Ready

For the first time in a few weeks I feel ready for the week. I have leftover and ready to go breakfasts (cabbage frittata) and food for lunches and dinners.

My lunch was SO much food, but modelled after the lovely salads available at salad-specialty restaurants (flourishing locally but sadly none within a block of my office). I bought lettuce, onions and spinach from the salad bar in the cafeteria, added my dressing from the office fridge, and then my leftovers: half a hamburger and grilled vegetables, along with cheese, cheese crisps, and olives from home.  Totally over the top, but very good. I ate about two-thirds at lunch, and put it aside. It became my 4:30 snack, and with a handful of cashews while driving home I wasn't hungry before the gym.

After the gym I contemplated no food, as it was late, but decided to go for it. More leftovers.

I had a sausage and a half cup of mixed beans done yesterday in the Instant Pot. (I would like to eat more beans, seems healthy and carby without being sugar or white flour.) Very satisfying. Nothing in me was craving any bedtime chocolate. I don't expect that to last, but certainly wasn't going to force chocolate on myself!

I seem to have cycles, though my monthly menses are long over. Yesterday was an up day, not driven by extra good sleep or especially good food the day before. But appetite was reasonable, and I felt strong and happy at the gym. I walked a lot, even getting a quick mile in at lunch in the fabulous (not hot yet) weather. Last night was a terrible night for sleep, but with a good day yesterday with food (roughly 35 hours now since my last sugar) we'll see how the energy plays out today. Food today is planned to be identical to yesterday, with the added bonus of being already packaged up yesterday.

Another Race Done

Today was the Takoma Park 5K. This neighborhood run is the second race I ever entered, in 2012, and the one I have done most consistently. My time was much slower than before. I refuse to admit that I am now in an inevitable decline due to age. Instead, I see this as yet another confirmation that on race day, it's too late to substitute determination for training. I frankly under trained.

The other way to look at this is way better than the race I did in February. That was the slowest I've ever been. It was snowing, it was on steep hills, and it was freakin' February and I was not trained at all.

This made me go back and look at previous race results. I had compiled many of my results before, so it wasn't a lot of work to go back and bring the list up to date - especially since I didn't run in ANY races in 2017!

What did take some time was making a nice graph of my pace over time. My best year was 2015, where I took training seriously. Here is the history:

Lower on this chart is better- fewer minutes per mile

BTW, for my few but avid readers - I've put some effort into the garden blog, and am likely to do some posts there, as I work to fill the void from the tree and get some renovations done.