Good Day Google+ - The Rain, The Park and other things

Da da da da da, here's Dennis. Woo! Hey everyone, I'm Chef Dennis. And you never know what you're going to get when you tune in for Good Day Google+, because I do love what I do. I'm in Florida. The sun is shining. I have bright, kind of orangish yellow on today, because I can. And it's Florida. And with a little bit of tan, I look good. So that's what that is. If I was still in Jersey, it would be gloomy and gray and I'd be wearing gray. Down here I can wear colors. We're having a fun show today. I have some live entertainment for you, which is always better than dead entertainment, and we have some wonderful guests on, some fellow Floridians to talk to. Let me run down the panel real quick and say hello, and then we'll get to some of our online guests. Today coming to us, I have Jen Vargas, who is the managing editor of Central Florida Top Five. It's a beautiful website that just rolled out a new one today, and we're gonna talk to you more about that. So how are you doing?

I'm doing so well today. It's exciting, nerve-wracking, but awesome. I'm so glad this day is finally here.

It's like giving birth. Gotta be. Well, I'm only imagining, but it's gotta be like giving birth.

It kind of is. I mean, it's like the whole pre-birthing almost epidural phase right now.

The live birth actually happens on the 16th, so we're gearing up.

You're gearing up, and without all the mess and without someone running around going, "Oh, Miss Jen, I don't know nothing about birthing no babies." That already happened. But anyway, thank you for joining us today, and it's a pleasure. We're going to talk more about what you do and all the fun things that you have going on. Across from you, next to you, I have Gavin Wolf, troubadour extraordinaire, coming to us from his studio in California. Where are you again in Cali?

I'm in Berkeley.

Berkeley, dude.

I am in the Prius capital of the world.

The Prius capital?

I think so. I don't know. There's more Prius here than anything.

Wow. I always love— you ever watch Jeff Dunham when he does it, and one of his puppets talks about a Prius? He had a Prius, and it was always, yay! How his puppet reacted to it.

Yeah.

No. No, I don't know. I see them every now and then, and I envy the fact that they get great gas mileage, but that's That's about it.

You know, there's lots of cars though that get great gas mileage. I mean, the Volkswagen Jetta diesel is like 45 to 50 miles to the gallon. But it doesn't get all the attention as the Prius because the Prius is something new.

Yeah, I got used to riding in an SUV. So when I bought a car this year, a new one, I got a Ford because they impressed me with some of the things they were doing. And I had never had a Ford before. I was always a found-on-road-dead kind of guy. As far as Ford had gone, but they converted me and I'm real happy with it. I have the Edge and I get better mileage than I did with my Honda, so I'm happy with that.

So were you a Chevy man before?

Actually, no, I grew up as a Dodge guy.

Dodge.

Yeah, the old Dodge cars. I had a Dodge Dart that was amazing.

Nice.

I had a Dodge Magnum. That I loved. They only made it for 3 years. That was my favorite car of all, and then I just kinda went back and forth. And the Honda was really, really well built and good, but expensive as hell and terrible mileage for everything. So when I went to a Ford event and Jen was there, I went to a Ford event and I got to drive them in the pouring rain. I went around a test track and they flagged me doing so badly with the clutch. I was burning the clutch out. They had to throw a professional driver in the car with me to take me around this test track. The guy said, "No, stop, stop, stop! You said you know how to drive it!" I said, "It's been years!" They scared the bejesus out of me with a professional driver really doing it, which was better. But I was really impressed with them, so when it came time, I went to Ford. I'm happy with that. That's a whole other story. We'll move on from there. Now let's say hi to Denise. Denise is in Tampa.

I am, yes.

Very cool. Yeah, I'm glad you are too. You got a great picture today, everything looks good. I know we had a little problem earlier, but you know, it's Google. The one thing you gotta remember about Hangouts is shit's gonna happen. It's gonna happen more frequently than you really like. I was on the show Wednesday with Susan Sarah and I didn't know I had an update, and that was my fault though, it wasn't Google's, and it shut off. Luckily I had another camera set up, so we just kind of used that one until we went through the process of updating and everything. But things happen, people understand, you know, and it's just— they're happy to see you and have you here. We're going to talk to you some more about all the cool things you do. Your blog is Run DMT?

Correct, yes, and it's at denisesrundmt.com.

Very cool, so we're going to talk to you more about that. We had a nice discussion the other day. How is Tampa this morning? Is it good?

Sunny, sounds like it's windy outside, haven't been out yet. Crazy though, all the rain we had and I mean days upon days of rain and it felt cool last night. Was it cool by you? Yeah. It was crazy, it actually felt like spring instead of summer here in Florida.

It was 60 this morning when I got up.

It's crazy. I know, I put jeans back on. I had to dig out the jeans. So I know up north they're still wearing their long pants, but in Florida we had a hot Easter and it's just been really warm.

Lisa came back from visiting up there and I think she took every pair of long pants she had. I do the wash, she works 3 days a week, so the wash My washer is not far from my kitchen, so I throw wash in all the time now, being a good husband. I'm watching this, where the hell did all these pants come from?

It's freezing.

Dennis Littley, it was cold.

We get so spoiled here because it's warm most of the time. Uh-oh, we lost Jen. It's so warm most of the time, and when you have all these jeans and long sleeves and piles of clothes, the laundry seems to be bigger and more— just a larger pile with these heavy winter clothes. It's like when you just have a few shorts, you know? It's just a smaller pile.

I only put big boy pants on if I have to.

Big boy pants. Well, you got to put those big boy pants on. Suck it up, buttercup. Get them on.

