Road ID Giveaway!!

The awesome people at Road ID gave me the opportunity to create an identification bracelet and they are also giving one of my lucky readers the chance to create one for themselves!! I ordered a pink one and it's so cute I wore it around the house today...you know, just in case something happened to me and Andy needed to call my Dad to let him know. Before we get to the giveaway, here's some info about Road ID...

• Road ID manufactures the premier line of identification gear for outdoor athletes so they can be identified in case of emergency or accident.
• Road ID is designed to give medically trained first responders the information they need to immediately contact family members, access medical information and prevent serious delays in case of injury. The company’s line of customized IDs is an integral part of any active person’s gear and can be worn on the wrist, shoe, ankle or around the neck.
• Road ID comes in 6 STYLES (the Wrist ID Sport, the Wrist ID Elite, the Shoe ID, the Ankle ID, the Fixx ID (necklace), and the Shoe Pouch ID. Products range in price from U.S. $19.99-$29.99.

Also, be sure to check them out on Facebook and Twitter where they offer weekly giveaways!!

Do you want a Road ID?? No crazy rules or multiple entries. You just need to be a follower and leave a comment. That's it!! If you're not already a follower, please become one. I'll pick the winner by random number generator next Sunday, Feb. 7th. Good luck!!

Winter, please leave

I didn't even realize I haven't posted since Monday. We've had A LOT going on with my cat, Newman. If you remember, he's the one who had surgery over the summer. Well 3 weeks ago some things started going on with him and we've been busy nursing him back to health. One thing that didn't help was that the vet filled a prescription bottle with a liquid which they can NOT identify. For 2 weeks I was shoving a clear liquid into Newman 1-3 times a day. I found this out when I went to open the new bottle of liquid and it was an orange liquid, not clear. When I call the vet, they confirmed the medicine should be orange and after examining the original bottle they gave us, they admitted that they have no idea what is in that bottle. They have gone back to security cameras to find the technician who filled the prescription but they can't zoom in close enough to see what bottle they dispensed from. So, for 2 weeks we were giving Newman a mystery medication. Needless to say, I'm fired up. I'm waiting a call from the head doctor/office manager but go figure, they haven't called me yet. It's been a really draining few weeks and I just hope that we're on the right track with treatment now and the little guy gets better quickly.

Since I was off today I ran my 18 miles this morning. When I headed out it was 15 degrees with the wind chill in the single digits. Two frozen water bottles later, the run was done and I was happy with the result. I'd been feeling a little sucky with the long runs but today went much better. We held a very steady 9:30 pace, which is right where I want to be on my long runs and the pace felt great. I hit a little slump from miles 6-10 where I was thinking it'd be nice to call it quits at 10, but I perked back up for the final 8. However, I'm sick of the cold. I'm a winter person but I think now that I'm training through this weather; my love of winter is slowly dying. My eyes have been on fire all day and they won't stop watering. My face is still blotchy from the wind/cold burn and my skin is dry. And to make matters worse, I chafed in the not so fun area from wearing two pairs of running tights. Ugh. I'm ready for Spring.

Tomorrow I'm doing 7 miles and I'm taking it to the high school track. This will be my first ever track workout and I'm really excited for it. I love little bursts of speed!! I'll be doing 6 x 200s with 100 rests. Hopefully my legs are ok after the long run today but since I wore my recovery socks all day, I think I'll be good to go.

Have a great weekend! Good luck to those racing!

Not Enough

I'm going into week 4 of eating clean and I'm really enjoying it. However, this past week I felt a little zapped on my runs and during my 17 miler on Saturday I just felt like I didn't have much in me. On top of it, I'm not seeing weight loss results like I had thought I would and when I think back to over a year ago, I was eating more and weighed less. While I'm constantly eating with all the "mini" meals, I had a feeling my little meals weren't adding up to the calories I need. This morning I looked up how many calories I should be getting if I wanted to lose 1.5 pounds a week on livestrong.com and entered that I was extremely active. The result, around 2500 calories a day, which is about what I thought. From there, I decided to add up my eats for today to see what I'm actually getting, and I have to say, while I'm a little disturbed at what I found out, I'm glad I now know. My calories for today only came to 1500. Eeek. Not good. I thought I wasn't eating enough, and actually knew I wasn't, but I didn't think I was this low. No wonder I'm feeling sluggish lately when I work out and no wonder I'm not losing weight...my body needs every calorie it's getting! So while I'm not going to stop eating clean, I am going to stop following the recommended servings. I've been so hung up on how many grains/starchy vegetables that the plan suggests that I've cut out things like bulgar, whole wheat pitas, etc. I'm going to stay focused on eating clean and eating small meals during the day, but I obviously need to add some substance in there, too.

