New job, less workout.

So, yesterday I started my new job. I absolutely love it but I haven't had much time to finish my training for Sunday's
half marathon. This half marathon is pretty much what has inspired me to start blogging and twittering my goals.

On the plus side my new job is awesome! Everyone is so nice and I get my own office with my name on the outside. I've been training an hour away from home which is the main reason I haven't had time to train for the race. Tomorrow night I'll be staying overnight in the city so I'm hoping to get some decent miles in during the morning before I go to work.

I'm working at a near by college getting students ready to get started with school. So far, it's like a dream. I went to school for fashion and really wanted to own my own store one day, but things change. I've always known that I really want to work with people. Tomorrow is day number 3 and I couldn't be more excited!

Sunday I did get a decent run in. I ran 7 miles with some complications. It was a good run in the way that I found new routes and trails while fighting through the wind, rain and cold while having an asthma attack and almost passing out at the end. Nothing about that really sounds all that great but it was still a decent run.
On this run, I went to my usual park, but I was so sick of running in a circle that i thought I would venture off. I started on my first mile on flat surface onto a hill. By mile 1.10 I had an asthma attack. Now, I've been feeling like I'm getting sick and everything has been laying in my chest so I've been doing my breathing treatments and trying to load up on good stuff. (Which has helped) so I had to take a minor walk break to use my inhaler, which has felt like the millionth time I might add, and kept hauling up the hill. I've been told that there were trails at this park I go to so I thought I would find some and I did. I don't mind venturing around this park because no matter where I get lost, I'll always be able to find my way out. It sounds stupid but I can.
So, going into this run, I had goals of making it to 8 miles. That changed. After my asthma attack issue, I felt a lot better. At 3-5 miles I literally felt like I could do this all day, then mile 6 hit.
Let me back up to 2 hours prior, I had only eaten the salad that's pictured. For breakfast, I had a banana, egg, and some toast and I went running at 5:45pm. Needless to say, I defiantly didn't have enough food in my body for that in to hit 8 miles. So, I get to mile 6 and I start to feel dizzy and unable to focus. Every time this happens I normally pass out shortly after. Logically thinking about it now, I should have stopped then but that would have been the logical route. So I finished my mile to hit 7, grabbed my water and my Gatorade and went for a short walk until my liquids were gone.

Afterwards, I went over to my sister's house for dinner and tea. I'm not going to lie, Sunday's are one of my favorite days.

Now there is less than 5 days until the marathon and I honestly don't know when I'll get a training run in. I'm really not too worried about it though, I've done 13 miles before and I have absolute faith in myself to do it again. I'm pretty confident that this rest I'm getting is going to help me more than hinder me.

What I've been up too.

I've been MIA for a few days.  I've been social media but I haven't updated my blog.  So i wanted to show you what I've been up too. 
First and foremost.  There's 9 days until my first half marathon! I'm so nervous.  I've been working out and running like crazy. 
Second, I got a new job! I'm pretty excited and I start training on Monday.  I'm glad that I'll finally be back after having some much needed time off and it will also take my mind off of my first half marathon next Sunday. 

My this my first packet pickup card. 

My workouts are still a lot of running, walking, biking, yoga, weight lifting, and kickboxing.  I'm going to start to calm it down a little on my miles and workouts as I'm starting to taper off for these two weeks.  I'm planning an 8-10 mile run this weekend and then taking it down to 3 miles when I do run.  

Next, last weekend I had a pretty full Sunday exercise wise.  I found my sister's ankle weights from when she had her knee surgeries so I took them out and went on a 2 mile walk, then an hour lifting session, and a 13 mile bike ride.  We found some new trails with some of our friends that just started riding. 

I love going on bike rides with Adam.  He's usually always willing to go, now I'm just trying to get him to go running with me. After this long day, my foam roller was my best friend.  

Lastly, I'm so excited to say that my sister and I got to sign up for Color me rad.  We really wanted to do it and last year it was on our birthday.  This year, it sold out so fast that we didn't get a chance to sign up.  They ended up reopening afternoon sessions and we hurried up and signed up so we could get in.  

I got my inspiration to run from my sister.  She was always fast and awesome at every sport she played.  Though we're twins, we have our differences.  I like to sign up for races and she really doesn't.  She participated in Mud on the Mountain with us but after it she said she refused to listen to me ever again.  She's not big competitor anymore and there's nothing wrong with that.  I just want someone to run races with! We'll be team Halerz Twins.  We couldn't come up with anything else. 

With my wedding coming up in August, this will probably be the last race I run before my second half marathon on August 4.  

With the marathon coming up in the next few weeks,I may not post as much but I will afterwards. 

It's time to speak.

This is one of those tragedies where you'll never forget where you were when you found out about what happened. Monday April 15, 2013 I was in the produce section of Walmart. I got a text from one of my best friends from San Francisco asking if I was there. Jokingly, not knowing what happened, I answered back, "Hell no haha I was trying to watch it on TV but then realized I didn't have the channel. " He then explained to me what happened and told me his CEO was there but had already finished and was safe.
You'll never forget where you were or what you were doing. I was in shock, I didn't know what to do or say. As I got on twitter, I saw a ton of posts of people trying to retweet where other runners were to make sure they were safe.

