Early Morning Run

This morning I woke up at the crack of dawn, literally.  I was up at 5am to fit in my 3 mile run before work.  I had looked at the weather the day before trying to figure out if I should run before work or after work, knowing that I could not do another treadmill run after my 7.  Well the morning was about 20 degrees cooler than the 100 degree afternoon, so it was a prety easy decision. The hard part was waking up, but I did it.

Miserable haha.  Even though it was 5am, it was horribly humid outside and I came back drenched. I stood in front of the rotating fan for about 10 minutes trying to stop sweating before I got in the shower.

Splits:

Mile 1: 10.01

Mile 2: 9.27

Mile 3: 9.20

Now that my run is out of the way, it's What I Ate Wednesday!

Breakfast:

I added a little more substance to my usual overnight oats by adding 1/2 scoop of protein powder and 1/3 cup oats instead of 1/4 cup. I had a busy morning at work and really needed this to last.

Snack:

Blurry KIND bar. Too busy shoving it into my mouth!

Lunch:

Spinach salad with....celery, broccoli, carrots, blueberries, strawberries, craisins, blue cheese, hummus and black beans.  YUM.  I also had a peice of a CLIF Builders protein bar.

Snack:

Before I left work I ate an apple and some whole wheat pretzels. 

Dinner:

Wrap with slow cooker buffalo chicken, blue cheese mixture (blue cheese, greek yogurt and white vinegar) and spinach leaves. With some Summer Black Bean and Corn Salad on the side.

Snack:

Mini Cookie Dough Blizzard. I love the mini blizzards at DQ. They are the perfect size!

Fitness:

Monday: 7 miles (check)

Tuesday: Abs/Arms weights with light leg work (check)

Wednesday: 3 miles (check)

Thursday: Rest
Friday: 4 miles on the beach

Saturday: 3 miles on the beach

Sunday: Rest

Matt and I leave for OBX tomorrow afternoon! Hoping to fit in the rest of my week of half marathon training while we are there. Love running on the beach! I'm hoping I can convince my sister to run with me!



7 MILES!!!

Today after work I ran 7 miles for the first time in my life!  The whole day I was going back and forth about if I should run outside or not. When I got out of work the heat index was around 96 degrees.  It was so humid out today and I was honestly worried about passing out if I had to run for over an hour in the heat. I opted for the....dreadmill instead.  I definitely wasn't the most pleasant experience, but I finished, and that's all that really matters.

I finished 7 miles in 1 hour 8 minutes and 45 seconds (9.49 pace).  This was a bit slower than I wanted to go, but I had to stop and walk for a couple seconds at mile 5.5 because I was getting a cramp in my side. I brought a water bottle mixed with half water and half coconut water to drink while I was running.

Love this stuff!!

When I got home I was starving.  I whipped up the quickest high protein meal I could think of. I cooked 2 eggs with some cheddar cheese in the middle.  Put that on top of half a deli flat with hummus. I also made a smoothie with half a scoop of protein powder, strawberries, half a banana, handful of spinach, coconut milk and a spoonfull of cottage cheese. Yea that's a lot for a little smoothie haha.

Simple dinner but it hit the spot.

After dinner I showered off and was looking at all my war wounds from the warrior dash. The right side of my body got beat up.

The one on the right side of my knee is going to be a doosy when it comes in all the way.  Don't judge our blue blue bathroom haha. Can't wait to remodel that thing!

I'm off to watch some of the crossfit games with Matt.  The one thing that the warrior dash made me want to do even more is CrossFit!!! After we are done our half marathon I think we are going to give it a try.  It's on the fitness bucketlist!



My First Mud Run!!!

Yesterday Matt and I and two of our friends drove to Morristown, NJ for the Warrior Dash!! I started our my race day morning with a big smoothie:

1/2 frozen banana, 1 container vanilla chobani, blueberries, strawberries, 2 tbsp of PB2 (I'll talk about this later in the week), splash coconut milk.

Lunch:

Egg whites, spinach, zucchini, squash and cheese!  Apple on the side.

Then we were off.  We drove 2.5 hours and got to the race 1.5 hours early. On their website we were told to get there an hour early. Boy am I glad we got there when we did. We parked our car and then got in line for the shuttle to the race area. This is when we saw our first obstacle of the day:

We waited in this line for an entire hour until we finally got on a bus.

