Friday, July 29, 2011

The Heat Exhaustion Blues.

So here in Texas it is hot. In fact it is very hot. We've been regularly hitting the 100+ temperatures for weeks now and I'm running in this heat. Well, I actually run earlier in the day when it is cooler (6 am)  which sounds like a good idea on the whole. The last couple of long runs that I have done on the weekends have been very tough, I usually take a day to recover from them but on Saturday (now to be known as infamous Saturday) I did my run as usual, it was supposed to be a 14 mile run but I cut it short at 12 miles because it was getting hot quite fast and I felt that there was no point in pushing too hard in the heat. So I finished the run and I felt OK, I  got home and started the long rehydration process. I had my shower and then got dressed and pottered around a bit, then I ate breakfast and pottered around a bit more and then I started getting a headache, then I started to feel sick, then I started being sick and then holy of holies I started with the diarrhea and then my head was pounding and I was crying with the pain, my whole body was shaking, my heart was racing and I was feeling really, really unwell.

I knew at this point I was in real trouble, so I walked around to the ER which is a two minute walk from my home and one CT scan, Lumbar Puncture, litre of IV fluids, pain relief and anti-emetic, I felt well enough to insist they let me go home five hours later. They only treated me for the headache and totally disregarded anything else but six days later I know I'm still dehydrated because at 96lb I'm 4lb under my "normal" weight, I still have a pounding headache that has me befuddled in my normal thinking, my ears are ringing fit to bust and I'm feeling as weak as a kitten. But I know that a few more days of rest and rehydration should have me up and running again.

The scariest thing about heat exhaustion is that when it was happening to me I did not have any physical warning signs, there was nothing during the run that had the alarm bells ringing, yes it was a slow run, much slower than I normally run but I was running with two other women and I was running at their pace (a slow pace) and not mine. I consider myself to be a fairly fit and strong person, maybe if I wasn't the consequences could have been dire.

Keep Well x

Wednesday, July 27, 2011

Mr Bigglesworth gets a shave.

I have a cat, I used to have several but now I just have one, Mr Bigglesworth.
He is an exotic Persian wih a very thick coat......


But with the temperatures soaring up into the 100s we decided that enough was enough and had him shaved on his last visit to the cattery. He is unbelievably a much happier cat now and I have the photo evidence to prove it.





Keep Well x

Washington DC.

This month, July, I visited Washington DC with my DH, he was there on business so I tagged along for the 3 day trip and let me tell you that in the 3 days I only managed to scratch only a very small surface of the city. My first impression of Washington is that it's a very grown up city, the buildings are just amazing. I did a quick round of the usual tourist attractions because we only had a very brief time there and you can't say you've been to DC unless you've seen XY or Z sights.
I started the first day at the Memorial Holocaust Museum. I'm not going to say too much about this apart from that not only is it difficult to comprehend how a human being could do that to another but how it happened on such a large scale and how the people who perpetrated these crimes against humanity could possibly think that what they were doing was the correct and moral thing to do is totally beyond me. In fact it just dumbfounds me.

Day 2 started with a visit to the Smithsonian Museums, well the National Gallery of Art, the National Museum of Natural History and the National Gallery of Art sculpture Garden. Of course I didn't do a comprehensive tour of the Museums because there just wasn't enough time, so I looked at my favorite parts of the Museums. Such as the Chester Dale Collection and the Sculptures and of course the "rock" collection at the Nat Hist Museum including touching a piece of Mars and looking at the Hope Diamond.

Day 3 saw me visiting the National Museum of the American Indian, they had the best laid out Museum of the lot but not a lot of content on the inside however the grounds made up for that because they were stunning. Then in the afternoon we went to the WWII Memorial, the Lincoln Memorial, the reflecting pool, Capitol Hill and the White House both of these we viewed from the outside of course. On the evening of day 3 we went to see Wicked which was on at the Kennedy Center for Performing Arts and all I can say about that is wowser if you haven't seen it get along there tout suite because it's truly rawsome. 

Here are some photos of my adventures...

The Holocaust Museum

The back of the White House

Capitol Hill

This is a sculpture of a Red Horse!

A cute Weta

Touching Mars

I loved this rock

and this one, the Hope Diamond

 blanket design from the American Indian Museum

WWII memorial

Washington Monument

DH at the WWII memorial

the Lincoln Memorial

the empty reflecting pools

the Jefferson Memorial

And to finish today's blog here is a scrapbook page about a 5K run me and the DH participated in on the 4th of July 2011.


