The Cold Never Bothered Me Anyways??

It’s a true gloomy week in January.  It can be hard to stay motivated with this cold, dreary month.  I’m doing everything I can to stay on track.  Successfully completing my half marathon next month and meeting my goals is at the top of my priority list.

View From my Sunday 9 Miler Run

The remainder of my workout week went well.  On Thursday I did a 3 mile run and finally felt like my cardio was getting back to where it needed to be.  Friday I worked out with my trainer.  I had planned to get up and go to a body pump class on Saturday morning but really wasn’t feeling all that great so decided to take the day off.  Definitely was a good decision in preparation for my long run.  I carb loaded with some mellow mushroom pizza (yum) on Saturday and got myself to bed early.

My plan was to wait until it warmed up into the upper 40’s on Sunday to run.  Well as the morning went on it wasn’t looking like the upper 40’s were going to come at all.  So I decided to just suck it up and go out in the 37 degrees and do my run.  Once I got started I didn’t feel terribly cold or anything.  Though when I stopped at mile 3 for a bathroom break my legs were freezing.  I kept my pace controlled just over a 12 minute mile.  Since it had been so long since I’d done anything more than about 3 I didn’t want to kill myself on this run.    I can confidently run much faster than I did but when I hit 36 min at my 5k just took it in stride to save my energy for the end.  It definitely worked out for the best as when I finished my entire 9 miles I really felt like I could run more if I had to.

I’m feeling much better now that I’ve done a significant long run as my 7 miler was almost a month ago!  Everything I did workout wise and eating this past week drastically helped me to run stronger, more consistently and hurt a little bit less!

So far this week I did a 30 minute slow recovery treadmill run on Monday which was not the most pleasant run due to my legs being tired.  I also went to Zumba yesterday and my legs were SCREAMING last night!  Below is the rest of the week’s workouts.

Wednesday: Training Session

Thursday: 3-4 Mile Run

Friday: Training Session

Saturday: 11 Mile Run

Right now Saturday is looking to be sunny and 55 degrees but who really knows what it will actually be!

So things are definitely getting done and I’m keeping it going!

Half Marathon Training: Back Into the Swing of Things

The past month has been a challenge in terms of training for the Disney Princess Half Marathon and working out.  I’ll recap the best I can about the last few weeks.

The week of Thanksgiving (November 24th) was basically a complete bust except for my 10k Turkey Trot.  Monday I could only work out with my trainer for 30 minutes due to a work dinner which I guess was better than nothing.  Tuesday night I drove home to Atlanta for Thanksgiving.  Wednesday I didn’t do anything to rest for the race on Thursday plus my upper quad muscle on my right leg was giving me pain.  Thursday morning was the 10k Turkey Trot.  It was cold but was the first race I was completeting by myself and since my legs were fresh with very minimal running since my half marathon in early November I felt good.  I ran the fastest 5k & 10k i ever have completeing the 10k in 1:05.

While it was a great accomplishment to do this run so fast the lack of running preperation I had done in the prior few weeks left me sore for at least 3 days.  I also was feeling HORRIBLE due to cramping and all those fun womanly problems so I didn’t run or do any other form of exercise that week.

The week of December 1st i still wasn’t feeling good at all.  I attempted a 3 mile run on Tuesday which i did at a decent speed but my quad continued to bother me quite a bit.  I was going to run on Wednesday as well but opted out to let my leg rest.  Thursday i did a full session with my trainer.  Would have done a training run this past weekend but I eneded up going to Atlanta for the SEC Championship..so no time to run!

When Sunday rolled around I was FINALLY feeling better and ready to have a decent workout week.  Monday I went to Zumba and Tuesday I worked out with my trainer.  Wednesday I went to the local running groups “Tacky Christmas” run and did about 2.5 miles decked out in my Christmas gear.  I took it slow and my leg wasn’t giving me any trouble.

Yesterday (Thursday) I decided it was time to do a longer run as my 10k happened two weeks ago and to stay somewhat on schedule for Disney i needed to get it in.  Saturday i’m doing a Rudolph 5k so I knew the longer distance run needed to happen over the week.  This is obviously a bit of a challenge with falling temperatures and it getting dark earlier.  Things at work have slowed down so i left around 4:30pm to start my run.  It was colder but not unbearable except the breeze that was coming off the water wasn’t very pleasant.  About 3 miles in I started feeling really dizzy and actually had to sit down for a few minutes.  I was already 3 miles from my car so I had to do at least 6 miles.  I told myself i’d just run back to my car and be done with it.  I took it slower than I would have liked but around mile 4.5 started feeling better until mile 6.  I decided I’d run that far I might as well knock out one more mile.  So mile 7 was rough.  By this point it was dark and had gotten much colder but I got it done.

All I have left for this week is the 5k tomorrow which should be a fun but productive maintenance run.  Its a challenging course with hills so I don’t expect to have a fantastic finishing time but i’m really more about just getting out and doing it.

Next week is looking like Monday Zumba, Tuesday 3 mile run, Wednesday personal training, Thursday 3 mile run, Friday personal training and Saturday a 4-5 mile run.

