Wordless Wednesday

I love my girls

Back in the saddle

Last week did not go as I planned for workouts.  I did get to extreme sculpt on Monday and yoga on Wednesday morning.  Getting runs done was harder than I expected flying solo with hubby at Army training. I didn't get any short runs in last week. In addition I fell behind on the full body challenge last week. I'm managed to stay on schedule with the squats, but the full body challenge fell by the wayside.  Saturday I was finally able to get a run in.  This run was faster than previous 5 mile runs, but it definitely hurt being the only run I got in last week.  It probably didn't help that I didn't hydrate as well as I should have Thursday and Friday. Lesson learned.

It's really easy to get bogged down in what I should/could have done better, but I'm learning how to accept what happened and move forward. This week will be better.

Weekend Recap & Challenge(s) Accepted

Being an Military Spouse (in my case Army Wife) means sometimes you have to be commander-in-chief of your house for a couple of days/weeks/months while your partner/spouse is doing military things.  This time around it's only for a short time. For me, it also means I have to get creative on when to do workouts when the dog needs to get walked and our toddler needs everything (and sometimes at once).  To meet all of our needs, I nixed my long Sunday run to do a 4 mile walk with the two of them.

And we're off

Four legged friends need exercise too and they both enjoyed the fresh air on a beautiful day.

The fun part of walking with a dog is you never know what adventures await you.  For example, the gaggle of geese on the path.

Geese + dog = needing all your arm strength to keep doggie away

My pace must have been a little fast for her, because at 3 miles doggie decided she was done with the walk.

Over it.

I had to coax her to get home so our last mile took a little longer than I planned but everyone got some exercise.

And now the challenge...

There are a lot of challenges popping up for August.  One group of friends are doing a full body workout challenge so I said I would join them, when another friend asked if I wanted to take on a squat challenge with her. After looking over them both, I decided to combine the two.  I was on schedule with the squat challenge but was already 3 days behind in the full body challenge so I decided to combine Day 1 and Day 2 on Friday and do Day 3 on Saturday.  

Day 1 & 2 combined (Friday):

35 sit ups

13 crunches

13 leg raises

23 second plank

21 push ups

55 squats

Day 3 (Saturday): 

25 sit ups

10 crunches

10 leg raises

15 seconds plank

12 push ups

60 squats

Sunday was a rest day on the challenge and today was 70 squats (Day 5).  Things I learned today: don't do squats right after drinking coffee. No bueno. My stomach was not happy for the rest of the day. 

In addition to the squat challenge, I'm challenging myself more by trying different things in my cross training.  I went to extreme sculpt at my gym tonight (I did not do the full body challenge today) instead of my typical body pump class.  It was extreme alright.  We did at minimum 60 pushups & dips in addition to squats, rows, etc.  I left there feeling like I was going to throw up, but stronger. I'm going to be sore tomorrow (I already feel it now).  It might be hard and seem borderline impossible in the moment to try something new, but you may discover something about yourself in the process.

What would you like to try?

Wordless Wednesday

Weekend Activities

Weekends with a toddler means lots of errands and catching up on everything that didn't get done during the week.

Saturday:

We had scheduled a play date with friends for our girls which meant we would be leaving our doggie alone for a few hours, so I had to tire her out.  A 3 mile speed walk usually does the trick. I put my running clothes on and my daughter was game to sit in her stroller for our 'run'.

The route I took with the doggie and my daughter is one same one I usually run. When I'm walking, I try to take some photos, since my phone is in the armband when I'm running. 

One of the two bridges on the loop

By the end of the walk, I'm good and sweaty and the doggie is tired out.

Sleepy time for the boo bear.

And we're off to our play date and the doggie (and mommy) got some exercise.

Sunday:

I've been contemplating a 15K in a couple of weeks which means I need to get my mileage up. I met up with some ladies from a running group at a nearby park for a 5 mile run.  I'd been to the dog park here before, but I had not run the path. 

Park view

 It was really nice to run with a group of women, since last summer I was doing my long runs by myself. This summer my running partner and I are on different schedules so we can't always do our long runs together.  Knowing there's a group that gets together regularly is helpful when I need that extra push to get out there and get it done. One thing I love about summer runs is when I leave the house before everyone gets up, it's still light outside.

Path view

We weren't the only ones out there getting a run in at 6:30am.  By the time we were done, the park was starting to fill with people fishing, teams getting ready for street hockey and kids playing on the playground.  The added bonus of getting 5 miles in was I still had my whole day left to spend with the family feeling accomplished.

How do you juggle training & other commitments?

Hello new shoes, let me show you around!

When I was a rower in college, I could get away with having 1 pair of sneakers the entire year.  Now I'm looking at breaking my new ones in and getting some more mileage out of the ones I currently wear and will probably be looking at a back-up pair later this fall.  I'm definitely going to surpass last year's miles in the next couple of weeks.

This summer I've been doing some runs without starting my Runmeter because I wanted to run for a while without thinking about the data before re-starting training for fall races.  I know I've put more miles in than what is reflected above, which got me thinking I should find a new pair of shoes.

So what shoes to pick? I loved my Mizuno Wave Alchemy 8's but they were discontinued so I've been running with my Brooks Addiction 10.  I do like them, but during the half marathon in May they started to feel heavy around Mile 9 (I mean my whole body started to feel heavy by that point, so I probably can't totally blame it on my shoes). However, you should go into race day feeling a comfortable as possible and not worrying about how your shoes are going to hold up. Last month, I went to my local running shop and tried on a couple of different shoes and ran on the treadmill to get the feel of them.  So I ended up back with the Mizuno's and this time with the Wave Rider 16. I've never had brightly colored running shoes before, so it's been taking a little bit getting used to their brightness compared to my dirt covered, well-worn shoes that used to be white.

As you can see my Brooks got a lot of love and have been with me on a lot of runs.  We've completed several firsts together (1st half marathon, 1st 5 mile race, 1st lost toenail) so I'm a bit sad to see them go, well minus losing the toenail.  I still have some mileage left so they'll come in handy during the transition period and they will find a good home once the transition is complete.

Do you have a favorite pair of running shoes that you don't want to transition out of? 

One more race on the calendar...

I got into the B.A.A. Half Marathon!

Last Tuesday, my friend asked me if I wanted to run the Boston Half Marathon with her.  She's doing the B.A.A Distance Medley and already in for the half.  I get a rush thinking about the next race (and then on race day), so this seemed like an awesome idea.
I did have a moment's hesitation about it since I'm doing the Army Ten Miler the following weekend and briefly worried I would be over-extending myself. I decided to go for it and realized I can use these as training runs since I'm doing two half marathons 6 days apart (one on Sunday and the other on Saturday in November) and I need to train my body to get used to doing back-to-back races. Not to mention the 10K and Half Marathon in January and the Glass Slipper Challenge in February.
In order to think about training for all of this,  I had to get in.  She said it would sell out quickly, so I set a reminder for myself to try to register as soon as registration opened at 10.  At 10:07 I got the confirmation email that my registration had been received.  The race sold out at 10:12.  Later that afternoon it was confirmed, I was in! Wow.
Growing up in Upstate NY, Boston was the closest "big city" to us.  We spent a lot of weekend exploring there growing up and I have a lot of wonderful memories there.  I have a lot of friends that live there now, so it will be really nice to see the city from a runner's perspective and having good friends cheer me and 7,499 other runners on along the way. 82 days a counting...(better start getting my mileage up).