Monday round ups are hard because so much has transpired
during the weekend. Eek. But I will do my best and try not to be
excessively long winded and just get the highlights across. Friday afternoon dragged. I took a couple cute
photos of my outfit and then my workout outfit.
I left work, went to the gym to meet Amanda and have to
admit that I had like ZERO desire to do anything at all. I was seriously questioning why on earth I
thought it would be a good idea to work out Friday night. I ended up just hanging out and chatting with
Amanda for almost an hour before she got off work and could actually lift with
me. It was fine. Then we started lifting and shit is that
chick tough. Like what we did ended up
being crazy tough. She loaded up the
bench press with 45 pound plates, so a total of 135 pounds. And then we did 5
sets of 5-8 reps of this weight. That is
heavy!!! And that was just the warm
up. Then we loaded the bar with little
plates, but 4 on each side. (10 lbs, 5
lbs, and 2.5 lbs, 2.5 lbs for a total of 20 lbs each side) The entire bar was 85 lbs and then we did 12
reps at this weight. Then we took off
the first plate, 2.5 lbs and did 12 reps.
Took off the other 2.5 lbs and did 12 reps. Took off the 5 lbs, did 12 reps. Took off the
10 lbs, so it was just the weight of the bar, 45 pounds, and did 15 reps. Then we did this whole thing in reverse
order, adding the weight back on. It is
MUCH harder to go up in weight after your chest is already fried. This was not easy. We’ve done this workout before and it’s insane.
The thing of it is, that was the first exercise. After we were done with this, we moved on to
a whole series of chest and triceps exercises.
Lots of heavy weights brutal stuff.
She is a total crazy girl, but there I am right alongside her doing
it. Funny thing is, she didn’t need the
workout and it was technically my rest day so this was all for fun because we
are clearly insane. We finished up with
triceps skull crushers in similar fashion, drop sets of taking weights off and
doing them.
After we were done we headed to Applebee’s for dinner where
we chatted and had a lovely girl date night.
I didn’t get home until about 9:30 or so and realized at this point that
I was going to be in for a rough morning for my half marathon. If I had truly wanted a good half I probably
should not have lifted. I was tired. I didn’t eat enough carbs. I probably did not drink enough water. It was
late. I scrambled to put my stuff together for the morning. It was going to be a hot one and so on and so
on.
I woke up the next morning not properly rested or ready and
I just had a crappy feeling in my stomach.
But I was running of course. So
off we went to the half. It started at 8
AM which is actually kind of late for a half and especially considering when it
started it was already way too hot. I
knew it was going to get unbearably hot and it was going to be tough. I started running and for the whole first
mile I felt great. I felt okay for the
next mile but as soon as I got over the 2 mile mark it was crazy hot and my
body knew it. By the time mile 4 hit I
seriously thought, SHIT, this is going to be a terrible miserable race. I knew everything about it was off.
My stomach was starting to cramp. It was a mix of PMS cramps and heat and
dehydration and everything else. It was
too hot, I was exhausted and the sun was sucking all of the energy out of my
veins. My pace WAY slowed. At mile 6 I knew I was screwed. Seriously every couple minutes I’d get
terrible horrific shooting pains thru my stomach, CRAMPS. I would say, wait it out, it will pass. It was almost bad enough I wanted to lie down
on the side of the road. Then I had to use the restroom. And not the simple little pee kind. First time ever during a run I thought holy
hell I am going to have a BAD accident here.
It was the cramps and the heat and my body needed to go. This was around mile 8 or 9.
My pace was horrible at this point in time. I didn’t care. I kept thinking this is literally the worst “feeling”
I’ve had during a run. I was fighting a
series of uncomfortable things. Thirsty. Cramps. Heat. Needing to use the
bathroom. Just keep going I told myself.
Who the hell cares about your time. You’re already past any decent pace, just
finish. Please don’t make it worse and
go to the bathroom uncontrollably.
And then somehow I managed to keep moving. Slowly. And at around mile 11.5 like the lovely
dessert oasis I saw a porta-potty in the distance. YES! Must stop.
And I did. But someone was in there and I literally had to stop and wait
for at least 3 minutes to use the thing.
I didn’t care. My time was shot.
I needed to go and this was my chance.
I waited, and waited, and waited for what seemed like forever. Time ticking by. I had like a 15 minute mile this particular
mile because of all the waiting. Oh
well.
