Guest Post @ Team Giles

Go check it out: here

Weekend recap and such to come. Just not right now :)

Well, I tried...

1. The Good: I got to have lunch with my husband yesterday. That NEVER happens and it was glorious.
   The Bad: It made my day feel like Friday, which was so depressing afterwards.
2. The Good: Cinco de May gives me a "reason" to have a margarita
   The Bad: When you stop by Spec's and they have a "low-cal" margarita and you are suddenly sucked in by marketing, you should know that making your own "low-cal" margarita is a MUCH better choice. I made the decision to buy pre-made. Bad decision. It wasn't so great.
3. The Good: I'm going to Memorial to run after work again!
   The Bad: The reason I'm going is that I skipped my run this morning. Wanna know why? I figured. Sit down, kids.

As Sean and I were coming back from our Mexican fiesta (ok, ok we just went and ate sub-par Mexican food. I consumed those calories for nothing, because it wasn't that great) EVERYONE was out in our neighborhood. This conversation ensued:

Me: Why is everyone outside?
Sean: I don't know...
Me: Do our neighbors hang out outside at night and we had no idea because we never leave the house once I get home??
Sean: I don't know...
Me: WHY WEREN'T WE INVITED?!? We need to make friends with our neighbors!!!

Go into house, start tidying up a bit. Sean goes outside to put out the sprinklers.

Sean re-enters house.

Sean: Rache, apparently everyone was outside because there was a man-hunt going on. The police in the helicopter came and everything.

Well, crap.

5AM alarm goes off. I get out of bed, get dressed to go run. Stand and stare at Sean sleeping. Think really hard about the man-hunt. Wake Sean up and ask him if he cares if I run tonight. Peel off running clothes and get back into bed.

Yeah-freaking-right. Like I'm going out there in the pitch black after a freaking man-hunt was taking place.

You know what's good fuel for long runs?

Yeah, duh. Cinnamon cupcakes from Crave. I love you just as much as froyo!

Making it work

EDIT: Are you serious? Someone searched this TWICE and my blog came up? "have a nice life. who am i kidding? i hope you get hit by a moving truck."

I mean, sometimes I get frustrated with Sean and all, but never that much...

What started out as a comment on Running Girl's post, turned out looking incredibly long-winded, so I'm just going to go ahead and preface this by saying you should check out her post here and then you'll get the basis of my post.

For anyone too lazy to click over and read her post, to sum it up she basically is talking about finding the healthy balance between planning your days, your workouts, your food, etc. while also allowing for life to intervene like it so often does.

Like her, I'm incredibly particular about my workouts. I am a very list-driven person (just take a look at my planner on any given day) and I thrive off of crossing things off one at a time. I also have found that I execute workouts at a much higher success rate if I know ahead of time what I'm going to do and have some sort of schedule about it.

Unfortunately for my perfectly planned out life, LIFE has a way of jumping in the way of those plans sometimes. It doesn't matter if all of my t's are crossed and i's are dotted - sometimes life just throws a wrench in all of that.

It's taken me a long time to figure out what works for me. And what it comes down to is schedule + flexibility. I am at my best when I have mapped out certain training runs that I have to hit - though I am flexible about which days I hit them. I have at least one hills or speed workout that I want to get in per week. I try to do at least one day of yoga and one day of pilates (though usually I just get in one day of one of them) and I try to get in 2 days of total body strength training (even if that means one day of arms, one of legs, etc. and then one total body day).

What works for me won't work for everyone, myself included sometimes.

There are days that I have planned to go to spin class and I wake up and I don't feel like driving to the gym (It's really far. A whole 7 minutes). So I'll pull my bike out of the garage and bike around the neighborhood, or I'll do an interval workout on the treadmill instead.

And there's days where I finish a run and know I need to get in some abs, but when I peek into my bedroom and see my husband still sleeping peacefully, the only right option at that point is to crawl back into bed and snuggle up to him and nap for 20 more minutes (so what if I did that yesterday? I got my ab workout in after work!).

Lovelovelove!



That's what it's all about to me though, making it work for YOU. No one else's schedule will fit yours. You have to find that balance.

Kind of like skipping dinner so you can do this:

Don't judge that we are wearing the same shirt. It was not planned. And dinners consisting of froyo are perfectly acceptable. They hit my calcium AND fruit needs and I got an added bonus with the dark chocolate chips that I added in. And I'm pretty sure that pecan praline froyo counts as a "healthy fat". Plus, little brother had never been, so it's obvious that he needed to experience this wonderland. Duh.

