March 4, 2009 at 10:14 pm · Filed under Live More Simply, Living Green, Money and Happiness
Got last month’s power bill, month two of only using our clothes dryer for a brief de-wrinklin’ of clothes that have been dried the way nature intended, and found our savings have increased. Two months ago, we had a 27% decrease in electricity consumption over the same period a year ago - last month, it was a 29% decrease.
Statistically, that’s probably nothing more than noise caused by daily fluctuations in usage of other appliances and lights, but the real world effect has been a $30-50 decrease in our power bills.
I’ll take it.
February 14, 2009 at 3:30 pm · Filed under Don't Be Stupid, Fitness and Exercise
Shin splints suck.
I, apparently, am the definition of the beginner runner, the zealous convert, the veritable King of Too Much, Too Fast, Too Soon.
It started a week ago, when I did this run, a 9.6 mile long, slow run. I felt fine during it - got rewarded with some spectacular views of Denver and the Front Range too. However, much of it was on pavement and asphalt, as there seems to be a dearth of suitable running paths (or I just haven’t looked hard enough).
The next day, mild shin splint pain set in. So, I diligently iced my shins, wrapped them in Ace bandages, talked sweetly to them, bought them dinner, etc. By Thursday, they felt fine, and I thought maybe I was up for a short run at lunch time.
Well, that was a mistake.
A mile out from the office, my shins let me know they were not pleased with me. I took it easy getting back to the building, got some ice from the cafeteria, and began the healing process anew.
They feel okay today, but I’m not taking any chances. I guess I will take the week off and just stick to non-impact cardio, although the elliptical machine and stationary bike have nothing on being out in the world, running.
On the bright side, I am getting some great tacit knowledge about a variety of running injuries, the kind of learning you just can’t get from Google (but probably don’t want anyway).
Still aiming for a marathon this summer sometime. Let’s see what I can hurt next.
February 2, 2009 at 6:01 pm · Filed under Better Brains, Live More Simply, Living Green
Once upon a time, not too terribly long ago really, I was the kind of guy who would throw a soda can in the trash, rather than the recycle bin, just because someone else in the break room had told me to be sure to recycle. I know, terribly mature, but - much like my days as a far right-wing Catholic - I got better.
I am now the guy who gets annoyed when he sees perfectly recyclable cardboard boxes in the break room trash, when there is a recycle bin all of 15 steps away. Granted, some of the TV dinner boxes are for 800-calorie per serving Hearty Meat Loaf Yum Yum Heart Attack, so perhaps I shouldn’t expect the kind of person who would eat that to willingly walk 15 steps there and 15 steps back*.
Anyway, my anti-green stance has since waned quite a bit, and I’ve been looking for ways to be more green. So far, here’s what is going on in our household:
- We stopped using our dryer. Well, not completely; but we do air dry everything that gets washed and then use the dryer for maybe 5-10 minutes to get the wrinkles out. Considering we washed four to five loads on the weekends alone, that is five or more hours of electricity consumption reduced to perhaps an hour tops, if that.
Just got the power bill today and, compared to the same month last year, we used 27% less electricity. As our water heater and furnace are natural gas, this means that (a) a large chunk of that reduction is from not using the dryer and (b) our dryer is one hungry bugger.
Side benefit: the smell of fresh laundry drying is a close second to hugging a cuddly puppy. Or something.
- We noticed we were continually running out of room in our recycling bin, and ended up either stockpiling for the next pick up (a vicious cycle) or throwing the excess away. So the wife rang the city and they were more than happy to drop off another recycling bin for us, and even repaired the broken top on the first one.
As a result, we’re a family of five with a trash bin that is maybe half-full when it is picked up each week, but with one to one-and-a-half recycling bins every two weeks. It boggles the mind how much reusable material so many people send to a landfill, especially living where we live, where pretty much all of your papers, metals, and plastics can be sent for recycling.
I bet some of those people even throw soda cans in the trash just to spite others. Ye bastards!
- I then recalled reading some news blurbs about this story:
An antimicrobial agent found in many shampoos and hand lotions and widely used in industrial settings inhibits the development of particular neuron structures that are essential for transmitting signals between cells, according to a University of Pittsburgh study presented today at Cell Biology 2004, the 44th annual meeting of the American Society for Cell Biology. The meeting is being held Dec. 4 at the Washington Convention Center.
…so decided to see what kind of green or organic or non-potentially-brain-killing shampoos were on the market, which, given my decided lack of hair, is kind of funny. But a clean scalp is a happy scalp, so they say (surely, someone says that).
Ended up buying three bottles of Terressentials, and love the stuff. Don’t much love the price (or, more appropriately, the S&H charges), but it seems to clean well, the essential oils are more pleasant than lab-assembled scents, and my brain feels less dumb (ok, I made that part up, but why take chances).
