small things...

week 3 lazy update

• Liz: 55 miles
• Chris: 46 miles
• Erin: 35 miles

Am I catching up for falling behind?  I can’t tell anymore (plus I haven’t done the math)

So we are trying to think of a midway challenge to keep it interesting. 

Something like:

• climb a flight of stairs in the tallest building in your town
• walk/run/bike somewhere totally new
• or…I can’t think of anything else!

If you have any ideas for us leave them in the comment’s section.

week two – lazy ironman competition

Liz is in the lead!

the numbers:

• Liz: 39 miles!
• Chris: 23 miles
• Me: 20.26 (the .26 clearly important)

I acknowledged in my last post the necessity of planning my workouts ahead of time if I wanted to get them in.  The harsh truth I realized this week is that planning out my week does not come easy.  In fact there is a part of my personality that actively fights against it.  I think it’s my latent hippie side.  The part of me that just wants to go with the flow, just see what happens, man. Don’t tie me down with all your plans.

It also happens to be my super-annoying-end-up-sitting-on my-ass-or-wandering-from-room-to-room-in-my-apartment-side.

Last week my hippie side won out and every morning looked like this:

me (laying in bed already awake for 5 minutes): I should work out. a walk? but maybe it’s too cold. I’ll go swim. can’t my suit is still wet from yesterday. should I go bike? argh, i hate that stationary bike. I’ll work out later, i swear.

(rolls over to cuddle fat cat who has also decided not to work out today)

When I do the totals I realize it’s not so bad, and more than twice what I did the first week.  But, shit, liz has 39 miles!!?! 

This is reminding me of the time when I was proud of myself b/c I was swimming for 25 minutes without stopping and that seemed like a super long time…until I spoke with my 95 y.o. grandfather who was regularly swimming for 45 minutes.  like 3 times a week regular.

sigh.

this week…more miles!

And the Lazies are off!

There are officially 3 of us Lazy Iron-people aiming for 140.6 miles in 7 weeks. 

Liz and Chris representing the mountain states from Colorado and myself (so far) the sole lazy folk from the midwest. 

The Totals:

• Liz: 16 miles   124.6 miles to go!
• Chris: 15 miles  125.6 miles to go!
• Erin: 7.62          132.98 miles to go!

Here is how the first week went:

Liz and Chris

It has been fun. Here is what we have learned - in order to fit exercise into our busy day/ week – we have to plan for it weekly, make it a priority rather than an after thought. Walking 2 or 3 miles doesn't really take very long and sometimes we can find 20 - 30 minutes in what feels like a busy day. Snow, cold, dark, and kids are a real impediment to exercise not just an excuse.  We mostly walked outside but Liz biked outside today.

Chris: the kids get in on it…Mira scooted around the whole 3 mile lake. Word up.

Liz: Here is one from the day I walked to work – it was cold, snowing and windy – walked 2 miles in heavy boots.  I was so sore!

Erin

I agree with Liz and Chris – the week’s been fun, but it totally took planning to fit in the time to get some miles.  I’m realizing that I have to know the night before what kind of exercise I’m going to do the next morning or I spend waayyy too much time ‘deciding’ the next morning.

I’m trying to do all three sports.  I’m loving the swimming, but am having to face my lifelong aversion to working out on equipment in a gym with rows and rows of folks spinning and stepping and running all on the road to nowhere  It’s a bit of a head trip for me, but I’m trying to just get over myself and my opinions about the gym for now.  I have to get some miles in!

I don’t quite have the gear to ride my bike outside in this weather – all my warm weather jackets are big and puffy which makes riding the bike a bit awkward.  so the stationary bike it is and as much as possible the pool. 

 

::Disclaimer: this is obviously not the pool.  and those are obviously not actually on my feet.  But they are awesome.

Is E-town kicking it?

One of my goals for this upcoming year is to re-integrate regular exercise into my life.  Exercise has been very sporadic for me over the past two years and my body, joints, muscles, squishy parts are all suffering the loss!  I’ve always been a better exerciser when there was a goal ahead.

• a marathon
• a 5k
• a big ol hike

But right now I have nothing on the horizon and I need a little motivation.  as well as some accountability. 

A while back I started and fizzled out on doing a “Lazy Man’s Ironman Triathlon”.  I was doing it alone and I am not such a great accountability-holder on my own.  But I’m ready to try it again…but this time I want some company.  And I’m inviting my high school graduating class to join me…will there be any takers?  That remains to be seen.  I hope so!

As you may know an Ironman Triathlon consists of a 2.4 mile swim, followed by a 112 mile bike ride, followed by a 26.2 mile run – to be completed all in one day.

The Lazy Man’s version includes all of the same distances*, but done over a longer period of time – say a month or 6 weeks. 

Here is what I’m proposing to my fellow Wildkits:

• E-town Lazy Man Ironman – begins today! (1/8/12)
• All participants will have 7 weeks to complete the total distance (ending 2/26/12)
• The first person to complete the total distance should win some sort of prize…TBD
• Maybe we meet up for a victory party on the afternoon of the 26th?

* What if I don’t like to walk/swim/bike, but I still want to participate?

To be fair, since not everyone may have access to a pool or to a bike – or may just prefer other types of exercise – I would like to suggest that what has to be accomplished at the end of the 7 weeks is the mileage – 140.6 miles.  Maybe you dance your way there, or box, or karate chop.  Maybe you’ll walk the whole thing.  The only way I can think of to track this would be to wear a pedometer that tracks mileage. 

Each Sunday of the challenge you’ll email me with your totals and I’ll put up a post with the results from that week.

So what do you think?  Wanna join me?

A little inspiration

 

We only need to be a fraction that bad ass.

2011, you were a year

This was not one of those years where I was counting down the minutes for the new year to arrive, but 2011 was a weird one.  I didn’t write much about the weirdness here on the blog cuz I’m not sure I even knew how to describe it.  But going through my photos of the year helped me remember that there was a lot of fun being had in between the weirdness.  Maybe your year was the same.

• i got a cat. she is smushy, though sometimes she scratches me across the neck. I think she is trying to remind not to take life for granted, mob-wife style
• I took 5 trips.  I couldn’t believe or remember that I took 5 trips this year! That is awesome: Portland, Madison, Boulder, Maine and California.
• I got these weird half-like bangs and spent most of the year with my hair bobby pinned
• You did not know this because not once did a photo of myself grace this blog in 2011
• I felt sad, happy, depressed, anxious and hopeful…all in one year!

2011 was a tricky year and here is what some of it looked like for me: 

A whole lot of food and pretty views.  This slideshow needs some tunes!  in 2012 I will learn how to add tunes to my slideshows. 

My plan this weekend is to spend some serious brain activity on thinking about 2012.  I feel like 2011 happened to me.  Like I was continually stumbling and looking back over my shoulder muttering, "what the hell was that?!" as 2011 blew past me again.  

This year I hope to give 2012 a run for it's money.

What are you plans for 2012?  I'd love a little inspiration...

xoxo

happy new year, folks.