My longest run yet

Sorry for the late post. I have today off, so I've been lazy.

LIE. I just got home from a run. I'll get to that in a minute. First, weigh-in Wednesday:

Still no change in my weight from last week to this week. Which I guess is a good thing considering it was Thanksgiving weekend? I'm trying to watch what I'm eating a lot more, but my biggest problem is eating out. I do it wayyyy too much (it's part of being young and single, isn't it?!) and I have no self control at a restaurant.

I have been slowly but surely getting more regular about my running. But I'm not totally naive enough to think that's enough. I think I'm going to start 30 Day Shred over again and integrate it in on days I don't run. It can only help my stamina anyway, right?

Apparently I just need to go on Project Runway...



Can we please talk about Biggest Loser? Have any of y'all been watching it??? I was SO SAD to see Holly go last week!!! She was one of my faves on there for real. And obviously her friendship with Bob was just too much.

Did you know I cry every single episode of that damn show??? Please tell me I'm not the only one.

Anyhoo, right about now is the time I start to get motivated when I watch because some of the younger girls are getting into "onederland" which I've been hanging out in since the beginning of the year. It didn't take me long (since I started at 203) but once the girls on there start to creep up on me (and eventually pass me up) I get a fire under my ass. Let's hope it sticks this time. But I guess my new favorites are either Chelsea or Jennifer. I like Rachel too, but I feel like she's already been an athlete so if she went home she would be fine maintaining this and continue to lose the weight. But I have a feeling she's going to be this year's Danni (who I LOVE) and win the whole shebang.

Moving on.

Today I decided to bite the bullet and attempt to up my mileage (just a wee bit). I drove to Lake Murray, which is actually a part of Mission Trails, where I've gone the last couple weekends. It's a pretty sizeable lake, and I'm pretty sure the trail goes 4 miles total around, but it doesn't connect, so you have to turn back around at some point. But you can still run pretty far.

First things first: I live in San Diego. It's hilly. Actually it's mountainous. But whatevs. My neighborhood where I've been running is on a hill, so I thought Lake Murray would be no problem. Well, I was wrong. My hood ain't got NOTHING on Lake Murray, y'all! So it was rougher than I thought. I got to .8 miles and thought for sure I had gone further, all because of how tired the hills had made me. But I kept going. I turned around right at a mile (which I didn't even realize because I put my phone back in le old bra and kept going) and actually got to just about 1.5 miles before I slowed to a power walk. But I'm such a slow runner, I didn't really lose much by walking. I wound up running the rest of the downhills and walking the rest of the uphills till I got back to my starting point.

It was hard.

I had multiple breathing cramps. MULTIPLE.

And I had some bitch who I caught up to that wouldn't freaking let me pass and stay ahead of her. It messes with my mind a lot when I got running with other people (which is why I choose not to do that anymore) so having this ass hole literally teetering between being a few feet behind me and right next to me the last mile was hard. Jerk.

But anyway, I'm proud of myself either way. I'm not ashamed of how slow I went. I'm a slow runner. And in time I'm sure I'll get faster naturally. But for now, I'm not concerned with my pace, I'm concerned with distance. Isn't that how it's supposed to be anyway? Today I ran farther than I ever have at one time. Let that sink in for a sec :)

Well, that's all I got this Wednesday. I hope y'all are having a great week!

A sports bra that's too big and "running" shorts...

Wellllll fools it's Monday....and I can't believe Thanksgiving is over! Christmas is coming way too soon. Luckily, I got all my shopping done (online) by the end of Friday afternoon :)

So, going back to Thursday, I hope you're all proud of me when I tell you..................I went for a run. On Thanksgiving morning. WHAT? Yep. I did.

It sucked only because I had to smell everyone's food cooking the ENTIRE TIME. My mouth was watering. My stomach was growling. And then I drank a bunch of wine and surprisingly didn't gorge myself on food later on. Imagine that!

UPDATE******* After I posted this I went scrolling through my Bloglovin' feed and saw Operation Skinny Jean's "Turkey Trot" Linkup. Figured I might as well link up, since, ya know, I moved my ass on Thanksgiving. Good for all of you that did, too :)

For Thanksgiving, we went to see my aunt and uncle, who camp on the beach in their RV every holiday pretty much. It was a gorgeous, perfect day. We ate outside. I had on sandals and a regular shirt. I hope you're jealous.

