Marathon Training week #11

• Tuesday: worked overtime Monday night, so no running or cross training.

• Wednesday: logged 8 miles easy paced.  My pace did slow toward the end, but it was pretty warm for the last day of summer before the official start of fall, and as we all know, pace slows when temperatures rise.  It was a good run overall, though.

• Thursday: worked overtime Wednesday night, so no running or cross training.

• Friday: I was “tentatively” going to run 8 miles.  By that I mean I wasn’t sure I wanted to run 8 and was thinking I’d just run 6.  However, when I woke up, I checked my phone and had some very disappointing news from a guy I’d been talking to and then was rather upset and decided that 6 miles definitely wasn’t going to be enough and neither was the original 8.  So I ran 10.  Frankly, it still wasn’t enough, but it did help, even if only a little bit.  The run was nice and smooth and because my mind was so preoccupied, it just flew by. 

• Saturday: again with the working of overtime the night before.  This is going to be a constant for a while, just so you know.

• Sunday: I yet again had a long run AND a 5k race scheduled, so I did what I did last week and got up SUPER early and headed to the race site and knocked out 11 miles before the race started.  It was going to be 13.1 but I checked Facebook while I was running and another friend that was also running the 5k had posted they were on site and waiting for the 8am start.  I tried bringing up the website to double check but I couldn’t get the right page to load, so I cut it short at 11.  Yea, it didn’t start until 8:30.  Oh well.  I ran the 11 within my new long run average pace window (10:15-10:45), but on the slower end of it.  Then I ran the 5k at a 9:04 average pace with the final .14 of a mile being at a 6:45 pace!!!  WHOA!  I really don’t think I could hold that pace for more than a quarter mile, TOPS, but it’s still amazing that I was able to go that fast after running 14 miles!  Very happy with all of my running this morning.  I was going to run another 4 miles when I got home like I did last week, but decided to just make this a cutback week, you know, since I decided that I was doing cutback weeks this training cycle, so, you know, maybe I should actually do them. 

• Monday: unlike last week, I wasn’t sore after my long run/5k combo the day before, but still logged a shakeout run at an easy pace.  Was originally thinking I’d do my 5 miles with 1 mile of 50m sprints in the middle but was having some inflammation in my joints from splurge eating on Sunday, so I just opted for the easy shakeout run instead. 

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I ran fairly easy all week, no actual speed work, though I do count that 10kGP 5k on Sunday as a fast finish for my long run, so that sorta counts as speed work, right?  I think so.  But no sprints or tempo runs.  But, this was a cutback week, so on top of dialing back the distance of my long run by a few miles, I also dialed back on the overall average speeds of my runs and ran easy.  I’m not going to lie, it wasn’t really on purpose, but it worked out that way and that’s what I’m calling it.  HA!  I’m sure someone will let me know if my thinking on this is actually correct or not.  I’m curious to know if it is, but apparently not curious enough to google it myself.  I do need to get back on the speed work wagon, though.  I have said before that I do enjoy it quite a lot, so I’m not sure why I slack on it sometimes.  Things like tempo runs are a challenge for me, especially if I’m doing my best to keep those faster tempo miles within a 5 second spread.  Love doing that!

My Paleo Experience, wk 2

• Monday, September 19^th…back to work!  I love being at work only because it’s super easy to be on a schedule with my eating while I’m at work.  I just prep my food and it is 90% grab, stuff in my lunch bag and go.  As I mentioned last week, my menu for the majority of the week was eggs and bacon for breakfast, then half a chicken for lunch with some sliced and baked zucchini and summer squash for lunch, a 7.75-ish ounce baked salmon filet for snack and a med-large sweet potato for dinner.  I wanted something sweet as I was getting ready for work, so I grabbed a Hansen’s Diet Pomegranate soda.  Holy moly was that thing sweet!  I drank maybe half of it and then poured the rest out.  It just wasn’t what I wanted.  It was just too sweet.  Then, because I worked overtime, I took the pan fried plantain slices and an apple with almond butter with me to eat during my second shift.  However, the plantains were good Sunday while they were still warm.  Cold, however, they were kind of gross, so I tossed them and only ate the apple with AB. 

• Tuesday, September 20^th…pretty much the same as yesterday.  Except there were 1.5 Mexican cookies.  And I didn’t work overtime so no apple w/AB or anything else.

