Polar Vortex 3.0

Thursday, February 27, 2014

I’m moving. I don’t know where or when but I’m moving. I’m sick of cold weather and snow and bad roads.  Seriously, it has been a week and some of the roads are still crap (icy and snow covered).  Frustrated!  We are in another cold snap. I think this is the 3rd time but it is hard to tell because it is the worse winter ever. Yesterday was 9 below in the morning. It warmed up to 18 degrees but the wind was around 30-50mph that it felt horrible. The wind mixed with the snow causing whiteout conditions on my drive home from the park and ride. Today it was 15 below with 35 below wind chill and the high for today is supposed to be 1 below. It is almost freaking MARCH.  What the heck is going on! And it isn’t going to get better the next 4 days have below zero mornings.  How am I supposed to run outside when it is 10 below!? At this point I’d be happy with 15 degrees and no wind! And March is only 2 days away. I told DJ that it will be 5 below for our 7K on March 15th...mark my words!

Speaking of running...
My IT band is wreaking havoc on my training.  I did 3 miles last night; the first 2 miles were great the last one sucked.  My leg really hurts. I used the foam roller last night and this morning and iced my leg at work. It better get better soon.  I have 3 more miles for Friday to get to 50 miles for February.  I’m lowering my goal for March because I’m going to take some time to heal my leg.  I won’t stop running completely but I’m going to do less days and possibly fewer miles. I can’t stop completely because I’d never start back up again and I have my weight loss goals to reach! I’m going to do more swimming in March since that should help reduce stress on my IT band. I think the main reason for my IT band problems is because of the weather. Since it has been so freaking cold and icy, I have been running a lot inside this past week.  I typically go on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays…and those days the track goes clockwise.  Because of volleyball and band, I can’t go Tuesdays and Thursdays which are the counterclockwise days. I think that is the biggest problem.  I’m running 42-56 laps one direction. And I it makes complete sense because it is my right leg’s IT band that hurts.  Weekends are also counterclockwise days but I try to go outside even if it is cold so that is why I think my IT band is inflamed. It is the weather’s fault…stupid weather.


I’m moving somewhere warmer…I just don’t know where.

Flat Tire

Sunday, February 23, 2014

Well yesterday was quite an interesting day.  Let see, it started off in the morning with Eric telling me that some of the clean clothes on the spare bed were wet.  I didn’t think anything about it until later when I went in there to fold them…what the heck…they were soaked.  I looked up at the ceiling…water spot. Dammit!  So I rewashed the clothes and put a big ol’ bucket in there to see if it will leak again.  I guess I need to call the association.  This happened a few years ago…our association sucks…they never take care of stuff until it is too late.  Seriously what am I paying them for! ARGH!

So after folding clothes for what seemed like eternity…I got through 6 episodes of Are You Being Served?!  Needless to say I’m not good at laundry and this usually happens. I keep telling myself after a day like yesterday that I need to do a load every few days and fold them right away but I never do.  I also donated 3 garbage bags of clothes to Goodwill.  Some that are too big, some that I never wear. If I keep donating lots of clothes and don’t buy any new ones then I won’t have the problem of too much laundry.  However, if I keep losing weight I’ll have to buy new clothes!

So after the laundry fiasco, I went grocery shopping…nothing exciting happened there but as soon as I got home, Eric called. 

Eric: “You want the good news or bad news?” 
Kim: “Ah, bad news?”
Eric: “I got a flat tire and I’m at Tires Plus in Hopkins, we are getting 4 new tires.”
Kim: “So what’s the good news?”
Eric: “I drove on the flat for about 3 miles and didn’t wreck your rim! Can you come pick me up? It will be a while.”

So at this point I put away the frozen/fridge food and rushed out the door.  Well the snow storm from Thursday has played havoc on our roads, they still weren’t cleaned off and it was a struggle to get to Hopkins. But the manager at Tires Plus said that the snow packed roads are probably why Eric didn’t wreck the rim.  So yay for the snow.  The silly thing is we have AAA; it could have been towed but I digress…

When I picked him up, I told him there is no way I’m going home, just to coming back so we went and had an early dinner and bummed around Target for about an hour before heading back to Tires Plus.  The stores hours go until 6pm so I thought for sure the car would be done soon...wrong…we didn’t get out of there until almost 8:30pm.  There went most of my day.  No 4:30 Mass, no running. :(  The funny thing is the tire pressure indicator on the car never came on when Eric had the flat but when he was driving home it came on…with four brand new tires full of air. LOL!  Stupid car.

