A Rant, Jewelry + Goals

I normally don’t like talking about work on here for various reasons and will only make vague references to it here and there.  However, this week will be a little different.  I have weekends off at work thanks to seniority (hooray working somewhere for over 14 years!  meh).  My supervisor was quite a bit late putting out our next 4 week schedule that commences Sunday the 23^rd.  I had signed up for a 5 day training class at the beginning of the year that was scheduled to take place starting on the 24^th.  Well, they put out the schedule and what do you know but my training class was CANCELED.  They cited staffing shortage, however all these other people get to go to their training and they pull lots of people to work overtime, but not me.  Nope.  But, it’s whatever and suppose the nature of the beast that is government employment.  Also, I suppose I’ve had it quite well in the department of not having my days off screwed with.  This is the first time I’ve had this happen in, well, I don’t even know how long at this point.  A long ass time, that’s for sure.  I was really mad at first, but I’m over it now.  It is what it is.  I’ll sign up for that training class again next year since there is no other offering for it during this calendar year.  Ugh.  They also switched my days off for 2 of the weeks.  One week, instead of having my standard Sunday/Saturday I have Monday/Saturday.  That’s fine.  I was going to hang out with a friend that Sunday but she understands.  I’m just glad they didn’t mess with my days off the weekend that I’m running an evening race on Saturday down in San Antonio and then a 10K in Austin that Sunday morning.  I would have definitely been upset about that!  I want that medal and shirt for that San Antonio race!  Plus the opportunity to dress up?!?!!  Heck yea!

Okay, enough of that grumbling BS that I need to move on away from.  JEWELRY!  I’m not someone who’s super big on jewelry.  I’m the kind of person that just puts it on and forgets about it.  Since I wear a uniform to work, I don’t wear something different every day that I need to be all matchy-matchy with my jewelry, so I’ll literally wear the same pieces for weeks or even months at a time.  Not kidding.  For the longest time now I’ve only been wearing one ring…a snake ring I bought from Helzberg a while back.  My birth year is the Chinese zodiac year of the snake, so that’s why that.  I get lots of compliments on it as it is a pretty unique piece. 

As of this week I’m now up to 2 rings!  Woo!  You know how there’s those things on Facebook that pop up in your feed where it’s free, just pay for shipping?  There was a ring that was tentacles, stainless steel, shipping was just $7, so that was the total cost of the ring.  I love cephalopods so of course I bought one!  Well it arrived this week and I love it.  It’s perfect. 

On top of that, earlier this year I had started wearing a necklace (also stainless steel…so I can leave it on at all times, including in the shower, etc and it won’t tarnish or discolor or otherwise irritate my skin).  It’s a St Michael’s medallion.  I added a little “26.2” pendant to it.  Well, within the last week I added 2 more pendants.  A stainless steel anchor (so cute!) and a gold plated (not sure how long the gold plating is going to last, but that’s ok) stainless steel arrow.  Anchors and arrows are my favorite symbols, so it just made sense for me to get representations of them to wear on my necklace.  I’m pretty happy with it.

Saturday was apparently a day of playing catch up with my sleep.  Yea, yea, yea, I know you can’t actually catch up on sleep, but I was so exhausted that I felt a little sick.  I slept until 11:30, got up, had a massive headache so I took some ibuprofen and headed out to pick up my packet for the Cap10K.  I felt so bad that I contemplated parking at the event center itself and just paying the $8 for parking.  I eventually decided to park at my work’s parking garage and make the walk, thinking the fresh air would help me feel better.  Nope.  I just walked a bunch and got accosted by transients.  Ugh.  Got to the expo and picked up my packet super easy, only bought one thing: a 40^th anniversary of the race hat.  I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I love hats and I love owning hats from the races I run.  I’m way more likely to wear those than the participant shirts.

