Friday, April 28, 2017

T.G.I.F x a million!

So this week sucked. Not running-wise but everything else wise. Running was actually not too bad this week. This morning I did a 4 mile run with Mimi...


Yesterday (Thursday) I did a one mile run to keep up the run streak...

On Wednesday I ran with Mimi again and we did a 4 mile run...

On Tuesday I did a 4 mile run with Jani...

And (finally) on Monday I did a slow & steady solo 5K run...

This week was a big change from the past few weeks of mostly one mile daily runs. And the increased mileage secured a 5 day 10,000 steps/day streak for me...

So really not a bad running week, but a really busy and stressful week otherwise. And while running went well, swimming did not. As in... I did not swim. Not once 😔. You would never guess I have a swimming event next weekend based on my lack of proper swim training. Sigh. It's funny (well not really) but I have no motivation to swim when I'm stressed out. Running is definitely a stress reliever for me. But swimming? Swimming just isn't the same. 

But the fact is I have a swimming event in 8 days and I. AM. NOT. READY. And I won't be until my swims look as smooth and easy like this...
How was your training this week?

What are your weekend plans?

What's next on your race calendar?

Saturday, April 22, 2017

Time Will Tell...

Ragnar training is exhausting...


Today I ran a 10K at my goal pace of 11:30 min/mile...

And tomorrow the plan is to run another 10K (at a minimum) with a goal pace of sub-12 min/mile; because the best way to train for Ragnar is to simulate the back-to-back long runs that will take place during the actual race. My legs will be tired but I'm more concerned about the blisters on my feet 😒. Plus, for the last few weekends my "plans" for long runs haven't quite worked out the way I've wanted them to. So I'm being cautiously optimistic about tomorrow.

May is definitely going to be a busy month because I have three events... and two of them are on the same day! Both the Wings for Life World Run and Swim Miami are on May 7th...


Training for Wings for Life and Swim Miami are all a part of my training for Ragnar Niagara (which is a few weeks after) and will hopefully give me a good base for when I start marathon training at the end of May.

I have a tentative Berlin-to-Chicago marathon training plan in mind which will allow me to practice only having a week off in between long runs (which is how far apart the two marathons are this year). The training plan calls for 4 days of running (Tues, Wed, Thurs & Sat). However, because I am doing a running streak this year I'm going to decrease the assigned mileage for the Tuesday-Thursday runs by one mile each day. So since week 1 of the training calls for 19 miles broken up over 4 runs...

I'll change that to 19 miles broken up over 7 runs...

Spreading things out a bit will also ensure that I don't overdo it and help me stick to the plan (at least that's my goal). Sundays will be my swimming days and I will try and do strength training on Tuesday and Thursday. This will allow me to have both Monday and Friday as my "easy" days (which seems like the best approach for the beginning and end of my work week). So ultimately my Week 1 of marathon training will look something like this...

What do you guys think of my proposed training plan?

How was your training this week?

What are your plans for the weekend?

Sunday, April 16, 2017

If This Nursing Thing Doesn't Work Out...

At Kai's Painting with a Twist (without the "twist") 16th birthday celebration yesterday, I tapped into my inner artist and created a masterpiece. Well maybe not a masterpiece, but it was pretty decent. We all started with a blank canvas...

And throughout the event we worked on building our own creative works of art. We started with the basics...

Then we added layers and dimensions...

My finished product was my "in case nursing doesn't work out the way I planned" back up career plan...

We all put our own spin on our paintings and at the end of the day everyone had a great time....
... including the birthday girl whose least favorite part was being the center of attention (so I'll resist posting all the pictures from the birthday cake cutting session 😉).

This morning's run didn't go as planned, thanks to blister pain and lack of sleep. And since the rest of my morning was busy with church for Easter Sunday, and the rest of my day will be busy with family activities (and occasionally watching a show on Hulu), I'll have to incorporate extra miles on my runs during this upcoming week. Even though the full six miles didn't get completed, I was still able to run my one mile minimum for my daily streak...

Happy Easter! (for all who celebrate)

How was your training/running this weekend?

Have you ever done Painting with a Twist (or any other version of this concept)?

Saturday, April 15, 2017

Four Miles Later...

My run this morning went well. Before I started I decided to aim for an 11:30 min/mile average pace and to try and maintain a conservative effort. The desire for the conservative effort was because I felt a "twinge" in my left knee yesterday and I didn't want to push too hard considering I also have a longish run on Sunday. And I decided to do intervals (run 3 minutes: walk 30 seconds) for the entire 4 miles because I figured that would help with the conservative effort (plus it gives my legs a well needed break).

I'm happy to report that my effort did feel conservative AND I pulled off a sub-11 minute pace!

I never thought I would see the day that a sub-11 min/mile pace would feel conservative... especially for a distance longer than a mile 😊...

It would have been great to have gotten negative splits but that pesky mile four messed it up for me 😒...

The only not so great thing about the run was that I got a really bad blister on the bottom of my right big toe...
(just imagine this is me with black curly hair, darker skin, and pain to the other big toe 😉)

The blister is not going to be fun when I run tomorrow but I'm hoping I can still get my 6 miles in. It's Easter Sunday so I need to schedule my run before church, with enough time to get home and get ready to go to church. 

