28 May 2008

ummmm

......strawberry shortcake counts as a nutritious meal choice doesn't it?

Anyway, 3.4 mile walk this morning and a spin session sometime this evening.

edit--53:41 spin, followed the "Cycle all Terrain" dvd

26 May 2008

Range of motion

Day 4 of the range of motion exercises, some are easy-peasy, others make me lightheaded. The first set of the day is usually tough because I haven't moved around enough to loosen my muscles up (most are supposed to be done 3 times a day). It's getting easier every day though, yay!

Yesterday's workouts--25 minute spin and a 2.9 mile walk. This morning was a 1.88 mile walk.

I managed not to be a back seat (second seat, sleeper?) driver too much but that was due to the fact that I ended up sleeping most of the time while I was out with James. The seat belt on the passenger seat kept rubbing across the knot on my collarbone and irritating me. Yes, I know you can adjust the seatbelt so that it's loose but for some oddball reason wearing it like that makes me nervous.

Weekend dispatch has screwed James over on reloading at Columbia Tues. Some dumbass up there decided that another driver needed the load that he (James) was going to drop at the Nashville yard tonight and had a very hard time comprehending the fact that there was a dedicated customer that was going to be left hanging. Oh well, it's that dispatcher's butt that is going to be chewed on, not James. It's just extremely irritating that the guy couldn't understand that you should take care of your dedicated accounts. James tried to explain it to him but he wasn't going to take no for an answer. I will be surprised if that dispatcher has a job here by the end of the week. At least James is going to be delivering in the northern Alabama area tomorrow morning so he should get to reload at Pulaski tomorrow afternoon or Wednesday.

22 May 2008

New road shoes

Just had my lbs order these in white. I see some stop & flops in my future. Hopefully I will get used to them on the trainer and won't have any problems on the road. Cross your fingers everybody.

Burning the figure 8 brace

Woo-hoo no more torturous figure 8 brace!!!!!!! Went in for my 3 week check today, x-rays show the bone is starting to grow back together. First doctor I spoke to was snarky about me having a bicycle accident and I was soooooo tempted to tell her that it was a shame that a truck driver was in better physical condition than she was (she was at least 60 lbs overweight and not that much older than me). Dr. Sherwood finished up the checkup and he agreed that it was time to retire the brace and that I could start elbow and shoulder range of motion exercises. He also said it was fine to walk as long as I wore a sling to keep my shoulder from moving excessively and that I could use the trainer. Shhh, I didn't tell him that I'd already been walking and spinning. No running for at least 3 more weeks though.

James is running an extra trip as a favor this weekend so I think I'm going to ride with him to Laredo. It's going to be strange being a passenger, I'll have to try to not be a backseat driver.

21 May 2008

Pulaski

My people in the shipping dept at Pulaski sent me a get well card, they are soooo sweet! I am ready to go back to work just to see them. I hope whoever is running my load is taking care of them otherwise there will be some serious a**kicking when I get back.

James has a trailer at Laredo so he should be back home late tomorrow night or early Thurs. morning. He just called to tell me that the mechanics at the Laredo shop wished me well.

Today was a 2.25 mile walk, I had too much coffee this morning and not enough water so I was getting a stitch towards the end. Saw several runners and walkers out, it's great seeing so many out and about in my neighborhood.

20 May 2008

I Wanna........

Run, cycle, even go back to work. Well, maybe not go back to work, lol! I'm on week 3 with the broke collarbone and ready for it to be healed already. Feeling is coming back to the side of my face so that's a plus and I no longer have a black eye. Shoulder is doing good this week, lots more mobility although I'm still limiting my movement. Don't want to mess it up again. My right arm is already weaker than the left so kayaking will be a challenge once the doc gives me the ok to start moving.

Beautiful day again today but it's on the hot side, should be almost 90 degrees today. Much prefer the hot to the cold though so no complaining here. Monday was a 1.86 mile walk in 32:29, it was with Elsie so cut it short because the heat was getting to her. I even ended up carrying her for a short distance near the end. Good thing she's still small enough to carry one-handed. Followed the walk with a 30 minute spin on the trainer following part of the "Cycle all Terrain" dvd.

Elsie rec'd her final shots for the year weekend before last and she has put on almost 5 lbs in one month. She weighs just under 10 lbs now.

17 May 2008

Beautiful, gorgeous day

It's absolutely fantastic outside today in central Arkansas and I'm stuck not being able to do the fun things like riding my bicycle, running, or riding my softy. James, by the way, got to ride his bicycle this morning and is out right now riding my motorcycle--he runs occasionally but doesn't love it. I can't be mad though, I suggested that he take my bike out since I'm not able to ride right now even as a passenger.

