FINALLY back at it.

I have been intending to get back on some sort of running schedule (and blogging again) forever.  I am determined to stick it through this time because I really enjoy this format and interacting with my fellow runners.

I debated for awhile how I wanted to go about training for a marathon.  My original plan was to follow Hal Higdon's Novice supreme which has put a 12 week program ending with a 6 mile long run at the front of his 18 week novice training program.  The main reason I had chosen this plan was to give myself a longer amount of time before mileage above 6ish miles per run started.  I had switched to a lower carb diet but was planning to incorporate more carbs into my diet closer to long runs.  Well, I ended up having some issues with the lower carbs so I decided to begin reintroducing some carbs into my diet.  Following that, my runs started getting stronger, and my mind began to change.

I decided that I had to have some sort of schedule or something to work toward.  I have said it before on here but I have a TERRIBLE time sticking with regular runs when I don't have something to follow. After speaking with The Husband and we decided to follow a 12 week half program (the same one I followed when training) and I will transition from that over into the marathon program.  I just need to decide if I am going to skip that last week that the program calls to run the half so that I am not too sore to start the first week of the marathon program.

I just finished week 2 of the half marathon program today.  I am going to go ahead and do recaps again like I did last time to keep myself accountable to you all as well.

Week	Mon	Tues	Weds	Thurs	Fri	Sat	Sun
2 10-14 to 10-20	Stretch & Strengthen Circuit training (planks, burpees, push ups, etc)	3 mile run 3.2 miles 30:47 9:38/mi	2 mile run or Cross 2.01 mi 18:11 9:04/mi	3 mile run Rest	Rest 3.01 mi 26:27 8:48/mi	4 mile run Rest	30 min cross 3 mi walk 48:55 16:30/mi 4 mi run 35:20 8:49/mi

Monday: I did a circuit that I made up for this evening. 50 jumping jacks then 3 rounds each of 10 pushups, situps, burpees, tricep dips, oblique twists, and 20 second planks.

Tuesday: I ran with a girl I met at a local 5k a few weeks ago.  It was the first time she had run in awhile and she did awesome! It was a lot of fun but talking for the entire run will take it out of you for sure!

Wednesday: I decided to get out before The Husband had to leave for work and get 2 miles in.  I was so glad that I did! It was a nice start to the day.

Thursday: Took a rest day because Rex had a soccer game that threw our plans off.

Friday: Did Thursday's 3 miles down in my little town and was CRAZY surprised when I held sub 9 minute miles without even realizing it.  I have never managed that for multiple miles and normally it's the first mile and I started too fast causing me to peter out by mile 3.  I see signs of getting stronger!

Saturday: It poured a cold rain all day and I just could not bring myself to go out in it or get on the treadmill so I decided to double up on Sunday.

Sunday: For the last few weeks I have been meeting with my weight loss buddy on Sunday mornings to power walk.  It is a nice time to get out and chat sans kids (she is also my homeschool buddy).  We normally do 5 miles but we both had plans today so we only did 3. I knew this ahead of time so I took my running gear with me with intentions of heading straight back out.  When we got back to our cars, I stripped down a layer and took off again and had another awesome sub 9 average run!! I don't know where this is coming from but I LOVE it!

Time to start week 3.  The mileage bumps up a tad this week, but not much.  I have a couple race recaps to add later this week as well as a couple possible giveaways to do.  I'm going to leave you with my most recent progress pic.  This is the first one where I can actually see some progress =)

Left: My first 5k  March 23, 2013               Right:10k Sept 21, 2013

Biggest Loser 10k Race Recap

Hopefully I can remember everything since I am writing this about a billion years afterward but here is the recap of the Biggest Loser 10k!

The race took place in Charleston, West Virginia which is about an hour and a half from my house.  It didn't start until 9am (I think- memory loss. LOL) so technically we could have driven down that morning but we went ahead and stayed in Charleston that night.  My mom took Rex for the weekend, my dad had Curly, and my husband's cousin stayed at the house to take care of the pups so the night before we got down there around 5:30 or 6 and headed to the Civic center to pick up our packets.

