Sports Therapy, Running, & the Gym...oh my!

Not much happened this week, exercise wise.  I had another appointment Thursday morning with the RunLab sports therapist.  We did LOTS of fun (yes, I’m weird and think PT exercises are fun) exercises that I’m looking forward to doing on my own because he assigned them as homework and each week that I come back to see him, he’ll be adding more exercises for me to do.  A few of the exercises he wants me to do on an incline or a slight hill.  I was trying and trying to think of where to find a hill or incline as around where I live is pretty flat.  I mean, there’s a part of the park trail that goes under the road so there’s a bit of a hill there and I can drive there and park and there’s also a decomposed granite “paved” circle around a soccer field so I can do like some track work after I do my exercises…or just run mindlessly in circles.  Ha!  Or I can run the 3 mile loop once or twice after them. 

After my RunLab appointment, I drove to my gym, parked and then ran down the street for 2 miles and then back for a total of 4 miles.  The route was just a straight shot down the road, but it was chock full of rolling hills.  YEA!  Since I have the Austin Marathon coming up in February, I really need to focus on training on hilly routes and doing speed work on top of my long runs.  I just had an idea…what if I run the hilly routes and ALSO do speed work…I can do fartleks up the hills and then run really slow for recovery on the flats and downhills.  I like this idea! 

After my 4 mile run, I went inside the gym and did some core work.  I used the glute master (it’s a kickback action), then I did the 3-way ab crunch machine, then the back extension machine and finished up with the rotary torso machine.  I really wanted to get on the Jacob’s Ladder machine, but as I was walking over to it, a guy was strapping himself to it and starting to use it.  Wah wah.  After that, I went home and finished up my core workout on my TRX straps by doing some pikes.  It was recommended to me by a friend that I add a push up after each pike rep.  So next time that’s just what I’m going to do!  And, in case you’re wondering what a pike is, you can check out the video of me doing them on my Instagram (@sararunsthisweigh) or on my Facebook page www.facebook.com/sararunsthisweigh. 

Today, I ran with a free running group called Al’s Ship of Fools.  It was supposed to be a 13 mile route, but the pacer I chose forgot her map of the route and I couldn’t find the map on their website on my phone, so we just ended up taking a couple wrong turns and I finished at 12.4 miles.  I’m not worried about it, though.  They had a fantastic breakfast spread for us after the run and I had half of a cinnamon roll, some sausage/egg/cheese casserole and a chocolate donut with chocolate filling.  So yummy.  I hope to run with them again in the future!  When I got home, I showered and took a nap.  This afternoon, I was going to go to the gym, but discovered that they either closed early or were closed all day today.  So, I still wanted to do some strength training, so I did a few exercises on my TRX straps that I have in my apartment.  I did row, tricep extension, bicep curl and supermans.  As basic as those exercises are and I only did 3 sets of 8 reps of each, I will probably still be sore tomorrow just because of my complete lack of strength training over the past 3.5 months. 

I still weigh myself daily, so long as I have access to a scale.  However, at this time I’m not going to be posting that information.  I will start January 1^st with all of that.  Full disclosure, I promise.  I have regained some weight, so I do have some work to be done in that department.  I think I’m just going to do weight and measurement and progress photo posts once a month, on the 1^st of every month.  I’ll wear the same swim suit for all progress photos…most likely my flag bikini because, well, it’s the most revealing one I have, no extra flair that can distort or distract how the photos are viewed (aka: no fringe or whatnot).  So, I’m looking forward to that!

Plan of Attack

So, I’m pretty excited for my new gym membership.  I really want to hit it hard.  I know I’ve said similar to that before where I had high hopes and big plans for myself when it came to the gym.  And yes, I meant it every single time.  But I’ve gotten so close to my goal this year, I want to make for sure I reach it next year and then MAINTAIN it!    I want to bust through the mental blocks that have been keeping me from moving forward and making me stumble more than I think I should be stumbling.  My incidence of regaining some of the weight I had lost recently was due to an issue with medication.  However, that has since been remedied and I’m tired of saying that I regained some weight for that reason and I’m just having issues rebalancing everything.  I’m tired of that because now it’s just an excuse.  A ridiculous one at this point.  It’s no longer valid.  It’s been over 2 months since the issue was fixed and I haven’t lost any more weight to get back to where I was before that whole thing started.  In fact, I HAD gotten back down to within about 5 pounds of where I was before, but then I started going back up again.  So frustrating.  I know it’s my eating and I’m sick of how that is as well.  when I had my welcome session with Josh at Gold’s on Monday, he asked me how my eating was and I said it was “trying.”  So then he asked what I’d eaten on Sunday.  I had ice cream, beef bulgogi, and salmon.  2 of those things are good choices…the ice cream…not so much.  I was embarrassed to say that I’d had it, but I have to be honest or I won’t be able to move forward and reach my goals.

