Weekly Workout Recap, Week 6 + I am so lazy

Right now Sean is busy being productive and sweating out in the Houston heat.

I, on the other hand, am sitting in the AC, reading blogs and calling it "productive". I also have managed to change out of my real clothes and into my workout clothes, even though I haven't worked out today and have absolutely zero plans of doing so. Oops. And I'm debating eating for the third time today.

And I'm eating for the third time today. Oh and I'm being so lazy that even though the Patriot ended 30 minutes ago I have yet to turn the TV off so I'm listening to the theme music over and over again.

I'm also (im)patiently waiting for Sean to finish doing whatever he's doing (ok, he JUST started doing it) so that I can force him to drive me to Yogurt Cup where I can indulge in the source of my broke bank account yet again. If you know us in real life you know that Sean and I are arguably the cheapest people in the world when it comes to stuff and are master clearance shoppers with anything and everything, so why we're willing to fork over $10+ for fro-yo all the time is beyond me. Oh wait, it's because I force us to go AT LEAST once a week. My bad.

So why do I have the luxury of doing absolutely nothing today? Honestly, I should be doing a lot of things but I'm going to blame my lack thereof on my sucktastic run yesterday.

And ya know, actually, now that I've read over all that, I'm doing quite a bit today. So I don't feel so bad afterall.

What I was supposed to be doing:

Monday: Rest/Cross-training day

Tuesday: 2 miles @ 9:56 min/pace

Wednesday: Rest/Cross-training day

Thursday: 5 mile tempo run; 3 miles @ 8:23 min/pace

Friday: Rest/Cross-training day

Saturday: Rest/Cross-training day

Sunday: 16 miles @ 9:56 min/pace

What really happened:

Monday: Not.A.Thing.

Tuesday: 2 miles @ 9:50 min/pace, 30 minute Pilates class

Wednesday: Jackie Warner's 40 min. Total Body Circuit

Thursday: 5 mile tempo run; 3 miles @ 8:20 min/pace, 10 min long & limber Pilates

Friday: Jackie Warner's Upper Body Circuit and Abs Circuit, 2 miles walking

Saturday: 16 really awful horrible miles somewhere between a 9:50 and 10 min pace with lots of walking; 10 min Total Body Circuit Pilates, 10 min long & limber Pilates

Sunday: Eat ginormous baked potato with BBQ turkey, watch the Patriot, eat more baked potato, wait for Yogurt Cup. Eat Girl Scout cookies while waiting. Exhausting.

Overall planned miles: 23

Overall actual miles: 23 (running); 2 (walking)

Yeaaahhhhh about that run yesterday....

I made it to mile 8 before I had to stop. I walked around the house, chugged a bottle of water, laid on the living room floor. Got up, ran to 10 with some sporadic walking. Back to the floor. Ran to 12 with sporadic walking. Back on the floor. Ran to 13. Floor. Ran and walked to 16. Died. It.was.horrible. No clue why. Don't you love that?

LB (little brother) is coming over Tuesday and we're going to run together, so I'm hoping that starts a track of superb runs this week so that I can forget about the awfulness of my run yesterday.

How's your weekend going? Anyone do anything exciting?!

Long runs or races this weekend? I feel like it's been a while since I've raced. I'm going through slight withdrawals. There's a really cheap 5k this next weekend that I'm thinking about doing - $18 entry fee... Hmmm...

A week of not-so-great runs

We all have them. Those runs that just don't hit the spot. The ones that are a true struggle to get through. The ones where if it can go wrong, it does go wrong. (And if you don't have those runs, we need to talk. Because I am clearly doing something wrong.)

This entire week has been like that for me. On Tuesday I set out to do an easy 3 miles. It was 3 miles of torture. I hated every.single.second. It felt like I was running for hours, when in reality I finished it in 26ish minutes. I was having weird stomach issues. I could only think of one thing: making it home. At the same time, you had better believe I was bound and determined to finish all 3 without stopping.

In the end, I made it. And then I spent the next 20 minutes laying on the tile in our living room with the fan on full blast hoping Sean didn't wake up and walk into the living room and find me in my semi-dead state trying not to puke.

It was only 3 miles.

I can run 3 miles in my sleep.

So what made it so bad? I really have no idea.

This morning I had a 5 mile tempo run. The last 5 mile tempo run I had was glorious. I came out of it wanting to just keep running it over and over again.

Today... Not so much.

My head wasn't in it. My legs were tired. I didn't get a lot of sleep last night. I could give you a million reasons as to why I think it didn't go well, but the truth is, sometimes my runs just suck.

