Weekend Wrap-up

24. March 2014 · 1 comment · Categories: running, sweet treats · Tags: , , , ,

It’s Sunday evening and I’m watching TV and pretending that it’s only Saturday. I’m not ready for the weekend to be over. Today was a pretty lazy day. It started with me watching a program called Yoga For Life on TV. Last week I watched it and thought about actually doing the Yoga moves but I stayed on the couch.

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This week I came one step closer and decided to DVR the series so hopefully I’ll actually implement some yoga into my life soon.

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I did a token load of laundry and got a 4 mile run in but that’s about it.

photo 4It’s been a pretty hum drum day.

Last night though was far from hum drum…I went to a favorite mexican joint with my friends. I had a glass of sangria to go along with my quesadillas and we also split the best plate of nachos ever.

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I had the shrimp quesadillas

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we slaughtered that plate of nachos.

Dessert was amazing! It was a baked carmelized apple oat square thingy with vanilla chip ice cream, whipped cream and a dusting of cinnamon. I’ve been really out of control with the sweets lately. It was just a few days ago i had that warm chocolate chip cookie thingy with gelato. (Thingy is my new word obsession I suppose). And then there was the easter candy binge on Friday.

Tomorrow I’ll try and ease up on the sweets—try being the operative word. Of course Mondays are always a good day to celebrate with a scone.

Question: What’s your favorite dessert? 

 

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10 strong miles

22. March 2014 · Write a comment · Categories: labradoodle, recreational fun, running · Tags: , , , ,

Hi there,

How’s your weekend going?

I went for a run this morning at the beach.

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i didn’t run in the sand but it makes for a prettier picture than the asphalt loop road that i did run on =)

10 strong miles. I felt really good until mile 9 when my hamstring started barking a bit, i’m currently foam rolling away. I focused a lot on my form today. Tried really hard not to heel strike. Took shorter strides. It really is amazing how that in turn gives faster paces. This was supposed to be a long slow run but after 2 miles easing into things I ended up with 6 tempo miles before slowing it up a bit at the end!

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I came home, made myself a hamburger (90% lean ground beef) on a sandwich thin and placed a slice of reduced fat chedder cheese on it. Added some greens and a little oil and vinegar and voila….I was re-fueled.

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Next up was a 2 mile walk in the woods with the pooch—our first woods walk since we officially hit Spring. I almost tripped over a twig until it started to move. Yeah, it wasn’t a twig, it was a SNAKE!!! EEEEWWWWW! Not 10 minutes later and a squirrel (must not have been healthy) ran across the path under Duncan’s legs and Duncan actually tripped over him and the squirrel rolled a few times before trying to bolt! Thank god I grabbed Duncan’s leash and held him back. It’s the closest he ever came to actually getting his prey. Again I think the squirrel must have been sick because he could barely run away.

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he kept waiting for that squirrel to come back

I’m headed out in a couple of hours with some of my Wolf Pack to our favorite mexican joint called the Burrito Bar. There will definitely be nachos involved =)

Catch ya later!

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My Windication

21. March 2014 · Write a comment · Categories: labradoodle, running · Tags: , , , , ,

Happy Spring!
Never thought Winter would officially end…Started my day yesterday like this:

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Then I got the spring cleaning bug so i tidied up a bit and even vacuumed. I ran around town taking care of a few errands. Unfortunately I noticed some new noises (and smells) coming from the Jeep. I’m really bummed. I’ve been dropping money in boatloads to fix her but she’s just on her last legs. She’s almost at 100,000 miles. (that’s a lot of marathons!)

Later in the afternoon I met my friend and her dogs for a 2 1/2 mile walk. That’s when Duncan’s “ear barometer” let me know how windy it was outside.

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I knew I had planned to run 6 miles in the evening and started to get anxious about the wind. We all know how it’s been my nemesis the last few weeks. (I talk about that here and here and here)

But I made dinner plans with another friend and had limited time, so I couldn’t afford to drive to the gym and back taking precious moments away from what I needed to cover the miles. I got dressed, grabbed my music which I figured would be the only thing to carry me through and just bolted out the door.

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Maybe it was the pressure of knowing I HAD to be ready in an hour and a half to go to dinner but somehow I FLEW! There were 23 mph sustained winds with gusts up to 34 and they were headwinds for the first 3 1/2 miles:

weather

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I did it! my vindication over wind….my WINDication!!!! #SpringIsIn10K

I kept a 9:31 average pace! HELLO! That’s almost my 10k PR pace. I call that WINDication! Free of the fear that wind will ruin my run.

And of course that called for a celebration. So I opted for dessert…

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it may be a chain restaurant but this dessert did not dissappoint! Vanilla gelato and whipped cream and chocolate sauce over a warm chocolate chip cookie.

Have a great weekend! Tell me what you’re doin’….

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A successful failure is way better than a failure to succeed

18. March 2014 · 1 comment · Categories: running, Uncategorized · Tags: , , , ,

Funny thing happened today…I set out to the gym on my lunch break to tackle a 5 mile hill workout and from the first step I knew it wasn’t happening.

new carpet in the ladies' locker room!

new carpet in the ladies’ locker room!

My legs felt like lead and I felt like the treadmill was lying to me as an 11 minute mile pace felt so hard to maintain. I was SO mad at myself! I wanted to just go back down to the locker room, change and head back to work. But I decided that I’d at least try running with minimal incline (.5) so that I could get the miles in. I am not lying when I tell you that I literally looked down at the “distance completed” screen so many times that I don’t think I ever went so far as a tenth of a mile without a glance.

flat

3 boring miles. The trend lately seems to be my love of my training is on the decline (mental note: TAKE A BREAK!). When I finished the 3 miles I decided to walk slowly to cool down and check my phone for some distraction. That’s when I saw this on Twitter and just had to reply.

tweetsuccess

It completely changed my view of the failure. So much so that I turned that walk into a slightly faster walk….and then I raised the incline up to 8 and continued to walk….and then??? I started to RUN at that incline. I covered about a half mile of hill intervals!!!!

I ended up with 4.5 miles total (instead of the scheduled 5) and of course only half a mile of hill running, but that’s better than nothing, and better than just 3 flat miles. I was drenched by the time I finished. But better than that, my negative view of the workout came full circle and I walked out of the gym with a smile on my face. I came back to the office to feast on my healthy lunch.

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pop chips, salad, egg, avocado and grapefruit

So that’s how you take a failure to succeed and turn it into a successful failure! 

 

Question: Have you ever not wanted to work out and gone anyway only to leave with a smile on your face?

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