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I have been super frustrated with my physical fitness routine here lately. Although The Man and I have been steady weight-training 3x’s a week now for about 3 months, and I’m stronger than I’ve been in a long time, I still feel like the Stay Puft man’s ugly big sister. Why? Because of a severe lack of cardio, that’s why. I haven’t been running regularly for, well, forever. I can hardly believe that I completed a half marathon just 6 months ago. If you remember, my left foot was giving me quite a bit of trouble so I just laid off for a little while. Then it got hot. Then it got HOTTER THAN HELL!
And I’m not running in that junk. I’ll run in below freezing temperatures. I’ll mow the yard when it’s 104 degrees in the shade. I’m NOT, however, going to go run down the road and back and back and back and back while the weather is frying worms on my sidewalk. Sorry. It’s not going to happen.
Next option was to run on the treadmill at the gym, but we have been so strength-oriented there, I just didn’t have time before we had to get home to relieve the babysitter (my awesome mom!). So there I was. Getting strong and getting fat. Yuck.
I’ve gained about 6 lbs since I’ve relaxed on my cardio. I blame this entirely on liking food a little too much, and being used to the caloric allowances that running 4, 5, 6 miles at a time were affording me. Now that I’m not moving and shaking like I was, I still want to EAT like I was, and that’s not a good thing.
So – new plan!
I’m relaxing on the gym strength training and refocusing it here at the house with two different dvds. Jillian Michael’s 30 Day Shred, and a pilates conditioning dvd. I’m going to take my 3 days at the gym and bust it on the ‘mill as much as I can.
So far, it’s working well. I’ve done one each of the videos (Shred made me soooooore), and today ran for 20 minutes strong. It felt good. I felt strong. I was bored. I hate the treadmill. I feel the change of pace will do me well for a little while.
On the food front, I pulled together a decent meal today with some food that was on it’s last legs here at the house.
What you see there is:
- fried squash (sliced up, tossed around in one beaten egg, coated with a cornmeal+flour+salt+pepper+garlic powder, fried in olive oil till brown).
- kale chips (kale is a dark leafy green. you know, the dark leafy green that every article and show you see is telling you to eat for your health. yeah, that’s it. pulled off the woody stem and tore into bite size pieces. sprayed with olive oil and shook on some Tony’s seasoning. baked in oven at 350 for 10 minutes until crispy. good with ketchup, too.)
- baked macaroni (this was a complete throw-together as i didn’t have any planned out ingredients. I cooked a bag of mac, grated up the little bits of parmesan/romano/vermont cheddar cheese that i had in the fridge, tossed one egg into the cheeses and mixed it up well. added about a pound of ground venison that i had browned and seasoned yesterday, added one jar of homemade marinara and the noodles. mixed it up. put in a casserole dish with a little more grated parm on top. cook for 25 minutes at 350. done.
Served up with some homebrew and The Man got a slice of sweet sourdough bread. It was all good. I may or may not have had another helping of cobbler and ice cream 
Off to watch the Disc 3 of True Blood- season one. We are so behind.. but thanks to Netflix, we’ll be caught up in no time!
Night!
I took the girl’s to meet the Man at the local farmer’s market during his lunch break yesterday. We got there right at noon and it was already 100 degrees. Yuck. The heat pretty much took all enthusiasm for shopping for fresh veggies out of my little babies, but I had a ton of fun.
I’m going to make it my goal for the summer to buy the majority of my fruits and veg from the market. Some things are cheaper, some things are more expensive, but you just can’t beat the taste of food that was grown practically in your backyard. After eyeing the goods, we settled on tomatoes, squash, okra, bell pepper, organic blueberries, and watermelon. Watermelon is Abby’s absolute favorite food. She salivates just thinking about it.
It was a good looking stash!
Doesn’t it all look tasty? The cucumbers came from my garden that morning. They are decent, but we are not getting enough rain. I’m resorting to watering them with the hose from now on. It’s dry, dry, dry here.