Later on I will be off to Kai's painting party for part 2 of her birthday celebration. She chose a nice sunset landscape scene to paint...
It will be fun to see what the "after" paintings look like once everyone is done. One of my favorite things about the painting party concept is that we all get to keep our paintings as a nice keepsake from Kai's 16th birthday celebration. It's kind of like a really great grown up version of a birthday party "goodie bag" 😉. 

Have you ever been to a painting party?

Do you get blisters when you run?

What's your current "conservative" pace?

Friday, April 14, 2017

Minimum Expectations...

Now that the blogging streak is over I've really been struggling to meet the minimum expectations that I set for myself. Granted, it has been a very busy couple of weeks... but that's life right? At least that's my life. I don't remember the last time I had a week where I thought "Oh I really wish I had more to do" 😉. Despite having my plan to do a post yesterday (and even starting one yesterday) things just didn't quite work out that way...

I take some comfort in the fact that I've at least been keeping up the minimum expectations with my running streak...

As the countdown to Ragnar continues my team has been losing runners (for very valid reasons) and as of right now my total mileage has increased from ~15 miles to ~26 miles. Training needs to start ramping up 💪. I have 4 more weekends that will facilitate "real" training for Ragnar (including this weekend but not including the weekend before Ragnar). The weekend before Ragnar is my birthday weekend so my runs won't involve a lot of mileage. And to be honest that works out well because I should be tapering the weekend before a race anyway 😉. 

So with only 4 training weekends left I need to work my way up to running 26 miles (over the course of 3 back-to-back weekend runs). My potential training schedule for the upcoming four weekends looks like this:
1. Saturday 4 miles; Sunday 6 miles = 10 miles (I should've run more than 1 mile this morning 😞) 
2. Friday 4 miles; Saturday 6 miles; Sunday 8 miles = 18 miles
3. Friday 4 miles; Saturday 8 miles; Sunday 10 miles = 22 miles
4. Friday 6 miles; Saturday 10 miles; Sunday 10 miles = 26 miles
And then on the weekend of my birthday & Mother's Day (May 13th & 14th) I'll just try and run as much as possible 😊. 

Do you run on your birthday?

Do you ever split up your weekend long runs?

What are your plans for this weekend?

Tuesday, April 11, 2017

Initiating Phase I

I added a few things to my reading list this month!

Both these magazines came in the mail today and they just happen to be about two of my favorite things: Trauma Nursing & Running 😊. I'm still in the middle of the novel I'm reading so I'll fit the magazines in between chapters 😉. 

This morning I ran to complete Day 101 of my run streak...

I've been trying to keep up with my morning runs this week so that I have my evenings free. This week will be just as busy as last week because, at the stroke of midnight Kai will be turning 16! In order to keep myself from drifting deep into a depressive state of denial I've been going through pictures of her, from when she was a little girl...

To still little but just not as little...

To not really little, but I'm definitely initiating Phase I of my denial that she is growing up 🙈...

Just three years ago she was embarking on her teenage years...

Three years before that she was celebrating the "double digit age" milestone...

But tomorrow she will kick off the 16th birthday celebrations which will continue straight through the weekend...

Is it just me or are the years going by too fast?

Do you read Runner's World magazine?

How has your running and training been going?

Friday, April 7, 2017

Friday's Things...

It's been a busy week with travel, conference lectures and poster presentations etc...



And even though it's been busy (and I decided not to continue the blog streak), I still feel like I'm posting less than I should be. However, in the unlikely event that I even remotely decided not to worry about my lack of posts, Facebook decided to remind me that my slacking off was noticeable...

Despite my lack of posts & updates (and my busy week) I'm still keeping up with my running streak...

And I'll have a few more days of St. Louis running before I head back to FL; during which I'll be spending my non-running time hanging out with the co-founder of my new Chicago Coalition (both Jane and I are trying to find a way to go back to Chicago)...

How was your week?

What's your favorite US city to visit? To live in?

Do you love/hate your Facebook notifications?

Tuesday, April 4, 2017

A Long Day of Travel...

(please forgive typos and other weirdness excessive weirdness cause I'm posting from my phone)

It's been a looooong day. Our flight out of FLL was delayed (really delayed) which meant we landed in ATL just as our connecting flight was pushing back from the gate. So literally, as we were taxiing to our gate, we started searching for alternatives. Delta had rebooked us on a flight leaving ATL after 8pm (we landed shortly after 2pm) but the thought of having a 6+ hour layover was daunting. So we decided to rebook on a flight leaving around 3pm with a stop in LGA (for about 2.5 hours) and then on to STL for an 8:30pm arrival time. Not ideal but certainly better than hanging out at ATL for 6 hours (even if they have the coolest ceiling art)...

While we waited for the flight out of ATL to start boarding (it was also delayed... surprise surprise) we got a quick bite to eat and I went snack shopping...

The ATL to LGA flight was going well until we hit a really bad patch of turbulence that sent my motion sickness into overdrive. And then once we landed (safely thankfully) we found out that our connecting flight was delayed by three hours...
So once again we were faced with a change to our travel plans. Sigh.

With over three hours to kill we decided to get something to eat...

The delay changed all of the plans for the day, but I'm so glad I ran in the morning before all my travel started!

I hope you're having a less eventful day than I am!

What's your favorite airline to travel on? (mine is NOT Delta 😐)

What's the maximum number of layovers you can put up with during a day of travel? (I usually max out at 2)

What airport has the best food/restaurants?