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.

Ma'am, put down the frosted santa and step away from the cookie platter!

Eventually the world will run out of Christmas cookies and I will be unable to consume anymore. Right?

It is hard to believe how many cookies I ate. If I am completely honest, this is FAR fewer cookies than I would have consumed if I wasn't thinking about the fact that I would have to log them all here. So I guess the food log still helps, but Christ! It is a little embarrassing to write down that I ate (by myself) a DOZEN Christmas cookies today alone AND 5 Lindt Chocolate balls.
We had a great Christmas. The family was all very happy. I caught a cold and was feeling a little tired, but it was a good day.





Christmas Food Log

Breakfast
JC French toast & banana/coffee
Snack
2 Lindt chocolate balls at pet sitting client/powerbar before leaving for Christmas Dinner
Lunch/Dinner (We do holiday meals early 1pm)
1 sm slice ham (I do not like ham)
1/2 c. yukon potatoes (very dry and boring tasting so they must have been good for you)
1/2 c. green bean casserole (not good for you)
1 c. yams w/ brown sugar and marshmallows (not good for you)
Snack
7 Christmas cookies (Christ! How many Christmas cookies can one human consume?)
Dessert
sm. slice of apple pie with about 1/4 c. (read : TINY) sized scoop of ice cream. (I got the smallest pc. of pie. I think it was a statement about all the cookies I ate.)
Snack
5 more Christmas cookies and 3 more Lindt chocolate balls, again at the pet sitting house. (Lord almighty! Make it stop!)

Merry Christmas! (Most unoriginal post title ever!)

Merry Christmas!

I am not sure who I am saying that to because no one reads this blog except occasionally my friend Tracy and she has probably already seen this on another site I go to, but whatever! In my opinion you can never have too many images of a smilin', fat, orange cat in a Santa hat! I bought this picture as Christmas Cards years ago and I loved the picture so much that I couldn't send the cards out!

Today I have to go see Blackie the wonder dog! He is a pet sitting client's dog that I have been taking care of (when they are out town, about 2-3 times a year) for the past 11 years. Blackie is a ~14-16 year old, blind cocker spaniel. He still loves life, his walks, and every human being he has ever met. If you are feeling down about yourself Blackie is the ultimate validator, HE THINKS YOU ARE WONDERFUL JUST THE WAY YOU ARE! Who wouldn't love a dog like that?

Then we are going to my parents for the Christmas celebration (more f&*%ing Christmas cookies will be consumed I am sure). We are a pretty low key family so it won't be too crazy.


Here's to wishing everyone a very MERRY CHRISTMAS! Here is my dog lucy singing you a rousing rendition of "Have a Very Merry Christmas".

Cute Coots on Christmas Eve

Work
Today I went to work at my old job for half day (the veterinary hospital is only open half day on Xmas Eve). Good to know that all the reasons I left are still in effect. I made some progress on Mission Impossible. It will be an interesting couple of weeks.


American Coot (coolest water fowl ever!)

Exercise

Run on Trail (54:10)
5 miles (10:50 min/mile pace)

After work I tried to go to the gym, but it was going to close in half an hour, so I decided to run on the trail. It was beautiful out so I am glad I did. I think I have a cold and my throat was bugging me a little, but my knee felt better than it did on Saturday's run.

The trail I run on goes along a creek, past percolation ponds, and by a small lake. The wildlife I see there is so cool. I thought I would share images (stolen from the internet of course) of some of the wildlife I see there regularly. The first picture is a muskrat swimming, the next is an American Coot (my all time favorite water fowl. They have the coolest feet!)














There are lots of species of ducks and both Canada and Snow Geese. The next images are of a great Blue Heron and the Great Egret. Both are very common sightings along the trail.


It was a beautiful day for a run. On days like this I can't believe I ever run on a treadmill. But on cold, rainy, dark days I immediately remember why the gym membership is a necessary evil.









Food Log

Breakfast
JC French toast & banana/coffee
Snack
2 pieces of chocolate at work
Lunch
JC Chicken Carbonara/ 2 sl. bread with margarine
Snack(s)
JC S'mores bar
Dinner
Chevy's chicken soft taco/chicken tamale/rice & beans
Snack
JC Lemon Cake

Vacation: Day 2

Today: to be filed under what the hell was I thinking??
Today I baked Christmas cookies. The woman that doesn't cook anything that requires her to do more than "pierce film 2-3 times with fork to vent", baked and decorated Christmas cookies. I have a full blown cookie addiction. I may as well have been cooking up meth in my kitchen. Only a fool would surmise that this would not lead to full blown cookie and cookie dough eating binge, which of course it did. I need this Cookie/Candy holiday to be over before they have to bring the baby whale sling to extract me from my house.

(Reference to the TLC show The 1,000 Pound Man, it was a good show, but so sad)

Exercise
None. My knees were pretty sore and I wanted to sleep in so I did not go to the gym today. Besides, why would I want to go to the gym when I had four pounds of cookie dough to eat?


Food Log
Breakfast
JC French toast & banana/coffee
Snack
3 Lindt chocolate balls (gift from pet sitting client)
Lunch
JC Cheesy Enchilada/Salad w/ JC dressing & croutons
Snack(s)
4 Christmas cookies (and about 4 more worth of dough *sigh*)
Dinner
JC Mac & Cheese
Snack
Another f*&%ing Christmas cookie

Vacation: Day 1

Exercise

LSR day (1:23:01)
Total miles run: 7.5 (11:04 min/mile pace. Not too shabby)

My knees and legs felt like crap on the run and I felt like I was running really slow. I was passed like I was standing still, by about 405 willowy women with rock hard legs in short shorts. It rocked. But I kept running. In the end my pace came out pretty good. I ran the first 1.5 miles with my run buddy then she started the run/walk and I ran on.

It was a very cathartic run. I actually cried a couple of times. This has been a tough week and I guess I needed a long run to process it all. I was thinking of a poem I read on another blog titled What am I running from? (Athena Diaries) I tried to create my own poem in my head as I ran. NOTE: This is heavily plagiarized from her original because I am in no way creative enough to think of this on my own. Please check out the original at the link above. It is inspiring.

Why I run

I am running from...

I am not thin enough,
from I am not pretty enough,
from I am not smart enough.

I am running from

I am not caring enough,
from I am not hard-working enough,
from I am not ... enough.

I am running to

I am fit enough,
to I am strong enough,
to I am good enough.

I am running to

I am confident enough,
to I am happy enough,
to I am enough.


Food log

Breakfast
no breakfast/coffee
Snack
2 mini Luna bars on the run (samples from the marathon)
Lunch
Out to sushi w/ my college boys: Golden Bell Roll/Tamago/Diet Coke (It was so great to see them. They are doing so well at college. I am so proud of them!)
Snack(s)
4 Christmas cookies (My friend with the dogs gave me Xmas cookies. I ate 4 on the way home. We ran the rest down the garbage disposal to keep from eating them all.)
Dinner
JC Chicken Carbonara/salad w/ JC dressing & croutons
Snack
JC Lemon cake