Tag Archives: Yoga

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IT…Oh No!

Picture 6

So another windy cold day for a long run this weekend.  I actually waited until 1:00 PM to run my 9 miles yesterday.  I must have been overly confident from my awesome 4 miler on Thursday because these were 9 tough miles.  Around 4.5 miles, I was struck with right knee IT band pain.  It came out of no where!  I stopped my Garmin and stretched along the side of the road.  A mile later, it was back.  The rest of my run was a stop, stretch and go and I was pretty unhappy.  I did make it to 9 miles, but stopped the watch a little early while I continued to walk at the end.

IT Band Plan…

stretchitband

This week…

  • Foam Rolling and stick-massage thinger as much as possible
  • Les Mills “Flow” (BodyFlow) 20 minute DVD
  • YogaDownload.com “Yoga for Runners”  (video below)
  • Extra “off” day
  • Ibuprofen

 

I think this flared up because I HAVEN’T STRETCHED AT ALL in the past few weeks!  I’ve been really lazy about it and thought I was fine.  Nope!  With all this BodyPump along with a Half Marathon plan, I really need to stretch or else I’m going to hurt myself.

So after a modified BodyPump workout at home (no squats or lunges) I did the 20 minute Flow DVD and it is awesome.  All hip openers and IT stretches so I need to make this a part of my weekly routine!

 

pizza

PS I made homemade pizza tonight and it was delicious.   :)

 

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Still Here…

It has been just over a week since I ran my marathon and I took a full 6 days off before doing any exercise!  It has also been a week since I posted, but there really isn’t much to talk about when I’m not running at all and busy with school!  I have been sleeping soooo well and was really only crazy sore the day after the marathon.  By Tuesday, I was feeling pretty good and enjoyed the time off from working out.  I went to a 1 hour yoga class Saturday morning and did a 45 minute Yoga Download (Detox Yoga #1) on Sunday.

Today I did two POP Pilates videos from Cassie’s YouTube channel… both are incredibly tough and I’m always amazed at how graceful she looks.

 

 

Since I am not running as much, I am really trying to watch what I eat and eat more fruits and vegetables. I was eating SO MANY CARBS for the past few months when I was running all the time and I feel gross.  I don’t plan on doing another marathon this year and think I will probably train for a half marathon in spring 2013.  My next goal is looking good in my wedding dress :)  I will probably be running shorter distances this summer and incorporating lots of yoga and strength training.  I’ve been on a smoothie kick lately and drinking one each morning.

My smoothies usually include: frozen banana, blueberries or strawberries, spinach, peanut butter, almond milk and chia seeds.  I would like to get some vanilla protein powder that I could use instead of peanut butter sometimes but I haven’t gotten around to it yet.  (6 days of school left!)

I made a spinach, strawberry, goat cheese and sunflower seed salad last night that was really good.

I also realized today that a bunch of pink flowers bloomed around our house… I should probably walk around our new house more often.  I had no idea we had pink roses already!!

Four concerts for my kids this week!  It is going to be a tough week, but I’m looking forward to summer :)

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Hungry All The Time

Tuesday: 2 mile walk and 20 minute YogaDownload video on YouTube

Wednesday: 6 miles (58:09)

I could not get myself to run yesterday.  I always take Monday off and I was just so exhausted after school yesterday, I just came home and sat on the couch.  I convinced myself I could just go for a walk and do some yoga to stretch out my legs and it would be okay.  I have not been following my training plan very well this spring, between the pulled calf muscle and just feeling too busy I haven’t been able to run as much as I should.  After I hurt my calf and took off a full week, I almost always took off one of my shorter mid-week runs each week.  I always did the mid-week long and the weekend long.  So, I would not suggest trying to train for a marathon this way, because it almost always ends in injury.  Luckily, the race is soon and I my legs are feeling pretty good.

I forgot to post this picture with my 20 mile post, but this was the food I packed to take with me to the rail trail for my 20 miles last Saturday.  I am loving the mini bagels with Peanut Butter and Co (best peanut butter ever… and now Target sells it!!!) and had one next to my bed to eat at 5:30 am Saturday morning before I went downstairs at 6am to try to eat some oatmeal.

