Being More by Becoming Less

Moving along...

2011-10-11T22:14:00.000-04:00

So I am moving along to a new blog. I have a ton of reasons... I outline them in my first post at my new home!

What to Du?

2011-08-15T22:46:00.000-04:00

So I signed up for the Duathlon as planned, but I am not sure how to train for it exactly especially because I want to start the strength training. The sore muscles from lifting hurt my performance when I train for endurance. I need to bike more and run more. I need to bike and run hills. I need to get going on this. I signed up, I have to commit.

I want to build up my running again using timed intervals on the treadmill. Doing 10:4 ratios... three intervals today. Felt good, but I am behind. I like that the treadmill keeps my pace, but I know it is not the same as outdoors. When I get a little more time/distance under my belt (and the weather cools down a little) I'll get to running outside. I would like to get up to at least 5 miles by the end of October. I think this is a good plan. I have a few 5ks lined up in the fall to keep me in line on that.

Biking is something I have no idea about. I know I can do 27.5 miles with a few rollers and not die. Actually, I think with some snacks along the way, I would be fine. The problem is that the Du that I am supposed to be riding has 21 miles that "favors strong riders." I do not know what that means. I know that I am slow as it is, as far as biking goes. I guess I will just keep cranking out miles. The path at Centennial Park has a lot of hills. I should probably do laps there to get stronger. There is a bike race, Tour d'Talbott, that will be before the Du. I suppose that will give me more of a feeling. There is another one in September. If I do that, maybe I will get a better feel. It has a 40-something mile leg which I think would be a nice segue into the whole biking thing and the 60-miler. I guess that is the plan.

Now the strength training. I want to do it. I want the muscle mass to burn more calories. I want the strength because I think it will help with the running and biking. I just have such a hard time training for the endurance things when I am stiff from lifting. I need to get the lifting in on a regular basis or there is no reason for me to even do it. If it is sporadic, it is not going to do much good for me other than to make me sore and stiff. I just have to figure out how to do this. The New Rules of Lifting, the lifting program I am doing, has two different workouts for each stage. I need to do each one at least once a week, so two workouts, or do one twice for three workouts. I do not think I can get in three. I tried running after lifting and it was not so good.

I think I can do some sort of endurance training on Monday, Wednesday and Friday with strength on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Do an easy endurance thing on either Saturday or Sunday. That gives me a day off, but that is a hard schedule to keep especially with my stupid work schedule. I am getting ready to go back to nights and I will always be on 12 hour schedules with a long commute.

This is a very ambitious schedule. Hopefully I will be able to stick with it.

Bike Lessons 1-3

2011-08-09T20:45:00.000-04:00

Intro: So I decided to kick it up a notch with the biking. I am now signed up for a Duathlon at the end of October and am considering a bike race of 60 miles the beginning of October. I have been biking on and off and really enjoy it. For the biking one, I am torn between 20 and 60 miles. One seems too far and the other too short. I usually bike around 15 miles so I decided that I would attempt to do a 30 mile ride (well, 27.48 miles) to see how I handled that. That was where I learned:

Rule 1: Eat Enough Carbs
Several people that do way more biking than I do, told me I would need carbs for a race that long and for a ride this long. At least a Gatorade. That was what I took. I biked half, took a potty break, drank half the Gatorade, and headed on. I drank the rest at the 3/4 mark. It was a long ride and I am not a fast biker. When I had about 4-ish miles left, I really started to feel it and the last 3 miles hurt. A lot. My legs were tired, but it was more of an all over dead and sick feeling. The only thing that kept me going was that I had to get to my bike. Apparently, I needed more carbs. I hit a wall... and bonked.

I was super freaking thrilled about having made it 30 miles! However, after having such a hard time, I decided I would try again... with more carbs. This was decided in tandem with my decision to add weight lifting to my activities. Monday was my first day of lifting and Tuesday was my second attempt. That led to:

Rule 2: Biking After Lifting
Holy legs of lead, Batman! It hurt. So much. Well, not hurt, but the legs were quite fatigued. Hills that I had conquered with ease became a struggle. It was hard and I was reconsidering attacking the whole thing, but by the time I was headed in to the half-way point, I was thinking I could probably power through it, but that it was something to keep in mind. Unfortunately, I had an issue where I hit:

Rule 3: Learn to Change Flats
As I was going up a slight incline and was just thinking that maybe I could make it through and how it would be good training when I noticed that I something was wrong. I had a flat. My rear tire was completely dead. The thing was, I had been thinking I should get a tube and learn to change a tire in case I was in just such a situation. Sadly, I was in the situation first. I had to walk the rest of the way back to my car with my bike. Luckily, it was just 1.7 miles and not further out. Must fix tire and learn to change flat.

And those are the things have learned so far. I am sure there is more to come!

Random Friday Facts

2011-08-05T19:41:00.000-04:00

1. Sometimes I don't do the dishes for days. I don't like doing it and if it doesn't smell then sometimes I don't bother. I also have not had bugs.

2. French manicured toes make me think of toenails that need to be cut. Badly. I hate it.

3. I don't like when people who are not handicapped use the handicap door opener button. Lazy.

4. I feel like I really wash away the day by scrubbing off my make-up and I feel guilty going to bed with it on due to tiredness or laziness.

5. I am always afraid I will have nothing left but lettuce in a salad, so I eat a lot of it early on. Then all I have is the other stuff and that also makes me sad.

6. I have a severe weakness to chocolate chip cookies.

7. As of today, I have gone through one Aries and three HTC Incredibles in two weeks. Bah.

8. Yes, I saw that they killed Peter Parker in the comics. Yes, that makes me very upset. Yes, I am a big dork.

9. I read all four books of A Song of Ice and Fire, the series Game of Thrones is based on, in about a month. They are close to 1,000 pages each. Obsess much?

10. I have a hard time controlling my tone of voice and sometimes Bitch creeps in and I have no idea.

11. I have never washed my car or had it washed. The only bath it has known is rain... I bought it new in 2008.

12. I believe that I am beginning to freckle out of control.

13. I learned today that I am not particularly fond of arugula. I will eat the bag I bought, but I will avoid it after.

14. It disturbs me more than it should when I see children that look to be under 12 years of age drinking Starbucks froo-froo coffee.

15. I rarely return my library books on time, but the fines are still less than buying a book.

16. I like the smell of petunias.

Ellicot City 5k

2011-08-02T17:30:00.001-04:00

Yesterday, I ~~competed in~~ ~~ran~~ struggled through the EC5K. I was joined by April, Kerry and Celeste. The race was in support of research for childhood diabetes, which is good. It was billed as a run from a park, to an old trolley trail, down the trail and back. Sounded good. I figured it would be a nice flat race. No. Not so much. What is it with all these hilly runs? I mean, up and down is one thing, but ones that are pretty down hill the way out and uphill the way back? They kick my booty. Hard. Too hard. And I am discovering that the hills are harder on my hip. Stupid hip.

So we ended up getting there a bit later than I wanted to because April and I were going to carpool. She took a wrong turn and was detained by NSA. Oops. We got there in plenty of time, found Kerry and Celeste and chatted before the race started. It was not a chipped run, but they got the results out fast. I came in 219th out of 244 with an official time of 45:11.6 (13:44 pace). It was my worst one yet, but that is what I get for doing maybe one run of up to a mile once a week-ish. Haha! No training leads to bad performance. I like to blame the major uphill finish on this one, though.

The homestretch! Look at that form! The grace!

Seriously. It started downhill, which is never a good sign, then went to a brief uphill battle followed by a nice downhill segment for probably about 2 miles with a 1.25 mile uphill to the finish. Ugh! Still good, though! And it was really well organized. Glad I did it!

April and me after the finish!

.5 Rest Day

2011-07-31T14:48:00.000-04:00

I did some pretty good training on Friday and ran a 5k on Saturday. I was going to bike today, but was feeling pretty dead last night, so decided to sleep in some. When I woke up, I remembered that I had to get food for the birds. I also realized I was stiff from the Friday-Saturday double smack to my legs, mostly my hips. I figured a nice walk was what I needed! Yes. That would be a great idea. I would walk to Petsmart for the food. I hooked up all my gadgets and away I went.
It was hot outside, but not as humid as it had been. It was not like trying to breathe underwater. There was also a nice breeze. I had my iPod queued up with News from Lake Wobegon. I made it there, bought a drink and some bird food, and headed back.
It was a two hour jaunt and my hips and feet were not happy on the way home and my quads were getting tight. Turns out it was 6.45 miles round trip. That was a bit long for just a nice little walk to work the kinks out. Oh well, it was a good walk, even if it did take up most of my afternoon. I feel like I should be cooking something to eat for tomorrow, but maybe I will just buy something and supplement it with what I have. Should be able to do that and keep it nice and healthy-esque.

Something I learned: You Can Call Me Al is a good walking in the sun song.

Also, I just realized summer is almost over. Where did it go!? I did not make enough trips to the beach.

Random Friday Facts

2011-07-29T12:00:00.001-04:00

1. I always double check my blog url when I post it in a comment section. Always.

2. I am afraid of spindly legged spiders because they can chase you down... I like jumping ones they're compact and crab-like!

3. I have not had crabs this season and that makes me sad sad sad.

4. I have not shaved my legs in over a week because of mosquito bites. I am quite hairy.

5. I have crushes on fictional characters. If they are in movies, it does not translate to a crush on the actor... I like the character thankyouverymuch.

6. I try not to wash my hair everyday, but I usually forget and wash it as part of my showering routine.

7. If I think you don't like me, I will not like you more. In my mind, it is only fair.

8. I can start sun burning in 15 minutes. I timed it once in High School based on the UV index saying that fair skinned people would start burning in 15 minutes. I did.

9. I can handle pain better than itch.

10. Department stores where employees come up and ask "Have you been helped?" and not "Can I help you?" *coughnordstrommacy'scough* make me uncomfortable. I do not like being waited on. When I want help I will come to you. If you follow me around like a puppy, I get self conscious and will likely put everything back and leave.

11. I like going to the dentist. My teeth are so happy afterward.

12. Without my Google Calendar, I would probably forget half the things I need to do, like turn in my library books and go to work.

13. I have been dyeing my hair since I was 15 and no longer know exactly what color it really is other then brownish-reddish.

Summer, Another Excuse

2011-07-29T09:12:00.000-04:00

I do not want to go to the gym. Not at all. I was going to go in for an early workout, but I did not sleep well and since that was all I really have planned today sleeping in was an option. I have been fighting myself just to get in a workout once a week. I think it is because it is summer.
Summer days are lazy days to me. They are hot. You're not supposed to move, you're supposed to sit on a porch with a beer. I thought that maybe if I aimed at going in to the gym, that would help. Gyms are indoors and climate controlled.
Yeah, not so much.
I did pretty well at moving around in the fall and spring. Times of the year where the weather was not that extreme. Even in winter I was better than this.
Ugh.

Seems like there is always a reason to not go, eh? Heat. Humidity. Time. Sleep. Work. Meh.

I am going today. I just ate a light breakfast and am digesting. I don't want upset stomach adding itself on as a reason I should not have to push it today.

Caribbean Sounds 5k-ish

2011-07-28T20:41:00.000-04:00

It's been a few weeks since I ran this. I don't really have a lot to say about it. It was a nice day, somewhat humid, and I was lacking in training, but it was fun. I met up with Kerry for this race in Rock Creek Park in DC. It was a super nice park, but a super unorganized race. Probably the worst race experience ever, other than the venue.

There was only one packet pickup day before the race and it was in the middle of DC, so most people were picking stuff up that morning. The race was supposed to start at 0745 and packet pickup started at 0630. The packet pickup was not even ready to go until 0645 and was so disorganized. They had several lines for different last name letters, but the signs were not visible, so no one knew. By the time everyone had received their packets, it was 0800. We were in the group, ready to go when the horn sounded at 0815. Off we went!

The race was all down-hill at first, and mostly in the shade, so that was nice except I kept thinking about how when we turned around, it would all be up-hill. And it was a mega hill. Another issue with the course was that it was not a closed one. Non-racing runners and bikers came between us, although the runners were not so much of a problem, but the bikers just zoomed right through us with no warning. It was downright dangerous as well as annoying.

Hill of Evil

When I got to the turnaround point, I was surprised at how good I felt and how fast I had done it. I mean, it was all downhill, but it was also on little to no training. Then I hit the hill. I walked most of it and according to my HRM, my heart rate was in the running zone just walking a quick clip. It was a HORRIBLE hill. I managed to get to where I knew the home stretch was, so I ran that. Finished in 36:02 (13:04 pace). I was surprised and confused at the time, since I my PR was 39 minutes. Then Kerry greeted me (she runs way faster than me) and said she did not think it was actually 5k. Both her Garmin and my RunKeeper both said that the race was only 2.6 miles. Lame. Even with a crappy time, I would rather have a bad finish time and still have done the 5k. They did provide rice, chicken, water and gummy things at the end, though.

All and all, I will not be doing this race again. It was too disorganized and I was too agitated at the incorrect distance.

Brain Dead

2011-07-24T19:59:00.000-04:00

I finally made it to the gym Friday. It was super crappy. My plan was to do run 10, walk 4 for a couple iterations since I have been hardcore slacking on the running and I have a race next weekend. I lasted about eight minutes. The good part of that was my body could have done more, my mind was just not in it. I don't know if it was because it was on a treadmill or if it was because the night before I had not slept enough or what. I just was so done with it when I started. I walked a lot and managed to do about 1.3 miles. Then I did hop on the elliptical to do something, but even that was only 20 minutes. I suppose I should have just pushed through, but I didn't. Boo on me. I really need to get back into training. I also need to get away from snarfing everything down on the weekends.

Things in Threes

2011-07-21T20:20:00.000-04:00

So I have not done any running since the Caribbean Sounds (not) 5k. (I'll update on that race this weekend, promise!) That is two weeks. Work has been a headache and I just did not feel it so I did not do it. I did bike with April last Saturday and it was awesome. We're gonna go again this Saturday, but early since we have a heat advisory. Super hot with super humidity makes me not want to move. Not at all.

Tomorrow I have a physical. I figure it has been a few years, might as well go in. I am a little nervous about it. I know she will tell me to lose weight. I am used to that from docs and the fact that I have lost over 20lbs recently is not going to be something she knows... so she will just tell me to do it. Blah. I am also afraid of what all my numbers will be, particularly blood sugar. I have diabetes on my dad's side and I am not particularly thin. I am also curious/worried about how my cholesterol and all will be. I guess I'll know in the morning. They did not tell me to not eat, but I am done eating now... 12 hours fasting should be good for this. I know they don't want stuff in your blood for testing and what not.

I am also super excited about work. Not because of what I am doing, but because I put in to be transferred to another office. Hopefully in the next three months or so, I will be working a job with regular hours. You know, mostly Monday through Friday... morning to afternoon. No more shifts. No more weekends. No more holidays. Snow days. Very excited. Very very excited. This will make socializing, blogging and exercising much easier to keep up with! YEA!

Random Friday Facts

2011-07-16T19:15:00.000-04:00

A day late, yes! But still here!

1. I never want to play a game, but once playing, I love it!

2. I do not like mushrooms.

3. I can read on my couch all day, only moving for bathroom and food breaks.

4. I have been in eight accidents, but only five where I was driving and only two of those my fault.

5. I am a plot addict. I have to get to the end, even if the book or movie is not so great.

6. I think mani-pedis are a waste of time and money.

7. I do not like massages, either by strangers or people I know.

8. I still miss my high school boyfriend, even though it was not that great of a relationship.

9. I cannot remember learning how to swim or read.

10. I know the Hawaiian alphabet - He Ke Na Mu Pe We Okina and A E I O U

11. I do not understand people's obsession with bacon. It's ok, but I don't think it is the tastiest thing ever.

2011-07-06T05:40:00.000-04:00

So today, well, last night, I went shopping with Melissa, a friend of mine. We are going to see Wicked this weekend (squeeeee!) and Melissa wants to dress up. I am cool with that. Then she says we should go shopping together.

Um.

Well.

I don't go clothes shopping with other people. I am still very self conscious about my size. While I am stuck in a four pound area and it is a lower four pound area than a couple months ago, I am still fat. I do not like going shopping, especially with people that are small, because I am afraid that I won't find anything that will fit. That nothing will fit. That when I say I'm one size, none of that size will fit. Because I am fat. Or things that I can get into will make me look like a tasty sausage.

I don't clothes shop with friends.

But I did go. She is persistent... and I dislike actually saying that I don't want to do something because of my size. That makes me even more uncomfortable/self conscious.

Long story short, with dinner and hellacious traffic, we had about 20 minutes of shopping. Of course, we did not realize this until the lady on the speaker let us know we had five minutes.

Sadly, I did not get anything.

The good part? I found things in my size... I found things in my size that fit and looked like they should be on me. No sausage outfits. Just nothing was "It."

I am still happy about that.

Friday will bring Round 2.

Omming and Nomming

2011-06-29T02:32:00.000-04:00

Food. I like it. I thoroughly enjoy eating. I like healthy things (apples, oranges, broccoli, salmon) and not so healthy things (M&Ms, delivery Chinese, Taco Bell, ice cream). I like it all.

When I have a day that all I eat is junk, I do not feel physiologically bad. I do not feel "weighted down" or "bloated" like some people feel. Granted, if all I eat are high sugar things like cookies and do not temper it with, say pizza, I can feel the sugar crash, but outside of that food is food in so far as my digestive track is concerned.

The problem is: I LIKE EATING. I enjoy an apple... or McDonald's. Delicious! I go through these times, where I eat healthy. I eat within my calories, mostly "wholesome" food with a smattering of cookies or such. Then, without warning, none of it is satisfying. My head-brain/tummy demands pizza, chocolate, ice cream and other such things to the point of having a handful of M&Ms or one cookie does not do anything. It does not feed the craving, but it certainly does not staunch it. The munchies kick in hardcore. I can eat things like apples and cucumbers and chicken... but the munchies remain. Even when my stomach is full (not painfully so) I still have the brains signals saying "THAT WAS NOT WHAT I DEMANDED!" Ugh.

A week or so of good behavior, of the scale going down... then these days hit.

It makes me crazy. I think it is my fat cells rallying the troops. Blah.

Hard work ruined.

Hi there!

2011-06-27T21:20:00.000-04:00

I have not really felt like typing, so I did not force it. I have been having a lot of fun with people, reading a ton of A Song of Ice and Fire, which is better known as The Game of Thrones series. I watched the series on HBO and was hooked. Now I can barely pull myself from the books. They are all 800-1000 pages each and I am over halfway through the third book... in about 2.5 weeks. Haha! Seriously, if you are like a ton of people and hooked on the television series, read it. You will love it. Actually, the mad amount of pages I have been pushing through my eyes is why I have not been interested in typing anything. Haha!

Running
I have been running on a fairly regularly lately and I have been really happy with it. My hip has been a bit sore, but nothing super painful until this last weekend and I think that might've been from my biking. I have been taking it slow which I think is helping. I have not seen an ortho about it. I know, I know. I need to. I am just afraid that they'll look at it and tell me no more running. Or no running for an extended period, like months. That will kill everything I have been developing. It was really hard to get to where I am and I don't want to start over. The slower training seems to be helping a lot. The break I took this week was the longest I have taken in a few weeks, about five days off. Hopefully when I run later today (tonight) my hip will be ok.
I had been running one mile, then walking a bit and then running a bit more. I was up to running a total of 1.5 miles with about a .3 mile walk in the middle. The other day I did 1.66 miles pretty straight. I took a couple walk breaks, but mostly ran it. In two weeks I have another 5k. While I am not looking to break records, I would like to do better than the Susan G Komen one and at least break 40 minutes again. This week, I am looking to do 2 miles with every run and I want to do 3-4 days if it. I think that will be a good week without being too intense. The week before the 5k, I want to do 2.5 miles a few times. That will get me more prepped for running than I was with the Susan G Komen one, so I think I will at least be able to do better, provided that this training iteration is not too intense. I don't think it will be. I hope it is not.

Biking
I have not been doing a ton of biking, but I would like to get back into it. I did go on the Mount Vernon Trail with a friend of mine. We did a nice 15.6 mile ride and then had lunch. It was a lot of fun! I need to get on my bike more. It is a great workout/calorie burner and it is so much fun! I bought some padded bike shorts for my booty and it helped a lot. I had some chaffing in that area, which was not pleasant, although it was less chaffing than I had last time. I supposed I should get some of that glide stuff to keep my bits from rubbing. Nice. I also bought some bike gloves. They are super cute and helped so much. My hand sweat did not prevent me from being able to change gears and the padding helped keep my palms from hurting. I am not sure if it is just me or if it is everyone, but the nubby things on my handles that are supposed to give me grip dig into my hands and make them sore when I ride. The gloves fixed that! Hooray!

