Take your workout outside: Part I

Now that spring has sprung, you may be thinking about getting out of the gym and taking off for a walk or a run where the scenery changes, and the cool air on your face isn't from a noisy fan. Please do! Being outside is one of the reasons I love to run (and hike, and go to the beach, and kayak...), and it comes with some great benefits: vitamin D and that fresh air your mom always insisted you needed more of, for starters, not to mention the fact that it's free!

But there are some rules of the road you need to be aware of - namely that what applies to cars generally also applies to people - and since learning them the hard way from cranky cyclists and speed demon runners can be off-putting (not to mention embarrassing and a little scary!), take note before you take to the trail:

1. Slower-moving vehicles, stay to the right. Just like in a car, faster runners, cyclists and walkers will pass you on the left, so keep to the right unless you're the one doing the passing. And when you do pass, throw a quick glance over your shoulder to make sure there's no one even faster behind you (you don't want to veer out in front of a cyclist who was about to zoom past you!). If you're exercising with a group, don't walk/run/cycle more than two abreast - it blocks the way for others, it slows your collective reaction time and it's just rude to anyone else out there with you.
   
2. Keep it clean. Despite the thousands of paper cups you've seen runners discard during races, throwing anything on the ground is not a habit to get into. Races, since they're sponsored and generally very organized, despite the apparent pandemonium, have clean-up crews that make sure no litter remains on the ground after the race is over. Trails do not, and they don't even get the weekly street sweeper pass that regular roads do. I've found myself picking up energy food/gel wrappers on the trail the past few weeks (some of which specifically ask consumers not to litter!), because I know otherwise they'll end up in the river, in birds' nests or in squirrels' mouths. It's like backpacking: take out whatever you bring in, or dispose of it properly somewhere along the way!
   
3. Mind your manners. Since people don't have rearview mirrors, it's common courtesy to alert someone when you're going to pass them - it also lets them know to move to the right, if they haven't already. You'll hear a lot of "On your left!" and "Passing!" from cyclists, or sometimes just the ding of a bell. I usually say thanks, or lift a hand to acknowledge I've heard them, because I appreciate it - the cyclists who don't make the effort and whiz past three inches from my elbow when there's an entire lane open next to me drive me nuts (approaching bikes aren't audible the way cars and panting runners or walkers are, especially not if there's vehicular traffic nearby). Runners can use the same expression, although usually the sound of your shoes is enough of a warning. When off the trail and approaching pedestrians wandering around the middle of the sidewalk, I say "Coming up on your left!" to give them a chance to move out of the way. (Sometimes it doesn't work and they just stop to turn around and give me a surprised look, but at least then they're stationary.)
4. Leave the music at home. Say what?! I know, I know, iPods are the greatest accessory invented since running shoes, but they're best left for gym workouts. If you have music turned up loud enough to hear it over your feet and your breathing, you're much less likely to hear approaching athletes - or attackers, on the less pleasant side of things. You're also far less likely to be the recipient of the courtesy described in #3, since if people see headphones or earbud wires, they'll often assume you won't hear them anyway and decide to save their breath. That said, a lot of people use them anyway, although I never do.
   
5. Be visible. Reflective surfaces and LEDs are your friend, especially if you're out early or late in the day. My birthday present from my mom was a bright greenish-yellow neon windbreaker that's water-resistant and has reflective strips at the shoulders and back. The thing all but glows and I love it, because I can see people wearing similar gear from a quarter mile or more away, so I know it keeps me visible, even before sunrise or after sunset. I also have a neon armband with a flashing LED embedded in it from my brother and sister-in-law that's great when I know I'm going to be running in the dark - the LED is an extra layer of visibility that's particularly good at alerting fast-moving cyclists (and cars, when I'm crossing streets) to my whereabouts.
   
6. Protect yourself. This is a big one, and covers a number of areas. At the most basic level, it means don't forget you're outside. Eye and skin protection are a must, and are more important the longer you're going to be out. On another level, this one means be aware of your surroundings, which is part of why #4 is a good idea. Especially if you're out early in the morning or after sunset, when there aren't as many people around, you need to keep your eyes and ears open for suspicious activity. Unfortunate as it is, some criminals think athletes - especially lone women - are easy prey. The experts all recommend carrying some form of identification - Road ID is a good one that comes in several different forms, and which I keep meaning to buy. I'm not great at that particular safety tip and often forget to take an ID with me, but when I do think of it, I usually stick my SmarTrip (Metro card) in a pocket or waistband. It's registered to me, so if I'm unconscious someone can look up the card number and find out who I am, and it's also emergency transportation back home if I need it.
7. Hydrate! If you're exercising, you need water. Period. Until you know your body well enough to be absolutely confident in saying, "Oh, it's only x miles, I can rehydrate when I get back," take a bottle with you. There are all kinds of contraptions to make it less of a hassle, from fuel belts to hip packs to hand-helds. I know I'm fine without water for eight miles or less (six or less in hot weather or if I'm not feeling 100%), but on long runs of 10 miles or more I take at least a sip per mile - and I've had ample time to figure out what my body needs.
   

