Monday Mindset

I feel a lot better this Monday than I did last Monday.  Last Monday, I was throwing up and feeling disgusting.  I was feeling off my game from not enough working out and too much junk food.  This Monday I'm feeling like I'm getting back on track.

After recouperating Tuesday and finally getting some solid food down on Wednesday, I got out for two runs last week, and capped off the weekend with some snowshoeing with the BF.  The trails were pristine, the snow was light and powdery and there was some crunchy stuff a couple of inches down so it wasn't too hard going.  The BF was tired from 6 days of work, so this was a shorter hike at just 90 minutes, but a beautiful day to be outside!

This week, I am feeling motivated and ready to run, but also tired and getting out of bed was tough this morning.  I have (re)developed a nasty habit of staying up late watching tv, and this week am making it a goal to get to bed by 10:30 to get my sleep patterns back on track along with my running and eating.  It all goes together...

"Long" Run and February Goals

Today's run was my longest run since July.  Eek!  Regardless of the fact that it wasn't all that long, it still felt good to go out and do something more than 5 K.

My plan was to run 8K or 50 minutes, whichever came first.  I didn't wear my Garmin, but I was running a familiar route and didn't want to worry about pace.

The first couple of kms ticked by and before I knew it, I was half done.  I was definitely over-dressed and warm, but I was suprised how good I was feeling at this point, and even more surprised when I looked at my watch at 5K and realized I was keeping a 6:00 min/km pace.  I thought I was going much slower!  After about the 6K point, my legs started getting tired, and I worked hard not to feel pathetic.  I know runs of this distance will get easy again, and will no longer be considered "long" soon enough.  I just slowed down, and kept moving, to the next tree, to the next driveway, to the next stop sign, to the end of the song.  Before I knew it, I'd passed the 8K point and hit 52 minutes of running.

The run had been on and off of snow so I stretched out my calves really well when I got home, did some push ups to work towards the 100x challenge, and that was that!

This month, I just want more runs like that!  I've made a training plan for the 1/2 in May, and I just want to stick to that this month.

Food wise, I have a goal to not repeat any dinners this month.  I'm going to keep going with the food journal I started last month (post coming).

Mind-wise, I want to finish my current book and get onto another.

And finally, I just want to keep my work hours in check!

January Recap

Number of running days:  6

Number of cross training days:  2 (snowshoeing!)

Number of yoga days:  0

Number of days below -35*C/-31*F:  3

Number of days below -20*C/-4*F: 2

Number of days I couldn't get my car out of the driveway due to snow:  2

Number of days I was sick and in bed:  2

Number of planned rest days:  6

Actual rest days:  23 (Did I turn into a sloth?)

Books read:  1

Number of training plans I screwed up because I read the calendar wrong:  1

So, January started off as a great month.  I had a 4 day running streak to kick things off, and kept going into the second week, but then - nada.

There were 3 days where I just don't have the gear to run in temperatures that cold, and 2 more days where I could have run, but it would not have been comfortable, and 2 more days where I legitimately could not get out of the door because of snow, and 2 more days where I had my head in the toilet.  That leaves 14 days where I could have been doing something, but did nothing.  Even on those cold, cold days, I could have put on a DVD, or done some yoga, or something.  Lame.  I was lame in January.

I was signed up for 4 challenges, and that didn't even give me a kick in the pants.  I fell far short of the 100km challenge, with a whopping 28K for the month.  I came no where near working out every day (see above), and though I suppose my last few days of the HBBC challenge were a success since all of my running came at the beginning of the month, I stopped tracking points.  I even slacked off in the food journal challenge.  What the heck!? 

Oh ya, and last week I noticed that there are fewer weeks to that half marathon than I thought.  Somehow, when putting my training plan on my calendar, I missed 4 weeks.  I thought I was building up to training and would get started in mid-February.  I guess I'm doing a 12 week training plan instead of 16 weeks.  So not only am I lame, and a challenge slacker, I've also lost my ability to do simple math.  Poop.

Luckily, I was also working on a few other things this month to keep from feeling like a total failure:

Work/Life Balance
This is one area that I feel better about.  I took 2 Fridays off this month and have another one tracked on my calendar to be taken soon to make up for time worked.  I also made a hair appointment on a Tuesday morning to make up for a Thursday evening spent working, and ate my lunch away from my desk on several days for a mid-day break (since I wasn't running).  This makes me feel better about work in general and I know I need to keep this up.

Mind:
I finished my book - Gold Diggers, by Charlotte Gray.  It was a really interesting look at the Klondike Gold Rush told through the stories of 6 real life "characters" who made their way to Dawson City in 1896-98.  As Canadians, we are often think our history is boring - but there are some hidden gems in the tales of our past!  I finished it on my way home from Whitehorse, and am part way through my next book.

Earth:
I have to admit, I did not walk to the store from home once this month as I'd planned.  I did get myself better organized and did not need to make multiple trips out, and when going into town, parked once and then walked to the down town grocery store when I did need extra items, so I feel like this counts!

