The GOOD side of the Solvang trip

It wasn't ALL bad, so here is some good stuff:

(Picture: Lucy is loaded in the truck and ready to go! She looks bored silly, but, really, deep inside, she is excited.)

We decided to drive down the coast along Hwy 1. Many say that it is the most beautiful coastline in the world. I don't have a lot to compare to since I have done limited traveling, but it was breathtaking.

We were following along the race route for the Tour of California bike race. It is one of the biggest professional bike races in the country and it covers 650 miles in California those poor boys got some seriously SHITTY California weather. (click "poor boys" link to see videos of the race. The coastline shots are Stage four.)



The rain was pouring down, the wind was howling, and it was COLD. (Pictures: My husband taking pictures of the coastline in the pouring rain, then returning to the car in the pouring rain.) You will note that I am taking all of these pictures from inside the car.

There was only one thing that I was willing to go out into the rain and cold for.....






BABIES!!! Elephant Seal babies to be exact.

In San Simeon there is a colony of 7,500 elephant seals . There were tons of them. In the winter they have their babies. When my hubby gets his pictures up I will put a link or slideshow up because he got some great shots. They were all the way up the beach, next to the fence. I seriously could have touched one. Please Note: I DID NOT do this, as it is both illegal and wrong to do. We carry lots of bacteria and potential diseases that have unknown effects on wild animals. DO NOT touch them! (Picture: OMG! Big, fat, fatties! Baby faces that are so cute they actually made my heart hurt.)

That was it. The rest was Lompoc hell hole. Hubby went to Solvang to take pictures of the race and had a good time. We ate in Solvang on the way home. I had some pancakes that were unremarkable. Solvang seems cute, but I didn't see much of it. It was nice to spend time with the hubby and Lucy so all in all a success, but I won't be racing back to Lompoc anytime soon.

Hiding out in Lompoc

Ok, so I love booking hotels on the internet you can search see pictures, look for specific amenities, etc. I am relatively new at it since I usually don't go anywhere, but my new race running addiction seems to be taking me all over. Sometimes you can get burned booking this way. Well, this time I am feeling a little like a crispy critter.

We are staying at the Travellodge in Lompoc. I needed a modestly priced (read: cheap-ish) motel that allowed dogs and had wireless internet so I could work on my project. At $79.00 a night it was at the max I wanted to pay for this trip, but since it was only about 15 miles from Solvang and fit the other criteria I booked it.

When we checked in the first thing we noticed was the large number of derelict cars in the parking lot. Either they were starting their own jalopy salvage yard or they had some permanent hotel residents. When we went to our room we found that non-smoking room, wasn't. It reeked of stale cigarette smoke, then I noticed the coup de gras of class, gang tagging etched on the mirror. After settling in I went to check my email and that is when I noticed that the wireless wasn't working. After about four trips to the office, modem rebooting, and countless attempts to reconfigure my wireless settings, they agreed to move us to another room in the morning.

Now I am here in this alone shit hole hotel trying to work on my project. I was planning on running 3 miles today. NOT going to happen. It is icky out there and there are several, less-than-savory characters hanging around the office (apparently friends of the management. Awesome.), so I think I will just stay put. The upside is that they are blasting their music so, I have a free concert with enough bass to vibrate the bed, another free service.

If I click my heels together three times, do I get to go home?

Back from San Diego

Vacay

San Diego was a blast! We went to Sea World and the San Diego Zoo. While I enjoyed Sea World, I LOVED the zoo! It was an amazing zoo. I am about "peopled" out and more specifically, "other people's kids-ed" out due to the large Holiday Vacation crowds, but it was awesome just the same. If your are ever in San Diego you MUST go the the zoo. We did not have time to go the the Wild Animal Park (owned by the San Diego Zoo) but I hear it is amazing as well. LOTS of walking! We basically walked for 4 hours straight on both days. (The first picture is of the hotel we stayed at Hyatt Regency La Jolla at Aventine. Beautiful! Highly recommend! Not for the financially faint of heart. The second picture is of the fancy schmanchy gym)

Food

It was bad, so very bad. It stops here. No more.

Exercise

I ran Friday (4 miles), Saturday (5 miles) and Sunday before we left (3 miles) on the treadmill at the hotel.

Funny Treadmill Story

The hotel was attached to/associated with a large fancy gym (that you had to pay $12 f-ing dollars a day to use, by the way!) I was very intimidated by it and seriously considered not working out there because of the "fanciness" of the gym and the "hardbody-ness" of the clientèle, but I sucked it up and went. I figured I would go super early, hide out on a treadmill, do my little run, and then get the hell out.

The treadmills were located on the third floor of the gym. Great place to hide, so no one would see me fumble around like an idiot.Each treadmill had its own little TV (SUPER cool!) that you could set to whatever channel you desire (Food network shows are my preferred running shows. You don't need the sound so I can listen to my iPod and watch other people cook)

Anyhoo...On Saturday I was running at the gym and this pretty, tiny, little gal hops on the treadmill one over from me. She is one of the hardcore treadmill runners that can stand with their feet on either side of the treadmill, turn it on, set it to some ridiculously fast speed, and the jump on and run. I am incapable of this move and have to walk increasingly faster as I punch the little button 5,000 times to get up to a speed where I can finally jog. So I am impressed by her already. Not to mention she is running at a blazing speed right out of the gate. If this is her warm up I am afraid of her regular pace. So she set her TV to a movie and is happily running along until something in the movie she is watching makes her laugh, hard. Well, you runners and non-runners alike can appreciate the fact that you can not laugh really hard and run at a high rate of speed, at the same time, no matter how good you are. Therefore, this laughter causes her to lose her pace and get shot off the back of the treadmill like a rocket. She somewhat saved herself by grabbing the rail on the side, but not before her headphones pop out of the channel box and hit her smack in the forehead which sealed the deal and she landed in a heap at the back of the treadmill.