So i’m happy to have had a successful week of training once again.  I know my next long run will be better if I can just put in the training runs I need to and continue doing the cross training.  This race is going to be here before I know it and I can’t go off of the attitude of “well i’ve done a half so i’ll be fine”.  I nearly died doing 7 miles last night so I have a lot of work to build back up to.  It’s amazing how quickly you can lose all that initial training.

Half Marathon Race Recap: I did It!!!

I’ve officially completed my first Half Marathon as of Saturday evening!  It is still hard to believe its actually over and I finished it!

So Saturday didn’t go at all as I had planned.  I was woken up around 4:30am to a strange noise coming from the wall in between my two bedrooms.  At first I thought it was the heat having issues so I turned it off and went back to sleep.  Around 5:30am I was woken up again by a similar sound.  I then called my apartment’s maintenance department to let them know I thought something was wrong with my heat or electrical system.  As I was walking down my stairs I suddenly saw something dash across the floor from the closet with the heating system in it to my bathroom.  My first thought was oh my god that was a mouse.  Since it was still dark I didn’t get a super close look but I was pretty positive it was.  I just kind of sat on my stairs trying to get my dog to go into the bathroom to see if it was in there.  Then about 5 minutes later I saw it come out from under my oven and it was confirmed as a mouse.  I freaked out grabbed my dog and left the apartment.

So its about 7:30am and I’m out getting rat poison…I ended up stopping at Dunkin Donuts for coffee and a breakfast sandwich since at this point it was clear I wasn’t eating the breakfast foods I had purchased the evening before.  So after a few errands and dropping my dog off at the kennel I placed the mouse traps around my apartment, grabbed my things for the race (which were thankfully 90% packed up) and left my apartment.  I had a few hours to kill so I ended up getting this delicious Pineapple Wheatgrass juice from this Juice/Smoothie place near me when helped me to sustain some energy.

Around 12pm we headed down to Roswell Georgia for the race.  It was little less than a 2 hour drive so nothing too bad.  We checked into the hotel & then headed to Olive Garden for a carb loading lunch.  By the time we got back to the hotel it was basically time to get ready for the race and head out to the course.

We took advantage of shuttle parking about 5 minutes away from the race course as the race information stated parking at the actual race start could already be full by 3:30pm.  So since we weren’t planning to arrive until 4:30ish the shuttle made the most sense for us.  It was super easy and very fast which was great.  Around 5:15 we got lined up for the race.  We positioned ourselves between the 2:30 & 2:45 pace runners.

The race began promply at 5:30 with all 800 runners starting at the same time.  This obviously caused its fair share of congestion especially when we got onto the narrow trail part of the course.  I didn’t trail train at all for this race and did not enjoy running in a narrow space where it is so easy to trip.  It was also starting to get darker so I had to pay very close attention to where I was stepping.  Running intervals were almost impossible to do with this many people in a small space so we stuck to running (slower than our normal pace) for majority of the first three miles on the trail.  Finally around 3.5 we were back on a paved sidewalk which led onto the road where majority of the race took place.  Basically we ran 4-6 turned left for 7 then turned back around into mile 8 then turned right for 9-10 then turned around again going the same way as mile 5 then we turned around one last time for 11-13.  So at any given time there were 3 different parts of the race happening in different directions.  The hardest part was watching people going into miles 11-12 when we were still on 9-10..

I felt pretty good majority of the race.  Around mile 7 I could tell it was getting colder and my feet were aching pretty badly.  Mile 10 felt like it went on forever since we were running down to come back so we could see how much further we had left to run.  Once I passed the 11 mile marker and turned around I was beyond relieved.  However as we ran it continued to get colder and colder so running in the cold was a challenge.  A lot more walking that I would have planned happend miles 11-13 but we still managed to keep a decent pace.

I finished the race in 2:39:55..so technically I finished under 2:40!  That was a 12:12 pace.  In the beginning we were slowed down due to the trail and then the added walking at the end added to that as well.  In the middle of the race we were able to make up some time which helped us finish under 2:45.  Considering this was the first time I had run 13 I didn’t have a set time I wanted to finish in but was aiming for under 2:50 which I felt was very achievable.  The most challenging thing for me was seeing how many people finished and ran faster than I did.  I finished 636 overall out of 780 racers but only 53 out of 63 in the age division of 25-29.  Not too many 20 year olds in this race so all the ones who came out were speedy!

So now my goal is to get my time down now that i’ve completed a Half Marathon.  I am excited for the Disney Princess Half Marathon but know this isn’t exactly a race where people PR.  So I may be looking into a smaller Half Marathon maybe in March that I could really work to run a 2:30 or less. So what am I going to do to start working on my speed?

