More Oatmeal And Step Aerobics

The main purpose of this evening's update is to share with you today's post from The Oatmeal. It's wonderful. You need to read it.

But I'll get to that later.

First, a workout update.

After my hip-hop incident on Thursday, I took it easy for a few days. Not that my workout schedule would have been any different, but I'll pretend I waited until Sunday because I was looking out for my body. Yes, that's it.

So, Sunday ... I ran outside! Yay! Not only did I run outside, but I ran at Woodland Mound, one of my favorite places to be, period, and one of the more challenging places to run as far as hills go. I purchased my fabulous 2012 Hamilton County Parks pass, so I'm set to go for the rest of the year.

Not sure how my still-achy hips would behave, I told myself that I wanted to do 6 sets of my 5-minute/90-second run/walk intervals, but that I'd forgive myself if I wimped out and only did 5. Well, I did 6. It felt good. Once my hips warmed up, they didn't fuss too much. And it was so nice to be back at the park, back outside, back in the sunshine ... at the beginning of February. (Best February on record by my calculations.)

I felt good, but still got really tired at the end. Without venturing too far into Being-too-hard-on-myself Land, I'd like to get 7 or 8 sets of those intervals under my belt a few times before The Pig relay in May. I suppose I still have a while to get there, right?

Patience. It's February. (lather, rinse, repeat)

The hilly run kicked my butt. As in my butt is sore. Along with my calves. No shin splints though! Yay!

Speaking of butt-kicking. I took Step Aerobics tonight at the gym, introducing my kindergarten-era friend, Amy, to my beloved group fitness class. It was challenging. I haven't been in a while--not since I introduced my bestie, Jeff, to it back in December. (Mr. Professional Dancer caught on in about a minute and put the rest of us veterans to shame.) 

But class was fun, and I kept my risers under the Step the whole time and didn't even consider taking them out. Had to take some rest breaks though. Amy also did very well. The first time was so incredibly intimidating when I started back in early spring of 2009. Heck, it stayed intimidating for a few months, I'd say. If you have the chance to try Step Aerobics, please do. And be prepared to stumble and bumble and feel like an ass. But do it anyway, and do it more than once. You won't regret it.

So, have I ever introduced you all to Step Aerobics? Lemme search my past posts...oh, not so much. Found one promise to talk about it later, though.

Well, welcome to later. Consider yourself introduced. Audience, Step. Step, audience.

And again, speaking of kicking butt, I'd like you to watch this video (or at least the first few minutes). Please please PUH-LEASE watch it!

"Make da ankle touch da butt!"

Ah, praise be to the aerobics revolution. 

And to very high-hipped bathing suit thingies. 

And to Spandex. On dudes. (Shivers)

So, do you feel educated about Step Aerobics? No? Well we'll talk about it more later. Or you can come take a class with me. It'd be freeeeee! 

Moving on. It's Oatmeal time! 

I hope Mr. The Oatmeal realizes how much I love him and doesn't punish me for snipping his header and giving him lots of credit. Borrowed from http://theoatmeal.com/  SOURCE

 

Wonderful post today, called At the Gym. Please go check it out. (Some language, but you're a grown up--read it.)

Courtesy of The Oatmeal

I do wish he did a frame about watching a fat girl run on a treadmill. Something like, "Go ahead, make fun of me. But I'm running, and I've been running for the last 10 minutes while your skinny a** sputters away on the recumbent stationary bike* with arm rests! Bam!"

*I am not dis-ing the recumbent bike. It's lovely. I used one tonight, actually. And those arm rests really are the bee's knees.

Hip Hop: Runner's Delight

I said a hip hop,
Hippie to the hippie,
The hip, hip a hop, and you don't stop, a rock it
To the bang bang boogie, say, up jump the boogie,
To the rhythm of the boogie, the beat.

In case you're not familiar with that prolific piece of prose, I'll let the Sugarhill Gang explain it to you:

And in case you still don't get it, here's the old lady from The Wedding Singer:

So what's the moral of this post?

My hip hurts. And I hip-hopped on the treadmill this evening during my third set of 5-minute/90-second run/walk intervals.

This is the second time this has happen in the middle of a run in the last, oh, 3 months? The other time was with Caitlin on the Little Miami Scenic Trail.

And it hurts. It makes me limp for a few days. If anyone has any insight on hippy-to-the-hippy-to-the-hip-hip-hop pain, let me know.

Okay now that I think of it, it might be above my hip joint but still within the hip-bone area that I allegedly have (I have never seen my hip bone; I'll believe it's there when I see it).

Oh, and I did some random arm-lifting-strengthening-slimming-whatevers when I got home from the gym. And some Just Dance yesterday. 

Sooooo...that's all. Enjoy "Rapper's Delight"!

Ketchup Blog

I'm way behind on blogging so I'm just going to catch up with a list. (Read the list and you'll be rewarded with pictures at the end.)

