I guess I run now

Okay, an updated intro…getupnow over at The Last Straw has asked that everyone update their “About” pages & I’m just taking this opportunity to second that plea. It’s nice to know who you’re reading about, what their goals are, etc. I’ll update mine now, although I’m not promising an interesting update

I really love this blogging thing. Reading your blogs on Saturday motivated me to walk after breakfast, during our breaks, and during the time at lunch when everyone else was choosing between two types of cobler for dessert!

On Friday the travel time & some walking around the DU campus got my steps up to 11042, on Saturday when we were essentially locked in a basement from 8:30-4:30, I managed 10895, which made me feel a little better about dinner that night. & I wouldn’t have moved at all had I not had your blogs to read first!

Then Sunday first thing I read your blogs & your comments to mine, and (inspired!) jumped into my workout clothes & onto the treadmill. It was 6am and I barely slept the night before (again!), but I figured I’d try to walk/run a mile at least. I ended up doing a full 5K instead & felt a bit like ya’ll were pushing me along the way.

A lot more walking after the end of the retreat at noon & I didn’t get home until 1am, but looking at my ped this morning, I see I hit 18557 steps yesterday!

And during a retreat where I might have seen only the inside of the hotel and one restaurant on Saturday night, I saw the sun, the mountains, and so much of the city! You have no idea how much more pleasant this retreat was & I really think the change (in me) is owing to this awesome blogging community!

Thanks especially soclose for the good wishes (they worked!), m3at49 for the good exercise vibes, and feathers for your funny & encouraging comments.

I’m staying off the scale until I return from the UP in about 10 days; in fact, I may stay off it until after my very first 5K race on the 18th, but I feel like I don’t need a scale to keep me honest and motivated anyway…that’s what this community is for!

Update: very little intentional moving around so far…laundry & errands getting ready to make that long road trip up to see hubby tomorrow, but that’s about the extent of it, & I’m wiped from the weekend. But at least I’ve eaten right (or somewhat) today. I skipped breakfast, which I swore I’d never do again, but I just wasn’t hungry & I wanted to bail the dog out of the kennel first thing. So here’s my food so far:

breakfast: bad me, nothing!

lunch: I picked up a 6oz salmon filet & had 2 oz of it (120) with a big salad with olive oil and vinegar (250)

snack: on the run, a WW toffee candy (55)

dinner: remaining 4 oz of salmon (240), big salad (250), and 1/2 cup grits (150) with a tbs of lite butter (50).

snack: ww toffee candy (55) [subtotal: 1170]

Up early to run, but around about 5 last night my lungs started feeling heavy (kinda weird…my first thought was heart attack!, but that’s always my first thought) & I feel like crap right now.

They kept us working til 9 last night (Denver time, 11 my time)…fed us well (excellent salad, amazing veggie dish I’m going to try to recreate cause it had just a little oil and great flavors, steamed veggies, chicken picatta…oh, and cheese cake, Damn!).

So first day in Denver & I was up for 19 1/2 hours before bed was even an option. Slept terribly despite the yummy beds here. I arranged a wake up call for 6 so I could get my run in, but the run is OUT! I think I’m going to walk down the pedestrian mall, get some fresh air, and I think I heard some others talk about going up and down stairs during our breaks. With luck I won’t over-eat…planning for eggs & fruit for breakfast.

But now I need to turn to the usual suspects for inspiration. 1 Fit Chick is experimenting with the 10-minute mile on her treadmill & still running the long distances FAST!

Over at Journey from Fat to Fit tiny2b is becoming a running machine as well…read up on her progress page!

Feathers has apparently recovered from her rant about the snails pace of losing when you’re trying to do it right & making plans.

Grab the Bull is finally recovering from a terrible virus of some kind.

Apparently Grab the Bull and It’s All Up to Me are on the illness diet this week & having some luck with it. No, seriously ya’ll, I hope they’re both fully recovered soon & at least get the benefit of keeping that weight loss when it’s all over.

Our friend SoClose is getting her motivation back…wish I knew her trick for that! & reflecting on why people are so crappy some times.

GetUpNow’s giving her three tips for how she moved from being “The Grand Poobah of the Loyal Order of the Sloth-People to actually exercising and enjoying it.” She’s an awesome goal setter…something I realize I haven’t done at all here & need to!

Okay, thanks ya’ll for the inspiration! I wish I had more time to read this morning, but we start at 8 & end after dinner tonight. Arrrggghhh! Ya’ll send good thoughts that I don’t over-do unless it’s over-doing of the exercising like a woman possessed variety!

Greetings from Denver! Here’s hoping I don’t grow to be a mile wide in the mile-high city.

Left the house this morning at 4:30, arrived here around 9 their time (11 mine). Had my cheerios & blueberries despite the early hour because I didn’t want to be starving when we got off the plane. Unfortunately, I was starving when we got off the plane & when we finally sat down to eat 7 hours later, I lost my mind!

