In Memoriam: Brian Jennings

In Spring 2011 I had the opportunity to take a political science course with one of the best professors I've ever met. Brian Jennings was a person who really just relished life. You could see his passion when he taught his classes, when he talked about his family, and when he talked about his cycling. He loved life and lived it to the fullest. The negligence of one person changed all that, though, on April 17 when a driver fell asleep at the wheel and killed Brian while he was out for an afternoon bike ride.

Even though I haven’t taken a class with Brian in seven years, his passing has still had a really profound impact on me. Years after being out of his class, he still remembered my name and greeted me regularly whenever I saw him around campus during the work day. He was kind and had a smile that showed more genuine care and warmth in it than you could ever imagine. And the fact that he died because of someone’s negligence is really bothering me.

Knowing what I know about Brian, though, he wouldn’t want me to simmer in anger. He’d want me to take my negative energy and do something positive with it instead. So that’s what I’m doing. Money is really tight right now, but I’ve been using the app Charity Miles off and on for a few years now and it’s the way that I’ve decided to react positively to what’s happened. The miles that I complete on CM are now dedicated to Brian and his love of nature. All my mid-day walks, bike rides, and runs are now dedicated to perpetuating his positivity.

I decided to dedicate my Charity Miles to Brian on April 24 after attending his memorial service on campus. Since then, I have donated $3.77-worth of miles to the National Park Foundation through Charity Miles. It isn't a lot, but it's a start that I'm very proud of. He deserves to be remembered. 

My first CM badge earned while completing #milesforBrian.

 

Article about Jennings’s death.

(Cross-posted to Call Me Little Bob 04/27/18)

World Walking Update: California Walk

A little while back I found a website called World Walking (link on the sidebar) and I've decided that it's kind a fun little way to measure my walking progress through the weeks outside of my giant Walk Around the World journey that's been in progress for the last several years. Right now I'm working on what's called the California Walk and when I updated my progress today I found out that I'm officially outside of the first milestone area, Eureka, and I'm now out on the open road as I head toward Milestone 2: Sacramento. Below are a progress screenshot from my WW dashboard. If you get motivated to join WW, feel free to let me know. Maybe we can start a team walk and knock out one of the really big routes that's available to try.

 

Progress: 188, 349 / 2,245,986 Steps (8% Complete)

Fitbit Weekly Stats: Apr 16 to Apr 22

 

Last week was a LAZY one. And whose fault was it? Mine. I take complete ownership. And I had errors with my fitbit again this last week, too, so you'll notice that I had to make corrections on my weekly recap above.

Husband and I have been going through some stressful times for the past few weeks and I think that everything finally caught up to us last week. He's been working 60+ hour work weeks (which usually span over all seven days of the week, too) for almost two months straight now and work has me pretty burnt out, as well, so this weekend we really tried to step back and relax during the times that we could. I managed to sleep in until 11:00am on both Saturday and Sunday, something that I hadn't done in months, and it was a game changer. My stress levels felt like they just melted for a short time and even though it kind of messed up my sleep schedule over the last couple of days, I'm saying that it was totally worth it.

Walk Around the World Standings as of 04/25/18 (I'm creating a gap again!):

Weekly Training Recap Apr 9 to Apr 22

Monday, April 9
Workout: Spin Class, 25¢
Steps: 7926, 0¢

Tuesday, April 10
Workout: 6.29 Mile Walk, 31¢
Steps: 18732, 25¢

Wednesday, April 11
Workout: Spin Class, 25¢
Steps: 10957, 25¢

Thursday, April 12
No Workout
Steps: 7455, 0¢

Friday, April 13
Workout: 1.25 Mile Walk, 6¢
Steps: 8189, 0¢

Saturday, April 14
Workout: 1.5 Mile Walk, 8¢
Steps: 7433, 0¢

Sunday, April 15
No Workout
Steps: 7435, 0¢

Total Earned Toward Dopey for the Week: $1.45
Total Saved To Date for Dopey 2023: $97.11 / $3,500

---

Monday, April 16
Workout: Spin Class, 25¢
Steps: 12012, 25¢
Getting to class was crazy this day because I was sitting in interviews for my old position before and after class and I couldn't get really sweaty during my workout as a result. It was really hard to find a balance between getting my heart rate up and staying dry, but I managed to get a decent 40 minutes in on the bike before running back to the conference room they had us in.

