Long Fun Run

I’m going to start this off with a small lament.  I could have worked overtime on the night shift last night, however, I stupidly declined.  Now I’m kicking myself in the patootie for this.  Every now and then I have my stupid moments and this, folks, was one of them.

Okay, enough of that.  On to more important things…like running!  Today was Sunday, therefore my long run day.  In fact, around mile 5.5 I was thinking about how I see it as my long fun run.  Haha!  Anyway, I thought I’d change up how I take in fuel during my run since today marked a bump up to 11 miles (my furthest yet!).  I did my full package of Clif Shot Bloks right before setting out on my run.  Then, usually I take in a gel at mile 5, however this time I took in a gel at mile 3.5 and then a SECOND gel at mile 7.  Let’s just say this was the golden ticket.  Today’s run felt fantastic!  I felt the energy kick from the first gel around mile 5.5 and, sure enough, mile 6 was faster than the previous miles.  I was feeling really strong at a point where I’m usually lagging a little.  Then, I took in my second gel at mile 7.  I’m guessing I felt this one a little sooner than the first one because mile 8 was my fastest mile of the entire run!!!  And I finished strong, with an overall average pace of 11:18 min/mi.  I’m very happy with that pace.  In fact, I ran an extra ½ mile over what I ran last week (for a total of 11 miles today) in the EXACT SAME TIME as I ran ½ a mile less last week.  WOOT WOOT!!!  So, it’s like I got a ½ mile for free.  Hahahahaha!

And I think I found out a way to keep the boob chafing at bay.  I put fabric bandaids along the inner bottom areas of my breasts (where the Garmin heartrate thing is) and then I stuff a 4x4 gauze pad in that same area.  For the first time EVER on a long run…no boob chafing!!!  WOOHOO!!!

In other non-running/non-fitness/non-health related news, I bought a couple new furniture items for my apartment today.  The first was something I’ve been looking for over the past few months but have been unable to find for less than a ridiculous amount of money: a 3-drawer wicker cabinet thingy for my bathroom.  I’ve had this hideous plastic thing in there for 4 years and I desperately wanted to replace it.  Anyway, I was at Ross this afternoon and I found it!  And for only $35!  Score!

The other was something I’ve just been putting off buying and finally broke down and bought today.  A 9-square bookshelf for my hallway.  I went ahead and bought 2 wicker baskets to put in a couple of the squares.  I’ll buy like 2 or 3 of the baskets a payday until I have enough to fill it up because they’re like $12 each…and I need 7 more.  Anyway, doesn’t it look great?

And I finally get to display the Japanese tea set I got for Christmas years ago but have never had a place to display it.  So happy…it fits right in with this set up.

Another thing I picked up today was a great little book...looking forward to finding some great destination races in this.

 

Weekly Weigh In...Week in Review

So, this morning was weigh in day.  I wasn’t expecting to see anything different on the scale from last week.  In fact, I was expecting that it was going to be up from last week.  However, I was pleasantly surprised when it read 1.2 lbs less than last week’s weigh in!  Woohoo!  I wasn’t even trying to actually lose anything this week.  Seriously.  I was just taking it day by day, doing what I could to stick to my food plans each day.  On the days where I didn’t stick to my food plan and ate something else, I compensated by not eating as much the rest of the day.  Something that really helped me with that was that I didn’t feel as hungry on the whole nor did I have the urges to eat when I wasn’t hungry like I’ve been having lately.  I’m so glad to see that I seem to have moved out of the slump I was in that was causing me to feel powerless when I felt the urge to go to some fast food place and eat some high calorie, high fat, high sodium, over portioned food multiple times a week.  I didn’t stick to my food plans 100% this week; probably only about 80%, but, you know what, I still succeeded in the big picture by adapting and just taking each day as it came along and not freaking out about things.

Something I started this week was I went and bought some dark chocolate almond milk to drink after my runs.  I did that for the first time yesterday (Friday) and it was good.  I finished my run and drank the almond milk at about noon.  I didn’t feel the need to eat until around 4pm.  And even then, I wasn’t really hungry, I just figured I should probably eat something because it had been about 4 hours since I had ingested anything.  I’m finding that more and more frequently that is the case…that I’m just not hungry or feeling the urge to just consume something for the sake of consuming it.

I’ve felt really good this week.  My running has gone well, my eating has gone well.  Overall, I’ve been in a really good place all week long.  I’m very happy with how this week goes.  My hope is that I can repeat this week’s success again next week.  and I don’t necessarily mean the success of the weight loss (although that would be nice).  What I mean is that I hope I can continue to just take things as they come along, one day at a time.  I hope that I can continue to adapt as things come up during the week.  

Also, something that will change next week is the frequency that I work out.  I don’t have any overtime scheduled at work until next Saturday.  So, that means that I can pretty much work out every day of the week if I want to.  I’ll do my long run tomorrow (11 miles) at Town Lake.  Monday, I’ll try out this trak stand for my bicycle that I’m probably going to buy from a co-worker.  I’ll give myself enough time to do 45 minutes to an hour on it…give it a real good go to get a proper feel for it.  Tuesday will be a medium length run.  Wednesday I’ll go to the gym and hit the weights…biceps/forearms/legs/abs.  I just spent a little bit of time smooshing my “Energy Split” 3-week workout plan into twice weekly workouts (instead of the three time weekly that it says to do).  So, now I’ll be doing strength training twice a week.  The first session, on Wednesdays, will be biceps/forearms/legs/abs and the second session, on Saturdays, will be chest/shoulders/triceps/back.  Then, on Thursday, I’ll use the trak stand to ride my bicycle again.  On Friday, I’ll do my short run.  

