Hanging in there...

This last week of training has been just that, a week of training. Nothing huge has happened, no major PRs or anything else exciting. I've been trying to increase the days that I cross train but I'm having a hard time finding a good schedule. Hopefully once the kids get back into school I can figure something out. I used to go to a CrossFit class, and I loved it, but scheduling was a nightmare and then there's the fact that I was super intimidated by everyone else there. I've been going to a bootcamp type of class, the instructor used to actually teach CrossFit so we do a lot of the same workouts, just not the olympic lifting. Anyways, I try to get to her class whenever I can but schedules, kids, and summer time is not my friend right now.

This last week Sara has been completing her Ragbrai race. She's filled me in on the way and I don't want to steal her thunder so I'll let her post about it, sounds like they had fun though!

Last week was my 6th week of training. At this point I'll be increasing my mileage every other week. The week in between I'll be what Jeff Galloway calls 4 miles and the "Magic Mile". The MM is where you time your first mile and you basically run as fast as you can, then there's an equation that you use to figure out what your finish time would be for a 10K, half marathon, etc based on what your MM was. This week was my first MM and I finished it in 13:00. Not as good as I'd hoped but I know that time will just improve. I continued on to finish my other four miles and finished with a 14:15 min/mile pace. This is definitely slower then I normally run but I think the MM took a lot of my juice in the beginning. It also states that you should run the MM on a flat surface, well I didn't want to run around the high school track so I run on my hilly country road.

I have decided to change up my running intervals... again. I'm trying to run for longer times so I'll bump my intervals up to 0:45/0:45 this next week and then hopefully increase my running length by 15 seconds every week. It will be interesting to see how it goes.

I think one reason this last week hasn't been so awesome was because my mentality was lacking. It's not the I'm doubting myself but I've been tired and trying to finish up the last couple of weeks of my school semester. When I saw this quote it really spoke to me. Sometimes you just have to tell yourself to shut up and get with the program.

An Epiphany and Believing in Yourself

This week starts my 6th week of training for the half marathon in November. At times I think I'm not progressing but when I look back I can see that I've made huge improvements. The end of my first week I was had an average pace of 14:55 per mile, now I'm running about 13:47 per mile! My goal for running the half marathon is between a 12:00 and 12:30 pace, I'm pretty confident I can keep that pace. My treadmill runs are a bit faster than that but I'm much faster on the treadmill. I actually have two different PR times, one for treadmill and one for my outside runs. If only I could run as fast outside!! Oh well, I'll get there!

This last weekend I ran my first 10K distance, actually I did 6.5 miles. The coolest part was that I ran in the rain, and not just a sprinkle but full blown downpour. I had considered just running on the treadmill but I had good friend point out that running in the rain was good for the soul, he was so right! It was probably the most enjoyable run I've done so far. I PR'd my fastest outside mile as well as my 5K. While I was out I had an epiphany, I was turning into a hardcore runner! Whenever I passed runners in the rain I would think, "Man, they're dedicated and hardcore." It didn't occur to me that I had turned into one. I recently read an article about 10 things that runners needed to quit. One of them was to stop thinking negatively and stop minimizing your running efforts. Just because I do run/walk intervals doesn't mean I'm not a runner. I can keep up with those that run the whole time but I can almost guarantee that I'm feeling better at the end of my run! (That's one of the biggest reasons I went with the Jeff Galloway training method.) I also had the first opportunity to use a Gu gel. It's basically a little pack of heaven that replenishes the electrolytes lost due to sweating. I was a bit nervous to try them, I had heard mixed reviews. I'm a huge chocoholic so that's the first flavor I tried, it was like manna from heaven half way through my run. I'm sure the boost from it was just as mentally invigorating as it was physically, it was tasty!

This morning I completed my training run and I have to admit, it was rough. I did 30 intervals at alternating speeds of 5.7 and 6.0 mph, I guess you could say that I was speed training. Anyways, the first half was okay but the second half I really had to push myself. The whole time I kept telling myself that I could keep going and that I was going to PR my treadmill mile and my 5k time. When it was all said and done, I didn't do either of those. In fact, I didn't go nearly as far as I thought I had. At first I was really disappointed in myself. But when I actually thought about it and looked at my times, I was spot on for the average pace I want to run in the half marathon. I just need to keep working and doing my speed training so that I can improve my street running times.

