Running Diva and Vita-Coco Coconut Water...

Go check out the Vita-Coco Coconut Water giveaway on Running Diva Mom's blog!  I'm super excited to see a new alternative out there to the traditional sports drinks.  I'm with Running Diva Jamie, I don't like to consume lots of calories or fat through drinks, even on long runs or workouts.

It's hard to believe I ran that far yesterday.

Yesterday's run has made my invincibility quotient move up a couple of notches, at least in my mind.  I won't say I'm not sore at all, but my recovery has been amazing compared with the other times I've run that distance.  I was even more than able to get up this morning and head to the gym for a (heck-of-a) spin class and an hour of weight lifting.  Who knows, maybe it will catch up with me in a day or two.  In the meantime, I'm just going to enjoy the fact that I (basically) ran a marathon yesterday and today has been just like any other day.  That means my fitness level is improving, and in the words of Martha Stewart, "That's a good thing!"

My friend, Lindsay over at A Fit Family wrote about the improvement she's noticed in her swimming ability as she trains for her first triathlon, which got me thinking...

Question: How do you gauge your fitness gains?

Yes, that's right...I said 26.2 miles!

Today's run was kind of a last minute decision.  I have been doing my long runs on Thursdays or Saturdays, whichever day works best with my (and my husband's, sometimes) schedule.  So, at the start of this week I made plans to do my long run on Thursday.  Chris has been having continued IT band pain when he runs farther than a few miles, so he decided to forego doing the really long run with me, in exchange for doing a medium long run on Saturday.  Alas, when I looked at the weather forecast for the week and saw that it was going to be sunny and 60 today, versus the rain/snow and high of 40 that's predicted for tomorrow, I opted to run long today.

I left the house at about 7:30 this morning, dressed in a couple of layers over my sunblock-slathered arms, neck and shoulders.  See?  I do learn from my mistakes - once in a while. ;)  I had mapped out my run last night.  It was not an easy route.  Leaving from our house, down the old highway which is basically a series of mild up and downhills for about 6 miles.  Then it levels out as the route goes through town for the next 9-10 miles.  That was when the wind was at it's absolute worst, at least today.  At times, I felt like it was pushing me backwards.  Once I was back out of town and up against the foothills, I took a little out and back jaunt of about 4 miles, up towards the mountains.  Obviously, that was a pretty tough section for me, as my legs were starting to fatigue as I was trying to go uphill.  Then back down the hill, and out to the road that would take me back home.  Portneuf Rd. is filled with hills - big hills.  Apparently I like a challenge. ;)

(I took this right before I headed up the mountain road.  See off in the distance, where the mountains converge in a small valley?  The freeway runs through there, and it's called The Portneuf Gap.  I love running the gap!  Incidentally, that's Pocatello Marathon's tagline: "Running the Gap!")

Despite the fact that my legs felt a bit achy and tired before I even started running today, I was able to stick with my 4 minute running, 1 minute walking ratio for the entire time.  I finished the 26.21 miles in 5 hours, 22 minutes.  That's an average pace of 12:18 minutes per mile.  I am pretty excited about that time, for a training run.

Some of you may be wondering why I ran the full marathon distance as a training run.  Well, I trained for and ran my first two marathons in a "traditional" way, basically running as much as I could and only walking when absolutely necessary.  I developed many different injuries, and despite logging TONS of miles, I never really got any faster.  I was feeling over-trained and even though I enjoyed running and training, I was starting to get burned out.  I came across a method of training for and running marathons/half marathons developed by former Olympic runner Jeff Galloway.  I read several of his books, and decided to give his method a try.  What it boils down to is adding short walk breaks to your runs right from the beginning.  This way you "re-set" your leg muscles before they start to get overly fatigued, making it possible for the average runner to not only run longer distances, but shortening the recovery time after long runs considerably.  I am still not a super fast runner, but even with the walking breaks (I usually use a 3:1 or 4:1 ratio), my times on long runs and races are improving over what I was doing before.  And...other than some minor issues I've talked about before, i.e. black toenails and mild muscle soreness, I haven't had any injuries since starting to add the walk breaks, and can more or less get on with normal daily activities after a long run, which is much better than being so sore I could barely go up and down the stairs for days, as it was before.  For all you skeptics out there, yes, you can still call yourself a runner (and marathoner) even if you take walk breaks - and your body will thank you for it. :)

