Every Thursday in our cafeteria at work they serve several things, but amongst those things is guaranteed to be Buffalo chicken fingers and fries. I like to call it “Buffalo Thursday”. This day makes me sad, because it smells glorious, but with me dieting I seldom indulge (usually we have cheats on the weekend).
It makes me jealous when I read all sorts of running blogs that are 90% super fit, hard-core marathoning speed racers. They seem to eat whatever they want whenever they want. I know I’m physically in a much better position than I was 54 pounds ago, but I feel like it’s taking forever and some days are just harder than others, like Buffalo Thursday.
Switching gears, I had an awesome run tonight. Mostly. About 75% awesome, 25% tough. The weather was perfection. Thick cloud cover to keep the setting sun out of my eyes and a super nice cool breeze and equally cool temps to match. My perfect running weather. Tonight was two miles on my schedule and I surprisingly went even faster than my two mile run last week. So much so, in fact, that I was able to maintain an average pace UNDER 11 minutes for the whole two miles!! Not sure if it was a fluke or if I’m actually seeing some progress.
The tough part of the run was a side stitch that started about 1 mile in and lasted the rest of the run. I tried adjusting my breathing but didn’t want to slow down. I couldn’t fix it so I just pushed through it by telling myself it was just a nice short run. Just a nice short run.
I’m actually starting to be able to think of myself as a “real” runner.
I like to try and do some thinking while I’m running, but most of the time I’m concentrating on not dying. Generally when I run, some, if not all, of my route takes me onto the local bike path. It got me to thinking about how anxious I get around other people.
I read all sorts of things about running all the time, constantly trying to improve my training or to prevent re-injuring myself. I’ve read a lot of stuff about proper posture and breathing and how it’s best to hold your head up with your gaze looking ahead. I have a hard time with this because I have trouble making eye contact with people I don’t know. I look down when a car is approaching me. I look down until the last minute if a biker/runner/dog walker is approaching and then I’ll look up and attempt a “hi” so as not to be rude.
The first 5K race I did by myself (which was technically my second race, first running) was terrifying. I’m not gonna lie when I say that I got slightly teary-eyed after I left Tara on the sidewalk to go line up for the start. I was scared being by myself surrounded by strangers. Not only that, strangers that were WAY better runners than I was. I felt like I didn’t fit in. I didn’t know what I was doing, how it would go, how to move with the crowd as we started out.
As time has gone on, and I’ve now done many more races, it’s gotten a little more comfortable but I still have anxiety before every race. It was really tough doing two obstacles races (mostly) by myself. The first one I did, I ended up chatting with two women before the race and they were nice enough to let me run with them and they helped me at a couple of obstacles.
The second one I was completely solo. It was a nice team atmosphere, but I didn’t have anyone I knew to help me. There were 2 walls at that race that were VERY difficult to climb because there was nowhere to put your feet (and my upper body strength is lacking). On the first wall, a couple of girls cheered me on and helped me with my feet. The second wall was higher, but I couldn’t do it and no one helped me this time. I skipped the obstacle and teared up a little bit. Mostly out of anger/frustration (yes, I cry when I’m mad. I know it’s stupid). These walls were early on in the race so I just skipped it, sucked it up and kept on going because I was too anxious to ask anyone to actually help me.
I feel like the social aspect of my racing has gotten better. I’m also hoping it will continue to do so. Running has not only given me back a life in terms of my health, but is making me branch outside my comfort zone mentally. It’s scary, but hopeful.
Boy, the humidity felt much worse than my weather app shows! I was sucking wind in a major way tonight. I have to say, I’m really not psyched with this whole sore knee around mile 1 thing that’s started in the last couple of weeks. It usually passes within a day to day and a half at most but still annoying. And don’t even talk to me about the hip injury from last year. That’s a pretty much daily pain. Very frustrating.
The best positive of the day was my run (as difficult as it was). After an awful day at work (like awful with a capital A), it felt really good to get out and just do my thang. OK, I promise never to say “thang” again.
The best thing of the last few days that I must share is we started using Facetime to talk to Julie and Dan. The four of us always email daily, but now we can haunt each other in real time! HAHAHA! We totally love it and are going to completely abuse it.
