A Day in the Life of an MIA

The day began with an early rise to meet the original MIA's at the Marimed/YWCA parking lot. It was a sign of the luck we were to face all day that Mike and Blaine headed to the wrong parking lot at first. However, they made a call, picked me up and we were on our way to the airport. Security was its same old lovely ride,
slow and awesome all the way to the other side of the metal detectors. It would have been shorter and awesome with a quick jump to Sector 1 if Mike hadn't let his special golden ticket expire.
We found our way to the plane and knocked the passengers left and right to get our three sweet, separate aisle seats. They even served us coffee on our flight. Although they ran out of their cute little coffee cups and served mine in a plastic water cup. Oh well.
On the Big Island of Hawaii we were able to locate and commandeer a vehicle. The Impala, with it's tight turning radius and state of the art music system was more than we ever dreamed of. There was room for at least three dead bodies in the trunk. Four would fit with the right positioning. We practiced our inspection skills by checking the car for scratches and dents. We then sped off down the road and immediately took a wrong turn and got lost. A quick check in with base camp had us back in the correct direction. We checked out a waterfall as we sped on by and arrived at the main office of the Wahiola program.
While I performed a quick CAFAS training the MIAs checked out the boys' house. Because the information is confidential, I will not be discussing any of their findings.
When the hard work was complete, we hit the 50s Diner for lunch. The exquisite burgers made of real cow meat were served to us after a short wait, by our moaning waiter. In the meantime we studied the "eclectic" decorum, the toy cars, the life-size manequins in 50's dress and the records pasted to the walls. After eating we all enjoyed the Betty Boop bathroom, with its crazy waiting area outside the door. Blaine has been ordered to take a shower in the Betty Boop shower next time they're on the Big Island.
I grabbed myself some coffee and then we headed up to the girls' house to inspect. Again, I will not be revealing our findings, I will not however, that I was an excellent inspector, and discovered many things. I was offered the opportunity to become an official Marimed Inspection Agent and I didn't even have to shank anyone to get the position. I was told I would receive a secret nickname. I think they forgot.
From there we toured as much of the island as we could, driving through Puna and flying by the zoo. I got to look at the Big Island Borders on our way.
Before we went to the airport to drop off our sporty Impala, we did NOT, I repeat did NOT stop by the Big Island Candy store to buy Nate a few cookies and get a few free samples.
We had a hard time returning our vehicle, because they had to check the trunk for dead bodies first, then Blaine had to reverse into a parking stall. It was all a little hectic, but we all arrived safe and sound in the end.
We passed by the airport bar, and Mike, shown here, sadly refused an alcoholic beverage. Then we were on our way back to Oahu, where the world makes more sense and there are less people living in yellow school buses.

