gwennefarrell

Today here in BC it is local elections meaning we elect our mayor and council. I am the financial agent for the incumbent mayor as well as for a council candidate. It has been a lot of work over the last month or so but it will be worth it if they get elected. Here’s hoping for a good result tonight.

Yesterday I decided to walk along the promenade. This is something I haven’t done in over a month. My husband offered to join me and suggested we take our corgi, Scottie. During the summer dogs are banned from the promenade but from October until the end of March they are welcome (on a leash of course). Now because Scottie is a COVID puppy, we had problems socializing her with other dogs when she was young and she can become quite scared when she encounters other dogs (she will aggressively bark at them but if they come near her she screams in terror). We have done a lot of work at keeping her calm around other dogs so we thought we’d give it a try.

We met at the beach (I walked, he drove) and got Scottie on the promenade and she was in her happy place. There we so many new sights, sounds and smells she was just about giddy. I tell you there is nothing better than seeing your dog so happy that they look like they are smiling and that is what happened with Scottie. Yes, there was a couple of encounters with other dogs (that being they were too close to her) but most of the time we were proactive enough to keep her calm.

After we all walked together for awhile my husband and I agreed I should walk ahead of him and the dog as he wanted to do a leisurely stroll while I wanted a workout. I walked to the end of the promenade and met up with him and Scottie about 1/2 way along the trip back. We walked together for a bit then off I went again. About 3 blocks from the end of the promenade I could hear little footsteps running up behind me. I turned around and there was Scottie with the biggest grin I have ever seen. Apparently she had managed to get out of her harness and once free she just took off running. Fortunately she ran straight to me so I was able to grab her.

The bottom line is I missed the promenade and walking it yesterday watching my Scottie so happy made it my best walk ever.

So my ankle is slowly getting better. I had twisted it when dismounting my bike in Mexico (no, tequila was not involved) and while it never was bruised nor has been swollen, it has been sore. I’m finding in the mornings it is stiff and sore the 1st few blocks of my walk and then it feels fine. I am hoping come Monday I’ll be able to do a gentle run.

Yesterday I went to leave for my walk at 6am and after hearing the temperature thought I need to layer up a bit. So, on top of my usual running jacket (which is very thin material), I added a hoodie. I also had the forethought of adding a set of gloves just in case and I was glad that I did. Even though I was walking a pretty good clip it was a bit chilly. My face bore most of the cold but it wasn’t really until my last few blocks that I felt I was warming up. I did several other walks during the day and all of them I had on a jacket (though I ditched the gloves). I thought well, fall is finally here.

This morning I did the same layers of clothing because it was about the same temperature as yesterday. However, about a 1/3 of the way into the walk the gloves came off. Then just past the 1/2 way mark I had to remove the hoodie as I was sweating. It seems that unlike yesterday today it was warming up pretty quickly. By time I made it home I definitely was quite warm.

I’m not getting the weather we are going through right now. The fact that it is the 13th of October and we are expecting to get temperatures into the 20’s today is pretty astounding. The problem I am finding is I have no idea how to dress for my workouts. I figure all I can do is layer the clothing and hope for the best. At least I am not having to pull out the toque yet but I am sure I will get to that eventually.

The bottom line is I just need to adjust for the weather conditions each day and do what I can to stay as comfortable as possible.

I have to say it was hard leaving the condo in Mexico this time. We had been there for 3 1/2 weeks and the weather was beautiful. Moreover, this trip we spent more time with our friends than we have in the past. The downside to this is that we tended to eat out more than planned. The upside is we now can say we have a pretty good social network at the condo and we are already planning for New Year’s Eve.

The challenge I find at the condo is I tend to get off my routine. I always start out with the best intentions but the longer I stay there the more I let things slip. It starts with getting up later each day. Then, the workouts start to get shorter. Next the food starts to get less healthy (trust me I ate more bacon on that trip than I normally do all year). In my defence I was better at healthy breakfasts than other meals. Then the snacking starts. Sigh, 3 1/2 weeks just gave me too much time to falter.

Yesterday I stuck with my resolve to get back to my routine. I diligently got up at 5 am and started my day with a healthy breakfast (oh and finally proper milk in my tea). I’m still recovering from an ankle injury so opted to hold off running for another week. However, that did not stop me from doing a brisk 5k walk first thing. Later I walked to the meeting point for the weekly walk with the seniors. I managed to accomplish 20,000+ steps and meet all my zone minutes.

