Training Day 3

Guess it’s time for me to get my act together and get serious about this!  I was forced to take a break in my Forming Days routine due to sick kids over the past two weeks (hence the lack of blog updates) however school is back in session (yea!).   I’m having trouble getting back on track though.  It is so easy to slide back into the old habits of watching TV at night instead of working out.  Of eating Wendy’s (seriously? Gross) instead of packing something from home.  I have a new app from Nike Training Club on my phone that I’m dying to use.  I just need to GET OFF MY ASS!

I did get to a class I really like taking at my gym last Monday even though it’s a complete kick in the ass every time.  Strike: “...powered by Everlast. Strike Zone is the latest signature format to be offered at Life Time Fitness. It is an intense, kickboxing-inspired workout, sponsored by Everlast. Challenge yourself with this full-body interval workout that incorporates traditional kickboxing combinations done with optional weighted gloves, controlled weight-bearing movements and athletic drills. This is NOT your typical kickboxing class!”  And this isn’t just any Strike Class, its Strike with Holly. Double, triple, quadruple the pain.  As I left her class the other day I thought to myself ‘I will not feel like I have accomplished anything fitness-wise until I can get through just ONE of her classes without stopping in the middle’.  I may need to talk to her about that though.  She may make it so challenging on purpose, so we constantly feel like we have more to work towards.  On a positive note, I rarely feel sore the next day so that tells me one of two things: 1) I’m already in awesome shape (HA!) 2) I’m not trying hard enough to be sore the next day.  I’m going with #1  J

Anyway, so back to my Training Days schedule. Today my goal is to find a training plan I can work with and physically make a Half Marathon Training board to hang up in my house.  Nothing like ‘in your face’ accountability.  I’ll have to look at that board everyday and know either ‘Yes I got my miles in for the day’ or’ No I still need to do that!’.  I grew up Catholic, nothing like a little guilt motivation to get me going.  Haha!  I’m thinking that I’ll have to skip running on the weekends, since those are always so screwed up.  Stick to training to weekdays where my schedule is more predictable.  My kids are almost at an age where if I wanted to go for a run on Saturday morning before they got up I think they would be fine.  Especially if my husband were home (sleeping no doubt).  Of course this means I can’t be drinking and hanging out at the ball field all night on Fridays….. J  

Not exactly a Forming Day update, but is sorta kinda is.....

"Let thy Food be thy Medicine and thy Medicine be thy Food" - Hippocrates. That is the message from the founding father of modern medicine.

In my efforts for not only me but my family to eat healthier, I ventured into the world of Whole Foods and Trader Joes this weekend.  My decision to shop there is two-fold.  One, for the reason I just stated; two, my 9 yr old son was diagnosed with ADD about a year and a half ago.  I have never been super happy with having him on medication (which we only gave him during the school year) and we really weren’t seeing markedly improved results with what he was taking.  Even after adjusting the dosage, we still weren’t thrilled with what we were seeing.  Perhaps deep down it was the fact that I don’t like giving my kids medicine unless it is really, Really, REALLY necessary.  After some research, I am going to try keeping him off medication and drastically altering our diet to see if eating as much organic, non-chemically treated, non processed foods as we can afford will have any effect on him.  Even if this idea fails, we all will end up eating healthier foods so the way I see it, we win either way. Anyway, back to the grocery stores…

Finally!!  Ingredients that I can pronounce!  Meats that do not have hormones and fillers and colors added to them!  Cereal that I don’t buy my kids begrudgingly! (Hell even if at $5/box I don’t feel the guilt of knowing I am essentially buying chemical laden crap for my kids to eat. I did feel the guilt of the price tag and how to explain that to my husband…) And fruits and veggies that are grown the way I would grow them, with no pesticides or chemicals added.  This was fantastic!  It will take some adjusting to phase out the junk currently in our kitchen but I think it’s going to be well worth it.  Allow me to say that for about 3 years before I got married I didn’t eat ANY red meat, but then in a moment of sheer starvation I gave in to some ribs from Texas Roadhouse and it’s been all downhill from there with the meat (I remember that moment so clearly, where I was, what I was wearing, etc.  Scary!). I’ve said to John several times recently that I would go vegetarian again if I weren’t the only one in the family that wanted to do so.  John is a diehard meat eater….. He would eat only red meat if he were single.  Ugh, I just dry heaved thinking about that.

 Anywho…… so I went through Whole Foods with John last week before we actually needed to grocery shop so we could get an idea as to what we would be paying for food in the future.  That way we weren’t so sticker shocked when it came time to put food on the table.  Wow!  It will be an adjustment to our budget but in my opinion well worth the sacrifice.  As a parent I want to give my kids the best that I can, and so for us that includes spending a little extra on foods we feel good about.  However an analogy that I thought of as we were walking through the store was (bear with me here, I will bring it all full circle so it makes sense) “This must be the way American companies must feel regarding labor costs.”  Here’s my rationale- Over the past several years more and more American businesses have been either paying to have their companies moved overseas where the labor is cheaper, or paying for the cheaper labor here in the States (most often to illegal immigrants that they don’t have to report and who are willing to work for less than National minimum wage standards) so much so that it would be nearly financially impossible for them to take a moral stand and go back to hiring only employees who can be documented.  Well, WE, the American consumer are those companies.  We have become so accustomed to paying only $1.99/lb for boneless, skinless, hormone filled, processed chicken breast that the thought of paying $5.99/lb for chicken that isn’t filled with all those toxins is more than our budgets can withstand.  Especially in this tight economy where almost 10% of Americans are out of work and an unaccounted for number of Americans have stopped looking for work altogether.  So we continue to buy food devoid of much nutritional value because we can’t afford not to.  Phew, deep breath!  That was way deeper than I thought I would go!  

