Daily Wahnsinn

I’ve had a really busy weekend as I celebrated birthdays, walked bridges, prepared for visits, got my ass kicked at Kamp. Here’s a quick update in le forme du bullets:

• nothing beats daytime drinking, cheap wine & great company
• the Manhattan Bridge in itself is rather unexciting, it’s the views of the Brooklyn Bridge, FiDi and Dumbo that make up for it when walking it
• got my hair done and realized how much I missed being a blonde. yay summer!
• had such an amazing workout on Sunday. It was only myself and three other people and without Sherry and Chris there, I actually finished (almost?) all exercises first. I was a machine on Sunday. Bishop doesn’t usually praise people (fair enough, I’m paying him to train me and make me stronger, not to stroke my ego). But on Sunday he made a comment how some of us are getting really strong. WIN!!
• surprise birthday parties are the best and so are my friends
• I’m a terrible flirt and will be forever alone. Insert gif here.
• learned at yoga last night that I hyperextend a lot more than I had previously thought. I shrug my shoulders a lot, especially when I do chaturanga. I can go down all the way to the floor and hover, but my shoulders go up. I do the same thing in side plank. And handstand. And my shrugged shoulders are the reason why I cannot do handstand. Which is frustrating because my legs are so strong. The advice the yoga teacher gave me last night was to fix my chaturanga and then try handstand again. On the plus side, my wheel was strong and my crow was a lot better too

I’ve done very little running lately and even slept through my the 6 miler I wanted to do this morning. Brooklyn is this weekend. I don’t think I’ve ever felt so unprepared for a race.

How’s everybody else doing?

Seriously jealous of all the people who post about their awesome runs along the water and through parks, while I’m stuck in the office, operating on way too little sleep and way too much junk food.

I’m really busy this week. We’re talking staying at the office until/past midnight and being back by 7:30 AM the next morning. It means very little sleep and while I generally don’t sleep enough, even for me 4 hours is tough. Unsurprisingly, my eating has gone down the drain. Seriously down the drain. I’ve fallen back into my stress-eating habit and obviously not binging on healthy foods when overeating. Ugh. I feel really fat and sluggish right now.

I’m also supposed to start my period this weekend and it’s contributed to my cravings for sugar and chocolate and sweets and all the stuff I should not eat in the gigantic quantities I’ve been eating.

It has also not helped that the store was not yet open when I left for work and already closed by the time I got home.Yesterday, I literally had nothing in the fridge to make a breakfast and take to work. (There goes my May goal to cut back on spending money.)

Overall, I’ve not set up myself for success this week and I’m sure I’ll be paying the price for it soon. However, I am proud that I said no yesterday, something I don’t do often enough when it comes to my job and prioritized my personal life over my job. I actually left the office at 7 and headed to the gym for Drop Zone. Given, my workout was sluggish and I felt week (thanks too little sleep and junk food), but I went and that’s all I wanted last night. We did a lot of stair work and strength training and I was so low on energy that I couldn’t even throw back a snarky remark when Bishop teased me. That’s sad.

Anyway, the last few days have put everything back into perspective. As much as I hate my job sometimes and office politics, I am fortunate that I only have to work one job to pay for my living. I cannot even begin to imagine how it must feel to work two, work 80 hours on a regular basis, maybe work and go to school AND try to train for something like a marathon. You guys are rockstars.

Street Kamp was so much fun today.

I was a little scared going in today because of having done 12 miles yesterday (10 miles of intervals and then some for warm-up/cooldown and walking breaks), because whenever Bishop has us run as a warm up, he makes us run fast. I hate running fast. I’m not a fast runner. Speedwork is literally the worst for me. I’d rather log a long run every week than a session of speedwork every two weeks. I know that it’s important and I know that the only way to get faster is if you actually train your body to run faster, but somehow I just can’t do it. So while I hate it, I’m glad for whenever Bishop makes us run fast.

However, today I was dreading it so much. My legs were still so tired from a week of hard training. I know this is my own fault and I’m glad for Bishop’s “That’s your problem” attitude, because really, it is. I know Street Kamp is probably the hardest workout of my week, together with his Drop Zone workout on Thursdays. I should know better than scheduling a hard workout like a long run the day before. I’m also glad for him not catering to a fool (like me)’s needs and instead making me suck it up. Apparently, last week Meagan was the fool - she ran 8 miles the day before Kamp.

Anyway, today I was lucky though. We hardly ran and instead jump roped/ran as our warm-up. You run while skipping rope. That I could do. In general, today seemed more of a strength focused kind of day. We did some up overs (over a fence) and jump ups onto a stage - this was really the only time were I felt the muscle fatigue in my quads. I could not get my legs up and needed to land on my knees and shins on the concrete. I’m already bruising. We did some pull ups, knee ups, more jump ups, triceps dips and then stairs. 

Surprisingly, I’m really starting to enjoy the stairs. We did 2 times 5 flights and I was fastest each time. We also did assisted pull-ups and then crossed Sheep’s Meadow in Central Park with cheetah jumps. Cheetah jumps are brutal. They’re so hard. (They’re hard to explain, but basically you’re in a bear crawl position but unlike a bear crawl, where you walk one foot after the other, a cheetah jump has you jump both feet at the same time to your hands, then throw your hands forward, move your feet, etc. Just literally like a cheetah jumps.) We finished off with some ab exercises.

