The one where I felt better

All right so from where we last left off in this continuing online diary/saga of Emily’s life.  Well, I don’t like the word saga actually because that implies that things are dramatic and mostly they aren’t.  Mostly I try to keep my world perfectly in balance and drama free. We all as a whole function better this way.  Especially me with my crazy brain.  I tend to do better when I can push out all the negativity and just focus on the positive which is what I try and do most of the time anyway.

With all that said I was still feeling very off yesterday,  kind of lost in the drama so to speak of the whole family crap.  Of course, this isn’t really fair considering I didn’t talk to anyone yesterday at all and I am sure on some level I am completely overreacting.  I know I am honestly.  It’s not the end of the world by any means and yet I let it fester and affect me.  It’s just that sometimes I have these moments where these people who I love and love me just don’t “get” me or understand or even care.  And mostly they mind their own business and leave me alone but when it affects their lives it’s all like, oh, you should do this and you should do that. You know and it’s like, whoa, sorry I am not what you want me to be, but this is all that I am.  Anyway, yesterday it took a text message from Amanda to remind me that I am actually not alone in all of this and I do have a friend/someone who gets this, that supports me, that is on the same page as me. 

She texted me that she was feeling drained and sluggish and she still had a full upper body workout planned for the evening after work and that she didn’t think she could get thru it.  All things I understand.  I offered up positive encouragement and then she was like you should join me.  And of course the answer was YES.  The answer is always going to be yes.  And then there was relief.  She was thankful that I was going to be next to her pushing her along, motivating her and I was thankful because I needed her too.  I needed someone to understand and help motivate me.  It was exactly what I needed.  And it instantly made me feel better and pulled me out of my mental funk.  Sure I had a shitty weekend on a lot of levels.  I ate bad, I had family drama but none of it really matters in the grand scheme of things. I am still on track.  I am stick focusing on my goals and I have people who do understand. 

The evening workout was intense.  And long.  I knew it would be with adding in Amanda’s killer upper body workout.  These are her own personal workouts she is doing to get ready for a bodybuilding show.  In like 4 weeks she’s doing a competition.  Just a bikini fitness competition.  Bikini category is pretty much for the “pretty” girls who aren’t that muscular but still totally all about fitness.  That’s my Amanda.  Anyway she has crazy strict workouts and diet.  But I can hang with her and that’s cool.  I started out the night with a 1 mile run before class.  Warm up.  And then moved into the 30 minute HITT cardio class.  It was brutal as usual.  First round was 10 of everything, then 9 of everything, then 8… you get the point all the way down to 1 rep of each.  For a grand total of 55 of every exercise when you are all said and done) This was the list of activities:

Sprints (outside sprints)

Burpies

Froggers (frog style floor jumps)

Jump Tucks

Lateral Hops

Ski Planks

Jack Squats

Plank Jacks

It was enough.  I was dripping sweat actually. It was brutal.  Me and Amanda of course were the only 2 who actually finished the entire rounds in the 30 minute class time.  Yeah us!  Or crazy us.

And then we moved on to Amanda’s upper body killer workout.  It was a lot.  It was 20 reps of everything. We did chest and then back followed by shoulders then biceps/triceps.  It was heavy and hard.  Things are sore today as a result.  Right now my shoulders are beyond fried.  Good times.  And then for good measure after that like hour workout I still had to run another 2 miles.   So I could get my 3 mile training run done.  I know technically I’m probably supposed to run them all in a row, but I will compromise when needed to break the miles up as necessary.  That is as much as I’m willing to budge on the plan.  It was a long night at the gym.  I burned 816 calories so yeah, a lot for a night.  But I felt great afterwards and was obviously reminded of why I do any of what I do.  For this.  To be this strong happy woman.  I feel much better and in my zone when I am working out. This is who I am. This is who I am supposed to be.

So just because these were also the Instagram photos from yesterday during the day.  The do better, as I was still slightly suffering from feeling like a failure and mentally beating myself up because of the family drama etc.  And then my workout fashion post because hey, it’s cute right?  And then I went ahead yesterday and made a big 24x24 calendar of a Maui countdown.  Because I can.  Because the graphic designer girl in me still exists and I used InDesign to create this whole thing.  And we have a giant printer at work that I really rarely use for any personal purpose but I went ahead and printed out a poster for me to cross off my runs on.  It has a daily countdown of days.  You know this shit gets real when you have an official countdown going on.  8 weeks. Less now actually. 8 freaking weeks! Plus bonus I get to x off the days on the countdown.  That’s satisfying really. 

 

After I got home last night, later than I expected because of the extra workout and all, I showered and tried on some size 6 Victoria Secret Pink shorts I got in the mail from eBay.  I never know what size to order honestly, because my brain and my body don’t always match up.  Sometimes I order way too big, and sometimes too small.  I’ve been attempting to find the correct size for a while. I started with a 10 because I was like hey, jeans are not as forgiving and I want them a little bigger than too small.  Nope, too big.  Next was 8 and I still felt like there was some more give in there.  On to a size 6, looks pretty good to me.  But if I’m being honest I might be able to do a 4, but I might not push my luck that much.  These 6’s look great and are far better than what I could ever hope for.  Plus I just honestly felt really small and good in these photos.  And strong.  I noticed that I had an overwhelmingly strong looking body.  It wasn’t tiny and weak.  It was tiny and fit.  Something that I’ve been striving for my whole freaking life.  But honestly I felt great and confident.