I watched a documentary two weeks ago called ‘Food Matters’ on Netflix (http://www.foodmatters.tv/_webapp/View%20Film%20Online)  which attempts to show us that “With nutritionally-depleted foods, chemical additives and our tendency to rely upon pharmaceutical drugs to treat what's wrong with our malnourished bodies, it's no wonder that modern society is getting sicker. Food Matters sets about uncovering the trillion dollar worldwide 'sickness industry' and gives people some scientifically verifiable solutions for overcoming illness naturally.” (Excerpted from the website above).  This film really has helped propel my line of thinking and validated some of the thoughts I have had for years.  I am very excited to see how our bodies change as we begin to eat more healthily, especially as John & I train for this half marathon.  A final analogy (I’m really big on those, it helps me understand things better): I wouldn’t put diesel fuel in my Toyota Camry because it would junk up the insides of my car and it wouldn’t run properly.  Same with the food I chose to put in my body.  This isn’t to say that I won’t have moments of weakness; a hot Krispy Kreme is a hot Krispy Kreme!  So goodbye Cheese-Its, goodbye Capt Crunch, goodbye Doritos, and goodbye Coke (a cola)….. It’s been real. :) 

Netflix Day 27

We’re just about at the end of our 30 day free trial of Netflix and I’m pretty surprised at how much my whole family has taken to it like a moth to a flame.  The kids discovered Inspector Gadget the other day and so that has been the new obsession for them.  My 9 yr old son runs to get the mail just about every day (he even asks to get the mail on Sunday) in case there is a new red envelope with a movie in it.  My 7 yr old daughter is a TV baby (she could sit and watch for hours and barely move) so she’s happy with just about anything that’s on.  John started watching Pawn Stars, which he never watched before, and is now addicted.  That show is pretty cool. I’m still making my way through the Weeds series, up to Season 3 episode 5 I think.  I was doing pretty good till John said last week, “I cant believe you watch that without me, I kinda liked that show too ya know.” (insert pout here) Damn it John you are rarely home at night and now I have to wait until you’re sitting on the couch with me to watch it?  Not pleased and I'm thinking that won’t last much longer…

So with all this happiness with Netflix I’ve been wondering lately what the downsides are/will be.  I found out one of them last night…. Since Netflix operates on Wi-Fi, it stands to reason that when the Wi-Fi isn’t available your streaming isn’t available either.  My Wi-Fi was fluctuating last night, you know, coming in and out of service, while I was trying to watch Ghost Adventures (since I guess I’m not supposed to watch Weeds) and every 10 minutes or so the screen would freeze and say ‘receiving’  UGH! A show that should have taken 48 minutes to get through was more than an hour! I even remember thinking; I’d rather be fast-forwarding through commercials than waiting on this. (On a side note, I’ve noticed that my attention span is dwindling more and more lately. I need to work on that) I ended up sleeping through the ending, damn it. 

Speaking of sleeping with the TV on, in a fit of irritation last week with crap that happened that costs us over $2k to fix, I called DirecTV to cancel our account.  So no more TV in the bedroom.  First, allow me to explain… last Wednesday the transmission to one of our vehicles AND the AC to our house went out. SHIT! When stuff like that happens that costs a lot of money my very first reaction is to cut all unnecessary costs to minimize the damage to our budget.  Since DirecTV was on the chopping block anyway, I just called a week or so early.  The guy on the phone was really really good.  He just about offered us the moon if we would stay on with DirecTV.  OK, for real he offered to waive our DVR service for the next 2 years (costs us about $5/month) and take the package that we currently are paying $29/month for and make it $15/month for 2 years.  Wow dude that was pretty enticing but no thanks.  Unless you can magically make TV not suck AND throw in no commercials ever I think I’ll stick with Netflix.  Good try though.  So back to me sleeping with the TV on….. I told you I’d have to go cold turkey and I did, and I’m not cool with it yet.  I’ve slept with the TV on for years, so this will take some adjusting.  I have an app on my phone that plays the sound of the ocean that I’ve been using (I totally miss the beach) so that is helping. However I’m pretty sure that I’ll be reading books on my iPhone soon.  I downloaded a sample of “The Help” last night and read a few pages. That calmly sent me into Dreamland where I dreamt that my favorite restaurant in NC, Smithfield's, opened a location here in Cincinnati!  J Imagine my disappointment when I woke up! No good bbq for me till Nov when we head to NC for my race. L

Only a few more days left of this 30 days so my next entry will be my last regarding Netflix.  Stay tuned though for my Half Marathon training updates! Have a great day! 

