Picking up at the end of C25K

Whew. After another 2 weeks of failure, we've finally made it happen--we went for something I'd actually call a "run" (as opposed to the last "run" I posted about that I didn't feel good about at all).

This time, not only did Jon run with me (this is the first time he's run since the half a few weeks ago), but we also decided to bring ze doggie too. I don't have any photos of her with her summer trim, but to give you an idea, this is her pre-summer style:

Yes, best dog ever, I know, I know.
She was a real trooper (the shorter hair and the harness probably helped) and I think we'll be trying to bring her along more often.

Anyway, we ended up being out there for a little under an hour with a half hour jog in the middle (we decided to walk with Sahara to the bike path before running). It was rough, but I made it and I'm glad that after essentially 3 weeks I can pick up at where I was at the end of C25K (even if I'm not at the 60+ minute runs I was doing a month ago). So, yeah, I'm feeling good. :)

Here are my splits and my map for tonight--no heartrate info since I'm so out of practice that I forgot to wear my chest strap. Oops!



I'm pretty pleased with how I did and I could have probably pushed a little longer, but our brown bear was getting tired and I didn't want to overdo it, BUT I'm looking forward to getting back out there tomorrow too. I did miss running, it makes my evening feel so much nicer.

I'm back!

Whew. Sorry about that absence, my thesis was due Friday and it had my 100% focus all week. That said, I didn't work out pretty much at all and am now up to 171.2 (I think) as of last Saturday, which was the last time I weighed in. All that's left me feeling pretty gross, but now that that's over, I vow to get back on track and back on plan (I even brought my running clothes to campus to run today... It's not going to be pretty).

Yesterday was my fake birthday. It's really next Saturday, but we'll be in Cincinnati for my sister's graduation from high school, so Jon decided we should celebrate beforehand. Thankfully with my thesis done, I sent out another paper early in the morning and then had no work to do for the rest of the day! :)

We couldn't have asked for a more beautiful day. 85º, sunny, and not too humid. To fully take advantage of this, we spent the afternoon at the beach at Stroud's Run, one of my absolute favorite places in Athens. We went swimming, sunbathed, and then rented a canoe for a lap around the lake (something I've always wanted to do). We had a blast, but now... I look like a lobster. I thought I'd put sunscreen on my back, but apparently not to the sun's exacting standards.

Here's a photo of part of the beach/the lake, you know, to give you an idea of how pretty it is.
Source
Then, Jon took me out to dinner at a locally owned mediterranean restaurant that we love and to coldstone for some birthday ice cream. Not the healthiest choice, but it was really delicious and we had a great time. :) All-in-all, I couldn't have asked for a better fake birthday day... well, I'd do without the lobster-like burn, but other than that.

Anyway, it's good to be back into blogging, sorry I abandoned you all! Also, sorry there's no photos! We didn't take a camera to the beach/in the canoe and then totally forgot to take a photo while we were out.

Happy Monday!

Ulgh.

I know it's a coward thing to do, but... I'm postponing weigh-in until Saturday morning definitely. Especially after this run and Meg calling and deciding she was definitely not going to make it.

Just got back from my first run (if you can call it that) since last Monday and it was horrible. I'll post more charts later when I can hook the Garmin up to my computer, but let's just say... terrible run. After the first mile, I maybe got myself to run another .5 out of the remaining 2 miles that we left. I ended up with an even 3 miles in 40 minutes.

I sweat buckets and really just hated life the whole time. But, regardless, I'm glad I went. At least with that terrible run behind me, I can get back into the swing of things. Plus, Jon got p90x from Liz, so that's definitely happening. :)

Weather for this lovely run:




You'll notice that the humidity is only 59%... I swear when I was running that I thought it was definitely higher than that.

Anyway, here's me, really sweaty, post-run:


Whew. Hopefully my next run won't be quite so terrible. I guess at least I can be happy I got out there! I don't know about you, but once I go off plan or start procrastinating ANYTHING in my life, it's so much harder to make myself go back or crack down and finally get it done. Ick!

