Adjusted Reality

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Half Marathon Training, Week 2

By Quix

On December 1, 2009

In Half Marathon Training

How did the first week go? I’ll tell ya.

About to do the chicken (turkey) dance?

Monday: 5 mile pace (let’s call it a tempo)

Check. I felt much better after completing this one. Instead of BARELY finishing under 10 min/mile pace, I came in at 46 and some change. Much closer to where I need to be. It was a little faster than normal tempo pace for the rest of the training, but more purposed towards a “test run” for my race.

Tuesday: DDR circuit (these are still kicking my butt wonderfully)

Check. This is great cross training. I need to come up with something else to do occasionally but damn it’s a nice little cardio/weights/awesome home butt kicking workout all in an hour.

Wednesday: yoga/rest

Check. I actually wanted to work out this day and felt weird resting but it was all good because then I was rested for my…

Thursday: 5 mile RACE (let’s call this my long run)

Check. I was aiming for under 45 minute, but once I ran through the course itself with it’s myriad of HILLS (there is one street on the course I hate WALKING up or BIKING up, let alone running as fast as I can up it towards the end of the 5th mile), I was perfectly happy with 45:50. A little intimidated that it’s right about the pace I’m aiming to run the half at, but hey, I’ve got 11 weeks, right? 🙂

Friday: DDR circuit

Check. Didn’t want to, but did it anyway. Felt just dandy after.

Saturday: 4×400 sprints (1 mile w/up + c/down, 400m recovery in between)

Check. Zliten and I went to the track and he got a nice jog in while I did my sprints. All sprints were between 1:50 – 1:58. It was a little harder than I remembered, but I also think I was not 100% and starting to get sick.

Sunday: rest

Oh yeah. I was pretty much in sick mode and didn’t leave the couch much at all besides some delicious chinese food.

15k people on a Thursday morning look like this.

So what’s up for this next week?

To be quite honest, I feel crappy and unsure about even calling this week 2. Mostly, because I feel crappy myself. Yesterday I started to come down with something (ok, probably Saturday but I ignored it…bad Quix) and today it’s still here. My throat is sore, my nose is a wee bit runny and plugged, and I’m going from hot to cold to hot to cold to hot in literally 5 minutes. Normally, I’m just coldcoldcold *momentofcomfort* coldcoldcold, so I know I’m out of whack.

I probably could push through and run today if my life depended on it, hell, a year or 2 ago I probably would have, but after reading up on workouts while sick, the general consensus is:

-Stick to light/moderate intensity workouts and no heavy weights. Sadly, I don’t think sprints are in this category.

-If you just have head cold symptoms, you can workout (but still lighter than normal). I don’t have any lung issues, but the fact that I sweat through 2 pairs of PJs last night and the hotcoldhotcold makes me think that perhaps it’s a sign to chillax.

-If you’re feeling tired, it’s probably best to rest (and considering I rested ALL DAY yesterday, went to sleep at 11pm, dragged myself out of bed at 9:30am, and I’m still dragging ass today – I’ll call that tired).

And this is what 15k people look like once they get going...

So the plan for this next week was:

Monday: 4×800 sprints

Tuesday: DDR circuit

Wednesday: 4 mile tempo

Thursday: DDR circuit

Friday: 6 mile run

Weekend: rest

Obviously, this is not going to happen. I expect the week to look more like this:

Monday: sleeeeeep

Tuesday: light DDR (no weights)

Wednesday: 4 mile VERY SLOW

Thursday: DDR circuit

Friday: 4×800 sprints

Saturday: 6 mile run

Sunday: rest

I normally would not do sprints and my long run back to back, but considering 6 miles isn’t THAT long, I can probably do it, as long as I’m feeling 100% by then. It’s also entirely possible that the week might look like this, depending on how long I feel crappy:

Monday: sleeeeeep

Tuesday: sleeeeeeep

Wednesday: walk around the block

Thursday: light DDR

Friday: walk around the two surrounding blocks

Weekend: rest

I am just going to play it by ear. If I feel crappy, I’m gonna rest. If I feel ok, I’m going to workout. I’m also going to remember that I have 10 more weeks after this one to make it through, and the only way to do that is to recover fully as quickly as possible. And risking injury by pushing through workouts when I feel this crappy is NOT the way to do it.

