Well, with the first near death experience out of the way, I feel like summer has officially begun. Well, that and the fact that insects are attacking me in organized multi-phased missions, my jeep is covered with beach sand, exploded power gel packets, and puddles of rain on the floor, my apartment looks like a stampede of wildebeests has trampled through it, and my hair is turning red.

I skipped the gym tonite to shovel through the disasters around every corner.

Images of Body Image

I've been thinking quite a bit about body image lately...and how mine has plummeted since my little stint where I couldn't work out for a while. And how I put on a little weight and lost a bit of muscle and was feeling a bit flabby and a bit discouraged.

I thought of how I used to lift weights quite differently than I do now -- lifting more for sculpting a specific body type than lifting for functional strength. And of how maybe I could go back to that for a while; just until I didn't feel so flabby and discouraged.

Then on Thursday at work, I got a new patient, a 16 year old girl with back pain. This girl was beautiful. Not regular 16 year old girl beautiful. But traffic stopping beautiful. Hollywood beautiful. You ache inside just a little bit beautiful. She looked like she just stepped out of the pages of Vogue or Cosmo. We should all be so blessed to have an hourglass figure...elongated.

Except...she couldn't do a push up. Not one push up. Not a single one. She couldn't even HOLD a push up position for 10 seconds without her back arching or her shoulder blades winging out or her neck hyper extending with the extreme effort. The girl had zero muscle tone. She injured her back picking up her book bag! (Lucky for her, I'm pretty positive there are about 20 or so 16 year old boys in her class who would fall all over themselves to carry her books for her) We got our work cut out for us.

And I started thinking that hey, maybe function is much more important than looks, afterall.

Flash forward to Saturday morning. My first triathlon of the season. I was a bit nervous after my break in training. But I did ok. My back felt fine. My knee felt fine. I was just slow. Ridiculously slow. My cardio just isn't where it should be. I felt really out of shape.

And I started thinking that hey, maybe cardio is more important at this point than weights.

Flash forward again to Saturday afternoon. An adaptive kayaking clinic for work. Paddling around with folks who have physical issues that would otherwise hold them back. But not on the water. Water really is the great equalizer.

Unless you capsize.

Which somebody did.

And I ended up jumping in to do a water rescue for somebody who couldn't move very well and was much much bigger than me. In the midst of the turmoil, I found that by myself, I could only hold his head above the water. Nothing else.

And I felt really small. And really weak.

Once others reached us, we were able to collaboratively extricate him from his boat, calm him down, and get him safely ashore. It was fine. All worked out in the end.

But I still felt small. And weak. Still out of shape. And yeah, a little flabby.

And now I'm thinking that maybe I should just start taking anabolic steroids.

That should do it.

Yesterday was disgusting. I mean, not totally. Work was ok...busy but ok. The gym was ok. It was only after I returned home that things went completely downhill.

I pulled into the garage and as I was walking to the door, I stepped on a junebug. I crunched and cracked under my heel and I got shivers up my spine. Still trying to shake off the junebug heebie-jeebies, I walked right into a big spiderweb that was stretched across my stairwell.

Spitting out sticky silky strands, I jumped into the shower. After the shower, I was cleaning the hair around the drain and looked down inside. It looked pretty gross. I became obsessed with what looked like a dog's chew toy inside the drain so I grabbed a phillips head screwdriver to take the drain off....I warn you -- if you ever do this, be prepared. The giant blob of wet hair held together with soap and conditioner run off is enough to make anyone vomit. (I think I threw up a little bit in my mouth while removing the monstrosity)

Finally, I figured I'd sit down, calm myself with a nice tall glass of water, and check my emails. All was going well until I took a sip of water... and felt something...not right. I spit the water back in the glass along with a daddy long legs spider that had apparently decided to go for a swim.

The worst part of that ordeal is that I was so grossed out I felt like I needed to jump in the shower and scrub half the skin off my body. But now the shower grosses me out!

And what's with all the attacks from the insects? What the hell did I do to them to make them gang up on me in such a vicious fashion?

I'll be sleeping with the lights on for the rest of the week.

weekly wrap up

Earlier, I had been doing the wrap up over the weekend, but I figured today made more sense, as I am exactly one week into June. (JUNE!! This year is flying!)

