Bike Commuting

When I first found out that I was getting to move to the brand new library branch, I was ecstatic. It is by schools, and eventually I want to be a Youth Librarian, PLUS it's closer to home. Then I actually google mapped it and learned that it was exactly the same distance as the other library was. Well, interesting.

At the very least, the new work route is much more bike friendly. Last fall I had big plans to bike to work, but I always seemed to have an excuse as to why I couldn't. This spring, I'm going to eliminate the excuses!  [hopefully] Sometimes I forgot how many stormy days we have in the spring and fall!

According to my google map skills, the distance from my place to the library is about 6 miles, and should take me roughly 30 minutes. A majority of the route has extra wide lanes, two lanes, or sidewalk on the busier roads. One of my biggest concerns is arriving to work a pile of sweat. Because even if it's only a 30 minute pedal, that doesn't mean I won't be sweaty when I arrive, with helmet hair galore.

My plan is to pack clothes and leave some shampoo and a blow dryer in my locker at work. If necessary I can perform a quick bang de-sweating wash before I have to start working. I desperately miss riding my bike [she says while in the depths of winter, so duh....] and I would love to get in an extra 48-60 miles a week just getting to and from work.

Don't ask what I'll do when I have a trillion books to carry home from work. I haven't quite worked that one out yet.

What else am I missing? How do I make this bike commuting a success??

I guess I should put snow shoes on my list to Santa

I should be very VERY thankful that the winter weather held off considerably this year.  Usually we have snow and very cold weather mid-October until late March, hence why I always falls off the running bandwagon mid-October.  Brrrr.  Luckily for us, and probably unluckily for the planet (hey-o Global warming!), winter has just recently appeared.  I had expected I would have to do 60% of my Dallas Half Marathon training in buckets of snow and below zero temps.  It hasn't even been below zero yet and it's December.  That gets an A+ in my books.  So with all that THANKS out of the way, it's time to start complaining.....

I had my last long run of 12 miles on the schedule for this weekend, and had looked at the weather report on Thursday to determine whether it would be nicer on Saturday or Sunday.  Saturday Hi of 28, Sunday Hi of 22 w/snow flurries.  Well, Saturday, you win resoundingly, congrats.  I waited until 1:30 as it was the "warmest" part of the day.  I think it got up to a whopping 27* with a windchill of 18*.  HEAT WAVE, look out.  To be honest, it wasn't actually that bad, except for the portions where the wind was whipping at my face.  Apparently I'm a big ol' wussy when it comes to wind.  It's painful.

I fueled up with a bowl of coffee ice cream with caramel syrup for breakfast (I wish I was kidding, but when you want something, sometimes you just have to have it. :p).  Shortly before the run, I had a banana with some PB.  Of course, THAT would upset my stomach not the ice cream.  Go figure.  :p

The run started off great, and the first 2 miles came in much faster than I had planned.  After last week's long run , I knew I had the confidence mentally to rock Dallas, so I had just planned on taking these 12 easy.  Shortly after the first 2 miles, I realized the rest of the run wasn't going to be nearly as speedy.  The trail was covered in 1-2" of snow.  Well if that won't slow you down, I don't know what will.  Luckily it wasn't slippery under the snow, that would've been unbearable, it was just hard to get good traction.  One highlight of the run, was that I set a new Jeri record for snot rockets blown in a run.  If you follow me on twitter you might have caught me complaining about a new cold setting in.  My nose has been completely plugged up since the end of work yesterday.  Well she was floooooooowing today.  Yikes.  I feel like Hansel and Gretel, except instead of bread crumbs to mark my way, I used boogers.  Sexy.

The last few miles of the run were really nice because the wind was at my back, and the sun finally sneaked out from behind the clouds to warm up my frozey face.  Plus, I knew that once I got 2 miles away from home, I could enjoy snow-free trails again.

