Tuesday - 7 Hills

Did 7 hills on Tuesday instead of Thursday because I am flying away in the wee hours of tonight. How my kids will react to flying at this crazy hour I have no idea.

My legs were super sore. I guess from not having a day since the previous Wednesday. So, I could have pushed hard but I was a wuss.

Anyways, if I get all my runs in while I am away I will be very pleased. We shall see what happens. I am looking forward to going swimming at my brother in law's lake and am depating packing husband's wetsuit to practice in given how terrible my swim went during my first triathon.

It is Wednesday at 1:30pm and I still have to start packing. Totally typical for me. Gah!!!

I will probably post blogs from my dad's house but not sure how much commenting I'll be doing. Later Alligators!

Sunday Long Run - 12K

Its a good thing I had my rabbit with me (Dinograd) to keep me going during today's run. We ran from Dino's house and did 12K

Quite often I was running with such effort that I could not really carry on a conversation. At one point I told her to talk both sides of the conversation and it was quite humerous. I think the ride the day before we impacting my running for sure. It also felt really hot even though we started at 8am.

According to Garmin: It took us 1 hour 33 minutes and 52 seconds to complete the 12K. The average pace was 7:49 per km (which incidentally is EXACTLY the same pace we ran last week, huh?). Garmin says I burned 918 calories.

My Heart Rate monitor says I burned 1249 calories. I don't have my average stat because I left it on during the 2K we walked to cool down (the calories went up to 1480 total including the walk)

This just goes to show you that you have to take these calories readings with a grain of salt. Each device will tell you a different thing and who knows which one is remotely accurate.

Saturday - Long bike ride with a Giant Hill

So around this time last year I was really impressed that Hazel was going to go on a big ride that I could not conceivably do. I think she was going to ride from C-town to B-nff or something like that. A year has gone by and I am much more fit and could probably even make that ride if I tried hard enough. That is good.

Saturday morning I met Hazel at her house and we proceeded to ride to C-chrane and we rode up the big giant C-chrane hill. It was a mother. My legs did not burn too bad but it sure did take me a long time to get up it. From what I can tell in my Garmin graph it looks to be about 5 km long and gains 210 metres in elevation. It is pretty cool that I did that.

Garmin stats: 1626 calories, 44.39 kms, total time 2 hours 11 mins 41 seconds.

Here we are at the top of the C-chrane hill.

Thursday Running Hills

This photo is for Dino and NC. It shows the hill that we've been running. Thursday we did 6 repeats.

Garmin reports: 437 calories, total time 59:58. From Garmin it looks like the hill is about 300 metres long and gains about 33 metres or so.

Friday was personal training. I actually went to the studio that Trainer works out of. He made me do different things than normal including dragging him across the floor by his feet while he lay on a mat. That was weird :)

Thursday

Hello bloggers in blogland :)

I just got home from running hills with Dinograd. It was great. I felt really strong to be doing it. We are going to do a long run of 12 K this weekend. I think we only have something like 10 weeks left before the half marathon (21K).

I am feeling less overwhelmed than I was when I wrote my previous post. I am taking a new approach. Who knows how long it will last but today I made a list of 5 things that I wanted to get done and then I set about doing them. I did get sidetracked a bit but I got the stuff done except for one thing which was hobby related (scrapbooking) that I had last on the list of priorities. I'll try it again tomorrow.

Somehow having a goal of just 7 things made me feel less overwhelmed about all the stuff that I would really like to accomplish around the house. At one point I thought I should make a master list of every outstanding item and I quickly dismissed that idea. I'll just take it one day at a time!

Thanks for all your comments. You guys rock! I'm going to take some time tomorrow and make sure I comment you all back. I have been reading your blogs but not commenting for some reason.

Next week I'm flying away for 10 days. Apparently it has been raining alot where I'm going. That is a bit of a bummer because I love going there in summer to take advantage of the pools and lakes that my relatives have at their disposal.

Mid Thirties Crisis

This is a response to a post on Sauchagirl's blog. You can read her post here (http://mybodyforlife2008.blogspot.com/2008/07/struggles.html)

It has been 12 months since I stopped putting myself last and started working on my fitness and weight loss goals. Things went stellar at first as they often do when people start these types of journeys.

4 months into it my world had a bit of a shake-up when my old company asked me to come back to work on a consulting basis 3 days a week. Tonnes of my old colleagues were envious because who wouldn't want to work 3 days a week and get paid a sweet hourly rate?

