Westford Mommy

School Can't Slow Me Down and Sparkly Soul Winner!

2012-02-13T09:58:00.000-05:00

This past weekend was a whole lot of this...

And this...

And don't forget this...

I should have heeded the warnings when a classmate in my Chemistry class told me to watch out for my Anatomy and Physiology professor. She said, "Change Professors!" I thought to myself, how bad could it really be? Oh my goodness, it is that bad! Tonight is only my 4th week of class and we are on Test #2 and Test #3. I mean, how could you possibly give us one test for two chapters, why don't we divide it into two 100 point tests so that we can be stressed out that much more? And not only do we have to take two big tests tonight, but we also have to turn in our research paper topic and an entire unit's worth of homework.

So needless to say, I spent my weekend on my couch reading, studying, and researching. It was boring, tedious, and tiring, but I think I am ready for my double-exam night.

Before my weekend of studying started I had an amazing week of training as you can see above. I moved back my schedule in order to accommodate Boston group training runs, so I am now running Monday-Saturday and taking Sunday off. My forced rest last week helped make the transition easier and my body really responded well to my training. Other than my 5 mile runs, which were recovery runs, all my runs last week averaged a pace of 8:40 or below.

On Saturday, we had a threat of a snowstorm and I had a marathon pace run on the schedule. I didn't want to risk having to slow down because of snow, so I headed to Steph's house to run on her treadmill while she did the elliptical and then chatted with me. I warmed up for 7 miles at about a 9:00 pace. The next 10 miles, I bumped the treadmill up to a 7:53 pace and was able to cruise along without much problem at all. I was so relieved to have my first marathon pace run done for this training cycle and that it went so well. The only thing that didn't go well is my toe. Back in December I noticed pain in the joint of my big toe. I don't know when the pain disappeared but it did and I forgot about it. Well the pain is back and it is pretty bad, or at least it was on Saturday. Google is not your friend when you have an ailment, let me tell you. I Googled big toe pain and came up with an assortment of problems it could be. My current treatment is ice, anti-inflammatories when it is bad, and I switched shoes. I ran 13 miles this morning and my toe hurt but nothing like Saturday, so I am hoping that was a good sign.

I also made cookies yesterday to send to preschool and worked on Valentines with the kids. One week and I can take a breather, but first I need to make it through this busy week. Thank goodness for my running, it is the one time I let myself step away from life and focus on me. Like this morning. 13 miles at 5am, that doesn't sound so fun. But 13 miles while watching my favorite vampires for 2 hours, that was a nice break from studying. :)

And now for the Sparkly Soul headbands winner. I used the Random Number Generator and the winner is:

Jennifer C., please email me so you can pick out your headbands! :) And remember, if you didn't win, you can still receive 15% off your order at Sparkly Soul by entering FITFLUENTIAL at checkout through the end of February.

Happy Monday everyone!

What You Didn't Know About Me

2012-02-09T14:16:00.000-05:00

I was tagged by Amanda and Caroline, and haven't had the time to sit and write the post.....So here goes 11 random facts about myself.

I love camping. Ahhh, I never thought I would say that in a million years, but I look forward to our yearly camping trips now. A few years ago, my husband and I were planning our weekend in Vermont for the Vermont City Marathon. We were trying to save money and he suggested camping. You would have thought he told me to sleep on the floor of a bathroom, I was so appalled. I swallowed my pride and rented a sleeping mat and camped. I loved it. I have since went on two week long camping trips with my family and will camp at Vermont for the marathon every year.
I love basketball and if someone told me I could play semi-professional basketball but would have to give up the sport of running first. I would. I love basketball that much.
I love reality television. We aren't talking Biggest Loser here, I can't get into that. I am talking Real World on MTV. When I saw there was a new season of the Real World Challenge last week, I got stupidly excited. I stayed up way later than normal to watch my people in yet another drama-filled crazy show.
My husband fell in love with me after he found out I had a TIVO. Yes, a TIVO, one of the original DVR's. He claims that by owning a TIVO, it proved we had a lot in common because most women he met were far from being into geeky technology stuff like him. On a side note, we cancelled our TIVO service a few years ago, and it made me sad. What brought us together, was now gone. :)
I used to love soap operas, particularly All My Children and One Life to Live. Another embarrassing fact, I cried during the last episode of One Life to Live last month. Before I started running, I used to go to Disney ever year for their Super Soap Opera Weekend where you could meet the soap stars. It was a photo from that weekend with one of my favorite stars that convinced me that I needed to change my life....I joined Weight Watchers the day after I got back and now go to Disney for Marathon Weekend instead.
I love doughnuts. UGH. This one is terrible. I don't eat them anymore, but I credit those dumb little chocolate donuts they sell at gas stations to the reason why I gained an insane amount of weight after college. If you asked me what treat I would want after a long run, it would be a Boston Creme doughnut from Dunkin Donuts. Sigh, I don't eat them anymore because they are a bad trigger food for me.
I hate writing and I never let anyone read papers I wrote in college other than the professor. As you can see, blogging is taking a huge step out of my comfort zone because my writing is on display for whoever to read it. Every time I am about to press publish on a post, I get very uncomfortable and scared. As soon as I start getting comment emails, I finally relax and feel like my writing that day didn't totally suck. But, I go through this daily, I don't think I will ever get used to this.
I dislike dogs, a lot. I have always been uncomfortable around dogs my whole life. I hate getting jumped on. I hate the smell of them. I kind of find them annoying. A few years ago, I got bit by a dog on my run. I didn't know whether it was a coyote or a dog, I just knew it bit me through my running tights and I had to have rabies shots because the farmer whose yard the animal came out of claims it wasn't their dog even though there was a few other dogs there with it. I am jealous of people that run with their dogs, but also get annoyed when I am on the trail and someone doesn't have their dog on a leash. We are not all dog lovers, people. Please keep your dog next to you.
I love decorating cakes and cookies. If I knew I could open my own pastry business immediately, I would go to school culinary school. Unfortunately, I know out of school, I would have to take a low paying job and I am not going further into debt for a low paying job.
I don't wear makeup, and I don't even know how to put it on. I am afraid this may become a problem soon as I dislike my aging face and wonder if makeup will make me feel better. I guess when my daughter is old enough to wear makeup we can take a class together to learn what we are doing.
I love being a mom more than I ever thought I would. I love the everyday challenges. I love the conversations with my girls. I love the things they say. I love the hugs they give us. To say that I am satisfied with my little family is an understatement. I don't know how I ever got this lucky.

And now here are Amanda's questions:

What is your favorite TV show? 90210--Yes the current one, I told you I like weird shows.
Skiing: downhill, cross country or water? None--Never tried any.
Favorite season? Spring--Love the weather and marathon season!
Peanut butter or almond butter? Peanut butter, yum!
Did you play sports in high school? Basketball and swimming
Who's your favorite singer band? Glee??? Otherwise I love Pink and Katy Perry.
Country music: yay or nay? It's OK.
What's your favorite drink at Starbucks? Skinny Awake Tea Latte with a shot of caramel
What is your current fitness goal? Boston Marathon!
What's your favorite type of exercise? Running :)
What's your dream job? Physical Therapist

And Caroline's questions:

What is your favorite brand of running shoes? Brooks! :)
Favorite book you have read recently? Hunger Games
Letterman or Lenu? Umm, Letterman I guess.
How are you today? Having an awesome day.
Who is someone you admire? Kara Goucher, Michelle Obama, Ellen Degeneres. :)
Reality TV: yes? no? if yes....confess the worst. See above!
What makes you laugh? My kids and The Big Bang Theory.
Why are the Kardashians famous again? Ummm, yeah, I don't know either.
Favorite Olympic moment? Oh, gosh, everything. I love the Olympics!
What is something you cannot stand? Being injured. It just sucks.
When is your next race? Boston Marathon, April 16th!

And, I am not tagging anyone else, because I am probably the last person to get to this. This was actually kind of fun, once I started writing. I'd love to answer more questions in a future post, so feel free to leave questions in the comments!

Sparkly Soul Headband Review and Giveaway

2012-02-07T14:00:00.000-05:00

When it comes to running gear, I am pretty picky. I have spent so much money in the past five years and have many products just laying around that I have purchased and I don't feel like they make my running easier.

Sparkly Soul asked a bunch of FitFluential ambassadors to try out their headbands and put reviews on their blogs. I was more than excited to do this as I have been seeing them pop up all over people's blogs and I really wanted to try them.

One of my hesitancies to order a Sparkly Soul headband was my difficulties that I normally have with headbands. I have a big head and I get headaches easily from tight headbands. From my start of running, I have had headbands flying off the back of my head while I am running. In summary, I have bad luck with headbands.

I tried out both the thin and wide headbands from the Sparkly Soul website. The thin headband is 3/8" thick and the wide is 5/8" thick. When I first received them I got really excited. They are incredibly cute. I put the thin headband on and headed to my treadmill for my first test run.

I think I ran 6 miles that day and the headband did not budge the entire time. As you can see from the photo I took of the inside of the headband, there is a soft velvet on the inside that prevents slipping. The velvet goes all the way around therefore the headband is one continuous piece. This is the first time I saw that and feel like it helped to keep the headband from moving. Another thing I noticed right away was that the sparkles did not come off during my run. I have worn sparkly things before and have ended up with sparkles all over my hands and face. The sparkles stayed on the headband and after 3 weeks of wearing the headband, they continue to stay that way. The headband looks the same today as the day I received it.

The last thing I noticed during that first run is that I did not notice the headband the entire time. This is huge. I have tried other popular running headbands and have to pull it within a mile of my run because it is putting too much pressure on my big head. My Sparkly Soul headband fit snuggly but did not feel like it was squeezing my head.

Since my first test run, I have continued to wear both the wide and thin headbands on runs and have been incredibly impressed with them. They function better than I expected when looking at them before. As far as how they look, I love them. They are very cute and I have actually begun wearing them everyday to keep my hair out of my face. I always have my hair in a ponytail, but the stray hairs tend to drive me crazy. I finally found a headband that I can wear the entire day that I feel cute in and don't get headaches. I also think they look cute wearing them together.

Another bonus, for me with these headbands is that they also work for my daughter. This past year, we grew out my daughter's hair, so she has been in a headband nearly everyday. I have invested a lot of money in good headbands for her as she used to lose them at school. Yesterday, I let Bridget go to school for the first time in my wide Sparkly Soul headband and she came home and said it didn't fall out once. Bridget has a small head. The fact that I am able to wear the headband and then have it not be overly stretched for her is quite impressive. Today, she actually coordinated her outfit so that she could wear it again. :)

So, I obviously, really love these headbands and am so excited that I get to give away both a wide and thin headband to one of my readers.

To enter, you can do one (or all) of the following (Please leave a comment for each entry):

Head over to SparklySoul.com and tell me what headband color is your favorite.
Follow Sparkly Soul on Twitter @SPARKLYSOULINC
Tweet about this giveway: "I want to win a @SPARKLYSOULINC non-slip headband from @robinbn Enter to win here: http://westfordmommy.blogspot.com/2012/02/sparkly-soul-headband-review-and.html "

Sparkly Soul is also offering a discount code to my readers. You can receive 15% off any orders through March 1, 2012 by using the discount code "FitFluential".

Good luck and thanks for entering!

*You must be 18 years old to enter. The sweepstakes runs February 7, 2012 until February 12, 2012 at 11:59pm EST. I will be using random.org to pick the winner and will announce the winner Monday, February 13, 2012. The prize will be provided by SparklySoul.com. One winner will be selected. I will announce the winner in a blogpost on February 13th and the winner will have one week to contact me before a new winner will be chosen. SparklySoul.com will ship the item to the winner as soon as it is possible. Incase of a technical glitch and entries are lost, all entrants must resubmit comments for entries.

**I was not compensated for this post. I received two headbands from Sparkly Soul to try out and review. My review is based on my own opinion.

Super 5k Race Report

2012-02-05T17:12:00.000-05:00

Today I ran the Super 5k Road Race in Lowell, Massachusetts for my 3rd time. The race is about 15 minutes from where I live, so I have done many races on this course and love to go back.

Backing up to yesterday. I ran 6 miles with my last 2 at tempo pace of around 7:30 pace. This was my first run post-Norovirus and I felt it. My stomach felt awful and I had no energy. My plan was to run long. About 4 miles into my run, I decided a long run was not going to happen, so I picked up my pace to try and finish out strong. I felt terrible when I was done. The rest of the day I was tired and my stomach was not happy. My 5k was looking like it may not happen, but I took it easy last night. I ate oatmeal for dinner and went to bed early. I had hope that I would at the very least run the race.

I woke up this morning with a headache, but my stomach felt pretty good. I ate a bagel for breakfast and waited to see how I felt. The race had a noon start time, which really helped. I got ready for my race and headed to Lowell.

I met up with Janine and Steph before the race. I love running races with friends and today was no exception. Having someone to talk to really eases the nerves and made me forget that I might not feel the greatest.

I only warmed up for 1/2 a mile. I usually like to run 1-2 miles before a 5k, but I didn't want to risk an upset stomach so really took it easy. It was about 29 degrees and sunny, so perfect running conditions. We lined up pretty close to the front of the pack which was a good thing as the race had about 3 times as many people running as last time. They announced the start pretty quickly and we were off.

The first quarter mile was quite a bit of weaving as usual. My goal today was to run strong and hope that I could hold on for a sub-21:30. (This isn't a PR, but I wanted a strong race, not a PR today) Within the first quarter of a mile I got passed by a woman pushing a jogging stroller. I looked down at my Garmin and saw 6:25 pace. Wow, that lady was cruising! I settled into a 6:40 pace. I knew that I probably wouldn't sustain this pace for the whole race, but I felt pretty good so went with it. At the end of mile 1, there is a small hill and I passed Stroller Mama. I have to point out, she didn't finish too far behind me, love it! I passed quite a few people on the hill but knew my time was going to expire soon. Mile 1 clocked in at 6:40. Wow, so happy to see a sub-7 minute mile.

Mile 2, is when the energy started draining quickly. The first half of the mile, I was still passing people, but I was really tired. At about mile 1.5 you turn to head back and I was still holding onto my sub-7 minute pace. I wasn't going as fast as my previous 6:40 pace, but I knew if I held strong I could manage my 21:30. I hit mile 2 in 6:46. Woo, love it again!

Mile 3....oh how I hate thee. When I ran my 5k in December, I remember hurting worse than I did today. But today, I was not feeling it. I wanted to push stronger to stay under 7 and I couldn't do it. My legs were slowing down even though my brain was trying to tell them to go faster. I started to get passed, but I was still passing people. I guess I wasn't alone. I hit mile 3 and saw 7:08. Sigh. Outside my goal, now I wasn't sure if I would hit my goal.

Just before mile 3, you turn the corner toward the finish line and hit an incline. Yuck, I hate this. It isn't a hill, but when you run hard, it still hurts. Once I hit mile 3, I picked up the pace a bit. Once I saw the clock, I picked it up even more. The clock hadn't clicked over to 21 yet! I finished the last 0.1 miles at a 6:01 pace and finished the race with a time of just under 21:15 for an overall pace of 6:50. 15 seconds below my goal time and less than 20 seconds slower than my PR! Success!

So I didn't PR today, but I am beyond happy. A year ago, I couldn't imagine running sub-7 mile pace for an entire 5k, and I did today after being sicker than I have been in years for an entire week. I know my sub-20 minute 5k is in me. I would love to try for it sooner than later, but I have a slightly more important race that I need to resume training for tomorrow. And, yes, I am back to training tomorrow. AGAIN. Bring on the miles.

Under the Weather

2012-02-02T09:59:00.000-05:00

Hello from my couch. I am on day 3 of a stomach bug that doesn't seem to want to escape me. Monday night I was up all night with my youngest who was throwing up. The next morning I put her on the floor of my living room to rest. An hour into school day, the school nurse calls saying my oldest is feeling sick. I spent Tuesday afternoon helping her throw up in a bucket and not on my floors. By late afternoon, she was moaning, but feeling better.

I hopped on the treadmill for what would be my last run of the week. I got in my 12 mile run pretty easily. I felt strong and averaged a sub-9 minute pace. I got done running and headed to the kitchen to replenish some of my lost calories. That is when it hit me. I could barely stomach a Luna bar and one bottle of water. I thought what I was feeling in my head so I got ready for class and started driving. I made it 10 minutes into my drive and turned around. I headed to my couch and spent the evening there. Getting sick after a 12 mile run has proven to be harder on my body that I would like. I woke up incredibly dehydrated yesterday with cramps in my lower back. I was hoping I would wake up feeling better today, but again, I am back on my couch and unable to eat. I have my Nuun in my water bottle and am hoping I am missing some electrolytes and I can get rid of this awful feeling very soon.

I have only missed one class so far and now two runs. Missing runs is mentally killing me, but I know getting healthy is a priority. I signed up for a Superbowl 5k on Monday before the house got sick so I am hoping I will make it to the starting line with Steph, Janine, and Meaghan. I have done this race a few times, so a good time would be nice, but not expected anymore.

Week 1 Training Recap

2012-01-30T11:03:00.002-05:00

So I made it through week of 1 Boston training and I am so happy to be back on track. My feet are a little sore; they were enjoying their rest but my legs feel amazing. Here is what my week looked like.

Monday: Elliptical for an hour and strength training. I hate the elliptical so I have to force myself to do this every week. My strength training is going great for both arms and legs. I can tell on my runs how much stronger my legs are finally getting. Total workout was about an hour and a half that day.

Tuesday: 8.29 mile run in 1:09 for an average pace of 8:22. Way too fast for my target easy runs, but I was just too excited to be running that I didn't slow down. This non-easy pace was felt on my medium-long run the next day.

Wednesday: 11 miles in 1:43 pace for an average pace of 9:21. This couldn't have been a worse run physically because of my stomach. I made it about 7 miles in when my stomach decided it wasn't there to play that day. I pushed but had to stop every mile to get my stomach to calm down. I had a suggestion on Dailymile to do situps after this happens, so I may try this next time. Not sure if it will help me, but what can it hurt right?

Thursday: 5 miles in 44 minutes for an average pace of 8:44. This was supposed to be a recovery run and this was obviously not a recovery pace. One of my goals this training cycle is to work on running easy on recovery days, and I need to focus on this. Sometimes it seems difficult to run slow when you know you need to go pick up a kid from daycare. Thursday I did my arms workout and Wednesday I got in my legs workout.