Overall, I had a fantastic workout and was really surprised just how much my body is capable of. I’ve exercised a lot lately. And generally when I exercise, I exercise hard. But yet, my body lets me keep up and give my best.

Here’s what my Garmin says:

You can’t measure BADASS on a scale.

Why do 10 minutes of foam rolling hurt just as much as running 10 miles on tired, shin split legs? And who needs waterboarding if foam rolling is a perfectly legal form of torture?

I know, IT band, I know. It hurt. I’m sorry.

On the bright side, my 10 miler this morning was tough and unfortunately, not a good run, but I pulled through and completed it. That’s what I choose to focus on today.

So, food. The ongoing theme.

I’ve been very mindful most of my week. Sticking within my daily Weight Watchers points and eating only some of my activity points. I met a friend for her birthday celebration on Sunday and had planned for that to be my “let loose a little and enjoy life” - we had a great time together and it was all guilt-free. After all, I was going to make up for it this week.

Monday, Tuesday and most of Wednesday were great. I stuck to my goals, I trained hard. Very hard. 3 workouts on Monday, a 5 miler on Tuesday, Street Kamp on Wednesday.

Kamp was brutal. It was so hard. It was Sherry and myself and then a new guy. The new guy was fit, so rightfully, Bishop worked us hard. But ever since, I’ve been RAVENOUS. I ended up eating a lot of simple carbs on Wednesday after dinner and I just let it go, because well, I had worked really hard that day and I still had a little buffer of weekly points. But then last night, I went to Drop Zone at Reebok, and again, it was a hard workout. I’d been so good with my food intake during the day, but at night, I went on another half-asleep binge.

I know there is nothing I can do to change the past. I can only get back up and move forward. But man, I’m so frustrated. I really, really want to lose those 15 pounds I’ve gained. But I’m not helping myself.

I also know that hard workouts tend to make me hungry. It’s not rocket science. I burned about 2,700 calories through exercise within the last 4 days. That’s quite a lot. My body is going to ask for some of it back. But I need to find a way to better control the urges and find the fine line between, yes, keeping myself fed so that I can continue working out hard and also not killing my progress and remaining in this same spot forever.

SIGH!

I’m doing a dance class tonight and then for tomorrow, I’d like to squeeze in a 10 miler before Brooklyn. Sunday is for Street Kamp, Monday Drop Zone, quick treadmill workout & Yoga and then I collapse and die on Tuesday’s rest day. ;)

Damn girl, your legs look AWESOME today.

(Amazing what a cute skirt & heels do to your confidence. Guess somebody will be investing in more heels and moving away from the flats soon.)

Also, I decided to skip my rest day yesterday and head to Street Kamp instead. The weather has been way too beautiful lately to be stuck inside. Bishop drove us to a recreation center all the way up in the Washington heights and then broke out the 25 lbs sandbags.

Our warm-up included us running with 25 lbs up a steep hill. That’s when I knew I was in trouble. ;o) We did more weighted exercises, like burpees with and overhead press of the sandbag, throwing it, swinging it, lifting it. It was a really great session and I felt so good afterwards. I had to realize that my triceps definitely need some more work and that 25 lbs are heavy, especially when you’re schlepping around something that’s as hard to grip and control in a swinging motion as a sandbag.

If you ever feel stuck in a weight loss rut and get upset over how much you still have to lose, as opposed to being proud of what you’ve lost, find a bunch of weights in your gym’s weight room and workout with that for a while. Carry it up and down stairs. Do rows. Do squats, Throw it. Run with it on your back. Be reminded how heavy it is and how awesome you are for no longer carrying that weight on your joints and bones every single day.

After the workout I also felt really ravenous. I came home, showered and had my dinner & post-dinner Greek yogurt with a banana & PB, but after that, I just kept craving carbs. I ended up eating a lot, really, A LOT of pretzel sticks with hummus. And then some crackers. The session must’ve really drained my glycogen stores.

I think I also learned from my last experience where I tried to deny myself the simple carbs my body was craving and ended overeating to the point where I was feeling sick. I probably still ate more simple carbs than I should have if you’re in a weight loss mode, but for a change, I listened to my body. And I don’t feel bad about it at all. Will I maybe not see a big loss on the scale this week? Maybe. But at least I have a bunch of really strong & powerful workouts to look back to.

Today’s workouts:
- 1 hour Drop Zone Bootcamp
- 30 minutes on the treadmill
- 1 hour+ of yoga

Beast mode ON. Take that, fucking scale. It’s my big, beautiful, heavy muscles that let me do three workouts in a day.

On top of all the moves Bishop had us do that I mentioned this morning, I forgot to mention that he also threw some one armed burpees into the mix. In case burpees ain’t hard enough.

Yoga was taught by last week’s substitute again. I like her a lot, but I do miss my regular instructor Karen. Anyway, sub teacher is very fond of down dog split (i. e. one leg in the air), then moving us into three-legged chaturanga, which is fucking HARD! I’ve been getting so much better at this.

Long story short, I’m pretty fucking badass. Yo.