Run it Out
Success isn't how far you went, but the distance you traveled from where you started.
My favorite trails.
I have a beautiful boyfriend with perfect running form :)
So, perhaps juice detoxes are not for everyone. I made it two days, almost passed out in Zumba, and decided it was time I ate some food again. After thinking about it some more, juice detoxes are definitely not designed for people who work out as much as I do. On an average day I work out twice. Some days, like yesterday, I literally worked out 4 separate times. For an hour or more each time. The body needs fuel to be able to do that. A lot of fuel.
I did learn from the juicing though. When I drink juice twice a day I feel GREAT. I put everything from apples and carrots to kale and strawberries in my juices, and when I don’t juice I don’t consume much of those things. Well, I do eat a ton of spinach because I blend it into my protein smoothies, but that’s a whole other blog. I’ve been consistently juicing twice a day even when I added food back after my fainting episode. I’ve noticed that my skin looks healthier, and I have a lot more energy. So while I don’t think I really need to ‘detox’ I’m definitely going to keep up with making lots of juice. I am making an effort to keep the majority of my diet full of micronutrient foods. Lots of nuts and seeds, fresh fruits and veggies. I’m also still completely turned off by meat and dairy. Also still struggling with keeping sugar out of my mouth, but that is easier to do when I have sweet delicious juice to make at home!!!
4 bales of kale. 3. 1 pound bags of carrots. 2 pounds of strawberries. 3, 10 oz bags of fresh spinach. 4 cucumbers. 4 giant crookneck squash. 3 giant zucchinis. 8 gala apples. 1 bag of green grapes, and 1 bag of purple grapes.
I’m starting a 10 day juice fast tomorrow. I figure the above will last me 3, maybe four days. I was inspired by the documentary Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead. Crazy Australian dude goes on a 60 day juice fast and literally resets his body to healthy. While I don’t have health problems (besides this crappy cold/flu thing I picked up) I’ve been wanting to do a sort of ‘reboot’ before the training for my Ironman 70.3 gets too intense. And this sounded like just the thing. Major downfall? NO COFFEE. Ack. Double Ack. I’m counting on feeling a bit lousy the first three days, as this is what everything I’ve read about it says, then getting some really great energy after that. I’ll try to keep updated on here each day as I’m sure I’ll forget exactly what I’m feeling like from day 1 to 10 otherwise. After the 10 days I’m going to try and keep juicing every day, keeping the majority of my food intake to fruits and veggies (but actually eating them too, not just juicing). Obviously with as much as I exert myself physically I’ll have to add back in whole grains, and I’ll be trying to get most of my protein from nuts and seeds. I’ve been eating way too much sugar lately (I blame Pinterest for this). So hopefully this works out! Wish me luck, I’m pretty sure I’ll need it.
Now that we’ve all reigned in the holidays, the New Year has come and gone (I stayed home and was in bed before midnight for the first time in well over a decade), and we’re all starting on our resolutions.
Right?
Meh. I don’t do resolutions. For those that do, kudos! I just feel like I don’t need a timestamp to begin a change in my life. In fact, most of my changes begin very small and creep up on me until I realize that they are a HUGE part of my life. Running and yoga are both excellent examples. I actually taught my first bona-fide yoga class yesterday, and my second one tonight. It was great! I’m loving it. I have also recently made the switch to a…dare I even say it…vegan diet.
Oh Lord. *rolls eyes*
I know. Why. Why would anyone do that? It’s inconvenient. It’s well, let’s face it, kind of weird. I mean, we are on the top of the food chain, right???
Well first let me clarify. I cannot technically call myself a vegan, because I still eat delicious tasty fish, chocolate, and honey. Yeah, real vegans don’t eat honey. HONEY. I’m also not even considering throwing out my leather boots and coat.
So in reality, I just quit eating meat and dairy. Minus the fish part. And I guess chocolate is dairy? I don’t know if there’s even a word for my diet. And by diet, I don’t mean something that I’m doing to lose weight. I’m referring to what I consume on a daily basis for, well, ever if I’m lucky.
Like I said earlier, it was a gradual thing. Meat has become less and less appealing in the last year or so, and dairy has become a huge turnoff in the last few months. And the less of it I eat, the less appealing it sounds. So three days before Christmas I made the decision to make a conscious effort to avoid meat and dairy. at first I was like holy crap I can never eat at a restaurant again! Mainly because everything in restaurants is covered in butter. And if you ask them to leave the butter off your salmon, they don’t care. It appears smothered in butter anyway. I’ve since learned that you have to lie and say you are severely lactose intolerant. Other than the butter debacle, this whole change has really been fairly easy. I miss Greek yogurt a little bit, mainly because I’ve been hard pressed to find something as low cal that packs as much of a protein punch as Greek yogurt does. I’ve also definitely had to put some effort into making sure I’m replacing meats and cheeses with veggies and beans as opposed to heavy carbs. Some aspects were really easy. I’ve been a non-dairy drinker for years (first soy milk and recently almond mild) and always leaned towards chicken and fish rather than red meat.
