Sunday, July 31, 2005

Has Anyone Seen the Waterfalls?

Hey everyone! I hope you all had a GREAT weekend. I am so bummed that it's over and it's back to work tomorrow. We didn't play powerball this time so I knew it would have to happen this week.

We had a great trip to GA. Here's the brief summary of the weekend:

Fri- Brent took the day off from work and I left early at 3. I was counting the minutes all day and was getting severely antsy from 2 onward. He had the car loaded, Pippin in his riding harness, and everything ready to go. Pippin knows when something's up, so as soon as I came in he was fit to be tied because he knew we were about to go. We loaded up and hit the road at 3:30. The ride from here to Chattanooga went really quickly until we got stuck in some rush hour traffic and construction traffic there. There's something about a trip that makes us CRAVE junk food. We stopped at a gas station and bought a little bag of Cheetos, a C2 coke, some Nutter Butter's and a Reese's cup. We haven't had that much sugar/processed foods in AGES. About 20 minutes after our 'snack' we were near pass out status from the sugar crash and could hardly stay awake. A couple of wrong turns later we were cruising past the gorgeous Oceoo River (where the 1996 whitewater portion of the Olympics were hostes) and at 7:30 we arrived at our cabin. It was really cute, but right off a little road leading to other cabins. Their website had promised 3 acres of seclusion. The 3 acres were all BEHIND the house. Some front of the house seclusion would have been nice. As such, I really couldn't let Pippin run around off leash since he has no fear of cars. We unloaded the car and fired up the charcoal grill. We roasted come marshmallows over the flames and grilled some dogs. Later we checked out the hot tub and enjoyed the view while the rain started. All week Brent kept saying 'I don't care if it rains all weekend. We're just going to relax and have fun no matter what.' Guess who got his wish???

Sat- We got up bright and early and cooked a big breakfast complete with bacon, eggs, hashbrowns and biscuits. We never do that at home, so it was a lot of fun! Something about the cabin made Pippin really nervous and fidgety, but by Sat morning he would eat and was starting to get used to it. We headed out (leaving Pip at the cabin) for a 'relatively easy 30 minute hike to the most popular waterfalls in NE Georgia'. We drove forever through dirt roads, etc to get to this part of the State Park/Appalachian Trail to discover the road was closed at some point below the trailhead due to flooding damages in July. We have a history of traveling hundreds of miles to end up, for extremely odd reasons, unable to view the desired sight. Some examples: In Sept 2001 we the Boston Tea Party ship was closed because of the recent terrorist attacks. For months I had been dying to get on that boat and throw some tea in the harbor. In 2002, we drove hours out of the way to visit Crater Lake, only to be turned away due to the major forest fires they were experiencing. In 2004, portions of the Crater of the Lake National Park in Idaho were closed for renovations (anything with "Crater" in its name is a curse for me.) Anyway, I was determines to see these waterfalls. We decided it couldn't be too much further of a hike up the road to the trailhead, so we decided to start hiking up the road, in the rain. Why not? We even started out jogging. A few minutes later the doubts starting creeping in.....The walk was beautiful, we were walking up a wooded gravel road with the rushing white water next to us. We met a family and asked them how much further the waterfall trail was. They hadn't made it, they had walked 10 minutes further but their kids were tired so they turned back. A few minutes later we met a large group of pre-teens and we asked their leader how much further the waterfalls were. They hadn't made it either, and some fisherman had told them it was probably 2 more miles up the road. Huh??? Well, our spirits were crushed. I wanted to see these waterfalls more than anything. We decided that dammit, we were going to make it, no matter how far it was. We had water and energy bars and isn't this what the Appalachian trail is all about??? Perseverance. We were already thoroughly soaked so the rain didn't even bother us anymore. Miles and miles later we finally found a trailhead. Of course it wasn't marked at all and we had 3 options. Perfect. We picked one, and a few minutes later (and going under trees and other obstacles) we decided it didn't fit the 'relatively easy' description from our activities listing. So, we turned back and picked a different path. It was more gravelly, and seemed to fit the bill later. We walked, walked, and walked some more. Don't get me wrong, it was beautiful. It had rained so much our shoes were sticking in the mud and at several points we had to cross limbs like balance beams to get over the path. It was a lot of fun, but at this point we'd been walking about 2 hours and we would still have to walk back to our car! We gave ourselves a time limit and decided at that point we would turn around and walk back. Well, we never saw our waterfalls. Who really needs anyway? On the way back we made record time by running and walking. We'd run for a clip, then walk. The rain actually quit for a bit, too.