8 months have gone by and I am really struggling. I don't know if it is just summer and wanting to do more activities with my kids but I am truly stuggling to get my 3 days of work in. I am struggling with my eating, I am doing OK with my workout plan but I am sucking at other things: Keeping clutter at bay, paying attention to the bank accounts and bills, cleaning the house, keeping the fridge stocked, preparing the most basic of meals. Forget about my old hobby of keeping scrapbooks of the kids. Those are suck at December 2005 and July 2006 respectively for the two kids. I had plans of using uploading photos and getting them printed out in those bound photo books. Nope. 2007 is still unprinted as is 2008.

I need to find balance and I need to stop feeling overwhelmed. I need to spend less time screwing around on the Internet. I've chopped a whole bunch of people out of my Google Reader except for those that leave me comments and a couple of others that I really like. I'm not really watching Gut2Cut videos except for a few here and there. Maybe that is not 'supportive' of me but oh well.

Part of me wants to be a full time stay at home mom again yet how can I rationalize that when I can't get my crap together and keep the house running? Yet is it a chicken and egg scenario? Can't get my crap together until I stay home? If I say byebye to working and make myself a schedule I think I could be good at it. Couldn't I? Why on earth would I give up such a great work setup (because what I am doing is freaking boring and driving me insane maybe?)

My boss (who is the best boss in the whole world) tells me to stick it out, to not stress it over summer. Do what I can etc. etc. Which contributes to me not putting in full days of work. Argh!

Anyways... I hate flux. I wish I was a better multi tasker who could excel at 5 things at once. Could I be that person?

So Sauchagirl, I'm with you. I don't know what the secret it but I'll be in touch if I find out :) It seems like for me if I focus on my fitness goals something else is going to suffer and it pisses me off! Grrr....

The Weigh In that Was Not

In case I did not mention it I have rebelled against weighing in front of my trainer. It was not working to scare me into losing weight. All it was doing was making me feel like more of a loser and not a good kind of loser.

Anyways I said yesterday that I would weigh in and you didn't see me rushing out this morning to post a blog about it which means...

That I suck. Oh yes, I am going to be negative here, just for one paragraph. Well, OK, I don't really suck. I just had an 'accidental' 'free' day yesterday. Accidental in that it was not planned, I had eaten pretty good for about 6 days and but then I did not say no when an Oh Henry was placed in my path at the movie theatre. Once that happened it was one of those "Well, I have already screwed that up, what the hell" and down the hatch went some popcorn and pizza and whatever else I could get my hands on. Unfortunately that carried on today so the notion of a 'free day' is really just balogne (is that how you spell balogne?).

Anyways, *sigh*, so are the Days of my life.

I took the day off excercising. Normally I have personal training today but trainer is off fishing for Salmon in BC. According to my schedule I am supposed to swim but it is 9pm, hubbie is out mountain biking and I don't feel like going swimming anyways. (Can you hear the pity party music? Let me go turn that down...)

OK. Dusting myself off. Proceeding with healthy life.

Oh, one more thing. I went to the doctor today for a minor problem (which shall remain nameless, really, i do think there is such a thing as TMI in a blog) Anyways..... He tells me a few things that will help prevent ProblemX and one of those things is of course... drum roll please.... Lose some weight! For the love of gravy! That really peaved me. I mean, you convince yourself that you are doing good, that you are pretty healthy, then good old well intentioned doctor tells you to lose some weight. *sigh*. I'm pretty sure this is what set me off on my extended free-day extravaganza. Pretty stupid.

PS. I did weigh myself today and it was a crap result given my indulgences yesterday. I'll weigh myself on Friday morning and get back to you :)

Running on Dead Legs

Surprise, surprise my legs were not very peppy this morning after yesterday's tough ride. I was happy that they were not sore but after about 4K they did not have a lot of life in them.


I was lucky to get to run with NickieChickie and Dinograd so that was great. I am sure I did much better than I would have alone. We are planning to do hills together on Thursday so that is awesome.


Total Time: 1:12:02. Average pace: 7:49 per km (running 10 minutes, walking 1 minute). Distance: 9.2km.


No trainer tomorrow. My legs will appreciate a break. Schedule has me going for a swim in the evening. We'll see if I get there. I don't love the pool like I used to.

