Monday Monday

This morning when my alarm went off I felt remarkably refreshed, like my body was completely ready to get up, at 6:50, not normal.  That was pretty much where the good fortune ended today.

I popped out of bed and grabbed Scarlett’s leash for our daily walk to find it was POURING.  Why I was surprised at this point I’m not sure.  One step outside found both of us scrambling back for the porch and sending Scar on a quick scurry into the back yard to do her business and hurry inside.  I figured without our 20 minute walk I could get to work early, and potentially leave a little early.  I scarfed a pumpkin spice bagel (yes, the pumpkin is now in full force in my life) and headed out the door to get my Monday-morning-get-myself-to-work Pumpkin Spice Latte from Starbucks.

Once I got there the morning started weirdly due to a few co-workers starting late today and a few on vacation.  It is crazy how when you work with a team having pieces missing really throws off your whole mojo.  Really made me appreciate the amazing team I work with.  The rest of the day was a perpetual reminder of the fact that I work with people and that means no predictability.  Sometimes I swear all my patients team up and agree to be difficult and try to see if I will lose my mind.  No matter, I made it through and headed out the door to go home, whooped and ready to start over tomorrow.

Upon exit, it was still raining and downtown was majorly flooded.  I immediately checked the forecast and if the weather man knows what he is talking about the sun may actually make an appearance tomorrow.  My running is a cut back this week before my final week of surge allowing me to be more flexible with my rest day.  I moved my rest day to today in favor of maybe having dry shoes for once.

After a stressful day I turned to YogaGlo.com and my mat to attempt to relax my poor flailing mind.  I can’t say it solved all my problems but I did feel a bit better and more able to let my day go to move on to tomorrow.

We made it through Monday everyone!!

Running Madness

After being so discouraged missing two runs in a row Sunday and Monday, the ridiculous Monsoon Tuesday was not enough to stop me.

I came home and immediately laced up before I could regain sanity.  I had 7x800m yassos on the schedule and my plan was to still do them.  I slopped through my first rep before realizing I had uploaded the wrong parameters on my watch allowing only 40 seconds rest in between reps (not sure how that happened) but there was no way to fix it on the run.  I decided, no worries I would do my 800’s on Thursday and do my tempo run for the run I was on, but I had already done an interval and was off trying to start a tempo run.  Instead, I decided to do a fartlek.  I never do these and thought it resembled a tempo run enough that it could be interchangeable.  I jogged two blocks to every one block pick up for the same distance I would have covered on my tempo run.  It went well and was fun, so nice to do something different.  I was absolutely soaked by the end and each of my shoes weighed about 5 pounds but I did it.  I actually got “Carried” in real life, except WAYYYY worse than it is in the theme song.

That’s what I thought of the 2 times it happened, but this is more what it actually looked like.

I was less excited than this kid.

Yesterday was an easy run leaving my Yasso’s to finally get done today.  7×800 is no joke and I was pooped by the end of them, covering 6 total miles and hitting my pace goal on each rep.  I am gearing up to hit some post run yoga from yogaglo.  Still loving it (and using it), so far so good!!

Monday Evening Confessions

My reinvigoration didn’t last very long.  Hence the confessions to come…

1.  I woke up to a rainy over cast sky and a promise of rain which didn’t sound like a good time to my blister ridden feet.  So I skipped it.  Then felt guilty about it all day.  When I got home I decided two things: a) I have 7 weeks left until race time which is plenty of time; b) I need to not do long runs on Sundays, the sacred day in our house hold which only belongs to watching football.  I made a plan to scoot all my runs one day forward, leaving Sundays with a short recovery run.  Much more realistic.

2.  Today was overcast all morning, then a monsoon in the afternoon.  Like, wind shield wipers on full blast and you still can’t see kind of monsoon.  I came home and looked up some yoga to do (more on this in a minute) before hopefully the rain would subside enough for me to still get in an easy run.  The rain never stopped which in Charleston means it was pouring AND I would be running in floods up to my knees.  So now I have gone two days without running and I feel like the biggest bum ever.  I get so down on myself so easily when I am training, especially because usually I never miss a run for 16 weeks, this training cycle I have really not been at my best.

