Sunday is a treat

After my long runs on Sunday, I feel like a deserve a treat. I mean, I woke up early. I ran _ (anywhere from 4-11) miles. I think I earned this treat. So, I treat myself. This treat is nothing major, usually just watching some guilty pleasure on TV with a glass of wine, which suits me just fine.

A few weeks ago, “Jersey Shore” aired on a special night: Sunday. Fist pump! Yes, I am a regular viewer of this show. I tried to hide/deny/not talk about this for quite some time, but I’m out in the open now. I like this show, and I’m not afraid to admit it (anymore). GTL, baby!

This week, my treat: Cowboys vs. Jets game. I love the Dallas Cowboys, and I love Sunday night football. A fabulous combination (especially with a glass of wine) … or so I thought until I watched the game. Ugh.

This is a picure from last year. I was not smiling last night.

After the game, Tony Romo, quarterback of the Cowboys, said, “I’ve got to get better. That’s the bottom line.” Yes, Tony, you do. Please. DO. IT. A fumble on the one yard line, an interception and a bobbled snap all in the fourth quarter is totally unacceptable (you dumping Jessica Simpson on her birthday is also totally unacceptable, but that’s a different rant).

Maybe next week's treat will be less frustrating.

Freak-out of the week

While running (or attempting to run) four miles on Sunday, our coach said: “In 12 weeks, we’ll be running 12 miles.”

My thought, “Holy crapola. What have I gotten myself into?!?”

Day 3

Well, running at 7:30 on a Sunday morning really is as bad as it sounds.

I arrived in a daze to meet the training group. The plan: run four miles; two miles in one direction, and then turn around and end back at the starting point. I started off feeling pretty good (aside from being half-asleep — I kept asking people to repeat themselves because I was so out of it). I ran 2.5 miles pretty easily, and then I felt like crap. I was hot (it’s amazing how hot it is already at 8 a.m.) and nauseous. Yuck. So, I didn’t run the full four miles. After the initial 2.5 miles, I started doing walk-run intervals. Although I’m not sure how much more I ran vs. walked. I had my Garmin watch and started it at the correct time, which is an improvement. I just forgot to turn it off for the drive home … oops. I looked at my watch after a much-needed shower and noticed that I ran 23.8 miles and burned 11,107 calories. Impressive.

Running is such a guessing game. I’m always evaluating how I ran and what caused me to either run successfully or poorly. This time, my guess is that I wasn’t fuelled correctly for the run. I eat at bizarre times on Saturdays. There’s no routine, which is fabulous, because it means it’s the weekend. I also seem to eat less (most of the time) on the weekend. This particular Saturday, I ate a breakfast-lunch combo (two eggs, vegetables, mango) at about 1 p.m. Then, I ate dinner (a rockin’ pork burrito from Taco Bus) about 6 p.m. Aside from some watermelon, I didn’t eat anything after dinner. Those burritos are filling (and delicious).

The morning of the run, I ate a protein meal bar and an energy gel (which wasn’t as nasty as I feared, but it still wasn’t great). When I started feeling nauseous during the run, I also had a very empty, acidic feeling in my stomach, so I’m assuming I didn’t eat enough (and that not-great energy gel wasn’t sitting pretty).

I hope that everything comes together soon, and I can run the full distance of these training runs. I’m feeling pretty pathetic at this point. There are many others in the same situation as me, but I’m frustrated because I know I can run these distances … or I have before. If I can’t run these so-called easy distances, how in the heck am I going to be able to run 13.1 miles?