15 Thing Friday

1.  I'm exhausted.

2.  I blew off both my tempo run and my TurboFire workout today and I ate terribly.  And I'm not beating myself up for it.  It happened, I get that it happened, now I'm moving on.  Tomorrow is a new day.

I can only evade her for so long.

3.  One of the things I ate today in rebellion against anything containing nutritional value was one of my favorite desserts of all time: the maple butter blondie from Applebee's.  Just from the title, it has three of my favorite things.  I like any dessert that was made with butter and then comes served with a butter sauce to pour on top.  It's like freaking crack.  It's evil.


4.  Speaking of stuff I ate (when am I not speaking of stuff I ate?!)... before I gave up on all nutritional value today, I did make apple, peanut butter, and raisin sandwiches.  This is easily my new favorite snack.  I am madly in love.

5.  I am also madly in love with this watch.  If anyone has a spare $125 lying around, please... let me know immediately so that I can have fabulous rose gold bling on me.  

Please help Jessica look more like a grownup.

6.  I would also really enjoy this watch and perhaps this one as well.  I might be on a watch kick.  I still might have a shopping problem.  I am considering trying to find a support group.

7.  Did I mention I am really exhausted and running completely on fumes?

8.  I really desperately want to see the Justin Bieber movie.  I still can't believe that I missed it while it was in theaters.  And yes, I swear I am 24 years old, and not 16.  Though sometimes I have trouble believing it myself.

9.  I applied for a few jobs at Nordstrom yesterday.  Somehow, the 5 hours I work for Weight Watchers every week isn't cutting it in terms of making money... so for some crackhead reason, I thought applying to work at a store where I want to spend my life savings would help.  Really?  I shouldn't be allowed to work retail ever again.  I worked for Victoria's Secret when I was 18 and I don't think I made a single cent.  I think I actually spent more than I earned.  Damn discount.  Victoria's real secret is that she likes to hire people for less than minimum wage who look like they'll spend too much money on her crap.  Rude.

Maybe next time I'll apply for this job with Victoria's Secret... HAHA!

10.  I had an amusing conversation with a coworker this morning about donuts.  She agreed with me that it's ridiculous when people say things like "Well, I used to eat donuts regularly, but I had one the other day after not having one in months... I didn't even finish it.  It didn't taste good to me anymore."  REALLY?!  Teach me your powers.  I used to be like an alcoholic when I first joined Weight Watchers - I could tell you down to the hour when my last donut had been.  And then I broke down and had a donut and you know what?  It was still amazing.  Unfair.

Hello.  I am evil incarnate.

11.  I turned down an offer for a pancake breakfast tomorrow.  I know.  I may check my temperature, as I am clearly ill.  I also left some food on my plate at dinner.  And somehow left one bite of that maple butter blondie.  But only because the person with me was looking at me with disgust.

12.  So far, out of 11 things, 4 of them are about food I ate, wished I ate, or turned down eating, and 3 of them are about shopping.  Do I have a life outside of eating and shopping?  I am beginning to worry.

13.  I'm really, really exhausted and not sure I can think of two more things. 



14.  I went to the brand new IKEA today.  See, Colorado isn't cool enough to have 8000 IKEAs everywhere, so we've been waiting patiently for our one store to open waaaaaaay far away from my humble abode.  It opened on Wednesday, and my parents and I thought it would be a fun adventure to go see it today.  It was not a fun adventure.  It was like Black Friday, but worse.  I bit off all my nails and twisted my ankle.  I don't do well under pressure.

15.  I want to paint my toenails bright neon pink.  

Triple Tangent Twednesday!

You thought I was kidding about actually calling it that, didn't you?  You misjudge how lame I really am.

1.  I've been missing my Disney days a lot lately, especially all the amazing people that I met on both of my programs... and today I was reminded of this lovely lady.

My awesome and insanely talented roommate Colleen from my second College Program.  This girl is hilarious, and on top of being gorgeous, has some serious pipes.  Gurl can siiiiing.


Two things actually reminded me of her today:  I went to Sweet Tomatoes for lunch (SO GOOD), which was one of our favorite places to go.  There was one just a few minutes from our apartment, and it made us feel healthy.  You know, because we had a nice big salad before we ate entire loaves of bread and pounds of frozen yogurt.  One time, we actually took Tupperware with us and took some bread and baked potatoes with us.  Hopefully no one from Sweet Tomatoes reads this and bans me.  I promise I won't do it again!  We were poor!  And hungry!

