7 miles

Last night I felt like I was trying to start a cold, which isn't anything unusual for me, as soon as I start back into a running plan I come down with a cold. I decided that a dose of NyQuil and some sleep would probably help me out. It did, I slept for just shy of 12 hours, which gave me and the hubby a very late start to our 7 mile run. We had a quick breakfast and packed up plenty of water to take with us.

It wasn't until we were heading out the door that I realized that my Garmin wasn't charged. I knew that I hadn't charged it last night but I had charged it the night before and had only used it on the 4 mile walk that I had done so I was really confused why my battery was completely dead. I decided to grab my charger and plug it in while we drove to the park to do our 7 miles and my watch was only charged to 12%. I had wanted to run the Riverfront Trail and so even though it was almost noon and it was getting warmer we decided to drive to the Riverfront Trail head to do our 7 mile and to give my watch a little more time to charge. By the time we made it there my watch was at 24%, my husband told me to try turning off the bluetooth to try to give my watch a little longer run time, which was brilliant! My watch ended up being at 24% when I plugged it back in at the end our run.

The trail is really neat, it is 11.8 miles long and starts in downtown St. Louis, and runs along the Mississippi River on the Missouri side. We did 3.5 miles out and back, it was pretty cool, we started out by the old city power plants and walked along the levees and under the old railroad tracks. There were two rest stops in the 3.5 miles that we did, one was just a water fountain but the other had a water fountain, port a potties, and a building that has a deck with picnic tables that overlooked the river. It also had bike racks for all the bicyclists to park their bikes. We even saw a bike cop at one point which was nice to know that they have someone patrolling the area. The only thing about the trail that I wasn't a fan of was that several times we were passed by cars on the trail, there were multiple fishing areas and also in some of the industrial areas there was access to the river so people were driving on the trail at times.

During the first part of our run we were doing just fine and since my hubby needed an extra half mile, he quite literally ran circles around me a couple of times. I actually had a little bit of trouble keeping my heart rate high enough at first and found myself having to jog or power walk to keep my heart rate in the 137-147 range. The course was relatively flat except for a couple of steep hills where we got on and off of the earthen levee, that seemed to be the only time I was really have trouble keeping my heart rate in range. While my times are not the fastest out there I did complete all 7 miles and my slowest mile was 21:58 which is better than my five mile the other day.

Since I have been working out more in the past few days my work out clothes are mostly dirty, I ended up wearing a black of workout pants and a race top from last year. The top was a little uncomfortable and after a while I started to get really hot so I did something I thought I would never do in public, I took off my shirt and I bared my belly and my highlighter yellow sports bra. It took me a little to get over the initial "OMG I'm not wearing a shirt, people can see my fat!" but I did and no one seemed to care, maybe they thought something but no one said anything to me and no one fell off of their bike and I felt a lot better not having it on. I don't think I will be making it a regular thing but it was nice to cool off.

Overall it was a good day and a decent training run. I still feel weird calling it a run when my overall average pace is 18:45. I'm having a little pain in my left glute and I'm a little sun brunt on my face but I'm proud that I got out and did the 7 miles!

Good day

Well I managed to make it out for my run before noon today. I hit the same trail I did the other day but headed a different direction. It's been important to me lately to change up my route so that I'm seeing some different scenery. I really enjoyed my route today. It took me very close to my old house and back on a lot of territory that I used to run on all the time.

I had finally taken the time to set up a training plan on Garmin Connect and synced it with my watch so that I was able to set up a heart rate alert. I feel like this might actually be the best way for me to do the MAF training. Since I set it up for my assigned heart rate range and set it for 1 mile increments that's all it showed me. It showed my current heart rate and the distance left for that particular mile. I didn't start at the time or the pace and it didn't drive me crazy or upset me. My overall pace was 18:06 per mile and while that's slower than I'd like I'm really hoping that this is the key to getting faster without getting injured or giving up.

After my run, I came home and grabbed a shower. My mom came over and we went out to do a little shopping. We ended up at the local Fleet Feet store and I picked up a new pair of Brooks Adrenaline GTS 14! My Saucony's are starting to get up there in miles and so I figured I should start working a new set of shoes into the line up before the marathon. I'm thinking that I'll probably actually wear these for the marathon, I should have plenty of miles on them to break them in by then. I think I'll definitely plan on wearing them on my 20 miler to see how they feel and have my Saucony's in the car as back up.

My new Brooks - ignore the KT tape I was teaching my Mom about using KT tape.

Tomorrow I have 7 miles on the schedule and hubby and I are planning on getting out fairly early to get it done together. I've been looking online to see if I can find a nice trail we can do our run on nearby, especially one where if he leaves me in his dust it won't be as big of a deal. I'm hoping this run will go well for me, I'm not sure how long it will take with my MAF training and I think I'm starting to get a cold. It always seems like the week I start any working out I get sick.

Rain, rain and a little more rain

Today was the kiddos last day of summer camp and the last time we would see him for 6 days. He is with his biological mother until Tuesday morning. My hubby and I took him to breakfast before I took him to summer camp. I usually don't get up early in the morning, ever. So I figured since I was waking up at 6:45 am anyway I might as well get my run done early before it got so hot and sunny.

On our way to Cracker Barrel (hubby's favorite place to eat) it started to rain a little but it let up, though it remained grey and cloudy. While we were waiting for our food to come, we looked at the weather report. It showed a 100% chance of rain for the next 12 hours. While I have run in the rain plenty of times in the past I just couldn't bring myself to do it today. Usually I use the rain to motivate me to a faster pace but since I knew I was limited by my heart rate, I knew I would be out in the rain for at least 1 hour.

