Sugar coma

Since I am still trying to let my foot heal properly, I decided to skip my long run today for the first time in over 11 weeks. Needless to say it is a strange feeling to change up my running routine, but it makes it easier that I am visiting my parents and feeling like I am on vacation. I really hope I can get outside and do some hill work while I am here to take advantage of the wonderfully steep hills by my parents house.

This is just a sampling of one of the small hills that make me so happy, since I have nothing but flat, flat, flat to run on back home. 

source 

Yesterday afternoon we all went to a potluck get together which is one of my favorite things to do (aside from not knowing anyone there and being the youngest by almost 30 years). It was a make your own nachos bar with lots of wonderful yumminess. My nachos had tons of cheese, sour cream, and my new favorites olives and guacamole. Sadly there is no picture of this as I was way to hungry to take the 5 seconds to snap a pic.

Now a southern potluck would never be complete without a never ending supply of sugary goodness. This is plate #1 and #2 that I quickly devoured in about 2.5 seconds and enjoyed every single second of it! 

Included on these plates of delicious goodness is the best peanut butter fudge I have ever had, I could have kept on eating that all day even though I was about to explode from all the food and sweet goodness in my tummy. I definitely need to get back out on the road and run off some of this sweet indulgence.


 

Why Small Races Rock!

Even after the bad run yesterday and the continuing pain in my foot, I decided to try and run the 5k this morning and just see what happened. The bonus to running in this race was that my parents decided to walk in the 5k and join in on all the fitness fun of the race. All morning both my ankle and the bottom of my foot were bothering me and I was hoping the pain would go away once the race started and I was high on endorphins. 

So at 8am we were off and there was no pain, I ran one of the best 5ks of my racing career finishing in 25:38 (my second fastest 5k time) and was the 2nd overall female. 

After I finished, I grabbed a water and headed back out on the course to find my parents. I took some pictures and rooted them on to the finish. 



 







My Dad rocked his first 5k and finished in 54:22 and my Mom pushed through some soreness and finished in 56:11. I was so proud of them both for getting out there and moving and I hope this encourages them to keep it up. 






To make it even better, both of them managed to place in their age groups and got some bling to add to the wall. 








I am using red and now black in honor of college football Saturday and my Alma mater....GO DAWGS!!!!!!

Runner's High Hangover

I'm sure you have heard it before: what goes up, must come down and that is exactly what I have been going through the last few days. I was riding an awesome runner's high from Saturday's race and then from my 13.5 mile run on Sunday. Unfortunately, I overdid it with all the running and spent all day Monday on the couch trying to rehab my sore foot.

Tuesday was spent driving the 4 hours back home, napping, unpacking, then repacking for my trip the following day. Wednesday I got up at 5am and headed out for my 5 hour drive to visit with the parentals for a little while. Still suffering from the inflamed tendon in my foot, I spent the last 2 days sitting around a lot and icing my foot.

This morning I decided to do a very short run to test out the foot to see if I could run the 5k race taking place tomorrow, since I already paid for it. I made it 1.3 miles before my foot started bothering me and walked the .2 miles back to the house, all the while the pain in my foot becoming worse. However, once I got back and took my shoe off the ache almost completely went away. I'm not sure what the means for the race tomorrow. I'm hoping I can run it and not do any more damage to my foot so I will still be able to run my half marathon in October.

On a happier note, I am getting tons of entertainment from watching Daisy bond with my parent's animals, Samson and Mortimer. Animals are so funny and provide endless amounts of enjoyment!


 This is sweet baby Mortimer, who is highly enjoying hissing, swatting, and chasing Daisy.

Oh and despite my reduction in activity I am happy to report that it has not decreased my desire for the endless amount of sweets throughout my parents house.








This is what is left of the pumpkin bread my Dad and I have devoured over the last 2 days...yummy!

Run, Refuel, Repeat

After the race yesterday I was on such a runner's high, almost like nothing I had felt before. I was drunk on the endorphins and loving every minute of it. I had just run 4.97 miles and it was time to stuff my face! 

First recovery fuel was of course a banana, my favorite post race treat. Then I ate some "freebie" cookies that don't count in the grand scheme of the food day :-). Following this sugar high was a powerade zero and the other half of my chocolate mint clif bar from the morning, which might as well have been another cookie ha ha. 