And if you're not already jealous, here's a picture of our view at dinner:

I am truly blessed.

So, my aunt and uncle are both extremely athletic. My uncle was in the navy for 31 years, and he wasn't just any ole' sailor. He was EOD, enlisted for 10 years before becoming an officer. He was always in tip-top shape because he had to be. He was a huge cyclist and runner, and my aunt was too (not sure if she was because of him or not). Anyway. My aunt and I were talking about me starting to run, and she told us a few of her half and marathon stories. She's quite the story-teller, so naturally i got all excited and for a split-one-eighth-of-a-millisecond thought, "maybe one day I'll do a half." HA!!!! But really, it did get my mind reeling about running further distances. I know I could run farther than I have. And when I explained to her that I need to find a longer loop, she understood exactly what I was talking about, that I just won't go again around my neighborhood. So, I'm still searching for a good place to start upping my mileage that's still either on paved road or a very solid, not-rocky trail (and in a part of town not known for having single female runners either kidnapped or raped. Look up Chelsea King if you don't believe me). Anyway, moving on from Thanksgiving... I Had to work on Friday, and I was lazy all day Saturday, and I worked yesterday. So the rest of my weekend was pretty much uneventful.

This morning, though, I did drag my fat ass out of bed to go run. It was colder and dryer than any weather I've ever run in, so my nose was almost hurting from the cold dry air. All you people who don't have perfect weather year-round, how do you deal with that? Are there any tricks?!?!

I also haven't done laundry in a hot minute and had to wear a sports bra that's too big (super fun) and shorts. Not tight shorts either. Loose, running shorts. I don't understand "running shorts." If they're loose, they ride up if you have thighs that are of the thunder variety (which, let's be real, is 98% of the population). I wear running shorts for lounging around and running errands. Actually running in them? It sucks. I chose to just let them ride up--sorry neighbors--instead of constantly pulling them down. Firstworld problems?

Anyhoo, time to go to work (again). Bleeehhhh.

I hope you all has as blessed a Thanksgiving as I did, and are getting into the holiday spirit (not focusing on finding the best deals for presents and all that bull shit).

:)

Have a great week!

WIW--still struggling.

Hey fools! Sorry no post the last couple days. This is going to be quite a jumble, as usual, on a weigh-in Wednesday.

Friday night was awesome. We had a girls night and drank wine and played Cards Against Humanity (quite possible one of my favorite games of all time).

Saturday........I dyed my hair. I promise I'm not naked in this picture:

Yep, I finally did it!!! What do y'all think??? I also got Aveda Black Malva conditioner, which I've read is really helpful for preventing fading. In the past when I've gone dark it has always faded to a mousy brown sooo quickly, which was a big reason I hesitated doing this for so long. So fingers crossed that expensive shit works like it's supposed to.

Sunday Cassandra and I went for another hike in Mission Trails. We didn't track how long it was, but I think it was about 3 miles roundtrip. It was a GORGEOUS day.

I love Mission Trails.

So Monday I didn't wake up and run. I didn't get much sleep all weekend, so I was just sleepy. I know, excuses excuses.

Tuesday I went. I told myself I was going to go that mile without stopping no. matter. what. And I did. I'm starting to really get it when I run. If you run, you know what I mean. But what I'm still struggling with is finding the motivation to GET OUT OF BED. Why am I STILL having a hard time with this??

I'm just starting to get really frustrated with myself. I didn't gain or lose anything this last week. And that's all my fault. I better get up and run tomorrow because we all know I'll gorge myself on Thanksgiving dinner later on.

I'm also still frustrated in other areas of my life. Mainly my career. I told y'all I didn't do as well as I had planned on the GMAT, and I don't know if y'all realize just how overqualified I am for my current job. I have a business administration degree (with honors) in Hotel Management. And I am doing a job that, quite frankly, you could train a monkey to do. And I thought it was boring when we were busy. Y'all. Now that we're "slow" in the off-season, I literally sit there for HOURS without a single phone call. I'm not exaggerating. And I can't find anything else because I don't have a year of hotel experience. Bitch, I have 4 years of hotel experience in my opinion with what I went through in college!!!! Ahhhhh. I just feel like I'm stuck. I'm living with my mother. I'm living paycheck to paycheck. I'm baaaaarely scraping by every two weeks when I get paid after all my bills are paid and, you know, I live life. I just feel like a complete failure. Hopefully I get into an MBA program and that will be the tide-changer in my post-grad life. Because something has got to change. I know I need to give it more time at my current position before I start looking elsewhere, but how long is enough??!!! I definitely think me feeling like such a failure at life is a factor in having a hard time motivating myself to get healthy and fit again.

