A DNF PDR

Happily, today felt like Friday, since I have tomorrow and Monday off for my super-fun Chicago bachelorette party and shower trip!

It was also a long run day, meaning I ate a lot.

Like chicken soup:

And a bagel with a bit of real butter:

 

And Greek yogurt with granola:

 

And a homemade protein bar:

I didn’t take a lunch break today so I could leave at 4 instead of 5, so I kind of munched bits and pieces all afternoon.  Works for me!

Also, check out my cute new flats:

 

I got them at DSW last night.  They’re super comfy, and the color is kind of a light gold-ish pewter that really will go with everything.  I wore them with a burgundy wrap dress to work and got several compliments.  I think they’ll be perfect for my trip!

Anyway, I bounced out of work at 4, excited about my long run.  I was ready to tackle 11 miles!

See?  Don’t I look ready?  I think this is going to be my half marathon outfit, because the pants and top are my favorites.

Anyway.  This was my first long run…well, I won’t say FAILURE, but it was my first really, really sucky, painful long run.

• Mile 1: Feel good.  Except my left knee hurts and is kind of clicky.  Huh, that’s random.  Ow.
• Mile 2:  My gum falls out of my mouth, hits the treadmill, and flies about four feet behind the treadmill.  I gather up every ounce of badass dignity I have, pick up the gum, and throw it away. 
• Mile 3:  Treadmill to my right is invaded by some girl in a velour track suit with a rhinestone rainbow on the back.  She alternates between giggly texting on her phone and singing along, out loud, to her iPod, while walking a 30:00 mile.
• Mile 4: Take Gu at Mile 4.5.  Knee stops hurting.  Mmm, Chocolate Gu is delicious!
• Mile 5:  Feeling good.  Hey, I’m at the halfway point!  Switch from Dan Savage podcast to music.
• Mile 6:  Treadmill shuts off after an hour.  I reset it for another 5 miles and keep on chugging.
• Mile 7:  Urp.  I don’t feel so good.  At mile 7.5, I literally have to make a choice between vomiting on the treadmill console or risking pooping my pants on the way to the bathroom.  I feel like a real runner, and thankfully make it to the bathroom.  GI distress ensues.
• Mile 7.5:  Reset treadmill for 3.5 miles.  Keep chugging.  Feel slightly less ill.
• Mile 8:  This sucks this sucks this sucks.
• Mile 9:  Maybe I’ll have a little more chocolate Gu.  Open another one, eat about half.  Slow treadmill down to a 10:20 mile.
• Mile 10:  Whoa, that was a bad choice.  Grip sides of treadmill so I can keep from falling over or passing out.
• Mile 10.4: Get the chills.  Begin dry heaving.  Throw in towel.

Grand total: 10.43 miles.  I stopped giving a shit about time somewhere around the first GI incident, but I kept up a 10:00 pace until the last 3 or so miles, when I dialed back a little.

Anyway.  Not an epic success, but I’m trying to be positive.  It’s still a PDR, and I have been hard on my body this week.  I ran HARD Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, and went into this run feeling sore, and tired, and generally worn down.   In the long run, 10.4 miles is still great, and it’s actually longer than Hal recommends in his training plan.  But, it’s still a little worrisome for the race in two weeks.  Eh.  We all have crappy runs, and now it’s over.

Currently, I’m eating the only thing that sounds remotely appealing to me:

Plain elbow macaroni.  The thought of meat (or anything else, for that matter) makes me want to puke right now.  But this is pretty good.

I have a post for tomorrow, but I’ll be on a bit of a blog-cation the next few days.  I don’t think I’ll have access to post anything, but I promise giant recaps full of wedding porn when I get back!

How do you get over bad workouts?

Getting ahead of the game

Oh, Sunday.  The day where I attempt to accomplish everything so I can spend evenings at home all week long being a bum.

Tim and I went to church this morning and then to Target to pick up some groceries.  When we got home, I made a double batch of Milhouse’s favorite dog treats.

He pretty much turns his nose up at regular treats now.  I created a monster.

All day long, I wore my new running shoes around the house to get used to the arch supports.  It’s weird feeling so much support there, but I would really try anything at this point.  I did laundry, I ironed, and I roasted a chicken.

The star was this seasoning my mom got me awhile back.  It’s really salty, so I use about half what the jar says, but it’s delicious!

I also tried to hit up Macy’s to look for a dress for my shower again.  I actually contemplated buying this one.

And then I realized I couldn’t be sure if I would look like a cupcake-y bridal asshole in such a frou-frou dress, got mad, took it off and pouted in the dressing room while I e-mailed a picture to my mom and called her.  You know what sucks?  Not having any friends to go shopping with. 