My running mentor/friend recently sent me the Run/Walk/Run Interval Timer used by Jeff Galloway:

I just got it today, so I wasn't able to use it for today's run.  Normally I use my Garmin to alert me at scheduled intervals for my walk breaks, but now that I have this, I can use it for my intervals, while simultaneously tracking my mileage, pace and run time.

There's a lot more I could say about using the Galloway method to train for distance running, but honestly, I can't say it any better than Jeff himself does in all of his books.  If any of you want to learn more about it, I would highly recommend starting with his book, "Marathon: You Can Do It!"

Question: What have you done to realize you can do hard things?

P.S. This is what recovery looks like: CEP Compression Socks.  Mmmmm. :)

Hi-ho, hi-ho, it's to the gym we go...

Back to the gym this morning for an early spinning class.  After that hour, my husband and I hit the weight room for an hour of lifting.  It's actually really hard to feel very effective lifting after doing a spin class.  My arms and legs feel a little wobbly.  It would probably be better if we could do weights at it's own designated time, but we just try and fit it in when we're already there, so it is what it is.

After lunch, I took the kids and walked to the park, then walked 5 miles while they played.  I tried running a little while I was there, but my lunch was sitting like a lead pillow in my stomach, so I just decided to stick with walking.  Hey, 5 miles is 5 miles, right? :)

Today I (sort of) TRI - ed!

The kiddos are on their spring break this week, so this morning I went for a run with my 10 year old bike pacer again.  He was so funny, getting on Google Earth before we left to show me where he wanted to go.  We basically set out to do the same loop we did the other day, but we added a little over a 1/2 mile, making my run a total of 5.15 miles today.  It was super sunny, I mean, not just sunny, but one of those days when the sun just seems to shine brighter than usual.  We ran/biked along wonderfully for the first 2.5 miles, even basking in the gloriously beautiful day.  Then the route started to make it's turn back toward home, and POW...the wind smacked us right in the face.  I wasn't sure my little biker was going to make it back, as he kept getting a little ahead of me then he would stop riding and just wait on the side of the road for me to catch up with him.  But he did make it, and we made decent enough time, too (ave. pace of 10:27 min./mi.).

After lunch, we packed everyone up and headed into the gym.  When we got there, I went in and did a spin class, while Chris played basketball with the kids.  When my class was done, we all went to the pool and went swimming.  I swam laps for little over 1/4 mile, then I sat in the hot tub.  We topped off our fun day with a fire in our firepit and some yummy s'mores.  I even ate two.  I earned it today, I think. ;)

Spinning by design.

This morning I got up with my alarm, despite the fact that it's a Saturday, so that I could fit in a Spin class and some grocery shopping before coming back home for some family time.  Once again, spinning never lets me down - what an awesome workout!

For those of you who only know me in this virtual context, you may not know that I'm a member of the LDS Church, (The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, also known as the Mormons).  This weekend is our semi-annual conference of the church, where our leaders speak to us from Salt Lake City and it's broadcast world wide so we can all listen to words of direction, advice, inspiration and spiritual uplift.  Our family watches it on the internet, since we don't have TV.  So this morning we watched the first part, then before the afternoon session began, we went to the park where we tried to teach Nicolas how to ride his bike without the training wheels.  It didn't go well.  Poor kid kept jumping off and saying, "It's too scehwy (scary)!"  Oh, well.  At least we were out enjoying our one day of 70 degree weather...it's supposed to rain tomorrow.

Running with a bike pacer!

