Running for Sherry

Saturday's I usually wear my Wear Blue Run to Remember blue shirt and run to remember our Soldiers.

On Saturday February 11th I will be wearing my blue but will also be wearing this bib in honor of Sherry Arnold

You can read about her story here

You can also go here to the Facebook event page

And click here to download the bib

You don't have to run. You just have to put the bib on, do something active, and remember Sherry.

Weekly Review & a long run

I'm a little behind on last week review.

It wasn't my best week but still managed 24 miles and a good long run

Monday - Rest

Tuesday - Rest

Wednesday - 5 mile run

Thursday - 1 mile run & Strength - Shoulders & Abs

Friday - 6 mile run

Saturday - 12 mile run

 Sunday - Rest

The thing about not following a training plan is I run which ever days I feel like it and usually just plan how many miles I want to run that day. Apparently I was a little more tired the first part of the week so sleeping in felt nice. Most of my workouts during the week have all been in the morning starting at around 6:30 am. It still isn't easy to wake up this early but I have noticed that once the alarm goes off once it takes me a while to try and fall back asleep so it's just better to get up and head to the gym. Because I have limited time in the mornings I didn't get another day of strength in either.

I'm still pretty happy with the 24 miles even if it isn't the 30 miles I put as my weekly goal. Maybe this was a "recovery" week :)
 Overall I'm just happy to be consistently running, building my base, and hitting my long runs.

Speaking of long runs I was really pleased with my 12 miler this past Saturday. My friend Tim posted on my Facebook about meeting up for a run. And I'm all for running with other people! The majority of my runs are always alone so it's nice to have someone to chat to help the miles go by faster.

I took my hand held filled with nuun and my awesome Gu chomps I got for xmas from this BRF with awesome little messages.

I also took my new Brooks Vapor Gloves that I won in a contest in December but had just received in the mail. Sadly they are too big :( They are a small and I should have got an extra small. There was just too much space at the tips of the fingers that kept bothering me.

I didn't take any pictures with Tim but he's made an appearance a few times on here at other races we have been at.

He is pretty speedy and usually places at most of the races so I was nervous I would slow him down. He is more a short distance runner, he is aiming for a sub 19 min 5k this spring, I think his current PR is 19:30 or somewhere around there. But he wants to run his first marathon this year so is trying to build up his long runs again. I know he was just running a pace that was comfortable for me. We were averaging about 9:30 pace for the first 5 miles then progressively were picking up the pace and averaged 9:16 pace for the next 5 miles. The last two miles he said he was going to test his speed so was going to run ahead. I said ok and my goal was just to keep him in my sights. Figured it was good training to pick up the pace on tired legs. He got out of my sight for a little bit on a turn but I ended up running the last two miles in 8:36 & 8:38. I definitely have some work to do in the speed department but I'm not stressing over it.

Plenty of time to improve and marathon training starts in exactly 2 weeks from today so there will be more purpose to the runs I do each week which will help with my speed and endurance.

---

Thanks so much for everyone input on my long run days from my last post. I think I will go ahead and keep them on Sunday. If I need to juggle them as the training progresses I will do that.

---

 

I managed to run 75.22 miles for the month of January. Pretty good considering my December mileage was 44 miles.

I think I'm ready to start marathon training. I'm pretty nervous cause this schedule is more demanding. But I think it will help me with some future races. I will post my plan in a few days!

 

 

Was January a good month for you?

 

Are you training or will you be training for a race soon?

Bed time and training plan question



My son and our dog Lilly



When it's my son's bed time, it's Lilly's bed time too. If she isn't in his room when it's bed time he calls for her and she comes running down the stairs and jumps in his bed. That night she decided she wanted to be a doggy pillow.

Every night, before I go to bed, I always go in his room to put the covers back on him. This is what I usually see.



Sometimes she takes over all the blankets, sometimes she's laying right next to him using the other pillow, but there never goes a night when she isn't snuggled up next to him. Even on the days he sleeps over at his friends, she is laying right on his spot of the bed. We have a nice big pillow bed for her, but she prefers the bed and my son loves for her to sleep in his bed too cause she keeps him warm he says :)

It's the cutest thing ever!

