Switching It Up on the Bike

Rumor has it that it's Spring. You know, the time of year when the temps warm and the sun shines.

"Spring my ass," she said.

Because Mother Nature is, apparently, a bitch, I haven't been able to ride my bike to work as planned. So I'm still on my trainer in the basement two or three times a week.

It. Is. So. Boring.

My normal bike day consists of a little stretching and then 45 minutes of hard pedaling, with "spin" speed on the commercials of the News 3 Morning Show. I ride in the highest gear and I usually sweat a little. I never lallygag.

In an attempt to keep my sanity until Mother Nature decides to lighten up, I've made a change in the process.

I still stretch a little. Then I do my shoulder and/or chest strength sets as fast and heavy as possible. Then I hop on the bike and pedal. I still speed up during the commercials, but then as soon as they are done, I hop off the bike and do 15 push-ups as fast as possible.

While I know intervals are good, this little change doesn't seem to be that big of a deal. Yet, I am surprised at how much more I sweat this way. 

Regardless if it's better or not from a calorie burn perspective, it is really good from a mental perspective. It makes those 45 minutes go so much faster.

For that, I am grateful.

Here's a cool infographic that describes three interval workout styles:
http://www.purelifenutrimedics.com/blog/maximum-fat-loss-through-high-intensity-interval-training

And here's a sample workout. http://home.trainingpeaks.com/blog/article/3-indoor-cycling-workouts-for-the-winter

BTW ...

Sometimes you gotta take the bull by the horns. 

So after a very slow wake-up this morning during which I almost decided to skip the work out, I bit the bullet. 

• I ran my normal 4 miles, turning up my speed for a few intervals in preparation for the 5K on Saturday ... and it was FINE! My hideous outing on Saturday did not translate into a hideous run today. It feels really good to have that monkey off my back. 
• I brought the scale upstairs ... and I STEPPED ON IT! I have gained 14 pounds from my normal average low, it's true. But it wasn't as bad as I though it was going to be. The good news is that the scale is now back where it belongs and I can step on it every day to get myself back on track. 

Bring it on, world. I am not afraid. 

Hahahahahahahaha!

Review: Frontera Key Lime Cilantro Taco Skillet Sauce

Dinner tonight was fish. Frozen cod, to be specific. (I'm still in the process of cleaning out/eating my way though the freezer and the frozen fish gods seem to have been very generous.)

With a hunk of raw marine flesh, an onion, an avocado and some cilantro, we put this little packet to use:

I started onion slices in a little olive oil and once they were soft, I tossed in the fish. I seasoned the whole mess with a little salt and pepper. When the fish was nearly opaque, I poured in the sauce and let the whole shebang heat through.

I served with sliced avocado, chopped cilantro and a side of sauteed asparagus.

Good: The sauce was really robust. Gave boring cod a little zing. It would also be good with shrimp. But Jim is allergic to shrimp and I'm kind of fond of him, so I have decided to not try that, lest he stop breathing. Made for a very fast dinner, too ... fish just doesn't take that long to cook and pouring the already prepared sauce on is easy-peasy.

Bad: It was salty. Not sure if I salted too much as I seasoned the onions and fish while I cooked. And there was waaaaaay more sauce than I needed for our ample fish serving. I could have frozen half to use later and stretched it out with water to cut down on the sodium and get twice as much bang for the buck. Oh, it wasn't super pretty either.

Next time: I would put the fish in whole wheat tortillas for a fish taco. In fact, that's what I'm doing with the leftovers for tomorrow's lunch. You could also make tinfoil packs with sauce and fish to throw on the grill for no-cleanup meal prep!

Lead Legs, Sheriff Surveillance and 12.9

There are good run days and THOSE run days. Today I had one of THOSE run days.

The plan? Run 11-12 miles, knowing I had 10 in the bag last week with not too much trouble.

I was so confident in my ability to kick it today that I spent last night Googling half marathons for the weekend of May 10. After finding a lovely run around a lake in Pewaukee, all I had left to do was to wake up, put my sneaks on and get it done. With that distance under my belt, I could run an easy 8 or 9 next weekend, taper the week after that and hit it on May 10.

