My Favorite Time of Year...

Fall is my favorite time of year. The summer warmth has dissipated. Cooler temperatures that call out for the sweaters and light jackets. Images of pumpkins, falling leaves and the landscape turning colorful hues of orange, red, and yellow come to mind.  It’s a time to get and take long meandering walks to enjoy the colorful landscape.  My absolute favorite holiday occurs this time of year—HALLOWEEN! Fall also contains Thanksgiving; which is my second favorite holiday. The only thing I don’t like about Fall is that it’s a signal the arrival ending of cycling season. Darn it! But I guess you can’t have it all.

Halloween Bike Ride- An 2' x 4' Oil Painting I did a few years ago.

For me this season, heralds a time of year to slow down a bit and reflect. But it seems as though, this year the colors haven’t quite stepped in like they usually do. Maybe it’s me “jumping the gun” in anticipating Fall ahead of schedule. After all, today is only the first day of Autumn according to my desk calendar. I tell you I am looking forward to some of that slowing and reflection time. I feel like most of the summer it’s been run, run, run, AND I’m so ready to SL-OOOWWW down.

 

I will say part of that run, run, run is self-induced. It seems as though I’m always trying to do too much. Why do we always seem to do that to ourselves? I know my limits like anyone else but I always seem to be striving to be a Super Hero Human. Then, I feel a bit deflated when I realize I’m not super in anyway and just an everyday ho-hum-drum human. I’ll have to leave the bounding a building in a single leap to someone else and that might be best considering my fear of heights.



Speaking of running, I’m thinking that I may be do for a new pair of running shoes. Now, talk about run, run, run that's self-induced!  But in anticaption of doing more running indoors on the "dredmill".  I've been thinking.  It’s been about a year since I bought the last pair. I’ve been averaging about 25 miles a month and they probably have close to 300 miles on them. Once I was told that you should get new pair of shoes about every 350 miles of running. But I always wonder if that’s really true or if it’s just one of those sales gimmicks.  But I would like to shop around and find a new pair so possibly I could use that as an excuse?  Yeah, that works!

P.S. I'm up one more pound this week.  The night time bike rides have been cut short due to earlier sunset times but I'm still eating the same amount of calories.  Time to pay closer attention to that equation.  Exercise Less = Eat Less Should be the new equation.

A Question of Sanity & An Update

It’s pouring rain outside this afternoon and I’m sitting at my desk at work. I’m staring outside watching our lawn guy mow the grass. And I can’t help but wonder at what point is a person considered insane or at the least eccentric?

It seems that the worse the weather is our lawn guy shows up to mow the lawn. I guess it’s a good thing we are not in tornado alley of the country. I can just imagine the wind whirling around him as he walks the mower along. Dorothy and Toto would have nothing on Marty and the lawnmower! I can imagine—“…I’ll get you my pretty and your weed whacker too!” LOL!


Last summer he even mowed the lawn once at 2AM in the morning. On that occasion he happened to report to the police about teenagers tagging the building across the way. I would have paid anything to see the police’s reaction to his story of…” I’m just out here at 2AM mowing the lawn! Nice night isn’t officer?”


But I will admit he keeps the lawn well maintained. He comes at a cheap price too, or so I’ve heard. AND I will admit, he’s also easy on the eyes. He’s all lean muscle. How can you complain but still it REALLY makes me wonder about his sanity. One of the guys just got back from helping loading a truck out back and complained that it was freezing outside and he was wearing more than our lawn guy, who is clad in a sleeveless muscle t-shirt and shorts. At the very least, I would classify him as a BIT eccentric.


AN UPDATE-
I’m up 1 lb. for the week. That means I’m back to having 9 lbs. to lose to my goal weight. I’ve been snacking at work. There’s been several birthday treats in the office of late. I do admit to getting a bit concerned with the cooler weather starting to approach that I’ll have a harder time losing weight because cycling season will be ending soon.

Some of the night rides that I do regularly have started to be shortened because of the earlier sunset times. I’ve been trying to catch as many of those rides as I am able. It’s just a matter of time when it’ll be just the treadmill and the elliptical machine between me and my weight. Though, I’ll probably throw in some snowshoeing time when the white stuff comes.

My Knees! My Knees!

