Jacket: SportHill Symmetry II

It’s cold out here. In fact, as I sit at my computer, gazing past my computer screen to the “artic tundra” outside the house, it registers as 24 degrees on the thermometer we’ve stuck outside my office window for exactly this purpose.

Twenty-four frickin degrees.

I was not anticipating this when I first strapped on my Merrell barefoot running gloves and took my first run in many years down the dirt road a few months ago. Way back then, running in eighty degree heat seemed comfortable and a lark. Now, temps are falling in the frozen zone and the road still calls.

Until recently, I’ve been ignoring the falling temperatures. Chilly fifty degree runs called for a ratty sweatshirt over my t-shirt. Of course, me being me, I didn’t want to wear my nicer sweatshirts while running and get them all sweaty. Generally I looked like a female version of Rocky hitting the local roads, pulling the hood on if it began to rain.

Since running is one of my prime times to defrag, I haven’t been generally concerned with appearance or the way in which one’s clothing affects one’s performance. I’d simply throw on something ratty, hit the roads and let my brain wander.

All that changed as the mercury dropped. My feet got cold and wet, my hands got cold, my head got cold and my trunk…well, it was cold too.

Something needed to change if I was going to continue running into the winter. I researched local health clubs for the bare minimum buy-ins. Since I’m not one to generally take exercise classes, or care if I have exercise partners, I only wanted to find someplace where I could wear my ratties and hit the treadmills for ever longer runs. While there are a few good options locally, the local roads still call, which means I actually have to outfit myself to use them.

As I’m not one to take any new endeavor lightly, I began to ask other more experienced runners what they use, what brands they were wearing, and why they liked them. The gathered information led me to purchase a few items, but I have to admit that the stuff is so darn cute it seems too cute for me to wear on the road. I’ve resisted wearing them down by wearing them out. Instead, I’ve been using them around the house and to exergame.

My reading of Runners World cover to cover began to yield other information as well. I am a target marketer’s dream. Being an early forties married mommy female, who has come to running later in life, I’m looking for their pitches to try out new items. Which brings me to SportHill.

I’d seen the SportHill ads in Runners World and ripped them out to research more online. The more I read, the more excited I got. Wow, a company that makes exactly the items I’m looking for! They can save me from frostbite and hypothermia! Fabulous!

Had to try at least one item, but which one first? I settled on the Symmetry II jacket,  as it claims to keep one warm down to 0 degrees, looks awesome, comfortable and has a fleece lined collar. Hmm…So I got it after much hemming and hawing.

It couldn’t have come sooner, as the 35-45 degree weather had kept me exergaming and homebound for a few days straight. The jacket was so cute and comfy inside that I wore it around the house feeling my mood elevate with it on. My daughter loved it too, and begged it off me and then wore it around the house the rest of the day.

The next day, it was 39 degrees out, and I was ready to go go go. I layered one t-shirt with one long sleeved t-shirt, and then put the jacket on over the two. Everything else remained the same. I must admit that when I first started the run, I was a bit frightened. I’m quite sensitive to the cold, and was fearful that I was doing something dangerous to myself.

It was chilly out, don’t get me wrong. But after the first few yards, something amazing began to happen: I warmed up. Not just my muscles in the running, my trunk became nice and toasty. This jacket was making me feel like it was fifty-five or so outside and I relaxed into the run.

The run was in fact so nice and toasty that the next time I ran, I only wore a short sleeved t-shirt under the jacket. The same effect happened. Amazing.

While SportHill is kind of on the expensive side (for me), I look forward to trying out more of their cold weather items and discussing here through the winter.

Have you tried SportHill? If so, what are your thoughts? What should I try next?

One Central Log

Until recently, I used my Wii as a repository not only of my weight fluctuations, but also of all of my workouts. While it doesn’t allow for extreme differentiation, it does allow one to log workout length and relative exertion level. I’d been using it as my diary of sorts for my ongoing weight loss campaign. But as I’ve begun supplementing my video game workouts with outside runs, I’ve fallen off the Wii log. Now it’s willy nilly whether I catalogue workouts at all, and if so with varying levels of specificity.

Ultimately, the scales tell us where the weight is and the video games and distances tell us how the endurance is improving. But having a central log is good for ongoing mental check ins and being able to minutely decipher why something is working better or not at all and thus change the program.

Different people use different logs. One friend uses a floral spiral notebook that she sprays with perfume once a week. Another friend uses one of those black and white lined notebooks people used in school in the 60s. A number of people keep a religious log on their computers that they update daily. Whatever works for you works.

