05.12.08
Posted in Weddings and Honeymoons at 5:27 pm by admin
Adana sent me this email invitation:
Dear Friends! This Saturday, May 10th, I am making my symphonic debut with Puget Sound Symphony Orchestra! This is a huge step in my development as a classical singer and I would love to share the occasion with you. My very dear friend, mezzo-soprano Katie Elder (also making her symphonic debut), and I will perform 4 duets and one solo aria each. Please feel free to bring friends and loved ones — the more the merrier!The concert begins at 7:30pm at Town Hall. For details, please visit http://www.psso.org. Tickets are $5 in advance or $8 at the door.Lots of love, Adana
I did remember that she had a major concert the night before her wedding, and I knew I really wanted to attend. I was supposed to be climbing Mt. Shuksan this weekend, but due to the unstable weather forecast, my friends and I decided to skip the glaciers and go for finding sunshine and rocks to climb. This meant that my Saturday night was open and I could, after all, go see Adana sing! I tried to get Scott, my husband to go, but he declined (repeatedly)….So, I just went by myself. There were a lot of people at Town Hall. After taking a seat (very close to the front so I could see Adana well) I watched many, many people waving at musicians in the symphony and saw many camera flashes. Of course, the audience was full of friends and families of the symphony members. It suddenly felt like a family affair, but I didn’t care, because I was just there to see Adana.Since I am not a person who knows anything about music, and have never really played any instruments, the world of music is pretty unfamiliar to me. I was watching the violin, viola and bass players closely. These people are young (like MUCH younger than me) and they have spent most of their lives in the world of music. I wonder what that is like. I wonder what it is like to do any ONE thing for so much of your life.
The spot lights go on at exactly 7:30pm, and the conductor comes out. He is a cute, slight man and the symphony played a really fun cuban number to open. The very next song was when Adana and her Alto Suprano Katie came on stage to sing. They sang several duets to begin. They just stood up on the stage in their colorful, beautiful and very personality-specific dresses with no microphone, no notes, nothing to hide behind and no props. They just stood there and sang their hearts out…..all in foreign languages. It was remarkable.
(phone photos…..I didn’t think to bring my camera)
Next, Katie performed her solo. Katie is also a bride (although not in The Healthy Bride classes….) and works at WAMU. She has an amazing voice, especially surprising because she is tiny, tiny, tiny. Diva’s are always assumed to look the size of their voice, and when they don’t it’s a bit confusing for those of us who don’t know better. Apparently its not the size of the Diva that matters…. At the end of her solo (which was again amazing) her finace’ presented her a huge bouquet of roses while the audience roared.
Video #1
“>Video#2-Duet
Then it was Adana’s turn to solo. She sang in english and, in my uneducated opinion, had an amazingly difficult number. She matched the symphony on every note and went up and down riding their scales. I was stunned, amazed and beamed with pride. Adana was clearly having a great time. She was smiling, acting, and even messing with the conductor a bit. She was completely in her element and oh, so amazing. I was honestly honored that she invited me. After her performance she came out of the backroom and no one had gathered around her yet. I was able to give her a huge hug, tell her how amazing she was. She said “I have never had so much fun in my life” and then she was whisked away into the crowd. Her fans approached her for autographs, her family hugged her, her finace was standing by her side proud as could be.
This was the night before her wedding. Whew! What a high she must be floating on still today.
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05.08.08
Posted in Vancouver Half Marathon Training at 3:34 pm by heather
Its totally over. In case you haven’t heard, I won the whole thing. Yeah, I ran it in like an hour and change. No big deal at all. I didn’t even sweat. I probably didn’t even need to train all these weeks, but you know, I was just keeping everyone company. And, I lost 20 lbs in the process.
Lies. All of it. The searing pain coursing through my lower extremities is causing me to lose touch with reality. And I gained two pounds.
What really happened goes a little more like this:
Friday - leave after work. Get to Vancouver in 2.5 hours flat. Things are looking good. Apparently you are supposed to carbo-load two days prior, which to me meant An Excuse To Eat Everything Not Nailed Down. Dinner involved three gin and tonics (with one full glass water in between each one. Hey, they were WEAK.), carpaccio with truffle oil and parmesan, a Caesar salad, pasta with meat sauce, and an accidental half a tarte Tatin. Which is really just apples, so is healthy.
There was a group of trashy looking chicks that came into the restaurant. They could not have been more than 17. I saw the boobs come in the door like three full seconds before the remainder of the person, so you get the picture. One of them was like six feet tall, (five feet of legs) wearing what appeared to be a zebra-striped towel made of spandex. It was a constant tug of war - to pull the “dress” down exposed the top, to pull the “dress” up exposed the bottom. Call me old fashioned, but I just don’t like nipples/buttcheeks with dinner. It was like a train wreck - you couldn’t NOT look. A very attractive person, though, on the whole, until she spoke and sounded like Fred Sanford.
