Long Sunday

Friday night and Saturday were pretty productive, since I knew we had a busy Sunday ahead of us and I knew I would be tired.

Friday evening I went grocery shopping, put it away, threw together dinner for the kids, drove my daughter to a birthday party, went to BJs, went home and put everything away, went to pick her up, headed home and fell asleep. Tired!

I didn't go to Weight Watchers on Saturday - After my ridiculously bad week of eating and knowing we needed to get an early start, I wanted to sleep in just a tiny bit!  We need to leave by 9:15 to go my daughter's soccer game. The game was followed by errands, a late lunch, and tons of running around the house in the afternoon to get ready for the week - stuff I normally do on Sunday but I knew I wouldn't have the time or desire. After a big pasta dinner, I was off to bed.

The original plan was to do 11 miles. I ended up with 11.6. The run was one of the most fantastic of my life!!!!  It was 48 degrees when I started out - beautiful and crisp, low humidity. And I ran...and ran...and ran. Definitely not fast but I actually was running, not the slogging along like my 2 10-mile runs in 97% humidity.

 I worked on my nutrition a little bit. I had a bag of caffeine sport beans 15 minutes before (I had had a whole wheat waffle PB&J sandwich at home).  I wore capris and a short sleeve shirt because that is most likely what my outfit will be in 3 weeks for race day. I wore my camelbak. I had 3 salted caramel GU along the route - around 3, 6 and 9 miles. I didn't necessarily need the one at 9 miles for this run, but I wanted to mimic race day. 

I ran an easy 7 miles, picked up the pace for 7-10, and ran a little faster the last 1.6 miles, but not as fast as I would have liked. Over all I finished in 2:19. I have definitely resigned myself that I will not finish in under 2:30.

I am not sure what I will do next week. I know in my heart I should stick to 12 miles, but if the weather is like yesterday, I know I may try to go for 13.1. I think I am going to wear my sunglasses and a visor next week as practice. The race is next to the ocean, so no shade and even though the race starts at 8 am, I am not used to running in sun at all, so I think I will wear a visor to minimize the sun on my face.

I definitely did not drink enough water during the run. I was a little shocked by how much water was still in the Camel Bak when I got home. Within an hour of being home, we had to leave to go to my kid's first obstacle race.

It was a long walk from the car to the venue (on a farm) and then being out in the sun for 2 hours (during which I didn't drink anything) and walking on uneven terrain, I was wiped out. I came home and lay on the couch for the rest of the afternoon. Next Sunday I am doing NOTHING all day after my run. I may even try an ice bath too!

TOM arrived this morning - 25 days. Last month was 28. The 3-4 months before were 24.  At least I will be out of the woods for the race. Whatever the next 2 cycles bring, I am pretty much guaranteed to have it in Disney. I'll take it during Disney over a race any day!

I am really going to try to do better with my eating this week. I have bananas for the mornings, we aren't eating anything out of the ordinary, so hopefully I can turn it around.

NSV of sorts

This is one of my Before pictures - It was after our whirl-wind trip to Florida and my MIL passed away that I knew I had to make a change. Stepping on the scale it said 236 lbs, 5 lbs more than when I was 9 months pregnant with my son.

I originally wanted to wear the same shirt when we get our picture taken in front of the Castle in a couple of months, but in reality the shirt is way too big. It is an XL and I am definitely firmly in a L.

I went to the Disney Store (remember where there was one in every mall....now we only have 2 in the eastern part of our state, one of which is 10 minutes from work) to check out new shirts for all of us for the trip. My kids have shirts they could wear (and still probably will) and even my husband can easily fit into that shirt he is wearing, but I wanted us to all have something new.

When looking at the ladies size L shirts, I felt they looked really big. I looked at the Ms and decided that was what I was going to buy for myself.

I finally tried on the 3 I bought. I am keeping them though I don't think I will  be washing/drying them before the trip :)  They are perfectly acceptable and I do feel like the Ls would have been too big.

I called this post an "NSV of sorts" because honestly, I think the Disney Store shirts run pretty big so it's not like I think I am an M in anything else! The joy of the sizing game. But for now, I will take it. And if the shirts are too small after I wash them after the trip, at least I know I'll have some Disney shirts to wear when I hit goal!

Out of control and hating it

I jumped into the week with 2 feet thinking this was going to be a great week. Yeah, that was the case until Monday evening.

