HTFU

Lately, I find myself surrounded by animals. And not in the good, Snow White, help you with your chores kind of way. It's much more like this. Like, one of these things is not like the other when it comes to the physical challenges/races/accomplishments that are going down. I have a friend who's doing 10 century bike rides (that's 100 miles, per ride) this summer, another friend that was the first place female finisher of a 50K trail run, a boyfriend who just crushed 60 hours of Death Race, is signed up for GoRuck Selection, World's Toughest Mudder, AND Death Race 2014 and a little brother who owned the San Fran marathon with a time of 2:36:55, just to name a few. So...insert how happy I am for all of you on your individual accomplishments, because really, truly, I am impressed and in awe of what you've done and how hard you've worked to get there. But, I have to be honest. You're all a bunch of assholes.

Ok that was harsh, I know it, but if I can't jump up onto my unopposed position atop my internet soap box, I really see no value in having a blog. Because that's what it's there for, right?

The truth is, as has been stated on here before, I am a highly competitive person. Product of my position as child number three in a family of four? Without a doubt. And this highly competitive nature acting as a thinly veiled and convenient excuse to pardon my rampant jealousy? Absolutely. But at least I can be upfront about my flagrant bitchery....right?

Ok I just re-read what I wrote above and realize I come across like a total jerk. To be very honest, dear public-on-the-internet diary, it has nothing to do with how amazing at the things I suck at my friends are, it's just that I've been really frustrated with my own personal training and progress as of late and I'm taking it out on people who are just flat out better than me. Which has lead me back here. It seems nothing motivates me more than a little public accountability mixed with a little personal humiliation.

My last post I gave a quick run down on the races I'm signed up for in order to qualify for the 2014 NYC Marathon. I am two deep in my 9+1 programming through NYRR, and the results for both races were less than stellar. Both races were pretty straight forward and easy 5 milers, and both official times were more disappointing than expected. I also recently started CrossFit, and its been amazing and WAY more challenging than originally anticipated, which has been a bitter failure pill to swallow. Hand stand push ups? Pull ups? Double unders? Yeah right! And lastly, I have completely fallen off my paleo wagon. No weight gain, but I've definitely been feeling a lot worse--lack of energy, puffy and bloated and all around lazier.  Most people would take this as a sign to step away from the beer and carbs and get back with the program, right? Well, I am clearly not most people, because all I want to do is drown my sorrows in  food, which I've been allowing myself to do. And do often.

But no more! My next race is on July 21st, and it's a 10k in Queens. My goal is a solid 8 minute pace for the whole race. The weekend after that I'm doing GORUCK #3 in Long Beach. My goal for that is to push harder than I did during the last two. Both of these goals require me to start putting my money where my mouth is, which means taking the food out of said mouth, training harder, eating better and HTFU.

So I'll be back here for the next couple weeks. Expect to see some horrifying weigh in and measurement numbers, some embarrassing training splits and workouts, and some seriously aggressive food journal-ing. Try and contain your excitement....

Don't call it a comeback......

Sometimes I make rash decisions.

Starting this blog and committing to full blown paleo for 30 days was not well thought out. I love beer. I love oatmeal. I love not being a cranky monster to everyone around me because I'm not deep in the throws of some serious sugar withdrawal. I love having a life. But I'm starting to learn the commitments I stick to and the ones that pay off (two months post paleo challenge I'm back to eating and drinking relatively normally, and still down the 17.4 pounds I lost from the paleo experience, plus 2 more) are the ones I don't let myself over think.

So drum roll it out and cue rash decision number 2: I just signed up to complete the 9 + 1 New York Road Runners requirement for guaranteed entry into the 2014 New York City Marathon. That's 9 races and 1 volunteering gig in the next seven months....with a couple of other pre-existing race commitments, some weddings, the whole having a life thing, oh, and did I mention we're opening a new restaurant? That too mixed in for fun.

The race schedule will be as follows:

• June 29: Front Runner's New York LGBT Pride Run; 5 miles
• June 30: Achilles Hope & Possibility; 5 miles
• July 21: NYRR 5-Borough Series: Queens 10K; 6 miles
• August 24: Harlem 5k; 3.1 miles
• September 22: NYRR Fifth Avenue Mile; 1 mile
• September 29: NYRR 5-Borough Series: Bronx; 10 miles
• October 13: NYRR 5-Borough Series: Staten Island Half; 13.1 miles
• October 27: Poland Springs Marathon Kick off; 5 miles
• November 2: NYRR Dash to the Finish Line; 3.1 miles

And once I get through that, the real training begins.....AND you get to read about it! I'll be posting again, albeit a lot less often than before, about my training (which now includes Crossfit--also kind of a snap decision), my diet, and some other things in between. And if you're signed up for any of these races, let me know! Would love to see you out there.