We headed back to the town of Blue Ridge and did some shopping in their cute downtown area. It has lots of neat art galleries and nice little shops. We ate "lunch" (at 4 pm) in a neat little place called the Serenity Garden Cafe. It was great! Then I bought some fudge, we visited the apple orchard and headed back to the cabin to grill out some burgers (and marshmallows) and curl up on the couch. We watched Almost Famous, which was really good.

Well, this is enough for today so I'll post about our trip back tomorrow and post some pictures!

See ya!

Rae

Friday: No exercise!!
Sat: Hiking - We estimate we hiked between 12-15 miles. Seriously!! Part of that we jogged. Then we took Pippin for a short walk that evening.
Sun: Misc light hiking around the lake (but we'll get to that tomorrow!)

Thursday, July 28, 2005

Every good party starts with Fun'yons

Well, Pippin's life preserver, toys and travel canteen are packed along with our hiking gear, clothes, and enough food to survive in the wild for a week. Fortunately we'll only be gone the weekend so we should have more than enough to pig out and have a good time. The most treasured item packed is our bag of marshmallows. It took about 5 trips through Publix to figure out where those wacky grocery people hide the marshmallows. We found marshmallow fluff several times, but since that's a little tricky to stick on a hanger we stayed the course and ultimately found them in the candy section.

The weather turned really mild today after a storm came through. My morning walk this morning was actually chilly for a change! I eeked out 5 miles tonight, but because I needed to pack & run to the store I had to run earlier so I was still running in the direct sun and didn't get to take full advantage of the decrease in temps. It was a gorgeous sunset here tonight.

Well, I have a few last things to pack before I can jump in bed and see what Harry Potter's into tonight. Good luck to everyone competing in races and triathlons this weekend! Wish us luck in our first vacation taking with the dog!!

Rachel

Exercise: 1 mile a.m. walk with Pippin, 5 mile evening run

Wednesday, July 27, 2005

Rocking with Roxette

Some days it's pretty tough for me to come up with much to talk about. Today is one of them so I thought I'd share my new obsession with the fab 80's/90's band Roxette with you. Someone has released a cover of the infamous song 'Listen to your Heart' by Roxette and I've heard it on the radio a lot lately. This prompted me to request Brent to download their old albums, so he got their greatest hits CD for me. I had no idea how many of their songs I loved and still remember each and every word to. I've been rocking out to Roxette all week in my car - Joyride, She's got the Look, Fading Like a Flower, Listen to your Heart. Roxette may have been the greatest band ever and they need to make a comeback. I'm not sure why they weren't on that hokey show 'Hit me baby one more time' this summer. They would have been perfect. I'm also obsessed with the Rock Star:Inxs series this summer. They've been performing a lot of classic rock songs which has really made me want to listen to more classic rock recently. I added some ACDC to my running mp3 player the other day along with some Metallica and classic Weezer.

Tonight's workout was pretty vanilla. I did 40 minutes of Denise Austin (courtesy of my TiVo!). She has some odd saying but she has some seriously tough moves. Tonight some of her fab quotes were: "We're cutting the fat off - not off our bodies but out of our diets!!!!!!!!!!" and she makes a lot of references to "cutting the butter". While my weakness is sugar, esp chocolate, hers must be butter.

Just a couple more days til our weekend trip to Ga! Yipppeeee!!

Rae

Exercise: 1 mile a.m. walk with Pippin, 40 minutes Denise Austin focusing on arms & thighs, plus some cardio/stretching, 20 minutes on the elliptical

Tuesday, July 26, 2005

Discovering Denise

Hey everyone! It was another hot and muggy run here in Nashville tonight, but I couldn't wait to get out there and pound the pavement. Sitting on my ass all day is seriously giving me muscle atrophy and thinking about burning some calories was THE only thing helping me through the day. I've got to hit those powerball numbers so I can run and sleep all day long!!!

