1000

A month or so ago I decided that I was going to reach 1000 miles of exercising in 2011. As of 10:15AM on December 31 I officially reached my goal! Since I'm an engineer I had to download my stats from dailymile.com and break it down...here is my summary by exercise type*:

Cross Country Skiing: 18.35 miles
Cycling: 379.66 miles
Elliptical: 12.60 miles
Hiking: 14.20 miles
Rowing: 21.10 miles
Running: 417.62 miles
Spinning: 92.0** miles
Swimming: 4.0 miles
Walking: 40.5 miles

*If you add it all up it might not be exactly 1000 miles...when I exported the data to excel it sent it in meters so I had to convert and round
**I had quite a few distance free/time only entries so it's really higher than this number!

So there you have it boys and girls. I didn't quite reach my running goal of 500 miles but I'm giving myself a bye on that one since I was injured for 3 months this year and had to make up for it in other places. If you look at the time breakdown, all of that stuff above was 131.96 hours. On top of all of that I did an additional 33.87 hours of weights/crossfit type stuff. So I worked out for a grand total of 170.84 hours or approximately 2% of the year.

It's kind of sad to think that it is such an effort to get out and exercise for 30 minutes a day sometimes and all of that only added up to 2% of my year. 2% adds up to be an average of 30 minutes a day every day of the year.

With all of this information I can set smart goals for next year...I'll need a few hours to think about that...

HBBC update

So I missed an update. I'm not going to win but I figured I'd pretend to update...last week I walked with my dad Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday! Woot! Not successful with veggies but it feels great to be able to walk around with someone and outside!!

Virtual Race Day!

I got up early this morning to run/walk a 5k for Christmas!! I look like crap, I know :(

HBBC Update...

As much as I hate to say it, the stress of getting ready for the end of the year at work combined with the weather this week and the fact that there is food EVERYWHERE has made me want to say "I give up until New Years." And I pretty much did give up this week...but I am determined to at least be a weekend warrior! The final weigh in for the 10 in 10 Challenge at work is on Monday (at 8am, TG!). I think I am hovering right around where I was for the last weigh in (only last time I got away with wearing gym clothes to the weigh in and I won't get to this time so I'll have added clothes weight). I know I can sacrifice and be good and avoid ALL temptation for 2 days until I weigh in and am faced with a 50 foot long buffet of food sitting outside of my cube all day Monday...so here's the summary:

Saturday: 17 miles on the spin bike
Sunday: 8 miles on the spin bike and 1 hour dance class
Monday: Monday has apparently become my "I really don't care" day
Tuesday: 4 miles on the elliptical
Wednesday: I needed sleep...I was getting crazy headaches Mon/Tues/Wed
Thursday: I had another lame excuse for this day too
Friday: lame excuse of the day was that I worked 13 hours and was STAARRRVVING when I left work at 8PM and there wasn't enough time to eat and work out before going to bed to get up to be back at work today ON A SATURDAY!!!!!
Today: I'll try harder, I swear, after I work a 10 hour day...at least there is no food here to tempt me!

I know next week will be a hot mess with lots of travel (why did I think taking a 6AM flight was a good idea?!). Maybe the buffet on Monday will guilt me into the gym and I can break the lazy Monday habit.

HBBC Update 3

Heeeey all,

So here's my summary for the past week:

Saturday: Santa Run 5k
Sunday: Biked for 30 minutes: 8 miles
Monday: It was my birthday so I was a big lazy bum
Tuesday: Spinning 8 miles and I got my veggies in!
Wednesday: nothing again, Christmas present wrapping!!
Thursday: Spinning for an hour: 17 miles
Friday: Ran 4 miles plus veggies!

Total points are steadily increasing every week but no where close to what everyone else has :(

HBBC Update

Hey all....so quick update for the Holiday Bootie Buster Challenge...and the main point of this update is that I'm failing miserably...boo

Saturday: nothing
Sunday: Space Coast Half Marathon
Monday: I ATE MY VEGGIES!!
Tuesday: veggie win!
Wednesday: nothing, icky sicky
Thursday: nothing, icky sicky
Friday: nothing, BAKING my brains out
Saturday: Santa Run 3 miles

Story of my life. At least my arm is FINALLY healing!!

More on the baking later...

Thanksgiving Virtual 5k

Today I exercised for the first time in almost 2 weeks. I walked a 5k. It was only walking but I proved my arm will survive. Next up, half marathon on Sunday?

I look like a slob...that's what happens when you don't care about what you look like for 2 weeks...but look, no split!! It's back on now because it was painful when I took it off :(

Surgery Tomorrow

I chose mommy over the half marathon. So I've spent the last 4 days cleaning my house little by little before work every day. Mommy is on her way. I got sent home from work early. So what do I do when I get stressed and bored? Why, I bake, of course...

These are the ultimate comfort food for me. They are my grandmother's chocolate chip cookie recipe. I know I'm going to want them tomorrow so I made them tonight to enjoy a little treat before midnight and have them for after the surgery tomorrow :)

Choices

Remember nipple elbow? You know, the supposed staph infection? Well it's been 5 weeks and it still hasn't healed despite weeks and weeks of (weak) antibiotics. I finally got to see a doctor who can do something about it today. She said it will require surgery. At the time of the appointment it didn't seem like a big deal...it sounded like she would numb up my arm, cut it up, pick out the junk that's in there, and sew me back up. She said I'd probably miss about a week of work because of the pain and the immobilization of my arm but it wasn't a big deal. In fact, she was so unworried about it that she said it could wait until after Thanksgiving (ugh, another 2 weeks of antibiotics!).

When the surgical coordinator called she gave me a hosipital that I was going to have to go to and told me to stop taking vitamins and not to eat past midnight the night before. Somewhat confused by this request I went on to ask if I needed to arrange a ride to and from the hospital and received a somewhat annoyed response of "of course you won't be able to drive, you're going to be put under." Umm...excuse me? WTF kind of surgery is this that I have to be put under anesthesia! This was very upsetting to me because I was really looking forward to being able to watch someone poke around in my arm and not feel a thing. Maybe I got a little more emotionally distressed that anesthesia meant that I was gonna have pay for an anesthegiologist (spelling?) in addition to some nurses and the OR and blahblahblah. The things you have to think about when you're a big kid and you lost the best health insurance known to man.

When I was at the appointment I asked the doc if she could just open me up right there and get it over with but her schedule was too full to do so so she gave me 2 options which break down as follows:

Option 1: Surgery this Friday. This means that I will probably be out of work through Thanksgiving weekend (work that I'm scheduled to be at every day until next Tuesday...), have a painful Thanksgiving and miss the half marathon (that was supposed to be a full marathon), and probably have to keep low on Black Friday (can't be hitting the elbow!). The plus side of this option would be that I'd get a babysitter from the time I fly home until I come back up north the week after. (and a recently added bonus of my mom coming up this Friday since she'll already be close by for work). If momma comes up I have 3 days to clean my house...which is pretty much an insurmountable task with work this week...

Option 2 (since my surgeon is also the othro I saw for my foot a few months back): Wait until after the race and I get back to have the surgery. The downside of this is that it's kind of an important week at work (not that this week and next week aren't...). But I get to enjoy my trip home for Thanksgiving and doing all of the fun stuff I had planned and I get to run in my race. The downside is that I won't have a personal maid post surgery...

