**oops! meant to post this like a week and a half ago....**
In the past week – and even the past 4 days, I have changed/added several things!
I don’t stick to goals a lot and just meander around. What can I say? I like doing my own thing! But I have some goals related to my Olympic tri in early August and my fitness in general that I would like to achieve. Thus, I have hired a health coach.
When we met on Monday, I said that one of my goals was to remain injury free. She asked what I was doing to work toward that goal. Uh – nothing? I rarely stretch and although I do attend yoga once a week, I can definitely be more proactive in this area.
My favorite question she had to ask was definitely about my pooping habits. That answer/response puts your relationship to the next level! Haha
I have been around 205lbs for quite a while now. I have always said my fitness comes first and whatever weight I lose is great, but UGH I WANT TO BE UNDER 200 POUNDS. The high 190s is what I was when I graduated high school/went to college. It’s been a while! I took matters into my own hands and ate a breakfast sandwich for…breakfast, delicious salad and an apple for lunch and had my favorite soup for dinner every day last week. No snacks. Only thing other than tons of water was spark once a day. Where did it get me? Haha I did not lose weight last week! Now, there could be several factors involved, of course. I wrote a whole post out and included what I ate at every meal. And then to not lose weight was disappointing. This is why I don’t like to focus on weight.
So, I joined a Diet Bet. Now, I’m fully expecting not to win. At this point, 4% would be 8.2lbs and I don’t see that happening. But it will be nice to have a goal with a time limit and cheer the other betters on.
If I were strict with my diet and focused on that, I think I might be able to do it. But I realized last week that my Olympic tri is ONLY 11 weeks (now 10) away! Uh, training plan anybody? I had marked one down, but that plan had weird rest days and would more often than not have workouts like “Tuesday: 20 min swim, 40 min bike”. Which is fine, but that’s a lot of gear to have at once and really – am I going to ONLY swim 20 minutes? Likely not! I was perusing Midwest triathlons last week and came across this Olympic tri that had a training plan right on the website. http://leonstriathlon.com/schedule-olympic-triathlon-training.php The plan has you training 6 days a week, which I don’t intend to do, but I can definitely get 6 workouts in per week.
I love the flexibility of my single girl schedule. Monday I was supposed to run, but had a horrendous headache and was in bed at 8pm after meeting with my health coach and hanging out with my brother a bit. Tuesday was the normal back to back yoga/swim sessions. Wednesday I was supposed to bike, but of course it was storming! I decided I was going to go to the indoor track at the local rec center and get at least my 35 min run in, but aim for the 60 minute run that I had scheduled for Thursday evening. I wasn’t too excited about running that long on the indoor track! It was pouring when I got in the car, but when I arrived about 5 minutes later, the rain had ceased. It wasn’t clear skies, but it was definitely clear for now! I decided to do a loop around the rec center that I know is a little over a mile. About 15 seconds into my run, it started raining, but it only lasted about 30 seconds. It was so amazing to BE OUTSIDE and splish
splashing through little puddles and there were tons of little wildlife critters out. The first mile is always the worst, or so I say. About 1/3 of a mile in, I thought my hamstrings were going to give me serious trouble, but they loosened up, thankfully! As I got back to the rec center, it was still clear, so I decided to hop on the main trail and head south for a half mile. There are very good quarter mile markers on this trail and the streets intersect it every half mile, so it is very easy to keep track. I got to the cross street to complete my half mile, but the mile marker was on the far side of the road. So I crossed and decided to go another quarter mile. As I turned around, it was soooo gorgeous with it being in the low 60s and a little bit of sun streaming through to the trail where trees cover most of it. It wasn’t until this point that I saw another runner! This trail is usually packed! When I saw how beautiful it was, I gasped
“Oh my Jesus!” Haha, can’t stick to the normal exclamations!
I got back to the rec center at 3 miles and I knew that if I could go another quarter mile out and back, I could match my longest continuous run at 3.5 miles and stop for a rest/drink of water at the rec center. I had to do a little running in circles around the entrance before my phone said 3.5. It would have been fine, but there was definitely a high school couple having out with some PDA right there. Oh well! I paused my workout on my app and got a drink. I walked to the other end of the rec center and restarted my running from that exit. I had 15 more minutes left of running. I didn’t know if I could run the whole time, but I would try! When my app said I hit 4 miles, the pace said 10:41. Now, one thing is for sure – if I’m running a 10:41 mile, I will only be running ONE mile! My app definitely paused the time, but connected the distance from one side of rec center to the other! Good thing I was running for time, not distance!
I made it to the hour mark and then walked back to my car. It felt good to accomplish that on such a beautiful interpass between storms (I may have made that word up!) – it was pouring again not 15 minutes later! I went home, made dinner, showered, and stretched and foam rolled. Unfortunately, I’m super sore today. To be made worse by swim practice this morning. I’m really tired! I still have a 50 min bike/35 min run left to get in this week. I was going to do something else tonight, but I am tired/sore and got asked to babysit, so I just might do an early morning BRICK workout tomorrow. I thought about it this morning as I was heading to swim practice – it was a perfect morning for a bike ride!
All of that to say, I need my weekends to be weekends. I’m getting more involved at the church and would like to have a social life too, and trying to fit in big miles just felt like a ton of pressure. Again, just so thankful for my single girl schedule where I can do what I want, when I want!
Also, I stopped going to Dunkin Donuts as my Saturday morning treat. Their iced coffee was packed full of sugar and after drinking it, I would be hanging out at the church after prayer and feeling so shaky/awful. Then I would go home and lay down for a few hours to recover. Definite sugar overdose! That also hurt my Saturday workouts, obvi.
Lastly, I have signed up for 2 races this week – a 5 mile race (the 5K option was not timed – duh, I want to have a race timed!) It was only $18 and for a branch of the company that I work for. A week from Saturday. It’s a small race, so I’m 99% sure I’ll come in last, but hey I’ll be good as long as they don’t close the course on me! Definitely going to bring my own water bottle – just in case!
The other I signed up for is a sprint triathlon. I need to get a sprint in and this one had been on my radar for a long while. A couple weeks ago, my frenemy Will told me that it was SUPER hilly. But I’m not trusting him 100%/in denial/going to be a big girl about this. It is near my hometown and we are having my family reunion that weekend, so it was really a no brainer as long as I get over my aversion of hills. Note: go ride more hills!
As always, here are some pics! :)
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| Pics of the sky before my run - not too shabby this way |
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| A little bit iffy this way |
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| My favorite part - sorry wasn't going to stop running! |
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| Just me and the empty (blurry) trail! |
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| Went to take a selfie and someone almost backed into me. This is my concerned face. |
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| #rundrunk |
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| How did my biking the next morning go? Here is a hint... |
