A walk in the park
I have picked up the running and start most Monday mornings with a run, and then Tuesday, or Wednesday. Then I work late (15 hour shift this week) so Thursdays have been lost, then its Friday and you know how it goes after that.
The only difference is I’ve been meeting Charla every Saturday morning and most Sunday mornings in January for an early morning walk with the dogs. Today we met before 8am. It was still kinda dark and foggy.
It was a fabulous walk. I don’t take my Nike sync to these, completely letting Charla take the responsibility of tracking our walks.
Today at the end of our walk and the syncing hadn’t worked, she went home and measured it all out on a map.
So there you have it! This mornings walk in the park. These walks are actually immeasurable in getting me running on Monday morning. If I go from Thursday to Monday without these walks, It wouldn’t be as easy to get up and go running on Monday.
I really do have to map out a training schedule, as tomorrow is FEBRUARY already and the marathon is the end of June. I need to work up to 13 miles sustained before then. I know, its a walk in the park, right. Right!
Amazing
The Body that is. I have not run in months, Halloween is the last one in my log. I know there was another after that, before Thanksgiving when I was trying to keep some control over myself and the holiday. I had bought the iPod sync and went for a run to try it out. But nothing in the last two months…..until today.
I had a great run. The weather was mild, warm actually for mid winter. It didn’t rain on me. It was a day off of work, and a Monday, and the beginning of my new shift and all kinds of cosmic alignment for me to get started again today.
I ran my usual loop. The one that I trained on. The one that I could keep going further and further but until the day that I ran the whole thing it seemed impossible that I would ever get up to two miles (in a row.)
Today I hooked up the iPod-sync and walked to the corner. It took me that long to figure out how to “start” the workout. I pushed start and ran the loop. In its entirety. Without being tired or loosing my breath. 2.37 miles at 14.40 mile pace.
It felt amazing. Not the same feeling at all from walking Missy every day. I was so impressed that my body still had the memory from running the loop and it helped to watch the distance add up on my iPod.
There is no guarantee that this mild weather will repeat any day in the next couple months. However the feeling of today has me encouraged to run again, maybe even tomorrow.
Building up to the half marathon doesn’t seem nearly as daunting as last years.
Rock ‘n Rollin again
I registered for the Rock ‘n Roll Marathon on June 28th.
Just enough time has gone by I guess for me to have forgotten the wait in line and school busing it over to the start of the event and standing around. Oh wait, I recall that now.
I will be running the 13.1 miles in its entirety this time. Better get back to running at all, its been, well I was going to say weeks but I think the last run I went on was on Halloween from my house to the garage where my truck was being fixed. Sad, sad state of affairs.
2009 / 2010
This is a difficult post to write. I started the year off in a slow stuttering attempt at weight loss and ended it in a not so stuttering weight gain.
There were some pearls in the middle and why I couldn’t seem to hold on to those is so frustrating on a personal level. It makes me unhappy and cranky and disgusted. All feelings that have me heading straight for the cupboard.
In May I walked around the lake with Char and heard my excuses out loud and it really knocked my butt in gear. I was one month away from the rock and roll marathon and I turned up the burners and worked out regularly, ran enough so by the time the marathon was here I was able to cut time off and run a majority of the marathon. I tracked every single morsel that went into my carb hole. I lost weight, I lost size. I kept this up for several months and continued to lose and feel great and give away “fat” clothes.
My schedule changed for work in September but my thinking did not, I have worked out since September but barely and not regularly. I am really good at loosing weight (when I try) and I am even better at gaining weight (don’t even need to try) what I am not good at is “living” a lifestyle that doesn’t involve one extreme or the other.
I am back up in weight….however, I am not where I was at the beginning of the year so I am going to call the year a success. I am still down in clothing size although am not nearly as comfortable as I was in August.
My goal for this year is to find a balance. Live a lifestyle I can manage every single day of the year. I know “moderation” is what is preached….oh have some dessert but in moderation, have a taste of everything so not to feel deprived. That doesn’t work for me. I do better depriving myself of a food, say sugar, or potato then just having a little. One taste and my brain goes into euphoria and I want to just keep eating to keep that feeling going. Yes, I am addicted to food. But more than the food I am addicted to is filling the void with food. When I’m lonely, bored, tired or frustrated.
When things are going well, I can also be addicted to exercise. But, I have to find an exercise routine that I can manage to fit in even when I have the work schedule that doesn’t work for my personal choice. The realization that this may mean joining a gym again is becoming more and more apparent. It doesn’t seem to matter that I can work out at home, I’m not doing it. Perhaps if I have a destination, and schedule it in I will make it a priority.
