It's the weekend eve!

So, this whole 10 hour shift thing is kicking my butt. I am not really complaining, but I am still trying to adjust to working 10 hours. It is not like I sleep in either. I am up before 5 every day, even weekends. I feel like I have wasted some of the day if I sleep in past 7.  The last 2 nights have been restless, M woke up early Wednesday morning (2am) screaming, and wouldn't go back to sleep unless I was holding her. This morning it was 4am. By the time I was deep asleep, it was time for me to get up and get active. Today, was a run day. I try to keep my run days to Tues, Thurs, and my long runs on Sat. With a 10K on Sunday, my plan is going to hopefully ride my bike on Sat with the Breakfast Club Runners while they run. However, that is up to my uncle who is servicing it. Otherwise, it will be a short slow run. Back to today. I haven't run with music in almost a month. I did take my music today, but I changed my playlist.  I had set my mind to do the 4 miles in 44 minutes and pain-free. Last Saturday when I ran, I had a strange twinge down my leg.  It wasn't pain, it was like an electric shock for like a split second.  Anyway, I am also trying to slowly increase my mileage since I am currently training for a half marathon. Well, so I got to Fairview Park, which lately is my go to place to run.  It was an absolutely beautiful morning. It was in the 60s, with low humidity.  They were setting up for the local carnival that is going on there, otherwise there was the occasional walker on the path.  I started running, focusing on my breathing since I still feel like that is the hardest part of my struggle. I am not sure if that is due to the fact that I couldn't run for 6 weeks due to PT or if it is because I haven't taken my allergy medicine going on 2 months now. Anyway, I made sure to focus on the breathing and the surroundings. Like I said, I was ok with running 11 min/miles so when I was at 1/2 a mile I noticed that my time was at 11. I was like, this feels good, let's push it a little bit more.  At the mile marker I was at 10:30. It still felt great, so I kept pushing it. I noticed that each mile was closer and closer to 10 minutes, I even think mile 2 was under 10 minutes. I continued to focus on my breathing, and how great it felt to be running. There was no pain, no weird shocks.  When I was finished my 4 miles, I looked down at my trusted Garmin

And saw that!!! 4 miles in 40 minutes!! Even the last mile at 8:41, although I am not sure how accurate that time was,  I wasn't even giddy about that. I was stoked over the 4 miles in 40 minutes!  I feel like all of my hard work is starting to pay off.

This run is just what I needed. If you recall from this post, things have been really hard for me. I have been losing motivation because I feel like I am not seeing results. Then I had that conversation with my cousin that made me totally stoked! This morning, I reread that post and noticed that I had comments on it.  A sweet lady named Jenna commented on the post and it made my day how I have touched someone else. I sometimes forget where I came from.  That here in the next 2 weeks in my 1 year Runniversary! I cannot believe how far I have come in such a short period of time. Yes, all my runs won't be this spectacular, but maybe they will. I will continue to work hard both in the gym, running, and in life in general. Good things come to those who wait, and those who work hard. I believe I do both of them.  I have the personality where I don't give up on anything I do, and that I give 100% in all I do.

I have also realized that I might want to try a triathlon one day, and even crazier, I want to do an Ultra. I will probably do the Ultra sooner than later, but before I am 40, I will do at least one Ultra. There, I have it in writing. What a lofty goal I have.

Here is to the weekend eve! I hope you have a great Friday! Enjoy the weekend! I cannot wait to hear all about it! I also cannot wait to see what it has in store for us!

Shirt Exchange and other stuff

So, there is this awesome chicka named Heather who lives in the Pacific Northwest. Anyway, she is my blogging friend, who one day I hope to meet in real life. Well, we were talking on facebook and decided amongst ourselves to do a shirt swap. It all started because she loves my running club's logo...

I then asked her if she wanted one, and that is when we developed this swap. I had hoped to build this awesome package and well, I failed miserably on my end. I ended up sending her a shirt and my infamous "Doubt is a Skanky Wuss" so she could hang it up in a place that she could see. It's OK, I have plans to make her random care packages, especially when she needs one the most (I hear she has a marathon coming up ;) ) Well, my loot came yesterday, but because of my new work schedule, they were closed. I got it today, and let me tell you, she out did herself. 

That shirt says "Pints to Pasta" and now I want to go run it and want to meet her in real life! Receiving this package makes me kinda miss the Pacific Northwest, especially because I lived in Seattle and lived in an apartment above a Starbucks that delivered. I cannot wait to make more care packages and sending them her way. Who doesn't love getting mail that is not a bill.

Now, onto more fitness related topics. I heard through the grapevine, also known as my fellow #SweatPink Ambassadors, who told me about this awesome August Abs Challenge. You can read about it on facebook here.  The gist of the challenge is as follows:

50 abdominal crunches, ab twists or ANY abdominal exercise of YOUR choice every day of August!!! If you can do more... do more! But I challenge each of YOU to do a MINIMUM of 50 repetitions!!!

retrieved from pinterest

Day 1 was a success and I have Bob to thank for that. After each trip up/down the steps we do 10 crunches, therefore we did 100 today. And, speaking of the steps, who needs a sandbag. I had my daughter with me, and while I knew it was going to be difficult,

Pinterest.com

So, I did just that and I did 8 pf the 10 reps carrying my daughter. And, since I didn't want to hurt myself, I only went half way up the total steps, but half carrying an additional 28 pounds is a huge deal, right? Yeah, I thought so too. What did you do today?



Oh what a feeling!

Yesterday, I woke up at 445 and headed to the gym. While I was groggy at first and cursed myself for losing sleep to go, when I got there I was re energized by the atmosphere. What a feeling it was to be back in the swing of things. I am going to be realistic here. I can't go from not going to the gym to expect to go every day. No, instead, I am only planning on going twice a week (M and F). What a way to book end the work week.  It will be interesting here to see how this will work out once I know what Joe's work schedule will be and with my schedule changing to 10 hour days, but I can only change what I can change and therefore there is no reason to stress over things.  At the gym I first did some ab work (I need to find some more to do) and then hit the elliptical for 10 minutes on level 3. I am still doing the things the Physical Therapist had told me to do, and since I was MIA from the gym for the while, I thought it was best to stick to it.  Once the elliptical was over, I went and hit the weights for my legs and even did some exercises using just body weight. I like to think that it is making me stronger, and hopefully it really is, but only time will tell me.  It is a good sign that I was able to run 5 miles on Saturday pain-free, and I am going to continually to slowly increase my mileage. I am not worried about not getting the mileage up to where I want it, I am more worried about getting it to stay pain free. It was great to get back into the gym, and oddly, I am really excited that I got myself there yesterday!
Today, I am going to introduce my friend to the world of running. I word it this way, because this said friend just completed the Spartan Race without training for it or anything, and she said that even her best friends thought she would have dropped out right away. But sheer determination, she finished the race. I don't know if she is proud of herself or not, but she should be. Anyway, I recommended that she head over to our local running store to get a pair of shoes that is fitted for her to provide her the best support and will do what she wants it to do.  So, today is the day. We will be meeting up and going running. My plan is to do a modified couch to 5K program with her. I told her she needed to be accountable on the days she doesn't run with me, and she agreed to do just that. So, I will run with her today, and when she is done, I may or may not go for more mileage. It all depends on how long her session is. One short run isn't going to kill me, actually, my legs may appreciate the rest since tomorrow is steps day!
My sister J made my day yesterday.  I randomly received this message via twitter and it made me smile. She somehow seems to always know what I need.