Faster In Water

Monday, May 5, 2014

By Request

This post brought to you by my friend Lindsay! We were having lunch yesterday after church and she totally segued out of a deep conversation with "...so, I've been reading your blog". haha! So here you go Linds!

Last 2 weeks in workouts:

Monday: Rest
Tuesday: Yoga & Swimming
Wednesday: Rest
Thursday: AM swim & 2mi PM run
Friday: AM Hot Yoga & 3mi PM hike
Saturday: 4.5mi run - of which, I ran 3.5 CONTINUOUS MILES. Holy freaking crap, batman! I remember writing this post and how excited I was that I had run 6 minutes without stopping. My progress may be slow compared to others, but it is progress!
Sunday: Rest

Monday: Rest? I'm pretty sure I cooked this evening
Tuesday: Yoga & Swimming
Wednesday: Planned to do weights and some treadmill time, but I ended up moving a lot of water, pop, and ice for a training my department was hosting. It was at a buiding on our property that some people walk to and some people drive, I walked there a few times to check on things and geez all that heavy lifting! I felt like my workout duty was accomplished! No official workout!
Thursday: AM swim
Friday: 2mi hike at my alma mater. Frolicked in the lilac groves. AMAZING!
Saturday: Serve Day with the small groups at my church. I'm in 2 small groups, so I did one landscaping project 8-12, church picnic 12-2, cleaning bike lanes 2-4 with my other group. I then babysat at 6 and played basketball/scooter races with the boy after I put the baby down, which was another hour outside. I was EXHAUSTED.
Sunday: I wanted a rest day, but my tri group with the Y was having their weekly bike ride and then going to a brewery afterwards to celebrate some birthdays. I got in 13.5mi in a little under an hour and 15 mins. I still stick out as the slow one...by several miles per hour! There is my 21 year old frenemy who was putting out crazy miles - 24 mph! I was happy to average 12. Kind of disappointed that I spent $ on my bike trainer but didn't use it a ton over the winter. Ah, well, time to pick it back up outside!

Today, I am resting because I am very tired! Plus tomorrow I hope to get a bike ride in and go to yoga. Oh yeah, I have tomorrow off because this little ole state is having primary elections. Holla!

Food: See my last post! Honestly, still eating the same things for lunch and dinner. Still delicious. I am sorely out of breakfast ideas and was being lazy and drinking meal re placement drinks for breakfast, but my shakers are both dirty and I couldn't remember to bring them home and actually place them in the dishwasher. So I have been eating cashews for breakfast. LOL and ewwww. Better than McD's at least?

I love this phrase that I have been seeing on FB and on other blogs:

http://media-cache-ec0.pinimg.com/736x/4a/0c/f9/4a0cf99cbaaea98e727e5db9ac6b2b77.jpg

We are each on our own journey and have our own strengths and weaknesses. Obviously what works for one person won't work for another, or else we would all take that one magic pill. I am so proud of all my blogging friends who work hard and get results. Whether it is 8 months to get to a goal weight or 8 years. Whether you ran for 30 seconds without stopping or you ran a marathon. I love it all and am so excited for every victory.

That's all for now! As always, here are some pics!

New nose ring - a flower :)

TeenSwimSis did my makeup for Easter

Today's Cinco De Mayo nachos! I added cilantro after this pic!

So freaking gorgeous. Looooove it.

Stopped frolicking to smell the lilacs!

After my run in which I ran 3.5 miles WITHOUT STOPPING! PS face is the same color as my shirt!

I was outside having lunch for an hour and a half tops and this is what happens! #pasty

Thursday, April 24, 2014

Three Things Thursday

Whew, when I don't blog...I don't blog - yikes. Only half sorry about that. Well, as my swim coach would say "sorry, not sorry!".

1. With this blog, and with running and biking, I have had a mentality of "oh, if I do it at all, I have to do a super long catch up post, or 6 miles running, or 15 miles on my bike". Then I don't do it at all! I have to remind myself that even a little bit is enough. I don't have to clear out an entire hour/hour and a half in my schedule to exercise. Tonight I did 2 miles - 26 mins and I was done! Enough to feel accomplished and a wee bit tired.

My exercise has been pretty solid these past 2 weeks. Working out 5/7 days. Last Saturday I was going to run/bike and I couldn't figure out which. So instead I laid in my bed and watched Netflix for a couple hours. :/ I ended up doing yoga in my backyard and it was perfect. Sunshine plus "afternoon grounding yoga" was awesome. I have started doing some you tube yoga workouts at home and I love the price and the convenience.

2. My food has been hit or miss. Here is a belated "what I ate Wednesday"!

Breakfast (not pictured - duh!): I had fruit punch Spark and meal re placement shake from my Advo care stash.

