Oh the pain from yesterday's workout upon waking, that overhead stretch reminded me right away what I did yesterday, I just love the Cathe Ripped with Hiit series, I know I have probably said this dozens of times. My chest is the worst , but no wonder based on what we had to do
3x12reps using 20-30# bench press +15 pushups for finishers
3x12 reps using 20-25# incline bench + 15 triceps pushups for finisher
3x12 reps using 15# flye + 15 decline pushups for finisher

Today was plyo #1 + abs #2



This is hard but doable just when you think you are ready to quit, it is time to move on to another torture routine and you hold on again. Abs #2 is weighted feels easier than #1 but then to bite later, my oblique are seriously talking to me.

Probably wasn't the best of idea to do plyo before my tempo run but I felt it was a good way to really warmup the body and also push a bit to runi on  tired legs. I dd skip the 1 mile warmup felt warmed p enough.

6 miles @ HM was slightly off pace, suppose to run 9:28 did 947 instead but still happy with it, only got in 6 mins of cool down since I was running late for work.

Life is good.

No DOMS from the Ripped workout yesterday but then am still sore last weeks workout which may explain why.

Today I decided to stay on the treadmill, even thou we had nice weather, just like for the speed workout I wanted to control the pace and guage how am really feeling, it feel like the treadmill runs are turning out to be a bit more challenging than being outdoors this time around, not really sure why.

1 mile warmup - walked most of it at 4mph to give the body time to warmup - 13:59
5 miles at Half Marathon pace (9:28) to keep the leg guessing I went from 6.0 - 6.6 ended up with an average of 9:44, not bad, felt pretty good nothing hurts, had 2 fans on me and was still soaking wet
1 mile cooldown - 11:59

No weight workout, due to pending 16 miler decision.

Still not 100% sure when to run the 16miler for this weekend Friday(tired legs) or Sunday(hangover)

Oh well, Life is good

The cold tundra of Ohio continues, woke up to -6 this morning after spending the night being chase by a bear, so slept in a bit to recover from all the running in my sleep.

Eventually got out of bed, which was later than expected but I did complete the running workout, just no time Lift Leg workout.

4x1.5miles with 800m recovery- the treadmill is really on it's last leg the changes I made last year to get it back running maybe running it's course since the incline goes up(2%) and down(1%) and the speed requires a bit of a banging to get up. I guess need to start looking for another since I cannot imagine not having one, even when the weather warms up, just easier to get up at 5am to get a run done instead of waiting till daylight.

Happy Valentine Weekend.

Saturday(Valentine Day): With the snow and wind chill dropping the temperature to the negative, I decided I wasn't bada$$ enough nor do I think any race or run was worth me being out in those conditions, I spend an enjoyable day with James, only problem was house was not stuck for us to be in all day so it was interesting coming up with things to eat since neither really wanted to cook. In order not to call the day a total waste did a nice high intensity spin.

Sunday: Schedule calls for 16miles and I really didn't wake up early enough to get it all in before church but still decided to do what I can, started out walking at 4.0mph/2% grade and just add miles till I was walking about 4.5 mph/2% grade, this was my walking cutoff then I switch to running at 5.0mph unless the treadmill will not go past 4.9mph/2% grade, so stayed there for the first round. The treadmill reset at 99:59 so stop it at 99:25 after 8.5miles for a 13:15 pace, yes slower than am suppose to run but I really want to build the walking muscles, seem to be helping keep me injury free.

For the 2nd round since I know I was press for time I decided to crank the pace up a bit for a faster pace with lower miles, ended up with 5 miles in 53:27 for a 10:41 pace, the legs felt pretty good and the last push of 0.2 at 7mph/2% at the end really task the endurance system but was able to talk myself to a strong finish.
Not 16miles @ 5.1mph that the schedule called for but I am quite happy with what I did.