Friday: 11 miles in 1:40 for a 9:05 pace. This run made me so happy. My treadmill seems to be off in calibration. What this means for my treadmill is that it says one pace, but it is actually running about 17 seconds faster. This is why you may see my treadmill runs usually approaching the 9:30 pace even though it is around a 9:15 pace with the correction. (I post the time from the treadmill, not what it would be corrected.) Running 11 miles at a 9:05 pace really made me happy and proved that I can run faster on my treadmill. I swear that thing loves to mess with my head.

Saturday: 5 miles in in 44 minutes for a 8:42 pace. Did I mention I don't know how to slow down on 5 mile runs. Enough said. I am switching my long runs to Saturdays next week so I am hoping running my recovery run after the long run will slow me down a bit. I did get my arms and legs done as well today. I love having a TV in my home gym, makes these workouts much easier to accomplish.

Sunday: 15.15 miles in 2:19 for a 9:10 pace. I ran my long run this week with Steph. Our time included many wardrobe malfunction walking breaks as we never pause our Garmins. I don't think we actually ran slower than a 9 minute pace while we were moving. Amazing amazing run. We pretty much got lost in conversation and it was really a great therapy session for me. Sometimes it is really nice to have someone from outside your family give you input to your complicated situation. Meeting Steph has been one of my favorite parts of blogging and can't believe how much I look forward to our conversations.

My total for the week was just over 55 miles in 8:18. I am happy with this total and happy my legs were ok with running again. I really think the extra rest got me both mentally and physically ready for this training cycle.

Sorry for the boring training recap post, but I have my first Anatomy and Physiology test tonight and my mind is obviously elsewhere. I have also been working on finding Physical Therapy offices that will let me observe so that I can build up my observation hours. Yes, school has taken over, but my goal is to maintain 3x a week posting so we will see.

How did your training go last week? One of my running partners finished her first Ultra Marathon on Saturday and her race recap is worth a read. Congrats Colleen!!!!

Joining a Run Club

2012-01-27T10:33:00.000-05:00

I am a very shy person. Meeting new people is very hard for me as I don't know how to make small talk at all. I usually run on my own, because even when running with people, I run out of things to say. Back in September I got a phone call that pretty much changed things for me.

In September, I was getting close to quitting my job and I was home from work for some reason. I was about to head out the door when I got a phone call. A woman, Cindy, on the other line introduced herself as a woman I had met on the track this past summer. She was laughing because she looked up my name from the results of a race she had seen me run in and then looked up my phone number. She was getting set to run a 200 mile relay in two weeks and their team was short a person. They were looking for a local runner and she thought of me.

What Cindy didn't know is that I had been wanting to run a relay for years. My lack of being outgoing really prevented this from happening as I spoke to very few people at local races. Some people recognized me, but no one really knew me. I didn't know 12 runners that I could convince to run a relay with me so it would always be just a dream until that moment. I, without knowing anything, committed immediately to this relay. My excitement to run outweighed my fear of being around new people.

The Reach the Beach Relay was September 16-17th, 2011, and it was a weekend I will never forget. Hopping in the van with five ladies I didn't know on that Friday morning was very scary, but the nerves quickly went away. All five women in that van were so nice and incredible runners. I learned to push myself to a point I never thought possible and also that motivation from other runners can really help. Our team ended up taking 3rd in the Masters Women division, averaging an 8:01 pace over almost 200 miles. I was so proud to be part of such an amazing team.

On the way home from the race we got to talking about the Boston Marathon. A few of the ladies were already registered to run and I was waiting to register because of the rolling registration. One of my teammates asked if I would ever join her running club which offers group runs on the Boston Marathon course as well as transportation to the Boston starting line. I admitted to her that I have always wanted to join a running club before, but due to my shyness stayed away. They thought it was funny I would be scared considering I had spent the past 36 hours with complete strangers and had a blast. I considered the option, but kind of put it in the back of my mind.

Fast forward a few months and here I am getting ready to run Boston. I know I want to run on the Boston course, because I can. Not only do I fear talking to new people, but I also fear new running routes. I am afraid of being on an 18 mile training run and getting lost. So, I re-evaluated my past few months....

I now run with someone nearly once a week. This is a huge change from the past where I never ran with anyone.
I spent 36 hours in a van with five ladies I had never met and had fun. Runners are a great group of people and I love listening to them and I love having someone other than my poor husband listen to me talk running.
I learned during the relay that there is a lot of experience to soak up from runners who have been running a lot longer than me. Most started where I have and are now where I look forward to being in the future.

This combined with the fact that I wanted firsthand knowledge of the Boston race convinced me to finally bite the bullet and join a running club. I am now a member of the Greater Lowell Road Runners Club. I am nervous to meet my new running friends but also very excited. The experience that they have can only enhance my experience with running.

Yesterday, I received many emails that only got me more excited that I joined the running club. I am about to sign up for the bus to the starting line and looking at how to incorporate some of their group runs into my schedule. The running club also has a program for kids so my girls are going to get to be involved as well. I can't believe I waited this long to join, but am so thankful I finally had the final kick to get me to join. I guess you can say my hesitancy allowed me to find a group with people that I know I liked from the start so I am not jumping in blindly.

Have you joined a running club and if so what was it that convinced you to join?

The Changing Happy Meal

2012-01-26T13:07:00.000-05:00

I got an email this morning that sparked my topic for today. Chick-fil-A has a new kids meal option that looks like this:

I loved seeing the grilled chicken nuggets become an option finally at a fast food restaurant. The problem I now have is the nearest Chick-fil-A to us is 25 minutes away at the mall. This is great when we are out shopping, but honestly, this is not convenient and I would rather go to a restaurant while at the mall than fast food.

Here is my confession: my husband and I use fast food occasionally to feed our family when we are short on time or just tired and don't want to cook. We have our favorite options such as Chipotle and Moe's Southwest Grill that allows me to find a healthy meal on the menu that I actually enjoy. My kids love these restaurants and I love seeing them eat beans, rice, and grilled chicken in their tacos or burritos as opposed to fries or chicken nuggets. We usually go to one of those restaurants on Sundays after my long run so that I can replenish my calories and feel the reward of running.

Before I started running, I was very unhealthy. I was obese and going to a fast food restaurant such as McDonald's or Burger King was not as big of a deal to me. When I decided to change my life and lose weight, I had to rethink what I ate. The first year, I avoided these restaurants like the plague. This was not because you can't find a healthy option there, because you can. I had to avoid these restaurants because it was a trigger for me. It was too easy for me to go there and overeat and return to my old eating habits. (I started my weight loss journey when my kids were basically babies, so they never knew me as an unhealthy mom.)

I have been at my goal weight for over four years now and I find making correct choices at restaurants is not as hard as it used to be. Enter in having kids and an incredibly busy life. I stay home with my kids so cooking meals is for the most part easy to do on a daily basis. My kids eat a variety of foods. The food you will see repeating in my house are beans, rice, chicken, variety of vegetables, and sometimes tofu. My youngest acts as if she is picky but will always eat what is on her plate. Making a healthy meal all the time is time consuming and sometimes I just want a break.

If you asked my kids where they want to eat out, most times they will pick Chipotle and Moe's. Due to the popular brand Happy Meal toys (Barbie & Hello Kitty), they have begun asking for McDonald's now more than they have in the past. UGH!

I am not going to sit and tell you that I am against feeding my kids McDonald's because I am not. I am not a perfect healthy living mom. I try to have good options for my kids at home but, yes, I do let them go to McDonald's occasionally. McDonald's has recently reworked their Happy Meals to include less french fries (100 calories instead of the normal 250+) and adding in apples without asking for it. Thank you McDonald's for beginning to make your meals healthier for my child since you tempt them with your toys. I would love to see McDonald's changing their chicken nuggets into grilled instead of fried like Chick-fil-A has decided to do and hope this is in the future for them. Why do you offer grilled chicken sandwiches for adults, but only fried for our kids? I am not perfectly healthy, but I want my kids learning to love the healthier options that is offered. Moms like quick and easy and it is nice that our kids are finally getting to eat healthier when choosing the fast food option.

Why I Love the Brooks PureFlow Shoe

2012-01-24T13:21:00.000-05:00

So here is my first VLOG. I was really nervous to put a video blog post up, but I am really loving watching others' VLOGs so I wanted to join in on the fun. Please let me know what you think and if you would be interested in more VLOGs in the future.

Here are some Brook's PureFlow links with additional information if you are interested.

My first impression of the PureFlow shoe
See Mom Run Far, wrote a great post on the PureFlow shoes back in October.
Got2RunNow, posted her review of the PureCadence shoe. These are even more minimalist than the Pureflow and I have only read amazing reviews of them.

Purchase the Brooks PureFlow here!

**I was not compensated for this review. I purchased and wear these shoes and my opinion is my own.

Boston Marathon Training!

2012-01-23T13:29:00.001-05:00

It has been 2 weeks since this...

For the first time since beginning marathon running, I rested after my marathon. I took two weeks off. I ran, but not a lot. I cross-trained, but if I wanted to sleep, I did. Yes, this was a mental challenge to me. I know many people that are pretty deep into their marathon training programs and I had to step back from mine. I knew I wouldn't lose fitness by taking two weeks off, but I really wanted to ignore that fact.

I chose this route because I wanted to avoid injury. I can't afford to go into training for the biggest race of my life with a bad hip or sore legs. An update on my body: I feel great. My hip has twinges in it, but nothing more than I did before Disney. My calves and feet feel great. I let myself eat what I wanted to these past few weeks. I was so ready to get back into marathon mode with everything today. And I did.

Today was a cross-training day. I woke up this morning and was excited to put on my workout clothes. (Note: I hate the elliptical.) After I dropped my daughter off at school, I did the elliptical for an hour and then did my strength training. During my recovery I really focused hard on establishing my strength training routine and I am glad I did. The workout is pretty long and has a lot of exercises that my PT gave me. It takes a long time to complete all of the exercises, and I think practicing it with no expectations helped me make it a routine. Based on the progress I have seen within the exercises, I know that I am getting stronger. I am excited to see the progress translate on the road this spring.

Tomorrow, the running begins and I can return to my favorite site, DailyMile, and share with you my workouts again. The following are my goals for this training cycle:

Wake up for my runs in the morning if I don't have daycare to watch my kids. I don't want to put off my workouts until the evening because with school starting, I am going to be exhausted at night.
Focus more on the McMillan training paces for my runs. My current 5k pace is much faster than what I can run the marathon based on the calculator. This means, I don't have the endurance to reach my potential. This cycle, I will run his recommended paces and hope that with the mileage, I can increase my endurance in the next 12 weeks.
Strength train 3-4 times a week. This is so important if I want to keep my hip healing correctly. I am hoping this also helps with the Newton hills. :)
Run outside as much as possible. This is going to be so hard with winter, but I want as much road experience as possible. I usually run the Vermont City Marathon every May, coming off winter training. The past two years at Vermont were not pretty and I am going to have to attribute some of it to all my treadmill runs. I love the treadmill for speed training but my legs need to run on the road for long runs, and I am going to have to bite the bullet and get out there and run when it is cold. I put in a big order at Brooks this past week so am hoping once my new gear arrives, I will be a much happier winter runner.
Focus! I usually don't have a hard time focusing when I have a training program in front of me, but I need to focus on my end goal and that is a fun, successful Boston Marathon. I will probably limit my extra races this training cycle and trust that my training plan will get me to the finish line if I follow it the way it is written.

Back to running! I am so happy and so excited. I have been waiting for this training cycle to begin since last January when I saw that 3:37 on the clock. I can't believe it is finally here and I can say: I am training for the Boston Marathon!

What are your goals for your current training cycle? Does winter running scare you as much as it does me?

See Mom Run: A Children's Book Review

2012-01-20T13:55:00.000-05:00

You may think by reading my blog that all I think about is running. This may seem like the case, but my little girls are my entire life and today I was able to do something I have waited since I gave birth to do.

Yes she was my little Brooks runner for Halloween last year. :)

My oldest, Bridget, is in the first grade. She loves to read, do math, and she really loves running. When she started school last year, I was working full time as a nanny. I was able to see her off on her first day of kindergarten, but up until September of this past year, that was the extent of my involvement with her school. I had no time off during the day, so my husband did everything from parent teacher conferences and school parties to music performances.

First day of kindergarten and preschool.

A few weeks ago, I got a note from Bridget's teacher that they were looking for Mystery Readers. It was finally my chance to be the "present" mom at my daughter's school. Now, I am not saying not being involved was a bad thing....I was able to provide for my family when we needed it most. But, emotionally, I missed my kids and I finally got to participate in one of the activities that the school puts on for parents.

All that being a Mystery Reader involved was listing mystery clues to my identity and then reading a book to her class. Can I tell you, I was nervous?! I was only going to be reading a book to a bunch of first graders, but I wanted my little girl to be proud of her Mom.

This past week I sent in the following list of clues: 1) We love to camp at Disney 2) I love to decorate cookies & 3) I love to run marathons. I knew these clues were a dead giveaway to Bridget, and I was excited to see if she could figure it out. Bridget's teacher did tell me that the kids were excited to meet me because they wanted to learn more about what a marathon was.

While waiting in the hallway, Bridget walked by and looked incredibly confused as to why I was at her school. The second time she walked by, you could see that the lightbulb had turned on and she duckwalked to the classroom with the silliest grin on her face. Bridget's teacher came out to get me and had me wait outside while she announced the Mystery Reader was here. Bridget started jumping and saying it was her Mom. I was beaming at this point, my little girl was excited to have me there.

I sat in front of her class and began reading. I brought See Mom Run by Kara Douglass Thom to read to her class.

See Mom Run is a story about a little girl named Penny who brings her mom's marathon medal to school. She explains to her class what a marathon is and how you can get a medal for trying hard not winning. The book then goes on to explain that her mom let her have the medal because she helped her mom run her marathon.

I love this book! I bought this book for Bridget when she was three and if you saw how worn it is, you could see how well loved it is. It shows my girls how I wouldn't have something as important to me as running without them. It shows that the little things they do to support me means so much to me. I think the book also illustrates how fun being active can be to kids. Bridget wants to run races with me now that she is getting older and this book has told her since she was three, that she can run alongside Mommy in a race.

I highly recommend this book if you are a mom and want to show your little ones what running is. I find it is a good book to explain why I disappear for 3 hours every weekend and that getting running shoes for your birthday is normal. :)

Bridget's class loved the book as did her teacher. It was a different book that she had never heard, yet really told you who we are as a family. I am proud of my active family and so happy that my girls enjoy this crazy running life as much as I do.

Stressing About My Training Schedule

2012-01-18T11:48:00.001-05:00

Currently I am 10 days out from the marathon and I am still giving my body a break. I have run multiple times and my legs are feeling pretty good. I promised myself that I would not push hard to get back into training for at least two weeks. I know I beat up my body pretty hard during my training and the marathon. The problem with not running for me is that I get all my good thinking done when I am running. Running de-stresses me and gives me energy. So going on my 2nd week of VERY limited running, I am itching to get outside. I need my time in my head, and I need that energy. As you will see from the following ramblings, my thoughts are all jumbled up inside. One week and I will be back to the road!

I start training for the Boston Marathon on Monday. To say my road to get here was easy would be a lie. My first attempt at qualifying for Boston was in October of 2009. I had only been running for two years and at the time, I thought I was in perfect shape to qualify. Looking back and reading the race report, I know I wasn't ready. I crashed pretty hard and it was a death march to the finish line.

Now two years later, and I am a totally different runner. I am confident, I am strong, and I am ready to tackle the race that I have been planning to run for five years. Toeing the starting line is no longer a fear to me. I have been to the starting line of 16 marathons. I love the atmosphere and I know at that moment there is nothing more that I can do to change the outcome of my race but run.

Training for said marathon is a whole different story. Choosing a training plan and executing that training plan can determine the outcome of my race. A decision I make today will effect how I run in 12 weeks. I have made bad training plan decisions in the past and have gotten to the starting line not as prepared as I had hoped. I am hoping to avoid this mistake so I have been staring at training programs for the past week.

For Disney, I went with an Advanced Marathoning program and my plan all along has been to repeat my same training for Boston. It took me three days of reading and studying plans to come right back to where i started. The Pfitzinger book has produced the best results for me and I am not willing to try something new with only 12 weeks to go. I plugged my workouts into my calendar and then started reading to make sure they fit with my weekend scheduling.

Through February, I am completely satisfied with the schedule. I have a few marathon pace long runs and not too hard long runs during the week. This doesn't stress me out.

March on the other hand, stresses me out. First Boston, is on a Monday and not a Sunday. Based on my current plan, my last 20 mile run will be greater than 21 days from the marathon. I am considering adding in another 20 mile run for the Saturday of March 31st, but then my whole schedule just blows up. Also, I am considering running my long runs with a running group on Saturdays. They go to the Boston course and this seems like a good idea. In terms of my training plan, this doesn't work at all and would cause me to rework everything. The annoying thing to me is, I know whatever I plan on doing won't make any difference physically. I have done this training program before and it is tough. I know that sticking to exactly what it says and changing nothing will produce the results that I am looking for. So why am I stressing over adding 3 miles or moving a day here and there?

I can tell you why I am stressing.....I was one of the unlucky persons with a Boston qualifying time that barely got me into the race. They took everyone that was faster than BQ-1:07, and I was BQ-2:07. I sat for a week staring at my computer waiting to get this...

I want to show up for the Boston Marathon in the best position that I can put myself. And just like on the day of the marathon, I have to trust that I can get myself to where I need to be.

Do you tend to over-think things or do you just trust your instincts? OR do you have a coach that you can trust to get you to that starting line and if so, how did you find your coach?

Applying to Grad School

2012-01-16T11:43:00.000-05:00

Last week, I posted about my fitness goal for 2012. I have a whole list of things I would love to accomplish this year dealing with my fitness. Outside of these goals, I have one personal goal for the year that I want to share with you. First, I am going to tell you a little bit about myself.