My shoulder feels ok right now but I'm back to sleeping in the chair which means I'm not actually getting much sleep. Slept in the bed Wed. night but started to roll over onto my left side and the right collarbone crunched so back to the ibuprofen for a couple of days.

Dewayne and Becky have offered me the use of a trike to ride while I'm not able to ride a regular bicycle so I'm going to try that out next week. They say it doesn't take much to steer one and the controls are down by your side so no reaching up or out. Hoping between that, the trainer, and walking I won't be too out of shape. Right now I'm all puffy where my body is trying to heal itself, evidently that is one of the side effects of having a broken bone.

We rec'd our economic stimulus payment yesterday, YAY!! Even got the full $1200 so we brought James' bicycle home and bought some accessories. I now have a new Cateye Strada computer on my bike that runs off the rear wheel and measures cadence in addition to the speed readouts.

Congratulations Susan on your return to running!!!! You're my mental kick in the pants whenever I get too whiny about not being able to run. I'm in awe of people who have the mental toughness to complete a marathon. You ROCK!!

15 May 2008

Converse Love

I want these! or these... Oh, who am I kidding, I would get all of 'em if I could.

Wednesday?

Since I have no fixed schedule and no logbook to tell me what the date is, I'm finding myself losing track of my days. The little clock/calendar icon is coming in handy. The sun is finally coming out but we had a wicked thunderstorm about 3 am this morning. I also found out that the couch isn't working for me either, back to the chair to sleep in.

Elsie and I took a 3.06 mile walk this afternoon in 52:48--yep, I remembered my garmin today (you can take the girl out of accounting but it's a little more difficult to remove the obsessive-compulsiveness that led you to it to begin with). Poor Elsie can't catch a break, she wants to be friends with every dog, cat, or person she comes across but the other dogs don't want to be friends. A couple of weeks ago it was a beagle that drug it's owner across the road to growl at her, today it was a couple of yorkies. Actually one of the yorkies was okay but the littlest one had a napoleon complex and started growling, Elsie was even in a submissive position. I am so glad she's not a barker, too many people buy dogs and then tie them up in the backyard because they're too "busy" to pay any attention to them.

20 minutes on the bicycle trainer this afternoon, I'm using the trainer time to work on my cadence so hopefully by the time I get back on the road I will have better form. No spinnerval dvds at netflix but found a "Cycle All Terrain" dvd, it should be here tomorrow.

I am planning to be back to running next month and if at all possible want to continue my one race a month goal. Tentatively planning on the Malvern Brickfest 5k or the Morrilton Pig Out 5k on June 28th. The Brickfest 5k is a Grand Prix race and well-organized, the Pig Out would be closer to home and is close to Russellville so I could visit with my sister afterwards.

13 May 2008

Short walk


Dreary day, the brace is getting to me, and just felt way too closed in--we have a small house so it doesn't take much. With all that I decided it was time to take Elsie for a short walk so we went out for 35 minutes. The dog gave out before I did, she stopped twice in the last 10 minutes and just gave me this look like "what are you doing to me?". It helped my mood but my shoulder is twinging a little. Can't blame the twinges on the walk though, I forgot to have James stop at the post office yesterday so I had to drive there myself today. Twisted in a weird way trying to get up in our pickup.


Gotta agree with Susan, I love running and bicycling, but walking just seems like it's something I have to do to get to something more interesting. Having Elsie with me gives me something to concentrate on other than how slow I'm going.
Currently listening to Goose. I kept stopping everything to watch/listen to the new Mitsubishi Lancer commercial so finally googled it to find out who did the song ("Bring it On" Goose). I now have that on my music wishlist, perfect running AND driving music.

10 May 2008

stitches are out

My stitches have been removed, yay!! Now I look like a have a run of the mill black eye. Shouldn't have any scarring either. I'm not sure how I feel about that. On one hand it's great but on the other, it's like what, no battle scars?. The blood pressure machine started beeping at us that my pulse was too low so that was pretty cool. We also left my bicycle at the lbs and they were surprised at how little cosmetic damage it sustained. Still going to remove the tape and make sure there's no hidden major damage. Just at a quick glance the bike doesn't appear to have any frame damage so that's a relief. 5 more weeks off work and they were saying no stationary bicycle. I'm not sure why because the ones at the gym do not require any upper body movement. Will probably start next week anyway, I'm not wanting to lose all of my fitness.