I know the obvious answer is mommy but for some reason I'm having real issues giving up the half marathon. This was supposed to be a huge day for me. It was going to be my first marathon before the foot issue, and it was going to be a family race (my dad is even going to walk it!). If I do the surgery this week the doc said she wouldn't approve me to bend my elbow (a key ingredient to running) for at least a week AND until she saw me. Since a week from Friday is Black Friday, I won't be seeing the doctor until at least the Tuesday after Thanksgiving (and the race!). We all paid a lot of $$ to enter the race, and for the hotel rooms, and I really liked running the race last year and I've been looking forward to going back all year!!!

What's a girl to do?

Long Runs and ICE Information

Since I've been having motivation issues with my long runs lately I decided to get mine done today by running in 2 races that would total the length of my long run. I know that long runs are supposed to be slow so I decided I was running more for the motivation to finish and not to actually win the race. I didn't realize how much 2nd shift would affect my sleeping (despite going to bed at 2am I still get up before 8!!). So when my alarm went off at 8am this morning for race #1 I decided to snooze it an extra hour or so and just do race 2, which was the longer one, and the only I prepaid to compete in. Since I still needed 9 miles I got to the 2nd race a little early and ran 3 miles, which turned out to be a good thing because it helped me decided what I needed to wear for the race.


I had just enough time to get my 3 miles in at a slow pace, run to the bathrooms, and get back to the start line with 3 minutes to spare! The problem with running races for long runs is that no matter how hard you try to go slow you still start off waay to fast!! My first mile was about a minute faster than I wanted and even though I tried to slow down I didn't slow down much. Most of the race was a trail run and the trails are pretty beat up from the storm we had a few weeks ago.

About 1.5 miles in I passed a girl who looked like she was in pain but trying to keep running. I ran past her and thought to myself "I should say something encouraging or ask if she's ok" but I never know if people would be offended if I try to talk to them so I kept my mouth shut and kept running. A few minutes later I decided to take a little trip and faceplanted. A nice lady stopped and made sure I was ok and helped me up before getting back to her race. I decided that I was going to have to walk the rest of the way because my elbows and knees were in a lot of pain. It turns out the faceplant was a blessing in disguise because a few minutes later the girl I ran past earlier caught up to me and really wasn't looking so great. This time I asked her if she was ok and since I had decided that I was going to walk for at least a little while I offered to walk the rest of the race with her. She started talking in a way that reminded me of of how people moments before having a seizure and sure enough a few seconds later she collapsed and I caught her just as she was about to fall down a 20 foot drop into a ditch. I guess the faceplant was God's way of telling me that I shouldn't have ignored my instincts earlier and he was giving me a second chance to help the girl.

When she mentally started recovering from the incident a race official had showed up and asked her if there was someone in the race that she knew or someone we could call. She couldn't remember her mom's cell phone number. This whole thing brought back memories of when I was in middle school and had a seizure. When you come out of it you are totally unaware of your surroundings and I have no memory of the 2 hours after it happened. All of this made me realize that I really need to run with emergency contact information on me. I ran with my ID today but I hardly ever do that and even if something did happen it wouldn't really help since that address is wrong (thanks to my state not replacing drivers licenses when you move...) and there isn't a phone # of who to call if someone finds me lying on the side of the road.

My mom told me a few months ago that she would order me a Road ID if I told her what I wanted on it. I guess this is my motivation for getting that info together for her now...

Training Update

Soooooo...I'm running a half marathon in 18 days...eek! I should be more nervous than I am but I managed to run almost a half marathon after 0 training and 8 weeks in a walking boot and that one was hilly. My next half is totally flat so I'm having trouble getting motivated to get back on track with the training plan.

Since I goofed off for so long I picked up the half marathon training plan in week 8 of 12 (probably not the best idea but it's the best I had). Two weeks ago I was supposed to run 8 miles for my long run and last weekend would have been a 10k. Since I ran a 10k 2 weeks ago I decided to run 8 over the weekend. I only made it to 7.5 because I ate a horrible pre-run lunch. By horrible I mean super tasty and rich Indian food which is not what you should be eating before a long run! I was convinced that the rice and naan would be great for fueling a run but the chicken tikka masala sauce was a very bad idea. Note to self, in the future eat Indian food as a reward for a long run, not as a motivator!!!

This week calls for a 9 mile run (and the next week is 10 miles which leaves me 3 miles short of a half marathon but that's what the plan says!). Lucky for me there was a huge snow storm 2 weeks ago and the 10k that was supposed to be held in my town was postponed to this weekend. Now, I'm sure you're wondering why I care about a 10k when that's about 3 miles short of my goal. Well here's the other lucky thing. There is a 5k that was already scheduled for the same day, in the same park, just a few hours earlier! So I will be running a 5k race followed shortly by a 10k race to get to my 9 miles. How genius is that?! I live for races and I can't stand running long distances by myself, which is why I end up running them on a treadmill most of the time because at least I have TV to entertain me.

What do you all think of my plan? Have you ever run 2 races in 1 day?

Week 5 Weigh In

The mid challenge weigh in for my work weightloss challenge is tomorrow. According to my scale I've lost maybe 2 pounds since I started 5 weeks ago. One could argue that it's better than gaining weight but I still feel like a failure given that I'm supposed to have the goal of losing 10% of my body weight in 10 weeks. 2 pounds is not even 2% for me :(

I signed up for the Holiday Bootie Buster Challenge for added motivation to get to the gym during cookie season! Hopefully that will help with weeks 6-10 on the work weight loss challenge!

I won't let this derail my goals. I might not make it to 10% by the end of the 10 weeks but I won't give up because I have no hope! I started working off shift hours at work this wee and I have to say that, in the winter, off shift hours might be the best thing ever. Screw daylight savings time, we need to either shift time by 8 hours or work evenings instead of days! I love waking up with the sun, putzing around the house for a bit, getting outside for a little exercise while it is sunny and warm, and then heading into work just as it gets dark.

I think I am somewhat affected by SADD, but I think everyone, to some level is. People just get grumpy in the winter up north with the short days and snow. I know some people living for skiing but that can't totally make up for the crappy weather and lack of daylight! Working at night solves this problem but it creates the problem of never being able to see people because the rest of the world works during the day still. Maybe I'll start a petition to move work hours to the evening during the winter. I think everyone would be happier that way. All of those ski people can get their skiing in before work when it's still light out. And the rest of us can just bask in the glory of the sun year round!

I even got a super long work out in today! I normally have to struggle to do 30 min of something at the gym on weekdays but today I was there for almost an hour and a half (yeah, yeah, I know I just talked about the awesomeness of daylight and then I go and talk about the gym...today called for weights and bike so I couldn't help it). I am super excited about running outside tomorrow! And I did stay out for longer than planned yesterday when I ran! It helps that the weather has been unseasonably warm. I wore a tank and shorts today!

Does the winter suck your will to workout? Do you hate getting out of work after the sun sets?

Looking for motivation

Most days it has been hard for me to talk myself into the gym. I'm enrolled in a weight loss competition at work but I've lost maybe 2 pounds in the past 4 weeks, which, I suppose is better than weight gain but it's really nothing to write home about. I've gone back and forth between being good at the gym and being good with eating and they've rarely overlapped for more than a day or two.

I have 3 weeks until Thanksgiving (and the half marathon), and it looks like work won't be super stressful so I need to stay on track with food AND the gym...starting today! Yesterday I may or may not have eaten an entire cake from the grocery store (it was a tiny cake! barely more than the equivalent of 2 cupcakes!!).

Since winter is setting in and training for a big race solely on a treadmill isn't a super smart idea I need to come up with new motivation to keep myself entertained at the gym. For the next two months I think my goal will be to run/bike/swim a total of 200 miles to make my total mileage for the year a nice, even 1,000 miles.

