I was a little late posting last week’s recap because it was
bedtime last Saturday and I logged off the computer and THEN I realized I
hadn’t posted my recap, but I had a 5K race Sunday morning and didn’t want to
go through the process of logging back into my computer again, so I just went
to bed.
This was week 2 of my birthday vacation. My birthday was on Monday and was pretty much
uneventful. All my friends had to work
and nobody sent me any birthday cards.
Only my friend Amanda gave me a gift.
I don’t have a whole lot of friends to begin with and my family lives
2500 miles away (or, rather, I live 2500 miles away from my family)…so, out of
sight, out of mind, I suppose. I went to
the Cheesecake Factory and had a slice of cheesecake by myself. Exciting!
I’d be 100% lying if I said this didn’t upset me, because it did. But, whatever, it’s done and over and now
I’ve moved on. I much prefer to be
positive about things and not dwell on things that upset me.
Anyway, let’s check out how exercise went for me this week.
• Saturday: started this workout week off in a
fantastic fashion! Went for a 4.9 mile
run around Ladybird Lake hike & bike trail with a coworker’s wife (not the
same one that ran the marathon in San Antonio).
Her name is Stacey. This was the
first time her and I had met. She’s
easing her way back into running and I’m attempting to take it somewhat easy
post-marathon, so it worked perfectly.
We trotted around the lake at an 11:15 min/mi average pace, chatting the
whole time. We even ran into Santa
Claus!!! He was there with the trail
clean up group and they were raising awareness about trail clean up and
inviting people to join them in helping clean up the trail. Santa was nice enough to take a picture with
us! This run was lots of fun and Stacey
and I will definitely do it again!
• Sunday: since I ran the San Antonio RNR marathon
last Sunday, which was the same day as the Brown Santa 5K Christmas-themed run
I usually do, I had to find another Christmas-themed run to do, cue the Austin
Jingle Bell 5K benefitting M.A.D.D. (Mothers Against Drunk Driving, in case you
didn’t already know that). It was held
on Camp Mabry grounds. I run 3 other races
during the year on Camp Mabry, 2 are also 5K’s.
However, this was a different 5K route than the other 2 use. It’s not a simple out-and-back course, at
least not the whole thing is out-and-back, just a small portion. Even though there were 2 hills, one was not
so bad, the other was pretty good sized and almost kicked my behind. Overall, this was a great run and I plan to
do it again next year. I ran it in
28:08, making it my 3rd fastest 5K time. Unfortunately, the age groups were in 10 year
blocks so I didn’t place in my AG.
However, I plan to be faster next year and take an AG award! (stay on the lookout for my race report,
pending official pictures, of course)
• Monday: ♪♫happy
birthday to me, happy birthday to me, happy birthday dear meeeeeee, happy
birthday to me♫♪ Meh, my birthday isn’t
exactly my favorite day. People forget
it all the time. It’s only 11 days
before Christmas, so that’s what everyone is thinking about. I rarely get birthday gifts because people
don’t want to buy 2 presents for the same person in less than a month, not that
more than a couple people ever give me Christmas or birthday presents to begin
with. Anyway, this is the exercise
portion of this post, so I have gotten way off track. I was going to go to the gym and do the
elliptical and the machines, but I really wanted to do a run. So I ran 3.8 miles for my 38th
birthday!
• Tuesday:
all I did this day was lots of cleaning and storage shelf building and made
sure I hit 10K steps for the day.
• Wednesday:
I went with my friend Javier to check out Orange Theory Fitness. I have to say that I like it. I like it a lot. I need to wait before I invest in it, but I
think once I get my tax return that I can prepay for a couple/few months of the
once a week basic membership that way there’s NO EXCUSES! I loved the treadmill portion of the workout,
weirdly enough. I mean, *of course* I
loved it because it WAS running…but it was the TREADMILL…aka the DREADmill…and
we’ve discussed this before, I don’t like the treadmill. I just get so bored on the treadmill. However, the treadmills at OTF are right up
against the wall and the wall is covered in mirrors and I found myself spacing
off and not paying attention to the trainer and had to keep asking the people
next to me what incline and speed I was supposed to be switching to. Oops.
