Test: Failed

I went for a long run today to close out my first week of training for the half marathon.  I met my friend who is training for the Ogden Marathon.  She was due to run 15-18 miles today and I only needed to run 13 so we started together and she went on at the end to finish her run.  I decided to try out a new program I installed on my phone.  It's called Endomondo and it is designed to use the GPS system in my phone to track my run, time it, and post it online.  I pressed Start and didn't look at my phone until the end of the run.  (Running with my phone was a pain--all the jostling and bouncing.)

The run started out fine but I felt tired and unmotivated--this combined with a horribly, bitter-cold headwind made it difficult to keep up spirits.  The return run was easier with the wind at our backs and running down the long incline we'd just run up.

I finished the run feeling achy and tired.  I guess that means I worked hard enough.  I took a look at the finished map created by my phone's GPS and looked at the distance run--1670 miles?  I don't think so.  I guess I'll be testing other GPS programs for running in the future.  Ideally I'd like to get a Garmin but that requires money! 

I think a good stretch session is in order tonight.

Something worth training for

My running is going well and I enjoy working toward this goal of 1000 miles.  This doesn't mean, however, that I'm content not training for any races.  So yesterday, in a food-induced search for something to further motivate good eating and exercise habits, I signed up for the Provo Half Marathon.  I'm really excited to start training for this race and to start including speed work and tempo runs into my workouts.  I'm also recommitting to my WW plan and now have my dear husband on board with me which will help tremendously. 

Let the fun begin!!  My race is May 1st.  I may be signing up for some other races soon but I'm still researching options.  Perhaps a triathlon?

The Saturday Run

A few months ago I'd have given anything to be done with the long and sometimes dreaded Saturday run.  But today is was welcomed.  My friend whom I have semi-trained with in the past invited me to run with her today as she has started training for the Ogden Marathon.  She was supposed to run 14 miles today and since I've only been up to 7 miles this year (and on a treadmill), I told her I'd love to go but that I'd only be able to do maybe 9 or 10. 

We left around 9 since neither of us had anywhere to be and it was nice to start a little later.  That's the great thing about running in the winter--you don't have to get up early to beat the heat.  There was a light drizzle for the entire run which was nice.  I've always loved running in the rain.  I felt good and it was nice to have company and to be running outside.  We are blessed with such beautiful running trails here and only a short distance from home. 

We ran together for 10 miles and she continued on to meet her 14 mile goal.  My legs were definitely feeling the distance but it wasn't too hard and I'm glad I went.

Hiatus

For sanity's sake, I took a brief hiatus last weekend from my Weight Watchers habits.  It was not without penalty, however.  I hesitated to weigh in on Monday, not because I was afraid of gaining, but because I didn't want that little graph with my weight loss to show anything but losses.

After weighing in this morning, I was even with my lowest weight so that felt good.  I know I'm not too far off track.  I've been doing very well since Monday and feel refreshed with the healthy eating habits again.

I think I have hit middle ground now--where binging doesn't satisfy and doesn't really even appeal anymore but its still difficult to eat so consciously all the time.  I've never cooked so many vegetables in all my life!

I ran 4 miles today.

Close Call

My WW adventure began 3 weeks ago (tomorrow) and so far I have lost 4.5 pounds.  Good news, right?  Well it's been much harder than I thought.  I guess I haven't stuck to a diet--oops--"life-style change" for a long time.  I have tried really hard and have tracked everything I've possibly eaten.  This last week has been quite difficult as we're getting over colds and it has been hard to get to the gym when I feel like a cement truck has dumped it's entire contents in my sinuses.  I have still managed to put in some miles and it's cool to see my goal slowly being reached.

Wednesday was a make or break day for me.  I started out eating a croissant and hot chocolate for breakfast--something I used to do ALL the time--we're talking every morning.  The bad thing is that once I made that decision (after also deciding not to wake up early to go to the gym since I felt like crap) the rest of the day was a domino effect of bad choices.  For lunch we went to Smashburger, which just opened up here.  My brother and other family members have been raving about this place and since Jon and I both love a good burger, we decided to put it to the test.  Well, it was simply amazing.  The burger was the best I've ever had.  It far surpassed Red Robin or any other restaurant as far as flavor is concerned.  A new favorite.  On the downside, I completely depleted my points for the day and most of my weekly extra points as well.  Can we say "downward spiral"?  So, naturally, I'm feeling "munchy" come dinner time and had already resolved not to eat anything since I'd overdone it with lunch.  If I got hungry, I'd eat vegetables.  Instead I had a handful of chocolate chips and Pirate's Booty.  There was nothing I wouldn't eat at this point.

At some point, I found myself standing in the pantry, looking at all of the snack foods I could possibly move on to next and I realized that I wasn't really getting the satisfaction out of this binge that I would have before I started WW.  This is a good thing!  Maybe I'm learning that eating for boredom and emotional gratification doesn't work.  This is when I ran upstairs, put on my gym clothes and headed to the gym.  I ran 5.5 miles and rode the bike for 20 minutes.  I felt great afterwords.  It was late at night and I was tired but I felt good.  I had somewhat redeemed myself from a day of bad choices.

I'm sure I'll pay for the bad choices come Monday's weigh-in.  But for now I'm going to chalk it up to a lesson learned.  I figure if these pitfalls happen every couple of weeks but I'm able to pick myself back up again, I'm in pretty good shape.  I need to learn to be a little more flexible.  This is real life, after all.

Under The Weather

I've been trying to pretend/avoid the fact that I've been getting sick for a few days now.  I woke up last Friday with a deep ache in my chest.  I still ran 7 miles on Saturday and felt good all day but it turns out my nose was also running.  It hit a bit harder yesterday and this morning, my husband and I both felt crappy. 

Dear Virus,
Please leave me and my family the heck alone.  You have given me an obnoxious headache and runny nose and have left me no choice but to get out the Afrin at night.  All I want to do is wake up in the morning feeling refreshed and ready to run.  You're ruing it.  You have no idea who you're messing with.  With a little help from my friend, Zicam, you'll be obliterated in no time at all.  Consider this fair warning.

Treadmill vs Road

I haven't been outside much this year doing my runs.  The majority of my miles have been on the treadmill.  Something I think about during the mind-numbing hours on the treadmill is if all of the treadmill work will translate over to the road.  I don't run with an incline, so that right there makes the treadmill a little easier--physically.  Mentally, it's a whole other ball game. 

Where do you look when you run on the treadmill?  The distance run, the time, the people walking by, the wall, the TV they've installed 10 inches from your face?  I usually stare at a distant wall and try to get sucked into the rhythm of my music.  That's when time starts to fly by.  The worst way to spend your time is staring at the distance run or the clock if you're going for a certain time.  Time immediately slows.  It's torture. 

Today I ran 7 miles on the treadmill and put my extra shirt over the display in front of me so that the only thing I could see if I looked down was the speed at which I was running.  Time went by much faster and my mind didn't tell me I was tired.