A 'lil HooHaa

Messing with the blogging world since 2005

Couch-to-5K

Notes from my noodle: March 16 edition

It’s funny, a year ago today I was looking forward to my trip to Ireland and was gainfully employed.

A year later, I’m searching and applying for jobs and wishing I was back in Ireland! How fun would it be to be in downtown Dublin for St. Patrick’s Day? Wow. I couldn’t imagine the fun.

And the Guinness. Oh my!

I’m having problems writing cover letters. I don’t know why. I’ve spent so many years of my life writing about other people. Why can’t I write about myself to sell a potential employer on what I can do for them? I can’t figure it out. I’ve gotten decent feedback from people who have read my covers who said they are pretty good. But, I’m not getting calls. I don’t know if it’s a time thing. Or the cover. Or my resume. Or something else.

<sigh>

I’ll keep plugging along. I am close to getting one application out today. I have several jobs printed out and want to have covers and resumes sent to each one by the end of the week.

But these covers… ugh.

***

So I’ve slacked on the Couch-to-5K program.

That’s one of the reasons I didn’t set a certain date for finishing or a certain 5K I wanted to run. Instead, I kept it in my head that I just wanted to be able to run 5K and maybe do one by the end of the summer.

I still think that’s doable.

But the reality is, I can’t be doing this C25K on a treadmill, which is what I’ve been doing. It’s boring. It hurts my feet. I get annoyed and I start counting down the times that I’m on there.

The gym, for now on for me, will be used to use the elliptical machines, maybe a warmup on the treadmill and lifting.

Running has to be taken outdoors.

So as soon as the weather changes for good for the better, I’m going to start taking the C25K outdoors and hope I can complete the program. I might do a couple of the things on the treadmill between now and the better weather, but not the three times a week. It just kills. I know if I do it outside, it’s a lot different.

Speaking of cardio stuff, I’m taking my bike over to the shop sometime this week to get a tuneup. I imagine I’ll get it back in a week or so and then I’m going to get riding it several times a week. I want to get a bike computer (I found a pretty good Schwinn one for about 15 bucks on Amazon) to keep mileage and such like that, so I’ll be looking into that.

***

Turns out something is up with my domains.

I got an e-mail today from the company I host several of my websites through. Apparently one of the domains, of which I haven’t done anything with in a long time (it was for our caching group in this area, but nobody ever really went to it) had somehow been hacked and was being used for spam.

So they sent an e-mail of a warning.

Then shut me off.

I had to go through a bunch of e-mail exchanges and such to try and get my site back. In the end, they lifted the suspension and I deleted the said domain and everything else off my account. I was going to let the site expire soon enough anyway, so no biggie.

I just hope I don’t have to deal with that again.

***

I think I’m going to cut this one short right now. Just not into it tonight. Had a few other things come up and my mind is all over the place.

More later!

Notes from my noodle: March 8 edition

Welcome to a new addition to my blog — Notes from my noodle.

Basically, this is going to be my random thoughts portion of my blog. If I don’t have enough for a full blog post, I’ll put several things in one and it will be the “Notes from my noodle.” This isn’t going to have a specific day, rather it will happen periodically when I feel I have enough for it.

So, let’s get it started

***

What in the world is Mother Nature thinking?

Rain and warmer weather had smacked most of the snow we had into oblivion. It gave hope. We saw grass and sun.

Then it snowed again Sunday night into Monday. In my town, we got probably 8 or so inches. As you went further north, higher amounts. A town about an hour and change from me got upwards of 25 inches! Ouch!

The sun is back today and there’s some melt going on. Rumor is about three inches are possible tomorrow night (sigh), but the temps are supposed to be up.

I beg Mother Nature… please make it stop!

***’

The job hunt is in full force. I sent out two applications today (both for sports information positions) and am working on another that I will send out tomorrow. I have my resume posted on a few job sites and got an e-mail today from a company in the Midwest encouraging me to apply for a position with them. I like the look of the company, so I’m going to work on an application for there, for sure.

One of the ones I sent out today was via mail.

I realize that some places still like to receive things via hard copy and that’s fine. But, I sent it with delivery confirmation, so it needed to be priority mail. That cost me nearly $6! That really made me happy that many jobs I will be applying for will accept it electronically. Much cheaper!

Still keeping my head up about the whole process. This Friday will be a full month since I was told the news, so I’m pushing forward with the hopes of something breaking through.

That being said, I’m going to start looking into freelancing, too. I need to keep sharp. I need to research that to see what it would do with my unemployment and such.

***

That good weather we had recently got me wanting to get out and throw some plastic, too.

Two of us went to Hunter on Saturday to play in an ice bowl tournament. Basically, play in snow. But the weather was nice. There was some ice. A little snow. And a lot of throwing discs. Very nice. Felt good to get out. We played two rounds of nine around a lake. (Well, a big pond that is called a lake).

In the end, I figured it was about a walk of 2.5 miles, which was nice.

I didn’t throw great, but it was fun. I finished with a 41-41 82, which was good enough to be dead-last in the tournament. I think there were 14 players.

Hopefully, with my first full year of playing coming this summer, I’ll improve.