Not everyone keeps track on a daily basis. Some folks find time to log throughout the day. Others make sure they write things down the same time every day.  A number of people like to do weekly updates to keep lose track of their progress.

I’ve found that the Wii log generally works for me, but I’ve been considering moving the entire thing into a computer program so that I can log sleep (or lack thereof), eating and drinking, time of month (TOM) and dramatic events that I can look back on to know why my workout one day wasn’t as long or useful as another.  I’ll let you know how the new log is going as we move along.

Do you use a log? If so, what kind and in what format? How much information do you log? Have you found it useful? If so/if not, in what way(s)?

Related articles

• How To Manage And Track Your Running (fitnesstroop.com)

Vanity

I don’t remember how long it’s been since I bought my favorite pair of sneakers. It was definitely before getting married, as I got them directly after E3 one year in the early 2000s. So they may be nearly ten years old. Wow.

They’re cool. They’re black Eccos with white stripes, look like soccer shoes and generally look like cool sporty gym shoes, yet not workout sneakers, which was the look I was going for when I got them. And they’ve served me well. This is why it’s been such a long time before I’ve even thought about replacing them.

But of late, they’ve begun to look super scrungy. Wearing them went from feeling exciting to just plain blah, and I’d begun watching other mommy feet for new ideas in sporty yet not workout sneakers. Ecco has some cool shoes to choose from, especially their Vibration II Toggle in red, but I was looking for something pink this time. After many late nights of internet window shopping, I settled on a great pair of Merrell Barefoot Pace Gloves in Ash (pink). In many ways, they’re quite similar to my Black Ecco swish shoes, but in pink.

But before buying anything now-a-days, I read the reviews. This shoe purchase was no exception. So I looked on Amazon.com, Zappos.com and elsewhere to see what folks had to say. While the overwhelming review was outstanding, I also noticed something else interesting – about a third of the reviews mentioned a book, “Born to Run.”

I’m a voracious reader. As I happened to be in between books, I went online, added Born to Run to my library queue and promptly forgot about it. The next day, a librarian called to say it was in and awaiting pick up. Ok, well, that was fortuitous.

I began reading the book, but it was slow going. I’m not a runner, so it wasn’t pulling me in. A friend who’d read the book (three times), and is a runner told me to stick with it, that it would grab me soon. Ok.

In the interim, the shoes arrived. They’re super cool. They look great. They feel great – just like…wait for it…gloves for the feet. Socks fit in them, but they’re also comfortable barefoot. They’re breathable. They don’t make big footed people look like we have Bozo the clown feet (always a concern). Basically, these shoes are hot (in the cool sense of the word).

In the reviews and on the company website, new wearers are advised to wear them around the house for a while to build up foot strength; the presumption is generally that Americans wear shoes constantly. I generally don’t. Most of my day is spent in (fancy) flip flops or walking around only in socks, or completely barefoot. I like the way it feels, so if I can get away with it, I kick off heels and padded shoes.

During this year of exergaming, this has actually been a “thing” in that some folks have asked to work out together or for me to post videos of me working out. While there are other issues like looking ridiculous working out, my complete reticence has also been about not wanting folks to see me working out in socks without shoes. I never use shoes when exergaming. Now I’m so used to working out without shoes, that when I do try to exergame with shoes on, I feel extremely uncomfortable.

In any case, last night I hit the “trigger point” for myself in the book. About one hundred pages in, the book became compelling, and the only thing that got me to put it down was the knowledge that the slumbering toddler in the other room would wake up with tremendous amounts of energy in the early morning no matter how late one stayed up reading to oneself. Smart move mommy.

At lunch today, I thought about exergaming, but knew that today was one of my three weekly “off” days in EA Sports Active 2. Generally these "off" days have been filled with other exergame workouts. But today, upon looking at the weather channel online, seeing it was already 84 degrees, gazing outside at the trees swaying in the heat, I started to remember how I used to love to run when I was a kid. I was fast. It was never a distance thing for me, but the wind in my face was always as refreshing as jumping into a pool.

I figured, “what the heck, it’s lunch time, why not;” then walked downstairs and laced my feet barefoot into the Foot Gloves. I’d figured I’d slow down to a walk upon getting winded or stop for a bit upon arriving at a known landmark that seemed way too far off for me to reach. I mean, it HAD been 2004 since I’d last jogged at all.

Walking down the front steps, I broke into a leisurely run down the driveway to the mountainous dirt road….and didn’t stop until getting back home 3.88 miles later. Yes, you read that correctly.

