bye bye bag ladies

I know I've mentioned before how undisciplined and unruly I am.  It's true.  I'm not proud of this, mind you.  I think it has something to do with my hair.  What chance did I have?  There must be a direct correlation!  If you too suffer from frizzy, crazy mop-top syndrome AND you lead a well-balanced/managed life then please keep it to yourself.  I'd rather live in my la-la land of denial than face the facts that I'm just lazy and disturbed!  ;)

Now that we got that out of the way...

I don't sleep anymore.  It's not that I can't sleep, it's just that I don't.  I stay up to ridiculous hours and then I wake up at the crack of dawn.  I only get around 5 hours of sleep per night.  This is not healthy.  This is not conducive to being productive.

What am I doing up so late?  I'm hesitant to even tell you.  It's so ridiculous.  I'm not watching TV or movies. Oh no.  My DVR is getting ridiculously full!  I have Season 3 of Big Love and Season 4 of Dexter all brand new in their packages fresh from Christmas just waiting to be watched. I'm not cleaning or working out.  I'm not reading or taking a nice leisurely bath.  Nope.  I'm playing games.  Mostly Zuma Blitz and Rummikub.  See...pathetic.  I play Zuma because I'm really good at it.  I typically walk away from the week with the #2 score.  The #1 score always goes to a girl who went to high school with me.  I have threatened to drop her as a FB friend so that I can be #1.  She thinks I'm kidding.  I'm kinda kidding.  =D  I play Rummikub because it's mostly a game of strategy (there is a bit o' luck involved).  The really stupid thing is that I find myself getting really really intense playing Zuma and getting really really angry playing Rummikub.  Aren't games supposed to be fun?  I think the work-up of my emotions so late at night prevents me from feeling tired which leads me to staying up so late which leads me to playing later and...I think you get the idea.  It's only after one of the dogs puts herself to bed and the other one whines incessantly for hours that I finally give in and go to bed. 

My eyes have bag ladies under them.  Yes, that's right.  Bag ladies. 

So, what to do?  I could, of course, just not play the games.  This isn't likely considering my total lack of discipline.  I could, say, limit the amount of time I spend playing the games.  I could incorporate other activities in my life - a, dare I say, balanced life of sorts - tv, reading, cleaning, SLEEPING, etc like I used to have.  I could give myself a bed time.

Anyway, I've decided the best thing to do is to give myself weekly goals established on Sunday or Monday (depending on when I get the post out) and then to follow up on them the next week.   These goals will not be just about exercise, but all walks of life since apparently I need lots and lots of help.

This week's goals:

Monday - make/prep my meal for the week, clean the kitchen, play my games for 1 hour, watch one TV show from my DVR, run 3 miles, read one chapter from my book while taking an Epsom Salt Bath, in bed by 10:45pm

Tuesday - up at 5:45am, play my games for 1 hour, clean the floors and guest bathroom, watch two TV shows from my DVR, do kettlebell DVD, read one chapter from my book while taking an Epsom Salt Bath, in bed by 9:30

Wednesday - up at 4:30am, run 3 miles, clean master bath, play my games for 2 hours, watch one TV shows from my DVR, read one chapter from my book while taking an Epsom Salt Bath, in bed by 10:45pm

Thursday - up at 5:45am, play my games for 1 hour, watch one TV show from my DVR, run 3 miles, read one chapter from my book while taking an Epsom Salt Bath, in bed by 10:30pm

Friday - up at 5:30am, play my games for 2 hours, watch two TV shows from my DVR, x-train for 30 min to an hour, in bed between 11pm and 12am.

Saturday - up between 6am and 7am, run 6 miles, do as I please so long as I'm in bed between 11pm and 12am.

Okay, fingers crossed I can stick with the plan to sing "Bye, Bye, Bye" to these bag ladies beneath my eyes.  Ready, set, GO!

Happy February!

Happy February to you.

I'm trying to be in better spirits about February than I was about January, so bear with me here while I work my way through it.  One of my many issues right now is loneliness, so February bringing ol' V-day isn't going to help that, but whatever. 

