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.

Holy catch up!!

Five months without blogging. How did that happen?? Where does the time go?? I will do a fairly brief catch up post and then probably go into more detail on the individual things. Otherwise, this post might take hours to write and read.

Here we go....

-To start, I will say that we are still living with the inlaws.

-Justin and I are both still very happy to be back in Columbia. And we are both really liking our
new jobs.

-The month of May was fairly uneventful. We went to a lot of my little brother's baseball games. It's great being back and barely missing a game.

-June was a bit more eventful, I guess.
--We went to St. Louis for a weekend anniversary get-a-way. It was very nice (pics to come in a later post.
--I had an impromptu reuniting with some very close friends. Unfortunately, it was not
under good circumstances. One of my very bestfriend's mom lost her battle with cancer.
--We made a trip to Kansas City to watch the Cardinals and Royals play baseball. That was a
good time because it was a reuniting with friends under much better circumstances.
--We watched a ton of little league baseball in the month of June as well.

-July....
--We housesat for my mom for a week (EXCITING STUFF, PEOPLE! :)). As little of a detail
as that seems - it was great to stay a week away from the in-law's house. I am sure they
appreciated having their house to themselves for a week as well.
--I visited my pal Abbey and her family at the Lake of the Ozarks for the 4th of July. It's
always a lot of fun with Abbey and her fam. Good people.
--I began the south beach diet towards the end of July. I am still on it...and this will definitely
have its own dedicated post.

-The only big thing that happened in August was that I started on the evening shift and started
taking call at work. I miss being on days, but I have to work my way up the ladder.

-September was, of course, the beginning of football season. We also house and child sat for my
dad and stepmom a week in September. My little brother is 12 so it was kind of training for the
day we decide to have children...kind of.

That has brought us to now. That's where my time has gone in a nutshell.

I wonder if anyone has noticed my absence from blogging. I also wonder if anyone will notice that I am back to blogging. Leave a comment if you are reading this to let me know that/if someone is actually still interested.

Edit: UGH, I see blogger still sucks at formatting. Sorry for the wacky format here.