Less than 1 month til half marathon training begins!

I haven't put up a blog entry for about 2 months ago, because there really hasn't been much to say. My life has been rather stagnant recently, and the weather sure hasn't been helping my mood. I am craving warmth and sunshine so badly!!! A couple weeks ago, we had a wonderful 80-something degree Sunday and I ran 4 miles outside. It felt incredible and I can't wait for the warm weather to come back. I now have less than a month until my training begins for my first 1/2 marathon that I'll be running August. While I am still working out 4 to 5 times per week, my "official" training starts May 22nd.

I dropped the few pounds I put on from the holiday season, but would still like to lose about 7 pounds by my birthday (June 4th). Just as my life has been uneventful the past couple months, so has my weight. I guess I should be happy that it's not climbing upwards, but it is still a little aggravating to work out regularly and not see much of a difference in terms of weight. However, my strength and endurance are definitely building. Last week I went to 2 boot camp sessions for the first time ever. I went to the regular Monday class at my gym, the LA Fitness in Bolingbrook, and then again on Wednesday night at the LA Fitness in Naperville.

I wish the Naperville gym had more classes available in the evening that were different from Bolingbrook's, but they actually have even less classes at night than my regular gym does. Still, it's nice to be able to go to different locations with my membership to change things up. I had gone to the Naperville class a few weeks ago with my friend Stephanie. She liked it too, but normally has school Wednesday nights and only went with me because she was on spring break. I wanted to keep going, but since the Naperville class involves a lot of partner work, I avoided going back because I didn't want to buddy up with a stranger. (Yes, sometimes I'm anti-social like that.) Last week, with some push from my boyfriend, I went to the class and ended up meeting a really nice girl named Lisa. It was her first time doing the class and while we were both wiped out at the end, she loved it and said she'll come every Wednesday. So hopefully she's there when I go this week! I must say, if you have reservations about doing a workout class, just put them aside and go do it. Once I put my nervousness aside and just showed up to the class, I didn't give it a second thought.


I'm still, as always, battling food. I would like to do a better job of logging my food, but when the portion isn't spelled out for me or is something I can't measure accurately, I get annoyed and stop. I eat breakfast with my friend Christina every Tuesday morning at Sandpiper, a local restaurant. I always order scrambled eggs with Feta, hash browns, and a plain English muffin. This seems pretty healthy to me, but I have no idea what the nutritional content is. The shredded hash browns seem to be just cooked in a skillet (they're definitely not friend hash browns), and seem safer to me than other breakfast restaurants. But who really knows?! Maybe it's a huge calorie and fat bomb. And don't tell me to not order the hash browns, cuz that just ain't happenin'!

I do have a snack recommendation that I discovered today: Snackwell's fudge covered caramel popcorn snack bags. They are just 130 calories and 3 grams of fat. They are DELICIOUS and killed my afternoon sweet tooth in a flash!



Highly recommended!

I'm still nervous as hell about the half marathon, but I'm also incredibly excited. I'm most excited to have a training schedule to follow again like the one I used last year when I trained for the mini triathlon. It helps so much more to have a specific workout goal ahead of you to work towards. It puts more meaning into your exercise and training and definitely more motivation. I'm also in the process of trying to get my boyfriend, Phil, up to speed for the Warrior Dash we're doing on June 19th. He ran for about 30 minutes today, so I'm proud of him! The Warrior Dash is one of the reasons I will now be doing 2 boot camp classes each week, have to build my strength up. Right now, I feel pretty unprepared for this Warrior Dash. The course is 3.28 miles and I'm not worried about the running portion at all, but when you add in the different obstacles, it's uh, gonna be interesting. I don't know what to expect, but at the very least it should be fun!