• Thursday:
went for a run this day. I decided that
I wanted to hit some hills, so I drove over to the Far West Blvd area and ran
up and down this one portion of Hart Ln that has killer hills! I had driven down this road last week when I went
to pick up my packet for the Jinglebell 5K.
Some of these hills were pretty serious, let me tell you how
serious. There was actually steep grade
warning signs on some of them. Also,
when I was going down these super steep hills, I was basically just walking
kinda fast to keep myself from tripping and tumbling all the way down the
hill. And then, what goes down must go
back up, so when I went up the super steep hills, I was running on my toes like
I was running up stairs because they were so steep that it was basically
running up flights of stairs, minus the actual stairs. I had to pump my arms and breathe mindfully
to keep from dying on the way up those hills.
That said, I loved it! All 5
miles! This route is in my top 5
favorite routes of all time and I will run it again, maybe even once a
week! It’s a really good workout and a
great way to build strength and stamina.
• Friday: went to the gym and did my 65 minutes on the elliptical. I wanted to do some strength training too,
but between ridiculous traffic getting to the gym, having to pick up a
prescription at the pharmacy and then in a time crunch because I was going to a
Christmas party that started at 6pm, I only had time for the elliptical. Boo! But
it was a good elliptical workout. About 5.5
miles!
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I don’t talk much on here about my depression issues. They’re mostly under control thanks to well
dosed medication, and thanks to a caring and attentive psychiatrist. Do I wish I could control my depression
without meds? Absolutely, of course I
do. But I’ve tried and it’s not
pretty. I don’t really want to go into
detail about it, but let’s just say I once almost checked myself into a
hospital for suicidal idealizations.
Yea, not pretty, not fun, not something I want to dwell on or even talk
about. But, if you’re having problems,
and you have no one you feel you can talk to, please, please, please message me
and we can talk privately and know that I would never judge you or belittle
you. I am here for you, always. You ARE worth it.
That said, my birthday is not my favorite time of the year. People think I take 2 weeks off for my
birthday so I can do fun things to celebrate, but they’re wrong. I take 2 weeks off work for my birthday so I
don’t have to be around anyone I don’t want to be around if I get depressed and
start crying uncontrollably…which happens more often than not when my birthday
is involved. It’s the time of year where
it becomes glaringly obvious that I don’t have very many people in my life that
truly care about me and, frankly, who wants to be reminded that your true
friends can be counted on one hand only?
So, I take 2 weeks off and I isolate myself. I use that time to deep clean my apartment
and organize everything in it. I go
through all my clothes and donate what I don’t need to those that do need
it. I clean out my pantry of all the
food I didn’t eat and I donate that as well.
I catch up on household and sewing projects and just generally distract
myself as much as I can. (disclaimer: I don’t
want the people that DO care and show it on and around my birthday to think I’m
ungrateful, because I love that they care and take the time and effort to show
it.)
Okay, that’s more than enough of that.
I’d like to talk about a couple non-scale victories I had this
week. First, my Timehop showed me a
picture I posted a year ago when I was starting a 90-day challenge. I weighed around 20 pounds more than I do
now. (I’m not stepping on the FitBit
scale again this week. I’m unofficially
weighing myself on my old scale right now, but I’ll face the music again
starting next Saturday by getting back on the FitBit scale.) That kind of brought the food issues I’ve had
the last little over a month into perspective.
Sure, I’ve regained some of the weight I worked really hard to
lose. But you know what? I could be 20 pounds heavier than my lowest
weight instead of just 5-7. So that
helps a little. Not a LOT, but a little
bit. Just to know that it could be
worse.
The second victory was when I went to the Orange Theory Fitness class, the
heart rate monitor they loaned me (no, it did not replace my FitBit, it was
just to monitor the data they use) wasn’t working properly and they wanted to
make sure that I was wearing it properly and without even thinking, I pulled up
my shirt and bared my whole stomach! And
I didn’t do it just once, I did it twice!
About 5 minutes later is when it hit me that I had done that! Just a couple months ago I wouldn’t have done
that. At least not so easily and without
hesitation.