GRU Augusta 10k

Today was awesome! I ran at the GRU Augusta H.M./10K. (I did NOT do the HM! I did the 10k!)

I can definitely say it was one of the best runs I have ever done. My speed was not my best, but speed was not my goal for my first 10k. This has been my longest run to date. It was just such a perfect run - the energy was great, I loved the course, the event organization, and the weather.

My goal for myself- Finish under 1:00:00
My husband's goal for myself - Finish before the first Half Marathon finisher

<<< Me right before the race (cold!!!!)

Got up early and wasn't feeling my best. I didn't get good sleep last night and my stomach was slightly upset. Plus my dog is sick and we had to deal with all that mess. But I had my coffee and made my go-to breakfast sandwich - whole wheat english muffin, egg whites, and a bit of cheese. And I had a nice carb loaded burrito last night at Moe's. So the fuel was definitely there. We still managed to get out there pretty early and I had plenty of time to warm up and get to where I needed to be. It was cold and cloudy this morning. I was worried it might be one of those runs where you just can't seem to warm up no matter what you do, but after I did my warm up I knew I'd be alright.

I parted ways with my husband to get in line for the start of the 10k. There was a lane for the spectators and he went over there and found me in the crowd (guess which one I am!)

I loved the energy of this race. The staff was great, they had music, and an announcer - so it's not like we were just standing there in silence waiting to run. At 8:15 we were off and started down the streets of downtown Augusta. This run was all about pace. Having only done 5k's before, I have been training in the mindset of "GO FAST DAMMIT!" so I have had to retrain my brain for this one and make myself go at a comfortable jogging pace. I kept this up for the first 2 miles. Passed the first water station, ran up a hill and under a bridge, then took a turn and started mile 3. At this point I did slow down for a drink from the water station, and saw what was ahead next - one big, long hill. More like a very gradual but very long incline. I had to switch to "hill running mode", good thing I've trained on hills a little bit! Towards the top I heard a weird noise to my right. It ended up being a lady puking all over the place. She didn't stop either, so it was a run-puke. 15 seconds later she puked again. She looked like she was in decent shape, and the hill wasn't THAT bad, so I was wondering what was wrong. I felt bad for her! After that I neared the top of the hill, expecting relief, only to find that the road curved and the hill kept going! Dammit! But I kept going, and only stopped for a quick walk break at the top of the hill. I was still feeling great. This area of the course took us through a historic section of the city which was really really cool. I live in a small town outside Augusta, and I have only lived here for about 6 months - so I have not been to the downtown area of Augusta very much. It was really cool to run through it and see all the old buildings and huge trees. It had a very "southern" feel, and reminded me alot of my hometown of Williamsburg, VA - only without all the people dressed up in Colonial clothes. There were alot of spectators out along the course who were cheering us on, some with signs, music, and even a small pack of cheerleaders. It felt good to have complete strangers cheer me on.

Before I knew it I was at mile 4, and decided to snack on my Honey Stingers. I didn't feel like I needed them, but I would rather preemptively eat them instead of suffer a hypoglycemic sugar drop. They also gave me a little boost of energy which is always appreciated!

Mile 5 put us back on the street we started on. Still feeling great, but the sun came out and I really started to get hot. There were 2 people that were running neck and neck with me throughout this race. One of them was a guy to my left wearing a grey shirt, and he was wheezing so bad I thought he was about to keel over. I almost asked if he was ok! The girl that was running at my pace wasn't far behind. Once I saw the finish area I "emptied the tank" as is my standard practice.

See, there's grey shirt guy just behind me. I'm in black on the left.

I hauled ass towards the finish line. Didn't even look at the clock. I beat grey shirted afro-puff girl. Did not beat grey shirt guy - somehow he pulled out a huge burst of speed and passed me during the last few seconds, despite the fact that I was sprinting too. Weird, because he sounded like he was dying 5 minutes earlier. I have started to pick out people near me in races and try to beat them - competitive much?

So I finished the race, was immediately handed a medal and a water, and found my husband. I GOT A MEDAL! First medal ever. Then I went and found my time....

56:52

Pretty damn good if you ask me! Alot better than I had expected from myself for my first ever 10k. I met my goal of finishing under an hour, and my husband's goal of finishing before the first Half Marathon finisher.

The funny thing is, I felt like I could have kept running. I think I reached my "endless" pace - where I could just run at that pace forever. My pace was about 9 minutes/mile.