Love my lemon-lime gatorade, vanilla GU, PB Luna protein bars and GOLDFISH CRACKERS. Yes, I’m still obsessed with them and I am currently out and very sad.  Those little fishies hold me over at school because… I AM HUNGRY ALL THE TIME.  It’s actually really annoying, but I feel like my appetite is starting to calm down.  I wasn’t that hungry Saturday after running the 20, but I was starving Sunday-Tuesday.  I seriously want to eat every hour.  I’m currently eating these…

I might as well just finish the bag tonight since I’m sad that I’m out of goldfish crackers.

 As I’ve mentioned before, I am completely in love with my Walmart compression socks.  Yes, I have the cute pink running compression sleeves but there is no stopping these tan babies.  They are awesome and super tight.  I went to Walmart Saturday night and spotted these gorgeous OPEN TOE socks!! I’ve been telling my friend Amy to buy them for the past 6 months and when I found these (across from the pharmacy), I had to take a picture to send to her.  Just look at that picture! A couple wearing those open toe tan beasts and they are playing footsies under a table?! Amy couldn’t resist and she bought her and her husband a pair.  She is obviously required to reenact this photo and send it to me so I can post :)

On a serious note, I have been having major sleep issues over the past month or so.  I can fall asleep, but I can’t stay asleep more than 4 hours.  I’m exhausted and I’m noticing a pattern where it is worse the day or two after a long run.  I’ve never had this happen before!  I’m hoping it goes away after the marathon, because I would love to sleep past 3 am.  Does anyone have trouble sleeping or staying asleep after long runs?

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Lots of Ice

Friday: 45 minute “PiYo” class

Saturday: 8 mile run (1:22)

I didn’t have school yesterday, so I decided to go to a new yoga/pilates class that my gym offers Friday morning.  Yesterday was the first time the class was offered, so I was excited to see what it was like.

I really liked the PiYo class, but it wasn’t what I expected at all! It was a mix of pilates and a little yoga like I expected, but mixed in cardio elements and toning (squats, lunges, etc).  I worked up a sweat but was worried that I pushed my recovering left calf too much.  I tried to modify the lunge/squat moves and took breaks.

 

 

 

I iced my calves with frozen vegetables again.  Since I was already sitting on the kitchen floor, I figured I would practice my trumpet.  What … you don’t practice your trumpet and ice your calves on the kitchen floor?  I’m playing for two church services Sunday and have some more trumpet things coming up this month.  I’m not sure if I ever mentioned this was my primary instrument on the blog? I play violin more now, but trumpet was my main instrument in college.

 

I ran 8 (PAIN FREE!!!!!) miles this morning on the rail trail with Amy.  We kept around a 10 minute pace and felt great.  I really needed the mental boost from this run to prep me for my 18 miler next weekend!  I came home and dumped a huge amount of ice in the tub.  I haven’t taken an ice bath since my marathon training last year and I was scared to get in.  I am really trying to take care of my legs until the race.  I will keep icing, stretching, yoga-ing, and foam rolling until the marathon to keep my legs happy!

 

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Weekend Bike Ride

Saturday: 16 mile bike ride (1:56:03) 

Sunday: 45 minute yoga (YogaDownload – HardCORE workout)

Since my calf injury and running in pain last Tuesday, I took the rest of the week off and skipped my long run of 16 yesterday.  Kinda freaks me out that I skipped my 4, 8 and 16 mile runs for week 11 of my marathon plan, but I know it’s all for the best.  I decided to ride my bike next to Colby for his 16 mile run on the rail trail yesterday.  Our marathon is on our local “rail trail”, which is a 21 mile long trail along old railroad tracks that starts in PA and crosses over the boarder to MD.  Our marathon will be 13.1 out and back that finishes up at one of our college’s tracks.  It is nice that there is no traffic, it is completely flat and you can train on the race course.  The only downside is the gravel surface that Colby and I think slows us down a bit.

Remember my little girl bike?? It is a “Specialized Hard Rock” with adult sized wheels and a youth sized frame I’ve had since I was about 13 years old.  I know, I could probably upgrade.

Ready to go ride… and it was COLD!  We left the house early and I quick grabbed my running gloves and extra zip jacket.  Good choice because I was freezing the whole time.  I ended up wearing both zip jackets and gloves and wish I had my winter headband.

Cute views from the road.