Then, I went back home and went BACK to sleep for like another 3 hours.  Geez.  Got up and worked on my Project Life, then I went to bed super early…9:30-ish.  Oh, yea, because I didn’t feel good, I texted my friends and let them know that I was skipping the renaissance festival.  I had hoped to still hang out with them at my friend David’s place after they were finished at the fair, but he didn’t text me back about what time to get there until almost 9 so I skipped that as well, sadly.

As a result of all the sleep I got on Saturday, I woke up around 2:30am.  Whoa!  Way, way too early.  So I forced myself into a doze until the alarm went off at 5, got up and got ready for the Cap10K.  I parked shortly after 6 for a race that didn’t start until 8.  Haha.  What can I say?  I’ll do what needs to be done to score free parking.  Met up with my Team TCSO teammates shortly after 7 and socialized until it was time to head to our corrals.  This was my first time using a throw away top to keep warm and let me tell you, I felt weird tossing something I’d just paid $7 for the night before, especially since it was a pretty nice and comfy GAP brand thermal shirt.  Oh well.  The race went well and while I didn’t run my fastest 10K, I did get a course PR by 13 seconds (hopefully I’ll get a race recap up at some point…haha), so that’s pretty good and I’m pretty happy with that!

I got home from the race and showered and then headed out to Sherwood Forest Fair and spent the afternoon with my friends David, Bri, Mark, and Eden.  It was a fantastic time and I’m so glad I went!  I really do love the renaissance festivals!  David bought me a pretty rose too!  It matched my costume.

After the festival, I met up with Hannah and Will for karaoke.  It was dead at the bar so I got to sing so many songs that I ran out of songs.  HAHA!  I also got Will to sing my absolute favorite song in the world for me!  America’s “Horse With No Name.”  I videoed it too!  I was going to attach the video, but I can't figure out how to get it off my phone and onto my computer...wah wah!!!  Sorry.  I really did want to share it.

Since I had originally been scheduled to be in training for work all week this week, I didn’t have any overtime scheduled to work.  Part of me wanted it to stay that way.  A week without OT?  Yes please.  My paycheck wouldn’t like it, but I need the break.  I did pick up 1 shift of OT but that was it.  As a result of having next to no OT all week, I attended lots of classes at the gym!  Gold’s Fit on Monday, Gold’s Burn on Tuesday, Gold’s Cycle on Wednesday (today)! 

OH!  After the Gold’s Fit class on Monday, trainer Lindsey administered a Styku scan for me.  It’s this interesting piece of technology that gives super accurate measurements of your entire body, you input your weight and it will also estimate your body fat %.  Then we went over my goals and she said I should be eating 1 gram of protein for every pound of my goal weight.  That would be 150 grams then.  On average, I was getting about 90-100 grams a day.  This is probably why I’ve been bingeing a lot lately and not “able” to resist junk food when it’s offered.  Sooooo, I am now back to eating a half of a rotisserie chicken a day and boom, I’m totally hitting my daily protein goal!  I’ve also dropped a few pounds since Monday (most likely just water weight and inflammation from eating junk) since I’ve been off the junk since then.  I’m planning to do my best to make intelligent food decisions between now and the start of my Oregon trip.  And then I still hope to make intelligent decisions but there’s only so much I have the choice of while on the road.  But I will do my best while making the drive up and back there. 

Did my first Gold’s Cycle class this morning and oh yea!  Not much of a calorie burn (only about 252 for the hour) but still a great workout and not something I normally do currently, so therefore it’s totally worth it!  Also, totally felt like I was in an Ariana Grande music video!

Since I’m working OT tonight, I must pace myself with my eating so I’m not bingeing on junk food at 3am when I hit the wall.  If “necessary” I will allow myself to get some street tacos from Taco Cabana as they’re not TOO bad and are a good source of protein and usually fill me up quite well.  But hopefully that won’t be “necessary.”  Hopefully what I take food-wise with me will be enough.

