Weekly Update: 12/12/2016 - 12/18/2016

Zooming in on the longest night of the year....  and it will start getting lighter later, until, June then this all repeats itself.  But let us not dwell on that.

Monday started rainy, luckily that is now spin day!  I parked in the garage at work.  The rain was sideways and really I had no desire to fight the wind an umbrella, my purse, briefcase, and gym bag the 1/4 of a mile to my desk.  Of note: I also got a funky new running gadget, what was that Mikey's running friends were talking about, you know the REAL runners, the ones that break 8 minute miles.  Oh yeah, they were talking about posers, guess you could say that's me, but really I love gadgets and data. (I've been assured they weren't talking about me, of course, I know!  I'm not self absorbed enough to think any one gives two extra thoughts about me. Despite my imaginary husband calling this blog narcissistic.)  I  know my place and my pace and I'm mostly content with where I am and when I'm ready I'll start working on getting better, I will. I'll do it for me, not anyone else.  In all the bags and walking the even longer way to my desk my funky new gadget got lost!!  Oh shit.

Spin class was good.  Addy is an excellent instructor. I record my HR and not sure how to sync the cadence meter with the new watch so there are two entries in Strava which have confused both the imaginary husband and at least one follower who is always one to ask clarifying questions.  Love that someone actually wants to clarify what they are looking at rather than blindly Kudoing something! Anyhow I probably should keep that private, it really is for my information.  I'm a curious data whore.

Gus and I had a great time ohhing and ahhing at lights on our walk.

Olaf, on the other hand was overwhelmed!

Fortunately Tuesday I woke up to no rain after Gus' tough night because of his over indulgence of water.  Poor guy had to go out wicked bad at 3 a.m. and while I'll let him out and go back to bed the imaginary husband had to make a production out of making sure Gus was back upstairs and in his hut and then turning on and off every light in the house.  Seriously, is this necessary?  I can manage to get up and out by 5:30 a.m. when I need to go to NY and barely notice a movement from man nor beast in the house.  So more it wasn't Gus' issue it was me being annoyed by my imaginary husband and not being able to get back to sleep immediately.  Wouldn't it be lovely if spouses could live in duplexes?  One having one side and the other having the other side?  You could keep it as neat or as messy as you would like, you could decorate to your own taste, think of the possibilities....

All that aside, I had a great run around the usual course.  Not a lot of effort and I got a nice comfortable pace and enjoyed myself, that really is what it is all about.

Both the Boyz got a walk.  We made it about 2 miles before Jax was completely not interested in walking.  So we went home.  Read:  Jax became an asshole I couldn't bear.

What the hell happened Wednesday?  Hmmm why didn't I run at lunch?  Better go check my work calendar, odd....  I did Spin at the Arcadia Y.  Finally got the right digits for Jennifer so she met me there!!!  Kim was her usual un-understandable to my mid-western ear.  We did Tabbata, I LOVE this, 20 seconds high intensity 10 second rest.  It is awesome.  Fortunately the music cues the starts and stops and I just had to translate what we were doing.  

Oh I didn't run at lunch because I had training.  I also made the mistake, glad Mikey doesn't read this any more, of talking to one of the super runners at the site.  Ah well, I KNEW you guys weren't talking about me but the "poser runner" came up just as I passed through your group and started my watch for the GPS and HR search.  It was classically funny.  Well at least I thought so....  my humor was lost on him, oh well...  silly mid-westerner...

Ok so not retracing at the beach...

I decided to retrace my steps from the parking garage on Monday and see if my new gadget would be detected by my phone.  It was!  Holy cow. Someone found it and put it on the window ledge.  Some people are are really awesome.

Off to NYC on frigid Thursday, the wind was blowing and when I got off the train, out of Grand Central Terminal, and on to Lexington and 43rd the snow was blowing.  Honestly, it was frigging awesome.  There really is something about stepping outside of Grand Central in to a snowy NYC street that is so cool in that 1950's classic movie sort of way.  My mind was playing Frank Sinatra and my feet were marching me across Lex towards my office in mid-town, hoping there would be an awesome secretary there to hand me my coffee and then pour me a scotch at 4 p.m.  Oh wait, I'm a girl... I'm supposed to be pouring the coffee and Scotch ala Joan Holloway.  Ha! HARDLY!  Roger can pour me my scotch and I'll fling my pumps across the room for him to shine.  ha ha ha

Someone once said they'd like to take a whirl around whatever goes on in my mind....  enjoy.

