This post is going to feel like a complete ramble, so I will just apologize before I even get started. It’s been a quite busy week since the high of the NYC Half Marathon.

Did I tell you that my back actually felt amazing on Sunday? Well, on Monday it felt pretty good for most of the day so I decided to attempt hot yoga again. When I hurt my back a couple weeks ago, I asked Surya Yoga to suspend my membership. I could barely fold forwards or backwards without pain and just didn’t want to risk going to class. I purchased a 10 class package for use within three months and had only used one session right before the injury. Unfortunately, they weren’t able to suspend it, but they were able to add an extra month on to the pass, so now I have until May. Coming off the high, I figured, why not give it a shot. I made sure to tell the instructor that I had lower back pain so that way if she saw me in the back of the room looking around it wasn’t because I wasn’t focused! I gave the class the best shot I had and felt great that I actually took some time to stretch my body out, but my back just didn’t appreciate the moving. Immediately afterwards, I started feeling the pain.

Fortunately, I had my chiropractor appointment on Tuesday. I was happy to report that I did well in the race but that I was still feeling pain. Unfortunately, as a regular in the office now, I know what to expect in my appointments – muscle stims, stretching, and then an adjustment. I walked out of the appointment feeling pretty good and was just excited to take the day off from exercising. I did however attend a Garmin expo at the local running store, Fleet Feet. I was invited by a co-worker, whose girlfriend helped organize the event. I was a little skeptical at first since I am a loyalist to Nike, but I did enjoy hearing about the different levels of Garmin watches and hearing other runners’ questions. At this time, I am pretty tied to Nike with my GPS watch, shoe sensor, heart rate monitor, Nike+ website, and the integration with my blog, but I will certainly consider Garmin the next time I am in the market for a new watch. One of the future features that Garmin watches may include is a paid service where people can track you on a website through the watch. I would honestly love that; I currently run with my phone during races so that way Josh can find me more accurately through the Find My Friends app, but if I didn’t have to carry my phone with me, I’d be sold!

This lunch from work (as described below) is almost 700 calories!

Also, on Tuesday, the day I didn’t work out, I decided to start on a food diary. I probably could have picked a better day to track everything I eat. Ever since I started running, I am constantly hungry. I am hungry when I am running, I am hungry after I run, and I am hungry when I am not running. I don’t know how I will ever be able to control my eating if I stop running. I used to track my calories years ago through the website, MyFoodDiary, but there was a subscription fee each month. Back then, I was more concerned about overeating and trying to lose weight. I am still concerned about that to some extent, but also understanding my ratio of carbs, protein, fat, and sugar. I found this pretty good website and app, MyFitnessPal that is free to use, pretty user friendly, and there is a big database of a lot of different foods and exercises that users can add to. Unfortunately, on my first day, I exceeded my daily calorie intake by 600+! It appears that I am averaging over 2,000 calories a day, which seems to be okay as long as I continue my training, which fortunately I am, just not fast enough! A sample of my normal day’s food is below:

• Breakfast: Coffee with skim milk and truvia; Greek yogurt with pomegranate seeds, blueberries, and a Kashi waffle or granola
• Lunch: Salad or sandwich; picture of salad above includes lettuce, a hard-boiled egg, pickles, grilled chicken, chickpeas, roasted red peppers, sunflower seeds, tomatoes, olives, tuna salad topped with red wine vinegar. Depending on my self-control that day, I may pick up a bag of chips.
• Snacks: Banana, apple, small container of yogurt, granola bars, dark chocolate, cheddar cheese (not necessarily all of this, but some varying amounts)
• Dinner: A lot of vegetables, protein, and some carbs (I usually make dinner on Sunday nights and then we have food until at least Wednesday. This week, I made corned beef, cabbage, potatoes, mushroom, carrots, and onions.)
• Dessert: If I am still hungry, I may indulge on some organic, all natural ice cream or a bowl of cereal.
• Water: at least 64 ounces of water a day and sometimes I add two Nuun electrolyte enhanced drink tabs to my water.