Happy kid

Not sure how old I was or even what I was so happy about here. Shelley gave me this picture this weekend. Can you believe I used to have straight hair?! Still have the same chubby cheeks.

Marc--My sister looks just like me only with lighter colored hair and taller. My niece does look just like the both of us but she has my skin tone (more tawny, not as fair as my sis). Her dad jokes around that she's the only one in the family that could get a tan if she wanted (don't worry everybody, she still gets slathered with sunscreen).

Whew!

Busy weekend!!

First off, I didn't make it to Morrilton for the 5k Sat. so ended up missing a race for June. I did have a couple of months earlier in the year that I did more than one so that makes up for it right? James' mom waited until Friday evening when we called to check on her to tell us that one of her cats was sick and needed to go to the vet. Her reason for not calling us during the day? She didn't want to inconvenience us. Grrrr, her not telling us during business hours is what inconvenienced us. I was going to go ahead and take my motorcycle over to Morrilton then meet James at Russellville after he got done at the vet but that didn't work out like planned either. Had everything packed and was within a 1/2 mile of the freeway when I noticed lightning in the sky so turned around to go back home and was facing a major cloud bank in the west. Within 30 minutes of parking the motorcycle it started sprinkling. Went ahead and walked with Elsie for almost a mile until it started thundering then she'd had enough (she's terrified of thunder, okay with rain). Still not storming and I'm warmed up so decided to run and 1.5 miles into the run it turned loose!! Wind was causing the rain to sheet sideways and I was ok while it was at my back but boy did it sting when I had to turn to face into it to get back home. Managed to get 2.27 miles running +.97 walking with Elsie.

Between the vet visit, the rain, and having to load up the kayaks Sat. morning we ended up running late getting to Russellville. We arrived at my sister's house 30 minutes prior to Abigail's birthday party. It was ok though because we were spending the night and would get to have quality time with her afterwards. I learned a very valuable lesson! When you're playing tea party with Abigail don't tell her the lemonade is sour and you need more sugar. I was informed very quickly that her lemonade was sweet and I didn't know what I was talking about!! LOL!

I wasn't able to get any good pics of her party. Too many people to get in close enough.

One of the gifts I had gotten Abigail was a wooden table and chair puzzle set and it went over very well with her tea party set she'd received from her great grandparents on her dad's side. I was frustrated with all the toys being made in China so bought 3 of her gifts from Etsy this year. I went to high school with one of my brother-in-law's cousins and he was asking James wouldn't the drivers I work with be surprised that I was playing dolls with the little girls. WTH? I can do my job but I don't act or look like a guy.

This morning I ran hill repeats on the deadend road next to Shelley and Craig's house. There is one fairly steep hill that is .23 miles from the base to the top. Ended up with 5 reps and a total of 3.01 miles for the morning. Elsie surprised me and ran nearly the entire time. There was no traffic and the houses were set way back so I just dropped her leash and let her do it at her own pace. She stayed on the road with me, didn't try to chase the horses or anything. Only 12.5 miles on the week, basebuilding sucks.........

After breakfast, we said goodbye to the kids and Craig went with us to Piney Bay to give James a ride back from the Twin Bridges area (we dropped the kayaks off at Long Pool and then left the pickup at our landing point). Now there is some fast water in spots on Piney and I was kind of nervous because we hadn't been kayaking since late last fall and I didn't know how my shoulder would hold up + we were going to take Elsie. While waiting on James and Craig to return I paddled around in calm water with Elsie to see if she'd be okay on the kayak. She wasn't crazy about it but didn't act terrified so we thought there would be no problem. Well, remember I said she was scared of thunder? We hit the first set of rapids and she lost it. I hadn't even thought about the white water sounding like thunder to her. She caused both of us to capsize when she jumped out of my kayak and when I tried to grab her and then James capsized trying to snag her. Scared the hell out of me!!!!!!! I thought she was a goner but we'd bought her a doggie life jacket and it was well worth the money. Yes, we were wearing ours too, but we all know Elsie is the important one. James finally caught Elsie, handed her off to me and then he took off after the kayaks. Didn't think they were ever going to slow down. At this point she's terrified but we have no choice but to float on down because we're not anywhere near clear bank. She cried the entire way down, I feel like such a puppy abuser.

