Ch-ch-ch-changes

You may have noticed (but probably not, because no one checks my running blog anyway) that I took down the running blog.  Too much work, and no one was really reading it.  So, I decided that you would all have to suffer through my running over here.  Because one way or another, you WILL be interested in my running.

Mwa-hahahaha.

Just kidding.  It’s just easier for me, because I’m lazy.

Anyway, I imported all the posts to this blog for your reading enjoyment.

*smile*

Tonight, I found that I could indeed run 8min pace at the end of a run.  Depending on the song that is playing on my iPod.  That was fun.

We’re in the middle of Berry Season, which means that I am supervising the sorting staff in the shop and getting a backache bending over the berry trays while I pick stems out.  Good times.

Also, my hands are purple.

So I would warn you that posting may be a little sparse for the time-being, but really that would not be different from any other time, so hey!  Business as usual!

Love

This summer hasn’t exactly been booming with productivity so far.  I’m pretty sure that this week the most exercise I’ve done has been running down the stairs to get Fudgesicles from the freezer.

Yes.  All those Boot Camp sessions are going to good use.

What I have been doing a lot of is making (and drinking) iced coffee.  Starbucks came out with this fabulous Gazebo Summer Blend and I can’t drink enough of it.  Well, I can, but for some reason the constant shaking doesn’t seem to deter me.

So I thought I’d give you a nice pictorial guide to making iced coffee.  Because, you know, I don’t have 6 loads of laundry waiting to be folded and put away anything else to do.

So first, you might want to start with the Starbucks Gazebo coffee:

 

you will also want some Vanilla coffee syrup (although you could just sweeten it with sugar if you like)

Brew your coffee at double strength:

I ground the normal amount of coffee for my press, and then just filled it half full of water.

While your coffee is brewing, you will want to put some ice into the bottom of a pitcher.  For half a press-full of coffee, I use about 2-3 cups of ice.  When the coffee is done, pour it over the ice like so:

Then, take a pretty cup, put more ice in it, and drizzle some of the vanilla syrup over the ice…

then pour the slightly chilled coffee over that, about 2/3 full…

then splash in a little milk to top it off…

Give it a little stir to make sure that the syrup isn’t just at the bottom, and say “hello lover”…

 

Sip, sigh contentedly, and repeat as needed.

ouch.

Last night was the final(ish)* Boot Camp session in town.  It was humid and the workout was, how shall I say…exceptional, in that our trainer *really* pulled out all the stops.

Allow me to summarize for you our circuits.  And yes, I do mean more than one circuit.  She was a master of cruelty last night.

Circuit #1 went like this:  15 scorpion pushups (a normal pushup, but when you press back up you bring one leg up behind you and kind of twist it toward the opposite shoulder, if that makes any sense), 15 drop-downs (you stand on a bench and lower one foot behind you almost to the ground, and then come up again, and repeat with the other foot), 15 jump squats, 50 mountain climbers (basically running in place but getting your knees up really high) and 50 abs.  Repeat 3 times.

Then, as though my legs were not already quivering globs of jell-o, we moved straight into the second circuit:  20 reverse squats (you start in a deep squat, raise halfway up, and lower back into the deep squat), 20 lunges with a kick, 20 kick-type-things where you imagine you’re kicking your leg over a high chair, 20 knee-high jumps, where you jump and bring both knees as high as you can towards your chest, and then 20 abs.  Repeat 3 times.

No word of a lie, my legs actually failed me on my last set of knee high jumps.  As in, I actually fell to the ground because my legs gave out.

As if this were not all sufficiently horrific, at the very end she made us do windsprints (I think I called them suicides in a previous post) – run to the farthest lamp post and back, then to a slightly closer lamp post and back, and then to the nearest lamp post and back – all at about 90% of your maximum effort.  I literally felt like I was moving in slow motion.  It was horrible.  And yet awesome at the same time.

Needless to say, stairs have not been my friend today, particularly the two flights I had to go up and down at work today.  Seriously, I could cry.  It’s the kind of soreness that makes me mutter things like “oh sweet lord” when I stand up from sitting, or “please have mercy” when I try to walk down the stairs, or “aahhhhhh” when I try to walk back up them.

Here’s the thing though – I loved every muscle-failing moment of Boot Camp.  I loved how I would think that I couldn’t go any harder, and then our trainer would tell me to squat deeper or run faster, and I would.  I could.  It hurt more, but I could.

Here’s the other thing.  My legs have been way stronger on my normal runs.  And, in 4 weeks I somehow lost 2 inches off my waist and 2 1/4 off my hips.

I can’t wait for Boot Camp in Fall.