Every now and then. I've decided when I go out from now on— because I showed up at an event one time in shorts and a t-shirt and was severely underdressed. So now I always figure out—

You know, there's an old saying. It's better to be overdressed than underdressed. So, you know, it's so like— I went from being a teacher to being a blogger, and you know, teachers are business casual, and bloggers are like yoga pants and pajamas, you know? And so you forget what professional attire is when you go out, and you know, you're like, do I wear jeans? Is it a flat-front khaki kind of day? I don't know! You're like, definitely not yoga pants. That's mom attire right there.

Yeah, people don't like seeing me in yoga pants either. Not a good thing. Two things I don't wear, Speedos and yoga pants.

I totally think you could sport like the chef's hat and yoga pants and an apron. I think you could totally pull that off.

Well, I was at Chef Bob's house a couple weeks ago, Bob Ongst, and I forgot that I had shorts on under my chef coat. Usually you don't see it because the counter's cutting everything off, and I'm on the side and I put my leg up on something and I said, "Oh damn, I'm wearing shorts." Casual chef attire.

There you go. That's awesome. I would think, wait, in a kitchen though, in a kitchen setting, do you have to wear like full attire or can you wear shorts? When you're a chef in a kitchen, can you just wear whatever?

You can wear whatever. You know, when I worked in Ocean City, it would get really hot and I only wore my jacket if I went out to a table because it was hot. I mean, I had a low ceiling and it was 140 degrees where I was. In the kitchen. So, but I always wore long pants in a close where a lot of people are around because you're not going to necessarily spill something on yourself, but someone else is, or someone's going to bump into you. You know, in your kitchens, there were a couple instances where I did wear shorts under my jacket, you know, and it was okay. But, you know, it all goes in the place and how visible you are. You know, at the school, I wore long pants because It just didn't look right. But anyway, so let's get started. We're gonna let Gavin play a song, but before we do that, I just wanna say hello to a few people. And Dawn is in the house. Halfway true, I'm generally a little overdressed, and I'm fine with that. Better overdressed than underdressed. That's a good lesson that I learned. Jim Sharp is here. Hey, Jim. Kim Armstrong is here. Cool up here in Tallahassee. That's our Tallahassee lassie, Kim Armstrong. Hello. Hello. Dawn saying hi to Dave Pipe. Emily Moore is in the house. Rosalind Rowe, good evening Rosalind.

Hey Emily.

And here's Dave Pipe coming to us from England. He's saying hi to Christopher Vogelman.

Oh, hello to England. I'll be there next month in June. I'll be spending the whole time, I'll be staying in London, in Notting Hill in London actually. Hello.

I was at that.

Take me with you.

Very cool. Peter Feltham is here and here's Chris Rebulman saying good day, just popping in briefly to say hi. Ron Sneyberg from Jupiter, and Jupiter, Florida, not Jupiter the planet, is here. You know, we have a nice crowd, more people are coming in as we get started. So Gavin, would you like to kick us off with a number?

Sure.

How's 42? 42 sounds good to me.

It's a good number. It's the answer. It's the answer.

It is.

Show— don't forget to show your work.

What's the, what's the question? What was the question?

What was the question? What number did Jackie Robinson wear?

to entwine. Slither in through the king barrel's face, a great incline. Caution is courageous, and a jade cow would fall. Climb behind the curtains after long-awaited pause. Fly with pearls of darkness, girlie. Faithfully. Hear the demons as they bait and play. You can taste the game of carnal beauty. See a witch is on delay. those who lay the land. Stop your waiting, stop your baiting, your master waits. Back with pearls of darkness, kill them faithfully. Hear the demons ask, they bait and play. You can taste the game of Karno, you dear, I see your wish is on delay.

Woo!

Woo-hoo!

That was wonderful!

I think that's one of my favorites that you do. Pearls of Darkness, right?

That is right.

I love it.

Wow.

That's brilliant. Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant.

Dave Pipe is saying, "Bloom and heck, that sounds like studio mode is working." I know we've had some issues with that.

Yes!

Aaron posted something about that just the other day. I saw that and I was like, "Woof!

Yes!

Just in time." Gavin Wolfe is saying, "It's great to see you, my friend. Your sound is great. Pearls of Darks is one of my favorite original tunes you play. We have missed you on open mic nights." I've missed the open mic nights too.

We gotta get our schedules in line better.

Here's William Ribkey saying, "Finally getting to see Jen live and enjoying the song, Gavin." Hi, William. Thank you, William. Mia Voss is in the house, my sister Thelma. Thelma's here and she's saying hi to Peter and Dave Pipe, Kim Armstrong. She's waving. I did invite Mia in, but she said she'd have to come in like the unknown comic because Mama didn't have her face on. We'll let you slide. Here's Jim Sharp saying, "Nice music, Gavin." Thank you.

Kevin, what guitar do you play?

This one here is a Taylor acoustic.

I thought so. My husband, he has a Laravee, and he dabbles with the ukulele. He's not the musician, but he likes his fingerstyle guitar.

Very cool.

He'll be impressed that I dropped that. He'll be so impressed. Ooh, she said Laravee.

I should be wearing my Taylor swag right now.

Yeah, you gotta plug that stuff better, you know, get that sponsorship going, dude.

I invited Taylor Guitars to this Hangout. I don't know if they're there. Say hi.

Hi, Taylor!

Yeah, if you're there, we'd love to bring you in.

We do love Taylor. That is in my name too, so, you know, kind of got to get a little Taylor love.

Yeah, I gotta say, I've been out of the music business so long, I don't even know what's hot in guitars anymore. When I played, I had a Martin I still have the Martin.

That's what Jewel used to play. She used to play a Martin.

But I had an Ovation, a Legend, a rounded back. That was really cool. I bought that one time because of the hood. And of course, but my favorite was my Les Paul Black Beauty. That was—

here's my Martin bass, acoustic bass.

