March New 2U Cross Training Challenge

Geez, these monthly cross training challenges are certainly helping me realize how quickly time is going by! It seems like just yesterday that I was looking around for the XBox Zumba Fitness.

For March I let my IT Band select my cross training challenge...... Yoga! *crickets* Yoga isn't entirely new to me. I signed up for a 12 week session of Ashtanga Yoga with my sissy about 10 years ago.  I think we lasted maybe 4 weeks before we started heading to the pub for a drink instead of the community centre for our class. I am so inflexible it isn't funny. I'm kind of that way with life too so it only seems natural that I can't touch my toes. But with that being said, I REALLY need to stretch right now (along with using that horrendous foam roller) and so I selected yoga out of necessity and not some crazy urge to become a human pretzel. Although I'm sure that my hubby would like that. :oP Luckily it only took me a quick You Tube search to find a yoga for runners video. This one is by YogaDownload.com (they do have many more free videos on their website also)and is 25 minutes long and thankfully it isn't too bad as far as crazy poses go. It's easy to follow and has only had me pulling one muscle! I think that it probably would have been easier to follow if it was a real time person rather than just a photo, but I figured it out. The voice over and music are calming, and at the end you don't have the creepy yoga instructor or his patchouli wearing wife coming around to give you "massages" to enhance the relaxation.....Mind you they never crawled under me while in Downward Dog like Mr Gordie (my dog not crazy cardigan wearing neighbour) does either......While I still hate yoga I think that it's something that I need to incorporate into my life so Yoga For Runners is now my twice weekly go to.

21 kilometers!



My run yesterday

I did it! Ever since that day in January when I had the crazy idea that I could run a half marathon, I've been working towards this day. The day where I could run 21 kilometers, 13 miles! I've honestly never been so tired in all of my life, but I did it! There's no turning back now! All I can do is hope that these 21km runs get better. I'll admit those last 2.5-3km killed me yesterday, to the point of having me bursting into tears when it was over. Thank goodness for sunglasses! LOL My calves were cramping up and my knees were starting to hurt, it was a real mental game to get it done. I was also a sticky mess from having my 'Carb Boom' drip all down my hands at 8kms in. That really bothered me the entire rest of the run! Loser. I also don't think that it helped that I skipped my tempo run this week for a hair appointment (my time is VERY limited, something always has to give for me to fit something else in) and then running 8 straight kms into a fairly strong headwind, so I'm hoping for next week to go a bit better. At least tear free. I'd hate to embarrass myself by crying in front of  Patty S from Daily Mile who I am excited to get to run with next Saturday while her usual partner is out of town. ! A new running friend will be awesome now that Tess is taking a break. So that's it. I now know that I can do it, and seriously it can only go up from here! 

Hello Mrs IT Band. Meet Mr Foam Roller

This was me. With a shirt on though. And pants.

Last Saturday I went out for my long run with my friend Tess. I had 18K on the schedule (my longest yet!), and Tess had 20K planned (before I got there she ran two so that we could finish together). She's winding down for the Around the Bay next weekend. Go Tess! Things were going great. The weather was decent, conversation was fun and I felt good and strong. Halfway through the run my calf was starting to cramp, but nothing that I couldn't get through. We took this time to have some fuel

*******NEWSFLASH! It turns out that Gu isn't so bad, I just had the misfortune of having a nasty flavour for my first experience! Mental note to self. No more orange flavoured Gu!********

and water and then we set back in. A little while later I mentioned that my right glute was feeling kind of tight. Again, nothing that I couldn't manage. We carried on and just as we were passing the 13K mark we had to stop for traffic. The light turned green and off we went. One step, two step.........OMG STOP! The pain along the side of my right knee was crazy! I hobbled across the street and tried to stretch things out but it wouldn't go away. Finally I got the pain under control and we got going again. We decided to loop around Tess' neighbourhood just in case I couldn't go on. Once more we had to stop for traffic and once more things seized up as I tried to get going again. I stretched it out and told Tess that I really wanted to finish but we couldn't stop for traffic anymore. We carried on and finally Tess' Garmin beeped the end of our run. I said goodbye and then I got in my car and went home. (Did I mention that I had a wedding to go to that night? Heels. Wicked!) I came home and put some heat on my leg and butt and then found some stretches to do on the internet. Thankfully my leg was feeling fine now as long as I wasn't maneuvering stairs. Too bad there were a lot of stairs at the wedding facility. This wouldn't have been so bad had I not been the driver therefore unable to dull the pain with a little alcohol. On second thought, maybe it would have. Sore leg, heels, alcohol. Sounds like a recipe for disaster.

