Week 3

Week 3 of training had its ups and downs:

Wins:
1) I made it out for that long run -- 4.8 very long miles. It was hard and I'm glad my friend Sue Ellen joined me for the 2nd loop around the lake because I was losing motivation.

2) Went for a 75 minute bike ride and the only stops were at stoplights. Amber and I kept a good pace on the bikes too. Discovered the many points along Valleyview road are just easier to ride on the road rather than the trail. We did about 11.4 miles total!

Middle of the road:

Nutrition. I did ok in the beginning of the week, by the weekend I fell off. I tried hard, but wound up making a few bad choices, although I didn't go insanely over so the sheer amount of calories I burned this week may make up for any of those overages.

Loses:
Sunday thru Tuesday I was too busy/tired to work out. So I skimped on working out. I anticipated being too tired today which is why my long run was done yesterday.


One thing thats bumming me out is how often the phrase "tired" or some variation on it has crept into my verbiage. I'm having a lot of problems lately getting back into working how I was before the wedding. I'm just ready to be done. To be working 1 job, have weekends and normal scheduling. But because I know that I don't have that mythical full time job, I'm stuck in my current situation. Knowing that I'm stuck sends me back to that dark place when I felt stuck in Rochester. It comes through in my dwindling attitude at the shop. It comes through in how hard it is to get up and get going to work on time. Will I ever get beyond this continual loop of being stuck?

Why does this feel like starting over?

I "officially" entered training for that whole half marathon thing about a week and a half ago. My first week was more of a free form attempt to ramp up my active days. My 2nd week was about trying to follow the program I picked out.

Successes this week:

1. Tracking my food - I've returned to the diligence of watching my diet and am back to where I was in the beginning of winter: 130.2 lbs.
2. Exercised 5/6 days so far including biking, running, intervals.
3. bought new swimsuits - 2 BIKINIS!
4. I signed up for a 10K in 3 weeks

Failures: -- luckily few, but warning: I may swear here

1. F*ck this is hard! 2.5 - 3 miles is really hard! I want to die/walk within minutes of starting. 
2. Strength training: I totally half butted it. 

I miss 5 miles being normal. I want to beat myself over the head for feeling that its a failure, that its hard again to run 3 miles, but its frustrating! It's like starting over and it sucks. 

But yes, in the grand scheme of things, this is going to be hard. 13.1 miles is not supposed to be easy or everyone would do it. So I'm going to stop whining now. I have 3.5 hours of free time before I need to get ready for work. Time for yard work!

discipline, how i've missed you

While on hiatus, I wouldn't say I missed exercise. In fact, I was pretty darn content parked on the couch spending hour upon hour doing nothing. But now that I'm on week 2 of working out regularly again, I can tell I've been missing the discipline of training.

Last week I managed to work out 4 times. This week I'm on 2 times and its only tuesday. And I FEEL GREAT! Yesterday I was tuckered out by the run but after my hour long bike riding adventure this morning, I'm feeling good. I had my coffee with steamed 1% milk and some oatmeal so I'm fed and caffeinated too.

I've been motivated to take care of some lingering emails and now it's time to take my energy offline!

To those select few who follow me, I highly encourage you to get out there today if you haven't already. It's a great day to just be outside in Minnesota. :)

Go Commando

If you've never had the pleasure of participating in an adventure race or have never heard of one, I'd highly recommend the experience. 

I just happened upon the Go Commando 5K adventure race put on by Team Ortho during my registration for the Polar Dash 5K (Jan 1, 2011) also sponsored by them. Amber and I tossed it around for a mere second before declaring our intent to do it. 

What goes into an adventure race? Is it Go Commando because you're running around with no underwear? No, my friends the Go Commando is in reference to a boot camp style race. It's one of several popping up including the Warrior Dash in Hastings and the Rugged Maniac. These races don't focus on distance, but on cross functional fitness. They take your typical 5K and turn it on its side by the addition of rough, changing terrain and obstacles! 

There's hills, mud, water, climbing, balance, even jumping over fire! For an avid runner this proved to be an empowering and yet humbling experience. I love hills and there was one that proved to be just too much for me. I felt my quads burning and I was barely over half way so the executive decision to stop was made. The best part of this was that time was not even an issue. My team faced it as that. While the first 1/2 was mostly small batches of us, the last 1/3 we stopped, waited for the rest of the team to catch up and finished together.