We had a great meeting and a productive work session and I was on the 5:22 home armed with some new beers from The Beer Table.

Ugh, are you serious, I have to get up and shower and go to work today?  Friday, yep a work day.  I managed to wiggle out of a 2 p.m. meeting, so no prep for that and a fairly easy day of cleaning up the previous week and setting up for the final week of the year.  Did Addy's Stability and Core class.  Lisa and I agreed running was far easier, however these things are necessary and would I like to go to a Shred class with her on Monday?  Ummm I don't think we are taking about cheese over taco sort of shred, are we?  Friggggg.... I am so out of shape it isn't even funny.  Running is so. much. easier.

Met up with Faith when the weather was a balmy 24F and no wind, to take a lap around Bluff Point.  Nice run, I need the push and then the tolerance to let Ms. Asthmatic catch her breath and relieve a side cramp.  Friggg I forgot to dose with my Albuterol.  We jibber jabbered the whole time, Faith more at ease as this was an easy run for her, me, not so much, a push like that for 3.6 miles is good for me.  I'm not exactly sure what I want to do with my running.   Maybe nothing maybe something, for now I'm back to enjoying it and taking it for a nice way to spend time with friends, be outside, or be completely alone and have a quiet mind.

Gus likes his hat, Jax, not so much!

Saturday was all it was cracked up to be.  Lots of projects completed around the house, so there is that.  OMG DOMS from Addy's class set in strong.  Kinda feels like a wasted day but not really things that have needed to be done were done.  Nice to cross some things off the 'when we have crappy weather' project list.

Let the Christmas decorating begin!

It's that time of year to over eat and sit around with the in-laws.  Sunday Christmas Brunch in Worcester, MA was the main activity of the day.  The food was better this year than last, at least they had the mussels and clams back, no oysters, WTF.  On the drive out Dave spied a runner in a bright orange shirt, commented that should make me happy.  I'm forever complaining about people out at night and low visibility weather not wearing bright and reflective clothing, so they can be seen.   Nothing scares me more than the runner or walker on the side of the road in low light dressed in dark clothes. Seriously?  do you have a death wish?  Anyhow, many of you have heard this...  I'll stop.... I wondered if I knew this person, running on Rte 3.  It didn't look like Muddy's form, and as we got closer, too tall, hmmm, it was Eric in a Li'l Rhody bright orange shirt.  Super Kudos for being dressed brightly to be seen on a road that isn't so great to run on in low visibility conditions.  Made my day!

The tree went up, first time in years, I don't think I've been home for Christmas in a few years, while the tree was very dusty it was nice to put it up and decorate.  This is the year I finally donate the Frank's Nursery and Crafts tree I bought for my second Christmas in my Ann Arbor house, that would be 1995.  I remember because I got an ornament with my first tree, a live tree I cut down with friends, that was 1994 and I was sick as a dog for a year after that, probably from the fresh cut tree in my wee tiny house!  So that tree is 21 years old, holy crap, it's old enough to drink!

From my first tree!This started the tradition for me to do this each year. Most are labeled and all have some significance to me (or me and Dave) for that year.

Tried my funky new gadget on my run with Gus.  I think that may have skewed it a bit, but all in all interesting information.  I run next on Tuesday, with Faith, so I'll try it out again and see what I see.

Mileage:

Feet:  22.1 for a yearly total of 1,617.3 against my B goal of 1,702 and C goal of 1,660  
Saddle: 30 for a yearly total of 1,530.7 against my B goal of 1,644 and C goal of 1,590

Sincerely,
Beth, wondering why there is such a discrepancy with Strava on my mileage, it is more than I would expect...  

Weekly Recap: 12/5/2016 - 12/11/2016

And another week of trying to get it correct...  This is about it for my humor at the moment...

After a brief text with Mikey about spin and a true assessment of my stupid hip and what I am reasonably good at with little effort.  I decided to put the Monday spin class (the gym at work) on my schedule and blocked the time on my calendar to ensure this happens.  It was really a good class.  Addy is so much better than listening to Kim scream at the Arcadia Y.  I'll still keep the class at the Y when it works for both Jennifer and I, but damn that woman's voice works my last nerve, and those who know me know I have a plethora of nerves to work.

The class was good and Addy said she was glad to see me taking some classes for the cross training, it will help, at least the injury, not the aging process.

Gus got me out for a nice long 4 mile walk so I could look at the Christmas lights.  So fun!  I really enjoy looking at them however the thought of doing all that work, no.