I almost completely wiped out trying to take a picture of Colby running while riding my bike and holding my iPhone.  I actually laughed out loud and was happy nobody was around me.

YogaDownload is having a Spring sale (30% off everything) that ends tonight.  Download yourself a new video or podcast.  I downloaded a few new free 20 minute videos/podcasts and bought a new 45 minute “HardCORE” workout that had me sweating this morning.  I used to stay away from the workouts that are “audio only” because I thought I wouldn’t know what I was doing.  There is always a PDF “pose guide” that goes along with the workout.  I think I prefer this now because it is less distracting than watching a video.  I like having the pose guide up on my computer as the audio plays.  I also like looking at the pose guides before I download a workout to get an idea of what it will be like.

(pose guide)

Also, check this lady out:

LOVE her blog and thought this video on a post about her awesome abs was really great! I can’t wait to try out some new poses for core strength!

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Garmin and Sickness Drama

So, I’ve been a little lazy with the blog lately.  I was really feeling good about my training plan and going to BodyPump two times a week.  I knew I was working out a lot, especially on Tues/Thurs when I would run and go to class after work… but I didn’t think much of it.  I felt great after going to a Saturday morning yoga class at Gold’s gym with Amy but I’ve been having headaches on and off for the past week. I woke up Sunday morning feeling horrible and all congested.  I had already planned on running 7 miles with Amy, so I made a trip to the drugstore and picked up some tylenol and sudafed.  I also picked up Claritin because I’ve been out of it for over a month.  I started taking Claritin back in October when a doctor told me it was probably the reason I got my sinus infection (the one I ran a half marathon with…) and got them in the past.

So… lesson learned. I’ll keep taking allergy medicine.  I was home sick Tuesday with a fever and had to skip my Tuesday run.  The weather in PA has been incredible and I’ve been missing out on it! It has been in the 60′s for the past two days.  I decided to take today off because I am still really congested and didn’t want to try running when I can barely breathe.  I guess my body needed the break and I am just thankful it is only during week 3 of my marathon plan.  I hope I can run tomorrow and maybe make up one of my missed runs on Saturday and run my long run on Sunday.

Workouts I didn’t blog about yet…

Saturday (Jan. 28): Yoga class!

This was my first yoga class since college.  I usually do yoga at home with videos and YogaDownload.com but I really enjoyed going to an actual class.  I didn’t think the class was too difficult, but I woke up with a really sore back the next day.  I really used back muscles I haven’t worked in a while by doing tons of back bend poses.  I didn’t realize that they were working so many muscles during the class! 

Sunday (Jan. 29): 7 miles (1:07:39)

 

I’m currently in a fight with my Garmin 405.  Two weeks ago I had to run without it when Amy came over for our weekend long run because it was frozen after charging over night. I didn’t have enough time to mess with it and I figured out that I had to plug it in and hold down both of the side buttons for 30 seconds to get it to reset after our run.  This past weekend, I had let it charge for at least an entire day. I unplugged it sometime Saturday and when I went to get it Sunday for our run, it was completely dead! 0% !! It took it hours to re-charge.  I know I should probably contact Garmin, but I don’t want to send it to them and be without it!! I’ll have to see how it works this week before I make a decision…

 

Anyways… I was really happy with our 7 miler because I wasn’t able to look at our pace and we were pretty consistent. And it was really windy too!

 

On a happier note… Colby got me an early birthday present……..

 

LOVE

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Snowed In Workout

I was extremely excited to not set my alarm this morning and I was able to sleep in until 10:00! I didn’t realize that Colby was up earlier shoveling our entire driveway and front sidewalk.  We got about 4-5 inches of snow overnight and I already planned to run my 6 miler tomorrow with Amy.  We knew there would probably be too much snow for us to comfortably run Saturday.  I spent lots of time working on my grad work today, because this was the first week of my class. This is my final class for my Master’s program!  :)

I did a mix of three internet exercises inside the house today…

I tried and enjoyed the new 20 minute HardCORE yoga class from YogaDownload.com

I tried most of the Tone It Up Ab circuit.  You were supposed to start with a walk and end with a mile run, which I didn’t do inside the house.  You are also supposed to do this ab circuit 6 times! I did it once and I was already sweating after the 20 minute yoga.  The Tone It Up girls are in crazy good shape so I should probably try their workouts more often!