----

I had some extra time at work so I was typing up my 12 week marathon training plan that I will start in about 2 and a half weeks. All of the long runs are scheduled for Sunday. But my marathon is on a Saturday.

Should I change the long runs to Saturday's to reflect that? Or should I leave them on Sunday's?

If I do it on Saturday I will have to run early cause that's the day we usually have stuff planned and then Sunday would be a rest or cross training day. I will also have to move all runs up a day on the training plan.

If I run it on Sunday, I don't have to wake up and run to early since that day we don't usually do to much but relax or I go visit my family that lives about 30 min away. So I could run in the am then relax the rest of the day. And all I would need to switch on the schedule would probably be the last week or two to reflect the Saturday marathon.

So what would you do? I'm kind of leaning towards Sunday long runs but I just can't make up my mind.

10 miles that turned into 12

Thank you everyone so much for the birthday wishes!

I had a fabulous day that included lunch at Jimmy John's with some of my coworkers...

The boss, Gene, me, Katie (across from me) and Rylie

Jimmy John's has the best bread ever. We tried to get a free loaf of bread for my birthday but they said they didn't do that :(

It actually was snowy out and took some time to get there but it was one of the last times we will all be together since Katie is leaving us and moving to the city where the young retire... Portland. (Reference to Portlandia.. do you watch that show? It's stupid but in a funny way)

I'm sad she is leaving cause she made work fun. We would joke around, quote movies and songs all day long. I might have to make a trip to visit her sometime this year. Her and her mom actually just signed up to run the Portland Half Marathon in October. It will be their first half! I'm so excited for her and glad she could come to me for advice on training plans, sports bras (I recommended Moving Comfort they are my fav!) and running shoes.

Anyway you can obviously see I'll miss her. Good thing we text each other random crap about once a day to make each other laugh. So back to my birthday...

All I really wanted on my birthday was to keep warm and snuggle up to my boys so that's what we did! Much better than being outside in the cold and driving around on a stormy day.

Keeping warm when I did venture outdoors. I heart my Brooks Run Happy beanie I won at the Las Vegas RnR expo

Snuggling with my boys (minus Gene he was taking the picture :)

Gene made us a fabulous spaghetti dinner! And after we had some yummy birthday treats...

Is it a brownie or is it a cookie??

Brownie mix with cookie dough on top

It's both!

So do you think it's called a brookie? or a coownie?  

And yesterday Gene bought me this bad boy...

I had my sliver with some milk not the beer in this picture haha.

This cake is huge!! You might have seen it at Costco. All I could handle was a small sliver it's very rich but oh soooo good! I gave a huge slice to my brother and our friend so they could take some home. I will probably do the same for my coworkers.

After all the desserts I was definitely wanting to go out and run off some of those extra calories I consumed all week.

So today I set out for a 10 mile run that turned into a 12 mile run. Yay me!

The day was actually pretty. Which means it wasn't snowing or raining, a change from the last few days. It was a little bit cold but the crisp air felt good. I set out on an out and back course. I had no specific pace in mind just wanted to keep it at a relaxed easy pace. At about mile 5 I was feeling good so decided to go out one more mile. The first 6 miles were without music. I just enjoyed the sounds around me and the scenery.

Icy lake and finally some snow on the mountains in the background.

 At the turn around I turned on Pandora and was enjoying the sun breaking through the clouds for a few minutes. There was a headwind that was making me cold but yet I was sweaty and hot all the same time which made for a gross feeling.

I thought the wind was slowing me down but looking at my Garmin stats after the run I was actually progressively increasing my speed ending with mile 12 with an 8:49 pace. I was pretty happy about that since lately during my long runs my last few miles were slower than the first and I never felt the extra energy kick in to make me want to speed up. Today I did. 

12 miles in 1:53 for an overall pace of 9:28

My week looked like this...

Monday - 8 mile run

Tuesday - 1.2 mile warm up & Strength- Chest & Triceps

Wednesday - Birthday! 2.5 mile run with one mile at at 7:53 pace to see if I had some sub 8's left in me. Strength - Shoulder, Abs & push ups

Thursday - Cross train- 35 minutes on the spin bike followed my stretching and foam rolling

Friday - rest day

Saturday - rest day

Sunday - 12 mile run and .3 mile cooldown walk

Total running mileage - 24 miles.