My eating has been pretty good as far as not grazing in the evening and no junk food. (though I did request that my husband go out and rent a movie and get some chips last night. Luckily he did not comply). I will weigh in tomorrow with my workout clothes on. My quest is to lose 20 pounds starting at 188 but I'm giving myself until December to do that. I'm tired of working our hard yet still having pudge around my middle. I am proof that you can excercise quite a bit and still be 'overweight'. Sometimes it seems that people who strictly limit their calories get better results but that just isn't for me. Maybe 'better' is not the right word, faster is definately true though. I am happy that I am stronger and fitter than I was last May that is for sure.

Every day is a struggle to balance the extra hunger excercise brings as well as the metal game that "I just burned ABC calories, I can afford to eat XYZ". I know I am on the right road. It is just a really long road.


Here are my stats from today's run.

Saturday - Ride that was waaay harder than it was supposed to be.

So as I said... Trainer had told me a ride to try and do (37th street and 22X) and he said it had good 'rollers'.

Well, I am no expert cyclist but it is my understanding that 'rollers' describe a ride that has gently rolling hills.

And so that is how my ride started out. The hills were not too bad. Then I took a right, then a left and found myself at the bottom of a giant HILL! OK fine, I'll do that hill. (but that is not a roller!!! I was thinking ). Husband had mentioned there were 3 hills and this big one was the third one I counted. No problem.

So up I went, on and on and on. Click-Click was the noise my bike made as I tried to change gears but my bike was already in my easiest gear. That hill was a beast. I could barely push my easiest gear. But I'm tough so I did it. However, what did I find at the end of that monster hill? Another monster hill, then another and then another one. That was hard. And I was kind of bitter because these were supposed to only be 'rollers'

Originally I had planned on doing a 2 hour ride out and back but no way was I going to do those monster hills again so I called up husband and he gave me an alternate route. Alternate route was longer but not as steep so off I went.

In the end I rode for 2 hours and 24 minutes. Total distance: 53.3 km. Fastest speed: 64 km/hr (Scary!!!), Average speed: 22.1 km/hr (not bad for all those hills).

According to my heart rate monitor: 1427 calories, Max heart rate: 169, Average heart rate: 137.

I could have easily stayed home instead of doing this ride but I'm glad I went. Husband says I did really well. Here's what my elevation change looked like. Click on it to make it readable.

Tomorrow I am scheduled to do my 'long' run for my half marathon training. I wonder how my legs will be feeling?

Friday

Friday was personal training. The usual: Leg work (lunges, squats etc), ab work, and free weights for the arms.

I had intended to burn extra calories but had a playdate right after my workout and then at night I chose to do a video chat with youtube people instead.

I told trainer I was going to ride outside on Saturday. He suggested a ride for me and described it as having rollers. I said I'd try it.

Post Knee Trauma = Yay!

Apparently I got the best kind of knee whack, the kind that hurts so bad that you can't walk, then hurts pretty bad for about an hour, then 10 hours later does not hurt at all. Yay!

Thursday workout: Running. 5 sets of hills. Warmup and cooldown.

I am one lucky girl. I have 3 great friends that I get to work out with and they are all tough and fun. Tonight I got to do hills with two of them and I am so glad. If they had not been there I know I would have slacked off at 3 hills but instead we all stuck together and did the prescribed 5 hills. Also if they had not been there I would not have been able to talk about bras and protein bars and body fat percentages. I love the stuff we come up with to talk about.

My heart rate hit 184 bpm on my first time up the hill and was only 178 bpm on the 5th one (you can see how I was a lot more dead on the last one than the first). I hate how noisy my breathing gets at extreme effort.

Note: 184 bpm is on the verge of chest pains. I am pretty sure that is the maximum at my advanced age (36). Really, my chest was hurting from my heart beating so hard.

We were running up a hill out of a park and on almost every trip up the hill we had to run past a different set of sedate walking couples strolling peacefully along then here I come HUFF HUFF PANT PANT DIE HUFF HUFF. I am sure they were thinking "Why are those girls running up that hill? And why does that tall one have to be so noisy on this beautiful night?"

Total running time with warmup, hills and cooldown was about 60 minutes.

Hazel has a new physio who says he thinks he can fix up her knee. I can't wait until her knee is fixed up. That will be great! Then there can be 4 of us doing crazy runs.

