Easy run

I skipped running yesterday-had a major issue to deal with. Today I had plans to run with a buddy, but had to cut it short due to a meeting. Better something than nothing. 🙂

It was an easy mile. Maybe it was easy because I knew it was going to be a short run. Maybe it was easy because I was running with a buddy. Or just maybe it was easy because I am now a better runner! 🙂 I think I’ll go with the 3rd one!

Now the 1st half mile is pure torture. Every time. It almost kills me. But then after I cross over into the 2nd mile it gets a little easier. And this past Sunday when I ran 6.5 miles the 4th, 5th, and 6th miles were delightful. Really. 🙂

Just that itty bitty mile today made me feel better. And tomorrow my running buddy and I are planning a much longer run. Not sure how long but she has a 5k this Saturday so maybe 3.5 or 4 miles????

Here’s some inspiration to my fellow runners.

 Hope I got a laugh out of you! 🙂

Ready for summer challenge-week 2 update

I feel like I did great on week 2 of the Ready for Summer Challenge. Especially Mon-Wed. 🙂

1. My longest run this week was 6.5 miles!!!!!!!!!!!!! Woohoo! And I hadn’t even planned to run that far, but just felt like I could keep running. 🙂 My time was 1:21:43.

2. I did GREAT with 2 fruits each day. *patting myself on the back* I still need to plan better for the veggies, but I did ok with them throughout the week. I didn’t reach my goal of 2 per day but I did eat: broccoli, green beans, carrots, spinach leaves, cucumbers, squash, grilled eggplant at a Mediterranean rest.

3. I am slowly getting to my goal of 125. The last time I weighed (Saturday) I was at 132 which is down from 133.4 last week. If that is different tomorrow morning I will update this post. 🙂

4. GET READY for this one. You know how I said I eventually want to get into a size 6? I know that not ALL pants/jeans/capris are sized the same so I am sure that I can still wear some size 10, BUT…..the size 8 jeans of my daughters are a little too loose. 🙂 🙂 🙂 AND-I went to Cato’s to try on a size 6. They fit, but I thought ummm..why not just try on a size 4 while I’m here? I FIT INTO THE 4!!!!! Now remember-I do know that I won’t be able to fit into all size 4 pants!!! But I fit into these!! So yes, I bought them!!!

New exercise-Interval training. HIIT to be exact which stands for High Intensity Interval Training. And because it was soooooooo high intensity-I only did it 1 time! 🙂 But I do want to continue to do this 2-3 times a week because I felt the burn!!!! It was supposed to be a 15 minute workout where I would sprint for 8 seconds then jog for 12 seconds-repeating for 15 minutes. 8 seconds is a loooong time! Just ask me or any bullrider! 🙂 I can definitely see where this type of workout will burn fat!!

Here are my goals for this week:

Stay sane. 🙂 My daughter’s senior prom is Friday!!!! Our state testing is this week at school! I have a conference that I have to go to Friday night (probably around 2 am AFTER the prom) and Saturday. I have a “Save Our Schools” Rally at 2pm on Saturday. My daughter’s 18th b’day is this weekend. So I might make a mini-goal of getting through the week WITHOUT taking some anxiety medicine. 🙂 Oh, and I forgot-I haven’t done our taxes yet!!! AND my part-time job stuff is due by Friday and I am NOT finished! 🙂

OK-where was I? My goals for this week:

1. Run 5 times this week with 1 run being 6 miles

2. Get some protein and healthy eating into my days-I want to start eating some oatmeal and fish. Not together. 🙂 Try the 2 veggies per day.

3. Do at least 2 HIIT workouts

4. 50 crunches per day with some jumping jacks and squats-I want to tone up

Good luck to everyone else on the challenge!!! What’s a new goal that you have set for yourself?

Resting and restless

I am officially rested. 🙂 I took Thursday for my “rest day” this week because:

1. We had a dance party at school and I got lots of movement in 🙂

2. I just wanted to 🙂

Then Friday I made a lazy decision to run AFTER my hair appt-which ran later than expected and then HAD to be at Pizza Hut for my best friend’s daughter’s b’day party. SO-didn’t get a run in yesterday.

Then today I went to zumba with a friend, and we went rock climbing so didn’t have time to run today EITHER!

