Fun Topic

Today's Workout

3.01 miles in 29:37
45 Minutes Elliptical

I decided I need at least 1 day a week totally dedicated to cardio. From now on Tuesday will be my cardio day. My workout schedule will now looka  little like this:

Monday-Rest or light cardio/strength day
Tuesday-Run and elliptical/stair climber/bike day
Wednesday-Cardio and strength day
Thursday-Run and strength day
Friday-Rest
Saturday-Long run and lots of stretching/yoga day
Sunday-Cardio and strength day

So, I will be strength training about 3-4 days a week. Which is pretty good for me. Doing (most of) the LiveFit Training program really made me fall in love with the weight room. My arms are starting to look so good. I even see a hint of a muscle coming through. I will take a photo and show y'all sometime soon. I am pretty impressed.

Fun Topic of the Day

I am not engaged, nor do I know when I will get engaged. Chad and I have been together for over 5 years now(living together for about 4 and a 1/2 years) and the question comes up often. It is mostly said in 2 ways:

"When are you going to make an honest woman out of her?"

and

"When are you two FINALLY going to get married?"

The questions do not bother me. I am in no rush to run down the aisle. Somedays I want to get engaged, like now! Somedays I just think, 'eh, it'll happen whenever'! Either way, I want my 1st marriage to be my only marriage.

One thing I didn't realize about relationships until I met Chad was that they are work. From day 1 to day 5 billion they never stop being work. I love being with Chad. Even in the bad times, he is my best friend/partner in crime/life partner. I love coming home to him at night and telling him about my day and hearing about his. After 5 years, I still get butterflies. I am always excited to see him no matter how long we have been apart.

I don't know when we will get engaged and I don't want to know until the moment that it happens. However, I do know that one day I will be getting married in Las Vegas!

And I am 100% happy with that!!

Are you in a relationship? If so, how long were you together before you got engaged?

Waiting to exhale...

My title is for no other reason that "Waiting To Exhale" by Whitney Houston has been stuck in my head since Saturday.

Onto today's workout. I had zero intentions on going to the gym this morning. However, I did not turn off my 4:50AM alarm. So, I decided a gym session was happening.

Workout: Arms/Abs & 35 mins easy elliptical

My legs feel so much better after some Epsom salt in my bathtub last night. Thank goodness! I have some speed work on schedule for tomorrow and dare I say, I am looking forward to it.

I have a lot of fun posts to share with you guys this week. I just need to write and schedule them!

How was your weekend?
Is there a song that gets stuck in your head that you just can't get rid of once it is there?
I have so many. Poker face by Lady Gaga(or lady blah blah as I call her) is probably the most frequent and it drives me crazy!

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!

Running Changed My Life….

I will never forget the first step of my journey to running.

It all started a week prior to that first step. The Boyfriend and I went to our favorite camping spot. It was mid day when we decided to go on a 1 mile hike. I had done this hike 3 times before and it was hard every time, but I could do it. Less than a quarter of a mile into it, I felt like I was dying….literally. I couldn’t breathe, I felt dizzy, and told Chad we had to stop to rest. After a few minutes of trying to catch my breath, I told Chad it was time to go back. I felt defeated, but I kept making excuses for why I couldn’t do it. I was tired. I hadn’t eaten enough. Blah Blah Blah!

I had a doctor's appt a few days after the camping trip and when I got on the scale, I saw 142. The last time I had been weighed a few months before that, I weighed 135. I had gained 7 pounds in roughly 2 months. Note: My highest weight ever was 175. That moment sealed my fate! I was going to get fit and healthy!

That night, I looked up a couch to 5k that I had heard so much about and I went to the high school track by my house. I ran 1/2 way around the track and walked 1/2 way around. I repeated that until the 1 mile mark. Let me tell you, I was exhausted. I finished in about 15 minutes. I felt good, just worn out. The next day, I did it all over again. From that day on, 4-6 days a week, I went to the track for 12 weeks. I built up my mileage and on Thanksgiving day 2009, I ran my first 5k.

From then on,  I ran a few days a week, until January, when I decided that I would run a half marathon on April 17, 2010. I had good runs, bad runs, and blah runs. I got injured 5 weeks into and took a 2 week rest....only to come back stronger. I ran a slow 10, 11 and 12 miler in the few weeks prior to the half.

On April 17, 2010, I woke up ready. I didn't have any anxiety. Truth be told, I just wanted to get to the starting line. I was ready to test the training I had done. Once we got there, I gave Chad a kiss and told him I would see him at the finish line. He wished me luck and I took off.

I had a strong race. I was mentally there the whole time. I was focused. I was ready to finish something I had worked so hard to accomplish.

2:16:00 after getting to the starting line, I had finished my first half marathon. I have never felt more proud of myself as I did that day.

Running changed my life. Running, for me, is a struggle. Running has shown me my strengths. Running has showed me my weakness. Running helped me become more fit. Running showed me happiness!

I am so excited about training for this half and I just wanted to share the story of how I got into running. It inspires me to think about it. I finished my first half marathon with a 10:22 avg pace, when 8 months before I could barely do 1 mile in 15 minutes.

What is your greatest fitness accomplishment??

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!!