Adjusted Reality

The Race:

Saturday morning, I got up at 6:45.  The only time I am ever up at 6:45 on a weekend is if I am a) flying somewhere (I always end up on the stupid early ones) or b) still up from the night before.  Now, I can add “going to a race” as one of those reasons.  I’m not entirely sure WHY races all have to be so early, but since they are, I just figure I have to get used to it.  I got up, took a looooong wakeup shower, and got dressed.  After getting Zliten up and getting my stuff together we bolted out the door later than we had hoped.

Halfway there, I realize that I had forgotten just about the most important thing besides my shoes – my zune.  Zliten was kind enough to drop me off so I could get my packet and warm up and run home and get it for me.  He made it back with about 2 minutes to spare.  After a hug and a smooch and a transfering of stuff, a good luck, and a pre-race picture, I smooshed in with the 6399 other people waiting for the race to start.  They had waves of people starting by time, but since I got to the line late, I was stuck back with the 13 minute mile people and it took me almost 3 minutes to cross the start line.  But I did, and I was off!

The first mile was dodging and weaving through slower runners.  However, it was through a route that we’ve biked each week, so I was familiar with the terrian.  I was studying the mile markers on the course the night before but since I stink at spacially knowing where I am by reading a top down map (seriously, I get lost at the mall even with those “you are here” signs…it’s sad), I couldn’t remember which streets we hit during which miles.  I kept thinking that the first mile was the looooongest ever, until I saw the second mile marker.  Whew, ok, I thought.  1/3 done, I can do this.  I looked at my watch – and holy cow, I was only about 16 minutes in.  I was making amazing time!

My thought going in to the race was to take the first, third, and fifth miles fast and the second and fourth miles pretty easy.  Then on mile 6, I was going to see how I felt, and either finish strong or just get through it.  That plan totally went out the window.  I just played it by ear.  When I felt good, I picked up the pace.  When I started to feel a cramp coming on, I slowed down.  I booked down the hills and struggled up them, although I keep getting better at them each race.

Then came the sixth mile.  Oh, the hill.  Ooooohhh, the hill.  It was a killer.  I didn’t stop, I kept running, but man, I wanted to walk it.  I saw lots of people walk it.  I’m just happy I did not succumb, but it also took me a while to recover after it flattened out.  The last mile was seriously the longest.mile.evar.  When I started running up the last street I picked up the pace even though I was hurting still from the hill.  When I saw the gate I just gave it all I had and started sprinting as fast as I could.  I crossed the gate at around 59-something minutes, and I knew that I hadn’t just met my goal, I totally shattered it.  I totally did the cheesy fist pumping thing at the finish because I was so freaking excited.  I ended up with a chip time of 56:54.  Results here (might be temporary)!  I ended up placing 29th in my age group out of 80.  I also finished 483rd out of 1126 people.  Not bad!  I even beat our governor Rick Perry.

I did a cooldown walk around, found Zliten in the crowd, and then found the car and went home.  The camera died at the finish so I don’t have a picture, but we re-created it in the backyard.  Then, we went to The Omlettry, and I had the most delicious gingerbread pancakes and homefries EVAR.  Later, I found the results and got happy and also found this coverage on the race.  Hey, I wasn’t just a wuss.  The elite runners said it was a difficult course too!

The Ride and The Ridiculous Feast:

After breakfast and relax time, we contemplated the day.  There was Eeyore’s Birthday Party going on, but we decided against it.  Our “exhausted” plan was to just chill at home, but I wasn’t too beat, so we got on the bikes and rode to our work poker game which was about 7 mile away.  Yes, I know I’m insane.  We rode fast and it was a hilly route, so I was definitely ready to be NOT moving when we got there.  We sat down and got our poker on.  Sadly, it was getting late after about 3 hours of playing, so I either had to get aggressive and knock people out (which I am NOT good at), or lose.  I ended up going all in against the chip lead on a hand I normally wouldn’t have, and I lost.  Oh well.  We took a different route home and man, my legs were SCREAMING at first.  After the first 10 minutes though I was back to being alright though I knew my body was pretty tired.  We ended up taking a busy street with no sidewalk, so it was a scary-but-exciting offroading adventure.

