Category Archives: Thirtysomething Angst

This starts today

Posted on May 7, 2012 by shelby| 30 Comments

The last carload of crap has been hauled. The boxes have been unpacked. The major furniture items and appliances have been selected and purchased.

It’s been 23 days since the marathon.

I’m running out of excuses to miss workouts. And the long, physically laborious days of moving and unpacking where I simply must put up my feet and sip on a glass (or three) of Sauv Blanc at sundown…well, those are pretty much over at this point too.

So: this starts today.

I’m not sure what this is, but as I mentioned last week, I do know that I need to take my running mileage down for a few months. Aside from a short break in December, I’ve been in marathon training mode since last August, gunning for high mileage (successfully last fall; not so much this spring) and not really doing much in the way of strength training or cross training.

And that was great. It worked just like it was supposed to. It got me the PR and BQ that had eluded me for a decade.

It also got me a beer gut.

There is a reason why miles make champions. It’s because running lots of miles makes your body really efficient at running lots of miles. And that’s exactly what you want if you’re trying to be a competitive distance runner.

The downside is that most of us who run what I’d call “ambitious hobbyjogger” mileage (say, 40 or 50 miles a week) on a consistent basis spend a lot of time exercising and probably burn relatively few calories for our efforts.

Probably. I’m just conjecturing based on my experience over the years. Factor in the inevitable metabolic slowdown that comes with getting older and I’m starting to come to terms with the fact that distance running may not be the best way for me to stay in shape.*

That doesn’t mean I’m going to stop doing it, obviously. Because that’s not my primary motivation. But in the “off season,” I figure it can’t hurt to focus my efforts elsewhere for a few months and try to get a little leaner for the next training cycle.

So…this, whatever it is, starts today.

No more weeknight beers. (Most of the time.)

No more fried food. (Unless it’s something really good.)

Some running, obviously, but more like 20 MPW.

Track workouts.

Boot camp.

Weights.

F*cking yoga.

And regular check-ins with this thing:

As of today, it tells me that I weigh 133.6 pounds and am composed of 23.8% fat and 37.8% muscle. (The other 38% is probably Dos Equis and tortilla chips, based on my weekend activities.)

[Edited to add: I'm 5'3", so while that's a perfectly healthy weight for me, I do have room to lose a few pounds and still be at a healthy weight.]

I don’t really have a goal, I just want the numbers to move in a direction that indicates less of the squishy stuff and more of the firm stuff.

And I am definitely not going to turn this in to an OMG WEIGHT LOSS blog and then crow about how inspirational I am because I lost ten vanity pounds. (Although if it could get me a book deal? I totally would.)

But assuming it’s not horribly offensive to you guys, I’ll share my progress (or spectacular failure and lack thereof) as it happens.

Anyway. I have a yoga class to get to. So I’ll leave you with what may end up being the final tragic photo of Emmy, on the cusp of her demise:

I could not come up with a worse place to nap if I tried. Unless your goal is to get squished by someone coming down the stairs who doesn’t see you because you are snoozing cluelessly under the first step.

*I’m sure there’s an inflection point somewhere. If I were able to consistently log 80 MPW instead of 40 MPW, I’d probably lean out. And obviously, the vast majority of elite and accomplished distance runners don’t have spare tires…they probably also have more willpower than I do when it comes to their diets. And better genetics. I realize that I’m oversimplifying and there are a lot of factors that affect one’s body composition, but it’s my blog and I’ll make sweeping generalizations if I want to.

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Posted in Crazy Cat Lady, Cross Training, General Running Chatter, Thirtysomething Angst

Big Decisions

Posted on March 26, 2012 by shelby| 17 Comments

Generally speaking, I’ve got it pretty good. When life flings annoying little scraps of crap at me, I can always say: well, at least I have a roof over my head.

Oddly, in a few weeks, we won’t.

A little back story. When we first started looking for a place to live here in Atlanta, we saw this house. Its list price was out of our range, but it had been on the market for eons, so we went to look anyway.

“Holy crap,” I remember saying upon taking in the gorgeous kitchen, gorgeous sunny living room, gorgeous…well, everything. “I can’t even imagine living in a place like this.”

A couple of months and one lowball offer later, we were under contract. It seemed too good to be true.

Holy crap indeed.

