A Week Well Spent

Chill on Foss Mountain

This week was so great! The less overtime I work, the happier I am. That may seem obvious, but it isn't really since less overtime means less money and more financial stress. But, whatever. I've gotten used to it by now. I have little money to get by with over the next 11 days, but I don't care. I have enough. My mental and physical health are so much better that it's worth it. Picking up a shift here and there is fine, but I think I'm done with it on a regular basis for now. I'll get by. Being able to get out on three hikes and two walks this week have been so much better for me than rushing to the misery and illness of others. I'm still working 48 hours a week, but with it shoved into only 2 days, I have so much more free time to do things I really love. Soon, that will also include running! Yay. Maybe not as much as I'd like, but even a little will feel good at this point. I just feel so much better in general after getting outside and/or being active.

It's funny after I posted my last blog post, later that evening I decided to read my 2017 Nooseneck post just to refresh my memory on the race, and I found this in it...

Basically what I wrote in my last blog post....so I think I need to give up on this idea that I'll leave some day. I'm sure I'll still be here a year from now writing about getting out of this job. Might as well set it on repeat. Haha. And tell this meme to STOP.IT. Lies, I tell you....!! Pretty sure I reevaluate every day. Maybe it's just the focus part I don't have...SQUIRREL!

Speaking of work, it was actually kind of slow this week, as it usually is just before Christmas break. I expect to be heading to Cranmore next week for the injured vacationers falling down the mountain. Just the influx of people will probably mean more calls, but not always. It's so unpredictable really.

I finally made the commitment to detox from sugar this week. Yay! After gaining 6lbs from pounding Hershey Bars and Hershey Kisses and any sweets I could get my hands on, I had to do something. It was out of control, so I found a 7 day meal plan under the Insanity Max 30 page on Beachbody on Demand. It's not meant for anyone to do for a long period of time, but it's perfect for a sugar detox. On day 1 alone, I never once craved sugar. It also really isn't meant for someone doing a lot of physical activity during that week so I might have to add some extra calories in there, but good stuff and not pounds of Hershey's chocolate. I will continue to drink coffee, and I will have a few beers over the week, but not every day, which is the norm anyway. I didn't start until Sunday (so basically yesterday) so it could get harder as the week goes on. I'm not going to starve myself, though. If I do find myself really hungry, then I will eat something. I'm going to be too active to overly restrict caloric intake since that will just mean a slowing of my metabolism. My goal is to be strict with it the first 4 days and then a little more lenient with it the last three. I'm going to start back running soon anyway, so just that addition back in my life will help keep me from overeating since I will actually need the extra calories... ok maybe not candy calories, but how about pizza? Haha. Not that I'm not working out hard, but it's only about half the time I'd normally spend running. I've been eating like I'm still running 50+ miles a week. Soon enough! And with that, like I said in my last post, I'll still intersperse Insanity Max 30 workouts with the running. So anyway, I'll update you in the next post how the 7 days (if I make it that far EEK) went.

Speaking of workouts! This was week 2 of the hard shit. And, man, yeah...still hard. If you ever want 30 minutes to drag, do the Max Out Power, Max Out Strength and Friday Fight Round 2 workouts of Insanity Max 30. Literally with all 3, "I'm only 13 minutes in?!!" Yeah, they're that hard. But I really love it. I'm loving the power and strength I'm gaining. I may be out of running shape, but these workouts will definitely help me get back faster. No photos again this week. Sorry! I've had no visible changes, especially with the sudden weight gain. I AM definitely stronger, though. And to be fair, I've definitely gained some muscle so 1-2 lbs of that weight gain is good weight.

Workouts

Monday, 12/10
- 21 Day Booty Core Day 20. 30 Minutes. I actually got contacted directly by the woman who does this workout asking if she could share my before and after photos. I said of course!
-Spin Bike Aerobic Strength. 30 minutes. First time doing this one. Mostly an endurance ride with 2x1min sprints. Still continuing to use CycleOps videos on YouTube.
- Two 30 minute walks around the Ambulance Bay. Always mixing in stairs with it. Really helps after sitting too much.

