It's what you make it

We had a sub instead of our usual step instructor this morning and I was a total grouch for the first half of class. We started late, the class was boring, and I wasn't getting a good workout. Stupid lady. Then, halfway through the class something clicked. I was mad at myself for eating too much crap last night and felt like I needed to get my butt kicked. But the person ultimately responsible for kicking my butt was me, not the teacher. I wasn't getting a good workout because I wasn't trying. In the second half I totally kicked it up. I added jumps and impact and got my arms moving. I was sweaty and gasping in minutes. It is a good lesson for me to remember, because a lot of times on the road I end up in a class that is less than optimal.

I can always work harder and if I don't get a good workout in the end it is always my fault.

Other people's vacations are fun too

This week is school vacation week, which meant that I've gotten to have some fun with one of my favorite people- my Mom! Even though I am working, my job now is pretty flexible the weeks I am working at home, so we have packed in some good times.

Yesterday morning I got up super early to get in a hour on the bike. It was super windy and my legs were dead from 4 hard days in a row, so I wasn't feeling it. And yet, 3 hours later after some work and breakfast I thought bootcamp would be a good idea. I made it out alive, but barely.

Then I was off to August, to let my friend Lucy, who is in cosmetology school, experiment on my hair. My Mom and I were a little nervous because neither of us do much to our hair. But we figured there would a supervising teacher in the room and we could always dye it back to a normal color. I refused to let my Mom take a picture of my in foils. Then I promptly snapped one of her.

It was pretty interesting to watch all the students, and a little creepy because there were a lot of fake heads everywhere. In this end we were both happy. My hair basically ended up looking like it does naturally at the end of summer, with lots of nice super blond highlights. Best of all Lucy straightened it for me. I love my hair straight, but always get bored half way through the process and give up.

pretty straight hair, which is now a frizzy mess thanks to fit club, a run, and 2 hours under a bike helmet.

 After some more work at home, I brought my mother to fit club. It is a group of us that meets every Wednesday for a workout and then usually drinks after. We had a great LIVE zumba session last night followed by a 30 minute Body Pump Class. I got thoroughly sweaty and then did not change before heading out to Jimmy the Greek's.  I am sure everyone in the restaurant appreciated my red face. Wednesday night is $5 martinis and free manicures. Since it was free, I was daring and currently have bright purple nails.

This morning was another early wake up for a 30 minute hill run before I took my Mom on the bike path to introduce her to the amazingness that is Scratch Bakery. We did a nice easy 10 miles in the sunshine. It was slower and shorter than I would go on my own, but sometimes it is nice to slow down to someone else's pace.

At Scratch I, as usual, drooled over everything before deciding to split a 9 grain everything bagel with fresh herb cream cheese. And for dessert (because every meal needs dessert, even breakfast) an almond horseshoe. We met up with friend Vicky, and took our food down to eat on the beach. I still can't over the fact that I have been to the beach multiple times and it's only April! Before we got back our on bikes my Mom surprised me with a piece of confetti cake. She know about my addiction to frosting and this looking amazing. I am totally impressed that I managed to get it home in one piece, and that I have made it to 4:30 without eating it yet.

Our last excursion was to buy me a grill. I have been looking at grills for almost month and decided to finally suck it up an buy one before grill season is over. We bought it, loaded it, unloaded it, and set it up in time for a (very) late lunch. Grilling on the patio and afternoon cocktails? Love it!

So thanks for having vacation Mom because I had a lot of fun too. And now I must chain myself to my computer until about midnight and do some work.

I'm going to have to make some changes

I finally realized 2 very important things today, and I mean hugely important. I'm sure you'll agree that I probably deserve the Nobel prize.

1) To get faster, I have to run faster. I've been annoyed with my slow times lately, but continued to slug through the same long slow runs every week. Surprise, surprise running long and slow is not going to make me faster. I have to do what scares me, change my routine. This morning after a miles swim, I headed to the track. My goal: 8 x 400. If I bothered to do "speed work" before I'd run by repeats slightly faster than my slower recovery run. Today I gave my repeats everything I had, which meant that I had to walk in between them. Yep, I walked during a run and the world didn't end. In fact, the average pace for the whole workout was about my average page for a normal run.

2. To get faster I also have to lose some weight and to lose weight I have to stop eating so much. I've been avoiding the scale lately, telling myself I will just keep track of my weight by how my clothes feel. Well I've been spending a lot of time in sweats, so I could convince myself that I hadn't gained weight. And everybody needs to indulge sometimes right? Well sometimes had become everyday and my favorite jeans are tight. Time to crack the whip.


