Happy Friday! It's the last day of July, which means we're that much closer to summer being over--yay! Okay, okay, I know I'm a big old Grinch when it comes to the sun and heat, but I think I've been pretty good about not complaining about THE ABSOLUTE WORST SUMMER WEATHER I CAN EVER REMEMBER, right? ;-)
It's time to check on monthly goals, but I also wanted to share some random thoughts since I haven't done that in a while. We'll start with goals, first looking at how I did in July.
July Goals
1. Start training for fall half marathons.
Yes! I decided to go with the Hanson's Half Marathon plan and am following that for the Buffalo Creek Half Marathon in October. However, I decided I am not going to also do a November half marathon to instead work on speed. I'll be posting my updated race schedule soon.
2. Continue focusing on strength training.
Yes! I committed to continuing the 3-4 sessions in July
while my mileage is relative low, and I did that, with four sessions all but this last week.
3. Continue losing weight.
Yes! I lost just over 2 pounds, but it was a hard-fought battle. I stuck to Weight Watchers really well and did everything I should have done. It used to be that I could easily lose when I just followed the plan. Maybe it's because I'm older, but my body just seemed to be fighting me to keep the weight on. Still, I lost 6.5 pounds since the beginning of June, which brings me to 148 pounds, just 3 pounds over my goal weight of 145. I'm thrilled. I'm happy with my body--I have been working on a separate post about this--all my clothes fit me well again, and I feel great. But the thing is, I can't be more than 2 pounds over my goal weight or I have to pay for Weight Watchers. So this brings me to August goals...
1. Continue following the Hanson's plan.
Hanson's is an intense plan with six runs a week that include three hard workouts and high mileage. I took a leap of faith in deciding to follow the plan because I thought it might be too tough for me. So, just following the plan is my biggest goal for August.
2. Continue strength training.
I'll continue strength training, but with six runs a week, it will have to be shorter sessions. I have started doing that already, replacing my 45-minute sessions with 25-minute sessions. Some days, I may only have time for 10 or 15 minutes. So my focus will really be what I can, when I can.
3. Stretch daily, do yoga, and use the foam roller.
I need to start ramping up injury prevention while following the plan. I already stretch daily and do regular yoga sessions, but I want to try to do it even more. One idea I have is to bring my yoga mat into my office and do 10 minutes of stretching at lunch, in addition to the stretching I do after I run. I'll continue to do yoga as I can. I want to add in using my foam roller after my long runs because I haven't been doing that.
4. Maintain my weight loss.
The Hanson's book says this about nutrition: "Training for a half-marathon is a major undertaking, and your caloric needs will be different than during periods of inactivity or casual exercise....Large calorie deficits can sabotage your training and performance, leading to issues such as overtraining, illness, and injury....The athletes who are afraid of eating too much tend to also be the ones who end up feeling burned-out or injured." I know that when I was running higher mileage in the winter, eating a lot of high-quality carbs helped keep me fueled and strong for workouts. So I know that I cannot keep trying to lose weight. But on the flip side, I gained weight during the last training because I ate more in general, not just more fuel. So, maintaining my weight loss is going to be my primary goal. I will be eating more, but my other goal will be to ensure those extra calories are fuel for my workouts, not candy and chips and crap that isn't good fuel. It's possible that I can lose that 1 pound while I'm working out just how much more I can eat and not gain, because it's not going to be a ton of extra food. Plus, I'm getting into the higher mileage parts of the plan and that may lead to a loss too. If so, great. But maintenance will be my main goal.
Random Things
Now the fun random stuff!
- Even though I truly despise the extreme heat and humidity we've had, that hasn't stopped me from enjoying the summer. My husband Dave and I have been having a lot of fun, from going out frequently to Downtown bars and restaurants, which we rarely do, to doing fun stuff every weekend. Life is good!
- We finalized our main vacation! In September we'll be going to Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks. We'll be renting a house in nearby Idaho and will also spend some time in Salt Lake City. While we've been to parts of Wyoming and Utah, we've never been to these areas. So excited! We love going on vacation in September not only to celebrate our wedding anniversary that's in the month but also because it's cooler and places are cheaper and less crowded. Basically, it's us and senior citizens. :-)
- Our other vacation choice was Vancouver, so that will likely be next year. And...if I can get in before it sells out, we'll schedule it around the SeaWheeze Half Marathon so I can run that. Woohoo! Fingers crossed that I can get a spot!
- I recently read Only the Dead Will Tell by Linda Castillo, which I enjoyed. I'm currently reading a really wacky book--The Library at Mount Char. I usually like wacky books, but I'm not even sure what this one is about and I'm 200 pages in. It might be about a man who might be God who disappears and the custodians of his library try to find him? Or something? I don't know but the part I'm on now involves zombies, a herd of attacking dogs, and lions, so...??? Inspired by Scott Jurek's record-breaking thru-hike on the Appalachian Trail, I also just bought Eat and Run and can't wait to read it.
- After years with no cable TV (we most recently had a digital antenna), we got FiOS. We mainly got it to upgrade our aging DSL we'd been using for Internet. I rarely watch TV. But now that we have it, I've discovered a few shows I love! Tosh.0 is one--hilarious. The other is the Carbonara Effect, the hidden camera show were a magician pulls pranks on people. It had me laughing out loud.
- We recently rented from Netflix what has to be one of my favorite movies--Interstellar. I'm all about space and time and I love apocalypse themes, so when the two combined in this movie, I was all over it. I read Stephen Hawking's A Brief History of Time years ago, and the movie seemed to accurately represent what we know about space and time, but I wanted to check it so started to read Hawking's The Universe in a Nutshell, which is an illustrated explanation of space and time. Fascinating!
- I'm not going to do a separate post about it because I don't want to bring negativity to a good company, but I recently bought a pair of shorts from Oiselle which, to but it nicely, did not work out. I love Oiselle as a company--the US-made products, the culture of women runners, the cute bird logo are all great things. And I have tried to love their clothes, but the clothes just do not love me back. Every top I've tried has been the same straight fit. With my smaller waist and bigger hips, that fit just does not work for me. Plus, it always seems I'm in between sizes with things being either too big or too small. Neither shipping nor returns are free, so every time I order something, I'm out about $10 even if I return it. Over the past year, I have ordered about 10 things from Oiselle, and only 2 of them (a mesh tank and vertical drop tank) have worked out. That means I've wasted about $80 just trying things from Oiselle. Plus, their return process is pretty bad (takes forever and no communication). So, while I really tried to love Oiselle, I won't be ordering from them again. The clothes just don't work for me. The shorts I just got--Long Roga Shorts--were too big all over except for the interior lining, which was snug. As a result, there was some really weird wrinkling at the crotch, thighs, and butt that looked beyond awful. I mean, it was comical. I had no hope that the size down would be any better, but even if I thought a smaller size would be better, I was aghast at the drawstring used. The only time I have ever seen a tie drawstring used in workout clothes is in my free $15 New Balance running shorts I got in a race. All my higher end gear has the flat, continuous drawcord, and for the $49 Oiselle shorts, I would have expected the same. Boo. I'm happy so many have success with Oiselle, but I'm letting them fly away from me. And because we're all friends here, I'll post the try-on pictures of me in the shorts even though I look awful in them.
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| BLEH! |
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| UGH! |
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| WTF?!?! |
Tell me something random going on with you!Labels: Fit Review, goals, Oiselle, random