I figured out how to view my macros on MyFitnessPal, so I’ll be monitoring that daily and posting it on my Instagram and Facebook page for this blog.  So if you’re at all interested in that, you can check that out by clicking on the links in the left hand column of the blog.

Marathon Monday & Gym Class

Monday morning…HAPPY MARATHON MONDAY!!!  This was the day of the Boston Marathon!  Someday…someday I will run it.  It’s still a ways off, though.  Quite a ways off yet.  I’m okay with that.  Part of me is thinking if I wait until I’m 45, then I’ll only have to run a 3:50 or faster to BQ.  Or, if I wait until I’m 50, then just a 3:55.  Seeing as how my current marathon PR is 4:29:51, those times seem significantly more “doable” and less intimidating than 3:45 does.  But, whenever I do decide to make my bid for a BQ, I’m going to have to put in some SERIOUS work.  Super serious indeed.  I’m not ready for that just yet.  Not sure I’ll be ready for it next year either.  When I’m ready, I’ll know.  So, anyway, I wanted to watch THE marathon and I couldn’t get the online streams to work, I thought “hmm, I wonder” and checked the sports channels and what do you know but I found it on TV!!!  This was perfect because I had a class at the gym mid-morning so I set my DVR to record it, went to my class and then came home and hit play.  I got to about the halfway point of the elite women before I had to leave for work.  Of course, a short time later, I did find out who the winners were, but I still plan to watch the rest of it, just because I discovered when the marathons were happening during the Rio Olympics that I really do like watching the marathon events. 

Like I said, I had a class at the gym Monday morning during the time of the Boston Marathon.  Since it was “Marathon Monday” I had to dress in blue and yellow.  HAD to.  It’s a thing, I swear.  At least for me, anyway.  I do it every Marathon Monday for my workout, whatever it may be.  So, I had some new “Boston Strong” blue and yellow banded ProCompression knee high socks that I really wanted to wear.  Then I put on some blue running shorts and a yellow tank top and my yellow and purple (the closest I had to yellow and blue…hey, don’t judge me!) Altra retired running shoes and headed to the gym for my 3^rd free Gold’s Studio class, which was another Gold’s Fit class.  Again, loved it!  I have one more free class and that is scheduled for Thursday morning and is going to be Gold’s Burn.  Then, all my free classes are used up and I have to wait until Tuesday to start my unlimited Studio package.  I’m pretty excited to have that unlimited class package.  I’m totally taking advantage of it!  I just wish I didn’t have to work so much OT because then I could do a class every single day of the week!  As it is, I have 4 days a week that I can do classes and on the weekends I can do 2 classes on the day that I’m not doing my long run.  Which, right now, my long run will not be longer than 10 miles. 

 

I la-la-love that quote!

When I went grocery shopping this weekend, I got the .evol microwave dinners that I love (haha, that’s funny because .evol is just love backwards) and a couple of these ones that caught my eye because they said “PALEO” in big letters.  I love shepherd’s pie so I grabbed 2 of them.  However, it was very bland even with a bunch of pepper on it that I added.  I won’t be buying them again. 

So, back to Monday morning.  After the gym I stopped at Target to get some coffee and realized I was HUNGRY.  And oatmeal sounded really good.  So I grabbed this flavor I’d never had before to give it a try.  Unlike the Beetnik PALEO dinner, this oatmeal was pretty dang yummy!

So, I of course went to karaoke this weekend.  It was my friend Hannah’s birthday on Saturday, so we went to dinner at Chuy’s Tex-Mex restaurant first and I failed and didn’t take any pictures.  But I think I told you that in my last post.  We went again on Sunday, which is our usual day to go.  Rewind to my sleep.  After I got home Saturday night (technically Sunday morning) I decided I’d just let myself sleep until I woke up.  I woke up at 10:53am!  Whoa!  I got, according to my FitBit, 7 hrs and 55 mins of sleep!!!  Daaaaaaaang!!!  It felt fantastic to get that much sleep.  But I kinda paid for it later as I think I was having a mild spasm in my lower back later that night.  Ugh…I just can’t win.

