Accountability...BUH

I told you I was doing Cathe's Boot Camp from her Strong & Sweaty Series this morning, and I did.  I also put the "camp" in "boot camp."

As per usual, I had to deal with animals invading my workout space.

Carry on...just passing through.

You know what else I've had to deal with lately?  My freaking weight.

I've been a part of a Biggest Loser competition at work, which has helped me keep on top of weighing myself on the regular.  I have been working out (duh), eating more veggies (still BUH about that), and really watching my portions....and I haven't lost one damn pound.

Not one.  So disappointing.

I don't know what's going on.  But I do know this only happens when I'm training for a marathon and have a habit of running high mileage.  And everything I have researched thoroughly by googling for approximately 5 minutes about gaining weight during marathon training says that the cause of my weight gain is the following:

I'm eating way too much freaking food.

This cause seems a bit odd to me, mainly because I feel like I've been doing just fine in regards to not stuffing my face and using my mileage as an excuse to eat an entire jar of spinach dip with an entire loaf of bread.  But I'm a former science teacher, so I know better than just to trust "feelings" as data.  So I've decided the following:

• I have to keep a log of what I'm eating for two weeks - a log of everything I shove down my gullet.  I will use MyFitnessPal because of the following very complicated scientific reasons:  I have used it before and it talks to Garmin Connect.  I will then analyze the data to see if I am indeed overeating and need to cut it back, jack.
• I will ignore the fact that I made an awesome shrimp chowder this weekend that involved two types of creamed soups + evaporated milk and eat something less heart-attack-inducing.
• I will only eat when I am hungry.  And when I want to eat I will get up and take a few laps around the building in which I work and bother people whilst they are trying to do their work.
• I will weigh myself daily and not freak out when the scale swings up 3 pounds in one day like it did this past weekend and my scream woke up a sleeping husband in my house.
• I will go easy on myself.  Weight loss is a marathon, not a sprint...har de har har.

I'm going to try and post a weekly update on how the food tracking accountability is going.  It will probably go just like me forcing myself to eat veggies every day goes.  Specifically, it goes BUH.

Learnings.  BUH:

• Confronting the brutal facts of my eating is the only way.  Although I haven't been eating brutally...so so we'll find out.
• Oh the agony of dogs wandering through my workout area during chest flies (flys? ugh).
• It's almost as agonizing as when a husband wanders through and I nail him right in the shin with a 12 lb weight.
• How'd you like my use of a different definition of the word "camp?"  Eh? Eh?  My junior year English III teacher would be proud.
• Life is too short not to take stupid post-workout photos.

Tomorrow's workout:  5 mile tempo!  In the cold!

Day 2, Week 12: A weight-loss learning: Skinny doesn't mean pretty.

What I wanted to start out with was the fact that I did Cathe's Ramped Up Upper Body for the third Monday in a row but instead I'm going to start with this:

Holy cow it's week 12 already!

I know it's day 2 of week 12 and most normal sane people would have noticed that 12 yesterday, but I was so tired last night that I didn't even notice.  But I'm noticing now.  And my noticing means that I am starting my gentle slide into "what do you mean my marathon is only 3 weeks away WHAAAAA" mode, where I start doubting myself all over the place and really kicking myself if I miss a run.

But I'll get over it.  I usually do, and it's usually right before the gun goes off at the start line.  What was harder for me to get over during my seemingly never-ending weight loss journey to all of my start lined was that the equation below just isn't true:

Skinny = pretty

If you've been reading this blog at all, you already know that I used to be more voluminous than skinny.  It definitely wasn't healthy.

When I first started losing weight back then, my goal was just to get to a size 14 from a 22.  I really, really, REALLY wanted to wear clothes and not be marked by them all day.  And I really really wanted to not wear holes in brand new pairs of pantyhose just from my thighs rubbing together while walking.  Well, I got to a size 14, and then kept right on going down to a size 2.  I thought a size 2 was awesome.  It was magical.  To me it meant I was soooo skinny.  And, in my mind, skinny meant pretty.  And, by default, happy.

Well, let me show you some of those size 2 pictures.

Just look at my twiggy little arms.  Now that I look back on these pictures, I may have been healthy because I was running and no longer smoking, but I certainly wouldn't call that exactly pretty.  I mean, I look normal enough; I don't think anyone would be going around diagnosing me with some weird digestive disorder that was preventing me from absorbing nutrients from food or anything.

