Yearly Archives: 2011

Updates

I’ve been trying a lot of things to get me back to blogging. Part of the problem is that I like to blog over my lunch break at work, but for no apparent reason, my blog is blocked at the office. No other blogs, just mine. Quite odd. And then, when I get home from work, the last thing I want to do is sit down at the computer and type. Typically, I want to sit on the couch and veg out. Of course, what I end up doing is cleaning, working on the house, or going for a run (something I’ve not been doing enough of).

I think the heat has finally broken here, which is wonderful. It has been so hard to stick to a good running schedule lately. I don’t want to go out when it feels like it’s 100 degrees out. I think that last night’s front helped a lot. It was gorgeous this morning. I was so sad that I was driving to work instead of going for a run.

My next race is over the weekend. Just a ten miler, thankfully, but it’s something I have to be careful to be ready for. I’m not sure I am in terms of training, but really, all I want to do is finish. And after that, I’m done racing until Labor Day (unless I do a 5K for Jen’s birthday, which I think is in the plans). I need to get back to a normal workout schedule. Back to normal running, then back into a lifting plan. I think that might help kickstart my weight loss again. I’m not sure what’s going on, but my weight just seems to be steadily creeping upward. I can’t afford to buy a whole new wardrobe, so I have to do something to stop this in its tracks.

Crossing my fingers that cooler weather helps. Because I need to do something. It helps that I actually have a race goal for the fall. I want to try to PR at Rock and Roll Philadelphia. It’s two weeks after the Disneyland Half, so I have to be trained up, but I’m hoping that I can go and run Disneyland and have fun with it and still be ready to go for Philadelphia. My PR was run on a really hilly course when I was just out to run and have a good time – though I knew what I had to do to get a PR, so I was pushing for it. I don’t know if I could do that same pace now, but I can certainly try. I think one thing that really helped me on my PR race was that it was really really cold out. It was a November race in Pennsylvania. That’s a race I could do again this year if I’m feeling up to it.

I feel like I’ve really been slacking as of late, and that’s why I’m feeling so out of shape. I just hate that I have to put so much more work into it than I used to. I know I’ve gained about 15 pounds in the last year (though admittedly last spring, I was really thin because I had been sick, so I guess that doesn’t count). Still, it’s not a good thing. I’d like to lose about 20 pounds, but I’d be happy with ten. Heck, at this point, I’d be happy with five! I just can’t seem to pull it off. I do really well and then suddenly I find that I’ve gained four pounds in a matter of days. I can’t explain it. So I’m just going to keep on working at it and hope for the best.

I know that running again will really help. And actually pushing myself when I run is what I need to do. I love the feeling of a really great run, so I’m hoping that with nice weather and a goal on the horizon, I’ll want to be out there and that will help with the weight loss and the body confidence as well. I don’t want to be a skinny minnie. I just want to be back into my clothes and feel comfortable in them. If I don’t do something, I’m going to have to buy new clothes in a bigger size once fall hits. We can wear jeans to work all summer, but my dress pants were really starting to feel tight and I think they were looking tight too. Gotta fix that.

Disney Princess Half Marathon!

Well, I think I’ve given up on the weekly updates.  As you can see.  But it’s been busy.  I bought a house!  More about that later.  For now, race talk.

Last weekend, I ran the Disney Princess Half Marathon with a bunch of my ROTE friends.  My mom and my sister ran too, their first race ever.  How exciting!  You may remember that I tried to run this race last year and caught a stomach bug the night before the race and was unable to run.  So this was my redemption year.

First off, the weather was ridiculous.  Not hot, just very very humid.  The air was super thick.  That made for a rough race.  Unfortunately, Kim, my running partner, had some travel issues and didn’t make it down for the race, so I was debating who I wanted to run with.  I started off with Steve, Katie, and Kelly, then Kelly and I broke off, ran into Laura, and then Kelly broke off and I stuck with Laura.

It was such fun running with someone!  It meant we could take pictures.

And pictures were taken!  We didn’t want to wait in the line for the crazy photos, but we still had fun.