I slept well. The sun was shining. Jim left early so I had all the time needed to ease into the day. This was going to be a piece of cake!

I brushed my teeth, put my gear on, went to unplug my phone from the charger and noticed that it was ... dead. It had been plugged in all night, but apparently not well enough. Argh. With Jim gone, I needed to have a phone on me. So I plugged it in and waited. For an hour. And a half. Got a quarter of a charge.

It was nearly 11 a.m. by the time I headed out, much later than I'm used to running. Which meant I'd had to eat, and I don't normally do that before I run. I was off kilter from the word go and it didn't get better.

Windy. Cooler than I dressed for. By Mile 3, I was all in. My legs feel like lead. They were so heavy. My whole body was heavy. Slogging through concrete was the image that I couldn't get out of my head.

By Mile 4, I took a walk break. Just 50 or so steps. And again in Mile 5. At the beginning of Mile 6, I was out of water, out of ideas to make it better and wanted to stop. Water was the thing I had to take care of first, so stopped at a friend's house to fill up.

They weren't home. Of course.

Thankfully, I could use the spigot on the back side of their house. Par for the course, I couldn't get their gate latched properly as I exited the yard. I fought with it for a good five minutes before giving up.

As I rounded the house to get back on the road, I noticed the squad car parked out front. Watching me.

(Yeah, sure. I'm clearly breaking in. I look like I'm about to keel over and am unlikely to carry a big screen TV on my back for very far.)

I chose walk/run intervals for the next two miles, in an effort to not totally throw in the towel. By Mile 8, I knew it was all over. And I walked from 8 to 10.5+. It was a very long three-ish miles and it seemed to take approximately 83 hours to traverse.

At that point, my phone decided to give me the figurative finger one more time. I heard the telltale beep of the battery croaking as the whole thing shut down.

Now I was just pissed. I wanted to be home. I wanted this to be over.

So I started running again. I did run/walk intervals for the next 1.5 miles, determined to finish on the run.

I did. It was downhill.

It wasn't the run I wanted. I'm really not sure what was so different between this week and last week. Was my body trying to tell me something or was my head playing tricks on me?

I'll probably never know. What I do know is that it SUCKED. I hated every step.

And I still went 12.9 miles in about 2h25m ... which is:

• Farther than I have gone since last June
• "Only" 16 minutes behind my first half marathon two years ago ... a race I hoped to finish in 2h30m
• Faster than my walk/run half marathon last year in Fort Atkinson ... by 12 minutes! 

Not the run I wanted. But it is the run I got.

How do you know you're a runner?

When you are already hoping for a better run next time.

Rockin' Abs!

This is a video of me working the rocker chair/stool thing in my office. I can't figure out how to turn the whole thing sideways, so you're going to have to turn your head or your computer to get the idea. (It's literally taken me 1.5 hours to get it this far with my antiquated equipment and lack of technical skill ... Aiy-yie-yie!)

What you're looking at is the reflection of me in my office window ... you'll see how I sneak a little ab workout into my day. 

Scale Fear

For the first time in about 3 years, I have no idea what I weigh. I have guesses. They're not happy guesses.

My scale went to live in my basement workout room at one point during Girls Got Grit weigh-ins. And it never came back upstairs to my bathroom where it lived since the beginning of this whole weight loss thing.

Could I weigh myself downstairs? Well, of course I could. But the Optimal Weigh-In Conditions and Procedures I had established (always post sweaty a.m. workout, after emptying bladder et al, and completely naked ... you know, to weigh as absolutely little as possible), could not really be followed conveniently in the basement. So, I haven't been hopping on the scale.

Could I bring the scale upstairs, so that I COULD follow the Optimal Weigh-In Conditions and Procedures? Again, of course it's possible. But knowing that my clothes feel tight and I feel bloated, I have opportunistically forgotten to carry that bad boy to the master bathroom.