This is what I have to eat for today:
Breakfast: oatmeal w/ wheat germ, protein powder, pumpkin, agave and skim milk
Snack: pineapple, 8 almonds
Lunch: spinach w/ cucumbers, peppers, onions, chicken
Snack: 4 egg whites, chopped veggies, banana
Dinner: chicken chili (chicken, tomatoes, onion, corn, kidney beans, whole wheat pasta)
Snack: fat free plain yogurt w/ flax seed, apple, agave

My goal for this week is to eat more and see how I feel. That's actually more important to me than losing the pounds right now because I want to feel good on my runs. I was so bummed on Saturday when I got home from my long run. I had so little energy during the run and wasn't sure I wanted to keep going at times. That's not me and I hate that feeling. For most of the day I kept thinking that I suck because the run felt hard for me and didn't seem to faze anyone else. But I think I know what's going on, so all I can do from here is try to fix it.

Here's my schedule for the week:
Mon - 4mi
Tues - 7 mi, negative split run
Wed - off (lift)
Thurs - 7 mi, 6 x 200 at 5k pace
Fri - 4mi (lift upper body only)
Sat - 18 mi
Sun - off (lift)

Question: has anyone switched to the new format for posting? Where is the spell check button now?

Come Back Quads

I've mentioned it a few times but I recently have gotten back into lifting. I belonged to a gym up until a year ago when we moved and I lifted all the time. I love lifting, maybe even more than I love running. I love feeling that I'm getting stronger and I like the results you see from putting in a hard, consistent effort. These days, my lifting occurs in our basement with no fancy equipment other than free weights and resistance bands. While it's not the atmosphere I prefer, I'm making it work and know you can get results without the equipment, which is what matters. Since I went a while without lifting I've noticed some changes and loss of definition in several areas. My ass, for one, went back to being mush and I miss the natural line showing my quadriceps in my thigh. So, I've been doing some research of exercises I can do at home with the equipment I have on hand to get these legs back in shape! I came across an 8 week program that I'm going to try out. Shouldn't be too difficult to incorporate because you only need to do it twice a week. While I like to lift upper body 3 times a week, I usually keep leg workouts to 2 times because of all the running.

There are three exercises:
1) High bench step up
2) One leg squat (lunge position, with back leg raised on block/step)
3) One leg hops in place (lunge position, hop with front leg)

Weeks 1-2
1) 15 reps/no wt, 15 reps/no wt, 15 reps/no wt
2) 15 reps/no wt, 15 reps/no wt, 15 reps/no wt
3) 10 secs, 10 secs

Weeks 3-4
1) 15 reps/10%, 20 reps/10%, 10 reps/15%
2) 15 reps/5%, 20 reps/5%, 10 reps/10%
3) 20 secs, 20 secs

Weeks 5-6
1) 15 reps/10%, 10 reps/15%, 7 reps/20%
2) 15 reps/5%, 10 reps/10%, 7 reps/15%
3) 10 secs, 10 secs, 10 secs

Weeks 7-8
1) 25 reps/10%, 30 reps/10%, 20 reps/15%
2) 25 reps/5%, 30 reps/5%, 20 reps/10%
3) 30 secs, 30 secs

The percentages shown represent the percentage of body weight you add using weights while doing the exercise. The program, with detailed descriptions of each exercise can be found here. For those of you who work out at home, or at the gym without using machines, what exercises do you do?

Running update...I had a hard ladder workout this morning after lifting yesterday and I'm totally feeling it right now. But it's the good soreness, the kind that tells you that you worked hard and didn't wuss out. Tomorrow is an easy run of 3 miles and then Saturday I have a 17 miler. I love having the long runs on the weekend to look forward to again. Definitely my favorite run of the week!

Feisty!

I LOVE it!! A feisty post gets everyone talking! I had so much fun reading your comments to my last post and appreciate you all being ok with me talking about my BQ as much as I want. And it's clear that we all agree the anonymous commenter is not only a sissy, but is clearly jealous too. But enough about him/her...

