Thursday Thursday...oh wait..

Thursdays are normally my "night off" from school work, where we go to our favorite dive bar and throw back a few cocktails.  Well, now that I have made the conscious decision to abstain from alcohol during training... NONE OF THAT!  However, on future nights my abstinence will not prevent me form going to said dive bar and enjoying the atmosphere and my friends-- just no vodka sodas (with lemon & lime, thank-you-very-much).  If you want to read about my boring day, go ahead and read on... however, if you want to read my theories and how I am feeling pertaining to exercise, skip down to the bold section.

Today was quite productive.  I woke up, went to Nutrition, where we had "cheese tasting" today.  We nibbled on about 12 different types of cheese.  I only took small bites of 4 or 5 of them because I was NOT feeling up to having a belly full of cheese right before a strenuous workout. Blechhh.  After class, I hit the gym and knocked out some weights, ran 3 miles according to marathon training schedule and then busted 15 mins on the elliptical.  I have been working hard and decided to limit my cardio to 45 minutes today.  Tomorrow is my sweet one day off per week.

I felt quite refreshed after the gym and rewarded myself with a Peppermint Coffee Frappuccino Light (one of my favorite treats, ringing in at 220 calories).  I visited with a dear old friend, Drewsy, and then went home.  Kevin and I had a lovely dinner with his mom at The Cheesecake Factory in Roseville and I once again opted for the Weight Management Spicy Chicken Salad.  It is SO delicious.  I always order it-- only 420 calories and very filling.  It has just the right amount of spice and is extremely satisfying.

After trip to Costco, we decided to venture home and tackle some homework (which also included some TV watching for me).

NOW FOR THE RELEVANT PART of this post... I have always been a NIGHT exerciser-- I have most of my energy at night, and when I can I schedule my runs, weights and cardio in the evening.  That being said, I do love 5 AM long runs... or 8 AM runs on the river trail.  Those don't bother me one bit.  However, by the end of the night I am RAVENOUS.  I took in 1825 calories today (which isn't a bad thing for how active I am), but I never feel that hungry if I exercise late at night. My normal routine consists of eating about 1100 calories throughout the day, a late night workout, and then a 400-500 calorie dinner.  I'm not sure if anyone else has this same problem!?! We'll see how it progresses as my training continues, because there are going to be some days that I just will HAVE to exercise in the morning. 


That's enough rambling for today. Good night :)

Current Weight: Didn't step on the scale this morning :)
Exercise:  45 minutes weights, 30 minutes treadmill (3 miles plus some walking for warm up-cool down), 15 minutes elliptical ~ 600 calories (including weights)
Total kcal: 1825

Happy Wednesday! :)

It was absolutely GORGEOUS today.  It was a long day at school and I had a Chem test at 12:30 but I was in such a chipper mood due to the near-80 degree weather. I got to throw on a pair of shorts... and this is the first time that I have actually felt comfortable enough with my legs to wear a pair of shorts in a VERY long time.  I wore skirts last summer, but always felt that my legs were unshapely and square looking.  I would like to thank running, weights, and my continued success with eating healthy for the boost in confidence :o) 

I got out of lab early so I was able to run home to eat a delicious grilled chicken burger.  They're from Costco and OOOOOOMMMMGGGGGGG they are delicious.  The brand is Amylu and they're called Sweet Onion Carmelized Chicken Burgers.  I eat them on a whole wheat sandwich thin with some spicy brown mustard and a Laughing Cow Light Swiss Cheese square.  Today I was feeling extra feisty and threw some spinach and a pickle on it as well.  It's a great, protein packed meal (22 grams!) for about 300 calories.  I was also able to enjoy a nap during this time, which totally recharged me for my 6:30 PM Spanish class. 

After Spanish (zzz) it was still in the low 70s with a slight breeze and time to get in a 5 mile run in the neighborhood.  Our neighborhood has plenty of hills and I think that running it consistently was really beneficial to my strength during my last half marathon.  I will continue to train on these hills for the next 17 and a half weeks and also incorporate some river trail running in.  Unfortunately, some days it is just more convenient to run on the treadmill but I WILL stay away from the track as there is no elevation change.  At least I can change the elevation on my treadmill.  Anyhow... the run went very well.  Finished it at a comfortable pace of 8:44/mile according to my Garmin.  When I load my runs into Runkeeper there is a slight differential so that logged me in at 8:47/mile.  Kevin was feeling a bit uncomfortable due to being slightly injured after our half marathon, so when we do our long run on Sunday we will probably slow down to a 9 or 9:15 min per mile pace just to be safe.  It is early in the game and neither of us want to injure ourselves. 

