Tag Archives: dragon boating

A Slightly Delayed Thanksgiving Post

15 Oct

So happy belated Thanksgiving from me to you! 🙂

To be honest I am not a huge Thanksgiving Holiday person, it was never a big thing in my family and a lot of times it seems people use it as an excuse to overeat, shrug. Having said that, my Thanksgiving meal is pizza and if that isn’t overindulging in a bad for me food well then I don’t know what is lol. 😛

Since I work weekends and my family are all a province away (or farther) I spent Thanksgiving weekend doing what I normally do. Working. With a boat race thrown in for good measure. Which, if you consider how much racing I have done this past summer, the boat race this past weekend still counts as what I normally do lol.

It was a different boat race then normal though, a fun race! As in, no medals, no stress, just an end of season festival where instead of racing in dragon boats we race in canoes and the third race of the day is an obstacle course. The races are in a river, a cooooold river! Almost every year a boat tips, teehee, and the shortest race is 1000m. The entire day can be summed up in one word: Epic.

Let me describe the awesomeness of the obstacle course to you, or at least try…

We start off facing a bridge but are a fair distance away from it, the race starts! Everyone battles to be the first to get to the bridge because from the bridge pumpkins have been dropped in to the river, you have to scoop a pumpkin out of the water before passing under the bridge. Harder then it sounds! After getting your pumpkin you complete a 1000m Y-shaped turn, go back under the bridge, do a loop around a buoy then beach your boat, one person gets out, takes their paddle with them, balances a cup of juice on the end of the paddle and runs/walks from Spot A to Spot B without spilling. Once they get to Spot B they are given a bag of cranberries. Then they run back to the boat, hop on in and you are off! We then do another loop around the buoy, go back under the bridge and paddle till we cross the finish line. The entire length of the race is (I believe) 3000m…I’m always a little unsure about race lengths in this festival. Suffice to say, this race is long, and oh so much fun! Because there are turns during the races at this festival, and we are all in canoes instead of dragon boats, there are crashes on the water, boats getting tipped, general mayhem and minor levels of violence, but all in good fun! 😀

The pumpkin scooped outta the river after being dropped from a bridge. This pumpkin has had quite the adventure!

The pumpkin scooped outta the river after being dropped from a bridge. This pumpkin has had quite the adventure!

By 7pm Saturday night I was exhausted lol A long day racing, with longer than normal race lengths, all I wanted was my bed. 😛 I heated my muscles a bit when I got home since they were already seizing a bit then crawled in to bed, oh man that felt good lol. Sunday though I woke up for work and did not feel well. 😦 I thought it was just cause of being tired from the day before but alas, I was wrong. I seem to have caught some sort of bug, I’m not sure what it is. I had no appetite all day Sunday but ate breakfast and lunch when at work cause I kept thinking if I don’t eat I’ll be hungry when I no longer am on break and then I’ll be screwed. When I got home from work I had a nap, a freakishly long nap, started at 3:30p and lasted till about 8pm! Who does that?! I got up for a bit, had tea and toast (my cure for pretty much everything), felt sicker because of it and went back to bed. Slept till I had to be up for work at 5:20am Monday…that is a lot of sleep! Despite all that sleep I spent Monday tired and not hungry and headachey and just not feeling well. My main thought during all that? “Crap! No Thanksgiving pizza for me if  feel like this! Sadness!” I was really looking forward to my pizza but just the thought of food made me feel sick, let alone having to actually eat it, ugh.

Luckily today was a day off, yay! I let myself sleep till my body chose to wake up, which anybody who knows me knows that means I slept in lol helped a friend for a tiny bit of time with his move then spent the rest of the day alternating between staring like a zombie at the tv and dozing off in my living room chair while attempting to get fluids in me by sipping ginger ale and water. I know I am unwell when I don’t drink endless cups of tea! I’ve only had two cups today, and the second one I didn’t really want, I just felt weird not having drunk a lot of tea so I made it and forced myself to drink it cause duuude, you can’t waste tea! 😉

I’m hoping tomorrow I’ll be better, I don’t want to waste my days off not having the energy to do anything!

Despite catching whatever the heck it is I caught I had a good weekend. Any weekend I am on the water racing is a good weekend in my world. 🙂  Saturday night, as I was moving slowly around my apartment because my muscles were already letting me know just how sore they were from the day I realized something I was thankful for, which seemed pretty well timed considering it was Thanksgiving weekend.

I am so thankful that I am physically able to take part in the various activities I take part in. I may bitch because muscles hurt, or I’m lazy and don’t want to go to the gym or it’s cold on the water but I am well aware not everyone can take part in dragon boating, or hitting up the gym, or zumba, or boxing, or hiking or any of the other stuff I do because of physical limitations. I had a long amount of time where I was one of those people. I couldn’t walk. My knee was messed up too badly, my entire left leg was useless. I used to have dreams of being able to walk again, that was it, just walk, without my crutches or a cane, it seemed like it was never going to happen. Now I run, I hike, I do squats, I dragon boat, I dance, I snowshoe, I do whatever I want. And while everyday I take a moment to be grateful for being able to walk I don’t think I ever really took a moment to be consciously grateful for being able to do all the other activities I do. I forgot. I took for granted that I could do all these things.

But not Saturday.

Saturday, when both my knees were barely working because of how badly bruised they got from the boat, when my butt, my back, my shoulders and my arms were all in intense pain and any movement caused me to wince and swear, when stretching made things pop in my back, that is when I had a moment of clarity. That is when I realized I am lucky beyond belief that I was able to be feeling that pain. I am so grateful my body works as well as it does. I am so Thankful I have a loving family and amazing friends who stuck by me while I was injured and who cheer me on now that I am able to be active again.