I graduated from high school in 1997, a 17 year old with no idea of what life was. All I knew was that I wanted to get out of my small northern Minnesota town. I got a full scholarship to join the Army ROTC and I took that scholarship and went to school to be a pilot. My first year in the ROTC was torture. I was not meant to be in the military and I learned this very quickly. I was lost when it came to military training and even more lost when it came to the physical fitness tests. They wanted me to run 2 miles in 17 1/2 minutes. Seriously? This girl couldn't run 2 miles in less than 20 minutes. And wake up at 5am to run? Are you kidding me? I quit the ROTC on one cold morning in April in the middle of a 5 mile run. I couldn't believe they were asking me to run 5 miles. I found the Sargent that was in charge of my group at the time and told her that I was giving up my scholarship, I was not cut out for this at all. I walked back to my dorm room, shocked that I made this adult decision without discussing it with anyone.

I stayed at the same school the next year, paying for it on my own. I continued studying commercial aviation and got my Private Pilot's license in December of my sophomore year. I was so proud of myself when I passed that test, I was moving in the right direction for completing my degree.

The summer after my sophomore year, I got a job to work at Space Camp. This was an amazing opportunity as I was going to be working with students from across the country and teaching kids all about my love of airplanes. I had a blast that summer and learned so much from the experience.

My junior year is when life took a dramatic turn. My mom was diagnosed with colon cancer at the end of the first semester. That first semester went amazing and I was really enjoying my classes, but the thought of going back to school with my mom sick was killing me. My family decided that since I was the only adult child in the family that wasn't married and tied down, that it would be me that should move home to help out with my mom. I think back on this decision all the time. If this would have never happened, my life would be incredibly different that it is now, but I am still happy with my life, so I think to myself that things happen for a reason.

My mom did amazing through chemo and the following year, I was able to return to school locally and continue my education. I also took a job as a flight attendant to test out the waters of the airline industry. Taking that job really showed me what I wished I had figured out sooner. Working on a flight crew is not what I wanted to do. This wake up call was very frustrating, but it saved me from investing further money into flight training. I was very far into my schooling so I switched over to an Aviation Management focus instead of flight focus and received my Bachelors degree in 2003.

I graduated in May of 2003 and met my husband in June of 2003. When I met him, I had no intentions of getting married, but somehow things just happened and we were married in 2004 and had my first baby in 2005.

I took a job as a nanny just out of college because finding a job wasn't as easy as I had hoped. My nanny job was the perfect job as a new mother as I was able to bring my kids to work with me. This was fine for the first few years of their lives but the older they got the more I disliked having my kids schedules based on the family I worked for, so I left my job. Since then, I have worked 2 more nanny jobs while my kids were in daycare and school.

I recently left my last nanny job and have been home with my girls for the past four months. I love being home with them, but I know this is only temporary. I want to find a job. The thing is, my only experience out of college is as a nanny. I can find an amazing nanny position if that is what I want, but I don't. That is not who I am, it was what paid the bills.

Since taking up running, I have a new found love for everything fitness. I have considered becoming a personal trainer or coach, but again, that doesn't quite match up with my goals for the future. A few years ago, I suffered an achilles injury and met my current physical therapist. I loved how the exercises he gave me were able to help me heal very quickly. Again, I went to my physical therapist last month for my hip. Three weeks of therapy and my hip was so much stronger.

Physical Therapists intrigue me, and that is why I decided that I want to become a physical therapist. I returned to school last year and began taking my prerequisite courses to get into Grad School. I have 4 more courses that I will be taking in 2012 and then I will be applying to school. The programs locally are very difficult to get into, but I am hoping with my grades and hard work, that I will be able to get into a program in the summer of 2013.

So now you know my goal for 2012. I want to get into Physical Therapy Grad School in 2012. I will be taking night classes which will be difficult to juggle with the kids but my husband and I will figure it out. I also have to take my GRE test this summer. This test scares me, but I know I can do it. I start classes next week, so there is no turning back now!

Marathon Recovery

2012-01-13T11:04:00.001-05:00

If you have followed me for the past few months you know I like to run, a lot. I averaged 65+ miles this past training cycle and peaked at 75 miles. I run six days a week and hate my required rest day on Mondays.

While running on Sunday, my legs were on fire. Not once did I feel any hip pain. At the end of the marathon, I was tired, but I don't remember thinking, wow my legs hurt. That feeling went away the second I crossed that finish line.

I crossed the finish line, stopped my Garmin, squealed when I saw my time (my finish line video shows the squeal), and stood still for the first time in 3 1/2 hours. Oh wow, did it hit me then! Last year, I remember not being able to stand up straight after the race and it hit me again this year. My lower back, my hip, the tendons behind my knees. Everything hurt, immediately! The marathon shuffle had begun.

I got my medal and hobbled for some water. I had to get to the side of the coral to try and stretch my legs. I was laughing and smiling, so the medical staff were not concerned with me. Instead, they were trying to shuffle us out of the coral.

Now, I know, if people don't move, there will be a back-up. I saw this at the Army 10 Miler in October. I crossed the finish line and stood in a hot packed coral for 20 minutes to get water. But, I needed to stretch! I don't understand why races make the finish line area so big. So the shuffle to the VIP tent had begun. I was almost out of the immediate finish line area when I asked where I could get ice. A volunteer pointed about 100 yards in the wrong direction, I told her, that wasn't happening. Luckily, someone not far heard me and pointed that the tent just around the corner had ice. Oh thank you! So, I iced up, took a few Tylenol and headed the 1/4 mile walk to the VIP tent. Erin, my savior, had claimed 2 mats and I was finally able to stretch. The 20 minutes of stretching were incredibly painful, but very helpful.

After my sister finished (in an amazing 4:35!!!) we began our walk back to the buses and then the hotel. It was slow going and my legs were not happy. I decided to soak my legs in the pool at the hotel because I couldn't quite complete my walk to my room.

Do you see that sun?!

After a 5 minute soak, I finished walking and wrapped my legs in Arctic Ease. Oh Arctic Ease, I love you. Like I have said before, Arctic Ease is awesome for icing without freezing you. I sat in the Arctic Ease for about 20 minutes and could finally move a little bit faster as my legs weren't quite as tight.

Tweeting & Absolutely Exhausted!

I have to admit, the recovery from this marathon has been the worst out of any other marathon I have run. I don't know if it is because I ran as fast as I did or if I went into the race with an injury. Whatever the case, it took me four days before I could actually roll over in bed without hurting. Two days ago, I wondered if I had totally gone backwards on all the Physical Therapy I had gone through.

I tried running on Wednesday. I ran/walked 3 miles in 40 minutes. It was terrible! I wanted to cry while I was on the treadmill. Now I wasn't going to cry because I was in pain. Running didn't hurt as much as it was frustrating. After my run, I went into the house and tried stretching my legs. I got stuck on the floor. My pubic bone/hip pain was out-of-control! I finished my stretching because I knew I needed it, took some Advil and went to bed.

Yesterday, I woke up in a little bit of pain, but it was getting better. I stretched again and took some Advil. By the end of the day, the pain was almost gone. I got on the floor and tried doing my planks with toe touches and I could do it. Sigh of relief! My hips had strength again. It wasn't easy but I completed my long workout that I got from my physical therapist followed by more stretching. I went to bed and could finally roll to my side without feeling like someone was stabbing me.

Today, I am pain-free! My girls and I had a dance party before school, dancing to my marathon playlist. I was so happy to have my legs back. BUT, I still haven't run again. Mentally, the lack of runs is killing me this week. I know I have 2 weeks before Boston training starts so I am letting my body rest.

I have had to stay off of dailymile this week. I can't see everyone running amazing miles at amazing paces. I am jealous! I want to run, but I know I shouldn't. I have been injured way too many times in the past, and I know that I will benefit more from resting than from running on broken down muscles and inflamed tendons. So I am not a runner this week. I am sitting on my couch. I will read, I will watch TV, and I will play with my kids. I will not lose speed by taking time off, I can only get stronger.

Do you have a hard time listening to your body? Do you ever get jealous of runners on Twitter, dailymile, and blogs?

Disney Marathon 2012--Another BQ!

2012-01-11T12:01:00.000-05:00

I am so excited to finally write this race report but at the same time I don't know where to even start. I am now three days out from the marathon and am still feeling it. I guess sore hips are a small price to pay for running a race I will never forget.

I woke up just before my alarm went off at 2:30am. This would normally seem way too early, but I was sleeping by 7:30 the night before, so I was happy with seven hours of very restful sleep. I hopped out of bed, took a shower, and started getting ready. Besides having a sore throat for the past few weeks, I felt great and so full of energy. We left our room with our bagel in hand and headed to the buses around 3. Our hotel was very close to Epcot, so it was a short bus ride over to the parking lot.

We arrived at the parking lot and headed to the VIP tent. At Disney you pay for the VIP tent, which they call the Race Retreat. It is not cheap, but it is SOOOO worth it. It is a heated tent with seating, mats, food, porta potties, and changing rooms. If the weather is bad or you have to wait for someone at the finish, this is the way to go.

Sisters ready to run a marathon!

We met Erin at the tent and sat for a few minutes. We all took turns going to the bathroom and then checked our bags in the tent before heading out to the corals. We left the tent at 4:15 for what should have been a 20 minute walk to the corals. I would have to guess it took us about 45 minutes to get down there. We hit the porta potties one more time and Erin and I made it into the A coral with only about 15 minutes to go for the 5:35 start. I let her head to the front of the coral as I knew she had faster goals than me. I didn't want to be tempted to go out too fast so put myself in between the 3:25 and 3:35 pace groups.

The start at Disney is AMAZING. I have been at the same start line for 5 years now and I get just as excited to see the fireworks and characters as you cross the starting line. One goal I had for this race was to keep a smile on my face for as long as possible. I figured it is a lot of work to be in pain and smiling always makes me feel good even if I am not feeling happy. So I crossed that starting line smiling and was ready for an awesome race!

One thing to note with a 5:30 race is that is still dark outside. There is enough lighting on the roads so that you can see where you are going, but looking at your pace on your Garmin is not as easy. Because of this I was trying to run by feel for the dark miles and not keep up with the 3:25 group because that was too fast. The first few miles went by quickly when we circled Epcot. I told myself at mile 2, "This is your day!" HA! As soon as I said that to myself I laughed. Who was I kidding, thinking I was going to run a good marathon 2 miles into the race.

My first 6 miles looked like this:

1	8:13.4	1.00	8:13
2	7:55.1	1.00	7:55
3	7:54.5	1.00	7:55
4	7:53.7	1.00	7:54
5	7:55.9	1.00	7:56
6	7:50.4	1.00	7:50

My mile splits were faster than my goal pace of 8:08, but I really did try to slow myself down. When you can't continue to look at your Garmin, you have to trust that your legs are going at an OK pace. I figured it was the beginning of the race and hoped that as long as I wasn't approaching my half marathon pace, I would be OK.

After mile 6, you loop around on the highway and head towards Magic Kingdom. The first 2 miles on the highway are really dark and really boring. The entire race, I pretty much was running alone. I had people around me, but I was not in the tight pack that you feel in the further back corals. This is great for avoiding weaving and really allowed me to concentrate on my race. Mile 8 welcomed us into the Magic Kingdom property and I knew I was going to start seeing crowds. The spectators at the Transportation and Ticket Center were great, they always give you the boost to get into the park. At this point the water stops seemed to be coming at nearly every mile. I have a tendency to dehydrate easily so really focused on grabbing a Powerade and water at every aid station unless I had just taken a gel then I only grabbed a water. I was worried my strategy would over-hydrate me and cause me to stop to use the bathroom but it worked out great.

I knew mile 10 was coming up and that would mean a mat to send our split for everyone tracking me and also that we were entering Magic Kingdom. I actually considered slowing down even more before this as I didn't want you all thinking I went out too fast. :)

7	7:57.2	1.00	7:57
8	8:03.6	1.00	8:04
9	7:54.4	1.00	7:54
10	7:53.2	1.00	7:53

I guess my legs were not ready to slow down yet. At this point, I figured I was going to post a nice positive split marathon.

We entered Magic Kingdom and as always, it is impossible to not pick up the pace. Main Street was packed with people. I ran down Main Street and into Tomorrowland when someone kicked my heel nearly sending me to the ground. I stumbled a bit but just kept moving and headed into Fantasyland where I saw Alice in Wonderland, Rapunzel, and Cinderella. I was tempted to get a picture as my daughters would have loved to see it, but I didn't know what lied ahead for me so I headed for the castle ready for the photographers on the other side.

Exiting Cinderella's Castle

I always seem to slow down as soon as I leave the Magic Kingdom as it is a long road to the Animal Kingdom. There was a relay this year that split off at the halfway point, but I barely saw anyone headed that way. The crowds were starting to build around the half marathon point and I was got a little scared that I had to run 13 more miles at this pace. I hit the half at around 1:45:30 or so. This was WAY faster than I had planned so I knew the 2nd half would lead to a slow down.

Split at the halfway point:

11	7:51.6	1.00	7:52
12	8:02.0	1.00	8:02
13	7:58.4	1.00	7:58

Leaving the halfway point is when my legs finally started feeling something. I wasn't tired by any means, but I could feel a burn in my thighs and knew my mental game was going to have to start then. I was taking my gels every 5 miles and I think I pulled out my third gel around 14.75 miles. At the same time I developed a side cramp. Oh how I hate side cramps. I knew that if this side cramp went on for too long, I would have a terrible stomach ache the whole week, but I also knew, I was not letting a side cramp slow me down. This is when I remembered what Steph had told me about her marathon. She told me she had yelled at her legs when they started hurting so I yelled at my side. I told myself, you will not win today body, I am not slowing down. I questioned the amount of electrolytes I was getting so decided to drink extra Powerade and see if that would help.

I was hurting when I entered Animal Kingdom but welcomed the distraction of the characters and music. I put on a smile for the cameras and pushed through the park. I got out of the park and at about mile 17, the cramp disappeared. This is when I thought to myself, maybe today really would be my day.

You would never guess mile 15 I was in pain, maybe I was running from the pain:

14	7:55.6	1.00	7:56
15	7:51.7	1.00	7:52
16	8:06.1	1.00	8:06
17	8:02.5	1.00	8:02

The Animal Kingdom parking lot was full of people and my favorite person of the day appeared with a box of tissues. When the sun came out about 30 minutes before, it was bright, but my sunglasses were soaked with sweat. I saw that tissue and nearly gave that woman a sweaty hug. I wiped my sunglasses, put them on, and got ready for what would be that hardest part of the race thus far.

Exiting the Animal Kingdom parking lot is mile 18. This is the point last year when I knew I was going to qualify for Boston. I looked at the clock and again did the math and figured that if I could maintain a decent pace, today was going to be my day again. I also got excited because it was at this point that I wasn't going for a sub-3:35 anymore. I got to race to see what time I could get. I was in control of the outcome of my race.

This is also a highway-filled part of the race. The next 4 miles were spent running on highways to Hollywood Studios. Normally there is nothing fun happening at this point, but today I noticed something exciting. I was starting to pass people. Lots of people were slowing down and I was still maintaining a decent pace. I knew mile 20 would be the out-and-back and I could look for my friends that I was running with and also gauge where I was. I took another gel just before mile 20 and headed into the out-and-back. First I saw the 3:25 pace group. I knew they were well in front of me so wasn't surprised to see them. Next I saw, Erin taking water at an aid station. I yelled for her. What a boost it was to see her. I hit the turn around and began the trip back. Not far behind me was the 3:35 pace group. I figured I had at least 2+ minutes on them. I love out-and-backs and that one was no exception. That mile flew by and I was suddenly at mile 21.

18	8:02.4	1.00	8:02
19	8:02.7	1.00	8:03
20	8:07.0	1.00	8:07

This is when the race started to really get tough for me. I cringe at the memories of how tired I was. First you have a highway ramp that has a pretty rough cambered incline. My hips were not happy with the incline and a climb at this point wasn't so fun. You peak the ramp and then you are still on highway for another mile before you enter Hollywood Studios. My stomach was starting to hate me at this point and I concentrated on drinking more. My power songs came on my iPod and I laughed to myself that I somehow timed it perfectly for when to put them on. I entered Hollywood Studios and wasn't as excited as I would have liked. I was so ready to be done running and I had so far to go.

21	8:07.7	1.00	8:08
22	8:20.5	1.00	8:20
23	8:16.9	1.00	8:17

My splits tell the story, as does this picture from Hollywood Studios.

I was hot, sweaty, and completely spent. But I also knew I was so close to running an amazing marathon and if I could help it, I didn't want to slow down much more than I already had. I exited the Studios and saw the path where I fell last year. I concentrated on lifting my legs and heading onto that path without tripping.

I knew I had a 5k left to run and was trying to figure out what pace I could run and where that would put me at the finish line. I think all the math I did in my head during the race really helped keep the negative thoughts out. I was hurting but was constantly doing numbers to see what I could do. The path from the Studios on the Boardwalk was nice, but I just wanted to get to Epcot so pushed as hard as I could. I tried high-fiving as many people as I could as I knew I was basically done and I had made my goal. I knew I could run a slow final mile and still qualify for Boston so it was time to celebrate and enjoy that final stretch.

I entered Epcot and would pick up the pace and then slow down over and over again. I would pass someone and they would congratulate me and I would start yelling. Yes, I did celebrate for over 1.2 miles. Yelling out when you have a mile to go is not easy to do, let me tell you. :)

I finally entered the Mexico Pavilion and knew my final stretch was just around the corner. My calf muscle seized up for a second but I shook it out and tried picking up my pace. I continued to yell my way out of Epcot and rounded the corner to the Gospel Choir. If you have never done the Disney Marathon, I suggest you do for the choir. At mile 26, the choir sits there singing you in. I waved and thanked them and turned my last corner and saw that finish line.

The crowd wasn't cheering much but I did my part to get them going. I was cheering myself when I saw that the clock had 3:33 on it. I didn't know what my overall chip time would be, but my clock time was still an amazing time. I sprinted as fast as my legs could and crossed that finish line with my arms in the air.

Final Splits:

24	8:04.5	1.00	8:04
25	8:10.6	1.00	8:11
26	8:17.2	1.00	8:17
27	4:07.7	0.52	7:59

And there you have it. I am now qualified to run the Boston Marathon in 2013. I walked around on cloud 9 on Sunday and am so excited to start my training for Boston after 2 weeks of rest.

Thanks again for everyone's support this past week. It really helped mentally to know that I had people following my race and that I would get to report back to you. The blogging/Twitter community has made my running that much more fun. And if you made it through this entire report, thank you.

It's time to start talking BOSTON!

