T-14 Days!

It was a good week for me to be a runner! 

Thursday I headed to the park for that "no more than 4 mile" run I mentioned when I last posted.  I have found that I am better with out-and-back runs - the certainty of knowing where I stop, the "run home" that always gets me moving - they just work for me. So with four miles in mind, I started running. I hit 2 miles, though, and was making such good time and felt good, so I said what the heck, let's go for 2.5 before the turnaround. 

I ran most likely my FASTEST 5 miles EVER on Thursday!! I felt good! I know I can SPRINT that fast, but I can't usually go for longer distances with that pace. I was on a such a high knowing I had it in me to run that! 

Sara has having some foot and leg pain so she was unable to do our first taper run this week. Hoping she rests up and gets better (only TWO WEEKS until the MO' Cowbell race!) in time for the race!  I seriously considered just not going this morning.  My family was out late last night seeing our favorite Beatles cover band, I had a few drinks, stayed up late to finish some laundry, etc.  Sara and I have been meeting at 6:30! That means I've been setting an alarm for 5:45 (and getting up around 6 ;-).  I told myself last night I would "sleep in" and set my alarm for 6:30.  I contemplated rolling over as "Sunday morning" started playing, but I got up anyways.   I was running a little behind my own schedule but still forced myself out the door.  

I despise the first mile, mile and a half, two miles of a run. Is that just me?! They are SO hard, drudgery and if it were up to me, I would quit during that part every time (is this why I see so many people RUNNING before RACES??). I feel heavy, clompy, slow and in pain for easily that long. Once I pass through that, I can ease into a rhythm.

  

Apparently, I excel at "the turnaround."  If you look back at my runs, especially recently, more often than not I get faster the further I am into my run!  My "turnaround mile" is usually one of my fastest (my last few runs my last mile has been my speediest of all.)  I love having my Garmin and being able to analyze the data from my runs. It gives the number-geek in me a chance to shine. :-) 

Total stats for today looked good! I cut 4 minutes off the 8-miler time from August 31st, so that gives me a small hope that I am improving, even slightly.  

I took Terrie's Friday morning cardio class this week and didn't fall to the back of the pack like I have been in recent months. THAT felt good too! The class had the equivalent to **34** flights of stairs on Friday - it's an amazing workout! Another "NSV" on my journey. 

My IT band has been acting up today, so I am going to scale back this week. Yoga and a run around my neighborhood (slow and low mileage) on Tuesday, hopefully a quick run Wednesday and Thursday will be Yogalates and another quick neighborhood run. Sunday I am planning on a 6 mile run as my *gulp* LAST taper run!! I can't believe the race is coming so quickly! I can't believe how excited I am for this race!! 

Now to make myself a Uni-Kitty costume for the Halloween 10K! 

HALFWAY!! Oh, and a long run.

HALFWAY DONE WITH WHOLE30!! 

I had a rough weekend (see this post) so I did slip, but not as much as "old me" may have.  More on that later. First off, Sara and I met up for another long run on Sunday! 

We both had 9 miles on our training plan, so away we went. It was a GORGEOUS morning with almost perfect running weather. I was severely dehydrated and probably under-nourished from Saturday that I felt like I was running with lead legs. I honestly wasn't sure I would make it to 9, but we did it!

The pace is about 40 seconds off of my average mile/min that I will need in order to PR the race, but after the week I've had, I'll take it. I am going to go on at least one "longer" run this week (hoping for 6 miles tomorrow morning) and go for a speedy run on Thursday (after my new "yogalates" class!) to get some more mileage in. Then Sunday, we'll aim for 10!! After that, people - it's TAPER time already!! What the what?!?!  This training season is going SO QUICKLY!! 

Day 11! 

Breakfast: Eggs, bacon, blueberries.

Lunch: Leftovers. Salmon, carrots and an orange (Lunch brought to you by the color orange obviously!) 

MIdafternoon: Lara bar, roasted rosemary almonds. 

Dinner: (This was my daughter's plate! I was so hungry I ate quickly so my daughter got seconds of everything so I could take a picture  Dry rubbed grassfed beef roast, mashed potatoes (no dairy) and green beans.

This was day 12!! I was off by a day!

Day 12: 

breakfast: 3 egg muffins

Lunch: 3 hb eggs (only the whites, I don't like the yolk). olives. cucumbers. peppers. blueberries. 

Dinner: again made pizza for my family and I ate sausage, onions, portobello mushrooms, peppers, on zucchini noodles with a homemade marinara.

 Day 13: 

Today was bad for emotions. I was so nervous for the vet appt I only drank 2 glasses of coffee & ate a Lara bar. I had lunch at 2:30 (hot dogs and pickles) and a glass of wine with dinner. Dinner was a seafood stew with tomato-saffron broth. The menu didn't say rice but there it was  thought I was staying mostly compliant. My poor pup, I miss him desperately.

Day 14:

Woke up, ran 9 miles. Came home and was too nauseous to eat. I ate about 1/4 sweet potato with cinnamon. 

Lunch: Chipotle. I am still so out of it that I ordered CORN SALSA! WTHeck?!?! So I spent the first 5 minutes of lunch picking individual corn off of my barbacoa salad. *duh*

Dinner: Omelette with onions and peppers, homemade hash browns and Pederson's bacon.

Day 15: 

Breakfast: Banana & coffee

Lunch: peppers, zucchini, mushrooms and onions sauteed with chicken sausage. grapes.

Dinner: balsamic crockpot chicken, giant pile of zucchini.

The last few days I have walked numbly through, barely eating. Mostly because all the things I wanted to eat (pb&j, mac and cheese - comfort foods really) aren't compliant. So instead of completely derailing my progress, I have been doing the opposite - barely eating at all. I am trying to get better about forcing myself to eat, but it's just so hard right now when all I want to do is fall face first into a cake. 

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

Soooooooo stayed mostly compliant through a very difficult time, which makes me pretty proud. I'm usually a severe stress eater, and it would have been easy to get something sometime in the last three days. It would have been easy to just throw back a few beers to numb the pain.  I did have wine, but ONE glass (one Saturday, one Sunday) instead of half a bottle. 

My knee felt AWESOME on Sunday, which was the one bright shining moment (aside from the wonderful company, of course!). Even at our turn around I didn't feel the pain like I have been feeling, which was SOOOO encouraging!! 

I wasn't THAT off diet on Saturday night but I could FEEL the difference in my run on Sunday.  Now, to be fair, that may be a result of dehydration, low calorie intake etc. But it was enough that I am definitely staying on track with my Whole30 through my races, even though I will technically be "done" by September 23.  I will add in a few things once my 30 days is up, but I will largely remain grain- and dairy-free until after my 10K on October 12th! 

Whole30 Running

First long run since I started Whole30. I set out this morning with Sara (you remember Sara, right? From this race and this race?) to accomplish our 8 mile training run.  I haven't gone that far in about a year and Sara had never gone that far, so we had high hopes! My knee has still been bothering me so I foam rolled before I left this morning. We had a pretty awesome morning - high humidity but the temp wasn't as high as it's been in the last few weeks. We decided to do an out-and-back so that we had no choice but to finish our complete 8 miles (once you're four miles from the car, there's not much to do but run back!)


The first few miles felt pretty easy.  When we hit mile 4, we turned around on the track and headed back and my knee completely went out. A few hobbles, some tight strides and I was back in business. Except then I got all in my head. I started thinking about the pain in my knee, trying to compensate in other ways. My feet started to go numb and I actually was a little panicked. Around mile 5.8, I really focused on my quads - I really pushed myself to LIFT my leg and move. At that time, I felt my whole body change. My knee relaxed, my feet felt better and instead of just pounding the pavement, I was PUSHING OFF of it.  We decided right in the beginning we weren't going for time on this run, just completing our 8 miles, so my average min/mile isn't my race pace. And I am OK with that. Because at the end of hte run, I FELT GOOD.

How does Whole30 tie into this? Well, my run was 1:29 long. I usually require some kind of fuel (Honey Stingers have always been my fuel of choice) after about an hour of running.  Today, I fueled with water and coconut water. I felt energized, I never "hit a wall" and I actually felt STRONGER in the second half of my run than the first!

Food the last two days - delicious. Friday I made pizza from scratch (top 5, if not the best I've ever made, according to my hubby). I had chicken sausage sauteed with onions, peppers and portobello mushroom caps. I didn't even miss the cheese I would have put on it!


Saturday we hit up our favorite BBQ place and when I asked, all of their smoked meat has sugar in the spice rubs - of course. Boo!!  But I was able to get a double grass fed burger, double tomatoes & lettuce and balsamic onions, with a side of green beans.

Today after my run I had a chicken breast and a sweet potato. Then I had breakfast for lunch - sweet potato hash, 3 eggs, yellow pepper and a ton of blueberries. Dinner was a PHENOMENAL grass fed sirloin steak, roasted potatoes and roasted broccoli.

Virtual FitNut 5K! Errr.... 10K....

Sunday I had a virtual 5K to complete for my August weight loss challenge.  I haven't gone on a "long" run probably since my (tragic) half marathon in April. I went out knowing that if I just ran a loop, I would quit when I finished my 5K. Instead, I stranded myself!

So I ran my 3.1 miles away from my car. I sprinted when necessary. I went slower than I thought I should be going. I am proud to say it was ALMOST a sub-30 5K, even though i have been averaging 10:45 min/mile when I run the hills in my neighborhood. 

Midway through my run - I was actually feeling GOOD!

But, shock, it's like the hills have made me STRONGER! 

Midway though the run I stopped at a little gazebo and just looked at my surroundings. How lucky am I to be able to run? To take 30 minutes, an hour, to myself to run and listen to good music and take in nature? 

The second leg of my run I took my time. I was definitely losing steam and decided right then that I was NOT going for a PR. If I needed a moment to walk (which I did) or if I stopped for a drink of water, it wasn't the end of the world. And surprise? I finished in only 1:04!  Not my very fastest time, but faster than my last official 10K last October!

I think if I could clean up my eating (omg gummy bears are my downfall right now!) and stick to running every morning before work (my snooze has been working over time this week!), I could get to goal weight in no time.

That's my goal. There's a beach vacation in my not-so-distant future and I would LOVE to be at my goal weight by then. Not so much to ask, really, it's 5-8lbs!

6/13

Helloooooooooo

OMG best weekend ever.

We went camping. I don't know if I've mentioned it, but I definitely was NOT on board with this whole camping thing. I went along with it because my husband desperately wanted to go.  The first time we went was fun, but we got about 1,000 ticks by the end of the weekend. 

Gun shy, the next time we went, I opted for a place with WIDE OPEN SPACES and no hikes! However it was a very popular "float trip" place, which apparently translates into "drunken awful scenes" - or it did across from our campsite!

Not this past weekend. This past weekend was a conglomerate of PERFECT conditions. We met up with friends at the campsite. They were 10 sites down from us.  The state part was amazingly family-friendly (ie, no drunken debauchery), paved (good for toddler bike rides!) and the hiking - OH the hiking!! - was amazing. 

Our site was RIGHT on a creek. Friday AM I skipped my run (although I worked out Mon-Thurs last week, yay!) but still managed to hit my 10K (and then some) steps. 

Saturday we went on a COLOSSAL hike. Obviously we didn't hike 10 miles, my kids never would have made it through that! But I was about about 9K when we ended our hike (2500 when we started) so it was a pretty significant stretch! The views were amazing, we walked through and played in a creek, found crawfish, built a dam, climbed "mountains" and spotted wildlife. NO ticks, thankyouverymuch. 

I swear my daughter was with us too, but since we were with her "best friend," I don't have any pictures of just her :-) 

Even the dog got in on it (This is pretty impressive for a 12 year old golden retriever ;-) He walked himself up there!  He did, however, take the steps down, not the slide. 

I will be definitely going back to this site. In fact, I found myself looking at open dates ASAP to try to get back! This is something "old me" never would have done.  At one point during our hike, I could tell my kids were starting to fade. We all sat down for a snack time and my family went wandering around the water. I knew the trail would meet up with the "go home" loop soon , but I wasn't sure how soon and wanted to see if we could hop on that trail from where we were, instead of continuing on.  So I found a way, across rocks in the river, to get to the other side. Then I climbed the "hill" (I swear it should have been a mountain!) to figure out if the flat part was a trail. "Old me" NEVER would have done that. I would have waited for someone else to figure it out, someone else to go forage ahead to find the path. I would have sat down and waited.  But I'm all about moving forward now. 

So let's do it. Let's move forward!! 

Big few weeks. Our very own JEN is getting married in a few weeks. I still have to fit into that bridesmaid dress, so here's hoping I can shed some lbs before then!  After that, I have a beach vacay coming up. Hoping to be comfortable in my own skin by then, at least. I know I'll never wear a bikini again (you know, because I did once) but I would at least like to be comfortable with myself by the time that happens. 

My daily runs will get me there, I'm sure!!   Here's a quick rundown of my last few runs: 

I've been pretty down on myself for my speed on these runs. Then I remember - I am used to running flat ground or a treadmill. I have been running some HUGE hills lately! I know I am building muscle and challenging myself in ways I haven't before. That makes my slower times a little more acceptable to me.  I did run on a treadmill last week in my circuit class at 9.0 for almost an entire 1:15 minutes! Doesn't sound like a lot? Get on a treadmill going 9.0 and tell me it's short ;-) 

Last week: 

Mon: Lifting, circuit class 

Tues: Run 2.26 miles

Wed: Run 1.02 miles

Thurs: Kickboxing, 60 minutes

Friday: CAMPING. 

I feel PROUD of what I'm doing.