I will make sure I don’t forget, just like I don’t forget to be grateful I can walk. 🙂

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Insanity: Day 2

16 Jul

Alrighty, so day 2 of this program and guess who messed up…again?! Yeah, me, sigh. 😛

I started the day off fairly well, I had my first two meals of the day on schedule so that’s good. 🙂

I was done work at a weird time though, at 1pm, so my plan was go home, exercise, then eat Meal 3. It was either that or eat Meal 3 right when I got home then have to wait an hour or so to exercise and I knew if I did that odds were high I’d not want to exercise sooooo exercise first!

Today was my first real exercise session with this program since yesterday was the Fit Test. I thought I was doing fairly well but towards the end I sucked lol. It was a Plyometric Cardio Circuit workout, it is based on the interval system but reversed. Instead of doing lower intensity for 3 minutes then a burst of high intensity for 1 minute you do high intensity for 3 minutes then have a 30 second break, then repeat. The circuits were made up of about 4 or 5 different exercises, you do the first circuit of all 5 exercises, get a 30 second break, then repeat the circuit but even faster, get a 30 second break then repeat the circuit again going as fast as you possibly can go. You then get a quick break before moving on to the next circuit.

Lemme tell you, I was sweating more from this workout then from any home workout I have ever done!

I did have some problems in some of the circuits towards the end though. There were exercises where you are in the push-up position, you hold that plank and sorta jump/tuck in your legs, then jump them back out to full plank. Or, same position but you jump/tuck to the side, then jump back out. There were other exercises that had you in that plank position and I knew my legs and core could keep doing the leg motion part of the exercise buuuuut my arms couldn’t keep supporting me. The shoulders just weren’t strong enough and my arms starting folding. It was so annoying!

Another little issue I discovered is there was a lot of jumping in this routine and I live somewhere with super duper low ceilings. You do the math! lol I had to refrain from jumping as high as I could and not fully extend my arms above my head – even then I hit the ceiling with my hands quite a few times, oops! I’m contemplating taking a little table outside, putting the laptop on it and working out in the backyard but I dunno…I don’t care for exercising in front of people and even though it is the backyard it still seems too public for me lol

After I completed the cardio workout I made Meal 3 which was the Chicken Ranch Wrap (same as yesterday), while the chicken was cooking I made the Turkey Burger patties. I was supposed to have a turkey burger last night but it didn’t happen and for some reason I thought I was supposed to have it again this evening so I figured why not make it now while I had spare time? Totally makes sense to me…well, here is another oops! After making the patties, freezing two and sticking the other in the fridge I took a look at my meal plan for the day and uh yeah, wasn’t supposed to be eating a turkey burger today! lol I decided to keep it on my menu because well, I’d already made the patties and how long does ground lean turkey last in the fridge before it is unsafe to use? I dunno the answer to that question so I figured better safe than sorry! lol

I almost wanted a snack after eating the chicken wrap and before going to dragon boat practice, not because I was hungry but because I was worried I would get hungry…weird huh? I didn’t snack, obviously, since feeling all full and gross when paddling is soooo not my thing but I regretted it when on the boat because I was so freakin hungry! My stomach was full on growling and all I could think about was how hungry I was instead of thinking about my form. Not cool. I also had way less energy than normal and was really straining to be able to keep up. Erg.

I cooked the turkey burger when I got home and instead of having the green beans the menu book said to pair with it I had mixed veggies (because those are what I have in the freezer lol), I’m feeling a little hungry again but I am also exhausted and really need to sleep so definitely no more food for me today, the tummy will just have to wait!

So to recap, I was supposed to eat 5 meals and 1 snack today, that would have still had me under my calories for the day but not by much. Instead I ate 3 Meals and 0 snacks and the meals I ate were modified by me to utilize foods I already have. *rolls eyes* Oh, and I exercised twice! I’m thinking I’m breaking too many rules over here…

yup, that's me, I'm such a bad ass lol ;)

yup, that’s me, I’m such a bad ass lol 😉

 

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Almost Within Our Grasp

12 Jul

I put off writing this because I didn’t want it to turn in to a rant, or a post with a lot of swearing lol Last weekend my dragon boat team raced in Nanaimo, BC. It was my first time racing in that particular festival, also my first time visiting Nanaimo. The festival was great (for the most part), and while I didn’t see much of the city the area I was in seemed to be filled with the nicest people ever! Seriously. Ever! 🙂

the boats all tied up waiting for race day

the boats all tied up waiting for race day

Since Nanaimo is on Vancouver Island we all went over at varying times Friday. I had the day off, as did some others, so we went on the mid day ferry and had lots of time to explore the race set up, bits of the city, and take the littlest boat ever to Protection Island where we ate at a floating pub called The Dinghy Dock Pub…oh, and drank, there was definite drinking involved lol 😉

Saturday our first race was early, ugh, we had a great race! Came in second place, with a time of 2:09 (I can’t remember the milliseconds, oops!). The water conditions were nothing like what I am used to. There were water planes landing alongside the race lanes plus a high level of wind plus in general just choppier waters so the waters were nowhere near as calm as what I practice and usually race in. Despite being in the outside lane (which means being farthest away from the race master and unable to hear what he was saying, and closest to the landing planes) we rocked it! 😀 It was definitely a race to be proud of, and we were!

The wind picked up so much by lunchtime that the second set of races for the day had to be cancelled due to safety concerns, sucky! I mean, we all understood but at the same time we reeeeeally wanted to race, we had such great momentum built up from that first race ya know?

We ended up hanging by the pool at the hotel then almost all of us went to Protection Island for visit number 2 at The Dinghy Dock Pub…to be fair, for most of them this was their first visit there lol. After dinner we went back to the hotel where we took part in a Jell-o shooter contest, oh and played Battleshots (think of the game Battleship, only the boats are large enough to hold shot glasses…wait for the awesomeness of this game to fully sink in to your head, yup, there ya go, *nods* 😉 ). Basically, general partying ensued.