Disney Marathon Weekend Part 1 and Giveaway Winner

2012-01-10T12:52:00.000-05:00

I made it home! The last four days literally flew by. I had so much fun and am excited to recap everything for you. Today will be a recap of my first few days there and then I will get my race recap later this week, hopefully I will see some official race pictures that I can add to the post. If you are looking for the winner of the giveaway, you can head on down to the bottom of the post, otherwise enjoy!

My sister and I arrived in Orlando on Friday morning about 10am. My sister and I make marathon weekend a girls' weekend every year, and this was going to be her 4th marathon. We picked up our "Kermit Mobile" and headed to the expo at the Jostens Center at the Disney's Wide World of Sports.

A hint to future Disney Marathon participants, go to the Expo on Thursday or Friday if you want to buy race specific merchandise. I have learned this the hard way in the past and heard from many disappointed race goers this past weekend. We didn't even pick up our race numbers before hitting the merchandise section of the expo. My sister and I knew we wanted sweatshirts so picked them out quickly before they were snatched up by other racers.

The actual expo was kind of disappointing. There were hardly any booths that were giving away free samples and it was incredibly crowded in there. I started getting sick to my stomach within an hour of trying to walk around. I don't know if it was hunger, or if I was nervous or just plain overwhelmed with the amount of the people. All I knew, was today was not the day for me to look around. Before we left for the day, I stopped by the Arctic Ease booth to see my running partner, Colleen. It was so nice to see a familiar face in the crowd of people.

My sister and I left the expo and went over to Downtown Disney for lunch and a little shopping. Our kids both had specific requests and I figured it was the perfect time to get those requests filled. After we shopped for a bit, we finally decided to check in at our hotel and relax a little before dinner. I like to carb load, 2 nights before marathon, so that night we decided on pasta at the hotel. Luckily, Disney counts on all the runners lining up for pasta, so were pretty quick with making fresh pasta for the masses.

We went to bed early that night as I wanted to spectate the half marathon the next morning. Hint #2, for future marathon weekend participants, get up early, even if spectating, because traffic is a nightmare going to the Magic Kingdom parking lot and kind of confusing.

My plan was to see people at mile 8, which is right outside of the Polynesian Resort. We got to the parking lot with plenty of time to make the short walk over to the Polynesian before the first runners would be running by. This would have been great, but unfortunately, where we were directed to park, there was no way of crossing the race path to get where we needed to be. We walked all around and even found a bridge, but they were not letting people walk across the bridge, so we had to go back to our car and join a line of traffic to cross the bridge that led us directly across from where we started. This was incredibly frustrating because by the time we got to mile 8, the 1:50 pace group was already passing. :( We missed seeing a few of my fast friends, but still had plenty of spectating time left.

My sister and I had a lot of fun yelling for the runners and loved all the costumes. I rang my cowbell and yelled out for all the runners. My voice was shot by the end of the day but it was worth it because I know how good it feels to have people yelling for me in a race.

We picked the Polynesian to cheer as I love eating breakfast at the Kona Cafe there. I highly recommend their Tonga Toast if you want a delicious carb-filled breakfast. It made for the perfect breakfast the morning before a race. Afterwards, we headed back to the expo so that we would have a chance to actually look around without the crowds. This made for a much more relaxing time. I had a chance to talk with many of the vendors, which is always fun as a running gear junkie. :)

We only had an hour at the expo as we had a Twitter/Blogger meet-up scheduled for 11. All the girls I met up with were running Goofy so had already run the half marathon that morning. I felt like the slacker in the group. We ate a great lunch at Earl of Sandwich at Downtown Disney and the conversation was awesome. I now want to start training for triathlons thanks to my new friends and Kristin and Jill. And I am ready to travel to North Carolina for a race with Jennifer and her awesome friends and Erin has convinced me that I need to run the Top of Utah Marathon. Thank you ladies, for keeping me calm on Saturday and for making my trip even more fun I thought it could be.

Yay for Brooks ID friends, especially fast ones!

After walking around a little longer with Erin, it was back to the hotel for rest and race preps. My 2:30am wake-up call was ready for the big day!

And if you made it through my long post, finally, my Marathon giveaway winner. Thank you all for your kind comments on the giveaway. It really helped getting emails every few hours to ease the nerves and know I had support behind me. The winner of my Disney Marathon giveaway is:

Amy, please email me with your information and I will ship your prize out to you this week. And in answer to your question, a few of my mantras that I used on Sunday were:

You have this!
Today is your day, you will BQ.
No, body, you WILL NOT beat me today. (Thanks Steph!)
You WILL meet your goal.

I had so many thoughts going through my head that day, and staying positive really helped. Here is what I picked up for you at this weekend. Hope you enjoy it!

I Did It!

2012-01-09T07:16:00.000-05:00

I am still on vacation in Florida for one more day so this is just a quick update post....

First, I did it!

I ran hard yesterday and my training paid off. I got a 5 minute PR and now get to run Boston two years in a row. I will write a race report this week, I can't wait to tell you all about it.

Second, thanks for all the kind words on Twitter. I could not stop smiling yesterday and every time I checked my email, I would have a new message. I am having a great time on vacation. The weather is beautiful and I have had a blast having sister time and meeting new Twitter/Blogger friends. More on everything with pictures later! Talk to you soon and thanks again for the support!

Running Mind Games and Giveaway!

2012-01-05T16:24:00.000-05:00

Running is a mind game for me and I don't always win. I guess you can call me weak in the mind. I have an incredible endurance base built up and I would consider myself fast. If you look at the numbers, I should be able to kill the marathon on Sunday. This simple fact is allowing me to approach the weekend in a fairly relaxed frame of mind. I know I can run faster than my goal, but I am not going to push myself for what I think I am capable of. I have plenty of races on the schedule this year that I can reach for my potential.

My goal for the Disney Marathon is to PR, qualify for Boston 2013, and to be smiling at the finish line. If all three of these goals are not met, I will be sad, but as long as I am smiling, I will be satisfied. I have run one too many races where I finished crying. I don't want to hate marathoning after Sunday, I want to be excited to run another.

I hit 2 of 3 goals in the Baystate 1/2 Marathon this year. I PR'd but didn't hit my goal time. This was when I finally realized what pushing through mental barriers felt like. I started off WAY too fast for my ability (this was not my race plan), but it felt good. I need to remember this on Sunday when I am tempted to go faster than planned. The last 4 miles of this race were torture, but I pushed through the pain and still PR'd, just not as well as I had hoped for.

Sunday, I am not planning on starting off too fast. Ideally, I would like to pick up the pace at the end because I am feeling great. At Baystate, I reminded myself of my new friends that were watching me race that day. I had met them at the relay I had ran a few weeks before. I didn't want to look like I gave up in front of them so I held on even though I hurt.

Similarly, I am posting my splits to Twitter on Sunday. If I decide to slow down, I know the 425+ people who follow me on Twitter are going to know. I won't be able to avoid posting my time because you all are going to know my official time before I do. I think this accountability is going to help me mentally push myself.

Other ways I plan to keep my head in the race are the following:

I have various mantras that I have picked up over the years from people that I will repeat to myself when the legs are getting tired.
I have my music that I will zone out to when my mind isn't listening.
Finally, I have the crowd and Disney characters to push me along. Crazy to some people, I am sure, but those characters are fun to me. The characters remind me of my kids and every time I see them I think of my girls and how proud they were of me last year when I told them about the Boston Marathon.

I will not let my mind win this race. No matter what happens on Sunday, I am going to let my hard work shine. I will cross that finish line a marathoner for the 16th time.

In celebration of my marathon, I am hosting a giveaway on my blog. I love race expos and usually spend multiple days there. While at the expo this year, I am going to pick up something special for one of my blog readers. I have no idea what I will buy but it will obviously have do with running or Disney. I will also throw in some of the items that I pick up for free at the expo. A very unspecific prize, but that makes it just a little bit more fun, right?

To enter please do the following:

Leave a comment on this post.
For an extra entry, tweet about my contest. "I want to win a gift from the Disney Marathon from @robinbn at http://westfordmommy.blogspot.com !" (bonus entry, leave a comment for this telling me you tweeted)

This sweepstakes is open for US Residents Only and you must be 18 to enter. The sweepstakes runs January 5, 2012 until Sunday, January 8, 2012 at 11:59pm EST. I will be using random.org to pick the winner and will announce the winner Tuesday, January 10, 2012. The prize will be provided by myself, Robin Nichols, and has no value until purchased. One winner will be selected. I will announce the winner in a blogpost on January 10th and the winner will have one week to contact me before a new winner will be chosen. I will ship the item to the winner as soon as it is possible. Incase of a technical glitch and entries are lost, all entrants must resubmit comments for entries. You may enter by leaving a comment on this post and receive one bonus entry by Tweeting about the contest.

Good Luck!!

Mommy Guilt

2012-01-03T13:46:00.001-05:00

Have you met my two biggest fans?

First Disney Marathon Weekend 2008

Marathon Weekend 2009

So the mommy guilt has set in. This will be my 5th year heading down to Orlando for the Disney Marathon weekend, and it is the third year without my kids. It is not that I don't take my kids to Disney, as we just spent a week there in August, but who wouldn't feel guilty about leaving these sweet things home?

Introducing the cousins that will be in school on Friday while their Moms hop a plane to Orlando. My sister and I need a girls' weekend so the kids are staying home with their dads. When we booked the trip in August, we were excited for the vacation. It is time to get away without kids. We plan on meeting other bloggers, Twitter friends, and relaxing in the hot tub. The whole weekend is spent talking about running and totally relaxing.

This weekend, I brought up the trip with my daughters. I led the conversation with, "What do you want Mommy to bring you home from Disney?" Then the questions began....You're doing a race? How come we don't get to watch?

This is what I love about my girls. They know my trip is to Disney, but they are more upset they don't get to watch mommy run a marathon. My girls have been to many of my races and have been good sports putting up with my hobby.

Vermont City Marathon 2011 in the rain

Baystate Marathon 2010

So I have a list of requests for souvenirs and a promise of running a 5k in the spring with my oldest daughter. I will put the guilt out of my mind and enjoy my weekend alone. I will read on the airplane. I will enjoy my milkshake after the marathon. And I will wander around the shops at Epcot and not worry about little girls wondering when their next ride will be. There will be very few rides on this trip. Just running, margaritas, and Mickey!

Kelli, are you ready for Friday?! It is time for us to run hard and celebrate US!

Working on my Marathon Checklist

2012-01-02T13:17:00.001-05:00

Do you have a checklist that you follow when getting ready for your races? This weekend, I am running my 16th marathon. I don't have a physical checklist that I follow and check items off of anymore. I do have a mental checklist as I know what the week leading up to the marathon is usually like.

As soon as taper begins, my first checklist item is stretching. Yes, we should all be stretching throughout the year, but I am incredibly diligent about my stretching at this point. The last thing I want are tight legs on marathon morning. What I am currently focusing on are my hips so I have been continuing my hip flexor stretches that I posted about last month. I am careful to not miss a night of stretching and my legs are thankful for this.

On Friday, I asked for input on my playlist and you all had awesome suggestions. I downloaded at least one song from each suggestion I received, and the dork in me is giddy knowing that I will think about each person when that song comes on. This morning I spent a few hours downloading the new music and organizing it with my old music. I have a four hour playlist ready to upload to my iPod. I am hoping my power song comes on at the right time, but I did add it twice in there just incase. :)

Currently I am working on clearing my Garmin. UGH. I have made it to the start of too many races to find the "Lap history full, please delete old activities." error message. This is annoying as I hate deleting activities that weren't necessarily recorded. (I didn't start Daily Mile until November of 2011, so I don't have the best record of how many miles I have run.) So, now I sit and wait for my little Forerunner to empty all my activities onto my computer. While waiting, I ran across my splits from last year's race:

To say I am proud of those splits, would be an understatement. Those splits give me courage to execute my current race plan that I have in mind. Yes, I slowed down at the end, but the slow down wasn't too bad as I knew I was within my goal of 3:40.

After the Garmin, I will figure out packing. The forecast for Sunday is looking a little warm, so it looks like I will be wearing shorts and a tank. Now which shorts and tank is the question. I am excited to head to my Brooks summer running gear and pick out a few choices. My lungs are thankful for a slightly warmer day, I just hope that the heat doesn't roll in until most people are off the course.

For a list of what I am bringing and a reminder for your next marathon, here is what will go in my bag.

Shorts
Tank
Capris
Long-sleeve running shirt
Sports Bra
Socks
Compression socks or sleeves
Arm warmers
Shoes
Water belt + bottles
Inhalers
KT Tape
Garmin + charger
iPod + charger
Sunglasses
Bondi Band
Hat
Visor
Race number belt
Road ID
Throwaway clothes
Sandals
Sweatpants & Jacket for checked bag
Body Glide
Gloves
Gels
Nuun
Extra water bottle

I am sure I will add to this list as the week goes on. I also have a list going in my head for what I need to bring on my trip. I plan on wearing my TeamSparkle skirt to the half marathon and making a few signs. If you are running the half or Goofy, let me know and I will add your name to my signs. I will Tweet where you will see me on Friday night. Also, if you will be down there, let me know and maybe we can meet sometime.

What am I missing from my list? Do you love lists or do you try to wing it like my crazy husband and pack just hours before your plane leaves?

Help Me With My Playlist

2011-12-30T16:39:00.000-05:00

One week from today and I will be out of Massachusetts and in sunny Florida. Let me tell you, I need a vacation and based on the weather these past few weeks, my vacation has come at the perfect time. Mother Nature can't make up her mind. One day it is 55 degrees and the next it is below 20 degrees. You can't fool me, I know winter is here.

My next few posts will obviously be about marathon preparation as I need to pack my bags and get mentally ready for 26.2 miles. To say I am excited to run the Disney Marathon next week would be an understatement. I feel ready for this race. And I ought to. This is the longest I have gone without running a marathon since my second marathon in 2009. I haven't run more than 21 miles since July when I ran my last marathon. I took the fall racing season off because of family issues that were mentally killing me during my races. Mentally, I am ready to run 26.2 miles now and physically, my legs are happy.

I love running with music. I have done races without music, but when choosing whether to run with or without my iPod, I will choose my iPod pretty much every time. I do keep the volume pretty low, especially at Disney because there is so much going on, but when the going gets tough at mile 21, I know I will want that music there.

Here is my current playlist that I am listening to...

I made this playlist back in October just before the Baystate Half Marathon. It is not quite two hours, as I like to make my playlist last only slightly longer than my goal time. If I am out there longer than my playlist, then I deserve to be listening to the same song again. As stated, this is under 2 hours currently. Unfortunately, I don't see myself breaking any world records for the marathon next week, so I need more music.

Please help me! You can see by my current music, I like Top 40 music and Glee music, but I am wide open for suggestions! My current pump me up song is I'm Shipping Up to Boston from the Dropkick Murphys and Lose Yourself by Eminem will get me moving as well.

What is on your playlist? Can you introduce me to something new that I will love?

2012 Fitness Goals

2011-12-28T09:20:00.001-05:00

Note: Stephanie and her husband worked incredibly hard on getting results to you all for the Virtual 10k. Please click here for her results and list of winners.

I am a blog stalker. I love reading blogs even if I don't always comment. One of my favorite posts to read are goal posts. I like to read what you all look forward to do in the coming year and I LOVE reading the progress of your goals throughout the year.

I am afraid to set goals as I am afraid of failure. I know what my goal is for the Disney Marathon next week, but to actually say that goal out loud, makes it known and gives me that much more pressure. When I blogged a few years ago, I actually felt the pressure to meet goals was what pushed me away from blogging. Not only was I not meeting my goals for myself, but I felt I was a lot of talk on the blog and couldn't pull through at my race.

When returning to blogging, I promised myself that I am blogging for myself and it is OK not to meet every goal you set out. While I was losing weight, I never thought it was possible to lose that much weight nor run a marathon, but I did. I need goals to work towards even if I don't meet it this year. So with that here are my fitness goals for 2012.

Race Time Goals

Go sub-3:30 in the marathon. This is NOT my goal for Disney. I feel I am capable of this at my current fitness level, but am hoping to re-qualify for Boston at Disney and then set out for this goal later on in the year.
Sub-1:39 in the half marathon. I think I could have done this in my half in October, so this may be one of my easier goals to meet this year. The only problem being, I hate the half marathon distance, so I don't run very many of them. This may happen in August at the Providence RNR.
Sub-20 minute 5k. This may be my hardest goal for the year. I never thought I would run a sub-21 minute 5k and I did this month, so I have set my sights on seeing a 19:xx in a race by the end of the year.

Race Goals

Run another relay. I ran the Reach the Beach Relay in September and had SO much fun. It was physically one of the hardest races I have run as I don't function well without sleep, but it was such a great experience.
Pace somebody in a marathon. One of my favorite marathons ever was when I ran my sister's first marathon with her. It looks like I may be able to do this twice this spring and am looking forward to it.
Have an amazing experience at Boston. I don't want to finish this race crying no matter what. Whether I run a PR or not, I want to enjoy this race and take the whole experience in.

Non-Race Specific Goals

Keep up my hip strength training.
Stretch more!
More ab-work.
Do a pull-up by the end of the year.
Run a 5k with my daughter.

And now it is all written down. I have something to push for and am really excited to tick things off my list. What goals do you have for the upcoming year?

Virtual 10k Race Report

2011-12-26T10:03:00.001-05:00

Last week I mentioned to Steph that I had a 10k on the schedule for Saturday. We like to run together on Saturdays, but we both knew my 10k pace was not similar to her half marathon training pace that we usually run on Saturdays. We couldn't find a local 10k to run and that is when the Virtual 10k was born along with Ashley.

First of all, thank you to all of you who signed up for the race. We never imagined the turn out for the race would be as great as it has been. I have loved reading all of your race reports and it was your stories and experiences along with your accountability that helped me PR in my Virtual 10k.

Steph and I picked Christmas Eve for our race day. It was COLD that morning, so we pushed back our race start until noon after a few wardrobe malfunctions (see Steph's blog). Before the race my husband did our photo shoot outside my house. He was going to come take pictures at the trail, but unfortunately, he had some last minute grocery shopping that needed to get done.

We got to the trail and set off for a cold 2 mile warmup. My legs felt ok during the warmup. We averaged about an 8:35 pace for the warmup, which is faster than I would have liked, but we kind of lose track of our running during our conversations. I noticed during the 2 miles that my legs felt kind of heavy and my chest was pretty tight from the cold air. I was having difficulty talking so was curious to see how running fast would hurt. We finished, drank some water and got lined up for our race.