I stayed in my workout clothes for most of the day, I kept checking outside to see if the rain was every going to let up but it never did. So I sat there and pouted since I wasn't going to be able to work out. I'd already had a rough morning. I didn't get much sleep last night and woke up about 3 hours before I normally do, my weight was up this morning, I couldn't do my 4 miles, and I knew the reason I didn't want to do the 4 miles was because I'm so slow with this MAF training. It was so upsetting. I barely made it off the couch all day.

I did manage to get something accomplished today though, besides getting to spend some quality time with my boys I dropped off all the kiddos school paperwork at the district office, picked up some running shorts for my hubby and a new pair of jeans for me, made a bunch of stuff for the freezer and snuggled on the couch with my hubby. So all in all not a pointless day but a bit depressing.

Nooner

Sorry about the title, it came to me while I was doing my run. I have a bizarre mind and well I let it out of its cage while I workout.

I don't know why I keep going out for all my runs walks during the hottest part of the day. I knew that today I was going to get out and do something toward my goal of getting at least 20 miles this week. My schedule said 5 miles and I decided that I would do at least 3 and see how I felt. I decided to hit the same trail that I did on Saturday. I decided that I would head one direction for 1.25 miles and head  back to my car for some water and possibly some AC since the temp was 86 already. I finished the first 2.5 miles without much difficulty, though it was much slower than I would have liked. After I got some water and cooled down a little bit in my car I headed back out. I still hadn't decided exactly how many miles I would do but I knew I wanted at least 3 miles.

I made it slowly to 3.75 miles which was the turn around point for a 5 mile run but the 1.25 miles back proved to be very difficult. I was so hot and tired that I was practically stopped and still exceeding the 147 HR for my MAF. My pace slowed to a 25 minute mile at one point which is to slow for me to even actually walk. I was having to make myself take a step, pause, take a step, pause. I finally got to a shady part of the walking trail and just sat down. My heart rate was 153 at that point and I while I felt fine except for being hot I was starting to get frustrated with the MAF training. I decided to just walk slowly back to the car since I had less than a mile to go and not worry to much about my heart rate.

Honestly with my marathon only about 9 weeks away I'm wondering if I picked the wrong time to change up my training style. That being said I do feel like what I was doing before wasn't working because I was pushing myself to hard and I didn't stick with it. I am going to try my hardest to get up early tomorrow to do my 4 mile run in hopes that maybe if the heat isn't there I will be able to do the 4 miles in less than 90 minutes.

My marathon has a 7 hour course limit, which breaks down to a 16:02 average mile. If I'm starting with a 17:25 minute mile for my first mile I just don't know if I'm going to be able to do this. I want to do this and I am so tired of not keeping up with my training and not being where I want to be. 2 years ago I was doing 11:30 minute miles but I was miserable and hurting by the end of a half marathon. I just want to find the balance.

3 mile, 4 mile, and MAF training, oh my!

Monday the 21st, I took my stepson to the zoo for a few hours of entertainment on a long summer day, can you tell I'm getting ready for school to start back? We spent about 3 hours walking around the St. Louis Zoo. We had a lot of fun, even though it was quite toasty! Towards the end of the trip my ankle started to bother me and I had to limp back to the car. I decided that it probably wasn't a good idea to go out for a 3 mile run on a sore ankle (plus I had been walking around for three hours in the mid day heat.) After that it didn't take much for me to back slide and to go 13 days without a run.

When I finally did decide to go out for a run, I had 10 miles on the schedule and thought well maybe I'll do it, maybe I won't but at least I will get out and do something. The issue with that was that I waited until almost noon before I started my run. It just seemed like I had to work hard to convince myself to get up and get out the door for the run, then I had to decide which trail I wanted to run, I couldn't decide between just heading straight out of the door and running on the sidewalks through my neighborhood like I do for so many of my short runs or going to my usual paved trail that I usually run on. Neither sounded like much fun and the route in my neighborhood is so hilly and heat and hills just didn't sound fun. I finally had the brilliant idea to run one of the other greenway trails not to far from where I live now, that I used to run all the time before I moved in with my husband. I wasn't sure how far I'd want to go in the heat and I wanted to set myself up to pass my car at least once if I did a significant distance so that I could grab some water. I ended up turning around at 1.5 miles and heading back to my car. I was hot and sweaty and the 3 miles had taken me 56 minutes so I didn't figure staying out for 10 miles was a good idea.

I know that I had talked in the past about running intervals and how high my heart was getting. It honestly made me feel pretty miserable during my run times and after my run. I felt like I was setting myself up for an injury or for burnout. Let's be honest though I don't run frequently enough to truly qualify as burnout down the road. Recently I have been reading a lot of blogs on Maximum Aerobic Function Training or MAF training. It stresses the importances of runners having an aerobic base, which Dr. Maffetone postulates that most runners do not have. Many runners have said that they have faster paces even though at first you may find yourself slowing down at first. I've only done two runs in my MAF HR but I find I'm feeling better during and after runs even though my pace is considerably slower. Also I don't want to jinx myself but I have noticed I have finally broken through the little bit of plateau I've been stuck on in my weight loss.

As far as the actual concept goes in case you haven't seen it elsewhere

1. Subtract your age from 180.
2. Modify this number based on your own fitness and health profile:

• If you have or are recovering from a major illness or are on regular medication, subtract an additional 10.
• If you are injured, have regressed in training, have asthma, have never exercised or exercise inconsistently, subtract an additional 5.
• If you have trained consistently for up to two years with no problems, make no modifications.
• If you have exercised consistently for more than two years with no problems, add 5.

Because I'm 28 and I have asthma I have a maximum HR of 147 and it says to exercise within 137-147 range and I try very hard but I am having trouble figuring out how or if I can set up a heart rate alert on my Garmin Forerunner 220. So far I've done 2 "runs" (mostly actually walking) and I've actually enjoyed it. I really feel great and although it's slow I can complete the distance.

