Monday Brain Dump { 2.9.2015 }

This weekend was the last BIG long run before taper.  I had made plans for Jerm (that's the husband) and I to join up with my running buddies from the week before again.  We would run 14 miles with them along the roads, a gentle downhill was planned, which should be good training for Phoenix (I hope).  Then just Jerm and I would head out and back on the parkway for another 6-8 miles.

See I wanted to log 22 miles.  It was mental for me.  In MY crazy head to finish and say, "Well, you only have to squeeze out another 4 miles on race day." Sounds a whole lot more accomplish-able than another SIX miles.  Jerm did NOT want to run more than the 20 on schedule.  He didn't run long last week since he was out of town for work.  But he's awesome and just dug deep and ran the 22.

The night before I was setting out my stuff.  It was supposed to hit 60 degrees!  In February!!  In UTAH!!!  Unheard of.  I decided it would be a good day to test out my race outfit.  Not that it really needed testing however, it's all stuff I wear on a regular basis (just new colors).  Here's the plan:

Lululemon Pace Setter Skirt (red plaid)

Lululemon Cool Racerback Tank (red)

ProCompression Marathon Socks (red)

The Orange Mud HydraQuiver (hot pink, yeah it doesn't match)

Mizuno Wave Rider 17 (purple)

I love running races in a skirt and the Pace Setter is definitely my favorite.  I've done RunningSkirts Athletic Skirt before and while they're super comfy I just don't love how they fit me.  Although they do have a TON of really fun fabrics to choose from.  I pretty much exclusively run in the Cool Racerback tanks from Lulu. I LOVE that they are long and offer good compression to keep the tummy in tight.

I also plan to get some face stickers or tattoos to represent my alma mater, University of Utah while we're down there.  ASU is in the Pac12 with us.  So that will be fun I'm sure.

I found out however the night before that it was supposed to rain!  Rain and 60 degrees.  So as I prepped the night before I threw some capris and fresh socks in a bag to keep in the car. If I was wet and freezing after 14 miles I would at least have the opportunity to change before the next 8.  Alas, we got up to blue skies!  While I ran with my rain jacket around my waist for those 14 miles, which kind of sucked. I was happy to dump it at the car before we headed out for the last 8.

          Jordan River, UT 

          Wasatch Mountain Range, UT 

We had a really late start thanks to a member of the group whom apparently is notoriously late.  Wouldn't have been so bad if we didn't have to run so far that day. It was a long day of babysitting for our kids unfortunately.  But it was BEAUTIFUL!  We felt downright hot at points.  I wasn't prepared with BodyGlide in my normal chafe spots so that kind of sucked.  But the weather was perfect.  (minus the 20 mph wind, THAT sucked)

22 miles DONE.  Followed by a patty melt, onion rings and a diet coke.  I was starving and had zero self control.

My face covered in sweaty saltiness!!

Followed by chafing thanks to my HR strap.  And on the inside of my arms.  And a little bit of sun burn.  Who'd have thought in FEBRUARY!?!

The rest of the day I did NOTHING.  Sat on the couch and pretty much didn't move.  Watched SEVERAL episodes of State of Affairs (one of my newest favorite shows).  SO. GOOD.

I was in bed by 10pm and then slept for 10+ hours.  I will NOT miss the pure exhaustion that follows 20 milers.  Sunday morning I woke up at 9am feeling refreshed.  After my last 20 miler I hit up yoga the next morning and felt amazing.  I pulled the same party trick this week.

Thank you to Lifetime Fitness for AWESOME yoga classes.  I absolutely plan to add more days of yoga to the week when I'm done with this marathon.

For now, that's a wrap for the hard stuff.  My last two miles of that 22 were at 10:07 and 10:05.  That's barely 10 seconds off of marathon race pace.  I feel so good about where I'm at training wise.  And I'm not popping ibuprofen at mile 15 this cycle either.  I can feel the twinge in the right hip but nothing crazy.  I'm proud of myself that I've stuck with the 2 day a week strength training this cycle.  I'm really hoping that will pay off!

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Do you do yoga?  Do you have a favorite type of class?

What hydration pack/belt do you use?  And why?

Weekend Round Up

Keeping it real.

Confessions of a 4:21 marathoner.  I committed to myself that I would clean up my eats again starting this week.  From Monday until dinner on Friday things went pretty great.  As I was on my way home from work on Friday my husband buzzed me.  He wanted Panda Express for dinner.  Because we "always" have it the night before a long run.  But we'll get to that in more detail in a minute.

The Workouts:  (aka The Good)

Monday - 5m Easy on the treadmill, followed by a .2 gain at Weight Watchers.  Awesome.

Tuesday - Walked 45 minutes on the treadmill, followed by Barbell Strength class.

Wednesday - 8m Easy on the treadmill, it was long and boring.  Mentally hard, not physically.

Thursday - Was going to go to Barbell Strength again (like normal) then Jerm decided he wasn't going to make it to the gym.  So I opted for Yoga instead.  I've been wanting to add Yoga in somewhere.  It was Restorative Yoga (I'd never done it before), and it was more like stretching in the form of Yoga poses.  Sure it felt good and all but it wasn't a workout and I won't be going back.

Friday - 5m Easy on the treadmill, I felt strong and it felt pretty easy.

Saturday - 18m LSD.  I listened to a couple episodes of Serial (I'm trying to spread them out so I don't burn through them all too quickly).  Then at the turn around point I switched over to Unbroken on Audible.  I'm really enjoying this book.  Listening to books really helps the time fly on the long run I think.  As we hit mile 17 my husband needed to take a walk break. He doesn't train midweek so when the long runs get really long he starts to struggle.  I kept going and finished up my 18 feeling super strong and SUPER hungry.