But I wouldn't say that level of skinny on me was exactly pretty or flattering.  I was just trying to lose weight to be skinny, not to be healthy.  I was a slave to the number on the scale.  I was working out for the skinny I would get from it.  I was just going for all skinny, not fitness.  I was doing it for the wrong reason.



Now I know that while skinny may look ok, "skinny" is not the goal of weight loss.  Fitness is.  Healthy is.  Confidence is.  Knowing that you can do things in your 40s that you never, ever could do in your 20s is a goal.  And, of course, the rightest reason of all to lose weight and get fit is the simple ability to lift heavy weights and look like you could take someone down if they even looked at you the wrong way.

And an even righter reason to go for fitness and health over skinny is to look like you're kicking the marathon's sweet patootie rather than the other way around, especially when it's your second marathon two weekends in a row.

21st mile ain't got nothing on me.

Time to hop on the learning train and end this post:

• I write way better posts when I'm not passing out on the keyboard from exhaustion.  Well, I think so, anyway.
• I think I hammered the point home that achieving "skinny" isn't necessarily the point of weight loss.  Think about why you're doing it.
• Now before people freak out, I'm not saying skinny is ugly.  For me, skinny was the wrong goal in terms of weight loss.  I feel better being fit than I did being skinny.
• While I would love to be a size 2 again, I love these guns of mine.  A lot.  You should get some, too.

Tomorrow's workout: SPEED, BABY.  A delicious 8 x 800m repeat session is on tap.

Day 3, Week 6: It's not fun being trapped by your own fat.

This morning it was upper body weight time.

Party time.

I pulled out an oldie but a goodie, Total Body Tri-Sets from Cathe's Low-Impact Series.  Except, obviously, I did not work the totality of my body--this workout is split into two workouts, a full upper body workout and a full lower body workout.  No matter which one you do, you do sets of three exercises (hence the "tri-sets" part of the title) twice (UGH).  The upper body workout is a nice solid workout that uses moderate weights and incorporates core work--which I love, because then I don't have to fire up a separate torturous ab workout afterwards.  It gets my official facetious seal of approval.

But enough about weights, although I do love them so.  Let's get semi-serious for a second and talk about a phrase (and all derivatives thereof) that I have a hard time coping with when it hits my ears:

"You just don't understand.  You've never been a big girl."

I heard this just the other day at the Chicago Marathon, and I completely beg to differ.

I'm the one without the mustache.

I get why people say that to me.  There isn't a larger girl outline around me to show everyone how much more of me there used to be.  But I do understand some of the things people go through at that size, such as:

• Never being able to look in a mirror after you get out of the shower because you fear one day not all of you will fit in that mirror
• When you keep buying bigger and bigger clothes because holy cow are those designers making these sizes smaller and smaller and that size "22" on the label must really be, like, a "14" these days
• When your wear pantyhose to work and your thighs rub holes in every single pair and you blame it on the cheap brand that you buy
• Walking up on flight of stairs and wheezing like a chain smoker (because I was a chain smoker.  And 220 pounds of me was also trying to fight gravity)
• Having your husband think the dog majorly scratched you when a new stretch mark rears its red head on your back
• Hating your fat rolls (especially those ones on your back) but hey-that entire bag of hershey's kisses isn't going to eat itself, now, is it?

It's not fun being trapped by your own fat.  But you know what?  The day I decided to do something about it was when I got my freedom back.  I started with small changes which started to snowball and led to larger changes, like working out every morning for 15 minutes to quitting smoking to this little running addiction of mine. And now I go through these things:

• Agonizing over which weight workout to do on party...I mean, weight day.
• Doing dumb things like signing up for two marathons on back-to-back weekends.
• Getting dragged into ditches whilst running strapped to a crazy large dog.
• Winning first female in an Olympic duathlon that I almost didn't even bother to go to
• Goats.  Long runs.  Ungulate hilarity.
• Trying to decide what new runner gear I need but really don't need because I have a crap ton already.
• Trying to decide which marathon should be your next marathon based on when your next 20-mile run is on the training plan for your actual goal marathon.
• Enduring eye-rolls from the hubbs when I'm all "I do NOT smell that bad" after a 2 hour treadmill run.

So, I do know what it's like to be larger.  But I also know what it's like to be all CHALLENGE ACCEPTED when you realize you've just had enough of being shackled by your own mental and physical habits.

