Faster Stronger

Lately I haven’t been a good runner.  Or dieter for that matter.  

Or really, I haven’t been much good at anything.

And now for a non-running related rant:

Time to be honest on ye olde blog:  I hate new job.  Like dread going every morning kind of hate.  Get an uncomfortable feeling in the pit of my stomach just thinking about going kind of hate.

I’m there until 6-6:30 every day, which would be fine if I a) enjoyed it, b) came in at 10:00, but I come in at 9:00 on the dot (if not earlier) or c) took full lunch breaks.  Staying that late means not getting home until 7:15-7:30, which means by the time I eat and unwind I have no motivation to work out. 

Plus, my boss is a little insane.  Her mood swings are so impossible.  I can’t tell if I’m going to be yelled at or praised for doing the same thing from day to day.  And she’s downright mean sometimes if I do the wrong thing (um, hello I’ve been there roughly two months, I clearly don’t know everything yet).  I’m so afraid to make even tiny mistakes, because I’m afraid of how she’ll react. 

All of this might be bearable if I cared about what I’m doing, but I don’t.  I work in publishing and chose it because I love books and reading and wanted to be a part of promoting all that.  And what I really do is sit through meeting upon meeting on how to make more money and sell more books.

Being miserable all day long (although, I have tried not to be) is draining.

So! Career change is in order methinks.  I’m officially investigating becoming a teacher. If I’m going to work hard and stress out about a job (inevitable for a Type A such as myself) I’m going to make it something worthwhile.  

Right now I have my sights set on the NYC Teaching Fellows program. Application will be submitted today, should will hear back within the next four weeks for an interview, should will get accepted to the program over the summer to be transitionally certified, and WILL be in a classroom (both on the teaching and learning ends) come next Fall. 

And that’s that.

There should probably be a plan B, in case the series of things that need to fall into place actually don’t, but I’m refusing to allow negativity into this.  

Now that that’s off my chest, time to be productive and non-mopey!  Run time = 3:00 PM. 

The first official run of round 2 of marathon training was one of the three key run workouts my new plan calls for: intervals.

Today’s workout call for 10 minute warm up (I did 5), 6 x 1m hard, 3m easy, 10 minute cool down (I did about 8).

My neighborhood makes it a little tough to actually do speed intervals because its really hilly, but I tried (plus pushing speed up even a little on an incline definitely qualifies as hard), you can see the up/down in speed here: 

Did I mention I really enjoy the MapMyRun app?  It’s so much easier.

And I had it alert me to the time every minute, so I could easily tell when each interval was done.

Knee is swollen and hard to bend, but doesn’t hurt…to worry or not to worry?

WHAT THE EFF?  Halfway through my 4-miler some guys tried to get me with an egg!  But the jerks missed and succeeded only in pissing me off (and freaking me out a little).  

Thanks to their “motivational” efforts, I busted out 4.08 miles in 45:33, for a pace of 11:09/mile.  Which is my fastest yet!  And considering this 1.4-ish mile climb:

I’m impressed with myself.  I’ve been running in my neighborhood for a month now and I definitely see an improvement.  It used to take me forever (and multiple walking breaks) to get through this.  Now I only need to stop for cars and lights. 

Started out strong for the first day of November. 

I haven’t really set any running, eating, weight loss, etc. goals since…June maybe?  So here we go:

• Stick with marathon training: 105 miles this month, longest run: 16 miles (oh boy).

• Actually do weight training on weight training days.  Target arms and core especially

• Yoga x 4

• Race to Deliver 4-Miler on 11/20 - Under 45:00!

• Continue to watch what I eat.

• Get under 250 (realistic considering: wedding eat-fest this weekend; Thanksgiving)

• Keep trying new recipes and foods.

• WATER.

We got this.

Until the marathon. 

If that doesn’t motivate me to get (and stay) on track with training and to lay off the Halloween candy, I don’t know what will.

Speaking of 11 Miles - that was supposed to be yesterday’s long run.  In real life it was 9.6 because at the 8 mile mark my stomach and I stopped being friends.

I have been a super-good marathon trainer this week.  So far I’ve logged all of my scheduled workouts. 

• Four (excellent) miles around town on Tuesday

• Weight workout, that felt too short and not enough, but left me very sore, on Wednesday

• Volleyball (not technically part of training, but exercise nonetheless) and 5 misty, late night (well…9 PM) miles around Central Park with Jennelle yesterday.  I got home very late and slept a little too long this morning, but it was worth it.

