Hey guys, it's been a while since I've done a weekend recap so I figured I would put up a little post today about what my weekend entailed this first February of the year! It ended up being unexpectedly really fun and also a great weekend of training, so I couldn't ask for much more besides that.
I started the weekend off with a Friday night dinner date - with my friend Keesha, from my running group. We decided to go to Cheesecake Factory, which, I don't tend to usually like going to a chain restaurant but was in the mood and decided to go for it. I know they have a humungous menu and figured I could manage to get a low calorie dinner and splurge a bit on a piece of cheesecake. I opted for a salad off of their "Skinnylicious" menu, without the dressing, and also passed on the bread that they had (which, I know from experience is delicious, so that required restraint!) We also skipped drinks at dinner, so it really was a low calorie night.
Until the salted caramel cheesecake arrived.
It is unpictured, but I am sure is still sticking around for many a days. I looked up the calories afterwards in My Fitness Pal and it was upwards to 1000. Even though I split it with a friend, that is still a massive amount of calories.
My intent was always to head home after dinner and get a good night's sleep - I am usually exhausted by the time Friday comes around and I planned to get up early in the morning. However, as we were finishing up, I received a text message - or rather a snapchat - from a friend letting me know he was in town! I changed plans and made my way over to where he was in order to hang out for a bit. I relived my college days for a couple hours sipping on Coors Light and playing a few games of beer pong. Miraculously, I wasn't too bad!
However, I didn't get to bed as early as I liked (even though it still wasn't late by most people in their twenty's standard of late) which made getting out of bed in the AM a little bit harder than I wanted it to be. My intent was to be swimming by 8:00 a.m. but I ended up not leaving my house until 8:00 a.m. and was in the pool swimming more around 8:20 a.m. (not before a selfie, of course)
The timing really mattered because my plan for the morning was to swim 1.2 miles -- the full distance of the Half Ironman -- or 2000 meters in the pool -- and then hop out and join the 9:00 a.m. spin class at the gym. I knew it was a packed class and that people tended to get their early so I wanted to be sure to give myself enough time.
I finished my swim in about 40 minutes, hopping out of the water, running and throwing clothes on over my dripping wet body, and ran to the spin room a couple minutes after 9:00 and saw that there were no bikes left in the class. Damn it! I also looked around the gym and literally every single bike in the gym was occupied.
I was a little torn about what to do but knew that riding my bike was a main workout for the day that I needed to get in. I had been looking forward to spin class because I am already sick of riding my bike in my apartment (as evidence to the fact that I realized I hadn't ridden on my trainer all week!) I also had plans to spend the morning at the gym and meet up with friends from there, and had packed a bag and planned my morning accordingly. I was tempted to just do random other stuff, but knew in the back of my head that the bike was really important to get in. Especially since I had spent the week doing different workouts and not biking. SO, I hopped in my car and drove home and got on my trainer and did my bike ride indoors at home while watching the past week's episode of Law and Order: SVU.
And then I got back in my car and went back to the gym to do a short weights workout while my friends were at boxing class (which I missed due to the back and forth.)
I didn't mind missing the class and it gave me a chance to foam roll, use the Power Plate machine to get some blood flowing, and even sit in the sauna a bit while waiting for my friends. I showered at the gym and then with a couple of my gym buddies, we went over to the Old Vinings Inn (right in my neighborhood) to try out their weekend brunch.
All three of us ordered mimosas and the country breakfast which I ate ever single bite of.
After running a couple errands I came home and my tiredness caught up with me because I fell asleep on the couch for a 2 hour nap while reading. It was a beautiful Saturday afternoon and a nap on my couch felt pretty amazing. I woke up not hungry at all, still full from brunch, but with a text inviting me for dinner at a Mexican restaurant on Buford Highway (where the best international restaurants are in Atlanta) with my friend from out of town. I wasn't going to pass that up so I head out around 8:00 to Monterrey Mexican food.
I ordered the fajitas, thinking it was a healthy option. It was super delicious and I ate half, taking the other half home for Sunday. However, it was still an incredibly unhealthy meal since I ate off everyone else's plates and about half the basket of chips and half the pitcher of margarita. Sooo.... will power was not super useful for me this night.