My ever widening Butt
I may have to join a low-cost gym for the winter.
I find it is too cold / wet / dark to go out for a run. Or even out to my gym to work out. Granted, I know that once I actually started to work out, I would warm up but there is a huge disconnect.
In the mean time, even though food is pretty good, calories in check, fruits, veggies, only occasional trip and fall off the deep end into a vat of chocolate pudding or some sort. The weight and therefore the butt are creeping back up.
So that is the desire anyway. Reality is I don’t have the money and or time. I know I know, make time for me first yadda yadda yadda.
I’ll check into Snap and see if there is a special coming up. They have month to month memberships near me and always look pretty empty.
Running
So the new pair of running shoes I bought ELEVEN days ago finally hit the street tonight.
It was the very first time I have been home in the daylight, albeit fading daylight, since the begging of the month when we started working on the cafe/studio.
Since buying the shoes I picked up the iPod sync kit and started my short run off by calibrating it to my walking. Although I’m wasn’t sure it was accurate because it seemed the 2 tenths of a mile walk up the hill to calibrate it seemed to hit two tenths before I thought it should. But I ran the one mile loop after that and it seemed right on the money for the one mile. It was also fun hearing when I was at a half mile and that I completed the mile in 12 minutes 36 seconds.
Granted I then came in the house and didn’t run anymore but I am thrilled that it is synced up and should be easy to use this as my new spendy personalized pedometer.
Having not gone on a run for several weeks, maybe closer to a month, I was thrilled by the even pace, easy breathing and could have / should have kept going.
Next run scheduled for Saturday morning, rain or shine.
What do you know
I have a fitness and weight loss blog. One I have abandoned as much as everything else lately.
The Fast (from last month) worked to squelch the sugar cravings, until I was PMS’d again.
I bought new running shoes on Sunday and they are the kind you can put a chip in and sync up to your iPod.
I am buying the chip on Friday (Payday) and will sync up my iPod and workouts.
In the mean time, I’m fat and cranky and pms’d and oh so pleasant this morning. It’s a cranky that I know I would feel better if I got some endorphins going but still haven’t fit in a workout in over a week.
Tonight will be no better, I am working at the studio tonight and then going to dinner.
80% done
Day four done. One more to go. You know your jealous of my fancy dinner.
Lunch.
Dinner. Fancy huh.
RESET
Yesterday I started the 5 day RESET program.
Designed to reset my glycemic index and my metabolism.
Three shakes, two bars, two packs of vitamins and 64 extra ounces of water.
Well I got through day one. I didn’t eat anything besides what you see in the picture. Boring. It helps that I waited until I had very little food left in my house. I added up the calories, and it only totals 1045 a day which doesn’t make any sence for resetting metabolism as it is too few so I will go ahead and add in an apple and a veggie this evening.
But I figure I can do anything for 5 days! Even drink these shakes. I could live with the chocolate one. But the vanilla which is never a flavor I like in shakes, was more difficult to get down. Strawberry which unless your seven why would you want strawberry I am having those for breakfast because well at 5:30 in the morning, my senses are still asleep and therefore I figure I wont notice.
The plan is called RESET. I am hoping it works to reset my state of mind if nothing else. Since being on first shift again for a month, my workouts have completely fallen off and the nearly 20 pounds I had taken off this year are already starting to creep back up. Some how, some way, I will fit in a workout on each of these five days as well.
Yesterday was a divine walk around Greenlake with Char. It was beautiful, the weather was mild, the color’s popped, there were ducks and turtles and life around us and the conversation was stimulating as always.
Heres to a week of RESET, as it is I have 3 posts in draft mode from last week. Clearly something needs to push the reset button and this will be it!!!!!!!!!
Food/Sleep/Heartburn
Ready, OK> I am going to do this again today because I know for a fact the only and I do mean ONLY thing that kept me from eating my house through the house last night due to stress was the fact that I was in no way shape or form putting a binge in my blog.
I am lacking sleep today having to be up before the crack of dawn (on the EAST COAST) hours in fact of being at work before the sky even lightened. That put breakfast off because 3am, too early for food.
I went to Starbucks about 6:30 and got a turkey bacon sandwich and coffee to get me going. I took the supplements for the 2nd day in a row and I have had heartburn and burping (nice huh) the taste of vitamins for two hours now. blech. I went ahead and had my banana to see if that would help but it did not.
Food today (so far):
Turkey Bacon breakfast sandwich: 350 calories
Small banana: 90 calories
Supplements
Coffee and lots of water.
Lunch: 11:30 a.m.
Salami sandwich: 392 calories
12 almonds: 85 calories