Eating
Overall, I have been doing really well. I have been tracking my intake on most days and have been pretty close to my daily allowance of calories. I have been a little light on the protein and have a few days where I went over pretty good. I saw a number I had not seen in a long time, but am back up a tad from that. Overall, I am downward trending again, which is nice. Of course, then I give into my craving for greasy delivery Chinese food. Snarfed down some dumplings, crab rangoon and sesame chicken. So good on my tongue, so not good for me. I bet the salt makes me gain like 2lbs overnight. Heh.

The Good, The Bad and The Birthday

2011-06-11T18:31:00.000-04:00

So my title is a tad misleading, but not totally. I am going to address all of those, but not in that order. I want to get the bad out of the way first.

The Bad
I have been eating a lot lately. Ok, not a super duper lot, but more than I should. I have also not been tracking the past few days. Mostly because of all the fun I have been having. When you go out, it is sometimes hard to figure out how to track what you eat. Not all restaurants have nutrition info, and while I stick by their right to not have it, I wish they did. It would make it easier for me to know how much I am snarfing down. I was back down to 206 on Wednesday, so that rocked, but not sure where I am now. Heh. I also decided to stick more to my caloric intake and have dropped it to 1350 a day from 1500. Hoping that helps, although without tracking, I suppose it doesn't matter what I am set at, eh?
I have also not been exercising much. You remember how I said my hip was stiff from the 5k? Well, I figured I would run Wednesday on it. Give it some time to recuperate since it was not as bad as it has been, but it was right on the edge. I iced it and rested it. Then I went out for happy hour and walked around barefoot because my cute shoes were trying to gnaw my feet off. This lead to huge blisters on the balls of my feet that hurt. That killed running or any other exercise that required the use of the bottoms of my feet like walking or elliptical-ing. I probably could have run on Friday, but I was super busy all day. Then today I did stand-up paddleboarding, which abused my lower half. So now I am left with tomorrow for a run if my legs and body are not so sore from today that I can't move. If it is, I am going to the gym or something. I need to get moving.

The Good
I have had a ton of fun this week. I took of this weekend and so am off for 10 days. Bliss. So happy. I am also looking at changing jobs so that I have a more consistent schedule. Also psyched about that. Since I was off, I managed to make it to two different happy hours and see several friends that I have not seen in probably a year. It was fantastic! I also had some delicious food and beer. I have been cutting most alcohol from my diet since it is excess empty cals, but man, it was good to have some! I do not think I consumed enough to actually have put on multiple pounds of weight (fat) but I bet that this timed with my ToM will lead to water retention. Not caring. The fun I had far outweighs it. Hehe... get it? Puns. I had sushi, I had beer, I had chips, I had pizza, I had fish and chips, I talked and laughed and reminisced with people. I saw them doing my old job which has really put a fire at me to get back to it. And tonight I am going to another gathering to see people that I have not seen in probably almost a year. Stoked.
The stand-up paddleboarding (SUP) was super fun today! I have been wanting to do it for a while and only just saw that it was available in my area. Kerry and I went out today. The summer storms were a bit threatening and we did get rained on a bit, but it was a warm rain, and by the end, the sun was out. It took me a while to figure it out since I have little to no balance, but once I was up, it was so much fun. The hour lesson also included an hour of board time, so we got to use the boards for two hours. We also just hung out on the boards and chatted. The staff was very nice and helpful. I am super looking forward to going again! Maybe for something different! They also had sailing, wind boarding and kayaking available. I love outdoor water sports!

The Birthday
Friday was my birthday. I did not really plan anything for it because I just usually don't. I did want to go to the beach. I knew that much. I also knew that I was meeting my brother up for dinner. The beach I like going to is Assateague State Park, but it is three hours away. That usually means I get on the road by 0600 or earlier so I can get there and enjoy the day. When the alarm went off, I decided it was my birthday so I could sleep in.. and I did. Until 0800. I did not get to the beach until 1130, but it was really nice weather. It was a little windy, but the wind kept the temperatures on the beach down. It was in the mid-90s, but it felt cooler. I fiddled around and read some of The Princess Bride and texted with my brother about when and where we would meet. Then an afternoon thunderstorm came in and the lifeguards kicked us off the beach for at least a half hour. I had to be on the road in one hour, so I just decided to leave then. Sadly, that meant I got under two hours on the beach. A beach that is three hours away. Oh well. I did see some wild ponies, which was cool. I met my brother at Bonefish grill, which was super delicious. I had been wanting to go there after hearing their ad that said their boom boom shrimp were crispy, yet tender. An enigma like a ballerina that also bullfights. Haha! Jared actually got the shrimps and I got fish tacos. We than went over to TCBY and I got the watermelon sorbet. I had been craving watermelon goodness for a while and was stoked. We sat outside in the shade and chatted until he had to go home for the hockey game. I went home since I was tired and had to get ready for today's SUP adventure!

So although I have not been exactly on track for exercise, be it for injury or being busy, and while I have not been tracking much, I have been having a good time. Sometimes, you need to just relax. As long as you get back on track in the near future. Tomorrow I will get back on track after assessing what kind of booty kicking my body took today. Looking forward to it!

Race for the Cure!

2011-06-04T20:51:00.000-04:00

Today was the race for the cure. It went much better than I thought it would. First, I got up and got all my stuff ready as I waited for April to come over. That meant picture time!

I'm so pretty in the morning!

Weird loopy chip for my time

April got in, we finished getting ready and out the door we went. We metro-ed in along with a ton of other people. There was a slight bit of confusion as to how to get out of the metro at our stop, but we made it and found my coworkers, Ken and Kerry, and Kerry's sister, Jenny.

April and I are ready to do it!!

Me, Ken and Kerry!!

I tried to find LeeAnn for pics, but she was lost. Actually, she is just beyond the trees in the above picture. She met at the statue on the other side. Oops. Finally found her and we went to line up. LeeAnn and I lined up at the back near the 12 minute mile group while the others lined up further ahead.

LeeAnn and I wait for the start..

LeeAnn was suffering from an Achilles issues and I was having hip issues. Both of us were lamed. Sad. I was a little more mobile, so I ended up getting ahead of her. The run was pretty good. There were a lot of people and it got really congested. That was not cool. Lots of people were walking, which is fine, but they were in the middle of the road which caused problems. It was fun, though. I ran until I could feel my hip getting tight, then I would walk until it felt better, then continue running.

Washington Monument from the route

There were cheering Girl Scouts along the way! That was awesome!

This ended up being my slowest 5k, 41:56 (13:31 pace), but considering the under-training and the hip injury, I'll take it. LeeAnn was also less than trained and injured and she ended up getting a faster time than last time! Very happy for her! April also ran super fast as did Ken, both doing really well. I am not sure how Kerry did, though, but I am sure it was stellar! I ended up catching up with April and LeeAnn, but I lost the other people. LeeAnn had to go do some babysitting for a friend, but April and I hung out a bit to see the sights, pick up swag and take pictures.

Drummers in the middle of it all! They were rather neat and their costumes made me think of playing cards!

Being all bad ass in my awesome free pink sunglasses!!

April and me running around the globe! ZOOM!

We grabbed lunch at the Museum of the American Indian. The food was good, but the museum was kinda boring. Not a lot of historical stuff there. It was mostly modern art done by American Indians. Not what I am really interested in, but the food was fantastic! We ended up splitting our lunches so we could try more things.

Buffalo burger, quinoa pudding and heart of palm salad! MMM!

Pulled bison, shrimp ceviche and squash deliciousness! Tasty!!

Overall, it was a great day! Everyone had a great time and the run was fun and for a good cause. As for my hip, it is tight, but not painful. That is a great thing! I iced it once I got home and am hoping it is good tomorrow. The last time that my hip really became an issue was after the Cupcake 5k. After that race, it was painful into the last mile and then after as soon as I stopped moving, it hurt. The fact that it is only stiff today is making me a bit hopeful. I am not going to run tomorrow and I want to ice it again some as well. Maybe it will get better and I will be able to do some more running next week. I have two more 5ks this summer and would really like to do them pain free and get faster. I would also like to increase my distance as I train. Hopefully, that will happen.

Stupid Lying Hip

2011-06-03T20:03:00.000-04:00

Shakira was wrong. Hips LIE! RAR!

So. Backing up..

I wanted to do a long run Thursday and take Friday off so I could run the Susan G Komen Race for the Cure on Saturday. Sounded like plan. I mapped out my route Wednesday evening. I was going to run out side of my Apartment. It would be the first time that I left my place running. I was going to go down a ways, turn into some subdivisions, run a loop, and come back. At the end of it, it would be 3.24 miles. The longest run ever. As it turned out, when I got to one of the loops I had scheduled, there was a gully between me and the road I needed to be on. This cut my run to 3.14, which was still a good run.

I need to be over there....

I did not see crime tape, so I guess it lives there.

There were also a lot more uphill portions than I had anticipated. It was a hard run that was mostly in the midday sun. It was 45 minutes long. I kept worrying that the songs on my iPod would run out. I was so dead by the end. I stretched out, showered and began internetting.

That was when it began. Well, began to get worse. I had noticed my hip had tightened up a bit. I stretched it out and it seemed fine. As time went on, it continued getting worse. I thought it was mostly better, but apparently, not so much. It is now all achy. I have been icing it today. I have the 5k tomorrow and plan on doing it. I am also going to schedule an appointment with a doc to see what the hell is wrong with it. I know I said I would do that last time, but it got better after about 2 weeks of biking with no running. All better... LIES!

I am so angry at it. Hate you, hip. Hate hate. Frustrated.

Back on Track?

2011-05-29T19:08:00.000-04:00

So I finally got back to this whole moving-my-body-around-thing that I had all but abandoned for almost a month. Got in three good moving sessions this weekend. Ok, maybe not three good ones, 2.5 good ones. I decided on Thursday to get moving in the morning before the heat was unbearable. Enter: Interweb. I did not get off my toochus until 1100. Ugh. Per the weather.com, it was 84 (feels like 87), but I was gonna do it and learn my lesson! I barely made a mile. There was lots of sweating and dying along the way. It sucked. I was going to walk a bit after, but I was so hot that I called it a day.
On Saturday, I decided to try getting a run in a bit earlier, but it was cooler, so I waited a tad. It was not as bad as Thursday. It was way less humid and there was a bit of a breeze... the 78 (feels like 78) helped a lot. I went to Laurel Lakes where I like to run. It is about a mile loop. I decided this time to go off into the neighbor hood and it made the loop about 1.5 miles. It was still hot in the sun and I am not used to this summer heat thing. I also did not think I would be out that long and so did not use sunblock. I could feel my skin cooking. Oops. I should know better. I ended up mostly running just under two miles and then walked the remaining mile to my car. The run part I did in 27:41 (13:57 pace) which is slow even for me. I think it was because I am trying to regain lost running ground and it is hot. I am not sure how I am going to do at the Susan G Komen Race for the Cure next weekend. Hopefully the cooler morning and the whole race adrenaline stuff will kick in and I will do ok.
I lost too much training time with my hip and then nights. The hip couldn't be helped, it was an injury. The lost time on nights could have been helped. Bah.
Today, I took the bike out! I haven't done that in over a month! I was excited! I met up with April at the Baltimore-Annapolis Rail Trail. It was my longest ride yet: 14.07 miles in 1:33:47 (6:44 pace). It was also the first time in almost a year that I went for a ride with someone. April was good company and we chatted as we rode along. She could have gone faster, but she humored me at my pace, which was nice. When we were done, my booty was sore. I need to get a padded seat or something. April had a padded seat and pants! All I had was the padding nature, God and nommage have given me... and I need more! Probably best to buy it and not acquire it through tasty eating. Once we split, April went off and rode some more... she ended up riding a marathon! Ker-azy woman! She also rode in traffic. I am scared of doing that. Cars are big and drivers are stupid. I think we'll do that trail again... maybe a tad faster and maybe the whole thing! I'll take pictures next time. It was a super nice trail.

Do you bike ride with someone or alone? Do you have a padded rear for when you go?

How has the running in summer heat been for you? Is it slowing you down as much as me??

Warrior Dash Re-Cap

2011-05-26T20:46:00.000-04:00

First, it was super awesome and I can't wait to do it again next year! So much awesome in one day! Loved it!

RAWR! LeeAnn!

RAWR! Me!

So the day started fairly early, around 0730, so that I could eat and get down to Waldorf and meet up with LeeAnn. We got all our gear together, including a handy bag that LeeAnn brought to check with the stuff we wanted on us and not left in the car... like money for beer... and ID for beer. And flip-flops. We got down to Bud's Creek went to check in around 1030. Our wave started at noon, so we had plenty of time. We took a few photos, got ID'ed for beer bands and checked the stuff. LeeAnn also got some insider tips from some rather muddy looking people... stay to the left on the water flume thing because the right side was rocky and make sure your shoes are on good. Check and check. We also pinned on our numbers and put our chips on our shoes before wandering around to see what was going on. There were TONS of costumes and we started talking about next year... all before even completing this year.

Then we saw the Cargo Climb. A huge A-frame with a cargo net on it that we were expected to clamber over. It was a lot bigger than either of us expected. Like about two stories tall. HUGE and HIGH and scary. Hm. We watched some people climb over it and everyone looked good. One person even did a flippy thing over the top a la Jodi Foster in Silence of the Lambs. Doable? Perhaps. We'd see when we got there.

We then walked over to the start area about 30 minutes before start and cozied up on a hill, watched people enter the cattle chute start and admired more costumes.. like the man who had shaved his chest hair into a big "W." Good times. We finally found Vicky and her crew... and by that I mean she was suddenly towering over us as we lay on the hill, and we entered the chute.

This is us before the muddy adventure

We started off, like many races, packed in a crowd, shuffling along, but eventually it started thinning out. It was a dry start until we got into the woods, where it got hilly and damp. We made it through the Spider Web of bungee cords easily enough and kept on going. Eventually, we came across a creek, Bud's creek I would guess, where there was about a two foot embankment. In my attempt to go down it, I took a tumble and bashed my knee pretty good. It is all purple now and was sore for the duration of the race. Oh well!! It happens. Gravity and all.

For a while we were running through creeks and some damp trails with occasional mud, but the mud eventually became pretty consistent. Most of it was enough to cover your shoes and suck at your feet. It was difficult to get through and there were a ton of orphaned shoes along the way that the mud had claimed. Sad little shoes. Some of the mud pits were deeper and thinner... kinda like thin oatmeal or gruel, that came up to knee and thigh depth. That was where the second tumble occurred, but it was LeeAnn, not me. Good times! The next obstacle we came to was a tunnel thing where we had to crawl through mud.... then the walls. I was dreading the walls.

The walls were just lower than chest high and there were five of them. In between them was barbed wire you were supposed to go under. We met up with Andy here. Not sure if he waited for us or if we caught him, but I think it was the former since he had mentioned weeks earlier that he would help us with the walls. The walls were hard, but doable. When I got over the first one, though, I decided that I would take the trail around them that other people had taken... where I stepped in a hole and fell. As I was falling, I grabbed the wood post that the barbed wire was on and cut my hand open. Luckily, I do not appear to have tetanus from the wire or staph from all the mud that I packed into it for the rest of the race.

After that, there were multiple mud pits all leading to a huge hill that lead out from the forest... and to the Cargo Climb. By this time, I was pretty worn out and was just interested in getting over the damn thing, so I did... and so did LeeAnn!

Hi-five! Yeah! As Andy watches... probably should have fived him, too

Running with Andy!

All that was left was a little longer. The hay climb was easy. The tire run made my legs ache and gave me a new appreciation for military and football players. The rubber ricochet was AWESOME... tires hanging from rope that you plow through! Yes! Then the water chute thing, which was by far the scariest for me. Both LeeAnn and I picked up some fast speeds causing us to catch air on some of the bumps before crashing into the mud and straw at the bottom. Fun, yes but also scary!

Rubber Ricochet! ZOOM!

Once we got through all that, I checked our time. We were doing great! I told LeeAnn, who had been chugging away even with an awesome chest cold, that if we booked it at a mild pace, we would be done in under an hour which was our time goal. So we did. Through the next few trials and tribulations.

Hell yeah I jumped over fire!

Mud crawl.

And then we finished!!

It was a fantastic run and a great day!!! We found Vicky with her crew and Doan with her crew (who took a ton of these photos!) for muddy pics!

Hooray! Finished, happy and medal-ed!

We turned in our shoe chip for a free beer, purchased smoked turkey legs and vegged on a hill near the start to people watch. We were pretty daggum wiped! BUT WE WERE WARRIORS!!!

RAWR!! and stuff.

Before leaving, we were hosed down some, recycled our shoes and changed for the car ride home.

Pile of mudded shoes

Hose down station

I am totally doing it again next year. Hopefully by then I will be less round in my photos. Haha! So much fun!

Stats:

3.11miles

58:38

706 calories

Infinity fun!

The Ugly Part of This

2011-05-14T03:43:00.000-04:00

I know I said I was going to get in all my exercise even though I am on nights. Well. Yeah. Not so much. I feel bad about it, I really do... but I still did not do it. Fer shame. I had my excuses - too hot, too polleny, too whatever.

I was good about what went in my face the past couple work days. Ate within my calorie allotment, which was good. Then tonight, I awoke and ate oatmeal. And was happy. Until the pizza cravings hit. So I got one... and jalapeño poppers. I ate the jalapeño poppers... all six, then moved on to pizza. I killed three slices and then ate the cheese off the survivors. Now, while it was not my proudest moment and it has made me feel all sluggish and guilty, it was super tasty. That was all I ate today, so I only jumped over the cals by about 300-400. That still puts me at a deficit, but with all the fat and salt I consumed coupled with the fact that I did not do much moving from my couch, it was a bad idea. I feel like I ingested lead and that it is now coursing through my veins making me tired. Remember, not all calories are good calories... some are just crappy bits of energy with little to no nutritional value.

However, although binging is something I still do on occasion (and more so recently than before) I do not purge, so now I am all gross feeling. I wish I could say it was because I was sad or happy or something so I could blame it on emotion, but it just came down to me being bored and wanting pizza and poppers and then the junk being available to me while I was catching up on TV all night. I do so much worse on nights. Ugh.

I did get one run in so far this week. Hoping to get in two more, but we shall see. I ran 1.28 miles in 17 minutes, which is pretty crappy, but since I was not interested in doing it, my legs fought me the whole way and I had no music (ran in the dark at night, safety first, yo!) I am glad I got my booty out there. I did freak out because the run irritated my hip. I am not sure why it did since this is not the longest or fastest I have run since I started back up. The only things I could think if were that I did some hip stretches that are supposed to help and I ran most of the time on concrete (again, night time... being safe). I am not sure if one, both or neither of those is what triggered it, but it was sore that night and stiff for the next couple days. Hopefully, I will get in a run this weekend on not concrete and without stretching and my hip will be happy.

I am also hitting a bit of a wall. I am sick of fighting my weight. Even without the occasional binge, I still fight it all the time. Heck, my whole life. I'm just so tired of it.

Racing!

2011-05-10T00:23:00.000-04:00

This weekend, my allergies hit my face hard. It made for a crappy four days of work. I made it to the gym only once and elliptical-ed it up. The other days I was not able to make it. I felt awful. Sunday was better and today I feel a lot better. I am not sure why, the weather seems the same so I am not sure about why I feel better. I'll take it, though!!

On the good side, I did eat well this weekend, so at least that worked.

I also signed up for two more 5k races in July. One at the beginning and one at the end, so three weeks between them. I think that should be good. And keep me running. One is Caribbean themed for sarcoidosis and the other is on an old trolley trail for diabetes. Both should be super fun! My friend, Amanda, who went shoe shopping with me, is going to do the trolley trail one! I'm excited! I love running races and I love that I can actually do it and my hip is better!

Right now I am counting down to the Warrior Dash at the end of the month. I am not in tip-top running shape since I was down for a few weeks and then off because my mom was in town. I am doing good with running, though, so I should be able to at least finish, which is my goal. Two weeks later I have the race for the cure. This is the closest together my races have been together. Hopefully it will be ok. I am really hoping that I can improve my pace again!

Tomorrow Is Another Day

2011-05-03T19:21:00.000-04:00

It was hot here in MD last week. Hot and humid... and I have no A/C at the moment. Running was too hot.
This weekend, my mom and grandma came into town. Then my mom's cousin joined us in Richmond for a show. I ate a lot. Not much in the way of moving. I got in one run and one ab session.

I was doing good. Lots of outdoors on my bike, getting my run back on (more in a sec) and eating well. I was down at the lowest weight I had been in a long time and was maintaining it rather well. Actually, I was maintaining a good downward trend.

Then I stopped caring.

Periodically I get to the point where I want to eat what I want. And I do. I went up a tad, nothing bad. Then this weekend, I ate with abandon. Today I was going to be good, but I was not. I have gotten caught up in the "Tomorrow is another day" mindset. I need to break out of it. And I am. I cannot make up for the food I have already consumed today. I can, however, watch what I eat from now on out. I am also going to do a run once the sun goes down and it is cooler. Also because I just ate pizza.... I do not want to puke, thank you.