Those are the high points for someone just getting started on an outside exercise plan - more specific tips to follow! Like any fitness routine, the best rule of thumb for making sure you stick with it is to follow your ideal schedule to the letter for at least three weeks (relying on the general wisdom that it takes 21 days to make or break a habit) before skipping or shortening a workout, no matter what.

If you've rarely or never exercised outside before, you may hate it initially (I definitely missed the gym, at first), but give it at least those three weeks before you run back inside for good. Some people just aren't "outdoorsy" and will always prefer working out indoors, some people love outdoor workouts from the start and some will become converts after several tries. Give it a chance, and find out what makes you feel best.

Twittering (or is it Tweeting?) for Change

I think we all know that social media is addictive. Facebook is the college student's "time suck" and constant distraction. LinkedIn is full of questions on a myriad of topics, all just waiting to be answered. Care2 and Change.org offer endless opportunities for doing good with the click of a button, whether it's saving several square feet of natural resources or discussing ways to effect change in a certain area of social justice.

And then there's Twitter. Twitter, which is basically a global discussion of everything under the sun, being carried out 24/7/365 (that's 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year in the shorthand of text-speak).

I've had a Twitter account for almost a year (twitter.com/jessalynp), but have only "tweeted" 29 times, mostly because I get so overwhelmed by everything I've missed whenever I log in that I close the window again without doing anything other than crossing my eyes at the page. Today though, I read a great post from Heather Mansfield over at Change.org's Nonprofits 2.0 on how non-profits can use Twitter, and have vowed to dedicate a few minutes a day to tweeting...at least professionally.

On a personal level, all of the everyday mumbo-jumbo that's tweeted, most of which is irrelevant by the time I get home and actually read it, frustrates me more than anything else. Yeah, it's great to keep up with what people are doing and there are some people whose tweets I have sent to my phone as text messages so I can stay up-to-date on their lives in real time, but I'd really rather take five minutes to read and/or send an email than read about someone's day in such an impersonal manner. Backwards. In 140 character bursts.

For non-profits though, I think Twitter can be an invaluable resource.

The standard method of contacting members has, for decades, been direct mail, which works amazingly well but usually takes at least six weeks to get written, printed and mailed. This means the information in direct mail letters has to be fairly generic, otherwise it runs the risk of being completely outdated by the time members receive it. And getting members to respond in a way that's timely and meaningful both to them and to the organization they support is difficult.

A few years ago, non-profits began emailing, which is great - it takes hours instead of weeks to respond to something that's happened and members can express their opinions much more easily, through online petitions, emails to political leaders, etc. But members' responses are still fairly limited to whatever channel the non-profit has open to them at any given time, and non-profits often struggle to stay current in a world that's become used to the 24-hour news cycle.

With Twitter, a 140 character post from Washington about a bill hitting the floor in Topeka or a court decision handed down by the 9th Circuit can get people thinking and RTing (ReTweeting - basically the "RE:" of Twitter) from Honolulu to Tokyo: What will a moment of silence mean for students in Kansas public schools? Should there be one? And why exactly is it okay for that giant cross to sit on public land? ...or is it okay at all?

With a non-profit's followers responding more or less instantly (and the non-profit hopefully replying in return, when a response is applicable), non-profits and their members can engage in real time. They can discuss not only the outcome of situations relevant to their missions but how to influence those outcomes before they take place - and how to move forward after the fact.

In a world that deals in sound bites and tag lines, Twitter might just become the non-profit sector's best friend, and the 21st century tool it needs to effect change, or at the very least to start a discussion about it.

Marriage - who decides?

I've been trying to stay out of the marriage/Prop. 8 debate, at least in the blogosphere, for two reasons:

1. It's an issue people can get very ugly about, and while I enjoy a good political debate, virulent hatred makes me uncomfortable.
2. I don't live in California anymore.

This article in the San Francisco Chronicle changed my mind (since I don't visit their website regularly, it took me awhile to see the article, published last Friday) - on #2 because as a state Supreme Court case, the decision on Proposition 8 will create precedent and thus its impact will extend more concretely beyond California's borders, and on #1 because some things are too important to avoid just because it's more comfortable to do so. So I'm climbing up on my soapbox.

