Behavioral Science Saturday.

So, I've been studying for the NCE. Today I thought it would be fun to talk a bit today about social psychology. Sweet Baboo would agree with me, that good old SC is fun stuff.
So my question to you today is, how sure are you, how really sure are you, about who you're going to vote for come November? How certain are you that your reasons are based on facts?

Are you really so decisive?

You know, you might just actually be trying to minimize cognitive dissonance. Cognitive dissonance is the incomfortable feeling you have when you have two facts in mind, but they contradict one another.

Such as: I crave a De Sota 2-piece wetsuit. They are pretty expensive, and it makes more sense to just stick to swims that I can do sleeveless. I'm switching jobs. We should economize.

But I really, really want a De Sota 2-piece wetsuit. So, I could minimize cognitive dissonance by saying something, like, this one will be much more comfortable, so I'll use it more often, so in the end, it will be cheaper per use. Eventually, the longer I own it, the more I will justify my decision, and ignore ANY evidence that contradicts my decision.

You might call this "justifying". (We do this with athletic gear. You know we do)

Read more here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_dissonance
Interesting note from this page: People who are involuntarily exposed to information that increases dissonance are likely to discount that information, either by ignoring it, misinterpreting it, or denying it.

No? Well, okay, maybe not. Maybe you're just a conformist.
Read about the Asche conformity experiments here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asch_conformity_experiments.
Interesting note from this page: Even if only 1 confederate voices a different opinion, participants are less likely to conform...This finding illuminates the power that even a small dissenting minority can have.


No? Well, then, maybe you just do what you're told, such as in the Milgram Experiments: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment

Intersting note from the reading: ...65 percent (26 of 40)[1] of experiment participants administered the experiment's final [lethal] 450-volt shock to the other person...Only one participant steadfastly refused to administer shocks before the 300-volt level.
(Note also that in replications since then in different settings and even countries, results were pretty consistant. Scary, huh?)

So Again, I return to my original question:

are you really sure you know and believe what you think you know and believe?

You're welcome for any ensuing cognitive dissonance. No need to thank me, I'm just here to help.

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Swimsuits for "Every Body"

Found an interested online storefront today: H2O wear. They swim sell suits that are chlorine resistant and come in large sizes. The woman who told me about it today was testimony to how diverse a body can wear swimsuits from this store. Just through I'd throw that out there for folks that are looking. Cheers!

Negative.

The x-ray was negative. So, we're back to a strained tendon, or shin splints. Maybe. The doc said that I must be built for this, if this is the first injury that I've had. I told him about the IT Band issues back in April, and he blinked and said, well, still, if you've done all that in one year (5 marathons, an Ironman, a 50K, a relay, and several sprint distance events, but who's counting?) and all you've had is a couple of overuse injuries, that's pretty good.

I'm going to do a lot of water "running" and elliptical trainer "running" this week. This Sunday, we'll go out to a trail somewhere, wherever Baboo picks. Someplace mostly flat, I hope. We'll see how I feel. Our plan was to do a lot of high altitude running, and I was hoping to do the crest trail again, but Baboo's thinking is not so rocky.

Now, the Palo Duro 50K also has a 20K. I can switch to that if I run into trouble, and walk it.

So that's my thinking, for right now. My leg hasn't hurt since Saturday, and even then, it just a twinge. I'm seeing what might be a bruise finally showing. Not sure what that means.

Now all I need to do is find my keys and get my ipod out of my car so I have some tunes.

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11th day of no running.

Okay. So yesterday I tried AQUA-JOGGING. When I put on the Aqua-Jogger Pro I had flashbacks of my childhood in Jacksonville, Florida. My mom would strap me into an orange safety vest and my father and my sister would swim way out past the breakers and never, ever, let me come with them. I was devastated.

Now of course, my father was an adult and my sister was on the high school swim team, and I was eight and could swim just well enough not to drown....
Nevertheless. DEVASTATED.

So anyway.

The Aqua-Jogger Pro is a styrofoam thing with an elastic strap. It is about $60. Styrofoam. Elastic. $60.

That's 12 medium pumpkin spice lattes (with soy and an extra shot).

So, I strapped it around my waist, and jumped into the water with DreadPirate, my aqua-jogging tutor. It holds you up so that your feet don't touch the bottom of the pool. I have to use the pro instead of the classic because of my bootyliciousness. The Aqua-Jogger Pro is, "50% more buoyant than the Aquajogger Classic. Preferred by male athletes and "sinkers"."

The trick, in aqua-jogging, is to stay upright and resist the temptation to use your hands to move through the water faster. You sorta bicycle your legs as fast as you can. As my fastest, I was able to move 25 yards down the pool in about 1:45. It is painfully, painfully slow. Aqua-jogging is kind of like that nightmare where you're trying to get away from the monster but can't seem to run fast. I used to have nightmares like that when I was little (now they're mostly me not being able to yell, no matter how hard I try).

Once I got into my rhythm, I really liked it. I wish I had music to listen to, but there is NO WAY I'm wearing my iPod in the pool. Even if I could get it out of my locked car, which I can't. Because I've lost my keys again. But anyway. I found my stride, and I liked it. After that we did some lifting, and then, this morning, I did about an hour on the elliptical trainer, which felt great, and according to the machine, did about 4 miles on it. I was sweaty and tired and felt GRRRRREAT!

