100 km per month

It's been awhile since I've written a post. Since my big long run, I haven't done a whole lot. Here it is the end of the month and I haven't completed my 100 km yet.

What 100 km you ask? It's not a big deal. It's a group of ladies and a Facebook group. The goal is to run 100 km per month. I'm fighting for these last 25 or so. 4 days and 25 km to go. Nasty weather forecast and a strong dislike of the Treadmill is making it difficult. If all else fails, I'll do another 21 k long run on Saturday and then I'll only have 4 to make up in the next three days. That's doable. Ha!

I have some pics from our trip to the Montreal RV Show.












Ok. So, that's all I have to post today.

Happy Running

My first half marathon

It was only a training run, but it was still a half in distance. And I'm really glad I got that out of the way. Especially considering how the mileage has been lacking in March. We had two weekends away with RV Shows, so I didn't get any miles in there, and we had a couple of weeks of some bad weather that hampered runs too. But anyway, it's done, and out of the way and I can breathe a sigh of relief that I will be able to complete a half marathon race in May.

It was a beautiful day for a run. I started out with jacket and mittens. And my buff (YAY!, my first run wearing my buff. I bought a couple in Montreal when we were there) But it became clear very quickly that the mittens had to go. And depending on the sun and the wind, determined whether I wore my jacket or not.

I started out ok, but at the 10 minute mark I started getting some shin pain that I thought was going to derail the effort. But that went away. Then I was plagued with hamstring pain that stayed for the rest of the run. I did really well for the first 10k. The hill at the end of the 10k mark, I actually ran up half, when I usually walk it all. I still did pretty well for the first 17k. And then my legs were toast. So I walked the rest. It was actually about the 17k mark when I decided I'd go for 21.1 instead of the 20. And those last 4 were brutal. I watched every click of each km go by. And I had to adjust my route 3 or 4 times to get all the mileage in.

But in the end it was awesome. I'm pretty chuffed. But now I think I'll take the rest of the day off.

That was the coolest sound

Just a little post today. I've been slacking just a little bit because of the bitterly cold weather outside and I just can't get on the treadmill for any decent length of time. (Barring that 16k run on the treadmill a couple of weeks ago. I don't know what in the hell got into me that day)

I was out last night. It was cold -9C, but there wasn't any wind. It was an awesome night for running. I was listening to my audiobook and then I heard it. "What was that?" I listened for it again. "OH Wow, how cool is that?" I had to turn off my book and listen for a few minutes.

It was dark out. There was nobody around, there were no cars on the road, no wind in my ears. Just me. And the rhythmic sound of my feet hitting the pavement.

What a cool sound.

I probably only got to listen for 30 seconds or so. And then the wind picked up. Hissing in my ears.

I turned my book back on and kept going.

My three tips for weightloss success

Someone asked. I posted. I liked it, so I'm posting it again.

My top three tips for successful weightloss. (I don't like the term weight loss though because it's not only about the weight loss itself, it's about being healthy and staying that way)

My # 1 tip is that you need to make your health a very high priority. Just as important as work and family. You get up and go to work every day even when you don't want to. Now you need to treat being healthy the same way. You eat well and work out every day, even when you don't want to.

My #2 tip is that this is a lifestyle change. In order to be successful you will never, ever, ever be able to go back to your old ways. EVER. If you think that once you lose the weight, that you can go back to the way things were, you WILL fail. You will gain all the weight back and then some.

My # 3 tip is to use this time to determine what you want this new lifestyle to be. Where do you see yourself in 1 year, 5 years, 10 years.

/soapbox

Addict it is...

I did my longest run to date yesterday. 18km. New records abound. :) (OK, I know I'm the only one that cares about that stuff. :P )

If you had asked me yesterday, the run was not good. It was sunny, but it was really windy in a few places. I really don't like the wind. At about the 12km mark I got a butt cramp. TMI WARNING! It felt like my insides were going to explode out my butt. No, it's not a runners trot issue. I know those well. This is different. I don't know if anyone knows what I'm talking about, but holy painful. Spasm. Cramp. Ouch. I had to walk to relieve that. I did think at one point I was going to have to call for a ride home though. But I managed to walk it off. At the 15 km point I hit the wall. I was done. It took every ounce of energy I had just to keep myself upright, on two feet. One foot in front of the other. As I got home, I realized I was .5 km short. So I kept going. Walked right on past the house. That's some serious issue right there. Every muscle from the waist down is screaming for relief and you say, "Just five more minutes".  When I was done, I had completed it in 2:46:00, with a pace of 9:11 per km.

