Crunchy ‘Nanas

Well, I am happy to say that, though it doesn’t sound like much, I am on my way to getting proper exercise. My energy is definitely picking up a bit (though you’d never know it by my falling asleep at 8pm on the couch!) and, along with a 3.5 mile hike around Blean woods last weekend, I walked 15 minutes at lunch on the 3 days this week that I was in the office and not on my feet in the rockpools.

Laugh all you want, but those 15 minutes plus the stairs to get me back up to the office, that was pretty much good.

Looking through some recent photos, I am reminded that I wasn’t a total slacker in my first trimester. We hiked a different circuit around Blean woods in August, and a bit down in the New Forest at the beginning of September. And embryo had nice in utero rock out sessions to two of my favorites, Peter Gabriel and U2, this summer, which just goes to show I can stay awake when it really matters.

I am sure I must be talking to myself here, but I’ve never let that stop me before. Though my thoughts have been silent here over the last couple months, my life has been the opposite. I have just been too busy and wiped out to even think about blogging, as well as not really being at liberty to say much about real life  and running (or lack thereof) or anything really.

Alas, no more. We are 15 weeks into the rest of our life. I am sick and tired and exhausted but I am so happy and relieved and excited to announce that my family should grow next March all continuing to go well.  But, wow, has this pregnancy thing got me floored. Cooking a baby’s hard work! I have never been so sick and exhausted in my life. Not complaining at all, it’s what I have been waiting for, but wow, where was that cave and why couldn’t I just crawl into it to hibernate?

However, this past week I have started to feel like I have had a little more energy and it’s time to get serious about remedying my slacking in the exercise department. For the last month, the extent of my physical activity has pretty much been limited to the four flights of stairs I have to walk up to get to my desk at work (hey at least I don’t walk to the other entrance and use the elevator!) and the sets of pelvic floor exercises I do when I remember.

And that’s why I need to blog. I know exercise is important, and I really need it to make me feel accountable until I am feeling energetic enough to WANT to exercise. I won’t be running for a while because I wasn’t running regularly enough before I conceived to feel I can ‘continue’.  But I will be walking and I will be trying out the town pool (let my gym membership expire in June and now I definitely don’t have the money to renew!) and now that I have worked my last Saturday for a while I will be able to get to my antenatal yoga.

So, if you are out there, and you don’t see a weekly blog on something physical I did, please shout ’slacker!’ and kick my butt in gear. Me and my baby thank you for it.

…since you last ran when

1. You pull out the Nike+ sportband to find it has no charge
2. You swear your shoe pocket has always been on your right shoe, but there it is, on your left
3. You spend the entire run, and by entire I mean 20 minutes*, trying to remember the last time you ran.

*Aw well, it’s a (re)start, not a very good one as I wasn’t even breathing hard, but well, a start.

I started a new job 7 weeks ago. Since then, I have run twice, biked 4 times, and yoga-ed not once, except for stretches after the running and biking activities. I am not happy about this. Not only do I know rationally this is not a good way to live, but I feel it. My hips are even tighter than normal, the office stairs have me huffing more than I would like. My mental state could be worse, but I miss yoga so much, and know it would help me balance everything I need to do, and help me to tackle all my challenges in a much more relaxed state.

I cut myself a little slack because being sick and trying to keep up with the new job was flippin’ hard. I didn’t really realize how sick I was until I started feeling better. But my energy level was completely wiped. I wanted to do something, but I was running on empty and all resources were going into trying to do my best at work. Crunchy husband was an absolute star during this time because he wasn’t 100% either and he still cooked me dinners and cleaned the house when I had people coming over to record the newsletter.

So, yeah I’ve been struggling a bit with the balance. Even though I know I should get up and exercise before work, I think if I am up and awake it would be nice to just get in and try to get some stuff done while it is quiet and the day is young. Which I know is not healthy, and yet I feel it’s so important for me to do well. Partly because I know I can do well, and partly because I really believe in the organization and I don’t want to let it down. It’s been a bit of a challenge trying to keep the daily happenings going and plan for the future and get up to speed with it all - a challenge that I completely expected and welcomed, but yeah it has had me pretty zapped for energy outside of office hours.

However, this weekend I cleaned my room (how old am I?) and we went out for a stellar bike ride to Broadstairs and back. I am feeling good about this. It feels like it has positioned me well to tackle all I would like to get done this week before I step on the plane and head home to California, so that I am not sitting around for two weeks with the sick hole in my stomach thinking about all the things I wished I had gotten done, that should have been done. No good wasting a vacation day with worry and yet, I know myself so I want to get as much as possible done so I won’t. So, um yeah we’ll see if I manage another run or exercise before Saturday. I’m going to try my best.

