The HeadDesk Dance

I am so tired I can hardly see straight.

Source

Yesterday I worked from 11am until 3am this morning. Oy.

First, I worked until 8 with my Girl Scouts, then I went into the store where I keep a part time job and did floor set from 9pm until almost 3am (today starts our big sale).

I count the floorset as my crosstraining for this week. 5 hours of lifting, unpacking, repacking, restocking heavy boxes of lotions/sprays/soaps/shower gels/candles/etc, definitely counts as weight-lifting and cardio. At least I feel just as sore as I would had I done 5 hours of cross training at the gym.

Speaking of the gym- I was supposed to go this morning at 5:45am, but for some odd reason, I slept through my alarm. I feel horrible because I was supposed to meet a friend there, but she forgave me for not showing up. So, instead of only getting 2 and a half hours of sleep, I managed to get about 5- yay! Needless to say, I'm running on empty today. I have another crazy long and busy day tomorrow, so I'm going to make my way through work and then probably head to bed early. We will see how this day plays out.

Before I *head-desk* myself, let me also toss in that I did my 4 mile run on sunday. It was the hottest day of the week (of course), but I still managed to do 4 miles in a little over 55 minutes. I'm still incredibly shocked by that and I don't know how accurate it is, but according to DailyMile and my watch, that's what I did. So, WOOHOO!

Where, Oh Where, Has My Motivation Gone?

I'm depressed.

That about sums up the past few days of my life. I have no real reason to be depressed- my boyfriend is amazing and probably the sweetest guy on the planet, my job is time-consuming but fulfilling and fun, my family and friends are all healthy, finances are starting to straighten out... so, why am I depressed?

Because, despite all these other wonderful things, I've lost my motivation to do anything.
I've kept up with my bikini body boot camps, but I haven't done any other workouts. LAME.
I go to bed every night and think "tomorrow I'm going to get up and run", I even set my alarm and lay out my clothes. But, when that buzzer goes off, I reset my alarm and go back to bed. I can't seem to drag myself up and out. Not even down to the living room to do a quick workout video or anything. Ugh! I'm so frustrated with myself, I could seriously spit!

I keep giving myself little goals:

Run 50 miles and I will treat myself to a full body massage.
Get under 200 and I can have a shoe shopping spree.
Run any distance today and have an ice cream.

But, nothing seems to do the trick. I even keep trying to visualize different things to get myself going:

Being skinnier for my 10 year high school reunion.
Being a size 14 for 2013.
Losing another 10 pounds for summer.

Nothing. It's as if my brain gets what I'm telling it but my body refuses to take the message.
*sigh* I don't know. I'm at a loss. I was excited a bit yesterday because I bought something in a size 14/16 and it felt a little lose, but then some of my old clothes don't seem any bigger on me. And this morning I hopped on my boyfriend's scale. It said I had gained 15 pounds. I burst into tears. He tried to console me and tell me that the leg on one of the sides is broken so the numbers are wrong, but I know it's a lie. How did I gain 15 pounds in 2 weeks?! It's not like I've been stagnant- I'm still always up and about with work and rehearsals. I haven't even been eating as much because I don't always have the time to eat. Maybe that's part of the problem- maybe my wacky eating habits are killing me.

Either way, I just feel as if I worked so hard to get down to 207 and now this. I'm taking gigantic steps backwards and I don't know what to do. Even now, I just want to cry. I want to go to the gym while I'm still angry at myself but I'm literally working/rehearsing until goodness knows when tonight. And I want to wake up early tomorrow for a run before work, but I know I'm going to be exhausted.

Please help.  

A Busy Schedule and A Fond Farewell

It has been a loooooooooong weekend.

(And, yes, I know that it is currently Tuesday, so technically the weekend has already passed.... but work with me here.)

I'm sad to report that due to my work schedule I wasn't able to run at all this past weekend. Nothing, zero, zilch, absolutely-flippin-nothing. (I started getting rather cranky about it as well, which is a new experience for me.) I mean, I had the torch run on Thursday, but that was my first and only run last week. On the up side, my work schedule has opened up for the rest of the week so I can definitely hop back into my training and wrack up some miles.

I did a short tempo run today. I managed to do 0.87 miles in 8:03 and, according to DailyMile, that would have equaled out to a 9:13min/mile. Nice! I'm proud of that run because the second portion of it was uphill...and we all know how much I love them hills! I opted to do a short run today because I called into work earlier than anticipated. Originally, my goal was a nice maintenance 3 mile, but that didn't pan out. It's all good, I was flexible and I decided to really push my speed to make sure I got the most of the tempo run.