Today, I couldn’t have had any less motivation to work out in any way. Typically, following my program I’m using, should be stretch and strength (arms). I do 1/2 hour yoga and then my arm workout. All afternoon at work I’ve been dreading doing anything when I got home. I felt like The Blerch was following me. Click on the link for a hilarious read and to find out what The Blerch is.
I sucked it up and decided I would just do it. Well, at least half of it. I skipped doing the yoga and just did my strength workout. I find it so much easier to go out for a run, even when feeling unmotivated, than I do on my non-running days. I don’t know why, I guess I just hate “working out” that much. Running seems easy. I lace up my sneakers, throw on my gear, fill up my water bottle and I’m out the door, jamming out to my fantastic playlist. It’s really awesome. Be jealous.
I guess I did OK, considering I was super close to doing nothing. I’ll take a little pride in that.
Today had PERFECT weather all day. It was just one of those days you want to clone to use whenever you want. What was not so enjoyable – running in direct sunlight for almost an hour. I like a sunny day as much as anyone, but when you’re running around in circles and there is no shade anywhere, it gets old fast.
What I do love is when I have friends that are there to cheer me on, run with me or simply give me a high five as I run by. These 2 Sundays in a row that we’ve been able to do it have been awesome.
We had a great weekend up in MA visiting with friends and family. I always hate when it’s Sunday and it’s time to go home. I wish we could just snap our fingers and be home already. I keep working on my teleport machine, but I’m not making much progress! Maybe weekends wouldn’t seem so short if I actually could go to a workplace that I enjoyed…
OK, so technically Fridays are supposed to be my rest day, but this weekend had lots of stuff to do so we swapped our “Saturday hikes” for a hike yesterday.
My cousin’s birthday was on Thursday so we went out to lunch with her, her bf and my aunt and uncle today to The Fours in Quincy.
It was the first time Tara and I had been there, but judging by their menu online I was looking forward to it! I decided to order just the steak and cheese egg roll appetizer for my lunch because I knew we would be meeting up with Julie and Dan at the craft fair she was working at today. They were having a BBQ after all the tents were taken down for the night so we were all set for dinner (more on that later!).
This. This was one of the best things to cross my lips in a long time! I was very happy with my choice and am still dreaming about it right now. They came with some sort of caramelized onion BBQ mayo for dipping and it was phenomenal! I was ready to take the leftover sauce home and just smother it on everything I eat. OK, maybe not everything – but it was that good!
After lunch, we headed over to my cousin’s house to see it since we haven’t been there since she moved in with her bf. It was a really cute place. We had some ice cream cake to celebrate and hung out and chatted for a bit.
Honestly, it’s not technically her birthday today. I’m also shorter than her but just roll with me on this song of the day.
After we left her house we stopped by to say hi to my grandparents on our way to the craft show. This particular craft fair was raising money for animal shelters and had some animals there you could adopt. We didn’t get there until 4:00 though, and didn’t realize people would start wrapping it up shortly after we got there. We got to see lots of cute dogs though!
By the way, shameless plug for Jewels by Jules. Awesome jewelry. Go buy it. Now.
We decided to just pack up and not hang out for the BBQ after the craft fair because what originally should have been food serving around 5:30, they told Julie it wouldn’t be until 6:30. We decided we were all pretty tired and just headed back to their house for the night. I’m now being driven into slave labor making jewelry for the night. Send help.
The weather today was perfection for our hike. Not too sunny and hot, nice level of humidity and a slight, cool breeze from time to time. So nice! We were a little disappointed with this trail because it was about 90% road and 10% trail. We passed through a golf course. Yes, you read that right. Through the golf course. We had a stop sign and another sign indicated that hikers were to give the right of way to the golfers on the tee – because the path went through the middle of the tee to the green! Crazy business!
After our hike, we decided to Yelp it up to find a spot for lunch that we’d never been to. We ended up at Windy City Eats, which is owned by people from Chicago (hence the name, duh), and it was primarly a hot dog place.
The inside decor was Chicago-centric and for whatever reason it had dollar bills all over the walls, and even the ceiling, that had people’s names on them.