I didn’t buy it because my mom said the color made me look pale.  (Newsflash: I am pale.)  She suggested going tanning, and I suggested that I do not have the time, money, or desire to do that.  Back to the drawing board.  I think I’m just going to buy something online and cross my fingers.  (Even though the more I look at it, the more I like this ridiculous, frou frou dress.)

I also attempted to make some kind of tomato soup with lentils in it today and failed.  I put too much water in and it tasted gross.  Fail.  I think I just work better with a recipe.

I did, however, paint my nails with my new favorite nail color (Essie “Lilacism”).  I’ve had a weird aversion to painted nails (they made me really self-conscious) for years, so I’m determined to break it. 

And, finally, some interspecies love:

Milhouse and Southpaw have been caught curled up together napping a lot this weekend! 

Nail polish—yay or nay?  What are your favorite beauty products?

Busy Bee

I had lots of work to do today that kept me busy at work.  It was nice!  My work comes in waves, usually, so some days are really busy and others are much slower.  The day goes by faster when I have more to do!

Today’s lunch was a lesson in volumetrics (eating a whole lot of really low calorie foods instead of a small amount of calorie-dense foods).

Check out that spread!

I don’t usually do calorie breakdowns, but this was pretty magnificent.

• Spinach: about 20 calories
• Carrots: about 15 calories
• 1 T. Lighthouse dressing: 20 calories
• 2 clementines: 70 calories
• Chicken noodle soup: 150 calories
• Chobani Greek yogurt: 120 calories
• Strawberries: 35 calories
• Homemade corn muffin: 100 calories

530 calories for a huge, healthy, filling lunch that took FOREVER to eat.

After work I went for a run.  It wasn’t my best run, but not my worst either.  I did 4.5 miles in about 45:30.  I slowed my pace down a bit because my asthma was bugging me a bit.  My allergies have been bad lately, and I’ve had an off-and-on sinus headache for the last few days, so it’s not totally out of the blue.  But I got it done, anyway. 

Then, on the way home, I had to stop at the store.  I tried the Western Bagel brand of bagels, but I find the “sweet wheat” flavor a little weird.  Since they’re high in fiber and low in calories and have good ingredient list, I picked up the country white to try.

I’ll report back!

Anyway, I’m super tired and still have a million things to do before bed.  Sigh.

Are you a volume eater or a calorie-dense eater?

Mental Health Day

Today I woke up feeling much better (thankfully).  I’m so glad I took today off (and Tim had the day off) as a mental health day!  I needed it.

I had been planning a short 2 mile run and cross training today, but I figured I wait to see how food sat in my stomach before I went out.  I had a small bowl of cereal for breakfast and I was okay, but after lunch…bleh.  The nausea returned–not as bad as yesterday, but I don’t think running would have been advisable.  I hate skipping out–I feel like I’m making excuses, ESPECIALLY since I’ve been off for about a week now, but sometimes it’s just necessary.  I’m hoping everything is back to normal tomorrow.

Anyhow.  Unrelated, but I caught all three of our animals in one frame today, which is unusual.

Buckley was unlucky enough to get a bath today due to a mysterious poop odor surrounding him wherever he went.  Southpaw helped him dry off.

I post too many animal pictures, don’t I?  I should stop that.  Sorry.  We’re obsessed.

Anyway.  This afternoon I decided to finish menus for the tables at the reception.  I like knowing what I’m eating at plated dinners!   I’m just planning on putting one or two on a table.  Unfortunately, Michael’s only had seven sheets of vellum left, and I messed up a few, so I only ended up getting about ten done.  I’ll have to stop and get more next time I’m there, but I think they turned out well!

That menu makes me drool just looking at it.  Too bad I’ll split my wedding dress if I eat any of it!  (Our venue coordinator will be under strict instructions to pack us a full doggie bag for the honeymoon suite after the reception.  Yup.  Sexy.)

Oh, and also?  My poor laptop is broken again.  I’m using Tim’s.  The screen started flickering and going totally white, and the mouse button stopped clicking.  I have one month left on my Best Buy service plan, so it’s back in the shop, hoping they’ll fix it.  I could really use a new laptop!

For dinner, I thought I’d try this soup that Leah sent in her care package.

It smelled and looked so good!

