Weekly Wrap – Week 11

So, I’ll just tell you guys straight up.  It is not going well.  I’m seeing patterns.  But I’ll get to that in a bit.  First let’s wrap up Week 11…  

As per usual I’m linking up this post on the Weekly Wrap again this week from HoHo Runs and MissSippiPiddlin – check out their blogs as well AND the links that others have dropped in the link up!

 

 

Monday – I already arranged to take the day off (along with Tuesday) and made an appointment with the hairdresser for 9am. Who goes to the hairdresser at 9am on a Monday?  Only crazy people like yours truly.  What I wanted to do with my hair takes quite some time and I didn’t want to have to rush home in the afternoon to do other things like eat on time and go to training.  Because my hair has been going grey for quite sometime I thought I’d just do something a bit drastic for once… so I cut of a huge chunk of it (I can no longer put it in any sort of pony tail) and… I’ve started the bleaching/ lightening process.   I figured it would be less harsh than a block of grey and a block of almost-black.  But it’s quite different and I am still a bit shocked when I look in the mirror!  But I like it, I’m happy with it and I think next go around we’ll try to soften the coppery tones a bit more.  It’s pretty curly now too –  it was before but now the curls are more prominent.  Which the Husband likes.  So, hey, everyone wins.

After getting my hair done I went and had lunch and looked around a few shops (broke now after that hair session) and then I went home.  I biked to and from training, approx 15KM.  Did not log my food, but I did drink all my water.  No alcohol, no housework, no schoolwork.

 

Tuesday – up again, fairly early.  Wanted to get the house tidied up and do some extra stuff like dusting and mopping the floors.  We have 4 cats and a friend of mine was going to come over in the afternoon for sports massage (we have 4 cats so I need to think about allergies and that sort of thing – even if we are not affected, people who come over might be!).  This friend of mine was one of my “models” for a client case I had to do when I was doing my first course and was now in need of massage before a pretty major trail run here in the Netherlands taking place on Sunday.  It was good to see her and catch up a bit and I believe she was satisfied with my services.  Again, everyone wins (I got a bit of pocket money out of the deal).  In the evening I met up with Gerrit and his new running friends Sjoukje (Show like in “shower”  + -kyuh) and Ellen and we ran a 5K around the neighbourhood (Sjoukje lives less than 1KM from me!), then I ran an additional 1K home.  Did not log my food and did no homework.  Water was good, no alcohol.

Wednesday – Back to work, normal-ish day.  It was election day in the Netherlands, so I walked to the polling station at lunch to get that taken care of.  After work I went to get my own sports massage as I had a race on the horizon and didn’t want to be all jacked up.  Afterwards I hit my homework again.  School is still killing me.  I can’t wait for the project to be over.   No food logging.  Water was good.  Only real activity was the walking at lunch and that was like 1.5KM in total.  No housework (not needed after yesterday’s deep clean).  No alcohol though I could seriously use a cocktail right about now.

 

Thursday – could not sleep.  was wide awake at 5am so finally got out around 5:15 and started working on my paper again.  Did I mention I can’t wait until it’s just done? Work was normal.  Came home and did more homework. Was supposed to try a new gym but decided to prioritise schoolwork.  Food logged:  do I actually log my food?  Water on point,  no housework, no activity, and amazingly still no alcohol.

 

Friday – day off.  Certainly can’t complain, I only had to work two days this week.  I got up reasonably early and went to Den Haag to meet a my friend Suzy.  I love going to Den Haag;  I used to live there and still love the place.  Suzy was wanting to get her first tattoo so I offered to go with her.  In the end she backed out.  She still wasn’t fully sure on the design (so, good decision).  Still it was nice to see her and hang out a bit,  have coffee and talk.   In the afternoon I went home, arranged something to eat and then went to Runiversity.  Training was good and my trainer actually said he would help me with my paper so I brought everything with me and after training we worked on it for about 2.5 hours.  I’m getting closer now.  Food:  not logged.  At least I’m consistent.  Water on point, no housework, had a beer when I got home.

 

 

Saturday – More school work.  My schoolmate is in Barcelona for the weekend.  Happy for her but I’ve got to keep cranking through this paper so we can get it approved.  Then Ron and I went into town for a few errands, plus coffee (as you do).  I dropped by Gerrit’s place as he was also away for the weekend but in Antwerp – his kitty needed to have some crunchies and a bit of love while he was away.  Once we were home again I worked on the paper again, then we got ready to go out.  We had been looking forward to a Depeche Mode party for some time (their new album was released Friday) and tonight was the night! We had dinner at an Italian place near the venue, since we were also running the next day.  The party was fabulous.  Lots of dancing!  Hadn’t done that in years!  Also was good to see my DJ friend (whom I knew in Den Haag) spinning again and my friend Monique who is also a huge fan!  Great night, only we got home pretty late.   Food not logged (do I even need to mention it right now?), water good, glass of wine at dinner, later a beer at the party.  No housework.  Activity, biking to town and back and lots of boogie-ing.