Forming Day 21

I’ve had a week full of reasons why I didn’t train hard…… Number 1 reason though-the AC in our house went out.  During one of the hottest weeks on record for our area and for 3 days we have no air conditioning.  Nothing zaps your energy or patience like a hot house. I even considered pitching our tent in the back yard and camping since at night it was cooler outside than it was in our house. By Friday when I had finally had enough and was 2 seconds from booking a room at Great Wolf Lodge the repair man calls and says our motor is ready to be picked up!  There is a God!!!  I’m not exaggerating when I say our upstairs was over 100*.  So with the assistance of my fantastic brother-in-law Mike, John was able to get it up and running again by Saturday morning.  Ahhhhhhhh  J  And so prepping for my first Half Marathon resumed Saturday afternoon which was fueled by the announcement that one of my sisters (I have 4!) will be running the race with me and  John!  YEA!!!  I’m so happy!  She’s living in Denver so this will be a fantastic way of getting to hang out with her while doing something we both enjoy, running. 

So with the knowledge that Sara will be along for the ride I’m now extra motivated to train.  Well, I’m extra motivated for her to train also, she’ll be running the full marathon with a friend of John’s from the Marines and we have a bet going that she can beat him.  Sara, a 23 yr old former college soccer star and runner extraordinaire WILL beat a former Marine who I believe just turned 30 (and I will be $25 richer)…. Yea she’s got this in the bag!  She shared with me her marathon training poster that is hanging on the back of her front door to her apartment.  Every day she has to look at it and either think to herself, ‘yep I got my miles in for the day!’ or ‘damn I have to get out there!’ I love the idea of the visual accountability.  Once I roll into my actual Training Days (coming up soon!!) I think something like that would be great for me.  I’m a very visual person and if I don’t see it, it gets forgotten about… this would be a great tool for me.  

Speaking of Training Days, it just so happens that once the kids go back to school I will have exactly 13 weeks to prepare for the OBX Half.  This also happens to be exactly how long my boot camp was; coincidence? I don’t think so.  Although this time there will be no gas chamber, or rifle range, or chow hall duty.  I would love it if Jillian Michaels were yelling at me DI style though, man she is awesome!  I will however still be waking up at zero-dark-thirty to get the kids on the bus.  Haha!  It has been extremely challenging to get miles logged with Thing 1 & Thing 2 home all day and John at work (stupid night shift!) so I’m really looking forward to ‘Jen time’ starting Aug 18^th. 

With the ‘forming’ that I’ve been working on, I can see and feel my body changing and that is definitely a good thing.  In fact I wore a 2 piece bathing suit yesterday that I haven’t fit into in a couple of years, WHICH felt awesome!!  I told you that I am visual so having that profile picture on FB which I also uploaded to my phone as my background has really helped.  The constant reminder of my ‘goal body’ helps me when I want to eat junk or be lazy about getting to the gym. My abs and arms are taking on tone they haven’t seen since I was 22 and my legs are getting lean and strong.  I need to keep this up, I feel fantastic.  J  When I think about eating a piece of cake, or donuts, or Oreos with peanut butter on them I just look at the caloric content.  Imaging how long it will take me on the treadmill to work off those calories is usually deterrent enough.  Who likes doing extra work?? 

 So just a few more weeks and my real work begins!  I’m really excited!!!  Now to answer the really hard question….. what will I wear to the race?!?!  ;)

Netflix Day 19

Netflix price increase, to stay or not stay…. That is the question.  According to a company  press release (http://www.marketwatch.com/story/netflix-to-offer-new-unlimited-dvd-plans-and-will-separate-streaming-and-dvd-plans-in-the-us-2011-07-12?siteid=nbsh) we should expect big changes from Netflix come Sept 1 for existing members.  To say some customers are unhappy with this change is an understatement and I have to say that I certainly can sympathize with their feelings.  From the outside looking in it does seem like Netflix is raising prices to increase profits. In Aug of 2010, stocks of Netflix were about $100/share and as of this publishing time they were trading at $282.  I mean if they have been profitable all along why rock the boat?  It seems to me that if they were turning a profit at $100/share, $282/share is sitting pretty nice.  But that is purely speculation and we have no official word from the company as to why they are doing this. I’ve read message boards, FB pages, comments on web articles and the general consensus seems to be that  people that are fairly ticked about this; so ticked in fact that they have canceled their subscriptions. Now I’ve felt strongly about things in the past that I have taken similar measures but for this situation I don’t feel it warrants that level of action.  The whole point of my family switching from DirecTV to Netflix was to save money and customize our TV watching experience (less crap for the kids to watch and NO commercials).  That is exactly what Netflix offers, at a substantially reduced price.  If I were a new DirecTV customer their basic package includes 150 channels (who really watches all those channels like C-SPAN?) will run me $60.99/month BEFORE high def or DVR services.  Keep in mind that is only the basic package, prices increase from there up to $114.99/month. Yikes!  And those are for the shows they want you to see!  As a new customer of Netflix, at the new rate of $7.99/month for unlimited streaming and $7.99/month for 1 DVD at a time ($11.99/month for 2 DVDs at a time) I could expect to pay a total of $15.98/month. So for a savings of over $530/year I get exactly what I want; save money and customize our TV watching experience.  In my opinion even the higher price of Netflix is better than anything from DirecTV.  