Today I started out the same with a good breakfast (first time in a month I have had oatmeal) after having gotten up at 5am. This was followed by another brisk walk where I really kept my heart rate in a good zone. Later today I plan to do another 5k walk as I head uptown to vote in the advance polls. On top of that I have 2 more healthy meals planned and am avoiding any snacking.

In order to get myself back into my routine I knew I needed a plan. So, I started out by sitting down and planning my week. This included determining how I could ensure my workouts fit into my calendar as well as doing some meal planning. I’m pretty confident by time I get through this week I will be back to being focused and determined to keep myself healthy.

I don’t feel bad about falling out of my routine. The important thing is being back on track and staying there for a while.

Well, it must be getting close to time to head home because we have started the condo cleaning. Ok, I admit we spread this out over a few days because we don’t like to do much that takes us away from poolside. Today it is all the bed linen being washed. Tomorrow we vacuum and wash all the floors as well as deep clean the kitchen (seriously, the whole thing won’t even take an hour). Saturday before we leave we do the bathrooms. Sigh, it’s not the cleaning that bothers me but rather that it means we are going home.

One thing I am not good at is relaxing. I’m pretty sure that is why I do so much volunteer work and always have to have something to do. Since my husband retired he is constantly on me about how I should just sit back and take a break. Unfortunately that is just not in my nature. I like being busy and to constantly be doing something. I think it is because of so many years of being so dedicated to my work and putting that above all else that I feel the need to keep going all the time. I’m not sure that I will ever be able to completely shrug that mentality off but I am making progress.

Here at the condo I have really tried to relax. Ok, I have done some work for a client and I’ve been working on the local election campaign but given I have been here 3 weeks the amount of time I have spent on those things is pretty minimal. Instead, I have just tried to relax. That means I have spent a lot of time by the pool, on the beach or just catching up on movies. This is so out of my usual comfort zone but as my husband likes to remind me that was the point of buying our Mexican getaway.

I do have to admit that taking some time to relax has had a positive effect on me. My resting heart rate has gone down and I am sleeping so much better. As a matter of fact today I actually slept later than I have in years. I of course am looking at all of this as simply recharging my batteries because I know come Monday I will be back at it and going like crazy. My husband keeps trying to tell me that I should try to be this relaxed at home but seriously, that will likely never happen.

So yes, this has been a good trip for me and I can’t wait to come back here for New Year’s. Sadly, I did get a bit lazy so it may be a tough start getting back to my normal routine next week but I know I can do it.

Please note, there will not be a post on Saturday as that is our travel day and my iPads will be packed away. Having said that, I wish all of my Canadian followers a happy Thanksgiving!

We now have things set up at our condo in Mexico so that we can watch Canadian TV stations. That means each morning when we get up we watch our favourite news broadcast. That has let us track the weather the metro Vancouver area has been experiencing since we have been away. I have to say it is no where near as much fun to be in Mexico when you can’t call home and brag about the beautiful weather when home is having a wonderful fall heatwave. The only good thing about it is the weather will still be nice when we arrive home on Saturday.

As usual while we have been in Playa del Carmen the weather has been hot, usually high 30’s everyday with the low only going to mid 20’s at night. As I have said in the past, I sweat so as you can imagine being in this kind of heat and humidity I am soaked all the time. Throw in several hot flashes during the day and you can only imagining how bad things can be for me. Trust me when I say I tend to take things like a handheld fan and some sort of cloth wherever I go. This trip a new thing happened, I actually developed heat blisters on my lips!

So what do I do to mitigate all of this? Firstly, I do not step foot outside without being seriously coated in sunscreen. If you remember from a previous blog, most people do not wear anywhere near enough sunscreen. Not me, I coat every potentially exposed inch of skin with a thick coating. Secondly, if I am out in the sun for any length of time I tend to wear a large brimmed hat to keep the sun off my face. Thirdly, since we try to only turn on the air conditioning at night (due to the high cost of electricity) I have taken to using a small electric fan to help keep me cool. As for the heat blisters, that probably is my own fault as normally I travel with Chapstick which I would have used as soon as my lips started drying out. Unfortunately I didn’t bring any and had a terrible time finding any in the grocery stores here. Lesson learned, I won’t leave home without Chapstick again.