I'm hoping to do 20 miles this week, I did four miles tonight with my hubby, he did 5 miles. He is so cute, he walks with me for a bit and then runs ahead and then back to me, then walks with me for a little bit. I figure if I do 5 days, 4 miles nice and easy with 1 hatha yoga day and 1 rest day I will get my miles in without stressing myself out or hurting myself. 

Biggest Loser 10K Recap

My husband and I originally signed up for this race back in April when I went on a race registration spree. I'm pretty sure in one day I signed us up for four different races, including the Biggest Loser 5K. Since my husband has been hurting I wasn't sure if he was going to be able to do this race with me or not and I had been contemplating emailing them to see if they would use his registration to upgrade mine to a 5K. However, he rallied and decided to do the race.

We met for lunch and then went to the packet pick up at one of the local Fleet Feet stores. They had a decent little area set aside just for packet pickup, a solutions desk, one vendor (besides all the store had to offer) and a table set up for Jay Sheets (BL season 15) who was signing autographs and taking pictures. We headed to the packet table and quickly got our bib and goodie bag. The bag itself was very nice and the kiddo has already acquired one of ours, the materials inside were fine for the fact that it was a little 5K; coupons, ads and a little bottle of sunscreen. The lady at the solutions table was very nice and it took less than 3 minutes to get me switched from the 5K to the 10K. Jay lives fairly close to where I grew up, as a matter of fact, the town he lives in was the big town that we always went to for our shopping and entertainment. I stood in a short line to get a signature on my shirt from him and he was genuinely nice. I told him where I grew up and he told me he was just there for vacation. After I got my picture I said bye and my husband and I headed out. (And yes he was wearing the same cowboy hat.)

The next morning we headed to Six Flags for the race. My husband wasn't sure if we would have to pay for parking or not as the emails (which I had never received) hadn't said anything about paying for parking or not. As it turned out we didn't end up needed to pay. After we parked we headed to the start area. Jay and Dan were hanging out by the start line and chatting about Biggest Loser and their lives afterward. The start line was outside of the park and we milled around until they asked us to line up at the start. There were no official corrals but Fleet Feet had pacers for 7:30 all the way to 15:00 and they spaced themselves out throughout the corral. They did a wave start pacer by pacer so it was actually not to horribly crowded at the front, since we were lined more toward the back it was a little less spaced out. We were wearing bibs with timing chips on them so we didn't think it would matter when we crossed the start line. I had convinced my husband that since we were doing 2 different races that he should run for a PR and not stick with me for the race, so he quickly left me behind.

The first 0.5 miles was outside of the park, in the parking lot. We ran into the park and ran through the park for about 0.25 miles until we hit the back service road which was the majority of our run. The back service road was incredibly hilly; it was just up and down some pretty significant inclines. There was one water station on the back service road with 2 volunteers manning it, when my husband made it to the water station, they didn't have any water and were waiting on a refill. When I made it to the water stop they had obviously gotten a refill and everything was fine.

After the water station we had to go about 0.25 miles through the back part of the park before we finally came back into the park for about another 0.25 miles before we came out onto the parking lot again. Since the 10K was just a double loop I knew that I had to do all those hills again. While I was running in the parking lot, they started opening the lot for people to park so we tried very hard to stay out of the way. At one point during the time I was in the parking lot I looked toward the finish line and I managed to spot my husband's bright blue shirt getting ready to cross the finish line! I looked at my watch and was sure he was going to have a PR. I was so excited for him and wished that if I would have screamed that he could have heard me but I knew I was to far away. The 10K split right before the finish line, which was the only other volunteer that I saw, to do the second loop of the course. Since my husband already finished he came over and walked and ran with me until I was almost back into the parking lot. They did have an additional water station in the parking lot for the 10K route which was nice, I used a GU at this time.

By the time I reached the back service road again, my legs were starting to get tired. I hadn't eaten breakfast like I usually do before a race and those hills had really taken it out of me during the first loop. I run hills almost every run that I do but these hills still killed my legs. I started to break up my run/walk times more and more to keep my heart rate under 183. By the time I made it to the finish line I was feeling fine, just tired. The only problem I had with the finish line was that they happened getting ready to start the kids fun run while I was finishing so they had to ask everyone to move over so that the 10K runners could finish. They had water, a protein drink, fruit and bagels at the finish line and they were printing out sheets with results and putting them on the bulletin board when they had a complete page.

My medal was also very disappointing to me. When I was walking with my husband previously he had shown me his medal, the medal was generic to the Biggest Loser/Six Flags race series and the ribbon was too, the ribbon was orange and said 5K. When I finished they had run out of the pink 10K ribbon medals and were giving out generic medals with generic ribbons and I'm not going to lie for the $50 dollars I spent the race, I expected a better course, course support and a better medal.

We decided to skip the board as we both didn’t need to know immediately and figured we hadn't placed anyway. I took the long way through the parking lot to our car to get some more mileage in since my GPS watch said 5.9 at the end of the race, my husband's GPS read 2.9 for the 5K and I really needed 7 miles for the day. My husband went to the car to sit in the AC. When I made it to the car I had finally reached 6.2 miles. So we headed out to a nearby park to finish up the last 0.8 miles.

