Cool Summer Mornings 5k Series - Race #3: Wild, Wild West Race Recap

(source)

 

Two weeks ago, I ran Race # 3 of the Cool Summer Mornings 5k Series which was a Wild, Wild West theme. I feel like there isn’t much to report on the race itself, since it was the 3^rd in the series and same course and everything. The only difference was the theme. I even saw a girl running in jean shorts and cowboy boots, which is just crazy to me! Talk about chaffing! I really do love this series, and as much as I complain about the heat, I love the easy out and back course, how well organized it is for a small race and of course the bling (and the cost - so reasonably priced!).

I had a goal to improve my time with each of these races this summer, but I ended up not having a great week (running-wise) leading up the race and it definitely showed in my performance. Overall, still not an awful time, just not better than Race #2. There’s still hope for the final race is the series in a few weeks. Since I’ve started my half marathon training, I’m hoping it’ll help!

my bib after I used my food coupon haha

RACE BLING

the shirt

Can you spot me in the picture?

Official Chip Time: 31:38 (overall pace of 10:11)
Place: 145 of 393 Finishers

Place: 59 of the 240 Women Finishers
Place: 8 of 29 in my Women’s Age Division (25-29)

My Runkeeper stats:

3.18 miles in 32:05 (overall pace of 10:06)
Splits: 
Mile 1: 10:09
Mile 2: 9:45
Mile 3: 10:14
.18 mile: 10:53 <--forgot to hit stop at finish line

Follow through Friday - A new low and training begins!

It’s TRAINING season! My half marathon training officially started on Monday! I’m excited to put in the effort and see what kind of results I can gain from this training plan! I probably won’t be quite as excited when I’m 10 weeks in and my long runs are in the double digits though haha. Because of how I track my weeks on the blog, my first week of Half training is only a partial since my plan goes Monday – Sunday and my FTF goes Friday – Thursday.

 On a whim, I decided to sign up for the Pixie Dust Challenge, which is the Tinker Bell 10k and the Tinker Bell Half Marathon out in California at Disneyland in May 2016. This will also qualify me the Pink Coast to Coast Medal since I’ll be doing the Princess Half Marathon (and 10k) at Disney World in February. I wouldn’t have even considered signing up for the Disneyland races except that we can fly and stay essentially for free with points, so other than the cost of the race, which is stupid expensive, it’ll be a relatively inexpensive trip! And because I was on a roll, I also signed up for a 10 miler in October. It happened to fall the same weekend that my half training plan has me running 10 miles, so figured it was a sign to register! I may also register for a 15k or 20k the week before Space Coast, but haven’t decided yet so figured I’d wait until right before the price goes up and make a decision then.

Well let’s back up a little, this week was kind of a roller coaster. It started off good, then went bad… real bad, and then I got re-energized and finished it off with a bang! Friday morning, I started with a nice run in Clermont with a friend from MRTT. This was my first time ever really running hills. And these aren’t even really hills compared to what most people think, but definitely hills compared to anything I’m used to. I only had time for 3 miles, and my RunKeeper actually showed me a little short, but hers said 3 miles, so close enough. I ate TERRIBLE Friday night, Saturday Night, and ALL DAY Sunday. I’m talking Apple Fritters (Donut King seriously has the BEST apple fritters) for breakfast/snack all day, Dominos for Lunch, and then Dunkin Donuts for dinner. Yea, I was feeling like crap Sunday night. I decided to go for a run anyways though as I knew it would be my last chance to run outside until the weekend when G was back in town. It was drizzling the whole run and felt just wonderful! Surprisingly, I was able to maintain a decent pace and knock out 3+ miles.  I didn’t meal prep on the weekend, but did get it done Monday night so at least I knew my meals would be taken care of the rest of the week and that always really helps me.  And other than the provided lunch at work on Thursday at a team building event (and I didn’t even go overboard) I did really well all week!

 My first official training run on Monday was pretty terrible. It just FELT really tough and I was starting to feel a cold coming on which didn’t help. Then when I finished the run, I realized I had the treadmill set on incline 3 (I normally run on incline 1), and my struggle seems to make a lot more sense. I also woke up super congested on Tuesday morning so I’m sure that played a factor as well. Luckily, I seemed to kick the cold with the help of some Sudafed and Day/Night Quil and taking it easy on Tuesday and Wednesday. I finished my week off with my second training run on Thursday and did rather well.

 Needless to say, I did NOT hit my DietBet Month/Round 5 goal, but I have one month to make up for it, and I’m determined to hit it. I haven’t NOT hit a final Transformer weigh in yet, and I’m not about to let this one be the first! To see 150 on the scale again is going to be so glorious and I’m almost there! Pretty sure today’s weigh in is a new low for me!