Tuesday, April 17
No Workout
Steps: 7531, 0¢

Wednesday, April 18
Workout: Spin Class, 25¢
Steps: 8233, 0¢
Back in action (and back to sweating it out!) Class wasn't very hard this day, but it was fun and I enjoyed it immensely.

Thursday, April 19
No Workout
Steps: 7626, 0¢

Friday, April 20
No Workout
Steps: 5720, 0¢

Saturday, April 21
No Workout
Steps: 2249, 0¢
x

Sunday, April 22
Workout: 1.42 Mile Walk, 7¢
Steps: 5298, 0¢
The lazy streak continued through the whole weekend and Husband and I barely got out of the house all weekend. The walk we took was really the only exercise that we ended up getting which is a shame, but at least we moved a little bit. Hopefully next week I'll have more gusto again.

Total Earned Toward Dopey for the Week: $0.82
Total Saved To Date for Dopey 2023: $102.93 / $3,500

Fitbit Weekly Stats: Apr 09 to Apr 15

 This is so late. Last week was a blur and I got nothing posted. I did figure out why my weekly stat reports weren't coming in, though. In mid-March, I changed my old email password and neglected to change it on my importing permissions to Gmail. As a result, nothing had forwarded for a month. That's all fixed now, so pretty stat reports are back in action!

That all taken care of, last week was the week that I thought I'd beat W.B...and it didn't happen. I mean, you can even see Tuesday where I walked almost 20,000 steps to try and catch up to him and yet it...didn't happen. This week (April 16 to 22) isn't going to be any better, either. He's hiking up a local mountain every morning and as of writing this post, he's averaged over 15,000 steps for the week. I have no idea how I'll ever catch up.

Walk Around the World Rankings through April 15:

Me: 8,115.3 m (ahead by 92.8 m)

Leisa: 8,022.5 m

P.S: Something is wrong with WATW right now and is subtracting miles from members instead of adding them to our totals right now. I managed to fix my numbers by resubmitting them to the tracker, but I don't know if Leisa Stamey has noticed. Hopefully they get it fixed soon.

Back in Action!

Screw being injured! I'm going for it.

If you've seen my training recaps for last week or you've seen me in person, you'll know that last week was hell. I'll be the first to admit that I'm really not a fan of training, but not being able to train because of something out of your control is worse than any workout in the world. Today was my first day back and I'm pretty proud of what I accomplished.

I should preface by saying a few things, though. One: I should probably still be resting from my back injury. Two: I have too much of a competitive streak in me to lose my Workweek Hustle again this week. As of 5:30pm this evening, I'm 11,870 steps behind the leader (Monica) and 8,113 steps behind W.B. For the record, I REALLY want to beat W.B. this week. Like...REALLY...

So that all being said, I had the bright idea to go running on my lunch break this afternoon. It was 92°F outside, so I really shouldn't have been out there, but I managed to get three miles done in just under fifty minutes by alternating between running one lap/walking one lap to stave off heat stroke. It worked and by the time 3:00pm rolled around I had already racked up over 10,000 steps. I was pretty happy with my pace, too--around 16-17 minute miles--but those miles weren't even close to being enough for me to catch up with Monica and W.B.

The thing is, Monica really got into running this year and right now, W.B. is at a conference, so he's running around like crazy. I only just got back on track with my workouts yesterday, so I need to really need to hustle to keep up with them. And that meant going to the gym tonight on top of my track workout today.

I say this proudly with my chest puffed out that I went directly from work to the gym today which is a rarity for me. And then I walked and walked and walked at the gym to narrow the gap between me, W.B. and Monica. An hour on the treadmill added 7,200 steps to my count for the day and put me only 2,000 steps behind W.B. Now I just need to keep up with my workouts for the week and I should stay near the top of the board. I'll be watching the rankings like a hawk for the rest of the week, too, because there's nothing sweeter than a well earned victory.

