Month: April 2014

Spring 1/2 Training: Week 12

/ Amy / 5 Comments

Week 12 is over, it’s taper time! But before all the relaxing begins, take a look at what I did this week:

  • Monday:  3 mile easy treadmill run followed by spinning. Did Level 4, rolling hills program on the treadmill, and felt pretty good. Sunday’s rest day was good for my legs, but spinning was tough and felt like it lasted forever.
  • Tuesday:  5 mile run with first and last mile at an easy effort, and the middle 3 miles at race effort. I’m pretty confident I will be running the race by feel, not pace, so I’m practicing this technique whenever I get the chance. Stretched and foam rolled as well. (Avg. pace: 9:11/mile)
  • Wednesday: Speed day – 10 x 400m intervals on the treadmill. This was far tougher than any interval session has been for me this training cycle. Probably because of yesterday’s pace run. (Avg. pace: 8:57/mile)
  • Thursday:  Easy run to the grocery store. Total 3 miles. Stretching and foam rolling. (Avg. pace: 9:36/mile)
  • Friday: Rest Day. Didn’t go to spinning; didn’t feel like it, but it was probably good for my tired legs.
  • Saturday: Long Run – 13 miles. It was a great last long run. I’m looking forward to race day. Also, did stretching, foam rolling, and strength exercises. (Avg. pace: 9:50/mile)
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Long run success!

  • Sunday: Rest Day. Did some stretching and strength exercises. I started a the 30 day ab challenge. It’s not terribly extensive, but hopefully it’ll get me in the routine of doing some sort of strength exercise.

This is how I did on my goals last week:

  1. Long Run: 13 miles Check!
  2. Speed Work – 10x400m intervals Check!
  3. Easy Runs: (2) – 3 mile + 5 mile Check!
  4. Pace Run: 3 mile Check!
  5. Strength – Once Check!
  6. Stretch & Foam Roll – 3 times Check!
  7. Spinning Twice Only Once

This week I’m starting to taper for the half. I don’t usually get the taper crazies, and I think I’ll probably be fine this time too. This week’s plan is to lower my mileage, while keeping some of the intensity:

  1. Long Run: 6 miles
  2. Speed Work – 30 min tempo
  3. Easy Runs: (2) – 3 mile + 4 mile
  4. Strength – 30-day Ab Challenge
  5. Stretch & Foam Roll – 4 times

You’ll notice that spinning isn’t on this list. I haven’t really enjoyed spinning lately, so that’s off the list for now. We’ll see what happens.

 

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An Anniversary & Running Adventures – Part 2

/ Amy / 1 Comment
I consider Part 1 to be the time I ran the Charles River Esplanade and then showered in the work locker room afterwards. I think this shows the level of daring required for me to consider something adventurous. (In other words, I’m not very adventurous when it comes to running – or anything really.) 
Disclaimer: You should be aware that this is quite a long post and the actual running adventures do not start until about halfway through. Don’t worry, there are lots of pictures. 

Thursday was my wedding anniversary. 4 years!

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Best Wedding EVER! I’m not biased.

I think celebrating my wedding anniversary is a little funny. Mostly because my husband and I dated for so long before we were married – we’ve been together for roughly 11.5 years – so celebrating 4 years together seems odd. I know you can celebrate both a wedding and a dating anniversary, but before we got married we decided that we wanted to celebrate only one anniversary a year. So, our dating anniversary became Manganello day, and we celebrate our wedding anniversary.

What is Manganello day you ask? Well, I had a tough time changing my name. I really wanted to keep Manganello, but I also really wanted to have the same last name as my husband.  So, to deal with leaving Manganello behind, I decided to create a holiday called Manganello Day. On this day, we do Manganello-y things, like eat Italian food, play cards and/or Bocce, and drink Southern Comfort Manhattans (actually, I just think about drinking them, I’m not really up to making those myself). Sound fun? It is. Feel free to join us next year, it’s October 23rd – our “old” anniversary.

Anyways, our 4 year wedding anniversary was Thursday. Four years is Fruit and Flowers. I’d already gotten Jeff a card and a small gift, but I also wanted to make dinner.

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See that flower (bottom left) and 3 fruit cupcakes (strawberry shortcake, banana’s foster, and chocolate raspberry).