 

Sunday  – RACE DAY.  This is the third year running the Stevensloop in Nijmegen (and the third year it exists).  The last two times I ran the Half Marathon, this year I ran the 10K.  Hubbers was in for the Half.  It was actually great running weather – not too cold and not too warm – but… it was also REALLY windy.  If you know anything about the Netherlands you probably know we have a lot of bridges and a lot of dikes.  This race course is no exception.  We arrived early enough in Nijmegen and had a coffee and last minute carb-loading at Starbucks.  Ran into some running club friends while we were there (not surprising).  We walked to the start just before the 5K began so we could see the kick off.  Then I basically dropped off my luggage, did a bit of a warm up and kissed my husband goodbye and good luck!  I would finish right around the time that he started.

I actually felt pretty good body-wise.  No real aches and pains.  A bit tired but that was my own fault for being home at 1am…  I haven’t been to the gym in two weeks now so I think some of my back pain is from exercises that irritate the nerve in my back. I really didn’t have any complaints at all.  I didn’t feel slow or sluggish.  My time was a little all over the place but it finally settled on an average of 6:30 minutes per kilometer. There were quite some hills (and bridges.  and hills.  No, the Netherlands is not flat, not here in the East) and in some cases I was really able to speed up them, thanks to training (on Friday we did hill-training!).  The wind was horrendous near the end so I lost a bit of time I think somewhere between 7 and 8 kilometers.  Once I got up the last hill I really tried to pick up my speed again to sprint over the finish.  In the end, my time was 1:05:30.  Four minutes faster than two weeks ago AND a full 10K (I think we were 700 meters short at Vorden).

Afterwards I also felt fine, I didn’t feel broken at all.  So, pretty much a victory in my book!

The Half Marathon started at 1:30pm and this particular race was being used for the Dutch National championships;  I figured I better be back up by the finish line (after going to pick up my bag and put on some warmer clothes) around 2:30 as that would be when the Speedy Gonzales’ would be arriving.  One of my favourite Dutch athletes was participating, Michel Butter, and I was really hoping to see him cross the line.  I saw him the first time in Amsterdam at the marathon, several years ago, and was blown away by his capabilities.  I couldn’t wait to see if he would come in first place in the Dutch National Championships.  Sure enough!  1 hour and 4 minutes after the start (so… faster than my 10k!!!), Michel Butter flew into the finish stream, looking fresh, like he hadn’t been running TWENTY KM PER HOUR, and smashed that first place position!

Ron came in about a half an hour later – was super proud of him as I know he is also struggling with his own body issues (the hernia).  It’s taking a lot of mental strength for him these days but he just KEEPS PUSHING THROUGH.

And would you believe it?  I worked on my school paper in the evening.  Food:  not logged.  Water, on target, drank a beer later in the evening.

 

The trends I am seeing

Food logging – either I just get sick of it after a while, or I don’t know how to log (and subsequently say “screw it”) certain meals, or when it’s all too much the food logging goes by the wayside.  I tend to actually eat the same stuff every day so I have a general idea, BUT, if it’s too many days not logging my food, things that I don’t usually eat somehow make their way into my mouth.  I almost think it’s a combination but the stress of school is really making my head spin right now.  Like Linda Blair style.  Someone send my husband some chocolate because he is suffering from my bitchiness (and send it to him at work so it’s no where near me).

Gym – even though I think the exercises I’m doing at the gym are irritating my back, it’s so easy for me to just not go there.  So, I think I better cancel my membership and find something else that I like to do.  Swimming lessons start April 11 (because I need more on my plate) in any case, and I still want to try more private group lessons to do. Or do I?  I tried bootcamp last summer and while I liked it I wasn’t sorry when I stopped going.  I just don’t want to be a runner that only runs.  I tend to not work out consistently at home.  I’m not lazy, I’m constantly moving – but again mostly running or biking – but I’m not in balance.  I need my knees and hips to be stronger!

I drank more alcohol this week (was still only 4 units) believe you me, the way I was feeling I could have gone on a bender.  So good for me for not using alcohol to get through hard stuff.

 

Week 11 summed up (March 13 – 19)

Food logged: 0/7
Water: 7/7
Activity: 5/7 but no gym
School: 5/7
House: 1/7
No Alcohol: 4/7

I made the mistake of getting on the scale this week and I’m already up.  Bugger.  I know it’s not the be all and end all but in some part of my brain it really is important to be in the healthy weight category and not overweight.  So why can’t I follow through?

 

I hope you had a better week than me.  Tell me something good that happened!  Did you run a race?  Do you log your food online or in a paper journal or do points?   Do you have any keys to being successful across all areas or do you struggle too?