Future Fitness and Food

I ran my first 5k on Thanksgiving morning- a recap is to come. For now, a quick look at my upcoming fitness endeavors:

1. The Santa Antonio 5k on Dec. 3
2. 4 Belly dancing classes, courtesy of GroupOn
3. 10 boxing and/or kickboxing classes, courtesy of GroupOn
4. Restarting SuperFit over the Christmas holiday

I'm learning that I really need things scheduled like this to keep moving. I'm glad to have so many options coming up!

At home for a few more days, enjoying having access to my beloved Trader Joes favorites- the vanilla Greek yogurt, the whole wheat mini pita pockets, and the huge tubs of hummus. I have plans to completely purge my kitchen when I get back to Texas, probably my whole house. Likely an epic undertaking that will take several hours of constant work, but I think it will be worth it. If I want to succeed in my apartment, I need to make it replicate the environments where I have succeeded before. I've been identifying foods I need to stock (doing a fairly good job there already, but a few new things need to be added to the rotation), and foods I need to toss (mainly my eggs- I only use them for making naughty things).

First Thing

This is the second time this week that I have done my run first thing in the morning, and I think it is agreeing with me. Today's run included two bursts of 3 minutes of running, and I actually pulled it off. I played music for both of them, otherwise running in silence, and the first two minutes passed pretty quickly. I definitely felt my lungs a little in the last minute each time, but considering that it is twice the length of time I have run before, I'm calling it good.

Form felt pretty good. I noticed that when I made a conscious effort to speed up my foot-turnover, a little pain started creeping back into my Achilles area. So I eased off a little bit, and it went away again. Again, had a few moments where it all felt right and natural.

My main problem now is that it is freezing cold in my apartment (southern Texas has finally recognized that it is indeed November), so I have absolutely no inclination to go get on my bike or do any homework (even though I have a space heater set up next to my desk). I just want to snuggle under my covers and watch Tony-centric episodes of NCIS. But I promised myself that the DVDs would only be viewed from the bike, and I've already cheated and watched 2 episodes from my nest, so I should really cut it out.

So, in short, it's a very good thing that I just went out and got in my run this morning (it was actually almost noon, but that's beside the point). I got it out of the way before I could come up with excuses not to.

Building Better Ankles

After taking about a week off, I got back on my running schedule today to finish off Week 2. And I actually think the week off did me some good. While my ankles felt a little funny, I think my leg and ankle muscles have really developed over the past few weeks, because I didn't notice any pain until I was almost done with the program. I definitely felt the cardio in my lungs, but not to the point where I had to stop. A few times I even went over the target running time by accident. The whole endeavor just started to feel more natural. Time passed quickly, and I was able to run happily without any music (even though my iPod was actually charged for once). And when I got home, I was able to put a big X through another training day. Hooray!

P90X again tonight, more juicing, and more time on the bike. I have been also taking a serious break from juicing, so I'm going to make up for it today by trying out broccoli in a juice. I'm thinking broccoli, spinach, collard greens, and an apple. Should be very green! On the bike front, however, I've been much better. I've gotten obsessed with NCIS lately, and I've taken to marathoning episodes from my bike, on and off throughout the day. I've logged as many as 25 miles in one day, which is exciting.

Now I should really go have breakfast. What shall it be?...