A few things to catch up on...Eating clean has been going well. It's really not that hard after I spend some time prepping for the week. It's been 2 weeks and I've lost around 6 lbs. The first week the pounds came flying off but last week I hit a stand still. I'm back to where I was in the Fall and know it's going to be hard from here on out to lose these last 10 lbs. But with Jamaica a little over 2 months away, I'm sticking with it, more determined than ever. The weekends haven't been as hard as I thought. When I feel snacky, I let myself eat but still choose something that's "clean" and watch my portion size. I'm also still allowing myself my Saturday night wine because come on, you have to have some fun in your life!

As for running, I'm enjoying the 5 days of running a week as opposed to the 6 days. Some weeks I'll take a full day of rest during the week but others I use both non running days for other cardio and lifting. It feels fantastic to lift again. I really miss the gym atmosphere but am trying to make the most out of it in the lonely basement. I've been feeling really sluggish again on my runs but we've added some speed back into them and I'm hoping that helps. I have a 5 miler on Feb 20th which I want to run around a 7:12 pace so I need to get my speed back! Today during my 6 miler I felt like an 8:30 was hard and couldn't believe I ran faster than that for the marathon! I'm not sure if I'm just blah lately or if I lost fitness that quickly. Either way, I'm gonna get it back. I don't want to just cruise along, I want to be able to race!

One last thing, I posted some new reviews (Raw Crunch Bars, Rejuvenative Foods and Smart Wool). Check 'em out!

Here's my schedule for the week:
Mon - 6 mi (neg split run)
Tues - 4 mi
Wed - off
Thurs - 6 mi (ladder)
Fri - 3 mi
Sat - 17 mi
Sun - off

And hi to all my new followers!! I'm happy to have you!

To My Anonymous Commentor

I received the following anonymous comment to my last post and wanted to say a few things. I hope I don't offend any of my loyal readers but I'm sure a lot of us have had some jerko leave a stupid comment at one point or another. We put a lot out there for people to read and I think it's insensitive to leave a nasty comment. Anyway, the comment was...

"Geez, can you type BQ one more time before those two keys on your keyboard wear out?"

My thoughts:

1) Why post anonymous? If you have something to say, man up and say it without hiding behind the anonymous ID. If you had included your name, so we could of had a mature conversation, I wouldn't have deleted the comment. I'm open to whatever anyone has to say, but don't be a sissy about it.

2) In case you haven't noticed, this is *MY* blog. It's my thoughts, my stories, my life. If you don't like what I'm saying, stop reading. Seriously, why read something that is clearly bothering you? I have 241 awesome followers, I don't need you.

3) I'm sorry the two letters B Q are a sensitive subject for you. Maybe you'll like these two better... F U.

Peace out Peeps!! Have an great weekend. :-)

BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ

How Far Will I Go?

Last night I met with Coach Dana to discuss the game plan for the Ultra this summer. Oh, and yes, Coach Dana, not Coach Jack. The Coaching company I use now has a new Coach, Dana, who is a friend and running buddy of mine. Dana also ran the Ultra last year and she did an amazing 68 miles. A few months later, she ran the Tahoe Triple (3 marathons in 3 days around Lake Tahoe). Needless to say, she is an incredible long distance runner and this year, she's going for 100 miles!! Since Dana is running the Ultra too and we will be training together, she'll be handling my scheduling, etc from here on out. Anyway, I have been really torn about how far I want to go this summer. Here's my dilemma:

1) I love racing and although I'm running 3 marathons this winter/spring, I won't be racing them. I sort of think I want to finish the year off by racing a fall marathon and seeing if I can beat my BQ PR of 3:38:02. If I want to race in the fall, it's smarter for me to stick with 50 miles at the Ultra. Since this is what I did last year, I know I can recover fairly quickly and switch gears to train for racing a fall marathon.

2) I love challenging myself. I know I can do 50 miles, 51.2 to be exact. But can I do 58? How about 68? I'm going to put in all the training so why not see if I can do a little more this year? It would be a new distance PR!

Since the training won't really differ based on how far I decide to go, I'm not locked in to what I decide to do. I do know that 100 miles is out. Not sure why, but I ruled it out. But after some discussion with Coach Dana and my crazy little head, I've settled on a goal. I'll be shooting for 75 miles!! Since we run a 8.4 mile loop, this will be 9 loops. Last year I did 6. While loop 5 was really hard, when I finished loop 6 I knew I had at least one more in me. We did luck out last year with the weather. While it was a warm summer day, we didn't have our typical hot and humid Philly weather. Who knows what the day will bring this year. The weather might dictate how far I actually go.