 

I’ve decided that I want to be at my goal by the end of the 12 week bootcamp program I signed up for at Gold’s.  It starts January 21^st.  So it finishes up on April 8^th.  That’s just in time for my Oregon trip in May.  Awesome!  My goals are:

• 145 lbs and/or 23% or less body fat

 

Here’s my plan of attack!  My weekly schedule will look something like this:

• Sunday: long run of 10+ miles, then to the gym where I’ll do the ladder for at least 5-10 minutes.  Then I’ll do lower body exercises.

• Monday: 4-6 mile run (possibly with speedwork like fartleks), ladder, combat fitness exercises (see below), core exercises.

• Tuesday & Wednesday: rest.

• Thursday: sports therapy (RunLab), then a 4-7 mile run.

• Friday: rest.

• Saturday: RunLab for soft tissue treatment, 4-10 mile run, ladder, upper body exercises.

 

That might seem like a lot of rest days, but that’s only because I work 17 hours on those days and literally do not have time for any workouts other than walking on my lunch breaks and doing my best to hit my 12,500 daily step goal.  Then, after the bootcamp starts up on next month, I’ll have my soft tissue appointment at RunLab, then to the gym for bootcamp, then I’ll do the ladder and upper body workout, then I’ll hopefully be able to take a run down the street and back to finish it up. And then, if I can manage to swing buying a 12 session personal training package, I’ll be doing that on Mondays with a run.  I’ll try and schedule that session for 10 so I can run prior to my session as I know I’ll be spent afterward.  I have no doubts that Josh will work me out to my limits.  And in that case, I’ll also move the combat fitness exercises to Sundays, after my long run and then I’ll do a full body workout of strength exercises on Saturdays post-bootcamp session.

 

Then, the only other thing I have to worry about is my eating.  That’s the main thing, really.  They say that bodies are made and/or broken in the kitchen.  So I really have to do my absolute best to succeed at keeping my caloric intake under serious control.  I know I can do it.  I did it this summer…easily.  I just need to simplify everything so I have no excuses.  The rotisserie chickens worked really, really well for me and I really liked them.  they were super easy.  I love the Chobani Flips Greek yogurts.  I love the ease of having pre-boiled (yea, I’m lazy like that) eggs for my breakfasts.  And I love sweet potatoes.  And I love apples and the Skinny Pop popcorn is a great way to snack for a while without taking in a ridiculous amount of calories.

 

Something that will help me achieve my goal of eating better and more simply is that I’m going to do a frugality challenge after the first of the year.  In January I’ll track and log ALL of my purchases and expenditures, divide them into mandatory, cost of living expenses and discretionary, not necessary expenses.  This will help me come February when I cut out at least 75% of my discretionary expenses.  I’m not going to get rid of cable at this point.  My plan is to get rid of it when I move and just get better internet.  But I can pretty much cut out all other non-necessary expenses.  So, I will set a limit of 1 INKnBURN purchase a month and 1 meal out a month.  Plus I want to start price shopping.  I’ll make my grocery list a week ahead of time and when I’m shopping for one week of groceries, I’ll check prices on what I want to buy the following week at different places, including the Amazon Pantry, and buy from wherever is cheapest. 

 

So, there you have it, my grand plans for the next 5 months.  Sure they’re aggressive, but they’re also totally doable.  After I’ve reached my goal, I can back off a little bit for the maintenance phase, but I don’t want to lose my focus again.