So, on Sunday I went out to watch the Houston Chevron Marathon.  My friend Melissa was running her very first.  I was supposed to be running this race, but the ol' pelvic stress fracture took that opportunity away from me.  I wasn't really so sad about that when I took note of the weather that day.  The temperature was between 68 to 72 degrees and it was quite humid and drizzling most of the day.  I felt sorry for the runners and was quite thankful that it wasn't my first marathon.  Now, watch it be identical conditions next year when I embark upon my "adventure".  Oye.  Our first stop was Mile 6.  It was pretty cool because we got there so early that we were able to watch all the gazelles elites run by.  They are truly amazing!  I kept my eye out in the crowd for some familiar faces I knew were running the races - most specifically That Pink Girl, but alas...I sadly never did see her.  =(  I did cheer my heart out for all the runners.  As a runner myself, I know it means the world to me to hear people cheer.  It doesn't matter if you know them or not.  One dude told me he loved me.  I figured that meant we were dating and if I saw him again at a later mile marker perhaps we would become engaged, but no such luck.  I became hoarse from shouting my encouragements throughout the day.  We made it to miles 11, 15, 19, 23, and then to the George R. Brown Convention Center to congratulate Melissa.  She did great!  We were sooo proud of her!  I would also like to mention that we did see one guy running the race who wore a blue t-shirt that read "from 426 lbs to 26.2 miles".  Though I don't know who this guy is - he brought tears to my eyes.  Not only had he conquered one remarkable feat, but he had conquered two!  So very inspiring!

The marathon got me thinking about my plans for improving my running and achieving my goals.  I told myself that it's time to stop the pity party and time to start conquering my demons!  Tuesday morning, I got up at 4:30am and went out for a run.  It was 68 degrees and ridiculously humid.  A few hours later, it was 38 degrees.  What is going on Houston?!  Sheesh!  Last night I went out to run my coldest run EVER - it was 29 degrees (20 with the wind chill).  I managed 2.75 miles.  Post run, my house felt like an inferno compared to the chilly outdoors. 

In other news, I booked my vacation yesterday.  Uber excited about this.  Since I'm going out to Los Angeles to run the Orange County Half Marathon on May 1st, I thought I should incorporate that into my vacation.  It's really cool that I don't have to run this race alone.  A friend / co-worker of mine from NJ is coming out to Cali with her husband (also a co-worker of  mine) to visit their son and daughter-in-law who live in the same area where my brother and sister-in-law live.  This will be her first half marathon, though she is quite the runner! I'm heading out on Saturday, April 30th, and I will stay out there until Wednesday, May 4th.  On the 4th, I will head out to Greenville, SC to visit one of my best friends and her husband.  I haven't seen them since October '09.  I will stay with them until the 8th when I will arrive back in Houston JUST in time to celebrate Mother's Day with my family!  This means the mini triathlon I was going to do on May 8th is out.  I'm okay with that, though.  I think I really would rather focus on running this year and then I can consider a tri next year.

I also did more race shopping - one of my favorite things to do.  I discovered the Hippity Rock Half Marathon in Cypress, TX (VERY local) on April 23rd.  Do the math, my friends - this is 8 days before my Orange County Half Marathon.  Call me cRaZy, but I decided to take the plunge and register for it...I really want to be comfortable with the half marathon distance so that the marathon won't be quite so daunting for me.  I also found the See Jane Run Half Marathon in Austin on October 9th.  This is an all women's half.  I'm about 90% sure I'll be doing this one, as well.  Their slogan is "i run for champagne and chocolate."  How much do I love that?!

Well there you have it - you can tell, I'm sure, that now I'm all kinds of excited about what is in store for me running-wise, so my body better be in agreement!  =D

We run, we blog, we Tweet...now we meet!

I had a lovely weekend, y'all.  How about you?

Following my 5 miler on Saturday, I met up with 3 of my favorite girls for lunch. 

The funny thing is that although Melissa,  Lauren, and I are friends "in real life" and see each other as our lives permit, none of us had ever met That Pink Girl (TPG) "in real life" before Saturday and yet we consider her to be a dear friend.

