Thursday, June 30, 2011

How many cups of coffee does it take?

I’ve got a busy day ahead. I had a really great day yesterday and ended up being really productive. Ish… my bedroom and car are both still messy.


But on the workout front I rocked it. I dyed my hair and then I went shopping and spent a lot of money. Story of my life.

I shop a lot at Plato’s Closet which, if you don’t know, is a gently used clothes store. I’m really cheap and Plato’s is perfect for me. However, I generally try on 20 items of clothing and find one item that I actually want. It can sometimes be disappointing when you really like something on the hanger but when you try it on it looks like crap… and then that happens 20 times. Yesterday I hit the jackpot though. I would get up and count how many things I got but I’m too lazy. I got a lot.

I also stopped at Target. I bought some workout clothes and went to the gym after Plato’s and wore some of my new purchases. You know that warning that a lot of clothes have, “wash before wearing?” Well… I generally don’t follow random rules like this “don’t remove tag,” “wait 15 minutes after taking to drink,” etc because I don’t understand the why. If the why was explained and I knew that it was really important to follow the rules than I would. Well… unfortunately my disregard for rules left me with a lovely teal tint to my skin. It makes sense, I just never would have thought of it. Apparently the dyes can bleed if you get sweaty and then they might just stain your skin and you might not be able to get the color off of your skin.

I got really crazy last night and stayed out until 11:30 PM. I’m pretty much always in bed by 10:30 at the latest. I’ve been known to head to bed at 8:30 if I’m tired and have an early morning coming up. It wasn’t by choice though. I’ve joined a new drama group at my church. I was sort of roped in without any foreknowledge of how late the practices would go (or that they often go 30-45 minutes later than they’re supposed to). Once I was there and had practiced with them I didn’t feel like I could leave them just because they had a late finishing time. Next time there’s a good chance I won’t be joining them though.

So I got home at 12 and hopped right into bed. I’m not sure why but if I’ve been out driving it doesn’t really seem to matter how tired I feel, I seem to have a harder time falling asleep than usual. It probably didn’t take as long as I felt it did but I doubt I fell asleep before 12:15. I’m thinking more like 12:30. So when my alarm went off at 4:15 (I know, I’m a crazy person) I convinced myself that I would lay in bed awake for a few minutes before pulling myself out of bed. I’m not sure how I’m able to convince myself that this works because it never does. An hour later… I awoke and realized I had fallen back asleep and forced myself out of bed.

All I can say is, today is going to be a coffee day - preferably organic and freshly ground ;).

Wednesday, June 29, 2011

The Bug Run

I remember now why I don’t like running in the evening. In the summertime there are these gnat clouds… I have no idea what they’re doing but they all swarm around. Since they’re so small it’s hard to see the cloud of gnats until you’re already in it. When you’re sweaty and moving fast (or slowly?) they stick to you like you’re one of those sticky flea traps.
Rachel and I went for a run last night and by the time we got back we were pretty much covered in gnats. They were all over but face and neck were the worst spots. Ugh, so gross. Just writing about it makes me itchy.

I’m looking forward to today. I have no concrete plans until later this evening and I have the whole day free. I’m not great at actually doing the things I’d like to do on my days off but I’m really hoping I can be non-lazy today and use all of my free time to do something productive. My dirty room and car would really like some attention. 

So far so good. Stadiums even though Rachel couldn’t come – lame but I’m proud of myself for going even without my workout buddy. Stretching and quick shower followed by my go to breakfast: oatmeal with chia seeds and ground flax seeds. Today I threw in some sliced almonds and dried currents too. I usually prefer the oatmeal with just the chia and flax but sometimes I get crazy and throw in other ingredients as well.

After breakfast I did P90X shoulders and arms and now I’m icing my shins and having a cup of coffee.

I promised everyone (including myself) that I would take it somewhat easy after my injury. I definitely don’t want to reinjure myself. That would suck. I’m being careful to stretch and warm up properly as well as stretch and cool down afterwards. I’m still getting shin splints though and I haven’t upped my mileage very much at all. I think shin splints are pretty normal for starting to exercise again though. I don’t know, do you back off as soon as you get shin splints or continue to stretch your calves and warm up your shins before exercising? I know shin splints can lead to stress fractures but I just feel like if I back off I’ll just get them again when I start exercising again.

After I get a few more chores done around the house I’m going to head to target for a shopping spree. I saw they had some really cute swimsuits for a pretty good deal. Not that Target bathing suits ever look good on me or that I need any more swimsuits… but I’m going anyways.