Crawling out from under my rock

Well, well, well…I finally decided to crawl out from under my rock, it seems.  At least for a moment.  It’s awfully cold in central Texas…per central Texas standards, that is.  We’re having the coldest temps that have been recorded in 2 years.  Yea, sure, it’s not like they’re record breaking temps, they’re just not temps we normally get here.  Not recently anyway.  The last couple years winter has lasted all of a couple weeks for the most part.  So an actual winter is right up my alley.  I will complain about the wind, just so you know.  The actual cold temps don’t bother me so much…I *AM* an Oregon girl, after all and it DOES get cold there.  I remember when I was a teenager and it was around 17°F and I was running around outside in a tank top, short and no shoes or socks and I was perfectly fine.  But I was used to it.  I’m freaking acclimated to central Texas so I’m no longer as used to it, but after a few days I do readapt.  As long as there’s little to no wind.  Like I said, the wind is one thing I WILL complain about.  Anyway, it’s not like it’s snowing 2 feet overnight or the roads are icy and causing 67 car pile ups like some places.  

 

So, what’s new with me?  A few things.  First, I’m a year older.  I’m now 39.  I ran 13.9 miles for my birthday.  I for sure am not running 39 miles by myself at this point in my running career…I do plan to one day do a 50 mile race, but that won’t be by myself.  And then 3.9 miles or 39 minutes just didn’t seem like enough, you know?  So I did the 3.9 and stuck a “1” in front of it and came up with my new birthday mileage formula!  So next year, for my 40^th it’ll be 14.0, then 14.1, and so on.

 

I’ve run a couple races since I last wrote.  I’m going to spoil the race recap for the Decker Challenge Half Marathon and go ahead and tell you I PRed the half marathon by almost a minute and a half!  On a SUPER hilly course!  I was also the most festive runner.  Decked out head to ankle (sorry, no elf shoes) in Christmasy attire!  I ran the first 10K with my friend Rob, so that was pretty cool.

 

I signed up with Gold’s Gym!!!  I’m super stoked about this!  I signed up last Thursday and this Monday was my first visit to there.  I had my initial welcome session with Josh, one of the trainers there.  We spent the first half of my session going over paperwork and waivers and goals and hopes and plans and stuff.  Then the fun began and I got to knock out a short workout with him.  We mostly did exercises I wanted to do, but he guided me thru the smart ways to warm up for each exercise seeing as how I like to just dive in and go all out.  One thing I was ridiculously excited about when I toured the gym before signing up last week was that they have a Jacob’s Ladder machine!!!  You have no idea.  This machine was like my unicorn piece of cardio equipment.  I’ve seen it on the weight loss TV shows but I’ve never been to a gym that actually had one.  So the first stop for my mini workout was, of course, 5 minutes on the ladder!  Loved it!  It wasn’t really easy, but I still loved it.  I will be using it every time I go to the gym.  Every time.  Then we moved onto squatting wall ball, then kettlebell sumo squat to front raise, then push press, and then we ended with the “glute buster” (a glute kickback machine).  I like their machine more than one that was at Planet Fitness because you can adjust how much you tuck and get a wider range of motion, which I really like. 

 

I’ve gained a little more weight and am completely frustrated with myself as a result.  So when I was talking with Josh about my goals, I stated that not only do I want to boost my running performance and efficiency, but I do want to drop 20 pounds.  I also signed up for their 12 week bootcamp program that starts on January 21^st.  So, I’m pretty excited about that, and I’d like to see that 20 pounds GONE by the end of that program.  To supplement the bootcamp, I’m hoping to purchase a personal training package to get me 1 session with Josh per week and I know that will help me greatly in reaching that 20 pound loss goal.  Heck he even said that if I did that, as long as I ate right, then he could pretty much almost guarantee me success in that area.  So I’m pretty excited about that prospect.

 

Speaking of controlling my eating.  I’m starting back up with trying to keep my caloric intake below 1500/day…preferably as close to 1200/day as possible.  Yep, even on days I exercise.  At least until I can drop the weight off, then I can up the calories to a maintenance level of like 1750-ish/day.  But right now, I’m focusing on cutting the amount of food I’m shoveling into my face by a lot.  I’m going to treat my eating like it’s a financial budget.  I’ll make a list of what is mandatory and what is discretionary (aka: not necessary…superfluous food items).  I’ve done it all before and it worked fantastic for me.  But I’m having issues recovering from the medication fiasco.  But it’s been too long now since that and now I’m just using it as an excuse that I’m tired of parroting to people to explain the weight gain.  I should have lost most, if not all, of the weight that medication made me gain by now.  Instead, I’ve gained a few pounds.  I need to get a handle on this and stop being one of “those people.”  You know the type…the type that big talk about how they’re going to do this and that and then never follow through with it. 