So where am I going with all this complaining? I'm terrified now. I have a 10k on Saturday that I've been looking forward to for weeks, and suddenly I've moved into a state of unease. What was supposed to be easy and fun is now looming over me.

I'm hoping and praying for a miracle run that is all rainbows and sunshine, but preparing for the worst.

What do you do to get out of a "bad run" funk?? Any advice? I'm trying to keep my head in the right place, but I'm pretty discouraged right now.


Oh and sorry for the overkill of cat pictures, but they make me happy, and editing them in Picknik makes me happy too. I really enjoy that when it's loading my pictures it says things like "buttering bread" and "fluffing clouds". Just me?

Rivers and Motorcycles

If you missed the first installment of "what I did on my weekend that you are all waiting anxiously to hear about", fret not, you can find it here.

Because Sean and I are such party animals, as soon as we finished our dinner at Mark's, we went home and fell asleep watching Criminal Minds. Try not to be too jealous of how exciting our lives are. 

Saturday I woke up and rolled out of bed at 6:30 and into running clothes to do the awful 9 mile treadmill run. And just in case you forgot how exclusive-looking our home gym is, here you go:

Like I said, try not to be jealous of us.

After complaining to Sean for forever about how tired my legs were, how boring the last 3 miles of my run were, how hot I was, etc., I finally cleaned up enough to go to one of my best friend's river house for her family's annual crawfish boil. 

Please ignore my headband. I'll just go on ahead and admit now that I did not wash my hair before going. In fact, I did nothing post-run with my hair before going. My bad.

This makes me miss my college years. San Marcos, you and your plentiful rivers spoiled me. The San Bernard is a good substitute, but seriously, SM, you set the standards pretty high. 

That is the hubs about to do a back flip into the river. He is a HUGE show-off. And I mean that very lovingly. 

Yep. There we are again. 

These are some of my favorite people.

When we got home from the river, I had to immediately go plug my phone in because it was dying from me surfing the internet, stalking twitter, and online shopping the entire way home. When I walked into the living room, I found Sean spooning Leo. Proof:

Someone may have had a few too many adult beverages. That someone was not me. I'll let you guess who it was. (It wasn't Leo either). 

Sunday morning I forced Sean up and out of bed to do this:

And this:

And this:

(This picture translates to us spending an hour in the coffee shop sitting next to each other playing each other in Words with Friends. I won.) 

When we got home I kicked Sean out of the house, did an hour of Pilates, shopped a ridiculous amount, and then we met both our parents for dinner. 

Birthday? Successful.

Do you play Words with Friends? We play each other all the time. So far, Sean hasn't won once.

Weekly Workout Recap, Week 2

What I was SUPPOSED to be doing:

What REALLY happened:

Monday: Jillian Michaels Ripped in Thirty Week 4

Tuesday: Easy 4 miles @ 9:47 pace

Wednesday: Jillian Michaels Ripped in Thirty Week 4; 1 mile easy to be a part of NRD

Thursday: 4 mile speedwork - 1 mile warm up at 10:00 min/pace, 1 mile @ 8:00 min/pace, 1/2 mile @ 10:00 min/pace (times 2), 1/2 mile cool down

Friday: Not a thing. I chose to sleep in and sleep off being at Buffalo Wild Wings the night before. Sometimes beer and sports games with two of our best friends on Thursday night trumps working out in the morning.

Saturday: 9 mile long run @ 10:00 mile/pace

Sunday: 50 minute Pilates DVD

Overall planned miles: 17

Overall actual miles: 18

 

The Ripped in Thirty just didn't happen three times this week. And it was the last week. Sad, right? I debated doing it this morning, but Pilates just sounded better and I am all for listening to what I feel like doing versus forcing myself to do something I don't want to. Who knows, maybe I'll do it at some point today (probably not).

 

 

 

And as for that random one mile... well, it was a cross-training day but at 10:00pm Wednesday night I decided I wanted to run a mile for National Running Day. So I did. One of the joys of having your own treadmill. Best Craig's List purchase EVER.

The four miles on Tuesday were a breeze, which was a blessing because I ran them after work in the Houston heat. The four mile speedwork was like running on air. I flew threw it and loved every single second of it.

 

I did the 9 mile run on the treadmill yesterday morning. Things went great the first 6 miles. Then I made the fatal error of looking to see how far I had gone. Definitely thought I had been running longer than I had and that's when EXTREME boredom set in. I just started talking to myself. Out loud. Good thing I was at home. I would love to show you beautiful sunrise pictures like last week, but the truth is, our treadmill is in a room that we have done nothing with yet and it is facing a wall.

 

Beautiful.

 

 

 

 

Or not.

 

 

 

But he sure is cute!!

 

 

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.