Betty Crocker Caramelita Bar Deal & Running Update

Good grief, y’all. I love our commissary. They find the best deals and put them in front of the store a lot of times… combining sales with coupons (they’ll have a big bag of coupons for us to take right there).These caramelita bar mixes? Normally $5.99 for the 2-pack box. They were on sale for $1.99 and the commissary had $1.00 off coupons, so they only cost $.99 per box, 50 cents per pack.

We bought 3 boxes.*grin*

They’re quite tasty! They have a real caramel packet that you squeeze on before baking, so it has an actual layer of chewy stretchy caramel. Yummmm.

But already I’m thinking of how I could change/add to the mix. Adding more oats, maybe throwing in some craisins, or crushed nuts or something… coconut would be really delicious. Can’t I leave well enough alone?

Also, so you don’t just think I’m sitting around eating caramel bars all day… I’ve kept up with the C25K running program for lazy people pretty well. There was a week or so when I didn’t quite follow the program… bad/gloomy weather, whatever. Today I just did Week 4, Day 1.Brisk five-minute warmup walk, then:

• Jog 1/4 mile (or 3 minutes)
• Walk 1/8 mile (or 90 seconds)
• Jog 1/2 mile (or 5 minutes)
• Walk 1/4 mile (or 2-1/2 minutes)
• Jog 1/4 mile (or 3 minutes)
• Walk 1/8 mile (or 90 seconds)
• Jog 1/2 mile (or 5 minutes)

Here’s how it really went for me:

• Slow 5 minute walk, dreading the running to come.
• Jog 3 minutes, too fast, too excited and enthused. Get very tired.
• Walk 90 seconds, stop to stretch right calf in the middle.
• Jog extremely slowly. Hardly make forward progress at all. Concentrate on breathing. Think “almost done!” and then learn that it’s only been two and a half minutes.  Slow down even more. Suck in as much air as possible. Fear the hill ahead. Finish the 5 minutes just before the hill.
• Turn around and walk 2 1/2 minutes.
• Jog 3 minutes, trying to hardly move forward because 2 walkers and a dog are coming toward us and if Zora gets close to the dog she’ll want to say hello. Success! Jogging finishes right before we meet the people and dog.
• Let Zora say hi to the other dog, then drag her away. Walking time is over.
• Jog about 1 minute until Zora sees another dog… drag Zora while trying to continue to jog. Get past the dog, but start climbing up hill. Legs turn off. Walk. Try to jog again, but legs won’t reboot. Walk home.

So, in short, I had my first-ever 5 minute run (outdoors… treadmills don’t count because they seem 10x easier). I didn’t die. But legs turned off at the end because of the uphill ending… need to see if there’s another route I could run on. Too bad they fenced off the abandoned neighborhood; it was really perfect.

Also, Ullrey’s podcast was screwed up during the beginning of the last 5-minute jogging part… it was like 2 overlapping songs and made me want to tear my ears off. I wondered if that’s what crazy feels like.