Then DP and her people and I went to brunch and I had huevos rancheros which, when made properly, are awesome. Most restaurants in New Mexico put their own spin on it; in this one I had green AND red chili, eggs over easy, black beans and potatoes, on corn tortillas, not flour.

Plus, today is also the first day I haven't had any pain in my leg at all. AT. ALL.
All in all, a great weekend.

So that's my workout routine for the next two weeks: Spin class and a short (1000 meter) swim Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Elliptical trainer followed by aqua-jogging on Tuesday and Thursday.
Tomorrow, I'll find out whether this is a stress fracture (shudder) or shin splints. I've been rubbing it over before and after my workouts with Arnica Montana and taking Arnica Montana pellets as directed. I don't actually believe in homeopathy, but what the hell. I've heard people I respect swear by it.

The worst that can happen is that I'm out about $14, right?

I will do almost anything not to miss the Palo Duro 50K on October 18th.

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Ahem. If you have a moment...

Sweet Baboo is running a hundred miles today.

Yes, AGAIN.

You can't stop a tornado, or a train, or any of the other analogies that a 200+ pound man running represents. I told him he'd have to tell his parents, though. At least one parent responded with a stony silence, and then eye rolls. Who could blame a parent for feeling that way?

He says that the experience is very spiritual for him. very important. I can't argue with that. I know what I get from running. There's enough joy for everyone, and I want Baboo to have more than his share, whenever he can. He wants to do it better this time.

So, he called me this morning from Arkansas, where he's doing this, before he started. He has lots of drop bags, and this time he put index cards in a baggie in each drop bag, to remind of what to do, like check his feet.


I couldn't be there this time because I had prior obligations. I"ll be aqua jogging today until Mini-baboo comes home from his cros-country meet in Gallup, then I'll be chauferring him and his date to and from Homecoming. I'm not an ultra-runner today. I'm an ultra-mom, and my boys are running.

So, if you have a moment and some extra good thoughts and wishes, send them towards Little Rock.

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Putty face.

I have a particular problem that used to be bad all the time but now, it only affects me at certain times of the month or when I can't run. It has a name. Every flaw. Every asymmetry, that is normal for a person to have, is magnified, far and beyond the usual issues people have with their appearance.

I look at myself and a recent picture and just before I can express my horror of how awful I look in the picture, Sweet Baboo says, "Hey, that's a good picture of you!" My closest best friend, when I lived in South Dakota, thought that I was vain because I checked the mirror so much. She just didn't get i that I was checking, the same way someone with an eating disorder might check their weight.

I blame my mom. And maybe, some chemical stuff that I probably inherited from my father's side. LOTS of depression and self loathing runs deep in both sides of my family. But anyway, Mom was a professional artist and so I have more than a healthy knowledge of "proper" proportion and symmetry and am acutely aware that I have neither of those things and frankly neither does anyone else but remember, a good neurosis is all about me Me, and my inability to stop fixating on how much I often wish I looked like something other than how I looked.

In bad times, I see the chicken pock scar from when I was ten, and the mole that I've tried to freeze off 3 times despite most people not even noticing that it's there, and the groove that's deepening between my eyebrows, and the nose that I've had altered, and lines that are just starting on my forehead. I feel the insecurity rising in me, the desperation, as I look at a face that looks like I've had a stroke. My face misshapen. I look like a face made of putty that's been stretched unevenly.

But then.
But then I say, Screw it. And I go out for a run. And then it fades away. I come back all sassy and sweaty and don't care how I look. I see myself, and I see strong and healthy. I'm a strong healthy slightly assymetrical nearsighted forty-something woman and I don't notice the lines after the run. I just notice the glow, and the smile.

Except that right now, I can't run. Erg. I've gotten better about this problem that I have with my appearance, but I want to stay ahead of it. I used to take meds that helped with various things, but nothing ever helped with this, until I started running.

So. But. I'm not writing this for validation of how non-ugly I am. I know, intellectually, that I'm not ugly. But when putty face strikes, it's not intellectual. It's emotional, and it's chemical. I'm telling you because maybe you know what it's like. I'm telling you that it's not you. It's emotional, and it's chemical. You just have to keep searching to find the solution, which for me, was running. Sometimes, for some people, it's meds, or therapy. For me, it was running.

Running, for me, is magical. I stop picking at my skin. I stop staring in the mirror. Sometimes I go by reflective surfaces and I even forget to check. I run, and I'm fabulous, and beautiful, and strong.

So I run. ALOT. Except that right now I can't. Soooo, I guess this afternoon I'll try aqua-jogging. Running is my new drug, my new addiction that makes the ugly putty face go away.

I'll do anything to keep it from coming back.

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Meh. My week.

<--Bought one of these. Gonna try it out tomorrow. Maybe. Right now it's locked in my car and I can't find my keys.

Skeptical. We'll see. Upon the suggestion of a friend, when I was kvetching about how the mint was taking over my back yard, I tried my first mojito. I'm unimpressed. I think it would better without the lime, and maybe with some coconut. Maybe I'll invent my own drink: The "Nutty Athena". or something like that.

Got an ex-ray. No word on that yet.

Can't run.

Bored.

PS: You may be sick of reading this from me, but it's one of my pet peeves:
THE WORD NUCLEAR IS PRONOUNCED 'NEW CLEAR' not 'NEW CUE LER'!!!!

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