Agh, I'm behind again with my posts. School is in full swing, so that is my excuse and I'm sticking to it :)
Last week I ran Wednesday night. I had all intentions of getting up Saturday and running at the gym, but Hurricane Irene talked me into staying in my pjs all morning. Also, the shoes I wore to school on Friday gave me small blisters on my feet, so that was the deciding factor of not running. So Plan B was to run before church on Sunday morning.... And that didn't happen either. So Plan C was to run Sunday afternoon, and thankfully that happened. I ran 4 miles (wahooo!) on the treadmill on intervals. This was the week that I started my long runs on the weekend, even though this one wasn't "long" in comparison of what's to come (Eek!).
So now it's Tuesday. I've discovered I have to think through my evening plans for the week to determine when I can run ahead of time. Sometimes this requires more effort that I'd like ;) Well today when I left school, I felt like I could go to sleep right then and then wake up tomorrow morning. I forgot how tired the beginning of the school year makes me. On the way home, I was trying to figure out when I was going to run this week and came to no conclusion after my 15 minute drive. I literally sat on my couch for an hour (while watching tv) debating if I should go run or not. How sad is that?! I wish I was kidding, but it's true. I finally almost talked myself into it - well, almost. The deciding factor was going to be if I had any clean workout clothes. In the back of my head, I was sure that they were all dirty. I get up and go check.............. And there was ONE clean set of workout clothes left. Dang it! That meant I had to go run. I'll admit. I wasn't to thrilled.
After a lot of talking myself into it and knowing I'd appreciate it later, I got dressed and headed out the door. Thanks to Hurricane Irene and those CRAZY thunderstorms last night, today was a low humidity, BEAUTIFUL day. AKA - I could finally run outside (and be comfortable!). It's been over a month since I've been able to do that. So I'm super thankful!
My goal, as I was driving to the trail, was 2 miles. Even though my training plan said I should do 3 today. Once I got running, things were feeling good. So I was bold and set my goal for running 3 miles..... without stopping. That's never happened. I don't know what I was thinking. I've run 2 miles with one or two breaks in there, but never non-stop.
Well.....
I DID IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
:) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :)
I was in shock when I finished because I couldn't believe it!
And to think that I almost didn't go run today.
Tuesday, August 30, 2011
Thursday, August 25, 2011
Night before the first day of school
...(as a teacher) is usually a very sleepless and restless night. Your mind is going a mile a minute going through everything to make sure you didn't forget something! This has definitely happened to me. So my ONLY purpose for running last night was so that I could sleep last night. I ran 3 miles... and success!! Fell right asleep and didn't wake up until my alarm went off. Praise the Lord :)
First day of school was today and it went off without a hitch! It should be a good year with all my little 7th graders!
First day of school was today and it went off without a hitch! It should be a good year with all my little 7th graders!
Monday, August 22, 2011
Born to Run
...by Bruce Springsteen. The other day the phrase "born to run" randomly popped in my head, and then I remembered there was a song with that title and downloaded it ;) It's fun to run to!
So this afternoon I had planned to go swim laps tonight for my exercise. Something different, and I haven't swam in a long time. I was really looking forward to it. But then on my drive home from work, I started thinking about what my evening plans were for this week. And it's a busy one. So as I thought through my week, I realized today and probably Wednesday were the only two days I knew I'd have time to run. The other nights I have plans, or I will be super tired (aka- the first day of school). I need to be running 2-3 times per week, soooooo I had to give up swimming tonight :(
Therefore, I was dreading running and almost didn't go because it had been a long day. Then I realized that this is what it will feel like most days after work, so I needed to get over myself, and do it, haha. Once I got to the gym and on the treadmill, I was fine. I was feeling brave and upped my treadmill speed by 0.3 mph for the whole run. It makes more of a difference than you think, but it was a manageable change that still pushed me. On my last last interval, I upped the treadmill speed a little bit more to sprint at the end. Success!! I ended up doing 3.3 miles on intervals. Yay! And once I got going, I was enjoying it and turned up my music pretty loud so my brain couldn't talk myself out of wanting to walk ;)
So this afternoon I had planned to go swim laps tonight for my exercise. Something different, and I haven't swam in a long time. I was really looking forward to it. But then on my drive home from work, I started thinking about what my evening plans were for this week. And it's a busy one. So as I thought through my week, I realized today and probably Wednesday were the only two days I knew I'd have time to run. The other nights I have plans, or I will be super tired (aka- the first day of school). I need to be running 2-3 times per week, soooooo I had to give up swimming tonight :(
Therefore, I was dreading running and almost didn't go because it had been a long day. Then I realized that this is what it will feel like most days after work, so I needed to get over myself, and do it, haha. Once I got to the gym and on the treadmill, I was fine. I was feeling brave and upped my treadmill speed by 0.3 mph for the whole run. It makes more of a difference than you think, but it was a manageable change that still pushed me. On my last last interval, I upped the treadmill speed a little bit more to sprint at the end. Success!! I ended up doing 3.3 miles on intervals. Yay! And once I got going, I was enjoying it and turned up my music pretty loud so my brain couldn't talk myself out of wanting to walk ;)
Sunday, August 21, 2011
Stickers!