Keep Well x 

Thursday, July 21, 2011

Cards for a Cause, July

I have been busy with a couple of things this month one was a trip to Washington DC which I'll blog about later and the other was making some Christmas cards for the Troops over at splitcoaststampers  this is an appeal put out by the Art of Encouragement and taken up by the members of the Splitcoast Stampers for their July cause.


Here is a little summary about The Art of Encouragement taken from their website:

About Us

Our goal is to spread a little Christmas cheer to the men and women of our country who have so bravely sacrificed to keep our country free.

Founded by Ashley Hyde in 2008, The Art of Encouragement sent out 450 Christmas cards their first Christmas. 2011 will be our fourth year, and we have plans of sending over 20,000 Christmas cards to VA hospitals and care centers around the United States.

New to TAOE in 2010 was our airport outreach. We passed out 75 cards to uniformed soldiers in DFW airport the week before Christmas. We plan on traveling back to DFW this year to pass out hundreds.

Here are a sample of some of the cards I am sending in today. You are encouraged to write a personal note inside which I did for 10 of the cards and then the other cards I have left blank for someone else to write a personal message of support and encouragement. Yes I know I have pink cards but don't forget there are women who serve as well as the men. I hand stamped the cards with snow stamps from Inkadinkado and Stampin Up and the greetings on the outside and inside were stamps from MSE (My Sentiments Exactly), the banner sentiment was from Stampin up. The ink I used was from the Archival Brilliance range in Pearlescent Sky Blue and Orchid. The card stock was just a Basics card stock in blue, red and green. 








Keep Well x 

Sunday, July 10, 2011

New Trainers


I purchased a new pair of trainers last week (Mizunos) and they are the lightest pair I have ever owned at something like 8.4oz I think it was and they are fantastic to wear but to run in them is something else again. I normally wear Asics and the pair below which are the latest pair I have are an astonishing 9.2oz but here's the thing.


I have been running in Asics for so long that the muscles in my body are used to the way they feel when I wear them but when I ran a relatively short distance (5 miles) in my new Mizunos the next day my whole body ached and is still aching nearly a week on. My muscles are like WTF did you do that for, so I think that if I want to run in the Mizunos I have to wear them in at much shorter distances, well I mean if I ever do because my shortest distance at the moment is 5 miles, I might just wear them to do my weight lifting instead of running in them which is a shame because they are comfortable to wear and are my lightest pair yet. Thankfully I used a 20% off coupon when I purchased them which meant that I got them for $89 so they weren't a complete waste of money to buy. I'm sure that I'll have to get a second pair of Asics very shortly as I'm ramping up the mileage on the marathon training schedule now.

Here's another card I made the other day with my favorite theme on it, yes it's a cat ; )



Friday, July 8, 2011

5K Road Race.

So I'm in training once again for a marathon, whether I get to compete in one is another thing all together but it's good to get in the mileage anyway because I am doing a half marathon in January, I might squeeze in a full marathon too I just haven't decided yet.

I took part in a 5K road race on July 4th and what a muggers fuddle I made of it too. I ran 13 miles on the Saturday before and ran the race on the Monday, well I was still dehydrated from the Saturday when I ran on the Monday and screwed up any chance I had of placing in my age group by stopping to drink water, not once but twice, I mean, come on get real, it's only 3 miles and I can run that without fluids any other time.

Any hoo...

What is done is done and I ran the race in 25:53 with an average pace of 8:21, I placed 282/1321 overall and in my age/gender placing I came 4/54.

So here is quite a gruesome picture of me running towards the finish line and I have to admit that I struggled a little bit, but I did beat the guy beside me to the finish line and I have 20 years on him *blinks*.

Senior Games.

During June I volunteered to help out the the Summer National Senior Games. It is the largest multi-sport event in the world for men and women 50 years of age and older. The event was held over 15 days in June and there were approximately 800 events in 19 sports. I helped out at the Archery and the 5 and 10K road race. I must admit that I was surprised to find that I thoroughly enjoyed what I was doing and I would volunteer again in a heart beat. There were 90+ year olds competeing in the events and it was an inspiration to all that watched and helped. People who say they can't take part in sporting activities really mean that they won't take part in sporting activities, all they have to do is look to our seniors to realise that there is no such word as can't. So here are a couple of photos to illustrate this point.


This photo shows the start of the 10K road race and you couldn't have wished for a more hotly contested race at any age.


It was a very hot day in Houston, well it is summer and with temperatures soaring into the low 100s the competition was on.


There really was no upper age limit for taking part in the races, even if there wasn't a chance of winning the race they could win in their age grouping.

I think our Seniors put a lot of younger people to shame they really do have a can do attitude that I admire so much. There is a good old Kiwi saying that goes "good on ya mate".