 

Results for the week:

Weight:  151.6

Half Marathon training:
     Run 1: 2.54 miles in 30:00 (11:49 pace)

     Run 2: 3.01 miles in 30:00 (09:58 pace)     

     Strength Training: none

Other:

     Run: Friday – 2.94 miles in 30:39 (10:26 pace)

     Run: Sunday – 3.18 miles in 34:40 (10:54 pace)
     Walk: Monday – 0.5 miles
     Walk: Thursday – 0.5 miles

Total Weekly (Running) Miles Logged: 11.67 miles

Overall Weight Lost since "Starting Point" 10/24/14: 25.0 lbs

Follow Through Friday - Decisions, Decisions

Another week down, and I worked off some of the crap I gained the last two weeks. Pretty much back down to where I was 3 weeks ago. Such a cycle. I'm good for a few weeks, bad for a few, make the losing process very slow. 

This past week I did ok with my exercise, two runs (one was a race, which I haven't recapped yet) and a nice long walk. I didn't beat my time last month and that had been my goal for each of these races, to beat the previous one. I only ran once the week before the race so that definitely didn't help. I didn't feel as prepared either and so being about 30 seconds slower isn't a huge deal. Hopefully I'll PR the last one on the series next month. I did well with my food for the most part. I did get a beer and a Jalapeno Cheese Pretzel when we went to Epcot Wednesday night, but did get a healthy salad for dinner (and not one of those salads that is actually worse than a burger, a true healthy salad). I did my run before we went and of course walked around a ton while we were there, so it evened out nicely with my low calories consumed earlier in the day and didn't affect my weigh in (as in my weight was less Thursday morning than Wednesday morning). Thursday at work, I didn't have anymore meal prepped food so had to buy my lunch in our cafeteria, a grilled chicken sandwich. Normally I easily say no to the fries, but they had some awesome looking curly fries (they normally don't). I couldn't resist and got them and they were damn delicious. Because I had such a heavy lunch, I had a really light dinner and once again it must have evened out as my scale wasn't too upset this morning. And since I went on a 3 mile run this morning (which counts for next week), those carbs probably helped, right? 

This weekend is going to be super tough, I haven't fully decided if I'm going to let myself indulge at my sister-in-law's engagement party Saturday night or not. Considering we can walk home from the party (so can drink and not worry about needing a DD), and my in-laws always have great food at their parties, I'll more than likely indulge. BUT, my 5th round/month of transformer weigh-in is on Wednesday, and if I indulge, I definitely WON'T hit my goal (150.7). It's very unlikely I'll hit it regardless considering I'm almost 4 lbs away still. 

Oh yea, and my Space Coast Half Marathon training begins Monday! I really haven't done more than 3-4 miles throughout the summer because I wasn't training for anything and it's so, so hot, but now it's time to kick it up a notch. Going on a 3 week vacation towards the end of training is going to be tough, but I'm determined to stick to this plan! I did well last year when I trained for my Disney Princess Half with only missing two or three training runs total, so I'm hoping to not miss any more than that and to PR at Space Coast! Hopefully weighing a little less than my last half will help my speed too!

Weight: 154.2lbs
Exercise: 
     3.10 miles in 32:05 (10:06 pace)
     3.26 miles in 52:00 (walk) 

     2.82 miles in 30:47 (10:54) 

Follow Through Friday - 2 more weeks

For the first time in a long time, I didn't have my scale with me on a Friday morning, so no idea what my weight was last Friday (7/30) morning. I was also on vacation mode starting Thursday so it probably wasn't pretty anyways. Prior to that, I was visiting my friend over the weekend and then finishing up week two of business travel. I didn't get as much exercise as the previous week and definitely didn't make as great of food choices. 

I did get several compliments from family and friends the past week which did make me feel great. Many of them hadn't seen me in a really long time (some hadn't even seen me since I was pregnant with ABS), so they definitely noticed the difference. They were shocked though that I was still in a one piece swim suit and it's because I'm just not comfortable with what my stomach looks like. I'm about the same size I was on my honeymoon, and definitely wore a bikini then, but I wasn't sporting these stretch marks. It's not even so much the stretch marks, I could handle it if it was JUST those, but they are causing this dimples/cottage cheese look that I just can't handle. I'm hoping when I lose some more fat in my stomach it'll go away, if it does, I'll definitely rock my stretch marks in a bikini. And if once I hit my goal of 135 lbs, it still looks like that... I'll seek out alternative methods for getting rid of it. There has to be SOMETHING on the market for it!

This past week, I was back at home, back to meal prepping (for some meals) and did some (although not enough) exercising. G and I (and our friend Laura) did his strength training exercise from his personal trainer on Sunday which resulted in me barely being able to walk on Monday! I only got in one other run this week (Wednesday, and was still sore from Sunday!) and have my third 5k of my summer series tomorrow. Hoping I can beat last months time, but I don't feel as prepared this time around. 