*we have one session to make up due to adverse weather (ie. sever thunder storms)

Soccer

I’m very happy to be able to tell you that watching Berry Boy play soccer got much more entertaining as the season progressed.

I even took some pictures:

(he’s the cute blonde in the black shorts and the blue pinny over his jersey)

Little dude had some sweet moves…

and he wasn’t even too bad in goal…

Now, what cracks me up about that picture of him in goal is the expression on his face:

That is some serious Game-Face.  It kind of reminds me of this guy:

These pictures were taken at the last Church Picnic Sack Race Championship.  As you can see, this is serious competition. 

Observe:

I think there’s a strong family resemblance, don’t you?

Ack.

Apparently, I only run seriously when it’s (a) winter or (b) there’s a race breathing down my neck.  And I just realised that there’s a race breathing down my neck.

My friend Genine and I are planning to do this 21k trail race on August 28th.  Which, I just realised, is only 9 weeks away.  Which, I also just realised, means that if I put in the bare minimum of weeks for training (10) I am still already one week behind.

Crap.

Time to get on it.  Except, I don’t really feel like it.  I’m loving Boot Camp, and I’m loving what it’s doing for my running.  I went to the city with some friends last weekend and we ran the river paths for 8km – it was fabulous.  The change of scenery, for one, but also my legs felt AMAZING.  Like, super strong.  After 5k I couldn’t hold them back any longer and I kind of left the two friends I was running with and just gave ‘er.  It was fantastic.

However, even with this improvement, running has kind of taken a serious backseat in my day.  Boot Camp leaves me sore and tired, and if that wasn’t enough of an excuse, then it’s hot, or stormy, or too humid, or we’re outside late doing stuff and don’t get the boys to bed on time, or there’s ice cream, or I’m sleeping in instead of running…

So I need a little motivation.  I wrote out my *training plan*, which gives me a gradual build up in long run mileage (again, because I haven’t maintained my long run like I said I would – argh), and I will have two other runs during the week that I have to do.  Usually, these would be speedwork and Tempo runs, but since I don’t have a time goal here (it’s just a super awesome experience) I will probably just focus on getting out the door, and I would like to take at least one run to the trails every other week or so.  Should be interesting.  I think I’ll call them Trail Run Tuesdays.  And hopefully I’ll get them done on Tuesdays.

Some Randomness…

I woke up groggy this morning.  So groggy that I initially poured the whole coffee beans straight into my coffee press, completely bypassing the grinder.  Then, after I realised my mistake and corrected it, I brought the press full of ground coffee over to the stove, put the lid on it, set the timer, and walked away.  And when my 4 minutes were up, I came back and pressed…nothing.  Because I had forgotten to actually pour the hot water over the coffee grounds. 

And it’s not like it’s early either.  I slept in.

At least I’m now sipping on good coffee.  Hello Cafe Estima – I’m sorry that I went back to House Blend for a couple of weeks.  I won’t do it again.

So I’m smelling that horrible, stinky, house-permeating smell that means something (a mouse) has died somewhere in my basement.  Again.  Which means that the little to-do list I just created looks like this:

*clean bathroom
*vacuum upstairs
*clean out spare room in basement and find dead mouse
*clean off eating bar
*weed

Good stuff.  I hate it when this happens.  And, isn’t it summer???  Aren’t they supposed to come in in the Fall?  You know, to find a warm spot?  Well, I guess it certainly is warm in here…

Last night we escaped the much-too-warm house in search of cool on our dirt bikes.  And I mean “cool” in both senses of the word – I wanted to feel the cool breeze, and I totally wanted to *be* cool.  I at least accomplished one…

Anyway, some friends joined us at the last minute and we took off down the trail to some hills just a couple of miles from our place.  We came to a nice big mud hole that I knew I was going to have trouble navigating, and started to grit my teeth in anticipation of the butt-kicking it was about to give me.  And then Berry Guy asked me if I was going to walk my bike through.  God be praised, I hadn’t realised that was an option.  I hopped my pansy self off that bike and walked it through.  I am a total wimp, and I’m ok with it.  In this situation.

Chris took me off to ride this ridge through the hills, and it was spectacular.  Perhaps the first time I have truly appreciated being on my dirt bike.  We rode through tall grasses and wild flowers and the view was amazing and I could smell the grasses and plants as we drove through them.  Which was a good thing – the smelling.  So fragrant, so picture-perfect.  And, I didn’t wipe out.

Summer is just that time when you feel like you should be getting up early(er) and doing stuff.  Like running, or sipping coffee on the deck before the kids wake up and start asking you for stuff like breakfast.  Summer totally guilts you into feeling inadequate for not enjoying it more.  And then, for a kicker, it sends you moths.  Which reminds me, I have to add another item to my to-do list for the day:

*kill moths

I’d better get started.