Weekly Recap

Sorry I didn’t get this posted yesterday.  I woke up at 3am to drive 2 hours to do a trail race and it took me over 7 hours to complete the total distance due to flooding and muddy conditions and I was just exhausted yesterday and completely forgot about this post until I was already in bed last night.

• Saturday: this was a somewhat messed up day.  I worked overtime Friday night and so didn’t get to bed until after 6am, then was back up by noon to mail a package and get my abbreviated day started.  I ran the Illuminations Half Marathon and that started at 6:15pm (look for my race recap I the next week or so…after I’ve gotten my official pictures).  It was part on paved trails and roads and part on trails and gravel roads.  And it was at night.  This was a challenging run but it was so much fun!  It was also the first time I got to use my new FitBit Blaze for any kind of exercise!  (I plan to write up a review in the next couple weeks, so stay tuned for that as well if the Blaze is something you’re thinking of buying)

• Sunday: after working 16 hours Thursday AND Friday nights and then running a challenging half marathon Saturday evening, I needed SLEEP.  And boy did I get it.  I was in bed for about 11 hours.  I woke up and felt like I had been hit by a truck.  Whoa.  I got up and got moving, then decided what I wanted to eat for the week (other than tilapia) and went and bought what I needed.  Then I came back home and started working on my housework and baking the tilapia and cooking the sweet potatoes in the crockpot and slicing my apples.  After all that, I went to the gym in the evening and did my 65 minutes on the elliptical.

• Monday: I ran a half marathon on Saturday that was challenging, and then I’m running a total of 22.4 miles today on trails, so this week was a recovery and taper week all in one.  So, my runs this week are easy and shorter.  This day, I just ran 4 miles easy.

• Tuesday: since I had my therapy appointment on this morning, I had to keep my workout short and sweet.  That means TRX at home!  So I did my TRX workout and added pullups, stairs and then mixed my 22 BOSU pushups into the workout.  Then, between before and after my appointment, I walked about 4.5 miles.

• Wednesday: a thunderstorm moved into my area overnight and there was loud thunder and bright lightning that woke me up a couple times.  When I got up, it had stopped raining but there were still thunder rumbles in the distance, so I wasn’t sure if I would go ahead with my planned run or go to the gym and use the elliptical.  Ultimately, I decided to do the run and geared up with a rain jacket and my water proof earbuds.  I did have to change the route I was running because I was originally going to run through the park, but the low water crossings were most likely flooded over, so I didn’t chance it and changed to my 5K route and earned my Shamrocked It virtual race medal.  By the time I headed out for my run, the rain had started up again, but it wasn’t a down pour, just a light, steady rain.  I love running in the rain because it feels good spiritually and it makes me run faster.

• Thursday: went to the gym and did my 65 minutes on the elliptical.

• Friday: this was going to be a rest day, however I just couldn't do that.  So, I went to the gym and did 65 minutes on the elliptical and it was a GREAT session too!  It just clicked and I went to town on that elliptical and burned almost 100 more calories than I usually do!  Oh yea!

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I talked in last week’s recap about my plans for eating.  I cooked up 6 lbs of seasoned tilapia and portioned it out into 12 oz portions.  I cooked some orange-spiced sweet potatoes (a recipe I made for the first time on thanksgiving) and sliced up lots of apples.  I set myself up for success this week.  If I stuck to this eating plan, that would put me right at 1100 calories for the day.  On Monday, I did meet a friend for breakfast at IHOP and got the 2x2x2 with sausage and sugar free syrup.  I was still well within the daily calorie allowance I assigned myself of 1550, so I have no guilt whatsoever over it.  I did really well in that department.  Sure I ate some chocolate here and some Cheez Its there, but I never went over my calories and most days I had at least a couple/few hundred calorie deficit.  Woohoo!  And that resulted in what I saw on the scale when I weighed in a day early on Friday (since I was getting up at 3am to do that trail race on Saturday I opted to weigh in a day early).

I am pretty dang happy with that!  3.7?  Oh yea!  I hope I can lose something again this week.  I’m going with the low calorie, high volume tilapia again.  (It’s also quite budget friendly and I need that right now.)  I’m also doing the orange-spiced sweet potatoes for dinners again and pink lady apples for snacks.  And then, of course, my 6 eggs for breakfast.  I’m really trying to treat this as a revised good outlook on things.  I’m not trying to be perfect, just better than I was being. 

I’ll be recovering from Saturday’s trail race for the majority of this week because it was a huge challenge both mentally and physically for me to complete, but that doesn’t mean I’ll be backing off a LOT with my workouts.  I’m going to back off a smidge with my running.  I probably won’t run more than 2 runs this week.  But I will get my strength training done and be using the elliptical as well.  Might even throw in some other cardio exercises here and there as well.  We’ll see.

I've been doing the 22 for 22 challenge.  I chose to do 22 BOSU pushups a day for 22 days.  I invite you to join this challenge with me.  You don't have to do BOSU pushups or even pushups.  Pick your exercise and do 22 reps of it for 22 days.  But, my advice is to choose something that's at least a little challenging for you.  You also don't have to do the whole 22 reps at once.  You can break it up throughout the day.  Why am I doing this challenge?  Well, statistically, 22 American soldiers commit suicide every day.  By doing this and sharing why you're doing it with friends, family and on social media, you help raise awareness for those 22 soldiers and so that tomorrow's 22 soldiers will get the helps they need to make a different decision.  As a military veteran that struggles with depression every single day of her life...as someone that has been there in that darkest of dark moments...this cause means so very much to me.  Please join me in this.

drop and give me 22!