When we got there Michael Dorsey from season 14 was there speaking.  I got a picture but it disappeared from my phone =(

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The packet pickup went on for 5-6 hours that day so when we got there, there were maybe 50 people there and all of them were listening to Michael speak so we had no line to pick up our packet.  It was very quick and we got our numbers, a drawstring backpack, and some coupons and information about the festival that was going on, and our shirts.

We then went to the hotel, checked in, and went to get some dinner.  I mentioned in the giveaway post that I had changed my diet and went low carb about 8 days before the race.  I had done one 5 mile run and a couple short runs between starting the diet and the race and they went TERRIBLY.  My energy levels were awful and I would just hit a wall around 2 miles.  I couldn't believe how much it effected my running so I knew that this race was not going to be what I wanted it to be.

We got up the morning of the race and since we hadn't brought anything with us for breakfast, we ran through a drive through and got breakfast sandwiches.  I ate the meat, egg, and cheese from mine while we were heading toward the race.  It was very easy to find parking in a parking garage (it was free! woohoo!) and then we made our way to the race start.  The starting line was near a lakefront park with an outdoor pavilion and an actual building with real restrooms! That is always exciting.

We hung around for about 45 minutes and then lined up.  The line up was VERY chaotic.  The 5k and 10k took off together and they had pacers but they were all in random spots.  I stood with the 10:00min/mile pacer and literally 2 people in front of me was the 8:30 10k pacer.  Then on top of that, they were doing a wave start but didn't really announce it all that well, so about 5 minutes before start time they raised a rope in front of us but there were hundreds of people behind us that didn't really know about it.  It kind of unnerved me because I was afraid they would start without announcing it and we would be trampled.  Thankfully just about a minute before start they finally let everyone know about the ropes.

The race starts and our wave goes out and the pacer I was staying with was going a lot faster than I thought she would.  I think the first mile was around a 9:33 which is obviously pretty far off from what I was expecting.  I managed to run the first half but after that I hit a MAJOR wall! I was out of energy and couldn't run very far at all before I needed to walk.  I started grabbing Gatorade at the water stops and hoping to finish in a halfway decent time.  I was so very frustrated because 2 weeks before I had flown through my 5 mile run and thought I had a pretty good chance at having a good time and then I went low carb.  I know this is a good decision on my part for now but I am definitely planning to add back in fruits and sweet potatoes before I up my mileage again.

My time ended up being 1:10:44.  I was so mad at myself and frustrated but I am looking forward to running another for redemption in the near future. The husband however, had a great race at 1:02:43.  His best time yet and a 5 minute PR!!

Protein Bakery Review and Giveaway!

This has to be, by far, the most delicious giveaway I have done on this blog.  If you haven't already be introduced, let me introduce you to the pure deliciousness of The Protein Bakery!

First off I want to let you know about a promotion The Protein Bakery is doing right now called "Show Us Your Muscle."   Anyone who orders a product and sends them a photo of you holding the product and making a muscle gets entered to win a free baker's gift set and t-shirt!  Pictures should be sent to
info@proteinbakery.com  .  If you win you will get their biggest gift set, the tshirt, and your photo featured on their website.  Even better, you are eligible to enter this contest using the goodies you win from me! 

The box I got.  You will notice the mini black and white blondie is gone.  It didn't last 5 minutes!

The Protein Bakery has lots of goodies like brownies, blondies, and various cookies!  In the box I got, it came with 1 mini Black and White Blondie, 1 mini Peanut Butter brownie, 2 packs of Oatmeal Chocolate Chip cookies, Chocolate Chocolate White Chip Cookies, and Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies, and a large Black and White Blondie and a Walnut Brownie.  So far we have sampled everything but the Walnut Brownie and I am saving that for my cheat day this weekend!  So far everything has been soooo good but I have to say that the Black and White Blondies were by far my favorite and I was very glad there were 2 in the box! =)

Yummy, delicious Black and white blondie- the large version

I had to share with The Husband so we each tried each one.  One night after dinner, when it was a cheat night, this is what he found.