What did I learn today? Progress is progress! Don't diminish the the work I've done because it may not have been as much as I'd hoped. I got out there and I finished my training run!!

On that note, I saw this cute cartoon and couldn't resist posting it. Disney World recently released that the kids runs and the 5K will be "Frozen" themed. I think that announcement made every little kid want to run in the kids race!

How many calories do you burn riding 500 miles?

Well, we head out tomorrow. I seriously hope my 100 miles of "training" is enough to cut it for this 500+ mile ride. 

Things I'm excited for:

Nature

Real camping

-not texas camping in a cabin...roughing it camping in tents and everything! Wahoo!! This is what I grew up on and I'm thrilled to be outdoors camping for a week.

Burning thousands of calories!

Getting this over so I can start training for my princess half!!!!

It's Official!

Well ladies and gents, it's official, Sara and I are signed up to run the Disney Princess Glass Slipper Challenge AND the 5K races! First off I just have to say how stressful it was to register! I knew that the servers were going to be packed and that I was going to have to wait but man oh man. I was on the computer at 10:30, a full half an hour before registration opened because I had heard that sometimes registration will open early. So there I was, refreshing my browser every few minutes. As soon as 11:00 came up BAM! I can't even begin to remember how many times I got an error code from my browser or that I had completed the registration, click continue to pay, and then have my shopping cart say it was empty. I had my laptop and my iPad going at the same time since I was registering Sara and I, then my mom for the 5K, and my three girls for the kids races. Finally, after 80 minutes I had everyone registered. I was so ready for a xanax. And just so you can get an idea of how crazy registration is, the Glass Slipper Challenge was sold out in under three hours. As of tonight, only 9 hours after registration opened, the Challenge, half, and 10K are all sold out. Insane.

 

I'm so excited though!!! If you now me, you'll know that I'm a Disney freak, I love going there, I love the happiness and magic that occurs there, and I LOVE seeing my family's faces while we're there. Fabulous, just fabulous!!!

On top of that, I think Sara and I are going to try and go to Disneyland in May to run the Tinkerbell 1/2 Marathon and get the snazzy Coast to Coast medal! I'm just going to start feeding my family ramen noodles or sell my children to Disney to pay for it all...

Training to eat

Growing up I was always RIDICULOUSLY skinny. I ate what I wanted, when I wanted. And I went through phases of anorexia and all the psychological issues behind that.

When my depression was diagnosed in 2011, I gained insight to why I was the way I was. Eating has always been a struggle but at least I felt validated for not eating. Anyway, I still have a hard time feeling good about food. 

Training is so hard because of my unhealthy relationship with food. I'll have energy and want to go ride or run...but halfway through my body gives up from lack of energy in my body. So then I chug one of those food packets for a burst and barely make it home.

And then I crash on the couch or wherever I find acceptable. 

I keep hearing that exercising will give you more energy...and I keep waiting for that to happen. 

So what's a girl to do? I guess I'm going to end up making a meal plan. The challenge will be sticking to it..

Wish me luck. Any suggestions?

-Sara

Discouragement...

This week has been rough, I'm not going to lie. I don't know how many times I've thought to myself that I was crazy for thinking that I can run a half marathon. Then to think that last week I told Derek I wanted to run the Disney World marathon on 2016, yeah, not good thoughts on my part. So let me tell you about my past week's training...

Tuesday I did my warm up and then had programmed 15 intervals of 0:45/1:00. I did it the week before, it's been my regular interval range for the last few runs. Oh my gosh, I thought I was going to die. My training schedule calls for 30 minute runs on Tuesday/Thursday then the longer one on Saturday. Normally I don't count my 10 minutes of warming up & cooling down as a part of those 30 minutes but I did on Tuesday. I was so tired the entire run, I kept looking at my watch to see how much longer there was left on the interval and almost crying when it said I still have 15 seconds to go! How is that possible?!  I feel like I just ran a whole mile and it's only been 30 seconds!!! It's okay, it's okay I told myself, I'm sure my muscles were still just sore from my 5 miles on Saturday. I've found this is my excuse every time my legs hurt is that it's from long run. I survived but didn't love how I felt afterwards and just told myself I'd do better on Thursday.