Tuesday, 12/11
-21 Day Booty Core Day 20. 30 Minutes. I have to keep doing this if I want a Kardashian ass! Haha.

LOL

- Insanity Max 30: Max Out Cardio. 30 minutes.
- Insanity Max 30: Ab Attack. 10 minutes. Getting better at this! Only one 5 second break of the whole 10 minutes.

Wednesday, 12/12
-Insanity Max 30: Max Out Power. 30 minutes. Majorly kicked my ass.
-21 Day Booty Core Day 20. 30 minutes.
-Ambulance Bay Walk. 30 minutes.

Thursday, 12/13
-Insanity Max 30: Max Out Sweat. 30 minutes.
-Insanity Max 30: Ab Attack. 10 minutes.

Friday, 12/14
-21 Day Booty Core Day 20. 30 minutes.
-Insanity Max 30: Max Out Strength. 30 minutes. My arm muscles were literally shaking.
-Brook Trail Walk with Phoenix. 1.8 miles. John got out of school early for Christmas break so I had no time for a hike today. Filled up my water jugs after.

Brook Trail

Saturday, 12/15
-21 Day Booty Core Day 20. 30 min.
-Insanity Max 30: Friday Fight Round 2. 30 minutes. I'll admit that I procrastinated getting this done because I knew the torture was coming. Haha.

Sunday, 12/16
-Insanity Max 30: Pulse. 20 min. Low impact recovery workout.
-Insanity Max 30: Ab Attack. 10 minutes. Next week I go back to alternating with the other two ab workouts.
-Spin Bike Race Winning. 30 minutes. This was a really tough workout. Wow. 3 sets of one 30 sec sprint, 3 minutes just below threshold, one 30 sec sprint. Would love to have seen my heart rate on that one. Haha.

Hikes

Tuesday, 12/11- North Kearsarge Mountain

It was such a beautiful day, and I knew the trails would be packed. And they were! It wasn't even that cold out. It was an easy hike with Phoenix up to the summit. The fire tower was so warmed up from the sun that I could have hung out up there for hours, but I had to pick up John from school. Haha. I think we spent maybe 10 minutes at the summit before heading down. I had sweat so much in my mittens on the way up that they were soaked and cold on the way down causing my fingers to freeze quickly. But I've learned that hard lesson before and always have a pack of hand warmers in my backpack for all winter mountain runs/hikes. 5.9 miles total in 2:43:08 (elapsed time). 2,551ft of elevation gain (not sure why I like to put the gain; probably because it's the cool thing to do).

I like the window refection.

Warm in a sun spot

Presidential's

Thursday, 12/13- North Moat Mountain Hike

I got out for this hike a little late, which isn't really late except this time of year when it's dark at 4pm. Ugh. However, I've learned over the years that if you want to have summits and trails to yourself or only see a few others, then head out late. I  am more often than not the last person on the trail so I may pass a few on their way down, but I have the summit and the descent to myself. Same goes with everything here. The vacation sheeple all follow the same pattern and want to be at every venue/trailhead as soon as it opens or at first light. So I rarely ever do anything until 11 or 12 at the earliest. Today was no exception, although there were only 3 other people on the trail. Haha. But, seriously, want to avoid crowds? Go in the afternoon! I ran into one person 1.5 miles in and then the other couple just as they were getting to the bottom of North Moat so most of this hike was in solitude.

I brought Chill and Phoenix along for the hike with the hope of making it to the summit. I wasn't sure of the trail conditions once the climb started. Whether it would be packed down or just boot prints. And how much glare ice? I've been on the summit when it was covered in ice, and I did NOT like that at all. Haha. So it wasn't even until I was about 10 feet from the summit that I knew we would make it. Haha.