Here are my stats for the day... I will most likely have another 100 calories or so as a bedtime snack so I am closer to 1600 calories, but I have been very consistent for the past few days in my calories and my energy feels high.  Tomorrow night I am going to dinner with Kevin's mom, so I will make sure that I make balanced healthy choices @ the restaurant. 

Weight: 128.8

Exercise: 44 minutes running - 5 miles outdoors.

Caloric Intake: 1496

Day #2...

It's only Day #2 of my journey and I almost forgot to post today... excellent Nicole, EXCELLENT.  Hopefully this is not a foreshadowing of how (un)successful I will be as this time goes on.  Today was pretty long. I neglected studying for my chemistry test this weekend so I put in a good 4.5 hours today after my 2.5 hour long Nutrition class. Needless to say, it was a long one.
I also spent nearly 2 hours at the gym.  Today was our first training run and it was very painless: only 3 miles.  I wanted to run faster and longer but I know that there will be PLENTY of time for that within the next 18 weeks and I don't want to get ahead of myself or injured.

I forgot to include a few helpful links in my first post... this includes a link to the marathon training plan that we'll be following.  It's Hal Higdon's Intermediate I plan.  I feel as if his Novice 2 plan is a little TOO simple for the San Francisco Marathon.

Intermediate Marathon Plan -- If this proves to be too difficult, we will back down to his Novice 2 plan, which can be found by clicking here.  I like the fact that his Intermediate I plan has two 20 mile runs which will hopefully give me the confidence I need to complete the full 26.2 miles.

In addition to my race plan... you can follow my runs at runkeeper.com.  My personal website is http://runkeeper.com/user/Nicolie83 .  I have been tracking my runs using my Garmin Forerunner and runkeeper.com for the past two months.  I absolutely love it, because it keeps everything so organized and is MUCH more helpful and accurate than Nike+.

I will post more after my run tomorrow night.  As time goes on, I will probably limit these posts to a few times a week-- but I figure I should start off strong.

Weight: 128.8 lbs.
Strength Training: 40 minutes
Treadmill: 29 minutes (321 Calories)
Elliptical: 25 minutes (300 calories)
Caloric Intake: 1575

Day 1... Here we go.

Well, here goes nothing.  This is my first post... and I promised myself that I would be consistent with updating.  Not only is this blog going to help ME on my journey by being an outlet, it allows my friends and peers into my brain. The San Francisco Marathon is on July 31st, 2011-- which gives us 126 days to properly train and fuel our bodies.  Kevin and I have already paid for our entrance fees, so there's no turning back now.  We are both extremely excited and scared.  One of my old friends, Kelly, is also running the marathon which makes things even more exciting.  To date, I have run two half marathons and a 10k.  My first half marathon was the American River Parkway and I finished in 2:19- not horrible, but definitely not a great time.  After a 5 week hiatus from running (stupid shin injury) I completed Run To Feed The Hungry 10k in 51:49.  I was extremely proud of this time, and astonished that I finished it so fast.  This fueled us to sign up for The Shamrock'n Half Marathon which we ran on March 13, 2011.  I finished in 1:48:54 which was A LOT faster than the 2 hours that I had hoped to achieve. I was stoked.  

I have decided to abstain from alcohol completely during my training, and Kevin has too.  The reason we are doing this is because we feel that it will help our performance.  During our half marathon trainings there were days that we would go out on Friday or Saturday nights and feel really dehydrated and sluggish during our Sunday long runs.  We don't want anything hindering our performance or judgement when we are trying to accomplish arguably the largest goal of our lives. 

In addition, I am keeping this blog to hold myself accountable for my promises.  I have made a conscious decision to be healthy, stick to my work outs and training schedule, and to be the healthiest that I can be.  This means that I need to watch my caloric intake to make sure that I do not slip below 125 lbs... OR take in too many calories and creep above 135 lbs.  Since we are abstaining for alcohol, the latter should not be a problem at all. :) 

I am tracking my exercise and caloric intake using MyFitnessPal (just switched over from LoseIt... more convenient) and will also update as often as possible on my blog.  I need to get to sleep, because I have class tomorrow... but I will be posting again soon!! 

Current Weight: 129 lbs

Exercise: 45 min weight training, 700 calories on elliptical

Caloric Intake: 1695