Day 88 and I LIED . . . to myself :(

It's Day 88 of the 30+ Day Running Challenge.

And I lied. I thought I had nailed down the food issue, but apparently not.

I went for my run at Manzanita Park last night after work and I got WORKED! I was beat before even starting the run! I managed to crank out at least 3/4ths of the run before having to run/walk the rest of it. I walked a bit at spots where I usually run up (just a few feet) and the big hill just kicked my ass.

And as exhausting as this run was, I kinda liked that it did that to me. Weird.Still, I hope my body gets used to this change fast! Cause it leaves me beat the next day, too.

Tonight I have a flat 2 miler scheduled . . . maybe three . . . or four. Depends on how much exhaustion I want to feel.

Tomorrow I'll be in Monterey for my birthday. I'll be 39 years old and I'll be running a short mile there. I've also got to finish paying off my tux rental for next week and I've gotta start writing my speech as a best man. I'm still debating if I should be humorous or somber. As I don't know either family very well (I don't know why he chose me, either), I may be going for somber. Dammit.

It is a day of reflection for me as well. It's my day to recharge my faith in humanity. What better place to do it than a tourist trap town with a bunch of foreigners and the locals being helpful.

Damn. That last bit makes me sound terrible. It's supposed to be taken in a positive light. Trust me.

GD

p.s.
too beat to check. run smiley :)

Day 87

Today is day 87 of 30+ Day Running Challenge.

And I think I finally nailed down my food intake for the 4 Hour Body lifestyle change.

Gotta call it that because I don't want to look at it as a diet. It should be something I'm comfortable with. And so far, I would say I am.

FYI: On Monday I felt pretty bad. I don't remember if I posted about that on my last post. But I had a pretty bad carb hangover. You might think it's a bunch of BS, but when you stick with 4HB, you do feel the difference after having loaded up on bad carbs.  I don't think allergies helped, but the queasiness I was feeling had nothing to do with allergies. And I had a different type of headache than what I usually associate with allergies. It really did feel like a minor hangover.

Most of the symptoms went away when I had my run at Manzanita Park, but that run was hellish! I mean, it is a diffcult trail to run, but I usually do better on it than I did that day.

This week has also been better as far as food intake. I think I nailed down what I needed to function normally.  My runs haven't been great, but they also haven't been terrible. I'm enjoying them, they're fun again.

Here's what I've been having as far as food for this week. It's just what I had when I first tried 4HB about a year ago and dropped 40 lbs.

Breakfast
8oz of Lentils
3 scrambled eggs (with olive oil)
70 grams of spinach (love my kitchen scale)

Lunch
A cup of pinto beans (either whole or mashed)
10 medium sized shrimp
A bunch of stir fried veggies (broccoli, cauliflower . . .)

Dinner
Dinner has been the same as lunch, except with chicken instead of shrimp.

As far as snacking, I haven't needed any. I've done well. Last time I did this, I needed my spoonful of almond butter. I anticipated this and I haven't had to crack open the jar, yet. I had some merlot last night. I think it was a bit old. I only had a couple of mouthfuls and tossed it out, blah. I'll be cracking open a bottle of Trader Joe's Charles Shaw Cabernet tonight. That'll be good. I know it doesn't really go with chicken, but I want some wine, dammit!

Gotta go. It's lunch time and I'm hungry.

GD

p.s.
too hungry to check. run smiley :)

Day 85

Today is day 85 of the 30+ Day Running Challenge.

And I'm beat.

I was a nice full weekend. Saturday morning, up early to take my godson to practice. Go to pick him up and the daughter decides to tag along for breakfast at Mickey D's. I've already had breakfast (lentils, spinach and eggs) so I get them their grub and then head over to Starbucks for a cup'o'joe (grande).

The email from the coaches said practice was from 8 to 9:30am. BUT . . . there was disclaimer that they would use the allotted time given them for use of the field if needed.  I guess they needed it because the kids weren't released until a bit after 10:30.

Once I took him back home, I headed over to my moms restaurant to help her out for the day (ALL DAY). It wasn't too busy, but Saturday never really are. So the cook plays catch-up for the week.

I was outta there by 7:15 and headed out to the Toro Park Estates trail for my run. Ran a quick mile and then headed over to my cousin's house to figure out the schedule for the next day.

Apparently her and the daughter made it a baking day and made pineapple enpanadas. And she had a piece (for shame!). She couldn't wait for Sunday to break into her cheat day.

We made plans to have breakfast at First Awakenings and then I headed home.

Up early Sunday and took care of my morning ablutions. Then out the door I went. No waiting at First Awakenings (first for me) and had excellent grub. I ordered their Triple Bogey which has two pieces of Texas Toast (awesome), two eggs and two sausages (or bacon). And I grabbed some of my godson's country potatoes . . . and some of the daughters strawberry topped blueberry pancakes.

I HAVEN'T HAD BAD CARBS ALL WEEK! LEAVE ME ALONE!!!!