And I know what it's like to overuse bullet points in a blog post.  Can't help it-I love 'em.


And now for more bullet points of learning:

• I didn't mean to get all serious on everyone.  But every now and then the adult peeks out for a second.
• I seriously did not look in the bathroom mirror after a shower for 4 years.
• Denial.  I was the queen, baby.
• I laugh every time I think of those goats.  Goats are therapy.
• I am impressed that I remembered that goats were ungulates I didn't Google that I swear
• "Too much running gear" is NOT A THING.

Tomorrow's workout: A 12 x 400m workout at 4 AM.  Ungh.

Looking at all of the data.

I did some upper-body weight work today (Muscle Endurance by Cathe) because I thought after racing two races in one weekend my legs needed a day off.

For once I look like a real runner!

I have been concerned about my numbers on my racing bibs, but I have been awash in other numbers lately.  But apparently I have been looking at the wrong numbers.

I have been weighing myself while I am currently ill with this chest cold; today's weight was a 146.2.  I was so ill this morning that I couldn't have cared what the scale said; I just did it out of sheer habit.  After a busy day of sitting and scoring student videos I was a tad more awake (thanks, Sudafed!), so when I came home I got on the scale again.

Now, I know better than  to expect a weight loss between the beginning and the end of the day.  I started weighing myself in the evening to measure my body fat (my scale has that function) about 2 weeks ago, because I know you need all the data you can get to draw viable and valid conclusions.  When I started my eating manifesto, it read 25.2%.

Today it read 22.8%.

I know there's a margin of error with these scales, but there is inaccuracy with any measuring device out there.  But I think a 2.4% drop might be significant; plus, the drop has been consistent over these last two weeks.

Interesting.  I better start looking at all of the data.

Decisions, decisions.

I weighed myself this morning, and the scale is still stuck at 142.2 lbs.  I will spare you all another picture of my veiny feet in my bathroom that has been in a state of remodel for the past 7 years. (Yes, seven.)

Weighing myself every morning is really holding me accountable.  It is helping me make better decisions during the day.  For example:

Decision #1:  Lunch.

Today was a half day for my students, and afterwards us teachers got professionally developed for the rest of the day.  But before the development began, the school graciously served us some lunch.  It looked really good and smelled really good, but it was not on my eating manifesto.  I badly wanted to crash the lunch line, but resisted that urge, thinking of the scale this morning.  Instead, I ate the lunch I made this morning like a good little weight-loss girl.

Decision #2: Dinner.

It's Friday.  I was tempted after school to run down to my husband's office and ask him if he wanted to go shopping with me....and then go out to dinner.  But then I thought of all the crap I would eat and how I would just feel guilty when I got on the scale in the morning, and thought the better of it.  I also have a lot of food I cooked still sitting in the fridge, and I can't justify going out when it is there waiting for me in all its delicious leftover glory.

Some may find weighing yourself every day to be a bit obsessive.  I call it "smart weight management."

Anyhoo, on to the exercise portion of today's post.  I got up wanting to run, but then decided against it to give my Achilles weirdness another day to settle.  Instead, I busted out a Cathe fave of mine that I didn't do during marathon training because of the high impact nature of some of the moves: Circuit Blast.

I like this workout because the cardio is effective (hello high-impact jumping moves-o-rama) and is combined with compound weight exercises and core work to really do a nice job of hitting it all in about 45 minutes.  I had my sweat on after this workout.  Although they use a full-size step, I used a mini-step instead because that's the only step I have with that many risers.  It only became an issue on one move (wide box jumps) in the last round of exercises, and then I just do regular box jumps instead.  A box jump is a box jump is a box jump--they all burn the thighs after about 6 reps.

But tomorrow's workout has been planned for me ever since I signed up to do a duathlon next Saturday.  This is something I wanted to do last year but chickened out because I didn't know how to handle the transitions.  It's a 2 mile run, 11 mile bike, and a 2 mile run, so it looks like something I can handle if I practice a bit this week on my run days incorporating some biking as well.

And I'm going to start tomorrow with a 1 mile run, 5 mile bike, 1 mile run workout.  I'll be sure to let you all know how it goes, along with any accompanying reassessment of my sanity for even signing up for this in the first place.

Eating to be healthy? Pffffft.

This week I resumed working out.  Not full-bore training, but some easier workouts to build up into more of a training-esque schedule next week so I can start preparing for Ragnar Chicago.