He was glad to try 2 kinds that night =)

Why should you want to try these goodies? Well, there are a bunch of reasons but the ones that jumped out at me the most are from the info I got from the Protein Bakery:

 Higher In Muscle-Building Protein
Whey protein is more easily absorbed by the body.
Preferred by most nutritionists and healthy living experts.
Some of our baked goods have more protein than an egg or a glass of milk.

and

Higher in dietary fiber to satisfy your hunger
Some of our treats have as much fiber as a bowl of oatmeal.
No wheat flour used and very low in gluten
Many people have an intolerance for white flour and gluten.
And for everyone else, it's just a healthier bite.

Those are very high points for me and these are seriously good! Not what you would expect of some of the products out there that are low gluten/gluten free.

\

Even the minis aren't that small!

The winner of this giveaway will be getting a taste of Protein Bakery (an assortment of 2 brownies/blondies, 2 cookie 2-packs and 2 mini's) $45.00 value with shipping!

Enter below through the rafflecopter.  Sorry but we can only ship within the mainland of the US and not to PO Boxes or APO addresses.

 

a Rafflecopter giveaway

**Disclaimer: I was not compensated in any way for this giveaway.  I was provided product for review and all opinions are my won.** 

Giveaways Galore!

So, since I have gotten behind on posts, I also have a couple giveaways that are due.  I JUST realized yesterday that I never did a race recap on the Biggest Loser 10k I ran on June 29th so I plan to do that tomorrow.  I had held onto these giveaways until that point because that was the day I was intending to try both products and time just got away from me.  Anyway, for the Biggest Loser race I decided to try out my Spun Compression socks as well as Energybits!

ENERGYbits

Coming into this race I had been having terrible runs with a capital "T."  About 8 days before this I had switched over to a low carb diet and the one long run of 5 miles I had completed left me drained and out of whack very quickly.  I am assuming my body was still adjusting? I am not sure but they were bad.  I had high hopes that the Energybits would get me through this race.

It is recommended by the ENERGYbits people that you use 30 bits prior to activity so about 15 minutes before the race start I took 30 bits.  To begin with these smell very...green.  Since they are 100% algae that is completely expected.  While there is an option to chew these in reviews I had read before, I knew to just swallow them whole.  They are the size of maybe an Advil, so it was fun to swallow 30 of those, but it was doable.  During the race I did feel more energy that I had felt on my last run.  I made it farther than I expected based on my previous performance in the week so that was good as well.  The great thing about these is that they are all- natural and they are a FOOD and not a supplement.

From the ENERGYbits website:
Made from 100% organicallly grown spirulina algae and loaded with 40 nutrients, ENERGYbits® algae tabs have the highest concentration of protein in the world (64%) all for just one calorie per tab. Endorsed by the United Nations as the most nutritious food on earth, spirulina algae has been a favorite of Olympic gold medalists for decades and is a super food in every sense of the word, delivering instant and enduring energy to your brain and body.

I think that I will give these another go soon as my general level of energy has continued to come up over the time since the race.  I would like to try these again when I am having normal runs and not terrible ones like the week I did manage to try them.  Want to try them, too? Enter the giveaway at the bottom of the post!

Those entering in the giveaway will win one sample pack of ENERGYbits!


Spun Compression

It was very humid and the temperature was rising quite a bit the morning of the race so I decided to wear short socks during the race and save these socks for the long ride home after the race.  Like I mentioned above, I had a terrible run and my calves were kind of achy.  I jumped in the shower when we got back to the hotel and put my Spun Compression socks on right away.  I am always worried because I seem to have large calves so I tend to wonder if they are going to be too tight.  These actually felt great on my legs.  I didn't have any issues with them being too tight and they put just the right amount of pressure on my calves.  I kept them on for the whole ride home and then a couple more hours after we made it home.  I was definitely glad to have them!

One great point about these compression socks?  They are much cheaper than many others you will find out there.  Regular price they run 34.99. Why?