After managing to get out of going to NYC on Tuesday I knew I needed to take advantage of not having to go to the city.  I did the 3 Point run, hitting the three points: Jupiter, Avery, and Eastern.  Nice run, I'm slow as molasses but I feel good so there's that.  Iced after the run and the hip felt better.  Took the two knuckle heads for a walk, I really don't enjoy walking them together, they seem to enjoy it, so there's that.

Ro is finally back from her month in St. Lucia so we were back to our usual Wednesday hill walk.  Oh how lovely it is when it isn't balls hot outside!  We caught up and I had to laugh when she said they went on vacation from their vacation so she could watch the Cowboys play over Thanksgiving! There was no TV in their villa on the beach.  Sounds like they had a lovely time hiking the Pitons each week they were there and relaxing and enjoying the tropical temperatures.

Spin class was good, lots of heavy gears.  I got there early because I had some errands to run and for some reason thought the class started at 5 not 5:15.  I had a good 10 miles on the bike by the time class started...  still only logged the 15 I usually ride in the 45 minute class.

Gus and Jax were pretty ticked I didn't walk them so they paid me back by being nudges during the night, I woke up Thursday not so rested.  Oh well.  Work was boring, I had a nice 5 mile run for lunch, and then the track club Christmas Party in the evening.  Fun getting to know people better.  Gus got me out for a short walk.  Dave took Jax to do the 8 mile Vin Gormley.  They were both pretty wiped out.

Up and out at stupid early on Friday.  Frigggg NYC on a Friday, you have to be kidding me with this crap....  It's time to prep for the next corporate move so I have a job shadow opportunity, I take this with trepidation.  I'm 10 years from retirement.  I don't know what I want to be my farewell tour, possibly a few years with this new opportunity would be good, it plays to my strengths (and this is something people who know me well know I rarely, if ever, say)  but it also grinds a few raw nerves I have.    And seriously I have things I want to fill retirement with thanks to my (imaginary) husband Dave, he insisted I have a rough plan.  I've started working on that  recently and will put more pieces in play as I have time for between work and play.

I totally blew any of my step or stair goals for the day.  I did need the rest, my legs are still tired and they didn't even need to deal with heels today, the joy of cooler weather is flat boots...

Dave was up and out Saturday morning and my best thought plans to take Gus to Barn Island to not get lost went to the way side with the siren song of a quiet house.

The annual Newport Christmas 10K was Sunday.  It was good.  I wasn't out for a stellar time, figuring 65 minutes would be great, 70 minutes would be what I could expect.  I finished in 66:19, I'm pleased.  Looking at my past results I've added 6 minutes on to my time.  Guess considering where I am physically I'm doing ok.  Probably not going to write this up.  It is a lovely run and I have enjoyed it every year I run it!  One of these years I'll wear my jingle bell hat!!

Mileage:

Feet  - 31.5 for a yearly total of 1,595.2 against my B goal of 1,702 and C goal of 1,660
Saddle - 30 for a yearly total of 1,500.7 against my B goal of 1,644 and C goal of 1,590

Sad I didn't get out on the bike with Dave and Jax. Looking at his Strava from Sunday he did 8 miles with Jax in 80 minutes, versus our 120 minutes.  I have to think he gets bored with the slow pace but he swears he doesn't.

I also adjusted my Strava goals to the B goals, they are arbitrary numbers, none the less it 'feels' better seeing less of a gap between where I should be and where I am in order to meet the goal.

Sincerely,
Beth, I wasn't feeling really creative last week...

Weekly Recap: 11/18 - 12/4

Beautiful day on tap for Monday, and after a discussion with Dave on Sunday about when exactly would we be raking the yard I was totally ok with keeping Monday as a vacation day so we could rake leaves and take them to the dump, it think it's called a transfer station out here, in any event they have a place we can dump the leaves for no charge.  Reviewing the weather it seemed Tuesday was supposed to be a rainy mess with no relief in sight.   Considering the neighbors to the NE and SE have the big trees and don't rake.  They wait for the leaves to congregate on our yard, rather, our front walk.  I swear there is a leaf magnet under our front walk. Anyhoodles, this MAY ensure the leaves still on the ground and not in our yard could maybe perhaps remain in their yard and that was a bet we were willing to take.

Three trailer loads to the dump, and a good close mowing, and the yard looked pretty darn good for a yard of crappy grass neither of us have much desire to do much about.  The crab grass blooms in late June and the yard is a shade of green and I'm good with that.  I am disappointed I didn't get around to edging.  I like to do it the old fashioned way with the manual edger.  My hip was my excuse and based on how it has felt lately, I think that was actually a valid excuse!