In other parts of my life, I now hate mulch. One of my neighbors came over yesterday to let me know that the condo association does not take care of mulching (aka your garden looks like crap, please fix it now). Mulch, I figured I could handle that. So after the track I went to the store and bought some mulch. The bags looked big, I got 3 bags of lovely cedar mulch. I got home spread those 3 bags, and realized I'd done about 1/4 of my garden.

Back to the store. 5 more bags.

Back home. Spread 2 of the bags. Hear a neighbor come over and clear her throat. "I hate to tell you this dear, but we can only use black mulch. The red is a fire hazard. They'll make you get rid of it."

Seriously?

Is there such thing as unmulching? I was going to have to figure it out.

Back to store. Return 3 bags of cedar mulch. Buy 9 bags of black mulch. Regret that I told the clerk on my first trip that I was strong and didn't need help loading the mulch.

Back home. Scrape up as much cedar mulch as I can and put it into as many containers as I can find to give to my Mom. Lug mulch bags from trunk to garden. Curse the fact the bags are wet and heavy. Dump it and spread it as quickly as possible. Vow to start a mulch hating club. Who's in?

Boston Marathon Madness

I had a wonderful day and half in Boston and am reminded why I absolutely love the Boston Marathon even though I will probably never be fast enough to run it. There is just this wonderful spirit that takes over the whole city.

This was my first trip back to Boston since I moved last October. It was strange being back- like I'd never left and like I'd been gone forever at the same time. But as soon as I met up with my former roomie, Kristen, I felt like we'd never been apart. She even wore her Christmas present that I finally gave her, even though they were earmuffs and it was 85.  That is why I love her.

The expo was huge and wonderful and overwhelming. I was running around like a kid in a candy store (sorry Kristen who was trying to stay with me). I saw 2 of my Reach the Beach teammates, ate 20 million samples of different types of bars and gels and gummies, and drooled over a lot of expensive running clothes. I got to see Dean Karnazes who is like Mr. Muscle. When he shook my hand I saw a million muscles in his forearm that I have never seen on anyone else. The man is jacked, but surprisingly tiny. Speaking of tiny, I also hear Desiree Davila speak about fueling and hydration. She is so little! But the highlight of the expo was definitely getting getting to meet Katherine Switzer. I couldn't believe the time she spent with each person who came up to her. She was warm, inspiring, and simply lovely.

Yep that's me and Jen and KV Switzer!

It astounds me that just a generation ago women weren't able to enjoy the thing that I love so much. I don't know if I would ever have the courage to break down such entrenched barriers, so I am truly in awe, and eternally grateful, to those who did. Rock on Ladies.

Monday morning I was up almost as early as if I was running. I wanted to get my workout in before I went to spectated. I did one of my favorite 6.5 mile loops by my old house, and all I could think was how glad I was that I wasn't running the race. Even at 7:30 it was HOT. I swung by the Y for a quick strength workout and shower and then headed into Natick. I settled on the curb with my coffee and bagel thin, ready to cheer my brains out. And I did.

There is so just something about this race. I was almost crying at several points because of the love and energy being directed at the runners. As the wheelchairs and disabled athletes went by first I was reminded again of how lucky I am to be healthy. I may not be fast, but I have 2 functional legs.

Elite Women. That is some serious power.

Elite Men.

I stayed long enough to see Jen go by. She looked sweaty but strong. Go Jen! And now I am home sunburned and inspired.

Feels like summer

I had an unexpectedly great first half of my weekend. I am an uber planner so I like to start planning  my weekend starting Monday and start to freak out if I don't have plans by Thursday. This week I had no plans until yesterday afternoon, but it all turned out okay.

My friend Breezy called when she got out of work yesterday and asked if I wanted to meet at Brian Boru's because they have a great deck and it was a nice day. I of course said yes, and off I went. It was pretty darn cold on the deck (it is Maine in April!) so we moved inside, but still enjoyed our beers. We decided to head toward Pepper Club for dinner, but were in such the happy hour mood that we stopped for another beer (or 2) at other bars on their way there.

This morning I got to go for a bike ride with my friend Heather. We met via a Craig's List ad looking for biking partners more than 7 years ago. She moved 2 years ago, but now that I'm back in Maine, we're only an hour apart. It was great to catch up and the miles just flew by. 40 miles seemed like 2! Oh how I wish I had more people to run/bike with.