From the Spun Apparel website:

Spun Performance Apparel was born out of necessity.  When our founders began searching for compression apparel to aid them in their performance and to speed up their recovery, they shared a common sentiment, "Why's this stuff so expensive?"  So, they set out to try to find the answer.  There were a few factors that led to most legitimate compression apparel being so expensive:

• It's sold through retail locations, so there is an extra level of markup, sometimes as high as 200%;
• Many compression apparel companies pay athletes to wear their gear;
• It's worth it.

While we share their sentiment on the final point, we wholeheartedly disagree with the first two. 

Why drive to a specialty running or cycling store to try something on for a minute or two in a cramped dressing room when you can order online and try it on in the comfort of your own home.  If it doesn't fit, we'll pay for you to ship it back to us.

I plan on also getting these in green soon!

Enter the Rafflecopter below to try to win these awesome products!! There will be 2 winners for this giveaway.  Giveaway runs from August 21-31, 2013.  Winner will be announced in a blogpost on Sept 1! a Rafflecopter giveaway

Just when I thought things were calming down... (non-running related)

it came time to gear up for school!  While we homeschool, and my kids are still very young, we have a very flexible school schedule but the kiddos are showing serious signs of needing some structure in their lives so I have been prepping.  It is reminding me a lot of when I was in a classroom. 

We were ALMOST ready to start.  Rex is 5.5 and going into 1st grade this year and Curly just turned 4 and is starting kindergarten this year so I had ordered everything for them and this week I pulled everything out to get it set up.  I got the first few lessons of our reading program ready, got math pages put into binders, and got all of our phonogram cards torn apart and put into the card box. 

Then, The Husband looks at me during a discussion when I was telling him I would like to get a table for the school area rather than the desks that we have now, and tells me that it would be great to be able to move school into the playroom.  Well, my brain took that and ran with it and for the last 2 days I have been in hyper-drive.  So far I have: organized Curly's closet, deep cleaned her room, picked up a cabinet and bed for her room, turned said cabinet into a dress up closet, had The Husband move her room around and take a shelf down, then move it back and put the shelf back up (sorry TH), and moved all of her stuff from the playroom into her room.

Still left to do is deep cleaning Rex's room and moving his toys into his room from the toy room then taking all of the school stuff down off the wall and moving it into the new school room. I am excited to have more wall space to work with! Non-school related, we are picking up Rex's bed and painting it. He wants the headboard to be camouflaged and The Husband is going to Home Depot soon and getting materials to build shelves for their rooms so we can have storage for the toys moving in there. And, don't tell the Husband but I have visions of paining their rooms very, very soon. I have quite a bit of stuff on craigslist that I am hoping sell soon because I am running out of room to store things in the meantime.

Hopefully I can have some before and after pictures soon of our new school room area and of the kids' room makeovers.  Also, hopefully we can get started on school sometime before December! =) 

Since I haven't mentioned running yet, I should also say that I am trying to decide on a traiining program.  The Husband mentioned maybe I should run a half program a couple times from now until time to start the marathon program and then start at a normal marathon training point? I haven't decided yet and need to look at the calendar to decide.  I need to give myself as much weight loss time before I reintroduce higher carbs as possible and since the last couple days I have been off the wagon, it may take FOREVER to make it to goal!

Happy Running!

My Big Plans!

I mentioned I would try to get back tonight to talk about my plans and figured this is the perfect opportunity.  The Husband went to bed early because he's going to run into work for a few hours tomorrow, Rex has been in bed for quite awhile now, and Curly went to spend the weekend with Nana (my mom).

I am a bit nervous to even say...er, type...this because it is not something that I thought would even cross my mind for a couple more years.  I have decided to run a MARATHON in May.  Yes, all capitals because when I think about it, that's how I imagine it in my head.  I am scared out of my mind, ya'll, but I really, really want to do it.