Oh, and see that skirt?  My mom made it for me!  Awesome, isn’t it?

Well, after months of training in the cold Maryland weather, the heat finally got to us.  Poor Laura looked like she was going to collapse.  So we slowed down significantly.  Definitely my worst half marathon time.  But we finished, we got medals, finished the first half of the Coast to Coast challenge, took some great pictures, and that’s what matters.  It was a great time.  I can’t wait for next year’s race!

Week in Review week… 6?

Missed a week somehow.  Didn’t get a whole lot of miles in last week, mostly thanks to the weather.  Went out and tried to do a solid 8 miler, but the weather sort of thwarted that one.  So just under ten miles last week.  Not great, seeing how close we are to the half-marathon.

This week’s looking better.  I got to the gym both Tuesday and Friday, so I’ve already got 8 miles under my belt in preparation for tomorrow’s 10 miler.

This coming week’s going to be interesting.  On Monday, we’re doing the final inspection of the house.  Haven’t seen it since the last, not so great inspection.  I’m hopeful, but nervous.  Based on the info I’ve gotten, they’re doing all the work correctly.  I’m just hoping that the information that we’ve received is truthful.  If all goes well, I close on the house on Friday.  Scary!

Week in Review – Weeks 3 and 4

Well, like I said, I’ve been a bit of a slacker.  But my numbers aren’t that bad.

Last week’s mileage – 12 miles
This week’s mileage – 12.1 miles

The problem with that mileage is that I did weekend long runs of 8 and 10 miles.  So I’m clearly not getting in my midweek runs like I should.  That’s something I really need to work on, hopefully this week, though the approaching storm (AGAIN) could affect that.  I did today’s ten miler on the treadmill (ugh), so treadmill runs are definitely doable.  Not my favorite thing in the world, but it could be so much worse.

My goal this year is to run 600 miles.  That’s 50 miles a month.  I know that many months will be way over, but it allows me some rest months as well.  I hit 48 miles this month – not bad, but not as good as it should be, considering I’m running a half marathon in 28 days.

As I mentioned, I stopped lifting because I tweaked my shoulder.  Planning to pick that back up tomorrow.

On the house buying front, we looked at 4 houses yesterday and none measured up to the house I currently have a contract on.  So now I’m just going to wait and see what happens with the repairs they’re working on.  And hope that the snow doesn’t affect that as well.  I’m not sure what happens if they can’t get everything done in time for closing.  I’m okay with extending closing, but I don’t know what happens then with my mortgage rate lock, etc.  So I’m just waiting as patiently as I can.

Still a slacker

I’ve been a total workout slacker lately.  Sure, I ran 8 miles last weekend.  But other than that… nothing.

Stopped the weights for the week.  At some point last week, I did something to my shoulder.  I’m not sure what, exactly, but it hurt.  And not the good kind of hurt.  It seems better now, so I’m going to try to resume the weights next week.  It’s hard getting up so early though.  Sleep definitely wins out a lot.

Didn’t get in a lot of running this week either.  I blame the weather.  That snow was insane!  For those of you who didn’t see it on the news, on Wednesday, we had a crazy, crazy snowstorm.  Federal workers got out of work 2 hours early.  For me, that meant 3:00.  (For many of my coworkers, it was later.  I get to work at 7:30 to put in my 9 hours.)  I took the Metro home, and because Metro sucks, I didn’t get home til 3:45.  By that point, it was hailing.  It had rained all morning, then there was some sleet, and then the hailing started.  Once the snow started, it was all over.  It was coming down at a crazy rate – up to two inches an hour in some areas!  We were lucky in that we didn’t lose power, but the cable went out, so we weren’t really sure what was going on in the world.

I made it in to work the next day (though Metro caught fire again), but it was pretty much a waste of a day, as most of the city couldn’t make it in.  Would have made for a nice snowday at home.

In other news, I’m still waiting to hear on the house.  They’re still working on all the repairs, so who knows.  Today, my Realtor and I are going to look at a couple more houses, just to see.  I have mixed feelings about the whole process.