There we go. Race 6. Soon my toes are gonna have to get in on the action...

NaNoWriMo:

Fail. 30.5k words still. I might write a little tonight but I sorta quit on it this week. I threw a little temper tantrum about it and realized that the most important thing to come out of this with is a renewed sense of love for writing and the knowledge that writing a book is not nearly as daunting of a task as I thought it was. Writing everyday is daunting. Promising to do anything every day for me is daunting. Beyond waking up, brushing my teeth, eating something, reading something on the internet, and going to sleep, there is nothing I do every day. I need days off work. I need days off working out. I need days off being responsible. Writing is no different.

That’s not to say I don’t love writing (or working out, or whatnot). I just can’t spend two hours of my day every day doing it with all my other responsibilities and hobbies and need for a social life (pshaw). So, the plan going forward is to dedicate 6 hours per week – about my workout time on a normal week. 1.5 hours x2 weekdays, and 3 hours on a weekend. Once I finish, I’ll dedicate the time to editing. If that seems like a comfortable amount of time to spend per week, I’ll continue that into 2010 and start a new one.

So what’s up this week for you? What is your best cold cure? Do you work out when you’re sick?

What I’m Thankful For – Pt 2

By Quix

On November 25, 2009

In Uncategorized

So a few glasses of wine and some writing did the trick. Also – crab salad sandwiches. Seriously, this is my new find. One whole can of lump white crab is only 60 calories (and is a buck twenty five at big lots). I mixed it up with some light mayo, celery, and onions, and ate one melt (with light cheese and some pickles with the mixture) on an arnold’s sandwich thin and then put the rest of the mixture on another half of a thin. All being told, probably about 300 calories and it was like a feast, especially mowing down a half a bag of snow peas and some hummus too. I got some good quality writing done, and I went to bed happy.

I woke up today and had a wonderful morning yoga, and braced myself for the crazy. So far, no crazy. My butt has escaped the teeth marks that I expected it to have this morning. It may only be a deference until Monday, but after 4 days off, I’ll be ready to deal with it. I’m going to put my head down, enjoy the quiet, and get the last thing on my to do list done before I slide off into long weekend mode.

But not without a show of gratitude. This year, I am thankful for (in no particular order or importance):

-Being able to continue to pay mortgage and live comfortably with minor modifications even through a one income + one unemployment check period.

-That my Zliten got a job, back in the industry, making enough that we can start pumping up that savings account again.

-For a full time job in a stable company that is seeing success even through this crappy economy. It may not be the favoritest job I’ve ever had, but it sure beats the hell out of just about any alternative right now.

-That I’m leaving another year fitter and healthier than I went into it.

-For things that happen just at the right time to keep me sane/engaged/awake/hungry for more.

-For amazing technology that is part of my life. My phone can internet. For 15 bucks per month, I can listen to just about any song I ever want. With the push of a few buttons, my car can tell me turn by turn how to get home from ANYWHERE. A web page that I can put my turn by turn run and how much time it took, and it will tell me my distance and pace. I’m not talking astrophysics here, just those little conveniences that make life a little more…ahhh.

-Luxuries like pest control service and the alarm company. These were things that we considered giving up during the lean times, but then relented when 1) we had a mouse in the house, and instead of dealing with it ourselves, we just called the dudes and within a day, the mouse was gone and the entry point was patched up and 2) we had a break in where the dude opened the door, the alarm went off, and he didn’t even take anything. Even the easy pickins.

-The fact that my parents now live a short drive away, and we can see them more often. And in not-week-long doses that drive us both a little batty.

-My wonderful friends. Another fun year of outings, parties, potlucks, fun, and games. 😉

-Maintaining a healthy weight. It may not be my ideal or my happy weight, but I can’t look in the mirror and hate myself. Besides those nagging little imperfections, I don’t mind my nekkid.

-My headspace shift in the last year from exercising and eating for weight loss to eating to fuel my exercise, and exercising for accomplishment and sport. It may make losing harder, but it feels like a more sustainable and healthy place to be.