			Lunch was hummus chicken (again) but w/chicken thighs. Not joking - 2 stores were out of chicken breasts around here on the day I grocery shopped! Plus zuchinni basil soup with asiago cheese. I used a bigger side on the shredder due to laziness and it just isn't the same. Finely shredded tastes better! (yes it is the same brand of asiago).

2 after lunch chocolates from my admin assistant day gift. One was walnut yuck - super duper sweet. The other was dark chocolate carmel goodness. No, I don't know what the acutal names are! :)

Dinner:

My old stand by for the couple days before giving blood! Spinach and red meat to get the iron up! This is taco salad with ground beef, mushrooms, onions, mango habenero cheddar (ugh, too sweet), salsa, ranch, baby carrots and spinach.

Not pictured, but after this "dinner": a lone strawberry, half a piece of SwimKid's pizza, plus the crust of her first piece. Ugh, weak moment.

3. I'm signed up for an open water mile race in the middle of June. Very excited! There are literally 2 of these races in my mostly land-locked Midwest state. One opened up for registration in the middle of last month and the other didn't even have their information updated on the website (like no race date - just saying when last year's was!). So I signed up for the open water mile. This other one is up to a 5k - which would be awesome, so I just checked back last week. And guess what...THEY'RE ON THE SAME EXACT DAY!!! Ugh, dagger to the heart! I haven't checked the start time of each yet, so there is a very small, minute chance that I would be able to do both.
The only other thing I'm signed up for right now is my big race of the year which will be an Olympic distance tri at the beginning of August. It's downtown, which should be flat (thank you Jesus!). I signed up to be in the Athena category (women over 165lbs - still over 200 right now...onederland soon?). I had scoured previous year's results and there seems to be 0-3 women in this category every year, so if/when I finish, I would likely place. Whereas I would definitely not place in my age group.
Still looking for something to do in July.

Why are there like a million things to do in June and August, but July has like 3 events, none of which I want to do! Let's see what other adventures await!

Some random pics:

After my first outdoor ride of the year - TERRIBLE winds. 7mph never made me feel so tired.

Obligatory dirty legs after cycling photo

These plus tulips were my gift for secretary's day - my department is so generous!

Monday, April 7, 2014

Losing Steam

Well every since my last post I have been losing my desire to exercise while simultaneously increasing my desire for bad food. Blahhhhhhhhh.

Last week SwimSis & fam were on vacation in the nice Florida sun, so I had the place to myself. I went into full out lazy mode! I had 3 workouts all week - 2 yoga sessions and a 2 mile treadmill run on my lunch. I sat around sooooo much and had a million excuses for why I wasn't working out, and why I was indulging my food desires.

Even today, I brought my workout clothes to work, so I could go run or lift afterwards. Did I do either? Nope, just made a quick stop at Target (for something non-edible, at least!) and came home, had a good dinner, and now I'm blogging. Sigh.

I think I either need something that I find fun to do or at least something that is motivating.

I don't know what would be new or fun (perhaps this hip hop spin class? at the Y by my work?) or I might just sign up for the tri here in my town on the 26th of this month. I'll be honest, the cycling part might break me, but I might be motivated to train for the next few weeks if I do have a race coming up. We'll see!

One thing that I've been eating a lot is Chicken Tortilla Soup. My friend sent me the recipe years ago and I didn't make it until this year! I've changed the recipe to suit my tastes. This time, I was making some for me and a friend who want a veggie packed chicken based soup, here it is:

-2 quarts chicken stock
-1 lb chicken
-1 jar salsa
-1 can of chickpeas
-1 can of black beans
-1 medium onion
-20 baby carrots :)
-10 stalks fresh asparagus
-1 yellow squash
-bay leaf
-cilantro both to add and some to garnish with
-shredded cheese for garnish
-sour cream for garnish
-tortilla chips

Add bay leaf, chicken stock and chopped onion to pot and bring to a boil. Let simmer for 45 minutes.

Cook chicken and cop into pieces. Chop rest of veggies up. Add chicken, veggies, chickpeas, salsa, and cilantro to pot. Simmer for 45 minutes.

Garnish with extra cilantro, shredded cheese, sour cream, and tortilla chips as wanted. Enjoy!

I love this soup because it is delicious and super filling and doesn't leave me with cravings for bad things later in the evening.

I thought the squash soaked up the flavors so well and the asparagus was delicious too. Glad I added what I had on hand!