She was a HE. I’m still uncertain how it wore a dress so short. Tucking, I suppose. Fascinating. Canadian transvestites. Cansvestites? Transanadians?
Next day - crappy and humid. No trace of dehydration or hangover - I am a professional. I am, however, rocking a stringy, frizzy Afro triggered by humidity. After a giant Starbucks Americano, I set out to explore Vancouver with my tragic hair and get a little exercise. Exercise involving shopping for shoes and handbags which I cannot afford unless I win marathon and can claim large cash prize.
All this exercise is making me hungry. Stop for giant salad with salmon and prawns and forty pounds of lettuce. Really want hamburger instead. Pick miserably at salad, wash down with giant beer. Last drink until after race. I swish the beer around in my mouth like Listerine, to savor. Cannot lick inside of glass as do not have Gene Simmons tongue, but seriously considered trying, then remembered was in public place and had to set good example for America. Left lunch cranky and went to take nap. Passed out cold for two hours.
Dinner with the team at enormous Hall-O-Chinese-Food.
Nothing sounds good except beer. Waitstaff walking by with frosty Kirins and Tsingtaos. Hate evil, taunting, beer-wielding waitstaff. Everyone is so cute in their street clothes though. We’ve never seen each other not in athletic wear. It was like we were stunt doubles. Christi distributes bibs and shirts. The big joke is that they spelled my name wrong. Seriously. They spelled it H-A-T-H-E-R. So for fun I drew two dots over the “a” to make it Häther. Now it sounded exotic and Scandinavian, rather than like a dumb mistake. Hopefully it doesn’t mean “bitch” in Swedish. More likely it’s a style of couch from IKEA, or some sort of melamine organizational system. Needless to say, no one cheered for me in the run, because they couldn’t pronounce my name.
Off to bed. I was too nervous/excited to sleep so I set three alarms and took two Benadryl.
Alarms (all three of them) come screaming to life at 5:30 a.m. Stumble blindly around room and make cereal for breakfast. Spend twenty minutes wrapping feet. Take six Motrin. Get dressed. Meet team. Everyone is present and accounted for and ready to go. Have peed six times and still feel like I have to go. Also sort of feel like throwing up, either from nerves or mysterious Canadian all-natural energy beverage called “Assistance” I drank with breakfast. Maybe was crack? Tasted horrible, anyway.
We all get to the starting line. It is packed with all manner of people - gazelles, non-gazelles, old people, young people. No costumes. Phew. It seems like almost immediately the race begins. I set my watch and we’re off.
I cannot really describe the rest of the race. It was sunny, and all was well for a while. There were DJs and horrible garage bands scattered throughout the course. At least 10 people asked us where the Emerald City was. People think it’s in Kansas, or didn’t believe Seattle was the Emerald City. Like we made it up or something.
Top Three Things Overheard That Made Us Want To Hit People:
“Oh, I thought I passed you a long time ago.”
“You’ve got nine more miles to go, hon.”
“We really need to step it up a little. We have 5K more to go and we have to finish in the next 30 minutes.”
It was fairly uneventful. There was a man singing in the park wearing feathered wings. This was just prior to an enormous hill, which sucked. Lara begins distributing Advil like candy. Somewhere around 9 miles I started to get cranky.
At mile 10, Laurie said, “I think we’re going to finish…” and just sort of trailed off, to which I responded, “Is that the end of your sentence?!” I wasn’t aware that not finishing was a possibility. I thought she was going to say “…in XX time” or “…at a 10-minute mile.” But no. She was just being positive. We started discussing America’s Next Top Model, to fill the time.
Between miles 11 and 12 felt like 5 miles as opposed to one. This was right around the same time we started to get passed by people running the full marathon. The guy who won the full marathon, by the by, did 26.2 miles in ten minutes less than it took me to run 13.1. WTF.
One more mile to go. A bystander yells at us, “It’s just pain!”. Everyone in immediate vicinity starts talking smack, telling the bystander to go eff himself and to get his fat ass out here and run. Clearly, no one is in the mood. The fun has stopped.
Anyway. I did it. We all did it. I saw the finish line and thought it was a mirage. My legs were on autopilot. All I remember is, just before I crossed, hearing a British accent yell, “Go on, Häther!”. No joke. He even said it right.
I crossed it. I finished. I didn’t throw up on the timing mats. I almost cried a little. Jonna was there at the finish line beaming like a proud mom, which was really cool. The rest of it was surreal.
They gave us ugly medals that looked like war medals, oddly sort of fitting. considering what we’d all been through. Personally, I thought I should be getting a freaking Purple Heart. There were Scientologists handing out water, which I drank before I realized who they were. It tasted funny. Perhaps was Tom Cruise’s sweat? Spent next ten minutes fretting about turning into Tom Cruise. We were funneled into big stadium crammed with people where we hobbled down stairs. Everyone was eating pudding. Like SHOVELING it in. It was madness. I wanted out. I could not move quickly, but I wanted out and away from the pudding.