Recently, I was supplied with a new Sony Walkman W Series to test out. I loaded up my challenge playlist, and then got a bit distracted by the responsibilities of a fabulous new job. I haven’t been able to exercise much in the past couple weeks, beyond daily office stair climbs, but I have had the chance to test out the mp3 player a few times on the weekends.

The Good: It is lightweight and very easy to wear. There are no wires to poke down my shirt, no head to hip connections, beyond the usual anatomical circuits. I was skeptical when I took it out of the box - I have a small head and there is not a way to adjust the cord length between the right and left ears. But it stays on, even if I have to rotate the ear pieces to point down more than I imagine is usual. It is easy to turn off and on, adjust the volume and flip back and forth through tracks by just reaching up to your ear. In terms of sound, I’d say the speakers pack a reasonable punch. It’s pretty rich. Out of the box, the unit charged pretty quickly and was ready to go in good time.

The Bad: As I suspected, due to its size and portable nature, it has the same limitations as the iPod shuffle. You load up your songs, they get put on in the artist/folder order and off you go. That’s great for times when I want to listen to tracks in a random order. But, if I make a playlist for a run, I want to hear it in the order I’ve set. In this specific list, MGMT sets up the rhythm, Peter Gabriel tells me not to break it, and Andrew Bird carries the momentum through. I certainly don’t want to hear my cool down songs when I need a power song to get pep me up. The player is not very flexible to this need. To put the playlist onto the player in this order, I had to rename all the tracks to get them to fall in that order. So it’s not really realistic if you want to use the player to its 2 GB capacity with any kind of control, order, or an easy way to find what you’re looking for. You can use the ZAPPIN technology to hear clips of each song as you pass through, but eh, that’s not as exciting as it sounds. Usually, I can figure it out from the beginning of the song.

Also, the unit charges when it’s plugged in to a computer. I know this is the digital age, but there are times when I’m traveling and I don’t have my computer with me, so this doesn’t seem ideal.

The Robot: You can’t take yourself too seriously in one of these things.  A few months ago, I acquired a pair of Oakleys with prescription lenses. They are a bit big (small head) and the first time I put them on and looked in the mirror, I thought “oh god, I feel like the Terminator.” Thus, the combination of my sunglasses and this mp3 player prompted Crunchy husband to shout, “Robo boogie - binary solo!” the first time I hit the fields for a run. The robot effect feels a bit silly; however, they are so light, you forget about it and it becomes less of an issue.

My recommendation: If you are less worried about track order and easily locating specific tracks and just want something comfortable to exercise in, this could be what you’re looking for. Otherwise, I am not so sure.

Happy early birthday to me! I brought home my new road bike today. I’m super excited. It’s my first new bike in 10 years. It’s my first new road bike, ever. (I’ve been really lucky to borrow some good ones, though.) It’s a carbon fiber frame, and a very smooth ride.  The nice folks at the bike shop popped a triple on it, so that it’ll be ready for the hills if/when we ever move back to California, and installed a computer so all I had to do was screw on my pedals and hit the track.

And it has a bell. Ding! (I know it’s UK law to sell it to me that way. It’s not very rock n’ roll, but it amuses me. I think I’ll keep it on for a while.)

I’m very pleased.

Crunchy husband reunited with his bike - and soon to be upgraded

I haven’t run with music in a while. Even when I was running much more than I am now, I wouldn’t always take music, and had gotten to the point where I rarely took music. Sometimes I just like to focus on me: my breathing, my thoughts, how I am feeling physically and psychologically. I also don’t like to be completely plugged in when I am outside so that I can hear my surroundings - safety first! (If I’m completely plugged in to music, I’m gone, in my own little world. It’s a fantastic world to be in, as long as you don’t have to worry about cars, tractors, dogs or crazy people.) Even when I want music, my set up is not ideal. My iPod tends to do funny things like skip, stop and refuse to play when it gets jostled. (I don’t have a Nano and, though carrying the weight of the video doesn’t bother me, the frustration at not being able to listen to music when I have  set out to does.)

So, when I was contacted to take the new Sony Walkman W series mp3 player for a spin in return for setting out a power playlist that would improve my performance, it didn’t take long to decide to accept the challenge. I’ve been in a funny place running-wise lately but ultimately I like running, I like music, I sometimes like running with music (it’s essential on the treadmill), and I love to try out new gadgets. So, here goes.

Songs that make good running tunes for me do two things: they let me lose myself a bit and they make me dance. Mostly they are upbeat, positive or remind me of something inspirational. The playlist’s a bit long (!!!) for my distance right now, but maybe it will be what I need to get me back in training for longer distances again. I’ll be back to tell you how it goes with the player. I have a sneaking suspicion I will not actually be able to put the songs on the player in this order, or at least not easily, without having to rename them. We shall see.