So I thought I would show you what I’m doing with my market foods as I eat ‘em up. Today, one of the bell peppers was chopped up and put into this:
I don’t know really what to call this besides Chicken Sausage Rotini. That’s the ingredients, basically. I picked up this sausage from Sam’s and we have been really happy with it. It’s got spinach and asiago cheese mixed in and, besides being high in sodium, has pretty good nutritional stats. Low in fat and high in protein. That’s what we like 
Sauteed the sausage with olive oil (don’t be afraid!) and then cooked down an onion with the pepper. Added some dried oregano, cumin, chili powder, salt and pepper. I tossed it all with the pasta in the pan and added fresh cilantro in the last minute. Done. Pretty simple, but hit the spot tonight after our workout
Speaking of workout, we killed it tonight. 45 minutes of hard lifting followed by some HIIT (high intensity interval training). We went to a field and did 30 sec. sprints followed by 30 sec. rest, 10 reps. It was killer. Followed it with a quarter mile lap of jogging and then a lap cooldown. We will definitely be adding that to the routine from now on.
Thanks for the feedback from some of you on my last post. Sounds like we all need to step out of our turtle shell a little more
I’m fixing to enjoy some of my market watermelon and watch The Late Show. ‘Night!
Today was a quiet day. The girls stayed at their mawmaw’s last night and tonight, so it’s been rather calm around here. I have to admit that I enjoy days like this from time to time. To rememer the life I had before procreating, and imagine what it would be like if I didn’t at all. It’s peaceful. It’s quiet.
But it’s lonely, too. And I miss the lil’ buggers. I’ll get them back tomorrow afternoon.
In the meantime, I watched a movie… by myself..
It was precious. No. Really. It was Precious, the movie. A movie about a 16 year old Harlem mother of an in-bred downs child that lives with her abusive mother and is pregnant with another of her daddy’s babies. Yeah, it was a real upper of a film. Which is why I watched it by myself.
I do like Netflix. I’ll get a happier movie by Saturday
The Man came home from work and we headed to the gym. I freaking love weightlifting. I like to feel strong. Powerful. And no, I’m not getting hulk-like muscles. Women don’t bulk like men do unless they alter their hormones and junk. We women get toned and beautiful and can lift things and change a tire without asking for help.
I am women – hear me ROAR!
Or something like that. :/
After we’ve kicked our butts to exhaustion, we’ve added a “fun” little exercise called The Bear Complex to the end of our routine.
It’s actually a pretty good cardio workout to end the day with. And it hurts. It hurts so good.
We came back home and made up a quick yummy supper. Shrimp Salad!
I don’t normally buy shrimp because The Man only really likes buying them from the seafood market and they are expensive there and a pain in the butt to clean and get ready, but I talked myself into getting a bag of frozen peeled from Sam’s the last time I was there. We are on the lookout for all kinds of proteins nowadays!
Sauteed up with some homemade Cajun seasoning and a little butter.
Added some avocado, tomatoes, and artichoke hearts (which I haven’t decided if I like or not).
Sliced up some of my pumpernickel bread I made the other day. First time to make this and I’m telling you, it’s a keeper! Yum
Pretty good supper put together from freezer to table in under 20 minutes.
I believe we’ll be keeping the shrimp in stock from now on. It’s a low calorie/high protein ingredient that’s way too easy to thaw out and throw together something good in a short amount of time. Next will be some kind of pasta dish, I’m sure.
Time to go work on starting Eclipse. I want to have it read before I see the movie in a few weeks!
Today was blah. Not as much energy as yesterday or Monday. The midweek blahs are upon me. MUST GET MORE SLEEP! Could be sleep problems, could be the 2/1 margaritas I had last night..
Trying to reduce alcohol/breadstick bloat by drinking tons of water today. I’m so tired of squeezing into my jeans! What’s it gonna take for me to finally “get it”? I’m about ready, that’s all I can say.