Anyway, I don't have much to talk about today so I thought I'd share my latest exciting discovery -Denise Austin's daily workouts on Lifetime. I have one of her workout DVDs and she is a freak. Her high pitched voice and random comments wear on me but are strange enough to make me erupt in laughter while doing some tough ab work. She really does have some good moves. So, for some reason when I turned on the TV yesterday morning the channel was on Lifetime. I do not watch ANYTHING on Lifetime, and I can't come up with a thing Brent might have been watching either, so I am a little worried (and suspicious). But, I recognized this perky little voice and realized it was a Denise Austin workout show. So, I've set my TiVo for a season pass. Last night I did the workout, it happened to be intervals and abs. In the middle of a tough ab section she started talking about her daughters and the sports they played. It was so bizarre I couldn't help but roll around laughing - which is a great ab workout in and of itself. Isn't life great??

Just a couple more days until Brent and I head to Georgia!!!!

Cya!

Rae

Exercise: 1 mile a.m. walk with Pippin, 4 mile evening run

Monday, July 25, 2005

Hiking in Nashville




Happy Monday everybody!! I hope everyone had a great rest of the weekend and the best part is we've at least all made it through Monday. I'm SO excited about this weekend because we're headed out of town to a cabin in Northeast Georgia. It's near the Appalachian Trail, so we hope to hike part of it and also spend some time fishing, canoeing and relaxing. I can't wait!!!

Sunday afternoon we decided we'd take Pippin to the newest dog park in Nashville. It's about 20 miles from here at Edwin Warner Park. We've really enjoyed the only other dog park (at Shelby Park, also 20 miles from here) so we thought we'd give this one a go, too. Ugh!! They missed the bill with this one. It has zero shade (and it was 97 degrees!!) and they don't have a little bubbling doggie waterfountain (like Shelby Park). Just a collection of bowls ppl have brought with some stagnant water in it. Yuk. There were also only a couple of ppl there, with their VERY unfriendly pit bulls. Pippin was sitting near their owner (for the shade - he is very smart) and the dog started growling at him. So, we got out of there and decided to go one block over to Percy Warner park. I'd always heard good things about it on the local running club website, so I knew it must have something better to offer than pit bulls. It was gorgeous! There are miles and miles of forest with some really beautiful scenery. We got out and did some hiking for about 1-1/2 hrs. We didn't go that far, it was a team effort, really. The hike was a lot of up-hill and then down-hill. The down-hills bothered Brent's knee and the uphill wore Pippin out. He did great though, considering he won't walk more than 2 miles around the subdivision. He really enjoyed the woods and probably could have gone longer if it wasn't so warm. There were quite a few people running the trails so we plan to go back and do that.

Today was our day to lift weight at the gym at work. It was so nice - there was no one there for about 30 minutes except for us. Last week we went right after work and it was so packed it was miserable.

See ya tomorrow!

Rae

Exercise:

Sun - 1-1/2 hours hiking in 97 degree temps with Brent and Pippin
Mon - 1 mile a.m. walk with Pippin, 20 minutes stair climber, 25 minutes weights, 20 minutes Denise Austin workout-cardio, arms and abs

Sunday, July 24, 2005

Hot & Sweaty



Happy weekend everyone! We've had a great one so far, and unfortunately we only matched one number in last night's Powerball so it looks like we'll be back to work tomorrow. Ugh.

Here's a picture of the cutest dog in the world: Pippin. He loves the shade and I know he'll never make a 5K with me but we love him anyway!!

Friday night we ventured over to try Cuisine of India near Vanderbilt. We live in the suburbs of Nashville, but most of our time is spent in the Vandy/Green Hills area. If it wasn't so freakin' expensive I'd move there in a heartbeat. There's nothing interesting or exciting about living in the 'burbs. Cuisine of India was awesome, it may be our new fave Indian restaurant in town. The service was awesome, too. They brought you more water after every sip, practically. We also like Sitar (near Baptist Hospital) and Shalimar (near Green Hills) is pretty good. We LOVE Indian food and I wish I knew how to cook it. After that we went over to check out the new Hustler Hollywood store on Church street. It opened last week, and had Ron Jeremy there and someone said Larry Flynt was there last weekend (but that's unconfirmed). Needless to say it was an interesting and educational experience, but certainly fun.

For the 2nd Sat in a row, for unknown reasons, I woke up bright and early. I have NO clue why I woke up at 5 am wide awake (we went to bed around 12:30). So I did what any good wife would do and I woke Brent up, too. We watched music videos for a little while (since the middle of the night is THE only time vh1/mtv play them anymore) and we decided to have some breakfast and go for a run. We headed out around 7:30 and it was already SO hot. The sun was bright and I had forgotten how little shade is on my regular route. This was our 6-mile morning, and since this was Brent's first run at that distance I wanted to stay with him. I know how hard it is to add that new distance each week, and how sometimes the conditions can beat you mentally. We made it just fine and were so gross by the end that it looked like we had run through someone's sprinklers. After I came inside I thought Pippin's cow hoof chew was especially stinky until I realized it was me I was smelling!!