I decided before we got there that I was going to order the corn dog and cheese fries. My hopeless journey continued, however, as they make their cheese fries with melted American cheese and not cheese sauce. I figured if I was gonna eat crappy food I was gonna have the good stuff! It was not meant to be though. I ended up getting a side of onion rings and they were actually really good.
They were also redeemed while we waited in line because they had homemade sodas and they have raspberry lime! Yes please! After my horrifying “raspberry lime rickey” at Not Your Average Joe’s last weekend I was hesitant, but it was wonderful. Like a unicorn spewed rainbows directly into my mouth! And I have to say – I’m not the biggest hot dog fan, I maybe have them once a year – their hot dogs tasted phenomenal. They had a great flavor to them. I couldn’t even tell you what it was, but my tongue was doing a happy dance!
Tara ended up getting a cheesesteak and it was pretty good. It was just a basic steak and cheese sub and the first time I’ve ever seen one with orange cheese, which was interesting. She doesn’t usually crave meat like that so it was weird for her to order. I literally don’t think I’ve ever seen her eat a steak and cheese in the almost 10 years we’ve been together.
Right next door to Windy City was a place called Donut King. I do enjoy a good donut and we decided to check it out just because it’s not a chain (that we’re aware of) and sometimes they have the best donuts. Well, first off, it was sketch city. We walked in and there were 3 or so guys sitting at a “bar” type counter playing Keno. What the hell kind of donut place has lottery and Keno. We took a peek at the smalltiny selection and decided to just get the hell out of dodge.
We were now craving a nice dessert, so we decided to turn to my friend Yelp again for some place I could find a real half moon cookie. Not one of those fake, plastic-y tasting “black and white cookies” from Stop & Shop. We ended up going to Hingham to White’s Bakery and Cafe. They had a huge selection of delicious looking treats and I was thrilled to see half moons! I got 2 of those and Tara got a chocolate covered cheesecake slice.
I was pretty full from lunch so I just ate one cookie and saved the other for another time. While we were at the cafe, I saw half and half in their cooler and decided that would taste wonderful because it had gotten much warmer outside by then. I think I’ve had the most sugary beverages today than I have in the last 6 months combined! I figured I’m gonna have fun these last two “summer weekends” and not worry about weekend food too much. I’ll still be doing my workouts, and Mon-Fri I’ll still be eating my regular healthy stuff, but the next two weekends will be enjoyed to their fullest!
Tonight was a good run. I felt tired towards the end, but ended up running faster than I expected over the entire 2 miles. I probably couldn’t have kept that pace up for a full 5k, but I felt like I was flying tonight!
I saw an amusing thing somewhere today about things that make you know you’re a runner. One of them was taking shoe selfies. I decided to officially join the club.
I’m very excited to explore another new hiking trail tomorrow. And even more excited because it’ll only be FRIDAY – meaning I have a long weekend mofos! So excited!!
Had a nice walk tonight with Tara and one of our neighbors. She is our go-to “kitty sitter”, so Tara asked if she wouldn’t mind checking on the kitties from time to time when we go away. While they were chatting, she made a comment about how we’re looking good and how she wished her son would go out walking with her on the bike paths so she doesn’t have to go alone and be nervous. Tara invited her out with us and it was a nice time just strolling around and chatting. There were LOTS of people out on the bike path tonight – perfect night for it. After an infuriating day dealing with oil companies, it was just the thing I needed.
Had a tough run tonight seeing as the temp was somewhere in mid to low 80s still by the time I got out of work at 6:00. Luckily, there was not too much humidity which is always wonderful. I had a bit of a hard time with breathing and sore hips as usual, but managed to push through to run the full 3 miles with no walk breaks so I’m still gonna call that a ‘W’.
Once I got back to the house, I realllly didn’t want to do my leg workout.
Yep. Didn’t want to. Can’t make me.
I felt like some cosmic something didn’t want me to succeed today. It enjoyed watching me suffer. Fittingly, I was just told about this fabulous new song last weekend:
I gave myself a little “suck it up, buttercup” pep talk, downed some chocolate milk and kept going. That definitely gave me the energy boost I needed to finish up just before 8:00 and then I seriously wolfed down some chicken and rice for dinner.
Don't blink. Just run. 