When Hell Freezes Over

I'm in the place where they thought up heaven and hell--well whatever it is, it froze over. It was wet snow yesterday but today it was a little nicer and I got a chance to get out and take some pictures.



It doesn't snow very often in Jerusalem, maybe once or twice a year, so when it does the whole place shuts down. They aren't used to clearing the sidewalks so I've got an excuse for skipping out of my not so daily run. Yeah, it has been a while, a couple of days ago it was a cold wind.

At least I can out run this guy:

Wake Up Call

I haven't done much exercising since starting this job in Jerusalem. At first I was racewalking about 5 kilometers to work every morning, but I slipped on an oil slick early on and the hills were just too much to racewalk. Then I was walking to work but when things got too busy for a deadline I got the company to rent me a car and that was the end of my walking routine. That was about 4-months ago and while the stress at work continued to mount, my exercise routine came to a complete stop. That is until last month when I decided to start training in order to run the Jerusalem half-marathon. However, I haven't done much training so far.

This blog has been sort of a self-imposed way of checking up on myself--yeah, that sounds sort of weird but it did get me through two marathons and a half-marathon last year and I was in great health. What has happened since I stopped blogging and exercising? Maybe it was most apparent when I went home after 6-months of inactivity and got a physical exam.

Blood Test results:
Cholesterol              289
LDL Cholesterol, Calc    214
HDL Cholesterol           48

The doctor's comments were - YOU HAVE VERY HIGH CHOLESTEROL. YOU NEED TO BE ON CHOLESTEROL LOWERING MEDICATION. CALL TO DISCUSS. Great. I've been a little high on previous exams and my mom was on medication for it so I could say that it is in my genes, but last year's results weren't this bad and I suspect that exercise had a big impact on keeping my cholesterol level in check. Likewise the stress of work, less than ideal diet and lack of exercise has had a devastating effect.

This morning I was feeling a bit depressed at my situation. I slept in, sat on the couch most of the afternoon and was generally rueing my lot. My biggest concern was trying to get the sound working again on a Compaq C500 computer I brought back from home and installed xubuntu Linux on it, but I spent the whole weekend without success.

So--just as the sun went down I decided to go out for a run. It was cold, wet and dark and my Polar RS800sd, which I just got back from getting repaired, wasn't reading the foot pod properly--but I did it. Just a quick workout but maybe this will be the start of a healthy habit.