Brent had booked massages for us at A Moment's Peace spa (near Cool Springs) for later in the morning. We first went there back in Feb for manicures and we've been back several times since then for lots of services. Our massages were awesome!!! After that we had lunch at Copelands and did some shopping. We headed over to Fleet Feet (THE best running store in Nashville) to pick up a FuelBelt for Brent. Mine only holds 4 bottles and as our runs get longer and hotter that's not enough for both of us. I LOVE Fleet Feet. If you're a runner in Nashville you have to go there. They know everything about fitting your feet properly.

For dinner we tried a new Mexican rest here in Smyrna - Las Brazas. Never, ever go there!! It was SO gross!! I was craving nachos, and they brought me this enormously stacked plate of chips with beef, beans, & lettuce on it. One main ingrediant was missing - Cheese!!! We eat very healthy most of the time - mostly organic, grilled & not overly-processed foods, very little soda & caffeine, so when I want something fatty and disgusting (like nachos) I want them dripping in cheese dip. Anyway, if we never went there we would always wonder if it's good so that's taken care of!

Then we came home and watched The Forgotten (with Julianne Moore). We're in blockbuster.com rental club, and we've had this movie since March! This movie was SO bad! From the previews I thought it would be a thriller, not another goofy movie about aliens. Seriously, it was bad.

Well, I think this post is long enough! Have a great rest of the weekend!

Rae

Exercise:
Friday - 1 mile am walk with Pippin
Sat - 6 mile run with Brent

Thursday, July 21, 2005

Simmer down

It was another super hot run tonight. Right now the temp is 90 and it's 9 pm. I can't wait for some nice fall weather. I did change some of the music around on my mp3 player so that gave me something to focus on besides the helicopter circling overhead and my impending heat stroke. I didn't leave until 8 tonight, and there's a storm brewing so it got dark earlier than usual. I'm always a little nervous when it's dark, so the helicopter didn't help the situation. I've got a FuelBelt that holds 4 small bottles of water and without it I would be passed out on the sidewalk somewhere! I keep one in the freezer (and it's always completely melted by the end of my run these days) and keep the others in the fridge. However, the only animal I ran into tonight was a cat and I can live with that!!

I'd better go, we have some movies to return to Blockbuster and it's starting to get late!

More tomorrow!

Rae

Exercise: 1 mile am walk with Pippin, 4 mile evening run

Latest Food Discovery: Coke Zero - I normally hate diet sodas but this stuff is good! It tastes about 99% like real Coke!!!!

Wednesday, July 20, 2005

Working out with Pippin

I guess I shouldn't complain too much about the heat here. This morning they mentioned on Good Morning America that the temp in Las Vegas yesterday was 115 degrees! They had a guy out there with a thermometer and at 4 am their time it was already 90 degrees. They had sent the same guy to Death Valley the day before and it was 130 degrees. That's a job I could handle, it's much easier than being the guy they send into all the hurricanes and blizzards.

Tonight I had an abbreviated workout. Brent's dad is in town for a conference so he took us out to dinner at Outback Steakhouse. I did a 40-minute workout on the elliptical tonight. This time of year I hate when I have to work-out inside vs a nice evening run. I usually give Pippin some sort of toy to chew on while I work out and tonight I filled his treat ball with some treats. It's a little ball within a ball that has some slots in it, so if he pushes it around the right way then he can knock the treats out. He was pushing it around upstairs (coming dangerously close to my flying feet on the elliptical) when he accidentally knocked it down the stairs. He quickly saw what a GREAT idea that was so for the rest of my 40 minutes he'd knock it down the stairs, run down and grab any treats that fell out, and start the process again. Needless to say it was a nervewracking workout for me and I had to crank the TV.

Brent and I are trying to find a cabin for the weekend. We just need to get away for a few! Of course I have to make it difficult because I really want to stay somewhere cute with a hot tub (which makes no sense since it's about 100 degrees every day this week). I just can't find anything with a 2-3 hr drive, all the good stuff is about 4 hrs away. Oh well, we'll see!

See ya!

