Kristin’s Playground

This morning was the Big House Big Heart 5k that we’ve been getting ready for. Honestly, none of us were really sure how it would go. I hadn’t been running for a week and a half because of my knees, Kelly had gotten sick this past week and still had some issues breathing, Paul had some issues with his back, and I don’t think Beth and Rob had gone running in some time, so we were all a little uneasy. Still, all things considered, it went pretty well. There were so many people there, it was hard to get around them sometimes - you often felt like you were getting run over or running into someone. Thousands of people running the race. It took us a couple of minutes to even get to the starting line from where we were. It was a chip-timed race though, so it didn’t really matter. We walked a couple of times in the last mile, and I probably shouldn’t have had the full glass of water around mile 2 - it made my side hurt. I’m not sure of our actual time - and the results aren’t on-line yet, but it’s less than 35 minutes, which I’m quite happy with! We left right after the race - it was so crowded in the stadium that you couldn’t really move, so we didn’t stick around for results or food or anything.

Anyway, all in all, I’m happy with it - my knees didn’t hurt during the race, and aren’t even yelling at me tonight. Not perfect, but definitely better than they’d been a few weeks ago. Hopefully they’ll keep getting better with the physical therapy, and I think that if all goes well, we’ll be able to improve our times on our next race, when we’re healthy.

Sorry for the ridiculous lack of updates in the last few weeks, but I’ll try to catch you up on things in the next couple of days.

Edit: Looks like we finished in 34:10.

Hola folks. The semester officially started today, and the number of people on campus has risen dramatically over the last week. Gone are the (relatively) short lines for lunch. Gone are the quiet days of summer, and the start of the semester means that fall and winter are on the horizon. On the other hand, the students bring some fun with them - the glee club has its first meeting on Thursday (and I can’t wait!), there is the inherent excitement of a new crowd of students and a the start of a new school year, the semester starting means I can go to the gym for free, and there are some tasty new options for lunch on campus (Panda Express and Taco Bell!). In terms of my actual schooling though, the new semester has little impact. Sure, there will probably be some more seminars and talks to go to, but classes for me are done. It’s research from here on out. And speaking of research, we submitted our first paper on Friday! Hooray! Huzzah! Here’s hoping that it gets accepted. I’ll let you know in a month or so. Here are some updates from other areas of my life:

Exer-ma-cise and schtuff
On Thursday, I finally made the next step and went to see a doctor about my knee. I mainly went to get a referral for physical therapy, but he happened to be a sports medicine guy, so we could talk about it too. He told me that I could run through it if I felt up to it - that it wasn’t going to be the sort of thing that would give me arthritis, etc. He also said, however, that this sort of thing took a long time to heal. I’ve got my first PT appointment on Friday. We’ll see how it goes, though I think it’s already getting better from my exercises from the clinic. I’ve been running twice since seeing the doc - once on Sunday doing the mile loop by my house twice, and then again tonight at the track. 3.5 miles without walking. I’m proud of myself. And my knees aren’t really angry at me for now. It was a little uncomfortable the last half-mile or so, but it seems okay now. I’m also hoping to work in some other activities that won’t stress my knee out. I went swimming on Labor Day, and I was surprised by how hard it was. I did 1/4 of a mile, but I had to pause every couple of lengths to catch my breath. We’ll see how that goes.

The pushup challenge continues. I finished Week 4, and did 30 pushups during my exhaustion test at the end of the week. At this point, I could go on to Week 5, but I think I’m better off repeating weeks 3 and 4 at a harder level. Today I did the first day of week 3, on the hardest level. I made it through the first four sets, but I had to pause a couple of times on the last set where you were supposed to max out (with at least 25…). All in all, I did 99 pushups today. Yay me! I can tell that my upper body is significantly stronger than it was 4 weeks ago. This is great, but I think it has other implications. I went to go get my body fat tested on Friday at the nutritionists so I could see how I was doing. I’ve gained a little weight back since my low, but I’ve clearly been exercising and building muscle, so it seemed like a good thing to know. The body fat analyzer was a hand-held impedance monitor - basically it sends a current around your upper body, and based on the impedance, it can tell what ratio of fat/muscle (and other stuff) that you have. I got a reading of 24% body fat, which is in the healthy range, so I was pretty pleased. But, since I’ve been doing pushups, I think my upper body might not be representative of the whole. (Estimates using measurements that include my hips give me a much higher percentage. ) Ah well. I’ll just keep working, and we’ll see how it goes.