• Today?  More weights and maybe some yoga.  I really need to work on my core. My back has been killing me during runs lately, and I think weak ab and back muscles are the cause.

Food has also been going pretty well.  I’ve been tracking calories (again, again, again) and trying to make good choices.  We’ll see how I fare this weekend.

My stomach has been feeling a lot better lately.  So I think healthy eating and avoiding fatty foods did the trick. 

Inexplicably, I’ve gained weight since healthy eating started, but I woke up this morning feeling skinnier than I have in a while.  Need to hold onto that feeling.

In other news, Sunday marks 12 weeks ‘til Disney!  Which is much scarier when you realize it’s only 3 months!  Trying not to freak out…

Mama bear was up from South Carolina this weekend. So I went out to Long Island, sans computer, to be with her.  Eating was…less than stellar.  Actually, for a few weeks my eating has been less than stellar.  I tried last week, after unpacking my kitchen and finally getting down to one place of residence, to be a bit healthier.  But Thursday onward was bad news.

And I’m paying for it.  All weekend I’ve had a stomachache.  Not a steady pain, but kind of waves of pain right between my ribs.  My mom thinks it’s my gall bladder.  I trust her judgment because she had hers removed, so she knows the symptoms of a gall bladder gone wrong.  Color me freaked out.

Effective this morning: healthy eating.  No way around it.  I don’t want any serious health issues.  I don’t want stomach pain (which to be honest kept me from running on Friday, it was that bad). I don’t want surgery.  No sirree.

Here’s the good though!:

Thursday night was my first volleyball game.  AND IT WAS AWESOME.  We won 2/3 games.  I played fairly well.  My teammates were fantastic.  Granted only 6 of 12 members showed up, so hopefully the other half of the team is just as good and fun last week’s gang.

Saturday I ran at the beach!  On the boardwalk, weaving in and out of people.  I felt a little silly, since I was the only one running. But I did it.  I mapped it later and it only wound up being, like 2.69 miles or something, which sucks a little because I wanted it to be longer.

The house is coming along!

I joined Doctor Oz’s Transformation Nation, which offers a lot of tools and tips for getting healthy.  And by playing along and following through you’re eligible for a million dollar prize!

Also, I may be getting an iPhone (FINALLY)?  Fingers crossed.  I’m lame and still on the family plan (at 25…I swear that’s the only thing they still pay for), but the ‘rents are considering covering everything else and just making me pay for data.  Which would be great.

SO healthy week.  Healthy eating.  Tracking calories (loosely).  Not getting obsessive and crazy and stopping after two weeks. Following the running plan (for reals…unlike last week).  Volleyball!  No more stomach pain!

Also, how do you tell a sickly co-worker to go home because not only is her coughing, sniffing and nose-blowing distracting, it’s also spreading germy germs that you don’t want anything to do with?  UGH. If I get sick it will derail this slow moving train.  I don’t need any more step-backs.  I’m shooting her death rays through the cubicle wall.

A quick update:

Ran 4.85 miles with Jennelle around the new house yesterday.  Don’t really know the time.  Thus don’t know my pace.  I was going strong for a while, but then ran into gastro-intestinal issues (…again…really need to edit my food stuffs).

After running, lugged heavy boxes from my living room to my basement and painted a bedroom.  I’M A NEW HOUSE MOVING MACHINE.

So therefore, I’m tired and sore today.

And there’s more painting and box moving to be done.

But!  One week ‘til the move!  Hooray!  I cannot wait.  Although, admittedly, the apartment has been better lately.  That may be because we’re barely there.  Or because we know we’re leaving so we’re letting go of the issues…probably the first one.

Oh, and I joined the work volleyball team.  I’m super pumped.  I played in high school and loved it, although I was never very good.  And, up until last summer, I played beach volleyball with friends every Sunday.  But then I got rid of my car and had no way of getting to the beach.

I’ve always wished that jobs were more like schools and had a wider variety of extra-curricular activities.  Sure, most places have a softball team, but softball brings back bad memories of Junior High, where I joined the team and they tried to get me to wear shiny, red, too small baseball pants.  *shudders*

So anyway, I’m excited about volleyball.  I do need to be less antisocial and actually talk to my teammates.  And interact. 

Half an hour between me and a week of: no work, cleaning, painting, packing, and moving.  All culminating with a half marathon next Saturday (Grete’s Gallop - anyone else running??) and death/14 hours of sleep (in our new house!) on Sunday, which will be glorious.

