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Sunday, June 23, 2013

Weekly Wrap Up

The week of June 17 - June 23.

Weekly Workout Summary
Monday: REST. Trying out rest days on Mondays lately. I typically have a harder time sleeping on Sunday nights, so getting up in the morning for a workout isn't ideal. And Mondays are always long days at work, right?

Tuesday: 4 mi @ 10:39. Outside in the morning. Not as bad as the morning has felt lately--not sure what was different? I wasn't as humid, and I think I wasn't as hungry.

Wednesday: 3.3 mi @ 10:34 on the treadmill. I did a normal-ish treadmill pace with six sprints thrown in. Followed by a strength workout--some at the gym, some bodyweight exercises with Dan once I got back!

Thursday: 60 minutes power vinyasa yoga in the park! That location near me that does the free Sunday morning yoga is starting a Thursday evening session too. It was so awesome--teachers from one of my favorite studios, really good, athletic flow, and a beautiful outdoors setting. Excited to go to this throughout the summer!

Yes I got up after class and took a picture. So cool.

Friday: 4.3 mi @ 10:37. Outside after work. It was warm out (~80*) but not as humid as it could have been, so this actually wasn't so bad.

Saturday: At-home strength session + 30 minutes yoga for runners from Yogadownload. I did another at-home strength session with Dan--I'm liking these! (Though I do know I should keep up heavy, in-the-gym lifting as well). We're doing something loosely modeled after the NYT seven minute workout.

Sunday: 5 mi @ 10:43 on the treadmill. I cut my long run short since this was the first week I returned to 4x per week of running since the end of April (!). So I didn't want to push myself too fast/increase my mileage too much.

Weekly mileage: 16.6 miles.

Felt pretty good about my workouts this week. Hoping to stick with the 4x a week running going forward--I know from past experience that it really does make a difference in my running!

Notable Eats
Nothing super exciting on the eating front during the week--lots of eggs for dinner. Here's a lunch of the week:

Salad with edamame, avocado, and blue cheese; whole wheat English muffin with cottage cheese
Dan and I did one of our wine and cheese nights on Saturday night. We do these probably too much, but whatever, they are delicious and awesome. The spread!:


I was particularly proud of that Caprese salad featured in the front. Made with basil grown on the porch! (attempt #2).

My plate:
Whiskey ginger in the background.  Toes in the foreground.

Life Events
Not a ton on this front. Had another low-key weekend, though not quite as purely fun as last weekend was. Started watching Scandal, which was a mistake. Though it is the perfect summer show--kind of campy, intriguing, and very addictive!

This week I need to start to get serious about doing a self-study economics class to prep for grad school in the fall. The summer is already starting to get away from me!

Thursday, June 20, 2013

Weekly Wrap Up

Trying to get back into this whole blogging thing...a belated weekly wrap-up of life events from last week! (June 10 - June 16).

Weekly Workout Summary

Monday: 30 min power vinyasa yoga podcast at home (from Yogadownload.com).

Tuesday: Rest.

Wednesday: 3.7 mi @ 11:06 pace. Outside in the morning. Struggling to get outside for my runs recently, so I was glad I got out there, even if it was slow.

Thursday: Rest.

Friday: 3.5 mi @ 10:45 pace on the treadmill in the AM. Followed by a strength session.

Saturday: 60 minute detox flow yoga at home (again Yogadownload.com. Bought a subscription recently--thoughts to come!). This was a really good sweaty flow.

Sunday: 6.2 mi @ 10:48...on the treadmill. Woomp woomp. And honestly, this makes 3/4 of my last "long" runs that I've done on the 'mill. Not ideal. I just don't do well in the heat/humidity and just refuse on principle to run in the rain. Snow and cold? Sure. But rain is miserable and so is the mugginess. Maybe if I was training for something it'd be a different story, but for now, this works!

Not my best week, but fairly typical as of late. Just having a hard time getting motivated lately to really push-push-push every day. But I am pleased I'm getting in some morning workouts!

Notable Eats

Dan and I did loaded baked potatoes for the week--cooked up a bunch on Sunday and ate them all week long. I made tempeh to go along with it (Dan did BBQ pork). Really tasty!

Please note that those chives are from my haven't-killed-it-yet chive plant on the porch.
Coughdon'taskaboutthebasil.