Stress Diet, Swamp Romp, and Home-made Salsa

Haven't posted since the Aloha Run, so there are many things to talk about. First of all, the weekend after the Aloha Run, we ran the Swamp Romp in the marine corps base. I'm going to post the pictures. If you want a copy of one, please go to the following website: Printroom.com and go to the swamp romp section. Or you can click on this link. I will hopefully get my pictures developed soon and I'll post them when I do.
I just want to say that I love the swamp romp. It is the most disguisting thing ever and it hurts really, really bad and you run through really sticky mud and you run on sand and go over obstacles. It was a little over 5 miles this year. There was one point that we were running through a particularly sticky patch of mud, my feet got totally stuck and I thought to myself, this is the kind of mud that people get stuck and die in if there's no one around to get you out. Some people did a kind of fast spider crawl over the top and didn't get stuck somehow. I put my foot in and immediately was stuck and had to be pulled out. Thank god Mariya was there, I might have been stuck there forever. There were several walls that you had to pull yourself up and over, and there was a lot of swimming through disgusting mud. The pictures I believe were taken during what I though was the nastiest part of the whole thing. You could swim through the mud, but it was like a sludge. It was thick and you could feel it gathering in your shirt and pants. I think this is how Atreyu must have felt when he was leading Artax through the Swamp of Sadness. Of course Artax died, and we did not.
After the Swamp Romp I was pretty focused on my two interviews that happened to be set up for the same week, on two consecutive days. The first was for a Program Supervisor position, the second was for a DOE SBBH position. I think the first interview actually went well, and I was scheduled for a second interview. However, the second interview also went well and I was offered a position at the end of the week. I had to accept. I have wanted to work in the Department of Education for quite some time. So, I accepted the position, cancelled my second interview for the other position and began the resignation process at my present job. That was hard. I cried when I told my supervisor, when I told his supervisor, when I told the cadets, and when I told pretty much everyone else. I love this job, but it's really stressful and Nate and I can't take vacations at the same time. So, it's time to move on. While I was interviewing and stressing out about the possibility of new jobs, we were also changing banks. Central Pacific Bank has a great no minimum bank account and we wanted to change. In the meantime I bounced four transactions. Nate was not happy and I was really stressed out. It almost cost us an extra hundred dollars, but Nate went and complained to the bank and got two of our fees dropped.
So, in the meantime, I was completely stressed out, worried about getting a new job, bouncing checks and I lost two pounds. For real two pounds. I can always lose a few, but I generally gain them back pretty quickly. These have stayed off. I took advantage and have tried to eat well and have been working out 3 times a week, even if Ananda and I have gotten a little lazy and have been walking the loop.
Nate and I have actually been hiking with our lovely dog, Titus, and Nate has lost a few pounds. His shorts are all too loose. I think it's a combination of the hiking, walking Titus and the fabulous home-made food Nate and I have been creating. Nate likes to get different ingredients that we've never used before and look up a recipe. Recently we made home-made pesto with ingredients from the farmer's market, we made a spicy salsa (delicious!) and put together a guacamole that is really, really tasty. (The first time we made it, it was so salty that we had to throw it out, but the second time was incredible.) We also made meatballs and then put together a meatball sub with spaghetti sauce. I think we are both losing some weight and gaining the health benefits from our home-made food. And let me tell you, it's so tasty. And actually pretty easy, when you look up a well-written recipe online.
So, this is what is going on with me in the past few weeks. I am looking forward to paddling and have been trying out tennis. My goals are:
Monday- paddling (maybe)
Tuesday- run the loop
Wednesday- paddling (maybe)
Thursday- run the loop
Saturday- tennis at 10:30am and swim laps at 11:00am.

I would like to get back into doing pushups as well.
Oh, and I need to finish my walking stick, that I grabbed from our hike earlier today. I will take pictures. We cut down a young tree on the hike, and I'm going to sand, carve and stain the walking stick.