Netflix Day 15

Two weeks, man has two weeks already gone by?  This summer is flying by! OK, update time.  The kids have settled in quiet nicely to Netflix, they don’t even ask to watch ‘normal’ TV anymore.  As long as there are episodes of HeMan for my son he’ll be happy.  I have a few more old school cartoons lined up for them next on the Instant Queue- Bugs Bunny, Pink Panther, Tom & Jerry, etc.  I feel much more confident with them watching cartoons on Netflix than I do with just popping on a Cartoon Network or Boomerang on ‘regular’ TV.  For me it comes down to influencing my kids; whether that’s through (poor) choice of words for the characters on the show, how they dress the kids (do not even get me started there) or the bombardment of commercials for crap I would never buy at volumes that are more than a bit ridiculous. I want to be the primary influence on my kids for as long as I can.  And when they need therapy as adults I can solely take the blame and not say, “It was those damn kids’ TV shows when they were younger”  I’m just saying, today’s kids are growing up with ads in their faces at levels we could not fathom when we were that young.  I do the best I can at controlling what comes into their influence.  When I was a little girl I spent a lot of time at my grandparent’s house, they have had a wonderfully, strong, positive impact on my life.  But for the life of me when I was 7 I could never understand why they would never let me watch TV when I was there… I mean NEVER.  My grandma called it the ‘boob tube’ and said it would rot my brain.  And like most things our elders said to us as kids I didn’t believe her however as an adult I now see how right she was.  Between her influence on me and the absolute downhill spiral that children’s tv has taken over the past 15 years, I’m sure that is why I feel the way I do about my kids watching the television.  I know this blog is supposed to be about Netflix not my opinion of tv, however I feel that the two have a direct correlation.  Without crappy TV and horrible commercials today, I would only feel half as strongly about ‘the boob tube’.  J

The other morning when my 9 yr old son woke up he said, “mom what do you watch on Netflix when we go to bed because I can hear you laughing” I’m sure he heard me laughing my ass off last night at Daniel Tosh standup comedy.  OMG, standup comedy?!?!  I hadn’t even thought about standup comedy on Netflix but my husband had and holy crap that was funny! That just opened up a whole new genre for us to watch.  I don’t even know where to begin in my search…. Do you have any recommendations??  We looked for Rodney Carrington last night but no luck there.  I love love love standup comedy so this will be an interesting evolution in my TV watching.  I used to watch Comedy Central but they started showing soo many commercials and SO LOUD that I just ended up just changing the channel.  This is awesome.  I’m excited to watch TV again…..  wait, I think I just came up with what Netflix new slogan should be, “Netflix, a reason to get excited about TV again.  What you want to watch when you want to watch it with no commercials” I like it, maybe I’ll pitch this blog and that slogan to them and make my millions.  Then I can just sit back and watch Netflix all day!  Haha!!

As a departing thought, the TV in my bedroom…  I’m highly aware that when we cancel DirecTV that I’ll be giving that up.  I’ve tried to convince myself that weaning would be the best way.  You know, only watch on certain nights, or only for 30 minutes (if I stay awake that long) however each night as I crawl into bed I think ‘maybe tomorrow I’ll start weaning.’  It never happens.  I’m thinking going cold turkey is going to be more like it.  Just bam no more TV in the bedroom.  It will force me to read more which I really enjoy doing anyway. Now that will be a blog posting worth reading…. Jen minus the TV in her room…

Have a great day and send me your suggestions for stand up comedians! 

Forming Day 9

Weekends off from exercise cannot last…… not if I intend to be serious about training.   I play on a ladies softball team on Friday nights in the summer so I use that as my excuses to not only skip my Friday gym session but then Saturday as well since I might be sore.  (I rarely am sore)  Stuff sometimes does come up that I can’t work out on the weekends but in general if I wanted to it could happen.  I really need to buckle down and start getting my head in the game.  I told you from Forming Day 1 that I need accountability and so with that I think I’m going to start running with the MoJo running group every other Saturday morning.  Huge, I know.  If people are expecting me then I will be there.  Why every other Saturday you ask?  My husband’s work schedule has him working every other weekend so for now that is what it will have to be.  I’m really looking forward to running with people of different skill sets and being pushed to go further and run harder.  To be challenged!  Speaking of being challenged…..

So I was running at Lifetime Fitness yesterday and luckily my favorite treadmill was available.  Next to it was two women who had just gotten started on their run and had a pretty good pace going.  I was feeling like it was going to be a great run- my fav treadmill that allows me to watch ESPN and unwilling running partners.  J  I know I  have mentioned that I am competitive so every time the girls upped their speed I upped mine as well (I swear I probably have a mental condition that doesn’t allow me to just ENJOY something, it has to be a competition!)  We settled in at a great pace, 6.5 and no incline.  When we first got to 6.5 I thought there is NO way I’ll be able to keep this up but I really surprised myself and lasted 2.5 miles there.  I was really really impressed with myself!  Now they went on and did 3 miles but I was so happy with my ability to maintain that pace.  THAT is the kind of challenge I need, I would have NEVER pushed myself to run at 6.5 but thanks to those strangers I realized  that I can do something I hadn’t thought possible!  Yea Me!!  However it certainly didn’t help my ego when as I was leaving my post run sweat session I saw the ladies in a cardio class…. Come on!!! 