One thing I learned about the eating better goal....don't drink! Because once you get some alcohol on your system, you can rationalize eating anything you can stuff in your pie hole! But in general, I got a B- on this goal this week. (lost 1.4#)

Totally on board with the journaling and TAW, and totally on track with training. I'm also finding that when I'm not motivated, if I just do a short workout with higher intensity, I feel pretty good about it.

I started another book. Now I'm in the middle of 5 at once. Just the way I like it! And I whipped off two more old fashioned letters to friends.

June is looking pretty good.

10 things I learned this week

Another idea borrowed from Brazen --

Ten things I learned this week:



** I may like the Boston Red Sox, but I do not like boston lettuce. yuck.

**Organic food tastes WAY better than non-organic

**8 am to 8 pm is a really long work day...I gotta find a good snacking strategy to get me through the work day without being tempted by caffeine or junk food

**cutting out animal products results in way more trips to the john (TMI?)

**Life is really unfair sometimes. But life is still good.

**I love my new running shoes. Where have Mizunos been all my life?

**Drunk texting is hilarious

**Celebrities are dropping like flies!

** Glee may just be the funniest show ever

** I have the best co-workers.

June Goals

May wasn't a complete failure goal-wise. I did accomplish a few. As well as remembering some things about myself that I appeared to have forgotten in my goal writing quest: I like to have several things going on at once. Several books I'm reading at the same time, several projects I'm simultaneously working on, tons of windows open on the desk-top, many irons in the fire. I've been trying to do things in a linear fashion; one thing at a time. That doesn't exactly work for me.

So I started 4 books at the same time this week. :) And I'm going back to May to finish up the unfinished goals as well as starting new goals with the idea that they may run into July. And I've decided that this month, anyway, I'm not calling them goals. I'm calling them...

June's Opportunities:

Has a nice ring to it, eh? Not as much pressure as 'goal' and not as hokey as 'intention'

1) Eating.... Inspired by this guy and this chickie, I'm working on cutting animal products out for a while. This week has been a bit of a transition week (I got a couple eggs left, some yogurt, and some butternut squash soup that has butter and cream that I'm finishing off this week) So, we'll see where the veganism leads. (The whole stroke thing has me freaked out)

2) DVD Classes done

3) Starting the Artist Way Again: I did the Artist's Way last year and gained a lot from it in many areas of my life, not just creativity. So I'm giving it a go again.

4) Decaffeinate

5) One mile swim in pond, 50 mile bike ride, 15 mile run

6) PR in sprint tri

7) Journal every day this month

8) Go hiking

9) Girl's nite out with J and S

10) 4 more snail mail letters to friends: I get so many nice happy emails from friends who get an unexpected surprise in the mailbox. They smile, I smile. It's all good.

Welcome summer!

May Goals

As my last post clearly indicates, I have been pretty lackadaisical about goals throughout May. I don't know why I just couldn't get motivated to stick to it. But Memorial Day Weekend brought about a bit of a wake up call to me: get with the program or get left behind. (health wise, especially) So on June 1, I enter the month with a bit more resolve than in May.

May Goals:

1) Rehab the leg: SUCCESS! ok, this one I was committed to. (possibly because the thought of my grossly asymmetric quads in a bathing suit was downright scary) I am able to do 25 single leg squats on my right leg and yesterday I ran 7 miles without a problem. Yay!

2) Eat Clean: FAIL! I was really good the first week and a half, kind of good, then not so good, then horrible. I overall did lose 2# total (lost 2, gained 1, lost 1, gained 1, lost 1) Ridiculous! More stick it to em in June.

3) Spring Cleaning and summer clothes switch: SUCCESS! I always forget how time consuming that particular project is!

4) DVD classes done: FAIL! Didn't even start.

5) Journaling every day this month: Half credit. Which I guess is a fail.

6) Increasing referrals to clinic by 2 per month: not yet, but I'm hoping.

7) Four old fashioned letters sent in May: SUCCESS! I highly recommend a nice, handwritten letter (even though my handwriting is atrocious!) People LOVE getting stuff in the mail.

8) 2 group training rides: went on a number of bike rides, but no group rides.

9) Start guitar: twice.

And June Goals post tomorrow!