Dev on Running

Time for another catch-up post since I’ve been too busy to blog!

THURSDAY

As you may recall, Aaron and I attended our very first catering tasting to sample food for our wedding. We’re working on choosing a caterer from our venue’s list of preferred caterers, and tasting yummy food is part of the fun!

I did some Paleo cheating here (cheeeeeese) in the name of, uhhh, getting a comprehensive idea of what this caterer has to offer. (It will quickly become clear that Paleo cheating was kind of the theme of these past few days.)

Here’s what I went back for more of AFTER I demolished my first two plates of food. The standout dishes pictured here are:

• Baby arugula & fennel salad: Full Circle Farms baby arugula and Bibb lettuce, shaved fennel, pink grapefruit, goat cheese, blood orange vinaigrette. (SPOILER ALERT: This salad WILL be at our wedding, whether we hire this caterer or not. It was AMAZING.)
• Grilled & roasted vegetables: Beets, carrots, parsnips, and onions. (I couldn’t get enough of the beets!)
• Yukon Gold mashed potato bar: With crispy bacon, sour cream, blue cheese, monterey jack, and scallions. (Um, I’m sorry, but we need to have a mashed potato bar at our wedding. I only tried bacon as a topping, but all that other stuff would be amazing, too.)

And Aaron couldn’t stop eating the braised Oregon country short ribs with red wine reduction. I thought they were great, too, but I was too busy eating multiple servings of salad to go back for more.

I LIKE THIS PART OF WEDDING PLANNING.

FRIDAY

I enjoyed my regular rest day, and put together a homemade dinner with my four BFFs/bridesmaids. I had not one, but two amaaaazing slices of Macrina Bakery bread because it smelled soooo good toasting in the oven and I figured a slice… or two… would just help fuel my Saturday long run. Also, if we choose the aforementioned caterer, this bread could be part of our menu, so I did it for science. Or something.

SATURDAY

I done ran 12 miles.

My planned route didn’t work out so well because the University Bridge was closed for the day. Totes dropped an F-bomb when I realized that because I was, uhhh, kinda far from home, and I wasn’t prepared to swim across Lake Union or anything.

The solution? A detour to the Montlake Bridge (totally winged it, magically found the correct way) that added two extra miles to the run.

I was just going to suck it up and do 14 miles because the sun was out and I was feeling great, but I stopped off at the Durn Good Grocery (not making that up) in Wallingford to call Aaron and let him know that I’d be home later than planned, and he offered to pick me up near Green Lake, thus sparing my legs the extra two miles. Keeper!

Oh, and we went shopping later that day and Aaron bought his wedding shoes (Hugo Boss) and wedding suit (J. Crew) in about two hours. No big deal. They are both fabulous.

My dress… will take a bit longer to find.

SUNDAY

Aaron had his second Cat 1 mountain bike race, and it was snow-on-the-ground cold over on Whidbey Island. This is my cold-spectator face:

Truly one of a kind, as the back of my wedding magazine says.

Aaron did three loops of the course at about 35 minutes per loop, so I had lots of time to sit and dog-ear pages in between cheering and taking photos. It was cold, man, but I wouldn’t miss it for the world!

And this just never gets old:

This was a huge race compared to the other ones he’s ridden this season, and he WON his age group at the EXPERT level!!!

So proud!!!

The sun came out after the race, and we enjoyed a Cheaty McCheaterson fish ‘n’ chips lunch on the water. The cafe served ice cream, and we longingly watched customer after customer get delicious-looking cones. That planted the seed for the ultimate cheat later in the afternoon… our very favorite guilty-pleasure treats… DQ Blizzards.

He got Oreo. I got double fudge cookie dough. We enjoyed every bite and regret nothing! The My Fitness Pal numbers are scary, but it helps a lot to be aware of that, as I compensated by making sure to do my hour of cross-training on the spin bike and having a very healthy, veggie-packed dinner.

Aaaand now it’s way past my bedtime. Good night!

I’ve been lazy with blogging this week, but not lazy with running! I ran Monday, Tuesday, AND tonight, and now I must tell you about it all in excruciating detail.

MONDAY

I had sort of a frustrating day at work, so I decided to run fast.

It felt good.

TUESDAY

Imagine super-shitty weather, and then pile some more shitty-ness on top of that. That is the kind of rain and wind that blessed Seattle on Tuesday.

And that is what rain jackets are for.

And, of course, this was my first set of hill intervals for this training cycle. Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

I did seven of ‘em, and you can see I took a little jogging break after the first two. I’m not used to hills… hence this training thing.

Earlier in the day, I had seen Chris’ post with this Scroobius Pip line: “You see a mousetrap. I see free cheese and a f**king challenge.”

That stuck with me through this run because I ran up and down a very busy street that leads to the freeway (there are no turns, giving me a nice stretch of uninterrupted sidewalk) and I imagined all the people coming home from work that night thought I was absolutely nuts to be chugging up that hill in such awful weather.

They see a mousetrap. I see a f**king challenge.

Anyway, this run wasn’t half bad, and as I ran home, the two little “hills” that usually take some effort felt like nothing at all. Free cheese!

WEDNESDAY

I rarely run three days in a row, so I figured my legs would be tired tonight. I had six miles planned, and my goal was to run them between 9:00 and 9:05 pace.

