I haven't been running as consistently this past week as I was the first week. I feel really terrible about it, I've spent more days in the past week not running, than running. After my break last Sunday, I ran Monday and Tuesday, but then didn't run Wednesday and Thursday. I haven't been feeling well and I was having trouble even peeling myself off the couch for anything. On Friday, I felt a bit better and so went back out for a run, but only managed one mile instead of the 1.5 miles that I have been doing for a while. Then we went away for the weekend and I didn't run again on Saturday and Sunday. However, I did have quite a bit of exercise on Saturday when Craig and I went on a hike.
We hiked at Mahlon Dickerson Reservation, out in Morris County, NJ. We planned out a route that we thought we could manage before lunch, but ended up having to cut it short because we weren't making it in our time constraints and we were meeting friends for lunch. We hiked for a total of about 2 hours, but I am not sure how much ground we covered. It started out pretty easy, a wide, pebbled path around the pond and through the woods, but when we switched to the second trail that would help us make the loop, it got a lot tougher. The second trail was very steep and rocky, mostly upwards with a few steep drops that took concentration as well. I was having some trouble catching my breath at some points. By the time that we decided we weren't going to make it back out to the parking lot in time, Craig had devised an alternate route where we'd go off the trail, cut across the woods and a stream, and come out on another trail that will take us back. Craig definitely has a good sense of direction and knows what he is doing, but that still didn't make the trek any easier. We were going through a lot branches and over wet stones, and there was hopping and reaching and stretching involved. By the time we were out of the stream and on our final leg of the trail, I was out of breath again, but still keeping out. It was quite a workout. I feel like that two hour hike probably was more exercise than my one mile run would be.
But on Sunday I wasn't feeling well again, lack of sleep and headaches, and so there was no exercise at all. Though none of this had to do with the hike, really.
Today, I decided to test out running at night, since I would have to switch to that next week anyway, when school starts up again. I went out at about 8pm and did my 1.5 miles and felt pretty good. The running felt really good, I was going at a pretty brisk pace.
The challenge for me at this point is the breathing more than anything else. My legs no longer hurt in between my runs, not even when I go two days in between, my legs have gotten used to it. But I still find it hard to breath at almost the same intervals as I used to. The only difference may be that I can run a bit harder now for the same distance before being out of breath, but this change seems so minute and it's still very frustrating. I know, it's been only two weeks, it's a short time, but I just can't wait to gain more stamina.
So far, this has probably been the longest that I've stuck with any exercise routine, which is sad, because it has only been one week. I ran Tuesday - Saturday, very reluctantly took a day off on Sunday, and ran again Monday. I was very scared that if I stop for a day, I won't get back out and run again after it. It feels like that's when exercise always falls apart for me, when I start taking days off.
On Friday, I increased my distance to 3 laps around the park - 1.5 miles. I can't really get past this distance right now because I don't have enough endurance, my lungs feel like they are burning and even that last half of a mile I am already walking more than I'm running. I can't wait for my endurance to build up so I can enjoy every lap of running as much as the first. On the first lap, I feel so strong, wind in my hair, a spring in my step, it feels good. But that only lasts one lap and then I start feeling my ankles start to ache and the difficulty breathing and that just doesn't feel so great.
On the bright side, my calves no longer hurt every morning nor seize up after I've been sitting for a long time. So that gives me some satisfaction.
Ever since we moved into this new apartment, I have been very tempted to take up jogging or running because we are now right by a largish park. The final push came when I started gaining back some of the weight I lost over the past 8 months. So this past Tuesday I started jogging.
I figured out that one full circle around the outside of the park is 1/2 mile. So to start off, I am jogging/walking around the park twice, for a full mile. The park is sorta... trapezoid shaped with two very long sides and two shorter sides. Our house is just about in the middle of one of the shorter sides. I run/jog from the house to the first long side, up that long side, by which time I am having a hard time breathing, so I walk up the other long side, then run/jog one of the short sides and half the other short side to my house. Take a minute break and repeat. So cumulatively, I run/jog two short sides and one long side and walk one long side.
