10.30.2011 workout.

After an afternoon nap, I set out and did a 3.15 mile run in 34:30, right at the 11:00min/mile pace as usual. I felt pretty good through the whole run. I even got back in time to catch the beginning of the new episode of the Walking Dead. That is a win overall. I'm going to make some chicken and a salad for dinner, then it's shower, reading, and bed time.

10.27 and 10.29.2011 workouts.

So this weekend I was a lazy waste of space for the most part. Thursday after work, I went for a leisurely (but still heart pumping) bike ride with the roommate. We were out for about an hour and then we got back and I got ready to go out with the girls.

I was feeling pretty rough on Friday and spent most of my day on the couch. Once evening came around, we got our costumes prepped and headed downtown to the Dia de los Muertes festival and enjoyed friends, live music, and drinks. It was so much fun, but today I repeated the 'lie on the couch and watch tv all day' thing. I made it a point to watch Hocus Pocus, which I have been wanting to watch for over a week now.

Afterward, I was going to back out of a run but decided against it. I ended up doing 2.93 miles in 32:50, putting me at just slightly over an 11:00 min/mile pace. I felt really good today and really felt like I could have gone for four or five miles, but my knee was getting a little irked. I'm going to stretch out really well after I shower before I head to bed.

I have been eating so much asparagus and butternut squash. But alas, I have eaten all of my stock over the past few days. Dinner tonight was those tasty veggies, plus a turkey burger with HOMEMADE PICKLES, a delicious treat complements of the roommate.

Official half marathon training starts on November 1st. Pretty stoked.

10.26.2011 workout.

This evening I ran 2.53 miles in 28:09, putting me at an 11:07 min/mile. Boooo, but I felt pretty good during this run. I brought the pup along with me. It felt nice outside and I explored some new areas of my neighborhood that I have yet to venture to. My knees felt a bit achy but other than that, I'd say it was a more than decent run!

Time for some chicken and vegetable stir fry for dinner.

10.25.2011 workout.

Since I had been feeling lousy the past few days, I rested. But today I got back in the saddle and went for a run since I was feeling a little better and could actually breathe out of my nose. I ran 2.58 miles through the neighborhood and around to Ocean Dr. I finished in 28:10, putting me at a 10:55 min/mile. It sucks getting super winded and tired and feeling like I'm going at a decent pace, and then when I come home and map the run I find I was actually going slow (for my standards, at least). I guess the speed will come in time. If I can just shave a minute or 1:30 off my mile I'd be more than happy.

I've got my training schedule for the half marathon all set. I figure I can tweak it as I go, but it's a good base to go by. I'll see if I can somehow get it up here.

I've got two giant bundles of asparagus in the fridge that I need to cook before they go bad so I'll probably eat ridiculous amounts of it in the next few days. My pee will smell terrific.

HOLY SHIT, IT'S OFFICIAL...

...I just registered for my first half marathon. I will be running the Rock 'N' Roll Half Marathon in New Orleans on March 4th. The main reason? IT WAS CHEAP. They are doing a promotion where the will discount $1 for each point the Saints win by. Well, apparently they won by 55 yesterday, which brings the registration from $90 to $38 (including processing fees & all). So I grew some balls and registered. Thank goodness I'll be able to use my vacation leave by then. I'm super fucking stoked, but also extremely nervous.

I better get my ass in gear. I'm formulating a training plan as we speak... Also, I need to shake this cold that I've come down with. It's bumming me out!

10.22.2011 workout

For starters, Roommate and I biked to a restaurant for lunch with his family instead of driving. That set a good tone for the rest of the day & also managed to ease my slight hangover. So round trip it was about a six mile ride. I didn't time it but I got sweaty during both so whatever!

After a lengthy nap this afternoon, I set out to run. I was just going to walk on the treadmill since I'm exhausted and I can feel a sore throat possibly coming on. BUUUUT there were some treadmill issues. Mainly just me realizing that since we put up the Halloween lights, the extension cord is unavailable and I had nothing to plug the treadmill into. So I just went around the neighborhood with the dog. I did 2.13 miles in about 24 minutes, putting me at about an 11:20min/mile. It was definitely a slower run but it felt good to keep it slow. And for once, I managed to stay in my heart rate range throughout most of the run.

