Sofa Time

We spent an outstanding amount of time on the couch this weekend.  Steve and I rarely have that luxury.  One of us is always traveling, working, racing, training, fundraising, mentoring or volunteering.  There's precious little time to hang out and relax.  It wears on both of us; Steve tends to get little colds and I just get grumpy.

This weekend it rained a bit on Friday and it was windy on Saturday; therefore, neither one of trained.  Yes, I know.  I'm a delicate flower who won't train unless the weather is perfect.  Whatever, it was time on the couch.

The couch has become the couch of controversy.  We're trying to figure out who's furniture to keep since Steve is letting go of his place and moving into our house. (Did you notice how I slipped that in there all subtle-like?)  We're in the midst of trying to decide how to put our two households into one little bungalow.

Unrelated - the photo is some flowers that are on the dining room table.  Have you ever seen roses a more spectacular color?

Hot 100 Week 8 - Talking Turkey Edition

It's weekly check-in time with South Beach Steve's Hot 100.

Weekly Goals

Goal				Result
No wheat or potatoes Sunday – Thursday.				Done. Luckily Thursday was Thanksgiving.  Then it all fell apart.
Hill or Interval training every week.				Done!
Each week do 2 sessions each of Upper Body and Core.				Done!
Year End Goals
Goal				Result
Prepare to run a personal best at either the San Antonio or Las Vegas Half Marathon.				Ready or not...the race is Sunday.
Lose 15 lbs (bumped up from 10)				Gained .2 pounds. That's point two.  That's nothing in the grand scheme of things and yet I let it completely frustrate and derail me. I was a chowin' down machine through Sunday. It was plain bad luck that I got off course on a four day Thanksgiving weekend. Ah well.  Back to giving it 100% effort.

Return of the Pie Snatchers

I went to Costco twice the day before Thanksgiving.  On its best day, Costco isn't the place to see a live enactment of peace on Earth and goodwill toward all men.  Have you seen the pushing to get that last sample of beef jerky?  Costco is Thunderdome.

At 3 o'clock Steve called and said we should bring pumpkin pie for the dinner we're attending.  Normally I'd bake my own pies, but we needed pie ASAP. During my morning trip to Costco they had pallets full o' pie.  By the 3 pm there was no pie, but an amazingly long line of people waiting for pies.  I actually took a bunch of photos because I thought it was so funny.

That's when it all started going to H-E-double-hockey sticks.  People started to try cutting into line by sneaking through other aisles.  If you want to get a Costco crowd violent, try budding in the pie line.  I finally had to say that I had photos and I could verify who had been in line and who had not.  That ended that skirmish.

The guy in front of me said he was going to buy all the pies and resell them at a profit. Seriously.  I'm in line behind a dude who's business plan is forming a pie monopoly and becoming Opie the Pumpkin Lord.  That was solved when a Costco employee said there was a two pie limit.  There would be not Pie DeBeers.

I finally got my two pies, plopped them in my cart and started the grindingly slow salmon-upstream trek toward the checkout line.  Why, oh why are they sampling hot soup today?  That takes people forever to sample and I'll never get out of this store.

While I was waiting for a clear path, I saw a lady try to take a pie from someone else's cart.  (Hey, if you abandon your cart mid-aisle to get a sample, this is going to happen.)  That's what we're reduced to...pie snatching.  I used an empty fabric softener box to build a Pie Defender™.  That way no one could distract me and steal my pies.

Hot 100 Week 8 - Slow Roasted Edition

It's weekly check-in time with South Beach Steve's Hot 100.  This wasn't my best week, but I was in a sort of recovery week from the San Antonio race.  I was more mentally fatigued than physically burned out.  I skipped my Thursday night swim just because I didn't feel up to doing it.

Weekly Goals

Goal				Result
No wheat or potatoes Sunday – Thursday.				Done.
Hill or Interval training every week.				Nope.  I really need to get serious about hill running.
Each week do 2 sessions each of Upper Body and Core.				I was sort of off my game here.  Workouts were definitely lower intensity.
Year End Goals
Goal				Result
Prepare to run a personal best at either the San Antonio or Las Vegas Half Marathon.				Had a nice run on Saturday.  I'm ready for Las Vegas.
Lose 15 lbs (bumped up from 10)				Another pound gone.  Total loss - 9.6.

Best Parenthetical Comment Ever

(dietitians have now proven, in laboratory experiments, that high-fructose corn syrup is the the sweat of Satan).

Martha Beck, PhD