It was pretty cold and really windy, but 21 of us braved the weather and celebrate the start of a new year (or surviving the old one) and we rolled around on our bikes for a couple of hours, with a coffee shop stop in Northville to round it all out.  It was really a great way to start out the new year, and it felt great to be out on the bike, getting some fresh air!

We both had to work on Friday and generally turned into hermits when we got home.  It was a really nice, really mellow pizza and movie night.

Saturday, Jon had organized a dog-friendly hike at Stony.  Jon (& Graham), Mike (& Louie), Kristi & Erik (& Peppe) and Nick & me (& Chilli) walked some snowy and somewhat icy singletrack on what turned out to be a really beautiful day!  When we were hanging out on top of Mount Sheldon, Pete and Lloyd came riding up the doubletrack - brave soldiers that they are.

The hike was followed up by burgers at the Shamrock in Utica - my favorite end to any outdoor activity!

And today marked the beginning of serious indoor biking.  We’re finally situated in the basement with bikes and rowing machine, and today was the first spin at home (we’ve been to Mike’s for spinning a few times though).   At some point this week, I need to investigate our gym - its kind of a long story, but the old, roached out gym that we belonged to went out of business and there’s a new gym in its place that’s much cleaner looking and probably has nicer equipment.  We’re still paying for the membership, I guess the new place bought the members too, so I’d like to check it out and see if its a place I might actually go, or cancel the membership.  I’d love it if they’ve got enough working treadmills that I could count on having one at 6:00 am every day.

I generally hate the idea of “new years resolutions” because - if you’re serious about change, you shouldn’t wait until new years to do it ..but.. since I’ve reached a new perspective on life and exercise right before new years, I will say that in 2009, I plan on exercising at least 60 minutes every day, 6 days per week.  I already know I *can* do it, the question is, *will* I do it?

I’ve fallen behind on the rowing meters somewhat lately since we’ve started our winter spinning ritual at Mike’s place, which doesn’t leave time for rowing on those days.  With only today and tomorrow left in the challenge, my plan was to row this morning, tonight, tomorrow morning and tomorrow evening to make up the ~27k that I had remaining when I last checked my log.

My goal was to get up by 6:15 this morning and hit the machine by 6:30.  Nick was going to help by kicking the bed at 6:15 to make sure I got up, since he’s usually out of bed by 6:00.  Figures that today was the day that we both slept in until 6:45 when I finally noticed the time and jumped out of bed.

So, I stumbled down to the rower and got started.  While I was rowing, I started to do some math to figure out how much I needed to row for each of the 4 rows I had left to do in order to make my goal.  The more I rowed, the more I thought that I had only completed ~163k meters, and that I actually had ~37 k left to row, not the ~27k that I’d had in my mind.  I’ve been known to be bad at math and figured I’d just miscalculated when I looked at my log last.  I suddenly wanted to cry.  I didn’t have enough time to row for an hour, and I was so tired that 30 minutes was seeming torturous as well.  But I figured I’d do what I could in the time that I had and managed to squeek out just over 9k in a little more than 45 minutes.

And then I went to my computer to input my distance, and discovered that I was freaking out over nothing.  Before this morning’s row, I had completed just over 173k meters.  Therefore, adding my 9k, I’m left with a nice, reasonable 18k to meet my goal.  50 minutes tonight + 50 minutes tomorrow, and I’ve exceeded my goal.  THIS is totally doable.  THIS feels really really good.

This has been a really awesome experience for me and I hope to contiue rowing after this challenge.  I hope to find something to motivate me to the type of dedication I had for this challenge, and I’m thinking that motivation will come from how good I look and feel right now.  I don’t know if I lost much more than 5lbs over the past month, but I’ve toned up a lot, I feel strong and sexy and I didn’t change a single thing about how I eat (I still am very concious of the choices I make, and some aren’t always good, but I never eat anything without considering what I’m eating).

I’ve proven that I can fit a full hour (or more) of exercise into every single day.  I’ve proven that I can exercise 6 days straight without feeling burnt out.  I’ve proven that excercising for 45min-1hr every day will allow me to loose weight without seriously limiting my food intake.  Its a slower loss for a lot of reasons, but I prefer to do it this way.  I know that over time, the more I fit exercise into my daily routine, the better my food choices will be - but for me, I think it’ll be easier to increase the exercise than it will be to significantly change my diet.

On that note, wish me luck on my final 18k!