3.  I discovered yogaglo.com today.  I signed up for a free 15 day trial and did a 45 minute cross-training for runners series.  My body feels AMAZING!!  I feel like I just gave my whole body so much love.  I am going to try to do at least 15 minutes of this yoga each day for my 15 day trial and decide if I want to keep it.  Maybe if I pay for it I will be more in to doing it more regularly.  A monthly membership is 18 dollars and there are literally thousands of classes for anything you could want, complete with pre-run routines, restorative and strengthening all directed at runners along with non-runner yoga routines. 

I am going to continue to peruse the site and at the end of my 15 day trial I will let you all know if I decide to re-up!

Do you ever feel completely deflated after missing a run or two? 

Finally Human

After being laid up for the past three days I was so relieved to wake up a real human again today.  I still have a little residual sneeze/cough and stuffy nose but I could actually function in society today.  Tuesday was the worst, I was maybe awake a total of 2 hours; I couldn’t even read because my eyes hurt so bad.  It was THE WORST!!

The extent of my last few days (except Tuesday when even this was more than I could handle).

I finished Labor Day yesterday and am anxious to watch the movie.  It was a really good book, though a bit odd.  You just have to leave your judgements at the cover because this is quite a strange family and an equally bizarre story.  It was quite good though and I flew through it.  I have another book by her on my list called After Her.  Hoping to be equally pleased.

With days of doing nothing behind me, I was rip raring to work out today (and really just get outside).  However, I had squandered the beautiful spring days that were Monday-Wednesday and came back to life just in time for 95 degrees, no breeze and like 99% humidity.  YAY SUMMER!  I got in a little less than four miles (I figured I should still take it easy after being so ill) and I was sweating like a pig when I was done.  Before my run, I got in a little yoga flow too because I was getting impatient for it to (sort of) cool off.  It was actually a really challenging video (at least for me) and had me sweating a good bit.

I made the executive, in my thoughts smart, decision to restart my six week goals next week.  After missing two days this week, the last thing I need to do coming back from illness is over load the next few days trying to make up missed miles and push ups.  What is life without changing, and re-changing plans.

Hope you have had a good few days!!  Finally feeling up for the beach tomorrow, can not wait!!

Crossroads of My Life

Well, I am getting dangerously close to the crossroads of my life.  With my inservice presentation tomorrow, Boston only one week away now and boards 16 days from now each moment in my mind is fairly unstable.  I can go from feeling totally normal like any other day, to getting so nervous I feel like I may throw up.  Earlier this week I actually did make myself throw up (sorry for the details) getting so freaked out.

I finally feel like I have mellowed myself out after a successful weekend studying, winding down my training and spending some time doing yoga to settle my mind (and any linger aches in my body).  I even did some baking today to really be true to myself.

I found this on pinterest last night, (late at night) while I was trying to calm my mind before going to bed.  I felt like it is so true of my life now, and always really.

In other news, my GPS thought I needed a confidence boost during my 6 mile tempo run yesterday.Not only am I going to run Boston next week, I’m going to win and set a world record apparently!  As much as I want to believe you Garmin, I am going to have to call your bluff!  I have no idea really what happened with that and it worked perfectly fine today so who knows!  I just really hope that doesn’t happen during the race.  Oh well, if it does, I’ll just run it off!

Also I found a new yoga for runners routine that I really really like done by Lululemon.  It throws in strength and yoga into one to make sure you are getting it all in, in only 30 minutes!!  Really hits all the good areas and made me feel really refreshed!

Workout Recap:

Strength: resting up for race day (some in the yoga routine)

Yoga: 39 minutes (2 sessions) + 18 minutes I am going to do after this post (another Lulu sequence)

Running: 35.27 miles

This week will be all about nutrition, hydration and gentle (very gentle) yoga!  Please bear with me the next two and a half weeks until boards.  I will do my best to be consistent, especially with the race coming up!!    Thank you all for the love and support through this crazy time in my life!

Productive Sunday

This morning I woke up to gross weather at a lovely 9:30 am. It was so great to sleep in and lounge in bed for a little before getting up to make some breakfast.

Brittany from Blissful Britt had posted these ridiculous pancakes a few days ago so I had to indulge (I had quite a pancakey weekend).

Yep, those are called Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookie Pancakes and they actually aren’t 100% terrible for you.  However if you eat all of them you may be in for a belly ache like me.  The original recipe came from The Minimalist Baker.

