Dear Body…

[[Side Note: Dear Body

Dear Body,

Is it too late for me to apologize to you?  For not treating your like you should have been treated for so many years?

I’m sorry for all those years that I bullied you, telling you you weren’t enough, that you weren’t strong enough, pretty enough, or worth it.

I’m sorry for all the food I deprived you of that would help you grow and develop correctly.  I’m sorry you weren’t able to enjoy so many of your favorite foods for so long and I made you eat things with no flavor and so very littler nutrients.

I’m sorry for all the times I told you you weren’t good enough to hang out with your friends, go out to a restaurant, have a drink with your friends and do stupid things that would make the most awesome memories.

I’m sorry for all the miles that I made you run, and not for fun.  I’m sorry all those miles were solely to burn off calories for even the little food you ate at the time.  I’m sorry you didn’t enjoy so many of those and took precedence over the things you could have been doing otherwise and actually enjoying.

I’m sorry for all the things I have put you through you should not have gone through in the past 7 years.  I’m sorry it has taken me so long to realize that what I was doing was wrong and destructive to you.

But now, I hope that I can treat you better.  I hope that I have learned how to fuel you properly and provide you with the vitamins and minerals you need to perform and repair yourself correctly. 

I hope that I won’t beat you up and you will become stronger and more confident as I embark on a mission to run another 1/2 marathon and train for my first sprint triathlon by the end of the year.

I hope that you realize how beautiful you are, how you have the ability to do so many things and accomplish so many dreams.  I hope you know you can travel to far away countries and try foods you’ve never even heard of, hike mountains that poke into the clouds, play in rivers with all sorts of crazy things, and have fun all the while.

I hope you know how much I love you, how much I appreciate you, how grateful I am that you continue to put one foot in front of the other and help me live the life I want to live doing the jobs I love to do outdoors saving our planet and mother nature.

What would you tell your body today? ]]

~~

Whew! Another long day in the field work front!  I got trained today to do anther aspect of my job which was cool, but man, the weather conditions were totally not in my favor!  Arg!

I woke up this morning freezing my toosh off and knew that being outside was going to be even worse.  So what better than to start off with a warm and comforting breakfast?

I mixed a packet of plain instant oatmeal together with a jazz apple and nuked it before adding in the pb blob and kashi cinnamon h2h.  I had yet to take my cinnamon out of my food box in the car so I needed the cereal for some flavor to the oats!  You can bet I rummaged around for that cinnamon this afternoon after work!

I headed out to the car to leave and holy smokes: THERE’S ICE ON MY CAR!  AND SNOW ON THE SIDES OF THE HILLS AND MOUNTAINS?!!?!  WHAT?!?!!?!  IN MAY!?!!?

Madness I tell you.  And the winds were gusting at over 35mph.  Oh yeah, winter is still here in the highland desert of California! Boo!  Go away!

I headed out to do my surveys and such below the big 3+ megawatt wind turbines…

Did you know that at the tips these things can go up to 200mph? 

And if you put two of the blades directly across from each other they’re the length of a football field? 

But that’s only for the really big ones, obviously many of them vary in shape and size.

It was a bitter cold morning (temps in the 30s, and that doesn’t include the wind chill!) and I was definitely thankful for my wind breaker jacket and pants.  Otherwise I would have died.  No joke, I would have frozen and been left to the turkey vultures. 

Yep.

When I get cold I have absolutely no appetite…until I warm up in the car.  Then I become ravenous!  I packed up this nice tupperware to snack on between survey areas: strawberries and a small jazz apple with natural pb.

And 6 hours later I was done.  And ate a banana on the way home.  I think the sucker was as long as my arm.  Ok, my forearm.  Ok not really; it was huge though!

I had packed a lunch to eat out in the field but because we started early enough I got home in time to eat my sandwich at leisure at home!  A simple hummus/lettuce/tomato sandwich with a side of two chopped carrots…and extra unpictured hummus.

I worked on some work stuff throughout the afternoon and finally started to catch up on some blogs.  I had a sweet snack to keep my tired self going throughout the afternoon: cinnamon kashi and guittard chocolate?  take this times two, and extra chocolate chips.

In spite of my efforts to stay awake I passed out watching tv and then finally got around to working out.  I didn’t do very much walking or anything today so I thought it a good opportunity to get a run and ST session in. 

I did a new set of self cards, and two bikini workouts I found in two different Fitness Magazines.  I’m gonna have a sore booty and arms/shoulders tomorrow.  No hate, it’ll be good soar.

After the ST session I set out for my run on the DREADMILL.  I know you’ve heard me complain about that damned thing, that it makes me feel like I’m drunk when I get off, but today, and probably for some time, I have no choice. 

It is simply too cold for me to run outside without the proper cold weather running gear, as I own…none.  I mean, I just finished living in Miami for goodness sakes! Haha…so yes, this weekend I’m on a mission to find some good running tights and tops…thanks for all the suggestions too!  I’ll be looking into all those different brands!

I ended up running 4 miles today, starting at 6.5 in the beginning and making my way up to 7.5 for at least the last 2.5 miles.  The last .25 was done at 8.5 though…that was killer, but freak’n awesome all at the same time.  I brought along a magazine to read afterwards during my mile walk cooldown at a 5% incline…I think that’s not going to help with all the walking I’m going to be doing tomorrow. Oops.

You can bet I was ravenous after all of that so I cleaned up quick and made a lazy dinner.  But what can be better than starting it off with one of my favorite types of bread: SHEPHERDERS BREAD!!!

I went over to the local German Bakery in town and when I saw they had some loaves, I couldn’t pass it up.  It is one of my favorite breads that I used to demolish by the loaves when we took family vacations up to Mammoth Lakes, CA during the summer.

This bread tasted great, but not as good as the Sheepherder’s bread we get at Eric Schat’s Bakery in Bishop, CA and Mammoth, CA.  I need to get my hands on some of it asap.  This will suffice for now.  I started off with two pieces covered in a thin layer of Sunbutter’s Omega-3 Nutbutter and a bit of Crofter’s America Spread…along with another small piece that was plain and somehow avoided  a picture…

I’ve had my heart set on the mangoes I purchased the other day but because my mini fridge is stupid it froze half of it…making it basically inedible. Boo.  I salvaged some of it…

And rounded out the meal with my fair share of vegetables…until I found a ladybug crawling on my fork.  Ok…and I had already consumed just over 1/2 of it.  Chucked the rest.

Now I’m off to chill with my book and get some shut eye!  I have a long day of walking surveys starting bright and early tomorrow…and all by myself!  Thank goodness for Ipods!