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 =(

{source}

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!!

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!

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!

Lock Laces Review and Giveaway!

Hey, all! It is that time again! I have another great giveaway for my awesome and amazing readers.  I have had this in the works for awhile but for some reason I have just felt SWAMPED and not able to get my thoughts together to do this.  But, here it is!

I have heard the wonders of Lock Laces for quite some time.  Never tie, great fit every time, quick and easy to get out the door but I had yet to get any.  Then I won a pair from a giveaway on another blog.  Those were quickly snatched by my then 4 year old son for his play tennis shoes.  He loves to be able to come and go when he feels like it between the house and wherever my husband happens to be working outside without having to come find me to help him with his shoes.  Putting the Lock Laces on there has saved many unfinished chores in the house ;-).  I would show you a picture of his play shoes with the lock laces on them but if any of you know little boys they are about as clean as a pig in a wallow so.... Here's a stock photo =)

[Source]

'

So, then I buy a pair and the Husband gets them! He promptly puts them on his running shoes and hasn't looked back.  They were so easy to put on and literally took just a couple of minutes before we took off for a run. (Directions taken from Lock Laces packaging.)

1. Lace the shoe up like you normally would.  You get the best fit in the end with your foot in the shoe.

2. Squeeze the lock and thread each lace through it.

3.Cut your laces 2-3 inches below the lock. ( You are welcome to use something other than children's safety scissors, of course. =) )

4. Insert laces into clip and press to close.

 

Since everyone else seems to love them I really need to get on ordering myself some.  Maybe this time I will get to keep them!  But, I have 2 pairs to give away to 2 lucky winners.  

All you have to do is enter through the Rafflecopter below.  For this giveaway I am partnering with Aph over at Aphalicious Bliss who is a fellow Sweat Pink and Girls Gone Sporty Ambassador and highlighting this giveaway on her blog as well for her big birthday extravaganza! Giveaway will run from July 2-July 8! Good Luck!!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

*I was not compensated for this review in any way.  Lock Laces provided me with 2 pairs to give away but all opinions are my own**

Making My List..

Before I get into the true topic of this post I am soooo excited to announce that I am a new Sweat Pink Ambassador as well as a new Girls Gone Sporty Ambassador! Both emails came on the same day! How cool is that?! I am already loving being a part of this group of amazing, inspiring, and strong ladies!







So, on to what I have been meaning to post about for a couple days.  I mentioned awhile back (way back here) about my thought of a goal to run a half marathon in each of the 50 states but never really followed up on if The Husband thought I was nuts or not.  Well, turns out he didn't, and he is actually liking the idea of checking out all the states.  Also, although he said he would never run a half, I actually have talked him into running some with me! Exciting!  So, I have begun making my list for all the half marathons I want to run in each state.  I have a semi-finished list at this point but soon I will put a tab at the top so I can add to it.

After thinking about this goal, and how long it could take, and the fact that I could keel over one day and never finish (kidding), I decided that I wanted another goal that would happen sooner!  Enter 35 before 35! I really wanted to do 30 before 30 but we are just transitioning to being a single income family so that I can homeschool the kids. Considering that I will be 30 in 2 years and around 2 months, there aren't all that many half marathons within driving distance so travel/hotels would be included a lot, we decided that 35 before 35 would be more manageable.  It averages out to around 4 a year so the plan is to do 2 out of state toward my 50 state goal and 2 that are local.

Another exciting thing is that this allows us to re-do any race we really like and try other races in Ohio without me stressing that we should be doing a race out of state to put it toward my 50 state goal.

Here's the list for this coming year, I believe:

November 2013:   Marshall Half Marathon                                        Huntington, WV
March 2014:         Just a Short Run Half Marathon                            Allison Park, PA
May 2014:            The Flying Pig 3-way (5k,10k,Half)                     Cincinnati, OH
                                            OR
                             The Indy Mini Marathon                                       Indianapolis, IN
September 2014:   Twilight Red Rock Half Marathon                         Las Vegas, NV
October 2014:       Nationwide Children's Hospital Half Marathon      Columbus, OH


I am excited to start doing all of these races! Luckily 2 of those are within driving distance and one is being incorporated into our vacation.  I am also excited to say that The Husband has some running friends in Vegas who we think will run the Vegas run with us.  It has a 1000ft elevation gain in the 1st 5 miles, though, so that should be fun. Orrr something like that!

This weekend, The Husband and I are running the Biggest Loser 10k in Charleston, Wv.  I am pretty excited to run my first race with him and to do another race.  I was having withdraws =).

