Gimme Back My Park!

Last night I could not fall asleep. I think I was up past 1:00, which is way too late for me. This morning when the alarm went off, I was about to get up and Drew said, "I think that you need your rest." I listened to the voice of reason and went back to sleep. That meant that I would need to get in my quick run this evening instead. I actually don't really like working out in the evening. I normally eat pretty well during the day, but I find when I work out in the evening, I feel a lot more pressure to watch what I eat to make sure I'm properly fueled for my evening work out.

I also tend to be starving when I get home from work, so it takes a bit more planning than usual to work out at night. Since Krista just did a post about food and was wondering what other people ate, I thought I'd run down my eats from yesterday:

Breakfast: Homemade smoothie (pineapple, pineapple juice, jackfruit, frozen blueberries, ice, protein powder) - 225 calories
Morning Snack: Grapes - 60 calories
Lunch: Homemade salad (romaine, grilled chicken breast, cucumbers, peppers, carrots, Brianna's Santa Fe dressing) - 300 calories
Orange - 107 calories
Light String Cheese - 50 calories
Afternoon Snack: Progresso Light Vegetable & Noodle Soup - 120 calories
2 of Drew's mom's cookies - 245 calories
Pre-Running Snack: 2 bites of stale Clif bar - 35 calories

So, pre-running, I had about 1,150 calories (in case you're wondering, I input this into Daily Burn and that's where I got my totals). I was originally supposed to have the soup and salad as lunch, but I ended up eating outside since the weather is so nice here (more on this later) but it's very hard to heat up soup when outside, so I ate the orange and cheese instead. I actually think it worked out pretty well, since I ate the soup around 4:00 and then wasn't starving when I got home from work.

The weather here for the past couple days has just been amazing. I wish it would just stay like this from now on and never rain again - or get cold - but that's probably all a dream. I actually got to wear shorts when running today! I wore shorts, a short-sleeved shirt and a thin long-sleeved shirt. I probably could have done without the long-sleeved shirt, but I was a bit too chicken to go without it. Plus, my run was so short, it didn't really matter. Even if I got hot, it wouldn't be for an extended period of time.

Walking home from work and then running to the park, there were tons of people out and about. It was like they all thought, "oh, it's nice outside, I should go out." Which meant that there were lots of people to dodge while I was running to the park. And I couldn't believe how many people there were when I actually got to the park. Two weeks ago when I was running on a Thursday after work, I didn't see anyone on the Reservoir Path! And now people were out in droves. I guess the good old days are over. This is probably all just reason to make sure I get to bed on time and can wake up in the morning for workouts.

Today's workout was so short and easy, I'm not really sure I even broke a sweat. I ran to the park, then ran North along the Lower Loop to the 72nd Street Transverse. Then I ran South along the Mall and got back onto the Loop and headed home. Let me tell you, there were people everywhere. I guess all it takes is the weather to warm up and then New Yorkers and tourists head to the Park!

I had a really nice time running tonight, even if I was a bit annoyed at all the people in the Park. It was nice to just get out there and not have to worry about running for a long time or hitting a certain distance. All I had to do was get out there and stretch my legs.

And in case you're curious, I picked up Chipotle for dinner. I'm lazy and it's right across the street from our apartment. My burrito bowl and chips was 1125 calories (Yes, I get the chips. I really like them and I had almost no fat earlier in the day. It's always worth it because it just tastes that much better.). That gave me a daily total of 2,275, which according to Daily Burn, is actually under my goal calories for the day (goal of 2,371 to 2,621). As a complete aside, I stopped counting calories on a daily basis a while ago. I do periodically put them in Daily Burn just to see how I'm doing. And I'm almost always right on track. Which means that I probably don't need to count them at all. Except sometimes I get curious about calories in versus calories out (from exercise), which is why I bother at all.

So, I think I might be done exercising now before the half-marathon on Sunday. I'm not entirely sure about my plans for tomorrow, but I'm thinking that the next time I run, it'll be in Atlanta. The chance of rain just keeps going up and now we're at 70%, but I'm just hoping it won't be too bad. I'm packing every available option for clothing, so at least I'll be prepared!

Running
Time: 26:48
Distance: 2.60 miles
Pace: 10:18/mile
Calories: 299
Maximum HR: 178
Average HR: 162