TPG came into town to run the Houston Chevron Marathon.  This was our opportunity to *finally* meet her.  Since both TPG and Lauren are vegetarians and I'm currently following Phase 1 of South Beach, it made picking a restaurant interesting, to say the least.  I googled "vegetarian friendly restaurants in Houston" and chose a link which named 5 restaurants.  Of the 5, I narrowed our choices to 3 - The Hobbit Cafe, Baba Yega, and Ruggles Cafe and Bakery.  I ended up deciding on The Hobbit Cafe since both Baba Yega and Ruggles Cafe had shrimp dishes that were antagonizing me since I can't eat shrimp until after my thyroid uptake test ends tomorrow. 

We loved it!  Such a cute concept for a restaurant!  So many wonderful food options!  I ordered the protein platter - a HUGE scoop of egg salad and a HUGE scoop of curry chicken salad (picked out the grapes since I'm not eating fruit right now) on a bed of green leaf lettuce with tomatoes.  Then I added avocado cuz...um...why not?!  I also loved that they had their iced tea of the day flavor.  I don't remember exactly what it was, but it was delicious - something like black currant cherry...  OH...and the service was amazing!  We were tucked back into a corner and had a nice 3 hour lunch discussing everything from running, blogging, and Tweeting, to our families, friends, and food.

After we ate, we had to take pictures for our respective blogs, don't ya know?! The one up top is of all 4 of us together - a kind Hobbit server was our camera man.  Below is yours truly and TPG.

I can't wait to hang out with TPG again when I travel to her neck of the woods for my Dallas Rock 'n' Roll half at the end of March.  =)  I only hope Dallas serves up some better weather than Houston!  =/

5 miles - we meet again.

I have been in such a bad place this month.  I have a tendency to get the January blues.  Combine that with some other stuff and...well...it just hasn't been pretty.  Just about everything has been suffering...well except for my food.  I have that under control, thankfully. 

Running has been harder than I had hoped.  I know I had my grand idea of going all fast forward through the C25K, but when I really started diving into it...well...it sounded like a better idea than the actuality of it.  I just can't do a 60-sec run followed by a 90-sec walk.  I mean I can do it, but it's too basic for me at this point in the game.  What the whole grand idea taught me, however, is that I need to go back to my intervals.  I had to swallow my pride for this.  It sounds stupid, but it truly was...no...is a struggle for me.  Endurance versus speed.  Is it better to be able to go longer without stopping/walking or is it better to be faster?  Post injury, however, it's been kind of a moot point.  I no longer have my endurance.  I did 3 runs at 2 miles a run and after each run I felt like I had hit my capacity.  Then I stopped running (for 2 1/2 weeks) out of frustration and depression.  That will teach me. 

I told myself that I had to do 5 miles on Saturday.  If I did not, I would be so far behind my half marathon training with no hopes of catching up.  I sucked it up and set my Garmin to 5/1 intervals.  I decided to run in my subdivision and I headed out with my tunes, my gum, and a Powerade Zero in the mailbox.  My first 2 miles were sub-13.  That was amazing for me.  It's been A REALLY LONG time since I've seen that.  I swung by my mailbox at 2.2 miles for a drink.  I continued along, trying really hard to maintain that sub-13, but my pace started slowing.  I swung back around to my mailbox at 3.7 miles for another drink.  I thought about only doing 4 miles and then I got mad at myself.  I headed out to do 5 and I was going to do 5!  I set off to finish out the remaining 1.3 miles knowing just the right path to finish it off.  I completed my run feeling accomplished.  I haven't felt like that in A REALLY LONG time.  In fact, the last time I ran at least 5 miles was back on October 30th when I ran an injured 7 miles before I found out about my stress fracture.  That was 3 months ago!!! 

On my last 2 mile run - 2 1/2 weeks ago (boo on me) - I averaged 13.28 min/mile pace.

On this 5 mile run, I averaged a 13.30 min/mile pace.

Looks like my 5/1 intervals allowed me to do the distance while maintaining my speed.  I honestly can say had I tried running the 5 miles without the intervals, I either never would have made it the entire distance and/or my average pace would have been around a 14 min/mile.

