Jen and Real and Gaye, great RR! Very fun to read, all of them!

Sparkle, great luck with the house.  (I know that's the peace guy, but it looks to me like he has his fingers crossed for you.)

Memiles, what a day. I'm sorry.

Around here - yesterday was the last day of school for my kids, so I'm easing into the summer. I have more work to do than I'd like, but am reluctant to revert to my usual strategy of getting up at 5 every day to get stuff done. It turns out my skin looks so much better when I get enough sleep - who'd have thought?  I'm glad to have some time to garden and bike, too, although the running isn't going so well. I did get in 20m on my bike yesterday, and it was a beautiful day, so I'm happy to have that as backup. Read my course evals from last semester yesterday, and they were really good - I was pleased. Only one person really hated me, and only one person (in another class) complained because I "attacked" her for "stating her opinion" in class - I can tell from context who it was, and her opinion was that if you're drunk and get raped it's your fault. So I'd be fairly remiss as an adult and a decent human being not to be very, very clear that I think she is utterly mistaken about that. I did the right thing, even if I offended her. Overall the evals were quite positive and they made me feel good about my teaching.

Dh has made no progress on the job front and has more or less stopped making it in to work on time. He's done in 8 days, so apparently figures it doesn't matter. <sigh>

Off to weed and mulch the veggie garden!

[Penelope]

Serial posting to add: I made homemade pasta tonight, having been inspired by Geo, and it was fabulous. OMG. Plus got so much done and had such a busy day that I am looking forward to work tomorrow to get a break!

[kerc]

pst we're all over on the june thread.

[Penelope]

<laughing really hard> Man, I'm an idiot!