What do you do to stay motivated and get yourself to the gym when you'd rather curl up under a pile of blankets in the winter?

MCM10k Recap

I am really not a super huge fan of adult Halloween activities. I'm kind of over the spending lots of money to put together a silly outfit last minute. I'm really not that creative, and if I'm going out I want to be comfortable. Luckily I got sick the weekend before Halloween this year (thanks arm!) and I signed up for the MCM10k in DC the weekend of Halloween (ok so Halloween wasn't on a weekend but you get my point). This meant I got to skip all Halloween partying and I didn't have to dress up at all!

Luckily, for me, my sissy moved to DC last year so I had a place to stay for free and I got to hang out with sissy and her hubby all weekend. We did fun stuff like attend Truckerboo to eat all kinds of tasty food (Takorean might be the best invention in the history of food), visit the Air and Space museum to see the shuttle (turns out that they have the faux space shuttle, no wonder the heat shield looked fake!), shopped for some darn cute (and warm) clothes.

I got a fancy new iPhone with Siri a few weeks ago. Like a good packer, I asked Siri about the weather in DC as I was trying to pick out my outfit for the big race. It said that it would be in the 60's so I packed 3 outfits with varying weights of clothing so I could choose the day of. Then that stupid crappy Halloween snow storm hit (which knocked out power to my house, but I wasn't here for it!) and the forecast for race day dropped from 60 to 30...

So we went to outlet mall and I went crazy at Old Navy, Adidas, and Nike buying cold weather running clothes. Ok, so maybe I bought a few short sleeve shirts too...

This one was only $5!!

Runners Have the Best Buns, love it!

I also bought matching shirts for my mom and I to wear in an upcoming half marathon, cheesy, I know, but it's something we do and they were only $6 each at the Nike outlet! I picked up some super cheap compression running tights from Old Navy and a fleece shirt, hat, and gloves that I wouldn't feel guilty throwing away (ok, so maybe I did feel guilty about ditching clothes on the side of the road and ended up carrying everything to the finish line with me). I also found this crazy half top thing at Adidas....

I went with the thought that it was meant to be a sports bra with sleeves so I treated it as such on race day. I will say that it is a darn tight sports bra! I got a size bigger than I normally get and barely had enough room for the ladies (TMI?). I did end up loving this thing. I like having sleeves for running but I don't have a flat belly so full length tops tend to roll up when I run so this was the perfect solution! I wish I had gotten 2 since they were on the sale rack! The day of the race I ended up wearing all new clothing except my socks and shoes...it all worked out pretty well.

Now for the actual race recap. The race started in the middle of DC and ended in Virginia so the organizers suggested taking public transportation to avoid parking issues. My sister lives close to a Metro stop so this all worked out well for us. We gave ourselves an extra 45 minutes to get to the race so we'd have time to check our bags and get lined up. I was nervous about standing in the cold but I was equally nervous about not getting there on time. We were about 5 minutes out the door (my fault) and had issues buying Metro passes but we made it on the Metro with time to spare. Some poor marathon runner got on at the same time as us and was totally lost (and late), we tried to point her in the right direction, I hope she made it. Then we hit a delay. I started to get nervous. Sissy and hubby were only really running the race for my moral support and didn't care so much about their time so they offered to check my bag for me so I wouldn't be late for the gun. We jumped off the Metro and got up to the start line (about 10 feet from the Metro entrance) literally 2 minutes before the gun went off. Sissy and hubby took care of my stuff and got in line at the back while I weaseled my way into the middle of the pack. The timing couldn't have been better but my nerves had almost gotten the best of me!

The race was actually pretty nice. The course wasn't too bad, we ran past the Pentagon and the 9/11 memorial, which was pretty cool. It did have one major drawback....

I never really understood these signs. I guess because every time I've ever been on an icy bridge the rest of the road was already icy. This was not the case on race day! The only warning I got was watching runners in front of me inexplicably collapse in the middle of the road when they hit icy patches! There were several overpasses during the race. After learning my lesson on the first overpass (my tailbone still hurts), I was forced to slow down to avoid another injury. One poor lady was even lying in the middle of the road motionless on the first overpass (at least she got medical attention from some pretty attractive Marines!). Other than that my only issue with the race was the temperature. I have cold weather induced asthma and stupidly left my inhaler at home thinking I wouldn't need it for the race so the rest of the time was a struggle to keep running and not give into the temptation to walk. Oh and the last 0.2 miles is this ridiculously steep hill. I'm not really sure what they are trying to prove but knowing that I will never sign up for the real Marine Corps Marathon (same finish line)!! It ended up being my slowest 10k ever which I attribute to the slow overpasses and asthma issues. It was still a super fun weekend and I'm equipped with a whole new set of cold weather running clothes!

Now, I need to stay motivated for the Space Coast Half Marathon in 3 weeks!!

Banana Babies

The arm is healing...I think...I'm down from 12 Advil a day to 4 so that's a sign of improvement, right? We'll find out tomorrow at Dr appointment #3 (I can hear the rejoicing at the insurance company...cha ching!).

The last 2 days have been food success! About 1600 calories each day AND I went to the gym today. Granted, it was only for 15 minutes and I walked on the treadmill but it was at a 3.0 incline! Tomorrow I'll go more but today I was exhausted (I'm convinced that I'm burning more calories fighting infection) and I didn't want to get sicker from trying too hard...yeah...that's it. Well that and I didn't want to spread my germs to everyone else in the gym and I only have 1 bandage so it can't get too sweaty because I wear it to work too! Hopefully I'll get good news tomorrow (or I'll have to start on IV antibiotics!!!!). My dream outcome is that the Dr will say that she can finally drain it and I'll be done for good.

I tried to take a picture of it because I know you're all interested but, surprisingly, it's really hard to take a picture of your right elbow when you're a righty...here's hoping for good news tomorrow! I have a 10k this weekend!!!

Oh PS I started this post to talk about my first Banana Baby. It was amazing. Who knew that a frozen banana covered in chocolate would taste so good for so little calories!!

Maybe I'll Run Tomorrow?

Well it's been 4 days since I was diagnosed with the unknown skin infection. Turns out that it might not be staph after all because it developed into the ever so lovely bullseye that is associated with Lyme Disease. Luckily(?) my new drugs can be used to treat Staph AND Lyme Disease. Did I win the drug lottery or what?!

Well I've decided that I don't want to wait for any stupid blood test to tell me what I have. I've been told that if you really have Lyme Disease you get all achy and stuff in your muscles when you try to exercise. Sooo...since I've eaten nothing but chinese food, pizza, burritos, and cupcakes since Tuesday night and haven't really lifted a finger (or arm...get it? haha...) since Tuesday I'm clearly going to start losing that weight loss challenge thing if I don't get off my duff and exercise (and stop wallowing in self pity...at least I've avoided ice cream so far this time!!).

Tomorrow's big experiment is to go for a run...until my arm starts to hurt...we'll see how far I make it. Any suggestions for stuff I can do that doesn't rely on my arms/elbows?

The Hidden Evil Lurking in Your Gym

How many of you have gone to the gym, used a piece of equipment (ie: a treadmill), and haven't wiped it down after you used it because "you didn't sweat on it" or just felt lazy. Don't be afraid to admit it, I've done it...the "I didn't sweat on it excuse" I've always wiped down equipment I felt that I've sweat on.