Cheese tortellini and Italian chicken sausage in a tomato-y broth with lots of spices!  Yum.  Unfortunately, due to my tummy issues, I had a few bites and stopped because I knew it would be too spicy for me to handle tonight.  I had a few pieces of French bread instead.  Tim, however, gave it two thumbs up and plans on eating the rest of it for lunch this week!  He REALLY liked it.  Thanks, Leah!

I also made some peanut butter brownies for Tim to take to work.  Unfortunately, I underbaked them, so they’re almost raw in the center.  Grr.

Anyway, hopefully my stomach and shins will cooperate and I’ll be able to run tomorrow!  I felt great on Friday…so here’s hoping I can get back on track.  I’m starting to get a wee bit nervous after missing almost a week of half training!

Animal pictures: more, less, or just enough?

Office Space

I felt like I was in some sort of bad office comedy today.

I woke up, got ready, and went to make coffee…and our Keurig’s broken.  It brews about an ounce of coffee then dies.  Suggestions?  I’m only a one-cup-a-day girl, but that one cup is crucial.

Then I got to work and figured out that one department’s been giving out my office’s phone number as a fax number on a form that HAS to be faxed in and was distributed to hundreds of people.  All morning, I kept answering my phone and getting fax machine noises.   At LEAST twenty times.  Frustrating.

And then it was lunchtime and I made some soup.  I think it was some kind of  Zesty Tomato I’d gotten before I got all the Progresso goodies?  It was nasty, emphasis on the ass.  Two small bites and I dumped it.  So, half my lunch literally went down the drain.

Thankfully, my snack stash came to the rescue.  Susan had mentioned these PowerBar Harvest bars to me awhile ago, and I’d bought one but hadn’t eaten it yet because it seemed too meal-like and calorie dense for me.  Which, thankfully is what I needed today.

It was good!  Very chewy and substantial.  I think I’d stash these in the meal-replacement/half-meal replacement bar category, but they’d be great for a breakfast on the road.

Then it was time to give the new shoes a spin.  I’m not going to lie, I was nervous.  It felt like a first date!  What if they were awkward and stiff and hurt my feet?  That’s $100 down the toilet right there.

Random: New Balance laces are SO LONG.  Also, I used Body Glide in both my arches.

But…my 3.5 miles went well!  At least shoe-wise.  My asthma was being crappy towards the end.  But 3.5 miles in 34:45!

Here are my random foot thoughts during the run:

• Mile 0-1: This is comfortable!  Yeah!
• Mile 1.5:  Hmm.  My shin is a little hurty.  (Flexes foot)  Better!
• Mile 2:  Right foot is a little numb.  Hmm.  (Wiggles toes) Better!
• Mile 3: My lungs suck.  But man, my feet feel great!

So, I’m reserving a little judgment just to be on the safe side, but I feel pretty good about these.  Then again, I felt good about the Sauconys at first, too…ugh.  We’ll see.  I have my first 10K on Sunday–that will be a big test!

Thank you all for your comments on the To Weigh or Not To Weigh post this morning.  (Lurkers too!) I think I’m going to stick with a roughly biweekly weighing schedule.   I’ll try to weigh myself twice a month.  I think that’s reasonable enough to help me stay on track, but not so much that I get stressed over it.

To keep with today’s theme-Lurkers (and old friends)–tell me about yourself!  What’s your name?  Where are you from?  Do you like pizza?

Progresso Soup Giveaway!

Yesterday’s lunch was most delicious.  Since it’s freezing, I’ve been into soup for lunch.  It’s incredibly filling and warms me right up!  When Progresso offered to send me some soup and a mug and a jump rope for free to review, I jumped at the chance.  And man, did they ever come through!

Thatsa lotta soup.  I will be nomming them all, except for the ones Tim gets to first, and the Manhattan Clam Chowder, which would send me into anaphylactic shock.

For lunch yesterday I had the Reduced Sodium Chicken Noodle.  It was quite good, and not devoid of flavor like many reduced sodium soups I’ve tried.  The veggies were nice and flavorful and there were big noodles and pieces of chicken.

Tim took the Chicken Barley in his lunch.  Never before have I seen him take soup in his lunch, so this was quite exciting.  He’s a sandwich guy.  Here is what he said about it:  “Good not great.  The vegetables were super mushy, which was not so good.  Taste was good, not too salty.  Overall, I’d give it a B.”

Note: Tim is the harshest reviewer I’ve ever met (he is brutal on Netflix), so if Tim gives something a B I would definitely give it a try.

Progresso is currently running the Progresso “Souper You” contest for one person to win a trip for two to New York City for a makeover!  For more info, head over to their website.  You’ll have to write a 200 word essay and submit a picture to be entered.

