St. Valentine

Happy Valentine's Day!

I love my husband so much and I am so blessed and lucky to be able to spend my life with him
Love you James!

Warmer Days Make Me Happy To Be a Shuffler/Walker

I wrote this post on Monday when it was warm out. Guess what? A cold front blew in yesterday and it is freezing once again whomp whomp.

Today was beautiful out. Well beautiful compared to the previous weeks of ice, snow, sleet, and freezing cold. It was mid 30's which felt gloriously warm! I had such a great time on my shuffle. I loved not having to wear a hat. The air felt so good on my face. In addition, I was also able to vary my usual path a little bit since the sidewalks are somewhat passable. I definitely stepped into some giant puddles though.



On Saturday I stepped up my jogging to 2 minutes for every 3 minutes of walking. The funny part is that my time hasn't gotten any faster lol. My legs have been holding up pretty well. I have had some times where I have started getting the "weak in the knees" feeling. I think this is because I still have widespread inflammation from an unknown cause. If it keeps up I might go back down to 1 minute of shuffling. I finally got around to calling my doctor, the infectious disease specialist, for my bloodwork results. He has to call me back. I'm really curious to see what if anything has turned up in this last battery of tests. In a future post I will write all about this awesome doctor. By far the best one to date. That's about it!

Night, Snow, and Freezing Rain Shuffles

I really need to keep up with this blogging thing. Almost a whole week has passed and I didn't say one word about anything that has happened! First of all I got a promotion at work! It is temporary but I know I'll do an awesome job and it will be permanent hehe. I've been working 9-11 hour days and my schedule is going to be all over the place for the next few weeks. The replacement for my old position has not been officially hired so I will have to do my current job and my old job. Basically, I will have to still have to be at work at 5am for trucks, work the closing shift once a week, and work some time on the weekend. I'm going to have to plan when to prep my meals for the week and when I am going to exercise. This past week went pretty well. I managed to get in most of my workouts, although I did miss a strength training session. On top of my crazy schedule we have had some rough winter weather. I had to swap a run day with some indoor cardio because everything was a sheet of ice. I literally, had nowhere to walk outside.

Night Run- I went for my first evening run last week. It was pretty fantastic. I went out as the sun was sinking behind the Earth. I planned to stay close to home since I only had black clothes appropriate for the cold weather. It actually wasn't too cold on this night. I had forgotten how much I loved to run in the evening. When I first started running around 2005 I always ran in the evening. I love watching the light go out of the sky and smell people cooking dinner in the houses that I pass. I was glad that I did not travel far, when the sun did set my surroundings became extremely dark and there were still patches of ice to contend with. It seemed to have slipped my mind that there are no street lights around. I was even able to use the light on my Garmin for the first time because it was too dark to read the face.

I realized that I will probably be faced with many more evening runs and I should invest in a reflective vest of some sort as soon as possible. Therefore, the other day while I was running errands I happened to pass a Sports Authority and decided that I should check out the gear. I made a bee line for the reflective stuff. If I wander around a store like this I begin to want all of the really cute running clothes. Heck, I would settle for clothes that just matched! Anyway, they had 2 styles of vests. One was black mesh with 3 skinny lines of pink reflective material. The other was way less cute, made entirely of florescent green/yellow reflective material. Due to the fact that I am not going to a fashion show and actually just trying not to get hit by cars I choose the less cute green one. I honestly do not even know why they would make a black mesh one. Of course I will let you know the first time that I wear it.

