Boulder Goals

I am not sure what it is about training for a 10K that has caused my diet to rapidly race downhill…but it has happened. You would think it would have the reverse effect. I know I’m always the one getting made fun of for eating healthy…but what most people fail to realize is that I also am great at eating terrible too. My friend LeRon was telling my friend Katie about this the other day. She was raving about how healthy I eat and he laughed at her and said “She just eats healthy in front of you. When she’s away from the office, she knows how to eat pretty bad.” Busted.

Perhaps it is because the weather is warming up and so is my social life? I have had more beers (and I am NOT a beer person) in the past month than I probably had in a whole year prior. (Please realize it doesn't take a lot to reach this milestone in the first place, lol.) I’ve also mastered wings from Buffalo Wild Wings and Hooters…and they weren’t grilled. I have an affinity for Ledos Pizza and felt so terrible after eating their for lunch the other day with my friend Gabe that I skipped dinner, with the exception of a banana (I really wasn’t even hungry), and ran a couple miles after work…in addition to the 4 I ran at 6am that day.

Sometimes I think I’m just paranoid that I’m going to wind up irreversibly overweight… sometimes I wonder if it is society’s cruel way of making us all feel completely imperfect in all the wrong ways… and sometimes I just wonder if it is a mental complex I have as a single female. The constant worry and nagging at myself. At age 31, I think I’m pretty good at knowing what style and type of clothing looks good on me…what I can wear to hide my “flaws” and what I can wear to show off my “good parts”. Thank god for genetics and my long legs…I should be okay in that category…at least until the varicose veins begin.

Anyway, I haven’t been lifting weights much this past month. Mainly because I’ve been focusing on my running for this 10K. 6.2 miles may not seem like a lot to you, but with a herniated disk that never seemed to go away, it will be a big accomplishment for me. My goal is to finish the race without walking…and while a final race time under an hour would be great, I really don’t know if I’ll be able to keep a steady 10:00 pace in a pack of a billion people. Okay, well maybe my excuse is more so that the race is at 5,000+ feet above sea level. I joked with some friends last night that perhaps I should have been training more by breathing only through a drinking straw to condition my lungs to have limited oxygen. …the joke didn’t last long when my trial run, involving no exercise – simply standing and breathing through the straw, only lasted about a minute. Lol.

After the race is complete Monday, my goal is going to be to get back on a regular weights/cardio routine again. There are a bunch of friends of mine in the football office that work out each morning at either 6 or 6:30am. Totally sucks – but would be motivating to workout with others and I could get a run (depending on the day, they rotate between jogging, sprints and stadium steps) in and even lift weights afterwards before my day even begins. I met them one day last week to run and loved getting it out of the way for the day. However, those of you that know me well, realize that the only issue with this is my sleep, lol. I need a solid 7-8 hours of sleep each night or I turn into a Halloween costume wearing a black robe, a black pointy hat and holding a broom. LOL. I will need to be in bed by 10:00pm each night which is doable sometimes…but probably not all of the time.

I am also considering going back on the nutrition plan I did 2 summers ago before Vegas. It focuses completely on protein and fresh fruits and vegetables. Foods with preservatives are off limits. So are a lot of carbs. It can be a bit pricey and also involves eating 4-5 meals a day which gets to be a pain….but is also good mentally to be on a plan and follow through with it. The bonus is actually not being embarrassed to pull out the 2 piece swimsuit on a hot, sunny day. Now that I “publicly” put it in my blog, perhaps I now have to at least give it a try? Start date can be June 1 with a finish date of July 4…or at least my first checkpoint.

One last thing I plan on beginning again when I complete the Bolder Boulder is professional reading. My goal is to, at least 3 days a week, come to work 30 minutes earlier than I usually do. I will shut my door, keep my computer off, and spend that time reading a chapter in the current selected “professional” book. I did this previously with the book “The Speed of Trust” and really felt the routine helped me focus and start my day off on the right foot. It is worthless for me to even attempt reading these types of books before bedtime because they don’t provide enough entertainment and suspense for me…so that time will be reserved for my guilty pleasure readings…

Of course, all of this is easier said than done. I’ll have to post an honest blog again regarding this topic in a month and admit to whether or not I followed through with any of the above. Until then, I’ve got a 10K to run, breathing through a drinking straw. Wish me luck!