Still jogging!

It's hard to believe, but I have kept up with jogging!!!  Rounding off my 4th month of jogging I feel I might be getting the hang of it, because the first few months sure didn't go as planned.  One thing was for sure, I knew I wanted to do it and I was going to figure it out no matter what I had to go through.  It seems so silly, it should just come naturally but it didn't for me.

In the beginning (ok, couple of months) I experienced extreme leg pains, to the point it was even affecting me when not jogging.  I read every article I could find and they all seemed to provide different information.  But after a while I saw the same pattern, shoes, terrain, and stance.  Well, shoes (Asics Trail Tambora 3) were taken care of for my birthday, and as far as terrain, I do my best to jog in woods, asphalt, or stone paths versus the sidewalk.  But this wasn't enough.

I turned to my stepdad who is an avid jogger and he said I needed to think about compression, wrapping my legs to help with the pain.  Well, I unfortunately don't have time to wrap my legs, see, I squeeze jogging into my schedule twice a week and it can't take up anymore time than it already does.  Then I remembered when researching shin splints and tibia pains, they kept mentioning compression socks or sleeves.  They're expensive but luckily I received an Amazon gift certificate for my birthday and I knew just what to buy.  Being that I order from the UK and have it shipped to The Netherlands you can't always get the exact item you want, so I ended up with men's compression socks - but hey they still do the job.  I love them, from the moment I put them on I knew they were going to help.  Too bad it takes 5 minutes to get them on, they are soooo tight, probably could have gone with the next size up.  Besides the socks I ordered support soles for my shoes but after a couple uses took them out and never thought about them again.  (BTW, I use 2XU Men's Compression Performance Run Socks.)

 

Now that the socks were helping I felt I could start making progress.  Yet still I was experiencing pain while jogging, and I knew this just wasn't how it was supposed to be.  But who is supposed to teach someone that doesn't want to spend the money for a trainer, I'm a beginner and didn't want to invest anymore money than I already had.  I went back to the articles I had read about stance and thought I should just try something different, even if it was for one session.  For some reason it was pounded into my head to jog heel to toe, maybe that's because it's how we walk.  So when these articles said to land on the middle of my foot or even my toe, I thought they were crazy.  But I tried it.  Instant relief, wow!!!  After this point I had already been jogging with injuries, so it took a while for the pain to go away and the muscles to properly start building.  I used to ask everyone, why do I only feel it in my calves and lower legs when I jog, and no one could answer me.  Now that I land midfoot instead of on my heel, I can feel my thighs and abs working, yes!

It's been a couple weeks since I adjusted my stance and I finally feel I am making progress.  The only other thing I had to work on was my playlist.  I had been using a couch to 5K program but since I don't have the time to jog 3 times a week it wasn't working, plus the music sucked and didn't motivate me at all.  I decided I needed my own music but since I still walk & jog in intervals I couldn't just let the music play on, I wanted it to change per activity like the program I had used.  So I searched out an MP3 cutter, and now adjust the songs to the amount of time I want to jog or walk.  It's simple, fast peppy songs mean jog, and slow songs mean walk, I even added a warm up & cool down.  It's been really motivating.  And as I improve I adjust the length of the songs, I trim off walking time and build up jogging time.  I hope to one day be able to jog for at least 20 minutes straight (have to set small goals and be realistic).

Needless to say, I enjoy jogging and pushing myself.  Telling my body to just hold out and keep running because the song will eventually end, ha-ha!  (I'm only up to 3 minutes at a time.)  And besides everything I mentioned above, I still tote my dog along for company and use Endomondo to track my results.

Any of you have any jogging tricks to share?

Bye! Dag! Adios! Namaste!

:) Danica

Argh!

What a day, I guess do to distractions and rushing I managed to make two unusual messes today... I just love wasting my own time!

The first was the dog food mess in our storage room.  When I finally opened our delivery of dog food, I was in a hurry expecting our niece for the night so I wanted to get it out of the way asap.  Assuming (yeah, we all know what that does) that the thick sturdy 33lb (15kg) bag of dog food could handle anything, I tossed it into the corner of the storage room.  What happened... the side burst open of course and food started pouring everywhere.  Always fun to clean up when you're expecting someone at the front door in the next 5 minutes.  As you can see in the pic, I taped up the side of the bag, then ended up scooping up the food with a dust pan and pouring it into the old bag.  Argh!

Then there was the marble cake I promised the kids.  It was doomed from the start.  I had never made one before and to be honest I probably should have read the instructions completely before starting.  As I mixed the batter we all ended up covered in white chunks, including the kitchen.  Even then I could tell something wasn't right with the mix.  Then as I went further, all the while having to stop and deal with the kids I noticed I had completely messed up a step, and to be honest it didn't really mention needing milk but I'm positive box cake batter needs milk (or at least water).  I was just about to put it in the oven when I realized it was time to cook dinner.  This meant the cake would have to bake while we ate, and cross our fingers it would be done before the kids went to bed.  At one point when I checked on it, I saw the batter had spewed out of the cake form and all over the baking paper.  It was a mess but I thought still salvageable.  After dinner we realized there was no way it would be ready in time.  After finally taking it out, I pricked it to see if it was done or not... it deflated, never a good sign.  I tried to get it out of the cake form to cool it, but it just crumbled everywhere.  By this point the kids were in bed, and I had to break the bad news this morning, there would be no cake.  I had to take a pic to prove it to them, looks delicious huh?  Argh!