          Seen from Jordan River Parkway.

Sunday - I'll call this "Active Rest" since I spent 3 hours walking around Costco and Target getting my groceries.  Followed by putting them away.

The Eats:  (The Bad AND The Ugly)

I did really well during the week.  Had BBQ chicken salad for lunch every day.  Kept my dinners on point with what I had meal planned.  And then ... shit just fell apart Friday night.

Confession #1  --  I have been known to eat Panda Express the night before a long run. Thing is, it's carby for one thing.  Noodles and rice.  And I pretty much have a stomach of STEEL.  The majority of my really bad long runs were preceded by a dinner of just soup.  Or a salad.  So apparently I went to the other end of the spectrum and go with greasy .. fatty .. yummy Chinese food.

Confession #2  --  After we finished our run we were both starved.  And we didn't have time to go sit down and eat breakfast like we often do.  After some back and forth we stopped at Sonic and ended up downing a footlong Coney Chili Cheese Dog.  (This is the UGLY category).  WITH onion rings.  It tasted so good though.

See I told you it fell apart.  And thus I'm up .5 this fine Monday morning.  Awesome.

Marathon training is hard!  It can make you irrationally hungry.  Not all the time.  But sometimes.  And I fully admit I went with the I just burned a bunch of calories I "earned" this mentality.  And I'm frustrated with myself.  I really really want to lose another 10 lbs before Phoenix.  I need to try harder. I need to do better.

The Weekend:

After the sinful chili dog on Saturday I got busy!  Rotated all the seasonal clothing for my boys.  I should have done this like 2 months ago. But I just now got Jerm to bring the boxes down from the attic.  I did a crap load of laundry.  Why EVER to I let it stack up like that?  I cleaned out my closet and all together had 5 bags of donation clothing to get rid of.  So I felt like I had a really productive day.

Then Sunday it was grocery shopping and dinner at my parents.  Before I knew it I was wrestling kids into bed.  OH .. I also finished "The Affair" on Showtime.  I know some people don't like to watch/read about people having affairs. It's a little racy.  But it's also decently written. I would recommend it.  I'm already looking forward to next season!  It ended with a great cliff hanger!

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What are you watching right now?

Do you binge watch TV?

Weekend Madness

3 days left.

I can hardly believe that Christmas is here.  As of last Friday I was officially finished wrapping.  It feels good to be done the weekend before.  But man did this weekend feel insanely busy!

     Wrapping Central.

After I finished with my wrapping it was 5:30pm and I seriously started debating about whether I wanted to get my run in.  And if I did where was I going to do it.  I had packed my gym bag with the best of intentions.  After quite a bit of debate I ended up heading over to the gym to get it done.  I knew I wanted a yummy carby dinner to prep me for 15 miles the next morning.  And I didn't want to try and fit this in on Sunday.  I generally hate running on the gym treadmills because they always feel harder. But Friday night wasn't too miserable.  But LORDY was it hot!

                                      Fancy new gym treadmills.  Plus my Kindle. 

Early Saturday morning we headed out for our long run.  It was 40 degrees and overcast.  Felt lovely.  Since I had to drop my daughter off for an activity we got a somewhat late start. I had checked the weather app multiple times and it always said no rain. I didn't take my rain coat and talked my husband out of his.  Couple miles away from the car it did start raining a bit.  Damn weather man!

     Jordan River Parkway.  A bit of trail we picked for probably only a quarter mile. 

After that we headed over to pick up cash for our babysitter and grab some gas at Costco.  Hello $2.10 per gallon .. YES PLEASE!  However, because it's so cheap at Costco right now that also means everyone and their brother is there.  We were literally there for 30 minutes!  And then the next morning it had dropped to $2.05 when I was there getting groceries.  Darn it!

When we finally made it home all I had time for was to make my list to pick up ingredients for my cookies/bars I was taking to my exchange the next day.  Originally I had planned to bake them that afternoon.  But there was not time.  Before I knew it I was off to meet my bestie for a pre-Christmas gift exchange/movie date.  We saw, "Wild" .. eh ..  I liked it until the end.  I thought the end was lame.  So rush to Target to get my supplies .. rush home .. shove some dinner down my throat and at 9pm I BEGAN baking.  I had 9 dozen cookies/bars that needed baking.

     This was before it got messy!

 

                                      You don't bake in your PJ's?  I had lots of helpers too. 

                                                      One of 3 kinds.  S'Mores Cookie Bars. 

I finished at midnight.  15 miles in the morning with a midnight bedtime and I was one tired Mama.  While my last cookies cooled I rushed into the shower and dried my hair, rolled it up in socks so that my hair would be "done ready" in the morning.  Which was the BEST decision I made all weekend!

Sunday was equally busy.  I got up, unrolled the hair, threw some make up on and out the door I went with all four kids in tow.  Costco and Target here we come.  Another post for another day but I spend SO much time stressing about getting my oldest son to read that I almost missed that my middle son (yes SON, boy likes his long hair) is starting to get the reading bug!  He read to himself the entire way through Costco.  LOVE him.

After that was a mad rush home, unload groceries, put them away and back out the door to go to my cookie exchange.  Which was fun like always.  I think it's such a neat idea and if I didn't already go to one I would host one myself.

     Oliver turns four.

We wrapped up the weekend at my parents celebrating December birthdays. I love love when my whole family gets together.  It's always so much fun.  We had 3 birthdays to celebrate, one of which was my youngest son Oliver.  I can't believe my BABY is FOUR!!  It was a great warm up to the Christmas festivities that await us this week.

And THAT my friends is the play by play of my weekend.  It was a busy one, but I'm really happy to say that despite the busy I got all my runs in.

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Tell me at least ONE thing about your weekend?

Are you ready for Christmas?