 I had a run scheduled for Monday but decided that I should let my leg rest a bit so I didn't go back out until Tuesday. And Wednesday. And Thursday. Every run the IT band made it's presence known, but nowhere near the degree of Saturday. Thank God! Today I remembered that I had a Wag Jag coupon for $50 at the Runners Den in Hamilton so I took off from work early (shhhhh don't tell my boss) and headed out there to see what I could buy to help this out. I was looking for a foam roller and maybe IT band compression. Foam roller - check! IT wrap - fail! Boo. As the sales lady was helping me out a sweaty man out for a run stopped in to use the bathroom. He overheard us speaking and stopped to give me his 2¢ ........"It's gonna hurt like hell the first few times you use the foam roller but then it'll be great!"..... Sounds..... Awesome. The sales lady shooed him away and rang me up. I also got a pair of gloves with the remainder of my coupon in case you were wondering (how could you not be!?).

Sugoi Thermal Gloves

I've been wearing fleecy mittens that I bought at the dollar store all winter. They are WAY to warm and need to go. Of course I probably won't get to wear them until next year, but at least I have them now. That is if I can remember where I put them come the fall. Any way, I brought my roller home, ripped off the plastic, read the instructions and jumped on this thing. What. The. Heck?! This hurts! And the roller is hard as a rock. This can't be right can it? Oh yeah. Sweaty runner did tell me that it would hurt didn't he? Ok, good thing I have a fairly high pain tolerance I guess. I rolled for about 10 mins (SR told me not to overdo it) and did some stretching,

Ain't that the truth!

Now to wait and see how things feel tomorrow. I'll stretch and roll again before bed and get a good nights sleep (I hope) and hopefully the 19K that I have scheduled for the morning will go alright. I'm going to try to stay close to home so that I can walk back if need be. No Tess this week, life dictates that she run at 7:30am. No thank you. Wish me luck!!!

February Blahs Recap

It hasn't happened to me in years, but this year the Winter Blues hit me HARD! The inability to get up in the morning, no motivation to do anything, feeling generally crappy, you name the symptom I seemed to have it. Obviously it has affected my running & exercise as well as my family life. My house is a mess, we hardly did anything other than hockey tournaments for family time and I missed more runs then I'd care to admit. Thankfully I'm starting to come around, and will hopefully be back to my old self in a few weeks. This week I was able to get up for an early run not once but twice! I've also joined the new Women's Fitness Centre that is opening up in June. Snap is good, but it has no classes therefore no motivation for me to go. Boo Snap. Why can't you have classes? You would have been perfect.......

It took me 29 days but I got my New To You Cross Training Challenge completed. This month I had planned on doing the Xbox Zumba Fitness but I couldn't find it to rent anywhere. If I'm spending $50 on fitness it's gonna be on a cute new pair of Lulu shorts, not a video game that my kids will make fun of me for! On February 28 I stumbled upon a huge list of interval workouts on Tina Reale's site. I selected the 'I Want it All' interval workout and worked my ass off for 20 minutes!

EXERCISE	CIRCUIT 1	CIRCUIT 2	CIRCUIT 3
jumping jacks	30 seconds	40 seconds	as long as you can last…at least 30 sec!
burpees	30 seconds	40 seconds	as long as you can last…at least 30 sec!
push-ups	30 seconds	40 seconds	as long as you can last…at least 30 sec!
180 Squat Jumps	30 seconds	40 seconds	as long as you can last…at least 30 sec!
Jump Lunges	30 seconds	40 seconds	as long as you can last…at least 30 sec!
triceps dips	30 seconds	40 seconds	as long as you can last…at least 30 sec!
Leapfrogs	30 seconds	40 seconds	as long as you can last…at least 30 sec!
Side Shuffle	30 seconds	40 seconds	as long as you can last…at least 30 sec!
Bear Crawl	30 seconds	40 seconds	as long as you can last…at least 30 sec!
Up/Down Plank	30 seconds	40 seconds	as long as you can last…at least 30 sec!
REST	2 minutes	3 minutes	DONE!!!!

