Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time

It's a known fact that I don't like choosing the easier path.

Pretty much by definition, if there's a harder way to do something, that's probably the way I'll do it. Sometimes it ends in disaster (see: first anatomy exam) but sometimes it ends in awesome (see: Tough Mudders 1-3). In this case, at the very least it ends in funding for the American Lung Association of Colorado.

Last night I signed up to run the Run the 'Rocks 5k in a few weeks. It's at Red Rocks park/amphitheater and seems like a normal 5k at first...except that the end is UP the amphitheater.

Please note: The last mile of the course has a steady incline and finishes by going up the amphitheater stairs.  Please train appropriately.  

My lungs are crying just looking at that. My legs are excited. For now.

If you're interested in contributing to the cause, you can donate here. Please note that the text there is prefab. The real reason I'm running it is because it sounds hard. It's a bonus that it goes towards a cause that helps a friend breathe easier so she can laugh at me while I struggle up that last hill.

A mile of incline. Sheesh.

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Aside from that lapse in judgement, it was a good weekend. We (hubs, bro, dog, and I) went to Red Rocks on Saturday morning (hence the inspiration) to meet up with my classmates who'd hosted some Japanese exchange students over the weekend. We doinked around the amphitheater, then went and had lunch at the Blue Cow Eatery. Good food, snotty staff...it balanced out to an acceptable experience.

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So that's what's up.

Oh and there's some rumblings about running a marathon next year. Probably the Denver Rock n Roll marathon. There's a reasonable chance I'll do another triathlon again too, after seeing pics from a friend's race this weekend.

Probably means I should start running/biking again at some point. Dang.

Alphabet Soup

In an effort to keep blogging, I'm going to try something new. Over the course of the week, I'm going to fill in the alphabet with random stuff that happens/comes up/seems interesting. It's going to get choppy and ugly, but at least it's content, right? I'll put the date at the end of each one, to give a rough timeline of when I wrote it. Maybe that'll help.

Anatomy...it's fascinating, but I'm having a really hard time getting myself organized. Last night I made flash cards that may work. This morning I flipped through them on the bus. Didn't retain a damn thing, but I'm not giving up hope yet. (6/14)

Buses. Or more specifically, bus schedules and directions. Yesterday I decided to try the route that I'd need to take if I ever wanted to stay on campus past 6:15 PM (like, say, if I wanted to go to the gym ever). The first bus went ok. There were some colorful characters and I fell asleep for some of it, but it was ok. I got to the transfer station and ran across the street to run right onto my bus. At some point an hour or so later, everyone got off the bus and the driver just stared at me like I was supposed to do the same. Turns out, I'd gotten on the right bus going in the wrong direction. My stop is the last stop....in the other direction. So I rode the 31 from the middle to one end, then back to the other end. 2.5 hours after I left campus, I walked in my front door and made undercooked frozen pizza for dinner. It was a super day. (6/14)

Cooking. On that note, my cooking skills/motivation have gone from cooking from a new country every week to "that looks microwavable, let's just eat that." (6/14)

Damn. 26 is a lot of letters. (6/16)

Even if I don't finish all the letters by tomorrow, I'm still posting this. Because you guys deserve some kind of post, even if it's a crappy one. Look at T though...it's worth it, I promise. (6/16)

F

Gluconeogensis. it happens in the liver but not the muscles. Thought you'd like to know. (6/14)

House. Hasn't sold yet. It's only been a month and a half, but still. It'd be nice for Nick to be out here. Somewhere along the line I got a little attached to him I guess. Go figure. (6/14)

Iliocostalis. It's one of the words that's been stuck in my head all week. That and thoracodorsal. Apparently, spell check doesn't include the medical dictionary. Go figure. Dammit is somehow a word though. (6/16)

J

K

L

M

N

Old Bay. Just found some in my brother's spice rack. It literally just saved dinner. Winnah. (6/16)

P

Quizzes - we had 2 the first weekend, which was conveniently the same weekend as the CO Tough Mudder. I may as well have been drunk while taking them Sunday night. Good news is, I got 100 on my first one and 70 on the other one...so that's ok-ish. (6/11)

Rabbits. There are rabbits on campus. Lots of them. I'm not sure why this is so novel to me, but it is. I love it.

