Three Things Thursday

ONE

I’ve made every effort to eliminate excess sugar from my diet. I take my coffee with milk only, I try to use stevia as sweetener (though I’m not a huge fan of its chemical aftertaste), and I limit sweets to a minimum. The only thing I haven’t fixed yet is not eating flavored yogurt… I have to get better at that. But it’s amazing to look at my food log and see how much sugar is in every day items! The bread I bought has 4g of sugar per slice. And I love fruit, which sends my sugar skyrocketing. My Trader Joe’s Green Plant juice? 25g per 8oz! Even the roasted vegetable lasagna I had yesterday had 7g of sugar. So even when I make stuff myself, so many base ingredients are built on sugar. What do you do to limit your sugar intake?

TWO

I get to have my magical massage today, and I could not be more excited for it. Last night I did intervals (on a treadmill, yuck) and I was really, really sore afterwards. I called off this morning’s run and I’m hoping to be able to do it tomorrow morning before any rain hits. 3 mile tempo… guh.

THREE

Have you guys ever seen the Exercises for Social Media Addicts?

I have this hanging up at my desk for fun, because I’d never be able to accomplish it! Part of my job involves periodically checking most of these sites. Maybe I’ll just throw all of them into a morning routine and call it my quota for the day ;)

Ok, my lavash wrap I had for lunch is sending me into a food coma. I think a hunt for caffeine will be in the works soon.

Weekend Wrapup

I hope you all had a splendid weekend!

FRIDAY

To compensate for my increased heart rate, I decided to do a run/walk on Friday afternoon. Using my Garmin’s interval training feature, I went out for a 2:1 10x for a 30 minute run. I ended up going 2.78 miles in 30 minutes… not too shabby since 10 of those minutes were walking! I walk quickly :)

SATURDAY

I met with the lulu run group again, and we set out for 4.5 miles… which turned in to 5 miles when we hit the 2.25 point of our out and back and thought “what’s another .25 miles this way?” Oof, my heart went crazy. Maybe it was the pollen, or the fact that my outfit was way too warm for the weather, but a 10+ minute pace was killing me. We made it 3 miles running, but did a 2:1 run/walk for the last two. Our run leader, Pete, was riding a bike since he was still recovering from an awesome Boston, and he decided to take some videos of us huffing and puffing. It’ll be here once he sends it over to me!

Of course, I negated all of that work later that afternoon when I headed over to the Boston Bacon and Beer Festival. Yes. A festival dedicated to local breweries and local restaurants featuring bacon-themed dishes. Vegetarians and vegans beware: I’m about to talk about the wonders of bacon. There were some straaaaange dishes, but I didn’t turn my head away from everything. I mean, they’re free samples… if I didn’t like anything, toss it out. And I could end up loving new things. I tried everything from bacon donuts to the most perfectly-rendered piece of porkbelly to cheddar/bacon biscuits to a chocolate and bacon milkshake! There were even chocolate, ale, and bacon cupcakes:

It was a seriously awesome time. And I felt much better about eating all that bacon since I ran 5 miles beforehand ;)

SUNDAY

…TODAY

I planned on getting in a few more miles, but I was pretty wiped from the whole weekend and decided to lay low and only take my evening yoga class. I picked up a Yogitoes skidless towel just before class since I have issues with sliding around. My muscle fatigue became evident near the end of the class when I started shaking in some of the positions. But, something wonderful happened…

…for a few seconds, my right heel was ON THE GROUND in downward dog! Um, hello happiness and goodbye tight hamstrings! I’ve only been taking this class for a few weeks and I already feel like I’ve improved so much.

It’s now 8pm aaaaaand I feel like I’m going to pass out. Dumb pollen!

Enjoy the rest of your nights!

Three Things Thursday

photo via John K on Flickr

ONE

Happy Earth Day! I wanted so badly to go out for a run/walk this morning, but my body felt otherwise when the alarm went off at 5:15. Next thing I knew, my backup alarm was sounding at 6am. Welp. So much for that morning run! I was able to do a quick 1 mile walk at lunch, though. I’m weighing the benefits of going back to a Galloway program for a little while. Maybe my heart rate is whacked out because of a combination of pollen and suddenly being worked a lot again? It’s worth a shot; nothing wrong with a little run/walk action. I’m thinking a 3:1 combo would be a good start. Heck, I could even pick up the pace for those 3 minutes and count it as heart rate training! Yes, that sounds delicious.

