Thursday, May 29, 2014

Mulligan May

You guys....I am TIRED.  Since my last post there has been one four-day trip home, one three-day trip home, three house viewings, one company dinner cruise on Lake Michigan (I felt so fancy! :P ), home-buying pre-approval process adventures and meetings with realtors.  There has also been, however, a distinct lack of a regular exercise schedule and my diet can best be described as an unchaperoned child at a birthday party. (Thank you ecards....those are seriously addicting!)  So I am declaring this month Mulligan May.  The way I see it, I've managed to keep a normal schedule for roughly a year in a half taking a "rest week" here and there over holidays and such.  Losing track for a bit is something I shouldn't beat myself up for.  Right?.....RIGHT?!

Now, how come I can't convince my brain of that?

So yeah, yay guilt, but I've managed to get back on it (mostly) since getting back from the Memorial Day trip home. And the trips were a blast! (Although, kind of a blur at this point) I was able to visit with a ton of people that I hadn't seen in ages.  AND I ran my second "official" 5k race!  The Races for all Paces event is held by Sarah Bush, and my dad has been a volunteer for a couple years now.  When he found out I'd be home that weekend he offered to sign me up and I said sure!  Now...I don't know if it was the lack of working out giving my legs a rest or the extra carbs I had been consuming, or the race day adrenaline, but something very strange happened.  This was my first time running on pavement and not the treadmill since last fall, (Yes...I am a wuss) you would THINK that my time on the road would be slower than my normal treadmill time.  My personal best on the treadmill was 36:15...my timing chip for the race said 34:57.

You can see why I'm skeptical.

So, for all the reasons mentioned previously, I think the timing chip was being generous.  My muscles the next day however, said maaaaybe the chip was accurate.  I'll take it.  :)

So that was my main health-related accomplishment since my last post.  There are plenty of life-related accomplishments in the form of staying with mom for four days, celebrating our work accomplishments at a fancy dinner and getting to visit family and friends!  I won't call the house buying stuff an accomplishment YET.  I'll save that for when we find something.  That whole process is just fraught with anxiety for me, by the way.  I'm glad I have Nathan there to keep me calm through the whole thing.  I would include a photo barrage of recent events, but as I said before, I am LE TIRED....so I shall go to take a nap....

Or you know...just go to sleep...and I'm not firing any missiles. (Kudos to those who got the reference)  :)

Sunday, May 4, 2014

Races Races Races

I vaguely realize it's been almost three weeks since my last post, but honestly, things have been so chaotic that it hasn't felt that long.  The past couple weeks have kind of blended together in a mesh of chaos and the responsibilities of being an adult.  Among the mix of crazy other than the standard job crazy has been figuring out how soon we want to possibly be homeowners (a terrifyingly adult dilemma) and dealing with multiple vet visits for one of our cats.  It just so happened to be the cat that is the most "I'm a delicate princess" diva-cat, Jezebel.  She had to have surgery to remove a lump from her jaw, which meant she had to wear the cone-of-shame.  For 10 days.  Which, I can assure you was something she continued to let us know was unacceptable.  Her favorite method of notifying us of this fact was scratching incessantly at the cone for hours on end in the middle of the night.  I do not understand how some people say that cats have no personality.  Ours have very different and distinct personalities.  Now, people saying cats are assholes, I totally get.  But no personality?  Stay with us for a while and you will feel differently.  The whole thing was actually pretty comical once my feelings of extreme guilt during the first few days were over.

Day 1 right after getting home.  She got so tired trying to get out of the cone, she flopped over and fell asleep.
Also day 1.  Sleeping off the drugs

A couple days later.  She would not accept us not petting her at this point.  Like I said...Diva-cat.

One bonus to the crazy schedule has been that I've inadvertently re-established a running routine.  I had been doing a fairly good job fitting in my runs but they were kind of here and there and I hadn't been making a lot of progress on my PR time.  So busy weeks have given me a running schedule of one easy day and one day of sprints during the week and then a long run on Saturday where I run a 5k for time and then continue with my running intervals up through at least 50 minutes.  I've come to love sprint day.  I get a good workout that's really time-efficient and also does wonders for my endurance.  Case in point:  yesterday.  After doing sprints once a week for a few weeks (and also having some really REALLY good strong coffee) I managed a 5k time of 36:15.  That was almost a full minute off of my previous PR.  I felt like a total badass.  I desperately needed a win like that since my motivation to get the runs done had been taking many many hits lately.  It was pretty nice.  I also have been trying to include some extra strength training, which could have helped, but my lungs always seem to give out during my runs before my legs, so I'm giving the credit to the coffee and the sprints.  Also, a disclaimer:  my runs are 90% of the time done on the treadmill.  I know many runners who would scoff at me for doing as many of the workouts as I do on the treadmill, but the way I see it, improvement is improvement and it's better than not running at all.

That's right.  I'm a badass.  Also, seriously, if you can find that coffee, GET IT.
Races are coming up soon!  A 5k sponsored by Sarah Bush at home May 17th and then the Color Run in Racine May 24th.  I think it's safe to say I'm feeling a lot better about both of them after this weekend. :)