What I Didn't Eat Wednesday

I know of at least three different blogs that do some variation of a What I Ate Wednesday, where they post all sorts of healthy salad-like concoctions. Let me present what was brought into the office for lunch today: El Pollo Loco.

All I ate was the chicken. Okay, I did put dressing on it, but I managed to avoid the rice, beans, mac and cheese, corn bread casserole and chips. I should get some sort of prize for my restraint.

That's my edition of What I Didn't Eat Wednesday. I did eat a huge bowl of frozen fruit, so if it looks sparkly, rest assured it did not come from the Cullen family.

The sparkles make it better!

I did actually go running tonight. I did a speed work out which was an improvement over last night's workout, which went a little something like this:

1. Changed into my running clothes at work.
2. Drove straight from my office to the park.
3. Spent 15 minutes surfing the web on my phone in the parking lot in my car.
4. Said, "screw it."
5. Drove home.

And that, folks, is how winners are made.

Day 3 of not eating grains was a challenge. Seriously. I'm not kidding when I say I could polish off a huge portion of that container of rice all by myself. I'm feeling Homer Simpson-ish just thinking about it. Mmmmm....rice....

But it I'm feeling a lot better. I can't deny it. I'm not sure how long I can keep it up, but I've been gluten free since September, and that's gotten easier over time. My mood is certainly better and I feel a lot less tired.

Doing a speed work out tonight (speedy for me is more snail-like for other people) made me excited for a few races on the future. I really wanted to PR at the 2011 Disneyland Half since it was my one year anniversary of doing half marathons, but my time was horrible because I got really sick about half way through. I'm really hoping I can pull off a PR for the DL Half 2012.

Now if there was just some way I could go on Space Mountain every day, things would be great!

That's a super secret gang sign I'm flashing.
And T has jazz hands. Woot!

Hydration Station

While typing away at work, I glanced over and noticed that I had not one, not two, but five drinks going on at my my desk. All from today, thank you very much. I have a weird habit of collecting drink options. It's important to properly hydrate...with 2 different cups of coffee.

5 drinks and a picture of a coworker
 and me in Vegas, baby!

So day two of being grain free has gone swimmingly. To a certain extent, it sucks because I love me some carbs! But overall, my mental well being is vastly improved. I was seriously considering getting my thyroid checked because I was so exhausted all of the time. I'm pretty tired today because I was so jazzed yesterday that I stayed up hours later than I normally do. (Seriously, I was keeping a schedule to rival a senior citizen.)

On another note, I had a smack down with Bam Bam the wonder pony this morning. Talk about a complete full body work out. He's not the biggest horse around, but he's damn strong. And he is not afraid to emotionally black mail me with it. Not even a little bit. I would say riding him counts as a serious work out.

Why yes, I did make this card.

He's 12 and I've had him since he was 2. He's always been a monster. But I love him and so I learn to deal with his naughty ways. I present Exhibit A: He ate his Christmas stocking...

But, it's so yummy!

I also have a halter in pieces in my car and if I wasn't feeling so lazy right now, I would go get it and take a picture. But he's just so damn cute!

That's his BFF behind him, Roger. Roger is the instigator most of the time...

So, yeah, I'm boring tonight. Not much to report. I do have a local half marathon on Saturday, for which I am totally undertrained. I know, it's shocking.

My, my, I'm on fire with my boringness. Originally, this was going to just be a running blog, but I find the more personal a blog is, the more fun it is to read and/or write. Have I mentioned how much I love to abuse the Google Image Search feature?

Google Image Search: A treasure trove of random.

Whew, now that I've bored you all to tears, I'm off to bed. Night, night!

Funk-y Town

I've been in a total funk.

It's perfectly normal to share personal stuff on the interwebz, right? Well, since I only have three readers, I suppose it's not really sharing with the world.

