RUN

I don’t know what the heck was up with me Friday night, because I did none of my usual ritual. In fact it’s amazing I even got out of bed.  I did, only 5 minutes after I was supposed to, only to find out that the Rangers lost after I called it a night    Not a good way to start the day.

New meds can cause restless sleep, which I had. I’ve already noted I need to take the medicine earlier in the day ( twice a day). Luckily no nausea, thank goodness.

I woke up feeling pretty rotten. Ate my “apple pie” oats and it helped a bit. Couldn’t decide what route or trail I wanted to do, I opted for Lady Bird lake, even though it’s a haul from my house. My main reasoning was the first hour would be pitch black dark. It was actually darker than normal, my eyes weren’t adjusting well at all, but I was fine. Knocked 12 mile cutback week run out at slightly faster than normal training pace.

Went to REI for gels and sure enough, they had zero tangerine.  Looks like a trip to Academy is in order for Sunday morning.

LIFE

Hit Sprouts market for some produce. Just gotta hit up HEB tomorrow for everything else. Since we are so busy the next few weeks, I’ve done rough menus out further than my usual week. Did some prep on veggies when I got home, hadn’t done that in a while, need to get back to that.

Before I knew it, time had flown and it was time to go to Mangia Pizza for the Auburn alumni club’s watch party.  Horrible game.  Can you say tons of offense and no defense?  We had the Rangers game going on at the same time.  The Rangers and Auburn both just about killed me yesterday.  Good grief!

The plan was to eat dinner there after the game, but Dan couldn’t wait, so he ordered some wings as a snack.  By time dinner time rolled around and both games were over, my stomach hurt   Stupid meds.  I know it’ll take time to adjust and figure out when to take them and how I react, but I was really looking forward to some yummy pizza!  But you know, sometimes it pays to listen to your body and not have what you want, but rather what IT wants.  I don’t think it was really going to react well to cheesy goodness.

I ordered that sweater from Target online (college sweaters were their “deal of the day” a few weeks ago) and it turned out to be more Florida blue than Auburn blue.  I got teased a lot, I’ll save it for work, lol.  No more wearing it on game day.

FOOD

Tried out a pizza recipe from the October Oxygen magazine Saturday for lunch. It was good, but the making of the crust weirded me out (part of the base was ground turkey).  Little did I know that would be the only “pizza” I had yesterday.

Last night I ended up throwing together some veggie nachos when we got home (black beans, red peppers, tomato, rf cheese, mushrooms, green onions, zucchini and lots of spices).  They were good, but they weren’t pizza

I wasn’t the only one tired on Saturday…

RUN

RNR San Antonio is a month from today.  EEK.  I’m not really getting nervous, but after seeing the weather/race report from Chicago last weekend, I can’t help but flashback to SA last year and seeing so many people going down, people suffering, and seeing the DNF rate.  Praying for good weather.  Surprisingly enough, I haven’t thought about the race, up until today, much at all.  In fact, other than training for it, I’d actually kind of put it out of my mind.  Not on purpose, just did.

Longest practice pre-race run is next weekend. 

June was talking today about post-marathon detox and scaling back on food consumption today in her blog.  I can relate to it…in years past.  For the last 7 weeks, I haven’t been eating back the calories burned in my runs for the most part.  I ALWAYS eat those, I always eat anything I burn off in workouts and then some.  But because of “mystery condition” I haven’t really been able to.  I am really praying I haven’t trashed my metabolism with all of this.  My eating has been better the last week or two, but I am still having trouble on some days, like today:-(   I don’t want to have to eat like a bird to maintain my weight.  I want things to be normal again!

Ran Friday morning before work.  Friday is usually my DOR, but after the day I had on Thursday and my late arrival at home, I decided to move the run to Friday, especially since I have a cutback tomorrow.

LIFE

Thursday started off as a decent day.  Got up early like normal, knocked some work out at the lodge (1 of 2 places to get wireless at the ranch).  When training was over things started to go downhill, we still had to train 18 people on some equipment, I went to observe and document.  Before I went down there, I asked the kitchen at the ranch, please save enough lunch food for 18 people, we’ll need a late lunch.   We get back up to the pavillion to eat and there is only enough food for 4 people!  I was livid.  We had all already paid for lunch in our stay, so 14 of us didn’t get lunch and had to find something on our way home.  Some of the staff had many hours to drive ahead of them, the last thing they wanted to do is stop for food before even getting on the road!  I felt so bad, although it wasn’t my fault.

I hit the road later than I really wanted to.  I didn’t stop for food until I got all of the way through San Antonio. On the way, I called to check on my dad’s birthday gift status at Cabelas.  I won’t go into detail, but I will say that I will never order anything from them again.  I am going to be upset if the gift isn’t here before dad’s birthday like promised.   To make matters worse, I got stuck in the normal horrible ATX traffic, still had to take my work truck to get gas, back to office, etc.  Then I got distracted once back in the office and left there really late.

Got home and found out that my car, which I got in March, is still in the shop and will likely be there another week for body work.  Not happy.  When it rains, it pours. 

Got to work super early this morning to play catch-up.  Got some done, but not enough.  I wasn’t going to stay late.  Had my Dr. followup today, he put me on new meds that are likely to make me nauseous.  Great.  And I have to get a CT scan next week.

