fast | Fitness is Sweet

So…I know I have a bit to catch up on but if I can write this post quick enough I can catch another Scandal before bed. SO GOOD and totally relevant to this city!

Yesterday I woke up at 5am (that’s 2am CA time for those keeping track) to run over to the Lincoln Memorial for November Project.

I was shocked by how light-and hot and humid-it was at 5:30am. Since where I’m from it’s always freezing at night, I couldn’t quite believe it!

We all gathered on the steps. Today was “PR day,” which meant running the stairs for time.

Well, for some reason I thought we were doing that once, so I sprinted up the stairs. And then no one was stopping. Turns out we had to do it 17 (or 13) times…I scaled and did 13, partly because I had to leave a bit early. Guys. The Lincoln Memorial has SO MANY STAIRS. Like, you have no idea. THE BURN! Somehow magically I’m not insanely sore today-maybe because I spent the rest of the morning hydrating like a mad woman, but it was definitely a good one, and so peaceful to be running the city so early!

I went to Crossfit that evening because apparently I’m crazy, and everyone seems to think it’s PR week. Well, I did get a PR! I PRed my deadlifts by 10lbs for a total of 245! And my form was way better than my previous PR so that’s good!

And since we’re on the topic of workouts, I went to a run club today that’s through my gym (which I get a membership to as part of Crossfit). I should also mention that it was 90 and humid today. And that I never have to run in heat because I’m from San Francisco and such a thing does not exist…

There were only 3 of us plus an instructor, and the other women looked pretty fast. On the schedule was about a 35 minute tempo run-10 easy, 10 min tempo, 5 min easy, rest of the run tempo. In theory tempo was a faster pace, or 10k pace. In reality, it was me trying not to die. I was doing ok keeping up with the easy pace-it didn’t feel too bad but it was about a 9:00 which is on the fast side for a longish run for me (My latest 10k pace was 8:45). But I was doing fine. I fell behind pretty quickly when the tempo part started but I did what I could. Coming back though, my legs were absolute bricks. During the “tempo” part, I was just trying to keep them moving. So fast runs in hot and humid weather build character, right? I’ll probably go back even though I probably slowed the others down, because it’s good for me and I’m sort of learning the area through a guided run. That was a little extra incentive-better keep up if I don’t want to get hopelessly lost! And hey-official half training starts next week! Although I’m going to keep up my weekend 6 milers until I get to that point.

Foodwise?

I wasn’t sure if I’d have time for breakfast post-November project, but it was a non-issue and I had woken up HUNGRY. So this protein was much needed after 10245412342 stairs.

And I finally worked out my coffee situation. After waking up at 5am, this was a lifesaver.

As a side note, this is a 12oz coffee, which is the smallest size they serve. I had one again this morning and it was WAY too much caffeine, even though I was drowsy all morning. WHEW. Guess who usually drinks baby espresso drinks? THIS GIRL.

Lunch today was kind of awful. I made some cauliflower in the microwave and topped it with hummus leftover from the previous night’s dinner (picture will follow) and it was just a mushy mess. Ick. I also had scrambled eggs with manchego and spinach, which were ok but it was kind of a mess.

Here’s the aforementioned dinner. The craziest thing happened. I heated soup up on the stove. Not the microwave, the STOVE. Am I officially a real person? I took tomato soup and mixed in some fresh spinach, then topped it with cheddar. On the side was some hummus and pretzels, plus my new favorite thing-FROZEN GRAPES! I had some on the softer side which I hate, so I just stuck them in the freezer. SO good!

The tomato soup was Trader Joe’s, and I was really disappointed. I forgot to check added sugar, and this had a fair amount-it tasted sweet. Ugh.

Speaking of which, on my way out of work today, I was hungry and wanted some quickly digesting carbs to fuel my run, so I picked this guy up from the restaurant.

It was pretty tasty, but SO sweet and oily. But my run went well (as well as it could have) so who am I to complain. I just don’t want to make it a habit!

After the afternoon’s run, I stopped at Whole Foods to be lazy as well as to make use of my gift card. I picked up some fruit, carrots, super dark chocolate, and sun butter, plus dinner and lunch for tomorrow. Not having to pack lunch tonight is sort of fantastic.