Some gyms put out spray bottles and paper towels everywhere making it hard to avoid wiping down the equipment. Some gyms don't put out ANYTHING. There are many reasons why you should wipe down your equipment...

1. It's flu season, do I really need to say more? I got on a bike at the gym on Monday and found a handful of cough drop wrappers in the cup holder. Gross much? The fact that they were in the cup holder made me wonder if the last person to use the bike had wiped it down after...
2. Swapping sweat is like swapping many other bodily fluids we'd rather not think about swapping with strangers. You might not think your sweat is gross but I'm sure someone else does.
3. Stomach viruses can linger on things you touch for hours. This means that if you have any virus lurking in you (and you might not even know it) can end up on that "start" button on the treadmill. The one you didn't think you needed to wipe down because, hey, you're clean, right?
4. Here's the real kicker. STAPH! You've all heard the urban legends of people getting MRSA from unclean gym equipment. While MRSA seriously sucks, it's not the only type of staph lurking at your local gym.

In case you didn't figure it out by now...I had an unfortunate run in with staph in the hotel gym over the weekend. I went on this awesome trip to Texas last weekend. I work on a small part of a much bigger program and last weekend I had the opportunity to see the whole product put together. It was pretty freaking amazing because I work on some really cool stuff. While I was there my dad and I went to the gym at the hotel every morning. On the last dad my dad noted that the gym was pretty nasty. There was nothing around to sanitize the equipment after using it.

I've had this habit of rubbing my elbows when I get nervous/bored/whatever and I'm sure there were many times over the weekend that I did this. I got home from work Monday night and noticed that I had a small itchy bump on my elbow. I didn't really think much of it...I get them sometimes but they go away. I woke up Tuesday morning to the feeling that someone was stabbing me in the elbow. Thinking it was just a zit or something I went to work. As the day progressed the elbow hurt more and more and my excitement for being at work was steadily decreasing...I had been trying to get in 12+ hour days all week because I had a lot to get done but I thew in the towel after 9 hours and went home, ate everything in sight, and then proceeded to hug the toilet for the next few hours. I looked at my elbow before going to bed and it had started to look like I was growing a nipple on my arm...it was a little disturbing.

What does that look like to you??

By Wednesday morning half of my arm was red and angry looking and it felt like someone was trying to saw my arm off, I couldn't eat or drink, and I had the worst headache everrrrr. Off to the doctor I went (I don't want even want to think about that bill, thanks super stellar health insurance!!! that's sarcasm folks). Has anyone figured out what was on my arm? If you guessed Staph you'd be right! Since I am allergic to at least 50% of everything on the planet I was allergic to the top 2 choices for antibiotics used to treat Staph. I picked up my meds and dutifully ate a meal when I took the first dose (since they said to take it with food) and some pain killers. The headache went away for a few hours until everything decided to come back up. Take Wednesday and repeat for Thursday (because I'm allergic to the meds!) and you have a summary of my week so far! I called the doctor about the violent reactions to the meds and all I got in return was an automated phone call to tell me I have an appointment for Monday. Super useful! I did find that if I eat a ton of greasy food I can at least keep the food down and only be super nauseous for a few hours...not so useful for the diet game at work, especially since I haven't been to the gym since Monday.

The upside is that I got so bored at home that I tackled some light cleaning around my house. I tried the bathroom this morning but passed out so I tackled the mountain of laundry in the guestroom today and the pile of mail in the kitchen...it's a start!

Moral of the story. I will always wipe down my gym equipment before AND after use!! You can't trust anyone at the gym!

Good News Friday?

Despite having a less than stellar week I am going to focus on the two positive events that took place in the last two days...

1. I went to see a real Sports Medicine Orthopedist that specializes in foot injuries yesterday. She took another X-Ray of my foot and said she didn't see any sign of a bone healing which means...drum roll please...I NEVER HAD A STRESS FRACTURE!!! While it is slightly annoying that I had to deal with the possessed boot for so long, it also meant that I can start running again next week! That's right, the injury is Peroneal Tendonitis. Which means I get to take some happy happy pain killers anti inflamatories and do some physical therapy and be back on the treadmill (at a reduces speed/distance/incline) and work my way back up to where I was. AND I should be able to compete in my half marathon Thanksgiving weekend, especially because it's 100% FLAT so I won't have any issues with hills taking me out at mile 9!

2. Work is on a health kick so they started an optional weightloss challenge today called 10 in 10. The goal is to lose 10% of your weight in 10 weeks. You compete in teams and there are fabulous prizes at the end of the rainbow in addition to the obvious added bonus of weightloss. Today was weigh in day for the beginning of the challenge and the health coach lady said I only need to loose 8 pounds to be in the healthy weight range which is a lot less than I thought I needed to lose! And my base calories needed "just to get out of bed in the morning" is MORE than what my goal had been for my daily calorie consumption! So I can eat more food every day! And every time I go to the gym I'll be loosing weight. WOO HOO! Now that the devil boot is gone I should be at the gym TONS!

That's all for now folks. My boss is getting married tomorrow so that should be interesting...I'm also going apple picking in the morning which can only mean 1 thing...LOTS OF APPLEY BAKED GOODS IN THE NEAR FUTURE!

Updates and Giveaways

So after my half marathon I went back into the boot...

I HATE THE BOOT

I swear this thing is possessed by the devil. The second I put it on I start taking pity on myself and start trying to convince myself that it's ok to eat whatever I want and not work out, because it's not worth working out if I can't run...duh. I was determined not to let this happen this time around with the boot (last time I let myself eat ice cream EVERY DAY and I only made it to the gym for strength or biking maybe twice a week!!). But I put it on yesterday and before I could even make it to my car I started thinking that I should get 800 calorie Starbucks for breakfast instead of my 300 calorie planned breakfast!! But I made it through the day with only consuming about 1500 calories and I made it to the gym! Today was the total opposite. I went to the doctor this morning and she totally freaked me out and it was pouring rain and by the time I walked from the parking lot into work my boot was soaked. So I went to 1 meeting and then just left work...and got Chipotle for lunch! I really wanted ice cream too but Haywards wasn't open yet. Luckily by the time I got home I was way to lazy to go back out into the rain for ice cream. But then I found a box of Jr Mints and a bag of Twizzlers and my day just went downhill from there. I ate a lot, tried to work from home, fell asleep for 3 hours, woke up and didn't go to the gym...horrible day.

Really, is there anything better than Coffee Oreo ice cream???

But this HAS to end at the end of the week. Work is starting a contest to lose 10% of your body weight in 10 weeks. A little lofty of a goal but I'm going to sign up for it. I certainly need an extra source of motivation and there are prizes!! So I'll be updating as I make progress with that soon!

And speaking of prizes, head on over to Gourmet Runner, she is giving away a RoadID!! All real runners have a RoadID, so head on over there for a chance to win one for free!

Race Review: Applefest Half Marathon!

Back when I was training to run a marathon in November I signed up for a bunch of races to match my training plan. I lucked out and found a half marathon just down the road form me AND it offered all you can eat apple crisp at the end! I was very excited about this race as I read about it on Active.com as one of the best half marathons in New England. And then I messed up my foot.

Who wouldn't run for all you can eat apple crisp??

I took the boot off a few weeks ago, ran a little, ran a 5k, ran a little more but nothing really more than a 5k. But I couldn't pass up the opportunity to compete in this half marathon. I know, it was probably a bad idea since I hadn't really trained for it but I figured I could walk it if I needed to.

Well as the day drew closer and I actually looked at the race website, I found out that they don't allow walkers because everyone had to finish in less than 3 hours (poo). But I did it anyway.