After that, it was hard to get started again. The sun was
beating down. TOO hot to be running. I
shuffled my feet and willed my brain to continue. From mile 11.5 to the finish were all about
just moving enough to propel me forward.
I finally, by some miracle came into the home stretch and it was like
2:22:34 I think. Funny thing is, in some
respects this is not an awful time for me.
I have done this time many times and been proud of the time. I wasn’t actually upset by the time.
Considering I literally stopped for 3 minutes or so at the bathroom. I thought, interesting, I still did a 2:22
something AND it was literally the worst I’ve physically felt on a run I think
ever. My body was cramping and I felt
like I was barely moving. I will take
it! I am going to say that this is still
a victory because hey, even in crappy conditions I managed a decent time for
me.
Afterwards we stopped at the grocery store and picked up
some food as we typically do post run. I tried not to get crazy foods but
instead we got peanuts and I got veggie stick chips because I always crave the
salt you know post run and this seemed better than some of the
alternatives. I never track food post
run because it’s too damned hard. But I
actually did okay I think. I ate too much peanut butter and peanuts and who
really cares, right? Not bad foods by
any means. Then we just hung out and
were lazy for the rest of the afternoon.
And I snuggled the doggies, including my house guest pug who sadly went
home yesterday but that’s a whole other crazy story unto itself. But I miss her.
We woke up Sunday and I knew I wanted to be active and move
and we had discussed hiking so that is in fact what was on the agenda for
us. I couldn’t stand the thought of
wasting a perfectly lovely day away. We
got ourselves up and moving.
I got dressed and ready and we stopped at Subway, ate and
got some snacks at the store and then headed out for a hike. This is a brutal hike we embarked upon. We
did it 2 years ago and I remember it being hard. It was HARD.
LOTS of incline. Lots of
switchbacks up a mountain. It was pretty
damned intense even for us. We did the
entire trail which ended up being about 4.5 miles. It took about 2 hours to go one way. I was sweating and working hard. I was tired, but knew we had to turn around
go back, another 4.5 miles, approximately 2 hours. Lovely.
Honestly I am not going to lie we both ended up getting a little cranky
at the end of it. I pushed a bit more on
the trek back simply because I wanted it to be over with. When we finally made it back to the car it
was like 3 hours 40 minutes. We were in
fact at 9 miles total and I burned 1029 calories. The elevation change was something like 1,670
feet. It was a lot. I was exhausted. And kept thinking, we are insane. Sure, let’s run a half marathon one day and
then hike crazy hills for 9 miles the next.
But it was fun.
We got home around 6 PM or so and I ate. Cause come on, I was hungry. Our house guest pug went home. Chris made egg while omelet’s for dinner. We
watched some TV. I took this picture because
holy hell, after all that exercise my abs were just popping.
We pretty much went to bed at this point and I was seriously
thinking I might have to reevaluate my plan to run 3 miles tonight because my
legs might not want me to do it. But I
wasn’t sure. My upper body is still a
little tight from all that strength training on Thursday and Friday night. But I woke up this morning feeling great
overall and my legs shockingly felt amazing. It’s like somehow they actually
felt better today than they did yesterday.
I might be able to run tonight after all.
The plan for tonight is supposed to be to run 3 miles and
then I have a 30 minute cardio class at the gym. I should also go ahead and do strength
training too but we will see how any of this goes. I for sure will take the class. I will attempt to run but I am giving myself permission
to not do it if I don’t feel it. I’ve
been going for days honestly and if my legs want a rest tonight I will allow
them that, especially since tomorrow I intend to wake up and run my 6.5 miles
before work. I have enough leeway built
into my training plan that I can adjust a little bit here and there and still
keep on track.
I need to keep going for the next couple days because this
Thursday evening we leave to go camping for the weekend and that is going to
throw everything off a little bit. We
are leaving camping Saturday afternoon so that we can wake up and run a half on
Sunday. We both are totally in this
right now. We are both excited and ready
to crush our goals and sometimes staying on track means more than anything else. We both want it, so we are both willing to
make the sacrifices that are necessary to achieve our goals. Like running half marathons every weekend.
Can I just say how happy and positive and excited about life
I am right now. I feel great today and
excited to start another week. Results
are so contagious. Achieving your dreams
is profoundly fulfilling. I am just
seriously so happy with everything right now it feels great. Me & Chris and
just bonding and connecting and getting along.
This is seriously the happiest time of my life right here, right
now. And that little countdown over
there says 61 days until my marathon. 61 freaking days… wow!
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