I know how ridiculous this is. I know how I'm sabotaging myself by NOT knowing my actual weight. I know I'm allowing my fear to control my behavior which is how I got to be 200+ pounds in the first place. I also know that I can't "fight" what I don't know.

And right now, I don't know how much I weigh.

So why don't I just carry the damn scale up 14 steps?

Fear and shame are strong emotions. They have power over logic and faith. They feed on insecurities and doubt.

And they grow.

Just when I think I have this whole thing figured out, I learn that I don't.

The Tale of the Humpback Sheriff and Hot Boobs

Once upon a time there was a girl who wanted to get a 10-mile run in on a lovely, Sunday morning. The girl woke up, set her My Tracks app and headed out the door.

Long about mile 5, as she was heading down a sleepy side road, she noticed a car driving very slowly. The car was far in the distance, and moving so slow it was hard to tell if it was actually coming toward her, stopped or moving away from her.

The car performed a Y turn in the middle of the road near a gated entrance to a big fancy house/game farm.  It was then that the girl noticed it was a Sheriff's squad car. The car completed the turn and pulled up alongside of the iron gates that span the 1/2 mile of road in front of said fancy house/game farm.

Now, the girl was still quite far away. Yes, she was running ... but not very fast. And her eyesight is not what it used to be. She was perplexed as to why this car was hanging out in front of the fancy house and wondered if someone behind the iron gates was having issues. She assumed the big fancy house had an abundance of security, so the very presence of the squad car seemed odd.

The car stopped. And the driver side door opened. And from the front seat a creature appeared. To the girl, who was still a quarter of a mile away, the creature appeared to be a long-legged, uniformed person with a very short, round torso. In fact, the creature appeared to have a humpback. With a little, tiny head sitting directly on top of the round torso.

"Hmmmm," the girl thought. "This looks quite strange. Why is a squad car in front of the gate? Why is the driver of the squad car getting out of the car, opening the trunk and back door of the car and moving something between the two? Why would a deputy have a humpback?"

Since the girl is prone to logical and rational assumptions, she decided that the squad car had probably been stolen by a gun-toting and drug-using humpback Hobbit who was planning to blow up the iron gate of the fancy house. She also surmised that the Hobbit did not plan for a jogger to be on this sleepy road at this time of day to foil his/her plan.

So the girl did what any logical, rational person would do. She took her pepper spray out of the velcro holster, took off the safety and prepared to attack the Hobbit should he/she strike first.

Of course, with each step, the girl got closer to the car. And it wasn't long before the girl could see that the deputy was really just a female officer with a very large bullet-proof vest on, making her torso appear much rounder than it really was.

The deputy smiled as the girl ran by and said, "Didn't I see you way over there just a little while ago?" waving her hand toward the beginning of the girl's route.

Desperately, the girl tries to cover up the pepper spray canister in her far hand, hoping the polite and friendly deputy didn't see it. "Yup ... I'm about half way done!"

"Have a great run," smiling deputy says.

The girl, now feeling really silly, didn't want to slow down to re-holster the pepper spray. So she shoved it in between her bosoms and keeps running.

It's not long before the girl felt an odd burning sensation in the bosom area. The canister had managed to wedge sideways (alas, the girl's bosoms aren't big enough to hold contraband firmly in place, it seems) and the nozzle end was pressing up against her flesh.

Sweat + bouncing + nozzle that has been previously sprayed on loose neighborhood dogs = hot boobs.

The moral of the story? Never carry pepper spray in your bra after stumbling upon a hobbit Sheriff's deputy on a lonely country road.

Or something like that.

• 

First Races Scheduled

So far, my race season has two entries:

The first will be May 3. It's the inaugural  Beloit Downtown Dash 5K and because my new company is a newly minted member of the Beloit Chamber, some folks from my office have decided to run this. I've decided to run it for time, which I've never done before. The goal is to finish in 28 minutes. It's a stretch for me, but I think it's doable. I have some work travel between now and then, but my training of late has included some speed work and I think I can make it work.

The second will be May 17. It will be my third Janesville Pound the Pavement 5K, benefiting Habitat for Humanity. This was the race Jim ran last year ... his first and only 5K. I did the 10K last year and would honestly like to again, but we have a long weekend planned that begins as soon as the race is done, so I'm only going to do the short one.

