Today’s 44 is one that Tamara (Fitknitchick) demoed the other day – a BOSU deck squat. (Check out her site because her video is great – lots of tips on the proper way to perform this move.)
My video is not nearly as informative – just me, my BOSU, and a dumbbell (15 pounds).
This was a fun move – hard for sure!!! Definitely going to do this one again and again!!
I also got in a short run today (4 miles 24:19) plus another 1.5 miles nice and easy!!
Earlier this week I shared about the scare I had when one of our tenants decided to use the venue as her moving out route. Yesterday I went over to make sure that she had moved out and pick up her keys (she didn’t return them – BIG SHOCK!!!). Good thing I’m friends with a locksmith now!!!
Here are some pictures of the apartment and the way she left it – I’m sad that there is no way to share the STENCH through the internet – the smell about sent me over the edge – a mix of urine, a cat litter box that hadn’t been emptied in a good year, body odor, garbage and shit (literally!).
So much stuff everywhere – hard to believe that she actually moved out.
And….the final picture (brace yourself!!) –
NO WORDS!!
Yep – that is what you would not except to find in a place where real people live. Just seeing the picture is grossing me out since I saw (and smelled) it in person.
Who knew that being a landlord would be so much fun?! I’m hoping that once we get the place cleaned up and ready to rent again we will find someone as great as our other new tenant!!!
Today’s 44 was fun because not only was it a good move to tighten the butt/hamstring area but it was a great calf stretch – always a necessary thing!!!
I did a donkey kick from downward dog. Start in downward dog position:
readybring right knee inkick back
Pull the knee in as close to your chest as possible (good for the abs) and then kick your foot back – repeat x 44. Then switch sides and start again!
left sidekick
This move went quickly – definitely one that I will do again!!!
Today I ran – always a happy thing. I did 5 miles just under 7 minutes/mile (34:44) and then 2.25 more miles at a nice easy pace with a steeper incline.
I need an easy button!!! Or maybe I need to be like Sam in Bewitched
and just be able to wiggle my nose and take care of everything!!! (Although, if I remember correctly, it didn’t always work out that well for her!)
Lately, it seems that everything takes 10x longer than I expect it to and every time I turn around there is a new problem/issue to deal with.
I know it’s just a phase and things will level out (I HOPE!) soon.
In the meantime, I will just suck it up and
HaHa – just kidding!!! (sort-of!)
This eeCard makes me laugh so I’m going with it!
If you have an easy button that you don’t need anymore, feel free to send it my way – I will return it as soon as possible!!!
Just standing on the disc is a challenge for your balance! I started with my hands reaching up –
start
then reached my hands down to my toes during the squat.
reach for toes
There were lots of wobbles before I completed all 44 of these!!!
And, Tuesday means Garage Boot Camp!!! (not sure how fun this will be in the winter!!!) Today we did one of my favorites – ABC Boot Camp. Because we have a shorter amount of time than we did in the summer, we only did 1 minute of each move (in the summer we did 75 seconds). Still a great workout!!!
Entitlement: the condition of having a right to have, do, or get something (Merriam-Webster)
Have you ever met people who feel “entitled”?
More and more lately it seems that people feel like someone (that ubiquitous entity) owes them! I don’t get it!!!
When our boys were little we told them they needed 4 things: food, water, oxygen and love.
We made sure that they had all of those (I guess we didn’t really have much control over the oxygen thing!!!) things and everything else was just a bonus!!!
I still believe that we can boil our needs down to the basics – everything else (and there is plenty) is like icing on the cake, sunshine at the beach, the star on top of the tree!! It’s EXTRA!!
Last Thursday (cleaning, set-up, ironing day), the bride of the weekend called me. She wanted to know if they could have the venue (for free) Friday night since they had rented it for Saturday. She felt like I “owed” her that even though the rental for a Friday night is completely separate!!!
I’m pretty sure if we book a hotel and then call them up and tell them they should let us come in a day early for free they would laugh and/or hang-up on us!!!