Moore's landing had guard dogs chained out that were barking and growling at us and she growled back at the dogs. That is the first time she has ever growled at another dog. James said that it was because the guard dogs were focused on us rather than her and she was trying to protect her family so I guess she still loves us even after all the trauma we put her through today. We waded back into the water to clean up after loading up the kayaks and she was ok as long as we stayed in very shallow water. We're all bruised and banged up from the rocks and we're going to be stiff tomorrow but at least there was no broken bones. The only casualty was James' cell phone, he didn't take the time to put in the ziploc baggy of stuff I had in his dry well (he had strapped a small empty ice chest to the back of his kayak and just threw his stuff in there). I removed the battery and we're hoping it'll dry out and be ok, otherwise he will be getting the spare one I have set back for when my current one dies--I'm notorious for dropping my phones and breaking them.

Old Atlas truck

This is an old Atlas Carriers tractor. These Kenworths were purchased new just before James started work there in 1992. I took this picture Thursday morning in Salado, TX. It looks rough but this tractor is at least 16 years old. It just goes to show what good maintenance at a company in the beginning of a truck's life can accomplish. Best Way out of Texas still runs several of Atlas' old Peterbilts and Atlas went under in 2003/2004. Best Way's truck numbers usually start out with an AJ and the drivers used to joke around that it stood for "Atlas Junk". Maybe so, but they were still maintained well enough that those old trucks are still on the road. You just don't get that kind of longevity out of Freightliners usually. In my opinion even an old ragged out Pete still looks good!! I know I'm prejudiced but some of James' best years were running Peterbilt parts out of the midwest to Denton. Peterbilt and Atlas Carriers is what enabled us to buy our house, motorcycles, and put me through 3.5 years of college so I think I have good reason to be partial. One of those Petes (unit 773) was also my first solo truck--great memories there. About a month after we'd left Atlas (they were starting the slippery slope to bankruptcy, lost the Denton Peterbilt contract, and had bounced some paychecks) I saw my old truck in Oklahoma City and the driver had torn half the bumper off and bent the wings. I just sat down and cried after seeing it.

Birthday Girl

My niece Abigail turned 4 years old yesterday!!

We're making the trek to Russellville tomorrow for her birthday party.

It's looking like we're going to have next week off, normally our plants shut down the last 2 weeks of July rather than the first 2 like all the rest of the G.M. factories but they changed it up this year. Wasn't expecting this because nobody let us know ahead of time, yikes. We may load up the kayaks and camping gear and check out Piney Bay for a couple of days.

Workouts for the week--nothing Tues and Wed. Got in after dark last night so only a 1.67 mile run in 15:27, went out too fast with no warm-up and I hate running in the dark so that's why it's a short run. This morning was a 1.92 mile walk with Elsie in 32:59 followed by a 2.07 mile run in 19:56. Tummy issues this morning so had to cut the run short. Tomorrow will be my only chance for a race if I want to get one in for June (goal for this year was to run at least one race a month) and there's a 5k at Morrilton so trying to decide if I want to run it. Definitely won't be a p.r., it may even be slowest 5k so far, lol. Also had to pass on a 70 mile ride with Gary on Saturday.

Back home

Finally got out of Columbia at 2330 Monday night, I was yawning when I was signing my bills and the forklift driver had the nerve to tell me I shouldn't be sleepy, I had all day to sleep. Yeah, wonder how he would feel if his sleep/work schedule was thrown off that much. You can't change your sleep patterns in one day and I normally have a very regular schedule, at 11:30 p.m. I'm usually out for the night plus I had evening dispatch sending messages asking if I was loaded yet so was getting woke up when I should have been napping. Anyway had a very busy couple of days after that so no time to run. Oh and I forgot to doublecheck with my dispatcher on Tuesday to make sure he adjusted my delivery time to match what I'd put in for my updated eta and it turns out that he had noted it but hadn't changed it in the system so at 2 am Wed. morning I'm getting yet more messages from night dispatch asking if I was going to make my delivery time. When I mentioned it to him later in the morning, he was like "I'm not worried about you making your appts, you are always early and there was extra time built in for the late loading." Nice to know that I'm appreciated but it doesn't help me when I'm trying to sleep and the people on the night shift don't know what's going on. All they see is the fact that I'm not making the original appointment time.

This brings me to another issue, the hours of service rules. Under the current rules you can run a split log book using an 8/2 sleeper birth split but the 2 hour break doesn't stop the initial 14 hour clock (we have 14 hours to complete our 11 hours of work once we start the workday). It simply doesn't make sense to have it split up like that, the previous hos you could split the sleeper time up in any way you wanted as long as the break was at least 2 hours and would total up to 10 hours and all the breaks would stop the clock. Now you're practically forced to work your 11 hours straight and you're just screwed if you feel like you need to take a nap or if you want to avoid rush hours. Confused yet? I won't even get into the previous incarnations of the rules. Needless to say, I was fighting this issue this week. It's so confusing I know several of the larger trucking companies forbid their drivers to run a split logbook even though it's legal under federal regulations.

blech....