• My third grade teacher, Mrs. Chalk, didn't like ketchup. So if our class needed a "catch-up day" (ketchup day) she liked to call it mayonnaise day.
• Apparently, I can't spell mayonnaise without help from my computer.
• Seeing a pattern here ... this might not be such a succinct list after all, given my easily-distracted mood this evening. Ooh shiny ...
• I'm running a 5K this Friday ... in a Halloween costume. It's the Cincinnati Run Like Hell.
• It's my friend, Mr. PurulentSmile's first 5K and I'm uber excited for him. He's going to murder it. 
• Sarah is running it too! Yay!
• If you're in a donating mood, please consider using my friend Leslie's donation page for the Run Like Hell 5K, which benefits the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation. Here's the link to her page. She's $160 away from her $500 goal. Oh, and her team (which I'm a part of) is called Marissa's Miracle, named after her daughter. Read Marissa's story on the page I linked above.
• My costume is almost ready. I'm taking two yards of tulle (the stuff that goes under tutus) to work tomorrow to get help from my crafty coworkers. I'm not crafty. Have I mentioned that? Then I'm getting a bunch of latex gloves from my cousin Thursday. (Have you figured it out yet? I'm guessing no. Hehe...)
• Tonight I met Caitlin for my last run of the week before the 5K. It went terribly for me.
• Here's when you know you have a great running buddy: Caitlin looked at me when tonight's run was over and said, "I was hoping you'd have a bad run tonight." Errr...thanks?  =)
• What Caitlin did was reiterate some advice I gave her a few weeks ago when she ran a 5K and met all of her goals (no puking, no walking, finish in under 40 minutes). She had a bad workout that week and was a little discouraged. I told her it was good because she got the bad run out of her system. See, bad runs usually travel alone. One and done ... for a little while. That one bad run could be REALLY bad and could REALLY discourage you, but it's only going to happen once...unless you let it defeat you.
• Speaking of the 5K Caitlin did, it was the day after my 30th birthday celebration, so I opted out. (recovery ... whew) But I did go to the run as a spectator, which I love. It was a beautiful day and I had the pleasure of bopping around the course with a fancy-pants camera dangling around my neck to play paparazzi for Caitlin. Super...super...FUN! Pictures below!
• I love that Caitlin wished a bad run on me. Punk.
• Caitlin is kicking my a$$ in running, more and more every time I see her. We tried speed intervals not too long ago. I failed miserably. She busted butt. And she may not realize it, but that one speed workout has kicked her normal running speed up a notch or three.
• In fact, everyone is kicking my a$$ in running. I'm slowing down. I'm not working out as much as I'd like, I've gained a little weight, and I'm just not improving my speed. I could work harder at this.
• I need to return to the land of losing weight. I've noticed a difference in the amount of effort required now versus when I was 6 pounds lighter.
• It's getting cold and dark out. I hate standard time. Seriously, someone give me a good reason why we should ever NOT be in daylight saving time. There is NO good reason. It should be all year round.
• Cold + Dark + Gaining Weight + Boredom Sneaking In = I'm joining a gym. Probably tomorrow after work. The gym down the street has some pretty good annual plans, but better yet, they have EXTREMELY reasonable month-to-month plans. I'm going to try to make nice with the dreadmills (read about my first treadmill experience here). I'm also going to take a body pump class. Basically synchronized lifting with a room full of people.
• I am extremely proud of my two running buddies. They're doing such a fabulous job and, as I've said, are completely annihilating me in terms of running ability and improvement.
• I can't spell annihilating either.
• I'm getting to be a very delinquent blogger, so please follow me on Twitter if you're the Twitter type. If you're not the Twitter type, my tweets show up on the right hand side of my blog page. I'm trying to improve the frequency of my posts there to compensate for my poor blogging habits. Plus, I often re-tweet or quote some really useful and insightful tweets from Runner's World, Women's Health, Eat This Not That, and other Twitter resources.
• This is a mighty long list, but I think I'm finished for now.
• This is my first blog post as a thirty-something!

And now pictures...

These are from the Warrior Run.

Caitlin before the race started.

At the start line. (Caitlin is in pink.)

At mile 1. This was the prettiest race course ever. Through a super cute neighborhood with fall leaves everywhere. =)

Finish line! (Caitlin isn't there quite yet.)

There she is! She had to elbow and shove her way through a pack of walkers. Atta girl!

Caitlin's cheering section. Her husband Jesse (pointing toward their hidden child in the stroller, Emalynn). To the left in the red plaid is Jesse's brother Jason. To the left again, creeping over Jason's shoulder, is Kevin, Caitlin's twin brother.

The paparazzi!

And here's a collage of pics from my 30th birthday party. I didn't party like a rockstar as I intended (due in large part to me going "too big, too fast," if you catch my drift. But I got to see most of my most favorite people in the world, no exaggeration here! Thank you for celebrating with me, peeps. Love you all!

Happy birthday to me!