I ended the 12 miles in 1:50:08 for a pace of 9:10.  Not as leisurely of a pace as I had planned, but apparently my legs were ready for some speed the last 2 miles.  [Sidenote:  I may or may not try for roughly the same time on my NEXT long run....to give you a glimpse of my race day goals :D]

1. 9:03 
2. 9:05 
3. 9:18 
4. 9:16 
5. 9:26 
6. 9:36 
7. 9:20 
8. 9:21 
9. 9:08 
10: 9:06 
11. 8:53 
12. 8:30


No ice baths for this girl, thankfully.  But when I got done, my ankles were sore from the sliding around on the snow.  So I stopped on my stoop, took off my shoes and socks, and grabbed some handfuls of snow to "ice" my ankles with.  Some may say that's a big "unconventional"I say it's genius and resourceful. :)

My knees were pretty sore throughout the night and on Sunday.  I'm guessing the sliding around probably caused some extra stress to them.  I was having a terrible-rotten-no good-very-bad-day, so I forced myself to head to the gym to sweat off the crabbies.  Since my legs were tired, I opted for an hour bike ride on the stationary bike.  I did some rolling hills at a decent resistance and went 13.65 miles.  My best mph yet.  WHOO!  Plus I got through some health and fitness mags, as well as some trashy celeb gossip mags that were lying around my gym.  I loooove to read them, but refuse to buy them.  And I only let myself read them while working my booty off.  :)

Sweating helped and so did a visit from one of my favorite people in the world.  Of course, his arrival meant I had to watch the end of the Vikings slaughter game, which I giggled and giggled about.  I do still love me some Brett Favre, so I wasn't too upset about it.  Watching some Christmas Vacation was the cherry on top of my SUNDAY (sundae, get it?!?!  muhaha).  Crabby mood, buh bye, see you late in 2010.  :p

Tonight my best guy friend from college is coming to stay with me before his job interview for a job much much closer to meeeeeeeeeee.  Ok, that's not the reason he's applying for the job, obvi, but it's what I'm most excited about.  We were pretty much connected at the hip for 2 years in college.  We're going to hit up the gym and leave our mark in sweat,

Funny story:  His nickname in college was Sweat King, because of his ability to sweat.  I had heard about him and his sweaty ways, and introduced myself to him at a party.
Jeri:  So uh... I hear you're the Sweat King (as he's standing in front of a boxed fan in a 98* basement at a party in early September).
SK:  Uh..yup.
Jeri:  I think I could be your Sweat Queen.  Share the fan please.  :)

And the rest is history.

Anyway, after sweating all over the gym, we're going to head out for some drinks and some foods and cheer on our Packers.  Yes, he's also a GB Packers fan.  A match made in sweaty heaven, I tell you.  Hopefully tomorrow's post will be riddled with fabulous pictures of the Royal Reunion.  Yes.  I went there. :)

Biking + Domino Table

This week I did some more biking.  Non-running makes me want to not blog on my running blog, so my apologies for my laziness.  After complaining to my co-worker about my boring bike workouts, he suggested I do some intense hill workouts.  I figured it was worth a shot.  Previously I had checked my heart rate while doing another bike session and it was hovering around 101.  Um, no, need to get that puppy up there!  The intense hill workout sure did it.  Wowsers.  I did 12.15 miles in one hour, and was covered in sweat.  That's more like it.  :)

Ok, so my last post may have conjured some questions among my readers.
John asked:  So, is there a date in the works with triathlon/college guy?! Your fans want to know!  :) 


Sorry guys.  There is no date in the works for me and the tri guy.  He's a super cute guy, and we had a thousand classes together in college (we had the same major), but I just don't think we have that spark that's necessary.  Plus I'm fairly certain the love of his life is his training.  ;)  Which there's nothing wrong with, but can you imagine trying to find time for each other if we were both in training?  Ay!  Plus, I won't compete with a bike for attention.  :p


Also, Slomohusky left me the best comment I've ever gotten, so I wanted to share it with you, because I think it's SO TRUE:   When you find that human version of the Asics Nimbus all will be right and very happy.


Who knows...maybe there is a boy out there who's interested in chasing down running Jerbear....we'll just have to wait and see..... :)


Outside of running, I really like to create things, sometimes that's baking or cooking, which I've shared with you on my lil ol' blog, but other times it's weird-o arts and crafts stuff.  I was looking at an arts and crafts book and found a table covered in dominoes.  My living room is black, white. and yellow so I thought it would go perfectly.  I already had a cheap-o fake wood looking end table, so I figured it was a go.  After searching high and low for dominoes (apparently they only sell colored ones at the store these days, go figure) my Grandma and Madre came through for me.  


