240!

I’m sorry, I can’t help it – I’m going to complain.  About something really trivial.  But maybe when I’m done I’ll think of something positive to round off the blog with…

Yesterday I had an hour-long base run.  I would have loved to do it outside but the roads were icy and it just didn’t seem like it would be much fun to do with iceskates on – I am not much of an ice skater at the best of times.  So I did a little cleaning around the house first.  I recently had cause to be inside my neighbor’s house (granted she is an extremely successful 50-something and has a lot of years of experience and house-cleaning on me) and she does not have ANYTHING on any surface that isn’t supposed to be there.  It’s very feng shui.  It’s very airy.  I loved it.  And then I imagined that for my life.  So yesterday I spend WAY too long trying to produce this effect in two rooms of the house.  It worked in the kitchen because GB does most of the kitchen cleaning and keeps it pretty clean all the time, so I didn’t have much to do.  But then I tried the bathroom – not so easy.  HOW MANY DIFFERENT DEODORANTS DO TWO PEOPLE NEED?!?!?  I mean, I know we’re active and all, but that is nuts.  We are just not that sweaty.  I think I discovered 4 brands and at least 8 different sticks of the stuff.  But that isn’t the kind of thing you can give away when you’ve started using it.  And throwing it away is wasteful.  So I did my own special brand of feng shui and just hid them all really deep in some drawer.  And then did the same with the numerous stinky bars of soap and the millions of moisturizer bottles purchased by GB during some sales scam by a cousin trying to earn a buck or two.

And then, after hours of trying to feng shui my life, I went to the gym – which is where my complaining comes in.  I put on my HR monitor, downed a HammerGel, and got down to business.  Last week in Maine my base run on the treadmill was surprisingly fast and comfortable so I had it in my head that this run would be the same.  So there I was running at the pace I was hoping to hold and noticed that my HR monitor had jumped to 240.  Well I don’t need my USAT level 12 coaching certificate to know that my heart was not beating 240 times in a minute – even seeing GB somewhere when I’m not expecting to can’t make my heart race that fast!!  So I did what one does when one’s HR monitor is malfunctioning.  I spat all over my fingers and wiped the spit under my chest strap to improve the contact.  Still nothing.  240.  More spit, some accidentally stringing itself to my t-shirt.  Some confused and dirty looks from others in the room.  Still no change.  240.  WTF????  There was no-one on a treadmill anywhere near mine and no-one in the room whose heart was likely to be beating that hard.  And all this time I have no idea what my HR actually is and am hoping to stay in zone 1/2 and not sure whether I am or not.  So there I am cursing my HR monitor, spitting on myself, trying to take my pulse while running, and then holding the HR handles on the treadmill to see if I can get an accurate reading.  And no reading I can get by any method bears any similarity to any other.  So I was forced to….are you ready for this?….abandon the numbers.  Boy did that suck.  And it took me well over 30 minutes to come to that conclusion.  I had to go by…..yup…..FEEL.  I had to FEEL level 1/2.  Seriously.  And what was worse?  I had to slow. the. treadmill. down.  Arghh.  It occured to me that this was a BASE run and therefore should NOT be too fast.  So based on my FEELING things, I made the choice to slow down.  Well that was a whole other mindfuck.  I had a number of miles in my head that I wanted to get done.  AND I WANTED TO DO THAT MANY MILES!!  But I had to let go of that idea and keep feeling.  What a mess.  Sadly rather than really getting into that place of enjoying all the feeling and the lack of numbers, I spent a lot of that run being REALLY ANGRY at my HR monitor and the company that manufactured it and every electronic device in the room that might be contributing to it’s malfunction.  Boy I was PISSED.  And I was even more pissed when I tore it off, threw it to the ground, and my watch continued to read 240 for 10 minutes after the fact.  I wanted to scream at it “NO!!!  THERE IS NO HEART BEAT!!!  YOU ARE LYING ON THE FLOOR YOU DUMBASS HR MONITOR!!!”.  Thankfully I did not say this out loud.  That is a quick ticket out the gym doors, I’m sure.  Anyway, I got my run done.  I want to repeatedly drive over my HR monitor before disposing of it in the woods.  But I’ll probably call the company instead.  More productive.  And cheaper.

 So here is the good news to make this blog entry less bitchy.  GB ran into a good friend of ours who runs a farm and is a little bit of one of those homemakers – you know the kind – they sew their kids’ clothes and hallowe’en costumes and paint eggs as Holiday decorations and make their own maple syrup.  Apparently she told GB that she would like to do the flowers for our wedding as our wedding gift.  AND she’s going to grow the flowers herself!!!  This is way cool.  AND we are going to ask someone that GB works with (who is a baker) if she will make our cake.  So far our minister, cake baker, flower arranger, and the woman who is making our registry dishes (we are getting homemade pottery dishes!) are all from our local community.  This is very exciting and small-town and everything we ever dreamed of – actually it is more than we dreamed of.  Which leads me to another thing I never dared to dream of….THE MOMS are coming to town next weekend.  Both of them.  At the same time.  In the same place. To meet!!  But it’s too soon to start getting nervous about that – it’s a whole 5 days away.  More on that later.