One thing I love about running

The only thing the road cares about, is that you visit it every once and a while

Disney Princess Half Marathon Training Week 5-11 days!

Feb 06-12

Monday Feb 06    After a really bad running day, the day before, I knew I needed to go out and try and get more miles under my feet. So Josh and I went back to Flatwood Park (a park with a paved running trail through the woods). It's mostly used for bikers but I've seen some runners there as well. The thing is about this trail is that it's a BIG loop through the forest with no shortcuts. Once you stop you either have to turn around or go the entire 7+ miles. It has about 4-5 covered bench areas with water but I need more water than that, SO I tried my new hand held water bottle I bought for long runs like this. It has a strap around the bottle so I can just slip my hand into it. I LOVE IT. It doesn't leak, it doesn't feel uncomfortable, I may post pictures of it later.
     The first 3 miles I was doing a lot of walking/running. I'm really trying to pace myself. I would run almost every other chorus in the music I was listening to then speed walk the other times. At the first stopping point I asked my husband how I was doing. He was like "you know you're wearing yourself out more by all this stopping in going. If you really want to train you need to find a comfortable pace and stick to it" (he's ran a 1/2 and a full marathon before).  So after our break (3.5 miles into the run) I started just joggying/running. I picked a pace that I could keep and just stuck with it. It was somewhere around 9.50-10'02. I would go until I couldn't go any farther, then I would speed walk. I would also use points in the trail as check points (I'm going to run to the bridge then stop). That helped a lot. ANYWAY I ended up running much faster than the previous time. I didn't run farther BUT I was happy that I just did it. I ended up running 8 miles in 1 hour and 35 minutes, at a pace of 11:50 (with all the walking at the beginning didn't help my pace..but it's under 16, so..that's all that matters).

Tuesday Feb 07
    Giving my legs a rest I ended up doing 2 Turbo Fire video's Core and Tone. I love core. It's my favorite video.Tone is really good because it works the ENTIRE body. With Turbo fire you're never just working 1 muscle group, she always does the arms and lower body at the same time!

Wed. Feb 08
    Wed. is my bible study group day. After running a few errands I finally put in a 20 minute run right before bible study. I was mainly working on keeping a steady pace the entire time (like I did with my long run). I did 2.01 Miles in 20 minutes at a 10:13 pace.
     After the run, My husband had the car at his job so I rode my bike to my bible study. It was a 3.4 mile ride but I did it in 20 minutes at a 10:02 pace, not bad considering I just did my run!

Thursday Feb. 09
   Oh goodness I was having horrible stomach pains this morning (:P). But, I Just tried to be thankful that it wasn't going to happen during the race. SO, I did 2 Turbo Fire videos- Lower Body and Core. The first time I used the lower body bands in Hawaii, I couldn't walk the next 3 days. It's an intense workout with an elastic band (tied in a knot)around your ankles. You're doing leg kicks, hamstring extensions, and even ballet moves with the extra resistance.   Pretty excited!!! There is an exercise were you take a tied elastic band and put it around your ankles. You are sitting on the floor with your knees bent and feet on the floor. You leave your right foot on the ground and you grab the left leg around the knee. Your goal is to extend the leg your holding fully while the resistance band holds it down. My left leg used to only make it 2 inches up and then start shaking really bad. That's as far as I could push it. As of Thursday I was able to fully extend it! I'm thinking the reason for my knee pain is the weakness of all my leg and hip muscles in the left leg and my knee is compensating for it. I try to do this video at least twice a week, I've really seen some great results and can't wait till I can do the entire video all the way through without taking a break.
        I did another quick run before I had to pick up my husband for work. I did 2.52 miles in 25 minutes, not to bad. Tried to just maintain a quick pace of 6.9-7.0 the whole time.

Friday Feb 10th.
   I didn't run, still having pretty bad stomach pain, so I just did more Turbo Fire videos. I did the Core, Upper Body, and Ab video. The Ab video ALWAYS kills me. It's ONLY 10 minutes long but I always just want to lay on the floor and do nothing afterwards! LOL BUT I want a 6 pack and I'm doing everything I can to get there! We also went to Jacksonville and saw Jeff Dunham, it was hilarious! Great show.

Saturday Feb 11
   We stayed the night at my sisters house and drove home today. We were both exhausted (the show didn't end till 11:30, got back to the house around midnight) then had to do the 3 1/2 hour drive home. With a huge construction patch it took us about 4 hours to get home. We were still pretty tired so, I just had a day of rest with a LDR - Long distance run in mind for the next day.

Sunday Feb 12
  The weather had been REALLY crazy here. It was so cold one morning I had to scrape ice off of our car on the way to take my husband to work! IN FLORIDA LOL...brr, SO I decided to do my long run on the treadmill. I did really well up to miles 4-5. I ran the entire time was keeping a pretty fast pace, but I think I was going to fast and burnt out all my steam. I was dragging through  mile 6-8, I was trying everything I could to just push through it. I ended up just speed walking every other song and then trying to run again. I was pretty tired BUT I wanted to do a double digit run!... but, I made it the pace wasn't pretty BUT I was excited that I didn't quit and I just pushed through it. My Nike + watch accidentally got turned off  instead of paused SO I wasn't sure just how far I had gone. By the time my Nike Phone app said I did 10 miles, My watch (which is also connected to my foot, which I think is more accurate) said I did 10.45, If I would have known that I would have kept pushing till 11. OH WELL. I did it, 10.45 Miles in 1 Hour and 45 minutes at a pace of 10:20, Not bad at all :) Probably have one more double digit run before the race :)

Thanks for reading!

Disney Princess Half Marathon Training- Week 4- 19 Days!

