Another Long Run in the Books

Last week was not my best...J traveled to NYC for work and I hate leaving the pup in his crate longer than usual, so I came home every day this week without getting a workout in.  It's shameful, but it's the truth.

BUT...Friday J got home and I decided to take a 2 mile run around the neighborhood.  It wasn't too horribly bad, but it was COLD!

And before I get flamed by all my Northern readers...yes...I understand that it is nowhere NEAR as cold as it is for you guys (my grandparents live in Minnesota so I understand) but for a girl in the South it was pretty chilly.

Sunday I had my 8 mile training run on the calendar.  We were super lazy and I didn't pull myself out of bed until 1:30 PM.  I ate a Clif bar, got dressed, and drove to the greenway.  It was a bit cooler than I thought it was going to be (I wore a tank and capris) but my run quickly warmed me up.

The trail crosses a highway, and I didn't really want to go that far, so I decided that I would turn around when I got to that point, run back to where I started, then turn around and run back down the trail, then back where I started (did I lose you yet?).  That was probably not the most intelligent thing for me to do as when I got back to the parking lot it was tempting to leave....but I pushed on and finished my 8 mile run.

I had a personal goal to run it in 1:45 or less, and I beat it!  Mind you, not by much, but hey...I reached my goal!

Got my Sweat Pink on :)

I was really trying to get a couple of negative splits in my run, so I was anxious to download my run from the Garmin to their website.

Woo hoo!!! I had not one, but TWO negative splits!!  I was pretty excited to see those numbers!

After I got home, I showered and slipped back into my compression socks for the day and had a nice post run meal of Skinnytaste's Spaghetti Squash Lasagna (I highly recommend trying it..it's so tasty!)

Overall, my run is good...but maybe some of you could help me solve a mystery.  The past two long runs I've done I have gotten pain on the inside arch area of my left foot, and on the ball of my right foot.  I have started wearing a new pair of shoes to break them in, but it happens with my old shoes as well.  I'm wearing either Swiftwick or Feetures! socks.  Any ideas?

I love Crossfit, and I will miss it while I'm gone on vacation, so I've decided to put it on the back burner until I get back home and focus more on my training for the half marathon (only 26 more days...squee!!).  Once that's over I plan to dive back into Crossfit.

Thanks for all the new likes on my Facebook page!  I'm trying hard to post more often on it, and please feel free to share with your friends!  Hello Fitness - We Meet Again

Until next time,

Jen

7 Miles Never Felt So Good

I went to my third Crossfit class Friday after work, and I'm still feeling the burn today.

When I saw the pull ups on the board, I got a little nervous.  I have so little upper body strength that I was so afraid I wasn't going to be able to do them.  One of the coaches (who we realized that we went to college together and hung out with the same group of people quite a bit) put my worries to rest when she showed me the resistance bands I could use to assist me with the pull ups.  The better I get, the less resistance I will need.  I LOVE doing kettlebell swings, so those were no problem.  I seem to have pulled something in my lower abdominal area, so I did modified burpee box jumps, but I still finished the WOD.  My arms are still unhappy with me for the 50 pull ups I did, but they'll thank me later when I'm able to do more with them in the long run.

Sunday I had a 7 mile run on the schedule.  It's only 32 days until my first half marathon, and I want to make sure that I get as much running in as I can!  I did NOT want a repeat of what happened after my 6 mile run a couple of weeks ago, so I tried a different approach.  When I woke up, I had a Clif bar.  On my way to the trail, I downed a bag of Sports Beans.  I also had my trusty water bottle with Strawberry Lemonade Nuun in it.  I made sure to stretch good, and then I was off. 

I didn't want to burn myself out (and I'm a slower runner to begin with) so I took it easy, trying my best to use the 1:30/1:00 run/walk intervals that I had set on my Garmin.  I did pretty well with them throughout the whole run.  When I got half way done, I took an strawberry kiwi flavored AccelGel.  I've never tried this brand before and wanted to see if I liked it better than Gu.  I wasn't crazy about the flavor, but I did like that it wasn't as thick as Gu usually is.  The disadvantage to that is that I got it on my fingers with nowhere to rinse them off, so they stayed a bit sticky through the rest of my run.

I was really striving to finish in 1:30 or less, and I ended up finishing in 1:31, so not too bad!