Then there was yesterday, what was supposed to be a rest day. But I'm beginning to enjoy running and find that I have much more energy and patience on the days I run so I thought I'd take a quick jog on the good ole treadmill. Yup, I made it a mile before I called it quits. Honestly though, I think part of the problem was that I was starving before I even started. The other problem was my stupid mentality, I just couldn't get over how tired I was and that it was technically my rest day and that I didn't want to overstress my legs, blah, blah, blah. Yup, just kept piling it on.

Now, onto today. I told myself that I was going to make up for my crappy runs on Tuesday & Wednesday and do 20 intervals not including warm up and cool down. Oh my holy Hannah, that for sure didn't happen. I was doing good, I hit my usual mental block about a mile in but I just couldn't get over it. I was sluggish, my speed was slower then I normally do and I ended up skipping my last 5 running intervals, even before I skipped those I had increased my walking time to two minutes for the previous 3 intervals. Needless to say I was so, so discouraged after my run today.

But I do have a theory; this last week I've been logging my food and trying to watch what I eat. Since I started running I've gained about 9 pounds which I think was due to the fact that I was over compensating for the calories I was burning while running. You know, the "Oh sure, I can have a HUGE bowl of ice cream because I ran this morning!" Haha, joke is on me. I actually think that maybe I didn't get enough to eat yesterday or enough carbs last night at dinner. I'm going to try eating a banana or something before I run to see if that helps. I'm not one to eat breakfast before running so I'll have to see how this goes.

I was scrolling through Facebook earlier today and saw that a friend had posted this quote and it was exactly what I needed to hear today. I may have had a crappy week of training but I'm going to keep going and I KNOW that I'm only going to improve. Happy Running!

Shin Splints, Ice Baths, and a 5 Miler

After my post last week when I said I enjoyed running I should have known it was going to come back and bite me in the butt! I had horrible shin splints this last week. I'm sure it was due to my long run last week. In order to help alleviate the pain I've incorporated more stretching, some calf compression sleeves, KT tape, and even ice baths. Yes, I said ice baths. The first time was frigid and I only lasted about 5 minutes on each leg. Then I did some research and discovered I should be putting my legs in the water and then adding the ice. Once I did it this way it was much more pleasant, well as pleasant as an ice bath can be I guess.

This last week was my third week of training and it went really well despite the shin splints. Tuesday I ran just over 3 miles and on Thursday I did 4.25 miles! I was actually surprised I'd gone this far, I just plugged along with my intervals and alternated my running speed between 5.5 and 6.0 MPH on my treadmill. I knew that there was a difference between running on a treadmill and road running but I'm really beginning to see just how big of a difference. My average pace while road running is anywhere from 1:30 to 2:00 minutes longer then my treadmill pace. Granted, I slow things down when I run outside because I'm more concerned about getting the distance in but still.

This past Saturday was my longest run to date, 5 miles. It was actually about 5.5 after you throw in my warm up and cool down but on my longer runs I only time the actual distance. All in all, the run was really good. The weather has been very uncharacteristic for the summer in Florida. Normally the humidity is ridiculous even at 5:00 AM but these last few Saturdays have been perfect for outdoor running, the running gods must be smiling at me! I was about a mile and a half in when I hit a mental wall. I kept thinking that my legs were too sore and that I should really stop so I didn't hurt myself and while maybe some of that is true, I basically told my self to shove it and suck it up. After those few minutes I was good to go! My goal was to finish in under an hour and fifteen minutes and I clocked in at 1:12, I was ecstatic! Week 4's long run is actually a short run of 3 miles and then the week after I jump up to 6.5 miles. I'm already mapping my route!

One other thing I've been struggling with is that I've gained about 7 pounds since I started running! While I know that many do gain weight, usually muscle when they're training, I just don't think that is the case for me. One part of me is really disappointed because I had recently hit a 35 pound weight loss and only had 15 pounds to my goal weight and now it's back up again. My plan? Start logging what I eat and make sure I get some weight training in on my off running days. I used to do CrossFit and I really enjoyed it, then all my favorite instructors left. One started her own bootcamp class that I really like but between my hubby and I both doing our masters degrees, he's working, and my kids at home, it's hard to get there. I'm just going to have to make it more of a priority! I'm looking forward to August when my ALL of my kids are in school so then I can do my running outside more often and I don't have to worry about other workout class times.

Sara's big bike race is coming up and I know the humidity in Houston is just killing her training! Keep your fingers crossed for her!