You have to wonder if I don’t do well with heat why I would want to come to Mexico. The answer is pretty simple, I love it here as much as I love my city by the sea at home. Home we have the ocean and the mountains while here we have palm trees and a pool steps away. To me, some discomfort is all worth it. Oh and the trade off is also not having to deal with months of rain and sometimes even snow.

Yep, I’ll just keep finding ways to deal with the heat and humidity.

So today I did some work for one of my clients. I wanted to get the initial analysis done so that I could refer it back to the client for any additional information. Yes, I managed to accomplish what I wanted but I was so wrapped up in what I was doing I completely forgot to have lunch. Fortunately just before 2pm my husband checked in with me to see if I wanted something to eat. Good thing he was paying attention.

This past week I haven’t been feeling 100%. I was getting more congested but I thought, it is probably allergies from all the time I’ve been spending outdoors. Yesterday I felt a little worse and my throat seemed a bit sore. I realized I just wasn’t able to figure out if it was allergies, a slight cold or worst case, COVID. I still do all I can to keep my COVID risk as low as possible such as always wearing a mask in indoor spaces, washing my hands (ok, sometimes a bit obsessively) and keeping my distance from others but who knows with this illness.

I am fully vaccinated. As a matter of fact I have had 4 shots and the State of Washington has invited me to get the bivariant booster which I plan to do. I also truly believe it is likely that I have had COVID since both my siblings who live with us tested positive during the past year (several months apart). But still I hear of lots of people in similar situations who have avoided COVID for the past 2 1/2 years and still it caught up with them.

As part of our attempts to help protect others we have collected numerous rapid test kits. For myself I was tested several times while my sister was in the convalescent home. And of course we have brought numerous test kits with us to Mexico just in case. So yesterday, I did a COVID test and it was negative. I’ll do it again in a few days just to be on the safe side. Knowing whether I have COVID isn’t for my peace of mind but rather it would let me know that I should avoid risking our friends here in Mexico.

Despite the fact that the COVID travel mandates have been lifted as of today, we are going to still follow them. We fully plan to still complete the Arrive Canada App (this was never onerous to do), mask up in airports and on the plane and continue to social distance. None of these actions are about us but rather those we may come in contact with. To me that is what being a responsible citizen all boils down to.

It is yet another beautiful day here in Playa del Carmen with temperatures once again reaching the high 30’s. However, I am a bit disappointed. Usually when we are here we get to laugh at the weather back home but not this time. We have been checking the weather in Metro Vancouver and it is still summer like. Seriously? It’s the end of September and there are record breaking temperatures. Takes all the fun out of calling home and bragging about the weather here. I have no doubt though that the weather at home will change when we get back there.

I often find when I go to our trailer during the summer season that I tend to eat things I shouldn’t. For example, there is usually a lot more carbs consumed than what I normally eat. But it is different when we come to the condo in Mexico for many reasons. One reason is that we try to keep it as just like being at home and eat in as much as possible. That is not to say we don’t go out for meals, we do but even then we try to keep our meals healthy. Ok, I admit the other day I had a hot dog stuffed with cheese and wrapped in bacon but that was an anomaly (really who could resist such a thing).

The other reason we tend to be able to keep a healthy meal plan here is the availability of fresh fruits and veggies. Just as an example, strawberries. These are the same ones we can get at home but the difference here is these are fresh picked so they taste so much better than the imported ones we get at home. And trust me when I say they are much cheaper here. On top of that is the awesome seafood we can get here. We feasted on 2 meals of jumbo prawns that cost about $20. We buy huge sea scallops and amazing fresh fish. Seafood so easy to find down here and is less expensive than at home meaning we would be crazy not to indulge in that.

I will note that while we get some amazing fresh veggies here (the brussel sprouts are to die for) the corn is terrible. We have tried fresh corn a couple time but it is not the same type of corn that we get at home. Instead it tends to be really starchy and dry and quite frankly I find it inedible. Fortunately there are many other options to make sure our meals include awesome veggies.

