Pretty much what I have been doing for the past three months while training for the Rock n’ Roll Half Marathon in June. Seems like I have not much of a social life since taking on this challenge but the pay off will be a accomplishment of running 13.1 miles and a toned body for summer (maybe even a thigh gap..gasp!). And who wants to be nice and fit this summer? Me! Oh and a shiny medal because I need some bling in my life.

Eating Healthy

Eating healthy has been a hard part since I haven’t been faithful in keeping up with being Paleo, and doing the Whole30 at the same time as training had me craving a greasy hamburger from Mc. Donald’s (along with those addictive fries!) after long runs. I had to keep reminding myself every time I put something in my body it was going to be used for fuel, and by fuel, to power me through and not hold me back (addictive fries hold me back. Its shameful!). I realized I still have a bad relationship with food and even after one successful Whole 30 last year,  I still haven’t broken this habit entirely as of this time. Some days are great, while others are no so much when you are stuffing yo face with a whole pizza pie.But I still am striving to succeed in this and who knows, I will conquer it by the end of the year.

Learning to fuel properly for running has been a journey in itself. For a while I was eating a lot of carbs thinking I needed them all, but this is not how you fuel up for long runs. After reading countless pins off of Pinterest, reading Runner’s World Magazine fuel/food tips, and reading other runner’s blogs, I finally figured out how to eat properly to log the miles needed in training. I have lost weight, and have had better performance in running after making the necessary changes along with feeling better.

Drinking Water Like A Boss

Crazy water habits have made me into…. a water bottle toting, where can I fill this thing up again, need to pee every thirty minutes or right now, and I must stop before I unintentionally drown myself… type of person. Water the source of keeping alive and detoxed! I never realized how much water I needed to drink to stay hydrated (even after being on the track and field team in high school) just to survive the day. I wondered how I managed being a sprinter in high school on the track team! I wish I could just drink deionized  water instead of the plain old tap or general purified water, but DI water is expensive as heck to even drink! I have noticed since drinking a lot of H2O is seeing my skin looking better, hair stronger, and not feeling sluggish anymore.

Cheers to drinking more water then is humanly possible!

Sleeping Well….Almost Like A Baby

With all this water drinking, college doing, running miles and eating healthy, I have been plum tired out by the end of the day. I sleep better now days then when I was training for my 5k last year. With me needing to get a full seven to eight hours of sleep a night, I no longer subscribe to the college studying into the wee hours of the night. Just never has been me, and I am not starting now.

In this first weeks of training poor Maddie kitty would want to snuggle with me so bad in bed in the mornings. Then all of sudden she was the one getting me up in the morning to go for an early morning run. The alarm clock cat is a real thing, and does not necessary means she needs to be fed. As soon as the alarm went off she would find every annoying possible way to keep me from hitting snooze button. Now I just need her to learn to be a running buddy.

Working Out Like I’m Training For A Half Marathon:

Sometimes it is all you can do-horizontal running- because you feel as if your feet did touch the ground it would hurt again. The whole quote comes to mind “It’s not swagger, I’m just sore” and boy am I sore from all this running. I can really see why other runners take one to two months off from running after a 1/2 marathon or marathon just to recover from the torture you inflicted on the body. So far I have had a few sore muscles here and there, but nothing too bad-so far. I have started a relationship with my foam roller and yes it is complicated already. If it was human I would probably date it because its the only intimacy I am getting at the moment.

That’s my point exactly! After training for a few months I still am aware of how I must look to other people when I am out running. When out running I see other runners who look as if they haven’t even broken a sweat. Do these people have no sweat glands? Or are they just showing off? When I am done with my run I look like I am about to die and look like an ugly beast ready to devour something because I am hungry as hell all the time! There is no way I am looking all cute after five to six miles! I guess I’m in the attitude of runner’s hair, don’t care, and please Lord give me a burger now!

There are many time I want to skip a run until I think Jesus saw yesterday I didn’t run and now he wants me to run today! The struggle is real people, very real. After a run I do feel better then when I started, so the runner’s high is the motivation on days where I don’t feel I want to pound the pavement or the treadmill, but still drag my butt to do it.

In a few weeks I will be running through the streets of Seattle. I just hope all goes well for my first half marathon