Following dinner, the plan was to go bowling but the alley we picked out had a wait, so I head out since I had plans to train again early in the morning. I stayed up a bit when I got home as I was pretty deeply sucked into a good book and also made myself some hot chocolate, because why not?
Sunday morning I was meeting for a group run that was organized by Tes of the Running Nerds. There is a large group heading to New Orleans in a few weeks for the NOLA half and full marathon series and this week (for marathoners) was set to be the "longest run" before taper. There was a big meetup with people doing distances from 5 miles to 22 miles and then an awesome post race set up that included music, massages, candy, cookies, beer, mixed drinks, bananas, granola bars, water, "taper-itas" and lots of good people.
I settled on 10 miles and felt really great while running. I did the run without music, and broke it up mentally into two 5 mile runs since it was an out and back. It was fun to see so many runners all along the route in various spots and I finished with an average pace of 9:32 miles for 10.13 miles. The second half of the run was significantly faster than the first, which has to do with the Silver Comet Trail's sneaky way of being "flat" but actually slightly inclined on the way out. I finished in 1:36:34 and felt really good about this run.
Given the weekends I have coming up, this will likely be my longest run before my next half marathon so I was glad I felt good during it. I maybe could have pushed and done a couple more to make up for the next couple weekends but stuck to 10 and as happy with that!
The rest of this Sunday - which happens to be Superbowl Sunday - has been spent meal prepping. Partially for the week ahead and partially for my guests that are coming over in just a bit to watch the game.
Hope everyone has a great weekend! I will be cheering for the Carolina Panthers since Cam Newton is from Atlanta, but truly - I could care less who wins the game since the Patriots aren't playing. I'm really in it for the Beyonce half time show.
Happy weekend everyone!
I started the weekend off with a Friday night dinner date - with my friend Keesha, from my running group. We decided to go to Cheesecake Factory, which, I don't tend to usually like going to a chain restaurant but was in the mood and decided to go for it. I know they have a humungous menu and figured I could manage to get a low calorie dinner and splurge a bit on a piece of cheesecake. I opted for a salad off of their "Skinnylicious" menu, without the dressing, and also passed on the bread that they had (which, I know from experience is delicious, so that required restraint!) We also skipped drinks at dinner, so it really was a low calorie night.
Until the salted caramel cheesecake arrived.
It is unpictured, but I am sure is still sticking around for many a days. I looked up the calories afterwards in My Fitness Pal and it was upwards to 1000. Even though I split it with a friend, that is still a massive amount of calories.
My intent was always to head home after dinner and get a good night's sleep - I am usually exhausted by the time Friday comes around and I planned to get up early in the morning. However, as we were finishing up, I received a text message - or rather a snapchat - from a friend letting me know he was in town! I changed plans and made my way over to where he was in order to hang out for a bit. I relived my college days for a couple hours sipping on Coors Light and playing a few games of beer pong. Miraculously, I wasn't too bad!
However, I didn't get to bed as early as I liked (even though it still wasn't late by most people in their twenty's standard of late) which made getting out of bed in the AM a little bit harder than I wanted it to be. My intent was to be swimming by 8:00 a.m. but I ended up not leaving my house until 8:00 a.m. and was in the pool swimming more around 8:20 a.m. (not before a selfie, of course)
The timing really mattered because my plan for the morning was to swim 1.2 miles -- the full distance of the Half Ironman -- or 2000 meters in the pool -- and then hop out and join the 9:00 a.m. spin class at the gym. I knew it was a packed class and that people tended to get their early so I wanted to be sure to give myself enough time.
I finished my swim in about 40 minutes, hopping out of the water, running and throwing clothes on over my dripping wet body, and ran to the spin room a couple minutes after 9:00 and saw that there were no bikes left in the class. Damn it! I also looked around the gym and literally every single bike in the gym was occupied.