Look at that!

That is a gorgeous beast.

I'm wearing Marshall headphones. That's all I have to contribute to this conversation.

I got nothing.

I got Marshall is pretty cool.

I can't reach my Gibson electric, but I also have a Gibson electric.

What style, uh, Gibson?

It is an ES-339 Custom.

Oh, very nice.

So it's a small body, hollow body, small hollow body.

I'm gonna have to— Gavin, are you on Instagram and Vine and all that jazz?

I have an account on Instagram. I think I posted—

I'm gonna have to— you have YouTube, I imagine, though, right? I'll just have to subscribe to your channel and keep up with your music. That's brilliant.

Gavin, you could post like 15-second song snippets on Instagram.

You could.

I need to.

I gotta get with the times.

Get on it, mister.

There you go. Those are the words. See, you got a bunch of social media people on with you now, so that's—

Yeah, doing a little social media consulting here for free.

We'll just— I need the help.— and we're always all too willing to give it to.

Isn't it true? It's so true.

Even when people don't want it, we give it. Anyway, so let's move on right now. We'll come back to you. We know that you have an Instagram account that you don't post too much. Where else can we find you?

You can definitely find me on Google+. I have a Facebook account which I pretty much don't use. Every now and then I'll post something, but it's It's pretty rare. In general though, I do have a webpage, a website, gavinwolfmusic.com. It's very original.

That's okay, that works. And of course you have your YouTube account, we can find you there as well.

For surez.

Very good.

All right, well, we're going to come back in a little while and have you play another song, but right now let's talk to Jen a little bit.

Hello.

We alluded to the fact that your new website is rolling out. I guess your soft roll today and I didn't see it yet. Lisa was the one that I said you were coming on. She goes, oh, did you see her new site? I'm like, no. So how about that? It reached her but not me because I wasn't on Facebook.

Yeah, it's exciting.

There's a lot going on in Orlando right now.

Absolutely. So much going on in Orlando. Where to start? The website did a soft launch today. It's a little wonky. We're still a work in progress, but for the most part, it's— for our usual readers, it's a huge facelift. And we also have a companion mobile site to go with it. We had a group that you may be familiar with, CT Social, do— completely redo our backend. Greg and Carolyn just blew it away. Like, they're amazing. And it's just so smooth now. Things work that didn't work before, and the user interface is beautiful. So I'm so excited.

Isn't it nice when you have professionals that do their work?

Absolutely. Absolutely. They know their stuff, and they are making sure that we look good. They're off to a wonderful start.

They are. They have been two of my best friends since I moved to the area. I got to meet Greg pretty, pretty early in the moving here because he knew someone that was down here from Michigan. We all got together and Carolyn was so bummed out because she wasn't around to meet me, and so we went out and they've just been very nice to hang with. And then, you know, I've met so many people here a lot through Bess Albrecht. I met you, I think the first time I really physically met you was at that Ford event.

I think so.

In Daytona.

Yep.

And then we've been out a couple times since and at conferences and things. So it's just such a great group of people in Florida.

Yeah.

So what else are you doing? Now you're a movie maker, producer?

Tell us a little bit about you.

Was it Blue Bond?

I make stuff.

You make stuff.

I make stuff. There's no clapboard on here. It's just like 3D printing and stuff.

But I got a clapboard right there.

No, I went to film school, graduated. I've produced a TV show here in Orlando called— not Central Florida Top 5— Indie Cinema Showcase for Orange TV. It was about the film industry here in Central Florida. And I freelance, I've worked for Oprah, ABC, Animal Planet, anything that comes down here really that shoots commercials, industrials. I just worked for Epson and Wells Fargo, so that's cool stuff. I'm on the board of Women in Film and Television Florida, so I represent us there hopefully well, I'm not sure. I'm also on the marketing committee for Film Florida, which is the legislative leg. That fights for our film incentives, and we're, we're kind of in stasis right now, but we are trying to get the big productions back here. We still have productions like Tomorrowland filmed here, Bryan Cranston has The Infiltrator that's filming here, but we lose out on productions like Identity Thief, for example, is one of them. They had a main character that was from Winter Park, Florida.

Really?

And the production, absolutely, if you look on the poster, you'll see that, um, Melissa McCarthy's license says Winter Park, Florida, but when they go to shoot the exteriors, it looks like Boca because they shot in Georgia, because they have a pretty nice benefits package in place for incentives. So producers' bottom line, when I wear my producer hat, where am I gonna save the most money? And they save the most money in Georgia, so that's where they filmed. Not a lick of it was filmed here.

One of my favorite shows, I blew through 5 seasons on Netflix, is Glades. And Glades is supposed to be in Florida. But I would bet that's probably being filmed in Georgia too then, or is that—

The Glades actually did film here.

Did they?

The Glades, Magic City, Burn Notice, they all filmed here.

Oh, Burn Notice was— I love Burn Notice.

Yeah, Burn Notice is a great show. A TV show, or a show called Ballers, With The Rock, just finished filming here. That was in South Florida.

Oh, cool.

But yeah, so I wear so many hats. Some people know me from social media, some people know me from the film world, some people know me from Central Florida Top Five, some people just know me from general media coverage. So I do a ton of things.

You are kind of everywhere.

That's what I've been told.

You know, and you do a lot of work with charities too. I mean, you just seem like you're always You're always there when something needs to get done. I can usually see you're going to be there.

Absolutely.

I work a lot with the American Cancer Society. They, um, my personal connection to that is I've lost half my family to cancer. I'm actually in a hospital right now. My mom's in treatment for breast cancer and for uterine cancer. And American Cancer Society has helped my family amazingly. I also work with Libby's Legacy. Which is a local breast cancer foundation that supports stage 4 breast cancer survivors and gives one lucky survivor a trip, a cruise to anywhere they want to go every year. And I also work with— I'm the social media chair for Making Strides Against Breast Cancer of Metro Orlando, Orlando's biggest breast cancer walk. And what else? Relay for Life of Hunters Creek, I started their social media presence.

