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

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