Word.

Day 30: And beyond...

I've been putting off writing my day 30 blog post for a whole bunch of reasons, namely because I had no idea what exactly I was going to say. I could spout off a bunch of lessons I learned during this paleo experience, but if you've been reading since day 1, those lessons have been pretty clearly laid out along the way.

I definitely started this whole thing with one end goal in mind: HELLOOOO. Let me just be upfront right now, I am nowhere near having anything remotely resembling those abs. We're not even really in the same ball park as these bad boys. But, we're farther away from this than we were when we started. 16.2 pounds away from that to be exact. (That's what it was on day 30, on day 33, its 17.4lbs. Let's just be clear...)

Those results are far better than any that I've seen through diet and exercise ever before. To be honest, they're way better than I was even hoping for when I started this thing.

I can list three negative effects of this paleo program: mood swings, FOMO, sudden loss of boobs. The first two I can totally live with. The last one, less tolerable but I guess Victoria's got a secret for that.

Someone told me to go back and re-read my 30 day journey, so I did, and I laughed because it was just 30 days of not eating crap. Not so hard, right?

Maybe I'm a big baby, but to me, this whole thing has been extremely hard and it slapped me around on every level--mentally, emotionally, and most importantly, although one I talked way less about, physically. I didn't realize until I looked back that there was not a day I took off from the gym or from working out. And a lot of the days, I was hitting it twice.

I could down play how hard this has been, or I could just shoot it straight. After 30 days of pushing myself, the only thing that's not tired is my appetite. I was hoping sticking to the paleo program would feel easier, but it's still a struggle and an active choice every day. And even though the end goal throughout this process has been to make it to 30 days, I want more. I want better results. I want to get stronger and to be faster.

That being said, I'm realistic. I know I'm never going to be the strongest or the fastest, but I also know I won't ever let myself be last. And after sticking to this self-inflicted challenge, I'm pretty sure I can tough out an uncomfortable situation and at least find my way to a place I can be proud of.

So, 30 days are complete, although its definitely not the end to my challenge, or to this blog. I'll be posting on here as this process continues, but don't worry, with way less annoying frequency:)

Thanks for reading, supporting and motivating. Y'all are amazing.

 " A lot of people run a race to see who's fastest. I run to see who has the most guts."

-Steve Prefontaine

Day 29: Holy crap, we're headed home

"The Final Countdown" was playing on repeat in my head all day long. It's official: we are in the final two day home stretch.

Today turned out to be a preposterously nice day to run outside, so that's what I did. Before meeting up with some friends on their way out of the city after work today, I headed over to the east river to get in a quick run and enjoy the weather. My phone was about to die, so I left it plugged in at the office to charge, and head out on my run sans music, obviously my inner playlist of the aforementioned song was the exception.

Running without music is something I never do because it sucks, and so I've been trying to do more of it lately. One of the things I've gotten out of this whole paleo experience is that doing things the easy way, or at least, the easier way, lessens the inevitable reward of finishing. I like running with music, because as I've mentioned before, it keeps me on tempo and helps me with my motivation. But this whole month of paleo has triggered a desire in me to try to eliminate more of the external influences on my quest for fitness, and really, for being a happier, better version of myself. I want to be the one pushing myself. I want to be responsible for my success at the end of this, whenever that may be.

My legs were pretty tight from TRX last night, and from a short 3 mile run and some spinning this morning so I was going way slower than I normally do. But it felt good. It felt necessary. For some people (read: me, before this past month) a successful Friday night was measured in drinks. For me lately, it's measured in miles logged. I think I'm getting old....

Day 28: Taking hypersensitivity to a whole other level

As we all know, I cheated last night. I did it, immediately felt guilty, contemplated spitting it out, realized I was in a fancy restaurant, and that it was delicious, swallowed it like a big girl, digested it, blogged about my suckage, and should've moved on, right?

Wrong.