Labor Day Weekend Exploits
it was nice to have a long weekend. I really appreciated the extra day off - especially knowing that the paper was submitted. I did a lot of not much, as well as a lot of errands. I finally found a panda to be Avery, Jr. He’ll come with me for trips where I don’t have room for Avery. This will allow me to have fun snarfing wherever I go. I also picked up the game Boom Blox for the Wii and spent quite a lot of time with that this weekend. I like the jenga-like levels especially. I also stopped by the apple store (which sadly hasn’t released their upgraded laptops yet….please! Soon!) to get my ipod checked up. Some of the songs had been consistently skipping, probably bad spots on the hard drive. Amazingly, they just replaced it on the spot (still under warranty) and I walked out with a shiny new ipod - emphasis on the shiny. I was quite pleased. After syncing it with all my songs, no more skipping. Yay!

So that’s life I think. Heading out to the twin cities this weekend for a wedding and to see my sister, so that should be good. I like trips.

I forgot to take a photo one day last week, and I decided to take a break for a few days from it. I may still owe you a few back-logged PotD, but I’m starting over as of yesterday. I’ve been keeping busy, so here are a few updates:

Hundred Pushup Challenge
I’ve been going strong on my challenge. The first day of week 3 was ridiculously hard, as I mentioned, but I got through day 2 reasonably well, with only minor sacrifices in form, and I did day 3 on Saturday. This time, with the extra waiting time before sets, I even managed more than the minimum on the last set, where you have to max out. I did 84 pushups on Saturday! Today I started week 4, and that meant my rest time went back down to 60 seconds. That makes it so much harder. I made it through the day, but only barely, and there were only 69 pushups on my list today. I don’t think I’ll have too much problem with the rest of the week (thanks to the extra rest time), but I worry about week 5. During week 5, the waiting time decreases throughout the week. At that point, you’re getting closer to doing 100 pushups in a reasonably short time period, so weeks 5 and 6 are all about reducing the rest so you can do it consecutively. It scares me. We’ll just have to keep trucking along and see how it goes. I think this program will take me more than the 6 weeks, but I don’t think I’m going to give up easily.

Running/Knees
On Thursday I went to an injury prevention/evaluation clinic sponsored by Running Fit. (They’re also the sponsors of the 5k I signed up for, which is how I found out about it.) I wanted to go talk to them about my knees before they got too bad. As it was, I had taken about a week off from running because they were hurting. They confirmed what I basically thought, and what had made me stop running many years ago. I have some patellar tracking issues - basically, my kneecap doesn’t slide smoothly in it’s groove - the outsides of my quadriceps are stronger than the inner part, which pulls the kneecap slightly out of alignment. If I don’t fix this, it can eventually wear away the cartilage and start to grind against my femur. Ow. Basically, I need to take it easy and strengthen my other muscles so the imbalance gets fixed. I’ll do the exercises the physical therapist recommended, and I’ll cut back on the running - probably only once a week, and not a lot of hills. Hopefully this gets better soon, and I can keep running. I actually like it (as surprising as that is to hear me say).

Raspberries!
On Sunday, Kelly and Jana and I went raspberry picking. Best shown through photos:






Tasty. Simple recipe too.
1) Pick raspberries.
2) Combine 1/3 cup flour, 1/3 cup brown sugar and 3/4 cup oats. Mix in 1/4 cup of butter cubed. Just work it in with your hands until the chunks are all pretty small and you could describe the mixture as crumbly.
3) Add raspberries into an individual ramekin (or 9×9 glass pan). Sprinkle generously with sugar, and remember - the raspberries will bake down, don’t be afraid to smush them a bit. (I made that mistake with my first couple.)
4) Bake for about 30 minutes at 350º.
5) Let cool and eat. Tasty! (Probably even better with ice cream, but we ran out.)

::Waves:: Remember me? Yeah, I’m a bit behind in posting a bunch of things. As is normal. I’ve had a couple of late nights at work as we are trying to get “the perfect data,” but I’ve also had some non-work-related fun in the last week too. Went out dancing with friends on Friday night. Had dinner with my hubby on our 5th anniversary on Saturday. Took most of the week off in terms of biking or running to be nice to my knee; started again this morning with 3 loops of the mile-long course around my house (still no 10 minute mile, but I think I’m closer). Been keeping up with my pushups, but I’m not sure I can claim complete victory today. This was the start of the dreaded Week 3. I’d completed 20 pushups in my exhaustion test on Sunday, and they expected me to do 64 pushups (albeit with breaks) today. Ow. I made it through the first three sets alright, but on the 4th pushup on the set of 10 I couldn’t come back up. I paused and tried again. Made the 4th, but then failed on the 5th. Paused a little longer and I could finish the 10, though I’m sure my form was not up to par. After that, I was supposed to do as many pushups as I could, as long as it was more than 15. I waited longer than the 60 seconds to start them, and still had to stop and start a couple of times. I eventually got to 15, but after the awful-form last pushups I could hardly move my arms. Ow. I’m going to push ahead with the rest of week 3 and we’ll see how it goes, but I imagine I’m going to be repeating this. It’s definitely making me build up some muscle though.