We ended with a stop at Scratch Bakery for lunch. Everything there is completely amazing, but let me tell you that nothing is better after a sweat session than a sea salt bagel. Except as we got our food I looked at my phone and realized it was already 12:20. My friend Breezy was picking me up at 12:45 for a baseball game. So I then attempted to rush home while eating a bagel and drinking an iced coffee. Considering I have trouble staying on my road bike normally, the fact that I didn't crash was a major feat.



Back at home I jumped into some normal clothes, threw on a baseball hat to ride my helmet hair, hugged Heather and jumped into Breezy's car.

At the game I promptly proceeded to rehydrate with beer. Baseball is way more fun with beer. Also, there *may* now be a public video of me dancing the YMCA with Slugger the mascot.


I wanted a Seadog Biscuit, which is really the whole reason to go to game, ice cream between 2 chocolate chip cookies, and covered in chocolate chips. But I had to admit that I'd wasted an awful lot of calories on beer, so I settled for fat free coffee yogurt. I do appreciate it that the ball park had a healthy option. It makes it so much easier to make better decisions when you can still have some sort of treat.



And now I made myself come home, make a healthy dinner, and get some sleep so that I can head to Boston right after my run tomorrow.

Trader Joe's is Trying to Kill Me

Last night I had planned to go to a triathlon swim event because my first triathlon this year is less than a month away. Last year when I did my first 2 tris, I just jumped in without any coaching or advice. Since I thought I was going to drown in the swim, I thought some expert advice would be a good thing. It was advertised as a lecture, so I brought myself (in jeans and ballet flats) and a notebook. Turns out it was a CLINIC. Everyone else was in a bathing suit! Oops.

So I left and went to Trader Joe's instead. I made a wonderful and terrible discovery. Trader Joe's is onto the amazingness that is Biscoff spread and they have their own version.

They don't even  try to pretend that this is remotely good for you. Cookie butter. Yep that about sums it up. This means serious trouble for me, because the only thing that keeps me from eating even more Biscoff is that it is so darn expensive. But now I can get all the calories and yumminess for half the price. Darn you Joe!

Impromptu half marathon and my trusty George Foreman

Hey I ran a half marathon this morning. Not an official race, but I did go run 13.1 miles on my own. I just decided that I am going to go down to Boston Sunday to see some friends and check out the marathon expo. Then Monday morning I am going to cheer for my college friend Jen as she runs the Boston Marathon. So I have running fever. And I realized that it has been about a month since I ran the Rome Marathon. I am determined not to do what I usually do after a marathon, which is not run longer than 6 miles for months after and lose all my hard won fitness. So this year I am going to try and run at least 13 miles once a month.

cheesy, sweat post run self portrait. the camera is strategically placed to hide the giant sweat stain around my neck.

I didn't head out until 9:30 because I did several hours of work before I headed out, which meant that by the time I got home, stretched, checked my work e-mail, and showered I was starving. I will blame the fact that it took me 4 tries to get my new fitted sheet on my bed right on low blood sugar. I had some yummy roasted broccoli, sweet potato, and kale from yesterday but I was also craving some protein.  Perfect time for some George Foreman chicken.

This does not even  include the ice-creamer or snow-cone maker.

I am a small kitchen appliance junky. Seriously I have a whole shelf of them. There have been some that I bought, but just never were useful or helpful (like the cocoa motion that I begged for when I was 13 that took a good 45 minutes to make a cup of hot chocolate). And then there are those that I just love. The George Foreman little grill is one of those.


I know it's kind of cheesy and lame, but I love the thing. It makes a grilled chicken breast in about 5 minutes and the chicken is always moist and flavorful.

What can't you live without in the kitchen?

Working at Home DIY

After the craziness of traveling for 2 weeks I always look forward to working at home. And I love the more relaxed pace for about a day. Then I get bored with myself. Without all the hours of travels I just have so much more time in my life. And of course my kitchen is always available. I don't have the embarrassment factor to keep me from going back for a third (or fourth or fifth) handful of peanut butter m&m's. There are no coworkers watching me. All out of m&m's? No problem..... I can always whip up some cookies. No good at all. So I am trying to come up with projects to keep myself occupied.

Luckily I now own a house. As part of my on-going effort to make my house not look like an old lady's house, this week's project was replacing the ugly shelf and drawer linings in the kitchen. The hardest part was finding the contact paper in Home Depot . I was lost in there for a good hour.

The old shelf paper was an ugly beige

 Like most project this involved making a big mess . I had to take everything out of my cabinets.