For the first time my daughter has practice on Monday night. My husband took her and I knew they wouldn't be home until 7ish like we were on Thursday. I picked up my son  and was home by 5:15. I had forgotten my 2nd cheesestick and was ravenous. And had 2 hours before dinner....so I ate myself out of house and home. Not complete junk - a small tub of tabbouleh and some pita chips and hummus, little bit of homemade salsa and chips....and a homemade muffin and a spoonful of Nutella. I think that was it. But I felt gross for doing it....and then 2 hours later I had a full dinner as well. Ouch my stomach hurt.

Why did I do this? Not 100% sure. I am so used to wanting to get dinner over with as soon as i get home - I had a hard time concentrating on anything else. My son wanted to play a video game so I let him. He didn't have any homework that needed to be done and I didn't have any quick house chores to be done because I do them all on the weekend. I didn't want to dive into an intense project because I would need to make dinner. So was it boredom? True hunger?

Tuesday started out well....I actually made my lunch - egg salad with 2 eggs and celery, in 2 flaxseed pitas. I thought I was going to have lunch with a co-worker. She usually IMs me around noon, but at that point she had been away from her desk for 10 minutes. She can be pretty inconsiderate sometimes and doesn't tell people when her plans have changed. So I figured she was out to lunch and I was starving so I ate my lunch. Then at 12:20 she asked to go to lunch. I could have gone downstairs and just chatted. But no - I had a second lunch, along with a 12 oz coke. Why the heck did I do that???!!!

My eating definitely has been thrown off by a lack of bananas for the morning, so I have been more ravenous than normal. I've been having a fruit cup when I normally have a banana, but that isn't helping at all.

But in good news, I got up this morning and worked out. I planned on doing 3 miles on the treadmill. I now know it is going to take some mental training to keep me on the dreadmill for 3-4 miles. I only last 1.5 miles before mentally I had to get off. My body could have kept going. I jumped on my bike trainer for 15 minutes. Baby steps......

10 miles, just not all at once

Saturday morning me and my friend did Shape's Diva Dash for a second year in a row. I am thinking this will be the last year. A lot of the obstacles they made even easier. And for a second year I had to miss my daughter's first soccer game of the season. It is just a hard weekend to be busy on a Saturday and not really worth it.

Diva Dash tries to claim it is a 5K, but in reality it is only 2.8 miles. We ran most of the way except a few uphill sections. I was supposed to do 10 miles on Sunday. I carbo-loaded on Saturday expecting to do 10. But as I was going to bed, I was trying to figure out the logistics of the day. I needed to be home by 9:30 and out the door for our town's Soccer Field Day by 10:15. I set my alarm for 5:30, figuring I could run from 6:30 - 8:30, but I had errands I needed to do on the way home from running and the day was already so packed and really didn't allow for me to actually be tired from running 10 miles. So I decided I would run 7.2 miles. So a total of 10 miles between the 2 days and then the 7.2 miles would bring to 275 miles for the year. A nice round number.

Sunrise before my run.

At the beginning of February, once I started running again after taking January off (way too much snow!), I decided to come up with a goal for the year. Thinking I would most likely do a Half Marathon, but not knowing what that meant in terms of mileage, I decided I would like to double my miles in 2014 from 2013 (150 miles). I will hit that goal in the next couple of weeks. Obviously my mileage has not been what I expected for half marathon training since I haven't been running during the week. So I also don't know what to expect for mileage after the 1/2 is over, so who knows what I will get to by the end of 2014. I expect to hit 400 (I better!) but not 500, so it won't be a nice round number like last year.

My run was awesome!!! I love 7 miles. I have been thinking about how much miles I want to maintain after the 1/2 and I am thinking 7 miles is it. 5 miles is not enough because I would love to be 10K ready. Once you get over 8 miles, you might as well go for 10 and I don't want to maintain that number.

I was able to run at a pace I hadn't run in weeks. It wasn't my fasted 7 miles, but I really felt like I was running. Not slogging along.  It was cooler weather, but the humidity was still a little high so my the end of the run I was feeling it.

I think it is finally time to get on the dreaded treadmill. We'll see how I do when I try later this week. I am not looking forward to it, but I need to get used to it again, even if just for 3 miles at a time.

Searching for the new normal....

It has been a different week - My son started Kindergarten this week, so a change to our drop off routine. We are having work done on our driveway so we can't park there - how I miss our garage! It has been so humid that the windows are fogged each morning. Now it looks like we are going to be changing the bus my daughter takes (and she only started taking the bus this year - she used to do Before School care) which will be good because it will get me to work earlier.

I was in pain most of the week from my 10 mile run. I must not have stretched out my quads enough because stairs and sitting down were hard!

