NJ trip

So now to update you on my little summer trip to NJ.  Getting out there in the first place was somewhat of an adventure.  This was in part due to my blood clot fiasco--I wasn't even sure if the Dr. would let me fly and I had to have an ultrasound of my leg the day before I flew.  Fortunately, they decided it would be ok as long as I wore this dreadful thigh-high compression sock and got up every half an hour.  However, that wasn't the only hurdle to jump.  My flight left ridiculously early on Thursday (June 7) so I checked in the night before.  And low and behold, after I got through security, it came to my attention that my flight had been canceled due to weather conditions in Dallas (my layover).  So, I had to go back through security to the front desk, and get a new flight.  This new flight (with a layover in Michigan instead of Dallas) arrived in La Guardia, so my mom had to dither about weather she could drive to La Guardia, but it all ended up fine (though in Michigan they told us we were going to be delayed in take of an indeterminate about of time...but then basically said just kidding and we took off).  Now, this may not sound that bad, but let me just say now that I repeated the problem on the way out.  I checked in the night before...and when I got to the airport my flight had been delayed for two hours.  Apparently it was hurricane season in Dallas.  So  I waited for hours in the airport/airplane (we sat on the tarmac for a while) and eventually I got to Dallas, where I waited for three more hours because, of course, I missed my connection.  I finally got to SLC after nine at night.  I suppose I learned a lesson here...NEVER check in the night before! It depresses me how obnoxious flying has to become.  It used to be these luxurious experience, and now it's becoming more and more like the greyhound bus.  They even made me stuff my pillow in my backpack and my purse in my suitcase because they were extra items.  Hello!  I'm not putting my purse, backpack, or pillow in the overhead bin, so why do you care?!  At least I didn't get molested at security this time.  Also I flew over central park on the way home (and saw Ellis Island from afar) which was nice.

At any rate, once I got there my mom and I grabbed dinner at this NJ place called Muscle Maker Grill, and I went for a walk with my mom then bummed around and watched Cougar Town before crashing.  (I did wake up REALLY early and go to bed way late the night before.)  As a side note, Muscle Maker Grill was awesome! The name sounds terribly unappealing, but it's a healthy eating establishment started by some fitness guy. I wish we had one here.  The black bean soup was amazing.

On Friday I also had a pretty chill day.  It was nice to be a bum for a few days since school just ended and I'd had some craziness with the leg, the hives, and leaving a conference in the middle to do the ultra sound, blah blah.  I went for a run, we had dinner at the house, then we went to the New Jersey State Opera, which was temporarily housed like ten minutes from my parents house.


The opera was really well done; the orchestra and the singers were all very impressive.  I felt very cultured, especially when I realized that this opera is where the famous "Figaro, Figaro, Figaro" line comes from.

On Friday I went running again, of course.  The cross-country team at Cyprus has started doing a mile club.  You can earn either 100, 200, or 300 mile club, and you get a sweet t-shirt with bronze, silver, or gold.  In order to be in a club you have to run that distance within the three months of June, July, and August.  I really want to earn the 300 mile club.  (No one did last summer.  I hardly ran last summer due to the skateboard incident.)  The bronze 100 mile club shirt looks nice, but I think the silver is ugly, therefore, I must go for the gold!

Anyway, also on Saturday, my mom wanted to visit "the swamp park" which is really Richard W. DeKorte Park sponsored by the New Jersey Meadowlands Commission as a conservation effort.  I suppose the Swamp Park is a more fitting name--it's a swamp, not a meadow.  Anyway, it was fun to walk along the boardwalks through the swamp.  We saw a cute crab, and lots of birds.



After we visited the park we dithered about where to go to dinner with a possibility of going to Rut's Hut which is apparently a famous New Jersey place.  They are known for rippers, which are hot dogs that are deep fat fried (which split in the oil, hence, "rippers").  We ended up passing on the dogs, and landed at a hibachi place.  It was pretty tasty (especially the tempura veggies) but also adventuresome because the fire alarm went off and we all had to evacuate.  So we chilled in the parking lot with three fire trucks for a good 15 minutes.  I was also entertained/disturbed  by the giant tanuki in the foyer.  Apparently this "racooon dog" is a famous Japanese thing.  I just think it needed some underpants, if you know what I mean.