The wife used it for a week, but said it continued leaving her with fly-away hair. The makers address that topics in their FAQ, but we all have our priorities. I look forward to caring for her in her dementia-dominated old age; but her hair will look fabulous!
So far, that’s about it. I know, it isn’t much, but we build to these things.
For the last 20 years, I’ve been a materialist, consumerist American who thought that more and bigger was better, measuring my own happiness by the yardstick of those around me. Now I’m aiming for something simpler, happier, and that doesn’t take the planet for granted (although I’m not averse to continuing to make a lot of money, I just want to be truly happy doing it).
Next goals are to get the family to turn off lights that aren’t being used, and then to begin the process of replacing all of our bulbs with CFLs. For some reason, home builders in Colorado had hard-ons for recessed flood lamps in every room when our house was built… while I usually use a lamp for lighting, I think replacing those energy monsters with CFL versions will help a lot too.
Down the line… who knows… a greenhouse? I can kill a Chia Pet without even trying, so watch out.
* Note: not a slam against overweight people. There also plenty of overweight people at my office who eat low-calorie nuke-a-box lunches. Calories are not their problem. Now, the 4200mg of sodium per box might be an issue, but baby steps, baby steps.
January 31, 2009 at 4:14 pm · Filed under Fitness and Exercise, Personal Goals
Was up and out early (for me) this morning, with shoes to the pavement just after 9am. My goal today was a long, slow run of at least 8 miles, possibly 10 if I felt like it -but with my recent spate of injuries, I knew that 10 would be pushing it.
I also changed my run/walk from a 4/1 to a 5/1 - hoping to eventually get back to the 1 minute walk per mile I had before the extensor tendinitis. But, again, I’m not pushing it.
Had a good run - it was a beautiful day in Denver, warmed up nicely from the 40 in the morning to about 60 by the end of the run. I just went where the moment took me, and at about 8.5 miles, I was pretty worn down, but I was also another 2.5 miles from home. So, I stopped for lunch and stretching, and then walked the rest of the way home.
I also decided to play around with MapMyRun.com and charted my run here:
1.31.09 Long Run
It’s not perfect by any means, as I did it quickly, so if you use the satellite view, you might think I’m either Jesus or a ghost as it shows me running across water and through buildings. If you’d like to start a new religion centered around me, though, I would be totally ok with it (so long as I get a cut of the profits).
A year ago, when I was first getting on the “in-shape” bandwagon, I could hardly jog for a few minutes without wanting to stop. I am amazed at where I am now, and amazed even more that my goal is to be able to finish 26.2 miles in a matter of months. It’s going to be an interesting journey.
I am also realizing how badly I suck at writing non-snarky, honest posts (unlike my previous blog), so I will wrap this one up here!
January 24, 2009 at 1:08 pm · Filed under Uncategorized
Got up early today - fine, 10am - and went for a long run as part of getting back to my marathon training plan.
It was a beautiful morning in Denver: sunny, with nary a cloud, and a brisk 30 degrees. I put on my running tights, socks, Brooks, a long-sleeve running top, and a t-shirt, then sucked in my gut a bit because the lack of running in the last month is really catching up to me.
And off I went.
I never really cared much for running outside; I have no idea why. I suppose for the same reason that as a child I already knew that vegetables I’d never tasted were going to be yucky. I tried it a couple times when I first started running, and I think I also perhaps associated beginner’s aches and pain with running on pavement and roads. The treadmill seemed safer, there was eye candy, and nature doesn’t provide 10 televisions like the gym either.
But today, I just headed out with no real plan of where to go, following roads and open space trails, seeing areas of my part of town I didn’t even know existed (and I’ve lived in this house for 8 years). I got barked at by a multitude of territorial dogs. Met another runner or two along the way. Got odd looks from non-runners what with the way running tights fit, uh, certain parts.
And without the distraction of television or even my iPod, I spent most of the run lost in thought, mainly about the kinds of things I plan to write about on this blog. Fitness. Simplicity. Happiness. Health. Which isn’t to say I didn’t also think about things like beer and women and music, just not as much as one might expect from me. It was, if I may summarize the experience in the most trite way imaginable, very nice.
So, 6.5 miles later, I arrived back at my house. I think I could easily have put another three or four miles behind me, but didn’t want to risk too much too soon, coming back from an injury. I took Jeff Galloway’s advice and set my Forerunner 50 to an interval of four minutes running, one minute walking, for the entirety of the course (with the exception of getting stuck at one or two street crossings).