While running this morning watch Generation Iron on Netflix, I love the bodybuilding world as much as I love the running world, actually was into lifting way before running and attending the Arnold Classic has been a yearly event since 2008 with the kids. The expo is always a lot of fun with unbelievable amount of giveway. I know there is always the debate about steroid use but in the running world there is also doping so no sport is really clean since everyone is looking for an edge and there is so much  money and endorsement on the line.

Some yoga tonight to stretch things out, Little Rock is fast approaching I feel good about it and Lent starts this week.

Ahh more snow over night and it was still snowing when I got out of bed and all the way to work.

Workout for today, even thou all I wanted to do was curl up in bed and stay there.

D2S P2 RAMP + Complex Metabolic, this was a great 23mins routine, the workout for the complex was nice and I was able to use 15# dumbbells

8 reps each - 3 rounds
Reverse Lunges
Romanian Deadlift
High Pull
Squat to Push Press

Then off to get torture by Coach Troy, I know this workout will make me stronger but boy are they kicking my butt, today was Runerval 2.0 Treadmill Tempo.

I kept the workout pace at 7mph and varied the incline as instructed by coach just not there to increase out of this pace unless I start at a lower base pace, at which point I will feel like am wasting my time.

Tomorrow is suppose to be very cold, may break the record of 10 degrees, look like it is going to be an interesting winter, 2 snow storm and record cold and this is only November.

Placing for the trip to Paris for the marathon has serious started, now that I have Thanksgiving and Christmas out of the way. Plan is to fly to London to see my brothers, take train from London to Paris, take train from Paris to Nice after the marathon then fly back home from Nice, using mainly points to book hotel and flight.

We keep our fingers cross for Berlin

Cyclo-HIT + Barry+Bob

Another beautiful spring day in Ohio, 2 more inches of snow overnight and we are at a balmy 24 degree but at least the wind died down. Going to be an interesting 25k trail race tomorrow.


Today, did Cyclo HIT 30 Power Techniques, 5x5mins and every min, he changes the drill every minute: shoe scrapper, hip thrust, wagon wheel, scissors and then hoover, just start all over again. Didn't look too hard when we started but the hoover(standing) really kill my legs and by the 4th round I was dying.
While looking for a strength workout to do, I noticed Barry Bootcamp 5day academy and remembered that each DVD had a weight, cardio and treadmill section. I have never done the treadmill/cardio section in this DVDs but love the weight section so decided for my run today to try it out and picked Joey (not sure if all the treadmill wrkt is the same or not) this was actually a lot better than expected.

warmup: very short
section 1: Start at 5.5mph/0% incline(mine was at 2%, never run below this) then increase very 1 min by 0.5 at 5mins go as fast as you can,
recover 3.5mph/0%
section2: start at 5.5mph/0% incline and increase 1% every 30sec keeping speed constant, max was 15% for them, mine was 12% highest tread went.
recover 4mph/10% - really this is recovery
section3: start at 4mph/10% every 30 sec drop incline by 2% but increase speed by 1, yes for the first time I ran 9mph on my treadmill @2% and didn't go flying off. YEAH ME
recover 3.5mph/0%
Section4: Sprint; 90sec/7mph. 60sec/8mph, 45sec/9mph, 30sec/10mph YES I DID, just incredible that people can run a marathon at this pace.
Cooldown

This was only about 27mins, on the screen there is a countdown clock, speed and incline in red, Joey was working around and there was about 10 people on treadmill.

Bob Harper Kettlebell shred for strength today-12kg KB

Treadmill Love

I know most people hate the treadmill, calling it dreadmill or hamster wheel regardless I love mine, and on days like today when I am tired and do not feel like getting in the required mileage I can always convince myself to get on treadmill. Got on it, thinking I was only going to do 3 just to zap the zero but ended up getting in the required 7 miles at a 9:59 pace. Based on the fact that I have pushed myself a bit the previous week was really happy that the legs felt fine.