I've never seen so much support from a group of people. I'm proud to be a runner. From Yesterday until May 5, is "Runners united to remember" it's a Facebook group where every run is dedicated to the Boston Marathon and you log your miles. I celebrated with my last long run before the half marathon with a half marathon. Even though I needed my inhaler about 4 times, this was the first time that I wasn't concerned about not being about to breathe or worrying about the pain in my legs. I didn't check my watch every 5 minutes and I wasn't wishing it was over. I just ran. I let my mind drift off and went. It didn't matter what time I finished in because I was doing it for Boston.

It was also a day to wear your race shirt or blue and yellow for the marathon. I don't have many shirts because a few of the races I've done don't give shirts. I chose my turkey trot shirt where I PRed my 5k time that also had yellow in it.

Fitness crafts and finishing off some resolutions.

A few months ago I wanted to try to make my own medal and bib hanger because I saw them on Etsy and thought it would be more fun and cheaper to make my own.  I bought all the supplies but didn't actually have time to get it done.  My original plan was that I would pant both pieces and make it look vintage with stain.  I also tried to make my own stain.  (It was a complete fail)  I have really nice writing, but terrible free hand so I had to trace the letters and I decided that it would just be easier to paint the letters and stain the rest.  It didn't turn out the way I had planned, but it isn't that bad. 

We weren't able to to get them hung up yet, but they're finished.  Whenever I run out of room on this one I'll buy a new one. 

It has been a crazy few weeks.  Some things out of the ordinary has happened and I'm currently trying to over come them. I've had a lot of time to think about some things I want to accomplish in my life.  So far, I've pretty much accomplished my new year's resolutions except for my personal training certification.  After what I've been going through for the past few months and weeks, I've decided that now is the best time.  I've been having a hard time deciding whether I wanted to do a personal training or group fitness certification.  The personal training is about $200 more and I think there will be more openings for jobs with a group fitness certification.  

One of the prerequisites are that you need to be certified in CPR/AED and I wasn't. So, I posted on Facebook asking my friends where I can get that certification soon and a friend messaged me letting me know that they were doing class for free today. (It's nice having friends that are medics!)  So I'm one prerequisite down on getting my certification! All I have to do now is pick when I'm getting my certification and order the books to start studying with.  I like how this is all coming together! 

New Morning Workout.

Happy Thursday! So, lets be honest here, I haven't been to the gym in almost two weeks.  With it being nice out I've been spending a lot more time outside and not cross training.  I need to get back into it.  I have been doing other things like running and biking but I haven't done a sit-up in a few weeks.  Some of the reason for my lack of fitness has been that every time I go running lately, I get these really bad cramps, tightness in my calves.  I usually drink tons of water so I didn't think I was dehydrated, so I broke down and bought a foam roller. 

Everyone talks about how wonderful they are and I've been dying to buy one but I didn't want to forge the money for it.  With 23 days until my first half marathon, I have to do whatever it takes to feel my best.  On top of foam rolling, I've been stretching and guzzling down water so I'm hydrated.  I might even take a nice little rest day and go for a long run tomorrow to see how I feel.  My biggest issues with long runs in my town is that my town isn't big enough for a long run.  I ran a mile and a half the other day and literally ended up in the next town.  Plus, there aren't enough sidewalks so if you run on the road, the drivers don't care about you.  When I go on long runs, I almost make a day out of it and find the biggest park I can in my county.  I'm planning on running one more practice half marathon before I have my real half marathon.  Hopefully I can get that in this weekend.

Since I haven't done much exercising other than biking and running, I decided that I would come up with my own quick little morning workout.  It's more or less to wake you up in the morning before you start your day.  It's just enough that you can handle it and not too much that you have to stop in between. 

How simple does that look? Put together, it's pretty much a 2 minutes of planks, 50 push up, and 250 crunches.  It takes maybe 8 minutes? I think this is good for beginners but you and up and down the reps if you have too.  If you're just starting out, I would only do half of it.  1 minute plank, 50 crunches, 100 side crunches (50 on each side) and 25 push ups.  This is a nice early morning stretch to get you started on your day. 

*I am not a certified trainer. (Hopefully soon) Please consult a doctor before any kind of strenuous activity.  I am not responsible for your injuries.  

Sunday Baby Biathlon

So lately I've been in a funk. Actually, since Easter. I ran my first half marathon the day before and then did a two mile walk on Easter Sunday. After that, I spent almost a whole week being a waste of life. I pretty much took off until Friday from running and the gym. I guess my body need to rest? I took on most of the Easter candy that I had received so we don't have to worry about that anymore.
I decided that I needed to get back at it on Friday with a walk to the park and then a run. That was a total fail. I walked to the park and my calves were in so much pain that after a 1.17 mile walk I needed a ride home. Afterwards I went to the gym to lift and a half mile on the elliptical. I still wasn't feeling like myself so I took Saturday off since I had to work night shift and I would be on my feet.
Sunday morning, I decided that I would get up and take on a little 2 mile run and a bike ride. Today turned out much better. I call it a "baby biathlon". It was just a 2 mile run and a 9.26 mile bike ride but it's still better than what I was doing lat week.
My goal by Friday is to accomplish a 14 mile run. Since I ran a half last week, I think that it's completely doable.