The training data generated by the Garmin software is over there to the left, cropped from the full display. It’d be nice if the mapping software was up to date, as the area I ran doesn’t seem to exist. I am pretty sure my house is not a figment of my imagination, but I’ve been wrong before. It would also be good if they would interface with something like MapMyRun.com and let you overlay your performance data over the quality maps they provide. Are you listenin’, Garmin?
Speaking of the Forerunner 50, Costco has them on sale still, now good through February 8. Well worth the $80 I paid for the HR monitor, foot pod, watch, and wireless USB dongle to tie it all together.
The formerly-injured foot seems to be doing ok after the run; we’ll see what the morning brings, but tonight I will preempt inflammation with Ibuprofen, ice, and New Belgium 2° Below Ale.
January 17, 2009 at 2:15 pm · Filed under Diet and Nutrition, Fitness and Exercise
The local high school running track, that is.
Despite some minor lateral ankle pain, I decided to give this running lark another go this morning. All in all, the run went well - covered four miles - but did walk now and again, and had some minor pains in toes of my right foot.
I’m not sure what’s going on there, but I suspect because of previous injury I am unconsciously changing my gait slightly and then consciously trying to correct for what I perceive to be poor form, which is just creating a mess. I hope that as I get more comfortable and confident again in my running, it will go away and feel more natural.
There were times in the last couple miles where everything seemed right: running was easy, no pain at all. Of course, once I became aware of it, the moment was gone and I was right back to over-thinking my form.
That said, ’twas a good run overall and I feel better for having done it. I just wish I had eaten something beforehand so I would not have been tempted to stop at the McDonald’s near my house and undo my 40 minutes of running with 10 minutes of eating. Gah!
Ah well, can’t undo what’s done been done. So, movin’ right along.
January 13, 2009 at 4:49 pm · Filed under Living Green
OK, so perhaps there isn’t really such a thing, as all computers take power to run, and when we dispose of them, even for recycling, it’s often some destitute stranger in a strange land who is disassembling them with little in the way of protection from the nasty inside.
However, that’s way, way beyond the scope of this post.
You can make your computing a little friendlier to the planet, though, with a program like Edison from Verdiem.
Edison is essentially a simplified power management application for your computer. You tell it what hours are your “work” hours and your “non-work” hours, and how it should manage the PC during that time (e.g. turning off the monitor, stopping the hard drive, or putting the computer into standby). In return, it calculates your estimated energy savings and reduced carbon emissions.
Mine is set pretty moderately, only going into full standby during the wee small hours of the morning.
Estimated annual savings? 631 pounds of CO2 and $50 off the power bill.
Doesn’t sound like a lot, but that’s an extra pint of beer each month.
Mmm, saving the planet and drinking more beer. Sounds like a winner to me.
January 12, 2009 at 5:11 pm · Filed under Live More Simply
As part of an ongoing effort to de-clutter and simplify our house, I began to review the many books in my library to see which ones I would be willing to send on to someone or somewhere else (typically Goodwill, or perhaps a friend who I thought might enjoy it). I don’t have an exorbitant number of books on the shelves, but certainly more than I will ever read again, or that I have found influential or inspirational enough to keep around for any reason other than “books are good things.”
As part of the process, I also wanted to find some new way to pass them along. Goodwill is fine, but feels like I am giving them my problem to solve. Once upon a time, we peddled them here and there on Amazon, but the few bucks we made hardly made it worth our time, and keeping boxes of books we no longer wanted sitting around the house for months at a time seemed to defeat the purpose of getting rid of clutter.
That’s when I found BookMooch.
BookMooch is a community for exchanging used books.
BookMooch lets you give away books you no longer need in exchange for books you really want.
That about sums it up.
You post the books you’re willing to send to others. You browse the books you’d like to receive. And then everyone takes advantage of cheap media mail to send books to new owners all over the world (or just in your own country if you’re being rather cheap like I am).
If they want to read it, great. If they want to try to sell it, fine; let it clutter up their place and not mine. In exchange, I get points to mooch the books I would like to read… then lather, rinse, repeat.
Sure, it costs a few bucks to send the books to others, but then I pay nothing for others to send to me - end result: I get books I want for $2-3 each without spending hours and hours at a used book store.
Check it out.
Update: Being the father of three kids all under the age of six, I find myself tripping over a toy every other step in this house. Thus, consider me pleased to stumble upon Zwaggle… sort of a Book Mooch for kids’ toys. Of course, the only problem is that I don’t want more useless toys replacing the already useless toys, but with some selective zwaggling (if that’s a word), it could be good.
January 10, 2009 at 2:42 pm · Filed under Fitness and Exercise, Personal Goals
It’s been a long two weeks of resting the right foot, icing it a few times a day, and dropping Ibuprofen like some sort of junkie (although in the last week, I upgraded with a prescription from the doc for a better NSAID with a side-effects and hazards list three pages long - rock on).
