Weekly Workout Recap, Week 1

Yeah, yeah... I know, I know... I said I'd do a Sunday post, maybe Monday because of the holiday here... But we were busy doing a lot of this...

And I suck. And even though I did read blogs over the weekend, the thought of actually writing a post maybe crossed my mind once. (I know you all really care, too, so I am sorry). But not really sorry because I was too busy having fun.

ANYWAY. Here is a refresher of what my workouts were supposed to loosely resemble:

Actual:

Monday: Jillian Michaels Ripped in Thirty Week 3

Tuesday: Easy 3 miles @ 10:02 pace

Wednesday: Jillian Michaels Ripped in Thirty Week 3

Thursday: 5 mile tempo run, 1 mile warm up at 10:00 min/pace, 3 miles @ 8:27 min/pace, 1 mile cool down @ 10:00 min/pace

Friday: Jillian Michaels Ripped in Thirty Week 3; 35 min interval run (<--- DUMB.)

Saturday: Rest

Sunday: 8 mile long run @ 9:59 mile/pace

Overall planned miles: 16

Overall actual miles: 19.5 (take that RoseRunner... juuuust kidding, rock star over there does that many miles in a day. A day. And it's my weekly total. No shame.)

The week started off really easy. I felt like I was cheating working out so little. The Jillian Michael's stuff will get its own post, but really, I do feel like I'm taking it easy by only doing a 25ish min workout on those days (granted, I'm super sore).

The 3 miles on Tuesday I had to consciously work to run that slow. I almost think I should have run it on the treadmill because then I'd have been forced to keep the same pace, but I enjoy running outside too much.

I was a little really worried about the 5 mile tempo run because I decided way ahead of time to do it on the treadmill. I really wanted to hit that 8:30 pace for the 3 miles, and the easiest way to do that (for me) is by running it on the TM where I set the pace. I had the option of running the 3 miles at an 8:34 pace (level 7.0) or an 8:27 pace (level 7.1) so I opted for the 8:27 (all at a 1% incline). I went to bed Wednesday night telling myself over and over again that I would have a great TM run (I'm not a TM running kind of girl. I hate it for everything except intervals or fast 1 mile sprints).

It was glorious. Seriously. I had the best run ever. One of those runs where you really feel like you're running on clouds and you never want to stop.

Friday I messed up. I started off good with the Jillian Michaels. But I was feeling really off by the time I left work. And since hubs was going to the mow the front yard, I decided to run (dumb). I knew I needed to give my legs a break, so naturally I ran a really hard interval run. My legs were shot by the end of it. Seriously shot. Saturday I did nothing because they were so tired.

When I woke up Sunday they were still tired. But there was no way I was skipping the 8 miles.

So I laced up and hit the pavement in my favorite neighborhood to run in.

There's really no way around it, they were hard.

I had to talk myself up to get to mile 7, all the while telling myself that if I got to 7 I could walk.

Naturally, when I hit 7 I told myself I was dumb for thinking I'd walk the last mile and I sucked it up and ran it out.

I really did try to hit that 10:04 pace, but my miles were all over the place.

Sometimes I was running way too fast, and sometimes way too slow (wind did factor in as well). I was really happy to be done (and happy that I sucked it up and ran all 8).

I ended up averaging pretty close to what I was supposed to run, but let's be honest, all 8 miles were brutal.

Because I just cant help myself...

Happy Monday Tuesday.

Biggest Loser Finale

Even though I LOVED Olivia:

I REALLY wanted Hannah to win:

Both images via Google Images.

And did anyone else notice how awkward Jillian looked standing in heels and a dress? Sean and I couldn't stop gawking.

Love.this.show.

Do you watch Biggest Loser?
I didn't until this season when Sean randomly had it on one night. Been hooked since then and definitely cried every episode at some point.

Who did you want to win??
I LOVELOVELOVE Hannah, I thought she was hilarious! I really wanted her to win, but I'm also really glad that her and her sister were the top two, I loved them both.

new happenings

A few random Tuesday Tidbits:

1. I started to try to get myself "marathon-ready" today. It's going to be a long, slow process for me, but it's happening.