Since this post is mostly about running, I thought I would add that my friends Meliska, Lauren, Rachel, and I are all doing the Chick-fil-A 5K on February 19th.  This will be my first 5K for the year.  My PR is a 39.40.  That's a 12:47 pace.  I don't have any high hopes of PRing this race, but...well it would be really great to have a race I can be proud of.  The only way to make that happen is to run.  Practice makes perfect.  I have a recommitment to my "craft", if you will. 

My mileage for January is pathetic.  It's not even a drop in the bucket to get me to my goal of 600 miles for the year.  February, here I come!

a little venting is good for the soul

Some chick calls me from the hospital where I had that fateful bone scan that pronounced my pelvis to be unfit for running.  Well...correction...she apparently called my mom and dad's house and left a message.  My mother mistakenly thought she was calling for my father and gave my father the number to call the chickadee back.  After waiting for 100 years, he finally spoke to her just to find out she wasn't calling for him, but rather me.  Oh yeah...they had my parent's number on file for me.  nice.  I haven't lived with my parents since a brief 2 month stint between graduating college and getting my own apartment.  They had this particular number for me, however, as a result of my two knee surgeries that were performed on their premises some 16 and 11 years ago, respectively.

She informed me that I owe the hospital $237.38 and wants to know how I would like to pay that.  WHAT?  Wait just a minute.  Why do I owe money?  She explains that I only paid some of the cost of what I owed.  Um...I paid what you people told me I owed at the time of the procedure.  If it was more than that, you should have said so.  I don't really understand.  Furthermore, I feel like I'm under attack by some Guido.  Dude - send a bill like a normal person so I have a chance to look it over and figure out what's going on.  Don't expect me to blindly pay you to get you off my back. 

I'm still confused as to how they came up with the random dollar figure I paid at the time of the procedure - $639.08.  I know we have some weird deductible thing going on at my work, but still.  Anyway, I'm in the process of straightening the whole thing out.  Here's what I do know...if I do owe any additional money, it's no more than $110.91.  It's possible I don't owe anything at all or that I'm owed some money back, too.  Confusing?  You betcha! 

Anyway...don't treat me like I'm some slouch who doesn't pay her bills and make sure you have my information correct in the system.  How is it possible that you spent 15 minutes with me having me fill out paperwork before my procedure, that you accepted payment from me, performed a procedure on me, and  accessed my insurance information, yet you don't have my correct/current address and phone number?  I bet they did send a paper bill TO MY PARENT'S OLD ADDRESS - the house I grew up in.  lame.

Okay, done venting.

Reubenesque Pork: South Beach Style

We all know what a Reuben sandwich is, now don't we?  It's a delightful number - corned beef, sauerkraut, Russian dressing, and swiss cheese all stuffed with love between two slices of rye bread.  It's magic in sandwich form, I'd say.  It's also a great big giant fattening mess! 

I have been toying with some new recipe ideas - shocking, I know - and I wanted to incorporate the flavors of a Reuben, but sans the bread and a lot of the fat.  Hence - REUBENESQUE PORK  (yes, yes...I know it's supposed to be rUbenesque, but bear with me here).  Please note that I'm purposely not using corned beef to reduce the fat and sodium content. 

Here's what you need:

Boneless pork chops
Sauerkraut
Lite thousand island dressing (according to Wikipedia, it's a "variant of Russian dressing")
2% swiss cheese

Here's what you do:

Spray the bottom of a casserole dish with Pam or something like it.  Trim the fat off of your pork chops - I find those kitchen shears to work wonders.  Lay them down in the dish.  I actually did use put a wee bit of the dressing in the bottom of the dish, before laying down my pork chops, and used a spatula to spread it out.

 

Season them if you like, but since sauerkraut is so flavorful, I didn't find it necessary.  Layer a bit of the sauerkraut upon the chops.  How much?  Well that's up to you.  How much do you like the kraut?  I'm a big fan, so I used a lot (just shy of 2 cans for my 8 pork chops). 

Next, liberally drizzle your dressing over the sauerkrauted chops. 