• Wednesday, September 21^st…food was pretty much the same again, there was another cookie.  A Tiff’s Treats snickerdoodle (basically just butter with cinnamon and sugar on top…so good!).  I paid for yesterday’s Mexican cookies today with some heartburn so I’m sure that I’ll pay for today’s cookie with more heartburn tomorrow.  There was an overtime shift tonight.  Since I discovered the plantains were actually a bust on Monday night, I brought a mostly full pint of blueberries with me instead.  They were a little tart, but still tasty.  I also brought another honeycrisp apple with AB to dip it in.  YUM!

• Thursday, September 22^nd…stuck to my prescribed menu for the day!  YAY!

• Friday, September 23^rd…woke up to some disappointing news and the discovery that I want something more than I thought I did (in other words, I thought I didn’t want it at all), so I was a little emotional, so when the LT put the donuts on the table, I grabbed one.  Okay, I grabbed 2.  I also had one of the diet pomegranate sodas I still have in my fridge.  It was so freaking sweet I almost couldn’t finish it, but I did.  And there was a little ice cream.  Stupid emotions!  Anyway, I’m not going to let some emotional upset ruin things for me.  I’ve worked too hard to get to this point.  I’m also kind of thinking that maybe I’m eating too much.  I wasn’t super actually hungry today and didn’t eat like half my food.  I had a loss of appetite.  Anyway, I am thinking next week that I will nix the snack meals and just do 3 meals a day instead of 4 like I’ve been doing.

• Saturday, September 24^th…I went to my friend Amanda's house for some crafting.  The day’s food started off with good intentions…a wedgie burger with sweet potato fries and a plain iced tea for a midafternoon brunch (hey, I worked overtime the night before and didn’t get up until almost 1pm…don’t judge me!  Haha).  Then I got to Amanda’s and the wheels fell off.  She had made amazing caramel brownies and yea…I partook.

• Sunday, September 25^th…I had another long run today.  Since the sweet potato pre-run and then just a toddler squeezie pouch during worked pretty well for me.  And then it was off-paleo for lunch when I went to Schlotzsky’s and used my free small Original coupon from this morning’s 5K race plus got a Cinnabon.  Carb reloading??  No?  Oh well.  What’s done is done.  After that I had half a rotisserie chicken for dinner and snacks were 2 slices of bacon and a couple smaller honeycrisp apples with almond butter.  So the wheels did get put back on, so it’s all good. 

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Something I’ve noticed since starting paleo is that flavors are more intense for me.  I have had sugar or something with artificial sweetener in it a handful of times in the last week and a half, but it’s all small doses.  Food in general just tastes better than before.  I am pretty sure that the large amount of artificial sweetener I was using was blunting my taste buds ability to actually taste the food I was eating.  Which probably wasn’t helping with my binge eating problem or my food obsessing and anxiety either.  I just feel more satisfied with my food now that it tastes so much better and I’m tasting it the way it is supposed to be tasted. 

There were a few things that I’m not proud of this week…namely the cookies, donuts, and brownies (though they were really good...well, the donuts weren't super good, but they weren't bad either).  Especially with the slight gains I was seeing on the scale from one day to the next.  I’m sure it’s just my body adjusting to paleo.  The first week, I cut all the water weight I had been carrying around and got back down to 151-ish.  But I really, really want to make my way to the 140’s sooner rather than later.  I need to get in contact with some people that I know through Facebook and blogging and pick their brains about how their weight loss was affected when they switched to a paleo/ketogenic diet.  I’m sure what I experienced this past week was entirely normal and, like I said, was my body adjusting to the way my macros are now structured.  I’m eating such high amounts of protein and healthy fats.  My food tastes amazing every meal and I always feel satisfied and very, very rarely do I feel full on hunger.  I haven’t been ravenous since I started this way of eating, but I have been what I would call “somewhat hungry” a few times, but it was easily satisfied.  I find I eat my food slower, which is always better for you.  If I’m full, I stop and finish the food later when I feel like I could eat again.

This week’s menu will consist of:

Breakfast: 4 eggs & 2 slices thick cut bacon

Lunch: ½ rotisserie chicken

Dinner: 1 tilapia filet & steamed broccoli

Overtime snacks: apple w/AB & berries

The Weekly Weigh In

• Saturday: no workout.