2. Vanessa, over at Gourmet Runner, does something that I'm going to start implementing here. She posts her 'weekly workout recap', which I think is a great way to track workouts. What I'm going to do is on Monday's I'll post what I want to accomplish for the week, and then on Sundays (brace yourselves, I'll be doing weekend posts! maybe...) I'll tell ya how I did.

3. I love sweet potatoes. Seriously, I don't know how I went 24 years shunning them.

4. I bought a new digital camera! It is tiny and cute!

5. I had an awesome breakfast Saturday morning with my Houston blogger friends and in true blogger FAIL none of us took any pictures. How does that happen?? Also, totally out of my comfort zone to do something like that (meeting up with randoms) BUT so glad I did. Plus I feel like we're all secretly BFF's even though I'd never met any of them ('cept Heidi!) before Saturday. WIN for blogger meet-up!

But I figured to start, I'll show you what I'm supposed to be doing this week and then Sunday (maybe Monday because it's a long weekend) we'll recap and see how all that business works out :)

Have a fantastic Tuesday!

Jillian Michaels - RIPPED IN THIRTY Week 2 Review

As you may already know, I have taken on Jillian Michael's Ripped in Thirty challenge. If you  missed the recap of Week 1 you can find it here.

I feel like I might as well get this out of the way and say that this challenge may not be entirely fair because I haven't been watching my diet at all the past couple weeks and I haven't been running quite as much either, so my weight has been fluctuating between 5lbs for the past 3 weeks. One of these days I'll get my act together and get my eating under control, but sweets cravings have attacked in full force. (I have sworn off desserts for this week to try and calm down my huge sweet tooth, WISH ME LUCK.)

But back to RIT Week 2 Review :)

I managed to get in all three sessions that I wanted to Tuesday/Thursday/Saturday.
What I Liked

- one thing that I really have liked is being able to do something in roughly 30 minutes on Saturday morning and then go on about my day

- going back to last week, I really like the way the 3 minute of strength is broken up with 30 second moves at a time

- I felt that she did a really good job of switching up the moves so that you really weren't doing any of the same moves as week 1 (you did do variations of moves from week 1, but they were a little more intense)

What I Didn't Like

- there were a LOT of variations on planks... I have no issue with this because I do love planks, but it was a little hard for me to transition into the next strength move and never move out of the plank position... and then follow up with the cardio moves being in the plank position as well... these little arms were tired

- at one point she pretends to bite one of the girls butts. little odd. (I felt it wouldn't be complete without a weird Jillian thing thrown in there)

Overall: Still happy. Week 2 is definitely more difficult than Week 1, but that's the point right?

Blogger FAIL, 6.2 WIN, and RUNNING GIRL YOU ARE MY FAVORITE.

:) It's Friday!

Blogger FAIL
Every now and then when I log into blogger I get this screen:

And I want to punch my computer screen because that is just not the case. What I do in actuality is click the "B" for Blogger and suddenly my little dashboard appears. Weird.

6.2 WIN

As some of you may know, I've been doing 10k training for the past however long. Well, since I am dumb and didn't actually line up my training with any races, I finished training today. Solution? Run a 10k this morning, duh. In actuality I was running 6+ miles a couple weeks before I started training, but I wanted to set a good, solid foundation and I love training and I wasn't sure where I wanted to go with my running, thus 10k training seemed logical.

After an entire week of not getting enough sleep, waking up in the middle of the night, etc., I finally got a decent full (ok, 6 hours) sleep last night. At 4:50am my alarm went off and I popped out of bed, laced up my sneakers and was out the door to run my 6.2. I took it pretty conservative because running in my neighborhood is BORING (especially for distances longer than 1 mile and when no one is awake and its dark out) and I didn't want to burn out and quit early. I realized in the last 1/2 mile that I took it a little too conservatively because I felt really good and not worn out, so I did the only natural thing and raced the last 1/2 mile in. Glorious. So, 6.2 I'm done with you now and will move on to half marathon training (and if you're wondering I run an actual 10k on June 11).

