Thursday

Well, I know that my legs were definitely feeling the sprint intervals from yesterday. When I headed up for my run this morning, my walk up pace was over 17 min/mile. That is slow! I am normally on the high end of 14 min/mile when I walk up. Today, I decided I would just run. I wound up doing 6 laps, 1 1/2 miles. As I was starting lap 4, I wasn't fully convinced that I was going to get the whole second half in. But, then, I found my groove. I think that if had the time, I could have gone double what I did. As I was completing the 6th lap though, I got my Run Keeper update and knew that it was time to head home and get ready for work.

Yesterday was a good day for eating, right up until it wasn't. I had my protein shake and banana for breakfast. I had my toasted wheat thin with goat cheese, cucumbers, spinach, tomato and banana peppers for lunch. My afternoon snack was an apple. My dinner was late and it was Mexican. We took my son out for his birthday, but it was after soccer practice. I made a reasonable dinner choice of one chicken taco and one chicken enchilada, no rice. Unfortunately, because we were late at eating and because I was feeling famished (should have had a snack when I got home), I ordered the queso. They brought out a big bowl, not the little bowl that they normally do. I ate way too many chips and cheese.

Today should be easier. I know that I am having pizza for dinner and will plan accordingly.

Sprints!

When I headed up to the track this morning, it was on the edge of dark. This is going to be a challenge. I am going to have to find someone that I can meet at the track each day or I am going to simply run out of 'morning' time to run before work. I may have to return to running in the neighborhood if I want to still run. At least in the neighborhood there is random traffic, street lights, people walking dogs, getting their paper, etc. So, even if it is a bit pre-dawn out with only a glimmer of pink on the horizon, it seems less so.

I wasn't really sure what I wanted to do at the track today. Yesterday, I pushed myself to run the whole time and was able to get in 6 straight laps of running. Today, I started with a walk, not to mention my journey up was slower than normal. Part way around, I decided that I would match yesterday's run with sprint intervals. So, I wound up walking 1/2, doing 6 laps of sprint intervals, running 1/2 lap. I wound up doing 1/4 mile more in distance, but since I started the sprints in the middle of a lap, I didn't have a choice if I wanted to meet my goal. Here is my run chart:

You can't tell on this one, but when I run my mouse along the path in Runkeeper at the dips (the peak of my sprint) there were several where my pace was about a 6:35 minute mile and even one that went down to 6:27 minute mile. Awesome! When I just run, I tend to be between a 9:20 and 10:30 minute mile. The interesting thing is that overall, my pace is very similar, whether running the whole time or doing sprint intervals the whole time. My walking recovery between each sprint leg drags me down just the right amount to match a run.

The workout felt great.

I did okay with eating yesterday, until we went to my daughter's kindergarten picnic. There was pepperoni pizza and then there were ice cream sundaes. I couldn't help myself. I would like to say that I will be more focused today, but it is my son's birthday and he wants to go out for dinner. I will have to be conscientious and make sure that I make good decisions. Enjoy being out but make wise choices.

The scale simply chose not to respond yesterday. I keep thinking, if I had skipped the second piece of pizza or the sundae, it would have been a move in the right direction. I still am trying to recover back to the low.

Going the Distance

Well, that might make one think that I really had some sort of a record breaking outing today, which I certainly did not. What I did experience is how your mind makes all the difference in your outing. When I got to the track, I wasn't really sure what my work out plan was. As soon as I got to my lane, I started to run. I thought about what I might want to do. Before I even finished my first lap, my body was ready to be done. I simply couldn't allow that. I convinced myself to try to run 4 laps. Then, when I got my time/distance update near the middle of my third lap, I decided I would run at least until the next update - that would put me into my fifth lap. As I got the update, I decided that I really should keep going. I decided I would complete six laps. As I was completing my sixth lap, I decided that it was important to me that I finish strong, so I decided I would sprint the last 1/4 lap - which actually would put me to 6 1/4 laps of running. When I completed the sprint, I got my update which was the one that I needed to head home on. Rather than finishing the 3/4 lap remaining, I walked back the 1/4 that I had just run. It was a good outing, especially considering that yesterday I wasn't sure about running even one lap.

