Finally Friday!

Woo hoo! It's the weekend! Which for me means I have a family reunion on Saturday, Chris is working both Saturday and Sunday at varied hours and 9 miles on tap!

The Rue family reunion is Saturday. My great grand-parents had 13, yes 13, kids. This makes for some large family gatherings! As you can imagine, the family is scattered throughout the country, so not everyone can be there every year. We do love getting to see who we can, when we can! Attendance helps for me, since the reunion is in Casey.

This year will be a little bittersweet. Since the last reunion, 2 of my grandpa's brothers, Rodney and Tony, passed. This year will be a year of remembrance, and also story-telling. New memories will be made, and lots of food will be consumed! My great-grandma was THE BEST cook, so we celebrate the way she would, with a FEAST! I will earn all those calories with the 9 miles that are in store in the morning.

Updates since we last spoke

I took a rest day on Tuesday. It was wonderful. On Wednesday, I was supposed to run 4 miles on a hilly course, pushing up the hills. I thought of the hilliest area I could run to in those 4 miles and headed that way. I had to dodge road construction, and change course, but got in a hill workout. When I changed course, I ended up running up a decent hill. I went on for about 3/4 mile, turned around, and ran up that hill 2 more times. Nothing too hilly, climbed 83 feet according to my Garmin (elevation chart looks worse than 83 feet). The run itself felt great, and I did a great job of pushing myself going up every hill. The next hill run is 5 miles, and I think I know just where I am going.

Although I stretched and foam rolled, I am sore from the hills. My muscles just aren't used to pushing me up hills. I probably need to do some squats. I have yet to dedicate time to strength train, so it's not getting done. I need to pencil it in my schedule, so that it gets done. I did 30 minutes of yoga yesterday, and rolled some more.

This morning, I headed out for 3 easy miles with strides. It was cooler, but very muggy. The first mile was tough, as my legs were just getting loose. The second mile felt better, and the third was downright hard. I wasn't sure how I would do during the strides. It was nice looking and seeing 4:37 as my best pace! On tired, sore legs nonetheless! The ending of the run, made the toughness of the run that much better. That's the wonderful thing about running, you develop amnesia, ha!

I'm going to roll again tonight, and go to bed early for that wonderful 4:30 alarm! Gotta beat the sun! (And take a nap before the reunion)

Happy Running!

Training Tuesday

Hello all!

I am back with another edition of Training Tuesday! I intended on updating my progress earlier, but, you know, life.  I did forget to mention in my last post a milestone I had for the year!

I hit 200 miles for the year during my run on the 5th!

Okay, on to more current business. Tuesday I took a rest day. On Wednesday I had 4 miles scheduled with mile 3 at 5k race pace. It was a muggy morning, and I didn't know if I could hit my pace for the 3rd mile.

95% humidity!?!

I took my warm-up seriously, and slowly rolled through the first two miles at 12:01 and 13:18 (had to make a pit stop). I decided to just push hard and see what came out of it. I hit my 3rd mile at 9:31, which is 8 seconds faster than race pace! I didn't think I could do it, considering how muggy it was! Maybe I should title this Triumph Tuesday! Oh, and this happened

Not my fastest mile ever, just the fastest one with my Garmin! I also get one of these with every long run that increases! 

This also happened! I've been running about 3 1/2 years, so this was cool!

Thursday, I did yoga. I think that I will make it a normal Thursday thing. It feels so good to stretch out after putting in the miles. Then, I foam rolled for about 20 minutes. 

Friday, I had 3 easy miles plus strides on the schedule. I got close, but didn't get the strides in. Tropical Depression Bill decided to open up on me at about 2.25 in, so I ended up just running hard for the remainder just to get home.  

I was looking forward to Saturday's long run. After the previous Saturday that about killed me, I needed a better run. Plus, it was my 35th birthday, so I had to have a good run! I left my alarm alone, and set out around 6 a.m. to get my 8 miles in. 

Still muggy 

It was overcast with the light breeze so it actually felt kind of nice throughout my run! I took it nice and slow, with a few stops for water, and a bathroom break (I have to quit drinking coffee before I run). My splits for the run were:

1- 11:54

2- 14:26 - bathroom

3- 12:21

4- 12:22

5- 16:12 - bottle of water at my aunt's house. Then a short conversation with her

6- 12:52 - fumbling with said bottle of water and placing it on the loops I was running around

7- 13:30 - huge boulder in both my shoes! Okay, they were small pebbles, but felt huge!

