Tackling My Goal....

So, as I mentioned in my last post, I have a goal of PR'ing this half marathon. I am following the Hal Higdon half marathon novice 2 plan. However, I am tweaking it to fit my needs. I will only be running 3 days a week versus 4. My weeks will consist of 1 speed work day, 1 3 Mile Run, and a long run. I feel this is what works best for my body.

For my first half, I did run 4 days a week and I felt fine most of the time, but I was really burned out. I am hoping 3 running days will help me feel less burned out at the end of this training period. I have some bigger goals for 2013 and being burned out early will not help me get to those goals. Ha!

My goals for the SLC Half Marathon are:

1-To finish with a smile on my face.
2-Beat my best time of 2:16:00

Simple and attainable goals for this girl. I can't wait to post the updates to my training!!

When the going gets tough.....

I was sick last week. It seems like lately (more like the past 6 months), I get into an awesome groove and then get derailed. It is knee pain, ankle pain or I get an awful cold/ear infection. Through all this, I just refuse to give up on me and my goals.

I am doing 2 things right now.
1. I started "New Rules of Lifting for Women". Great great great!
2. It is once again half marathon training time. This time, I am kicking my best time(2:16:00) in the ass and doing it in less time.

Every day I wake up and think 'Ouch! I am so sore. I love it!'. I am loving my workouts lately.

Starting the New Rules of Lifting for Women and half marathon training will be tough, but I know I can do it. My workout routing for the next few months will look a little something like this:

Monday-New Rules of Lifting and 30-60 minutes elliptical
Tuesday-3(progressing to a 5 mile run) Mile Run and 20-30 minutes of elliptical, stairs, or bike
Wednesday-New Rules of Lifting and 30-60 minutes elliptical
Thursday-3 Mile(Speedwork) Run, 20-30 minutes of additional cardio if I feel up to it
Friday-New Rules of Lifting and 30 minutes easy elliptical
Saturday-Long Run
Sunday-Rest day

I may buddy up run days and lifting days occasionally. I am sure I will take an extra rest day from time to time. I am excited to have a focused strength training plan during half marathon training. I have not done that before. However, after only 2 weeks I am starting to tell a significant difference in my running and my legs.

I leave you today with a picture that totally cracks me up.

Who needs 2 lenses anyways? 

I hope y'all have a great week!

Are you training for anything?

Have you ever done the New Rules of Lifting for Women program?

7 Glorious Miles

Okay, so it's been a while. I am still pretty much on top of half marathon training. I haven't done a weekly rundown, because I haven't really been tracking my workouts. I am gaining speed and my endurance is so much stronger after only a couple weeks of training. So, let's talk about my 7 miles from last week. 6 miles does not intimidate me, but 7,8,9....you get the idea, really does. I get anxious. I over analyze about it. However, once I do it. I crush it.

I woke up last Saturday ready to rock 7 miles, I hoped.

I was incredibly happy with how the run went. I felt strong. I walked when I wanted without beating myself up over it. I was faster at the end, which is how I hope the Halloween Half goes.

I am also going to be doing as much uphill and downhill in this training cycle as I can....

The first 5 or so miles of the halloween half are straight downhill. That is hard to train for. So, I am going to do what I can to get in as much hill training as possible.



I am happy to say that I have found my love of running again. It is fun to me and something I love.

Here's to tomorrow's hopefully great run!

Halloween Half Week 2

This week's training went pretty well. Except for the fact that my legs were DEAD after Monday's speedy 3 miles in 28:17, which is just over a 9:25 avg pace. Yep, pretty sure I have never ran 3 miles that fast. It felt good, but it most definitely wasn't easy. I really pushed for it and I think I paid for it a little too much at the end of the week. The treadmill is also boring the hell out of me and it is hard for me to focus. So, I am hoping some of my training runs will start being done outside with only speed workouts on the treadmill. We'll see.

Anyways, here is how this week's training went down.