Rae

Exercise: 1 mile am walk with Pippin + the neighbor and her dog Abby
40 minutes on the elliptical

Tuesday, July 19, 2005

It's too hot to run in the South

Good evening everyone! The weather here in TN has been crazy as a result of all the hurricanes down in the gulf. We went about 4 weeks with little to no rain & the grass was all dead. The past week and a half we've had torrential rains at some point during every day. All that has resulted in some horrid humidity. I ran around 8 oclock tonight and I bet I lost about 4 pounds in sheer sweat. It's so tough to stay motivated mentally when it's so hot and humid. At least the path I take usually has several other walkers, runners, and bikers on it and that gives me a focal point to follow. Tonight I saw more deer! They were running across the street in front of some traffic. When I looped back they were about to make run back across the street and we had a bit of a stare off until they decided to run back into the woods. I have no idea why, but I must be the only American scared of deer. I think it must be the horns. I know they're not bulls but they still intimidate the crap out of me & I think the ones around here know it.

My new discovery of the week is green tea. Every afternoon at work I've been having a small cup of green tea flavored with mango. It's so good!!

Cya tomorrow!
Rae

Exercise: 1 mile am walk with Pippin, 4 mile evening run, 15-20 minutes abs
Music I'm really feeling on my running mp3 player:
Leader of Men - Nickelback
Movies - Alien Ant Farm
Survival of the Sickest - Saliva
Dirty Laundry - Lisa Marie Presley

Monday, July 18, 2005

On the Grid

Hey! It's another Monday around here....ugh! We did some major grocery shopping yesterday, and we try to buy only fresh, healthy, mostly organic foods. Most days I eat a little thing of yogurt with some fruit for breakfast. My favorite is the Yoplait Whips. It's a little higher in calories and fat than light yogurt, but it's worth it. Yesterday they had a new flavor at Publix - Chocolate Cherry. In theory it sounds great, but in reality it was SO gross! Maybe it should be intended for a dessert yogurt, it was a bit much for 8 am. I did buy some Ranier cherries and they are SO good!! I love summer for all the fresh produce. Our garden is finally starting to produce peppers and the tomatoes should be turning red soon. We have an okra plant out there, too, with several pods. But how do I know when it's ready? If anyone knows drop me a comment.

Finally the weather is getting back to normal and Pippin and I got back on our am walk schedule this morning. Tonight after work Brent and I went to the Ingram gym b/c I had a 7 pm hair appointment. I go to Tangerines in the 'Boro, they're the BEST! Last time we went to the Ingram gym we went around 7, which was much nicer because it was pretty deserted. Right after work you had the guys trying to impress people by lifting huge weights and then dropping them on the floor for some unknown reason. It was beyond nervewracking and it made me want to kick over the stairclimber and join their bizarre club. For dinner we had some AWESOME grilled pork chops from Publix.

That's it for today!

Rae

Exercise: 1 mile am walk with Pippin, 1 hour at the Ingram gym - 20 minutes stair climber, 40 minutes misc weights

Sunday, July 17, 2005

A day at the Beach

I can't believe the weekend is almost over, AGAIN. Weekends go by about 50 times more quickly than work days. I was convinced we would win Powerball this weekend but we went to buy our tickets too late on Saturday night and missed the deadline.

Today was our employee picnic at Nashville Shores. This was the first time we have ever been there, and it's OK (for free). There's only 4 waterslides, so I'm not convinced that it even qualifies as a water park. There's no wave pool, and the pools there are pretty small and none are over 4 feet deep. There's also wave runners and things you can rent, and some paddleboats on the lake. Anyway, we had a lot of fun (for free). It wasn't very sunny, so that helped since we had to stand in line about a half an hour for each ride.

I just signed Brent and I up for a 5K in August - the 1st Annual I Run for the Party 5K. It's sponsored by this guy who ran the CMM totally painted in blue. (Brent actually has a picture of him finishing). It's got a lot of freebies and it's one of the only races run in the evening in Nashville. It sounds like a lot of fun. They have costume prizes, so we've got to figure out what we want to dress up like. If anyone has any great ideas from races they've been in please drop me a comment!

Also, I think we may do the Evansville, Indiana half marathon on October 9th. Brent should be ready by then! From their training plan (online) he's already 3 weeks ahead of schedule. I'll keep you posted!

Cya later!

