Day 33

Today's a dreary Friday - the clouds are rolling in, the office is quiet, and in less than two hours I'll be working job number two for the rest of the night. :-( Not fun.

Andy headed out to play golf this morning, so for the first time in 33 days, I ran by myself. I thought since I was on my own I'd be much slower (no one to push my pace), and honestly I wasn't even intending to try to go fast.... but I did! My average pace was 9:35. The whole weight loss thing is clearly not going how I hoped it would, but at least I'm noticing concrete improvement in my runs. I'm very thankful for that.

When I would train for races in the past, I would always try to map a new route for every run. Lately I've been running the same route over and over, but I actually don't mind - it's kind of comforting in a way. In my running rut, I see this billboard every time... pretty fitting considering I'm training for the Marine Corp Marathon!

Marine billboard on my route

Time to sign off and get ready for job number two.

Total Miles Run: 85.11 - Sarah, I'm getting close to 100! Where are you??
Total Weight Change: -2.1

Day 32

Happy Birthday Bipul! Today was our good friend Bipul's birthday and we got to spend the evening celebrating with him. :-) For those of you that don't know Bipul, he is a doctor with a special place in his heart (har har) for cardiology. Hence... the birthday card I made for him!

Birthday greeting EKG style

And what better way to celebrate an aspiring cardiologist's birthday than by eating three rounds of dessert!

His cake cutting skills were surgical

And now a quick update on the training program - this morning was an easy 3 miler. Andy and I weren't anticipating going very fast as I am slightly sore all over from MXT and he is slightly more sore from a 4 hour kayaking trip he went on yesterday. Turns out we didn't end up going slow at all. I'm really amazed at how "fast" I am getting. At least for shorter distances. We were planning to do our 10 mile long run tomorrow morning, but there is a "severe thunderstorm warning" in effect, so we are going to swap it out for a 4 mile run (hopefully the weather won't be too bad) and wait to do our long run on Sunday. I know you can't predict the weather on race day so it is good to train in all conditions, but seriously... if there's lightening, I think I'll pass.

Total Miles Run: 81.02
Total Weight Change: -2.5

Day 31

So tired - will keep it short so I can go to bed. This morning Anna and I took a complimentary TRX training session. A blurb from their website....

TRX Suspension Training requires the use of the TRX® Suspension Trainer™, a highly portable performance training tool that leverages gravity and the user’s bodyweight to enable hundreds of exercises that can be instantly scaled for any user to reach any fitness or training goal.

I had tried TRX for about 2 seconds at a local gym the last time I was home for Christmas. It was really interesting so I was very excited to try it out for a 45 minute session. I absolutely loved it and would definitely like to make it part of my weekly routine (of course my wallet wouldn't appreciate that).

Having fun (with a really stupid look on my face) while doing TRX

Then it was time to go to work where I got to watch someone younger than me, with less education and work experience, get promoted - so now they make more than me. I have many hateful feelings for that place right now

After work it was time for our final kickball game of the summer season. :-( We lost - again - but it was still fun. I'm definitely glad I gave it a try, and I'm looking forward to the fall season that will be starting very soon!

Goodnight friends - tomorrow I'm supposed to run. meh....

Day 30

I made it to the end of Tuesday - my longest day of the week. Overall my mood today has been pretty down, so I will spare you the depression and stick to the happiest things of my day.

My 5 mile run this morning was awesome. For once it was actually chilly when Andy and I went outside. We started with a general idea of where we'd go, but had a great surprise mid-run to find that an old railroad bridge had been converted to a pedestrian bridge. This new 5-mile loop is now my absolute favorite of all the places we've been so far during this training. My time was great too. Every mile was under a 10:00 pace, and even more amazing... I got faster with each mile. My last mile was a 9:15 pace!! I felt like I was pushing myself, but I certainly didn't feel like I was dogging it. Today's run was one of those runs where you go... hey... I'm getting better. That was a good feeling for sure. Four weeks ago my first long run was 5 miles. This was a walk in the park compared to that one! Progress!

The other highlight of my day happened while working job number two - in walked a surprise visitor!

Patti came in with Alliya. I was so glad I finally got to meet her - she's pretty precious (and had on very cute ruffle pants). Patti looks amazing. She is always so positive and calm... I wish I could put her in my pocket and take her with me everywhere I go. Alliya is a lucky girl to have such a wonderful mommy! 

Total Miles Run: 77.96
Total Weight Change: -3.3

Day 29

Wow I'm behind the ball. Let me catch you up on Day 29 - Monday. I'll keep it short since I'll be posting about today (Tuesday) in a bit.

