An accident waiting to happen

First snow of the season has hit Denver. It is one of those sloshy wet ones that just makes things wet and heavy.

I don’t know about other places, but snow brings out the impatient idiot in drivers.  I can handle driving in tule fog and double clutch San Francisco hills, but I do suck at snow driving mainly because my aging 1994 Mitsubichi Eclipse lacks defrost and good tires.  When driving proper vehicles, I don’t have trouble.

Today, however, I couldn’t take an idiot driver provoked snow day because of a lab mid-term. I bundled my homework and computer into a rolling piece of luggage and walked to my nearby bus stop.

The crossing to get to the bus pad is one which doesn’t require its own button to be activated but is automatic when easy/west traffic is the through traffic.  Today, idiots trying to left turn across the oncoming west bound traffic didn’t take into consideration that there was a 5’10″ body clad in light blue dragging a piece of rolling flowered luggage in the crosswalk/zebra-crossing!!!

Yep – I was tapped by a woman in a huge SUV who waived apology before driving on! A Mercedes SUV swerved around her and nearly hit my bag – which contains my computer.  He flipped me off and the arse who nearly hit the first SUV honked his Porche SUV horn and flipped me off.

I was standing watching this happen!

And people wonder why I take public transport and train indoors during foul weather?!

There are mornings I feel like a bag lady … with great taste in bags!

Yesterday was an odd night at the gym. When I am walking on a treadmill, I tend to hold on in sort of a push up position that puts a lot of stress on my wrists. When I haven’t done this, I tend to pick up my paws and run. Last night, my wrists gave out long before my legs did.

I woke up this morning and packed a bag for after school at the gym plus a bag for at school with my own bands to do some abductor and adductor work with plus my rolling school bag to research two papers.

I was quite a sight clunking down the stairs. Bailey didn’t bother to even leave the balcony as she is out there sniffing out the snow.  I didn’t have the heart to tell her that it is supposed to rain first.

Last night, I had to remember to cover the sofa I now have on the balcony as well as some of my training gear out there.

Back on bags. I guess somewhere along the line I decided that I like bags that are useful and fun. I do have basic black luggage, but it has an apricot stripe down it. When I was travelling for a lot of races, I discovered the Olympia company not only made well constructed bags but their wheel systems ROCK! I also have been able to pick up their products at Ross Dress For Less. Sure they are previous year models – do I care? Remember – this is the person who wears banana yellow running shoes most of the time! My school rolling bag is one of theirs and it is amazing.

I am not going to fib, however. Last time I was at one of my nearby Ross stores, there was a beautiful bit of brown leather luggage that I fell in love with – both sides of my personality: flamboyant and colorful & western and comfortably weathered.

I am about 20 minutes “late” on the train and it is near empty – which is a good thing as I have my rolling bag and more open gym gear bag. Unfortunately, a gentleman decided to sit behind me wearing a perfume that is making my eyes water.  Can’t have everything.

The things you notice when you pay attention …

I drove on to campus today as I have a handful of things I need to do once I get done. One of the big things is to log some treadmill miles.

In a previous post, I noted that I am using the program My Fitness Pal to assist me in becoming cognizant of my calorie expenditures. I have done this off and on for a while, but since I am finally taking things seriously, I am spending more time with it.  What I like about the program is when you save you can save as “done for the day” and it will let me know  (in unfriendly red) if I have consumed too few calories for my expenditure and that I can drop into starvation. With my history, I need the reminder in flashing letters!

I started to notice that I truly don’t feel like eating when I am studying at home. Doesn’t matter how much I have exercised, I just get distracted with trying to understand the concepts I am learning.

In the realm of exercising, I only tend to write in off the books exercising and omit my strength & stretching class, yoga, weights, and wandering with Bailey. I also omit when I do an exercise tape at home! 

When I noticed this trend last week, Coach Coop got a giggle out of this and said “Lizzy!!! It all counts with weight loss!” Yeah, I know!

How I noticed it was when I decided to log in the calories for the hour Hatha Yoga class I did on campus. I am making up yoga classes, so I was wondering the expenditure. When I logged it I realized I was in negative calorie flow. This is NOT good for a lot of reasons, but not least of which I have been training myself to live on restricted calories to get the metabolism going. (Easiest way to explain it.)

I started fishing about in my bag for a Boost saying ‘Oh S$%t! Coop is going to kill me! ” When I got to weights, I was still way low and he tossed me a Luna Protein Bar (actually pretty good) and I was able to snarf another Boost to get me to a decent level but not for any workout.

So – I am learning. This weekend, I wanted to do 8km, but didn’t feel like eating anything. I kept my calories right and took Bailey for a walk. 

The photo is from the Auraria Library where I am sipping coffee, water and snarfing a bagel before class … a class where we are exercising and I know I won’t “count” or quantify those calories because of the short duration.

Everything counts — in/out; positive/negative. It is a balance.

More Thoughts on Kicks

If you want someone to blame for my blathering on kicks, blame Ollie. (Froggy says he is the best to blame because he takes it so well! Could be due to his spending so much time in the Maths & Sciences Building of that university he plays at! )

So – not only have my beloved T6/T7 Brooks gone through a change, but apparently my feet have also. Coach Coop wasn’t surprised, but I sure as heck have been.

Up to this point, I have happily bounded into my Runner’s Roost on Colorado Blvd. or Boulder Running Company on Arapahoe, picked up my kicks in a men’s size 11 and waddled out the door. Recently, my feet have begun to change … for the shorter!

