An Overdue Weekly Recap

Yikes, I fell behind in posting this. Nothing too exciting to report. Pretty great week running-wise. My one complaint is that I’m not doing enough strength training. As my weekly mileage ramps up in my marathon plan, I’m finding it more and more difficult to fit in other activities.

Monday:
Ended up taking a rest day.

Tuesday:
Ran 6 miles in 55:13. The first mile felt awful and I wasn’t sure I’d make it the whole 6, but things eventually fell into place. Afterward I kicked it oldschool with ZWOW #1 and killed my old time by more than two minutes.

Wednesday:
Ran 5K with the husband (30:41) then ran by myself until I hit 6 miles (57:11 total)

Thursday:
Long run! This week was 16 miles in 2:31:34. I kept the pace pretty easy and things went great. I felt fine the entire time and I wasn’t even that sore afterward. Awesome.

Friday:
Cross-training: 60 min. elliptical

Saturday:
A hot 10 miler with the husband. The heat hit him pretty bad, but he finished. It was his longest run to date! 2:08:51.

Sunday:
Cross-training: 40 min. elliptical. I was going to do a strength workout but I just didn’t have the energy. This was a high mileage week for me and my body was tired and sore.

Total Miles Ran: 37

This week I’m keeping mileage low and tapering for the Capitola Half Marathon on Sunday!

What I’m Listening To: Podcasts du Jour

When recovering from foot surgery, the only exercise I was cleared for was working out on indoor cardio machines such as the elliptical and stationary bike (no treadmill allowed!). Cardio machines can really drive me nuts with boredom. I find when I listen to music I still look at the timer every 10 seconds to see if my scheduled torture time is over yet. So I started switching to podcasts. If I find a good podcast that holds my attention, the minutes on the cardio machine don’t seem quite as tortuous.

Here are the two podcasts that I’ve been obsessively listening to lately. I’m always looking for more suggestions though, so please leave me your favorites in the comments!

1. The Jillian Michaels Podcast
Let me start by saying that I do NOT agree with everything this woman says. She thinks all soy is evil, lifting weights a la CrossFit will make women ‘big,’ and that a 1200 calorie diet is great for weight loss for most women. That being said, there is still a lot of valuable information in her podcasts. She will feature guests such as endocrinologists and food science engingeers to come on the show and talk about different issues. She also features a lot of general motivational/life advice, it’s not just fitness. And what can I say, I find she has a super motivational way of speaking that gets me fired up. I suppose that makes sense she has built a very successful career out of motivating people. One con: there are a lot of plugs for her services on JillianMichaels.com and if she releases a new workout video or book, you can be sure that you will hear about it. Can’t really fault her for that though, I’d probably plug my products like that, too. The podcast is on itunes, website is here.

2. Mojo for Running
Someone at a forum turned me on to this podcast. It’s now defunct so there are no new episodes, but there are quite a few available for download. A lot of the information is geared toward newish runners (e.g., why you should have a long run each week, how to add in speedwork, etc.) but there is plenty for more veteran runners, too. Plus I just like the speaker…she comes across as very likeable and I enjoy listening to her. Podcast is on itunes, website is here.

I’m slowly running out of episodes though, and I’m looking for new podcasts to try out so please leave me some suggestions! They don’t necessarily have to be running/fitness related.

Weekly Wrap-up

I was a bit short on mileage this week (I had planned 36 miles, but only ran 31.5), and I didn’t get in as many strength training sessions as I would have liked. But I did my first ever ‘real’ trail run, with an elevation gain of over 1200 feet!

Monday:
Four mile hill workout (39:07) on the treadmill, followed by strength training.

Tuesday:
Cross-training: 60 min. on elliptical followed by ZWOW #5.

Wednesday:
5K with husband, than ran by myself until I hit 5 miles (48:01).

Thursday:
Long run – 14 miles (2:16:02).

Friday:
Cross-training: 60 minutes elliptical.

Saturday:
Trail run! In total we ran 8.5 miles, with an elevation gain of 1,258 feet. Pretty sure this is the most fun I have ever had on a run.

Sunday:
I had planned to run 4.5 miles, but my legs were telling me I needed a REST. It was a pretty intense week for me cardio-wise, and my body just wanted to chill out and recover.

Total Miles: 31.5

How did your week go??

The Move More in May Challenge

Janetha over at Meals and Moves always comes up with the best challenges!

I am a super sedentary person. Sure, I work out 6 days a week, but if I’m not working out I’m typically sitting on my butt. Right now I am freelancing from home. Here is my typical routine: sleep (laying), get up, make coffee, have coffee and read email (sitting), workout, come back home, work (sitting), make lunch, go back to work (sitting), make dinner, watch tv with husband (sitting) or read (sitting), go to bed (laying). That’s a LOT of sitting in one day.

I always knew I should move more, but I really started to get concerned when a recent study published in the American Journal of Epidemiology found that sitting more than six hours a day raises your risk of death, regardless of physical activity level.

Enter Janetha’s May challenge:

For the month of May, Janetha is challenging readers to make time to move more throughout the day, outside of their actual workouts. Each day you can log your activity, and of course there will be drawings for awesome prizes.

Some ideas I’ve been tossing around for moving more throughout my day:

• Go for a short walk (30 min. at lunch)
• Stand up and stretch every 60 min. (I think I’ll set an alarm to go off on my computer as a reminder)
• Do activity (e.g., jumping jacks, planks, push ups, air squats) while dinner is cooking

That’s all I have so far but I’m sure I’ll come up with more!