Best Thing I Never Had
by Beyonce' was my song of choice while running yesterday! I can't related to the song at all, but I just like the music and emotion in it, haha.
I had done a lot of cross training this past week, so I knew I'd have to run for real on Saturday. It was pretty muggy out in the morning, so I resorted to the treadmill (ps - I am SOOO incredibly ready for fall so I can run outside). I was plugging along and after about 2 miles, I was getting pretty tired. I had taken 2 days off, so my legs weren't quite feeling the whole running thing. So I shortened my running intervals, and lengthened my walking intervals. And I decided I was just going to run 3 miles instead of my originally planned 4 miles. I walked for a few minutes and as I started running again, I got a second wind (thank goodness!). I figured out I only had 3 more intervals to do with the distance I had left, so I convinced myself to go for it. And I'm glad I did!
While I was running, I was about halfway through and I guess my arms were getting excited about running and my hand accidentally hit the Emergency Stop button which stops the treadmill and ends your workout (which includes clearing your time and distance that you had done). Thankfully I looked at my distance right before I hit it and remembered what my time/distance was so I knew how much more I had to go. But it was frustrating because I had to stop and reset my settings on the treadmill. Oh, and then I hit the button AGAIN when I had like a quarter of a mile left! Grrrrr. Stupid red button gets in my way!
School starts back this week, so I'm going to have to get in the habit of pushing myself to the gym because I'm going to be super exhausted come Thursday!
I had done a lot of cross training this past week, so I knew I'd have to run for real on Saturday. It was pretty muggy out in the morning, so I resorted to the treadmill (ps - I am SOOO incredibly ready for fall so I can run outside). I was plugging along and after about 2 miles, I was getting pretty tired. I had taken 2 days off, so my legs weren't quite feeling the whole running thing. So I shortened my running intervals, and lengthened my walking intervals. And I decided I was just going to run 3 miles instead of my originally planned 4 miles. I walked for a few minutes and as I started running again, I got a second wind (thank goodness!). I figured out I only had 3 more intervals to do with the distance I had left, so I convinced myself to go for it. And I'm glad I did!
While I was running, I was about halfway through and I guess my arms were getting excited about running and my hand accidentally hit the Emergency Stop button which stops the treadmill and ends your workout (which includes clearing your time and distance that you had done). Thankfully I looked at my distance right before I hit it and remembered what my time/distance was so I knew how much more I had to go. But it was frustrating because I had to stop and reset my settings on the treadmill. Oh, and then I hit the button AGAIN when I had like a quarter of a mile left! Grrrrr. Stupid red button gets in my way!
School starts back this week, so I'm going to have to get in the habit of pushing myself to the gym because I'm going to be super exhausted come Thursday!
Wednesday, August 17, 2011
Legs = Cinder Blocks
This one will be short and sweet -
Last night I did the cross training class. There were more people there than usual, so she split us into three groups and we did circuits. One station was abs/core, one was lunges/squats, the other was jump roping. Yeah, jump roping is fun in elementary school when you are singing, "Cinderella, dress in yellow, went upstairs to kiss her fellow... Made a mistake and kissed a snake, how many doctors will it take...1..2...3...." till you trip on the jump rope [anyone else remember that one?]. Well anyways, jumping rope in a gym class is not NEARLY as fun as that. And we didn't sing fun songs. You had to do that in your head to survive ;)
We did a minute at each station and then rotated. Once we made it to all three, we'd get new directions for each station and then go around again. We did this for 45 minutes. Talk about a long 45 minutes!
Tonight, I went to the aerobics dance class. I thought I would be fine because I wasn't sore from the cross training from yesterday. Ooooooooooooh was I wrong. My legs felt like there were cinder blocks attached to my feet. They didn't want to move! And of course the class tonight required a lot of jumping. My legs did MORE than their share of jumping yesterday.
