Replacing my afternoon coffee with cardio

Coffee lovin’ white girl here. I have a morning coffee with breakfast ever day and on week days I used to have an afternoon coffee around 3:00 pm to get me through the rest of the day. This became a big habit of mine when I was working until 7 or 8:0 0pm. I needed to have energy at least until the end of my shift, then I could crash.

Recently I have replaced my weekday afternoon coffee with a run. Not every day, but most days. It slowly started when I was training for our 9K earlier this summer, but I have made it more and more of a habit once I saw all of the benefits it was providing…

For starters, I work in the heart of Boston. There are far too many shops and boutiques to avoid from at least window shopping and even the smaller purchases start to add up due to boredom on my hour lunch break.

Also, what the heck do people do for ONE WHOLE HOUR?! I have no idea what to do with my time. I tend to take a later lunch to break up my day so when I come back, I only have 2 hours left on the clock so I typically do not eat lunch ON my lunch break. Running has freed me of trying to find things to do outside, while not keeping myself inside when the weather is nice. 

My lunch time run has also provided me with the energy I need to get me through the rest of my day. So instead of picking up a skinny vanilla latte or toasted almond iced on my way back from lunch, I am burning calories instead of drinking them!

I have finally been back at the gym routinely and cardio is really a must for my body. Lifting definitely helps burn more calories and helps work on definition, but cardio helps me shed some extra calories and pounds. Remember – all of our bodies are different and lose/gain weight differently. I have personally found working out is most successful when I incorporate both. 

With that being said, my daily 30mins of cardio is now incorporated during an hour I usually roam mindlessly through the city, instead of adding it to the end of my day when I just want to get home.

Daisy wins here too…I’m home a half hour earlier to play with her now J

See where you can fit in a quick work out to save some time on the beginning or end of your day!

P.S. I know running is commonly hated. I used to be one of those people. I heard somewhere to set yourself a destination when running, preferably one of good taste or beautiful sights. Set your destination as your reward. Run there, enjoy your reward (take an excuse for a breather) then run home. That is another thing that has made running at work better than running at home. 

This is my reward...

Racer

There are many things I am learning about "parenting" a dog and I really find that the most important things have been boundaries, consistency and exercise. I never realized how much exercise dogs need until I saw how much energy our dog has when we wake up in the morning or let her out of the crate in the afternoon. I grew up in a family of mostly small dogs, 25lbs or less, who do not necessarily need much exercise or playing to tire themselves out. All of that has changed since Daisy, the 38lbs lap dog came into our lives.

There are some afternoons when I let her out of the crate that she runs laps in our mediocre size yard at the speed of what seems like a cheetah. It could be just puppy spurts, but she looks like a maniac. Regardless, I don't always feel like it is enough.

As my husband and I have started to get into running, we have decided to turn some of our walks with Daisy into runs. The first few times we were hesitant as we weren't sure if she could keep up or how long she would last. My first run with her was two weeks ago and man can she run! For our first mile I had to keep up with her, and the second mile she had to keep up with me.

We have recently been enforcing "heel" in our training and she's getting really great at it which is making our walks and runs much easier. Our furthest distance so far is 3 miles. I hope she can keep up with our endurance as we gain our miles!


As a side note, since Daisy is a rescue dog, we have thought some of her behavior has shown a sense of anxiety. We're not positive about it, and we are doing things to avoid it, but it can be difficult for animal to really express themselves. I have recently read that longer walks and more exercise helps with anxiety in dogs, not only because it tires them out, but because it clears their mind the way exercise does for humans! Neat, huh?

Here she is after our first run together. We were both tired. It was a hazy, hot and humid afternoon.

The Little Leisha That Could

Over the weekend, my husband and I participated in the 5^th annual Run to Home Base at Fenway Park. The Red Sox Foundation and Massachusetts General Hospital Home Base Program work together to help Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans and their families who return home with the invisible wounds of war such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and traumatic brain injuries (TBI) which are estimated to affect one in three returning Veterans.

The Run to Home Base is a 9K (5.6miles) run through Boston and Cambridge that finishes on home plate in Fenway Park. Most of the course is along the Charles River with a great view of the skyline of Boston almost the entire route and the crowd along the way was just great. Finishing in America’s most beloved ball park was a great feeling, especially because we got to high five and shake the hands of our nation’s finest as we crossed home plate. We thanked them, as they thanked us. It was beyond rewarding.

Prior to this race, I never really took the sport of running seriously. Sprints and laps during high school sports' practices were dreadful and I was almost always one of the last to finish the 2-3 laps around the field/court. It was almost as if I imprinted in my brain how I could never be good at running; and as we all know, it is very difficult to enjoy something if we do not feel we are good at it. 

