Monday Madness

Another Busy Monday.
It's funny how I remember when I was younger, how the weeks seemed to drag on and on.

Now things are so jam packed that before I know it Monday night's over and I'm packing my bag for Tuesday. 

Today I started my third class in my Masters degree program.  "Obesity Theory and Practice".  I just read through all the readings and power point for the week and looked at the course expectations.  It looks like it will be intense (as if I somehow thought getting a masters degree would be easy?!).

So far the articles are interesting.  They go over data from surveys collected over several years about obesity and weight, height, socioeconomic status, and many other lifestyle factors.  The course looks like it will be full and go quick.  Just like today did. And just like the last four months have. 

Before I know it, it will be time to look at Halloween costumes and then the holidays will be here.

So, goals.  How did I do today?  I overslept so I didn't get any reading in this morning.  I went to work and then came home read for school then made dinner.  I used a new recipe for "Chicken Chili Verde".  It was pretty good. 

And, I actually used a new food I'd never cooked with before.  Tomatillo Tomatoes. 

What is that?  Well, it's a green tomato that comes wrapped in it's own leaves.  You have to peel the tomatoes leaves back and discard them to cook.  They tasted really good in the sauce.  Of course they were green, but they didn't seem to have noticeable seeds red tomatoes have.  I heated them up in a big soup pot whole without cutting them.  There was some oil on the pot to give some flavor.  Then after a couple minutes into the blender they went.

The blender? Yes!  It made a wonderful sauce.  Sorry I didn't take any pictures but I was on the phone with my awesome sister in law and couldn't snap any before the dish was back in the pot. I was so proud of myself as I didn't even spill any!

I got to relax a bit after cooking and my hubby and I watched the news for about half hour.  Then it was back to the grind.  I read another article and began the power point for my course.

Now, the night is about over and I'm getting my things together to do it over again tomorrow.  I am hoping to get up in the morning and run.  I think it will give me a nice pick me up before work. 

Have a good night!

Running and Haid Dye

So yesterday (Saturday) I decided I needed a pick me up (after Friday's test disaster (see prev. post)) and registered for the "Healthy Kids Day 5K" at the Lowe's YMCA in Mooresville. It had been a while since I did a speed workout and thought why not use a 5K to do it?

I got up and drove into Mooresville around 7:30 for the 9am race as I wanted to run a couple miles before the race.  I hadn't had anything to eat at home so stopped at a gas station to get a water, coffee and protein bar.  Well, that didn't go as planned.

I love adventures and food is one of those things that can be fun to change up sometimes. I saw a sign that said Free Pastry with purchase of Monster Energy beverage. Why not?  I hadn't ever had one of those before and thought "hey I get a free doughnut".  So I got a glazed doughnut and a toffee flavored monster beverage and headed on my way (don't worry I didn't forget the water).

I ate half the doughnut and drank half the monster drink along with the water.  I got to the Y and they were setting up for registration still so I had time to run a bit.  It was so nice out.  The weather was perfect.  Cool, cloudy and at times misty.  After about 40 minutes or so it was time to go over to the registration area and pay, get my bib, and wait to get started. I really could feel the caffeine from the Monster beverage and the sugar from the doughnut kicking in.

I pinned on my bib and they gave some announcements.  All the runners lined up at the start.  I got in the middle of the pack as I didn't want to be behind the strollers.  There was one little girl and her mother who had their little dog up on the start line.  All I could think when the announcer said "Go" was "please don't let the dog get run over". 

I moved over to the right to make sure I didn't get in the dogs way and passed them in a couple seconds. The first mile is a good descent.  Then a big up hill for the next mile and a half.  The last half mile is on a dirt track around the Y. 

I finished 3rd female overall and first in my age category.  I crossed the finish line in 22 minutes and 14 seconds.  It was fun.  Hard work, but fun. I don't know if I'll try the doughnut and Monster beverage again tho as towards the end of the day I felt like I was having heart palpitations and definitely think it was something in the mix of the beverage.

After the 5K (plus 4 miles before) I drove home and showered.  I had laundry and a couple other things to do before my husband and I got some Chinese take out and headed home to watch "Zero Dark 30".  Of course, we both fell asleep watching it (not because it was a bad movie, but because we are so darned busy that every time we sit on the couch we fall right asleep!).

Today (Sunday) I finally got my hair dyed again.  It has been looking drab for weeks.  WEEKS I tell you!  Over the past weeks my husband actually started calling me "frosted doughnut" because of the icky gray/brown/mousy color the top was and how it "frosted" the box color I had on it from like six months ago.

