The Unexpected and a Belated Sunday Set up

So very little about last week went as planned. I didn't end up in trial (thankfully) but my body decided a full on revolution just to keep the week stressful. Lets take a look, shall we?

Goal for the week was 200 minutes. I'd planned on doing 4 days with 30 minutes of activity and another day of 60. I guess I totally forgot there are 7 days in a week because when I charted it out there was only one rest day. Oh well. After a difficult start to the week I managed to hit my goal

Best Workout of the Week
Probably yesterday's walk/swim. I knew I wanted an hour of activity and a swim but didn't want to swim for an hour. I hit up the Y near my folks and did half hour on the treadmill with some Tudors. It felt good just to walk at a nice 15 min/mi pace. Afterwards I suited up and hit the pool. I did the same base workout from last week but did the entire main set instead of half. It looked like this

200 Warm up

6x50 (3 drill, 3 kick)

4x

   25

   50

   75

   100

200 cool down

 It's a really good workout for when you have very little swim base. On the 3rd or 4th time through I threw in some backstroke, but did free for most of it. My neck and shoulders are definitely thanking me today (not).

Best Meal of the Week
Food has been a banned subject this week. Monday I felt really nauseous all day but wrote it off to stress. Monday night I felt so achy I thought I had a fever. No joke, my legs hurt so bad. I took a bath and everything. Tuesday the nausea continued but again, I thought it was stress. I headed home early and laid out on the couch trying to relax a bit. The rest of the week followed similarly; no food really sat well in my stomach but an empty stomach was worse. Essentially I'd get so hungry my stomach hurt, so I ate something, then felt nauseous and over-full. It was oddly gall-stoney.

Check out all those peas

Last night after my swim I made a Bertolli pasta meal that I think will take top honors this week. I love their "Meal for 2" series. This one had shrimp and asparagus. There wasn't a ton of asparagus so I added some peas. Pro Tip: Always keep frozen peas or mixed veggies in the freezer to add to frozen meals! It was really good and just the right amount and texture.

I'm putting the finishing touches on this at work (sorry boss!) so I don't have my meal plan to share. However, this week's meal plan is going to be very spur of the moment. I'm basically trying to re-set my stomach. I want to stick to mostly liquids and easy solids if possible so I loaded up on shakes and soups. I've got some good crackers too. I'm hoping that by going back to the bare bones my stomach can rid itself of whatever has offended it. At the end of the day I'm hoping it's just a really really really  bad bout of PMS. Thanks a lot, Eve.

The other plan for the week? Tea! I loaded up on some good herbal tea while out Christmas shopping this weekend. Not only do I think it will help my stomach but I think it will come in handy around 2:30-3:00 when the headaches and chocolate cravings his the hardest. Here's hoping celestial seasonings can save me from myself.

Happy Running!!

How do you deal with mid-day cravings? 
Ever had a week you just want to go back and start over?

Hello December!

I'm not really sure how it happened, but November is behind us. It seems like it happened really fast but I know that December will only go faster. This fall has been a whirlwind of activity, both personally and professionally. I'm quite ready to get the hell off of this ride and slow down for a little bit (though I don't think that's going to happen).

So lets talk about last week.

Yuck! Yeowza's. Disgusting. I'm not quite as disappointed with my miles as I am with my Minutes of activity. Particularly since last week was damn near double

Oh well. We knew that this week would be lower, didn't we? I managed to get in a short run on Wednesday before we got in the car. I desperately needed it but my body hurt. Everything was creaky and sore and just didn't feel right. Maybe I've been pushing it too much without a plan? I think I need to get some variation back in the mix to keep my body happy.

Thursday was the annual Gold's Gym Turkey Trot! I think this is my fourth or fifth year running it - I love it! More and more of the family has gotten in to it and this year we ALL had funny hats!

The Teenagers are just *so* excited

It was too freakin hot to run in them - 55 degrees at the start! - but my sister in law made sure we got our pictures! 

Hands off ladies - he's all mine

The race itself was ok. We had Chinese food late when we got in on Wednesday and it was fighting me. I decided to run slow and then about 2 seconds after the horn sounded decided I just wanted to get it over with. I negative split the race in a big way, which is exactly what I was going for. The pace overall was....slow. I was almost 5 minutes slower than the previous year, which was super disappointing. I guess I need to keep in mind that last year at this time I'd just run the Urban Bourbon 13.1, so I was definitely better trained. Oh well, there's always next year!

