God. Awful.

Long was four again today, except I was supposed to do it at 3.5R intervals, but it did not go well. I believe I am getting a cold, my chest hurt really bad the whole time and even my beloved St. Elmos Fire could not get me to enjoy any part of this run. I just wanted it to be over. The last mile was just brutal. And I know it must be some kind of illness or something, because it was the same stupid route on the same stupid trail as last week, which went swimmingly.

Here's hoping this is the only "Spring" cold I get and that Winter ends soon, I can't take it any more!

FTL

Four for the long in what I fervently hope will be my race pace, 11:52/mile. I went on the trail near my house, which was nice... I haven't been on that trail since the snow started in earnest, it gives me hope that winter will end at some point.

Smacked Back To Reality

Back at high altitude, although still did pretty well. 3.5 miles at 12:13/mile.

I also won my challenge, no junk food for the duration of my trip, despite many temptations. The scale didn't reflect what I felt were my Herculean efforts, but it did show a small loss from where I was when I left, and that is really good considering that no matter that I didn't eat junk food, I was still traveling which just means eating out and more calories no matter what.

Challenge

So, I am travelling for work this week, and I decided to challenge myself. When I am travelling, I tend to think of it as a sort of food vacation.... I'm not home! I can eat whatever I want and it doesn't matter! The company is paying for everything, and they clearly WANT me to have the chocolate cake! Inevitably this leads to not only higher numbers on the scale when I get home, but more importantly it leads to me feeling like absolute shit both while I am travelling and for some time after I get home. Belly aches, headaches, general malaise.... which also leads to not wanting to exercise much, and while traveling it is all too easy to work for twelve hours and come up with any number of reasons(excuses) not to do it.

Anyway, so I set a challenge for myself. No "junk food" for the duration of my trip. I don't feel the need to parse this out too much and get bogged down in definitions. To me, junk food is just like that one supreme court guy described pornography... it might be hard to define in words, but I know it when I see it. I know what consitutes junk food and what consitutes dinner, and I am learning through this challenge that it is shockingly hard to fool myself in this matter.

So, ask for a challenge and the universe will supply in abundance! Every single place I go has junk food. Initially, it was junk food I could purchase... every airport store that sells bottled water also sells candy (I got a CLIF bar for my breakfast, and chose goldfish crackers with my sandwich, which I didn't even end up eating, the sandwich was enough). The hotel has a "sweet shop" where you can buy pints of ice cream and plenty of other sugar laden treats (I can't name them for certain, my eyes were too locked on the ice cream). This was day 1.

Once the universe sees that you are not to be tempted by junk food that you must spend money on, it will simply start throwing it at you. Day two brought cupcakes in the break room of the work place I am at. It also brought frosted pink sugar cookies in a heart shape at the place where I bought my lunch sandwich (a frosted sugar cookie is one of my greatest weaknesses, but maybe I shouldn't be putting that in writing, lest I start finding them everywhere I go). The day was capped off by coming back to my hotel room (what I had thought was a safe haven) to find that some kind staff person had left me a bag of Valentine's day treats right on my nightstand. Good god.

I resolutely put the treats away. I did check out the bag, but found that it was really and truly just crappy candy. Good to bring home to the kids (which is why I didn't just throw it out, although if my thoughts had continued to dwell on it any more than they did, I would have thrown it out), but not actually you know, GOOD. I was able to remind myself both that it was cruddy candy and that if I was going to eat that crap, I may as well have gotten the brownie sundae at the restaurant which is what I really wanted, I mean, if you are going to have a treat, have a TREAT, right?

So, I am now on day three. I'm kind of frightened about what the universe might try now that I have managed to not eat the candy left for me in my room. I'll bet you the next step is going to be really GOOD treats just thrown at me.... like frosted sugar cookies or really good chocolate truffles. I'll let you know.

I like the word "challenge". This isn't a diet, or even a stupid "lifestyle change" or anything like that. It is simply a challenge. Four days. No junk food. Can I do it?

Anyhoodle, so I did run yesterday. I marveled at how crazy one has to be for 31 degrees to feel like such a luxury that you cannot possibly not take advantage of it and thus you run outside in a strange city up and down a busy road in the fog. But so it was. I did 3.67 miles (I had meant to do three, but overshot the halfway mark while contemplating an electronic billboard I saw outside some bowling alley/party place that flashed a bible verse for a few seconds and then flashed "LASER TAG!!!!" for a few seconds, and while my contemplations did not result in any reasonable explanation, they did result in a longer run, so), total time was 46:05, 12:33/mile, which is pretty good considering how many times I had to stop for stoplights at intersections and that the whole first half was pretty much uphill.

Sunday Long

3.5 miles and the first "official" long of my training for the Colfax. It went well. I did 3R/1W intervals, and completed all of them. Time was 43:22, 12:24/mile, so not bad at all, considering how long it had been since I had run outside. I was very thankful that I could do so today, and wasn't about to skip it! I did four on the treadmill yesterday, and I must say how well today's run went makes me think that the inclines on the treadmill runs really and truly do matter, and my goal of making my treadmill runs "count" more is both worthwhile and already making a difference. I didn't even have much of a problem with nemesis hill today, and before doing 3R intervals had felt awful if I had gone more than a couple of days without running outside.