Our 2012 Ragnar team--my first Ragnar ever.

I have to tell you it is totally weird not having a schedule on a piece of paper be the boss of me; after 16 weeks of being told what to do by an 8 x 11 piece of dead tree with some ink on it, I was cast adrift this week, having to actually decide for myself what workout to do.  Being made to think so much at 4 AM when I get up kind of sucks.

Anyway, I ran on Tuesday and Wednesday because the weather at 5 AM was fanFREAKINGtastic.  No wind, upper 40s/50s, and sunny because the sun is actually coming up at this time (or starting to, anyway).

These are the runs for which I have been waiting.  The runs that I daydreamed about during 20 miles in the cold wind and snow in February where I ran in 4 layers of clothing.  The runs that should have come when spring well...you know...was supposed to come.  Not that I'm bitter or anything.

I haven't been focusing on my pace at all this week and just running by what feels good.  Apparently what feels good is around a 9 minute mile, which is pretty awesome methinks after running a first marathon.  And what's weird is that these small bursts (4 or 5 miles) of faster running actually made my piriformis issues disappear this week.  However, my Achilles twanging as I go up and down steps is back with a vengeance.  I found a sore spot on my soleus that I massaged and foam rolled the snot out of this week, and it seems to be getting better.  All I know is that every time my Achilles twangs its way up the steps I want to cringe because the feeling is SO DAMN STRANGE and you never want to feel it EVER AGAIN.

Because of that strangeness, I rode the bike this morning for 10 miles. Since it was gorgeous weather again I took it outside, leaving the bike in a much higher gear than I normally do by accident (I forgot to crank it back down at the end of my last ride).  I didn't notice it until the 5th mile, and, by that time, I just decided to leave it alone and see what happened.  I think my quads may have gotten a tad bit stronger out of all that high-mileage running that is marathon training, which is good to know.

The goal for the next few weeks is to not tear the hell out of any more of my body parts so I can actually run a Ragnar without some injury nagging me.  Well, that's my exercise goal.  My eating goal is to be down at least 4 pounds by Ragnar Chicago, which is on June 7th-8th this year.  This morning's weigh-in wasn't in line with that goal:

Plywood = My house is being remodeled.  Still.  After 7 years.

But it was only 0.2 lbs gained.  That was probably higher because:

a) I went to bed at 10:00 PM instead of 7:30.  It has been bandied about that lack of sleep causes weight gain, and that may be more true of the long term than one night.  However, thinking back to when I used to weigh myself regularly in the past, after a night of shortened sleep I always came in at a slightly higher poundage.  So I'm not really worried about this.

b) It's a normal fluctuation for some other silly reason.

I know it wasn't because of my eating over the past few days, because I have really been sticking to the ol' eating manifesto.  This may all be in my head, but I have been feeling pretty good these last few days--better than I did when eating crap.  If eating like this is what's putting more pep in my workouts, then I think I have the motivation I need to keep going.  

Because who cares about that whole "eating real food because it makes you healthy" crap anyway, huh?

Food for thought.

I only have time for a quick post this evening, so I won't waste your time with a sassy little introduction and just get right to today's weigh-in:

Down 0.4 lbs today.  That zero never looked so good.

That motivated me to come straight home after work and eat my dinner at home before I dashed off to a meeting of sorts at my new job this evening.  I badly wanted to just stay at work and then head straight over to my meeting and then con my husband to go out to dinner....but not after seeing the scale this morning.

Oddly enough, I think it's the morning weigh-ins that are keeping me on track.  Thinking back, it's the first thing I stopped doing when I started going off the rails again with my eating.

Now that's some food for thought.  (pun intended)

Yes, I really did post a picture of that.

To those that know me, you know I am the queen of sharing things that no one on this green Earth really needs to know about me.  I just don't know why some of this stuff is so considered taboo (unless it's the stuff people share on My Strange Addiction or Freaky Eaters...then I get it), but, nonetheless, I feel the need to share things others consider private information.

Because of this strange compulsion for sharing that plagues me, I am feeling the need right now to share what I weigh every morning.  I have to admit it's not because I want to tell everyone, but I feel it is necessary to keep myself accountable in my whole "I will lose these 20 pounds goddammit" weight loss journey upon which I have embarked.  So, here was this morning's weight:

Note the blue polish.  I love blue.