I feel like I have come a long way in 5 months. I could barely run for a straight minute when I started! I never thought *I* would be the one out there running races. But now that I am, it feels great. I am on my way to being stronger and healthier, and accomplishing all kinds of crazy things that the "average" American couldn't or wouldn't want to do.

Victory is tasty.

Race swag!!! They gave us COFFEE!

Now I'm exhausted, dinner is in my crock pot and I ain't doin squat. Except laundry. I expect I'll be pretty sore for the next couple days. My husband has surgery next week too. But after than my training resumes. Spartan Race Georgia in 2 WEEKS! I cannot freaking WAIT!

Progress hurts!

This week's been going pretty well. I was sick sunday night and monday, probably thanks to last weekend's locked-out-of-car-adventure. Sunday night I got a headache and that general "getting sick" feeling. Monday I woke up with some serious nausea, dizziness, and sweats/chills.  So nothing was accomplished that day.

Tuesday I did my strength training and - I did a pull up! A chin up, technically. I kind of jumped into it so I don't know if I'm going to officially count it, but here's the deal. I've done *one* full pull up in my life. And in school gym classes they actually counted half pull ups (if you're a girl) and that was all I could ever do. Except for that one day where I managed to do one full pull up. So I guess I'll have to take what I can get at this point. I've been working on them alot, and just building upper body strength in general. As I get better at them I'll start trying to do them from a hanging position.

Yesterday I did my 3 miles around the neighborhood. I realized I've been slacking lately. The last few runs I'd done were with my husband and dog, and he is out of practice because he is still recovering from surgery.  And while I've really enjoyed getting out there and running with him while I still can (he is due back for his second surgery next week) I haven't been going at my own pace. And I definitely felt it yesterday. But it was still a good run, I was exhausted afterwards - which is a good thing!

<<< Here's my dinner from tonight! Tasty - coconut chicken salad with dijon/honey vinaigrette.

Today I wanted to get some more miles in and do a short interval run since I hadn't done one of those in awhile. It went well until about 1.5 miles in. My legs cried uncle, big time. I ended up walking and limping back up to my house. That leg pain was *intense*. My husband was sweet and set me up with some ice and water to drink. He also has some compression sleeves for the legs which I'm currently using. I didn't realize he had those, but I'm so glad he did! My legs feel totally fine now. I hope they stay that way too, because the 10k is on sunday. I'm having some serious runner's regret right now, and hoping I didn't screw myself over for this race. I feel totally unprepared for it. I don't know what happened, but during the last 6 weeks I was not able to get to the mileage I was hoping for. My longest run was 5 miles and that was 2 weeks ago. Last weekend cut short due to losing my car key and I can't undo that. But whatever, I'm just going to go do this 10k and celebrate the fact that I will have finished my first 10k. Not going for a specific time. Just gonna finish it for starters. 6.2 is quite an accomplishment, and I'll be happy to be able to do it!

Also, I'm now down 30 lbs! Here's a quick recap -

Starting stats

• 195.8 lbs
• 34.2% Body fat (This may be inaccurate. Handheld monitor > scales)
• 30.1% Muscle mass
• Not sure what my BMI was
• Mile time - 13-ish

Current stats

• 165.6 lbs
• 24.9% Body fat
• 32.3% Muscle mass
• 26.0 BMI
• Mile time - 8-8:30
• I can now do about 20 burpees and 20 (GOOD) pushups in a row, hold a 1+ minute plank, do a pull up, and do crazy Yoga poses!

I can fit into clothes I haven't worn in 5+ years. Some are even too big! I even had to order new pants for work. SIZE 6. Holy crap. They are tight in some areas, but they fit! My American Eagle size 6 jeans (bought them on sale last november) don't fit comfortably yet, and I don't think I could walk or sit down in them, but they close!

Now, the last 10 lbs! Or maybe more, if I feel like I have more to lose. I still have chub on my belly, arms/forearms, thighs, and calves. My back and sides are practically bone now. I can feel cheekbones and collar bones. My wrists are tiny. So crazy! 

Tomorrow I have an appointment with my doctor to follow up on all my PCOS stuff. She'll probably schedule another round of blood work and another ultrasound to see if anything has changed. I also want to see what she thinks my healthy weight should be, and if her idea is anywhere near mine. Will be interesting.

So that's about it for now. Next up for me is the Augusta 10k, and then Spartan Race in 2 weeks! I'm getting REALLY excited!

Worst Run/DAY Ever.

Today was kind of a disaster.

