solar squirrel

Another week has gone by and things are starting off well for 2010.  I managed to run twice last week which is more than I’ve done in several months.  Both times were really slow on the treadmill - but I was running a very controlled gait and concentrating on not allowing my left leg to invert.  (The cause of my IT band problems stems from a crooked left leg).  I applied for individual health insurance and I’m considered ‘high-risk’ because of my IT band problems.  I wanted to just strangle the woman on the phone when she was telling me about why the rate that I received was more than $100 more than I was quoted.  Basically it’s because I am considered a high risk to them all because of my IT band.  Are you kidding me?!  I asked her - well if I”m the highest risk category, then what the heck is someone with cancer, AIDS, heart disease, etc?  She laughed and told me that they would just have denied someone like that.  Nice.  Gotta love health insurance.  Anthem can bite me.  The only way you can fight the system is to just try as best you can to stay healthy and take car of yourself.  Once you are sick there is nothing that you can do and the system won’t go out of their way to assist you in any way.

Here’s my weekly breakdown:

Mon:  Ran 3 miles on treadmill (9:17 pace for first 1/2 mile, then 8:27 pace for the rest).  Foam roller.

Tue:  I can’t remember what I did…I think I did the elliptical for 35 min and then did foam roller.
Wed: Netflix streaming workout videos w/ Katy and Gret.  Bootcamp then abs, thighs, glutes, and torture.  Aprox. 1:20 min total.

Thurs: Ran 3 miles on Treadmill.  9:07 pace for first 1/2 mile then 8:23 pace for the rest.  Foam roller.  Wore IT band brace thing - felt really good.  I think I’ll wear this more often whenever I increase the miles or speed.

Fri:  Slacked
Sat: Trainer ride (50 min).  Foam roller.
Sun:  Not sure if I’m going to get motivated to do anything…we’ll see.

This week I’m going to shoot for 3 days of running.  I’m going to up the mileage to 4 miles for one of the days and keep it at 3 miles the other 2.  That sounds SO LAME but I am determined to take it slow.  Also - these miles are probably going to be on the treadmill, so they sort of don’t even count…but I need a controlled environment.

In other news we bought a salt-water reef tank yesterday.  We took both Todd’s car and mine to the guy’s house who was selling it.  In my car we filled up buckets and garbage bins with the salt water that we siphoned from the tank.  In Todd’s we put the tank inside and the tank base on his roof.  The reason we brought the water is because we could then re-use it for the live rock and the fish (blue tang) that came with the tank.  It took most of the day yesterday.  Here are a few shots of the process:

Containers for the water in my trunk

It was really weird - we had a hose running from inside the guys house (inside of the tank) sucking the water into buckets / containers in my car.

Todd's car w/ the tank base on top

Tank inside Todd's car

Todd putting the live rock and the blue tang in temporary bucket

I’m really excited to get it up and running.  It’s about 150 gallons, so not quite as large as our freshwater tank.  We plan on making it a reef tank - so it’s going to take a lot of $$ to get it going.  (Live rock is EXPENSIVE!!!) I can’t wait to get some really cool shrimp and clown fish and neat corals.  We’re probably going to have to be selective when it comes to the animals that we get (i.e. purchasing tank-bread) since a lot of the fishing/harvesting practices are bad for the environment.  I’m hoping to learn how to breed / grow the coral.  The pieces are called ‘frags’.  It’s SUCH A NEAT HOBBY!!!  I’m also going to have to figure out how to offset the electricity that we’re going to be using since this will require more lighting and unfortunately there aren’t any really good energy efficient (LED) versions of the lights that we need.  If you’re interested in following the process with us I’ve put together tags and categories under ‘reef tank’.

Quick post to say that the new year is already off to a good start as far as training.  The IT band continues to be troublesome, but I’ve been doing cycling on the trainer, elliptical and spinning class at Bally’s and instant streaming Netflix workout DVD’s.  The week ended nicely with a ~2 hour indoor training ride with CTC at Twinsburg Rec. center yesterday am.  GREAT time indeed!

Mon: attempted to run on treadmill - got in .4 miles then knee pain.  Continued to get in 3 miles - pain never went above a 5 on a pain scale from 0-10.  Then did stretching and foam roller.

Tue: Trainer ride; foam roller

Wed: 30 min elliptical; foam roller in afternoon.  In pm went to Katy’s for our weekly Netflix streaming DVD workout sessions.  Did 10 min abs; 10 min thighs; 10 min glutes; 10 min stretch.  Then did hip exercises for IT band.

Thurs: Trainer ride; foam roller

Fri: Rest

Sat: Trainer ride

Sun:  Gonna do 45 min Netflix DVD later today.  (Awesome for total body).

I think I”m going to join the FF and BA triathlon group this year.  I was already checking out potential races, but I don’t want to get ahead of myself…we’ll keep things moving along w/ the knee and hopefully get it healed once and for all.  Stay tuned!