For anyone who was still interested… I turned thirty today. I reached the 30 pound mark weeks ago. Since then I’ve been hovering around that number within several pounds. I haven’t been so disciplined about maintaining the actual number since hitting it. The new goal is to spend this whole year doing awesome stuff. That’s right. I’m going to redeem the number thirty. Here’s my to-do list:
Sorry I stopped posting, but thanks for reading.
Well, I’ve been absent, but I’ve hit some milestones whilst on leave. I weighed in at 219 the other morning. That’s the lowest I’ve weighed stone cold probably since I was in the eighth grade. Additionally, I ran the 5k race this past weekend and posted my fastest time ever: 24:49!!! That’s skinny people time right there.
I’m also pleased that I’m learning about eating correctly. I’ve started eating more rice and vegetables and I’ve discovered that I can have that for a meal and be satisfied. It’s good to know that I have choice and can exercise it. I’ll need to rely heavily on a smart diet during the winter when running season begins to wane for me.
Anyway, thanks for reading. I’m sorry I haven’t been posting a lot. Work started back up and I’m just going nonstop all of the time now. I probably won’t be blogging what I eat any more. It just takes too much time, and that has become scarce recently. When grad school kicks back up, it’ll be even worse!
After eating sandwiches and decent food for most of the day, I had two servings of peach cobbler tonight. And I didn’t exercise today. It wouldn’t be so bad, but this is race week. I’m just going to have to be very intentional about my eating. I’ll probably do interval training twice this week and try not to go over 4 miles on any day. I need to make a training schedule for sure.
I’m going to start eating better. This is not really because I’m on a diet. It’s because I’ve spent entirely too much unaccounted-for money on dining out. It’s easier to do, but it’s killing me. I went out to dinner tonight because I had already made plans to do so with friends. I’m going out to lunch tomorrow because I made plans. Well, I’d be going out to lunch tomorrow anyway because once the students come back full time, going out to lunch on a workday is not an option. People tell me all the time that teachers have it made because of summers off. I think I’d trade at least a month of it to be able to have more than a 25-minute lunch and to be able to leave my workplace to eat. Also, most people I know get to go to the bathroom whenever they want at work. Teachers… not so much. You may scoff and say that it has no comparison to getting the summers off. I say try it for two months and see how you like it. Sorry for that rant.
I didn’t run today. The 8 miler yesterday left me a little road weary. I tried to make up for it by having a protein shake for lunch and a very small (maybe 600 kcal) lunch. The problem came after lunch when I got a large orange creamslush from Sonic. I’m not going to lie; it was awesome. For dinner I had a salad with ranch dressing, a few rolls, and 2 bowls of soup. I finished the night with some sort of iced coffee. Tomorrow I’ll try to squeeze in five miles. I’ve got a route for it now, and I’m making plans to do nothing tomorrow evening. I’ll let you know how that goes. For now, it’s bed time.
Now it could just be that it was still about 93 degrees when I ran tonight. But when I finished my 8 miles, I thought, “There’s no way I could do 5 more right now.” Including some walking while rehydrating, and some walking when my calves started to cramp up, I still finished in just under an hour and a half. That’s not terrible for me. I still have a ways to go before I’m in good enough shape to do a half. I might not do a long run next week, though. If I’m guessing correctly, I’m going to hurt for a few days after this one. I can’t put my race in jeopardy next week by trying to push up the mileage.
I’m eating out a lot right now. Even though I’m back to work, we’re still getting to leave campus at mid-day because we don’t have kids. Today was not so good. I mean the food was good. I had chicken fajitas. The chicken and rice and beans won’t kill you. It’s the chips and salsa that get you every time. Breakfast smoothie this morning was good. I skipped dinner because I was still full. But before the run I took a Gu gel pack (100 kcals) and I had another Gu pack and a Vitamin water during the middle of the run. After the run I had two huge glasses of gatorade, and two protein smoothies. It might have been a lot of calories, but there’s no way I didn’t sweat out about 6 pounds during that run.
I’m a lot wearier these days do to going back to work, so the quantity and quality of the posts may decrease (if it’s even possible for the quality to get any worse). I apologize for that. Anyway, thanks for reading if you’re still out there.
Are you still out there?
