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Three (3!) Things Thursday

Feb 2nd, 2012
by gazelle.
2 comments

1. Today I have the day off work so that I can finish writing my Capstone. Which means that in approximately 10 minutes, I need to log into work remotely and do some work stuff. I hired a new person this week, and she starts next week, and I couldn’t be happier unless she’d been able to start a couple of months ago. I swear if I had a time machine, I would only use it for good!

 

 

2. Seriously – did you catch that first sentence up there? Today I am going to finish writing my Capstone. I have two weeks left of school after today, but that will be reserved for revisions and formatting. All the major writing will be done by 6 pm today! DONE!

 

 

3. I had a great swim again last night with the Amphibious Ambitious One. The pool we’ve been at the last couple of weeks has been so delightfully empty! I hadn’t been feeling my best before getting there, and wasn’t sure how well I’d do, but she talked me into at least giving it a try for 15 minutes. I swam for 30 minutes w/o a break and felt amazing! I definitely need to add more swimming into my week – no idea why it’s such a pain in my ass to do this. Seriously – the pool is a 10  minute walk from my office, is always empty-ish, and I have a 10-punch card. Why can’t I do this 3 days/week?  I feel so amazing after. Maybe once school is done & don’t feel I have to rush home to write every night?

photo credit – the Ambitious One

February 2012 Goals

Jan 31st, 2012
by gazelle.
1 comment

Can you believe that today is the last day of January? 2012 is already 1/12 over! This month was not the way I typically like to start the year, and I think you’ll see that the number of stressors in my life negatively impacted my goal achieving for the month. I am okay with that, because if I weren’t okay with that, then I would be more stressed out, and that helps no one.

So – what was I going to do this month?

January 2012 Goals

  1. Find a daycare for Alvie Bean starting in July! – FAIL! But I really do need to get on this ASAP. July is only 5 months away, and I don’t think the cats are going to be adequate caregivers. We’re on a waiting list, but the earliest that would start would be September.
  2. Purchase and install shelves/storage for Alvie Bean’s room. – FAIL! Dammit. But – we got a carseat! And baby laundry detergent. As soon as I have a place to keep the clothes, I will be washing and folding and storing.
  3. Clean out the office and make it more office-y, and less “place where junk goes to die” – FAIL! This is going to have to wait until I’m done w/ school, but since that’s nearly here…
  4. Minimize work/school stress through the gratuitous use of meditation (oops – typed medication the first time; not the same thing), yoga, and other exercise. – FAIL!

January 2012 Training Goals

  1. Fifteen hours of exercise-related activity. – FAIL! I got about 11.5 hours, which all things considered is okay, I guess. Between the pelvic pain and the additional stress in my life, I’m just pleased that I didn’t quit EVERYTHING 3 weeks ago!
  2. A minimum of five yoga classes – SUCCESS!  Finally – something I actually did! I logged 5 yoga classes & 1 home practice. Yay!
  3. Average one swim/week – FAIL! I only swam twice in January. BUT – my last swim was so awesome, and I’m swimming again tomorrow. So, yay?
  4. Average one bike/week – FAIL! I am finding it very difficult to bike at all anymore, so didn’t log any bike time this month. My knees hit my belly. I need to go back to the fitness center and use the recumbent bike again – that seems a little better.
  5. One walk with the architect every weekend – FAIL! See aforementioned pelvic injury.

 

Well – that doesn’t look good, does it?

BUT – I did have some successes that I need to mention.

  1. I got through my big, stressful work project, sanity intact
  2. I survived the month, sanity intact
  3. Ummm…my sanity is still intact?

Honestly – January was not good to me. Between the giant, enormously stressful work project, finishing up grad school, my dad’s cancer diagnosis, the tree falling on the architect’s truck, and oh, yeah – last Saturday night our furnace stopped working (so happy we don’t live in a SUPER cold place), this was a rough month. Add to that being fairly pregnant, and you have a recipe for crazy, I think.

It’s hard for me to gauge how well I handled all this, as I’m not sure how well I should be handling it all. Sometimes I think I’m okay, and sometimes I think that I could really be doing much better. I have decided that since I still feel fairly sane, that maybe I’m either (a) handling it okay, or (b) repressing and on my way to a huge breakdown at some unknown point in the future. Could go either way, I suppose.

 

ANYWAY – onward and upward…if my February goals look familiar, that’s because they are.

