Quick Update

So much for the Alien run – for the last two weeks I’m battling with a nerve problem (I think!). I know it’s not a muscle and according to all my google resources, it sounds like a scatia nerve issue.
I haven’t run for two weeks now, and it’s feeling much better. I’ll give it another week or so and then will go see a chiropractor or something it it’s still bothering me.
At least I walked a mile (sometimes two) every weekday, so I wasn’t completely inactive.

Today I’m officially starting again, I’ll hit the treadmill and will just walk between 2 and 3 miles and add a LOT of strength training. I think I might have gone too much too soon when I started, and I am determined to run the half marathon in December, so I better find a way to make it work!

Thanks for asking Jen

Beware of the Aliens

“Laziness is nothing more than the habit of resting before you get tired.” – Jules Renard
Wow, it’s been a while since I’ve updated my progress, but luckily it doesn’t mean that I haven’t been doing anything. I had a great week last week – my mileage total for the week was 16.9 (if I have realized that at the time, I would have done .1 more in my long run to get to 17, darnit!) and my long run was 5.5 miles on Saturday. And the best part of it, most of it was running and at a comfortable pace too! I’m still running slowly, but that’ll change soon – I am throwing in fartleks and tempo runs into the mix, I know results will follow.

My first race will be in 5 weeks on August 16, and it should be a lot of fun. There is a Extraterrestrial Full Moon Midnight Marathon, 1/2, & 10K in Rachel, NV – check it out – http://www.marathonguide.com/races/racedetails.cfm?MIDD=2761070825
I plan on doing the 10K; the plan is to get it done under 75 minutes – which is real slow, but about on par with my fitness level at this point. Of course when I was younger, my time for my 10K’s was less than 60 min and hopefully in a year or so I’ll get back to a glimpse of my former glorious running self and be able to do it again. The 10K is by far my favorite race.
I also thought it’s an appropriate race given that I am an ‘legal alien’ myself.

I had to make a decision at this point – do I prepare for the 10K by following a specific 5 week program for 10K, or do I keep on doing what I’m doing in order to prepare for the half marathon at the end of the year. I looked at the program for the 10K, but that will cut my weekly mileage a little, and at this point piling on the miles is what keeps me motivated and I still need to build on that for the longer distance, so I am just gonna stick with my current workouts and treat the 10K as my regular weekly ‘long’ run. It’s only 6.2 miles after all.

That’s hot!

“Run hard, be strong, think big!” – Percy Cerutty

Vegas is HOT, and not Paris Hilton hot, but hot as if the devil himself resides here. (Given that it’s called Sin City, probably not much of a stretch there).
Anyway, I walked home one day last week – and let me tell you – 105 degrees – even if it’s ‘dry heat’, is too freaking hot for any normal being to be outside for longer than 2 min. I walked the 2 miles and hated myself for that bright idea. Wasn’t my fault really – the gym at the apartment was closed to be painted and I had no way of getting to 24HourFitness to do my run on a treadmill like a sane person. Anyways, I know better now.

Last week was great, my cold is gone and I did over 16 miles for the week. My ‘long’ run on Saturday was 5 miles, and the best thing of all was – I was on the treadmill for a total of 70 minutes – warm up and cool down included, and I was able to run for a full 60 minutes without having to walk in between! I guess I’m REALLY a runner again, and it feels great!

My next goal is to increase my mileage a little each week (5 – 10%) and in a couple of weeks I’ll incorporate speed training and all those fun things. I have lots of time until December and I want to take things slow. The last thing I need now is an injury to slow me down.

I haven’t been able to adjust my eating enough in order to lose weight; my weight has been the same for the last three weeks or so. Eating every couple of hours works, but then my problem comes at dinner – by that time I have limited calories left, and always manage to take in more than I am supposed to for the day if I want to create a calorie deficit to lose weight. I also am having wine and beer and other junk food over weekends, limited amounts though, but it still adds up in the end and negates the calories I burn with running.
It is also hard to balance eating healthy and making sure I have enough ‘fuel’ for running, with a restricted calorie diet, that’s quite a challenge. I am not too worried about it though, I am sure as I increase my running, I’ll burn more calories and the weight will come off eventually.
At this point I want to concentrate on running and not losing weight, I’m sure it’ll even out eventually.

On the road again!

The harder you fall, the higher you bounce. – Anonymous

OK, I think I’ve done the right thing by just sitting back and let the cold or whatever it was I had, pass. When I got sick last week, I decided not to do anything until I felt better, and by the end of the weekend I was good to go!
Too bad I had a subpar week when it comes to miles logged, but at least I’m ready to run again this week and one low mileage week is a minor setback in the grand scheme of things.

I also had to change my running ‘location’. I can’t go to the gym after work anymore, since we have only one car and Richard started working at their new office which is 10 miles away and his hours are later than mine too. Now I jump on the bus after work and will run on the treadmill at the gym at the apartment complex. Worked out pretty well yesterday, and Clarese and I went swimming too after my run (3.4 miles), which was great.