Eating was mostly good yesterday. I started my day with a protein shake and a banana. Unfortunately, my banana was squishy on the bottom. I had designs on making some oatmeal, but one thing lead to another and it was lunch time. I had lunch with a friend. We met for Mexican, which when you are hungry is a challenge - those chips kept calling my name! I had the chicken fajitas, no rice, no beans, no tortillas. Essentially grilled chicken and veggies. Makes me not feel so bad about those chips. In the mid-afternoon, I stumbled upon a banana cream pie - I couldn't help it, I had to have a sliver. I skipped most of the crust (if that is a plus?). Dinner was coconut shrimp (baked) and pierogie.

The scale responded nicely on the road to recovery of my current low. If I stay strong today and don't give in to chips and banana pie, I am confident the scale will respond again tomorrow.

Thursday

When I went to bed last night, I checked the weather and there was a 30% chance of rain this morning. So, before I really 'got up', I came downstairs and checked out the weather - both by looking outside and pulling up the radar on my computer. I wanted to make sure that I wouldn't get drenched if I headed out. Fortunately, the radar looked clear, but here I was downstairs, not in work out clothes. I started to fiddle with a few things on the computer, like respond to some e-mails, check out my friends' pictures on Facebook. I found myself not feeling very motivated. I finally decided that I better get upstairs and get myself dressed and get moving - or there would be no time. As it turned out, I left really late and only really had time for about 30 minutes. When I got to the track, it was crowded. The woman that runs many mornings with me was there, I like that we run about the same pace - so neither of us generally passes the other (except on cool down/warm up laps). Then, there were these three men (boys?) that were doing some sort of interval thing. As I approached, they took off and ran a lap. As I arrived, they stopped and then moved off to the side to do push-ups. I wasn't really sure what to expect, so I started in lane 5. By the time I came around to start my first lap of running, they were in lane 8 picking up the hurdles - I asked which lanes are you using and they told me that they were done - so I promptly moved over to lane 2 and started my run. I was originally going to do something more interval like, but decided to see if I could run 1.5 miles. I knew I 'could', I didn't know if time would allow. I actually pushed my workout an extra 3 minutes to allow myself to get in the full 1.5 miles. It felt good.

The scale was holding tight this morning. Overall, I think that is a good thing. Life happens (like travel, eating out, imbibing) and knowing that I can stay constant through that is a good thing. Plus, it makes me hopeful that a return to normal will kick-start the scale to moving the right way. Which makes me think that there is some merit to those diets that have a 6 days on, 1 day off approach - I think the day off has to still be reasonable, but I think your body needs the shock of change to lose weight. I have always found that to be reasonably true for me. If I'm plateauing, sometimes the best thing I can do is allow myself a little extra one day and then back in motion I go.

Just in the Nick of Time

When I woke up this morning and checked the weather, there was rain showing up to the west. It seemed to be almost on top of us, so I decided I would wait a few minutes before I headed out. Well, a few minutes turned into 15 and still no rain, so I checked the map and it seemed to have moved south but not east. I decided I would give it a go and hope for the best. Well, it was a good decision. I got up to the track and resumed my counter-clockwise approach to the track. I started with my standard 1 lap of walking to warm up and then moved onto running. I wound up running 6 laps, but could have run more. Well, except for the fact that as the sun was getting higher in the sky, the dark blue sky to the west became more and more ominous looking and then as I was finishing the 5th lap, I noticed a rainbow. As I finished the 6th lap, I decided I would capture the rainbow and sky:

As I headed home, I could feel the breeze picking up against my back. I was hopeful that I would get home before the rain started. After opening the garage door, I snapped this picture of the rainbow, now more fully developed and a hint of second rainbow starting:

Then, it started to sprinkle. I headed inside, content in knowing that I had run 1 1/2 miles straight and had seen a beautiful rainbow at the end of my run. It was a great rain too, the sun was shining and it was coming down. Beautiful to watch from the dryness of my home.

Last night, I fit in both Zumba with my friend, as well as Day 9 of the Ab Challenge. I am not yet feeling the Ab workout, which has me worried that I am not giving it 110%. I will just have to be sure to give it more.

Eating was good yesterday. I tried a new recipe at dinner - it was shrimp and pineapple kebobs with a brown sugar and lime glaze. Very tasty and pretty healthy too!

The scale is finally starting to respond and I have almost fully recovered the last week and a half of intermittent picnics, parties and nights out.