Which makes me officially rested for the week and LOOKING FORWARD TO RUNNING TOMORROW NO MATTER WHAT! This is my plan:

1. Sonrise service at church at 6:30 am

2. RUN

3. Cook squash for family dinner (I know-I got out easy this year!)

4. Part-time job stuff

5. Family dinner at 2pm

6. TAXES-ughhhhh 🙂

My legs are ITCHING to run!! 🙂

Tune in Sunday to see if I scratched my itch!

Easy Day

Thank goodness for those easy days. 🙂 I ran 2 miles today-was short on time because we were making posters after school for our dance party that we are having for K-6 tomorrow (the ones who make a 75 or higher average in all subjects for this 6 weeks).

Then had my traditional date with my best friend, her daughter, and my daughter at the MEXICAN restaurant. We look forward to this from Wednesday to Wednesday. 🙂

I told myself that I was just going to run my 2 miles on the school track since I might have to cut it short to be at the rest. on time. BUT-after one lap I just HAD TO GET OFF THAT TRACK AND SEE SOMETHING DIFFERENT! 🙂 Anybody else know what I am talking about???

I was actually glad today was only a 2 mile run since my hip flexie thingies are S.O.R.E. from that long run on Monday and that booty kicking interval workout yesterday!!!

So out of this 10k(I’m getting closer to admitting it, Michael) training for this week I have done both of the 2 mile runs and 1 4.5 mile run. I have left-a 3.75 run and another 4.5 run. I’m thinking tomorrow will be my 3.75 run and Friday or Saturday will be my 4.5 run.

I’m excited to do the Jelly Bean Virtual Race sometime this week, too. You can read about it and sign up for it over here at Run With Jess. I ordered a shirt for this -can’t wait until it comes in. I’ve never run a virtual race and think it’s the neatest thing ever!!! 🙂

Started HIIT Today

I started my HIIT today-High Intensity Interval Training. I’m aiming to do this twice a week for 5 weeks to burn more calories/fat and “maybe” improve my running pace. IT KICKED MY BEHIND!!! 🙂

I got the plan from a SELF magazine or you can go to this website: SELF

Today I was “supposed” to sprint 8 seconds/jog 12 seconds and keep this up for 15 minutes. 8 minutes later after LOTS of pauses and thinking I was going to DIE, I decided I would try it again tomorrow. IF I wake up tomorrow. Or  IF I can move tomorrow. 🙂

High intensity are not the two words that should be used to describe these kind of intervals. Here are some replacement choices:

1. Hell arrived

2. Help me

3. Just died

🙂

I did learn something valuable. Always run your distance run BEFORE you try the intervals. I’m glad I did this which helped me make it through 8 minutes instead of just 8 seconds. Surely the fat and pounds will just melt away if I can keep this up. 🙂

After I finished killing myself running, I my daughter and I went to eat at Niffers on the Lake with my mom. We played bingo, too. I was only 4 spaces away from winning. 🙂

I ate grilled chicken, a plain baked potato, and steamed carrots and broccoli. YUM-YUM!

Then I had this for a late night snack.

 That new diet pepsi is S.W.E.E.T. 🙂

I’m going to end this long post at almost 11 pm by saying-Goodnight! 🙂

4.5 miles, Oh yeah!

Today I had my longest run ever-4.5 miles! Hooray! Now it was a S L O W pace, but who cares???? I think my time was around 55 or 56 minutes. But 4.5 miles! I am so psyched! 🙂

I feel like I did good with my eating today, too.

Breakfast: Yogurt that had 12 grams of protein!/100 calorie chex mix snack

Lunch: Turkey sandwich with spinach leaves/Cup of grapes

Supper: Baked Lemon pepper chicken/Broccoli/Carrots/ 1/2 of baked potato (plain)

Drank 1 water and 2 diet green teas and 1 diet coke

How about that? 🙂 I need to eat 1 more fruit to meet my goal of 2veggies and 2 fruits each day, but I am NOT hungry. So I’ll just not. 🙂

By the way, did I mention that I ran 4.5 miles today??? 🙂 I am really happy about this! My 10k training (remember-I’m just working on being able to run 6 miles-NOT run a 10k) this week is supposed to look like this:

3.75, 2, 4.5, 2, 4.5

And I have already knocked out one of the 4.5 days!!!!!!!! I thought about going further today, but I do NOT want an injury! So I’ll try to stick with the plan as much as I can.

Since I’m a pinterest fool here’s some motivation for everyone.

Have a wonderful Tuesday!