Stupidly, I didn't do any type of course research. The website warned of "rolling hills" throughout the race course but I figured I could handle them. I met up with a friend on race day and she told me that the beginning of the race was pretty nice, a few up hills but it was a net downhill at the beginning, then there were a few crappy hills towards the end. That's when I started to get nervous...

I didn't have ANY clue what to expect for my pace of the race since I hadn't really run in 2 months. I picked 10:40 min/mile since that is about what I ran at my fastest half marathon and I was running sub 10min/miles before I hurt my foot.

I showed up to the race a few hours early, hung out with my friend, checked into the "filly" aka fat kid division and waited for the race. The race started at 10am which kind of annoyed me since I didn't know how to prep foodwise. I didn't want to eat too much for fear of tummy troubles during the race (a race which only offered potties at mile 6.5 for the relay racers!) but I also didn't want to be STARRRVING half way into the race since I knew it was going to take me 2+ hours to finish the darn thing. So I had a bagel at 8AM figuring it would give me time to digest before the race and brought some Gu Chomps along for energy during the race. It was not enough! By mile 10 my stomach was rumbling and by the time I finished I thought I was going to puke I was so hungry! I'll have to work on that for next time.

So actual race summary. They were very well organized, check in was quick and home base was at a high school. They opened up the gym for check in and milling around pre race which was good considering it was raining outside. They spread out the portapotties well so there wasn't a HUGE line at any one area. The starting line was a little cramped but that was ok since the race was limited to 1200 people. I lined up a few minutes before the start and set my Garmin to a 10:20 pace figuring that if I could keep that pace in the beginning I'd had a little bit of buffer at the end for the treacherous hills.

The gun went off and I was OFF (well after the first 500 people started in front of me). Once I got through the pack I was cruising, attacking hills left and right and totally maximizing the downhills (I'm learning!). I checked my Garmin a few times and I was kicking butt! Under 10 min miles. This totally gave me motivation to keep running through the rain and the hills. As I got farther in the race it became more and more of a mind game. I told myself I wasn't going to walk on any uphills until I was at least halfway through the race and my awesome time kept me going. I was on track to cut 20 minutes off of my half marathon PR! I was going to finish in under 2 hours if I could keep up my pace!! And then it started pouring around mile 6.5...like POURING RAIN!! Misting/drizzling is fine because it cools you down and your feet stay pretty dry. Once it started pouring my feet got soaked and I started to blister. Then around mile 9 I hit the hill from H-E-double hockey sticks. You start up this steep but short hill, manageable...and then you turn the corner, expecting it to flatten out but it was just steeper and longer!!!

That's when I gave up and started to walk. This was my fatal mistake in the race. Once you slow down in a race when you've been keeping up a great pace, it is hard to get back to the running. And even harder if you are taking on challenging hills. The next 1.5-2 miles was allllll uphill. By the time I reached flat ground again my feet and calves were toast and I was hungry. I was determined to finish and since I had been kicking butt for most of the race I could walk and still come in close to my half marathon PR time. I wanted my finishers medal!! And finish I did!

It's a bottle opener too! To help dull the pain...?

I ended up finishing in 2:25ish, 7 minutes slower than my best time which I was still pretty proud of considering my lack of training for the past 8 weeks (the boot sucks out all of my motivation to exercise and eat well). What sucks though is that during the race I totally screwed up my feet. Huge blisters all over the bottoms and in my attempts to continue to make forward progress and avoid making the blisters worse I reinjured the stress fracture in my foot.

SOOOOO back in the boot for another 8 weeks, which means I'll be in it pretty much up until the time of my next half marathon (which used to be the full marathon I was training for...). So who knows what will happen. I still really want to run it and it's flat and I certainly proved my lungs and heart can handle it after spending time in the boot. But the big question is whether or not the foot can handle it. I think I'm going to break down and go to the doctor and figure this out for real.

Applefest Sneak Peak

Full update to come soon, but here is a little preview...the course elevation map courtesy of my Garmin :)

Stress Fractures

I'm beginning to realize that the term Stress Fracture has multiple meanings:

1. Stress from over training fractures bones in your body
2. Stress from not being able to train due to stress fractures fractures your mental being!!

So as I mentioned before, I got stress fractures in my left foot back at the beginning of August. I went to the orthopedic doctor who charged me $400 for 30 seconds of his time. Since I didn't feel like spending another half of a paycheck for the doctor to tell me that 6 weeks had passed so my fractures should be healed, I decided the take the boot off myself...well maybe after 4 weeks instead of 6. I walked around on it, it didn't hurt. I ran a few miles, it didn't hurt. So I started up on a novice half marathon training plan and enrolled in boot camp classes twice a week.

Well it has been 3 weeks since I took the boot off and 1 week since I officially took the boot off. And the pain is coming back. WAH! I tried to stop the pain for getting worse so I went out out and bought new running shoes. Now I didn't NEED running shoes but the logic in my head went something like this...

1. I trained for a half marathon on an accelerated schedule last year wearing Nike running shoes and didn't get any stress fractures.
2. I kept training in said Nikes after my half marathons earlier this year with no issues with my feet.
3. I bought a new pair of Mizunos and started a marathon training plan (not really adding a lot of miles at all, in fact doing more cross training to avoid over training on my feetsies) and got stress fractures within 4 weeks of starting

SO I went back to my running store and explained that I thought my shoes contributed to my stress fractures, they agreed that this could be possible so they sold me a brand new pair of Nikes and inserts for a whopping $140. I figured $140 was nothing compared to the Dr bill of having to go back.

I got to the gym all excited to run a few miles in my new shoes to test them out. I made it a whole quarter of a mile before BOTH feet started screaming "OWWWW! YOU'RE HURTING ME!!!!" Sucks...

So now I'm worried that I've killed both of my feet and I'm going to have to go back to the Dr and actually follow up and be a good girl and delay training another 6-8 weeks and look totally stupid for being the girl who trained so much that she has to wear walking boots on both feet. The only good thing that can come from this is getting front row parking in our mile long parking lot at work...

Marathon

Third post of the night, woo hoo! I hope it took you a few days to get caught up so you won't be disappointed when it takes me a week or so to update this again...so if you haven't read the other 2 posts yet, stop after this one and come back tomorrow (all of the posts kind of stand on their own and you can read them out of order...)

So, this one will be short and sweet (sorry!) but thought provoking on your end...

I won't make my goal of running a marathon before I turn 27 (I really only gave myself a week of slack between when I planned to run it and my 27th birthday...oops) but that doesn't mean I won't run a marathon soon! I need to find another one to train for.

Any one have any suggestions? My only requirements are:

1. It has to be at least 24 weeks from now. Most training plans are at least 18 weeks and assume you are running 8-9 miles on your long runs...I'm not there yet!
2. It has to be fun
3. It has to be affordable

Suggest away! :)

My (not so) Secret Shame

Since I haven't been running the past few weeks I needed something to fill my free time. After I got bored biking at the gym I turned to the next logical option for someone who can't exercise...I started baking (again). I justified spending time in the kitchen by telling myself that I was making all of these goodies to sell at work to help fundraise for the 5k. I ended up earning $52 from all of my hard work and probably consuming about 10,000 extra calories over the course of 6 weeks (not including all of the ice cream I ate).

I keep a photo album on Facebook to keep track of all of my Baking Adventures so a fellow blogger suggested that I turn this blog into a hybrid running/baking blog. My first baking adventure recap on this blog will be FUN da-middles cupcakes. Ok so these aren't homemade but they are a new product I discovered at the grocery store last week.

