If found, pick up and drag across the finish line.

Slow and steady.

See Above for my newest running tools. Aside from my new socks & shoes, I downloaded iSmoothRun on my iPhone and I bought a Polar FT60 Heart Rate Monitor. Now, the HRM doesn't sync to my phone which is a major bummer BUT it does sync automatically to the treadmills at the gym which was unexpected and very cool. My treadmill runs have been much more successful than my road runs and I need to figure out how to get it more balanced. Obviously half marathons are run outside and on the road, not on a treadmill.


I feel like the treadmill is my friend in some ways and my foe in others. I stay really well hydrated when I'm on the treadmill and my speed is much more consistent. I've set my iSmoothRun to give me nutrition and hydration reminders so that helps me a lot when I'm off the treadmill but it's a lot harder because I have to find a place on my body to carry water and food. When I'm off the treadmill, I feel like my warm ups are more consistent and my legs aren't as stiff and sore mid run. But on the treadmill, my feet say cooler. Today on my run, my feet were on fire by the third mile. The rest of my body felt fine but my feet were just burning up. It wasn't even super hot here today so I'm really frustrated.

But other than frustration about my feet, my heart rate monitor helps me so much. I can run for longer, my body feels better, and my splits are more consistent. I'm running a lot slower than I want to be running but I'm able run for 60 minutes straight (approx. 5 miles). And to think, back in January I was struggling to run 60 seconds straight. I always say that I appreciate and celebrate small victories but this isn't small to me, it is HUGE.

There is something else that is huge and I think it is worth mentioning. Obviously, this blog started as my weight loss journey and I've done a few blogs where I've talked about how I view myself. Well, I'm doing it again and it's because I would like to share the picture below that I have titled, "The Journey of a Shirt".

The Journey of a Shirt

My Aunt Brenda gave me this shirt for my 21st Birthday (far left picture is the day of receipt). Four months prior to my 21st Birthday, I did Weight Watchers and I recently found my diet journal from that time. For being a college student, I ate really well but had some serious body image issues. When I started the diet log, I weighed 150 pounds and my goal was to lose 10 pounds. By the time I hit my birthday, I had lost 13 pounds. (Don't worry, my trip to Vegas and my new found ability to legally purchase alcohol added at least six pounds back onto my body.) Something I remember about this time of my life was that I looked back at my pictures from my Vegas trip and I was really upset with how I looked. I thought I was huge and I was really unhappy. All I could think was, "I just lost a ton of weight and I still look heavy." I look at the pictures now and think about how stupid I was to berate myself.

Many washes and wears later, I was still squeezing into this shirt. In 2009, almost two years to the day (middle picture), I wore this shirt for an "engagement" photo. This was the picture that made me realize how out of control things had gotten for me. I was so upset when I saw this picture that I cried. I was even more upset when my then fiance decided to display this photo on his work computer screen. To say I was mortified is an understatement.

A lot can change in three years (far right picture) and it has changed. The shirt has officially come out of retirement and surprisingly, I felt better in it today than I did on the first day I wore it. This is mostly because I feel so much more comfortable in my own skin. I mean, I went outside of my house wearing stretchy, spandexy running pants today and felt really good about it. I got honked at by a truck driver and my mind instantly thought, "yep, these pants work for me" rather than thinking, "shit... I must really look like an idiot." I walked into Target and picked up a size MEDIUM dress from the Juniors Department and it FIT and I felt GOOD in it. (And I bought it, if you wanted to know!) And you want to know something? I weigh 25 pounds more today than I did on my 21st Birthday. I'm just smarter, wiser, healthier, and happier than I was back then. Is it age or the fact that I've overcome obstacles that I never imagined I could overcome? It's probably a mixture of both.

I've overcome my fear of the scale, my fear of the gym, and the preconceived notion that I'd never be able to run more than five steps without fainting. I've even managed to come up with a balance between reading and exercising (gasp!). Who would have thought? :)

Dirt and Water doesn't just make mud

 I started my garden around the time of my birthday, so right at the beginning of April. I've already enjoyed the fruits of my labor in the form of strawberries, basil, cilantro, and tomatoes but I still have lots of things growing and developing (and in some cases growing and dying). In the garden box above, starting from the plant furthest away, I have watermelon, lemon and regular cucumbers, and crookneck squash. My watermelon plant has taken over and is finally producing watermelons, five to be exact. One of the melons has grown from the size of the tip of my pinky to being larger than my hand in about a week.