You should also know that I am 5'8" tall (well, just shy of it), so that weight doesn't put me in the obese or overweight category according to the BMI charts that float about the internet.  It's just not where I want to be--I need to be lighter to be faster.  However, it is 0.2 lb lighter than what it read yesterday when I had my meltdown, and I'll take improvement when I can get it (even if it is probably due to water weight fluctuations).  

But I am feeling good about cooking again.  Today I dusted off (literally) the ol' crock pot, making some pinto beans to which I have added jalapenos because I am a glutton for gustatory punishment.  

I feel good not because I am cooking, but because I know I will have dinner made for the week.  This means I will have no excuse to go out to eat for dinner after work.  I have to combat my weeknight laziness with weekend cooking productivity, apparently.

I am also feeling good about a 7 mile run I did this morning with a friend (was so nice to have company for once!), where my watch says I burned almost 800 calories.  I tried out a new running skirt again, this time an Adidas one I found at a local Ross store:

I have the ugliest living room in the known universe.

This skirt had much shorter spandex tights underneath than the skirt I wore yesterday but I didn't chafe, and they didn't ride up far enough to feel like bikini underwear.  However, I could feel the rubbing of the thighs, so I'm sure chafing would be inevitable if I did 20 miles in this one.  This outfit was perfect for the weather: 60 degrees and a nice cool wind of 8 mph.  I even impressed myself by remembering to wear sunscreen.

I actually got that run done early, so now I get to spend the rest of the day working my tail off (my student teacher's last day was Friday...back to the grind).  At least I'll be busy working rather than thinking about eating.

Swirly orange skirts and morning bathroom scale meltdowns.

I wasn't going to run today, but I did anyway because I got my new swirly orange running skirt in the mail.  Here's a close up for you:

This running skirt is made by SparkleSkirts, and is technically a SparkleTech skirt.  These were brought to my attention by someone who has run a Ragnar with me before (and will be running Wasatch Back with me in June!).  Now, I am not typically a fan of running skirts, simply because they usually chafe the hell out of me because the spandex shorts underneath the skirt ride up and become bikini underwear after about 2 miles.  But I was assured these wouldn't chafe, so I ordered mine early to try it out--which I did today.

This isn't posed at all. Maybe.

I took my new swirly skirt on a 4-mile test drive around the neighborhood.  Before I left, I put something in each pocket on the skirt (there is a large front zippered pocket and two large pockets on the side of each spandex short leg) to see how annoying it would feel to carry something in them on a run.

A little hard to see, but there is a large pocket on the side of each leg.

I put a gel in each side pocket and my phone in the front pocket, and away I went.  I felt the phone for about a quarter of a mile, and then didn't notice it any more.  I barely felt the gels.  The skirt was comfy and not irritating for the most part (except for sequins hanging on the edge of the skirt smacking you in the back of the leg; it felt like grit from the road hitting you at random intervals.  But this is easily remedied by yanking off the offending sequins).  I am happy to report no chafing on this run, and I am planning on doing a long run in it at least once before I take it out on a Ragnar course.  In fact, I may go get the swirly blue one....

But enough about clothing.  Let's talk about eating.

Today I got up and weighed myself and then did some math.  I have gained 20 pounds since I quit smoking almost three years ago.  I had a small, private meltdown in the bathroom, and then got my act together.

It's time to get freaking serious.  If I can run 26.2 miles without puking, stopping, crying, or going you-know-what on the course, then I can take off these 20 pounds. I've done it before, and I can do it again.

And it all starts with what I eat.  I think I have this "exercise" thing down, but, like I already know, 90% of this weight loss thing is about what you stuff in your mouth.  And it's time to stop stuffing so much processed crappy food in there and start eating like I used to eat.

So, here's the deal:

• I will continue to eat my normal breakfast of a banana, yogurt, and healthy organic cereal.  I will start measuring out the portions of my cereal again.
• I will drink half a recovery drink after my morning workout.
• I will have one snack (not 3) between my workout and lunch.
• Lunch will continue to be what I have eaten for the last three years (yes, freaky, I know): Carrots, yogurt, and PBJ.  The cookies that I have been eating with lunch will be eliminated (before me eating them, not after.  Gastrointestinal humor-ha!)
• I will have one snack (not 3) between lunch and dinner.
• Dinner will be cooked in large batches on Sunday so I can eat it throughout the week and not have to come home and cook during the week (I have an amazing tolerance for eating the same thing over and over again, as evidenced by my lunch menu for the past 3 years).  It will be eaten in addition to veggies and a piece of fruit.  Eating out will not happen anymore.

