Evening update 3

Okay, I'm calling it:


Over 128K runners - which puts me well in the top 15%.

NOW I'm going to bed.

Evening update 2

Oh yeah - our house down-payment account is now open!! I told M a few days ago "The stock symbol has WIN in it - how can we go wrong??" 4.2% of the way to the goal :-)

Evening update

FLDI course (day 1) was great - and I ran into a guy that was in my class year at Hopkins to boot! I had to spend about 45 minutes answering e-mails when I got home though, because I forgot to put my out-of-office message up before I left work yesterday, and I didn't think about it until I was on the metro this morning. And of course there's no free wi-fi at the L'Enfant Plaza Hotel. I did get there at like 7:50am though (and the class itself didn't start until 8:30am; the first 30 minutes were continental breakfast) so I'm definitely sleeping an extra 15 minutes tomorrow and waking up at 6am.

I didn't go to the CakeWrecks event...one issue was timing. I would have gotten into Bethesda at 5:45pm, and it didn't start til 7pm. The other issue was that I had eaten dessert (a delicious chocolate mousse) at lunch and didn't want to be tempted by more sweets (the event had free cake).

I just conducted a banking transaction by chat. We finally have a full 6-month CD ladder at Ally Bank, and our first CD is going to mature in a couple days. I wanted to roll it over and add more money to it, but I couldn't find the CD account number in the "transfer money to account" list. I clicked on the website's "Contact us" button, and one of the options was "Chat with a customer service representative." So I decided to try it, and 'Joshua' set up the transfer for me in about three minutes. Great experience! I'd highly recommend them - they have great rates too.

Getting Chinese food in a bit (M's on his way home now).

Going to see "Arsenic and Old Lace" with Adam and Kristen next Saturday :-D

I guess I need to restart my computer so that the little box will stop popping up at me.

Not early enough

I had thought about going to bed at 10 last night, but we started watching the special on PBS of Bill Cosby getting the Mark Twain Award. It was really good, but I had been led to believe there was more Bill Cosby in it. I ended up going to bed at 11:10. And I've been up for nearly half an hour now.

I'll definitely have to go to bed before 11 tonight.

Still undecided about the CakeWrecks event in Bethesda tonight. I RSVP'd for it, but we'll see.

Off to get dressed and head out to DC!

So tie-tie

I didn't quite realize it at the time, but I had to compress a week's worth of workouts into four consecutive days because of my crazy calendar. So, I went to core/yoga on Saturday, ran on Sunday, swam 400m Monday morning before work (125m total breaststroke and two rests), and biked after work today (17 miles in 55:50 plus a 1K run in 6:57). I'm really feeling physically fatigued now!

And now I get to get up early for the next three days. I have my last Bioethics class tomorrow morning in Bethesda at 8:30am - which requires getting up at 6:30am. And then I have the two-day FDA class in DC Thursday and Friday...and I'll have to LEAVE the house at 6:45am to catch the metro (thus requiring me to get up at 5:45am).

I'm going to need to go to bed early the next couple days. Soooo...gonna go take a shower and get to bed!

Low fat

According to dietary guidelines for my age and weight, I should be eating about 35 grams of fat a day (and only about 10 grams of saturated fat). Maybe I'll just try keeping track of that instead of calories and see how I do. I'm supposed to have my cholesterol rechecked in three months. I was also told that I should be exercising 40 minutes a day, but over the course of a week I already do that:

• S = 40 minute run + 15 minute lifting
• T = 60 minute bike + 10 minute run
• R = 30 minute swim
• F = 60 minute yoga
• S = 90 minute core + yoga

I guess I could add another swim maybe. If I get a permanent position in Frederick, I'll probably also get a membership to the yoga studio because then I can go as much as I want.

What is the difference between the "fat burn" and "cardio" heart rate ranges on the exercise machines at the gym? If I'm in the cardio range (which I always am) does that mean I'm not burning much fat? That doesn't seem logical to me.

I had a headache for most of the day yesterday (started around 1pm). I went to core and yoga in the AM (and did NOT hurt my neck this time) and then to volunteering. Matt took care of my car while I was gone. I had to go over to church to set up for communion service, and by the time I got back I had to lie down for a couple hours. It didn't really go away until sometime during the night while I was asleep. Thank goodness for the extra hour of sleep, which was much enjoyed.