I just missed my goal of at least 25 miles. I should have ran Friday or Saturday or ran a little longer one of the other days.

I also wanted an extra day of strength but I'm happy with at least 2.

This coming week I hope to have my mileage at about 30 miles and 2-3 days of strength.

How did your training go this week?

Have you ever had a Costco cake?

They are HUGE but delicious! I love their pumkin pie's too.  

Birthday Sweat Session

Outside the gym this morning right as the snow started coming down.

Well not quite the birthday sweat session I wanted but it will do :)

Headed to the gym today and got in a 2.5 mile run (at 1% incline) with mile 2 at a 7:53 pace cause I wanted to see if I still had at least a little bit of speed left in me. Since I'm focusing more on mileage increase I haven't been focusing on speed but I will start incorporating some in next week.

After the run Gene and I did a few sets of push ups then we headed home. He had an early meeting and the snow was really start to come down.

I wanted to get in a few more miles, outside, today. But as you can see in the picture below that isn't going to happen.

View from my living room widow

And I'm ok with staying in today. I could hop on my treadmill but it's in my detached garage, and something about walking even just a few feet into the cold snowy day makes me not want to run that bad haha.  I might do a little at home workout to supplement my morning workout though.

School is still open even though it looks crazy out there!I remember now that it takes a lot for schools to close here. They would literally have to be a minimum of 12 inches on the ground haha. My son wasn't happy I didn't have to work today and he had to go to school. He said it wasn't fair. I told him well it's my birthday. He still wasn't impressed :)

Hope you all have a great day!



One of the best weeks in a LONG time

Hey everyone sorry it's been a while since my last post. I pretty much left you all hanging after my goals post. But I am still here and training has been going pretty good especially this last week.

In fact it's been one of the best weeks I've had in a really long time.

You can follow me on Dailymile HERE

I've been focusing in trying to increase my mileage before I start marathon training in a few weeks. This past weeks wasn't very high and not where I want it to be yet. But coming off the last few weeks where I've barely even ran, I think this was a perfect increase and way to get back into a regular running schedule.

A break down of this past weeks workouts.

Monday - 5 mile run & yoga* 

Tuesday  - 3 mile run

Wednesday - Spinning & strength training

Thursday - 1.2 mile run, strength train, then a 6 mile run later that day for a total of 7.2 miles

Friday - rest day

Saturday - 5 mile run & core work

Sunday - rest day

*Monday was a 24 minute yoga workout . We bought a new game for our Xbox 360 Kinect called Your Shape Fitness Evolved 2012. It's pretty cool cause it scans your body so you actually see yourself on the screen and not an avatar. It keeps track of how many calories you burn and you can set goals for yourself. There's lots of other workouts on it I haven't had a chance to try out yet but I am really looking forward to it on a day when I can't make it to the gym or just as a supplement to my workout that day.

I added 2 days of strength training and one day of core work this past week. I asked a friend of mine if she had any recommendations on strength training workouts and she recommended Jamie Eason's LiveFit Trainer. I have been obsessed with her website and love that they show videos for each workout in case your a newbie in the weights area like me and don't exactly know how to do each workout. She has some really great recipes video's on her site that I am wanting to try out soon. With just 2 days of weights my arms were so sore. I found out I am a weakling haha. But can't wait to see improvement.

I also added one day of cross training. This past week is was the spin bike. I only had time for 18 minutes which was about 5 miles.

I'm also happy to say that Monday, Tuesday and Thursday's workouts were all before work, starting around 6:30am! I'm pretty proud of that. I can feel my body getting used to working out early in the morning. It still isn't easy to wake up but I'm so glad I do. I have so much more energy throughout the day and it feels good to know once I get home I can spend that time with my family and I don't have a workout hanging over my head. Gene has been my motivation. He is more of an early riser than I am. Once the alarm goes off he is up. I'll lay around for a few minutes and finally get up and then we head to the gym together. I also prefer going to the gym at 6:30 am versus 6:30 pm. Wednesday we went in the evening and there was way too many people there and hardly any cardio machines open and lots more people using the weights so we had to wait around for a little bit. This isn't the case in the mornings.

This coming week I'm hoping to have my mileage around 25-30 miles and also add a few more days of strength training.

