Wednesday Workout Update - All Things Burpee

I go to my workouts to get fitter and stronger and lose inches and pounds. I go to my workouts to get fitter and stronger and lose inches and pounds. I go to my workouts to get fitter and stronger and lose inches and pounds. I go to my workouts to get fitter and stronger and lose inches and pounds. I go to my workouts to get fitter and stronger and lose inches and pounds. I go to my workouts to get fitter and stronger and lose inches and pounds. I go to my workouts to get fitter and stronger and lose inches and pounds.

Sometimes, I need to keep reminding myself of this, especially when these workouts are really hard. And I am tired. And it's raining. I need to remember that I CHOOSE to do them, even when I am questioning why in the world would any sane person willingly push themselves like I do. And then it comes back to me: I go to my workouts to get fitter and stronger and lose inches and pounds.

Monday: I ran 3/4 of a mile on the treadmill at a 5.2 - 6.0 level...took me 9:18 minutes. I felt good, which was a relief after Sunday's suck run. The rest of the workout was hard - we hit lots of muscle groups in the gym, and worked with partners (yay Jenny!) which always makes it seem more fun.

Tuesday: Linda was our afternoon trainer!!! She hasn't been able to work in the afternoons since last Fall, so it was like old times to see her at 4:00 pm. She came up with a new workout based on the Uno card game...you remember playing Uno, right? That fun game with colors and numbers? Yeaah. For Linda's Uno rules, Red = Burpees, Green = Ball Slams, Yellow = Push Ups and Blue = Mountain Climbers. So a red nine would mean nine burpees. If the next card drawn was a "plus 2" - well, we did two more burpees. Add in the reverse card and we repeated the previous exercise. It was crazy! We actually got through the entire deck in 30 minutes on Tuesday - I was spent...and then had to go to the gym for fun with Brad.

Wednesday: Different group from Tuesday (except for me), so we got to play Uno again! At least Linda took pity on me and let me do high knees and squats in place of the burpees. We didn't quite make it through the deck before it was time to go see Brad in the gym. In honor of Spring Break week, he had three brightly-colored beach towels folded in the middle of the floor. We, as a group, were to choose one towel, and whatever exercise that was written on a piece of paper and hiding within the towel would be our destiny for the day. While several of us were attracted to the polka dots (I know for me Twister came to mind), we ultimately choose the green-striped towel because it was St. Patrick's Day. Then Brad played Monty Hall (anybody remember Let's Make a Deal?) and showed us what we didn't pick. Polka dot towel contained Speed Tubes. Orange-striped towel contained the Chief (3 curls, 6 push ups, 9 squats) - whew! Dodged a bullet with that one!!! Then came the winner, and I say this loosely...if you are familiar with Let's Make a Deal, we got the goat. Or, in our case, 20 minutes of BURPEES!!! Linda fell on the floor laughing at our luck - after being killed moments before with a mega-ton of burpees during Uno, we now had more.

I did 107 burpees. In twenty minutes. After doing at least 60 the day before. And for the rest of the day, I will do whatever I want, because I did 107 burpees.

I go to my workouts to get fitter and stronger and lose inches and pounds.

Follow Up to Yesterday

Thank you so much for your advice regarding my post yesterday. I was really having a rough time, mentally and I think the bad run just was the capper on some negative thinking that had been brewing in the back of my mind for a while now.

I am going to change up some of what I eat and see if that helps with the extreme hunger AND keeps me on a healthier track. For example, instead of having half a cup of Kashi Golean Crunch cereal with my Fage yogurt and fruit (blackberries at the moment), I had a quarter cup of raw almonds, coarsely chopped.

The stats before:

250 calories
41 grams carbs
3 grams fat
22 grams protein

The stats after:

325 calories
27 grams carbs
16 grams fat
24 grams protein

I'm hoping that the addition of the "good fat" will help keep me satiated longer; plus, even though the Kashi is whole-wheat, it does add a lot of extra carbs to an already carb-y breakfast, thanks to the fruit.

I also had some avocado on my turkey sandwich yesterday at lunch - again, adding some healthy fat to keep me full longer. I really feel so much better when I eat good food. And if I can get some more weight off, while feeling less starving-like, well, then that would be a nice bonus.

Couple of other things that helped get me out of my funk...I made it through a tough workout on Monday morning, and even ran 3/4 of a mile on the treadmill at a 5.2 pace, which is fast for me. I felt "normal" while running - whew! I also ended up doing something that really helps remind me of where I am with my weight - I went out and tried on clothes. Fitting into size 8 shorts and capris reminded me that I am smaller and two years ago would have killed to even entertain the thought of wearing that size. I bought two pairs of Bermuda shorts (which fit this short person perfectly - to the top of my knees) at Target - Target, where I never used to be able to shop...even their plus-sized clothes were always too small for me. I know it sounds funny to be thrilled to buy clothes at Target, but the "normalcy" of it is what made my day.