 

ANYWAY!  Karaoke Sunday night!  I sang a song I used to sing way back in the day.  “No One Else on Earth” by Wynnona Judd.  Love that song!  I also sang “Someone Like You” by Adele since somehow I haven’t managed to sing it with Hannah there and so she hadn’t heard it yet.  I sang a new-to-me song, “Wonder” by Natalie Merchant.  It needs a little work and it’ll be good.  I have plans for a new song for next Sunday.  So stay tuned for that one!  Hannah snapped a picture of me while I was singing “Back to Black” by Amy Winehouse. 

Okay, so I’m bouncing all over the place with this post.  Back to Monday.  By the end of my regular work day, I was already sore from the Gold’s Fit class that morning.  In case you can’t read in my pic above what the workout consisted of, here’s the breakdown:

 

WARM UP:

3 rounds of 10 Romanian deadlifts, 10 banded pullaparts, 5 dive bomber pushups, 10 PVC pass thrus and 100m jog.

 

SKILL/STRENGTH:

Snatch practice/proficiency, then…6 minutes to find 1 rep max single arm dumbbell snatch, then…perform “Ferrari” for time: 20/16/10 of snatches and ring dips

 

TRAINING:

Time remaining in workout of “I go, you go” of 200m run, 200m power skip, 200m side shuffle and 200m karaoke (grapevine is the other term for this move). 

 

We did not do the “AFTERBURNER” portion…wah wah.  I would have liked to have done it.  Though what we did do kicked my ass quite well.

Water Bottles & Dresses

So, while bootcamp came to a conclusion, that is most definitely NOT the end of the story.  Quite the opposite, in fact.  I’m starting over…YET AGAIN.  Ugh.  I severely dislike when I’m reading another person’s blog and they’re always writing about starting over…almost every single post they write.  So, granted, I don’t think I’m annoying in that respect in that I’m not starting over again every single time I write a post, but it feels like it to me.  I just feel like I can’t get a handle on things.  I burned myself out with running last year by running almost 1300 miles and 31 races.  Don’t think that means I don’t love to run anymore because I still very much do love to run, I just don’t currently have the motivation to run as frequently as I did last year.  I’m averaging about 52.5 miles a month.  So far for April I have just shy of 14 miles.  Hahahaha!  I’m guessing I might get up to 30-35 miles this month.  Not really concerned about it right now, though.  I might do more.  I do still have to make up that half marathon that got canceled so I can “earn” my medal and feel okay hanging it on my wall….when I get another medal rack, that is.  I have like 6 medals waiting for me to buy a new rack that are currently just hanging out on my desk. 

So, I mentioned that the end of bootcamp wasn’t the end of it all.  I mentioned in my last post that I had signed up for the Gold’s Studio package.  The Studio package includes the “premium” group classes.  You know most gyms have Body Pump, Zumba, yoga, pilates, step class, etc.  Well, certain Gold’s locations also have classes called Gold’s Fit and Gold’s Burn.  Gold’s Fit is a class that is modeled after crossfit.  Gold’s Burn is the same general idea as the workouts done at Orange Theory Fitness.  

So, this past Thursday, I did my first Studio class!  I did the Gold’s Burn class.  The coach was one of the coaches from the bootcamp class, Angela.  I like her a lot and have serious thigh envy of her thighs.  They’re amazing and strong and I want mine to look like that.  They’ll get there.  So, I started on the treadmill and we did intervals between walk, jog, run, sprint, and then different levels of incline too.  After that, we moved to floor work where we did some strength training circuits.  Then back to the treadmill for more intervals and then one more time with the floor work.  I burned almost 400 calories in an hour…pretty great!

After my Gold's Burn class, I went to Marshall's to see if I could find a new water bottle for the gym since I left my good bottle at the gym a couple weeks ago and have been using a backup bottle that I don't super like.  Well, I found a great bottle.  It's only 20 oz.  But it was so cute that I couldn't pass it up.  Don't you agree?

