Monday, December 5, 2011

Week 6 - Another blown weekend

I'm not going to post my weight this week. Let's just say that I didn't lose any weight. And the weekends are proving to be my nemesis. This past weekend I ended up having five events - beer tasting on Friday, trail race Saturday morning, dinner in New York City on Saturday, a baby shower Sunday afternoon, and more beer with a friend at a bar on Sunday evening. Of course the trail race - approximately 6 miles run in 1 hr 36 min - did allow me to expend a fair amount of calories but I didn't do so well on the post-race foods and drink. This is partly due to what choices are available but I really need to stick to one post-race beer and not the two that I did have. One good thing that I did do was not have beer when we went out for dinner after Friday's beer tasting. Next weekend plans include a trail race Saturday morning and a Christmas party Saturday evening so hopefully I'll be better!

The week was pretty good for the diet (except for the weekend of course!). I drank hot green tea after dinner Monday through Wednesday instead of the beer that I've been drinking. However, on Thursday I decided to go to Copper Mine Pub to try some Sierra Nevada beers that they tapped since I don't usually find a SN beer besides their typical Pale Ale. I had a pint of the Southern Hemisphere IPA and a pint of the Northern Hemisphere IPA. At 6.7% alcohol, I wonder if these beers also have more calories? My dinner consisted of tilapia and broccoli. I'll be having a similar dinner this week - salmon and asparagus. I only had a piece of fruit three days this past week so I'll have to be better next week.

The work-outs weren't as strenuous as I need them to be for weight loss. My legs were still pretty sore from the almost 20 miles of running in four days that I did the weekend before and so only did 25 min of yoga on Monday. I was up late on Monday night so by the time I was done teaching on Tuesday I was too tired to go to the gym and took a 3 hr nap instead. I ran a total of 9.3 miles on Friday and Saturday. Saturday's run was good. I took it a little easy on the first part of the course to warm up. And there were some serious hills which required walking. It took me about 57 min to get to the aid station. The second half of the race, I made sure to push the pace and if a hill was short and not too steep I made sure I ran all, if not most of it. It felt really good to push the pace. I felt strong, passed several women, and completed the second half of the course in about 39 min. It also helps to not care about getting muddy or wet. ;)

This next week will have to be better in the exercise realm. I don't plan on running as much during the week and certainly no speed work. I will be running a 25 km (15.5 miles) trail race on Staten Island Saturday morning and want to be able to run it well (I have no idea what to expect with regards to terrain - except for the 2300 ft of gain that is listed on the website). I also need to let my right ankle heal a bit. I turned it during Saturday's trail race. I'll have to make sure to lift weights on Tuesday and not Thursday. My legs were still a little sore Saturday morning. I've incorporated lunges into my weight routine since the Essex County College gym is not that great and figured it might be better for my running that doing leg presses. And when I do lunges, I use a lot of the smaller leg muscles for stabilization. At some point I may actually perform a lunge without almost falling over!

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