It also gave me a chance to use my new watch. Sadly, my S2H Replay passed away over the weekend. It decided to go into the pool and forgot it couldn't swim. It drowned. And even though I tried my hardest to administer CPR, it was DOA.

 Source

It shall be missed.

After I had a small ceremony to say goodbye to my old watch, I headed to Target to check out some new watches. I found a rather nice, inexpensive Casio Phys watch. It has a timer with a lap split, which is awesome (no longer do I have to use my iPod to time myself!). I feel like a professional runner now- Holler! I got to put it to use on my tempo run today. I just have to remember which is the Start/Stop button and which is the Lap Split button (you should see the novel that they call a "manual". I'm pretty sure War and Peace is shorter in length). 

My plan for the rest of the week is this:

Tomorrow- Maintenance Run- 3-4 miles

Thursday- Cross Training

Friday- Long Run- 5.5-6 miles

Saturday- Rest

Sunday- Rest or Possible Recovery Run depending upon how I feel.

Sounds good, right? Right!

Life Happens

Today was a pretty good day. I didn't get to the gym like I had hoped because I forgot I was working two o my three jobs today (I have an aversion to free time), but I did manage to get some cross training cardio and some weight-lifting in at my retail job (more on that later though).

Firstly, Kurt @ Becoming An Ironman and I met up to go to work. Today we were having an ice cream social for 6-8th graders at school who were going to be coming to our new program (we work for the Girl Scouts, and no, sadly, we do NOT get a discount on cookies). We had the girls play some fun games where they had to work together to get in order by first name, then by last name and then by birthdate. Next, we fed them all ice cream cake, got them all sugared up, and played a hula hoop circle. For those who have never done a hula-hoop circle, it's entertaining to watch. Everyone stands in a circle holding hands, a hula hoop has to be passed around the circle, which means you have to step through it, put it over your head and slide it down your arm to be able to pass it to the next person. This is somewhat difficult for those of us with bad hand-eye coordination as I tend to always manage to somehow trip over the hula hoop and then smack myself in the face with it. Fun times. No, really, fun times. The girls managed to pass the hula hoop all the way around the circle (of about 18 people) in 1:29. Not bad for a first time! We are having them come up with ways to get it around faster for Monday when we try again. I may sit that round out so they will shave off about 30 second of me struggling through the hula hoop.

After our program was over, we realized we had one ice cream cake left, so Kurt and I went back to his place, sat down and promptly devoured it. Kurt put up this handy picture to show everyone just how much damage we did (in about 5 minutes no less).


I do have to say that Kurt ate the end where the smiley face is haha.

After I woke up from my sugar coma, I hopped in my car and drove to my other job. As I was walking in, my manager stopped me to inform me that I would be spending a fair amount of time on a ladder tonight as we are getting ready to launch a new product and have to re-do the store. Yay! I, thankfully, don't have a fear of heights...  Awesome! My job was to get the "toppers" down, switch out the pictures, and then replace said "toppers". Toppers are basically plexi-glass displays that, besides being rather bulky and awkward to take down from the top shelf on the wall, simply sit near the ceiling and look pretty. Anyway, in order to switch out the toppers, I had to climb the ladder, stretch and rock the topper off the shelf (most have weights on them that hold them in place, but there isn't enough room to grab the toppers from the sides, so one has to push up from the bottom and then try and slide your fingers underneath it to pull it out), and carry it back down the ladder. Then, I would switch the picture, climb back up the ladder with the topper and maneuver it back into place. I did this 26 times. I counted.  I also managed to drop a topper on my head. Ouch. I'm pretty sure that this counts as stair-climbing and weights- I'm just saying. If I'm sweating, then I'm burning calories. Burning calories = exercise to me. Therefore, my cross-training and weights were done at work tonight. Hooray for multi-tasking!

I'm feeling kind of antsy because I didn't go for a run today, but my body needs to recover a bit. Tomorrow is supposed to be my rest day, but I may just do another 2 mile run just for the heck of it. And depending upon my work schedule for the weekend, I will decide if I'm doing my long run on Saturday or Sunday. I want to do 5+ miles this weekend. I would really like to do 5.5, but I will settle for 5.

My plan for next week is this:

• Monday- 3 mile run
• Tuesday- 3.5 mile run
• Wednesday- 4 mile run
• Thursday- Cross Training/Weights
• Friday- Rest
• Saturday- 3 mile run
• Sunday- 5+mile run

I figure I will keep it like that for next week. For the following week I have my 5k, on Saturday April 23rd, I won't do as many runs so I can make sure I'm rested properly. (I figure two 1-2 miles runs early in the week will be good.) I'm excited and nervous for the 5k. I want to do it in 40 minutes or less, which is a big deal for me, so I need to let my body rest. Here's hoping I can make my goal!