Aside from the above deliciousness, I wanted to pop over to the grocery store to get some things I needed to make dinner and an appetizer. Unfortunately, when I headed down to the car, I ran into some issues with our parking spot. The ceiling above it (almost directly above our car) was leaking. A LOT. I could hear the water running, and there was a large puddle in the garage. This has happened before, but to a much less extreme extent. There was an issue with the drain from the hair salon above our parking space.The entire garage smelled like the salon, so it was pretty obvious that it was the same problem. There was a large bulge in the ceiling and bits of ceiling on the floor, so I was concerned the ceiling would fall onto the car at any moment. (Maybe I’m a bit over dramatic.) So, instead of going to the store, I pulled the car into the back spot, and went upstairs to call the management company.

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It looked worse in person, I promise.

The woman who manages our building is THE WORST. After three phone calls, I noticed someone from the management company walking past me in our building lobby, so I hung up (I was on hold) and talked to him. I’m not sure why, but the conversation was extremely awkward. I basically just wanted to know whether I needed to move my car out of the garage or if it was fine in the back spot. He didn’t seem to understand what I was talking about, but he confirmed that I shouldn’t be parked directly under the ceiling that was “about to come down”. He left with a promise to come knock on my door in case they needed me to move the car. (Are you wondering why someone didn’t tell us the ceiling was about to collapse on our car? I was. Refer back to the first sentence of this paragraph for the answer.)

I returned to our condo and emailed Jeff, explaining in a completely normal (and not semi-crazy sounding) email what was going on, and that now I wasn’t making him a surprise dinner, and I couldn’t go running or take a shower in case someone needed me to move the car. He agreed that the lady from management sucks, and told me I could run and shower because everything would be fine. With that news, I took a few deep breaths, read roughly a million posts on other running blogs to calm down, and formulated a plan.

The plan was to run to the grocery store. I would get my run in and get the ingredients I needed for dinner. Easy peesy. I got dressed in some super cool tube socks and pulled out the backpack we use for hiking. Ready for a running adventure:

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All strapped in!

The store is less than a mile from my house and I had an easy 3 miler on the schedule, so I ran the long way to the grocery store with my empty back pack. Long way meaning away from the store and then looping around towards it at 1.25 miles. It was around 3 pm when I set out, so there were plenty of high schoolers out, some of whom were kind enough to let me know how cool it is to run with tube socks and an awesome back pack. They know what cool is because they ride razor scooters.

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The long way is beautiful.

Before long, I made it to Stop & Shop – around the 2 mile mark. I felt pretty awkward walking around the store in my running clothes, with my backpack on, and slightly sweaty, but I got everything I needed as fast as possible, paid, and shoved everything in my backpack. My bag wasn’t quite as roomy as I thought, and I almost couldn’t get everything in. Once, I had though, I was ready to power on home. Only a mile away, and the shopping was done, so piece of cake, right?

It was not a piece of cake. Turns out, the bag was extraordinarily heavy. Every step was hard, and it was the longest mile I’ve run in a while. I could see our building for most of the run, and was running low on time to get dinner finished, so I kept up the pace as best I could and before I knew it, I was home. I’ve never literally RUN an errand before!

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Full bag.

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12 lbs of groceries. I weighed them.

I think it’s going to be a long time before I run to the grocery store again. It was a fun adventure, but I have no desire to run a mile as a pack mule ever again. I have to admit, though, this time was totally worth it. Jeff was super surprised that I had made dinner (probably because I told him I wasn’t going to), and it turned out to be delicious.

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Main Dish: Tortilla soup.

Before Thursday, we both thought that Fruit and Flowers was going to be a lame year, but I think we underestimated it a bit. This was definitely more fun than cotton (year 2). I had a great night filled with fruit, flowers, cupcakes, and time with Jeff. And surprises. Jeff came home with flowers for me! (Sounds obvious, but he’s not really the flower giving type, and he had to carry them on the subway and commuter rail train, so I was definitely not expecting it.)

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My fruit and flowers!

There you have it – running adventures part 2 – the grocery store. I think this is more adventurous than running in Boston after work last Summer. Maybe not though, there was that unfamiliar locker room shower last time. I don’t like unfamiliar showers. 🙂

Have you ever RUN and errand? Am I terribly unadventurous? 

