Archive for September, 2011
CONTEST: Five lines to glory
You budding bards may be wondering exactly what you’ll win if your poem is chosen in the Haul Buns haiku contest. Aside from the admiration of your fellow haulers, the authors of the top two haikus will win DVD copies of My Run: The Terry Hitchcock Story.
My Run is a documentary about Hitchcock, the Santa-looking guy on the left in the awesome track suit, a widower who ran the equivalent of 75 marathons in 75 days to raise awareness about the challenges single-parent families face. If it sounds a little strange, it is; Hitchcock was a middle-aged guy in just-okay health who hadn’t run very much before he undertook his journey. But his story is also incredibly moving, especially if you’ve ever gone about doing something that seemed absolutely impossible at the outset. My Run is super motivating, especially for runners; when it was in theaters, my run group went, and we cried like babies.
Thanks to the folks at My Run for providing the DVDs for the giveaway!
Watch the trailer below, and then start crafting those haikus!
Be silly. Have fun. And please don’t take yourself seriously. Send your haikus to haulbuns [AT] gmail [DOT] com. Feel free to submit as many times as you like by 11:59 p.m. EDT on Thursday, Sept. 22, 2011.
So, that was my Saturday . . .
I accidentally signed up for two fitness events on the same day planned a huge day of fitness fun this past Saturday, starting with New York Road Runners’ Fitness Body, Mind, Spirit Games in Central Park. As Steph and I were walking along Central Park West to the race, a couple in an old-school sedan pulled up alongside us and asked for directions to 67th and Madison. I crouched down next to the car and told them how they were going to cross Central Park at the 72nd Street transverse. They asked if there were any bridges to go under. Only then did I realize what they were towing behind them.
As it turns out, I was giving directions to Harry and Barbara, two members of the Waterloo German Band, who had driven their car and freaking awesome float all the way from Illinois to Manhattan for this year’s German-American Steuben Parade. (Check them out in action; pretty impressive.) Once I routed the couple around the park — and away from any low-hanging overpasses — they thanked me. As then as we were walking away, they honked, beckoned me back, and very sweetly asked me to mail some postcards for them. Why the heck not? They had literally hauled a larger-than-life cuckoo clock replica behind them across six states; it was the least I could do.
Much later in the day, Steph and I were lamenting the fact that we hadn’t taken a picture of the float before the clock rolled away. As we were telling Mr. Haul Buns (or, The Artist Formerly Known as The Fiancé Formerly Known as The Boyfriend—whichever you prefer, because I’m fairly certain he doesn’t prefer either) about our day, I pulled out the postcards to show him and bam! They were Waterloo German Band postcards! Harry and Barbara, you guys rock — mostly because your cards proved to the skeptical Mr. HB that the float actually WAS festooned with a stuffed deer head.
Anyway, after our Good Samaritan stint, Steph and I ran the Fitness 4-miler. The Biggest Loser‘s Bob Harper was there on behalf of Quaker, and TBL‘s season 11 winner Olivia Ward and her sister and teammate, Hannah Curlee, were on hand to cheer for all of the runners. Steph got thisclose to meeting Bob, but his press person scuttled him away from fans just before the start of the race. This photo is all we have to remember our almost-encounter with The Blonde One.
Maybe he ran away from us because I was yelling, "Believe in yourself, trust the process, change forever!"
Happy with our times, and with me gingerly nursing the knee I’d scraped when I took a header getting into the start corral — sigh — Steph and I took the 2 train down to South Street Seaport for Women’s Health magazine’s Are You Game?
This pretty awesome day of (relatively) free group fitness classes and swag giveaways was so much fun. TBL‘s season 11 trainer Cara Castronuova was there to teach a boxing class; during a Q&A, she told us all that women should be able to throw a nice, clean punch. Seems like good advice.
(Photo: Stephanie Pinsdorf)
Though we got shut out of a few classes because we hadn’t reserved spots (a definite must for next year), we took part in two really great sessions: Rock Yoga, a vinyasa class set to songs like Guns N’ Roses’ “Patience” and Aerosmith’s “Dream On” — it shouldn’t have worked, but it totally did — and La Blast, a cardio ballroom class developed by Dancing with the Stars’ pro Louis Van Amstel. Amstel was even there to teach the class; from the moment he told us to shake our boobs and think with our pelvic regions, I knew I’d have a pretty great time. Afterward, Steph and I weren’t about to let this blonde, male reality TV personality get away without taking a photo with us.
