AND SHE'S BACK

WOW it's been a long time. Not that my last workout was way back in April, or anything. I just haven't been updating this blog for life reasons. But I figure it's time to get serous about things and get back into it.

Life/workout updates:

1. I went to Canada for yoga teacher training and had an amazing, life-changing experience. Truly incredible. However, that month was so physically exhausting on the yoga/brain end of things that side workouts I had planned, like keeping up my marathon training and doing a weekly Bodyrock on my day off, did not happen. I was just a zombie, physically. It was basically 4:45am - 11pm, every day but Saturday, nonstop for a month, and each of those days had 4 hours of hot yoga asana. My body literally rebelled when I tried to toss in a run here and there so I just stuck to a weekly 3-miler to at least keep my body used to the CONCEPT of running and left it at that.
2. Upon return, I got immediately back into marathon training because I'd missed a whole month. Then I promptly broke my right pinky toe. Holy shit it took forever to heal (and actually still tweaks on longer runs). I was effectively benched running-wise for another month.
3. Cue August and me starting to panic about marathon training. I put together a revised training schedule and if I stick to it EXACTLY then I might just make it through the marathon without collapsing/dying/barfing/any of the above.
4. Last week or so: right knee has decided to put up a fight about all this running. It feels both stiff and loose at the same time and snaps ominously every time I go up stairs or do a squat. There's no pain as of yet, and I have a little knee support sleeve for running now, but I am basically walking around in terror that it's going to blow at any moment. We'll see what happens.
5. Thanks to all the running and a long car trip up to Canada and back, I've made it through books 1-3 of A Song of Ice and Fire, and am now on A Feast of Crows. It's a different guy reading it all of the sudden, but he doesn't pronounce Brienne's name correctly, either (he does say Petyr right, though, that's a plus).

So, where am I at, workout-wise? Pretty bad, actually. In an effort not to completely exhaust myself, I've been running and doing yoga and that's pretty much it. I feel like I'm gaining weight, though--which makes sense, due to the increased steady state cardio and necessary carb intake that goes with it--so I've decided to start throwing in some Bodyrocks and other stuff occasionally.

No run this morning, so I took River to the dog park and came back to do a Bodyrock. Holy shit I'm out of shape. Not a month ago, I was saying on the 14 Day Challenge blog that Bodyrocks were getting easier. No more! Shit it was hard. It was 20 minutes of 10/50 second intervals, with 10 exercises in a circuit done twice. I knew I only had time to do the circuit once, and even that one time through was really fricking hard. I just felt like I had no energy. Also, there was a lot of squatting and lunging involved in this one, and all I could think about was that it was going to make my five-mile hill workout tomorrow brutal and that was going to be awful and oh god why am I putting myself through this marathon nonsense? Couple that with the terrifying snapping of my knee on each squat and it was a pretty bad workout, all told.

I followed up my workout with a shake of whey protein, a fig, frozen blueberries and strawberries, coconut milk, and an egg. In my lunchbox I packed two burgers, some romaine leaves for buns, some cheese, 3 hardboiled eggs, some baby carrots, and some greek yogurt with more berries. In case you didn't notice, my fruit intake has increased a bit form the usual. Just me trying to pack in the carbs for running in the healthiest way I can. I've also become a Cream of Rice convert. I kind of can't wait till this marathon is over and I never have to eat a carbohydrate ever again.

Lotsa running

This past weekend was very busy with friends, errands, and enjoying the outdoors, so I didn't get a lot of focused working out in. I did, however, do a quick 21-15-9 workout of pullups, pushups, and air squats on Saturday before I went to dinner and a movie, then a 3-mile trail run along the Potomac yesterday just before the thunderstorm. Actually, partly during the thunderstorm. It was pretty funny; the sky goes from clear blue and shining hot sun to black in a matter of minutes, and just as I come back out at the trailhead by the river (still about a mile from my house), thunder and lightning occur maybe five miles away. I start sprinting toward home. All of a sudden, the relatively clear road becomes a traffic jam of runners converging from trailheads at all sides of the park, sprinting for the hills. I had just made it to the last block before my street when the wind suddenly went crazy and pouring rain started pelting me sideways. So, I almost made it in before the storm. It was a pretty fun run.

We had an amazing Easter dinner of buffalo burgers on lettuce "buns" with bacon, tomato, and red onions. I also added thinly-sliced jalapeno that I fried in the bacon fat, plenty of sriracha chili sauce, and sliced mango. It was DELICIOUS, although it could have been even spicier. I was going for four-alarm spice and it was only at about a medium. We had mango, banana, and strawberries in coconut milk for dessert.

This morning I was up bright and early to take River to the park. Then I got back, hydrated, caffeinated, and did another 3 miles, on the park roads instead of trails this time (my shoes got really muddy yesterday). It was HOT, but that's about a billion times better than cold, so I'm not complaining.

Today's Crossfit looks awesome and the Bodyrock still isn't up, so I'll probably do Crossfit later before my rescue shift. (If I can get all my work done--I have a ton to do.) Will update later.