Last Friday, we met the home inspectors at the house. THE house. It wasn’t OUR house yet; there was still a lot that could go wrong. But in spite of my best efforts to remain unattached, I found myself envisioning furniture placement and such. The couch here, facing the window! Bar stools there, over by the built-in wine fridge! That painting we love up there, on that wall!

But as we tagged along after the inspector, those visions of buttery leather sofas and funky bar stools gave way to thoughts of buckets and towels.

“Systematic water issues,” the inspector said in to his voice recorder.

“Holy crap,” my husband and I said to one another.

Actually, it wasn’t totally surprising. On previous visits to the house, we’d seen some evidence of drainage issues, and going in to the inspection we knew there was a possibility that the structure needed an entirely new roof – which given the home’s unique style/shape, would be a little more complicated and expensive than just slapping on some new shingles.

But the inspector’s report basically confirmed our worst-case scenario.

So we spent the entire weekend going back and forth. Should we walk away, or move forward? We discussed and discussed…over glasses of wine, while buttering waffles, from either side of the sink while brushing our teeth. The entire weekend was basically one big circle of discussion, leading up to Sunday night, which was the deadline for backing out of our contract.

Our contract, on OUR house.

We are moving forward.

We, who are the type of people who will deal with a dark hallway for weeks because neither one of us is motivated enough to change a lightbulb. We are going to put a new roof on a house.

(Well, we aren’t going to actually do it, of course, but we’re going to oversee its construction. Still a stretch for us.)

Of course, the deal could still sink at this point. The bank’s appraisers still have to go in and do their thing. But we’re one step closer to having a permanent roof over our heads.

And then immediately ripping it off.

Exciting and scary.

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Posted in Thirtysomething Angst

Deflated

Posted on March 13, 2012 by shelby| 13 Comments

Yesterday, I failed myself. Allow me to explain.

Upon getting the keys to my very first car, my father insisted that Teenage Me spend an afternoon on parking lawn in front of our house, learning basic car things like checking the oil level, putting on chains, and putting on a spare tire.

The first two skills, I’ve actually used! Believe me, I can read a dipstick like no one’s business. And cable chains? Well…if you need ‘em, you’ll be glad you know how to put ‘em on.

But seventeen years later…I’ve still never changed a flat. But it’s not for lack of trying!

You see, I have always been paranoid about having flat tires. To the point where I imagine them. See, for example: this road trip. For weeks after that, every time I approached my car, I examined every tire with squinty eyes, trying to see if they looked a little low.

And I actually got new tires put on, following that trip. That was two weeks ago. Confident in the fact that I’d made a Responsible Adult Purchase and was therefore absolved of any worry about my wheels, I stopped looking for flats every time I went for a drive. So of course, that’s when it happened.

Overnight, my brand new tire somehow became fully deflated. It was the moment I’d been waiting for…and yet somehow, was least expecting.

My first phone call was to Costco’s tire center, which was the scene of the recent purchase and installation. I asked the guy whether my flat tire would be covered under their warranty. He said it absolutely would – I just needed to bring it in.

“UM,” I said. “How am I supposed to do that? It has a TOTALLY FLAT TIRE.”

“Well…you will need to put the spare on,” he replied calmly.

“Right,” I said, as I literally felt a cartoon light bulb coming on over my head. “It has a spare tire.”

I hung up with Costco and proceeded to spend about fifteen minutes prodding around the underside of my car before realizing that this was NOT a good use of my time. Sorry, Dad.

To truncate a rather long and drawn-out story: seven hours and two tow trucks later, I finally had a new (fully inflated) tire on my car. It’s a good thing I didn’t spend all day trying to change the tire myself, because as it turns out, it doesn’t come off of my car. (Apparently, some screw thingy on the spare is stripped. We bought the car used and it’s a decade old, so…whatever. Good to know, I guess.)

I don’t really see myself as a helpless female, but yesterday, I sure felt like one. Hell…I was one. There was no way I was getting that car out of that garage without someone else’s assistance. Pathetic.

But at the same time: I am almost 32 years old. Is learning a skill that I’ll utilize one every two decades really a good use of my time and energy? Especially when I can just pay my insurance company an extra six bucks a month to take care of that shit for me?

Anyway. After dealing with all of that, I needed a beer. And this week, Spring has sprung here in Raleigh! It’s been warm and beautiful the last couple of days…the perfect weather for sampling a new seasonal.

Bluepoint’s Spring Fling Ale is a coppery American Pale Ale. This is a straightforward, slightly hoppy, thoroughly enjoyable beer. The Long Island brewery pairs German barley and American hops to create a balanced brew that is fresh and inviting. 6% ABV.