Oh and for anyone who cares, Yogurt Cup is 5.1 miles away from my house. Which is a perfectly legit running distance to be rewarded with froyo after. The hubs will just have to meet me there...

Finally.

So I'm sure it's been evident (as you can tell here, here, and here) that I have been struggling for the past week. And even as 5:50 rolled around yesterday evening and I grabbed my gear to go change so I could scoot out the door at 6 to go run, I was seriously debating.

The one thing I had going for me was that I called Garmin support and they walked me through trouble-shooting the stupid thing. "Um, I tried that already, thanks, I read the website and followed the instructions you are giving me right... Oh, never mind it's working now, thanks, kbye."

Well, that's that. It started working like a charm again. Technology.

Clearly.

Anyway, I did get changed into my beloved tempo shorts and out the door and in an effort to bring some spark into my runs again, hit up Memorial Park (which is 0.5 seconds from my work) instead of my usual Monday routine of sitting in traffic, getting insanely annoyed, getting home 45 minutes later even though I only live 15 minutes away and then jumping into a long run so I'm not really home until 8:30.

What a breath of fresh air. For one, being around tons of other runners (except you people that walk slowly four deep on the trail... please move for those of us running!) was so motivating. I ran 7+ miles like a champ. I pushed speed (which never happens in long runs), sped up towards the end (that also never happens in long runs), and finished feeling like a million bucks. I'd have kept going but I was fairly positive that the hubs may have a panic attack if I didn't show up at home before it got dark.

All that leads me to say, I'm BACK. I feel 110% better now.

Now if I could just get back here...

Weekend Recap

Man-o-man. Last week was a very stress-filled week for me.

Friday after work I drove over to my friend Lindsey's house - she just moved into her first non-roomie apartment and another girlfriend and I drove over there to see her new place and indulge in some girl time. Thank goodness for girl time. Unfortunately, I spent way too much time stuck in traffic getting over there and she had quite the incident with some abusive neighbors in the parking lot (but you should click her name and read her blog post about that, because I wasn't actually there to witness it). I got home exhausted and passed out almost immediately. In keeping with the way the week went my sweet, sweet kittie woke me up at 4:30 meowing and never stopped. So I got up early Saturday too (enter: bad mood). I did manage to get quite a bit accomplished on Saturday, but I was in a huge fog. I forced myself on a brutal mile and a half run (mile and a half! that is not even that far or that long!) and then I eeked out 50 minutes of yoga. Yoga makes me happy.

We met my parents for an early dinner at Berry Hill and I sucked down a couple margaritas. Um, yes, I ran a 5k on Sunday. I'm telling you - I was in a huge funk. At that point, I was seriously considering skipping the race entirely. Luckily, I have a super supportive husband. We were on our way home from dinner and we drove past the Catholic church on the road that runs in front of our neighborhood... They were having their Spring Festival. No, we're not Catholic. Yes, we did stop.

We wandered around, listened to the country band, drank a few beers, and at this point I was positive that I wasn't going to run in the morning. I complained to Sean about it that my head just wasn't in it, and he spent the next however long coaching me through all of my complaints and self-doubt. My hubs = best ever. Seriously.

When my alarm went off Sunday morning I got up, had some peanut butter toast, made coffee for the hubs, felt hung over (big shock), and went back to bed. I woke up an hour later, checked the times for the races, checked the distance to the race, and then went back to bed. I finally forced myself out of bed and thanks to Sean made it to the race in one piece.

I killed it. Seriously. I ran fast and hard and finished 8th overall and 1st in my age group. After doing a million things wrong, it was the one thing that I needed to happen to get my head on a bit straighter. I floated around for most of the day after that. And I owe 150% of that success to my husband. He is the best race manager/cheerleader/photographer I could ask for, seriously. As I came barrelling into the finish line (and this little kid came out of nowhere and passed me - ughhh I would've been 7th!!) there was Sean, video-taping the whole thing. He is my favorite.

We drove over to his parents house after where my ravenous self devoured an AWESOME homemade taco salad courtesy of Sean's mom. Yum yum yum. I promise you that my body believes that it runs marathons, when in fact it does not. Yet.

I have a long run today after work that my head isn't entirely in yet, but I'm in a much better place than I was. Oh and my Garmin freaked out and stopped working after the race yesterday. Not sure what that's about, but it's frozen at 9:57AM. Hopefully we'll get that fixed ASAP.

Oh and I made an amazing pizza last night for dinner. Wanna see?