Training will consist of a lot of miles, peaking around 80 miles per week, and back to back long runs on the weekend. Last night I asked Andy if the back to back long runs ruined any of our weekends last year and he said, "did you do back to back long runs?" So I guess that's my answer. It obviously didn't phase us too much.

I'm happy I set a goal and if the day goes well, I feel confident that I can reach it. I'm still going to register for a fall marathon and make the decision of whether or not to race it after the Ultra. Oh, and if anyone in the area is up for a loop, I'll be looking for pacers after loop 4, which will be about 33 miles into the race. If you're interested, let me know!

My Goal for 2010

I haven't had much to talk about lately. Guess I'm sort of in a lull in between races. The next race (5 miler) is in February and then I have Shamrock marathon in March. So I've been running, building back up the mileage and feeling great!! I have to say, the clean eating is wonderful. I feel like a million bucks right now. I've already seen great progress on the scale and feel like I'm learning a few things. One, I actually do know when to stop eating. Yesterday I was eating my afternoon snack of 4 sliced egg whites on a slice of Ezekiel. I had some cut up veggies to go with it and I actually didn't eat them. This may not seem like a big deal, but to me it is. Usually if something is there for me to eat it, I'll eat it regardless of how full I feel. This is especially true with my weekend treat. I can't just have a serving or a little, I need to have 3 or 4 times that much. So I'm happy to see that I'm listening to my body and that I am capable of not shoving my face. The other thing is that I'm learning to eat a lot of new things and not feel anxious about it. The other day when I had some almond butter on top of my blended frozen banana, I didn't feel guilty about it. I took a serving and left it at that. To not freak out about eating something so high in fat is a really big step for me. I feel really positive with how things are going and I think this is VERY doable. Not just for this week or month but for the long haul.

I have a 14 miler scheduled for tomorrow and I'm not very excited about it. The temperature is really going to drop today and the high for tomorrow is only in the 20's. The wind is suppose to be bad, once again, giving us wind chills in the single digits/teens. I'm not sure who's idea it was to train over the winter months for 3 marathons but I think I need to have a talk with them.

Lastly, I came up with a goal for 2010. I'm putting it out there so I have some accountability. I've switched up my routine to get back into the habit of running in the morning before work. I found that the day isn't as stressful when I don't feel I have to rush out of work, rush home, get my run in, then rush around making dinner. So I'm back at getting up a little after 5am. It's been a rough week but it's working and I'm going to stick with it. The important thing is that this will free up some time at night to study for my personal training certification. My one personal goal for 2010 is to take the exam before my 34th birthday in October. I figure, what better birthday present...to finally be able to say I'm a personal trainer!!

A Day In The Life

A few people said they would be interested in seeing what a day in the life of eating clean would look like when I wrote this post. After spending almost 2 hours over the weekend planning every bite that would go in my mouth this week, I spent a better part of Sunday prepping food. My goal here is to not only eat perfectly clean, but to incorporate new foods and not eat the same thing day in and day out (like I do now). Although it took a lot of time to chop and dice, I actually enjoyed it. It was fun to see all the pretty, bright colored, healthy foods laid out in front of me.

Keep in mind that you pair a lean protein with a complex carb at each of your 5-6 small meals. By small, the book says each meal should be around 300-400 calories. If you do the math and eat all 6 meals, that gets you around 1800-2400 calories a day. Honestly, I ate all 6 meals yesterday and I don't think I came close to 2000 calories. I did a quick calculation and I think I was around 1600-1700. I don't think that's enough with running, but I do have to say that I didn't feel hungry until it was time to eat my next mini meal. Here are just a few of the things I got ready for the week:

Ezekiel bread, spinach, hard boiled eggs, dates, onions, peppers (chopped and sliced), beans, carrots, broccoli, cucumbers, tomato, apple, cottage cheese w/ flax seed.

Prepping my salads for a few days. Veggie base (peppers, broccoli, onion, tomato, cucumber).

Top chopped veggies with 1/2 C beans then piled on the spinach. The other 2 salads will get tuna and chicken.

This was my lunch on Sunday. Mary's Crackers topped with a bite of chicken and salsa. Veggies with salsa for dipping and an apple. Followed this up with a cup of gingerbread tea. Yum!