Snow/Freezing Rain Shuffle - I've shuffled in some pretty wacky weather but Saturday morning was the weirdest yet. The temps were in the low 20's. The weather forecaster predicted snow, sleet, and freezing rain all morning. For some reason I choose to forget this as I decided not to wear my water resistant outer shell. After all, everything looked fine from my window. About 5 minutes into my journey I realized that it was "misting" out and the misty rain was freezing. There was a thin layer of snow/ice that crunched under my shoes. My feet were staying dry so I kept going. The noise was kind of nice. Plus, the streets were virtually deserted. I was exactly 20 minutes into my shuffle when the skies opened up and it started heavily raining. Crap. Sorry, I don't usually swear but that is exactly what I thought. This is because it wasn't just raining, it was freezing rain. This means that the rain is cold and freezes when it hits the ground. At least, that's what I think that it means. I should google that later. Anyway, I was getting wet and cold and I had 20 minutes before I would be home again. I couldn't even go any faster because the ground was getting slick. I kept thinking that I would be so mad at myself if I got sick. Luckily, after 10 minutes it let up and I made it home soon enough. I learned that anytime there is a prediction of rain or sleet or any other precip I will wear or bring some water resistant gear.

winter hike

Today I decided to go to my favorite shuffling park trails and check out if they were passable or not. I dusted off my hydration pack and hiking boots. I was working on a theory that some kind of path would be packed down seeing as though the nearby stable used these routes for trail rides. I know from experience that winter trail rides a great. I pulled into the parking lot and there were a couple of cars; a cycling group was meeting and some people were going cross-country skiing. I checked out the situation and noted that there was a path. I knew that my hiking boots were water resistant but I had never actually tested them in the snow. I decided that I would just go for it and if my feet got wet I would turn around. In the beginning I was having a ton of fun. My feet were dry, I was having a hard workout, and the scenery was beautiful. It was fascinating to see my favorite stream decked out for winter. The air smelled cool and crisp of winter and musky and wet from the stream. It was quiet, peaceful, and perfect. Now I'm going to be honest, about 15 minutes into my hike I began to get bored and really sick of the snow. You see, the conditions were difficult. The snow was packed and therefore kind of slick. I could not take my eyes off of the path which is why I started to get restless. I slipped and slid and had to pick my steps carefully. If I went off of the path the snow was up to my knees. I decided to keep going to my 25 minute turn around. On the way back I thought about how as little as 2 months ago I would not have been able to do this. As little as 4 months ago I could barely walk up the 2 flights of stairs to my door after work. Subsequently, I picked up my step and enjoyed my walk back. In the end, I walked for 2 miles in 47 minutes. In addition, my feet stayed completely dry so I guess my boots are more hardy than I thought. Please enjoy my amateur photography.

Winter Wonderland

You can skip the first paragraph if you so choose and go straight to my fabulous narrative of my snowy walk.

We were hit with another big storm Wednesday into Thursday which dumped over a foot of snow. Our truck seemed to be running on time which meant that I would have to arrive to work at 5am. I have 2 employees that walk to work so I knew that I would have someone to open and receive the truck with. I knew that several inches of snow were expected so I set my alarm for 2:45 am. The hardest part was shoveling out behind my car and cleaning it off. Luckily, I live in complex that is responsible for plowing our drive and they really do a great job keeping things clear. It was slightly difficult actually getting my car out. The plow had left piles of snow in the roadway while he was clearing out a lot. Fortunately, he saw me and plowed the road for me. I made it to work on time and had a long day of unloading and processing the truck. Needless to say I did not feel like going for a walk/shuffle when I returned home. I was cold and exhausted. I took LG for a walk, ate a delishous piece of baguette, and just sat and read for a while.

Then, all of the sudden, I got the urge to take to the roads. I geared up and hit the pavement. I didn't feel like being sodden with slush from passing cars so I meandered over to a beautiful neighborhood nearby. The sun was sinking lower in the sky casting dancing lights on the snow covered trees. It was absolutely lovely. Continuing on, I went past a park where a family was sledding down a huge hill. The mom was pushing the children from the top of the hill and the dad was taking pictures at the bottom. I stopped to watch them for a moment with a smile on my face remebering all of the times I have been sledding. Towards the end of my trek the low light cast an almost blueish glow on the mountains of snow. A group of giggly, screatching girls was scalling a heap of snow left from a plow. A mom and three children were making a snowman. I arrived at my door with a sigh of thankfulness of life's simple, beautiful, blessings.