Sixer

The weekend. It wasn't the worst!

I wasn't dreading my Saturday 6-miler, but I wasn't bounding out the door in excitement either. My alarm went off at 5:15 (a killer on a weekend morning) and I took my time drinking water and eating delightful cereal. It was a little muggy outside, but not terribly warm. I ran out for 1.15 miles and turned around to pass by my house again, then took off on another loop route to round out the rest.

I have to say, I think these running sunglasses have legitimately changed my life. I guess I never thought about how being blinded by the sun for part of a run can really physically drain you. I felt AWESOME on this run. My splits were: 

11:03
10:54
10:52
10:30
10:37
10:10

Hello! Beauts!

Around the end I decided to extend my run to a full 10K (6.2 miles) to prove to myself I was in a much better place than my first and only "official" 10K run. I ran in The Night Run back in May and it was almost a disaster. I'd never run a night race before. I spent too much of the day walking around, I didn't know when would be a good time to eat, it was HOT, the last water station ran out of water, etc. etc. I ran it in 1:13:04, which was an 11:47/mi pace. 

(Hot, sweaty, slow, mad.)

So, I ended up pushing myself a littler farther on Saturday and ended 6.21 in 1:06:13 (10:40/mi). Suck it, Night Run!

Yesterday's yoga was amazing. Sadly, I didn't read the care instructions close enough on my new Yogitoes and on the way to class realized everything said to wash it before use or it will bleed like crazy. I'm glad I listened, because about 30 yogis crammed into the studio and I was DRENCHED in sweat by the end. I can only imagine how great I would have looked with my tie-dye towel bleeding onto my clothes. It shall be introduced to the yoga world on Thursday!

(Pretty studio, but hot)

Today's rest day is welcomed. My arms and abs are sore from the weekend. Always a good feeling! Onto 7 miles next weekend...a distance I haven't seen since my first half last November. Whoops.

The Secret

This week I learned that Oprah was right about her "secret" of putting stuff out into the universe and getting what you want. Only by "into the universe" I mean this blog and my personal Oprah being Mom.

My very own Yogitoes arrived in the mail yesterday! Thank you Mom! Can't wait to literally sweat my life away on it Sunday.

Wednesday's workout was a quick (30:34 9:52/mi) 5K on the treadmill followed by some upper body weights. I especially love walking into the women's weight section at Gold's and seeing some a-hole in "lifting gloves" wearing a "Drop It Like A Squat" tank top stealing almost every dumbbell weight, along with two full barbells. Go out into the general weightlifting area you DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOUCHE. Luckily, the lovely ladies at Gold's have no idea how to put their weights up in the right order and I was able to find two spare 12.5 lbs. in the 7 lbs. and 10 lbs. areas to complete my arm exercises. That place sucks sometimes.

Yoga yesterday was great. We ended with Double Pigeon (haha, "Fire Log"), which I still felt this morning.

And speaking of this morning, it wasn't too shabby. It was humid out, but not too hot. Splits came in at 11:03, 10:23 and 10:09 for 3.2 miles in 33:34 (10:29/mi). I'm attempting my 6-miler outside tomorrow morning (I hope), so I need to pick up some of my favorite "fuel" and get this training show on the road!

(Also, if anyone is playing along at home: I made these sun-dried tomato mozzarella quinoa burgers last night and they were OUTSTANDING!)

The heat is...on.

This morning started out a little nightmarish.

My alarm went off at 5:15 a.m. and I noticed it was pretty dark out. Hooray, the clouds from last night's lightning-fest (but no rain, UGH) were making way for a cloudy and cool run!

Went outside. Noted the heat. Started to sweat. Weather app said 90°. Woof.

I sucked it up and hopped off to my scheduled 4-miler. The first mile was terribad and ended up coming in at 11:11, even with me doing a few "sprints" to try to salvage what I knew was a sluggish start. Although I've started this training in summer in Arizona, the mornings have generally been fine. They're not cool in any sense of the word, but I guess I never realized the difference between 84° and 90°. You know, until today. 

I finally found my legs and ticked off the remaining miles at 10:30, 10:37 and 10:11, for a 10:37/mi pace. Rather than positive mantras and envisioning success and greatness, I basically mentally berated myself for being such a baby! There are worse things in life than running in hot weather. The pace was quicker than what I'll need to do for a 2:20 (barely), so it was a win! Lay off.

(Can't say the phrase "lay off" without picturing this. These fries are good!!!!)