“My knees are killing me!” It’s like the punch line to a joke but I forgot the joke. This morning, I had to literally roll out of bed because my knees were sore. It rather reminded me of the growing pains I used to get in grade school. I decided to forgo the early morning bike ride and take it easy today.
What led to this knee pain? Well, I think it was a series of things, maybe…

Friday night, I ran a 5K Fun Run at a local church festival after work. I must admit I pushed it a bit. But I was very happy when I saw my time of 31 minutes 44 seconds. WOW, that’s almost 4 whole minutes off my last 5K run!

Saturday, I took a bike ride to scout out some porches for my 100 Salt Lake City Art Project. I didn’t push it but I DID do some climbing on some steep streets.

The Quaking Aspen trees along the upper American Fork/Alpine Loop Climb.

Sunday morning, I lead an American Fork Canyon- Alpine Loop bike ride which was two hours of climbing and a quick CHILLY decent of 30 minutes. The scenery was beautiful though I was hoping there would have been more Fall color. It’ll probably be another 1 to 2 weeks and it’ll be the height of Fall color.


But I’m hoping that it’s the combination of all of the above that lead to my knees being in pain today. That or I’ll have to start narrowing down what’s happening and I sometimes really hate to do that.  But the good news in all this is that I'm down 1 lb. on my weight.  I only have 8 lbs. till my goal weight!

Cycling Away the Labor Day Weekend

I managed to get in almost 100 miles cycling in this last weekend between three different rides.  The weather was just glorious.  The sun was shining and it was a little cooler than it has been.  It was too nice NOT to be on my bicycle. But the real pretty ride this weekend was lead by a fellow Bonneville Cycling Club cyclist.  She called it Jackie's Fall Fancy and it started in Park City.  It then went by the Jordanelle Reservoir over to Kamas through some lovely little towns with landscapes of horses and red barns.  Then through another canyon and back to Park City.  What a wonderful way to spend part of a day!  Here's some pictures from the bike ride that I took...

A BIG THANKS out to Jackie for leading this wonderful ride!

Henna Tattoo & a Month End...

Now, I can scratch one thing off my Bucket List.  This last Tuesday morning,  I had a henna tattoo applied by Malynda in my home.  I had given her a very rough drawing of sunflowers and a bicycle, and she drew this free hand and came up with an amazing piece of artwork on me.   It was rather amazing thinking of my body underneath and as a part of a piece of art.  I never considered my body to be a possibility of art; which was rather a new concept for me.  One that I may have to explore some more in the future,hmmm?

Let me preface this with a warning-- Not all hennas are created equal!!  ***BLACK HENNA WARNING!!***  If you come across a henna that stains your skin black immediately avoid it.  It probably contains a harmful chemical called PPD(para-phenylenediamine).  PPD is ILLEGAL to use on skin and can cause painful rashes, disfiguring scars, increased allergic reactions to safer black dyes (such as used to dye your clothes), to more serious conditions such as heart failure and life-long illness.

My upper left arm just after application of henna paste.

View of my back with henna paste still on.

The henna goes on with the consistency of black pudding.  Then, you leave it on your skin any where from 4 to 8 hours.  That allows your skin to absorb the coloring from the henna.  I had about 6 hours after Malynda left to sit and let my skin do nothing but absorb.  I was trying not to move or touch anything with those areas of my body.  Oh, did I mention it was my back, left shoulder, and upper left arm?  And I never realized how hard that is not to touch something with those parts of your body when you are trying not to. OMG!  I ended up leaning on my right side and slightly forward on my love seat as I watched a movie and then did some reading on my nook.  At shortly after 5pm, I changed into some cycling clothes and went to ride my Tuesday evening Emigration Canyon ride.  The henna paste was starting to crack and fall off.  I imagine I looked rather yucky during the ride, but the sweat was supposed to help set it in I was told.
 

Henna tattoo the morning after most of the paste was removed.

The henna tattoo on the second day.  It's gotten darker.

And an monthly update....
Weight- I've 9 lbs to go till my goal weight.
100 SLC Porches- I finish #73 & 74 the other night.  I'm right on track!  Check out the project on my other blog- Allgood Art.
Uncluttering my life- I still have a pile in the bedroom that's growing that I'll eventually send to the good will.

Stats for the month...

28 miles running

385 miles biking

3 hours 41 mintues on elliptical

and

read 5 books this month (up to 44 for the year!)