I have done this for the past three days, every day, and am really really hoping to stick with it. Of course I am also planning on progressively increasing the distance that I jog/run/walk. I am not sure when to start increasing it though. I felt like I could keep going with my run today, but my calves have been aching moderately since I started this and I was sorta afraid that if I keep going, it would be hard to get out of bed tomorrow, hehe. But while I am jogging, it actually feels better. The worst ache is after I've been sitting down for a while and I get up to walk and my calves seize up.
Also today I got my first blister which I attribute to running. It's on the side of one of my toes, seemingly from the neighboring toenail rubbing up against it while inside the sneaker. It might also just be that my feet are very much disused to being in closed shoes over the summer - I wear flip flops about 90% of the time.
I am really hoping that I can keep going with this. It's definitely so accessible to me now with the park right outside my doors. I know that a lot of my facebook friends run and perhaps making this effort of mine public would give me some kind of a... push to keep going, to progress with this.
Somehow it turned out that I missed taking one of my certification tests four years ago when I was taking them. I don't know how that happened, but I do have some ideas. In any case, this came to light now that I am being reviewed for permanent certification. This means that I have to put my nose to the grindstone in the next month in order to take the next available session of this test at the end of May. It's a 4 hour multi subject test, enveloping all of elementary content areas with both multiple choice and essay questions. :::sigh::: This is giving me anxiety over what is supposed to be my restful break. The test will be taking place on the same Saturday as the show that I am the Technical Director for. I am really hoping that the show is in the evening on that date because I doubt I would be able to make a matinee. Of course this also means that the month will not only be occupied with studying, but also with the show prep stuffs.
It is also time for me to go back to the dentist. It's been 6 months. And I know for a fact that I will need much more than a cleaning. One of my fillings has been falling apart and another tooth has been filling sensitive. The later will need a crown, I know, because the dentist has mentioned it to me on the previous visit but said that as long as it doesn't bother me, he won't pressure me into it. It's been bothering me for nearly the entire 6 months since my last visit. I am not looking forward to this ordeal which I am sure will drag out through the entirety of May, if not into June.
In about 3 weeks, I will also need to go back to my most visited doctor of the year. Sorry if I make any of you boys uncomfortable, but it's been 4 months since my last OBGYN visit which means I need to go back for the follow up visit and see how my wacky cells are progressing. Hopefully they are not, but I am mentally getting ready for a myriad of testing and prodding, which followed the last such visit. Also, if things are still progressing at this point, I will mostly likely have to finally succumb to that procedure that just plain burns the layer of cells out completely. And this too makes me quite anxious.
Well, I certainly hope that this little spillage of info will free up my mind a little and allow me to relax a bit more in the remaining days of my vacation. I did have a lovely start to it, aside from the test related stuffs. Both seders at my parents' house were great. My mom made this amazing Apple Crisp thing that was amazing even thought it was made with matzo meal. The apples were dominant and the matzo meal worked well in the Crisp department. Yesterday my parents and I took a trip to a newly opened Target in Brooklyn which is actually within an almost easy reach by public transportation. It's not even entirely finished yet, the construction is still continuing, but they opened it up. I bought lots of good stuffs there. And today I took a trip to Union Square which reminded me how much I love it. Barnes and Noble, DSW, Whole Foods and walking in the park... mmm... The day was good.
Back by popular demand... My friends are getting spoiled by the fact that I post a birthday wishlist every year. I received a request today to get on the ball with it :-P Hehehe... Alright, here it goes...
This is Steven Page's solo CD - The Vanity Project This is a DVD - 9 1/2 Weeks
The following is a whole bunch of different books that I would like to read:
Yeah, this is one is really wishful thinking, but hey, this is a WISH list... and how do I wish I had one of these...
Other DVDs...
Other stuff...
Doesn't have to be this specific color and brand, but something that can make fun drinks :)
Alright, I am now exhausted from thinking of things to add to this. So this is it for now. If I think of something else later, I will add.
Zach Braff was on Jay Leno last night and guess what he was talking about... I'll tell you what - the "Ode to Zach Braff" video that I posted last week [stolen from Dana.] !!!!! Take a look, it was very exciting for me to see, hehe.