I have really been working hard on improving the imbalance on my right leg, yes quite aware of it since I can stand on my left leg till the cows come on home but can barely last 10 seconds on my right, so a lot of my strength training the last couple of weeks has been done 1 legged and I am beginning to be able to do move with mt right leg off the floor, the goal is to continue this through the month of July.

Run For Sherry

In the mist of a blizzard I decided to meet the Northeast Ohio Running group at Orchard Hill park to get my run in for Sherry. This was normally a 30 mins drive but it took 90mins, if I had any sense should have turned back but this was Sherry after all, finally made it to the park and any attempt at picture taking wasn't working sicne the wind was blowing the snow and I must not have pin properly because within 5 mins my bib went flying. The loop in this park are short, I think the longest is 1.2miles and with the blowing snow and already 4inches on the ground we weren't really sure were the trail was, after getting 4 miles in that feel like 12 since we can hardly see and now was risky rolled ankle, I decided I was done. Ate some omelet and made an early departure and this time it took 2hours to get back home.

After paosting my initial mileage on Daily Mile I was somewhat dissapointed that I only got in 4 of  the 9 miles I was planning for Sherry and on my way to my basement to get in my strength workout I had a light bulb moment, get on the treadmill and get the rest done and that was exactly what I did.

It has been incredible seeing all the out pouring of love for Sherry's family from the running community, I think that is what makes this community so special.

Last days of 2011

So left off with the things in Destin FL, from Destin we drove the 6 hours nack to Atlanta GA but actually we stayed at Alpharetta GA, which even though it wasn't as warm as Destin was still a great place to run due to all the connecting side walks.

Skipped running the first day to spent time with the family and got in some history

 Day 2 was cold but not raining and before heading out to the airport got a nice run in,now it was an urban view, I think a lot of people wondered why I was out in the cold running in just capri and tshirt.

 Back home had 17 mins on the schedule and due to some major conflict and responsibilities decided to just get it done on the treadmill instead of moving it out.


Great year.

Love the internet for quick info, woke up this morning and downloaded the new GFit treadmill workout into my Sansa player, everything went fine but when I got down to the basement the system won't come on and after wasting 10mins trying to fix it, put it aside and just did a simple tempo run on the treadmill. After my run got on the treadmill and google "sansa won't come on" and got all the info I need, told to hold down the power button for about 15sec and guess what it worked. Gotta love the internet, :)

Today's workout, even in my mind I keep telling myself I can't do this but once I wrap my mind around it I find out I am quite capable of more that I think.
1 mile @ Recovery pace 5.5mph
then it was suppose to be 7 miles @ HMP 6.6mph but I told myself this was too hard and decided to do it @ MP 6.4mph after 2 miles decided what was the worst that could happen if I bring it up to 6.6mph a) fly off the treadmill b) drop back down to 6.4mph or lower so went for it, well nothing happened I was able to hold the pace and got in 3.4miles before I had to quit since I was once again running late for work wasted too much time messing with Sansa.

Left leg still isn't 100% despite all that has been done to it but yesterday at work I basically iced it to death and was gifted this morning with a less painful leg. With 2 weeks to go for the Akron  marathon, taper started yesterday, this was a 24 weeks training plan so knowing that I am on week 23amazes me although I haven't stuck with the plan 100% due to trail races but kept most of the guideline in mind.

Today's workout was suppose to be mixed intervals but I decieded to do Runerval 1.0 with Coach Troy instead been a while since I hung out with him.

Warmup
Base pace = 5.5mph
3x1min On/ 1 min OFF - BP +mph = 7.5mph
2 mins BP
3x1 min ON/ 1 min OFF - BP + 3mp = 8.5mph
2 mins BP
45 sec ON /45 sec OFF - BP + incline @ 2%, 3% , 4%, 5% & 6%
2 mins BP
2x1 min ON/1 min OFF - BP+3mph @ 2% & 3% incline
Cooldown
I was feeling very good so did interval 3 more times and interval 3 (hill climb) 1 more time but instead of keeping Bp @ 5.5mph, I switch to 6.6mph and was still able to run.