This is my last free weekend pretty much until Christmas.  I like this time of year, I just hate things being non-st0p.  I say it’s free, but I really need to be prepping for my “in-laws” arrival the first weekend in November, because we won’t be here much before then.  Got cleaning, house projects, a run, and the Auburn-Alabama watch party tomorrow.

FOOD

My overall opinion of the food at the ranch I was at all week is a FAIL.  The only meal I liked was steak night (and I didn’t even like the steak that much, I liked the sides the most).   Chef my ass.    Not sure if the food has changed recently, but I am not sure where all of these people got the idea that the food was good.  Or maybe I am just that much of a food snob.

Grabbed Bill Miller BBQ for a very late lunch Thursday afternoon.  I’d never had their chicken sandwich before, it was pretty darn good.  I also grabbed a salad for a base for Friday’s lunch, a chicken for Thursday’s dinner, and some of their awesome beans.

Forgot said salad and my breakfast for work Friday morning.  Ended up eating some really tasteless Health Valley soup at work and ate the salad when I got home.  It was a tasty concoction of garden salad with onions, cottage cheese, salsa, a serving of the pinto beans, and some mushrooms.  Looked gross, tasted devine!

Dinner Friday night I opted to use things I had around the house.  I made my own Italian Turkey Sausage from extra lean turkey and a spice mix I threw together (pretty much italian spices, sage, some red pepper, black pepper, and some garlic).   I then made some WW pasta, tossed it with spinach, the turkey and some Hombres Sassy Spinach DipMix.  It was pretty darn awesome.  Found their dips (Bastrop Texas based company) at Tears of Joy Hot Sauce shop on 6th street in downtown Austin.  They also sell online.  Served it up with three color french green beans and garlic bread (Dan and I eat different bread types) with Johnnys Garlic Spread that I got from Costco (thanks for the head’s up Janetha!).

RUN

Well because I didn’t pack a blowdryer, my morning plans changed a bit.  You see, I never pack one because hotels always have one.  I leave one in my gym bag for the occasions when I know I won’t have one.

Ok, so dude ranches don’t have blowdryers.  So I decided to get to the local grocery store when it opened at 7 to buy one.  Granted, this is the same small town grocery my parents have where they live.  I knew that my choices are limited, if they even had anything.  I ended up getting one for the bargain price of $40, but at least I didn’t have to have wet hair all day long.

While I was waiting for the grocery store to open, I ran through downtown Bandera.  It’s pretty small, smaller than I remembered.  So I ran it twice each way.  Since my Garmin went dead in my bag (how I don’t know, because it was locked), I based my miles on my time on my Polar.  I’m guessing about 3 miles.  Good enough for me.  It was still pitch black dark outside when I got done with the run and the blowdryer trip.

Didn’t know all of the runners were running after training today.  Oh well, maybe I’ll do that tomorrow.  I always shoot for the mornings when I can, especially when I don’t know my evening schedule.

FUN/LIFE

Training was ok.  Some of the talks were interesting, some, not so much.  The rest of the week should be a little more exciting on the work-related front.  It is good to see people I don’t get to see often from all over the state.  That and meeting people I only ever talk on the phone to.  I stink at names and faces, so I really struggle when someone isn’t wearing a nametag.

FOOD

Breakfast was disappointing.   They had a large spread, but nothing I would really eat other than yogurt and fruit.  I am so picky when it comes to breakfast out, I’ll admit that.  I mix it up at home, especially on the weekends.  I am just not a fan of most breakfast food served at buffets.  I very rarely take my own food, but I do have a stash of instant oats in the car, I may bust that out tomorrow if the spread is the same or similar.  Fruit and yogurt does not hold me long at all.  And if there is anything I’ve learned, skimping on breakfast throws my body and hunger signals out of whack for the day.  Not that I need anything with hunger signals to be more out of whack these days! 

Lunch was kind of odd, with 2 completely unrelated cuisines.  It was a weird combo of home cooking with meatloaf, beans, potato salad, garden salad, and slaw.  And then oriental food with white rice, stirfry, and eggrolls.  I mixed it up with beans, garden salad, and stirfry.  It was ok I guess. 

Dinner made up for the rest of day for sure.  Hayride down to “Hicktown” for steak, fresh raw veggies, salads, potatoes, asparagus, sautéed mushrooms and onions, then cobbler and ice cream for dessert.  I tried a little of everything, minus the cobbler.  Ended up giving one of the guys half my steak.  I LOVE steak (don’t have it much though), but because of my “mystery illness” I just can’t eat as much as normal, but the good news is, I am A LOT closer to normal than I was before.  The meds the Dr. gave me have helped a bit.  I go back Friday morning.  As if I don’t have enough to do playing catch-up from being gone from work for trainings the last 2 weeks, I also have my follow-up appointment with the doctor in the middle of Friday morning..  I had originally taken an appointment late next week, but when my boss found out I took a later appointment because of me being worried about playing catch-up, she ordered that I change the appointment to Friday.  So I did.

Live music every night!  Even some dancing!

And a peacock came to visit me, along with lots of deer. 

Definately enjoying the scenery and nature   Half the training Wednesday is outdoors, REALLY looking forward to that!