The Man and I had a pretty good workout today. My muscles are pooped out tonight after lifting and running. Enjoying the feeling of soreness
I haven’t been very hungry today. I had the usual oatmeal for breakfast, made up at work so I could get there a little earlier. Lunch was leftover eggplant pizza on wheat from last night, and I had some hummus and crackers when I got home this afternoon. Supper consisted of a deli turkey/avocado/craisin/walnut salad on lettuce and spinach.
My favorite default salad dressing
I’ve been enjoying the spring iris I cut last weekend. Gorgeous color.
Ah. That feels better.
I no longer feel like a turd; life may continue on as normal now. Check out my workouts page to see what I’ve been sweating for.
I want to take a second to thank you all that have giving me an encouraging word through the short lifespan of this blog. I cannot tell you how many times a little nudge of encouragement has helped me get through my struggles. I will try to do my best to “pay it forward” whenever possible. You never know who’s day you could make with just a simple smile, “thank you”, or “you can do it!”. I know I appreciate any and all comments that I get on here! (hint, hint)
I’m taking it easy this evening and going to drool over Don Draper with The Man. Well, he’s not going to drool over Don, but I’m sure he doesn’t mind all the chicks in Mad Men, either.
Oh. My. God.
I have been on quite the whirlwind of emotions here lately when I think about running in the half marathon next weekend. Being sick for two weeks has sucked all kinds of confidence out of me. With my last long run (the 9 miler) being 3 weeks ago and my race being next weekend, I knew today was an important one. If I didn’t get a substantial run in today, mentally, I might as well hang it up.
Except for a lingering cough, I’m pretty much over being sick. I bought a humidifier for the bedroom and it seems to be helping me get over everything.
I got up around 7 am and prepared myself for either failure or successful run. I honestly didn’t know how it was going to turn out. After eating a peanut butter and banana sandwich for pre-run fuel, I headed to town.
As soon as I started my run, it began to rain. I knew that it was supposed to today, but I thought it wouldn’t be until this evening. I accepted it as fact and kept going. Nothing was going to stop me today. Rain would only make me more hardcore. Or at least that’s what I imagined the people in the cars passing were thinking. “Look at that girl. She’s crazy. It’s cold and it’s raining. She must be pretty hardcore to be out there this morning.” Yep. That’s what they were thinking. Must have been.
The rain never got stronger than light sprinkling so it never became an issue. I took a little different route and passed several other runners that were out and about. I was feeling good and strong…. and then I looked at my garmin and saw that I had only gone 1.8 miles. Phooey.
I trudged on and only started feeling tired at about 6.5 miles in. The rest, I’m not gonna lie, it was tough. I stopped two times for about a minute to stretch. My butt was sore, my legs were heavy and my feet were aching. By the time I got back to the park where my car was, I was at 9.1 miles. I still had to get that last mile done. I was exhausted. I had been running for two hours. TWO HOURS. Imagine watching a movie. Now imagine RUNNING THAT ENTIRE TIME. I had to walk. I walked. I jogged. I walked some more. I jogged the last two tenths. I was finished!
I collapsed on the grass.
I don’t know how next weekend will go, but I will be there. I will squeeze every little ounce of energy out of my body and I will finish this thing. One of the things I thought about while running is the same thing my husband said when I got home. I’ve come too far to quit now. I agree. The girl who has pushed so far, so hard… she would be pretty pissed off if she did all of that for nothing.
One week to go.
So I’m still sick, but after four days of no activity and poor nutrition, by the early afternoon yesterday I was itching to sweat. After doing it for so long now, it’s true, I actually start to miss it after a few days. That in itself is pretty funny, because I’m never really having a blast while I’m running. I guess it’s me missing the way I feel after I’m done. I definitely experience “the runner’s high” after most of my runs. It feels good to get completely soaked in sweat and feel like you’ve just won a battle with yourself. Empowering.