Great confidence buster workout, was able to get all the paces in and no screaming from the left leg but I did notice that my treadmill may be needing a tune up soon because it wasn't very happy today belt seems to be sliding to teh side also.

I had 20 miles on the schedule today and really didn’t want to run it by myself; I looked around online with different group to see what they were running and none was running 20 but people were meeting early to get miles in before meeting to run with group. After considering the idea of waking at 4:30am to drive 45mins to meet at 5:30am to run about 10+ miles before meeting the group back at 7am fro more miles I realized I needed more sleep and will be running this solo.

I really didn’t feel like getting up to run, read chapters out of 4 different book, got up made coffee carry coffee back to bed read some more, but eventually got out of bed, got dressed, made mum breakfast then headed out the door. Getting outside I realized I was running later than I expected, so it was hot and humid and for some reason I decided to only carry my handheld and also run a new route with no idea where a water source was since I do not go to this side of town often. Lots of mistake made for one run, oh forgot I was also wearing my new Adidas marathon 10 with new sockguy sock.

With the temperature also high and tiredness in my legs due to hard trail race on Thursday I decided to do a 5/1 run/walk ratio really my first time doing a run/walk but really had to admit it wasn’t that bad, 1 minute goes by very fast that I was wondering if it was worth stopping for but 5 mins take so long that I was looking forward to the 1 min break.

The new route was great, actually once construction is done on Bainbridge this will be a great route to get to the park via Liberty/Solon Rd and get some trail runs in. The only problem was I only had 1 hand held and by mile 4 I was completely empty and had no idea were water source was, I was hoping someone was going to be out in their yard and I could ask them for water but I could find someone until about mile 6 and he was nice enough to even put ice in my bottle but by this time I was so dehydration that when I took one sip I drank half the handheld and I had 6 miles to get back home. Bummer.

I got home with 12 miles done with my tongue hanging out; I was so thirsty, tired and sweating like a pig, got some water down (probably should have got for something with electrolyte instead of just water) and wipe down with a cold towel. I knew I was done with outside so changed shoes and headed down to the basement to get the last 8 miles in.

Just 2 miles in, even though I still had garmin at a 5/1, I got incredible tired, like I said should have taken something else instead of just water, paused the treadmill and got a can of FRS energy drink and that hit the spot and I was back to running in about 10 mins. This was hard probably one of my hardest long run ever but at least I finish but it does not give me great confidence for a great pace at the Akron Marathon, although I also made a lot of mistakes, live and learn.

Mixed Intervals

Great workout this morning , it still surprise me how much I have to mentally prepare to do this intervals, the first thing that always come to mind is I cannot hold that pace for that long but I remember the wonder post by the incredible Beth http://www.shutupandrun.net/2011/08/dont-be-your-own-worst-enemy.html and I decided to change the can't around. Wow what a difference a positive mind set makes, my head was in the game so my legs followed along.

1 mile @ recovery pace
3k @ HM pace/2 mins recovery
2k @ 10k pace/2 mins recovery
1k@ 5k pace/2mins recovery
800 meters @ 3k pace
1 mile @ Recovery pace

It is amazing how fast 2 mins goes by.

Still need to work on nutrition, still my biggest struggle

 PM
Cathe STS Meso1 Week 1 Disc 3 - Legs 53mins

Itread 5

Awesome run on the treadmill today, I know most people don't like running on the treadmill, but since I wake up at 4:30am (although may not start working out until 5:30am) there is no way I am going out that early without a partner or dog which I have neither. In the winter the safety issue also gets factor in with the crazy drivers, on weekends when I can delay my run till about 8 or 9am going out is not an issue. Training for my first 50k was all done on a treadmill never even got on a trail once and finished with no issue could have been faster but had no recovery issue. So yes I love my treadmill.