Oh boy I ached. My legs hurt. My feet hurt. I was mentally and physically exhausted. I couldn't stand up. I couldn't sit down. I was chilled right to the bone. I was sick to my stomach. I was weak. My brain was fried. I couldn't decide if I wanted to cry from the misery or laugh at the ridiculousness of what I am putting myself through.

What am I thinking? Someone yesterday asked me if I was training for a marathon. Before yesterday's run, I was planning on running at least a couple in 2013. Yesterday I wasn't sure if I wanted to put myself though the grueling training. For a few minutes I wasn't even sure I was capable of completing the training to do the half in May. Let alone the 4 halfs I was planning to do this year.

My wonderful husband massaged my legs for a few minutes. It was wonderful. I could so get used to that. <3. But then he took me traipsing through the Wal-mart. Do you know how BIG a Wal-Mart is?????  If it weren't for the massage, I think I'd be pissed.

So, Wal-Mart, grocery store, supper, a soccer game (watching, not playing) and bed. That was how the rest of my day went.

I do have to talk about supper for a minute. I made a new salad last night from the salad book. Beef Stir Fry Salad. I altered it a little bit. Instead of using the veggies as listed, I used 1.5 cups of thawed Kirkland Stir Fry vegetables.

And instead of making the dressing as per the recipe, I just picked up a bottle of Mandarin Ginger dressing from the grocery store. The salad was awesome. (I have some more for lunch today.)

Where was I? Oh yea, bed. That's right. I turned on some Dragnet and off to lala land I went.

This morning I got up, no aches, no pains. I was actually a little more limber than when I usually wake up.  I felt freaking FANTASTIC!!!

Guess what. I can't wait to do it all over again next Sunday.

This is a pretty good addiction. You feel horrible while your doing it, but THEN the high kicks in and the pain is all but forgotten.

I've done 87km so far this month. On track for a total of 131 km for February.

Forgive me readers, for I have sinned.

It's been a very very long time since I puked all over myself over indulged like this.

I just ate 800 calories of cheesecake.

It was good, but it wasn't 800 calories good. And I'm feeling a bit ill.



I'm feeling a tad bit on the guilty side too. Which I don't normally do. But I don't normally eat 800 calories of cheesecake either.

I could have eaten half and been happy. But no way, I had to oink it all.

I took Fat Friday to a whole other level. And unfortunately it's not over yet. Not until after pizza and drinks. At least pizza is home made veggie pizza and drinks are vodka's and club sodas, so the overall damage will be minimal.

Oh well. It's in ma belleh now. I'll have to save some room on Sunday after my run to make up for it.

That's my confession.

PS: it was a penny a calorie too.

Have a good weekend.

Now that I have that over with.

I ran the quarter marathon (10.55 km) yesterday in the Falmouth Freezer.

We had a rain / snow / ice storm on Saturday night, so the race was postponed until 1:00 pm. Courtney came with me and we picked up a new friend along the way and met some more new friends once we got there. The roads were so bad, that of the 75 people that had registered for the quarter, probably only 20 showed up. It looks like they are going to run it again on Friday night. (?)

The temperature wasn't so bad. -6C. And there was either not much wind or the wind was being blocked. There was an open 2km stretch that was a bit chilly. I did get an ice pick headache at one point, the wind was so cold. But it didn't last long.

The roads that we were running on were really bad. Snow covered. Ice. Slippery. There were a lot of cars on the roads. There were a couple of times where I was actually worried and had to stop and get off the road with cars coming. If they had slid, they'd plow right into me, and there wasn't going to be a damn thing I could do about it. And hilly. Whoa, It was hilly. Way hillier than you would hope a race would be. But I actually didn't mind it too much. Any route I ever run has hills on it. So, I'm used to it. The piece de resistance, my friends. I came in DEAD LAST. I did, however manage to finish probably ten seconds ahead of the winner of the half marathon.

As much as I've complained about it, it really wasn't a bad run, for a long run, for me. It was a really sun shiny day. I don't get to run too much in the sun these days. So, I really enjoyed that. I got to have some free soup. I won a gift certificate from www.roadid.com. I already put my order in for reflective wrist bands and a shoe pocket.  I met some great people and I'm really looking forward to running with them again. (OK, running way way way behind them. LOL. Great job on the times.) And I got to spend a few hours with Courtney, which doesn't happen very often these days. And even though I came in last, I still ran a PR time for anything over 10K. Which is pretty amazing because of the road conditions.

So, all in all, not a bad day.