Calling All San Antonio RNR Runners!!!

i am going to be running the San Antonio Rock'n'Roll Marathon on the 4th.  i would looooooove to meet people!  i'll be at the expo on saturday around noon.  i'll be there for probably about 2 hours as i love walking around RNR expos and seeing all the booths.  saturday morning i will post a picture of what i'll be wearing so if you're there, it'll be easier for us to find each other, chat and take selfies together!  i'll be in San Antonio all evening saturday and then all of sunday (on sunday, i already have dinner plans and hopefully lunch plans too...Carina?  yes?) and then i'll be checking out of my hotel monday morning but am willing to hang out and have lunch with someone before heading back home.  shoot me a message on my facebook page for this blog or comment on the picture i post saturday morning to let me know you'll like to meet up and we'll make it happen!  i'm so excited!

Glasses & PRs

I have to say, I’m really happy with my decision to get an eye exam and go through with getting and wearing glasses.  Even though the doctor that did my exam said it wasn’t necessary to wear my glasses at all times…just when reading or while using a computer…I decided that it was just easier to wear them all the time.  However, I don’t yet have prescription sunglasses, so for now (until I get my new insurance card from Davis Vision) I will have to either run in my regular sunglasses, or in my regular glasses and be all squinty.  I’ll just make do with the regular sunglasses.  I should have my insurance card early next week, so I’ll be able to use my frame & lens allowance and get myself a 3^rd pair of regular glasses (I really want those red frames!) and some sporty sunglasses.  And then, instead of using the clip on sunglasses, I’ll just switch back and forth between the regular glasses and the prescription sunglasses.  Also, I’m really digging how I look and I’ve gotten boatloads of compliments on them.  everyone likes them.  I’ve been told I look “cool” and “stylish.”  Also, in one day last week, I got told by one coworker that he didn’t recognize me because I looked like a supervisor.  I had a detective ask me if I was the sergeant.  And then a patrol deputy asked me why I haven’t promoted yet.  Those were all huge boosters for me! 

I have not run much since the marathon.  It’s been mostly due to my work schedule, but partially due to me sleeping in so much this past weekend.  I was going to run a 10K run Saturday morning, but then I didn’t get up until 10am and I went on that shopping trip I already spoke about.  Then Saturday night I stayed up late to wait for my friend to get off work.  He came over and we stayed up late and it was almost 5am before I went to bed.  I tried to get up between 8 and 9 but that wasn’t happening.  I got up at noon.  Oh well.  So then I had grocery shopping to take care of so that I could meal prep for this week and some of next week.  I found a recipe for a BBQ paste rub roasted turkey, so I made that with my giant 21 pound bird.  When I carved it and put it in my biggest “Tupperware” container, it basically filled it up.  WOW!  And, of course, I missed the baggie of organs and they got cooked in the bag inside the turkey.  Never fails.  Then I made (for the 4^th time in the last year…it’s seriously one of my all-time favorite recipes!) the crockpot orange spiced sweet potatoes.  I also cooked up some whole berry cranberry sauce with coconut sugar.  The coconut sugar made it come out with the consistency of preserves.  So I’ve been eating it on toast!  And it’s quite tasty that way! 

I seriously PR’ed the 10K distance Sunday evening.  Oh, before I get into that, I *was* going to run 10+ miles on Sunday but because I woke up so late and then had all that grocery shopping and food prep to do, I didn’t have time…or, I should say, I didn’t have the sunlight left in the day to get it done.  Sunset was around 5:30 and I headed out the door to run a smidge after 5.  So that 10K run I didn’t get done Saturday morning happened Sunday evening.  So, yea, I seriously PR’ed!  My previous PR for a 10K distance was set during the Capital 2 Coast relay and was 57:52.  Now…NOW…my PR is 53:59!!!  I was just focusing on keeping all my miles under the 9 minute mark…the PR was just a bonus.  But, now that I’ve gotten a sub-54 minute 10K, achieving that 50 minute 10K at next year’s Cap10K doesn’t seem quite so farfetched after all.  So, on top of getting serious with the speed work ALL of next year, I’m going to get serious with the hill training.  I want to eat the hills during the Cap10K for breakfast!  Straight up devour them! 

