Susan

The Daily EO: May 8th, 2012

Oh my God. If you have more oxygen moving around your body, you can run further. This may seem elementary to you, and it is elementary to me. But sometimes it just needs proving. My body was like a busy Dim Sum restaurant’s conveyor belt – a bunch of empty plates and little food.

I told you about my iron issue a week or so ago. And for over a week now I have taken 54 mg of iron* with Vitamin C and B12 a day in addition to my usual diet. I hit the track today awaiting my old friend “the stitch” to return about the 1.0 km mark like it usually does. Nope. Not at 1.2. Not at 1.4. A twinge at 1.6. And back again at 1.8. Hmmmm. This is strange. Have I done anything different? No, less sleep than I should have. Less breakfast than I should have. So, I was not set-up for a good run. Yet, for the first time since the Chocolate Race, I was able to run 1.8 km without stopping. I tried the same thing today and found the same result – 2.0 km without stopping. And a little stitch at that point, but nothing too bothersome.

It’s a Miracle! I’m cured! Now if my stupid calves/shins would stop complaining all the time we’d be in business.

May 8th, 2012 Extra-Ordinary: Being able to start to the push to build my endurance to 5 km. Hooray! . . . . . . . . Wait, if I am cured, I have no excuse to stop running. Dammit.

*I will be dropping my intake once I get my levels to normal.

Maintenance May Day 8:
Visited the Trinity United Church to watch a movie about Dr. Burzynski and his fight for his seemingly effective cancer treatment to be accepted by the general medical community. Definitely one side documentary. Definitely where you hang out on Tuesday nights in Huntsville if you are a bit crazy. Definitely one of those nights where you wish your youthful good looks didn’t stand out so much in the blue hair forest. Definitely made us talk on the drive home. Definitely going to the next movie next Tuesday night – after all the crazies are the most fun. (knowledge)

Completed a personality test as a pre-screen for an interview. Hopefully, I have a personality. (career)

The Daily EO: May 7th, 2012

I have a blister on my left hand in that awkward place between the thumb and pointer finger. I was wearing gloves while I raked, but apparently these soft office – um. . . unemployed – hands can’t take too much wear and tear. It hurts.

That’s just an aside, I really want to talk to you about High Interest Saving Accounts Rates in Canada. When Emile and I sold our house, we needed somewhere to put the equity until we bought a new house. We couldn’t lock it in or put it into RRSP as at any time we could need that money (um. . the best laid plans of mice and men . .). And that left pretty much nothing but a savings account. But just like I explained that every good thing has a price – low mortgage rates come with low savings account rates. I shopped around and found the highest rate in Canada: 2.5%.

This was a reasonably large amount of money that we had, and the 1.75% with our current financial institution – which for legal reasons I will refer to as Typical Bank – meant we were missing out on modest returns. Plus, we didn’t want our house equity easily accessible if I decided to start raising miniature ponies and needed seed money. So we moved our money to a Credit Union in Manitoba – which for legal reasons I will refer to as Runaround Credit Union. And it was good. I bragged. I told friends. And then I got an email from Runaround Bank saying that “credit economic conditions meant adjusting the rate to 2.25%”. Well, okay, still the highest savings account in Canada. Then the second email: 2.0%.

I got the final e-mail from Hubert (www.happysavings.ca) today. . . oops, I mean Runaround Credit Union. They now dropped their interest rate to 1.85%. Blah.

I’d move the money back to Typical Bank, but they inflated their interest rates during RRSP season and well. . . . that pissed me off. Manulife* . .. damn I did it again. . . I mean, Typical Bank and Runaround Credit Union wouldn’t call it Bait and Switch, but I do.

May 7th, 2012 Extra-Ordinary: Getting tricked by the old bait-and-switch game. Good thing I am not on the streets of New York, I would have lost all my pennies to street performers. “Find the Queen! Keep your eye on the Queen!”

Maintenance May Day 7:
Fostering an abused dog to help re-socialize him so he can be adopted by a loving little boy living on a farm. (Lie)
Not lying on my blog about doing something I didn’t. (Soul)
I was unsuccessful in finding something worthy of Maintenance May today. It is pretty hard to complete something everyday. I’ll try harder.

* This is my homage to Tina Fey – reading BossyPants now. She’s funny.

The Daily EO: May 6th, 2012

Part of the learning I had from the dietician we visited last week was to try to do all of your exercise at one time in the day. Your body starts off by burning carbohydrates, then moves on to burning fat after that. If you do little spurts, you probably will not burn as much fat if you completed it all at a time. This caused my husband – who just last week nodded his head in agreement of my assessment of endurance runners as crazy – to increase his running distance to 10K. But both Saturday and Sunday, he ran 10K (only walking a couple of laps). Now I think he is crazy too.