Now, I, who am also running, start to laugh because, damn it, it was FUNNY, and proceed to almost get shot off the back of my treadmill. Fortunately, I was running at a much slower pace than her and was able to recover with minimal flailing, but we certainly got the attention of the entire third floor.

Lessons I learned from this experience:

1. Cute, tiny girls screw up too, and can have a great sense of humor about it.
2. The Food Network will not get you shot off the back of a treadmill

Vacation: Day 5

Post-yuletide gluttony
Yikes! I have been out of control. Time to reign it in. I leave tomorrow for San Diego. We are going to see hubby's brother and go to the San Diego Zoo and SeaWorld. I am so excited, but I have this damn cold. I really hope tomorrow it is mostly gone. I want to enjoy my vacation. I have been asking to go to SeaWorld for 16 years!

Last time I was there (19 years ago!) I was able to feed squid to the walruses and it is, still today, one of my favorite memories. They are HUGE and they flop around in the water below you jockeying for position to catch the squid and suck them up like spaghetti! I don't know if you are still able to do that, but I want to go see them!





Exercise
none. I have a cold and cramps and feel poopy. In the words of Linda Ronstadt, "poor, poor pitiful me"

I am bringing my run stuff with me to San Diego so hopefully I can get some running in there.





Food Log

Breakfast
JC French toast & banana/coffee
Snack
2 pieces of chocolate
Lunch
JC Chicken Carbonara/salad w/ JC dressing & croutons
Snack(s)
1 pc. of chocolate
Dinner
Sushi: Golden Bell Roll/Age dashi tofu/tamago
Snack
none (full from dinner)

Holy Crap! No Christmas cookies! If I can get rid of the chocolate I will be golden.

Thank you!!

Sat, 25 Aug 2007 00:39

Thank you!!

I want to start by expressing my eternal gratitude to you for your kindness and support through my loss of Winston.

We just got back from Carmel and it was a great get-away. I am really surprised that I actually went. I never do that. I always tell my hubby I am too busy and send him by himself (great wife, huh?) this time I said “yes” and we had a fantastic time. I ate relatively well. I made good choices, but restaurants’ portions are too big and I have no self-control. I try to push some of it off on my husband, but I still eat more than I should. We took my dog to Carmel Beach. They allow dogs off leash there and she LOVES it! She runs until she can barely move.

I did have one realization when we were out. For years I have eaten as much as my husband. Bite for bite, meal for meal. I am not sure why I thought I could routinely eat as much as a 200 lb man and not gain weight! Hmmm…

I had my WI today and I was down 0.4. I would have liked more since I was up 0.4 last week, but I'll take it.

I have to get off to bed because I have this crazy goal to run 16 miles tomorrow! Holy Cow! That is just absurd!

Back From Seattle

Sat, 28 Jul 2007 00:59

Back from Seattle

Well, I am back from my five day vacation in Seattle. It was fun, but a little hectic. I tried to keep up with my training and JC goals. Here is a summary (sorry my posts are way too long) and some cool Seattle links.

Let’s start with the training:

Sunday (day we left): I ran 3 miles on the morning. It was scheduled as a rest or easy run day, so I felt pretty good about that.

Monday, cross training day: Only exercise was walking around Northwest Trek (highly rec. destination of you ever go to Washington. I’ll post a link to hubby’s pictures when he gets them up.)

Tuesday, I was a big chicken about running outside in the city so I decided to try out the treadmill. This was my first experience on a treadmill and I am not what anyone would call “super coordinated”, but I managed to run 3 miles without serious injury to myself or others. Then I did some pilates-style (this is what I have heard I honestly have no idea what pilates is) strength exercises that the TNT coaches recommend. In summary, the exercises are embarrassing looking and I HATE doing them in public, but I sucked it up and did them.

Wednesday, cross-training day: I ran 30 minutes on the treadmill (a whopping 1.5 miles. I new low even for my slow-a**. I am not sure how that happened, but it is what the stupid computer-thing said so I decided not to lie about it) and then 20 minutes on the stationary bike (the world’s stupidest and most boring invention ever!) and finished with a truncated strength training session because other people came in and I felt lame. Overall, a big fat reminder of why I do not belong to or go to a gym!

Went to the Woodland Park Zoo. Awesome! WAY too many children, but very nice exhibits

Thursday, longish run day: I got up at 5:15 in the morning so I would not have to see other people in the workout room. It worked! I ran 5 miles on the treadmill. I had to reset the stupid thing because it only lets you run for an hour and it took me longer than that to run the five. I was also dying without water because, while I mastered how to continue running on a seemingly stationary object I certainly was not skilled enough to drink water and do this. I was too embarrassed to wear my hydration belt on the treadmill for fear some one would come in and see me. So I guess I deserved to be thirsty. I had one guy that kept coming in at the end to see if I was done, but instead of being a wimp and getting off the machine because I felt like I was taking too long I finished my run (small personal victory, but I will take it!)

Jenny Craig update:

I ate pretty well the whole trip. I chose small portioned meals with less starches (carb-os are my BIG weakness) Mostly grilled fish (expensive, but low fat and yummy! I only seem to like expensive fish) or grilled chicken salads with light dressings on the side. Wednesday was my b-day and we ate on top of the Space Needle (good food, SUPER expensive, AWESOME view, must do once, but wouldn’t go again because of price) I was full and tired so no cake, which I was a little pouty about. However, I made up for it on Thursday with berry shortcake after lunch, then HUGE Japanese dinner followed by b-day cake (very cool surprise) with the in-laws. Overall, at WI today I was up 0.4. Bummer, but I just got off a plane an hour before and it was vacation, so….whatever!