The second thing that reminded me of her was seeing a commercial (watching Frasier on the Hallmark channel because I'm 90 years old) that we both seriously love.  Because it's hysterical.  If you haven't seen this, you are in for a treat... at least if you're easily amused like me.




2.  If you've read this blog at all, you might be aware that I have a slight shopping problem.  Unfortunately, this problem is not reserved to clothes, running shoes, and expensive jewelry.  Like any good foodie, I am horribly addicted to Williams Sonoma.  I just got the newest catalog and looked through it 3 times before I could possibly put it down.  Somehow they constantly come up with some new tool or gadget that I didn't know I needed, but I desperately need.  Like Zoku quick pops.  SERIOUSLY.  Who doesn't need that?!  And don't even get me started on the fancy machine that cores, chops, slices, and probably sprinkles magical pixie dust on fruit.  The catalog had it pictured next to the greatest idea ever that I am planning on trying tomorrow, even if I don't have the fancy machine.

WHY HADN'T I THOUGHT OF THIS?!  Okay, so, this is a picture from Whole Foods... and the Williams Sonoma version had raisins instead of chocolate chips which sounds fabulous to me, but you get the idea.  


3.  I am big on skincare.  I force skincare on people.  I've got D-Money going into girly stores like Lush all by himself so he can pick up his fancy face wash.  And this is not the first time I have done this... I shoved eye cream onto my poor unsuspecting mother, I've given many a lecture to anyone who will listen about the importance of sunscreen, and I singlehandedly cured my first serious boyfriend of his acne problem.  Of course, this made him feel attractive enough to cheat on me, but that is an entirely different (and incredibly bitter) tangent.  

My drugs of choice include Aloe Calming Facial Cleanser from The Body Shop, Deep Cleansing Oil from DHC, and the amazing drugstore find, Apricot Scrub from St. Ives.  This is just the beginning of a long list of things I shove on my face.  And I do it all looking something like this.

David's excitement to have me move in with him just died.


Okay, that last one was possibly the most boring tangent... blame my brain, because when I thought to myself "hey, self, you're almost out of Deep Cleansing Oil," it immediately thought it would be brilliant to tell you all about my skincare obsession.  Because you don't think I'm crazy enough.

Nail down your food, friends...

Because if you don't, I WILL DEVOUR IT.

Why, yes... I am a little bit hungry today.  Why do you ask?


Today's run:
Half Marathon Training Week Five, Day One (30 minute short run)
2.75 miles/40:00

The theme of today's run was "back to basics" - I had one banana before the run, brought along some Tangy Orange Cytomax, laced up my broken down Asics Gel-Phoenix 3s, and ran my beloved trail.  And aside from a little bit of mud and a few minutes of hotter-than-I-like sunshine, it was honestly a great run.  Easily the best run I've had in a while... it was wonderful to get off that dumb treadmill and get back to actually running.  I also said "screw it" to keeping track of my pace.  I did try to keep it pretty easy since that's the point of having an "easy run," but parts of the trail are wonderfully downhill and I couldn't help but go for it!  My best pace for the run was 9:39 min/mile - not bad at all!  And the icing on the cake was how wonderful my iPod shuffle was to me.  Not only did it start me off with some seriously lame girl rock from Aly & AJ (love 'em or hate 'em, "Potential Breakup Song" is insanely catchy), but it also gave me the best song ever for my last two minute running interval.

"Sleigh Ride" by The Boston Pops.  And yes, I did feel super cool running up a hill in the sunshine bobbing my head along to it.  Anybody else have Christmas music on their iPod all year long?  And feel no shame in jamming out to it in July?  I love Christmas, so hearing Christmas music always lifts my spirits a little bit.  Unless it's "I Wonder As I Wander" - then I just cry.

Despite taking it easy, I'm hoping that I burned more than the 275 calories that the Garmin said I burned, because I've essentially eaten everything in sight today.  Isn't that delightful since I just posted about how I desperately need to get back on track?  Yeah.  I thought that was precious.  As my Jewish boyfriend would say... Oy.  So... tomorrow.  Tomorrow Jessica gets back on track.  I might force my poor unsuspecting mother to take my "before" pictures for TurboFire tonight (disregard that I technically restarted it on Monday) just so that I can have something to stare at when I want to bake cookies.  

Like these cookies.  Or these.  Um.  Yeah.

Something like that.


To be perfectly honest, though, I'm actually looking forward to getting back on track.  I had a great day on Saturday... I tracked everything I ate and drank, I hit all of the Weight Watchers "Good Health Guidelines," and I was even able to have a little bedtime snack without dipping too much into my weekly allowance.  I remember feeling so proud when I went to bed that night.  And though I know you don't lose lots of weight in one day, I felt lean.  You know those days?  You have a great workout, you eat well, and you just feel thin.  I need to remember that feeling tomorrow.  Wish me luck, kids.  If I go missing for a few days... I'm holed up with peanut butter cookies.  Someone find me.