Bottom line: It’s nothing groundbreaking, but a solid drinkable beer! (Received as a gift, retails for ~$2/12 oz)

The weird thing is…when they took off my wrinkly tire, they didn’t find anything wrong with it. Like: no maliciously thick nail or shard of scrap metal poking through it. According to them, my brand-new tire just spontaneously deflated. According to them, that sometimes just happens.

Aaaaaand, we’re back to being totally paranoid about tire pressure every time we approach our vehicle.

At least it’s a way of life that I’m accustomed to.

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Posted in Beer Reviews, Thirtysomething Angst

To hell with hills

Posted on February 11, 2012 by shelby| 5 Comments

I’ve been keeping a list of things that have become noticeably more difficult for me – and specifically, the runner in me – since we hit the other side 30 a couple of years ago.

Warm-ups: need to be longer.

Recovery from a hard effort: seems to take forever.

Hills: have become steeper.

I used to be kind of okay at hills – at least on a comparative basis. It was the one place on a race course where I had a shot at chasing down my more willowy counterparts. Something about a low center of gravity, I guess.

Well, my center of gravity hasn’t changed, so I’m going to go with: the hills have become steeper. That’s clearly the only way to explain the pain and suffering of this week’s speed workout.

Eight times up a stretch of neighborhood blocks, amounting to a quarter mile and about 80 feet of elevation gain. My speedwork group from last fall is back in action (yay!), so I had a nice pack to work with. (For the first six, anyway. It’s fun being the only person working on full marathon this spring…)

Our coach told us to shoot for 15 seconds slower than we’d normally run 400 repeats on a track. If I were going to do 8X400 on a track, I’d like to think I’d be down in the low 80s, so I plugged 95 seconds in to my head for this hill workout.

But my splits were: 100, 100, 99, 99, 98, 97, 102, 99. (Obviously, I lost a little steam when I had to do the last couple on my own…)

Apparently I was optimistic. Still, I guess there’s nothing wrong with that workout. It just felt kinda crappy. Meh.

Anyway. On to the next one. I’m hoping to hit 60 miles this week and as I am sitting here sipping some Friday night wine, I’m at 34. I have some work to do this weekend.

Which means I should probably put down the wine glass. 

This South African outfit’s Rose has long been a favorite, but I’d never tried the simply-named Red 2010 from Goats Do Roam before. It’s mostly Syrah (72%) and Cinsault (13%) with a little Grenache and some other stuff mixed in. Very bright and berry-forward, it was sweeter and lighter-bodied than I expected it to be, and very smooth. A respectable choice if you’re looking for something on the grocery store shelf that will be widely enjoyed, with food or without. 14% ABV.

Bottom Line: I received this from a friend, but I’d buy it again! Retails for around $10.

Time for me to chug some water so I don’t wake up feeling like I slept with a cotton ball in my mouth. And give my teeth a good cleansing. Don’t want to show up to morning running group with a headache and purple lips.

Add that to the list of thirtysomething woes….

Red wine: kicks my ass if I’m not careful.

To hell with getting old.

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Posted in Thirtysomething Angst, Wine Reviews, Workout Recaps

The new must-see TV

Posted on January 31, 2012 by shelby| 20 Comments

Let’s start with a little background. You all remember your first crush, right?

Mine was Fred Savage, circa 1988. Every week, I stalked the TV listings for new episodes of The Wonder Years. I became obsessed with the movie Little Monsters and found a new appreciation for The Princess Bride. I daydreamed and schemed, concocting fantasies in which the object of my affection would move to Washington state, enroll at my school, and profess his love for me in front of my third grade locker.

A pipe dream, obviously.

Twenty-three years later, armed with a  DVR, I can relive those formative years every single night.

I’ve known for a while that one of our odd little cable stations airs vintage sitcoms, often at weird hours of the day. (They also show Family Ties, which I also enjoyed…however, Alex P. Keaton was no Kevin Arnold. And by the time Leo DiCap came on there, I was over it.)

For some reason, it only recently occurred to me to unleash the DVR on this station, a veritable goldmine of quality eighties programming. The machine went to work, stockpiling episodes in its memory bank. And now, instead of spending my Monday night with that Bachelor crap (or whatever you kids are watching these days), I get to have my own little mini-marathon of this:

Eight-year-old me is extremely jealous.