Then I just decided to crush them instead.

Don’t ask me. I don’t know. I just felt good and pushed myself a little, but never felt like I was pushing too hard.

Feels. So. Good.

Also, I caught a lovely sunset near the end. Whoever came up with Daylight Saving Time is a goddamn saint.

THURSDAY

Free cheese! No, really. Aaron and I are going to a catering tasting tomorrow night, and there will literally be a “chef’s selection of artisan cheeses,” among other delicious, free things — hence why I moved my Thursday run to Tuesday.

Aaron and I have a year and a half to go until our wedding, but you better believe we’re going to enjoy many, many of these tastings, since our venue gave us several preferred caterers to choose from.

This is why you have a long engagement, people — so you can drag out the very best parts! I don’t get why people rush to the altar when there is so much FREE FOOD to be had when you’re engaged!

Sadly, I won’t be eating the cheese, but I will bend the rules with some other foods so I can sample almost everything. Someone please restrain me from diving face-first into the mashed potato bar.

Anyway, that’s all I’ve got. Two glorious rest days await me, and then 12 miles on Saturday!

I’m nothing if not consistent.

February 16: 11 miles, 1:41:40
March 2: 11 miles, 1:41:04
March 16: 11 miles, 1:41:13

Not bad after missing two runs this week to recover from my cold!

It sucks to miss runs, especially right as I’m diving into my marathon training plan, but sometimes it’s just smarter to get well and then jump back in.

Remember that time I took four days off of marathon training to be sick and then ran 18 miles? I’ve learned that as long as I do my long runs, it’ll make for a better situation in the, uhh, long run. SAY LONG RUN ONE MORE TIME.

I didn’t feel like going far from home today, so I just did three loops around Green Lake.

There was a rowing competition going on at the lake, which was interesting to watch, plus a guy on a skateboard being pulling by what looked like two real, live sled dogs in the bike lane of the trail.

Umm, AWESOME. Where can I get me some of those?

I’ve been sick this week (classic post-race cold situation), so I rested Wednesday and Thursday and feel muuuuch better today. I think I’ll be able to do my long run tomorrow.

Now, time to see how the first two weeks of Paleo/calorie-tracking have gone!

Drum roll, please…

(Sorry for the gross, dirty scale. It’s in Aaron’s bathroom and his beard whiskers get all over it when he shaves. Time to give it wipe, clearly! Also, ignore the inaccurate body fat percentage.)

March 1: 145.6 lbs.
March 15: 138.4 lbs.
Loss: 7.2 lbs

Here’s what I look like with seven fewer pounds:

I took the “before” photo on the night of Feb. 28 and the “after” photo last night. The weigh-in is from this morning, and I’m actually down 0.2 lb. from yesterday, which is why the weigh-in and the caption are slightly different. Blah blah blah, who cares?

The fact is that I’m fiiiiiiiinally back at my marathon weight after more than a year!!!

I did NOT expect to get back here so quickly. I’ve weighed myself every morning since March 1 (to track in My Fitness Pal), and there have been a few times that I’ve weighed myself twice because I didn’t believe the number the first time.

I haven’t starved, I haven’t completely restricted myself from treats, and I haven’t been working out more than usual. I’ve simply cleaned up my eating and become more aware of nutrition facts and portion sizes!

• I eat wayyyy more veggies now, including as part of my breakfast, because they’re low-cal and filling (and delicious).
• I eat a huge salad every day, usually for lunch, along with some protein, like a hamburger patty, chicken breast, or roasted turkey.
• I still crave treats in the mid-afternoon and sometimes after dinner, but now my treats are things like dried mango, homemade apricot-pecan bars, and dark chocolate chips, and I try to really enjoy ONE serving rather than mindlessly munch and lose track.
• I’ve been able to enjoy celebrations by eating ONE bite of a cupcake for a co-worker’s birthday and ONE bite of cake for my brother’s birthday (I use a clean fork to just snag one bite and be done with it). I get to have a taste, and once I have it, I find that it’s all I want anyway!
• I’ve tracked every bite in My Fitness Pal — even those cake bites!
• I eat when I’m hungry, even if it means going over my calorie goal for the day, and stop when I’m full.
• I’ve eaten mostly Paleo, except for a few servings of pasta in the days leading up to my half-marathon and a huge, delicious waffle right after the race. I’m sure there has been some other stuff, but my point is that I’ve avoided processed carbs and dairy 99% of the time.
• I haven’t had a drop of alcohol since Valentine’s Day. I don’t really miss it, either.

None of this is groundbreaking. It’s the same, old stuff we know we’re supposed to do, but for some reason we all struggle with it.

All I know is that I’m feeling great right now, and I want to continue to keep up the healthy habits that are making me feel this way. (Side note: I used to struggle to wake up at 6:30 every morning, but now I wake up easily at 5:45, go into work early, and get to leave early!)

I feel like my body is now moving toward its natural equilibrium. Before I changed my eating, I was holding it back by feeding it sub-optimal food, and too much of it.

Now that I’ve reached my “goal” weight, I still feel like I could stand to lose a bit of fat and tone up, but I don’t really have an ideal weight in mind; I’ll just continue to eat this way and see where my body settles.

You can follow along on My Fitness Pal if you like, and I’ll do another weigh-in here on March 31!