Post workout snack was 4 egg whites with a touch of salsa, cucumbers and dates (not pictured). I admit, this looks a little weird, but it actually was pretty good.

Here is an example of what I'll eat today:

Meal 1 - Oatmeal with 1T wheat germ, 1 scoop of soy protein powder, blueberries. A drizzle of agave nectar to sweeten it up. 1 C skim milk because I have to have my skim milk every day! Coffee, black.

Meal 2 - 2 small clementines, 8 almonds

Meal 3 - Salad, as seen above with a slice of Ezekiel bread and a few (4 to be exact) baby carrots, green tea

Meal 4 - Cottage cheese with flax seed, apple

Meal 5 - Chicken with a tablespoon of avocado and salsa, quinoa and broccoli, hot tea.

Meal 6 - Organic, fat free, plain yogurt with berries (or banana) and a drizzle of agave nectar

Note: I drink a ton of water, always have. Just during the day at work I have about 100 oz of water. I drink a ton more when working out and at home in the evening.

And because this is a running blog, here's my schedule for the week.
Mon - 3 mi (Pilates)
Tues - 5 mi
Wed - off (lift)
Thurs - 5 mi
Fri - 2 mi (lift)
Sat - 14 mi
Sun - off (lift - optional)

2009 Review!

Another year flew by!! I have to say, this was a very good year for me. Looking back at my running and races, I couldn't be happier. I started the year with having run only one marathon in 2008 and finished 2009 an Ultra marathoner who qualified for Boston!! When I met with Coach Jack several weeks ago to talk about goals for 2010 he said, "you had some people's running career in one year." Looking back, I really did accomplish so much. I ran a 50 mile Ultra marathon, 1 marathon, 3 half marathons, a 5k, 5 miler, 10 miler and ended the year with 1813.75 miles. Oh, I PR'd at each distance, too!

When I started 2009, I thought I was just going to run and maybe PR at a few races. I wasn't expecting the year I had at all. I didn't think qualifying for Boston was even within my reach and I never thought I'd run 50 miles and have fun doing it! I proved a lot to myself over the past year and showed that dedication and hard work does pay off. While the Ultra was a huge challenge and accomplishment, I have to say, NOTHING will ever beat the feeling of crossing the finish line at Philly marathon knowing I qualified for Boston. I'm tearing up just thinking about that day. I worked so hard for it and wanted it so badly. It wasn't easy, which makes it that much more special to me. I earned my way into the Boston marathon...by far my greatest running memory of 2009.

There are some other notable things that happened along the way to getting to Boston, though...

New Orleans Mardi Gras Half Marathon. I was hoping to PR at this race but the champagne the night before probably wasn't the best way to carb load. Still finished with a 1:47:23 and most importantly, had a great time in NO!

Frostbite 5 miler. PR'd by just over 2 minutes and won 3rd in my age group with a 38:33. I love this local race and will be doing it again this year. Although this year I'm hoping to win my age group!

Broad Street 10 miler. PR'd by exactly one minute with a 1:18:11. This race fell around the time Ultra training was starting and I didn't do much speed work to prepare. I was happy with the time but left the race knowing I didn't leave it all out there on the course. Something I knew I needed to work on in preparing for Philly marathon.

Ultra Marathon. Covered 51.2 miles in 10 hours and 4 minutes. I had so much fun doing it that I'm going back for seconds. I'll be running this again in July and am contemplating going further. We'll shall see...

Horsham 5k. Set another PR with a finish of 21:50, winning 3rd in my age group and finishing 7th female overall. I really want to get my 5k time below 21 minutes and hope to do that this year.

Lehigh Valley half. Ran this for run and to see what my marathon pace for Philly would feel like. I finished in 1:48:30 with no effort. This was a huge confidence booster and I think it played a huge part in my training mentally.

PDR half. PR'd by over 4 minutes, 1:42:37, and shocked the hell out of myself. I knew this race would make or break me when it came to being ready for the marathon. Turns out I was right on track and had it in me.

Philly Marathon. Two words: Boston, Baby!!

2009 was a great year and I'm sad to see it go. But I know 2010 will be just as good, if not better and I can't wait to see what it has in store for me.

And finally, thanks to all of YOU who have supported me over the year. Your comments mean so much to me and I'm always shocked when I pick up more followers. It's so flattering and I really do appreciate you taking the time to read my nonsense. Happy New Year!!