As well.

And that's an American Cancer Society event, so many things.

Yeah, very worthy cause. It's amazing, people don't realize. I had prostate cancer, which is very treatable and very— it's not usually a problem. That's like, if you got to get cancer, that's the cancer you want to get because they can usually take care of it. But I mean, I would sit in there. I went to Jeff for my treatment, and I would sit there, and the women coming in, the treated for breast cancer. It was just heartbreaking to see how they were. Some of them had lost their hair. Some of them were just in such— it just hurt them so much, and even not the cancer, just the whole process of everything.

Oh, you've got to— you're injecting poison in your body, essentially. My mom does 2 chemo treatments. She's on 2 different chemos and she does a treatment every week, every Wednesday. It's knocking her down, but she's not out. She won't let it. She's far too stubborn.

Women are pretty strong. If men had a difficult cancer, it would be a lot harder on us because we don't take things as well as women do, I think. I saw there, and then people would come in that were really, really sick, and you'd go, "God, I got nothing. This is easy." Easy peasy, you know, I'm in, I'm out.

My mom's been very lucky, and men can get breast cancer too.

Yeah, I hear that.

It's rare, well not rare, it's very minimal, but it happens.

Yeah, well luckily I don't need a man's ear yet, so I keep checking.

Man's ear.

Man's ear.

Hashtag.

Hashtag, yeah, hashtag. Hopefully Greg wearing his high heels won't need one either. So there's all kinds of things going on in Orlando. I love when you show pictures of the Orlando Eye because I'm still not sure if I'm going to ride it. I got kind of made to go on the London Eye and I stood pretty much in the center of the car the whole way around.

Oh man, the Orlando Eye, it's 400 feet up. I went to the media preview on Wednesday. I spent about 17 hours out there of coverage. So the beginning event with Nick Wallenda when he walked the Eye, I was very nervous for him. And then the evening VIP party where they officially kicked off the first ride, they had fireworks and different things like that. So it was very awesome. The ride I rode in the morning, and the view was spectacular, a little hazy, so you couldn't quite see the Vehicle Assembly Building over at Kennedy Space Center, but on a clear day you can. And in the evening, Orange County Mayor, Mayor Jacobs, actually invited me to ride the Orlando Eye with her family, and that was pretty fun. We had a team crew in there, we had a photographer in there, and I'm one of her social media and tech ambassadors, so I have a connection there personally. But it's fun.

I wonder if we could do a Hangout from there.

You could. I think you could.

That would be kind of wild.

Yeah, I would wait till after the grand opening on the 4th because reception there is kind of spotty with all the media and the Today Show and all that on Wednesday. But wait for it maybe toward the end of the month or maybe June. I would totally come up there.

That would be fun. I would make sure I went to the bathroom before I'm frozen, just in case. I am a little bit afraid of heights. That's one of my things. But hopefully— I think it would be fun. I want to start getting out and doing some more exciting, fun things.

Yeah, when you're looking out, just focus on the horizon. They say that that makes it easier. And I don't really have much of a fear. I rode the, um, the— whatever the equivalent is in Vegas of the Eye. The name escapes me right now. I'm sorry. That's 550 feet high. And you could see everything. Old Strip, New Strip, probably California. Like, it was beautiful. I think you'll be blown away when you ride it.

I'm sure. I'm sure there's so much to see. Although, if they do build that new coaster, and no way I don't know how I'm ever going. I saw that one that they're supposed to be building on I-Drive, that mega coaster.

Oh, that's happening. That's happening.

Yeah, I'll watch. They're totally doing it. From a safe distance. Those days are gone.

Well, I'll share it with you through Glass.

There you go.

Oh yeah.

I was on with someone the other day and they had to take their camera off their tripod because it wasn't working right. She's doing this the whole time the camera's on. I had to close my eyes. It was getting all Blair Witch on me, and I'm like, oh my God. So that'll probably be the same experience on Glass on that coaster. So hopefully there won't be no virtual hurling, and not the kind of hurl we do on Google+.

Although that would be a great hurl.

That would be a whole different one. Anyway, so let's move on now. Speaking of hurling, we're going to leave that.

Hello! Runners know all about hurling.

I was going to say that.

That was a great segue.

You figure, because I know I've gotten pretty sick, and I don't run the distances you do. Even the thought of running now kind of makes me sick.

But no, go ahead.

So you have a blog and you are a runner and you kind of melded the two together and you also do food and healthy food and all kinds of fun things. So why don't you tell us about your blog and everything.

Well, it started out as a just purely a running blog, just me making myself accountable and putting it out there so people could see what was happening with my training. And then I got injured, I crashed my bike while I was training for a triathlon, I was nearly hit by a car, and so I hopped the curb and cracked my ribs. And so what does a runner write about when you're not training anymore? So I decided to kind of— at that point, my blog morphed into kind of a mommy blog where I would write more about my kids and share what I was doing with my kids. Then I realized that people liked seeing photos of my kids and seeing what we were doing. Then I focused more on the mommy runner stuff. Then people started asking me what we ate. I would post recipes and just share what my diet consisted of. People liked seeing the food we ate. Then I do menu planning. So every Sunday I do a pinning and planning post where I share the menu for the week for my family that includes Pinterest pins or backlinks to some recipes that I've shared. Right now the only race I have coming up is the Savannah Rock 'n' Roll. I'm a Rock 'n' Roll ambassador, so I have 3 races that I'll be doing as an ambassador for them, but that doesn't— isn't happening. Rock 'n' Roll Savannah isn't happening until November, so I just have this long span of months that I'm kind of just stepping back and retraining and doing what I'm calling a running reboot and just trying to figure out what's going on with me and staying in my heart— the appropriate heart rate zone for me. As a 44-year-old woman. Sorry?