I'm happy to say that after three hours at the hair salon and with work from a great stylist, the color has been fixed.  Now we have a dark chocolate that makes me want some candy!

Glad that's over

It has been a month. A busy one.  I think I last wrote when I had signed up for the Boogie 50 ultramarathon. That was before my Bio-statistics course got going full swing. 
Over the past few weeks I was unable to complete many of my distance runs and am toying with the idea of dropping the 50 mile ultra.  The race does have a marathon option but I'm not quite sure I'd be ready for that either (although I have like 5 weeks and definitely could fit in a 15, 18 and 20 miler if I started now).
Where does that bring me?  To who the heck knows where. That's where. 

It's been a rough couple of weeks.  I am finally done with my bio-statistics course but feel slightly mentally damaged from it.

Something I've also been mind-wrestling with over the past few weeks is how to get my homework, professional work, my book (gasp yes I am about done with it) and my running all in.  Some times it seems impossible.

Hopefully I will get the hang of everything. My plan (of course we all know what happens when I plan things out right?) is to get up in the morning and do my reading for my school work daily.  Monday, Wednesday and Friday are going to be school work priority nights.  Tuesday and Thursdays are going to be Book Work nights.  Saturday and Sunday are hopefully going to contain a mixture of school work, working out and writing.  Whew. Got it? I don't.

Something came up this week a few days ago that really took me out mentally and I wanted to bring it up here.

As I mentioned before, my bio-statistics course is finally coming to an end. We had our last exam.  It was a surprise (there was absolutely no indication of it in the syllabus) cumulative final exam that contained many questions not within our reading assignments.

I began the quiz (as it was called) thinking it was similar to every other quiz we had been given over the course only to see a much longer and heavier worded list of questions on my computer screen.  Most of the questions were worded differently than any homework assignment we had been given and two of the questions (that I still don't understand) repeated themselves.  Also, each question was worth two points.  So if you missed one, you missed two.

After almost four hours of racking my brain and insulting myself for being "stupid, dumb, and terrible" I finished the exam.  I failed.  I just stared at it.  The lowest grade I had thus far received in the course was a 98% and there before my eyes was a big fat 47%!  I was so confused. Why hadn't I understood it?  How could I be so stupid that I didn't understand it? What was wrong with me?
 
I immediately emailed the teacher to see if this was indeed our exam, then posted to our course student chat room to see if any one else had taken the quiz.  But no one got back to me (of course I hadn't considered the possibility that everyone else thought it would be just like the other quiz's and hadn't even attempted it yet because I was too busy berating myself for failing).

Until that night someone did get back to me.  Then again Saturday and Sunday.  Replies came in one by one as students opened the quiz and were met with whatever that thing called a "quiz" was.

Now, looking back I think, how could I have based the way I felt about myself on a stupid test.  Just because I failed a test does not mean I am a bad person, it means nothing about me other than at that moment in time, I did not pass what a teacher said I should. That's it. 

So I'm choosing to learn from this experience.  I will always ask my instructor about a final exam. I will not jump off the handle when I fail an exam out of the blue like that because odds are I'm not alone. Most importantly, I will not define my self worth by what a test says I can do.

You signed up for WHAT?

You know what its like when something is stuck in your head. A thought that simply floats around like the Good Year blimp over and over again.  Well, thats whats going on in my head.

Let me take you back a bit first...

About three years ago I ran some Ultramarathons. 

What is that you ask?  

An Ultramarathon is any distance longer than the marathon (the 26.2 mile marathon...which is the only distance for the marathon...so no, when you train for a 10K its NOT a marathon).  The most popular ultra marathon distances are 50 kilometers, 100 kilometers, 50 mile, 100 mile and numerous 6, 12 and 24 hour races.

Back to the story.  I was training for a 24 hour race and I lined up some trial races leading up to my main event (The Hinson lake 24 hour Ultra).  One of those races was the "Boogie" 50 mile Ultramarathon.  It was perfect, several months before my main race so I could do a real run through and see how it was going to work. It also left me with enough time to recover afterwards.  The race was in June.  I felt really excited for the Boogie race.  

Unfortunately I made several mistakes leading up to this race that my race experience was anything but ideal.  About four weeks before the Boogie race, I ran a 12 hour ultra for "practice".  Well, during that race, the weather was right and all the stars seamed to align.  I felt great.  I was focused.  I pushed myself beyond the 30 miles I was going to complete and went on to reach 66 miles. Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't do a thing different if I were to do it all over again, but I should have changed my expectations of my next race to adjust for recovery.  I didn't.