So . . . anyway:

Heading back to my cousins pad, the daughter and her mom are arguing about who's going to drop the kids off at the pool first. It was the funniest and strangest conversation I've heard in a while. We stayed there for a while until it was time to head out the door to our respective game sites.

My godson had his Toro Bulls game at RLS against the Carmel Panthers in Pebble Beach and I was taking the daughter to Seaside to coach her Cubs cheerleaders there against The Raiders.

I'm not sure what happened with my godsons team cause there was an issue. But the Steinbeck Cubs had a bit of a blowout game against the Seaside Raiders (26 to 6, Cubs).  Good game.

After the game, the daughter and I headed out to the Monterey Wharf and had  clam chowder bread bowls. Awesome. There also happened to be Turkish Day festivities in the plaza. Good music and fun for all.

The back home we went. Arrived a bit after 5pm.

I had a couple of Sierra Nevadas and the godson decided he wanted to go run with me. He's not used to running long (for him) distances so he went off and ran to fast. I gave him some tips and he did better.

But this old, fat ass still beat him . . . and I mocked him. I'm a jerk.

GD

p.s.
too much of a jerk to check. run smiley :)

Day 81 of the 30+ Day Running Challenge

And I've been kinda lagging it.

What with my godson's football practice and the daughters cheer practice AND their games . . . time is a precious commodity.

Typical week as of 2 weeks ago:

• Monday
• I can leave work late.
• Head over to Manzanita Park for hill work run
• Go home
• Tuesday
• Need to be out the door from work no later than 4:45pm
• Haul ass to daughters high school
• Crap! I need to feed her!
• Go ALL the way across town to other high school for her cheer coach gig.
• Go ALL the way back across town and out to usual running trail
• Try to squeeze in at least a mile.
• Pick up godson from football practice
• Go home
• Wednesday
• Go to Tuesday
• Thursday
• Repeat Tuesday until 5th bullet point
• After picking up godson, head ALL the way back to pick up daughter
• drop them both off and go home 
• Friday
• Run at Manzanita Park at lunch.
• No time after work anymore on Fridays
• Starting this week, High School Football
• Need to support the daughter in her cheering endeavors.
• Chat up the single moms. 
• Go home
• Saturday
• Help out at mom's restaurant
• Go for run around 8pm 
• Sunday
• Sleep in
• Pick up godson OR daughter
• Go to football game around 12.
• Get sunburnt.
• Go for run around 6pm.

Aaaand repeat.

So I'm a bit beat. Not much time for tv or anything like that. I'll get lucky if I can watch an episode of Star Trek: Voyager. And I just wanna finish it! I'm on the last stinkin' season about a third of the way through. So I've gotta decide: sleep or TV.

Ugh, priorities.

GD

p.s.
too tired to check. run smiley :)

Day 73 and still on a roll.

Here we are . . . Day 73.

73 days. 73 straight days of running at least a mile a day.

Who would'a thunk? 73 days! Damn.

I personally didn't think I would make it the first month.

I still don't know how I just kept walking out the door and heading to the trail. I guess initially the motivation was that I had to get ready for the Salinas Valley Half Marathon. I didn't want to miss that one.  I also didn't want to come through the finish line with a worse time than the previous year.

I improved my time a bit, but not as good as I hoped. But a 13 minute improvement is pretty decent, I guess. Need to do better for next year. So I guess I'm going to keep up the running everyday. I want to get comfortable. It's gotten relatively easier, but not much. There are days where I feel great, and most days when I'm just slogging through.

Hopefully that'll change beginning in a couple of weeks.  I'll be jumping back into the 4-Hour Body wagon on Monday. I know the first week is going to suck! So my times next week will be horrible. But when my body adjusts, things'll be back to normal and hopefully better than before.

I'll attempt to log what I'm grubbin' as much as I can. I'll be noting weight loss and possibly inches lost as well.  Hopefully, within a month, I'll be down to 220 lbs.

HOLY CRAP! 73 DAYS!!!

GD

p.s.
too excited to check. run smiley :)

Day 68 and SVHM Race Report

I don't really recall too much of the race, which is why I took pictures . . . which didn't help in me recalling much.

So here's my report in pictures with maybe a few blurbs.

This is an image from behind the wheel a bit after 6 in the morning heading to the place where it's HAPPENING! The beginning of the day. From Soledad, we are taking buses to the mission where the start begins.

I should have taken a picture of where the buses picked us up, but I'm a dumbass. We were picked up in the towns lone high school.  Below is probably the only picture of me on the web. Along with my friends sitting behind me. Ernesto and Charity. They are engaged and I'm supposed to be his Best Man. Though I'm really slacking off in the that department. I have NO idea what I'm supposed to do for his bachelor party. Any suggestions?

Everyone here is milling around trying to stay warm. It wasn't too bad when we arrived. But a few minutes after, it got a bit breezy and colder.

And as you can see, this is Ernesto embarrassing the shit out of Charity. In the tent behind them is the bagel and banana spread.

It's like 10 minutes before the start of the race and we've been ordered to go to the start . . .

. . . which Ernesto wanted an action shot in front of.

