I won!

Ok, I didn't actually "win," technically, but I had a great time! I'm telling you, these relay races are where it's at. So much fun. I had a few people in my van that I didn't know very well, but we sure know each other now. 24 hours together in a stinky van will do that for you.

My first leg was 6.5 miles and started at I think 2:30ish in the afternoon. The weather was misty and cool. It's a really good thing the race was so well marked because I only saw 3 other runners the entire time. I was hitting solid 7:30 min milesthe whole way until I got stopped at two stoplights in a row for several minutes about a mile from the finish. So irritating!

Anyway, My 2nd leg was 5.5 miles through farmland at 11:30 at night. It smelled like poop out there, but no stoplights so that was good. I passed several more people on this leg, but couldn't make it past the chick in front of me. I stayed with her for the first 3 or 4 miles though at between a 7:15 and 7:30 pace, but then had to let her go. I finished at an average 7:38 per mile.

Yeah, so the last leg I was out of energy AND there was an out and back portion, which is just mentally demoralizing. Luckily it was only 3.5 miles. The people who thought it was 6 were mistaken. I slowed to maybe an 8:15 on this one and it was clear that I'd spent everything on the first two legs. This picture is of me just finishing the third leg. I'm a lot happier than I look in the picture.

In conclusion, everyone should run a relay race. This was my 5th one. I've done Hood to Coast in Oregon 4 times and this was my first time doing a Ragnar relay. They're all over the place.  It was much less crowded and better marked and just a fantastic time. I can't wait for next year.

Now I

Race day

Just a quick check in from the van. We're driving up to the start of the relay. Yesterday I had my leg switched from one of the easiest to one of the hardest. Yikes! It only adds three miles total, but my elevation gains are more extreme. About now I'm thinking I should have trained a bit more. Im still hoping to average an 8 min mile but we'll see.

It's raining and i forgot to bring a hat but that's ok. I was worried it would be too hot.

It will all be over in about 28 hours. Woohoo!!!

Sleeping (or not) and Reading

I opted out of running yesterday because I was sleepy. I took a nap during my lunch break instead. As a result I had a hard time sleeping last night so I ended up getting just a little more than 4 hours of shut-eye. Not cool! I ended the day at about 1400 calories and 105 grams of protein and zero beers even though I considered it.

Today I'll go for a short jog - maybe 20 minutes - and do my lower body strength training. I also plan on drinking lots of coffee. I love coffee so this won't be a problem. I have a work function tonight and I have no idea what will be served, but I'm planning on staying away from the inevitable free booze. I've packed a healthy lunch and snacks so I'll be able to arrive not starving.

My main goal for the next two days is to sleep at night. Friday is the relay race so I'll maybe get 3 hours of sleep that night in between running and riding around in a van. I don't know why this sort of thing is so much fun, but it is.

I'm reading an interesting book right now called Good Calories, Bad Calories by Gary Taubes. It's not a diet book. It's also not a "this isn't a diet, it's a lifestyle" book. It's about the history of nutrition science and the political and social forces that made the low-calorie, low-cholesterol, low-fat hypothesis become the most mainstream opinion about how to lose weight and avoid heart disease. It's a slow read, but fascinating. I recommend it. I was able to check a copy out of the library.

Zombies, Run!

Hahahahahaha! Hooooo boy, hahaha!

I finally had a chance to try this app out yesterday. It is hilarious. It syncs up with your playlist and interrupts in between songs with these "radio transmissions" from the base that instruct you to run around and pick up supplies and warn you about the zombies that are after you. Yesterday was unbearably hot. I picked up 7 first aid kits and a file that may or may not contain valuable information from the Center for Disease Control. I also almost got eaten by the radio controller's girlfriend-turned-zombie.

I've started doing something that I used to be opposed to: eating "energy" bars. I've picked some that were on the cheap side at $1 per bar. They're actually pretty tasty, although not as tasty as the packaging seems to want to make you think they are. At 280 calories and 20 grams of protein they're super filling. Days when I eat them I don't even want more than 1500 calories for the day.

I'm struggling to get all my protein in. I don't know how people do it and still keep their calories low.  The stretch goal every day is 120-130 grams. Yesterday I ended up at 90 grams, 1300 calories. That was with eating a tin of sardines right before bed. I just wasn't that hungry. The sardines were delicious, by the way.

For weight training, I'm ditching the low-weights/high-reps philosophy in favor of, well, the opposite. I'm picking weights that are heavy enough that I'm at exhaustion by the end of the 2nd set. We'll see what happens. It feels more satisfying to me. I'm not concerned with bulking up. I want to look like I can kick some ass though.

