Step up, you hungry beast!

It's day 5 and I realized that when I'm in my office, I sit on my a$$ way too much. But unfortunately there isn't much that I can do about that other than make unnecessarily trips to the bathroom or the copier. It's a small office and there isn't a need to walk to the offices of the other two people that work in this office to chat (unless I wanted to unnecessarily distract them from their own work, which I'm too busy to do anyways).

But yesterday I hit the "step" jackpot. I worked out of our headquarters. It's a large office where everything and everyone is spread out. I was also incredibly busy (one week from today until my largest event that I manage.) so I wasn't at my desk for more than a 1/2 hour at a time. That means that I racked up 3700 steps as opposed to just 2600 on Wednesday. That doesn't even count the steps I get for other activities.

It was a two-a-day workout day for me. Since I had to drive to our headquarters (1+ hour away), I didn't have time to complete the tri team's swim practice, which is usually from 6 am to about 7 am. Knowing I wanted to be out of the water at 6:30 am though, I was in the pool and swimming but 5:50. Holy early swimming, Batman. I don't know how my friends with kids do it. Several of them run in the crazy early morning to run before their kids even wake up. Anyhoooo...I got in 1050 yards before it was time to head out.

When I got out of the water, the coach showed me a video on his phone that he took of our team swimming. He mentioned that I have decent arm extension (reeeeeaching out in front of my body as far as I can, to be looooong in the water) but sometimes I don't follow through with my stroke. He's mentioned that before and sometimes its hard to figure out what that means without seeing it. So I saw it with my own eyes. I start to reach before I have pulled through the water completely. And I'll tell you exactly why I do it. Because pulling your arm all the way under your body and down your side is HARD. All of that resistance of the water makes your arm muscles work overtime. And I have very weak in my upper body. Obviously I know that's where I need some work.

I'm also starting to think I have a "lucky fin" because when I try to do my kicking drills on my left side...I zigzag my way down the lane. I can't swim in a straight line for anything while on my left side. I must be all wonky somewhere. Abs? One stronger leg? A little fin?

Swimming in a zigzag isn't very efficient and is NOT a good idea when I'm in the middle of something like this:


My second workout of the day was with the TNT marathon teams. We had an amazing turnout despite the rain showers that were rolling through town at 6:00 pm. I absolutely hate rain but the skies looked like they were starting to lighten up so I headed out to the park. It started to sprinkle lightly as we got started but by the time I finished, it started to pour. I felt bad for those that were doing longer miles because I know they were stuck in it. I was pretty gross by the time I finished but I got in a decent 3 miles.

I ran the first 1/2 mile but then did a run/walk combo for the next mile with a new participant. She just signed up to run the Nike Women's 1/2 Marathon with our team. She was nervous and was pretty sure she couldn't even run a mile. We reassured her that each week would get easier and easier. And it was nice to have someone to run slow with me! Once she finished, I headed out with some alumni to get in another mile. It's so much easier to run with someone else! It's hard to find people as slow as I am though but that's ok. I'll keep plugging away.

Here's the food news from yesterday:
5:15 am/on the couch with my eyes closed: Light, Multi-Grain English Muffin with Olivio spread and a glass of grape juice.
7:30 am/in my car on the way to work: Tim Horton's Multi-grain bagel with veggie cream cheese and a medium Pepsi. I also drank an entire sports bottle of water. Let's just say that by the time I got to our headquarters an hour and a half later, I had to GOOOOO!!!
12:00 pm/Applebees with some co-workers: 1/2 portion of 3-cheese penne, tomato basil soup, bread stick and lots of water.
5:15 pm/in the car on the way to training: Cadbury Caramel Egg. Note to self-this is NOT enough to fuel a 3-miler. I was HUNGRY!
7:30 pm/on the couch while listen to The Pilot tell me about his day: PB & J (multi-grain bread with extra protein/flax), natural crunchy peanut butter and fruit only spread-not as good as my usual jam but it's also much healthier), Triscuits with colby-jack cheese and about 1.5 cups of pineapple. I LOVE fresh cut pineapple.

I had a crazy craving for a Dairy Queen Blizzard but I was too lazy to get one. I tried to get The Pilot to go get one for me but he just asked "do you really want to have to write that down in your book AND on your blog." Well played, Pilot, well played. I might have another two-a-day on Saturday and if so, I will be getting a Blizzard. I don't care who I have to tell about it!

I was still hungry when I went to bed (I blame the swimming) but I didn't want to eat right before I went to bed. The result though....I woke up STARVING this morning. How do I balance the swimming hunger with trying to lose weight??

Total step count, including my workouts, 24,580! Not bad considering that I spend 3 hours in the car yesterday.