Leaping Forward

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Clap Your Hands

Yesterday I got an email from RunDisney informing me they have added a new race at Disneyland. The Tinkerbell Half marathon being held next January. So, of course, I immediately registered, fearing if I didn’t register right away I would be forced to put my name on a wait list and not be chosen.

So, not only is my name in the drawing for a full marathon in October (I should know sometime next week about that,) but I’m now officially signed up for a half in January. That’s enough time between, right? =X

The Opposite of The Bee’s Knees

Image via Wikipedia

I woke up for my run this morning and knew something was wrong.  My knees were inflamed and really sore, so I iced, I elevated, I rested.  Then, I emailed my doctor.  It’s been going on for a few weeks now, and I want to know for sure if it’s runner’s knee or tendinitis or maybe even IT Band Syndrome.  My doctor responded with a link to a Runner’s World article with hamstring stretches and a strength exercise. She mentioned that the typical treatment for runner’s knee is rest, ice and strength training. So she said to start with that and if it doesn’t help, in a few weeks to make an appointment.  She said it might help save me a co-pay.  How great is my doctor? 😉

So, I’m still going to cross train with spin, and start adding in more leg strength training exercises, and hopefully all the ice and resting and whatnot will help.

Productivity vs. The Hunger Games

Image via Wikipedia

Sometime the middle of last year, Travis “read” The Hunger Games series. I say “read,” because Travis doesn’t actually read, he does only books on tape.  Anyway, he read them, and loved them, but I was kind of indifferent to them.  Not that I was 100% not interested, but for the most part, post-apocalyptic literature isn’t my bag.  Then, my girlfriends started reading them, so I got in line for the book sharing and have now finished the first two books in the series. They have completely sucked me in.  Kate delivered the first two books on Thursday night and as of Saturday night I had finished them both.   I’ll be picking up the third book today, and will have to force myself to bed and not stay up late reading.  It will be difficult.  I basically lost the entire day Saturday to Catching Fire.

I found it interesting while reading to see some parallels between The Hunger Games and the Twilight saga.  I have a feeling there is a similar fan base, but also a divided fan base (as there tends to be with things that are similar but also different.)  One parallel I discovered, aside from the obvious love triangle featured in both series, is that both Katniss and Bella feel hugely responsible for the well being of the people they care about, and knowing that whichever person they choose, they will ultimately be leaving another hurt terribly. There is also insecurity in both characters, but this seems to be where the similarities end, and I have a strong feeling that Katniss Everdeen is what Stephenie Meyer wished Isabella Swan actually was.  Where Bella is so plain she is practically devoid of any personality, Katniss explodes with personality, with fervor, with a will to survive.  From the beginning we see both characters are willing to sacrifice everything to save the ones they love, but where Bella fumbles around and seems weak, Katniss is powerful in her resolve.  This is not to say I think Bella Swan is a terrible, irredeemable character, I just find her far less developed than Katniss.

They’ve just started casting for the movie versions of The Hunger Games, so that should be interesting to watch play out.  I keep hoping they have a larger budget than the Twilight films so they get a decent hair/makeup and costume department.

I wasn’t completely unproductive on Saturday actually.  Although the better part of the day and evening was spent reading, I managed to make my first green smoothie.

I followed the recipe Angela posted on Oh, She Glows  only I used chocolate soy milk instead of almond milk, in the hope that the chocolate would make it taste better.  I was pretty nervous it was going to taste like sludge.  I even bought some Chia Seeds for the first time ever at Whole Foods on Friday evening. Have you ever made green smoothies? I’m sure most of you have, I’m pretty tardy to the party 😉 See! I ‘m even late using that joke. Totally no longer culturally relevant.  Oh well.

Surprisingly enough, it tasted pretty good!

Even Peanut tried to get in on the action.  It kept me full for several hours which was great. Then I totally ruined my healthy green smoothie by ordering pizza for dinner.  Oops?  I figured it would be ok since I’ve got a 6 mile run planned for this morning. Sometimes a girl just needs some pizza.  Plus it was so hot in the apartment, the mere idea of turning on the stove or oven to cook anything made me feel gross.

4am, 0.4, TGIF

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I’ve already talked about how I don’t sleep well with Travis gone. Well, the past two mornings, Bits has woken me up at 4am.  Normally, it’s Peanut who wakes up earlier than my alarm and starts harassing me to feed her, but Thursday and this morning, it’s been Bits.  Typically when the girls get up early, the earliest has been 5:30, but for whatever reason, Bits decided 4am was wake up time.  She gets up, she starts talking, and won’t shut up until I feed  her.  I have still waited until their normal 6:30am feeding time because there is no way I’m getting up at 4am every day to feed these kittehs.   Needless to say, I haven’t gotten a lot of quality sleep the past few days.  Add to the 4am wake up call, the fact that one of my neighbors, who apparently wasn’ t home last night, had left a window open and when the winds picked up, the window was slammed closed repeatedly about every 20 minutes last night, which woke me, nearly every time with a start. 