Waiting at Columbia to reload, I was hoping to just unload here and reload back at Pulaski but it wasn't to be. My appointment was at 1000 but the truck bringing in bearings to build the parts is late and they're telling me it might be as late as midnight before I get loaded. No good place here to walk Elsie so sent her out with James--he was reloaded by 1115.

Got in a good run this morning--3.43 miles in 31:46. Nice, cool morning. I'm not familiar with the back roads in this area so ran alongside Hwy 412 east of I65. Still had some nice scenery, got to watch a very fat rabbit grazing in somebody's garden. Shoulder of the road did have some tilt in a few places and there was small rolling hills but it was all manageable, just a little muscle soreness leftover from Saturday's ride.

Got an email from Gary afterwards telling me I did quite well considering how little riding I've gotten in this summer. Made my day! He's a strong rider and was just absolutely blowing me away on the uphills.

Sunday morning we went out for a quick disc golf game with Jason and Bill. James won this round, made par on most of the holes. He did lose my driver in the creek--we went back and fished it out with a kayak paddle afterwards. If we hadn't gotten it out that would've been his 4th disc lost. Oh, and the creek we fished it out of had fish, frogs, and one very large snake inhabiting it. I was ok with the fish and frogs but very much NOT ok with the snake, esp. since we couldn't tell if it was a cottonmouth or one of the water snakes that resembles a cottonmouth. We did get to watch it catch and eat a fish while we were discussing the best way to retrieve the disc.

Heard an interesting conversation after showering at the Love's this morning. Two fuel desk cashiers and the maintenance guy were all trying to "out-country" each other. Literally they were saying to each other "yeah, but I'm more country because I did.....or do...."

Anyway, time to try to get a nap. Thought about taking today as a rest day but glad I got out and ran. Looks like I might not get a chance to tomorrow.

59.6

That's how many miles I bicycled yesterday. Gary was wanting to get a long ride in so I decided to tag along with him. In his email describing our route he said "It will probably be an adventure. It may or may not be fun." Well it was all that including the fun and not fun depending on the segment.

Started from Missile Base Road and went back east on Hwy 36 to Nicholson Road. Followed Nicholson south and caught a few back roads to end up on Hwy 267. Beautiful section, there was a one-lane wooden bridge just after a sharp curve that was kind of scary. Also walked my first hill here, messed up on shifting into the little ring, I think Gary said this was Peanut Ridge. 267 to Hwy 13 and made our first stop at McRae and adjusted my seat.

We then went south-west on 367 to Beebe and caught 64 west and made our second stop at a gas station for a bathroom break, still doing great at this point. 64 to El Paso started to get a little tough for me, we were starting to fight some wind. 3rd stop was at El Paso to fill our water bottles and eat granola bars to fuel up for the big hills coming up. Turned north on Hwy 5 and I walked my second hill here, again messing up trying to get to the little ring. For everybody familiar with the area the section I walked was the first monster hill that comes up after turning north from 64. That hill was enough for me, I finally figured out how and when to shift (normally I just stay in the middle ring up front and shift up and down the back rings). We made another rest stop at the top of the big hill--well, Gary was waiting on me and I needed to catch my breath. Made it to Romance and turned east-southeast on Hwy 31 to Floyd, this section is where we started running into lots of people who were pissed that we were on "their" road. Lots of rednecks passing us in pickups and revving their engines at us. Sorry we slowed you guys down all of 30 seconds...There was another quick rest break in here somewhere on the side of the road, this is where things started to get tougher for me.

At Floyd we made another stop at the gas station at the ntersection of 31 and 305, we were at 50.8 miles here. Got a compliment from a guy in the store who had passed us saying we were really booking it up the hill. The cashiers felt sorry for me and gave me a free cup of ice when I bought some water, that's pretty rare anymore they usually have to charge you for the cup.

Hwy 305 northeast out of Floyd has the hill from hell! It's not a super steep hill but it feels like it climbs up for forever. It does ascend for just over a mile and my legs were screaming for mercy before we got to the top. After this there is a very steep downhill, Gary stopped and told me that even though he is in his 50s he's still an adolescent at heart and always has to go as fast as possible coming down but I could take it at my own pace. His top speed so far has been 57 mph coming down but I think yesterday he was in the high 40's. I only let my speed get up to 39.4 mph before braking. Yes, I was being a scaredy-cat!! Finally made it to Center Hill back on Hwy 36 and we took another break while I called James to let him know we were almost done and to come pick me up at our starting point.

Grand totals for the day
59.6 miles
39.4 mph top speed
14.64 mph ave.
4:04:24 (4 hrs 4 mins 24 seconds)

It was a tough ride but it let me know that maybe, just maybe I can survive a century in the fall. I did come home and take a 2 hr nap after James fed me lasagna, I was almost falling asleep while eating lunch, lol.