The hike is a gradual climb for the first 2-ish miles before a sharp left begins the mostly steep climb up North Moat. The trail was very well-packed and solid from the Diana's Bath parking lot to the intersection with the Attitash Trail. As soon as I started the climb, I realized this could be a rough go. Only 1 or 2 people had gone through with snowshoes initially (and thank you to those people for doing that before the boot hole bastards got to it!). Fortunately, we'd had so many cold days/nights near zero degrees that the snowshoe prints had stayed mostly solid. It wasn't smooth at all, though, and it was just on the verge of being too soft. Any warming of the temperature would have been a post-holing nightmare, but lucky for me, I was able to get by with just microspikes.

I always forget how steep this climb really is, so with the rough footing, it was slow-going. I was perfectly warm on the way up, though, even with it being a cold day. I only ended up getting cold in the last two miles back to the car since it was much colder on the trail by the brook.

As we finally approached the summit, I realized conditions were absolutely perfect! Some of the snow had melted and/or blown away so it was very thin layer of solid footing. Yay! It wasn't overly windy or cold, surprisingly, but we still didn't stay too long since Phoenix was starting to get cold. I made sure to put my hand warmers in the mittens before we left the summit this time.

The way down was obviously much faster so even though it took 2 hours 20 min to the summit, it was only about 1.5 hours back down to the car. 8.3 miles total. 3:52:09 elapsed time. 2,676ft of elevation gain.

Diana's Bath of Ice

Caught her mid-yawn

Chill loves to look off summits.

Saturday, 12/15- Mineral Site Walk

This doesn't really qualify as a hike. It was basically just a walk with John and the dogs from the gate on High St to the Mineral Site Trailhead (road's end) on Forest Service Rd 380. We brought snowshoes just in case, but we lucked out to find it already packed down for us. Easy 2.3 miles out and back.

Sunday 12/16- Foss Mountain Hike

This is one hike I prefer to do in the winter when the road is closed. Although I got my Kia up the 4WD road once, I barely made it. The car is so old now that it has even less power so there's no way I would try it again. So when the road is open, we can't just walk freely without having to worry about cars. In the winter, it's basically a trail and no worries with the dogs.

We got a very late start since dragging John out is always a task. I like to let him sleep in on the weekends, but he sleeps in like the teenager he's close to being. It can take me 5 or more tries to wake him up. Haha. So we didn't start our walk until 2:30pm, and we finished about 15 minutes after sunset (still had plenty of light). The best part of getting up there that late was the pretty sky. As always the summit was cold and windy, but we still spent over 10 minutes up there. It's one of the most beautiful spots around here. John loves to say that he doesn't care about views so I was surprised when he asked me to point out what everything was to our west. I wouldn't have been able to do that 5 years ago, but over the years, I've become more familiar with these mountains. Surprisingly, though, there MANY I have yet to summit, so I will have some new goals for the summer of 2019 with that.

As much as I love Foss Mt, there is one thing about being on the summit that will forever make me sad. On April 2, 2017, John and I were on the summit of Foss Mt at the very moment Jeremiah Fitzgibbon was struck and killed by a vehicle while riding his bike. He was such a nice man; my last memory of him remains so vivid that I hope I hold onto it forever.

2.8 mile hike roundtrip. 660ft of elevation gain. 1:40:04 elapsed time. Got so many photos that it was hard to choose which ones, so here are too many!

Other Random Stuff

I ordered an acupuncture mat that I started bringing to work with me this week. I don't know how it does it since it hurts like hell for the first few minutes, but I end up out cold right after that. Puts me right to sleep. The best part, though, is that when I'm done, my neck/shoulder pain are gone and the muscles feel so loose. I've never done acupuncture before, and I don't know if it really works or not, but I can tell you for sure that this mat makes a difference to my neck and back. I tried it on my feet, but it just hurt too much so I only made it 10 minutes. I attempted sitting on it, but I barely made it a minute before it was a nope. Hurt too much.

I was actually struggling to smile.

Leaves a lot of marks!

