Insanity....

Clinically I'm not sure I agree with Einstein's definition of Insanity: Doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. But for my own sanity, I'm going to go with it.

Do you ever do the same things, day after day, and really without thinking about it expect it to be different this time? Ok, maybe I'm the only one. Anywho, things have to change. Today I have started a new way of eating, it is hard to explain but I am pretty much cutting out bleached wheat, and wheat in general, breads, pasta and grains, cereal, crackers. I know it, sounds like the Atkins diet but its not. Carbs are good. The right carbs anyway. The right carbs that don't cause a huge insulin spike. Slow carbs if you will. After all I am an endurance athlete and I need carbs.... I really should stop tying right now since I am in no position to speak about this intelligently. I am not a nutritionist, an expert, a dietician...nothing. I am just me. Me who is stuck on this plateau. I have been on this stupid plateau trying to get off for a year now. Trying to get off by doing the SAME STUPID THING OVER AND OVER AND EXPECTING TO SEE A DIFFERENT RESULT. Every time I try to get down, I end up crawling back up to the safety, the comfort of the familiar. Working out, running, swimming, calories in calories out.....but not really considering what kind of calories I am putting in my mouth. Time for a change. Time to get off this stupid, desolate, annoying plateau. Time to get to my ideal racing weight. Time to get a sub 4 hour marathon in OBX this fall. IT. IS. TIME.

As for my routine, I am still adjusting. THANK YOU ALL for your comments last night. Sure enough I did read them this AM when my alarm when of at 5:15 AM. And I couldn't just ignore you all and go back to sleep. I got up and headed out the door. I only had 20 min before The Hubs had to go so I tried to make it a FAST run. Tried.

I decided I would head to the street on the far end of my neighborhood with the longest, biggest hill. I took the right turn off my street and was minding my own business when I passed the house who just put up a new, ghetto chain link fence (don't get me wrong, we have a chain link fence, but this one is ghetto because it is a fence around a wooden fence and goes from the front door all the way around the house to the other side for the front door. Make sense? I'll try to take a picture tomorrow).

Anyway, they have this fence around a fence and on the wooden fence there has always been a sign "Beware of Dog" and two dogs tied, or tethered, inside the fence. Like double security. Remember how Monday morning a dog took a taste of the heel of my shoe? Yeah, well it was a dog from inside the double fence. How do I know this? Well, this morning as I jogged along these two dogs came bolting out of the wooden fence. They now have a second bit of yard between the wood fence and the newer chain link fence. I looked at them and kept going. As I neared the end of their yard and they hit the corner of their fence I thought I would leave them behind. Nope. They scooted UNDER THE FENCE AND CAME BOLTING OUT INTO THE STREET AT ME. Now i am not really scared of dogs. I really think I could defend myself again one dog, two is kind of different. They were all over me. Not biting but barking and in front of me, behind me, coming at me, running around me....just all up in my space.

I stopped in the middle of the street, at 5:45 AM and yelled at these two nuisances "GO HOME!" They didn't really listen and I figured I was waking up the whole entire street. Oh well....keep your dogs put up. I decided I should just try to get out of there and started jogging. They did not like that. So I kicked at one of them. I missed but he back off. I ran backwards while yelling at them and they finally must have seen a squirrel or something because they took off in another direction.

The bad news is that I had to run back by there to get home....I opted not to. After I knocked out a few times up and down the hill (see elevation chart below) I headed out of the neighborhood in a second entrance that leads to the main road that I generally avoid these days (think crazy, redneck autobahn in huge trucks with shotguns and beer cans-no offense). It wasn't very far on that road before I got to our entrance to the neighborhood and had only maybe .25 to my house. barely over 2 miles done. Weak sauce. I miss my 4,5,6,7,8,9,10 + miles runs. Soon I'll get back into the swing of things....soon. Maybe it will be easier in the fall/winter when it isn't 100 degrees outside.

My Neighborhood Elevation---or lack thereof....

Uhhh.....So, I was looking at my Garmin stats because I was curious about my hill work. Um, yeah. I don't see a hill either, really. I had a whopping Elevation Gain of 34 feet. Ladies and Gentlemen....NO WONDER I DIED IN SEATTLE. I thought my hill here was a good one. It's not. It's weak. Lame. It's a baby hill....I must find a hill. Actually I know where one is but it's about 3 miles away. I'll have to figure out a way to work it in so I can go and run up it. A lot. But watch, it's probably like an elevation gain of like 45 feet.

Tomorrow I plan to get up at 5:30 for my run. Hopefully the people have their dogs put away (The Hubs went and gave them a talking to...) so I can run without any issues.

Random info for the day: I keep having a muscle twitch in my right tricep and it is annoying....like super duper annoying....what's up with that?