8-11:31 

Pushing that last mile felt great! Maybe too great. Could I have went a little harder throughout? I don't know. I just know I wanted to feel good through the entire run, so I just slowly put one foot in front of the other. I got to listen to some super cool music during my run. Here's a sample

I just love Spotify!

After my run, I had my usual glass of chocolate milk, took an ice bath cool bath to soak my legs, put on my compression socks, ate an unhealthy recovery meal of Egg White Delight, and hash brown from McDonald's, foam rolled, and then proceeded to take a 2 hour nap.

My recovery must have been productive, my legs weren't very sore from the run. I foam rolled on Sunday after going to church and having lunch with Dad and Ruthie. 

On Monday, I had my track workout. 1 mile warm up (12:07), 6 X 200 with a 1:1 recovery, 1 mile cool down (11:28). Total run 3.21 miles

Splits

1 - :49

2 - :48

3 - :53

4 - :50

5 - :52

6 - :51

One goal to work towards!

And that brings me to today! This post took longer to write (maybe it was the pictures, and having to edit a few so that they were not sideways). I think I will probably start updating more, so that it isn't as time consuming at one time. I'm still new to this blogging thing, so bear with me. Tomorrow is my first hill run. The biggest hill I run only raises about 10 feet, so this is definitely going to be out of my comfort zone! 

20 weeks to go!

Total Monumental mileage - 46.45

Happy running!

Motivation Monday

For when you need a kick in the butt

Truer words were never spoken

This was needed Friday morning

You generally don't regret it

When????

Training Tuesday

 Hi there! I've decided that I will try post my workouts at least on Tuesdays, hence the blog title! Since my last post, I've had 3 workouts, all running. I took a rest day on Thursday. On Friday, I ran 3 miles plus 7 strides. This is my second time doing strides, and I think I like them!

Total run - 3.95 miles

On Saturday, I had my long run of 6 miles. I decided Friday night before I went to bed that I would just let myself wake up and turn my 4 a.m. alarm off. Boy do I regret that! I left around 8 a.m., and it was already hot and humid! I struggled through most of my run, walked some, stopped for a bottle of water at my aunt's and ran an errand (literally!). All in all, the 6 miles took me 1:24:22. My moving time was a little more respectable 1:16:42. Still slow, but it's not about speed for the Saturday runs, and it was a hot and humid run!

Instead of cross-training this week, I took another rest day on Sunday. I had issues with a migraine and sickness after we went out for dinner Saturday night, and just wanted to take a day off. I felt fine, just lazy.

On Monday, I had a track workout of 3 X 400 with a 1:2 rest, 1 mile w/u, 1 mile c/d. It was muggy again, although overcast. I took my warm-up seriously with a 12:31. My 400's were 1:48, 1:52, 2:05. I need to do better at not going all out on the first one, so that I can have more even splits. I will work on that next week.

Total run - 3.44 miles

Total Monumental mileage - 28.24

I have a similar schedule coming in the next week. Then, a dreaded hill workout the week after! I am NOT looking forward to that week! I will just take it one workout at a time!

Happy Running!

Welcome to Kz Runner!

 Welcome to my first post on my little corner of the interwebs! I plan on using this as a "diary" of sorts. You see, I am running my first marathon on November 7! I just started a training plan written by my coach Lynnae Yates ( http://www.lmyhealth.com/ ) and am ready to rock this thing!

 So far, I have had four running workouts, and had 1 cross-training day. The first day was an easy 3 miles, with strides at the end. Saturday gave me my first long run of 5 miles. It was the slowest I think I've ever ran, but I do know it isn't about speed, it's about time on my feet.

 I cross-trained on Sunday, and probably over-did it! I did the original Iron Strength Workout that Runner's World is selling now. Followed by 30 minutes on the bike!

 On Monday, I had my first track workout, except I couldn't use the track!  Let me back up about 12 hours. We had a bad storm come through, and it was still raining pretty hard in the morning, which is when I usually run. I decided to go to the track after work, and use the ~ 1 mile there as a warm-up. When I got there, the football team was at the practice field inside the track. So, I decided to use the roads for my speed work. It worked well, except my recoveries were weird because of roads/not wanting to start sprinting at a cross-roads. I did get it done, and actually did an extra interval. Over-achiever I am not, and kicked myself for not counting better.

 Today, I had 3 miles on the schedule, with the middle mile at 5k race pace. I actually ran it 24 seconds faster than I intended! That mile was sandwiched in between a warm-up and cool-down mile.

 Tonight, I am going to get some extra cross-training in by working in the garden!

Happy Running!