March Mileage

Miles run = 93.65 in 18 runs

Weight Training = 2:45 min.

This month looking back was a long one for me. I have hit double digits for my long runs, I ran hills at Chestnut ridge and I was able to not miss any workouts all month. I looked at my total miles and I was not expecting it to be that high. I almost hit 100 miles in one month. That is a lot of running. The next two months will be interesting to see the total miles per month.

I officially registered for the Cap City Marathon so I will be running in Columbus on May 1st. Can't wait!

This is the start of a new week as well as a new quarter. I still function somewhat off of Ohio State's schedule. This is due in part to the fact that the gymnastics facility I teach at goes on Ohio Sates Schedule because we have so many OSU students as our instructors. So just like the beginning of every new quarter we had our meeting where we learn our new dance and get our books set up for the coming week.

In doing this you get to talk to all the people that you don't normally work with and see what they are up to. We have a small staff, totally around 14 or so. I started talking with one girl who has done numerous marathons. I was talking to her about details that she could help me with. In talking to her I discovered that almost half of our staff was running the Capital City 1/2 marathon the first weekend in May. My hope is that I can start running with some of these girls for my long runs so I can spare Jason from having to ride the bike the whole time I am running. Which will only leave me with the really long runs to find someone to run with.

Re-living the good old days

Today I had it in my head that I needed to do some hill work. After all I will be running in the Adirondack mountains. In Columbus there really isn't that many places to run hills. So I thought back to when I ran track and the few days that we would travel to a local park and run, let me rephrase that, sprint up a certain couple of hills. Looking back I remember hating these workouts because you get part way up the hill and it just kept going.

Our sprints would always start at this one bridge and we had to race another person up to the top. There is a place in the hill where it turns slightly but it doesn't stop you just keep going up hill. Once we were done with our set amount of sprints then you had to finish the loop which is 2 miles in all. During track season we would split up into two groups: sprinters and distance. Well the sprinters (which technically I was because of hurdles) had to do more sprints up the hill but not as many loops.

Today I ran what the distance crew would normally do. They still had to do some sprints, but just not as many. They usually did 2 loops totaling 4 miles(I think). So I started out thinking "I will do 5 hill sprints and finish the loops."

Then I finished the first hill and it just kept going and going and the hill felt like it would never stop. I can remember this workout being torturous but I just couldn't remember how long the hills really were at this park. I got to the top of the hill and just thought "if this is what Lake Placid is going to be like then I am screwed!"

I finished my loop and set off to do my second loop where I planned on doing just two sprints up the "mountain" after re-thinking my first goal. 5 would be insane and I wouldn't be able to walk the next day. So I did my two sprints and I kept running on the second sprint and I swear a turtle probably could have passed me. This hill never ended. I just kept putting one foot in front of another and I finally reached the top, huffing and puffing. The last half of the loop is mostly down hill so I got some recovery, but buddy was it tough.

I got the hills in but now I am thinking that I need to do more hill work because man did I suck at these hills today. Later this evening I went on line to check out the difficulty level of the hikes and Metro parks listed Chestnut ridges trails to be moderate to difficult. There weren't too many parks that had this rating so maybe there's hope.

LiveSTRONG moment of the Day

I love the library. Columbus has the #1 ranked public library in the country. It has such great resources and it rocks. I was on the site today and found this:

Pepsi's Refresh Project
Before Stefanie Spielman, wife of NFL great Chris Spielmen, lost her 10 year battle with breast cancer at the age of 40, she authored a children's book. The book chronicles the experience of a mother’s breast cancer through the eyes of her children and is intended to help children who are impacted by cancer.

Please go to this Pepsi link and vote for Stefanie. The top 10 vote getters will receive a $50,000 grant which will be used to finalize, publish and distribute 10,000 copies of Stefanie's first book to 10,000 kids who are impacted by cancer. There is no cost to you!

The Spielman's kids go to the school district that I teach in and they both have been such great advocates for the Columbus area as well as the cancer community as a whole. Help make this happen. All you have to do is simply vote. I will include this info as a side bar on the blog. How cool of a project is this that Pepsi is doing?

9 miler

It was a beautiful sunny day when I went for my long run yesterday. There were many people out running, biking and walking. I did a little trickery to myself. I ran out 3.25 miles then turned around and finished my run with two loops of the lake run at 1.2. I ran a little extra to get in that o.1 but I tricked myself into basically thinking it was an 8 mile run. I ran all miles at close to a 9:30 min/mile pace. Overall I felt great. The run was so nice being in sunny weather.

I was pumped because I thought in terms of burning calories I was doing great and that I would have definitely hit the 1,000 calories burned because of what the treadmill had been telling me. Since being on spring break I bought some magazines to enjoy. I read in Runner's World an article about debunking weight loss myths and diets. The article really hit home that it all comes back to caloric intake verses calories burned. It also gave a formula of how to determine your caloric burn per mile. You have to multiply your weight (in pounds) by 0.72. Most treadmills are set for a 140 lb. person. This disappointed me because I only burned 843 calories :( Just have to keep running to hit that 1,00o calorie burned

This coming week starts double digits for the long run. With having spring break I am really going to concentrate on some quality lifts, a tempo run (which I didn't do last week) and then catching up on sleep. I can't believe that March is almost over.

