The past week...

10 mi run with the buds!

It has been a good week. Temps have been cooler here in the good ol Cornhusker state, going as far as to feel a bit fall like. After several record breaking HOT days this summer, we actually broke a record on the 17th that hasnt been matched in over a hundred years-the low was 48*. FORTY EIGHTY degrees! In August!! In Nebraska!!!  Pinch me now.

Aug 10, Friday: 11mi bike ride. Triple B today. Bike-bible-banana.  Odd combo? Maybe. But it was awesome. Rode out about 5.5 miles, stopped for a Banana Break (Ha! Another 'b'!) and to read my Bible. Had that on my check list of things to do-read my bible on a ride. (Well, not ON a ride, I'm definitely no where NEAR that realm of coordinated). 

Aug 12, Sunday: 7 mi run (10:48 avg pace). 'Twas weird. I had cramps, twinges and tightness in all sorts of strange places the first 4-5 miles of this run. It was like an alien was trying to take over my body.  Had to walk a few times. BUT I am proud that I stuck with it and got it done. I felt fine later (nothing a little chocolate wouldnt fix-just not after midnight)  =)

Aug 14, Tuesday: 2  mi warm up (9:48 avg pace), 2.1mi tempo (8:28 avg pace), 75 push ups (25 x 3 sets)  It was 56* at 6am this morning. I really thought I might have heard a chorus of angels as I stepped outside that morning. Or maybe that was just crazy people who live in my head. Potato Potawto.

Aug 15, Wednesday: 10 min warm up on the elliptical (2.2mi), upper and lower body weights, 3 sets planks (100-90-80 seconds each), 3 sets wall squats (1 min each)  I can get thru a whole lot of punishment in the pain cave with Jon and Kate plus 8 yelling in my ear.  Is that weird?

Aug 16, Thursday: 4mi run with friends (10:44 avg pace, 153 avg HR)  I think this was our 2nd time to run on this new trail (its the same trail I use to bike). It was a great run as it was a nice morning and its always fun to run with friends. Its also nice that they put up with my mindless chatter. God love 'em.

Aug 17, Saturday: 10 mi run (10:44 avg pace 163 avg HR)  It was 50* this morning when I met up with my running friends (see pic above). Chilly!  It was sort of dark and creepy when we first started out around the lake. I was totally prepared for all manner of ghost, goblin or grizzly bear to jump out of the shrubbery at us with me using my scrunchie like a sling shot as my only line of defense.  Ok Ok, maybe not the grizzly bear, that's a little far fetched....But we came thru unscathed. My friend Deb also came along on her bike and kept us company (that's her hubby in the picture with us).  It was a glorious morning after we warmed up.  I had planned to do around 8 (or 7.4 since that is what one time around the Lake will get 'cha), but opted to do the full 10 with my friends (the 2 people flanking me have never done 10 miles before so it was kind of a big deal for them and I felt honored to be sharing the occasion with them!) 

I have my next race coming up this weekend. It's the Ted E Bear Hollow Race and it was the first 5K I ever participated in WAAAAY back in Aug 2010. My time that year was 32:19, last year it was 27:xx (I dont really remember) so I am hoping I can keep it in the 27s again this year or drop it down a bit.

Food has been hit or miss this week. I have had a couple 'hey that wasnt so bad!' kind of days and then I had other days where I feel like my face never left the refrigerator (or the chip bag. or the cookie box)....why cant apples taste like reese's peanut butter cups?!

Here I am!

Well, I thought it would be fitting to post here now since its ALMOST my one year anniversary from posting. That has to be SOME kind of record, right? I'm really surprised my blog hasn't rusted over and become inusable. But alas, I can pick it up, dust it off and get it working for me again. Thank you Jesus for technology.

Well, what's happened this year?

I ran The Papillion 1/2 marathon for the 2nd time (and my 2nd 1/2 marathon EVER). Last year my time was 2:08 and change, this year, 1:59 and change!!! I really didnt think I had it in me. This course is pretty hilly and is pretty much all up the hill the last 1.5 miles.  TOUGH stuff. Felt like I was going to 'de-food' so I knew I gave it my all.  Yay me.

Then 8 days later I ran the BoysTown Memorial Day 5 mile which is pretty hilly and WOW was it tough. Hilly, a later race (start time was 8:30) LOTS of spots with full sun AND just coming 8 days off my 1/2.  BUT I did it in under 50 minutes (9:05 avg) so I was cool wid' it.

