Friday, November 20, 2015

The weeks that passed

Where has the past week gone?

It's been more than a week since I've posted.  And I've been back and forth on a trip to New York City since I was last here!  I actually was able to push on beyond my blogger's block last week and got a few posts out with novel ideas of what to write about but haven't fully had the time to write yet.  But then it has been crickets and I am sorry for that.  I know probably none of you out there care, but it actually weights on me a little to not be able to have the time to post.

The week has been pretty interesting though and let me just sort of zip you up to speed as to where I have been and what I have been doing this past week.  I have definitely have had a busy week and workouts have been a mixed bag.  I sometimes don't think I give myself enough credit and am too hard on myself so I am trying to be a bit more balanced in these next couple months of not-official training.  I was thinking back that it has been a really light couple of weeks but now writing it up I realize it hasn't been terrible.

I started last week by swimming on Monday AM.  Swimming twice a week when I am in Atlanta is something I want to try and commit to. It has been awesome to be back in the pool, but I definitely have some work to do if I want to improve my times or at least reduce the effort it takes to swim the same times! This week my work schedule has had me starting every day at 7:30 a.m. though so I unfortunately didn't get to do the whole workout, since I needed to be showered and dressed and at my desk earlier than I usually do. Yoga took place that evening, which was great except for that I fell asleep and had a nightmare.

The next day, Tuesday morning, my morning running buddy consisted of Brick and we did a three mile light run in some light rain and then in the evening head to the gym for a leg session. And, OMG the pain of returning to leg days.  I really like weight lifting though, I just happen to find it so hard to maintain.  I've been making it my goal lately to have a 3 days a week of some sort of strength training/non-cardio workout.  It worked well the past week, but this current week as I have been traveling, it has been non-existent.



Somewhere in my mind, I apparently thought I was invincible and forgot how much a leg workout can take out of you.  So I was a bit delusional when I woke up Wednesday morning for a run that felt like complete and total crap with Janet and Sheba.  I had high hopes of wanting to do multiple hill repeats but I could barely keep my breathing in check for one or two of them.


The run ended up being 3.7 miles and it was such a struggle run for me.  At least we looked cute in pictures though!  I even like the extremely terrible picture that the random man took for us.  Thank goodness for self timers that the days of having terrible pics taken by stranger is not the only thing we have to rely on anymore.



You all know about the rest of my Wednesday since I documented my eats for your reading pleasure. Which, also included talking about my day.  So without much ado on my Wednesday, which had originally planned to include a bike ride, I will move on.  I ditched my bike ride on Wednesday and continued that by ditching my run on Thursday morning.

I don't like the habit I have sometimes of letting one workout early in the week somehow make it okay to miss out on some of the later in the week ones.  Leg days have the ability to do that to you if you let them, which I clearly did this whole week.  I need to get better at not allowing that to happen in the future!  Instead of the morning run on Thursday, I did get a run in for the evening on the treadmill for a quick 3 miles followed by a barre class that I sort of dogged my way through (due to legs being barely bendable.)

I was SO tempted to just walk out of that barre class because I didn't feel like I was getting too much out of it since I could barely do the moves, but I stuck through it until the end. Which, wasn't something that I was able to do on Friday morning for my swim class due to another 7:30 a.m. meeting at work. That evening I spent out with some friends and stayed out much later than anticipated (are you noticing a pattern on my weekends lately...) So being out late, you know does not bode well for my weekend workouts.

On Saturday AM I totally skipped the plan I had for an 11-mile run to help get me ready for a Thanksgiving half marathon.  Instead I totally had the laziest morning ever and redeemed myself the teeny tiniest bit by heading to the gym in the afternoon for an upper body workout.  I'm a bit nervous about the Thanksgiving Day half marathon that I am registered for and sort of wish I had signed up for a shorter distance holiday race.  I'm noticing that marathons make me quite cocky.  In the days afterwards I have this mind set of "I can do ANYTHING!" which makes it a bit interesting if those feelings translate into race registrations.


The rest of my Saturday was spent being productive around the house and going to bed early. That night in was very much needed, especially as I had every intent on getting up early to be able to get a longer run in.  However, wouldn't you know it, but I couldn't manage to pull myself from my bed early enough on Saturday morning either.  I was able to get up in time to do 3 miles before heading over to the Girls on the Run 5K where I walked another 3 miles.  I did not coach this season, however, one of my friends did and she needed extra "running buddies" for some of the girls on her team.  I volunteered and ended up "running" the race with a little girl named Cindy.

Except that Cindy REFUSED to run.  Home girl had her mind made up from the beginning that she had no interest in doing the race.  I did my best to encourage her throughout the whole thing, but you can tell by the look on her face that she was NOT feeling it.  This picture totally cracks me up.  She had this face on the ENTIRE 3.1 miles.


After my struggle of a weekend with running and complete lack of doing any distance running, I followed that up by two days of zero exercise whatsoever on Monday and Tuesday and then a short 3 mile run on Wednesday and Thursday each.  Followed by another Friday of nothing.  Pretty good, huh?  However, NYC is a gorgeous place to run, let me tell you.  I had thoughts of a 2016 New York City Marathon as I ran through Central Park on Wednesday and Thursday mornings!


And on Thursday morning, if any of you were watching the Today show and are extremely extremely border-line creepily perceptive, you may have spotted a familiar person on your screen. 



I ran with a coworker and we stopped at the Today Show after our run and my mom was able to spot me in the background and take a picture of me and my coworker!! Please leave a comment if you'd like an autograph.

I don't like to blame things on my schedule because I know that I can always make things work.  It is what I do during marathon training.  I just make the runs work and fit them in to my calendar no matter what.  But truly, it was challenging to even get these runs in.  I did choose to see friends over times that I could run, but my work schedule was difficult as well.  On Wednesday I had to tell my coworkers, "We are NOT doing another 7:30 a.m. call because I want to run in the morning." because I was feeling a bit overwhelmed.

However, I'm frustrated with myself because I feel like I have just been taking a step forward and then two steps backwards.  Before I went to NYC I was feeling pretty decent about myself and now I am cringing when I look in the mirror.  I know that is crazy and that you can't have THAT much change in either direction in just a few days.  But it's just been really some ups and downs on the eating front.

I'm back in Atlanta and I have an 8 mile run planned on Saturday morning that I WILL accomplish, plus a half marathon on Thanksgiving Day so there are some good miles ahead to be run!  Hope you have a great weekend and I promise I won't be as sparse as this past week!

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