When we finally got to the actual race, we had about 20 minutes to check in and get our bibs, go to the bathroom and check our bags.  Lets just say it didn't happen. Instead of starting at 3:30, we started at 4.  This race was really poorly organized. Matt and I were both really frustrated by the time we finally reached the starting line.  All that frustration went out the door when we started our 3.2 mile run.  Most of the run was through the wood and most of the obstacles were at the beginning and end of the race. Here are some pictures that Matt got of a few of the obstacles.

I loved the obstacles! They were so much fun and I definitely woke up sore this morning.  The run was a little harder. There were some huge hills to go up and they were pretty difficult with mud and rocks caked in your shoes.

We Made It!!

We got these sweet hats along with our medals and a tshirt (that Matt is sporting). Other than a couple scrapes and bruises I made our pretty well. 

Week Setup:

This week is going to be a little different for my running schedule.  Matt and I are heading to OBX on Thursday, so we want to try to get our long runs in before we leave. The weather looks....horrible this week. Every day is in the mid 90's.  So here is what I'm going for:

Monday: 7 miles (later run around 6pm)

Tuesday: Strength and Crosstrain

Wednesday: 4 miles on the treadmill

Thursday: Rest

Friday: 3 miles on the beach

Saturday: 3 miles on the beach

Sunday: Rest and drive home

I skipped a running day from my training plan today so that I could do my long run tomorrow and not be dead. Instead I went to the gym this morning for some stregth work and crosstraining.  I started out my workout by doing this arm workout:

Repeat 2x:

Barbell Bicep Curls (10lbs)

Dips

Front Shoulder Raises (8lbs)

Hammer Curls (10lbs)

Lying Tricep Extension (10lbs)

Upright Row (15lbs)

Crossbody Hammer Curls (10lbs)

Overhead Tricep Extension (10lb)

Side Shoulder Raises (8lb)

After completing this I did 15 minutes of ab work and then moved to the elliptical for 25 minutes before heading home. 

It's currently pouring and starting to storm so I'm going to go before I get electricuted!



Free Things Friday

Hi everyone! Happy Friday! Today was definitely the day of free stuff. I stopped by Starbucks after lunch to get my free Refresher

It was alright. Everyone in my office agreed that it had a weird aftertaste. I think I'll stick to coffee for now.

Matt also hit up some freebees today. He dressed like a cow and got a free chick fil a meal out of it.

That is my husband ladies and gentlemen, be jealous haha.

After work I ran to the grocery store and then did a quick workout when I got home before Matt started dinner on the grill.  My workout included the awesome ab workout I did yesterday from Pinterest. 

For dinner Matt grilled himself a double cheeseburger and grilled me a yummy veggie burger

Plopped my veggie burger on a salad and then had some sweet potato wedges that I cooked earlier in the week. We started out eating outside, but the bugs were just too much so we finished our meal at the dining room table.

Skinny Pina Colada: coconut water, pineapple juice and coconut rum. 

After dinner we ran some errands and then went to main st. for our friday treat

Peanut butter and chocolate foyo with strawberries and dark chocolate chips.

We are just sitting down now to watch 21 Jump Street and then we are going to get ourselves ready for tomorrow. We will be traveling to Morristown, NJ (about 2.5 hours) tomorrow with our friends Pat and Beth to compete in a Warrior Dash.  This is basically a mud run on crack.  We will be jumping over fire, climbing up walls, all that good stuff. And then afterwards we get a beer and a turkey leg haha.  I signed up for their facebook updates so hopefully I'll get some good pictures out of the deal!



Hey everyone! Just one more day to go until the end of the week!  Today was definitely a success because I had a great run after work. I was worried about the heat with it being in the 90s, so I decided to go music-less and carry a water bottle with my keys instead.  I actually liked running without my music today which I usually hate.  I did however learn my lesson about keeping my gym bag in my car all day:

Melted deodorant. Gross.  I really need to remember to bring my bag in with me to work. 

My Splits: 

Mile 1: 9.49

Mile 2: 9.46

Mile 3: 9.34

Mile 4: 9.29

Average pace: 9.40

When I got home I made the quickest dinner I could think of.  Shrimp Coconut Curry!!!

Shrimp, lots of veggies and brown rice in a yummy thai coconut curry sauce.