I finished with the new BodyPump 80 ab track.  Our gym does the side planks a little differently by making you raise your top leg at the very end.  Love tough BodyPump ab tracks!

Did snow mess with your weekend long run?

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Yoga Saturday and Giveaway Winner!

Saturday: 20 minute Power Vinyasa Flow #5

Sunday: will be … 5 miles with Amy

As soon as I publish this post, I will do this 20 minute YogaDownload video. I have been feeling sore lately, so I thought it would be better to push my run back a day and do a little yoga.  I like this one a lot and if you download the 20 minute video, it is free! I love trying them out first to see if I want to purchase a longer video later.

 

I’ve been trying to get organized with this buying your own groceries and cooking thing :)   I know that next week is going to be a tough start to the next few months with my 18 week Hal Higdon plan starting and my final grad class. I kinda came up with an excel chart to combine food, groceries and exercise.  I then hyperlink the recipe to the title so I can just click on it and see the recipe. So far it is going well.  When I didn’t plan, I would go to the grocery store two or more times because I would need to pick things up for a recipe I would find half way through the week. Last night I made black bean burgers that were fantastic.

I promise they taste good. I threw so much onto that roll and it could barely handle the tomato, avocado, pickles, daiya cheese and more.

 

The meatballs I made in the slow cooker earlier this week made a great sandwich and Colby was really happy to have meat. I used ground chicken and followed this Barefoot Contessa recipe.  I added some sweet potato fries too.

Don’t worry, I wasn’t too healthy this week. These things are my weakness. Hands down, best brownies ever. I’m not an ice cream/cake person, but I LOVE brownies.  Colby and I finished the pan in two days. That’s why I try not to make them all the time.

 

I found this hot cereal a month ago at a store for $1.99 and tried it out this morning. It was pretty good and cooked on the stove fast. I added some pb and banana and I’m full.  Look at me turning into a food blog… I promise I will have more running stuff to talk about next week when I start my training plan!

 

The Nasoya Giveaway Winner…

 

 

 

Email me Melinda and we can get you hooked up with your free products! Now you can try some new recipes and learn how to cook it with Nasoya’s TOFU U website. Congrats!

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Things I Am Loving

Recent Workouts:

Sunday – 8 miles (ran 7, walked 1)

Tuesday – Yoga

Wednesday – 4 miles (run/walk) + yoga

 

Things I am loving right now…

Yoga

I have been doing a lot of yoga at home lately.  Since the Turkey Trot on Thanksgiving, my hamstrings and IT band have been horribly tight.  I’ve been trying to take it easy on the running since I have a super hilly half marathon this weekend (scared out of my mind) so I have been trying to do yoga in place of BodyPump. Sometimes I just love following the PDF Pose Guides from YogaDownload.com and listening to my own music.

Updated Gym Membership

My gym offered a new membership where you can bring a guest anytime and they can even go to classes! I think this is great and I will definitely be trying to recruit a few of my friends to BodyPump. I’m also excited for my friend Andrea to visit over Christmas so she can force me to go to my first Zumba class and she can try pump :)

Foam Roller

Sorry for the old summer picture, but the passion for my foam roller is still just as strong.  I’ll forget to foam roll for a few weeks and then get back on it and remember why it is so amazing.  It has really helped my tight IT band and hamstrings this past week.  I’m hoping that by getting on it a few times a day until the race this weekend will really help me out and prevent injuries.

Yogi Tea

No, really. Why is this tea so good?? There are about a million different flavors of Yogi tea (I discovered my Yogi tea passion from Jen @ Peanut Butter Runner). I’ve tried the Chai Black, Green Tea Kombucha and others and they are always great.  I’m trying to cut back on coffee during the week and drink hot tea when I am cold and need to warm up!

Reading

I can’t help it. I’m reading it for the third time and I love it. After seeing the movie twice when it came out last week I had to re-read it again.  I really need to read The Hunger Games before the movie comes out in the spring! I will start up my last grad class this January-April and I won’t have much down time to read.

Claritin

After running the Hershey Half Marathon with a sinus infection, my doctor told me I probably had allergies and that is why I kept getting sick over and over.  She told me to start taking Claritin and it has been wonderful ever since.  After a week or so I felt a million times better and I can definitely notice when I go a few days without it. Why did it take me so long to realize sinus infections all the time were from allergies??