When we finally made it home and checked the website my result came out just fine…

Female 25 to 29
Place	Name	City	Bib No	Age	Overall	Time Back	Chip Time	Gun Time	Chip Diff	Pace
10	Bethany		2864	28	112	40:42.2	1:29:42.7	1:32:43.1	3:00.4	14:28/M

 

However my husband had a bit of issue with his…

Male 25 to 29
Place	Name	City	Bib No	Age	Overall	Time Back	Chip Time	Gun Time	Chip Diff	Pace
6	Caleb	St. Louis MO	4939	27	160	11:07.7	41:32.4	41:32.4		13:24/M

 

He crossed the start line at the same time that I did so I'm not sure why he doesn't have a chip diff. His should be 3:00.4 also, which should have made his results look like this…

Male 25 to 29
Place	Name	City	Bib No	Age	Overall	Time Back	Chip Time	Gun Time	Chip Diff	Pace
6	Caleb	St. Louis MO	4939	27	132	8:07.7	38:32.0	41:32.4	3:00.4	12:24/M

 

Overall we weren't thrilled with the race, several people told us they have run Biggest Loser in other cities and the race was significantly better. So I can only speak about the St. Louis event. I don't know that either of us will do this race ever again because of the experience we had. Between the short course, running on a service road, the lack of spectators or support, difficulty with the timing and my disappointment with the medal it just left us very disenchanted.

A Long Post

So, what happened? I was posting somewhat regularly and then bam, I disappeared. It's kind of my MO for blogging though isn't it? That's why pretty much my only regular follower is my husband, bless his heart. Anyway, here's the long and short of what happened while we were away...

July 5th I woke up feeling miserable and had a particularly bad head cold. I ended up spending most all of Sunday and Saturday in bed trying to feel better. Thankfully I did end up feeling pretty good by the time I woke up on Monday, on the other hand, on Monday I woke up to my husband puking. I thought maybe he had food poisoning but when I went to work and experienced similar symptoms I realized that he probably brought home a stomach virus not food poisoning. So I spent Wednesday and Thursday dealing with a stomach virus. By Friday my stomach virus was gone but I had a nasty cough to replace it. On Saturday I finally gave up and got an antibiotic and a steroid taper.

After I was finally feeling better I'd lost a whole week. It was Monday again and I had three miles on the running schedule, I also wanted to get my kiddo and the dog out and about so I ended up doing 4 miles on Monday. My 3 mile run went very well, thanks to being on a steroid taper for my bronchitis. I decided to do Run 2 Walk 8, just to see how I felt and I wanted to keep the rest nice and long to keep my heart rate from getting to high which I frequently have trouble with during a steroid course. I  took the run times nice and slow to help keep my heart rate down and ended up having a max HR of 184 which is really my max. Right about there and above I start to feel like crap if I keep that up so I usually shoot to keep it around 180 or less.

Tuesday was back to work for me, this time feeling much better than I had in a while thankfully. I didn't run but I did manage to do around 5,783, I had been using the breeze app for iPhone but I'm not the best about keeping my phone in my pocket so I pretty much always assume that it's off by a bit.

Wednesday was a fun day for the kiddo and I, he did his usually chores and then we went to the park for a while before heading to his dentist appointment. I took a book and kicked back while he had his cleaning, his dentist doesn't allow parents back unless they are adamant about it or there is a problem. Honestly it would probably stress out kiddo out to have us back there and do more harm than good so I got to read for 30 minutes and he was very well behaved, it is a win win. My husband was already home by the time we got back from the dentist and after we made dinner and put the kid to bed, he was nice enough to do the laundry while I went out for my 4 mile run.  I did my usual leave from the front door and run down the street routine. I usually don't do that for anything longer than 3 miles out from my door, mostly because I never have but also because I didn't know how much further the sidewalks go once I get 1.5 miles down the street. I ended up being able to add the .5 miles without much difficulty but by the time I was on the way home it had gotten considerably dark and there weren't a ton of street lights on so I was concerned that I might trip or hurt myself. I keep saying I need to wear a headlamp when I do late night runs and I even have a couple of them, I just never remember it when I go for a run.

I had to work again on Thursday and also had a 3 mile run on the schedule. By the time I made it home after my 12 hour shift. (I have an 80 minute commute.) I was done and I just didn't have it in me to do the 3 mile run, I took a hot shower and ended up falling asleep and sleeping about 12 hours.

When I finally crawled out of bed on Friday I didn't have much time before I had to meet my husband for lunch and to go pick up our race packets for the Biggest Loser Run/Walk. We had both originally signed up for the 5K but since the marathon training plan I'm doing had a 7 mile run scheduled I decided to upgrade my registration to the 10K. I also got to meet Jay from BL season 15. He lives close to where I grew up and we talked for a few minutes about his recent vacation which was right down the street from my parents house. He seems like a really nice down to earth guy.

After packet pick up my husband headed back to work for a little bit and I headed home, lucky my hubby didn't have to work long though. We headed out to do a bit of shopping. My husband has really been wanting a GPS watch to run with. He normally uses RunKeeper on his phone, which he really enjoys using but anytime we have to stop at a light or to tie a shoe it is a long process for him to pause his workout, when I can just press a button. He is the type to research a purchase for months before buying something, where I am much more impulsive. He had looked at a lot of watches but still hadn't narrowed it down to just one. He was thinking he might get a Garmin Forerunner 220 like I have but ended up leaving the store with a Nike+ watch instead. He really wanted something to try out for our race on Saturday and decided if he didn't like it after the race he would return it.

We came home to meet up with his Aunt and Uncle that he had done some computer work for and ended up going out to dinner with them after he finished up the computer repair and had a nice dinner with them. On the way back home we decided to swing back by Best Buy for an activity tracker for me. I've kind of wanted one for a while and there was a fairly cheap one that I figured I would try out. When I got back I saw something I hadn't noticed before which was the Misfit Shine. I had seen it on the Apple commercial and thought it looked cool so I ended up picking one up to take home. I will write a review once I have used it for a little bit longer but so far I'm thinking I like it. If you haven't seen them, check them out. I know that they are another tracker in a sea of them but it's worth a look if you are looking for one. I included a link to it on Amazon below.