• Sunday: ran 17.14 miles total.  I had a 5k race today, but I also had 17 miles on my marathon training calendar to get done.  So I arrived at the race location over 2 hours before the race was to start and started running loops around the giant shopping center (almost 3 miles for a full loop!).  I got 10 miles done pre-race, then 3.14 during the race, then I went home and knocked out another 4 miles!

• Monday: hammies and quads all sorta sore from Sunday’s running, so it was really nice to get out and stretch my legs for 4 miles.

• Tuesday:  just walking.  Worked overtime Monday night.

• Wednesday: 8 miles easy pace.  Wanted them to be faster, but what the heck…it’s not fall in Texas yet so it just got warmer and I just got slower.  Oh well.

• Thursday: overtime Wednesday night, no nada but walking.

• Friday: there was some disappointing news in my text messages when I woke up in the morning and the “I’m not sure I’ll run 8 miles today, I might just run 6” turned into “8 miles isn’t enough, I need to run 10!!!”  So that’s what I did.  10 miles.  Boom!  It was a good run and definitely much needed therapy.  I wasn’t able to totally work through the disappointment I was feeling and it actually stuck with me all day until the bearer of the disappointing news got back to me with acceptable news.  I wanted to make this run a little edgier, or whatever, so I ate 2 slices of bacon pre-run and then no fuel during.  I didn’t really feel like I needed it during anyway until I was almost done and therefore it was too late, so I just made myself wait until I got home and scarfed my eggs.

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it is what it is

Well, there wasn’t a whole lot of movement on the scale this week at all, was there?  Just up and down between 151.2 and 152.5.  I mean, the good news is that I totally maintained!  Bad news…maybe it’s not so much actual “bad” news…let’s go with the “disappointing” news (since that’s the theme for this week apparently…long story…or maybe it’s not…stay tuned for next week’s Let’s Get Random! post…I promise I’ll explain as much as I can).  Anyway, the disappointing news is that I am still not in the 140’s.  Ugh.  Maybe next week?  I really wanted to be below 150 (so 149 or less) by the end of September.  But I seem to have stalled out where I’m at right now.  I mean, where I’m at isn’t a crappy place to be.  I’m like 95% happy with my body at the moment and with what I see in the mirror and how my clothes fit.  However, I’d really like to cut a little tiny bit more body fat and make my muscles pop just a smidge more than they do right now.  I have, however, hit at about 25%, but I was saying I wanted that to be my top number for maintenance.  I really would like to be 23%. 

I think part of my problem this week was that even though more food last week caused me to lose 4.5-ish pounds, that wasn’t what happened this week.  So, next week I’m going to cut my calories a tiny bit and completely eliminate the snack meal from my day.  I’ll have breakfast, lunch and dinner.  I will still have my overtime snacks if I work overtime, but no more snack during the regular day.  I’m honestly not hungry at that time and I’ve been eating as late as 8pm because I’m just not hungry so I push off eating.  I really prefer to be done eating by 6, 6:30 at the latest.  It helps for my food to be pretty much completely digested by the time I wake up around 6-7 am on the mornings I didn’t work overtime the night before.

I was soooooo happy to stop by Starbucks last night and they happily made be a bulletproof-style coffee.  The guy said they didn’t have any coconut oil, which I said was fine because I don’t use it at home and then he said he highly recommends it, so I will be doing that from now on.  Coconut oil AND butter! 

Let's Get Random!

I have been posting this mostly on Wednesdays, but now I’m posting about my paleo experience on Sundays and my marathon training weekly recap on Tuesdays, so I’m moving this post to Thursdays.  So my only back to back postings will be Saturday and Sunday.  Now, of course, random posts may be posted on the other days, of course…you know, race recaps and other things I find, like questionnaires and surveys.

