Week 11: Cross training and my longest treadmill run ever...

Well I finally started cross training last week and it made me realize how pathetically wimpy all my non-running muscles are! Here I am thinking I'm so tough because I'm training for a marathon and then I try to do a 20 minute pilates DVD and the next day my abs and buns are SO sore I can barely move. That is sad, but a good wake up call for me to make cross training a priority. I mostly stuck with pilates to help with my back but I also threw a 30 day Shred workout in there too. 

Teya took this picture while I was doing pilates one morning. It was after my run so Cam was awake and crawling all over me like I was a human obstacle course. After this I made it a point to only do pilates when Cam was sleeping : )

One of the bright spots of last week was when my friend, who is a massage therapist, came over to work on my back. It was great because she brought her massage table right to my house and we just put on a movie for the kids while she worked the soreness away. It helped a ton and now I just wish she could do it every week : ) 

So yeah, back is doing better, cross training is happening, and overall I think week 11 went really well. Here's how it looked:

Monday:

5 miles on the treadmill, avg pace: 8:34

20 minute pilates DVD

Tuesday:

Got up at 5:40am to crank out 8 miles on the treadmill. avg pace: 8:33. Felt good to get it done early!

20 minute pilates DVD (a lot harder the 2nd day because my abs were so sore!)

Wednesday:

Did 30 day shred level 1. It kicked my butt.

Thursday:

Got up early again to do 5 miles on the treadmill. avg. pave was 8:17 and I felt like I was flying! 

followed my run with a 20 minute pilates DVD

Friday:

18 miles on the dreadmill.

  I know that sounds completely insane but it was 30 degrees outside and literally pouring rain all morning without a break. That was the only time I could get a babysitter so it was either run in the rain and risk getting sick from exposure, or suck it up and pound it out on the treadmill.

 I kept myself entertained by watching old episodes of the Biggest Loser.  I ran at an 8:57 pace the whole time except at mile 9 and mile 15 when I slowed it down to a walk so I could take a Gu and drink some water. 

I know I look super cute here but I wanted to take a picture when I was done to document my longest treadmill run ever. 18 miles, avg pace 9:05. Proud of myself for making it happen but I pray I never have to run that long on a treadmill again!

Week 10: I think I messed up my back : (

After logging 33 miles last week my back is KILLING ME! It seriously feels like someone took a broom stick and jabbed it into my upper back over and over again as hard as they could. It hurts so bad! I think there are a couple of reasons for it: 

1) Bad posture at the end of my long runs.

2) Running on an incline on the treadmill and not adjusting my posture.

3) Not doing any cross training to strengthen my core.

It's my own lazy fault for not doing any cross training and now I'm suffering the consequences for it. Luckily there are still 8 weeks until the marathon so I think I have time to fix the problem. Starting now I'm going to do pilates at least 5 times a week to strengthen my core and my back. I'm also going to be less focused on speed and more focused on my form, especially engaging my core and keeping my dang back straight! 

I did pilates after my run today and it felt good on my sore back muscles. Hopefully doing it more consistently will help. In the mean time I'm doing lots of back stretches and I scheduled a sports massage for Thursday.

Besides my back pain here's what the week looked like:

Monday:

8 miles on the treadmill with a 1 incline: avg. pace: 8:24. 

This run was awesome and I felt so strong the whole time!

Wednesday:

4 mile speed workout on the treadmill. alternated running .5 mile at a 7:30 pace with a .25 mile recovery at a 8:34 pace. Overall avg. pace: 7:53

Friday:

Had to split my long run to make it work with the babysitter so I started by doing 5 miles on the treadmill (avg pace 8:42), and finished by running 12 miles outside: (avg pace 9:05) for a total of 17 miles.

It was the coldest long run I've done and I didn't wear enough layers. By the end my arms and fingers were so frozen I couldn't even zip up my jacket! I ran with my friend Kelly and it was a solid run but my legs were super tired at the end and my body was just so cold! I'm going to look into getting some warmer gear before my 18 miler this weekend.

Saturday:

4 mile recovery run on the treadmill: avg pace 9:13

Oh man my legs were tired for this run! Running 21 miles in less than 24 hours takes it's toll. It felt like my last leg of the Ragnar but I just pushed through it and figured it was good to practice running on tired legs.

One thing that has helped with the energy is drinking Chia seeds before my runs. I was only doing it before long runs but I started doing it before all my runs and I feel a big difference!

Here's my little secret to getting the seeds down, Mio liquid water enhancer. It's basically like Crystal light powder but in liquid form so it dissolves easier. Anyway, I use the strawberry watermelon flavor and it's good stuff!

So that's week 10.  Week 11 will be all about the core work, which is fine since I guess next month is national Ab month anyway ; )

Oh and p.s. Guess who turned ONE last week?! 