I have no good title for this.

Yesterday's workout:
Fire 30
262 calories/30:54

Today's workout:
HIIT 15
135 calories/16:16


Do you ever feel like you're completely dogging your workouts?  That's how I felt with both of these.  Yes, I had the feeling of pride that comes when you've finished a tough workout... but the truth is, they didn't feel that tough.  I thought I was pushing as hard as I could, and I thought I was giving it my all, but my HR monitor told me something else.  Normally with TurboFire, and in the HIIT workouts especially, my HR will get up to about 175 or so as a maximum, and my average will be around 150 or 155.  For yesterday's workout, my max was 164 and my average was 143... today my max was 170 and my average was 145.  Of course, I want to say that it's because I'm getting fitter, but I think it might be that I was just phoning it in.  Kind of like how I was sad that I couldn't run tonight because of rain, so I made meatballs and a pasta bake with my mom, which I devoured along with about 50 pounds of French bread.

Obviously not my picture because it's still mostly intact.


Forgive the whining, but I just cannot figure out where the hell my motivation has gone.  I have plenty of reasons to stick to my eating and exercise plan.  Like... I see David again in 3 weeks and I wanted to be back in my skinny jeans by then (stop laughing).  Like... I am tired of not liking what I see in the mirror and being back at a point where I feel like I'm at war with my body.  And, oh yeah... I'm still over my goal weight with Weight Watchers, meaning that if I don't lose a few pounds in a couple weeks, my job is actually in jeopardy.  They can take my Friday morning meeting away from me.  And let's not forget that I'm over the goal weight that I reset so that I could buy myself some time to get back to my real goal weight that I set last August... which was still 7 pounds higher than the weight I actually wanted to be!

Thus, the question remains... WHY AM I NOT DOING IT?!!!  And I really don't know.  I think mostly the problem is that I am, at heart, a whiny child who always has to have everything her way.  So even though my adult mind knows that in the great scheme of things, I want to fit in my skinny jeans and love my body and know that my job is safe much more than I want cookies... the whiny child throws a fit about how much she wants cookies.  And then I just feel unhappy and deprived and sad.  Which is dumb.  I live a good life and have eaten many a cookie in my day... and all I ever say about Weight Watchers is that you can eat whatever you want as long as you plan for it.  I'm just not planning for it.  I can whine all I want to about how it isn't working, but it isn't working because I'm not doing it.

Whew.  Okay.  That was some serious whining.  If you've made it this far, congratulations... you must be a marathoner because you have the patience to endure this crap.  But you shall be rewarded.  See, when I went to Nordstrom for the anniversary sale and dropped serious money on things I don't need, I also decided that I should buy a pair of Nike Tempos so that I could fit in with the cool kids.  If you're shaking your head right now and saying "she's an idiot" - you are correct.  I tried them on and did a little running in place in the dressing room and thought they fit pretty well.  I was encouraged by Cely's take on them - "I like them because they are long enough to cover the parts of my thighs that touch so I don't make sparks and burn down a forest."  I too have thighs that long to create fire, so I thought maybe I'd be okay.  But I was still a little worried about running in them (read: wearing them in public) so I decided that I'd take them out for a little TurboFire action today.  All I can say is THANK YOU GOD that I decided to wear these for the shortest workout possible.

I made a photographic display of my complaint with the Nike Tempo shorts - I know you're excited.  The thing is, it's true that they are a little longer than a lot of running shorts I've tried on...

Ahem.

But only to a point.  See, kids... if you really have thunder thighs like I do, then you know about how they tend to eat shorts.  And I don't mean that in a funny way.  I mean that in a way that makes you never want to wear shorts in public (which is perhaps why I never wear shorts in public).  Notice Exhibit A.

If you ignore my pouty "WTF am I wearing shorts?!" face for a moment, you'll see that the scary parts of my thighs that act like teenagers in love and can't stop touching each other are, in fact, covered by the shorts.  But then I walked around for, oh... 5 seconds, and staring at me in the mirror was Exhibit B.


The face says it all.  Seriously?  SERIOUSLY?!!  I just lost two inches of coverage.  And let's not even discuss doing squats in these babies.  It was indecent exposure all over the place.  I think my DVD player was blushing by the end.