RUNNING GIRL YOU ARE MY FAVORITE

I saved the best for last. :) See, I time all my runs so that when I'm walking/cooling off I walk past my mailbox and today was no exception. Except today when I checked my mail I had a package!!!!

A little while back here I WON ONE OF RUNNING GIRL'S GIVEAWAYS! I say "one of" because her she is SUPER AWESOME and did 3 giveaway's at once. If you don't read her blog, then you should. She is one hot mama who is training for 2 upcoming half marathons! You GO GIRL.

How cute is she? I stole this pic from her blog :)

WOOHOO PACKAGE FOR ME

Wanna see again?

Please excuse my extremely red face, but I live in Houston, home of humidity, so even runs at 5am make me sweat like crazy. And the wet hair is the result of showering off 10lbs of sweat. There's no way you would've wanted to see a picture of me pre-shower.

THE GOODS:

Ah, my soul is satisfied. Gummy bears and new lip gloss plus a sweet note on cute stationary! PERFECT way to start the morning.

And then, just when I thought it couldn't get any better, I went through the rest of my mail.

Do you see what I see?

Here let me help:

30% off Yogurt Cup?! Guess where I'm going soon...

Jillian Michaels - RIPPED IN THIRTY Week 1 Review

As I said here, because of Britt I decided to try out new the Jillian Michael's Ripped in Thirty (RIT) DVD.

I was pretty excited to try it out because, so far, I have been impressed with her DVDs, and I love the idea of getting a total body strength workout in a fairly short amount of time.

I'm a longtime fan of her 30 Day Shred, though I'd be lying if I said I made it through an entire 30 days. I tend to get bored with things if I do them for too long and I like to have structure. With the Shred DVDs there was the leeway to move up to the next level when you're ready, which means that I eventually got less and less dedicated to it. That isn't to say, however, that I don't still use the DVD - I LOVE going back to the Shred, and have been frequently alternating between the Shred and Jackie Warner's circuit training.

Right off the bat one thing that really appealed to me about RIT is that there are four solid weeks, and each week you move up a level. The structure is good for someone like me who is a list-driven, check it off my to-do list, kind of person.

Britt was trying to fit in four sessions a week, but I knew for me that three was more realistic. I don't like doing back-to-back days of strength training, so I decided that I would do Week 1 Tuesday/Thursday/Saturday and that I would do my training runs on Monday/Wednesday/Friday, with one or two days of Pilate's/Yoga thrown in for good measure, and if possible also a day of hills/intervals/tempo runs.

Last week was a total success in that Monday/Wednesday/Friday I did my scheduled training runs and Tuesday/Thursday/Saturday I did RIT. I also got in one day of Pilate's and one very rough tempo run.

What I Liked:

- the way the DVD is set up is similar to the 30 Day Shred, where it alternates 3 minutes of strength, 2 minutes of cardio and 1 minute of abs. You start with a warm up, then do three different circuits of the 3-2-1 module, and then you cool down

- unlike the 30 Day Shred, the 3 minutes of strength is broken into three 30 second strength moves that are repeated upon completion of the third strength move. With the Shred, you alternated 30 seconds of one strength move with 1 minute of another, more complex strength move. For me, the RIT is a better set up because some of the moves (like the side lunge with front arm raises) are really hard for me to complete for even 30 seconds (much less an entire minute)

- none of the moves are ever repeated in any of the weeks. you do a certain move (say push-ups) one week and then you will never do push-ups again (so she says, time will tell)

- by Saturday I could tell that I had improved because some of the strength moves that started out being hard for me I was able to complete without stopping

- like her other DVDs, Jillian has two girls working with her that show you a beginner way to do the moves, and an advanced

What I Didn't Like:

- It says that the sessions are 20 minutes, but in reality they are longer than that. I couldn't figure out why I was starting at 5:40am and ending at 6:15 or later (these are rough estimates) until Saturday when I did the DVD through Sean's laptop and I actually had a timer showing me how long it was running. This isn't a HUGE complaint, because I don't mind the extra time, but be prepared to spend a little longer than 20 minutes doing the DVD

- Jillian has a tendency to do really awkward things (like making one of her girls talk straight into her sports bra)... It was a little disconcerting the first time I saw it because I focused on that rather than the actual move I was supposed to be doing... little weird


All in all, so far I'm really happy with the DVD. I did my first day of Week 2 today, and it was definitely nice to change it up from what I was doing last week. I love fitness DVDs because, in all honesty, a lot of times I'm way too lazy to drive to the gym in the morning, but I love strength training, so it's nice to be able to work up a sweat in my own living room (or hotel room)

Stay tuned for a Week 2 recap next week!

Weekend Getaway - Destination: Galveston

Every year Sean's company hosts a golf tournament in Galveston and Sean's branch of the company cooks for all of the golfers. This means that Sean gets a free hotel room and we get to hang out in Galveston for the weekend. It's a win-win, because this means that not only do we get a free hotel room, but I get to take the weekend off from all my normal grown-up responsibilities like grocery shopping and house cleaning (and I avidly ignore that it means that these things will now have to happen after work and such).

I got down there about 5:30 Friday afternoon and Sean and I hung out, went by the silent auction, and schmoozed with coworkers/clients like you're supposed to during these things. We went to Landry's with his coworker and his wife and - in the spirit of being healthy - had a chopped salad with blackened shrimp... it was SO good. I don't eat at Landry's very often, so I never really know what to order. This definitely hit the spot though!

Saturday morning I woke up and debated for a LONG time what to run - treadmill intervals or a tempo run on the Seawall.

The tempo run won, which was a COLOSSAL mistake. Seriously. The only good thing that came out of that run was this:

And this:

I set out to do a 4 mile tempo run with an easy warm up and cool down and harder in between miles (around a 7:30 pace). The first mile was a breeze and I cruised along at about an 8:38 pace. The second mile I was flying down the Seawall, maintaining about a 7:15 pace. This is where I realized I made a GINORMOUS mistake. See, I had to do an out and back 4 miles so that I could get back to the hotel (I suppose Sean could've picked me up, but hindsight is 20-20, right?). I couldn't understand why I was cruising so easily at 7:15 until I turned around. And then it hit me like a brick, literally. Dang that wind was hard. I struggled to maintain an 8:45 pace that 3rd mile, the wind was blowing so ridiculously hard into me. I even had to stop to walk at one point and frequently was taking a step back before pushing forward. By the time I hit mile 3.1 I started walking/sprinting in 1/10th mile intervals.

I think it's the tiredest (is that a word??) I've ever been from 4 miles.

Sean had to leave earlier than expected to go out to the tournament that day, so after he left I did this:

Dedication at it's finest? No, that's more like knowing how many extra calories you'll be consuming and trying to prevent it.

Later on I met Sean and his coworkers out at the golf course and hung around chatting with the boys/their wives until the end of it. Afterwards we went to the company crawfish boil and then to the hotel bar to have drinks with the coworkers/clients/wives/etc.

Sean and I giggled our way through YouTube videos after everyone left the bar (sometimes, we are 5, don't judge).

We went to the cutest place for breakfast - The Mosquito Cafe:

via

I got the vegetable omelet, which came with a side of honey-wheat toast and an apple salad that had sliced apples, pecans, celery and some sort of sauce. Apple salad = win. Vegetable omelet = pretty good. The vegetables were cooked in butter, which was a huge disappointment for me. I don't use butter ever (unless I'm baking) so I was bummed when I tasted it through all the other flavors. Next time we go, I am definitely branching out of my norm of veggie omelette's and trying something else - they had a fab selection of unique breakfasts and I am just hugely boring and hate to break out of my norm.