After an awesome weekend I went back to work. There is no one in the office this week. No one. It was incredibly boring - I wish I could have taken a nap (I stayed up too late watching the Olympics once again). After work I ran home to turn off the crockpot. I made a big batch of pulled chicken - like pulled pork, but with chicken breasts. I wish pulling out/cleaning/putting away the crock pot wasn't such a process because cooking meat this way is seriously going to be my new "thing."

Andy and I spent the evening at Anna and Bipul's new apartment for Jonathan, Min Na, and Yena's goodbye party... they move to China on Wednesday. :( It was nice to hang out one last time - we are definitely sad to see them leave.

Bye bye Min Na, Yena, and Jonathan!

To celebrate their second to last night in America, we ate American food favorites - like pizza and chocolate chip cookies - and played Dance Central.

Homies

Gangstas

We're blurry because we're bustin' a move

Besides a few Dance Central songs, I did not exercise today. I did well with food until the desserts came out at the party - I could not resist the PBJ bars. Even though I did well with food for the majority of my day, I got home feeling super upset and disappointed with myself and went to bed with a stomach ache feeling very beaten down.

Day 28

Super fun/relaxing Sunday. I slept in, then caught the end of the women's marathon on TV (why couldn't I have been from Kenya?). Once the race was over it was time for my own run. What better way to end week four of marathon training than with a running party!?! Sarah, Katie, and I headed out for a 3 miler - I've been so lucky to have such good running company while Andy's away. I actually realized I haven't done a single run of my training program alone - well, I might end up running by myself on some of them, but they've all at least started with a friendly face! I wish I could bring all of my running peeps to the marathon. :)  Thanks to everyone for their support - it will still be needed for 12 more weeks!

Running Party!

After our run, I stuck around for Sarah's zumba class. Sarah - I'm glad you are back! And equally mad that you are leaving again so soon. ;) Then I headed home for a quick shower because I had to work at a stupid summer festival for job number one (standing at a booth talking to people = boring). But wait...wait... wait.... THUNDERSTORM!!! The festival got canceled and I didn't have to go!!

With my new found freedom I threw on sweats, plopped on the couch, and was sucked into the "Toddlers and Tiaras" vortex. I. could. not. stop. watching. But I did manage to fold some laundry and even make some protein bread, so I wasn't entirely unproductive. Somehow I managed to pull myself away from the world of glitz and headed off for zumba part 2 of my day. There was a special class led by a ZES (zumba educational specialist). It was a lot of fun and I definitely got sweaty enough that shower part 2 was necessary. 

Before I sign off for the night, I feel like I should provide a quick overview of my feelings on my first quarter of training. I'm very proud of myself for running all of the training runs - I did skip one, but it was only one mile long... you are supposed to do it every four weeks just to find out how fast you can go and monitor improvements. But I seriously don't think that one mile is going to make or break my marathon experience - Andy and I both felt it was so inconsequential that we didn't even schedule it in our week. I'm definitely feeling comfortable on 3-4 mile runs now. The long runs have been challenging, although the short breaks help. I'm getting nervous that I will want to take too many breaks as the long runs get longer. As far as food goes, I started out great, and then took a terrible turn for the worse... but now I am back on track and feel like I am going about it in a smarter way. I might not lose weight as quickly, but that is ok. Thankfully at the end of 4 weeks, the number is moving back in the right direction!

With these 4 weeks over, it's about to get intense.... My first double digit run is less than a week away.

Total Miles Run: 72.9
Total Weight Change: -3.7 

Day 27

Today was a strange day in that, besides working job number two, I had NOTHING to do. But I did not waste the day! I got up early and met Anna at the club for a short elliptical workout and then some weights - gotta get those arms looking better for Nichi's wedding! After my front desk shift was over I caught the last half hour of the farmer's market. Man - you get some serious deals when they are ready to pack up and leave.

All of this for $8.25!

I spent the majority of the afternoon chopping and freezing - there's no way I can eat all of this before it goes bad...now I have a freezer full of fruits and veggies that are ready to go. While I was doing all of this, I lucked out and caught the Olympic Men's 10,000m race on TV. I don't know why I get so emotionally involved watching these things, but I was yelling at the screen (in a room by myself... it's sort of a sad image, really) trying to get Mo Farah to run faster. He must have heard me because he won. It was such a cool race. :)  I cannot comprehend how those people run so fast.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Go Mo

I guess the good thing about not being able to run super fast means I will never make a ridiculous face while running. At least not because of speed! Tomorrow morning the Women's Marathon is being televised. I am going to get up and start my day watching that, and then I'll head out for my own run. I'm guessing I'll feel pretty motivated after watching those ladies.