Weekly Training Recap Apr 2 to Apr 8

Warning: I need to vent. Being injured is horrible and I hate it with an absolute passion. On March 31, I really hurt my back doing a yoga practice that was full of back and leg openers before I had really warmed up my body for the day. I was pretty much off for nine days as a result and it was excruciating to just stay at home. I ended up coming in last place for my Workweek Hustle competition; I lost my Weekend Warrior competition; and I only ended up moving something like 19 miles total for the entirety of last week. And the worst part is, I'm still injured. My back still hurts to the point where I'm popping ibuprofen and I'm to the point where I don't care any more. If my back is going to hurt, fine, but at this point I'm not hurt enough to still be off from working out. April 9-15 is going to be a different story from this last week. I'm going to be back in action regardless of how my body might be hurting.

Monday, April 2
Workout: Spin Class, 25¢
Class was pretty difficult, so I took it easy and tried to baby my back as much as possible. This was the day that I realized that I needed to take some serious time off from working out to heal up.

Saturday, April 7
Workout: Morning Yoga Class, 25¢
My yoga teacher came back to the gym to sub! It was amazing, but when she came to adjust me during pigeon pose, she could feel my muscles spasming and she actually asked me, "What's your pain level right now." That's not a good question to hear from someone who knows your body that well and it made me realize that my injury isn't one that's just going to fix itself in a week or so. I have a feeling that I'm going to be dealing with this for a while and I might need to see my chiropractor or a massage therapist in order to speed things along. I really just wish my body would cooperate with me, though. I've had three separate injuries this year and I know that I'm not over training, so I don't know what's going on. I'd really like to know, though.



Total Earned Toward Dopey for the Week: $0.50
Total Saved To Date for Dopey 2023: $85.66 / $3,500

Fitbit Weekly Stats: Apr 02 to Apr 08

Long story short, my fitbit steps are actually 10,000 steps over for the week. I only got about 46,000 total steps for the week. And for the record, it was a rough one. I was off the entire week due to a back injury and even as I write, my back is still giving me problems. I'm hoping that this week will be a lot better because I've decided that if nine days off isn't healing my back and I can still workout, then I should. I mean, I can't let Leisa Stamey catch up to me, right? She could really gain on me this week since I only put in about 19 miles. Here's the standings as of today:

Fingers crossed that April 9 through April 15 brings lots of miles and no new injuries. The last thing I need after a bum back is a recurrence of my hip flexor or hamstring injuries. I'd go crazy if that happened...

Fitbit Weekly Stats: Mar 26 to Apr 01

For some reason, fitbit has not been sending my my weekly stat reports, so I've been having to manually pull the data from their website for the last few weeks. The emails I used to get were much nicer on the eyes, but I'm grateful that I can at least pull the data still and figure out my mileage at any given time.

Honestly, it's great to see the steps and the floors, but the main thing I care about is my miles. Off and on for the last few years I've been working on "walking around the world." (A link to the website it on the left had side of this post under Links.) I update my miles (logged via fitbit) each week and as of April 2, 2018, I've logged over 8,000 miles.

That all being said, part of my determination to make it around the world is due to a person named Leisa Stamey. Whether she knows it or not and whether she cares is irrelevant. If I ever had a rival, she's the one. Over the last several years, we've been neck and neck in terms of logging her miles and at one point I managed to log something like 300 miles extra in a year so that I could overtake the lead she'd created while I took a hiatus from logging. Each week that I log, I scope out her progress. Right now she's about 50 miles behind me, but that's not good enough. I want hundreds again which means more activity and better health. She's unknowingly my fitness coach and my motivation. If I ever get the chance to meet her, I'll be stuck between emotions. Do I love her or do I hate her?

Weekly Training Recap Mar 26 to Apr 1

Monday, March 26
Workout: March in Place, 0¢
Steps: 10051, 25¢
We started a fitbit Workweek Hustle competition at work and I realized that I was already 7,000 steps behind the leader by the time I got home from work, so I marched in place while Hubby read to me and I managed to get to 10,000 steps before heading to bed for the evening. It wasn't a true workout, but I was moving nonetheless.