Sleep...turns out it's necessary. Less than 6 hours and I'm a puddle of sobbing mess by the time I get to campus. The day goes downhill from there. Last night I forced myself to be in bed by 11 (I get up at 5:30 now...seriously) and so far today feels better. Keep your fingers crossed. (6/14)

Tough Mudder. You knew it was coming. Enjoy:



Unexpected bummedness. My 10 year class reunion is tonight, and I'm at home (in another state, mind you) making tape outlines of the arteries of the arm (not to be confused with the brachial artery, which is just below the teres minor).

Yup, I'm that exciting now. (6/16)

V

W

Xyphoid process. There it is:

And now you know. (6/14)

Y

Zero ability to finish this. Sorry. Maybe next week I'll be more interesting. Or I'll find something better than the alphabet to keep me motivated. Who's got a fun phrase I can use instead? Sub 20 letters plz.

Imperfections

Yesterday I was on top of things. I had the profile planned out, the playlist synced, and the ride printed up and ready to go.

Then I left the printed copy on the printer.

So I winged in (wung it?) and everyone got to see that I have no idea where Ohio is in relation to Indiana and the rest of the mid west.

Oops. Looking at that map, I'm still not really sure how I'm missing Missouri and Kansas to get to CO, but I guess that's the mystery of the interstate highway system.

On a related note, I've been doing a lot of thinking over the last few weeks, as my "classes left" count dwindles and I face massive upheaval in pretty nearly every aspect of my life. This last year and a half has been nothing short of miraculous for my self-esteem, and that's largely been due to the innumerable mistakes I've made while teaching.

In the beginning, it really bothered me to make mistakes...being off beat (I'm basically never on), miscounting reps on one side, skipping entire sets of exercises...I was out of breath 90% of the time because I was so nervous all the time. I made a VERY conscious effort to NOT point out the mistakes though (even that I wasn't perfect at) and guess what? 9 times out of 10, no one noticed. That one other time, we all laughed it off.

So as the months have gone on and as I've taught more and more, I've embraced my inability to keep a beat or keep count, and have either found ways to compensate for it or found ways to laugh it off. My confidence has grown, and with it I've gained a new comfort in my own skin that I never had before. I've stopped trying to be like other instructors (though I still take their classes for inspiration and motivation!) because let's face it - my regulars come to my classes because they like how I teach. I like to think my classes are tough  but conquerable, and that everyone leaves feeling happy, sore, and accomplished, even if it's just a little.

On that note, this is a friendly remind to all you gym bunnies out there: your instructors and trainers are people too, and no compliment goes unnoticed...even the simple act of asking who does a song you like is encouraging. If you enjoy a class or a song, tell the instructor...I guarantee it'll make his/her day.

Halloween, Not Christmas

I couldn't decide which costume to rock last night, so I just did both. For the first class (Deb's), I was a fitness fairy.

I took these after class in the only part of the locker room not likely to have nekkid people. Still not technically legal, but it was in the name of science. Really.

Fitness fairy squats are hardcore.

For my class, I whipped out this GIR costume I found at Hot Topic for $15. It itched, but I thought it was funny.

Doing the pigeon toed thing because it's cuter...right?

There's a tail on the back there.

Proof that I worked out in this mess - check out those sweat marks!

GIR squats are also hardcore.

This is what home looks like right now. Still no power (going on 60 hours as of noon today), but we're still having fun with it for the most part.

Our gourmet wood stove stew from Sunday night. Last night I heated up a can of soup. Not the same, but it got the job done just fine.

We also have a kerosene heater which we've been using to "preheat" the bedroom before bed. It's like the warmest little caged R2D2 ever, but it does smell funny. To combat that, I put a "salted caramel" flavor candle in there last night. I thought it smelled delicious. Nick woke up nauseous. Oops.

Between the wood stove and the kerosene heater, this is what our thermostat looks like. Yeah, not lacking for heating options here...just not efficient ones. Unfortunately, this is probably the warmest I'm going to be until July. Ugh.

Also, the problem with proactively trying to get laundry done before the storm hits is that once the lights start flickering, you forget about the stuff in the washer and then realize it 2 days later. So the guest bed is now our drying rack. It's convenient - this way we can see our options all laid out in the darkest part of the house.

What's the longest you've been without power? This is definitely the longest for me.

Nail Biter

Google Images continues its magic streak. This came from "tell me shake".  I was looking for something more like this:

Anyway. 


So the grade became visible at midnight. I got an 87.5 at first, then saw that one of the questions hadn't given me the credit I should have gotten, so I ended up with an 89.1. I needed an 89.667 to guarantee an A. 