Great Aloha Run 08

Today was the Great Aloha Run, finally. It seems like I've been training for it forever. I was definitely starting to get burnt out on running the Lanikai loop, but none of us have taken the initiative to find another course or suggest something different. Anyway, Great Aloha Run. I woke up at 4:30am and made some eggs and coffee. I also ate half a banana in the hopes that I wouldn't cramp too bad. Hit the bathroom, no problems there, if you know what I mean. (Smooth sailing) Picked up Ananda at just after 5 and we were on our way. We listened to a little Jonathan Mendelsohn to pump us up for the race. We parked at the stadium and caught a large school bus down to the start line. People were in all sorts of moods from pumped, to tired, to irritable. I thought quietly about how badly I had to pee again, while Ananda figured out how to get the time chip onto her shoe. After she had laced it up good (spelling out Champion with the plastic connector) we arrived on Bishop. We made an immediate pit-stop to the porta-potties, which ended up being a big mistake. We ended up in the slow line at the johns with no TP. We saw several YMCA folks, but since they were going to walk and we were determined to win we said our goodbyes and headed to the start line. Unfortunately we took so long on the potty line that we were at the end of the herd to start. We saw the uniformed soldiers had already started, waving their flags. When the gun went off at 7:00am there was a general movement towards the start. Luckily the timer chips start when you cross the start line, so it didn't matter how fast we were going until we got there. We started our time at 7:07 on my watch. It was hard at first because there was a ton of walkers back at the end of the herd with us and we had to navigate around them. It's our own fault for taking so long to get there, but it was slightly annoying. We did end up running a fast first few miles. We missed the 1 mile marker and hit mile 2 at 17 minutes. We ran about a 9 minute mile until marker 6 and then the course headed out onto Kam Highway, into the sun and up the hills. We had already passed both water stations. We had to slow down because it was getting harder to keep up our pace and we wanted to finish the whole thing with a good time. We passed a few interesting people. A black guy dressed in old school red sports gear with red wrist bands did the whole race backwards. There was a few people who did not use their morning allotment of deoderant and smelled pretty bad. We ran faster to pass them. I myself used deoderant, but started to sweat buckets a few minutes into it. I was pretty soaked by the end of the race. Miles 7 and 8 in the race were definitely the hardest for me, you might call it, my windward leg. I had a brief second wind at mile 7 that didn't last very long. It was the slight uphill rise, that went on forever that did me in. After you finished the first one, there was another one not far behind it. I'm not sure if there was a mile marker for 8, if there was I missed it. We did a pretty good job of not going too fast when we got close to the stadium (there's still a lot of distance left at that point) even though that's when people started to go a lot faster. The best part is, as always, the run into the stadium. We sprinted through and hopefully there will be a fantastic picture of me crossing the finish line with a fierce, determined look on the GAR site. We ran the whole thing in 1:18:43, about a 9:40 mile. That definitely beats last year's time.
After the finish you throw your leg onto a bench so they can cut off the chip and you follow the herd towards the water, the bananas and sweet bread, and the best part- the ice cold lemonade drink they always have. Mmmm, it's so wonderful after a hard run. Then we picked up our t-shirts and wandered into the stadium where we decided that we did not much care to stay for the show. We found our way to the car, took some fabulous post-race pictures in the parking lot, and drove home, where we told everyone that we won the race. A tie in fact, because we are both so fast. Click here to look at the rest of the pictures.

And Back Again....

It's been a little while since the last blog. It's amazing how fast you start to forget about your New Year's Resolutions and start to get lazy and eat poorly again. For me I started the New Year out strong, but quickly started exercising less and less. Luckily the group running keeps me moving 3 days a week, so that's not bad, but you start to get bored doing the same thing over and over again. This past week I took a day off and it felt pretty good. The rain forced me to do the elliptical machine at the gym today and it felt excellent to do something different. I am going to go to my calendar after finishing this and schedule in a workout class next week. They usually have something worthwhile at 4pm. I can get out of work a little early once next week. The week after is the Great Aloha Run on Monday and then that very next weekend is the Swamp Romp. It's crazy that they are the same week, but it will be nice to finally run the races. It's been quite a while since I've done any distance running because the weather has been terrible. We've been able to get in the three mile run on Saturday mornings, but I think it's been three weeks (maybe more) since I did the 6. I guess I have to run 8 this weekend. Then Ananda and I have scheduled a post-run-bitch-about-work walk.
The eating hasn't gotten too bad luckily. It's partially because we don't have the extra money to eat out or get a whole lot of snacks. We have splurged on some fun expensive mushrooms and some kind of button squash that Nate really enjoys, but not as much ice cream and stuff. The superbowl party this past weekend threw me off a little, but not as badly as it could have. It was a lot of good food, but because it was just the one day that I ate that much it didn't hurt too bad. I did gain a pound.
This past week two of our friends got into a really bad car accident. One of them broke his neck and thank the lord, is still alive. The other one, who is like a brother to Nate and I broke a bunch of ribs and smashed up his face. It's crazy that something like that can happen to someone close to you. Again, I just thank God that they're alive right now. When you look at the car you wonder how that's possible. It's a reminder to live life to the fullest and appreciate every moment. Tell your family and friends you love them and don't part ways with hateful words. Think about what you really want in life and go get it.