Saturday's eats were quite notable as well, as featured below!

Life Events

Saturday featured pretty much all my favorite things in life: the farmers' market, the pool, finishing a good book, date night with Dan, and way too many desserts.

I visited the Falls Church farmers' market for the first time--oh man, was it awesome. I had only been to other local smaller markets, but this is the real star of the show in NoVA.

Also, there were fresh, made-right-in-front-of-you doughnuts. Amazing.

With a toppings bar to boot. Oh hello caramel. 
Here's my haul--not a ton, but a lot of veggies and some eggs and cheese! It appears that berries aren't quite in season here yet--only saw one or two vendors with them and they were pricey. I'm hoping it is the case that they aren't quite here yet...hoping I didn't miss the season!


For lunch I cooked up some farm fresh eggs. It was crazy how orange the yolks were.

And the afternoon featured lots of pool laziness, reading on the porch, and sweating it out with that 60 min detox flow referenced above. Awesome afternoon!

Porch chair boat. Please excuse the extremely dorky PJ shorts with words on them.
Topped with an equally amazing night. Went out to dinner at the new(ish) Matchbox in Merrifield. Dan and I had gone once before and loved it just as much this second time. Just a really nice relaxing date night featuring delicious food!

Eager beaver.

Handsome date!

Why yes, we did share that dessert trio featured in the bottom right.
Yes, it features more doughnuts.
No, I don't want to talk about how many doughnuts I had that day. 

I told Dan at the end of the day that it seriously felt like my birthday. It was a day full of relaxing things I love and delicious eats.  Great Saturday!

Monday, June 3, 2013

There Goes May

Ah well
Best intentions, or something, right? I posted a big fat goose egg during all of May. So what have I been up to?

Work. Mostly this. I'm coming off a month+ period where I was pulling ~60 hour weeks (including a fair amount of weekend time too). And I know you lawyer-types are rolling your eyes at those paltry hours, but I found it tough. I think a lot of it was the high-intensity nature of the work--constantly go-go-go, finish the next thing. barking orders, etc. Too stressful. Things are still fairly busy, but feeling a lot more manageable and at a less frenetic pace. I'm glad to be back to normal with my <50 hour weeks (funny what a difference 10 hours feels like!).

Working out. I kept up what felt like a reasonable amount of physical activity during the crazy work period. Sometimes this looked like only two short runs and a yoga session all week. Others it was three runs, two strength sessions, and two shorter, at-home yoga sessions (five days total--combined strength + run on two days). The latter was more typical. It wasn't quite what I had planned, but it gets the job done. A week ago I did my longest run to date since the 10-miler--8.3 miles. I averaged a 10:33 min/mi pace, which is pretty good for me! So I don't feel like I'm losing too much running fitness with this pared down schedule. I've also starting making a concerted effort to workout in the morning. I'm only doing it a couple times a week, but it really helps--both heat-wise and work-wise. I'm hoping to keep this habit up!

I struggled during this phase with vacillating between two minds: 1) Work is hard! Don't make life harder by making yourself workout more. You've had a rough week; sitting on the couch all day is totally appropriate. 2) MUST DO ALL THE WORKOUTS. Because if you miss one workout, you know how you are--all or nothing. Slippery slope back to non-runner-dom and gaining the weight back.

Ultimately, I tried to force my mind to settle on option 3): do what you can, but don't kill yourself. Working out is a great stress reliever, and you know you feel better if you do it--but don't hesitate to give yourself a break. It was harder than I thought to actually achieve this mindset, but I think I was able to act in a moderately even if I still think in extremes.

Eats. More of the same. Proud of myself for not relying too much on eating out/frozen foods/etc. during the time. I relied on lots of repetition--cook one big meal on Sunday night, eat it for dinner through Wednesday. Breakfast and lunch were mostly the same (oatmeal and salad, respectively). Though I definitely accrued more Starbucks stars than usual!

Life. Lots of good stuff here. Family time, Dan time, friends time. Made some progress on cleaning/cleaning out/fixing my wardrobe holes. And some apartment decor improvements assisted by my mom. Made some life decisions (we are going to stay in our apartment for a while longer, got a new phone!), put off some others. But things feel pretty good.