Realistic Expectations

What have I learned over these past couple of weeks of inactivity on the blog? That weight lifting and training for a half marathon (while holding a full time job and being a full time graduate student) are not things that can go together. ChaLEAN Extreme is on hiatus until the Half Marathon is over.

What does that mean? Katie, you should seriously cross train because it will make you a better runner.

I know. But I'm seriously tired right now. I'll figure something out.

I caught a cold two weeks ago and so I took 6 days off of running... and then the cold moved into my chest and I kind of still... kept running. I'm a really bad example... or a really great example of what NOT to do. I'm feeling much better though. While I'm running I feel fantastic. Then I stop running and I'll cough for a little bit, but overall improvement once I get up out of bed and moving.

I've been terrible as far as feeding myself is concerned. I've been going mad on the carbs... eating sandwiches (which I never do) and eating way too many sweets. The only thing that has kept me in these size 4 Skinny Jeans is the running. I swear to you. I've been a bad, bad girl. I've better intentions coming up and I've been pretty good today. When I sleep in (and sleep is something I've been lacking here recently) my first breakfast gets screwed up... and each meal afterward gets screwed up. If only I lived in a vacuum.

Some things I ate this week:

Fun with yogurt. I've been seeing how different I can make my vanilla yogurt every time I eat it. Here we have an example of three oreo cookies crushed up in my yogurt (I told you I've been mowing down on the sweets) and then I have fresh strawberries with mini chocolate chips and butterscotch chips (a half serving of each of the chips... so I was measuring...)

Last weekend I treated myself to a breakfast at my favorite cafe. I ordered something sweet but small and it was delicious. This is a cinnamon roll split in half and fried like french toast, covered in powdered sugar and bananas. Yup.

I did have good intentions... my basket at the grocery looked healthy enough.

But it was the exercise that kept me normal this week. I ate out too much and seriously, right now, I'm sitting here with the belly-ache part of a hangover because I had a couple vodka lemonades and a mudslide the size of my face last night. I seriously need to stop eating buffalo anything while drinking. It hurts coming out your nose. I know... another example of the bad example. But I have a lot going on.

Let's talk about the running this week. I'm counting last Sunday because, since I was sick, I had to skip Week 2 of my training (my extended training where I'd planned to do Week 1 twice, so I really didn't miss anything). Here's an overview of the week.

And here's the breakdown. Sunday I did two miles while still sort of sick. Took my handkerchief with me to blow my nose. I made surprisingly good time for feeling like garbage.

 

Wednesday's run was fun because a coworker decided to run with me! We had a good time and it was interesting running with someone else. It definitely made the hour go by faster and forced me to pace a little better than I normally do. We're planning to run again this coming Wednesday after work.

Thursday I participated in another 5k. This one markets itself as being a “Fast 5k” because it's all on a gradual decline. I was no faster than I normally am in a race. In fact, I was 18 seconds short of a personal record. I was totally beat afterward... slept well that night at least.

Saturday's run was the long one for the week; 6 miles. About 5 miles in the back of my knee started to get sore, but that went away with some good stretching afterward. Which comes to my intention to cross train. I think I'm going to do yoga at least one day a week on my non-running days. 

 

 

June is just being hard on me. I thought May was bad. But June has 4ish events at my job... the end of my first term of grad school (which ends today) and the start of my second term of grad school (which starts tomorrow). I'm not resting. I'm not relaxing. I'm taking stress to the internal most parts of me. And then I'm trying to choke it with alcohol. And dessert.

Thank god for running. Or we'd be having a terrible conversation.

Sorry my blog posts are straight and to the point here recently. Just an attempt to stay sane. And hopefully motivate people to do what I'm not doing.