200+ Slimmin' Down in Spring!

Morning ladies!

Well, I'm feeling pretty chipper this morning and pretty proud of the amount of exercise I did yesterday. 2 walks with Emma, a 4 mile run, and hill workout with the group. I had even flirted with the idea of doing the insanity fit test last night, but quickly realized I was, pun only partially intended... insane! So that'll be what I do when I get home today... possibly, if I'm feeling up to it, I might then do the first workout, but we'll see.

My knees hurt today, but I don't think it's from the running. I have faceplanted and slipped so many times over the past few weeks with the ice and such, my knees have taken the brunt of the falls, and yesterday, I tripped and fell again on them during my 4-milers. Ugh.

So, my first group workout went okay. Not as good as I would have thought. It was supposed to be the normal 501 group, which has been training for a spring marathon (this weekend is their 20miler), and my sub-501 group, training for the dx-aa half marathon, but I don't know if it's because I got there early, or peeps didn't show, but I was with all the veterans, and I was not at the same level! Met some nice women, but most people were just flying by me, which was a bit frustrating, but the coaches were motivating me along. Hill would be a nice term for what we had to do. First it was about a half mile jog to get to said "hill" and then, we had to run up it... it zig zagged at a very steep incline. I would only be able to get about 2/3 of the way up before I would have to powerwalk, and I tell you... never breathed so hard in my life.... and I though I wheezed bad the first week of c25k! Made me feel really out of shape, but I know I'm not at the same level as the other folks, so I shouldn't compare myself to them. Did the small loop and did the hill 3 times, and then jogged my way back. I tell you, after that hill, the jog back to my car was a breeze. I figure it was probably about 2.5ish miles total. I was only gone about 40mine, but that still put me at 6-7 miles run yesterday... WAY more than I have been. I hope I'm not horrendously sore tomorrow. I was okay this morning.

Trying to also work on the eating. Went grocery shopping last night and got the fixings for salads to bring to work-- chickpeas (my fav), peppes, cucumbers, carrots, etc. Chopped them up this morning, so they should be ready to throw into a salad pretty easily for future mornings this week. Have a greek yogurt (chobani lemon-- new flavor- excited to try!) and an apple to have as well. Had crockpot oatmeal this morning with a tbsp of freshly ground honey roasted peanut butter (to die for!).

Kendal- glad you got your workout on last night. Yay She-Ra power!!

Drea- stress can be so hard for staying on top of things. Glad you were able to still get a workout in. *high fives*

Amy- glad detox is going well! keep it up! Hope your headache improves! You don't think it's caffeine withdrawal, right?

wichelle- I hope your back feels better soon. And, way to spin it as a positive, that yes, just because your back is giving you problems, there's no excuse to slack off on the eating front! You'll need to be even more diligent with that!

Welcome vanofferen! congrats on your weight loss so far!

Amy- I tend to throw a fair bit of crushed red pepper to give the soup a bit of a kick as well. I'm hioping with my running group that this weekend's long run will have more people with my new group that I can run with.

Sarahthes- jumping BMI categories is HUGE! I can't wait until I finally drop to overweight, which at one point was only about 7 pounds away, but is not more like 15 *grumbles*. May I just say that being short SUCKS! I know it's just a number, but it feels so good to know you've gone down. Congrats!

Kendal- I don't really know the difference between the 2. I just thrown salt in. haha. Thanks for the kind words about the running group. I know I shouldn't compare myself to the others... and I'm trying not to, because there's really no comparison. There aren't THAT many ingredients in the soup, but I'll have to work on finding some even simpler recipes you can make in my arsenal. I try to pick out recipes I want to make for the week and write all the ingredients down on my shopping list and try and make it that evening... or leave those recipes out on the counter, so I know they're specific to that recipe. It's not too bad... organization helps! I am not very creative when I pick up stuff and don't know what to make with it.

Well, I'm off shortly to the clinic to see a couple of patients, and will stop at Starbucks on the way for a skinny caramel macchiato.. my 100cal treat to myself. Will make the lentil soup tonight, and will get at least some form of my insanity on, so I should be good on the calorie front.

ETA: if anyone's interested in making the soup, I did sparkpeople's recipe calorie calculator, and this should be pretty accurate. 1/6 of the recipe is only 217 calories and loaded with nutritional goodies! I added it to the food database as well (annarbor.com-curried lentil soup), so you don't have to guesstimate when you make it

Marian- welcome! That's great that you started running!! What full marathon did you sign up for? I'd love to run one full marathon in my life, but I want to wait until I speed up more. Hopefully sooner than later I'll be ready. Both Victoria and I started running in fall/winter of 2009 and ran a half-marathon together in October of 2010 and it was great! She's training for another half in April, and I'm training for one in June. Good luck!

Victoria- glad you see you check in! Way to go getting a workout in, despite being hella busy!

Lacey- that curry sounds pretty amazing! you're always eating such amazing food and I always drool at it.

Bethany- welcome back! We missed you! And holy inch loss batman! Fab!

So my training coach customized my half training plan to accommodate the fact that I really only wanted to run 4 times a week, and I am no where at the total amount of miles that the default training plan is (I'm at 10 vs. the default of 20). Basically, as the weeks go on, I"m only running 4 times a week (versus the 5 of the default), but she has me at the end pretty much running the same total amount of miles as the default, so I have longer short runs, but the default plan has them running more often. I eventually get to a max of 30 miles a week. Last time I trained, I think my longest week was 22 miles, so it'll be interesting! My longest run is actually 14, so if I hit that, it'll be the longest I've ever run AND the 13 will be a cinch! The longest the default plan is is 12 mile run, so I'm actually running further. Looking forward to another run though tomorrow. Let's hope my legs don't ache! I've got a 4 milers and I think I'll have to do it in the morning (UGH) if I plan on doing day 2 of insanity. Break up the workouts to make them manageable.

So, I did the insanity fit test. It was HARD. Some moves I really just couldn't do, or wasn't doing them to the form that they were doing it on the video. So I think as time goes on, my number of reps for the fit test might not go up a ton, but I'll be able to do more correctly. Amy, what was your experience with it?

Well, I'm off to eat my lentil soup (y'all will have to let me know what you think of it--- crushed red pepper, yo!), watch the wire (thank you netflix) and the dvr'ed biggest loser from last night.