Ok, I did not post on Saturday because it was just a bad day. I had woken up in the middle of the night to use the washroom only to fall flat on my ass. Why? Because the condo was flooded due to a cracked toilet tank. I had no idea that crack could cause an inch of water to cover most of the floor in the condo. We spent most of morning mopping up the damage and then installing a new toilet tank. Of course we had a neighbour who pitched in to help which was much appreciated.

After the fall I ended up with a massive bruise on my hip and a sore wrist which of course had broken my fall. I realized that I may need to give myself a bit of a break to let things heal. Then on Sunday after a lovely day on the beach I landed hard on my left foot while getting off my bike (yes, I had at least gone for a bike ride) which caused some pain in my ankle. While I did go for a bike ride again yesterday, last night while enjoying an evening downtown with our neighbours I found my ankle hurt more that I thought it would though I admit we did do a fair amount of walking.

I decided to do 2 things, firstly I picked up some Voltaren cream (easy to do since every street corner downtown has a pharmacy) and secondly, give my body recovery time. Of course that doesn’t mean doing nothing, it just means doing some gentle exercises. That shouldn’t be hard since we are off to the beach today and I always find swimming in the Caribbean Sea to be very therapeutic. The next few days I’ll focus on swimming and some bike riding to make sure my body is recovered before working a bit harder.

The end result of all of this has been the condo floors are really clean and I get to spend more time laying by and swimming in the pool.

Ok, I am excited. Yesterday I bought a vacuum for the Mexican condo. Now I admit that we have no carpet in the condo but it is a pretty big space with 2 large bedrooms and 2 bathrooms. It is all tile but it takes some work with a regular broom to keep it clean. Now today I get to try out the new vacuum and then I can simply turn it over to my husband to regularly do the floors.

I’ve been good the last 3 days doing my modified run each day. My husband laughs at me when I get back to the condo as I am just soaking wet which is somewhat from exertion but mainly from running in the humidity. Not to worry, I always have my running belt on with both bottles of water full when I start out and not so much when I am done. I’ve been getting in at least 10k steps each day which is my minimum but yesterday I realized that I have not been doing any ‘floor’ equivalency which is an important part of my routine.

Let me explain, my Fitbit tracks me via GPS and it can calculate changes in elevation. It then converts those changes into the equivalency of climbing a flight of stairs. In my usual run I log 24 floors so the equivalence of climbing 24 flights of stairs (coming mainly from the dreaded hill at the end of the run) though on longer runs I have done as much as 40 floors. Here, however, it is flat pretty much everywhere so I don’t show any floors climbed which is disappointing.

This morning I got back from my run, drank down a fruit smoothie and then headed out again. Our condo is on the bottom of a 4 story building and there is an outdoor set of stairs that lead up to the top floor. Yep, climbed up and down those stairs 5 times so I logged 15 floors on my Fitbit. The good news is that didn’t kill me despite the already rising heat. I’ve decided that is a simple thing to add to my daily workout and will help keep me at my current fitness level while I am here enjoying the sun.

I have to say the weather here in Playa del Carmen is beautiful. We have had a couple of rain squalls come through though nothing lasting more than about 1/2 hour. Of course after the rain happens it gets really humid but that’s ok. What I really like is that we can sit at our dining room table and look out at our beautiful park. This is such a great alternate home for us.

As I mentioned in my previous post I decided to take a week off but committed to getting back to working out today. Well actually I started yesterday with doing a nice bike ride. We are fortunate in that we have some commuter bikes here though I admit my husband likes to go for leisurely rides while I put everything I have into them so that I get a good cardio workout. The really fun part of the bike rides are when we leave our complex of the roads are not paved and are full of potholes. I admit I have to slow down a bit on those roads but it makes for a challenging ride.

This morning it was time to do a run, well sort of. I learned in previous trips that it is hard to run here. Firstly it is because of the heat but secondly because of the humidity. I find the humidity makes it harder to breathe and in past trips I have resorted to just doing brisk walks. However, today I decided to challenge myself so I set my Fitbit to interval workout, 2 mins running with 1 minute of walking 15 times. No don’t get me wrong, by time I got to the end of the workout the running part was a bit slow and I was absolutely covered with sweat but the important part is I still did it. I plan to try again tomorrow to see if I can’t start working at my keeping my speed consistent through out the workout.

Who knows, by time I head home in 2 1/2 weeks maybe I’ll be able to run the entire 45 minutes.