February 2012 Goals

  1. Finish grad school! YAY!
  2. Find a daycare for Alvie Bean starting in July!
  3. Purchase and install shelves/storage for Alvie Bean’s room.
  4. Clean out the office and make it more office-y, and less “place where junk goes to die”
  5. Finalize baby prep lists

February 2012 Training Goals

  1. Fifteen hours of exercise-related activity (total tallied below: 15.5 hours)
  2. Six yoga classes, minimum (estimated time: 7.5 hours)
  3. Five swims, minimum (estimated time: 3.75 hours)
  4. Two 15-minute upper body weights sessions/week (estimated time: 2.25 hours)
  5. Four visits to the fitness center for 30 minutes of cardio (estimated time: 2 hours)

I know that the key for me is exercise, and I don’t think this is overly ambitious. However, I do reserve the right to listen to my body and step back if necessary. It’s going to be a busy month. I am 31 weeks pregnant & will end February at 35.5 weeks pregnant. I have no idea what I’ll be able to do by then. I’m hoping that I can continue to move – at least a little – because I know that will make everything go easier.

So (don’t feel compelled to look at this; it’s my own personal crazy) my training plan for February 2012: Feb 2012 Plan

Happy end of the month!

Three (3!) Things Thursday – super depressing edition

Jan 12th, 2012
by gazelle.
9 comments

1. Last night’s swim wasn’t very good. I’m trying to not be too hard on myself. I got dressed (first time since Monday morning!), left the house (again, first time since Monday!), and got in the water. Also, I looked cute in my maternity suit. BUT – after 250 yds, I started to cramp up in my lower abdomen. Ordinarily, I’d just push through it via my patented process of “ignore the pain until it either goes away or completely sidelines you for an entire season.” However, I am trying to be a good girl and NOT push through pain right now (apparently not as recommended in the 3rd trimester of pregnancy, or honestly, in life). So, I stopped for a breather. Eventually I decided that maybe it was dissipating enough that I could give it another go. yeah, not so much. I ended up walking in the last bit of that lap as soon as my feet touched the ground.  I wouldn’t have been so alarmist, except that’s where all the false labor contractions started earlier this week, and I really would like to not do that again for at least 10 more weeks. SO – all that being said, I totally forgot to have the Ambitious One take a picture of me in my cute maternity suit. SORRY!  Pretend, instead, that this is me:

(used under creative commons license: Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic)

 

2. My dad is finally awake again after his surgery on Tuesday. I don’t think he’s very alert yet, but he was extubated this morning & is breathing on his own. I am going to try not to talk about this too much on my blog because (a) my family reads this blog, and I’d like to try to keep this as a place we don’t have to deal with this too much; (b) I write this blog and am trying super hard to be upbeat, positive, and wicked relaxed/Zen, because I hate crying while writing blog posts;  and (c) I am not here trying to garner sympathy or whatever. Shit happens. Currently shit is happening to my family. And that shit has happened in the form of brain tumors. There is good news – the largest tumors were successfully removed via the surgery. And now, there is waiting. Waiting for the biopsy results so a treatment plan can be made. Waiting for my dad to fully wake up from the surgery. Waiting to find out prognosis. Waiting to have this baby – in NOT LESS THAN 10 WEEKS, Alvie, so stop punching me in the cervix…that avenue is closed – so that I can take him to meet his grandfather.

(I was secretly pregnant in this picture. Please admire how I am managing to NOT look like I’m five seconds away from barfing on everyone! I am a champion!)

3. Um – so something happy? Alvie Bean is super active this week, and when he’s not punching me in the cervix, it’s actually kind of fun. The architect has got to feel a lot of kicks in the last couple of days, which is awesome, because previously the fetus would freeze up every time someone even thought about touching my belly. (He has a bit of performance anxiety.) (Funny side story – I got home from the pool last night as said to the architect, “Guess who kept punching me in the cervix while I was trying to swim?” His response, “The Ambitious One?” ha ha ha ha – fortunately, not.  I think I couldn’t be friends with her anymore if that were the case!  :) )

 

This is a dramatic reenactment, as that is not my belly, and as far as I know, those hands do not belong to the architect. (Used under Creative Common License: Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0) )

 

So – there you are. I hope I didn’t bum anyone out too much. I am going to try to be my regular glass half-full, sunny side up, cheery person, blue skies, puppies, rainbows & unicorns self soon!

Happy (?) Thursday!

The Twelve Days of Gazelle-mas: Day 12 (Back to reality)

Jan 3rd, 2012
by gazelle.
4 comments

Oh, people. I am at work! The 12th day of gazellemas sucks.

There were only 98 new emails, though! That was good.

I had a fantastic New Year’s weekend. I was at the coast with the architect & 8 other good friends. There was so much good food! And lots of wine & booze & beer….and San Pellegrino Aranciata, and Italian Soda (or “pregnant juice” as at least one person called it).