Nothing like getting on a scale to make you formulate an action plan.

Losing weight for all the wrong reasons.

I got a new job recently.  My interview, thankfully, did not go anything like this:

I am hoping that in my new position I will have time to do more running and training, mainly because I will have only one job rather than 3 bazillion jobs masquerading as one.  There is also a sweet indoor track at the school in which I now work, which will come in mighty handy come wintertime.

But the new job doesn't start until July 1st, and my next race is on June 7th--Ragnar Chicago.  I have gained some poundage during marathon training, some poundage I need to take off so I can be faster (way to lose weight for all the wrong reasons!).  I have about a month, and I know if I start eating correctly again, I can look like this:

The picture above was taken in 2010.  I look very....flat.  In lots of ways.  Below is a picture of me crossing the finish line at my marathon Sunday:

I've gotten pretty thick around the middle.  Not so 2-dimensional anymore.  Time to get serious and shed the thickness. (Whatever that means.)

It's also time to reverse taper back up to my old levels of training.  I did my first run this morning after my marathon (3 miles), and it's amazing how you think your legs are fine but really they are just cowering in silence, waiting for you to run so they can scream in agony.  Alright, so it wasn't that bad, but Lord that run wasn't good.  It just reminded me that my body will need way more than a week to recover (unlike a half marathon), so I had better take it easy with the runs I do this week and next.

Next up for tomorrow, however, is a return of one of my favorite activities--weight lifting.  Cathe, bring on the pain.

I just felt like pancakes.

The foot is still not 100%.  It is having its good days and bad days.  I have been icing and ibuprofening and running only in Asics-ing and it hasn't gotten any worse.  The flexibility in the toe is much better, but there is a nagging soreness on the top of my foot directly above the arch.  I have finally figured out that I should wear dress shoes to work that do not cover that part of my foot, and I can walk pain-free all day.  Unlike last week.

Injuries suck.  But it could be worse.  I have to make sure to do enough to make it better.  So that's why I did some speed work on Tuesday and two easy 3 mile runs today on the treadmill.  Because I suck at trying to make injuries that suck get better.

But, on a brighter note, I felt like pancakes for dinner:

These are not just any pancakes--they are banana-cinnamon whole wheat pancakes.  Word.  And they were delicious.  

I always read about runners eating tons of pancakes for some reason, so I thought I'd join the pancake club. OK, not really--I was just too lazy to cook anything that involved more than 3 steps.  Plus, I got to use our griddle, which is a snap to clean and makes pancakes all golden-brown and delicious.  This is unlike my frying pan, which turns pancakes into solid bricks of glue that will never, EVER come off the bottom of my pan again.  

Also, I had pancakes because I just felt like pancakes.  Pancakes are good.  

Plus, pancakes fit into my eating manifesto, which I have been following pretty well.  I have been better about eating real veggies and cutting out some of my snack-happiness.  However, I did eat potato chips the other night, but they were jalapeno potato chips--the most awesome chips in the entire known universe, and they literally jumped into my mouth before I could stop them.  I'm really just a victim here.

Speaking of being victimized, I have a tempo run in the morning.  Let's see if 6 miles of 10K pace running can make my foot feel better.

Mushroom burgers: Meh. New shoes: Any excuse will do.

I'm still doing well on my new "eating real food more of the time" eating plan.  I came home last night fully expecting to eat another chicken breast, but when I opened the package the distinct smell of potential food poisoning met my nostrils.   So I ahd to throw them out and find an alternative.

I scoped out what was in the fridge and freezer, and came across some mushroom burger-thingies that I had bought because a) I love mushrooms and b) I love burgers.  They are only 110 calories a burger, so I thought I would cook me up one of 'em and chow down.  I dressed it up by putting it on a whole wheat bagel for some carbage and adding jalapenos and salsa for bonus flavorings.

It looked edible. 

It was only meh.  Next time I'll try a turkey burger instead.

But enough about food; I have a burning question that needs some answering: How I can run 7 miles (5 at 10K pace) on a foot with tendinitis and have it feel freaking fabulous the next day?

Every time I get an injury, it seems that running more is usually the answer to making it feel better.  I will never understand this.