Battleshots! Girls vs Guys, and oh yah! Girls won! wOOt! :)

Battleshots! Girls vs Guys, and oh yah! Girls won! wOOt! 🙂

Hey what can I say, dragon boaters practice hard, race hard, and party hard! lol

Sunday…hmm…Sunday is where the not so great part of the festival happened…

Our first race on Sunday was amazing! So great! We shaved off a second from our race time, we came in at 2:08, second place, this meant dun-dun-dunnnn we qualified for the medal races in Diamond Division! Oh yah babeeeee! 😀

Now, two of our paddlers had to leave early so we found two subs to take their places. This, for anybody who doesn’t know dragon boating, is normal practice. I have known boats at race festivals who had so many paddlers missing that over half the boat was filled with subs from higher ranking teams and they won medals because they basically stacked their boat. We were not looking to stack the boat, we were just two short, and are used to being in festivals where you can borrow paddlers. Our captain got two paddlers from a lower ranking team and voila we were covered!

Welllll, not so much, sigh. A person who I will do my best to not call a mean name decided to file an official complaint against our team for having people in our boat who were not on the roster. We didn’t know this till after we raced tho so picture this…We race our final race of the day, this is for the medal, everything counts! We gave it everything we had, we paddled hard, we came in third place, bronze! We won bronze! We were neck and neck with the boat that came in second place, we were apart by mere milliseconds! Milliseconds! Epic! We knew we won the bronze medal so we are cheering, full of adrenaline, totally stoked as we pull in to the dock, and that is where it ended…an official wouldn’t let us out of our boat, came over, explained about the complaint, blathered on about people in our boat who weren’t on the roster, and for me anyways, just kept talking while I sat stunned, soaking in what he was saying, wanting to shake my head and yell no and stomp my feet and cry, I knew the medal was gone, all that work, all those practices, putting everything we had in to that final race, and none of it mattered because one person was able to yank it away.

We were allowed to argue our side, our captain and our caller went and spoke with some of the officials while the rest of us stood in a group discussing, worrying, plotting revenge…in the end it didn’t matter. Turns out there was a rule for this festival about who can sub in for teams and we accidentally got subs who were not allowed. If the complaint hadn’t been lodged the officials would not have punished us, people had been getting subs for their teams all festival, it is one of those technicalities that is over looked by officials buuuuut if someone complains then the officials have to investigate and enforce the rules. They took our medal and get this, it got given to the team that had the lady on it that filed the complaint!…no bias there huh? What makes it worse is they were ridiculously slow in that race,  6 seconds behind us! Fyi, 6 seconds in a dragon boat race is huuuuge! It’d be one thing if it had been a close race, but we were so obviously better than them and yet, they got our medal! Grr!

The officials didn’t completely disqualify us, even though we didn’t get our medal we didn’t lose our placement within the festival, we ranked 11th out of 80 teams which is awesome! We just don’t have the medal to show off to people…I’m trying to not let this bother me overly much…

What gets me is, how can they be proud of their bronze medal? They didn’t earn it, they don’t have a race time that is deserving of it, they got it by complaining…I wouldn’t want a medal gotten that way. If I had gotten a medal that way I wouldn’t be telling anybody about it because I wouldn’t have earned it, why would anybody want a medal they didn’t earn?? *confused face*

After all that happened, not gonna lie, put a bit of a downer on the rest of the day, we went out to a pub (not the floating one) for dinner as a team, played some pool, basically we were trying to force ourselves to start putting the whole thing behind us, which I think was a good way to handle it. If we had all just gone our separate ways we’d all of individually stewed about it, this way, we talked about it a bit, decided how we would get revenge, and then helped distract each other from what happened. Team work! lol

Something kinda awesome happened on the ferry ride back to the mainland…a lady from a team I’ve never heard of, a lady who didn’t know us, had heard what happened, she came over to the group of us that were travelling back on that particular ferry together and she said she was impressed with how well we were handling things, she said it is was unfortunate that some people feel the need to be like “that lady who complained”, and said some other stuff about her being a poor sport an stuff. It felt good knowing that people who don’t even know our team, but who heard the story, think what happened was crap.

We almost had a medal, we were so close we could taste it, I swear I could already feel it hanging around my neck, but then, in a blink of an eye, it was gone. 😦 Even though it was taken away, I still feel as if we earned it. We had a race time that shows we earned it, and despite the disgrace of being stripped of our medal I am proud.

Proud of my team for racing so well that entire weekend.

Proud of my team for having race times that qualified us to race for medals.

Proud of my team for winning the Bronze medal in the Diamond Division (that is the second highest division in that festival).

Proud of how well we handled the drama of the medal being stripped.

Most of all, I am proud that since that festival we have had strong, solid practices, we have worked hard, we will work even harder next week, and then we will race in our next festival and we will be awesome! We will have fun! We will race hard! We will race smart! We will be a team to be reckoned with! (insert warrior cry here!) 😀

And that lady? She will be nothing to us but a story, a person to mock and pity because she is so unhappy in her life she has to go out of her way to try to ruin things for others. But ya know what? She didn’t ruin things. We are even more united as a team now, we are stronger, we have each others backs and what does she have? A medal that she can’t even feel proud of.

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New Gear!

26 Jun

I am a girl, this means I love to shop! Don’t go saying I am being sexist, it’s practically written in to my DNA, just like my love of chocolate and ice cream. 😛

Here’s where I veer a bit off the so called “normal” girl path. Sure, I get happy buying fun things to wear but I get waaaaay psyched when buying new workout gear! I think because work out gear is usually fairly pricey, I can’t afford to buy it all that often, and really, how often do you neeeeed to buy it? No point in buying a new pair of runners when the ones you have are still in good shape. No point in buying more work out clothes when you have enough to get you through the week and they still fit. No point in buying more work out equipment when you have nowhere to put it and again, no money to be able to afford it lol.