Monday:

Plan was to rest

And Rest I did

Tuesday:

Plan was 3 Miles and Strength

And 3 Miles at 28:17, Elliptical for 10 Minutes and Back Weights were completed

Wednesday: 

Plan was 3 Mile Pace or cardio and lifting

And resting happened

Thursday:

Plan was 3 Mile Run

And 15 Minutes Elliptical, 2.75 Mile Run/Walk(Run .25 at 7.0 and walk .25 at 4.0 w/ incline) and chest and abs were completed

Friday:

Plan was rest

and rest I did 

Saturday:

Plan was 5 Mile Run

And 5.01 Miles in 53:05 were completed

Sunday:

Plan cross training

And...I don't know, maybe a workout DVD or Tabata workout

Saturday morning we woke up, and babe decided it was a great day to play racquetball. So, off to the gym him, our roommate and I went. I ran the 5 miles while the boy's played racquetball. All 3 of us were quite the sweaty messes when we were finished, but it set a nice tone for the day. We were active for the rest of the day. We got some cleaning done around the house. We set up some new furniture we had gotten on Friday night. Overall, Saturday was my favorite day this past week.

I felt good for the most part with this week's workouts. However, there were too many rest days for my liking. So, next week I plan on getting in all 5 workouts. I may do 6, but it depends on how I feel. My legs feel really good today, so let's just hope that continues on to next week.

Groundhog Day......

Today's workout....let me tell you.....Today's workout was a doozy! It all started with 10 easy minutes on the elliptical to wake my body up a little bit. I followed that up with a variation of Jamie Eason's LiveFit Day 29 Back workout. I used heavy(for me) weights and increased the reps. Then, it was time for the first run of week 2 for half training. The schedule called for 3 miles. I decided I wanted it to be a speed workout and set off to finish the 3 miles in under 29 minutes. Well, I did it. Piece. Of. Cake.Cake?Yes Please. Ahem! I finished in 28:17. That is really fast for me. It was hard and I really had to push, but I put my mind to it and I did it.

Work today was good. Nothing huge happened to speak of. Just another day. Do you ever feel like everyday you wake up and it is Groundhogs Day? I feel like that quite often. I guess that is just part of being an adult. You get up, go to work, go home, do chores, cook dinner, and go to bed. Sometimes it drives me crazy, but such is life.

Moving on....

After work, I came home extremely chipper. I was giggling and taking tons of pictures for facebook(page for the blog is forth coming) and instagram(Miles_In_Murray). Chadley is setting up a new fish tank. Right now, he has a 60 gallon tank and is upgrading it to a 150 gallon. So, I put our dog inside the new tank to see just how big it will be....

Yeah, this thing is effing massive. I love that he has a hobby he enjoys. It is just a hobby that takes over the whole living room lol.

After dinner, which was roast beef salad. Paleo Style! I went grocery shopping for more Paleo friendly foods. I have decided that I have got to clean up my food, like now. I have been depressed lately about the way I look. I have been fitter than this and thinner than I am now. I miss it. So, I am going to start eating Paleo and see what happens. It will be interesting to see if some of my recent stomach "wonkiness" was due to dairy, like I have suspected. I am so excited about eating Paleo. I did for a while when I was losing weight before, but quit staying on top of the planning and prep work. Not this time, I miss how I felt when I was eating almost 100% clean. Gotta get back to it.

Now, it is time for this girl to get her booty to bed! Thanks for stopping by! I have a lot of Google Reader to catch up on tomorrow, as well! So, you will be hearing from me soon!

Goals for Halloween Half Marathon

I love setting goals for myself. It really helps me push through and finish strong. So, here are my goals for training for the Halloween Half Marathon.

Goal #1:
Goal #1 will always be to simply finish!

Goal #2:
Finish in 2:10 or less. This is an easy course to PR on. It is downhill for the first 5 miles, so that helps a lot. I know with how the first week of training went, I will not have ANY problem doing this.

Goal #3:
Strength Train 3-4 days a week. I will be using the Jamie Eason LiveFit workouts for this. I loved them so much and they gave me a great idea of moves to do in the weight room. I will do at least 1 day of leg days.

Goal #4:
Have fun!

That is it. Nothing too amazing or high, but 100% attainable!