After I got home from the North Moat hike, I was so cold that I had to take another shower to warm up. Then I got to making a fire in the wood stove and set up these wall lights that my best childhood friend, Erika, sent me for Christmas. I had no idea it would take so long to set them up. Probably 1.5 hours! They're pretty cool and perfect for the alcove since it doesn't have much lighting down there. Plus, I love white "Christmas" lights and have them on year-round in other parts of the house. I really prefer dim lighting, but my eyesight is starting to get bad so I sometimes need brighter lights. #agingeyes

Phoenix loves the ugly couch when I have a fire going.

On Friday, I picked John up from school early. Since their Christmas break was starting after today, they just had a party, cleanup and then early dismissal. Part of the party was a Secret Santa exchange. In case you haven't noticed John's hat in the photos, it has a Soviet Union symbol on it. For some reason, he's become obsessed with the Soviet Union, so his Secret Santa bought him a Soviet flag that he hung on his bunk bed. Makes it hard for me to spy on him. Haha. This USSR obsession has actually brought up some good discussions about Communism and the difference between that and Socialism and/or Capitalism. I need to find him a good documentary about the rise and fall of the USSR that will hold his interest.

John fell asleep on the way home from school so plans for him to go with me to cut a Christmas tree didn't work out, but since I had put it off for two weeks, I really needed to do it today while it was on the warmer side and still light out so I headed out with Phoenix in search of a tree. It only took crossing the brook to spot the perfect tree! Another 2 minutes to cut it down, and I was on my way back to the house... where I found John wide awake and getting ready to dismantle an old, broken computer he had brought home. Haha.

With our tree

He had so much fun taking all of the pieces out.

I set up the tree and decorated it. Spot's ornament went on the top of the tree. Thank you, Beth!

Ornament I found in a gift bag in the cellar and still in the box. I have no memory of where it came from.

Hard to see, but it's a Christmas colored CMS mug. Haha. Next to an ornament one of our former fellow employees made for us in 2013.

After I set up the tree, I headed back out to North Conway for a parents' shopping event at the Revolving Closet. This is a thrift shop place for kids ages 12-18 where everything is donated and free to take. It's generally only for the kids, but tonight they were doing a special thing for parents to come who might not be able to afford many Christmas gifts. Well, I do fall under that category so I decided to go. The shop was actually really great, and it was such a nice event put on by North Conway Cares. They had stockings and stuffers there as well. The sad part was the greed of people there. I was pretty sure some were there taking things for themselves. And others were walking out with 3-4 bags filled with things while the rest of us stood out in the cold for 45 minutes waiting in line. Almost everything for the stockings was gone by the time I got in there, and I passed on most of the rest. I was shocked to find a really nice brand new scientific calculator still left, though. John needed a better calculator so I took that, some chapstick, a package of cheap headphones and two pieces of candy. The Closet upstairs was actually pretty nice. He only needed another jacket with a hood and some shoes, which I found, along with a rasta hat. And that's all I took. I was so disappointed in some of those greedy people there that it just made me sad. I think I'll drop John off there to shop for himself next time he needs something.

I think she knew I was taking a photo of her and her 4 bags. Oops.

My USATF-NE Iron Runner Jacket and All-Terrain Series shirt both arrived in the mail today. I really like the jacket. Reminds me of an old school track jacket. It's actually a brighter red than the photo implies.

More random things. I was taking photos of John's school math book for someone and realized it had this photo of the Columbia Space Shuttle in it looooooong before it blew up. John's school teaches math the traditional way (none of that stupid Common Core crap) so they have to use old text books. This one is very old, though. From 1986! It's probably the same age as the book I used for Pre-Algebra in 7th grade in 1988-89. It is SO nice being able to understand his math so that I can help him with it. I've watched explanations of Common Core math and while I understand it now, it still seems stupid to me. And how are parents of my generation supposed to help their kids if they don't understand the 50 steps (exaggeration) it takes to get to an answer. I don't get it. I'll happily work from a 32 year old text book instead of that any day.