Fast forward 4 weeks.  The Boogie race is held not only in June, but in the afternoon.  The race starts in the evening before Sun-down so runners face heat, humidity, sometimes thunder showers, impending darkness...and snakes.

The day was nice.  It was a little crazy getting there as I had no clue where I was going and drove there alone.  I got lost, expended too much energy yelling profanity at the GPS on my phone, and finally made it in one piece about half hour before the race was to start. 

Did I mention I hadn't eaten very much that day?  Well, now I did.

 

So the race started.  It was nice with very attentive race directors and runners all very cheery.  Unfortunately I was still in a dark cloud from my not so fun drive.  I couldn't focus.  Then before mile five, hip pain set in (think old running injury aka torn groin that is better but hasn't ever been the same).  

That's kind of early for pain to set in when you still have 45 miles of running left on a hot day.  I tried to push past it. Still, my normal positivity was no where to be found.  To make a long story short, I've never been in a race with that poor of an attitude.  

I decided to drop out.  It was a terribly long walk back to my car, with many of the runners I had passed in the beginning passing me.  The worst part not only was telling the race director I was dropping out after only 10 miles, but was having to get into my car and pack up my aid station then drive part of the course to leave the race.  I drove past many who I had just stood next to at the starting line.  

Now, three years later, I know I made the right decision that night.  Cut my losses.  Less recovery time, less chance of injury.  But I won't ever forget it.  I'm not usually one to throw in the towel.  That race always is in the back of my mind. 

This week I decided I'm ready to take my revenge on the race course, to complete it with a smile on my face and become an Ultra runner once again.  

So, this past week (after deciding some other important stuff that I might write on later) I filled out the application and sent it in.  It's done.  No backing out now.  I am SO Excited!

Back to the grind...

Well, its definitely been too long. In my defense, I have been busy, but alas, there's no excuse and I will not wait as long to post again. So...let's move on.

Study Study Study

What have I been up to?

Well, I finally began working on my masters degree, which is something that I was terrified have been looking forward to doing over the past several years.  My first course was "The Science of Sports Nutrition" which was challenging, but in one word...AWESOME! Getting back into the science of nutrition was intimidating as its been a while since I looked at metabolism, but it was definitely worth it.

I learned so many things about athletes. Hydration needs, Macro nutrient needs (think protein, carbs and fat), Vitamin and Mineral needs, as well as information on Supplements. Some of the really cool stuff I learned had to do with caffeine and exercise.  One of our assignments had to do with supplements and sports. More specifically supplements as ergogenic aids.  What is that?  Ergo-what?

Supplements that are ergogenic aids assist an athletes performance.  There are many of these that are effective, but many are controversial and some are illegal or banned from use (thinking of a certain cyclist yet?)

Anyway, I chose the supplement caffeine for my research and dove into the science.  It turns out there's a bunch of scientific studies out there just waiting to be read.

Our Coffee Bar

(Disclaimer Here: This is research I performed for a school project and I can provide references if requested.  This is in no way written as a recommendation for anyone reading this to begin taking caffeine supplementation.  Caffeine while considered socially acceptable is still a drug and can have detrimental consequences when too much is ingested.  Use your own judgement and ask your physician if you have any questions....oh yeah, I am a little biased because I love coffee and use caffeine daily, incase you wanted to know)


After doing the research, I concluded that for trained athletes caffeine is an effective ergogenic aid (i.e. will help you perform better) Sorry non athletes, while the studies did support some improvement in your performance, it was not enough to make conclusions yet.  Most of the studies had athletes ingest the caffeine about an hour to an hour and a half before their events.  They figured that way it would be already circulating in the blood and the body could use it right away.

Caffeine won't solve all your problems though and some caution should be had.  Some of the studies showed that athletes who were not used to caffeine got jittery, nauseated, and even cried when they took higher doses of it...so be careful and know your limits.  It works by speeding up your body's fight or flight system and can increase your blood pressure.

Oh, and just a word to the wise, don't test anything like caffeine out ON race day! If you try it or anything else new, do it before hand and do a run through as you don't want any surprises the day of a race.

So that's kind of the short and sweet of that class. I may include more information on athletes in later posts and I really loved the entire course.

I think It's time for some coffee!

I am currently in my second course as the first wrapped up last week.  My second course is "Biostatistics" (I might need some coffee to get through this one).

I have some fun food stuff to post, but have to run out.  I won't take so long between posts next time.

Have a good day!

Erin