Oh Monday

about five hours of sleep plus lots of this



requires lots of this



That's my second cup of coffee so far. First bottle of water.

I should be telling you all about the nine-miler that I ran yesterday. But I won't be. Because I didn't.

I stayed out JUST a touch later than I intended to on Saturday night. And drank JUST a touch more alcohol. And I stayed up just a TOUCH later, to drink plenty of water on top of the bottle of Gatorade I chugged on my walk home. (and, while we're at it, I left just a TOUCH more Facebook messages for people than I intended to leave.)

So while I didn't have a hangover yesterday, I DID sleep really late. I think it was after 9 by the time I finally woke up. By the time I walked the dogs, it was nearly 10, I had no coffee in the house, and it was already 80 degrees. No chance was I running nine miles at that point. Instead, I hightailed it to Ants Pants for an iced coffee, followed by a quick trip to the grocery store. I feasted on a bagel with cream cheese, lox and tomato from the comfort of my couch while putting together a game plan for the day.

The good? That game plan involved some MUCH NEEDED home maintenance. I scrubbed my downstairs hallway, recaulked the seal of our door that my innocent lil' puppy managed to dig out, did laundry, replaced light bulbs in a ceiling fixture, vaccuumed three flights of stairs, de-dog-furred the hardwood floors, and cleaned the bathrooms.

The bad? That game plan DID NOT involve any running or, in fact, any gym-going at all.

I think I'll try to cover the nine miles tonight. I cannot believe it's less than three weeks until the Distance Run. I still haven't decided whether to run it or not, but I'm leaning towards running it...if only for the free t-shirt.

How was your weekend? Also, Distance Run roll call? Anyone else running it?

Water Update

So it's been a whole week since I decided to cut down on my personal black hole of spending: diet soda.

My full disclosure: as I stated originally, I don't intend to -- and haven't -- stopped drinking soda at home. I still have a couple glasses of it at night after work, with dinner and during my precious TV watching-and-internetting time.

BUT, I'm proud to say I haven't purchased or drank a single soda at work since last Thursday. And it hasn't been so bad!

The first morning was great. "Lookitmeeee! I'm drinking water! Who needs soda?? Not meeeeee!" and then I finished my first bottle, around lunchtime. And promptly got slammed with a craving for fizzy deliciousness. "Stupid water. This is stupid. I want diet coke, dammit." But, lucky for me, I didn't have any cash for the vending machine, and I didn't have the time to run downstairs, and besides -- I can't just give up that easily, right?

And I'm happy to say that since then, I've averaged two full 800mL/28oz bottles of water a day. One in the morning, one in the afternoon. Plus, of course, my iced coffee in the morning, and occasionally a second iced coffee in the afternoon. By "occasionally," I mean "once."



So, I'm doing pretty well, I'd say. I honestly haven't missed my daily 40-60 ounces of Diet Coke/Coke Zero/whatever, but that's probably aided by the fact that I'm still having about 16-20 ounces at night. I don't know that I've noticed any changes -- but to be fair, I haven't been paying much attention. Herding a pack of dogs has taken up most of my time this week.

Last night, I herded said dogs into their respective crates for some dinner while I hit the gym. And what an interesting evening at the gym it was. Now, I use my condo complex's gym. It's actually pretty decent, with a good variety of equipment, enough cardio machines that I've never had to wait, and a nice set of dumbbells in every weight I need. Best of all, it's free (or, well, not "free," but "included in the HOA fee"). But one of the drawbacks of a free gym is that anyone who lives there can use it. This occasionally means, say, having someone bring their child with them and having said child wander aimlessly about, randomly messing around with the machines. Or people who don't regularly attend the gym, and thus have no sense of etiquette (i.e. sitting on a machine to rest, not wiping their sweat off, doing strange calisthenetics in the middle of the floor and blocking access to the weights).

But last night, I think there may have been a certifiably crazy woman there. There I was, pedaling away on the bike and cursing the burn in my quads, when I started hearing a sort of wailing coming from behind me. It was loud enough that I could hear it over my music, but not loud enough so that I could tell what was going on. After maybe ten minutes of this, I managed to nonchalantly turn around.