Delicious. Be jealous.

You guys are awesome.

Seriously. AWESOME. I love yall.

The Astros were terrible last night, but we had fantastic seats and good company and a really drunk and obnoxious girl in front of us so it was ok. I only took one picture because I was too busy gossiping with Sean.

Then we came home and watched You Tube videos because we are 12 years old. There is nothing better than Kitten Mittens. I laugh my head off every.single.time.

I woke up super early this morning (before my alarm went off) and was wide awake. I debated trying to go back to sleep (by debated I mean I laid in bed with my eyes closed praying for sleep to come back to me) but my alarm went off and I yelled at myself and got out of bed.

Can someone explain to me why it's 58 degrees outside? Not that I'm complaining (I kind of am), but I live in Houston for a very good reason. And it's not the cool weather.

Since I've been so crappy all week I decided I'd do a punishment run this morning. My punishment runs always vary with what the 'punishment' portion of it is - sometimes its hills, sometimes its sprints, today it was no music.

Best.decision.ever. I had a good run. Not the best, but definitely the best this week. I cleared my head. I thought a lot. I made to-do lists. I prayed. I giggled to myself. I scolded myself. And I just ran. And I remembered why sometimes, I like the absolute quiet of 5am runs with no music.

Because I am awesome I then came home and did the weights that I didn't do yesterday. Back on track, baby.

Unfortunately, it's now 9:40am and I'm EXHAUSTED. Happy Friday! I have a MUCH needed girls night tonight and I can't wait.

Are you there weekend? It's me... Rachael...

Bloggers: I need some encouragement right now! I have (no lie) BINGED for the last 3 days (I don't even want to get into how much sweet stuff I've eaten today in addition to the two days outlined below). Clearly, I'm stressed. So please please please send a little prayer my way that I GET MY HEAD ON STRAIGHT and get up and start nice and fresh tomorrow. :) kthx.

This week has been one for the books. Seriously. I can't remember the last time I was so unbelievably exhausted.

I also can't remember the last time I spent two days binging on junk food without a care in the world (until late last night that is... And don't think that made me get up this morning and work out.)

Work has been... stressful and tiring. And that's all I'll say about that. No one likes to hear complaining.

And workouts have been... I don't know. I think they've been a little off because of work. Stress has a way of making its rounds into every aspect of life.

Tuesday the hubs was sick (poor thing) so I skipped Pilates and came straight home after going to Target to buy a thermometer, orange juice, sprite, and chicken noodle soup for him. After realizing he was running a fever I went to CVS and bought him medicine and bought myself a pint of ice cream. I ate the entire thing.

Dinner looks like this when you know it's going to be followed by a pint of vanilla/chocolate ice cream:

Yes, I roasted two entire heads of broccoli and ate that for dinner. Followed by:

Don't discount that I ate a bag of Nutter Butter bites after lunch Tuesday. I rationalized that it was OK because the bag says "Made with real peanut butter!" Oh well in that case, don't mind if I do...

Yesterday started out OK enough. I suffered through an excruciating run that should have been easy, but was not. At 2pm my BFF/coworker and I went and had Mexican food. Sigh. I ate it all except the rice. I left in a food coma. And followed it up with another bag of Nutter Butter bites (REAL PEANUT BUTTER!).

By the time I got home I thought I was going to fall over from exhaustion, so I did the next best thing and Sean and I went to Willie's Ice House. IN MY DEFENSE I got a salad. There's no pictures because I pretty much inhaled the whole thing, but it was field greens, dried cranberries, pears, artichoke hearts, Gorgonzola cheese and some delicious vinaigrette on the side. It also came with candied walnuts, but for the sake of calories (what a laugh) I skipped those.

Then I forced Sean to take me to YOGURT CUP! AKA Heaven.

That's red velvet and vanilla ice cream with kiwi, strawberries and dark chocolate chips if you're wondering. And I came dangerously close to using my fingers to scrape the bowl entirely clean.

Haha.

Please ignore my cheezy smile and the fact that I look like I was run over by a car before entering. Stress I tell you.

I also proceeded to sleep in this morning, pop in a weights DVD when I finally pulled myself out of bed, and then turn it off 15 seconds into the warm up and drink coffee.

There's not even a shot of a workout today because I'm going to the Astros game tonight. Oh well, at least Yogurt Cup is still fresh in my mind (and heart). Now that I know just how close it is to us, I will be frequenting it A LOT more. I've even considered running there so that I can indulge guilt free.

:-/ Being a girl blows sometimes.