Sandy Pants, Racing for Your Cookies, and Techie Apps

And we’ve worked our way back to a Monday! Well, sorry for being a bit lame with the posts the past two days and I’ll catch you up to speed. Nothing too crazy exciting to report for Saturday, so I’ll use this as a chance to follow up on my mom’s bird story and share a picture of my lovely sis having fun at the lake up in Twain Harte.

beach

Sis and BF at the lake

First off cute pic…oooh, and awww time. PS-she’s with her boyfriend.

hawaii 2007

The sun...oh how it burns my eyes out

Actually, right about now I’ll use this as a chance to throw up another beach picture (wow, I wish I were at the beach right now!) but this one is from Hawaii back in 2007 I think. That little guy in the front is my youngest bro and he’s doing that ‘hang loose’ sign with his hands not trying to flash some rando gang sign. I’m the one on the far, top right looking like the sun is about ready to burn out my retinas…that’s because it was and my mom was on about take 50 of this photo.

On to the bird story…now, I warn you animal lovers that this one is not a happy ending type thing so you might just want to skip this paragraph. Anyways, the drive between Gramp’s house and my family’s house is about 2 hours and it’s through the woodsy, curvy NorCal district. Well, my mom and bro drove back from their trip later at night and when they got home they just ate and went to bed. The next day my mom went out to run some errands and there was a note pasted to her window shield that read, “You got a dead bird stuck in your car grill :)” (see picture below) Yes, somehow a poor birdie was hit by the car and wound up stuck on the car for probably about 12 hours…how did no one smell that? My dad had to tackle clean up duties for that one. I want to say that I’m NOT saying the actual event is funny, in fact sad for the birdier, but what I found comical was the fact that my mom totally didn’t notice it and had to have some stranger alert her to this nasty display going on on the front of her car…with a smiley at the end no less. I also laugh because it’s something that would totally happen to me. I’ll spare you any visual of said bird.

bird note

Bird note

Sunday night was SUPER fun because I paid a visit to one of my all favorite families…I’ll tell you they wind in a very close second. 😉 I actually have begged my way into being a floater adoptee child, thankfully they didn’t turn me away at the door. Mamma Nappy is actually the one for who I made up the little Cookie Race design for the day when she hosts her own race.

Cookie Race

Today I got in my tready run, just over 9 miles, hit the core and abs and got nice and sweaty. Now, I have something that I’d like some of your thoughts on. I got to thinking about how the whole social media and digital world has effected fitness, running, and training. There are a plethora of downloadable apps, online training coaches and trackers, iPod workouts, and even Facebook running apps. Not to mention the little sidebar widgets I see on many blogs announcing the latest workouts completed and all that fun stuff.

Now these apps run the gambit, those that can act as GPS trackers for pace, speed, distance, calories burned, the works, but there are also those that tout the ability to actually coach you to a faster PR. So what I’m curious about it just how reliable and for lack of a better term, good, are these things? As with everything you have to consider the source, and certainly some apps are better than others, but I was hoping to hear from anyone who’s used some of these things to share your experiences. I think that some of the apps for Facebook/blogs/etc where you can post your most recent workouts can offer a person up some positive feedback, encouragement, and maybe even a little bragging rights. That’s cool if it keeps them motivated to stick to their training and get er done. I’ve never downloaded one of those iPod workouts, with music and encouragement while you’re on the treadmill or elliptical, I wonder if hearing Jillian Michaels shout at me would be a kick in the tush to work harder or be just plain annoying.

Let’s hear the good, the bad, the ugly, and the cool things you’ve found in all things apps/widget/downloadable! I want to sort of revisit this whole online coaching thing later in another post, so stay tuned as I’ll be wanting to hear from any of you who have done/taken advantage of any sort of online coaching. 🙂 PS-these are all things that I’m writing an article about, so I could really use and would REALLY love any and all kinds of feedback!

Well, that’s that for now. I hope your week is off to a great start!

1) How do you handle sand getting everywhere at the beach?