Limped toward the hotel. Had overwhelming craving for cigarette. I haven’t smoked in three years. Smoking is gross, therefore did not have cigarette.
After taking what was perhaps the best shower of my life and guzzling 32 ounces of Canadian faux-Gatorade, I headed off for my massage. Kristin, Sarah and Holly were already there, blissed out and groaning on the tables. I eyed the masseuses carefully, hoping for the six-foot tall burly one with the giant hands. I needed help.
I got the giant one. She kept saying, “What aboot here? Does it hurt here?” It pretty much hurt everywhere, so she needn’t have asked. Christi is taking pictures of us, ostensibly to post online. I flip her off behind my back - not sure if that one will make it to the blog. The official marathon pictures online are hilarious. Every time we spotted someone with a massive camera, we’d yell, “Official Marathon Photographer!” and smile. Which made me look crazy in all my pictures, except the finish line one, where I thought I was smiling, but in the one they posted I look like I’m about to throw up. I also noticed that apparently I don’t bend my knees much when I run, because I look like I’m walking in every picture. Irritating.
For the remainder of Sunday and Monday, walking was difficult. By Tuesday I was fine. It wasn’t as bad as I had thought it would be. Yoga was a big help - only Laurie, Sarah and I made it there from the marathon class.
It’s kind of sad now that it’s over - sort of a “Now what?” kind of feeling. Part of me wants to sit on the couch and eat chips and watch reality shows. The other part of me is trying to find the next big thing to do. I’ve signed up for Beat the Bridge on May 18th - it should be a breeze in comparison. But I’m going to miss the whole team and the Saturday morning runs. I’m hoping Christi gives me another challenge of some sort to blog about, like the Human Fitness Guinea Pig. We’ll see.
All I can say is, I thoroughly enjoyed this whole grueling experience. I have to thank Laurie, who I cursed daily 10 weeks ago, for roping me into this. And of course Christi and Jonna for guiding us all through it. It was an amazing experience and I am so glad I did it and met a whole bunch of great people in the process, whom I hope to keep in touch with now that the training is over. I’m really proud of all of us!
Cheers,
Häther
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05.05.08
Posted in Vancouver Half Marathon Training at 3:18 pm by heather
OMG. The race is Sunday. All thoughts of what has happened this past week have suddenly flown out of head.
Um, long run. Yeah. It got shortened to 10 miles to keep us sane. The weather was great and it was a lovely run through Washington Park down to Lake Washington, which was like window shopping for ridiculously expensive real estate. Washington Park smells like $100 bills and is always sunny. I want to live there, except I’m pretty sure I’d hate my neighbors. If your house has gargoyles, you have too much money, and you should immediately be forced to give half of it to charity, the other half to me.
I was not risking foot problems today. I spent twenty minutes prior to departure painstakingly applying Body Glide to my feet, then blister pads to my arches, followed by a generous wrap of foam tape to keep them in place, taped it all up with athletic tape, and carefully pulled my socks over the whole deal, checking for any wrinkles, lumps or bumps that may cause blistering. It bordered on obsessive, but it worked.
The run was good. I felt great. Way better than last week. I’m ridiculously excited for this race.
Yoga was stretchy, spin class was spinny, work was surprisingly pain-free this week. All signs point to go for Sunday.
I’ve packed. My travel bag looks like a pharmacy. Contents include: One (1) tube Neosporin; one (1) stick BodyGlide; two (2) packs Blister Pads; one (1) Family Size bottle of Motrin; one (1) ice pack; one (1) roll foam underwrap; one (1) roll athletic tape; and one (1) bottle Tanqueray Ten gin (for Sunday at approximately 10 a.m.). I figure I can source a wheelchair in Vancouver.
Some pre-race thoughts I’ve had: What if I trip over someone and split my face open? What if my ankle snaps and the bone comes OUT of my skin? What if it decides to be 90 degrees outside and I die of heatstroke? What if every other person in the race gets injured except me and I WIN IT? What if Tom Brady is for some reason at the finish line and is so impressed with my athletic prowess that he gets down on one knee and professes his undying love for me with a four-carat emerald cut diamond from Harry Winston?
Shut UP. It could happen. It totally could, maybe. Probably not. But still.
I talked to Christi on Friday and she was like “Oh, you’re going up tonight? Don’t get drunk…” She said it with a nervous laugh like she was kidding, but you totally know she wasn’t, because she knows that there is a very real possibility of that happening. She knows me too well. I called her on it. She was like “Well, it had to be said…” Hilarious. She seems to be forgetting that I am a Serious Athlete. Serious Athletes do not get drunk two days before the half-marathon. Serious Athletes might have JUST ONE cocktail with dinner on Friday though. And maybe a beer after 4 p.m. at work, just to be sociable. But that’s it.
