Here are the facts. And some pics.

Fact #1: I did Cathe's Total Body Giant Sets today and I was reunited with my precious barbell.

Large dog just doesn't understand our
relationship.

Fact #2: I totally threw out a bicep shot for no reason at all other than I had nothing better to do.

Please note animals overrunning my
workout area.

Fact #3: I worked out while dinner was in the slow cooker and it was kind of torture smelling the goodness that was my pulled barbecue chicken while suffering through oh so many one-legged squats.

Pulled BBQ Chicken and Mashed Cauliflower FTW

Fact #4: Small dog is not a fan of post-workout selfies.  In case you wanted to take one with him.  Just an FYI.

No more facts - just stupid learnings:

• I missed all these Cathe workouts while training for that duathlon.  And I'm sure my barbell missed me.
• I have never eaten mashed cauliflower before...and it was good.  Probably because there was bacon in it.
• Animals in my workout area.  The struggle is real.
• Small dog can sure throw that eyeball attitude around.
• I need more barbell in my life.

Tomorrow's workout: 4 easy miles that the app is calling a "long run."  Pfffft.

Consistency and gratuitous animal pictures are the key.

Sometimes it's really hard to get out of bed and get my workout done in the wee hours of the AM.  He knows what I'm talking about.

Mom..stop waking me up when you get out of bed.

But getting up early and doing my workout before I go to work is a habit that I formed way back in 2004/5, and that consistency has helped me not only lose weight but also train for those little marathons and duathlons that I do.  In fact, I would say that consistency is key in helping you reach any of your fitness and/or weight loss goals.  But consistency in what, exactly?  Well...

Consistency in eating.

You have to consistently eat real, good-for-you food in order to lose weight and just be healthy in general.  I have had to learn this about 53 times, but I think it's finally starting to sink in, as you can see from my newly-found motivation to food prep like crazy these days:

Chicken Salsa Verde for lunch - FIESTA IN MY MOUTH

Consistency in getting those workouts done anyway you can.

I'm a lucky person that happens to own her own treadmill and a spin bike, so if I can't run or ride outside I have an alternative.  But when I didn't have those things, I still tried to get some workout in (usually a workout DVD) so I could at least say I burned some calories and did my workout duty for the day - and so I could keep up the habit of working out.  I don't know about you, but if I stop working out for 2 or more days, my brain starts thinking that's a permanent thing.


Consistency in post-workout selfies.

If a tree falls in the woods and no one hears it, did it really happen?  If a workout is done and no selfie taken, did the workout really happen?  These are just the same question with different words, people.

Dog-verified post-workout selfie.

Consistency in rest and recovery.

In case you don't know what "rest" or "recovery" looks like, here's a good example.

If you don't ever recover or get enough rest, your body won't heal and then your workouts and races will begin to suck.  And sucking is to be avoided at all costs. 

Consistency in sucking it up, buttercup.

You have to do the workouts you don't want to do.  For me, these workouts are anything that includes the words "mile" and "repeats."  You have to do these workouts because those are the workouts that are usually good for your growth, development, and helping you fine tune your mental "suck it up, buttercup"edness.

Consistency in helping others see they can do it too.

One reason I started this blog was to help me maintain consistency by writing all sorts of facetious garbage on it.  In other words, I started it for myself.  But others have unexpectedly and sometimes weirdly gained inspiration from all this facetious garbage, helping them see that they can do it too.  While I'm always supportive of anyone on a journey to better fitness and weight loss, I think sometimes we have to make that support more intentional.  For example, writing a post about consistency and actually including helpful suggestions rather than just silly things that sometimes include gratuitous pictures of animals. 

Consistency in including pictures of your animals in your blog posts.

Ooops how did these gratuitous pictures of animals get here?!? 

Consistency in ending your posts with stupid non-educational learnings:

• Just in case you were wondering, I did my workouts for the past two days: a bike ride and some mile repeats this morning.
• I had to so suck it up, buttercup, to get those mile repeats done this morning.  Buh.
• Along with a duty to support others in their fitness goals, I feel it is my duty to share pictures of my animals.
• Seriously, consistency is the key.  Although I wish I could workout once or twice, eat a few sprigs of broccoli, get a fantastic body, and then move on my with my life.

Tomorrow's workout: 5 mile easy run.

