Salty Embraces the Weather

[Jayniana Jones]

Sorry to hear about the beginning of your week exploding. I hate when that happens. Kudos for getting running in even though you didn't want to.

I hope you had a chance to snoop through Pike Street Market. Since you're in Seattle I'm not sure there is a guarantee of rain stopping. Every time we've been out there to visit family it's always raining. Not always hard, but definitely a constant drizzle.

I hope this week is better than last. Take care of yourself.

[SaltyDragon]

Week 3 summary:

 

Run

Missed three days, so the streak is blown. I'm counting the 3+ mile walks to the hotel on Fri, and back to the ship tonight.

 

Push-ups

Only 100 all week, for a total of 570.

 

Stretching

I'm gonna be conservative and call it 1.5 for the week, so not great on this either.

 

Overall, not a good week for me. I'm still not eating enough, either. I can manage a light breakfast, but the rest of the day, I just can't get anything down. Need to fix this one or I'll start losing too much muscle. Work schedule will be frantic this week, then leaving for Alaska on Saturday. Will have to get creative on the remaining runs.

 

On a better note, I did two positive work-life things today. I put in an application for an awesome job that I found last week. Would get me off of boats and into a proper lab. Fingers crossed. Also, I packed up a ton of shit and got it off the boat. After two years living here, I had accumulated too much stuff. Since I'm determined to get off the boat myself, this year, I didn't want to have to deal with moving and shipping so much from middle-of-nowhere, Alaska. Getting it out now will make that day much easier when it comes. Only sad part is I don't have a guitar on board anymore. But, hey!...gotta think big picture.

[SaltyDragon]

Today will be a busy 12 hr work day, so I had the bright idea to get up early and run. Did three laps around the pier (its a big pier) for 3.2 miles. Working on a big bowl of yogurt with fruit right now. So...small victories?

[Jormungand]

Hope everything works out. I understand completely the feeling you get when you run/work out after feeling pretty blah about the whole thing. Nice job on powering through it. 

[Jayniana Jones]

Yeah, small victories! Something is better than nothing and brings on perseverance. Small victories when tallied up lead to big victories later. Keep it up! I hope this week goes much better than last week.

[SaltyDragon]

Hope everything works out. I understand completely the feeling you get when you run/work out after feeling pretty blah about the whole thing. Nice job on powering through it. 

 

 

Yeah, small victories! Something is better than nothing and brings on perseverance. Small victories when tallied up lead to big victories later. Keep it up! I hope this week goes much better than last week.

 

Thanks! (I hope you're right).

[Chelkie]

Well I can say from personal experience running in Alaska is fantastic. Part of the time you can even run ON the ocean. Well the half mile closest to shore at least. 

 

Good plan with the shipping stuff early, shipping anything for Alaska is an expensive pain in the butt, even living in the big city. 

 

Have an awesome last week of the challenge, finish strong!

[SaltyDragon]

Well I can say from personal experience running in Alaska is fantastic. Part of the time you can even run ON the ocean. Well the half mile closest to shore at least. 

 

Good plan with the shipping stuff early, shipping anything for Alaska is an expensive pain in the butt, even living in the big city. 

 

Have an awesome last week of the challenge, finish strong!

 

Thanks, Chelkie! I've logged some miles in Alaska over the past year. And it looks like I'll have about a week and a half to hopefully get some more in. Other than that, though, it looks like I need to start making friends with our new treadmill!

[SaltyDragon]

Got up early again today for another 3.1 miles. I did some extended stretching afterwards, too. Not thirty minutes worth, I'm sure, but enough count as a big improvement over last week. I've definitely found a couple of new things that I like, and am incorporating them into my post-run routine, so I think that's a win. And I finished the day with 50 pushups.

 

If I get up early again tomorrow and run, then I might just do OK this week.

[SaltyDragon]

Today, I got roped into a training class I didn't want to go to. The morning part was pretty boring, the coffee was terrible and it was hard to stay awake. To deal with this, I began experimenting with what kind of gentle stretches I could do sitting in the chair. I found a few that I could do for hamstrings and ITB that actually worked pretty well.

 

Must have looked weird, I'm sure, but I didn't care. Everybody already thinks I'm pretty weird, anyway!