 

Last week, as you know, I started a new experience…dun dun dun…PALEO!  It’s a lifestyle but I don’t think it’s ridiculous.  I mean, it could totally get ridiculous if that’s how you approach it, but it doesn’t HAVE to be that way.  You don’t NEED organic, grass fed meat, though it does come highly recommended for a variety of reasons that are all valid.  However, be aware that “organic” is just a label that they use to get you to pay more money and doesn’t really mean what you think it means.  But that’s beside the point and if you want to go with organic meats, then by all means, do so.  I however, have chosen to go with just regular meats and seafoods.  When I get seafood, I do try to get it from the meat counter so it’s a little fresher.  If that counts for anything.  Who knows? 

weekend paleo meal, scrambled eggs and dried venison sausage

another weekend paleo meal, salmon and grape tomatoes

my failed attempt at pan frying plantains

paleo exercise snacks!

more paleo snacks

lara bars are the bomb!

i paleo-ized a burger at the movie theater!

this smoothie is 1 pound of strawberries blended with frozen and also unfrozen cashew milk, no other ingredients!

I got to run with a friend one day last week and that was awesome.  I really wish I had more friends that ran.  It does make me sad when they worry about pace so much.  They’re usually like, oh you’re so much faster than me.  So?  Who cares?  I can run slower for once.  And I’m not all THAT fast anyway.  Speed is all relative.  I know, I know, to them I am fast, but to me I’m just average.  There’s nothing wrong with being average.  Nothing at all.  I don’t want to be super duper fast anyway.  I’d settle for my goal marathon time being just a comfortably hard effort instead of the knock down drag me across the finish line pace it’s going to be for me when I attempt to do it next year in November.

 

I ran a couple fun races this past week!  First there was the Loteria Run down in San Antonio where I dressed up as a mermaid and SERIOUSLY PR’ed the 5K.  The second race was the CASA Superhero Run, also a 5K.  I ran this race a little over half way through my long run, so it was not fast at all…average runner speed.  I dressed up as a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle (Michelangelo to be exact).  I was a little upset when I was about an hour into my pre-race run when I realized I’d left my prop nunchucks at home on the couch.  Ugh!  I still had lots of fun and that’s the most important part.  I recently read a great quote: “it’s not the time you ran, but the time you had.”  Don’t worry about your pace, just have fun!!!

 

I bought even MORE dresses.  But, I think I’m done buying dresses for a while.  I’ve more than replaced all the dresses that were too big for me with dresses that fit so nicely. 

 

I bought a new phone!!!  And with that new phone came a new cellular provider.  I am no longer with Verizon and am now with AT&T.  I have had U-verse TV and internet for about 5 or 6 years now.  I discovered a little while back that if I have the TV service (you’d think it’d be the internet service, but nope, it’s the TV service), then you can pay a flat rate of $60 and get unlimited data on your phone.  My bill with Verizon last month was $160…and that’s WITH my government employee discount.  Ugh.  My new AT&T bill will be an acceptable amount below that.  And I was so excited and had so many other questions for Reynaldo Saturday evening when I was making the switch that I completely spaced on asking about a government employee discount.  I know they have one.  I’ll just go back to the AT&T store this weekend and inquire about it.

 

Anyway, I got the Galaxy S7 Active.  I no longer have to worry about if it starts raining while I’m out running or I want to go running and it’s already raining, my phone is really water resistant.  I got it in the goldtone coloring.  I downloaded a super cute free theme that has to do with cats and hearts.  When I got home with the phone, I immediately transferred all my stuff from the old phone to the new one and that took over 1.5 hours.  Geez.  Then there as a system update.  Then there were a few apps I use all the time that didn’t start downloading automatically, so I had to download those before I could go to sleep.  It was around midnight before I got to sleep and I was to wake up shortly after 4 to knock out that 10 miles pre-Superhero Run the next morning.

 

I ordered some new shoes from Running Warehouse online last week and they arrived yesterday!  Well, I went to the UPS customer center and picked them up myself.  UPS doesn’t like taking packages to the apartment office for some reason, and I didn’t want to chance them leaving it on my doormat and then I’m at work all night and the package could get stolen.  Yea.  So I just changed the delivery to customer pickup and swung by on my way to work.  But, of course, as I was coming back from my run just before 11am, the UPS truck was pulling into my apartment complex.  Figures.  Oh well.  I didn’t want to take the chance as usually they don’t get there until 30 minutes or so after I’ve left for work.

say hello to the Altra Olympus!

I decided to suspend my gym membership.  Actually, I had decided to cancel it, but when I called they gave me their schpeal and talked me into just suspending it for 12 months.  All I have to do to reactivate it is go to the gym and punch in my sign in number and scan my thumb and voila, membership reactivated!  But, I haven’t been to the gym since the end of August and I don’t see myself going any time soon.  I was really only doing abs, core and legs and all that stuff I can do at home. 

