Week In Review 07/09/16

• Saturday: went to the gym and did the ‘mill hills, then hit the weights and did reverse cable flyes, bicep cable curls, decline bench, cable kickbacks (I couldn’t seem to get the weight right…too light…haven’t done these on a cable in a very long time, so it’s going to be a trial and error thing until I can find the right weight), leg curls and leg extensions.  Overall, great workout even if it wasn’t a big calorie burner.  I could have done more to make it more of a good calorie burner but I had overtime during my normal shift hours, so my time was limited since I got to the gym later than I would normally like to.

• Sunday: headed to a new location for this day’s run.  Parked at the Georgetown Rec Center and ran along the North & South San Gabriel rivers.  The trail is 6.6 miles long from start to finish and runs (HA!) through some pretty areas and is said to be better than the Ladybird Lake trail in downtown Austin.  I ended up running 13.1 miles, earning my Garmin Half Marathon Glenda medal!  And to think, I was just going to run 10 miles.  Haha!  I love running in new-to-me locations and this definitely did not disappoint!

• Monday: HAPPY 4^th OF JULY!!!  It’s time for my now annual tradition of running the Freedom 5000 race on Camp Mabry in Austin, TX.  This is the 3^rd year I’ve ran this little race.  And, since I’m trying to keep my mileage up and see if I can hit 90 miles again this month, I wanted to get more than the 5K from the race.  And Camp Mabry has this super nice, soft 1 mile track on post right next to where the start line for the race was.  So I hit that and did 3 laps of it for 3.2 extra miles.    My total mileage for this day was 6.2.

• Tuesday: worked overtime at work on the night shift Monday night, so no workout or run this day.  I worked a different place at work, so instead of getting off work at 6am, I got off work at 7am.  Ugh.  An extra hour of sleep lost.  Will probably be sleeping until 7am Wednesday morning to make up for it.  While working my overtime shift, I set a timer on my computer for 8 minutes and then set the countdown timer on my FitBit for 5 minutes.  The 8 minute timer would go off, then I'd walk around my post for 5 minutes, sit down, restart the 8 minute time...repeat all night long when I wasn't doing something else.  I had over 11K steps by the time I got to my car after work!

• Wednesday: I let myself sleep in about 1-1.5 hours and got to the gym around 8:45.  Ran 3 miles on the treadmill in about 31 minutes.  It was a short tempo run, basically.  I think I was doing sub-10:15 for most of it.  That’s still within my average pace range, but it’s at the quicker end of it.  Really, I’d like my ACTUAL tempo runs to be more along the lines of 9:40-9:50 pace.  If I hadn’t had an appointment scheduled for 11, I would have ran 6 and then done some strength training.  Se la vie!  And then, of course, there was a short walk to and from between my work parking garage and my therapist’s office.  It would have been a much LONGER walk had my therapist not had a calendar malfunction and had actually been there.  Wah wah.  So much wasted time on this day.

• Thursday: again, overtime in that place where I got off work at 7am.  It’s super easy at that place, so I’m not really complaining.  So, no workout or run this day.  Did the same thing as Tuesday night where I set a timer and walked a bunch.  I had just over 10K steps by the time I got out to my car!

• Friday: I decided on this day to run TO and FROM the gym!  3 miles each way.  So much better than running on the treadmill.  I just had to make sure I remembered my workout gloves and my lock & key...which I did.  While at the gym, I did TRX tricep extensions, TRX chest press to supermans, TRX supine rows, cable kickbacks, cable forward kicks, and resistance band side steps.  Also, look at my legs!  I didn't realize they looked like that!  I'm very happy with the muscles I've got going on there.

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I started off the week within 2 pounds of my goal weight.  How exciting is that?  So, since I’m so close to my goal weight, I want to make sure I work even harder to keep my eating and my workouts ON POINT as much as possible.  So, no splurging this week on food, other than eating some extra carbs on Sunday before and after my long run, but definitely didn’t overdo it…it was still a reasonable amount of food.  I’m also starting to try and mix things up a little bit with my workouts.  I’m sure you noticed I went for a swim on Sunday.  While swimming most likely won’t happen more than once a week, I do like swimming and it’s a great way to mix things up.

I also starting taking in BCAAs before my workouts and runs again this week.  AND I started adding glutamine to my BCAA drink to help get that extra oomph out of my workouts.  I just mix both into the same bottle of water and I’m ready to go!

This week was NOT ideal with workouts.  I’m especially disappointed in Wednesday’s workout.  I’m really miffed about my therapist not updating my appointment on his calendar.  I really wanted my standard 3+ miles of walking after my appointment.  But, I did need to make a trip to the grocery store and I really didn’t want to stop on my way home from work at 7am Thursday morning and miss even MORE sleep than I was already going to miss by getting off my overtime shift a full 1+ hours later than if I had worked a different assignment.  So, that was a plus, big time, getting that done Wednesday instead.  And I did the bare minimum of strength training per my goals for the month.  Just twice: Saturday and Friday.  Lame.  Must do better next week!!!  I must plan better and now I’m more aware of how the getting off at 7am affects me, so I can do just that.

One thing I was really happy about with this week was when I was working that assignment that had me getting off work at 7am, I was able to log over 10K steps each night by the time I got to my car at the end of the night.  That was pretty awesome.

On Friday we had a party for yet another a guy leaving our shift and going to a different section within the department.  I brought homemade guacamole (avocado…duh…plain Greek yogurt, diced tomatoes, diced onion, chopped cilantro and garlic powder…mmmm!  Got lots of compliments on it too!) and a couple pies.  Next time I bring pie, I’m getting 2 of the Mrs. Smith’s razzleberry pies!  I love those!  However, only one person had any of the pies, so I ended up taking them home with me.  Ugh.  I'll probably portion it out into Ziploc bags or something and freezing them.  I really don't want it to go to waste.  Anyway, I planned ahead and made sure to jot down everything I ate plus how much I ate. 

Now, onto this week in weigh ins!

How do i feel about this?  Well, let me start by saying HOLY MOLY!  Not only did I meet my goal weight, I totally smashed it!  I'm almost 2 pounds under my goal weight!  I have worked really hard to get to this point and I am super proud of myself and the progress I have made.  That's another 3.1 pounds since last Saturday and 28.2 pounds since May 1st!!!  Wow...just wow.  I have seriously never felt this fantastic!  I am definitely loving life right now.

And, since it’s my new thing, let’s go to ab-watch and see what progress my abs are making!