Chris suggested that we get some tatonuts on the way home (these are donuts made from potatoes and oh so yummy) and I was all for it, the more sugar, the better, bring it on! Chris changed his mind and my blood sugar quietly thanked him. Of course once we got back it was candy corn snacking time (I will fill you in on my candy corn obsession in a later post)

After we both got showers, we headed out to restock our running fuel for future races and training sessions. By the time we got to Newk's (a wonderfully delicious sandwich shop) we were famished! I got a side salad and half a chicken salad sandwich. There was a total of 2 cherry tomatoes, 2 cucumbers, and 10 croutons. Now I am a bread loving girl, but the point of the salad was because I wanted some veggies, come on Newk's, don't be so stingy! I got ranch dressing and though I never thought I would see the day, there was too much ranch!! What!?! how is that possible?? 

My chicken salad sandwich, however, did not disappoint and my tummy did a little happy dance. I couldn't finish the whole thing so I got to take half of that beauty home for dinner and enjoy the tummy happy dance all over again. 

After dinner it was time to feed my sugar addiction and fuel up for my long 13.5 mile run today. Needless to say I fell into a sugar coma and my internal organs became crystallized. See below for just a taste of what I ate for my dessert/4th meal.


 

 A candy corn cornacoppia and coma inducing yumminess.

Has anyone tried these delicious concoctions? I've heard many people say they are nasty but hello! It's a cookie, how could it ever be gross?

8k recap and my randomness

Here is the bridge we had to run to and then over that wonderful hill and back again, I really enjoyed the challenge

This was the preview of the hill as we were driving in today

As I wrote yesterday, I set out knowing that no matter what I would get a PR in the race today but of course I still had a finishing time in mind. I wanted to finish in about 45 minutes or average a 9:00 min/mile pace. My first mile was 8:00 minutes exactly and as I always do I started out a bit too fast so the rest of my miles were a bit slower but nothing over a 9:00 minute pace.  Following is just a snippet of the randomness that keeps me going through these races:

• All the walkers are messing with my momentum
• Random butterflies hitting me in the face
• Then later on I played a game with the butterflies since they wanted to fly along beside me: they were encouraging me to keep my pace up, flying along and then attacking if i slowed down. 
• Old dude drafting off of me, hacking and spitting all over my back. 
• I should have worn sunscreen, the sun is burning through my skin and into my soul. 
• My  encouragement halfway through was passing the hubby (later on he said I crushed his time and his spirit ha ha.)
• I'm really tired of this downhill.
• This last mile is going to be the death of me, straight flat with the 100 degree sun beating down. 
• I'm celebrating national talk like a pirate a few days late as sweat drips in my eye and I walk to the bathroom with one eye squenched and say arrgggh to my husband. 

In the end, as I neared the finish line I saw that I could definitely make it under 43:00 minutes but knew that if I picked it up I could finish in under 42:30, and what did I do? 


42:29!!! This awesome time also got me first place in my age group and a new trophy for the shelf. Though I don't set out to run for the bling, just to challenge myself, a little sparkly makes the race that much better.

Don't you just love the bling?

This is me trying to look as tired as I felt...I swear I am not bald...just can't stand having sweaty hair in my face so I pin it all back ballerina style.

PR....sure thing!

Tomorrow is race day and I am going to guarantee I get a personal record right here, right now! How can I be so sure you ask? Because I am running my first 8k, that is what is nice about running a race distance that you have never run before...a guaranteed PR. An 8k equates to about 4.97 miles and I am super excited to test this new race distance. I have run tons of 5ks and about five 10ks but it will be interesting to see how a distance in between to two pans out. 

I am also completely excited about running with my amazing husband, races are always better when I have someone to compete with :-)

To get me hyped up for my runs tomorrow I found a few old pictures of some 5ks I ran. Now I really need a nap...driving 4 hours really takes it out of me and puts my behind to sleep.





Please ignore the random sweat spots, apparently by body only likes to cry from weird places.

Welcome to Lazyland

Yep, I am a slacker and haven't posted anything for a few days. That dang lazyland sucked me in again and even though I had plenty to say I just couldn't bring myself to type. 

I finally made it to the gym on Tuesday to work on my intervals but I scaled them back a bit from previous weeks just to give my legs a little more rest. Apparently having a little cooler weather outside means the gym decides to not run the air conditioner inside. Needless to say I sweated all over those machines, it was not pretty.

Wednesday was supposed to be speed work on the track but I used the excuse that I had an intense workout the day before and my knee was tweaking a little to not workout at all. Instead I cleaned the house and ate like there was no tomorrow. 

Got up this morning and did a little 30 day shred with Jillian Michaels then went to the gym and once again no air conditioning. I know it is getting chilly outside (which I am not digging because it has been such a huge change in a few days) but I still need cold air when I am sweating masses amount of juices from my body. Now it is laundry time and packing to see my awesome hubby this weekend. I have missed him so...