So I posted earlier about how my husband and I were going to the Army base to run on the track and do the parcours course? Well, that -sort of- happened.

We went out on this 40 degree cloudy, windy day. I did my 3 miles on the long track around the field. My husband was walking with our dog. After my run we met up and I took off my Spi belt and opened it up to get my car key so we could move on to the parcour course. No car key. What the fuh. Panic time!!!!!

We spent a good 2 hours combing over the entire track looking for it. My husband ran into a guy who said he saw it on the ground, but when we went back to search the area it was gone. The three of us searched for like 30 minutes. So that tells me someone took my key, and did god knows what with it. It was never turned into the gym next to the track. The church nearby was closed. Luckily my husband had his phone with him and was able to get a friend to pick us up. He had to call a locksmith, get back to our house, get the locksmith to get us in the house, get HIS house/car keys, then come BACK to the base, and open our Jeep. The problem is - I have no freaking idea what happened to my key. Based on the location where the guy says he saw the key, the only conclusion I can come to is, it must have fallen out of my Spi belt when I unzipped it, and I just didn't see it fall out. Whoever picked it up had chances to steal it while we were out looking for the key, but they didn't. But I know for a fact that it was picked up, based on the guy who saw it on the ground before. Which meant someone out there had my key. I'm not stupid - for all I know, someone was waiting for us to leave so they could steal my car and my purse. So I had to stay with the car. And I couldn't wait inside a building anywhere because we had the dog. So that meant standing out in the cold. I froze my ass off for an hour. 40 degrees isn't bad, but we had strong winds all day so it was probably more like 30. And the sun wasn't out at all. Thankfully I had extra layers with me!

It was a sucky experience to say the least. When they picked me up I could hardly move or talk for about 10 minutes, that's how badly I was shivering. And I was still shivering uncontrollably even after I was feeling nice and warm in the car! I seriously do not remember the last time I was that cold for that long.

The whole ordeal took about 4 hours. I cried a couple of times. My nerves got the best of me. The whole "How will we get home/into our house/car/etc?" Luckily my husband has a more level head when it comes to these things and was able to arrange a solution. And now we're home, with our car, and nice and warm. And while we didn't do the parcour course (NO way it was happening after all that!) I at least got to run 3 miles. It's just one more thing I've survived.

Whoever took my car key and didn't bother to search for us - you are an ASS. Either leave it where it is, or at least try to run around the track and look for us, or just wait around in the area where you found it! Turning it in to the MP's or some other location is useless - we can't go collect it without a car!

SIGH. Okay. Enough of that. I'm exhausted and just glad to be home. Tomorrow I will stay home and do some yoga, and pray my next run outing goes more smoothly. I'm normally really careful about my keys and I think this was just some really bad luck that befell us, but after this experience I have learned that I need to be 100% sure of where my keys are while I am out on runs.

Working hard

Week in review -

Monday - Yoga. It was great. Not much else to say here
Tuesday - Legs were still sore from sunday's 5 miles. Took a break.
Wednesday - Power went out overnight and I didn't wake up in time for a morning workout. So when I came home I did some core and arm work with my husband. I am getting better at pull ups!
Thursday - Went on a short run with my husband and our dog. My shins STILL hurt from sunday!
Friday - took a break, was feeling very sore all around.

I did pretty good with healthy eating this week, aside from having a little too much candy. My boss always keeps candy around at work. I can't help it!!! Yesterday morning I was at 166.2, and my goal is to be 165 by next wednesday. However, yesterday was also my cheat day. I wish I could say it was worth it, but it wasn't really. Being that we are still pretty new to this town, I've been wanting to eat at restaurants I haven't been to before. Sometimes it works nicely, other times not so much. The place we went to wasn't so great. And kind of pricey for what you get out of it. It wasn't worth the calories. That's how I view things now - is it worth the calories? Trying not to regret it too much, because I did try something new, and now I will no longer be curious about the place.

I tried on my size 6 American Eagle jeans last night - THEY CLOSE. Still very very tight and not yet wearable, but after another 10-15 lbs they should be a perfect fit (I hope)
Also had to order some work khakis, also in a 6. Those may be tight at first, but eventually they should fit nicely. My current ones are practically falling off of me. I'd guess I am at about an 8 right now, coming down from a 12.