Last night we headed out to the Hills for dinner at Grambo's, since Auntie Boobooski and Brady are in town. (I just wanted to write that sentence to thoroughly confuse anyone reading this who doesn't know my family.) We had tasty roast pork (well, I'm told it was tasty), delish roasted veggies with feta, salad and some cheesy fiesta au gratin potatoes. And obviously, homemade angel food cake topped with blueberries, strawberries and peaches for dessert. What was that thing I said about a diet?

Weekend Recap

It's Monday. (Booooo.) But it was a good weekend. (Cheers!)

Friday night we caught a quick dinner at Pita Jungle before heading to see Into The Storm. (Sidenote: I know that I made a really great homemade hummus, but their jalapeno/cilantro version is made from God.) The movie was a complete abortion of bad acting and special effects and therefore, was a great time! I especially liked it when one tornado sucked up a bunch of fire and became a flame-ado. We were surprised this came to theaters rather than straight to the SyFy network, but it was entertaining!

Saturday I went 5.12 miles on the treadmill (in order to balance out the 3.28 from the day before because I'm an OCD freak) in 52:56 for a 10:20/mi pace. The first 20 minutes or so I was just. not. feeling. it. I think I'm just getting sick of the treadmill. I need to commit to going outside for next Saturday's 6-miler. The high that day is only ("only") 102° and if I leave early enough, heat shouldn't be a problem.

I felt a little better when I looked into my MapMyRun archives and saw that all my training runs are noticeably faster than last year's. So that's promising.

Saturday afternoon I went to the pool and surprisingly lasted about an hour. But the real high point of the day was making French bread pizza while watching football.

(Insert Homer Simpson drool gif)

 

These were amazing.  However, I made the following changes:

• Put a thin layer of red sauce that I needed to use up underneath the topping (and I recommend you do this)
• Used a 6-Italian cheese blend rather than Fontina

I also went to the hassle of making the crispy basil, but I don't think it really added anything to it. There's a chiffonade of fresh basil in the topping mixture that packed the summery-fresh punch. I also went to the hassle of buying an ear of corn and cutting off the kernels to sautee. I DO recommend that you do this. I also didn't go with the balsamic glaze, as I'm just not a fan of balsamic. I know some people can't comprehend that, but lay off.

Yesterday we made a homemade breakfast feast. I want to try to do this once a weekend, since going out for breakfast is laughably more expensive than making it on your own. Breakfast included:

• Apple Cinnamon Oatmeal Pancakes 
• Scrambled eggs with white cheddar, diced grape tomatoes and basil
• "Sausage"
• Hash browns

After a too-long nap and some golf, I headed to Sunday afternoon yoga. Being such a sweat monster is so frustrating to me sometimes. I could hold so many poses so much longer if I wasn't completely drenched in my own sweat. (Amazing mental image, I know.) There was a sequence we went through where we squatted down, wrapped our hands around one foot, came back up to standing while straightening the foot we were holding, then transitioned it back to Dancer pose. I was getting SO FRUSTRATED not being able to hold on to my foot this whole time because of the buckets of sweat. Argherioghaerthavmalkdrtioh. Then I got frustrated while everyone around me was leaping into headstands and handstands, but I have to remind myself that I've been going to yoga about twice a week for 8 months while these people have clearly been putting in tons of hours into their practice for YEARS. (At least I hope so, and I'm not just a lost cause.) Highlights included holding Crow for a decent amount of time and holding Side Crow facing the left side as well. Wahoo!

 Then I made a really ridiculous mac and cheese on AV's request that included jalapeno, onions, broccoli, diced bell peppers, cheddar and a crunchy panko topping. No pictures, because I was too busy inhaling it. And now, I need to diet. But I have the excuse of carb-loading, right?

Catch Up

Happy Friday!

My past few workouts have gone well. Wednesday morning's treadmill run had me running a 5K in 31:19--a 10:06/mi average. I ran the second half ranging at a 6.0 speed and at 6.5 for the last two minutes just because I wanted to get it over with. Apparently, boredom does wonders for my "speed." I finished up with some superset moves. I still felt the sumo deadlift high pulls yesterday in yoga.

Yoga was great, as per usual. I really think I need to either invest in a new mat or at least a Yogitoes towel to 1) prevent me from slipping in my gallons of sweat (amazing mental image, I know) and 2) keep my mat a little cleaner. I don't think my feet are overly dirty (?!) but my mat is starting to look a little haggard. It's just a standard cheapo I bought back in January. It's served me well, but I think the time to invest in a higher quality mat is nigh. Hopefully it can last me through the end of half training and then I can put these wishes on a birthday list. (Shout out to family and friends looking for gift ideas!)