After putting in my calories burnt for the day and seeing that it was just over 2k for the DAY, we decided mass quantities of food was in order.  We headed to the Golden Corrall (yes, disgusting, I know) and I consumed lots of salad, veggies, and other not-so-healthy stuff (but I was really craving a ginormous salad so that’s what I started with).  The plate of deserts was probably over the top, but ya know…race day = no guilt.

I tried to have a few drinks with some friends to unwind, but it just wasn’t in the cards after the day I had.  I think I’m still recovering!  Sunday, let me tell ya, I did laundry, got groceries, and NOTHING ELSE.  What did you do this weekend?  Anything….legendary?

Or, at least my workout world, that is.  If my mp3 player dies, I have 2 other backups.  If they are all missing/dead, I will refuse to do cardio.  I just cannot get on with a run or anything like that without music.  TV, beautiful nature sounds – can’t do it.  I can do weights although I don’t particularly like it, but seeing that I can run through a hangover, a cold, a headache, or just about any other ailment, you can see how important having something to listen to is to me.

So, I figured a fun Friday post would be sharing some of my various playlists for speedwork and what I’m doing during that time.  Please note – due to our PS3 dying and eating all of our music that wasn’t stored anywhere else, I’m operating on music I had at work or on my lappy – which is between 2 to 10 years old.  I plan someday to get the unlimited Zune pass thingee where I can download anything I want for 15 bucks a month – but in these tough economic times (drink) I have to have my priorities.  Like cigarettes and alcohol.  And cute clothes.  And toys for running like my stopwatch.  Anywhooo, here it is.  I hope to see some playlists in the comments, or at least what you like to do to keep your mind amused while working out!

Interval Workout (walk, then jog to the track, do 6×400 sprint laps with a jog lap in between each one, jog then walk home):

Banditos – Refreshments (walk)

Cowboy – Kid Rock (jog and hopefully get to the track in time)

Vivaldi Remix – Digital Espionage (first sprint)

My Way – Limp Biscuit (first jog – skip to next song when the lap is done)

We Will Rock You – Queen (second sprint – no race day/hard run playlist should be without this)

We Are The Champions – Queen (second jog – skip to next song when the lap is done)

Hollaback Girl – Gwen Stefani (third sprint – say what you want about this song, I hate it too, but the beat ROCKS to run to)

The Show Must Go On – Moulin Rouge (third jog – skip to next song when lap is done)

Rent – Rent (fourth sprint)

What You Own – Rent (fourth jog – skip to next song when lap is done)

Encore – Curtains Down – Eminem (fifth sprint)

No Diggety – Blackstreet (fifth jog)

Born For This – Paramore (sixth sprint)

The Boys Are Back In Town – Thin Lizzy (sixth jog)

Carnival – Natalie Merchant (jog partway home)

Thank You – Tori Amos (walk home)

Tempo/5k playlist:

Lift Me Up – Moby (warmup walk if not a race)

Control – Poe (jog if not a race)

The Bad Touch – Bloodhound Gang (start tempo run)

Fett’s Vette – MC Chris

Hollaback Girl – Gwen Stefani (see – hate the song, but it makes me run HARD)

‘Til I Collapse – Eminem

Ladykillers – Lush (great beat to this one)

Killing in the Name – Rage Against the Machine (harnessing the anger around this time makes me less tired)

Breathe – Prodigy (cooldown jog for tempo, 5k should end during the last song)

Smile – Lily Allen (walk cooldown)

Now, I’m off to make a super uber awesome playlist for my 10k tomorrow.  What’s on your playlist?  Who wants to mock me for the fact that Hollaback Girl appeared one not ONE but BOTH of my playlists?  Hit me up…

So as we’re coming to the end(ish) of April, I’m into week 4 of the half-marathon training with 1 more race under my belt and 1 to go .   Besides the running training, I’ve changed up other aspects of my health and fitness life – why stay stable if you can shake things up like a pretty little snow globe, right?  Here’s the facts, and I’m sticking to them!

Morning Workouts:

Let me tell you.  I am soooooo not a morning person.  I remember telling my parents when I was in college that I wouldn’t accept a job that started before noon.  Minus a few lucky positions I got starting between noon and 5pm, my start time has been firmly between 8 and 10 am for every job since leaving school.  Funny how things change when credit card bills are piling up and you’re only eating ramen and rent is due.  That being said, prior to turning 30, I got up and worked out in the morning maybe a handful of times in my life.  Ever.

For some reason, on my birthday, it kicked in that I have a flexible start time (8 to 10 am).  Sometimes, even if I get in early, leaving at 5pm is not an option.  Instead of getting antsy and annoyed that I’m gonna have to work out late and eat late and generally have my day disrupted – I can get my lazy ass outta bed about the same time, throw on some running shoes, autopilot out the door, and by the time I get to work, I’m absolved of all responsibility to have to make it to the gym later.

Since then, most weeks, I’ve done either all or part of my workout in the mornings.  Some days, it’s just yoga.  Some days, it’s my full workout.  But I’m glad I’m learning this now, because soon it’s going to be morning run or treadmill due to the heat, and I don’t wanna give up outside running!

Two-a-days:

On the days I don’t get up and do my full workout in the morning, the majority have been two-a-day workouts.  I’ll either yoga in the morning and run at night, or run in the morning and hit the gym for weights at night, or even DDR in the morning and yoga at night, I like to keep things spontaneous.  I’m now finding that if I leave my full workout for after work, I don’t feel as good as if I even just knock out a 20 minute yoga session in the morning.  The only caveat here is I just don’t have time (see above, not a morning person at all) to do anything that involves me hitting the gym.   Too much with travel time, involves a lot of prepping and packing stuff for the shower, and just not worth it.

One Set Reps to Exhaustion

I’ve done this once at home and once at the gym, and I LOVE IT.  It’s a 30 minute full body circuit instead of 45, and I feel just as worked in different ways.  I still find that I have to set a number to work towards – and I aim for at least 2x one normal set and then keep going if I can.  Some exercises I can do more, and some I’m barely able to hit the double set.  I’m not sure if that means I need to up the weights/numbers on the easier ones, or just that some exercises lend themselves better to doing many in a row (back extensions) than others (pushups).  These will remain a staple in my weight training.

Slow Sets

This was the “half the reps, double the time on each one” day.  Honestly, only did it once so far, but I’m not impressed.  I’ll keep it up through the training and see if I take to it more but…ugh.  Slow and workout just don’t ever seem to have their place in the same sentence for me.  Maybe this would be better suited for a morning weights workout where I don’t have the “just get ‘er done quick so you can go home and have dinner and relax” mentality.

Eating More

So I knew into week 2 my cut calories weren’t gonna…cut it.  Har har.  I also went and looked at various calorie calculators (it’s late, I’m lazy, just google “how many calories should I eat” or “calorie calculators” and you’ve got 20 to pick from).  They all said for my activity level that I should be taking in between 2500 and 3000 calories per day to maintain my weight.  To lose one lb, not a one suggested I eat under 2000 calories.  While the 4 days of gluttony that ensued after I decided I needed to eat more was not the best idea, I’m back on the straight and narrow now.