Here are my splits from the run -

I know I didn't have any negative splits, and right now, I'm okay with that.  I was overall pleased with my run, and it was soooo much better than the 6 mile run I did a couple of weeks ago...I finished 6 miles in 1:24, and this time finished 7 miles in 1:31, so for me, that in itself is a success.

Once I finished I went to the water fountain, except they had turned them off for the winter!  So I went into the restroom, splashed some cold water on my face, and headed home.  I had a Clif bar in the car so I downed that as I drove to the house and had some Powerade once I got home.  I took a shower and threw on these fun compression socks my brother got me for Christmas -

I believe the brand of them is Red Lion, if anyone is interested...I know I had a couple of people ask.

I felt absolutely great after my run!  I was so relieved that I didn't have the nausea and chills this time, so I think I've finally found a long run routine that works for me.  Yay!

It was a disappointing night in football as the Falcons lost to the 49'ers in the NFC championship game, but oh well...what can ya do.  It had a similar ending to the SEC championship game between UGA and Bama.  I think the Dome is cursed...at least for any Georgia team.

I hope everyone had a great weekend and was able to sweat in some way, shape or form!

Until next time,

Jen

Crossfit 101

Back in December I bought a Groupon for a local Crossfit box, and Wednesday night was my first class.

I met Sharon there and as we walked in there were a LOT of newbies waiting for class to start, which was good!  I believe a majority of them had also purchased the Groupon.  Before we started, I popped some bits - 

There were about 20 of us in the class, and the owner, Peyton, was our instructor for the day.  He gave us a little about his personal history with Crossfit - he lost 51 pounds after doing Crossfit for 11 months and has been doing it for 4 years.  He recently got the space to open a box after using some space at a local park.

Afterwards, he got us all around him and had each of us show him our form with push ups and squats.  Then we grabbed kettle bells and did swings, and finally, a medicine ball for some toe to balls.  When we were done, he gave us our WOD:

400m run

4 sets of 10:

Push ups

Squats

Kettlebell swings

Toe to ball

400m run

Boy, did I work up a good sweat with that workout!!  After the class was over Sharon and I stayed behind and chatted a bit, then headed home.  I knew I was going to be sore the next morning but I didn't realize just HOW sore.  I definitely felt the burn in my muscles!

But Friday...I went back for my second 101 class!  It was a rainy day and the gym was pretty full with the 101 class, the normal WOD class, and an Olympic lifting class (he's hoping to knock out one of the walls to make the gym bigger soon).  So for those of us who were there for our second 101 class, we did the WOD for the day.  Before I started, I decided to try a new energy drink made by FRS

A lot of my fellow bloggers have done reviews of this product and I wanted to give it a try.  I picked up the Cherry Limeade flavor, and while I was a little nervous about what it would taste like, I actually really enjoyed it!  I want to try some of the other flavors soon.

Here was the WU (warm up) and WOD for Friday ;

WU
2 sets of 20:
Raleigh hops
Mountain climers

WOD
5 rounds:
100 single jump rope or 500m row
15 goblet squats

It definitely got the heart pumping!  I could REALLY feel my quads duing the goblet squats, and I got a few battle wounds from the jump rope - 

All in all, I liked the WOD for Friday!  I'm planning to head back on Wednesday after work for more :)

Have you done Crossfit? What's your favorite and least favorite exercise during your workout?

Until next time,

Jen

It Happened Again...

The Princess Half marathon is fast approaching (only 45 days away!) and it's time to get serious about the long runs.

Yesterday I did a six mile run.  I jumped on the computer to Map My Run to plan my route, ate some peanut butter crackers, and headed out.

The run itself was okay...I wasn't expecting too much from it, but I knew I needed to get out and get it done.  I did learn a thing or two during my run - 1) don't wear a hoodie.  By mile 2 I was hot and ended up taking it off and tying it around my waist.  As I started to run again, I heard a car honk at me - it was J and Guinness coming to check on me, so I sent the hoodie home with him.  At mile 3 I had planned to take some Gu Chomps, but they were so hard!  I hadn't eaten all of them from a previous race so I saved them, which was lesson #2 - they don't store well after being open.

But I finished...and that's when things went downhill.