Anything you wanted to do this month that just didn't get done?

New Toy

Somehow I managed to loose my watch between the gym and home. I went online and did some research as to what watch I should buy. My previous watch was a Nike and I had pretty good luck with it so I looked for another Nike watch. I settled on a slight upgrade of a watch with up to 100 lap capability (why I thought this feature would be important is beyond me because I don't plan on doing 100 laps of anything) with all the bells and whistles.

I took my watch on a test run today... a 5 miler. Well, it was suppose to be a 5 miler. I went to Antrim park and started running. The plan was to run out 2.5 miles and then turn around and come back. I passed mile marker one using the watch and I started out way to fast (9 min. mile) and then I got to mile 2 and I thought "just a half a mile more."

Only I couldn't figure out where the 1/2 mile was so I kept running to mile marker 3. Then I thought "OK no problem I will just run 5 miles and then walk one. It's a beautiful day no worries."

Well by the time I got back to mile 5 I had decided that I didn't want to waste all that time walking when I could be running. So I ran one more mile. Totaling to 6 miles today.

My new watch told me that I ran all miles under the 9:40/mile mark. While this is good, I am not sure that I can keep a 9 min./mile pace for the entire race. So I need to pace myself better.

Tomorrow is the last day of school for me until before spring break. Just in time for March Madness and a great time to relax, get a pedicure and a massage. Can't wait!!

Rain, Rain, go away

When I was a little girl I hated the rain. I wouldn't go outside in it because I thought I would melt. Normally when I see someone outside walking or running in the rain I think they are crazy. Today I ran in the rain. Granted it wasn't pouring down rain, but I ran. This is a big feat for me.

My dog doesn't even like the rain. Yesterday morning I let the dog outside and it was raining. He normally goes number 2, does his business and comes back inside. With the rain he took one step outside and kinda looked at me and said "like you are crazy lady, I'm not staying out here. I'm coming back inside where it is dry."

Jason came home yesterday and Woody was pooping on the floor. Apparently he couldn't wait the 2 more seconds to go outside. As a way of getting even with him I took woody on a short run after I did my run today in the rain. He didn't enjoy this so much. He would run then look back at me with a look of "why are you doing this to me?"

Not only was the rain bothering Woody but 1/2 way through my run two helicopters started circling the area. So the noise of these helicopters was disturbing to him. There were kids out racing in the street and a dog barking at him. Not a good run for Woody. Maybe a better run next time?

Do any of you have a crazy rainy day stories?

Breaking 100

So earlier this week I hit my 100 mark. This started me thinking about how many miles I will have traveled by the end of this marathon.... by the end of summer... by the end of the year? I'm thinking maybe I can make it to 500 miles by the end of summer. On Saturday I did my 8 miler. I can't remember how many miles I ran for my long runs while training for my half marathons, but I think that 8 was one of the top mileage that I did (if I did that much). I felt pretty good running.

I ran at a popular running park, Antrim Park. This park has a bike path whit the miles marked so it is easy to track the mileage. So I ran out my 4 miles and then I was going to turn around and come back. At about mile 3 the park leaves the "park" and goes into the streets of Clintonville. Not bad but you have to be careful of cars and then you have to stop for traffic lights. I much prefer just running in the park. Jason so kindly rode the bike while I was running for various reason but he got the joy of it. It was a sunny and warm day for Ohio, high of 45, but we have been below freezing for so long it felt like a heat wave so many people were out and about. Jason told me after running that a older couple commented on my new hydration belt. Apparently they said "look at all the Gatorade on her fanny." What a compliment I think?

While running back I lost track of the mile post and when I got to mild marker 7 I had a small celebration. I thought I had two miles left when really I only had one left. This was the best treat. Here I thought I was way behind on my mile/min time, but I actually was better than the aimed pace. Not to bad.

Is it a full moon?

So the past day or two I have had many teachers at school, as well as at my gymnastics gym that I teach at, say how crazy the kids have been. One teacher made the comment that she felt invisible because she would show the kids what to do and no one would be watching or looking at her. Another teacher commented how "the kids did everything but listen." I believe that a full moon in some way affects how the kids react or act. The kids seem to bounce off the wall, not listen or even act like themselves. I can't explain why, no one really can, but if you are a teacher you know what I am talking about. We have been doing this crazy unit which has been fun but there is so much the kids have to do and so many directions they need to follow. To say the least we had some learning opportunities happening today.

I was so glad to get out of the school and have a run to do. I had a tempo run tonight and while these are still not my favorite workouts I did pretty well. I was able to run for two miles at a 6.5 mph and then sprint out the end of my workout. So far a good week of running. Tomorrow another 4 miles. Won't be hard but Saturday I have the long run, 8 miles. Can't wait to see how it goes.