I think it's time for a shower, some soup & hot tea, maybe a movie, and then bed!

10.21.2011 workout

I took yesterday as a rest day. I just didn't have time to run. When I got home from work, I had to run to the grocery store to get food and pumpkin carving supplies. Then we came home and had the girls over for the carving! I carved a dinosaur. It was really fun. We went to see Jared play afterward and I got pretty silly.

I woke up early today and cleaned most of the day. When Dave got home from work we embarked on our run. We did 2.9 miles in 30:53. That put us at about a 10:40min/mile pace. It felt pretty good. I can feel it in my legs now, they're tired! And I guess I am, too.

I made a pot of vegetable soup today but it's missing something. I don't know what... It's chock full of veggies, though, so I'll munch on it for the rest of the week!

10.19.2011 workout (+awesome food)

Today was an overall terrific day. I ate super well. Breakfast was an egg and veggie taco in a whole wheat tortilla, lunch was salad and beans, dinner was tilapia, asparagus, and some sweet potato. Yum. Before I worked out I had peanut butter and banana on half a whole wheat english muffin.

Now, today I had every intention of doing my run on the treadmill. So I warmed up for a few minutes then wanted to see how fast I could run a mile. A little over halfway through my run, the treadmill turned itself off. I went from 7.0mph to zero in one second. I almost ate shit, but managed to not fall. I couldn't figure out how to get the damn thing to turn back on so I just took it to the road. I went without the pup today. I decided to keep with my plan of intervals and I did 1.85 miles with a combination of 'sprints' (not quite sprinting, but definitely close for me), a slow jog, and a tiny bit of walking. The HRM says I burned 374 calories. Is that correct? Who knows. But I do know it was an awesome workout.

After dinner, Roommate and I decorated the house in the Halloween spirit. Spoooooky!

Also...

I need to stop going out. I'm sabatoging my own efforts! We went out to pint night last night and however many calories I did burn on my run were consumed in beer and then some. I'm seeing a pattern here. At least for now, I need to cut the booze out or at least cut back a lot. Lately I haven't really been going out too much, maybe just once a week. But this week has been especially bad. Saturday and Sunday I had night rentals at work so we went out to dinner beforehand. Money and calories poorly spent. Then on top of that, we did pint night last night.

I need to save my money, my liver, and my body and just knock it off for a while!

On a somewhat related note, I've been doing pretty damn good quitting smoking. I have only smoked on days that I've gone out, and I only had two or three at most. Thank you E-Cig, you a life saver. My lungs (and wallet) thank you.

10.18.2011 workout

My heart rate monitor finally arrived yesterday! AND the weather was absolutely beautiful, so I immediately donned my running clothes when I got home from work and put the new device to the test. I did 2.19 miles in 24:40. BOOOOO. That put my pace at over 11:00min/mile. I think part of the slow-down was because of the damn HRM.

I plugged in all my stats and it gave me a range of 128-167 bpm. Well, once I started running and got halfway through, my heart rate was around 175 and the stupid thing kept yelling at me that I was out of my range. So I decided to listen to it and slowed it down so my heart rate would slow. Well, let me tell you, being in the range did NOT feel difficult enough for me. When I'm working out, I like to FEEL it. So at some point during my run, I just said 'fuck it' and kept my own pace, ignoring the 'out of range' beeping coming from the watch.

Another gripe I have about the monitor is that I feel like it overestimated the amount of calories that I burned. A 25 minute run at an 11:00min/mile pace + a five minute cool down walk couldn't have possibly made me burn 343 calories, right?

I am undecided on my feelings on it right now. I'll try it again this evening. I think I will do intervals on the treadmill instead of a neighborhood jog.

10.17.2011 workout

I was exhausted when I got home from work and I passed out for about an hour and a half. Luckily, I forced myself to get up and go out for a run. I told myself I'd only do a mile or so, but I ended up doing my longest run since picking running back up - 2.26 miles! I did it in 23:40, which put my pace at 10:30/mile. Not too shabby! And that's not accounting for the short little breaks I had to take for the pup to stop and sniff things and pee and run after cats. Overall it was a good run, I felt pretty strong!

