faboo 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.

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.

I got the Bollywood Burn DVD on a tip from not goth. Due to a stupid knee injury, I’ve been pretty much out of it the past week, but feeling better, I tossed on some sweats and popped in the DVD.

I hate Hemalaya.

Okay, no I don’t. But the “burn” part of the title is for serious. My thighs could start forest fires!

This exercise is not for everyone. If you’ve never done aerobics before, forget it. If you’ve never danced bhangra or even watched a Bollywood movie, forget it. The directions on there are pretty bad. While you’re in the middle of doing something, you’ll be told now tap your toe. You have to stop to look at the DVD to see what she means.

The other downfall of the video is that it’s all done in voiceover. So you barely hear the music because Miss Hemalaya is too busy giggling at herself. That is annoying. It was like she was watching the DVD while doing the voiceover and was just cracking herself up. That is why I don’t do voiceover work. I suck at it. I know my limitations. She could hve gotten any number of LA people to do the voicework, but sadly, didn’t.

With all that out of the way, the exercises themselves weren’t too bad. A lot of it was legwork that could be tricky. I was wearing my New Balance cross-trainers and it was clumsy. If I had more stable ankle, I probably would have gone barefoot. The dances were nice a simple…it actually made me want to go to party. Of course, it didn’t help that she kept mentioning that “this is a cool move to do at a party.”

I only did the first two modules. The first was ran a little over 14 minutes. It was very hard and slow. More of a warmup or slow day sort of exerecies. The second one was a little over 15 minutes and fast. By fast, I mean you were doing a lot of fancy footwork (think Lord of the Dance) and the whole point of the workout was to put together a dance. I have to admit, that was a lot of fun. I’ll probably do the 3 module on Wednesday, so we’ll see how that goes.

Okay…it’s more like anger.

The running thing.

GRRRRRR.

The man sucks.

It’s nearly impossible to get out of the house because of him.  Why?  Because there are two toddlers here and he’s only awake between 1pm and 4am and most of that time he’s eating, working or dicking around.  And dicking around and eating are very important to getting the working part done.

This morning, I got up to go running.  The little boy felt a bit hot, so I was going to leave him here.  Asked the Mr. if he’d stay up so that I can do this, I’d take the little girl with me.  8:30 rolls around and the man is on the sofa sleeping with baby boy cuddled up.  Great.  Only problem is that he was really and truly sleeping.  I wasn’t going to leave baby boy with sleeping dad, so I got the kid ready and we left.

Got to the park and started walking, so far so good…started running, oh wait…the kids want to look at the swimming pool.  Then they wanted to look at the baseball kids, the playground, the ducks, they lake…baby boy started picking friggin’ flowers.  Not to mention the entire time Miss Diva whined and begged for stuff.  45 minutes later, I had run a total of 57 seconds.  57 seconds?    We spent another 20 minutes at one of the playgrounds and then we came home.

I told him,”Dude, this is not going to work.”

Mumble-grumble, “What? I told you you could leave the boy with me.”

Pfffft.  I asked him to get up so that I can go back to the park.  “No.”

No.

He won’t even get up for 20 minutes.

Now…remember back when I say I’m surrounded by non-encouraging people?  He’s their ringleader.  I know this about him.  I’ve always known this about him.  I’m not asking for a “Good job, honey!” or even daily inquiries on what’s going on.  I don’t need, nor want that–in fact, it would probably bug the crap out of me.  What I need is for him to be helpful.  What I need is for him to get out of my way.

About 6 or 7 years ago, unless it affected him directly, I pretty much stopped telling him my plans because of this, what I dramatically call, sabotage.   He’s a perennial roadblock.  You’d be amazed at how stuff he had been talking about for years all of a sudden gets Really Important To Get Done NOW when I’m in the middle of something.   Actually, you probably have someone in your life like that.  I’m lucky in that I can count 9 people I know in my life like that.  It sucks when it’s a friend, it’s hard when it’s a relative, it super blows when you’re married to that person.
Well, I’m off to run the “track” I didn’t want in my tiny backyard.  I love the part where I try to avoid poking my eye out on the lemon tree, running into the fence, and stepping my plants.  I figured that 16 times around equals ~1/4 mile.  Hey, he wanted the track for his cars and has used it maybe 9 times in the past year.  It’s about time it gets some use.

These are my new shoes. Like Ruth, I had to get new trainers. My experience was similar to hers. I went to A Snail’s Pace in Pasadena for my shoes. I heard they had decent prices and figured any store with a running club would have knowledgeable people on staff.  They checked my gait and had me fast walk to get an idea of my pronation, though I could have told her that I’m a severe over-pronator. I’ve known that since I was 11.

I’ve been thinking of doing a run for the past few months. I was never much of a runner, but there’s no reason not to. The training isn’t all that time consuming and it’s something I can easily do. I’m following the 8 WEEKS TO YOUR FIRST 5-K training schedule on Runner’s World website.  I’ve been studying this for the past month and there’s no reason to not start.  Spoke to my doctors who have been telling me to take up running for years, so that was out of the way.   All I needed is a sports bra, shoes and non-cotton clothes.

Now, ya’ll know a sista’s broke.  But I figured that this wasn’t an investment in a hobby, this is an investment in my life.  But damn…those shoes set me back.  So much, that I’m going to have to run in cotton clothes.  Ha!  Actually, I get rashes from sweating (allergic to my sweat) and I get rashes from lycra/spandex mixes (allergic to latex) so I wasn’t looking forward to buying a $50 t-shirt from lululemon.  Then I’m looking at another $50 for a sports bra. Gaah.  Good for me I already have a heart rate monitor and pedometer.  Though I’m am drooling over this piece of gadgetry.

Why are all the healthy things so damn expensive?  It’s bad enough that organic foods and healthy foods are priced so that the poor can not do that, but even participating in running is cost prohibitive.  I mean, sure you can just run and possibly hurt yourself with bad shoes.  But even entering in these 5K races are pretty pricey.  I’ll probably only be able to afford 4 races a year at the rate we’re going.

At any rate, I have my shoes and the DWP is just going to have to bite me regarding my late bill.  Priorities, ya know.