Face The Music Friday #21

Fitness this week:

Sat/Sun – still on my mini break

Monday – Chest/Tricep – all 3 sets of 12-15

Dumbbell bench press – 20lb, Machine Fly – 70 lb, Dumbbell decline bench press – 15lb, Push-ups – 15, 12, 10 (inclined on bench), Cable rope pushdown – 25 lb, “The Monster” – 20 lb, Machine assisted dip – 100 lb

Tuesday – 38 min Run/Walk

Wednesday – Back/Bicep – all 3 sets of 12-15

Machine assisted pull-up – 135 lb, “Good Mornings” – 30 lb, Cable seated row – 45 lb, Flexed Bicep Curl – 20 lb, Dumbbell Incline Bench Curl – 17.5 lb, Cable Standing One Arm Bicep Curl – 10 lb

Thursday – 50 min Run/Walk

Friday – rest

The food experiment is going pretty well so far. I’ve added additional things into my daily food here and there to meet my calorie goals. I’m definitely noticeably less hungry which is very nice, but sometimes I just don’t want to eat that much. I think I’ve just conditioned myself to think it’s too much food or something. I had debated doing an entire month that I don’t weigh myself (which was originally going to be February), however we are currently having a contest at work which I have to record weight weekly. There are two separate challenges running simultaneously: a weight loss challenge and an activity logging challenge. We are recording them from the beginning of February until the end of March and there are prizes for each location of our company (multiple divisions). Some are Fitbits, Nike Fuel Bands, etc…all exercise related. So, basically I’ve still been weighing myself daily like always, just not sharing it on the blog as I mentioned before. Too much pressure there. At least by recording those weekly weights, I’ll know if I’m progressing at all. I still do it daily because I’m a geek and like patterns.

This week has been nuts as I mentioned in my previous post. Jury duty on Monday was postponed until Tuesday, so I worked my normal shift. Tuesday I got to the court house just before they opened the doors and wished people would have moved a little quicker through security because it was freezing outside!

Now let me tell you a little about how terrifying and boring jury duty is if you’ve never done it. This was my first time, so I had some idea of what to expect from other people who have served, but it wasn’t entirely like they mentioned. We all were shuffled into one meeting room, given tags with our juror numbers on them and then we were all sworn in together. We got to watch a lovely 15 minute movie about how the jury process works and some technical legal jargon. Horrible acting, I rate it a D- (it’s not an F only because it explained some stuff I had questions about).

After that, the woman from the jury office started pulling juror numbers out of a bingo ball style bin. I kept hoping and wishing my number wouldn’t get picked, and it wasn’t. Later, I would regret this thought. The people that were called came back not even 20 minutes later and said they were done for the day because the case had been settled on the courthouse steps! Lucky devils!!

Soon after, they came in and said we were all going upstairs to the courtroom. The remaining 50 or so people (?) all shuffled into the elevators and headed up. They sat us all down on benches and the judge spoke to us and told us what the situation was. The defendant was in the courtroom already, as well as the State attorney. They told us it was a child molestation case, info about the defendant, state attorneys, detectives, etc, associated with the case and asked if anybody knew any of the people involved, to which no one replied that they did. The judge then asked us a few questions about anyone having a bias, or scheduling conflict since it would be a 4-day trial.

They then did the bingo ball pull again (more anxiety!) and finally got 14 jurors up there. They ended up dismissing at least half of the original 14 but they finally picked a jury right before the judge was going to dismiss us for lunch. That meant we were done for the day and could go home – as well as not come back for our second day! I was so glad I didn’t have to serve on a case like that.

Once I got home, I relaxed for a bit, checking email and whatnot, and then decided I would lay down for an hour to try to catch up on some sleep. These 4 am alarms are killing me lately. I try to be in bed by 9 every night, but even if I fell asleep right away, and slept straight through until the alarm, that’s a max of 7 hours. It catches up to me about halfway through the week usually. I did snooze for an hour thankfully, then got up, dressed and had dinner before heading in to Providence to go to the RIRR meeting. Rhode Runner agreed to host it for us and we got a discount, so you KNOW I took advantage of that 15%. I bought my new shoes I would probably have bought in March anyway, plus a new sports bra. So exciting!

 

Mizuno Wave Inspire 10

 

I had an issue using them for the first time on Thursday on the treadmill and I’m hoping they just need to be broken in. I also wore my new Pro Compression socks for the very first time with them, so maybe it was a bad combo, but I got a blister on the top of my fourth toe. I’m fairly certain it was related to the shoe because it seemed it flexed right over that point of my foot. I’m hoping in time it won’t do that anymore or I’ll be kind of pissed I’m stuck with them until I get my next pair of shoes in the fall. I also don’t know if it was sock related since those are new, too. I’m going to try each of them separate from each other on my next two runs, so we’ll see.

I had my third chiro appointment on Wednesday. This was my second adjustment. I should have seen her last week, but the appointment was cancelled due to snow so that was a bummer. This visit was different from the last, though I’m not sure how a chiro works, so I figure she has some plan for what areas she tackles. Last visit, she spent time releasing my hips and IT bands, then did a quick session of my back. This time, she had me lay on my stomach for the entire adjustment. She worked in my lower back area where I have pain every day and it HURT like you wouldn’t believe. She said I was ridiculously tight and she had to work on the area for a while. She also had to put a couple foam thingys under my hips to make me aligned before she even started! After a while of pushing on the muscles to release them, she said she needed to use the “drop table”. She lowered me all the way down as low as the table goes, held me underneath one hip and then my back on the other side, then all of a sudden the middle section of the table flew out from under me! I didn’t know what she meant by it so it scared the hell out of me the first time. She did that a few times and then taped my back with some Rock Tape.

I finished up with the doc and then moved on to the CES. He did some FMS tests with me and I failed pretty miserably. I knew I wasn’t flexible, but he basically told me I scored as low as you can score. Awesome. He gave me a couple of additional exercises to add to my stretching, as well as taking out one that was causing me more pain than helping. I felt better walking out of there but about an hour later at work I could barely sit or move. It was soooo painful for about half the day. I took repeated doses of ibuprofen and used an ice pack that my supervisor keeps in the freezer. It was also back/bicep day at the gym, so I don’t know if it was just a perfect storm, or the amount of work she put into that area just caught up with me.

Today, we have a meeting at work with some “special announcement” to be made, so I have no idea what that could be. They’re buying us pizza and handing out the district of the year award (I didn’t win back to back years in case you were wondering – though my teams are still awesome). I hope the day goes by really fast so we can get this weekend going. We have the dentist tomorrow morning, then are getting our taxes done (which should have been last night, but stupid snow again) and then my race on Sunday. I think in between those things I might just sleep all day. OK, maybe not all day, maybe just most of the day.

Since today is Valentine’s Day, I’m picking one of “our” songs. Some people may think it’s a bit morbid, but we love it.

Death Cab For Cutie – I Will Follow You Into The Dark

 

 

 

 

 

 

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