Running and exercise-wise, I did not do well in January, but I'm not going to dwell on it.  I got over the end of my flu yesterday and celebrated Groundhog Day with a run today.  Goals for February are coming up!

Monday Mindset

Is it Monday?  It feels like it should be the day after the day after the day after Friday, but not Saturday or Sunday.

That's because I've been working since last Monday, but without a weekend. 

Remember when I said that I was going to get more work/life balance this year?  Well don't worry - I plan on working will work 4 day weeks for the next month to make this up to myself.

Despite the workload, I've managed to start the new year right by sticking to my running schedule for the month.  It was a balmy -2C in Whitehorse yesterday and I took advantage of a break in my day to head out for a run.  It took me some time to find a road with cleared sidewalks, so I was slow at the start and finish as I ran through deeper snow on the snowmobile trails that run along side the main roads here in the winter, but I was able to get out for 7K.  I wish I'd taken a photo of the snow covered hills around town - it's beautiful here.

This morning the wind was a little more wicked, and I was not sure if I would have a break while the sun was up (10am - 4:30pm), so I went to the Canada Games Centre for 5K on the treadmill and a good stretch.

This week I want to keep checking those runs off of my schedule and focus on getting to bed at a decent hour.  My sleep schedule is still out of whack from the holidays, but I'm getting back on track.  :)

Food Journal - Week One

In university I took a course called, "Right to Food."  For one assignment we had to write down everything we ate for 3 days and calculate all of the nutrients, calories, and costs for each item.  It took me forever to get 3 consecutive days that I wasn't completely embarassed to hand in.  Cookies for breakfast?  Beer for lunch?  3 cans of coke in a day?  It really made me think about what I was putting in my body, and what I was getting from it, and I made changes.  I cut out pop completely, and it wasn't long after that that I became a vegetarian. 

Over the years, some bad habits have crept back in, and it's never more apparent than over the holidays and other busy, stressful times.  So with a stressful, busy week of work coming right after the holidays, I welcomed Amanda's suggestion to do a month long food journal in January.

A look back at this week has drawn no surprises when it comes to food.  I know that my holiday eating habits went from bad to worse, and this week I was just making my way through the leftovers.  I also recorded my daily exercise (30 minutes+, 6 days out of 7), my hours spent working, and my wake up and bed times along with some notes on how I felt at different times throughout the day. 

One thing that did surprise me is that I went to bed feeling hungry a couple of nights.  I think that knowing that I was writing everything down (and appalled at what I saw on the page for the rest of the day) kept me from snacking on more sweets in the evening.  So rather than not going for a bowl of ice cream while watching tv, I just didn't have anything, and then felt hungry.  This week I'm going to try some post-dinner fruit to quash the sweet craving and stop the hunger.

Once I got rid of the leftovers in the kitchen, I headed out of town for work, so my food options have been different than normal and my sleep patterns have been wonky.  I stay away until Wednesday of next week, so the sleeping thing has to get under control - soon!  That is my focus for the coming week.

2012 Race Plan

After they ran out of Gu and water last year at the BMO Vancouver Marathon, and the gong show at bag drop off the year before, I swore I would not run another one of these events.

Well, never say never.

Back in December I was being inundated with emails from about the new course, and....

....I signed up!  I know having something to train for keeps me motivated, and this race is good timing for me to work back up from practically no running through the fall, and will give me the base to make a fall marathon possible.  Who knows, maybe third times a charm?!

I'm still looking for other races to put in my 2012 schedule, and still deciding if this will be another marathon year (Victoria?/Seattle?/Toronto?/Mississauga?), but so far I'm planning to run:

March 18 - The River Spring Run Off - 10K

May 6 - BMO Vancouver 1/2 Marathon

June 3 (?) - Prince George Family Y 1/2 Marathon

Other than that, I don't have anything planned for sure.  If I'm going to run a fall marathon, I'll decide in May.  For now, I'll just see how it goes and enjoy building my base back up.  With 4 cannotwaittogetoutthedoor runs in 4 days, it's going pretty well so far.

Monday Mindset

I'm starting this week feeling motivated and ready to go!

I couldn't wait to get out for my run this morning, and it's great to have that feeling back.  In an attempt to keep myself from getting burnt out and unmotivated again, I'm trying to vary my running routes as much as possible, rather than waiting til I get bored to switch things up.  I ran an out and back route and on the way out I felt like I could go forever.  I'm also trying to prevent injury by not letting myself get too carried away, so I let myself run an extra .5K out and turned my 5K run into 6K.  Nothing extreme, but it felt good to do just that little bit extra.

It was 4*C today and a nice treat to run without the bulky mittens and multiple layers and just go out in a long sleeve and run, carefully avoiding the ice that's still on the roads, of course.

I made a month long plan last week, taking into account when I'm travelling, when my workload will be heaviest, and where I want to be by the end of the month so that I can start 1/2 training in February (more on that soon).  I got an unplanned run in yesterday, so I'm already ahead of the game!