A Pragmatic Love Story — Vinegar Girl Book Review

Posted on July 20, 2016 by Coco

Sometimes the Wednesday Word relates to something I’ve been thinking about. Sometimes it fits well with a recent experience. But this week, it fits me to a T.

practically speaking
When I looked up pragmatic, I thought any of the definitions could describe me. I tend to be logical, realistic, and practical. I consider myself to be down-to-earth, matter-of-fact, and have my feet on the ground. I try to be commonsensical, often am businesslike even when I don’t mean to be, and try to be sensible.  Continue reading →

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How I Beat The Heat In Downtown Miami

Posted on July 17, 2016 by Coco

I spent last week in downtown Miami. It wasn’t my first business trip to Miami, but it had been a few years since I’ve visited our Miami office. The first thing I learned–or relearned–is that downtown Miami is nothing like South Beach.

downtown miami
Even putting aside work, my week in Miami was nothing like Cynthia’s weekend in South Beach. I didn’t put my toes in the sand. I didn’t enjoy a fruity beverage at an oceanfront bar. I didn’t even run outside. For the Weekly Wrap Link Up hosted by Holly and Tricia, I’ll tell you how I beat the heat in downtown Miami. Continue reading →

Posted in Fitness, Treadmill Workouts | Tagged , , | 31 Comments

Overcoming Visceral Fear

Posted on July 13, 2016 by Coco

Cycling scares me. More particularly, climbing a steep hill while clipped in scares me. And for good reason. I’ve had my share of falls and bloody knees when I didn’t have quite enough momentum or wasn’t in the right gear or just panicked and fell over and didn’t unclip on my way down. I push through this fear almost every weekend but there’s one particular route that instilled such a visceral fear it took me almost four years to face it. 

Arlington Loop Elevation - Overcoming Visceral Fear

The elevation profile never tells the whole story. It’s not the elevation climb over those uphill miles that is challenging, it’s the series of steep hills represented by each blip on this graph. This is the route I trained on for Ragnar. There are several hills I can barely run up.  Continue reading →

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Fighting Off Hopelessness

Posted on July 10, 2016 by Coco

Lately I have not made going to church as much of a priority as I should. Although I’ve made it to church about once a month, I’ve skipped church to get an early start on a long bike ride or when my to-do list seemed to long. The thing is, whenever I go to church, I’m always glad I went, and I always hear a message I need to hear.

Last Sunday–before the horrible events of this past week–I was feeling discouraged by current events. Uncertainty over Brexit. People going hungry in Venezuela. The ugliness of the current presidential campaign. I was feeling helpless, and hopeless. But then our second reading included this passage from Galations that showed me the importance of fighting off hopelessness. Continue reading →

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Cycling Heart Rate Versus Running Heart Rate

Posted on July 6, 2016 by Coco

I didn’t get very far with any of the heart rate training approaches to running, and now that I’m trading in my Garmin 225 with wrist-based heart rate monitoring (let me know if you’re interested — I’ll make a deal!) for the Garmin Vivoactive with no heart rate monitor, I guess I’m all but giving up on heart rate training. Still, I’m interested in seeing how hard my heart is working during different activities, and especially my cycling heart rate versus running heart rate. Cycling Heart Rate versus Running Heart Rate

Here’s my heart rate during a typical indoor cycling class: Continue reading →

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