The wrong food encourages randomness

Yesterday, some food item I ate made me sick. I'm not sure how to narrow it down and determine what it is so I never eat it again.

It could have been the Mexican food we ordered out for lunch. Or the chicken, black beans and rice sample I tried at the grocery store after work. Or the hummus and tomatoes I had for dinner. Or those five fun-size pieces of candy I ate (it was Halloween, you know). Ahem,  pretend you didn't read that.

I'm betting on the grocery store sample. No way it was candy. No way.

Whatever it was made me miserable last night into today. Thankfully, I'm feeling better. That is the only good thing about food poisoning: it's over quick.

While my body (and mind) recovers, I'll leave you with some bits of randomness.

• I'm the featured blogger at Fitblogger today! Check it out ... if only for the sole reason of seeing a picture of me with my hair down.  
• In a week, I'll be preparing to head to Texas to see my Alma mater (and No. 2 team in the nation), Kansas State, take on the TCU Horned Frogs. I haven't been to an away game since college (a LONG time ago). It should be interesting since both schools' colors are purple.

Victorious in enemy territory (I didn't wet my pants; it poured
the entire game).

• Then, on Dec. 1, my boyfriend and I will be in Kansas to see Kansas State take on Texas. Hopefully, they'll still be undefeated and in that No. 2 (or 1?) spot. It should be a fun game, if only for the fact that my brother despises the University of Texas and our seats are by the Texas ramp. Texas players and coaches walk by us each time they head on or off the field ... and my brother isn't afraid to taunt them. I'll do the horns down symbol, but that's about it. I despise other teams much more (hello, University of Kansas and University of Oklahoma).

Source

• I love holidays. I love traditions. So, I can't believe I let one drop. Well, yes I can. I got so burnt on carving pumpkins last year with this disastrous, difficult pattern that I didn't even bother this year. Kinda sad, but I can still feel the irritation so I figured it best to not have sharp carving tools in hand.

• After seeing all the costume photos (from friends and celebrities), I now have all of these ideas for costumes for next year. Unfortunately, I won't remember any of them and will start wondering what I'm going to be for Halloween next September. Oh, well. That's part of the fun, I guess.

How was your Halloween? Did you avoid the candy (unlike me)? Did you carve a pumpkin? What are your traditions? What was your favorite costume you saw this year? Do you like college football? Do you go to games (home or away)?

Long run loser

After my first half marathon on Nov. 20, I really didn’t have a desire to run. After a week break, I finally got back into the groove (for the weekly speed workouts, anyway). But, I just couldn’t muster any desire to do a long run.

I’d try and would run 3 miles and call it quits. My longest run during this time was 6 miles. And, it was miserable. I probably walked half of it. I kept telling myself that next week would be the week I’d complete a long run. And, next week came, and I couldn’t do it. A few miles were OK. But, anything much more than 4 miles was getting into iffy territory.

As with all running-related issues, I started evaluating why I felt this way. And, I came up with a few reasons:

• I’d accomplished the goal I worked so hard for (completing the Women’s Half Marathon), and I lost my drive.
• With holidays, visitors and travelling, running took a back seat.
• My last long run was the half marathon race on Nov. 20. Because it was hot, miserable and didn’t go at all like I hoped, I lost my love of the long run.

I think all of these played into my lack of desire to run a long distance. But, I think the last reason probably played the biggest part.

I used to love long runs. We lucked out with the weather for most of our long training runs for the half marathon. The weather was fairly cool (for Florida) for most of our longer distances. The training was working, and I could run a longer distance each week. After a rough 7-mile run one week, all of my runs were pretty glorious. I remember loving two 10-mile runs. They were just completely enjoyable. Then, this blasted half marathon came along and ruined everything. It was hot. It was humid. It was awful.

I'm only smiling on the outside.

Every time I thought about a long run from that point forward, I remembered that terrible run. And, I hated it.

With the holidays over, the visitors gone and the traveling done, I decided this past Sunday was the day to do a long run.

First step, tell my coach that I really sucked it up in regard to long runs. I really didn’t want to admit that my training was turning into a big pile of failure. But, I did. And, I felt better already. So, instead of running the 11 miles (yikes!) on my schedule, my coach suggested a 6-8-mile run. That sounded doable.

Second step, show up and run. At 7:30 a.m. on Sunday, I met my group for a still undetermined number of miles (but between 6 and 8) run.

The first few miles were kind of rough. My first few miles of any long run usually aren’t the best, though. So, I kept going. At the 3-mile turnaround point, I decided to keep going. The run still wasn’t a masterpiece by any means, but I’d gotten in the groove. I went another 0.5 miles before turning around. The last 3.5 miles were easier than the first, and I’m so happy I finally ran a non-stop 7 miles. And, my time was almost exactly the same as my (better) 7-mile run during my previous training (1:21). I’ll take it!

I have a tendency to take a turn to negative town, so part of the run I was so disgusted at myself for not being able to run the 11 miles on my schedule. But, toward the end, I felt happy for getting back out there and tackling a long run. And, replacing my last miserable long run memory with a pleasant one.