However, I think I am just about ready to get out on the road to run again. I’m walking without pain now, with only minor stiffness in the morning (ba-dum-dum).
As a reward for not doing anything too stupid while injured (yet), I ordered the Garmin Forerunner 50 Bundle from Costco, as they currently have a $50 instant rebate. For $80 and change, you get the Forerunner 50 watch, heart rate monitor, and inertial foot pod for measuring distance/pace/cadence/etc. Seemed like a good deal to me, and until their GPS versions shrink and improve (not just one or the other), it’s about all I was willing to spend.
So, with any luck, on Tuesday I will begin training anew for the marathon, with my eye still on the Anchorage Mayor’s Marathon, although I checked out the cost of hotel rooms in Anchorage and nearly died from sticker shock. Ah well, plenty of time to start saving up!
December 31, 2008 at 5:58 pm · Filed under Fitness and Exercise, Personal Goals
I am a runner.
I never thought I would type a sentence like that, at least those words in that order, as I often type sentences that involve personal pronouns, verbs, and nouns.
Even once I was hooked on working out, lifting weights three to four days a week and doing cardio another three days, I avoided running; I stuck to the elliptical trainer, the stair climber, the stationary bike. Running, after all, looked hard.
That all changed back in August of this year (which has another 6.5 hours left in it), when I volunteered to be part of my company’s race team in a local charity 5K race. I had no idea how I would do, but I figured I was in the best shape of my life, so it wouldn’t kill me. I turned in a time of 32 minutes and change, which - yes - was a full fifteen minutes behind the winner, but I was happy just to have finished the race (and, even then, I finished in the top 25%).
I was also hooked.
I entered another 5K race a month later, ran a 28:42 time, and then got this crazy idea: I wanted to run a marathon. Three point one miles… twenty-six point two miles… how different could they be? I set my sights on the San Diego Rock ‘n’ Roll Marathon on May 31, 2009.
I checked out some books from the library* and started training. Things went well for the first four weeks or so, until after a 10-mile run I developed extensor tendinitis, most likely from my shoes being laced too tightly. I got checked for stress fractures as well, but came up with all bones intact.
Just to be safe, I chose to get fitted for new shoes as well, and paid a visit to the Boulder Running Company. I did a video gait analysis with one of their sales staff, and we settled on the Brooks Addiction 7.
Once the injury healed (thanks to Javier for the “dunk your foot in ice water” tip), I used the new shoes for about a week, putting thirteen or so miles on them, when I developed extensor tendinitis again, this time further down my foot where the tendon hooks onto the toe bones. The problem with running shoes is that you don’t know if they’re the perfect shoe until it’s too late to return them.
So, a trip back to the Boulder Running Company, where I worked with a different, older (and probably more experienced) salesman, who listened to my tales of foot maladies and shoes gone bad, and worked with me for probably 45 minutes to find a good compromise shoe… one that wasn’t as quick to wear out as the original pair, but not as rigid as the Addictions.
In the end, I walked out with a pair of Brooks Adrenaline - and the best part is that the store took the other shoes back, even with the outdoor mileage on them, some mud stains, and the bugaboos from my sweaty feet. I highly, highly recommend The Boulder Running Company if you’re in the Denver metro area - it’s worth the drive. Let me say it again:
I highly, highly recommend The Boulder Running Company. They will have my running business for years (assuming I stop injuring myself).
I’m not able to test them out yet, as I still have my foot pain. I am icing it daily, doping myself up on ibuprofen, and taking off my shoes whenever possible. I hope to be able to get a run in on the weekend.
Anyway, that was a really long-winded way of getting to my main point: running kicks ass.
No elliptical trainer session will rival the feeling of being in “the zone,” where your legs seem to move with little effort and your mind is clear and everything feels right in the world for at least that point in time. No stationary bike is going to let you explore new paths and interesting routes for getting in your miles. No stair climbing machine is going to top the feeling of crossing a finish line, of what once seemed an impossible distance, be it a 5K, marathon, or more.
I’ve now got my eye on the Anchorage marathon in June. I used to live in Alaska as a child, and I look forward to seeing how things have changed, or how I just remember everything in ways unimaginably wrong.
I also look forward to crossing the finish line, receiving the finisher’s medal, and knowing I’ve done something so difficult that most people would never even try… maybe, someday, when they have exciting elliptical trainer races the world over, I will go that route, but for now…
I am a runner.
* I recommend Galloway’s Book on Running,Marathon… You Can Do It!, as well as The Non-Runner’s Marathon Trainer.
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