I just realized I had better start duathlon training.

You know that feeling when you're looking ahead on your calendar and you realize you have a half duathlon (10k/56mi/10k) on June 9th and you realize it's already April?  That feeling of sheer panic when you realize you need to be able to bike 56 miles and not die in about 2 months?

Yeah.  That feeling made me get my butt on my bike and ride around outside for 15 miles in the windy cold this afternoon.

I think the cars might be jealous of my ride.

Well, it wasn't super cold outside, but there were some serious winds that made the first half of the ride really, really suck.  It also kind of sucked because it's been the first time I've done an outdoor ride since the late summer, and the first 5 miles were just my legs going "whoa....whoa...what are we doing...we're not used to this....we're just going to go slow until we get used to this again."  And slow is how we went until we were about 8 miles in, when I finally had the wind at my back and could cruise all the way home.

So...not my best bike ride ever (16.2 mph average?!?!).  But when you haven't been on the bike since August, I guess I'll take it as a starting point for improvement.  In fact, during the ride I was thinking of all of the things I need to do to improve in order to survive 56 miles on the bike (only to get off and run a 10k....argh).  Here are some of those thoughts roaming through my mind during the ride:

• To stop your toes from becoming two blocks of ice because you chose to ride into cold early spring winds for 8 miles, invest in bike shoe covers.  This will prevent you from standing in the shower after the ride blasting your toes with the hottest water you can tolerate just to feel something, ANYTHING in them again.
• Don't stupidly think you can bust out 15 miles after not riding outside for so long.
• Buy more than one long-sleeved bike jersey or it's going to be lots of really cold morning rides for you.
• Work on distance, then speed-stop trying to push big gears right out of the gate.
• Remember: unclip FIRST, and get off bike SECOND.
• Don't think about the fact that you have to be able to ride forty-one more freaking miles by June 9th.  Just get the miles in.
• Work on getting on and off the bike without looking like an old lady worried she will fall and break her hip.
• Also remember: when stopping at an intersection, unclip FIRST, then put foot on the ground.
• I told you - stop thinking about those 41 more miles.  You're just freaking yourself out for nothing.
• Learn how to grease the bike chain without getting bike grease all over your hands. 
• Your quads are big whiners.  Ignore them.
• And a final remember:

A post shared by Club Of “Runners”🏃🏼‍♀️🏃🏻‍♀️ (@craptrunners) on Mar 29, 2018 at 5:47pm PDT

Some bike riding learnings for you today:

• While riding into the wind for the first half of the run was sheer torture, the back half was a joy.  It reminded me why I enjoy biking so much.
• This ride also reminded me that biking outside is still one heck of a workout.
• Am I still going to freak out about those 41 more miles?  Yes, until I do at least a 30 mile ride.
• Does anyone else have whiny quads, or is it just me?
• And because I have yet to post a picture of one of my animals giving his opinion of this post, I shall do it now:

POST SO BORING

Tomorrow's workout: Total body weights.  The usual Friday torture.

The NyQuil in me is only allowing time for a 4-picture post.

Picture #1:

Unlike yesterday morning where I ditched my workout because I had a low-grade fever, this morning I sucked it up, buttercup, and did my total body weight workout while the cat supervised.

Hyooman you a wimp.  Workout harder.

Picture #2:

This made me pretty happy, because it opened up my sinuses long enough for me to give them a good rinse.  Didn't really want to know about my sinus rinsing?  Well, too late.

Sinus rinses for everyone!

Picture #3:

Hubbs and I went out to dinner and he ordered this delicious brownie with ice cream.  Normally, I would have inhaled it all before he could get his spoon pointed in the direction of the plate, so me not having any of this was a huge dietary win for me.

mmmmmmmmmm NOPE

Picture #4:

Small dog is bored and the post shall end now.

Bored by the boringness of the boring post.

Quick!  The learnings!

• That feeling when you get home and take NyQuil and then feel like everything else you do afterwards is racing the clock before you pass out.
• I mean, seriously - I never ever passed up a brownie until today.  I think my sugar addiction is waning.
• Even more seriously - how big is that little dog's mouth??  It's almost freakishly large.
• I think we've all learned that the world is a much better place without blog posts written whilst hopped up on NyQuil.  Yep.

