Week 7 Half Marathon Training Complete

Yet another week has passed, and yet another milestone has been accomplished! Today I set another PDR (personal distance record), I ran 12 miles!! I am super sore right now, I mean like both of my entire legs are screaming, but it is so worth it! I actually feel much better after this run than I did after last week's 11 miler. Again we ran half the distance outside, and let me tell you, it was heaven! The sun was shining, in fact I got a little sunburn on my face, and the weather was beautiful, about 48 degrees, which felt great compared to the sweatbox that is the gym. I've just really been aching to get back outdoors, I am ready for Spring and the sunshine and warmer, but not too warm, weather. And to top it all off, this was my last double digit run until the half. Next week starts tapering. I drank a 5-Hour Energy shot before the run today, and I really think I am liking them more and more. I also fueled myself with some gummy bears and jelly beans a couple times during the run, as I saw suggested by some runners in place of an energy gel or GU or chomp. I think they really hit the spot and gave me some little bursts or energy.

This week, however, was not free of challenges. I skipped my Monday 4 miler due to my knee pain from last week. I felt bad knowing that there was no way I was going to make 26 miles this week after that pain. In fact when I finally got back on schedule on Wednesday it was extremely difficult. I did 1 mile, and my left calf and right knee were sore, so I instead switched over to the elliptical and did 1 mile on there to warm me up better and allow my muscles to open up. I then went back to the treadmill to finish off another 4.25 miles, but it was all a slower pace than I normally like to do. Thursday's 5 miler again was difficult. I was still sore, and I just was having problems getting into a groove, I think it's from the dread of the treadmill, lately I just have been really hating it, especially when I see the sun shining outside, despite the cold, I just feel like I can't zone out as well anymore on the treadmill, and I am always worrying about smashing my hands or wedding rings into the treadmill now that it has definitely messed with my stride.

But alas, this week I got in 22 miles, with fairly decent paces. After the long run today we stopped off at the Exchange and I picked up a knee brace and some Glucosamine. My knee did give me a little trouble today, nothing like last week, but I still think I am going to try to wear the brace on my next few runs and see how it goes. And I'm hoping the Glucosamine also helps with it, supposedly it helps with joints and cartilage. I did take my 2 Advil as soon as I got in the car this afternoon, and so I think it helped stave off some of the pain that usually develops in my knee when I sit after long runs. And the big news: we are OFFICIALLY registered for the half as of about 30 minutes ago!! I am super pumped now, just knowing that we are set and paid up. I feel like a runner now! I have felt this way for a while now, but now it's official! "The difference between a jogger and a runner is an entry blank." -Dr. George Sheehan, so I guess I am a runner after all! I leave you now with this week's stats:

Weight is still holding steady...we'll see if tomorrow (my official weigh in day) it changes any...

Week 7, Day 1: 5.27 miles, 55:01, av pace: 10:25 min/mi
Week 7, Day 2: 5.01 miles, 50:50, av pace: 10:08 min/mi
Week 7, Day 3: 12.00 miles, 2:04:05, av pace: 10:20 min/mi

Week 6 Half Marathon Training Complete

Another week down! I can't believe my race is 4 weeks from tomorrow! This week was difficult, I'm not going to lie, I had a really hard time getting my body to do 24 miles. After last Sunday's 10 miler, Monday's 4 miler was torture. I've never had to stop so many times throughout a "short" run before. My right knee and ankle were aching and I wasn't sure I would be able to finish. Wednesday and Thursday thankfully were better. Wednesday I followed my run with a 50 minute yoga DVD, which helped significantly with the soreness.

Today was hell. I began with downing the 5 Hour Energy Drink and then got on the treadmill at the gym and did 6 miles, but my stomach had been acting up since this morning, so I had to stop twice to go to the bathroom, not fun. But it was so nice out today that Tony and I decided that we would run the rest of our mileage outside on the running trails on base. And while the weather was gorgeous at about 60 degrees and sunny, I was miserable. My right knee was killing me, along with my sour stomach. I had to stop to walk more times than I care to count and had to pause once to again find a restroom. I broke down on the trail at least twice, crying in pain and crying out of frustration on how I couldn't quit. Tony was worried and told me numerous times that I didn't have to complete my mileage and that we could stop anytime I wanted, but I refused. I am super stubborn, and once I have my mind set to something, by God I will finish it! So alas, I pushed through, took my time, and walked when I needed to. But I am proud to say, today I ran my furthest distance ever, 11 miles! I must say, I think the 5 Hour Energy shot was pretty good, the taste wasn't great, but I did feel quite energized and never really got tired, my issues weren't from fatigue at all. I may try it again next week, or an another type of energy gel if I can find any around town.