 

My cucumber plants are producing mainly blooms right now but I'm hopeful that they will produce (I have one lemon cucumber that is the size of a ping pong ball). My squash plant has 10+ squashes on it and I am so excited! The leaves are a really dark green and the plant is really healthy. Squash seems to be my strong suit as I had a lot of luck with them last year as well.

In my next garden box, I have all the plants that grow UP, not OUT. The Roma and Cherry Tomatoes are growing like crazy. The Heirloom plant that I have is almost 4' tall and has finally spit out some actual tomatoes. Again, the magic number is 5. My basil and cilantro plants have already flowered (boo!) and my sweet pepper and green bean plants are not doing well. Both are flowering but not going beyond that and producing anything. Most of my corn stalks (the plants on the right hand side and closest to you in the pic below) are now taller than me. They've already produced tassels and one of them has started an ear of corn!

This year I separated my strawberries from the rest of the garden and they are actually doing really well. They aren't big strawberries but they are really, really good. I'm already thinking about what I can plant in the fall and what I want to plant next year. It's so exciting, I can hardly stand it! I really want carrots, garlic, onions, and sweet potatoes.

My week of being domesticated.

I apologize for not writing. I've been in a state of constant bad mood for the last week and I haven't really felt the need to unleash the mood on the bloggersphere. Though I think it would help me a lot of if I vented via writing a little more often. My schedule changed at work, some of my responsibilities got adusted, and if you didn't know better you would think I was the poster child for one of those internet articles about, "15 signs that you are getting fired". Imminent firing is not the case because there is "something good in this" for me. I put that in quotes because this is what I've been told and I'm not sure I believe it. But all this change has given me so far is a sour mood, a sore back, and a couple extra pimples on my face (and my back and my chest, if you wanted to know).

My husband left on Sunday for a professional development thing and isn't making his way back home until tonight or tomorrow. When he left, I cried like a baby. I haven't done that since our college days and I felt like such a wimp. I hate being alone in the house for extended periods, I have little to no desire to have a social life beyond the dog park, and I don't like to sleep alone. Sleeping in a room alone is fine but sleeping in a house alone is different, I hear every freakin' sound and think the house is being attacked. I don't know, I've had the problem since I was a kid but usually don't talk to anyone about it. Hank knows about it but he likes it when I stay in the living room for extended periods of time because it means cuddle time for him.

Literally five minutes after my husband left, I got a notification from my bank that I went below my preset account threshold. Gah! It's still a decent amount of money but if I'm not careful it could disappear rather quickly. Between gas for the car and food for my belly, the money would have been gone quick. I kicked myself for 1) not keeping better track of my bill paying and lunch buying and 2) for not taking advantage of the husband sponsored grocery trip we took prior to his leaving. Shit! I should've had him buy my the salad mix, the Diet Liptons, the apples, and the sweet potatoes.

I looked through our food supplies and figured that I had enough to get me by without making a shopping trip. I am fortunate to have the ability to travel home for lunch but was seriously lacking on quick lunch foods so I actually made things in advance for once. I also went to Subway one morning and got a $3 Breakfast Combo and a $5 footlong. The footlong served as two lunches which was awesome and since this month's $5 footlong is the Oven Roasted Chicken sandwich, I scored a healthy sandwich!

One thing I enjoy about not having my husband around is the fact that I can experiment a little with my cooking and not have to force something down his throat. He's an eater but he's not a veggie eater, so when one of my dishes includes veggies, I actually feel bad for making him eat it. So this week my inventions were Baked Rigatoni and Pizza, both were made almost completely from scratch and in less than 45 minutes.

Now this may lead you to believe that I am a domestic semi housewife but that is not the case. I have failed to fold my laundry from a week ago and I still have dirty dishes in the sink. But damn it, I can make homemade Pasta and Cheesecake cupcakes for you any day of the week!

The Rigatoni was homemade using the "Poor Man's Pasta" recipe, which is slightly ironic since I'm moonlighting as a poor WOman. 2 cups of flour, 2 eggs, 1/4 tbsp of olive oil, and 3 tbsp of water, plus I added some fresh ground pepper and home grown basil leaves to the dough. You couldn't really taste the basil so I'm a little upset about that but I think that my portion of basil could be significantly increased and it would be OK. Now that it is finally out of it's box, my KitchenAid stand mixer is my best friend. The pasta attachment is the greatest thing I could imagine because I can make six different types of pasta. So I mixed, kneaded, pushed the dough through the machine and got speckled Rigatoni. I boiled the noodles for a couple of minutes (fresh stuff takes 2-5 minutes depending on the consistency), tossed it in a pyrex with some sauce, stewed tomatoes, onions, and carrots, seasoned it with crushed red pepper and cumin, topped it with provolone cheese, and baked it for 15 minutes. And there you have it, four meals for one person (do I need to mention that I ate it in three?). Next time I'm going to make my pasta sauce from scratch but that has to wait for a the weekend.

