baby shower

#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 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.