Oh yeah, they made me copies of my x-rays so will try to scan them in sometime this weekend and post a pic of the collarbone break.

09 May 2008

kind of disappointed

Stopped in at Bike City this afternoon after picking James up (Yay, James is finally home!!!) to show them my BDB du medal and my injuries. They had thought they were going to get a 2007 Marin Argenta but after some calls today it turns out that the rep didn't have it in stock after all after promising it. I am so bummed, it's a couple of steps up from my Portofina and was going to get it for an excellent price. Oh well, Dewayne said he would keep looking for something for me. part of the problem is that I require a smaller bike and the manufacturers don't make as many of the smaller sizes and most in my price range are already sold out/backordered.

De-cluttering and consumerism

While I'm off work I've been slowly decluttering, nothing big, just picking a table here, a drawer there. How in the world has 2 people managed to accumulate some much stuff? This is just a tiny fraction of our house that I've been working on--can't do any heavy lifting and have to avoid using my right hand as much as possible.

Guys might not want to read any further--girly stuff coming up.

Well, yesterday afternoon I decided to go through some of my clothing that is folded in the dresser I share with James. Ummm, I have a full garbage sack of bras that no longer fit, a grand total of 51 bras. Now, I have lost approx. 30 lbs over the last year and a half and it seems like the first place I lose it is in my boobs, but 51 bras? And we're not talking Wal-mart bras here, the vast majority were Victoria's Secret, not cheap (well not inexpensive). Even with vastly underestimating the price at an average of $10 per bra, that's $510. That's just the ones that were too good to throw away. There was a smaller bag that went into the trash. I feel weird about taking them to Goodwill but not quite sure what else to do with them. Any suggestions?

Oh, mini rant here. How can a person lose that much weight, go from a 36C to a 32A and still have a chubby face? That is in my list of things that are just not right.

08 May 2008

BDB du results

Official results for the BDB duathlon results was 1:20:41. 17:05 run, 45:15 bike (included transition times), and 18:21 run. Good enough to get a 3rd place age group award (stuck on the 3rd place for the past couple of events, lol!). Emailed the guy that's the event manager and he said he would mail me the award. Happy about that since that will probably be my last age group award for a few months.

Having trouble with my shoulder this morning. Evidently I rolled over the wrong way last night or overdid it yesterday when I was trying to do some decluttering.

07 May 2008

Escape Pod ep. 146

I adore the Escape Pod podcast but episode 146 "Edward Bear and the Very Long Walk" had me laughing and crying. Don't want to ruin the plot and I'm horrible at book reports/reviews anyway so just go check it out if you're interested in sci-fi/fantasy short stories.

06 May 2008

stir-crazy

It's only been 3.5 days since my mishap but I'm already going stir-crazy. Did get a new figure 8 brace this morning which allows me more use of my right hand--no more trying to type with one hand. Spoke to my next door neighbor this morning who is a little senile and she told me if I was bored I could come clean her house and do yard work. Umm, if I could do more than a few minutes of light housework at a time I wouldn't be bored. My house is in desperate need of a good spring cleaning itself.

James did stop by this evening to help me put the brace on and make sure everything was okay. The only problem with this brace is that I can't get it on and off by myself so no showers for the next 3 days, just baths. Should have had James get me some bubble bath before he left out again.

05 May 2008

bicycle crash




After the 5k and having lunch with my family, I had planned to ride my bicycle from Beebe to Searcy to get approx 20 miles in. Yeah, that was my plan. Less than a mile after James dropped me off I wiped out at around 18-20 mph. Scared the woman in a car behind me half to death. I just thought that I'd bruised and bloodied my face so called James to tell him to come get me and continued riding north. started feeling lightheaded so rang him again to tell him I was hurt worse than I initially thought and he needed to hurry. Stubborn me kept riding.


Turned out that I needed stitches on my face and broke my right collarbone. This is not how I planned to use my last week of vacation pay. Nurses and doctor were impressed with my blood pressure though.


We have an extended hours emergency care clinic and was able to use it instead of the er. Another way to get into a room quickly is to bleed all over their leather couches.


WEAR YOUR HELMET!!!!!! It may look dorky but it saved me from a concussion at the very least.

Toad Suck 5k

The Toad Suck 5k was my first race ever last year so I was looking forward to running it again to see how much I'd improved over the past year. Last year's time was 29:33-this year it was 26:05. Enough of an improvement to get a 3rd place age group award ;-). 18th female, 102nd overall.