Thankfully she had links to instruction on how to do some of these so once I figured them all out I set my HIIT timer app on my phone and got down to business! For some reason my dog went ape sh*t whenever I did the side shuffle's so it made things a little interesting. I'm totally doing this again! I worked hard, built up a sweat and actually felt it the next day! Right on Tina!

I've always used Sport Beans as energy for my long runs. They were recommended to me by my friend Sarah as what she uses, ages ago. Recently I went on a long run with my friend Tess - my first time running with a friend EVER. (I have very few real life running friends boo hoo.) Tess uses Gu Gel and suggested buying my fuel at Mountain Equipment Co-op. So off I went to MEC to see what they had. Well! They had way more selection than the Running Room so I  bought a lot of different items to see which I would like the best. After the girl sold me my $5 membership of course. "What do I get for my $5?" I asked. "You get to shop here" was her reply. Ok! Sign me up!

So last Friday I took a GU Gel out with me for my long run. I was so excited!! I ripped it open and squeezed a big blob into my mouth and abruptly spit it out about 10 seconds later after gagging. WTF?! Fanch Nancy said this stuff tasted like frosting so that's what I expected. What a shock this was. After realizing I was going to need to squeeze little bits into my mouth and wash it down with my drink things went a little better. I'll give it another go, but may just be going back to the Sport Beans. Free gels anyone?

MONTH IN REVIEW

Total distance ran: 112km/127km
Times ran 15/17
Spin 0/4
New Races Signed up for: 1 Toronto Women's Half. I saw that it was almost sold out so I jumped just so that I could have that damned necklace!
Extra Money Saved $0 - batting 1000 here.
Times at Church 0/4 - eek
Given up for Lent: Chocolate. Oh how I miss my chocolate. It does help me thank Jesus daily though, which is the reason that I give it up.
Hockey Tournaments attended 3/3 won 1/3

Stolen pictures from the photographers website 1/1

Weekly Recap

Holy crap?! Where the heck did this week go? I know that I lived it all but just can't seem to remember a thing about it! What's the deal with time going by faster as you get older any way? The weather has been fairly decent this week, up until today; cue -22*C wind chill temps and snow!

Figures that I got a car wash yesterday

View out the kitchen window this morning.

So last week I asked Tess what she did after a long run to keep her legs from hurting. I've found since I've started going over 10K that my legs are a total write off for the rest of the day. She just said that she put them up for 30 min and sat quietly. I gave that a try last week and also put my heating bag on the tops of my thighs and found that it helped quite a bit. I did it again yesterday after my 16K run (which I bumped up a day to save myself running in the crap weather today) and I had absolutely no leg fatigue for the remainder of the day! Yay! I'm not sure if it's because of the things that I did or my legs are just getting used to running the longer distances, but I'm just happy that I didn't have to manually lift my legs into the car last night!

I didn't get to walk much this week because of all the hockey, thankfully there are only another 4-6 weeks left in the season! This three teams thing is getting old! We're in the middle of ANOTHER tournament this weekend, and have two next week. I know that I'll miss it in a few years but for now it's a pain!

OH! This week I received the Bondi Band hat that I won in Toni's Birthday Virtual Run! I wore it during my run on Thursday. It was comfy but I was wayyyyyy too hot! I've actually never worn a hat to run in before. I either wear my Lulu Brisk Run Earwarmer or a normal Bondi Band.

WEEK IN REVIEW

Superbowl Sunday - Walk 3.45K & watch Madonna dance like someone's drunk aunt at a wedding.
Monday - 5K run @ 5:49 pace
Tuesday - 7K speedwork on Treadmill; 2K warm up @ 10:49 2x1600 @ 8:34 with 800m inbetween @ 10:30 1K cool down @ 10:30. Walk 3.45K
Wednesday rest
Thursday run 4K @ 5:52 pace
Friday 16K @ 6:10 pace
Saturday I will dedicate my 3.45k walk this afternoon in honour of Sherry Arnold. God bless.