Ready for summer challenge week 1 review

It was a good week! I ran a little over 15 miles last week. 🙂 I followed Week 3 of a 10k training program (I’m not planning on running a 10 this year, just want to be able to run 6 miles on my own). My longest run last week was 4 miles. Woohoo!! I’m well on my way to meeting this goal!

 

I’m not sure how many pounds I lost last week-I always weigh on Monday mornings so I’ll post about that tomorrow.

 

I lost 2 pounds so I am now at 133.4!! Yippee!!!!

I did “ok” on eating 2 veggies and 2 fruits each day. Actually, I did better on the fruit part. That part is easy-I just make sure I have a banana or apple with me. The veggies part is what I’m going to have to work on. I usually take a sandwich with me to work, and it’s too much of a hassle to take veggies with me. 🙂 So I guess I’ll just make it 2 veggies at suppertime! 🙂

I feel REALLY good about what I did accomplish last week. My 2nd longest run was 3.83 miles this morning. I think I could have kept going, but we had planned to work out in the yard today, so I felt obligated to end my run. 🙂

I tried a new meal today that I saw on someone’s blog (and can’t for the life of me remember which blog it was!). A turkey wrap with the following:

Whole wheat tortilla

2 slices deli style turkey

sliced cucumbers

spinach leaves

hummus

It was DELICIOUS!!! I mean-OMG! I had never had hummus before, but now I am addicted. I think I will try to get up a little earlier a few days a week and make this to take for lunch. AND it is so low calorie!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Here’s a picture of the ingredients-forgot to take a picture after I made it. I guess I was just wanting to eat it too much! 🙂

YUM-YUM!

The mini-challenge for this next week is to try a new exercise. I’m going to do this in 2 different ways. I found an April challenge over at Shrinking Jeans that works your legs and rear (Goodness knows I need this!). So I will be trying burpees and wall sits which I have NEVER done before. 🙂 Also, I’m going to try and insert some HIIT training into my routine each week. This is a combination of high intensity exercise with moderate/low intensity exercise. I found this in a SELF magazine for their Drop 10 plan.

I have tried to recruit some people to run with me and have been pretty successful-There are about 4-7 people who are now training on the Couch25k program. 3 of them have injuries right now so they have had to rest and will hopefully be back soon. 🙂

Shanda ran 2 miles with me Friday after school-she only walked a few times and not for very long. I think she is on Week 7 so she should be able to run 3 miles with me before long! 🙂

Here we are after our 2 mile run Friday:

Friday night I went to a “Blackout” zumba-it was so much fun! Saturday morning I went to a regular zumba class. Then spent the rest of Saturday at the softball field watching my senior “baby” girl play. Here she is at bat.

Oh yeah, Friday we had our annual snake show at school. The seniors always get to go out and hold the BIG snake, so Taylor dressed up to go out and hold a snake. SMH. 🙂 Here she is.

She’s the one on the front row 3rd from the left with the jacket that she had to end up wearing over her “cute” dress since the sleeves didn’t quite “measure” up. Teehee. 🙂

AND last but not least, here is a picture of us goofing off last week.

OK. Goodnight. 🙂

Just 2 miles

Since I am training (again!) to be able to increase my running mileage from 3 miles to 6 miles (hopefully it will only take me 8 weeks to do this), I only ran 2 miles today. AND, since I only ran 2 miles I told myself I was going to see how much time I could cut off of my miles. Not a lot, but enough to tell a difference. AND enough to feel a difference. 🙂

Usually when I run I do so at a SLOW pace of about 12 1/2-13 minute miles. YEAH-real slow. But at least I’m running-that’s what I tell myself!

Today I ran 2 miles in 23:02 which comes out to about 11 1/2 minute miles. So I felt pretty good. I mean, I felt good about having run at that pace-not that I felt good while I was running! 🙂

Here is my training schedule, and I skipped week 1 and have replaced a 3.75 with a 4 miler this week.

WEEK 1: 2, 3, 2, 3, 3.25-Totally skipped using the schedule for this week because I just ran what I had been doing.

WEEK 2: 3.5, 2, 3.5, 2, 3.75-This is the week I am on and so far I have done 4, 3.5, and 2.

WEEK 3: 3.75, 2, 2, 3.5, 4

WEEK 4: 3.75, 2, 4.5, 2, 4.5

WEEK 5: 4.75, 3, 3, 2, 5

WEEK 6: 5, 3, 3, 2, 5.5

WEEK 7: 5, 3, 3, 2, 6

WEEK 8: 6.25, 3, 2, RACE DAY

I am using this training program to be able to run a continous 6 miles, NOT to run in a 10k race. That will have to wait until next year. I’m only planning on doing 5k races this year (hopefully 1 each month). Of course, I might have to repeat weeks once I try to run more than 4 because let me tell you. 4 miles is a KILLER right now!