We lined up at the edge of the trail, started our music and said go. I took off and my legs felt much lighter than they did during warmup, thank goodness! Mile one, I attempted to slow myself down. I knew I was going too fast, but my legs felt great. I should have listened to myself a little more as I knew a 6:50 pace was never going to make it. Mile 1 came in at a 6:52 pace, ugh.

For mile 2, I was finally able to settle into a normal pace. I felt fine during this mile, minus the wind that I was running against. I may as well have been going up a hill for how strong the wind was. Mile 2 was a 7:04, much better.

Mile 3 and 4 sucked. I can not describe them any other way. The wind was no fun and dragged me down and I was really starting to get tired and was reminded why I hate running 10k's so much. Both miles were a 7:11 pace. Not as fast as I wanted but I knew the wind was finally behind me and I may be able to pick up the pace a bit.

Miles 5 & 6 were shockingly easier than the previous 2. They still hurt but I kept reminding myself that I was running with other people. You may not have been with me physically, but you were in my mind those miles. This was good practice for the marathon. Running is such a mental thing for me and I really focused on channeling the competition of the race at this point. Miles 5 & 6 were 7:03 and 7:07, I was so happy to see that I was speeding up. With 0.2 to go, I was ready to be done and finished with a 6:58 pace.

The whole time, I was only watching my splits so had no idea what my total time was. I clicked over to the other screen on my Garmin and saw a total time of 43:51. This was a 40 second PR from my race on Thanksgiving. (That race was reported to be long, so I don't think I actually ran faster, but I was happy to have not gone slower.)

I waited for Steph to finish and we took some photos and then cooled down bringing our total mileage up to 10 for the day. I had so much fun and was excited to come home and report how I did. Thank you all for racing with me this weekend!

If you have stories from your Virtual 10k, please link them here so others can see them or email them to me (rbnnichols @ gmail dot com). We plan on having recaps of everyone's races so we will compile your reports along with pictures and times.

Merry Christmas!

2011-12-25T10:54:00.000-05:00

I am heading out for my Christmas 17 miler but wanted to wish you a Merry Christmas! Have a wonderful day with your family.

Preparing for Christmas

2011-12-22T18:56:00.001-05:00

To say I have been busy this week would be a huge understatement. The week is slipping through my fingers, and I don't think I will get everything done that I need to.

One of my favorite activities to prepare for Christmas is to make Christmas cookies. Two years ago, while recovering from achilles tendonitis, I had to take up a new hobby to distract myself from wanting to run. I took a small break from running blogs and started searching baking blogs. There are so many wonderful baking blogs out there, and I got the bug. I wanted to be like them. (I warn you before you start diving in, reading baking blogs will mean a 5 pound weight gain from all the wonderful goodies you can create!)

I stumbled upon two blogs that I fell in love with: Annie's Eats and Bake at 350. These ladies are AMAZING cookie decorators as well as having many other talents. I wanted to make the beautiful cookies for my family they way they did and so I began to soak up as much information as I possibly could.

I am no professional but I think I have gotten good at decorating cookies. I even got offered a job to decorate in a cookie factory in Massachusetts, but unfortunately, the pay didn't match the commute. I am very proud of this year's cookies and am so excited to share them with you. I do apologize, I am not a food photographer by any means, so my pictures aren't the greatest.

Other preparations going on.....I mentioned the other day that we got our family pictures taken last weekend. This was a long time coming and it is so nice to see my girls at their current age on my wall rather than as babies.

And the rest of the week has been spent finishing up my shopping and wrapping. Do NOT attempt the mall 3 days before Christmas, I learned the hard way today. The line to get out of the parking lot was insane. Yesterday I came home to a wonderful treat, though, that made up for all the craziness that has filled my week. I received my Secret Santa gift from the Blogger Secret Santa that Run with Jill hosted. My wonderful Secret Santa was Stephanie from Running for the Kitchen. Please check out her blog if you aren't already reading it. She just ran an amazing debut marathon a few weeks ago, I am hoping to take some pointers from her next month at Disney. She gave me two pairs of Smart Wool running socks. I was so excited as I had the exact pair of socks in my hands a few weeks ago at Dick's Sporting Goods, and put them back. And now, today, I was able to test them out on my run and LOVED them. Thank you Stephanie for the socks and Jill for hosting!

If you are participating in our Virtual 10k this weekend, you can report your time here. Good luck!

Home for the Holidays Virtual 10k

2011-12-20T17:07:00.001-05:00

Editor's Note: This just in we are RE-OPENING registration for the Virtual 10K due to a high demand. After much consideration and requests, we have decided to reopen the 10k. We thought about those who have not had a chance to register as well as those who took the time to register. Given the short registration time frame and the fact that people can register for a "normal" race the day of, we have reopened registration.

For those who have already registered early, we are giving you the opportunity to be the only ones in the raffle prize for the Brooks shoes.

If you are registering now, please fill out this form. The original info is as follows, minus the registration is remaining open.

Happy Holidays! 2011 has been an amazing year for races, blogging, friends, and fun! Many of us qualified for Boston, ran our first half or full marathon, watched the Hood to Coast teams with awe and slight jealously, and maybe even just started running!

Now that 2011 is about to close and we are rushing home or to friends and families for the holidays, we wanted one last chance to enjoy that Runner’s High before we said our official goodbye to 2011. I don’t know about you, but in our areas there were not many options for races this weekend. People are BUSY! It is Christmas and Hanukkah this week, so we get it. That is why all the holiday races were previous weeks. But we wanted MORE!! Robin & Stephanie looked high and low for a 10k - Robin had a 10K on her training plan for this week and Stephanie wanted to make it 11 races in 2011 (she has 10). Ashley was headed down South for the holiday weekend, and there were not many options.

Good thing bloggers are so resourceful! First we saw this...

Then we saw this...

And before we knew it Ashley, Robin, and Stephanie were planning the 1st annual

The 1st Annual

Home for the Holidays Virtual 10K

Whether you are planning on going home for the holidays or not, we would love for you to participate in this Virtual Race. What better way to burn off some holiday stressors and a few of those extra cookies than kicking out a 10K with some of your closest friends and bloggers.

Because what is the holidays without some of these fabulous sugar cookies!

*Source

If you have never done a Virtual Race before and have no idea what we are talking about, don’t worry it is simple and easy to catch on! The idea behind the race is that you register (here) and instead of actually going to a designated area to race you get to do it on your own time (within a certain deadline) and at your own place. We organize it all and then you just have to run and report back - tell us how it went, send us funny stories, pictures whatever. You can get friends to do it with you in person or just rock it on your treadmill. Whatever works, anything goes! Holidays are stressful and crazy. This is supposed to be fun, healthy, and enjoyable!!!

Plus, if nothing else, we are going to have wonderful, fabulous prizes!!! Amazing companies came out left and right to offer some great gifts. Since this is just for fun, we will be doing prizes for Best Holiday Outfit During the Run as well as random sweepstakes (you enter the drawing by registering and running the 10K).

Here are the brands participating thus far:
Attune Foods
Skin Sake
Sparkly Soul Bands

Tommie Copper

Five Bamboo
Pretzel Crisps

Chobani
Popchips
Gu
Nuun
Choose Cherries
Road ID
Fleet Feet Sports

Cross Country Cajun
Run for Fun - Run for Fun Bondi Band & the new I <3 My Crazy Bitch Dri-Fit Shirt

Healthy Happier Bear - Lululemon shirt
Westford Mommy - iTunes giftcard

Wow! We are pretty excited about all these prizes which came in so quickly. Please check out the Terms and Conditions on winning these items here.

So lets talk logistics

HOME FOR THE HOLIDAYS

REGISTRATION

Race Date: Friday December 23, 2011 through Monday December 26, 2011 - run whenever you would like between this time frame

Where: Wherever you want - that is the beauty of the Virtual Race. Run at home, outside, with friends wherever. Stephanie & Robin will be running together if you are in the area, let them know to join in.

Race Distance: 10K - Run 6.2 miles!

Outfit: As this is a holiday race, feel free to dress up! There will be prizes for the most spirited holiday outfit

Afterwards: Afterwards submit your times - here (link will be updated with the correct information after registration has ended). We would love to share your pictures and stories! We will let you know the results and who has won the prizes by 12/31/11. Send us your pictures and stories so we can report back to everyone. Please send them to healthyhappierbear@gmail.com)

Activity Waiver & Terms and Conditions: Please check this page out as well. By registering, you are agreeing to abide by our Activity Waiver as well as the Terms & Conditions for the Sweepstake prizes. More information can be found on this page.

E-mail: You will receive a confirmation e-mail with any other need to know details Friday December 23, 2011.

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Registration: Register here! Registration is open until Thursday December 22 at 11:59 p.m.

We are soo excited about the 10K! Please tweet, blog, facebook, and share with everyone! We can’t wait.

Life Gets Busy

2011-12-19T14:26:00.000-05:00

I can't believe how fast a week can go by. This past week was my peak week for training. I felt like between my kids and running, I had no time to even breathe. I have enjoyed my small vacation from my computer and may continue to take breaks throughout the holiday. There are just so many little things that I can do with my kids, and I want to enjoy that time while I can.

As for my training. Did I ever run last week! I was scheduled for 70 miles ending with a 20 mile run yesterday. Because of my race last week, I threw in an extra run on Monday, since I didn't run much last weekend. So this is what my week looked like:

Monday--3 mile recovery run in 29 minutes. I did this run on the treadmill and strength trained for an hour after.

Tuesday--6 miles recovery in 57 minutes in the morning and 4 miles recovery in 40 minutes in the afternoon. These runs were not easy, I think my legs were still tired from the 5k on Sunday.

Wednesday--11 miles in 1:33. This was my speed workout for the week and I did it on the treadmill because I had my kids home with me. I ran 6x1000 @ around a 6:50 pace. My treadmill runs fast so this pace was pushing it for me.

Thursday--15 miles in 2:21. Another treadmill run due to my kids. There really wasn't much to say about this run except I was ready to quit from the very beginning. I wasn't tired or too sore, I was just bored. I had what probably will be my last Physical Therapy session an hour later and could barely move my legs.

Friday--8.31 miles in 1:15. I treated this as a recovery run and just ran by feel. It felt surprisingly easy. It was a beautiful day and I pretty much got lost in my book on my iPod.

Saturday--8 miles in 1:03. I promised Steph I would meet her for her longer run this weekend, but I didn't think she would be cruising along this quickly. Each mile seemed to be faster than the previous mile and we ended with a 7:36 mile. The run overall felt fine while I was doing it, but I was worried the rest of the day about my long run the next day because my knees felt pretty tight. But, I was also proud to pull out such a strong run in the middle of a high mileage week.

Sunday--20 miles in 3:08. Colleen and I met down at the Charles River for our long run of the week. This run was mentally a very challenging run. It was only 20 degrees and with the wind it felt less than 10 degrees. We ran the first 9 miles into the wind. This really drained our energy immediately. At about 8 miles in, we realized our water bottles were all icing over. I know this is normal of the winter, I just wasn't prepared for this to already happen. We ended up stopping about 12 miles in to use the restroom, warm up, and drink some water. I have the worst time drinking when I am cold so I only consumed half as much water as I normally do on such a long run. We finished strong as the wind was with us on the way back, but overall this was a very mentally tough run.

So I finished the week with 75 miles. I was exhausted yesterday but didn't feel as if my body was yelling at me by any means. My hip feels fine and I am ready to taper!

Besides running I also spent the weekend getting ready for Christmas. I finished my Christmas shopping on Friday. Saturday I got my hair cut (first time in almost a year) and we got our family pictures taken. (First time in 3 years!) Here are my daughters in their Christmas dresses:

And today I am making cookies. I have made 10 dozen already and will be decorating this afternoon. I like to give out cookies as gifts so figured I better get moving this morning.

Time to get back to work. I will have update pictures for you all later this week.

How do you get ready for the holidays? Are you ready?

My Sweaty Birthday

2011-12-14T11:54:00.000-05:00

Having a December birthday for me, usually means some sort of run since it is the month before the Disney Marathon. This year was no different than the past four. I had not only one, but two runs scheduled on my birthday this year.

This is my last normal training week before taper, so my training schedule has me running 70 miles again this week. In order to run 70 miles in a week, you have to run a lot of double-digit runs or doubles. I haven't run too many doubles in the past so I don't have much of an opinion on them other than what I experienced yesterday. Yesterday, ugh, it wasn't a pretty day.

I woke up and got both kids off to school and headed home for my first run of the day at 9:30. The temperature was finally rising so I set off for 6 recovery miles around the neighborhood. My legs were a little achy from Sunday's 5k, so I was happy I only had to go at a recovery pace which ended up being around 9:30 pace. The run went by fairly quickly since I was listening to my Hunger Games book. (Highly recommend this book! I may review when it is finally over.)

After my run was over, I took shower #1 of the day and hurried to preschool to pick up Gabbie. (The theme of this day is running, as I never had a moment of rest.) We drove to my sister's work and had lunch and then were off to Target. Gabbie was excited to buy a gift for someone who needed it this year. This worked out perfect as I have been working with an awesome charity and hadn't bought a gift yet to donate.

Christmas in the City is an awesome organization that throws a Christmas party for children from shelters surrounding the Boston area. If you are looking to give back this holiday season, please see their website for more information.

After we got our gifts, we ran home to pick up Bridget from school. We got home and then I had to get to work to get ready for our company we were having that night. My wonderful husband made me a cookie cake the night before but ran out of time when it was time to decorate it. If I wanted my name on a cake, it was my job. Luckily, decorating a cookie is a million times easier than a cake, so it only took me about an hour to decorate it and I am pretty happy with how it turned out.

My cake was done and it was time to get in another run. Out to the garage I went for 4, sloooooow, not fun miles. My legs didn't feel too bad, but they felt heavy. Luckily, I found something to watch on TV and was able to forget that I didn't want to be running. (My husband mounted the TV to the wall in front of my treadmill for my birthday and got cable for it, so excited!)

Forty long minutes later I was running back into the house and wrapping up my leg. Apparently, my hip was not a fan of a double run today. Thank goodness for Arctic Ease. I wrapped my thigh up and was able to get back to work as the swelling continued to go down. I haven't mentioned Arctic Ease much on here, but the product is really growing on me. I HATE icing my leg as I hate being cold. Last night, the wrap really saved me as I still had a few hours left on my feet to go. When I removed the wrap, my leg felt cold to the touch, but not once did I feel cold while it was on.

(Sweaty Robin in front of the Christmas tree)
Since I was free to be on my feet while icing my leg, I got to work in the kitchen making dinner. I made a pineapple meatloaf that turned out great and came out of the oven just as my sister arrived with her family. Finally, it was time for me to relax and enjoy my birthday with family!

(Me and my girls)

(It is going to be a long winter on the treadmill, now I have entertainment, thanks to my sister!)

(Bridget & Gabbie know what music their mommy likes to run to.)

(Steph obviously knows I am sweaty and wants to save my beautiful Brooks Launches.)

(Hubby was sick of my excuses that my legs were weak because we didn't belong to a gym, now I have no excuse!)

What an amazing birthday. I feel so blessed to have such a wonderful family and great friends. This past year has been both good and bad. I can only hope that 2012 brings happier times so that we can make even more of it.

Winter Classic 5k Race Report

2011-12-12T10:52:00.000-05:00

Apparently, the best part of not racing as much in a year, is you see amazing results when you finally do race. Who would have thought, don't race as much and you get faster?

Yesterday, I met Steph, Meaghan, Danielle, and my sister in Cambridge, Massachusetts for the Winter Classic 5k. Steph and I had been planning this race for a few months. She wanted to do a Jingle Bell run and I love doing a race for my birthday (tomorrow) so we quickly agreed upon the Winter Classic 5k. The race was described as a pretty flat out and back course. I love seeing flat with 5k's so I was excited that I may see a PR.

Steph and I planned to dress up for this race. Please note, I do not like drawing attention to myself, so dressing up was a big deal for me. We purchased our Team Sparkle skirts, bought socks from Target, and paired it with a few Christmas shirts I had and Brooks Arm Warmers. We looked quite festive.

During our warm-up mile, we all discussed our racing strategy. I was hoping to go out at around a 6:50 pace and hopefully hold on. I had no idea how it would go as I have never run that fast before for that long.

We stood at the very crowded starting line and we were off. I spent the first half mile weaving around people. I kept looking at my Garmin and noticed I was only at about a 7:15 pace. This was frustrating as I knew I could go faster, but the crowd was just too thick. When I finally got around everyone, I was finally able to settle into my pace of 6:35. Whoa, way too fast but I knew I would slow down, so just held on.

I hit the first mile at 6:34. I ran my intervals on Tuesday at this pace so was not surprised my legs wanted to go that fast. From mile 1 until the turn around I started worrying. I was already feeling a little tired and I felt like the halfway point would never come. I was still passing people and didn't really feel like I was slowing too much even up the small hill on the way out. We turned back and I started picking people in front of me to catch up to, to keep my mind focused on the race.

Mile 2 beeped in at 6:41. This made me happy. I was still under my goal of 6:50 pace so I figured even if I slowed down, I would still see a 21:xx at the end. At this point I started to observe my body. My legs felt fine, not heavy at all. My breathing was also fine, I didn't feel short of breath. I continued to pick off people, just waiting to see the familiar restaurants that meant I was almost to the finish.

Mile 3 came in at 6:41. I looked at my Garmin and saw that I had just hit 20 minutes. If I booked it to the finish line I would go sub-21. (This was not even an option in my head before today.)

I took off and my last 0.15 was at a 6:26 pace and I finished the race in 20:56. (Average pace of 6:38) I bent over at the finish line, I was in shock with what had just happened. For the longest time, I would only drop 10 to 20 seconds off my 5k PR and I had just dropped nearly 90 seconds.

My overall place was 144/1115 and I was 11/225 in my age group. For a city race, I was incredibly happy with my results.

After the race we took a few more after pictures and set off for a few cool down, chatty miles. I have really grown to love running with friends and the cool down made my day even more fun.

And now it is back to normal training. 4 more weeks of training and I will be toeing the line at Disney. I am hoping that my recent short race results are a positive sign in what is to come for me in the marathon. Only time will tell!