-I am finally at a place in my life, where I can decide what I want to do, set some concrete goals and put a plan in place, and more often than not get there, and if not the moon that I’m shooting for, I usually end up among the stars (to paraphrase that quote badly). I wanted to lose weight, and while I’m not at my final goal, I’m beyond my wildest expectations back then. I wanted to run a half marathon in 2 hours – I ran it 16 mins slower – but seriously, who cares? I went through a 3 month training program where the only person I was truly accountable to was myself, and finished. Now with NaNoWriMo – I might not finish in a month but I’ve got a solid plan to keep at it and the realization that I CAN DO IT.

-To be married to the most wonderful Zliten in the world, and that we had an awesomely fun friend and family filled destination wedding that was totally worth all the stress.

-The awesome fit/health/food blogging community who stop by here to read my rambles. Seriously, you deserve a freaking medal sometimes. You all understand what I go through like no one else does sometimes.

-Amazing advances in media. Instead of having to cope with just what’s on TV when it’s on and synchronizing our watches (remember having to be home at 8 for your favorite show every week and watching all the commercials? ha!), we can be amused anywhere, any time, by anyone with the internet.
Case in point:

I’m sure there’s much more I’m forgetting, but I’ll wrap this up for now. Happy Thanksgiving out there, bloggie folks. Hope you have a wonderful weekend, and remember – if you gobble gobble, you should also waddle waddle! ::grin::

Second Half Marathon Training, Week 1

By Quix

On November 23, 2009

In Half Marathon Training

So, let me just wrap up last week before I get on with it. It was pretty much a bust. I injured myself and couldn’t run Monday and Tuesday. Wednesday I had an event to go to and still felt a little stiff, and apparently I had something emotionally to work out as Zliten and I stayed up until 4am drinking on a weekday, so I was too exhausted Thursday after slogging through a tough day at work hungover on no sleep. Yeah. Hello, me 3 years ago. I did get up and do a 6 mile run and a killer DDR circuit Friday and Saturday, but I am still very disappointed with how much I’ve let distance running lapse this summer, and how HARD that was to just keep up a pace that was about what I’ve targeted my long run pace to be (around 9:45 per mile). Sunday, I counted 6 hours of shopping as my cardio.

Yet again this week, I am terrified of the scale. Not that I think I did that badly, it’s just this irrational thing that happens once I let go of tracking, I think I’m going to just start gaining and gaining. I don’t trust myself yet to really know what to do without the numbers. We will see. A healthy day today and a nice long run tonight, and I’ll be ready to hop on tomorrow morning so I can give a “start weight” for the half process.

While my goal is still to get down to under 150 by December 31st, I am not going to actively try to cut calories very low for the rest of the year. I reached my low weight of 150.2 a few weeks into half training last time just with increased exercise (before my appetite caught up). Maybe this will happen again! Regardless – pushing my body to run harder, better, faster, stronger is more important than losing a few lbs as of today.

So, let’s get on with it.

Basic Half Marathon Goals:

-Using the FIRST half marathon methodology (of course, an amalgamation of lots of different plans though), I’m going to be ONLY running 3 days per week. But the running days, they are killer. Most Mondays are sprints days. They vary between 4×400 to start out with (with a mile warmup and cooldown) and 5×1600 (same). Wednesdays are tempo runs, ranging from 4-8 miles before the taper. Friday/Sat/Sun (one of these days): is the long run, progressing from 5 miles this week to 12 miles before the taper.

I noticed that I am a lot better and fresher with a day off between runs and feel like I can expend more effort. I also remember feeling like slogging through some of those 4-5 mile slow pace weekday runs were pointless. I totally get the 3 quality runs per week idea and the research shows that most people PR with the training. It also means I can keep up with DDR and weights as well without feeling like I have to squeeze it in.