Unsurprisingly, given where I grew up, this is an issue I've been aware of since middle school, and on which my personal opinion has evolved over the years. I started out, at 12 or 13, hesitant to have an opinion, in the "I'm not a member of the LGBT community, can't I just stay out of this?" vein. Then, briefly, and I felt guilty about it even at the time, I thought civil unions were the way to go: "Marriage is a religious institution, after all, and aren't a lot of religions at odds with being gay?" After that, I threw up my hands and went back to not knowing what to think, although I was 100% sure that the LGBT community (and let me emphasize the T part of that acronym, because it's a subsection of the community that's overlooked appallingly often) should have the same rights as married couples - in regard to taxes, next-of-kin, custody, etc. - regardless of what a formal union was called.

That last part has become the focus of my opinion as it stands today: equal rights are a necessity. Not only for the LGBT community, but for our society, which continues to find things to divide itself over rather than focusing on the fact that we're all people, we're all Americans and if we'd just accept that human beings don't come from cookie cutter molds and move past that to see the similarities beneath the surface, most of us would probably get along pretty well.

Personally, I don't think the government should be involved in marriage at all. Marriage is a religious institution, and who religious leaders marry should be a decision of individual religious communities, whether their faith tradition chooses to make such a decision on a global level, a local one or on a case-by-case basis. As far as the government is concerned, whether or not people are married shouldn't matter - whether or not they're committed to one another for the purposes of our society should.

So really, a civil union is all the government should be granting or getting involved with, and any two people who want to commit their lives to one another should be able to enter into one, in my opinion. No restrictions other than basic ones such as age and familial relationship (brother and sister...still not such a great idea, sorry!) should even enter into the government's consideration. Our society isn't geared toward single people - in fact, it can make life pretty difficult for them, financially - and if the government focuses on what will make for the most productive society in the long run, as governments are supposed to do, they'll have to recognize that more formally united couples means a more productive, healthier United States.

Leaving the decision about marriage up to individual religious institutions doesn't make the problem go away - there are bitter debates among clergy and lay people within religious traditions and even within individual congregations about the sanctity of marriage and what exactly it means in today's world. (And then there's the question, "What about people who don't adhere to any religion?" I'd say entering into marriage, a union traditionally believed to be blessed by a deity of some kind through the proxy of a religious leader, doesn't make much sense if you don't believe in the deity and you'd probably be more comfortable with a civil union anyway. But maybe that's just me.)

There are religious traditions that flat-out reject the LGBT community, which I think is bigoted and short-sighted (and hypocritical, in Christian traditions, but that's another topic), and which cause a great deal of pain to the LGBT people who were raised in and would like to be adherent to them. And there are religious traditions that welcome everyone with open arms, regardless of their differences from "the norm." That isn't fair to those who don't fit into their faith tradition's mold, but it's also not a battle the government can (or should, at any rate) fight - each tradition needs to evolve in their own time and on their own terms, not when and how they're told to do so by a legislature or a court.

Doesn't religion adhering to the dictates of government about a religious institution breach our freedom of religion? And doesn't a religious institution being adopted by the government interfere with freedom from religion? Both freedoms are written into the Constitution, and shouldn't that be the answer, as far as the government is concerned?

Recipe Corner: Disappearing Brownies

In college, I was the brownie baker. Birthday? The brownies outside your door were from me. Party in the lounge for the Super Bowl? I was the one dashing in and out of the hall kitchen, starting a new batch every time my single baking pan was free of the last one. Granted at that point I was just adding chocolate chips to Betty Crocker mixes, but they were still a hit.

Now that I have a real kitchen, stocked with actual baking essentials, I prefer to start from scratch, which I did this weekend - after the cruel, ridiculously early adjustment to Daylight Savings Time (which, at this latitude, means the sun doesn't rise until almost 7:30 - ugh), I figured everyone was due for a sweet treat on Monday. One of my co-workers asked for the recipe, so I thought I'd post it here as well. The name of the recipe is also co-worker inspired, since these brownies never last long. In fact, the first time I brought them in, I don't think I even got one after lunch...

Warning: While I don't mind the occasional sacrifice for healthfulness, I hate doing anything halfway when it comes to baked goods, so these are very chocolate-y and very sweet.

Disappearing Brownies
Servings: ~24, depending on how you cut them
Preparation Time: 10 minutes
Cooking Time: ~20 minutes
Difficulty: Easy. As long as you have all the ingredients, can mix and set a timer, they'll be a hit!