As I type this there is an ice pack on my knee, and I've already taken my first round of Advil. I plan to stay off the knee for as long as I need to to allow it to rest, I guess that means even if I have to miss a couple runs next week. I also smashed my right wrist on the treadmill screen/ledge thing will running, and now I have a huge bump and bruise on it; as well as a painful blister on my left big toe. The main thing is to stay injury free through the race. At the same time though, I am confident that, maybe I won't get a fantastic time for the half, but I will finish it! As far as weight loss, this week was a wash, the scale hasn't been moving again, although it is probably due to the copious amounts of icing I continue to eat thanks to my cake class. I really need to learn to avoid eating every flower I mess up. Hopefully next week will show a loss. I leave you now with the stats for this week:

Week 6, Day 1: 4.02 miles, 40:42, av pace: 10:07 min/mi
Week 6, Day 2: 5.01 miles, 47:42, av pace: 9:30 min/mi
Week 6, Day 3: 4.01 miles, 38:49, av pace: 9:40 min/mi 
Week 6, Day 4: 11 miles, 1:56:44, av pace: 10:36 min/mi

Week 5 Half Marathon Training Complete - Halfway There!! And Happy Valentine's Day!

Hence another week has gone by, and yet again it was another week filled with running, even though it was a challenge! The week began with more snow, base was closed Monday, so there was no running for me then. Tuesday the roads were an icy mess, so I opted to not go anywhere, especially given that I am terrified to drive in the snow and ice. Wednesday I had every intention of getting back on schedule, but after grocery shopping I was exhausted and hungry and my foot was hurting, so I decided to skip my date with the treadmill. Thursday, I knew I had to get it done. So I went Thursday and did 6 miles. I knew this meant running on Friday was also going to have to happen to try to stay anywhere close to meeting my mileage this week, which was supposed to be 21 miles. So I went and ran 5 miles, but my Nike+ totally decided to flake and severely underestimate. I was running my tail off at a 9:13 pace and it was registering it as a 12:xx pace, so I got frustrated and quit halfway through, and tried to fiddle with my sensor and see if it helped, it didn't, so I ended up doing a 2.40 and 2.60 workout that day according to the stupid thing, and ran it at a much slower pace than I was going.

Today, I had planned on spending our first Valentine's Day as a married couple in the gym. Today's goal: 10 miles! And I am proud to say, I did it!! I am super sore right now, but feeling on top of the world! Tony ran 7 miles right along side me, and I was so proud of him! We are well on our way to the half marathon quickly approaching! I did try some different things today during my long run, first off I tried a gel halfway through my run. It was a PowerBar vanilla flavor one, and while it tasted okay, I'm not quite sure if it made much difference in my performance. I was so tired at that point anyway, that all I really wanted was water and my Powerade Zero. Next week I plan to try the 5 Hour Energy shot that I bought this week. We'll see how it goes!  To top off this wonderful day, we went to my favorite steak place, Texas de Brazil for dinner, and I probably ate back all the calories I burned today and then some, but it was a fabulous and romantic dinner. The rest of our plans tonight include rolling around on my foam roller to roll out some of the soreness in my legs, chowing down on the homemade chocolate and white chocolate dipped strawberries we made this morning, and then enjoying some well-deserved champagne! I leave you now with my stats for this week, all 21 miles, although the Day 2 five miler is going to be skewed thanks to the Nike+ blinking out on me:

Week 5, Day 1: 6.01 miles, 58:42, av pace: 9:45 min/mi
Week 5, Day 2: 5.00 miles (I actually did about .40 more due to the discrepancy between the Nike+ and the treadmill),  52:35, av pace: 10:35 min/mi (it should have been about 9:40-9:50 probably)
Week 5, Day 3: 10.01 miles, 1:40:43, av pace: 10:03 min/mi (and I walked 0.50 in 9:58 to cool down)

Cupcake Bites and Cake Balls

With Valentine's Day upon us, I had decided last week I would make Tony's office a nice little treat. I had planned on making these goodies on Thursday for him to take in on Friday, but I was snowed in today (and yesterday too for that matter) and was starting to go a little stir crazy and bored, and seriously itching for a run. So I decided to pass the day by making these early, since I will hopefully be running the rest of the week and therefore be busy. These little babies are super cute, but they took me all day, and I do mean all day, I began by making my cake at 11 am, I ended up finishing up and cleaning up the kitchen at 7 pm. Granted I did take a couple breaks here and there, but nothing substantial.

I followed Bakerella's directions, except I made the same yellow cake I made a couple weeks ago and my usual Wilton buttercream as my cake ball base. It made way more than 50 balls, it made about double that! I got my mold at Michael's, the basic peanut butter cup candy mold, it cost about $2. I used plain old Toll House semi-sweet chocolate chips to fill the molds, red candy melts as the top, and Sweethearts conversation hearts, white chocolate chips, and some red and white sprinkles to decorate them.

Take your cake after it has completely cooled and crumble in a large bowl, texture should be fine and fluffy. Add in frosting and mix. I tried to do it with a large wooden spoon, but it just wasn't working, so I just dug in and mixed with my hands. After it was all mixed, I began rolling into quarter sized balls. Place balls on parchment covered cookie sheet. Pop in freezer for a couple minutes.

After they have firmed up a bit, get out the candy mold and melt your chocolate in the microwave according to package directions, mine said 6 oz of chocolate chips for 1 minute at 100% and then in 15 seconds increments if needed. I filled a disposable pastry bag with my melted chocolate and piped it into the mold. Right after you fill the mold, press a cake ball into it until the chocolate comes up around the side of the ball. As so:

 

Then place in freezer for about 5 minutes to allow chocolate to harden. Pop out of mold. Get candy melts melted according to package directions and then dip cake ball portion in the candy melt and decorate while the candy is still wet. Place back in fridge to set. 