As far as my "Operation 20-Be-Gone" quest, I did not weigh myself but ate pretty well today. We ended up at Boston Pizza for supper because we got home late and wanted to get the kids fed fast. There is nothing safe to eat in that place except salad with no dressing and no cheese. However, I ordered pasta, cut the plate in half and pushed half to the other side of the plate. It was tasty and probably at worst 450 calories I'm guessing. I am hoping that by Monday I'll be 187 instead of 188. At this point I am not counting points or calories. I'm just winging it. Surprise, surprise.

Whacked!

Out of nowhere, wham! A whack to the knee! No, it was not a Tonya Harding scenario... I was not paying good enough attention and got whacked by a bus door. Man did it hurt. Hit me right on the knee cap.

It has been about 6 years since I have regularly taken transit. Today I took the bus to work because husband had to leave early (we usually drive together) and I stayed home until my mom got to our house to watch the kids. The bus was packed and when it was time to get off there was a guy standing in front of me. He had headphones on and his back to me and did not seem to be making any motions like he was going to get off. I said "Excuse me" in a friendly tone and he said "We are getting off" in a slightly grumpy tone. I said "OK, great". Then when people started moving followed him off the bus.

I was not paying 100% attention (had one ear bud in, listening to the radio) and all of the sudden Wham, huge insane pain to my kneecap. I was getting out the rear door and did not put my hand out to push the door-bar-thing on the open door. However, I have a feeling that Mr. Grumpy didn't do it either because there is no way it should have hit me that fast. Man did that hurt. I had to sit on the bench for 5 minutes before I could walk. That pain went away and I could finally walk but now it is like a dull ache. I am going to be so mad at myself if this affects my training. Hopefully this will be a distant memory a week from now and there will be no lasting effects. I was just thankful that I am not elderly. The surely would have broken an old lady's kneecap. Not to self: "Beware of getting off the bus. It can be dangerous!"

20 pounds

So, as much as I hate making weight goals I really feel I must.

As of this morning I pretty much weighed the same as I did at New Years which is about 5 pounds more than I did before Christmas. I have been losing and gaining those particular 5 pounds for seven months apparently.

Enough of this bullshit. I need to freaking lose those 20 pounds already. What the hell is my problem anyways? Oh right, I do actually know what the problems are (lack of an eating plan, failing to journal, eating more than I need to). Duh!

Today is July 15th, 2008. I weigh 188 pounds. By December 15th 2008 I want to weigh 168 pounds. That is a wuss goal (I say wuss because of how many weeks it is, over 20) but a goal that I could easily *not* achieve. I have already proven that. I will have to make an effort if I want to get there.

Twenty pounds, be gone! You are not welcome here anymore! When those 20 are gone they have 10 more friends that should hit the road too but those 10 are more of a vanity / nice to have sort of thing. I'll worry about them later!

I'm going to call this "Operation 20-Be-Gone". Do you think a catchy title will help? Ya, I know, probably not :)

Racing the Thunderstorm

So the forecast for tonight was showers with chance of thunderstorms. With that I rushed out the door after work to do my run. I swapped tonight's hills for Thursday's intervals.

Tonight's intervals: warmup then 3 sets of run 3 minutes hard, 5 minute recovery in between, then cooldown.

All in all it came to 40 minutes and 511 calories according to my HRM. I actually enjoyed running hard, especially the fact that I only had to do it for 3 minutes. In the past when I have tried to run hard for 20 minutes it got kind of depressing because after about 8 minutes I had to slow down, a lot!

Thursday night I'm doing hills with Dinograd. I forgot I was probably supposed to do a brick with trainer and the trainees. Ooops! I'm sure he'll forgive me. Or maybe I should do to the bike part and then do the run with Dino. Hmmmm.... would my legs fall off my torso if I did that? Probably not!

Oh ya, I didn't end up getting rained on. So much for the thunderstorms in the forecast. We have not really had and big ones this summer.

I did it!

I had the best time at my triathlon today. Well not literally. My finishing time was a little on the lame side but that that is OK.

The swim could definately have gone better. I was very excited to start and I don't know if I started swimming too fast or if it was just the wetsuit constricting my chest but I was having trouble getting my breath. Eventually I made it but I was much, much slower than I thought I would be.