Finally, top them all off with a slice of swiss.  I used the slices instead of shredded because I have yet to find 2% shredded SWISS cheese.  I think it's also a good way to make sure you are really only having THAT serving size.  There were 9 slices to the pack and 8 pieces of pork, so ... hmmm...wonder what happened to that 9th slice...  I also sprinkled some parsley flakes and I grinded a bit of rock salt and garlic over the top for good measure.

Bake it in the oven - 375 degrees for 40 to 45 minutes.  I think it's best to let it sit for a few minutes so the sauce has a bit of time to thicken.  Serve with a side of veggies if you are like me and nixing those bread carbs for the time being. 

I have thought about how I would make this again when I am not nixing the bread carbs and I think I would incorporate rye bread into the mix.  I once made this Macaroni and Cheese with Cauliflower dish from Carrots 'n' Cake.  In the recipe, you make a bread crumb mixture using multi grain bread, olive oil, salt, and parsley.  I was thinking I could use the same concept, but with rye bread and add this in as a layer before the dressing.  South Beachers are allowed rye bread, don't ya know!

So there you have it...yet another Kim creation - Reubenesque Pork.  It's a yummy dish and I hope you give it a whirl.  Oh, by the way...since I'm not a "food blogger", my pictures are sub-par.  I apologize for that!

Peace out!

whack-a-doodle doo

I had a whackadoo idea when I woke up this morning.  shocker.  I know so many people who are venturing into the C25K land with this new year and/or who started it last year.  Somehow/someway when I started my so called running thing last January, I had never heard of such a thing.  By the time my Meliska bamboozled  me into running my first 5K later that month, well I guess it just seemed silly to "backtrack" by doing a program designed to get me prepared for my first 5K that I had already run.

I also started thinking about how I went from doing my 3/1 interval method (February to April) to my 4/1 intervals (April to August) and then to straight-out running (September to current).  I'm kind of all or nothing like that, I suppose.  There was no other gradual progression put into place.  It was like BAM! take that body!  Now I seem to just be struggling to get back into the groove post injury.  I think it's because I want to be able to resume where I left off - not in distance, per say, but in my ability to rock the mileage outright (sans intervals).  I'm not so certain I'm being fair to my body.  In a lot of ways I'm starting over from scratch here.

My Rock 'n' Roll Dallas Half Marathon is in a little over 9 weeks.  My Orange County Half Marathon is in a little over 14 weeks.  I'm not concerned with finishing either of these races in their time limits (4 hours and 3 1/2 hours, respectively), but what I am concerned with is finishing them with my head held high knowing I put forth my best effort.  I don't feel like I've been giving running my best effort in the past week.  I feel like I've been discouraged and so I've just not run.

Well, my friends...there's a new attitude in town - she just arrived today (oh dear - I hope it's a new attitude and not another personality indicative of some kind of personality disorder).  So this leads me to my whackadoo idea.  I'm going to do the C25K, but in fast forward.  This means instead of doing 3 workouts a week for 9 weeks to complete the program, I'm going to do 5 to 6 workouts a week to complete the program in 5 to 6 weeks.  This will be in addition to my long Saturday or Sunday run. 

Now don't be getting any crazy ideas that I will be overworking my pelvis.  I will still be cross-training one day a week with a 24-Hour Fitness class and keep in mind this C25K program incorporates a lot of walking intermixed with the running.  If I feel any pain at any given moment - everything comes to a SCREECHING HALT! 

Oh...I'm also wondering if this C25K program will help increase my speed.  I know I've mentioned it before (perhaps on SEVERAL occasions) that I was faster when I incorporated intervals into the mix than when I nixed them.  Perhaps by taking it back a bit and working through the transitions of intervals to straight running, I will learn how to maintain my speed.  By the way, I do use the term speed very lightly since we all know I'm a special kind of turtle!  =D

So, what do you think?  Whackadoo?  I'm starting tomorrow morning!

In case you are wondering - here is the program in a written out format.  I know I can get an application for my phone, but I don't want to carry my phone with me, so I'm going to set my Garmin for each workout to keep me on program.