Pay it Forward

Hi!

Here is a quick fun post that should bring you and some others some great joy.

There is a post going around Facebook (I think it went around in January too). I just jumped on the bandwagon.

You post this on your Facebook:

I’m participating in this Pay it Forward initiative: the first five people who comment on this status with “I’m in” will receive a surprise from me at some point during this calendar year – anything from a book, a ticket, something home-grown, homemade, a postcard, absolutely any surprise! There will be no warning and it will happen when the mood comes over me and I find something that I believe would suit you and make you happy. These five people must make the same offer on their Facebook status. Once my first five have commented “I’m in” I will forward you this message to put as your status. (Don’t share it) so we can form a web connection of kindness. Let’s do more nice and loving things in 2014, without any reason other than to make each other smile and to show that we think of each other. Here’s to a more enjoyable, more friendly, and love filled year LIVE HAPPY

 

It’s great! It makes you and other people feel great. The world could use some more kidness.

Are you going to do it too?

🙂

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Portland Rock n Roll Half Marathon

I did it!!!!! I completed my first half marathon on Sunday May 18, 2014! It was soooo amazing!!!

I couldn’t resist getting a little Olympic-esque

The energy was fantastic and allowed us to push and knock some time off our projected finish time. Brandy and i finished at 2:59:16, no where near record setting but it meant the world to us to make it in less than 3 hours.

 

We ran the Portland Rock n Roll half marathon. I am now totally in love with the Rock n Roll series. They have some great bands playing, an awesome amount of refueling stations, a very reasonable time limit for the course, and some good swag 🙂

Race t-shirt

Awesome finishers medal!!!

I think we were able to push because we were prepared. We followed a great program and trained right. I think I have mentioned Tom Holland before and his book, The Marathon Method, that is what we used. His book got us to the start line, and finish line, injury free and still loving to run. When I start training for a Triathlon i’ll be buying his 16-week triathlete book.

I am not going to give you all the info because it is not my info to give, but i will give you the highlights. This book gives you everything you could possibly need to know about running and doing it safely. Tom Holland is very big about under training instead of over training. Over training is how you get hurt. I will tell you that we never ran a 13 mile run before the half marathon. Our longest run was 11 miles. The majority of our runs were 3-5 miles. On his training schedule you do 2-3 short runs a week and one long run. I think it is the best training method so you don’t get hurt or burned out.

He talks about stretching, strength training, refueling, carb-loading, salt, etc.

If you have the desire to ever do distance running i highly suggest that you buy his book.

pre-race dorkiness

I can’t believe that my first half marathon is behind me now 🙂 The Portland course is pretty nice, you go all over the city, there was one semi-bad hill because it was a slow long climb but the elevation gain wasn’t too bad. There were some local cheer teams along the course at different places, that really helped when you were getting tired. They were great about making sure you had MORE THAN ENOUGH to refuel yourself.

The finisher’s festival was a little unorganized i thought but it was still great fun, though i admit i was exhausted and dazed by that point hahahaha. If over 21 you got a free Michelob Ultra beer at the festival. For $20 i got my name and finishing time engraved on my medal right then and there which i really appreciated.

They used Marathonfoto all along the course, so there were photographers everywhere and they get some great shots of you. I did order a little collage, come on its my first half marathon, i have to commemorate it. 🙂

Brandy and I about 4-5 miles in going over the bridge!!!

All in all it was a GREAT first half marathon experience and i will definitely be participating in more Rock n Roll events.

Now its just 9 days to Rugged Maniac!!!

Do you have any races planned?

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Consistency and Moderation

Howdy people!

How is everyone doing?

I am good, just ran my first half marathon! (which ill be writing a separate post about shortly ). It is amazing I trained for almost 4 months and did not lose anywhere near the pounds or inches I thought I would. Let’s talk about why.

In the beginning I was seeing the results, I was running 3 times a week and eating good and doing calisthenics/weight training and it was great. I started seeing definition in my stomach and arms and legs and had energy. Then sickness hit the office and Brandy and I took a week off from training to recover and keep from getting sicker. (Mistake #1, we should have toned it down, even just done mild calisthenics at home but never stopped everything for more than a day or 2 in a row.)

It is amazing when you starting “training” how you can rationalize so much to yourself, like “oh I can have that fast food…two days in a row, because I am training and burning so many more calories. “

 

unplanned bad splurge: you go in for one cupcake and walk out with a box

Thoughts like this got me in trouble. It didn’t take Brandy and I long to find that certain foods had a really bad effect on our workouts. A quick lunch of pizza at Costco (OMG that pizza is good and so cheap!), meant feeling like we were 10 lbs. heavier on our run the next day. we felt weighed down and so sluggish and sweat more, it was a gross feeling. Needless to say I have not had a slice of Costco pizza since that day. I found a better alternative, Albertson’s take and bake pizza still gives me the takeout food feeling and I can add or subtract from their toppings at home before I throw it in the oven and it’s still delicious and I can work out just fine the next day.

Other things are not so easy to find a better substitute for. Every day is a battle for me. I fell off the wagon A LOT!!!!!! During this training program.

There was more than one occasion where Brandy and I didn’t work out at all for a week or two. There were weeks were I actually GAINED weight (and not the good muscle-y kind) because of all the crap I was eating.

