Upping the Ante - A stupid running update

There are 13 weeks remaining until the 1/2 marathon. I have 13 more weeks to be positive and strong and think good thoughts (and then NEVER RUN AGAIN!) (Unless I decide to do a 1/2 in Disneyland so I can get the coast to coast medal. But probably that won't happen). (Probably).

(Unrelated to running, I really like how in The Hunger Games they screw with the sound after Katniss blows up the cornucopia so for those brief minutes it sounds just like it would sound to her)

Anyway, I've decided to do a couple things to help this practicing along. My gym has a deal that for $40 you can do small group training with a trainer on Tuesday/Thursday nights for about a month and a half. I think this would be a good idea so I can do some weight training and build the strength I need to run better. The other is that I'm going to increase my run days. Currently I'm following the Jeff Goolsey method of training which is two days a week for 30 minutes and one long run one day a week, but I'm still concerned I'm not improving enough, so I'm going to up my running days to Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Sunday but keep Saturday and Monday exercise free. (Well, Monday night water aerobics but that barely counts.)

I was diagnosed with Exercise induced asthma (this isn't a new diagnosis. I was actually diagnosed a long time ago, but it has never really bothered me until I started running). So now I have a puffer to use before I exercise. I also was given some daily heartburn medicine since I do have regular heartburn and that can cause asthma problems. We'll see how that goes. I've only been using it for a week.

Pintesting - German Glass Glitter Ornaments

So for this round of the Pintester Movement we've been instructed to make Christmas tree ornaments. Now I live alone. I have no kids. I rarely put up a Christmas tree (although I do have a lovely one I bought back in the early 90s from the Pick & Save in Fairbanks. I think it was $19.95.  I'll let you translate that into an appropriate level of "lovely." I think it is 4 feet tall.)  Anyway, I don't usually put up a tree because who will see it except me? So once I have made my lovely ornament (something about Christmas requires multiple uses of the word "lovely.") I'm going to try to send it to Jodee who blogs over at the Cheeseblarg for her first ever Christmas tree. Why? Because I love cheese. And honestly I don't need a lot of Christmas tree ornaments. Also, I wonder if I could compete with her cheese love. I think I could.

I opted for the German Glass Glitter ornaments for the combined reasons of glitter and theoretical ease of the project. Except I can't make projects easy. I must complicate them in some way. In this way I didn't re-read the instructions that would have let me just do scribble designs and I actually attempted to create designs of actual things. Also, I don't know what the hell German Glass Glitter is and so in the great tradition of the Pintester, I just used what I had which was normal glitter.

 

So here are the ingredients. The basic instructions do not mention mod podge and the big paint brush but since glitter is the herpes and I don't want it all over the place I theorize I will seal the glitter on the ornament with the mod podge.

 

I started out with making holly. Holly is so easy to draw with a pen. It should be easy to draw with glue. See the first dot. 

 

Look! Three little holly berries. They will begin to drool almost instantly. Don't use this much to make your holly berries.

 

 

Note the blob o' berries and the outline of the holly leaves. This is good, right?

 

Sprinkled the green and red glitter carefully onto the holly and berries. 

 Then I had to take a fine paint brush and dust off all the glitter because glitter sticks to the whole glass ornament whether or not there is glue on the ornament. 

 

I also tried a snowflake. It was easier by far.

 

 

I carefully sprinkled white/clear shiny glitter on the snowflake.

 

You can't really see the glitter, but it is there. I promise. I wouldn't lie about this. (Would I?) No, I probably wouldn't lie about that.  

So because I don't want glitter to eventually get everywhere I sealed the ornaments with mod podge. My theory is that it will seal in all the glitter.

 Luckily the mod podge dried clear. I was briefly worried about it. But it is shiny mod podge (modpodge mod podge modpodge mod podge say it a bunch and it loses all meaning) so it enhances the snowflake (in my opinion)

 

So I hung several to dry. I did stripes which was much easier. I also had a finer glitter I used on some ornaments. Also, if doing stripes or covering the whole thing with glitter, it is much easier to use the mod podge to coat everything than it is to use the regular glue. 

16 Weeks Left

Subtitled 10 miles down 3 to go.

So today's long walk was 10 miles. I did run a little bit of that 10 miles but mostly walked. I did run down a couple hills and even ran up a couple hills (technically since it was on the way out and back it was the same hills down and up). The up hill almost made me die. But I felt really accomplished when I got up those two steep hills. Even though I wanted to die. :) In two weeks it is supposed to be 11 miles, but I may just jump up to the 12 miles. This way I can keep practicing the 13 miles for more time.

The wind was brutal today. I swear every time I turned a corner I was running into the wind. You'd think eventually the wind would be at my back, but it didn't seem to happen. I did get distracted for a few minutes studying some graves in the Grapevine Cemetery. There were 4 children graves around their parents. I got distracted because all 4 children died around the age of 2. How brutal that must have been for that family. They were all in the 1800s so it isn't like they had the kind of medical services that we have now. It makes me wonder if there was something wrong with one of the parents' genes. The nice thing about today's run (walk) was that it went past several parks so I had ample opportunity to hit water fountains and at the 5 mile mark go to the bathroom. (all the water breaks.) :) 

I had been feeling really really discouraged about my running. Really discouraged. Open enrollment at work didn't help because I was constantly at meetings (and really exhausted after them) so I missed a bunch of opportunities to run. (And really a bunch of opportunities to go to the gym in general). I've also been feeling like I am not going to succeed. I'm trying to reframe my running and be more positive since I think I need to up my mental game. If I always feel like I'm going to fail, I will definitely fail.