Today we are going out to the Army base. I'm going to run at the track on the field (about 3 miles), then we're headed over to the parcour course. It's a trail with obstacles. We figure it will be good training for my Spartan race - which is in less than a month! Downside is, it looks like the weather is going to be pretty crappy. Cold and rainy. But this is our only weekend to do this together, because next weekend is my 10k and then my husband has foot surgery. My legs are sore from kettlebell swings (well, weights really, because we're cheap and don't have kettlebells yet) and my shins still hurt. I don't know what the hell I did to my shins! Really I should have given myself alot more time to train for this 10k, but it just didn't happen that way. I'll get it done I swear, even if I have to walk the damn thing! And today, regardless of crappy weather and sore legs, we'll go out and work ourselves on the trails. After today however, I may need to take a break for awhile!

Running, dogs, and cupcakes!

It's been a busy weekend for me, and I am tired!

Friday evening I did my calisthenics as soon as I got home from work. I didn't have a ton of time for it because one of my husband's Army friends was coming over and we were gonna go out to dinner. But I managed to squeeze in a good 25 minute workout.

The plan was to do this

10 pushups
20  burpees
30 mountain climbers
40 squat jumps
50 second plank

Repeat x5

This is kind of a beastly workout for someone who's still intermediate-ly fit, so I just resolved to do as much as I can, as fast as I can, before I got tired and had to get ready to go out. I did everything except the squat jumps, those were brutal on my legs. I did about 25 of those per set. Saturday was supposed to be my long run and I didn't want my legs to be too burned out. Total number of sets I did was 3. I was pretty tired, and could have probably attempted another set, but I had to get ready to go out. I had a good time, and it was very much needed! We had fun sharing crazy Army stories and eating some good food. Saturday just ended up being one big "run errands" kind of day. Original plan was to get our taxes done and then run at the track on the base, but taxes ended up taking 3 hours longer than we thought - between waiting, going back home to get documents, and ...questioning... our underwhelmingly sized refund. It was 1:00 before we knew it, and I was hangry. Hungry/angry. I knew running just wasn't gonna happen that day and just decided to get it done on sunday instead. We ended up shopping for a bit - got some cute little exercise shorts on sale for $16! Did alot of other things that needed to be done around our house. It was a good, productive day. And it was also a day spent with my husband which is always good.

So yes, today ended up being run day. The target? 5 miles. Doesn't seem like alot to most people, but I am increasing my mileage for this month's 10k. This run was ok. My body wasn't in running mode and protested the whole time, but I got the miles done. I'm also in the process of sampling various energy supplements during these longer runs. Today's supplement testing was the ever famous GU. I was skeptical, having heard mixed things about it, but I always like to try things out for myself and form my own opinions. And my opinion is - not for me. There's just nothing appealing about slurping down a packet of warm goo. Especially during a run, when my throat is parched and all it wants is some cool/refreshing liquid. This GU tasted like warm, marshmallowy goo. It was really odd. And yeah, I know that they advise drinking water with GU's, but I am not going to start bringing water along until I am running longer distances. Seems silly to bring it for 5 miles. Still, I just don't think I'm a gel person. So far my favorite is the Honey Stingers, but I still have a few more to try out.

The weather was great today. 63 degrees, partly cloudy, breezy. Couldn't ask for a better day for running in the south. My husband was out with the puppy, who got plenty of playtime and social time with other dogs. Here's a picture that my husband snapped

I feel like this should be on the cover of a magazine. It's such a perfect picture! I can't ever get pictures of him like this, he never sits still for me.

I'm so freaking exhausted. In retrospect, I should probably have allowed more time for myself to get up to 6 miles. I know that I am increasing my mileage way too fast. But I just didn't have enough time, and I really wanted to run this race. All I can really do now is try to get enough rest, stretch it out real good, ice, ibuprofen. And I've been doing all of those things. Tomorrow I'll do a nice long yoga session to stretch everything out real good, and that should help tremendously.

Now I'm looking forward to doing absolutely nothing for the rest of the night. Dinner is in my crock pot, I'll have a small drink or two, relax with my husband and watch Spartacus and Walking Dead. Yay, tv shows I actually like are airing new episodes!

Oh, I will also be eating this

It's a snickerdoodle cupcake! I made these from scratch last night. Only 3 of them will be consumed by me, the rest were either eaten by my husband or given to our neighbors. Gotta bake some treats every now and then!

Thankful for my health

I've had a thought on my mind the past few days.

