Last night I watched a funny movie from the 90’s called ‘Trial and Error,’ I’m a cheap-o and was trolling through the free movies section available from Comcast and figured I’d give it a shot. It had Jeff Daniels, Micheal Richards (pre his freakout of recent years), and that bend and snap lady from ‘Legally Blonde.’
Anyways, long story short it’s about an actor who has to pretend to be a defense attorney for this man who is so obviously guilty. Unable to come up with a good defense they decide to plea that the client wasn’t mentally stable during the period that the crimes were committed. Reason? He was riding high off of one heck of sugar rush, years and years of junk food and sweets made him mentally incompetent. Insanity by way of Twinkies.
They had a new age doc take the stand and liken the atomic structure of sugar to that of crack. “Glucose is just one measly nitrogen atom away from cocaine!” Good times. Anyways, coincidentally later that night I check out one of my latest blog obsessions, Peanut Butter Fingers, and she had JUST posted about her latest book find, The End of Overeating. You should read her explanation of the book, but in short it isn’t too far off of what this comedy had insinuated. Food manufacturers have been in the lab trying to capitalize on sugar’s addictive quality and even make it moreso. Are Hostess and that happy Twinkie Cowboy the real drug lords? Haha…gotta love that mental picture. That huge Cowboy snorting up lines of souped up sugar! Well, heck, at least it’s not high fructose shiznit, no, he’s after the good stuff! 😉
I know I on more than one occasion have found myself suffering from a sugar headache. Food baby in belly, empty wrappers littered around you, plate licked clean. On the one hand you tell yourself to remember this nasty sugar-hangover so next time you can satisfy that sweet tooth but not just overdo it. But up until that sugar saturation point those cupcakes, cookies, ice cream, whatever, just taste SOO darn good. 🙂 Kind of like there is no gra
y area, you go from taste bud euphoria to WHAM that junky sluggish feeling. (Looks like this guy has had one too many Twinkies himself…hehe!) Wrapping this little ramble up, I’m really interested to hear what PB Fingers has to share about this book.
Totally switching gears to running. You know I couldn’t resist talking about it for too long folks! And hey, I am the first to say that one of the best perks about being a runner is that we can then dive into all that sweety goodness! I’d probably be obese if I weren’t a runner. Just so long as I don’t find all you guys snorting up sugar with the Twinkie man. 😉
I was reading up on another blog yesterday and Christina was looking for ways to improve her speed. My speed is horrendous and if I had my way with things I’d never do a 200 or 400 repeat again in my life! I love me my tempos and long runs. But that’s no way to really improve to the best of your ability. If you’re going to really ‘train’ then you’ve got to bite the bullet and include the workouts you hate the most. Actually, it’s probably the things you detest the most that you then need the most.
So after doing another one of my ‘favorite’ hard workouts today, I think I need to start taking my own advice and widen that range of intervals, as much as I may hate to do it. It’s not like I plan on ever PR’ing or anything, but it would be nice to get some faster running under my belt. So for us distance runners here’s to biting the bullet and busting out some 200’s, 3’s, 4’s and the like! It’s hilarious to think that something that will last less than a minute can be oh so painful and we’d rath
er do a hard 25 lapper instead!! Hehe.
1) What workout do you hate doing the most?
2) Favorite workout?
3) Do you get as much enjoyment as I do from the idea of Mr. Twinkie snorting sugar?
I hate working on my upper body because I get really discouraged and my lack of strength! I'm working on it though…
I am currently in love with skipping! And running, obviously.
oh man, i had a coach in HS who used to yell (in good humor), "pump those chicken arms!" ya, i'll never be super strong but i at least am better thanks to weights. don't get down on yourself, you'll get better and the strength will help your overall fitness lots!
and skipping is awesome. 🙂
I don't love doing strength training–I just toss it in because I know I have to! Favorite will always be my long slow runs. Yay!
🙂
ditto on that vanessa…i force myself to do the weights just cuz i know it's good for me. i just find it more boring and would far rather be out there running too…hehe!
I just started a new weight-lifting plan that includes a lot of upper body stuff. Me doing push-ups is one of the saddest things you'll ever see..and they were even the "girly" kind with my knees on the ground. I have no upper body strength.
As far as running workouts, my least favorite has to be hill repeats. Growing up in Texas, I was used to flat. I will say that they do help. It makes it a lot easier to run on flat ground. I just suck at running *fast* uphill.
I just started incorporating a lot more speed work, which I have not done in years. After I got injured constantly in college, I spent the next couple of years just doing easy stuff to keep the injuries at bay. I did maybe one workout a week while I was training for my marathon earlier this year, but now I got a wild hair up my a$$ and decided I felt the need for speed. Like you, I'm nowhere near my PRs. What's discouraging is that my tempo pace is what my easy pace used to be.
I like long runs the most because I tell myself that the pace doesn't matter, which helps me relax and go by how I feel. I get stressed out with interval workouts, etc. because I have to hit a certain pace.
you're like my running twin! i absolutely SUCK at hills too! it's not even so much that i even hate them so much, but i just plain stink at them. hmmm, the downhills aint too bad though. 😉
you crack me up, ya, i'm not sure where my own wild hair come from because since my whole ordeal i just thought i'd be more than happy to do those easy runs forever. but i think since we've both been competitive, that little fire is always there. or i guess an urge to push ourselves…kinda sick how we love that feeling of just kicking our own butts! 😛
that said, i'm with you in how it can be a little depressing when you think back to how much faster you used to be. i finished a tempo yesterday, and i thought, "whoa, i just busted my @$$ to run a pace i used to just roll out for 10+ miles…haha."
But hey, we can't be too hard on ourselves, as long as we put in our all in the workouts of today we gotta be happy when there is improvement.
Long runs will always be my fav, hey and you need to tell me more about your first marathon!! We've lost another virgin. haha…i want to do one one of these days.
you must be like my running twin! i absolutely SUCK at hills too. it's not even so much that i hate them, i just plain suck. the downhills aint too bad though. 😉
you crack me up, i'm not sure where my own little wild hair came from either. after my whole ordeal i told myself i'd be more than happy to just get in my easy runs forever. but i think since we've both been competitive before that little fire to push ourselves is always there. kinda sick out we love the feeling of kicking our own butts, right?! hehe. but it can be more than a little depressing at times, yesterday i finished my tempo and thought, "i just busted my @$$ to run a pace i used to roll out for 10+ miles…not cool!" haha.
but we can't think about that, focus on putting in our all in the workouts of today and then being encouraged by any improvements.
long runs will always be my fav, that said you need to tell me more about your first marathon!!! we've lost another virgin…haha. i do want to do one of them one of these days. 🙂