I ran 12 miles this week.  Not bad considering I didn’t run yesterday.  Sunday I went outside and enjoyed the somewhat warmer temperatures.  The snow made for a slow run and I ran on the road for part of it.  Monday I ran 2.5 miles and my only comment in my Nike+ entry was F-ing Snow.  Wednesday was still nice enough to go outside. I did 3.3 miles, the long run of the week.  I didn’t have any expletives to describe the run so it was must have been fine. I know it was snow packed so I ran on the road a lot but my time was very slow. Thursday we got 10 inches of snow (after rain) so there is no way I’d run outside.  Band was canceled but the Community Center track is closed on Thursdays so I just stayed home and watched the Olympics.  Friday I did 3 miles at the Community Center. It was nice to be faster again.  But not as fast I would like.  I have less than a week to get 12 miles in to reach 50 miles this month…I don’t think I’ll make it. :(

Training Recap
Miles ran in 2014:  89.3 miles (only 310.7 miles left to go)

Week 21 Mileage: Swim = 0 miles; Bike = 0 miles; Run = 12.2 miles; Total = 12.2 miles

Valentine’s Gala

Sunday, February 16, 2014

Well another week is done and we’ve already started another. The time really flies. Last week was pretty boring. We both worked long hours and didn’t really venture anywhere until the weekend. We are still a day behind on the Olympics. Some point we will get caught up…I love our DVR. It makes watching the Olympics enjoyable. We can fast forward through events like the biathlon…why would you be cross country skiing with a gun? 
Because of the Olympics, I made this week a recovery week which means I really didn’t do a lot of running. I took Monday off. Tuesday I did 2 miles before volleyball. I took Wednesday off (very bad!) and had band practice on Thursday. I did 3 miles Friday and only 2.25 miles on Saturday, so my goal of 50 miles in February maybe in jeopardy. :( But I got my chocolate badge for running on Valentine's Day:

Also this week…we have been working long hours at work, Eric more than me. On Thursday I swung by his workplace to pick up the car so I could go to band practice. After practice, I drove back downtown to pick him up. He put in almost 14 hours in one day. Friday I made him leave work at 5pm. And Saturday he worked 4 hours.
After I picked Eric up at work on Saturday we drove down (in the snow storm) to Wisconsin for the weekend. We attend the Knights of Columbus Valentine’s Gala. But we went to church first. In the middle of Father Woody’s homily he said “excuse me there is a bat.” Stepped down from the altar, took his shoe off and killed it. Well that traumatized a few kids. He went on with his homily and a few paragraphs later he says, “Uh-oh…thou shall not kill.” Of course we all cracked up laughing. It was interesting. The Valentine’s Gala was fun. The school was decorated so nice and the food was delicious. We stayed about 2 and half hours. I got to see my old friend, Monica, but she was too busy running the event (cough, cough) that she didn’t really have time to talk.
This morning I was my mom’s slave again. We worked on a presentation board for her Diocesan meeting in April. It turned out nice, of course! After brunch, Eric and I went to have our taxes completed. It was a good day. We are getting a nice chunk of “our money” back so I can pay for my upcoming vacations! :)
After we got home I went for a 3 mile run outside which was a challenge with the snow we got yesterday it was packed on the walking paths and some were not even cleaned off. I was exhausted after my run that I am crashing on the couch and watching Olympics for the rest of the night.
Training Recap
Miles ran in 2014:  80.25 miles (only 319.75 miles left to go)
Week 21 Mileage: Swim = 0 miles; Bike = 0 miles; Run = 10.8 miles; Total = 10.8 miles


