According to the weather report, and I sure hope it is right, today is the last day of this extreme cold we have been having. I am so glad because I am just sick of the cold - give me a heat wave any day over this!
So...hopefully today was also the last day I was forced to do a Sunday easy run at the gym on the treadmill. Not that I hate the treadmill or anything, but it does get old if you have to use it too often. Also, my gym is pretty busy on Sunday morning and it always stresses me out worrying that I might not get a treadmill when I go over there.
But today I got one (as I always do - yes, I am a worrywart) and I did a nice and easy 7 km in 50 minutes. It felt good and I am always happy to go home knowing I burned 500 calories!
Now I've got a pot of onion soup on the stove (recipe from Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything Vegetarian)...nothing better than a steamy bowl of soup on a cold day.
By the way, you guys got it right - the colors of the ring are the colors of the Belgian flag! My husband saw it in the shop window in Madrid and it reminded him of how happy I was when I got my Belgian citizenship last year, and so that is why he chose it for me. I have to tell you - I absolutely love the ring. And my husband! (Is Valentines right around the corner, or what?)
Have a very happy Sunday!
Sunday, February 12, 2012
Saturday, February 11, 2012
Surprise!
It was a long cold week and I really felt under the weather. I really am a hot weather type person - this cold was dragging me down! My lucky husband got to escape the cold for a few days to go to Madrid for work...but he came home with a surprise: this lovely ring from a mother-daughter jewelry designing team he discovered while he was there. He was thinking of our 20th anniversary later this year but since he had to phone me to ask for my ring size he decided not to make me wait and gave it to me for Valentine's Day! Can anyone guess the special meaning of the colors on the ring?Monday, February 6, 2012
Yay, It's Monday
...and it's still cold, although I agree with Fran who says she is starting to get used to it - me too. Although I am still not up to braving a run outdoors yet - perhaps this weekend?? We shall see... I saw a lady running along the frozen canal this morning in the sunshine and it did look kind of enticing... Of course I do have an additional excuse for going to the gym right now - I have to make sure I run the car each day when it is this cold or our battery will go dead.
This morning was my usual Monday gym workout and for some reason it just felt hard today. I really had to argue with myself to keep from giving up early and going home. I stuck with it but didn't give my cardio as much energy as I usually do. I remember reading somewhere that the workouts that feel really hard are the ones where you are making a lot of progress in your fitness level. I sure hope that's true!
I'm on a new 3 week cycle of my workouts and that means today was:
This morning was my usual Monday gym workout and for some reason it just felt hard today. I really had to argue with myself to keep from giving up early and going home. I stuck with it but didn't give my cardio as much energy as I usually do. I remember reading somewhere that the workouts that feel really hard are the ones where you are making a lot of progress in your fitness level. I sure hope that's true!
I'm on a new 3 week cycle of my workouts and that means today was:
- treadmill: 5 min warmup + 20 min hill walk at 3% incline
- stationary bike: 14 min
- upper body weight circuit: 3 rounds with 16 reps of each exercise (chest press, upright row, single arm row, shoulder press, lateral raise, French press)
- elliptical: 18 min
- abs circuit: 2 rounds (crunches, oblique crunches, reverse crunches, plank and supermans)
- stretch and go home, thank the Lord!
Sunday, February 5, 2012
Cold Cold Cold!
Well, we are still letting water run at night and this has solved our problem for the time being. It looks like we are going to have these very cold temps thru the end of next week - *sigh*. I will say, it has been very pretty here, with the bright sun and the snow... I dread tomorrow for my kids who have to bike to school early in the morning, though.
I really don't like running in the cold, so I am lucky to be able to go to the gym and get my sweat going on the treadmill. This morning I got a 60 minute, easy 8.5 km run in and it felt great. The gym seemed busy - probably a lot of other people who wanted to stay warm while getting some exercise. Looks like I am going to be there a lot this week!
I really don't like running in the cold, so I am lucky to be able to go to the gym and get my sweat going on the treadmill. This morning I got a 60 minute, easy 8.5 km run in and it felt great. The gym seemed busy - probably a lot of other people who wanted to stay warm while getting some exercise. Looks like I am going to be there a lot this week!
