Mar 6/7 workouts

Mar 6: 7 miles (1:15:21 avg pace 10:46)  * in my old 2009s*  PLUS 25 x 4 sets push ups....
This run felt good. I kept the pace slow to ease any discomfort on that bone and it was fine the whole time! YAY!

Getting ready to start the run at dark o' thirty...

Beautiful trail 1/2 way thru my run...

upon which I saw this beautiful, totally unblemished apple. Weird. No I didnt pick it up and eat it though the idea DID cross my mind a time or two...

Lovely sunrise!

Headed over to the pond and someone was out feeding the ducks from their balcony...

Several ducks were sweeping in front and behind me to come get their share of the grub so I had to be extra vigilant so I didnt get T-boned!

More of the gorgeous God-painted picture....LOVE mornings like this

7 miles DONE and thrilled that my foot felt fine!

March 7: 4 miles (43:46-10:54 avg pace).... *wore my NEW 2009s*... also did 3 sets of planks (1:40-1:30-1:20)
This was quite a disappointment after yesterday's awesome run.  I decided to wear my new shoes since I hadn't worn them in over a week and my foot bone felt pretty good yesterday.
Well.
So I put on the shoes and was getting ready to head out the door and from the GET-GO, I knew I wasnt going to be able to run without the gloves. So I shove it in and head out. About 10 steps out the door, my RIGHT foot bone starts to hurt (I really wish I knew the name of this bone so you would know what I was talking about!!). So before I even started my run, I had to shove a glove in THAT shoe as well!! They both bugged me for the first 15 min of the run, but after that, they were fine. 

Anyway, here I am, needing to get in 15 miles this weekend for my long run and wondering what I should dress my feet with...Praying the Lord will give me guidance in this as I'm liable to just run in my flip flops and hope for the best!
=)

Anyway, enough of that. How about we talk food for a minute?  Here's some of what I've been shoveling in the ol pie hole this week...



There is an omelet with cheese wrapped up in that ham, with broccoli and cheese and some grapes on the side. Totally hits the spot and is only around 300-350 calories.

Green pepper slices and sun-dried tomato basil spread.

This spread was not only yummy with sliced raw veggies but was great on crackers, as a chip dip and in sandwiches.  Yum yum.

Homemade veggie soup ready to start a-cookin'! Trying to remember what I put in here...bag of frozen veggies (carrots/cauliflower/broccoli), sliced carrots, can of collard greens, an onion, a head of garlic, zucchini and celery. 

A cup is around 50 calories. It's a perfect lunch along side 1/2 a small sandwich (on lovely Ezekiel bread) and 1/2 an apple.

Not the healthiest dinner (below) but it sure was yummy!! I've discovered instead of dressing, I can mix a little dry ranch mix in with cottage cheese and top my salad with it and its just as yummy as regular ranch. Sometimes I sprinkle a little extra garlic salt on top to up the awesomeness.
I also made garlic bread on brat rolls (smear with a little butter, top with a little mozzarella and a sprinkle of garlic salt and then bake for 5 min at 400*. Then I topped it with meaty spaghetti sauce and a little more cheese (can you EVER have too much cheese?  Yeah. I didnt think so).

Its suppose to rain all day tomorrow and then a mix of snow/rain most of the day Sunday, so I THINK I may have to do my 15 miles on the *gulp*, TREADMILL!!!  Will I survive?  Stay tuned....

The good, the bad and the in between and a RACE REPORT!

Ok, so, wow. It's not that I dont love you running folk. I do. From the bottom of my ever-sweatin' heart. But I was kind of mad for awhile. Not really AT you 'uns. But at the fact that you were all able to run like the wind at any given moment, and here I was. STILL semi-injured. And STILL not being able to run as much as my carefree heart desired.
You could say I was throwing an inner hissy fit.