-I’m going to try the “lots of food/good food” type approach. Trying to limit my intake during training was like trying to ask a dragon politely not to breathe fire. So I’m going to give myself permission to snack as much as I want on APPROVED things, like veggies, jerky, pistachios… and probably find some healthy, whole grainy carb type things. I will keep my meals unchanged. This is not going to be an excuse to hit the buffet and eat 1500 calories. I will also NOT eat out of the fridge. This has to stop before it starts. If I want a modest snack of turkey pepperoni, a bowl of pistachios, and a tub of mixed greens, I need to serve it to myself and take it at least to the couch.

-My “pie in the sky” goal is sub 2 hours. My 5k time translated into half marathon time says I should be able to do it. The reality is – I’m just much better at short distance speed than I am picking up the pace beyond my “run forever” pace of about 10:30-11 minute miles once I get in the double digits. My realistic goal is to beat my time from the last one. My “the-day-is-shite” goal is just to finish without walking.

This week is a little weird as I’m doing a 5 mile race on thanksgiving. I haven’t trained for it for crap, but I think with race day jitters I can at least pull out a 45 minute (9 min mile) pace. If not, hey, I ran 5 miles Thanksgiving morning before I stuff my face with turkey, and I got a groovy shirt. Totally win. So this week is:

Monday: 5 mile pace (let’s call it a tempo)

Tuesday: DDR circuit (these are still kicking my butt wonderfully)

Wednesday: yoga/rest

Thursday: 5 mile RACE (let’s call this my long run)

Friday: DDR circuit

Saturday: 4×400 sprints (1 mile w/up + cool down, 400m recovery in between)

Sunday: rest

Normally, it would be run M/W/F, DDR circuits Tu/Th, but the race mucks this up. I already screwed up the ability to run this all outside (unless I decide tonight to hit the track for 5 miles in the dark…hmmm…didn’t think of that before) but unless the weather brings forth some icky icky clouds I’m golden for sprints at the track on Saturday.

The paces frighten me. For an approximate 9:10 goal pace, which is a 2 hour half, here is what they want me to train at:

400s – 1:58 (no problem)

800s – 4:02 (again, no problem)

1600s – 8:25 (no problem in theory, 5 of these in one workout will be KILLER though)

tempo: 8:55 per mile (err, 8 miles below 9 minute miles? sceeery!!!)

long run: 9:40 per mile (this will be pretty brutal too, but I feel more confident about this than the tempos).

Wish me luck! Anyone ever done 3 day per week running training, or at least focused on quantity over quality miles? Any suggestions on making improvements on long distance pace? My brain just seems to get intimidated and shut off the ability to really push myself above a 5k.

NaNoWriMo:
I’m about 9k words behind. I’m going to try and rally this week… but that would mean almost 2700 words per day. What I’m going to do if I *don’t* finish is to dedicate at least 1.5 hours after work 2 days per week and 3 hours on a weekend day EACH WEEK until I finish. Unless I’m really inspired to talk about it before then for some reason, I’ll let you in on how I did December 1st.

And, if you made it through this far, let me reward you with this gem. I feel greeeeeeeaaaattt! Baaaaabiiiieeesss!!!! Happy faux-Wednesday if you’ve got a short week like we have for Thanksgiving! If not, happy Monday to the lot of ya.

Sorry, Monday, I’m Just Not That Into You…

By Quix

On November 16, 2009

In Uncategorized

Attitude is everything. I’ve taken some really rough days and put a positive spin on them and come out alright. I’ve gotten through some tough times in my life just with optimistic thinking. So why, when everything is going great, and I feeling so…bleh?

I’m thankful for having a job at a stable company that has a successful product where I’m making a living wage at a title that is not beneath me. However, I’ve been at that title for 4 years now and it’s time to move up (I’ve never gone so long without a promotion). Plus, I miss the creativity I used to have earlier this year. That one post I made a few months ago all excited about job stuff? That’s on hold and I’m onto something else not quite as exciting.

I’m thankful for have been able to able to lose 110 lbs, and go from someone who grumbled about having to park 100 feet away from her apartment to a half marathon runner. However, it’s been the greater part of a year since I really took off any more weight. Why the hell can’t I get it together and finish this up? Also, a trend I’m not liking is I feel like I’m becoming less enthusiastic about my workouts.

