No music = no run?

Before yesterday, that was how I worked. The only thing that kept my feet pounding the ground were the tunes flowing out of my trusty little ipod. Moving hasn’t been kind to the ipod and thus it was uncharged yesterday. I didn’t realize this until I made it down into the lobby and had finished stretching.

At first, I panicked! I’d be able to hear myself breathing (like a heart-attack victim) and I wouldn’t have upbeat songs to carry me along when I got tired. But, I knew that if I took the time to go back upstairs and rifle around in our boxes for my old ipod, I probably would lose my tenuous motivation to run. So, I decided there was a first for everything and I needed to run!

I headed out on my usual course down into Old Town and to the waterfront. The weather was beautiful and breezy — five degrees warmer and it would have been perfect! The lack of music was surprisingly not detrimental. I think my pace was faster than normal too. If I didn’t have music to entertain me, I wanted to get there and get back! (I super-awkwardly ran with my ipod strapped to my arm and my earbuds in because I really had nowhere else to put it!)

My original goal was for a 5k-4miles. Getting home late from work and being behind on moving necessitated a shorter run. Based on my googlemap calculations, I made it about 2.5 miles. Not the best distance, but pretty darn good as far as I’m concerned for a girl who has never run tune-less before!

No work out tonight as it’s our last night with the old apartment — aka everything has to be out, thrown away and cleaned before we go to bed tonight. So, we’re gonna throw together some dinner — put tomorrow night’s in the slow cooker and make a little moving magic happen!

15 things you don’t want to see at the end of a marathon…

My friend Mia (she of This is not a diet) posted a hilarious link today.

15 things you don’t want to see at the end of a marathon. (And, in many cases, things you don’t want to see in general…)

Enjoy! I’m off to muster my work out motivation.

Why I love Cereal

I’ve always been a sucker for HUGE bowls of cereal. Admittedly, I will overfill my bowl with milk just so I can have an excuse to go back for more cereal. I left cereal behind after college and I’m sad about that — especially when there are so many delicious options. I’m trying to bring it back, in moderation of course.

A year or so ago when I started reading healthy living blogs like Meghann’s and Caitlin’s I had never considered the idea of cereal mixed with yogurt. I mean, really, yogurt? But, I tried it and was hooked! It’s my go to summer breakfast during the weekdays. I loooooove fresh fruit, cold yogurt and a little sweet crunch.

My most favorite new cereal find comes from Kashi: GoLean Crisp! Toasted Berry Crumble. This tasty find has decent stats too. A serving is 3/4 of a cup (the perfect size to compliment my berries and stonyfield yogurt) and contains:

• 190 cals
• 4g fat
• 8g Fiber
• 9g Protein

I think it’s love! What’s your favorite thing for breakfast right now?

Unpacking

A quick recap from the newlyweds:

• I spent last week traveling for work and still managed to get in a few runs. Behind schedule, but got on track for last weekend’s 5k.
• Tom and I are (mostly) moved into our new apartment. We’re sleeping on a mattress on the floor (wooo!) and have so many bruises and cuts, but I love the new place.
• Said new place has TONS of kitchen toys spread out. I’ve spent the past few days pawing through wedding present cookbooks.
• Moving, traveling and finals (for Tom) lead to a deadly combo which annihilated our 5k ambitions this past Sunday. But hey, at least we got a sweet tech-tee for our money? Next year GW Parkway, next year!

I’m back at work for a week or so before heading to the West Coast. Moving killed my running this weekend and the weather was FOUL this evening. I’m hoping for a decent run tomorrow evening. Regardless, I don’t think the approaching quarter marathon will be a 100% running event for me. It would be wonderful if it worked out, but right now I’m not optimistic. I hammered out a 5k Thursday am, but prior to that the running has really been touch and go. I need to not let this get me down — time to stay on the horse! My current goal is to finish the course in 80 minutes. That allows for some walking and a little over a 12 minute pace all told. We’ll see.

Aforementioned kitchen tools and cookbooks have me rather inspired. I’ve got hoardes of recipes in my head that I want to try. Tom and I are putting together a yummy sounding crockpot dish sometime this week. Expect recipes to come kiddos!

Time for me to head to bed soon. I need to rest up so I can’t use the “I’m tired” excuse for not running tomorrow evening!

Over-ambitious?

I’m starting to wonder if I have bitten off more than I can chew. Saturday I had my first run in a month or so. This is my fault, fully. And, because I have slacked, I made it 1.89 miles before I stopped. It was not pretty.

I gave myself two days to slough off the soreness. Today I took advantage of the fact that I’m on an 8-hour schedule (more on this in a minute) and off at 3:30. I beat the apartment gym rush and secured myself a treadmill. This time I made it 2.3 miles in 22 minutes or so according to the Nike+. Granted, this is much faster than I normally run but I was still sorely (meant in many ways) disappointed that I’m struggling like this.

In light of my struggle, I came upstairs to have a good look at a calendar and the number of days I have between me and the quarter marathon that I signed up to run. Keeping in mind that I probably want to give my legs a few days off from running, I need to have my last run on Wednesday, May 5th. That’s 22 short days from now. Oi! That means that if I run every other day, I need to add .4 of a mile for each run. I need to really lay the hammer down and make this happen.

Throwing a wrench in my plans is a hearty dose of work travel. Tom and I head home for a wedding (not ours this time!) this weekend. Sunday night we return and Monday I head out for a week of work travel. I’ll return that Friday only to spend Saturday and Sunday moving into our new apartment and running the GW Parkway Classic 5k. Monday I’ll head back out again and return Friday. That first weekend in May will hopefully harbor my longest run to date and at least 6.5 miles (so I know I can complete the quarter marathon). I’ll also be traveling the week prior to the race. Yes, that’s right, three weeks of work travel in a row.

That means I’ll be spending a LOT of quality time with the hotel gyms. I want to finish this race — that may mean getting up early for runs or running when I really don’t feel like it. I need to make this happen!

Anyone have any tips on how to cram training into a work travel schedule?

Married? MARRIED!

Long time no see huh? It has been equally as long since I’ve worked out, but let’s allow the past to stay in the past!

My absence and lack of exercise was all for a good reason: I went back to  Georgia for a week, got married, spent a week in Jamaica and am now adjusting back to the real world. I go back to work tomorrow and that means back to eating right too. The vacation is over (as much as I loathe to admit it).

My most exciting bit of news (work out/health food related) is about stuff! Yes, stuff! Tom and I are blessed with amazing friends and family who surrounded us with so much love and support for our wedding. It was one of the best nights of my life and so wonderful to just look around and know everyone there has love for you. Really cool. In addition to their love and support, people are generous. We have SO MANY new kitchen gadgets and toys in general that I can’t get over it.

We haven’t broken most of it out yet as we’re moving to a new apartment within our building in about two weeks. (Let the packing commence!) However, we have some seriously awesome goodies and I cannot wait to start cooking things with them — I’ve already been daydreaming! A friend also got us two blender ball smoothie/shake carriers (cannot wait to take green smoothies to work) and a GARMIN 305!! Whoop whoop! I’ll definitely be testing that bad boy out before the move. In fact, if the box is still unopened come Sunday night I would be VERY surprised.

More to come, soon!