As for our Saturday, we stayed very busy! Kiddo got to spend the night with grandma since we has to be up at 6:15 for our race. We headed out and made it to the race with about 30 minutes to spare, my husband is early to everything, unlike me who usually shows up as they are releasing the first corral. Anyway my husband set a new PR and I finished the 10K in about the pace I expected. I will post a full race review in a day or so. After the race we had breakfast and headed home to meet up with the kiddo. After a nap and lunch we headed to a local park to do some hiking and a little bit of swimming in the river.  After that I was done with the activity but my husband decided he didn't like his Nike+ as much as he had hoped so he took it back and on my recommendation picked up the TomTom Runner Cardio which I'm a bit jealous of, I won't lie. Provided he likes it he has already agreed to do a review after a few days of testing it out.

*Bethanylosesit.blogspot.com is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com. If you purchase the product through the link above I earn a percentage of the sale. 

Happy Independence Day!

Happy 4th of July!

Yesterday I had to work all day and I got home a little later than normal so I decided that I would head to the gym to do it on the treadmill. Even though I have a treadmill in my apartment but I really wanted to check out the new location that my gym opened near by so I headed over. I managed to finish about a half a mile and was just done. So I headed home and vowed to do it on Friday instead.

After sleeping until noon, I finally got up and around and went out to eat with my husband and kiddo.  After we got home I continued my sleep with a quick nap on the couch. After I woke up, I got the boys packed up and ready for the pool and I headed out at 3:30 for my 3 mile run. My garmin is out in the car though so I haven't updated dailymile and I don't remember exactly what time I finished.

I did a some what new route from my apartment. I am planning on doing 5 miles tomorrow so I had already mapped out a route that would take me from my front door and down the street I usually run on the has a sidewalk to a busier road with a large shoulder to the running/bike trail I usually run on then I'll turn around and head back the same way, provided I time everything right I will finish my 5 miles at my gym and I'm hoping that I'll feel up to doing the 9 am yoga class.

After my run I met my husband, kiddo, aunt and cousins at the pool. The kids swam for a while and we ended up having a water fight and involving my husband and I so after I removed my heart rate strap I jumped in the pool and joined in. We headed home to change and then headed to the 4th of July carnival and barbecue in the next town over. We had barbecue, rode a bunch of rides and got a great spot for fireworks. The boys decided to sit on the roof of my SUV and The rest of us set up our camp chairs behind the SUV.

I really hate loud noises and we were REALLY close to where they were actually setting the fireworks off. I ended up covering my ears for most of the display. My husband loves fireworks though and I think he really loved getting to be that close to the action. We decided to let the boys have a sleepover so my cousin is staying over. They are both early risers but stayed up way past their bedtimes so we'll see if they wake up before me or not.

Frustrating Day

Today was an interesting, frustrating day. For a while during the last school year the kiddo has been asking to be homeschooled. Husband and I decided that this summer we would keep working with kiddo to prevent him from losing any of his smarts over the summer. We picked up a workbook for kids going into second grade and I have been giving him a few worksheets each day that he didn't have summer camp. How many he got was tied to what fun activity (and how long it would take) we were going to do after he was finished with his work.

Today we planned to go see a movie at the theater, something we don't do frequently in our family.  The local theaters have a "summer series" where most Wednesdays and Thursdays they play a previously released kids movie for $1 per ticket. I gave the kiddo very few chores and very few sheets. I told him we would check and correct anything that was wrong after the movie since we had to be there at 10.

When we got home from the movie I started checking the worksheets, I remembered last night when I was getting everything ready thinking that it was a lot of pages but most of it was really easy so I figured he wouldn't have any issue. The pile today seemed much lighter. I looked around for hidden papers and looked in the trash. I asked the kiddo about it and of course he had no idea. So I made him bring me all of the previous worksheets and told him I was going to put them all in order and see what was missing and that we were going to keep going until we figured out where all the papers were. So after he let me sort through all of these darn papers and I asked him again he finally confessed to throwing some away, then after I told him it still wasn't enough he brought me more from his room. After a bit more prodding he admitted he has been doing it for several days. Sigh 7 year olds!

Anyway, there was plenty more after that that was frustrating me but I did manage to get out of the house around 4:30 pm to do my 4 miles. I hit up one of my favorite running paths and even though there were storm clouds in the sky I completed my 4 mile run without any rain drops and actually enjoyed a drop in humidity and temperature thanks to the storm clouds.

My legs definitely felt like I ran a hilly 3 miles yesterday, the first few times I ran I felt like I was running in molasses. My legs started to feel better in the later intervals though. My heart never went over 180 which is better than I have been able to keep my max heart at for a while, and depending on who you consult my max heart shouldn't be above 181-192 so I kept it low enough to appease them all.

Getting it together

Monday was to be a 3 mile run that didn't happen. Once my husband got home, we had dinner and I did some much needed grocery shopping it was getting late and I had to work Tuesday which meant the alarm was going off at 4:40 am, like it or not. 

I know that they say if you miss a workout don't try to make it up but I felt great even though I had been up for almost 16 hours. I went ahead and went out for the run because it was my first day without a cigarette, I ate like crap mad for once I really really wanted to run, so I did. 

My run felt pretty good I did 3 miles in 47:30 on my usual out and back route. I changed my intervals from 1:14 to 1:9.  I had a little bit of shin pain but that was it. 

Tomorrow has 4 miles on the schedule. It's another busy day with the kiddo, dinner and early to bed for work on Thursday. I'm starting to formulate a plan and hoping my husband can help so that I make sure to get my miles in tomorrow. 

