Monthly Archives: February 2013

6 x 400s at Lululemon Run Club

Let’s follow up yesterday’s sort of serious post about “listening to your body” with something lighter, eh?

Last night I ran my heart out, and it was awesome.

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Wait, one more because Jen somehow got cropped out.

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My buddy and coach Jess was coaching, and her workout for the group happened to be exactly what she had on my schedule. So sneaky.

We met at the E. 66th Street Lululemon and ran approximately .8 to the park to warm up.

It was nearly 7pm, and dark, when we got to the park, so we started at the bottom of the Great Lawn, smack dab in the middle, and ran up to the top, which is .25 a mile. We’d run up counter-clockwise to recover, and run all-out on the clockwise. Six times.

I fumbled with my Garmin as I started, and I ended up further back in the pack than I would have liked to have been and the super-competitive side of me got really frustrated. How did so many people get ahead of me? By the second 400 though, I looked over and saw Gia next to me and my perspective suddenly changed. Wait, Gia? Running even with me? She’s FAST!

Splits: 1:20, 1:19, 1:19, 1:18, 1:19, 1:18 — that’s a pace of 6:09ish!! When I saw that after the first one, I was very very happy. I only timed the 400s, so I don’t know our times or mileage total, but Ashley‘s DailyMile says we ran about 4, and that sounds about right.

As we ran out of the park on our cooldown, I chatted with Jess and told her that I didn’t like her very much this week. I had a really crappy tempo run on Monday, and last night’s workout was killer. “Good,” she said. “You should hate me this week.” (The race is in two weeks.)

What’s your favorite kind of speedwork? As painful as 400s or 800s are–and moreso, the recovery–I like them a lot better than trying to hold a tempo pace for miles at a time.

On “Listening to Your Body”

“Listening to your body” is a phrase that’s wholly overused in the blog world for myriad reasons: not eating much, eating too much, not exercising enough, exercising too much.

I’m sure I’ve been guilty of it a few times myself, but I try not to use this phrase. Why? If I listened to my body, it would tell me to sit on the couch and order Chinese food and drink a glass (or three) of wine.

Four years ago, I decided to change my life for the healthier. That meant more exercise, and less takeout. That went well, and I lost 50 pounds.

Since reaching my goal weight three years ago, every single day is a fight to make the healthier choice. Most of the times I do, but not always. I really like wine, bagels and French fries and never want to cut any of those things out of my diet 100%.

There’s been a lot going on the past few months, and you could say I’ve been “listening to my body.” My body said “drink more wine, eat more crap, exercise less.” I listened to my body.

I went on two awesome trips in the past few months, and I brought back some more weight from both of them, and then there’s some of the life baggage that is currently taking up residence on my stomach and thighs.

I stepped on the scale on Monday morning, and it said a higher number than I’ve seen in a longer time: 148. That’s 9 pounds higher than what my original goal weight was, and about 13 pounds higher than my ultimate lowest weight. I generally don’t freak out about my weight much (oh hai gaining 50 pounds between 2001-2009), but seeing a 9-pound weight gain made me a bit nervous. Nervous that it would be a slow slide back to where I came from. That I would be one of those statistics of people who lost a lot of weight and gained it all back.

Let’s just say I’ve been very social lately, and that I love wine. Well, that loving wine has led to, quite honestly, a lot of poor food choices, on top of wine not being the healthiest choice in the world.

I know that alcohol (and certainly wine, with lots of sugar) can contribute to bloat, so I’ve been trying to eat as many whole foods and few processed foods this week and stay away from the wine.

This morning I got on the scale, and it read 143. HOLY BLOAT. I was holding on to at least 5 pounds of water weight from poor food choices. I’d still like to lose a few more pounds, because I also just feel mushy around the edges. I’m not going to do anything crazy, but just continue to be cognizant of making healthy decisions and taking care of myself

Moral of the story: weight maintenance ain’t always easy, wine bloats you like crazy, I cannot actually “listen to my body,” because my natural inclinations are not to be healthy, and it is a battle I fight every day. Some days I lose the battle, but I won’t lose the war.