Self-Involved Much?

The phone rings this evening and it's my sister. "Hi, what are you doing?" she asks. 

"Cooking dinner."

(There is minor commontion in the background on her end.) "Are you okay?" she asks.

"Yeah, I'm fine. It's just a simple sweet potato hash." 

She bursts out laughing. "Not you. Cole (her 3-year-old) was choking and I was making sure he was okay."

Okay. No way around it, that's embarrassing. And of course, the sister can't let it go. "Are you having trouble stirring? Do you want to talk about it?" 

"Shut up."

"Sometimes chopping can be hard. It's important that you know you're not alone." 

So much for sisterly love. As for me, I'm never answering the phone again.

Water World

See this bad boy? I drink one of these a day, minimum. Started about two weeks ago. I'd been feeling sluggish and decided to pay attention to how much water I was drinking. When I'm training for a marathon, I'm good about keeping up the fluid intake. This summer though? Pffftsh... Fail. Epic fail, where the water is concerned. 

Since buying and using this 64 oz. container, I'm a believer. I've noticed a marked difference in my energy level, especially when it comes to exercise. I feel lighter (which is most likely a combination of my eating less because I'm full of water and also I pee every 5 minutes). 

Mornings are key. If I don't suck down half of that bottle by noon, I almost never finish it. I made the mistake of finishing off about a quarter of it one night before bed and was up every hour, paying for it. Now I aim to finish the last of the water with my dinner. 

The down side to all of this is I'm becoming a bit co-dependant. I'm loathe to go anywhere without my ginormous water bottle. It's another means of accountability. I know exactly what I want to accomplish, waterwise, and the bottle shows me where I am and how much further I have to go.

Sad, but true. 

So don't laugh if you see me hauling this thing around town, sipping madly at traffic lights. Instead, throw me a wave of encouagement, than point me in the direction of the nearest bathroom.

Cheers,

Dena

Welcome Mom to The Blog

Astute readers may have noticed from the recent Road Trip From Hell post that my mom is now living in North Carolina (2.7 miles from our house, but who's counting?). As such, readers can expect to see an increased number of posts featuring the "Mom" character and, possibly, an increase in posts filed under the "rants" category. 

It's been smooth sailing for the 6 days she's been here. Well, with minor bumps. Yesterday, for example, I came home with chicken breasts. Earth Fare was having a sale, buy one pound get one pound free, and Blair likes chicken so I figured, why not? 

Problem: I have no idea how to cook chicken whose main ingredient isn't "soy." Mom was over, so I asked her. "How do I cook this chicken?"

Problem: My mom hates to cook and probably hasn't turned an oven on in five years and has blocked out any knowledge she used to have of how an oven, or what goes in it, works. 

"I think you put it in the oven at something like 325 or 350 for thirty to forty minutes," she said. 

"Well which is it?" I asked "325 or 350?"

"I don't remember. Where are your cookbooks?"

"I only own vegetarian cookbooks. There's nothing in there on how to cook meat." 

"Well don't you just have an old Betty Crocker cookbook or something? It would be in there."

"Why would I have Betty Crocker? Betty Crocker cooks meat." 

"You don't have just a general cookbook?"

"What part of vegetarian are you not grasping here?"

Thank heavens for the Internet. (350 degrees for forty minutes to an hour for chicken breasts, if you're interested.) 

I think I better start exercising a little more patience around Mom. Otherwise, I'm pretty sure I'm going to wind up with a Betty Crocker cookbook in my stocking, come Christmas. 

Cheers,

Dena

Look Ma, No Watch!

Next Saturday is the Cannonball Half Marathon. I'm toying with the idea of running the race without a watch.

I'll pause a moment to let the gravity of that last comment sink in.

Think about it. It's me. Anal-retentive running girl. No watch means not knowing my pace per mile. Am I going too fast and blowing my race? Am I running too slow and need to pick it up? Am I really considering running 13.1 miles as fast as I can based solely on how I feel? What sort of cockamamie-hippie-communist crap is that? 

I'm pretty sure I'm going to do it. 

I've got a few things working in my favor. One, I didn't train very hard this summer so, watch or no watch, I don't expect to go out there and kill it. If I was really trying to hit a time, I'd wear a watch. Two, not wearing a watch gives me a built-in excuse if I do terrible on the run. "Oh, you see it wasn't really MY fault. I wasn't wearing a watch and I misjudged my pace by, like, 2 minutes per mile. Oopsie!" And finally, I've had a couple of runs lately where I haven't looked at my watch until well into my run and I've surprised myself with my pace. 

That last part is what I'm hoping will happen at Cannonball. I ran a quick 6 miles when I was in Chicago. As I was running, I guessed I was around an 8:30 pace. When I looked at my watch at mile 4, I was at an 8:02. If you told me I had to go out and run an 8:02, I'd be exhausted. When I just ran and didn't worry about it, I felt great. 

Of course there's always the danger of feeling so good at the start that I go out too fast and ruin the latter part of the run, but I'm willing to chance it. I've heard a number of runners say that they ran some of their best times on days they forgot or didn't wear their watches. 

For this half-marathon, anything under one hour and fifty minutes is a win. A 1:45 would be incredible and if I run under 1:45, I will never wear a watch again. 

How 'bout it runners? Any of you ever run a race without a watch? What were the results?