 

 

 

 

 

Don't judge, this is the continents of my baking cabinet so yes there is a lot of chocolate and marshmallow.

And then my entire kitchen floor was covered in old shelf paper and scraps of the new stuff.

It was going pretty well. I thought I'd broken my stupid injuries while doing DIY projects streak (last month when I tried to fix the trim on my mantle I almost cut off my thumb). Not so fast. The old paper was really hard to get off. Especially on the top shelf where I had to stand on top of the counter to reach. There was one particularly stubborn piece and I was pulling with all my weight against it. And you know what's coming. It finally came off and I went flying backward. I managed to get my feet underneath me so that at least I didn't fall 6 feet and smack my head on the tile floor. I had so much momentum though, that once I got my feet down I was still moving backward and ended up sitting in the trash can. The best part was that I somehow managed to turn my phone off mute as I falling so everyone on my work conference call heard the whole thing. Yup, my name is Kiersten and I am excellent at embarrassing myself.

Horrific embarrassment not withstanding, I think it came out pretty well. The polka dots make me happy every time I open a door in the kitchen.

 My next project is going to be painting the cupboards because I hate the maroon color they are now. It involves a power sander. I see potential disaster.

Easter weekend

I was not all that excited to be leaving my house less than 12 hours after getting home, but once I got up to my Mom's house I was so glad I was there. Honestly of all the places I've been, I am always the happiest there.

I rushed around Saturday morning so that I could get up there by noon because I knew my friend Lucy and here baby would be there. I gave my Mom a bunch of house cleaning sessions with Lucy and the last 2 weekends my Mom was torturing me by sending adorable pictures of the baby. I needed to get in on that baby action because he about the cutest thing ever!

Baby in a fuzzy bear suit? Cutest thing EVER.

After Lucy and the babe headed out I helped my Mom with some yard work. It was so nice to be outside after being inside the hospital for 2 weeks. This has got to be a record for working in the gardens- usually we still have snow this time of year!

I'm sure my Mom will appreciate me posting pictures of her butt

 

 

 

 

 

 It started to get really windy in the late afternoon so we headed inside. My Mom started making an apple and almond paste pie and I started working on a shrimp pasta for dinner. My aunt arrived with some fried shrimp from Sea Basket and our neighbor came over with wine, so we had wine and shrimp appetizers and talked as we cooked.

My inspiration for dinner was this Shrimp Cobb Salad from cooking light. But instead of making it a green salad I made it a hot pasta dish. It was pretty good, but I restrained myself from seconds because I wanted to leave room for pie. Normally I can take or leave apple pie, but this apple almond crumb pie is incredible. It is the best of everything, apple crisp, pie crust, and creamy sweet almond paste. I had 2 pieces. And then stayed up way too late playing music with my Mom and aunt. 3 guitars, 3 voices, and a whole bunch of new music. Yeah!

We finally dragged ourselves to bed around 2. My Mom and I slept in the boathouse for the first time this year. It's funny because we have this big old rambling house up on the hill but if at all possible my Mom and I always sleep down in our little campy boathouse. I just love my little bunk right on the water. Even if I have to sleep in a sleeping bag and use 4 blankets because it doesn't have any insulation or heat!

Normally I love the sunrise service on Easter morning. It's held down on the rocks by the ocean and we watch the sun rise over the ocean. But this year I was just so tired from the last 2 weeks that I just couldn't fathom getting out of bed. So I didn't. Happy Easter to me. And then I had a Reese's egg before heading out on my run. I did a lovely, but windy, 6 miler up the west side of the island and back. Love those hills!

The rest of the day included church, the Sunday Crossword puzzle, helping my Mom with a bulletin board for school, a walk to the dock, and yummy left-overs. Including 2 more pieces of pie. It was nice and relaxed. I left my phone in my car and didn't turn on my computer. And I didn't make myself sick on Easter candy. Good day.

Silence and Noise

It was a long day of travel yesterday and by the time I finally got home my head was pounding and my body hurt from sitting on planes all day. I had a list a million items long of things I should do, but instead I set my bags inside, put on my sneakers, and headed outside. I didn't bring my phone or my i-pod and I headed to the trails. I needed silence. I came back totally refreshed and ready to tackle my piles of mail and laundry.

This morning when my alarm went off my body wasn't happy.  After two weeks of very little sleep and a 3 hour time difference I could have stayed in bed all day. But that wasn't an option because I had a bunch of stuff to do before heading up to my Mom's on the island for Easter. First stop was the gym for kickboxing. She blasted the music this morning and it was like an instant shot of energy. I went from totally dragging to totally kicking butt. This morning I needed noise.