School's out!

To celebrate the last day of school, Clint and I headed to a local sushi joint, Sushi Groove.

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Do I look slightly exhausted in this photo?  If so it would probably be for one reason aside from the unusual end of school drama and the fact that I am sans make-up.  I went through somewhat of a saga which started with me thinking I had a blood clot, which was then misdiagnosed as lymphangitis, which led to a series of antibiotics which resulted in me having a fever and hives.  After an emotionally charged round of steroids etc. I recovered from the hives only to go back to the doctor and discover that it was, after all, a blood clot. Fortunately, a month later, the issue is now mostly resolved. Lesson learned: Do not rely on instacare.

As a side note, I was not terribly impressed with the sushi place.  Tsunami is still my gold standard.

Summertime and the livin's easy...

It's summertime!  Woot!  This means actually posting on my blog again.  Also, Clint got me a camera for my birthday (to replace lost camera #2) so I actually have photos.  I will attempt to be somewhat chronological.
Sorry Christmas, any photos from you are on Clint's phone or relatives' cameras.  I can at least say that I gave Clint a Ho Ho Hoey CD that he listened to on repeat.  I also gave him Buick cuff-links, a DVD of Red, and an Ecodrive Citizen watch.  Go me!  He gave me a desk, a lamp, and some ceramic knives.  We opened our stuff before flying out to NJ.  I don't remember that much about Jersey...but I do remember that we visited Lambert Castle which was all decorated for Christmas.  They also had a sweet gingerbread house display with some elaborate confections.  They smelled good too!

Next would be Valentines Day.  This year, it was pretty chill.  Clint cooked me a nice dinner, then I headed to a Young Women's activity where we frosted cookies and delivered them to some old people in the ward.  Yes, I said old people.  I can't remember exactly what Clint cooked, but I think he gave me a DVD of the movie Ruined.  (Such a good one.)  I think I gave him some fancy shave gell from Nordstrom. BTW he also snagged some heart shaped balloons from his work which lasted for about two months.  I'm not kidding.

Then came my birthday.  Clint surprised me in the morning with a card and a little gift bag on the table containing a pyrex pan with a lid.  Then in the car there was another gift bag and some treats to eat at work, including, of course, Nestle's Turtles.  Yum.  Then that night he gave me my "real" gift: the illustrious camera!  Unfortunately, we don't have a ton of pictures of the day because the camera only had this mini memory card in it.  We then headed to dinner at Settebello where I ate this delicious salad:


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which I believe was prosciutto wrapped around goat cheese and arugula with Parmesan cheese and a balsamic vinegar reduction.  We followed it up with some pizza and gelato goodness and then headed to the Capitol Theater for this:



















 A friend from work let me use her season ticket to the ballet.  Clint had never been inside the Capitol Theater before! We enjoyed it, but we were both pretty exhausted so we headed home and crashed.  On Saturday (the next day) Clint bought me an ice cream cake and invited a few people over.  Notice the race car on the cake... maybe Clint thinks of me as a 7 year old boy? Not sure, but over all it was a good birthday.




After I got the camera I took a bunch of garden photos.  I love it when things bloom that I didn't have to plant.

The Law of Inertia

According to Wikipedia, "Inertia is the resistance of any physical object to a change in its state of motion or rest, or the tendency of an object to resist any change in its motion."  I have been afflicted with inertia.  I had a student teacher for a long time this past semester.  I was sure that I was get tons accomplished and be refreshed and ready to go again when it was time.  Nope. Not refreshed.  Not eager.  I did get some things accomplished, but not as much as I had hoped.  And returning to full productivity was something of a shock. I was resisting the change of my rest.

On the other hand, on Saturday I had a good day.  I woke up at a good time (which is to say, any time before 10am) and went for a run.  When I came back, I made German pancakes. Yum.  Then I headed out to the yard to do yard work--mostly cleaning up leaves and spraying dandelions.  Next I came inside and prepared the young women lesson I was teaching on Sunday (whilst consuming a Jamba Juice). After I finished, Clint and I headed off to explore the new City Creek Center and grab dinner at Chili's. We stopped by the grocery store on the way home, and we then snuck in a couple episodes of New Girl. (Yes, I used snuck as a conscious decision.) While obviously some of the events of the day were for pleasure, I overall had a very productive day. It sure beat my usual Saturday of lounging around, procrastinating, and not accomplishing much besides running and going to the grocery store.