Since I know my weight is back up,  last weekend I joined two kickstarter (4 week) DietBets plus am in a 8 week Challenge in my Mom Fitness Group (a Facebook group than I'm an admin of) all which are tied to money. Hoping between these three incentivized challenges, I get the extra little momentum I need to hit my August 18th DietBet goal (150.7) and finally get out of the 150's by our cruise at the end of September! 

Not much else going on right now to report... just trying my best to stay focused on the goal. 

Week Ending July 30^h:

Weight: 15X.X lbs
Exercise: 
     3.10 miles in 33:32 (10:49 pace)
     3.13 miles in 32:29  (10:24 pace)

Week Ending  Aug 7^th:
Weight: 155.6 lbs
Exercise: 
     Full Body Strength Training
     0.46 miles in 5:00 (10:52 pace) <-- 5 min warm up before strength training

     3.23 miles in 35:28 (10:58) 

Follow Through Friday - 10 Months Postpartum

Well looks like I’ve got two weeks to catch up on again with my Follow Through Friday updates. I had a great race on the 11^th and shaved two+ minutes off of my race time from the previous month. I also ran one super-fast mile on the treadmill, my NEW fastest ever at 8:37! I’m doing my own kind of “speed work” and it definitely seems to be helping! Overall my exercise wasn’t that great last week, but at least I got a few miles in! Last week I was also back to meal prepping, had a pretty good week overall and hit my DietBet goal on the 18^th.

I’m finishing my first of two weeks of Business Travel this week and definitely doing much better than I normally do when I travel. I arrived on Sunday in Minneapolis and it was just so gorgeous out, that I HAD to go for a run. I looked up a trail and drove to it. Unfortunately it wasn’t quite what I thought and it was closed down. It was like a legit, in the woods trail and even had it been open, I wouldn’t have ran it since it didn’t seem safe to run alone. I thought it was like a public running path along the river from what the website described. Luckily on the way there I had passed a park, ironically called Running Park. So I went back to there, and was disappointed to find there wasn’t a running path, so I pretty much just ran around the residential neighborhood surrounding it. Since there were families there at the park, I figured it must be a pretty safe neighborhood (and it was still light out). I stayed within a mile of my car and did a 5k around the park area and enjoyed the weather.

On Monday, I got a recommendation from my supplier of where to go and I made my way to Lake Calhoun. OMG, this place was absolutely perfect! Not only was the weather once again perfect, the path around the lake was split in two, with biking on one portion and running/walking on the other. The path was exactly a 5k around and was so populated, I would have thought it was a Saturday afternoon. There were people sailing and grilling and just hanging out all around the lake. (plus the people on the path, exercising). It was so beautiful with the lake and breeze and just the overall ambience of the place. I would come here every night in the summer, if I lived here. They had a nice little place to order food (which by the time I left ad a line of over 40 people, on a Monday evening!) where I started and ended my run, with some incredible fish tacos and you could eat on the dock overlooking the lake. It was seriously PERFECT. I’m a little disappointed that the next time I come up here, it’ll most likely be cold/snowing and I won’t be able to get back to this lake!

 

my attempt at a panoramic picture of the lake and trail

 

 

Where I stay in Cumberland, Maryland there is also a running/bike path (The Chesapeake & Ohio Canal Towpath) along the Potomac River so I got another run in there on Wednesday when I arrived. The last times I was here, I was pregnant so didn’t get to fully enjoy it, as I wasn’t exercising at all, well not more than just walking around. It's literally next to the hotel, so it worked out well. Although, still not as nice as Lake Calhoun!

I didn’t make the best food choices overall but I think I made up for them with my extra exercise. I normally don’t get a lot of exercise in when I travel but I made it a priority and the beautiful (non-Florida) weather made it so much more enticing to get outside. I did stay away from the make-your-own waffle iron at the hotel breakfast and opted for a yogurt parfait each morning so that helped. Can’t say much for my lunch/dinner choices though, but I didn’t go completely overboard at least. This coming week will be harder as I’m visiting with a friend this weekend before getting back on the road for work (which I won’t really have much down time in the evenings like I did this week on travel) so I’m sure there will be some drinking thrown in there too.

Today also marks another month (10) postpartum and I’m still working on my downward trend, albeit, it is slowing down and definitely getting harder as I get closer to my goal! 10 months post-partum and 47 lbs down from the morning my water broke!

Week Ending July 17^th:

Weight: 153.6 lbs
Exercise: 
     3.10 miles in 30:54 (11:45 pace)
     1.00 miles in 08:37 < - new fastest pace ever!
     1.17 miles walk

Week Ending July 24^th:
Weight: 153.0 lbs
Exercise: 
     2.22 miles in 26:02 (11:45 pace)
     3.10 miles in 34:19 (11:04 pace)
     3.10 miles in 31:17 (10:05 pace)
     3.57 miles in 37:30 (10:30 pace)

 

Overall Weight Lost since "Starting Point" 10/24/14: 23.6 lbs.