We were talking about that when we first spoke a while ago, and you were telling me about how important it was to stay in that heart rate and how you were going too far by some of the things you did.

I was. Okay, so I have quite a few things going on with me. I have asthma and I have really bad allergies, and so with those two, it really accelerates your heart. So when you look at what a lot of fitness people use is the 2:20 formula. That necessarily doesn't work when you have so many things going on with you. And so Maffetone, Phil Maffetone, wrote this book, and he advocates a 1:80 formula. And basically you take the 1:80 formula minus your age, minus any other things you got, like minus 5 for if you've been injured, and another 5 if you have things like me, like allergy and asthma. Basically, what it came down to was my heart rate should— I should be in like a 130 range. When I was doing speed work or any of these exercises that really accelerated your heart rate, high impact, HIIT training as they call it, it was way over the top. My heart rate was too high. I was literally— you feel like you're going to die. I was literally in a zone where I could have a cardiac arrest. That's how intense it was. So I had to kind of step back and reevaluate what's going on with me. And it's, you know, in the fitness community we have this sense where you have to kill it. You have to push it, kill it. You know, like we were talking about hurling. It's not a good run if you're not throwing up at the finish line, you know, kind of mentality. And that, Maffetone doesn't agree with that. He thinks You've got to do what's right for you and in your zone. We kind of say that, don't we? We say you got to do what's right for you. We know that in our head, and yet we're still trying to push the limits and push it too far. It goes against the normal mindset of the fitness community when you start doing this Maffetone method in the heart rate zone. That's right for you.

Is that being accepted more now, though?

I mean, it is and it isn't. I mean, people still want to use that 2:20 formula, but unless you really know what's right for you, it's not going to work for you, you know. And, and if you're constantly getting injured and you're constantly getting sick, then you really need to reevaluate what's going on with you. And sometimes it is diet, and sometimes it's just that you're in this anaerobic state when you're exercising. If you are pushing it to literally 110%, you are functioning in an anaerobic state. So you should stay within the 75 to 90% range, maybe even less. So I'm sure there's going to be a few comments out there that are going to dispute what I'm saying, but if you just go to the Maffetone website and just read, you know, see the links to his books and check out what he talks about, it's going to sound like— you know, like a foreign language, really, it is. But when you step back and you reevaluate what you should be doing, and like I said, you kind of know it. You kind of intuitively know when something isn't right. But you— we want to— there's too many external forces coming at you in the fitness community that contradict that kind of mentality.

Yeah. I know I grew up on that where, you know, if it doesn't hurt You're not getting any benefit out of it, right?

Exactly.

I mean, for lifting weights or for doing anything, for training, to wrestle a 6-minute match, we would wrestle 2 10-minute periods to try and get ready for that 6 minutes. So yeah, crazy.

Well, I was— when I was doing my marathon training, I was doing a lot of speed work, a lot of speed work, and I wasn't getting any. I mean, I'm talking like every week getting out there and doing these 800-yard sprints, half-mile sprints, getting out there, killing it, killing it, killing it, and not improving. It's really frustrating when you want to get faster and you can't. Maffetone, he really forces you to slow down, to slow down and reprogram your heart to get faster. It sounds crazy, and I've been at it for almost 4 months now. But, you know, I could be doing 4 months of speed work not showing any improvement, so I'm kind of willing to do this and see if it gets there. I mean, I've read cases where it takes people, you know, a year before they improve, but I was doing speed work for years and not improving, so it's worth it to me to kind of do this for a few months and see what's going on. So 4 months into it. Now I'll say Because running is my go-to fitness, the improvement is very slow, slow moving. And you know, it's kind of like weight loss. People, if they don't lose that weight right away, if they don't lose that 10 pounds in a week, then that diet was no good. Well, it's kind of the same thing. It's, you know, I— if I— we know we should only lose a pound a week. Well, maybe with this fitness, we should only, you know, improve, you know, a certain, you know, speed or whatever. But with cycling, because that was my secondary fitness of choice, I saw the improvement more quickly. So I was able— and what I mean by that was I can get on the bike and I can go, go, go, and my heart rate might accelerate it, but when I slow down and I pull back, the resting recovery is much quicker, where in the beginning it would take me several minutes before my heart rate would drop to a recovery level. But with the cycling, I can see it right away. But running, basically what I'm doing, and this is going to sound crazy to the runners out there, is I'm running 15 seconds and walking 30. So I'm— it seems like you're not going anywhere, but that's what I have to do. And at the very beginning, I was running 15 seconds and taking 3 minutes to recover. So that just shows you that the change is coming. I just have to stick with it. And, you know, it's the time of day that I get out and run. Like if I run at 5 in the morning, it's cooler out, so I can do quicker intervals between running and walking. But if I go out at 11 o'clock when it's really hot out, I I— the recovery time is much longer, so.

That makes sense, just with the weather down here, yeah. Well, it sounds like you're on to something that's working for you, and it's just a matter of time to see. Like you said, you've given all these other things a good portion of your life to work, and it really hasn't paid off. So now there's no harm, no foul to try something else.

Yeah.

It does.