Something that I have started to think about is my diet.  I’m pretty conscience of what I eat/drink in general.  Now that doesn’t mean I always make the healthiest choice, but I’m at least CONSCIENCE of the junk I’m putting in my mouth. Haha!  I heard Jillian from The Biggest Loser one time say that she only allows her people to drink water that way they aren’t using up their allotted daily calories on drinks.  I like this line of thinking and so I try to drink as much water as I can during the day (after my 4 cups of coffee in the morning!) so I’m free to eat more during the day.  In general I eat fairly healthy but I really really like junk food.  Wait, allow me to rephrase- I like the way junk food tastes, I hate the way it makes my body feel.   I try to remember how gross I feel after eating chips with my lunch as a deterrent from making that choice again; it works about 75% of the time.  ;)  And as always when I start working out, I notice my metabolism working harder, my body slimming down and so I think I can eat whatever I want since I’m burning more calories now…… One would think that after 20 some odd years of watching what I eat and exercising that I would learn.  I just moved beyond that phase, thank goodness it’s usually a short phase.  Last week I was eating like no bodies business.  Ice cream, chips, Sour Patch Kids, etc.  Somehow I still managed to lose a little weight so I think to myself “if I could exercise AND eat correctly how awesome would this be?”   That is my goal for the week, to start being extremely aware of what I eat and asking myself if what I am eating is a hindrance or helper to my goal of running a Half Marathon….  Why would I want to create more work for myself by eating crap that will only make me have to work out more just to burn off?  I’ll NOT be giving up beer though, I’m only human!  I will be cutting back on how often I have a few though.  Softball games wouldn’t be the same without a giant plastic cup of good old American Bud Lite! 

Have a great week everyone and please keep posting your questions/comments!  I’ve noticed that you will have to log in to your Google account to make a comment though so keep that in mind.  I love hearing your thoughts on this blog!!  Take care and happy trails!!!

Jen

Netflix Day 8

A week plus a day and we’re still on board with Netflix.  Last night I was feeling a bit apathetic about the whole thing since it really is work to find title that you want to watch.  Usually when I sit down to watch TV (you already know I’m not really a TV fan) I really don’t want to watch it; I just want to sit there and zone out for a few minutes and if I’m lucky catch a quick nap.  This is where I like the ‘guide’ that DirecTV offers…. No thinking to it, just scroll through and select from what’s available. 

So in very un-Jen fashion, this morning I logged on to Netflix.com to see if I could find any selections to add to our queue.  Until now I let John take care of that, I can’t be bothered with trivial stuff like that…. Not that I’m better than that, I just don’t have the attention span for it and I don’t really care.  I was expecting to find more of what I’ve been seeing when selecting what to watch from our Wii.  Not At All… On the website is not only what John has set up but suggestions based on what we have in our queue.  I was amazed!  Oh the documentaries, National Geographic, History Channel, PBS!!  I’ve found the Holy Grail of TV watching for me!  I could sit all day and look for more to add to our queue.  But I have this posting to write and more things to do than I will be able to accomplish today so….  I selected about 8 films to watch (maybe on my phone?) and I logged off not before stumbling upon all three Back to the Future movies!!  I’ve been waiting for those at the library forever! I would have to say my apathetic attitude may have been a bit premature; I’m now excited to sit down and watch TV.  (I must note that I typed *not* excited and had to go back and change it to *now* excited, a Freudian mistake perhaps?) Either way I now have a lot to watch and still very little time to watch it…. Oh I wonder if Sex & the City is on there??  J

Now, I’ve received a few messages from some of you regarding watching news/sports/live TV so I’d love to talk about that for a moment. There are so many ways to stay up to date with what’s going on that I don’t even miss watching the news.  I follow one of our local news channels on FB so I’m up to date on what’s going on in our area.  It’s never good news so I rarely click on the link to read the story and their site isn’t mobile friendly for my iPhone; it takes too long to load.  (There goes my attention span thing again).  However, on the home screen of the Wii, there is a ‘news’ icon, a ‘weather’ icon, and an internet icon.  The news is a general news channel much like what is streaming on AOL- national and global headlines that you can click on to get the full story.  The weather you can customize to your general area.  So if you live in a major city you’ll have no worries getting your local forecast.  Just for fun I wanted to see if our old town in NC would be available to view and alas it is not… Jacksonville, NC, was the closest city to where we lived so I set that as our default city on it just to irritate John.  Hehe! As for sports, sigh….  I do miss sports on TV.  I’ve heard people say that they use Netflix as their excuse to go to a sports bar to watch the game and that would be a great excuse except 95% of the time John is at work so I have Thing 1 & Thing 2 (my affectionate term for my kiddos).  Bringing a 9 yr old and a 7 yr old to BW3 isn’t really my idea of a good time.  That is an issue I’m still working through….  Sunday’s US Women’s Cup is already on my radar… MUST FIND A PLACE TO WATCH!! 

Well, I believe that I’ve covered all I wanted to cover today.  My daughter is currently engrossed in episodes of Popeye (1936!).  Great quality cartoons, the complete opposite of the crap they produce today… plus I’ll reiterate NO COMMERCIALS!!  I need to get her moving and my son out of bed if I’m going to tackle my to-do list for the day.  Keep sending me your thoughts/questions! I love hearing from you!!  Have a great day!!

Jen 

OBX- Forming Day 3

Forming Day 3...... The week has been good so far with gearing my body up for when the Training Days will begin. I did accomplish my goal of 2.25 miles Monday on the treadmill, yea! I used an incline of 1.0 and an average speed of 5.9 for the entire run. If there is a way of figuring out what my HMP (Half Marathon Pace, that's a runners term. I'm so happy to use a runners term!) is in terms of treadmill speed that would be an excellent tool for training. Do you know of one? If so, please pass it along!

