1-1-11

Happy 2011!! I know I haven't updated in a while, but new year, new start I suppose. I'm very happy 2010 is gone now, it was one of the worst years of my life and I am hoping 2011 brings with it much better things, but we shall see. I guess it's time to look back though and see how did on my goals for 2010, they were:

1. Lose these last 10 lbs and be the fittest, healthiest I can be.  Well, I gained, lost, gained again, and then lost again, right now I am down about 3 lbs from where I was last year, about 7 from my ultimate goal weight, but it's the lowest I have been all year, so I guess I'll take it. I really need to work on this better! 

2. Eventually work up to running 15-20 miles per week. I did this! I was running more than 20 miles a week at the height of half marathon training. Right now I'm back up to about 5-10 miles a week.

3. Run a half marathon. I did this also, you can read about it here

4. Eat healthier, get back on track (I have been bad and off track the last month or so). Overall, I did better this year, we ate much less processed food, I cooked at home most of the time, although we did eat out about once a week, and I ate a whole bunch of fruits and veggies, I'm calling this one a win. 
 
5. Get pregnant (although Hubby's work schedule may push this one into 2011, but we'll see) Nope, and may not be happening anytime soon thanks to my recent diagnosis

6. Travel as much as possible Yes! Hubs and I went to FL and VT twice, Cleveland, New Orleans, Nashville, and Hawaii this year. 

7. Find a job I love or start my own business. I started my own business, however right now it's kind of stalled at the moment as I deal with cutting through the red tape of permitting.

So, on to the goals for 2011, this year it's a short list:

1. Save as much money as possible
2. PR the Disney Princess Half Marathon, hopefully coming in around 2:15:xx
3. Get Pregnant before 2011 is over
4. Get to goal weight
5. Keep running, no taking the summer off like I did this year.
6. Blog more

Hopefully I can meet my goals this year, I think I can, they aren't too lofty or unattainable. I hope everyone out there has a great 2011, Happy New Year!! 

Time For Christmas Cards

As Thanksgiving approaches this week, and officially marks the beginning of the holiday season, it's time to start thinking about sending out Christmas cards to family and friends. Last year was our first year sending out photo cards, I debated the idea for a while, but in the end found it to be the easiest option. This year, I again began to debate, especially given that I am not finding a photo I particularly like of the two of us together, but alas, it is the easiest option and my favorite photo site ever, Shutterfly has got some great options this year and has a great promotion for bloggers going on this year!

I adore Shutterfly! They have everything you need for all your card and stationary needs, check them out! I have used them a million times, okay maybe I exaggerate a little, but seriously, I have used them quite a bit to make the most stunning photo books. Our photo guestbook for our wedding using our engagement pics was ordered from them and turned out exquisite! I also used them to make each of our moms photobooks of wedding pictures, which they too adored.

There are so many awesome options this year on Shutterfly for Christmas cards, I'm having such a hard time deciding. Do I like this one better?

 

Or how about this one?

Or what if I skip the Christmas cards and went straight into New Year's with these New Year's cards?

As you can see, I think I'm going to be here a while trying to decide on my favorite and then selecting my favorite photo of Hubs and I taken this year. If you're a blogger and want in on this promotion to get 50 free photo cards from Shutterfly, go here: http://bit.ly/sfly2010

Week 3 Training Complete

I'll admit, it's been hard getting back on track with training. Between my constant asthma, and the darn ovarian cyst, running hasn't been the most enjoyable lately. The first two weeks of this training plan, running was sparse and I didn't meet my mileage goals. But this week, I was bound and determined to meet them, one way or another. The weather has been pretty nice out, in the high 50s and 60s, and sunny, perfect for running. Plus, it helped that Hubs was able to do 2 or my 3 runs with me this week.

I've pretty much decided I hate our neighborhood for running for two reasons, dogs and hills. I went out alone on Wednesday, and right off at a little passed the half mile mark, a huge white dog was in the middle of the road growling viciously at me ready to attack. I've mentioned it before, but I'm terrified of big dogs, especially mean ones that growl and threaten. Anyway, I had to stop and spent about two minutes according to the Garmin deciding what to do, I did stop the timer, but it still measures it as "elapsed time"  but doesn't effect the average pace or anything like that. Luckily, a neighbor was out in his garage and I asked him if it was his dog, he said no, but knew who the dog belonged to and said it wouldn't bite and told it to go home, and by the time I finished talking to him, the dog has returned home and left me alone. Two miles logged for Wednesday in 22:01.