This table was literally a 4-5 day project (strung out over 3 weeks or so, because I was so darn annoyed with it).  I had to paint it.

And then I had to put the dominoes down.  Since I would get them in bunches from my fam, I would work on it as I received them.  

After attempt #1 of covering the table, I realized that some of the dominoes were slightly different colors and different sizes=fail.



Attempt #2 I tried to get all geometric on the table.  Thinking I could outsmart the dominoes that way.  It started out as a great idea.

But that quickly became a fail as well.  For some reason I can't find the picture, but it ended up with random open spaces which I didn't like.

So I tried again.  Attempt #3.  Again thinking with a pattern mindset.

So far so good.  Solution to different colored dominoes:  striped pattern.

Trying to not get my hopes up at this point, as it usually takes you to the very end to realize that you've messed up BIG TIME.

YAY!  I still need to cut some dominoes in half to fill in the outside layer, but I LOVE the way it turned out.  Totally fits my somewhat funky/cool style and was el cheapo to do.  Just call me the edgy Martha Stewart.  :)

MMMM Cookies + More Biking

Oh running I miss you so.  Guess what I've been up to...not running.  And apparently not running=biking.  Sunday I set out to do a long bike ride with Miss Polly.  Unfortunately I was a little lazy to get out of the gate, and didn't end up leaving my place until an hour before the sunset.  Ok then...60 minute bike ride will do.  I managed to see a rooster (male pheasant) and a big ol' buck while riding my bike around, which is funny because a bunch of my friends were pheasant hunting this weekend, and another has been sitting in a tree stand for the last 2 months trying to get a stupid deer.  I mentioned on facebook that I should've been a hunter, but that a gun would NOT go with my bike.  Something about my bike makes me think she's a non-meat eater/bambi killer as well.  ;)  I ended up doing 11 miles in a little under 60 minutes.  Clearly I'm about breaking land speed records.  Look out.

Another interesting thing of note on Sunday, I went to the bookstore to enjoy a latte and read some magazines/look for books.  I've always had a fantasy about meeting a guy at a bookstore as we're grabbing for the same book on the shelf.  Yes, I'm a romantic nerd, whatever.  Well, it happened.  Kind of.  In the magazine section, I was loading up with running magazines, when someone grabs a Runners World over my shoulder.  I turn to see my triathlon friend!  Whom I actually was interested in for a while in college, coincidentally.  Hah.  Of course we spent the next hour talking about our races/training/etc.  He's doing his first full in January and is trying to BQ.  Crazy kid.  And then he's doing his first full Ironman this spring.  Again, he's a nut job.  But it was nice to catch up with the guy.  I only occasionally see him flying by on the bike trail, and I miss our gazillion of hours together trying to survive our insanely hard sociology courses in college (just kidding, I don't miss that part AT. ALL.)

Monday I got back on track with my early morning yoga and did a yoga routine that focused on the thighs and booty.  Uff, whatever is jacked up in my left cheek is still hurtin'.  Yeouch.  I did another 60 minutes on the stationary bike of some random hill workout for 11 miles.  Also, when did a bunch of hotties join my gym?  Seriously it was like boy central in there.  Maybe they were all there all along and I was just blinded by love, but it sure is a lot easier to get through a boring hour long bike ride with some eye candy.  After my ogle fest (jk) I came home and created some shrimp enchiladas that were so. damn. good.  And while they were baking, I rocked out a nice ab workout.  2 points for yoga + abs.  Whoo.  Go injury dedication.  :)

A couple of weeks ago I got the baking bug.  I looooove to bake.  More importantly I looooove to eat baked goods.  I found a recipe for Oreo Chocolate Chip Cookies at For Love of Cooking and knew I had to have them.  Seriously check out her site for the recipe and to die for pics.  Mine really don't do the cookies justice, but here they are regardless.

One stick of butter + a bunch of other delciousness?  Yes please.

+ 1/3 bag of Oreos...again...yes please.

.....Then have your blog eat the picture of the delicious cookie dough balls all laid out uncooked before they go in the oven.......(jk pic recovered, phew!)

Then straight up deliciousness.  Say it with me now, yes please.  :)