Here comes the rain

My ass is crazy on fire. This is a direct result of a personal training session last night where Amanda decided that the target of all her efforts was going to be this particular area. Yes, stair step ups (with a barbell), squats, more squats, leg press, lunges, single leg deadlifts and my ass is officially on fire today. In all honesty, better that we worked legs last night than tonight, as to hopefully give me one more day to recuperate from it before the weekend and another half marathon.

In all fairness, parts of me are desperate to run a half marathon because of the mental therapy it provides, while a much bigger part of me is terrified because of the weather. It is yucky outside, like the kind of yucky that I sprint to the car in between stops to avoid the nasty-ness. Of course, the forecast pretty much calls for the same for the rest of the week/into next week. This means that this weekend will most likely be more of the same, which is crappy. I am not really looking forward to two plus hours out in these conditions, getting soaked and trying to maintain levels of strength to power thru when all you really want to do is quit.

I have no illusions that I am going to have some great time, or that it’s going to be great and easy. It’s going to be VERY hard given the weather. Yuck. But I knew I was destined to hit another one in the rain at some point. And we seem to be here. I am holding out hope that the universe will decide to be at all the slightest bit forgiving and that somehow at 7:45 AM on Sunday morning that it will give us at least a 2 hour break from terrible weather.  We will see.  No point in stressing too much, it will be what it will be.

Meanwhile back in the reality of today land, I must try and figure out a way to not let what is sure to be the next couple months of crappy weather affect my every day mood too much.  I am not a yucky weather kind of girl. As I get older I realize that I should probably live in a warmer climate than Oregon. I love Oregon, but I want sun. I don’t thrive in nasty rain. And cold. I hate it. It depresses the fuck out of me.

I have another personal training session tonight as well. We are doing upper body obviously, as sitting down or standing up provides too much stress on my already over exhausted lower half.  I have a couple extra training sessions that were given to me by a guy at the gym who had a falling out with the gym, had a bunch of training sessions left that were paid for and therefore he transferred 3 sessions over to 3 different people. I happened to be one of the lucky recipients. Therefore 3 extra training sessions. Nice, I’ll take it.

It’s weird because a couple people have actually come up to me lately and asked me if I was losing more weight. It’s funny because actually lately I feel like I’ve been standing still, but they are probably referencing the 15 pounds I have lost. Funny how someone can notice the 15 pounds.  I guess I do notice it myself, but I didn’t expect anyone else to notice it. I don’t actually think there was particularly anything wrong with 160 pound me, and not that anyone was saying there was, but just that it’s noticeable that 15 pounds are gone. I guess truthfully I am much happier with 15 pounds less on my body.  I am not sure that getting to 140 pounds is really realistic or the goal at this point.

I am truly back to the concept of let’s be healthy and happy. Let’s watch what we eat, eat good stuff and exercise and let my body naturally do what it is going to do.  In all honesty, I think I’ve been gaining muscle lately which has stalled out the weight loss thing. But I feel smaller and tighter, maybe that’s all in my head? Quite possibly.

I have kind of realigned my thinking post San Jose. Get thru my half this weekend and then I don’t have another half until Vegas. Basically a little over 3 weeks now until Vegas.  My goal is simply survival. With that said, be healthy and exercise and whatever it is, it is. Just get thru this time and go to Vegas happy and healthy.  And then when I get home from Vegas I can shift my focus to strength training for a while instead of running and building muscle. Once Vegas is done, I literally have 1 half marathon in December and none in January at this moment in time. I will have the second half of November, December and all of January to focus on building muscle before I take my beach vacation trip to Puerto Vallarta the beginning of February. 

Basically, I am going to still try and run, because not only do I just love it and need it in my life, I truly believe the cardio helps slim down my frame to reveal those muscles! But I can spend some more time working on building muscle. I can actually do some intense heavy lifting leg days that I have really tried my hardest to avoid the past couple months for fear of frying out legs that run half’s every weekend. I think it will be a good time to mix things up a bit.

So basically I am going to just keep going as I am for a couple more weeks, full speed ahead, hit Vegas fast and furious and then when we get home shift over to strength training land a bit more.  Operation Bikini Vacation mode. That might be what I call it, ha ha. The reality of wearing a bikini in public looms and therefore it’s as good of a time as any to work on tightening things up again. But I do refuse to quit running. It’s not only inherent to who I am, but I need to keep up on it because I fully intend to keep running half’s next year. In fact, I’ve already signed up for a bunch of them!

At least its Wednesday, which I guess means that the weekend will soon be upon us. I would be really excited if that stupid weather wasn’t weighing on my mind. I have a 5k on Saturday and a half on Sunday and I was excited about both of them when I signed up. They look like fun ones. But the weather may just suck all the fun out of them. Let’s just keep our fingers crossed.

And I’m also crossing my fingers that the lower body pain subsides enough later in the day to make walking around the gym this evening at least manageable. Right now I hurt. Ah, such is my life.