For your viewing pleasure here is a picture on my new concoction. It is greek yogurt mixed with PB2, stevia, and cinnamon with blueberries and shredded wheat on top. I usually dip my apples in the greek yogurt mix but am trying to learn to like blueberries so decided to mix it up a bit. 

Running on empty

Waking up at 4:45am for my long run on Sunday morning + not going to sleep until after midnight that night, then waking up after only getting about 6.5 hours of sleep= laying in bed all day with my laptop and tv. I hate when I can't sleep or even take a nap because then I have absolutely no energy. Why can't I sleep???

I know I said I was going to take it easy today after my rockin' long run yesterday but this is a bit ridiculous. I really need a shower but can't even motivate myself to do that. Blah. The fact that we are getting wonderfully delicious thunderstorms today makes it even harder to get out of bed. 

Even my baby girl, Daisy, is tired of me laying around, and that's what she does best as proven by the below pic

 Okay enough of the negativity, I WILL get up and take a shower, then I WILL stay up and clean the bathrooms. Then if I'm feeling super motivated I can work on organizing our digital pictures, which is the huge project I keep ignoring for days on end until I give in and work on it and nothing else. 

I am feeling a little soreness and some twinging in places where I have some old injuries today so I am glad I decided to take it easy but I can't wait to get back at it tomorrow. In the mean time I am icing, heating, and rolling to make sure I am all good. I am really enjoying seeing how much progress I have made during this training. I am actually doing it right this time around and hopefully avoiding the injuries that plagued my half marathon training last year. 

PR on a training run...what??

The chocolate chip pumpkin muffins turned out okay, they had that diet taste to them, and since they were only 83 calories a piece I am okay with that! I ate two of them and then had to force down my dinner so I would be properly fueled for my long run today. 

I couldn't believe how full I was yesterday after those muffins, didn't even want dinner, there has to be something wrong with me!! I never miss a meal.

Anyway... long run this morning, got up at 4:45 and finally got out there about 5:15. I had planned on giving it my best effort while still keeping in mind that it was a training run. I ended up with a half marathon PR (personal record for you non-running folks)! 13.1 miles in 2:03:34. Needless to say I was feeling it, so I did something I never do, sat in a cold water bath, awful, awful, awful but I think it helped alleviate some of the soreness. 

Now I am so tired I can't even sleep, have you ever felt that way? So instead I am laying in bed taking advantage of my free HBO weekend. Watching lots of movies and playing on my laptop with aspirations of doing some more stretching and foam rolling sometime today. 

Due to my intense effort this morning, I have decided to push my interval workout from tomorrow to Tuesday to rest my poor legs. I'm sure I will be bouncing off the walls by the afternoon... I always enjoy visuals when I read so for all of you that are the same here ya go:

Hot, sweaty, and tired...I think my face was about 5 shades of red darker after I finished than it is here.

My very first post!

Here it is my very first blog post! Why have I decided to start blogging? Even I’m not sure yet.  When I come across other blogs I always think “I could never do that.” I couldn’t see sharing my thoughts with total strangers and being completely open with people I had never met. 

Then I came across this blog http://www.hungryrunnergirl.com/ and I couldn’t stop reading it. I spent most of the last 3 days reading as much as I could and enjoying every moment of it. I felt like I had found someone I could completely relate to and it made me feel less alone. It also helped motivate me to keep up with my training for my next half marathon and to even eat a little healthier since I had gotten off track the last couple of weeks. I also saw how therapeutic it can be to get your thoughts out there even if there is no one to read them…

If you are reading I guess I should introduce myself: In a nutshell I am an air force wife, runner, and foodie with an internet obsession. I am currently training for my second half marathon which you will soon get tired of hearing about. 

Tomorrow I will be doing my long run of 13 miles, it will be my longest run yet and will prove to myself that I can once again cover the distance of a half marathon. So today I am carbo loading and enjoying every minute of it. 

This morning I had these pancakes http://www.biggest-loser-recipes.com/oatmeal-pancakes.html though I was out of cottage cheese so I subbed in greek yogurt, so full of protein! Lunch was a plate full of chicken stir fry with rice, can you believe I can eat all this food for only 400 calories, not that I’m counting...

And yes I did take a bite out of the bread before I took the picture, I couldn’t help it, I love my bread!!

Now I am off to make some hopefully wonderful pumpkin chocolate chip muffins, if they are good I will share the recipe!