For today's run, I used Itread 5 Indoor Marathon Training, it really is a fun way to challenge myself and I probably do more that when I just run especially with hill climb. Perfect workout to get the blood pumping, even thou she says this is a 2 phase workout, I'll probably call it 4, phase 1 - warmup to base, phase 2 - hill training, phase 3 - sprints and phase 4 - base to recovery. Definitely an A+ workout perfect to challenge you but not to kill ya, she does give you a walking, jogging and running pace range. Got in 7 miles before I had to call it a day had to get on the road for work early due to the snowy conditions, took 2 hours to get to work today there is nothing like going 25mph on a 65mph zone

Slowly beginning to feel my running mojo coming back, still only running 1 mile each but only minimal pain when done and thi sis not from my injury. I still can't beleive how much my quads and calves hurt from the first 1 miler on Saturday.

Dynamic Flexibility
1 mile on the treadmill ( started out at 5.1mph and finish the last .2 @ 6mph)
Exercise TV Upper Body Work with Cindy W using 10# weights
Stretch on my own

Tired this morning, so woke up late and only got in a partial workout

AM-Treadmill
Dynamic Flexibility

1 mile run - recovery pace (5.2mph-11.34)
3x400 meters(7.5mph -8:03) with 3 mins rest recovery pace
0.520 miles - 5:01
0.531 miles - 5:01
0.553 miles - 5.01
stetch

PM-Outdoor - use the Interval function on the Garmin and it made it very easy, goal was 8:03 pace, I just ran without really looking at the Garmin
0.77 mile (10:02 pace)
2x400meterwith 3 mins rest
0.25(8:18 pace) 3 mins recovery (11:20 pace)
0.25(7:52 pace) 3 mins recovery (10:50 pace)
1.27 miles back home (10:15 pace)

I guess it wasn't bad for a first outdoor speed workout, use the cul-de-sac by my house, it is slightly hilly and a almost perfect quarter mile and the Garmin function worked great just had to listen for the sound to change speed no excessive thinking involve.

Denis Austin 12 mins yoga stretch

Took Monday and Tuesday off due to work and life, just too much going and I was feeling run down. Working out probably would have help but I needed sleep more.

Today:
Dynamic Flexibility
1.5 miles @ Recovery pace warm up
4x30s@10% incline 7mph with 2 mins re overy
1.5 miles @ recovery pace cool down
Kathy Smith Ultimate Sculpt Core and Stretch

Quick trip to Columbus today, after dropping my husband off at the airport since he was on his way to China, my son was testing for a college scholarship. We got back around 8pm, stopped over the Lodi Outlet Reebok store where I picked up 2 running top, well they were BOGO so how can I pass that up.
After dinner and an episode of Gray's Anatomy, got on the treadmill for my 4 miles run, use Cardio Coach 3 with Sean O'Malley, this are great to beat boredom, I kept the workout within my base pace range of 5.5 - 6.1, levels 1& 2 = 5.5 and levels 3&4 = 6.0 Average pace 5.72mph.

Hope you all had a great Valentine Day.

Dynamic Flexibility

3 miles @ 5.5 - 6.1mph with 2x30 @ 7.9mph thrown in

Dynamic Flexibility
Tilt Walk -10/side
Zombies - 10/side
Trunk Rotation-10/side
Lunge Walk-10/side
Lateral Lunges-10/side
Forward Leg Swing-10/side
Lateral Leg Swing-10/side
Heel Bounce-20/side

Recovery Run + Hill
1.5 miles @5.0mph
1x30s @10%incline-7mph
1.5 miles @5.0mph
Stretch

3.1miles-36:57 (5.03mph/11:55 pace)

St Malachi 5 miles and Hermes 10 miles both fit perfectly into the training schedule, so I will be signing up for them.