Between my hot run on Sunday and another hot workout on Monday, I finally decided that I might need to ditch the workout capris in favor of some shorts. I went to my local Academy and pulled tons of sizes and styles off their racks - my gosh, some of the shorts looked really really short - were these adult sizes? Apparently they were...but not for me, lol! I found a style in Academy's brand - so yay, reasonably-priced! Kind of loose and baggy, but when I practiced doing squats in the dressing room, they felt comfortable. And, on the advice of Linda and Jenny, I also got the compression shorts to wear under the shorts, which I can see is necessary for some of the positions we get in during our workout (modesty, thy name is Shelley). I can actually run in these shorts, although I don't know how that will feel as I am used to wearing compression capris that hold all of my jiggly bits taut.

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Here are the answers to Friday's "Creative Writer" award - no body guessed my one truth!

1. I was in a Trident gum commercial when I was in college. I auditioned - at the Hotel Del Coronado in San Diego, no less, but wasn't chosen...it was one of those things where you were supposed to say what chewing sugarless gum meant to you, and the only thing I could come up with on the fly was "it doesn't rot your teeth" - gee, I don't know why that didn't make the commercial!
   
2. I dressed in the Humboldt State marching band uniform, carried cymbals, and marched with the band into a football game at San Francisco State to avoid paying the $2 entrance fee. Nope - it was a basketball game.
   
3. I marched in the Capitola Begonia Festival parade dressed as Raggedy Andy when I was a teenager. Truth! Barbara and I were candystripers at Kaiser Hospital in my hometown, and our Director of Volunteers had a huge outreach program where we would dress up as Raggedy Ann and Andy and visit children's wards, do parades - all kinds of things. As Barbara and I were usually paired up, I had to be Andy because, as she put it, her hips wouldn't fit into the costume. I can assure you that they would now! Anyway, the Begonia Festival was always a lot of fun...good memories!
   
4. I had my own sailboat as a teenager. Well, my dad would say no, but I liked to think that it was mine. Again, lots of good memories sailing as a kid.
5. My favorite books as a child were the Anne of Green Gables series. Nope - I loved the Laura Ingalls Wilder "Little House" series of books.
   
6. My first "real" job (where I got an actual paycheck) was at Baskin Robbins 31 Flavors. A lot of you guessed this one and you were close, but actually it was at a discount clothing store where we had to cut out the labels of the clothes - anybody remember when that was common practice? Anyway, BR was my second "paycheck" job.
   
7. I piloted a Cessna airplane all by myself as a teenager. No, but I did get to steer the plane while my friend flew it...it was fun until he needed to practice "touch-and-go" landings, and after a few of those, I got motion sickness so bad that as soon as he landed the plane, I opened up the door to vomit on the runway. Good times, lol!
   

Self-Doubt

I had the suckiest of suck runs on Sunday. Sorry for the language, but there is no better way to describe it. It was our first warm day of the year - about 80 degrees - and the sun was beating down. No sunscreen - it just didn't occur to me. I barely made it a mile before I had to stop and walk! What was up with that?!? I've been running 3 miles without stopping for a couple of months now! My breathing was all ragged and I felt sluggish. We eventually started running again, but I had to stop and walk. Run, walk, repeat. It never got any better. What an embarrassment. And now, a few hours later, I sit here with the backs of my thighs sore, a slight sunburn, and a head full of self-doubts about all of my running plans. What happened to the person who ran a 5K last Sunday and felt great afterward? How am I going to be able to do my next 5K in less than two weeks? And the duathlon is a month away...my part in it is two 5K's! And then there is a 6K a week after that! And a 10K in July - what the hell was I thinking?!?

And here's another thing: What is up with the super-hunger that I get after a long run? I've noticed that after I run 3 miles (race or practice), I am HUNGRY for a couple of days afterward. It's just a constant hunger - I eat what I consider a normal, healthy (protein/fat/carbs) meal, and am ready to gnaw my arm off a couple of hours later! This is not good for weight-loss, people!!!

Speaking of weight-loss, while I am still on a scale vacation, I don't think I've lost any weight. I've had a few occasions to eat with other people, and "white carbs" have been consumed. It's weird, because while the calorie-count has not been horrible, the way I feel after eating such food has been bad, both physically and mentally. I'm trying to have a balance between the "diet Shelley" who is very strict about what she eats, and the "living-while-dieting-Shelley" who is trying to be a little more open to foods that she previously avoided. And what's sad is that I'm really not happy with myself when I eat the less-than-healthy foods.