Not a single one of us left the race feeling bad about our performance. We left exhilarated and empowered. When I was a kid, I never could have envisioned bounding between hay bales. I couldn't do it as a 12 year old. Yet, I did it with no hesitation on Saturday. 

I'm left feeling that I can conquer the world...

That said, though, next time I will train more. I would like to get to a point I don't walk up that big hill or have to merely step over the hurdles. 

I look forward to continuing to push myself in new directions and travelling that journey with wonderful friends!

Cross training and all those other exercises....

I am a one trick pony. I can run. Last year when I started training for the 10K, I attempted to work in strength training and cross training and did so successfully... for about a month.

Then I began running even more and those other exercises.... well they fell by the wayside.

But I was running fine so I didn't care that those other exercises went away. Then I started attempting some yoga this spring and realized just how tight my quad muscles were. I went to a bootcamp thing and figured out just how 1 sided I was. I could go out and run 7 miles, but couldn't do a crabwalk and barely could throw a tire..... So maybe that illusion of being in shape is just that ... an illusion.

As I look towards a half marathon distance, I'm accepting that merely running will not be enough. 13.1 miles. 2-2.5 hours of torture will be precisely that if I don't get my act together. Also bringing to light the importance of those other exercises: both of my running buddies have suffered some serious setbacks in the injury department. We're all realizing we need to do more than just lay on the couch and decided to get up and run a few miles....

Long story short, I'm back on the cross training bandwagon and working on the strength training one. Tonight, I biked over to a park and met a friend for some rollerblading and sandwiches. Then I biked home. It felt so good to work some different muscles and trying new exercises breaks up some of the monotony that happens when you're just focusing on one exercise...

Here's to trying new things! Tomorrow its the Go Commando 5K adventure race. 3.1 miles with 13 obstacles. This could be interesting.....

Moody, lost and anti social

And above all tired.

That is the general state of my being. I thought a couple weeks away from working two jobs would re-energize me but its left me even less tolerant of the system I have to work in order to survive.

I'm happy to be married. Happy to be done with the wedding and at that next stage of my life. But the optimism is getting outweighed by the pressure for us to stop what feels like an endless loop of "maybe things will change by X date". That constant putting off of life and plans. The nearly monthly realization that I have to live for a week on $11 and while I have CC cards backing me up it's just digging the hole deeper.

I'm so tired and lost. lost and tired. I thought I'd try new jobs and gain direction/focus, but I've just entered a career holding pattern there too. Just kind of floating until something changes....

Its sucking the energy from me. I'm even losing the desire to run.

From running bride to be to running newlywed...

I've been MIA from the blogosphere for a while. I've even fallen off the bandwagon on running! *insert shocked face here. What usually served as stress relief and salvation for me, had become a burden. My body was not feeling anything related to running. My energy reserves were nearly non-existent. The weather.... well lets just say Minnesota's mother nature is a cruel cruel mistress. Just when we were lauding the metling of the snow, she threw more at us, including flurries on May 2nd. When snow wasn't flying through the air it was wind and chilly rain. I had made it all winter running and found my motivation wain in spring. I also saw my wedding day inching closer and closer. Doing one thing a month would no longer suffice. In fact, I had to start juggling multiple aspects of planning at the same time. My free time, GONE. 

Overworking + planning = no time for running.

So I stopped. And the longer I stopped, the harder it was to get out there. My potential energy was depleted. Even my motivator/running buddy Amber was on a forced break from running so any accountability went out the window. Any time I could have run, I convinced myself that wedding plans were more important. They of course were.  The end result was worth the hiatus. The wedding was everything I imagined it would be... and more.

I felt great in my dress. I felt truly like a movie star princess bride that day.  Mother nature blessed us with 80 degrees and sunny, the garden was gorgeous and in the end I got to declare my love and commitment to the love of my life in front of many family and friends. The pricetag matters less and less to me as now I'm ready to move on, pay my bills and figure out our life. :)

Some people let a hiatus like that completely derail them. I am bound and determined not to let that happen. I enjoy running too much. I enjoy the endorphin push, setting a goal and achieving it, the commiseration of running that hard long run with a friend, or just the voices in my head.

Just because I'm married doesn't mean I'm giving up on this part of me. I will do that half marathon. I will stay healthy. And when all else fails.... I will run.