Which means buying new gear, any type of new gear is a major treat in my world, and something I really look forward to!

Today I got to buy shoes, *happy girly sigh* and yes, that is pluralized. Shoooooooes! 😀

The first pair look like…

New Dragon Boat shoes!

New Dragon Boat shoes!

They are strictly for dragon boating, suuuuuper strictly! I get to break em in tomorrow at practice and am so looking forward to it!

I have been wanting new shoes for dragon boating all season but couldn’t justify the expense. In the cold months I wear an old pair of converse sneakers that take forever to dry but are old so I sacrifice them to the nasty water and in the warmer months I wear flip flops from WalMart that cost a whopping $3. I figure if I lose them to the water no big loss money wise. The flip flops aren’t great to wear during warm up but I’ve been able to make em work. That all ended yesterday!

We have upped the intensity of our warm ups (in addition to some other changes) in an effort to shave a couple seconds off our race times. (We came in fourth in our division at the big dragon boat festival this past weekend…sooooooo close! arg!) so now part of our warm up is running. That’s right. Running. ugh. Like I don’t do that enough as is I now have to run in a pack before hopping on to the boat. *rolls eyes* Could be worse though, right? And hey, I’m totally all in when it comes to doing my part for helping our team get a better time…even if I do bitch a bit lol

Thing is, I have tried running in my flip flops, it doesn’t go well which means I need an actual shoe. I took my normal work out runners yesterday but between finishing warm up and going to the boat there isn’t enough time to put my runners in to a locker and no way do I want them exposed to the nasty water that splashes over the side of the boat (although they did come in the boat yesterday) which led me to shoe shopping! Gotta love the wind-ey logic that got me in to the store don’t ya? 😉

The shoes are made by Skechers, are all mesh which means quick dry, wOOt! and the bottoms have a nice good grip which hopefully will do its job when I am running…tomorrow will tell! 🙂

The second pair were not an intended purchase, I swear I only meant to look, maaaaaybe try on but not buy! Buuuut, I am weak, and I bought, eek! *hangs head in shame*

The second pair look like…

My new running shoes! Treadmill here I come!

My new running shoes! Treadmill here I come!

These shoes are made by Adidas, and are meant for running, indoor treadmill running to be specific. To be fair, I am sure they would be perfectly fine running on a smooth trail but the most outside wear they will get will be when I am walking/running to the gym and back lol. They have these holes on the side of the tread that allow for ventilation that will apparently help my feet stay cool, I’ll reserve judgement on that till I actually use them lol.

I have needed new running shoes for a while, mine have had stress lines on the tread for ages which means they are dead but going back to the whole money thing, I couldn’t afford a new pair so I’ve been making do with my old ones. These were on sale and honestly, once I tried them on I was screwed, I was bouncing around the store in them and abso fell in love with them. I forgot how great new runners feel!

I really wanted to take them directly to the gym to give em a go on the treadmill but my knee has been killing me all day and since it was hurting just to walk running was not in the cards today, sigh. But hey, there is always tomorrow! 🙂

So there we have it, my new shoes, both lovely pairs, I can’t wait to put them to the test! 😀

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30 Day Challenge x 2

1 May

I have decided to participate in a two 30 Day Challenges. You’ve seen them floating around facebook and other sites I am sure, there are all kinds of them. The two I have chosen are squats and abs. Yup, that’s right, legs and core, my body is gonna hate me! lol 😉

Here is how they work:

30 Day Squat Challenge:

30 day squat challenge

30 Day Ab Challenge:

30 day ab challenge

Now rest assured I have not dropped in to la-la land and think that at the end of the thirty days I will look as good as the women in the pics buuuuut if I follow the challenges and don’t cheat, and eat well, and keep up with all my other activities I don’t see why I can’t at least look a bit better then I look now…right? *hopeful eyes*

To the Ab Challenge I have added the same amount of push-ups per day as there are sit-ups. Crazy huh? I can totally blame this level of crazy on someone else! lol I posted the Ab Challenge pic on my facebook page and one of my dragon boat team members saw it and said he was gonna do it too, yah for a partner! So I texted him the squat one also and asked if he wanted to join me in both, to which awesome guy that he is, he said yes! 😀 He then texted me that he is gonna do the same amount of push-ups per day as sit-ups and well, not one to be left behind I said I’d do the same thing even though push-ups are one of my main nemesis.  Seriously I suck at them! My only saving grace is I am a girl so at least I can do girl push-ups, not that that’ll help me much when I am on day thirty and need to do 125 of them *scared face* Ah well, that is thirty days away, no reason to freak out about it now! 🙂

I think I will create a Page on my blog for both these challenges, that way it’ll help keep me on track and if anyone is interested they can follow my progress…and yes, I’m aware probably no one will ever look at those pages but whatev! Let me pretend k? 😛 lol

I feel like I need a war chant to end this post with thereby signifying my drive and determination in regards to the challenges but I don’t have one…hmm…any suggestions?

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I Used To Be Able To Run, Honest!

24 Apr

Oh. My. God. Monday was so embarrassing! I hate the gym! 😦

Ignore me, I’m being overly dramatic (side effect of being an actor lol). I’m sure no one was watching, or watching enough to notice, but still! I embarrassed myself with my level of suckyness and that is almost worse then being embarrassed and knowing other people saw. I’m far more judgmental of myself then others seem to be of me…what’s with that? *raised eyebrow*

Anyways! Gotta shake it off! 😛

On Monday I went to the gym (like you hadn’t figured that out already? lol) and I hopped on the treadmill like always. Now, I am soooooo not a runner but last winter/summer I somehow ran enough on the freakin treadmill that I somehow accidentally became a bit of a runner. It wasn’t so much that I liked running, just that I’d become good at it and had managed to push myself to distances and speeds I never would have thought I could reach and I liked the challenge of doing even better each gym visit. Sick huh?