I’m just feeling all around burnt out lately. This year has been crazy (crazy cool, but still crazy) – it started in March with the birthdays and then April with half training, and then in July, it was wedding, wedding, wedding until October. I figured things would calm down but now it’s been taking care of all the stuff I’ve put off since the wedding. Plus I decided to take on NaNoWriMo. And next week begins half marathon training.

I feel like the guy in Office Space who just wants to do nothing. The silly thing is, I know it’s crazy because I go NUTS doing nothing. I think the combination of stressing over my sticky scale numbers, having a period of work where I’m just not quite as into what I’m doing as I could be, not having had a good, lengthy, and relaxing vacation in a while, and feeling obligated to do something at every moment of the day this month is just about making me crack.

But don’t cry for me. Seriously. I saw you taking that tissue out and just go ahead and put it back.

The Write Stuff:

Even though I’m stressing about it, NaNoWriMo has been a great experience that I will be immensely proud of, even if I don’t get to 50k words (but I’m not giving up!!). Just sitting down to write a story and getting through it has been huge for me. Though it’s been hell some days to find time to write, and yesterday I just couldn’t get inspired, I’m pleased with my consistency of being able to sit down and flow. While this week was too crazy to write most days (hence, why I got so behind), I pulled over 7000 words out this weekend.

Words needed to be on track: 25000

Words written: 20500

Words per day needed this week to catch up: 2400

One thing I’m also realizing – it doesn’t need to be THE BOOK for me to start writing it. You know, the masterpiece. The one that’s going to somehow become a best seller and I’ll be able to retire and go move to Vermont like all writers do or whatever. If I can speedwrite a short book in one month, I can chip away at a novel a year. Slow, sure. But it’s better than not writing and complaining about it. I think it is going to be a goal from now on to write at least one novel per year.

Food, Glorious Food:

I’d say I lost it here this week, but honestly, I don’t know for sure. I stopped tracking mid-week and just couldn’t bring myself to start it up again. The key days were Wednesday, Friday, and the weekend.

Wednesday – work event, which I sailed through. I ordered a DELICIOUS asian chicken salad and only used half the dressing. Then later, for dinner, I ate a bunch of fried appetizers after some drinking. This is sort of a wash. Sure, I ate crap. But at least I had the sense to split the crap with other people and then realize I was done eating for the night even though it was an appetizer.

Friday, I had a buffalo burger, wheat bun, no butter and split some fries for lunch. I was hoping to love it since it’s a fairly healthy option for Fuddruckers, but I just didn’t. The meat tasted weird. We had grilled chicken, tiny baked potatoes, and my famous veggie pasta salad for dinner. However, there were two margaritas on a beautiful patio and some drinks later, so again, kind of a wash.

Saturday, I knew I needed major fortification, so I had a footlong subway turkey with no cheese and lots of veggies and an apple. That got me through the day until the party, where I cooked a feast (more on the tomorrow) and pushed tropical drinks on my guests! There was some healthy (veggie tray, veggie curry, etc), and some not so healthy (fried lumpia, fried chicken katsu, etc), and I ate some of both. Come on, a good cook ALWAYS tastes the creations.

Sunday, minus the pizza that found it’s way into the house during lunch time (Zliten’s fault! He didn’t even give me the chance to veto, he just left and came back with it), I noshed on the leftover veggies, salad, soup, fruit, and for dinner we made tiny filets.

All in all, I think what happened is I slipped back into “balanced lifestyle” mode instead of “weight loss” mode. I didn’t go off the deep end. I balanced out the alcohol and junk with a lot of fruits and veggies. And this was even left to my own devices. I’d venture that I averaged maybe 1700 calories per day this week total, which is not what I’m aiming for, but not up to my maintenance calories either. I’d call it a victory, but I haven’t had the courage to step on a scale yet. Tomorrow morning, I’ll let you know. 🙂 Last week, I bounced between 154.2 and 155.4. Disheartening as I was hoping to continue the downward trend, but encouraging as I was not up and down like normal. I’ll take what I can get.

This week, my goal is to stay under 1500 calories per day (closer to 1300 if I can), minus a planned event Wednesday which I’ll allow up to 2000.