                                             BOYSTOWN 5 mi run May 2012

And just for added cuteness, here's my little boy running around the track in the fieldhouse after the race. I believe this was lap 3 or 4-he's a MANIAC and I think he's going to be lightening fast like his Papa (cuz the good Lord KNOWS that doesnt come from me!) =)

Since then I have only run one other race. The Siena Francis House 5K/10K (I do the 10K cuz I'm a rockstar like that).  Last year I placed in my age group and my overall pace was around 8:50 I believe. This year I placed again but my overall pace was around 9:50!! Crazy what 80* temps and FULL sun will do to your pace...*irked*  BUT I gave it all I had for that day and that's all I can ask. And hey, I DID get my picture taken with a TROPHY so at least people will THINK I was fast.  =)

Overall though, this has been a hard 4-5 months. I've gotten off the good eatin' bandwagon and have resorted back to my 'anti-portion control' self.  Workouts have been good though. I'm running 3-4 days a week, doing weights 1-2x a week (depending on how often I bike), biking 1-2x a week) and TRYING to get 1 rest day in there. Earlier this year I was up to doing 100 push ups! Ok ok, so its 20 reps x 5 sets, but still. Last year around this time I could BARELY do one push up, so this is quite an improvement! The most I did this year at one time was 40, but then my shoulder felt wonky the next day so I decided I JUST might not be ready for THAT kind of punishment.  Now I am doing around 80 push ups 2x a week.

Anyway, I am hoping to be more consistent in my random jottings here and thereby HOPEFULLY encouraging myself to get back on the right track and leave this 'whole-pack-of-cookies' nonsense in the dust!

Any tips or words of encouragement welcome!!!

Sept 1, 2 and 3

Sept 1 Elliptical 35:00 7.75mi
upper body weights
planks (90, 80, and 70 seconds)
5 sets of man push ups 7,7,7,7,10
300 crunches

Sept 2 Elliptical 30:00, 6.7mi

Sept 3 5.79mi run, 1:03:30 (10:57 avg pace) Splits 1(10:37) 2(10:20) 3(10:35-we picked up another runner here) 4(11:14) 5(11:18) .79(11:51-we walked about the last .10 miles of this-forgot to stop my watch, oops!)
............Ran this run around a local lake that is pretty popular with runners. (The pic at the top of my home page is a picture of one arm of the path on this trail)

Was to meet up with a friend at 6:30, run 2 with her, and then meet back up with another group to run 4-5 at 7am.

Meet up with my friend at 6:30 and it was raining pretty good with lots of lightening. there were runners coming from every direction to seek shelter under the eaves of the bathroom building. The parking lot was pretty packed at 6:30, that was kind of cool.

So we sat in her car and chatted (she didnt want to run in the rain which I was cool with. It was great to catch up). Then I saw my friend at 7 and got out and ran almost 6 miles with her (around mile 2.7 we saw another friend of mine who joined up with us).
I really like running wih other people but I think the bigger the group, the better so I can have a chance to catch my breath while other people talk =)
It started to really pour while we were running and I actually really enjoyed it! HARDCORE BABY!! =)

I am hoping to run again either Labor Day morning if my knees give me the go-ahead, or Tuesday morning.

Aug 30 and 31st workouts

Aug 30: elliptical 10 minutes, 2 miles
'mill hike 20 minutes, 1.2 miles
planks for 90, 80, and 70 seconds
5 sets of 'man' push ups: 7,7,7,7,10
upper body weights

Aug 31:3mi run, 41:43 (no that is not a typo), 13:53 avg pace
................a lesson learned today, if you are going to run with a group, MIGHT be a good idea to find out the pace they plan to run at before you commit. I was suppose to run with a friend of mine (new friend-only ran with her once before-she headed the LifeGate race that I ran back in April). She and a couple other ladies were going to meet at a lake close to my house at 5:30 this morning. She said they (the other ladies) would probably run a slower pace but she would run 10:30 with me (which is about the pace I hoped to keep this morning).
I got there and met the other 2 ladies-SUPER nice. We wait for 10minutes and the other gal hasnt shown up, so we decided to head out on our own. Ya wanna know the splits? Mile 1-13:13, Mile 2-14:39, Mile 3-13:49...It was really hard for me to run this slow AND I had a time restraint as well. One of the gals normally runs around an 11min mile she told me at the end, but the other gal said this was actually a little speedy for her, so she must run closer to a 15min mile.
It was pretty dark there at 5:30 and thankfully one of the gals had a flashlight (apparently the gal who was suppose to come wears a head lamp thing-a-ma-bob and brings her big Rottweiler with her. However, we felt brave enough to give it a go with a little ol' handheld beam and our own hands for defense. I think the only thing I could have beat up this morning would have been a questionably shaped bush).
I am running with this same group again Saturday morning but it will be a larger group and I think I have some 'outside' friends who are coming along. I'm kind of looking forward to it! PLUS it will be light out this time so if I need to run ahead, I'll feel comfortable doing that.

Most likely I'll be doing some upper body and core work tomorrow and maybe some cross training (mill hike or elliptical).

My girls took my Garmin out again today. They ran a full 1/2 mile this time (Monday it was like .42 miles) and dropped their pace down from 11:30 to 10:18. They were pretty proud of themselves =)

Raising the next generation right? YOU KNOW IT!!

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?

Past week

It has been SO nice to put one foot in front of the other in a speedy fashion. Oh running how I have missed thee!! Still easing myself back into it, but it feels nice none the less. Here are the workouts for the last week...

