One Long, Strange Trip

Hike Time: 1 hour, 4 minutes
Amount of Hike Completed: All 3.5 miles!
Temperature: low 60s
Wavelengths Present: Kristyn, Ken

The story of this morning would not be complete without the story of last night, and boy, what a strange night it was. It all started at the Rose and Crown, a great little pub/restaurant in downtown Palo Alto. Anna, Ken, Amanda and her boyfriend Bill, and myself were in attendance for dinner; Amy P joined us later on. Since I had friends in town for the weekend, I splurged a little, ordering a cheeseburger, fries, and my absolute favorite beer in the world, Young's Oatmeal Stout. As usual, I started the night with good intentions - I could take my friends out for a drink, get them to meet some of my great Palo Alto friends, and still make it home in time to get a good night's rest for the next day's hike. But, like they say, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

When Ken heard of my plans to limit myself to one beer that night, he was having none of it. He threw down the gauntlet: I match him beer for beer that and he would run the Dish with me the next morning. True to form, I accepted his offer - have you ever seen me turn down a friendly competition? And then the drinking started. I used to have such a tolerance for alcohol; but last night, I was feeling it after a beer and a half! But, as I was being stupidly competitive, I ignored this fact. The rest of the night is kind of a whirlwind. Before we left the Rose and Crown for Ken's, I was emboldened enough to 'borrow' some Hoegaarden glasses. At Kens, we all had a rip-roaring time playing liar's dice. Amy P had a hankering for pancakes, so I made the rest of the group pancakes while they enjoyed a dance party in the living room. And that's just the story fit to print! It was enough to wipe a girl out - I'm not used to this kind of fun on a Thursday! I laid down on Ken's futon to give my eyes a rest. Amy P asked me if I wanted to go home, but I assured her I would in just a minute.

At 6:03 am, my alarm went off. I opened my eyes and found myself snuggled up with an unfamiliar pillow. I turned over to peer out into the room. It took me a while before I realized where I was - asleep on the same futon I had settled myself into the night before! For some crazy reason, Ken was still up. I left his place, and picked him up a half an hour later to go hiking.

Remember how much I wasn't looking forward to hiking when I thought I was going to have to hike alone? Trust me, I was dreading this hike more than hiking alone. Kristyn called me early in the morning to see if I was still going. It was so tempting to say no. I had the beginnings of a hangover, was incredibly dehydrated, and barely got any sleep. To make sure I wouldn't be too dehydrated on the hike, I had chugged a bottle of water on the drive over, making the contents of my stomach sloshy and unsettled. To make matters worse, I had been bad the past week and was weighing myself every day, and hadn't seemed to be losing any weight. While I know that my primary goal is to be able to run the dish, and not lose weight, it had been incredibly discouraging. In spite of all the reasons not to, something inside of me pushed me onward.

After meeting up with Kristyn, the hike began. Kristyn and I walked the first hill; Ken ran (show off). The entire first half of the hike was a sad sight to see. On the running stretches, I would whimper the entire way, almost making it to the point of tears by time we reached the end of the stretch. All along the way, we had been playing a sort of leap frog with this woman hiker; on the running stretches, we'd cruise past her, but she would speed past us on the walking stretches. This fact began to bother all three of us - how were we keeping the same pace with a woman who was walking the entire dish? We pushed ourselves to run the length of three normal running stretches, and then sped walked down the last long hill, leaving her firmly in our dust.

Even though Alissa was gone this week, her "pusher" influence was still present; both Ken and Kristyn were pushing me to my limits this week, and I did my best to comply. Heck, I even went so far as to run halfway up one of the longer hills towards the end of the hike! As the three of us hit the final hill of the hike, Kristyn checked the time - we had been hiking for just under an hour. Inspired to beat my current best time of 1 hour, 5 minutes, we sped walked up the rest of the hill, down the last huge hill of the hike, and sprinted towards the entrance gate. Our time? One hour, four minutes. Not bad for someone with a hangover.

There was still one more thing looming over my head - the Friday weigh in. Since I had been cheating all week and weighing myself pretty much everyday, I wasn't expecting to have lost much weight this week. It was pretty disappointing, but at least I kept up with the hiking during the week, and that's really the point, right? Anyway, I was racking up excuses for why I hadn't lost weight this week in my head. The most positive one was, while I was losing weight at the same rate as last week, I was gaining weight in muscle mass at a similar rate, thus cancelling out the overall weight loss for the week. The least positive one was that I hadn't eaten as well this week, and that I would never, ever again be able to eat a hamburger, enjoy a beer (although it might be a while before that one), or snack on some coffee cake. I was pleasantly surprised when I jumped on the scale - 317.4. I had lost 4 pounds this week! That made my day.

And then I took the sweetest (short) nap I had ever taken. I still made it into lab by 10. I've never looker forward to sleeping more than I do right now.

Running Like The Wind Blows

Hike Time: 1 hour, 5 minutes
Amount of Hike Completed: All 3.5 miles!
Temperature: low 60s
Wavelengths Present: Alissa, Amy C., Kathy, Kristyn, Nola, Xianne

Lots of stuff to cover today ... you might want to grab a snack before diving in!

First things first, I decided on a name for my groupies - The Wavelengths. Other potential names were the Dishettes (which was thrown out because there are some guy groupies) and The Satellites. I settled on the name the Wavelengths because: 1) it's quasi-related to The Dish, and 2) one infamous night between me & Kristin Briney that defined our friendship. I forget how it came up, but we in Chicago, staying at a friends place, and chatting late into the night. Somehow we got talking about light and the like (because we're nerdy) and how wavelengths were somehow related to friendship (Kristin, you might need to correct this story a bit, because I'm not telling it well and I don't remember it all. Long story short, this is what I remember from the conversation: "What's YOUR wavelength?"