Frosty Foot -5°K

Monday, February 10, 2014


Well we did another below zero 5K. Eric is calling this the “Below Zero Series.”  It is February, the average temperature is supposed to be 25 degrees. It is ridiculous how cold it was yesterday. But we pressed on and did the 5K. But really we didn’t do a complete 5K. The course was only 2.9 miles…I’m a little bummed by that because I was on pace to beat my last time by over 2 minutes but it wasn’t really a true 5K so I can’t say that my best 5K time is 36:50. But since it was so close and I really could have run that extra ¼ of a mile with no problem, I will now say that my best 5K time is just under 40 minutes. That makes me happy. The course was very nice. It was in Sibley Park mostly and along the paths around there. There were a few hills but nothing that isn’t manageable. I ran almost the entire thing. The only part I walked was the nasty hill near the finish. I had run all the other hills but that one was a doozy. I could have run up it but I wanted to save myself for a strong finish. There were only 25 runners…seriously!  As far as clothing goes, I think I have this winter running down. I felt cold in the beginning but after the first mile I felt great, not too warm, and definitely not cold. I got smart and wore 2 pairs of gloves. A mistake I made at Polar Dash that I will never forget.  My feet were also warmer.  I wore different shoes (which I think are warmer) and better socks. Overall it was a great run and I’m very proud of my finish. Here are some pictures and my splits:









So the rest of the weekend was quite busy. Friday night I ran 3 miles inside and watch some Winter Olympics and did some reading for work. Saturday morning I worked on some stuff for work and watch Winter Olympics (I see a theme here). After Eric woke up we ventured around. He got a haircut, I did some shopping, and we ate at the new Chick-fil-A in Richfield and picked up DJ’s race packet at Sports Authority. The Chick-fil-A was crazy busy and it was 1:30 in the afternoon!  It was delicious as always. Thankfully it is far enough away that it won’t become a habit. I don’t need that with my weight loss goals!  Speaking of that I was down under 220 again on Saturday, but with Chick-fil-A and what we had for dinner and back over 220 again. I think my body will be toying with me the next week or so with this 219/220 weight.

After all that we drove down to Mankato and spent the weekend with DJ, Danielle and Bradley. DJ has been volunteering at this McGowan Farm and so she was able to get the cabin for the weekend. It was a very nice cabin but no indoor plumbing. (in below zero temps!) We set up our sleeping stuff and tried snow shoeing…not a big fan. I would rather strap on some nice boots and go walking I don’t really see the point of them. But anyways, I burned some calories. We went into town for dinner at Olive Garden. It was good as always but the service was a bit slow. After dinner we went back out to cabin and, silly us, we forgot to put another log on the fire before we left so it was a bit nippy in there. We got the fire going again and played some games. We turned in around 11am…making that 7am walk up call that much harder.

If only we could have slept…
So the cabin gets really warm with the wood burning stove. But when the flames start going out it gets cold really fast so it seems that somebody was up every 2 hours putting another log in. Little did we know that up in the loft, Danielle and Bradley were roasting and actually opened up a window! The other problem we faced was our air mattress…the really expensive one I bought a couple years ago for camping, must have a leak. At 2am when Eric woke up to take a very cold pee outside, I woke up too (I hadn’t slept much up to this point anyways). When he got off the mattress, my butt was on the ground! When he came back in, he couldn’t get back on the mattress. He either rolled off or rolled on top of me. Well this started a giggle fit between both of us and we were trying to stay quiet but you can’t giggle silently. We ended up waking everybody up and finally decided that mattress was toast and dragged the sleeping bag and tiny blanket to the floor. So we both ended up sleeping on the floor with no sleeping mat. It wasn’t very comfortable but what were we going to do?  Eric got the bad end of the deal. We lent one of our sleeping bags to Danielle and Bradley so Eric only had a small blanket to sleep on. We eventually got up around 6:45 to start our day…a freezing 5K with little sleep and a cold/hot night. But we survived as I mentioned above.

If that wasn’t all, after all that, I had a concert last night.  We played at Edinbourogh Park in Edina. It is a nice venue.  It was so bitterly cold and our concert dresses are very thin so it was a difficult walk into the building.  It was really the first time all day that I was so cold I wanted to cry.  Crazy to think that since I ran a 5K when it was colder in the morning but it all comes down to what I was wearing.  I think we sounded ok. It wasn’t my best performance.  The whole time the only thing I could think about was my warm bed.  I was also having issues focusing on the sheet music; I think that was just my exhaustion from the night before.  It was a good weekend but now I want to sleep.