Yesterday I did laps with my husband at the outdoor pool at our gym, Lifetime Fitness. (www.lifetimefitness.com) It felt amazing to be in the water again, but I'll be honest it's never flattering to put on a Speedo. Whoever makes those cannot be a swimmer or they would invent a magical material that wouldn't make you feel like you were trying to squeeze yourself into a sausage roll. But then again I suppose that new magical material would not be beneficial to my times now would it? I just want something that doesn't take a jumping act to get into. Anyway, so I donned my Speedo and swimming cap and off I went. Man I love swimming, every time I swim I ask myself why I don't do this more often? For me there is such freedom in swimming, maybe more so than running because when you're in the water it's JUST you. No partner, no music, no traffic honking at you to get off the road. :) I love it. I went out for my high school swim team as a freshman mostly because I wanted an activity for the winter because funny enough, basketball was too much running for me! haha I really ended up loving it and swam events that I didn't think I would, namely the 500 Freestyle. It came about as a fluke of sorts.... our team was losing and the 500 Free event was coming up. Our coach Mr. Larick, asked if anyone wanted to swim it just to give us as many points as possible. I told him that if he bought my dinner at Frisch's after the meet that I would swim it. He said 'sure' and so I did. Now as I'm getting in the water he says, 'you know it's 20 laps down and back right?' Oh Jesus, what did I volunteer for??!?! It wasn't as bad as I thought and in fact it became a regular event for me from then on. Even now when I'm swimming I can hear in my mind not only Mr. Larick but my teammate cheering for me as I swim, "pull! pull! kick! kick!" Memories!

I would be remiss if I didn't mention that I lapped my husband more than 6 times.... I actually stopped keeping track after 6 because he put flippers on. Cheater!!!! After 45 minutes of laps I timed myself for the last one and eh..... not terrible but not amazing either. 55 seconds. I'll time myself when I first go out next time to see what I've got. :)

Something I would like to touch on for a moment, appreciating someone else's athletic style. While in the pool yesterday I noticed that every time I took a break at the end of the lane, a woman sitting nearby was looking at me. I started to wonder 1) did I owe her money, or 2) did she think I was cute? hahaha! It was only after she put on a swim cap and started her own laps did I realize she was watching my form. That is the point I want to make; as an athlete there is great satisfaction in watching another athlete perform. Whether you're looking for a few tips on how you can be better or just have an admiration for the sport, watching someone else perform can be fascinating. Maybe in a way we are watching ourselves perform by admiring another person. So instead of getting testy that she was watching me, I was flattered. She after all had beautiful style in the water. :)

Today on Forming Day 3 I believe I will take the day off. Lots to do with the kids but tomorrow will be a real 'hit it' kind of day at the gym. I have some new music on my IPod I want to workout to, that surely will inspire me to push it 5 more reps, .25 more miles, etc. Love those kinds of days!

BTW, I've already backed down my coffee intake from 6 to 4 cups a day. :) Have a great one and feel free to comment or ask a question!!

Netflix Day 6

It's been almost a week and I've just about (pardon the pun) burned through the entire first season of Weeds. Mama like... :) Netflix has been fantastic for commercial free television watching. I'm not sure how long the episodes of Weeds were when they were on the air, but here I can watch one in 28 minutes. I think the bad girl in me is fascinated by the main character doing something so 'bad' in the middle of suburbia and not only under the noses of, but in many cases with the assistance of some well known people of the community. Great writing and great acting by the cast. I'm just starting to see a few underlying traits to the characters so it should be very interesting to see how they evolve.

There are two topics I like to discuss in this posting; ordering Netflix DVDs, and the ability to watch Netflix on your smartphone. Both completely genius concepts.

First, ordering Netflix DVDs.... I mentioned in a previous posting that some of the movies we cannot watch instantly and that has been a bit of a let-down. Fortunately, my husband came to the rescue and ordered a movie for the kids that they were really looking forward to watching on DirecTV. He ordered in on Sunday I believe and we received in yesterday. FAST! When they movie came in, my 9 yr old son said, "Cool, we're doing that now too?!" Again I'll reiterate that the word is out among kids that Netflix is the way to watch TV. He knew that having the movie was only temporary and that once we returned it we could have another one. Amazing. So we watched one of the Star Wars flicks last night, they loved it. I loved not having to fast forward through any commercials. I was very surprised at the quality of the DVD. I assumed that like most movies that you can borrow (from the library, friends, or even Redbox) that they would be scratched and cut out 2/3 of the way through the movie. Not the case at all. No issues for the duration of the entire movie. Score one for Netflix. :)