Okay. I’m out of here. Wish me luck, everyone. It’s almost over. I need a drink, stat.
Cheers,
Heather
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04.30.08
Posted in Weddings and Honeymoons at 8:11 am by admin
I received an email yesterday from Banquet events. They were nice enough to recommend The Healthy Bride in their BLOG. Follow the link below to more of their recommendations.
http://www.banquetevent.com/wedding/misc/bande/2008/04/modern-womans-wedding-survival-kit-day_23.html
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04.25.08
Posted in Vancouver Half Marathon Training at 1:37 pm by heather
Panic is starting to set in.
Remember last week, where I said my knee kinda hurt after the run? Well, it’s Thursday, and my knee is still hurting. I’ve been icing, and Motrin-ing, and eating ice cream (shut up - it helps me through the pain), and still nothing seems to be helping. I made an appointment with the doc, but he can’t see me until next week. I’m mildly freaking out, because Saturday’s run was actually really not very enjoyable. Which makes me SAD. And MAD. There is only one more long run before the event. I’m afraid my leg is going to have to be amputated at the hip. Is spinning class bad for knees, or good for knees?
So on Saturday morning, when I pulled into the parking lot at Gas Works, two cops rolled in behind me. Everyone immediately thought I offed my boss. I didn’t, though, FYI. I’m not going to, you guys. Sheesh.
Over the course of the run, the sun shone. It rained. It poured. It snowed. It hailed. It was windy. It was COLD. It was unfavorable. At one point, Christi commented that I hadn’t spoken for like three miles. This is indeed cause for concern. I was a mess. At one point I caught a glimpse of myself in a store window and I was not even running, I was LURCHING forward like a zombie in stretchy pants. It was most unattractive.
Eveyone got lost again, except for me and Laurie. Perhaps I should consider new career as Wilderness Guide. Except do not really like wilderness, or guiding for that matter. Whatever. The trick is to run with the person who knows where they are going. It’s genius, really. What I don’t understand is the people who get lost always show up at the end. If I got lost, you can be sure I’d end up in a bar drinking beer and eating something heaped with cheese.
As I drove away from Gas Works I saw Kristen at the stoplight. She was smiling and waving and yelled to me, “I got so lost!”. Come to find out later she ran all the way through Discovery Park. Amazing. I think she ran like ninety miles. I saw her about 100 yards from Gas Works at the END of the run, and she’s smiling. It didn’t even looked like she got rained on. She must have found some magical dry, warm tunnel filled with sunshine and puppies, because I seem to recall SNOW and HAIL on pothole-laden roads and railroad tracks in the freezing cold. There was no smiling where I was. I should have run with her. Must know about this magical tunnel immediately. Then again, it could be visible only to her, or she found a magic key on the way out, that allowed her to unlock a mysterious portal…
I think I’m losing my mind from too much exercise.
Oh, and because you’re dying to know - I slathered on the Body Glide prior to the run. It made me feel dirty, and not in a good way. Plus, it only kind of helped.
I went home and showered and crawled into bed and ate an enormous plate of spaghetti for no reason at all, and watched The Last King of Scotland, which I thought was about the last king of Scotland, but isn’t. Then I slept until Sunday.
Let’s talk about food for a minute. Since I started this half-marathon ordeal, I have been STARVING. All the time. Ravenous. I was thinking how I was going to get all skinny, like that anorexic marathon chick who had a baby like a week before she ran, but no. Not even close. I would totally be her if I could stop eating. Okay, no I wouldn’t. But the point is, I cannot stop eating. If I’m hungry, and you’re standing next to me, it’s wise to just take a step back, because you could lose an arm, or a sandwich, or whatever food item you might be eyeing for yourself. It might not even be a food item - I have three half-chewed Bics on my desk.
Why is this? What is going on here? I am sooooooooo hungry right now. I want hamburgers. Plural. Today I ate a cough drop just because the taste was really strong and I thought it would keep me from eating random food items, but instead I just ate like 20 cough drops. This is not a good idea, I don’t think. I just had another one though, because now am craving muffins.
Yoga this week was normal but we did hear that we will be having one more yoga class at the stripper pole place. I’ve asked Breona to come up with yoga moves that will utilize the pole, because we can’t NOT use it. She could make a fortune. A new type of yoga. Polga. It sounds like a fat Russian woman in a fur hat, but really it’s exercise. Yay!
I’m going to run tonight. I’m scared. Wish me luck. If I still have knees I will see you Saturday. If I don’t, come see me in the hospital after your run. I like tulips best.
Until next week (cross fingers).
Cheers,
Heather
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04.24.08
Posted in Articles about health at 11:19 am by admin
Is bisphenol A, a major ingredient in many plastics, healthy for children and other living things?
By David Biello
CHEMICAL LEACHING: When exposed to hot water, plastic bottles–including baby bottles–leach a chemical that is known to mimic estrogens in the body.