Today's workout was a 3.3 mile run in 32:08, followed by a 2.11 mile walk with Elsie in 35:22. Yay, I finally got 3 miles in!!!!! My legs are a little sore from yesterday but not near as bad as what I expected and they loosened up when I ran.

I didn't play in last night's disc golf game, just acted as caddy for James. James and Jason had their best game so far, they both made par on most of the holes. I think it was because it was just the 2 of them playing and they didn't have time to overthink their throws like when it's a larger group of us.

first week back to work

.........was tiring. The plan was for me to ride/drive with James to Columbia, TN to pick up and then head to Austin, TX to grab the abandoned truck. The plant at Columbia was even slower than normal so we didn't get out of there until almost 1 p.m. Monday, the appointment is for 9 a.m. and they usually will get you out at 1100. I hate driving team, I hate driving team, I hate driving team. We always get asked why we don't drive team and my reply is that you don't have to work as hard as a solo driver. Don't get me wrong, it can be nice having somebody right there in the truck to help with things like paperwork, fueling, etc but neither of us can get proper rest if that truck is moving. You have rough roads, stop and go traffic, background noise (or in my case some idiot getting alongside of me and blowing his air horn because he wants a woman to wave at him). There is also the issue of having your own space, we both set our trucks up slightly different so we were constantly tripping over each other's things. Good thing it was only from Sunday evening to Tues. morning.

Speaking of things, I took the bare minimum because I thought we would get to Austin, recover the tractor and then I would bobtail to Laredo to get my racks for the next week. Nothing doing, turned out the dispatcher wanted me to go to Houston for the next day, scrounge around for an empty, live-load for Laredo, then get my return trailer. I had almost nothing with me because I thought James and I would be right there together and I could use his tools and sleep in his truck until we got back home. Thankfully James volunteered to cover the Houston mess and I took his load on down to Laredo after making a stop at Wal-Mart for cleaning supplies, gloves, and a flashlight.

Now for the truck, I really, really lucked out. Overall it's in great shape, the only damage I've found so far is that the wing on the driver's side is bent with 3 broke brackets and a tiny bit of graffiti on it but I stopped at our N. Little Rock shop this morning to see about getting it repaired
weekend after next. I'll just have a week of everybody making fun of me. Did a quick clean-up job in Texas and will do another more thorough one this weekend. It only had 65,000 miles on it and thankfully hadn't been totally trashed on the inside and I don't think the driver was a heavy smoker. Oh and it's not a freightliner, no optimized idle, YAY!!!!!!!!!

There is a learning curve for this truck though. It's an International ProStar that requires the ultra-low sulfur diesel and there's no getting in the truck, turning the key, and going. You have to wait for it to cycle through for several seconds and wait for the air dryer hiss before cranking the engine otherwise you get all these nasty little messages and icons on the dash flashing error, shutdown immediately. Oh and if you forget and leave it in gear when you shut the engine down it won't restart and/or go back into gear for anywhere from 5 to 20 minutes. Found that out the hard way on the fuel island at Encinal, TX Tuesday afternoon. Poor James got an angry phone call with me yelling at him asking what in the world is wrong with this truck. Yeah, I know, it wasn't his fault and it's kind of hard to troubleshoot from 200 miles away but evidently him and another friend had done the same thing so he knew what was going on. I think they made the 2007+ engines way too complicated but I guess we have the EPA to blame for that.

I sound like I had a crappy week but I really didn't. Once I got a decent night's sleep, I couldn't stop grinning, I was that happy to be back to work. I will try to take pictures of the truck sometime this weekend after I clean it again.

Workouts for this week: nothing for Monday and Tuesday. Wednesday was a walk/run of 3.31 miles in 43:39 with Elsie at Pearsall, TX, followed by a 2.12 mile run in 20:02. This morning was a 1.54 mile run/walk with Elsie then a 2.6 mile run in just over 24 minutes. I had planned on 3 miles but stopped to talk with a neighbor that just returned from vacation and when I tried to start running again I ended up with stitches. First was the normal too fast stitch on the left followed by the very painful "need fluids now" stitch on the right side.

Tired

I think that I may have overdone it this weekend!! 30+ mile bicycle ride yesterday morning, 2 hours of disc golf last night, 31 minute (2.22 mile) run/walk with Elsie this morning followed by a 20 minute 2.09 mile solo run, AND another 1.5 hr disc golf session. I am ready to go back to bed but am needing to pack for my trip with James to pick up the abandoned truck in Austin, TX Tuesday. Oh yeah, did I mention that we bicycled to the disc golf park this morning, that was 9 miles round trip. It's time to go back to work just to rest up from this weekend.