I stole this from Dana. It just makes sense that I post it too since my affection for Zach Braff runs quite deep. In fact, my subject lines in livejournal all start with "My ..." for a reason - that's how all the SCRUBS episodes are named, hehe. Anyway, this is quite neat!
It all started with single drops, plopping down heavily on my windowsill in a steady, pulssing rhythm. That is what woke me up this morning at 6am. I put a plastic container underneath the dripping place, with a papertowel on the bottom of it to soften the drops so that I could go back to sleep. It was hard to get back to sleep because I continued to listened to the dripping, only a couple of feet away from my bed, right across from my head. As I was drifting off, the dripping got louder again... was my paper towel silencer not working? I got up. Turned on the lights, for it was still dark this early on a cloudy morning. The paper towel was softening those drops, but there was another places that was dripping now as well, making a puddle on my windowsill. It was now 7am. I pulled up a chair from the kitchen to get up on and inspect where the dripping was coming from. It was inside the window box, up in the top part of it where the glass pane meets the wall. The dripping was coming from that crack between the glass and the wall. I wiped off the windowsill and the windowceiling too and watched if it would leak again. Of course it did. What could I do? I covered the windowsill with old towels that I use for rags and lay back down, listening to dripping, which started to pick up. In a matter of minutes, the dripping spread across the width of the window, dripping down persistently. As the drops hit the towel on the windowsill, they splattered in all directions, wetting the floor and the edge of my nightstand. I rung out the rags which were soaked with water and placed them back. By about 7:30am it was coming down like a rather heavy rain inside my window. The floor was soaked, so were my blinds and curtains. I was beginning to panic at this point. And yet it was still early on a Saturday morning and I felt bad calling my land lord or my parents. But I decided to straighten up a few things in my apartment so that it wasn't a complete mess and call my landlord up. By the time I got down to the landlord's door, it was 8am. The landlady answered in her pajamas and informed me that the landlord himself is at work already, but she'll call him. Another half an hour later she showed up, dressed this time, with an armful of towels and one of those trophs that you would put flowers into in a windowbox and we covered the area with the towels and then put the troph on the windowsill. She left. The rain continued.
May be this is a good time to mention that it wasn't in fact raining or snowing outside. There were no percipitations of any kind actually coming down outside my window, only inside.
The landlady showed up abother another hour later with a sheet of plastic and we tacked it all around the window preventing the water from splattering all over the floor and my stuff anymore. The rain continued and the landlord remained at work. She spoke to him on the phone and their theory was such: there is a drainage pipe running in that corner of the house by my window. It may have frozen overnight and now all the melting snow from the roof is finding other places to go, like into my window and that as soon as the ice in the pipe melts, things should get back to normal. I suppose they were right because by about 11am the rain stopped. Outside it was sunny and warm and finally, so was inside. The landlady came by to check on me and said that whenever I get to cleaning it all up, I can just come down and bring her towels back. I left things up for a while longer. At 3pm I took everthing down, mopped up and surveyed the damage: the sides of the window pane had deep gaping cracks in them and the windowsill paint had bubbled up from the water. Sigh. Well, it's not for me to fix.
The landlord is supposed to come by tomorrow to check it out, as well as my dripping toilet. But don't worry, the toilet isn't dripping on the floor, just into the bowl.
Today, I have two videos to share with you guys. They are both music.
The first is a song called "So Much Trouble" and it's by a band called "Matt Pond PA." A little background - my first two years teaching, I worked with a girl who was dating the bass player from this band. She no longer works at my school and they possibly even broke up by now, but she got me into this band. She burned a CD for me and I was really into them for a while. Recently, I was watching this indie movie "The Puffy Chair" and heard some of their music in it. That was kinda cool. So I looked them up on youtube and it looks like they are doing even better than they were and have a real video done now too. Enjoy.
The next song is just something that I came across on MTV or VH1 or something and I just got really hooked on it. It's called "Here (In Your Arms)" by a band called "HelloGoodbye." It's kind of a catchy song and they are all kindsa cool, 80s style. My favorite line in the song is "I like, where you sleep, when you sleep, next to me." :-P It's fun. Enjoy it too.
calm
hopeful
amused