Sunday, May 19, 2013

On a holiday weekend

Definitely not the time I want to do my
next half marathon in!

I am still sore!  After my deep tissue massage on Friday, I probably should have put off my long run until Monday (since it is a holiday).  But I just wanted to get it over with so I ran 21.1K yesterday, my last long run before my half marathon on June 2nd. I'm not gonna lie.  It was a hard run.  I did three 7K loops. The first 7K was fairly uneventful and I felt pretty good.  During the second loop I started feeling the burn in my quads.  After 14K I went home and changed into my orthotics because my toes started to cramp.  Big mistake.  Remember the ankle pain I was having?  It was from the orthotics. I ran with them for the first time in two weeks on Thursday. Saturday morning, the ankle pain came back pretty badly during the last loop of my run.  All in all it was a pretty sucky run.  I obviously need to ease back into the orthotics again before I start running with them.  Something I will start doing tomorrow.  I ran with my 10K clinic this morning and my quads are on fire!  It hurts to walk up and down the stairs.  I am going to listen to my body and not run again until Wednesday evening.  I think I need a longer rest than usual.  It's going to feel strange not to run for two straight days, but my legs need to recover.  Starting now I taper in my training anyway.

Our scores after hubby and I tried to throw the game...

We had a pretty busy weekend.  Yesterday after I completed my long run, we went 5 pin bowling. Julien really wanted to bowl, but he did not handle defeat well.  He got really upset over losing and it made for a very unpleasant outing.  I tried to throw my game, but got a couple of strikes without even trying!  Poor Jules.  The second game was better because I helped him roll the ball which finally resulted in his victory.  He left the bowling alley happy.  He is so competitive and it takes the fun out of doing things with him sometimes.  Definitely something we are constantly working on!

Why does my left foot look bigger than my right?
I'm in desperate need of a pedicure!

It's been a week and half since I weighed myself, so I decided to step on the scale today.  I feel like I am constantly eating.  I always eat until I'm full and if I get hungry midday, it's not uncommon for me to buy a half a chicken and eat it at my desk.  I usually do that once per week; on clinic nights.  Never in my life have I lost weight without putting a lot of effort into it, until now. Even though I am on "maintenance", I have dropped 3 pounds in the last 3 weeks.  My weight was down to 165 this morning, my lowest adult weight ever.  I weighed in at 165.5 at the clinic back in March, but didn't stay there for too long.  I'm not going to stress about my weight, but it would be nice to get rid of my thigh and ass fat!  I'm pretty sure that if I stick to Paleo, I will get the lean runner's body I want...in time. Good things come to those who wait and work at it!

Our Paleo BBQ.  Trout, carrot salad, kale salad, roasted veggies.
I also had some wine and fruit for dessert!

Today we went to have BBQ with friends.  It was awesome.  My girlfriend and her husband made a Paleo meal for us.  I am truly blessed to have such supportive people in my life.  When I was morbidly obese, I was constantly judged for my eating habits.  Now that I am fit and following a regimented eating plan, I am still judged for my eating habits.  People always try to push food at me and often have snide comments to make in regards to my food choices.  Claiming that I don't eat enough to keep a bird alive is not helpful (if it's around 4pm on a clinic night, I often eat birds...or half chickens).  And just because I choose not to eat the processed food that others around me eat does not make me some sort of health fanatic.  I would never comment on someone else's eating habits, even if I didn't agree with them.  The supportive people, and I have a lot, are AWESOME!  Those that aren't supportive, don't really know me so this shouldn't bother me.  I just get tired of constantly defending my eating habits to people I don't care about!

I also noticed that there are a few people (who I would consider acquaintances) that were friendly with me when I was morbidly obese.  Since I have lost weight, they completely ignore me and will not even make eye contact with me or return my smiles or hello's.  I was mostly invisible when I was obese and I am still invisible to some people.  I mean I don't really care about these people. They are not friends, but I like to be friendly with everyone I come in contact with and it bothers me when someone doesn't return a friendly salutation   Especially someone who is not a stranger. And I never did anything that should warrant the "cold shoulder".  Oh well, I guess that not everyone can have good social skills.

I have maintained my weight for over 5 months now.  I have been in the mid to high 160's since December 2012.  I'd like to drop a bit more weight, but I'm not going to cut back on my food intake because I'm going to start training for a full marathon at the end of June.  I may do a 3 week stint of just protein and non starchy veggies, right after I finish my half and before I start full marathon training.  What I will do that could help in dropping more weight is fasting workouts.  Fasting workouts are easy runs where you don't eat before the run and don't fuel during the run.  This causes your body to rely on fat to fuel the workout.  I do this during my early morning runs.  So usually twice per week.  These runs are between 6 and 8K in length. I wouldn't do this for a run over 10K.  I definitely need to fuel up before doing that kind of distance. Fasting workouts are a great fat burner, which my ass and thighs are in definite need of!

This is what I look like when I'm running hard.
No different than any other time.  In every picture
I was looking down.  That is exactly what I tell my
clinic members NOT to do!