Ok, starting now...really this time

Lots to share.

My mom invited me last minute up to her place this weekend because my sister and her 4 kids and my brother's 2 kids were going to be there. I switched up my plans so I could make it because this is the only chance I have all year of seeing them. We had a blast. Exercise consisted of hiking with kids and throwing lots of rocks into the ocean. Moderate wave chasing. Food consisted of my mother's excellent cooking. Steak, salmon, many types of salad, breadsticks, potatoes, raspberry shortcake, etc. Yum! This morning I was up 3 glorious pounds all around my waist.

This weekend coming up I'll be running a relay race with a company team. It will be a total of 15 miles so I need to arrange my week so my legs will be fresh on Friday. I'll lift weights and run a quick 4 miles today and Wednesday and then try for between 7 and 8 miles Tuesday and then nothing Thursday. I'll get in a total of 15 miles during the race on Friday and Saturday and then consume a million calories worth of free pizza and beer on Saturday night.

No, that's not true. I hereby commit to consuming a reasonable number of free pizza and beer calories on Saturday night. The abs diet gives you a cheat meal once a week so that's going to be it, but I'm not going to lose my mind or anything.

I'm loving doing the workouts in the body sculpting for women book. I'm lifting heavier weights than before and I'm definitely feeling sore afterwards, but it doesn't take much time to do. I'm dedicating only my lunch hour to workout out during the week. That's it. Except for last Thursday when I went to bar class again. It was fun, but not as fun as the first time. I think the instructor was new. I rock the pushups, but can't do anything with my legs for more than a minute.

I'm still getting up around 5:30 in the morning, but instead of lifting weights I'm writing. It's been great to have a set time every day to stretch my creativity muscles. It's not something I've done regularly since before I went back to work. I love not having my entire day revolve around exercise.

But speaking of work...I got a promotion! They just told me last Thursday. I'll be taking on some extra responsibilities and working more closely with the sales department. I'm very excited about it. And more money! Hooray! I'm not sure how much yet, but I should find out soon. Plus, I get a new boss who is someone actually interested in my professional development. All around a great opportunity.

Basically everything is great and I feel like I'm in a really good place emotionally despite a couple of weekends of not perfect eating and a couple extra pounds.

Tag-o-Rama

Vanessa over at Short, Silly Vegan tagged me to list 11 random facts about myself, answer a 11 questions, and spread the love. Thanks, for the love, Vanessa!

It has taken me all week to do this because I've been crazy busy (in a very good way). I'm half-assing this list because that's all the time I have before I leave to visit my mom for the weekend. Better late than never and better half-assed than full-assed?

Here it goes, half the fun facts about myself:

• I was the captain of the drill team in high school
• I'm afraid of dogs
• I don't like getting professional pedicures because they feel uncomfortable
• My favorite food is salmon
• I have a bazillion freckles

Half the questions from Veronica:

1. Favorite Season?
Fall. I love sweaters, cool weather, and comfort food.
3. Favorite book?
It's impossible to pick just one, but a book I really liked recently was The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eugenides
5. Cats, dogs, or both?
Neither! I currently own a hamster and even that's a bit much. I don't hate animals or anything, I just already have children and don't need another life form to take care of.
7. Do you have a big family?
Boy howdy, do I ever! I have nine brothers and sisters. It's a step-family, but still.
9. Do you have a nickname?
Mom
11. Do you take pictures of your food even when you don't share it on your blog?
Sometimes if I'm going to text it to someone to make them jealous, but not just for the heck of it.

Alright, here's some new questions. If you're running out of ideas for stuff to blog about consider yourself tagged.

1. Describe your first boyfriend.
2. If you were given $15,000 out of the blue, no strings attached, what would you do with it?
3. If you could be the best in the world at anything, what would it be?
4. What's the best gift you ever gave someone?
5. Mountains or beaches?

Have a great weekend, everyone.

Day 2: The new plan which is a combo of things I've read and stuff I'm making up

I had a tough time getting to 1200 calories yesterday. I think I was really stuffed still from eating everything in California. I had plans to have salmon for dinner, but by nighttime I just wasn't interested in chewing. I made myself a smoothie with berries, almond milk, and vanilla protein powder and called it a day.

The workout from the body sculpting book yesterday was good. I'm not sore today or anything. It recommends a series of moves that you do in supersets and you do the whole thing twice with 90 second rests in between supersets. It was nice having a workout I could do at the gym because they have different weights so I could use the 15s for my squats and dead lifts and lat rows. Weights are expensive!