Weekend Recap

Well I said that Friday was going to be a busy day and it was. I ended up getting up a little later than I had planned, I helped the kiddo finish up his schoolwork and then his reward for the day was to go to the pool so after lunch we headed up to the pool.

Since we normally don't go to the pool during the middle of the day on a weekday it is very rare that we get the pool to ourselves but the kiddo and I did ended up being the only ones there. Kiddo still can't quite swim so we worked on floating on his stomach and swimming underwater. I tried to get him to do a front flip but we didn't quite manage to master that. I only planned to stay for about 90 minutes and at about 85 minutes the clouds started to roll in and right at 90 minutes it started to rain.

After the pool we headed home and changed to head to grandmas. Kiddo and hubby had spent time together during the morning so kiddo decided that given the option he'd rather go to grandma and grandpas for the night rather hang out with dad and Bethany for the night. I drove him over to grandmas house which is about a 40 minute drive with no traffic, of course though I hit traffic both ways. By the time I made it home my husband was already home, since he'd left work a bit early. I baked him a german chocolate cake and after we had our cake, we headed to dinner, then saw the new Transformers movie.

By the time we made it home it was after midnight and besides my ninety minutes of lazy time pool time I didn't get in any consistent cardio.

On Saturday, my husband and I got up early to go over to his parents new place to finish laying down flooring. We tore up 1200 sq ft of carpet and padding in their new home and have been putting down new laminate flooring. We stayed there until 9 pm, stopping only for lunch and dinner. While I'm sure I burnt plenty of calories I didn't do my planned cardio.

Today, I just couldn't get myself out of bed. every now and then I have days where I'm just exhausted and feel like I could sleep all day. Today I proved I could by sleeping for the better part of 14 hours. I woke up feeling very refreshed and after I showered I ran an errand and then had dinner out with my family. I ended up not eating much since I ordered ribs and they came out crunchy and burnt, I sent them back, which I never do and the next set came out even more inedible so I just gave up and my meal consisted of a small salad and mashed potatoes. I ended up going out to have a drink with a group of people I hadn't seen in a while. After I came home and decided to go out for a 30 minute walk even though it was technically a rest day. I managed to do about 1.85 miles, my garmin died in the last 8 minutes so I used mapmyrun.com to figure out about what I did.

Tomorrow I am scheduled for a 3 mile but the heat index is supposed to get up to 110 degrees so it might have to be in on the treadmill.

Day 2 for the umpteenth time

Today was a fairly uneventful day. I woke up around 10:30, which is my usual wake up time when I don't have work or the kiddo. I'm definitely not a morning person so it always takes me a little while to get moving. I finally got around to eating breakfast and then decided to head out for my 30 minutes of exercise. 

I knew it was after 11 so it was going to be hot so I decided to just head out the front door and down the street in front of our apartment complex since one direction is fairly shaded. It was 84 degrees with  83% humidity and it didn't take long until I was sweating. Overall though I never felt like I was to hot thanks to all the shade. I ended up finishing 1.78 miles in 30 minutes. I did the same run 1 walk 14 as yesterday only on a different route. 

After my husband got home we headed to my in-laws new house to work on the flooring. The previous owners had a lot of cats and the carpet was pretty disgusting so since I had put down laminate flooring in my old house I offered to pull up all the carpet and padding and put down laminate flooring in her house. It's going fairly well but it's been killing my hips and I'm thinking I might need a trip to the chiropractor after I'm done. 

Tomorrow I have to work so I'm going to just have it as a rest day since I have a 3 hour round trip commute and a 12 hour work day. 

Friday is my husband's birthday and I'll be spending the day with the kiddo. I'm planning on the same 30 minute run/walk at some point though I don't know when I'll be able to squeeze it into my day unless I can convince the kiddo to come along too. 

It's been a while...

Where have I been? My last post was 2 months and 3 weeks ago. My fiance and I finished a 5K in May with less than stellar finish times, he didn't want to leave me so he slowed his pace to keep up with me, a complete 180 from last year when I slowed my pace to stick with him to the finish. Then on May 31st, my fiancé became my husband and we enjoyed a week long honeymoon in St. Pete's Beach, Florida. My husband has been injured since before the wedding and so between my usual lack of motivation added to feeling like I needed to do a thousand things and be a thousand places and having him be in so much pain, our training has fallen to the wayside and our weight has started to climb back up.

We've returned home and mostly settled back into our normal day to day routine. Kiddo is out of school and home with me 2 days a week, he is in summer camp 2 days a week and with his mother 1 day a week. Husband has seen a doctor and though it didn't fix his problem we are hopeful that the pain will resolve before he has to have surgery to attempt to fix this problem. I will be starting to work a bit more in July and August as we are hoping to save up a bit of money for a downpayment on a mobile home near his parents until we can get ourselves in the best financial place to fulfill our dreams of buying a significant amount of acreage and building our dream home.

We still are hoping to run the marathon in October and next week will put us at exactly 16 weeks until the marathon, so I modified our training plan from a longer more involved plan to a 16 week beginner plan.

October will also be a much more significant point in our lives as that is the month we have decided to start trying to get pregnant. This is a huge thing for me as I am already 28 and have never been pregnant, though obviously my husband has been there/done that already. The thought of trying to become pregnant and having a baby has been a huge motivator for me to resume my fitness routine and try to become healthier.

Currently I am a half a pack a day smoker and weight 210 pounds. Obviously there are many factors that I can't control when it comes to having a healthy pregnancy but those are two things that I have to power to change to prepare myself for pregnancy and having a child.