Body Movin’:

I talked about this a lot this week with my abrupt end to shredding, unplanned day off minus some yoga Wednesday, and my subsequent discovery of DDR circuits that I refined on Friday, so I’ll spare you any more details. I took the entire weekend off to give myself a rest and am back at it this week. This is essentially my week 0 for half training, and I’m getting myself prepared to run more by bumping it up to 3 days this week. I am a week and a half from my 5 mile race, and I just haven’t trained much for it specifically, so I’m just hoping for the best. Here is the plan:

Monday: 10 mins warmup, 6×400 sprints, 10 minute cooldown

Tuesday: 5 mile run at attempted race pace (45 minutes)

Wednesday: off

Thursday:DDR circuit

Friday: 3.1 mile tempo run (yeah, I’m going to chase my sub 25 5k ONE LAST TIME before half training starts and I need to be a reasonable human and stop running so fast and work on running far)

Weekend: DDR circuit and a bike adventure

Wednesday is off because I have to be into work early anyway to go to said event at 5:30, and I don’t do early early morning workouts so I’ll adjust the rest of my week accordingly. I may reconsider and do a regular strength session tonight at the gym after my sprints instead of so much on the weekend, but we will see. Without schedule conflicts, I would have run M/W/F (sprints/tempo/long) and did DDR circuits Tu/Th.

I still owe before and after shred pictures. I’ll get on that.

So bloggy people, how was your weekend? Anything supah cool? Anyone else kinda feeling the blahs and just CANNOT WAIT for some damn time off over the holidays? Wanna tell me what an arsehole I am for feeling whiny? Your opportunity awaits…

And yes, it was another Natalie Dee day. It just felt right.

On Growing Up, and Things To Be When You Do…

By Quix

On November 5, 2009

In Uncategorized

Let it not be said that I am unhappy with my station in life. I’m not rich, but I am comfortable. I don’t quite make enough to be the sole breadwinner in the household – but with a smaller mortgage (aka NOT buying a 4 bedroom house in the exact neighborhood we wanted) and less of a car payment (hello, hybrid luxury car), I could probably make a stab at it. I have the possibility and experience in the next few years to get a title and salary bump that makes sense (taking the Associate out of my title, or as I like to say – removing the Ass from my Prod), and frankly, which I think I deserve with the time I’ve put in.

However, I’m seeing game studios collapse around me left and right. We are actually doing really freaking well in the midst of the chaos, but a year from now… who knows? It’s really hit me lately that beyond project management and game design, I have very few marketable skills. What happens if the well dries up here in Austin and moves on, and I don’t want to move on with it? I love living here. It is PERFECT for me. Cost of living affords me a mortgage and not a rent check each month, unlike other hot spots like So Cal. The weather here really jives with me. I don’t think I could do somewhere rainy like Seattle or cold like the Boston area. I feel at home here like I never have in a place before – the people are quirky and awesome and friendly, it’s not weird to be active, and there is always cool stuff going on and it’s not like you have to be a cool kid to know about it.

So what’s a gal to do? I’ve been thinking about this for a while. If I want to stay here, what is my backup plan? It’s entirely possible I’m worried about nothing but… I always am thinking, “what’s next”. Some people’s jobs make sense as a freelancer/online. Outsourced art and programming (to a lesser extent) is common in the games industry – design and production aren’t and those are my specialties. While I enjoy project management for a fun industry like gaming, I have my doubts about moving into something more mundane like software development or a pants factory or whatnot. If I’m not having fun, it will not work for me. Whatever I spend 40 hours or more doing has to at least make me feel proud/interested in the product. So… what else am I interested in to the point where I could envision myself doing them full time?

Writing. If I could make a living doing it, I would LOVE to write full time. I wasn’t sure if I could write on a schedule but coming up with something 3-4 times per week for the last year and some change (minus a couple weeks of crazy) has proven to me that I can indeed be self motivated and produce semi-coherent diatribe on topics that interest me. The next step for me gaining confidence here is plunging into NaNoWriMo. If I can get at least a crappy novel under my belt, I can evaluate whether I could consider doing this for a living. I feel the same way about it as I do a marathon. I just want to go the distance at least once to see if it’s for me.

