Where is Summer??

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Seriously, Philly. WTF? It's MAY. More than halfway to June. And it's 51 and rainy out, and here I am in my office in a skirt and tights. TIGHTS. These should have been long since retired for the season. What happened to our hot, sunny, gorgeous weather?

Lame. It started raining last night around 7 or 7:30 -- right when I was getting ready to work out. I'd decided to run, but was on the fence about whether to do it outside or on the treadmill. The rain sort of sealed that decision for me.

I hopped on the treadmill with no real plan in mind, except that I knew I wanted to cover about five miles. At first, I figured I'd just run slow and steady, straight through. And then I got about a mile and a half into it and wanted to gouge my eyes out, I was so bored. So, I turned it into a speedwork session:

- 2 mile warmup at 6.5mph (I think I sped up to 7.0 for the last .25 or so, but I don't remember for sure)
- Walked about 80-90 seconds, to 19:50 on the clock
- Six intervals: 60 seconds strong run at 8.6mph, 90 seconds walk at 3.8 - took me to 3.65mi total
- 1.35 mile cooldown at 6.0mph

Total: 5 miles, 48:38.

It's been a while since I ran "fast," and I really hit my stride sometime during the third interval. It just felt amazing. I LOVE intervals. My speed is good, my form is great, I'm workin' (but not TOO hard) and it just feels RIGHT. To the contrary, during the last chunk, I was hit by a realization. One: I felt like I could run forever. My legs were great, my lungs were great, and I was pretty comfortable. Two: because I was comfortable, I was bored out of my MIND.

I guess this is why long runs and the treadmill don't mix. Physically, I could probably have knocked out another three or four miles at that pace, but the idea of staring at the clock (or, better yet, the half-finished swimming pool directly outside the window in front of me) for another 30 or 40 minutes was enough to make me consider slitting my wrists.

Honestly, the best part of my workout?



I sweat a lot. I really feel good when I sweat visibly. I'm sick and twisted like that.

Also, I meant what I said. I would die of happiness if Kendra and Hank moved across the street from me.

Detox, Party of One

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This weekend FLEW by. You'd think after spending nine and a half hours in the car on the way back from NC last night, I'd be a total zombie this morning -- but surprisingly, I'm not.

I AM, however, craving things like "veggies" and "fruit" and "sweaty sweaty exercise" with every fiber of my being.

I've been doing reasonably well on this whole "weight loss" thing. Since the end of March, when PhillyGuy and I started cleaning up our diets and getting cozy with Tony Horton, I've lost about 6 or 7 lbs and several inches off of my waist. I'm noticeably stronger. My clothes fit better and I'm getting closer to regaining that enormous portion of my wardrobe that has been unwearable for the past eight or ten months or so.

But then...we do something crazy, like packing the puppies into the car and taking a road trip to Duke to see my sister-in-law graduate with her master's.

All things considered, honestly, this wasn't that bad. We made it to the hotel gym for an arm-burning sessions of P90X biceps & back on Saturday morning, where I noticed that -- go me! -- I've mad significant improvements in my back strength. Since there wasn't an assisted pullup bar, and I still can't do a full unassisted pullup, I substituted lat pulldowns for the pullups in the workout. I was knocking out sets of 8-10 pulldowns at 90lbs, which is a good 15-20lbs more than I'd been lifting before.

And yeah, I ate more carbs than I have in a while. And yeah, I had some dessert on Friday night. And yeah, I had a few bites of an ice cream sandwich on Saturday night. And yeah, I polished off a (thankfully snack-size) bag of Jalepeno Cheddar Chex Mix on the car ride home yesterday.

But in the grand scheme of things, it wasn't that bad. It certainly could have been much, much worse. I definitely have a crappy-food-hangover of sorts today. I woke up CRAVING fruit and yogurt. Unfortunately, since we didn't roll into Philly until about 10:30 last night, we didn't have time to go food shopping, and pickin's were slim. For breakfast this morning, I polished off the last of my Fage 0 with two chopped up kiwis and a handful of very, VERY sad-looking blackberries.

I was also CRAVING exercise. I was a bit slow to get moving this morning, so PhillyGuy and I took the puppies for their morning constitutional about a half hour later than usual. Just in time for me to see several people either leaving the gym or returning from an AM run. Which, naturally, made me curse myself for not waking up at 5:30 to knock out a few miles before work.

Since, you know, it's totally in my nature to do that.

So, now that I've started my morning with fruit and yogurt (and an extra cup of iced coffee -- thank you, sweet baby Jebus, for the invention of Starbucks Via and the convenience of powdered, delicious coffee that lives in my desk drawer), I'm about to spend the rest of the day knocking out work that I would have done on Friday and fantasizing about whether I want to run a few miles before my legs and back workout tonight.

PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT: As I mentioned on Twitter, I set up Google Reader for the first time last week. (Hi, my name is PhillyGirlRuns and I live under a rock. A rock where I don't learn about things like acorn squash and Garmins and Google Reader until EVERYONE ELSE IN THE WORLD has done it.) I'm still remembering to add new blogs every day -- PLEASE leave me a comment so I can make sure I've included yours!