Ha! You didn't think I'd end this without more dog photos, did you?! Silly you! :)

I love waking up to this face.

Couch snuggles

Same face. Different morning.

I found her like this. She built that herself. Haha.

Well, I was going to end this here, but I've been thinking a lot about running!! I'm getting antsy and nervous at the same time. I made the mistake of looking at my training after I came back from injury in 2015 and through 2016 Boston. Omg. It was crazy. I went from 11 miles the first week to 60 in just over a month. And it was so fast! It stressed me out thinking that I don't know if I can run like that ever again. I'm pretty much starting over from scratch, and I have much less time to get ready for 2019 Boston than I did then for 2016. Aaaaahhh! I know I won't be running every day for the first month back. More like every other day. I'm hoping that the workouts I'm doing have helped to get me back faster, but I can't imagine being as fast as 2016 again. And maybe I won't be. But I want to be! So I'm a little stressed about it right now. Boston has put me on a timeline. I probably shouldn't have signed up for it, but as long as I can go into it knowing I didn't get enough training in and just be happy with the result, I'll be good. But ugh. So I've been thinking of attempting to replicate what I did that winter and throw in a bunch of short distance races, like 5Ks, for the start back. I ran a 19:24 5k my first race back after about 4 weeks. By the first week of March, I ran my 5k PR of 18:30. I just don't know about the rest of it. I do like how I mixed up mountain and trail runs all that winter to break up the fast road runs. I never did get injured from this so it worked well at the time.

In order to get out of that time crunch mindset, I've been coming up with a tentative calendar of races I'd like to do for the year. It's kind of helping me focus on the big picture of what I want 2019 to be like as a whole. Not doing most of the USATF-NE GP in 2019 was the first step. Just not interested in the same old races when I could be doing better things. So, this is what I've come up with so far. I'm waiting for the 4th season schedule to come out before I decide on what 5Ks I want to do this winter, so none are in there. I still have to pick one more the GP to do to count for the CMS Racing Team requirement. No idea which one yet, but it definitely won't be the New Bedford Half. So done with that race.

• 4th Season Trail Race Series (maybe not all this year, but most)
• USATF East Region and NE Masters Indoor Champs like I've done the last 3 years. 3000, mile, 800.
• Mid Winter Classic 10-Mile Race- Unsure I'll be ready, but with it being only $25 and selling out within just a few hours, I decided to go ahead and register. Plus, I really enjoyed this race the last 2 times I did it.
• Cowtown Half Marathon
• Marshfield St Patrick's Day 5K
• Eastern States 20 Mile Race 
• Doyle's Emerald Necklace
• Boston Marathon
• Sleepy Hollow Mountain Race
• Westfield 5K
• Wachusset
• Maybe Pineland 50K if I'm recovered from Boston
• Cranmore Mountain Race
• Mt Washington Road Race
• Cranmore Hill Climb (different than the mountain race)
• Loon Mountain Race
• Run with the Beavers
• Escarpment
• Run 4 Kerri
• Ragged 50K (maybe the stage race again)
• Kismet Cliff Run
• Waterville Valley Mountain Race- I originally had the VT50 or TARC Fall Classic 50 for this weekend, but I'll have to skip them...again!
• Cape Cod Marathon
• Some USATF-NE XC
• Lil' Rhody Runaround
• California International Marathon (CIM)
• Other thoughts: New England Runner Pub Series & the Seacoast Series

Nothing is set in stone except Boston. I really wanted to have another go at a 50 mile race, but I don't know if I can fit in with what I have planned. Maybe, though. There are some big gaps in the calendar and like I said, it's all tentative. I had had CIM on my 2018 calendar earlier in the year, but I obviously had to take it off. Haha. So I'm putting it back on the 2019 calendar with just some hope I can get there.

I have a loooong way to go to get in shape for any of these, but looking ahead makes me feel better about things.