Saturday, February 4, 2012
Taps, Part 2 and a Recipe
Yesterday we woke up to running cold water but no hot! But we knew what to do - crawl in the attic and warm up the pipes with the blow drier... I left this job to my husband because I didn't want to miss my Body Balance class at the gym (and possibly get a shower there if we didn't get the hot water going).
Well, when I got to the gym, the class was cancelled because the teacher was sick. Darn! So I did the workout I would have done on Thursday instead - my upper body weight circuit, an interval run on the treadmill and 25 minutes on the elliptical.
When I was done I had a text from my husband saying the warm water was back - yay! So I headed home for my shower.
After lunch it started snowing and snowing - the really pretty kind of snow with big flakes. I decided to try out a new recipe I saw in Vegetarian Times: Spicy Sweet Potato and Spinach Soup, because it looked so warming. And it was delicious!!! I highly recommend it - it was easy to make and nice and spicy. It used a new ingredient I had never used before: harissa. I found a tube of it at my grocery store in the spice section for only 63 cents!
We ended up getting a good 5 cm of snow, and the weather forecast said it was going to be really cold again, so we did something we really didn't want to do - we left a dribble of cold and hot water going all night in sinks on all three floors of our house, so we wouldn't have a third morning with water issues.
This worked - we had water this morning. Thank goodness. But it sucks to have to waste the water. We are looking into a longer term solution - the plumbers are suggesting a sort of system that will warm the pipes electrically if it gets too cold again... Sometimes being a homeowner sucks!
Well, when I got to the gym, the class was cancelled because the teacher was sick. Darn! So I did the workout I would have done on Thursday instead - my upper body weight circuit, an interval run on the treadmill and 25 minutes on the elliptical.
When I was done I had a text from my husband saying the warm water was back - yay! So I headed home for my shower.
After lunch it started snowing and snowing - the really pretty kind of snow with big flakes. I decided to try out a new recipe I saw in Vegetarian Times: Spicy Sweet Potato and Spinach Soup, because it looked so warming. And it was delicious!!! I highly recommend it - it was easy to make and nice and spicy. It used a new ingredient I had never used before: harissa. I found a tube of it at my grocery store in the spice section for only 63 cents!
We ended up getting a good 5 cm of snow, and the weather forecast said it was going to be really cold again, so we did something we really didn't want to do - we left a dribble of cold and hot water going all night in sinks on all three floors of our house, so we wouldn't have a third morning with water issues.
This worked - we had water this morning. Thank goodness. But it sucks to have to waste the water. We are looking into a longer term solution - the plumbers are suggesting a sort of system that will warm the pipes electrically if it gets too cold again... Sometimes being a homeowner sucks!
Thursday, February 2, 2012
Taps
PANIC! We woke up to no water coming out of any of our taps this morning. This is a disaster when you have a 17-year-old who has to get ready for school, not to mention the vital need for coffee when facing these domestic surprises... And it also completely threw my day off - first the guy from the local water company had to come and see that it wasn't a problem with the water not coming into the house, and once he determined that that was not the problem, we had to phone the plumbers to see when they could come out to see what was going with our pipes.
Thankfully, my husband was home to take charge for once - what a relief! And the plumber came just before lunch, and told us that most likely we had a frozen spot somewhere (we had extremely cold temperatures last night - I should know, I was out to the theater with Linda and it was awful coming home on our bikes), and so my husband got to crawl into the attic and heat up some pipes with a hair dryer (boy, did he earn major brownie points today).
We were just having a lame cup of instant soup for lunch and feeling rather desperate when the kitchen tap started to dribble and then the water came back in a gush - YAY!
Conclusion of the day: with all the upheaval I never managed to get to the gym, but I got all my nervous energy out on cleaning once the water came back. You never realize how great it is to have hot and cold running water at your fingertips until it's been taken away from you for half a day - so that even cleaning feels like a privilege!
Thankfully, my husband was home to take charge for once - what a relief! And the plumber came just before lunch, and told us that most likely we had a frozen spot somewhere (we had extremely cold temperatures last night - I should know, I was out to the theater with Linda and it was awful coming home on our bikes), and so my husband got to crawl into the attic and heat up some pipes with a hair dryer (boy, did he earn major brownie points today).
We were just having a lame cup of instant soup for lunch and feeling rather desperate when the kitchen tap started to dribble and then the water came back in a gush - YAY!