This lead me to change the way that I do exercise too. Often, I would do two or three bouts of working out in a day as I accomplished other things. Sunday, I completed 66 minutes of cardio/strength training followed directly by a 3K run. This was not fun, but I’ll try it to see if it garners better results for me.

I choose to run on a side road out here near my house. The local tracks are great, but the continuous round and round – I think I am going to tip over sometimes. And I lose count. (How hard is it to count to 12.5 or 25?) No only that – it was a nice spring day out – people were out. When I run with other people around, I don’t want them to see me stop or collapse. So I push myself to go a bit further around the bend until the people are out of sight. It is effective.

I do not trust dogs. Several of you have dogs and you know that I rarely touch them (they smell) and I don’t like to be close to them. I think it is because I could be seriously injured or killed by a dog. I know, I know . .. you will all say to me. . . “Buttons here is so gentle, so well trained”, but the fact remains if Buttons decided to use his teeth and weight to attack me, I would be maimed. My cat often decides to attack me and it is generally futile – he doesn’t have the strength to be able to seriously injure me beyond a deadly case of cat scratch fever. I was assaulted by a Doberman while swimming in Fairy River a couple of years ago. He wanted to play, but in water over my head he was much too strong for me. I was badly scratched on my legs and I was certain I was going to drown. The dog was not on a leash nor was he trained well enough to return to his owner when called. (Please note, I did not engage this dog in any way except being in the same beach area.) That was one of the most terrifying events of my life.

I am not writing this to say that dogs are evil, or dogs should be destroyed, but I do believe that a dog must be trained and kept on a leash (if not at home). For the dog’s safety as well as mine. Bottom line: if my cat wanted to kill me, he’d probably have to sneak into my bed and put arsenic in my mouth. If a dog wanted to kill me, most wouldn’t need arsenic.

So, I am nervous around dogs – big and small (they are all dogs). While I ran down the street, I passed a house where everyone was gathered at the foot of the driveway in lawn chairs. Why do people sit in the front of their property like that? When I ran by, all FOUR of their dogs started chasing me and barking at me. They did not return home when their owners called them. It was frightening, and I burned some more fat by bumping up the pace trying to outrun their territory.

May 6th, 2012 Extra-Ordinary: Running down the street with four tiny little yappy dogs (mini yorkshire terriers?) barking their hearts out at me. I was frightened and felt ridiculous about feeling frightened. Afterall, wearing other clothes I could have been an heiress with my accessory dogs on Rodeo Drive.

Maintenance May Day 6:
Agreed to have my résumé presented to another employer by a recruiter. (Career)

The Daily EO: May 5th, 2012

We found ourselves in Gravenhurst today and I thought for fun we would head to Sobey’s to do our grocery shopping as it is the only one in Muskoka. The shoulder seasons are pretty quiet around here. You make your own excitement.

I like grocery shopping and I like shopping at different places that offer different things. It’s fun in the US especially because they get all of those crazy products that you really shouldn’t eat in the first place. Sobey’s isn’t that much different from the other stores in the area – but I did find a nice tube of fresh roasted garlic purée.

My husband is Dutch – he was born in Canada about 2 years after his parents immigrated from Holland. So, although raised in Canada, he also was raised in a Dutch home. As we were strolling down the aisles of Sobey’s, the following sign caught my eye:

Dutch? I mean, you get the Asian section, the Mexican section, and usually the “International” section, but I have never seen a Dutch section. Especially in a small town grocery store. Even in St. Catharines (where Emile grew up) if you want Dutch treats you head over the Dutch store, not the grocery store.

We headed over to check this section out. It was a doozy!

May 5th, 2012 Extra-Ordinary: Stroop Waffles, Double Salted Licorice, King Peppermints, Windmill Cookies and all sorts of Dutch treats at the grocery store.

Maintenance May Day 5: Donated needed supplies to a friend who greatly appreciated it. (Friendship)

The Daily EO: May 4th, 2012

I received my exam results today. I didn’t study much, although did a lot of cramming for it in April. It was was kind of like an IQ test – a lot of it depended on my DNA and upbringing. But as I listened to the exam results, I felt relief, then pride. After all, didn’t I just do swimmingly?