The Fort Half is on June 21. The timing would be pretty good from a training standpoint, but I'm not sure I want to run the same long course twice. There's something nice about not knowing how far you have to go, if that makes sense. There's also a half in Lake Mills on June 4. That might be a better choice. A nice run around Rock Lake sounds kind of pretty, too.

As for my dream of a marathon? I need to look at my training plan a bit more carefully to know what the right dates might be. Fox Cities marathon in September sounds good at first blush. And, I have friends in Neenah (one who has run the course before) who might be a very valuable resource!

Anyone have race plans? Share if you want to here in comments or on Facebook.

I Keep Trying ...

These are things I keep trying to do, or not do, because I know that changing my behavior is healthier for me. But so far, I haven't been successful:

I keep trying to eat oatmeal. I have it a few times a month. I don't like it. Even if I add nuts and brown sugar and raisins. I've tried the Overnight Oats recipes. I've added peanut butter and jelly. I guess it's OK in cookie form, but that seems to defeat the purpose.

I keep trying to cut out Cherry Coke Zero and pretzels. Today I had four cans and about 10 pretzels. I may never win this battle.

I keep trying to make sure I get three strength workouts in per week. I almost always get two in. That third one often doesn't happen.

I keep trying to do something besides sit on the couch and pound away at the computer after dinner. But here I am. Pounding.

I keep trying to not snack after 8 p.m. I bet I sneak a little something 4 or 5 days a week.

I keep trying to drink more water. Truth is, I don't like water. I don't like mix-ins. I like Cherry Coke Zero. And Diet Coke. (And Southern Comfort!)

I keep trying to get 8 full hours of sleep at night. The problem is that my favorite TV is at 10 p.m. ... Jon Stewart. Which leads to Steven Colbert. And then it's a mere 6 hours before the alarm and I'm screwed.

The most important part of this? I keep trying.

Outrunning the Voices in My Head

Oh, Sunday.

The day I was looking forward to and the day I dreaded just a little.

I knew I had to get back on track Sunday if I had any hope of getting a half and full marathon in this summer. Not because I don't have time to train, but because my head is playing all sorts of tricks on me and I knew I had to get through a whole pile of fear and doubt or I may never get back on the horse.

Last weekend, after the week of being sick, I did 4 miles on Saturday and about 6.5 on Sunday. I paid for it dearly on Monday. I was sore and stiff and my knees were not happy.

The week brought a more normal routine:
Monday: 60-minute strength
Tuesday: 45-minute bike
Wednesday: 4-mile run
Thursday: 45-minute bike with strength intervals
Friday: 4-mile fast run
Saturday: 1-hour RIPPED class and about a 1.5-mile walk to breakfast

Which left me set up for the challenge of Sunday's long run, with a goal of 8 miles.

Long before dawn, I woke up sore from RIPPED. I woke up early because my knees hurt. I woke up to a very small window of no rain. I woke up to wanting to skip the whole thing.

Then I put on my Wonder Woman panties and hit the road.

It might have been the toughest 8 miles I have ever done.

I walked three times. Twice to text my sister ... just a few steps each time. And once up the nasty hill on my usual route, probably a tenth of a mile. (Which was, of course, when my neighbor drove past and waved. Busted.)

In the end, it's done. I got it done. I mapped it when I got home and it's really closer to 9 miles than 8, and I felt every blessed step Sunday afternoon and I'm still stiff and sore today.

But I beat the doubter in my head. She couldn't keep up.

I'm Calling It "Shoulder Beach"

Today's run had to be squeezed in between weather fronts. The road was wet, the air heavy and damp. The sky was really gray and not so cheerful.

Let's just say it wasn't the perfect day for a long run. (Unlike my friend Tiffany, who loves running in the rain, I am not a fan. It's just not my deal.)

But as soon as I got out there, I could smell it. I could smell the sand. The very wet sand on the shoulder of the road.

And if I closed my eyes, I could almost pretend it was the beach.

