Tuesday, July 30, 2013

Training Tuesday 7/30/13


This link-up is just a way to talk about training [in any way, for anything] to help hold ourselves accountable and possibly brag a bit. I mean, you ran 1 mile without stopping – you totally deserve a chance to brag about it! That shit is hard. You did 10 push-ups in a row, HOLLLEERRR.


My Training

7/23: 30 minutes on the elliptical doing interval training. I sweated a lot more than I thought I would.
7/24: Nothing.
7/25: Nothing.
7/26: 2.43 mile run on the ol’ treadmill in 30 minutes. My pace has been pretty steady in the mid 12 minute range per mile and I haven’t really been pushing to be faster lately.
7/27: Toddler chasing. It’s a legit workout I swear.
7/28: I started Jillian Michael’s Killer Abs workout and then the kid woke up, and she was not having me finish any kind of work out.
7/29: Nothing

I’m currently trying to work out a training plan for the fall. Or rather, training plans. (Hopefully I’ll have something in the coming week to bounce off you guys).I have 5ks, 10ks, and one half that I had already registered for before I jumped off into the crazy bin by declaring I wanted to do a marathon. I’m trying to make an overall large plan that incorporates all those, but still has me focusing on the next run. Does that make sense?

Right now, I know I will have at least one cross-training day with Mojgan. And then for sure one of my runs will incorporate some type of speed work up until my half-marathon. Since I’ve ran a handful of shorter distance races, I think I can handle adding that instead of just focusing on the distance. My plan is to only focus on distance/endurance after the half since at that point it will be miles longer than 13.1.

Weird.

I want to say thank you to all of you who have directed me towards plans that you have used or any advice you’re handing out. Keep ‘em coming. Much like my pregnancy I want to know everything. Some people don’t like knowing everything, but I do. I feel more prepared and then when things don’t turn out just right I can say “Well, at least this didn’t happen.”

Optimism. Ha. Let’s see how far that gets me in the coming months.

Tell me what’s going on in your neck of the woods.

Any new distances in your fall schedule??

Friday, July 26, 2013

Every Pound is a Victory

In my post on Tuesday, I mentioned I had recently lost 6 lbs.

Which may not seem like a lot, but dudes, if you’ve ever tried losing weight you know that’s not the case. Every pound is a victory. Every pound gone is punch in the face of fat, and that feels pretty damn good.

Except on days when chili-cheese fries are involved. Those are the days that I’m like “COME TO ME FAT! ALLOW ME TO MAKE ROOM FOR YOU IN MY THIGHS, FOR I LOVE THEE!” #truetalk

Anyway, back to losing 6 lbs. You know, the 6 lbs I lost in only 10 days without having the flu, or starving myself, or cutting a deal with the devil all because of this:

It’s a 10 day cleanse. I know, I know, it sounds like I’m selling out but I’m not. It legit worked and I wasn’t (forgive my vulgarity) shitting up a storm because of it. Have any of you ever tried a cleanse that hasn’t had you reading the back of the same shampoo bottles for hours at a time?

Yeah, didn’t think so.

Basically, the guidelines for this are as follows:

Day 1-3, and Days 8-10: Fiber Drink. They have two flavors, Citrus & Peaches and Cream. I got Peaches & Cream and while it was not exactly wonderful going down, it was loads better than the Citrus (I tried this right after Lillie but I didn’t complete it).

Days 4-10: ProBiotic Restore Ultra. These are capsules that promote happy bacteria in your intestinal tract, helps with digestion and balances you out.

Days 1-7: Herbal Cleanse Tablet. Helps rid your body of crap.

It also says for best results to drink water, eat fresh fruits & veggies and avoid fried foods and that if you do this 80% of the time, you’ll see results.

I’d say I did it for about 60% of the time, which kind of pisses me off because if I would have done 80% I wonder if I would have lost more. But dudes, weekends. That’s all that needs to be said about my 60%.

It’s been a week since I’ve finished this, and the weight is still off. I didn’t change my diet drastically, although I did start drinking more water and thanks to another great product, Spark, I’ve been able to cut my soda intake/addiction to like nothing.

IMG_1869 I’ll write more about Spark in another post (because it’s awesome enough that it deserves that much.) Even my husband (who hates all things that are even perceived to be healthy) loves it.

In fact, he loves the products we’ve used already so much he let me become a distributor.

What’s that mean?

I now sell Advocare products, not because I have too or some sponsor asked me too, but because I legit like the stuff and I really think it will help me lose weight/meet my running goals. (They even have gels!)

I actually bought a domain. I don’t even have one for my blog that I’ve been writing on for years.

www.thesparkrunner.com

If you’re interested in more information regarding the cleanse, comment below (and if you’re anonymous or a no-reply blogger please leave your email) and I can give you the nitty gritty about it all.

Here’s to a great weekend!

Tuesday, July 23, 2013

Training Tuesday 7.23.13


This link-up is just a way to talk about training [in any way, for anything] to help hold ourselves accountable and possibly brag a bit. I mean, you ran 1 mile without stopping – you totally deserve a chance to brag about it! That shit is hard. You did 10 push-ups in a row, HOLLLEERRR.


My Training
I think I only worked out once last week, okay, wait no, I don’t think I did. Unless you count my race I had on Saturday (a 5k). Oh, and I did run 2.4 miles yesterday. So, 5.5 miles this past week – not wonderful, but definitely not horrible (please remember these are my own standards, and have no relation to whether you did 0, 1, or 20 miles. In any case, you’re fucking awesome. ‘nuff said.)

I’m trying to amp up and get ready to increase my mileage for the fall race season. I haven’t ran anything further than 3 miles in months. Which normally wouldn’t be a big deal, but I’ve got some training schedules to pound out.