Tomorrow's workout:  20 miler on the schedule...let's see how many of those miles actually get done.

Some ranting about GPS watches and gratuitous animal pictures.

I felt pretty good this morning after my 15 miler yesterday, better than I've felt after running that type of distance in a long time.  This resulted in less mental whining than normally happens when I clean the house on Sunday and I was a little more motivated to do my upper body weight workout than I normally am.  It also helped that I had on my awesome tie-dye head scarfy thing and that large dog saw fit to horn in on my post-workout selfie.

It's not love for me.  It's love for my sweat.

And then small dog got in on the act.

Kids.  They never stay still for pictures.

Anyway, I did a three-fer today for a workout: Cathe's Chest, Triceps, and Shoulders and her Back, Biceps, and Shoulders workouts from her Ripped with HiiT series.  This was so I could get a complete upper-body workout and to generally torture my upper body since I tortured my lower body yesterday.  These days I record my strength workouts (along with every other type of workout I do) on my Garmin Vivoactive HR because, you know, if you don't record it you can't blog about it because it never really happened.  But I remember way back when I started working out, there were no watches that could do that.  I had to, like, do math and stuff to figure out how many calories I burned.

And we all know doing math when you don't have to is a big fat no-no.  At least it is in my world.

So when GPS sports watches started to be able to record things that weren't outdoor running, cycling, or swimming, I was all in.  Heck, I was all in from the whole "GPS" thing so I didn't have to manually map out a route before every run.  However, I've come to see that while these sports watches have a lot going for them, there are some drawbacks:

1) Sometimes I look at my GPS watch to check my pace during a run more than I actually look at the road.
2) Waiting for satellite signal.....complete bummer.
3) The time it takes to find that "just right" watch face to express my individuality and uniqueness.
4) When you finally get a satellite signal, hear the beep, and then take off on your run--completely forgetting to actually start the run on your watch.
5) The fact that nothing else contains nickel in the watch except for the watch band clasp, making it nearly impossible for me to actually wear a watch without huge red blisters on my wrists because, you know nickel allergy.

I'll spare you pictures of that last one, but it's the one that ticks me off the most about these fitness watches.  I pay all that money for this awesome little piece of technology that I pay more attention to than my loved ones at times, and, like some of my less-loved ones, it returns that attention with a big oozing red rash. 

Buh.  I'm about 3 seconds away from just super-gluing the actual device to my wrist and dispensing of wrist-bands altogether.  And small dog is 1 second away from telling me to suck it up, buttercup, and end this post:

Please make this post stop.

Bummed out wrist-rash learning time:

• Cathe's upper-body workouts from her Ripped with HiiT series are fast becoming my faves again.  All my muscles are feeling that workout right now.
• If you're ever running in downtown Chicago by the mag mile and all it's tall, tall buildings, your GPS watch is also completely useless.
• These nickel-induced wrist rashes suck, and must stop.
• Female cat is too busy being crazy to care about this post at all.

Too busy with crazy to care.

Tomorrow's workout:  Speed is here!  A nice weird little ladder is on tap.

Barbells, coughing, and late nights.

When you spend the night still coughing and coughing and coughing after chugging some of this:

Review: GROSS

And then you get up at 3:45 AM to a dog looking at you like this:

Do you mind, like, not coughing for 5 mins?  Trying to sleep here.

Then you drag your butt downstairs and decide what premix you'll do for your workout:

Just Push Day, please.

And you get all excited because the upper body part of the workout is nothing but BARBELL:

ZOMG BARBELL who left this lying around?

And then your excitement about the workout goes away when you get to the part where Cathe has your feet are on freaking dumbbells and you're doing squats like WHAAAAAAAA:

It was definitely like WHAAAAA

And finally by the end of the day you can't decide if your upper body is sore from the workout or from coughing all night.  But it doesn't really matter when what's worse is that you're stuck at work for a late meeting.

Robitussin-laced learnings:

• "Maximum-strength" my sweet patootie.  I need super-duper-way-more-than-maximum-like-a-whole-lot-more strength, apparently.
• Just because the Push Day workout is only 25 minutes doesn't mean it won't make your arms feel like jello by noon.
• Finding a barbell in my living room is one of my favorite things in the whole wide world.
• Gimme any set of pictures and I'll make you a blog post.  Notice I said "blog post" and not "awesome blog post."