COURTESY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CINCINNATI
Bisphenol A (BPA) is a ubiquitous compound in plastics. First synthesized in 1891, the chemical has become a key building block of plastics from polycarbonate to polyester; in the U.S. alone more than 2.3 billion pounds (1.04 million metric tons) of the stuff is manufactured annually.
Since at least 1936 it has been known that BPA mimics estrogens, binding to the same receptors throughout the human body as natural female hormones. And tests have shown that the chemical can promote human breast cancer cell growth as well as decrease sperm count in rats, among other effects. These findings have raised questions about the potential health risks of BPA, especially in the wake of hosts of studies showing that it leaches from plastics and resins when they are exposed to hard use or high temperatures (as in microwaves or dishwashers).
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) found traces of BPA in nearly all of the urine samples it collected in 2004 as part of an effort to gauge the prevalence of various chemicals in the human body. It appeared at levels ranging from 33 to 80 nanograms (a nanogram is one billionth of a gram) per kilogram of body weight in any given day, levels 1,000 times lower than the 50 micrograms (one millionth of a gram) per kilogram of bodyweight per day considered safe by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the European Union’s (E.U.) European Food Safety Authority (EFSA).
Studies suggest that BPA does not linger in the body for more than a few days because, once ingested, it is broken down into glucuronide, a waste product that is easily excreted. Yet, the CDC found glucuronide in most urine samples, suggesting constant exposure to it. “There is low-level exposure but regular low-level exposure,” says chemist Steven Hentges, executive director of the polycarbonate / BPA global group of the American Chemistry Council. “It presumably is in our diet.”
BPA is routinely used to line cans to prevent corrosion and food contamination; it also makes plastic cups and baby and other bottles transparent and shatterproof. When the polycarbonate plastics and epoxy resins made from the chemical are exposed to hot liquids, BPA leaches out 55 times faster than it does under normal conditions, according to a new study by Scott Belcher, an endocrine biologist at the University of Cincinnati. “When we added boiling water [to bottles made from polycarbonate] and allowed it to cool, the rate [of leakage] was greatly increased,” he says, to a level as high as 32 nanograms per hour.
A recent report in the journal Reproductive Toxicology found that humans must be exposed to levels of BPA at least 10 times what the EPA has deemed safe because of the amount of the chemical detected in tissue and blood samples. “If, as some evidence indicates, humans metabolize BPA more rapidly than rodents,” wrote study author Laura Vandenberg, a developmental biologist at Tufts University in Boston, “then human daily exposure would have to be even higher to be sufficient to produce the levels observed in human serum.”
The CDC data shows that 93 percent of 2,157 people between the ages of six and 85 tested had detectable levels of BPA’s by-product in their urine. “Children had higher levels than adolescents and adolescents had higher levels than adults,” says endocrinologist Retha Newbold of the U.S. National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, who found that BPA impairs fertility in female mice. “In animals, BPA can cause permanent effects after very short periods of exposure. It doesn’t have to remain in the body to have an effect.”
But experts are split on the potential health hazards to humans. The Food and Drug Administration has approved its use and the EPA does not consider it cause for concern. One U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) panel agreed, but another team of government scientists last year found that the amount of BPA present in humans exceeds levels that have caused ill effects in animals. They also found that adults’ ability to tolerate it does not preclude damaging effects in infants and children.
“It is the unborn baby and children that investigators are most worried about,” Newbold says, noting that BPA was linked to increased breast and prostate cancer occurrences, altered menstrual cycles and diabetes in lab mice that were still developing.
Fred vom Saal, a reproductive biologist at the University of Missouri–Columbia, warns that babies likely face the “highest exposure” in human populations, because both baby bottles and infant formula cans likely leach BPA. “In animal studies, the levels that cause harm happen at 10 times below what is common in the U.S.” says vom Saal, who also headed the NIH panel that concluded the chemical may pose risks to humans.
Amid growing concern, Rep. John Dingell (D–Mich.) chairman of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, has launched an investigation into BPA, sending letters last month to the FDA and seven manufacturers of infant products sold in the U.S. requesting information on any BPA safety tests as well as specific levels in the baby goods. The companies that make Similac, Earth’s Best and Good Start have already responded, confirming that they coat the inside of their cans with BPA but that analyses did not detect it in the contents. They also emphasize that FDA has approved BPA for such use.
“Based on the studies reviewed by FDA, adverse effects occur in animals only at levels of BPA that are far higher orders of magnitude than those to which infants or adults are exposed,” says FDA spokeswoman Stephanie Kwisnek. “Therefore, FDA sees no reason to ban or otherwise restrict the uses now authorized at this time.”
FDA first approved BPA as a food container in 1963 because no ill effects from its use had been shown. When Congress passed a law—the Toxic Substances Control Act of 1976—mandating that the EPA conduct or review safety studies on new chemicals before giving them the nod, compounds like BPA were already on the market. Therefore, they were not subject to the new rules nor required to undergo additional testing unless specific concerns had been raised (such as in the case of PCBs). “The science that exists today supports the safety of BPA,” ACC’s Hentges says, based largely on research his organization has funded.