Do you have a sedentary job? Do you make an effort to get up and move around? What sort of activity do you incorporate into your day, other than working out?

Weekly Wrap-Up

Monday & Tuesday:
I was dealing with some personal stuff for a few days and I didn’t get any workouts in. Not only did I not workout, but I ate a lot of junk. Oh well, onward and upward.

Wednesday:
Finally got a run in! Ran 3.1 miles with the husband at an easy pace, then ran a bit more by myself for a total of 5 miles in 53:26.

Thursday:
It didn’t seem like I would be able to get a long run into my schedule this week. Then magically a time commitment disappeared and I had an extra two hours. Great! I ran 12 miles in 1:55:28.

Friday:
I was really sore and so I decided to try out my very first recovery run – 3 miles in 30:28. I couldn’t believe how much the recovery run helped alleviate my soreness! When I got back, I did ZWOW #12 for a strength workout.

Saturday:
8 mile run with the husband at an easy pace. My Garmin died mid-run so I’m not sure of my time.

Sunday:
Taking a rest day. After running four days in a row my legs are tired and could use a break. It’s a nice day out, so I will probably go for a walk later and perhaps go play catch in the park.

Total Miles Ran: 28

Weekly Wrap-up

I had a great running week!Things started out a bit shaky on Monday, but that seems to have been a temporary blip.

Monday:
Took my spiffy new shoes to the gym for a treadmill hill workout. Ended up feeling quite queasy and had to end the workout a bit early. Boo. Ended up running 2.84 miles in 28:36.

Tuesday:
I was brave and went for my first run with a running group! I ran 3.26 with the group (well, the group was actually just two of us…) and then ran home by myself, for a total of 6.2 miles in 1:03:19.

Wednesday:
Did an unscheduled 5K. My husband was working from home and felt like going for a quick run so I went with him. The pace was pretty easy (for me) – 3.1 miles in 33:15.

After the run, I went to the gym and did the “dumbbell hell” workout from this page:

5 DB deadlifts
5 DB hang cleans
5 DB push press
5 DB squats

I did 10 rounds with 20# DBs. After every two rounds I had a little breather. This was TOUGH!

Thursday:
Long run: 11 miles in 1:47:13.

Friday:
Did two ZWOW workouts back to back: ZWOW #11 (score: 4.2) and ZWOW #10 (score 2.1…which is down from my previous score of 2.5, ugh). I still had some DOMS in my quads from Wednesday’s strength workout, so I did 15 very easy minutes on the elliptical and then made sure to stretch out a ton.

Saturday:
7.6 mile run…was only supposed to go 6.2 but got carried away. Ended up hitting the wall at mile 6. It was my first time running in the heat in a looooong time.

Sunday:
Rest day! My legs are definitely feeling like they need it.

Total Miles Ran This Week:
30.74…which is too many. It’s up 25% from last week! I try to only increase my mileage by a max of 10% from week to week. This is mostly due to poor decision making on my part.

TGIF

Hurrah the weekend is here! I didn’t have to work today. It surprises me that in the U.S. Good Friday isn’t an automatic holiday…it always was back home in Canada. So when I hear about people working and stores being open normal hours it always throws me.

Anyway, moving on. Today was a strength/cross training day. I woke up and had a banana and a cup of coffee.

I went to the gym and did two ZWOW workouts. It was my first time doing ZWOW #11 which looks like this:

AMRAP – 10 minutes:
10 mule kicks
10 sumo push-ups
20 side jump lunges
Score: 4.2 rounds

I rested for 5 minutes or so, and then re-did ZWOW #10:

AMRAP – 10 minutes:
100 high knee jumps
20 reptile burpees
20 kettlebell jumps
Score: 2.1 rounds (down from my previous score of 2.5, ugh!)

I had some pretty bad DOMS in my quads, so I hopped on the elliptical for an easy 15 minutes and then made sure to stretch out.

Immediately afterward I had some protein iced coffee. I am cheap, and so I keep leftover coffee in the fridge in a jar until I figure out a use for it. Today I mixed it with vanilla protein powder and it was delicious!

A little bit later I had lunch, which consisted of leftover spinach-lentil dahl:

An orange:

And some leftover homemade chocolate.

I then went to Trader Joe’s and got stocked up on a few goodies (bananas, almond milk, cocoa, brown sugar, ketchup, dried fruit, lettuce, tomato, celery, tomato sauce, tofu, and a bunch of other stuff that found its way into my cart…you know how it is).

Next on the agenda: make hummus, sandwich bread, and marinate some tempeh bacon. Hope everyone is enjoying their Friday so far!

Weekly Wrap-up

Here is what my workouts looked like this past week:

Monday:

Hill workout on treadmill, total distance was 3.414 miles in 35:00

Tuesday:

Body weight strength routine: ZWOW #2 (Score was 23:42)

Wednesday:

Long run: 10 miles (1:40:11)

Thursday:

5 mile tempo run (46:19)

Friday:

I was supposed to strength train, but I had a pretty stressful day and ended up taking a rest day. Oh well, those are important, too.

Saturday:

On Saturdays I go running with my husband, who has only been running two months. He runs at a significantly slower pace than I do, so these are my easy runs. Here we did 6.14 miles in 1:17:28

Sunday:

Two back-to-back strength workouts: ZWOW #7 (score:15:58) and ZWOW #8 (score: 14:56). I’ve done these two workouts before, and I beat both of my previous scores – woo!

 

How did your week go?