Since I ran out of most of the red candy melts, and didn't feel like going through the arduous process of filling the molds and waiting for them to harden, I decided to use the remaining cake balls to make just that, cake balls! Much like the ones I made in September I again followed Bakerella and just dipped these babies into some melted chocolate, again just using my Toll House semi-sweet chocolate chips, rolled them around in the melted goodness and then placed them back in the fridge. I also decided to make some white chocolate covered ones. For them I used Toll House white morsels, nuked them in the microwave for 1 minute at 70% power along with 1 TBSP Crisco. I used some of the remaining white chocolate to drizzle with my spoon on the finished cake balls. 

 

 

YUM!!!

Pretty Cupcakes

Just wanted to share my pretty cupcakes I made on Sunday to take to the Superbowl party we went to. I used my go to chocolate cake recipe and my usual Wilton buttercream recipe, only I halved both since I only wanted to make 12 cupcakes. Then I piped on the frosting and decorated with some sprinkles and voila! Pretty cupcakes!

 

Easy Spinach Dip

I love spinach, and I love cheese. So anything involving these two things is a no brainer in my book. A few years ago my old work used to do potlucks quite often, and so during one of these events I decided I would bring in spinach dip, never having made it before. After some googling I found a super easy recipe, and have made it all the time since then. It is my go to recipe to bring to events and parties. So when we were invited over to our friends Dave and Susan's for the Superbowl, I knew that I would bring my spinach dip. It's easy and delicious! I hope you enjoy it as much as I and about everyone that has ever tasted this cheesey spinach amazingness seems to!

Easy Spinach Dip:
Ingredients:
1 16 oz tub of sour cream (I used Walmart brand Fat Free) *sidenote Daisy sour cream does not seem to hold up well in this recipe, but it's the only brand that I have ever used that didn't work, all others seem to work just fine, in all fat levels...
1 10 oz box of frozen chopped spinach
1 bag (2 cups) of any cheese you like (I used 6 cheese Italian blend)
1 envelope of Lipton Garlic and Herb soup mix (if you can find it, but if you can't it works fine without it)

Directions:
On a large pot on the stove over high heat, heat tub of sour cream and throw in frozen block of spinach. Stir around until block of spinach has thawed and broken all apart and mixed with the sour cream. It should take about 5 minutes or so. After spinach and sour cream have mixed, lower heat to low and add in envelope of soup mix and bag of cheese, stir until all cheese melts. Remove from heat. Let cool for a minute or two. Serve warm, either in hollowed out bread bowl or in a container with tortilla chips to dip. Enjoy!

Week 4 Half Marathon Training Complete

Week 4 is now complete and I am feeling so accomplished! I ran a total of 19.44 miles according to my Nike+, I was supposed to do 19 miles to meet my training schedule, although I have noticed the Nike+ not being spot on with the treadmill lately, today it was overestimating, and on Wednesday it was underestimating, so I think it may be time for another calibration.

But anyway, on to this week. Monday was fairly easy considering the day before I ran 6 miles. Wednesday was a little harder as it was a 5 miler, but I gave it a pretty good effort, just not as fast as I would have liked, but still good effort. Thursday was fairly easy, it was the first time I set a new record for my average pace, running the mile in 9:09 minutes; it was also the first time in a while that I went before noon and I ended up showering at the gym and then meeting Tony for lunch after and then went to run a bunch of errands. Today was definitely completely a mental hurdle, 8.25 miles...I got through the first half with just a couple walking breaks and one stretch break, the second half was so much easier though. The only thing that got in my way was the treadmill resetting at 60 minutes, it automatically goes into cool down mode after it hits 60 minutes and when in that mode it kept resetting the incline and speed, I was at 6 miles then and my water bottle was almost empty, so I took the opportunity to step off the treadmill for a minute, refill my bottle, and restart the machine to finish the last 2 miles. It was definitely an experience, and one that I am sure my mind played a good deal in controlling. I just kept thinking to myself "I can do this!" and "almost there...only x amount of time/miles left."

I walked off that treadmill today knowing that I can do anything and definitely feeling like the world is my oyster! I can't wait to see how next week's 10 mile run goes, and hopefully the weather will be nicer and maybe I can attempt to run it outside on base. I also plan on trying some energy gels during next week's long run, so we'll see how that goes. On the weight loss front, I tracked my points all week so far, and as of yesterday morning I was down 1.8 lbs, we'll see how holds up come Monday morning. I now leave you with my stats for this week:

Week 4, Day 1: 3.08 miles, 28:57, av pace: 9:23 min/mi
Week 4, Day 2: 5.00 miles, 49:42, av pace: 9:55 min/mi
Week 4, Day 3: 3.09 miles, 28:18, av pace: 9:09 min/mi
Week 4, Day 4: 8.25 miles, 1:21:14, av pace: 9:51 min/mi