Tomorrow's workout: Tempo! 4 miles! In the cold!  We'll see if my lungs hold up.

When your ears hurt when you swallow, speed work gets cancelled.

I didn't do my speed work this morning.  Or this afternoon.  Or this evening.  That's because I was sick all day today.  I would love to post really awkward treadmill running pics or sweaty pics of me post-run, but I don't have any.  All I have is this recreation of what I did all day instead:

Last night I felt a fever and sore throat (hurt like crazy to swallow) coming on, so I dutifully drugged myself with NyQuil and did some sinus rinsing.

Why sinus rinsing?  Because the last time I had a fever and a sore throat, it ended with one of my eardrums bursting and then me not hearing out of one ear for about a month.  And I was miserable. No wonder little kids are so cranky during ear infections; I know I was pretty much insufferable when that happened and was begging for anyone to put me into a coma the entire time. 

So, I guess what I'm saying is that I don't mess around with sore throats.  I rinse out the ol' sinuses and then gargle with some of the rinsing solution, and I am very glad I did.  While I woke up still having a small fever and was a little stuffed up, my throat wasn't nearly as sore and it didn't hurt so bad to swallow.

Because having a fever is where I draw the line at going to work, I emailed in sick and then went downstairs and promptly fell asleep in the recliner.  I had one blanket over my lower half because a dog was laying on it so I couldn't pull it all the way up over me, so I had to get a second blanket for the upper part of my body.

I'm sure I looked like a sleeping hobo.  But I didn't care.  I was warm.  The animals didn't care either.

I don't judge, Mom.  Just gimme treats.

Female cat was a little judgy.

Stay away from me.  Sicko.

Small dog was oblivious to my sickness and I kept getting awoken to him shoving various toys in my chair and squeaking them like "WHAT ARE YOU DOING JUST SITTING THERE WOMAN WE COULD BE PLAYING"

I'm going to just call today's speed work a loss and move on to tomorrow's workout.  If I can swallow without pain and don't have a fever, that is.

Learnings from my sickness:

• Sinus rinsing is gross, but it will help you feel better much, much faster.  Just don't use tap water unless you want to risk getting a brain-eating amoeba.  Your call, though.
• Brain-eating amoebas are one of my greatest fears.  True story.
• The cats left me pretty much alone today to sleep; female cat only did one proof-of-life check today by booping me in the face.
• Can you tell I'm on NyQuil again?  Yeah.  You can.

Tomorrow's workout:  Maybe Cathe's PHA workout.  We'll see.

My long run resolutions.

I haven't blogged in two days.  It's because my job was crazy, crazy busy, and I basically spent most of my day and night at work and came home and promptly passed out somewhere in the house, hoping the hubbs would take pity on me and throw a blanket on me as he passed me on his way to bed.  I think he did; it's all a bit of a blur.  I mostly remember cats coming and going on me during the night.

Hyooman.  Stop hogging my chair.

It was so crazy busy that I took the day off from productivity completely yesterday.  And when I say "completely" I mean "sat on the couch and read nothing by scary creepypastas all freaking day long and only got up to eat and use the bathroom."  My brain had been running on overdrive, and it needed to go sit in park for a while, scaring the crap out of itself and definitely not thinking about work.  I had a long run (15 miles) scheduled for yesterday, and I even got my running duds on to go do it, too:

But then I sat back down on the couch and started reading scary stories and that run got rescheduled for today when I realized it was 9 PM and I still hadn't done it.  So of course I got into my PJs and read more creepypastas until 1 AM.  Because I can stay up late and do that rather than a run, apparently.  Male cat was incredibly judgy about the whole thing.

Hyooman.  Quitter.

I did manage to do that 15 miler today, but I had to treadmill it due to negative wind chills.  Here's how it ended up:

I helpfully circled the fact that the run was on the treadmill for you.  You're welcome.

Anyway, I nailed the pace I was supposed to go, but holy cow this was an incredibly frustrating run.  And the worst part about that frustration was that it was all my fault because I had set myself up for that frustration.  And way too many trips to the bathroom.  Because of this run, I set some running resolutions for all my runs heretoforthwith so I won't have to go through what I went through today.  What did I go through, you ask?  Read my resolutions below to find out.