When I run, I start finding it difficult around the 1 km mark. I have often wondered, “Do other people have the same problems and they are mentally strong enough to will their bodies to carry on?” Or is there something wrong with me? Am I just not built for running? Between pain in my calves and my lungs feeling like they are not getting enough oxygen, I then think that people who are endurance runners are completely crazy and the mentally strongest people on earth. But maybe they have better bodies than me?

For those of you who have followed a Couch to 5K officially program, you know they usually start you out on something like walk 1 minute, run 5 minutes, walk 1 minute etc. When I first saw these instructions, I thought “Who can run 5 minutes?”. Really? There are people who are sitting on the couch who can just get up and run 5 minutes? Wow, I am quite unfit.

But back to acing my exam – except for 1 aspect. Everything else – cholesterol, triglycerides, vitamins, platelets, White Blood Cell Count, Albumin, Creatinine, CK, Glucose Serum Fasting, you name it – exactly where it should be! My blood pressure was 85/40. Alas, the iron ruined my perfect result. My ferritin levels are 12: “Iron Deficient”. (the lowest category on the scale). Interestingly, iron carries oxygen on the red blood cells to the muscles in the body – hmmm.

Did you know that Iron absorption in the body is hindered by some items? Polyphenols in tea; Phytate in legumes, soybeans and whole grains; Oxalate in spinach, chard, kale, and sweet potatoes; vegetable proteins and calcium? Um, is that not my diet right now? I live on tea, I always eat whole grains, I eschew white rice for quinoa, I eat kale and spinach in smoothies, etc? And these things – though required and good for me too – actually help to block iron absorption? No wonder there are so many diet books out there – this stuff is complicated.

My calf pain also may have a cause – Chromic Exertional Compartment Syndrome (CECS). Doesn’t that sound terrible? It basically means that when your muscles expand during exercise they are trying to expand beyond the “muscle compartment”. As you can imagine, this causes pain. But we’ll see about that – I am going to get a referral to a sports doctor to confirm.

May 4th, 2012 Extra-Ordinary: It’s not my fault! I am mentally strong! It’s the iron and the potential CECS! I knew it!

Maintenance May Day 4:
Visit to the Nurse Practitioner (NPs in Canada can do anything a doctor can except prescribe narcotics) for a full review of my health. And they actually spend time talking to you. And the appointments start on time. (body)
Consultation with a Registered Dietician with Emile to review our diets and fitness regimes. (body)
Updated my immunizations for Tetanus, Whooping Cough and Diphtheria. (body)
Visit to the spa to get a pedicure. Hello beautiful blue toes! (body).

PS Yes, I have already added a iron supplement to my vitamin intake.

The Daily EO: May 3rd, 2012

It was a dark and stormy night. The rain poured down, the winds buffeted the trees. And what does that mean in Northern Ontario? A power failure. The lights flickered for most of the evening before giving up for good about 9:00 pm. It was just me and the cat here – Emile was playing poker with the boys – so I sat quietly in the dark for a minute, trying to think of something to do. I could go to bed, but a little early really. I could . um . . make some tea. No, Susan think about this. There is NO Power. Um . . .I could read a book. No, candle light is not enough light and I don’t want to read via flashlight. I could make something to eat. No, I can’t open the fridge or use an appliance to make food because the Power is Out. Susan, pull your head together. I could use the comp. . . No. I could play games on my cell phone. Yes, I could do that! Okay, that lasted a minute.

So, in the car I got and headed to a friend’s house. She was watching American Idol. So I watched American Idol. I remember why I don’t watch the show any more. Children prancing around in too short skirts, judge’s inane comments (“You’re the best singer I’ve seen in 50 years”) and ridiculous Ford music videos. But there was power and company.

May 3rd, 2012 Extra-Ordinary: The moment in the yard before getting into the car. So dark, so still, so quiet.

Maintenance May Day 3:
Pre-paid at Well Fed Deli for my friend the owner to treat someone’s lunch on May 4th. (Soul)
Drove to Newmarket for a job interview. (Career)

The Daily EO: May 2nd, 2012

In my kitchen growing up, there were three main food preparation areas. One is to the left of the kitchen sink that is covered by a wooden cutting board. This area – even now – is by far the busiest area. Food is chopped on the cutting board, dirty dishes sit here awaiting the dishwasher unload (which was my chore growing up, so some times there was a bit of a wait), and quick meals are eaten from it. It is constantly wiped and cleaned. Over the dishwasher is the second area where the electric frying pan is plugged in when it is time for grilled cheese and the toaster and coffee maker. I distinctly remember making Easter Nests and Baklava with my mother at this spot. Who makes baklava with their non-greek mother? I did. I called the layers dirt, paper and glue (the nuts, the phyllo and the butter/honey mixture).

