Category Archives: 6 mile run

Strength and being hungry

First off, thanks so much for the comments on my push up video!  (You readers are the best!  That’s one thing I love about the blogging community.  Supportive and friendly!)

I am extremely proud of my strength (uh oh – one of the 7 deadly sins here).  I may not be at the magic scale number, but I am seriously strong. However, it has taken me a long time to build up to this level.  I started serious strength training in August of 2008 using free weights, then the NROLW program (which took 6 months) in 2009.  I started with pushups on my knees and could barely get out a set of 10 to what I can now do.  It takes time and patience – it takes a long time to build muscle.  Jody mentioned having patience today on her blog, and it is so true.   So keep at it!  Doing some of these kickazz moves makes me uber happy.

I had another great workout this morning.  Tuesdays are run days.  I fueled up with a Luna bar and hit the hamster wheel.  I ran 3 miles basically around 5.5 to 6 mph.  Then I decided to do some intervals:

  • 1 minute at 6.5 mph
  • 2 minutes at 6 mph
  • 1 minute at 6.8 mph
  • 2 minutes at 6 mph
  • 1 minute at 7 mph
  • 2 minutes at 6 mph
  • 1 minute at 7 mph
  • 2 minutes at 6 mph
  • super challenge: 1 minute at 7.3 mph!! dying….
  • 2 minutes at 6 mph
  • 1 minute at 6.8
  • 2 minutes at 6 mph
  • 1 minute at 6.5 mph

Then maintained 6.0 to finish up 6 miles.  I wasn’t planning on 6 miles, but the intervals ate up a lot of mileage and I figured “what the heck”!  I had a high when I left the gym.  Good sweaty workouts make me smile, not sure why.  After I am done, of course 😀

Breakfast was fabulous!  Steel cut oats cooked with a banana and almond butter and jam on top.  Then John got out chocolate chips for his brekkie, so I couldn’t resist those.

Work was back up to normal, so I got right to it.  I wanted some extra protein for lunch to have some good recovery superfoods for lunch:

1/2 cup lowfat vanilla yogurt, 1/2 cup pumpkin, 1/2 scoop protein powder, chai granola and a dollop of cranberry sauce.  It was yummy, but cold!

I ended up eating another 1/2 of a protein bar after lunch because I didn’t quite feel satisfied.  I think the run did that to me.  I don’t like being hungry at all.  The Beck book has one section where you write out something called a ‘hunger response card’ which is what you tell yourself when you are hungry between meals.  Here is my card:

This can sometimes be an argument in my own mind over this.  I actually read this card to myself.  I tend to get blood sugar drops when I don’t eat at timed intervals.  Enough to make me sweaty and shaky.  It seems as though I can go from a little hungry to the fall off the cliff blood sugar drop very quickly, so this is a big struggle for me in allowing myself to feel hungry (the fear factor).  One of my biggest in trying to lose the last 10 pounds.  I tend to eat for maintenance, which – duh – doesn’t equal weight loss.  I think you have to be a little bit hungry if you want to be in a deficit, right?  So this is my personal battle and I think probably the last challenge to get to goal.  But patience, right?

Good news on the broccoli front – I got someone to eat some tonight!  We were watching Good Eats last night and I was so happy to see AB doing a show on broccoli!  I was actually cheering 😳  dork alert!  Anway, John said something about trying it and I jumped all over that and got him to agree to try some.  I did my pan sauteeing with coconut oil for him.  He only wanted a little, so that meant more for my plate 😀

Here is his “I kind of am okay eating this, but not really” look.   LOL. We’ve got some work to do.

I am done with work for the night.   These last couple of weeks have been hard.  With a light workload, I have had to work longer days to get in my minimum lines, which often meant working at night as well.  Now we are back on normal schedule and I finished up on time!

Here is my evening snacky snack.

Delicious.  Here’s to a good night’s sleep with the snack!

Au revoir 2009!

Here it is, the last day of 2009.  The year was full of ups and downs.  Overall, I have to say that I hope 2010 goes more smoothly!  I’ll post my goals for the new year on the first.

So I went to run this morning.  It felt so much better than the other day. In fact, I went further than planned!

I slowly increased my pace by 1/1oth mile each minute until I was cruising at 5.5 mph.  I stayed there until 2.5 miles.  Then I increased by 1/10th each minute to get up to 6 mph, where I stayed until I finished mile 3.

Then came the challenge!  I increased speed again 1/1oth of a mile each minute until I was at 6.5 mph and stayed there for 5 minutes or so.  Super challenge was going up to 7 mph (8:34 pace), which I just bumped up to because I didn’t think I could do it incrementally.  I stayed there for 3 minutes!  Then I backed down to 6 mph again.  That felt so good to get back to that pace and my heart rate came down enough that I decided to go for an extra mile!  I ran 6 miles today :mrgreen:   I was a puddle when I finished, but a happy puddle.

I was roaring hungry when I got home.  The pre run Balance bar only lasts so long!  Made protein waffles and taking Susan’s tip, I set the machine on high and cooked them longer.  They were a thing of beauty!

Topped with a banana mashed with a tablespoon of maple syrup and a sprinkle of granola. My tummy was the most happy of campers after this.

It’s been quiet on the work front today.  Got some shoveling in since we got an inch of snow today.  As if 6 miles of cardio weren’t enough 🙄

Had a hughjass BBQ chicken salad for lunch.  Nom, nom.

John won the football pics again this week.  I made real pity picks of the Raiders and Lions, so it serves me right.  He chose Steve’s Place for dinner (where you can get breakfast all day!).