P.S. In case you are wondering, this is what the garage ceiling looks like now:

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Thoughts on Racing – My 2014 Race Plans

/ Amy / 4 Comments

Continuing on with my thoughts about running races…

My 2014 race schedule

My yearly race schedule tends to reflect the reasons I sign up for races. I will generally have a long race (>=10 miles) in the Spring, to keep me running through the Winter, and another long race in the Fall, to push myself in either distance or speed.  I’ll usually have a few shorter races sprinkled in that sound like fun, and then I sign up for whatever holiday races I can convince family and friends to do with me.

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Who wants to run the turkey trot with me?

I don’t consider myself to be a race nut, and luckily my husband keeps me in check on the rare semi-regular occasions that I decide I want to do every race I hear about. I don’t think I’d be very happy if I raced a lot more than I do now (potential future post on this?) – not to mention the impact on my bank account.

This year, I have run one race so far: Frosty Four on New Year’s Day, and I am currently signed up for one other race: The Twin Lights Half Marathon at the end of this month. When I first started writing this entry, I had also registered for the Reach the Beach Relay in September, but that has since fallen through. While this is disappointing, it has made me 100% sure that I want to choose a marathon as my fall goal. I am really looking forward to training for another marathon!

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I would like to do this again, please. Where do I sign up?

I chose a Spring half so that I would have the opportunity to attempt a sub 2 hour half more than once. However, I’m not sure this will be the case because my desire for a sub 2 hour time is wavering somewhat. I do really like the distance though, so that might be enough to get me signed up for more than one half this year.

Another thing to think about is that I have a friend training for her first half marathon this fall, (she let me make her a training plan – how fun!), and she’s also running a 5k in June and a 10k in August. Both of these races sound fun, and I’d love to join her. Also, Jeff has expressed some interest in trying to beat his 5k and 10k PRs this fall, which is something I wouldn’t want to miss either.

If you add in the holiday races I’m hoping to run, that brings us to 13 races! That’s too many for me. I’ll need to start scaling this back a bit. Perhaps I can volunteer at some of these instead of running them? I’ve never done that before, and it’s one of my 2014 resolutions.

Here is my rough 2014 race list (yes, I know it’s April):

  • January 1st – Frozen Four
  • April 27th – Twin Lights Half Marathon
  • May – Buffalo Half Marathon (This is an EXTREMELY REMOTE possibility)
  • June – PRONE 5k
  • August – Bridge and Back 10k
  • Fall – 5k with Jeff
  • Fall – 10k with Jeff
  • Fall – Another Half Marathon
  • Fall – Marathon
  • October – Devil’s Chase 6.66 miles
  • November – Turkey Trot 8k
  • December – Reindeer Run 5k
  • December – Run-a-Latke 5k
  • And OMG, I just read about a Festivus Race in Salem!

How many races is too many races? How do I not get carried away?

#100HappyDays – Days 15 – 21

/ Amy / Leave a comment

This challenge should be called “finding little things that make me happy” because that’s the challenging part. Some days it’s obvious what my happy thing will be, but on an average day, I have to find “average” things that make me happy. I had a few non-typical days in week 3 of the challenge and it was easy to figure out what to use as my happy things, but getting back to normal means writing about what parts of my routine make me happy, and while there are plenty, it’s a little bit harder.

Day 15: Having a baby shower for my sister. The shower went great, and the best part was that it gave me a reason to visit Buffalo where I got to hang out with Beth all weekend, as well as some other wonderful people.

Day 16: A visit to the zoo. I love the zoo. The Polar bears weren’t out, but they did have a baby gorilla! And afterwards, I got to hang out with two great friends for dinner. Two happy things. I’m cheating.

Day 17: Drinking Lattes with Pam On the way to the airport for my flight back to Boston, Pam and I stopped at Coffee Culture to enjoy a drink and each other’s company. We both got Lattes (mine a chai tea latte), and although it was pretty tasty, it was the company that made it fun.

Day 18: Home sweet home Visiting family in Buffalo is great, but it’s nice to spend a night at home with Jeff after a weekend away.

Day 19: Learning Yes, I am a huge dork.

Day 20: The Magic Stoplight There is a “busy” intersection that is part of almost all my runs, but when you push the walk button the light changes immediately. Like magic.

Day 21: Successful Pace Run I have had trouble with this workout for a long time. Not just training for this race, but the last time I trained to run under 2 hours, too. It makes it very difficult to imagine myself running an entire race at the pace I want if I can’t manage it for 5 miles. I finally did it. 🙂

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Spring 1/2 Training: Week 11

/ Amy / 1 Comment

Week 11 is now behind me, leaving me with only one more long run before the race. I wish I could say that I feel like I’m going to kill that two hour time goal, but that would be a lie. Instead, I’m contemplating what my other goals for this race can be so that I still feel accomplished when I finish slower than I’d like. 

