We started out the day with a long run.  9k  in 1 hour. I am so proud if myself! It is my farthest run ever!  (and only week 2 of my training – I am only supposed to be on 5k – but I felt up to a longer run so I just went for it)  It was a beautiful 24 degree day and running felt amazing at time (although most of the time it still felt like torture).

After the run we headed to my in-laws for a wonderful Easter dinner with the family.  After dinner Tim and I got to play Easter bunny for our niece and nephew and hide eggs outside for them.  It was so much fun!  (they are 6 and 3 and so cute!)  We took a family walk, which consisted of a lot of playing tag and multiple piggyback rides.  Then I played soccer outside with my nephew for quite a while until he had most of his energy (aka sugar overload) out of his system.  And now I am exhausted!

Post-family, Tim and I headed to the airport to pick up a friend of his and now I am trying to get to bed!  I’d love to blog more – and I have lots of pics – but I have no time!

The husband and I went to Point Pleasant Park for a run.  We did 3k in 19.5 minutes.  I am so out of shape!  The last .5 k was really hard!  It reminded me I need to get back onto my game and start running 3 times a week.  I haven’t ran in so long!

I am having a hard time with my breathing.  I focus on belly breathing, but still mess up somehow and end up doing it wrong and getting really out of breath.  The breathing is what is holding me back the most right now.  But I know it just needs practice so I am going to try to get as much practice in as I can!

Night!

I have been seriously slacking on the running lately.  The worst thing is that I am motivated and excited to run.  But at the last minute I come up with some excuse.

Here are my most common exercise excuses:

1.  I had a long day at work.

2.  It’s too cold out.

3.  Tim is busy so its too dangerous to run outside by myself in the dark.

4.  I hate the treadmill.

5.  I’m too hungry.

6.  I’m too tired.

Pretty lame excuses aren’t they?  Something I need to make a priority is my health.  And lately I have been eating a lot of junk and not exercising.  I DESERVE better than that, and my excuses only hurt myself.

I am not a morning person.  At all.  I don’t like to be spoken to for several hours after I have woken up and definitely not before I have my tea.  I don’t function in the morning.

I currently start work at 8:00 am.  However, now that Tim doesn’t need the car anymore (aka I am not dependent on his schedule for  a drive) I am thinking about changing my work start time to 9:00 am.  This means working until 5:30 instead of 4:30 – but it also means I could easily work out in the morning and still not have to get up ridiculously early.  It takes 20 minutes to drive to work in traffic and get a tea at Tim Hortons, and I take 30 minutes max to get ready – meaning that if I get up at 7:00 am I can easily have an hour for working out.

Now, I would really love to be able to start my day off with exercise.  However, every time I try it I always fail.  If I even make it up to work out, I have no energy and just barely do things.

Anyone have any helpful hints on how to get up to exercise in the am if you are NOT a morning person?

It’s a beautiful outside today – which is perfect because I am going for a run at 3:00 pm.  I am really looking forward to it.  And I am finding that I am not a morning exerciser.  I have tried it a few times, and I don’t enjoy it.  Even afternoon is pushing it for me.  The most enjoyable times when I have run have been after 6:30 pm.  Is anyone else that way? I’d love to have a run done in the morning before I start my day, but I don’t think I am going to be one of those people.  I’m not that keen and I am way too lazy.

I plan on doing laundry today and making baked tofu for dinner.  I am already hungry . . . .

We went to Point Pleasant Park again – but did the loop of the park the opposite way we normally do.  I guess this is important because you can hurt your ankles by running in the same curved direction – so it is good to strengthen them up and run the opposite way.  Unfortunately, this means that just after half the time of the run, we have to go up the steepest part, instead of running downhill.  Ouch!  I had to walk an extra minute after that one!

But we did do 30 minutes at 2:1 (run:walk) but there was that extra 1 minute walk . . . so I only ran 19/30 minutes.  Still, it was good for me.  And tomorrow we do it my favourite way around so there will be no need to walk as the hill in this direction goes much more gradually up hill.

It was an “anything goes” dinner tonight.

Meaning Tim has class from 6:30-9:00 pm, and left at 5:00 pm to study before class – but he needs food both before class (a snack) and after class (a lighter meal).  And I want to eat without being on his schedule  Hence our “anything goes” dinner which means we fend for ourselves and don’t have a sit down meal.

I decided on making chili wraps – which is my favourite way to eat leftover chili (I also like Sloppy Joes made with chili).  I filled a wrap with cheese, spinach and chili and heated it up.  Delicious!  And for dessert I had 3 celery stalks dipped in peanut butter.

Today I did a big clean of all my clothing.  Went through drawers and the closet.  I have so much crap!  I filled a bag to donate and I have so much that I don’t wear right now, but need to keep.  Like all my office clothing.  The suits are currently hanging in the hall closet, but I still have so many collared shirts, vests, etc. that are only appropriate for office wear.  I hate having them in my day-to-day closet, but I have no other place to put them!  I also have  a lot of bulky items – including my robes, my wedding dress, ski suit, gowns, etc.  My robes will live at the office when I get a job, but until now they also occupy the hall closet along with everything else.

And the best part of the cleaning was freeing an entire drawer for exercise stuff!  I really want to keep this running and being active thing a part of my life so I am trying to include it in all aspects of my life – including my clothing

The only one I found that I really liked was at Lulu Lemon.

Now, some of you know my aversion to Lulu Lemon workout clothes – I find it overpriced for my needs (I get my workout clothes at Wal-Mart or Winners).  Maybe if I actually worked out A LOT I’d find the price per wear of Lulu stuff reasonable, but as I don’t work out much (YET!) it’s not a smart decision for me to make.