My goals for the week:
Saturday- distance run in the morning
Sunday- hike if the weather's not crappy
Monday (or Wednesday or both)- 4:00pm class
Tuesday- group run
Thursday- group run
Saturday- short run

Weight goal- stop gaining, get back down to 135 and hold steady
Pushups- Monday and Friday

Finally seeing Results again

So, it's been a little while. I was blogging pretty regularly for a while and then, as usual, life got in the way. I think I got really burnt out at work and was starting to get sick. Whether or not I was actually sick or just feeling under the weather from being stressed out doesn't really matter. I took a few days off from running and went into maintenance mode. On Wednesday we had a really good staff meeting and I have started to get back on track at work. It's like a little switch got switched back to where it was supposed to be, because the job doesn't have to be that hard. I just have to do the work. I got a little bit of my confidence back. So the last part of my week went really well.
Nate has been asking to go hiking for the past few weekends which is awesome. It's fun to go hiking with him, he's a riot. Last weekend I twisted my ankle a little, so I walked with Helen on Tuesday evening instead of running and then ran on Thursday. I was the only one who showed up on Thursday, so it felt really difficult. I ran three miles. On Saturday morning Ananda suggested 6 miles and I said okay, we ran the first three and then I needed to walk for a little while. We walked for a little bit, and then ran the rest. I hurt bad. I think it's because I took some time off and haven't really been cross training. Anyway, I got cramps in my stomach and kept having to slow down a lot. Ananda was great, she slowed down with me, and I ended up doing all of the rest of it at a run instead of walking like I wanted to. We ended up finishing in 1:02, so it wasn't bad at all even though we walked some and I felt like I was running really slowly. Hopefully the next time I run it won't be so hard. Then we went to Pilates today, I nice stretching Pilates class.
Of all of the running, hiking and other stuff I've been doing, of course I would hurt myself walking the dog. Last night I was walking Titus, who wanted to walk fast and then we started running. I was wearing my slippers and jeans and tripped over a root and almost faceplanted. Luckily I was wearing those jeans, so I just lightly scraped my right knee. I also somehow ended up hurting both of my pinkies. I guess I must have landed weird on my hands. I had huge smears of black dirt all across my pants and on my feet and hands. Luckily Nate was there so I could laugh it off and I don't think anyone else saw me.
One of the reasons I may be seeing results on the scale this week is because it is one of those months when Nate and I have spent every penny and can't even go to the grocery store. We have food, but we have to really plan it out so we have something to eat until Friday, which is payday. We're broke because I finally paid off my car (Yay!) and we paid off the wedding loan. With those extra payments we went into our savings accounts and had to use our credit cards for Christmas. We didn't spend a whole lot, but still more than we really could afford at the time. Luckily we two less payments this upcoming months which will go toward Nate's car, the credit cards and building our savings back up. We're also going to switch banks so we don't get charged for having not enough money. The reason this has helped me see results is that I don't have the option of over eating or splurging on McDonald's or going out to eat. We have enough to eat and not much more than that.
Ananda was really cute this morning, I was telling her that I didn't have any eggs, so I had skipped breakfast (meaning I just didn't want the waffles or bagels we had) and she offered her own eggs. I assured her that Nate and I are not, in fact, going to die of starvation this week, we just don't get to eat everything we want to eat. It was very nice of her though, to try to save our lives by offering us her own food.
Ultimately this has given Nate and I the opportunity to really decide what food is important to have around and to take a look at what we eat. We planned out two entire weeks of dinner meals ahead of time and have surprisingly wonderful dinners recently. We had tomatoes with basil and mozzarella cheese with olive oil and balsamic vinagrette, and we had some salad and pasta with a pancetta sauce. So we're definitely not starving. We did make the mistake of not having enough food for Titus, but a bag of that can go on my credit card. It's not that expensive. We are really down to the wire, but it's cool how much we planned and are still in control even though it was so close. Anyway, can't wait til payday and am looking forward to see the scale drop one more pound! I was at 134 today!

