Friday Five: Low Heart Rate, Low Weight, and Low Tires

It’s Friday! Let’s all jump up and down with excitement. Wait, nobody else is jumping up and down? Just me? Okay then. I’ve had the fun of linking up with Courtney from Eat Pray Run DC and Mar from Mar on the Run the past few Fridays, and we’re going to keep going with it – so if you do a Friday Five of some variety, link on up!

You can link up here:

They are both super coordinated and have posts up with tips about Racecations and out of town race necessities. I’m totally random again this week, but my sort-of theme is LOW.

1. Low Heart Rate = Low Intensity Exercise. This is a big #1 today, and I will write about it in its own post when I know more. But basically the deal is that I’ve been mandated to only do low-impact, low-intensity exercise this week, no more than 25-30 minutes at a time. It came to my attention that I had a very low heart rate during a recent blood pressure check, and I was urged to see my doctor. So I did, and it was still low. I had blood work and a thyroid ultrasound this week – all came out normal. So I am to see a cardiologist on Monday to be evaluated. This is fairly new for me – a scan of previous heart rates were all in the normal (60+) range. It’s in the 40’s. I know athletes can have lower heart rates so hopefully it’s just because I’ve gotten in such great shape in the past several months, lost a bunch of weight, and my body is healthy. Let’s hope for that!

But what it means is I haven’t been running, been on the new bike trainer, or done anything at all since the weekend. I meant to do yoga or walking, but have been having trouble getting motivated for low intensity exercise with everything else I have going on.

2. Whole30 Is Done! – I finished up the Whole30 this week, and have been re-introducing foods into my diet. I found it hard to be so restrictive while on Whole30, but I’m hoping to keep the clean, fresh eating principles as the basis for my diet, but not have to stress about having added oils, butter, and other things that are prohibited any more. I will write a wrap up of the experience with my favorite go-tos for being busy and on Whole30. So far, no issues re-introing foods, unless a migraine on Wednesday was related to something I ate, but I’m doing this slowly and with wholesome foods (homemade bread to reintroduce grains, for example). Except for one croissant at work yesterday, which totally wasn’t worth it. A good lesson in and of itself.

3. Low Scale Number – It is truly a thrill to have the middle number on the scale go down. On Saturday, I found my weight had a “3” in the middle. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a “3” there in my entire adult life (maybe in high school or college?). I know that the scale isn’t the whole picture on health and fitness, but it sure was nice to see all my hard work exercise and diet-wise reflected. My goal weight was 147, then 145, and I’ve surpassed it – and I feel pretty fit and healthy, too.

4. Au Pair Search – Our wonderful au pair’s year will be over at the end of February, so we’ve been searching for another. So in addition to doctor’s appointments, work, and the kids, in my “spare time” I’ve been searching for a new au pair. We hope to have someone matched with us soon, who will arrive at the end of February. If anyone has questions about the Au Pair program, let me know!

5. Flat Tire (the extreme LOW!) – As I left work last night, I joked around with a coworker about my 4-year-old’s challenging bedtimes and how although I love spending time with the kids when I get home (of course!), I am never looking forward to that particular part of the evening. He joked that I should drive super slowly home and maybe I’d miss it. Well, I drove away from work, and as I was turning left at the Exorcist Stairs by Georgetown, this happened:

Be careful what you “wish” for (although it was all joking in good fun) – I was sitting on the side of the road with the completely flat tire during the kids’ bedtimes!

Today I’ll go to my usual lunchtime Pilates class, AFTER I get a new tire on the car!

Have you ever had a flat tire? 

What are your weekend plans?

Any tips for someone on a low intensity exercise mandate?

Was it 24 laps or lengths? Ah, who cares, I did 24 of them!

Last night I was determined to get to the pool to do some laps. Determined! I had the will but not the way (aka the time). Isn’t that old phrase: “where there’s a will there’s a way”? Well, sometimes there just isn’t a way, like when you have 3 kids and have to: drop a car at the shop, wrap presents, take kids to a cousin’s birthday party, pack separate food for your food-allergic child to eat at the party, put the 1yo down for a nap, take the 7yo to a swimming party, make dinner, pick up the car from the shop, do laundry since the 3yo is out of underwear, put the kids to bed, and stop off at the wine store because we have a winemergency.

And when we are out of wine, it is truly a winemergency because how can you handle a Saturday like that if you don’t have wine to look forward to at the end of it?

Once upon a time I had Saturdays that were relaxing. Ah, those were the days…

So I put the 18 month old to bed and my up-for-anything au pair and I decided to hit the neighborhood pool to do laps. My husband handled the not-happy-about-it 3.5 year old, and we quietly snuck out. 

Brrr… the water felt pretty chilly and I was a total wuss getting in the pool like the older women I used to make fun of as a kid at the pool, until I realized – Oh wait! I am one of those older ladies now, OMG!!! – and jumped right in. Defy the old lady stereotype!