I think that we all need to remember that we can live with –
FoodWater
What do you think? Do people have more of a sense of entitlement these days?
Happy Tuesday!!
Kim
PS – I let the wedding party have their rehearsal at the venue on Friday evening like the bride wanted.
Today’s 44 was a nice stretch/resistance move. I used some rubber tubing –
the green without handles was today’s choice!
and did a side lying kick.
side one ready to gokick out (keep resistance on the band)
By pulling the band tight, this was a nice little strength move that also felt pretty good on my hips!! And, of course, I had to flip over and do another set of 44.
side 2 – readykick and pull band tight
I’m ready to start getting in some fun workouts again – a couple days off is always plenty for me!!!
Today was Garage Boot Camp – we did Tabata!!! This is always a great way to get in a really intense workout in a short amount of time and like I always tell myself – you can do anything for 20 seconds!!!!
The past couple of days have been a little overwhelming – I have been completely humbled by all of the sweet comments from so many of you and don’t feel like I have the words to adequately express how much I appreciate each and every one of you!!!
More than the act of blogging – I love the wonderful bloggers that I have gotten to know!!!
A couple of y’all even gave me shout-outs in your posts the past day or two and while I feel very undeserving I also want to say Thank-you!!!
Amy @ Run Write Hike is fixing to rock yet another marathon this coming weekend and she was so sweet to include me in a list of inspirational races this past weekend.
Debbie @ Healthy Running Mom who just got a huge PR on Sunday at the Chicago Marathon said I helped keep her motivated during her marathon (good thing she didn’t know at the time that I hadn’t finished!!).
My sister, Mandi, has a blog that she updates occasionally – hopefully she will start to blog more soon (she is pregnant with her 2nd child!!!) – hint, hint. Yesterday she wrote the sweetest post about running – just thinking about it is making me cry (again!!).
And thanks to those of y’all who so very sweet to tweet me even though I suck at the whole twitter thing!!! Cori, Amy, Barbara
Thank you also to so many of my real life friends who commented through FaceBook – some of you I see often and some not as often as I would like but I am very grateful to all of y’all!!!
And, of course, Chris who has hung out with me the past couple of days and just let me cry or vent when I felt like it and watched hours of Modern Family – so much more fun to be a bum with someone else!!!
So, again, I just want to thank all of y’all for not only listening to me go on and on about the race last week but for taking the time to read about my experience at the race and to leave such encouraging comments!!! The incredible blogging community is why I love spending time blogging every single day!!!
I counted a right/left flutter as 1 rep – another simple move for the 44.
So, Saturday night was my 50 mile race. It didn’t go quite as I had planned. I’m still not sure that I can make a coherent post about it but I’m going to at least put my thoughts down.
hanging out before the race
We got to the race site around 4:45 I think – I picked up my number and ankle chip then we all just stood around for awhile. (over an hour!!) It was nice to chat with some of the other runners and find out who was an experienced ultra runner and who was a newbie. The girl in the pink headband, Lauren, was also running her first ultra. The guy in all black, Scott, (conferring with us next to the cars) is a very experienced ultra runner.
count-down timer start/finish line
There were only 20-25 people in the 50 – most people prefer the 100!! The race started right on time – 6:00pm.
The start – everyone is happy and perky!!! The temperature was nice – about 60 I think.
2 guys took off right from the beginning, then a group of 5 of us stayed together for the first 4 miles (until the 1st unmanned aid station). We were running about 9:50 pace at this point. Mistake #1 (remember the run/walk plan?)