So maybe I'm still not a running-in-shorts kind of girl.  Maybe if I actually ate healthfully and really pushed my workouts again (and oh yeah, went on a run before the rain), I could run in shorts.  Perhaps that will be my new motivation.  My skinny jeans and keeping my job clearly aren't cutting it anymore... maybe I just need to think about how I want to look like all the Turbo girls in their booty shorts.

Rude.


Meanwhile, I'm exhausted.  So Triple Tangent Tuesday will take place tomorrow... Triple Tangent Tomorrow?  Triple Tangent Twednesday?  It's happening.

Too many miles.

Today's run:
Half Marathon Training Week Four, Day Three (HATEFUL TREADMILL)
5.6 miles/1:16:32


Look who got in the shower today!  Hold the applause, please.


Bonnie had the grace to let me sleep in today... until 6:45 am.  Then the ever-present "squeak, squeak" of her little corn toy made its presence known.  It is cute, really, but I have to say it would be cuter a few hours later.  Regardless, we had a rather tough morning together - she decided it would be way more fun to poop on the floor instead of outside, and it would be SUPER DUPER FUN to wrangle herself away from me at the beginning of our walk and race down the street when a car was coming.  That was a delightful start to the day.  If she wasn't so stinking cute, she'd be in serious doo-doo... maybe the same doo-doo I cleaned off the tile.

Lucky for her, she is still absurdly cute.


After that super adventure, I met my friend Ross for lunch.  Ross is an old friend... we've known each other since high school and yet, still don't hate each other.  This is a rarity, kids.  Unfortunately, Ross has the metabolism of a... well... a guy that's in shape.  Rude.  So he eats things and I get jealous and tell myself that I can eat them too.  This is how I ended up eating a lunch that was 53 PointsPlus values.  Since I get 29 PPV a day, that was perhaps not my greatest choice.  But 30 of those PPV were for possibly the greatest thing ever: a Black Forest milkshake.  Worth it.

Buuuuuut... when I got home and realized how many PPV I'd used on a single meal, I realized I couldn't keep putting off today's run.  So I sucked it up, got off the couch, and drove to the rec center to meet my dear friend, the treadmill (also known as Satan).  And like most of my runs, parts of it were great and felt wonderful, and parts of it felt like my legs were made of lead and I was going to die on that treadmill.  Because let's face it, kids, I don't care how much you love running... over an hour on the treadmill is too long.  I will be very excited to have people in my house again so that Bonnie has someone else to squeak at in the morning when I'm running on the trail.  And I'll be even more excited when it's September and I can run at a reasonable hour because it's not a million degrees outside!

The shins weren't completely thrilled with the run, especially because I'm still struggling to find the right shoe.  I bought five different pairs of shoes from the Road Runner sale, and right now, I think I'm only keeping one pair... the Asics Gel-DS Trainer 16s.  Which are performance shoes.  They are pretty great on tempo runs, but I tried them out today and it was just too long.  I need more cushion for long runs.  Unfortunately, I'm having trouble finding what I need.  So I think a trip to the Boulder Running Company (fabulous local running store) is in order, where I will torture the poor salesperson by hogging the treadmill and trying on every pair of cushiony stability shoes they have.  In the meantime, there will be a whole lot of this happening.

Please keep all discussion of my paleness to a minimum.

And yes, I did put this through Instagram solely to make my legs look less ghostly.  Can you blame me?


There will also be lots of Advil, but I didn't really feel a need to take a picture of me popping pills.  Why I felt the need to take pictures of huge ice packs on my shins, I will never know.

But here's some nice evening walk pictures to balance it all out.  An hour of walking around and sniffing stuff and Bonnie still has energy.  I wish I could bottle that.  And hoard it.




Reddi-wip is the new power snack.

Today's workouts:
Fire 45 EZ (almost didn't do it, SO GLAD I DID)
390 calories/44:35


Today was kind of a blah day.  Bonster Monster woke me up at about 5:45 am, which meant not enough sleep and grumpy grumpy Jessica.  Now, to be fair, it was the cutest wake-up call I've ever had... no whining, no barking, she just chewed on one of her toys (a crochet corn toy to be exact).  So all I heard were a few faint "squeaks."  I thought about rolling over and ignoring it, but I knew she needed to use her facilities, so out we went.  We walked for a little over 2 miles, and then came home.  And stayed home.  Except for a morning walk and an evening walk with Bon Bon, I haven't left my house all day.  I'm the coolest, I know.  Want to know something really lovely?  When I took her out for her after-dinner walk, I was strolling along and something occurred to me... I hadn't washed my face.  And come to think of it... I might not have brushed my teeth.  Quick, let's take a poll - who here remembers the last time they washed their hair?