I don't know what to do about this. I'm not happy with where my weight is; I want to lose about fifteen more pounds. But here's the thing: I haven't hit a weight-loss goal since I was in high school - about 30 years ago. And that didn't exactly end well - I hit that number and kept on going, right into anorexia. What if, this time, I can't do it? What if this is as good as I'm going to get with my weight? I will admit it's a hell of a lot better than the 256 pounds that I started at, but it's not where I want to be.

Doubts - I have a few.

Sorry for the downer of a post. Here's a picture of me and Linda, taken before the start of Suck Run 2010. Please to note my cute new Nathan water bottle - you slip in onto your hand and it stays there for the entire run. Or walk, as I found out.

One of us was ready for the heat, at least!

Friday Randomness

My husband Jeff has been bicycling in preparation for our upcoming duathlon and this morning he wanted me to unearth the scale from its hiding place so he could weigh himself. This was AFTER he'd showered, dressed in jeans, ate breakfast and downed several cups of coffee. I was all "that's not how you weigh yourself" - but then got to wondering...IS that how you weigh yourself when you're not a chronic dieter? Hmmm...

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On Wednesday night, when I was preparing everything for our "big salad" dinner, I had the brilliant (if I do say so myself) idea of prepping extra so that I could have a salad for lunch at work the next day. Witness the beauty of a traveling salad:

Ready to assemble:
Romaine lettuce, turkey, marinated asparagus, cucumber, strawberries, mushrooms, green onions, toasted pecans, Gorgonzola cheese, Newman's Own Lite Balsamic vinaigrette

Ready to eat!A forkful of goodness!
(Yes, I eat lunch at my desk - that way I still get paid!)

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Both Sunny and Barbara gave me one of the funnier awards that has been floating around blogland lately - the "Creative Writer" award. The general rules are that you have to list seven things, with only one being true, and let your readers try and guess which is the truth. Here goes:

1. I was in a Trident gum commercial when I was in college.
2. I dressed in the Humboldt State marching band uniform, carried cymbals, and marched with the band into a football game at San Francisco State to avoid paying the $2 entrance fee.
3. I marched in the Capitola Begonia Festival parade dressed as Raggedy Andy when I was a teenager.
4. I had my own sailboat as a teenager.
5. My favorite books as a child were the Anne of Green Gables series.
6. My first "real" job (where I got an actual paycheck) was at Baskin Robbins 31 Flavors.
7. I piloted a Cessna airplane all by myself as a teenager.

I'll reveal the one true statement in my next post...can you guess which one it is? Thanks, Sunny and Barbara, for giving me this award - it was fun! I'm supposed to choose other bloggers to pass it on, but I hate to leave anybody out, so consider it open to anyone who would like it!

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Finally, I'd like to leave you with an image that has been seared into my brain since Sunday's 5K:

Kelly and I referred to him as "Santa Claus"

Wednesday Workout Update

It was Tabata week.

Insane.

For those of you lucky enough not to be familiar with Tabata, it's where you do one exercise for 20 seconds as fast as you can, then rest for 10 seconds, then repeat...eight times. I did not think there were enough different exercises to merit three days' worth of Tabata, in both the gym and cardio, but apparently there were. Here's just a partial listing:

• flat bench press
• leg press
• calf raises
• squat thrusters
• seated rows
• crunches
• dumbbell curls
• ab dolly crunches
• box jumps
• kettlebell swings
• tricep dips
• mountain climbers
• boxing
• spinner
• rower
• ball slams

I'm sure there were more; my brain is fried. Three days in a row of Tabata. In the gym, we would keep track of our reps and the lowest one is what counted, so you tried to never have a bad set. Most of the time I would pick a number to hit depending on the exercise and if I had a couple of seconds left before time was called, I got a little extra rest. I did ok for the most part, but guess which was my worst? Yep, those dastardly box jumps. They get me every time! I did a couple sets of four (I know, impressive, lol) and then had a mental breakdown and only got one in. At least I recovered and went on to finish the rest of the sets with four each, but ugh, that one just kills me!