The pizza dough was made from a no yeast recipe that I was really scared about trying. Typically, pizza dough with no yeast is no bueno. But damn was this recipe is good! I found it here. Really, really easy. The only hard part is getting the crust how you want it and if you've never made pizza like this before, it's really hard to judge. Luckily, I've rolled out my own dough before (Winco sells fresh pizza dough that we love using!) so I was pretty happy that for ONCE, I got a pretty good looking circle. Now, I could have made a MUCH thinner crust and I would have had a larger pizza but I'm partial to deeper, thicker crusts. The bottom didn't really brown to much but it was only in the oven for 15 minutes. The inside of the crust was nice and soft and the outside had a tiny bit of crunch. I used pasta sauce, fresh cherry tomatoes, sweet basil, and variegated basil from the garden, chunks of garlic cloves, some of Brian's home ground, low-salt Italian Sausage, and both provolone and mozzarella cheeses. I liked this pizza so much that I am going to make it again. And again. I'm really excited about the possibilities of family cooking nights where we all get to make our own personal sized pizzas.  (Making pizza is one of my favorite memories from when Brian and I first moved in together. We made a Boboli pizza together in the kitchen of his little apartment and to date, I think it was one of the most innocently romantic moments we've shared. We cook together all the time but for some reason the first pizza experience was the best.)

Now, I need to think about when I'm planning to run off all of this food! My new favorite sayings are, "I run to eat" and "Run now, beer later". :)
(P.S. The new heart rate monitor that I won on eBay is working really well. I'm having some problems off the treadmill but I'm working on it!)

Not ignoring, just postponing!

Quick update before I forget. I got my Polar FT60 Heart Rate Monitor last night. I bought it on eBay, it shipped from San Diego, and BAM! It was here in two days. I tested it out last night, went through the resting heart rate fitness test (whilst napping on the couch), and ran around my backyard in "training mode" with Hank. So far, so good! The watch feels humungous but I guess that's OK since I'm not trying to make a fashion statement.

How I know I'm going crazy.

Run Catalina Island

If it wasn't so expensive to get to Catalina Island and stay there for a night, I would so do this race!

Finally took the plunge.

I only have one more thing on my "To Buy" list and that is a Heart Rate Monitor. I think I found one that I want but it's all about finding it for the right price. I really wanted a Wahoo HRM that I can connect to my iPhone and my running app, iSmoothRun but it requires a dongle deal to be connected to the phone which adds about an inch to the phone's length. I'm not sure that I can fit that into my armband, which is too bad. The one I'm looking at now is just a basic chest strap/watch combo by Polar. All I know is that until I get my own HRM, I'm going to keep on trucking on the treadmill so I can keep track of my heartrate. I feel so much better after my runs now and I'm running a whole lot further! Two big pluses.

This is how I felt at the gym recently. The guy next to me was so much faster but I ran for much longer than he did. I think I won the "race". Muaha

 I finally took a trip to SRC in Fresno to buy a new pair of shoes. Admittedly, I got slightly lost. Then I got turned around. Then once I was finally going the right way, my car wouldn't activate the stop light so I sat there through three stop light cycles until I finally got a green light. It should have been easy to get there since in theory I knew where I was headed but the (natural) blonde highlights in my hair finally started to eat away at my brain cells. Anyway, It is a nice little store right across the street from Woodward Park in Fresno with great, friendly employees. There was a track going around the store. It's really the aisle way but it's been arranged and laid out as a track, lines and all.

First, I got officially sized. I've been officially sized a few times and spent time in high school and college sizing people for riding boots, so I'm pretty confident that I've always picked the right size shoes for myself. And, I was correct. Size 8.5B it is! What I needed the most help with was what TYPE of shoe would be best for my feet and my gait. She could tell what my issues were without putting me on the treadmill which was kind of nice because I went out in my jeans today. Running in jeans and getting severely chaffed doesn't rate very high on the list of things to do this month. Sorry.

She told me I have slight overpronation when I move and suggested a Stability Shoe. It was great because she had a dialogue with me about my current shoes (likes/dislikes) and what my training goals are and came out with shoes that would be a sole mate match (haha, get it?). Since I've been putting the most miles in lately with my Asics and I've been avoiding my Nikes like the plague, I told her my thoughts and she respected them and brought me everything BUT Nike. Don't get me wrong, I have no issues with Nike but I've never had luck with them.

