Sunday 10/12/11
Last Sunday, we did a 12 mile run. The day before I had a full day of teaching class, shuttling Sevannah to and from a birthday party while Jazper had a playdate. It wasn't a good food day and I was exhausted! So waking up on Sunday thinking about 12 miles was not super exciting. Cathy B was driving that day so she picked me up and we headed out to Analy High School to meet our other friend, Cathy W. It was a nice cool morning, but it was a hard run. I felt sluggish and my right foot kept cramping. I was so happy when it was over, simply because it was over! The end of the run had us at 12.0 miles at a 11:18 average pace, which was slightly faster than what my training schedule had me doing today. My heart rate average was on the lower end of the range I was suppose to be in, so according to the numbers, it was a good run. I only wish I felt a little better about it.
We grabbed coffee afterwards and I showed Cathy B. around Sebastopol after we had our coffee because she was going to start watching my kids on Wednesday afternoons and that involves picking Sevannah up from school.
After she dropped me off at home, I made myself some breakfast. It tasted so good! I had an omelet with mushrooms, peppers, zucchini and jack cheese; a yummy muffin that Cathy B has made, and of course, bacon! I'm kind of partial to bacon - good, crispy, bacon!
The rest of the day consisted of getting some things done around the house. It was nice to have an afternoon at home.
Monday 10/10/11
One thing I love about the kids having a Monday off of school is sleeping in! Normally, I am up by 6:00am, and if I am running early in the morning, I am up around 5:00am. So the chance to sleep in is something I covet. This was one of those days. I slept until about 8:00am, when Jazper came in and crawled in bed with me. Around 8:15 am Sevannah joined us. They kids only stayed a in bed with me for a few more minutes, and then they headed into the living room to play, leaving me to stay relaxed in bed until 9:00 am when they came in saying they were hungry and wanted breakfast.
After breakfast, they played while I did some paper work for a client I had to see later in the week. At work, that afternoon, I did some light strength training, mainly through demonstrations, with my two groups.
Tuesday 10/11/11
Tuesday = recovery run day. I almost always run this with Cathy B. Today we had our friend, Teja, join us. It was great to have her along! Between mine and Cathy's training schedules, we were suppose to do 2 - 5 miles at a nice, slower pace. We ended up doing 3.77 miles at an average pace of 10:44, which as usual, was a little fast for the day! Cathy and I have a really hard time slowing down our pace when we run together.
After chatting for a bit after the run, I went about my "normal" Tuesday schedule - Acupuncture, helping in Sevannah classroom, driving the Kindergarten carpool, taking Jazper to piano lessons (this was his 2nd one) and then driving the later carpool as well. After dropping off the last child in the carpool, I dragged my kids to the grocery store so I could get some items I needed for dinner. My best friend, Amy, was going to watch the kids while James and I went to a Parent Meeting for Sevananh's class that night. I made two different lasagnas - one marinara one with regular lasagna noodles and then one pasta-less chicken pesto one. I used swiss chard instead of lasagna noodles because Amy is mainly eating Gluten Free and I am also experimenting with different ways to get more fruits, vegetables and beans in my daily diet to make sure my body is getting what it needs as I ramp up my running for this Marathon. It came out so incredibly good!
The meeting was LONG! We didn't get home from it until 9:15 pm so I was exhausted. The best part though was that Amy, being the super star Auntie that she is, had the kids in bed and they were asleep!!!! Woohoo!!! That made it easier for me to take care of a few minor things and get to bed almost on time.
Wednesday 10/12/11
I woke up feeling like a zombie. I could not seem to fully wake up which was not making me happy because this was my longest day of the week last week.
I drove the morning carpool, went home and prepped my things for lunch, work (it was lecture day so I had to bring my laptop and have my presentation ready to go), my client folder to see a client before the run, and a change of clothes because I was going to run right before I had to leave town to drive to work.
Once everything was packed and ready, I headed over to Cathy B's work and we headed out for a run. Our training schedule had us doing a longer run, about 5-6miles, today but we wanted to do a longer run than our training schedules called for, so we shortened today's run. It was about 11:15am before we got running and it was HOT! We did 3.0 miles at a 9:41 pace. I didn't feel like I was awake and fully into my running zone until the last mile, which was frustrating because at that point the run is basically over. Oh well! At least we got it done.
After cooling down and stretching, I changed and headed to work. I presented my lecture and then taught two yoga classes. We were working on our balancing series so I did a lot of demonstrating. It all added up to me probably doing one whole class. All I know is that by the end of work, I was so ready to curl up on the couch and relax, but I had to drive home, make dinner, give the kids a bath and get them in bed before I could relax. And instead of relaxing, I went to bed.
Thursday 10/13/11
Fountain Mountain Day! That is the name Cathy B gave one of our runs that I came up with over the summer because I wanted to try a new route and I wanted it to be a hill challenge. Our training schedules for the day called for 4 - 5 miles with hills, but we shortened out Wednesday run so we could do Fountain Mountain which is approximately 6.60 miles, the first 3.5 which is pretty much all uphill! Here's a link to my Garmin read out of our run. Check out that elevation chart!!
