Refreshed Weekend

I had a good weekend. It seems that the pattern of my life is becoming more and more, have a great weekend, feel good and happy the first couple days of the week and then something happens mid-week to propel me into a funk that I can’t seem to escape until Friday when I get to finish work and enjoy another round of exciting weekend adventures. I suppose this might be typical honestly, but it’s interesting that I am noticing more the past few weeks.

Friday night I took off from exercise and ended up just going to Target walking around with Chris and doing a couple errands. It was nice and relaxing but I ate a little too much.  Nothing crazy, but as has been my entire life history on days when I don’t exercise there is a high probability that I will over indulge a bit in food.  According to My Fitness Pal I ate 1,845 calories. More than I would have liked, but not the end of the world. On the plus side I tracked all of it so that’s a bonus.

Saturday morning because I am entirely a crazy woman I decided that I was going to do two races. Originally Chris and I had signed up to run a half in Tigard, but somewhere along the line the start time got changed to 10:30 AM. Do you know how hot it was supposed to be at 10:30 AM and that is when I was supposed to be STARTING a 2 ½ hour run. I decided there was ZERO reason to do this to myself. Instead we both decided that downgrading to a 10k was perfectly acceptable. I could run for an hour and a few minutes in miserable heat but anymore would have been pointless torture given there was no real reason on this particular day to do more. BUT, given the late start time, I realized I could do an 8:30 5k race with my mom and sister. SOO, despite not having to, I signed up for an additional 5k on Saturday morning. Chris went with me although it was a female only race and my sister’s husband and Chris just hung out while my mom, sister and I did a 5k. It was lovely to be with them and push and encourage them.  I felt so proud of them and I felt like they appreciated my gentle pushing!  Plus the medal was awesome.

After the race was over we grabbed a little something to eat and then got in the car and drove the 30 minutes to Event 2, the crawfish crawl. We made it, parked and found the packet pick up booth, switched to the 10k, and then only had to wait like 5 minutes until the 10:40 start time for the 10k. It was perfect timing and I was ready to go. I was actually excited to run and incredibly thankful I was only doing a 10k and not a half. It was already miserably hot and the minute I started running I knew it was going to be brutal. Thankfully they gave us full plastic bottled waters at the aid stations so I was able to run with a bottle of water. About ¾ of it I consumed, the other ¼ I dumped on myself. I literally drank like 4 bottle of water on the 6.2 mile course. Around mile 1 I knew it was a smart decision to have switched to the 10k. The truth is 10:30 is just too late to be starting a race in extreme heat. I would have run the half if it had been an 8 or 8:30 start time latest. I could finish one up at 10:30, not start one then. I had nothing to prove to anyone so the 10k was perfectly fine. Not to mention the completion of a 5k earlier.

The run was nice, HOT and nice. I felt good during it, despite the heat. Like my body wanted to run which was a good thing. Also, I think I was excited because I finally bought a new heart rate monitor that came on Thursday night that I was wearing for the first time on Saturday. My Polar heart rate monitor quit working months ago and it just frustrated me more than anything so I quit using it. I opted for a Garmin this time so it would sync with Garmin Connect which connects directly with MyFitness Pal, which I have for some reason been using solidly for the last 10 days. I like that they all talk to each other. I was shocked to see the results of my heart rate monitor during my run. Most likely because it was terribly hot and I was working hard to push thru, during that 1 hour 13 minute run, I burned 1050 calories. Impressive. MUCH higher than I had thought. And then I was encouraged. I had assumed that during most exercises I was burning far fewer calories than maybe I actually am. Good to know.  But I LOVE this new Garmin HRM. It’s just a HRM, which is what I really wanted for the gym. I have a good Garmin GPS running watch that I use, which made me feel like a dork because I was actually wearing 2 watches during my run. GEEK. But I need them both so who cares.

So my first 5k I burned 400 calories and then my 10k I burned 1050 calories. This meant I was down a whopping 1,400 calories on Saturday and I was thrilled. Afterwards was this Crawfish Festival in the park and we hung out for a few hours taking in all the vendors and Chris drinking beers. It was fun. And then we got home and my mom and sisters were at a vineyard in Eugene, about an hour or so south of us and we decided to get in the car at 5 PM and drive there. So a very long day. We made it to the vineyard about 6:30 and were there for a couple hours and it was beautiful and lovely and a good time.  I honestly did pretty well with all my food choices on Saturday. It’s hard to track food 100% accurately when you are nibbling on cheese and crackers and meats, I tried but whatever it was didn’t really matter in the end because I did not exceed my 1,400 calories burned by a long shot.

We got home about 10:30 and I pretty much went to bed, I mean it was a long day, getting up at 5:30 AM, running a total of almost 9.5 miles and then lots of car driving. Sunday morning I woke up and new that I wanted to go to the gym and try out my new heart rate monitor while doing strength training. I was very curious to see what I was actually burning during these sessions. I know my heart rate spike here and there but it’s not a continued steady burn. I was assuming my 90 minute night sessions were around 250-300 calories. I was pleasantly wrong.

I texted Amanda my trainer Sunday morning and asked her if she was working out today, etc. We agreed to meet at 12:30 at the gym. Excellent. We did legs. Which was totally fine with me. Actually kind of preferred because it means that I get it done and out of the way for the week. We did a bunch of exercises and I kept checking my heart rate and low and behold 90 minutes later I had burned over 500 calories. I was happy to see this. Yeah new heart rate monitor that did not cut out on me and lose signal and accurately monitored my heart rate the entire workout.

I always doubt the effectiveness of my workouts. ALWAYS. But every single time I actually work out with Amanda I pretty much end up sore where I was supposed to be. Yesterday I honestly think we did not do that much or work that hard. (I think I was wrong BTW, it was pretty hard in hindsight) But I doubted that my ass would be sore which is what we targeted. I felt so fine yesterday and a little bit like I didn’t push. This morning my body is telling me another story. My ass hurts and my hamstrings hurt which was a direct result of the lots of deadlifts we did. So I really should learn to not doubt, because here I am, sore in all the places I should be.  That is effective working out I guess.

I tried really hard yesterday to monitor my eating and keep it in check. It is really hard when I was home about 2 PM and alone in the house for hours. This is the danger zone for eating. I tried to track everything and eat smartly. I finished the day at 1,420 calories. Now, I should tell you I don’t record small foods, like for instance I had chicken burgers for dinner last night and I had lettuce and onion and fat free mayo on it and I did not record anything for these items. That is where I will always draw my personal line. I will record the big items that are calories and add up. I refuse to input like a blade or two of lettuce and like the tiniest fraction of onion. Pick your battles.

Great weekend honestly. I felt good about things, felt great about my workouts and the quality time spent with my husband and my family. I got in a gym workout with Amanda. I got to play with my new heart rate monitor. I am on track with everything and recording my info on My Fitness Pal consistently. Consequently I am really liking that app. My sister and brother in law are using it and it’s nice to see there updates and be able to comment with them. I REALLY like it. In all the years of this health stuff I’ve never used My Fitness Pal and I must say I REALLY like it! So anyone feel free to friend me, its Emilymarie79 is my username.

Now it’s back at work and a new week all around. I feel pretty good today and living off of my weekend high, which I will go ahead and take. Yeah rejuvenating weekends!