It's already been a great start to a week with an 8 mile run today and then I spent time with my niece who decided she wanted to paint my nails :)

My birthday is also in 2 days so this week can only get better right? 

Maybe it will include a shopping day, I've had my eye on a new running jacket and tights :)

Have any of you tried Jamie Eason's LiveFit trainer? Liked? Disliked? Saw results?

I've seen a few bloggers out there using her program and have had some good results but they also follow the diet plan. I am loosely following it. It's primary focus is protein and I will definetly need more carbs once I start marathon training. But I am focusing on eating healthier carbs. Mostly I am looking foward to building my strength but seeing some nice muscle tone won't hurt :)

Hope you all have a great week!

2012 goals

I'm not a believer of resolutions. They are usually just broken a few weeks or even days after you make them.

I am a big believe of goals though. Goals are what helps to keep me motivated whether it's in health and fitness or personal goals.

So here are my 2012 goals in no particular order

• This year my main goal or overall focus is keeping my motivation since it disappeared on me for a little while there at the end of last year.

I hate the way I felt physically and mentally after losing all motivation to go out and run, one of the things I love to do most. Running helps me "find my happy place" if that makes sense to anyone. I just feel better overall. I want that feeling back and I want to keep it with me year round.

(I have my Runner's World calendar up at my desk at work to help keep me motivated every day. Love looking at all the different quotes, exercises and pictures of that month. There's even one from Idaho in this years calendar!)

• This year I would like to run 1,500 (+) miles.

Last year I was on a good track to run 1,200 miles. The first half of the year I had some great months averaging 100 miles or more a few months, then the last half of the year I had some crappy mileage months and just all together held myself back cause I just figured, well my goals is 1,000 I'm close to that, I know I will do that before the end of the year. I need the extra challenge this year. Even if that (+) is just one extra mile, I would like to be over 1,500 for the year.

• Cross train & strength train more.

Well one reason cause it will help me become a better runner. And two if I'm not motivated to go run, I need to find another activity to do and that's cross/strength training.

We already have the gym class schedule up on our fridge. There's a few classes Gene and I want to try out. I also have the Xbox Kinect and have seen some pretty cool workout games that I want to try out. We are downloading a trial version of one. If anything it will be a fall back cross training workout and fun pictures to post on here for you all to laugh at :)

• Run a sub 4 hour marathon.

My current PR is 4:07:34 at the Seattle RnR marathon. I would like to break 4 hours at the Lake Lowell Marathon on May 5th. Breaking 4 hours was one of my goals last year, but I didn't really focus on it too much. This year I'm putting in the training and the pace runs specifically needed for a sub 4 marathon (I'll talk more about my training plan on a separate post)

• Run a sub 1:50 half marathon.

I noticed last year that I ran my best half marathon time of 1:53 when I was in marathon training and not specifically training for a half. My current marathon training plan calls for "tune-up" races, I would love one of these to be my sub 1:50. We will see how the training and scheduling goes though and if I need to focus on just a half marathon after marathon training is over.

(Thanks Michelle for predicting this goal and the sub 4 marathon, though I really really wish I could run in Germany with you :)

• Eat healthier.

This is on my list every year. I usually do a well rounded job except during the holidays and there's cookies every time I turn around. I know how my body feels during training when I eat healthy and when I eat junk. It's obviously 100x better when I fuel my body right. Not only that but my weight is down and it's less of an effort to run "fast". This will be my motivation to fuel properly to help me achieve my above timed goals.

• Wake up early to workout.

Not everyday, but at least 1-2 times a week I would like to workout in the morning before I head to work. I always feel so much better throughout the day if I run or workout in the morning. And then that means I can come home after work and relax. I actually woke up early today and got some miles in on the mill at the gym thanks to Gene for helping me wake up and going with me!

I need an alarm that is going to motivate me to wake up and not hit the snooze button. I'm thinking I need to somehow find a way for Dolvett to record a personal wake up greeting for me :)

• Read more books

This is more of a personal goal but it can help me in my health and fitness goals if they are running/health type books. Last year I read 2 running related books and 3 non running related books (Hunger Games which I LOVE and can't wait for the movies) I started other books but just never finished them. That's pretty sad :( I have this lovely new Kindle Fire I got for Christmas and I need to put it to good use! Even though I already have one running book (Advance Marathoning) and one magazine (Running Times) I'm reading on it. So if you have any recommendations please tell me in the comments so I can start reading something now!

