Adjusted Reality

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?