The Cravings

I’ve been well on my way to losing the weight that I gained last year. As of Monday morning, I was down a total of 9 lbs so far out of the 40 that I have to lose.

So, here I am, in my 4th week of eating healthy when, BAM! The cravings have hit. I NEED some good old comfort food (or so I’ve convinced myself). It’s cold, I need to snuggle up in my fleece jammies and not worry about getting out there for that workout. (yeah, right). Plus, I’m HUNGRY! On top of all that, we got hit with about a foot of snow yesterday, on top of the couple of inches from Tuesday. We’re not used to that much snow down here!

And, my treadmill is acting wonky. My repairman (my dad) is snowed in, living in the middle of nowhere like they do. Well, they can probably get out today, but I hate to ask them to come out and work on my treadmill when they are getting ready for a vacay. What to do? What to do?

All right! Enough of this! Yesterday, I did eat a lot of junk that I shouldn’t have (non-whole wheat pasta, buttery popcorn, and too much of both). I have fired pasta and buttery popcorn from my everyday life, they tend to cause me to crave other things, so I’ve banished them.

I’ve also skipped my runs this week. The snow is no excuse, I know others are out there running in it. I’ve run in it in the past. There’s no reason to skip a run just because of a treadmill problem. I’m just lazy, and enjoying those fleece jammies when the alarm goes off. Plus, with the kids out of school, I’ve been staying up and hanging out with them later than usual.

This morning, I was studying my marathon training plan and talking to my BFF. Being the athlete of the year and all, I figured I’d ask her for advice. I’m going to forgive myself for missing my run this week. According to the training plan I have, this week should be a cutback week, long run of 6 miles. I’m going to go ahead and run tomorrow morning, then do another run Saturday morning and get back on the schedule next week. That would mean a 16 mile long run next weekend, and 18 miles the weekend of the Fly With the Eagles Half. She will be running 20 miles that day, so we will go to the Half about an hour early and run the extra 5 and 7 miles prior to the race.

Disaster averted. Now, to get these cravings under control…

Awards Banquet Photos

Enjoying the evening:

Runner of the Year, Female Athlete of the Year, Male Athlete of the Year:

Yay, Barbie!

No Turning Back

Last night was the Awards banquet for our local run club.

The banquet was held an hour away from me, so my friend picked me up and we made a day of it. I have been a member of the club for 8+ years now, and this is the first awards banquet I've attended.

To start the day off right, I had a long run planned, 12 or 13 miles. When I woke up at 6am, it was 14 degrees, with a breeze. Ugh! I know I've run in colder weather, but I just couldn't get myself psyched for it. At around 7am, I got a text from Barbie saying that she was headed out for her run, and dreading it.

I decided that I didn't want to go outside, but I HAD to run. I have a perfectly good treadmill and can run on it. I talked myself into breaking the distance into 3 sections of 4 miles each. I got on the treadmill and was watching some of my Tivo'ed shows from last week. The first four miles were OK, so I went for 5 in the first segment. I took a quick break, opened the sliding glass door next to the treadmill (I got hot quick in the house), changed my shorts (at what point did I start getting chub rub? Must. Lose. Weight.) and back for another 4 miles. I took a second quick break and finished up with 3 more miles. I ran 12 miles on the treadmill! Woohoo!

After the run, I got ready to head out for the banquet. We left just after noon, as Barbie's son lives in the same area as the race, and we had plans to do a bit of shopping beforehand.

First, we went to the liquor store. Who ever heard of a dinner where it was BYOB? Ah, well, we got our wine. We had a late lunch (Mexican, of course), since none of us had really eaten much yet. Next, we had to shop for black pants. Yup, we came so prepared. Anyhow, we found some nice ones in the mall. At that point, it was already after 5pm! Social hour was 5-6pm, and we still had to change clothes and get to the banquet hall that was about 20 minutes away! We rushed back to the apartment, threw on our dressy clothes, and we were off. Very. Late.

We wound up getting there just in time to sit down for dinner. Whew!
Barbie received the Female Athlete of the Year award! It was very unexpected. I knew about it, but she did not. Let me tell you, it was TOUGH to keep my mouth shut about it! She had an excellent running year in 2008 and has been running better than ever.

I do have pictures from the banquet, but I'll have to post them later. I can't believe the dang cable for my camera is at work! Ugh!

During the course of the day and night yesterday, I told several people about my plans to run the inaugural Illinois Marathon. I also told some people at work last week. One colleague that was in town from Chicago even marked it on his calendar (he's a runner, too). This means that, come hell or high water, I have GOT to do the training for this marathon. I can't back out now, lest I have to explain to everybody I know that I'm a lazyarse. THAT is NOT going to happen!

January Blues

I have got to start dragging myself out of bed in the mornings for my running.
Last night, I left work a bit early (after 3 late nights in a row) and went out for a 7 mile run. A very difficult, terrible 7 mile run. The best thing I can say about this run is that it is over.