The computer I’m using currently doesn’t have any place to easily upload photos so I’ve been slacking on the self portraits but I’ll figure out a way to make those happen, cause I know that’s the real reason you’re all here ;)

…oh wait, it’s just me that likes taking pictures of myself

In the meantime: a couple random pictures from vacation



"Look Mom, no hands!"
Yes, I did legit carry the chair on my head all the way from our beach house to the shore

Me and my hot mama after my cousins wedding. Isn't she gorgeous? :) 

Any fun plans for today?

Tuesday, June 28, 2011

I'm going to give this another go

Sooo… it’s been about a month since I posted anything. I let the business of June take over… and honestly, when I’m not running I just feel like there’s nothing much to talk about. When I type that out I realize how silly that sounds, I mean, who wants to read about running all the time? I will do my best to switch things up ;)




I have some new things to talk about today though… well, sort of



I’m running again which is amazing and also not so amazing. I worked really hard during the 6 weeks I was not running to maintain my cardio capacity and continue to strengthen my legs. I generally did 4-6 miles daily on the elliptical. I had no idea if this would help me maintain my speed and distance but I did it anyway. Now I’m running again and I’ve definitely lost some speed. I’m running 1:00-1:30 minutes slower per mile and I feel really winded. I haven’t run more than 5 miles yet and I’m not sure what my limit is. I don’t want to push it though, it would be no fun to end up right back where I started with another stress fracture.



Since it’s really hot and humid in Florida and I seem to have lost the ability to wake up super early to get my run in while it’s at least a little cooler I haven’t done any running on my normal routes. I’ve run on the treadmill a bit but that’s not really a great indicator. I’ve never been good at running on a treadmill.



Last week I was on vacation and ran 5 miles on the beach two days in a row. The first day I wore my vibrums. After reading Born to Run I’ve been reinspired to give the vibrums another try – anything to stay running! Of course the following day I could hardly walk (anyone who has tried vibrums knows what I mean). My calves were really sore and cramping. So of course I got out and ran another 5 miles. Um, ouch! I wore my normal shoes this time. I was pleased with my running both of the days even though I was going slower than I had pre-injury. I still don’t think those runs were great indicators of where I’m really at though because I was running on soft sand with a lot of wind blowing against me. These could be excuses and I may really be a lot slower now, it’s just hard to tell exactly where I’m at.



The following day my calves were REALLY sore and crampy. So then I spent the entire day in the car. Perfect prescription for sore muscles… NOT. I stretched at every rest stop and walked but I don’t know how much that really helped. Every time I hopped out of the car I could hardly walk again.



Then I took a day off and the following day ran 5 miles – 2 on the treadmill, 3 later in the day at a nice slow recovery pace with Rachel. The day after that we did stadiums for the first time in forever. I had to stop multiple times to stretch my calves.



The soreness has continued to get better each day but I’m still feeling crampy today. I’m no professional but from what I’ve gathered it’s good to still move and use sore muscles. I may be overdoing things though.



Oh goodness, obviously my best at “switching it up” is not very good.



I could go on and talk about other things but then this post would get really long and you would probably want to stop reading it. Before I end this I do have one other topic I’d like to talk about briefly.



While I was on vacation I was determined to stay active and get in some good exercise. Unfortunately I was not entirely successful. Generally I wake up really early and get exercise in first thing. I think my wake up early ability is broken though . I just couldn’t seem to get myself out of bed early. Then I’d have breakfast with everyone and stay and chat for a long time and by the time that was done it just felt too late to do anything. All of my planned early runs in the gorgeous cool PA weather failed. I did a few P90X videos, took a few walks (my walking partner never wanted to walk) and did some other mini workouts everyday in my room but in general my activity decreased a lot. I don’t mind so much but honestly I have a hard time enjoying vacation when I just sit around and eat more than I usually do. So I wanted to know what you all do on vacation. Do you try to stay active and eat healthy or do you give yourself a total vacation? Being vegan makes it easier for me to stay healthy when I’m on vacation because I have a good excuse if something that is prepared is not healthy (loaded with cheese/butter – oh, sorry, I don’t eat dairy products). However, now my family tries to make foods that I can have. I really appreciate this, I know they do it because they love me and want to make me happy but often what they prepare is basically vegan junk food and I have to eat it. One meal, fine but when they make a huge dish then I have to eat it until it’s gone. Am I the only one who deals with this and am I crazy for wishing I could just bring/prepare my own foods while visiting relatives?