So…really good breakfast place that a friend (who joined us at the restaurant) recommended. Something called California Eggs Benedict. Clearly I wasn’t even trying to eat healthy. I mean, it had spinach, avacado, and tomato, but was covered in hollandaise. Did I mention the potatoes on the side? Ate the whole damn thing, stopping just short of eating both the garnish and my hollandaise-soaked napkin! So no Canadian bacon on this thing, but let’s not split hairs here, this was easily an 800 calorie meal if ever there was one! I’ve looked at a few calorie counts for these & they’re coming in around 250 per egg…but I think that’s really low-balling it.

So I’m at 1020 calories so far (maybe more) and only about 6,000 steps on the pedometer.

Just about the only good news is that the air doesn’t feel thin at all & I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to run here. But on the way to breakfast & back, I kept suggesting to my colleague that we run (for buses or just to get there faster). He was having none of it, but clearly I’m itching to do some moving today.

Okay, first of all, there’s a pretty interesting discussion about meds and getting off meds with diet & exercise over at getupnow’s blog. She had a not-great visit with a doctor who’s covering for hers. Check it out if you’re looking for a good rant (in two parts) or if you can offer some advice about dealing with this doctor and/or dealing with triglyceride levels :).

Breakfast: cheerios and blueberries (220)

Lunch: big salad with bleu cheese & low-fat dressing (200), 6 Trader Joe’s mini crab cakes (these were kinda yummy & fun for 180 cals)

Snack: veggie chips (100) and hummus (100) (subtotal for day: 800]

Dinner: Spinach with parm cheese (29), corn on the cob (140), side salad (100), talipia (70), 2 trader joe’s mini crab cakes (60…these might be too good & they’re barely 2 bites big, so enough of that!)

Snack: Two WW candies (110) [daily total: 1309]

Exercise: so far only a 40-min walk around the dog park & 20 min dog walk around neighborhood. I have a 30-min treadmill walk on my todo list & will take care of that after I’ve dropped the poor dog off at the kennel & packed.

Yes, it was me. Big, ugly fall from my own resolve.

I mentioned my crazy, stress-producing colleagues in my last post & now I’m looking at that post & remembering my innocence. What a happy little fool I was way back yesterday. Oh, how I long for the good old days of yesterday morning.

So the biggest stressor is one colleague. To keep things anonymous, we’ll call this colleague Dr. Batshitcrazy. So the meeting goes about the way you’d expect when Batshitcrazy is running the show, but as I’m packing up my office to leave (quickly cause I knew from another colleague that something was in the air) Batshitcrazy comes in and asks if I have time to talk.

Knowing that what she means by “talk” is “do you have time to listen to my paranoid delusions, watch me cry for no reason, and go to great lengths to comfort me and give me whatever I want?” I tell her I can spare only a couple of minutes at best.

So she begins with the time of the dinosaurs because apparently these early vertibrates were the very first creatures who persecuted, hurt, and were disrespectful to Batshitcrazy. She’s had a pretty rough time of it, folks, tens of thousands of years of persecution (and yes, she used that word “persecution” at least a dozen times).

But the purpose of her visit was threefold: one, inform me of every single slight anyone at the university had accidentally or intentionally made to her; two, impress upon me how very much I was responsible for the latest great injustice against her (along with two of my colleagues…one has “talked” with her already & the other dashed from the meeting so quickly, there was no way she could catch him); and three, get the apology from me that she felt was owed to her and get my assurances that I will always be under her thumb, in her debt, and controllable from here on out.

Bit of a manipulator is our friend Batshitcrazy. Not above crying in colleagues’ offices on a weekly basis anytime things don’t seem to be going her way. Not afraid to cry during important university-level meetings when things don’t seem to be going her way. A regular crier in the dean’s office.

I shouldn’t say more in such a public forum, but it was a horror show, made all the more horrible by the fact that I stood up for myself &, I think, let her know that I’m just not the type of person who’s going to be very sympathetic to her emotional blackmail in the future. That was the good part: she knows not to come to me looking for sympathy now. The bad part is the fact that she’s senior faculty and has the power and it was a truly ugly confrontation.

So…getting back to my fall. In addition to beer and so-bad-for-me bar food, let me add one to the mix here: I also smoked…8 cigs before I put the pack under the kitchen tap & cursed myself for being such a moron.

Runners don’t smoke. Runners run when Batshitcrazy comes a calling. Runners have the lung capacity to get the hell out of Batshitcrazy’s way. In fact, I should be training all the time just to make certain my escape the next time Batshitcrazy corners me. I need to start wearing my running shoes to work so I’m ready to flee at any time.

Very disappointed in myself. I’m stronger and smarter than the stupid stress…& by golly, it gets pretty damn stupid in my department & that’s a situation that probably isn’t going to change any time soon.

So confession is good for the soul, right? Confessing here will, I hope, make me think twice before I turn to cigs again for comfort. I’m a runner, not a smoker. No more clumsy falls from my own resolve! Right?