Conclusion of the day: with all the upheaval I never managed to get to the gym, but I got all my nervous energy out on cleaning once the water came back. You never realize how great it is to have hot and cold running water at your fingertips until it's been taken away from you for half a day - so that even cleaning feels like a privilege!
Wednesday, February 1, 2012
Bitter Cold, Bad Air and a Strong Butt
In spite of the gorgeous sunshine outside the window, I knew it wasn't really a good idea to run outdoors today - along with the bitter cold temperatures the air quality is very bad right now - lots of that fine dust I mentioned a while back. So I decided to take my run to the gym and do it on the treadmill.
I warmed up 5 minutes on the bike before doing two leg strengthening exercises I have been trying in order to strengthen and engage my glutes before my runs: Bridge Marches (on your back with your hips lifted up in bridge position, alternating lifting one leg up at a time as in "marching" while keeping your butt lifted) and Single-Leg Reach (kind of like a one leg deadlift where you reach down to the floor with the opposite arm as you bend over). I got these exercises, by Rachel Cosgrove, from the November/December 2011 issue of "Women's Running Magazine" (which my sister sent me - thank you, Jenny!). The idea is that our sitting culture causes tight hip flexors and "gluteal amnesia"where the brain forgets to switch on the glutes, causing us to rely instead on our quadriceps muscles to do all the work when running. This made a lot of sense to me, so I decided to give her program a try to see if it improves my leg strength and helps some of the hip issues I have been having.
I couldn't find the article on the Women's Running website, so I scanned the page for you so you know what I am describing; there are also several other leg exercises in this program, but they recommend specifically to do these two before a run, and that is what I am doing for the time being.
My hips and legs are my weak spot and I have to be careful what I do and not to do too much at once or I get pain and problems... Today was my third time with these two exercises and so far, so good!
So after doing the two exercises, which really don't take more than five minutes, I got on my favorite treadmill and got going on my run. It felt good and I did 42 minutes at an easy pace.
It's a quiet afternoon here now - my oldest just left for three hours of judo (he helps teach the first two hours with the younger kids) and the two youngest are on a school trip to the Netherlands to do indoor skiing, so they won't be home til late... Honestly, it is very tempting on such a cold day, feeling comfortably tired from my run, to sneak upstairs to the warm and sunny back bedroom and take a little nap! Just might have to consider that...but first I need to put my warm clothes on and walk to the bakery for bread and the local Turkish market for bananas - the one inconvenience (for me personally) from Monday's strike was that my grocery store had no bananas when I went yesterday.
I warmed up 5 minutes on the bike before doing two leg strengthening exercises I have been trying in order to strengthen and engage my glutes before my runs: Bridge Marches (on your back with your hips lifted up in bridge position, alternating lifting one leg up at a time as in "marching" while keeping your butt lifted) and Single-Leg Reach (kind of like a one leg deadlift where you reach down to the floor with the opposite arm as you bend over). I got these exercises, by Rachel Cosgrove, from the November/December 2011 issue of "Women's Running Magazine" (which my sister sent me - thank you, Jenny!). The idea is that our sitting culture causes tight hip flexors and "gluteal amnesia"where the brain forgets to switch on the glutes, causing us to rely instead on our quadriceps muscles to do all the work when running. This made a lot of sense to me, so I decided to give her program a try to see if it improves my leg strength and helps some of the hip issues I have been having.
I couldn't find the article on the Women's Running website, so I scanned the page for you so you know what I am describing; there are also several other leg exercises in this program, but they recommend specifically to do these two before a run, and that is what I am doing for the time being.
So after doing the two exercises, which really don't take more than five minutes, I got on my favorite treadmill and got going on my run. It felt good and I did 42 minutes at an easy pace.
It's a quiet afternoon here now - my oldest just left for three hours of judo (he helps teach the first two hours with the younger kids) and the two youngest are on a school trip to the Netherlands to do indoor skiing, so they won't be home til late... Honestly, it is very tempting on such a cold day, feeling comfortably tired from my run, to sneak upstairs to the warm and sunny back bedroom and take a little nap! Just might have to consider that...but first I need to put my warm clothes on and walk to the bakery for bread and the local Turkish market for bananas - the one inconvenience (for me personally) from Monday's strike was that my grocery store had no bananas when I went yesterday.
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