But other studies since 1976 have shown that small doses (less than one part per billion) of estrogenlike chemicals, such as BPA, may be damaging. “In fetal mouse prostate you can stimulate receptors with estradiol at about two tenths of a part per trillion, and with BPA at a thousand times higher,” vom Saal says. “That’s still 10 times lower than what a six-year-old has.” In other words, children six years of age were found to have higher levels of BPA’s by-product glucuronide in their urine than did mice dosed with the chemical that later developed cancer and other health issues.
Further complicating the issue is the stew of other estrogen-mimicking chemicals to which humans are routinely exposed, from soy to antibacterial ingredients in some soaps. The effects of such chemical mixtures are not known but scientists say they may serve to enhance the ill effects of one another. “The assumption that natural estrogens are somehow immediately good for you and these chemicals are immediately bad,” Belcher says, “is probably not a reasonable assumption to make.”
The chemical industry argues that unless BPA is proved to have ill effects it should continue to be manufactured and used, because it is cheap, lightweight, shatterproof and offers other features that are hard to match. “There is no alternative for either of those materials [polycarbonate plastics and epoxy resins] that would simply drop in where those materials are used,” Hentges says.
Not so, says vom Saal, who notes that there are plenty of other materials, such as polyethylene and polypropylene plastics, that would be fine substitutes in at least some applications. “There are a whole variety of different kinds of plastic materials and glass,” he says. “They are all more stable than polycarbonate.”
Concern over BPA is not confined only to the U.S. Japanese manufacturers began to use natural resin instead of BPA to line cans in 1997 after Japanese scientists showed that it was leaching out of baby bottles. A subsequent study there that measured levels in urine in 1999 found that they had dropped significantly.
A new E.U. law (Registration, Evaluation, Authorization and Restriction of Chemical Substances, or REACH), which took effect last year, requires that chemicals, such as BPA, be proved safe. Currently, though, it continues to be used in Europe; the EFSA last year found no reason for alarm based on rodent studies. European scientists cited multigenerational rat studies as reassuring and noted that mouse studies may be flawed because the tiny rodent is more susceptible to estrogens.
For now, U.S. scientists with concerns about BPA recommend that anyone sharing those worries avoid using products made from it: Polycarbonate plastic is clear or colored and typically marked with a number 7 on the bottom, and canned foods such as soups can be purchased in cardboard cartons instead.
If canned goods or clear plastic bottles are a must, such containers should never be microwaved, used to store heated liquids or foods, or washed in hot water (either by hand or in much hotter dishwashers). “These are fantastic products and they work well … [but] based on my knowledge of the scientific data, there is reason for caution,” Belcher says. “I have made a decision for myself not to use them.”
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04.20.08
Posted in Events and Races at 1:01 pm by admin
Running Injury Free - talk by Dr. Murray Maitland - Shopping and yoga too!
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When: Wednesday April 23
Time: 7:00 pm - 9:00pm (talk 7-8pm, then yoga)
Where: Lucy University Village
Cost: Free!
What: Running has many benefits to a women’s health, but the forces that produce the health benefits reverberate up through the foot, knee, hip and back. Research shows that about 50% of recreational runners aren’t able to run sometime during a one year period because of an overuse injury. You need to know how to protect yourself while still getting the maximum benefit from running. Dr. Murray Maitland is a professor in the Division of Physical Therapy at the University of Washington. More important, he has over 20 years of personal experience with running and running injuries. He will be speaking about weak links in the anatomical chain and recommending some common and some unique ways to prevent overuse injuries. Yoga for runner’s class will immediately follow Murray’s talk. Join us - even if you are not a runner!
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04.15.08
Posted in Shopping at 4:26 pm by admin
Laurie sent an email to the half marathon training group about Champion having a bra sale. My poor, old, tired Champion Bra is my FAVORITE and I can’t seem to let it go. I will be ordering several today. They have a great size chart that helps you determine which size to get. I have pasted it here.
Get Shopping!! http://www.championcatalog.com/category/3000000000.html
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| Bra Measuring Instructions and Sizing |
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Use a standard dressmaker’s tape measure.
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For best results, have someone else measure you.
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If between sizes, buy the larger size.