It's another busy Friday.  I squeezed in a quick workout with Jillian Michaels this morning, doing the 30 Day Shred DVD before going to Cub Scout meetings.  Then, after lunch I wanted to get in a run.  I was thinking of doing the 9 mile loop, and I asked my son, Sam, if he wanted to ride along on his bike.  He loved the idea and ran out to make sure his tires had air and to grab his helmet.  As we headed outside, we realized it had started to rain, though.  When I suggested maybe we shouldn't go, an instant look of disappointment swept across Sam's face, so I decided we'd just do the 4.5 mile loop and then see how things were going.  He was fine with that, and we took off.  Having him on his bike staying just ahead of me was very helpful to keep my pace up.  We did the 4.5 miles with an average pace of just over 10 min./mile.  It felt great.  When we stopped at an intersection at one point, I gave him a drink of water from my hydration belt and he said, "This is super fun!"  What an adventure for him, since he usually isn't allowed to go that far from the house on his bike!  The rain even held off just enough that we didn't get too wet. :)

3 mile run and a little spin.

Another great spinning class this morning with our favorite instructor!  One hour of pure, endorphin-induced bliss.  Well, maybe my idea of bliss is different than most people's, but I can truly say I have officially become addicted to spinning.  After the class, Chris and I hit the weight room.  He did his strength training yesterday before work, so he recovered from spinning while helping me do my usual weight rotation.  We spent an hour doing that, and I even added a few new things, like inverted sit-ups using a 9 pound medicine ball in between my reps of bicep curls, and sideways sit-ups in between my lat pulls and tri downs.  It kind of fun to start to see some visible increase in muscle definition in my arms.  It's helping me to feel more like the athlete that I know I have inside who is scratching her way to the surface.  Apparently, it's a slow process.

After our hour in the weight room, I found an open treadmill and cranked out 3 miles in 30 minutes.  As an added bonus, I came home to a UPS delivery of a brand new pair of my favorite running shoes, ASICS Gel Nimbus 13's!  Nothing more exciting than getting new running gear.  My feet will be happy running 10 miles this weekend. :)

Simple day.

This morning I started my day doing Jillian's Yoga Meltdown again.  It's weird, but as I sit here this evening writing this post, my hamstrings and calves actually feel sore from it.  One would think that as you gain strength and a certain level of fitness that the "simpler" exercises wouldn't make you sore anymore.  Not that Yoga is simple, but I've done it lots before.  All it takes is a short break and then when coming back to it, apparently all your muscles freak out.  After I finished with Jillian, I got on the treadmill and walked for an hour and a half.  I probably should have run today, at least a little, but I felt a recovery day was in order.

More spinning. :)

Up and at 'em at 6am today, getting the kids ready and off to school so we could go to our spin class.  As I climbed out of bed and started moving my body this morning, I realized just how much "stuff" I've been doing to myself.  I have mild to moderate soreness in relatively every part of my body, still experiencing skin sensitivity on my sunburned parts, and the throbbing toenails - enough already!  I said to Chris (with a laugh), as we were getting out of the car at the gym to go in to class, simultaneously letting out moans of discomfort as we stretched our aching legs, "You know, it's crazy what we're doing to our bodies.  Why again do we do it?"  And he responded, "Yeah.  It'd be a lot easier to sit on the couch watching TV and eating Cheetos all day." ;)

A new instructor at spinning today, well "new" to us.  She is recently returning to teaching class after having a baby.  It's always an interesting twist when there is a different instructor.  You would think that with an exercise such as spinning, there wouldn't be that many options for variation, but there are and it's always a challenge.  Still, after experiencing class with 4 different instructors, I have my favorite.  She is the hardest, of course.  I like having someone to admire from my bike in the back of the room.  Gives me something to aspire towards. :)

After spinning, we went swimming.  I did laps for 30 minutes, then after a short soak in the hot tub, we got ready and went to the movies: Hunger Games!  Have I ever mentioned how much I love Tuesdays?