Training Recap
Miles ran in 2014:  69.25 miles (only 330.75 miles left to go)
Week 21 Mileage: Swim = 0 miles; Bike = 0 miles; Run = 12 miles; Total = 12 miles



The Teens

Thursday, February 6, 2014

So I’ve had another major accomplishment this morning…I broke through to the teens…219.6 to be exact. What is it about that magical number 9 that makes you so much happier than the dreaded 0? And it wasn’t even that much below zero but seeing that 9 made me happy.  I’m sure I’ll be back above 220 tomorrow as we are meeting friends for dinner at Culver’s tonight. But this 9 is only a sign of where I’m going to go from here. (Hopefully!)

It has been just over two months since I cracked the 220s and hopefully it won’t take me that long to get to single digits. There will be no Christmas holiday to derail me this time!

Speaking of weight loss, I saw The Biggest Loser finale and I won’t begrudge Rachel for being too skinny (even though she is underweight now).  She is a fierce competitor (3-time Minnesota State HS Champion in the Butterfly) and she wanted to win. I’m just curious how she did it.  When she left the ranch 3 months ago she had lost 110lbs and was down to 150 lbs. (and she looked amazing!)  At the finale, she weighed in at 105 lbs.  Overall she lost 60% of her body!! But what surprises me most is she lost 45 lbs. in 3 months (over Thanksgiving and Christmas no less). I know it gets harder to lose weight the smaller you get and I struggle to lose 10 lbs a month now and I’m running 4 days a week and eating less, I can’t imagine how she did it. I only wish her the best.

Why Did the Tongue Get in the Way?

Wednesday, February 5, 2014

It is the official weigh in day for me and I'm down another 3 pounds this week. That makes me very happy since last week I didn't lose...or gain any. Staying at the same weight is very frustrating when there is no reason for it. It is one thing if I ate horrible and didn't work out but I did neither and still I didn't lose last week. This week I did basically the same thing and lost 3 pounds. :)  And if my mouth continues to hurt, maybe I'll lose another 3 pounds next week...wishful thinking. I decided to add the little weight tracker to the top of the blog weight loss can be tracked and I can be held accountable if I fall off the wagon...again. 

Part of the reason I think I lost so much this week was because I went for a 4 mile run last night. It seems like whenever I go for a 4 mile run I lose at least a pound overnight...assuming I didn't gorge myself on calorie loaded foods. I might have to make that a Tuesday night tradition…run 4 miles.

Now onto my mouth, well my head in general.  Since Thursday my eyes have been hurting me.  Not stinging, not burning, not itchy, not dry, just hurt, like if I pulled a muscle. I’m assuming it is just eye strain from looking at thousands of little numbers and staring at the computer. Thankfully that pain has finally subsided.  Also on Thursday my mouth started to hurt, mostly my jaw, I’m thinking that was because of band. We had a week off and then went hard at it last Thursday and my jaw wasn’t happy. Monday I developed a massive canker sore on my upper right gum line.  It hurts like crazy!  And then to make things worse, I bit my tongue yesterday.  And I don’t mean a little bite; I mean I took a chunk out and it bled.  I was spitting up blood for like 5 minutes, not pleasant when you are at work.  Of course today it hurts like heck too.  I literally can’t eat on my right side of my mouth.  Could this be the answer to my weight loss goals for the next week?  I doubt it.


January 2014 Recap

Saturday, February 1, 2014

Runs: 16
Miles: 51.25
Races: 1 (3.1 miles) (Polar Dash 5K - 42:02)
Outdoors: 6 (30.2 miles)
Indoors: 10 (21.1 miles)
Longest: 4.5 miles
Average Pace: 13:43

I started January of on the right note with a 5K when it was freaking freezin'!  Most of my runs were indoors as it was freaking freezing the whole month. There was one nice weekend of semi-nice weather (30-40 degrees) and I took it outside for my longest run. Coldest run outside was -10 below at the 5K.  Despite a nagging IT band issue, I some how managed my first 50+ mile month! :)