It's true. And so that's kind of why I don't really want to race. Too, because there is nothing more frustrating than knowing how fast you can go but knowing that your heart— I can feel my heart when I'm pushing it too hard. I can feel my heart pounding outside my chest. So that's a good signal to know that you're pushing it too hard. Your heart, when it's functioning appropriately for what you're doing, it should not feel like you're dying. So— And so that's why I really don't want to do races, because I want to run like a 5K really fast, and I can't, you know, because I have— I'm going through this whole process. So I kind of just want to give myself a few months to see this improvement in this process, and hopefully by November for the Rock 'n' Roll Savannah, or Savannah Rock 'n' Roll Half, I'll be able to run under 2 hours. So we'll see.

Very, very cool. Yeah, when your heart starts knocking on your chest, you want to pay attention. It's going, "Hello, Sparky, are you paying attention?" Exactly.

The problem is when you're in that— even though your heart rate is really excelling and you feel like you're getting a great workout, what happens is you're still in an anaerobic state. You're producing, at that point, cortisol, which is what leads to heart attacks. You shouldn't be in a low heart rate where you're in an anaerobic state. Like even with this Maffetone, I'm not supposed to be doing core exercises, which again goes against everything in the fitness community. You shouldn't do core exercises because you're in an anaerobic state. You're not really accelerating your heart rate to be in that target heart rate zone. You can't do weightlifting. You can't do, oh, what else? You know, like yoga. I know it seems crazy because yoga is like, you know, I'm telling you, people are going to be pinging you like, She doesn't know what she's talking about.

I want to know where sex falls into this. Is that another exercise?

As long as you are getting your heart rate up for a good 20 minutes.

Having the fun.

Yeah, exactly. Keeping your heart rate in that target zone, you're good. OK? Hey, if you can keep it there for 20 minutes, wow. You need to be doing more than this Google+ thing. Thing.

Hello.

That's a whole other Hangout.

That's a whole other Hangout. We won't even go there.

Well, you got Jeff to about match the color of his shirt.

I know. He's blushing.

Hey, I just want it on record that he took it there, not me, OK?

Well, you got witnesses.

No surprise.

It wouldn't be a good day Google+ if there wasn't something a little off color.

So, you know, so something, a couple things that you said, I mean, I think were really important. I mean, one of which is the production of cortisol and cortisone. Those are basically the death hormones. Those hormones the body produces when the body thinks— say again?

Yeah, it's the fight or flight hormone.

So when the body thinks it's at risk of dying, that's when it releases cortisone. So it's like you really don't want that flowing through your blood very, very much.

And you hear about, you hear about runners, you know, having heart attacks on the course, or, you know, I mean, in any kind of fitness thing, you know, you can have a heart attack. So you really— it's something not to scoff at. It is very serious. And, and like I said, I kept— oh, so testimony to this, right? I kept getting sick. I was getting sick every month. It was like some kind of respiratory infection. Serious stuff. Last year I did Iron Girl Half in Clearwater, and I had to go to the medical tent afterwards because I had such a bad asthma attack. So, but this year, knock on wood, I have not had any episodes. I've not been sick. I mean, we've had an awful season for allergies, and I've survived, where normally I am on my deathbed, you know, so sick. So, so because you're producing all those cortisol, that is also, you know, sending those triggers into your body to attack anything good. So that's why you get sick.

So the other aspect of what you said, I thought was really important was the type of training where you're doing— were you doing— I forget the exact numbers, but you said, you know, a short period of intense, hard, you know, running or some form of workout, right? But then for the most part, it's just warming up cooling down from that. That, from what I've been seeing and reading lately, stimulates the production of human growth hormone, which is pretty much the opposite of cortisol.

And, and it—

that is, that's what you want to be producing.

Yeah, exactly, exactly, right on the money. So yeah, but so again, I've— it's, it seems to be working. I just have to stick to it. And that's the thing is there's a lot of people in the fitness community, if it doesn't happen instantly, then they don't want it. So, you know, they want to— everybody wants to lose weight quickly, everybody wants to, you know, show instant results, you know, improvement. And so the magic pill— exactly, there is no magic pill. And really, all you're trying to do when you're trying to— when you're hopefully while you're working out, all you're trying to do is really Try to be your healthiest you, and you're not being your healthiest you if you're killing it every time. You're literally killing yourself.

So, and if you ignore the signs like puking and not being able to keep up, your heart feeling like it's out of your chest, you know, those are not good signs.

Exactly. And injuries— runners are always getting injured and they'll just chalk it off as, you know, as, oh, you know, hey, it happens, you know, I got an IT injury, I got, you know, I have chronic plantar fasciitis, so that was another thing for me. Like, I needed to slow down and reevaluate what was going on with me. So, but anyway, back to you.

Well, yeah, there's a lot we can all learn. And you know what, I think the biggest thing you said was you have to listen to your body. And every person's different, so you know, you have to listen to your body and just not be too macho or too, you know, going for it that you don't listen to it. I know guys are really guilty of that because, you know, it's— you work through the pain. Once you get past the pain, you think you're okay. And it's like your body's sending you signals for a reason.

Yeah, exactly.

We're the only species, the only animal that will like, you know, hit our hand with a hammer, keep doing it. Ow, this really hurts. I need an Advil. While they're doing it, you know, and they'll just— they take the medicines in order to continue doing the thing that their body's specifically telling them not to do. Oh yeah, but we don't stop, we keep doing it.

Yeah, last year I really put myself through the wringer because I was doing so many races. I mean, I was probably doing 2 races a month, and then I did back-to-back marathons. I did Chicago for charity, I did the Chicago Marathon, and then I did New York Marathon, and then I did Space Coast Marathon. So I did, you know, that's, that makes no sense, but I did it because I committed to them and I wanted to do it. Yay, I did it! And then I crashed. And I just, you know, even as a mom, you know, we put too much on ourselves and, you know, we're trying to be super mom or whatever, I don't know, trying to be this trying to be this great mom, and just, you know, it falls in your face. I mean, it blows up in your face sometimes, you know.