Shocker... my hand is not raised.  BUT I know that I rinsed my hair and slathered it in conditioner on Friday to go to work so that it smelled nice and people would just think "Oh, she didn't have time to dry her hair."  That's something, right?  Right?


Okay, I swear I don't tell you these things just to make myself sound disgusting, though I'm sure I do a darn fine job of that.  The truth is, part of the reason I fell off the face of the blogging world is because I've been in a funk lately.  Now, yes, it is normal behavior for me to not wash my hair very often.  But I swear brushing my teeth comes standard.  It's been a really rough couple of weeks for me personally - work got very stressful and overwhelming, I've been feeling like I don't really have much of a social life (or friends, for that matter), and I was struggling to get the energy and motivation to work out, which is such a vicious cycle for me.  If I don't have motivation, I won't work out, but the best way for me to stay motivated is to keep working out.  Oh, and did I mention that I took a nasty fall on some stairs on Wednesday, gouged my shin, and had my first x-ray on Thursday morning because I thought I might have broken a bone?  That was fun.  I didn't break a bone, thank goodness, but I've got a lovely bruise going on.  I'll spare you a picture of a blue circle on my pale leg though.  You're welcome.

Whew.  So at the risk of sounding like pity, party of one... I've been pretty sad for a few days.  Not locked in my bedroom crying sad, I promise.  Though I did catch the last 10 minutes of a Hallmark movie about a man overcoming his Tourette's to become an award winning teacher and bawled like a baby.  Just kind of "I don't feel like getting ready because I'm not doing anything anyway" sad.  Pity, party of one sad.  Which is why things like this happened, regardless of the fact that I pretty much make minimum wage and only work for 8 hours a week.  And the macaroni salad... oh God, the macaroni salad.  And you can judge from the title of this post how much willpower I have had lately around whipped cream.

But I don't want to be the Debbie Downer, so I'm working on it.  It's funny... yesterday, in my 15 Thing Friday post, I wrote about the episode of The Golden Girls that I was watching and how silly it was to believe that positive thinking made positive things happen.  And here I am today, vowing to be more positive and to express more gratitude.  So instead of 15 Thing Saturday... I'm going to have a little gratitude this Saturday.  Here are a few things I am grateful for today:

1.  Weight Watchers, for helping me lose weight in the first place, and for always being a plan I can return to when I'm feeling lost or out of control with food.

2.  Hallmark channel, for giving me movies that make me cry, but somehow make me happy at the same time.

3.  The iPhone and Instagram for being the coolest things EVER.

4.  My mom, who is always supportive of me.

5.  David, who is always incredibly tolerant, even when I'm being difficult.

6.  Bonnie, who does adorable things like this that make my day.



7.  Long, slow walks in the evening with a very cute puppy that give me a chance to feel the breeze on my skin, to see the sun setting, and, if I'm lucky, to catch little moments of beauty like this.



15 Thing Friday

I keep missing Triple Tangent Tuesday, and I needed a new fix.  So now I'm stealing ideas from different people... thank you, Cely, for giving me another random thing to do because I have a feeling that reading about my pacing and constant dissatisfaction with running shoes gets a little old.  I think this will be a lot like Triple Tangent Tuesday (read: all about me), but less long-winded and possibly with more obnoxious pictures.


1.  I am having cravings like crazy lately.  First it was for bubble tea... more specifically, a chocolate almond snow with extra boba from Lollicup.  Today, it was macaroni salad.  Seriously.  I don't even like macaroni salad that much, but I was headed home from work and it was suddenly all I wanted in the world.  Obviously instead of being a grown up and just going home, I bought a massive tub of it and I swear I ate half.  I was sweating mayonnaise on my run.

Evil.


2.  As much as I whine and call her a monster, Bonnie is seriously adorable.  And has incredibly sad eyes, which makes it really hard to not give her everything she wants all the time.





3.  Seriously.  Instagram.  Go.  Now.

4.  The Nordstrom Anniversary Sale has done a number on my bank account this year.  I may have splurged a bit.  My mom peer pressured me into buying these gorgeous babies because I've pretty much been whining about how much I want Frye boots since I learned what Frye boots were.  And then I may have had to buy this.  Which is pretty much a whole week of work for me.  Oy.  I'm seeing it as an investment and planning on wearing it every day for the rest of my life.

5.  Sometimes I look at this blog and fantasize.  It's like food porn.  I'm an addict, I know.  I didn't get to Weight Watchers eating carrots, kids.