That made me very determined to work super hard on the bike. I rode as fast as I could make my legs go so I'm quite proud of that. I was out there for probably 45 minutes all the while my heart rate was at about 90% of my max. Hoooweeee! Fun!

My run was *meh*. Could have been slower so I should be happy with that. All in all I had a great time and want to do another one. I am thinking of ditching the half marathon in favour of actually training for a second triathlon in August.

24 hours before my triathlon

Am I any more prepared? No.


Have I gone swimming? No


Am I worried: Not really


I know I will be nervous tomorrow but I expect it to be fun too. It is 8:25am and husband is still in bed. Once he wakes up I will get the family together and we'll go pick up my package and hopefully go to the neighborhood where this triathlon is. (I only have a vague idea where it is). I am a little excited by this whole idea and am kind of kicking myself that I did not take it more seriously :)

I went to a work party yesterday for the afternoon. While I was out with the work peeps, husband went out and purchased a motorcyle. He has been wanting one ever since we started considering what to do with our car lease expiring. There has been about a month of moping and sad looks. He also got a promotion last week so what the hell, I told him to buy it. It is relatively cheap on the motorcycle front so that part is good? However, his plan of me riding on the back of it to get to work 3 days a week is not going to happen. He got his first motorcycle when he was 18 and got rid of his last one 5 years ago when our son was born so I'm not too worried about him getting hurt while riding it. He knows what he is doing.

I hope I can get to sleep at a reasonable hour tonight. Husband is going to be up late with his D&D-friends and won't be going to bed until after midnight. Usually I tend to stay up too and go to bed when he does. However, that is obviously not a good idea when you are doing a race in the morning.

Thursday

Well, I am supposed to be on my way to work right now. My mom normally comes over while the kids are still sleeping and then takes them to daycare for us. Anyways, she can't do it today which usually screws up my day because once I get into the home mode I don't want to work. Anyways, it is 6:40am and I should stop typing this and go burn up some calories on the Elliptical. I have not been Ellipticalling for a loooooooooong time and my waist shows it. Tonight I am supposed to go meet trainer and the other traineees for a bike/run brick so if I get my hiney off this computer and onto the Elliptical that would be a victory of the 'extra workout' persuasion. Hopefully the kids will keep sleeping while I'm at it. I'll edit this post and update it to report how I did. ie) If I chose to just sit here reading blogs and viewing vlogs I'll have to fess up. Pressing 'Publish Post'..... Now!

Update: OK, got in 20 minutes before the small units got up. Not too bad. I'll try for another 20 minutes when I come home tonight. I have to do something. Every day I think to myself that tomorrow I will plan my food and only eat 1500 calories and it never happens. Groceries are sparse yet again. Hopefully now that we have sorted out our car situation I can stop spending time thinking about that and spend more time thinking about what I put in my mouth. Now to get the kids to daycare and me to work. *bleh*!

Also: Any minute I am going to start freaking out that I am doing a triathlon this weekend and have never done one before, and did not train for it. Can you say Winging it?

Sunday

Wow, 6 days and no blogging? Did I do my runs? I hope so! Oh ya, I ran on Tuesday with NickieChickie and Thursday did another brick but that run was just under 4K. Tonight was supposed to be my long run but 1 mile in it started pouring buckets. I thought about quiting but then thought maybe I should know what it is like to run in wet clothes since I am doing my first triathlon next Sunday. Sooooooo.... I kept running soaking wet being pelted by rain at one point. However, my long run was not so long... only 5K. *bleh*. As for my triathlon I have not prepared one bit. It is only a sprint though so I should muddle through. I need to get my head on straight if I am going to do a half ironman next June though.

Speaking of half ironmans we traveled to one this weekend. Husband was on a team with two other guys. He did the bike portion. It was great for inspiration. Hazel was there taking names and also my old running buddy C2 was there doing great too. Going to these events really gets my inspired. But I guess not enough to run more than 5K tonight. Ha Ha!

Stats for tonight's run:

Pace/km: 7:05, 7:02, 7:12, 7:02, 8:01. I had two walking breaks in there. (I was supposed to be doing 10 & 1s). Average pace 7:17 minutes per km.

Total time: 37:20, Max HR 175, Avg HR 156. HRM says 458 cals.

Still have not decided on the fall half thing. I kind of want to be a better runner first. I know I could complete it if I wanted to but not sure if my spirit could take being a tonne slower than my PB of 2:20.