Can't do everything. You can do some of each OK, but to do everything really well, you know, it takes superpowers, which we don't have.

Space Coast is a cool marathon, too.

I will make no comment for Space Coast. My favorite marathon I know I should give it up to Florida. I know. But actually, the Fort Lauderdale Marathon, I think, is fantastic. I like the Space Coast theme— I mean, the space theme— because I'm kind of a Doctor Who geek, and I love Star Wars and all that. But it's just the most boring race for me ever. I mean, even with all the fun little space stuff. But I need lots of spectators around me cheering. And if I don't have that, I just— And Chicago was so awesome. You have, I kid you not, for 26.2 miles, 4 rows deep of spectators with signs and banners. I mean, they had like heads on sticks of runners that they're cheering for. Like huge, massive, like Wizard of Oz heads. And they're cheering for people. And it's just— It's incredible for 26.2 miles. You get to mile 24 and you're like, shh, everybody quiet, quiet. I'm in the zone. I'm hitting the wall. Shh, everybody be quiet. It is seriously a block party the entire way. I highly recommend that race for everybody to do. I used to say Disney. I used to tell people to do Disney for their first race. And Disney is fine if you're really into Disney. But I'm telling you, there are some long stretches of that Disney Marathon where you're like, there's no one here. I'm all alone. And then you get to— and then you do something like Chicago, and you're like, now this. This is what I've waited for. This is my moment. All these people. Yay me.

One of our survivors in Hunter's Creek Relay, Christy Galvin, She's since passed on, but she ran the Chicago Marathon with stage 4 colon cancer. She had so many great things to say about that. She completed the marathon with stage 4. That's amazing enough. She had every good thing to say about it.

It is the best. And the city of Chicago is— shout out to Chicago. Woo! I love Chicago. I hate to say that because I'm originally from New York. So there's a whole pizza war thing going on. But I loved the people in Chicago. They are the most warmest. They were so excited. They're like, come. Come to my city. We love it. What would you like? Which slice of pizza do you want? But New York, they were like, forget about it. So you're running a marathon.

Who fuck—

sorry, I almost dropped the F-bomb. Who freaking cares? So true. They were like, shh.

That's typical New York.

Shout out to Brooklyn. Shout out to Brooklyn. But I'm a Queens girl. And we get to Queens, and there's one guy with a sign. And he's like, yay, with a cowbell. I was like, are you kidding me? So it was quite— I waited 3 years to do the New York Marathon because I kept getting— I applied for the lottery and kept waiting and waiting. And then by the 4th year, I was was finally in, so I wanted to do it. And I was— after running Chicago and doing New York— oh, I shouldn't even say, but Chicago, hands down. Sorry, New York. I love you. I heart New York, but Chicago, those people, they were so awesome. So awesome. And Lou Manalti's Pizza flippin' rocks. That is, I mean, I'm still a thin crust New York style girl, but I'm, oh my God, Luminolte's pizza, I run just so I can eat pizza, seriously, I love pizza.

That's a good reason.

It's my guilty pleasure.

Well, on that note, we're going to turn it back over to Gavin and let him take us out with a couple songs. Yay!

Do you want two songs or one?

Can you do two for us?

For us?

I might be able to.

Yeah, if you don't mind.

All right.

Ah, that big old boom was me hitting my guitar against the desk. I gotta stop doing that. All right, so let's see what to play. I saw Emily out there. I don't know if Emily's still out there, but I know that she used to like this song, so You open my eyes and show me what I missed.

You open my heart with just one little kiss. Open eyes and open truth. Open mind, forever yours. Take my hand and you will see what there is inside of me. Along the path we will wind, your heart beats right next to mine. Well, not knowing what was true, searching for myself, that's when I found you. You open my eyes, show me what I missed. You open my heart, just one little Cheers! Open eyes, open truth, open mind. Forever you take my hand. Then you will see what there is inside of me. I'll take you under my arms, keep you safe with me. We'll protect your everything. But baby, I'll take your key. Open my eyes, show me what I missed. You open my heart with just one little kiss.

Woo-hoo-hoo!

Woo!

Ow, ow! I need a lighter. I need a lighter.

So we have time for one more?

Absolutely.

Okay, one more. This is another love song, like the other one was a love song. Yes.

I want you to notice, 'cause I need you to notice, that I'm not just looking at your tits and ass, 'cause I'm a gentleman, 'cause I'm a gentleman. And as we talk, We go for dinner, I want you to know that you're great. I keep focused on your words, but damn, I so wanna mate. And so I pay you attention, smile as we talk and flirt. I look right into your eyes and try not to look up your skirt. Cause I want you to notice. Cause I need you to notice. That I'm not just looking at your tits and ass. Cause I'm a gentleman. I'm a gentleman. Can't you tell I'm thinking of you? Can't you tell I really want you? Can't you tell this isn't just lust? Oh no, this is real, I'm sure.

At least I really think it is.

Well, I'm a gentleman. I'm a gentleman. We are all done with dinner, and so I drive you home. I stop in front of your place and run to open your door. As I walk you to your house, a million thoughts run past. I give you a kiss on your cheek and smile as I look at your ass. 'Cause I want you to notice. 'Cause I need you to notice that I'm not just looking at your tits and ass. 'Cause I'm a gentleman. Yeah, I'm a gentleman. I'm a gentleman, I said I'm a gentleman.

And the crowd goes wild!

That was awesome!

Thank you.

Excellent, thank you very much. That was It's really good. And you're just saying out loud what pretty much every guy thinks most of the time. Unfortunately, it's what we are, ladies. I'm sorry.

I'm just sharing the obvious.

If you sing it, they swoon. So it's all good.

I swoon.

We swoon.

I bet— does Lily love that song?