6.  If I see this commercial again, I'm going to stab someone.  It's annoying AND it makes me want a damn Blizzard.  Rude.



7.  I bought my first pair of Nike Tempo shorts last week.  I'm still scared to wear them.  I'm convinced that if I run in shorts, sparks will fly from my thighs rubbing together.  I still have daydreams about the day that my legs don't touch and actually look like girl legs in skirts.  As opposed to making people wonder when I had my gender reassignment surgery.

8.  I am starting to think I'm the only person who hasn't seen the new Harry Potter movie.  I also didn't see the first part.  I saw every other movie, but I don't know... I feel kind of burnt out on it.  I should give the books another try, but I'm so exhausted all the time these days that I think I'd just end up drooling on the poor book.

9.  I'm currently watching The Golden Girls and wondering if I've seen every single episode.  I'm going to go with yes.  I have every season on DVD.  When I moved into my bigger apartment all by my lonesome my junior year of college, I would put it on and watch it in bed at night.  They always made me feel less lonely.

10.  This video still gets me every time.

11.  Similarly (kind of), the ASPCA commercial with Sarah McLachlan also gets me every time.  I pretty much start bawling the minute I hear that In The Arms of the Angels song.  Last time I saw it, I ran to Bonnie and cried into her fur and told her how much I loved her.  It would be precious if it didn't happen EVERY DAMN TIME.  I'm a sucker.

12.  I love Bonnie, and I love dogs, but I miss cats.  Specifically, I'm madly in love with my friend Dan's cat Casper.  We used to have very nice conversations about his big days.  He's a beautiful baby.


13.  Right now my computer is dying and I'm wondering if I can think of 2 more random things to say before it dies.  It has 10 minutes left.  This could end badly.

14.  In case you hadn't noticed, I have a serious shopping problem.  One of my drugs of choice is Etsy.  Now if only I could force everyone in my life to buy everything I want from all the stores I want... life would be delightful.  COUGH wishlist wishlist wishlist COUGH.

15.  The episode of The Golden Girls that is on right now is all about being positive and how it will help your life become more positive.  I find this hilarious.  I have tried this method and it usually ends up being laughable.  I try to be positive (stop laughing) and normally, it ends up worse than when I'm being bitter.  But then... I'm writing this as I'm feeling a little bitter, so... maybe not.


Whew.  Fifteen is a lot of things.  Now I'm going to work on trying to make chocolate chip cookies magically appear.  Wish me luck.

And the award for worst blogger ever goes to...

Um.  Yeah.  It's been a tough week.


Today's run:
Half Marathon Training Week Four, Day Two (on hateful treadmill/not with my beloved Garmin)
2.92 miles/40:00

I'm home alone with the Bonster Monster all weekend because my parents are visiting my sister... so my routine is a bit off.  I got up early to go for my run this morning (read: alarm went off at 5:30, I groaned, and hit the snooze button at least twice) but Bonnie had other plans.  So instead I went on a nice long walk with her, complete with sprinting.  I love Bonnie, but I question her ability to become a running partner... she likes to do 4 minute miles.  Then it was off to work.  So the run got pushed back to this afternoon.  It wasn't too bad... I do really hate treadmills, and it felt awfully hard.  This was partially because the rec center wanted their air conditioning set at a reasonable, normal level... and I thought it should be set to about 45 degrees.  I wanted to be seeing my breath.  

That being said, I was able to keep a pretty good pace - I tried to keep my running intervals at 5.3 MPH, and at the end, pushed it to 5.6.  I was sweating EVERYWHERE.  All the normal people kept looking at me like a freak.  And then I believe they looked at the speed on the treadmill and went, "Really?"  Especially because the treadmills at the rec center are RUDE, and have these handy "quick" buttons with different speeds.  One for "Walk" at 2 MPH, one for "Jog" at 4 MPH, and one for "Run" at 6 MPH.  So I'm not even running?  Thanks, machine.  You're an ass.

Post-run, I went for a great recovery plan: getting back in my car after no stretching, going to the bank, getting Starbucks, and playing fetch with a crazed puppy.  I can tell you right now, as I feel my legs seize up under me, that this is a great plan.  Highly recommended.  Actually... I do recommend the Starbucks.  I needed that tea to stop sweating like a banshee.

Also, it's interesting being alone with Bonnie - I think the universe is essentially screaming "YOU'RE NOT READY TO HAVE KIDS" at me.  Not that I thought I was ready, but good Lord, if I struggle this much with having a puppy depend on me, let's not add an infant to the list.  I don't mind being her source of food and care, but being the one and only source of activity and entertainment is tough.  We went on a long walk this morning and another long walk tonight, and I am wiped out.  But we were going slow enough for me to snap some pictures, so I shall leave you tonight with an ode to my new favorite app... love you, Instagram.