Luckily a close friend of mine had a birthday last week (I really couldn't force anymore baked goods on my coworkers last week) so I had an excuse to try them. They were soo much fun! Everyone has seen a filled cupcake, but most of the time you can see where the cupcake has been holed out after it was baked to make room for the filling. These things were like cupcake shaped Twinkies and super easy to make!

Here's a few pictures I took throughout the baking process:

You bake them with the filling inside! The uncooked filling tastes a lot like marshmallow fluff so maybe I'll try my own with fluff one day...

You can't even tell they have filling inside! And no need to frost! 

(PS I added sprinkles in the batter to make them more festive)

Ok, so I need to work on centering the filling a little better...

They were pretty tasty and could hold their own without frosting so I didn't frost them...but I'd like to try to make my own, maybe from scratch, and see if frosting would make them better. Anyone have a birthday coming up??

Just for fun, check out this awesome birthday candle! On top of an awesome birthday cake I made earlier this year...ok I'll show you why the birthday cake was so awesome.

It was a checkerboard cake!!

 *Disclaimer: Betty Crocker didn't pay me anything for my opinion, but I wouldn't be upset if they sent me some sweet baking goodies ;-)

Race Recap: Pelham Old Home Day 5k

HELLO Friends!

The last time I blogged was a few months ago. And coincidentally it was to solicit donations for the Pelham Old Home Day 5k benefiting the Nashua Special Olympics. The race was yesterday! So I figured I had to provide you with at least a race recap.

But first let me explain why I've been missing for 2 months. Right after my last post I ran a lot, biked a lot, hiked a lot, and then ran some more. And then I went to run race #8 of the summer trail series I was participating in, my second week in the big girl 5 mile race! About a half a mile into the race my foot started bothering me. But being stupid, I kept running. Half way into the race (when I was as far as I was going to get from the finish line, with no phone) the nagging pain turned into an unbearable pain. So I hobbled back to my car and drove to the ER (a costly mistake with my new health insurance! Apparently just looking at an ER costs $1000). My work week was going to be really busy and I didn't have time to take off to go to the Dr so I wanted to get it taken care of ASAP and outside of work hours to avoid further injury. They X-rayed, came back with a diagnoses of "sprained foot" and gave me a prescription for some ridiculous painkillers (which I didn't fill!) and a pair of crutches with instructions to go to my real Dr if the pain didn't go away after 2 days on the crutches.

Obviously the pain didn't go away and the crutches left me trying to find creative new ways to maneuver around the office (warning to all hard core runners out there, don't neglect your upper body, you'll regret it if you ever need crutches!). Rather than adding to my growing Dr bill, I skipped my Dr and found someone who knows bones. The dude walked in and without even talking to me told me it was stress fractures and charged me $400 for his time and a fancy Aircast. Which limited my exercise options for a few weeks. I took this opportunity to throw myself into 80 hour work weeks to forget about the fact that I couldn't run (and to pay off those stupid Dr's!). That pretty much catches up to this weekend.

I decided to take the cast off a few weeks ago to slowly work my way back into running. I started just walking around to make sure the pain was gone and I slowly started adding running in over the past 2 weeks. The big test was yesterday, with the 5k. Kind of fitting that this was my first post injury run. Last year this race got me hooked on running and this year it reminded me why I love running (because I had started to forget the  past few weeks!). I finished in 28:45, which was 40 seconds faster than last year. I had been doing better with my speed but obviously I lost a lot of that recently. I also had really bad stomach cramps throughout pretty much the entire race.

But it was all worth it in the end. I had fun hanging out with the Special Olympics Athletes who were participating in the race. I was surprised how many remembered me from last year! I ended up getting 2nd place in the volunteer fundraising category which came with a $25 gift certificate to the local running store, woot!

So that should get you all caught up to today. Hopefully I'll be better with this blog now that I'm running but only time will tell...

Pelham Old Homes Day 5k Fundraising

Hello loyal followers! I know it's been awhile since I've posted. I owe you guys a bunch of race reviews and at least 1 post about my progress towards the big day. But I wanted to put up a quick post about something that means a lot to me.

I've mentioned before how I was never really super athletic as a kid and it took me until my senior year in college to figure out that I needed to get my butt in gear and change my life. But it wasn't until last year that I got into running. My intern forced me onto the treadmill a few times last summer and I still wasn't super thrilled about running but I did it when she was around at the gym. I kept up with other things at the gym but I never really went more than a mile or two on the treadmill and I never ran the whole time. Then in the fall a friend of mine who volunteers with the Special Olympics e-mailed me asking for a donation for a 5k she was running to fundraise for the Special Olympics.

I've always liked the Special Olympics and what they do so I decided to not only donate but to register to run as well. To practice I ran 3.1 miles on a treadmill the week before and managed to survive without stopping to walk. Unfortunately I had only run a few races before and that was quite a few years ago and in all of those races I got tired early on and ended up walking most of the race. I really had no idea what to expect or how long it would take me to run this race.

I showed up on race day with my Everything bagel and iced tea from Dunkin Donuts (something that has now become a race day tradition for me), registered, and lined up for the race. A few of my friends were running and since I had no idea what this race had in store for me I decided that as long as I could keep them in view I was doing ok. While waiting for the race to start I made a few friends with the Special Olympics athletes. I even ran a good part of the race with one of them before he sprinted ahead of me and left me behind in his dust.

Given that I had no idea how fast I was running or should be running I decided to count the number of songs it took me to run a mile. That way I'd have some idea of how far I was from the finish line (in terms of number of songs...). I chugged along for the rest of the race and I even passed one of my friends who had slowed down towards the end. I would have slowed down to finish it with her but I feared that if I lost the momentum of running I wouldn't make it across the finish line.

I remember reaching the 3.0 mile marker and being able to see the clock ahead and that it was still under 30 minutes. I mustered all of my remaining energy and ran as fast as I could so I could beat that 30 min mark. And I did, I finished the race in 29:25!

After that I was hooked on races and running. A few days later I saw a commercial on TV for the Space Coast Marathon and Half Marathon (clearly a sign from above, why else would I see a relatively small FL race advertised in the Northeast?!) and I set a new goal for myself, to finish a half marathon. A goal I accomplished just a few months later. Would I have gotten addicted to running without this race? Probably  eventually. But since this was the race that got me hooked I decided that this year I wanted to give a little more back to the race that has started me down a new road in life.

I know that most people fundraise for marathons or other major events. I am training to run a marathon later this year but this race means so much more to me and I really like the cause. Special Olympics gives so many kids the opportunity to do things they probably never thought they could accomplish. And it was this race that gave me the opportunity to realize that I could be a runner, something I never thought I could accomplish.

I would greatly appreciate it if you would take a moment to consider donating this wonderful cause.

Here is the link to my fundraising page: http://www.active.com/donate/2011POHD5k/carolynandrews

PS I know donating to yourself is kinda cheesy but if you raise $30 you get free admission into the race so I figured I'd put some money towards my fundraising because I didn't pay anything to enter the race.

Mines Falls Trail Series 4 of 12

4 words: I FINALLY DID IT!!!

27:25

I was determined to get finish in under 28 minutes and to beat that 9 min/mile pace before the first half of the series was over. I felt it in my bones all day long. I knew today was the day despite the fact that I ran a 10k race yesterday. I just knew it.