Yeah, those kept me full until about 6 pm, through my run and a few hours of studying.  I also was able to finish my Interprofessional Fellowship stuff and work on my inservice presentation so that is a few less things floating around in my head.  All that adds up to a pretty boring day but being able to get that much done was a huge relief heading into another work week.

Weekly Workout Roundup

Running: 49.76 miles

Strength: 122 push ups, squats and bicycles

Yoga: 50 minutes total

WIAW and Poor Planning

Today I realized that my 100 push up challenge would take place on the same day as Boston if I stuck to the schedule. Not my best planning and I also probably don’t need to be pushing myself that hard in the weeks leading up to the race when I am supposed to be tapering. So that mission will be on hold until after the race but I will be resuming promptly upon race recovery! I decided that I am going to spend that time I would be doing the push up challenge doing my 9 minute yoga for runners youtube video to really give my body some love (especially because I have a left hip flexor thing going on right now that I am not happy about)!

Breakfast: Paleo Oatmeal with Bananas, peanut butter and honey (my favorite combo) I found this recipe from Julie on PBfingers who got it from Joelle at On A Pink Typewriter. It is fantastic and easy to make while I am packing my lunch in the morning. I still love regular oats, and overnight oats so it is just one more breakfast to add to the rotation!

Lunch:My go to Spinach Salad with blueberry craisins, strawberries, feta, blackberries and raspberry vinagrette dressing.  Top that off with a clementine and a Jello pudding pack and you have one happy girl ready to take on a full afternoon of patients, including a pool session which was really fun!

After work, I headed to Starbucks as always to study and wait out traffic.  I had a few snacks to get me through the afternoon and my run when I got home.

Dinner: I have really gotten in the habit of making something Monday and living off of it the rest of the week.  I had an Herb Encrusted Pork Chop, Toasted Pine Nut Couscous and Asparagus.  I did have to make the asparagus fresh tonight because I had run out of my previous veggie which happens often!

While I was winding down for the night I treated myself to a small bag of kettle corn and 2 mixed berry fig newtons.  They are pretty great and I don’t have to feel too guilty having a couple of those!

Hope you had a great hump day!

What are your favorite night time snacks (guilty or not so guilty pleasures)?

First 20 Miler in the Books

After an 8 mile run Thursday with some serious lead legs, a typical 5 mile easy loop with the push up challenge after (83 push ups, squats and reverse crunches) I had no idea how this 20 miler would go.  It was warm compared to how it has been, around 73 feels like 78.

I also finally broke down and got a new hand held water bottle.  I got mine before my first marathon in 2009 and the zipper finally broke a few weeks back.  We had logged quite a few miles together but it was time to move on.  I hit the local running store in Decatur call the Big Peach yesterday and picked up this new one.  Mine is actually the pink and purple one but I couldn’t find the picture on Amazon.

Nathan 20-ounch Quick Draw Hand Held Insulated Water Bottle (thats not a mouthful or anything); Photo from Amazon

I can tell the company has really been working to make this better since I got mine.  There is a larger pocket that actually fits my iphone with out me squeezing it in there (hence the broken zipper) and I can fit all my gels as well.  This model also has a thumb hole that helps with grip as well as the draw string to make it tighter so I don’t have to squeeze the crap out of it the whole time I am running.  My fingers would actually be a little stiff when I was done a really long run with the old one.  If you are in the market for a new hand held bottle, I would highly recommend this bottle.  It is so well designed!!

My run went beautifully.  I don’t think I have ever had that good of a 20 mile run.  I spent some time last night doing some hip opening yoga and did my yoga for runners on youtube routine that I love before heading out.  I don’t know if it made that big of a difference but that is certainly going to be part of the routine from now one.

The run was split into good thirds that helped me mentally stay tuned in.  The first 7 miles went from my house, down through Decatur and back up the Stone Mountain Trail.  The next 6 miles, I bumped off the Stone Mountain Trail to catch the Beltline to Piedmont Park and ran around there.  There were so many people on this part of the run, there almost needed to be traffic signals, haha.  It kept me so motivated to see so many people out being active.  By the time I picked the Stone Mountain Trail back up I had 7 miles to go into downtown Atlanta and then back to my house.  Having different chunks to tackle really helped keep me going the whole time.

I am so happy to have that run go so well, it is so motivating, especially with Boston one month from yesterday!