The middle of March, we lost our staff parking lot at work.  We only have 57 parking spaces in our lot at the branch so staff isn’t supposed to park there, but we’d had a deal with a local church a few doors down and were able to park in their lot during the week.  However, they will be tearing down the building and as of the middle of March we haven’t been able to park there.  This is the main reason I changed my hours to start at 8am, because our YMCA is in a residential area, which means the streets that aren’t 2-hour only, are permit, and the spaces available that are neither 2 hour,nor permit are at a premium.  Thursdays and Fridays are worse because of street cleaning.  Normally, I’ve been pretty lucky, the most I’d had to walk was about four blocks.  Today, I walked almost half a mile. 0.4 miles to be exact.  My beef is this: If I knew, I could be guaranteed a spot, even if it was half a mile or a little further away, I wouldn’t mind the walk.  However, because we do not have any guaranteed parking, it’s a crap shoot every day as to where I will find a spot, if I find one at all.  This morning, I drove around for nearly 20 minutes before finding the spot I found, which made me technically late for work.  Even though I was here on time, I just spent most of that time driving around, and then the rest of the time walking from my spot to work. 

If I wasn’t worried that I would be run over, I would consider biking to work.  I don’t actually own a bike, so, there’s that, but my apartment is only about 7.5 miles from work. I don’t think that would be too terrible of a bike ride, although my problem, aside from not owning a bike is two fold.  Riding on the streets is scary to me.  LA drivers are terrible, and for the most part do not seem to care about bikers.  Also, riding a bike home from work is a little daunting.  First, because I don’t know that I’d want to be riding in the dark, but also, I try to work out after work, and who knows how long it’ll take me to get home on a bike after a tough spin class, or a long run?  There’s also the getting to work all sweaty factor. Obviously I could shower here at work, but I guess I’d have to figure out when I’d need to leave the apartment in order to get to work with enough time to shower.

Do you bike to work? How do you deal with the sweat /work clothes/ bringing a lunch issue?

Power Jamz

I’ve already posted some of my Big Push music here and here but, driving home from work on Tuesday, I heard Van Halen‘s “Right Now,” on the radio, and when I got home was forced to create a POWER JAMZ playlist.

I present without further ado, the Power Jamz playlist thus far

“Right Now” – Van Halen

“Separate Ways” – Journey (everything about this video is awesomesauce.)

“Any Way You Want It” – Journey (I love Journey)

“Caught Up In You” – 38 Special

“Heat of the Moment” – Asia

“Africa” – Toto

“Eye of the Tiger” – Surivor

“The Final Countdown” – Europe

“Don’t Look Back” – Boston

“Your Love” – The Outfield

Yes, I do realize how cheesy all this music is, that’s the point. 🙂  What are your Power Jamz?

Don’t Worry! Maybe It Won’t Happen!

On Monday, I got an email from the Disney Half Marathon people saying basically, sorry, you didn’t make it from the waitlist!  I was really, really disappointed.  I had my heart set on running the Disney half again this year, but, apparently it sold out in only a few weeks.  Crazy!

About an hour after that email, I got an email from the Nike Women’s Marathon people.  So, one of my running buddies and I each put our names in for the random drawing to see if we can register.  We’ll see what happens, we should know in the next few weeks.  I’m not going to lie, I am terrified. It’s not just a full marathon, it’s a full marathon in San Francisco, and the course map elevation is scary. Obviously, there are LOTS of hills.  REALLY BIG hills. I’m really, and truly afraid I won’t be able to finish. But, as my subject line says, Don’t Worry! Maybe It Won’t Happen!

See?!! Check out that elevation map at the bottom. WTF?!

The good news, is there are 27 weeks until the Nike Women’s marathon, and, if we don’t get in to that race either, as an absolute last ditch effort to get into Disney we could try and squeeze in with a charity (if there are any spaces left.)

What scares you? Would you ever do the thing that scares you most?

Staying Sane

The past week or so has been a little stressful at work. I have a big project with a deadline of tomorrow. It involves a giant spreadsheet with 2,700 names that I am working through, cross referencing and filling in information one person at a time.  It’s tedious, and I still have 1600 names left to finish tomorrow.  Staring at the spreadsheet all day, makes my brain hurt, and my eyes cross, and generally feel slightly surly.  So, tonight after work, I took a spin class. Even though I couldn’t work as hard as I normally like to because of my knees, it felt good to sweat, and not stare at a computer screen. I know I’ve been a bit MIA lately, but I’ve been attempting to employ other means to help my sanity.

Some of these means are: reading (The Help, finished yesterday,) napping, attempting to get my life organized, going to bed early.

