Day 2: Whoops...Poor River

Today I was up and ready for a nice easy 4 mile run and then some core work.  It has been cool in the mornings so I decided to take River.  She loves to run and makes a great partner.  Running with her causes my posture and foot strike to be different and she helps me vary my speed.  She was excited to go.  I got her water bottle and travel bowl ready and we headed out.

She was ready to go and didn't want to wait for her picture to be taken.

 

We started out at a pretty good pace.  She always starts out fast and hard.  I have to get her to slow down a lot of times because I just can't keep up.  We held a good pace for about 2.5 miles.  Then she needed some water.  It was a good resting point for her.  I figured that it wasn't that much longer and we were really making good time.

Then the run seemed to be going longer and I couldn't figure out why our time was so slow.  When I run with her, I usually do right on my best times.  Today it was just really slow.  We made our way back home with 2 more water stops for her.

When we got home and I double checked the route I found out that it was my 5 mile loop not my 4 mile loop that we just did.  For some reason I had it in my head that it was only 4.  No wonder River was beat and really slow at the end.  I made her run an extra 1 mile.

She was tired when we got home.

She's now sleeping on the couch.  She did get on the floor with me when I did my core and stretching.  I think I wore her out for the morning.  Poor girl.

Tomorrow it's speed and some core work.  James wants to do this with me, so we'll walk to the field by Sobey's and do some sprinting there with core work in between sets.  River will go with us to keep us on track.

Day 2 is in the books and I'm off to have a late breakfast.  I only had a protein bar before I ran and I'm hungry!

Monday, Monday...

And you can tell it's a Monday!

I haven't been sleeping well lately and I finally get to sleep and was going to let myself sleep until aruond 6:30, but the animals had other ideas.  Indy started yowling and knocking things off my dresser.  Anya decided that she needed to "share" my pillow.  Mulder, who slept with James last night, heard everyone else having fun so he came up and tried to "clean" my ears.  All at 5 am.  Yep, welcome to Monday!

I got up and putzed around until it was time to get James up.  He wanted to walk, but I really needed to get to the grocery so we decided that we'd walk this afternoon.  We went to the store and then I dropped him off at daycare.  Since we decided to walk this afternoon when I picked him up, I was just going to run to daycare and then walk home with him.  Well, when I realized how hot and humid it is I changed my mind.

After I put the groceries away, I went for a quick run.  Today was my short run day so I ran a quick 1.75 miles.  Just shy of my 2 mile goal.  I'm glad I took my small water bottle with me.  I usually don't take water with me on such short runs, but something said I should today.  I had to slow down about halfway through to take a few swigs.  Plus I put ice in it so it was nice to hold in my hand as I ran.

I was really happy with my time.  I held a pretty good pace for me on a short run.

Next week I'm going to start running with my brother-in-law in the mornings.  He wants to give it another try so I'll run with him on my interval days and short run days to get him back into it.  It should be nice.  Mike has been running in the evenings and liking that.  James will go with him when we have him.

My next race is the Lake Festival 5k this Saturday.  I'm looking forward to it since it's a really flat course.  I'm hoping for close to the same time as the Good Friday run.  I'll be really happy with that.

I'm doing a core workout before I shower.  I haven't been doing weights or core and I need to get back into it.  I'm going to do my Buffy workout.  I love that core workout and I'm in the mood to watch an episode of Buffy.

Tomorrow I have a 4 mile run scheduled and I'm doing that early before it gets hot and humid.  Plus James and I are going to the Market so I want to get my run done before heading out to buy lots of good fruits and veggies for our veggie challenge!

Mike and I are doing a veggie challenge and James wants to join us.  We are going to eat 5-6 servings of veggies every day.  James is going to eat 3-4.  The challenge is to make them all different and try new things.  I'm hoping it will get us back on track of good eating since we've been traveling so much and having to eat out.  We both just feel like slugs since vacation.  James also wants to try new fruits every week.

Well, off I go to kill my core!  Have a great day!

Glad I Did My Workout Today

It was a rough morning.  Yesterday I had a pretty icky day overall.  I didn't sleep much last night either.  When my alarm went off at 4:45 this morning, I really didn't want to get up.  I sat on the couch for a few minutes and argued with myself.  Then I remembered what my inspiration for the week is:

I got myself up and ready to go.  I really didn't want to, but I had to make myself do it so that I can reach my goals.  I'm so glad that I went to the gym.

Today was an interval day so I decided to get to the gym early and just do it on the treadmill.  I ran for 23 minutes at a nice easy pace to loosen up then I did the following:

3 sets of 1 minute @ 10:15 pace with 2 minutes recovery between each hard

2 sets of 1 minute @ 9:45 pace with 2 minutes recover between each hard

1 set of 1 minute @ 9:30 pace with 2 minutes recovery.

I then did a 9 minute cool down at a nice easy pace.  My total mileage was 4.08 miles.  That brings my total for the April Challenge to 12.68 miles so far.  Almost half of the Boston Marathon!

After I ran I did upper body weights.  I increased weight on half the exercises today.  I won't increase anymore until after my 10k now.  That took about 30 minutes. 

After dropping James off at daycare, I came home and did my Buffy core workout.  Once again I had to add my own core workout as there wasn't much in the way of the list.  I did get a pretty good workout in though.  I stretched in between sets.

When it was all said and done, today was a great workout.  Once again I am so glad that I made myself do this.  It was worth it and I feel better.

Tomorrow James and I are going to walk to daycare and then I'm going for a 3-4 mile run on the way home.  It should be a nice morning and it's always a great walk with him.

It's almost the weekend so enjoy your day!