Gettin' Healthy: End of Week 2.

We're closing in on the end of Week 2 for the Gettin' Healthy challenge. We have got some fierce competitors, to be sure! I made two stupid mistakes that have taken me out of first place (falling asleep before I meant to and not finishing my water for the day; accidentally snitching while I was making a cake for Sunday). BUT, this week, I have managed to stay on top of everything. Definitely the 5 servings of veggies/day is the hardest for me/takes the most planning, but Chad and I are in a rhythm with that. We each usually have one V8 per day and one huge salad, and then maybe some frozen veggies or something else veggie. It works pretty well.

On a personal note, I started my official training plan for the half-ironman. I am using this plan from Triathlon Plus, and so far it has pushed me hard (yikes, and it's only week 1) but also focused my workouts in a way I was really struggling to do on my own. I have been working out consistently (mostly) for 2 months now, but was burning out during my workouts once I hit 20 or 30 minutes. I felt like I had to FORCE myself to go any longer.

On Monday and Wednesday, I swam 1800 yards (just over 1.6 km) and it was great! I was not bored, and I was able to push myself to make it through the 200-yard front crawl intervals (previously, I would do 100 yards of front crawl and then switch to something else, exhausted). Running has gotten so much better, too--focusing on being at a certain intensity level and adding sprint intervals has made all the difference in terms of staying focused. So far, so good! Obviously, I am going to have to keep pushing myself even more if I'm gonna be ready for the race on June 1st!

A friend of mine, KT, blogs about her progress towards losing 100 pounds. I enjoy reading about her commitment to her goals, and she has a nice online community of people cheering her on. She is now hosting a virtual 5K on June 1st, which is really awesome because that just so happens to be the date of my Half Ironman! Whatever your fitness goal, you can participate--whether you are looking to get back in shape, or back into running, and would like to have some peer support, check out her challenge here! There will be weekly link-ups on Tuesdays for everyone to share progress.

Happy Friday!

Oatmeal-crust Pizza

I made this pizza dough recipe several weeks ago and it was probably some of the best pizza we've made at home. But now that we're doing this health challenge, I don't feel super great about consuming good ol' fashioned white-flour pizza dough. (There's no rule about grains/flour, but I sorta feel like if we're gonna eat healthy, we might as well eat HEALTHY.) So yesterday, we tried out the new grinder my mom gave us for Christmas! We had oats on hand, so we ground them up for our flour and replaced flour with oat flour in the above recipe. It worked pretty well!

We loaded the pizza up with fresh veggies and fresh mozzarella cheese (YUM!).

Oh, and in case you're wondering: the recipe worked mostly okay with the oat flour. It seemed to require a bit more of the oat flour than is called for in the recipe, just to make the dough not totally sticky. Since we ran out of oat flour, we ended up having to add maybe 1/2 cup of regular flour. Overall though, it was a success and SOO good! I am excited to use the grinder for wheat and rice and other things, too.

Last Chances.

I have a tendency to think it's always my last chance to do something. My family makes fun of me for it. I went through a stage just after I graduated from high school and before I went to college, when every time I asked to do something and my parents hesitated or said no, I would protest with, "But this is, like, my LAST chance to go ____ with ____ before ____!!!" (Imagine a really whiny teenager, and multiply by ten.)

It's become a family joke by now, and whenever we feel like doing something, we'll use the "could be my last chance" template. For example, "We better go to Cheesecake Factory--this could be the last chance to go on a Tuesday in Louisville with just the four of us." (when my parents were here). You get the idea.

Anyway, I can joke about it but I really do suffer from immense anxiety about missing out on last chances.

I have wanted to do a half ironman at some point in my life. Last summer I was supposed to do a shorter tri but backed out because I moved to Louisville, in part because all my training buddies (some of the young women from church in Alabama) also backed out when they couldn't figure out how to get to Nashville, where our race was supposed to be. Anyway.

But I don't always back out. I finished a sprint tri in 2009, then an olympic tri in 2010, and then another olympic in 2011. And then I whimped out last year. I really, really don't want to turn into someone who talks about doing things and then doesn't. But I'm afraid to say I'm doing a half ironman, because it seems like it'd be pretty easy for SOMETHING to come up and get in my way of doing it. I have that "last chance" feeling, though. Don't know why.

Can I just say I'm doing it? I already found an event three hours away (Muncie, Indiana) on June 1st. I already wrote up my training plan for the next 4 and a half months. My training plan starts THIS WEEK. I am shopping around for gyms with pools. I asked Chad how he felt about my spending a chunk of our money on the race (he approved). I am relatively serious about this, but scared. Oh, but I just have to do it! It really could be my last chance...before what? Oh, I dunno. It just could.

If I wasn't moving to Alabama...

I would buy a pull-up bar.

And maybe a punching bag.

I feel like both of those things would make me feel tough. But, since I have to cram myself, my Dad, and everything I own into a Toyota Camry this August, and the lot of us has to make it across the country, I won't. I guess I'll be glad I still have the money, if not the muscles, when I go to buy my textbooks.

I think my Dad would be proud of my reasoning abilities and my (if intermittent) bouts of self-control.

Moab!!