Tuesday, March 27
Workout: None, 0¢
Steps: 4621, 0¢
I took Tuesday as my lazy day for the week since it was the beginning of my Spring Break and we had friends come over to play Gloomhaven with us in the evening. It was a great time and it was nice to have the night off.

Wednesday, March 28
Workout: March in Place & Yoga Class, 25¢
Steps: 10456, 25¢
Wednesday was the last night that my yoga instructor was teaching at my gym, so I had mixed emotions all day and felt really conflicted emotionally during the time I was actually practicing. I'm really glad I got to go and say goodbye to her (for the time being) and thank her for all that she helped me accomplish and I am very excited to say that she will be subbing at my gym on April 7, so when I said goodbye it wasn't for forever.

Thursday, March 29
Workout: 1.41 Walk and Marching in Place, 7¢
Steps: 11124, 25¢
I was still in a desperate catch up mode for my Workweek Hustle and marched in place for a really long time on Thursday to try and make up the 7,000+ steps between me and my boss who was leading the competition. I really didn't make much of a dent, but I did get over 10,000 steps which got my a quarter toward Dopey and helped me stay active while I was at home from work for the week.

Friday, March 30
Workout: 6.65 Mile Walk, 33¢
Steps: 17665, 25¢
If the above entries for the week weren't an indicator, I can be a pretty competitive person when I set my mind to it. Being so behind in my fitbit competition really lit a fire in me, so I ended up going to the gym half an hour earlier than when I was supposed to meet Monica and walked on the treadmill to try and get myself out of last place for the week. And Friday was the last day to get steps in, so I tried to do everything that I could to eek my way past my coworkers. I ended up in 3rd out of 4th place, but I only missed 2nd by 561 steps which felt really good. If I had known that I was that close to moving up a spot, I would have marched my little ass off to beat Monica, but she didn't sync before I went to bed and I had no idea that I was so close to her. Oh well! There's always next week when we do it all over again. And one of these weeks we're going to beat the boss. Every time we play with him, he wins and we're getting pretty tired of always coming in 2nd and 3rd. I really want to win it all next week, so Monday through Friday of next week I'll be putting the pedal to the metal in terms of steps.

Saturday, March 31
Workout: Morning Yoga, 3.7 Mile Treadmill Walk & 1.5 Mile Treadmill Run, 59¢
Steps: 15868, 25¢
Since my yoga teacher no longer teaches on Saturday mornings, I have been finding it almost impossible to go to the Saturday morning class at the gym each week because the teacher that took over doesn't teach in a style that really meshes with me. I had gotten up at 6:45 to get to the gym at 8:30, though, so I had over an hour to kill before I needed to leave the house and meet Monica. I ended up doing an incredible back and legs yoga session via Down Dog and then I went to the gym and did an hour long walk at a 2.5% incline and then somewhere toward the end I got (kind of) motivated and decided to run another 1.5 miles before I left for the day (12:20 pace). I felt pretty tired and a little sore as I was leaving the gym, but it felt great to get another great workout in and I was extremely happy with my step count for the day. I was hoping to get to 20,000, but I was pretty tired after I got home and we had company coming over, so I ended up scrapping the idea, but it felt great to get going and burn all those calories.

Sunday, April 1
Workout: 3.64 Mile Treadmill Walk, Morning Yoga & 1.49 Mile Walk, 51¢
Steps: 21650, 50¢
Big, busy day yesterday. At 8:30, Monica and I went to the gym and walked for 75 minutes before I went to yoga. There was a substitute instructor there (probably because of the holiday) and I wasn't sure if I was feeling her class very much at first, but it ended up being amazing. I left with such a clear mind that I was zen for pretty much the rest of the day. It was phenomenal and it carried on all the way into Easter dinner with my folks. Monica and I were still in a step competition for the weekend and I was behind, so I made sure to help my mom as much around the ranch as I could and then we decided to go for a little walk around the neighborhood so that I could try and get a leg up in the competition. Long story short (and almost an hour of marching at home later in the evening), I ended up beating Monica by about 1300 steps. It felt great and I'm really revved up to beat everyone in this next week's Workweek Hustle--especially my boss!



Total Earned Toward Dopey for the Week: $3.50
Total Saved To Date for Dopey 2023: $80.08 / $3,500