faboo mama

I’m in pain. A lot of it. Something happened to my back on Wednesday and now I’m barely able to walk. The pain is unbelievable sending me through bouts of nausea and tears.  For those that know of my previous back issues, this is definitely worse. I’ve hurt before, but nothing like this.

What makes it a little more unbearable is the near unconcern my husband has. He said, “But you’re always hurting.” True and he mocks me saying my body should be condemn, but when a slight turn of my back to the left send the most horrible muscle spasm up to my head, I’d expect a little more caring. I don’t think I’m asking to much.

On Thursday, I asked him to take the girl to school. He didn’t even wake, leaving me to get the kids ready in the morning.  I drove her school and cried all the way home as the need to shift gears sent pain throughout my right side.

Friday, he did take her to school.  When he got back home, I asked him to water the plants. This means, reaching under the potting bench and turning on the spigot so the drip irrigation can work its magic. It didn’t get done. In the meantime, I got ready to go because he said he was going to take me to the clinic. Little did I know that I’d have to wait for almost 4 hours for that to actually happen.

I wound up at the overcrowded ER at LAC-USC. Nearly 4 hours of sitting in a painful chair as the guy behind me kept jostling our shared back rest.  Speaking to other people who had been waiting over 24 hours to see a doctor, I got a sense of dread. Wave after wave of nausea came over me, from the ridiculous amounts of pain spreading from my back to other parts of my body. I asked for some nausea medicine only to be blown off. Getting up to puke, made me lose my seat; my options were to either stand along the wall or sit outside, possibly missing them call my name.  I called him to come get me.

Seeing as how we live 7 minutes away from the hospital, even taking into account getting the kid’s shoes on, I didn’t expect that when I called him 20 minutes later he’d claim that they were almost ready to leave. Almost. He got me nearly 45 minutes after my first request. No one will ever accuse him of punctuality, but since I was in pain, my delirium made me assume he’d act on some urgency.

Now we’re at this morning. The kids are awake, I’m starving and want coffee. When I asked for breakfast and coffee he moaned. In fairness, he did give me the skillet, but I wept as I made the coffee and breakfast for me and the kids. My daughter has been helpful. She got stuff from the fridge for me. But the most painful thing of all, as she watched me make breakfast she said, “I didn’t know parents could cry, mama.”

Despite the fact that my post on Social Networkouts went largely ignored, I’ve decided to go ahead to something about it anyway. The American Heart Association is sponsoring National Start Walking Day on April 8th.  All they’re asking for is 30 minutes of walking from you that day.  Why 30 minutes?

Taking just 10 minutes three times a day to walk will help you live longer. In fact, studies show that just one hour of vigorous exercise will increase your life expectancy by two hours. It makes sense to walk more and eat well — to live longer. (AHA)

So we are going to meet at Echo Park at 6:30pm and walk the perimeter of the park.  That way even those who can’t make it until 7pm will still be able to get some walk time in with the group.  Runners are encouraged too.  Everyone who participates will get a sticker.

Where to go:

We will meet at the entrance to the park at the corner of Glendale Blvd. and Park Ave., just south of Sunset Ave. We will be walking the sidewalk around the park, so meet up with us at any point.
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Please click through as this shows you the start point for our meetup.

What to bring:

• Comfortable walking/running shoes
• Water or sports drink
• Healthy snack
• Towel
• Happy attitude

I am open to any other suggestions you may have.  

Please RSVP at Upcoming so that I’ll be sure to have enough stickers.  Tell your friends & family and please share this post with anyone you know in LA.

Check back here as I post videos and other health tips leading up to the big day. ?See you at the park!

Meetups of users of various online communities have been happening for some time now. In just the past 6 years, I’ve met women from a birth club board for lunch playdates, have potluck dinners with people from political sites, teas with online friends from gardening forums and recently met up with FriendFeed users at local burger joint. But you see the problem; it’s all involving food. I’d say that 95% of the meetups I’ve had with people has been surrounding food. ?On one hand, good food and drink are great social lubricators. Beyond the topic discussed on these sites what other conversational ice breaker is there that doesn’t seem awkward and insincere. Recently, I’ve been wondering why there aren’t more meetups of an active sort among these groups.

When you get into the personal realm in these online communities, the topic of weight loss and food issues come up pretty frequently. People share recipes, discuss what they had for dinner or talk about their time at the gym. Yet, when we get together our first thought is what restaurant to meet at or is it a potluck. Why not do something different? Why not make a meetup where we all take a yoga class or just a simple hike in Griffith Park??