I have a lot of reasons and excuses. I also have the Warrior Dash in three weeks. I have to get my training on! The next few days are forecasted to be cooler. I can run. I will be working nights which makes it harder for me, but I am going to rely on drugs to make me sleep and my face mask to block out the light.
I will sleep.
I will exercise.
I will stick to delicious nutritious foods.

With the way my schedule is, I may not get the biking in I want to get in, which is a shame because I wanted to scout out a new trail with some friends, but I will run. Possibly, I will swim and elliptical. Also, strength train.

Right now, I am sitting on my couch hot and sweaty, but I am excited about getting back on top of things.

My running is amazing. Or at least it is happening. I am easily able to complete a mile. This week, 1.5-2 miles per go. I think at that increase, I can get back up to 3 miles in the three weeks I have left. If I throw in a little strength training, I should be set. I am actually very happy to be able to do some running again! Very freeing. Still a little afraid to do some of the crazy hills on some of the paths I had been running, but may in the near future I will be back up to that. I would like to get back up to the steady 2.5 I had been doing as my regular distance and then start adding on again.

Hopefully, this ability to get back on the road again will increase my blogging, since I was a bit down and not interested in this during that time.

Do you think I am trying to increase too fast to get back where I was?

I mean, I am just trying to get back to where I was, not increase past that.

Have you ever been stuck in the "tomorrow is another day" mindset?

It is not fun and such an easy trap for me to fall into... so hard to clamber out of..

Happy trails!

Gills for Running?

2011-04-25T15:41:00.000-04:00

I woke up and looked out the window. The sky was blue, the clouds few and the birds chirping. I was excited. I knew it was supposed to get into the mid 80s today, so I wanted to go out and get my running and biking on early before it was that hot, but due to my dilly dallying I did not get to my running trail until almost 11 and did not get to biking until noon. Ah well. I also did not realize that the air was more water than not today. Holy Crimeny! It was super humid. Worked up a sweat just loading my bike onto my car. Ugh. Other than wishing for the ability to turn the water in the air off, it was a nice time outside. And sunny! I am starting to get a tan-line from my shirts and HRM watch thing. Good thing I am ok with that! It makes me feel like a real outdoor athlete person! Wooo!

A ducky at the lake where I ran

So I got to my first place, where I was going to run. I was running and biking in two locations since I am still not willing to push the running too hard, so I needed flat-ish and short. I was not willing to make my bike ride those things, so I had to go to two place. I am ok with that. I got there, walked about a quarter mile to warm up and started. It felt really good. No initial pain or stiffness, which is amazing. I was loving it. About two-thirds into my mile, I started to feel something in my hip. Not really pain, but it was uncomfortable. I walked a bit, it got better and so I continued with the run. I had to walk a little more towards the end; the three week slow down has hurt my performance. It was still an excellent run. I completed 1.04 miles in 12:33 (12:03 pace), which is really good for me! I am going to keep the running at a mile for this week. Maybe bump it to 1.5 next week. I don't want to increase the distance to fast. Gots ta keep the hip happy. I finished up with about a half-mile walk. The hip felt good.

Ran under these - shade and pretty pink flowers!

I was one sweaty mess when I was stretching. Then, a nice breeze picked up. Where the heck was that when I was tromping along cursing the wet air? Stupid. But it was nice while stretching. I downed some water and left for my biking.

As I was coming up on the park where I bike, I noticed tons of families and children. Last week was spring break, but apparently they also get Easter Monday. Lame. I mean, I am all for taking kids outside, but when all those people get on the trail it makes riding my bike difficult. People just don't understand. There was this one group, two ladies pushing giant strollers next to each other... also next to a man with a huge dog. They were just chatting it up, taking up the whole path. As I came up, I yelled "On your left" and the group behind them moved over while stroller-stroller-dog kept yapping. I yelled the first one early to give them time, so I had enough time to yell it again. Totally oblivious. Did not even look back at someone yelling. I yelled once more as I slowed behind them and nothing - I passed in the grass with a "Come on people, move." I really hope they got the message. Grr.

The spur off the main path... nice and empty

Other than that monumental passing failure, the others were fine. I biked pretty darn good. The hills are getting a bit easier, so that is awesome. There were a ton of geese and ducks. I saw two red winged black birds chasing each other and some neat blue beetles flew up in front of me. There were also a ton of cute puppies! And the weather... oh so nice. I decided on only doing one lap, but as I was coming on the final part, I decided to go off on to a side place that I had noticed the other day. It was nice and flat and had no people. It was not very long, and not a loop. I like loops. But there were three bridges and it was pretty.
As I was finishing up, I could really feel the workout in my lungs. I am guessing because of the humidity. I need to make sure that I keep going out so I can get used to moving and breathing in soupy air. I also need to remember that if the weather is predicted to get into the mid 80s or better, I should probably not dilly dally so much that I don't get out until noon. A nice morning run/bike might have been better.

I am super glad I went out, though! It was awesome. My hip was a little stiff again after the biking, but it is all fine now. Woo hoo!

On My Way!

2011-04-21T10:49:00.001-04:00

So I'm not gonna lie. This past week has been a lot of ups and downs. I have been cranky and unsocial. Some of that is due to the ol' ToM, the rest has been my hip. Either way, I have not been in a good mood and have managed to eat all the things I shouldn't. Oops.

In order to not make my hip angry and inflamed, I have been swimming, biking and walking. Not as much as I would have liked because I was still afraid that it would agitate my hip. Fear fear fear.

I mean, how sad is it that my packet for the Race for the Cure arrived and instead of being happy and excited, my stomach sank? What if I can't run it? It's not until June. I am super worried about the Warrior dash in a month. That is only four weeks. Ugh.

The biking has been amazing. I really like it. My cheap-o bike does not, though. Haha! I had to take it in to have the gears realigned and the front brake adjusted. Now it clicks when I pedal. A fairly recent development, actually, so I don't think it had to do with the bike fixing that took place. Stupid cheap bike. On the bright side, I am comfortable driving with my bike on the back of my car! Oh, and I can go eight miles in one go! Hooray! I am also able to do all of the hills at the park, as long as I go clockwise around the lake. I need to start going counterclockwise to see if I can get the hill that made me fall. Stupid hill and gravity combo.

Swimming has been less fruitful. The first time, I was on my way to probably beating a 40 minute 1600m. That would have been awesome. The time after, I did 1600m in 40 mins. Granted, I was not working as hard based on the ease of breathing. I also had to share a lane. I have never had to do that before. It was not horrible, surprisingly.

So that was what I had been doing for a week. Then, this week on Tuesday, I went for a walk. I did one mile. I figure that is like running lite. Still using similar ligaments and whatnot in my hip, just not pounding the joint all to hell. To be honest, my hip felt tight and a tad sore, but nothing really bad. Towards the end of my walk, on a flat patch of sidewalk (I know, concrete = bad) I gave it a go. It was not terrible, but it was not great. That and I was not dressed for running.... regular bra and all. It was easy enough that I decided to give it a go on Wednesday.

Wednesday. I got myself together, loaded my bike and went to the gym. I had decided that when I was ready to try running, I would do it on a treadmill. I have better control over my pace, the thing is hella cushier than outside and the belt helps. I wanted it to be easy. I got on and did a five minute walk and then just upped it to a 12 minute pace (5.0mph). The goal was to do at least a quarter mile and see how things were going. I ended up doing a half and then walking for a few minutes to feel it out. Still felt good, so I did another easy half mile and a walk to cool down. The hip seemed good! Very good! A little tight sometimes, but not overall. I stretched out, drove to the park and did a 5 mile bike ride. It was pretty out, but I did not want to push it too hard. I went home and showered.
The test was the sitting around and then moving. The non-motion usually was when it stiffened up really bad and started hurting. About an hour in, it did start to stiffen. The pain was not high, so I decided to ice it. I iced it 15 minutes on, 5 minutes off three times, so for an hour. Not sure if that helped or not. It was stiff all evening, but not painful. I was afraid it would get worse overnight.

BUT NO! IT DIDN'T GET WORSE! I woke up and it's fine. Not really stiff or anything! I think I'm on my way. I can stop eating everything out of anger. I can stop glaring at runners while biking. Hooray! I am still not going to push it too hard. Today is a rest day. Tomorrow another easy treadmill run and maybe a walk or two this weekend. Then I'll reevaluate Monday what kinds of running I am willing to try. I am sad that I have to start lower than where I was, but at least it is easier than starting from scratch last fall. I'm still worried about the Warrior Dash since it is so close, but I am thrilled that running seems to be edging back into the picture.

These Hips Don't Lie... But They Swim!

2011-04-17T19:53:00.000-04:00

So it is official. My hip has dropped out of the whole running thing. I am sad. I fell like I should've run today. I may not want to do it, but I am so used to doing it. It is part of what I do and I was making progress. That part I liked! I liked going faster and doing more. I liked going to 5ks and getting shirts. I liked going outside and enjoying spring. Ugh!

I don't want to take a whole week off. I don't want to set up an appointment with a doctor. I am so frustrated. I mean, I don't even consider myself a hardcore athlete... maybe a beginner runner/athlete. I could, however relate to this post from Caution Redhead Running. Granted, she is a hardcore runner with a stress fracture which is way worse than I am, but still I can relate.

Since the running is out of the picture, at least for a bit, I am going to try to keep moving. Exercises that are low impact will now make up my workouts, like swimming, using the elliptical and biking. Unless doing any of those hurt. Then I would have to stop those, too. I am also going to make an appointment with an ortho/sport med doctor sometime this weeks if the resting does not work. Fingers crossed it does, eh? Especially since I have two more 5ks scheduled (and paid for) that I want to do.

So Wednesday I decided to try swimming. I ended up getting there about 30 minutes before the aqua-aerobics started, so my time was limited. I wanted to do about a mile, 1600 meters, but I always lose track of my laps. This time I figured out a way to keep track! I took a small tupperware and put 16 pennies in it. I took the pennies out and put them on the lid and every time I completed four laps (approximately 100 meters) I put a penny back in the tupperware! Worked awesomely! I only got in 1000 meters, but I did it in 22 minutes and burned 238 calories! The best part of this is that I was on track to complete 1600 meters in faster than 40 minutes, which is what I had been doing it in months ago when I had been swimming. Hopefully, I will be able to get some more in tomorrow... for longer! Also, hope my hip keeps feeling better! Really want to try out my new shoes...

Well Hello Cupcake!

2011-04-13T19:57:00.000-04:00

The Hello Cupcake! 5K Race was sponsored by Moxie Bakery and Cafe and was a fundraising race for the Cakes For Cause. The Cakes for Cause is a community organization in Frederick, MD that helps children in group homes and ones that have aged out of foster homes gain life and job skills. I thought that was a great cause to run for... that and after running, the runners all got a free cupcake!

I'm zoomy!

Check out the awesome hat and jacket! Real runner gear! Woo!

Jake just wants me to hurry and feed him breakfast.

I was up at 0500 to get ready. I needed to get dressed, feed Jake and eat breakfast before 0600 which was when I needed to leave. I am about an hour out from the race and when I had gone out there the day before to get my race gear, I had checked out the park where the race was starting to see how parking was since the race folks had said it might get tight. There was not a lot of parking, so early in was my plan. I got there at 0700 and sat in my nice dry warm car. The race line-up was not until 0815 with a start time of 0830. As I was waiting in the car, my friend from the St. Patrick's run, Celeste, arrived and joined me. We chatted until her mom and sister arrived and then got out and joined them. There were five people dressed as cupcakes, at least three of which ran the race.

This one did not run, but she did give high-5's near the end!

Cupcake People

This was larger than the last race. Last time, there were about 40 people, this one had over 600. I could really tell when we lined up at the start, it was pretty crunched. For the first bit of the race, too, we were on a small footpath in the park, so it stayed crunched. After that it loosened up and we had has some room to move around. It was a great route. Most of this was flat, although the end was a little hilly, which was crappy. Why weren't the hills at the beginning when I was fresh??! As it was, around mile two, my hip started to bother me some. I went ahead and ran through it, but could feel it on the last mile and then at the end.

It looks like I am dying... and I am. Hehe!

I was beaten to the finish by three cupcakes, the boy one passed me early on, but he had super long legs, and at least one eight year old. Ah well. It happens, I can only go as fast as I can go. I wish I had used my RunKeeper on the race. I was going to, but then I decided that I had already drawn the route, what did I need to turn it on for?? Then about half-way through I remembered that it would give me the data on my splits so that I could see how each mile stacked against each other. Next time... next time.

THE PRIZE! I ate mine, Celeste decided against it. Silly, right? Hehe!

The cupcake was delicious! And it was not a giant one, either, like a lot of the cupcake boutiques like to make. It was more regular sized! Yey! But the best part of this was my finish time:

Distance: 3.1 miles

Time: 39:40

Pace: 12:48

I made both of my goals! Under 40 minutes and less than 13 minute mile pace! Hooray! It was a good day!

Shoes

2011-04-10T17:43:00.001-04:00

So the other day, a friend of mine, Pat, and I met up with Manda, another friend of mine, in order to get fitted for running shoes. We went up to Charm City Run where a nice man, Micheal, helped us out. He asked if we had any pain in our feet from our current shoes and then had us walk away from him, then back before running away and back. He told me that had some pronation and that I needed something to extra support to prevent injury. Manda had normal pronation, so she could get regular shoes. Micheal brought out five pairs of shoes for each of us to try on.

Manda's shoes and feets!!

My shoes and feets!

We tried all of them on and ran around the store and on a treadmill to see which ones we were the most comfortable wearing. Sometimes this consisted of wearing two different ones, one on each foot. It was a lot of fun! Micheal also sized our feet so we could get the right fit. Apparently, when you run, your feet swell up, so your running shoes should not fit snug like other shoes. It was like shoe shopping with my mom in elementary school - he checked them to make sure there was about a thumb length at the toe.

Eventually, Manda and I decided on which shoes to get. Pat already knew what he wanted, so he ended up just waiting and chatting. I ended up with the Brooks Adrenaline GTS 11 shoes. They were light and fit just right. I was happy! Manda ended up with Aesics.

New shoes in red, old in green.

I can't wait to try these bad boys out! I opted not to use them for the Hello Cupcake! 5k, just in case they need to be broken in, so I have to wait until I run at home. Unfortunately, due to my hip issues, I am might have to wait a week. LAME!!!

100 Posts Later....

2011-04-10T16:17:00.000-04:00

So I just hit 100. I feel like I should have one of those awesome MySpace sparkle words or something here. Ok, maybe not. So from post 1-100 I have:

Lost 20 lbs
Had a diet that consisted of healthier foods
Learned to incorporate unhealthy foods in moderation
Confidently signed up for four 5k races
Completed two 5k races
Gotten stronger and faster
Become a runner
Started biking
Gained confidence and upped the self respect

Not too shabby, really. I am pretty happy with how far I have come and where I am. I would have liked to have had more weight loss success, but I am super happy at how far my running has come. I still have a long way to go, but am actually enjoying the journey!

Here's to 100 more posts and journeying further down this road!

Of Bikes and Runs and Gear

2011-04-08T20:17:00.000-04:00

So I went back to the park Thursday with my bike and the intent to run. I had biked it and it did not seem all that bad as far as the hills were concerned. I mean, I biked up and down all of them, they couldn't be that bad. Oh, but they were.

Cherry blossom with a bench and some pansies

It was another lovely spring day and a work day, so I figured, rightly so, that it would be less crowded on the path. I took my iPod with me, but decided against actually using it. I like to hear the world when I run sometimes and since the bees were buzzing and the birds were tweeting (or honking in the case of the geese) I decided to listen to nature. I walked down to the path in a more circuitous route so that I could warm up and away I went.

View from the near side

It was amazing! The best part was that since there were walkers, some pushing strollers or walking dogs, I got to pass people! I felt like I was zooming, although in reality, I was not. Haha! In my mind I was going super fast! I mean, I hit a bee with my face when I was running. That was how fast I was going. I ran into a bee and it bounced off and buzzed away... I was cooking!! When I got to the far side of the lake, things changed. I still passed the walkers, but the hills! O, the hills! I figured I was being a baby about them since I biked them, then I realized I biked in the opposite direction. Still, though, the hills seemed pretty much all over, so I don't think that made a difference. When I reached the completion of one lap, 2.44 miles, I stopped my timer and took a gander: 34 minutes (13:57 mile). I was sad. I thought I had done better, but I did not. Then, once I got home and looked at the data, I felt so much better. RunKeeper judged that I had climbed 286 feet. That is a lot of feet and a lot of hills. I was ok with my pace after that!

Before I got home, though, I decided to go around once on the ol' bike. It was fun! I went around the same way as I ran and it was hard. I am not sure if it is because my legs were tired (they were) or maybe there are more hills that way around, even if that doesn't make sense in my head. I made it up all the hills, except one... where I almost made it, started to stop and tried to stand. I quickly lost my balance and was hopping on one foot while straddling the bike. I took a bit of a tumble, but because I hopped a few times, it was into the soft dirt on the side, so nothing damaged. When I biked, I took the same spur as last time so my distance was 3.23 miles. A little longer, but not insane.

View from the far side - check out that hill!!!

This was the first time I tried running and biking. I liked it a lot and think I will do it again. First, though, I am taking my bike to the shop tomorrow so that it can be fixed. It is still hard to change gears and sometimes changes on its own. Not cool bike, not cool. I am also going out to pick up my hello cupcake 5k packet tomorrow for the race on Sunday and going to a running store with a friend to have my feet looked at and shoes recommended! I also picked up some new gear today:

Wicking Shirts - goodbye random cotton shirts! These are supposed to keep me cooler
Wicking Pants - only one pair since I like the ones I have now. Mostly just want to see if it is worth getting wicking in pants form
Running Socks - again, supposed to move away from cotton for better performance, less blisters and other good things
Hat - When I ran on Thursday, the regular ball cap I wore was so freaking hot. I felt like my head was all insulated and that was unpleasant, especially considering the weather was not too warm. The runner hat is supposed to, yes you guessed it, wick moisture away and is more breathable so that my head stays cool, but I still keep the sun of my scalp and out of my face/eyes (I don't do sunglasses outside of driving)

I'll let you know what I think about all that stuff once I get a chance to use it. Won't be using it on Sunday because I am afraid it will not fit right or something. Wearing the tried and trusted for that! Except the hat. Heh.

I am also getting worried about my left hip. It is sore. The problem is, there is no consistency with the pain. It hurts when I sit, stand, walk, and run. It doesn't hurt when I sit, stand, walk and run. Humph. Not sure what to make of it. I think making the conscious effort to sit correctly has been helping and I have decided that once I finish the 5k on Sunday that I am taking seven days off from running. I will bike or elliptical or swim, but no running. Hoping that will help.

Pesky Pesticides

2011-04-07T20:51:00.000-04:00

As I have been working on this whole "healthier me" thing, I have upped my intake of fresh foods. This includes produce, lean meat and whole grains. This is not to say that I never eat anything that is processed. I am kinda working my way in that direction, but I do not have the willpower to say no to sweets.

They make me happy. I like what makes me happy. Deal.

But anyhoo, some of this oh so good for you food can be purchased in organic. Organic foods, per FDA, are produced without antibiotics, horomones, pesticides, irradiation or bioengeneering. Organic farmers are required to adhere to certain soil and water conservation methods and to rules about the humane treatment of animals. All of this raises the costs of the food. It tends to be more expensive. As far as taste and nutrition, there has been no conclusive evidence that those are better or worse in organic than in non-organic. However, it does reduce your intake of pesticides and other chemicals that you are probably better off not consuming.

Seal for Organic food

When purchasing produce, there are certain types that are worse for you than others. According to Women's Health magazine April 2011, by eliminating the "dirty dozen" you can reduce your exposure to pesticides by up to 80%. I suppose it depends on how much of those types you consume. Now, I eat a lot of bell peppers, spinach, kale and apples, all of which are on the list. Heck, I have an apple almost every day... or a pear which is not on this list, but is on others. I inputed the 12 worst contaminated and 15 least contaminated into my phone and will be attempting to buy those in organic form when able.

Insofar as meat is concerned, I am still working all of that out.

Bike Time

2011-04-03T20:26:00.000-04:00

Today I was going to go for a long run. My sciatic nerve was bugging me, so I decided against it. It was a pretty day, so I packed up my bike and went to a park. The loop around the lake was about two miles long and I figured I could take it! First, though, I had to get my bike onto my car and to the park. I always freak out when my bike is on my car. I figure it is going to fall off and cause a massive accident that will be my fault and I will have to pay for it. Ugh!

Loaded!

Made it!