One Month to To Go

2011-12-09T15:28:00.000-05:00

One month from yesterday is the day I look forward to every year, the Disney Marathon!

My plane ticket is purchased, my hotel is booked, and there are even plans being made to meet up with people down at Disney. Yesterday, they posted bib numbers and I am excited to say that I am #737. That has got to be a lucky number right? I have one long run left and it is taper time!

Today I set out to do 18 miles, as I am doing a 5k on Sunday and wanted to go into that race with "rested" legs. It took me about 2 hours to get moving. Do you ever have those days where you know you have to run and you don't dread the actual run as much as the time it is going to take? Today was that day.

I could not get off Twitter this morning. I was wasting my morning away avoiding heading out into the cold. Finally I decided to look for an audiobook, maybe that would help me get out the door. First of all, iTunes, you charge way too much to download a book! I payed $25 to download Hunger Games. This frustrated me a bit as I already have Hunger Games downloaded to my Nook, but I have had the hardest time getting into the actual book, so I figured what better way to get into it than listen to it for 3 hours straight.

After I downloaded the book, I finally left my house for the trail. I drove to the Nashua River Rail Trail which is a 10 minute drive from my house. I call this my trail as I have spent so many hours and miles on this trail. It is 11 miles long in one direction, so I figured I could just run and zone out to my book. I start 3 miles up the trail so that I could run in one direction, run back, refill my water, and run the other way.

There is no need to give a play-by-play, this run was HARD! I managed a 9:07 average pace for the entire 18 miles but my legs felt like lead for the last 10 miles. The book was a welcome distraction, and I kept reminding myself that I am supposed to hurt and running on tired legs was good training. I honestly do not know how I finished with such a good pace, but I do know that as soon as I stopped, I started crying. UGH! I wasn't in pain, I was just plain tired and I almost think the tears were tears of relief that I was done. In the past 7 days I have run 76 miles. That is what happens when you slip two long runs into one week. 76 miles. I am so proud of my body that it did what it did today. And it is worth it when I looked at these pictures from last year's Disney Marathon today.

8 miles to go

1 mile left and ready to be done

Crying in disbelief

So proud, I'm going to Boston

Why I am FitFluential

2011-12-05T18:05:00.001-05:00

I come from an Italian family. I grew up with a family who ate to celebrate, and we celebrated everything! Needless to say, 99% of my family is obese. We are not overweight, we are obese.

I played sports my whole life, so I didn't immediately put on weight. I joined the Army ROTC in college and was forced to run every day and this kept my weight at an OK weight for the first year. (I say OK as I was still overweight, just not obese yet) After I quit the ROTC, my weight ballooned.

From age 18 until 27, I ate for every reason. I ate when I was happy; I ate when I was sad. I ate when I was bored; I ate for entertainment. The scale didn't just creep up, it flew up. I spent my 20's as a heavy young lady and I didn't really care. Yes, I would diet occasionally and drop 20 pounds, but then I would get bored and go back to where I started or gain more.

When I was pregnant with my first daughter, my sister started losing weight. She joined a gym and went all the time. I continued to eat every day and witnessed my sister shrinking and enjoying life in a new way. She was enjoying exercise like I used to. She was taking step, yoga, spin, and bootcamp. She was addicted to exercise and I was intrigued. I had my daughter but went back to my life as normal. I still didn't exercise and I continued to eat.

I went to Florida 8 months later and I was miserable. My feet hurt and I couldn't keep up with everyone. My sister, however, was carrying my daughter in a backpack and was enjoying herself in a bikini. That trip did it for me. I was done with being obese like the rest of my family. I joined Weight Watchers as soon as I got home and joined her same gym. I spent the next 4 months taking classes and the weight started to drop. I have to add, I didn't enjoy the classes like she did, but the weight was coming off so I continued to go. I dropped about 45 pounds when I found out I was pregnant with my 2nd daughter.

I obviously didn't learn enough in those 4 months as I returned to my old ways while I was pregnant. I ate whatever I wanted and I stopped exercising. I told myself, I was only pregnant for 9 months, I would be fine. I delivered my 2nd daughter and again struggled to get back on track. Four months went by and I was only down 20 pounds from my original 45 that I had lost. My halfway doing things was not going to get me to a healthy weight.

It was at this time that I watched the Boston Marathon on TV and decided I was going to run that race one day. I knew, that the current Robin could never do it. I knew I needed to change my life in order to run marathons and I was finally ready to do it. I started running the next day, joined Weight Watchers, and I registered for my first marathon. Nine months later, I was 90 pounds lighter and running a marathon. I was addicted to marathons and loved being a runner.

So here I am, 4 years and 15 marathons later, and I am FitFluential. I was finally a fitness inspiration to my sister, who was my inspiration to get me started. After she had her second child, she decided to start running in order to lose her weight and she fell in love with the sport as well. I ran her first marathon with her in 2009 and we run the Disney Marathon together every year. We are beating the odds in our family and maintaining over 150 pounds lost between the both of us.

So here are 7 steps I recommend to you in order to start your fitness journey as I did:

Reward yourself for non-scale victories. The scale doesn't always tell the truth. This is a huge thing that is hard to accept. The scale will not always reflect your hard work so recognize the other things that have come as a result of your hard work. This could be dropping a pant size, fitting your towel around you for the first time, or running up a flight of stairs. These are huge accomplishments and you should celebrate them, I did.
Pick a long term goal and stick to it. I chose the Disney Marathon and paid the $100+ entry fee. I knew that if I skipped a workout, I was only hurting myself. I finished my first marathon in 5:12 and didn't miss any workouts. I knew I had a time limit at Disney and knew that if I didn't train properly, I may not make that time limit.
Get fitted for running shoes. A lot of running injuries are a result of being in the wrong shoe. Go to a running store and get fitted. And, yes, I know how intimidating going to a running store is. I have been running for 5 years and still don't think I belong there, but they are really helpful. Running stores are excited to see another person interested in fitness and are passionate about helping you get started.
Research your new sport online. When I first started running, I joined the Runners World forums and read them everyday in order to soak up all the knowledge of the experienced runners. I read race reports and answers to everyone's questions. Now there are so many other outlets that you are flooded with information between Twitter, blogs, Daily Mile, etc. Soak it all in. Not only will you learn something, it makes you more excited to get up the next day to do something.
Find a training partner. This can be difficult, but I promise you will be so much happier if you do. During training for my first marathon, my husband and I did most of our runs together. Now I run with my sister and with all my friends I have met from Twitter. I look forward to my weekly run dates, even if it means 3 hours on a trail where I am nearly falling over at the end, at least I had good conversation the whole time. :)
Fuel your body. This is another thing that has been hard for me to accept but have learned the hard way. My goal was originally to lose weight. You can't lose weight if you aren't properly fueling your body. My weight will plateau during weight loss, if I starve it. Feed yourself and your runs or fitness activity will be much more successful.
Pick short term goals in order to not lose sight of what you are doing. This can be losing a smaller amount of weight from your total you want to lose. This can also be running a smaller distance race. My first race I ever ran was a 5 mile race. I did this 3 months into my training and it was HARD. I finished that race wondering how I could ever run a marathon but I also was so excited that I RAN a 5 mile race. It was a short term goal that I was able to tick off much faster than my marathon that was still months away. Every training cycle I pick a few races that keep me excited to race and I can also gauge if my training is working.

My Christmas/Birthday Wish List

2011-12-05T09:53:00.001-05:00

December is a busy month for my hubby. I take care of gift buying the entire year. I plan all the parties and make sure everyone is happy in both of our families.

Luckily for my husband, my birthday falls in December, so he gets double-duty in planning for his beautiful wife. I thought I would make his life a little easy by listing a few of the things that I would LOVE this year.

When creating my wish list, I began at my favorite running gear website Brooks Running and was excited to see a contest going on. Right now, you can create a wish list on their website and be entered into winning your wish list! Wouldn't this make my husband's life that much easier. For more details see the Wish and Win contest page, and you have until December 9th to create your list.

Now for my Wish List:

I would love the Brook's Women's Silver Bullet Jacket. I HATE to be cold and don't really have a running coat. I have lots of jackets, but would love one warmer coat in order to avoid wearing as many layers.

Next, I would love a pair of Brook's Women's Silver Bullet Wind Tights. You are going to see a theme here with clothes. I need more warm gear. I have a few pair of running tights, but tights that block out wind, yes please!

Next, I would love another Brook's Women's Equilibrium Thermal LS in a different color. I love this shirt and could definitely use another. I reviewed it here if you want more info.

Next is the Brook's Women's Infiniti Hoodie. I love hoodies and this one is so cute. Hooded shirts are nice layering pieces and I would probably wear it around the house a lot as well.

I would also like some iTunes gift cards. I am not a big gift card lover, but my music is really lacking right now and I would love a new playlist for my marathon next month.

Finally, I would like a few pairs of Smartwool socks. January-March, you will find nothing else on my feet during the day. They are so warm and so cute.

Now, I obviously know, I will probably only get one thing off my wish list, but I had so much fun shopping, that I couldn't stop looking. At least I will be surprised with whatever he may pick out.

What is on your Christmas Wish List this year?

Hip Flexor Stretches

2011-12-02T15:50:00.001-05:00

I just completed my second week of physical therapy for hip flexor tendonitis. My hip still hurts, but I can tell I am improving, thank goodness.

The first thing my physical therapist noted when meeting me is I don't stretch enough. Here's my confession, I rarely stretch after runs and when I do I don't know the proper way to stretch. The second thing he pointed out to me is I need to strength train. I was completely embarrassed to admit to him that I rarely do any strength training. I have a huge imbalance of strength in my hips and am excited to have someone instructing me on things I can do to fix this imbalance.

I know I am not the only runner with tight hip flexors, so I decided to share pictures of the stretches he has me doing in order to loosen up my hips. I already feel my hips loosening up after doing these stretches multiple times a day, every day.

The first stretch is pulling your knee to your butt while lying on the floor. I have always done this standing up, but he said you can get a better stretch while lying down and it stabilizes your hips.

I do this stretch for 30 seconds on each side and do both legs twice.

The next stretch is a hip opener. Bend your knee over your ankle and lay your other leg flat behind you. You will feel the stretch in the front of your hip of the leg that is behind you.

I do this stretch for 15 seconds on each side and do both legs twice.

This next stretch is a piriformis stretch. I occasionally get sciatica because of my piriformis (butt) muscle pinches my sciatic nerve and this helps to loosen it up. Bend your knee and put your ankle on your opposite knee and relax your leg. Pull your leg that your ankle is resting on towards you until you feel the stretch.

I hold this stretch for 30 seconds on each side and do both legs twice.

While doing the last stretch you can go into the next two stretches. While your knee is bent and ankle resting on the opposite knee, push down on the knee with the same hand as that knee. Hold this for 30 seconds, twice on each side.

Next, use your opposite hand to pull your knee towards you, stretching out the back of the thigh again. Hold this for 30 seconds, twice on each side.

So these are my current stretches to loosen up my hips and butt muscles. I have started strength training so that I can avoid injury in the future. I have also been told by a friend that full sit-ups helps to strengthen the hips, so I am making sure to get in my sit-ups every day now.

I am curious to know about how you stretch and the time commitment. Do you have a stretching routine? How long do you stretch after your runs?

Hello Kitty Birthday Party

2011-11-30T12:52:00.001-05:00

Thanksgiving weekend was so busy for me. Two years ago, I took a cake decorating class as I wanted my girls to have amazing cakes without having to pay the price. This has worked great for my daughters but has added stress to myself as now everyone wants a homemade cake. These cakes take hours to make.

This year, Gabbie decided she wanted a Hello Kitty cake. I was actually kind of relieved as I didn't have to plan a design for a cake because I could just buy a Hello Kitty cake pan.

So Saturday, I set out to bake her cake. I guess this was not my weekend for baking as the first cake broke when I took it out of the pan. Huge fail! Two hours later, I pulled the second cake out of the pan and it looked great. I did a little more shopping and returned to my cake that evening to decorate. It took about 2 1/2 hours to decorate but I was pretty happy with the results.

Sunday morning, I went on my long run before we celebrated her birthday. Do you ever plan longer runs around events so you don't feel as guilty when indulging? My run went amazing. I did 18 miles with 12 @ marathon pace. This was my hardest pace workout of the training cycle and I hit all my marathon pace (8:08/mile) miles without a problem. I ran the last 7 miles of my run with Steph which made it that much easier. She did a great write up of our run, so I highly recommend reading it, here. I love running with friends as the miles seem to fly by. I already have someone lined up for next week's 21 miler, woohoo!

After our run, I headed home to get ready for lunch. Gabbie chose to go to Texas Roadhouse, not because she loves steak, but she loves how she gets to sit on a saddle when they sing happy birthday to her.

After lunch we went home for cake and presents. We let Gabbie choose between a birthday party with friends from school or an American Girl doll as her gift. Because of this we had a small get together and it seemed perfect. My parents were in town, my sister and her family were there, and my mother-in-law came over. There were more than enough presents and cake and my little peanut had a blast.

Happy 5th Birthday to my Baby!

Thanks 4 Giving Turkey Trot Race Report

2011-11-28T09:13:00.001-05:00

Five years ago today, I gave birth to my baby. Five years ago today, I was excited to be a mom for the second time. Being the mom to two little girls is the greatest blessing that I could have ever wanted. My girls keep me on my toes and smiling all the time.

This weekend was a crazy, family-filled weekend. I decided to log off from my computer and just enjoy my family. I missed being online, but I really enjoyed spending time with family.

On Thursday, I ran my 2nd Turkey Trot and ran one of my best races ever. Like I had mentioned last week, I picked the 10k and I was so happy I did that. My goal was to PR. My previous PR was a 45:59, set on a short course over a year and a half ago.

I warmed up by running a mile before the race. I know my legs don't like to go fast right away so knew this was necessary. It was also 30 degrees and I didn't want to sit around waiting in the cold.

The starting line was incredibly crowded and I got stuck behind a lot of walkers. I was a little nervous about this, but my husband reassured me that I was fine, so I just went with it. Sure, I had to weave around people for about a quarter of a mile, but it wasn't too bad. I hit mile 1 in 7:07. My goal pace was 7:10-715, so this was a little fast but I was OK as I didn't go out too fast. Mile 2 was a 7:02. Now this was approaching too fast for what my plan was, but it was at this time that I realized how good I felt. Last year at this same Turkey Trot, I did the 5k. I averaged a 7:02 pace for the whole thing and I felt dead. I knew at this time, if I had planned on doing the 5k, that I would have killed that race. But I also knew I had 4 miles to go so was hoping my legs would hold out. Mile 3 was a 7:08. That was much better. I was still right under goal pace and getting passed by 5k runners. I reminded myself that I was only halfway there and to just go with it.

I hit the 5k point in 22:35. This seemed about right to PR with 45:00 so I was excited as I still felt good, good enough to pick up the pace a bit. Mile 4 was a 7:02. I was shocked at this point that I was still able to pull low 7's. Mile 5 came in at 6:56. When that split appeared on my Garmin, I had to do a double-take. A sub-7 mile this far into a race? Mile 6 was a 6:59. Another sub-7. At this point I was completely amazed at my body, I was going to negative split this race. I ran the last .33 miles (Yes, not .2, I have since read complaints the course was long, but I am not complaining) at a 7:04 pace.

My finish time was 44:34 with an average pace of 7:12 for a 10k, but since the course was long, I actually did a 7:02 pace for that distance. A minute and a half PR and my second 5k was in 21.59! As you can see from my PR's on the side, I have yet to go under 22 minutes in a 5k, and I just did in a 10k. I placed 2nd in my age group out of 52 people and 31st overall out of about 300 people. You can bet I was on a runner's high the entire weekend after that.

Post-race photo
As soon as we got home from the race, it was straight to cooking. We were hosting our biggest Thanksgiving crowd ever and I had so much to do. I was on my feet cooking, serving, and cleaning for the next 7 hours. My hip was not crazy about this, but I rested it and got ready to go out Black Friday shopping at 10 o'clock. Yes, I am one of those crazy shoppers that shops all night. I even buy a T-shirt to show my excitement for the "holiday".

Yes, that is a Team Sparkle skirt. :) I bought it for my upcoming Jingle Bell run and thought it matched perfect with my Black Friday shirt. We got most of our shopping done between 10 that night and 5 the next morning. I was exhausted by the time I got home, but had so much fun.

All that in 24 hours. Now can you imagine why I was missing all weekend? I will have more photos from the rest of the weekend on my next post. I can't wait to show you pictures of my daughter from her birthday party!

Inspiring Marathon Women

2011-11-22T11:43:00.001-05:00

I love to run. This is an obvious fact. Upon taking up running, I chose the marathon as my goal and have since fallen in love with the marathon even more so than running. I will do other races, but I never feel the same satisfaction when crossing the finish line of a marathon. I also don't have any desire to do an ultra marathon, even though one would think that would be the next step in my goals. Ultras are crazy awesome, but I don't think my body is cut out for them.

I wanted to take a post to write about some incredibly inspiring marathon women who I can't get enough of.

I live just outside of Boston and like I mentioned in my guest post at Healthy Happier Bear, I started running because of the Boston Marathon. I love everything about this race. I go to the Expo every year dreaming of when I will be picking up my own packet. I have volunteered at the race. I have watched it on TV. I love all things Boston Marathon.

This past April, I was working in Boston as a nanny right near Boylston Street, so I was surrounded by banners and runners in the week leading up to the marathon. I was obviously jealous, but also excited as I knew with my recent Boston Qualifying time, that this would be me the following year.

It was at this time that I also first joined Twitter and I was tweeting about my excitement over Desiree Davila running Boston this year. Davila is a Brooks Hanson runner and so amazing to watch run. I couldn't wait to see how she did at Boston and my excitement escalated during the race. If you watched, you saw how she only lost the race by 2 seconds. She ran an incredibly smart race and looked amazingly strong at the end. I literally could not sit still watching her run. I am so excited that an American woman was able to run such an incredible race and prove that we can compete. I really hope Desiree makes the Olympic team and proves herself even more in London next year.

The BAA posted a picture on the Boston Marathon Facebook page a few weeks ago, that is the coolest picture. It is at the 15k point of Boston last year. You can see the lead pack and not far behind, running her own race was Desiree, amazing!

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Another marathon woman that I am in awe of is an obvious choice.