From here on out in the picture report, it'll mainly be pictures of the mile markers. Like I said, I'm a dumbass and should've planned on taking more of the surroundings. So here's a picture of the first mile marker next to the port-o-potties and hand wash station . .  and some runners and fields.

Keep an eye out for that tutu. She was taunting me throughout the race. I passed her and she's like "Oh, really!"
 Not really. I was thinking that after mile seven because she passed me and I was like "Hell no!" I did pass her AND her sister. Their mom beat the crap out of us though.

And here' s mile marker two. The chick stretching was with this dude who was in the port-o-potty behind us and she was getting antsy waiting for him. We passed each other at least twenty times throughout the race.

Here's mile marker three . . . and a car . . . and some barbed-wire fencing . . . and trees. Sorry, nothing interesting to report on this picture.

This is a blurry-cam picture of mile marker four and some of my fellow masochists.

And we arrive to our first aid station. Manned by the lovely young ladies of Notre Dame High School. FYI: At the time I arrived at this aid station, Danny Tapia (winner of SVHM 2012) was pretty damn close to crossing the line. He finished in 1:07:17.613 (Like thousandths of a second matter to ME!). At every aid station I passed, I tossed back at least three cups of fluid. I didn't get sick this year because of it.

Here's blurry-cam pic number 2. This one features my fellow masochists and fields and a hill.

Here we are arriving at mile marker six. As a side note, the shirts for this year were pretty sweet. Beautifully designed. Here are our beautiful models showing the back of it.

Mile marker six again along with our model. Also of note, I was feeling pretty good at this point . . .

It was a bit before mile marker seven that I had to start the run/walk strategy. The marker was also set up weirdly.  It was parallel to the road. Oh! And here's a small cliffside with a field on top of it.

As you can see in this picture of mile marker eight, runners are starting to drop off and begins seeing walking more. The lady in green was a badass. She was an older woman who finished WAY before I did. I think this was the only time she walked. The freakishly tall dude next to the marker on the other hand finished WAY behind me . . . like 30 minutes behind me. I don't know if he got hurt or what.

This picture was supposed to be a gratuitous picture of a smoking hot chick and her friend. The one in red. She also happened to be wearing Vibram FiveFingers Bikilas! I kept up with them as best I could using the view as an incentive, but they just kept going and I had to walk :(

Here's blurry-cam pic number 3. And mile marker 9 along with my fellow masochistic laggers. The VFF Bikila hot chick was still within reach . . .

Mile marker ten marked the point where I felt like I was back in East Salinas. The ladies on the right were speaking spanglish and annoying the shit out of me. Speak english or spanish! FUCK! Sorry, it's one of my pet peeves. I used that as an incentive to get the fuck away from them as quickly as possible.

Mile marker eleven and this guy knew NOTHING of who had won the race. Though he had a radio which he pulled out of his pocket just as I was passing by when he got a call from someone at the finish area. Jerk.

And this was probably everyone's favorite station. The Strawberry Stop! I think I ate like 10 strawberries. They were SOOOO friggin sweet and juicy!  Then again, maybe it was just my body screamin' for fuel. Oh! And mile marker twelve.

 Here we are at the bend nearing the finish line, which you can see in the distance. Also that annoying bitch must've passed me (and lost her friend at some point) while I was wolfing down the strawberries because I don't remember her doing that. I did beat her though. She walk into the finish area.

And here is me crossing the timing mats (there were two). I was really running at this point, hence the crappy angle of the camera. And also another lover-ly view of one of our models in the tech shirt.

I finished the race in 2:47:05.983 (Seriously?! Thousandths!) It's funny that in this shot of so many people, I can only spot one Waldo wearing this years tech shirt.

This is my godson's football team volunteers serving up some awesome tri-tip sandwiches!

And that's it. I hope I made it an entertaining read. Next year I hope to break 2:15!

GD

i'm done typing. run smiley :)

Day 66 . . . and a promise.

And that promise will be a race report on the Salinas Valley Half Marathon in the near future.

Just not today.

 If you look to the right, you'll notice my Dailymile mileage is LOW! I'm still feeling the aches of the relative long run this past Saturday.  Once I get back down to nine minutes for my mile, then I'll start racking up the miles again and progressing to longer and longer runs.  I want that half marathon to be CAKE next year, dammit!

I've got a whole year to work on that.

GD

p.s.
too lazy. run smiley :)

Day 61 and my MRG's

I love my Merrell Road Gloves. And I already need a new pair.

Here's a pic:

If you look back to Day 27, they were fine. Now I've somehow poked holes with my pinkie-toes after only about 140 miles in these shoes. The rest of the shoe is fine! My lace fix is holding up well and I will be running in these tomorrow for the Salinas Valley Half Marathon.

I'll be running a short mile today to keep up with the challenge and later tonight have some pizza and beer (maybe wings, too).

I'll try to post tomorrow after the run and maybe even some pictures. I'm still debating taking my iPhone for pictures during the run.  We'll see . . .

GD

p.s.
too excited to check. run smiley :)