The same thing that happened to me on my 8 mile run back in September happened again yesterday.  I got very hot, clammy, and nauseous, so I took a cold shower.  I continued to be nauseous and then couldn't warm up after the shower.  I went straight to the bed when I got out, texted J that I would be upstairs for awhile, and just laid under the covers shivering.  I know exactly what I did wrong....I wasn't properly hydrated and I didn't fuel myself enough for that length of run.  J came up to check on me and tried to help warm me up, and finally about 3 hours later I felt better.  I absolutely cannot continue to let this happen, especially after my half marathon!

I have my first Crossfit class this Wednesday!!  I'm both excited and nervous about it, and I hope I'm still able to run!  Luckily this weekend's long run is only 3 miles per my schedule, so it shouldn't be too terribly bad.  You can bet I'll be blogging about it...if I can move my arms and fingers to type :)

I'm still working on my Christmas blog posts and hope to have those up this week.  Getting caught up at work and at home has put me behind!  And stay tuned for a Fit Approach Sweat Pink giveaway!

Until next time,

Jen

New Year - New Me!

First, I apologize for the blog being so dormant over the holidays.  We had my in-laws over for dinner the Saturday before Christmas, left for my parents on Christmas eve and have been hanging with them ever since.  I will write a more detailed post about our holidays once I get home (we're at their cabin in the north Georgia mountains).

Sitting around here has given me a lot of time to think about what I want to accomplish for myself next year.  I can't believe that it's been 9 months since I made the decision to pick up running again with a goal to complete my first half marathon (which is only 53 days away!!!!)  Now that 2013 is literally just around the corner, I have begun to make new goals for myself -

Be Better About Meal Planning

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I did okay off and on throughout the year with this last year, but next year I want to make this a priority for both J and myself.  It takes the guesswork out of the infamous "What's for dinner?" question and will cut down on the amount of times I have to stop by the grocery store (which J hates!).  It will also lead to more healthy choices for us.  Making and taking my lunch also falls into this category - I need to minimize the amount of times I eat out during the week!

Lacing up a minimum of 3 days a week

Once daylight savings time hit and the temperatures began to drop, so did the amount of time I would spend outside running.  It didn't seem like that big of a deal....until I ran a 10k after running only once in a two week period.  I'm by no means fast, but I could really tell that I was struggling throughout the run.  They day after was even worse - my hips were killing me, my ankles were sore, and I felt like I had been beat up.  This was a huge eye opener that I cannot let my training runs slip and expect to do my best.  I absolutely HATE the "dreadmill" so in order to make this happen I plan to go back to taking my clothes to work and stopping at the Greenway on my way home to get in my two training runs during the week, and then leaving my long runs for the weekend.

Add strength training to my routine

I have been wanting to try Crossfit for some time now, and earlier this month Sharon and I bought a Groupon deal for a Crossfit gym.  We plan to start next week and I will definitely be documenting my journey.  I have hopes that this will help me increase my stamina with running as well as building muscle for my first Warrior Dash in May!

Lose Weight

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Ah...the cliche New Years resolution that about 90% of the world's population set as a goal.  I do not have a goal weight in mind, but I want my body to feel better and I want to feel better about my body.  Doing the things I have already mentioned will help me chisel off this weight.

13 in 2013

I joined a challenge to run 13 races in 2013, and so far I'm already registered for five (SeaBee 10k run, Locomotive 5k, Princess Half Marathon, Georgia Publix Half Marathon, and Warrior Dash), AND I have my eyes set on a girls "runcation" to California to participate in the inaugural Dumbo Double Dare.  As long as I'm able to remain injury free, I should be able to check this resolution off this time next year!

Beat my PRs!

In participating with Crossfit, running more, and eating better, I really hope to surpass my PRs in both the 5k and 10k distances.  Since the Princess half marathon is my first, I won't really use that as a PR goal to break as it's just a fun run.  The Publix half marathon in March will give me a better idea of what I will need to do to break its time, whatever it may be.  :)

Blog More and Up my Social Media Presence

There were times this past year where I went a little too long without posting, so next year I want to set a goal for myself to blog at least 3-4 days a week.  I don't feel that my life is interesting enough to post every single day, but 3-4 days is a more realistic goal for myself.  I also want to be more active on my Facebook Fan Page (if you haven't already, please go and "Like" it!), Twitter, and Instagram.

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I know for a fact that every single one of these goals can be easily met if I just put my mind to it.  I'm looking forward to what 2013 brings!

Do you have any goals for yourself?  

Until next time,

Jen