My disc golf game sucked this morning, I was a leetle cranky from Elsie waking me up so early. It's bad when you think 6 a.m. is sleeping in, lol! It was already hot and my fingers were swelling up like sausages so when James discovered he'd left his driver a couple of holes back I volunteered to go get it and quit at the 16th hole. Bill was telling James that it's easy to have that much energy when you're in your early 30's when they saw me jogging back with the disc, what's funny about that is I'm 39! It's nice to get a compliment like that every now and then. What's even funnier is that Bill is the oldest of us playing and he has been winning every game.

I Feel Good!!

Yeah, that's right, cue the James Brown music, I feel awesome! Great ride this morning at the 30 mile CARTI Tour de Rock. Got to meet fellow blogger Annette and other great people from the Cabot Cruisers (Curtis, Jane, Joan, and a few others that senile me can't remember the names of). Awesome people all the way around.

Petra had a busy week so she didn't make it to the ride this morning, but met up with Gary and talked with him and his wife before the start. I really wanted to be able to ride to the first rest stop with Gary to catch up on things but they had the ride start segregated out, 62 milers in front, 50 milers next, and then the 30 milers. Just too many people in between us, I couldn't ever catch up to him before the ride split up. He did tell me beforehand that as a doctor he would recommend that I not do the ride but as a friend he knew how it was about wanting to do it. Even James had that worried frown going and kept warning me to be careful. You would think I was accident-prone or something ;-). It is nice knowing they care though.

It was a WET start, had been storming most of the night and driving down we were getting a lightning display. Ride start was delayed 30 minutes to let the rain move out but we still hit some showers within the first few miles. The trainer has helped me immensely on my pedal stroke and cadence rate while I was off the road, couldn't believe how great my legs felt. I was booking it on the first 1/3 trying to catch Gary at the stop but saw him leaving out while I was waiting in line at the porta-potty. All that rain, coffee, and hydrating really caught up with me, lol. I'm not sure if my computer is correct but I showed 13 miles in 48 minutes at that point (I reset the computer just after we got it out of the pickup so there was some mileage before the actual ride start). I also have experienced my first case of chafing thanks to getting soaked and a tick bite in a very sensitive place from last weekend's disc golf.

After just missing Gary I decided to wait on Annette and am I glad that I did. As I said before that's an awesome group of people and time just flew by. Oh, and the rest stops were fantastic, lots of fruit, 2 kinds of granola bars, pickles, gatorade, water, and energy drinks all handed out by very nice people that were having to work in the rain. Had a nice conversation with a guy on a Specialized mountain bike that was also doing the 30 miler. He is trying to get in shape for his son who is a runner and just graduated from high school. Very inspiring!! Oh, and did I mention that Annette has only been riding just over a month? There's no way I could've done a 30 miler in that amount of time, shoot it was kicking my butt doing a 12 mile ride at that point. Susan you're right, she is great to hang out with. I think we finished in 2 hours, 24 minutes (my computer was showing an average speed of 14.58 mph with 35 miles, includes the pre-ride and after-ride miles). Not bad at all considering that 6 weeks ago today I broke my right collarbone.

James did the 18 mile family ride, or at least he attempted to. The turn-off for the 18 mile route was blocked by a table and he missed it so ended up on the 8 mile route and going beyond it and taking a scenic ride up a bluff. He made it 80% of the way before having to walk it up to the crest. That is a steep incline he ended up on and he said he had his bike up to 40 mph before deciding to slow down on the way back. He said he wished he'd done the 30 miles afterwards but was afraid he'd slow me down too much. I wish he would've done the 30 miler too :-(

The rain and wet roads weren't so nice at times but boy did it make for a much pleasanter temperature this morning. After the cloud cover burnt off, it started heating up fast! And my shoulder, no problems at all until I tried to tried to change out of my wet clothes. I still have some problems when crossing my arms over my head when undressing, esp. jog bras

This was in the goody bag, I was wishing I'd used it before the ride!!

Front of the t-shirt

Me and Annette at the finish line

My dirty, dirty backside

hmmm

Did you feel it, that momentary shift in reality this morning at around 0815 central time?

I. Cooked. Breakfast...........

That never happens, I don't count the steel cut oats as actual cooking. I like breakfast as a meal as long as I'm not the one standing over the stove. Don't know what got into me, just woke up and wanted bacon, eggs, and biscuits without having to get cleaned up and pay somebody for it. Of course the biscuits were from a can, come on people let's not get carried away. Moi, making biscuits from scratch, not going to happen!! I guess having to learn to make my own coffee the past 6 weeks has affected me in other ways. It was enough of a surprise that it freaked James out and I even did the dishes afterwards (usually whoever cooks doesn't have to clean). He is sweeping and mopping though so it evens out this morning :-) I think he's going to make corned beef brisket with cabbage for tonight, yum.