So today I ate a donut for breakfast. It was our first day back to work after summer break. The principal said there would be “refreshments.” In my mind, I knew it would be donuts, but I thought that I should not eat at home in case it were nice meal he provided. I didn’t want to be rude and abstain. I was wrong. Since I had nothing else to eat, I ate the donut. Tomorrow I need to make a smoothie. The rest of the day I did OK. We ate Moe’s for lunch. I had a chicken taco, some chips and salsa, and some queso. I passed on dessert. It was tough. There was an uneaten chocolate chip cookie that was going to get thrown away. I hate food getting wasted, but I just couldn’t do it. I knew it was cost too much.
Tonight I got in a run after two days without one. It was another round of interval training. It was way easier than the first time I did it. It was still around 90-92 degrees even at 7:30 when I started. The sun wasn’t beating down on me, though. That made a huge difference. It actually felt good. I just hope I can meet my goal by the 14th. If I do, I’m celebrating with some Old Chicago Pizza and a beer. It’ll be well-deserved.
Tomorrow’s goal: 8 miles with a 10:30 mile pace. I’ll let you know how that goes.
Summary: ate decent today. Ran 3.6 in the heat. Walked some. Mel brought it at dinner. Awesome company. Great evening. The middle is the key.
The biggest news is that my race donations are almost at the $400 mark. That means I’m 25% to my goal. I still have a long way to get to $1600. Thank you to those of you who contributed. If you haven’t already donated, please consider helping me with this worthy cause.
On to the training.
So today was the roughest workout I’ve had so far. My coach had me do an interval set to improve speed. Here’s the routine:
5 minute warmup @ easy pace
4 minutes at tempo pace
1 minute at race pace
Repeat the last two steps 6 times. No rest between sets.
Wow. It was killer. I’ll be honest. I didn’t make it the entire time. I had to walk twice for a total of about 3 minutes maybe. Still, I was crazy fast. I ran the first .5 miles in about 6 minutes (wasn’t looking at the timer closely enough). I ran the next 3.4 miles in 30 minutes, including the 3 minutes of walking. And it was hot (about 90). My Nike + sportsband even clocked me going as fast as 6:42 mile pace for a bit there. It was ridiculous. Apparently I’m supposed to do this twice a week. Hopefully it will pay off.
In other fitness news, my coach is competing in an Ironman triathlon tomorrow. It’s huge. If you are unfamiliar with it, Google it and be blown away. Chris Bauman: you are a superhuman. I salute you!
Here’s the food breakdown for today.
I drank a little water before my run, but I didn’t eat. After the run I drank some Gatorade and had a banana protein smoothie. For lunch I had a cracked pepper turkey sandwich and some carrots. I snacked on frozen grapes later. I then blew it out for dinner. I went to a local steakhouse called Demos’s. They may not have the best tasting steak in town, but they certainly have the best value. You can get a 12 oz. top sirloin with a bowl of soup or salad and a side for $12.95. And though the steak isn’t the primo in town, it’s still really good. So I had all of that except for the side. I didn’t eat it to save room for dessert. It was something called “cherry delight”. It was as advertised.
Not having cokes is really hard for me. I easily get indigestion, and the one thing that helps me the most is drinking a carbonated beverage to sort of “aerate” the digestive tract. This is where I have to be honest. I told you all that I would give up cokes. Everyone seemed to say it was the healthy thing to do. And I did it. But about a week ago I caved. My stomach was all bloated and I was very uncomfortable. I needed a coke. I sent my coach a text asking if it were cheating if I had a cherry coke zero. Apparently it doesn’t have all the garbage in it that other cokes have (like calories and high-fructose corn syrup). He gave me the green light, and I took it. In my defense, I looked for a sparkling water, but gas stations in the south don’t sell that.
When I lived in Prague, I drank mineral water (with bubbles/gas all the time). It’s very common there, and the Czechs produce their own special brand from a region famous for its mineral water springs. It’s called Matoni. I miss it so much. After a few months there, I got to where I rarely drank still water. Even after I started running 3-4 miles a day, I would rehydrate with the stuff. You can get it here, but it’s either expensive or not very good.
I brought all of this up to say that I finished the evening with homemade Italian cream soda’s. They are easy to make. You mix club soda (sparkling water) and a flavoring (grenadine tonight) and milk. Voila! Tasty.
That’s all for now. Tomorrow is supposed to be a rest day, but i think I’m going to sneak in a run, maybe only a 2.5 miler.
Good news all around today. Let’s start from the beginning.
I woke up this morning and took care of some work for my summer practicum that is coming to a close. These professors are becoming difficult to get in touch with.
I followed that with a banana protein shake for breakfast. I can never get enough of those.
After chugging the shake, I went outside and mowed the lawn. When I came back in to shower I weighed in at 224 pounds. Good to see those numbers again.