Not gonna lie, I really don’t like feeling nitty gritty for days after I go to the beach, but I really don’t think there is any way to avoid it. That and a nice butt full of sandypants.

2) Have you ever hit anything (that was living) while driving? If so how did you react?

I’m SO thankful I’ve never (to my knowledge) hit anything, but if I did I think the guilt would just about eat me alive. My aunt once hit an armadillo while in Texas and she swore she had nightmares of its little beady eyes staring back at her.

3) Have you used any of these apps or techie things, if so, which ones? What are you experiences with some of them?

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8 Replies to “Sandy Pants, Racing for Your Cookies, and Techie Apps”

  1. I love the beach and so I don’t really mind getting sand everywhere. Well, you know not everywhere 🙂
    I’ve never hit anything thank goodness, I think I would be in the same guilt boat as you Cait. I have seen a dog get hit before though by a car driving in front of me and I still get nightmares when I remember it. Poor thing.
    I haven’t used any of the apps or technologically advanced thingies for a few reasons:
    1. I don’t even wear a watch when I run, or own a Garmin thingy for that matter.
    2. I expressly avoid group exercise situations so that when I run mine is the only voice I’m listening to in my head (apart from tunes that is)
    3. I’m scared of Jillian Michaels 🙂

    • Haha…ya, not everywhere! as for the techie things, i’m with u almost all the way except that i do wear a watch, not a garmin though. and it’s interesting about the thing u say with groups, i’m sort of finiky in that for the most part i do enjoy running just me because of just wat u said, but there are times when i do like the company. not huge groups, but i have some friends that i do like to run with…but back when i did hard workouts i’d always like the company because they help w/pacing and pushing me. it’s not that i’m anti-social at all, cuz i LUV people, but i dunno, running is my me time sometimes…lol. and now i’m rambling. oh, and jillian is CAH-RAZY!

  2. Hahahaha that is hilarious about the birdie! Maybe she was smelling some good fried bird! (Too far?)
    I play beach vball every week and I find that you have to let the sand dry and then get it off with a towel. Much better to get off of you. As for your hair… outta luck! 🙂 One time I went to the dealer because my AC wasn’t working in my car- turns out a MASSIVE bug got caught in the AC thing inside the engine… yes, a BUG. EW. I’m so glad I didn’t see it!!!!
    I loooooove my Garmin, though admittedly I don’t download anything to my computer. Though I am loving Daily Mile right now but I wish they had a function that totals your cals even if you aren’t running (they calculate it based on your mileage… which I don’t get a lot of because of yoga, kickbox, volleyball, weight lifting).
    Um, wow. This is a novel. You rock my world.

    • Hahaha….um, i think by now u kno u can NEVER go too far with me…i actually held back on my own snarky quips for the sake of my vegan, animal loving friends. 😉 i’ll have to try the dry and towel thing, i usually get too annoyed to wait and try to get the grit right off…i need to learn the fine art of patience. lol. ummm, and now u’re frying up big ol’ bugs in ur AC unit…mmm mmmm, tasty. thanks for the dish on the daily mile, and that is bunko they don’t include all the other insane amount of workouts u do?!?! umm, so i’m gonna say they suck on that account…thank u, take note, DM. 😉

  3. Still loving the new pro site design!
    I think it’s hilarious there is a smiley face after that note! haha.

    I think I hit 10000 bugs when I live in TX, but nothing bigger than that, thank god.

    I still don’t have any apps and am considering your thoughts about garmins from that email forever ago! I will have to read these comments on this post to see what everyone else says ;).

    • haha…ummm, in my world there are prolly about a gazillion smiley faces, i use those and exclamation points maaaaybe a bit too freely….but oh well, me and elaine b can agree!!!!!!!!! bugs, dang, i forgot about that, i’ve def hit those while driving, i guess i’m just gonna blame it on them tho, keep my conscience clean. 😉 ya, we both are on the fence on this garmin debate, maybe if we talk about it enough diet coke will send us freebies…oh wait, only the really cool kids get free swank. 😉

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