Halloween Half Week 1

8/6/2012-Rest Day 
I love it when training plans start out with a rest day. Haha. I kicked this training day in the pants ;)

8/7/2012-3 Miles in 29:24
I decided that all shorter runs will be speed work. I have some goals in mind(more on that later) for this half marathon and I have to get speed work done in there.

8/8/12-20 Minutes Elliptical/back & bicep lifting

This was supposed to be a 2 mile run. However, I don't like running 2 days in a row. So, I did the elliptical instead and did Jamie Eason's Live Fit Day 16. I will be strength training throughout this training plan. I want to build some muscle.

8/9/12-3 Miles in 29:16

I did speed work again. I would love to be doing 3 miles in 27 minutes by the end of this training cycle. We'll see how it goes.

8/10/12-45 Minutes Elliptical 
The gym was super hot. I did this workout on manual at an easy pace with some HIIT at the end.

8/11/12-Long Run 4 Miles @ 42:39 (10:39 avg pace)

This run was done on the treadmill. The gym was HOT again and I had to keep stopping because I needed to cool down. 1.5 miles into it a treadmill freed up that had the fan positioned onto it. You better believe I ran to get it to finish the last 2.5 miles. It was a little cooler, but still warm. Overall, it was a decent run. I was tired until the end and picked up the pace for the last mile.

8/12/12-Rest Day
Today I have been lazy. Just doing laundry, planning lunches for this week and napping. Half training really can take it out of you.

This week's training went pretty decent. I was sluggish at the beginning of each run, but I pushed through and felt great at the end. I only got in 1 day of strength training. However, it is one more day of strength training than before, right? Right!


Onto week 2...Yay!!

What is My Issue?

This weekend it was like I was a 175 pound girl all over again. Luckily, the scale hasn't shown my actions. I have been following my 1/2 marathon schedule, plus some extra cardio time. So, we will just say I found a good balance. However, I want to get on the losing streak again. I am determined to get to my goal!

This week, I am going to change it up slightly. I would really like to work on strength training. I am going to start off with the 30 day shred for 30 days and some 6 weeks 6 pack abs thrown in. I will do Jillian Michaels' Yoga Meltdown on Sunday's. 

I have been keeping my 1/2 training page up to date daily. I like that it keeps me accountable and it truly motivates me to do my best so I can show people how I am becoming the fittest person I can be.

In other news, I have officially been a member of 24hour fitness for 1 month. I have gone 18 times in 30 days. Although I am not happy with that number, it could have been worse. I would like to be going 5-6 days a week. So, I am working on that. Let's see how next month goes, shall we?

What has your weekend been like? Are you more prone binge on weekends?

Being Proud of Me!

I bey y'all thought you lost me forever! You thought wrong! I am just keeping busy busy with life and such.

Let's talk about Saturday's long run. You can see all of my workouts on my 1/2 training page. I did the first 3 miles on the treadmill and then wanted to die of boredom poke my eyeball out stop. So, I thought it best to go home and pick up my running bud, Lenny for a 3 miler. That dog is fast! He pushed me hard. Our first mile was an 8:59 pace, to which I replied "Holy Sh*t!" That is my fastest mile ever. Then, a 9:06 and finished it up with a 10:00 pace. Lenny wore me out too fast. Ah well, I learned from that for sure. So, my long runs will be a slower pace and may just happen by myself..ha!

This morning, I hit up the gym at 6:15ish. I had about 30 minutes to put in a quick workout so I chose the treadmill. The first treadmill I hopped on made a screeching noise when the belt was moving. So, I hopped on another treadmill and it was the same thing. I decided running just wasn't in the cards and hopped on an elliptical. After 11 minutes, I was bored because I forgot my iPod. So, I decided I would find a treadmill that didn't suck! I ran the first mile at a 9:34 pace. The second I did intervals and ended with an 8:28 pace! The funny thing is, I felt that if I slowed to a 9:00 mile or so I could continue on with my workout! That has never happened!

So, good for me, right?

Anyways, I will be back later with a more entertaining post!

Question: Is there a person/pet that keeps you insanely motivated?
Mine is definitely Lenny! Whenever I am in a slump I know that crazy cute dog is up for a run :)