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As a mother, it is even more inspiring to see someone have a child and run a marathon in an amazing time only 9 months later as Kara Goucher did. I really don't need to say much about Kara's running, she is so strong and has such a big heart. After placing 3rd at the Boston Marathon in 2009, it was how she spoke and reacted that made me an even bigger fan. She ran an awesome race and came up short. The sadness on her face showed how normal she was. I loved how she wasn't afraid to get pregnant and start a family in the height of her career. The day after the Boston Marathon last year, I was walking around the mall in downtown Boston. Out of the restroom came Kara carrying her sweet little son. To say I was starstruck was an understatement. I stood back and watched as she changed her son's diaper on a bench and interacted with her family. To me, she is a celebrity but to see her as a mother outside of running was a privilege. She is a beautiful, amazing woman and such a positive influence to American women athletes.

Within the blog community I have also come to recognize a few women that I look up to and thought I would give links to their blogs so that you can see how an every day person can become inspiring.

First, is a woman, Devon Crosby Helms, who I follow both on Twitter and her blog.

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She qualified for the Olympic Trials for the Marathon this past year and will be running the Trials in Houston. This alone is amazing to me, but last month she wrote a post about where she began. Talk about inspiring. Devon is ranked in the world for her 100k distance on top of her amazing marathon running yet she started out where the rest of us have. Obviously, she is a gifted runner, but her hard work makes her shine.

Another runner that I find inspiring has not qualified for the Olympics, but is a mother who has made so many improvements to her running, that I just want to soak it all in to learn more.

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Dorothy from Mile Posts, is a mother of 3 and has ran through pregnancies and has proven that having kids will not slow you down. This past month, Dorothy ran an amazing 3:13 marathon at the Columbus Marathon before her youngest child even turned 1. She is even fast with a triple jogging stroller. I can tell you, my double jogger slowed me down. Not only is her story amazing, but she is incredibly inspirational and helpful on Twitter. Her posts on her blog include information that we all can learn something from.

So there you have a few of the many runners that inspire me. Do you know any bloggers that I should follow that have an amazing story? What elite runner inspires you?

Answers to My Hip Pain

2011-11-20T20:26:00.001-05:00

So a week ago, I mentioned I went to the doctor for hip pain and I was referred to a sports medicine doctor. I was able to get into the sports med doctor on Monday and the mystery of what is wrong with my hip was solved immediately.

I have 2 things of pain that I have been dealing with for basically 5 years. First is a stabbing pain in my pubic bone and then hip pain. The stabbing pain originally was because of my separated pubic bone and now it has shown on my X-ray that I have arthritis in my pubic bone. Wonderful, huh? The doctor basically said, that this was the least of my problems. In the future he can give me a cortisone shot but lets deal with the hip and worry about that later. Thanks, Doctor, for telling me that I must deal with a stabbing pain in my groin. So much for ever wanting to have another child.

The hip pain is being caused by Hip Flexor Tendonitis. He did a bunch of movements with my legs and saw that I have a huge imbalance in muscle strength between the 2 legs. This was further confirmed by my physical therapist that I saw on Friday. Thankfully, this is a problem that I can deal with. I was not told that I have to stop running. I was not told that I couldn't run the Disney Marathon or the Boston Marathon. (My biggest fear about going to the doctor, was that someone would tell me I wouldn't get to run Boston this year. I am not convinced I will ever re-qualify again so missing out on this opportunity was not an option. I will be in Hopkinton on April 16th running that marathon I have dreamed about for years.)

Physical Therapy was my prescription and I headed there on Friday for my evaluation. On a side note, I LOVE physical therapy. When I suffered from achilles tendonitis, 2 years ago, I went to physical therapy and I was able to run the Goofy Challenge a month after not even being able to run. I loved my physical therapy appointments so much that I have gone back to school and am working on my prerequisite courses so that I can get into grad school for physical therapy. This is a long term goal, but I figured, I am wrong right? :)

So anyways, my evaluation told me pretty much everything I already knew. I have incredibly tight legs and my back pain is related to my hip flexor pain. I also found out that my left leg is longer than my right leg and that hip is higher than the right. This may be a factor in my problems, but obviously something I have lived with so I am not too concerned. I will start ultrasound and massage treatment this Tuesday as well as learn the exercises that I can do to strengthen my legs and prevent this from happening again.

So I am obviously still running, and did my long run of 17 miles today. It was a beautiful day in the 60s and I had an incredible amount of motivation after watching the twitter feed of Colleen killing her first marathon today at Philly. This should have been the perfect run, but sadly it was not. My amazing running partner had a different run on her schedule as myself so we ran by ourselves today. UGH! It shouldn't have been too bad, but look at this elevation profile.

I was cruising along until about mile 11, when my never ending incline got the best of me. My hip started yelling at me and my mind kept telling me that this sucked. Somehow, my mind didn't stop me, FOR ONCE, and I finished my run without a walk break when in the past I would have normally taken at least one. My overall time was 2:37 for an average pace of 9:15. I am pretty happy with my time considering it could have been a lot worse.

When I got in the house, I collapsed on the chair and was incredibly thankful that I could finally relax. Instead of hopping in the shower, I decided to wrap my thigh in Arctic Ease and let it sit there for about 45 minutes. I am still confused by the technology of Arctic Ease, but my hip tends to recover a lot quicker after using it the wrap to ice it. It puzzles me as I don't feel the cold, but it seems to work. You won't hear any complaints from me though as I hate ice so I am happy to have found a product that doesn't makes me cold.

Brooks Cold Weather Running Gear

2011-11-17T19:26:00.001-05:00

The past few weeks have been beautiful here in Massachusetts, but I know we are in for cold weather very soon. I figured a post about my cold weather running gear would be good since I love to see real life recommendations for clothes before investing my own money as they tend to be expensive.

This is going to be a 2 part post beginning with what I have used to far this year. In a few weeks, I will follow up with further gear such as running tights and hats. Luckily, these items still remain in my closet and I choose not to even remember how they feel as I am not ready for winter to begin.

For my base layers, I now have two kinds of shirts that I tend to pull out first. First is my Brooks Equilibrium Long Sleeve top. This is the shirt on the right in the picture. The Equilibrium is a more light weight shirt that works great as a base layer. The shirt is fitted and the sleeves are the perfect length, I hate when long sleeve tops end up short on my wrists. I recommend this as a base layer underneath a jacket or for cool days on their own. I have 3 different shirts of this style, the shirt in the picture is an older color.

I recently ordered the second shirt, the Brooks Equilibrium Thermal top, and I have worn it on so many runs. Currently it is my favorite shirt. The shirt is not fitted, rather it has a loose fit. I love this for the fact that I will be able to wear it over my running tights and feel like it is covering me more. The shirt is lined, therefore is very warm and soft. I also love the sleeves. They have a loophole in it for your thumb and because the sleeves are long, I am able to go without gloves if it isn't too cold outside. I think this shirt is perfect for 30 degree days, but I would use it as my base layer if it is colder.

These are my current running jackets and have been in my wardrobe for years. The jacket on the left is a Brooks Equilibrium Thermal Hoodie which I purchased at a race expo years ago. I don't think they currently sell this hoodie, but I would compare it most to the Brooks Utopia Thermal Hoodie, as I have tried on the Utopia and it is very similar in function. This is a great top layer and keeps me warm in temperatures down to the single digits. (Luckily we don't get much colder than that, so I can't make a judgement for colder.) The hood is nice for when it is really cold as it blocks the wind and is an extra layer for my ears. And, I love the sleeves because they act as a mitten. I will put my gloved hands in them when I am extremely cold.

The second jacket is my Nightlife Jacket. This is an all purpose jacket. If I am running in the dark, this is my go to jacket because of all the reflective strips on it. If it is windy out, I wear this over my base layers. It really keeps in my heat and allows me to be outside longer in the winter. This is also a great rain jacket. Finally, this jacket is incredibly light. You can find me in this jacket in the summer in the rain and in the winter in the snow. With the proper under-clothes, this jacket works for all weather.

Finally, we have my arm warmers and gloves. The arm warmers are a recent purchase and I love them. First of all, they are incredibly warm. I know this should be obvious, but I have tried a number of brands, but these so far are the best for warmth. The length of the arm warmers is also great. They are long enough to go from the base of my arm pits and can cover my hands if need be. Finally, they are snug fitting without being too tight. This was huge for me as I either chafe from tight arm warmers or they fall down, but these seemed to be perfect.

Currently, I am wearing the Brooks Vapor Dry 2 Glove. I am usually a mittens girl but am really happy I bought these last year. As far as gloves go, they are really warm. I love the terry wiping surface on the glove for wiping my nose mid-run. And the thumb flaps up so that you can still work your iPod. I get numb fingers very easily, but these seem to do the job for temperatures down in the teens.

So there you have my current running wardrobe. I am thankful to say that I have been able to still wear shorts with warmer tops so far this fall. I know the day is coming when I will need to go find my running tights and hat, but for now, I will survive with these.

My thermal jacket is by far my favorite cold weather piece of clothing, and I don't know what I would do if I ever lost it. Do you have any cold weather gear that you can't live without?

Fear of the 10k

2011-11-16T11:33:00.001-05:00

Today I finished signing up for my remaining races of the year. On my schedule is a 5k in December. It is a holiday run and I am running it with friends to celebrate my birthday. I love holiday runs as the atmosphere is more relaxed and it is the only race that I even consider dressing up for.

This year we chose the Winter Classic 5k in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The course is supposedly, flat and fast which is a bonus as I hate hilly 5k's. My PR for the 5k is over a year old so I am hoping to get a new one, but since I am in the middle of marathon training, we will see how it goes.

Now, Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday of the year. I cook everything and my whole family come over for a late lunch. Before I spend my day in the kitchen, I sneak out for a Turkey Trot.

This will be my 2nd year doing the Thanks 4 Giving race in Lowell, Massachusetts. Unlike last year though, I am doing the 10k instead of the 5k. Ahhhh!!!!

If I had to choose one race distance that I dislike the most, it is the 10k. I chose the 10k this year because of this fear. My last 10k was over a year and a half ago and it went amazing. I was first female overall and ran a pretty good time of 45:59. You would think this would have convinced me to love 10k's but the actual race itself was so not fun.

I hate 10k's because you have to run so fast and hold onto it for so long. The 5k feels like a sprint, but as soon as you start feeling it, you are done. The 15k and half marathon, you get to settle into a slightly slower fast pace; this is not fun, but it doesn't hurt as much. The 10k leaves no margin of error. If you go out too fast, you are really going to be sucking wind and your pace will show it at the end. I am the Queen of going out too fast, only to see a pace at the end that irks me.

I have read that the 10k is a good indication of how marathon training is going. I am fearful that my 10k won't show my hard work, but it is time I give it a test. My only goal is to PR and to be still standing when I cross that finish line in order to pick up my free pie. I will not put too much emphasis on the actual time as I still plan on running my normal training runs leading up to it, therefore I will be running on tired legs.

So here I go, facing my racing fear. And luckily I get to end my Thanksgiving with Black Friday shopping so whatever the result, it will be quickly be forgotten as I participate in my 2nd favorite hobby, shopping.

Are you afraid of racing like I am? Do you have any tips on calming my race jitters?

Sports Nutrition Guidebook

2011-11-14T13:02:00.001-05:00

If you knew me when I was younger, you would never recognize me as the same person. As is the case with a lot of bloggers, a few years ago, I decided to make a huge lifestyle change. I lost 92 pounds while on Weight Watchers and found running.

As of this month, I am now 4 years at my goal weight. Four years! I can tell you about all the times I have tried to lose weight in the past and within a year, I gained all of it back plus some. I attribute my current success to running as I have been able to continuously make new goals that keeps me accountable.

Here is my confession: I find maintaining my weight loss, a million times harder than it was to lose 90 pounds. Weight Watchers, while it was a great program for weight loss, does not work for me in maintenance. I gain weight and have to restart the program to get me back to where I belong. To say maintenance has been frustrating is an understatement, especially recently.

My mileage has increased gradually over the years and I am running 55+ miles a week. In my opinion, the Weight Watchers program is harder to follow with intense exercise and I needed a change. (I am not saying it doesn't work, it just doesn't work for me.)

Luckily, at the same time that I was feeling frustrated, I met Steph from Run For Fun. Steph has been seeing a Sports Nutritionist for a few years and recommended that I read her book and see if I can get something from it that will help me.

And that is when I purchased Nancy Clark's Sports Nutrition Guidebook.

First of all, this was by far the easiest nutrition book that I have ever read. I currently have about 4 sports nutrition books sitting on my night stand, and I honestly am only a few chapters into each. I find nutrition books boring and rattling off the same information. This book seems to simplify the process of how to eat correctly and balanced.

Instead of summarizing the entire book, I will just point out a few facts that I pulled from the book that have already helped me with my eating.

1--Eat three kinds of food at meals and target different types of foods. This was huge for me as I used to think, eat as little as possible to satisfy myself. This always left me hungry an hour later, therefore I ended up eating more.

2--Don't be afraid of carbohydrates. This one little fact has really changed my eating and I feel better and my weight loss has finally resumed. My lunch in particular usually lacked carbohydrates. This left snacking all afternoon to make up for the lack of calories. The book emphasized that carbs are nothing to be scared of and how much they actually fuel your body.

3--Eat more calories during breakfast and lunch and eat a lighter dinner. I love breakfast and have never had a problem eating a decent amount of calories for breakfast. On the other hand, I always thought a salad with fillings was appropriate for lunch when trying to lose weight. By the time I got home from work to cook dinner, I would be ravenous and would eat anything in sight, not to mention would have a HUGE dinner. This would leave me with an upset stomach and it was an endless cycle. I have since started eating a larger lunch with a substantial afternoon snack. I can now cook dinner without feeling like I am going to eat my hand off and eat a small dinner to satisfaction instead of until my stomach feels like it is going to explode.

4--Eat your favorite foods. Don't deny yourself! Again, something that was hard to accept. What do you mean, I can eat a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for lunch or I can have that cookie? I now know what my calorie budget is and I work food into my plan. When keeping track of food the correct way, I see that there is a lot of flexibility for what I can eat as long as I am eating a balanced diet. And by not avoiding these foods, I don't crave them, which means I won't go crazy on them when I do get a chance to eat them.

5--Slow down and enjoy your food. Sigh. I am a TV watching, computer reading eater. This is a work in progress, but let me tell you how much more satisfied I am, when I concentrate on what I am eating and how good it tastes. I get more out of each bite, not to mention I can listen to my body saying, that is enough, you don't need to keep eating.

Hopefully these tips help you and if you want more, I highly recommend reading this book. She also gives information on how many calories you should be consuming, which for me has always been a huge source of confusion. There are recipes in the back, which I already have tried and loved. I finally feel in control of my eating and am hoping my running will also see some benefit.

And please note, I am not trying to lose a lot of weight. I am at the top of the weight range for a healthy weight for my height. I know losing some weight will help but am also being realistic about my goals. I am now eating more and feel better because of my balanced diet.

**I purchased this book with my own money and my review is based on my own opinion and the fact that I really enjoyed this book.

An Amazing Run on 11/11/11

2011-11-11T16:28:00.001-05:00

Storm damage from our October snow storm continues to hinder my plans. I had a 10 mile run with 5 miles at tempo scheduled for this morning. This is usually a difficult run for me. I would normally choose to do this on a treadmill to force the pace or go to the trail where it is flat and I can zone out and concentrate on pace.

I did my 15 mile run on Wednesday on the treadmill and my toe was killing me, so I chose the trail. We have an amazing trail about 10 minutes away from my house. It is a rail trail that goes for 11 miles in one direction. It only crosses about 4 streets for all 11 miles, so I don't have to worry about getting hit by cars. Finally, it is beautiful, especially during the fall. I slept in this morning, oh how that felt wonderful, and headed to the trail about 9am. I got my Garmin set, put my iPod on, and hopped out of the car and saw yellow tape across the trailhead. My heart sunk. I had a feeling the trail would have downed branches from the storm, but was hoping it would have been still runnable. Sadly, I think my trail is closed for the winter. I doubt they will clean it up until their normal spring clean up. Sad, sad day for me.

I hopped back in my car and quickly drove home. I was short for time because I had a doctor appointment this afternoon and knew if I didn't get moving, I may have to cut my run short. I ran in the house, dropped off my stuff and hopped back out to the road.

Now, I love running in my town. It is a nice, safe area. There are cops all over and I feel like the drivers actually drive the speed limit. The one downfall is, we live in a hilly town. We have a ski area in our town and there is a hill that I ran by this morning that is the highest point in our county. I am not one to avoid a run because of hills, but when I know I have to hit fast paces, I tend to run around the hills. Because of my lack of time, I just ran.

Miles 1 and 2 were my warm-up and were in an 8:53 and 8:30. Surprisingly, I felt pretty good. The wind was pretty strong but my legs felt better than I expected. For tempo runs, I like to begin running faster, peak at my fastest pace for a mile, and then slow down where I started. I hit the first tempo mile in 7:48 which was perfect. I was able to pick it up for mile 2 and ran a 7:40. Mile 3, still felt easy and was a 7:30. Mile 4 found me turned into the wind but I was OK with that as I was on my slow down and hit a 7:46. Mile 5 was up the monstrosity of a hill and I somehow managed a 7:49. Normally, I think I would have slowed down on mile 5, but I kept reminding myself, you are almost done, how hard can it be to finish this strong? I also gave myself permission to slow way down if I hit these tempo miles and that kept me moving as well. After hitting my last sub-7:50 mile pace, I told myself, just get home and run by feel. Miles 8-10 were 8:33, 8:41, and 8:41 for a total of just under 1:22 for 10 miles. After my week of training (68 total miles in the past 7 days), I never thought I would have such a strong tempo run, but it worked out perfect. Perfect running weather, perfect run. Bring on my weekend long run!

As for my doctor appointment, I learned nothing. He doesn't think it has anything to do with my pubic bone. He has no idea. He just knows that my flexibility in my right hip is far from where it should be. He did an X-ray, and there wasn't a fracture, so I am relieved. He said my hip looked like one of the healthiest hips he has seen in a long time. Thanks for that tidbit of info, Doc. I am going to a Sports Medicine doctor on Monday and hope to get some more answers. I just found an article on Inflammation of the Rectus Femoris Tendon, which seems like it could be what is wrong with me, but who knows. I am just hoping for a referral to Physical Therapy, so that I can make my muscles stronger and continue to run. Knowing that I don't have a fracture makes my fear of missing the Boston Marathon go away, so I will just work with what I have. I have come too far to stop running so I really hope I can find a doctor or Physical Therapist who trusts that I am not running through pain. But we will soon see!