I’m not feeling the 2000 calories a day – but I have upped my average weekday calories to 1500 and am not beating myself up for 2000 on the weekends.  As I start logging more miles per week, I’ll keep shifting that up.  I am loving being able to eat a bigger breakfast, more fruit, and yeah, a little more freedom to dip into the jelly beans or chocolate chips.  What I am not looking forward to is the taper phase, when I rest and recover, which means back to 1300 weekdays, 1500 to 2000 weekends.  Boo.  Maybe I’ll just keep my activity up but go less poundy poundy on the legs…

While I have been stalled out a bit lately, I did hit a new low of 150.2 this last week and perhaps once it stops being the time of the month where I stay up ’til 4 am waiting for the aleve to take my cramps away, I will see something in the 140s.  I think eating more, while it’s taking to take a few weeks of commitment to see results, is going to both help my weight loss efforts and training with less fatigue.  As long as I don’t use it as an excuse to waddle up to a bacon double cheeseburger and fries or the like every meal and fill myself with the usual good stuff, just more of it, I think it will be nothing but wonderful for me.  I used to always be scared I would up my calories and somehow never be able to lose weight again – but since I’m not doing such a good job of it now, I might as well try, right?

What are you trying out these days, everyone?  Anyone find their magic bullet that made you instantly your goal weight, accomplish all your fitness goals, lose that last pinch of belly fat and make you euphorically happy all day even in the face of grumps and people just out to pee in your sandbox?

Half marathon training to be posted tomorrow since I’m still working out the schedule.  Two races in two weeks makes for challenges not anticipated!

Anywhoo, this was an extremely active weekend – which is good, to make up for the gluttony that ensued.  It’s time for weekend recap show and tell.

The Race!

This picture is for race number 2!

So I’ve learned that I can predict the weather.  If I sign up for a race, it’s going to be  a shitty day.  If you’ll remember, my last race was super cold and rainy that morning (sandwiched in between a bunch of beautiful days).  This day was the perfect temperature – cool but not cold.  The only problem was it was raining (pouring) on and off all day.  The weather peoples had said that it was just a morning thing, but when I heard it outside my office window around 2pm, I was starting to get nervous.

I left work a little early and got to the race site about 30 minutes before the start.  Instead of an official-type race, it was more of a community event.  It was not chip timed, half of the racers were kids or people pushing strollers, I think I was probably the only non-community resident there, etc.  I was a little disappointed, but I wasn’t gonna let that stop me from trying to beat my last time (and I was going for somewhere in the 25s).  Before the race it was pretty wet out, but it was only alternating from spitting to not spitting, hadn’t really started raining yet.

When we took off the kids were all in front so there was definitely a “wade through” period of running out of the gate.  Then, about a tenth of a mile in – there was a HUGE FREAKING HILL.  Yes, I am a wuss when it comes to hills and I’m aware I need to work on that, but that just isn’t nice.  My plan was to run the first and third miles fast and slow down in the middle (since that’s how I tend to run anyway if left to my own devices), but the first hill killed my pace and I spent the majority of the race with a killer cramp in my side.  Then, on top of everything else, around mile 1.5 it started raining, and it just got worse through the rest of the race.  I usually make up for the fact that I suck on uphills by rocking the downhills, but since it was raining, I didn’t want to slip and fall on my ass in front of all of Rollingwood.

Here I am booking to the finish.  When I crossed the timer read 27:29 (which meant I was in 6th place for my age group), but considering they started it when the first kid crossed the line, I think it was closer to 27 flat.  At least, that’s what I’m telling myself…

I don’t mean to be all negative Nancy here.  It was a BEAUTIFUL area to run through.  I suppose an unseasonal 95 and humid day might have been worse than pouring rain.  It was really adorable that half the community was sitting outside with their umbrellas cheering on the runners.  The boy scouts giving out the water at each mile were so happy if you took the water (don’t thank ME for taking water – I should be thanking YOU for giving it to my dehydrated behind…).

But…this is how drenched I was after my race.  And I not only didn’t get a 25-something time, I didn’t even get a 26-something time.  Oh well, considering the conditions, I will take a personal best and only grumble a little bit about it.  This Saturday is a more official type 10k, so I can redeem myself.  My goal is under 1 hour.