NEXT UP

Monday 6K @ 6:38pace
Tuesday 6K @ 6:38 pace
Thursday hopefully spin seeing as my partner is back from holidays
Friday 6K @ 6:38pace
Saturday 6K @ 6:38 pace. In Detroit?!

January recap, weekly recap, appreciation challenge, phew!

It's February 5, obvs I'm a little late in getting my January recap together, but better late than never. According to Daily Mile I ran 131kms(!) - this is my best month ever, walked 55km, and did (6am!) spin class 4 times. I also participated in 3 virtual runs and signed up for my FIRST half marathon; the Mississauga Half Marathon! I'm really happy with my effort in January. I've spent more time on the treadmills than I would like but I'd rather do that than run in the dark. Looking back on my goals for the year, I'm one for three. I've kept up with my running, saved no extra money and attended mass zero times. Yikes. Lent is coming up soon so I'd better get my act together!

WEEK IN REVIEW
Sunday - rest - Championship game in my sons hockey tournament. They lost 2-1 taking home a well deserved silver medal! Way to go boys!
Monday  -  5k on treadmill @ 6:06 pace
Tuesday - 8k tempo run on treadmill 2k@10:50/m 5K@930/m 1k@10:30/m walk 3.45k
Wednesday - rest
Thursday -rest (usually my spin day but my partner decided a trip to the Dominican Republic was more important pfft)
Friday 5.23k @ 5.54 pace
Saturday 16k(!) @ 6.18 pace. This is my longest run ever. My friend Tess is training for a 30k and had 20 on the agenda for the morning, I tagged along for her first 16. I've never run with someone before. What a difference! The time flew by! I wish that I knew more people who ran.

Coming Up: Have to mix up my schedule due to a tournament in Detroit in two weeks
Sunday - rest
Monday - 5k @ 6:38
Tuesday - 7k in total 2x1600m intervals with 800m jogs
Wednesday - rest
Thursday - gotta find something for cross training
Friday - 4k @ 6:38
Saturday - 16k @ 6:38

APPRECIATION

So I've decided that since I tend to dwell on the negative in life, Amanda at Run For The Finishes Appreciation Challenge is a good one for me. I started off with the person in life who I appreciate the most. My husband.

He's a great dad, partner, and person. He will go out of his way to help anyone out and helps me to laugh at the tough things in life. He's had to be a more hands on dad than most guys due to my work schedule (I've worked nights since our oldest son was a baby) and always manages to have the house clean for me when I get home. While he doesn't really get my new love of running, he still supports it and comes out to cheer me on at all of my races. Even when he's really hungover. :oP On Wednesday I cooked him a dinner that he enjoys and told him all of the reasons why I appreciate him and what I was most proud of him for. It really caught him off guard because I've never bothered to do this. I think that it's something that I need to do more often.

Day 2 was my youngest son's day for appreciation. He too got a dinner that he enjoys and got told all of the things that I appreciate about him. He is a very caring boy, who always takes the time to make sure that I am ok, especially when I'm out on a long run. While that's not always the time that I want a phone call, it's nice to know that someone is worried about me. I'm convinced that he will be the son that stays in touch with us the most once he's grown up and on his own.

Day 3 was my oldest nephews day for appreciation. He was staying with us for the weekend while his parents were away and my oldest son has decided that he wants his day of appreciation to be the last day of the month, Not sure that you're supposed to choose your own day to be appreciated, but that's my boy for ya.

My nephew is almost 17 and loves his aunt very much. :o) He always takes the time to give me a hug and a kiss and to tell me that he loves me. Apparently he doesn't do this for his mom so I really cherish these hugs. He is a very caring and gentle boy who is an amazing football player. One day he will go far with his skills on the football feild. For now he's plugging his way through his teenage life trying to figure it all out. He also got to select a special dinner and commented that he wished his family had appreciation nights. I'm really liking this idea more and more!