My height and weight places my BMI at 33.9 which is considered obese. I also have a diagnosis of PCOS which could make it more difficulty for me to get pregnant. If I lose weight not only will I have less risk of gestational diabetes and preeclampsia but a better chance of getting pregnant in the first place. This might be more than you wanted to know but I promise you that it is in fact leading back around to something blog related.

Being active is important at any points of our lives but also during pregnancy and it should also help with bringing my weight to a better range to prior to pregnancy. I'm hoping that in the next 16-17 weeks I can bring my weight from 210 to 185, which would put my BMI 29.9 and to the overweight category. I'd need to get my weight to 155 to be considered in the normal. However I think that goal is unrealistic by October but if we are unable to conceive immediately I would continue to work towards obtaining a normal BMI.

As for overall cardio, I am starting this week with just 30 minutes of walk/run 4 days this week. I did a run 1 minute, walk 14 min x 2 with a warm up and cool down yesterday, I finished 1.71 miles. I plan on doing the same general workout for 3 other days this week and then Monday I will start the marathon training in mileage and mileage only. I plan to run what feels comfortable and increase it as much as possible without injury. The Rock N Roll St. Louis Marathon has a 7 hour course time limit which correlates to a 16:02 min mile. I'd obviously be happy just to finish but I'd love to finish under 6 hours.

So there you have it, in one very long winded post with a bit of TMI and some lofty goals for the next 16 weeks. Oh and by the way, I didn't touch on it in the previous paragraphs but my husband and I are planning on quitting smoking on July 1st.

2014 Go! St. Louis Half Marathon

Last year this was supposed to be my marathon, but I didn't train and I wasn't feeling well, so I was a DNS. So, this year was going to be my marathon but I didn't train so I switched my race to the half marathon. Don't they say that doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result is the definition of insanity? So how many half marathons have I performed poorly in and ended up injured during or sore and miserable afterwards because I didn't train properly? More than half... I knew that I didn't want to have another DNS and I couldn't do the full marathon without risking significant injury.

Still I determined to at least finish the half marathon. My fiancé and I woke up early and headed downtown via the metro link. We got to the start line about 20 minutes before the race started and we walked around for a bit and I got in line for the porta potties before heading to my corral. There were only 5 corrals for 15,000 estimated participants. The first corral was elites only and then they had A, B, C, D corrals. I was in corral D. They have pacers for several different times for both the half and the full, they have a 14:52 pacer which is followed by the sag wagon. I spent just a minute or two chatting with this nice lady and she told me she'd been starting a few minutes after the last person crossed the start line.

I crossed the start line at 7:12 am and took off, I ran at a modest pace for about a minute and a half before spontaneously deciding that I would try to do a slow run for 2 minutes and then walk for 3 minutes and pray that kept me in front of the nice lady with the 14:52 pacer sign! My split for the first mile was 14:42 and I was feeling pretty good. I was enjoying playing with my watch during my walk times and I had set up live track so that fiancé could watch me so I got a nice text to cheer me on. My second mile was even better and I was trying hard to keep a slower pace during my runs, we started seeing the first of the half marathoners that had already made it to mile 5 and were passing us on the other side of the street. I finished the second mile in 14:29. I hit the first hill in mile 3 and couldn't pull off the run 2 walk 3 that I had been keeping up. Those run parts always seemed to come midway up a hill. I still managed to finish mile 3 with a 14:52 pace. Mile 4 was fantastic and significantly down hill so I managed a 14:20 and started scheming that I might be able to actually pull off a decent time (compared to my other halfs). I started doing what I love to do during runs, math. Yes I'm weird, it's part of my charm.

Miles 5 - 8 went by without much trouble, mile 6-8 were mostly uphill but I still managed to be 14:28, 14:12, 14:38 and 14:52. Towards the end my ankle was just starting to bother me and but I was able to manage it while walking with just a little stretch now and then. I knew by the end that I only had 5 miles left and I may have been achy and slowing my pace a bit but mentally I was doing great. I was enjoying the scenery and the people around me. I was focusing on making sure I didn't meet back up with that pacer and when necessary I found it very easy to dig in and give it a little extra when I needed to.

At mile 9, I had just passed the 2 hour mark so I was feeling good about my pace and knew that I only had 4 more miles to go. I got a GU but I had to accept that my pace would need to slow down because my heart rate was getting up into the 180s quicker and wasn't coming back down quickly during my walk breaks and my ankle was starting to get more tender. We made the last turn around about mile 10 and started heading towards the finish. We had met back up with the marathoners at their mile 23 and I was bored and needed something to entertain myself so I started cheering them on and clapping for them. Some of them seemed to appreciate it a lot, while the rest seemed to be very taken aback by the idea. Anyway, there was a lot of uphill in the last 3 miles and my ankle was done, my pace started to slow finally mile 9 and 10 were both 14:50, mile 11 was 15:03, mile 12 was 15:45 and mile 13 was 15:28. At this point I desperately wanted to finish the half marathon in less than 3:15:00. Definitely not the fastest 13.1 ever but it would be a pretty decent time for me so I took off at a jog towards the finish line hoping to beat that 3:15:00, my final time according to my Garmin was 3:14:55.

I was so excited and took off toward the finishers area. I grabbed my snacks and stopped by the medical tent to say hi to a bunch of the doctors I used to work with. I was already starting to get sore and I knew that I wasn't going to want to be on my feet all afternoon so we headed home.

My official time is 3:14:53. I'm happy with this time given the circumstances surrounding the race.

Half Marathon # 7 in the books

I had signed up to run a marathon today and well, that didn't happen. A few weeks ago I emailed the race staff and asked if I could change to the half marathon, they changed my registration for me. Yay! Except that I still hadn't trained for a half marathon anymore than I had trained for a marathon. I figured that I had completed half marathons in the past on very little training and I could do it again. Please DO NOT follow my example, please train for your races.