Harper, this coulda been you.
CONTEST: Haiku, do you?
I was going to use one of those old etchings of bald William Shakespeare, but this is so much nicer, right?
You haulers are a creative bunch, and now you’re going to have the chance to prove it. All you have to do is 1) “like” Haul Buns on Facebook, and 2) create a haiku, or three-line poem, about being active. You could base it on your own experience or completely make something up. I don’t give a fig. But I DO care about sticking to haiku form: First line is five syllables, second is seven syllables, third is five syllables. Your poem doesn’t have to rhyme, but it can. It might go a little something like this:
The sun’s not up yet
And yet I don my Fuel Belt
I must be crazy
— or —
My hips never lie
But at Zumba they shimmy
Watch out Shakira
Be silly. Have fun. And please don’t take yourself seriously. Send your haikus to haulbuns [AT] gmail [DOT] com. Feel free to submit as many times as you like by 11:59 p.m. EDT on Thursday, Sept. 22, 2011.
But what do we win, you ask? Come back on Monday for that little detail!
Buns Watchers
As I mentioned in an earlier post, summer 2011 was busy and awesome and busy and life-changing and busy for me. It kicked off in June, when The Fiancé and I became Mr. and Mrs. Haul Buns.
Photo credit: Brian Phillips Photography
Then we spent a beautiful mini-moon in Lake Placid . . . where my chronic Achilles’ tendinitis flared up so badly that I was unable to run for about six weeks. Goodbye to the running I’d hoped would help me work off everything I’d consumed during the lead-up to the wedding and the sweet days of bliss in Lake Placid. (Seriously, I drank nothing but wine, sparkling and otherwise, for about two weeks. It was heavenly. I can’t wait until I’m old and insane and can do that all the time.) And goodbye, too, to this:
Yep, my involuntary respite from running came right at the time that I was supposed to start training for this year’s New York City Marathon. As you guys know, watching the marathon last year got me all pumped up to run it again this year. But I’m going to defer so I can come back strong in 2012. And I’ve definitely got racing plans (for shorter distances) in the near future. More on that later.
Back to the point. I wasn’t running. I was drinking cava and eating brie and having a grand old time making googly eyes at my new hubby, but not so much with the cardiovascular activity. And even though I went back to weighing in at Weight Watchers immediately following our return to real life, I wasn’t really doing what I needed to do.
The summer passed. I continued to weigh in each week, but every single time, I found a reason not to go to one of the weekly meetings. I’d go up a few pounds, down a few pounds, up, down, up. My thinking ran along these lines: “Hm. The scale said I gained half a pound. Interesting. [beat] Do we have any more of those peanut M&Ms left?”
Anyway, I slowly got back into my workout groove, but just couldn’t seem to get my WW mojo working. So last week, I finally went to a meeting. It was held in a church hall. It was a little noisy. But my tush stayed in that chair for the entire meeting. And this week, I lost a little weight. Just a little, but it’s a start. Again.
Helping motivate me: Weight Watchers’ Lose for Good program, which helps raise money and donate food for hungry children and families. But you don’t have to be a member to fight the good fight; your local WW center would be happy to take any nonperishable food you’d like to deliver. For a list of locations, go here and click “Find a Meeting” at the top of the page.
Bring Your Sneakers to Work day
This Friday is Run at Work Day, according to the Road Runners Club of America. Since the RRCA are the good people who saw fit to make me a running coach, I wanted to spread the word. It’s a pretty good idea, regardless of whose it was: I’ve slowly worked my way back to doing something active on my lunch break — I was really good about it when I started my current job almost two years ago, but then I got lazy. For the past few months, I’ve made a point to get out of the office for an afternoon treadmill seession or Spinning class a couple of times a week, and it really makes me feel better about work, life, stress, all of it. (Isn’t it annoying when the fitness magazines are right?) If you get any kind of break in your day, a brisk walk (or any kind of physical activity, really) is better than coffee, chocolate, or any of those old reliables we use to keep us going.
