Big Week Ahead

This is going to be a big week. First, spring will sort of "officially" be sprung upon us with the early arrival of daylight savings time on the 11th. Frankly, I find this ridiculous... they are making DST come early so as to save on energy consumption. I think it's supposed to save 10,000 barrels of oil per day or something like that. I'm no economic genius, but I don't really understand how it's supposed to save us on oil by making the daylight hours shift. Someone please feel free to enlighten me. Even if it does, in fact, somehow save oil (even though there are the same number of hours in the day, and we will all continue to sleep/work/whatever for the same amount of time), it strikes me that this is a band-aid solution to the larger problem of our over-dependence on unsustainable sources of energy (including foreign oil). Instead of trying to actually fix the problem, they fiddle with time! I try to keep the political commentary out of this blog, mainly because I do work for the government and feel it would be inappropriate, but I had to say something about DST!!

This is also the week I get my blood work done to find out where my thyroid hormone levels are. I *know* I'm not on a high enough dose, but I still feel a bit nervous, like maybe the numbers will say that I am or something. There are a whole host of reasons that I think I'm still hypo - but they all boil down to the general feeling that I'm out of whack & my hormones are jacked up. Like having PMS all the freaking time (and that includes the MAJOR bloating and weight gain). I only regret that I agreed to wait a whole 8 weeks before having my first blood draw (as opposed to the normal 6... sometimes I think my endo is wacko... he likes to overdo the waiting thing - like how he wanted me to wait a WEEK before restarting my thyroid hormone after the RAI because it might make it absorb less, even though all the RAI is absorbed after only about 24 hours... sometimes more is not better, it's just more). He wanted me to wait TEN weeks for my first blood draw, and I was like, huh? No.

So, you know, I just keep wondering if I'm ever going to feel like myself again. Between the mood swings and the malaise/depression and the fatigue and the weight gain and the grieving process, I have become pretty withdrawn. I guess it's a coping mechanism and I'm not sure if it's healthy or not to want to isolate myself. Maybe it's what I personally need to deal or maybe I would be better if I would let people in more (I do realize the irony that I'm telling this to the entire internet... I'm mainly talking about real human interaction).

Finally, it will be my birthday. I'm going to turn 27, which puts me solidly in the late-twenties crowd. I can't believe it. I always thought by this age, I'd have it all together, but I still feel like I haven't arrived yet, if that makes sense. Like I'm still waiting for my "real life" to begin... it's hard to articulate. Like you know when you were in college and you knew it wasn't the real thing, it was temporary - a stepping stone to your "real" life? I can't understand why I feel this way, but I think it has to do with feeling like I'm not totally committed to anything in my current circumstances. Sure, I love my job, but the other areas of my life seem to fall short of ideal. I look back on times when other areas of my life (living situation, social life, city) were great, but my job was detestable. I am SO glad to be doing what I'm doing now instead of still floundering around professionally. But is it always going to be a trade-off? Will there ever be a time when I feel like everything in my life is great? When am I going to feel at home in my life?

I'm so happy the weather is finally looking up. I heard on the news that we may have a cooler than average spring/summer and that would be just perfectly fine in my book. I get really bothered by extreme temperatures. I took advantage of the beautiful sunny day and ran yesterday. When I got back, I mapped my run on Gmaps (love it!) and it turns out that last week I actually ran almost 7 miles and yesterday I did 8!! I've been running on a new, easier route than I used to and I was estimating the mileage. That gives me confidence to do the race and I think I'll definitely run it even though I won't be setting any personal records. Yesterday's average pace was just above a 10 minute mile - I probably started off closer to a 9 minute pace and by the end was doing 11 min/mile. Again, I was super thirsty! Wonder if that's something to do with the thyroid thing? The groundwater is still frozen so none of the fountains work. I also noticed that I smell a really strong chemical odor after I sweat a lot. I guess this is because of the medication?

I was completely and totally wiped after that. My body just doesn't know how to recover like it used to with insufficient thyroid function. It wasn't a bad run overall. I felt great for the first 4 miles or so. The last few were really hard. By the end, everything felt like mush and I had to focus on swinging my arms to keep my legs moving! I was a bit surprised that I was able to complete the distance (even though I thought I was running a mile less!) because that brings my weekly total to 10 miles. And last week I only ran 9 total. Huh. I'm not going to argue, though! If I'm going to be able to run 10 miles on just a long run once a week and two 20 minute HIIT cross-training sessions in between, that will be just fine thank-you-very-much!! I was definitely feeling over-trained when I was running more weekly mileage a few weeks ago. It was too much. I hope there are cherry blossoms on race day!

My workouts went like this:

Sat - 7 mile run
Sun - Lift Legs
Mon - 20 min HIIT on the stepper, plus 10 min easy jog
Tues - Upper body weights
Wed - 20 min HIIT on the stepper, 10 min easy jog
Thurs - total body weights
Friday- REST!
Sat - 8 mile run

I really like this split but I'm debating switching things up this week since my legs are pretty sore... I think I might switch legs and upper body weights out. Thursday's workout was really fun - it went like this (all supersets, all 3x12):

Snatch (Wide)-grip deadlift - 55# bar
T push-up - bodyweight

Bulgarian Split squat with overhead press (12 on each leg, 24 shoulder presses!) - 8# db's
Assisted chin up - # 11 on the machine

Straight-leg deadlift with bent over row - 55# bar
Swiss ball crunch - bodyweight

My arms were trashed after that! I like doing the compound upper/lower supersets, they make you feel like you're really working hard!! I have to credit Alwyn Cosgrove with this workout!