The whole thought came out of nowhere.  The race schedule that I had in mind is looking like it is going to need to change and we have decided to move a couple races and go back to the Flying Pig this year.  We were between it and the Indy Mini but we had so much fun at the Flying Pig and the kids are wanting to race again.  Unfortunately we don't have any options for kids races nearby and the Indy Mini doesn't offer one.

So, after making the decision to go back to the Pig, I wanted to do something different.  I originally thought that I would do the 3 way which is running the 5k and 10k on Saturday and then running the half marathon on Sunday.  That has been my plan for while but the other day when we were getting ready to run the marathon just popped into my head and I said "I want to do that!"  Now, I am fairly certain that is what is going to happen.  There are a couple things that may change this decision.

1. My weight- I know, I know that shouldn't change my decision to do something I really want but recently I have gone low carb.  I am talking induction level low carb so only 20-25 carbs a day.  This is just enough to fuel my short runs right now but I really wanted to be at or very close to goal weight before I move into a more Paleo-ish style of eating and adding back in fruits and sweet potatoes.  I have 23-28lbs before I get to what I consider my goal and I would like to be within 10lbs of there by the time my mileage ups to the higher miles.  I am fairly certain I can do it but you just never know when you will hit a plateau.

and

2. My leg- The day following my half at the Flying Pig in May I had what I thought was an extremely sore hamstring on my left leg.  Only problem is that it still aches now when I run or do a lot of walking like we did at the theme park Wednesday.  I have an appointment with a chiropractor and I am going to see if that helps.  If not, I am off to my general doctor to get a referral to a sports medicine doctor.

I have decided to do Hal Higdon's Novice Supreme program just because I run much better when I have a program to follow so starting 30 weeks out is not necessarily what I HAVE to do but what I WANT to do. I am sure I could start 18 weeks out on the normal training program and be ok but having a set plan keeps me focused and on track.  Therefore, training for the May 4th race will begin October 6!

Thanks for listening to my rambling!

Happy Running!

Making a Comeback!

For the past few weeks, maybe longer (I am not sure how long ago my last post was without looking), I have been dying to write, to catch up, and connect with other bloggers again.  This summer I have been TERRIBLE about reading blogs, writing on my own, and keeping up with my other technological fun stuff. We have had lots going on this summer.  We have season passes to the local waterpark and on the days it hasn't been unseasonably chilly, that is where we can be found.


We've hiked, biked, had birthday parties, park playdates, attended story time, gone to the zoo and a theme park, vacationed, and chilled out at home.

 We went to Old Man's Cave.  It is absolutely gorgeous there and a good place to get some family fun and exercise in.  The kids loved the new panning for gems/fossils thing they added since we were there last.

We have memberships to the zoo and even though it is over an hour away we try to go as much as possible! Also, Curly had to have 2 parties this year because her pool party got rained out so we had a small party at the house for family only and then had her pool party the following week for all the kids that were invited.

 For Curly's birthday this year we decided that we would get her a couple small things from us and then get her an experience.  Everyone always buys them so much and the house is only so big, so we decided we would take her to Kings Island for the first time.  I think she rode everything she was big enough for, the above "supergirl" ride (as she called it) at least 3 times!  Rex loved walking through their animatronic dinosaur park.  It is apparently the largest one in the world?

 We love our library's story time! For such a small town they always have great programs: Reptile guys, the zoo, life-size puppet theater, etc.  We also have gotten lucky enough to get to know another family that homeschools and our kids get along great! We have done lots of playdates in the last year.

 All in all, I am calling this a successful summer! I am not liking the turn of the weather and have my fingers crossed that we will have at least a few more warm days so we can get more use out of our waterpark passes before the cooler weather is here to stay.

The title above is not only making a comeback to blogging.  I am about to amp up my running all over again.  I have a goal in mind that I want to start working toward (more on that later) and I need to get myself back into some semblance of order when it comes to running.  The Husband has been working over quite a bit and it doesn't seem to be on a certain day so some days I have planned to run I end up needing to alter the plan.  Either way, I have big plans for the weeks to come and I intend to post about that tomorrow.. maybe tonight if I can sit down and write again.  I need to document my madness. =)

Happy running!