So, here’s my week so far:

Monday: Yoga and Core
Tuesday: Nada
Wednesday: Nada
Thursday: Crappy 7 mile run
Friday: Planning some strength training later
Saturday: Planning 13 miles
Sunday: Planning DOR

Notice anything? Yeah, I was basically a slug until THURSDAY! Then, I decided that I was going to have to do SOMEthing after work. Any brilliant ideas for how to drag yourself out of bed at 4:45am?

These have been tried, with no success:

1- Move the alarm clock to the opposite side of the room – Yeah, I’ll pretty much get up and reset it for later, or get up and hit snooze 14 times and get back in bed every time.

2- Turn on a light – I purchased an alarm clock that slowly lights up the room. Yup, it wakes me up. Nope, I don’t stay up.

3- Have your significant other drag you kicking and screaming out of the bed. Ummm, no significant other and no plans to go there.

4- Anything else??

OK, I realize that it’s all in my head and I have to just MAKE it happen. I’ll get there. But, at least I’m getting my workouts in later, far more frequently than I had been. My colleague that used to call me in the mornings is going to give it another try, so maybe her calls will be what I need this time.

Tomorrow evening, my BFF and I are going to our running club’s annual awards banquet. She will be receiving the award for Runner of the Year. It’s very exciting, and she has no idea that she is getting this award. We have never even been to the ceremony before. We decided to go this year a few weeks ago, on a whim. It was later that I found out about the award that she will be getting.

Finally did it

This entire weekend was about me putting off my long run.

Saturday morning, I woke up to warmer weather (upper 20's/lower 30's) and howling wind. I decided to hold off and hope that the wind would let up.

Later that afternoon, when I hadn't done my long run and the kids and I had gone shopping, I regretted putting it off. It was a beautiful day, and 46 degrees.

Aargh! Instead of running, I wound up doing yoga at 10pm. At least I didn't waste the entire day.

Sunday morning, I woke up to 32 degrees, and a little bit of snow on the ground. I decided to wait until it thawed a bit to go out and run.

FINALLY, at 2:15pm, I dragged myself out the door. I ran into the wind and snow for the first 4.5 miles, but I managed to finish a 9 mile run. Barbie was coming by later on and came out and met me and kept me company for the last 2.5 miles. It was tough, but I managed to finish the 9 miles strong. I'm so happy that I did it!

Tomorrow is weigh-in day for me. I'm hoping for the best, but I had pizza twice this weekend. Ugh!

Back on Track, Quickly

After a great first week back last week, I had been slacking the first half of this week.
Slacking on my diet, slacking on the exercise and running.

Last night I ran 5 miles on the dreadmill.

This is an accomplishment. Last year was all about great starts, and quickly slacking off.
This year is about keeping it up, getting right back into it when I begin to fall out of the habit.

I can NOT continue on the same path as I was on last year.

I will say, that much as I hate the treadmill, I've sure been glad to have one at my house this week! Brrrr...

To Skip or Not To Skip?

This week is a local grade school basketball tournament, so I don't have as much time after work to fit in my workouts.

I started out the week with my workouts all planned out, around the basketball. Here is how it was supposed to look:

Monday AM: Run 4-5 miles

Monday PM: Son's ball game

Tuesday AM: Strength training

Tuesday PM: Son's ball game

Wednesday AM or PM: Run 4-5 miles

Thursday AM: Run 4-5 miles

Thursday PM: later ball game

Friday AM or PM: Strength training / core

Saturday: Long Run

Sunday: DOR

This is what has happened so far:

Monday AM: Oversleep, no run (note to self: don't stay up so late on Sunday night)

Monday PM: Son's ball game (WIN!)

Tuesday AM: Up early, do laundry instead of run, plan run for after ball game

Tuesday PM: Son's ball game (WIN!) + Talk self out of running, plan to run in the morning.

Wednesday AM: Oversleep, no run (no excuse here)

So, tonight I will do one of three things

1- Run

2- Strength train, plan to run Thursday and Friday, push long run to Sunday

3- Run AND strength train, plan to run again before tomorrow night's later ball game.

Looking at the weather forecast, I'm tempted to run on the treadmill tomorrow with a long run on Saturday and an extra few miles on Sunday outside. It's going to be FRIGID the next couple of days, with a little bit of a warmup over the weekend (20s and 30s instead of single digits).

I was in the best shape of my life when I absolutely NEVER skipped a workout, I can remember 11pm workouts back then. I really need to train myself to do it in the mornings, though. Morning workouts will be the key to long-term success for me. This has always worked best in the past, less temptation to put it off until later (like 11pm) if I have it done already.

On Monday I promised pictures from the weekend. We were attempting to get a picture of the three dogs together. Buffy would not cooperate at all! She ran under the bed every time.

Here is a picture of me with Chloe and Tito. I'm sitting funny because Chloe is in "HER" spot. She also bites, so I was a little afraid of moving her.

Of course, my boy Tito was the bestest behaved dog of the bunch!

Recap of the Week

Aargh! I really meant to blog last week, but obviously I fell short.

