Timing is Everything

Tonight I relax yet again on the couch. It has definitely one of those weeks. Sunday started with a really long walk through Springdale, which my Garmin confirmed it was also an abnormally slow walk.

Monday morning proved that I was indeed ill. Then Tuesday, despite my coworkers urging, I went to my softball game. I totally bruised and battered my knees when I bit the dust running to first that night. Between the cold and hurt knees, my Building Steam group walk/jog was out of the question on Wednesday.

Oddly enough, it's turned out to be pretty good timing. I had been planning to ask the trainer at the RiverPlex about my sore hip when I went down for Building Steam. The upside to being sick and killing my knees was that I haven't been walk/jogging, so my hip is feeling much better.

I'm hoping to ease back into things this weekend with some walking. If the weather is good, I'd really like to play some frisbee golf... anyone up for that?

I made it all winter...

So, I managed to make it all winter without giving in to the cold. I may have had a touch of the flu during a couple days here or there, but the cold bug never got me.

For the last week I've been telling myself I just have allergies. Then this weekend my voice started to get all scratchy from all my coughing. I kept pushing through my walk-jogs, but tonight I hit a wall. I'm currently on the couch, under a blanket with a cat on my feet... head is foggy, nose stuffy and throat sore. WHAT GIVES?!?!!!

I'm keeping my fingers that with this evening of rest I'll wake up recharged and ready to go in the morning. I really don't want to get sick!

New Toy for the Walk-Jogs

In order to make my walk-jogging more fun, I bought a Garmin Forerunner 305. It's a super cool watch that includes GPS and a program to log your journey's on your computer. Despite the gross weather this evening, I had to try it out.

Here's my course for this evening through Springdale.
I used the lap setting on the watch to mark when I walked and when I jogged. I was able to determine that my walking pace is about 3.7 mph and my jog floats somewhere between 4.5 and 5.0 mph with a blistering max speed of 5.4. Hey, you gotta start somewhere, right?

Now the chart below is pretty neat. It shows my pace. The upward spikes are the stop/pauses against my will for crossing streets or Sparky potty breaks. The program has a pace grid and I can see my fastest paces officially are in the category of a slow jog... this makes me happy. Go ahead, just try to walk faster than me!
I think this Building Steam program is just the motivation I needed... I'd like to give a special thanks to Naomi for the invite, many thanks to Tom for the Warrior Dash goal, and thanks to anyone else that puts up with my talking about my walk-jog adventures.

Carrying Cash

I rarely pay for anything with cash. The main reason is so I can earn points on my credit card towards a plane ticket somewhere, usually Denver :)

I've been in charge of signing my softball team up this year and have been keeping the cash they give me and then paying the park district with my credit card. My parents were even nice enough to let me "pay for" their new kitchen counter tops.

I didn't make it to the bank this week to deposit the cash I had sitting at home, so when I went to pick up lunch from my favorite Chinese restaurant, China Express, I decided to pay in cash since it was only $5.50.

Now... this is what is currently bothering me and another reason why I don't usually carry/pay with cash. As I was pulling out money to pay, I was pretty sure I handed him a 5 and 1. Fully expecting to get just change back I put my wallet back in my pocket.

I'll admit I was a bit in space cadet mode, and when I looked up to grab my change, he handed me 15 dollars and change. I can only imagine what my face looked like. I'm still perplexed as to whether I gave him 6 or 21 dollars. I wish I could have an instant replay or a rewind the DVR in my head.

I truly don't know if I got the right change back or too much back. Checking the contents of my wallet didn't help anything because I don't have a clue what I started with.

Just trying to get this off my mind.

Happy Friday!