Big Kid Science Fair

Okay, so today I'm presenting my undergrad thesis at OU's Student Creativity Expo (aka the big kid science fair). See? This is me with my super sweet set-up:

Instead of eating the pizza they're providing for lunch I packed myself the usual: turkey/mustard sandwich (on an arnold, of course), carrots, yogurt, an orange, and one of those little jello mousse things for dessert. Total: 5.5 points. Much more food than 1 slice of 6 point pizza (and who can ever stop at one slice, I mean really?).

Today starts a new week and I'm debating about going to weigh-in tonight since Megan can't... I might just go Saturday morning before going to the Farmer's Market. I know I said I was getting back on the wagon, but well... this week wasn't as bad as last week, but I'm still going to gain.

That said, Liz (one of Jons co-workers) is going to let us borrow her P90X, so we'll have that tonight and I've packed my gym bag so that I can go for a run after class. After a week and a half of no running, I'm guessing tonight is going to be pretty rough, but I'm really looking forward to it. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that the rain holds off till then!

Edit: Didn't win the Science Fair (well in the Arts & Humanities division), but did get to talk to some fun people. My friend Jaime got second place and also snapped this fun photo of me talking to two prospective undergrads in French (it was high school scholars day too).

I may not have worked out, but...

We did have our first at home grilling of the season: Teriyaki chicken, pineapple, squash, and corn. We were wandering through Kroger and decided that today was the day to get a new propane tank and start grilling...


All prepped for handoff to the Grill Master
Mr. Grill Master in action
He was never satisfied with any of the grill photos. This one amuses me because he looks so majestic... Love him!
Look at that delicious final product! Jon has apparently gotten into helping me take my bloggy food photos by working on the dinner "presentation." We may or may not have eaten all the squash as an appetizer as everything was grilling.
Our classy TV dinner-ing. Not the best idea, but we did get to catch up on "How I Met Your Mother" and "Big Bang Theory." Plus, if you zoom in, you'll see that even our cat Fiona is licking her lips.
Definitely a successful meal, even if I felt back about taking so much time to cook instead of going for a run... I'll get back into it, promise. Plus, I think I am going to order myself P90X pretty soon. Then I'll have zero excuses since you can DEFINITELY do P90X in the rain!

Jonboy and I want to make this a really healthy, grill-tastic season. So, question:
What are some of your favorite things to cook on the grill?

Workout DVDs

Source
So, fellow bloggers... Aside from P90X (which I can't afford right now), does anyone know of any good workout DVDs that I could get? I need something to do indoors since it's going to be pouring rain allllllll week. Ick!

This Weekend (In Pictures)

Whew, what a jam-packed weekend. Friday started the weekend with a delicious Lox/Avocado/Light Cream Cheese bagel from Athen's own Bagel Street Deli. Not only is this place a local favorite, but it's also special because that's where Jonboy and I went on our first impromptu date. :)


Also, after lunch my friend Katy and I stopped by a local bookstore's street sale and stumbled upon this gem:

The whole idea of this book alternately makes me laugh and pisses me off. Really? A cookbook to encourage emotional eating? Seriously?!
Since this weekend was going to be really nice outside (albeit cold on Saturday/Sunday), Jon and I decided to tackle all the things we've been too busy to do.

Goals for the weekend:
1. Fix the plumbing in the shower (Jon did this...I just cheered him on and cleaned the rest of the house)
2. Finish/Redo the kitchen: On our first weekend together, Jon and I tore up the linoleum in his kitchen with the intent of replacing it with vinyl tile. Instead, we ended up living with the plywood sub-floor until this weekend (total 5 months). Though, once we decided to do the floor and had to take out all the appliances for that, we thought we might as well just go ahead and repaint/put up the backsplash for the oven while the appliances were already in the living room. Result: brand new kitchen!
3. Go to the Farmer's Market
4. Go for a morning run (Didn't happen... Oops)
5. Grill out with Beth and Steve (Happened, but sadly there are no pictures. Extra bonuses from grilling out: I've finally tasted and fallen in love with parsnips and Jon has learned how to play Apples to Apples!)