Yeah, she does. And laughs every time I play it.

Well, thank you so much. That was wonderful, and I appreciate you singing a couple songs for us, 3 songs for us today. It's always a pleasure to hear you, and I talked to you about being on my conference to entertain us a little bit. I'd love to have you do that. We'll talk more. So let's run down the panel real quick and say goodbye to everyone and let them shout out. Anything they'd like. Jen, anything good coming up for you or anything you'd like to tell us about where we can find you?

Yeah, we have a— I guess you will be the first to know. This is an exclusive for Good Day Google+ just for you. We are having a pretty big launch party for the finished version of our website on May 16th, as I mentioned before. We are going to be having it at the Fun Spot. In Orlando. We're gonna have special guests. Some you may recognize. A lot of them will be our new writers. I've brought on about 13 writers as opposed to just myself and Brian and Ken. So yeah, it's gonna be really big. And I can— I do believe I can reveal that Fun Spot is giving people 5— I think it's up to 500 of the first guest Gator Spot that day, which is a new park within their park. They're giving away free entry for the first 500 people, so that's going to be big. There's going to be a lot of— I can't reveal a lot of stuff yet, I've not confirmed, but the party will be at Fun Spot.

Very nice. I'm not going to be in town for that. I would love to have gone to your grand unveiling there, but unfortunately I'll be at a reviewing cottages at Madeira Beach that weekend.

I know, we wanted to do a hangout. We're still going to do the hangout on air, so hopefully at some point you can jump in and join us. We would love to have you.

Absolutely. Well, thank you, and I'm looking forward to more good things coming from Central Florida Top Five. I love my Florida, I do. I may not have been a native, but I have embraced with both arms.

I'm not a native either, and I love it.

Florida, I love you. I'm not just looking at your tits and ass, okay?

Jeff is a gentleman.

I'm such a gentleman. I'm a southern gentleman. Gavin, where can we find you? Anything else good coming up?

So Aaron posted a comment that had all of my relevant places to find me, but the central hub for it is just www.gavinwolfmusic.com.

Very cool.

And we'll, uh, in my movie voice, that was my movie, gavinwolfmusic.com.

I thought it was safe to go back. Okay, and now I'm sure maybe there'll be some open mic nights. We'll, and we'll look for Aaron to let us know about those.

Yep, Friday nights. Check out Aaron Young's open mic nights every Friday. It is a load of fun. You want to go.

Maybe I'll get my— restring my Martin and then come up with a song. You never know. Alright, and Denise, what do we got going on? Anything fun?

Oh wow, yeah, well, in my other life I also— I am also the Tampa Bay Bloggers founder, so we have a lot of events coming up for that. And let's see, and then for the month of June I'll be in London traveling with my family. Yeah, it's exciting. So I actually looked into some races in England. There's a Liverpool Rock and Roll Half, but I think I'm just gonna just kind of be a mom for a month and just maybe— I don't even— I might— I don't know if I'll blog. I know it's blogging suicide, but I think I may just have guest contributors or just share what we're doing while we're there. Really, the only race I have coming up is the Savannah Rock 'n' Roll Half, and that's pretty much all I'm going to focus on this year.

Good. I just noticed—

oh, I'm sorry to interrupt. I just noticed Denise's tagline, Run DMT.

Do you get it?

Do you get it?

OK. It's a little— it's an old school hip hop reference. But my initials are Denise Rose Mestanza Taylor. So that's the DMT. That's me. So we won't—

I thought maybe you'd go into Walk This Way for us. But no.

Yeah, no. Yeah, I could. I could. I don't know. I think I'm going to leave the music up to Gavin.

Keep it real.

Yeah. There you go. Nice.

Something like that.

Oh, I love it. The Reaper.

Oh wait, am I going to get in trouble for copyright violations?

I think I was too.

I don't think so. I don't think so. You're good. I might. On the other hand, I might. So we'll see.

Well, you know, I don't monetize my YouTube, and I think that's a big part of it with the copyright thing. So as long as you're not making money off of it, they don't really care what you do, pretty much. Hopefully. Hopefully. Well, good. So I hope you have a great time in London. It is a beautiful city.

Thank you. I actually lived in England, in York, when I was student teaching over there. So it's been a long time since we've been back. And we have family in Edinburgh, so I'm excited to get up there and visit them. My suitemate lives in Chester. So yeah, I'm hoping to get to Paris. We'll see. I just want to eat a croissant underneath the Eiffel Tower. That's all I'm asking. Is that too much?

No, not at all. You know, I was freaked out the first time I saw the Eiffel Tower because I thought it was black, because every little miniature version I'd ever seen.

Yeah.

Oh.

It's brown. It's like rust brown.

Hello? Yeah.

Oh, good.

I don't have to go now.

Thanks. You've shattered my Eiffel Tower moment. Thank you.

It's still worth it, though. Just take the channel across. You know, they have that. Yeah, that's pretty cool.

So if you have any London must-dos or must-sees or Paris must-sees, I'm open to suggestions.

Sounds like a plan. And just Instagram the hell out of it, that's all.

Oh, yeah, totally. Hashtag not sponsored. Hashtag not sponsored. So if anybody wants to send a meal my way, I'll be happy to Instagram that.

Well folks, thank you so much. Thanks everyone for watching. We had a wonderful show today. We had a lot of fun, a lot of fun talk, and I hope to see you again soon. We're taking a couple weeks off. I'll be back towards the end of May with a Good Day Google+, but I'm taking a little breather. I'm setting up my conference. I have that coming up the second weekend of June, so I've got a lot of work to do for that to get that ready. And just taking a little breather before the summer. Have a great weekend, and I'll see you soon.

Bye-bye. Bye! Thanks for having me. Bye. Thanks, Chef.