Speaking of PRs, during the South Padre Marathon, I also snagged 2 new PRs...in the marathon and in the half marathon distance as well!  My previous half PR was 2:05:22…now my PR is 2:04:52.  Not a huge PR, but considering it was the beginning of a marathon, I’ll take it!  I know I can run a sub-2 hour half.  When I ran the Hill Country Halloween Half last month, I finished in 1:58:43.  That course is ¼ mile short, so I know I could have finished it in 2:02:00 or faster, easily.  And I had a little left in the tank when I finished, so I know if it had been the complete 13.1 that if I had pushed myself a little harder, then I could have finished sub-2.  And, my previous marathon PR was 4:35:17 and now it’s 4:29:53 (official race time was 4:29:51, however).  I had set a goal to PR every distance this year and I’ve done it.  I PR’ed the 5K with a time of 26:45, the 10K, the 8K/5mi, the 10mi, the half, the 30K (of course, I’ve only ever run a race that distance once), and the marathon.  So I’m setting the same goal for next year…PR everything!

I can’t believe it’s getting to the end of November.  Where did this month go?!?!?!  Like, seriously.  This month has just flown by.  November is a very busy month for me with the renaissance festival and races and overtime and meal prep, and trying to fit in time for friends on top of it all!  So hectic.  But, I love being busy.  And I’m excited for next month.  2 weeks off for my birthday!  I have a few projects I want to get done.  But I’ll save talking about those for when they happen.

I have regained about 10 pounds and I’m fairly disappointed in myself for that.  Granted it wasn’t entirely my fault that I gained it (thanks a lot birth control pill fiasco), but the fact that things have been back to how they should be for over a month now and I *STILL* have not relost the extra weight…tisk tisk tisk is all I have to say to myself in that regard.  I know right now it’s hard to lose the weight as I’m not running as much, but really that’s not much of an excuse.  I’ve cut my calories, but it’s not helping when I give into junk food here and there.  For the most part I’m not having urges and I’m having no cravings, but sometimes, when free food presents itself at work, I just can’t help myself.  And thanksgiving is today and I’m working 2 shifts at work, so that’s TWO thanksgiving spreads I’ll be participating in.  I’m going to TRY and be reasonable and just get a tiny bit of everything.  Just a taste of everything.  Try not to go bananas or hog wild with the food, you know?  I just need to watch what I’m putting in my mouth and count my calories and try and leave a deficit every day.  I was wanting to get back down to 150 by my birthday, but I’ll be happy if I can just get back down below 155 by my birthday and then 150 by the end of the year.  I think both of those are reasonable goals.  Speaking of goals, I need to work on my goals for December!  Better get crackin’!

Hello!

I’ve been a little silent lately and I’m sorry about that.  I’ve got quite a few race recaps typed up and ready to go, but I’ve been so busy and my mind so preoccupied that I just have either not had the time or the inclination to deal with much beyond work and running.  I’ve had so much on my mind the past month and have been battling myself within my head.  It’s not something I will talk about here because it’s just not appropriate for anything outside of my personal journaling.  I will say it has to do with a guy, but that’s as far as I’m willing to open up about that here.

Moving onto some positive stuff.  I got glasses!  I’ve needed them for quite some time but kept putting it off.  I’ve known since I was in high school that I had an astigmatism in my right eye.  I got glasses then, but I think either the doctor wrote the script for my glasses wrong or the eyeglass place got the script wrong with they made my lenses because when I wore them, my eye felt like it was being pulled from my head.  About 5 years ago, after my last eye exam, I got glasses, but again, I think the script was either written or carried out incorrectly because the glasses didn’t do anything at all for my vision.  So, I went to an eye doctor that does retina mapping and, let me say, it’s pretty cool and a great alternative to having your eyes dilated.  My retina are both normal and healthy.  She did the standard eye exam with the rows of letters and the different lens options where they ask is 1 or 2 better, etc etc.  She determined that not only did I have that astigmatism in my right eye that’d I’d always known about, but I had one in my left eye as well.  And they are not to the same degree.  I have a feeling that this was contributing to my migraines that I’ve been suffering for years.  She said that I did have a bit of a script for distance correction but that it was very slight and not the main issue and just wrote the script to correct the astigmatisms. 