10.15.2011 workout

I had so much motivation after work today. I got home and immediately donned my running clothes. I ended up doing 1.86 miles in about 20 minutes, putting me at a 10:45min/mile pace. While I wasn't going faster, I felt so much stronger today and my breathing was much easier and more controlled. So that's some progress right there.

Roommate & I are doing pizza and The Walking Dead tonight. I bought some frozen Kashi pizza that wasn't nearly as shitty seeming as the other standard ones. We'll see how it is!

I'm sleepy.

the hangover strikes back

Yesterday I was feeling the effects of the previous night pretty harshly. I spent a good chunk of my morning and afternoon in my bed with Netflix. I'm still fairly sore from Wednesday's strength training, and with the combination of that and the hangover, I decided this was a perfect day to rest.

Fortunately, Roommate didn't let that happen! I was talking to him about how I've gotten some sort of exercise almost every day in that past week (except for Tuesday and today) and his response was, "well fuck, let's go for a bike ride then!" We ended up riding for about an hour or so. It was definitely a leisurely pace but I figure moving for an hour was better than not!

10.13.2011 workout

A short 1.58 mile jog around the neighborhood and up Ocean Dr. Finished in just under 17 minutes and my pace was averaged at 10:40/mile. Better than yesterday's 10:49, but not by much. Hopefully I'll be back around my ten minute mile in a month or two. No matter how slow it was, though, I am very glad I went at all. I laid in bed for a good half an hour contemplating whether I was going to go or not. It was when a serious craving for some Ramen noodles (WTF) kicked in that I decided I'd better go before eating any shit food. So this run conquered both my laziness and a potentially crappy meal!

I think I might try an interval workout this weekend. I think I may be able to lengthen my workout if I'm getting short breaks in between quick spurts of high intensity.

Roommate and I are having people over for music, drinks, and a fire in the backyard pit tonight so I'll probably end up drinking beer and canceling out this entire run. I think I'm okay with that, though.

10.12.2011 workout

So Roommate goes to the gym with his buddy on MWF & today they said they would wait for me, so after work I changed really quick and we headed to the campus. We jogged the (approximately) 1.2 miles there. I totally forgot to start my timer on my watch on the way there - bummer (I did time the way back, though, and I averaged just under 11 minutes per mile). I'm definitely anticipating some serious improvement in my pace as I continue to run. Typically, a 10 minute mile is my perfect, comfortable pace but I've been able to run 8:30 min/miles before. I'm looking forward to building up my aerobic endurance again and NOT huffing and puffing all the time.

Once we got to the gym, we did some strength training. I mostly worked on my arms, but did some ab shit as well. Then I jogged back while the boys mostly walked.

I can feel the soreness setting in already. I wish I had my heart rate monitor today, also. I'm curious if my running was as hard of a workout as it felt. Being out of shape sucks. But it should be delivered in a week or so and then I'll report back with how nifty it really is.

wise investment or not? i can't tell yet.

I just ordered this gizmo off of Amazon. It's the Polar FT4F heart rate monitor. It'll be able to help me make sure that I'm working out at the right intensity and it'll give me an accurate measure of how many calories I'm burning in a work out. Plus it does neat things like track your fitness progress over time and what not.

It was $65 dollars, which makes my tummy hurt thinking about, but I'm hoping that it'll help me get better work outs in and, since it was so pricey, maybe it will motivate me to work out more so I can get my money out of it!

NUMBA ONE

So here I am, embarking on an adventure back into running. I'd like to train for and run a half marathon sometime in 2012, but first I've got to get back into the swing of things. I was training for a half around this time last year and got sidelined with an injury. That kept me out for about a month or two, and I've been sidelined by laziness almost ever since. So I'm starting from scratch here, and I'll use this blog to monitor my progress and log my training, as well as keep an eye on what I'm putting into my body. I'm also in the process of quitting smoking, so I'll be noting my successes/failures about that, as well.

So anybody out there who is reading, enjoy!