Tuesday, August 3, 2010

July In Review (already??)

Wow, that month flew by! Maybe it was all that running...

Here are the totals for a record breaking month!

Miles Run: 125.2! (PR of 21.2 miles!)
Miles Biked: 35 (eh, no time with all the running!)
Miles Swam: Big Fat 0! Unless few laps in my parents small pool counts. Oh well!
BodyPump Classes: 4
Annnd a 2.5 mile walk.
Grand total of: 1642 minutes of exercise!

Longest run: 16 miles. Another PR!
Races: 2 5ks. Worst races I've ever run due to horrible record heat/humidity both days! At least they were for good causes.

I also had a weekly mileage PR of 33 miles (previously 31)!

Marathon training is really tiring me out! I'm looking forward to October 9th more and more! ;)

Looking ahead to August, I have a 35 mile bike ride for charity on Aug. 21st. That should be tough considering my longest ride to day has been 20 miles. Oops! I should also have another monthly mileage PR and certainly a weekly PR too.

In non-running news, I leave for South Carolina early Friday morning and my birthday is on Saturday! Wooohooo!

Tuesday, July 6, 2010

Trail Running vs. the Clutz

As a part of my marathon training, Wednesdays are supposed to be hilly runs. Conveniently I live a half mile from a state forest so I decided to start running my hill runs on the trails! So for the past three Wednesdays I ventured into the woods! They were all going along well until this past week I tripped and fell over a tree root and scrapped my leg, knee and hands. I also have a few random bruises all over my limbs. Not fun! Here is a lovely picture of my leg:

After seeing the damage over the holiday weekend, my family got really worried about me running alone in the woods and just alone in general. While I appreciate their concern, I refuse to sit inside or run on the treadmill everyday out of fear. So to ease their minds, I invested in the Jogger Pepper Spray. At first I wasn't sure if I would go back to the trails, but I think I may keep adding just a bit to my weekly mileage. It's a fun way to mix it up a bit and just because I'm a clutz, doesn't mean I can't conquer the trails! :o)

Thursday, July 1, 2010

Hello There Again! June In Review!

Well, I was away for far too long! My last post was May in Review and here we are with another month over! This is what my June totals looked like:

Ran 80.53 miles
Biked 79.5 miles
Swam 3.5625 miles
4 BodyPump classes
Total of 1514 minutes exercise!
6 full rest days

I increased in everything from last month! Interesting that I biked almost as much as I ran, definitely didn't try to do that!

Here are my totals for the first half of 2010!
Ran 450 miles
Biked 187.14 miles (starting on March 27th)
Swam 14.5 miles (starting on March 29th)
Total of 7929.5 minutes! - This also includes BodyPump, Spinning, Yoga, Weights, etc

I'm very happy that I started crosstraining so much more! Last year I mostly just ran, but now I feel so much stronger and more fit! Love it!

Looking ahead to July, I should have a new running monthly mileage PR as I plow full steam ahead into marathon training! I'm currently in week three of my 17 week training program. It is going well, although I am still at mileage where I am comfortable. This week's long run is 10 miles, which I have run many times. The next long run is 14, which is a PR for me and it just keeps on going up from there! I'm excited for this!!!

I am also hoping to be better about blogging this month!

Thursday, June 3, 2010

May in Review

Well May was quite a month for me! I am no longer a single lady, I got married to the love of my life! :) The wedding was absolutely fabulous and the honeymoon was even more fabulous! With so much going on in my personal life and the hip still healing, exercise took a back seat. But here are my month's totals:

Ran 32.47 miles
Biked 59.54 miles
Swam 3.125 miles
2 body pump classes
Total of 834 minutes of exercise

Eh, hopefully June is better! Actually, it better be since I start marathon training on the 14th! I need to get my butt in gear!!! :)

Monday, May 10, 2010

Pain Free Run!

After over 3 weeks off of running, I'm back! I went for a mile "test" run on Friday to see how I felt and though I had some twinges, it was mostly pain free, so I decided to start a building plan today. For the next 2 weeks, I'm going to run for 20 minutes/2 miles every other day. Then I will increase that to 30-40 min (3-4 mile) runs for another week. I will continue building from there.

So I went out for my first 20 minute run today and finished feeling really good! I definitely lost a little bit of fitness since I've mostly just been able to swim and biked only a few times. But not too bad for 3 weeks off.

I'm really hoping to be able to build my mileage slowly, but quickly enough to begin marathon training on June 21st. This gives me 6 weeks to get my mileage up. I hope I can do it but if not, I can always find a later marathon, or wait until next spring. I hope I don't have to though as after I ran in the Hartford Marathon Relay 1.5 years ago, I decided to try for the half marathon the next year (which I did) and the full the year after that (this year). It would be so cool if I reached that goal!!

Mostly, I'm just really excited to be back on the road! I have so missed the stress relief as we are in the home stretch of wedding planning! Tonight we got our marriage license, which makes it seem all the more "real" that I will be a married woman in 12 days! I am also excited to be back on the roads so I can get some runs in on the beaches of Playa del Carmen, Mexico! So excited!!! :)

Anyways, I'm officially back on my sprint tri plan and although the running has been cut back, it's still pretty full:

M: 20 min run (check!)
T: 30 min swim, BodyPump
W: 20 min run, 30 min bike
Th: Rest
F: 20 min run, 25 min swim
Sa: 45 min bike
Su: 20 min run

We'll see if I can get it all in! :)

Friday, April 30, 2010

Back in the Saddle + Month in Review!

So, after 2 weeks of just swimming, I am finally not feeling any hip pain! So today I decided to try for a bike ride. I went 6 miles in 30 minutes and had no pain!!! If anything it loosed things up and feels better! Tomorrow I am going to run a really slow mile and see how I feel after. If I have no pain, I will create a new schedule for me to follow to build back up to my regular mileage. Luckily, I have swimming and biking to keep me working out!!

April in Review:

Ran 37 miles in 339.5 minutes (9:10 average)
Biked 37.95 miles in 182 minutes (4:48 average)
Swam 7.5625 miles or 12.1KM in 297 minutes
Spinning: 2 classes/120 minutes

Clearly my running suffered, but that's to be expected since I had to take half the month off and was recovering from a half marathon the first half! But I'm super happy with my swimming progress and feel confident that I am going to be fine with the sprint tri in July! Good news!!

Goals for May:
  • Stay healthy and build my mileage back to where it was, sensibly and slowly!
  • Continue to work on biking, which is now my weak point in tri training!
  • Run on my Wedding Day!
  • Get married and have a fantastic time on the honeymoon (and get some runs and open water swims in!!)

Hope everyone else had a fabulous April and have great goals for May!!!

Wednesday, April 21, 2010

Mile-stone

I did it! I swam a whole mile today! It did take me 37 minutes, but I'm not complaining! :)

While I've been sidelined with this hip pain, I haven't been able to run or bike, so I've been hitting the pool more! The first few swims I had were pretty terrible. I had trouble breathing and couldn't swim more than half a lap without stopping for a breather. Now, just over 3 weeks and 4 miles in the pool later, I am more confident in my breathing technique and I swam 150 meters without stopping today! Granted, after that I was breathing heavy for a few moments, but I recovered pretty quickly and kept going! I am consistently swimming 100 meters without stopping too. I'm really amazed at how easily my running fitness translated into the pool. I thought it would be much harder to get into it!

As for my hip pain, it hasn't really been feeling much better. I went to the chiro for the second time today and got adjusted. I came home and iced it twice before hitting the pool. Now, it's feeling pretty good!! *knock on wood* Hopefully that is good news! If not, I will be going to the nearest sports doc in a few days. I want this gone!