Specifically, a marathon training schedule. No, I haven’t signed up for one, but I plan on it. It’s just narrowing down the one I want, waiting for registration to open, and then downing a cold one before I hit “PAY REGISTRATION FEE” to make it official.

I’m trying to figure out the weeks between some of my fun runs & my longer distance runs, so I don’t stray so far off track that I’m dead by mile 15.

Ha, mile 15. Is it weird that I got a little excited when I typed that?

Did you say no? You must be a runner.

Did you say yes? Then it looks like I need to get on the motherfucking ball and sign you up to run with me. :)

Other news

  • My dear friend, Katie from State of Change, is now a certified personal trainer! She is offering a wonderful special on her facebook page for 50% off online training plans. And yes, I totally already emailed her to see what she could do for me. I trust her that much. You can shoot her an email or better yet, like her FB page. You won’t regret it. I promise. (This is not sponsored in any way, like I said, I just believe in her and what she’s doing.)
  • I’ve lost 6 lbs! More on how & what I did & how I swear I’m not a sell-out later this week.
  • I wore pink shorts to work out in today. Nothing special about them other than they’re new and made me feel super good.

Link up and let me know how your training is going!

Friday, July 19, 2013

Mudquest 2013

I’m a lot little late in posting this considering I ran this back in May and it’s now July.

Oops?

I always try to wait on race pictures so I have something to show you and in this case, I waited, and waited and when they finally came I just kept putting it off.

If there were a procrastinator gene, I’m sure I’d have it.

I ran the 2 miler last year, they ended up nixing that distance, so we opted for the 3.5 mile instead. And by we, I mean, Sar from Life of Love, Christine (no blog, but she ran it with me last year!) and me.

IMG_1517 Sar, me, Christine with our finisher medals

They also had a 6.5 & 13.1 mile course (they also had a course for children). The 6.5 was the same loop we did for ours just done twice. I’m not sure if the 13 mile course was any different. It was tough and by the time we finished (1 1/2 hours later) I was glad I didn’t opt to do the 6.5 miler. They have really upped their game for this mud run since the 2 miler I did last year (I think that was the first one they held).

They had 20-30 obstacles. Here’s a couple from their website & facebook:

They had a 10 foot high platform you climbed up and jumped off into an 8 foot mud pond, it was pretty damn scary but was such a rush. And this huge slide that could totally compare to something at Schlitterbahn Water Park except you only climb up some stairs for that, and here you climbed up rolling muddy hills for like 20 minutes. 

Mudquest 2013 This was the only picture I could find of myself from the photographers. That shirt? Yeah, it was white when we started out. It was completely brown within the first two minutes.

Between waiting to go through obstacles, going through obstacles and trying our best not to fall and bust our ass, we finished in around 1:30. We ran to each obstacle as best we could, but mud is kind of a bitch to navigate so the definitely were not ‘race’ miles. But they were fun. We laughed a lot, held on to each other like crazy and enjoyed every minute of it.

Except for the last 20 minutes or so, I’m pretty sure all three of us were over it at that point.

I do have a nice video of me busting my ass for your enjoyment though.

I was going to explain to you where I was, but just watch the video. You’ll figure out which one I am pretty damn quick.

I had more than a few bruises from this one, but they were all worth it.

Another great thing – we received medals as finishers! Unless it’s a half or full, most races don’t spend the money on medals for finishers so that was a pleasant surprise.

Overall, I will definitely be doing this run again. The cost isn’t bad for a mud run, I paid around $40 with early registration and it’s local to me (Waco, Texas). You also get a t-shirt & two free beers at the end. Y’all know I love me some beer, so even though it was 10 am, that shit was getting chugged.

Until we run again!

Thursday, July 18, 2013

Training..uh, weeks?


This link-up is just a way to talk about training [in any way, for anything] to help hold ourselves accountable and possibly brag a bit. I mean, you ran 1 mile without stopping – you totally deserve a chance to brag about it! That shit is hard. You did 10 push-ups in a row, HOLLLEERRR.


I’ve been a little MIA lately. Like, no new posts in nearly a month. Oops.

I needed a break, or rather, I needed to not feel like I was tied down to having to write something when I didn’t exactly feel like it. Huge thanks to Abbey who kept Training Tuesday alive even while I was off in La-La Land.

My Training

It’s been three weeks, but I don’t really have anything new to report. I haven’t exactly felt like training lately – I’ve been focusing a lot of my time on spending & enjoying my family, so exercise has fallen through the cracks. I’m still running sporadically (Clueless reference, anyone?) but am definitely not hitting the gym 5 days a week like I was at one point.

I think the heat has been part of my lack of motivation and the fact that I’m enjoying sleeping in, or reading a book on my lunch break, or not sweating at 8pm. I refuse to work out while Lillie is awake, my time during the workweek is limited with her – an hour before work, and three hours if I’m lucky before she hits the sack – and I am not willing to cut into it. 

Although, I will say she does love to run. We “race” a lot in the hallway of the house & the backyard. I’m not very competitive, but my husband is and I think she may have gotten that from him. So, hopefully at some point running won’t take time away from her but add to it. Fingers crossed.

I do have a 5k this weekend. Yay!

Except it’s July in Texas and hot as fuck. I ran this one last year and it was a horrible, horrible experience. I didn’t hydrate enough and I was a little over confident in my abilities to run in the heat (which was stupid considering I had only ever ran on a treadmill at that point. Sigh.) Lessons learned, so this year my goal is to finish feeling well and with a better time than last year.

And to, you know, not poop myself.

I probably worry about that far more than I should. Or maybe I worry about it just the right amount? I don’t know.

Runner friends, am I alone in this? Totally a legit fear, right?