We had a great house right on the beach next to Haystack Rock. The weather was beautiful on New Year’s Day, and then we got a taste of the stormy weather yesterday as we were leaving.  The Cannon Beach vacation guide said that the whales would be migrating by from 12/26 – 1/1, but I didn’t see any. SAD!

I have tons of pics, but haven’t yet downloaded them from the camera, so you’re stuck with this fabulous pic from the Ambitious One on our New Year’s Day walk (it was supposed to be a run, but it turns out I can no longer do that without wanting to cry. Of course, not running also makes me want to cry, which sucks.) ANYWAYS – I walked a couple of miles (and ran for about 2 minutes) on New Year’s Day to keep up my tradition of doing a run every year on New Year’s Day (or 1/2) since 2007. Any my friends, being the awesomesauce people that they are, walked that 2 miles with me before doing a run of their own.

Good times. Good people. And a great sign for a fantastic new year. 2012 is going to be awesome, isn’t it?

 

On the the twelfth day of gazellemas, Amy gave to me:

Twelve days of blogging

Eleven hours remaining

Ten friends celebrating

Nine goals a-making

Eight hours a-sleeping

Seven miles a-cycling

Six yogis posing

FIVE PAIRS OF SHOES!

four pancakes,

three lazy cats,

two empty boxes, and

A Pooh Bear outfit, adorable and twee!

The Twelve Days of Gazelle-mas: Day 11 (workout stats for 2011)

Jan 3rd, 2012
by gazelle.
3 comments

Last day of vacation! So sad! I already miss day 1. :( Sorry this is a bit late – I apparently forgot to hit “schedule” before going on vacation!  BOO!

Overall, I am not terribly displeased with my 2011 stats. The first half of the year I was working on recovering from foot surgery, the second half of the year I was pregnant. I probably could’ve done better, but in the interest of sanity and not being too hard on myself (those are actually pretty huge things), I am letting go of what I “could have” or “should have” done, and just reporting what was.

Running

Total miles: 250.62 – This is my lowest annual total since 2006 (i.e. the year I started running)
Biggest Month: July (67.35 miles)
Longest Run: 15.27 miles (7/31/11)

2010 mileage: 300.72
2009 mileage: 753
2008 mileage: 400.44

Biking

Total miles: 224.52
Biggest Month: July (61.15 miles)
Longest Bike: 30 miles (7/22/11)

2010 mileage: 245.43
2009 mileage: 440.8

Swimming

Total yard: 22,835 (12.97 miles. Also this number is higher than my 2009 total! Yay!)
Biggest Month: June (4,480 yds)
Longest Swim: 2000 yds (9/8/11)

2010 yardage: 60,130 (34.16 miles)
2009 yardage: 18,990 (10.79 miles)

Strength Training Sessions

Total number: 8 (i.e. pathetic!)
Biggest Month: November (3!)

2010 sessions: 16
2009 sessions: 28

I hate strength training, but that’s no excuse, really….this is an area in which I need to do better in 2012!

Yoga Sessions

Total number: 39 (i.e. best since I started tracking in 2008!)
Biggest Month: April & December, with 6 each

2010 sessions: 34
2009 sessions: 17
2008 sessions: 21

This can definitely be better, too. I’d like to average once/week (so 52 sessions/year, even when taking into account my post-partum recovery time).

Races

Number of races: 3
5K: 32:45 (3/13/11 – Shamrock)
10K: 1:04:14 (4/17/11 – Bridge to Brews)
Sprint Tri: 1:51:12 (6/11/11 – Blue Lake)

The tri was a PW, but since it was only my 2nd sprint tri, there weren’t a lot of choices. Neither of the other two were personal worsts, but they certainly weren’t PRs, either….they were, however, fairly soon after I started my foot surgery recovery!

2010 races: 3 (including a 15K PR)
2009 races: 8 (including all but two of my PRs!)
2008 races: 5 (including a 4 mile PR)
2007 races: 4
2006 races: 2 (my first year of running!)

Total Hours

2011: 153.52 hours (average of 25.24/day) – I’ll take it, considering the circumstances
2010: 181.24 hours (average of 29.79/day)
2009: 290.43 hours (average of 47.74/day)

 

I am not sure what to expect for 2012. I am hoping that I can exceed my 2011 stats in all categories, but am not sure how realistic that will be, considering that I will not be running at all for most of the first half of the year (I’ve had to finally say no more running, as it is just ridiculously painful – hardest thing I’ve done in ages).

***

On the the eleventh day of gazellemas, Amy gave to me:

Eleven hours remaining

Ten friends celebrating

Nine goals a-making

Eight hours a-sleeping

Seven miles a-cycling

Six yogis posing

FIVE PAIRS OF SHOES!

four pancakes,

three lazy cats,

two empty boxes, and

A Pooh Bear outfit, adorable and twee!

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