But, I have realized I need to start tracking my food again. I added my ticker at the bottom of the page because it's way too big for my sidebar (as if that will keep me more accountable or something) so feel free to add me on there too. I did start tracking with MFP after I had stopped doing WW, which is why my total lost so far is only 4 pounds. It's really 20.

Created by MyFitnessPal - Nutrition Facts For Foods

Anyhoo, sorry this post has been kinda emo. I'm just telling y'all what's really going on in my head and I guess hoping somehow it helps everything.

I hope y'all are having a better weigh-in Wednesday than me!

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

Yep, I used to be that kid who couldn't run a 1/4 of a mile.

Hey fools. It's weigh-in Wednesday. So here it goes: I gained a pound. Wommmp wommmmp. I am convinced it's because I caved and got Jack in the Box last night on my way home from work, and then had a couple glasses of red wine at my friend's house afterwards. Oopsies. No more, I swear.

I wrote on Monday that when I woke up my arches were hurting, so I didn't go run. That was stupid.

I'm pretty sure they were hurting because of my work shoes. They're starting to get stretched out, and they're just Steve Madden flats. But either way, I should have just gone. So yesterday that's what I did. I was fine, and today I got up and ran too. I'm trying to stick with it for real this time.



That's so true. When I don't get up and run, I feel horrible about myself the rest of the day. But when I do, I feel better in general. Why is finding the motivation to actually LEAVE THE HOUSE so dang difficult!?!

Today was also a harder run that yesterday. My sinuses were causing more issues than usual. I'm not sure if I've shared the fact that I have a deviated septum that causes me to have extremely bad post-nasal drip ALL THE FUCKING TIME (it's that annoying, people), snore like a freaking freight train, and whenever I breathe in--I mean every single time--my ears get clogged. So I'm constantly popping my ears. It's extremely annoying and I've seen an ENT, just haven't been able to justify the money for a deductible right now to have the surgery. Anyway, sometimes it's worse than others. Today it was worse. My ears were getting extremely clogged with every breath, and clogged ears results in a thrown-off equilibrium. SO I was dealing with that today, and I got a breathing cramp about halfway through the mile I've been running without stopping (big deal, get to that in a sec). But, I KEPT GOING. I knew I was going to be ok, so I kept pushing.

I got all sappy when I got home because I realized how back in high school, no matter how many chubbier kids there were than me, I was always, without fail, the slowest runner whenever we had to do the damn weekly mile run. I couldn't make it one lap (1/4 of a mile) without stopping and feeling like I was going to die. So being able to just keep going for a mile, with a breathing cramp or without, with sinus issues or without, and keep a pace even when I'm fucking around with Pandora (because Pandora sucks, but I love it), is a big freaking deal.

Anyway, moving on....

I also know I need to start going for longer distances. I currently have a route around my gated neighborhood I stick to. It's about 1 and a quarter miles, so not much. But up until now that has been sufficient because I was so terrible at running. But now I want to go further. The problem is, I live in the hood. For reals. So I don't want to leave the gate, but I don't want to make multiple loops either, because I know I will convince myself not to. If I went somewhere where the loop was, say, 2 miles, I would be forced to go the entire distance. Make sense?? So I'm thinking this weekend I'll have to try to find a place locally with a longer loop that's in a safe area.

I know, I have problems.

In other, completely irrelevant news (that's normal around here, though), I'm SO HAPPY the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills is back. SO. STINKING. HAPPY. I mean, the Miami girls were entertaining but they were getting to be a little too much for me. There's just something classy and timeless about the Beverly Hills women.



Ok maybe that's a bit of a stretch, but they crack me up. And lets be real, Brandi says what we're all thinking. And I love her for that.



The Atlanta 'wive are back too. Listen, I will shamelessly call those girls ghetto as all get-out. They are. Don't try to deny that. But they're soooo funnnyyyyyy. This made me LOL the most so far:



I'm addicted to the Real Housewives.

I guess it could be worse though.

Anyway, I hope y'all have a great Weigh-In Wednesday, and cheers to you if you're like me and forcing your office to listen to Christmas music even though it's not even Thanksgiving yet. Ummm helllooooo Country Christmas on Pandora is AMAZING.