We’ve been doing fine with cell phones, and I’ve got our Vonage number being forwarded to my cell phone, so we’re still getting calls if we need to.  The problem is, though, there’s no way to call out from the house without using a cell phone.  We’ve been able to get by with an extra cell phone for when Jarek is over, but that phone is becoming expensive and about to be turned off.  Also, I’ve been approved to work from home this week while attending an online training course.  Well .. its not exactly an online training course, its a conference call with a web meeting session.  Basically - I need to be on the phone for 4-8 hours a day, the next 4 days.  This would KILL my cell phone minutes.

The quickest, easiest and most elegant solution to my problem seems to be Skype.  I’ve used it plenty for video chat with Jessica in Germany and Nick when I travel.  When I looked into the cost of using Skype as a solution to dial other land lines and/or cell phones, I was floored at how cheap the subscription was.  I was able to buy 3 months worth of unlimited US/Canada calling for $7.95 .. kind of a no brainer, I think.

It happened immediately.  As soon as I entered my card info, and hit submit, my service was ready to use.  Talking to Nick just now (a test call from my new found geek goodness), I think we’re going to look into getting a Skype phone for the house and then have that for Jarek to use when we’re not here.  It doesn’t allow for emergency servies to be called, but I think we’ll be ok with that.

I’ll be happy to get rid of my Vonage account too.  We’re paying way too much for what is now essentially a phone number redirect to my cell phone.  With Skype, I can buy a phone number (which is discounted with subscription), and have voicemail options - for 3 freaking bucks a month (cheaper if you buy a year’s subscription all at once).  Yeah .. time for a change

I’ve read 6 random things about Namrita, Danielle and Andrea .. And now, apparently its my turn to enlighten my own couple of readers with 6 random things that very few people know about me.  Here goes:

1.  I was very shy as a kid, and even into college.  I still struggle with being shy and introverted even though most people who know me now, think I’m quite the opposite.

2.  Another childhood story - I was also quite the tomboy.  My neighborhood friends were boys, and I spent a lot of time doing boy things: riding bikes, climbing trees, playing in the mud.   I was the only girl on my t-ball team (and my dad was the coach).

3.  I started competitive swimming at the age of 9 and continued through my junior year in high school, but quit during my senior year.  When I was young, I used to dream of swimming in the Olympics and Janet Evans was my biggest hero in her day.

4.  While I have a really good, really corporate IT job (network security), my bachelors degree is in Health Education (non-teaching), and my minor is Physical Education with emphasis in coaching.

5.  I went to catholic school from kindergarten through 7th grade.  Uniforms and everything.

6.  I lived in Brooklyn, NY from 1984 - 1988 (age 9-13) and spent a lot of time running around the city by myself or with friends - very little parental supervision.  It was great freedom that would never be allowed by any parents today.  Times have certainly changed.  It was an experience that I wouldn’t trade for anything.

And now I must tag some others - I’m going to target the boys and see who’s still watching my blog

Steve (aka I’m moving to Washington, wait, no! I’m not)

Robert (aka Hermitman)

Alex (aka the Dolpinator)

Nick (aka the hubby)

Apparently, people have already finished at least 100k because my logbook shows money being raised.  Heh.  Overachievers

That gauge is still very empty!

Well, one of the attractions for Nick was that Concept2 is more than just a company that makes indoor rowers, its also a community.  There are races and challenges going on across the country throughout the year.  So, of course, when he received an email form Concept2 about the upcoming holiday challenge, he forwarded it my way for consideration.

The challenge starts tomorrow, and I’m about to create my online account for tracking my meters.  There are two levels of objective for this challenge, and we’re both shooting for the greater goal of 200,000 meters in 4 weeks.  Concept2 will donate $.02 for our first 100k and $.04 for any meters beyond that to our choice of these charities:  The Nature Conservancy, Conservation International or the Alliance for Climate Protection.

So, 200,000 meters in 4 weeks breaks down to 50,000 meters per week.  This is a hefty goal.  All of my rowing in the past has been for ~30 minutes, ~5000 meters .. and never more than 2 days in a row.  Starting tomorrow, I will be rowing close to an hour a day, at least 5 days per week, for the next 4 weeks.

Its daunting, but I’m surprisingly excited to start.  With any luck, it will turn into some kind of habit and I will have successfully added indoor rowing as a cross training exercise.  Rowing really works the core muscles, so it is definitely something I will benefit from if I ever have any energy to ride my bike again

Wish me luck!

But I chose to break my radio silence to brag about my sudden increase of hard drive space in my laptop.  I owe 100% of my thanks to dear Nicholas who found, purchased, and installed my new 320 GB goodness.

Sweet sweet storage space.  Thanks Baby!

FYI - We highly recommend Super Duper for all your macintosh backup needs ..