Training Updates

Last week was my rest week, which worked out well. I needed it! This week, my schedule included 3 runs:

2 mile jog
Intervals with 1 mile at 7.2 mph (8:19 min per mile) followed by a half mile jog; repeated a total of 3 times so I hit 6 miles with warmup and cooldown
8 mile long run

I'll be doing that 8 miler this morning! All in all, training is going well. I've been running fairly high mileage throughout since I chose a "moderate" training plans (versus easy). I'll be intrigued to see what happens on race day! My average pace has definitely picked up to something more like a 9 minute mile. Last week, I went out for a run without any type of pacing tool (i.e. my phone or watch), and I ran 3.5 miles in 30 minutes. It didn't even feel like I was going that fast! Now I just have to make my way through the entire 13.1 miles at a quicker pace... not even as fast as that 3.5 mile run!

I plan to raise some money for charity with this race as well. When I have more details, I'll post them here. A friend of the family has a 9 year old son who just received a double lung transplant. His insurance covered a lot of the medical bills, but they still have $75,000 to pay. I have to work out the details of a donation site, and then I'll be all set to start receiving donations.

Hope everyone is doing well in their health journeys, whatever that means to you! Take some time for yourself this weekend... you deserve it!

Moving Right Along

Haven't had much of interest to post, plus I've been doing a lot of traveling! It's gotten the best of me actually... I have a cold! This is the best week for it to happen though because it's a "rest" week in my training. I've been doing a weekday run, tempo or interval run, and a long run of 6-7 miles every week for the last 5 weeks. This week, all I have to do is 3-4 miles a few times (and slooooow). LOVE IT! I need the rest!

I've been spending time lifting weights as well and I'm loving it! I'm still using efitplan.com for these workouts. The workouts are about 45 minutes long and really force me to keep doing strength. Very happy to have that! I can tell I'm getting stronger, which is awesome. I can even see the muscles in my legs and my shoulders developing more. It's great!

My weight is holding steady right now and I'm starting to think my body is at a place that it likes to be. I'm going to keep doing my running and lifting and see what happens. It does feel like my body shape is changing although my weight is about the same. My food has been really good, so I don't think there's much else I could do. Here's my daily eating (I measure everything):

Breakfast: Steel cut oats with dried fruit and walnuts OR a whole wheat english muffin with peanut butter and jam (jam is my weakness!)
Morning snack: one serving of fruit
Lunch: Big salad with local lettuce, tomato, cucumber, 6 kalamata olives, and 3-4 ounces of lean protein with vinaigrette
Afternoon Snack: one serving of fruit
Dinner: lean protein and some kind of high fiber grain, glass of red wine (not everyday)

Okay, must motivate for the day! Hope everyone is happy and healthy out there!

Another Week Down!

This was an especially busy week for me. I had events two nights this week, plus my 30th birthday was on Wednesday! I definitely had some extra splurges here and there (like cake) but I got in all my workouts! This week for running was pretty much the same as last... 2 mile slow jog, 5 mile tempo run (2 of those miles were warmup and cooldown), then a 7 mile run this weekend.

I was in Michigan over the weekend for a wedding, so I did my long run with a friend who is training for the marathon in Minneapolis. She is quite a bit faster than I am, so I decided I'd try to keep up with her for as long as I could. First, I'll Michigan is quite hilly! Nothing crazy I guess, but hillier than home! It was humid and there was no air movement, so that was a bit unpleasant. All in all, I did well! I kept up with her for about 5 miles at ~9:30 pace. I walk-jogged the remaining mileage, which ended up being more like 2.5 miles. My goal pace for my long runs is 10:30-ish, and with the walk-jogging at the end that's what I averaged for the most part. I'm happy I pushed myself to see how far I could go at a faster pace. Lots of work to do so that I can keep that pacing going for the entire half marathon, but I'm well on my way!

I also did my efitplan workouts this week. They were awesome! I put in my goal as fat burning and that I'd workout for an hour. It was nice to have something to push me to do strength training for an hour. My legs were pretty sore from some of the moves (mostly the deadlifts). There were some great core moves as well, so my abs were feeling it. Looking forward to another week of that!

Have a healthy and happy week!