Weekly Rundown- Putting It All Together
Well, I can tell December is going to be one crazy month- as always. This week had shopping, decorating, band concerts, baking, and of course plenty of workouts. Thanks as always to Kim and Deborah for hosting the Weekly Rundown. Let’s get right into it! Sunday This was the day my son went back to school, on a 6 am flight. My husband took him to the airport, but I was up with them at 4 am to make his breakfast and say goodbye (sniff, sniff… it never gets easier.) Then I went back to bed and slept fitfully until 6:00, when I got up for a 10 mile run. There were all sorts of things wrong with this run from the beginning. I hadn’t slept well (obviously.) I meant to eat something before I started but I forgot (ARG!!!) And, my legs felt heavy, which was a mystery until I remembered that I did a Caroline Girvan full body strength workout the day before, which included squats and lunges (note to self: don’t do that again.) But you know what? It was fine! After the first few miles I settled into it and started to feel better. Towards the end it was getting hot, but I just told myself “The sun gives me energy” over and over again. I was tired at the end, but overall felt better than when I started. Monday Day off. Tuesday I guess the universe heard my incessant complaining about the heat, because it got down to 66 degrees. It was a cold front! (Oh no, I’m falling for DeSantis’s little plot!.) This 4 mile run felt pretty good. Wednesday Gym day! This was the day where I had my free session with the trainer, and it was worth every penny. Seriously, I’m getting a lot of pushback when I tell people I want to lift heavier weights- my son is also opposed to this idea, because he thinks I’ll increase my risk of injury. Fine! I’ll do it on my own. The training session was actually a great warmup, so after I extricated myself from that I did squats with the bar (okay, no snickering, all you heavy lifters!) and benchpress, where I was able to put 10 pounds on the bar. The other thing I would like to do is deadlifts, but for that I agree I might need some instruction. Like… if I’m not putting heavy plates on the bar, how do I get it elevated enough off the ground… I’ll have to consult Coach Google on this one. I rounded out this workout with some dumbbell rows, and hamstring curls. For those, I’m glad to use the machine. I do one leg at a time, and I think it will help me rehab this achy hamstring that’s been nagging me since the summer. Thursday I thought I might be sore from the gym, but the only thing that was sore were my forearms (?) Another 4 mile run… humidity was back and temps back up to the 70s. Friday I started the day with Day #23 of Caroline Girvan’s Iron Series, which was glutes and hamstrings. Those hip thrusts are hard. After work I ran 3 miles. I really, really didn’t want to. I wanted to take a nap. But, I want to switch my day off back to Saturday, so I told myself to run today, and sleep in tomorrow. I was happy I did it! Saturday Day off, and was able to sleep in till 7:30 before going to work. Hooray! Sunday On tap… 12 mile run. The last couple weeks I got a little sidetracked from my regular long runs, but I have to get back on it. For one thing, I’m apparently running a half marathon in February with Darlene (although I haven’t registered yet, must do that!) and also, well, I have a lot of work to do if I’m going to run a 50K in April. I have time, but I have to get serious about it. One last thing… I had to stop doing plyometrics because they were hurting my foot. BUMMER. I would love to not have plantar fasciitis for the rest of my life, but I’m not sure at this point how to proceed. I really don’t want to spend a lot of money on a treatment that’s iffy (I’ve already done that) and no treatments are guaranteed to work. When my clients are dealing with frustrating issues I always tell them “There’s a solution to this- you just haven’t found it yet.” So… I’m temporarily baffled, but there must be a solution out there, somewhere. Do you have naysayers in your life?- I don’t know why, but people love to tell me I can’t do things. Hrumph. If you lift weights, do you have trouble fitting it in with your running? – I feel like I’m fitting together pieces of a puzzle, trying to figure out when to run and when to go to the gym.
December Coffee Date!
Hooray! It’s December! I have to admit I was pretty wiped out after completing NaBloPoMo, but of course I have to join Coco and Deborah for their monthly coffee date. Let’s take out our favorite holiday mugs, and get started! If we were having coffee (or tea) together, the first thing I would tell you about is my trip to the gym on Wednesday. I had my free session with a trainer, and… it was so annoying. He took me on a circuit of the machines- instead of free weights, so that I wouldn’t “hurt” myself- and made sure not to set anything too heavy, because he didn’t want me to be sore the next day. I could tell he assumed that, since I hadn’t been to the gym in 1,070 days, I was out of shape. I wanted to say, “Listen, buddy! I’ve been doing Peloton! I’ve been doing Caroline Girvan! Ever heard of her?” Then, at one point he exclaimed, “Wow, you’re stronger than you look!” What is THAT supposed to mean??? When we were done, he tried to give me the hard sell on a package of training sessions. Um… no, thanks. I’ll just continue to forge ahead on my own. Then I went and did what I really came there for, which was bench press and squats. Moving along! If we were drinking our Earl Grey out of festive mugs together, I would ask you how your holiday preparations are coming along. I had a big shopping trip on Wednesday where I bought wrapping paper, bows, candy canes, peppermint-scented hand soap, a present for the Secret Santa Mug Exchange (ooh! How exciting!) And… I couldn’t resist getting some holiday deodorant. I love Native deodorant, and was excited to find that they have small sizes of different holiday scents. I was considering the peppermint or the mistletoe, but then I thought I would live a little and get “spiked eggnog.” As I was applying it the next day, I thought that maybe it smelled a little… sickening. And guess what- the smell of it lingered all day. Turns out I don’t LIKE smelling like spiked eggnog. Who knew? I should have gone with the mistletoe. The last thing I would tell you is that I seem to have missed the Official Weekend for putting up outdoor lights. I think everyone in our neighborhood- everyone who puts up lights, that is- has them up already, except us. This is making me feel very anxious…. I know what I’ll be doing this weekend! Do you have your decorations up? Have you bought Christmas or Hanukkah presents yet? – I’ve bought three (if you count my Secret Santa present.) I better get moving!