Running during the week continues to allude me which makes me nervous for my 1/2 in a little over 4 weeks! I know that doing just 1 long run on the weekends is not good! But then again, my only goal is to finish....  But I have got to do something!

Tomorrow I have the Diva Dash - I am not particularly looking forward to it, but I am going to make the most of it and relish in how much better I feel physically than last year. I saw I won't do it again next year, because it really does interrupt things - both 1/2 training and I am missing the 1st soccer game of the year for the 2nd year in a row.

I tell myself I am going to do 10 miles on Sunday - thankfully it will be much cooler and not humid. I am not sure how I will feel, but I will try my best.

I feel like a true runner now that I got a box of 24 Salted Caramel GU delivered :)

Yesterday I brought my lunch to work, i.e I made something versus just throwing in a Lean Cuisine pizza. But I didn't make it the night before thus didn't measure anything so i know it was more than 10 points. So if I am going to make, I HAVE to do it the night before so I can track the points.

I really want to get back into losing weight. It has been 2 months since I first saw 182.2 and I haven't gone below that since then (okay, 1 or 2 random days I did see 181.8). The scale this morning was 182.8. I need to lose 3 pounds! I so badly want to see 179, but I haven't been trying. I need to try! I don't want to wait another 4 weeks until the 1/2 is over to try.

Another 10 miles

I was very hesitant about this run knowing that it would be 70 degrees with a dew point of 70 - yep, 100% humidity. But I really wanted to get 10 miles done. Next weekend I have the Diva Dash on Saturday, which is only 3 miles, but I am not sure how I will be feeling for a long run.


Running was pretty lonely because most of the normal people probably had done their long runs over the weekend and were enjoying their Labor Day relaxing :)  I was having a hard time - the humidity wasn't that bad, but just the mental part of it. Plus I hadn't slept well - I really just wanted to be home in bed. I told myself I would turn around at 4 miles. It came and I kept going. But then I said I would turn around at 4.5 miles (at which point I have to cross a potentially fairly busy street), but I decided to just keep going to the end of the path (5 miles).


I decided to change up my music on the way back, but was having technical difficulties - it kept trying to shuffle all my music (and of course was trying to play classical Christmas music). And then tried to repeat the same song over and over. That is one of the reasons I like my vest so much better - easier access to my phone that an arm band.


I was trying to be conservative with my water, so only drank a little at each mile. At 45 minutes and 90 minutes I had a Salted Caramel Gu (I also had one before I ran, first time I did that).


After the second Gu I felt a little stronger, so I have a much better pace around mile 7, but slowed back down as the heat and sun were starting to increase. But I trucked along. Very slowly. No way I will finish a 1/2 in under 2:30 but I can live with that. I will be happy with just finishing. Though I did keep saying to myself that if the weather on October 5 is like today, I don't think I will attempt it. I run in a place that is 95% shaded. I don't think the course will be very shaded and I am very concerned about running that long in the sun. If it is warm, I will strongly consider not running. I would even consider running 13.1 on the bike path that morning!

Lunch plans

Over the summer I've been having lunch with a co-worker quite often, which is one of the reasons that the scale has not moved down (but has moved up and down) from 182.2 since July 5. When we eat lunch I've been buying in the cafeteria and usually buying a 12 oz can of regular coke as well. Well this needs to end! I don't want the lunches to end because otherwise I don't get much chit-chat in at work - I am only in the office 8 hours a day so I don't feel like I am entitled to a lot of watercooler breaks, much less lunch because I haven't want to work after hours this summer.

Since dinner time has always been such a problem time for me, I've made sure I was in control during the day and know what my points were. But I've known for a while that I wanted to mix up my lunches - a Lean Cuisine pizza and carrot sticks has been getting pretty boring. Plus the pizza is a lot of PPV and so many carbs. But it is so easy because I don't have to make lunch and with making kids lunches now, shaving off any amount of time helps.

My friend, who is looking to cut costs and cut calories, proposed that we bring our lunches Tuesday and Thursday (she will be working from home on Monday and Fridays) and Wednesdays we could go out (I am still up in the air about what to do with WW at Work - I am more inclined to start going to my regular Saturday one each week again now that summer is over). So I would still bring my regular lunch on Monday and Fridays (for the time being) so I won't get overwhelmed with actually making my lunch. Maybe I'll just start with 1 day a week, then 2, and so on.

We are looking forward to time at the county fair this weekend (ie, not diet friendly!) but next week brings the true Back to School when both kids are in school and both parents are back at work. I can't wait!