JustRunJustLiveJustBe

Multiple choice:

Yesterday during a barbecue at my aunt and uncle’s home, I a) ate too many Doritos, b) actually understood what my genius cousins (mechanical engineer and some-other-kind of engineer) were saying, c) walked around their huge backyard, reminiscing about my childhood summers spent there and tried not to think about everything I have to do but never seem to find enough time for, or d) all of these.

D, of course, is the correct answer because I like Doritos too much, any day I understand what my cousins are saying is a day worth noting, and I’m trying my hardest not to get completely overwhelmed right now.  I feel behind on everything, or at the very least like I’m half-assing a lot.  It’s not intentional, but I guess that’s just an excuse and probably not a very good one.  I don’t even get to read and comment on every blog I’d like to each day.  That is how we know life is screwed up, when we cannot spend enough time on the Internet.

In fact, just last week after my desperate tractor post, another blogger really helped me out.  Robb took it upon himself to film this tractor instruction video for me the very same day I wrote my plea. How nice is that?  And after I’d just discovered I hadn’t even been propery linking to his blog for weeks because of my slackdom, he still helps me out. 

I told my mom about the video and she did not believe me.  She was all with the “why?” and “how” and “who would do that? how do you know these people?” And I said mom, it’s the Internet, it’s magic. 

Speaking of magic, you are not going to believe this.  Or, maybe you will but I certainly didn’t.  A fellow blogger and runner over at What Can’t Be Looked For emailed me a few weeks ago about this “fabulous bacon product that you must own.”  Then she sent it to me all the way from North Carolina.

Are you ready for this?  I was not.

Mo’s Bacon Bar

Bacon and chocolate.  Um, yeah.  This is where I was all “what?” and “how?” and “oh my gosh, is that even possible?”

And it get’s better.  On the package itself, it is noted that there are “guided tasting notes inside.”  Oh, um, no I just don’t think I can handle this. 

Luckily the person who sent this choclate bacon is very understanding and did not necessarily expect me to taste it, because I don’t think I could have done it and then I might have had to shut all this down and go into the blogger protection program.  My mind is just a little too powerfully connected to my taste buds.  But here’s a fun fact:  It was stocked right near the meat counter.  Strategic?  I THINK SO.

Thanks to you two bloggers for shedding light on things that I would have otherwise never known.  I am amazed, as is my mother. 

________________

By the way, if I am not linking to your blog properly, or if I need to link to your blog, you should tell me.  Chances are I meant to but then someone put Doritos in front of me and I forgot about everything else.

*Update* Thank you to everyone who offered suggestions (and even emailed me helpful links).   I have a lot to think about, including why I love the Internet. 

I don’t know why I’m trying so hard to figure this out, but I am. For one, it’s pretty boring. Two, well it’s not like I’m some scientific runner who meticulously calculates speed and distance and bodily reactions. I’m only mildly concerned with any of that, which is probably due mostly to laziness. I am sort of stumped, though, and I’m thinking someone out there might have some insight. Maybe. Possibly.

For the last several weeks, you see, I’ve been gradually increasing the distance of my long run again. Gradually being the key word there, of course. (Yesterday I did 7 miles.) For the most part they’re going well. They’ve turned out to be pretty okay runs where I’m thankful, most of all, for feeling good (read: no knee/leg/hip pain). The weird thing is, my heart rate. It’s crazed, y’all.

What I mean by that is, it seems very abnormal. Or at least for part of the run, particularly the last part. A “normal” long run for me means a steady pace with my heart rate between 150 and 155. However, over the last few weeks and only during the long run, my heart rate increases to 165+ during the last 2-4 miles of the run. No matter how I try, I can’t get it back down. Once it’s up there, it stays- at least until I have to walk just to get it under control.

Now, for starters, I don’t even know if around 150 is okay to start with. I just know it’s generally where my heart rate stays when running at a comfortable pace. But I don’t know if that’s (again) “normal” I just know it’s been normal for me. Is it too high? I wouldn’t know.

Sheesh! Who’s bored? (Me. Sorta.)