For the past few weeks, I’ve only been running.  I haven’t done any strength training workouts or any cycling.  Just running.  As a result, I’m only burning about 2700-ish calories a week during exercise.  You need to burn around 3500 to lose a pound.  That’s why I didn’t expect to lose any weight this week…I had only burned around 2700 calories and I hadn’t been religious about sticking to my food plans throughout the week.  Guess I was doing something right, right?

Friend Makin Monday-a day late

Just Wondering

 
1.  Do you wear glasses and/or contacts?  Nope.  Once, I thought I needed them, so I got a prescription and bought a pair of glasses, but there wasn’t really a noticeable difference in how I could see, so I returned the glasses (hooray for Wal-Mart’s return policy!)
2.  Do you have summer vacation plans?  If so, where are you going?  All I have planned is a 2-day trip to San Antonio, TX for a 15K race that I’ve registered to run
3.  What is your favorite food to eat for breakfast?  Right now, I usually eat 2 whole/multigrain waffles with 3Tbsp PB2 and a sliced banana
4. Do you enjoy window shopping?  Yes, but it’s almost always a tease when I find something I REALLY want to buy but don’t have the money to buy
5. What is your favorite candle scent?  I’m not really a candle kind of person, so I don’t have a favorite
6.  If you had to choose between going to a zoo or an aquarium, which one would you pick?  The zoo, most definitely.  
7.  How many times do you plan to exercise this week?  Well, probably only 3 due to doctor’s appointments and working overtime at work
8.  Do you speak another language fluently?  No, but I do get bilingual pay for knowing how to speak Spanish somewhat decently
9.  What are you currently reading?  Complete Book of Women’s Running

 10.  What are you looking forward to most in the coming week?  I was looking forward to doing lactate threshold testing on Friday with my 4.5 mile run, but I may be smooshing my 6 mile run together with my 4.5 miler due to maybe working an extra, unplanned overtime shift if it’s still available.

An Improved Run & A Gun

I registered for my next race!!!!

I’m so excited!  It’s going to be a nice little 2 day getaway for me because it's in another city (San Antonio, TX) about a 2 hour drive away from where I live.  So, I'm going to go down the day before, scout out the race start and find a hotel as near as I can, then go pick up my race packet and then enjoy myself for the afternoon and evening.  I’m really looking forward to it.

I checked my mail when I got home from work yesterday morning (I habitually don’t check my mail like once a week unless I’m expecting something) and there was another package from the place I ordered my RUN NOW bracelets from.  Guess what?  They sent me a double order, so now I have 10 bracelets.  I really gotta figure out who I can give a couple to.  I want to keep a few for myself because these bracelets will eventually break, and I want back-ups.  But I’d like to give a few of them away.  

My run yesterday went quite well.  Sure, it was slow (as you can see in the picture of my splits), but it was a good run.  About 2 miles before the end of the run, I stopped at a water fountain and probably drank a little too much water.  I did the same thing last week and then it caused me to have to stop a few times before I finished my run.  I didn’t drink quite as much extra water this time as I did last week, so I didn’t have that same problem this time.  Even though the run was slow, I feel really good about it because I didn’t feel the “need” to stop and rest.  I felt good the whole run.  I think it had to do with 2 factors…1) I started this week’s long run about 20 minutes later (and closer to sunset) than last week’s run so it was slightly cooler, and 2) I think the temporary drop in dosage of my mood stabilizer is working.  I am finding it easier to wake up in the mornings and I’m not having as much of a difficult time falling asleep.

Oh, so, something I’m a little upset about.  It seems the cash cow is drying up at work.  When I worked overtime Saturday night, I asked the supervisor if they had the next 4 week schedule done (it starts next Sunday and goes for 4 weeks).  She said she did, so I asked if she could check for any overtime they might need.  She checked and then told me the bad news: there was none.  OMG.  What am I going to do!?!?!?!?!  It’s going to suck going back to what my actual paycheck is (but it’s still a good paycheck, don’t get me wrong).  I’m glad I bought the gun (Glock 17) when I did.

So, yea, I have overtime scheduled for the overnight shift this Friday and on the evening shift on Saturday.  After that, it’s all up in the air whether or not I’ll get anymore overtime.  I’m going to have to ask the day shift supervisor if they need anyone.  I hope I can pick up a day here and there.  Now that I’ve bought the gun and I have enough money for the oil pan replacement on my car, I’ve got to start saving up money for my trip to Oregon in September.  I need to have at least $1200 to feel comfortable taking that trip.  If I can’t get at least that much, then I’m going to have to postpone the trip and I don’t want to do that.  It’s already been 4½ years since I’ve seen my family, I don’t want to have to wait another 7-8 months.  Ugh.  Wish me luck.  I need to be able to pick up overtime to make my goal for the trip.

Oh, there is *one* piece of good news about maybe not getting as much, if any, overtime is that I'll actually be able to do ALL of my scheduled workouts during the week.  This will help me reach my fitness and weight loss goals...finally.  Oh and I may be buying a bicycle trainer so I can use my bicycle inside my apartment.  It runs for around $150, but this guy I work with is willing to sell it to me for $40!  He let me take it home to try out, so I'm going to try it out after physical therapy this morning and see if I like it.  If I do, then I'll be stopping at the ATM for $40 before I go to work today.  If I like it, it will be great for when it's just plain too hot outside to ride outside this summer.  So, I hope I like it because this will be a great tool in my fitness plans.