Thankful

Things that I am thankful for today:

1. Having a garage. We are still working on getting a garage door opener remote thing, but we are making it work. Unfortunately, we only have a single car garage. Justin has been kind enough to let me use it.

2. Justin. I am thankful for him being such an awesome person and letting me use the single car garage.

3. My fitness. I am pretty sure if I were out of shape, I would not have been able to shovel our driveway today. It took me a little over an hour. It was tough work. I think I was supposed to run 3 miles today. I really feel like shoveling was more of a work out than that. It will count as a cross training work out for the week.

4. My little car that could. It gets me from point A to point B...even in 8-10 inches of snow.

5. Snow plows. Thank you to the city, the plows, and the folks that drive them.

The uphill battle begins.


About half way finished.

And done!

Back at it....

So, the last week has not been the most successful training week for me. I was sick last Wednesday, I was recovering Thursday and Friday, and we began moving on Saturday.

The good news is that we have moved back into our own place. We really appreciated the opportunity to live with Justin's parents and save money while living there...the time has come for us to live on our own again. January 1 marked one year that Justin lived with his parents. I moved there at the end of February/first of March...so my one year mark was quickly approaching.

We moved this past weekend into a duplex. And, quite honestly, it is in my in law's back yard. We are literally .4 of a mile from my in law's house. I know this from running the loop in their neighborhood often, ha.

We are slowly, but surely finding a place for everything. We got rid of a lot of furniture when we moved from Kansas City because we didn't have space in our storage unit for everything. So, needless to say, we are in the market for some new furniture. We have hand-me-down couches...which we are ok with for now. We have our master bedroom set which we love (until we move again...and we will get a king). And we have 2 beds for spare bedrooms. We need: a tv stand, end tables, coffee table, computer desk, and some bookcases. Once we get all of that furniture - we will be complete. :)

On the training front - with everything going on, I have not done much. AKA I have not run since my awesome work out last Tuesday. I really need to get after it and get back to my training plan. Based on my plan - I am at week 4. So I feel like as long as I get back on track Sunday with my long run (5 miles) then I am good. I have got to hit these long runs at an absolute minimum. Of course I want to get all of my work outs in, but I feel like as long as I am upping my mileage each week then I will be ok. But, I want to be more than ok. I want to rock this 13.1 I have a lot of work to to do. I have exactly 3 months, 1 week, and 4 days to go before Nashville.

Side note: the 5k that I was recently talking about...it got cancelled. It was supposed to be this past Sunday. Thankfully - it was cancelled due to ice/snow on a major hill of the course. By cancelled...I mean postponed. It's going to be the end of January instead. I am cool with that. I was feeling very run down on Sunday morning so this works better for me. The cool thing about this race? I paid $25 as an entry fee (pretty normal around here) and I get $20 back in gift certificate form to a local running store. SCORE! I got a fabulous gift card from my in law's for Christmas to this store. So add $20 to that and I should be able to get fitted and new running shoes without much out of pocket. Holla!

Here's to getting back on track this weekend. *tink*tink*

Sickly

Yeah, so much for that whole "better, faster, stronger" comment from Tuesday night. I was feeling really great after that workout...that was until about 3:30Am Thursday. I woke up to a sour stomach that felt like it was in knots. I foolishly thought I could shut my eyes and sleep it off. I was oh so wrong.

I was up at least twice an hour for the next 5 or so hours. It was miserable. I am pretty sure my body was getting rid of absolutely everything in my system at that point. I was finally able to rest for about an hour around 10am. The frequent trips to the bathroom finally stopped completely around noon on Thursday. Then came the body aches.

I attempted a shower around 3pm. That proved to be a bit of a mistake...a bath might have been a better idea. When I got in the shower - I couldn't get the water hot enough. I was so cold. I got through shampoo just fine. I put conditioner in my hair and then went to soap my body. I was completely worn out at this point. I got incredibly hot and light headed. I turned the water to cool, opened the shower curtain a little...nothing seemed to help. I quickly tried to rinse my hair and the soap off, but not quickly enough. I thought for sure I was going to pass out before I could get the water turned off and myself out of the shower. Luckily, that did not happen. I grabbed a towel and sat on the bathroom rug for a few minutes. I sat there freezing until I got some strength back to me. That was enough excitement for me for the day. I spent the rest of the night on the couch or in bed.

Needless to say, I did not get my cross training in yesterday. Today I went to work. I probably should have taken an extra day off to get a little more rest. This would have left my shift incredibly short so I felt guilty. Luckily, we were not too busy so I had time to rest in between patients. Water was my number one priority today as I felt so dehydrated.

No running for me today either. Tomorrow is a scheduled rest day so I will definitely follow that. :) Saturday is another cross training day, but we are moving so I figure that is cross training enough. I am supposed to run in a 5k on Sunday, but my training calls for 5 miles...plus, the weather here is frigid. We will see how moving goes, how I am feeling, and how the weather is. That race may not happen for me.

I hope the stomach bug, flu, whatever it was stays away from everyone else. It sucks!

Today's workout

Again, in an effort to hold myself accountable - I think I might track some and/or most of my work outs here. It might come daily, it might be a couple day recap, or it might be a weekly recap. Whenever the mood strikes.

Today I went to the gym when I got off work around 9:20pm. There was about 5 other people there. That seems to be the norm for that time of the evening. I like how slow it is, but I also like not being the only person in there.