Anyways, so it was a perfectly good start, and I am glad that while I started out the week pretty crappy, I was able to end it well.

Conspiracy Theory

I feel like the universe is conspiring against me and my exercise goals this week. I have run a grant total of 4.5 miles (all on the treadmill) so far this week. Pathetic! Tuesday and Thursday were both semi-legitimate rest days, but yesterday I just ended up getting caught up in work and then we had to go to dinner and that was that. Thursday had to be a rest day because we had birthday festivities and a school function to attend, and husband was traveling again this week so Monday through Wednesday were difficult, even though short runs were managed. The entire week was made difficult by stupid work, where they actually expected me to, you know, WORK. What a bunch of assholes!

Anyways, so I woke up this morning thinking I would run outside while the boy was in his martial arts class, but alas, I woke up to a gray sky and more goddamn snow. More importantly, it is all of 10 degrees outside, and my thought had been that by the time the class started (9AM) it would be warm enough (over 25 degrees) to run outside, but that is just not going to happen, since I'm guessing that the sun won't even be out by then and my husband (the designated family weather checker, which explains why every time he travels I end up being caught off guard by crazy weather that I didn't prepare for) informed me that the HIGH for the day was only supposed to be 26 degrees. So.

Off I will go to the gym after taking care of the boy's martial arts lesson needs, to do more treadmill running. Perhaps I can crank out more than two miles this time. But frankly, given how the week has gone, I'm not holding my breath.

The good news is, next week I will be in Oklahoma, where the weather internets tell me it is going to be downright balmy with highs in the 50's and lows in the 40's. It might rain on Wednesday, but I will run in the goddamn rain if it is going to be that warm, no problem.

Of course, Oklahoma is also the home of the fried pies that I am so fond of, so here's hoping I can run enough miles to work off some of them!

Training not going well so far

I treadmilled it on Monday, it was miserable. Then this morning, I got up at 5AM in order to make it to my gym and treadmilled it again. But only for two miles and it was just miserable. It was pre-coffee and just early and awful. I had planned to do three miles, but quit after two, and I walked some of those two!

But it has been a tough week. It was 9 degrees outside, so running outside this week has just simply not been an option, it is genuinely too cold for me. I am training a new employee, so it has been really difficult to get it done at work (although on Monday I sent her home early so that I could get on the treadmill before going home), plus husband has been traveling for work, so I am the only one for all the home front chores and child care.

So, rather than beat myself up for crappy treadmill runs, I am going to pat myself on the back for getting them done at all.

Making Treadmill Runs Count

Treadmill running is part of my regular routine, whether I like it or not. More treadmill running in the dark and cold of winter to be sure, but it is still part of my routine even in good weather, because there are always going to be weekdays when I just cannot bring myself to get up early enough in the morning, so my bag gets packed to run at work. I always get a little angry at myself about this, when I am driving to work and see how great the weather is, but it doesn't stop it from happening at least once or twice a week.

So, during my elliptical half, one of the things I was thinking about was how to make my treadmill runs count more. My training for the Colfax Half starts tomorrow, and if I want to beat my Vegas time, it is going to require some hard work, and I think one of the key points is that those treadmill runs should be helping me GET somewhere with my running goals, they shouldn't just be "filler" runs, that I do because I need to get it done, they should be actively helping me run better or faster. At least, that was my thought.

This morning I was trying to think of a way to make that happen, and I thought it would be good to make a weekly "treadmill goal". So, whatever runs end up on the treadmill, I would have a certain minimal standard (of speed and/or incline and/or distance) for that run.

So, for this week, my treadmill goal is a speed of 12 minute mile and an incline of 1%, for every treadmill run. No "I don't really want to go at all today, so I'll go but I won't do an incline!" or "I'm just going to go really slow today, I'm just not feeling fast!"

We'll see how it goes.

Why God Why?

Just did my Epic Elliptical Half! Time was 2:05:33, 9:35/mile. Nice!!!

Why?

Because I can. Because someday when I am very old and can't do elliptical halfs anymore, I'll look back and say "man, what a pistol I was at 38!"

Criminy!

As my mom used to say, what does that even mean, "criminy"? Anyways, yesterday was a truly terrible food day. The worst food day I have had in I don't even remember how long. I have no idea even why it happened, it just did. It started with deciding that I really needed chick fil-a for breakfast and ended with zero time for cooking dinner due to husband being on business trip, and school meeting that had to be attended. But mostly it was just because I didn't care and made a fairy conscious decision to NOT be mindful today.

Anyways, and I didn't do any exercise at all, it was a rest day. So, just for fun I added up the calories on myfitnesspal, because I do remember everything I ate. And I was very honest, I even added in the sauce and the four french fries I ate with my dinner chicken sandwich. Total calories: 3,189.

Luckily, my Epic Elliptical Half is scheduled for this Sunday, so I should be able to mitigate some of the damage. But it just goes to show you... surgery or no surgery, stacking up those calories is as easy as anything.