I went into Monday's workout feeling really good, considering I ran a 5K the day before. Jenny and I got to talking before the workout about how we need to get our running speed up a little, and she suggested that since we would already be sweaty after the workout, why not go for a quick run? Sounded like a great idea to me, so after the first day of Tabatas, she, Jeri and I headed out the door to see how fast we could run a mile. We started out at a pretty good clip, but when I asked Jenny to see how long we'd been running, and her watch said only a minute and a half, we quickly revised that mile to a half-mile. Hey, we were tired! Anyway, we ran a half mile in 5:05, which was good...but on that day, I don't think we could have kept up our pace to hit a mile in 10:10. Still, it will be a good goal to work toward, as there are more races in our future!

Yes, what a lot of you told me is true - once you run your first 5K, you get the bug! In fact, while we were doing the GLOW run, Jenny told me about an upcoming duathlon, where you run a 5K, bike 12 miles, and run another 5K. The cool thing is that you can do it as a team, and she and her husband are going to do it - so I talked to Jeff about it, and he's in! We ladies will run both 5Ks and the men will do the biking. I've already told Jeff that he has to get that bike ride done fast, as the race is only open for 2.5 hours and god knows I will need a lot of time to get that second 5K done! Hence the need for speeding up our running times.

Jenny and I are also going to do a 5K on March 27th, which should be fun and also some good practice for the duathlon, which is April 10th. And if we can swing a free hotel room (Jeff accumulates points for all of the travel he does through work), I will sign up for the 6K that Kelly and her family are doing on April 18th. If it weren't for my work schedule, I would sign up for more, but with me working on Saturdays, it really puts a crimp in running these 5Ks.

I have never been a participant in sporting events - I've always been a spectator. I've willingly and happily cheered on my sons in soccer, karate, baseball and football, and have gone to more high school football games than I can count. So for me to be the one doing the sport is just such an amazing thing...and it's fun! Why did I not know how much fun this could be?!? I guess maybe I'm making up for lost time, or on a pink cloud of running - but either way, I'm going for the gusto!

Blogger Run Day Recap!

Blogger Run Day was a great success, with a bunch of you running on March 7th! Here's a recap - you can click on the links to read everyone's stories. Thank you all so much for participating and making this so much fun - I loved knowing that while Kelly and I were running our 5K together, so many of you were also running that day!

Beth did her 5K with a 17% improvement - nice work!
Debby ran her best mile with a time of 10:35 - she is speedy!
Destination: Athlete cut off 8 minutes from her record 10K time - congrats!
Errign ran nearly 4 miles on her treadmill, without stopping, in 41 minutes - way to go!
Fran ran her first race of the year, a 4K through the woods, and finished in 26:51 - wow!
Hotch Potchery ran her half marathon in under 3 hours - congratulations!
Jen got her bad self to the gym and ran a 5K on the treadmill - great job!
Kelly not only ran her 5K in 39:13, she ran for 2 miles straight without stopping - woohoo!
Lori ran 3 miles for fun, with snow on the ground - now that's dedication!
MizFit was a princess and ran (and finished!) her first half marathon, at Disney World, no less!
The Merry ran 3 miles on her own - good job, Merry!
Robin, who thought she would be sidelined by illness, rallied at the last minute and ran the Disney princess half marathon - so glad you got to do it!!!
266, on an impulse, joined us and ran a fast 5K after midnight - glad to have you along!

Poor Kyle was rained out - he has been a real go-getter with his C25K training and I know he was disappointed to miss the run. Next time, Kyle!

Armadillo Dash 5K Recap!

What a fun weekend! From meeting Happy Texan Kelly and her husband, Chuck, on Friday night, to running my second-ever 5K on Sunday - this has just been a blast!

After dinner - we left the table before remembering to get a picture!

We met up with Kelly and Chuck at Luigi's, a fun Italian restaurant. As we pulled into the parking lot, Jeff asked me how would I recognize her - I was all "I've seen her picture on her blog" - and you know what? She looks just pretty in person as she does on her blog! The fun thing is that with all of the blog and email interactions I've had with Kelly, I felt like I "knew" her already...and after preliminary hugs, we fell right into jabbering away. It was a great dinner - she and I ordered the same thing, chicken Marco Polo (go check her blog for a picture...Chuck took one) and the conversation flowed nicely. Chuck is funny and sweet and as my husband put it later, "obviously really likes his wife" - what better compliment could there be? After dinner, we went over to our local frozen yogurt place (did I mention there is no calorie counting in blogger meet ups?) where we had some tasty treats and I finally found someone who would put one of the more perplexing toppings (to me) on their yogurt - Chuck braved the sweetened condensed milk...and liked it! After more laughs and good conversation, we parted ways until Sunday morning.