Of course, it may have to do with the fact that I discovered that it may have been my shoes doing the damage.  So, because I have two X chromosomes, I turned this injury into an excuse to go shoe shopping.  Because I ran pain-free in my Asics on Thursday night, I decided to go after another pair of Asics.  I purchased the Gel Cumulus-14s, which I had eyeballed a few months ago but never purchased.  But a close runner-up was the Brooks Glycerin--oh man, were those some nice-feeling shoes.  But they still put a little pressure on my extensor tendon that hurt, so I wisely opted out of getting them.  But I will be keeping them in mind for a future purchase.

So now that I have my new pair of shoes and the weather isn't all rainy and nasty like it was yesterday....

...I think I will try and go for my long run that is scheduled for today.  22 miles.  My plan is to go for all 22, but stop and turn around if I feel any pain in that tendon; I may even do a walk/run approach if the pain gets too bad.  But right now it feels perfectly normal, and hopefully the new shoes I bought can keep it that way.

Also, I plan on doing this run on the Long Prairie Trail, a place a coworker recommended to me because I am tired of being chased by people's dogs.  I am excited about running in a new place, but more excited that my foot stopped hurting and that I can resume my training.

Hopefully this run won't screw up that plan.  I'll let you know how it goes later.

I'm injured, so I ran three times this week.

Yep, I'm still broken.  This foot is just not being very cooperative, and I am sure that my co-workers are pretty tired of hearing me moaning about it and the crazy things I'm doing to try and make it all magically better.

In fact, my foot has some angry little piggies on it.

My first piggie is the one that is angriest.  It has taken over the littliest piggie's primary duty of going "wee wee wee" although it's doing it out of pain instead of going all the way home.

So what do I do even though this thing hasn't healed completely?  Run three days in a row.  I am a freaking genius.

• Run #1: Speed work on the treadmill.  I actually had some semblance of sanity and didn't do the mile repeats that were on the schedule.  Instead, I did 10 one-minute sprints with a 2 minute recovery.  Foot was feeling good, looking good.  Definitely not as angry.
• Run #2: 6 mile easy run.  This run hurt the worst.  It didn't really hurt, actually--I just felt a definite weirdness across the top of my foot in the 5th mile that translated itself into a wondrous day of pain while walking all day today.  I'm chalking this up to the fact that I am stupid and didn't loosen my laces in the right spot for that tendon to flex.
• Run #3: Tempo Run.  The schedule said to do a 6 mile tempo, but, because I suddenly remembered I was injured at the end, I only did 5 miles at tempo.  The reason I suddenly remembered was because my foot felt GREAT.  Almost as if it weren't injured. My little piggies were singing my praises (well, all except the one that has a nasty corn on one side).

So what did I do differently in this last run?  Actually LOOSEN MY LACES so there wasn't so much pressure on top of my foot.  But the other thing I did was (and this is pretty radical for yours truly) was WEAR DIFFERENT SHOES.

Lately I have been running in my Mizunos and Nikes, but this foot pain finally forced me out of my comfortable running shoe habits.  I dug out my pair of Asics Gel Nimbus 13s, which are shoes I haven't worn since a half-marathon I ran in August.  I slipped the shoe on my injured foot, and it felt different.  It felt good. The pain diminished, especially after I loosened the laces in the front of the shoe rather than towards the heel.

I then slipped one of my Mizunos on my injured foot...and the pain was back.  I noticed that there seems to be a part of the tongue of that shoe that was pressing on the tendon of my first metatarsal (where all the joyous pain is) which, after many many long runs in them, finally forced my extensor tendon to cry uncle and start being a huge pain in my ass.  But that's merely a hypothesis at this point, a hypothesis that, at the moment, I am not willing to test repeatedly and get my research peer reviewed so I can publish that baby and become science famous yet not be able to run or walk properly.

It was just nice to have a good run.  And a fast run, at that.  It's also nice that I have really been sticking to my little eating manifesto, eating real food and real veggies and cooking those real food and real veggies and not shoving bad eatin' down my throat the minute I see its badness in the house.  And I feel the better for it.  Week one of this is in the books; let's see if I can make this a permanent lifestyle change.

And speaking of the fact that I can't think of a nice segue into this paragraph, I have a 22-mile run on the schedule for Saturday.  I am going to try and run that distance, but I will do it much more slowly than I would have before this nagging injury of mine.  I am also going to switch that run to Sunday, because I have a 5K that day in honor of St. Patty's Day (I am Irish; I am required to run a race.  And then go drinking.) that day, and want to combine the mileage. So that means I get two days of cross-training until my next run.