So, anyway, I’m thinking my heart rate goes up like this because:

I know I’m getting close to the end of the run and I subconciously get too excited about that? OR…

I’m too fatigued from earlier in the run? OR…

I’m too fatigued from whatever I did the day before? OR…

This could be something to worry about and I should be asking a doctor? OR…

There’s a guy running in front of me with a nice butt.

I joke about that last one because if that were the case, well, heartrate schmeartrate, but I’m hoping anyone with any type of heart rate knowledge/insight/know-how has an idea. Or at least some questions I need to ask myself to better understand what’s going on. And I hope it’s something simple like “you’re not in good enough shape yet, keep going and find a nice butt to look at to distract you.” But maybe there’s more to it? What do you think?

Okay, so I am sort of on the Twitter bandwagon now.  I have no idea what I’m doing, but I did want some of you that I chose to “follow” to know who I am.  I am going by another name, part of my actual name, and ironically, I don’t want to look like a stalker.   And some punkass really nice person already has JustRun. 

So, please, teach me, LesleyG, about Twitter.  And please be my friend. 

Hurry, and go now!  This could all end tomorrow because I’ve downed like four Frescas and I have absolutely no idea what I’m doing.

Where’s Waldo?

Have you seen this?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rt3NfymWlss

As someone who just watched all three Bournes a few weeks ago, I can’t help but love it.

So I said I was going to talk about this new lens I got over the holidays. Other people got puppies and babies but to me, a girl falling more in love with her camera every day, this is just as important. Let’s just start by saying I only crossed over into the digital SLR world about a year ago so for the most part I really don’t know what I’m talking about. But in this year I’ve taken something like three thousand pictures and so, if nothing else, the trigger finger is well-worked.

It is hard not to go crazy once you get into this camera world. Some days I just tuck a towel under my chin, click on the link to B&H, and let the drooling commence. It doesn’t take long for me to fill my imaginary shopping cart with all sorts of things I have no idea how to use but nonetheless covet because I am nothing if not a dreamer. And I can learn, coach. I promise I can! Thankfully, I do have a couple real-life photography coaches to guide me through this maze of lens growth. My camera’s kit lens is an 18-55mm which has taken most of the photos I’ve posted on this site over the last year. I have been, as the kids say, hella happy with this lens. But there are times, I tell you, when you just can’t get close enough to something.

So I knew my next lens would be a zoom. I settled (read: I pretty much let someone choose for me) on an 18-200mm. (Note: Not even 100% sure I’m linking to the correct lens. I am Photography Genius!) This is a Nikon lens however, I think I could just as well used a lens made for Nikon (i.e. Sigma) and been just fine. The important part, as I learned, is to find what you’re comfortable with. Go and hold them and use them first. This lens, as it was explained to me and eventually I was convinced, has “very nice glass” (you can imagine the stream of jokes I came up with there—because ‘nice glass’ rhymes with what? That’s right: sea bass.) and with it being capable of what my 18-55 can do, I would have to change it less. This is good for me, because I am remarkably graceful when it comes to expensive things. Okay, not really. Unless it has bacon on it or rum in it, I’m not likely to skillfully save anything from hitting the ground and shattering.

So you see the photo above? That’s the new lens, without any zoom. But that little tree on top of that red rock there, seemingly growing from nothing and withstanding brutal Colorado winters, was cute. So I got a little closer.

And closer.

And then vertical, just for fun.

Long story short, I think I’m going to be really happy with this lens. Sure, I was happy before but it’s sort of like finding out you can have comfort and maximum hauling capability in your new truck—you don’t know what you’re missing until you’ve got it. Alright, I made that up so that the two men I know who read this blog (the men I actually know in my everyday life, not you other mysterious [Daddy] bloggers and such) would maybe understand what I was trying to convey. They still won’t get it. But someone will!

Speaking of people I don’t know reading here, I guess it was the annual quarterly blog de-lurking day recently. And! And! Not only that, but January marks the second “anniversary” of this blog. Soooo… uhh, like, if you aren’t too busy and you’ve made it this far into the post, maybe you want to tell me who you are or that you’re out there. That would be fun. (Okay, that’s a little more awkward than I thought it’d be.)