I got Gus out to the woods, marked trails, to avoid an unintended adventure, and to get him some exercise before the rain and my evening commitments for Tue and Wed night keeping me away from home till late.

The rain happened, as predicted, on Tuesday.  I got out for a lunch run in the warm temperatures and rain.  It felt really good.  I haven't had much alone time lately, and really enjoyed the hour of no people to pay attention to, no dogs to mind, no traffic to monitor.  I listened to my On shoes squeak, they are fun and comfy shoes, just noisy in the rain.  I haven't run with music in months, I'm enjoying not running with music.

Dave decided it would be fun to discuss the Monty Hall problem this evening.  Quite fascinating actually.  If there are three doors and behind two doors are goats and one door is a car.  Choose a door, say #2.  Then door #3 is open, do you switch your choice to door #1. What is the probability the car is behind door #2 versus door #1?  I spend time alone so I'm able to tolerate being around people, he spends time alone and he has to find topics to discuss once he's not alone.  Introverts versus Extroverts. No wonder I'm more exhausted being home than running or biking.

Another cloudy day, not so much rainy, although I honestly can't remember Wednesday's weather as I type this.  But I'm pretty sure there wasn't much sun to speak of.  This was the last day of Lung Cancer Awareness month and I do remember driving to Boston in the pouring rain, it was horrible. The event was very good.  In the Prudential Center in Boston.  A woman, Kimberly Hall, I met years ago at a Lung Cancer conference put it on under the guidance of Diane Legg.  Diane, an 11 year Lung Cancer survivor, and living with Stage IV for the last 6 years, started the first Shine A Light on Lung Cancer vigil in the US, there were 200 vigils on Wednesday night, in 10 years that is pretty darn impressive.  It is a very misunderstood disease.  Bottom line:  If you have lungs you can get lung cancer.  There are things that exacerbate it:  smoking (and that goes for ALL cancers, each has smoking as a trigger - imagine the horror asking the breast cancer patient if they smoked, oh the horror), radon (we have it in our home, do you know if you have it in yours?), asbestos, environmental factors such as pollution,  and others, those are the biggies, and these things can be avoided or  have ways for remediation in many situations.  

A woman spoke about her lung cancer diagnosis and journey.  It started with her slowly losing her stamina, then her breath, and then a cough that wouldn't go away.  She was (and still is) an active woman, weight training, spin, zoomba, walking the dog, leading up to her 50th birthday everything became more and more difficult and she was losing more and more energy.  Finally a friend suggested she get the cough checked out, get an x-ray.  Of course a healthy active 49 year old woman asking for an x-ray labels her as crazy, it's bronchitis, here are some antibiotics see me in a month if it doesn't go away.  A month later, she demanded the x-ray.  It showed shadows, oh you have pneumonia, here are some more antibiotics and go see this pulmonologist.  The pulmonologist ordered a CT, and when the results came back, ordered a bronchoscopy.  She went into the appointment, not understanding why this had been ordered and tried to leave.  The nurse questioned if she knew why she was getting this test.  She said she had no idea.  Then and there the nurse was honest with her and said they were testing for lung cancer.  This was the week before her 50th birthday.

After 4 rounds of chemo and 33 rounds of radiation she was declared No Evidence of Disease (NED).  A few months after that she had returned from a trip seeing her parents and was sore her shoulder hurt her back hurt, nothing felt right.  She went to her doctor.  A PET was immediately ordered and the lung cancer had metastasized to her bones, her shoulder blade, her L7 vertebrae and her hip.  More radiation, and at this point she called Diane who said "Get genetic testing".  She did have a genetic marker ROS1 and was put on Xalkori, a drug targeted for the ROS1 and ALK mutations and NSLC that has metastasized.   It is a maintenance chemo, and it took a year and it worked!  During that year she had a 10 hour surgery to replace her L7 vertebrae as the cancer had nearly disintegrated it.

It was an emotional talk, her husband came up on stage for support and she shooed him away, she was going to get to the end of this talk through her tears!  

It is an insidious disease no one deserves.  

I had a good cry and got home really late and tumbled into bed telling Dave I'd tell him about it later.

The sun came out!  Felt like I hadn't seen it in a month, It had been since Monday, and it was Thursday, I needed to to my PT.  My hip has been bugging me for the past few weeks and I have been ignoring it.  We all know how well THAT went last time.  So I did a short run got some sun and did my PT.  It all kinda sucked.  There was sun and I'll focus on that plus to the day.