 

 Friday's run was a three miler. Hubs and I set out just before sundown and again set out to conquer the hills in the neighborhood. This time, only one dog attacked, but it licked me to death as I was walking up the super hill at the mile mark. I think he likes to play, but I still wish people would learn to keep their pets put away, it's not safe to let them roam, and it makes me feel unsafe to run when I'm constantly worried that a dog is going to come after me. The first mile was pretty good, I only took one short walk break up monster hill. Mile 2 was about the same. Mile 3 was where I fell apart. I was tired, out of breath, and just felt like walking. Overall, we did 3 miles in 34:53.

Today's four miler was the best of the week, I'm attributing it to changing it up and going to base to run. First off, it's flat, secondly, there are no dogs to worry about. We cranked out four steady miles in 40:44, we pretty even splits of 9:55, 10:19, 10:30, and 9:57. I didn't walk once. I slowed down at the 2 mile mark when we passed a water fountain to take a sip, and the silly thing didn't work, and then we had to stop at 3.70 miles for a minute because Retreat came on and everyone outside on base has to stop and face the flag. It felt so good to get in a solid run. 

Overall, I completed 9.01 miles this week, right on target with my training plan. Here's hoping I can stick with it for this next week!

Disaster: Turkey Trot 5k 2010 Recap

That's the only way to describe today's race, disaster. It was freezing this morning, about 40 degrees and windy. I wore my Under Armour Cold Gear, wicking yoga pants, and Bondi Band over my ears, and was still a little chilled. There were no directions on how to get to the race, Hubs signed us up, and instead of asking exactly where the race was being held, just got a vague idea of the location. Of course we were running late getting there, and then getting lost pushed us back even further. As we pulled into the parking lot the runners were all lining up at the start. I'm already a nervous wreck before a race starts, so this just sent me into a tail spin. We ran to get our numbers and quickly pinned them on as the runners took off.

We hopped in to the flow of racers, I didn't have my iPod, but no big deal, I've been running without it quite a bit lately. I did remember to throw my inhaler in my pocket, and I was sure glad I did, because about a mile into it, I needed it. I was wheezing. My Garmin took forever to start up, another casualty of starting late, so my timing and distance aren't accurate on my upload. The first mile we were cruising, while I was stressed and it was difficult to breathe, we made good time, we finished that mile in a speedy 8:57. I had remembered to disable the autolap function on the Garmin before the race, I accidentally hit the lap button twice though at that first mile, so that why you'll see 5 laps on the report. I wanted to measure the accuracy of the race and lap it myself at the mile markers, the problem with that was when the Garmin had the issue starting up, it only registered that first mile as 0.70, oh well. We cruised on through to the halfway water stop, where we stopped for a second and drank our little Dixie cup of water. After that things fell apart.

The second half of the race I lost it. I was well on my way to meeting my goal of coming in under 29 minutes, and I just lost it. I couldn't do it. Coming back from the water stop my side started to hurt. I mentioned before I've been having some medical problems lately, one of those problems is a fairly large ovarian cyst that's been causing quite a bit of issues lately. Well, the damn thing decided that right then was when it was going to act up. It felt like a knife was cutting through my side. Then, I got another asthma attack. Another couple hits on the inhaler, and it was a lot more walking. I felt like such a failure. I don't know why I can't mentally push through these things. The first half is always so easy, and then I always fall apart when I should be finishing strong.

According to the Garmin, we finished the second mile in 11:42, and the third mile in 13:58, and instead of it being .10 to the finish it was .23 and we did that in 2:50, overall, it took us 37:11, although the Garmin says the "Moving Time" was 34:17, not sure what that means. I do know I didn't stop the Garmin until we got inside and had already crossed the finish line, maybe 30 seconds or so. According to the official results our time was 38:11, but there was no timing chip, that was a stop watch, and we started at least a minute or more late, I'm guessing more like 2 minutes late.

When we got home I realized I couldn't find my headphones, somehow they weren't in my purse where I'd left them, and since I didn't use my iPod, I didn't know where they could be. I searched the car and still couldn't find them. I ended up going back to the race site. Turns out they had fallen out of my purse when I had moved my purse from the front seat of my car to the trunk. Luckily I found them. 

Right now, I'm hoping the medical issues get resolved in a timely manner, and I can work on keeping together to better train for the Disney Princess Half, and work on the mental aspects of running and speed.

Why I Run

Some days I question why I run. For health? To lose weight? A sense of pride and accomplishment? To collect medals? To challenge myself? To relieve stress? For therapy? I think for me, it's really a mixture of all these things, depending on the day. Lately though, it's really just been the biggest form of therapy and stress relief I have. See, things don't always go as planned. My life is definitely not at the place I thought it would be at right now, and it's getting increasingly harder to deal.