Well keep running for starters.  I’m going right into training for The Disney Princess Half which has me running 3 days per week.  As I said in my previous post I’ll be doing 5 miles on Tuesday, 4 Miles on Thursdays and long runs on Saturdays.  The challenge will be increasing speed on the treadmill.  I HATE treadmill running and almost always run slower.  The more I can run outside the better but obviously with winter coming that may be a task.  I’m also adding more cross training in.  I don’t feel like running is enough for me to reach my optimal fitness goals.  My training plan includes a Monday Zumba Class & a Wednesday workout with my trainer.  I’d also like to incorporate one more day of weight training.  This may be a class my gym offers on Fridays which is 20 min step, 20 min stregth, 10 min balance & 10 min abs when I can make it to that.  I also have Les Mills Body Pump at home that has different DVD’s of classes ranging from 30-60 minutes.  Only problem is I only have two sets of weights that came with it and I need a few smaller weights to add onto the bar when it feels too light.  So should probably purchase those.  If I can keep my legs and core strong with 2-3 days of strength/cross training I believe it is going to help my running tremendously.

I can’t even believe how sore I am from Zumba last night.  In my mind I always think Zumba is pure cardio so why would I keep doing that running 3x per week?  But it defintely is a total body cardio/strength training workout.  My calf muscles haven’t been this sore in a while.  Also my arms are a little sore this morning as well.  Its a different type of workout that is working my muscles different…plus it is super fun!

Today I am easing back into running with a 3 mile run.  I’m not really concentrating on my pace time or anything this week as my body is still recovering from the race/Zumba!  I’m just going to get out and get the muscle memory going.  Its a good week to ease back into my running.

Oh and I forgot to mention my other upcoming races!  I signed up for a Turkey Trot 10k on Thanksgiving morning in Johns Creek Georgia.  They had a 5k, 10k, 15k and Half to choose between.  My longer run that week is 4-5 miles so I decided a 10k would be a good distance.  This will be the first race I run by myself so that should be interesting!  I’ve also got my eye on the Hot Chocolate 15k at the end of January in Atlanta.  It is about a month before Disney and 10 miles is a good practice distance.

So my running journey is continuing on with new goals and challenges ahead.  I’m beyond relieved to have one half marathon under my belt with another one in the works along with some other races and a good cross training schedule.  I’ll be continuing to blog as i begin my training for the next few races as I’m sure the holidays and cold weather will throw an entire new set of challenges at me.  But

Half Marathon Training: Training Schedule Rant

I’m just having one of those weeks where running is the absolute last thing I want to do.  A lot of it is mental but some is physical too.  I ran my 6 miler with 3 miles of intervals on Monday and had to do it on the treadmill due to bad storms.  It absolutely tore up my feet like I have blisters that still haven’t calmed down since Monday.  I’ve done all the same things I’ve been doing throughout my entire training; foot baths with Aromatouch, Lemongrass & Cypress.  I put the gold bond pain relief cream on with the oils as well and nothing is really helping my right foot.  Its odd because normally its my left foot that gives me more issues.

So I took yesterday off from running due to the pain my feet were in.  I was going to try and do the 7 mile run that was also on this weeks training plan..I’m starting to feel like this plan is just TOO MUCH for a beginner.  The last thing I want to do is more harm than good to my feet.  So I made the executive decision to just eliminate the 7 mile run with intervals this week.  If I were able to run at all this weekend I probably would have tried it on Friday evening or Saturday morning but unfortunately life is still going on and its just not going to happen.

I’m going to try and do like 30-35 minutes after my training session tonight and then 35-55 minutes on Friday morning before heading to the airport.  It is much less than the training plan calls for (by 7 miles) but its all I can do.  I’m having a hard time being okay with that.  I felt so guilty not running last night but on top of my feet being so torn up I had SO MUCH to do errand wise and just getting ready to travel this weekend.  I do feel better now that that is mostly done but I can’t shake that guilt that I didn’t do my run yesterday.

I think I’m just worn out especially doing two long run weeks in a row.  I’m set to do the 13 next week but the plan STILL calls for a 6 miler, a 4.5-5 miler and a 5k on top of the 13…I will be traveling again the weekend after this upcoming one so AGAIN will need to fit all my running into Monday-Thursday.

I’d just like to get to the point where I feel OK missing a training run or two.  I’m so close to taper but the next week and a half of running just sounds miserable especially with everything else I have going on.

I’m tired of running basically being the only thing I do also.  I do weight train one day per week but its just not enough.  As much as I question why the Disney Princess training plan is only 3 days per week I’m very much considering going to that so I can crosstrain 2-3x per week.  I want my Zumba day back BADLY.  I haven’t done Zumba in months and I need a fun workout activity to look forward to.  Running is starting to feel like a job, my body is plateauing with it and I need variety.

I’m glad I’m doing a half marathon before the Disney Princess I’m just kind of wishing I had a few weeks more inbetween so I didn’t have to jump right onto another running plan.  When its all said and done I’ll have been half marathon training for 7 months…that is a LONG time especially when I’ve only been running for about 10 months.

Like I said I’m tired of feeling guilty for missing a running workout.  My only saving factor right now is I only have this week and next week before taper so I’m just going to have to suck it up and push through it.  I’ve come this far I don’t want to see myself slack or get beat down but I’m just TIRED, specifically TIRED OF RUNNING ALL THE TIME.

That is my running rant.  Now that I’ve got that out I need to try and get my head back in the right place to get through my workout today.