Towards the end of last year I was so busy with moving and work and being lazy that I stopped going to the gym as often as I used to. Didn’t think too much of it, and figured when I went back I’d pick up right where I left off. Then the car accident happened and I couldn’t go to the gym, and I started to chafe at the inactivity. I actually wanted to go and exercise but wasn’t allowed to, or capable of if I’m gonna be honest and I got in a slump. shrug. Once I was cleared for going back to the gym I did go a bit but still had to take it easy. Then dragon boat practice started up, oh, and a bit before practices started up I started hiking again and somehow, even though I was being physically active I wasn’t going anywhere near the treadmill.

Last Monday I went not just near the treadmill, but on it, and I thought I was going to die. *rolls eyes*

I started up at my regular warm up, about a minute of fast walking, then pushed the speed up to my former basic running speed. I was intending to do my interval sprints (30 seconds of sprinting, 1.5 minutes of regular running speed, for a grand total of 30 minutes) but by the time I got to where I usually start my sprints I was ready to quit, w.t.f??? I was shocked at how quickly I wanted to get off that evil contraption but there ya have it, apparently my running cardio is gone, kaput, out the window, dead.

This saddens me more then I thought it would. More though, it pisses me off! I worked my butt off (literally!) in my quest to become a runner. I went everyday to the stupid gym, I went when I felt sick, when I was tired, depressed, lazy, had other things to do, I skipped fun social activities to go to the gym, I pushed myself harder then I had ever been pushed, I sweated, I killed my runners, I dealt with body pains, I worked and I earned the level of running I got to. And now? Now it is all gone. Now I have to earn it all back again and all I can think about is how hard it was the first time, how much I went through, and how I don’t know if I can do that again. I don’t know that I have it in me. When I was running on Monday I seriously was ready to hop off and say screw it, nobody will ever know, I’ll just go sit on a freakin bike, those are easier. But then this guy got on the treadmill next to me and I somehow felt obligated to stay on, he blatantly looked at my treadmill screen so he saw my speed and time and if I got off so early in my “run” well, I’d be embarrassed wouldn’t I? And heaven forbid that happen! sigh. Sometimes I hate my pride lol

Well, in the end my 30 minute interval run turned in to a 20 minute slow jog, with, I am ashamed to admit, two quick stops so I could drink some water. *red faced*  While I know any activity is good activity a huge part of me feels like why should I even bother if that is the best I can do? I had to run at a slower speed than I used to, and couldn’t maintain that for the length of time I used to run for.

I am definitely no longer a runner. 😦

After the treadmill I went to the free weights area, grabbed some dumbbells and did a bunch of squats etc for my legs, figured if I couldn’t run as well as I used to least I could do was work the muscles another way. I definitely worked them! It is two days later and my legs are still in pain! Good muscle pain though so I don’t mind, much. lol. 😛

I’m grateful I haven’t also lost my cardio ability when it comes to dragon boating. I can still paddle the endurance pieces coach puts us through no problem. But that kind of confuses me. How can I have good cardio in the paddling sense but sucky cardio in the running  sense? Isn’t cardio cardio? Apparently it isn’t…but I don’t understand why. Sure paddling uses more core and running is legs but, well, I have no core strength, lol, it has always been one of my weakest areas, and now it seems like my core is stronger then my legs?? There is something way flawed with that…

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Don’t Borrow Your Calories!

19 Apr

For the love of all that tastes good Don’t Borrow Your Freakin Calories!!!!! Now don’t take offence, I’m not snapping at you, I’m snapping at myself because I have borrowed my calories at least 4 times in the past 2 weeks and it’s pissing me off, grr! *mean eyes*

What do I mean by “borrowing calories” you wonder…lemme explain! 🙂

Borrowing calories is when you have a thought process that goes something like this:

hmm, should I eat that waffle? yeah, it’s ok, I’ll eat it because I am going on a 15km hike same day so it’ll balance out.

it could also go like this:

do I splurge and share the appetizer with my friend at dinner? yeah go for it! you’re going running tomorrow morning then to dragon boat practice tomorrow evening so you’ll burn it off no problem-o.

Now, you might not think there is a huge problem with those thoughts, I mean sure, I shouldn’t have the waffle at breakfast or split the appetizer at dinner but a little treat every now and then isn’t gonna kill me (immediately…lol), the problem is when the planned activity doesn’t happen. In those above instances the hike got cancelled due to being called in to work and the running and dragon boating got cancelled because of sleeping in (ok, fine, my bad!) and such an extreme wind storm the club cancelled boating practice. sigh.

The end result was I ate calories I wouldn’t of normally eaten because I was oh so sure I was going to be doing enough physical activity to counteract the calories but then ended up not doing anything to counteract the food I stuffed in my face, double sigh.

It isn’t so bad if it happens once in a blue moon, I mean, if it had only been the time my hike got cancelled cause of last minute being called in to work then hey, not so bad, I wouldn’t be upset about it. But this has happened one too many times for my comfort level lately, ya know?

Must. Be. More. Careful.

I’ve been trying to figure out how to better prepare for possibilities like this but really, how do you prepare for the unexpected? I think the only action to take is to be more diligent with the food I eat and be less lenient with treats and splurges. Also, I have to break the idea of eating something and then planning to exercise it off later. Instead it should be reversed. If I want to have a treat of some kind, I need to earn it by exercising first and enjoying the treat later.

