Just as I came into the world...

I bought this book at a library book sale recently for the ridiculously great price of 50 cents. Currently it is serving as my laundromat reading material--it's a collection of short stories about women who run (which I think is pretty obvious due to the title). Today I came upon a story about a women who ran a 5K in the Pacific Northwest... at a nudist resort. That's right, it's a naked 5k race. Called the "Bare Buns Run."

I'm from the Pacific Northwest, so naturally I googled this immediately. It is held in the summer in Washington. 3.1 miles. Clothing optional. People don't have to be naked, but many of them choose to go jogging along with just their sneakers and a smile.

How fascinating is that? And how does that not hurt to have stuff flapping around?

Can you see where this is going? My first reaction was that I could never do something like that. But why the heck not? Of course I am intrigued enough to try it. Conveniently I have a longtime friend who a) enjoys being naked and b) likes to encourage my weird ideas. I called her and left a voicemail along the lines of, "Holy crap, naked run, next summer, let's go, your husband can't come."

She called back and her reaction was an excited, "Really?!?!?!" This is why I have her in my life. Everyone needs a friend who will be naked in public with them. So next summer I plan to run 3.1 miles naked. It is one of my new goals.

You might be asking yourself how this is a challenge--I'm about to run 13.1 miles (unless I come down with the plague--keep your fingers crossed that doesn't happen!) so how is 3.1 going to be hard? Besides the obvious jiggling issue, the running won't be the difficult part.

I have no problem with nudity. I'm all about people being comfortable enough with themselves to show off their bodies if they so choose. In general I am not exactly a prude, but I'm also not really the type to take it all off in front of others. Nudity has a time and a place and so far in life I haven't even been the type to really be comfortable changing in a locker room in front of others. So of course this will be a challenge--it is going to be hard to be comfortable enough with myself to be naked in front of a bunch of strangers--but it's more of a mental challenge this time.

Today I was watching "Oprah" (yes, I am that awesome) and past contestants from "The Biggest Loser" were on. A couple had gained back some weight and said that it is just as important to change mentally as it is physically in order to maintain weight loss. That got me to wondering if I am changing enough mentally--do I really think that differently about myself 70 pounds later? I mean, I think I look great with clothes on, but naked is a different story. I wasn't comfortable being naked 70 pounds ago and I am not exactly comfortable now. I have some loose skin on my stomach and things have... deflated. It happens with weight loss so I'm okay with that, but am I okay enough with my body to be comfortable in the buff?

I think so. At least I hope I will be by next summer. I am so amused--it's going to be an adventure being surrounded by that many naked people! I'm hoping it won't be weird since everyone else will be naked too. It's definitely different than just running down my street naked. That's a little less acceptable. So even if you don't believe in public nudity (which I totally understand) you should all cheer us on! Yay for doing crazy things with old friends!

How do you think they keep from chafing? Also, don't tell my mother.

Oh heck!

You know that feeling you get right before you get sick? The one where you aren't really sick but you just feel achy and gross and can tell a cold/flu/death is approaching?

I started feeling that way tonight.

Currently I am obsessively drinking herbal tea and hoping that it's just my body telling me it needs a good night of sleep. How do I get better by tomorrow? I have a trip to see old friend and a half marathon to complete!!!!

I'm going to be very irritated if I get sick and can't do this. There is no logical reason for me to be sick right now, darn it!

Update to follow--either a really irritated one about how my immune system hates me, or one of excitement that I complete a goal. I'm going to write another post right after this about my newest goal because it is hilarious but completely unrelated to the fact that I feel a little crappy right now.

This tractor is not sexy.

Last night was my final run before the half marathon. I decided to do my easy 4-mile route (easy because it’s not very hilly) and just kind of chill out. The road I run on takes me by some fields that are currently being plowed—and I’m pretty sure the guy riding along in the tractor plowing them each evening likes to taunt me. On Monday I swear he sped up right as I was going by just so he could turn and send a huge cloud of dust right into my face. Yesterday I was running parallel to his path and we started out on one side of the field at the same time. People, this guy decided to just let his tractor fly in attempt to race me to the other side of the field. I won. I don’t think tractors are very fast, but still, I beat him to the other side (and thus avoided having a cloud of dust envelope me as he turned around).

