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?...

Potentials and Partners

Today's juice: celery, kale stems, and apple, with chia seeds mixed in and left to gel. Not the most pleasant drink. I don't think I'm a fan of celery. It seems oddly... peppery? I'd like to get used to the chia part, however. Once my mind and body have gotten used to juicing (at least another week, if not two, I should think), I'd like to grit my teeth and try a 10 -Day "ReBoot," or juice fast, as seen in Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead. Because I will be working out quite a bit during that time, I want to make absolutely certain I am getting enough oomph in my diet to continue progressing. I have heard that mixing in chia seeds is a popular method of accomplishing that.

Started P90X with Katie today (though she had to leave early because it is her mother's birthday, so we didn't get to AbRipperX). For now, we are doing it three times a week- her idea- but today she expressed some interest in maybe bumping it up to the full schedule! And, added incentive to keep up with it: one of her roommates will start joining us several times a week. So now there are three people all poking at each other to stay on track.

I've been keeping up with my running schedule, but I'm still experiencing a lot of tightness and sometimes a little pain in my lower-calf/Achilles area. Looking into strengthening exercises and stretches to try and alleviate that, and trying to monitor my runs to not push it to the point of injury. I do think that my endurance is already improving, however. Tomorrow pushes the running up to 90 seconds a shot. I'm interested to see how it goes.

Immediate Reflections on Juicing

Today's juice: kale, cucumber, apple. A much prettier color than yesterday!

Today's run: Day Three of Week One- the same as the rest of the week, 60 seconds jogging with 90 seconds recovery repeated for a total of 20 minutes.

I have arranged with my mother to do a Turkey Trot over Thanksgiving together. We don't know yet which part of the state we will be in on which days, but as we get closer we can actually officially sign up. So this means that for my first race I will have someone to talk to, and for my second (just a week later!) I will have a Santa suit! This seems like a good sign for my running career.

Yesterday, after juicing for the first time, I got on such an energy high. First it was an emotional buzz, pride that I had done it and excitement and the like. Then I think my body realized it actually had micronutrients in it, and it went berserk. I was calling my entire family, trying to get someone on the phone so I could bubble over to them, and realized that I was speed walking in very tight circular paths all over my apartment. So I slipped on my Vibrams in record time, hopped outside, and absolutely booked it about half a mile up an incline. I talked my sister's ear off for about half an hour, wandered around the athletic fields at school, one eye on the soccer game, and then beat the fall of night to get back into my apartment. Made some Mexican rice with brown rice, cleaned up the kitchen some more, and got a wonderful night's sleep.

Actually letting my juice chill this morning, but it should be pretty cold by now, so I'm about to head out to have it!

Getting the Juices Flowing

Holy cow, holy cow, holy cow.

I was feeling particularly sluggish this morning- eating nothing healthy, lying flat on my back glued to my computer, the works. And it just kept eating and eating at my mind. Yes, I know I said I'm not striving for perfection, but this just felt like it was actively causing the problem, rather than maintaining status quo or working to correct it. But I couldn't make myself do anything.

I reopened a document I started a few days ago about juicing. I'd heard about juicing, of course, but never given it much thought until Emily talked about watching Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead. Suddenly, juicing was on my mind. I checked my Netflix- Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead was available for instant watching. I instantly watched. Suddenly, juicing was all I could think about.

But I'm on a student budget. The juicer Emily was getting was $200. Hmm. I started brainstorming all of the different ways I could raise that amount of extra cash. Even if I started implementing all of those steps right away, it would still be easily a month before I felt I had the disposable income on hand. And it ate at me.

Then, today, as I moved from lying flat on the couch back to lying flat on my bed, a serious discontentment started festering. About 20 minutes later, I suddenly jackknifed up. I don't remember any thought process taking me there- I think I was in the middle of watching an episode of Chuck- but I had an urgent need to see if Walmart had any juicers. I checked my store specifically. Yes, they had exactly one model in my store- $30, with pretty good reviews. My heart rate skyrocketed. I remained in bed long enough to read through most of the reviews, and check the questions area to see if it would juice greens. All things checked out.

It was a Scarlett O'Hara moment of types. I knew I needed to do it, I knew I couldn't stay in my apartment any longer. I had to go out and get it. I had my makeup on in record time, and was feeling bold enough to wear lip color. Then I remembered to grab a reusable grocery bag, and skipped to my car. I have rarely felt so empowered. I felt oddly serious and driven, but with an underlying jubilation that caused me to loudly sing along to my radio during the drive to Walmart. I marched straight in, located the juicer within a minute, snagged a cheapo pitcher so I can make up large batches in the morning (my model only holds 8oz at a time), and was out of the store within 5 minutes, less than $35 dollars poorer. [Geek sidetrip: according to my microeconomics professor, I may have actually been about $150 richer, because I was able to get something I would have spent almost $200 on for less than $50, thus giving my $150 in Consumer Surplus]

I carefully placed it in the trunk, and then zipped over to Whole Foods, where I scouted for all of the sales on produce. Carrots, Fiji apples, kiwis, a lemon, a grapefruit, two cucumbers, a bunch of kale and a bunch of romaine. I already had spinach, tomatoes, limes, and more lemons in my fridge, languishing unloved in my vegetable crisper. I think I am being entirely honest when I say that I currently have more vegetables in my fridge than I have eaten in my entire college career combined.

Triumphantly returning home, I was energized to clean up my kitchen (which was in an absolutely incredible state this morning, adding to the extreme lazy bum feeling of the morning). I looked up a few recipes online, and decided that there was enough variation to basically wing it. Out came the sparkling new juicer, cleaned and set up, and I chopped up enough kale, cucumber, and carrot to make 1 glass (250 ml/8 oz).

I set it in the fridge to get nice and cold, and cleaned up- really quite an easy affair, though I do need to invest in a cheapo toothbrush to help clean the screen. Around this point I started having my standard "Oh God it's vegetables" brain freeze, so I snatched the juice out of the fridge before it could get properly cold. I took a picture to commemorate the moment, and ran to my computer to crank my number one Changing My Life Song- "Watch Me Shine" by Vanessa Carlton (also known as the song to which Elle Woods changes her life in Legally Blonde). Then I downed it, the whole glass. It wasn't super yummy by any means, but it was certainly palatable. I only had a gag reflex once, towards the very end when all of the micropulp started to build up at the bottom of the glass. But I pushed through and finished it all.

Now I'm all buzzy and super excited. I think I will be jumping up and down and calling my mom in short order, and then probably zooming away on the bike as I cackle hysterically at last night's episode of The Mentalist. I don't even know if it is a particularly funny one, I just think I'm going to find everything as amusing as possible.

I did it! I ingested KALE. I juiced! I have a juicer! And I'm using it! Scarlett O'Hara, this is how we do things in the New South.