At LA Metblogs, Will Campbell organized a day long through LA. I wish I could have made it but either I was busy healing or just busy. This guy Mike organized a walk through LA to celebrate his 10 years as an Angeleno. It became an annual event and last year was the 3rd year of Great LA Walk. The same day as the FriendFeed meetup, the Los Angeles Flickr group organized a photowalk around Union Station. These are all great ways to get some activity in a meetup.?

Many would suggest that I search sites like Active or Gyminee to find people who’d be willing to do an activity. I’ve tried that, but since I’m not active in those communities it’s a bit hard. ?To make it more frustrating for me is that most people who put Los Angeles in their profiles live in OC, the Valley or the west side. ?There’s nothing really local for me here in Northeast Los Angeles. The few people I’ve found in Pasadena put up posts like, “Looking for a partner for quick 10 mile trail run at 5am.” Yeah…10 mile, trail, and 5am effectively exclude me. ?

My logic in wanting to do a meetup around a physical activity has a lot to do with support. Sure, I could find a group to run with on Gyminee, but they don’t “know” me & I don’t know them. I’m sure they’ll be supportive of my efforts, but will they get my sense of humor? What if they all want to talk politics or tech while running? Whereas say I organize a Twitter/FriendFeed meetup, we all know each other from there and the activity will be more focused on fun versus getting mileage in.

Tell me. Am I off-base here or is anyone else interesting in doing something like this? Even if it’s a simple as a hike through Griffith Park ending in a picnic (more food!), that’s still more active than a group of us sitting around chatting…you know, like we do on our computers anyway.

Netflix Watch Instantly Workout Videos

The internet can be a big lifesaver not only to your health, but also to your wallet.  Last year, as you may recall, I took up running.  That was fun, but with the kids, work demands & constantly getting sick, it was hard for me to exercise.  I had the idea that I would walk my kid to school every morning, walk back home, grab the boy and drive over to the gym for a quick workout. I did that exactly once.  Real life intruded on my plans.  So after driving the kid to school, I’d come back home and work or mess about online.

My solution for fitness became the rare spurts of Dance Dance Revolution on the Xbox and accessing the Fitness module via my cable’s OnDemand.  DDR was only worthwhile when the kids were asleep, as they both kept getting underfoot.  The same with the Wii Fit I got for my birthday. My daughter insisted that it was always her turn.  I love the Wii Fit, but until I figure out how to switch the cables between the Wii and the Xbox, I use whatever is plugged in, which is usually the Xbox.  Lucky for us then, that we have a Netflix account. As you may recall, I’ve rented some fitness videos via Netflix. Now with the Xbox Live Gold Membership ($49/year or try Amazon), I can use Watch Instantly to view exercise videos.  I have my queue loaded up with various videos that target different areas of the body.

But variety is the spice of life.  I remembered using workout videos online after the birth of my 1st child, so I dove into the internet. There are so many more places to get your fitness fix in the comfort of your own home.  When I had to cancel my gym membership recently, I stepped up my focus on finding the right exercise combo for me.  So, if you’re watching your pennies and are forced to cancel your gym membership or just don’t have the time or inclination to go to gym, here’s a list of sites that have free workout videos:

Fit TV
Exercise TV
Hulu (these videos are mostly Execise TV videos)
iTunes (h/t to Siel for this one)

Fit TV

ExerciseTV

Hulu Fitness Videos

The reason I’ve been quiet lately is that I didn’t want to post complaint blogs.  As you may remember, I’m allergic to my sweat and to latex.  It’s been really, really, really hot lately and I developed a full body rash.  Today is a little cooler and I’m not Ms. Crankypants anymore.  It still itches, but not as bad as the past week.  I may even be able to leave the house once it clears from my face, neck and arms.

Why do I look so short and fat?  I’m not that squashed, I tell ya!  But look at me run!

What a good race. Much better run than the Santa Monica Classic, they had drink stands throughout the course. The advertised expo was a nice size with lots of helpful booths. The race was chip timed, so there was no mix up with my bib. Whoever did the Brentwood Run, clearly has more experience than those who did the Santa Monica Classic.

But no matter what the page says, I think this course was a little harder than the SMC. Maybe it was the lack of adrenaline of a first time race or lack of anything interesting to look at, but even though this was a simple loop on a mostly flat course on San Vicente Blvd. it was very trying. The only thing I learned was that Brentwood has way too many coffee shops on one street. There are 2 Starbucks, 2 Coffee Beans, Coral Tree Cafe, Peets Coffee and various smaller coffee shops. All in less than a mile area.

I thought that I was going to have to leave the race before we even started. I had been doing stretches and knew my ankle was hurt, but didn’t realize how hurt until I stretched. YEEOOW!!! The heel was so tender, I started crying because the pain was so bad. 5 minutes to race time and I could barely put my foot on the ground. I popped two Aleve, I had the foresight to purchase and waited for the horn.