And now, onto more important things ...

I think I need to update my specific aims, because I RAN (ok, jogged is more like the word) about 1/3 of the hike today. I kind of started on Specific Aim #3, totally bypassing Specific Aim #2. Not that these aims are set in stone, mind you, but I thought they'd be a good guideline.

Anyway, it felt gooooood to run, which kind of surprised me. After meeting up with the girls at 6:45, we all stretched and headed up the hills at 6:55. A few days before, Alissa "The Pusher" Murphy had suggested that we power walk up the hills. I nixed that idea immediately, and suggested instead that we walk up the hills, and then alternate running and walking to the posts marked "Recreational Path". I'm not sure if I'll ever be able to run up the hills at all - that goal seems very, very far away as I still feel like I'm going to die after I reach the top of the second hill.

After making it to the top of the third hill, the running began. The first stretch is slightly uphill, so it was a little bit of a push to make it to the road marker, especially with tired legs. At the beginning, I wasn't so sure that I would be able to keep up with the pace; I even discussed walking two marker lengths and then running one. However, I soon began to discover that the walking segment was enough to rest my legs (and my heart) enough to get me going for the next running segment.

As the running continued, I realized one major thing: I need a new and more supportive sports bra. For years of my life, I was definitely in the 80-85% of women who wore the wrong bra size. When I was growing up, I was totally jealous of the girls who could fill out a B, C, or D cup; I could barely fill an A for a long time. Eventually, I accepted the fact that I was flat-chested, and I moved on with my life. Throughout high school and college, I wore a B. I barely filled the cup, so I had to use those lovely chicken cutlet looking inserts to fill out my bra and most dresses I would wear. I never bothered to get measured again, because I figured I was way past puberty and there was no way the ladies were getting any bigger. Buying bras was always something I dreaded; as a big girl, you're expected to have a big chest. Consequently, few to no bras are available in a B cup. After much frustration searching for the right bra, I discovered that if I bought a bra a few sizes smaller, and used the bra extenders, I could fit a C cup. This was such a relief to me - finally I could get cuter bras!

On one of my semi-annual bra shopping trips, however, my world was turned upside-down. While perusing racks of lacy demis and plunging underwires, a sales lady came up to me and asked if I wanted to be measured.

"No thanks," I replied. "I've always worn a 44C."

"C?!?!" she exclaimed. "Honey, there is no way you've been fitting into a C! You have got to be all sorts of uncomfortable!"

"Um, kind of. But they don't make any B cups in a 48." I replied sheepishly.

"Girl, you've got to be kidding me. You're at least a double D!" she said.

Being the type of person that hates to be shown wrong, I asked her to measure me. I told her there was no way she'd measure me as a double D, a D, or a C. Getting fitted for a bra is one of the world's most uncomfortable experiences - and this was no exception. My sales lady was not as vertically endowed as myself, and thus, was about eye level with my chest. She also didn't have the longest arms in the world, and instead of asking me to pull the tape measure around myself, she buried her head into my chest and squeezed herself against me. It must have looked like a pretty intimate embrace to passers by. After taking the appropriate measurements, she stepped back from me and said: "46 D".

My jaw dropped. The flat-chested young woman I had been did a little jump for joy. I was so proud of this fact, that I let the world know. I told all of my friends - even my closest guy friends. I told my labmates. I told my mom. After I had bragged to just about everyone, I spend (probably) way too much money on really, really cute bras. But apparently, I DID NOT spend enough money on supportive sports bras, as I found out this morning.

While running, I also realized that my basketball injury (my sprained ankle) may not be completely healed; it got pretty sore near the end of the hike, but it feels fine now. It's always amazing to me how long it takes to heal a sprain. At least, I think my ankle was just a sprain; I never really had it X-rayed.

As we reached the end of the hike, I saw the last sign (that I was running to at least), and I in the distance, up a small hill. Something came over me, and I ran that last stretch like there was no tomorrow. As we walked down that last hill, the desire to run came over me again.. I ran on the flat part of the hill until I reached the security booth. I guess I was definitely feeling the 'runner's high', because I also ran the two or so blocks back to my car.

Finally, it's Friday - and that means it's a weigh-in day! Since I now have two data points (nerd), I can start to chart my progress using WeightTracker 2.0 (a.k.a. Microsoft Excel). I've also plotted the goal weight loss line, which is 2 lbs/week. Without further ado ...



That's right, 7.4 lbs in 8 days! I'm pretty sure most of it is water weight and I'm totally sure that I won't keep on losing weight this quickly - it's just not sustainable. But I feel accomplished!

Speaking of feeling accomplished, how about the fact that I took 10 minutes off of the hike time today! Wait, let's put this in perspective - last Friday, we didn't even finish the hike. I only tried to run a portion of the hike on Wednesday. Today, I took 10 min off of the hike time and ran a 1/3 of it. I'm pretty sure the acceleration of pace that I've got going isn't sustainable (as Kathy said, there is no way I could do the hike in -5 minutes), but I should celebrate the fact that I'm doing so well with this! And I couldn't have done it without my Wavelengths. If only I knew about my plans, I'm pretty sure I could justify sleeping in and forgetting a day or two. With so many people cheering me on, it would break my heart to let them down!