Today I had my regular training run scheduled, running 4 minutes walking 1 for 45 minutes. Instead we drove to Las Vegas and I met up with some friends from a message board. We are part of a crazy club that meets once a year in Vegas to run the Las Vegas marathon, the goal is to run 21 consecutive marathons there. Told ya it was a crazy bunch! Anyhow, we met at Niketown inside the forum shops at Ceasars Palace. There is a weekly run scheduled there every wednesday. This was a special event though since one of our Canadian members was on a road trip and swung through for this run! Niketown sponsored it and there were about 20-30 people there. We were given the safety rules and signed the waiver and all that good stuff and sometime after 6 we took off. Im a slow runner so everyone took off and pretty quickly put some distance between me and the boys (who came with me in the stroller) It was a pretty hilly route! I was planning on doing only 3 miles. I ended up hitting two traffic signals back to back so I got stuck a couple minutes behind the rest of the group, but that wasnt a big deal. Im used to being a back of the packer! As I was just beginning to get to the next hilly part I see a yellow shirt coming towards me. I thought holy cow, that was fast! It was our Canadian member Kevin coming back to push my boys in the stroller! He said he had gotten to the top of the hill and it was a tough one so he would come back and give me a hand. He pushed the boys for about the next mile! At one point we passed someone on the side walk and he said something about ‘the family that runs together stays together’ I couldnt help but laugh and tell Kevin he might want to check with his lovely wife first lol! My youngest son was not impressed that someone else was pushing him, but my older son was having a blast! There was a water station at mile 1.5 very well staffed by a Niketown employee and Kevins two daughters who are 8 and 10. Awesome little girls! Kevin went on to run a bit farther and I turned around to head back down the hills (wee!!) Part way down another member caught up to me and asked if she could push the boys. Of course! How fun! We all had a great time. I ran the entire way…so much for walk breaks this time! It just felt really good to be running with other people again, especially in Vegas. I got a fantastic quick work out and visited with everyone afterwards. Today I ate ok, cereal and fruit for breakfast, cottage cheese with strawberries for snack, left over low fat enchilada for lunch and a healthy choice meal for dinner. I thought the HC meal would be really good, it was sweet and sour chicken but I was really dissapointed. It just wasnt tasty at all, it needed a more flavourful sauce, it was really bland. After my run I ate a banana and two granola bars and on the drive up I ate a few peices of dried pineapple.
After the run I did notice that I am experiencing a clicking in my left hip when I walk. Im not sure whats going on with that, it doesnt hurt but I can feel it happening. Once I am at home I am going to do several stretches that target my hips. Ive always had some problems with my hips, even prior to running but as I add milage my hip flexors give me alot of trouble.
Today was my rest day, which came to me just in the nick of time. My youngest was up from 12:30-1 and then from about 3:30am-8am and Ive caught the kids’ cold. Im trying to fight it off with my bestfriend Airborne. That stuff saved me while training for my half marathon this past december! With one Petri Dish in Preschool bringing home every germ known to mankind (and many unknown Im sure!) I had to fight off the sniffles constantly. So today I havent dont any training. I need to work on my arms this evening though. This morning I was up a couple of pounds but thats normal for me after a long run. Tomorrow hopefully Im back to normal. I noticed this morning that my ribs/chest looked different. It looks smaller, very odd! (Im not complaining though!) I still have a week or two before I retake my measurements, the visual change has me curious though. Tomorrow Ill know if Ive lost any weight. I ate horribly today though, seriously bad. This morning at like 5am the kids said they were hungry so I warmed up the left over pancakes and ate a couple small ones while they polished off the rest. At lunch I swung through McDonalds and got the kids and my husband a double cheeseburger each and got myself a shamrock shake. I drank part of it and gave the rest to the kids, I had two bites of my youngests burger and almost immediately felt my stomach protesting. That was the first high fat food Ive eaten in a couple of weeks and my body did not appreciate it. Besides that I snagged a couple nibs and thats all Ive eaten today, this is definitely not the way to lose weight! Im not feeling really well so I guess that and not working out shot my appetite. Im not really hungry yet for dinner, I might grab a banana later or something.
Tomorrow I have 45 minutes at 4/1 intervals scheduled I believe. I did my 10 miles at 4 running 1 walking and that went well so Im considering running 5 walking 1 and seeing how that goes. Itll depend on what my heart rate monitor says and how Im feeling. If I still have a sore throat I wont be pushing myself at all, I hate that raw feeling in my throat and I will wuss through a work out to avoid it when Im sick. I have noticed that when Im exercising regularly and I do catch a cold I get better much quicker than I used to!