This doesn’t mean I had a bad week, on the contrary look at all the stuff I did: 

  • Monday: Travel day. I took almost every conceivable mode of transportation (car, plane, shuttle bus, subway, feet – walked, and train), but no running. 
  • Tuesday:  3 mile easy run outside with Jeff. No watch, but I was using the charity miles app so I know it was something under 10 min/mile. Being able to use Charity Miles again is one definite plus to running outside.
  • Wednesday: 45 minute tempo run (treadmill). As far as speed work goes, I much prefer intervals. Ended up with 4.8 miles, so even during speed work I’m a bit shy of that 9 min/mile average I’m hoping for on race day. This is why I have my doubts. Also, stretching and foam rolling.
  • Thursday:  5 mile easy run out to Salem. There were hills and a bridge and beaches and Jeff. It was pretty nice. Ended up around 10 min miles with a tad bit of walking and some stopping for traffic lights. I think it’s key that I start slow at my race. That seems to really help me make it through the run at a decent pace.
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Not a bad view.

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Look I got my finger in both shots!

  • Friday: I did it! I did my pace run, and I succeeded! 5 miles in 44:36, that’s 24 seconds to spare, even! I had pretty much given up hope of succeeding on one of these pace runs.  Silly me. I guess there’s still a chance I’ll get my sub-2 hour half. I just have to keep up that pace for twice as far, and then a 5k. Piece of cake!
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Mmmmm…Cake!

Oh, also, I had a pretty impressive dance party after the pace run success. Unfortunately, I skipped spinning in the morning in order to keep my legs fresh for the pace run attempt. 

  • Saturday: I set out on my long run of 12 miles, but decided to cut it short at the halfway point and finished only 6.34 miles.  My legs were BEAT. I clearly should have waited until Sunday morning to try the long run. And I knew that at the time, but mentally I was ready for it, so I went anyways. Oh well. I know I could have finished out the 12, but I just wasn’t having any fun. It was cold and windy and a little wet, and my legs were so tired from running the previous 4 days. I guess this is the beauty of this training schedule I made, it was my second 12 mile run, so I didn’t feel horrible about going home when my legs were done.
  • Sunday: Much needed rest day. Stretching and foam rolling.

This is how I did on my goals last week:

  1. Long Run: 12 miles – Did 6.34 miles
  2. Speed Work – 45 min tempo run Check!
  3. Easy Runs: (2) – 3 mile + 5 mileCheck!
  4. Pace Run: 5 mile Check!
  5. Strength – Once – Nope..so, bad at this.
  6. Stretch & Foam Roll – 2 times Check!
  7. Spinning Once Skipped

Once again, I didn’t get all my goals. It’s a high bar I set for myself. 😉

This week I’m hoping to:

  1. Long Run: 13 miles
  2. Speed Work – 10x400m intervals
  3. Easy Runs: (2) – 3 mile + 5 mile
  4. Pace Run: 3 mile
  5. Strength – Once
  6. Stretch & Foam Roll – 3 times
  7. Spinning Twice

 

The Friday 5 – 4th Edition

/ Amy / 1 Comment

It’s Friday! Time for my favorite post of the week, where I write about five random topics. I try to include some running stuff, this being a running blog and all. 

1. I finished the blanket I was knitting! I gave it to my sister at her baby shower last weekend, so now I can post a picture of it. I hope my niece or nephew will like it. It’s a little on the small side, but so are babies, so I think it will be okay.

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2. Have you heard about this Run Run Run song by Michelle Lewis?   Lewis wrote the song shortly before the bombings at the Boston Marathon, for a friend. Since then, it has taken on kind of a new meaning. She and her husband created a video for the song (below) dedicating it to “all those training for Boston in Boston”. I like the song and I REALLY like the video. Part of my running route is in it! Towards the beginning, there is a woman wearing an apricot colored jacket (spoiler alert: it’s not me) running near the water.  That’s Beverly,MA! About a 1/2 mile from my house. 

You can read more about this from Runner’s World, and check out Michelle’s music on her website. All proceeds from the sale of the song from now until Marathon Monday will benefit the One Fund. I bought my copy from Amazon.