 

I had an oil change appointment Monday morning and while my oil was being changed, they did an appraisal on my car and had me test drive the basic version of my car, but the 2016 model.  They’re trying to talk me into upgrading to the 2016.  It’s model year end time for one.  For 2, they’re trying to beef up their used car stock.  And 3, they want to keep me making payments longer.  HA!  I mean, if they can get me in a 2016 for nothing down and just the trade of my current car, then fantastic, where do I sign?  However, I highly doubted that they’d be able to do it without me putting money down and I just don’t have the money for that right now.  But it’s nice to know where I stand and it was kinda fun to think about having a new car again.  Even if I would be losing some stickers that I’d put on the window.  You better believe if I do ever trade my car in that I’ll be removing my marathon maniac sticker!!!  But, sadly, as I expected, the offer they came back with (because I don’t have anything to put down toward the new car, because of the higher mileage on it and because the tires need to be replaced on my car) was $200 MORE a month than I’m currently paying.  I don’t need the newer car that bad, but thanks.  So by the end of the year, I’ll go into my bank and see about refinancing my car instead.

 

As you may or may not know, I work in a jail.  There is this wonderful thing called contraband which is basically anything that is not allowed within the secured confines of the jail facility.  Soooo, they put out a list of prohibited smart watches.  The FitBit Blaze is on that list.  Seriously?!?!?!  You can’t do squat with it unless you’re within about 10 feet of a phone that it’s paired to already and the phone is turned on.  Cellphones are most definitely NOT allowed within the jail and would be quite obvious, so I don’t understand why they’re banning the Blaze.  So, I had to go and buy a second FitBit to wear just to work.  I decided on the Charge HR.  I would have gotten the Charge HR 2 but it’s basically a simpler version of the Blaze so it’s only a matter of time before that one gets banned too.  Ugh!!!  But!  I got it in hot pink!  So there!  Take that!  Buuuuut, I think I’m going to take it back and trade it for the Charge HR 2.  I like it better. And the bands are easier to change out and more durable.  I know a lot of people have issues with the bands on the regular Charge HR peeling back and stuff.  So I’ll do that this weekend.

initially i bought the Charge HR to wear to work

but then i exchanged it for the Charge 2

There’s this guy I like.  He doesn’t work for the same agency I work for, but works for the main local agency other than my own.  Well, he and have been what I’ll call friendly flirting for quite some time now.  Pretty much since he hired on with the agency and started bringing people into my facility, actually.  So, probably about a year now…maybe a little more.  Well, the other day, he started being a little more, shall we say, direct with his flirtations.  Then the very next day, I am convinced he was actually and genuinely hitting on me.  Like he was saying things like he had definitely incentive to come back to my facility multiple times during my shift and that I was very distracting, among other things that gave a definite impression that he’s for sure into me.  I’m not sure if it’s an actual he wants to date me into me kind of thing, or if he just wants a hook up, but it’s definitely fun to flirt hardcore with him. 

 

I won’t be promoting in the next year.  I didn’t score high enough on the written exam to move onto the interview panel.  Next year!  I’ll for sure make it next year!  My friend and I are going to help each other prep and study for the exam over the next year to make sure we both get to the interview portion of the process.

 

I downloaded the I Heart Radio app the other day with the express purpose of listening to what I was told was a channel that was strictly military cadence.  So I found the channel and the first 2 songs were cadence, then it played some crappy slow song.  Ugh.  So, what I then did was go on Amazon and buy 2 CD’s with cadence on them.  I will load them onto my phone and make a playlist out of them.  Of course, that means I’m going to have to figure out how exactly to create a playlist as I’ve never done that before, so that should be fun!  I should have the CD’s by the end of this month, end of the first week of October at the latest.  So I’m really looking forward to that!  If the playlist thing isn’t hard to do (and I’ve been told it’s not), then I’ll make a few more of them…maybe…possibly…we’ll see.

one of my best friends bought and sent me some awesome adult coloring books!

these are probably my favorite paleo-friendly nutrition bars!

i love the little mermaid!

he's so adorable!

one of the Austin Capitol Metro buses!

the dia de los muertos cat is the new one