It's me!

Sorry I haven't been around. I don't know what has happened to September. Oh yeah, these things:

• I'm buying a townhouse. We close in a couple of weeks. It's super close to work so goodbye 30 minute drive each way!
• My sister is pregnant
• My brother found out he'll be stationed in Hawaii when he gets through with his Navy JAG training. Hello Honolulu marathon!
• FOOTBALL IS BACK!!!
• Entered friend's College pickup and am currently the leader. I finally found something I'm good at.
• Labor day weekend got sucked up by football and an overnight trip to New Orleans for Decadence. Have some NSFW pictures of that. Lots of cute little boys wearing next to know clothes. They may not be interested but still fun to look at. Good times.
• Next to no running.
• Mysterious dog illness. $681 later we still don't know what caused it, but she's feeling a little better after antibiotics. Although, the vet somehow caused a massive hematoma in her throat chest area that is Brahma-esque but puffier.


• Of the 5 weekends before the marathon (OMG! Is that right!), I'm going out of town for 3 of them. Although, my cousin might cancel her wedding so it could only be 2.

It's good times in the BRJ household. I'll catch up on everything soon, I promise.

Hunger Action Month.

Hello again. Sorry I've been out of commission. Work and Life has gotten in the way. I'm popping out of isolation to let you all know about Hunger Action Month. I'll get back to regularly scheduled postings and readings soon.

A few weeks ago, Sarah contacted me about blogging for Feeding America during the month of September. Since I've been donating money to them since they were America's Second Harvest, I gladly accepted.

I know most people tend to picture little kids with distended bellies and flies swarming around them a la Sally Struthers when they picture hunger, but there are millions of families across America that aren't sure if they'll have food for supper.

I'm certainly not an expert on this and won't bother you with statistics, but go ahead and check out Feeding America's website if you have time. They give tons of information broken down by state. I do know that although we always had food growing up, we often didn't get high quality food. A box of little Debbie snacks only cost $1.25 and could serve as breakfast for 4 kids for 2 days. That's a lot cheaper than vegetables. In recent years, both of my grandmother's and some extended family members have received bags of groceries mostly from local church groups(particularly around the holidays). That food not only gave them nutritious food to eat and a quality holiday meal, it let them know someone was thinking of them at a particularly low point in their lives.

If you donate money to Feeding America before October 5th, it will be used for food given to the hungry in time for the holidays. Because they are such a large organization, they can stretch your dollar further than you can at the grocery store. However, there are plenty of great organizations across America working to alleviate hunger among US citizens particularly in this economic climate. Anything you can do like give money, donate canned goods, bring a casserole to a friend in need, or just spread awareness is fantastic.

For all you bloggers out there, it is still not too late to become a Hunger Action Blogger. Just sign up, put their logo over to the right there, and blog about hunger just once during the month of September. You know you were running out of topics anyway :P

Gustav

Today's the one year anniversary of Gustav: "Baton Rouge's Katrina". Is it wrong that I'm longing for sitting in the dark, eating pizza before it goes bad, drinking beer, going to sleep when the sun sets and not working for a week? I definitely don't want another hurricane and 10 days without power (mostly just the air conditioning and refrigeration), but it was nice to have a 8pm kerfew and sleep 12 hours a day with nothing better to do. Maybe I'm just longing for a vacation... or winning the lottery.

Off the wagon...

I'm so far off the wagon I can't even see it anymore. Someone kicked me off, knocked me on my @ss, and left me in the dust. At least they left me with a few dozen jello shots to ease the pain. Seriously, I can hardly fit into my scrubs. I'm going to chalk it up to Nitmos and Glaven withdrawls and start sprinting back to catch up with the marathon training. I've already turned down another weekend beach trip so I could get in some running and stop consuming so much beer and Absolut Peach with sprite zero (my new favorite). My new diet started this morning with healthy breakfast tacos. All y'all up there still on the wagon, hold on. I'm coming...

It's here!

My Garmin 305 has arrived fresh with its heart monitor. I already had the 205, but I wanted to upgrade to the heart rate monitoring capability and my friend wanted the 205 so we made a deal. I was very excited last night and took it out to play (obviously not running because I only got 3 hours of sleep the night before due to a Cheap Trick, Poison, and Def Leppard concert). I took my heart rate while sitting on the couch, while lying down watching TV, and while taking a nap :).

What should come through my inbox today? An email from my local running store offering this:

"Finally, a GPS-enabled training device that isn't afraid of the water. The rugged Forerunner 310XT is the triathlete's indispensable training tool - a GPS-enabled, swim-proof trainer that tracks bike and run data and sends it wirelessly to your computer. This multi-sport device has up to 20 hours of battery life, tracks distance, pace and heart rate (optional), and goes from wrist to bike in seconds."