The other space that is not really there any more, is to the left of the fridge. It’s there obviously, but now is taken up by the microwave. It is where I remember my dad kneading bread, rolling pastry and for some reason I remember clearly – making Tomato Pinwheels from the Fleischman’s Bread Baking Cookbook. I remember so well because he was so frustrated rolling out the dough. You needed to roll it to certain dimensions, cut it, and then create the pinwheels. But it kept shrinking. And he was getting upset. I don’t remember if they tasted good or not, I just remember thinking “How is it possible that my dad can’t do something?”

Today I thought of home and these memories and wanted to bake. But baking does not really fit with the lifestyle changes we have made. So, I took to the internet and found myself a low-carb and low-calorie recipe for Pumpkin Coconut Muffins. The flour used was coconut flour – what the heck is that? – apparently it’s made from ground coconut meat and is also defatted to remove much of the coconut oil and milk. I wonder if the Bulk Barn carries it? And my lucky day – in the huge gluten-free section – they did. It smelled pleasingly like suntan lotion and it was cream coloured. Not too expensive either.

May 2nd, 2012 Extra-Ordinary: Mini yummy muffins that only have 31 calories each with 1 grams of fibre and 2 grams of protein in each. Though, I would not recommend using rock salt instead of kosher salt – makes for a some unexpected saltiness at times. I like this coconut flour stuff.

Maintenance May Day 2:
$25 Micro-loan via Kiva to Folly Loko in Togo, Africa to purchase a washing machine and iron for his laundry business. Emile’s choice. (Soul)
$25 Micro-loan via Kiva to Adama in Mali to purchase scrap metal to support his metal working business. He is a married father of two in his thirties – like my dad was when he died. (Family)
Supported Hariyo Chowk via kickstarter.com with $25 to help create an urban green space in Katmandu. Reward is my Dad’s name on a hand painted mural in the park once completed. (Family)
Supported Flyover Farm via kickstarter.com with $10 to help create a rooftop garden in Mumbai, India to help provide organic produce in a low-income area. Reward is my Dad’s name on their facebook page as a donor. (Connection)

The Daily EO: May 1st, 2012

Well, it has arrived. May. My nemesis. But this time I am prepared. Because it is the start of a new “thing“. This Month is Maintenance May. What is Maintenance May? Well, it is the obvious as well as a little further than that.

This month I am going to continue what we started in April with Fit April, but also expand that to include the maintenance of all things in my life. Maintenance of my body, my brain, my soul, my stuff, my career, my training, my knowledge and my heart. Each day will be a challenge to do something to expand my thoughts and myself about myself and my world. To better connect with those around me and maybe grow a little in the process. Things I don’t normally do, things that make me anxious to think about. Not random kindnesses, but purposeful. Feel free to give a suggestion or two – I might need them.

Emile will be following along as well, as he booked his Comptia A+ Networks exam for May 31st. He is going to maintain his career this month, and will participate somewhat as well.

Today as I headed to my massage appointment, I drove up main street and by our Algonquin Theatre. Huh!? My eyes deceived me surely. I turned my car around and discovered what I saw was actually happening. There really was an “Occupy Huntsville” protest happening. I’d heard this and that about a May Day “General Strike” in the US, but I hadn’t expected to see 6 or so protesters here in my 18,000 strong town. I felt the fool gawking at them, so I took terrible, surreptitious photos from my car down the street.

May 1st, 2012 Extra-Ordinary: The inability to hide your face in this crowd. If you are going to protest in Huntsville, you are right out there. Proudly declaring your beliefs without the anonymity afforded in a large city. I am the 99% too, but I wasn’t out there letting people know.

Maintenance May, Day 1 Items:
Wrote a note to Emile’s cousin to tell her how much I enjoyed meeting her when I was in Holland in 2009. It’s not too late. (Heart)
Registered for a 5K run in June, Band on the Run in Huntsville. (Body)

The Daily EO: April 30th, 2012 (Fit April Results)

Any opportunity to catalogue my life, efforts and results is interesting to me. To be able to take the chaos of life reduce it to a graph or chart makes me feel good – I have it under control. So, this is bliss for me – I’ve been waiting to write this particular entry for weeks.