The importance of rest days.

My life has been pretty hectic lately. I work two jobs and I'm training for my first half marathon.  It doesn't sound like much but there are times where I work 23 shifts in 22 days.  That's no days off, no breaks, but usually there is a double shift in there somewhere.  So, I've been pretty stressed out lately. Saturday night going into Sunday, i woke up at 2:30 am and got a lot of things accomplished.  I meal prepped for the upcoming week, finished making my Easter desserts and even got a 2 mile walk in.  Since I only got about two hours of sleep the night before, i took a nap before we went to Adam's parents house and another little nap at my moms house.  I was pretty exhausted from running my longest run the day before.  

Yesterday morning when I woke up, I felt like I had been hit by a bus.  I was exhausted and everything hurt on my body.  I always feel my hardest workout two day later.  This indicts that I defiantly needed to rest my body.  Yesterday, I did no workout, no running, I was going to go for a walk but I changed my mind.  I got home from work, ate dinner and took a nap, until 6 am. Apparently I was sleepy.  I slept almost 10 hours.  That rarely happens.  I got  to snuggle this little guy while I slept. 

He's obviously not the most exciting animal that you'll ever see.  

I have completely realized that actual rest days are so important.  My body feels so much better from not doing anything yesterday.  I normally feel like a lazy bum if I don't at least do laundry or take a walk, but i defiantly needed the rest.  I'm taking an rest day today again to do our second wedding registry at Target. Fun Fun! It's supposed to be 41 degrees tomorrow, so I think I'm going to go to the gym after work. I'm really excited to get back into it after having two day off. 

How many days in a row do you take to rest when you need it? 

Easter weekend of events.

I hope everyone had a fantastic holiday!  This was the first nice weekend in a long time where I live and it was also the first weekend that i had the entire weekend off.  I started my Good Friday off with a nice little 5 mile run and dinner.  I made salmon and ready-to-go quinoa.  This was the first time I've ever had quinoa. It wasn't bad, I defiantly liked the convince of not cooking it. 

 I stayed around home for my run, I've been trying new routes out and luckily not getting too lost.  It takes me longer to do the town routes because there are hills everywhere.  Unless I drive to the park, I'm taking a hill. I've defiantly slowed down from last year so I'm starting to work on picking up my pace. I wasn't pushing myself too hard because I knew Saturday morning I was going to do my first half marathon run.  

Saturday morning I woke up and made Adam and I Easter breakfast.  I made organic buckwheat pancakes, that turned out fantastically. Then I got ready for my run. The park was a lot less crowded than I thought it would be, I guess because of the holiday weekend.  In the two hours that I ran, I had a few unfocused moments.  As soon as I got there I saw my best friend running before she went to work so I had to stop and say hi.  Around mile 3, I realized that I was way too warm and I had to take one of my shirts off. At about mile 6.5, I needed my inhaler. Then right before mile 8 my sister showed up looking for me because my weekend job wanted me to work.  After running 13 miles, I was NOT going in. I would have been completely useless because my legs hurt so bad.  

I finished it and I was so proud of myself.  At about mile 10 I wanted to give up and quit because my legs and feet were hurting. This was the second or third run in my new shoes and I don't think they were happy about it. Knowing that I pretty much only had a 5k left I knew that I had to finish it.  I walked a mile after I finished and went home and tried to sleep a little.  I was so weak when I go home that I didn't feel like making anything to eat but I knew I had too. 14 miles in a day isn't a lot to some people, but to me it was a definite accomplishment.  It's not that fast and honestly, that's okay with me.   

I iced my legs and took a shower.  Once I was finished, I tried to lay down and take a nap until Adam came home from playing hockey.  I think I might have drifted off for about 20 minutes but I didn't get a good actual nap in.  Once Adam got home we went to start our wedding registry at Macy's.  I my legs weren't fans of the walking around but we got it done.  

Saturday night going into Sunday I slept miserably.  I couldn't decide if I was hot or cold and my legs were sore, so after laying in bed awake for an hour, I woke up at 3:30 am and started my day.  I finished making the dessert that needed made before we headed to our families houses and started my meal prep for the upcoming week.  I was finished with everything by 9 am.  By 10 am I forced Adam on a 2.40 mile walk around our town so I could stretch my legs from the previous day.  It was raining, but it was a nice little walk.  After I got home, I took a much needed 1.5 hour nap and then got ready to go visit family.  In my three days of a weekend I did over 21 miles, not too bad for a holiday weekend. 

How was your holiday?

What did you do?