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?

Protein drink genius.

Happy Good Friday!! It's going to be a beautiful day out today and I can't wait to go home and run. Last night I tried to run outside but it was way too cloudy and my watch wouldn't load.  (Stupid reason, I know) I went to the gym anyways.  I worked on speed work and I got to test out my new shoes, which was pretty exciting as well! On my way home I came up with a fabulous idea. Lets start from the beginning. 

I've been getting really bad charley horses in my legs when I sleep.  I think it's from an electrolyte imbalance (because I'm awesome at self diagnostics) and I had another charley horse in my leg wile i was asleep going into Thursday morning.  I woke up screaming from these, I just around room and it's a little embarrassing. My cat thinks I'm crazy. Anyways, I had a pretty good work out yesterday so on my way home I was contemplating how I was going to drink a protein shake and enough water/electrolytes before I went to bed.  Then I came up with my fantastic conclusion, I'm going to add vanilla protein powder to my gatorade. It was either going to turn out really good or absolutely awful.  It was neither. I thought that it would taste like a lemon lime creamcicle, and then I remember that I hate creamcicles. The hope for spring will make people crave things they don't even like. 

So here's the finished product.  I also added a spoonful of ground flax that I thought would make it creamier.  It was really runny because I used the entire thing of gatorade, which was a terrible idea. But all in all it wasn't that bad.  It was bearable and I slept with out waking up to charley horses which was a total success! 

Goals: Tonight-5 miles. Tomorrow- 13.1 (test run) Sunday-rest. Maybe yoga or a walk or something

Have you made any drink concoctions?

How did they turn out? 

New Shoes.More Snow.

So, as you read yesterday I've been needing new shoes and couldn't find a pair that I liked enough to buy.  I found the style, but they only come in three color with flowers on them, so I didn't think they were that pretty. The gym I go to is right next to a Dick's Sporting Goods store, so I decided that I would go look there before hitting the gym.  I stood there for probably close to ten minutes trying to decide a color.  Obviously they didn't have black or gray(which is my second choice) so I just had to pick a pair. Who would have thought trying to pick a pair of shoes is like a life changing decision?!  So, here's what I picked:

Brooks Ghost 5

They're pink, I'm not big into pink and it did take me out my comfort zone a little because I'm so used to walking in and buying the first pair of black shoes I find, but they're comfortable and starting to grow on me. Today, is the first day that I'm going to test them out on a treadmill because we have three inches of snow outside currently and we're almost a week into spring. 

The bag my shoes came in.  I should not be as excited as I was.

After I bought my shoes I was so excited to see that this was the bag that they came in. It's perfect because I'm pretty much buying them for the marathon. I'm probably the only person that gets excited over things like this. 

Here's some humor for today.

What are your workout plans?

Do you still have snow?

A new pair of kicks.

Yesterday, I dragged my fiance after work to the running store in Pittsburgh.  I wanted to get my feet measured for new shoes and this store is the only store I know of that does it with a computer.  They make you get onto a treadmill and walk with your socks on so that they can get a feel for what your feet do when you run.  I'm having shin splints on the outside of my shins and a lot of calf pain.  The sales rep pretty much knew what was wrong before I even got onto the treadmill.  While you're on it though, they take pictures with an iPad of your feet and what they do while you walk or run.  Once they figure that out, they give you shoes to try on to see how you like them and put you back on the treadmill.  They don't pressure you to buying anything, which made me feel a lot better about the experience. 

These are my current runners.  I bought trail shoes because the guy at the store said that they would be fine on concrete.  Liar. They're really comfortable when you're running on trails (which I barely do) or bike riding, but they are terrible on anything that doesn't have dirt on it.  They were very comfortable at one point but it's defiantly time for a new pair.  My second problem with buying shoes is that I always want to buy black running shoes.  When I bought these, it bothered me that there was a little bit of blue in it.  I think for everything has to match with what I'm wearing. At least, a little bit.  

At the running store I found the Brooks Ghost 5, which I loved but they didn't have any kind of black. They also has flowers on the brooks symbol and I'm not into really girly girl appliqués. My goal is to make a decision on shoes by the end of this week so  I have something to run in this weekend. 

What are your favorite shoes to wear when you run?