Once I got going the water felt GREAT! I, however, started to feel like I had a lot of work to do to build up my endurance and work on my form for the triathlon. I swam 3 freestyle/1 breaststroke lengths (or laps? Weigh in below!) a few times and thought I just might be done now. So I rested on the side of the pool and decided to work on my form and get into a better groove. And when I started back up, it felt better and better each length. In fact, I could have kept going, except the lifeguards were hating us by that point – it was 9pm and the pool was closing.

I ended up doing 24 lengths, and although I know I have a lot to work on in the next 3 months, I’m feeling pretty good about my first pool training session of the official Triathlon training.

After spending my entire childhood practically living at the pool every summer, on the swim team and later as a lifeguard, I’m now perplexed by the length vs. lap distinction. I’m sure now that a lap = there & back, but that means my entire childhood memories are wrong. Ack, I’m not sure I can handle this mental mind game – my mind is blown.

Do you call them lengths or laps?

 

Image courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Margarita Run

It’s been a busy week here in MV-land! After working three straight nights at an outdoor concert, finally, at long last, Monday was a day off. Hooray, an actual whole day off full of fun festive frolicking with family! (Okay, yes, I got a little over-zealous with the alliteration. But I can’t promise it won’t happen again…).

Since we are still minivan-free in our house of 3 adults + 3 kids, we have to take two cars everywhere. Stick with me, this comes into play later. Our fun day involved a BBQ at my brother’s house. I was a little worn out from going to bed after 1:30am, only to be woken up by the toddler at 6am, but I got my act together and threw on my exercise clothes. I can barely fit in exercise during the week so there was no excuse to avoid a workout on a full day off!

My sister-in-law has recently started running, so we had an idea to go for a run together for the first time! I drove to their house with my 17-month old (F.) & the running stroller in tow, ahead of the rest of my family. We ran a 5K route around her pretty neighborhood, dubbing it the Margarita Run. The idea was not super-crazy-buffing-ourselves-up-workout, but enough calorie burning to have a guilt-free margarita.

Loved the run – good company, good conversation, the fun of motivating each other to workout. I instantly felt LESS tired than I had felt all morning, despite my lack of sleep. And I felt equipped to have a margarita guilt-free!

The BBQ was nice and relaxing – kids playing, adults talking, everyone eating and drinking. It was our first gathering trying to manage F’s food allergies since we found out about the peanut allergy (we knew about sunflower). We were all really careful, checking labels and communicating about what he could and couldn’t eat. I had packed food for him that we supplemented with other supposedly safe foods added in. But then…

Well, I’ll just sum up the end of Monday with these two words and you can only guess how much fun we had Monday night:

*EPIPEN + ER*

I’ll spare you the details, but yes, it sucked. For a while it was like a scene out of  a bad movie – strapping F into the car seat and realizing our other kids were climbing in and buckling up. “You’re not coming with us, out of the car!!!” Thankfully, our au pair took the big kids home in one car so we could both go to the ER with him in the other. Of course then we got into holiday traffic on the highway and had to zoom down the shoulder with our hazards on, with me squeezing my eyes shut as my husband drove. Yes, we know now: call 911 and don’t try to race there yourself.

The cutie is doing just fine now.

I’ve been filling my limited computer time this week with more peanut and sunflower allergy research, calling companies to check about cross-contamination risks of various things he was eating that day, checking on things and regularly eats, and basically just stressing.

I have to say, that Margarita Run was perfect! It definitely helped me physically as well as mentally to handle the tough evening ahead. I think my evening workouts are becoming more and more unreliable and the benefits of a morning workout are adding up. As I embark on the Triathlon training (I start on Monday!), I am going to try to do it all early mornings to start the day out with the workout.

When is your best time of day to work out?

I heart New York, but it doesn’t heart me.

Well, I suck. I just returned from a trip to NYC, and my exercise clothes are untouched in my suitcase. That is SO not me, and I’m very annoyed. I fully intended to run in Central Park and work out at the hotel gym, but a few things got in the way: work, kids, sleep, weather. But overall: Time, basically time.

It was mainly a work trip but I brought two of my kids with me, along with our au pair to watch them while I was working. My 7-year-old daughter sees a doctor in NY every 3 months so I combined work stuff I had to do in NY with the doctor visit. The three days were jam packed, and having the 16 month old toddler just threw off all my plans to work out. Plus crappy, rainy weather. Normally I make exercise a priority when traveling, but the priority this time was getting to work appointments on time, focusing on my daughter’s medical business, and making sure our au pair was comfortable on her first visit to NYC. We walked enough around the city to burn some calories, but it doesn’t compare to getting the heart rate up there with a good run.

The last time I exercised was sweating on the treadmill at 10pm on Tuesday night. Yeah, I got it done after posting that evening and was super proud of myself.

Tomorrow: long run of 11.5 miles (should I just make it 12?), my daughter’s soccer game, and we’re doing our taxes. Let’s hope my legs hold up for the long run despite being deprived of running this week.