Prelude - Getting ready, dancing a bit, singing a little, lacing up the shoes

1. Almudo - Daby Touré and Skip McDonald
2. Late In the Evening - Paul Simon
3. Sledgehammer - Peter Gabriel (any live version with a long intro with the crowd humming - the music kicks in and I’m out the door and jogging up or cruising down the hill)

I’m Off, I Rockin’ Out

4. Elevation - U2
5. Legs - ZZ Top
6. Rockin’ Me - Steve Miller Band
7. Green River - Creedence Clearwater Revival
8. Dancin’ Til Dawn - Lenny Kravitz
9. Girls & Boys - Blur
10. Fashion - David Bowie
11. Electric Feel - MGMT

I Have Indeed Hit the Fields and Marshes, I’m Pep Talking My Legs

12. Don’t Break This Rhythm - Peter Gabriel
13. Not A Robot, But A Ghost - Andrew Bird
14. Music (Groove Armada 12″ Mix) - Madonna
15. This Must Be the Place (Naive Melody) - David Byrne (Live from Austin, Tx)

I’ve Probably Started to Daydream and Lag and Need To Refocus for the Push Home

16. Work (Freemasons Radio Edit) - Kelly Rowland
17. Can’t Stop - Ozomatli
18. Tounka - Rokia Traoré
19. A Sense of Home - Peter Gabriel
20. Learning to Fly - Pink Floyd
21. Good Things - BoDeans

Cool Down, Stretch, Reflect

22. All That We Let In - Indigo Girls
23. There is A Light - Great Lake Swimmers
24. Simple Gifts - Yo-Yo Ma and Alison Krauss
25. With My Own Two Hands - Ben Harper and Jack Johnson
26. Supposed to Be - Jack Johnson

I’ve been thinking a lot about my running lately. I’ve been in a funny place. I wasn’t feeling it. I was lethargic, annoyed, and it put me in a bad mood. Upon reflection, I know some of it had to do with the weather. Even though it hasn’t been a particularly wet winter, it’s been a long, cold one. Some of it had to do with my patience level with drivers. I truly believe, especially in the countryside where sidewalks are only a dream, that all drivers should be made to spend some time using the road as a non-driver - a cyclist, horseback rider, runner or walker - so that they know what it’s like and might take a little more awareness and consideration to road sharing. Some of it might have been subconscious connections to frustrating situations that are now in the past.

Yesterday, while driving to pick Crunchy husband up from work, I realized I miss it, like really miss it. It’s not the best time in my life to be ramping up a time-intensive training plan, but I was really happy to realize I missed it. My good run a few weeks ago might not have been a fluke. It’s definitely time to get going again, if even just for short runs more frequently.

The last time I wrote about running I was not very happy. I was cold, sluggish and tired of being run off the road. I firmly believe you have to like something to make it worth doing, to continue to do it at all.  Goals and determination and stubbornness are all well and good, but if the positive mental state’s not there, it just doesn’t seem worth it. If it’s not working, you’ve got to step back and assess the situation and let things breathe a bit until you decide you’re in a better frame of mind to start back in. Or, as in my case, you simply wake up and think “wow, it would be nice to go for a run this morning.”

After a gorgeous ride along the coast to Viking Bay yesterday (before the fog rolled in), I woke this morning and just felt like a run. Since I was taking Crunchy husband to work anyway, I got my gear on and ran along Pegwell Bay after the drop off.  Not only was the sun shining and there was no traffic to worry about, but dog walkers and bike commuters alike smiled back at me and said/nodded “good morning!” I know that doesn’t seem like a lot, but for England, in my experience, it is. It’s small, but still such a welcome start to the day!

My relationship with running has hit a sticky spot.  I think it’s time for a change. For a while anyway. I’d say it’s time to ease off a bit, except well, there’s not much room for easing before it’s a complete cease, as my recent and not-so-recent mileage shows, so I’m just being honest.

I’m tired of plodding. I wouldn’t mind plodding if I still felt energized and peppy. But lately when I run I am just waiting for it to be over. Waiting for it to be over, and making bets on whether the next driver will be courteous, or if they too will try to run me off the road. Do you not see me? This giant yellow fluorescence coming toward you? Really? (I’m also tired of being in a bad mood. I’ve felt so grumpy and just “off” lately.) I don’t mind slow if I still feel vitalized and like I’ve accomplished something. But lately I’m sluggish and it’s a chore, which definitely means it’s time to get off this train, for a while anyway.

We’ve been discussing (for months) doing a half marathon this spring, which would be a good thing - concrete goals are good and I haven’t had one in a while. But looking at it realistically, with how things have been going, I’d spend the training so annoyed with running I wouldn’t get what I wanted out of it. So, I don’t know that that would be a good thing to do.

What would be a good thing to do is ramp up the cycling a bit more AND get my act together and get back in the pool. That would be a very good thing to do.  I might do that sometime. Sometime soon. Splish splash!