Even if you don’t want to enter, you can go there just to download a coupon for $1 off Progresso soups.  (A soup-on?)  Whee for soup!

Additionally, I can give away one Progresso gift pack containing two cans of soup, a fancy soup mug, and a jump rope to one Fit Bride reader. (Note: I don’t recommend jumping rope after eating soup.  Jump, then eat.  It’s very sloshy the other way around.)

THIS GIVEAWAY HAS ENDED.

To enter:

1. Leave a comment on this post about your favorite kind of soup.
2. Tweet about the giveaway, including a link (http://wp.me/pCOfh-pB) @thefitbride.
3. Blog about the giveaway and come leave a comment linking to the post.

Annnnd…go!

Living Single

Well, obviously not, since Tim and I are still happily together, but I’ve been living like a single girl for the day.  He won’t be home until tomorrow sometime, so I’m all by my lonesome (except for, you know, the two cats and dog).

Last night I made the brilliant realization that I could, in fact, cut two invitations at once with my paper cutter.  This means…I finished cutting them!  Now all I have to do is assemble them, which will entail gluing and stuffing the stuff in the pockets, and then putting them in the envelope.  I predict it will be annoying, but less annoying than cutting them.  My aunt will be calligraphying the envelopes, so once they’re in the envelopes they’re out of my hair (I hope.)

Thanks to my holiday baking, my lunch was in really random containers today.  I had soup in an old yogurt container, and my yogurt smash-up in a coffee mug!  Whoops.

Today I tried the Chobani honey at lunch.  It was good, but I didn’t get an overwhelmingly honey-y taste.  It just tasted like slightly sweetened Greek yogurt to me!

I also had plain old chicken noodle soup and crackers.  I don’t usually buy chips and crackers because, well, I eat them.  Rapidly.  My boss made me try these last week, though, and they were so good that I bought a box in a moment of weakness.  DEVIL CRACKERS, I tell you.   I will not be buying them–they’re too good!

Since Tim is gone, I had to rush home after work to un-crate Milhouse.  Poor guy had to be in an extra hour today and he was EXCITED.  I changed at work and we immediately went for a run in the freezing 17 degree temps.  Except…as soon as Milhouse had taken care of business, he immediately started pulling me home.  He was NOT interested in being hardcore, and since his housebreaking is still slightly questionable, I didn’t want to take him home and leave him alone.

So…enter plan C!  My Jillian Michaels workouts are on my computer that’s being fixed, so I decided to give my EA Sports game for the Wii a second chance.  My sister got me this for my birthday this summer, and I did it a few times but I remember being exceedingly frustrated by it.  It was either that or jog in place in my house, so I figured, what the heck.

Well, there’s a reason I stopped doing this.  I chose the “hardest” workout.  I had my Polar Heart Rate Monitor on…and I barely made it into the low end of my target range (127-167 bpm).   By contrast, when I run, I’m between 160-180 the whole time!  The tennis and baseball and inline skating were fun, but, well, not a workout for anyone who’s worked out within the last few months.  After 20 minutes, I got annoyed and stopped.  Some exercises, like the squat hold for a minute, were good, but others were SO. SLOW., like the lunges.  Snoozefest.  Also, the strap that attaches the nunchuk to your leg kept slipping off.  Also annoying.

Bottom line?  This game is better than sitting on the couch, but still not a substitute for a real workout.  But, it was the best I could manage tonight.  C’est la vie!

Anyhoo, I’m off to eat some more soup, watch more girly TV, and maybe work on invitations.  Maybe.

Don’t forget to enter my Chobani giveaway!  (Americans only, sorry guys!)

What do you think of video game workouts?  Any good ones I’m missing out on?

Iowa!

Hi from the road again!  I’m in and around Iowa this time, a place near and dear to my heart.  T and I met in Iowa and I will forever remember it as the place we spent one summer falling in love, the place we got engaged, and the place we started our happy little family together.  (Cats, people.  No babies.)   Driving around here reminds me of all the various things we did in our three years here together and it makes me sad that I’m by myself this time.

I made a breakfast cookie again this morning.  This time I used less milk and added dried cherries!  Yum.  It’s not to the point where I can pick it up and eat it yet, but I think the third time will be the charm.  (Unfortunately, I’m out of protein powder and will have to pick up more!)  I also used peanut butter, not almond butter, today, and I liked the flavor a lot better.  I like AB and PB, but I think sometimes they’re better suited to different things.

Anyway, when your job takes you through rural Missouri and Iowa, you see things like this–an entire aisle of jerky!  (I could not find a single snack in this gas station that didn’t scare the bejeezus out of me.)

