New Years "Resolutions"

Figured a good post to start with would be my New Years Resolutions though I hate to call them that.  Hmmm... New Years Goals? Yea, goals!  Ok.. Here are my 2014 Fitness/Health Goals. Hopefully I can get my knee back in order ASAP to get started on these!

1) Blog more! I know that isn't what one would normally think of when considering health and fitness goals, but it is for me.  It helps keep me accountable and opens up a whole new fitness world for me to get tips, tricks, and connect with other people where locally the fitness community isn't large. I also have some race reviews to catch up on!

2) PR a 5K, 10K, and Half at least once for each distance. I am looking to PR my official times.  At this point I have beat my times unofficially but getting that official "check" makes me happy.  My times have improved quite a bit (at least in my mind) since my last race so I am excited to see what I can do.

  Current OFFICIAL Prs:
5k: 28:43   
10k: 1:10:44
Half: 2:29:52

Current UNOFFICAL Prs that I would like to see become official.. LOL

5k: 26:14
10k: 54:16


3) Run a Full Marathon and possibly an Ultra.  I am definitely planning to run my full this year though I had to postpone it.  I was following a half program to get me through to full training and the week I hit my 8 mile run I had HUGE issues with my IT band.  I am working on my hip strength and I am cleared to run until I hit pain.  Right now that is around 2 miles and climbing.  Because of this I decided to run the half at the Flying Pig in May and then I am planning to run the Full in September at the Air Force Marathon.  Fitting as it takes place on the last base the Husband was stationed at before he got out of the Air Force.

4) Continue to make healthy food choices and hit my water goals each day.

5) Lose the last 10lbs to get to my goal weight and go into 2015 with no goal to lose weight for the first time ever that I can remember.  I have mentioned before my weight loss journey.  I am finally almost done! I had a couple months, despite staying on plan for the most part, that I plateaued.  I think I finally have that under control and I have started going down again.  I would love to hit goal before the Flying Pig this year.  Even better if I can hit it before my first half of the year (the Athens Marathon) in April.  Here is my progress from May to December. I have lost a total of 43lbs since November 2012 and between these 2 pictures is about 27-28lbs. (and yes I bought the clothes I am trying on in the picture! LOL) I had sent the picture to my weight loss buddy to determine if they were too small.  It hasn't sunk in yet that I can buy smalls!

6) Try something new in the fitness arena... Maybe kickboxing, yoga, or crossfit? I am not sure yet but I crave something NEW!

7) I am afraid to set a mileage goal for the year since I am unsure 100% what is going on, or what may go on, with my knee but I am thinking that I would like to at least hit 800 this year? That would be nice!

8) 14 races in 2014!

I am sure some of these may change but I thought it would be nice to have these listed so that I can come check in at the end of the year and see how it goes! I have some other family related goals as well but I don't want to bore you with those =)

Happy Running!

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!!

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