Sunday, June 27, 2010

Ah, summer in Ohio...

Aka time for lovely, disgusting humidity. We've been spending lots of time in air conditioned comfort, plodding along with the bathroom remodeling project (with LOTS of help from my dad) and only going outside when absolutely necessary. Said bathroom currently has tile and paint, so now we need to get around to putting in the small fortune's worth of fixtures (sink, vanity, faucet, toilet, lighting, etc.)...sometime before the cookout/anniversary celebration we're having on July 17th. In three weeks. Cross your fingers, people :D

Work is going pretty well. We "went live" with a new electronic medical record system a few weeks ago, which on one hand has been a PITA b/c we were all used to the old system, but good because now we're on the same system as the rest of the hospital so that comes in handy. So far, so good though...and by that, I mean I haven't tried to throw my computer out the window yet :)

On the health/fitness front, I've been a lot better about going to the gym or running at least 5x/week and resisting the urge to be lazy all.the.time. I'm trying to get back into the routine of working out before I go to work, which means getting up at an ungodly hour but makes the rest of the day SO much easier! I managed to do it twice this week so we'll see how this week goes :)

Plus, I actually ran a 5k yesterday. I try to avoid summer races at all costs b/c of the heat, and this summer has been no exception. However, this race was at a park I hadn't run in yet, and was starting at 8am so I thought it'd be cooler. WRONG! I still managed to pass everyone I wanted to pass, and got 3rd in my age group! (Before you ask, yes it WAS a small race but a medal is a medal damnit :D) My finishing time was 27:00 even, which is a good two minutes slower than my PR (25:02) but that was set in March 09 when it was significantly cooler outside. Ah, spring races...how I miss you!

Otherwise, not much is going on around here. Our vegetable garden and potted herbs/lettuce are growing nicely-maybe we'll have some edible veggies here soon! We've been trying to get stuff done around the house to get ready for the upcoming par-tay, so that's been keeping us on our toes. Add in two weddings, and you've got a busy June. Bring it on, July!

Sunday, June 6, 2010

Some updates, and a race report.

First, the race report.

This morning, Stevi, Colleen, and I did the Columbus 10k. I woke up at 7am to the sound of torrential downpours hitting my roof and thought to myself "Oh, crap. Really?". Luckily, by the time I left the house almost an hour later, the rain had stopped and we haven't seen it since. Once I got parked, a little voice in my head told me to put on sunscreen even though it was overcast, and it was a good thing I did-the sun came out shortly after the race started, and stayed shining for pretty much the rest of the race. I would have gotten ROASTED if I hadn't put on the SPF 45-it takes work to maintain this shade of translucent white, damnit! :D

Between the heat, humidity, and the hills (which aren't necessarily "big", but they were for superflat Columbus), Stevi and I decided pretty quickly that we needed to run to have fun and not to break any speed records-she starts her marathon training program tomorrow and neither one of us have had a good transition to warm weather running so we knew that trying to haul ass just wasn't a good idea today. Despite a short walk stint to let Stevi's burning calf muscles rest, we both finished in right around 1:00:00 flat, which given the conditions was FINE by me! Plus, we got postrace pancakes, and those always help :)

Now, onto the other stuff...despite today's tough race, I think my body's transition to running in warm weather is starting to come along. In Columbus, we went from spring temps in the 60's to temps in the 80's with 90% humidity, with maybe a few days of temps in the mid 70's...so the abrupt change has NOT been kind to me. Add in a lovely chest cold and you get a few weeks of craptacular running, which I am finally done with.

My eating healthy endeavours are starting to take hold, as is my plan to work out more consistently-I actually made it to the gym or ran 6 out of the last 7 days! YAY! Strength training is still not happening much yet, but I did buy the 30 Day Shred DVD so that's a start :) I haven't been able to do it yet since our family room is taken up by the fixtures we're putting in the bathroom that's in the process of being remodeled, but I AM going to try it soon...promise.

Other than that, not much is new in my world. We've got a couple of weddings coming up, and need to finish this bathroom before our big summer party in the middle of July. I don't have any races on the horizon at this point, but there are a couple of races I've come across that look interesting-one of which is a 5 mile run+obstacle course. Hooray, mud! All in all, I'm just glad winter is over and summer is finally here :D