On my schedule for today was 3 miles. I try to keep things interesting when I have to run on the treadmill. My goal for today - run each mile a little quicker than the previous (negative splits, sorta).

My first mile was at about a 8:49 pace. My 2nd mile about 8:26, I think. And my 3rd mile I ran in 8 minutes. After all of that I dropped it down to a 10 minute/mile pace to finish out 30 minutes. And then I walked for 5 minutes to cool down.

I felt awesome running that 8 minute mile...especially after running 2 miles prior to that. I feel stronger, faster, better every day. I love it.

After my run I got in a pretty quick core workout. I read everywhere that having a strong core is going to help my running. I started doing this routine a few weeks ago. I can already tell that I don't slouch as much when I run. I also don't scrunch my shoulders quite as much, but this is still a big issue for me.

I will leave you with this pic of the treadmill when I finished. Yes, I was the dork who took a pic of the treadmill when I finished. I tried to play it off like I wasn't actually taking a picture. Haha.

Half marathon training

In an effort to be a bit more accountable for my training - I thought I would share a little bit about my training plan. I figure this might help someone considering something similar.

If you research half marathon training programs - you might become a bit overwhelmed with the many different options. Everyone and their brother has come up with the "perfect" training program. I discovered this very quickly. Every one of these programs has a disclaimer that is something along the lines of, "may not be suitable for everyone." And this is so very true. A training program that works for me may not work for you. Great, more to ponder and research!

I had heard many good things about Hal Higdon's training programs. They were definitely the most tried and true of the people that I talked to. His programs are about 12 weeks long and assume you have a decent running base (i.e. run 3 miles 3-4 times a week). This wasn't a problem for me, except that I had way more than 12 weeks to train.

I considered starting that program and just repeating weeks as I felt necessary. That, to me, was still not structured enough. I wanted to know what I was going to do on each day. That would keep me engaged and motivated.

I continued my research and finally found a 18 week half marathon training based on Hal Higdon's program. Perfect!! At the time - I had just about 18 weeks until our half* in Nashville. Prior to this discovery (about 2-3 weeks ago), I was randomly training and following a couple of different programs. This lack of structure and discipline was keeping me from really progressing in my training (i.e. beyond a 3 mile run).

I have to admit that I have yet to follow this program exactly. I almost followed week 3** perfectly last week...aside from the cross training on Wednesday and Saturday. I did play the xbox kinect for like 3 hours on Saturday so that has to count for something. I feel great that I was able to get the mileage in, but I know that strength training and cross training are going to be very important for my overall fitness level come race day.

Today was a rest day so I have knocked that out. :) I will pound out 3 miles tomorrow. Unfortunately those 3 miles will most likely be on the treadmill because we have gotten a few inches of snow today. I will be bound to the treadmill unless I get a pair of Yaktrax. In all seriousness, I might have to get those for a race I am signed up for on Sunday.


*Justin laughs when I say "half" instead of "half marathon." I don't think he thinks I am in it enough to use the lingo. :)
**I discovered tonight that last week should have been week 2, but I followed week 3. Oh well, right?

Final day of 2010....

I ran my first 5k race on Thanksgiving day. I had a blast and instantly started searching for my next race. The soonest one that would work with my schedule was New Year's Eve. I signed up in mid-December...I was, somehow, the 9th person to sign up. I thought that was odd with the race just being a couple of weeks away. That actually made me nervous that it would be an incredibly small race. It wasn't too terribly small. There were about 280 people that participated. This was about 100-150 less than Thanksgiving, but still an OK size.

The race began at 4pm. The temperature at that point was about 59 degrees. It was unbelievably great. I decided to wear shorts and short-sleeves because it was so warm. I didn't really research the course of the race. The majority of it was through downtown Columbia and part of Mizzou's campus. It was a little windy that day anyway...but add to that larger buildings and it was SUPER windy. In hind site, I would have probably worn capri tights instead. The temperature dropped about 10-12 degrees by the time I finished the race. Brrrr.

My time at my Thanksgiving race was 28:06...I was very pleased with that. I was so pleased that I was nervous to run another because I was worried I would never be able to beat that time. I completely underestimated myself for my first race (I expected 30-34 minutes) and I underestimated myself once again on New Year's Eve. My time for NYE was 26:08. I was very pleased and even a bit impressed with myself. I suppose upping my mileage as I train for a half marathon makes a difference with speed as well.

I placed 93 out of 280 who finished. I was 3rd out of 17 in my age/gender group.

I look forward to improving my times as I continue racing. My goal for 2011 is to get my 5k time sub 25 minutes. After my race on NYE - I feel much more confident to achieve this.

Speaking of the half marathon training - this will take place in Nashville, TN with 3 of my favorite girls from college. I am really excited to accomplish this distance for the first time together. Pardon me if my blog becomes very running concentrated. It's become a beloved hobby.

Tellatubbies (sp?) at the finish line.

Me, post-race, with the tellatubby (sp?).

Happy 2011!

I became very overwhelmed with my previous catch up post. I promised specific posts to go along with the list of events that happened over that 5 month hiatus. Here I am 3 months later and I have zero specific follow up posts. So let's just skip that. I will post about those things as I see fit...or maybe never.

Instead, let's welcome 2011 with a goal to blog more. I am not going to put a number on how much more I will blog, I just hope to blog more. I also hope to figure out how to add pictures without messing with the format of the post. I have seen a couple of different "miracle fixes" and they don't work for me.

Happy 2011 to everyone. I hope that it has started out well for everyone.