Consistency and moderation are a mental battle for me. I have struggled telling myself I don’t ever want to be one of those people who can’t go a day without working out, who doesn’t let herself have ice cream or cake or eat crappy but delicious food.  This is the WRONG mentality. The more I workout and choose this lifestyle, the more I see that it is a 90% mental battle.

 

good planned splurge: for me at least, coffee is a must most days, so now and them a delicious Starbucks is the perfect splurge.

I am taking it easy for a week or two after my half marathon, though I plan on doing some small workouts, then I start training for my full marathon in October. From now on my goal is to do some kind of workout every day. I want the mentality that I cannot go a day without some kind of workout; this is how you don’t fall off the wagon.

Food wise: I am going to schedule my cheat day so I know when it is coming and make sure to give myself some kind of treat every day, whether it is a cookie or a petite vanilla bean scone from Starbucks or a Frapacchino or whatever. I know that personally I do better if I have something sweet to have at some point. Also I will increase the healthy things I eat to crowd out the bad things.

 

so true…….

How do you keep yourself in check?

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Juicing

Do you Juice?

 

Juice with protein powder

No, I do not mean the fad juice diets or the cleanses where you do nothing but drink juice and want to jump the dude walking down the street with a burrito from taco bell because you are about to pass out from hunger. The juicing I am talking about is maybe replacing one meal a day with some juice, or instead of having a snack you have a ½ pint of juice.

I also do not mean store bought V-8 juice or cranberry juice cocktail or anything like that. I do sometimes buy the store bought smoothies, thanks to Brandy I found a company that is local that makes fresh bottled smoothies that are in some of the stores around here.

What I like to do is take a half pint jar and put some vegan protein powder in the bottom, maybe 1/6 of a scoop, fill it 1/3 full of the smoothie drink that just start juicing any and all veggies I have in the fridge.

 

That all went into 1/2 pint

I have been making enough so that I have 2-3 half pint jars a day, Monday through Friday. I am either drinking a jar as soon as I get up or as my midmorning snack, 1 with lunch or as an afternoon snack and if I made a 3rd one it is either with dinner or an after dinner snack.

 

Juice and an omelet

It’s great, I feel like I am eating less food but I do not feel deprived or hungry at all. I am still eating the foods that I like but I am eating smaller amounts more frequently and feel like my metabolism is jumping up 🙂

And what goes into the juice is a little different each week depending on, what was on sale at the grocery store, what I got from a CSA or what someone has given me…etc , so I always get different good things to go into my juice.

 

organicstoyou box, a lot of that was juiced

I go through phases where some weeks I juice and some I don’t.

Do you like to juice?

Talk to you soon!

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Do your prep work

Hi!!!!!

I hope everyone is doing well and nowhere near as tired or sore as I have been recently. LOL. Last Wednesday for me was the run from hell.

pre-run sporting my hydration belt 🙂

Our GPS wouldn’t lock on for more than about a quarter of a mile so we couldn’t track exactly where we were at distance wise; which means our refueling gel breaks were WAY off and we even ended up skipping one. Not good on an 11 mile run that lasted 3 hours, you need all your fuel. We were using Brandy’s watch instead of her timer app so our water breaks were also way off. Normally we have used up all our water by about 8-8.5 miles, we over rationed and ended up still having a few sips of water left when we got all the way back to the car 11.2 miles later. Gee, no wonder we both cramped up.

I rolled my ankle on an unevenly paved back road before we even hit mile 2, had to walk it off a bit before we started running again. I had to pee by the time we hit about mile 3 (REALLY?!) finally found a park bathroom (SPIDERS!!!!) around mile 4.5.

Though mile 4 was really nice, we were on this forest-y section in a pretty park that was like a mulch trail, surrounded by lots of oxygen releasing trees which revitalized us.

We took a few wrong turns along the way due to our lack of GPS which was all good……in the beginning.

By mile 6 I was dying! I had a few 2^nd wind moments and pulled through but I was on the verge of tears by about mile 8-9 when we got slightly lost in a beautiful development, thankfully we had pretty things to look at. I think by the end of mile 9 we were both on the verge of mild delirium between laughing and crying. I had to take a 1 minute break and sit on a bench for a minute to rest. Our average went down almost 2 minutes but we did it, supported each other and pushed through.

My ankle was pretty sore the day after,  ice was on the menu that night and I stuffed my face with food and water the next day to replenish.

Let’s take a few seconds to talk about why I think last night was so hard.

1)      We fell off the workout wagon for about 2 weeks then came back to do our longest run ever.

2)      We were not properly hydrated before or during the run. I probably only hit about 30oz during the day, and we drank less than 20 ounces on a 3 hour run….bad!

3)      I did not hit my daily needed calories even before I started the 3 hour run and we missed one gel pack…..also bad! The body can’t perform without proper nutrition.

4)      We felt off because we didn’t have our GPS or timer to track our water and distance, on a fun run day this would have been a ball and made it so much more fun, on a training day, it killed us.

5)      Because we couldn’t track our mile to mile pace, our pace was all over the place, we were pushing ourselves too fast some miles and walking way to slow for way to long on other miles.

I am sure there were other contributing factors but those are some of the major ones that come to my mind. Just confirms to me how much preparation can make or break your running experience. You can bet that from now on I will pay better attention before a long run and for about 5 days before any major race I’ll be carb and protein loading (with the correct kinds of carbs and proteins…well mostly lol) and making sure I hit my water goal every day.

What is your worst run to date?

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