Of course, we can't over generalize this rule--I do tend to shut down when I am asked to do too much, but there is a lot of truth here.  Success breeds success.  Work breeds work.  Effort breeds effort. Laziness breeds laziness.  This is why over the summer I have had a few mopey meltdowns in my day--with nothing pressing to do, inertia completely takes over, and I become a simpering puddle of self-loathing. A feckless mess, if you will.

While on this topic, I have a confession.  My half-marathon did not go as well as I had hoped.  Granted, the weather conditions were not ideal--but I was nevertheless quite disappointed.  My theory is that I put in the miles, but not enough FAST miles.  I also think I didn't drink enough gatorade.  Well, the point is, that I am trying to avoid letting my disappointment slide into negative inertia. Thus far, I am combating it--I ran hills repeats today! There's nothing like hill repeats to put someone in motion.

Excuses

So remember how last year's Cayonlands sucked?  Well, in order to prevent this year from becoming a suck fest as well, I decided to review my running log.  I was inspired by Runner's World, and good thing too.  I realized a few things.  1) My consistency is not very good.  I don't think I made a single week of running six times, and I only ran five times in a week once. Granted, I did get sick during training last year, but I didn't run at all one week! 2) My mileage was actually pretty low. I really think I need to amp that up.  My highest mileage week was just over 16 miles.

I am trying to do my best to train smarter this year.  The goal is to run a minimum of four days a week with the plan to usually do five or six days.  Additionally, I would like to throw in a couple of twenty mile weeks, at least. I'm still contemplating other aspects of my training--should I emphasize easy recovery days and hard pace/speed runs?  Or should I just "show up" every day?  Should I introduce more variety and strength training to my workouts? I'm not sure yet, but I do know that I can't get bogged down like last year.

In an effort to train more consistently, I must become impervious to excuses.  Check out this interesting video on excuses, which I found at Best Body Fitness as recommended by Peanut Butter Fingers.

A Helpful Half: Hour or Marathon

 It's official.  I am registered for the Canyonlands Half Marathon in Moab (for the 4th time? Something like that.) I guess this means I need to get off my butt and run.  Why am I doing this again?  Last year's race was terrible. There was a headwind the whole time, I felt crappy, and my time was awful (and I had wanted to PR). The whole time I was thinking to myself, "Why do I do this?" Then after my final sprint at the finish, I started having breathing problems, so I was whisked off to the medical tent.  They wanted someone to pick me up, but I had no way of contacting anyone.  So I waited there forever until I convinced them to let me leave.  The whole thing was a bust.  

So, why AM I doing this again? I guess it's peer pressure.  My friends signed up, so I had to represent.  If I'm going to do a race, it's going to be with friends.  I may as well take up the opportunity to run with people when I can.   Also, deep down I know if I don't have a race coming up, I will turn into a coach potato.

Recently I taught a lesson in Young Women on good health habits. As a part of the lesson, I researched exercise recommendations for youth and children.  Did you know the recommendation is an hour a day of physical activity? That's a lot!  Now, that doesn't mean going on an hour long run everyday.  Kids can break up their hour of exercise--playing tag, walking the dog, skipping rope etc.  Strength exercises should be included too.  Fortunately, as adults we're off the hook somewhat.  The daily exercise recommendation for adults is at least 30 minutes a day. Here is an interesting video to motivate us all to get a bit more active.

Back to School

 

Well, I officially survived my first week back to school. Clint gave me flowers and took me out to dinner to celebrate! Notice the lovely earrings I am wearing that my sister gave me for my birthday. Thanks, Megan! The shirt was a birthday gift from Clint.

We had a fun night; Clint took me to Rodizio Grill and then we stopped by a friend's crepe party. The problem with this fun night was that we were both running a 5k early the next morning. Despite our meat engorged stomachs and despite the fact that my quads were impaired due to a Thursday boot-camp workout with the team--we both survived! We celebrated our survival by further gorging ourselves Saturday night on junju from Lunaberry downtown. Yum!