So anyway, I wont bore you with ALL the details, but if you remember, after my 10K on June 26, I didnt properly recover and was rewarded with some nice achy knees. So I was a good girl and took 1 whole week off of running. Went back into it nice and easy and was fine.
THEN.
The night of the 11th and 12th (July) I went for a HARD 10mi bike ride, (and the morning of the 12th I went for a 3mi run too), and then worked out pretty hard the morning of the 13th.
MAJOR knee-setback. grrrr.
But I was stubborn about it and just tried to do my runs easy and keep the miles low. Well, on July 22, it became apparent that wasnt going to help. So I ran just over 5miles (I was being onery-knew I wasnt going to be able to run for awhile so I wanted to get a longer-ish run in before that happened).
So, I took off another whole week and a day of running (only did VERY light cardio a couple times that week) and seemed to be doing ok. So I went for a run July 30th and felt pretty good.
I kept all my runs easy and kept the miles low and ran a few of the runs on the 'mill.
Things were lookin' good. So on the 12th (friday) I thought of hopping in on the 1/2 marathon plan so that I could maybe run the 1/2 on Sept 25th here in town.
On Sunday following, the plan had me running a 5K. Well I knew I wasnt ready for that, so I just planned a route of that distance, upped the pace JUST a bit and threw in a HUGE, long hill to make up for the fact that I couldnt go all out on the pace.
Welp.
that probably wasnt wise. Knees were pretty achy all day after that run AND the next day. So I took off another 4 days of running. I was getting nervous as I had a 5K race coming up Aug 27th (we'll get to that later). Ran again on the 19th and just kept the miles low and easy. Felt great.
Ran again on the 21st, still good. then again on the 24th. STILL good. Then the NIGHT before my 5K (last Friday) my left hammie was really tight all day. Not painful but REALLY tight.
I.Was.Scared.
I did a lot of praying that night and spent a lot of time in the bathroom (nervous fluttery tummy hit me with a vengance!) and the next morning my legs felt good. (tummy was a whole other story-dont know why I was so terribly nervous!)
Anyway, the lower body weight training has pretty much fallen off the map as I didnt want to risk a set back in my legs/knees. Upper body has stayed consistent and I have worked my way up to being able to do 400 crunches (100x4 sets), as well as 3 sets of planks for 90,80 and 70seconds. I have also switched to doing the 'real' pushups after having done week 6 of the hundred pushup challenge about 742 times in the modified push up form. I am doing 6x 5 sets 3 times a week. I am SO wimpy when it comes to upper body strength.

My weight has fluctuated during the last month or so, but I DID meet my goal of 100 during July and was actually down to 99.8! For one day at least =) I seem to hang around 101-102.8 alot, but I am ok with that (for now)..... =)

Here is a pic of one of my favorite night time snacks. Fresh fruit with a generous dollop of yogurt on top (1/2 plain greek and 1/2 vanilla)

THEN I discovered just how much more AMAZING that combo is when it has some Kashi thrown in. Oh my yum.

This is a common breakfast for me on non-running days. Big bowl of cut up fruit. About 150-200 calories depending on what I put in and I am SUPER stuffed after I eat it, but pretty hungry again about 2-3 hours later. So its the prefect amount of food for me on these days.

I read an awesome book called 'The Raw Food Detox Diet' and this is one of her recipes from in there. A homemade veggie soup w/ Ezekiel bread (with raw honey on top) on the side. This whole lunch was 300 calories (the soup is only 50 calories for 1 cup!) and it left me almost TOO stuffed. I love her book and would love to implement more of her ideas but I dont know how to make that work with my workouts (she emphasizes different food combining rules and eating only fruit til noon-which I like to do, but I feel I need more protein after my runs). I know there are people out there (athletes) who eat this way but my body seems to be more finiky. I may try it sometime though and see what happens.

I also checked out 'The Green Smoothie Revolution' and we liked a few different recipes of hers. I dont remember what all was in this smoothie but I know the veggie was kale and spinach. It was actually really good and my kids liked it too!

Ok, so ON TO THE RACE REPORT!

Ted E Bear Hollow 5K Aug 27, 2011 8:30am

My stats Time 27:20 Placed 3rd in my age group out of 33..... 52 overall out of 223

So I got there around 7:45, picked up my packet and head back to my car to put my bib on. Head back near the start line to wait for a couple of friends who were going to meet up with me

Met some very cute random dogs like this little snookums.

So I met up with my friends (it was their first race) and we chatted for a bit before race time.

This was a 10K and 5K so the 10K folks lined up and set off about 5minutes before we did (they went the opposite way as us on the course).

Then we all lined up and good golly was I nervous. My tummy is in a knot right now just thinking about it-so weird!! Anyway, I lined up WAY at the back like always (love to pass people, hate to BE passed). Heard the gun and we were off!

Due to the fact that I was at the back, it was slow going the first .2 miles or so which I think was good for me as I didnt start out too fast. Once we got on the trail, I started slowly picking people off one by one. (only got passed a few times the whole race). I actually ENJOYED the whole first 1/2 of the race, where as I usually HATE the 5K distance from start to finish as I am pushing it so hard. The back half of the race, I picked up the pace a bit but still felt good. But around 2.80 miles in I started to feel it.