My dinner was Mexican tilapia over beans, roasted potatoes, and garlicy cabbage and green beans. Plus lots of grapes with sun butter when I got back, and a bit of dark chocolate.

And now I’m at that point where I could go to bed nice and early, or watch another Scandal…decisions….

Ok, confession: I’ve never actually seen the Titanic. Moving on…

Yesterday morning (Friday) I donned by neon shirt and headed out for an early morning run. I checked the weather report-47 degrees was the low…and the low was at the time of my run. Awesome. The temperatures are really starting to cool down here. Want to know something bizarre? Next week we have lows of 47 and highs of 80. While it does tend to get cold at night here, that much temperature difference is insane!

3 miles were on the schedule for Friday morning. I ran half a mile there, and half a mile back, so my workout was 8x400m repeats. I really like these-and yesterday I felt like I was flying. I don’t wear my Garmin for these, but I’m sure I was well under my goal pace. Something I like even more? 200 repeats. I’ll get to do a lot of those while I train to PR my 5k. SO pumped. I just felt really great out there Friday-I felt like I was flying on my 9 mile run last weekend as well-I feel like I’ve suddenly gotten a lot faster-perfect timing though! T minus 8 days until RACE DAY.

I’m liking my new post early morning workout coffee ritual.

It’s always cold in the morning, plus if I go straight from my workout, I beat all the on the way to work/class crowd. Perfect.

Walking back to my dorm, I saw this:

I wish I lived on the first floor. The cat is back! I called to it and it came running over to me.

Such a sweetie! He almost made me late to class, but so, so worth it.

And…um…he followed me in the door. Which was obviously a problem-it was a good thing my friend was there to kick him out because I definitely didn’t have the heart to do it!

I took zero food pictures from yesterday. But I did do things. And eat things. My dorm had a “homecoming” dance, so we all got dressed up and had fun. When I get the pictures back, I’ll show you guys! I also got ready and totally showered in 15 minutes flat. Because my friends wanted to leave and I was watching How I Met Your Mother….Priorities people! It was actually a lot of fun-everyone was expecting it to be super awkward, but it really wasn’t. It was great to connect with people from my dorm.

This morning I decided to go to Crossfit. 2 weeks ago I PRed my clean and jerk, but today I just couldn’t get it up. You can’t PR everyday, and you don’t always have good lifting days. I wasn’t committing on the jerks, and I kept missing the cleans. I’m pretty sure in the last 2 weeks I’ve developed some bad habits-it felt awesome 2 weeks ago, but then the following week, I started banging up my legs doing cleans.

Which is not right. I was having the same problem today, but no bruising. I could tell I just wasn’t getting in the right position. But it happens. I was frustrated, but looking forward to the WOD: 3 400m sprints with 2 minutes of rest, and then 1 minute of rest in between. I brought my running shoes for this. I was expecting to finish last because everyone else was guys, but it didn’t turn out that way at all. I beat everyone in my heat (we split into 2 heats, starting 10 seconds apart to avoid running into each other), and even passed a person or two from the heat before me. It. Felt. Awesome. I’m starting to really look forward to training for the 5k-I haven’t done much fast running lately, and I forgot how much I liked it! And passing people? Best thing ever.

On a sidenote, I REALLY need to do a timed mile, but I’ve been putting it off. My last one was 8:00, but that was pretty soon after mono and before any half training started. I would think I’d be somewhere around 7:30. I would LOVE to get down to under 7:00 like back in the day, buttt we’ll see about that.

After my workout, I made the world’s worst smoothie. I brought my little packet of chocolate protein powder and cocoa powder to the dining hall, and even waited in the super long blender line. I added blueberries, mango, and milk. And…..WAIT FOR IT-arugula. I wanted spinach but they only had an arugula spinach mix, so I figured, why not? WRONG. WRONGWRONGWRONG. Arugula is a lot more flavorful than spinach. So I had 2 giant glasses of chocolate arugula. It was awful.

I attempted to drink it alongside a biscuit and some chicken/guac. But then gave up and just got another biscuit. Shudder.

Hopefully you guys are having something at least a little more delicious! Tomorrow is my last “long” run before my race. I’m doing 6, even though my plan calls for 8. Last time I felt like my legs really benefitted from the extra rest. The body wants what the body wants! (Which, by the way, is NOT an arugula smoothie.)

Have a great Saturday!

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