Weekly Recap, Fro-Yo and Ice Cream!

Happy Monday Everybody!!  
This weekend seemed to fly by so quickly and now it's back to work for me!

I had another decent week and things are continuing to improve. It was another 31 mile week, (31.62) to be exact, and each run was decent. Not fast, not slow, but just right where I need to be. I went for a 13.12 mile run on Saturday morning. I had planned on 13 miles but you know how us runners just have to push for that extra .10 for some reason or another. The sun was out and it was already 70 degrees when I left my house at 6am. I was sweating the entire time but it was a great workout and the longest distance I have ran just for the heck of it.

I am going to shoot for a 15 miles long run this week if I am able.  I am anxious to see if I can do it. The current plan is to increase my mileage as much as I can and see how my body tolerates it. Getting back into running since my injury has been somewhat of a challenge since I don't want to re-injure myself so "easy does it."

After my long run on Saturday, I treated myself to Yogurtland because I felt that I deserved it or maybe that was just an excuse to go. They had so many new and yummy flavors and I sampled each and every one of them.  They were all so good and I topped mine off with a ton of almonds just the way I like it!  I didn't take a picture of my bowl because I was so anxious to eat it that I forgot!

I heard that it was National Ice Cream Day yesterday?  Did you celebrate and get your ice cream? I planned on it but ate too much lunch and couldn't make room for it.

What is your longest scheduled run for this week?

Three Things Thursday

1. Sorry Speed Workout but I will be turkey trotting!  I am so in love with doing speed workouts that I decided to run two Turkey Trots (5K's) instead of doing my speed workout next week.  I will be trotting on Thanksgiving Day and then I will be trotting again on Saturday. This is just my way of justifying all of the feasting that I will be taking part in.  I will trot before I eat to ease the guilt and and then I will trot again on Saturday to justify it even further! I am so thankful for Honeybaked because they will be cooking the hard stuff for me while I am out running.  My family loves their ham the best anyway so why bother if they are already happy!

2. I swore that I would not buy another thing from lululemon for a long time but I lied!  I bought the cutest running skirt today!  I wore a lululemon running skirt in the 10K that I ran last week and I loved it so much that I bought another!  I thought it would feel weird to run in a skirt but I didn't even notice I had a skirt on and it was super comfy. Since I earned an instant PR I thought I better reward myself and went ahead and did the damage!

Source

3.Today is my day off from my training! Amen! I am so excited because I am absolutely exhausted!  I am not sure what I am going to do with myself tonight since a large part of my evenings are committed to training. Maybe I will head on over to Yogurtland and try out some of the new seasonal flavors they posted on their website! Have you tried them yet?

Speedwork, Tacos and Great Deals!

Thank you to everyone who replied to my post about change needed in my training plan!  SPEEDWORK seems to be the most common response to the questions. I am taking your great advice and will now be incorporating speedwork into my training starting this week!  I have a new training plan that I will be following for my next marathon in February, 2012 and believe me, speedwork is definitely a part of it.  I am optimistic that I will see some improvement which will result in a marathon PR!

My long run this week was for a whole 13 miles.  It was the longest run I have completed since my marathon on October 9th.  It felt good to get back out there and start working towards another goal that will bring me a little bit closer to my goal of a BQ.  I am not sure how long I will be chasing Boston but I am determined to get there someday!

My Friday night was pretty fun.  The whole gang took the 45 minute trip to eat carne asada tacos at our favorite taco truck, El Taquito!  I used to live out that way so I grew up eating these tacos.  I ate four tacos and had an agua de pina(pineapple water) to wash it all down. It was delish and then we finished the night off at Yogurtland.  We actually hit up two locations in search of different flavors that we had never tried before. We did find Kona Coffee Blend, Taro and Matcha Green Tea, so my husband took advantage of these flavors and the rest of us waited until the next stop to get ours since they did not have two of my favorites. I had my usual, Red Velvet Cupcake Batter, Devil's Food Cupcake Batter and Pistachio topped off with almonds and walnuts! My daughter and her boyfriend had never been to Yogurtland before so they over-indulged.  Can you guess which ones belong to them?

Buster is still here and boy did he have a surprise waiting for us when we got home on Friday night.  I usually leave him in the garage when I am going to gone for a while but on Friday night he was not having it. When we got home we discovered that Buster had bitten his way through the security screen door and made his way into the house.  I am not sure how he did it but he did!! He did some damage to his little mouth so I think we got the message...Buster wants to be in the house and not the garage! We have been honoring his request as long as he stays in his designated area and he has been good so far.



Buster destroyed the security screen door!!