My 2018 Running Resolutions So I Will Reduce Any Running Misery That May Occur That Would Be From Me Being An Idiot Before The Run:

1) Get my weekend runs done as early in the morning as possible.  The later I wait, the more my motivation disappears and then I open up a web page of scary stories and then it's all "Run?  What run?  It's too late to run now."

2) No red meat the night before.  Ever.

3) Stop with the mental self-sabotage of "OMG I have to run ALL THOSE MILES on the treadmill??? I WILL NEVER MAKE IT"

4) Always have the movie you want to watch on your Kindle downloaded before the run starts so you don't have yet another excuse besides scary stories to cancel your run on the day you're supposed to do it.

5) Under no circumstances will I ever, EVER eat Atkins candies that contain sugar alcohols before any run ever, unless I want to make 7 trips to the bathroom like I did tonight.


I guess what's important is that the run got done.  And that the dog kept trying to photobomb my post-run pic.

What's also important is that I watched Wonder Woman during the run and I wanted to kick some serious patootie afterwards.  That is, if my legs weren't so tired and I wasn't so sweaty.

And learnings are important, too:

• Seriously, you'd think I would have learned my lesson about the sugar alcohols and bathroom visit frequency thing by now.
• While I was alternating between running and bathrooming, small dog was doing this.

"At least you get to go inside, Mom."

• My eating was pretty good, by the way.  Been eating my veggies twice a day and I discovered these are FREAKING AMAZING (they were sent to me in my Stridebox last month.  Or this month.  I don't remember.)

Large dog was not nearly as excited as I was about these
nuggets of goodness.

• If only you knew how bad I smelled in that post-run pic.  If you look closely, you may be able to pick out stink rays.

Tomorrow's workout:  Upper body!  I may try some of my new Cathe workouts, too!

On the 1st day of 2018 I did two things I really hate: mile repeats and eating veggies.

Welcome to 2018, everyone!

As you can see, I started off my 2018 on the treadmill because, you know, freaking below zero temperatures and wind chills outside.  Well, I really started off the day by complaining about how cold it was all morning, putting on 3 layers of clothing, and then swearing under my breath every time the dogs told me they had to go outside--which was about 3,000 times today.  And then I did a lot of online shopping for winter running gear which eventually turned into finding a marathon to run that I haven't ever run before. And then I finally got on the treadmill, in-between taking the dogs out.

So what workout did my training plan call for?  My most favorite workout ever, and by "favorite" I mean "the one I hate the most:" mile repeats.  Here's how I felt about that:

Mile repeats.  Ain't nobody got time for that.  Except me.

But I got three of those little bad boys done, and then noticed that all my animals were nowhere to be found.  Until I went upstairs, that is.

I'm glad they decided to keep my bed warm for me while I was running downstairs.

Anyway, let's talk about how the eating went today.  You'll be glad to know that a) I ate and b) I ate reasonably well.  Did my oatmeal, homemade chili leftovers, and added nuts for snacks to replace some of my snack bars.  I also managed to keep my twice-a-day vegetable promise, but for some reason I simply cannot get excited about eating them.  I can't even get used to eating them.  As soon as it's lunch or dinner time, at first it's all YAY TIME TO EAT but then it's all GAWD I HAVE TO EAT VEGGIES FIRST.  I don't know what my mental block is.  Unless it's the fact that my body has to get used to so much real food again instead of the processed "health" bars that I have been eating for the last few years...and my mental whining is just a withdrawal symptom.

Who knows.  All I know is that I always feel good after (never during) I eat a bowl of veggies instead of wracked with guilt like I did last night after eating that red velvet cake. So I guess that's my main food resolution for this year - eat food that makes me feel good and leaves me guilt-free afterwards. If that's your food resolution as well, below are some helpful tips on how to to stick to that resolution.  And by "helpful" I mean "only marginally helpful because these are mainly written for my own amusement."