Random Story
My brother in law showed me how to use the grill last week, which is in our backyard up against the shed. The first day they were gone I decided to fire up the grill. I was going to cook some chicken thighs, which I had never bought before. I tend to be a worry wart about things so I told myself just to put the chicken on grill, go inside and wait 7 minutes - I was waiting till 8 minutes. I was just minding my own business, chopping up some lettuce so I could be a good girl and have salad and chicken for dinner. I heard a popping from outside. I ran to the back door and I saw...part of the shed ON FIRE!!! It wasn't a huge part of the shed on fire, but it was definitely ON FIRE. I ran to the front of the house again and grabbed the fire extinguisher. As I ran to the back, I pulled the pin and I wondered if I would actually work, so I squeezed the handle, it worked...inside...oops! Right after that I got to the back door and went to town putting that fire out.

Talk about my heart racing!!! So, I was like "well, I should grab the chicken off the grill". I picked up the tongs that had been sitting there the whole time and took the chicken off the grill. Sadly, those tongs were covered in fire extinguisher chemicals, so I had to go inside and throw it away! My dinner of salad and chicken quickly took a turn into ice cream and a brownie. It doesn't look too terribly bad, but when it was on fire...woah!

This was on April 1st, but thankful SwimSis and my friend know that I don't do April Fool's Day and this was real!

In the daylight later in the week

See the fire extinguisher chemicals there on the bottom piece of chicken?

Right after the fire was out!

Thursday, March 20, 2014

Marching on!

I might be the corniest person ever.

March has been REALLY hard for me! I had a mini burn out on my workouts and then just personal stuff that made me want to do something hilarious and irresponsible like drop pumpkins off a tall roof. (ok, most random person?!?) to relieve the stress.

I only worked out 3 days last week. Like whaaaat? When was the last time that happened? No clue. Sadly, I didn't feel more refreshed, but achy and stiff. Having more time to pour over my personal problems didn't help either. I feel better when working out consistently - got it!

I want to be running more. I was really getting into pretty good shape when I was running 3 times a week earlier this year. But I don't love running. When I have a run scheduled during the week, it is likely by myself, so I would stay at work waaaay to long and then either skip the run because i felt pressed for time or I would cut the run short.

This week has been a little chilly but full of sunshine, so here is what I have been up to:

Last week:

Monday: rest

Tuesday: 1 hr yoga, 1 hr swimming

Wednesday: Rest

Thursday: 6am swim. W/frenemy Will. "If i touch your feel while swimming, it just means you should go faster" uh, no. also we were supposed to do a really tough set on a certain interval for us (6 x 150 yds (50 build, 50 easy, 50 hard) on 2:30). I made the first one with a few seconds to spare. Made the second one right on the money. And my last one slid all the way to 2:40 or 2:45. Will has an injury, so he stopped after 2 of those 6, but I had kept on going. I get out of the pool after practice and he goes "We really should have been making those on 2:30". WE?!? I did the whole set! haha what a snot nosed punk!

Friday: Rest

Saturday: 5 miles with the tri group from church. I was the only girl again. And the slowest. And I got lost because we had talked about going down a certain trail, but I didn't get the memo that we everyone else didn't go down that trail for a little out and back. I met back up with them in the parking lot. They said they had been worried. LOL they must not know I get lost easily!

Then I picked up SwimKid and we went on a "nature walk". 3 miles split in between pea gravel paths, raised platform paths, plain old dirt paths, and concrete. She wanted to run and race me a couple of times. The last time we "raced" was about 0.2 miles and she was faster than me and giggling the whole way. She was shouting "you're so slow! you're as slow as a snail!". She stopped at a bench to rest and I sat down with her. A few seconds later I asked if she was ready to go and she was not. Glad I still have the distance over her speed, but her sass is unmatched!

Sunday: Rest.

Monday: 46 min walk in the sunshine. Sooo good! PS. I hate invisible fences. I think your dog is running straight for me and then it stops 2 feet from me on the sidewalk. Ugh.

Tuesday: Yoga @ work. Skipped swimming because I jacked up my neck (that bilateral breathing and flip turns don't compliment that injury well!). Survived 35 mins on the bike trainer after that.

Wednesday: SwimSis' birthday! I ate desserts and decorated the house with streamers with my trusty sidekick SwimKid (She's been upgraded from SwimTot).

Thursday: 6am swim. I was early! LOL I'm usually 10 mins late and today I was only 5 mins late! Still stayed an hour. My neck issues are still there, but we did a lot of backstroke, which is PERFECT for a neck issue. I did 2 flip turns the whole practice. I tried one at the beginning and decided to do touch turns. Later, I was trying to beat the person swimming next to me (Tri Coach Jeff!) and forgot I wasn't supposed to do a flip turn b/c of my neck...whoops!

Friday: ??? Maybe yoga at a new place, maybe running, but hopefully something in the morning! I've got dinner plans with a friend and no desire to squeeze in a quick workout before or after that.

To wrap up my first real post in the longest, here is a weigh in:

204.8

So close to onederland!!!

And of course a million pictures from my phone: