Hitting With the Double Whammy

Okay today's accomplishment:  I went running.

Woot!  I haven't gone since June-ish I think, when it got so unbearably hot and I wussed out.  Then of course... it got cold.  I'm an even bigger wuss in the cold than I am in the heat, but you know what?  I actually really enjoyed myself.  I even learned that given the choice, I'd rather run in the cold than in the heat.  Now when I say cold, remember I do live in the south, so 35-45 degrees is indeed cold.  ;)

Thankfully my very enjoyable run made me realize that it's time to double team this weight loss.  In the past several years I've tried either dieting or exercise, but not both.  I blamed it on a lack of time and/or resources when in reality it was just a lack of motivation and determination.

Things are going well with Weight Watchers, I've yet to feel deprived and in fact on several occasions have had a hard time getting in all my points for the day (we even ate out twice today!).  I'm sorry but I just feel completely wrong about eating a deep dish pizza just because I have the "points".  Granted it is nice to have the option should I go into a carb breakdown.  I started out wanting to just lose weight, but I'm in this to get healthier, to feel better, and well the weight loss - it'll be a great side effect.

I re-started the C25k program today.  Back on week 1.  I was curious to see how I did in comparison with the last time I started the program.  I am proud to say I started off much stronger this time and I don't think I granny shuffled once!  I did however really run out of steam towards the end.  Then I realized that somehow I had managed to finish the week 1 podcast and get mid-way into week 2.  Oops.

The other nice thing about running in cooler weather - there are fewer people out, by far.  Score again! Especially since my pants kept wanting to fall down - but I'm counting that as yet another good thing.

Watch Out Dust Bunnies!

Saturday I laced up my running shoes and tweeted "this two month sabbatical is about to be dust".

What sparked that you ask?  Well that would be standing in my closet looking for something to wear that I didn't make me feel like a stuffed sausage.  Instead of griping and moaning and tearing my closet apart for something to wear I promptly put on my running shorts and t-shirt.

Yes sir.  I did about two miles on Saturday.  I ran for 15 minutes and a little over a mile without stopping.  I was totally satisfied with that.  I had expected some relapse in my progress.

As most of you know, my schedule is a non-schedule especially on my weeks off.  So Monday morning, I was a bit bored and decided to check and see what time sunrise was.  I had about thirty minutes so I went ahead and got dressed and ready.  I loaded up my camel-bak and stuck my head in Dearest' office and said "don't worry if I'm gone for a while, I'm going for a long one".  So a long one for me means anything 4 miles or over.  I'm still a beginner here.  I headed out the door about 6:30 a.m.

Wow.  Talk about crowded.  I typically would hit the park around lunch time or early afternoon (before it got blue blazes hot) and there were never so many people there.  I'm not a terribly social person, especially when I'm wheezing for breath bargaining with myself to keep moving.  The morning crowd is way more social than the afternoon crowd.  Kind of strange.

Anyway, I made my goal for the day.  I ran 25 minutes and 1.64 miles without stopping.  Not too shabby considering two months ago, the last time I ran I was at almost the same level.  After my 25 non stopper I decided to do a bit of walking sprinkled with a few jogs here and there bringing my total to right over three miles when I decided I was done for the morning.  I walked to my car and started unloading my camel-bak when my mom pulled in for her morning walk with her friend.

Well at this point I decided I could probably walk a little more and get to spend some time with my mom.  Holy molies these women walk about as fast as I jog.  No kidding.  So that tacked on another two miles for a grand total of 5.52 for the day.  I felt pretty darn good about that.  Definitely the longest outing I've had so far.  I also had two voicemails from Dearest when I got in the car wanting to know if I was still alive.  Silly man.

As I sit here typing I'll let you know that I'm in my running gear, waiting for the sun to come up.

The Lowdown

Okay so how did I do on my goals this week?  Well let's take a look

1.  Do something for myself every day.  - Almost every day, I even gussied up last night for a "date night" with dearest.  So I feel good about this one.  Except for that one day that I wore a thong to work.. generally bad idea.  The chaffing monster attacked full force.  Ugh.

2.  Cook more often - definite check on this one.  Lettuce wraps, linguine with home made tomato sauce,  bacon & eggs, and pizza casserole.  Whoa.

3. Drink water every day -  I drank water every day with the exception of one.  I won't say it was much water, but I did drink *some*.

4.  RUN - I didn't run on Thursday.  I slept all day during migraine recovery.  I did run Saturday.  I was in my closet trying to find something to wear.  Instead of getting frustrated and moody I put on my running shorts, laced up my shoes and ran.  I felt much better afterwards.  Then we ate cheeseburgers at Chili's.  Hah.  Well it was the only meal that day.

Overall I feel pretty good about this week.  For next week I'm going to keep these goals, work a little harder on them, master these before I move on.  Small steps.

How was your week?

Completely Honest

I just ate a pint of Ben & Jerry's.  And I haven't run in probably over a week.

I suck.

Excuses:

1. a.)   It's too hot.  Really too fricken hot.  I'm a wuss, and wusses don't like to run when it's 90 + degrees.

         

b.)  I won't run after dark due to safety reasons.  I run alone, which is brave enough for me.  Running alone after dark I feel is just a bad idea for me.

     

2.  I stupidly bought two pints of Ben & Jerry's at the grocery store because they were buy one get one free.  When Dearest didn't eat his I ate it for him.  This isn't so much an excuse as it is a statement of truth.  

Yeah.  That's all.  Thanks.