When we signed up for this race, I was convinced I would be ready on the day of the race with at least two months of training behind me. FALSE. I was lazy and still thought I hated running so I ran maybe twice a month until roughly two weeks ago when I picked up a few more runs per week. I had several discouraging runs - where I could barely breathe for 0.25 mile or had sore calves at 0.50 mile; letting my disappointment conquer my motivation, I would proceed to WALK home...instead of push through. 

Saturday morning came and I set a realistic goal in my head of the timing I wanted to finish the race in..keeping in mind I did not properly train, wasn't necessarily in great shape and also have never run this long of a distance......EVER.

Not only did I finish in my last minute goal time, but I was back at running this afternoon. 48 hours later, I was ready to do it again and do it well. I never thought I could even finish Saturday's Run to Home Base without walking at least the last mile, but I surpassed the expectations I had of myself. 

With motivation, confidence and no negative thoughts or feelings about the sport, today I ran my fastest mile ever. I am still not an elite runner. I am still not a marathoner or half-marathoner, but I set a personal record Saturday and today, and for that I am proud of myself. Previous to today, my fastest mile was one minute slower than it was today. All I needed was the positive mindset to know that I. COULD. DO. IT.

Don't ever give up...on anything. Believe in yourself no matter what it is. And when you think you can't do something, go out and do it so then you know you can do even more!!

Mile 4 Selfie

        

Before & After our Run to Home Base!

If you are interested in next year's race or simply would like to learn more about The Home Base Program, please see their links below. They also have Facebook and Twitter links listed on their site.

A special thank you and shout out to those of you who helped my husband and me by contributing to this cause. We appreciate your support of this amazing organization!

http://www.homebaseprogram.org/general-information.aspx

http://www.runtohomebase.org/

Each and every one of our military personnel are heroes who put their lives at risk while leaving their families at home to keep us safe and our country free. I will forever feel indebted to them.

“Be Prepared”

After a little bit of a bumpy week for him, I thought it would be appropriate to quote my grandfather. “Be prepared” is Papa’s family wide known motto. Every time we kiss goodbye or an important life discussion arises, he repeats those two words to me; he always has and he probably always will. As I get older, I realize more and more how right he is when he tells me this. If you think about it, this imperative can apply to almost anything in life. This weekend it applied to us in our choices to live a healthy lifestyle.

Saturday night I had planned on attending a girls night at a friend’s house while Brendan was working. It turned out to be a great time, but I wasn’t planning on having more than one drink or staying out late because I knew I had a race in the morning. Let’s just say, when you pour your own glass of wine, one glass turns into two very easily. It ended up being a great night – Brendan was let out of work early and met up with us for a drink or two. All night we kept commenting on the dreadful run we were having the next morning and how silly we were to be out drinking the night before.

Brendan had not run since he moved home from the Marine Corps which was over two months ago, and I had not run since my last 5K which was in June. So in terms of preparation, we were NOT following my grandfather's request.

Sunday's weather forecast was not promising, just another reason for us not to be excited about running for the first time in months. Lucky for us, Mother Nature gave us THEE perfect running weather, but of course we were way over dressed thinking it was going to be 55 and raining.
Running was never my thing. Even now, I have been training with weights, but tend to shy away from the cardio. If I’m going to do cardio, it needs to be fun. I usually feel awful WHILE running, but great afterwards. I timed myself on Map My Run app on my phone, but I checked official results online when I got home. It’s pretty cool how bib numbers for races now have trackers on them for when you run over the start and finish line. You would never even know – it just looks like a white sticker! Great news is that I finished nearly two minutes faster than my previous 5K in June. Yay for progress! Four years in the Marine Corps allowed Brendan to kick my butt; I didn’t let it affect my mini victory though.

Us after the race - we even got medals!

The rest of our day consisted of homework (for him) and food prepping for the week. Preparing lots of food for 5-6 days can be VERY time consuming, not to mention, when you are done, you have to wash a ton of dishes! I have to say, it is much easier when there are two of us doing it and it is well worth it. I have learned the only way I will eat healthy is if I am prepared. It’s much easier during the week to just grab a few pieces of Tupperware and walk out the door, not having to worry about making or packing food in the early mornings. We try to do this every week now – either on Saturday or Sunday. I write out all of my meals for the week, then make a grocery list based on it and then get cooking. We have definitely needed to add to our collection of Tupperware to do this. Here are some pictures to truly exemplify the intensity of food prepping! Haha!

 

As you can see, most of this consists of using 4burners at all times. We joke about buying a house someday with a stove that has 6+ burners and LOTS of counter space, to make food prepping easier.

Alot of these are staple items for us...veggies, chicken, etc. I try to make meals where things are mixed together, like chili, stir fry, and others...to keep it exciting.

The cucumbers & tomatoes are what I eat at night. It is my FAVORITE salad ever. I put a few onions in it too for flavor and half an avocado. I wait until right before I eat it to cut the avocado so it's still green!

Annddddddd here is what our fridge looks like when we are done!