Film/TV production. I think it would be a natural step, and Austin is becoming a mini-Hollywood as of late. It’s always something I’ve been interested in and I’m starting to have the contacts to at least consider the move. But it would probably be more of the same (crazy hours, stress, waiting around for things to happen, etc).

Then Zliten went and got me thinking last night… he was talking about doing the 30 minute workout circuit at Planet Fitness and then was trying to get out of it by saying he just wanted to come home. I made him a circuit that was just evil enough but not too crazy evil and he swore at me when he finished but looked like he had gotten a good workout. I’m always trying to tweak my workouts and food intake/ratios/etc. I’m horribly interested in what other people eat. I always feel like if I knew more, I’d be more successful at maneuvering through this healthy living thing, and I’ve pretty much exhausted the internet. Sure, occasionally, I happen upon something new, but usually, I find myself going – “Duh. Thanks captain obvious.” And then realize that to 99.9% of the world is not as bored as I has not had the time, attention, nor want for looking this up. As I have. And I want more.

I find myself now tentatively pondering about thinking about perhaps sticking my toe into the waters of academia again. Previously I’ve been very anti-school because my thesis ruined school for me and I’ve said for the greater part of a decade I was done with it forever. Maybe not. I also said I’d never wear bell bottoms and I rocked them yesterday.

The idea of going back to school at age 30, with a full time job, with other extra curricular pursuits (hi 2 u training for a marathon) is pretty damn daunting. The starting salaries of either a dietitian or a personal trainer don’t look promising. I would be taking a pay cut fo’ sho unless somehow my management skillz could get me into a supervisory job. The idea of actually having to recruit clients seems daunting as well. It’s most likely that this is NOT the job for me.

But the idea of something that could possibly done online or freelance sounds awesome. It frustrates me to no end having to show up for work some days when I don’t have a full day of work to do, and just sit here and wait because we are required to at least put in our 8 hours. And it’s possible that there may be a time in my life where a full time 40 hour a week job is not a viable option. I’ve done the traditional “go to work, do my time, get a paycheck, and go home” thing all my life. I’d at least like to see how the other half lives before I run screaming back into a position of stability, comfort, and regularity.

I think the first step (after I’m done with NaNoWriMo, of course, I’m already hearing the, “are you done writing YET? There are THINGS to DO…” voices from the peanut gallery) is to maybe check out some coursework books on nutrition and training. Give them a read. See if it’s anything I want to learn about. Go from there. The local U has degree programs in just about anything nutrition/fitness/exercise/training/etc I want to pursue so I’ve got that going for me.

I always thought I was going to keep climbing my way up. First take over a game. Then take over a department. Then – who knew, maybe run my own company some day. Now, it’s entirely possible I might get bitten by the draw of being an exec again, but I’m toying with the idea that maybe the ladder isn’t where I’ll be the happiest. Maybe it is. I just don’t know anymore. I’m sure this is just me being a little unenthused with my current task at work and day dreaming. But maybe it’s more than that.

I know some of you out there at least do/have done side jobs writing, training, maybe there’s even a dietician or someone that’s worked with film/tv/broadcast stuff out there. Talk to me. Did you leave your cushy corporate job for it? Did you regret it at all? Is there any way in hell to make a decent salary at it (think mid to upper 5 figures +)? How was the schooling? Did you go for a degree or certifications? What did you exactly do when you became gainfully employed? What did you love and hate about it? If not – what is your dream job? What steps are you taking to get there? How did you know what you were doing was right for you?

Don’t worry – I’ll get back to my regularly scheduled bitchfest in no time about the scale not budging and screwing up over the weekend and how Jillian can go eat a… um… carrot for the torture she hath brought upon us in Level 3.

More demotivational fun here!

Adjusted Reality

“Reality can be beaten with enough imagination.” – Mark Twain

Tag: Writing Page 2 of 3

Half Marathon Training, Week 2

What I’m Thankful For – Pt 2

Second Half Marathon Training, Week 1

Sorry, Monday, I’m Just Not That Into You…

On Growing Up, and Things To Be When You Do…

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