It’s the small victories in life, right?

Tomorrow I’m off to Idaho for the half marathon and will be spending all day in the car. Hurray? It’s almost an 8-hour drive, I think. When I return I will be free as a little bird without commitment to any athletic event! I’m not sure if that is good or bad. My adventure with the 30 Day Shred starts on Monday!

Anyway, wish me luck! Next time I post anything I should be a half-marathon finisher!

Shredded, not deaded.

I tried out Jillian Michael's 30 Day Shred again today, and I didn't feel the need to die quite as much. Woohoo! I only took one quick break to chug water and then hopped right back into the game. It's amazing how the body can adapt so quickly. The workout was still challenging, because I can't seriously figure out how to tighten my core properly for crunches and whatnot but whatever. Also, the strength portions are a blessing after the cardio and ab bursts. Bring on the strength training as those sections give me a chance to breathe. So, anyway, we can do this, Leslie! We are going to be so ripped and bounce quarters off of our stomachs for entertainment purposes once we are finished being shredded.

Oh, new challenge for me in the workout? Bicycle crunches. What the crap?! I am so uncoordinated, and I look like a fish flopping around on the ground while doing these. Very attractive indeed.

So, that's all. Not a very exciting post, but I just wanted to say that I'm pleased I didn't die.

Smoothies!

I tend to eat a lot at breakfast. It is my most favorite meal of the day and I tend to consume a ridiculous amount of my daily calories first thing in the morning. Of course, I don’t see anything wrong with this because A) it gives me energy for the rest of the day and B) breakfast is awesome.

Know what else is awesome? Smoothies. I have a serious smoothie obsession, much to the dismay of my poor, cheap blender. I find smoothies helpful when it comes to things like getting five servings of fruit and veggies each day cause you can cram a bunch in there right as you start your morning. I’m a big fan of fruits and veggies as well.

Recently I discovered that I’m not nearly adventurous enough when it comes to my morning smoothie. The most common breakfast smoothie variety often involves the following: vanilla soy milk, peanut butter, a banana, and a few frozen berries (most frequently strawberries, but sometimes I use blueberries or whatever happens to be in my freezer). Seriously people, it’s good. Some might say it’s too high calorie but those people are lame. A large chunk of the calories comes from peanut butter, and I am also quite the fan of things like healthy fats that you get from nuts or olive oil or avocados. Plus, I use natural peanut butter and it amuses me greatly because the ingredients list is one word: peanuts.

The other day I found myself without any berries in my freezer, but I had randomly frozen some canned fruit (without the juice) because I couldn’t figure out how long it was good for when left in a plastic container in my fridge. If anyone knows the answer to that, please tell me. Anyway, it was a mixture of peaches, pineapple, grapes and a lone cherry, and obviously it seemed logical to toss it in the blender with my other ingredients.

The result? Deliciousness! I’m kind of convinced that all smoothies are fabulous. And I just found this whole website of smoothie recipes so I’m thinking I should branch out a little more.

Anyone know a particularly delicious smoothie recipe?

We love Jillian Michaels!

It is currently 1 a.m. and I am watching good boy Mark Darcy kiss panty-clad Bridget Jones as snow falls around them in a flurry of magic. I'm quite smitten with this movie scene, and I don't care who knows it. Singleton Shawna someday wants a young British chap to kiss her in the snow, too, so please send all your good thoughts out into the universe so that it will happen. Thank you very much.

My post (this very late evening, early morning) is about someone that both Leslie and I are pretty much obsessed with: the glorious Jillian Michaels. I only started watching The Biggest Loser this season, but I was immediately captured by Jillian's unique personality of badass with a heart. She pushes and screams, but then there are those tissue moments where she has an emotional breakthrough with a contestant that I find so inspiring. She seriously wants to create positive change in the world, and I admire that.