So I am going to take that as.... Stephanie, you should take the day off tomorrow :)
Last night I did the cross training class. There were more people there than usual, so she split us into three groups and we did circuits. One station was abs/core, one was lunges/squats, the other was jump roping. Yeah, jump roping is fun in elementary school when you are singing, "Cinderella, dress in yellow, went upstairs to kiss her fellow... Made a mistake and kissed a snake, how many doctors will it take...1..2...3...." till you trip on the jump rope [anyone else remember that one?]. Well anyways, jumping rope in a gym class is not NEARLY as fun as that. And we didn't sing fun songs. You had to do that in your head to survive ;)
We did a minute at each station and then rotated. Once we made it to all three, we'd get new directions for each station and then go around again. We did this for 45 minutes. Talk about a long 45 minutes!
Tonight, I went to the aerobics dance class. I thought I would be fine because I wasn't sore from the cross training from yesterday. Ooooooooooooh was I wrong. My legs felt like there were cinder blocks attached to my feet. They didn't want to move! And of course the class tonight required a lot of jumping. My legs did MORE than their share of jumping yesterday.
So I am going to take that as.... Stephanie, you should take the day off tomorrow :)
Monday, August 15, 2011
gLee!
So I must confess... I love the tv show Glee, especially the music :) Well, yesterday I went to go see Glee the Concert Movie in 3D... and it was amazing! I already had some Glee songs downloaded on my iTunes, but when I got home I added quite a few more. I've been listening to them all day. And the best decision I made today? Having the Glee songs as my playlist for running... AKA 3 miles of awesomeness. Life is GOOD!
I had all intentions of getting up early to run since it was BEAUTIFUL today, but it didn't happen, so I ran at the gym this afternoon. I start back teacher workdays this week, so I guess I better get used to being up early again. Students start late next week and those mean SUPER early days. Like, before the sun comes up kinda early. Let's see, the last time I got up that early was June 10. The last day of school!
After I ran tonight, I timed it just right and went to the dance aerobics class. The class got a new release soundtrack with new moves, so I really wanted to go :) And my friend Claire was there too, so we tried our best to stay coordinated!
A few minutes ago, I got up after sitting down on the floor for a little while, and my legs almost gave out! Sooo I think tomorrow I'll probably be a little sore. 2 hours of hard core cardio will do that to you! BUT I had some rockin' endorphins this evening :)
I had all intentions of getting up early to run since it was BEAUTIFUL today, but it didn't happen, so I ran at the gym this afternoon. I start back teacher workdays this week, so I guess I better get used to being up early again. Students start late next week and those mean SUPER early days. Like, before the sun comes up kinda early. Let's see, the last time I got up that early was June 10. The last day of school!
After I ran tonight, I timed it just right and went to the dance aerobics class. The class got a new release soundtrack with new moves, so I really wanted to go :) And my friend Claire was there too, so we tried our best to stay coordinated!
A few minutes ago, I got up after sitting down on the floor for a little while, and my legs almost gave out! Sooo I think tomorrow I'll probably be a little sore. 2 hours of hard core cardio will do that to you! BUT I had some rockin' endorphins this evening :)
Thursday, August 11, 2011
PR!
It has finally started to cool down a bit in the mornings, and not as humid, so I got to go run outside this morning :) The original plan was to get up at 7am... Well, that turned into 8:30 and I was running by 9:15. Thankfully where I run it is pretty shaded, so it wasn't bad at all. It was in the upper 70's. I did a 2 mile loop, and used my Nike+ to track it. At the end it said, "Hey this is Lance Armstrong. Congratulations for making a personal record for your mile time!" This is the first time I've heard Lance! I did take a minute off of my mile time, so that's pretty exciting! All these squats, lunges, and abs I've done this week have definitely paid off. I really can tell a difference :)
After my run I had planned to go to the Butts and Guts class, but thankfully I checked the schedule and found out it's tomorrow. Glad I didn't go down there! I did my own mini version of the class in my apartment and did some of the exercises.
This afternoon I ate movie theater popcorn, and then went to a baseball game and had a funnel cake... I think I'm going to need to go running again tomorrow too ;)
After my run I had planned to go to the Butts and Guts class, but thankfully I checked the schedule and found out it's tomorrow. Glad I didn't go down there! I did my own mini version of the class in my apartment and did some of the exercises.