Today was my third attempt at ten miles. last week my family was too busy (and that was pre-treadmill) and yesterday my husband was gone most of the day so today I started out the day by running two miles before taking my oldest to a dentists appointment. After the dentist I got back on the treadmill and jumped off again a few miles later to make the boys lunch and get them ready for their nap. My oldest went down quickly, actually they both did! But the baby woke up coughing and ended up actually puking a few times, poor kid, he doesnt deal with mucus well. So the baby was up and running, he wasnt into the nap thing today, thankfully my husband had some things to do outside and took the baby with him! YAY! So I jumped back on the treadmill to finish my run. My last 10 mile run was 2 months ago when I was training for the Las Vegas half marathon. I beat my time by 26 minutes! That was a huge surprise! I am hoping this helps to jump start weight loss for me, Ive been stuck here at 160lbs forever it seems. I want to get back into the 150’s! I REALLY want to be 155 or lighter for my half marathon at the end of March.
I snacked a lot today, it was a hungry day but I kept almost everything under 20%, actually most of what I ate today was under 10%. I made pancakes for the family this morning with lite syrup, some dried pineapple for snack (I snacked on these a lot today) lunch was a whole grain bagel with pastrami, cucumbers and tomatoes with skim milk. Snacked on some more pineapple and I made enchiladas for dinner. I tried to do a low fat and meat free version for myself and a cheesey beefy goodness for the rest of the family. Mine turned out very well. I cooked some brown rice up added some black beans, corn, diced tomatoes and taco seasoning. For the family I browned some super lean ground beef and seasoned that with taco seasoning. I made some red enchilada sauce and put everything together and put cheese on top of everyones enchiladas but mine since I didnt have any low fat cheese. Once it was all cooked up I brought out the fat free sour cream and yum! It was great! I also decided to take a tip from Susan Powter and stick the left over rice in a freezer zip lock bag and stick it in the freezer. I hate making brown rice because it takes at least 45 minutes so today I made the entire bag in one shot. That should help me work brown rice into our diet more often.
Tomorrow is a rest day from working out, but I need to work on toning up my arms so Ill be doing that!
Some days it just seems like everything is against my plans. Its pretty much a daily struggle trying to find the time to get time to myself to run. When I began running I always took my kids with me, I was usually gone less than a half hour but now that I am running 4-13 miles at a time bringing the boys with me just doesnt work out well. They just wont sit for more than a half hour before fighting and screaming. Today I had 10 miles schedulled, I worked a couple extra weeks into my training schedule because it always seems that there will be a week where something will come up and I end up repeating the week. Last weekend I was supposed to do 10 miles but it didnt work out, so I redid that week on my schedule, today was supposed to be my second shot at 10 miles. My husband ended up going into work this morning to help a friend and then driving to Las Vegas to help his sister move into a new place. After I got the kids down for a nap I jumped on the treadmill, 17 minutes into my work out my 3 year old woke up, he has never been a stellar sleeper but this nap was ridiculously short. At three miles my youngest woke up and was cranky so I only got 3 miles in so far today. I was hoping my husband would be home before 10 so I could get my other 7 in before midnight since I need to work tonight. But when I spoke with him last he was still in Vegas and its looking like he wont be home till well after ten. Im hoping I can get the kids down at a decent time and fly through my remaining 7 miles as fast as my heart rate monitor will let me! The three miles I did run today went really well, my legs werent tired from my training yesterday at all. In fact I felt very strong and was really enjoying my run.
If you are starting to work out this has got to be one of the most important items to buy as a woman! If you are running first its shoes, if you screw that up you’ll really pay for it! Finding the best sports bra can be really expenisive! Since I started running a year ago I went from a DD to a B! Hey thats what 50+ pounds and weaning a baby will do! My personal favorite bra is the Champion double dry with underwire . This one cant be beat! When I was bigger chested I paired it with a champion action tech bra. The two of them definatly kept things from moving. It also created a handy pocket for my mace and cel phone, and later I even kept gels in there. Ive also gotten some really awesome reviews from my female runner friends for the Frog Bra, Fiona Bra by Moving Comfort. I havent tried any of them because Ive been happy since I found my champion double dry underwire ones. I just re-ordered, in yet another smaller size!