running | Preppy Runner - Theodora Blanchfield

I’ve been thinking since Wednesday (you know, Ash Wednesday) about what I’m going to give up for Lent. With an Irish father and Italian mother, I was most definitely raised Catholic. While I don’t usually go to church on my own (despite best intentions), I still consider myself Catholic and plan on raising kids (someday) at least Christian, if not Catholic.

Anyway, in my quest to lose 50 pounds, I cut back on pretty much everything I was eating at the time, because most of it had little nutritional value. Buttered rolls for breakfast? Out. Chicken parm sandwiches for lunch? Out. Chicken pad see yew for dinner? Out. I don’t eat white bread/rice/pasta very often any more. I don’t eat fried food all that often. I don’t eat much dairy. I don’t have that many sweets. I’ve already given up a LOT.

So when it came to thinking about giving something up for Lent, I was frankly having a hard time. There was nothing I thought I could realistically give up without being bitter about it. (Thinking about giving up something for Lent while PMSing is HARD, yo.) I originally thought about giving up coffee, but giving up a 13-year-old addiction seemed like an insurmountable task.

This morning, I decided. I’m going to give up putting sugar in my coffee. It’s not a huge thing to give up, but it’s something that’s realistic and something I’ve tried to do for a while, without fail. Especially because I still put Sweet ‘N’ Low in my coffee. I want to see what getting rid of this last vestige of everyday sugar does to me. (If anything.)

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This morning, I went for my usual breakfast of sunflower butter, an English muffin and a banana. I got Dunkin’ Donuts coffee because it’s a little sweeter, so I hoped that it would make the transition to sugarless coffee a little easier. After all these years of drinking coffee with sugar, without tastes kinda weird. It tastes like…coffee. Who knew?

Speaking of Thomas’ English muffins…I have an announcement!

I found out this morning that Thomas (as in the muffin people!) will be providing me with a free race entry for the More/Fitness Half Marathon! For astute observers, yes, that does mean I am running three halfs in a row. My plan is to run the first one, NYC, hard–like sub-2:00 hard (fingers crossed) and run the second two as if they were just fun long runs.

Do you think I’m crazy???

After skipping Tuesday’s run, I didn’t have high hopes for today’s. I dawdled at work until I just couldn’t work any more, and finally I meandered over to the gym.

They were doing a chiropractic screening, and I thought that would be another interesting way to procrastinate my workout. He poked at my shoulders and lower back, and everything was tight. (I need a massage and yoga so badly right now.) He told me that my pelvis was slightly tilted. (Which Joel had also told me before…because Joel is a damn good trainer who knows his stuff.)

There was a trainer tag-teaming the screening with the chiropractor, and I asked the trainer what he thought I could do for the lower back pain/tilted pelvis. He suggested doing a kneeling twist. You kneel on one knee, and twist in the opposite direction with your opposite arm up. He also suggested a runner’s lunge stretch. He did not, however, suggest finding a male partner to help me untilt my pelvis. Weird.

My workout:

1 mile: running at 6.0 on the treadmill

5 minutes: 6.5

5 minutes: 6.0

5 minutes: 6.6

5 minutes: 6.0

(At this point, I was at roughly three miles and so ready to be done, so I switched up the planned workout. I should have just done another five and five, but…)

2 minutes: 6.8

2 minutes: 6.0

2 minutes: 6.9

2 minutes: 6.0

2 minutes: 7.0

I was supposed to do a mile cooldown, but because I mixed up the intervals, I was actually at around 4.3 instead of 4 by the end of 40 minutes, so I just cooled down for about 0.7 miles. I was still itching to get off the treadmill, so I just kept moving the speed around between 6.0-6.4 so I could get it done. After this workout and a relatively long week at work, I had no desire to cook. Whatsoever. I remembered Jess had tweeted about Energy Kitchen a few days ago, and I had kind of wanted it ever since. I actually used to get it pretty often back when I was first trying to lose weight. That is, until Pump opened. Pump (in my opinion) is a lot less bland than Energy Kitchen. Still, it sounded good to me tonight after a hard workout.