Step Away From the Cake

Done!!!! I'm very pleased with myself. I awoke this morning to find a beautiful blue sky and sunshine. You would never know we just had a week of rain and wind. Ahhh, the joys of living on an island in the middle of the ocean :) Anyway, I was excited to run. So I got up, had my coffee and got ready to run. It was 7:30 and absolutely beautiful. I headed out and it just felt so good to be running again. I was smiling and waving at everyone, I'm sure they thought I had lost my mind. I was in one of my very cute running skirts so I know I looked as great as I felt. I think I was a little too excited to be running though. My first mile was 9:54. Dude, I do not run that fast unless something large and dangerous is chasing me. Since I was going on my longest run to date I figured I'd better slow down some. I took it back down to about 12:00 and that was much better. Interesting side note: I wore my Garmin today for the first time in a while. I've been wanting to f...

Tomorrow is the 8 on 8 run, cover 8 miles on Dec. 8th. I will do that tomorrow. It doesn't matter if it is raining in the morning. It is Saturday and I can wait until it clears, which it usually does around 10, and then run. I have 4.5 miles on the schedule and I will do the remaining 3.5 on the bike. I am really looking forward to running again. I haven't all week and it's getting to me. So tomorrow's 8 on the 8th will make it 8 days in a row that I've worked out. I'm very proud of myself. I found this strength program that really rocks. It's called the Fit Chic and the strength sessions are 15 minutes. I love that!! I do my cardio in the morning (hopefully I will run again :) and then the strength when I come home at night. It's great, short and sweet. Perfect. It allows me a little workout to relieve the stress of the day but it's not so long I try to avoid it. I'm still working on hubby's Christmas presents. It's hard ...

"Freewill" There are those who think that life has nothing left to chance A host of holy horrors to direct our aimless dance A planet of play things We dance on the strings Of powers we cannot perceive 'The stars aren't aligned Or the gods are malign...' Blame is better to give than receive [Chorus:] You can choose a ready guide in some celestial voice If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice You can choose from phantom fears and kindness that can kill I will choose a path that's clear I will choose freewill There are those who think That they were dealt a losing hand The cards were stacked against them They weren't born in Lotusland All preordained A prisoner in chains A victim of venomous fate Kicked in the face You can't pray for a place In heaven's unearthly estate [Chorus] Each of us A cell of awareness Imperfect and incomplete Genetic blends With uncertain ends On a fortune hunt that's far too fleet [Chorus] I heard this ...

it was raining!! Ugh!!! I'm tired of this. The way the islands are structured cause the clouds to build up over the mountains during the day. They start raining at night and once the sun comes up start to dissipate and the pattern repeats itself. This happens with all kinds of weather patterns. But the last few days, we've been having what's know as a Kona because it comes from the south. Generally our winds and weather come from the north. When we are having a Kona it tends to be windy and rainy. Well we are having a really good one. I'm not sure how long it's been raining but I think it's rained every day for a week or so. Two years ago it rained for 43 days straight and what a mess that created. Okay, enough whining!!! I didn't run this morning so I hoped on my exercise bike and did HIIT for 30 minutes. It was pretty good. Tonight is strength training. In much more exciting news, my first race is chosen: I'm very excited. Now this may n...

At exactly 3:48 this morning we got hit with some seriously bad weather. It was pouring rain and 60 mph winds. It took some roofs off. At exactly 3:52 the power went out. You might have guessed I was awake. You'd be right. I was pretty much awake for the rest of the morning. It rained and the wind blew and it stayed dark for a long, long time. You might have guessed I didn't get my run in. You'd be right. Without any power there was nothing else I could really do either. Bummer. The rain finally stopped about 6 and the power was restored by 7:30, but the roads were a big, giant mess. There were trees down and roads flooded and all kinds of mayhem. I didn't leave for work until 9 am. It was much better by then. So I didn't get a workout in this morning. But, I did pick up an exercise bicycle and did that tonight. It's not too shabby. I got it off Craigslist for $25.00. You really can't go wrong at that price. So I got my mandatory 30 minutes in ...

This is what I woke to this morning. It was raining so hard it actually woke me up. It continued like this for a fairly long time. Long enough for me to realize that there was no way I was going out running in that. Time for Plan B!! It was off to the studio for some aerobics. I was thinking, I used to be the aerobics queen. Now I only do it as a last resort. I still love aerobics but there are other things I prefer to do. That was it. The rest of the day was kind of boring. Work is a little crazy right now. People have testing that they have to do every year. It never fails there are some folks who wait until the last possible moment. That tends to make December a little bit crazy. Stupid people. I've been looking on line for Christmas gifts for Hubby. I think I might get him a HiDef TV but I'm not sure yet. I did find some cute stocking stuffers at the NFL store but they don't ship to Hawaii. Stupid people!! Maybe I'll get him a Cartier watch . Oh wa...

I tend to try and take hints when the universe seems to be telling me something. This will probably make no sense at all, but I'll do my best. Yesterday as I was trudging along, Grand Illusion by Styx came up on the iPod. I love Styx!!!! Then I heard the line, 'so you think your life is complete confusion, because you never win the game' and it started me to thinking. I feel like a winner. Not in everything, but in many things. I'm pretty content with my life now. This lead me to start thinking about my family. Out of 7 kids, 1 is dead, 4 of us are reasonably average, 1 can't seem to hold a job and needs to live off someone, and 1 is in and out of drug rehab . Luckily, I'm in the 4 reasonably average group. So I was feeling pretty pleased with myself. Later yesterday afternoon I was reading a fitness book and it was pretty rough. The guy was saying that all the excuses for not losing weight and getting fit are bull!! It really resonated with me. Fin...

Well, it's been raining here all night and the majority of the morning. Today was my long run and I was wondering if I was going to get it in. I'll run in the rain but this was pouring buckets non-stop. I won't run in that. So I rearranged my plans for the day and went ahead with the weekly biscuit making and house cleaning. Around 9 the rain stopped and the sky seemed to be lightening up. I waited a little bit longer and sure enough, it was clearing a little. I decided this was my window and headed out. The schedule called for 4 miles. I set out and was so happy to be running. I was looking at the Christmas decorations, some folks on our street go crazy with them, and really enjoying the cool weather. Well, I do not know what happened. Maybe it was too close to breakfast, or the cleaning I had been doing before going. I'm not sure, but this run turned into a death march. I got rained on, not too bad, and I had lots of sun, Ugh!!! I was having some breathin...