Tomorrow is the Tour de Rock. Gary's doing the 62 mile ride so I will only get to ride with him for maybe 15 miles before the 30 mile route makes a left turn. Today's workout (besides the range of motion exercises) was a 41+ minute run/walk with Elsie. Don't know the exact time or mileage because my forerunner's battery conked out at me sometime after the 41 minute point. Our first run section was almost 9 minutes before Elsie got tired which is pretty good 'cause she let me sleep till 6 a.m. this morning so we didn't get out the door for the walk until about 6:45. It was already warm and humid that early.

Back to work I go, hi-ho, hi-ho

Passed my drug screen--duh, like I was going to fail it, until today I hadn't even taken any otc painkiller since May 18th (killer cramps this afternoon, yuck). I did get asked/told the very old joke about how long did I study for the drug test. Is it a requisite for truck drivers to tell and re-tell the same tired jokes? Or is it just my hubby's friends?

Won't be getting a new truck, was told that there's currently a freeze on passing out the new ones. I better be put on the list for one though, otherwise I'm going to be one cranky Gab!! A driver in Austin, TX has quit so next week I'll be going down there to pick it up. That will work out ok because I'll be able to ride with James to get it. Told them I wasn't riding with some male driver that I didn't know, they hire way too many weirdos..... That's my get out of jail free card when it comes to hauling anybody else around, just tell them I don't feel safe as a solo woman driver having a strange guy in the truck. Works like a charm every time. We will be expected to run as a team to Austin though. It's a good thing it's only about 850 miles from the TN pickup 'cause I don't think I can handle the truck moving 24/7 anymore. Shoot, what little we did run team we always tried our best to get runs where we could shut the truck down for 3-4 hrs a night.

Anyway, to dig out yet another cliche, expecting the worst, hoping for the best on the condition of the truck. It's a ProStar so it won't be that old of a truck, just depends on how the driver(s) took care of it.

Took my road bike off the trainer and changed the pedals back to the ones with the toe clips. Still having trouble getting clipped in with the clipless pedals on the trainer so don't want to attempt it on the road yet. I want my clavicle to heal up some more before I do any stop and flops.

Today's workout was a 46 minute/3.19 mile walk with a few minutes of running here and there. Yesterday was a 21 minute spinning session and a very slow 30 minute walk with Elsie in the evening.

Cleared for work

Doctor cleared me to go back to work today--actually I went in and insisted they clear me. The x-rays did look better than the last set so there's not any sense in me sitting at home anymore, especially since I can't get any significant training in. Still have to take it easy when it comes to running/biking/etc. (a 30 mile ride Sat. is taking it easy, right?). I'm just frustrated and want to be back to normal NOW. I know it's not going to happen but it's still aggravating. I am glad I went in today instead of Wednesday as I originally planned, med. dept at work still needs to go over the paperwork and that will be an all day process but hopefully will get the ok to return and be able to pick up a truck Friday and be back on my run Monday. Wishful thinking though, it will probably be the following week before I can everything done.





I bought some deep purple bath rugs to replace the green ones that Elsie decided to chew on. They were even made in the U.S., I'm trying to avoid things made in China since so much of it has turned out to be toxic. Sure has put a slowdown on my clothing purchases. Oh well something needed to since I evidently have very little self-control. I have taken 5 bags of clothing to Goodwill the past 2 weeks and had 3 laundry baskets of items to Ebay, yikes! Oh, and I wish people would stop giving knick-knacks as gifts, just because I ride a harley doesn't mean I want every motorcycle trinket ever made. I know it's the thought that counts but we're drowning in stuff like that. I have tried to make an effort myself to stop giving those kinds of gifts, opting insead for things that can be used up, gift cards, or something specific if it has been requested or hinted at.





Man, I've been coming off like a scroogy old woman the past couple of days, see what happens when I don't get to run very much. Makes me wonder how James put up with me before I had that as a stress reliever.

Oh well, while I'm ranting and raving and being all around bitchy might as well add some more stuff I'm cranky about. Why does everybody act like you're a leper when you bring a container of change into the bank? James and I always throw our loose change into an old stone crock pitcher at the end of the week and then take it to the bank every 3-4 months. It's an easy way to save up for something in the $300-400 range and it saves our tax money because it's keeping/bringing coins back into circulation instead of having to mint new ones. I know it sounds odd but I've been to several people's homes and they will have these huge containers full of pennies that they've been accumulating for YEARS, not my measly 3-4 months. So see snotty bank teller, I'm actually helping our economy. Yeah, I know, please don't point out the illogical part of my argument about coin circulation, I realize that actually using the coins during the week would make more sense in that regard but there's still the painless saving aspect for little indulgences here and there.