Basically, bribe myself to work out lol 😛

I’ll have a more structured work out schedule for the rest of dragon boat season because I am now paddling with two teams, yah! So I have practice Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday nights and Saturday morning. The Saturday morning practice may kill me…8:30am is a tad early for exercising in my world but whatcha gonna do? *raised eyebrow* Tuesday and Thursday mornings I usually go hiking or to the gym (depends on weather and my mood) and the other days of the week are all in flux. I don’t have them scheduled yet but I’ll sort something out. I usually hike either Sunday or Monday after work…hmm, lemme put this down in some kind of order:

Monday: usually hike after work, or gym, or biking with KL

Tuesday: gym or hike in morning, dragon boat practice in evening

Wednesday: dragon boat practice in evening

Thursday: gym or hike in morning, dragon boat practice in evening

Friday: not gonna lie, usually nothing, I sleep in before going to work lol

Saturday: dragon boat practice early morning

Sunday: usually hike after work, or gym

Sooooo, that is one day I for sure do nothing (Fridays) and two days of possibly nothing if I flake cause the activities are not planned (Sundays, Mondays). All the other days I am for sure doing something…that’s not soooo bad. Not the guaranteed 6 days of intense physical activity I was doing last summer but I’m working up to that, sorta…I don’t know why it’s so much harder to get my ass in gear this year, sigh, but I’ve gotta come up with something to provide extra motivation and I don’t think bribing myself with a potential waffle is the way to go! lol 😛

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Kick Ass Week

24 Mar

Ok, so right now I’m not feeling so great, not sick, just not well…if that makes sense? It’s not like I caught a cold or something, I just feel off, I have a bunch of little things that are wonky right now that don’t add up to any one illness, and by themselves wouldn’t be that big of a deal buuuuut when combined, and when I’m uber tired I become cranky and less able willing to deal with them by continuing on in my regular routine. 😛

None of that matters though because it is almost the end of my week and my week has been beeawesome! 😀

Tuesday afternoon, I was informed that I may be done physio! DONE!! Finally! YAH!! I am super excited for this for a couple reasons: (1) it’s freakin expensive and I couldn’t afford to do anything else while paying for physio, (2) it means I am better so I don’t have to worry about my neck and back anymore and (3) it takes a decent chunk of time out of my life twice a week and I want that time back! I mean c’mon, I could be sleeping…which is an excellent use of my time because it makes me happy and doesn’t cost anything! 😉 lol The small print to this news is that my being done physio is dependent on how I do for the next 3 weeks, sigh. I have to gauge how my back and neck deal with the crap I put them through and if at the three week mark I have experienced pain, discomfort, loss of agility blah blah blah then I have to go back, ugh. Soooooo, I am really trying to not screw this up and do something that’ll mess with my neck and or back again…I have decided, the way I am going to look at things, is that I am done physio because that thought puts a huuuuge grin on my face!

Tuesday evening, omgomgomgomgomg first dragon boat practice of the season!!! Hellz yah! It was awesome, and cold, and rainy, and dark, and I wouldn’t trade it for anything! By the time warm up started, which is held outside, it was still pouring rain and while it had been raining earlier but wasn’t cold it was now raining and cold, lovely. Kinda made warm up interesting as we were all wanting to keep moving more than normal lol. We had to rebuild the team so this first practice was more a getting used to the feel of the team in the boat, seeing how strong we were, stuff like that. We didn’t focus on form or strength or speed but we will, oh how we will! I fully expect our amazing coach to kick us all in to gear and make us a winning team! Personally, I think we already are a winning team, we felt great when paddling and that was only the first practice of the season! so how can we not win when we will just keep getting better and better? *raised eyebrow*

Wednesday, I had my volunteer dealio, I am a Big Sister…as in The Big Brothers and Big Sisters Program, know it? I don’t know why but people don’t recognize the organization when I just say Big Sisters, they only get the lightbulb of understanding when I say “ya know, big brothers and big sisters…” what’s with that? I think Big Brothers has better advertising then us…? Ah well. So my little sister, who incidentally is a bit taller then me (which is kind of rare in my world since I am 5’8″ ) turned 16, ahhhh, sweet sixteen, remember those years? Cringe a bit? Yeah, I did too! lol. Why do people get all excited about being a teen, and reminisce about it so much when being a teen sucks? You can’t do anything adult yet, can’t drive, can’t work, can’t decide when you are going out or for how long, can’t decide what your cell phone plan will be or if the house will have internet or cable, depending on the parents you don’t get to decide your own wardrobe, can’t randomly get tattooed, generally don’t get to choose what’s for dinner…there’s all kinds of things that as adults we can do that we don’t think about, that teens want to be able to do but are denied and yet! Adults expect teens to act like, dun-dun-dun, adults! Double standard I think, shrug. But regardless of that, she is super happy to be 16! She’s one step closer to driving (her thoughts, not mine) and getting a tattoo (also her plan) and is constantly trying to figure out how to survive as an adult once she is an adult. She wants to be a teacher and live in a co-op but also do her art (she’s a wicked awesome artist!) and she basically is like every single 16 year old in that her life plans change almost weekly and she wants to do everything possible and is only now realizing she doesn’t know how she is going to manage all these dreams and ideas and goals. I am loathe to say that some dreams she will have to drop in order to pursue others, so I keep my mouth shut about that and encourage her weekly in what she has now decided is her new plan.

Thursday, the weather was amazing, like super amazing, as in sunny and warm but not hot, no wind, gorgeous! So I did what any normal person would do, I skipped the gym and went for a hike! 🙂 I was slightly misled about the hike so the workout wasn’t exactly what I planned for but that’s ok, it was such a lovely day and I had such a great time that I am cool with how things went down. The hike starts about 25 minutes drive from where I live and I was told it is 2 hours, now, I took this to mean 2 hours up and 2 hours down so I planned for a 4 hour (give or take) excursion. Yeah, no, so didn’t happen like that! Even with my pausing at the top to admire the view, sit and chill and actually just be in nature (turned off my music an everything! shocking!), also with my pausing on the way down to take pictures of pretty waterfalls etc the whole thing took me an hour and a half. I feel whoever climbed this thing and gave the time estimate for the climb must be a hobbit and take super itty bitty steps, cause anybody taking 2 hours to do that is either going so slow they might as well be going backwards, somehow manages to get lost (which me being me I almost sorta kinda did since I veered off the path and into the bush a couple times, oops! lol) or like I previously said, is the size of a hobbit. But it’s all good, it was a great hike and I’m glad I did it. I think I will use it as my go to hike during the summer when I don’t have a lot of time but really want to do something outside. 🙂

Friday, I got to take part in a make-up thing a friend is doing. She’s in school to be a make-up artist and she used me as her model, she made me up into total glam, it was sweeeeeeet! I looked great, all thanks to her! don’t take that as me being all valley girl vain (like omg, I am like, sooo hawt I practically sizzle! giggle…gag me! lol) I don’t have copies of the pics yet but I will and they will be a superb addition to my portfolio…even if they don’t do anything to minimize the look of my eyes (long story).