Which leads me to this morning. It’s Tuesday morning so we all know what that means.  It means it’s my early morning outside training run day.  Yup, I’m still going strong at that.  I am shocked really. But not shocked too because of the whole obsessive compulsive girl thing.  I must do all the runs.  So I woke up like this.

Tired and NOT wanting to do it at all.  I mean, realistically I ran 13.1 miles on Sunday, 3 yesterday while killing it with other stuff as well) and now I was telling my body to run 6.5.  The first mile was brutal.  Although at the end of it I think I still managed a 10:06 mile which doesn’t seem that bad to me.  Especially for a training run.  Can I just say for a second how much easier it is to run outside than on a stupid treadmill.  Why has it taken me this long in my life to realize this? Geesh.  Anyway, the first mile felt painful and slow.  Then I picked it up a bit.  Mile 2 was 9:39 and Mile 3 was 9:29 before leveling out to about a 9:45 pace for the rest of the run.  This is amazing for me. And I am going to tell you why. Because honestly, this is faster than I normally run during any training run.  And it felt pretty comfortable.  And I wasn’t crazy pushing myself. And I did not have any external motivation or stimulation that a race setting brings.  This was just me running, not wanting to run really, and moving at that speed.  And each of these morning training runs keep getting a little better and better.

This was my 4^th AM 6.5 mile run.  These are my times week to week to run the exact same 6.5 mile run, pretty much same exact route.

1:07:24 (average speed of 5.8 mph)

1:06:32 (average speed of 5.9 mph)

1:04:49 (average speed of 6.0 mph)

1:03:29 (average speed of 6.2 mph)

I suppose that doesn’t seem like a crazy lot, but in terms of running and keeping speeds and endurance up for that pace, it kind of is.  That first run was an average speed of 5.8, vs today being 6.2 miles per hour.  That is actually a very decent improvement.  I am not necessarily intentionally trying to run fast on these runs.  I am just doing my thing, running comfortable and it’s really impressive to me to see that in 4 weeks I have improved like this without necessarily trying so hard.  Crazy right?  This training this is so working and honestly I am so in love with it.  Yes, all that time being so scared to actually train for a marathon, thinking I didn’t want to, because I didn’t want to put in the work.  Man, I was so wrong.  Gladly admit I was crazy wrong.  I am so in love with marathon training it’s ridiculous!

I can tell you this, running on the treadmill I can’t or perhaps don’t want to come close to maintaining these speeds.  It’s just mentally boring as hell I think.  For instance last night my 3 mile run was not run anywhere near any of these speeds. Isn’t that funny?  My first mile I ran at a 5.8, but when I got back on there to run my 2 miles post all that workout all I could manage was a 5.5 without wanting to die.  I ran 2 miles at a 5.5 last night and this morning I ran 6.5 miles at a speed of 6.2.  Outside running is the best.  I am suddenly going to terribly miss it when it gets to be winter again.  Nothing beats running outside.  I just feel more alive and actually feel like I’m accomplishing something my moving from a point to a point instead of going round and round on the treadmill.  Seriously. 

But clearly I felt off the charts, over the top good today.  Good to realize that my training run hit that speed consistently for 6.5 miles.  This makes me feel awesome.  Makes me wonder where I can go in another 8 weeks, right?  Because basically my half marathon PR this last weekend was run at an average speed of 6.2 miles per hour, so I am right there.  I think I can get a little faster actually.  I kind of think I can.  Oh, and today my heart rate was much more consistent. Or rather it didn’t quite spike.  My average heart rate for the run was 155 with my peak high being 163 whereas my average on my half this weekend was 166 with a max of 180.  I was shocked my peak wasn’t higher today. It means I wasn’t working as hard to achieve the same results.  Knowing perfectly well that I had a little more in the tank honestly.  All good things.  All things that make me happy.  And I’ve got 8 weeks.

All of this is probably helped my decreasing weight too.  Less weight to carry around, makes me go faster, right?  I just feel much better today as a whole. Like crazy happy better about things.  At least from where I was at yesterday anyway.

Speaking of yesterday and the family stuff, the funeral is set for Thursday night. So that is going to happen.  Means I can’t go to the gym.  Which sucks, but its life right.  Guess that means I have to work out on Friday, not really my favorite or my general plan since I am running a half Saturday morning but what can I really do? It sucks. 

Okay so I am crazy hungry right now, like off the charts hungry so I think it’s time for me to eat my peanut butter rice cake things. Yup, yup.  Feeling much better today. I got this.  And crazy excited and happy.  And all those good things that running do for you.  And looking forward to some more calorie burn tonight at the gym.  It’s core/abs class which doesn’t burn shit in terms of calories but still works my abs in a way that I won’t do on my own so I guess that’s a good thing.  And then afterwards, well, not entirely certain, but I must do something, some strength training.  I will figure it out of course. I always do.  Yeah to happy running Tuesday!