Therapy Run

As aforementioned, this week has been rather stressful and busy. I haven't gotten much good sleep. Had a lot on my mind. (more on this later, I promise)

So by yesterday afternoon I was tight, tired, a bit dazed. Mamie said I looked "shell-shocked."

I needed to run. I was hungry. It was warmer than I usually like. I was tired. Usually I could use any of those excuses to talk me out of a run, or at least make it feel more like a chore than something I really wanted to do.

But yesterday afternoon, the one thing in the world that I KNEW would make things better was a nice run.

Mamie joined me, and we took off at a nice, slow pace. Really slow. Like when I first started running.

I left my watch behind. Didn't bother with a heart rate monitor. Didn't have a route planned and pre-mapped ahead of time to know how far I needed to go. Nope, this wasn't a workout. This wasn't training. This run was all about running because running is good to me.

We jogged along, chatting about some lighter topics (I've written before about how hard it is for me to think or talk about heavy subjects while running). So we talked about buying shoes, about our new toys (my bike, her kayak), about how pretty the neighbor's flowers were. And we just ran around.

After a while, my nicely-tapered body was ready to rock. I did a few bursts of speed, and enjoyed the feeling of my legs turning over smoothly and quickly. But there was no intended purpose to this. It just felt good.

With each step my mood brightened. The heaviness on my mind lightened. I became more human again. I smiled a little bigger. And I gave thanks for the fact that running can fulfill me in so many ways.

Ahhh.

(Tomorrow I'll try to remember that feeling as I go out for 13 miles of "therapy"!!!)



And now the rest of the story:
How was my eating for the day (especially after the run, when I was super hungry and headed out for Thai food?)
First, I'd done fairly well earlier in the day: a bowl of cereal for breakfast; half a bagel with light cream cheese mid-morning; a half roast beef sandwich (no cheese, no mayo) for lunch when I went out with co-workers; and a 12 oz skim iced latte mid-afternoon. Good mix of good carbs and protein. Very low on the excess sugars/fats end of the spectrum. Good portion control.

So for dinner, 4 of us went to Sa-Wa-Dee for Thai. We rode our bikes there from Kev & Mamie's house, which was fun. We decided to order 4 different entrees and swap around family-style. So I had a small portion each of: Pad Thai, MaSaMan curry with chicken, Curry fried rice, and Red curry shrimp. I probably ate a total of 1/2 cup of rice (rather than the full cup that I could've easily shoved down). And I didn't dig in for seconds (except for grabbing one more shrimp!). Oh, and I had one glass of white wine.

We got done, and I felt satisfied (and slightly warm and fuzzy from the wine), but definitely not stuffed. It was a nice feeling. Then someone said Ice Cream, so we hopped on our bikes and rode down to Big Dipper. I ordered a kid-size cup of El Salvadore Coffee ice cream. I ate it slowly, savoring the flavor, and didn't even want more. The half-scoop was plenty.

So, a successful day. Even though I went out twice, for lunch and dinner, I was able to maintain good portion control. And as a result, I felt so much better at the end of the day than I would have if I'd done my usual tact of eating double the portions. And instead of waking up this morning feeling fat, I feel flat (in my tummy area, that is). So I'm going to put on a skirt and tank top, and head down to the Expo to pick up my race packet, then wander over to the Farmer's Market, and perhaps stroll around downtown looking for new shoes... basically dawdle around all day and enjoy the "calm before the storm"!!!