Have a good weekend everyone! Sunday, I get to run 18 miles and am so excited because it looks like I may have company for at least part of it. Marathon training is so much more fun when you get to train with friends!

My Silly Teenage Obsession

2011-11-09T14:31:00.000-05:00

Now for an embarrassing confession. I will be 32 years old next month and I love teenage TV shows and movies. I am so ashamed of myself.

This morning I ran 15 miles on the treadmill, watching the adult movie, Bridesmaids, I might add. I liked it, it made the time go by fairly quickly. I got done with my run and had to get Bridget, my 6 year old, ready for school. At this point, I was STARVING. I ate an English muffin before my run, but 1500+ calories burnt and I was famished. I had a quick glass of chocolate milk, hopped in the shower, and made Bridget's lunch and ran her to school. Normally, I would have started my oatmeal before hopping in the shower but I knew I was short on time, and I also had this thought in my mind. If I got Bridget to school and Gabbie occupied when we got home, I could enjoy my oatmeal while watching Glee. Squeal!

(source)
So there I was enjoying my delicious oatmeal, getting constantly interrupted by Gabbie, and totally enjoying my morning. The "Warblers" made an appearance on the show and again, I squealed. Seriously, who am I? The Warblers, are a silly little singing group on a silly little TV show and yet it made me so incredibly excited. Those 45 minutes were quite enjoyable but made me realize I am a teenager in a woman's body.

Do I love these crazy shows, such as Beverly Hills 90210 and Felicity, because I want to be young again? I can tell you, the story lines have not changed in the 15 years since I have been out of high school. (Crawling under a pillow right now, 15 years, wow!)

I fear getting old. I remember when I was 21 and I thought to myself, I do not want to turn 25 because that is so old. What I would do to be 25 now, oh goodness. Now at 31, I dread birthdays. I don't want to get old because that means my body is aging and I am not ready to slow down. The only benefit of getting old in my eyes is age grouping up, therefore having a higher Boston Qualifying time.

An absolute sign of me getting old is my doctor's appointment I have for Friday. I am going to the doctor because there is something wrong with my hip. I swear, they are going to tell me I need a hip replacement, so I have put off this appointment for way too long. I basically know what is wrong with me. While pregnant, I suffered from diastasis symphysis pubis or in easy terms, a separated pubic bone. The pain went away after the birth of my daughter, but unfortunately, due to the repetitive nature of running, I am still suffering. My hip has referred pain because of this and it is so bad that there are days that I limp after a long run as I can't lift my leg. (Please note, I have no pain while running, and treatment is strengthening exercises which I do, but I have recognized that I need physical therapy in order to make the situation better.)

So, I am a woman who doesn't want to get old and am excited for the next Twilight movie to be released next week. Is anyone else as excited as I am and will you be at the theater on opening day like myself? Now I just need to find someone to go with, or I will be the crazy woman by herself in the theater watching Breaking Dawn.

Weekend Ramblings of a Boring Mom

2011-11-07T16:53:00.001-05:00

Seriously, where did the weekend go? I am having a hard time adjusting to the fact that it is Monday and I am sitting at my computer and supposed to be doing a menu plan for the week. I even took the lazy way out for groceries this morning. I went to Target to buy hats and gloves for the kids for the winter and left with chicken, vegetables, and fruit. I am not proud of my laziness, but I was just not in the mood. And Gabbie was happy, because she didn't have to walk through another store. I guess we both win because I didn't have to listen to her complain through the grocery store.

So my crazy fast weekend was pretty fun. I started out Saturday with a recovery run in my new Brooks PureProject shoes, the PureFlow. I only ran 5, slow miles in them, but so far so good. My first reactions to the shoes were: they are light, flexible, and cute.

They seemed so much lighter than my current shoe, the Brooks Launch. The Brooks Launch are also a lighter shoe, so I don't think the transition will be too hard. I felt pretty fast even though my legs were tight from my 12 miles the day before.

The flexibility of the shoe was by far my favorite attribute. I am a mid- to mostly fore-foot runner. I like to land on the balls of my feet. This seems to be great running form, but in the past year, I feel like my 4th toes on both feet are either broken or jammed. I don't notice the pain unless I am running, so I don't think they are broken. The PureFlow shoes, because they have a more flexible sole, allow me to land more on my balls rather than my toes. This fact alone made for NO toe pain on Saturday. Now, I realize it was only a 5 mile run, so am not going to say it is a success, but for now, I am happy.

Finally, the shoes are so cute. This is a dumb reason to like a shoe, but it is a factor when picking out shoes. I have been really happy with the Brooks brand in the past couple years, as they have seemed to really started picking cool colors and styles that make me feel like a stylish runner. Please note, I am far from stylish in real life. My wardrobe consists of race shirts, jeans, and running shoes. If I can feel stylish at a race, I have to go with it.

After my run, I met up with my running partner to help her go shoe shopping. She has been having heel issues and was hoping to try on some shoes to see if that would help. We had to go to Boston for our shopping trip which meant we got to make a stop at Pinkberry for some frozen yogurt. My peppermint frozen yogurt was worth the drive and annoying Boston parking.

Sunday, was also another fun day in Westford-land. I started off the morning with my long run for the week. I met my running partner and my sister at the trail. Steph is recovering from the Marine Corp Marathon and was only allowed to do 6 miles so she was my warm up.

We hit the first 6 miles at about a 9:15 pace. Next up, were my marathon pace miles. Woohoo, those are so not fun. My goal marathon pace is 8:10 and I was pretty easily able to hit my pace through the next 10 miles. I was quite happy that my legs decided they were going to move today. About 5 miles in, I knew I was feeling good so I decided to run to find my sister and let her know that I would run in her final miles even if it meant adding to my 17 mile run. Mile 9 of my marathon pace miles was my hardest due to a gradual incline on the trail, but my average was below where it needed to be, so I was ecstatic. After I finished mile 10, I turned around to find my sister and ran her remaining 3 miles with her. My extra mileage added up to a total of 20 miles for the day. I couldn't believe I hit a unplanned 20 mile run so early in my training cycle. Considering I did 10 at marathon pace I came out of that run so much more confident.

After the run we headed home to get ready for our Halloween. We ate pizza, thank you long run burnt calories, and I sat home and handed out candy while the kids went out with my husband and sister.

The kids had a blast and I am happy I can finally say goodbye to October and hello to November. I am in love with the month of November. I love the weather, Thanksgiving, Black Friday, and my daughter's birthday. Yay, for a new month!

Disney Marathon 2012 Training Plan

2011-11-04T17:48:00.000-04:00

I am currently training for marathon #16. I am running the Disney Marathon on January 8, 2012 and this will be 4th year in a row running Disney.

To say that I am in love with the Disney Marathon is an understatement. My first marathon was there in 2008, where I finished in 5:12.

The following year, I ran a 4:16, 4 weeks after I ran the Honolulu Marathon.

I did the Goofy Challenge in 2010 while coming off an achilles injury.

Last year was obviously my favorite year when I ran my BQ in a time of 3:37. I don't have a race recap for that race yet, but one day I will sit and write it as it was a day I will never forget.

My goal for Disney 2012 is to re-qualify for Boston 2013. This means I need to go faster than 3:35. This training cycle I decided to focus on mileage instead of speed work in order to have strong legs going into the race. In the past, I have gone with Pete Pfitzinger's Advanced Marathoning programs and figured I would do it again as it matches with my training goals.

I am currently using the Advanced Marathoning 2nd edition book and chose the plan that has a base of 55 miles and peaks at 70 miles. I don't think my legs can handle the 70 mile peak week, so I plan on resting on recovery run days if I am not feeling good. I ended up doing that this week as my calf felt tight and I didn't want to risk injuring it. The plans in this book seem to focus on multiple medium long runs (12+ miles) during the week as well as marathon pace running during long runs. There are some tempo runs and interval training but not near as much as I did during half marathon training. I am hoping this break from speed work allows my legs to recover quicker and put in the longer mid-week runs. I keep having to remind myself that I need to slow down for longer runs in order to get all my runs in during the week.

If you go on the Runners World forums, you will see quite a few threads on the Pfitz plans. He has lower mileage plans that peak at 55 miles that many people have used successfully as well as myself.

So we will see how training goes. I am not looking forward to the temperature dropping, but it is isn't anything I am not used to. Here is what this week looked like:

Monday: Rest
Tuesday: 9 miles w/ strides
Wednesday: 14 miles medium long
Thursday: 5 miles recovery (skipped due to calf)
Friday: 12 miles medium long
Saturday: 5 miles recovery
Sunday: 17 miles w/ 10 @ marathon pace

Again, it is a lot of miles, but at a slower pace. I think doing the longer runs during the week gives me more confidence when I am out there doing long on the weekends. Let's hope everything goes as planned and I hope to jump into a similar plan for Boston. If not I guess it will be time to re-evaluate.

What are you currently training for and what plans have you found to be successful in training?

Treadmill Running: A Review and Tips

2011-11-02T14:15:00.002-04:00

I love running outside. My favorite time of the year to run is in the spring and fall as it is the perfect temperature. I can run at normal hours and enjoy the brisk air. I have a rail trail a short drive away that I call my own. Everyone else on the trail is running with me that day as I know that trail like the back of my hand. It is my trail and I am always sad when December hits and the trail is no longer clear of snow.

Unfortunately, the Boston Marathon is in April which means, I am going to have an entire marathon training season during the winter. I don't hurry to run inside as soon as the temperature drops below 30, but I am also not afraid to put in a long run on the treadmill. Due to the downed trees and power lines in my town, I do not feel safe running around my town yet, so training this week has been on my treadmill.

Yesterday I had a 9 mile General Aerobic run and today was a 14 mile Medium Long run. After driving my normal 9 mile route yesterday and realizing the roads were blocked, I headed to the treadmill.

We didn't purchase a treadmill until this past spring. We had gym memberships so you could find me at the gym early every morning. After our schedules got crazy this past year, we knew a gym membership was no longer worth our money. We hesitated from buying a treadmill in the past as my husband is a big researcher and had in mind that he wanted to buy the best consumer treadmill. My husband is 6'7", so not only did we need a treadmill that could keep up with our intense training, but we also needed one that his stride wasn't longer than. He knew he wanted to buy a Landice treadmill, but we knew we couldn't afford one right away so we waited and saved. We finally purchased a Landice L7 Pro Sport and are so glad we waited.

Compared to treadmills you can buy at Sears such as the Nordic Track, the Landice doesn't have all the bells and whistles such as internet and built in music. The Landice treadmill on the other hand makes up for this in its functionality. You can transition your speed and incline very easily. Other treadmills we tested seemed to take significantly more time to bump up the pace. Also, when going faster than an 8:00 pace, the treadmill does not shake. This was one of the selling factors for us. We knew that we wanted a treadmill that could make it through speed workouts and not annoy us. It doesn't have as many programming options as the treadmills at the gym, but it has basic programming and I have no problem manually adjusting pace as long as my treadmill is continuously working and not constantly needing to have the belt adjusted.

Since purchasing our treadmill, I have run several hundred miles on it. I have done speed work outs and long runs up to 17 miles. This treadmill is a beast and I am so glad that we finally jumped in and purchased it. I am also thankful we waited and purchased a quality treadmill.

So now that you know about my treadmill, here are a few tips for treadmill running:

1) I set up a motivation wall in front of my treadmill. I hate staring at a wall, but I love looking at old race bibs and just thinking. I also have a Boston Marathon poster up there that is a constant reminder of my end goal.

2) Bring entertainment and back up entertainment. I am not the type of runner who can just zone out during a run. I need music or something to watch on TV. My iPad has been an amazing investment for that reason. I love renting movies on iTunes or watching shows from Netflix. (I watched Crazy Stupid Love this morning--Loved it!)
3) Bring lots of water and gels if needed. I have been known to bring an entire bag of fuel with me to the gym for my 18-20 mile runs. People look at me like I am crazy, but it saves you from running to refill.
4) For longer runs, go at odd hours at the gym so that you aren't hogging a treadmill. 60 minutes is usually the time limit, so go at off-peak times to get your entire run in.
5) Bring a towel! I can leave an entire puddle of sweat around me. It is easier to dry off before the sweat hits the ground. Turning on a fan helps with this problem.
6) Don't think about how far you have to go. This is a mental trick I use both on the treadmill and outside. I run each mile as if it is the only mile I am running. I don't think of how much I have left to go. When I think I have 10 miles left, I convince myself to stop, but if you are thinking mile by mile, you won't necessarily be as quick to give up.

Do you have any tips for treadmill running that I can take from you?

Nor'Easter Slams Our Town

2011-11-01T14:21:00.001-04:00

Within a few hours of publishing my last post, my weekend took a turn for the worst. As I had mentioned, we were in for quite the October snowstorm. Everyone realized that, but no one knew the damage that it would create.

As of 9:45pm on Saturday night, most of my town was blacked out, at least 90% of us lost our power. Massachusetts is not used to snowstorms so early in the season. Our trees still had leaves on them and the snow was wet and heavy. Because of those two factors, trees fell all over creating a mess.

I went to bed around 10pm in the dark, but thought, how long could this possibly go on? About 1 in the morning I heard the loudest crack outside my window and a smash. We have a very old tree outside our house that is basically dead. I was ready for that thing to come in through my window so immediately covered my head, but luckily it was a fear that was not to happen that night. We looked out the window and our tree had lost a huge branch, basically half the tree. I laid back down and tried to fall asleep but all I could hear were cracks and bangs for the next few hours. The other tree in our yard also lost a huge branch as did our neighbor's tree which landed on the power line.

All I could think of was Poltergeist and that tree, coming through so I decided I was switching rooms and spent the rest of my restless night on a futon listening to more cracks and bangs. We woke up the next morning with no power and heat and freezing. I was trying to think positive so went about my normal Sunday, minus my run as I knew the streets were dangerous and I obviously couldn't use my treadmill.

My husband left the house and observed the damage throughout the town. He said it looked like a bomb had gone off. Trees were split everywhere and laying across roads. There were downed power lines under branches. Because of the mess outside I spent the day cleaning to keep warm and just hoping we would see power before the evening.

To make a long story short we didn't get power for another day and a half. Our power was out for almost 48 hours. My town got almost 10 inches of snow but parts of our state received up to 24 inches of snow. School has been now cancelled for two days as Halloween was postponed until Sunday. Many are still without power and this storm has caused more damage to our state than when the remnants of Hurricane Irene hits us only a month and a half ago. While it was no fun sitting in a cold dark house for a few days, I am so thankful that my home did not receive any damage and that my family is safe.

Yesterday, I went for a drive around my normal running route to see if I could safely run this morning as my power wasn't on and my treadmill was still not an option. Every turn I made, I found more obstacles that I did not feel safe running near. This drive was a real eye opener of what everyone around me was going through and also a reminder to be safe while running. I usually run with a headlamp on at 6am. If I had just went running without previewing the route, I would have had tunnel vision to the danger that was surrounding me.

I get tunnel vision with my training plans all the time. I see what is on the schedule and think I have to complete that run. If it is not possible to do a run due to my health, injuries, or mother nature making a mess, I need to accept that sometimes it is better to take that extra day off than to push myself. I can always make up that run tomorrow.

I am semi-thankful Halloween was postponed as I have yet to have the temptation of the candy being in the house yet. I swear, November 1st is usually an evil day to my diet. And luckily for my kids they did get to celebrate Halloween at ballet on Saturday before the storm started, so they did get to wear their costumes. They hate when my husband pulls out the camera, so they were not being the easiest targets.

Dorothy and She Ra

Rounding Out a Good Week of Training

2011-10-29T17:49:00.000-04:00

If you live in the Northeast, you know the weather that we are currently experiencing right now. Snow, snow, snow. It is driving me crazy. My daughters asked me today if they can make snowmen tomorrow. Snowmen? What about scarecrow? It is Halloween on Monday, not Christmas. I am originally from northern Minnesota, so seeing snow in October is not unheard of, but I live in Massachusetts, we should not be experiencing a snow storm of 6-10 inches two days before Halloween.

Because of the upcoming snow storm, I decided to run my long run this morning instead of tomorrow. I was not in the mood to hit the treadmill for 17 miles tomorrow, so I figured, why not?

Why not? Ha! First of all, it was 33 degrees on my run at 10am this morning. It was only two months ago when I was watching my thermometer creep up and begging it to stay below 75 on my runs and now I begged it to creep up to 40. I wore shorts, as I am not ready to pull out the running tights and a thermal shirt with another shirt pulled over it. I was surprisingly comfortable.

Second, I ran a tempo run yesterday. 9 miles total with 4 miles at my tempo pace or 7:30 pace. I did it on the treadmill so that I could ensure hitting my paces which I did. Oh my legs were a bit tired from that run. I know it is not recommended to have back to back "hard" runs in your week, but it was either run today or back to the treadmill. Because of this, my pace was slower than my normal long run pace. My average pace was 9:29 for the 17 miles. I am perfectly satisfied with this pace. I kept telling myself during my run, one minute to two minutes slower than goal marathon pace. My goal marathon pace is around 8:10, so I am was doing OK. I also took is slow because I wanted to finish running strong. This is my first long run without my running partner in a while. My awesome running partner is down in DC getting ready to run the Marine Corp Marathon in the morning. I missed you today Steph and wish I was running with you tomorrow. Good luck and kill it!

Finally, the reason I shouldn't have been running today was the cumulative miles I have put in this week. This is what my training looked like this past week:
Sunday: 15 miles with 8 @ Goal Marathon Pace
Monday: Rest
Tuesday: 12 miles
Wednesday: 11 miles
Thursday: 5 miles
Friday: 9 miles with 4 @ Tempo Pace
Saturday: 17 miles (Should have been 5 recovery miles)

So my grand total of miles in the past 7 days is 69 miles. Cue crazy eyeballs! I have been averaging 55+ miles the past few years so that isn't a crazy number to see, but it was not in the plan obviously. My legs feel surprisingly fine after 69 miles, but will be happy to run only 5 tomorrow and have Monday off totally.

So there is my training for the past week in a nutshell. Now I must return to eating bagels and restoring some carbs.