Everyone has times in their lives when things just feel crappy. Major life changes. Losing someone you care for. A pet dying. Stress at work. Sometimes things just suck. Things have felt sucky for too long now. I've been way too sad, too tired and too unmotivated. And today? Suddenly, things felt completely unsucky today.

What? Your coffee doesn't smile at you?

Yeah, I can be a whack-a-doo. But let me explain:

Run on the Sun and I tend to make science projects out of food. Currently, T is obsessed with glycation. I would attempt to explain it, but it's beyond my mental capabilities. All I know is food has a huge impact on everything. I know, duh. But for some reason, it never really sunk in that food can affect things other than the number on the scale - which is creeping up.

Oh yeah? Well, no one likes you, scale!

Around Labor Day last year, after getting sick smack dab in the middle of the Disneyland Half Marathon, I made the decision to be gluten free. I had been fighting the gluten thing for a long time and was in denial that gluten was making me sick. Try throwing up in front of hundreds of your closest friends at a Run Disney event. It's so miserable that you finally have to figure out what is wrong. Not to mention, I had such severe acid reflux for almost an entire year that I was living on Prilosec and had to take a handful of Tums just to go running for 10 minutes.

I won't bore you with all of the ins and outs of finally narrowing my ailments down to gluten, but at least I don't have to give up my very best friend:

I love you...we can be together forever!

So anyhoo, back to the science of food and being in a funk. I have a horse show coming up which requires that I wear breeches. White spandexy, stretchy riding pants look good on approximately .00000002% of the population. Hence, crash diet time!

Yeah, that's not me. (source)

I don't really condone crash dieting, folks. But I do believe in limiting carb intake. And no, I don't believe that works for everyone and I still eat lots of veggies and fruits. I decided I need to get back on track and take control of my funk (never under estimate the fear of wearing white breeches in public!) So I ate protein, veggies and fruit and no grains of any kind today.

The result? Emotionally, I felt better than I have felt in a long time. I was even motivated enough to get my ass out and go running at the park near my house. Which strangely, has bathrooms with no doors on the stalls...

Weird, right? And gross. Someone call housekeeping.

I've always thought that my body has a hard time dealing with too much carb intake. I'm like a crack addict when it comes to carbs. Even without gluten, there is carby goodness to be found everywhere!

Also, not me...but close enough. (source)

It's something to think about. Can sugar and starch really be affecting me this much? I'm going to do a little research and see what comes of it. I know each person is different, but I always feel better physically when I limit my carb intake and to be honest, my mood always improves, too. I thought it was just because the scale was going down, but maybe something chemically is happening in my body makes things seem better when I go low carb. Stay tuned!

Rock Encore!



Look what I got! My Rock Encore race bling for completing two Rock 'n' Roll races in 2011. I like this one a lot better than the old design. You can never have too much bling!

Tinkerbell Half Marathon Jan. 2012

Two inaugural races in one month! I loved, loved, loved this race. I like it better than the regular Disneyland Half over Labor Day weekend. The course is much different, spending more time running behind the scenes in the parks and the course runs the opposite direction through the castle. The weather was perfect and I enjoyed every minute of it!

Laser beams are armed!!

Okay, T's costume is better than mine...

Run on the Sun, a.k.a. T, and I don't typically run races together (with the exception of the WDW Half), so we said goodbye as we crossed the start line and we were off! I learned some valuable things about fueling during our back to back races at WDW. Apparently, I'm not eating nearly enough during races, so I was careful to take a shot block at every mile marker. It was hard to remember to take one as often as I planned because usually, I don't bother with anything until about 5 miles in. It makes such a huge difference in my stamina.

I bumped into T on Main Street, USA, my favorite part of the race!

Not the best photo quality, but it works!

Mile 10! (duh)

Awesome time was had by all!

Race Swag!

Okay, the Pan Am bag wasn't official race swag, but if you waited in line at the ABC network booth at the expo, you got a cool Pan Am bag. Woot! Now, of course, Pan Am is going of the air, but I don't care, the bag is sweet. It's pretty handy as a gym bag.