But for a GOOD bra I’m willing to pay anything!  It’s one of those staples that demands quality, and quality usually equals $$.  And this one actually did not break the bank.  I got the Ta Ta Tamer II for $58 CAD.  That’s full price, not on sale.

I decided to give it “a run for its money” tonight.  Literally.  I ran with it on.  Okay – I know I am dorky.  Lame.

I LOVE THIS BRA!  It feels great on (I wore it all day too, not just for the run), it is pretty, it gives good support and the husband gave it 2 thumbs up as well  :)

I do have to say though that while I wear a larger cup, I am naturally very blessed and I am not saggy at all.   So I don’t need as much support as most larger breasted women do.  I also haven’t had any children . . . So take this review with a grain of salt, keeping that in mind.  But also keep in mind that I am used to wearing 2 sports bras when working out to get the support I need.

A good sports bra for me does 2 things:

1.  makes sure the girls don’t hurt from bouncing (meaning when I run I don’t want any reminders that I have boobs); and

2.  prevents me from getting saggy.

This bra did the first one perfectly, and hopefully will do the second one!  I think that I may even go and buy another one soon, because when I find a bra that actually fits I stock up on it.  And $58 CAD (plus tax) a pop is not a bad price.

This is the Queen of the Sports Bras for those ladies who wear a C + in cup size (according to the sales lady).  And it even has silver fibers that are antibacterial to prevent bacteria growing in the elastic.  Plus, it is supposedly good for 5 years and says, ”WASH IN THE MACHINE”.  Holy crap, this is the first bra I have ever had that says you can wash it in the machine!  I mean, we all wash our bras in the machine, but the bras always say “HAND WASH ONLY” and we just ignore it (at least I do).

TRY THIS BRA!

I am so pleased with it, I actually may bit the bullet and buy some Lulu Lemon workout clothes if I workout enough!

We went to Point Pleasant Park.  Did a 3 minute jog, than some stretching.  Than 20 minutes of 1:1 running:walking.  Tim is making me go slow, as I tend to over do it.  But I find it frustrating to run so slowly and take walking breaks.  But I know it is good for me, and I still get all out of breath and sweaty (not to mention SORE) so I know I am well on my way. Tim is in much better shape than me, but sticks with me when running so we can chat.  So sweet.  But I told him I will be giving him running challenges next time, so he gets in a work out too!

We decided to save the swimming for tomorrow night, as we are only planning on running every second day for a few months.

I am currently cooking dinner – haddock with grape tomatoes and chili flakes, rice and corn on the cob.  The grocery store was having BOGO sales today for haddock!  Haddock is one of my fav fish, as it is so versatile to cook and so cheap (and BOGO makes it incredibly cheap!).  Strawberries are also BOGO . . .  mmm . . . dessert!

I got to have lunch with the lovely Angie today – I love living in the same city as my BFF!  It is strange to have so many friends in the city.  The entire time I lived in Toronto I made one good friend and that was it.  Now I am surrounded by my peeps and loving it!  Not to mention how nice it is to live with the husband again after living apart for 10 months!

Off to have dinner.  The Nice recap should be up tomorrow!

But first, I went for sushi with a BFF for her B-day.  We had our usual – 2 orders of edamame, 1 order of veggie tempura, a spicy salmon roll and a California roll (I sometimes substitute that for a dynamite roll).  Plus lots of water and green tea.  This sushi place, which for the life of me I cannot remember that the place is called, has the best tea I have ever drank.  Including tea I have had in South Korea, where tea is an art form.  It has little booth with curtains over the entrances, and one big booth where you have to take your shoes off.  Fun!

Halibloggers – we have to do sushi here sometime!

Post sushi was some Sbux action, where I asked for a “Tai Chi” instead of a “Chai Tea”.  The counter guy laughed at me for about 5 minutes, and passed on my order to the drinks lady EXACTLY as I ordered it and then she laughed for 5 minutes too.  But you know what?  I am not the only person who has ordered the “Tai Chi”!

Darling Megs drove me the ONE block home, and I ran upstairs and told Tim to get ready to run!

We drove to where we wanted to run.  I know, pretty sad, but it was dark out and we wanted to get to the pretties neighborhood in Halifax to do our run asap and had no time to walk there, and where we live is a pedestrian area so it can be hard to run.  Plus the fact I don’t like people to see me try to run.

We did a 5 minute brisk walk, then stretched.  For the run, we did intervals of run 1 minute, walk one minute.  For 20 minutes.  We are going to do this every second day for 2 weeks.  I usually push myself too much, and get too sore or start to hate running.  Tim is going to keep me at this for the whole 2 weeks.  After that, we’ll kick it up a notch.  Slow and steady . . . I do have 2-2.5 years of training to do

Flash back to the day.  Beside the lasagna (I make 2 dishes – one for MIL that has minimal garlic and spices because she hates a lot of spice but likes a tiny bit, and one for Tim and I who like food HOT HOT HOT), I got a ton of tedious paperwork done today. Including getting most of my paperwork prepared for a tax review (I do not heart the CRA – they review me every year).  And I got most of my application done for my licensing in Nova Scotia.  Although the whole trophy wife thing is fun, I am looking forward to getting back to work – and the first step is the be able to practice in Nova Scotia!  I also paid my Ontario yearly licensing fees   Next step is to look for jobs, but I really need to know when I can start to practice before I do that!  It’s too awkward to say, “Hello, my name is Tash and I am not allowed to practice in Nova Scotia and don’t know when I will be able to.  Hire me please.”