In other news, Sean and I are FINALLY renovating our guest bathroom. The bathroom makes me sick every time I walk into it. It's puke green and boring and has all sorts of issues with it. But that is a post for tomorrow :)

it's about time.

Um, I've never wanted to blog so badly as when I wasn't able to for the past 24 hours. Seriously.

I'll leave it at that, because I'm sure the Blogger folks were diligently trying to get Blogger back up. I'm ashamed to say I may have considered a break-up if things didn't turn around quickly, but I'm a little impatient and have a hard time remembering that everyone has flaws sometimes. (excluding myself, of course).

Britt (who blogs at FitChickBritt) called out to any Bloggers that wanted to join her in doing this:

via

Being the Jillian lover that I am, I jumped on the band wagon (albeit, a week behind Britt in the 4 week challenge) and started RIT on Tuesday. Holy geeze I'm sore. My little legs have been struggling with running this week because they're so sore. Yikes.

On Wednesday I branched out in another direction and tried spaghetti squash for the first time. I'll be honest, I was a little nervous.

via

I'm happy to report though that it was REALLY good. I've been trying to use up all the fresh produce in our fridge, so I mixed in some baby spinach/arugula, feta cheese, asparagus, cherry tomatoes, onions, mushrooms and fresh basil with a little olive oil... DELICIOUS.

See what I mean?

Perhaps I'll try out being vegetarian... (Sean would die.)

It rained for the first time in FOREVER yesterday (which naturally means that everyone freaked out and drove at negative speeds. Don't think it's possible? Try driving home during rush hour on 290 in the rain. Negative speeds are possible).

But it did result in this:

Beautiful. The rain also resulted in my 5 mile run this morning happening in 64 degree weather. I'LL TAKE IT.

Oh and because I just can't stand to leave them out... how cute are they:

The one of Leo in the bag is an all time fave. Man he's cute! Since Sean was packing to go out of town, he tried to leave with Sean (rude).

Tuesday, you are way better than Monday

I bet you were wondering if I was ever going to post again. I was too.

Friday I switched things up a bit. But you probably read about that here. This whole running after work thing is becoming a big problem. Not because I hate it, but because I love it. The problem factors in when I don't get home until 8pm. I had one of the most stressful nights of my life on Friday night because of this:

via

I've never been so stressed watching a movie ever. Usually when we watch movies I gradually shift over until I'm laying down and then before you know it I'm asleep. I sat straight up throughout this entire movie. Tense. It was good, though, I mean, I'd recommend it, if you don't mind being stressed out.

Me and Jillian had an early morning date on Saturday, and after a 20 minute sweat session I did all the really, super fun things that you (ok maybe just me) do on Saturdays, like clean up and grocery shop.

In an attempt to make our front patio more inviting and spend more money (because we are so rich), Sean and I went out on a quest to find a bistro table and chair set. We finally decided on one at Garden Ridge, and then I played the role of super wife and kept Sean company while he sweated it out in 90+ degree Houston heat putting the furniture together. I drank mimosas and went inside any time I started to glisten. Yes, glisten. Not sweat.

Please ignore my frightening facial expression. Sometimes I get a little overly excited. Also, please ignore that I am wearing the same shirt I was wearing Wednesday. I promise I only wore it for a couple hours on Wednesday night.

We met my family for some pretty outstanding sushi on Saturday night to celebrate Mother's Day and then Sean and I drove over to a little hole in the wall bar for a few drinks with my coworker and her fiance. Apparently it was karaoke night. I will never do karaoke.

I took some pictures at the bar of the folks brave enough to get up there and wail their little hearts out, but they all turned out so dark that they aren't worth posting. We spent Sunday with Sean's family celebrating Mother's Day and then we came home and I proceeded to lay on the couch and put off vacuuming and mopping until the evening.

Apparently Sean didn't know just how much I love Yogurt Cup, because he was silly enough to ask me Sunday night if I wanted to go. He can attest to the fact that within 3 seconds of him asking I had my shoes on, changed my shirt, grabbed my purse and was ready to go. Silly, silly.