Week 6 in Training and a Christmas Eve run with the guy who started it all!

 Week 6 was a lot of fun because my sister and her husband Kevin were in town and they are the people who got me into running. Kevin is a big time runner and him and Naomi encouraged me to sign up for my first race ever, a 2 mile turkey trot.  

That turkey trot made me catch the running bug and 7 months later Kevin ran by my side to help me finish my first marathon. He normally runs marathons about an hour and a half faster than I finished mine so he really took one for the team to stay with me. 

Yeah, my brother in law rules. 

On the 2nd day they were here, Kevin, Taber and I went out for a nice 6 miler. It was so fun running together and we were cruising along at a nice 8:30 pace even with some solid hills.

Then on Saturday (Christmas Eve morning) we put on some Santa hats and drove over to the Applefest course to show Kevin (who lives in flat Chicago) some real hills.

 It was FREEZING that morning. Had to do some jump shots to stay warm : )

Me and Santa Taber with the sun rising behind us

and Kevin taking one of his famous self portraits. He always makes the most flattering faces. ; )

I was only planning to do 12 miles and I was kind of dreading the applefest hills, but once we got going I felt awesome and I just powered along. I ended up doing the whole half marathon course with them and we finished in 1:58:06.

Here's what our splits looked like:

We took the first mile easy to warm up but by mile 3 we were moving along.  We ran slower through the hills but we picked it up again at the end and finished strong. (Taber went on to do an even 14  miles and Kevin tagged on 2 extra miles for 15 just because they're cool like that.)

It was an awesome way to start off the morning and we got lots of friendly honks and waves in our Santa hats!

 Also major props to my sister Naomi who watched all the kiddos while we ran. She is the stud of the universe!

Here's the full summary of what week 6 looked like:

Monday: 3 mile tempo run on treadmill: avg pace 7:53 ( Felt like pushing it that day)

Tuesday: 3 miles interval sprints on treadmill: avg. pace 8:01

Thursday: 6 miles outside with Kevin and Taber: avg pace 8:33

Saturday: 13.1 miles outside with Kevin and Taber: avg pace 9:01

And I'm throwing in a picture of the kids with Santa because cuteness like this must be shared : )

Hope Everyone had a Merry Christmas!

Weeks 4 and 5 in Training and keeping the holiday pounds at bay (sort of...)

Well, the first 5 weeks of my marathon training is done. I gotta admit it's been a little tricky trying to squeeze in training during the holidays. It seems like I have so much going on, especially because I've been working on some major projects for Christmas gifts and they've been super time consuming. I barely got in 3 runs during week 4 and on week 5 I had to cut my long run short to get to a Christmas breakfast at my church that I was cooking for and singing in. This time of year is just busy. Despite the condensed training I do feel like the runs I've done have all been solid and I think I'm still far enough out that a few missed miles will be okay.

So yeah, the tough thing about training during the holidays is the crunch for time. The awesome thing about training during the holidays is that I've semi managed to keep off the "winter storage" that I usually pack on between Halloween and Christmas.  I'm a major foodie, and even though for the most part I try to keep my food obsession in moderation, this time of year is my weakness. I always gain 8 to 10 lbs every holiday season, but I'm happy to say that this year I have only gained 2! Not because I've been eating better, still gotta have my sugar, but my winter belly is a little smaller this year because I actually have to put in some miles to keep up my training. ; ) Someday I might conquer my sugar addiction but at least for now I've got running to keep it in check.

Anyways, here's what my runs looked like for weeks 4 and 5. Still no snow on the ground so we've been able to do all our long runs outside. And when I say "we" I mean Taber and I, he's thinking about running DC too so we've been doing our long runs together. We've been able to get babysitters for the last 2 weeks and it is so worth the money to be able to 1) be done with our runs by 9am and not have to drag it out until the afternoon by taking turns and 2) run with the hottest guy ever : )

This Saturday my brother in law who is also training for DC will be in town so I'm excited for all of us to get in a nice Christmas eve 12 miler : ) Hope everyone has a great week and a very Merry Christmas!

Training Summary:


Week 4:
Monday: 3.63 miles doing intervals on treadmill. avg pace 8:16
Wednesday: 6 mile tempo run on treadmill: avg pace 8:07
Saturday: 11.8 miles outside: avg pace 8:55

Week 5:
Tuesday: 4 miles doing intervals on treadmill. avg pace 8:04
Wednesday: 6 mile tempo run on treadmill. avg pace: 7:58
Thursday: 1.5 quick run on treadmill: avg. pace 8:02
Friday: 3 mile tempo run on treadmill. avg pace 8:11
Saturday: 7 miles outside. avg pace 8:59

Week 3 in training: New running friends and a house full of sickies

Week 3 of training was a tough one. Taber was out of town in Minnesota for the first half of the week so I was flying solo on mom duty. It was exhausting being on the clock 24/7 with no backup, but I did manage to get 2 runs in during the week and they were both outside which was awesome.

On Saturday I got to do my long run with a friend I met through church who is an awesome marathoner. She just ran her 5th marathon and qualified for Boston, finishing in 3:32!  I really wanted to pick her brain about how to train smarter and get faster. She has 4 kids so she understands the mommy dilemma of making time for training while balancing her family life. Her husband came along too and it was fun talking to another couple who thinks running dates are awesome. ; ) We did 10 miles and it flew by having people to chat with. We had so much fun that we decided to meet up again this Saturday, and this time one of her daughters is watching our kids so Taber can run with us too. I'm so excited to have some new running friends! 

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When I got back from my run I walked in the door and before I could untie my shoes, Brinley puked the entire contents of her stomach onto the kitchen floor. 

The rest of the weekend was spent taking care of barfing babies. Brinley couldn't keep anything down, not even juice or water. She was devastated because she really wanted to go with Taber and Teya to cut down a Christmas tree but I wasn't going to let her because she was so sick. She cried and cried and told me she felt better. Finally I caved and let her go. She made it through the cutting of the tree but as soon as Taber put her back in the car, she puked everywhere and then passed out.

Poor sick little lady : (

The next morning we started our day with Cam barfing up his entire bottle onto the bathroom floor. 

Launch round 2 of the pukes.

It was a long weekend. We went through a lot of towels, sheets, blankets, and laundry. I'm glad I had a bought a box of disposable plastic gloves, they made the clean up slightly more bearable. ; )

Thankfully the sickies weren't sick for too long.

 Brinley was back in action after 24 hours

 And Cam starting perking up again after 2 days. 

We got our tree set up, and even though it wasn't perfect, 

I logged week 3 in the marathon training books. 

Here's what my training looked like:

Monday: 3.5 miles outside: interval sprints: Avg pace 8:19
Wednesday: 5 miles outside (my friend watched the kids) hauled booty and clocked my fastest 5 miler ever! finished in 40:09, avg pace 8:02.
Saturday: 10 miles outside with our running buddies: avg pace: 8:53

No cross training! Yikes! Wish I could say I was doing better with that this week but so far haven't been able to squeeze it in! Gotta make a goal to get it in next week, we'll see how it goes.