Skip to main content

Can't Avoid Summer

Today is supposedly the first day of summer.  If you've been reading here for a while, heat is my enemy.  Even if I'm not running, I can't stand waking up to excessive bright lights and realizing it's approaching 80 degrees when I'm still in bed.

Summer also means that my work wardrobe is limited.  I'm not big on wearing dresses, so the same rotation of cool flowy tops + flowy cardigans probably annoys the heck out of my co-workers.

I should be used to our long summers by now.  In Southern California, I feel like summer lasts on and off between March and November.  Not kidding; my wedding date was in mid-November, and the weather remained pretty much summer-like until two days before the ceremony.

On the upside, we have been able to eat dinner in our back yard and take evening walks.


On the downside, I have little or no desire to cook or bake.  The last grand baking effort I had was for Mother's Day, which I silently patted myself on the back for, because baking cookies is not my favorite thing.  Anything I can't bake in one go/batch is too much effort... ;)


www.acaseoftheruns.com

Another upside -- a bounty of food stuffs from our garden.  We cheated and bought a tomato plant at Home Depot a while back, which has since produced maybe 15 delicious tomatoes.  The cilantro was grown from scratch in late March/early April, though by now, they have sprung into flowers and are obsolete.  I will have to collect the seeds and try again in the fall....  I fully admit that I'm a gardening "n00b," but that just gives me something to work on.  Well, in addition to running, though I've mostly been walking in the evening rather than trying to run in such conditions.


Admittedly, I'm definitely in a funk lately both personally as well as professionally.  I had dinner with an old colleague recently who tried to convince me that I am capable of more than I think, in a time when I feel like I have control over nothing.  How did I go from an ambitious grad student to someone who is kind of stuck in some sort of stagnation, just hanging on long enough to get by?  How did I go from running... to basically not?  Cooking/baking a storm to ... well, you get the point.

At least my house is clean, and I've been reading a lot of books??

Comments

  1. i'm in the midst of a running slump. it's terrible. but, nothing is as bad as a professional funk. i hate it when i feel unmotivated and detached from all the things i'm supposed to be doing. i hope that you are able to figure something out!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Giveaway Winner! -- Sony W Series MP3 Player (Update)

Updated Post: 3/20/11 As promised, here are the Sony W Series giveaway winners: -- both have been contacted and prizes sent -- Please e-mail me at (Gmail) Nobel4Lit2 with your addresses, and I'll ship out the units soon! Thanks to everyone who entered.  Stay tuned for another giveaway soon (maybe later this week)! (Note: I ended up putting everyone's retweets starting after the comments when it came to numbering the entries.) Original Post: 3/10/11 Sunday, March 20 2011, the day I will run LA Marathon for the 4th time (and embark on my 8th 26.2 journey overall), will also be very special because it will mark the 5th year since I did my FIRST training run with the intention of running a marathon.  (Check out that life-changing post HERE ). Yep, on March 20, 2006, I went to the track and ran my first 3.25 miles with the dreams of marathon glory (or even half-marathon glory). I think it was one of the best decisions I've ever made.  I was a sprint/track

StyleScience Airfoil Sunglasses

Much too long after the death of my last pair of sunglasses, I managed to get my hands on another pair. This one comes from CVS/pharmacy. I figured that since a more expensive pair blew out on me, why not a drugstore one? So after going to speciality stores, I came upon this one that looks and feels good... StyleScience's Airfoil. I didn't notice until later that this is meant for men, but my large head circumference called for it, I think. Anyway, I like that the sides have some ventilation (via a large triangular hole). I hope not to break this one...

Sharkies Prize Pack (giveaway)

It's giveaway time! On a long run recently, I took a couple packs of Sharkies Organic Sports Chews  with me to keep me going on a hot day.  I got through those 15 miles  eating these, versus normal gels.  I've been opting to eat chews over gels in my running nowadays because I just find them more palatable and easier on my stomach for some reason.  Plus, they do pack a few more calories, which is a good thing in this case. I normally associate cute little chews with candy, but these actually contain natural electrolytes.  Plus, they were light to carry and very tasty, too!  Each pack is about 140 calories.  The only downside I found to the sport chews is that they stuck to my teeth a tiny bit more than my normal choices, and the packaging gave me a fight at times.  This could easily be solved by conslidating them into a baggie pre-run, or eating them BEFORE running would be much easier than during. Want to win the prize pack below?  It comes with these Sport Chews, a neat