Because one thing I have noticed that seems to be extremely prevalent this year is sickness. Yes, it happens every year, and every day even. But this year I just feel like more people I know have been seriously sick. In fact, nearly everyone I know has been sick. My husband has had a couple minor colds. Both my parents have had bronchitis and pneumonia. All of my coworkers and my mother in law have had bronchitis. Facebook friends have been posting about bronchitis and norovirus, families I know have been "sharing the love" with their families over and over again this season. And someone else I know just lost both her parents to pneumonia within 1 month (and get this, they didn't even live in the same state!) It just... seems like everyone but me has been sick. I haven't been sick in 2 years, and I generally don't get sick very often. There was one time a couple weeks ago where the germs tried very hard, but my body ended up fighting it off which just resulted in me feeling tired for a day. In addition, I know of a handful of people who are suffering from other medical problems - possible cancer, or health problems that may end up causing them to lose their job.

I see all of this around me and cannot help but think to myself how fortunate I am. Simply for the fact that I am a healthy individual. Now, I do work for it by exercising and eating (generally) well, but I also feel very lucky that I am able to do these things because I never got sick in the first place. Plenty of people who try to lead healthy lifestyles fall victim to bad circumstances. These days I find myself thinking, not only can I run, jump, swim, do burpees and pushups, but I can do the simple, everyday things that many cannot. Getting out of bed, walking around, breathing unencumbered, being able to work, carrying my groceries, or just having the energy to get through the day. I have been very fortunate and don't plan on taking it for granted. And for the past few days I have just taken the time to stop and think, to thank my Gods, to thank my ancestors for giving me good genes and ushering me into a life where my needs are met. Because there will be days when I am not well. So I take advantage of the days I have been given.



End of thoughtfulness.

This week so far has consisted of a rest day for my back, an early morning body strength training session, and a 3 mile run around the neighborhood this evening. It was the first time in about 3 weeks that I actually wore my watch and got an exact time. Except not really. Halfway through my run I got jumped from behind by 2 dogs! I screamed and practically jumped out of my skin. I had no idea they were coming because I was wearing headphones. It wasn't a big deal or anything, the owner came and got them. But I'd say it took 1-2 minutes off my time. And I finished 3 miles in 27:36, so I kind of have to wonder what it might have been without the dog incident. It was a good run regardless, felt great afterwards.

My husband said something cute. Not only did he say I am becoming a Viking, he also watched me pass by during my run tonight, and thought "Who is that perso-wait, that's my wife!" I still think he's full of crap, but he says he seriously had that thought. Either way, its still cute.

Tomorrow I'll take a day off and just watch what I eat. My weight has been diddling around the upper 160's for the past week. And I totally just made up the word diddling.

Random back pain strikes again!

Today didn't start off so hot. Not at all.

At about 7:30 in the morning while I was taking a shower, the middle left area of my back randomly locked up. It hurt SO much. I couldn't move for a minute or so. Then finally the tenseness subsided a little bit and I could continue taking my shower. I just tried my best not to move my left arm or strain my back. I asked my husband to massage my back a little and see if he could help it loosen up. He's so awesome. He spent a good 15 minutes working on getting the knot out. I'm so thankful he did that for me. Then I took some ibuprofen and iced it 2 times. I have no idea where this came from, but I knew I had to take care of it early on. And I knew from prior experience!

In 2011 I was living in Texas and worked at a coffee shop. Naturally it involved alot of bending and stooping, and alot of lifting boxes, bags of coffee, jugs of milk, bottles of syrup, etc. One day after work I noticed my lower back was hurting. I am prone to back pain and it comes around often, but this seemed worse than usual. For a couple of days I was having trouble sitting and sleeping comfortably. Still, I thought nothing of it and figured it would just go away. Then I noticed I would start getting spasms in my lower back. I was still trying to function at work, until one day my back locked up completely. I couldn't move or breathe, I was involuntarily groaning in pain as it "locked/spasmed". It was absolutely crippling. I couldn't work anymore, I had to go home early and ended up going to urgent care. All they did there was give me a muscle relaxer which didn't do jack squat. Then the next morning I couldn't even lie still in bed without my back locking up. I literally could not move. My husband ended up taking me to the ER where they injected my back with a shot of valium. My entire left side jerked violently when they gave me the shot, but I felt *so* good. All the pain, gone. And with a few more rounds of meds I was back to normal.

What I learned here is that muscle pain shouldn't be taken lightly. Any time I notice something that's out of the ordinary with my body I need to take steps to fix it early on. Especially with back pain. I can deal with leg or arm pain, but when the major connecting segment of my body is locking up and spasming I just can't stand the pain and discomfort. I absolutely do not want to end up in the ER with back pain again.