TWO

Speaking of delicious, I came to the realization earlier this week that I’m a dummy for lugging lunch to work every day. Why is this? Well, my office is an update apartment, so we have a full kitchen that is only shared by 5 people, and there are two grocery stores within minutes of our front door. So I’ve started buying basic ingredients and making my lunch at work! No more stressing if I forgot to pack lunch the night before, and no more hoping that whatever I packed doesn’t leak all over everything. This isn’t to say that I’ll never bring lunch again… but it sure is nice to have a non-soggy sandwich ;)

THREE

I took another abs class at my gym last night, and spent about 30 minutes on weights. Two weeks ago, I was in agony the day after doing these. Today, I feel awesome! There’s just a little bit of soreness in my shoulders (I worked them with free weights a LOT, though), and only a slight twinge now and then in my torso. YEAH! I’m getting stronger :)

Social Life vs. Training Life

How the heck do you manage it? Seriously. This week has been one giant choice between being social and sticking to my training, all while not becoming sleep deprived.

If the plans were with people I could see at any time, then whatever. But one night I went out with my cousin, who was visiting from Florida. Another night I was trapped in the house because of snow. Last night I was at work until 7pm, saw a friend, and got home at 11pm.

Every day on my way to work I see people running, and I WISH I had the time to run without getting up before 5am.

How do you guys balance training and socializing? I don’t have many runner friends, as I know many of you do. So I can’t do the whole “combining socializing and training” thing.

And to those of you that run at lunch: do you have a shower at work? If not, how do you de-gross-ify? I work in an absolutely amazing running area (a long tree-lined mall a block away, and the Charles River/Esplanade about a quarter of a mile away), so I want to take advantage of that when the ice clears.

Giveaway Rundown

Marlene is giving away some totally sweet Red Olympic Mittens. It’s only open until the 22nd, so go go go!

Tall Mom‘s Running Essentials Giveaway is open until the 24th, and there’s a hefty amount of items up for grabs!

YOUBARS. (shameless self-promotion, what?)

IT’S FRIDAY!

Tomorrow I’m running 12 miles before going on my friend’s 2nd annual Red Sox-themed pub crawl that I helped plan. I am using both of those events as an excuse to eat whatever the heck I want in the next 24 hours. And I’ll be consuming copious amounts of salt in order to not cramp up once more.

mmmm 60% of my daily sodium in one can <3

Winter. Farmers. Market.

Can I tell you how overjoyed I am?

On Friday night I found out about the Wayland Winter Farmers Market, and decided that I 100% had to go the next morning when it was open. My life has been devoid of farmers markets since November. Tough life, right? But I truly missed them.

This particular market was inside the greenhouses of a garden center, so it was nice and toasty warm in there. What the market lacked in fresh produce (I mean, there’s only so much you can harvest in New England in the winter) it made up for in some fantastic pre-made products. I’m talking 9-veggie salsa, homemade hummus and pita, fresh sweet potato gnocchi… so glorious. Just look at these watermelon radishes:

They were also having “Wool Day” that day. My mom is an avid knitter, so she was in love with all the homespun wool yarn/scarves/socks. Needless to say, she loves farmers markets now, too.

A Bit o’ Running

Sunday was a busy day for me, so I had to do my long run in the morning. I also wasn’t feeling super, so I decided to go on the treadmill so I could stop at any time and not be stranded in sub-freezing temperatures.

Holy. Moly. The gym was crowded. Every treadmill was taken, and almost every elliptical was taken. Wooo looks like I’m doing my long run on an elliptical.

• Distance: 8 miles
• Time: 1:11:52

A great time, but I didn’t feel that great about the run itself. I’m itching to be back on the road, but both coldness and illness is stopping me.

Moral of the story: go away, winter.