How I spent 40 days running every day, and not eating sweets and bread

I celebrated the end of lent at midnight on Easter by eating a bowl of samoa ice cream and it was so so so good.

So here's the lent recap.

Running 1 Mile Every Day

There were 3 days where this didn't happen.

- March 7th, the day before the Shamrocks & Shenanigans 5K

- March 14th, the following Saturday, where I just was not feeling well

- March 31st, the day where I subbed a long walk with Maizey for a run.

This was a great learning experience in I can run very very consistently and not get injured. The first race I ever ever trained for was a half marathon in the early summer of 2011. I was running in fivefingers (idiot, i know), and running A LOT, all of a sudden. and I broke a bone in my foot. Two summers ago in Chicago I started training for a full marathon (interestingly, chicago). I developed crazy bad shin pain, that may or may not have been a stress fracture, and cut down running like whoa. Since then, I haven't ran two days a row. But this time I ran 43 (ish) days in a row. I'd call that proof that PT last spring, and running smart, instead of running hard can get you far. A mile a day is easy peasy -- there were quite a few times where I showed up at the Y fifteen minutes before they closed just to get in that mile. I had weird explaining to do to the front desk person who was probably livid that someone was walking in 15 minutes before closing. but I was always out on time. Mile and done. ten minutes (or less) and done.

Also flexcity was great for this. Most days the workout there includes at least a mile, sometimes more but never more than 2 miles (unless you're a super speed demon). so whenever I went to flex city I was also hitting my mile for the day. done and done 

No sweets

This is what I did last lent as well so I knew I could do it. I made a few exceptions/cheats (irish car bomb cupcakes on st paddys, a donut from one of the best donut places that I hadn't had before)

My thing for sweets is always kind of weird. I'm never really addicted to them, but if I'm at the store and see them, or if I'm at the movie theater and see candy I want it. If I drive by diary queen, I want a vanilla cone dipped in cherry.

No bread

this was THE HARDEST. I lovelovelove bread. It's why I run. Which is also sort of why I did this.

I cheated on this one a few times too.

I had a bagel in Ann Arbor a few weekends ago when the Michigan birds spectated the Ann Arbor marathon. I had bread with our anniversary dinner last week. I ate pizza with the skimm ladies for skimm day. 

but overall I did really well. I'm totally ordering these everything breadsticks from cottage inn tonight while I hopefully watch Wisconsin win it all and thus giving me 2nd place in the work bracket though. 

Since midnight on Easter I have since consumed:

straight up bread

a bagel thin

a bagel sandwich

aforementioned samoa ice cream

actual samoas

actual tagalongs

carrot cake

swedish fish and eggs

sour patch kids

trader joes peppermint joe-joe's (wrong holiday i know. but also dont care)

clearly the sugar thing was more important. or maybe i just had more sugar on hand? not sure.

anyway, I'm glad I challenged myself to no bread and sweets, and running consistently, and I'm glad I did so well. Now I just need to find the balance again!