He had a lot of fun with his birthday cake : )

Week 9: Winter Warriors and a Bomb Diggity New Recipe!

I made it to the halfway mark! Just 9 weeks to go and the miles are ramping up! I've got 17, 18, 19, and 20 milers coming up in the next few weeks and I'm so SCARED excited to see how they go : )

Last week I only ran 3 times but I still managed to log 32 miles so I was happy with it. 

Monday I decided to do 10 miles since I missed my long run from being sick the week before. My friend watched the kids so I was able to run outside and it was awesome! 25 degrees outside but no snow so I was able to cruise along. I did my usual hilly route that has a 711 ft. elevation climb but I pushed it on the hills and finished with an average pace of 8:41. 

Wednesday was a 7 miler on the treadmill, didn't push it too hard and finished with an average pace of 8:31.

Then on Friday my friend Kelly and I braved the elements and ran 15 miles on the applefest course (super hilly) in freezing icy snow. Their was a wind advisory too so the wind was whipping around us and causing icy snow drops to pelt our faces. It felt like like getting stung in the face over and over again, we had to look down at the ground to avoid getting too much in our eyes.

(Do you like how the snow flake fell in front of my face right as I was taking this pic? kind of cool : )

I seriously felt like I was just "surviving" that run, trying to get through the snow and wind and hills without dying. We stopped to walk briefly to fuel at mile 8 and then to find our way at mile 14, but even with the walking I was shocked when we finished to see that our average pace was 9:01!! We definitely earned winter warrior status for that run!

Me and Kelly, my awesome marathoning mentor who recently qualified for Boston with a 3:32 marathon. I feel like I learn so much every time I run with her!

So that was week 9. I wish I could've squeezed one more run in but life is busy with 3 kids, and now our Friday nights and Saturday mornings are filled with rehearsals for a play Taber and I are in that's being put on by our church. It's a scripture based musical about the life of Jesus Christ called the Savior of the World.  I'm playing the part of Mary (who has a lot of lines and a couple solos) So it's a pretty big commitment right now. So yeah, always tricky to fit in our runs but every Sunday Taber and I sit down and meticulously plan out when each of us is going to run. It takes a lot of effort and planning but we're doing it and I think it will be so worth it to run our first marathon together!

Oh, and the healthy eating thing has had it's ups and downs but I recently found a new website called Skinnykitchen.com and it has the BEST recipes! I tried these lettuce wraps last night and they were so amazingly DELICIOUS! Taber seriously went on and on about how good they were and how he felt like he eating at PF Changs.  So yeah, here's the link to the recipe, enjoy! Lettuce Wrap Recipe

I got a DSLR camera for Christmas so I'm kind of having fun pretending I can take cool pictures of food : ) 

Yummy Yummy!!

Week 8: Losing 8 lbs in 2 days is not cool...

Week 8 of marathon training got seriously derailed by a horrible bout of the stomach flu. It took out our whole family, except for Cam. Brinley got it, Teya got it, Taber got it, and after cleaning up everyone's puke and taking care of them when they were sick, I knew it was only a matter of time before I got it too.

I went to bed on Thursday night feeling a little queasy, and a few hours later I woke up and starting hurling. I rarely get sick and when I do I never puke. I seriously think the last time I threw up was when I was 10 years old. So yeah, It must've been a pretty bad bug to get me to throw up like that. I thought I had emptied out my stomach but around 4 am I was up for another round of it. For 24 hours I couldn't even look at food and could barely even drink water. I sucked on ice chips and used heating pads to help with the achy muscles.  Taber stayed home for a few hours on Friday morning and then my friends took the kids in the afternoon so I could rest. I slept, A LOT. And by Saturday I was up and moving again, although when I stepped on the scale I had lost 8 lbs since the puking/loss of appetite began.

Unless you're on the Biggest Loser or just gave birth to an 8 lb baby, losing 8 lbs that fast is not cool. I knew some of it was water weight but I also knew that my clothes were noticeably looser. Taber, (who usually doesn't notice these kinds of things) even made the comment that I looked super skinny. I felt horrible and had no energy. My appetite still wasn't back but I was concerned by my weight loss so I just forced myself to eat whatever my stomach would tolerate. yogurt, plain cheerios, toast, banana and a little bit of soup. Once I had some food in my belly I started perking up more. I knew a long run wasn't going to happen but I wanted to do something since I hadn't run since Wednesday. I hopped on the treadmill and just took it nice and easy thinking maybe I would do 6 miles, but 4 was all I could handle. I wasn't going fast but I still felt queasy afterwards.

By Monday I was up and running like normal again but man, what a bummer week for marathon training. I was supposed to run 30 miles and instead I did 15 : ( I hope it doesn't set me back too bad.