Core was good - but my abs don't hurt. My back was a little stiff this morning though.

Going to run at the gym, and then I need to go grocery shopping and do some cleaning and finish bible study for the week and make dinner.

UPDATE: Got to goal maintenance distance (3.75 miles) in 38:10!

It's the *magnitude* of the change

We in the government are mandated by a DHS directive to obtain more "secure" ID badges by 2011. I got mine this morning. Now, I really liked my old NIH badge photo. Someone in my office even said they thought I looked a little like Reese Witherspoon in it. Unfortunately, they couldn't reuse our old pictures for our new badges because they weren't "compatible" with the new secure process.

My ID picture has now gone from "reminds me of Reese Witherspoon" to "Walmart shoplifter mugshot."

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I really like this: Religion Flowchart. And man, do I love me some bacon. But I finally called my doctor's office about my bloodwork results (turns out they never got them from LabCorp, so they had to call and have them faxed over) and my cholesterol is still borderline high. I hope I don't have to switch religions.

My vitamin D is also a little low, which makes me like a good portion of the population and is easily remedied by an extra vitamin.

Additionally, I have a small spot in my left eye that I think is a pinguecula or a pterygium (it's not entirely clear to me what the difference is). I have an eye doctor appointment in less than two weeks (for the usual stuff too - I need new contact lenses and glasses).

Still not final??

They really should have made a rule that said you had to sync your run within X hours for it to count towards the race. It's been nearly a week and my place still isn't set. I'm currently at 16,394 out of over 128,500 runners.

Swam 850m on Tuesday. Three 150m (finally!) sets of f-f-f-b-b-f (freestyle and breaststroke). 50m backstroke, alternating 100m kickboard with 50m freestroke twice, then 50m more of backstroke.

Finally up to maintenance distance on the bike - did 17 miles yesterday in 56:58, then jogged 1K in 7:13.

Women's banquet is tonight, yoga and volunteering tomorrow.

Hokies' season is basically over.

Yes, I'm rather impatient

I giggled at "Good Night and Tough Luck" - a visual blog entry about insomnia. Not that insomnia itself is funny - I had a terrible bout of it one summer in college. But the blog entry is humorous.

Still no consensus on the race finish - it's currently sitting at an estimated 127,000+ runners and my place is 15,830th. Not shabby, but I want to know the final results!

Redskins are down 27-10 at halftime. Is anyone surprised? I didn't think so.

10K!

I was debating not running the Nike+ Human Race yesterday, since I got out of the conference so late. I made myself do it though, and I'm glad I did.

My official time was 1:08:25 (my iPod said 1:08:33 but I think there were a few extra seconds between when I got to 10K and when I was able to end the run). I'm not exactly sure where my worldwide place is yet - this morning I was at 13,704th but now it says 14,970th 15,081st 15,334th - I guess not everyone had synced as of this morning? I still don't know exactly how many runners either - the Nike+ website is only showing total miles run (currently 787,111) so if you divide that out it's over 126,000 runners. Pretty cool. I'll put up a screenshot in a day or two once I'm confident that I'm reporting my actual place.

Conference is over; very very tired now. Have a busy week this week with the usual - classes, meetings, church stuff. Let's Dish on Tuesday, getting a flu shot on Thursday. Womens' church banquet on Friday. I plan on going to the yoga/core class again on Saturday morning, but NOT doing that particular exercise that set off my neck spasms this time. I'm finally back at volunteering at RFBD this Saturday too!

Matt got us tickets to the VT-NC State game in November, so we're going to Blacksburg to see the McHughs for another weekend. I'm hoping it's an early game so we don't end up freezing our butts off.

Sucks to be a saver

I read this article yesterday about how the decisions made by the government are ruining any incentive to be a saver. It's totally true - our ING accounts are currently at 1.3% interest. It had previously peaked at 4.5% in late 2006 (and coincidentally, so did our balance several months later). Our CDs are only doing a little better, ranging 1.55-2.15% depending on when they were opened (and the earlier ones are about to start rolling over into lower rates). I didn't believe the article about money market funds until I went and looked on the Vanguard website - the year-to-date on their Prime Money Market fund is only 0.51% - and the expense ratio is 0.28%! What's a saver to do? :-(