I know. You’re so busy. Or you don’t have a set lunch break. Or the company will grind to a halt without you. Screw it. Your health and happiness are more important than whether Larry in Accounting has his TPS reports by 3 p.m. In fact, why don’t you ask Larry if he wants to walk or run with you? Pretty soon, you and Larry will be the cool kids. Everyone in the office will want to be part of your run/walk club. You’ll have to put people on a waiting list. There’ll be team shirts, jackets, water bottles! Bob Harper will show up, begging you to tell him your secret to motivating people to lead healthy lives. And you’ll pause in your lunchtime 5K to say, “Well, there’s this awesome blog I read called Haul Buns…”
Bam. Now, who’s in?!?
Will it help if I tell you Larry from Accounting looks like this?
"Hi! Want an excuse to get sweaty with me?"
And you thought Spanx were bad
Every once in a while at the gym, I’ll see people who wrap themselves with non-breathable pieces of plastic or rubber or foam, usually around their midsections, in an effort to lose water weight by making themselves sweat more while working out. Those people look silly. If you are one of those people, I still love you, but you look silly. Dudes also do this, but I’ve noticed that they usually opt for the entire body rubber warm-up suit or the sweatshirt-over-towel-around-the-neck-over-sweatshirt approach. Guys, did Martin Lawrence teach you nothing? (Perhaps the first time that sentence has ever been typed.)
I try to avert my eyes in these situations, but there’s only so much to look at while you’re on the treadmill, and I find those super-uncomfortable-looking swaths of man-made materials oddly hypnotic. It’s like a shrink-wrapped trainwreck. I always wonder if the Velcro will pop off and go boomeranging around the cardio room like a bat freed from the zoo.
Anyway, those people would probably dig these new “fat burning” undies, which seem like Spanx on steroids. Side note: These CAN’T breathe well. Why must the flattening of the female abdomen always require turning the lady garden into a hothouse?
Reese’s Bad Run and Sam’s Terrible Tumble
It’s a bad week for active, famous (and somewhat famous) folk.
Reese Witherspoon was hit by a car while out for a run, reports etonline.com. Though she went to the hospital, she’s fine.
And TMZ.com is reporting that The Biggest Loser‘s season 9 contestant Sam Poueu — who competed with his cousin, Koli Palu, and is engaged to fellow season 9-er Stephanie Anderson — took a fall from the third floor of a building on Sept. 3 and has been in critical condition at a San Francisco hospital ever since.
Send some healing vibes their way, haulers!
Sweaty head style, take two
Today’s gym-to-work hair is brought to you by the side-braid bun. (Thanks to Cupcakes and Cashmere, whose tutorial saved the day!)
Haulmont
I was in Vermont this weekend for the wedding of my amazing sister-in-law, Gabby, and her awesome dude, Doug. Though the wreckage from Hurricane Irene threatened to interfere with their big day, everything turned out great.
The happy couple!
I had planned at least two runs while I was there, but with all of the pre-event activities, I only managed to get in a very short outing on the morning of the wedding. Lucky for me, Vermont is so damn hilly that even a short run made me feel like a big effort. (Or maybe it was the beer I had the night before. You be the judge.)
And now, my run in photos.
Some of the beautiful nature right outside the B&B where I stayed. Because I noticed it as I was running downhill, it seemed especially pretty.
Another view on my way downhill. Right about this point, I realized that I'd have to climb back up all the terrain I'd just coasted down. FML.
On the way back up, which — as you may have guessed —took a bit longer than the way down. Don't think about it... think about something peaceful and serene...
Ah. Wildflowers.
Still there. Aw, crap.
Made it back!
Post-run self-portrait fail, crazy eyes and all. But hey, I'm done!
Sporty Labor Day deals
Need an excuse to buy those new kicks you’ve been eyeing? These Labor Day sales should make it a little easier to fork over the dough.
TriSports.com: 15 percent off your purchase with the code found here.
RoadRunnerSports.com: Up to 66 percent off (including the 10 percent discount store VIPS usually get) and free shipping
CitySports.com: 20 percent off clearance items with the code found here.
Champion.com: BOGO on all women’s fitness bottoms and sport bras
I, for one, am in the middle of trying to turn my tendency to overeat into a tendency to overshop. (What? It’s kind of progress, right?) The other day, for example, I bribed myself into running an extra mile by promising myself a few iTunes downloads when I got home. 
The fact that those few downloads turned into a few albums (Jay-Z and Kanye’s Watch the Throne and Matt Nathanson’s Modern Love) shouldn’t surprise anyone.
Haul Buns 