I'm 0.567 points shy of an A at this point. 

But then the professor announced something about getting ONE extra credit point for turning in assignments on time? So...I might be 0.443 above an A? I emailed the prof about it, and she said I'd know by the end of the day what my unofficial grade is. 

I'm dying here. I know it's only an A- if I don't get that extra point, but dammit...I took 6 classes in the last 12 weeks, worked full time, put in over 80 hours of PT observation, and got A's in 5 classes. An A- isn't the end of the world, but it just looks so much more impressive if I get straight A's. 


UPDATE: Long story short, after some minor drama about being 0.01 points shy of an A, I politely pointed out a couple of rounding errors and she gave me the A. :-)

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In other news, I have to teach spin again tonight at 6:45 and I'm thinking  about just going early and taking the strength class before it at 5:45. I realized last night how much I miss going right from work and just working my butt off until I'm too tired to move. 


I also realized last night that I'm doing ok. Bear with me on here, we're going down the rabbit hole a little. 


I know everyone has a fear of public speaking to some degree, and that's not something from which I am exempt. However, my fear of public stupidity FAR outweighs the general fear of talking to a group of people. The major source of anxiety for me when getting up in front of a group and doing something I haven't done before is fear of fraud - that everyone in the audience will suddenly realize I don't know what the heck I'm doing and either laugh or (worse) drop and shake their heads and leave, never to trust me or my judgement again. 


Yes, seriously. 

The funny thing is, I screw up in class all the time. I flub wording and mix up exercises and forget stuff completely, and in the end...no one walks out. No one laughs unless I make it funny, and there's yet to be a class that I didn't get some kind of thanks at the end. It turns out, I'm actually pretty good at this. I still don't know 100% what I'm doing, but I'm having fun and I'm becoming comfortable in my own skin a little more each day, and that rocks. 


And on that note, Rose, this one's for you: 

Between workouts, in the bathroom, sweaty and happy. Enjoy. :-D 

Loooong Day

And it's not even close to over.

Started at 430 this am...got up, dragged my behind to the gym, and got familiar with the sound setup at the gym where I'll be waking up every Thursday from the 21st until infinity.

Rose, when I took my shirt off after spin, it made me think of you..



You're welcome.

After that, I got some observation time in then went to work for a full day and got a lot done. Now I'm home with 3 exams and 2 homework assignments to do so I can play (read: powerwash and paint the house) this weekend.

I'm teaching spin Sunday morning, and I have a pretty sweet idea for a ride. More on that later.

Some life lessons

Lesson #1: Appreciate good pictures of yourself. My butt never looks this good when I'm not airborne. I'll take it.

This is the shot I was really trying to get. Jumping jacks for the Bachelorette Booty Camp. Which I still haven't completed. Looks like lunch today is going to get ugly. For those of you counting (who might not have done your booty camp routine either, here's what's on the docket:

115 push ups

45 jumping jacks
25 crunches

20 lunges

10 tricep dips

95 curls

5 burpees

Woo, go me!

Lesson #2: Read labels.

Did you know that on the label of dishwasher detergent it says "avoid contact with fabric...may bleach"??  Yeah, I didn't either. So when I sprayed detergent EVERYWHERE the other day and the paper towels were nowhere to be found, I grabbed a dirty washcloth and wiped it up.

And then this. I mean, it's pretty but...geesh.  So guys...don't clean up dish detergent with fabric you like.


Lesson #3: If the knobs aren't turning, the breadmaker isn't kneading it. Seriously.

This was destined for greatness. Italian herb bread...basil, oregano, olive oil, parmesean...YUM. I mixed stuff up a bit because I didn't think the kneading knobs were turning. They weren't. But it still rose and stuff, then baked and stuff. This is the bottom of it. Those big gashes are from digging out the kneading knobs like they were shrapnel. The white is unmixed flour. I ate some and it tasted ok. The dog ate some and got sick the next day. You do the math.

So that's what I've got.

Coworker and I did Bob Harper's Bootcamp DVD yesterday morning. It was meh. I like Jillian's workouts better I guess. Maybe the other levels will be harder, I don't know. The whole thing seemed like they never rehearsed, and for crying out loud he did a bunch of stuff on one leg then NEVER DID THE OTHER LEG! Basic group ex 101 here, folks! And it was a DVD, so they had time to edit it, and that crap still got through! If it's in a clearance bin, it's not bad. Wouldn't pay full price for it again though. Grumble grumble.