Jon spent all Friday night fixing the shower--so Saturday morning, we didn't wake up early enough to run, but we *did* however make it in time to go to the Athen's Farmer's Market. Jon'd never been and I've been wanting to take him since we started dating, but, sadly, not a lot of fresh produce growing in the winter. Saturday was super windy and cold, so we didn't get to stay too long, but while were were there we did manage to grab THIS amazing creation from the local pizza joint Avalanche's bakery:

Yes, this is covered in nutella. It's a bready thing with half a banana baked into the top, smothered in nutella. Not very points friendly, BUT it was breakfast and we shared it.
See? Jon had some too and, bonus, looks happy to be there despite the wind and cold. I'd give him crap about the cold since he's from Alabama and all, but hey, my midwestern self thought it was pretty chilly too.

Then, we came home and conquered the kitchen:

BEFORE:Okay, by "before" I really mean, pre-tile. Here, you can already see the plywood primer
In Progress:






After:


I LOVE the new kitchen look. Disregard our mess since the dishwasher isn't working yet, but still, what a change from the old look! :)

Although I'm not a fan of our oven, I do think the backsplash really helps make it look a bit better!

Anyways, busy, but productive weekend. No running, but I definitely didn't sit around and do nothing instead. Whew! Now onto the master bedroom! It's going to be an interesting project because not only did the former owners paint it navy, but then they feathered some silver paint on top of that. Plus, we're going to tackle the carpet replacement on our own... Any tips and pointers would DEFINITELY be appreciated!

WW Weigh-in

See this wagon? I'm back on it.
Things I enjoy about weekly weigh-in's on weeks that I've "blown it":
1. They help you 'fess up and put the bad week behind you and help you get started afresh
2. Usually, it's not as bad as you think. I always really dread them those weeks and it ends up not being a 156926159 (i.e. 3+) pound gain, but more like a 1.something or a .something. This helps my optimism for the coming week ("I can SO lose .x and make up for this!")
3. They help you appreciate the weeks you do lose

That said, this week definitely embodied all of these points. Here are the stats that I'd been dreading, they are nowhere near as bad as I thought they would be. Like I said to Megan in the car, I feel like I always over-freakout the night/day/hour before weigh-in.

Weekly weigh-in: 167.6
Loss: +.8
Total loss: 26.0
Emotion: Relieved

I'm glad to put this week (and the funk I've been in) behind me. I think not running + the stress for the GRE + poor eating choices = a subtle bad mood that's stuck with me all week. Poor Jon has had to deal with this (He's awesome).

Anyways, it feels good to be back in control and while I'm not running tonight since I have a midterm tomorrow (I'll start studying in a minute... priorities!), I did get back in control with my food. Tonight, I went out for my weekly "date" with my former roommate Emily and our friend Jesse, and we got Coldstone. This is typically a "Danger, Will Robinson!"-esque place, but tonight I was smart and got the 'Like it!' size of the Sinless Sans Fat Sweet Cream with brownie and raspberries for a total of 5.5 points, keeping me soundly within my daily points for today! It feels good to be back, folks! Now, off to study about the various circles of Hell (Yay, Dante!)>

Thank Heavens tomorrow begins a new week

Short post, since I'm tired and have to get up in 6ish hours.

This week started out great. Well, by week I mean the Monday after my disastrously delicious food weekend. I had planned out all the workouts that would make up for my misadventures and hopefully keep me from gaining too much this week. Unfortunately, I failed to consider my life this week when making said plans: studying for the GRE, GRE taking, Mother Visiting, Cinco de Mayo.

As such, I haven't worked out since that fabulous workout sequence Monday and I'm sad to admit to you all that I've not eaten well at all since then.

