I'm not your lion or your tiger....

Caution: For those of you just here for the food (Ever After, anyone? anyone?) please look elsewhere this evening for your entertainment sources. Why you may ask? Well, several reasons. 1-My posts get wayyyy too long when I try to talk about food, fitness, music and life all in one post. Something had to go. I know you guys love reading long posts (you do, don't you? haha) but the longer the post the more scatter brained I get. It's about self preservation, my loves.
2-I haven't been making the healthiest of choices lately in the realm of food. I try to follow the 90/10 rule, you know healthy 90% of the time with 10% room for some indulgence...well, mines been a bit more long the lines of 60/40 and I can feel it, so there is no need to relieve in it online too.

Top that off with a serious lack of cardio work this week (I've been yoging like mad though-no worries there...it sooths my soul and my spine) and I was feeling pretty crappy about it all earlier today. So, what has brought on all this "bad behavior" you might ask? Well, as much as I hate to admit it, I'm super tweaked out about my move back to Gilchrist Co and the start of my teaching position. I AM really excited for a fresh start and a new challenge in my professional life, but add how much I LOVE living in St. Pete and LOVE my little condo rental and pretty much LOVE everything about my life, aside from work-obviously, to the fact that I am concrete sequential to the core and don't handle change well? yeah, I think you get the point. Oh and the cherry on the top-my parents are out of the country enjoying a week long stay at a beautiful resort in Cancun where they only have sketchy Internet service. [For those of you who don't know me as well, my mom is not only my rock, sounding board and biggest cheerleader she is also my best-best friend] So, not being able to talk to Mom at all this week has been beyond rough but they will be back on Monday, so all is nearly well on that front! Oh, but the point of all that rambling is when I'm a little off I tend to turn to food for comfort, and unfortunately it's not the carrot and spinach variety but carbo loading instead.

BUT enough self pitying on my part. I kicked myself in the arse and busted about a little shred time with JM and now feel a bit more like myself. I also have a run planed in the AM-which will be my first run in over a week-parity because of the heat, my lack of sleep and the fact that I'm still trying to figure out what the eff is making my knee hurt 24/7. I thought taking a week off running/shredding and tackling random hills on the kickback bike (or basically cutting out everything in my weekly fitness regiment BUT yoga) would possibly elevate it, but no. Both of my knees still hurt (the right is much worse though), especially doing lunges and climbing stairs. Seriously what gives? I know I have some alignment issues that Denise, my yoga instructor has been helping me with, but this is ridiculous. Speaking of yoga, the fact that I totally busted my right knee when I face planted it out of crow in yoga class on Thursday night didn't help-it's going all purple and green now-but man what a high for the 2.5 seconds I was holding myself up on my forearms! Ahhhh, I love it!

In addition to taking this mini break from running (which is kind of a joke right? since I can't even run a bloody mile straight yet?) I'm trying to approach my training from a different mindset. After reading Caitlin's guest post on Angela's site for the SGBC about motivation issues to get out there and get moving I realized I've definitely hit the "De-motivation" phase (which comes after the "gun-ho" period according to Miss Cait and I totally agree!). What hit home with me most was Angela's comments after the guest portion. She said,"I became more patient and kind to my body and in return my body responded better than I could ever dreamed it would." I think I've been comparing everyone else's success to my slow start and have been being pretty hard on myself. Also, I admit I haven't been following a great plan either. I've been doing the run as far as you can and then go a few steps more. Well that's all fine and dandy, but then it takes me about 5 mins to recover and in that time I've lost my stamina. (I think anyways, I'm new to this, obviously. Suggestions are more than appreciated!) So, I'm actually going to follow the C25k plan. It is just the right lenght to get me ready to run the 5k portion of Miracle Miles which is in the end of September. Cross your fingers for me please? Thanks!

Ok, let's get off the fitness ramble too... see what happens when I hold things in for too long? I'm not even going to dive into my housing issues just now....let's just leave it at my above comment that I LOVE my current digs and well, there isn't anything like that in Bell, damn it!

In much more exciting news, Warped Tour is coming to St. Pete this Sunday (a week from tomorrow!) and I am PUMPED. I got my specially collectors/skip the lines ticket this week that came with a 2disk preview of some of the bands that will be playing. Oh drool...so psyched and yes, it has been playing non stop in my car since it arrived. In a somewhat order here is who I can't wait to see:

Bayside (my boys!)
A Day to Remember
Saosin
Monty Are I (great Canadian band!)
Chiodios
The Devil Wears Prada
Attack, Attack
A Skylit Drive
Breathe Carolina
3OH!3 (yes, I was pleasantly surprised by these cats)
I Set My Friends on Fire
Senses Fail

And I'm sure I'm leaving out a bunch more...Don't worry you will probably end up hearing more than you want to come next week! Sadly I couldn't add Dance Gavin Dance to the above list, since they would have been coming in second, but they are done with the tour THREE days before the St. Pete show...serious bummer. But I've seen them before so, its ok-sorta. :D

I think this post has gotten monsterouly out of hand. If you made it to the end, congrats. I wish I could send you a Super Charge Me Cookie right now.... Seriously though, thanks. I needed to get a lot of that off my chest, if even to leave it out there for me to look back on later in life.

Hope everyone is having a wonderful weekend,
Love to all,
~A coping and nearly back on track, Jess