Notice the redness around his mouth!  Poor Buster!

Buster was hiding out after that episode!!

Other than Buster's incident, I had a pretty relaxing weekend and did my long run in Bonelli Park early Saturday morning which resulted in a pretty lazy Sunday. I missed church and stayed in bed watching David Tutera's "My Fair Wedding."  I think I might have even fallen asleep for a bit here and there!  I can't wait to see Chic Runner's wedding on the show which is due to air in February, 2012. 

Deal of the week!

After my run on Saturday, I took care of all my errands like grocery shopping, pet food shopping and the boys got their haircut.  I also stopped by Kohl's to see what they had and ended up scoring a pretty good deal on some Nike running shorts. They were on clearance for $6.00 and I had a coupon for another 30% off, which resulted in a pretty good deal...$4.20 each!  DEAL!!  I was pretty excited about it since running clothes can be pretty pricey in the absence of a good sale or coupon.

I am excited that the weather has finally decided to cool down a little bit this week since it makes my training a little easier.  The temperature has been in the upper 80's to low 90's lately so the change is appreciated. 

Have a great week!

Matthew Myers Memorial Run-My First 5K

I have always kind of avoided running 5K's because I am a slow starter and need time to get my body going. Having that said, I was thinking that my 5K finishing time would be disappointing so it may not be worth doing.  Since I have been mentally kicking around the idea of signing up for a 5K, I finally gave in and signed up for one.  I registered for a really small, local race with 906 total participants.  The race was held in memory of Matt Myers, a Cal Poly student who was hit by a car on the campus. 

The race also benefits a scholarship fund for Cal Poly Pomona students so those were the main reasons I decided to participate.  Did I mention that it was only $15.00?  They gave t-shirts and a tumbler but medals were only given to the top three finishers in each age group.

The race was scheduled to start at 8am so I left my house at 6:30am to get some oatmeal at Starbucks before the race.  I arrived at the campus around 7:00am and sat in my car and ate my breakfast.  It was a short two minute walk to the registration area, which was nice, so I picked up my bib and waited it out. The weather was pretty cool, about 60 degrees, and the sun was still hiding behind the clouds. The campus is very hilly so I was kind of prepared for a somewhat challenging course. 

They announced that the race was going to start ten minutes late since they had lots of late registrations so I took one last trip to the bathroom.  It was a real bathroom too...thank God because I hate the portables!



Cal Poly mascot "Billy Bronco" cheered us on!



This was the START.

The first mile was uphill and it worked me out to say the least. My pace up until the steepest part of the hill was 7:30 but I didn't want to kill myself so I slowed it down. I lost a lot of speed getting up that hill and ended up at 7:54.  I grabbed a cup of water from the one and only water stop on the course, stretched out my injured leg and kept going. Mile two started to descend so I was able to gain some of the lost time back and closed out mile 2 at 7:30.  The last mile was the hardest because I was already feeling a bit tired and thirsty!  I usually carry my own water but since it was only a 5K I figured that I could survive without it.  I gave it my all in the end and closed mile 3 out at 7:43.  I finished in 24:16.  One of current Running Goals is to complete a 5K in under 24:00 so I missed that goal by 17 seconds.  I wasn't at all disappointed because I didn't have any real expectations in mind with my achilles still feeling a little tender. I was actually prepared to walk if I my body told me that I needed to. I grabbed some water and some oranges and rested for a minute. They also offered free hot dogs but I am not a big hot dog fan so I passed.

I stuck around for the awards ceremony since they were raffling off an iPad 2 at the very end.  I watched the military guys doing push up and sit up contests to pass the time since I was by myself.

Unfortunately I didn't win the iPad 2 but I did finish first in my age group!! I was super shocked when they called my name since my time was not very impressive!! I feel like I got lucky because it was such a small race but hey I will take it. It's always nice to add another medal to your collection! I need some positive reinforcement in my running world after my disappointing finish in Long Beach last week. I am not sure if I should count this one or not, but one of my Running Goals is to win a race in my age group and I did! I think I will count it since my running moral is kind of low right now!

I decided to treat myself to Yogurtland after the race.  I sampled just about every flavor they had since I had never been there before.  Every flavor was so delish but I ended up going with Red Velvet Cupcake Batter, Devil's Food Cupcake Batter, Mango,  and Pistachio. I added pecans and walnuts on top and it was so yummy.  Yogurtland was really reasonably priced so I think I will take a break from my expensive cupcake habit and try the fro-yo thing.  There are so many other flavors that I want to try the next time I go....which would probably be tomorrow!



Yes, we indulged!

Have a great week!!