Tag Archives: running

December – Nike Fuelband Month

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The most beautiful, brilliant, and thoughtful woman in the world happens to be my best friend.  She also happens to give very good birthday gifts, like the Nike Fuelband she gave me last month for my 31st.  So I decided to take on the challenge – meet a goal of 2500 fuelpoints each day of December.  This seemed pretty easy, considering 2500 is an average goal for women my age and I have a fairly active job.

So what is a Fuelband?  The Nike Fuelband is a motivational tool to inspire activity.  It uses an accelerometer to track movement, and converts it, based on your height and weight, into a fitness currency called FuelPoints.  It also tracks approximate steps and calories burned and displays the time!

For my challenge, I decided to go with the goal Nike recommended – 2500 points per day. The first couple of days were easy peazy.  Forty-five minutes on the treadmill earns about 1800 points.  An eight hour workday is 700-1500 points depending on the busyness.  Walking casually around town earns about 250 points every half hour.  House cleaning is about the same.  Unfortunately, activity that doesn’t involve quick arm movements, like the Pilates class I took only earned 200 points in an hour.

Week 1 – 18,387 total FuelPoints. 57% Goals Hit. 8,772 Steps per Day.  Best Day of the Week – 3,935 FuelPoints on Thursday.

Then, on Tuesday of Week 2, my Fuelband broke.  The additional piece that customizes the fit of the Band broke off and I couldn’t find it.  It took me a couple days to get it into the Nike Store for repair.  Once I brought it in, they hooked me up with a new piece and I was ready to go – again.

Week 2 – 14,088 total FuelPoints. 29% Goals Hit.  6,694 Steps per Day. Best Day of the Week – 3,728 FuelPoints on Thursday.

Mondays are usually days spent completely in an office with little work activity.  If I don’t go to the gym afterwards, it results in a day like Week 3 Monday – 1,209 FuelPoints.  Then, I forgot to put it on Thursday morning before I left the house for the day.

Week 3 – 18,147 total FuelPoints. 71% Goals Hit. 8,988 Steps per Day.  Best Day of the Week – 4,308 FuelPoints on Tuesday.

Then I started to get a cold.  The last week of December in retail is pretty brutal and I was done.  Then, on December 29th, I got an error message to plug it into a computer and sync.  Who uses a computer anymore?

Week 4 – 8,688 total FuelPoints. 0% Goals Hit. 3,117 Steps per Day.  Best Day of the Week – 2,077 FuelPoints on Friday.

Breakdown for December
61,150 FuelPoints
35% of Goals Hit
6,380 Steps Per Day
463 Calories Burned Per Day
2,264 Average FuelPoints per day

So here’s the bottom line.  The FuelBand is is a great motivational tool, and that’s exactly it.  You shouldn’t expect it to track all your activity accurately.  You can get more points clapping at a seated concert than you would riding a bike across town.  Some friends have trouble syncing and can’t retrieve the previous days activity.  It’s got some problems.  Some bugs.  Some kinks.  There are definitely ways to improve.  But when the words at the bottom of the NikeFuel app say “1800 points behind vs Women 30-39,” it’s pretty motivating.  How the heck are these old ass women beating me?  I’ll show them!

Best of – Running

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Running Month was more like 2. Marpril of 2011. When I went from being winded after running 30 seconds to being able to run a very slow, extremely arduous 5k. Win! In October of that same year, I ran the Portland Half Marathon in 2 hours 15 minutes. Running has never been easy for me. Shin splints and allergies kept me and running at arms length for most of my life. It was something I loathed. Why would I need to run when there will be hover chairs in a few short years?? Eventually a daily allergy pill and specially fitted running shoes would eliminate all my excuses. Except for laziness. That will *always* be a valid excuse.

So I started the Couch to 5k training program and eventually began to love it. The quiet street with soggy leaves under my feet. The treadmill at 11pm with only me and the cleaning lady. The bridges and streets up ahead and far behind. The focused calm of my mind. It was something I craved. My legs would get restless and my mind would wander and I knew I needed to run. I’m still not good at it. A 10 minute mile is my personal best. I’ll go months without running and then, all of a sudden, feel this urge that won’t dissipate. So, for Best Of Month, I wanted to run a whole 5k without walking. It took me 4 tries, but I finally did it in 35 minutes. My new goal for 2014 is to run another half in under 2 hours

Practice – The A Chord

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Alright, so Justin says you should be practicing 15 minutes a day, every day.  Well, I know I have 15 minutes a day and it should totally be easy… but I’m a busy girl… and I like the snooze button.

So, today ran in the Shamrock Run 5k in downtown Portland.  My girlfriends and I dressed up in tutus and knee high socks and ran on the Columbia Sportswear team.  There were so many people!  It way mayhem.  We finished in about 45 minutes and went to get our celebratory Saint Patrick’s Day free beer. We waited in line to get into the beer tent for about 10 minutes, only to realize that all the people in the beer tent were in line to get beer!  Another 1500 people stood in front of us and sweet victory.  Obviously free beer tastes better than beer you pay for.  Der.  But after calculating how much a free beer is actually worth… x > time/hungriness… carry the 1… fuck it.  Let’s go to Genie’s.  Bacon infused Bloody Mary’s, eggs benedict, and Stumptown coffee wins every time.  Sunday brunch > everything!

So, after a brief appointment with my real estate agent, a much needed couch nap, and a Girls marathon with Katie… I learned the A Chord.  Wahoo!  It looks like this:

Chord-O-A

 

Snoop Bloggy Blog

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Alright, WordPress.  Here’s the deal.  My name is Abbie.  I am 29 and live in Portland, Oregon.  I am like most people who devoted a lot of time and energy to other people and work.  I found myself not even knowing what I enjoyed doing.  I started a project on November 1st, 2010 to do more and learn more.  I made a list of all the things I wanted to do, but never had time for… painting, skydiving, fencing, learning Japanese, dancing, running, glass blowing… the list went on and on.  I decided to take one thing on my list and focus as much spare time and energy on it as possible.  I spent months training for a half marathon (which I ran in October 2011,) learning to bake (scones, bread, pretzels, and cookies,) eating healthy (mostly raw fruits and veggies,) drinking wine (easiest month ever,) getting fit (taking zumba, Krav Maga, yoga, and TurboKick classes,) doing community service (for the Oregon Food Bank, community gardens, and raising $1500 for the Children’s Cancer Association,) trying my luck at online dating (and meeting my current live-in boo,) hiking (taking several trips all around Oregon and Washington,) and finally blogging (you can read all about my past adventures at http://www.thirtydaysofnew.tumblr.com )

So, I’ve had my tumblr for almost a year.  I found that it was lacking several key factors that I have found on wordpress… so here I am.  I thought for a long time about incorporating previous posts onto this site and actually had them all transferred over for a few days before I trashed them all.  This is thirty days of NEW!  I am so apt to creating new adventures every month but I didn’t recognize the opportunity to new-ify my bloggy blog.  This is a clean slate… the forever-promised organization and brevity might have a chance in the new format. Well, that’s basically it… I hope you enjoy.