Running Faster

Sometimes I forget I have only been running since the Summer/Fall of 2009. When I first started running, it was a challenge to hold a 10:00 min/mile pace for a short period of time.  As I ran more, I started to be able to run in the 9:30-10:00 min/mile range (last fall) and was SO happy.  Even though I had a few disappointing races this past fall, I have been able to get my shorter distances in the 8′s and that is so great for me.  Even the first 8 miles of the Hershey Half Marathon this past fall were all around 9:20, which is way faster than my first half marathon (Pittsburgh May 2010) that was an 10:13 pace overall.  After killing myself at the Turkey Trot I later realized I was running around a 7:50 pace for half a mile to make up for the crowds and tried to hold onto a 8:20 pace overall.  Even though I fell apart and walked, that was huge for me.  I’m excited to push myself with shorter/faster distances once this half marathon is over this weekend.

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Turkey Day and 5k

 

Another 5k and no PR this time. I was feeling extra confident from the 5k we did last Sunday and thought I could really go for it.

 

 

My friend Amy and I decided to run the Turkey Trot together Thursday morning with a secret goal of 25:50 (8:20 pace).  After the 5k I did last Sunday, I thought I could push the pace a lot and get into the 25′s. I haven’t done any 5k races for almost two years so I was ready to lower my time. The 5k on Sunday had a huge steep hill at the very end that I walked but I wasn’t that tired earlier in the race running around an 8:30-8:40 pace. This made me think that I could go faster on Thanksgiving and it backfired. Amy doesn’t have a Garmin and I told her I would keep us at 8:20 as much as possible. I didn’t realize that when you are huffing and puffing running a 5k faster than you probably should you can’t really talk and tell your running partner you’ve lost it. There were so many people at the start of the race (3,500 runners) so we started off slow because of the crowd. I tried to pick it back up to get to our goal pace. We hit mile 1 at 8:21 and I thought now I could calm down and just keep the pace right at 8:20 without so many people around to push through. I didn’t realize that we had picked the pace up to about a 7:50 in order to get mile 1 to 8:21. Not a great idea for me. Soon after mile 1 there was a hill I wasn’t expecting and I was already exhausted. Amy took off like a champ and I started to fall behind.

 

After mile 1.5 I could see Amy in the distance and I started to walk because I felt like I was near death. I picked it back up to a 8:40-8:50 pace after walking a minute and ended up walking again after mile 2 for another minute. That earlier pace just did me in and I couldn’t recover. At the end I felt horrible and sat on the sidewalk for a couple minutes but I wasn’t upset. It just wasn’t my day and apparently I am a horrible pacer ;)

Amy killed it and held on until the end and finished 25:38!!! It definitely was her day and she was all smiles :)   I can’t wait for her to sign up for the local spring marathon with me this year so we can train together (hint, hint!).

 

After the race Colby and I ate two Thanksgiving dinners! We started with a great meal at his family’s house, digested and then got to my parent’s house.  I really piled on my Mom’s sweet potatoes (Barefoot Contessa recipe) and stuffing that was nice and crispy from cooking in muffin tins.

 

I really over-did it with the huge plate, but why not? I waited a few minutes then squeezed some pumpkin pie in for the night.

 

Colby still looking nice after our second dinner with his big plate of turkey.

 

And… me.  Happy to be eating more food and in a t-shirt and sweatpants.  As soon as I got to my parent’s I made more room for food and got out of my jeans and sweater.  It was worth it :)

 

No Black Friday shopping for me. The only thing I did was download a new YogaDownload workout I’ve been waiting to get until there was a holiday sale. This Black Friday 40% off sale is good on all their videos/mp3s and lasts until Monday night.  I’ve been waiting to try out their new Ashtanga Primary Series Lite 60 minute class until there was a sale and I tried it out yesterday to try to heal my sore muscles. I was actually really sore from the 5k. I ended up finishing it with some ab work and push-ups/ tricep dips because I haven’t been able to get to a BodyPump class in a week. I’m feeling it today and waiting until it warms up in the next hour to go out for my 10-miler! I keep forgetting I have another half-marathon next weekend! Yikes!