Anybody have a half marathon they want to recommend for me to add to my list?
Has anyone run any of the Biggest Loser races? 
 
Happy Running!

Run For Your Lives Race Recap

When you sign up for a RFYL event, you know that you will be getting a good time.  Not only are there obstacles and Zombies but also an Apocalypse party to top off the effort of the run.  This was my first mud run and I have to say that I am glad I started here. The concept of the race is really fun.  You are doing this obstacle course run with flags around your waist (a la flag football) and if you make it to the end with at least 1 of your 3 flags left you are a survivor.  If you have no flags left… well I hope you like brains.  The race is a 5k and the entire course was straight up and straight down the entire time so there really wasn’t much actual running happening out of anyone. Those hills were pretty insane and I have to say, 2 days out and I am still Sore (yes with a capital "s").  I have a feeling that I am still going to be sore tomorrow as well.

 

We made it! Everything was marked well with these giant signs

  

The Husband and I were running the 11:30 wave and about a week before we got an email saying that we should get there 2 hours early for number pickup and parking.  I don't know if they were just being overly conservative or if they tend to have backup but I thought the organization was great.  From parking, to waiver signing, to number pickup it was probably a 15 minute process?  The only problem I had was that they had The Husband's number in the folder but mine was missing.  The volunteer wasn't sure what to do so she asked someone else, they gave me a new number, and I was on my way in maybe 2-3 minutes.  Very quick and painless!

One of the many people in costume wandering the party area

From there we headed over to the “party” area and where the starting flag was. They had plenty of restroom facilities and a couple places to grab a bite to eat and grab the one free beer you get by tearing the tag off your race bib. This area of the event was really fun.  They had 2 DJ’s that were hosting games like musical chairs and an Ohio trivia game and they were hilarious and high energy so that in turn had the entire crowd pumped up.  Walking around we were able to see the zombies being made up for the course, people walking around in costume and even a couple of caged zombies to have your picture taken with.

10 minutes from the start time the DJs announced our wave.  They didn’t monitor who was jumping into each wave so I realized we could have gone into any of the earlier waves while we stood there waiting for the last hour and a half.  The starting cage (I can’t think of anything better to call it- 2 long lengths of 15ft tall chain length fence) was separated into 3 sections: Appetizer, Entrée, and Dessert.  Clever.  They actually released each wave in waves as well.  Appetizers went first and were given a minute or so before the Entrées were released.  I liked this because it spread people out enough that you didn’t feel choked but you also had safety in numbers while going through the groups of zombies.  Each time we would come up on a horde of  them we would all actually wait until we had a pretty good crowd of 20 or more to run through to give ourselves more chances to get through with flags intact. Everyone was helping everyone and people with zero flags left would try to run interference and help those with flags left make it through.

Hill right out of the starting gate.  You can see it go up and turn to the left.  There were zombies waiting there =)

The obstacles weren’t overly tough.  Some examples were simple mazes with zombies hidden inside, monkey bars, a balance beam over a water hole, a slide into a pool of red water, and 2-3 different obstacles you needed to crawl army style under.  The most notable obstacle that gave me pause is the very last one which is chain link fence that they had set up parallel to the ground that you needed to crawl under.  It was a very tight fit, very muddy underneath, and I must also mention it was electric.  I got shocked once and it was a mild shock like you would get from an electric fence meant to keep horses in.  Not terrible but a little jolt to keep you moving.  I saw a few people start under and suddenly start backing out because the shock surprised them.  One obstacle was out of order essentially so that was a bummer.  It was a building that should have been dark with fog and pieces of charged electric fence hanging down but the fog wasn’t working.  Because of that you could just walk through and avoid the pieces of fence.   

The Husband- Before

Me- before

The real obstacle in all of this was the course itself and the zombies.  There were some killer hills to the point that you almost needed to grab trees to go up them and they would station 10-20 zombies to run through right at the top of these hills.  It was TOUGH but oh so fun!

Lots of waiting zombies for the last large obstacle

I only have couple of complaints for the after race portion.  You can only check something that will fit in a ziplock bag meaning nowhere to check your clothes for after the race so you have to walk all the way out to car and back to the venue to the changing tents and it was a pretty good walk.  This wouldn’t be a big deal if you were planning to stay and hang out but we were not so we actually just changed out by the cars in the back hatch of my SUV.  I think maybe they should incorporate a bigger bag check or put the changing tents out by the parking area. The other complaint is that the showers were not working when we came out of the course but by the time we had gotten our keys from the checked bags and started walking out we saw it was working again.
 

After =)

In all, the race was a great one and if they come back to Ohio next year we will probably be doing it again.