Rae

Exercise: No formal exercise - just yardwork and plenty of walking around/splashing in the pool at Nashville Shores

Saturday, July 16, 2005

6 down, 20.2 to go

Happy Saturday! Even though we were up late last night for the HP madness I woke up ready to roll at 7 am. Go figure! But since I was ready to wake up I thought we might as well take advantage of the situation and do some garage sale-ing. Naturally, the one Sat we're up before 10 there are only a few yard sales going on in the 'hood. Ppl were probably nervous about having one due to all the crappy rain we've had ALL week. I didn't buy anything, and nothing even tempted me. Brent ended up with a little scale for .50 and a towing ball thing for his Jeep ($3). The weirdest thing for sale was an Indian peace pipe for $50.

After we shopped we decided to go for a long run. The one good thing about this terrible weather is that it has been fairly overcast so that makes runs a little cooler and there's usually some sort of wind. I went out for a 6 mile run and Brent had a 5 mile run. I had a pretty good run, it was still pretty hot and humid, but I pushed myself the first 3 miles, then backed off a little for 4&5 and pushed again during mile 6. Brent did great as well! I love my new Mizuno's, they are so much better than the Nike Shox Dendrea's I bought after the Country Music Marathon. The Dendrea's immediately gave me shin splints and hurt my knees and ankles. The Mizuno's are awesome, and all my blisters and callouses that I thought were normal (caused by running hundreds of miles in Nike Shox 2:45s) are starting to go away.

The rest of today we did some shopping at the mall and some other errands and things around town. Tomorrow is the company picnic at the local waterpark so most of today was spent going through the last remaining swimsuits in the department stores. I finally found one at the LAST store in the mall!

Cya tomorrow!

Rae

Exercise: 6 mile am run, 1/3 mile walk with Pippin, HOURS of shopping!!

Friday, July 15, 2005

Harry Potter Madness




Well, we survived the launch of Harry Potter 6! This has been a really long week, and I have to admit I wasn't as pumped as usual about attending the midnight premiere of HP6. We had a big forecast due today (yesterday actually) at work so a lot of overtime happened this week, which threw off my workout/training schedule, healthy eating schedule, and basically everything else in life!! (Seriously, I've got to win Powerball so work no longer interferes with my social life!!) So, I'm tired and cranky to begin with, and it's been raining ALL week so my hair is frizzy and I'm getting it cut Monday night so it's longer and bushier than it needs to be to begin with! Throw all that in with hundreds of dorky kids and the HP6 party was almost enough to give me a nervous breakdown. The staff at BAMM was freaking and one guy did have a mini-breakdown as they were trying to put the line together. But, we got our book and I only yelled at one kid so everything worked out well. I haven't heard a lot of PR about this one, but hopefully it will be as good as the others. It's not as long as the last one and that's not a bad thing. I haven't read much lately, I've been trying to catch up on all my magazines.

So, due to the crazy amount of extra hours at work I don't have a lot to report in the way of workouts this week. The rain even threw off mine and Pippin's 5:45 am walks several days this week. Next week life will return to normal and I'm going to pick a late fall half marathon for Brent and I to compete in, so I'll have something to count down to!

Cya later!

Rae

Tues: 1 mile walk with Pip
Wed: No exercise
Thurs: 1 mile walk with Pip, 40 minutes elliptical & some ab work
Fri: 1 mile walk with Pip (2/3 of which was in the rain, and we jogged the last lap!!)

Monday, July 11, 2005

Don't SuperSize This She

Happy Monday! Ugh!! Monday should have to be a word that's bleeped out due to the complete obscenity of it. Anyway, we made it through the day so I think we'll be fine.

Tonight Brent and I headed over to the gym at work after dinner. It hasn't changed a bit since the last time I was there nearly 4 years ago!!! You'd think they'd get at least ONE new piece of equipment, but no, this is not a company who is a big fan of change to begin with. Anyway, it's super cheap to go so we'll probably go over there once or twice a week to use some of their strength machines. I like my cardio outside, and I also enjoy my workout DVDs, so it'll be a nice change in the routine.

I was flipping through the channels and found the show "SuperSize She" on TLC. You've got to see this show. It's about women weight lifters. They look and sound like MEN. It's so gross what they've done to their bodies. I am all about getting strong and fit, but I don't understand how you take it to the level of wanting to take all these hormones to basically end up like a man. MTV's True Life has a new episode called "I want a perfect body 2", and there's a Harvard girl who starts fitness training. She's much more normal and ended up looking really good by the end of the show. Anyway, set your TiVo for this show and prepare to be grossed out!