Then it was to the couch for football watching and complete and utter relaxation. I'm happy to report I wore stretchy pants the entire weekend and ate pretty much whatever we wanted. I made Hubz stop at Kroger for some Good Belly before we got home and I hit that pretty hard. It seemed to really help the discomfort from the Chinese food AND help me get hungry for dinner. 

I'd taken extra workout clothes so I could run Friday but...my knee was not happy. In fact it was less happy on Saturday after a day off than it was on Friday. So Friday & Saturday were big fat 'ZERO's'. 

Today I decided that I could avoid the office - and the trial I'm set for on Tuesday - so long as I cleaned up and went for a swim. With extra time on my hands I headed to the suburban YMCA that has the super nice pool. It felt really good to get back in the water but I was quickly reminded that it has been 5 months since I swam. Seriously? Good lord. I did 1500 meters of a 2000 meter set and 

called it a day. 

Now I'm just working on the Cleaning Part and...

Last week was the first week I'd flat out ignored my meal plan. With Thanksgiving I decided, eh, F*&@k it. I was right to do it. This week, back on track. 

This week I'd really like to aim for 200 minutes of activity. I plan to break that up with 30 minutes x 5 week days and 60 minutes for Saturday. It's ambitious given the fact that I'm going to start this trial Tuesday BUT I think I can make it.

I got to the grocery after my swim today and tried to just keep it to the list. It was hard!

Tonight we're having sausage and potatoes - Hubz request! - so I'll pre Tuesday's Mexican Chicken soup & my overnight oats for the week.

Primed for a good week. In the midst of all of the work chaos one positive thought has really helped me through:

Happy Running!!

Are you prepared to have a successful week? What'd you do?

Preparing for Better

So this week saw more rest days and chocolate candy. That being said, I guess I shouldn't be surprised that the scale took an epic turn in the wrong direction. Yikes. The only conclusion I can reach is that I'm eating crap. Fair point based on my FitnessPal loggings from last week. So how to combat this? Lets get back to the Sunday Set Up!

The meal plan part was pretty easy as I've been meal planning regularly since January. So that's one new years resolution that has really worked! Here's what's on the meal/workout agenda for this week:

I hit up Trader Joe's this afternoon and stuck to my list. No impulse buy purchases. Try that at Trader Joe's in the aisle with all of the chocolate covered what-have-yous. Not easy.

Tonight while I was fixing our dinner I prepped everything for the week. Not too much prepping to do since some of our meals will come out of the freezer. Got pretty much everything chopped, bagged, and ready to go.

Fixins for Tortilla Soup

Tortilla Soup in the crock

Non-Dinner prep

So now it's time to get on with the "Good week" part! I'm feeling a little melancholy this week - which could be attributed to the calendar....a certain week in the month...do you get it yet? - and maybe the weight gain is too. The Holiday Sweat Challenge starts today - 8 weeks of healthy eating and friendly motivation to keep the holiday bloat at bay. Now that I'm all set up, I can't be anything but successful!

Happy Running!

Monday Monday

**this post was originally published on 2/2 but blogger had a seizure and took it down. However, far be it for me to deprive you of my awesome updates 

Monday again?

My typical Sunday blog time was preempted by the Super Bowl.  I promise to fill you in on my week of workouts. 

There's not too terribly much to report thanks to this stupid cold I've acquired. After 4 days of itchy throated coughing I'm finally coughing "productively". Hopefully that means we're in the home stretch. I'd like to thank God, my family, and pseudo ephedrine for getting me through it. 

Ran and biked this weekend, though in limited capacity. Hated cutting my run Saturday in half but thought it best to be kind to my body. I only wish it had the same respect for me. 

But before I left for my run there was some mandatory puppy cuddle time 

And of course, no weekend is complete  without a Set Up Sunday. 

A frozen lasagna I made at Christmas will serve as dinner twice this week. An awesome baked fajita recipe will make fajitas for one night and quesadillas for another. 

Sunday set up for me also means cleaning out the fridge of all the old "UFOS" (aka unidentified food objects) and washing dishes. 

So let's go Monday. Bring it. 

Happy running!

Did you watch the super bowl? Happy with the result?

How do you deal with a cold?