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| 1. Band Measurement: |
| - Take a snug measurement around your rib cage, |
| under your bust and shoulder blades. |
| - Add 5 inches. Example: 30″ + 5″ = 35″ |
|
| 2. Determine Even Band Size: |
| - If you get an even number in Step 1, this is your Band Size. |
| - If you get an odd number in Step 1 (like 35), |
| round up one (to 36) to get your Band Size. |
| Example: 35″ + 1″ = 36″ |
|
| 3. Bust Measurement: |
| - With bra on and clothes off, take a loose measurement |
| around the fullest part of your bust. |
| Example: 38″ |
|
|
| 4. Determine Cup Size: |
| - Subtract Band Measurement (from Step 1) from |
| Bust Measurement (from Step 3). |
| Example: 38″ - 35″ = 3″ |
| - Use the chart below to determine your Cup Size: |
| Example: 3″ = C Cup |
|
| If difference is: |
1” |
2” |
3” |
4” |
5” |
| then Cup Size is: |
A |
B |
C |
D |
DD |
|
|
|
|
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|
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Posted in Vancouver Half Marathon Training at 3:56 pm by heather
This week’s run was a healthy 9.5-ish miles along the Burke-Gilman. It was sunny, and actually kind of hot outside. We all reported for duty at the coffee shop again, Sarah debuting shorts in honor of the freakish heat, looking chipper and quite gazellish, I might add. I admire her. I don’t do shorts. I can’t in good conscience subject the rest of the world to my legs. So, I will have to live vicariously through her.
Jonna arrived with a veritable goo buffet in her backpack, determined that we all be sufficiently nourished during the run. She also produced a stick of “Body Glide” which she had mentioned before and immediately made me think of AstroGlide, therefore there was no way I was going to slather myself in it. However, this Body Glide business came in a stick, much like a deodorant solid. Its apparent purpose is to prevent chafing and blisters. Having not yet chafed or blistered, coupled with the fact that I’d been making fun of the Body Glide for about a week, I declined to partake.
And we were off. There were A LOT of cyclists out today, and I must admit that given my well-known, oft-verbalized, and now documented frustration with cyclists, I’m starting to feel just a wee bit bad, because as I said before, there are many whom I really, really like. Lara, for example, is a cyclist, and she is awesome, and as I was running with her I felt guilty for cursing at all the cyclists bellowing “On your LEEEEEEFT” as they blew by. So I made a vow that I’m going to try to be nicer to cyclists for one month. Just one though.
Around 3-ish miles I began to feel a burning sensation on the inside of my right arch. Ooh, a blister. And only 6-ish more miles to go.
Let’s fast forward. It is hot, now both my feet are blistering, my knee hurts, my hip is numb, and all in all I am not feeling super today. And last week I was feeling so great! I make it through. I sit down to stretch because I can no longer stand. I inspect my blisters. The right one is shaped like Ohio and is huge. The left one, not as huge (more like Delaware) but still painful. I hobble to the car and head home to shower - I have to go to work for the next four hours. Yay.
Whilst in shower, I am overcome by a mind-numbing burning sensation on my chest. I look down to see what looks like HICKEYS on my chest. Alas, since I have spent the better part of the morning huffing along the Burke-Gilman in pain and NOT having a hot-and-heavy high-school makeout session, (which I would later have to explain to my parents as “curling iron burns”), I can only surmise that this is what chafing looks like, and this is my punishment for making fun of Jonna’s Body Glide, which I now must purchase immediately. I have to go to work, and not to a Phish show, so therefore I cannot spend remainder of week braless and shoeless, which is the only way at this point to be comfortable.
I haven’t given enough love to Monday yoga in this blog, and this week it was held at a studio in Fremont so we did not have to deal with Mariners traffic. The studio, although dubious from the outside, was clean, had pretty painted walls, a nice hardwood floor, and a STRIPPER POLE.
Oh yes. A stripper pole. Although disappointingly, Breona had no plans for the class to include pole-work, it was nonetheless intriguing and I think it is something to be seriously considered for next time, to liven things up a bit. A discussion about people we knew in the stripping business ensued, and I told a story about a stripper friend who can autonomously wiggle each of her butt cheeks, which is really a sight to behold. It would NOT be a sight to behold if it were my butt, but when one’s butt can have quarters bounced off it, it becomes special.
Back on the subject of nudity - today we learned that in California, there is Naked Yoga. Why? Reclined Cobbler Pose, anyone? It is too disturbing to think about. In Holland, there are naked gyms. I’d never take a spinning class there. I just do not believe that nudity and exercise go together, outside of the obvious interpretation of “exercise”.
Anyway. Back to yoga. Once upon a time, I was a gymnast, and pretty darn good if I do say so myself. My claim to fame was that I could lie on my stomach in cobra pose, with arms fully extended, bend my knees, and touch the soles of my feet to the top of my head, and then walk my feet over my head and put my toes in my mouth. There are pictures that exist somewhere. My parents would trot me out to perform at dinner parties like a sideshow freak.
I cannot do this anymore. I cannot even come close. I will never be in Cirque du Soleil. While in bow pose, the muscles of my lower back start spasming. While stretching my hamstrings (with strap) my legs shake uncontrollably. How many times a week do you have to do yoga to get stretchy? I never feel any more flexible, week after week. On the contrary, I feel older, creakier, and more decrepit. Yogis, please advise.