Sure, it was missing that salty perfume. There were no shells. No driftwood to dodge. And, sadly, no sun.

But there was wet sand. And it was just enough to give me a little hope that spring will indeed come. That the sunshine is not too far away.

It was also just enough to get me through the 8 miles I had promised myself I'd do. (More on that tomorrow.)

So, from here on out, I'm choosing to think of it all as "Shoulder Beach." Not as good as, say, Madeira Beach, which was the last waterfront I ran on, but it's going to have to do.

If you don't see the rest of the road, it almost looks like a beach, right?

Yup, still wearing my winter shoes. Ugh. 

I'm Working on a Dangerous New Addiction

This is going to be a problem: 

This is the taco truck in Beloit. It parks about 4 blocks from my office.

And ... it's FREAKING DELICIOUS!

Well, the truck isn't delicious. I didn't lick the truck. But the food the truck turns out is simply amazing.

My plan was to meet Jim at the truck, walking the four or so blocks from my office to get there. Certainly that would at least partially work off the not-exactly-clean-eating lunch I was about to ingest.

The four blocks didn't come close to redeeming that enormous, spectacular Burrito Al Pastor.

Roasted pork, cabbage, cilantro, onion, beans, rice ... oh good gravy. Jim met me there and chose the steak version. Both rocked.

(And, HRGirl, you would have loved the hilarious and inappropriate way one has to eat an enormous burrito while sitting on the tailgate of an old pickup in the parking lot of an Auto Zone on a beautifully, sunny day with the man of your dreams ... who is also manhandling a burrito.)

Jim drove me back to work. I should have walked. Well, I should have sprinted.

Twice.

I'm going to have to limit my access. You know, plan my indulgery. I think the next time I allow myself to dive in will be the day I run the 8 miles to work. And the time after that will be the day I run in to work and plan to run back home.

Addiction is hard.

Kirstie, Valerie and Jenny

Did you see that Kirstie Alley and Valerie Bertinelli are back together as "ambassadors" for Jenny Craig?

Yup. (I saw it on ET just now, so it must be true!)

Both women were successful in losing weight with Jenny in the past and both have regained some of those pounds. Valerie went so far as to say she felt "shame" in gaining.

Here's what I think about it all:

1. It's freaking hard to lose weight. And if you manage to lose it, it's harder to keep it off. Old habits sneak back in. We get lazy. We don't gain 10 pounds after eating pizza and cake every now and then, so we eat pizza and cake next week. And the week after. And then we add ice cream. In the end I believe that the eating matters more than the exercise and it's harder to manage and maintain in the long haul.

2. It does matter how you lose weight. This is NOT a Jenny dig. But if you don't learn how to eat properly and you don't understand how to work out, you can't maintain the loss. If you depend wholly on Jenny to feed you, or you require on 20 hours of exercise a week, you might not really be ready to face the world alone ... in a jungle ... naked. I hope that makes sense. You can't continue those extremes forever. You have to UNDERSTAND calories, metabolism, your own habits and cravings. You have to have PLANS for when Jenny food isn't handy or you break your tibia ... or you get stuck in the jungle, naked, surrounded by PopTarts and Swedish Fish.

3. It's a journey. There will be ups and downs. Gains and losses. Tight pants and smaller sizes. There is no shame. There is just real life. Be patient. Do the right things often enough and good things happen. No one is perfect 100% of the time and nothing you do is going to ruin everything overnight.

Go get'em Kirstie and Valerie. What you're doing is hard, and you're choosing to do it in front of the whole world. Plenty of people will say nasty things about you and I admire the thickness of your skin as much as the circumference of your soon-to-shrink waistline. Your truth, the reality of your situation, gives us all ammunition for our own processes ... and maybe a little extra backbone.

The Secret of Feeling Better

Every once in a while, you forget things you know.

I'm not talking about the brief lapses of memory that come with age or stress. Or age AND stress, as the case may be.

I'm talking about those universal truths we know in our guts that, if we're not actively keeping them top of mind, fall by the wayside in our very busy brains.