What's your favorite workout DVD? 
Are you as life-challenged as I am? How? 

Weekend plans

Did bob harper's yoga dvd with a coworker in a conference room this morning. She wouldn't let me take pics so you get a picture of bob.




Rawr.

Tomorrow I'm going to hit up spin then strength, to make up for the ungodly amount of food I ate tonight. Yikes.



Course #1...of 4. Yummy.

I'm also taking the GRE on Sunday (yay) since the last time I took it was over 5 years ago. Womp womp. Got 2 other exams to take this weekend too, so...that's fun.

Anyway, have a great weekend! What are your plans??

Cell Biology - WTF!

Classes have started, huzzah! Unfortunately, that probably means sparser/more spastic posts for a bit. Sorry in advance.

But a few things.

First, cell biology. Wtf.

Seriously guys, wrap your head around this. Your body isn't one piece...you are literally TRILLIONS of TINY LIVING THINGS that somehow manage to work together to make a sentient, UNIQUE being. Every finger print is really thousands of these tiny little LIVING things doing their crazy little dances to make sure you can't commit a crime and get away with it (at least not without using their buddies up in your brain to figure out how to hide the evidence).

If that doesn't make you feel just a little creepy, I don't know what will.

This weekend I read the whole chapter on cell bio, and by the end I was apologizing to my cells for giving them crap (aka McD's, etc) to live on. They're so delicate and fragile, and I'm responsible for their livelihoods and I have a hard time providing them with enough water. Good lord, I'm going to be a terrible mother someday. I won't even start on the absolute INSANITY of how a single cell somehow magically becomes an entire freaking baby. I mean, seriously. Woah.

Suffice it to say, I've eaten my veggies every day this week and have had exactly ONE diet Coke (and 3-4 bottles of water a day). Poor cells...I'm sorry little buddies!

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In other news, I'm subbing for spin on the 23rd at 5:30.  If you're in the area, come to class! I have exactly nothing figured out, but I'm sure it'll be a scorcher.

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Tomorrow I'm supposed to be running through my warmup routine with Sharon. Guess I should get on practicing that, since flailing around doesn't happen by itself. I'll probably get there at like 7, to get my groove on. Or something like that.

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Tonight I'll probably do Rose's Bachelorette Booty Camp between homework and lab assignments. I'll probably have to wait until...August...to watch the show. Sigh. That'll look something like this: 

50 push ups
10 jumping jacks
5 crunches
10 lunges

20 push ups
5 tricep dips
20 jumping jacks
5 curls
5 crunches

10 jumping jacks
10 crunches
30 curls

30 push ups
5 burpees
30 curls
10 lunges

15 push ups
5 tricep dips
5 jumping jacks
5 crunches
30 curls


Totals:

115 push ups
45 jumping jacks
25 crunches
20 lunges
10 tricep dips
95 curls
5 burpees

Oh dear. Maybe this'll get some pictures, who knows.

Quick Post

I'll probably have more to say later, but for now I wanted to share how AWESOME my weekend was.

I got dressed up:

And then I FED A FREAKING GIRAFFE!!!

I learned that tortoises like strawberries...

...and then I fed Kronk some strawberries!!

Great great weekend, but I'm whooped and work is busy so I'll have to post more later. Congrats to Anna and Jared (isn't she gorgeous??)!!

Good Good Life

Guys, I'm in a seriously good mood today, especially considering I got my butt out of bed early enough to be OUT THE DOOR at 6:30.  This is miraculously early for me, folks. If my house were on fire before 5 am, I'd tell it to burn later so I could keep sleeping. I didn't even go to bed early last night to compensate. In fact, I was up later than usual, working on the latest quilting project (yes, I quilt...what of it?).  Isn't it cute?

Yesterday I didn't do a damn thing fitness-related. At least not physically. I did, however, take a look at the online classes I'm taking and I already finished the extra credit quiz for A&P, which doesn't even start until Tuesday. Booya! I'm aiming to be "that guy" in all these classes (A&P I&II with labs, Abnormal Psych, and Intro to Kinesiology)...you know that one, who wrecks the curve for everyone else? Yup. Totally.  Never been that guy (or girl as it were). I'm also going out of my way to make sure the profs know who I am, early on. My abnormal psych homework is done for the week too (I guess I should do the reading on that though...oops) and all my quizzes/exams/reports/homework assignments are in my Google calendar. In the next 6 weeks I have...