3. I cooked a delicious dinner!  If you know about my cooking skills, you know what a feat this is. I made citrus black bean soup and southwestern style twice baked potatoes. I think it looks like restaurant food. 

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4. Sometimes it takes me a REALLY long time to write a blog post – In fact, I rarely write them in one sitting. I don’t know why it’s so hard for me, I’m not terribly concerned that they be well written or cohesive masterpieces. I think I just have a hard time expressing myself in words. Blogging is a strange hobby for me then, isn’t it? Having a few weekly “themed” posts is very helpful. I’m doing much better documenting my runs now that I’m posting weekly recaps on Mondays. Along with the Friday 5, that ensures that I post at least twice a week. I think if I don’t post regularly, I would just stop posting all together. Which would be unfortunate because I think this is really fun. 

5. I order spices online. I love me some Penzeys. The first time I encountered them was at my mom’s house in Buffalo; they have a shop there on Elmwood.  There’s also a shop in my area (sort of) in Arlington, MA. It’s a little bit too far to travel for spices, so I order them instead. I time my orders so I can get free shipping, and every time I get a package they send a little free sample of a spice. Score! Plus, their catalog usually has a coupon for a free spice as well. They know how to keep me as a loyal customer, that’s for sure.

I hope you have a good weekend! Filled with good music, good food, and good running. 

First week of April – Resolution Check-In

/ Amy / 1 Comment

Well, it’s April. It doesn’t exactly feel like April because Spring has taken it’s sweet time getting here, but the calendar still says it’s time to check in on my resolutions (detailed list here).

  1.  Complete a 1/2 Marathon in Under 2 Hours – I’ll be attempting this at the end of the month!
  2.  Keep up with my Running Blog – Could not be doing better!
  3.  Run a Marathon – I’m 100% sure I want to do one in the fall. Just need to pick it and sign up. And train for it of course. 🙂
  4. Keep a Running Journal – I did this for 4 weeks and did not like it. I still want to give it another chance, though so I’m keeping it on the list for now.
  5. Join a Running Club – I think I’m going to do this after the half marathon.
  6. Volunteer – I’ve been checking out some options on Volunteer Match, but haven’t signed up for anything yet.
  7. Run 2014! (kilometers, that is) – I need to run 113 miles per month for the rest of the year to do this. Given my normal training load, that seems pretty unlikely. But it’s not impossible. I’ll probably revise this down to a more realistic goal when it moves from unlikely to impossible. I am not upset about this at all; I’m psyched about my mileage this year. Last March I ran 27.8 miles (I wasn’t even injured), this March I ran 102.5 miles. I have run twice as many miles this year as I had at the same time last year. That feels like success to me.
  8. Beat Jeff’s 5k PR – No progress on this goal, but I am doing speed work for half training, does that count?

Fun Fact: I don’t like making posts without pictures in them. I’m not really sure I have one that fits for this post, so I’m not even going to try. Here’s a picture of some Panda cupcakes Jeff and I made a couple years ago.

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Too cute to eat? Ha!

#100HappyDays – Days 8 – 14

/ Amy / 5 Comments

It hasn’t been very long, but I’m enjoying the happy days challenge so far. I’m trying to remember my happy things throughout the day as a way to stay focused on all the good things in my life and smile more. I don’t know if that’s actually working, but it’s not hurting. So, with no further ado, here’s week two:

Day 8: Having a Muppet movie marathon. Okay, to be fair, we only watched two movies and that’s hardly a movie marathon.  We’ll watch another one or two soon, though.  The first movie we watched was the new Muppet movie: Muppets Most Wanted. It was very funny, and I liked it a lot. We saw it in the theater, so I also got to have movie popcorn for lunch. The second movie we watched was Muppets From Space. I think this one is from the late 90’s, and is centered on the origins of Gonzo. I liked Muppets Most Wanted better out of the two, but that could just be because it’s new.

Day 9: Easter candy from Winfrey’s. A few months ago, or maybe it’s a year now, a handmade candy store opened near our house. This weekend we stopped in to pick up a small treat while taking a walk, and that’s when we found something awesome. Candy eggs filled with fudge. So, obviously, we spent $10 on candy, which we ate over the course of two days.  Chocolate for the win! See, I told you the grilled cheese wouldn’t be the only happy thing based on food.