The trail was a lot of fun. It was hilly and some of them were a bit of a challenge, but it was such a pretty day. The main problem I had was that there were so many other people. Some of the people had small children and/or dogs, which makes it harder to bike. They also, for whatever reason, had no idea that when a biker comes up behind and says "on your left" that they are supposed to be aware that I am passing. I had to come to almost stops because two people walking together were taking up the whole path! Arg! There were also, unfortunately, times where I would come up on people as someone was coming the other way and I had to slow. When this happened going up hill, it was super ouchie on the quads. Even with all of that, though, it was a great day and I am so happy I went out!

Pretty lake!

Cool bridge I got to ride over

I was actually having so much fun, that I did not realize I had started a second lap until I was pretty well into it. The wind was blowing, but not so much that it hampered me. It was more cooling than anything. The sun was out most of the time and it was in the mid to upper-50s. Wonderful day to be out!

A Canadian goose and some sort of duck.

Next time, I would like to do like I originally planned and get out there a bit earlier so that I can beat the rush! I ended up biking two laps, one with a detour because I saw a side spur off the trail, and completing 5.78 miles in 50 minutes. The ol' HRM said I burned off 436 calories, too. Woo hoo! I can feel the fatigue in my legs already, hopefully I won't get too sore. I am so excited about going out again!

31 Days Later

2011-04-02T12:49:00.000-04:00

Monthly
March was pretty daggum awesome. I am happy with the way it went, overall. On the weight front, I have decided that I always bounce around, but my bounce around area has dropped. I had been 207 sometimes, but tended to hang out more around 210-212. This month, I have seen 207 more often, but mostly been hanging out at 208-209. Still downward motion, so I am happy. Do I know why? Of course. I have not been the most efficient at tracking food and saying no to deliciousity when it popped up. Gonna work on that in April. But overall, tons of good things happened this month.

I completed my first 5k race and had a blast. I found out it is something I like doing! It was awesome being part of that! I did not finish last, which was my goal and I ended up with a plaque.

I managed to work in core and total body training three weeks. It may have led to my poor hammy getting a little damaged, but it got better. And man, I can totally feel the difference!

March 2011 Numbers:

Distance:
Bike: 13.33
Run: 17.81
Elliptical: 4.49
Walk: 3.45
Total: 39.08 miles

Calories: 5001

Time: 8hrs 46min

Injuries:
I overworked my right hamstring. It was pretty painful, but I learned that by babying it and taking a few days off, I can come back. I freaked out at first since I have a 5k next weekend, one in which I get a cupcake afterward, and I was not excited about missing that!
The other thing that I am working on is my left hip. I have always had issues with it. If I sit too long, it gets very stiff when I get up. My mom has bad hips and I know that when she was in her mid-twenties-ish, she took up a little jogging, but her hips stopped her. She is still a mega walker, she does 3-4 miles almost five days a week, rain or sleet or snow or heat or whatever. She does not go when my dad does not have to work, so usually weekends and holidays. Now, my hip has been bugging me a bit more since I have been running on it. I don't want to give it up, so I have been consciously sitting so that it is in a natural position. I like to fold my left leg under me, but that makes it stiffen a lot faster. I am trying to keep it straight. We'll see how that goes.

NSV
I had two yesterday! Hooray!

1. When I stretched out after my run, I noticed a significant increase in flexibility in my hamstrings and quads! I had to increase the pull on my quads to get the full stretch feeling and when I sat on the ground with legs apart, I could get my head to my knee! So excited!

2. FINALLY broke out of the 13 minute range for more than a mile when run outside. Granted my pace was 12:57, but that is almost 10 seconds down! Woo hoo!

Intervals or What the Heck was I thinking?!

2011-03-31T21:48:00.000-04:00

I learned a valuable lesson. Jeopardy helps when you are trying to push through on the elliptical.

Also, intervals hurt.

If you recall, I was planning on 8/4 three times. That was apparently a tad bit optimistic. Instead, I cranked out the following: 6/4 5/4 2/2 2/1 in 26 minutes. I completed 2.04 miles so my average pace was 12:44 which is faster than 13:00. Ha!

At first I was happy with all this, then I remembered that I used to be able to do an 11 minute mile... that would be 5.5mph for 11 minutes. I managed about half of that. Wonder where that speed went. Guess I sacrificed it for distance.

Is that good? I have no idea.

And for those of you that may be thinking that according to the schedule I planned, I should have done intervals on Wednesday, I had to rearrange everything because of work. I think I should still be able to get everything in, though, so that part is good.

Something Happened

2011-03-30T04:35:00.000-04:00

So on Sunday, before blogging my new training schedule, I had done Tone Zone for the week. I was pleasantly stiff on Monday, but really sleepy after work. I'm talking sandpaper eyelid type tired. It was my first shift on days and after kinda sleeping the night before and then 12 hours on, I was not ready to run. I did not want to have a bad run, so I came home and was asleep in about 20 minutes. I was exhausted.

Enter Tuesday. I woke up early and did my core work. Hammies and glutes were a little sore. I was ok with that. I was planning on getting in my run that evening after work. Everything was peachy. Then, as the day progressed, so did the level of pain in my right hammy. I stretched it out several times, but it really refused to loosen. By the end of the work day, I was getting some dull throbbing going on and it felt bruised, although no discoloration was going on. On the drive home, it did not get better. So I stopped at the store, bought some tiger balm and a heating pad and came home. I rubbed the smelly goo on it and put a heating pad on. It seemed to help some. Right now, I am doing the same. The pain level is down from yesterday, which is good. I am going to stretch it out once it is nicely heated up.
I have had pretty good DOMS before and I think this is a tad more. I am not sure what I did to aggitate it since I did ab work. I mean, I use my legs for stability on some of the exercises, but not even enough to make them stiff the next day. Don't think it is quite a pulled or strained muscle, but it might be close. I have intervals tonight and plan to do them. I need to get them done, darn it. I might have to rearrange my last training days. I would still like to get in a three miler, but we'll see how it goes. I have to listen to my body even when I don't like what it is saying, darn it.

I am not a happy camper.

Maybe with a tweak....

2011-03-27T11:41:00.000-04:00

I did my run yesterday on a treadmill. It was too cold outside for me! I like it mid-40's or better. It was just barely 40. Where did spring go?! Not a bad run. Seems like I am destined to do 13:00-ish miles forever. I can do one mile in 11:00, it's that second one that kills me. So, for the second time in a row, my 30 minute run was 2.25 miles. Well, 2.26 this time, but really? Tenth of a mile is a notable increase, not a hundredth. Although, if I keep tacking on one hundredth, I will eventually get to a tenth. Haha! Oh man. Such a long journey. But at least one of those two runs was outside and the other on the treadmill, so I am consistent. That part is good to know, especially since there are hills and weather outside, but I want to get faster.

In two weeks, I am running the Hello Cupcake! 5k. I really want to beat my last 5k time of 41:23 which was a 13:21 pace. In order to increase speed, it seems that the general consensus on the interwebz is intervals and cross/strength training. I already have a plan in place for strength training, I can add in a cross training day easy peasy. It comes down to intervals.

So I have come up with a plan... a plan that just hatched in my head about 15 minutes ago, actually. I am going to go back to the last interval plan on the c25k, run eight mins and walk five twice. I think I am going to tweak it a bit and do it once a week. I'll aim at run eight minutes and walk for four for three reps. It will be treadmill work, which should not be an issue since I think a lot of running this week will be on the treadmill due to time constraint - work gets in the way of all of my fun. I usually run at 5mph with a couple walk breaks. I am going to go at 5.5mph for intervals this week. If it goes well, I might bump it up a tad.

One thing I am a bit worried about is over training. I already have a bit of soreness, and I know that I have bad hips and feet (genetics are awesome) and I know that one of the things new athletes do is push it too hard. The internet is stuffed with stories of people that hurt themselves by hitting something too gung-ho and while I want to work hard at this, I don't want to injure myself and have to stop. I've made some pretty good headway into this and I don't want to mess it up. I think I should be ok, though. I am not increasing my mileage anytime soon. Staying here and working on this 5k thing for a while. I'll up the distance later, once I can do three comfortably.

Training for the Week:
Mon - Long run: 3 miles
Tues - Core Work
Wed - Intervals
Thurs - Total Body Work
Fri - Run 30 Minutes
Sat - Bike
Sun - Rest
Might switch up the last three days a bit depending on how sore I am after total body... last week it killed me for three days.

Cranking Out the Miles

2011-03-27T11:17:00.000-04:00

In case you hadn't heard, there was an atypical man in the LA Marathon this year. He weighed in at 400lbs and completed the marathon in 9:48:52. That is two hours shorter than he did his last marathon. A marathon is 26.2 miles. That is not a short distance, but this man did it. He did what people a third of his size cannot. Unbelievable.

At the same time, I have to wonder about why he would do that. I mean, the reason that people a third his size don't do it, the reason that people who run regularly don't do it is that it is a grueling run. It is long and hard. Was he doing it for health reasons? To prove he could do it? To get attention? To get a record (currently Guinness Book is looking to see if he did)? I mean, not to belittle what he did, no matter what the reason he did it, even if it was to impress Justin Beiber or something, he still did it and that is amazing. Just... why? Why would you do that to yourself?

It certainly makes me wonder about me. I have a hard time cranking out 5k. I am half the person he is and trying to crank out way less than half of what he did. Definitely inspirational. I mean, if he can do a marathon, I can certainly keep cranking out my three mile runs.

Wait, Me?

2011-03-25T12:18:00.000-04:00

I like running.

I said it.

I do.

Mostly.

Let me break it down. I still have to give myself a kick in the pants to get out the door and I still have to push it to get through my runs, but I love how I feel after. I love that I can run for longer than a few minutes without gasping, wheezing and wanting to collapse. I would love if my face did not turn beet red, but alas and alack, I think that will always be the case with my fair complexion. The fact that I can pound out miles - plural - is totally amazing to me. I also love the way it makes me feel afterward. Accomplished. Strong. Amazing.

In elementary school, I would stay in during recess to read and then stay in most days after school and on weekends to watch TV and read.

In middle school, same deal.

In high school, I did a one year stint as ball runner for the boys' soccer team and had to run. Dropped weight, too. Other than that, I was pretty non-mobile those years.

In college.... well, I think you can see where this is going.

I have never been a mover.

Now,not only am I a mover, but I am a runner.

I am a

RUNNER

Holier Than Though

2011-03-22T06:20:00.000-04:00

There are a lot of changes I have made over the past several months in regard to my diet and general lifestyle.

I have always cooked, but now I try to make it healthier - less oils and fats and more veggies and whole grain.
I have never been a non-veggie/fruit eater, but now I try and add more.
I take the stairs more than I had before.
I try and exercise at least three times a week.

Now, none of these are spectacular changes, but it has changed my mental state. When I am at the grocery store and see someone buying tons of processed foods and sugary beverages, I think "ew! do you know what is in that stuff???!!!" When there is absolutely no produce (fresh, frozen or canned) I really start judging, especially when it looks like they are getting a big batch for the week and it is not just a quick stop or a huge batch for a shindig. Or if they have kids and their cart is full of "treats" and nothing "healthy." I mentally scoff at them and put my nose in the air.
If I am at work and I am taking the elevator from floor one to floor six and someone gets on and takes it up/down one or two floors, I can feel myself wanting to roll my eyes at them and say "Sheesh, really??" I try and use the stairs when going down, no matter how far, or going up if it is two or less floors. But I don't know these people, maybe they have bad knees/backs/ankles? Maybe they don't know where the stairwell is? Maybe they are on their way to a meeting and don't want to be all huffy puffy or pink-faced? Maybe they are lazy... which is what I think as I mentally tally how much better I am than them.

Should I be judging them? No. It is their life and they can do what they want, like smokers and marathon runners, good or bad, it is their decision. Yet, I do. When I am in the store for a quick something or other and grab M&Ms and a dcoke while checking out, I feel like the person behind me with apples is judging me. Are they? I have no idea. I think it stems from the fact that if it was me, I might be.

Why can't I contain my inner critic? I feel bad for doing it and for being a Judgey McCriticize, but those are the first thoughts that go through my head... then I start making excuses for them in my mind because I feel bad for judging them. Then again, if someone had judged me a while back and brought to my attn that eating cheesy goodness and ice cream is a bad idea, maybe I would not be where I am now. Or maybe I would since it has to be something I decided to do and not something someone told me to do.

Does anyone else do this, too? Is it just me? Does anyone know how to keep the inner snob at bay?

Watching Eyes

2011-03-21T04:53:00.000-04:00

When I run outside, I don't like my neighbors to see me. And it isn't the adults I am worried about, it's the kids. Despite coming across as someone who thinks rather highly of herself, I have a fragile ego. I don't like to be made fun of.. not when it is vicious.

About three years ago, a friend of mine and I went for a walk in the neighborhood where I was living. Just a nice evening stroll, really. If I recall correctly, the weather was beautiful... or at least nice. We were going along chatting when three small boys, probably around 10 or so, on bikes yelled from a few houses back about our not being skinny. I don't recall the exact words, but it boiled down to "You're fat." They said it a few times before I turned around and yelled at them. I may or may not have uttered the F-bomb.

After that, I never really wanted to walk around back there when I knew the kids would be out. It kinda stuck. I mean, the other day, I wanted to run before work, but I checked the school schedules to see if I would be out there as they were getting home (still on nights, so afternoon is still my morning). I would be done by the time their buses came home, so I felt comfortable going out and running.

I don't know why kids are so mean. I don't know why at 30, I am still afraid of their judgement.

Right now, I am trying to get all my weekly cooking done and my laundry done so that I can get out and run before bed. I am running out of time, but not because it is almost bed time, but because it is almost bus time. After bus time is too late.

Sad, I know.

Buff-ification?

2011-03-20T04:22:00.000-04:00

Ze Muscles!
So I have been talking about adding in some strength training for a while now... and not doing it. Mostly because I was afraid of how it would effect my running, but also because deep down inside, I am lazy. It might be more of the latter than the former, but now that I don't have the "I need to be able to train for my 5k!!" going on, I am adding the strength training. The week went something like this:

Mon: Planned Day Off - A little stiff from the race on Sunday
Tues: Ab work - Not too bad
Wed: Run - MY ABS! OMG! MY ABS! They were sore. Ugh. Still. I ran for 30 minutes before work and got 2.25 miles done. I wish I would have gotten in an extra .25 miles so that I would have been at a 12 minute mile pace, but I am still glad I got that far.
Thurs: Tone Zone - Abs were down to more stiff than sore. Yey! Tone Zone from Women's Health is an all over workout. In 23 minutes, I burned 200 calories. It was a tough workout and I could not get through all the moves.
Fri: Rest Day - Legs and back were stiffening up from the previous day's workout and I was starting to get sore.
Sat: ~~Run Day~~ Rest Day: - My booty and thighs (yes, all of them, quads, hammies and inners) are ~~pretty~~ horrifically sore. I am hoping to be less sore tomorrow so that I can get in one more run this week.

So that was that. I am trying to figure out where to go with the running. I want to get better at it and improve my speed, but I am not sure how to do it. I keep asking El Interwebz, but I get a lot of different answers. I think I will just keep trucking along and plunking out more miles this week. Right now, barring a repeat of Muscles o'Pain, I am planning on runs for Monday, Wednesday and Saturday with Abs on Tuesday and Tone Zone on Thursday.

Weighty Issue and Grapefruit

2011-03-15T06:54:00.000-04:00

Number B Gone

One of my fave blogger, Rachel Wilkerson, had a post today about blogging with a bajillion links to things one should keep in mind, both content, style and tech wise, it was very helpful and eye opening. The one thing she stresses, as she does in a lot of her blogs, is that you have to own it. Own your blog. I like blogging, I really do, but I felt like I had to mesh with the ones I had been reading. I have decided to break out of that and do my own thing with this.
And with that, I am gonna take the weight portion out and focus more on the exercising and eating right. Does this mean I will not be weighing myself almost daily? Or that I am not gonna care at all what the numbers are? Oh, hell no.

I will be tracking my weight at MFP and will monitor it there. Since this blog is centered on losing weight along with getting healthy, I am leaving the MFP ticker at the bottom so that if anyone wants to check in on my numbers as far as what is gone, they can. I am, however, taking the monthly weights, the pluses and minuses and total, off the side. That was one of the things I really did not like, but did because "everyone else" did it. Of course, if I reach an awesome number, I will be typing my little fingers off in a happy blog, but I am going to start taking the focus off the actual amounts, especially since I feel like I am on the right track.

Pomelo
I am obsessed with this. It is the grapefruit's ancestor and it is tasty! It has that grapefruit taste, but mellower. It's actually almost sweet. It is a giant fruit, but a lot of that is the peel and pith around it, although it is still a good two servings.

I want to write it's name on my folder with hearts.

GO GET ONE. Do it now. You will like it because it is tasty.

Training and Race Re-Cap

2011-03-14T22:34:00.002-04:00

The Race

I woke up bright and early to get out and run. Since the race started at 0730 and I had to figure out how to get there and get there early enough to pick up my packet and sign in, that meant leaving the house around 0515. I wanted to be able to get up and move around a bit and not just roll out of bed and into the car.

The alarm was set for 0430.

Luckily, my internal alarm woke me at 0155 and I got to watch the clock go from 0159 to 0300. Hooray daylight savings magic! I dozed until 0415 and then got up. I fiddled on the internet and had some steel cut outs with apples, banana, peanut and almond butter and cinnamon along with some water. Then it was time to go.

Sadly, I did not think that the green I had would be warm enough to wear, so I skipped it and went with pink. Oh well. Then it turned out that it WAS warm enough that I probably would have been fine in my green. That was a bummer.

Once I got there and signed in, I had to wait. I was there alone and did not have anyone to talk to, so I just made friends. One of the ladies was waiting on her friend who was running late, and the other, Celeste, ended up starting with me, but she left me behind because she was faster. She did cheer me across the finish line, though! :-)

Me and Celeste

The start of the race was downhill, but I ran slow because I was afraid I would get tired. Turns out, I probably should have gunned down most of the hills. There were a lot of hills on this course and it seemed like I was always going uphill! But I wasn't... until the end. Holy cow, that start was a nice one, but the same hill was the finish! It was brutal. I made it though!!!

Hooray!!! I did it!!!

I came in 36th out of 39, so not last! I ran it in 41:23, which was just shy of my under 40 goal, at a 13:21 pace! I also came in first (and only) in my age group! Hooray! Haha! It was super fun and I can't wait to do it again! So much so that I signed up for one in a month, Hello Cupcake! 5k and Celeste is doing that one, too!

Since I am going to be doing a couple of these, I have created a page just for races I am going to do and have done along with the times and all so that I can track my performance!

Weekly Training Recap

Those numbers are not too shabby, eh??

Oh My

2011-03-08T04:03:00.000-05:00

So, things have been a little rough on the running front as of late. I had a few fears about this whole going the distance thing, which I may have mentioned, but I am feeling a whole lot better about it now. First, the backtrack.

The other day, when I was off work and the weather was spectacular, I went for a long walk. It was lovely. Then I ate a ton of sushi. This weekend, I worked Friday-Sunday night. I suck at nights. I like sleeping when it is dark and functioning when it is light. I have mentioned this several times before. The part that really was getting to me was that as soon as I woke up Friday afternoon, all I could think about was that it was the last weekend before my first 5k. The second thing I thought of once I started to move about was "Holy crap. My ankle and top of my right foot is stiff and sore." This was not good. I was supposed to run before work, but it hurt and there was no way I was gonna make it worse. So I canceled it, put on sensible shoes and then headed in to work. It was sore all day, but felt more stiff than sore on Saturday. I was feeling a bit better.

Enter Sunday.

I was determined to get in one mile before work. My foot/ankle was a tad stiff, but not bad. If I stretched it out a bit, it was actually better. So, in the rain, I ran a mile before work. First thing, it was the first time I ran in the rain. It was glorious! Second, whatever was wrong with my foot area worked out. No pain, no stiffness. It was a nice easy one miler, did it in just under 13 minutes. I worried about it all day, but the run appeared to do more good than bad and it was no longer an issue. HOORAY!

Then, today happened.

I like to watch House on Monday nights. It makes me happy. Last week, I went to the gym and ran when it was on. Kept my mind busy and made the run happier. I decided that was an excellent plan for this Monday. I get there, walk five minutes to warm up, switch treadmills (the one I was on was squeaky when I tried running), set the new treadmill to "Random" (the incline varies between 0 and 1.5) and off I went. It was magical. I started at 5.5, but that was a bit much, so I settled at a nice 5.0 although dropping to 4.7 when my heart rate was a bit high. I did not want to tire out. My goal was to 3.2 mile it, you know, 5k? I kept my towel over the display and watched House, commercials and random gym goers. I peeked a look at the clock and it was 20 after 8 and was sad that it had not magically been three hours or something, but I kept going. I started to feel it and glanced at my HRM to see how long I had actually been at it (I did not use it on my warm-up) and it had been 25 minutes. HOLY COW! New PR right there!