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And now, the Armadillo Dash recap! First, I have to say that I was a lot less nervous about this run, although I had a moment of panic and started to sweat profusely when I went to pick up my race packet on Friday. But looking at my pretty race t-shirt and bib with the timing chip calmed me down...plus I got some free GU and lip balm - score!

After attaching my bib to my shirt and chip to my shoe, I got everything else together - a ziploc bag with some bars (Lara and Luna) for after the race, extra safety pins, lip balm, camera, sunglasses, visor, water bottle and banana (for before the race). I am nothing if not prepared! Then came the sleeping (not). I was like a kid waiting for Santa Claus - I tossed and turned all night! Oh well. Got up at 5:30 am, showered and dressed, and we finally left the house at 6:26 am. Now, we live one mile from where the race was held. The road outside our subdivision was going to be closed on race morning, as well as the entrance to the park on that side, so we had to go about three miles out of our way. Figured we had PLENTY of time to get there and meet up with Kelly and my workout peeps. Well, 2,000 runners converging from three directions onto one little road was insane - it took us 30 minutes to get there! Texting and phone calls were flying - I calmed down a little once Linda said that they had to delay the start of the race last year due to heavy traffic. Next year? We will walk to the race.

As it was, we got there around 7:05 and the half marathoners, which were scheduled to start at 7 am, started at 7:09 am. We had time for a few pictures, and then the horn sounded and we...slowly made our way to the starting line - dang, there were a lot of people there! I think we crossed it close to a minute and a half into the race, but since our shoes were tagged with timing chips, it really didn't matter.

Kelly and Shelley - Blogger Run Day!

My workout peeps - Jeri, me, Karen, Jan, Linda and her son Reagan

Look at the crowd! This is how far back we were from the start line!We finally crossed the start line and were off!Kelly, me, Jeri - hitting our stride!

The 5K race route had to be changed due to road construction, and while they gave us an updated map when we picked up our packets AND had people directing us, it still got a little confusing. Linda and her speedy son, Reagan, were well ahead of us, and a couple of times we passed each other going opposite directions (it was fun to wave to people you knew). Well, just before Kelly, Jeri and I came across the two-mile marker, Reagan came up from behind us...and as I shouted "Go Reagan, Go!" I thought "wait, that can't be right...he was far ahead of us." I caught up to him and he said "I've seen that sign before" (meaning the two-mile marker) - and I was all ut-oh, you ran this loop again. He then realized that he had made that loop several times already - poor kid! Well, at that point, Kelly and Jeri took a little walking break, so I just ran ahead with Reagan. It was nice, actually - I got to talk with him about baseball (he had practice later that afternoon) and it brought back memories of when my son Sam played. And actually, my pace increased while running with Reagan because he is so fast! I knew Linda would be worried about him, since he WAS close behind her until he got on the runner's roundabout, so I tried to keep up with him for the rest of the race. Here's a map of the route - you can see the last loop could be confusing:

Click to enlarge - the big loop is what I have renamed "Runner's Roundabout"

You know what's fun about running with a ten-year-old boy? Hurdles. He jumped every traffic cone on the way back down the road toward the finish line! Love his energy! I got a second wind as we came close to the park, and kicked it into high gear and RAN! I didn't realize it at the time, but there was a mat positioned a couple of hundred yards from the finish line and when I crossed it, my chip was read so they could announce my name - and that was VERY COOL to hear as I ran toward the finish line!

That's Reagan in the white shirt in front of me - I'm clapping - not real sure why!

Woohoo, crossing the finish line!!! My chip time was 38:10; I finished 396th out of 592, was 29th in my age division, and my pace was 12:14.
Finish line - I love the look on my face! (picture taken by Kelly's husband, Chuck)Right after I finished - no tears this time, just smiles.

Two sweaty bloggers - 5K finishers!We did it!!!

After we recovered a bit with some water, orange slices, bagels and such, we went back to the sidelines of the finish line so we could wait for the half marathoners to come in. The first guy was way ahead of the rest - he must have been flying the entire race! We cheered and clapped as everyone came in, but kept our eyes on the clock...Brad was running his first-ever half marathon, and his goal was to come in under two hours. Finally we saw him - and just in the nick of time as he finished in 1:58!!!

Run Brad, Run!
This is one happy finisher! (photo by Chuck)

Reagan, Linda, me, Brad and Betsy (another workout peep, although she did not get the memo about wearing our purple shirt, lol!)

Did I mention how much fun this was? Oh, I did? Well, it really was great! In fact, I noticed a few hours later that I had actually bruised my finger by clapping so much for all of the half marathoners! Good times, yo.
Come back tomorrow for a Blogger Run Day recap - by then hopefully I'll have updates of everyone who ran.