Everyone else stopped at the aid station – I kept going. One of the guys was quick and caught back up with me so we ran together until about 9.5 miles. I was feeling great and running a nice easy pace. When we came to the first manned station, my running partner stopped – I did not. Mistake #2
By this point it was dark so I had to fish out my knuckle lights and I had my headlamp attached to the front of my camel back. The hills were becoming more and more frequent and big!!! I just kept running (ignoring my Garmin every time it went off to say WALK!!). Mistake #3
Around mile 13 something I passed another unmanned aid station (without stopping!!). Mistake #4
By about mile 15, I was freezing (just wearing my shorts and shirt) but I didn’t want to stop and put on my jacket (it was tied around my waist) and fish my gloves out of my camel back. Mistake #5
Mile 17 was the first aid station where we would see our crew so I was holding out for that. I got there and thought I was good – just frozen. Chris helped me get my gloves on since I couldn’t even bend my fingers to do it myself. I put on my jacket (just a light weight one) and took off again. Mistake #6
I was under 3 hours at this point – stupid, stupid, stupid!!! It was almost 9 pm and all I had eaten for the day was 3 pieces of pizza at about 11:00 am. Mistake #7
When I left the aid station, I decided to start utilizing my run/walk plan. My Garmin was set to let me know – 4 minutes of running, 1 minute of walking. I did this for 3 miles (to get to mile 20) and then decided to walk a little more. Every single part of my lower body from my toes up to and including my butt was one solid cramp!
By this point, I had run 10 miles completely by myself in pitch black darkness (except for my little lights) and I was freezing. I knew that I still had 5 miles until the next aid station but that I would see Chris again when I got there.
My new buddy, Scott, caught back up with me around mile 22 – I was walking at this point. He stayed with me a bit and made me eat some nasty ginger thing and take a salt tablet. He asked what I had eaten at the aid stations – I told him nothing. He asked if I had walked up the hills (his words of advice before we started) – of course I hadn’t!!! Mistake #8 & #9
He told me just to hang on until the aid station/turn-around at mile 25 and to eat something there and put on more clothes!!!
I thanked him for hanging with me for a bit but told him to keep going and not fall behind because of me. Around this time, I started seeing runners coming toward me every once in awhile – 100 mile runners. Their course had them run the 25 miles that we had as an out-and back for their last 25 miles. Most of the 100 mile runners had a pacer with them for the last 25 miles!! (50 milers weren’t allowed pacers)
I’m not gonna lie – I felt like a loser walking before I even hit 25 miles when these people had already run 75+!!!!!
Around mile 23, my Garmin battery died!!! Great – now I had no idea how far/long till the aid station. At this point there might have been a few tears.
I don’t know why my feet, knees, hips, butt, legs – everything – was hurting so much! I’ve run further many times so I don’t know what the cramping was all about. I think the cold may have contributed (it was around 42 degrees after the sun went down).
All I could think about was that running should be fun! And I was not enjoying a single thing about the race. In fact, I was hating all of the different aspects of it!!!
gravel roads with lots of large rocks
cattle guards
hill after hill
the complete darkness
the isolation
the freezing cold
RUNNING
knowing that I was going to have to repeat these long lonely 8 miles between the 2 crew stations after I turned around
not having a Garmin to let me know the distance (not sure why my battery died – maybe all those alerts that I wasn’t using)
I finally decided that I was just going to get to the 25 mile station and instead of turning around I was quitting because I was at near melt-down point.
When I finally saw the lights I might have cried again – and then it took me forever to get to them. I saw Chris open the back of the car and went straight over to it without checking in. I told him I was done!!! I let him take my ankle chip off and take it over to the check-in site to withdraw me.
We had put some sleeping bags in the car and he rolled one out for me to lay on and covered me with the other – it took me the entire 2 hours before we were home to stop shivering (I still had on my gloves and everything).
By the time we got home it was around 1:30 – I had peed about 15 minutes before the race started (so around 5:45) and after taking a hot bath, I finally peed around 2 am before going to bed. (I know that y’all want to know how often I pee!!!)
I don’t know if I was dehydrated and that caused the cramping in my entire lower body or if it was the hills and rocks, or the fact that I didn’t utilize my run/walk plan or the lack of any fueling – I just know that I made a decision on that dark and lonely stretch of 8 miles to stop at the half-way mark and I will have to live with that decision.
I know this was a long rambling post – my thoughts are still somewhat jumbled. At this point I have no plans to attempt another ultra – the point at which I hate everything about a race and running is not something I want to experience again.
Happy Monday – I’m going to take one more day to recoup and then get back to my normal routine!!