Second, watching Netflix on my phone?? When my husband told me we could do that I about fell over. "Are you serious? Awesome!" Download the app to your phone, log on to your account and not only are the shows you've previously watched there but you can search, add to your queue, and pause your viewing only to pick back up in the exact same place later either on your phone OR at home. That blew my mind. I have to tell you, I fight the urge to watch Weeds every time I get in the car. Speaking of watching Netflix in the car.... we have yet to tell our kids that we now have this ability. I'll never get my phone back if I have to constantly hear "can I watch TV?" every time we're going out. As it is we listen to stories on tape in my car and that keeps the noise level down to an acceptable volume, TV would ruin that balance I have worked hard at not only creating but maintaining. (Yes I said tapes, I currently drive a 99 Camry that has a tape player in it. Go ahead and laugh if you want to but I have Pandora streaming through my phone into the tape player and out my car speakers without having to find a usable FM channel :) Anyway, Netflix has been great. I was out waiting for my husband the other day and since I had some time to kill I watched a few more episodes of Weeds. I can see this feature being an additional instigator of my inability to focus for very long. Before this, if I had 2 minutes I would hop on FB to see what was going on. Now if I have 10 minutes or more, I'm watching TV. What the hell??? I'm going to have to keep my eye on that. I can see how having Netflix on the phones will be helpful next time we drive to NC for vacation. Each kid gets their own (our phones) and all will be right with the world....

So far so good with Netflix. Considering cutting back on the TV watching in the bedroom so it isn't such a drastic change once we get rid of DirecTV altogether. I said considering..... :)

Have a great day everyone!

OBX Half- Forming Day 1

I've always done well when I set goals for myself. I can't just say, "I'm going to go for a run" because then at mile 1.5 I'll start getting tired and want to quit all the while justifying it by silently telling myself "you did run". Yes I ran, but I didnt challenge myself to go beyond what I already know I can achieve. I have to tell myself before I even take my first stride, "I want to run xx miles". Or if I dont define how many chips I'm going to eat by actually using a plate/bowl there is a good chance I'm going to make a complete pig of myself if I eat straight out of the bag. I have to have goals if I want to be successful.

So last night as I was getting ready for bed I was thinking ' how can I make the goal of running this Half marathon not only achievable but ENJOYABLE? That's the key! I'm not going to enjoy physically pushing myself (mostly by myself since I dont yet have a running partner) so this is going to have to be interesting, planned out in advance, and dare I say fun and running in the same sentence?! So then I thought back to the last extremely physical goal I achieved, becoming a Marine. That wasnt fun but the small goal of getting through each day was enough for me at the age of 19. The "Forming Days" and then moving on to the "Training Days", so that is how I am going to approach my training now. I have 119 days from today until the OBX Half- more than enough time. I'm going to use the first 21 days as my "Forming Days" to pick up on my miles and in general ease into the training schedule that I found to use. (More on that in a few). Training Day 1 will begin Aug 1 and Training day 99 will culminate my efforts with Race Day on Nov 12.

As for my training schedule I found this article at www.runnersworld.com and I'm hoping it will be helpful.

http://www.runnersworld.com/article/0,7120,s6-238-244-258-9369-0,00.html

Any training program that allows me to start with an Easy Day is awesome! :) But getting ready for this race is going to be tougher than I thought. I never thought about doing 'speed work' or even how I would go about doing that, or how many laps is 400/800/1600 repeaters on a track? However that speed work will benefit me outside of this run also (soccer and softball teams may appreciate a faster Jen but probably not any tennis opponent I will face!) so that is additional incentive to get my butt moving and go find a measuring tape!

One thing I learned last night is my tempo run (the speed at which I run) for the Half is a bit faster than I would have thought. Basically it told me to take my 5K pace and add 35 seconds to each mile, this gave me a estimated expected run time of 2:18 for the Half. Now I cant be happy with just saying "I can run it in 2:18", no..... I told you I'm competitive if nothing else, even against myself.... my personal goal is to break 2 hrs. That's a tall order but I feel good about saying that it will be a challenge but I can do it!

OK, I'm off to begin my Forming Day 1! I'm excited and ready to do this! But first I need my kids to wake up so I can take them to the gym with me and I MUST have my coffee. As this training evolves there is a secret little part of me that wants to give up that daily habit of coffee. I cant believe I just said that, I LOVE coffee! I just dont like being dependent on anything.... More on that later I suppose. Have a great day everyone! I WILL run 2.25 miles today!

My 'Coming Out' Day...

I made it official today.... I 'came out' to the world via FaceBook that I'm going to run a half marathon. OMG am I nuts? Why would a person want to do that?? 13.1 miles of consecutive running? That will take me like 2 1/2-3 hrs of non-stop running..... Seriously.... My reasons are 2 fold:

1) running for me so far has not been all that challenging. I ran a 10K Turkey Trot last Thanksgiving without training for it and still came in at 1hr 12 mins. I want to push myself to do something outside my comfort zone. I ran in the Marines and while I NEVER got in the slacker van I wasn't all that strong compared to the boys I worked with. I want to be stronger.

2) my husband ran a full marathon last year and I'm nothing if I'm not competitive. Nuff said.

The race I've selected is http://www.obxmarathon.org/site3.aspx The Outer Banks Half Marathon starts in Kitty Hawk and the finish line is in downtown Manteo. I mean if I'm going to run 13.1 miles shouldn't my view be fantastic for most of the course?!? Plus, I'm a NC beach girl at heart so this is just another excuse to get there. :)

So I need to start training, reading, and find a person to completely critique my running form so I can be better. I told you I'm competitive. I'll be blogging as I progress so you can follow along with me as I make this journey. If you have any serious tips or suggestions feel free to leave them here.

Happy Trails!

