Friday, February 29, 2008

Book Club Run

I know it's probably a bad idea, but I feel the need to tell you about it. Book club is tonight. Normally I drive all the way back to the East Side, walk Lula and then Louie would come home and she wouldn't be alone for all that long. Now that Louie is gone, and I live alone, it doesn't seem fair to leave Lula alone all day, then get a quick walk, only to be left alone all night, not to mention the fact that I'm driving a ridiculous amount extra because of book club that I almost quit because of some personality conflicts.

So today I brought Lula to work with me. I work in an incredibly dog friendly environment given the other circumstances, so yeah, I get to bring my dog pretty much whenever I need to, but I can't bring her every day. Anyway, I brought Lula and I brought my running clothes. We went for a run, and I'm going to straight from work to book club. Now here's the part where I get judged. And Lula is going to sit in the car... Yeah. I know! But I've done it before and she's fine. She is exhausted at the moment because we just went for a long run and I think I deserve a night with the book ladies drinking wine, eating cheese without driving an extra 30 miles to do it.

I guess what I'm trying to say is I need a mid day dog walker.

2/29/08 - 2.86 miles

Thursday, February 28, 2008

The Guantlet

My usual route was ridiculous tonight, I was dodging cars and kids and bicycles and where there is normally only one dirty dog cart there were two competing dirty dog carts that made me incredibly sad I was running and not on a dirty dog mission. That said, it was a pretty excellent run.

2/28/08 - 2.1 miles
5 sets lunges

Jiggle

My run last night was a little painful. I hadn't gone for a run in 7 days, but it felt like I hadn't ever run before in my life. The jiggle. Oh, the jiggle. Thankfully after about a half mile everything seemed to tighten up and I was able to think about something other than my ass.

2/27/08 - 2.1 miles

Thursday, February 21, 2008

2 Runs, 2 miles, 2 Days

I don't talk about what I do for a living, mostly because while I enjoy it, and it has some definite perks, it's one of the many ways I get to keep a bit of privacy in my offline life. That said, there's a big awards show on Sunday that I'm working on, and it's stressful. So I need to run. Lula needs to run. Last night I almost convinced myself I was too sick to run, but the look on Lula's little face when I got home, and the partially shredded quilt on my bed, made me change my mind.

I think it was wamez who told me one isn't supposed to run while sick because it lowers the immune system, but I had to do it anyway. It felt great.

2/19/08 - 2.1

2/20/08 - 2.1
5 sets lunges.

Saturday, February 16, 2008

Run, Lula, Run!

She really seems to have a great time on our runs. Me? Not so much. My right hip has really started to bother me and I think if it keeps up another week or so I need to get it checked out. I hate that I have just enough insurance to stay afloat, not enough to technically cover this kind of thing. Lame. Literally.

2/15/08 - 2 miles

5 sets lunges
1 set of my crazy trainer's sit-ups

Tuesday, February 12, 2008

Reward

Have I mentioned I've been working a lot? 10 to 12 hour days? Poor Lula has had to hold it for 12 hours so I felt like had to go for a run with her. Running for dogs is a reward not a punishment, funny that.

2 miles

5 sets lunges
40 sit-ups.

Monday, February 11, 2008

She loves dumbbells

I worked just under 12 hours yesterday. Got home at 8:30PM to a very desperate dog, and decided that fear of my neighborhood be damned, I needed to give Lula a run for her money. We did two fast miles and then when I got back to the apartment to do my arm exercises with free weights, Lula hilariously thought the dumbbells were toys. Watching a 25lb. dog try to hold a 5lb. dumbbell in her mouth was worth the price of admission, that's for sure.

2 miles
3 sets arms
4 sets push-ups

Saturday, February 09, 2008

The things in your neighborhood, just your typical Saturday night

We had a major deadline this morning that kept me at work from 7:30AM to 10:30PM yesterday, so I didn't get a run in last night. It was disappointing, especially since I had the requisite stress meal of a Whopper with cheese, French fries and to cancel all that out, a Diet Coke.

So I worked this morning and came home, read my trashy book on Mary Kay Letourneau, and took a three hour nap interrupted by the happenings on my crazy ass street. At one point I think I heard my landlord chasing some people off our front steps. How they got in our gate to sleep on our steps, I have no idea.

I woke up and needed a run. I didn't expect to see people passed out on the steps of the building two doors down, much less a couple of people handcuffed and being patted down by police one block over and two blocks down. I ran down 3rd street for a block before I had to abandon that idea. I was the only person in a sea of humanity moving faster than a snails pace and at one point, I was surrounded by tiny Central American men, they were trying to move out of my way, I was merely trying to move, and Lula was trying to get tangled up with a meter, a telephone pole and clearly distressed by the amount of obstacles she was being met with. Not the least of which the constant temptation to eat the errant chicken bones in the street. Twice I had to shove my hand in her mouth and pull out a chicken bone. If that doesn't make for an exciting run, I don't know what would. It's all a matter of perception, those things didn't make me feel unsafe. They just make me feel like I'm living in Los Angeles. I was just happy the cops didn't appear to be shooting anyone or beating them with billy clubs.

2.3 miles

One set of my old trainers crazy sit-up routine
5 sets lunges.

Thursday, February 07, 2008

Finally!

I'm a little ashamed to admit that I've been nervous about running in my new neighborhood. It's not so much nervous for my safety, but more because I don't really know the area very well and when I don't know something I get uncomfortable. But I left Lula home for the first time since I moved into the new place, and I figured she deserved to go for a run and I definitely needed to get some tension out of my shoulders so I put my brave face on and a warm brightly colored fleece and did some running. It felt great. I think I need to put about 20 miles inot a neighborhood before I feel really comfortable, but this was a good start.

2/7/08 - 2.44 miles

4 sets of lunges
3 sets of my 3 arm exercises
40 sit-ups