After dinner I was feeling a little antsy, so I randomly decided to do this ab workout that I found on pinterest. You do each move 25 times and by then end you reach 300 reps. My abs were on fire!! But it felt great when I finished!

Just so you all know, starbucks is handing out free samples of their new drink tomorrow, the Starbucks Refresher! I'm intrigued. It's made with green coffee beans, but doesn't taste like coffee.  I'm willing to try anything if it's free!

Think I'm going to go with the verry berry hibiscus.  Thehy are pretty low in calories too. I think I saw on their website that a grande is around 70 calories.  They are caffeinated like coffee, but taste fruity. YUM.

Off to go pour myself a glass of wine. Man am I my father's daughter. 



Avocado's Are So Hot Right Now

The title of my post should obviously be said in the same voice as Zoolander saying "Hansel is so hot right now." Hopefully you guys have a strange sense of humor like myself and love all those pointless movies.  Happy Wednesday by the way. This Wednesday is another What I Ate Wednesday!

I'm warning you all ahead of time, I had a major dinnertime picture fail aka my phone sucks and chooses when it wants to save or delete pictures all on it's own. Just another reason I want an IPhone.

Breakfast:

I was going to make another smoothie today like yesterday, but I needed something to hold me over a bit longer for a long morning so I went with overnight oats instead. The smoothies will definitely be coming back this weekend though! Mid morning I snacked on half a KIND bar to hold me over until lunch.

Lunch was totally random.  I really didn't feel like making anything so I scrounged our fridge for anything I could find that was already cooked. I had some leftover Summer Black Bean and Corn Salad along with sweet potato wedges and almond butter.  After eating this I was still hungry so I had an apple as well.

This took me until about 3pm when I had my pre volleyball snack.

Banana and mini clif bar.

We had volleyball at 5:30, got out around 6:40 and went to Wawa for dinner.  I was STARVING.  I ordered a sandwhich on wheat bread with turkey, cucumbers, tomatoes, onions, spinach and AVOCADO!! This is a new addition to Wawa's list of toppings. I personally think they are just trying to take some of Subway's ideas.

Man they are really working it right now.  So why so popular??

"Perhaps the biggest health benefit of avocados is that by adding avocado to certain foods, you can improve your absorption of nutrients. This means that when you combine other fat burning foods with avocado, you can improve your nutrient absorption up to 400%!

Avocados provide many general health benefits, in addition to its fat burning benefits due to its vitamin E and glutathione, which protects you against tons of diseases including several forms of cancer, heart disease, diabetes, and cholesterol.

Avocados also help reduce the signs of aging, regulate blood sugar and promote eye health."

source

Unfortunately, this is right when my camera decided to fail. I took the picture. I know I took the picture, but my phone didn't feel like automatically saving it like all the rest of the picture I've taken.  Anywayss....picture my dinner:

1/2 of my sammi (saving the other half for tomorrow)

mixture of blueberries and strawberries

mixture of broccoli, carrots and peas with humus

Dessert:

Scoop of peanut butter and chocolate. YUM

I have 4 miles to run tomorrow after work!!  I'm going to go do some stretches to try and loosen up my hips for tomorrow.



Trying To Find My Stride

I started my morning off right with a big old smoothy!

In the mix:

1/2 frozen banana

1 container vanilla chobani

strawberries

blueberries

coconut milk

YUM.  The rest of my day flew by. Before I knew it I was off to Glasgow Park for my long run of the week. I had 6 miles to do and I was determined to do them well. The first 3 miles went by really fast. Then I got HOT.  I got lucky that the sun wasn't out, but the humidity was there to stay.  I stopped every couple of miles to chug some water from my water belt. 

Splits:

Mile 1: 9.59

Mile 2: 9.44

Mile 3: 9.47

Mile 4: 9.41

Mile 5: 10.00 (having issues with my Garmin)

Mile 6: 9.48

At mile 5 I had some issues with my Garmin. It kept saying lap error. So I ended up having to stop and reset my watch for a new run for my last mile.

When I finished I was kind of feeling like crap. My hips were really tight.  I'm did some major stretching when I got home. And took a long shower to get rid of my sweat.

Leg Sweat. Yum

When I got home, dinner was already ready to go thanks to our crockpot.

Pot roast with carrots and fingerling potatoes.

salad on the side

I'm hoping that next week's long run goes a little better than this weeks.  But at least I finished!