Tidbit: Three people in my office ran the Whidbey Island half-marathon on Sunday. None of them could walk on Monday. Note to self: do not sign up for Whidbey Island half-marathon, ever.
Until next week.
Cheers,
Heather
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04.10.08
Posted in Vancouver Half Marathon Training at 1:12 pm by admin
This week started with yoga, which I seriously contemplating not attending due to the Mariners game. But I had a wretched day at work (surprise, surprise) and I thought the calming, Zen, stretchy environment of yoga would be just the ticket.
I took the bus, which I loathe, because I knew parking would be hell. Of course there was a spot right out in front. Grrr. I go inside, upstairs, and can already feel the tension starting to melt away. I enter the room.
WTF?! Where AM I? It looks like Christi’s studio, but there are these crazy black and white pictures all over the walls of I don’t even know what. Dying heroin addicts? Suicide notes? Wakarra has moved to the right side of the room from her usual spot so she doesn’t have to look at the guy writhing on the bed. I don’t blame her. It’s very disturbing. It’s supposed to be art, I think, but the image of that guy on the bed stayed with me for a week. I casually inquired to Christi about it, and it turns out she is letting an art student use her walls for a while – which I was glad to hear, because normally I would have ripped on it, and then Christi would be like, “Oh, I took those pictures of my uncle” or something, and then I’d be so humiliated I’d have to immediately move to Finland.
Spin class was uneventful, except that I debuted the padded surf pants and they were MUCH better. So that was good, but then the instructor played that stupid “Had a Bad Day” song, which could quite possibly be the worst song ever concepted/penned/sung.
Let’s fast forward to the long run.
All I can say about the long run is, holy crap, where the hell WERE we? It started at Roanoke Park, very pretty, and went around a corner, and then there was this hill. A hill. Let’s discuss this hill. It went up (as hills tend to do) but it also curved. Curvy hills are bad, because you cannot tell when it is going to become a downhill, and you keep thinking it’s going to go downhill at the end of the curve, but it wasn’t happening. It didn’t happen like six times. We kept going up. It was like the Matterhorn. I was exhausted by the time I got to the top, freaking finally. Then the downhill, yay. On the downhill, Jonna told me I looked skinny, which made her immediately my favorite person ever and I pretty much forgot anything else and just happily replayed her words in my head.
Usually our group has 3 sets of runners. Those at the front, those at the middle, and those at the end. (duh). But this week everyone was all mixed up. There were groups of twos, and threes, and singles. This was not the week to institute chaos like this, because once you got to the Arboretum, there were potentially five different directions in which to go. At one point I was running alone, would get to a five-way stop, and have to either make a decision (I’m terrible at this – I’m the one who always picks the wrong line in the grocery store) or I would jog in place and wait for someone to show up behind me. It was kind of funny. If I wasn’t running with Jonna at this point I’d have no clue where I was and I certainly would not have gone the way we went. There were mud pits, and docks, and all sorts of lunacy. Sarah, Holly, Claire, Rae and Jonna’s sister were all completely off the radar. I found Lara, Laurie and Chris and we navigated our way through the Montlake Cut, where there were all these people watching the UW crew teams row.
Aside: What is the point of rowing? It seems fun, but then you remember you have to get up at ass-thirty in the morning to do it. And there’s a person in your face screaming at you through a megaphone. I don’t want anyone screaming “ROW” in my face with a megaphone, ever, especially not first thing in the morning in a tiny vessel on a freezing lake.
So, we get through the rowing fans (?) across 520 and heading over to Eastlake, where it smelled strongly of burned waffles. On the way down we saw Sarah, Holly and Jonna’s sister coming up TOWARD us. They had gone some other way and so we all ended up together again. Then Claire and Rae appeared out of nowhere. It was like some weird comedy movie. The fun part about being lost is that you have no idea how far you’ve gone, so I actually felt really good (despite the fact that I could not feel my hip, at all). We made strangers cheer for us on the way up the last hill.
This was fun though. I mean, yeah, I like to complain a whole lot, but it’s been pretty fun. I thought I was going to have to miss this upcoming group run, and I figured out how to be able to make it, and I was ecstatic. That cannot be normal, to actually be looking forward to running nine miles.
As we stretched at the end, we discussed possibly going over to the firehouse to look for hot firemen and to investigate if they were the source of the delicious bacon smell permeating the air. That’s when we decided we wanted to change our name from “Emerald City Goddesses” to “Running for Bacon” which is way better. I know Christi made the shirts already, but maybe we could have bacon hats or something? A big discussion about food ensued, and possibly Bloody Marys. You could tell everyone secretly wanted to say “Hey, let’s go for Bloody Marys!” but nobody wanted to be the bad influence.
By next week, I’m going to be like “Screw it, I’m having a Bloody Mary.” I might even put one in my water bottle.
Until next week.
Hooray for bacon!
Heather
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