...10 writing assignments
...5 lab assignments
...2 term reports
...9 exams
...10 homework assigments
...18 discussion questions to answer
...8 quizzes
...and about a billion pages of reading to do.

Cripes, now that I put it in numbers, I might be a little over my head here. But I will prevail! I have my flashcards at my desk, my coloring book at home, and a new plan to be at the gym by 7 every morning. M/W I won't be able to work out, but I can go to group ex in the evenings those days. The evenings I'm going to plan on studying. Somewhere in there, I need to get some mileage in to train for this century too.  I may have bitten off more than I can chew here, I'm not sure. We'll see.

Oh, tomorrow morning I need to put together a warmup to show my mentor at the gym, so I can start teaching bootcamp/strength classes too.  (Un)fortunately, most of the classes I was able attend (and therefore teach) have been cancelled for the summer, so that limits my usefulness, even once I'm trained.

This song has been stuck in my head and on constant replay on my iTunes all morning, and I'm loving it:




I love it.

What's stuck in your head today?
How do you approach life, cannonball or toes first?

Spin Therapy (Caution: Gets Deep)

I've been 'sick' (read: unable to breathe through my nose) all week (read: since the sun came out), which has made me a bit foggy at work. Which makes me defensive when I screw up (and I do) at work. Which leads to bad things when dealing with coworkers.

Summary: yesterday was a pretty crap day at work.

Around 3:30 I got a call asking if I could sub for spin and I (still in the throes of cutting onions) said yes absolutely. I'd planned on an outside ride, but spin is just...cathartic for me. I was afraid I'd get up in front of the class and just whine about my day, but something about stepping into that room and taking a deep breath of hot, humid air (the 'room' is a mezzanine above the cardio area...HOT)...it's just healing. Thursday nights are great, because I know everyone there. It's a good, established group, and everyone has fun and is there to work. I used the Sawtooth profile, but made it a strength ride, and a playlist I've already forgotten.

After that I promptly went home and threw a temper tantrum for anyone who'd listen (read: my ever-patient husband) and had a couple beers. By beer 1.5, I decided to man up and take the high road...this particular coworker and I may never see eye to eye, but guess what? That's life. All I can do about it is upgrade my reaction and move on.

How about you?  
How do you get (emotionally) when you're sick at work? 
What do you do when you know you're wrong (but the other person is too)? 
How much self-doubt is too much self-doubt? (And, honestly, how much do you have?) 

CPR, Or: Please Don't Ever Make Me Have to Save Your Life

Good news, folks! I am officially certified to save your life if you go into cardiac arrest. Does that terrify you? It terrifies me!  I won't lie...I at no point want to be responsible for someone else's continued arterial palpation. Nope, don't want it.  But, given extreme circumstances, I could even zap you back to life (maybe) if needed.  But please, guys, for the love of all that's wonderful in this world...don't let those circumstances arise.

It's not that I don't want to help people...I do. I can be very helpful when I want to be, and chances are I'd want to be in an emergency situation.  But the thing is...I feel guilty about EVERYTHING. If I saved your life but broke your ribcage, I'd feel horrible.  I'd probably send you an apology note and a quilt, just to make myself feel better.  If, god forbid, I did the best I could trying to save someone and failed?  I just don't even know how I'd handle that. I still feel pangs of guilt for not being able to help someone YEARS ago, even though there was literally nothing I could have done to help.

But hey, I have pictures!

 The baby CPR dummies freak me out. They're so...babies. Maybe it's just babies that freak me out. Seriously, how the heck do we SURVIVE???

 Cleanest crime scene ever.

 "You're not *really* choking..."

"Ok, ok, you saved me!"

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This week is pretty much a week full of "really long days" with little to no time to eat, let alone work out.  Ok, let me rephrase.  Little to no time to work out that doesn't require me being functional before the buttcrack of dawn. Sorry, kids...momma doesn't run before 7 AM.

Immediately after I wrote that (at 7:45 AM), my dog walked in and flopped on the ground, which inspired me to get up off my butt, put on my shoes, and "run" a mile. Honest to god, I would have run it if I weren't dragging a 70 lb teenage puppy monster around by her face. Stupid dog is lazy beyond all reckoning..."high energy" breed my @$$.

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In other news, this song continues to make me shake my booty at work:

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How about you? Would you be able to (or have ever) save a life?

What's making your booty bounce today? 

What's your favorite rage workout?