Monday, September 9, 2013

Humid weather and stained running garb

Yesterday I realized that I was going to have to do my run at the gym seeing as how the temperature by noon was supposed to 95 degrees, with 80% humidity. Love Wisconsin summers.

One of my coworkers goes to the same gym as I do and advised me when she came back at about 3, that the gym was really hot today. Fabulous. Insert lack of excitement phrases here. I made sure to drink more water than normal and also had leftover Subway for lunch – I love Subway. More on that here.

Anyways, I got to the gym and was changing from my work clothes to my running gear and realized I had a decent sized splotch on my running shorts. After doing a thorough gym bag search, I quickly realized that the package on one of my honey stingers had opened up and after sitting in my car all day outside in 95 degree heat it apparently decided to make close personal friends with my shorts. I panicked and proceeded to attempt to remove this beautiful mess…and really only succeeded in smearing it around. At that point, I had two options – either go home, change and run outside – which I really didn’t want to do because the last time I ran outside in this heat, it felt as though I had swallowed a volcano, and it took me forever to catch my breath after – or I could run with stained shorts. Luckily my shorts were black so it wasn’t that awful, and The Stain wasn’t in a conspicuous place so I figured I wouldn’t worry about. Don’t get me wrong, The Stain was completely visible but it wasn’t in a place where people would wonder…never mind.

I got on the treadmill and started with a 5 minute warm up at a 4.5 treadmill pace, which is pretty much a trot/jog for me since I have long legs. I originally had my music going but then I realized that the 20 tvs had far better things happening so I switched to listen to the nightly news with Brian Williams. I think Brian Williams is just fabulous – I look forward to “Rock Center with Brian Williams” every Friday night (yes, I just admitted to watching lame TV on Friday nights instead of being out and about like most people my age). I ran about 30 more minutes at 5.5 pace, and then did quick splits for my last 5 minutes. After my cool down, I realized that I had not thought about The Stain once in my entire run. Between Brian Williams and the endorphins coursing through my body, I had completely forgotten about it. I did get a few strange looks after my run when I was walking through the gym to do my abs, lifting and stretch but at that point I really didn’t care. As I always say, as run is a run no matter what.

Post-run, I called the fiancé and advised him that I was having an incredibly intense salad craving that would not be satisfied unless given what it was requesting. The fiancé doesn’t eat salads so I figured I would find him something else. I went to my favorite salad place in the world – you basically pick the size you want, the type of lettuce (spring mix, spinach, etc. – there’s like 7 different kinds) and then there’s this whole array of veggies, nuts, proteins, cheeses, dressings you can pick from. Last night I did the whole spring mix, cauliflower, mushrooms, pea pods, red peppers, green onions, sprouts, garbanzo beans, grilled chicken, walnuts, and my favorite low cal lemon raspberry vinaigrette tossed in. SO good. The girl working must have been new because she made the salad abnormally ginormous. Think of a salad the size of your head – it was bigger. The fiancé notified me that if I ate that whole thing I would have fiber overload. I ate about a quarter of it – normally I can put away the regular size salad no problem – but this one was about 100 times the size. Can’t complain – better deal for the dough, you know.

I started a new book series a couple days ago, Divergent by Veronica Roth – think Hunger Games meets Twilight sort of. So I was able to get some of that read while enjoying my salad mountain. I read all the time, I love this new series so far, and I’m only on the first book.
I topped off the evening watching the presidential address on Syria (because I like to at least try to stay informed) and of course, my post-run reward – a mini-post it size piece of sea salt dark chocolate. I am a firm believer in rewards, no matter how small, for every work out. I also believed that because my dinner was basically carb-less, that I could have a piece of chocolate :) I love chocolate. So does my giant dog but he’s not allowed to have it, contrary to how much he thinks he needs it...



Today’s lesson learned: keep pre-run snacks in a Ziploc bag to avoid The Stain

Today’s advice: always remember to pack an extra pair of shorts

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