Today, however, the gym at the apartment is closed for painting, but that is not a big deal, since I am going to change my running schedule to every second day anyways. I will do some walking and/or strength training for the alternate days, so today I’ll just walk home. Might be a little hot outside, but there’s only one way of finding out!

Quick update

You must do the thing you think you cannot do. – Eleanor Roosevelt

Well, this really sucks. Wednesday morning I woke up with something which felt like a tennis ball in my throat, I went to work and I knew it, another freaking cold! I left work early and since I know I won’t be running, I decided to walk home so that I can at least get the 2 miles on my legs. Yesterday morning the cold was in my head and throat and I stayed home and watched TV with Clarese most of the day. Taking in lots of fluids and cold meds, and today I’m feeling better, though I probably won’t run until Monday. I’d rather wait a couple days and make sure I’m feeling OK than run when I don’t feel good.
Think I’ll walk home again today just for the hell of it, it’s only 2 miles and at least I’ll have something to enter in to my log!!!

At least last week was a great week, I really can run now! Four of my runs were over 3 miles and my Saturday one hour run (plus 5 min cooldown) was 4.4 miles! And I felt great, hopefully I can get it up to 5 miles in an hour soon.

Thanks for asking Jen!!!!

I can run again!

“Just do it – Nike”

I can run again! I officially feel like a runner again. I still do some walking, but am running a lot more in all my sessions and I’ve reached the point where I can run at a comfortable pace and don’t HAVE to stop!. Now my goal is to keep my weekly mileage between 12 – 15 miles a week and in a month or so I’ll start adding mileage to my Saturday runs for ‘long runs’ and also then will start on actually do some real running training, fartleks, hills, temp runs, etc. For now I just want to get the mileage on my knees without overdoing it.

The more info I get on weight loss, the more I realize why half the world is fat. There are so many contradictory information out there, all from so-called ‘experts’, who do you believe? I came to the conclusion that losing weight is a lot like playing poker. There are a million ways to do it, but you’ll have to find the way that works for you!

I’ve learned a lot the last couple of days – first of all, I’m changing my view from losing weight to losing fat. Rapid weight loss almost always equal loss of muscle tissue and not fat, and muscle is needed, not only for my running, but muscle also burns calories while you’re doing nothing. So, I need my muscle! I am not going to go by the numbers on the scale anymore, and since I don’t have the fancy thingies to measure body fat, I’m just going to have to take some measurements and go by that, my mirror and which clothes I fit into.

Based on that, I’m tweaking my workout schedule – running only every second day now. The days in between will be walking one of the treadmill programs – to incorporate a little incline work, as well as some strength building exercises.

Now, with so much information out there, what to do about eating? First of all, if I’ve learned one thing, is that cutting calories drastically is the wrong thing to do. And if you do it, make sure you have high calorie days in between just to calm your body down and let it know we’re not starving here. Otherwise, your body might think it has to save you from dying from hunger, shut down the metabolism machines and burning the fat calories will be much slower than you expected. So, let’s trick the old machine and don’t let it go into starvation mode.
How? Hmmm – I’m going to have to go by the formula used by people who are living proof that their method of losing fat is working – body builders. They believe in several small meals a day, cutting bad fats and up the protein.
So, I’m going to try and eat something (protein and some kind of good card) every 3 – 4 hours, with no really big meals. Also, I will have to cut on red meat and other foods with a high fat content. Apparently all calories are not created equal and some are better left behind 

Let’s see how this goes for the next week or so.

Fighting PMS

“Using the power of decision gives you the capacity to get past any excuse to change any and every part of your life in an instant. – Tony Robbins”

OK, PMS is not a rumor! Last week was a constant battle with all the classic PMS symptoms, and as you might know, they don’t make for good diet and exercise partners! I had the appetite of a whale, I had sweet cravings and overall I just felt tired and crappy as hell. Though I’ve switched from coffee to herbal tea, on Friday I had to have a cup of coffee just to stay awake at work!
It was really no fun, but I made it! I decided to have the sweet things I craved, however, most ‘bad’ things I ate, I made a deal with myself that I can have it, but I can’t finish it. So I had birthday cake, donuts, chocolates, wine, beer, etc, but I didn’t finish everything and I still tried to stay as close as I can to 1500 cals a day.
And when I got on the scale this morning, I was rewarded with another 2lbs down!

As I said, I took Wednesday off, on Thursday I did 3.5 miles. I’m still walking/running, but the running portions are getting longer, YAY! Friday I did some leg exercises and just 2.3 miles, because I planned on going to the gym on Saturday as well.

Saturday I managed to complete 4 full miles in 60 min – still a lot of walking, but the running parts are so much better, I can run longer and faster portions. It’s been a month since I started, and I can definitely feel the difference!