It was 5 weeks ago that I decided that I needed to deal with my Shrunken Shorts Syndrome and my husband needed to look at his Ski Jump Shirt diagnosis. We committed ourselves to a month of exercise, healthy restricted calories and a 5K race at the end of it. I’ll admit, we cheated a bit – we started in the last week of March. We did consider having a binge instead, but we thought it would be too hard of a transition – and my pants were already too tight. It became a common sight to see me in workout clothes and weighting out food on our scale.

I had challenges – a bag of marshmallows disappeared quickly at a campfire one night (and even the raw ones on subsequent days). The Kitchener Food Show dessert samples slowed things. Emile faced and won numerous food challenges at work – functions with chef made cookies, pizza and butter tarts. There were days I just wanted to eat macaroni and cheese and be done with it. And sometimes we indulged, other times we held out. And we’re feeling pretty proud of ourselves.

So, if you want to a month of fitness (that will hopefully lead to another), here is my advice:

1. Be obsessive about it – every calorie gets logged, every minute of exercise, and every day you weight yourself (with a digital scale). Plan your days around food and exercise
2. Brag about it – tell everyone you know this is what you are doing, so you have to deal with social shame if you don’t follow through
3. Create an outside force – sign up for a class, a race, or target a wedding, or something to keep you focused for the short-term until your results are motivation enough.
4. Find someone more committed than you are to share the challenge – my husband fit the bill perfectly
5. Compete only with yourself. You’ll always find someone healthy, fitter, eating more wheatgrass, but who cares about them. This is about you!

And here is what we did in Fit April:

	Susan	Emile
Calories Consumed	31995	24516
Calories Burned	9008	9572
Distance Moved (km)	93.8	112.2
Fitness Minutes	1012	888

April 30th, 2012 Extra-Ordinary:

Susan Loss: 10.2 lbs (Goal!) Emile Loss: 21.2 lbs (What the hell?)

The Daily EO: April 29th, 2012

The morning finally arrived. Our race. Our chocolate race. We were up at 8:00 to dress and have a good solid breakfast to power ourselves through 5K. Instead of taking the shuttle, we drove to Port Dalhousie ourselves and found parking on a nearby street. The day was one of those perfect days – sunny but crisp, cool but the potential for a wonderfully warm afternoon. We were prepared – a new firm sports bra (for me – nice to have the girls strapped in tight) and new long running pants for Emile (for those turkey legs of his). A good night rest, a solid breakfast, no alcohol, and a month+ of training.

Could we make our goals of a personal best? Considering the chocolate pits stations on the course? Hills? People?

Goals: Emile: 34:00 Minutes Susan: 38:00 Minutes These goals are based on our best average times on an indoor track – no hills, no crowds, no chocolate and controlled climate.

The chocolate race course is a an out and back one meaning you run 2.5 kms and then loop back to finish where you started. I have never run more than 1.5 kms without stopping, Emile has consistently been able to run 5 km only stopping for a water break each km. We agreed we would not wait for each other (like I’d be doing any of the waiting!), but simply run the best race that we could. As we were separated, I could not tell you what Emile’s strategy was, but mine was to just keep going. I had a target to run from the start until about the 1.75 km mark where a very steep hill marked the entrance into Westcliffe park – and I made it. At the 2.25 km mark, I had some Gatorade and a chocolate dipped marshmallow and strawberry on a stick. Hello, yum!

At the 3 km mark, my old friend the stitch acted up, and I had to walk and stretch a bit, but I kept going as fast as I could. At 3.5 km, I thought I was done, but I didn’t like other people passing me, so I found something to keep going,

And finally, seeing that finish line across the parking lot and Emile waiting for me, I managed to dig deep, ignore my shins, ignore my lungs, and ignore my stitch and ran as fast as I could.

I blog to you about many EOs – mundane, silly, ironic, funny, but today’s EO is one of the most emotional ones yet for me. When I crossed that finish line, tears – and not from the wind – came to my eyes. I am so proud of myself! So proud that I ran 90% of the race. So proud that I could turn such a difficult winter into an accomplishment. We set our goals modestly, and trained for this race and we set fair goals based on previous results.

2 chocolate croissants, 1 chocolate milk, 4 truffles, 1 brownie and 1 chocolate martini (yeah, a real one) each awaited our celebration at the end of the race. Why are more races not like this?

April 29th, 2012 Extra-Ordinary:

Emile Results:
Time: 29:55 (personal best, and -4:05 from target)
Overall Finish: 58th (!!)
Category Finish: 6th (OMG!!!)

Susan Results:
Time: 34:25 (personal best and -3:35 from target)
Overall Finish: 126th
Category Finish: 32nd (!!)

We Run for Chocolate! (updated with official timing)