NaBloPoMo2022… That’s a Wrap!
Well, you guys…. we did it. 30 blog posts in 30 days. I absolutely loved it, and I’m absolutely exhausted. It was SO MUCH WORK. Not just publishing my own posts, but reading and commenting on all the other blogs this month, as well as answering comments. I really tried, but I didn’t get to everyone’s blog posts every single day, and I’m sorry about that. I plan to go back and visit all the NaBloPoMo blogs in a more leisurely fashion, once the dust has settled. This was my second year doing NaBloPoMo, and one thing I love about it is how it makes November a “short-long” month. This is a term my son has coined to describe those periods of time where you’re so busy, the days seem to whiz past- but when you look back on it, it seems very, very long because of all the different things you did (this is definitely preferable to a long-short, which is the opposite phenomenon.) It seems like a hundred years ago that I sat in Starbucks writing a NaBloPoMo post and watching them unpack the holiday cups. So much happened this month, and writing a blog post every day seemed to make each day distinctive, instead of passing in a blur. Congratulations to everyone who participated, and of course a huge THANK YOU to San, our fearless leader. We couldn’t have done it without her. When I started NaBloPoMo last year I thought “This month is awfully busy. Couldn’t we do this in June?” But actually, I think November is the perfect month for it. Now NaBloPoMo seems linked to the busyness and excitement of this time of year… and I already can’t wait to do it again next November.
Holiday Themes… and What’s Up With All This Heat?
Last year I posted about choosing a holiday theme. Inspired by Gretchen Rubin’s Happier podcast, I somehow convince my family every year to choose a holiday theme- usually a line from a song. Previous themes have included “Joyful and Triumphant,” “Laughing All the Way,” and “In the Bleak Midwinter” (that was for 2020, bleh.) Right now I’m thinking my theme for Christmas 2022 will be “The Weather Outside is Frightful.” SERIOUSLY. We just can’t seem to cool down here. I think every other part of the country has had some cool/cold weather, except South Florida. Usually by this time the humidity has dropped and we’ve seen overnight temperatures in the 50s and 60s, but not this year. And we’ve notice something odd- when it does get down to, say 70, people mention that it’s “cold.” Last week on the news they were showing the forecast, and it literally showed a low of 70 with the words “cold front.” I’M SORRY, BUT THAT IS NOT COLD. It’s not even “Florida cold.” Florida cold is 50s, and even occasionally, brrr- 40s overnight. This insistence that 70 is “cold” has led us to develop a theory… Our ongoing joke is that DeSantis has passed a law that all meteorologists must refer to 70 degrees as “cold” from now on, in an effort to convince people there is no climate change. We like this theory so much that we’ve almost started to believe it. On Thanksgiving morning, when we were heading to our race in the dark, my husband mentioned that he felt a little chilly. Then he quickly exclaimed “No, I’m not falling for his little plot! I believe in climate change! I just got a little chill.” Hee hee. All joking aside, you may be thinking: “Jenny. What in the world did you expect when you moved to Florida? Why didn’t you just move to Alaska if you dislike the heat so much?” Good question. I grew up near Chicago, and the winters were TERRIBLE. It wasn’t just the cold, the snow, or the wind, but it was so, so gray. By the time I was in high school I was suffering from SAD, except I didn’t know what it was back then. I’m not even sure the term “Seasonal Affective Disorder” had been invented. I just knew that I suffered from depression, mostly in the winter. I crazily stayed in the midwest for college, but then moved to Florida, and my life changed dramatically. My cycles of depression disappeared and I began to suspect that it was weather-related- but when I had the opportunity to move to New York City for work, I decided to try it. I LOVED living in New York- except for the weather. The first winter up there sent me into a major depression, and I had to face facts- I definitely have SAD. Still, I lived up there for several years, and also during that time worked in Germany- which, by the way, has similar weather to the US midwest- gray and depressing. Finally, I gave up and moved back to Florida. At the time I was thrilled with this decision, because being depressed for six months out of the year is no way to live. Also, the heat didn’t bother me. I welcomed it! I could go running at noon on a summer day, and it was no problem. Looking back, that heat tolerance was my superpower- Florida was the perfect home for me. Fast forward to my early 50s. One summer the heat REALLY started to bother me. This was around the time I went through menopause (coincidence? I think not!) It absolutely drove me berserk to have anything touching my stomach during a run on a hot day, and I was forced to run in shorts and a sports bra (also “coincidently” this was around the time where my stomach became my least favorite body part- go figure.) I also started to have trouble sleeping in the heat. We used to set out thermostat at 75 overnight, which I can’t even imagine now. I crank the AC down to 68 and I’m still too warm. In short, the heat makes me angry. It’s become a major issue on my runs. This is why I’m waiting and waiting for our winter cool down to come… the heat and humidity are stifling to me now. I fantasize about moving out of Florida- but it’s just not feasible right now with my husband’s job and my daughter’s school. And, I know I still have SAD. That will never go away, and I’m pretty sure mine is too severe to be cured by a SAD lamp. Maybe eventually I could move to…. northern Florida? Georgia? In the meantime, I’m sticking to my holiday theme of “The Weather Outside is Frightful.” But if we get our cool down, I’ll happily change it to “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year.” It’s the penultimate day of NaBLoPoMo2022! How exciting. Does anyone want to join me in choosing a holiday theme?