Things like:
Don't get caught up in the drama of fighting with your kids ... these days are going to go by so fast and if you focus on the unimportant stuff, you'll miss the good stuff.

Don't forget to make time for your parents. They're not going to be here forever and you will kick yourself in that forever if you let this time pass because you're too busy or too booked or too bothered.

Take time every day to be grateful for all that is good in your life. It's easy to focus on what's going wrong, but your life is full and rich and if you're warm and fed and loved, that's more than enough.

Those are all sort of big, heavy examples. But I was reminded of another one today.

The best way to feel better is to do things that make you feel better.

Eating junk, not moving enough, getting caught in a self-slamming loop tape in your head, making excuses, and worse yet, believing those excuses ... they put you in a place that is not healthy.

There is nothing in your life that is not helped by treating your body better. 

Here's an example. I was listening to NPR Thursday night and Joy Cardin was interviewing an author who wrote a book about chronic pain. (Listen to "A Nation in Pain" here.) She talked about how chronic pain is really one of the nation's biggest health crises and probably the least understood/researched/properly treated. She talked about how pain isn't necessarily a symptom of something else, but a "thing" in its own right. It was fascinating. But perhaps the most interesting thing she said was that the best and most effective cure for any and all pain is ...

Exercise.

That got me thinking of my week off last week. I didn't work out, I didn't eat very well. And I kept feeling worse and worse. The less I did, the more tired I got. The more chocolate I ate, the worse I felt.

It's all so freaking connected. And when you pay attention, you notice it.

It's not complicated. Seems so logical, right?

This is the only life you get.

Celebrate it. Be good to you.

The One Day C25K Program

Drumroll, please ...

I'M GONNA LIVE!!!!!!!

Dreaded Head Cold did its best to defeat me. Held me down, punched me in the face, put a boot on my neck, kicked me in the kidneys ... but DHC did not win.

OK, that's a bit dramatic. But it really was a doozy. I spent the week not working out, eating very poorly and sleeping a lot. 

A lot. 

So today I was a bit nervous to hit the pavement. Not sure what I could do. After a week of doing absolutely nothing, it's always a little worrisome to see what your body is willing to give. 

Let's just say I didn't set any speed records. 

But with the help of the glorious sunshine, I got about 4 miles in. And it felt really good. 

Literally, Couch to 5K. In a day. 

I am going to tell you this until you believe it: You are stronger than you know you are. Believe you can do it. Because you can.

This Week's Long Run Hijacked

I could hardly wait for last Sunday.

The weather was predicted to be gorgeous. The warmest and most wonderful day since October or something. 

I was scheduled for a 9-mile run, but hoping to do 10. The wind that has been predicted earlier in the week had been pushed back to Monday and all systems were go. 

And then it happened. 

First a little off kilter on Friday. Then a tickle in the throat Saturday morning. By Saturday afternoon I was tired. Very tired. By Saturday night, my head was full and my eyes were puffy and I knew it was coming. Off to bed early in hopes of beating it with rest.

Sunday morning arrived with a full-blown beat down. 

Just being upright was a struggle. 

I spent the whole day in my PJs on the couch, too wiped out to do anything. I even napped. And this never happens. 

Jim made the weekly grocery store trip. Jim made dinner. Jim washed dishes. Jim brought me a bag of Dove Dark with Caramel and Sea Salt. And Jim even suffered through an entire Real Housewives of Atlanta episode. 

I didn't set a single, solitary footstep outside on the most perfect day of the year, so far. 

It was so disappointing. 

Monday was better. I made it to work,but there was no workout. I sat at my desk all day, didn't stand. This morning I felt better after another 10-hour sleep. Still skipped the workout.

Heading to bed early again tonight. The best I can do is to eat well, drink a lot, rest up.

The weekend is coming. I want to be ready.

P.S. As a bonus to all this fun, got a sneak peek at the video shot of me on Friday at work. Not cute. Maybe, just MAYBE, the person who suggested I looked exhausted last week was right. Truth is I looked like death warmed over. Note to self: I apparently look bad before I feel bad.