Here's what week 8 in training looked like:

Monday: 4 mile recovery run on the treadmill (legs were still tired from Saturday's 15 miler) avg pace: 8:35

Wednesday: The bright spot in a dark week of training: Ran 7 miles on the treadmill at an 8:04 pace. The best thing about this run was that I felt amazing and strong the whole time. Sometimes I'm killing myself for an 8 min pace but on this day I was just flying.

Saturday: 4 miles on the treadmill after a weekend of the stomach flu. Avg. pace: 8:49

Week 7: Goodbye Holiday Eating, Hello Healthy Eating!

Week 7 was the last week of the holiday season and my last week of eating like a little piggy.

It was fun while it lasted, but as my jeans got tighter and the number on the scale got higher I knew it was time to get it under control. 

So for my New Years resolution I have committed to dropping the 4 pounds I gained over the holidays, (because believe me, when you're 5 ft 2, four lbs makes a difference in the way your clothes fit.) And then dropping 5 more pounds to get down to marathon weight. My friend who recently qualified for Boston said that losing weight was key in helping her get faster. I'm not looking for a BQ but dropping some extra poundage might help me get my sub 4. 

To drop the weight I started using the MyFitnessPal calorie counting app on my phone and it's pretty awesome. I'm aiming for about 1500 calories a day and the app just helps me keep track of everything. It seriously has every food you can imagine in it's data base and is really easy to use. I also like how it adjusts your calorie total when you work out. Like today I got 600 extra calories for running 7 miles. Pretty Cool. 

Anyway, here's what yesterday's meals looked like: 

( I didn't work out yesterday so I had to take it easy on the snacks, usually I snack more than this)

Breakfast: 1/2 cup oatmeal with 1 tsp brown sugar, 2 Tbs raisins, 1 Tbs chopped almonds and 1/2 cup of almond milk.

Snack: banana

Lunch: 1 egg + 2 egg whites scrambled with 4 slices deli turkey, 1/2 cup spinach, 1/4 cup reduced fat cheese and 1/4 cup of salsa.

Snack: Chobani Strawberry Banana Greek yogurt

Dinner: 7oz Salmon filet on a bed of Spinach with 1/2 cup of broccoli on the side.

Snack: Strawberry/raspberry smoothie made with 5 frozen strawberries, coconut extract, vanilla extract, 1/2 an orange, a packet of raspberry crystal light and 8 0z of water. SO YUMMY!!!

So yeah, I've been eating like that for the last 3 days and I'm feeling tons better and expect to see some good results on the scale next week. 

Training was good last week. We had a 15 miler for our long run and it definitely gave us a workout!

We stayed up late the night before so we could go to the Celtics opening game. Totally worth it!

The next morning we had a babysitter come at 9am and headed out with temps in the low 30's and a forecast for "freezing rain." I was nervous about the weather but once we got going it wasn't that bad. In the end we finished 15 miles with a 9:04 average pace. The course had a 997 ft elevation climb so we really worked for that 9 minute pace!

Also, my last 2 miles were 8:20 and 8:50 so I finished in negative splits. Woot!  

There was ice in my hair and as soon as I stopped moving I was freezing my buns off. I went inside and told the babysitter I needed her for 20 more minutes so I could change and warm my body back up.

It took 2 pairs of pants, a long sleeve shirt, a fleece jacket, and my winter coat to make me stop shivering.

Taber had even more layers than me though. He put on 2 shirts, a sweatshirt, his robe, his winter coat, and a blanket! I was laughing so hard when I saw him that I had to take a picture.

Once we were warm again we realized we were STARVING!! 

I started pulling stuff out of the fridge and making whatever food I could think off. I put some noodles on to boil for spaghetti but then pancakes sounded good too so I decided to do both. While I was waiting for them to cook I guzzled a coconut water, then drank a chocolate milk while I stuffed almonds and craisins in my face. Taber noshed on a giant sweet potato drenched in salsa and then we sat down to eat our carb-tacular feast.

The aftermath of our carb binge.

After we stuffed our faces we showered and then we were so wasted we made all the kids take a nap so we could crash too. We slept for 2 hours and then at last, we felt recovered. 

It was the longest run I've done since having Cam and it definitely took a lot out of me, but I felt great while I was running so I think the bigger issue was not sleeping a lot the night before and probably not fueling well enough during the run.

Anyway, here's the summary of week 7:

Monday: 4 miles of interval sprints on the treadmill: avg pace 8:03

Wednesday: 7 rough miles on the treadmill (ate too much junk that day): avg pace 8:21

Friday: Another torturous 4 miles on the treadmill due to crappy eating: avg pace 8:08

Saturday: 15 miles outside: avg pace 9:04

Hoping my treadmill runs will be a little more pleasant now that I'm eating better! 

Happy Wednesday everyone!