Everywhere I turn someone is pregnant. It's time to come clean. I was the one supposed to be pregnant right now. Before my life got turned upside down in August and my husband's career path got flipped on a dime. Now, instead, my husband is getting ready to deploy and the baby is being delayed for a year. It breaks my heart. That compounded with some medical issues, and I'm an emotional ticking time bomb.

Running seems to be the only thing I can control in my life right now. The only thing that I can say "this is what I am going to do right now" and have it happen. The only goal I know I alone I can shoot for and I alone am responsible for. It's therapeutic, when it's just me and the open road, I control how fast I want to go, and I determine if I am going to give in and quit or keep going and fight. It's really cathartic. The runner's high doesn't hurt either. So, I keep going. And I'll keep on going. I'm not going to quit. So then next time someone asks me why I run, instead of listing my myriad of reasons, I think I'll counter it with "why don't you?"

Pumpkin Cream Cheese Muffins

Something about Fall just screams all things pumpkin. A few weeks ago, my friend Maria pointed me in the direction of this recipe for pumpkin cream cheese muffins with a streusel topping. I decided these would make an awesome Halloween treat  for the Hubs' office. These were awesome and a definite hit at the office! Many thanks to Maria for the recipe!

Pumpkin Cream Cheese Muffins (adapted allrecipes.com)

Filling
1 (8 ounce) package cream cheese
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 tablespoons brown sugar

Streusel Topping
4 1/2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
5 tablespoons white sugar (I used 2 1/2 TBSP packed brown sugar)
3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
3 tablespoons butter
3 tablespoons chopped pecans

Muffin Batter
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2 cups white sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 eggs
1 1/3 cups canned pumpkin (I used a whole 15 oz can of pumpkin puree)
1/3 cup olive oil (I used 1/4 cup canola oil)
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/4 tsp ground cinnamon (my own addition)
1/4 tsp nutmeg (my own addition)
1/4 tsp ground ginger (my own addition)

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C). Grease and flour 24 muffin cups, or use paper liners.
2. To make the filling: In a medium bowl, beat cream cheese until soft. Add egg, vanilla and brown sugar. Beat until smooth, then set aside.
3. For the streusel topping: In a medium bowl, mix flour, sugar, cinnamon and pecans. Add butter and cut it in with a fork until crumbly. Set aside.
4. For the muffin batter: In a large bowl, sift together flour, sugar, baking powder, cinnamon and salt. Make a well in the center of flour mixture and add eggs, pumpkin, olive oil and vanilla. Beat together until smooth.
5. Place pumpkin mixture in muffin cups about 1/2 full. Then add one tablespoon of the cream cheese mixture right in the middle of the batter. Try to keep cream cheese from touching the paper cup. Sprinkle on the streusel topping.
6. Bake at 375 degrees F (195 degrees C) for 20 to 25 minutes.
   
   

 

Holy Negative Split Batman!

I've been in a bit of a funk lately, nothing is really wrong, it's just that I know what I want out of life, yet I can't get it right now due to various reasons and I just feel kind of...stuck. So, I must admit, while I know running usually helps get me out of the funk, sometimes I don't always have the motivation to go out there and actually do it. I really wanted to skip my run today, after all, I skipped yesterday like a bad girl. But, Hubs called as he was leaving the gym at work and asked if I wanted to go for a run with him around the loop when he got home since it was so nice out today. I agreed and quickly got changed so I'd be ready when he got home. I decided to give the heart rate monitor on my Garmin a try today, I don't think I had it positioned right though, because at one point it said my HR was up to 213 bpm which is way too fast. So, I guess I'll have to test it out again next time and see if it makes a difference.

I am so glad I got out there tonight though, the weather was gorgeous, probably around low 60s, cool, breezy, perfect! The run was fantastic! First mile, one small walk break up the nemesis hill at 0.84-0.89, second mile, another short one along the uphill stretch around 1.38-1.40, and another at the other nemesis hill at 1.53-1.55. But holy splits, first mile: 10:33, second mile: 9:40. NINE FORTY?! Holy moly! I haven't seen a 9:xx average pace in a very long time. If you're counting, that's 2.00 miles in 20:13. That's the fastest I have done this loop, maybe ever, I really don't know, I didn't have a trusty Garmin before to tell me. PRing the Turkey Trot 5K in 2 weeks doesn't seem so far away anymore, I think I just may be able to pull it off, maybe with some more running, and lots of luck, but it doesn't seem impossible.