Whimsical me.

Having a nice outfit to wear motivates me to leave the house, and makes me feel like a competent adult who can dress herself in clothes suiting each situation.  

When running or swimming every day, it has become very important for me to eat for fuel, rather than eating according to what I would like to eat at that moment.  I pay a lot of attention to protein and carbs, and especially carbs - my usual intake of carbs was too low once I started swimming every day, and caused me to have no energy in the afternoons or after swimming.  So now I am careful to eat fruit and plantains, especially in the morning (plantains for breakfast) and afternoon (fruit-only smoothie, my favorite is avocado-mango-papaya).  Potatoes are also pretty good, and sweet potatoes are probably good, too, but I like how I feel on plantains and potatoes more than on sweet potatoes.  I'm not quite sure why - perhaps I ended up eating too many sweet potatoes over a long period of time?  

Being predominantly a swimmer during the week has made my running feel a lot more effortless and nearly completely pain free - no complaints from tight hips or weak ankles!  I like this running-swimming combination, I can do something every day of the week (I usually take one or two days off each week, though).

I'm faster than I was last summer!  At first, it didn't look like it, because I had hit higher average paces for some runs last summer, but those were really short runs, whereas I can maintain those paces or faster on longer runs (~3-5 miles).  I may be around the same weight as I was last summer before I started losing weight, but I've been feeling a lot stronger on my blogilates workouts since starting two weeks ago and obviously I can run faster now.  I'm going to console myself by saying that it's likely that I have more muscle than I did before, so when I do start losing weight, I'll look even skinnier at 130 lbs than I did before school started this fall.

huh, whatcha know - running at slower speeds lets me run longer, and with no discomfort in my calves or hips or ankles, and ultimately makes me run faster overall.  If I hadn't included the walk in my run record, this would have been one of my fastest longer runs recorded in ZR.  

Fry bacon, leave oil in the pan.  Then, pan fry garlic, asparagus, and cabbage together.  Add salt, thyme, and red pepper flakes.  Magic, tastes even better cooled down a little.

Tracking my sleep has been really good for identifying why it is I get so tired - taking some time to take a nap has been really good for my productivity (really, it's an on-going idea stream over here), and I've been feeling like my workouts have been doing more for me (my clothes feel more loose, I have more energy, my stomach definitely looks more toned than before).  Naps = time to make up time deficit, and the lack of naps also explained why I would burn out really badly every once in a while - it was that sleep deficit building up.  

Running 4 miles a day is very empowering and makes me feel good about myself and my progress towards my dissertation. On days that I'm perhaps low on measurable progress, running gives me measurable progress. It also causes me to realize how tense and tired I get from doing work. But since I started running again, my motivation and creativity towards other parts of my life have increased exponentially, because I now have the energy and the mood to care about those other things. Also, my clothes are getting looser now, and I bought a size 4 skirt today, even though I'm not close to the weight I was in the beginning of September when I had discovered that size 4 fit me well. And the skirt fits perfectly! I now also have interest in dressing nicely and just in general doing things that make me feel good about myselfm. Running again has started and awesome positive feedback loop in my life :)

Akdong - my studying and running jam, basically my jam all day every day.

Looking forward to downloading Akdong Musician's new album - totally planning a long run to listen to the whole album at once.  Also, Melting >>> 200%.  "Melting" totally makes me want to melt...