let's recap, shall we?

So shall we discuss August?  That lovely month where all my goals went off track, slid down the mountainside, and came to rest in a heap in the river.  As you will recall readers, when we last saw our heroine, she was having some serious motivation problems. My perspective was all jacked up, too. I had a run in Leadville that I didn't finish. This was a first for me. It was only 12.5 miles instead of the 14 I was supposed to, and I cried my heart out over it. Seriously, me?  You ran 12 1/2 miles. At 10,000 feet. Why are you crying! 

Anyway, I don't know if it was heat or motivation, but I kept getting (at least what felt like) slower and slower.  So set the scene: this was my my state of mind at the end of July.

Enter August. Which started out with the removal of two of my wisdom teeth. (By the way, I don't recommend this, if for no other reason than the fact that I kept hearing, "Well, you know you're older, so your recovery is going to be harder. Gee, thanks for the reminder.)  This, I believe, was the Universe's way of deciding what was next for me.  Two weeks of painkillers, semi-soft food (Wendy's frosty, I heart you), and not being able to open my mouth more than the width of a finger. I did a short run about a week later, but what wasn't in the cards for me was running the Georgetown to Idaho Springs Half-Marathon, as I had planned. As I had signed up for and paid my money for. This, again, was a first for me. A DNS (did not start). The shame! 

But, when you wake up the day before the race, and you're covered head to toe with a bright red rash, this is again the Universe intervening in your training. This was the day I ran a 4 mile test run anyway, but that was before I realized I was standing at the corner of Rash and Itch streets. And by the way, Universe? You don't have to shout.  I think I can hear you just fine now, thanks. We think it was a penicillin allergy, but that is something my doctor and I will have to make sure about at a later date.

So no half-marathon for me, which was probably a Life Lesson or something.  There will be other races. After all, they hold this race every year! Yada yada yada.  Somewhere after the half marathon no-go, I decided that maybe it was time to let go of the idea of another marathon this year. And rather than being tearful and mopey about it, it felt like a huge relief. Marathon training takes a lot of energy and time, and maybe two training cycles back to back was a mistake for me. Other people can do it with no problem, but not me. So sayeth the Universe, so sayeth I.

I started instead to watch what I ate, record it, calorie count--all that stuff, and also to do some cross-training.  I've gotten back on the bike (hurrah!) and the elliptical, and the treadmill.  I'm doing some pilates. Some strength training.  And wouldn't you know it?  My weight has started to drop again, somewhere to the tune of 5 pounds, although some of that is probably water. I've got about 4 pounds left to go before I'm officially (and forever, damnit!) a healthy weight, according to my BMI.  With a month to go before our trip to Italy, that is my new goal. A healthy weight before I go to the country that loves carbs almost as much as I do. But given the amount of walking I think we'll be doing, I'm not too worried.

I'm also I'm trying to fall back in love with running. We're flirting with each other, but I'm going to take it slow. This is a relationship I'd like to last.

And although September has begun with what is either a late summer or an early fall cold which made my Labor Day weekend an indoor-on-the-couch-with-a-book kind of holiday, I'm going to go ahead and give September the benefit of the doubt.  The weather has shifted, and the summer heat seems to have gone out of sun. Up at Bumpalot the leaves are starting to turn.

Fall is my time of year, and I'm back, baby!  Take that, Universe!

the grand experiment

So, just after the start of the year our cable/internet/phone bill jumped about $50.00.  Considering how little TV we watch, that seemed an unreasonable additional amount to pay.  In our house, the cable bill has oft come under fire as an expense to jettison, but we had one of those bundle things where it is actually more expensive just to have internet and phone than all three.  But, at $160.00 a month, we figured it had to be cheaper to just do phone and internet.  Mr. Bump was shaking-fist-at-the-sky outraged, and began to pursue other alternatives to our current plan.  Eventually he came up with a plan which reduced our phone and internet to $50.00 a month.  Long distance will be more, and we’ll see if it ends up being cheaper to do long distance via our pre-paid cell phones (we don’t use a cell enough to justify a monthly plan) or just paying for those charges as we go.  Essentially the only consistent long distance calls we make or receive are to my mom and Mrs. Bump (my mother-in-law).  This plan also limits our speed of uploads/downloads, but so far it hasn’t been a big deal.  We’ll see how we go on that, and we can always upgrade that for (I think) $10 a month or so.

All that to say that when we got home from Kansas City on Monday, all our cable was gone.  We’d returned the cable box a week before, but were still getting analog cable for about a week.  This was a good way to ease out of it, I must say.  But now it is gone.  No more channel surfing when I’m sick (this is one of the few times we (I) actually watched live tv).

When we started talking about doing this we looked at exactly what programs we DVR’d, and how crucial it was to see them when they came out.  Then we scoured the internet for ways to stream these programs without having to pay for them.  Pretty much all of them can be obtained one place or another online, which was a big part of allowing me to let go of cable.  The other thing that made it a go was being able to stream Netflix on the Xbox.  A lot of stuff is available to view even before a season is over, which is awesome.  And you know what?  When it comes down to it, it isn’t the end of the world to wait until I can get the whole next season of House and watch it all at once. 

How do I feel about all this?  We have friends who did this a few years ago, after an ongoing struggle with their HOA about where they could place their satellite dish.  So we kind of knew what to expect.  We also didn’t actually watch TV that much.  We’re busy people.  I’m training for a marathon.  David’s doing the APAD project (check it out--it's cool!), which entails scrounging up a subject for a photo every day.  We have a trip to Italy to plan!  We have weeks (like this one), where one (or both) of us is gone almost every night of the week.  We’re home on less than half of the weekends in a year.  We just aren’t around enough to justify it.  Certainly not enough to spend an extra $1200 a year on it.  That’s a weeklong trip somewhere! (Hello Vancouver, I still would really like to meet you even though we can’t seem to sync up.)

It does sort of feel like swinging without a net, somehow.  How will I entertain myself?  How will I check out of my world when I’m stressed?  Oh yeah.  I’ll read.  Or watch DVDs.  Or some of the old episodes of Kight Rider or the A-Team that you can stream on Netflix.  Talk about escapism!  Man, those are bad.  Very funny bad.  So the whole thing seems anti-climactic, is what I guess I’m saying.

I don’t expect many problems with missing it.  The worst will be the look on my dad’s face when I tell him he can’t watch the football game when he and Mom come down on a Sunday.  Sorry Dad!

P.S. Marathoning is going ok.  The travel is killing me, though.  I think I’m just going to have to put my foot down and say we stay home this spring.  After President’s Day weekend.  Right now I’m trying to get all my workouts in, study up on the right nutrition, and learn about stretching.  Also may take a yoga class on Mondays, and think about a couple deep tissue massages in the interest of keeping things flexible. 

other goals may include

Aside from the marathon, here are some of the other things set as my intentions for 2010:

Read 100 books this year (hence the Good Reads thingy over on the right).

Lose that pesky last 10 pounds between me and a "healthy" BMI.

Spend less money on crap.

Learn some Italian.

What are your plans for 2010?