So that’s what I had!

Have I mentioned how much I love breakfast lately??  Eggbeaters and cheese on a toasted english muffin and home fries.  It’s hard to mess up breakfast foods, and this was tasty!  I also had 1/2 a cantaloupe on the side.

John wanted dessert, so we stopped at Starbies where I got a tall skim cappuccino with honey drizzle.

And had a bite of his cupcake:

It was fresh and good. 😀

Now it’s down time, movie time, and trying to stay up to midnight!

———————————————————-

Last Hot 100 update:  Overall review.

1. Duathlon.  DONE!!! (Oct)  I am so proud of this one.
2. Limit the number of eggnog lattes this year to 2 or 3.   I had 2 at Starbucks this year.  Did have a couple at home, but those are not as caloric as the cafe’s.
3. Keep a redline of weight in mind to not go over during the holidays.  I popped 1 pound above redline after Christmas, but that will go away.  I did pretty well maintaining this holiday season.
4. Complete the New Rules of Lifting for Women.  DONE!!!! (Nov) Another achievement I am very proud of.

5. Enjoy time with family during the holidays.  Love my family! I don’t know if I spent enough time with them, but I tried.


6.  Better organization of time to be productive.  I did so-so with this.  Some days were better than others.

7.  Do some freelance writing.  Lame LOL

8.  Run at least 2 more official 5K races this year.  DONE!  I seem to have no problem hitting my fitness goals.

Thank you to Steve for challenging us to end the year well!

If any of you want a new challenge for the New Year, Steve is hosting another one.  Check it out here: Perfect 10

Have a happy and safe New Year’s Eve!  See you on the flip side of the decade 😀

6-miler and surprise beauty in fall

(I forgot to hit ‘publish’ last night 😳  )

Today was a run day.  Too cold to go in the upper 20s when I first got up, so I had breakfast first 🙂

cakes1117

I worked for a while until the temp hit 39 degrees and headed out.  Pre run fuel:

zone1117

The addiction is still alive and well 😳

It was sunny and beautiful (if cold!)  I did a 3.2 mile loop, came back to the house and drank from my water bottle (and shed my gloves), then did another 3.2 mile loop.  2nd loop was the hill run.  If I had though about it, I would have done the hill loop first…..

Here is my GoWear fit today:

gsf

Can you guess where the run is in the graph??

Had the most wonderful lunch today.  John cooked up some pie pumpkins yesterday, so we have fresh pumpkin!  I mixed some with greek yogurt, pumpkin pie spice, cranberry sauce and some Hemp Plus granola.

lunch1117

Tasty!

When I was outside today, I saw one of my roses actually had a bloom on it!

rose1117

Even with the frost and everything lately, and the beauty bloomed!  Very fragrant and I was so happy to see this.  I don’t know if the other 2 buds there will open or not, but it’s possible!

Decided on a burger for dinner.  I don’t bother with the lean ground beef anymore because it’s just too dry.  I don’t eat ground beef very often, so I like to get the good stuff.  The trade off is the tiny burger:

din1117

Where’s the beef???  Good, though.

Last stop on tonight’s agenda was Starbucks!  We went with my mom.  I would have loved a gingerbread latte, but decided on a decaf skim latte.  I actually got almost 8 hours of sleep last night!  I hope to repeat that tonight.

latte1117

This last pic was taken with my mom’s Easy Share by Kodak.  She is actually trusting me with her new digital camera until mine comes back!  😀

Have a super night!

6-miler and Crispy Fruit

Decided today would be the 6-mile run, as there is a 5K race Saturday morning so I wanted to space it far out from that.  John went with me, although just to do 3 miles around the track.  Fueled up with the english muffin/nut butter combo.  I wish I had let this digest a wee bit longer before heading out the door.

em

I was going somewhat fast, my goal today was to finish in 1:10 or less for the 6 miles.  I did it in 1:07.  I finished 3 miles in 32 minutes, so I got slower in the last half (but some of that was for liquid breaks).  Overall pretty consistent, though. I brought along a coconut water to have after the first 3 miles.  Drank some at 3.5 miles, then 4.5 miles and 5.5 miles.  I was starting to feel a bit fatigued then, but a little voice actually told me to keep going after 6 miles – which I promptly kicked to the curb 😀

I wore my trisuit for this run.  I so love this outfit!  Yay!  I will wear it this weekend for the race.

I think I will make a decision on the 1/2 marathon once I get up to around 8  or 9 miles and see how that feels.

I won a drawing over at Annabel’s blog Feed Me I’m Cranky of some Crispy Greens dried fruit which arrived today (thanks Annabel!).

crispy

She also generously put in some Amazing Grass samples, so I will get to trying those soon as well.  I had to try the dehydrated pear:

pearIt looks like cubes of crusted white bread, doesn’t it?  Tasty though.  Not really crunchy like a dehydrated fruit that has oil on it.  40 calories for the whole bag.  Fun!

Another new  food item I tried today is this strawberry pluot I got at the store the other day:

plum1It is supposed to have a taste of strawberries, and it kind of does!  It is more tart than a plum, with a berry background.  Really yummy and super juicy.  Grocery stores are really stocking some of the most interesting things now!

I can’t even begin to say how much easier it has been to get my eating back on track after stopping the intense triathlon training.  The scale is starting to drift back down again, which makes me happy.  I think you really can hinder weight loss with a lot of exercise, which is why I really did not focus on weight loss while training (although I could have been more careful LOL).

Question:  Have you tried any new produce this year?