Took both Jax and Gus for a walk, not my favorite.  They were really good and really seemed to miss walking with each other, so that made it fun, until mile 2 when Jax tends to lose all of his composure.  Per usual it happened, he lost it.  Black dogs have a bad rap as it is, then to have one barking and jumping at the end of a leash doesn't help.  Mostly this is when a man approaches me, he loses it.  Gus doesn't care, Jeff W can attest to this, Gus was happy to meet a new person, and then it was time to move on.  Same with Mikey, who stuck his hands inside the car window,  we even ran across Seth a while back and Gus was all whaev's man.  Gus is curious, then he somewhat patiently waiting for us to move forward!  I would like to test this man thing out with a guy I know, see if Jax settles down.  It's mostly embarrassing, and a little unnerving because what if it is not just a big stupid show?  

Jax is excellent when Dave and I take him for mountain bike rides, and I can only imagine he is the same when Dave takes him out mountain biking, and he goes solo or with a friend or two.  Jax is curious about people but really just keeps on moving forward.  Dogs on leashes, well he is a little more than curious especially if that dog is losing its shit on the end of a leash.  Jax sits there and looks at us like "WTF is this guys problem?"  as if he's NEVER lost his shit at the end of a leash.  Dogs are really curious creatures...

The PT and the short run and the walk were good.  a nice way to enjoy a sunny day and a mild December evening.

I was exhausted when I got up and knew I really didn't want to and really shouldn't run on Friday.  Decided I'd follow Mikey's lead and take one of the lunch time classes, Stability and Strength.  It was a torture session with 5 different stations with two exercises each a pair of people did for 5 minutes breaking up between the two exercises based on number of reps on one.    I felt it and really did get a good work out.  I need the stability for this on-going hip thing.  It was better it's not, it's frigging annoying.   I got out of work early and came home with the intention of taking Gus on a hike before it got dark.  I took a nap instead.  

Amy with the sharp elbows came over to break up more of the matted mangled fascia and muscles in my hips on Saturday morning.  Holy hell that hurt.  At one point she busts out laughing and comments my toes are so straightened out and separated they looked like fingers.  Well that IT band and something in my quad is a mess.  I need to make really good friends with a foam roller, and make up with my ice pack.  Ugh...    

After that I went to NYC to catch up with a friend I hadn't seen in at least 20 years.  Her husband planned a surprise trip to NYC for her 50th birthday and she messaged me to find out if we could meet up while they were somewhat local.  I jumped at the chance and am so glad I did.  I have admired this woman since we were young girls and she continues to amaze me.  I noticed she was doing a lot of centuries over the summer, she did 7.  Then I saw it, October 9th, her first IRONMAN finish.  Well that explains all the century rides!  Then I had to ask how learning how to swim was for her.  I remember one summer sitting on the dock my father had just put in the pond and the whole thing toppling over and neither of us were swimmers, we were non-drowners.  She said it took about a year, and several injuries to get the hang of it for sprints and Olympic distance tris then she jumped in for Ironman KY (they live in Alabama).   I'm still not progressing from the non-drowning stage to the swimming stage.  I think I can say I lived a full life without ever having done a tri.

That made for a very long day and Dave was up and out early on Sunday to ride in Big River and we were going to ride Arcadia with Jax in the afternoon.  To say I was dreading getting on the bike would not be a lie.  He got home from his 20ish miles in BR rousting me off the couch, loading up my bike and kicking my lazy ass into gear.  I can take about 2 hours, this weekend that ended up being just shy of 7 miles.  My skills and confidence are improving for doing something two hours a week I've progressed pretty well and have my moments of reckless abandon and my moments of oh shit.  Only one crash today.  A few topple overs because I was going to slow down hill.  I don't seem to have that problem on the road bike, I wonder if riding down trails is going to impact how I go down  hill on the roads?  I definitely am more timid on the trails.  It really hurts to fall on rocks.  I am immensely enjoying being on the bike and being in the woods, two favorite things!

He's threatening to work on speed for next week.  Ugh...

Oh and the neighbors leaves are on our yard.  Damn it.

Mileage:

Feet:  20.5, for a yearly total of 1,563.7 against an adjusted target of  A) 1,702 B) 1,660
Saddle:  6.8 for a yearly total of 1,470.7 against an adjusted target of A) 1,644 B) 1,590

Sincerely,
Beth, do I really have to go back to work tomorrow??  Whine..................