I then went to Eyemart Express and found 2 frames that I loved.  I actually found 3, but their going deal is to buy one, get one heavily discounted.  No deal for 3 pairs and I wasn’t prepared to buy 4 pairs of glasses as I wanted to keep my out of pocket expenses below $300.  The two pairs of glasses cost me $170 after taxes.  Nailed it!

I paid the full price of the glasses myself as the lady at Eyemart couldn’t find me in the database (or whatever it’s called) for my vision insurance, so I wasn’t able to use my allowance to purchase the frames.  However, I called the insurance company a couple days later and discovered that I do indeed have an allowance and the lady there said she’d send me new insurance cards so that Eyemart can apply my allowance next time.  So, after I’ve gotten my card, I’ll go back and [hopefully] get that 3^rd pair of frames I really like plus a pair of sunglasses to wear while running and just generally while outside.

I was supposed to go to the Texas Renaissance Festival this weekend, but my friend that was supposed to go with me had vehicle troubles and couldn’t afford to fix his truck and go to the festival.  So I asked if his girlfriend still wanted to go and her and I could just do a girls’ weekend but she didn’t want to go without him.  So, I was set to go alone but really wanted someone to go with me.  I found a friend that could go, but couldn’t go until next weekend.  That works for me!  So I adjusted the costumes I’ll be wearing a little bit since next weekend is the Christmas themed weekend, so I’ll be putting together a Christmas pixie costume to wear.

Today I went to the mall in search of green leggings to put with that Christmas pixie costume.  I went into a few different stores and didn’t find any green leggings.  Well, I found some NEON green leggings.  Wah wah.  Wrong shade of green to go with the Christmas outfit.  So I nixed that idea.  I ended up in Claire’s and they were having a buy 3 get 3 free sale on everything in the store and they had some really cute Christmas stuff, so I raided that and got some good stuff.  So, since I didn’t find what I went to the mall for, I OF COURSE bought just about everything else in the mall as there were some pretty good sales going on.  I ended up with 4 dresses, 2 skirts, a tank top, 2 bottles of perfume, 3 sports bras, and 4 sets of gauged earrings all for less than $250.  I only paid full price for 2 things…the 2 skirts.  One was cheap and the other was completely worth the price.

I got myself almost completely caught up with my running scrapbook.  There are a couple pages that are done except that they still need titles done and then I’m waiting for the photos from the marathon and then I can do that page and then I’ll be 100% caught up on that!  while I’m on my birthday vacation next month, I want to get all caught up with my scrap journal.  I’m so ridiculously far behind with that.  I haven’t touched it since the beginning of August.  Ugh.  I’m thinking that when I fill up that journal that I might switch and start doing my scrap journal in Project Life style. 

Last week, I did a little shopping as well.  Scored some really cute and sexy dresses…plus I got these awesome shoes that I love.  They are rubberized canary yellow Chuck Taylor’s!!!  And they’re so comfy!  Making me even more consider getting some knee high all black Chuck Taylor’s to wear to work.

I ordered a wonderful shirt a few weeks ago and it came in the mail the other day.  It says “my patronus is a unicorn” and I love it.

I had to take my cat to the vet because my apartment complex won’t accept my lease renewal until they have current vet and vaccination records and a photo of him.  So I did that this week as well.

I also finally got new tires for my car.  The dealership first told me like 3 months ago that I needed them, but I didn’t have the money until now.  So now I have new tires and it’s amazing how much better my car handles.  Who woulda known?  Haha.  Probably just about everybody. 

Oh and I took a new picture of my running wall.  It’s getting pretty epic now.  and I’m going to need to buy yet another medal holder.  Haha.  #runnerproblems