Cuteness overload

So I work at a University and finals start today. I’ve always loved finals week when I was a student because I was weird like that and I thought that only going to class 5 times that whole week was pretty awesome. But now that I’m not a student finals week is even better!

Theres so many de-stressing activities that are going on today. My favorite is called “Coffee and a Cuddle.” The Human Society is outside the Student Union offering students coffee and a chance to cuddle with the most adorable animals ever! Seriously, how could you not wanna cuddle with them!

Anyways, my bike ride to work kicked my butt more than I thought it would! Nothing like getting good and sweaty before you’ve even had your morning coffee 🙂

 

 

24.3/26.2

I’ve almost reached my goal of 26.2 miles for Boston for the Facebook group! Only 1.9 miles to go which unfortunately has to wait until Saturday. I have a rest day today and tomorrow I’m biking to work since my car unfortunately is being dumb.

I don’t know about anyone else but I love, love, love to ride my bike! Last summer I was sans car for about 6 months. I rode my bike everywhere in the Arizona heat and it was miserable but I got some killer legs out of the deal. Since getting my fancy new car my bike has been collecting dust since October. Time to dust her off!! Ready to ride 🙂

New Month’s New Goals

I’ve always had a love/hate relationship with the first of the month. I love new beginnings and fresh starts and the chance to make a new goal. I hate shelling out nearly 1/3 of my monthly income for rent…..but a girls gotta live!

Anyways, all these other bloggers are setting so goals so might as well jump on the bandwagon:

1) Run 5 miles without stopping. My last post was about how I don’t really feel like I have anything to run for. Now I know, I want to be able to sign up to do a 10K on a whim and not have to train for 8 or 10 weeks to do it.

2) Try and cook 2 new recipes. I feel like I’m in a food rut. I read an article that said most people buy the same 130 food items over and over again. For me its peanut butter, veggie patties, yogurt, bananas, pistachios, and pasta. I feel like I eat these foods every day!

3) Do at least 1 ab and 1 arm workout per week. After complaining about trying to start strength training i finally just did it. Its only about 3 or 4 different exercises that I copied from watching people and it takes me about 7 minutes to complete but its something!

4) Start studying for my Certified Personal Trainer test. Yup, that’s right. I bit the bullet and ordered all the study materials. Maybe I’ll learn a thing or two and share it with you guys 🙂

What to run for…..

After much thought about my workout plan….I’ve got nothing. I’ve been going back and forth between signing up for this 5K on Memorial Day but its like way out in the boonies and start time is at 6:30 AM!!! Since its one of my rare mornings off I’ve vetoed signing up for the race. I live in the desert and summer is not exactly prime road race time like other parts of the country so the next race is not until the 4th of July.

That puts me in a predicament. I know I can run a 5K. I’ve done it a handful of times with my last time being around 30:53. Not the fastest but I did not stop to walk. So signing up for a 5K isn’t going to feel like I need to kick it up into training mode. I’ve toyed with the idea of running a half marathon but that’s not until January so it’s too early to start training for that…. or is it?

I know very very little about training for races. What I do know is that I want a good base mileage to start out with. I was thinking working my way up to 5 miles and then start working on my speed.

I love running. I want to continue running but I’m a person that is motivated by continuous improvement. I always want to run farther or faster than last time but I don’t want to get burnt out either. I feel like I’ve made some good progress in the past 2 months and I don’t want to see it plateau. Comments? Thoughts? Suggestions?

21/26.2

Almost there! I had a fabulous workout yesterday. It was my only day off work from both jobs AND my boyfriend had work off as well which never ever happens so I was tempted to skip out on the gym. I made myself go while the baby (aka boyfriend, seriously I don’t have kids) took a nap.

I started off with a 1 mile warm up. Then I, wait for the gasp, did an arm workout! I hopped around on a few machines (bicep curls, some fly thing, chest press, and the pull down bar thingy) and finished off with 1000 meters on the rowing machine. And man my arms are sore, but a good sore. After that I did a speedy mile, ok it was only a mile in 9:13 but its speedy compared to my 10:00 pace. Then it was a nice little walking cool down.

I rewarded myself with a trip to Whole Foods and a glass of wine. I think its funny how I refuse to pay more than $20 for a pair of shoes but my $12.99 bag of pistachios is a must have! Boyfriend may have made fun of me a bit but I need my fancy foods!

Today is a rest day and off to have lunch with my old roomie 🙂

18.4/26.2

I’ve been slacking on posting my run 26.2 for Boston mileage. I did have a sick day but Thursday I did 2.4 and Saturday I busted out 3.6 with 3 miles unbroken! Woot woot!!

Now it’s time to enjoy my Sunday!

My downfall

Ahhh!!! Chocolate covered pretzels!!! They are my demise. One of my lovely students made chocolate covered pretzels (covered in sprinkles no doubt) for a potluck and had lots left over. She graciously decided to leave them in our kitchen for me to make my way over to anytime I want.

Now, normally I’m pretty good with sweet stuff but this is the ultimate combination of sweet and salty and just prettiness (they’re rainbow colored sprinkles if you must know). I’m not on a diet or trying to lose weight but I do try to limit the deserts. Considering I had some ice cream last night I probably shouldn’t have had the 4 pretzels I just ate. Oh well, off to the gym I go!

 

12.4/26.2

Had a nice little 3.6 mile jog/incline walk yesterday. I ran 2.5 miles of that unbroken which I was super proud of! Then I walked for about 10 minutes at a high incline. It was nice to stretch out my calves after a weekend of wearing 4 inch heels.

But today I feel poopy 😦 Maybe its all the booze this weekend or maybe its the fact I’ve been working 55 hours a week for the past month! Or it might be the heat, its been like over 90 here the past week. I don’t know how I’m gonna handle 114 degrees this summer!

Anyways, I really need to get on this strength training thing. While I was running yesterday I noticed that my arms were more tired from swinging back and forth than my legs were for carrying me that far! *Sigh*

8.8/26.2

I hope everyone had a fabulous weekend. I was lucky enough to be out on vacation with my favorite girls this weekend. Lots of food, drinking, and dancing but I did manage to get a tiny run in between the drunken debauchery 🙂

I’m taking today off as a hangover recovery day and tomorrow its back to the gym! I desperately need to start lifting weights. I feel like my legs are nice and strong but my abs and my arms are just like marshmallows! Anyone care to share some of their favorite moves that a beginner can start out on?