Good Intentions....

Really amazed how long it has been since I last blogged, even thou I have kept up with my fitness and have ran lots of races out of time, life just got in the way and blogging was the last thing on my mine between worn and the passing of mother, but life does go on.

New month, new beginning

On the racing front, I did get into the Chicago Marathon 2014 so that is the major race for the year since it wasn't cheap and since I also got into Paris 2015  and have to put down the registration fee for that also, keeping fingers cross for London 2015 will be great to do a 2 week European tour with the races as bookends.

Still slowly working on building back my endurance after not running after the Operation Jack Marathon on Dec 26, 2013, my mother passed away unexpectedly on New Year's day just hours after talking to her, so between trying ti plan the funeral, dealing with the grieve and the trip back home, running just took a back seat, but I miss it, since it is my time. I went back to what I love doing most, trail running, been trying to get to the trails at least 2x per week with strength workout, yoga, Pilates filling up the rest.

To start off the month, I did Physique 57, oh do I have a love hate relationship with this workout, nothings humble you like your muscle quivering when all you are using is a 3# weigh or the seat muscle screaming, but this is great complement to running I believe since it works all those small muscles traditional strength training can't get to.

Game plan for May is to start Chicago Marathon training using Runner's World Smart Coach + Matt Fitzgerald Brain Training for Runners, used BTFR in the past to get my curerent Marathon PR and will like to go for a new PR this year since 2013 was a maniac year.

For strength training will be using Beachbody Chalean ( a modified program designed by a friend to better work my body and reduce the over use of my shoulder muscle, Pilates and yoga will be mixed in, found that at almost 50 flexibility helps.

Nutrition wise that is still a struggle but I am making better food choices and believe that it a great starting.

Hoping this is a start of a great month and the rest of the year.

Spinerval 5.0: Mental Toughness + Cathe

Another day with Coach Troy today, Spinerval 5.0 - Mental Toughness, this workout moves so fast that before you know it the 90mins is over. I don't like the first 10mins since there is so much gear changing in such a short period,  every 30secs you change gears, my bike wasn't happy. The main objective thou is to stay in a steady state zone. I also love it when it tells, you are almost done and you get to rest only to realize the rest is only for 1 min. I stayed on my bike during the isometric squats, just didn't see the need to do them since I was doing strength work later and that had plenty of squats.
I love the last set in this workout, this is 3x45sec but every 15mins you increase speed, my highest power was 326 which was sweet to see since my FTP is 166, survive 15mins, I guess I have plenty of work to do. I had a problem with trainer road today, lost the graph for the first 15mins of the workout but the time was still correct, when done only showed 1:14.. worked out but when I resynced it corrected itself need to get the data log to them to see what happened.

Second workout for today is strength, did Cathe's Push/Pull workout again, I love this workout, it is efficient and to the point, minimal down time and nothing too fancy. Every body part is worked including inner thigh, calves and shin.

Checked my email after working out today and found an email from Zooma that the Chicago race was open, went straight to the website and registered then text my niece to see if she wants to run it with me since I am going to be crashing at her place anyway, even thou I know she had a race planned for June but there is plenty of time to rest, recover and get back to training since this is in August, she said YES. I guess just like the jewelry commercial.

Another cold snowy weekend but as long as their is a bike trainer and treadmill, my workout will get done.

Getting Back

After spending the long holiday weekend in Chicago with my inlaws and the rest of my husband's clan that came in for my sister-laws 50th birthday as far away as Nigeria, I only ran Saturday (10 miler) but then felt like I was missing too much by going to bed early in order to be able to wake up early to get my run in before the day started, so I ended up not running Sunday and Monday but did a lot of dancing and walking around.
Got back home Monday night and when Tuesday morning rolled around I was extremely fatigue so gave myself another day off but with an 11 miler trail race with ridiculous hill coming up on Saturday, I know I needed to get my mojo back fast, Wednesday I managed 2 miles before calling it a day just wasn't into it, but again I had a vision of the big a$$ hill at Mohican really need my mojo back.
Today with Motion Traxx The Climb level 1 I had a goal of running a 10k regardless how slow I go, run, walk just get it done, well survived, my fatigue is really not in my legs just a total body feeling so not sure what is really going on. Mojo still not back but at least it is attempting to.