This afternoon I ate movie theater popcorn, and then went to a baseball game and had a funnel cake... I think I'm going to need to go running again tomorrow too ;)
Tuesday, August 9, 2011
Let's Get Ready to Rumble.......
Gotta love Jock Jams. More on that later in the post :)
So it's been a while since I've updated - oops! Let's see... This past Thursday I still wasn't in the mood for running (still in the slump from being on vacation). I knew I should do something, so I did Zumba. I honestly wasn't looking forward to it, but once I was there and got into it, it was fun. No Cupid Shuffle this time, but it's all good. The A/C wasn't working well at the gym that night, so the room was like 81 degrees, with about 25 people dancing... Yeah, it was toasty! Needless to say, there was a lot of sweat. I'm weird and sometimes judge my workout by how much I sweat (yeah, I know, it's gross). Well that night was an AWESOME workout, solely based on sweat ;) As I was leaving that night, there was another class going on that was doing a lot of core exercises. It appeared to be all the kinds of things you hate doing on your own- squats, lunges, abs, etc. So I looked on the schedule and saw the other times they had the class just out of curiosity..... there was one Saturday morning.
I had planned on going running on Saturday morning. I had told Dee about this class, and she talked me into going to it. If you're in Raleigh, you'll remember it rained like crazy Friday night/Saturday morning. Definitely one of those mornings where you just want to stay in bed all day and be lazy. It was veryyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy tempting! But I got my butt up and went.
The class was in the basketball gym. There wasn't music playing, which was a bummer, but I got over that ;) Started off doing jumping jacks and suicide sprints. I haven't done EITHER of those since I was in middle school gym class/basketball practice. Wow. Brought back some memories. Then we did multiple lunge and squat exercise variations across the gym. Did LOTS of crunches and isometric (planks) exercises. It was tough. Also, a lot of sweating going on! That's all I can remember doing in the hour we were there. I'm sure we did more, I just blocked it out of my memory ;) I felt much better after the class was over because I was like, WOW, I just did that! I felt like I had finally gotten over my hump of not wanting to exercise. A nice little kick start!
After the class, I had this second wind. Strange, I know. Probably all the endorphins. So I figured, why not go run? I hopped on the treadmill and did 2 miles (intervals). Then I did twice the amount of stretching I usually do because I knew it was coming based on the things we did during the class.
Well it didn't take long. That afternoon the soreness kicked in. Sunday morning I woke up, and initially I could not sit up. My abs hurt that bad! It hurt to sit down.... and get back up. I haven't been this sore since swim team in college. Whew! I probably should have gone for a walk or something that day to loosen up my muscles, buuuuut I opted for a lazy afternoon instead. Monday morning was a little better, and today I was fine. I know it was worth it, but it sure hurt!!!!
I looked to see when her next class the lady taught was, and this week it unfortunately conflicted with other plans I had :( Oh yeah, on Saturday, she came up to me after and introduced herself (apparently this class has 'regulars' because she knew all their names). She mentioned that she does teach some other classes and I should try those too! I really like this teacher because she's a personal trainer, so she knows what she's doing. (The class is kind of like a personal training session without having to pay extra ;). She pushes you to work hard, but isn't a drill sargent. She has a fun personality, and is very encouraging. It's exactly what I need! I look forward to going to her classes twice a week. I know it will make a HUGE difference in my running.
Last night I went to a class similar to Zumba. It's like an aerobics dance class, except you build up to a routine over about 5 songs. It's one of those classes that you put in the effort that you want to get out of it. I didn't go all out, because I was going to run 2 miles after the class. And I actually did! Wahoo!
Today, I went to another one of her classes. It's called Butts, Guts, and Guns. Great name. It was similar to the previous class I had taken. We did lunges, squats, abs, and did more upper body exercises than the other class. This class had music! The soundtrack? The Jock Jams CD! It was awesome. For those of you who have no idea what I'm talking about...... A lot of the songs are in the movie Space Jam... and it's a lot of the songs you hear at basketball games.
Here is a video of the songs (DEFINITELY worth listening to!):
Jock Jams Mix
Good stuff, right?! I'm going to add it to my running list. That particular song is a mixture of all of them. LOVE it.