I dwelled in it. I stewed in it. And I'm pretty sure my mental anguish manifested itself physically, because even though the actual cheating was in reality confined to at maximum 5% of my overall calories consumed for the day, I felt puffy and bloated and all around gross this morning when I woke up.

So....what's a girl to do when she wakes up and feels like she's suffering from a major case of gout? She gets her fat ass up and she runs. And it might not have been the prettiest five miles, or the fastest, but it set me up for a solid re-baptism into the paleo program.

Day 28 was a pretty solid day of good, clean eating. Breakfast was a green juice and coffee with almond milk, a larabar as a snack, a spinach salad with beets, tomatoes, avocado and hardboiled eggs and a banana for lunch, an apple and some blueberries and strawberries for snack number 2 and grilled chicken breast, broccoli and sweet potatoes for dinner, following TRX.

I'm also pretty stoked because I was scared that once I opened the flood gates to sugar, like an addict, I'd hit the rock hard, fall off the grid only to resurface three days later as this guy, trying to break into a convenience store so I could mainline all their sugar packets. But cheating actually had the opposite effect. I felt gross and terrible and in a strange twist, that made me feel amazing and so much better at the end of Day 28.

So with two days left, we are back on track and thundercats are GOOOOOOO.

Day 27: Man down!

Well, ladies and gentlemen, it happened on day 27. This paleo train went off the rails.

I'm exaggerating a little bit because I'm wracked with a combination of sugar and guilt. I went to dinner tonight at one of our restaurants to try out the new menu and committed the following transgressions:

I had wine.

I tasted dessert.

And I am pretty positive there was both butter and vinegar in the dishes I ate.

But I will be back on track tomorrow, and am determined to finish strong. To motivate myself, I got obsessed with this new site: www.thugkitchen.com. Pretty hilarious and some good, distracting ideas, like this one:

Day 26: Not So Typical Tuesday

Tuesdays are normally the bain of my work week existence. Monday you know is going to suck, and you're prepared mentally for just how sucky it's going to be. But Tuesday, Tuesday is the weekday equivalent to a carbon monoxide leak. Energy levels are low, you have a mild headache that doesn't get better or worse throughout the entire day, you're generally confused about what exactly is going on, and if you're lucky, you just pass out and wake up to the clear morning air of middle of the week marker, Wednesday.

But, aside from putting my black wallet on top of a freshly painted white cabinet and losing a favorite piece of jewelry, this Tuesday proved to be slightly different than the normal weekday equivalent to one of my most searched WebMD diagnoses.

 As I mentioned in a previous post, I am signed up for my second GoRuck Challenge on April 6th.

For whatever reason, my excitement about the challenge didn't really kick in until this week as the clock starting ticking down below the two week mark.

I'm excited about this GoRuck for a bunch of reasons:

1) I was basically in an anxiety blackout throughout the entire first one we did. I vaguely remember turning to the only other person I knew going into the challenge when he asked me how I was doing and saying something to him about not speaking to or looking at me, and never doing anything this stupid ever again. But this time I'm older and slightly wiser to the ways of the world of GoRuck. I can expect that they will hold us to their motto of Embracing the Suck, and I know I'll experience 8-12 hours of Good Livin'.

2) I've been training with and without my ruck, which is a vast improvement over the last challenge. Prior to my last GoRuck, I was maxing out at 4 mile workouts and that was basically it. I didn't once put my ruck on, nor did I conceive of the physical torture that wearing a backpack with 25 extra pounds in it for that amount of time would wreak on my neck, back and shoulders. The day after the challenge, i was literally like a turtle on its back--I couldn't get up without someone else's help. I mean, nothing lightens you up faster than letting go of some of that weight known as your own dignity and asking someone to help you stand up, and also look left and right for you because you literally can't turn your own head.

3) It might be mental, but eating this cleanly has really accelerated the amount of time it takes my body to recover from soreness and tightness. Which helps out with that whole preserving my dignity thing mentioned above.

Tonight I went to Boot camp, ran a solid 6 miles on the treadmill and did some mental prep in the form of rucking with 25 lbs in my backpack for about 30 minutes. It in no way compares to the amount of mental and physical fortitude I'll need to get through the challenge in 11 days (holy crap!) but it was a pretty solid workout, for a Tuesday.

Oh, and did I forget to mention, scale read down 14.5 lbs today. That's .5lbs in the next 5 days to hit my goal:) Hollaaaa.