See ya!

Rae

Exercise:
Mon: 1/3 mile walk with Pippin (it started raining so our walk was cut short), 20 minutes arms/leg weights at the gym, 10 minutes stair climber, 2 mile run outdoors (the weather was PERFECT), 10 minutes abs and 10 minutes stretching with Denise Austin

Sunday, July 10, 2005

Blizzard's a Coming

Well, another weekend is almost over so here we go again. Isn't there a song about living for the weekend or something? It's been nice, we spend most of our time relaxing here at home which was nice after the hectic/chaotic weekend with the fam last weekend.

We watched a couple of movies this weekend -In Good Company & Harold & Kumar go to White Castle. Both were really good. IGC is the one where the 26 yr old becomes one of the Quaid guys' boss. It was really cute and actually not as predictable as you would imagine. HK GT WC was actually really funny. Goofy, no doubt, but it was pretty funny. It's worth a rental and if you don't LOL a few times your heart is made of concrete and you should only stick with Oscar nominated movies.

We also ate at Shoney's Friday night. Big mistake. Don't pay attention to all those ads about how they have changed. They have NOT changed. It's still gross. Stay away!!!

In exercise news, Brent and I went for an early evening run tonight before the remnants of Hurricane Dennis arrive. It is so flippin hot in TN. How can it still be 90 degrees after 5 pm?? It was crazy. I wasn't sure if I was going to vomit or just die from a heat stroke. My legs felt great, the heat was the only problem.

Well, I'd better get prepared for another week of work!!

Rae

Exercise:
Fri - 1 mile walk with Pippin
Sun - 5 mile run, 25 minutes strength training (Arms, Abs, Stretch) with Karen Voight

Thursday, July 07, 2005

Brent's a winner

Well, the first season of Dancing with the Stars has come to an exciting end. Brent and I placed a wager on who would win, his little tart Kelly or the sophisticated John. Unfortunately Kelly won, so I owe him an evening of relaxation. Oh well, I still think Joey and Ashlee were robbed.

Tonight we went to an informational session for Train to End Stroke. You raise money for the American Stroke Association and they train you and pay for your transportation to the marathon. I'd like to do Orlando in January, and was thinking about doing so through one of these organizations. However, you have to raise a LOT of money, and it would be pretty tough for Brent and I to do so for both of us. I may check out a couple of other organizations and see what their fundraising requirements are. Also, this coach is going to use the Gallaway method, which I'm not too fond of.

Well, enough for today!

Exercise:
Tues (post-blog): 20 mins toning w/Karen Voight
Wed: 1 mile AM walk with Pippin + 3 mile run, 30 minutes Burn & Firm Pilates
Thurs: 1 mile AM walk with Pippin + 30 minutes Killer Butt

Tuesday, July 05, 2005

Happy 5th!

Hey! I hope everyone had a great 4th of July. Our internet wasn't working right Thurs night so I didn't get to do my daily post. For the weekend we went to my parent's new house out in BFE. I grew up IN memphis so I'm a total urbanite. I like options. I can't even fathom growing up in a place so tiny you can count the stoplights and remember when each one was added, or remember how excited you were when you got "the four-lane". So, about 2 months ago my parents moved from Memphis to a TINY town near Jackson. The graduating senior class of this fantastic community was a whopping 21 this past year. Seriously. Anyway, we had a good time and had a big cook-out and a lot of family down. Pippin took his first two swims in their pond. I'm not sure what possessed him to jump in, and I don't think he knows either! He looked scared and frightened considering it's quite a bit deeper than his wading pool! Anyway, he made it back safely although he did smell a lot like fish.

Tonight Brent ran his first 5-miler! We meant to run 4, but I don't have a plan for 4, I usually do 3 or 5, so I accidentally told him a path that ended up at 4.5 so when he came around the curve Pippin and I joined him to make it an even 5. The first 5-er is a major accomplishment. Once you hit 5 you can do anything.

Tune in tomorrow for the exciting finale of Dancing with the Stars!!

Rae

Exercise: Thurs: 3 1-mile sprints at the hospital, 6 AM-1 mile walk with Pip
Fri: none
Sat: no formal exercise but lots of outdoor walking and some family racing!
Sun: 2 mile walk with Brent & Pip
Mon: Yard work, activities around the house
Tues: 6 AM-1 mile walk with Pip & Becky Abernathy & her lab Abby (Pippin's girlfriend) & 5 mile evening run