Day 10: Knitting for someone special. I’m knitting a blanket for my soon to be niece or nephew. It’s fun to knit and I like imagining a little baby wrapped up in the blanket in just a few months! I can’t wait to become an aunt for the second time. 🙂

Day 11: Stocking up on Chickpeas Yes, I’m aware that this sounds incredibly lame, but having a freezer full of beans is definitely a happy thought. We buy bags of dried beans, cook them, and then freeze them in 1-1/2 cup servings (equivalent to one can). We like to have a supply of chickpeas, black beans, kidney beans, and pintos.  In a typical week, we use anywhere from 4 to 8 “cans” of beans in chilli, hummus, tacos, and bean burgers. Eating all these things makes me happy, so having the ingredients is also a happy thing.

Day 12: Finishing a hard workout I didn’t feel like doing I’ve been having a serious motivation issue this week for reasons unknown, and had absolutely no desire to run intervals on the treadmill today. Luckily, I have an awesome husband who will encourage me to come with him to the gym even if I’m whining about it and dawdling and he’d probably prefer to just leave my annoying self at home. Once I started running, I was perfectly happy doing it, and I really love intervals. They make me feel fast and awesome.

Day 13: Watching Friends with Jeff Sitting on the couch with Jeff watching Friends (or something else we find funny) is definitely one of my happy places.

Day 14: Visiting with mom A trip to Buffalo is always full of a lot of family time, and I got it kicked off right by having lunch and running errands with Mom and Pam, then Beth came over to visit and eat pizza. What a great time!

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Spring 1/2 Training: Week 10

/ Amy / 4 Comments

I can’t believe I’ve been training for 10 weeks. This is a long training plan! I think I made it this way because I was excited to get started. Ha! 

Here’s how week 10 went:

  • Monday: 3 mile easy run followed by spinning. Also, stretching and foam rolling. 
  • Tuesday:  Jeff and I planned to run together tonight, and despite neither of us feeling like it we got all dressed up for intervals at the track. Unfortunately, when we drove over to the track we found it was taken by the high school track team. We then decided to do a short run from home instead. However, we still weren’t feeling it and after stepping out into the wind we quickly headed inside in favor of dinner and a few episodes of Friends. (Am I a bad runner if I find this more funny than guilt inducing?)
  • Wednesday: Did my intervals that I skipped on Tuesday. I REALLY didn’t want to go, but Jeff sort of dragged me with him to the gym. It turned out to be a great workout, so I’m pretty grateful that he didn’t give in to my whining. On another note, I really like intervals. They feel easier than just a regular 4 mile run. Think I can do intervals for the whole race?
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I love intervals!

  • Thursday:  Took the night off to get ready for my weekend trip to Buffalo.
  • Friday: Traveling and visiting with family, no running.
  • Saturday: Baby shower day for my sister, again no running.
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Shower success!

  • Sunday: After talking with a few people, I decided to do my long run on the trail by the Niagara River.  Unfortunately, because it’s Buffalo and Spring is not coming this year, there were 3″ of snow on the ground when I woke up. After dawdling as long as I could, I finally forced myself on to my mom’s treadmill for 12 miles. I didn’t really feel like running (theme of the week), but again, once it started, I was fine and had a good time. I even ended up with negative splits!
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Oh, hello there March 30th.

This is how I did on my goals last week:

  1. Long Run: 12 miles Check!
  2. Speed work – 9x400m Check!
  3. Easy Runs: (2) – 3 mile + 5 mile – 3 mile yes, 5 mile no
  4. Strength – Once – Still have a wrist problem, but shouldn’t be failing so badly at this
  5. Stretch + Foam Roll – 3 times – Only once
  6. Spinning Once Check!

This week I’m hoping to:

  1. Long Run: 12 miles
  2. Speed Work – 45 min tempo run
  3. Easy Runs: (2) – 3 mile + 5 mile
  4. Pace Run: 5 mile
  5. Strength – Once
  6. Stretch & Foam Roll – 2 times
  7. Spinning Once

One of these weeks, I’m going to meet all of my goals, but it certainly wasn’t week 10. I’m happy with how I did though, considering I was doing a bunch of last minute baby shower planning and then traveling to Buffalo. In addition to that, my motivation to workout was definitely lacking this week, so I consider everything I did an extra little victory.

Do you ever have weeks like mine, where everything is 10 times harder to do than normal? I tend to give in and skip some workouts, but not all of them. I find that taking it easy on weeks like this can help me get my motivation back quicker, but it’s good to have some workouts to look back on that were hard to start but turned out good.