The Weekly Weigh In

• Saturday: I keep having “grand” plans for a Saturday cross training workout and then not following through with them.  But, the last few weeks (and probably will continue to do so for the foreseeable future as well), I have been working overtime on the night shift on Fridays and don’t get home from work until about 7:45am Saturday mornings.  Then I sleep until early afternoon, so half my day is gone by the time I wake up.  Anyway.  I did walk Saturday late evening for almost 2 hours and made sure to get my 15K steps.  Honestly, though, I could have hit that mark in less time had I just gone to the gym and did the stair climber and a run on the treadmill.  Oh well.  It was a nice peaceful walk and I got to talk to a good friend while I was walking on FB messenger.

• Sunday: LONG RUN DAY!!!  Doing the cutback week thing this training cycle, so “only” 10 miles for my long run this week.

• Monday: decided to try and follow my “coach” friend’s advice on a tempo run…sort of.  What she recommended was a total of 8 miles.  Well, I had just run 10 for my long run on Sunday, so I shortened it to 5 miles and set out for 1 mile slow (12:00+ pace), then tried for 3 miles half marathon goal pace (that’s about 9:45) and then a 1 mile slow cool down.  NAILED IT!!!

• Tuesday:  worked overtime the night before, so just a 2000 meter row.  Completed it in

• Wednesday: since my “coach” friend said if I do that tempo run, not to do speed work in the same week, I just did 4 miles easy on the treadmill this day to wrap up my August miles with a total of 122.5 miles for the month!  Then, I moved on to some strength training and did back extensions with a 25# plate, oblique extensions with a 10# plate, Russian twists, TRX pikes, and planks for 90/60/30 seconds.

• Thursday: 2000m row on the night shift.  Completed it in

• Friday: ran 6 miles outside at a fairly easy pace.

****************************************************************

While I’m very happy with the majority of my weigh ins this week, I ate too much this week.  Plain and simple.  Mid-week looked great and then I’m not entirely sure what happened with my eating because it was a smidge out of control.  I mean, I ate 7 cookies yesterday.  What the actual pfffffff?  I don’t know what was going on but I guess on some level I “needed” them.  I think I am just worn out and tired and exhausted from all the overtime I’m working.  And really, it’s not the overtime itself that’s the issue.  It’s the fact that the shifts I’ve been working get me home over an hour and a half later than if I was working my overtime in my own assigned area, so I’m only getting 3 hours of sleep (if I’m lucky) between getting home from work and waking up to get ready to go to work again.  Which is why I’m not working back to back days with overtime shifts.  I’m leaving a day in between so I can get as close to a full night’s sleep as possible in between the days where I’m only getting 2-3 hours.  Something that did happen this week was Tuesday morning, my sleep was so extremely poor that FitBit said I got NO sleep at all in the morning between my overtime and regular shifts and Tuesday night, even though I was completely exhausted (from apparently and basically not sleeping that morning) and falling asleep at work, I could NOT sleep.  I was in bed for at least 8 hours and FitBit said I got less than 3.5.  Ugh! 

So, next week, I’m going to do better with my eating.  Here’s my meal plans:

• Breakfast: pumpkin protein waffles again with extra protein powder in them

• Lunch: super thick spaghetti sauce with miracle noodles and ¼ cup parmesan cheese

• Snack: shredded chicken tacos with corn tortillas and 0% plain Greek yogurt & sautéed onions

• Dinner: Chobani flips yogurt

• Overtime snacks: flavored tuna in the vacuum sealed bags and Skinny Pop popcorn

I’m really trying to get more protein in my system and lessen the processed foods, especially the processed carbs, which is why no rice cakes for overtime snacks next week.  I’m hoping the extra protein will help me feel more satisfied and keep me full longer.  I also want to get some PlowOn gum to try out in the distraction and energy department.  A lot of distance (read: ultra) runners use PlowOn gum and swear by it.  Even though I have TMJ issues and chewing gum usually hurts and makes my jaw cramp, maybe this gum won’t do that to me…?  Only one way to find out.

I’m also going to make a point to make sure that I do 2 things for my overtime shifts: put a resistance band in my overtime band so I can do some basic resistance exercises and use the row machine for a 2000m row each night I work OT.  Since I’m focusing more on just abs/core and legs when it comes to strength training in the gym, it is really important that I get upper body exercises somehow, and taking a resistance band to work with me is a great way to do that!