I had a pretty crazy busy go-go-go type of day on Saturday.  I want to preface this by saying how I really, really wanted to go to karaoke Friday night, but ultimately decided that I needed sleep more.  I woke up a little after 6am on Saturday and headed to the Austin State Hospital campus and picked up my packet and then hung out in my car until my friends Rob and Ben arrived.  The race went pretty well.  Again, just like with the Austin 10/20, I am still not at what I would consider a level of training that would allow me to run “fast.”  Yet, I pushed myself and I finished in 27:02 and snagged another golden bunny award for placing 3^rd in my age group!  I’d also like to point out that is my 2^nd fastest 5k time…but only by 20 seconds.  Oh and for the first 1/3 or so of a mile, I was sub-7:00!  Yea, I know that was pretty stupid of me, but it felt great so I went with it.  Someday that will be my norm for a 5k for the entire thing.  Someday. 

After waiting around for the awards ceremony, I hauled ass to RunLab for my physical therapy.  It would really do me a lot more good if I actually did my PT homework instead of just thinking about it.  Thinking about doing it will do me no good at all.  None!  So, I really would like to TRY and make a point to work on that.  We’ll see what happens.  I think I’ll set some calendar reminders on my phone.  After PT I again hauled ass, this time to make it to my gym in time for the 11am Gold’s Fit class I’d signed up for.  I loved this class.  Loved it!  La-la-la-loved it.  Seriously.  I’m signed up for another Fit class for tomorrow morning and I’m really looking forward to it. 

Yesterday was my friend Hannah’s birthday, so I went to the mall hunting for a really good present for her.  Sadly, I didn’t find anything at all for her.  On another note, I found plenty for myself.  Haha.  I got 3 new dresses.

I also bought 4 new pairs of gauges.  I was pretty dang excited when I found the donut ones…pink icing with sprinkles!  I couldn’t resist them.  There was just 1 set left in my gauge size.  It was meant to be.

I also got another new water bottle.  Haha.  I seriously couldn’t resist this bottle either.  It’s adorable.  I looooove mermaids and unicorns, so what better than a water bottle with “mermicorns” on it?!?!?!  NOTHING!  They also had air fresheners of this Tokidoki mermicorn.  Part of me wants it as a tattoo.  Not kidding at all.  It’s so cute!  And so me!  Random side note…speaking of tattoos…I’ve decided what I want to get as the filler design on my arms to make my tattoos into solid sleeve tattoos: mermaid scales!!!  Brilliant, huh?

Anyway, I met Hannah, her roommate and another lady named Jen at Chuy’s Tex-Mex restaurant for Hannah’s birthday dinner.  Since I felt bad for not having her present last night, I had the waiter put her meal on my ticket on the sly.  Then we went to karaoke and had a pretty good time.  There was an embarrassingly drunk woman that kept coming over to our table and being loud and obnoxious.  I’m sure she’s a nice lady when she’s sober but OMG she was so obnoxious and said so many offensive things.  After she left, these 2 guys, Nate and Ruben, came over to our table and bought us a few drinks.  I danced with Ruben a few times and that was fun.  Turns out that just because you don’t 2-step for over 10 years doesn’t mean you forget how to do it...who knew?!?!  Hahaha.  And like a bad friend, I completely spaced on taking pictures the entire night.  Oops.  Well, actually, I did take one picture…of that Nate guy wearing Hannah’s “Birthday Bitch” headband tiara thing. 

Then I slept a GLORIOUS 8 hours last night.  I set no alarm and just slept until I woke up!  Then I decided that I’m just going to wear repeat costumes to Sherwood Forest Faire next weekend.  I just don’t feel like sewing right now, so no new costumes will be made at this time.  I have some time off put in for a few days in June that were supposed to be for competing in the Texas Police Games (I was going to run the 5k and 10k), but I changed my mind about that for financial reasons.  If the vacation gets approved, I’ll just use that time for cleaning my apt and for costume making.  