I did wind up running and was pleased when I hit the 1 mile marker and the timer yelled out 14:23. Whoo-hoo! I was banking on a 17 - 20 mile because of my ankle, so that made me happy. The second mile was not happy. There was a hill involved. And it was a deceptively nice hill. Me and fat ass struggled up that hill. I did try to run a bit on it, but that really hurt my foot. Right before the turnaround was a drink stand. I grabbed a cup and almost died. Grape Gatorade! Why did they hate me? It was like drinking Dimetapp. Bad, bad, bad!

Turnaround came, I started paying attention to the people around me ’cause I was bored. The coral trees aren’t the big draw Brentwood thinks they are. There was a woman who was pretty much walking most of them. Every now and then she’d run. She was there with a friend who was 1/4 of a mile ahead. Every time she got within talking distance of this friend, the friend would take off running. Somehow, her baby in the stroller disappeared and she finally caught up to the friend unencumbered. Wouldn’t you know it, the moment she finally fell in beside the friend, the friend took off. That’s fucked up.

The 2 mile marker came with the guy yelling our 29:30something…damn hill added a minute to my time. Ugh. I made it a goal not to let the 3 old guys walking in front of me to beat me, but they kept running. Assholes. Finally, ahead I saw the finish line. I didn’t think that I was ever going to make it. Limping big time, I started into another run/jog. I think I hit the line at 44:38, my watch said I finished in 44:41 and some change. When results are posted (I’m number 248) I’ll know. Oh and when photos are posted, I’ll be sure to share.

UPDATE: Times are posted and here’s mine

Place Div/Tot  No.      Time        Pace  Start    Chip Tm
===== ======== ======== =========== ===== ======== ===========
  751  53/63        248 0:44:59.69 14:31  0:43.65  0:44:16.04

14:31 pace makes me very happy indeed. My ultimate goal is to eventually get that down to 9 min. but for now, on a bum ankle? That’s pretty good.

Look for updates on Monday…I hope it’s hot enough soak in the pool

This morning, I checked my email and found I got a gift (thank you Ruth!) and now I’m able to run the Brentwood Run on May 25th. Proceeds from this race will go to the Brentwood YMCA

******

Pictures from the Santa Monica Classic are up. You can see my photos here. It’s funny to me to see that I’m smiling in all of them. I certainly don’t remember smiling that day.

Today I ran AND completed–thank you very much–my first race. I ran the Santa Monica Classic 5K/10K. I did the 5K.

First off, everything that could have gone wrong did go wrong; I over slept (both alarm clocks did not go off), I couldn’t find my shirt, the kids woke up, the batteries in both cameras were dead, I waited in a long line for parking only to find my permit was for the lot a mile away…and I had to walk back that mile to the start line. The race was to start at 7:30am, I got to the start line at 7:28, and was amazed by the crush of humanity for such a small race. I…uh, didn’t get the race was starting and watched all these people move forward. Some guy told me, “Yeah, that’s the 5Kers.” OH! That’s me! Where was the gun? I wanted a gun!!!

There was no way I was running with all those people around so I started walking. Once we got onto Main St. and the major group of Runners were gone, I started on a small jog. I guess I should mention at this point that I hadn’t run or walked in almost a month because of my knee. My relationship with the gym had dropped to something closer to a booty call. I had been smoking abut a pack and half a day. I also neglected to eat anything this morning becasue I thought that there’d be time to get something before. Oops. For a moment there, I thought I was just going to have to die. Then I saw the mile marker and beamed. That wasn’t too bad. I can do this!

As we turned left onto Colorado, we can see the mass of Runners hitting the finish line. Show-offs. I kept trudging up Ocean Blvd. mainly to get away from this couple running with their two dogs (WTF!?!). As I headed back down Ocean Blvd. we saw the leaders in the 10K coming up with a police escort. Ha! I thought, I’m going to finish the 5K before the 10K people show. Whoo-hoo!

I didn’t do too bad. I was finished around 8:20, so that means I walked/ran 3.2 miles in about 50 minutes. I was banking on completing the race in 1:30, so that was very good time for me. Not bad for an out-of-shape smoker with a bum ankle.

UPDATE: My time didn’t get posted. I didn’t know that the bottom of my race bib was used to scan my results. It looked like a receipt for the t-shirt I got in the mail and I didn’t need an extra t-shirt, so I removed it before I got out of the car. So, beyond my watch (49:53) there’s no record of me even running the race, short of my photos and my aching legs. Sniff. I’m pretty upset over this now.