It wasn’t easy, but it wasn’t deadly either. The exergaming had conditioned me to be able to go farther than I’d thought possible. The shoes allowed me to recapture my childhood glee at tumbling along.

How many of you have moved outside this summer? What are your favorite outside workouts?

Feel free to post here or email me at jenn (at) jbmercurio (dot) com.

Related articles

• Advertising: Appealing to Runners, Even the Barefoot Brigade (nytimes.com)
• Campaign Takes On Barefoot Running Craze (adweek.com)
• The Minimalist Thing? - A Shoe Review (breathlessrunner.wordpress.com)
• The State of the Running Shoe Market: Minimalism on the Rise (runblogger.com)
• Merrell Barefoot 2012 Lineup: Preview of the Merrell Road Glove, Dash Glove and More from Jason Robillard (runblogger.com)

Week "Away"

Some of you have been asking me what’s been going on, because I haven’t posted since leaving for the Games for Health conference in Boston last Wednesday. Basically, my bad.

First, to catch you up on the conference: Games for Health was fantastic. There were loads of interesting people doing fascinating work and networking to collaborate on even more nifty projects in the future. I’m still wrapping my head around all the panels, talks, discussions and ideas that were incubated there, as well as all of the incredible folks I was able to connect with.

Second, I’ve been under other deadlines this last week - hard deadlines that crept closer as I procrastinated with other work. Then, upon returning from Games for Health, the deadlines were there waiting for me with big neon smiles. Monday morning was do, or due, day.  So I put everything else aside, including exergaming, so that all my productive time could be focused on my Monday deadline like a laser beam. Well, it worked and I got the project in on time.

That being said, I didn’t work out for a week. Last Wednesday was my last full body exergame workout. I’d originally thought I’d workout at the conference but I wanted to spend all waking time at the actual conference and I didn’t want to exergame in front of people, because I didn’t want to look goofy and/or sweat. I’m simply too shy professionally. Then, with the deadline looming, I didn’t want to divert any attention from the project.  And you know what? It was ok. Life and balance mean that sometimes one must shift focus, but that doesn’t mean that one’s overall “penumbra of foci” shifts.

My body seems to be happy with what I’ve been doing with it overall, and it’s still 20 pounds down from my starting weight. So my weight is the same as it was last week. I must say that I’m pretty happily shocked with that fact, as one would assume that the weight would start creeping back up as soon as the exergaming stopped if even for a short respite.  But such was not the case, at least for this short break.

I also started a new 9 week program on EA Sports Active 2 today and worked myself up in quite a sweat.  So I’m back at it and working toward goal #3, which is another 10 pounds by the third week in August.

So onward and downward!

Related articles

• My Anytime Fitness Date (krisgetshealthy.com)
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Upon Reading First 50 Paged of The Glass Castle

Image via Wikipedia It's always struck me that people who are more reticent to ride on roller coasters seem to have rockier lives, or at least that seems to be their self-perception.

It's also struck me that those of us who have had relatively functional childhoods are somewhat fascinated by the sometimes extreme dysfunctional childhoods of others, while those of us who have had sometimes extreme dysfunctional childhoods are somewhat uncomfortable reading about them; yet it is exactly the people discussed in such books as The Glass Castle, who seem to have the best coping strategies when the shit hits the fan. They would probably be the best people to have in your foxhole, whether video game related or not.

Media heaves with psychological problems, feeding the public's never-ending appetite for it. With so many shows about people who are being buried alive by hoarding, and similar issues, TV has come to be a bit oppressively dysfunctional. On the other end of the reality TV spectrum, shows like Real Housewives on Bravo give some of us our Sex-In-The-City-bling fix, while we can still marvel that even they, with all of their purported money, have problems.  Books touted on TV and best seller lists drip with real life terror, yet when any number of them are "exposed" as "fake," they seemingly shake our societal "faith" in what documentaries, docudramas and non-fiction actually are. Is this how we're experiencing our own reality - through their fake-real lense?

So we come to The Glass Castle, a disturbing look at extreme childhood abuse in so many forms it makes one cringe. A young girl having rocks picked from her face with pointy nosed pliers. Children forced to sit locked in a U-Haul trailer for 14 hours straight. Children going hungry for a day while your parents gamble in a casino, only to be given a piece of beef jerky to munch on afterward. Sweet Jesus.

We can all empathize with those who have gone through the terror, hunger, pain and suffering of extreme childhoods. Was this story "worthy" of being written? Most definitely. In recording these stories, hopefully we can then act as a society to curtail them. 