That little piggie better get better by Sunday if he knows what's good for him.  Or her, I guess.



photo credit: asparagus_hunter via photopin cc

I came home, I cooked, I didn't die.

I told you all yesterday I was serious about losing this weight.  Day 1 of my serious weight-loss regime went pretty well, if I do say so myself and despite the fact that 99.9999% of all Day 1s of weight loss usually go well (as compared to Days 5 or 6).

I got up and worked out with some Jari Love this morning (Get Ripped & Chiseled) but skipped the lower body stuff because my hammies and quads were sore from yesterday's Supercuts extravaganza.  But my real workout was eating real food today.  And a little less of it than normal.  I just wish I didn't eat breakfast at 4:00 A.M. and then not have lunch until 11:45 A.M.; it tends to cause me to get a little snack-happy before lunch.

Anyhoo, I ate real carrots with my lunch, and came home and cooked dinner for myself.  This dinner consisted of:

• a banana
• half a sweet potato with a bit of butter and cinnamon
• a home-made chicken and cheese and salsa and jalapeno on a white wheat wrap thingie quesadilla:

There's stuff in it.  Really.

The quesadilla idea came from the fact that I was going to make a wrap but then put a little too much stuff in it and I realized there was absolutely no way I was going to be able to close the wrap.  So ta-da!  A quesadilla was born.  And then eaten.  Nom nom nom.

What's crazy was that it took all of 15 minutes tops to prepare all that food.  No more "I don't have time to cook" drivel out of me from now on.  Instead of saying that, I'll use that time to teach my husband the proper way to say "quesadilla." (He pronounces it "kay-suh-dill-uh."  The neanderthal.)

I'm hoping this good eatin' is going to help my tendinitis heal itself all up.  It felt pretty good today; the naproxen is really helping it out, I think.  I successfully walked around barefoot for 10 minutes without feeling it.

It gave me hope.  Enough hope that I am going to attempt to return to training tomorrow.  We'll see what happens.

I'm serious. I'm not teasing. I will lose this weight.

Today's workout, kiddos, was Cathe's Supercuts plus her Core #2 workout that is on the same DVD.  I'm still resting my foot from the tendinitis issue I've been having, but this morning I found where I hid my naproxen, so it's been feeling GOOD all day. But my workouts and stupid injury are not really the focus of my blog ramblings this time.

You see, I know it's a little late for New Year's resolutions, but I am resolved to lose 20 pounds.

I'm serious--I'm not teasing.

My colleague and I shot a video together at work to teach students how to draw Bohr diagrams, and boy do I hate the way I look.  I mean I really hate the way I look.  Specifically, I hate the way my gut hangs out.  I could lie to myself and say those are just my humongous abs of steel that can kill someone with a single contraction, but I've been lying to myself about my weight for about a year now. It's time to face reality.

Of course, I am training for a marathon, so my weight-loss goal is going to be a little tricky to carry out.  When I am running an 18-22 mile run, I can easily take in a buttload of calories.  And my body is going to need some calories to recover.  So, in order to successfully train for my marathon and lose some poundage (which should make me faster, too, when I don't have so much weight to haul around during speed work), I have decided to do the following:

• Eat real food.  I have been shoveling down the processed food when I know better.  Time to swap out the V8s for real veggies.  Speaking of veggies....
• Eat more veggies.  Overeating carrots is not the same as overeating Quaker Popped rice cakes that are coated with cheesy salty goodness.  Although you do tend to spend a tad more time in the bathroom when you overeat carrots.
• Stop with the sugar addiction.  Like the Quaker Popped rice snacks, I can't have any type of candy in the house, or I inhale it in a matter of minutes.  
• Cook my own dinner.  No more eating things that came out of a box.  Time to get off my lazy arse and take 10 minutes to cook up a chicken breast at night.
• Stop the "Oh, well, I just ran 20 miles I can go pig out at my favorite restaurant and I'm allowed to do it because _________________" crap and eat at home.  That weird old mentality I had towards food is creeping back, the one where I get all excited about eating crappy food at restaurants and can justify eating said crappy food in my brain with all sorts of ridiculous reasons. It shall be evicted--hopefully permanently.

These are all small changes, but I'm hoping they add up to big changes in my weight so I can be lighter, fitter, healthier and maybe just a little faster.