Stay Calm and Assertive.... Right

These are the wise words of Caesar Milan, the Dog Whisperer. Usually Caesar helps me in my quest to be a good mother to my 9 month old lab, Luna, but today, I wanted to tell Caesar where he can shove his calm and assertive energy.

Luna was terrible on our run today. Terrible. She pulled the whole way and would not run with her mother. Midway through our run, I alpha dogged (basically hold her on the ground until she is calm) her and took a few seconds to think about what was going on with my normally perfect angel puppy.

It all goes back to the evil woman who called the office this morning. I could write her entire story here, but she doesn't even deserve that. Basically, because she didn't pay her bill and didn't listen to what the Customer Service Rep told her to do, it was all my fault that her lights were getting cut off. Needless to say, her BAttitude (read; Bad Attitude) frustrated me because I worked on her case for about 3 hours this morning.

A lunch time quip with someone else didn't help matters much, and by the time I came home for my 4 mile run, my mental state was a hot mess. Caesar would have told me that I was unstable. And then I would have punched him. I'll show you unstable, Dog Whisperbutthole.

ANYWAY, the actual running part went well. Yet again, NO KNEE PAIN! That's really saying something after 4 miles. While my upper body was tense from stressing about Luna being terrible, my legs actually were relaxing into the new stride. I kept repeating to myself- back straight, knees bent, relax (impossible with Luna being terrible), forget landing on your heels. The more you run, the more natural and easy the stride feels. UNTIL you get tired at the end, as I did today. The last mile or so I began to feel a little drained, and it was only natural that my body would try to slip back into its old "heel toe" from. (side note, Luna is being ridiculous and I am losing my calm assertiveness AGAIN. stress. Also this dude on SYTYCD is stressing me out. calm down, ginger, and quit drinking red bulls) I really had to focus at the end of my run to maintain good form.

Today was just a running day because my legs are sore from the burst of exercise that started this week.

Confession: Luna pooped on the run, and I didn't clean it up. Forgot the poop bags. Don't judge.

Todays Menu:

Breakfast: Eggs (Nate style) and one kashi waffle

Lunch: Leftover whole wheat pasta with turkey mean sauce. 100 calorie pack of cookies.

Snack: 1/2 cup of YUMMMYYYYYYYY trail mix

Dinner: Sekisui (20th anniversary, what what!) salad, soup, red birds roll.

Today's Barefoot running education:

a "How-To" from Barefoot Ken Bob. Please note the most repeated part of this "How-To" that was relatively impossible for me today.

SCROLL DOWN A BIT ON THIS PAGE

Luna doesn't get a favorite today because I am mad at her.

Off to Sekisui with daddy and cymp. Back home to watch GLEE. Hopefully getting a good night's sleep and letting going of today's drama. The run did help a little bit, but this stressful ginger kid on SYTYCD keeps showing up. He is not helping matters.

Ultra love.

What in the name of Merlin's saggy left.....?!?!

Just a funny Harry Potter quote to get the blogging started off right.

I forgot to mention yesterday that Day 1 of Ultra Awesomeness Training also included my first day back in the weight section since my surgery. My handsome and health conscious boyfriend insisted that I not get too excited on the first day. 

That is a very difficult thing to do when a lady is mad hype over her new life calling.

SO I had to figure out a way to make sure that I 

would be able to walk/get out of bed this morning. I opted for a full body weight lifting day to awaken ALL the sleeping muscles that has been taking a break and eating ice cream for 5 weeks. Full body workout + semi-light weights + extreme focus on form and working proper muscles = SUCCESS and SUCCESS= good soreness and the ability to half waddle around the office today.

Anyway, while the lunges from yesterday left me good sore but a little awkward (especially when people follow me back to my office for a meeting.... Lord knows they were wondering what was wrong with me), I certainly wasn'

t too sore for some spin class. WOO HOO!

Spinning is my personal favorite cross training activity.  It is an hour of a$$ kicking, sweat producing fun. Word of advice to hooligans looking to get into spinning: your butt will hurt for about the first 2 weeks. It goes away- I promise. As your body adjusts (side note- definitely just CRIED while watching clean house- totally touching moment where a dad gave up his RV to help his family. really- it was super emotional) to the workout, you will get sucked in. So give spinning a chance before you decide to hate it when your butt hurts.

Todays class was what Laurie has dubbed "intervals." T

he songs alternate between hill songs (where the tension is up pretty high) and interval songs (where you alternate between fast spring and quick pace on lower resistance- 20 seconds on 20 seconds off). Very high calorie burning workout. LOVE IT. 

Today's Menu: 

Bfast: Scrambled eggs (Nate style: two egg whites and one full egg), one Kashi waffle with sugar free syrup.

Lunch: Vegetable soup, carrots, pita and hummus, apple.

Dinner: Whole Wheat pasta with ground turkey meat sauce. green beans.

I am currently working on my training calendar so that I can slowly build up my general mileage and barefoot running mileage at the same time. I have to personalize my training schedule so the reveal of that will be in a little while. Be patient, young thumper.

Your barefoot running education for the day, for all you visual learners out there.... COUGH martha COUGH....

HOW TO RUN BAREFOOT VIDEO

*********

Luna's favorite game of the day: "Chase me! I have an acorn!"

This game happens when I try to let Luna inside after she has been out for a while. She runs up to the door, looks at me, wags her tail, pics up an acorn from the ground, and then pony/kangaroo/cheetah leaps away to try and get me to chase her. I just close the door and come back later.... only to see her disappointed face that mommy sucks and won't play.

Ultra love

The Beginning of the Beginning

Before I officially begin this beast of a blog, I would like to tell all of you that Luna just sat on Ellen's foot. Literally, put her butt (as in the most butt-ish part of it) on her foot. Perfect omen for starting a blog.

Once upon a time, a long long time ago....

okay, so today, I decided to become an ultra runner. For those of you who don't know what that means- it means someday in the relatively near future, yours truly will be minxing around the mountains of some rando southern state for FIFTY (plus?) MILES.  All because of the book, Born to Run. 

yes.

AND I intend to do it in THESE BABIES- I am slowly (as in since last night when I couldn't sleep because I was thinking about it and today when i was supposed to be working and only wanted to read about BareFootTed) becoming obsessed with turning into a barefoot runner. 

This blog will track my progress along the not so smooth path to becoming an ultra runner- an ultra BAREFOOT (almost) runner. Let us begin with today.

Feeding off the energy I had from procrastinating at work (sidenote- total hottie on SVU right now. guest star, I think. guest FIVE star), I set off down good old "Filet Street" (yep, you got that right- bloganonymity- code name) with my trusty yellow lab, Luna, by my side.  Today, I only intended to run a few blocks with the new running stride that should accompany any barefoot runner. However, the new stride felt so fantabulous that I kept it up the whole way. 

End result? My first run in one year WITHOUT knee pain. Verdict? New running technique= success.

I was feeling so good after the run that Luna and I practiced her new favorite game: sit and wait for a long time until mommy yells "come here" then sprint like mad at her until she catches me.

..................................................................

What can you expect for the future? Workout updates. Nutrition experiments. Random funny stories about Luna and life. Advice for all those who want to get back in touch with the runner you were born to be. Im turning into a dirty hippie. Next stop, hairy arm pits and once-a-month showers. 

Ultra love