I met a friend for lunch at the local Peruvian restaurant. A lot of my friends don’t like it, but that place has been hooking me up since I brought 30 parents and kids there for a field trip one evening. Today was no exception. We showed up around noon and placed our orders for the rotisserie chicken. I ordered sweet tea, which was a mistake as I was still dehydrated from mowing in the heat earlier. If I had one glass of tea, I had eight. For our entree, each of us ordered a half chicken. The birds still needed to cook for another half hour or so, so we snacked on the chips and salsa. Don’t worry; we didn’t even finish a basket between us. While we were waiting, our server came to our table with a huge plate of salad, Peruvian potatoes in cheese sauce, and a half fried chicken. He told us it was a special gift from the owner and that our rotisserie chicken would be coming later. We didn’t know what to do. We didn’t want to insult them, but we had a half chicken each that we were still waiting on to arrive. It turns out that it was a special dish they brought us that they serve on Peruvian independence day. That meant we couldn’t just leave it. So we ate most of the potatoes. Some of the white meat from the chicken and most of the salad. When the waiter came back to check on us, I tried to change my side of rice to fried plantains. We ended up getting a whole side order instead. They were awesome. We ate them all. Then our entrees arrived. That’s right, after all of that time we still got a half rotisserie chicken each along with a salad and rice. I could barely eat any. I mostly stuck to eating the white breast meat from the chicken. I took home a to-go box full of about 2 pounds of food, and that was just the rice and the 2 chicken legs.
I didn’t do much else exercise or food-wise until 7:15, but then it was on! I canceled running club earlier this week due to some major chafing. Fortunately, one of the members sent me a text yesterday about meeting this evening instead. What a great idea. I put on my Body Glide and band-aids and hit the road. Forty-six minutes later I had finished 5.05 miles. It was awesome. That’s probably the fastest time I’ve ever posted for that distance. Five nine-minute miles is great for me. We followed it up at Moe’s where I had two chicken tacos. I asked them to go easy on the cheese, and I stayed away from the beans, rice, and sour cream. The food was delicious.
I definitely need to take this time to point out that I love it when soda fountains have the “soda water” option under the Sprite. Half of the time when I drink I a soda, I don’t really want the actual soda; I just want the carbonation to aerate my stomach. That’s what I love about soda water. I get the refreshment of a soda without the calories and sugars.
The best news today, though, came on the fundraising front. I spent about two-three hours last night and today preparing a letter that went out to all of my Facebook friends asking for support for my Team Ask goal. Within three hours I already had met my minimum support requirement Team Ask. I fully expect to see more continue to pour in. I just might make my $1600 So please, keep those donations coming!!!
I had a much better day today. Looking back on yesterday, I can’t really believe that I was so stressed out, but I really was. I had none of that going on today.
There’s not much to report. I had another busy day trying to squeeze the last bit of free time out of summer vacation. If you’ve ever rolled up the bottom of the toothpaste tube, bent it in half, and squeezed the hell out of it just to get that last tiny dot of mint and bleach onto your toothbrush, then you know what I mean.
As far as exercising foes I ran 3 miles on the treadmill and did some rehab exercises for my arm. It’s really frustrating not being able to get in a real solid workout in the weightroom. But every time I try to lift the heavy weights I can feel my arm start to tighten up and hurt. Then comes the ridiculous. I also lazily pedaled the exercise bike for about 30 minutes. I burned about 120 calories, though. That’s why I did it.
I owed myself some extra calorie burning for eating a cocoa puffs cereal bar after dinner. I don’t regret it either. That thing was delicious. I had just finished eating a footlong roasted chicken breast sub at subway (whole grain wheat bread with mustard) and was totally craving chocolate of some kind. We stopped at the convenient store on the way where where I spent an easy 3-5 minutes looking through candy bars to see which one was going to cost me the least amount of time running to make up for excess calories. I worked most of them off on the exercise anyway. The rest I worked off on the treadmill. I really have gotten to where I don’t like that thing. Oh well, when winter hits, I’m going to have to get used to it. I hate running in the cold.
For lunch I had my leftover grilled chicken taco from dinner last night. It had no sour cream or cheese, and I only ate one. It did leave me hungry for the rest of the day (I only had a banana protein smoothie for breakfast), though, so I snacked on baby carrots and frozen grapes. I’m telling you: frozen grapes are awesome. Speaking of… does anyone know where I can buy seedless black grapes? I’m supposed to make fruit salad for dessert for Saturday night. It’s Noel’s recipe. It the best fruit salad on earth.
