TandemHearts

After almost two decades in the house, some rooms still need improvement in layout or organization.  Most of the house is nicely decorated and functional, but two rooms – the office and the exercise room – needed some attention.  Neither room is big, roughly 12′ x 11′ each, and each is filled with lots of stuff.  The exercise room has 3 bicycles, a fan, a TV, bookcase, a desk, etc.  It had become hard just to move around the room. Fixing that room was easy. We just pulled out the bookcase , sold the desk and moved some things around. Easy peasey and it didn’t cost anything.  It made fixing the office seem like a good idea.

The office was even more crowded. A large computer hutch dominated the room, with the rest of the available spaces consumed by a corner desk,a storage cabinet, a bookcase, 2 printers,  etc, etc, etc.  We could work in the room, but it felt cramped and there was never enough storage for all the things that accumulate in an office.

We tossed around a few ideas and decided that we like clear flat surfaces and need lot of storage for small items. We picked up some 8 foot wood counters (Lagan) from Ikea. We mounted one to the wall, so it looks like it’s floating.  Once we realized that we really needed storage, we settled on a combination of classic metal filing cabinets and some nifty counter top drawer units that have 5, 8 and 10 drawers.  This works out well for stashing small collections of things. Now the hard part is remembering what is in each drawer until we get the labels on them.

It took two solid weekends and a lot of time after work to empty the room, buy the new stuff, and arrange the new bits. Each piece of the armoire weighs close to 200 lbs and just barely fit through the door to get it out of the room.  That’s headed for craig’s list and I hope whoever buys it brings a couple of big friends to move it.

Here is what we started with.  Click on the image to see what we ended up with.

Back in January I wrote about wanting to get my body fat percentage lower before I started training for my Half Ironman.  Last Monday was weigh and measure day with Shawna.  I’ve lost nine pounds since November, gained nearly six pounds of muscle and dropped my body fat percentage to….   YES! 18.3 percent!  I have twenty-two  weeks before my race and I’m looking for 15% now.    It took me two months to lose the last two pounds so I expect it will be a slow process.  However, beginning March 5th I’ll be ramping up my workout time.  I’d love to say I was starting March 1, but I have conferences this week…

This is the 5th month in a row that I have made my monthly running goal.  I was a little more consistent weekly than previous months so I didn’t have to stress over it as the end of the month drew near.  I had some awesome weekday runs with Thom and was able to post some pretty decent interval times.  I ended up doing two of my long weekend runs on the treadmill while Thom worked out with Shawna.  The weather just wasn’t always cooperative.

Thom bought me a new Spinervals DVD to use when I ride my bike in the trainer – Dropping the Hammer.  It’s 60 minutes of intense intervals designed for building speed and anaerobic power.  It’s easy to see why I need speed, but anaerobic power?  Think short, steep hills or the burst of speed needed to get by a competitor quickly.  I love it!   Be sure to notice the pool of sweat of underneath me. 

February did have some gorgeous, sunny days.  We hiked up Diablo again, this time to the snow!  We rode our bikes up to the Junction, a benchmark ride for us.  I was within in 4 minutes of my best time EVER!  Not bad considering we have not ridden our bikes outside since September.   We also hiked out at Round Valley Regional Preserve.

My training goals for March are pretty simple – run 32 miles, ride the trainer for 180 minutes and get to the pool at least once.  I’ll be continuing my weight and plyometrics workouts with Shawna  twice  a week and getting some time in on my yoga mat as well.

I’m pretty excited.  This is probably the best fitness I have had at the start of a training cycle and it should get even better.

There is no other word for using my android tablet to post to my blog. All I need now is a better keyboard.

For what I think is the 3rd year in a row, we have snow on the Bay Area peaks. The snow line was down to around 1800 feet, so we hiked the 8 miles around Eagle Peak to play in 2 inches of snow. The day was sunny, but cool – with highs on the low 50s. Check out the gallery.

January 30 and I needed 9.33 more miles to make my running goal for the month and it was windy and raining.  I headed out to try a new a new longer loop which I estimated to be somewhere between 8 and 9 miles;  knowing that whatever mileage I don’t get today, I’ll get tomorrow.  This new loop goes through a housing area where all the streets have been laid out, but the houses are on hold.  It seemed like a good place to run with no traffic.    Well… it did not go as planned.  The trail that I thought connected with another trail didn’t.  Many of the streets were blocked off with large fences.    While I could see where I wanted to be, the only way to get to it was across a muddy  field.  I hoofed across it as the skies really opened up and I was deluged with a cold, driving rain in the face.    At this point I was so demoralized that I decided to just head for home – only to be balked by yet another fence across the road.   I considered calling Thom to come get me, but I knew that would take him at least 15 minutes and I could home be by then.   I was cold, wet, and muddy; and I had only run two miles.   Well, I reasoned, to get home would be at least one more mile and there’s always tomorrow.  I exited the housing area and got back on a road I knew, which did wonders for my mood.  Maybe having the wind at my back and no more rain in the face helped too.  As I warmed up I decided instead of heading straight for home,  I could put in two more miles.  When I got to that turn off,  I was still feeling good and continued on a route that would add another 1.5 miles to my total.   I finished up with 6.35 miles for the day.  Not bad given the conditions.  I can put in an easy three miles tomorrow and have my goal for the month.

February’s goal is to be more disciplined about doing my work day runs.   Darn job gets in the way.    All the weekend runs got done, but those work day ones are hard.   Now if I were to  count my hiking miles. ..  I’d be right on track.  Thom and I  did a hard 8+ mile hike up Diablo to Eagle’s Peak two weekends ago.   It was beautiful and got us out of the drizmal fog we have for days on end here in the Delta.    BUT they don’t count.

I got in all my spinning for the month. Woohoo for me!    The first few rides I was really feeling the lack of time in the saddle.  I think it’s probably time for some new bike shorts too since I have not  bought bike shorts in three or four years.  Some of the pairs I have are now downright baggy – for lycra.

My February running mileage goal and spinning time goal are the same as January’s.  However,  I want to focus on getting out consistently three times a week to run.  I’ve also come to the conclusion that I have to get leaner if I want my running pace to improve substantially.  I am really close to a ten minute average pace now, but I want more.    To that end I’m working on eliminating more of the sugar in my diet.  Two years ago I switched out my dessert cookie at lunch for a flavored  yogurt.  Now I’ve given up the yogurt too.  Shawna would like me to cut out the tablespoon of maple syrup from my breakfast oatmeal, but that’s a harder sell.  Oatmeal needs something on it.   I’ve tried peanut butter and I’ve tried it plain… it’s hard to choke down that way.  I may end up giving up on oatmeal and making my breakfast something with Greek yogurt, which is like the perfect food.  It’s creamy, but has very little taste which means you can add interesting things to it.  A 1 cup serving size has 150 calories , 4.5 grams of fat, almost no sodium, 9 grams of sugar and 19 grams of protein.  I still believe food should taste good and be enjoyable, so I’ll continue experimenting until I find something with less sugar that I like.