 Jan 30-Feb 05

 HELLO!
 Finally got some time to sit down and write this . It's been a very busy week!

I already recapped my 8 mile run on Tuesday January 31st, so I will start on Wed, Feb 1st

Feb 1st, Josh and I went to Honeymoon Island and Caladesi Island. It was a beautiful day. We did do a nature trail and walked a lot on the beach, even though I wasn't running I was moving the majority of the day.

Feb 2nd, We spent the ENTIRE day at Busch Gardens. I wore my body bug  ( I was interested if it would show my heart rate spike on the roller coasters). It said I took 15, 607 steps. Still not running but lots of walking. Good for working the legs for a long period of time

Feb 3rd, we went back to Busch Gardens (we have a season pass) and walked even more. We spent the majority of the time at the zoo part instead of riding rides. We ended up taking something around 18,000 steps. It was a long day but we had fun, one of the best parks I've ever been too.

Feb 4th I knew I needed to run so I did some interval training by sprinting every 30 seconds and resting every other 30 seconds. I started by wanting to walk the 30 seconds I was resting but the buttons on the treadmill are really old. It's weird everytime you turn the thing off it starts all over. You hold the buttons in and it goes from 0.5-2.5 then stops..then you have let go and hold it again and it goes from 2.6-3.5 it's very annoying, SO  I figured I would do it Biggest Loser style (OK OK I AM OBSESSED). I kept started out at a 6.3. The machine was already at an incline of a 2.0 so I was like..ok and put it down to a 1.5 (there is a ramp on the interstate we have to climb during the race, so I figured I might as well get ready for that. Everywhere to train around here is FLAT. MUCH DIFFERENT than the hills of Hilo ). SO I did 6.3 3 times then knocked it up to 6.6. 7.0. 7.3, 7.6, 8.0. Once I got to 8.0 I was stretching it. It was a little fast for me but.. I knew I needed to stretch my strides, my lungs, and my legs, SO i punched it up to 8.3 and eventually 8.6. At 8.6 I was sprinting to stay on the belt. I knew that was MAX, so I stayed there for 3, 30 second intervals. I did the same thing going down. Once I got back to 7.3 I was like OMG this is SO SLOW.. LOL So I cranked the incline and tried to make it a little tougher. I want to get back to the treadmill sometime next week and make the intervals 45 seconds to a minute each, increase the incline, as well as the speed up to a 9.5, maybe a 10! That would be awesome.. if the Biggest Loser contestants can do a 10.0, why can't i?! :)

  I also did 2 Turbo Kick video's (Core and Sculpt) with my new resistance bands. I LOVE THEM. It starts out with                                       Yellow (2-5 lbs of resistance)
                                                             Green, (5-8 lbs) I started the videos in Jan with these
                                                             Red (8-12 lbs)
                                                             Blue (12-16 lbs)
                                                             Black (16-20 lbs)

Today I did every rep with the red band, first time all the way through. Now it may not seem like a lot but she does some pretty intense reps, NOT a lot of reps but normally 3 or 4 sets of 8's. The first/two sets of reps are any where from 2-4 count reps with some type of low body movement... Lets say ... Bicep Curls, you are stepping on the band with your shoes  and the handles are in your hand (duh). The same time you are doing Bicep curls you are also doing squats.   

1.     1st rep She makes it 2 counts down.. 2 counts up.. warming up your body
2.      2nd rep it's slow 4 counts down and 4 counts up.. REALLY taking momentum out of your body and making your muscles contract on their own.
3.     3rd rep she makes you hold your arms out and do just squats, JUST HOLDING THE BANDS OUT is a workout. It makes you flex your arms to hold the bands
4.     4th rep you stop your legs and you do just the arms. If they haven't already started shaking they will then! LOL. It's crazy when you add your highest resistance and do that much with it. 

When i was doing this series in Hawaii (for a month solid) I saw results but not this much in this short of time. I was using another generic band I bought at Target, I'm sorry but when you're serious about fitness it helps to have the equipment that works for you. These are amazing!

Sunday, February 5, was a bad day. First half was good. I did a Turbo Fire Lower Body video. MAN it really works you. She has this elastic band (usually used for stretching) tied in a knot around your ankles. She has you do all sorts of kids and extensions that really work your hamstrings, quads, ankles, and glutes..OH it was amazing :) def going to do this every other day!
      I took a little break afterwards and decided I needed to get my long run in. I don't know what it was, I just couldn't get focused, or motivated, minor knee pain, I don't know. I ended up just doing 1.65 miles on the treadmill. I was about to leave and figured I might as well do something else, So I sat on the stationary bike and 3.07 miles, not the greatest but better than nothing.

SO, Some good, some bad. I finally got my outfit for the race figured out. I need to finish my Tutu and go to goodwill to get a few things. The race STARTS at 5:45 (we have to be at our gate by 5), from various blogs (AND getting up with Josh at 5:30 for work) it's chilly. SO I've been told to find something I don't want to keep (hence the goodwill run) to stay in until the race starts.People will throw their clothes off into the side of the track before the race starts and volunteers walk around and donate the items to a charity. Pretty cool :)

My husband says if I keep my pace (as well time allotted for quick pics, a few water pit stops as well) I should finish somewhere between 2:15-2:30 (hours:minutes) for my time at the race. I'm not sure, honestly nothing will make me more proud than the moment that I'm all hot and sweaty and have that Medal around my neck, just after passing that finish line. LOL if you asked me 4 years ago if I would finish a 1/2 marathon.. I would be like NO WAY?!!! are you crazy?! I can't run!! Well, maybe i can :)...Not fast, no records, but.. I can :)

Thanks for reading (sorry it was so long winded!)