I'm feeling fat and sassy

Only bike commuted in the morning.  My legs were a little dead and I got picked up by Ashley on the way home.  We stopped and got some tasty take out and relaxed.  

Bike Commute!  Nothing special

Ran with Sadie before I had to go to work at Rite Aid.  She really is good at making me run faster.  Plus, it's good that she gets some good exercise as well.

Another 12 hour day at the pharmacy afterward but much better than last week.  Actually had help this time which was nice.  It was a long uneventful day.  The biggest issue was some people trying to fill fake/altered scripts for narcotics but I told them to beat it.  

Labour Day bike ride with my College friend.  In Buffalo, people commonly ride over this set of bridges to a place called Grand Island.  It's all super quiet residential and a loop of the island is about 25 miles.  Sometimes the wind is brutal becasue it's so flat and yesterday it was.  It doesn't bother me too much but it did slow us down a lot on the second half of the loop.  Aside from the wind, the weather was very nice.  I really like riding my bike for more than a simple commute, I need to get out and do it more.  

Later that day we went got a nice 5 mile walk around the park.  Sadie and Ralphie are pretty well-behaved and socialized dogs so we feel pretty confident that they will behave themselves on walks but they are vocal about wanting to play with other dogs which makes them look a little nutter.  There was a little rat terrier thing and the guy asked if our dogs were nice.  I was like sure and he brings it over and it goes ballistic and snappy and crazy.  It was like WOW, moving on.  So this put Ralphie into overdrive. He is always super quiet but once he feels that he or us are threatened he goes into super guard puppy mode and will try to chase away the offender.  He does it at the dog park sometimes when his space is being invaded and once the dog move away he settles down.  It's defensive and never aggressive.   But that little terrier was not socialized and looked like it would bite so we moved on.  The rest of the walk was nice and it was a nice fall day to stroll around.  The park was packed with people celebrating the last day of summer.  On the way home we stopped for ice cream and got them puppy cones.  A dog eating ice cream is probably the cutest this ever.  Video Evidence.  They were pooped and slept the rest of the day.

 It drives me crazy that people routinely accept that little dogs can be aggressive toward people and other dogs becasue they are small and "can't" do damage.  If a large dog acts the same way, it's dangerous and it shouldn't be any different.  My dogs are 40 and 70 lbs and if they acted even partly like this terrier I'd have to destroy them.  I see it all the time, little terriers and other small breeds are downright dangerous due to improper socialization and training.

Bike commute.  Heavy Monday backpack.  Must have been 20+ pounds. Holy head wind on the way home, gusting to 40 and sustained at 20-25.  Blech

Did 1/2 of my bike commute and took the bus home due to time constraints.  Looking forward to the weekend.  I'll try to get out and run with sadie both days.  The weather is suppose to be nice so that is good. 

 Aside from my tons of work to do I think we'll try to get out and go apple/grape picking.  The niagara frontier is great for fruit.  We have amazing apples, grapes, cherries, peaches, etc.  We really don't eat non-local fruit all summer, which is a pretty cool thing to be able to do.  It's concord grape season.  I LOVE THEM.  I'm not a big regular grape fan but these are way tastier and better.   Give them a try!

Ran a 4 mile loop with sadie today in the evening.  It was pretty humid and sadie was dragging a little.  I feel much more in shape now.  Running 3-4 miles isn't chore it was a few weeks ago which is nice. I still pretty slow but I can tottle along without needing a break.  I should test myself with a 5k now to see where I am.  I'd imagine maybe a 25min 5k (gotta check the race calender).  Now I just need to bump up the consistency to running several times a week.

 Had a nice relaxing weekend going to the dog park and farmers market and mall.  I have some writing to do tomorrow, I need to write my personal statement and career goals for the NIH grant I'm applying to.  It's due at the end of September so it's getting close.  It's tough knowing only 30% of the grants get funded but I'm trying to keep my hopes up.  If I get it, it'll be super wonderful, if not then it's good practice when I'm a faculty member

Bike Commute, HOLY god it was windy.  Like gusting to 30 and it's always

a head wind on the way home (riding west towards the lake will do

that).  Got home and took the doggies to the dog park and they ran

around like maniacs for an hour.

Super Snazzy Bike Commute.  It's was not windy for once which I enjoyed.  It's getting chilly in the morning,I've had to wear a jacket!  That means fall/winter is coming!!

Bike Commute, chilly morning.

 I'm officially not obese anymore by BMI guidelines!  That's pretty exciting.  To be fair, I'm a little musclely to be using the BMI guidelines and even when I'm at my fighting weight I'm boarder line overweight BMI wise.  I'm down 15 pounds since the beginning of June.  Super coolio.  Only like 30 pounds to go. 

Last week was a wash exercise wise.  Thursday, the weather was crap.  On the weekend we had to travel to Albany for a wedding and to visit my dying grandmother-in-law.  So Friday we were getting ready to leave and our new Rav-4 killed the transmission so we had to get it dealer and get a loaner.  This is the second new Toyota we've had that died under 10k miles, we are not happy about it.  Our loaner was a VW beatle so that was kinda fun.  So Friday was shot due to that and travel. 

Saturday was the wedding and visiting her grandmother.  Her friend from middle school was getting married.  She was in hospice with lung cancer due to smoking for like 70 years and wanted to die.  When we saw her she was sedated and unconscious and only mildly responsive.  She did die later that night, so it goes.  Sunday was another wash due to visits with other family and the drive home. Monday was a recovering from the trip day.  I hope that this week is a little more fruitful. 

Finally after a long break, I had the chance to run.  I did my departmental seminar without crashing and burning.  I feel like I gave a good talk and answered the questions well.  People have told me I did a great job so that is good.  Also, my grant application is finished and out.  I have my fingers crossed for it, if I get it (~30% chance) I will probably pee a little.  It would make everything for the next 5 years much easier. We'll see, but now it's just back to lab work and fitness!

Since the weather was downright horrible outside I was banished to the basement to run on the treadmill.  We got our treadmill in last winter and ended up going with the Livestrong LS12.9T.  I hate anything branded with the overused and ridiculous Livestong logo and colors, but it was honestly the best treadmill at the pricepoint we wanted to spend and we've been happy with it so far.  Luckily it's in the basement were I don't have to notice the colors.  The only thing I'm not a fan of is that you can't add time once you start a work-out.  

 So I ran for 30 minutes and covered about 3.7 miles, about 8:10 miles.  It felt a lot faster than the mill says. As always, I use a 1% incline to account for the lack of wind.  I really hate treadmill running and only do it becasue I need to.  Luckily we have a TV downstairs so I can watch DVDs while running.  The weather should be improving so I can get back on the bike and run outside

Bike Commute.  Got rained on in the morning, if I'd have left 20min earlier I've would have missed it.  Rained all day and just like they predicted it stopped 20min before I had to leave.  So the ride home was clear but with wet roads.