 

The afternoon was a little more exciting – we went out to a mock-up of a ship where they usually train marine firefighting. The instructors simulated collision damage by pumping in water, so it was spraying out of pipes and hatches all over the place. We dressed out in rain gear with fire boots and helmets, then ran around with lumber and sledgehammers trying to get everything "under control." Good times.

[Xena]

Week 3 summary:

 

Run

Missed three days, so the streak is blown. I'm counting the 3+ mile walks to the hotel on Fri, and back to the ship tonight.

 

Push-ups

Only 100 all week, for a total of 570.

 

Stretching

I'm gonna be conservative and call it 1.5 for the week, so not great on this either.

 

Overall, not a good week for me. I'm still not eating enough, either. I can manage a light breakfast, but the rest of the day, I just can't get anything down. Need to fix this one or I'll start losing too much muscle. Work schedule will be frantic this week, then leaving for Alaska on Saturday. Will have to get creative on the remaining runs.

 

On a better note, I did two positive work-life things today. I put in an application for an awesome job that I found last week. Would get me off of boats and into a proper lab. Fingers crossed. Also, I packed up a ton of shit and got it off the boat. After two years living here, I had accumulated too much stuff. Since I'm determined to get off the boat myself, this year, I didn't want to have to deal with moving and shipping so much from middle-of-nowhere, Alaska. Getting it out now will make that day much easier when it comes. Only sad part is I don't have a guitar on board anymore. But, hey!...gotta think big picture.

 

 

The beauty of a streak is that you can always start another one. Maybe a running streak would be too hard, but what about a cardio streak? At least 10 minutes of cardio every day?

 

Great news about the job app and cleaning up. Very sad about the guitar though. Ukulele?

[SaltyDragon]

Another morning run for 3.1 miles. I've decided I really don't like running first thing in the morning, before breakfast or coffee. Gonna have to do it two more times, though.

 

It was raining harder today, and was pretty windy as well. I had planned to focus on my speed, but the wind made me reconsider. The last half mile in my race earlier this month was straight into the wind, and it really killed me. So today, I just focused on powering into it. Scuba drills in the afternoon, 50 push-ups all day, and a little stretching. I'll probably try to stretch a little more before bed.

[SaltyDragon]

The beauty of a streak is that you can always start another one. Maybe a running streak would be too hard, but what about a cardio streak? At least 10 minutes of cardio every day?

 

Great news about the job app and cleaning up. Very sad about the guitar though. Ukulele?

 

 

Yes, that too, I'm afraid.

[SaltyDragon]

As an experiment this morning, I got up early and ate a light breakfast first thing. After about a half hour, then I went for my run, hoping it would be better than the last few days. It was not. I could probably try eating something a little safer, like toast instead of yogurt, but I think I'll stick with running in the afternoon if I don't have 1-2 hrs to wait after eating.

 

In addition to the 3.2 miles today, I had another 60 push-ups and a nice stretching session.

 

I don't know why, but I thought there was one more day in this challenge. Oh well, wrap-up to follow soon...

[SaltyDragon]

Challenge Wrap Up:

 

Some real ups and downs on this one. I started out a lot stronger than I finished. The unforeseen challenge for me turned out to be maintaining motivation following a personal crisis. I'm still struggling with it, but at least I can say I finished.

 

Quest 1: Run outside 3+ miles every day, no matter the weather.

I missed three days, so not a complete success (well, technically, a fail). I expected to miss a day or two from the beginning, because of my work schedule, so I won't judge this too harshly. But really, if I had been determined enough, it was possible to have run each of those three days. I identified some personal flaws, and hopefully I can reflect on that and work out some way to improve.

 

Quest 2: Push-ups every day, for at least 800 total.

I did not do these every day. I missed a total of 8 days in weeks 1 and 3. I had a wrist injury in week 1, accounting for those days. I finished the challenge with 840 push-ups, so I will count it as fully completed.

 

(On the Sunday before week three, I managed 100 push-ups over the day – I was so proud of that one).

 

Quest 3: 30+ minutes of stretching at least 3 times a week.

I kept up with this one, too, except for week three. I'll call this one mostly successful. I think I did achieve my objective of expanding my routine and learning some new stuff.

 

 

Time to run along.

 

Thanks to everyone who has dropped by with encouragement. Please check out my next challenge, once it's up. And thanks also to Xena – I'm glad I can continue to count on your wisdom and support.