Last night I started to dread my run this morning, and I have no idea why. Running is such a stupid mental game with me. Once I got into it, I actually felt GREAT. The only thing was I had to keep making adjustments with my sweet new runglasses (I see you, Meg) and the headband I was wearing. I ran 3.28 in 34:38, making for a 10:30/mi pace. I felt like I was holding back the whole time, making it an "easy" run, which was the objective. My splits came in at 10:43, 10:32 and 10:17, which is exactly the kind of speeding up I want to see!

I ended this morning with more Blogilates ab torture. I lasted 8 minutes this time! Woof.

Tomorrow is my second "long" 5-miler. Then off to bigger and brighter and scarier mileage as the weeks go on. This weekend I think we're going to see Into The Storm, which looks absolutely ridiculous, and then I will probably be subjected to a lot of golf and football.

(and Go Chiefs!)

Tough Mudder

Hi all. First, I need to give a huge congrats to my official IronWoman cousin Stephanie for crushing her first (and last? If she's not insane?) full Ironman. She came in 11th in her category and ran the marathon in 3:37, which is slightly mind-numbing. Now, read on for me whining about 4 miles. Not sure how we're related sometimes.

Saturday was my first "long" run of this training session and I clocked 5 miles on the ol' hamster wheel in 51:43. I definitely could have thrown in a few more miles, which is a good sign, but I decided not to push it. I got extremely sick of running last year and I don't want to take any chances. I took the time to ice afterwards, which I really need to get into the habit of doing.

 

(note to self: vacuum)

Saturday afternoon we set off in search of running sunglasses (really holding myself back from calling these "runglasses," like a tool.) and AV had the great last minute idea of checking out Nordstrom Rack. He's gotten several awesome pairs there on the cheap. After finding diddly in the women's section, I started searching the men's section. And found these bug-eyed bad boys!

 

Disregard how dorky I look in the pic. These are awesome! They're Nike Road Machines and are game-changers. I wore them this morning and most of the time couldn't tell I was even wearing them. More on this morning in a minute.

We ended Saturday by catching "A Most Wanted Man," which we both agreed started out slowly but ended up being great. PSH truly was one of the best.

Sunday the regular instructor for my favorite afternoon yoga class was back from vacation and she killed us. I attempted side-crow for the first time in my life, and to be honest I think it's going to be easier for me to get a hold of than regular ol' crow. (Not that I'm excelling at either pose by any stretch of the imagination.) It was an awesome (AND SWEATY) hour and I'm always glad to end the weekend on a yoga high.

Back to this morning. I set off on a 4 miler and felt OK. I got insanely frustrated about .75 miles in when I had to stop and walk through a gigantic mud puddle in the middle of the trail. For as much as the City of Scottsdale brags about being bike- and hike-friendly and focused on outdoor fitness, you'd think they'd be able to figure out a proper drainage system on the gigantic 11-mile greenbelt. It was so frustrating. I don't care at all about getting my shoes dirty, but I do care about having to traverse up a hill of grass and mud just to get my right foot completely sucked into a mud puddle and have to stop. 

(Yes, this is how babyish I was being this morning)

But I shook it off and told myself to shut up and completed 4.05 in 43:07. I'll take it.

Accidental "Speed"

This morning I took advantage of "cooler" temps (84°...I take what I can get) and ran my 5K outside. I forgot Fridays are supposed to be my easier and slower runs to prepare for my Saturday long runs, but seeing as how my "long" run tomorrow will be 5 miles, I guess I wanted to redeem myself for 3rd mile slow down a few days ago. I actually finished 3.18 miles in 31.48. A few seconds off on the time below, since I stopped and made sure to stop and note my time when I stopped the Garmin in case it erased all data into the ether like before. It did not. Victory!

(Sweet socks, bro)

I'm really going to have to work on my splits becoming slowly negative, rather than in a big chunk. I'd say I'm OK for now, as I'm just starting to building up mileage. It really never fails that I want to die the first 1.25 miles or so of any run, whether I'm going to 3 miles or 10. Ugh.

 

I came back home for some core work. If you were every to ask yourself "Self, what's one type of workout that Erin seems like she would absolutely hate and want to die in a fire" and you answered "Blogilates" well then. You win a prize. I want to hate this Cassey girl so much and I want her to get her upbeat crap out of my face, but her workouts are legit.

I lasted 7 minutes. Help.