This is probably the best way to describe my facial expression when I have run 4 miles (which has only been twice now).

LOL!

So far this week I have run a total of 9.5 miles in 3 days. Tonight I decided that YES! I am going to start doing SOME kind of strength training. I started REAL easy-just to say I had done something. I did some squats, some bicep curls and tricep thingies with my teensy weensy weights. I did 50 crunches. Whew! We’ll see if I can get up early enough in the morning to do it again (Have I mentioned I am NOT a morning person?). 🙂 I’m going to try to do this little strength training (and I really need to plan/write it out) about 2-3 times per week. Tomorrow I’ll try to post some before pictures and then after about 30 or so days I will post some after pictures. Here’s to hoping they look different! 🙂

Goodnight!

Ready for summer challenge Week 1

This is the first week of the Ready For Summer Challenge, and I’m so excited to have goals set. You can link up over at their blog if you want to and join in the fun!

The challenge has you set 4 major goals to hopefully reach in the next 10 weeks. This week is week 1 so I am breaking my goal down into manageable chunks for this 1st week. (Should have posted this on Sunday night-please forgive the procrastinator in  I’mme!) 🙂

1. Fit into size 6 jeans: This week I will increase my running mileage AND do strength training 2-3 times. The strength training will consist of using my body weight as resistance since I can do this at home. I WANT to do it in the morning to get it over with because I don’t look forward to this kind of exercise, BUT I’m not a morning person so we will see. 🙂

2. 137 pounds to 125 pounds-I need to lose a little over a pound this week.

3. 3 to 6 miles-I am going to s.l.o.w.l.y increase my running mileage so that I can run 6 miles at the end of the 10 week challenge. So this week’s schedule looks like this: 3.75, 2, 2, 3.5, 4 (Not necessarily in that order) Got this from a 10k training program even though I’m not planning on running in a 10k-just want to be able to run it on my own.

4. Healthier eating (fruits, veggies, protein)- I’m going to try and eat 2 veggies and 2 fruits each day. Haven’t decided on the protein yet-need to get to work on that.

So there are my chunks! Happy challenging! 🙂

My 2nd 5k race!!By the w

Oh yeah! I ran my 2nd 5k race yesterday afternoon. The Auburn University Pharmacy school was sponsoring it. It had some steady inclines throughout and some flat areas. The 1st incline was the worst. 🙂

My time-I think- was 34:30, but not exactly sure. My time in my 1st 5k back in February was 39:52 so I was PLEASED!!! Of course, today I ran 4 miles in 53 minutes-guess I was dragging from yesterday. 🙂

Here’s a picture of my bib.

Here is “moi” before the race:

Here is my wonderful husband who just LOVED going with me to this race! 🙂 Let me explain a little. He’s a country boy (if you can’t tell). He works 6 days a week in another state where he stays while he works. He comes home on Saturday nights and leaves at 3:30 am on Monday mornings headed back. We have 74 acres of land with cows, horses, donkeys. He also takes care of another guy’s cows on about 300 acres of land in a nearby county. Needless to say I was proud that he only made one negative comment yesterday concerning his “Sunday” that was pretty much taken up with my race. He said, ” I’m more behind this weekend than any other weekend.” That’s not too bad is it? 🙂 On a sidenote-he has interviewed with a company back home and goes for his 2nd interview this upcoming Monday (4/2/12). Please.pray. 🙂

I know he is thinking about me-NOT cows! 🙂

Here we come-of course I’m a “back of the pack” kind of gal!

 We’ve only just begun!

 Still smiling at this point!

The long stretch home!

I’m still running and almost finished!

I’m smiling again!! Because I can see the finish line!

Yes, I did it. I saw the finish line and sprinted toward it. It was either that or fall out before I got there. 🙂

January 1st was the beginning of this adventure in running and losing weight, and I’m so.glad. I.started. 🙂

By the way, one of the pharmacy students that I ran with for awhile asked me to come and speak at a meeting for their Alabama Obesity Task Force after I shared my story of 163 lbs to 136 lbs!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 🙂

Thanks to my wonderful daughter for taking these great pictures!