Then I realized I was still doing not too shabby. At 34 minutes, I had to keep it mostly at 4.7, but I kept trucking. I pulled the towel off right as I crossed 3 miles... and I cranked out the remaining two tenths.

I ran a treadmill 5k/3.2 miles in 39:13.

Now, I say treadmill because I know that treadmills are easier, but really? I am still extremely excited about this. The time is not super-racer, but I did it. I know I can do it. I am going to be able to do it on Sunday. I will finish. I will do well.

I am freaking phenomenal.

This combined with the fact that I am signed up for three races this year makes me finally feel like I ~~can be~~ am a runner.

I also weighed in at 207.2 for two days in a row. This was a super win weekend.

Triad!

2011-03-04T03:41:00.002-05:00

Last one for tonight, promise. I just registered for the Race for the Cure this June! Yey!

I will be doing it for donations, so help me reach my goal or at least cheer me on as I train for it!! :-)

B'gosh and Begorrah

2011-03-03T23:50:00.000-05:00

So. I am freaking out a little bit. Remember back in like September I was all gung-ho about running a 5k by the end of the year and it did not happen? Well, fast forward to the combo end/beginning of 2010/2011 time frame. One of my besties, LeeAnn, decided that she would do the St Patrick's 5k in Balto. Well, that gave a definite deadline. Then she signed up. I was supposed to sign up as well, but I procrastinated and was unable to get into that race. I had, however, taken off the days (or nights) that I needed to run the race, so with the help of the interweb, I found another race on the same day in the vicinity of Balto and signed up.

Well.

Given the time and where I had been, I should be way farther along than I am. I kept taking weeks off because, well, just because. Although I hold to the reasons for February. So I am not where I feel I should be considering the race is on 12 March. You know, next weekend. Yeah.

I am getting sucked into the whole "THREE MILES?!? WHAT WAS I THINKING?!!?" right now. I mean, I walked that far, plus a little, today. But that is walking. I can do that. Running? Buh. Who on the what?

I know that I can run a pretty decent mile. And that I can do a fair two miles with a smattering of walking, but three? Oh Lord.

I mean, I have to start somewhere, but I don't want to have a crappy race. I know I can finish, but I don't want to be last and that is an outcome that I might have to face. Ugh. I cannot believe that the time flew by so quickly.

I suppose I can look at it as my first time and it can only get better, but still. The fears and doubts are right there.

The best part? It has "rollers" and "an uphill finish." SAVE ME!!

At least I get a T-shirt.

Moving Along

2011-03-03T23:35:00.000-05:00

I went for a run outside yesterday. It was a good one, too. I did not think so at first and I still had the dreaded hill monster to contend with, but it was overall, good and fun. The wind was gusting pretty good, though and wouldn't you know it was full on in my face as I struggled up the hill. Other than that it was nice to be outside with the sun and the other people. I talked to a nice lady in the parking lot about how it was so much nicer to be outside where there were things to look at and not just a wall or a TV. Also, I wore my pink fleece... and saw two other runners in pink. It must have been Run in Pink Day. I did just shy of two miles.

Darn.

I thought that one lap was a mile, so I did two. Turns out it is just shy of a mile, so two laps are larger-shy of two miles. Gonna have to pay attention to my RunKeeper next time, eh?

I killed 262 calories and then ate them (and more) at a steakhouse with a friend. I did not bust my calories that day, so that was good. I am still 2 lbs up from the other day when my drunken compadre wanted to go to Denny's. Should have just not gotten anything. Wasn't all that hungry, but I did. Lesson learned. Busted calories that day, although not two pounds worth, so not sure what that is... water? The run yesterday and the steak after did not get rid of the water, but my rings were tight, so I guess I was bloaty. Yey! After the steak, I went to a friend's and did not partake in booze, so that was a win!

Today I walked three and a half miles. It was sooo pretty out. Not as pretty as yesterday because it was colder, but still nice. I did three laps in the neighborhood, which I thought would be three miles, but I apparently underestimated that and did an extra half! Woo! Killed 400 calories, but I know I just ate them and so much more.

I was trying to eat minimal food today since I knew I was getting sushi tonight. I was supposed to go with a friend of mine, but that did not happen, but I had my heart set. Went to a knew place, Sake, and talked with the owner, a bartender and a nice man from out of town while my order was prepped. Well. As per the usual, I ordered too much and refused to let it go to waste. I seriously need to stick to two rolls, three if starving. I always end up going "Oooh! That! That! That! That! That!!" and ordering way more than I need. With all the sauces and salts in those tasty things, I am not doing myself any favors on the health front or on the comfortable tummy front. So full.

Take aways for this "weekend?" Don't eat when you know you are not hungry and don't order/consume enough sushi for a small Japanese fishing village. Also, running outside is better than treadmill. Hoping to get out there again tomorrow!

What? March?

2011-03-01T14:36:00.002-05:00

Where'd I Go???
So this month was a bit of an interesting month. It was marked with very few posts and even less exercise. D'oh! I have a reason. Yes, despite the fact that it will sound like an excuse, I am calling it a reason. This may fall into the realm of TMI, but well, consider that a warning. I had been off my birth control since July or August and it was too much for me to handle, so I went back on. February was my first month on it again. The ups and downs of moods was quite daunting. My motivation fell to zero since I wanted to cry at everything and consume the things that did not make me cry. It was a difficult month to say the least. However, now I feel more even keel and have been hitting it up hard. I have been tracking most days and have been getting back into the swing of running.

Weight Loss
With all the super fun this month, I was up and down for four weeks. It was awesome... no, no it was not. I kept staying within about four pounds. As of today, though, I am at 208.4lbs. That puts me about .6 pounds from 20lbs lost. But, with rounding - 208lbs: I AM DOWN 20LBS!!!! Fantastic! I am THRILLED. Tomorrow when I get up, I am planning on getting it on with the tape measure, too, in order to see where that is. Woo!

Food
I have gotten back into cooking a lot. I am trying really hard to stay away from fast food, but Taco Bell is so delicious. I was super proud of myself for making it home on Sunday without food from somewhere. Granted, I ate a bunch here, but at least it was stuff that was not entirely bad for me.

Workin' Out
Well, as much as I would love this to be where I talk about the strength training I have added, I have not done that. Not really. I have even neglected my core. I am going to try and get that going tomorrow before I run. The running is going well. I can push it pretty good now, almost two miles of straight on running. I am super stoked about that! I remember when two minutes was kinda pushing it and five minutes hurt. A lot. Now it only hurts if there are minutes before it! Yey!
The only problem is that I have been trying to get up to a 5k which is 3.2 miles. I was supposed to sign up with a friend of mine for a St Patrick's Day one in Balto on 12MAR, but I procrastinated and it filled up. LAME. I had already taken the time off of work, so I found another one in the Balto area. That part is good, except that 12 MAR is less than 2 weeks away. While I am confident I am able to travel 3.2 miles... running it is a totally different story. Oh well. I will keep training until then and hopefully the adrenaline of the race will pull me through.

Closet Shopping

From the Closet! Never worn!

I am still amazed at all the "new" clothes in my closet. Tons of things I could not wear, now fit. Some things that... well, I could get into I can now wear out of the house without worry! It is amazing! There are still a few other things left in there that I can't get into... really want to, but can't.... about 5 more pounds or so and those "new" outfits are MINE! I think I love closet shopping more than actually shopping. I mean, it is awesome to fit into a size smaller at the store, but let's be honest, how many of those sizes differ between brands? Then there is the whole sizes getting cut bigger to make women feel better about themselves, Vanity Sizing. I know that my pants that I used to fit into that now fit again have not gotten bigger, I have gotten smaller. That, to me, is more validating than getting into smaller pants at the store.... although I like that, too.

So, Yeah

2011-02-04T15:11:00.000-05:00

Three weeks. That is how long I have been out of the gym. Sad. Pretty sure all my Jan Goals are not so complete. I'll address them in a later post. I really want to beat myself up about the lacking three weeks. I have also not been tracking as much, per MFP, but I have been mentally tracking and it has been ok. Actually, until the end of this week where I ate salt/calorie laden foods (sushi, chinese) I was actually down to 207lbs. Unfortunately, that was in the middle of the week and I am back up about four pounds, but that seems to be about what I gain when I eat crap. It should come off this week if I can stick to the good eats and the exercise, so while disappointed that I am not there right this second I understand that it is nearly impossible to gain four pounds of fat in two days. Well, nearly. I am sure if you approach it right, you can, but I digress.

So yes. Three weeks. I mentioned that I took a hiatus and that I was going to break it despite getting a cold. Well, the cold was much worse than I thought it would be and that killed that week. Can't very well do much in the way of exercising when you can't breath and your nose is running like a faucet. Boo. Then this last week, my sleeping was broken. Sadly, I was in the middle of shifting back to being on day shift and for whatever reason, it did not stick the way it has in the past. I was getting between three and four hours of sleep at night. I felt like butt. With all the time tossing and turning in bed, you'd think I would have just worked out, but it is really hard to motivate yourself when your eyes burn from lack of sleeping. Also, the remnants of the prior cold were still causing some issues breathing, although they were light enough to make for a workout.

So there you go. Call them what you will, excuses or whatever. The only week I regret was the one that I took off willy nilly before getting the cold. That week was just pure me wanting to be lazy. It would not have been so bad if it was not compounded by two more weeks of legitimate reasons, but 20/20 hindsight and all that, right?

I am happy to report, however, that several of my work pants that I had to take out of rotation due to weight gain are back in the picture now. One of the nights when I was not sleeping I went through and tried them on and they fit. Also, a dress that I had worn to a wedding and was... snug, now fits fine as does another dress that I outgrew before being able to wear. I will post some pics of them, maybe. The one that I have not worn will be worn to a wedding next week. Super stoked to be able to bust it out for an actual event! I also finally went in and bought new jeans. I had one pair that was a 16 and fit well, but the 18s were loose. A lot loose. Jeans should hug your booty all day... not just kinda hang there. So now I have new jeans that fit and am happy about that.

So I suppose this entry is not as bad as I was thinking it would be. While I really need to get to the gym (doing that in about 15 minutes), I did have several victories this week in the how I feel about my body/clothes department.

And that is a win!

Thoughts on Food

2011-01-23T19:15:00.001-05:00

So I ordered pizza last night. Delicious pizza. Since I am on nights, I ordered it around my breakfast time. I ate on it all night. This morning, I ate some for breakfast. Was it tasty? Hellz yeah it was! Then I started feeling crappy. Now, some of this is due to the fact that I think I am coming down with a cold... and yes, it is that ToM for me, but this bad feeling was all in my guts and with my energy level. Some of that is explainable, like I mentioned, but I think a lot of it was the crap I ate last night... and all week, really.
This week, I am going back to what I had been doing as far as food goes. I am going to get some cooking done. I have some recipes for scrumptious soups made of delicious and good, non-processed ingredients. And with all the cold that is going on here, soup sounds GREAT. On the menu - Colcannon soup (potato, cabbage and leeks), sweet potato chili and Moroccan pumpkin & lentil soup. ~~I will have the Colcannon soup link later.~~ It's up!

Mmm... I am super excited about the foods! Hopefully this stupid cold does not get in the way of exercise. Although I should be able to at least elliptical if I can't run. Something is better than nothing! Woot! This is going to be an awesome week!

Hiatus

2011-01-23T03:48:00.000-05:00

So I did not track at all this week. I had drinks with friends. I had pizza. I had taco bell. I did not go to the gym. I am not sad. It was a ~~good~~ fun week.

Last week I tracked. Last week, I exercised. I did just under 8 miles and I burned a ton of calories.

In the coming week, I will track and get back to the gym. I was at 209.4 last weekend. This week, I did not weigh in because my battery died. The last number I got was 210.4 on Thursday. I am ok with that. If it is higher now, I am figuring that most of it, if not all, was due to the salt and alcohol consumed. It will come off next week.

It was a fun week, and sometimes, you just need that.

Run Run Run

2011-01-13T02:56:00.000-05:00

So Monday I went in to run, even though I was feeling a bit overwhelmed with the distances that I must somehow get to. It was not all that bad. I did my usual speeds of walking at 3.5 and running at 5.5. I did my warm up walk, which is usually five minutes, but I felt ready to go at four. Off I went! Eight minutes later, I felt like I could do more, but I knew I had the other eight coming up, so I walked, but not for five, for another four. When I started running, I felt good and at eight minutes decided to push the remaining three minutes for an even mile. That was the most I had run at one time. It felt good! I did well!I covered 2.23 miles and averaged a 12:33 minute mile. Oh man. I was on cloud nine! So super awesome! Look at me go! RUN SARAH RUN!! Wooo! The ol' HRM said I burned 297 calories, too! I road.. ran.. used.. something-ed the elliptical for another 2 miles and was done. Good workout.
The next day was a rest day. I felt good with the running and wanted to take a break so that I could push it today.
Today.
Yeah.
Not as spectacular.
I started with my warm-up. Four minutes in and the running began. It hurt. I was not more than two minutes in and my legs were done. I was confused. I checked the display - incline 1.5. Wha...? I had the thing on Level 1 for random, same as the day before, when it maxed with an incline of 1. It was two different machines, same brand, though. I stopped the thing and set it to manual at 1%... thinking that I had my HRM for time... yeah... forgot to get the distance. D'oh! Figured I did probably about .25 miles. Pushed through the remaining six minutes of my eight, walked four and started on my second eight... did about four.... walked a minute and did four more. Walked a bit and topped it off with five minutes at the end. It felt a lot harder than Monday. I ended up doing 2.52 - ish miles (remember, had to add some random to it) and killing 407 calories. My hear rate was a lot higher this time. Not sure what did it, but I was hurting today. Maybe I pushed it too hard on Monday? Do I need more than just one day of rest? Not sure. Friday is the next day that I want to get in and run. Wonder how that will go. I'm pushing towards running 1.5 miles by the end of the month. Gotta get there.

On the bright side, RunKeeper said I have a new PR for distance - 2.5 miles - and that I have logged more miles than last week! Woo hoo!

Also, I am going to see if I can get off work in March for a 5k with one of my bestest friends, LeeAnn, who is working through this while "being a runner" thing, too! Super AWESOME! Once I know if I can get off work, I'll register and that will be two... TWO races I will be signed up for this year! YEY!

Weekly Checklist

2011-01-10T23:25:00.000-05:00

Last Week Goals:

Strength train at least 2 times Only once... d'oh!
Cardio at least 4 times I went twice, but did running and ellipticalling... so kinda
Run at least 8 miles I totally missed this... only did 4... 50%.
Run/Walk/Elliptical at least 13 miles I managed to get in 8
Track food at least 5 days; Don't bust 1500 calories I tracked four days, but I did not bust 1500 on those days. For the weekend when I was at work, I did not track, but I know what I packed, so I know I did not bust calories those days either
Get my apartment in order I was totally lazy... organized my linen closet and that was all.... haha!
Cook something beefy I made salmon... not very beefy... but tasty!
~~Finish The Walking Dead~~ Finished it and returned it to the owner!
~~Have some sort of weight loss~~ I did! Hooray!

Thoughts: I am going to move my 'week' to Monday through Sunday because Daily Burn gives me a time, mile and calorie breakdown for that 'week.' Less work for me! Woo! I did not do all that well this week on getting things done. I will have to do better this week. MORE GREEN!

New Goals:

Strength train at least twice
Cardio four days
Run at least eight miles
Run/Walk/Elliptical at least 13 miles
Track food five days
Don't bust 1500 calories
Clean apartment
Have a loss in weight
Make beefy food

Hopefully, I will do better this week. Going to set the same goals. GO GO GO!

Review and Rants

2011-01-10T20:14:00.000-05:00

Weigh in:
Last week -- 212.4
7Jan11 -- 210.0 (-2.4)

Total Loss -- 18.0

Thoughts on Poundage:
I am super happy about this. I stepped on the scale about four times to make sure it wasn't lying... same thing everytime! Yey! Then today I am back at 212. Holy crap. Not official, so not tracking it, but c'mon! So frustrating. The weight. Why does it always want to be 212.... 212... IT'S ALL I SEE!!! So frustrating. Am I the best at counting and moving, no, but I did not do bad this weekend. Could have been better, but not bad! I mean, sure, could be water, but why? I think about not weighing myself, but a couple recent studies like this, which I cited before, and others say you need to do it to help. I guess this means if I was not I would have gained a lot more? Grr. Trying not to focus on this, but sometimes... grrr!

Thoughts on Running:

My running at the gym consisted of trying to push through the run 8, walk 5, run 8 thing that I had dropped. I am also planning on doing it tonight at the gym. I put the tread mill on random so that the incline would just periodically change. It went as high as 1.5, which hurt. A lot. I was doing it at 5.5mph. It was really hard. Really really hard. I had to stop a few times, although not longer than 5 seconds, during the second run. This is the second day of week 5 of the couch to 5k and, according to the plan, day three I should be able to run 2 miles. Not sure about all that. I know I can do 1 mile, but double that up? That would be more than my monthly goal and more than half of a 5k, which I want to be able to do. I'll be frank, it scares me. That is a long run for me. Then I start thinking about the warrior dash and I start really panicking. What have I gotten my self into? I mean, one day at a time. I know that, but right now it seems a bit out of my reach, and not just the running, all of it.

Two-Fer Day!

2011-01-03T20:31:00.000-05:00

Second entry today! Motivated or bored??? Hehe. Got some goals to chunk out and something else...

January Goals:

Read 500 pages, per NYR
Be able to run 1.5 miles comfortably (50% distance increase)
Log at least 25 miles running
Complete Syl's challenge

Weekly Goals:

Strength train at least 2 times
Cardio at least 4 times
Run at least 8 miles
Run/Walk/Elliptical at least 13 miles
Track food at least 5 days; Don't bust 1500 calories
Get my apartment in order
Cook something beefy
Finish The Walking Dead
Have some sort of weight loss

I am going to keep with my "week" being Sunday through Saturday, so this is a tad late. Ah well. I'll get back on track here. Holidays, you know.

I went to the gym today and did some time on the treadmill and the elliptical. To be honest, my run was not that great. I was still super sore from Saturday when I thought those lunges were a good idea. That added on to my lack of running for about 2.5 weeks and.... well. Not so stellar. But I did it and that is what matters! Although I am a bit afraid that my legs will be killing me tomorrow. Oh well. Was planning on doing some upper body stuffs anyhow. Take that, legs!

So the other thing is that I have registered for The Warrior Dash in May. I have heard about these races and they look super fun, but had always been a bit hesitant on doing one. I mean, it is a 5k... with mud pits, cargo net climbs and more.... I have not even done a 5k!! Then a friend of mine said she was doing it and I consider us pretty much equal on our fitness stuff, so if she was going to do it, why not me!? So I joined up with her and some other friends, at least one of which is a marathoner. I am SUPER stoked about it! I think it will be a blast! Here is a quick video of one if you have a moment and have not heard of these:

Post-Holiday and Vacation Thoughts

2011-01-03T11:08:00.002-05:00

Don’t beat yourself up too much! There are two ways to look at this: 1) You didn’t lose weight, so you should be punished. OR 2) You survived the holidays with minimal weight gain, and can start the new year off right.... We all go through the dreaded plateau. Sometimes this lasts for a week or two, other times for months. While we’d all like to be that person who never plateaus, it just isn’t realistic. Just look at this past holiday season as a reminder that you are merely human. - Comment posted By Valerie on a Prior Fat Girl, Elle's recent post

On that note, I want to remind all of you that regarding the holidays and wherever you are in your journey(gaining, losing, maintaining) - whatever 'damage' or 'bad decisions' you think you made last week, don't worry about it. It's over. Don't beat yourself up, don't feel guilt. Just accept it and move forward. Start over. Life goes on. Part of being on program is giving yourself a break and being off program. Just don't stay off too long ;) - BitchCakes, one of the most awesome and inspiring people ever

The comment and post from these two girls is so spot on. This time is hard for anyone trying to exercise (busy busy times) while attempting to prevent overindulgence (so many good things), but it happens. And you know what, it will happen again next year. Get through it as best you can, and then move on!

And with that, on to my goals that I had for this past couple weeks:

Log at least 16 miles of cardio - Did just under 10
Strength train more than once - I got in two.. and am actually feeling the second one still
~~Be on time to work~~
Walk with my mom every morning that she goes - Three times for a total of 9.91 miles and it was all in sub 30 weather, through snow and ice. It was a darn good workout!
Leave the table not feeling engorged - I know after one dinner I was pretty daggum full. It was delicious, but the random snacking throughout the day also added in and I was stuffed.
Get one run in while in StL - It was cold and snowy so I wussed out.
Finish The Shining (should be able to with the flight) - And turned into the Library!
Finish The Walking Dead - Two more volumes to go!
Don't bust 1500 calories at least seven days - Not so much. Mostly because I did not track when I was away. Stupid.
~~Be on time to work~~
~~Be nice at work~~

Not too bad, but not great. I was surprised at the amount of miles I tacked on with my mom. I will establish some goals for this week and for the month in a separate post, but I wanted to go ahead and address these since they were while I was gone and they were over the holidays that I eat the most on and tend to slack off. And boy did I! But I know I was not the only one. With all the festivities at work and home, everyone tends to do that. As long as the damage is minimal (mine was) and you are willing to get back on track (I am).