It was super hot today but running in the woods was actually pretty cool...there were a few cool breezes I ran into. I hydrated all day so I could skip the water stop today. I knew today was the day! I beat my goal with 1 race left in the first half of the series. I'm tempted to switch to the 5 mile a week early to give me time to set a goal for that and possibly beat it by the end of the summer!

If I had any moisture left in my body when I finished I may have actually shed a tear. Unfortunately, I was a sweaty mess and worried about keeling over from running my little heart out (almost literally)!

Ohh and I went to the rock climbing gym after my race. I passed the belay test (I know...not a huge deal but exciting for me) and I raced up a few walls to burn off the energy from the excitement of the race! Much better than my initial lesson on Saturday!

BAA 10k

Busy busy weekend! Swimming on Saturday morning, rock climbing Saturday night, a 10k race Sunday morning, brunch with some friends, and then sleeping for the rest of the day (well maybe not the rest of the day...I did get a chance to hang out with a friend and her baby boy and another friend who just moved after a fantabulous nap).

Soo...big race! The Boston Athletic Association decided that a marathon, half marathon, and 5k weren't enough opportunities to parade the world's best runners around Boston so they organized a 10k this year! Thinking it will probably be the closest I'll ever get the Boston Marathon and all of it's glory, I signed up and I made a friend from work sign up with me. I should have known trouble was coming when 2 days before the race my friend told me that I'd probably need to drive to the race because he might be still drunk/hungover from a pub crawl he signed up for the night before the race...

Staying true to his word, he was quite possibly still drunk when I finally got him out of bed and quite the entertainment on the way to the race. Good thing I planned lots of time to get there and get settled because in addition to being drunk (and still wearing the clothes from last night when he got in my car), he also left his race number at home so we had to take care of that. Luckily the BAA was super cool about it and made the switch in a few seconds. We got our super cool shirts and checked his bag o clothes and lined up for the race!

They sent the wheelchairs off first. Three minutes later they sent off the elite runners (these dudes didn't even have numbers on their bibs, they had their names!). Four minutes after that the first of the slow pokes were set off. And as my group was lining up to go they made an announcement that the lead runner had reached the 1 mile mark and was on track to finish the race in 28 minutes! I can't even run a 5k that fast!

We finally got to start and I quickly left my friend in the dust. I had forgotten my GPS watch so I had no idea how fast I was running. I settled into a pace that felt ok and sustainable. Did I mention that the weather was pretty crappy?! It wasn't insanely hot but I'm pretty sure I was in some kind of humidity vortex that was 200% humidity yet the air was still accepting moisture and sucking every ounce of water from my body! I hit mile 1 and doused myself in a cup of water and downed 1 cup. Sadly I didn't look at the time when I started the race so I had no idea how long it had taken me to run the first mile...all I knew was that it was 17:30 after the beginning of the race...Aaaand then around mile 1.4 I started hearing the crowd in front of me cheering and then I saw the lead cop car...WTF! HOW WAS THIS DUDE ALREADY ALMOST DONE WITH THE FLIPPING RACE?! Slightly demotivated, I kept pushing on....

By mile 2 I wanted to rip my clothes off...I was dying in the outfit I decided to wear...I guess I know how to plan better for humidity now? Probably not...I'll probably make the same mistake at least 10 more times. In the first mile the race when under an underpass and I remember thinking "crap, I'm going to have to go uphill towards the end of the race!" In mile 2 the race when through BU...I saw 1 bridge ahead and dealt with it thinking that I'd only had to run up 1 bridge and hoping the turn around was at the top. Boy was I ever wrong...I got to the top of the bridge only to see the crowd ahead climbing another! I stumbled through to the turn around checking my time and trying to do the mental math to figure out how fast I was running each mile after mile 1...I thought it was somewhere around the 9.5 min/mile which was my goal for the race so I was happy. But by the turn around I was starting to fall apart and I tried to slow down a little.

After the turn around I searched the crowd for my friend for about half a mile but couldn't find him...and then I saw the freaking sweeper bus! Demotivator #2, seeing the sweeper not too far behind you! Luckily my iPod could feel my pain and put on some motivating music as I pushed through those two stupid bridges. At least I was on my way back!!! Despite the fact that I was "trying to hold back" my mile splits weren't really getting any longer...whatever, as long as I finish the race without walking. Mile 6 was pretty difficult. Luckily, the race directors saw this coming and threw in an extra water station towards the end. 4 cups of water on my head later (I'm surprised my headphones still worked after this race with all of the water I was dumping on me) I was rounding the corner to the finish line. In my twisted mental math I figured as long as I finished in under 1:07:00 I probably ran the whole race in under an hour...but I had no idea what my real time was.

Slightly worried I waited for my friend for about 20 minutes but he finally showed up at our meeting spot. I guess drunk running isn't as glamorous as it sounds. To quote him...."By mile 2 I could smell the whiskey oozing out of me...by mile 4 I realized I was sober."

Overall it was a fun morning. I met up with some friends after for a quick brunch before heading back home for a shower and a nap. 

Oh and my overall time was 58:38! 9:27 pace!! And somewhat amazingly my 5k splits were only 4 seconds off from one another. Yay for being able to self pace!

The Sweet Smell of Summer

I grew up in Florida. This means that I spent my summers in the pool. I was even on the swim team for 5 or so years. During summer break you knew you had a good day when at the end of the day your eyes were stinging and there were halos around every light source you looked at because no kid every wears goggles and we always opened our eyes underwater! The smell of chlorine on your skin was second nature. It wasn't until I stopped spending every waking moment in the pool that I realized that it wasn't natural to smell like chlorine all the time. But to this day one of my favorite smells ever is the smell of chlorine on my skin and in my hair.

One of my favorite pictures ever

I miss those days. Growing up my parents called me their little fish because I would spend hours in the pool. I used to dream of being able to stay in the water all the time and be able to survive without having to come up for air. I finally fulfilled that dream (well kind of) last year by getting my SCUBA certification. I still remember how giddy I was the first time I donned my SCUBA gear and went underwater. It was so natural to me. It was a good 5 minutes before I realized that I had been underwater for 5 minutes without having to go up for air. I LOVED IT! I wish I could live somewhere that allowed me to go SCUBA diving whenever I want. I can't believe I moved to a part of the country that only allows for outdoor swimming about 5 days of the year.

Breathing underwater!

I signed up for a few triathlons this year (one of which I've already completed!) so I knew that I needed to find a place to swim. A few weeks ago Groupon offered 25 drop ins at a local hotel gym with an indoor and outdoor pool for $35 so I snatched it up. I haven't really taken advantage of the opportunity until today. Sadly they only have 1 adult swim lane so the few times I've gone before today they pool was always busy.

Today was a cross training day so I figured I'd try swimming. I lucked out. I walked in and there were a few people in the pool so I went and locked up my stuff and I was going to putz around in the gym until the pool cleared out. I checked on the pool one last time before heading downstairs and everyone was getting out! I jumped in an claimed the only adult swim lane for the next hour and I swam 2.55 miles! Granted it was in a pool and a pool DOES NOT equal open swim but I feel like I really worked out some muscles I haven't used in awhile and I worked on my form. When I got out of the pool I smell the familiar sweet scent of chlorine and I was reluctant to jump into the shower to wash it all off. But alas, all good things must come to an end and I am now clean. I couldn't really delay showering because I knew my hair would be destroyed if I let the chlorine sit there for long enough (the major drawback of swimming in a pool!). I guess I'll just have to go back again soon!

Part 2 of cross training day is tonight. I'm meeting up with a friend at a rock climbing gym for a beginner class! I can't wait! And I'm running the BAA 10k tomorrow morning!