Day 4 was my friend Tess' day of appreciation. She took me out on her long run with her and I truly appreciated this! I'm sure that we went slower than she had planned (she usually does a 6:00 pace, I had us at a 6:18 pace) but she honestly didn't mind me slowing things down and answering all of my questions. I hope that I get to go out with her again! I had a great time. I didn't realize that I could run and talk at the same time, let alone do it for 1 hour and 40 minutes! And no, Tess didn't get a special dinner or a speech, She got a heartfelt thank you. :o)

Day 5 is my dads day of appreciation. My dad has always been there for me, and really helped us out a lot when we were just starting out. He's the one that I got my sarcastic sense of humour from so we get along pretty well. You really have to have a tough skin when sitting at the table with the both of us. My dad is never too busy for me and in todays busy world this is something that I really appreciate. No dinner for dad either, just a phone call. <3

As far as Self Appreciation goes:
I love my: sense of humour. I laugh every day and I really think that my ability to do this keeps me sane.
I appreciate my: family. There's nothing that I wouldn't do for them.
I'm proud of my: running. I've come so far so fast and hope to keep on going!
I like that I can: find the humour in most situations. It really helps me get through tough times.
It makes me feel special that: I am loved.

11 Random Things

Darlene at my First 5K and more says if you read her 11 randoms you're tagged. It's not in the rules but I'm going to do it anyway because I'm pretty boring so I wonder if I can even come up with 11 things........

1) My favourite colour is pink.

2) I was born in England, moved to Canada as a preschooler and became an official Canadian Citizen in 1990.

3) I missed my name being called in the Swearing in Ceremony to become a Canadian Citizen because I wasn't paying attention and had to slink up at the end. Very embarrassing. It was held during a very large Canada Day celebration where 1000's of people were in attendance.

4) When I turned 30 I started getting coldsores. When I turned 40 I became lactose intolerant. I'm scared to see what 50 is going to bring.

5) I was female athlete of the year at Paul A Fisher Elementary School. I am a bit like Al Bundy in that I still brag about this over 25 years later.

6) I have been a lacto ovo pescatarian since I was 16. Every now and then I think that I may start eating chicken because my diet is pretty boring......I never do though.

7) I LOVE to laugh. My sister and I have the exact same laugh. We work together at the sports bar. I think that people find it creepy when we both laugh at the same time.

8) If I don't like you, you will know it. I'm very black and white. There is no gray area.

9) I just may own more Lululemon than anyone you know. CHCH tv still uses film footage of me & my friend in line at the Lulu Hamilton warehouse sale from 3 years ago whenever they do a segment on Lululemon. I have not once seen this, but hear all about it whenever it is on.

10) I have a schnoodle named Gordie. Sometimes my husband says that I love the dog more than him. Somedays he is right.

11) I am a worrier. It drives my husband crazy because he's super easy going. We are total opposites, must be why we love each other. :o)

Answering Darlene's questions:

1. What made you start running? I was looking for some sort of fitness activity that could fit into my busy life.
2. What is your favorite race? I've only done a few so I don't really have a fav. Yet.....
3. This year’s running goal? Half marathon. In May. Woohoo.
4. Do you usually run alone or with others? I run alone, usually first thing in the morning.
5. Favorite time of day to run? Before the sun comes up.
6. Why did you start a blog? So that I could look back and see how far I've come.
7. Favorite TV show? The Amazing Race
8. Favorite actor? Hmmmmm I don't think that I have a fav.
9. Favorite movie of all time? I don't have a fav here either. I forget movies a few months after I've seen them. I recently saw The Help and really enjoyed it.
10. Favorite athlete? Ryan Miller. He is one of the goalies for the Buffalo Sabres. My son met him once at a hockey tournament and he was so awesome to Kyle I've liked him ever since. He even thanked Kyle for being so polite! Typical Canadian. :oP
11. What would you do if you couldn’t run anymore? Find something else. I'm pretty adaptable.

I won't bother posting questions seeing as every blog I go to has done this. If you would like to do it, just answer Darlene's questions too. :o)