Dec 21 - 209.0

Dec 31 - 212.4 (+3.4)

Disappointing? Yes. Horribly discouraging?? Hell no! My clothes still fit and I really lazed up there, so expected this to not be a super stellar weigh-in. I was super surprised the scale read that low two weeks ago anyhow, so since it was my first big loss in a while, I was still thinking "212" in my head. So really, I am not too upset. The only thing that is distressing is that for the next month the gym will be packed with people. Ugh. Hate the January gym rush.

Reflect 2010 and Resolve 2011

2011-01-02T20:36:00.000-05:00

2010 Bad:

Grandfather died
Cat died
Turned 30 (ugh!)
Gained around 16lbs
Work was super stressful
Had strep throat twice in two months

2010 Good:

Started blogging about weight
Lost 15 of the 16lbs
Pat came back from IZ
Able to comfortably run a mile

So 2010 has ended. As you can see, the year was not a total loss, but it was more negative than positive. Even though I hate aging, I am really glad to see this year go. It was rough, especially with the loss of my grandfather earlier in the year. Seemed that overshadowed and colored a lot of my year, and will probably continue next year... and the next and the next... but anyhow. I usually come up with a few resolutions at the new year, but by May/June, I have forgotten them. Maybe by writing them here and keeping them, I will be better able to remember and focus on them. I am going check in six months (already set up a reminder in Google Calendar) to see where I am and if anything needs to be altered or added. So, here goes:

Run 500 miles - I have signed up with this challenge at Dailymile.com, where I track my running/walking/elliptical-ing. This would be around 9.5 miles a week, and while it will probably hurt now, I think that as I get better, the miles will stack up.
Race! - I want to do at least one 5k. I would like to do more... and maybe farther, but right now, I want to set my eye on something not too scary.
Read 500 Pages a Month - I let reading slip a lot because I get "too busy." If I have time for reading blogs, updating facebook and playing games on the computer, then I have time to read a little here and there. I would like to read about two books a month, but some books are longer than others, so I am aiming for a page amount. I will not be counting magazines but I will count graphic novels. I just need to figure out a good way to track this.
Drop Pounds - I am not going to give a number. I am not sure of what I can do in one year. I would like to lose a lot, but I have learned that when I set a specific poundage goal and I miss it, I get very angry at me. Not a very healthy attitude, I know. I think just setting a goal to be less at the end of the month than at the beginning will work for me right now. Like I said, if in June, I want to adjust these goals, I will address it then.
New Recipes - Attempt at least two new recipes a month. Also, post them more regularly instead of posting a whole slew of them at one time.
Blog More - I have three of these babies. Weight-loss one, recipe one and random one. I kind of addressed the recipe one in the previous goal, so I need to stick with that. Maybe add in some restaurants and things. I think that would be a nice addition. As far as the other two go, I need to be more regular in my postings. Work tends to get in the way... a lot, but everyone (mostly) works, so that is no excuse. For this one, I need to make sure I am posting at least three times a week, especially the weekly and monthly check ins on weight, exercise and other measurements (also need to keep up with other measurements). For the random one, I would like to see at least two postings a week. I should keep in mind that I can start drafts when I have time and finish them as I can to post later.
It's Not Delivery - No more delivery food. This is a major killer for me. The pizza/Chinese food comes to you. Handy? Yes. Too handy a delivery method for calorie laden food? Totally. If I really "need" the pizza/Chinese, I can go get it. Or go get a healthier option at the grocery store since I have to leave.
Go Out - A lot of times, I am so exhausted from work or just feeling lazy that I don't do anything. I am also afraid to go out and drink because of the calories and bloating that follow. I need to get over it. I want to go out and do things. Go to museums and places and stuff. Nothing too specific, but I would like to have at least something going on most weeks. Also, I just got foursquare on my phone and am addicted.
Vamoose - I would like to go on at least one, preferably two, trips somewhere for vacation. For fun, though, not just a trip out to see my parents. I just need to figure out where and when and who is coming with me. Also good for foursquare!
Get Buff - I need to incorporate more strength training. Lunges, ab work, weights, something. At least three times a week. Follow that up in my weekly goals and maybe I can hit it!
Clean - Attack house and get it spic and span. I would also like to set up a schedule for cleaning so that it stays clean. Not that my place is dirty, it is just cluttered. This also applies to sorting mail, filing and shredding. Get it together and keep it!!!

That is eleven things. Eleven things for 2011. Not all of them are weight-loss related, either, so that is nice. Just all around improvements! Let's get this year started! Oh. Right. It did start already. Haha!

Plotting and Lunging

2011-01-02T19:35:00.000-05:00

I am working on my resolutions. I can come up with nine, but I feel like I should have eleven. Eleven for 2011. Yes. I like it. Two more.

On another note, I got up early yesterday morning and did some stuff. I sprinted down my block, which was a dumb idea. It was 30 degrees and the air hurt my lungs. I was coughing for the next hour. Uck. Once I decided that running was stupid, I decided lunges were in order. I did clock lunges for optimal lunge-y-ness. Two sets of ten per side. By the end of the day I was sore... and today I can hardly stand and sit. Oops. Which makes me think that I should add "strength train more" to my list! Woo! One more!!

Half-Holiday Vacation Update

2010-12-26T10:43:00.000-05:00

Well, I have not weighed in like I thought I would. I do know that the first day, I was retaining water like crazy! I drank water all day and did not visit the restroom at all. Hm. And my pants have been tighter since. Blah. I am sure all the crap has not helped. The days have been busy and then it snowed all over, so exercise in the form of walking has been nil.

I have been living on cookies and candy.

Pre-Flight

2010-12-22T03:41:00.000-05:00

Getting ready to go to the Airport. Weight before take off (and I am pretty sure my scale is lying):

Dec18 -- 212.8
Today -- 209.0 (-3.8)

Total -- -19.0

Now we will see how the Vacation plays out.

What I Didn't Do and What I Plan to Do

2010-12-19T19:39:00.000-05:00

I think the title fits this week. There is a lot of red (and some purple!) on my list this week. Hmph. Ah well. Here is the rundown:

Cardio four times - I went to the gym three times this week, but on one day I did running and elliptical. I am counting it as partially completed.
~~Log 8 miles run/walk/elliptical~~ - 11.66 miles, baby! Blew this out of the water!
Strength train three times - Not sure what is up with this. I seem to only be able to cardio or strength train during a week. I still need to fix this.
Plan meals - I planned them for work, so that was three days this week. I need to plan for my off days too and not just for work.
Stick to meals at least four days - I stuck to the days I planned, which was only three. D'oh!
~~Don't bust 1500 calories a day at least five days~~ - Managed to get the five in! Yey!
Weight loss of any amount - Pretty sure what I have on me now is water, but it is still weight. Damn.
Dentist Appointment - Need to get my teeth cleaned, darn it.
Finish The Shining and return it to library - Got a lot of it read, but I did not finish. It's getting good!
~~Be nice at work~~ - I did not think I was, but Lee said I was, so I am going to take it!
Be on time to work - Stupid Monday.

I think that these goals are going to be a combination of this week and next week. I am not sure how much blogging I will be able to get in while I am home.

Log at least 16 miles of cardio
Strength train more than once
Be on time to work
Walk with my mom every morning that she goes
Leave the table not feeling engorged
Get one run in while in StL
Finish The Shining (should be able to with the flight)
Finish The Walking Dead
Don't bust 1500 calories at least seven days
Be on time to work
Be nice at work

That is all I got right now. I am kinda in a hurry to finish this up so I can get ready for bed. Work night and all.

Holiday Trip Thoughts and Plan of Action!

2010-12-19T10:19:00.000-05:00

Yesterday I talked about my numbers. It was good. Then I had a setback. It happens, I suppose. I woke up feeling all bloaty and icky from the crap I ate. Hoping that will go away today, I plan on eating some good, natural, low-sodium/fat foods today and drinking lots of water to flush the salt out. So far so good! It's early yet, though, eh? Haha!
Since I was feeling not so hot last night, both mentally and physically, I went to bed early. I woke up and it was dark outside... and it was 0630. I am ok with getting up that early, but there was no sun. I hate no sun. I waited for the sun to start coming up before I rolled out of bed, right around 0700. Got some tea, started laundry and went to do my ~~stalking~~ blog reading. One in particular hit me as well timed, at least for me. Over at Jack Sh*t Getting Fit was this post. Today was Jack's weigh in and he was down (YEY!), but what got me was the title, Today is January 1st. He talked about how he was skipping the holidays, not because he doesn't like them, but because of the temptation they provide. The temptation to not get lazy, both physically and in regard to what goes in. So true. So incredibly true. And well timed, what with the Holidays in full force for the next two weeks.
This post really got me thinking. I mean, here I was holding my own thus far. Slight gain, but overall, holding steady. Holding at the 212 mark. I thought that was pretty good for this time of year, and it is.

Pretty good.

Is that what I want?

I want exceptionally awesome.

And for that, I need to crank it up. I had been contemplating my goals from last week (I'll get to them, probably in another post today) and how I had been considering how I was going to measure the next two weeks. For one, I am going to be out of town for seven of the next fourteen days.
Original:
I usually do pretty good at my parents house since my mom does a lot of cooking, all of it good and mostly healthy. I also try and get out with her when she goes for her morning walk of about three miles, so that helps. What I had also been thinking was that I would not track while there. That I would just "do my best" at eating. I also did not want to weigh myself at all while there since my parents' scale will probably weigh me differently than the one here. I did not want to deal with gains or losses that were not official.
Re-Mix:
I am going to do awesome at my parents' house. I am going to track as much as possible. It will be hard and I may not be able to get it all, but I need to keep a handle on what I am eating and how I am doing. My mom goes for her morning walks early in the morning. Before the sun, when it is dark. I am also going. The moving will do me good. I will also be weighing myself in the morning. It will not be official, but it will let me know how much I fluctuate while I am there and will keep me on track. I will be able to see if I am gaining and adjust accordingly.
I think this is a good plan. It allows for me to still have fun and enjoy my family, but should keep me accountable.

Ouch II - The Tracking

2010-12-18T21:48:00.000-05:00

So I went to MFP and tracked what I ate... like a good girl. Even if it is bad, track it. Now I feel worse. ugh.

2812 calories (DAG!)
222 carbs (NOOOOO...)
151 fat (HOLY CRAP!)
145 protein (NOOOOO!!)
14 fiber (actually, that one is fine)
9686 sodium (WOWZER!)

Then hit the calculate button: If everyday were like this one, you'd weigh 219.8 in five weeks.

At least I tracked??

Man.

Double calories and protien, almost triple carbs & fat, and almost quadruple the sodium....

This, folks, is why I am not skinny, however, this data might be what prevents a splurge like this from happening again.... oye vey. I guess "they" were right... one bad cheat day can kill you. Hence life change and not diet, eh?

Ouch

2010-12-18T20:00:00.001-05:00

So after that awesome post about how awesome I am doing and stuff... I ordered pizza and wings. It is cold. I was sad. Pizza is awesome. The wings were on sale.

I ate all the wings. Ten of them.

I ate four pieces of pizza.

And oreo pie.

Granted this was all afternoon, not just one giant inhale, but I feel ill. That was stupid. I say never again, but I have a hard time believing that. Next time I am going to do this, maybe I will blog about it and that will keep it from happening.

Now I have to drink like eight million gallons of water to get rid of all the salt and crud that I just ingested. Bah.

Sometimes I feel like I will never be able to do this. That this is where I am and this is where I will stay. *grumble*

On bright note, check out my exercise ticker up there top right! It has a dinosaur that will tell me when I make 50 miles! Neat, huh? I call it the Move-a-Sarah Rex! Woo! Go dino, go!

Numbers, Baby

2010-12-18T17:40:00.000-05:00

Weight:
Last week - 212.4
This week - 212.8 (+0.4)
Total Loss - 15.8

Thoughts: Not to happy with the gain, especially when I was down to 211.4 on Wednesday. I mean, I had one bad day and it translated into this? I know I did not consume that many calories. I guess with the salt and alcohol it could be water. Or maybe water from the extreme workout I had on Thursday, my muscles are stiff. Oh well. I suppose with it being the Holiday Season, I should be happy with this... and I am, mostly. Just need to bust through this 212lbs wall!!!

Distance and Time:
Running/walking - 1.92 miles (21:30)
Elliptical - 9.74 miles (98:08)
Total - 11.66 miles (119:38)

Thoughts: I am very happy with this! I did over 10 miles this week in three days! I am a winner! Yey! And since I did it in just under two hours, that means I was just at a six mile minute. Granted that was with the elliptical. It is easier to maintain a six minute mile on that. I should run more, the bug just left me right now. Maybe with the beginning of the new year.

Heart and Other Measurements:
Resting Heart Rate: 62bpm
One Minute Heart Recovery Rate: -27 beats
Waist: 37.75 - 35.5 (-2.25)
Hips: 46.5 - 44.25 (-2.25)
Bust: 41.0 - 39.0 (-2.0)
Thigh: 28 - 26.75 (-1.25)
Arm: 14.5 - 13.0 (-1.5)

Thoughts: This was good to put in. I can see all my measurements went down. Well, at least my body. Which was nice to see since my weight is being stupid. haha! The start measurements are from the beginning of all of this, or at least the first time I took them in Aug, and the recent ones are from today.
My resting heart rate is stellar. According to this chart, I mine is excellent and just a few beats above athletic. Weird. I don't feel like I am an athlete. Maybe that will come later. As far as the recovery rate, I decided to check mine after reading this article from Runner's World. I did it the other day and it was right around 27-ish. I forgot where I started exactly and then it was about a week ago so I am a little fuzzy on the number exactly. I will have to do it again and get another one, but I remember it was close to 30. The only reason I remember it was because I remembered that 30 was good.

Mr Scale

2010-12-17T10:39:00.000-05:00

I was supposed to go to the gym yesterday, but decided that since it was snowing, and I hate snow, that I would stay in. I mostly read The Shining and lazed around. Then I went to my friend, Pat's, house to hang out. Had a bottle of wine and a large beer... and two slices of pizza. Oops... top on that my sudden urge to bake midday and the cookie dough that was consumed and it was not a great day for my waist. And since I have the cookies here, I had four for breakfast. D'oh! I am taking the rest to my rental office. They are awesome and I need to get rid of these things.... or I will have more for lunch and dinner!!!

Other than the slip up yesterday and for breakfast, I did not too bad this week. I am going shopping and to the gym today, so that should be good. All my clothes fit the way they should still, yey! I also weighed in Monday-Wednesday and was losing, so hopefully this little speed bump won't derail all that. After reading this, I have decided that I will be weighing in almost every morning since this can be helpful. I have seen the same data in several places, such as in Shape Magazine or Women's Health (I read them both, so I forget which one it was...) and some other places. I tend to read up a lot on weight-loss, I mean, who doesn't when they are trying to do this? I think I need it because I tend to ignore a lot of the little slip ups... figure "well, I have X days until I have to weigh in, so I can be better then and not today" which leads to issues. It also leads me to push my weekly track back a day or to switch it so that I have "more time." Like I forgot to weigh in yesterday (I am better on days that I work) and then today I ~~forgot~~ avoided the scale because of the alcohol last night and then ate breakfast.
The whole point of having one of these days is to be held accountable for my decisions... and to track what I am doing. If I avoid it or whatnot, then I am not really tracking or holding myself accountable. I know that my weight will fluctuate daily and that little ups and downs will come with this as my body loses weight or holds water or whatever. I do not have clinical depression or an eating disorder, so this should not cause me any more issues than I have. It kinda gives me a morning boost: this is where you are now... where do you want to be tomorrow?? That actually does help.

**In the middle of writing this, I jumped on the scale. Don't want to be a hypocrite and all... up 1.5lbs from Wed probably due to the alcohol, pizza and cookies. Not enough calories for all that, but I would wager the water is in me. haha!**

2010-12-12T11:24:00.000-05:00

So, as part of my weekly goals, I am planning my meals for work. Since I eat two snacks and two meals at work, sometimes three meals if I don't have time for breakfast, this is helpful. It keeps me from standing in the kitchen with the 'fridge door open staring at the contents trying to plot in my head. It also gives me a good count on calories so I know how I am faring and if I am able to squeeze in something not on my list... like if someone at work brings in cookies. Haha! This also makes it easier for me to make a grocery list.
This week is looking good so far on the food front. Mon-Wed I have three meals and two snacks planned and come in at just over 1300 cals a day. That is great considering I will probably have a cookie. Haha! Ok, maybe not, but that is good in case I can't get in the exercise. I am trying not to plan for burning those calories. If I get to it, I will adjust and eat something when I get home. This way I am not agitated at myself. Although I REALLY need to get some cardio in. I have a basic plan for strength training for the week, but I need to get that cardio in. I mean, it is no fun to do, especially after over an hour in traffic getting back from a 12 hour shift, but it helps, both with the weight and with my mood. And lemme tell ya, the mood thing was horrific last week. Hopefully this will help.

rain is stupid

With the lack of sleep from last night and the gray, wet weather outside today, I am not going to go to the gym today. Not feeling it. At least my abs, chest and back are sore from yesterday. I did something! Yey!

Gravitational Pull Check and What I Got Done

2010-12-11T18:48:00.000-05:00

Weigh In:

Last week -- 112.6

This week -- 112.4 (-0.2)

Total -- 15.4

Thoughts: I am down. That is good. I thought I would get more, but I did not. I did good with the food, but not the exercise. Lesson learned.

Goals:

Last week, I set up some goals. Here is how I fared:

Cardio four times
Log at least 8 miles of run/walking
~~Strength of some sort three times~~
Girlie push-ups 3x10 four times (doesn't count twds above)
~~Plan meals for the week~~
~~Stick to meal plan at least four days~~
Don't bust 1500 calories a day (I didn't on days I tracked... I only didn't track once...)
~~Loss of some weight, any weight~~
Paint nails (this was for the holiday party I did not go to... so...)
Haircut (also for the holiday party...)
~~Make doc~~/dentist appt
~~Book flight home~~
Finish The Shining (started it...)

Well, not super bad. Some of this was just because this week was so hectic and crappy. Did not make it to the gym, did not have the energy to read and since I did not go to the holiday party, I did not do my nails and hair. Although now my nails are hampering my typing. I need to cut them off.

So, without anymore chatter, next weeks goals:

Cardio four times
Log 8 miles run/walk/elliptical
Strength train three times
Plan meals
Stick to meals at least four days
Don't bust 1500 calories a day at least five days
Weight loss of any amount
Dentist Appointment
Finish The Shining and return it to library
Be nice at work
Be on time to work

We'll see how it goes this week, eh?

Blah

2010-12-10T11:26:00.003-05:00

So I am not going to address my goals yet, since I have one more day. Let's suffice it to say right now that I had a crazy busy work week, combined with my body clock resetting and all darkness.

Today it is gray outside and we all know what that does to my motivation. I have to get my booty in gear and running or something-ing. Moving! GO GO GO!!

And now a few snowflakes have started falling. Ugh. This day just gets better.

At least I got an "about me" page posted. Check it out!

I am also working on getting another blog up and running that is not only about this journey, but just life. I will link from here to there, but not from there to here. As much as I like being on here and talking about all this jumping, running, eating and weighing I like it being a bit more anonymous. It is the same with my food blog since I send the links to friends and coworkers that want recipes and I would rather they not know what I weigh. Is that silly? I think it kinda is, but I am super self-conscious despite how outgoing and confident I seem.

Ugh. Snow is coming down more. I am never going to get out of the house!!

How Cool Am I??

2010-12-04T06:31:00.000-05:00

I Ate All of It

I woke up at 0430. That is a little earlier than I wanted to wake up, but I suppose it will do. Then I finished the pizza I bought yesterday. I ate it all. Now, I could complain about it. About how now I am all full of fat, calories and salt, but I have decided that this entry will be a positive one. What could possibly be positive about eating a whole pizza in 24 hours, especially knowing that I will be hungry and wanting food later today??

it was not a large, and it has been in the past
I am gyming it today hardxxxore
it was a veggie pizza
set backs happen even to the best of us

So there. Take it, Guilty McNegative!

Making a List and Checking It Twice

As you may have noticed, I have been off track for probably the last two months. I have not gained anything, but I am still not doing what needs to be done. I have decided to re-re-instate goals. I was looking at older posts and saw some of my old goal lists and remembered how fun and fulfilling it was to cross things off a list that I had accomplished. Besides, it works for Santa and grocery shopping, right??