Weather below us looks good this weekend — sunny and in the 50s. I might head to New Jersey with a friend or two to play in a tournament down there Sunday. That one will be 36 holes on a course I’ve played once — but really like. Hopefully things pan out and I can hit it up. It’s supposed to be PDGA sanctioned and it would be a lot of fun to get out in the nice weather.

If I go and it’s as nice as they are saying, I might even break out some shorts.

***

The Couch-to-5K program is going decently well for me.

I’m into Week 2 and will be doing Day 2, hopefully, tonight. I might try and go four days with it this week, but we’ll see. In reality, I might opt to repeat the second week.

I did the first day of the second week Sunday and it was pretty tough. The reality is I’m not in great shape, so this is pushing my body in different ways. Not that I’m complaining.

We’ll see how tonight and then the third day (hopefully Thursday) go before I decide on whether or not to repeat the second week.

The sneakers are breaking in well. When I did things Sunday, I didn’t feel any shin splints, which was nice. My heart was beating though. I got the heart beat up to like 168 or so Sunday, so I knew I was working it.

So the second week is three days of this:

Brisk five-minute warmup walk. Then alternate 90 seconds of jogging and two minutes of walking for a total of 20 minutes.

The third week gets more interesting:

Brisk five-minute warmup walk, then do two repetitions of the following:

  • Jog 200 yards (or 90 seconds)
  • Walk 200 yards (or 90 seconds)
  • Jog 400 yards (or 3 minutes)
  • Walk 400 yards (or three minutes)

The fourth week, which is still in the future, obviously gets more intense. I’ll post more about that as the time comes.

***

I am hosting a geocaching event Saturday in celebration of the Geocaching 12 of 12. Every month, many photographers take part in the 12 of 12, a project where you take 12 photos to show your day.

Once or twice a year, there is a geocaching version of this. Basically, 12 photos showing your geocaching day.

The event is in the morning and I hope to find a few other things to take some photos of to fill out 12 for the day. I haven’t taken many photos recently and I’d like to make sure I get to take a few.

***

Finally, one of my alma maters — SUNY Delhi — is playing in the NJCAA Division III national tournament this weekend. It’s the first time in the 21-year history of the tournament that it hasn’t been held at Delhi, so hopefully the Broncos can do some damage this weekend and bring a national title home.

This is also the school I’ve done some adjunct teaching at. I had four of the players in class, so I’d really like to see them do well. I’ll be going down Thursday for sure and maybe Friday. Saturday is up in the air as I have some plans and an opportunity that night, so I’ll have to see how things pan out.

More later!

Making my feet happy

Some of you may already know that I’m attempting the Couch-to-5K program. For those who don’t know what it is, it’s basically a nine-week program that gets you off your duff (the couch) and running a 5-kilometer (3.2 mile) race. I started this before I found out that I’d have more time to commit to this than I previously thought, so I’m slowly getting into it.

My plan has been to do the first week at least twice (maybe three, pending how I feel after this week), but one thing I found out is the running sneakers I had purchased a while back weren’t doing it for me. My feet hurt a bit and I was getting some shin splints — something I never used to get doing anything with running.

So, I started to research. I knew I needed to do something if I wanted to continue this program and not hurt. I reached out to fellow Flickr user Mike, who has run several marathons. I asked his thoughts on finding some shoes. He offered me the idea of finding a store that helps fit you for the shoes. The problem with that is that I don’t know where I would find a store like that in my area.

I then decided to call a local track coach who I’ve dealt a lot with. As a former Division I runner and one of the best track coaches I’ve watched, I figured he’d be able to help me. We discussed several things about shoes and how to pick. He also sent me the following chart (as well as a few other tips) to get me going:

Knowing your feet for shoes.

The chart is excellent.Alas, the problem is, I don’t know for sure what foot I am. I tried a couple of things and still wasn’t sure. I think I have a flat foot, but I didn’t know.

He offered some other advice — a store called Fleet Feet.

It turns out he’s used this store. And it’s the type of store Mike had talked to me about looking for. This coach told me that he went to one in Syracuse, about a two-hour ride from me. I looked at the site and started figuring when I could take the trip up. I then went to the store’s main site and saw there was a store in Albany — an easier jaunt for me. Jackpot!

I headed up today and went looking to see what they had to offer.

Their fitting process was really in-depth and excellent. The person who worked with me explained everything very well and in terms to understand. When I didn’t understand something (such as about the way I step), he explained it very well.

Basically, they have you take off your shoes and socks, they measure your feet and then have you walk on a small track they have set up. He watched the way I walked and saw how I landed and such. Then I tried on several different types of sneakers and did some jogging on a treadmill. They have video set on your feet, so you can see what you are doing. They really watch how you step and such and ask enough questions to see what is best for you.

It came down to two pairs of shoes — one New Balance and the other Asics. Not that I dislike New Balance — I don’t — but there was something about the Asics that I really liked. I went with them and hope I made the right choice.

My new kicks!

I’ll be trying them out as I continue down the trail of the Couch-to-5K program. As the program continues, I’ll also be blogging about it as the weeks and months pass by.

The trip up to get my feet fitted and find shoes that really work was well worth it. I’d strongly encourage it to anyone having issues with their shoes or feet. The process is free to have done and the shoe prices were pretty competitive, too. Now, we’ll see if my feet are happy!

More later!