I broke into an Almond Fudge Clif Bar instead.  I ate half at around 11 because I was getting hangry and had to work through the lunch hour!  I finished up around 1, and instead of hitting up Subway in the town I was in, I ate the other half of the bar and drove an hour to my alma mater’s town for the best tomato soup ever.  I didn’t eat until about 2, but it was worth the wait!  I had a cup of soup (their cup is huge), a piece of bread, and a bowl of watermelon and pineapple.  Annnd they just happened to have my favorite bar, so I picked one up for tomorrow’s snack!

I will be at five different colleges this week.  Because traveling makes me a little sad and I miss T and the animal crew, I decided to make others happy with Operation Beautiful notes on every campus!

College #1.  Please note my kicky red winter coat, which I lovelovelove.

(Bonus points: name that movie!)

College #2:

At College #2 I had a rapt audience of thousands:

Oh, wait.  Dammit.

The upshot of nobody attending was that I only stuck around waiting for SOMEONE to show up for half an hour…then I checked into my hotel and did half an hour of Jillian Michaels’ Banish Fat, Boost Metabolism in a tiny square of hotel room space.  See?  I would estimate this is about the size of a yoga mat.

I forgot my sports bra (TMI) and almost threw in the towel and didn’t work out.  And then I realized how ridiculous that was, and that skipping the workout because of something so minor was something the OLD me would have done.  The NEW me works out in a regular bra and just holds the girls in place on the extra bouncy parts!

Now, I am off to have pizza with an old friend from law school and I will likely spend the evening watching Glee and catching up with the backlog in my Google Reader.

What places always make you feel warm and fuzzy when you visit?

Emergency strategies

Sorry for the late posting today.  I got a summons for jury duty today, and I was expecting to be dismissed pretty quickly since I’m an attorney (albeit unemployed, but still).   I wrote a whole fun blog post from the iPhone WordPress app, and then somehow it didn’t publish and got eaten in the process.  So, here’s me trying to recreate that post.

Since I expected to get dismissed so early today, I didn’t bring a lunch.  Sure enough, lunchtime rolls around, and I’m still there.  Boo.  Unfortunately, I don’t live in sunny and healthy tofu and salad bar California and Florida like a lot of other food bloggers.  I live in the Midwest, in a town widely celebrated for its superb barbecued meat products.  My options for lunch were Panera, Subway, Chick-Fil-A, Arby’s, pizza, Chinese buffet, and Wendy’s.  Not exactly healthy!  I debated between Panera and Subway, the two places where I know I can do relatively okay and still get a decent meal, and chose Panera because soup sounded good.

I ended up getting a You Pick Two with chicken noodle soup (picked this over yummy creamy soup for the healthy factor) and a sandwich of just turkey and gouda on tomato basil bread.  (I don’t like veggies as condiments, I like them on their own, as side dishes or salads!)  I picked an apple for a side dish instead of a white baguette or potato chips.  I didn’t miss the bacon or creamy sauce that was supposed to come on the sandwich at all.  It had a lot of flavor, and wasn’t too bad calorie wise since I opted for half instead of whole and cut the gross stuff.

I only finished half the soup, because it was a little saltier than I like it.  (And yes, I do drink diet soda.  Unfortunately.  I’m trying to give it up so that I only drink it when I’m out for lunch or dinner, but it’s tough.  If it’s my only vice, I feel okay about it.  Nobody’s perfect!)

One thing I was also happy I did today was bring a snack.  I almost always throw some sort of bar in my purse before I leave the house in case I get a case of the hungries.  I love to snack, and I hate being without one.  I also keep bars in my car console for emergencies like this.  The key here is picking a kind of bar that travels well.  This means nothing with chocolate coating or icing on it, and nothing soft that will smush too much.  My favorites for this are Kashi chewy granola bars and Larabars.  Clif Kids bars work pretty well, but smush a bit.  Balance bars do not travel very well.  Here was my snack of choice today in my purse, a Kashi Peanut Peanut Butter chewy granola bar.  I ate it on a court recess around 3 p.m. and I was so glad I had it!

Please excuse the grainy iPhone pictures.

In the end, I wasn’t picked for the jury (not surprisingly), but I was a little disappointed because it sounded like a really interesting case.  I’m skipping the gym tonight because my body is telling me that it’s tired and I want to see T since I haven’t all day.  I’m not concerned–life happens, and I’ll still get in at least 4 good workouts this week, AND I was pretty active yesterday.  It’s all about balance!

What are your emergency strategies for when things don’t go according to plan?