And Hallelujah, it's also inspiring to know that someone as awesome as Jillian hates exercise! But she pushes through and does it anyway, because it's imperative to creating a healthy body.



For the last week or so I have been listening to Jillian's weekly podcast during my commute to and from work each day, and may I say it's a total motivation booster. During her radio program you get to witness a hilarious side of her that's not really shown on The Biggest Loser. Jillian's a hoot as she provides listeners with fitness advice, and I love it. Go listen right now! I'm going to be so sad when I'm finally caught up with all of the episodes and actually have to wait one week between listening.



Leslie also ordered Jillian's 30 Day Shred, and we are going to start following it next week. I actually cheated and gave the workout a preview today so that maybe I will be able to not drop dead next week. Jillian would be disappointed in me, because I actually did "phone in" my workout as she would say and paused and took breaks at several points. I'll get better, I promise! I find crunches and squats difficult for me to do properly, and I get very frustrated with myself and end up plopping on the floor waiting for the next part of the video. Does anyone have any tips for these exercises or the workout in general? Oh, and I am so out of shape that I actually injured my knee (albeit slightly) and had to apply Ben Gay and ice as per Leslie's instructions. I was limping earlier. Are you sad for me?

In other news, I made lentil soup and homemade pizza last week. I am an ordinary whiz in the kitchen apparently (but mostly due to the magical powers of the crock pot)! Also, I realized that transforming a pumpkin into actual food is quite time-consuming, but well worth the effort put into making pumpkin butter. I found the recipe in my second favorite magazine (right after mental_floss) ReadyMade. The butter is quite delicious on whole wheat English muffins, but not quite diet friendly. Enjoy it anyway and the potent orange infusion. Ha, who seriously writes that?

Here's the recipe, copied from the mental_floss article.

Pumpkin Butter

Try this as a topping for muffins, pancakes, or toast.
Makes about 1 cup

INGREDIENTS
1/2 cup pumpkin puree, at room temperature (see recipe)
4 tbsps creamed honey
1/2 tsp ground ginger
Zest of one orange
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened

MAKE IT

1. Make sure the pumpkin and the butter are at room temperature so they blend smoothly. In a medium bowl stir together pumpkin puree, honey, ginger, and zest until will combined and smooth.

2. In a separate bowl, cream the butter with a rubber spatula until very smooth.

3. Gently fold the pumpkin mixture into the butter one tablespoon at a time until completely incorporated. Refrigerate if not using immediately.

No one told me this would happen.

I’m pretty sure I’m going to freeze to death this winter. I realize that 70 pounds is a lot, but since I’ve lost it gradually I didn’t really think that I would miss the extra padding come winter. That is incorrect. I’m ridiculously cold most of the time. I’m not talking just a little chilly—this is horrible and involves shaking and shivering in order to avoid hypothermia even though most of the population is perfectly fine. Shouldn’t global warming be helping me out with this instead of allowing the frigid October air to penetrate my bones?

Not only have I lost layers of warmth (making hibernation a no-go) but the loss of layers of fat messes with estrogen levels, according to my doctor. As a result, my already rebellious eyebrows are growing in at an alarming rate and no amount of waxing, plucking, or apathy has managed to control them. Left untamed my eyebrows would undoubtedly cover the majority of my forehead. I’d say I’m exaggerating except I have photos from high school to prove otherwise—it wasn’t until the age of 17 that I discovered tweezers.

As a result, I am rapidly approaching popsicle status and have to pluck my eyebrows every freaking day until my body gets over itself and adjusts to such things. Till that happens I’m wondering if my coworkers would notice if I came to work with a fluffy blanket and a bag over my head.

Salt of... my face?!?!?!

I hate the feeling of sweat drying on my face. The process of sweating doesn't bother me, but after my body has cooled down and I feel dried sweat on my skin it just drives me nuts. Yesterday as I was stretching after my 13-mile run my skin felt different than normal so before I jumped in the shower I glanced in the mirror.