Tonight, my mom was in town for the day to visit and go to an Honors Lunch with me, so I decided to take her and Jon out to dinner for Mother's Day. We had a really nice time, the food at Lui Lui's is always amazing, and, of course, we all split a slice of blueberry cake and one of BAILEY'S CHEESECAKE (It's even better than it sounds). After the meal (and the bill), it did strike me that as much as I enjoyed everything about the meal (Seared AhiAhi Tuna and a glass of Pino Grigio), I just paid more than I should've to go ridiculously over what I should eat. I know that's a pessimistic view of a really great outing, but I did feel kind of bad...and then Jon and I met our friends up at Casa (a locally owned bar) for drinks for Cinco de Mayo, where I also drank more points than I should.

Anyways, tomorrow won't be pretty and I feel like this is becoming a habit of me dreading my weigh-ins and whining on my blog about it beforehand. I'll stop (next week), I promise. They just make me nervous.

BUT you know what else made me nervous this week? Taking my GRE. Which I did this morning, after ditching last night's run to hole myself up in the living room to review math for (literally) 6+ hours. I'm not sure how much that paid off today, BUT I do know that I can tell you pretty much anything you want to know about triangles and trapezoids and that I got a decent enough score to (hopefully) get into one of the following schools to which my scores were sent: Emory, Vanderbilt, IU-Bloomington, UF (No, Auburn discriminates against French and doesn't offer an M.A. or a PhD). You know what I don't know? Anything about exponents, so don't ask.

Night all!

Oh no! Weekend Guilt-o-Meter!

**Image from goodhousekeeping.com**
I feel like I do this every week, but woo! I'm not good with weekend eating. This weekend, there was a big meal every day:

Friday:
Pasta dinner (Homemade pesto, alfredo, and marinara!?! Must try all three!) + Garlic bread = Epic points

Saturday:
Race "Reward" Burger + Fries + Dinner (Chicken breasts in a white wine, mushroom, and shallot sauce with couscous)

Sunday:
Szechwan peanut butter noodles with Chicken (WW recipe), but more than 1 serving
I meant to take photos of the chicken and the noodles because they were SO delicious. Here's a link to the chicken recipe at Epicurious... Yum!

It's hard to not over-psych yourself out for a race. I think there's definitely that mentality that you've worked SO hard and definitely deserve to indulge (which I felt, and did) and it's easy to forget that your awesome 33-minute race time only actually translates into 4 Activity Points... i.e. almost enough to burn off the hamburger bun by itself. So, when I finally 'fessed up and went to track my weekend (after the fact), I was in the red 35 points! I mean, I'm not *that* suprised, but wow. The fact that it poured rain on Sunday so I didn't go out and run didn't do me any favors either.

That said, yesterday, I jumped back on the bandwagon with an epic workout based on my calculations of how much I have to work out to even begin to make up for the weekend. Yesterday's plan: an 8-mile run, biking to and from the gym, and a Pilates class. I ended up only running a little over 4 miles due to time constraints before Pilates and a general feeling of pain in my entire body afterwards. That, and the first run wasn't very good--I couldn't pick up the pace and it was humid and muggy outside already at 9am. I actually got sunburnt, regardless of having put on sunscreen beforehand. Oh, the joys of being really pale. Regardless, the Pilates definitely felt good. It's true that after a few months of no Pilates, the first day back is KILLER. I can definitely feel it in my abs this morning. Please tell me I'm not alone in that I actually really enjoy feeling a bit sore after a good workout--it really makes me feel like I pushed myself and accomplished something. I'm definitely going to have to keep using it as a cross training exercise since I'd love to one day have actual abs.

Anyways, I also decided to try something new with the Garmin for this workout series. I wore it the whole time: Biking, Jogging, and Pilaticizing (yes, I made a new verb). It worked pretty well, though somehow right before Pilates it changed to a different workout (thus the two separate sets of charts). It also thought I moved around a lot more than I did during Pilates. To my knowledge, I never left my mat.