• To ensure that you will eat vegetables, it is helpful if you actually purchase them and keep them in your refrigerator.  If you use Walmart grocery pickup like me, you can even get someone else to pick them out for you in the store and throw them in the back of your car.
• After placing said veggies in your refrigerator, it's best if you use them before they spoil.  
• I find that sauteeing a whole crap-ton of them in a little olive oil and garlic is a nice way to make them more palatable and not feel like you're eating raw nature.
• I am told Pinterest has a lot of ideas for adding some variety to your veggies.  This is a fantastic idea.  However, I haven't verified this yet simply because if I get on Pinterest I will do a search for "humor" and then lose a good 2 hours in there before I even get to any veggie stuff.
• If green and orange things just aren't your style, add other real foods like nuts.  Just make sure they don't come with lots of little chocolate pieces or you're kind of defeating the purpose.
• People keep suggesting kale chips to me.  While these may be guilt-free, I find that they are just as bad as Ny-Quil tastes.  

I know that eating more veggies/real food is sucking for me right now, but I'm hoping that it will develop into a habit over time and I won't notice the suck so much.  I instead hope to notice a 4:05 marathon time in April.

Learnings?  Where are they?  Oh there they are:

• One of these days I'm going to a post of all of the horrible selfies I take before I get one that's usable for this blog.  (Believe it or not there are worse ones than the ones I slap up here)
• I got through those mile repeats by telling myself the lie that the first one is the toughest one.
• The only animals that braved the downstairs while I was on the treadmill were the cats.  I now know who my real athletic supporters are.
• If this "eating veggies" thing doesn't translate into faster marathon times, I will be a tad upset.

Tomorrow's workout: An upper body weight workout of some kind.  Haven't decided which one yet...

Two days of workouts amid way too many pictures in one post.

I really meant to post last night about my my weight workout (Cathe's Lift It, HiiT It: Chest, Triceps, and Shoulders) and how sore I was and how my triceps were literally crying every time I tried to do stupid things like "move" and "lift things with my arms," but I got about 3 sentences in and promptly fell asleep in my recliner at around 8 PM and that's where I stayed for the rest of the night.

I guess my exhaustion from my work week set my priorities for me last night. Here's the picture I was going to post from my workout, being diligently supervised as per usual.

Anyway, today's workout was a 10 mile run, seeing as how my marathon training cycle starts Monday and next Saturday I have a 13 miler on tap.  However, if you live in America right now, you'll notice that it's a tad chillier than normal in most areas.  In our area the high today was a scalding 2 degrees above zero with 15 mph winds, so the hubbs forbade me to run outside and I ended up getting that 10 miler done on my treadmill.  Not bad for my last run of 2017.

My Garmin recorded an extra half mile and my pace as way faster than it really was, mainly because I am lazy and have never calibrated the thing for the treadmill.  I ran an even 10 according to the treadmill, and to survive I ran three sets of 1 mile easy, 2 miles at marathon-ish pace.  I also watched a Star Trek Movie (one of the new ones) to get my mind off my suffering because Star Trek is awesome and I will not hear any other opinion on that matter.

Afterwards, the cat came for his usual post-treadmill visit, but he was apparently so disappointed in me and my run for some reason he couldn't even look me in the eye.

This could just be a cat game of "made you look."

Oh well.  I'll have to do better (at whatever I did wrong in his cat's eyes) next time.  At least he gave me some feedback; this is what small dog was doing the entire time I was running those 10 miles.

He's being exhausted for me.

So how was the eating over the past two days?  Pretty good.  I had some wins...and a few losses.  I may have lost a few battles, but I feel like I won the war.  If the war was only two days long and I slept through 9.5 hours of it, that is. Here are some highlights:

1) I managed to have carrots and water instead of eating all of the potato chips in the house.

Large dog approves.  And he also wants carrots.

2) I got tired of eating nothing but raw carrot sticks for my veggies and started sauteing a whole frying pan full of veggies at 10:30 AM this morning.

3) I ate more chocolate squares I got for Xmas because they were peppermint brownie flavored and how was I supposed to know if they were any good unless I ate some?

4) I tried out a new crock pot chili recipe that had nothing but recognizable ingredients in it and it was pretty freaking awesome.  And made my house smell amazing.

Like I said, overall the eating wins totaled more than my losses.  Cooking at home is a huge, huge thing for me, and I'm working on re-training my inner sugar addict.  Because the last time that addict was in charge, I looked like this:

And the moment you've been waiting for-the learnings:

Only one learning: It's hard to blog with large dog in your lap.  But I sucked it up, buttercup, for all of you guys and gals.

Tomorrow's workout:  A nice total body workout before the marathon training begins.