Saturday and Sunday I worked and both days I was in this not feeling sick but not feeling well funk so I didn’t hit up the gym, opting to sleep and hope my immune system figures out what the frak is going on and fixes it…so far that plan is a failure but never lose hope! All in all, I think I had an awesome week! I didn’t write about what I ate but everyday I tried to make healthy decisions, and I feel I managed it for the most part. Sure, I had some chocolate one day, and maybe definitely ate more bread then I should have (seems I’ve totally jumped off the no bread bandwagon as I keep buying the freakin stuff!) but I also made healthy meals, chose healthy options when eating out, was physically active (some days lol) and all in all, just feel good about most of the choices I made. 🙂

the view from the almost top of my hike! :)

the view from the almost top of my hike! 🙂

Not sure what those lines on the bottom left of the picture are…I’m going to pretend I chose for them to be there, creative licence an all! 🙂

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So Many Things

18 Mar

I have so many things I want to blog about tonight it’s crazy lol I have had post ideas almost everyday since my last post but never had time to write them up so now they are all circulating in my head and want to be released in this one post, how oh how do I pick just one? Maybe little bits about everything and in the future I can elaborate if I want to write more? Seems as good a plan as any! 😛

I said in my last post I want to be physically active daily and boohya! (that is so not how to spell the marine sound is it?? lol) I was! *happy dance* Not always in an organized gym visit type of way but in some way…oh wait, I had one day of rest I think, hmm, yeah, yeah I did, due to scheduling and muscle pain (from the previous days workout) but I don’t feel bad about it cause I was active all the other days and ate better then I had been so all in all, I made a lot of improvements in my “healthy living lifestyle” this past week. Personally, I think that deserves a happy dance, don’t you?

Now, what did I do for exercise? That is the fun part! I went to the gym a couple times, one of those visits was after a work shift that ended at 9pm, certain days my gym is open till 11pm, sweet huh? I didn’t get to complete my entire workout because I didn’t get to the gym until 9:45pm and I requested some help for the stairmaster (I wanted to try a new piece of cardio equipment) and the help was long in coming and not really that great, sigh, oh well! I also ran on that visit and used some weight machines aaaaaand did some free weights. I was that annoying person who worked out till literally the last second the place was open lol. You should’ve seen the guy working, he was so irritated but whatever! You are open till 11pm so I am staying till 11pm! neener neener 😛 lol

I also had a great time with my friend KL. Normally when we hang out we go to a movie or dinner or something else sedentary. Not that there is anything wrong with those activities but now that weather is theoretically getting nicer and while we are still young enough to have energy in the evening after a day of work why not do something active? The evening we went out it was pissing rain so no outdoor activity for us! We did something way better though, we went to this boxing class thing. I can’t call it boxing cause it wasn’t us with a boxing coach actually boxing in a ring or anything. It’s basically a twist on that Curves place – ya know, that place where you show up, do a 30 minute circuit training exercise deal and then leave? Ok, so imagine that idea, the 30 minute circuit training but based around boxing, oh, and only for women so no intimidating smelly men to get in the way, lol. Cool huh? I had a lot of fun, it was a really great workout, we were both sweating by the end and neeeeeding water. There is a trainer there who kinda helps push you along, motivationally I mean not literally, and there is a buzzer that lets you know when to not only switch stations but when you are at your station when to switch from normal speed to double time. See, you stay at each station for 2 minutes and in 15 second intervals you go from normal speed to double time. Oh, and the stations are organized so you go from a high intensity activity to a lower intensity activity, so the first station is hitting a punching bag using a left-right jab combo, the next station was abs I think…I can’t remember the order but you know what I mean right? Please say right! lol If you already having boxing or kickboxing training like we both do it is a breeze form wise to get through the circuit and you can really focus on speed and intensity. If you don’t have any experience it might take a bit of adjusting but you’ll get the hang soon enough. 🙂 I would like to join there, switch it up between the gym and that place buuuuut it is expensive, I think it was $50 or $60 bucks a month, something like that, just to do a 30 minute circuit where you’re mostly hitting punching bags and cushions, no sparring or anything…so I am hesitant to join…I think it’d really help me with getting in shape and being stronger for dragon boating but if I do join it won’t be till next month cause of budgeting.

The other exercising was using my exercise bike and doing stuff at home, I didn’t wimp out though, I was doing high intensity and then low intensity exercises to get my heart rate up and get real benefit from my at home workouts. Sidenote, the cat thinks I am nuts, lol, and he sits behind me when I do a sit up so when I go down I bump him and then he has hurt feelings and I have to give him a treat later to make it up to him, brat. 😉

The abso best workout I am going to get though is tomorrow when, dun-dun-dunnnnn…Dragon Boat  season starts!!!!! You can not find a person more excited then me right now! We start training tomorrow so at 7:30pm I will be out on the water, rain or shine, warmth or cold, in sickness or in health lol Seriously, so psyched for this! 😀

hmm…I didn’t get to all my post ideas and already this post is pretty long, guess I’ll have to leave the rest for next time. Let me leave you with a picture of tonights dinner which I actually cooked! No buying dinner for me tonight, I slaved away 😉 and made a healthy meal of grilled red and yellow peppers, steamed asparagus and three skinless boneless chicken tenders that are sweet thai chili sauce flavour. Oh heads up, there is a story behind those, which I guess I am saving for another day lol

Tonights homemade dinner! Mmm!