Almost a bad day!

“If think you can’t, you’re right. If think you can, you’re right. - Ken Hatton”

So I thought I had a bad day yesterday – food-wise, that is.  Some idiot brought donuts to work, and usually I don’t have a problem with ignoring sweets – but thanks to PMS and all its delights, I couldn’t resist and had a donut.  First I took a knife and cut off a quarter and ate it.  Then I went back and had another quarter.  Rinse and repeat and before you know it, I ate the whole thing.  Oh well.  It was also Richard’s birthday yesterday so we went out for dinner and I had a glass of wine, appetizer and bread on top of my main meal.  But I guess in the end it wasn’t too bad, I had salmon and veggies, the appetizer was small and when I add that all to my online food log, my total for yesterday was only 1571 calories.  More than I want, but not a disaster and I know I will have the occasional high-calorie day.  And I don’t have a problem with that.

 

My knee is still bothering me, I’ve researched as much as I can but can’t figure it out.  I assumed it was one of the runner’s knee conditions, but my symptoms don’t quite fit with any of those.  I have a kind of a stiffness starting from the top of my knee going over my kneecap.  It doesn’t hurt, it’s just uncomfortable.  And today, twice, my knee kind of snapped when I walked, a little painful at the time, but not sore afterwards.  Guess I’ll just stick to my plan of strengthening every muscle within 2 sea miles from my knee. 

 

Monday I did 3.1 miles, I did 3 min of walking following by 5 min of running, and I was actually able to run those at speed 4.5.  I can feel the improvement, and before long I’ll be able to run much more, I know it. 

Yesterday I did two easy sessions (before and after I did my leg exercises) for a total of 2.1 miles and today I’m taking off because I’m going to play in the RAZZ tournament at Binions!!

Run, Girl Run!

“There is no security in this life. There is only opportunity. – Douglas MacAurthur”

Well, it worked!! I cut the calories to less than 1500, even had a couple of beers and ice-cream this weekend, but never went over. And this morning, I got on the scale — down another 3lbs, for a total of 5lbs so far! Still a long way to go, but it’s a start. I shoot for 1lb a week, but hoping for more, because I’m hoping to lose more than 30 by December. It’s so much easier to run when you’re not heavy (go figure).

Friday I took it outside and decided to instead of the gym, just walked the 2 miles home. It wasn’t bad, but the heat was too much for me. Not again at that time of day. From now on it’s also just gonna get warmer, so for the time being treadmill, here I come.

Also found another partner for the race in Dec – Vicky, another poker-playing friend (Vegas chix should know her) said she wants to run with Ginny and I! I hope she realizes I’m going to keep her to that, because I need a running partner on weekends when I start doing my longer runs!! Be prepared, Vicky!!

Ginny, my inspiration for getting back on the road, sent me a t-shirt that says ‘Run, girl Run’!!
That’ll be my motto from now on!! RUN GIRL RUN!!!!

Changing gears

“To change one’s life; start immediately. Do it flamboyantly. No exceptions. — William James”

On Wednesday I felt a little down, I was still upset about the fact that I haven’t started losing weight, so when I got to the gym, I almost decided to turn around and take the day off and just go home and sulk. But I just couldn’t get myself to do it, I’ve decided I’m already there, I can just as well go spend a little time with my new best friend, Mr Treadmill. So I did. Walked for 2 miles, felt much better and went home.

I did a little more research, and I think I have to up my calorie burning and cut on my calorie intake a bit if I want to see results sooner. Currently – with 2 -3 days a week of cardio, my body needs about 1900 calories to sustain my weight. My food log says I’m consuming about 1800 – 1900 calories. That means the running burns another 200 or so, and you can do the math – to burn 3500 calories to lose a pound, is gonna talk a lot longer than I like if I don’t change.

So starting yesterday, I am going to cut my calories to between 1000 and 1500, no more than that. And next week I’ll definitely run a little more, my goal is to burn 300 – 500 extra calories a day which will bring me to a weight loss of one pound a week. It really is not hard to figure out why 99% of people are overweight. It’s damn hard to lose it once it’s there! I guess we never realize how important food choices are. To start, I am cutting useless calories 1) alcohol -though not completely, I will still have my wine on occasion, just not as part of my daily routine like it used to be 2) the sugar and creamer I use in my 2-3 daily cups of coffee add some calories I don’t need, so I’m switching to South African Red Tea with a bit of Splenda. It might not sound like it, but it makes a big difference in the long run.

Apart from feeling better in general, yesterday I noticed that I felt much better when walking/running as well, I managed to run for more than a minute or two at a time, and at some points during the workout, I was able to run at a speed of 5.5 for a minute or so. I did 3.1 miles and a little bit of leg work on the machines for my quads and hamstrings – I feel so sorry for them; they really have to work hard on those runs!
I felt good when I left, it is always good when you’re done and you feel as if you could have done more!