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A Numbers Thing

I’m not much of a moviegoer, but I do watch movies at home occasionally. One of my favorites, which will always be a classic in my mind, is Erin Brockovich. That girl has serious ‘tude.

One memorable scene is when George, Erin’s soon-to-be-boyfriend, asks for her phone number. She says something like, “You want my number? Which one do you want?”

He laughs and says, “How many numbers have you got?”

“I got numbers comin’ outta my ears!” she says. “Like, 10.”

“Ten?” puzzles George.

“Yeah, that’s how many months old my baby girl is. Sexy, eh? How about six? That’s my other daughter. Eight is the age of my son. Two is how many times I’ve been married. And divorced. Sixteen is the number of dollars in my bank account. 850-3943, that’s my phone number. And with all the numbers I gave you, I’m guessing zero is the number of times you’re gonna call it.”

See what I mean? Attitude!

I have some numbers to share, too.

First… 29.2. That was my BMI back in May when I started this adventure in reduction. BMI (body mass index) is calculated based on one’s height and weight. It’s a general but fairly reliable measure of fatness.

A BMI between 15.5 and 24.9 is considered normal. A BMI between 25.0 and 29.9 means you are overweight. A BMI of 30.0 or above means you are obese.

After having lost 25 pounds, my BMI is now 25.5. That’s much better, but I am still considered overweight. Losing five more pounds will give me a BMI of 24.8. I’ll be NORMAL! I’ve always wanted to be normal… (Wanna know your BMI? Try the Center for Disease Control’s BMI calculator.)

Wait, I have more numbers to share.

Wanna guess what 29.5 is? The number of minutes I ran today. Awesome, eh? It’s awesome to me.

Even more exciting to me is 2.47. That’s the number of miles I covered.

Finally, 11:54 is my pace. As in my average speed was 11 minutes and 54 seconds per mile. That means not only did I run longer today, I went faster.

My run route (courtesy of MapMyRun.com) is shown above. You can see my workout stats, too.

I forgot to mention 283. That’s how many calories I burned.

And, finally, 0. That’s how many more of my numbers you have to read about.

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Rain Running

I did actually do the run thing yesterday. Despite the rain.

For the record, it was not my intention to run in the rain. But when I checked the radar, this is what I got.

See the straight, green line? There’s obviously an error. Radar readings and/or clouds are never that straight. But what’s really weird is that the line is across the exact middle of my run route.

When I left my house, it was not raining. Once I hit the green area, about 90 seconds into my run, it was raining. The radar is never that exact. Today, it was.

Here’s a lovely picture for you. You can’t really tell by looking at this shot, but I was soaked.

Between the sweat and the rain, there wasn’t a dry bit of skin anywhere on my body. The rain actually felt kind of good.

That big bottle you see in my hand holds some of the water I need to drink every day. It’s only 50 ounces, though. I have to drink 14 more ounces on top of that. It’s a lot of water, but it helps.

Thank goodness the bathroom is 10 steps from my desk.

On another note… I calculated my pace today after the run. I forget how much ground I covered and in what amount of time, but it worked out to 12:18 per mile.

Now, if I can keep that up for 10 miles, I won’t be one of the humiliated folks who get kicked off the ATM course for being too slow.

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Today’s Grossbit

Wanna know what’s worse than a cat yakking up something on the floor of your office?

Fending off two dogs tripping over each other in the mad scramble to get to the stuff and eat it.

On a positive note… I rarely have to clean cat puke off of my floor.

It was raining this morning when I woke. At first, I thought, “Yay, I don’t have to run.” Moments later, that thought became, “Crap. There are only 58 days left ’til the Army Ten Miler and I still can’t run a solid 30 minutes.”

When I signed up for the race, in my overly optimistic delirium, I remember one of the questions being something to the effect of how long I thought it would take me to run ten miles. Having no idea, I said three hours. That wasn’t the right answer. Apparently, two and a half hours is the max. If you don’t maintain a 15-minute-mile pace for the first five miles, you get re-routed at the five-mile mark.

Now that would be embarrassing.

So I need to go run in the rain. Or shortly after the rain. It’s time to get really serious here. Wish me luck!

WAIT… one more thing about cat yak. We’ve always referred to cat puke, whether it was a hairball or just stuff, as “yak” in my family. Back when Eric was a wee lad, I remember a conversation we had about violins. He wanted to know what the strings were made of.

“Yak hair, I think,” was my reply.

“Ew!!!” he moaned, all loud and disgusted. It took me a second to realize he thought I meant they use cat yak to make the strings.

“No, the animal,” I had to explain. “You know, a yak.”

Having this picture then would have made things much easier to explain.

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Why, Oh Why?

So, for whatever reason, the song that is stuck in my head today is Blondie’s Rapture. (Link provided in case you can’t see the video I attempted to embed below.)

On to other “news”…

I am up to running 20+ minutes. I haven’t hit 25 minutes running yet. But I will this week.

Speaking of 25, know what significance that number has? I have now reached the -25 mark. That means, since early May, I have shed 25 pounds. Cool, eh?

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Other People’s Cows & Stuff

This is the first Blog post from the WV place. There’s not a lot of excitement here this weekend. But then, there usually isn’t, which is just the way we like it.

Quiet. Restful. Relaxing.

I did do something interesting yesterday. I went to Wal-Mart.

Any biker will tell you… it’s not the destination, it’s the journey. That means I won’t bore you with mundane tidbits about my Wal-Mart shopping experience. But I will show you what a trip to Wal-Mart in West Virginia looks like.

I chose the Wal-Mart in Moorefield as my destination. (We’re 45-minutes to an hour from four different Wal-Marts.) I didn’t need anything urgently, I was just bored. Hubby was working to get the security camera installed and functioning. And it was too darn hot to run around with the dogs.

From Route 50 in Romney, I headed south on Grassy Lick Road (CR-10) then hung a right on North River Road (CR- 1), which goes through the “town” of Bean Settlement.

The image immediately above is overlooking a pasture on CR-1 southwest of Bean Settlement.

I just HAD to stop and take pictures of these cows. They’re not just any cows, they’re Oreo cows. The formal name is Belted Galloway cows. They’re also known as “belties.” You don’t see many of them around here.

The little brown one, not sure if he was an Oreo, was quite intrigued by me.

Here’s a picture of my bike alongside CR-1. There are lots and lots of roads like this all over the place here in WV. Quiet, scenic, rarely any traffic. They wind over mountains, through farmland and forests, along quiet streams. Idyllic is probably the best word to describe them.

When’s the last time you enjoyed scenery like this on your way to Wal-Mart? Even running errands is fun here.

No matter how small or how remote the road seems, there’s always, always a little country church. Often more than one. This is the Bean Settlement Church of the Brethren.

And this is the view from the little parking lot across the road from the church.

A little barn, decorated in the true country style, along Grassy Lick Road (CR-10).

This is my favorite shot of the day as far as scenery goes. We really are not out in the middle of nowhere. We have pretty much all the modern conveniences we need. It’s just rural. And quite picturesque, wouldn’t you agree?