I got some really good tips from her about sizing and testing. When you first put the shoes on, stand up and knock your heels down into the shoe so it's as far back as it should be before you check your toes. Thumbs width between the big toe and the end of the shoe is the ideal fit. If you can feel pressure points anywhere, those are not going to go away and the shoes are not for you. If you feel pressure from the arch support, it has too high of an arch for your foot. And lastly, if you are in the correct shoe for your gait and it feels like a natural extension of your foot, it is most likely giving you the support that you need.

Well shoes, you'd better be ready. ;)

After trying on four pairs of shoes and walking around, I settled on another pair of Asics. So slightly over $100 later, I have a pair of shoes that I have 30 days to try and if I don't like them, I can bring them back and try again. If they are my sole mates, I can keep them forever. Or at least until my feet come out the bottom and you can see my toes. Whichever comes first.

Challenges

I know I've mentioned before that I do Read and Reviews (R&R) and as of right now I've completed and reviewed about 20 books. 14 of them were through a Goodreads.com book club and I've been solicited into doing six others by various self published authors, including my friend Madeline. Anyway, the Goodreads club that I frequent does fun activities other than R&R and this is the first time I've participated. Unfortunately, I do not have the patience to do this over 30 days, so I've just answered all the questions at once. It's easier this way, believe me! June's 30 Day Challenge is to answer one question a day about my favorite topic ever, FOOD! So here are my answers... (I've included links to some of my answers to add to the temptation). So here it goes, compacting 30 days into one afternoon!

1. What’s your favourite meal? It's really hard to choose just one but I'll go with a recent meal that my husband made. Ribs and Chili Beans! Not a veggie in sight!
2. What was your favourite meal as a child? Spaghetti and Meatballs for breakfast.
3. Are you a vegetarian? Absolutely not but I am a vegetable loving meattarian.
4. Do you ever eat veg-only meals? Sure! When my husband isn't around I can get stuffed on fresh veggies and be perfectly content.
5. Do you eat fish? Yes, grilled salmon is my choice!
6. Do you eat your 5 fruit or veg a day? Most of the time.
7. Do you eat starch (pasta, potatoes, rice, cereals)? Yes. Sweet potatoes, whole grain pasta, HOMEMADE pasta, brown rice, white rice, sticky rice, sizzling rice, couscous. Basically, what starch DON'T I eat?
8. Fries with ketchup or mayonnaise? Neither, BBQ Sauce is my preference.
9. Orange juice or apple juice? If I'm forced to drink juice, it would have to be apple.
10. What’s your favourite type of soup? Italian Wedding Soup
11. What’s your favourite fruit? Definitely Gala Apples
12. What’s your favourite ice cream / lolly? Ben & Jerry's Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough (Ben & Jerry's on Haight-Ashbury in San Francisco was my 1st CCCD experience. I was with my Mom and it is my first real memory of the Haight.)
13. Do you cook for yourself or does someone cook for you? My husband and I share the duties though he cooks more often than I do. If I cook, I use a lot of veggies and that scares him... a lot (seriously, he eats one salad a year. maybe two).
14. Lazy day? Which take out are you likely to visit? Chinese would be my number one choice. Wor Won Ton Soup and good, pan fried Potstickers... mmm!
15. Do you have a favourite restaurant? I have a lot of places that I frequent, so yes. I have many favorites!
16. Do you have a sweet tooth or do you like savoury snacks? I like both!
17. How do you like your potatoes? Boiled, mashed, roasted, baked…? Baked or roasted.
18. Do you peel the skin off fruit before eating it? When I was a kid, yes. As an adult, no way!
19. Wine or beer? (or another sort of alcohol?) Both. I like Leinenkugel's Beer and my current favorite (cheap but tasty) wine is Folie a Deuz Menage a Trois Red Wine
20 What’s the weirdest thing you’ve ever eaten? I've eaten fried alligator and recently I've tried tripe and abalone.
21. What’s the most disgusting thing you’ve ever eaten? I don't think I've ever been repulsed by anything I've eaten but I suppose some people would find sashimi or tripe disgusting.
22. Do you bake? Sometimes but I prefer cooking. I like to bake Cheesecake Cupcakes and my friends accuse me of adding addictive substances because they are really tasty!
23. Do you still have candles on your birthday cake? I haven't had a legitimate birthday cake in a couple of years but candles wouldn't be a bad thing.
24. Is there anything better than grandma’s cooking? Nope! I love having Grandma's Pinwheels!
25. Is there anything you refuse to eat? If I was offered snails, dog, or horse, I would most likely pass.
26. What do you drink the most? Arnold Palmers with Sprite (Lemonade, Iced Tea, and a spritz of Sprite.)
27. How do you take your coffee? Little bit of creamer.
28. What type of tea do you like? Green Tea with honey and lemon OR English Breakfast Tea with a little cream and a little sugar.
29. What toppings do you like on your pizza? I love the Papa Murphy's Take & Bake Chicken Bacon Artichoke Pizza with extra artichoke and mushrooms.
30. Cake or pie? Depends, what kind of cake? (Ice cream?) What kind of pie? (Apple?)

