Where's the Beach?

Italian Style & Morning Run Last night I decided to make more of Sarena's Chickpea Oat Flatbread . I've been thinking about it ever since the first time I tried it. I also want to try making it spicy to go with chilli. YUM. This time I added in sundried tomatoes, fresh oregano and basil. I also added in garlic powder. An Italian spin to go with an Italian inspired dinner. I made a red sauce and tried something new - crumbled in tempeh to make it a "meat" sauce. I served it over spaghetti squash with a side of the flatbread.   This morning I managed to tear myself out of bed to meet up with "A" for a run. I have been so fatigued since my San Diego trip. Part of me really wanted to put it off until lunch, but I knew that it was going to be really warm and I'd just end up complaining about how hot it was. Also, I knew I'd be happier with myself for getting the run done. Plus, it's hard to turn down 45 - 60 minutes of nice conversat...

Nightmare Run Well, today one of my bigger running fears happened. I didn't just hit a wall (or 2), but I did it with my new running buddy. It's honestly one of the reasons I've shied away from running with others. It's one thing for me to have a running temper tantrum with Jason or alone, but with someone else... The deck was really stacked against me, and I knew it too. My legs and feet had already traveled 13.5 miles over a 2-day period. Thursday is typically a rest day so that I can be fresh (mentally and physically) for my long run on Fridays.  However, Hurricane Isaac is about to cause us some headaches with regards to the weather. So, unless I wanted to swim my long run on Friday, I needed to try to go for it today. So, tired legs (and feet), 26 mph gusting winds (coming from the swirling remnants of the hurricane), and 77 degrees with high humidity all add up to potential disaster. And it didn't help that my first 5 miles were entirely too fast....

Gym Day Today was beautiful. I had really thought I might get in a 3-4 miler, but I thought it was best to rest the running legs (and feet) since I did go farther yesterday. Instead, I hit the gym. But man oh man the sunshine was so inviting. However, every once in a while you see some funny stuff at the gym that you might not witness running. Though, you witness a lot of funny sh^t running I must say. I never thought I'd have to put this on a do-not-do-at-the-gym list - but this one is going on there. Men, please wear workout shorts, not tights, not underwear-looking booty shorts. Please for the love of anything and everything holy, don't do it. I've never seen this particular person up there and it was all I could do not to just flat out stare. I noticed him at first because I hear this crazy noise - he was doing burpees, but horribly wrong. It's like he was jumping up with shoulders and back still rounded down so it looked like one of those scared cat cartoon dr...

Leg Day Today I packed my gym bag and hauled it to the office with me. My plan was to do legs at lunch and secretly hoped I'd feel up to the 3-mile run on today's half marathon training plan. I know, crazy talk. I really wasn't sure how my legs would feel after two days of pretty hard runs. But they seemed (key word) to be a-ok. I warmed up with 10 minutes on the elliptical then started with a warmup set of 10 squats with no weight on the bar. Then I got to it: SS Squats Plie squats Front, side, rear lunge combo* - 3x4 SS Single-leg deadlifts - 3x8 Calf raises - 3x20 *Start with feet parallel, lunge front then return to start tapping toe, lunge side return tapping toe, lunge back tapping toe for 1 rep. I used a single weight held in both hands. I finished with some abs then headed home to get cleaned up before going back to work. This workout looks harmless enough right? Apparently my quads didn't know they were sore until I started with the lunge combo...

Spinning & Soap Box Last night I set out my running gear in hopes that I might actually be up for an early morning run. I woke in the wee hours, looked at the clock (4:10 am) and decided pretty quickly that I needed to reset the alarm for a more manageable time like 6:20. In other words, there was no morning run today. Instead, I went to my backup plan, which was spin class at noon. It was a good class today - major sweatfest going on. I think the only person not sweating was the one chick who kept either stopping the bike or getting off to get water, or stopping the bike...yes I repeated that because that's what she kept doing. It is so incredibly frustrating to watch someone just piss away their workout like that. There was on girl back from maternity leave. She didn't leave her bike once, nor did she just stop and sit there. She admitted she was struggling and having to use low resistance, but she was freaking working her butt off regardless. Anyway, I'll st...