The Ridiculous Feast!

My father turned 76 on Saturday.  My father loves italian food.  If there is something my father loves more than italian food, it’s buffets.  So when I heard about this place called Cannoli Joe’s a few months ago (has music on the site – a warning for those of you at work), I knew that it was the perfect birthday spot for him.  Now, I could have easily gone here with some restraint and had a fairly healthy dinner.  They had a HUGE variety of veggies, salads, tomato based pasta dishes, and healthy stuff like salmon and steak.  But, being that I haven’t had italian food in, oh, over a year (except one outing to Olive Garden when I ordered something on their light menu which was pretty terrible), I decided that that wasn’t going to be the case.

I also ate very light for the rest of the day so this was the majority of my food.  I did start out with a full plate of salad and veggies, all of which were delish.  Then, the floodgates opened – I pretty much had a bite of at least half of everything they had – pizza, pasta, meatloaf, steak…and desert.  Oh, the deserts.  They had 10 different flavors of ice cream, and various other things like cannolis, caramel cheesecake, melon in sweet cream sauce, cream puffs, brownies, and more.  I am getting hungry right now just thinking about it (to be fair, I did write this part just before lunch).  My dad enjoyed the meal and we decided that this is a once-every-six-months-at-the-most indulgence (which is OK, because it’s a far drive), and the only exception is perhaps after my half marathon when I get to pick something to chow down on guilt free.

The Ride!

After a night of italian feasting, we knew we had to get our butts moving yesterday.  A nice light lunch and some sunscreen and we were out the door by 2pm, heading down to Zilker Park on the bikes.  We took a new road to get there which involved some scary/exciting little trails.  At first it felt a little rough but about 5 minutes in things started to get much better and the rest of the ride seemed actually easier than normal.  Zee quadriceps, they are getting stronger!

The ride took about an hour and a half and then we hit Zilker.  After wandering around the free exhibit about the Barton Springs area we were about to plop our butts into, we walked downstream a bit and got ourselves a canoe.  Neither of us had been canoeing before, and we had decided there was no time like the present to change that.  After about five minutes I wasn’t sure how I was going to keep rowing for an hour, but I just kept at it and hit my stride after just a bit.  It was a really pretty area we paddled through, and marveled at the fish and turtles.  It was hard not to bop them on their heads though while paddling – there were so many!  We overestimated the time it took to get back and were only out about 45-50 minutes instead of the full hour, but let me tell you – fantastic upper body workout.  And the scenery beats the hell outta the gym, let me tell you.

It was then officially DINNER TIME.  We were huuuuungry.  We headed to a place we’ve been meaning to try – P. Terry’s, and ordered us up some grub.  We got two hamburgers and split a fry.  The fries were amazing, and the burger was very peppery which was an interesting and welcome twist – but I was unhappy with the secret sauce (which tasted pretty much like mayo) which I tried only because they didn’t offer mustard.  The burgers were small, which was perfect for us so we didn’t stuff ourselves for the ride back, but might have disappointed if it’s all we had planned to eat for the rest of the day.

We then re-filled our camel back knock offs (9 bucks in comparison to 30!!!) with ice and water and headed back.  Was a bit tired by the end but we made it!  Took us 5 hours round trip – about 3 for the biking portions, about 30 mins standing in line and walking, 1 hour or so canoeing, and 30 minutes grubbin’ on yummy burgers.  For the exercise parts of it, spark said I burned 1631 calories.  That’s more than I ate (though I was still running on Cannoli Joe’s power).  It was an awesome day!  It even got better because we made blue margaritas and shrimp with onions and peppers and enjoyed every little last bit of Sunday until it was bedtime.  I love weekends.  I wish they weren’t so short!

Verdict is: today I was too tired to get up and do my long run this morning so I’m going to have to tweak around my training for the week, but it was so worth it.  I did get on the scale and was at 151.0 – not a new low weight, but the old low weight I haven’t seen in a while, so I’m pretty pleased.