Fountain Mountain by annad83 at Garmin Connect - Details
After the run, I headed home to shower and make lunch for Sevannah's teacher. After picking the kids up from school, we went home and I worked on some stuff and the kids played. I had been hoping for a nap but that didn't happen. I also had to field some phone calls, one of which was about my Grandpa. They just found out that he has prostate cancer. The news was that it's all contained in the prostate. That combined with his "young" age (he's 71) is good news. He had some appointments to go to to learn more in the coming week, so now it's just a waiting game as they figure out what the best treatment options will be for him.
That night, I went and worked with a client for an hour. We went over form on lunges again because she wasn't feeling confident about her form, so I did a bunch of lunges with her. I definitely felt the hills from that morning's run!
Friday 10/14/11
I woke up with a goal for the day - reclaim the bathtub in the kids' bathroom. We remodeled out master bedroom at the beginning of last year due to a mold issue. When we did this, we gutted the room down to the studs so we could rearrange the layout of the room. It's 90% complete - we don't have a built in closet. James, my husband, has been planning on getting our new closet built but life has had other plans for us. So for over a year now, my closet has been the kids' bathtub. But now, as our Sunday runs are getting longer, I need t be able to take an ice bath after the longer runs. Ice baths help reduce the inflammation in the leg muscles which helps them recover faster and reduces soreness & injury. It's not super fun to sit in a bath tub filled with cold water and 5 pounds of ice up to your waist, but it is necessary and helps me feel so much better.
So after getting the kids to carpool, I went back home, took care of some business emails and assessed what I would need to get in order to get my clothes out of the "bathtub closet". With a few ideas in mind, I headed down to Bed, Bath & Beyond and gathered what I thought I would need. Back at home with my goods, I started assembling the clothes rack I purchased, only to have one of the caster wheels break! So I un-assembled it as much as possible and headed back down to Bed, Bath & Beyond and exchanged it for a new one. The new one went together just fine. With a place to hang my clothes I started the process of moving and purging everything in the "bathtub closet". I was almost done with it all by the time I had to head to work. I finished it that evening when I got home from work. The end result....
3 bags of purged clothes and one box of purged shoes to give to Amy (she's collecting items to send to women in need in Kenya)
A useable bathtub...
And a new "closet" in our bedroom.
Saturday 10/15/11
It was Partner Day for Outdoor Family Fitness Class. There was an odd number of people so I had to partner with one of them. It felt good to get some light strength training in. It mainly focused on upper body and core, but we had a little leg work too. After class, we all went to coffee and sat and talked for a bit. I couldn't stay very long because we had to get home and get ready for my Great Uncle Pete's 90th birthday party.
We arrived at the party at 2:00pm when it was suppose to start. A few people were already there, but a bunch of people we still not there. It was great to see a lot of family that we haven't seen in many, many years. We were waiting in the bar area of The Union Hotel in Occidental, and it was hot and loud. By the time everyone was there and we were seated in the banquet room, the kids were starving, and so was I. Speeches were made, songs were sung, and then food was served. Now, when you have 40 plus people all in one room, trying to have conversations, it gets loud and hot. I have some noise sensitivity issues that makes it hard to be in a situation like this. After eating, I went outside to get a break from the noise. When I came back in, Jazper wanted to go for a walk. So I went back outside with him and we walked around Occidental for a few minutes. When we went back in, he decided he wanted to go for another walk, so we did. At this point, Sevannah was also ready to go and the noise was getting worse, making it really hard for me to stay in the room. So we said our goodbyes and headed home.
Once home we all decompressed for a couple hours. The kids played quietly and James & I curled up on the couch and caught up one some shows we had recorded on the DVR. Around 8:00pm I started prepping my things for the next morning. We had a 14 mile run on the schedule and we're running it up in Healdsburg so that Cathy W could see some parts of the course she would be running on October 29 for a half marathon. By 9:00pm I was in bed so that I would be ready for that 5:00am alarm the next morning.
Conclusion
So there you have it - Week 5 - all done. One thing I was curious about was how much I had really done in the last 5 weeks. So one thing I did was add up all my runs in the last 5 weeks. This is actually easy to do with my Garmin! In the last five weeks I have:
Ran 129 miles
Total Time Running 23.5 hours
Total Calories Burned 14, 812 (this equals 4.25 lbs of fat!)
With this information in hand, I weighed myself at work Friday afternoon. I do not own a scale because I don't like them. I think people give the numbers on the scale too much power over their feelings in regards to weight-loss goals. It's more important to focus on how you feel and how your clothes fit. So I only weigh myself about once a month, to make sure that I'm maintaining, or losing, depending on my activity level and goals. Since we started officially training for the marathon, I had lost a solid 4 lbs! It's nice to know that all the changes I have made in my food choices and my sleep schedule while increasing my training is paying off.
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