Thursday 1 September 2011

Running is good...

I'm doing well with the running. I am pleased.

It is not much fun to write here about my running because it is boring. I mean, I can't say much more than "I ran". I could tell you what I thought of the plot of the teen drama I was watching while I ran ("Make It or Break It" or "Greek"), but I doubt that would be very fascinating, either.

So, I'll just stop by every few days and say how it is going, rather than posting every day. I'm running on a good running schedule, with one or two rest days a week. That's fine.

There was a brief chance that I would run in a half-marathon in two weeks, and that revved up my running for a few days, but the chance fell through so I'm back to normal.

I'm still reading your posts even if I'm not writing as often!

Cryptically Mitzi Day Aug 28 - September 1

Sunday to Wednesday. A stretch of some four days. I did the bulk of the Monday 'Omega' but was not able to crack some of those pesky cryptics embedded with the rest. I did get some great clues out, explained below (after this disclaimer!)

Cryptic crosswords are like yoga: if your mind isn't in the right place of stillness, you will topple over. My mind has been busy at work, so much so that even when I did try my cryptic crossword in the past few mornings, I literally could not balance on the cyrptic beam. Added to that, I have a funny excuse - Dylan Moran. I went to hear the Irish comedian on Tuesday night. His performance was brilliant and his manner with the audience is respectful and generous.

A night at the opera following northern style Chinese dumplings tied up my Wednesday night. I am finally home and able to concentrate on my crossword. No matter how hard on tried - on buses and trains in the past few days - nothing sank in. I could tell my concentration was at a weird ebb, because I lost my ATM card. Needless to say, I was in a furious funk of irritation as a result.

The Monday Omega contained a few clues with the word "converted".
eg Q Salacious in-flight society, converted
I knew the answer was related to The Mile High Club (wolf whistle!) but how? What is meant by 'converted'?
Answer: a conversion of measurements from American 'miles' to Aussie 'kilometres'...hence The One Point Six Kilometre High Club.

Same for the heavy rock industrial goth band Nine Inch Nails...who, 'converted', became 'twenty-three centimetre nails'.

Now that my brain has settled down, here are four clues from the Thursday mini.

Q Rides his bike around on the worst windstorms (8)
A cyclones
(cycle + cyclone)

Q Encroachment in the street (6)
A Inroad

Q Destiny, it's said, is a celebration (4)
A Fete
(Fate + fete)

Q Start off in the thing I ingested (8)
A initiate
(to initiate + ate/ingested!)

Day 17 -- Made Up Yoga

I'm late getting this done.  It's practically the middle of the night.

Oh well.

Tonight I made my own routine.  I was jammin' to my own select iTunes playlist and found myself up and jammin' yoga to my own melody.  It counts, right?

Gawd yoga makes my body feel good.  I find myself stretching throughout the day.  Tonight, knowing I had to do it for the challenge, I let myself stretch to my own rhythm not caring much if I were doing a "routine".  It felt good.

I'll go back to doing a structured routine tomorrow, but for tonight I'm happy living in my own La La land of c'est la vie. Screw it. =)

Reading & Riding: 8/31

I missed one day of riding because our bedtime routine with the kids got thrown off and it just slipped my mind. The next day I had a soul-crushing headache, so I skipped that day too. (I know, no excuses, right?) But I've hit the bike every day since then. I think this routine can really work for me long-term. I've missed recording my stats a couple times, or forgot to weigh in, but I'm getting the hang of all the pieces of the routine.

My goal at this point is to do a little better every day, either in distance or in calories burned. I took it too easy yesterday, so today I put the hammer down. I may be in trouble tomorrow.

Here are my collected numbers so far:
Date     Lbs    Miles  Cal     

08/15/11 230.6 3.86 162
08/16/11 232.6 4.06 178
08/23/11 230.6 4.14 176
08/24/11 230.6 4.05 172
08/29/11 4.59 204
08/30/11 4.64 204
08/31/11 230.4 4.51 201
09/01/11 228.6 4.86 211

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