Two on Thursday Running  This morning it was a little tougher peeling ourselves out of bed for a morning run. I think as the week progresses and workouts have added up, my body starts to talk to me a little more, protests a little more. But I really wanted to get in a run this morning since there is a chance of rain tomorrow morning. It was about 10 degrees cooler this morning over Tuesday, but the humidity was still nice and high and almost no breeze. So somehow, by the end, it may as well have been 85 degrees. I couldn't stop sweating - nice visual right ;-) Jason and I did the first mile together, then he made a stop while I continued on and later caught back up with him. This worked out just fine because while I'd love to run the whole time with him, I wanted to put in more miles and he's trying to build his miles back up. I don't want him to hurt himself going too far too soon (thought he's been doing 4-5 miles not trivial). Normally when I'm solo I...

Storms & Spin Last night was another long one. We had three storm cells move through, bringing in hail, high winds, and more tornadoes. We ended up giving Heath a prescription drug that was supposed to knock him out. But his fear of storms is so bad, that even that didn't help. He still woke up during the last round (somewhere around 2 am) freaking out. So it didn't work, and then the poor little guy was so groggy when we got up, I had to carry him down the stairs. We've given him that medicine only a couple of times before, halving it. We thought the odd grogginess and continued anxiety was because of it only being half the dose. Nope, not the case. I don't think we'll mess with that again. It's not worth it, and I can't stand seeing him so out of it. I had thought about getting in a run today after work. I was kind of itching to run. But we had more rain and thunderstorms in the forecast, so I ended up decided to go to spin and not chance a rainy ...

Tired Tuesday So, the plan was that Jason and I were going to get up around 5:30 this morning and hit the gym. I had everything ready to go. I had even let my boss know I'd be doing 8-5 instead of 7-4. Here's where we went wrong...we both took a Zyrtec for allergies. Of course, we needed it. But it always messes with my sleep in a big way. I was up every two hours throughout the night. At 4:50 am, I made the executive decision to switch the alarm back to normal time and get in some more sleep. My workout ended up being done after work in the end. I would have loved to have run today, but it was gusting 30+ mph winds today. We have another major storm front moving through, possible tornadoes already predicted. Since I am not always a glutton for total punishment, I went with upper body weights today over a run. I did two exercises per muscle group as supersets of 3x6. I did 10 minutes on the treadmill as a warm up. Decline pushups as warm up - 24 Assisted chinups Pul...

No Whining Today First off I want to thank everyone for your super kind words of support and encouragement regarding my little temper tantrum/rant. I know that so many of you understand and get it. Thanks for any advice as well. It's much much much appreciated. I promise to not go overboard being a big brat about this training. Today I had a doctor's appointment in the afternoon. I had no idea how long it would take, but I knew I probably wouldn't get back to work until after 3 pm (and I leave at 4). So I went ahead and took the rest of the afternoon off and that worked out to my favor for the run today. Thankfully the sun also came out finally. It was windy, but the sun made it feel so much nicer out. I almost decided to take my run to the gym because of the wind, but I knew the sunshine would make me feel so much better. So, I took my run down to the river trails. The half marathon training plan called for 3 miles, 3x(2:00, 2:30) athletic intervals, 2 miles. This en...

I apparently have been really lacking in the sleep department. Didn't make it too much past 10 pm last night and slept until 8:50 this  morning. I NEVER sleep in like that. I was a bit disoriented and kept rechecking the time in disbelief. I guess I was really tired though and didn't even realize it. This morning I decided to try Shock Cardio Athletic Step . This was a good, straight-forward, no frills step workout. If you've done Cathe's step workouts before, then none of the moves will really throw you for a loop. It was fun, time flew by, but it was shorter than I would have liked. So far, that is really my only complaint about the Shock Cardio workouts I've done. They have all been fun and time really does fly by (no clock watching). But they are short so calorie burn overall is lower. But they are definitely ideal for time-crunch days or when you plan on doing an upper body weight workout as well. Speaking of weights, I decided to start the Total-Body Train...