I think this qualifies as an ultra marathon of life.

Oh hi, hello.  You thought that because I wasn’t around I had completely fallen off the fitblr bandwagon.  You are wrong!  I have not!  I just haven’t had access to the internet since Thursday. And work switched floors, so we had to pack all of our crap up to move down 8 floors.  And the home move is getting intense (complete with one angry landlord and another landlord who will be temporarily living in our new house when we move in).  So that’s fun.

BUT! I ran the Fitness Mind, Body + Spirit Games on Saturday.  Four miles in 45 minutes and change (11:22 pace).  I forgot my iPod, so this was a music-free run.  I half liked it and half hated it.  Liked it because sometimes music is annoying.  Or I’ll think things like, it’s only been one song!  And without the music could think about things more clearly.  Like life-stress-work-things. 

I missed the music sometimes because I really didn’t want to hear the sound of other people’s footsteps or their heavy breathing.  All that around me made me feel claustrophobic.

In the end my time was pretty good.  The weather was AMAZING.  And I had a decent time.  AND that brings me to 7/9 races for 9+1. 

After that Jenilee (marathon buddy) and I went to Jack Rabbit and got fitted for shoes.  Turns out, this whole time I’ve been wearing clunky stability shoes when I don’t really need to.  So I got a nice neutral shoe (my usual ultra comfy Asics).

We both put our new sneaks to use yesterday with an attempted 9 mile run, which wound up unintentionally being only 8.1.  But it was in a very hilly (and pretty) neighborhood.

All other free time was spent scrubbing wallpaper glue off walls, cleaning, or priming my new house.  Or crying and flipping out because I was exhausted, dehydrated, and stressed.  Lucky Eric had to deal with that.

Right??

Friends this was terrible.  I was worrying about Eric the whole time (pre-run I got several barely legible, disconcerting texts whose general gist was “i’m drunk. i am soo drunk.” Knowing he drove wherever it is he is drunk is the troubling part) and around mile 2 I got heartburn (what in my eggs and toast dinner caused that I’m not sure), which I tried to power through, but by mile 5 I was pretty much done.  In all honesty I could have (physically) pulled out another mile, but mentally I was dragged down by how slow I was going (12:10 pace, ugh!) and how worried/angry I was at Eric.

Thankfully I’m too nauseous to eat my emotions!

6 Miles/1:13:00/12:10 pace.

Tuesday I was supposed to do 3 miles, but I walked home from the train in the pouring rain without an umbrella (genius that I am, I looked at the weather got distracted by how gloriously cool it was going to be and forgot my umbrella).  So I felt all cold and indignant by the time I made it home.  And I made a silent agreement with myself that I would not go out in that again (that night).

So, in my effort to not make excuses and not skip workouts, I made it up yesterday. And I did strength work!  In the morning!  Here ‘tis:

• Squats: 2 sets of 15 reps
• Some sort of arm/shoulder/back move that I forget the name of: 2 sets of 15
• Push-ups: 2 sets of 12 reps
• Planks: 2 x 30 seconds
• “Curtsy” Lunges: 1 set of 15 (ran out of time for the second set)

Then, in the evening, I ran my 3 miles from Tuesday in 34 minutes (11:20 pace, not too shabby).  And for the first time in a while I ran them all with no little breaks for walking.

3 Miles in 34:15 (11:24 pace).  Not too shabby considering how little I’ve been running lately.  And I say this EVERY. TIME. I take a short break from running, but it feels SO GREAT to be back at it. I always forget how much better I feel, mentally and physically, when I’m running regularly.

I admit that when I got home from work there was a solid hour of not wanting to go and run.  But I did it.  On the treadmill (naturally, need to take advantage of Planet Fitness while I have it). 

Tomorrow = 3 miles in the new ‘hood with Jennelle, followed by an upper body workout consisting of: removing wallpaper and wallpaper glue and scrubbing the hell out of every scrub-able surface of the new house!

Also!  P.S. In precisely 4 weeks the official moving process will commence. CAN. NOT. WAIT.

My mileage for the past few weeks has been spotty.  Three miles last week, none the week before, five miles the week before that.  Yuck.  With the half marathon four weeks from Saturday, I really, really, really need to get to moving. 

So here’s my super-condensed train for a half in a month plan. 

No excuses (oh I’m moving, oh i’m tired, womp womp womp) allowed.  The aim is for most of these to be outdoors, since that’s a better, more accurate workout.  Also my gym membership is done on 9/16, so I won’t even have that option.