Childhood crushes aside, though, The Wonder Years was fantastic television. It’s funny how elements of the show that I never noticed or paid attention to when I was a kid – like the relationship between Kevin’s parents, Norma and Jack – are now interesting and relatable.

And Winnie Cooper? Well, I pretty much wanted to be her.

It’s humiliating to admit this, but I insisted on wearing my brown hair long and straight, with bangs, because I seriously thought that if anything happened to Danica McKellar, maybe they would call me in as an understudy.

(Uh, yeah…not quite.)

When I was little, she could do no wrong. But watching now, I’m realizing: girlfriend could be a real bitch sometimes. And she was kind of (understandably, I guess, given her family drama) messed up in the head.

I’m still working my way through the episodes on my DVR, but I already know that they don’t wind up together in the end. I remember feeling outrage at the series finale when I watched it the first time around. I’m guessing I’ll probably feel a little differently today.

Anyway. That’s how I’ve been spending my free time lately.

How about a beer?

Peak Organic’s Maple Collaboration is an American Red/Amber Ale made with locally-sourced Maine oats and Vermont maple syrup.

I wasn’t sure what to expect from this one. Would it be a pancake in a bottle? (And would that be a good thing?)

As it turns out, the maple flavor is understated, presenting itself briefly and pleasantly on the finish of each sip. And there’s not much bitterness here, for a red – perhaps another byproduct of the syrup. The oatmeal goes completely unnoticed. Some BA reviewers griped about noticing the alcohol, but I really didn’t. Overall, it’s an amiable beer with a little hint of something sweet. 6.7% ABV.

Bottom line: Nothing earth-shattering, but enjoyable. (Purchased at Tasty Beverage, $6.50/big bottle)

Ok, back to my DVR stash….

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Posted in Beer Reviews, Thirtysomething Angst

Tagged , ,

Two new pairs

Posted on January 12, 2012 by shelby| 25 Comments

For the couple of years that my husband was in business school in Boston, I suffered from an off-and-on inferiority complex. (Warning: #firstworldproblems ahead.)

It didn’t really have anything to do with the fact that I was a mere “partner” in a social set of highly intelligent and ambitious people, most of whom scored about a zillion points on on their GMAT and had probably made more money in their pre-MBA working years than I’d make in a decade.  Nor did it bother me to be – as I was, having moved to Boston from Cleveland – an odd-out midwesterner in a sea of New England pedigrees.

Nope…my husband’s classmates were charming and delightful people, and although I kind of wanted to hate them for being so smart and attractive and successful, I just couldn’t. I made fast friends with many of them.

(It probably helped that I could totally hang when it came to drinking. When there’s a race to the bottom, I’m usually a frontrunner.)

Anyway, no, my occasional bouts of insecurity stemmed from the silly fact that my jeans were all…bootcut and shit.

Come back to 2007 with me, please. Bootcut jeans and pointy pumps. That’s what the cool kids were wearing in Ohio. (Well, actually, in Ohio it was considered perfectly acceptable to wear a hoodie and sneakers out on the town…a sentiment with which I still don’t entirely disagree.)

But in Bahhhhston, it was all skinny jeans and ballet flats and leggings and tunics and other trendy things that I did not, at the time, own. In my shorter fitted shirts and flare-leg pants, I felt like kind of a relic.

“You look great,” my husband would tell me, as we got ready to head out to any one of the countless social functions we attended each week.

“I look like a fucking antique,” I’d moan. And then I’d give up and slip into a good old hoodie and sneakers. If I was going to look like crap anyway, I might as well be comfy.

Looking back, I kind of roll my eyes at myself. Obviously, I wasn’t as comfortable with myself back then. Now, five years later, I’ve owned the fact that I’m just not a fashionista; on most days you’ll find me in a sports bra and running shoes. It’s fine. It’s sporty…or something. It’s me.

But occasionally, the complex returns.

This weekend, I’m headed to Vegas for a reunion weekend with my husband…and fifty of this MBA classmates.

Today, I thought about starting to pack. I stared at the small clump of dresses hanging among the hoodies and sweaters in my closet; I eyed the dusty little pile of scuffed-up “fancy” shoes, pretty much abandoned these days, but for the occasional wedding.

It was time for a little something new.

Nude pumps. Shiny nude pumps. With just a little bit of that stripper-platform thing going. Apparently this is what the cool kids are wearing now. Hopefully they are also wearing Ace bandages, because that it what I’m going to be sporting after I sprain my ankle.

So just in case, I’m also packing these…

New Brooks PureFlow colors! Now, you can’t tell me that’s not a hell of a pretty shoe. And functional, too!

Remind me…what’s so wrong with hoodies and sneakers?

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Posted in Not a Fashion Blog, Thirtysomething Angst

In an effort to do something slightly more productive with my life…

Posted on October 28, 2011 by shelby| 36 Comments

A few weeks ago, I was chatting with my friend Newt, catching up on what’s new in our respective lives. I don’t chat with my friends often enough…probably because I am horrible at picking up the phone. But that’s another story.

Anyway. As her (very well written) blog documents, she’s a super-busy mom-doctor with another kiddo on the way. I flopped on my bed and sipped a class of wine, pressing my phone to my ear, as she recounted the various challenges of juggling child care, pregnancy, a demanding career, a husband whose work sends him on international travel on a regular basis…

…and then my head started spinning. Stressing about getting your toddler picked up from day-care on time while trying to, oh, you know, save your patients’ lives?

I just can’t. Even imagine.

Talking to my college friends is always a reminder of the fact that my life hasn’t exactly gone the way I always expected it to. Perhaps, if I’m being totally honest with myself here, that’s one of the reason my calls are sparser than they should be.

I mean…what, exactly, have I done with my life?

I’m pretty sure that I wouldn’t have been voted “Most Likely to Work Retail” in either my high school or college graduating classes. I’m a smart chick. So maybe that’s why I feel a little weird about the fact that, at this point, nearly all of my friends from way-back-when have letters after their names or spawn to care for or both.

In fairness to myself, it’s not like I didn’t at least start to go down that path. I did several years in financial consulting: constant travel, long and unpredictable hours, intense all-night report-writing caffeine benders. And I didn’t totally hate it. It just…I don’t know. When my husband’s schooling and/or career ambitions moved us for the umpteenth time, I just decided to just try something else.

When I asked myself what I’m good at, the answer was obvious to me. I’m good at writing.

That was a little over two years ago. So here I am.

I’m a writer. Not in the sense of this blog (because I don’t make a cent off of this blog) but in that…that’s the career I identify with. What I set out to be. What I’ve, frankly, failed at being over the last two years, by my own standards, anyway. Aside from a few freelance projects of varying levels of prestige.

Mostly, though, I work at a specialty running store (which I actually love!) and do a little writing on the side. If I added up all of the money I’ve made as a writer over these two years, it probably wouldn’t equal a month of the salary I used to make in consulting.

Is that pathetic? Maybe. Does it make me feel like a total douchebag when I talk to my more-successful friends? Yeah, kinda.

But this much I do know: My life really isn’t that difficult at the moment. And I’m not challenging myself in the way that I should.

Enter: National Novel Writing Month. Starting: November 1.  The challenge: to write 50,000 words (the length of a short novel or novella).  That’s it.

(For perspective, this blog post, to this point, is 539 words.)

I actually attempted this NaNoWriMo thing last year, too. But I didn’t say anything about it on the blog. And I wouldn’t say it was all that successful. Fiction writing is…different. Different, and hard.

I’m going to try again though. I put a NaNoWriMo badge over on the right sidebar and everything. And I’m going to post my word counts alongside my weekly running stats. Maybe I’ll share some reflections and snippets here and there, too.

It’s entirely possible that the whole thing will totally suck. And I’m OK with that. At least I will have tried.

ANYWAY. You all don’t come here to hear me whine about my phantom career and my underachiever status. So here’s some running stuff:

I have to work all weekend, so I knocked my long run out this morning. Two out-and-back jaunts on the Reedy Creek Bike & Bridle at Umstead.

Dare I say that this has been one of the best long runs I’ve had in recent years? Things just sort of came together. Even though I was running solo on a monotonous route, somehow I was never really bored. I was shooting for an average mile pace somewhere around 9:00, and managed to nail it without even really thinking about it. And had some gas left in the tank to crank it up a little at the end.

A pack of Gu Chumps and one Gu (split up between three feedings – one at 7 miles, one at 12 miles, one at 17 miles) kept my belly happy.

Everything just worked on this run. I even managed to keep my shit together on the hills.

Five weeks until CIM!

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Posted in MSPAINT FTW, Thirtysomething Angst, Workout Recaps