I will do a detailed race recap in the next few days but I did finish and I beat the required finish time.

As for the rest of my weekend, kiddo finished his Read, Right and Run and got his very first race medal! He is somewhat excited to do a 5K with his Dad and I. We haven't picked one out yet and will of course let him go at his own pace, well we tend to actually make him go a little slower because like most 7 years old he runs as fast as he can for about 6 minutes and then is tired and whiny for the rest of the time. :)

As for right now, I'm looking forward to my wedding in May, my marathon in October, being properly trained for said marathon and adding more races to my running schedule. The next race for fiancé and I is the Ferguson Twilight 5K. This will be my 3rd year running of this particular race and fiancé's 2nd year running this race.

Busy Day

I had a very busy day in which I did very little that was actually productive. Since kiddo is on spring break, his biological mother dropped him off at our house this morning before 8 am. I am by no means a morning person but I got up and packed a lunch for fiancé and then made breakfast for kiddo and I.

We spent a little time straightening up the house, and a significant amount of it was spent looking for my primary set of car keys. I keep my house key, my HID card for the gym connected to my primary car key fob and have a backup car key fob that has nothing else on it. In a moment of laziness sometime in the past couple of weeks I decided that the backup was closer and I wasn't locking the door so I just grabbed the backup and off I went. I haven't been able to find my primary set of keys since and it is driving me crazy! I really don't want to go pay another $10 for a gym HID card so that I have 24 hour access because I'm sure I will find the keys right after.

Anyway, about 10 am, kiddo and I had to hit the road. I work an hour and 40 minutes away from home but I only work about 4 shifts a month anymore so it isn't a big deal and it's nice to work in a smaller ER but when I have to attend mandatory training classes that only last 1 hour and are only scheduled during the week my kiddo is on spring break, it isn't so convenient. My parents live about 40 minutes south of my hospital so I asked my stepdad to hang out with kiddo while I drove to the hospital and did my training class and then drove back to them.

After all of that was said and done and I had retrieved kiddo, I had a 2 hour 10 minute drive to make it back home and my kiddo informed me about an hour into the drive his belly was bothering him. While he was with his biological mother this weekend he had an episode of vomiting and general yuckiness so I stopped in at the closest Wal-Mart to pick up some medicine and we stopped to grab a bite to eat. Obviously kiddo was not as interested in eating but he nibbled and we took his dinner with us.

The weather in my hometown was beautiful, 50 degrees, sunny and just spring like. The weather at home was 32 and snowy and by the time kiddo was ready for bed and read to and tucked in, it was dark. I decided to spend some more time trying to get my garmin connect mobile working before I headed out. I still wasn't able to sign in, it would let me create a new account but it wouldn't let me sign in with any of the logins I was able to make. Finally fiancé deleted the Garmin Connect Mobile App, reset the settings on my iPhone, and reinstalled the app. After that it took a couple of attempts to get the watch to fully sync to my phone but we did accomplish it! After all that stress I definitely needed a nice walk to help me relax. I sent fiancé a link for the live tracking and set off. A couple of things we didn't realize about the live tracking is that the link doesn't send until you actually start the activity and it runs about 3 minutes behind what I am actually doing. But it did make me feel a little safer about walking outside, in the dark, by myself.

Wow. This week has really flown by. I'm sorry I haven't posted any this week. My poor kiddo has had a really tough week at school, I worked a couple of shifts this week, and fiancé had a couple of nights where he had to work late. Our family has just had a rough week.

Both fiancé and I did keep up with our excerise this week and managed to walk 7.38 miles this week. Fiancé did very well with his diet and has managed to lose 11 pounds since we started. I have not been doing as well with my diet and I am only down to 210 pounds. A total of 4 pounds lost. I have reset myfitnesspal to lose 1 pound a week instead of maintain my weight. The trying to do it on my own just wasn't working out well.

Our wedding is in 10 weeks and I'm hoping to be under 200 for the wedding which is just a touch more than 1 pound per week.

Week end

After my first med/surg shift at my new hospital, I've only ever been an ER nurse before, was well a little boring. Since I hadn't slept well the night before and after my 15 hours I didn't have the 25 minutes in me for my walk. I ended up going to bed right after I made it home from work.

Since Friday was a rest day I just decided to make Thursday my rest day and I did my 25 minutes on Friday. My fiancé and our kiddo made it family walk and did our 25 minutes together. Kiddo still needed about 12 miles by the end of the month for his "marathon" so we knocked out another of his miles. We waited until about 6 pm and the weather was just beautiful. 

Saturday was another beautiful day and since fiancé and I both needed our 35 minutes and kiddo needed 11 miles so we headed out to the local trail and went for a nice walk. We headed out and even got to see some of the Clydesdales our on walk. I ended up with a little more than 2 miles for my 35 minutes. After we finished our walk we headed home for a while and then spent the evening with my family for one of the younger cousins birthday parties. Since I have to work another day shift tomorrow I'm headed to bed pretty early since I have to be up at 4:30 am.

Overall for the week I did ok on my calories but I went over on a couple of days. I have copied the chart of my calories for the week from myfitnesspal. The red line represents the amount of calories daily to simply maintain my weight. According to myfitnesspal I am 921 calories under my weekly goal so I am not hoping to have a huge weight loss on the scale. I'll weigh in tomorrow morning and see what my overall damage is for this week. 

I work tomorrow but it is also a rest day so I likely won't have anything to report apart from my weight. I may or may not post tomorrow, it depends on how my day is at work. 

Hopefully next week I'll be able to keep all of my days at least under the daily goal line next week. I have about 2 hours worth of walking on the schedule for next week so that should help out.