I know that different shoes have slightly different sizing structures. My Mom-mee taught me to always try things on and never assume even the same brand fits exactly the same way. This being said, the oddest thing happened at the Denver Rock & Roll race.

I know I still have to write up my reviews,  but at Virginia Beach & San Jose, I wore my New Balance 1400′s.  These are the shoes that I am/was contemplating replacing my Brooks with.  They fit pretty well, but my feet sweat so badly that I dislodged the neopreme pad on my orthodics, exposing the carbon fiber heel cup in Virginia Beach.  In San Jose, I used my other orthodics, but had a problem with my feet slipping forward anyway.

Yes I did use the “coach’s tie” to pop my heel back into the somewhat unfamiliar Achilles Tendon padding. My feet slipped anyway.  This wasn’t the case when I tried the shoes on in Sacramento.

I have been noticing my feet slipping with nearly every step of my daily wear, banana yellow Sauccony Fast Twitch kicks. It is a new development in these – along with the shoe coming untied!

So – since I had a comfy and relatively new pair of Brooks T6′s in my closet I used them for Denver with my everyday orthodics. Should have been cake, right? Familiar and comfy.

Uh – no.

From the first mile on, I noticed my feet were slipping in my favorites. I was really distracted by it. I am making form changes (dumping bad habits), so I am really cognizant to changes. 

I pulled over and used a stretching break to, for the first time use a coach’s tie to try to hold my foot back. It was then that I noticed that my feet looked …. smaller.

Hu?

My mind wandered to my trial pairs of Addidas and K-Swiss flats which are between a half and full size smaller than what I am used to.  As I type this on the train, I look at my Fast Twitch shoes and see my toes sliding forward.

I have been doing exercises to maintain my high arches, but am I losing fat off my feet? Donno. Interesting mystery to ponder.

But now, I have to hop off the train and hit the library before class.

What is it with creaky feets? A thought on Libraries.

So, I was dropped off at the library as I really need to get my head wrapped around my anatomy & physiology test tomorrow when I realized I was …. creaking.

Maybe creaking is the wrong sound: creek/sploosh is more like it!

I have been 47 for a week and I am creek/squeak/splooshing my way through the upstairs of the Auraria Library. Not only that, but I am rolling my flowery bookbag (part of the extensive Lizzy Luggage Collection) through and the wheels make a soft rolling and clicking sound. I am impressed with this poor bag. It carries my thicker binders and books – so much for paperless society!

As I was roll/click/creek/squeak/splooshing along toward the tables by the far windows, I thought about how I have always felt comfortable in libraries.

My all time favorite was probably the Tiburon branch of the Marin County Public Library. It was probably the size of my apartment and in a little strip “mall” between the Tiburon Post Office, a real estate agent and the Home Savings & Loan. Mom would go to the post office, do grocery, or banking and know I was safely dropped off at the library. I quietly read my way through the children’s section and looked at the glossy covers of other areas.  I never heard stories there, but I did luck out when local celebrity Mrs. Terwilliger was in there and spent time sharing her love of nature with a little girl who still holds her in awe inspired reverence.

When I was in elementary school I was the youngest Junior Librarian. I knew how books were filed by the Dewey Decimal System and could fly through a card catalog rack to find just about anything. A pretty impressive feat since my being painfully nearsighted wasn’t diagnosed until I was 14 and my dyslexia was not something to be talked about!

Maybe having to figure out cross-referencing on the fly is part of why I can figure several ways (some really unusual) to find information.  Hummmmm.

I remember head librarians shushing talkers and unleashing Evil Eyes or the Wrath of Dictionopolis on those who contemplated eating, drinking, or visibly chewing gum in the hallowed halls of books.

Even when I was at Santa Rosa Junior College, my skills at sneaking my perpetual cup of coffee and snacks into the library were pressed into service in 1989. I always clean up after myself.  If I didn’t that would incur the wrath of Mom-mee …. and that would be bad!

At SFSU, I lived in the 4th floor master’s thesis section. My bookbag always weighted a ton and had bottles of water in it.  As I recal, a couple of years after I got there, 1996?, they opened a 24 hour study and computer center. Really smart move.  My cats, Miss Riggs & Miss Murtaugh, weren’t thrilled when I left radio and spent a lot of time in the study center, but they did make it so you could have snacks in the non-computer section.

I know that I saw coffee shops near college libraries before I moved to Colorado,  but it wasn’t until I got to the Auraria Campus Library. This library is for Community College of Denver, Metropolitan State College of Denver & University of Colorado at Denver. Not the greatest, but not completely terrible.

This library is small, but has map sections, computer lab stations, microfilm, research documents, books, copy center, and a smattering of homeless folks (we are a downtown library). The downstairs is the “talking” section and upstairs the quiet section requesting people to cell phone chat downstairs.  Interestingly enough, for the most part, students abide by this!

Downstairs they have transferred a whole wing into a group study area with places for tutors. Pretty cool, actually.

When they built the building, I bet they didn’t think about how many electrical outlets they would need. Tables by outlets are prized. Maybe one of the things that they are working on is electrical. I don’t know, but I know that I bring my travel extension plug set when I do need plugs to help out others.

So, with my cup of coffee in one hand, water bottle & snacks in my bag happily rolling on the floor, and in my squeaky, splooshy, creaky yellow kicks — I arrived at a free table overlooking Saint Elisabeth’s of Hungary.

Smile.

Ready to study for my A&P 2 test …. until I realized I grabbed the wrong binder. Erfff!! I need to have Miss Bailey Boo pack my school bag.

Creak – Sploosh – Squeak – Roll – Swoosh – Clink/Clank. Back through the library to the train station

Oh Bother!