Definitely want to do this race again. I don't know if I can pull of 2013 for Tink because we've committed to doing the Goofy Challenge the week before and that just seems like too much to pack in.
Of course, we stayed an extra day to hang out at the parks. Sadly, our Disney filled January had to come to end because T's boyfriend and son were beginning to forget what she looked like and I used up a good portion of my PTO at work.

Mmmmm

Post Race Tomfoolery

Oh, it's magical!

Running two half marathons in two days is tough business. Run On The Sun and I didn't make it to the parks Saturday or Sunday because we were exhausted. We did, however, have dinner with my wonderful friend Debra that drove from Jacksonville just to have dinner with us. I wish I had taken pictures of the food because it was incredible. We went to a Spanish tapas restaurant and ate ourselves silly!

We decided to take our bling for a spin around the parks and get some good pictures.

Just a little awesomeness. No big deal.

I'm being eaten by a squirrel.

Do people actually pay for these hats, or do they
 just try them on and take pictures?

Moi

Fake Italy!

Fake Japan!

I wonder how many people do this every day...

Fake France!

Really wish I had a better camera for this one...

Spaceship Earth

I really love Epcot. I enjoy all of the parks, but Epcot is the most interesting. Also has the biggest selection of alcohol, not that I noticed! We definitely spent most of our time at Epcot. For some reason, I didn't take any pictures at Animal Kingdom. Can't wait to come back in 2013!

WDW Marathon Relay Jan. 2012

Writing all of these race reports is exhausting! Almost as exhausting as training for a half marathon (if I did silly things like train for half marathons).

Yep, that's about right.

So, anywho, here's my race recap from the WDW Marathon Relay. After taking it pretty slowly the day before, I wasn't nearly as sore as I thought I might be. Both relayers have to be at the start at the same time, so Run On The Sun and I were both on the bus at an insanely early hour for the second day in a row. I had the first leg and T had the second. Sorry, T, that you had to wait around for ETERNITY for your leg of the race!

Starting with the marathoners is a completely different experience from starting with the half marathoners. While all of the Disney races have a lot of excitement, the marathon is more serious. Less costumes and less chatter.

I was actually nervous about being able to finish for the first time since the first half marathon I ran. Having never run two half marathons in one weekend was a little scary. But I still stopped to take a few pictures.

Running into Epcot

Mexico..well, Mexico in Epcot

I took this picture because I started with the back of the pack. Since we waited so long to register, I was in the last corral. I'm slow, but not THIS slow. This is only maybe 5 miles in - I could be wrong about that - and everyone was walking. Although, I do realize most of these people are doing the full 26.2, so they deserves kudos because I can't (yet!) say that I've done that.

I won't lie, it felt really good to be passing everyone...

T was bored in the little prison set up for the second leg runners and sent me pictures from the holding corral.

Kinda cool to see the finish line before anyone was there,

Poor T is freezing. And bored. And apparently making
friends with strangers that don't mind taking her picture.

Bbbbrrrrr!

I stopped to take my traditional mile 10 picture.

Believe it or not, I actually had negative splits! I was still slow, but I managed to actually gain speed, which is pretty cool. So yeah! We totally did it! Back to back half marathons. 26.2 miles in 2 days. I'll admit it: I got teary eyed when I crossed the finish line. There weren't many relay runners, so the finish area for the first leg was very quiet. T and I shared a gear bag that she was able to keep with her until her leg and I was able to pick it up with no wait.

Made some new friends!

All in all, this was a really cool experience. It was great for my self esteem to be able to pull it off. But I also got a wee bit jealous of all of the Goofy medals I saw in the parks during the vacation part of our trip!

How cute is this medal?!

So yeah. Guess who's doing the Goofy Challenge in 2013? Moi. I've also conned Run on the Sun to join me and possible my friend, A. I guess I better stop Google Image searching medals and go train a wee bit.