I hope you say hi. That would give all those numbers I’m seeing every day a little identity of their own. Aww, how sweet. And I promise, I’m going to be celebrating, too. For tonight, my friends, I am off to beautiful places and friendly faces. I love it here, in the good ol’ CO, I really do. The skies are blue, the sun is shining… but there’s just this one thing: It won’t stop being so darn cold.

I’ll be checking in as I thaw. Thanks for reading.

“How was your run?”

“Great! I got new shoes and today was the first time I’d run in them.”

“Ahhh. Isn’t that the best? You don’t even realize how much you need them until that first run.”

And that is right on. That is always how new shoes have felt to me: like I had no idea what I was missing. I have to think most runners feel this way. Taking that box home from the store, or opening that package that comes in the mail every four-hundred miles or so is like your own little Christmas, several times a year.

I take time to look at them, to make sure every thing is just how I remember it. I hope and pray the manufacturer, in their never-ending quest to make a better model, has not changed anything too much between version 4 and version 5. You know what I’m talking about, when you’ve found that perfect shoe, the shoe that feels like it was made for your foot, and it’s now “new and improved.” Meanwhile, you’re just left wondering why they couldn’t leave well enough alone.

Shoes laced, fingers crossed, you prepare yourself for the real test: the run. That was me last Sunday. Up early, looking at a bright, sunny sky and no wind, no evidence of the twenty-three degree (F) temps until I stepped outside. I thought briefly about going back in. It just felt so cold. So, so cold. I play this little runner’s game in my head, though, wherein I make myself walk to the end of the block, and then around the corner. I tell myself “Okay, you cannot see your house. You are far from the door. You might as well run.” Some days, like that day, it works.

So I pushed the start button on my Garmin and ran. I wasn’t twenty steps in when I remembered what the icy weather had made me forget—I was in new shoes. And, oh my, it was good. I knew that this run, this first run, would be the best I’d get out of these. Since finding my favorite shoe, I’ve never been one to need a “break in” period. It is made for my foot, a natural extension, I have no reason to start slow. Through some snow and ice, but mostly a clear path, I ran for eight miles. When I got home, ready to take them off, I looked at them for a minute. No, not because I’m in love with my shoes (though a little, I am) or because I’m overly sentimental about a good run (though a lot, I am), but I just wanted to look at them and appreciate how clean they were. That part never lasts.

Thanks to everyone who commented with something helpful (or complimentary, or cute) on last week’s post about my header. (Oh, just imagine the site searches that might end up here now.) It turns out that I not only needed helpful instruction but helpful instruction from several people in order to get this right. And, as I replied to many of you in email, I eventually did figure it out. And, just like the woman I am, I up and changed my mind about the photo I wanted to use anyway.

This new one was taken at the same time as the other however, it was much easier on me, which we know is what really matters.

I know it is of rocks (which are in the mountains very near to my home) but soon I will be beach dreaming (read: beach going) and so the sand and surf is sure to make a come back. Fear not. And many of you told me this, how you prefer the sand and surf, and let me just assure you SO DO I. Nonetheless, red rocks are pretty, too and I swear that blue sky was one of the prettiest blue skies I’ve ever seen, anywhere.

To those of you I owe baked goods or gossip, I think we’ve squared that up in email. If that is not the case, and you want some baked goods or gossip for your helpful deeds, do let me know. Next weekend is baking weekend and, well, the gossip cup runneth over. Or maybe it’s just news and not gossip. I don’t know. There’s also a very good chance it’s interesting to no one but me, because I get excited about finding coins in the couch cushions, too.

Speaking of news, there are a lot more people in my life that have it. And much more than I, for certain. For example, in just a couple months, my very, very best childhood friend is having her first baby. It makes me so, so happy and not just because babies brought into the world by wonderful, good, caring people (as she and her husband are) are a good thing but also because my friend really deserves all the best.

This is the girl that defended us when we were in After School Art Club as fifth graders when all the really cool kids were playing hand ball. This is the girl that told off the boy that was making fun of my flat chest in the lunch room, and then went up to that same boy the next year and pointed at my chest (which had more than caught up with the rest of me over the summer) and said “Bet you want to take that back now, don’t you?” She is awesome. And she’s going to be a wonderful mom.