With the running and the late day at work, and the pushups, I’m tired, so I’m going to bed early today. But, before I go, I’ll post some overdue photos-of-the-day, and hopefully I’ll catch up on some of my other posts soon.

6 August 2008: My adorable mp3 player I told you about. The silly putty egg is for a size reference. This thing is tiny.

7 August 2008: There are tires filled with concrete and posts to hold up fencing for a construction area on campus. They’re ridiculously bright orange, and I had to take a photo of one.

8 August 2008: Oh no! It’s bedtime and I haven’t taken a photo yet today! Good thing Anya’s cute.

9 August 2008: All I wanted to do was jump into bed. Fresh sheets, made bed, and a sleepy Kristin who still needed a photo for the day.

10 August 2008: Last Sunday I went kayaking with some friends. Right by the canoe livery there is a shopping cart that has clearly spent a long time underwater and was covered in mussels.

Okay - bedtime now. ‘Night!

It’s been a busy day. Lots of biking. Over lunch, we watched the finale of American Gladiators on hulu and did day 1 of week 2 for the pushup challenge. The men’s finals were pretty amazing, and one of the contenders was going into the eliminator with multiple sets of stitches and some pretty impressive bruises. Ow. Hardcore.

Speaking of hardcore, how about the relay swimmers? (And boo to NBC for not letting non-intel macs in on the olympic video action! Some of us don’t watch TV, and we rely on the intartubes for our video goodness. Support older macs! I had to watch it with Chinese commentary on some youtube video.)

Between the kayaking yesterday and the pushups Saturday and today, my shoulders and neck were awfully tight today, so I decided I needed a massage. Thankfully, there’s a place nearby that has walk-in seated massage, so I got 20 minutes. They found knots in muscles I didn’t even know I had! Guess I need to go more often. Shucks.

Then I biked over to Beth’s, and we went for a “Civilized Ride” with the Ann Arbor Bicycle Touring Society. There weren’t too many riders, but Beth and Nathan and I pulled up the rear, by a lot. The leader of the ride stayed back with us, but we quickly lost sight of the rest of the crew. Thankfully, it’s a ride to a Dairy Queen! Saved by a caramel sundae in the middle!

Still. A lot of biking today. Total for the day: 27.3 miles in 2 hours and 34 minutes. And now, I’m tired. I’d like to see some perseids, but I don’t think it’s going to happen tonight.

Well, once again I’ve been remiss in updating. Whoever would have predicted that, eh? It’s been a busy, yet nice week, complete with working, a couple of runs with friends, a frustrating mile-long run by myself, tasty ice cream, some movies, kayaking in the rain, completing the first week of the hundred push-up challenge, and more - all without the help of a coffeeshop. When my friend and coffee-buddy moved out to Oregon almost a week and a half ago, I decided it was a good time to try my two weeks without buying things from a coffee-shop. It’s been working well so far - I just have a couple more days to go. Shouldn’t be a problem. I miss my friend though.

Life goes on, and I’ve somehow fallen into a running fad. (I tend to go through phases in my exercising, and right now, it’s the running phase.) I find myself browsing Runner’s World, using their training log, trying to map out routes of varying lengths around my house, etc. I got myself a cute little flash-based mp3 player to run with too. It’s tiny. And it has a radio. It’s pretty great. Don’t get me wrong, I love my big ipod that holds all of my music and more, but it’s a bit bulky for running. I find myself eyeing the gps watches too. My exercise fads make me want things. It’s bad. But good for me. Hmm. This better last at least until the 5k. There’s a 10k in November that I’m wondering if I can train for. I’m not at all fast, but I’m gaining endurance. I tried doing a mile loop around my house for time, and it was still over 10 minutes. Admittedly, I started too quickly, so I couldn’t run the whole thing, and my lungs didn’t like me either, so I need to be sure to use my inhaler before I try it again. We’ll see if things pick up. Running with my friends helps push me. Thanks guys.

The first week of the Hundred Pushup Challenge is now behind me. It wasn’t so bad, and I think I’ll survive week 2 as well. Bit concerned about the transition to week three - it looks like quite a jump.

Anyway, I’m not going to update my photos today, since it’s bedtime, but I’ll be back another time. I’m alive, just busy.