Ok, that was a REALLY long post. Sorry! I'll do better about updating :)
So it's been a while since I've updated - oops! Let's see... This past Thursday I still wasn't in the mood for running (still in the slump from being on vacation). I knew I should do something, so I did Zumba. I honestly wasn't looking forward to it, but once I was there and got into it, it was fun. No Cupid Shuffle this time, but it's all good. The A/C wasn't working well at the gym that night, so the room was like 81 degrees, with about 25 people dancing... Yeah, it was toasty! Needless to say, there was a lot of sweat. I'm weird and sometimes judge my workout by how much I sweat (yeah, I know, it's gross). Well that night was an AWESOME workout, solely based on sweat ;) As I was leaving that night, there was another class going on that was doing a lot of core exercises. It appeared to be all the kinds of things you hate doing on your own- squats, lunges, abs, etc. So I looked on the schedule and saw the other times they had the class just out of curiosity..... there was one Saturday morning.
I had planned on going running on Saturday morning. I had told Dee about this class, and she talked me into going to it. If you're in Raleigh, you'll remember it rained like crazy Friday night/Saturday morning. Definitely one of those mornings where you just want to stay in bed all day and be lazy. It was veryyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy tempting! But I got my butt up and went.
The class was in the basketball gym. There wasn't music playing, which was a bummer, but I got over that ;) Started off doing jumping jacks and suicide sprints. I haven't done EITHER of those since I was in middle school gym class/basketball practice. Wow. Brought back some memories. Then we did multiple lunge and squat exercise variations across the gym. Did LOTS of crunches and isometric (planks) exercises. It was tough. Also, a lot of sweating going on! That's all I can remember doing in the hour we were there. I'm sure we did more, I just blocked it out of my memory ;) I felt much better after the class was over because I was like, WOW, I just did that! I felt like I had finally gotten over my hump of not wanting to exercise. A nice little kick start!
After the class, I had this second wind. Strange, I know. Probably all the endorphins. So I figured, why not go run? I hopped on the treadmill and did 2 miles (intervals). Then I did twice the amount of stretching I usually do because I knew it was coming based on the things we did during the class.
Well it didn't take long. That afternoon the soreness kicked in. Sunday morning I woke up, and initially I could not sit up. My abs hurt that bad! It hurt to sit down.... and get back up. I haven't been this sore since swim team in college. Whew! I probably should have gone for a walk or something that day to loosen up my muscles, buuuuut I opted for a lazy afternoon instead. Monday morning was a little better, and today I was fine. I know it was worth it, but it sure hurt!!!!
I looked to see when her next class the lady taught was, and this week it unfortunately conflicted with other plans I had :( Oh yeah, on Saturday, she came up to me after and introduced herself (apparently this class has 'regulars' because she knew all their names). She mentioned that she does teach some other classes and I should try those too! I really like this teacher because she's a personal trainer, so she knows what she's doing. (The class is kind of like a personal training session without having to pay extra ;). She pushes you to work hard, but isn't a drill sargent. She has a fun personality, and is very encouraging. It's exactly what I need! I look forward to going to her classes twice a week. I know it will make a HUGE difference in my running.
Last night I went to a class similar to Zumba. It's like an aerobics dance class, except you build up to a routine over about 5 songs. It's one of those classes that you put in the effort that you want to get out of it. I didn't go all out, because I was going to run 2 miles after the class. And I actually did! Wahoo!
Today, I went to another one of her classes. It's called Butts, Guts, and Guns. Great name. It was similar to the previous class I had taken. We did lunges, squats, abs, and did more upper body exercises than the other class. This class had music! The soundtrack? The Jock Jams CD! It was awesome. For those of you who have no idea what I'm talking about...... A lot of the songs are in the movie Space Jam... and it's a lot of the songs you hear at basketball games.
Here is a video of the songs (DEFINITELY worth listening to!):
Jock Jams Mix
Good stuff, right?! I'm going to add it to my running list. That particular song is a mixture of all of them. LOVE it.
Ok, that was a REALLY long post. Sorry! I'll do better about updating :)
Wednesday, August 3, 2011
Getting back on track
I have been so out of the loop lately. I ran 2 miles yesterday. It had been a week since I last ran...... So it was pretty difficult. It's crazy how much you can lose in just a week. So this week I'm working myself back up, and then next week I'll start the "official" half marathon training plan - eek!
Oh, and I had lunch with Katie today (she's the one doing the full marathon for the same race I am)! We talked a lot about running and the race. She's full of helpful advice :)
My brain's dead today... so that's all for now!
Oh, and I had lunch with Katie today (she's the one doing the full marathon for the same race I am)! We talked a lot about running and the race. She's full of helpful advice :)
My brain's dead today... so that's all for now!
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