Ingredients*:
1 cup SmartBalance 50/50 (or margarine, or butter)
2 cups white sugar
2 tsp. vanilla extract
1 cup Egg Beaters (that's the equivalent of 4 eggs)
1 cup all-purpose flour**
2/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder (I've made the same recipe with sweetened cocoa powder when I've realized I'm out of unsweetened halfway through the recipe, and it doesn't push them into the "Yuck! Too sweet!" zone.)
1/2 tsp. baking powder
dash of salt
chocolate chips to taste

*This halves easily if you'd rather make an 8" x 8" or 9" x 9" pan.
**You might also try these with half (or more) whole wheat flour - I haven't tried it, but I think I will next time - and experiment with some brown sugar rather than all white.

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 350°F.
2. Cream together the butter and sugar.
3. Add the vanilla and beat in the eggs (substitute).
4. Pour in flour, cocoa, baking powder and salt; stir wet and dry ingredients until well-blended. (Real bakers will tell you to mix all the dry ingredients together in a separate bowl, then blend the dry mixture with the wet - I'm too lazy, hate doing more dishes than absolutely necessary and have never noticed a difference anyway. I dump all the dry ingredients on top of the wet mixture, stir them together a bit on top first, then just mix away.)
5. Stir in chocolate chips to taste. (I think I use about 1/2 - 3/4 of a cup, but you could easily use 12 oz. without it being too much.)
6. Pour evenly into a 9" x 13" pan (I line mine with parchment paper sprayed with Pam - again, cutting down on unnecessary scrubbing.).
7. Sprinkle chocolate chips across the top if desired.
8. Bake 20-25 minutes at 350°F (this depends on your oven - mine is electric and runs very hot), or until the edges start to pull away from the sides of the pan. Let cool before cutting.
9. Enjoy!...and only share if you want to. (Also in this vein: don't forget to lick the bowl and eat a handful of chocolate chips out of the bag!)

What are your brownie baking secrets, or favorite treats?

Introducing: Nala!

It's official, I've met the love of my life: sweet, always happy to see me, affectionate, well-behaved and just generally adorable, she's everything I've been hoping for. Meet Nala, the newest addition to the Pinneo family:


I adopted her from the Washington Humane Society's Georgia Avenue shelter on Friday, and, coming from a family of dog-lovers, have spent the last five days adjusting to living with a cat and panicking six times a day that I'm doing something wrong. Thank goodness for Gina and my mom! Soon-to-be-Dr. Gina has been fielding my frantic emails while laughing at me for being "such a new mom" and my own mom, who was in town over the weekend for a belated birthday visit, was a huge help getting Nala settled in.

The general consensus is that Nala is adorable. She runs to the door whenever she hears the key in the lock and meows in greeting as I open it. (And after one heart-stopping experience when she darted out into the hallway - but came right back in when I crouched down and called her! - she seems content to stay inside my apartment.) She stretches out her front leg and paw when she wants to be petted, putting me in mind of a little kid reaching for an adult and saying "Up!" And whenever I'm not in the immediate vicinity, she comes looking for me every few minutes, tilting her head and meowing at me before going back to whatever she was doing, as if to say, "Okay, just checking!"

Like every shelter animal, Nala has a story: she's six years old, and spent five years with a family who adopted her from another shelter. Her "dad" recently developed an allergy to cats and at the end of November, they decided they couldn't keep her anymore. So she spent three months in the shelter, until I went in to look at another cat I was thinking of adopting and fell in love with her instead.

I grew up with purebred Chocolate Labs - big, goofy dogs with lots of energy and hearts of gold - bought from the breeder when they were puppies, so adopting a pet from a shelter was a different experience for me. The second I walked in, I wanted to scoop up half the animals there and take them home with me because they looked so sad - and the next time I'm looking for a pet, I'll definitely adopt one in need of a good home, like Nala.

If you're looking for a new member of the family, I highly recommend using petfinder.com to see animals available for adoption in your area (and thanks to Gina for sending me there!). Everyone from the Humane Society to the smaller, local rescue groups seem to use it, and the postings often give you the direct contact information of the person fostering each animal.

Any reputable adoption program will spay or neuter all animals before you can take them home, ensure that they're up-to-date on shots and vaccinations and some even offer to microchip them for a lower fee than you'd pay in a vet's office.

I'm thrilled to finally be living with a pet again, and I couldn't have found a better companion than Nala. If you're looking for a pet, please adopt one - there are hundreds of thousands of homeless pets languishing in shelters throughout the country, and they need the loving home you can offer. (And, if you're in the D.C. area and thinking about getting a dog, check out Brody at WHS - scroll to the bottom of the page - I can tell you he's every bit as big-hearted and eager-to-please as he is cute!)