Any of you have off days?  I mean, c'mon, I messed up a box cake mix!
Oh yeah, sorry for the blurry pics but ever since the last iPhone update I have barely been able to take focused pics, love the new update, argh!

Bye! Dag! Adios! Namaste!

:) Danica

Guard Dog (not!)

Last week, in the middle of the night a sound somewhere in our apartment woke me & the dog up.  Not unusual, but this time my husband was away on business.  We both waited a moment, heard nothing else and fell back asleep.  (And yes, the dog sleeps in our bedroom - on the floor.)  Again about an hour later we heard a sound again, this time it sounded like something in the sink or a basket shifting.  I couldn't place the sound, and neither could my dog (Maggie - Wheaten Terrier).  Since my daughter was in my bed that night (missing Daddy), I didn't feel the need to get up and go check her room.  But when Maggie wouldn't relax I grew a little concerned. 

Normally if she hears a concerning sound she barks and takes off to check the doors (like last night when she nearly gave me a heart attack).  This time she didn't go anywhere, but did occasionally let out a threatening (well, to others) low growl.  But yet she wouldn't leave her little bed.  Now was when I needed her to check the house, and my guard dog (not!) was letting me down. 

If we say, "who's there?" she'll search the apartment... but this time she still wasn't budging.  "C'mon," I complained, "do your job... who's there?"  She at least stood this time, all the while letting out little sounds here or there.  I nearly had to force her to go and check.  It was her reaction that luckily made me laugh and relieve all concern.  Instead of darting off like usual, she nearly crawled to the bedroom door, it was ridiculous.  Others might have been twice as concerned, but I was embarrassed for her and it made me laugh out loud.  She eventually made it to the bedroom door and sniffed around, but she never went and checked the house.  With a chuckle, and a, "thanks," I had to go look around for anything unusual myself.  Luckily, all was well!

Obviously Maggie's a lover not a fighter.  You can see that in the pics of her & her best friend (Joep - Jack Russell.)

 

Bye! Dag! Adios! Namaste!

:) Danica

Changing Charities

After over a year of small monthly donations to the KWF (the Dutch cancer society) we are switching over to another charity organization, Hulphond (Dutch charity for service dogs).  There are so many charities throughout the world, at times it is hard to pick one over the other (donations are also great gift ideas for the holidays).  So, we do our best to spread the donations, at times we change charities per quarter and at times per year.  The KWF was important to us because we have known many people throughout our lifetime with cancer, one of which, my husbands aunt.  After watching her fight with breast cancer we wanted to do our part to help support others with cancer.

But now it's time to switch and coincidentally we ran into collectors who had spent the entire day outside of supermarket with a service dog drumming up new donators.  Knowing someone first hand that uses a service dog helps us to see just what they're capable of doing.  The woman we know is confined to wheelchair with little use of her hands.  The service dog does everything from turning on the water in the sink to pressing the button at the crosswalk.  It is quite amazing.  When speaking to the collector we found out that some dogs can even peel a banana for their owners.  And it's not just wheelchair bound people that need service dogs, the other day at the park we met a middle-aged man who went blind 3 yrs ago and now is dependent on his dog.  This service dog gives this man a chance at living a normal life, at safely leaving the house, and also having a companion.  Being a dog owner and seeing just how much they can do when trained properly, we see the double fold benefit of this charity, we're helping people and animals.

Do any of you support charities?  Is it because of life experiences or just because you want to help out?

Wordless Wednesday #61

Link up here for Wordless Wednesday!

Our curious camera compilation can also be found here...

Losing My Mind

The other day I actually questioned my own sanity... those who know me are probably chuckling, my sanity is generally questionable, ha-ha!  In the parking lot of our apartment building there is a patch of dirt & grass, and a huge tree, this has become my dog's 3rd toilet.  #1 is a dog toilet in the neighborhood for speedy walks, and #2 is a strip of grass about ten minutes from where I live.  Bathroom #3 is used between walks, it's just not always possible to run her to allotted dog toilets.  Anyway, back on subject, in this patch of grass & dirt occasionally flowers pop up, it's spring, it's normal.  But then the flowers disappeared, not so normal.  The first time I noticed the flowers were gone, I thought the wind possibly blew them away or maybe they just fell off, it happens.  (I'm not always fully awake when my dog goes to toilet #3.)  Then the flowers magically came back (magic, yeah).  I convinced myself it's spring they're constantly renewing themselves.  And then they all disappeared again.  For a brief moment I thought I was possibly losing my mind, seeing things, who knows.  I knew at that moment I was going to have to start paying attention, my head is quite busy and focusing takes more effort than for others (if you haven't noticed).  It took me all of two days to see the process happen again and again, and then it dawned on me... deep in the swirling of my brain I remembered science class.  And there are plenty of flowers that open and shut throughout the day, dumb*#!  I snapped some pics so I could look the flower up and of course show it to you, turns out it is a Star of Bethlehem.  That's one less unsolved phenomenon in my life, ha-ha!