Speaking of my friend Madeline (affectionately known as Limey), she was challenging me to write a book. What I ended up writing was a short story. She assures me that it is great and shared it with a couple of her author friends and they liked it also. I don't feel that it is long enough to be apart of a short story collection, but that is what they are all suggesting. We will see! They are helping me put some feelers out so cross your fingers for me! I am not revealing anything about the story to anybody yet, so don't ask! I'm not telling!

Another big thing is that I've been challenged to start another blog about something different and much more personal. My posts would be put up on a larger website and I would have to write at least once a week. It would be great for me but I'm not sure what I want to do yet. Yet another possibility looming on the horizon!

I need to share!

The only thing I need to say is that the following page is giggle-worthy. (follow the link. do it.)

TGIFFFA! (Thank god its finally freakin' Friday already!)

There has been a fly dying on the window above my bed for the last hour. It keeps trying to fly away but alas, it is dying and it cannot. I only mention it because the first time it crashed into the window, it woke me. So I spent from six to seven this morning feeling bad for a fly but wishing I was still asleep.

I'm a little stiff in the knee region this morning but it is totally worth it because I had a great run last night. I decided to steal an idea that Jaime was given to help her with her running and training for the NYC Marathon mainly because I wanted to see if it worked for me. You run at the speed that brings your heart rate up to 150bpm and you maintain that heart rate. It was really hard but so worth the extra effort of constantly checking my heart rate.

I literally had to sneak out of work on time to actually have the chance to leave on time. Well, I guess it's not really sneaking when you are running from the production area to your office but... yeah. I changed in the bathroom at work because 1) it's actually really clean and 2) if I'm not in my workout clothes when I drive by the gym, I won't stop. It's one of those silly psychological things and it ALWAYS happens to me. The only thing I hate about changing at work is that then the people at work see me in my workout clothes. I see people from work at the gym and that is awkward enough. I just prefer to keep it private, ya know?

When I got to the gym, there was only one treadmill available and of course it was the one without a working pulse reader. I thought all hope was lost for me until three people left the treadmill area at the same time I pressed "START". So I found a machine that was working properly and I started my experiment. What I've gotten from Jaime's blog is SLOW so that's what I aimed for. At first, I set the speed to 4.0 but after 5 minutes, my heart rate peaked at about 130. I increased the speed to 4.1, then 4.2, then 4.3. 4.3 was my magic number. And it certainly was magic because I went at that speed for an hour which is amazing because I've never run for an hour straight before. It felt pretty great and I didn't get my normal GI upset or my shoulder strain. Now, I have to figure out how to replicate this out in the open which I think will require a heart rate monitor. The only bad thing about the treadmills at the gym is that after a few times of grabbing the pulse reader, the sweat from your hands messes with the readings so I found myself constantly needing to clean off my machine. And since I was on a roll, I recruited people to hand me the spray bottle and towel that was stationed on the ellipticals behind me.

I didn't have my headphones so I was surrounded by the sounds of the gym. I heard LMFAO's Sexy and You Know It about five times and heard all the guys congratulating each other on their obvious awesomeness/sexiness. I cannot verify either because all I could SEE was my reflection in the TV screen (each treadmill has a TV, which is great if you have headphones). I could also hear other runners on their treadmills and it kept messing with my speed and rhythm. The guy next to me was walking for 10 minutes and then doing 2 minute sprints. His feet hit his treadmill so hard that it sounded like the machine was about to fall apart. This prompted an employee of the gym to come up to me and say, "Is that you or him? Because whoever is doing that is going to kill our machine!" After he realized it wasn't me he said, "Of course it isn't you, you are like the quietest treadmill runner ever. Are your feet even touching the belt? You deserve a medal!"

And now to work... one. more. day.