July6: Elliptical 40min, 8.6mi, situps 50x3

July 8: 2.5mi 'mill run, 27:15 (in my old shoes), sit ups, planks (75,70, 65 seconds), week 6 day 1 of the 100 pushup challenge

July 10: 4.5mi run, 48:24 (10:45 pace) in my old shoes, Splits: 1(11:08) 2(10:33) 3(10:44) 4(10:26), .5 (11:07 pace)...it was quite humid this day but I am thankful I got out before the ABSURD heat set in

July 11: 1.45mi 'mill hike (3-10%), 25:00.....4.65mi tempo elliptical, 20:00....lower body weights (only used 5# weights as its my first time coming back to lower body weights in 2 weeks)....sit ups/ planks (75,70, 65) and week 6 day 1 of the 100 pushup challenge. PLUS I managed to squeeze in a 10mi bike ride before putting the kids to bed! YAY!!!

July 12: 3mi 'mill run 31:30 (new shoes), upper body weights, 3x70 crunches (the 2nd set was alternating knee twists-I did 140 of those so it would be like 70 per side)

With not running for all of the last week, and not really watching too closely what I was eating, I put on 4#'s !! I was so discouraged as I was ONE pound away from my goal of 100#'s. PLUS my mom made FRESH zucchini bread for our yard sale last weekend and *I* made snickerdoodles, so needless to say 1 or 42 of them got eaten by me. No seriously, from the time I got up on Saturday until dinner I ate and ate and ate (all zucchini bread and snickerdoodles!!) whoops.
I was 105# Sunday morning and really watched what I ate that day (day ended w/ a total of around 1,230 calories) and I was 104.8 the next morning (Mon)....did well again yesterday (a little higher though-ended a little over 1,400) and I was 104# this morning so I am hopeful I can get back down to 101 in a week or two.
I've been trying to eat healthy meals, which usually isnt a problem for me, its just all that inbetween meal snacking!
Here was my snack yesterday:

1/4c 1% cottage cheese, about 1/2 a cucumber, a few baby carrots, 4 cherries, and 1/2 a nectarine (holy buckets that nectarine was SOOOO good!!)

I am hoping today to keep the calories under 1,400, though under 1,300 would be even better =)


Hope you are all doing well with your fitness and nutrition goals!

NOT RUNNING MAKES ME CRANKY!!

This gal 'bout sums up how I feel about havin to take a running break....

>Thanks Google images for the picture<

I am taking a full 7 day off running. I think I came VERY close to injury last week in my post-race stupidity.
After running the 10K race on Sunday I proceeded to do a HARD elliptical and 'mill workout the following day and a lower body weights workout (should have rested on this day TOTALLY).
THEN I ran 6 miles IN NEW SHOES on Tuesday (should have done a VERY light elliptical workout this day)....My legs felt VERY sore this whole day....
SHOULD HAVE rested for a couple days AFTER this but I still cross trained on Wed and Thursday and did a EASY 4.5 mi run on Friday, as shown below on my Garmin data....isnt that a purty run? Looks like some type of tractor or somethin 'farmish'....

Anyway, my knees starting REALLY bothering me after that run and I KNEW that I was THIS CLOSE to injury....my plan to was to take a FULL rest day Saturday, stay off my feet as much as possible, then do my long run on Sunday as normal but in my old shoes...BUT I thought better of it and took Saturday AND Sunday off. Total rest days. I had forgotten how grumpy they make me. I need to get a good sweat on to rid myself on the crank monster.
ANYWAY, I did a very easy 35min elliptical workout on Monday morning (wanted to do an hour but thought that might be too much). Knees were still hurting afterwards. THIS morning I did 35min again but went harder and my knees actually feel almost normal! I am going to wait til Friday to run and then I am only going to do 2-3 VERY easy miles on the treadmill.(Boo.)


Last Thursday was my youngest daughters birthday. She turned 6! WHERE has the time gone??
Anyway, we made homemade brownies (which called for 2 CUPS of sugar-good grief!!) and our famous hot fudge sundae crockpot cake. Which I ate WAY to much of. I made 2 batches and I ate almost a WHOLE batch myself in a day! Woah.



However, I DID negate some of the damage by having THIS for snack that same day, that's GOTTA count for something, right??

The girls looking thru the fireworks before lighting. At which time they all proceeded to cover their ears and sustain that position for the next 30minutes.

Ok, thats not ENTIRELY true, my older 2 are getting a bit better about airing their ears out for small stretches of time during the pyro-palooza.

They went to their first 4th of July parade this year (actually first of ANY type of parade) and they LOVED it. These little cars were a favorite. They called them 'Mario and Luigi'. Can you guess which Wii games are a favorite right now? =)

WORKOUTS

July 1: 4.5mi run 49:18 (10:58) Splits 1(11:18) 2(11:02) 3(10:48) 4(10:51) .5(10:37 pace)....sit ups, plank (70,65,60), 100 push up challenge week 6 day 3

July 4: elliptical 7.7mi 35 minutes

July 5: elliptical 7.9 mi 35 minutes.....sit ups, planks (75,70,65), 100 push up challenge week 6 day 1