That's all for now, chicas.

This wino is back at it.

So my weekend got off to a great start. My friend Cassandra suggested going on a hike/walk or whatever, and I thought of Mission Trails. It's this nature preserve area here in San Diego take takes up a few thousand acres, pretty much in the middle of the county. It's beautiful. There are lakes and waterways, high mountains (which get steep enough for rock climbing), horse trails, and MILES of hiking paths. It had been years since either of us had been, so it took us a while of hitting dead ends to decide to walk on a paved path about 4 miles total before we called it quits for the day. We will go back again next weekend, though, and be more educated about the trails.

But I did get this awesome panorama:

It's pretty, right???

Then Saturday night we went to the country bar, danced, played pool (terribly), and then went to go see a sorority sister from Memphis. She actually was an alumna advisor when I was in the chapter and on council, so she and I had a pretty good/close relationship when I was in college. I haven't seen her since I graduated but we keep up on facebook, and she went to Hawaii last week with another Kappa Delta. She had a layover in San Diego on her way back to Memphis. and since we have a curfew at our airport, she landed at midnight and couldn't fly out until 6 am. So I told her about this 24 hour restaurant downtown and she hung out there, and we went and met her there. Had a peanut butter bacon cheeseburger, which I DEVOURED, and caught up. Then she flew back to Memphis. It was so good to see her.

And yesterday we went................WINE TASTING. I had just said how I felt like it had been forever since I'd gone. Which considering the last wine tasting I did was my birthday weekend, approximately a month and a week ago, I think that officially makes me a wino, if I wasn't already one. Sheesh.

Anyhoo, it was a beeeeeeautiful day in Temecula yesterday.

Judge me. 

The arches in my feet hurt like a bitch this morning. I'm thinking it's from dancing a lot on Saturday night. But who knows. Anyway. 

Happy Monday, fools! Hope y'all have a great week!

Hungover on a Wednesday.

Uuuggksjhfkjshfkshfkshdfkshrioiojwioewfmksndsjfsh.

Yes, I'm hungover on a Wednesday. Which is a reason I'm posting this so late.

I hd today off work because I worked on Sunday, so naturally last night I went to the country bar. I drank cheap white zin that I'm fairly certain came out of a box. Listen, I lived off box wine in college. I should have just had an IV drip of Franzia, really. But I'm now an old lady wine snob and I just can't handle the cheap stuff anymore. Because I haven't been this hungover in a long time.

OK that's a lie. But for reals. This is ridiculous.

I am pathetic.

BUT I lost 2 pounds since last week. Holllaaaaaa!!! So I was 203 when I started this blog in January. I'm now 181. Not a ton of weight lost in one year, but I'm really excited about continuing to lose more now. I'm really liking running and I'm perfectly content with having cancelled my gym membership. I want to be a runner.



So on my Christmas list this year will be a few running goodies. I really want one of these SPI Belts that Elle Noel suggested. And obvs I want the American Flag one.

I also want some Yurbuds. Do any of y'all use them? I can't freaking stand constantly having to adjust my earphones when I run. It's annoying.

And completely unrelated to running, I want Garth Brooks' new music set. I MEAN DUH.

Alright fools, happy weigh-in wednesday. I surely hope non of y'all are hungover like I am.

Click here to see the cutest puppy ever.

Happy Veteran's Day, everyone!!! 

I hope everyone takes a minute out of their day to reflect on the sacrifices the men and women of our military and their families have made and continue to make every day. As a girl with almost every family member having served or still serving, today's a special day.

Speaking of the veterans in my life, I last-minute decided to go visit Chris this weekend in Central California, where he's now stationed. Drove up Friday after work and got there around 2AM, and had to leave yesterday at 345AM to get to work by 8...yeah, it was that last-minute! But it was a good visit. He also has a new puppy that I. Am. Obsessed. With.

Ladies (and maybe gentlemen?), meet GM2, AKA Gunner:

That belly!!!

Yep, he's pretty much the most adorable little shithead of all time. He's still got puppy breath. And he'll fall asleep anytime, anywhere. Including when his dad is holding him up in the air.

Anyway, that's about the gist of my weekend, everyone. Nothing too crazy. Hope y'all had wonderful weekends too, and if you have today off from work, I hope you're still enjoying it!

Again, please take some time to say thank you to a United States Veteran today.