PS I had some old bananas lying around so I whipped up some of these babies today too!

banana chocolate chip muffins!

Trail Series Week 3

As you might be able to tell from my previous post, I had a busy weekend so I was tired and sore for week 3. I was also totally unprepared. I didn't drink much water, was on a 3 hour plane ride right before the race, and I didn't eat much that day.

Showing up for this race was pure stubbornness. That shirt for running all 12 races WILL BE MINE!

Within the first quarter mile my legs started to cramp up. It slowed me down a little but I powered through it. But by mile 2.8 my body decided to call it a day. I got the worst stomach cramps ever. I started to slow down to walk when an angel in running clothes came up from behind and said, "Don't stop! You are so close to the end! Raise your hands above your head and keep running, the cramps will go away!" So I lifted those arms and kept going and I finished!

It was slow, around 29 minutes...but I'll take it...still under a 10 min mile!

A New Take on Cross Training

This weekend my cross training consisted of...

Running around underground

Eating cake in a cave

Squats

Controlled falling

About 200 more squats to get back up!

Climbing

and finally some swimming

:)

Trail Series Week 2

So I went ahead and ran the trail series race today mainly because I really want the shirt for running in all 12 races! My plan was to go slow since I had a big day yesterday and I was still a little sore from the bike. Well I had a crappy day at work and I guess my body just wanted to get rid of all of the frustration and I ended up running it in 28:13! Woohoo! I knocked 20 seconds off! I'm THAT much closer to breaking through a 9 minute mile pace!

Week 1 of marathon training started today and here's what I have to do...

Rest

Run: 3 mi

Bike: 30 min

Pace: 3 mi

Rest

Run: 6 mi

Cross 60 min

So I did a bad thing and I missed the rest day BUT that's only because I know that I'm not going to have time to work out on Wednesday and I had my race today that I didn't want to miss and I don't want to take 2 days off in a row! We'll have to see how I feel tomorrow...maybe I'll end up taking my rest day tomorrow and my other rest day on Wednesday...I need to remember, rest is not a bad thing!

Eek!

PS Marathon training officially starts tomorrow!

Here's the plan I'm going to try to follow...but I think I'm going to shift it by a day so my break days are Thursday and Sundays...

http://www.halhigdon.com/marathon/novice3.htm

Race Recap: Greater Nashua Sprint Triathlon

I woke up bright in early this morning to the sound of pouring rain on my sky light! I wasn't so excited. I realize that a triathlon starts in the water and you get wet right away but in most tri's you dry off on the bike ride! I rolled over and hit snooze a few times on the alarm. I finally rolled out of bed 2 hours before the race and jumped in the shower (I know...I just complained about being wet but I can't wake up without a shower!).

I stopped at DD on the way for my pre-race ritual bagel and iced tea (which I ended up not really drinking) and went headed off to the race! As I was getting my bike out of the car and figuring out how to reassemble it I started thinking about how everyone else there was with someone and I was there all alone! No one to distract me from freaking out before the race, no one to cheer me on during the race, and no one to hang out with me after! But someone was looking out for me :) As I was setting up my transition area I heard someone calling my name, it was my friend from Quarter Life Runner! She was there to cheer on her hubby. I was so excited to see someone I knew! She was super nice, loaning me a jacket while I was waiting to get into the water, taking pictures so I could post them here, and cheering me on during every leg of the race. I seriously doubt I would have made it through if I hadn't had someone I knew waiting at the finish line!

Pre race trying to stay warm!

So down to the gritty details:
0.3 mile swim, 16 mile bike, 3.1 mile run
Overall time: 1:55:04

Swim - 11:45
So let me start by saying it was probably in the 50's when the race started today! I wore flips flops to get ready and I thought I had packed some extra socks but I couldn't find them when I went to look for them and I didn't want to muss my race socks so my feet stayed cold and were almost numb when I jumped into the water. They had everyone jump into the water from a dock and line up in the water before they sent us off. I would say it was slightly better than other tri's I've done in terms of people self regulating where they were in the water to avoid collisions.

In the water and ready to go!

I managed to get off to a quick start and stay relatively strong. Unfortunately I seem to have developed some ear issues in my old age. I've noticed the past few times I've been swimming that my ears get clogged with water quickly and it's actually pretty painful to turn my head doing freestyle! I'll have to get on that. I did start off probably a little too quickly and forgot how difficult open water swimming can be! I'm super happy with this time though. The only thing I can compare it to is the Danskin Tri I completed in 2005. Back then I swam 0.2 miles in 12:16! This was a longer swim and I finished it in less time! I claim victory over this leg. I will need to practice in open water before the Litchfield Hills Tri I'm doing in August because it's almost a full mile swim but I'm happy enough with my pace for now.

Out of the water and moving on!

Bike - 66:39

HOLY POOP! This was haaaard! So I've been doing the bike at the gym and spinning at home but I hadn't gone out on a real bike ride to prepare for this race and that was just plain dumb! My legs handled the distance ok but I quickly learned that I don't have a need for speed! Perhaps I should have seen this coming with my fear of gaining any speed skiing this past winter...so every time I started to pick up speed I hit the brakes. BIG MISTAKE! I caught on during the race and tried to remedy this and I was averaging faster splits towards the end of the leg. The speed gained going downhill helps a ton on the uphills! Something I really need to focus on before my next race!

Wait, what? This leg has 2 loops?!

The bike leg was two 8 mile loops. I didn't really look at the map too closely before the race. Thank goodness I was wearing my GPS watch otherwise I would have been very sad to find out that there was a 2nd loop when I thought I was almost done! Luckily my watch said I was only on mile 8 and I knew I still had awhile to go! Comparing this to my Danskin Tri, I did that bike in 44:13 and it was 12 miles. Under 4 min miles. Today I averaged about 4 min miles but the big difference between today and my last tri is that there were LOTS of hills today and the Danskin Tri was 100% flat with no turns! So overall I can't be disappointed with this leg because I finished and finishing in under 2 hours was my goal but I really need to focus on biking because that is the easiest place to gain time! I only have to increase my speed a little per mile to gain a lot because the time gain is multiplied 16 times!

Run - 29:31

Can I just say WTF (in a good way)?! Being that this wasn't a USAT certified course the 5k was actually 3.2 miles according to the Garmin. So my overall pace was 9:13 min/mile which is EXACTLY the same pace as the race I ran last Monday! How the heck did I manage to keep the same pace after swimming and biking?! I finished the first mile in under 8 minutes! I tried to slow down but my legs just kept going! It was soo hard to keep the pace I wanted. I think my legs were adjusted to pumping so much for the bike that they couldn't slow down for the run! I even walked for quite a bit of the run and still managed to keep that pace! My legs did cramp up at the end and the last mile was extremely difficult but I knew the crowds were going to start around the last 0.5 mile so I pushed through to the end and finished strong! I love how people cheering for you gives you an extra boost of energy! Clearly I'm going to claim victory of this leg of the race with this time when this is pretty much how fast I normally run in races! Comparing to the Danskin, that was a 2 mile run and I finished in 23:54 so that was almost 3 min/mile slower than today!

Finishing strong!

In less than 2 hours!

So overall my first real length triathlon I was pretty please with myself. I beat my goal of under 2 hours...although I learned early on in the race that trying to do it significantly faster than 2hrs was not a realistic goal. I'm glad I have a baseline so I know what I need to work on and hopefully improve! And next time I'm recruiting more people to do it with me/cheer me on!

Done!