Here's a quick recap:

Monday pm: Jillian's 30 Day Shred
Tuesday pm: Jillian's 30 Day Shred
Wednesday: DOR (side note: OUCH!)
Thursday pm: Ran 4 miles on the treadmill
Friday: DOR
Saturday: Ran 2 miles + upper body workout
Sunday: Ran/Walked 7 miles

After taking almost an entire month off with NO exercise, let me just say that I was EXHAUSTED last week. Getting back into the groove is tough. I have to remember that when I start to get lazy again. I'm taking another day off today, since I have to go to my son's basketball game right after work. I didn't get up early enough for a run this morning, after working on laundry until after 11pm last night.

I ate healthy all week. The only day I strayed was Saturday. Two of my friends and I got together and had a play date for our dogs. OK, it was more an excuse to hang out, eat appetizers (YUM!) and experiment with drink recipes. I still stayed within my allotted calories (I think), but I drank approximately half of them. As a result, yesterday's 7 mile "run" became more of a hungover "walk" with a few spurts of running. My stomach wasn't up to eating much yesterday, so I ate too few calories yesterday, according to the Daily Plate. I should have some pictures from Saturday later this week, I have to wait for Barbie to send them to me.

With all of that, I still managed to lose 6 lbs last week. For those who are counting, that's 6 lbs down - 34 lbs to go.

I'm seriously toying with the idea of running the inaugural Illinois Marathon in Champaign. It will be on April 11, so it would be very soon. I'll probably make a decision on it in the next few weeks. It would be nice to have my own spring marathon under my belt just before accompanying my friends to Boston the following weekend.

Snowman Shuffle 5K

On Saturday, I ran my first race of the shiny new year.

It was the Snowman Shuffle. This is the third time I've run this race. And the slowest, but I'm not focusing on that. Starting this year, I'm going to stop being so hard on myself.

The race started at 9:30am. Barbie, Shanna, Barbie's nephew Jordan and I rode down together. When I woke up, I considered calling Barbie and telling her that I was sick. That is how much I was dreading this race. We left my house at 8am. That is the latest start for a race in a looong time, and I needed it. Having so many days off work the last couple of weeks has caused me to turn my days and nights around more than I should.

I hadn't ran at all since the Jingle Bell Run on Dec 6, so I was just content to be getting out there and running.

Despite sitting on the charger all night, my Garmin told me that the battery was low before the race. I did the only thing I could at that point. I grounded it for being a bad boy and left it in the car. I enjoyed running the race without staring (obsessing) at the numbers. There was a runner just ahead of me who was obviously coaching a first-time runner (his wife?). At about the one mile mark, he turned around and started cheering for me as well. It really does help to have support. When they stopped for water, I went past them and didn't see them again until the end. The second mile was ENDLESS. At that point, I knew that my friends were probably already finished. As I got closer, I started seeing people I knew jogging back out. It really did help to have them shouting my name and cheering for me. I finished in 33:13. I'm not going to say anything about that time. I finished, and I'm happy for it.

Last year, I won first place in my age group, but I've turned 35 now and moved up to a tougher group. There were about 150 runners in the race, so I was certain that I hadn't placed. My friends had, so we stuck around for the results.

Shanna won overall for women in 20:31
Jordan won his age group in 18:36
Barbie won 2nd in her age group in 23:47
AND, I won 3rd in my age group!!
AND, there were more than 3 people in my age group. :)

Since we had the young'uns with us, there was no wine. We let them pick our lunch destination, so it was pasta for lunch instead of Mexican. Ah, well. When it was all said and done, I was glad I went. Maybe 2009 really is my year.

Happy Belated New Year 2009

Farewell 2008.
A year I am glad that I will never have to re-live.

At the beginning of the year, another divorce. Funny how I've been divorced more than once, but I've been married less than 5 years total. I just can't seem to pick the right one. The worst part is that I knew both were destined to fail before I said I do. Once when I was 19 and again at 33.

To celebrate, I took the kids to the Virgin Islands for Spring Break. That was one week of 2008 that I would gladly re-live.

My work schedule was hectic, to say the least with two of my biggest projects since I started taking place in the same year.

I ran 5 Half Marathons, 2- 10 mile races, with some 5, 10 and 15K's sprinkled in as well. I ran 20 races in 2008. Two of my best friends qualified for the Boston Marathon, and one other ran her first Half Marathon. And I was there for all of it (as I will be in Boston when my friends run).

I think the worst part of 2008 (and one reason I'm glad I don't have to re-live it) has been the insomnia. I've suffered with minor bouts of insomnia from time to time over the years, but 2008 has been THE WORST. Not only do I have trouble falling asleep, I can't stay asleep. And, it's relentless. On top of that, I have regular occurrences of what can only be described as hot flashes. But, I'm only 35. (By the way, I'm planning yet another trip to the dr next week)

I start 2009 at an all-time high weight (Why am I so obsessed by this?) and an all-time low fitness level (I know why I'm obsessed by this).

I am wishing for myself in 2009...

BALANCE

That is all. No lofty resolutions that I will forget in a month or two.
No grand plan for how I will be thinner, fitter, richer, and a better person by the end of the year.
Just a goal for Balance. In Mind, In Body, In Spirit.

I reserve the right to set goals as the year progresses.