For right now, while I am off on weekends, my week will be Sunday-Saturday. So I will compile a list today, but what I do today will not count. It starts tomorrow. Now, today is not a free-for-all-Sunday-before-the-Monday-diet-starts type of day. Not at all. Today will be a day like any other. I will gym and, despite the early pizza "setback", not eat all the food I can find. So, this week I am aiming to:

Cardio four times
Log at least 8 miles of run/walking
Strength of some sort three times
Girlie push-ups 3x10 four times (doesn't count twds above)
Plan meals for the week
Stick to meal plan at least four days
Don't bust 1500 calories a day
Loss of some weight, any weight
Paint nails
Haircut
Make doc/dentist appt
Book flight home
Finish The Shining

That ought to do it. And see? Not all of them are weight/diet related. Well rounded and such.

Winner

Since some of the more recent posts have made me seem like a whiner, I wanted to do something about me being a WINNER. Here are some of my accomplishments so far:

Weight:

When I started this, I was 228lbs. My pants were tight and I was pushing my ability to get my toochas into most of my clothes. Now, I am down 16lbs. and if you remember from this handy list, that means I am down one bald eagle.... or an avg house cat and a guinea pig... or four ostrich eggs. That is not to shabby! That is the weight I gained last year. All of it. I am back to where I should have started, although I don't think i would have started and been this successful if I had not gotten that high.

Running:

I can run a mile. A whole mile. In 11 minutes, no less. Woo! That is amazing! I started running before I started this blog. I was doing the C25K plan and was struggling with the whole running two minutes. Now I can do two minutes with no issues and really don't usually start feeling it intensely until around 9 minutes. I am awesome! Was actually thinking of increasing my distance a tad so I can push it more.... yeah, planning on trying to run more than a mile. wow.

Overall:
I do feel better. I feel less tired. Usually happier. I think it is the combination of eating better and moving more. I know that on my brief... um, hiatuses I feel it. I also just feel more confident since I now that, despite being far from goal, I am down. I fit my clothes better.

I think I should do more of these types of posts... an overall hooray for me type things. Maybe weekly with my goals?

The Week in Review

2010-12-03T17:34:00.000-05:00

The Ol' Switcheroo
So I'm in the middle of changing sleep cycles. I am coming off nights and going to days. I love love love being on days! I sleep better at night when I am supposed to sleep. The bad thing is I lose one day of my weekend. You see, technically I am off on Friday, but since I work Thursday night, I don't get off work until Friday morning. So I usually nap and try to sleep as little as possible until the evening. This leads to me being a cranky-pants. It also almost always leads to fast food or, like today, pizza.

Moving
I did two days thus far this week. I was going to go today, but with the switch, I am all broke on the inside and would train like crap. I will go tomorrow and Sunday. That will be three days this week and start off next week. While I would have liked to get more in this week, I am ok with just three days. It is more than I did the week before, which was a big ol' goose egg. Heh.

O! The Nommage!

I eats it all!!!!!

So the holiday season is upon us and I am a baker. I must bake. It is the time of year for the baking!!! I take it to work and that keeps the portions in control because my coworker eat most of my goods. Usually there is a combination of reactions consisting of "oh boy! delicious!" and "holy crap!!! you're making us fat!" And that is from one person. With the number of people in my office, around 60, I am pretty sure that nobody gets enough to make a significant dent in their weight unless they are trying. Sadly, though, I am not the only baker... and that leads to lots of things. And I have a sweet tooth. But again, with all the people in the office, there is a darn good chance I will get some of the goods, but not enough to make a HUGE impact on everything I am trying to do, especially if I pack healthy meals and keep moving. Pot lucks, though, are painful. So much food, so little willpower. There was one today. I ate everything. Nom. I suppose as long as they are few and far between, I should be good. Mostly it is the guilt.

Holding Strong

2010-12-01T07:04:00.000-05:00

So far this week, I have been able to get my booty to the gym twice. Woo! I was a bit sore yesterday and tight today, so I did not get as much running in as I would have liked. I ran one mile (11 minutes!!!) and then walked... total time 20 mins. I was there before I had to go to work. Was pretty sore/stiff at work today and am taking today off. Every other day should be fine.

Just wanted to document that I am getting in the moving. Oh, and tracking food. This weekend I will have more to say since I will have more time. Also, the end of the month so I will have those stats... although I am not expecting much since I slacked off 50% of the month. Oops.

Watch Me Go!

2010-11-28T22:28:00.000-05:00

I went out and ran errands and then, I finally made it to the gym for a run.

And

was

amazing!

I had not been running in about two weeks. Two whole weeks. Not cool. I had gotten to the point where I figured I would barely be able to crank out a 12 minute mile. Which was disappointing especially since my month mini-goal was to be able to do an 11 minute mile. I did not make my last month's weight goal, so I was very down heartened and even got rid of the mini-goals on my page since they did not seem to be helping me get anywhere. Then I got to the gym. Stepped on the treadmill and started The News from Lake Wobegon. I started a nice warm-up at 3.5mph and after 4 mins went on to 5.5mph...

and I ran for 11 minutes.

One mile.

After two weeks off.

Then I walked for about 6 mins before running for an additional 5 minutes at 5.5mph, so just under a half-mile. Not too shabby for having taken so much time off. Also, given that it had been so long, I think that I actually made it to being able to run a consistent 11 minute mile, as long as it is one and on flat ground. I am ok with that. I consider that a win!

This leads me to wonder how far and how fast I could have gone two weeks ago when my running was more consistent. While running outside is more fun, it is easier for me to get a read on my running on a treadmill and I did not do that during that time frame outside of intervals. I need to work it in on a regular basis. But for now, I am happy!

Also, my RunKeeper said that I have set personal goals! Hooray!

Comfort is a Bad Thing, Pt II

2010-11-28T05:15:00.000-05:00

Another week gone with no tracking and no exercise. I have not stepped on the scale and I am dreading it, although not as much as when I get out and run. I mean, my clothes are still fitting fine, so I am sure that even if I do have a gain, it is not horrible... not that a few weeks of tiny gains don't add up, but I am pretty sure that my running is going to suffer more than my attraction to Earth via gravity.

The funny (?) thing is that I planned on doing something this week. Running, eating well... something. I actually did not do too bad with the eating until the other day at work... potluck for Thanksgiving. Since I work nights, that meant two meals. Mmm.... I mean, whoops! Bah. Then tonight, I got a call to hang out. I was not in the mood and it meant drinking. I don't need those calories! Instead, I ate the remaining cookies from the potluck. Nom. RAR! At least they are gone? Something.

I did get some chores done and I got posts up for several healthy recipes on my other blog, including Chicken Chowder, tabouleh and peasant soup. There are some other good ones there, too... feel free to look around. Most on there are good... although it is baking season, so some of that will make it up there.

The cold and the dark of winter are getting to me as far as the exercising. I just want to curl up somewhere and sleep... nom some cookies with a hot cocoa.

Well, like last week, I am planning on doing stuff again! And whether or not I do, I have to measure up and all later this week or next weekend since the month is ending... ugh.

Comfort is a Bad Thing

2010-11-23T04:49:00.000-05:00

Here's the deal: I did not run last week, I did not cook last week, I did not track last week and I did not weigh in last week (officially, I checked it Saturday, maintaining).

Why?

Well, good intentions that were sidetracked? Yes. I am on nights. I have a hard time with that and am always tired which leads to motivation that falls into the negative range. I was determined not to be undermined! Then a friend came into town on short notice, which killed my days off... right before my four twelve hour night shifts this weekend.

Could I have busted through this, made good decisions and still got in the workouts I wanted? Yes. Would it have been hard? Yes.

What gives?

What gives is that I am at 212-ish, where I spent almost two years. My old clothes fit. I am in my comfort zone. I feel good. I look better than I did. I don't feel as motivated. Am I where I want to be? No. Not even close. I figured that if I hit this hard, I would start dropping weight and getting much better at moving, which occurred.... what I did not figure on was that I would hit this level and be ok with it. I did not think there would be a wall, but there is and I am not sure how to bust through it. Goals are not helping. Nothing is. I did not make last months weight goal and I am pretty far along in November to be able to get to a consistent 11 minute mile.

I need to push, but I am not. Like today (tonight): I got in Monday morning after work. I was tired. I did not sleep well because sleeping during the day is hard for me. My intention was to go to the gym once I woke up. Instead, I realized I had beer in the fridge in need of drinking.... which lead to a homemade pork hamburger. The combo made me sleepy, so I took a nap. Now, the gym opens in about an hour and a half... the sun will be up in two or so hours. I thought "psh, I'll do something then!" I have been up most of the night... my eyes are puffy scratchy and there is no energy in me. No movement will happen. I am going to bed once I write this up.

When I get up this afternoon, I have errands I need to get done. I need produce, cat food and bird food. I am meeting a friend for sushi, dessert and a movie later that night. I plan on going to the gym before all that... or to the track. I plan on running... and core work. I really want to push and do it.... to just extend the lack of weigh-in/training one week... That means I have to do something today.

We'll see.

The Week (thus far) in Review

2010-11-11T18:18:00.000-05:00

Food
This week has been a catastrophe as far as food goes. Ok, not that bad until last night and then today. I had three social outings, all super fun and all involving eating. *nom* I really hadn't done all that bad Monday with sushi... or even on Tuesday at Gordon Birsch. Last night, however... oh man. Pizza and loads of wine... which led to more pizza. Ugh. Ah well. I like socializing, so these things are bound to happen.
Today, however, is inexcusable. I am having one of those days where I want to eat everything... and I have been. The sad thing is that I really don't have a lot of food in the house which lead to scrounging. Chips, toast with PB, soup.... if this was a regular day, I would be ok, it just so happens that I am supposed to be adjusting to being on nights, so my day has really just begun. Oy! I need to rein it in a bit for the rest of the evening. Get to meal planning and go to the store. Keep busy instead of just looking for more schtuff to shovel into my mouth.

Training*
Yes, that's right, training. Ha! I am still hopeful that I can get a 5k in this year.... which means I have to be able to run 5k... or at least get through them. As part of this decision to take all this running seriously again, I have started a schedule in my Google calendar that I ~~am hoping~~ will stick to in order to get the best out of all of this. After reading the article regarding endurance, I have broken the training days into the following:

Intervals - Going to start with alternating four minutes of running and three minutes of walking for four iterations with a three minute warm-up and a five minute cool down. I have not done this yet, so once I do, I will have a better idea as to if this is doable.

Distance - Right now I figure three miles will be my distance run. Well, running punctuated with walking.

Easy - This is my maintenance day and I will be doing one mile run and a one mile walk.

Off/Walk - I am free to take an easy walk or just sit. Rest up the muscles and all that jazz.

I have scheduled out the next two weeks with this to see what it would look like and how it meshes with my work, etc. I should be able to stick to it with relative ease, but I won't know how it will work until I have completed it. At that time, I will figure out if it is working and if I am going to keep doing it or change things up. So here's to 27NOV when this will be done and I can figure this thing out more.

*I have also decided not to weigh in until this is done. So. Yeah. I have two weeks to go until I can step on a scale. I want to concentrate on my running right now. The scale will do its thing. This month's mini-goal of a consistent eleven minute mile is what I want to focus on.

Thoughts on Long Run #1

Lil' black squirrel

Yesterday was my first long run. I think it could have been good, but... Yeah. Always the but. I only did two miles. On my way to the lake (pond?) I run around, I stopped to get quarters for laundry and went to the VEIP to get my exhaust checked and what not. That made my commute to the run about 45 minutes. By the time I got there, I had to go potty. There were no potties. After two miles, I needed to go home. Sad. I will plan better next time. It was also one of those runs where I fought for every step. Was just not feeling it. Not sure if that was the bladder talking or the chocolate I had eaten before the run or what.
The good thing was that I did the two miles in under thirty minutes. I finished in 27:16, a 13:33 mile pace. Considering there are hills (and I stopped to take pics), I was happy with that. It is much harder running outside than on a treadmill. The treadmill is flat and consistent... also boring. Outside, the terrain changes... and that can hurt. The good part about that is that if I keep running there, I will get good at hills!! Haha!

Speaking of hills, I did not attempt the Hill Monster today. I ran the opposite direction which made it downhill. The other side of it is less drastic of an incline, so I was ok with that. One of the runners going the other way said "You did it the smart way so you could go down hill!" as he was making the climb. Yessir, I did. I took pics of the Hill Monster, too. See? I was not lying!! Incredibly steep!!

At the top of The Beast

At the bottom of The Beast

One day, Hill Monster. One day I will run up you. All the way... and then collapse, but it is the run up that counts! Haha! Along my run, there were two nice ladies walking the opposite direction. They cheered me on when I ran past them. That helped a lot!

Interval Training is Your Friend

2010-11-09T15:28:00.000-05:00

Interval Goodness
As I was reading an excellent, amusing monthly column, The Newbie Chronicles, from Runners World the writer mentioned interval training. He cited an article, this article, in the NYT that touted the awesomeness of interval running. The article does state that it was a small study and that more work will be needed to support this, but it is supported by a lot of trainers. Interval training consists of moving really fast, recovering, and then doing at again several times. The famous C25K is one way to do it and it works. I have had tremendous luck with it, and am pretty sure it is how I was able to get to the point of running a full mile. A lot of other weight loss bloggers have also had success with it. Now, some of the other things this can do for you, which was news to me, was train your mitochondria to burn fat easier even when doing regular training. I like that. Burn fat better.

The Intervalling
Before I even read this article, I was thinking about my mini goal of consistent 11 min miles by the end of Nov and the 5k before the year is over.

About how I had stopped the C25K plan and had just been happy to run a mile here and there.

About how I was not really getting better since I didn't push myself through my mile to decrease my time.

About how I was always getting better, or it felt like it, when I was doing the C25K plan.

And I decided to pull the plan up and see about where I was on the plan. I figured I was around week five. The first day was alternating twice through run five/walk three. "Psh... I can run for almost 12 minutes, that looks too easy!" was my thought. So I looked at day two which was run eight/walk five/repeat. That was more my speed! Was it a struggle?? Hellz yeah! Did I do it? Hellz yeah! Although the fifth minute in the second iteration that I walked. Still, overall, that was a lot more running than I normally get through. Fifteen minutes of running is three more minutes than I normally do, which is a 25% increase. Not too shabby! Once I get to running the whole eight minutes in the second iteration, it will be a 33% increase! Math is fun! And makes it sound better because, really, four minutes does not sound all that amazing... although it feels pretty big when you are running it!!!

The third day of the fifth week says to run 20 minutes. I know I am not ready for that. Gonna do this 8/5 thing a few more times before tackling 20 minutes!

The Not Running

Today, I am not running. I am a little stiff from yesterday and I also read yet another article from Runners World... and, hey, they should know a thing or two about running, right? It said that to increase endurance, which is what I want to do, you should aim for three days a week. I will probably attempt to get in three to four, but since yesterday was a bit of a system shock, I will let my body take a break. I will, however, be going for a walk. I need to do something and I don't think a walk will mess anything up. Besides, I am going out for foodage with a friend, Nikki, so I need to move a bit.

What to Eat??? Seriously... What is Bad?

2010-11-08T12:16:00.002-05:00

So just the other week, BBC released an article touting that calorie counting has had its day and that while still kind of important, healthy eating is better. I agree.

Then, CNN releases an article that points to calorie counting being super important in the fight against obesity and that the nutritional value of food has little to do with it. This guy was able to cut weight, improve cholesterol and sugar levels while eating mostly craptastic food, simply by keeping up with calorie content. I agree.

In the Battle of the Bulge, you get a lot of different opinions... and a lot of subsequent studies to support these opinions.

I lost weight on WW

WW did not work

I became crappy on McDonald's

I lost weight on McDonald's

Atkins works and is healthy

Atkins leads to kidney issues and more

Carbs are bad

Carbs are good
Exercise makes you fat
Exercise helps with weight loss

How are you supposed to make informed decisions about what you put in if all of this is out there? Or, better yet, how do you trust any of it??

I figure I will eat mostly natural foods, while watching my caloric intake while doing regular exercise and figure that will be good enough.

The Bees' Knees

2010-11-08T10:55:00.000-05:00

So.

At work, I like to go up to the next floor to go to the bathroom. It is cleaner and less busy. Not sure why, but I am willing to go with it. (haha) A few months ago, not sure exactly when, I noticed that when I went up the stairs, along with being winded my knees would creak and crack. I have always had not so good joints and at the time did not think it was anything outside of that.

Enter Saturday.

I was at work and needed to take a potty break. To the stairs!

No creaky knees.

Apparently, it was the extra weight I had gained in the past year making my knees all angry! Holy crow!

Just one more win in the battle! Wooo! Kneeees!!

WWI #13

2010-11-05T04:15:00.000-04:00

Last week -- 13.2
This week -- 12.4 (-0.8)

Total -- 15.6lbs!

Huzzah! The running helped! Probably would have been better if I had not had two bad days of eating this week... nom nom... or the Halloween candy. *CHOMP*

The Great Hill Monster

2010-11-03T17:10:00.001-04:00

Elevating Issue
The other day I talked about how I tried running outside and how it seemed to be uphill all the way and that there had been fence jumping due to construction. Today I went out to the same spot to try again. This time, I was going to use the detour and I was going to go the other way on the trail to avoid the hill at the end. Boy, was that just silly! I did use the detour and that made the run a lot easier. TONS easier. The problem was that as I got towards the last quarter mile or so, I hit a steep incline. A huge, ginormous Hill Monster. I was not expecting it. It loomed above me laughing. I tried running... at a slow pace... I thought I was going to die or trip over my heavy feet... or die due to said tripping. I walked. I walked all the way up the Hill Monster. Boo. I want to conquer that daggum thing. To be able to run all the way up... and I will, just not right yet.

I EATSES RUNNERZZ!

Lack of Coolness Issue
I also had to fight with my jacket. It was in the mid-fifties and I was afraid I would be cold running. No, not so much. So I fought with it and tried to tie it around my waist while moving... that was a problem and I had to pause my RunKeeper and re-tie it. Not going to do that again. No jacket unless it is under 50. Yes. That is the new rule. I think that is good and if it isn't, I will change it.

Track It!
Now, I love my RunKeeper. It is a handy tool if you are doing any activity outside that consists of traveling. It is a free app for droid and, I think, iPhones that tracks you while you are running/walking/cycling. It tells you how far you traveled, how fast you did it, elevation and your pace. Then you can look at it your route on your computer and by mousing over the different parts, you can see what your pace was at different portions of the trek. Really neat! Mine said today that I climbed 110 feet (told you it was all uphill!!) and had an average pace of 12:36/mile. I could also see where Hill Monster started and see how sad my pace got at that point. I could also see, that for most of the lap, I was between 10 and 11 min mile pace! Yippee! Stupid hill busted my time... then again, it was at the end and maybe I slow up that much. Next time I run on that trail, I will go the other way. The elevation graph seems to show that it would be less uphill at one time which will make it easier, I think. I'll let you know...

More Than Running
I have re-added abs into my routine. I also do some arm exercises while doing them, so I am hoping all of this helps. I do the routine before running. My latest Shape magazine said that you should do them first to keep from tiring out and doing the exercises in poor form. And I read somewhere that if you do abs before running, you double the work since they are already fatigued, or should be, and you use them as you run. Woo! Go abs go! I love the routine that I use, but am going to try and add another one in to prevent boredom. Not that I am bored yet, but I might be at some time in the future. I know that this routine works. I did it last week and am still sore from it. Need to get this back in on a regular basis. I know, I have said that before, but seriously! Gonna! And stuff!

WWI #12 and Monthly Check-In

2010-11-02T09:56:00.000-04:00

WWI #12 and MM

Last week -- 213.6
This week -- 213.2

Total Loss -- 214.8

So I am down almost 15 pounds in three months. That is good! I am glad to be moving in the right direction! I have bought new clothes since my other ones were getting a bit loose and am also using older clothes that I was not able to fit into a couple months ago.

Measurements - (Aug 5 - Nov 1)
Waist: 37.5" - 36.5" (-1.0)
Hips: 46.5" - 45.5" (-1.0)
Bust: 41.0" - 39.25" (-0.75)
Thigh: 28.0" - 27.0" (-1.0)
Arms: 14.5" - 13.25 (-0.75)

Apparently I forgot to do them last month. Oops.

Mini Goal

This downward trend is good, albeit slow. Slow enough that my first Mini Goal was not met. I had aimed to lose 10lbs in 2 months, not an attainable goal... if you keep on track. If you keep up with what you eat and continue to exercise regularly. Oops. At 213.2, I am 4.2lbs higher than I wanted to be now. Just barely below 50% of my goal. D'oh!! The next Mini Goal is to be able to hit an 11 minute mile consistently. I am just now back to around 12 minutes. I have about a month to shave a minute off. That means I need to get running. Treadmill or outside! Run run run! I can do this.