I don't think I like long runs...

Please note that the title of this blog sounds really uninteresting... UNLESS you say it like "I don't think I like waffles..."

But I do like waffles.  Hence why I have to run for hours on end.


Today's run:
Half Marathon Training Week Three, Day Three (5 mile long run)
5.59 miles/1:22:04

Oy.  My friends.  I am not sure why I thought running 5 miles would be such a breeze, since half the time I run 2.5 or 3 miles, I am wheezing and considering crying by the end.  But when the alarm went off at 6 am, I thought it would be completely fine to hit the snooze button twice.  Maybe three times.  I don't remember because I was in the fetal position, spooning David's body pillow and pretending that it wasn't getting hotter than hell outside.


I finally got out the door around 7, and while it was pretty cool and delightful for a little while, it did start to heat up pretty quickly.  That, combined with the fact that I was doubling the amount of running that I'm used to, and that I decided it would be genius to try a brand spankin' new pair of shoes out on my longest run ever, made it a slightly shaky run.  The shoes were Asics GT-2160, which I've read awesome things about, but they are just not my shoes.  They were incredibly stiff, and I had shin splints from the very beginning.  By the end, it was a little better, but my hips and calves were so sore because the shoes just felt heavy... my poor legs were working extra hard.  Back to Road Runner Sports for you, Asics.
Forgive me.  You're just not my type.


All that being said, I'm damn proud of that run.  Just for fun, I looked back at my dailymile profile (which someday I might actually update again) to see how long ago it was that I did a 5 mile run, and unless I didn't add it to my profile, I think today was my first 5 mile run of all time.  Or at least the first 5 mile run that I haven't blocked out of my memory because of the pain it caused me.  

So did I learn my lesson about hitting the snooze button in July?  Yes.  Should I use a long run to try out new shoes again?  Probably not.  But did I know it was worth it the minute I sat my sweaty self down on the floor to stretch out my angry legs?  Oh hell yeah.

And it's been worth it all day, even if my hips and gluteus are screaming at me because they didn't want to be up and moving for an hour and a half this morning.  And no, I promise I won't take a picture of my rear and add a speech bubble to it whining about running.  Though it's tempting because I've been catching up on the antics of this chocoholic and loving her captions.  But I won't make you look at my behind - my gift to you. 

Okay, it's not my gift to David.  But he has his birthday present to look forward to, so... he'll be okay.

Exhausted.

This shall be a quick, boring post.  I am lame, and am completely drained at 9:30 pm.  I'm not sure I even have the energy to brush my teeth before I pass out.  Delicious.
Delicious like this?  Um, no... 


Delicious like this.


Yesterday's run:
Half Marathon Training Week Three, Day Two (30 minute tempo run)
3.18 miles/40:00

For my first official "tempo" run, this went pretty darn well!  After sleeping too late on Thursday and realizing how absurdly hot it got right away, I got up extra early for this one - my alarm went off at 6 am.  I remember that I was dreaming about trying to get several slices of pizza in a Chinese takeout box... who knows what goes on in my brain?!

I somehow dragged my pizza-less self out of bed and got going, and I was immediately grateful that I'd gotten up so early because it was actually cool outside!  I didn't feel like I was running through the depths of hell!  That was a nice change, and I have a feeling it helped me keep up a faster pace throughout the run.  I was really pleased with my pace on this run... I wanted to stay between a 10:00 and 11:00 mile for much of the run, and I was actually able to maintain a 9:00 mile for a while!  I kept telling myself that since I went on an easy run on Tuesday, I needed to give myself a hard run.  And it was hard.  I was running my neighborhood again (thanks, rain, for making the trail inaccessible) so there were lots of hills.  In fact, I actually decided partway through the run that I would end early (run for 28 minutes instead of 30) and just walk up the hill I really hate as a cooldown.  But when I started walking up the hill, I thought to myself, "You have 2 minutes left to run and then you can walk for 5 minutes and go inside and stretch.  Do you really want to walk all the way up this hill or do you want to run and make it go faster?"  And I am proud to report that I ran those last 2 minutes, uphill, and still kept my faster pace.  But I can't keep bragging... the whole internet isn't big enough for my head.