Map 1: the bike ride to the gym, my jogging route and the beginning of Pilates
Map 2: Staying on my mat in Pilates and biking back

The heart rate charts were pretty interesting too:


I didn't label this one, just Pilates and then the bike ride

And here are the labeled splits:


The calories are a bit off because I left the Garmin in running mode for the biking bits (so it thinks I ran a 5-minute mile), but still, pretty interesting. Next time, I'll have to break things up more effectively to get a better count.

So yeah, I felt a lot better about being back on track after that workout. Then, for dinner I made healthy salads with dill/lemon salmon, homemade lemon vinaigrette, feta and veggies. Then for dessert we made homemade versions of my favorite Dairy Queen blizzard: the Hawaiian one. We put frozen pineapple, a banana, some shaved coconut, and fat-free vanilla frozen yogurt in a the blender and roughly blended them together and voilà blizzard! So good! I definitely recommend it.

Anyways, it feels good to be back on track. I stepped on the scale this morning as per usual and was down a pound from Monday morning's whopping 170, so that felt good. We'll see what happens. Moral of the story: don't over estimate your race rewards or your need for pasta prep. Well, unless you're going to run a marathon. Then all bets are off.

Columbus Commit to Be Fit 5k

So, today was the 5k that I started C25K to train for back in January. After a carbo-loading pasta meal at our friend Andrew's last night, we drove up to Columbus to spend the night on my friend Jess's couch, since she was running in the 5k too. The day started out entirely too early for a Saturday, overcast, and ended up with a pretty hard rain by the end of Jon's half marathon. Parking and everything was painless since we pre-paid/reserved parking and had already picked up our registration packets last weekend. We were also able to exchange our tech shirts for smaller sizes without any fuss as well.

We got there in plenty of time and managed to find an empty tent to use as cover while stretching as we got ready for the race.

Here's Jess, making sure she's all stretched out for take off.
Jon was very excited about his new Auburn tech shirt he ordered and had overnighted specially for the race. He was also really excited (and kind of nervous) about his first half marathon.
I'm rocking a different color UA tank this week and am apparently really elated to be being photographed. Most importantly here, you'll see that I look like a real runner... How'd that happen?
We lined up with the 10:00 pacers and since there were around 10,000 participants, after the 8am start, it took us around 7 minutes to actually cross the finish line. Sadly, since I wanted to wait to start my Garmin until I'd gotten to the finish line... by the time that happened, I was too caught up in the moment and it took me 3/10 of a mile to realize that I'd failed at that... Oops. You can see that on the map:

We started and ended on Spring St., but I didn't realize it was off until I looked down and saw 0ft. distance as I crossed High St.
Other than that minor slip up, the race went really well and I pushed myself really hard too. In fact, I was really surprised when I saw this HRM chart:


I really must've been pushing at the end, since my heart rate was above Zone 5--almost at 190! Still, it felt great to finish.

Race Stats:
Time: 33:16
Place: 615/1868 overall, 247/1155 women
Official Pace: 10:44
Not too shabby I feel, even if it's not as good as the one last week. Then again, last week's timing wasn't as official/organized and they didn't have chips, so it's possible that I was slower and closer to my own iPod stopwatch's measurements. Regardless, I know I pushed it has hard as I could.

And now, some after race photos.

Me with my other 5k ladies, Jess and Linda and our finishers medals
After seeing my Garmin at work the other day, Linda was so excited about it that she made her final decisions that she definitely wanted one too. Little did she know that her boyfriend had already gotten her one as a 5k/birthday surprise!
Jon finished his first half in 1:52:00 in the pouring rain! I'm so proud of him. I made him a sign and waiting for him on the sidelines as they came in, but, sadly, the sign didn't hold up too well in the rain.
Afterward, we changed and met up with some of our other 5k/Half friends at Plank's Cafe for the very appropriate after-race meal of burgers, fries, and beer. Hey, we deserved it.

Now, onto the next challenge!