I was a little torn about what to do but knew that riding my bike was a main workout for the day that I needed to get in. I had been looking forward to spin class because I am already sick of riding my bike in my apartment (as evidence to the fact that I realized I hadn't ridden on my trainer all week!) I also had plans to spend the morning at the gym and meet up with friends from there, and had packed a bag and planned my morning accordingly. I was tempted to just do random other stuff, but knew in the back of my head that the bike was really important to get in. Especially since I had spent the week doing different workouts and not biking. SO, I hopped in my car and drove home and got on my trainer and did my bike ride indoors at home while watching the past week's episode of Law and Order: SVU.
And then I got back in my car and went back to the gym to do a short weights workout while my friends were at boxing class (which I missed due to the back and forth.)
I didn't mind missing the class and it gave me a chance to foam roll, use the Power Plate machine to get some blood flowing, and even sit in the sauna a bit while waiting for my friends. I showered at the gym and then with a couple of my gym buddies, we went over to the Old Vinings Inn (right in my neighborhood) to try out their weekend brunch.
All three of us ordered mimosas and the country breakfast which I ate ever single bite of.
After running a couple errands I came home and my tiredness caught up with me because I fell asleep on the couch for a 2 hour nap while reading. It was a beautiful Saturday afternoon and a nap on my couch felt pretty amazing. I woke up not hungry at all, still full from brunch, but with a text inviting me for dinner at a Mexican restaurant on Buford Highway (where the best international restaurants are in Atlanta) with my friend from out of town. I wasn't going to pass that up so I head out around 8:00 to Monterrey Mexican food.
I ordered the fajitas, thinking it was a healthy option. It was super delicious and I ate half, taking the other half home for Sunday. However, it was still an incredibly unhealthy meal since I ate off everyone else's plates and about half the basket of chips and half the pitcher of margarita. Sooo.... will power was not super useful for me this night.
Following dinner, the plan was to go bowling but the alley we picked out had a wait, so I head out since I had plans to train again early in the morning. I stayed up a bit when I got home as I was pretty deeply sucked into a good book and also made myself some hot chocolate, because why not?
Sunday morning I was meeting for a group run that was organized by Tes of the Running Nerds. There is a large group heading to New Orleans in a few weeks for the NOLA half and full marathon series and this week (for marathoners) was set to be the "longest run" before taper. There was a big meetup with people doing distances from 5 miles to 22 miles and then an awesome post race set up that included music, massages, candy, cookies, beer, mixed drinks, bananas, granola bars, water, "taper-itas" and lots of good people.
I settled on 10 miles and felt really great while running. I did the run without music, and broke it up mentally into two 5 mile runs since it was an out and back. It was fun to see so many runners all along the route in various spots and I finished with an average pace of 9:32 miles for 10.13 miles. The second half of the run was significantly faster than the first, which has to do with the Silver Comet Trail's sneaky way of being "flat" but actually slightly inclined on the way out. I finished in 1:36:34 and felt really good about this run.
Given the weekends I have coming up, this will likely be my longest run before my next half marathon so I was glad I felt good during it. I maybe could have pushed and done a couple more to make up for the next couple weekends but stuck to 10 and as happy with that!
The rest of this Sunday - which happens to be Superbowl Sunday - has been spent meal prepping. Partially for the week ahead and partially for my guests that are coming over in just a bit to watch the game.
Hope everyone has a great weekend! I will be cheering for the Carolina Panthers since Cam Newton is from Atlanta, but truly - I could care less who wins the game since the Patriots aren't playing. I'm really in it for the Beyonce half time show.
Happy weekend everyone!
You always have the best dinners out and social plans!!! 🙌🙌🙌 I was a good girl and headed up to Oregon last weekend to try and help get me out of my funk and spent the whole weekend hiking, eating, dancing and playing with my grad school friends. It was just what I needed. It just super sucked coming back to CA because I immediateky felt down again. My running club starts up again this week, hopefully that will help. I got two more posts done from November and just a couple more and I could be caught up to where I was blogging in real time (and saving the posts as drafts). Story is mostly there now.
ReplyDeleteWTG on running home for the stationary bike!!! You're so dedicated! Healthy food or not you have the routine and exercise commitment down and that matters so much!!! Getting off the couch is half the battle and im losing. Lol
Hey! I don't know why I didn't get e-mailed about this comment, but thank you!! I don't ALWAYS have the best social plans. I just only post about the good ones :)
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