Turning Failures Into Successes

Okay guys, I have a confession to make.  I'm a geek.  Full fledged OMGEE geek.  I even have the tan lines to prove it.  Seems the longer I stick with running the more geek gear I collect.  I don't run "naked".  I run with an ipod, a Garmin wrist top GPS, a Road ID, and today I added a camelbak to the mix.  Yes I'm aware that I look silly.  I have all this crapola and I'm barely out running for an hour.  *sigh* I can't help it.  I try to blame my family.  My brother, bless his heart is a geek too.  He works on computers, he reads, laughs at and enjoys comic strips about physics, and is the root of my geeky-ness.   Dearest is also a geek.  He has a lexicon on Star Trek, collects military "action figures", and spends hours on end on zombie message boards preparing for doomsday.  Hum.  Maybe I'm the normal one....

C25K Update - Two Weeks Left - WOOT!

Yesterday was the most fun running I've had.  Ever.  It was wonderous, stupendous, and awesome.

The weather wasn't bad, it was overcast and cooler than it has been, about 81 degrees or so.  I received a Garmin Forerunner for my birthday a few weeks ago and decided today that maybe I should step off the beaten path.

For the past seven weeks I've been running a pea gravel track at a local park, it's a 1/2 mile loop so after a while, it gets old.  I think that running in the same circles for seven weeks had attributed to the begining of my burnout.  There are however two entrances to local neighborhoods and I decided today that I would take the first one, and just make a lap, see what was back there.

It was a very nice, very quiet little neighborhood.  That just kept going and going and going.  After about a mile I started to get worried.  I realized that I hadn't paid any attention to the road signs or how to get back to where I came from.  Normally this wouldn't be such a problem, it was a safe neighborhood.  It's just that I was late getting out the door and I had to go to work.  I mean I had to shower... then go to work, but before that I still had to stretch and ice my knees!  Well I decided I'd keep going, the road I was on had to end eventually, it was a neighborhood afterall, I figured it had to go somewhere... right?  Finally I came back around full circle right from where I jumped off the track in the park.  *whew*  That was a relief.  All that worry really did help the time go by though!  I felt great throughout the whole run and towards the end I even decided to try and go a bit faster.

I'm not granny shuffling anymore, but I'm still pretty slow.  Right now I'm averaging about a 14 minute mile.  I wanted to see what a 10 minute mile felt like.  I still don't know.  :P  I do however know what a 10:58 mile feels like, so maybe I'll get there yet.

Afterwards I felt wonderful, and felt great for the rest of the night.  A lot of times I'm really sluggish the rest of the night after a run.

Oh and Dearest also told me I looked cute in spandex.  Bonus!  I <3 him.  :)

Looking foward to tomorrow's run.  I'll have to get up extra early because we are also celebrating my Dad's birthday before I go to work, but that's okay.  Hopefully it won't be pouring down rain!

Who Are You Calling a Nazi??

As I was out on my run this afternoon I had so many things running through my head of what to blog about today. Sadly that was almost twelve hours ago and I fear it has all left me.

Today was W7D2 of C25K and I'll be honest, the past two weeks I just haven't been feeling it. I've gone longer between runs and put them off more often. Today was looking to be no exception. The past couple of days have been.. well eventful.

My mom and dad just got a puppy at Easter. She's a cute pup, a chocolate lab. However, she's a pain in the tookus. She's a vaccum cleaner. She sucks everything and anything up into her mouth. Rocks, mulch, shoes, toes, she even tries to chew the brick on the side of the house. So being, she needs near constant supervision. My mom went to the beach last week and I volunteered to stop in and check on the pup mid day. After getting in a nice long walk - puppy style (a completely random route) I got back home, took a nice long bath... and let the water drain...
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.
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"What's that noise?? It sounds like trickling water? Humm" I walk downstairs "Wow, the sump pump is really loud.. and isn't stoping.." I went to check it out - Our sump pump is in a secret hidden closet inside my walk-in closet. I stood there with eyes bulging, looking at the closet door afraid to open it, for it sounded as if water was gushing against the door. I slowly opened it, (for fear of drowning) and I was knocked flat out - by the smell. There was water, but not as bad as I thought it would be - the smell however, was unforgivable and it was filling up my house.

Evil Yaki

Yaki Steak that is.

Went to eat dinner with my dad last night.  Mom is out of town at the beach for a few days and with dearest still at work we decided to dine together, instead of having cereal for dinner over the sink at our respective houses.  We wound up going for Japanese, choices in town are a bit limited on Sunday evenings here - but we found an open restaurant on the second try.  The food tasted great, it had been forever since I had eaten Japanese food.  Dearest refuses to eat it unless we go for sushi, he for some reason is totally opposed to hibachi.   Long story short, I wound up with a nasty case of food poisoning.  Yuck.

Bazinga!

Week five day three - completed!  I was slow as molasses but I did it.  I ran for actually a little more than twenty minutes, non stop.  I decided I wanted to be able to say I ran a mile and a half, so I went just a little longer.  

The nice part is when my brain shuts off and I forget I'm running.  Those are the "weee" moments.  You know, when you revert just a little bit and you want to throw your hands in the air with a goofy grin on your face and go "WEEEE!"  

I'll definitely say that today was a good test of how to push myself.  ... 

                   wait wait I have to go turn the light off and type in the dark because 

                   my boyfriend just walked in the room wearing his helmet, night vision 

                   and carrying a BB Gun.  No, he's not completely insane.. maybe just

                   a little... different.  ... okay now where was I??

Back in the Saddle

Okay - so the battle continues. I've been losing, but I think the tides are about to turn. (You hear that stomach roll and lumpy butt??)

Thank heavens for friends.