Tonights homemade dinner! Mmm!

OMG! I almost totally forgot! I watched the finale of The Biggest Loser tonight and am so psyched that Danni won! By one freakin pound! Holy crap! She was always my fave contestant and I am so so so glad that she won! I am going to use her as my inspiration for the next while, when I have a day where I think I can’t do it I’m gonna think of her and how she kicked ass and decide that if she did it then so can I! 😀

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Couple Weeks Ago…

7 Sep

A couple weeks ago I had this awesome week, was super active, always seemed to be doing something, not every part of it was good stuff but hey, life isn’t 100% good stuff so ya gotta make room for the crap stuff every now an then lol 😛

I tried some new activities and want to give my take on them:

The Grouse Grind

This is a hike in North Vancouver, BC that is pure evil, grr! to you Grind, grr! It’s not that it isn’t do-able, people hike it everyday but it isn’t fun and costs you$10 at the end…lemme explain…you drive there, you pay for parking, you hike up 2.9 km (1.8 miles) and sure that doesn’t sound like a long distance but think of how this hike is described, it’s called “mother nature’s stairmaster” I kid you not! Go look at the website for it: http://www.grousemountain.com/grousegrind then when you get to the top you have to pay $10 to take a gondola ride down the mountain so you can rush back to your car before your parking expires because you mistakenly thought you’d do the hike in a short-ish amount of time so didn’t pay for too long of parking…hmm, that last part might be just me…lol. It’s not a fun hike, which is what I realized part way up the mountain. I thought it was just me who wasn’t having fun (I went alone, most people seem to go with someone), but when I looked at other peoples faces as they were going up they all had the same look on their face, one of torture. Uh, why the hell are we all climbing this stupid mountain if it isn’t fun?? Everyone looks like they are being forced to suffer through some torturous ordeal but uh, hello, didn’t we all make the choice to be there? And no way they were all first timers like me, so some of them must have known what they were getting in to, and yet, they went back, what’s with that? I guess a lot of people use the mountain as a personal challenge and keep returning so they can better their time, it’s like a point of pride or something…weirdos! lol

Most of the hike is man made stairs but every now and then is a part where nature has been allowed to stay in charge so you do a bit of scrambling over rocks (boulders? no, I think they are rocks…what’s the difference?) I prefer the rocks to the stairs. I like to hike, like for real hike, not climb a bunch of stairs hike, if I wanted stairs I’d go use a stairmaster at my gym lol, but ah well, it was still an experience and one I am glad I did, if only so I can say I did it lol.

My recommendation though would be to not do as I did and hike it on one of the hottest days of the year with minimal water in your pack and having not yet eaten anything that day (oh, and it was around 3p or so I think so not like I had only skipped breakfast, oops!), if you are hydrated, dressed for the weather, fed and not being roasted to death by the sun you’ll probably do all right. 🙂

The next thing I did that was new to me that week waaaas…

Bikram’s Yoga

For those of you who don’t know, that is a series of 26 yoga poses that last 90 minutes and are performed in a room heated to 40C with 40% humidity…so it’s hot! I paid $30 for a week of unlimited classes at a studio near my place. A friend from dragon boating said I have to go at least 5 times that first week because any less then 5 times I will hate it, 5 times or more and I will love it. I wanted to get the most out of my unlimited for a week so I made it my main source of exercise for that week. They teachers say your only goal for your first 5 classes (there is that number again) is to stay in the room, even if you feel overwhelmed by the heat just lay down on your mat and try to get through it, yeah, it is just that hot! lol. I managed to go 4 times in that week and am happy to say I not only stayed in the room each time but I performed all 26 poses each time, meaning, I didn’t stop and rest on my mat cause I couldn’t take it, yah me! Hey, don’t judge! I’ll take positive re-enforcement where I can find it! lol 😛 The Bikram yoga websites and teachers all tout the amazingness of this style of yoga (of course) and apparently there are all kinds of health benefits etc…I don’t know about any of that, but I do know you sweat a lot and I figure that has to be good for detoxifying your body, right? I dehydrated one day, got all dizzy, ran in to a wall in my apartment when going from the bathroom to my bedroom, kinda crazy, so it really is important to hydrate. It is suggested drinking lots of water the day prior and the day of your Bikram yoga session, I suppose since we should all be staying hydrated anyways this shouldn’t be a problem but who are we kidding? We all slip up at some point, shrug.

I decided against continuing on with Bikram’s Yoga. Even though I know a bunch of people who swear by it it’s really expensive and not what I am needing at this point for my main form of exercise. If it wasn’t so freakishly expensive I’d be really tempted to continue on with it, using it as part of my exercise routine but $160/month is too much to spend if I’m only going two times a week. You have to be really committed to Bikram’s to get your moneys worth.

Since then I have been doing my normal stuff, dragon boat practices (although season just ended, sadness, so no more of that for a while), gym time…I unfortunately got really sick two weekends ago and it was a pathetic recovery, took longer then I would like so I stayed away from the gym longer then I wanted to, mostly cause I had no energy, if walking to the store across the street caused me to get light headed and a bit dizzy I figured going to the gym was probably a bad idea lol. I seem to be all better now so I’ll be starting my gym time again soon, probably tomorrow before work. I’m going to be signing up for my boxing classes again once payday comes around since that’s my off season sport and I’m looking in to trying OC’ing, something a lot of dragon boaters seem to do once db season has ended…not sure I want to be on the water during the winter though, brr! lol 🙂

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