I warmed up with a 10 minute jog on the treadmill, did the weight workout, did some abs, then did all of the moves from the workout one more time and hopped on the elliptical for 10 minutes. Today I'll only run with some friends for about an hour. No weights.

The high protein portion of my plan was just ok. I didn't consume any bread products, but found my salt intake was really high. Beef jerky! I read that for muscle building you should aim for a gram of protein for every pound of body fat. There is no way. I got to 90 grams of protein yesterday and that was a chore. I would have had 126 if I'd had the salmon.

I'm having potatoes tonight with my dinner because I hate wasting food and I already have them. Also, I believe potatoes are good for you. Also salmon burgers, but I'll forego the bun. There's panko in the recipe which is bread, but I'm running today and aiming for a higher calorie amount to try out this calorie cycling theory.

I'm already feeling less pregnant than I did yesterday, but not all the way back to pre-vacation form. Moving in the right direction though.

Vacation from Everything!

I did some pushups and crunches while I was on vacation, but not everyday. I didn't run at all. I ate as much as I wanted of whatever I wanted. It was a great trip and I don't regret a thing.

However, I look 4-months pregnant.

The good news is that unlike actually being 4-months pregnant, I should return to normal after a week of good eating and exercise.

I'm kicking off a new program today where I'm going to be following the Abs Diet and doing the workouts in this book:

The subtitle on it is something about the pathway to physical perfection. Sounds good!. Really it's just a basic weightlifting program and then you're supposed to eat a moderate/low calorie diet of actual food. I think it will be fun and different for me because it's not a video so I can do it in the middle of the day. There's a 6-day per week option, but I'm doing the 3-day per week plan for the first 6 weeks and then I'll switch it up. This will let me get some running in with friends and train for my last race of the summer (2 weeks to go!).

The Abs diet has you eating 6 small meals including protein and carbs. There are a bunch of "superfoods" you're supposed to incorporate as often as possible. They're all pretty normal foods so I don't think this will be hard.

I'm also trying to do a bit of a kickstart this week to recover from last week's indulgences. It's based on Jillian's kickstart diet in Body revolution. I'll have lots of Greek yogurt for breakfasts, protein, vegetables, and no refined grain-type carbs.

My goal in all this is to actually cut down on my exercise time so I can have more time in the morning for writing. I got up this morning at 5:30 and worked on a story I've been tinkering with for a while. It was super slow going. I'm really out of the habit - but not for long!

O Motivation, Where Art Thou?

I'm not sure how this happened, but my motivation completely tanked during the last couple of days. It's bad because tomorrow I'm leaving for a family reunion in California which means the beginning of the week is my big opportunity to be in control of what I eat and how (if) I exercise .

I did Bob's Totally Ripped Core on Saturday and was sore all day Sunday. I skipped the workout Monday morning and spent the whole day until 3pm telling myself it would be ok to skip running too. Taking vacation always means more work before and after, so I worked through normal lunchtime. I was making up fitness tips for myself like "take a week off every now and then to give your body time to absorb all your good work." I was believeing these fake fitness tips.

What happened at 3pm, you ask? Josh got up to go for a run. That's right. I'm usually the one making him feel like he should exercise. This time he returned the favor. We did a moderate 4 miles. The first 3 felt like I had 50 lb weights attached to each leg. Does that mean I burned extra calories? Yeah, probably not.

This morning I woke up on my own at about 5:30 and figured I may as well workout as a gift to my future self even though I wasn't feeling it. My future self is grateful. I popped in No More Trouble Zones for the first time in maybe 5 months and it was good. It's about 45 minutes of just strength training. No cardio intervals. It was perfect for how I was feeling and really challenging although I can do all the moves now including the entire plank circuit twice without a break. Jillian comes through for me again.

I have plans to run with a faster friend this afternoon so that will be a good final push before my vacation. I won't have access to weights or anything, but I can get in some pushups and tricep dips and crunches while I'm there and I'm sure at least some walks if not a couple of runs. If I'm super on top of things I'll do Bob's yoga DVD tomorrow morning before I head to the airport. I'll be back on Sunday afternoon.

In other news, I've decided I need a motorcycle. I just finished reading Wild by Cheryl Strayed about her months-long hike on the Pacific Crest Trail and I realized I need to go on an adventure and try something new. I've researched motorcycle safety and licensing classes and the first one I have time for is the first weekend of September. I figure I'll get a year of practice under my belt and then go have some adventures next summer. I've been obsessed with this idea for two days.