Whew, I feel better!!

The Zen Run 10k

View my page on The Zen Run 10K

Stupid ebay questions

I try to put in measurements on everything I list yet I still rec'd questions from people asking if an item will fit them. How am I supposed to know? Just because you wear a size 4 in one brand doesn't mean you're that size in every brand. Read the measurements people, then measure yourself, then you'll know if something will fit. I got 5 emails asking just that, 2 from the same person on the same auction. I also got an email stating "I haven't paid for the item yet but when will you ship it and can you send another picture?". This was after she had won the auction. Aggravating........

Oh yeah, don't list 76 auctions at one time if you value your sanity.

grrrrr

Sometimes I absolutely detest working for a large trucking company. Called medical compliance this morning to let them know I would be going in for my 6 week check on the collarbone Wednesday, won't be quite 6 weeks but trying to get everything done early enough so the bureaucracy can do its thing. Well guess what, medical is claiming they haven't rec'd any of the faxes from the doctor including the initial visit even though I was told they HAD received it. Why hasn't anybody called me prior to this to let me know? I'm thinking somebody misplaced the faxes and now doesn't want to own up to it.

Fri, Sat, and Mon. workouts

Friday was a 35:53 minute/2.54 mile run/walk
Sat.-31:43 minutes/2.2 mile run/walk with 3 hill climbs
Monday-1 hr/3.24 mile walk

Tried a new halter on Elsie this morning called the Halti. Didn't work with her, first 10 minutes this morning was spent trying to keep her from eating it and pulling it off. And it's the smallest size available, I'll try it again in a few more weeks.

Will get a spinning session in this afternoon, first one in a week. I had gotten the bike half off the trainer last week and couldn't get it back on, had to wait for James to get back in. I did get my mtn bike down and rode it a couple of times last week, but just for errands once and 15 minutes with Andy on Saturday.

Follow the socks

I've decided that Elsie has some kind of weird doggie sock fetish, if there's a sock anywhere within her reach she's got it. I forgot to close the door to the room where I hang up clothes to dry that need to be air dried last night and there was a trail of socks down the hall within 5 minutes.

Due to my somewhat erratic decluttering I ended up with a bunch of stuff to get rid of. 5 bags of stuff (so far) went to Goodwill last weekend and I listed a lot on Ebay. It took me 3 days to get everything photographed and listed and ended up with 76 listings. Whew, I'm ready to back to work, it's a lot easier. Even with what I've done so far I still don't feel like I've made much progress, although the kitchen junk drawer is VERY organized for the moment.

I'm hoping to make enough off of Ebay to cover the new camera I had to buy since I've lost mine somewhere. It's not nearly as nice but it will do for now. I keep hoping my other one will turn up but I kind of think it must have got knocked into one of the trash cans in the house and it got thrown out while James was in charge of the housework the first couple of weeks I was down.

Now to the real news--I went for my first real run this morning in almost 5 weeks, YAY!! Granted it was a short run--1.6 miles in 15:15 but hey it was a run and I'm desperate to get moving so it counts. Air was ok, legs were ok, I couldn't stop grinning. The only issue I had was my arm and shoulder tightening up a little. Elsie and I had a 2 mile 30 minute walk just before my run so I did get in 45 minutes of movement this morning. Getting out of my sports bra is an ordeal though. There's something about lifting both my arms over my head and crossing them (the women know what I'm talking about) to get the bra off just sets my shoulder on fire. And it's not even near the break, it's like there's a nerve on the back side of my shoulder blade that's getting pinched. It was easier today than yesterday though so I guess that's just another thing that's going to take time.

World Wide Half

I finally registered for the Kick the Couch 5k at the Phedippidations Worldwide Half Marathon Challenge. I've been meaning to sign up and kept forgetting but FINALLY remembered. I wanted to sign up for the 1/2 marathon portion but I want to do the Fergus Snoddy 1/2 and it's a couple of days before the start date and right now I'm not sure I could do that amount of distance a couple of weeks apart. If I do decide to go for it I can always change it later although I do feel like a wuss looking at all the half-marathon entrants. Anyhoo, I'm entrant #248.