Luckily today was my yoga day, so it gave me a good opportunity to stretch out my back. I will probably give it more ice and ibuprofen today. Hopefully this won't interfere with tomorrow's workout which is total body, but with a focus on core and upper body work. But if it's still bothering me I will have to do the smart thing and let it rest.

On another note, as I continue to lose more weight I have noticed a couple of quirky things.

One - my wedding ring is looser! This has been happening for about a week, and it hasn't been any colder than the typical Georgia weather which is something like 35 one day and 70 the next. I notice it especially when I wash my hands. I'll have to get it resized but it's probably best for me to wait until I'm at my goal weight.

Two - The fat on my stomach, arms, and calves is loosening up. My belly fat has always been kind of hard and now suddenly it's not! I did some research and apparently your body fat loosens up right before it's about to start coming off. I like that! But it's still a bit weird. Not used to a big flabby belly.


These are changes I've never experienced before. It's been a very long time since I've been at such a low weight, and I still have about 15 pounds to go. I have a feeling I'm going to start noticing some pretty crazy changes. I'm still a little bit ahead of schedule with weight loss so I adjusted my goals to compensate. My ultimate goal weight is no longer 160 as planned, but now 155. And if I feel like I still have more to lose I'll keep going. I have never known what my true healthy weight is. But I'm about to find out

Running and experimenting!

I'm so tired!!!

Currently relaxing and enjoying a couple of fresh from the oven health(ier) chocolate chip cookies.

Later this month I will be participating in this race. I am only doing the 10k! No half marathon for me yet, thanks! I've never even done a 10k before, they have all been 5k's! Thus, I am making saturdays my "long" run days. "Long" as in, today was a little over 4.5 miles. It's not a long run by any means, but at this point it is for me. I need to work my way up to 6 miles slowly. Next week will be 5 miles, then 5.5, et cetera.

........ohmygodthesecookiesaresogood...!!!


Ahem, anyways! Yes. 10k. My main goal for the 10k is simply to finish the race. I have no doubt that I'll be able to finish it, but I won't be very concerned with time. 5k's for me are about speed. Since this is my first 10k I will need to shift gears and focus on getting the distance done. At this point I don't have to be fast, I just have to build mileage. Same strategy goes for these saturday runs. I didn't even wear my watch today, I just had a rough idea of what time it was when I started and that was good enough for me. I figure it took me about 45 minutes to run 4.70 miles. I'm perfectly ok with that! This was a great run. A little achy towards the end, but I still felt like I could keep going - thus I ended up taking the long way back and it ended up being a little more than 4.5 miles. Weather was good, felt good, good good good!

Last night I went to Sports Authority and bought a small buffet of energy chews and whatnot. I bought a pack of each of the major brands I've heard about so I can test them and start figuring out which one works best for me. Behold!!!!

Most people only need them for really long distances, but I'm special! Since I'm hypoglycemic I have to be extremely careful to make sure my blood sugar doesn't drop too low when I expend alot of energy. I'm technically supposed to have sugar after 30 minutes of intense exercise (I'd say running is pretty intense, yes?) but I can go longer than that. Heck, I could have gone the 4.5 miles without anything and just had my homemade sports drink when I got back to my car. But I think around 5+ miles is when I might start to crash. I am pretty sure I will need to eat during my 10k (and I will definitely bring something with me), so I need to start testing out different foods now in order to find the one I like best. Never try anything new on a race day!!! I know that as I start undertaking crazier adventures - longer races, more intense activity, obstacle races, I will need to at least bring snacks as an emergency. Last week was a reminder of how bad things can get when my sugar drops.

Today I tried out the Honey Stinger (Fruit smoothie). I got 2 packs of these because it's the one I am most interested in. Organic energy chews? Hell yes! They are super tasty too! I ate 4 of them and they did the trick for me. No blood sugar drops and they didn't upset my stomach. I hear alot of people get tummy upsets with the gels, but I did buy one just to try it out for myself. Whenever I run I always get a little burpy/nauseous for a few minutes (especially if it's an intense run) but I can run through it and it'll go away. As long as I'm not doubled over or puking my guts out I'm good. Haven't been there yet thankfully.

So Honey Stingers - good in my book! I'll be trying out the rest over the next couple weeks

I am now tired and full - dinner was crock pot chicken/veggie tacos, then those cookies I made were so filling! They are whole wheat/oats/dark chocolate, I could only eat one before feeling completely stuffed. Time to call it a day here in the next hour or so and get some awesome sleep