Running Mom's Motivation

I have been getting ready for my husband's office Christmas Party tonight. I wanted to get dressed up and surprise him. Little did I know that when I tried on all my nice dresses (even the ones that used to be too small), they would all be too big for me. Now that is an awesome feeling.

I have applied for a program that Runner's World is doing to help people lose weight. They want to highlight some people that have different weight loss goals in their magazine sometime next year. I will let you all know if I get picked.

Total Miles Last Night = 3 Approximate Miles Since Beginning = 684

Posted in: on Thursday, December 6, 2007 at at 2:01 PM 1 comments  

I haven't blogged in a while. I didn't think there was anything too interesting to share over the last couple of weeks. Last week was a cut back week for me, so I only ran 14 miles total and none of them were quality workouts. This week it is back to the grindstone.

I convinced my darling husband that he should buy me the only thing I really wanted for Christmas and nothing else. Maybe he conceded because I bought him what he really wanted. Or maybe it was because I was nagging a little too much. So last Saturday my Garmin Forerunner 305 came in the mail. We got an awesome price on it with rebates etc so it ended up costing $113. Not bad in comparison to the suggested retail price of over 300 or even the average retail of around 200.

So I was able to go for my first run with my Garmin today ( no wise cracks about it not being Christmas yet- Christmas is about the birth of Christ not gifts, so I am sure that God doesn't care one bit if I opened it early!) I had a tempo run planned for this morning. I was thinking about going to the indoor track at MSU because the weather has been brutal the last couple of days, but I didn't want to get up early enough to do that and David was home this morning, so I slept in until 6:30 and was on the road by 7.

My run was a 6 miler. Four miles in the middle are supposed to be at tempo. My head math screwed everything up. I thought I would run a 2 mile warm up and 1 mile cool down. Now any 1st grader could tell you that adds up to 7 miles, not 6. But I couldn't seem to comprehend that until about 4.5 miles into my run. My bad math put me doing the end of my tempo section UP A VERY LARGE HILL! So here i am trying to maintain my fast pace going up this hill when the wind kicks in. I thought my nose and lips were going to fall off right there. But after that hill it was easy. And it was an awesome run.

The Garmin is awesome too. I set it to alert me at every mile so I wouldn't have to keep track of how far I had gone. When I look at the screen it shows me time, mileage, pace and heartrate all at once. I also set it up with auto pause. That way when I stop at a street light or to let the dog do his business it automatically pauses the time and distance...now that is handy. When I got back home I plugged it into my computer and it uploaded all the information from my run. The next time I run I am going to program it to do automatic splits at every mile. That way I will get average pace for every mile. I love technology!

Total Miles Today = 6 Approximate Miles Since Beginning = 681

Posted in: on Tuesday, December 4, 2007 at at 4:30 PM 0 comments  

I am still out there doing my thing. I have to train for my half marathon after all. My boss ended up having to have surgery last Tuesday. They were supposed to do it with a scope, but when they got in there, they realized that they would have to open her up. I don't know when she will feel well enough to return to work.

This surgery came up kind of suddenly. Consequently, I have been working a lot more hours than I had expected over the last couple of weeks. I have barely seen my kids. Grace has a killer cold. Rachel has pinkeye. I don't know when the last time that I balanced my checkbook was. But I am still running (at night and during my lunch hour).

Hopefully the craziness will end soon. I have told them at work that I will not work the day after Thanksgiving. I just need a break. And next week is Grace's birthday, so wish me luck in planning for that.

Total Miles Today = 7 Approximate Miles Since Beginning = 642

Posted in: on Sunday, November 18, 2007 at at 9:55 PM 0 comments  

I forgot to say what the other reason that so excited is. My buddy Maria is getting me a pair of Yak Tracks or Stabilicers or something else like them for free!!! It pays to know people who know people.

Posted in: on Monday, November 5, 2007 at at 10:21 PM 0 comments  

My half marathon training officially began tonight. I have sixteen weeks to prepare. I want to do the best I am capable of, but other than that and finishing, I don't have any real goals for the race. Today was supposed to be a rest day according to my handy training plan from the Runner's World website. I decided to take some good advice from my friend Maria. She suggested some time ago that I get in my quality workouts whenever I could. That way if I can't run every day I planned to in a week at least I got in two quality runs each week. So tonight, I did my tempo run.

I didn't want to run when I got home tonight. It is getting cold out there and I was tired after a long busy day at work. David had a long day too, so by the time we got the kids from daycare and got home it was about 8pm. After getting the girls in bed, it was hard to get ready to go for a run. I have to remember this every time I don't want to run, because tonight's run was awesome. I am so glad I went.

I can set my pace for my tempo run a couple of different ways. I can use my heartrate monitor or I can time the run with my watch and try to stay at my tempo pace as determined by my training plan. I couldn't see my HR monitor or my watch tonight, so I used neither. A tempo run is supposed to be done at a "comfortably hard" pace. So I decided to set my pace based on effort. The first mile of the run is a warm up and the last mile (or 0.7 in my case) is a cool down. I ran both of those at an easy pace. The middle three miles were supposed to be at tempo. I decided to do my cemetery route again tonight. It is kind of hilly, so I wasn't sure that I would be able to keep my tempo up for the whole three miles. My tempo pace was determined from my first 5k race time and was supposed to be 11:51/mile. This was such an awesome run that even the hard parts felt great, but I had no idea what my pace was until I got back to my house. I ran the entire 4.7 miles in 50:40. That is a 10:43 pace!!! What's even better, is that my 3 miles of tempo were done at 10:04 pace.

I am so geeked. But as great as this run was, I know that they won't all be like that. I know that there will be days over the next 16 weeks when I won't be able to maintain a 12 minute pace. And I know that I won't always win the battle of the will and get myself out the door when I don't feel like running. But I am very happy with my start and am looking forward to the training that I have ahead.

Total Miles Today = 4.7 Approximate Miles Since Beginning = 612

Posted in: on at at 9:59 PM 1 comments