Joy, Joy

Except for Elsie doing her best to drive me batty this morning, today has been a great day. 2nd day in a row to wake up with no pain and while we were out on our walk this morning I decided to see if I could run with no pain. Well, I can, for at least 5 minutes anyway, YAY!!!!!!!!!!! Walked 15 mins., ran 5, walked 5, ran 4--Elsie heard other dogs and decided to plop down on the pavement before we could get the full 5 in. All together we did 2.61 miles in 39 minutes--11 of it running. It was already very humid and warm at 6:30 am so didn't go the full hour I had planned after adding in the running because I didn't bring water for Elsie (yeah that's it I'll use the dog excuse!).

Haven't spoke to James yet this morning but last night he was doing better. No appetite but what he did eat actually stayed down. I initially blamed it on Sonic but we had also ate at Quiznos for lunch and had different kinds of sandwiches so I'm now thinking that may have been the culprit.

I've added in weights with the range of motion exercises yesterday. There are a couple that I can do with the 5 lb dumbbells but most of them I'm having to use the girly pink 2 lb weights that I'd bought for my 84 yr old mother-in-law. ARGHHHH! Do you know how frustrating that is? I don't want to use the girly dumbbells!!!!!!!! Other things in my life I don't mind being a girly-girl about but this is not one of those. Huge sigh, okay temper tantrum over (maybe).

Oh, I forgot to mention that I was able to ride on the back of James' motorcycle Saturday, another thing to be happy about. Things are going so well that I think I'll be able to ride mine next weekend.

CARTI Tour de Rock

Woke up and had no pain this morning, YAY!! Just a little achiness but much, much, much better. In celebration I immediately signed up for the 5th Annual CARTI Tour de Rock 30 mile advanced ride on June 14th. Absolutely no pressure because I'm not doing this to get any of the prizes but if anybody wants to make a tax-deductible donation here's my page or my friend Gary's. I would list some of the other Bike City riders but nobody else has signed up, grrrr. And I thought I was a procrastinator.

Speaking of procrastinating, I need to actually get showered and get some housework done, blech.

Lucked out

Blech, my husband has a case of food poisoning. We stopped at Sonic last night to grab a couple of burgers and he started getting sick about an hour afterwards. I'm not sure how I lucked out and managed not to be puking along with him but I'm really glad that it's not both of us. He's an ok sick person, I'm not. I get very cranky and snap at everybody within a 20 ft radius and I'm a big baby, not a good combination. I'm all right when it comes to injuries as long as nobody tries to talk to me right afterwards but I'm not okay with illnesses involving puking or worse.

Prior to the Sonic incident we had a great day. Went on the Sat. morning Bike City 12 mile fun ride on one of these trikes. It was a great way for me to get out on the road right now and it was fun but I definitely prefer a traditional bike. The steering controls are very touchy, if I held the grips too tightly the trike would be very squirrely and move side to side in a very unnerving way (to all the truckdrivers out there, it feels like when you have a trailer break loose under you on slick roads). It would also do that when you tried to go fast and were really mashing on the pedals, especially if you were pedaling with more pressure on one leg. With that you would have to develop a smoother pedal stroke very quickly or possibly wind up flipped over. I do have a standing invitation to ride the trike whenever I want so will probably take it out a couple more times since I've got the basics down on operating it.

Paula joined us again yesterday on the ride, she rides a single gear comfort bike and still manages to finish the 12 miles in just over an hour. When she gets on a multi-speed bike she's going to kick some major ass.

We made plans to join Jason and Bill Sat. evening to play disc golf. That is so much fun but at the same time very frustrating. This was our first time ever playing but James picked up pretty quickly on how to hold the discs different ways. I was having to toss the discs lefthanded and did decent with a traditional frisbee style throw, just wasn't getting as much distance as the guys but Jason's sister was there too and we were evenly matched (either that or she felt sorry for me and was holding back). Just wait till I can use my right hand guys! There was one guy by himself that played through and it was amazing watching him. James got him to give us some pointers on holding the discs. One major problem, we couldn't find hole 4!!!!! Oh well, guess we should be happy that Searcy has put up a course at all.

Range of motion is improving on my shoulder, can lift my arm much quicker than last week. Putting on a jog bra is still a challenge and right now if I'm cycling or doing anything active I'm wearing the looser ones. Haven't started running yet because there is still some discomfort if I do anything high-impact. It's driving me crazy but would rather be healed up properly and not deal with this any longer than I have to.

Petra has backed out on the HHH 100, says with work she's hasn't been able to train very much. I think she's only riding on the road on the Sat. morning ride and getting very little trainer time in. Don't know if I'll still try for it yet. If I don't do it I want to run the Tupelo 14.2 miler on Aug. 31st and ride the BDB 100 Sept. 27th. I think Gary will be ridin the BDB 100 so if I don't slow him down I'll have somebody to ride with.