This is why I haven’t been blogging so much, but I promise I’ll get better 😉

Return of the Outdoor Run

Image via Wikipedia

After work on Wednesday, I hopped on the treadmill and was planning on doing a 5k to see how fast I could run it, but as, staff  when I saw a member waiting for a treadmill with no one budging (some people who had definitely been on for the 30 minute limit when someone’s waiting,) I decided to stop at 1.10  miles.  I then did some push-ups, using an app I downloaded to my phone, and I hit the grocery store before heading home.  Once I got home, I realized I still had lots of time before I needed to make dinner, so I strapped on my Garmin and headed outdoors for a quick run.  I managed to get in 2.10 miles making my total mileage for the day 3.2. I somehow managed to lose the cord for my Garmin, so I couldn’t plug it in, but the total time for my mileage was about 36 minutes which gave me an overall average pace of 11:17.  Not too shabby, since I’ve been majorly slacking on the running lately.

When I set out for my run, I decided against bringing my iPod, which I think was a great choice. I was able to really enjoy the weather, look around and soak in my surroundings. Can you run without an iPod? I did an out and back down the street to Pan Pacific Park and then into the park for a bit. Once I hit the mile mark, I turned around and headed home. I have to admit, I had a hard time pacing myself at first, I went out too fast a first. This made the return mile a little tough, especially because there are some hills in the park, and I’d been doing most of my running on the treadmill.

On Friday, after work, I hit up the treadmill again, but my knee was bothering me so I did the rest of my workout on the elliptical which as less painful.  Today, I wanted to do 6 miles in Griffith Park, but sadly, my knees did not agree.  We ended up doing a little over 4 in 1:17 because we walked a good part of the way.  After a quick stop at Jamba Juice I came home and iced my knees.  It seems to be helping a bit. I’m pretty sure I’ve got Runner’s Knee.  So, some knee braces, and icing, foam rolling and stretching will be in my future.

The Customer is Always…

Image by jimg944 via Flickr

I started writing this post yesterday when I got home from work, but then I got distracted and decided to go on a run outside, and when I got home I had to start making dinner because the girls were coming by for our weekly dinner.  So, my post sadly got pushed to the back burner.

Yesterday afternoon two co-workers and I decided to order lunch from the Baja Fresh down the street from the office.  As a whole, I’d say someone from our office eats there at least four times a week, so they see our staff pretty frequently.  Normally we call in our order and walk down to pick it up so we don’t have to wait for ages at the restaurant.  Yesterday, I offered to call the three orders in, and explained to the woman taking my order I had three separate orders that would be paid for separately.  There was apparently a misunderstanding because after I went through all three orders, she asked me for the other two orders, and then got very upset when I explained that when I said, “the next one is…” I meant the next order.  However, I wasn’t that bothered, I figured it would be an easy fix.

Apparently, I was wrong.  The woman I was speaking with got very upset, put me on hold, in which she simply put the phone down on the counter and went to get her manager.  I was on hold for over 4 minutes.  When her manager picked up the phone he asked if I needed to place an order.  I explained what had happened, and he said “well, you didn’t tell her it was three different orders.”  I calmly explained that I did tell her, but that I wasn’t upset, I just wanted to make sure we could pay for each order separately.  He then asked me, in an irritated tone of voice, “how do you intend to pay for this?”  When I let him know it would be two credit cards and cash for one order, he said “Well, that’s going to be a problem.”  I remained silent, I didn’t even know how to respond, and then he said “Well, your order is ready.” *click*  He hung up on me!

I walked down to pick up the food, and when I arrived, there was no one at the Phone Order pick up register. I patiently waited a few minutes, when the manager asked for my name, and then had a girl come over to man the register.  The girl asked for my name, when I gave it to her, she gave me a dirty look, then walked away from the counter.  She got her manager and the two of them discussed in Spanish how to handle my difficult payment situation.  I may not be fluent in Spanish but I know enough to follow most conversations.   The girl then returned and asked me in a surly voice how I intended to pay.  I let her know that I had cash for two items and a credit card for one. I was able to get cash from a co-worker to attempt to make it eaiser.  She rolled her eyes and gave me the total for one of the items.  I handed her the cash and she looked at me and said “I can’t give you the change until the end, when I open the register.”  I said that was fine, as long as I got the change I didn’t really care when she gave it to me.  When we got to my food, I gave her my frequent buyer card which was given it’s final stamp, she said really rudely “your next meal is free.”  She then handed me the bag of all three items, holding it from the bottom, and when I picked it up by the handles and attempted to walk it to the salsa bar, one of the handles broke.  She shouted after me “Thanks!” in a snotty voice. 

Needless to say, I am not in any big hurry to go back to that Baja Fresh.  I’ve never had such a terrible experience in customer service, especially when it seemed it wasn’t even that difficult for her to actually ring up the order with the three separate payments.  When I got back to the office I went online and filled out the survey following the link they placed on my receipt.  I normally just let things slide, but I was so annoyed by the whole experience that I made sure to complete the survey and use the comment box to explain what happened. 

Have you ever had a terrible customer service experience? How did you handle it?