I also took a new pair of shoes out for a spin on this run.  Actually, I took a different new pair of shoes out on Tuesday as well... see, when I got a blister doing the Liberty Run 4 Miler in my Asics Gel-Phoenix, I took this as a sign from the universe that I needed to take advantage of the 4th of July sale at Road Runner Sports and buy new shoes.  Four pairs of new shoes, to be exact.  On Tuesday, I tried out the Brooks Ravenna 2 - they felt more lightweight than my Gel-Phoenix, which I loved, but they ate my sock!  No kidding, 2 minutes into my walking, the heel of my right sock had slipped completely into the shoe and under my foot.  I tried to fix it, but it wouldn't take, so I spent most of the run with the shoe rubbing against my heel and Achilles.  It wasn't awful, but it's a problem I need to figure out.  Obviously the solution is to buy awesome knee high socks and rock those on my runs.  

Friday's new shoes were the Asics Gel-DS Trainer 16.  Please take a moment to admire how subtle these babies are.  Especially with my massive feet - I was wearing clown shoes.



What I loved about these is that they were super lightweight - they are described on Road Runner as "performance stability" so I'm assuming they are as close as I can get to racing flats and keep some stability happening.  I'm not sure if they helped me go faster or if I was just going faster, but I'm betting they didn't hurt anything.  That being said, I did get a little bit of shin splinting going on, and I was frustrated by the fit.  Everything recommended going a half size up in these, so I got a 9.5 (I have a 9 in the Gel-Phoenix).  I thought this would be great because sometimes I worry that the 9s are too small... but the 9.5s in these were definitely too big, my heel was slipping as I went uphill.  Not to mention the clown factor.  So while I loved Asics, it might just be that I need a 9.25.  Special order perhaps?

Okay.  I failed at making this short, but I think I did a pretty good job at the boring.  Now it's time to brush my teeth (maybe) and pass out.  I'll be back tomorrow with a report on my long run - 5 miles!  Wish me luck!

Triple Tangent Thursday! Better late than never, right?

TRIPLE TANGENT THURSDAY!

1.  I really like dipping stuff in milk.  Really.  I already love milk (especially when you put it on ice and throw some booze in it) but it gets even better when things are dipped into it.  And I don't just mean cookies like a normal person.  Donuts are delightful dipped in milk.  I even like milk toast - I had a choir teacher who used to describe boring, blah, and gross things as milk toast, and it always made me feel bad since I loved it.  My real favorite, though, is to tear peanut butter and jelly sandwiches into strips and dip that into milk - if peanut butter didn't like to make my hips grow 5" every time I looked at it, I would eat that everyday for the rest of my life.  Right after I hit "Publish Post" on this beast, I'll be making some milk magic with graham crackers...

No idea how I make my eyes do that.  But how good does that s'more look?!!  I'm jealous of the box.


2.  On my second stint in Disney World, because of my awesome roommate Colleen, I got the opportunity to go on a tour of the Cinderella Castle Suite.  For those of you not obsessed with Disney, here's a short little backstory from the Wikipedia article: "Inside the upper levels of Cinderella Castle, there is a suite that was intended to be an apartment for Walt Disney and his family when they were in Florida. After Walt died in 1966, the apartment was left unfinished... On June 7, 2006, it was announced by Disney that the suite would be completely decorated and upholstered as a 'royal bedchamber', which can sleep up to six people."  During the Year of a Million Dreams (which went on for two years, but who's counting) they would give away a stay in the suite every night to a lucky family.  Anyway, it's not normally just shown off to people, so it was, forgive the corniness, very magical.  We got there before the park opened and got pixie dust and jewels from the Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique.  It was like being five years old again.  It was a serious dream come true, and the best part was that they let me take a billion and a half pictures!

In the exclusive elevator... the walls are padded.  And gilded.  Please let me live here, Disney.

Hanging out in the shower.

Doing the princess pose!  Both beds have a big "C" over them, which the tour guide carefully pointed out can stand for either "Cinderella" or "Charming."  Love it!



3.  Having friends in high places in Disney has worked out for me a few times actually... the Cinderella Suite tour was one, and my connection to the Tower of Terror in Hollywood Studios was another.  My friend Chris, who is easily one of the most entertaining and hilarious guys I've ever met, works there and patiently let me take a million pictures of the lobby... past the ropes where the guests aren't allowed to go.  HA!  This is not exciting to normal people, but I am not normal, so I was profoundly excited. 







Funny enough, I met Chris because he came on my boat at the Jungle Cruise.  I learned later that he was essentially dragged on it because he hates the Jungle Cruise, but our mutual friend Matt made him go, and despite hating the ride, he loved me.  So now we're pretty much besties.


Even if he makes that face.