When do you need silence and when do you need noise?

Following my own advice

Why is it that your own advice is the hardest to follow? In my job I introduce massive changes into the lives of doctors and tell them to be patient and work through the initial kinks. So I have tried to be patient with the United/Continental merger. The first time the web-site wouldn't work I patiently waited on the phone for an hour to speak to an agent, and then continued to wait for another hour as she tried to change my ticket. The second time I was a little less patient, the third time I was starting to get annoyed, and today I just about lost it. When I went to check in for my flight tomorrow, my reservation just wasn't there. I waited on the phone and when the agent told me that my reservation had been cancelled because I was a no show last Saturday, I really think my almost exploded.

"I WAS NOT A NO SHOW. YOU CANCELLED THE FLIGHT. I WAITED ON THE PHONE FOR HOURS TO TALK TO SOMEONE AND I TALKED TO AN AGENT AT THE AIRPORT. BOTH TOOK MY INFORMATION AND TOLD ME I WAS ALL SET. AND THEN I HAD TO DRIVE 10 HOURS IN THE POURING RAIN. SO DON'T TELL ME THIS IS MY FAULT. GET ME ON A PLANE TO MAINE TOMORROW.


Silence on the other end. I feel a little bad for flipping out on that poor person. But I do have my flights for tomorrow.

Place Triggers

Does anyone else have those places where they just can't seem to stop eating? I definitely do. One of them is my grandmother's (now my mother's) house on the island. When I was a kid we only had healthy food at my house. Once a week we got Kraft Mac and Cheese because my Mom taught a night class and we had a babysitter. Other that that it was all wholesome goodness, all the time. But at Grandma's house we got Lucky Charms for breakfast, Pringles with lunch, pudding cups for snacks, and ice cream for dessert. And despite the fact that I'm now an adult and can eat whatever I want, whenever I want, when I go into that house I'm like a kid in a candy store trying to stuff in as much as possible before anyone notices. There is a big pantry off the kitchen and I literally go in there, grab the bag of chocolate chips off the shelf, and sit on the floor in the dark and hide and eat them.

Awesome view, but I'm too busy hiding in the pantry and stuffing my face

And this week I've realized that my client in Santa Rosa is a trigger too. I was here every Monday-Thursday for almost a year for work. It was my first consulting job and I went a little crazy. I was eating massive dinners out with co-workers or trying to ease my homesickness by eating comfort food alone in my hotel room. The women I shared an office with all had candy jars on their desks and I was frequently alone in the office to eat all I wanted from them. Someone was always bringing in donuts, cookies, or some treat, And so it seems that I associate being here with eating. When I was here for the LIVE a month ago I had a major candy binge. Yesterday I did the same in the command center, where there were cookies, cake, chocolate, and chips.

The running trails and the gym here are my favorite of all the places I currently travel, but all my exercise doesn't ever come close to balancing out what I eat.

Are there certain places that trigger you to eat?

Don't Mess with my Coffee

I woke up today and thought it was going to be a better day. I am so tired of nasty hotel coffee, so I went to the grocery store last night and got some decent coffee. Then I did a complicated operation where I opened a slit in the crappy hotel coffee pod thing, dumped out the nasty coffee, poured mine in, and then folded it over so it wouldn't get grounds in the coffee. So I had a delicious 1/2 mug of my hazelnut before I headed out on my run and couldn't wait to have the rest of the pot when I got back. I put a note on the coffee maker to "please leave coffee" just to make sure house cleaning wouldn't touch it.

After a solid week of rain, the sun was finally out! It was a crisp, clear morning just perfect for a run. I went for a great 8 mile run around Spring Lake. This was my longest run by far since the Rome Marathon 2 weeks ago, and it has some decent hills. I felt good, running about a 9:30 pace :-)

As I went to get into the shower I looked over at the coffee pot. Empty. I was so mad. I literally screamed a swear and almost ran out into the hall in my little towel to confront housekeeping. I mean they had to lift the note off to pour out the coffee. I know I was being a little irrational, but I was pissed.

I didn't get any less angry as I drank the awful hotel coffee at breakfast. Luckily, I had also planned to go a yoga class at 11. Yoga always reminds me what is really important. It's not coffee. Today, it was pigeon pose. After a week of hard workouts and 10 hours in the car yesterday my hips were holding a lot of tension. A few minutes in pigeon and I feel like a new person. But I still want coffee.