Yesterday’s run was a 5 miler. I went to the gym again and did it on the treadmill. Still boring as all hell, but I’m getting used to it. My gym has not yet figured out how to lower the thermostat, though. Smothering. I would much rather be outside running in the 30′s than suffocating in a stuffy high 60′s. Oh well. A benefit to treadmill running is that I can keep a steady pace, and it’s been faster than out on the road. Right now I’m running at 5.0 mph (or a 12:00), but if I’m feeling good I’ll do a tempo mile or two at 5.2 (11:34ish). This should help me tremendously during the half.
Another positive note is that my body seems to be recovering much faster now. The first time I ran 5 miles I felt it for days and days after and iced every single joint/muscle in my legs and back. After last night’s run I popped two advil and iced my feet and was done. Feeling much better nowadays
Ooh…. I just remembered… I am experiencing a new kind of pain here lately, though. Chafing! Ugh! And not in that I’m-too-fat-and-my-legs-are-rubbing-together sort of way. That USED to be the problem, but now… now…. I’m getting abused by my clothes! During the 9-miler my sports bra did a number on me, and after last night my arm is raw where my shirt was rubbing. It’s always something new, isn’t it?!
Sunday’s run rocked! I killed 9 miles for the first time!!!!! I FINALLY feel like I can do this. Anxiety that has been building in me for the last few weeks melted away as the miles rolled on a gorgeous, cold morning run.
I can do this.
I won’t win. I won’t place. I won’t be fast.
But I will do this.
I will run a half marathon. I will stand at the starting line with the knowledge of how hard I’ve worked to get there. I will cross the finish line with sweat and pride streaming out of every pore.
I will do this.
After the terrible week I had last week, I can’t say that I was all psyched up to do a long run on Sunday. I went to a new place that I thought might be good, but it turns out it was a little too hilly for a successful long run. I called it quits after 6.3 miles, but left feeling very unsatisfied. My Sunday runs have progressed in this order:
week 1 – 4 miles
week 2 – 5 miles
week 3 – 6 miles
week 4 – 7 miles
week 5 – 7 miles
week 6 – 3 miles (most terrible training week from hell)
week 7 – Divided Run 6.3/2 = 8.3 miles
Yeah, so I wasn’t happy with not going past 7 on my morning run, so I went home for a couple of hours to let my hip rest then set out again for 2 more miles. Not the best way to train, but it gave me my mileage for the day. Speaking of my hip, that was the main reason my runs haven’t been doing so hot lately. My hip flexor on my right side has been super tight and sore, making it to where every stride is painful. I’ve been taking extra care to do more stretching this week and it seems to help.
But to tell you the truth, if you really want to know, every run now brings out a different ache in this 31 year old body. I’m feeling every hit to the pavement. I’m recovering faster though, so that’s good
This week has started off really strong for me. I just completed 4.5 on the dreadmill tonight with a faster pace than usual. I was at a different gym with different equipment and I think that helped a little. Looking forward to the rest of the week now.
Kinda sad I don’t have any food pics for you tonight 
My meals are consisting of leftovers and grazing, mostly. Maybe I’ll get creative soon.
I am slowly bouncing back to where I should be. Had a decent 4.5 mile run on the treadmill yesterday, and looking forward to doing it again. Kinda.
I think part of my problem is that I’m having to run more and more on the treadmill with my weekday runs now that they are becoming longer distance/time wise. I really, really don’t like running on the treadmill for more than 2 miles at a time. It’s become a necessary evil and I’m starting to become bitter towards it. I will work on refocusing that energy elsewhere, though, as I’ve got 5 more weeks of it.
I really wish I would have taken a picture of the star of tonight’s supper while I was making it, but I missed it. Yesterday I roasted a bunch of sweet potatoes and a large butternut squash in the oven. The potatoes transfer quickly into easy meals with a few additions, but I really didn’t know what to do about the squash until I found this recipe today.
This picture is from the blog in the above link-
I made a few adjustments to the recipe. No butter, just olive oil, and only about 1/2 cup cheese instead of 2 (that’s all I had, reduced fat Cabot cheddar).
THIS WAS SOOOOO GOOD!
I’m excited about tomorrow’s lunch already…LEFTOVERS