Son of a m-f'ing whoo-her. You may be saying to yourself, "I didn't know you swam." Well, I don't. But what if I want to start. Plus it's wireless. Oh well, at least it's that ugly orange color and mine is pretty and red so it matches my shoes. I'd like to take her out for a test drive tonight, but I have a 5 mile tempo with 1 mile warm up on the schedule. Seeing as my sunglasses fog up when I step outside due to the heat and humidity, that probably isn't going to happen. One day soon, my friend. One day. In the meantime, I think I might just start monitoring my heart rate while I do mundane things. Get ready for some awesome reports! (i.e. My heart rate was 64 when making a grilled cheese sandwich but went up to 73 while I was doing laundry.)

Tempo fail and Pup-tastic long run

My tempo run on my birthday did not happen. Apparently, I'm getting too old to go out drinking on a work night. Friday night was again spent with drinks and a birthday dinner so my Tempo run got pushed to Saturday.

I won't keep you in suspense. It was a big fat fail. I did my 1 mile warm up, then started into my 7 miles of tempo at 11:15. Mile one came in at 11:08 or 5.4 mph on the mill. Eased her back to 5.3 mph and made it 2.1 more miles for an even 5k at tempo pace. I was done. I rationalized that with my 10 mile long run on Sunday, it probably wasn't smart to try to run 18 miles in a weekend when my body is totally unprepared for that. Really, I can't maintain 7 miles at that pace right now. After that, I decided to take my puppies for a walk for my cool down. They got so excited when I grabbed the leashes, that I ran with them about .4 miles to make the run an even 4.5 miles total. We walked the rest of the way.

Then came Sunday's 10 mile long run. I managed to push it off until 7pm. I woke up early, but had to paint the porch railing before it got too hot (a requirement of the VA loan refinancing). I was pouring sweat just sitting in the sun painting at 9am.

Since my dogs had been so happy the night before, I decided to break up the mill monotony and spend some of the run with the dogs. I took Colby first since she's the most energetic. She began sluggish but after a quick poo break, she was out in front (Ah, like Mama like dog). We made it 3 miles. Then a quick pit stop with water splashing on the face and I was out the door with Stewie. I only took him 1 mile. I'm still not sure how far he can go, and although he tested heart worm negative last week (YEAY Heartguard!!!), I still worry about the stress to his heart since I don't know the damage the worms caused when they were in there. He did well though and rough housed with Colby right when we got back.

4 miles outside with the dogs left me 6 to do on the mill. I popped in the movie Bolt (about the super dog) and pushed out the last 6 miles. It was pretty craptastic, but I got it done. I think my total time overall (not counting the pit stops) was 126 minutes which gives me the average pace of 12:36. I walked .1 of every mile for the last 6 and it was a struggle, but I made it. Bolt was a really cute movie and definitely distracted me. I may have even run off the side of the treadmill when he jumped onto a moving train. No injuries though.

I've got speedwork, 6 mile tempo and 13 mile long run on the schedule for this week. I'm supposed to go to Orange Beach from Friday to Sunday, so we'll see how I fit those runs in. Then again, stupid tropical storm is headed to the same place on Friday so I may not be able to go. F'ing hurricane season...

Happy Birthday to me!!

It's my birthday. It's my birthday. I'm going to party like it's my birthday!

And by that I mean waking up hungover and dragging my butt to work 10 minutes late. So much for that morning run. I'm getting old. We went out for happy hour yesterday to celebrate a co-worker's and my birthdays. This turned into bar hopping and several events that I didn't remember until people started talking about them at work. Apparently we made plans to go to the sushi buffet next Monday. I can't imagine why we picked Monday. Ah, nothing like making an ass out of yourself in front of coworkers...

I've been hydrating all day with powerade zero and water, so hopefully I'll be able to pull out my 8 miles tonight.

Here's the loot I've gotten so far:

from my sister-a necklace

from co-workers-Fresh market gift card, ice cream cake, cookies, and 2 lunches.

from my mom-money

and the piece de resistance from my dad:

Look for some 'WTF is a heart rate' posts in the near future. It should arrive in the mail box in a couple of days. Of course, I'm a p*ssy and can't take the heat so I won't be able to use it until I move back outdoors. Last week I went outside at 11pm to get my dogs. I stood there yelling for about 2 minutes then walked 50 ft, picked up my 18lb dog and walked the 50 feet back inside. I was sweating. I don't forsee any outdoor running anytime soon...
________________________________
Oh, and for Glaven, the beers I remember drinking last night:
Brooklyn lager, not as good as I'd heard.
Tasted Heiner brau strawberry, but opted for Red Hook ESB-yum
I think there were some others in there
Capped off the night with good ole PBR-always fantastic.