What did you do this weekend, blogiverse?  Anyone want to start working on a plan to grow money trees so we can have more time off to do the fun stuff instead of sitting in front of the ‘puters working?

Today as the rain falls down (please, mother nature, can we have a short dry spell between 5:30 and 6pm?) and I sit antsy and unable to concentrate on anything with excitement for my race, my brain turns to websurfing – specifically all the new blogs I’ve found in the last year or so (not that most of them are new, just that they’re new to *me*).  Specifically, how each site I visit on a regular basis gives me a different perspective of the world.

In times like these, we don’t take enough opportunities to say Thank You.  It’s one of the best, cheapest, and most fulfilling gifts you can give.  So let me take this Friday to say thanks to the writers out there that make my internetting good.

Pasta Queen was my inspiration to start running.  Besides losing half of herself, she started jogging and then entering races while she was still in the 200’s.  It made me realize that I didn’t have to get down to a perfect weight before I was “worthy” of running and doing races.

Charlotte of The Great Fitness Experiment showed me many things, but the most important, I think, is to be open, honest, genuine, and most importantly your kooky, but wonderful self through and through on your blog.  Also, that all of us ex-gymnasts still have that little bit of crazy that sticks with you through the rest of your life.

Kasmira at What I Wore Today gave me a little bit of wardrobe inspiration.  See, when I was heavy I trended towards my closet being black, black, black, brown, dark blue, dark red and even after losing weight, I never got out of the rut.  When I was younger, I had a rainbow-y closet of tons of colors and I missed that.  She inspired me to look for a little (lot) more color in my life.  I still can’t pull off a lot of the things she does – the whole inverted triangle body type with a short torso makes a lot of fashions problematic – but I’ve been trying to do more interesting things with my wardrobe.

Hilary at Turtle Progress shares with us her trials and tribulations of getting set up in a healthy lifestyle.  You so often see someone say “I lost 50 lbs and feel great” and then they gloss over what they did to do it by saying “ate healthier and exercised” like it’s the easiest thing in the world.  I do it too when I don’t want to be bothered or I think the asker is just trying to be polite.  Ms. Turtle is another one of those folks that inspires me to try to not just share the happy moments, but the messy ones too because if I’m learning from them, maybe other people can too.

Charlie at Back to the Fridge just makes me laugh.  If there is something that his blogging has taught me, it’s that this “serious business” of losing weight and being healthy can be amusing too.  Sometimes we get the blinders on so narrow that we forget that life, above all, should be FUN.  Also, he shows us that burger and fries and pizza and traditional american breakfast and mexican food can have a place in any healthy lifestyle, they’re just things to be moderated, not eliminated.

MizFit has taught me about the fun of poetic lisence.  Please to enjoy some fun up in herre (she is so much better at that than me).  She is very passionate and driven and seems like she’s all about fun.  Workout is banned from her vocabulary – she does “playouts”.  Also, she’s all about soliciting feedback and asking questions of her bumbling band – something I’m trying to incorporate here because while this is mainly my soapbox, journal, and rant-a-torium, I’m curious about what’s in your brains too!  I’m a psychology major, so that’s not just me being polite…

If you haven’t checked these people out, you should curl up with a steaming cup of internet and dive into their archives.  There’s also a lot of other blogs I *just* stumbled upon that I’m still diving into that are on my daily rotation like Cat’s and What’s for Dinner, and I’m sure there are some I’ve missed that I either used to frequent and some great ones that have gone silent.

Any sites that I should check out to add to my already-too-bloated internet time?  What have you learned from your favorite blogs?  If you have a blog, what do you hope people take away from yours?  Anyone learn any great life lessons in the short 6 months I’ve been yakking away here?

Or…you can just pray to the weather gods to hold back the wetness this afternoon and wish me luck on my race! T-minus 5ish hours to go.  🙂