• Continue my education

I'm not quite sure where I want this goal to take me yet. I do know that I'm not 100% happy in my job. And I know that my Bachelors degree isn't enough anymore and I need to get some type of certification or get my masters and find a job that will make me happy. So this year I would like to get everything in order to go back to school. What I would love to do is go to school for Physical Therapy, but the closest school is 3 plus hours away and we don't plan on moving there so I need to figure out what else I would love to do. After all I can't get paid to run can I?

Well that's pretty much my overall goals for 2012.

I'll leave you with a picture of my 2011 medals and my wall of motivation.





 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 

 

 

 

A look back at 2011

A recap of 2011...

January
Started my blog!

February
 I moved from Tacoma, WA back to my home of Boise, ID after living in WA for the last 3 years. As I go back and read those post it definitely was a bitter sweet time.

March

Ran my first race in Idaho

St. Patty's Day 5k

April

-My son is officially in the double digits (he was more excited about that than me, I was more sad that my baby boy isn't a baby anymore *insert crying mommy here*)

-Ran 20 freaking miles on the treadmill!!! (read about it here) I'm pretty proud of that accomplishment. Takes more mental toughness I think than to run 20 on the pavement. At least for me it does.

-Gene is officially retired from the Army after 21 years in the Military. So proud of him.

May

Ran marathon #2!!!

Famous Idaho Potato Marathon

June

Totally killed my sub 2 hour goal at the See Jane Run Half Marathon with a time of 1:53:24

A week later I ran my 3rd marathon!

Seattle RnR Marathon

This was probably the most memorable and emotional race I have ever run. Re-reading my recap and looking at all the pictures makes me tear up.

I PR'd by 10 minutes with a time of 4:07:34. I look forward to running this race every year with Wear Blue Run to Remember

July

July was more of a step back month after 2 months with marathons in them. There was lots of camping and relaxing going on.

But Gene and I did go on our longest run together of 8 miles.

August

This month was full of fun races!

First Gene and I ran the Boise Foothills XC12k race and it totally kicked my butt!

But the view was beautiful and I still want to buy these pictures of us. They are some of my fav race pictures yet.

A few weeks later we ran the Project Athena 10k race

And finally this month I ran the Boise Dirty Dash 10k Mud run. Probably one of the funnest races yet!

  September

This month is where I kind started losing my motivation :( and found every excuse there was not to run.

-My part time job that I liked so much turned into a full time job that I wasn't liking so much and was taking away from my training and family time. I'm still currently working there. Without getting to much in detail about all the reasons I am looking for another job I will say that I like people I work with and the type of job it is. I just don't like my hours and wish I got paid more for the amount of work I do among other things I wish were different there. I would love to find a job that offers free massages every month especially with marathon training coming up, but unless some changes are made, I just don't see myself working there for very much longer.

October

I started to find my motivation.

I ran the City of Tree's Half Marathon and got to run the last mile of Linzi's Marathon with her as well as with Cambry

I decided to run a last minute race this month and loved the hilly challenge. High Speed Pursuit Half Marathon

November

 This month I primarily just focused on getting ready for Las Vegas RnR half

And also spending lots of time with family and celebrated my loves birthday :)

December

Reunited with my BRF's Tiffany and Tiana in Vegas.

Ran the Las Vegas RnR half marathon.

Didn't get the PR I was hoping for but had a fabulous time cause it was Vegas!

Ran the Christmas 10k Run with Linzi & Cambry

I met both these amazing ladies through blogging this year and I'm so glad I did.

And finally finished off the year with a New Year's Eve run helping me meet my mileage goal of the year to run 1,000 miles. Finished off the year by running a total 1,001 miles!

In summary I ran 1-5k, 2-10k's, 1-10k mud run, 1-12k, 4 half marathons and 2 marathons!

This year I definitely learned a lot. I know there is room for improvement. I know I need to figure out how to keep my motivation and not lose my love for running. I know I still have so much to learn about training, pacing, nutrition etc. I can't wait to improve in every area in 2012!

Next up goals!