January Goals

Well, this week I'm still weighing in at 135. I've been partially working on losing weight. Especially in the mornings. The issue this week has been my evenings. I've been doing well, eating breakfast, packing lunch, I've thrown in some push ups and even some situps. I hiked with Nate on Sunday, and ran yesterday. You'd think a little weight would want to come off. However, my dinner's have gone back to larger portion sizes. And yesterday, I went to McDonald's, got a salad, but then put the dressing on and ate the whole thing. Still better than any one of the hamburger meals because there's less of the saturated fats, but still a hell of a lot of calories.
The challenge has made me look at some of the little spaces of time that I could throw in some exercise during the day. I made myself do squats in the kitchen last night while dinner was cooking. It wasn't so bad. It was a pretty good way to get in some of the leg workout I've been missing out on. And it involves no preparation. I was barefoot in my pajamas with no weights. You just have to do more squats to get the workout. If I had weights I would have felt the burn sooner. I also tried out some "stand up pushups" which are just like regular pushups- straight back and tight stomach, but your pushing against the counter instead of being down on the ground. Obviously less of a workout. I had to do a lot more of those to feel any burn, but was surprised that it did get my blood pumping a little. I might do some wall sits tonight. I usually already have the timer going for whatever it is I'm making. Maybe some calf raises tonight as well. And you can always do kicks.
I wish Titus hadn't hurt his leg again (he jumped off of Nate's desk at work and hurt his leg again) because that takes away from our walks. Poor guy is always going to be hurting his legs the way he climbs up on everything and jumps down like he's a freaking mountain goat. But, he just needs rest and it'll get better. It doesn't help that he goes nuts every time Bobby walks in the door, I don't know why, but he goes completely crazy and runs around and jumps on the couches and on the beds and shakes his whole body instead of his tail. So that didn't help the healing process last night.
Anyway, my goal to weigh 134 as of Monday worked, but I only weighed 134 that morning. The scale has otherwise stayed at 135. So I don't think it counts. Of course I'll hold off on that judgment until next Monday, when the schedule was to weigh in at 133. I can still do it if I work hard starting right now. It's only Wednesday and it's not unheard of to lose 2 pounds in a week. Okay, I guess that means I should get off my rear and go do something.

The All American One Week Exercise Off

I'm starting a challenge on my Google Groups page. Here's the link:

http://groups.google.com/group/the-challenge-group

Here's the basics, but check out the site and join in!

The Center for Disease Control recommends that adults participate in moderate-intensity physical activity for 30 minutes or more on 5 or more days of the week. The American Heart Association recommends "For health benefits to the heart, lungs and circulation, perform any moderate-to-vigorous-intensity aerobic activity for at least 30 minutes on most days of the week at 50–85 percent of your maximum heart rate."

Now, seriously, how does anyone actually do all that exercise? I mean it was kind of easy when we were paddling and they basically forced you to do exercise 4 out of 5 days a week, but in real life, how do we make sure we're getting enough exercise? My biggest excuse (and probably one of yours as well) is that you don't have the time to exercise. So my challenge for this upcoming week is to find out exactly how much exercise you can fit into one week.

They say that you can break up your expected 30 minutes of exercise into 10 minute walks or you can add exercise by parking your car farther away and walking to your destination. Let's see how much that all adds up.

Details:

The challenge will start on Monday, January 14th (whenever your morning begins) and end on Sunday January 20th. You can count any exercise you can fit in until midnight your time zone.

All you have to do is keep track of how much exercise you've done for the day and BE HONEST about it. Sign in and let the group know what your daily tally is. When you sign in on Sunday to input your tally, put your daily tally and then go back and add all of them up for a total.

The winner of this challenge...... Gets their name on my Blog! At the very top! And can feel a sense of self-satisfaction! And will be the winner!

For this challenge you can count anything, but we're adding time, not exertion. You can count your trek up the stairs to work and the walk up the hill to your car. You can count the walk to the top of the hill on the way to smoke your cigarette. You can count any time you spend on pushups or squats or at the gym. Washing the dishes? Do some squats in between. Even cleaning the house can be counted as exercise if your moving your body around. The point is to challenge yourself to see if you really don't have the time, or if you're just using it as an excuse.

Good luck!