There was a woman wearing a long, light blue jersey dress (I'd call it a maxi dress, but it had short sleeves) and Ugg slippers, hair down, singing along -- and LOUDLY -- to "Stayin' Alive," which I presume was playing on her ipod. She was hopping sort of wildly from machine to machine -- she'd do a few crunches on that ab-weight-machine, wail "stayin aliiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiive," jump up, run over to the leg adduction machine, bust out three or four thigh moves, "ah ah ah ah stayin alive, stayin alive," run over to the lat pulldown, knock out a couple of reps, continue singing and dash across the room to another random machine.

I'm wondering if we were being punked or something. Everyone in the gym was doing the same thing I was: trying to stare in disbelief while letting it appear as though you didn't even notice the bizarre turn of events going on in front of you.

Yeah. I cut my workout short last night.

Weird gym sightings?

Water?

Today's challenge?

This might not seem like a big deal to most of you. It's hardly news that you're supposed to stay hydrated, and it's hardly news that drinking water is generally the best way to do it.

But...ugh. Guys, I have a REAL PROBLEM with drinking water. I love it while I'm working out, but that's it. Period. Unless I'm sweating buckets, I just. Don't. Like. Water.



There, I said it. It's pretty much blasphemy, right? In a world where everyone just LOOOOOOOOOVES their water! OMG, it's SOOOOO healthy and refreshing and I make sure I drink three full Nalgenes a day! (Actually, it's probably not Nalgenes anymore, since they cause cancer or whatever -- what's the new fancy bottle? Sigg? Am I still living in the past? Whatever.)

Here's my second confession: I definitely stay hydrated. Constantly drinking. Um, no, not really THAT kind of drinking. But in the eyes of some (probably most, at least in this healthy-living blogworld), what I'm about to say might be just as bad.

I drink diet soda. All. Day. Long.

Yup. Pepsi Max is my favorite, followed by Coke Zero, followed by Diet Pepsi, followed by Diet Coke. And I'm not talking "oh, I have one can each day as a treat!" Nope. I'd estimate that I drink at least two liters of diet soda every day. By myself. I average one 20-ounce bottle in the morning and another in the afternoon. When I get home, I'm constantly refilling my glass. I probably take in enough artificial sweeter to kill a lab rat.

I think I'm going to try to change this habit. I have a pink Nalgene that lives on my desk. It's lived with me here at work for three years now. For a while, it got annihilated twice a day -- but not with yucky plain water. No, I would blow through those Crystal Light iced tea packets like nobody's business. Eventually, I ran out and for whatever reason, just stopped buying them. Not sure why.

And this brings us to confession number three. I'm going to try to force myself to drink water instead of soda at work...but not really because I buy the whole "diet coke will leach calcium from your bones and give you cancer and make you fat" argument. Um, no. I'm trying to change my habits because SODA IS EXPENSIVE. I'm averaging TEN 20-ounce bottles every week -- probably more like twelve, because there are definitely days where I go through three a day. Even assuming I buy all of them from the soda machine at work (cheapest around at $1.25 each -- they are $1.75 at the convenience store downstairs, and more like $2.25 if I get them at DiBruno's), that's fifteen bucks a week on soda. I also kill about three two-liter bottles at home each week - so at a minimum, that's TWENTY DOLLARS every single week on fizzy, carbonated deliciousness. When I have a perfectly good water cooler at my disposal!

So, we'll see. I figure my palate will adjust if I just keep making it a point to drink water. I'm interested to see if I see any health benefits from what I'm sure will be a drastic cut in aspartame intake, but frankly...I'm skeptical. And I certainly don't plan to give the stuff up cold turkey -- I'm going to keep drinking it at home.

In other news, we got our baby Sophie just about one year ago:



I can't get over how tiny and cuddly she was. Now she's got a big ol' diva attitude, and I can't imagine our lives without both of our dogs.