Would I recommend this book to others? No, not based on what I've read thus far. While I feel for the author and her siblings, it would be difficult for me to inflict that pain on others in the reading.  This is all to say that I'm profoundly saddened by this book, and I still have 238 more pages to go.

Did you read this book? What are your thoughts?

UPDATE: (11:29 pm) I've finished the book and agree with my assessment above. That being said, I'm heartened to read another story of my alma mater, Barnard College at Columbia University, being the transformative pivot point in a young woman's life. Such stories never cease to amaze me, and make me somewhat emotional.  Playing out one's childhood themes through the rest of one's life also continues to amaze me.

Weight Loss Goal #2

Weight Loss Goal #2 for me has been to have lost twenty pounds by the Games for Health conference in Boston this week, where I'll be speaking on a panel. I'm happy to report that I've met my second weight loss goal, now being down just over twenty pounds.

Weight Loss Goal #3 is losing another ten pounds by the third week in August (30 pounds total), so I have motivation not only to continue exergaming, but to keep losing!

I'm labeling this set of goals "Weight Loss Goals," because I've come to realize that I've developed other goals along the way during this campaign and challenge: strength, fitness, endurance, health, beauty and fashion. I'll post more about them all as the year progresses.

How has your year been going? Have you been meeting your goals? If not, what's been holding you back? If yes, what helps you stay the course?

Related articles

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Oxyclean Boil Bomb is Da Bomb

I finally tried the Oxyclean boil bomb (ok, that's my title) today and boy did it work wonders!

What is the Oxyclean boil bomb? It’s basically using a deep cleaner to extra super duper deep clean clothing items without harming them. I call it a bomb, because it's bombing and (hopefully) destroying tough stains. An acquaintance had discussed this deep cleaning action in her blog, and I’d been excitedly waiting for an opportunity to use it.

Dear Child had a couple of items of clothing that had stains that refused to come out and as I was tossing them into the garbage, I caught myself and realized (yay!) I finally had great items to experiment on.

Here are the basic instructions:

Fill a big pot full of water on the stove. Add 1/4-1/2 cup Oxyclean. Slowly bring to a boil. Make sure the room is well ventilated. Lower heat to low simmer. Add clothing with stains that haven't come out no matter what, or that have been stained for years, but you can't bring yourself to throw out. Low simmer, or cover and turn heat off, for one hour. Stains should be all gone.

After doing this, I rinsed the items in cold water to set and stop the cleaning action, and then ran the clothing through a regular laundry cycle.

The items that I used now look better than new, as they're even brighter and spiffier.

Let me know how it works for you!

EA Sports Active 2 Wii Part I (3.10.11)

I’ve been using EA Sports Active 2 (EASA2) on the Wii for about eight weeks now. First I tried the 21 day challenge, and presently I’m in the middle of the nine week challenge. The game offers many things to most people, and in general it’s an extremely well rounded kick butt workout.

First, they set all action in what they describe as a desert health spa. All activity is virtually outside with clouds, fountains, mountains and dirt paths. I like it. At least for me, it feels more open and airier than some exergames that have solid backgrounds or interior roomscapes.

Second, you can choose your fitness level. They offer easy, medium and hard levels for all of their workouts, which is generally really nice as you can calibrate your 21-day or 9-week challenge to where you feel you are in the fitness spectrum.

I hear from bunches of people who start out on the easy level, which is still quite physically challenging, and move on to medium and hard for their subsequent challenges and workouts. The only difference I can tell between the levels is number of repetitions in each set, which also effects time – the easy workout level being shorter than the hard.

So, for example, an easy set of the dreaded mountainclimbers could be 40 reps, the medium 45 and the hard 55. On a side note, it’s extremely helpful for you to add the yoga pose called “child’s pose” directly after a set of these, as well sets of the straight arm plank, in my humble opinion and I do one every time.

People often ask what I’m doing and on what level. Both my 21-day and 9-week program have been on the hard level, my presumption being that my body will (hopefully) quickly tone up to handle it. During the first week I generally thought I was going to die, especially if I had multiple sets of mountainclimbers, pushups or straight arm planks in a given daily workout. Now eight weeks in, I can make it through three or more sets of the above exercises without collapsing, cheating or falling over. The child’s pose mentioned above really helps my ability to stand back up after a quick stretch.

There’s a lot to say about EASA2, most of it good. I’ll be talking about time commitments, strength training, the online components and more in my next blog post.

Again, we’d love to hear about how things are going with you. Feel free to drop me a line at jenn at theeca.com.

Full Disclosure:  EA gave me a free copy of EA Sports Active 2 to try out and use.