Netflix Day 2/ Day 3

So yesterday we told the kids that we are transitioning from DirecTV to Netflix and their reaction wasn't at all what we expected. I expected tears, drama, and cries of dissent, instead the conversation went like this, (me) "hey kids I have bad news. We're not going to have DirecTV soon." (my 9 yr old son excitedly asks) "Are we getting Netflix instead???" So apparently the word is out among 9 yr old that Netflix is the way to go, am I that behind the times as a woman in my EARLY 30's? They were ecstatic about the prospect of having anything their heart's desired at the push of a button. John & I set up a few shows that we knew they liked as well as a few from our childhood that we thought they would enjoy (He-Man, She-Ra, Pink Panther, etc). Turns out the first thing they asked to watch was "Pippy Longstocking"; we just finished listening to that story in the car. In fact they are watching it again as I type this.

We were playing around with the search menu last night to see more of what is offered and it turns out that quite a few titles weren't available for immediate watching... that has been a bit of a disappointment for us. I'm not sure if we can order the DVD's to be sent to our house or if they just arent streaming anymore. According to my logic, those titles are still on there so they must be available somewhere, however my logic rarely equates to what is reality. haha!

Netflix offers parental control so that you have to type a code (which you create) in order to even access the main page. This is cool however I am hoping there are more in-depth controls that restrict what the kids can watch according to the ratings. I can already tell that having to type in the code each and every time we want to have the TV on is going to get old real quick so I hope that level of control is available. Plus telling the kids what the code is so they can turn Netflix on if I'm out of the room really defeats the purpose of having the code. We'll have to figure out a solution to that conundrum. Last night when we got in from my softball game they had 20 minutes till bedtime; I wanted to get cleaned up, so I just told them to turn on the DirecTV.

Another cool feature is Netflix keeps a running tab on the home screen as to what you have watched. So if there is a show or movie we particularly enjoyed we can go back to it in our 'Recently Viewed' section instead of having to search for it again, or remember the title. This is a nice feature, especially for the kids. This is also an EXCELLENT accountability tool for an unnamed adult that lives in my house that has to stay up late some nights for his work schedule.... So when "Diary of a Nymphomaniac" showed up yesterday on our 'Recently Viewed' section there were a few words exchanged along the lines of "is that what you want our kids looking at when they are trying to find cartoons?" I don't think we're going to have that problem again.

All and all, so far so good. One issue I know we're going to be dealing with soon is the fact that we have DirecTV in our bedroom. Guess if we decided to stick with Netflix we'll get rid of that TV- which is older than dirt anyway.... I remember my mom watching All My Children on that TV when I was in high school, although honestly that wasn't that long ago. ;)

Feel free to post comments or questions. Have a great weekend!

So we've been thinking of breaking out with Netflix for a while now but lack of information and fear of change kept us from doing that..... We're not in our 20's anymore so change doesn't come around without a fight in this house. We backed down our DirecTV service about a year ago and got an uber basic package. $29/month. TV is crap anyway so why pay $75/month for garbage? Well yesterday we received an offer of free Netflix for 30 days so after a little research we decided to take the plunge, sort of. We are going to use the 30 day trial AND keep our DirecTV service for the time being. We want to see if we can truly be happy with only Netflix, especially since it's not just 2 adults that need to be happy here..... we have a 9 yr old boy and a 7 yr old girl.

When it comes to the kids we really monitor what they watch and try our damnedest to fast forward through any commercials that we can. There's nothing like a Cialis commercial popping on in the middle of 'Wheel of Fortune' or a sultry Herbal Essence commercial during 'America's Funniest Home Videos'. I mean seriously people, those are typically FAMILY television shows and you show a commercial like that..... Like I said, TV is crap, and if I had my way about it we wouldn't have a TV at all but that is a bit idealistic and very unrealistic for 2011. My biggest fear about going only with Netflix is that in this world of "instant gratification" that this will just further this mindset. If a kid grows up only knowing he/she can watch what they want when they want it, what are we teaching them? I kind of like the parameters of having a 'Guide', however even that is just about out the door with Tivo. As it is we record Scooby Doo, Transformers, My Little Pony, etc for them now so what will we be losing if we go only to Netflix? The commercials. So if TV is already on their schedule thanks to Tivo, what we are really paying for is those god-awful commercials that I cant fast forward through fast enough.

Now as for what the hubby and I will watch... we both have a radically different opinion as to what to watch although we both enjoy comedies. That's about the only thing we can agree on when it comes to TV. Family guy is a regular for us once the kids are in bed. :) He likes the Science Channel ( I went to Catholic school as a kid. I never even heard of the Big Bang theory until high school and to this day have issues with believing it), I like PBS. He like Food Network, I'm trying to train for a half marathon- watching Giada de Laurentiis or Guy Fieri making me hungry at 10pm isn't going to help me achieve my goals.... While navigating through the Netflix on our Wii (he has the remote) we were trying to find a movie we both wanted to watch. He's looking for a familiar title, I'm trying to read the movie descriptions. {insert a grumble from me here} We finally decided on Hot Tub Time Machine...... Eh..... but this blog isnt about movie reviews.

With last night as our first experience DirecTV free in over 10 years, I'd have to say it wasnt horrible. Let's see what the day brings today when we break it to the kids, speaking of I hear little feet on the steps now so I'd better wrap this up. More to come soon! Post comments/questions please!