I have also discovered a slew of vegan cooking blogs. Did you know you can use coconut milk to replace heavy cream in bisques? Bet your sweet bottom I’m making some tomato bisque this week! I’m really excited to try out all these substitutions in cooking. Mashed turnips in stead of mashed potatoes??? Hmmm.
Aside from all this food stuff…I’ve decided I’m doing a race of some sort every month leading up to the Ironman 70.3 in June. So far I have something for every month except May. Looking to possible do a destination half marathon with a friend, if our budgets allow!
Exciting New Year for me, even with no resolutions and no glass of midnight champagne!!
I was in Dallas this past weekend for a YogaFit training (2 days of yoga…I love yoga but WOW.). While I was there, a good friend of mine was participating in his first full marathon at the Dallas White Rock Marathon. I figured since I was going to hang around and watch him cross the finish line that I’d go ahead and run the half. Worst. Weather. Ever. I don’t mind running in the cold. No biggie. But the rain? Ohhhhhh the RAIN! More or less the entire time I ran. And my legs were super sore to begin with from two days of yoga…so needless to say that 2:11 finish time I walked away with wasn’t exactly setting any new PR’s. But dude, I ran 13.1 miles in the POURING FREAKING RAIN. I kinda feel like that in itself deserves something.
And in reality, this race wasn’t about me. I was there to support my friend. He ran the Do-Wacka-Do 25k trail run with me back in September. He made me feel like I’d done something amazing when I completed my sub 2-hour half. So really, this race was his. And let me tell you, he ran that sucka! His official time was 4:11:23. Seriously, he’s like the Flash! I’ve been re-inspired by him. I was there to see him cross the finish line and he looked like he’d just been out for a little morning jog no big deal. Made it look, well, easy.
All in all, another amazing race experience for the books!!
Sub 2-hour finish!
Sub 2-hour finish!
Yep! I did it! I finished the Tulsa Route 66 Half Marathon in under 2 hours!!! The course wasn’t too bad, but it wasn’t exactly easy either. The first 6 or 7 miles wove in and out of the fancy schmancy neighborhoods. It was full of hills until about mile 6 when we came out of a neighborhood and onto a straight, flat, out and back street that we stayed on until mile 12. The out part of this was great because the wind was at our backs, but once we turned around it was reeeeaaaallllyyy chilly. Around mile 6 I thought ‘Man, I hope the rest of the course isn’t so hilly’. Then at mile 10 I thought ‘You know, the hills might have been better than the wind’. Those last three miles really kicked my butt too. I’d crossed the starting line about 20 seconds after they started the clock, and they had a clock running at every mile marker from mile 8 or so on. I knew at mile 10 I was almost a whole minute behind where I wanted to be so I didn’t slow my pace or walk at all for those last 3.1 miles…even when at mile 12 I was back at pace. Once I could see the finish line I hit an all out sprint. Well, what I thought was an all out sprint. I had to laugh later on when I watched the video my brother took of me crossing the finish line. Reality vs. What we envision….not always the same! I knew when I crossed the finish line I’d made it in under 2 hours and I was so excited (and full of endorphins) that I started crying. And again when my mom, son, and brother found me shortly after. This was by far the best birthday I’ve ever had. I spent it doing what I love and with the ones I love. I don’t believe there would have been a better way to enter my thirties!!!
A week from now I’ll be finished with the Tulsa Route 66 Half Marathon hopefully having completed it in under two hours! I never really get pre-race jitters, but I’m starting to have some this time around. I’m going to chalk it up to the fact that I’ve never run a race with an actual time goal before. I mean, sure I’ve gone into races with an “ish” time goal in mine. But never when I’m actually trying to beat the clock. I am so excited though. Not to mention it is also going to be my 30th birthday, and my mom, brother, and son will all be greeting me at the finish line. This alone makes it a race worth running. I’ve never had anyone greet me at the finish line of a race before, and three of the people I love most in this world cheering me on, well, I can’t really think of a better way to finish a race and to start a new decade of my life.
I have also decided to go ahead and run the White Rock Half Marathon in Dallas on Dec 4. I’ll be down there for a YogaFit certification (which I am SO excited to start teaching!) and a good friend of mine is running the full marathon at White Rock, his first! I wanted to stick around and meet him at the finish line, so I figured why not go ahead and run the half since I’m there anyway! Then come to find out, a friend of mine that was on my team for Tough Mudder is also doing the half at White Rock, so we’re going to run it together. I love it when things work out like this!