A fine layer of salt covered my skin. Traces of salt left white streaks across my face. Clearly, I had a horrible and incurable illness that resulted in my body releasing salt through my pores.

My first thought was that perhaps I had consumed too many salty foods. The day before I ate soup for lunch, which obviously contains a lot of sodium. My dinner consisted of a completely inappropriate combination of spinach-artichoke dip and tortilla chips, a slice of pizza, and a glass of beer. I do not recommend consuming such things the night before a long run, by the way. Someday I'll learn my lesson and won't have to run 13 miles with a junk food hangover.

Could it be possible that I had consumed enough excess sodium so as to secrete it through my skin? I didn't think so. I called my sister and she thought it was terribly weird and abnormal as well. Obviously the next step involved consulting google.

Apparently this isn't so strange because google produced countless articles about runners and sweat leaving traces of salt on the skin. How is this not something that is crazy weird to people?!?!?! I found this article particularly helpful. Still, finding salt all over my skin is f-ing weird, but apparently its just something that happens. According to that article:

Some runners have saltier sweat than other. Salty sweaters tend to end up with a crust of salt on their skin after a hard workout. Other runners, in comparison, have a low sodium content in their sweat - and no white salt stains on their skin or running clothes.

I'm extremely glad that I didn't sweat out enough salt that it left salt all over my running clothes. Shouldn't this be something that's more widely publicized? Do you think any other beginning runners have ever wondered if they've contracted an incurable illness related to sodium? Cause seriously, finding salt all over my face was not what I expected post-run.

It was very odd. I felt the need to share.

Corn maze adventures!

Yesterday Shawna and I decided to go on a merry little trip to a local corn maze. Fall is pretty much the best season ever, we agreed, and we had limited time to enjoy the goodness that is October. So off we went.

Here is the pretty scenery:


All was well at first. The problem was that once you enter the corn maze, it really is a maze. We had a map but had no clue where we were located on the map and soon became horribly lost. It took us an hour and a half to escape the stupid thing. Naturally, we got distracted many times by a need to take photos and get into mischief.

It was a theme corn maze, thus the photos of us acting scared by a dragon. Apparently it was in the shape of a castle or something.





I'm just going to put the rest of the photos on here without explanation. They explain themselves. We took frequent photo breaks--perhaps this is what distracted us from finding our way. The map was crap. We found a slide in the middle. Eventually we escaped and found pumpkins and all was exciting. Oh, and a pony at the petting zoo had an erection. Shawna bought a pumpkin and plans to make delicious things like spicy roasted pumpkin seeds. At the end of these photos you will find a video that we took by balancing the camera on a corn husk! Let me just warn you, the video shows what happens when you are lost in a corn maze for longer than an hour. And no, I don't know why I'm striking a pose during it. I'm just odd. Let the photo fun begin...

Well, crap.

Currently I am afraid of the half marathon next weekend.

Today I woke up and ran 13 miles and arrived home feeling very badass because I wasn't dead. Next weekend is 13.1 miles so that's just .1 farther! Woo! I had a voicemail waiting from me from a friend who lives in Boise. You see, for my birthday this friend suggested that she pay the entrance fee to this half marathon for me as my birthday gift and I could come and visit her and her boyfriend and run the half marathon on Nov. 1.

She called because they had just driven the route of the race and she said something along the lines of, "We apologize in advance. There are a lot of hills. We're really sorry." So I called her and was told that the hills are crazy hardcore. She asked if I had been training on hills and told me she was worrying about that as they drove the route.

Of course, I knew there are hardcore hills. I've been training on hills just for that reason. Since I am too far away to check out the course for myself, I read about it on the website and saw their map and graph of elevation changes and the description of the course. That has led to me adopting a very ridiculous local hill and making sure it pops up in my route more than once during a long run. I know I am prepared for this. I know I can do it. But hearing my friend sound concerned about it made ME concerned! Also, my parents live nearby and decided to drive over to watch me finish, and several friends who live in Boise will be there as well. So what if I fail? I'd rather fail secretly and in private instead of having tons of people see it happen.

So, now I'm scared. Crap.