Tonight my friend Allyson is coming over to hang out because we are volunteering for the Publix Georgia Marathon and Half Marathon tomorrow.  I ran this race last year and had a great time.  I have never volunteered for a race before because I am usually running so I am excited to finally pay it back to the running community.  And I am even more excited that Allyson is coming with me.

We are making quite a day of it actually.  Tonight we are going to hang out and have an old school sleep over and make race signs because we are stationed right by my house and she lives on the other side of Atlanta.  We are done at our posts around 9:30 (we are at miles 8-9), so we are going to go back to Folk Art where Casey and I went last week for brunch.  I have to have the peanut butter banana french toast/pancakes/waffles (I haven’t decided yet).  Then we are going to go see Divergent and maybe go to Lulu and see if they have any shorts that want me to wear them to run Boston!

Hope you are having a fabulous weekend and that your long run goes/went as well as mine did today!!

Weekly Workout Roundup

I had the most amazing weekend with a little bit of Charleston in Philadelphia.  Tomorrow will be a full on post about our amazing adventures (and insane amounts of delicious foods) but I am exhausted so today is strictly round up only.

P.S. Too bad the superbowl was pretty terrible…womp womp!

This week was my first official Boston training week.  It went well for the most part but I am very much understanding what Hal Higdon meant when he states you have to work with the weather.  I had to move my hills work twice because the sidewalks were too slippery to try to run at any kind of increased pace safely.  Today we finally had clear sidewalks for my long run and it was amazing but we are supposed to have another storm bringing 4-8 inches tomorrow to just start the misery all over again.  I love snow just as much as the next guy but it is really interfering with my ability to accomplish anything on the road.  The hardest part is not even having a gym to run on the treadmill as a last resort!

Today for my long run for 1:20 with a 3:1 pace I ran over the Ben Franklin Bridge.  It was a pretty good run and really made me realize how big the city is viewing it from that far away.  It also made me appreciate how huge the Cooper River Bridge in Charleston is that I run all the time.  The incline was no where near as steep and I was able to get across it in well less than 15 minutes running at a slow pace.

Ben Franklin Bridge

 

The goal was to run somewhere around 9 minutes miles the first hour and 7:55s the last 20 minutes.  I ended up around 8:38 for the first hour and 7:48 for the last 20 minutes.  Not too shabby.  And because I had procrastinated all week I hit up a quick strength circuit and a 10 minute yoga for runners when I got home so I could get some of that in this week.

Workout Recap:

Running: 28.5 miles

Yoga: 10 minutes

Strength: 30x: push ups, squats with 10# dumbbell, crunches; 1:00 plank, 30 seconds each side plank

I got the yoga and strength in this week but I definitely need to work toward more quality sessions this week coming up!

Hope you had a great weekend and that some of you are Seahawks fans!

Fitness Marathon Sunday

Last night after working and getting my full 2 hours of studying in I headed out in Philly with my best friend Hannah!  Everywhere was super crowded and it was frigid walking around but I had a great time just getting to spend it with her.  After getting home at 1, I was not excited to have to get up at 8:15 to hit the road for a long run.

When the time came I reluctantly dragged myself out of bed, bundled up against the continually harsh temperatures and hit the road.  I ran the river trail which is my favorite run in Philly and ended my 13 miles at the yoga studio.  Today was one of those days that I didn’t even really feel good after a mile or two temperature wise and even after going inside for our yoga class and going to breakfast I just felt like I couldn’t get warm until I finally took a shower.

The yoga class was awesome after a long run, though some of the more strength oriented poses I struggled with due to tired muscles.  The stretching was awesome though; instead of just sitting around most of the day after running I got a great active recovery in.

Hannah and I went to the same breakfast place and I got a fantastic sandwich!  Talk about a recovery meal!

Whole wheat bagel with arugula, brie, bacon and sweet cherry jam!

After coming home and showering I popped a whole chicken my mom gave me before heading up here in the oven so I would have it to eat off of all week.  It was so incredibly easy: pull out of freezer, cut off exterior bag, place chicken on tray and cook for 3 hours.

Chicken, brussel sprouts and red potatoes

 

Nothing like treating your body right after giving it a morning beating!

Weekly Workout Recap

Running: 35.08 miles

Yoga: 90 minutes

Strength: 15 minute NTC, 3×10 lunges and squats

Goal: Remember to do What I Ate Wednesday this week…I got out of the habit and keep forgetting!!  Burning it in to my brain right now!