Those thoughts started to enter my head 'Just walk for a minute and catch your breath' or 'who cares if you get passed, just stop' and 'I think I'm gonna pass out'.

So anyway, I powered past all that.

The last .10 there was a kid about 10 years old, just huffing and puffing and groaning and lookin' like a hurtin' unit. So I gave him a 'You're doing awesome! Finishline is just ahead, you can DO this!' as I passed him, and about 5 seconds later he ZOOMED past me like nascar racer! Little stinker =)

I finally felt like I had a kick left in me the last .05 miles so I turned on the boosters and rocketed to the finishline passing one guy as I did (I have a pic of his face looking at me as I did that-so funny, should have posted it)

No I did NOT run a 5K in 4:07, I dont even think I could run HALF a mile that fast, no clue why the clock says that. I give God all praise and glory for this run! No WAY could I have done this pain free with out him. this is over a minute slower then my 5K in April, but I have done NO speedwork for 2 months and have only done minimal, slow, low mileage runs, so I'll take it =)

Hubby surprised me by bringing the kiddos to the race and I got to see them at the finishline! I was BEYOND surprised and thrilled. Love these little guys.

I'd give you my splits and all that fun stuff but that little boy in front of me pushed the button on my garmin that made it start going again and I didnt realize it for a few minutes-little stinker.

Receiving my age group award.

They announced my name as placing 2nd but I really got 3rd. I actually ASKED them before all this if I had placed and if so what place I got, and they told me 3rd. Then they announced me as 2nd. I checked the online results the next day, and sure enough, it has me down as 3rd as well!

Next race on tap is a charity run on the 17th of September for a friend of friend who was in car accident in July (5K) and then the Susan G Komen Race for the Cure at the beginning of October. I am really bummed that I cant do the 1/2 marathon in September, but I just figure given what happened after that 'mock 5K' run I did, God was trying to tell me 'eh eh eh Anna, not gonna happen', so I'm fine with that =)

_____________________________

What races do you have planned for the fall? What races have you done this month?

Mar 23 workout and food stuff

Mar 23:
ELLIPTICAL 10.5mi, 50:00, 20min at level 1 and 2, 10min at level 3
LOWER BODY WEIGHTS...used 8# dumbbells for almost all of it! YAY ME!

Did the push up challenge last night and decided to repeat week 2 and add 2 push ups to each set, so I did 6/8/6/6 and on the last set I did 13. I always think I am doing well til I look over and see hubby cranking out an insane number of MANLY push ups like they're nothing. When I started this, I started at week 1, Column 1, He started on Week 4, column 3, so this week he started week 6 column 3 which means he did 45/55/35/30 and the last set he did 56. Crazysauce. PURE crazysauce. Maybe even with a side of Looneygravy.

So I did this post to show some of the healthy snacks I have been eating but I had to start by showing you this UBER yummy baked ziti dish I made recently. Yummiest. Thing. Ever. Made more epic by a side of homemade garlic bread.
Resist from licking the screen.

this is something I recently started doing (sometimes) to help me resist from eating a whole bag of naughtiness. I put my naughty foods in a baggie. This is 200 calories of reese's mini's, so i know i can eat ONLY out of this bag during the day if I want something sweet. Worked while I was doing it but I head dived out of the bandwagon. Need to hitch a ride again.

Here are some of the snacks I have been eating the last few weeks. I try to keep the calories between 100-200 per snack...

Don't be hatin' on the Lion King plate. Playing with the kiddos>doing dishes.

This was some pre-run fuel one day. That's 1/2 a pb and j sammy right there. Brings out the 6yr old in me. And I ran like I wanted to be the first one to the teeter totter afterwards.

Eyes were bigger than the tummy here. I had to save the yogurt for later.

I am trying (sort of) to eat healthier and eat less. I really REALLY want to lose this jelly belly but it's content to stay RIGHT where it is. I know my eating has to change. I am exercising enough so my eating has to be the only hold back. I am trying to stay right around or under 2,000. Most days I make it and when I go over, its usually only 100-200 calories more. I think part of the problem is I eat too much at one time. Keeping a food log has helped. But I tend to eat WAY too much at a meal and then make up for it by eating less at the next meal but that doesnt take away the fact that I ate too much at that previous meal, at which I am assuming my body stored all those extra calories as fat since I overate, yes?

So, how do you guys resist overeating?

What are your favorite HEALTHY and SIMPLE meals and snacks (I'm a mom of 5 remember so it HAS to be simple) =)