Running

So the running. I have been slacking in that department. I have had, as mentioned, crappy days at work which have left me tired and not running. Boo. I should push it, but I have not been feeling it lately. Change in weather? Maybe. Whatever. I need to DO IT. Yes. Yesterday I went out to a nearby running trail. I walked just over half a mile and ran just under a mile (0.96 mile). It was a BEAUTIFUL fall day. Unfortunately, some of the trail is under construction. I did not see any, so I used it anyway... had to jump a fence. Awesome. Next time, I will use the detour, despite the fact that it goes near a road. The other thing was, despite how illogical it sounds, the whole loop seemed to be all uphill! It was amazing... in a bad way. Hurt my legs, but I managed to finish my almost mile in just under 12 minutes. That TOTALLY rocks the last run I had of just over a mile at just under 13 minutes. Hooray! Gotta keep that trend up... which means more running!

Watching Me....

As I just mentioned, I ran outside. I don't really feel comfortable with that, but I am trying to get past that. When I had been running, I had been using a treadmill at the gym... or if outside, it was at 0300 when no one was awake. I have this fear that when I run, people will look and think "Look at that fat girl trying to run. She is barely moving and yet looks like she is dying. Poor stupid fat girl. Go home and eat a twinkie." Now, even if they are thinking that, I would never know. I also don't even know the people that may or may not see me. I just think of middle school and my first years of high school when I was teased mercilessly as I walked home from the bus stop... or at PE. Or the time I went for a walk about three years ago and some kids called me fat. I know I am fat... why the hell do you think I am out here moving?? Despite projecting a rather strong and fearless attitude, I am soft and squishy (literally and figuratively) and those things hurt! But I am trying. When I was running outside yesterday, I saw people. They did not say anything. I ran next to a busy road. None of the drivers appeared to care. That was good. I want to do it more often. Outside. The cool weather right now is perfect for it.

Not so good so far

2010-10-28T19:29:00.000-04:00

Lament
So I could give the excuses. That part is easy.

Work was hard and long.

I was tired and did not sleep well.

I am still getting over a sickness.

I had plans in the middle of the week, my only time off, that took a lot of time.

And while all of that is true, I should have done better. I went to the gym twice and it is already Thursday. I have done no push-ups and no ab work. I am also coming up on one of my mini goals, and unless there was a tiny little fairy zapping away fat while I slept, I am not going to meet my first goal.

All of this upsets me, but at the same time, I have no one to blame except for me. I could have done all of the stuff I was supposed to, but I did not. Arg.

On the other hand, I can only beat myself up so much since there is not a whole lot to be done about the past. The past several weeks have not been all that great and I have so many "reasons" why. It really boils down to the fact that, despite how far I have to go, I have reached a weight where I can fit into most of my old clothes.. a weight I am used to being. This has caused me to start slacking.

I need to kick this back into gear!

Fleet Footed?

The last time I ran a mile, I did it in just over 12 minutes. Sad. I had not been able to run much since. I went today and was barely able to get a mile done in under 13 minutes. Some of this is because I was dehydrated and not feeling it. It was also because I am on antibiotics and it has made my lower digestive track a little less than stable. But still. I had a hard time with the C25K last time, but I managed to get back into it. Now I need to do it again! I coming up to a lighter work load, so hopefully, I will be able to get running more.

Sunday Night

2010-10-24T21:32:00.000-04:00

So I did not make it to the Gym or anything, but I cleaned the house pretty good, so got some exercise in just not what I planned. I also tracked what I ate. MFP wants me to hit 1200 cals, but that is too small for me, so I aim to hit 12-1500 and figure that is good. Did that today! Huzzah!

So with the goals, I am going to stick with the ones I laid out the other day, save I am going to give myself a little more room on Halloween since we are having an office party and there is no way I am going to be able to avoid eating some of the goodies. HA! Not sure what I am going to do about Wed night, either since I am supposed to be doing a trip to philly, which means probably fast food. Ah well. I'll do my best.

Here goes the week!! :-)

WWI #10/11

2010-10-22T10:09:00.000-04:00

Two weeks ago: 214.0
Last week: 214.2
Today: 213.6

I have been weighing in, just not posting about it. Fail. But on the good side, I am down some. Two weeks ago was gaining due to alcohol and laziness. This week was some loss, but I had strep, so the eating right and exercising went out the window. Right on out. And I am one of those few people that when sick eat everything. How else will I get healthy? And this time around, with strep, I had a few days where eating was almost physically impossible. So when I could finally eat, I ATE. Om nom nom-ed my way through deliciousness. Ice cream and steak. mmm. Yeah.

So the past few weeks that I have not posted, I decided that I need weekly goals. I did better when I had to do things or face posting that I did not make it. Which is what it is looking like for my mini goal of 209 by 31OCT. I am about 4 pounds off and a loss that large in one week is unlikely. Boo! We shall see. But anyhoo, here be the weekly goals (that was in pirate).

Track food 5 days
Run 5 days
Abs 4 days
Push ups 4 days
Drink all my water at work
Don't eat anything brought in to work (except one cookie per shift)

This will be my sun-sun goals, so if I think of anything else to add before sunday, I will.

WINNER!

2010-10-09T01:13:00.001-04:00

So it just occurred to me that I had not posted pics of the awesome bag I bought when I won this giveaway from Jess's blog! Great blog, great gal, great prize! :-)

Cute bag! Yey!

Me and the cute new bag! Good for taking things to work!

WWI #9, Decision and Thinking...

2010-10-08T21:33:00.000-04:00

Aaaaaaand:

Last Week -- 215.8
This Week -- 214.0 (-1.8)

Total Loss -- 14.0

Not too bad. This week was a tough one. I had four nights on in a row. Nights are hard. Four 12 hour shifts in a row are hard. This week was hard. I made it to the gym once. Boo. Hoping to get there more this week. I looked at the mini-goals I have going for this year:
31OCT - Down 10 to 209
25NOV - Consistent 11 min mile
25DEC - Down 10 to 199 (fingers crossed...)
Before the year ends: Run a 5k

Moving More?
I have been slacking hardcore on the exercising. Apparently the ~~diet~~ food consumption has been working, but it does not work as well alone. And I need exercise to be part of things now. It makes me feel better (after) and I like seeing improvement. I need to put some thought into this and figure out how I am going take this more seriously. I can do the weekly goals again, but sometimes life gets in the way and I don't get a chance to address them a week later. Seems like they helped, though.

Weekly Weigh-Ins
I have been slacking. I will do better. I have, however, decided that I will be doing this on Fridays. It seems to work better for whatever reason. Or at least I think it has been. When I was doing it Sunday, I kept forgetting. Maybe this will be better.

Back in the Swing of Things

2010-10-05T08:09:00.000-04:00

Made it to the gym. It was harder than it had been, but I expected that after a 17 day hiatus. Gonna try not to do that again!! I am not back at square one, but I am back a bit.

I am going to start doing really short entries anytime I get some exercise in so that I can keep track. I was having issues keeping up with stuff and this seems to work. That and Daily Mile.

I had been able to do the 3r/1.5w/5r/2.5r (double), but not now. I did the first run through Ok. Did not have too many issues with the running 3 or even the five. Felt it, but made it. Then after the second 3, I had severe issues, so I stopped. My right hammy hurt from the beginning and I don't want to kill my comeback with an injury. There is always tomorrow.

Tomorrow I plan on running a mile and then something else. I want to attack the stairmaster. But it scares me. Maybe elliptical.

Sorta Back and WWI #7&8-ish

2010-10-01T19:13:00.000-04:00

Took a bit of a break there. Had to get back into the swing of working... on nights. And I had a friend come into town. I have not been to the gym in about two weeks. Oops. It is hard enough to get out and run or something when I am on nights. Then when you add in some socializing.... ah well. Live happens, right? Can't just hole up and not live life because I have to work out.. although I should find a nice balance. 12 hour work days do not help.

Anyhoo. Stepped on the scale about a week ago and was up one pound. Not good. Not horrible, but not great. It was also that time so not sure. Then today I jumped on just to see how much damage I had done. I am down a tad, so that's good. I did not track what I ate for two weeks and did minimal cooking. Tried to eat somewhat mindfully and it appeared to somewhat work. Ha!

I need to get back into the game! *I say that while waiting on a pizza.... heh.*

Last Official - 216.2
One week ago - 217.4 (+1.2)
This week - 215.8 (-2.4)

Total down - 12.2

WWI #6

2010-09-21T05:44:00.001-04:00

Busy busy, but I wanted to get this in... especially since I have been failing at exercise now that I am off my mini-vacation.

Last week - 219.6
This week - 216.2 (-3.4)

Not bad! The running and tracking paid off. I need to keep it up. I hate that I had such success and then this week I am already way off track! Haha! It's the little victories that count! :-D

More tonight, I promise!

Bumped

2010-09-17T00:04:00.000-04:00

Gymz Winz
My legs were tight from yesterday. I was going out to dinner with a friend, but I am switching to nights, so it was "early" in my day. Time for the gym was slim. Oh, and I forgot to mention that it was a gray rainy day. But. I was slated to run a mile for time. So I did.

The time was 11:37 for .99 mile when I accidentally hit the stop.

Ugh! Almost made it, I put my hand over the button to hit it at a mile and bumped it. Shoot. I had even pushed the speed up to make to the 11:30 mile. So I ran .2 miles at 6.0mph to make up for it. I figure it would have been right around 11:40 for the mile which makes me just 10 seconds off of an 11:30 minute! That was my goal last week, but I did not get any timed miles in, so I am well on my way to getting it done this week! Woo! And I was not totally drenched in swear or gasping for air. Tomorrow, I will be going back to work and it will be a rest day. Saturday, another timed run. I am gonna push it! Then I am resting on Sunday and moving to week five on the C25K.

Gymz Fearz and Stuffz
I have two main things that are scaring me. The next week running schedule and the scale.
Next week, I am going to tackle week five of C25K. It is the first week where everyday is different. It is not just the same thing for three iterations, it is actually an increase on the next run. I hope I can do it.

The scale. Dreaded scale. I have been doing well on the whole running thing. I feel good. My clothes are fitting better and I can see some new muscles. But I have to weigh in on Sunday and I am afraid it is not going to reflect any of it. That I will be the same. That I will have failed at taking off the weight. That I will still be the same. Ugh. I am very nervous. I'll see in about two days.

Shrimp and Salt

2010-09-16T02:54:00.000-04:00

Nummy Food
I did the shrimp recipe here, as promised. Very tasty! Here's an enticing pic. It is also EASY.

I went over my calorie limit today by about 400. I used rough estimations on the food I ate out at Wildfire. I had a cedar plank salmon with potatoes au gratin. I ate all the tasty potatoes, but half of the salmon. I also had a mojito, ice cream sandwhich thing and corn bread. I used other restaurant entries for the food and figured I am probably close. It was really good, though. I enjoyed EVERY bite. Except maybe the last one, since I was kinda full then. Hehe. I also enjoyed the company. I went with Nikki, who I had not hung out with in WEEKS. That was far too long. We then went and saw Salt. Very fun flick!

Gym-ings

I went to the gym today to hit the treadmill after doing some ab work. I can feel my abs getting stronger, which is awesome. The running is still very hard. I am tracking my running now on Daily Mile, which gave me a neat widget with a donut. Did you see it? It tells me how many donuts I have earned! Yey! Although I am still trying to figure the site out and so it was using average calories burned, probably for a 150lbs person, which I am not. So soon, I should be raking in the donuts since it takes more donuts for me to go as fast as long. This also makes it easier for me to see how many miles I do in a week and such with no adding on my part, which I like! AND I can keep up with max and min hear rates and such so I can see improvements as I train and run more.

Anyhoo. The running. I am still working on the fourth week of C25K. It goes something like this:

Warm up walk for five minutes
Run for three minutes
Recovery walk 1.5 minutes
Run five minutes
Recovery walk 2.5 minutes
Repeat running and recovering one more time

If I do it at the 6mph the program seems to think I can do, it is a mile and a half. Whoa. I did not even attempt that, but I tried at 5.5mph, which did not work out well. The next time I did it at 5.2 and it did not seem all that bad. It was almost easy. This time, I tried to do the three minute ones at 5.5mph with the five minutes at 5.2mph. Ouch. Ouch. *gasp* That was a major push, but I did it. And with the ol' HRM on, I could see that I was in the 170 bpms for a lot of it, which I think is good. Go heart go! Better than not going. My handy HRM also said that I took out 555 calories (counting ab work, too). Burninated those calories, eh? Although I had ~~a moment of stupid~~ some technical difficulties and left it on for about 10 minutes after I stopped running. Ah well. Still good, right? Mostly. No matter what I burned, I know I did some damage to the muscles... my legs are really stiff already. Gotta hit the gym again tomorrow, though. Going to try and do another timed run... and actually keep track of time and distance since that is the point of a timed run!!

Well, that is all for now. I want to get through the last 100 pages of Lonesome Dove so that I can get it back to the library tomorrow. It is a great book! I recommend it to anyone that likes epic novels that are well written.

Flukes are Scary, Brownies are Tasty!

2010-09-15T00:32:00.001-04:00

So I decided that today was a rest day. My hammies are tight so I will attack the gym tomorrow. So instead, I went and voted before running some errands. I went to the grocery store and got some major produce and meat. I also found some really tasty, and impulsive, buys.

I love autumn. It means it is time for APPLES! I already had some Jazz apples at home, but saw that the store today had Honeycrisp apples, which I adore as well. So I bought them. So tasty. Also picked up some nectarines.

When I went to another place, I grabbed some watercress, which I like. That, went not so well. Ok, the purchasing was fine, but then I went to clean it. I did the same thing I always do with greens. Separated them, placed them in a bowl and then wait a bit before transferring them to a colander. When I looked in the water, there were snails. Tiny little snails. So, they got soaked again to make sure I got them all out. Meanwhile, I went to google to see how to get the snails out of them and learned all about the risk of liver flukes from watercress if there was animal waste or snails on them. sad. However, it is only if eaten undercooked and I cook mine, so I am not too worried about it. Besides, it is freakin' tasty. And I checked: no more snails.

There was a deal on boneless skinless chicken breasts so I bought five pounds. It was all in a family pack so when I got home I had to trim it and cut it up before freezing it. I hate doing it, but it is cheaper and then I have a TON of little 4-5oz bags of chicken breasts. Handy, lemme tell ya. Then I went ahead and peeled 1.5 pounds of shrimp for a recipe I will be doing soon. It will be on my food blog when it is done. That and the amazing zucchini soup I just had for dinner... so delish and low cal. mmm.

Thomas has always... or for a long time, made a pretty tasty cinnamon raisin swirl bread. Not really my thing, though. I was in the aisle looking for bagel thins, which I decided to buy once my sandwich thins are gone, when I saw this. Thomas makes Apple Cinnamon Swirl bread, which is WAY more my thing. I mean, raisins are good and all, but I REALLY like apples, so...
They are not too easy on the diet, 110 calories a slice, but good for a treat. I tried mine with 1/2T of almond butter for a total of 155 calories for a snack. Not too bad, really. Although on hindsight, I should have just gone for butter. That brings out the cinnamon.

I also found these. Tasty tasty brownies... with caramel. Pilsbury made these. I found them last time I went shopping and left them on the shelf. This time, I did not. A serving is three of them for 180 cals... little much for me, but per bite they are 60 calories! I can math! And there is a little not about that on the back. The bites are smallish, but they are a good two or three bites, which is sometimes all you need. I nommed one as soon as I had the groceries put away. To make sure they were good. Boy, are they rich and chocolatey, too!! So worth it! Go to the site and you can get a coupon! I wish I knew that before making this link. Boo.

Forgetfulness, Fears, Food and Fishies

2010-09-14T02:46:00.000-04:00

Run
I went to the gym with the full intention of running a mile and seeing what the time was, you know, a timed mile and all. Like my weekly goal. Well. I walked for five minutes, but the distance wasn't even. I waited until 5:20 and began running. I ran and ran and ran.... Okay, I walked for 15 seconds, but mostly I ran. But then I forgot what my distance was at the beginning, so I have no idea if I ran for a mile or not. I did 5.2 mph, with the slight walk at 3.4mph, for 12 minutes. I figure it was just over a mile. But not sure. Next time I will reset the treadmill so I can stop when it says 1 mile instead of having to think.
Walked to even me out at 20 mins before heading to the elliptical for 20 mins. While I was on it, House was on. I had been watching it from running and had planted myself on an elliptical right in front of the TV with my eyes glued on it. Some guy came over and changed it... I had to speak up so he would put it back. Said he did not realize I was watching it. Weird since I was right in front staring at it, but whatever.
The ol' HRM said that my avg HR was 155, but I cannot remember what my max was and I cannot get it to tell me. It also said I killed 444 calories. Oy! I wonder how accurate these things are? I know they are supposed to be better than the machine, but still, that is a lot. I know my legs are stiff from yesterday and today. Not sure if I will be able to do anything tomorrow. Might be a rest day. Might not. We'll see what tomorrow brings, eh?

Weigh-ins and Such

Since I usually look over my weekly goals and set new (or old) ones on Sunday, I have decided to move my WWI to that day, too. In the grand scheme of things, I don't really see that changing much, outside of this week, where I ~~have~~ get to wait two extra days before stepping on the Devil Bot. And I must say I am OK with waiting this time around. Last week, I was on the scale two and three times a day, just to look... and those numbers were up and down and all around! It was amazing. With all that changing about, it made me think "psh... why should I care what you think? You change every minute, it seems, Devil Bot!" But I only thought that for a moment before I was hopping on again.. er, lightly trodding... hoping for a smaller number. Stupid thing. So, Sunday it is. And I must admit, I am not looking forward to it. After such a long time with no loss, I am beginning to think I am doing something weigh wrong. (Did you see that word play??) Guess it just boils down to fear that I am not going to be able to do this. Bah. I suppose I should focus on all the fitness things I can do now, but I just can't. I want to weigh less right now. Fitness is good, but I wanna weigh less. I just don't know if I can. Grr.

Food
Doing pretty good with my intake this week. So far, I have mostly been under what I should be, which is not as good as hitting it, but is better, at least in my book, than busting it. I need to hit the grocery store for some dinner type foods. Right now I have plenty of breakfast and lunch things, but I like dinner to be hot and tasty. I found a recipe for shrimp I might try. Looks good. I'll let you know if I try it and it is good in my NEW SIDE BLOG. It is called Nomming the Foodage, because I like to om nom nom foodage... who doesn't?

My first post is on frittatas, delicious protein filled and easy. Check it out!

Around the House
Cleaned their tank. Nice, eh? 55 Gallons of nice! Also got all of my pictures organized and posted. I had not done that since Christmas. Yeah. Been a while. Did not want to deal with all the pics of Cricket, my kitty that died, or all the things I have been doing since my grandpupa died. But I did it. I feel accomplished.
After the gym, I ate and blogged while watching Monsters v. Aliens. Holy cow! How had I not seen this movie yet?! It was amazing! Wednesday I am going to see Salt with Nikki after we eat at Wildfire if you reserve a table on Open Table for 15Sept, you get a free dessert! I love sweets so am all for it. Hope that does not kill my efforts this week. Ugh. If it is not one thing it is another.

DON'T WANNA....

2010-09-13T19:42:00.002-04:00

go to the gym! And you can't make me!

*grumble*

here I go.

Who'd a thunk??

2010-09-12T20:22:00.000-04:00

Gym-Time

Well. Not sure what did it. The bitching, the rest or what, but I kicked that treadmill's toochas! Boom, baby!

When I got to the gym, I decided that I would go ahead and heed the advice I had read. That some people are too worried about their times and not the distance in the beginning. That can lead to heartache and failure. So. I know I can run about a 12 min mile. So I decided that today I would do 5.0mph setting for my running. As I was doing my first three minutes, I realized I could do better. I bumped it to 5.2, an 11:30 min mile. I did all of my running at that and I even ran for the last 7.5 minutes instead of just the 5!! Hooray me!

The only thing was it was not too hard so now I am stuck with wondering if I should have just tried to do it at 5.5 instead. Maybe next time! :-)

Oh, and I wore my nifty new HRM and it said i killed 366 calories running and 109 calories doing abs - 475!! Man! That is a lot!!

Glass of wine to celebrate! :-D

Goals

Last week:

Meet calorie goal five times That didn't happen...
~~Get pictures off camera~~, organized and posted Got them off the camera!
~~Read before bed at least four nights~~
3x10 girlie push ups four times Three times, so almost
~~Track all food (pass on friday at party)~~
Decrease my time on mile to 11:30 Didn't do a timed run...

Well that did not go as well as I had hoped.

This week:

Meet calorie goal five times
Organize and post pics
2x10 GPU four times
Have a weight loss of ANYTHING
Run a timed mile
Be on time for work Fri

Oh, and I have decided that I like MFP more then DB and am going to switch to just that. The meal stuff is just too much easier not too!