 

Bootcamp & Medals

Okay, after last week’s major catch up post-fest, let’s see if I can just start posting on a regular basis again. 

 

Saturday was the last class for my bootcamp challenge.  I’m a little sad that it’s over.  I really enjoyed the class and it definitely does not feel like it’s been 12 weeks.  But!  Because we committed to 12 weeks of bootcamp, they extended a deal to us.  $20 off the monthly cost of the Gold’s Studio package!  That includes the Gold’s Fit, Gold’s Burn and Gold’s Cycle classes.  And it’s an unlimited program which I didn’t realize.  So, for $89 a month I can attend as many classes as I’m physically able to attend and it’s all included!!!  They did inform me that if I sign up for a class and no call/no show or don’t cancel with at least 24 hr notice that there is a fee for that of $15.  She said the Gold’s Fit classes are never full so that I’m okay to sign up last minute or just walk in for one of the classes. 

After bootcamp was physical therapy.  Ugh, I exhausted my cheap copay visits and my copay went up with my last visit.  I’m seriously considering just making an appointment with the therapist outside of there for a full hour, but I’m not sure when I’d be able to do that since I don’t think she works on the weekends outside of the hours she works Saturday morning at RunLab.  Sigh.  I’ll have to talk to her and find out. 

 

On my way home, I stopped and picked up my packet for my race on Sunday.  The expo was seriously disappointing.  Granted this was the last year for this race so I guess a lot of vendors didn’t sign up to be there.  There was absolutely nothing I wanted to buy.  So I was there for just long enough to get my bib, my shirt and walk around and take a quick look at the vendors that were there and then I left.  I stopped after that at P. Terry’s and got a burger, like I usually do the day before race. 

 

I went to karaoke Saturday night because I was bored and didn’t feel like doing the things I should have been doing, like working on my costume for Sherwood Forest Faire.  I only stayed until midnight since I had to get up at 6am Sunday morning for the race.

Sunday, I got up, got dressed and headed out the door, coffee in hand.  I got there pretty early and just chilled in my car until it was time to go to the portas and meet up with my friend Rob.

Rob took off with the hopes of a new PR and I took off with the hopes of just finishing.  Long story short, the race went pretty fantastic until the final like 3 miles where there were a few looooong gradual inclines that just plain kicked my ass.  At the 10K, I was on pace for a new PR, but then there were those inclines and I was toast.  But, I still finished stronger than I thought I would.  I gave everything I had in me which was way more than I thought possible.  I took a 3 hour nap that afternoon!  Boy was that nice!  And then, of course, I went to karaoke again!

 

Monday morning, I went to the gym and first thing I did was find trainer Rachel and signed up for the Gold’s Studio package!  I also got 4 free classes from a promo they’re doing right now.  I signed myself up for 2 of the Gold’s Burn classes and 2 of the Gold’s Fit classes over the next 2 weeks.  I’m excited!  I’m starting to get motivated to workout again.  Saturday I did bootcamp, Sunday I ran the Austin 10/20 and then Monday I did a workout that was mostly given to me by my friend Grif.  I didn’t do the entire workout he gave me as I don’t know what some of the exercises are, but I’ll talk to him and get him to explain those ones to me so I can do them with my next general gym workout.  But, I still had a great workout.  I tried out the lateral elliptical and I kinda like it.

So, my PLAN for my Studio package is to do 2-3 classes a week.  At the very least, one Burn and one Fit class.  Then I might throw in either a second Burn or a Cycle class to round out my week along with a general gym workout.  Currently, my gym doesn’t have any of the wall balls in the general area of the gym because people don’t use them properly so they’re all exploded and ruined and they’re waiting on the new ones that they ordered that are better quality.  After they get those in, I can start doing the entire workout.