What are your go to running gear items when you travel?
Break? I Don’t Need No Stinkin’ Break….OK, Maybe I Do!
March 6, 2012 by · 15 Comments
On our March goals I mentioned that I wanted to survive my 2 week rest without cheating and we figured that that you might need a little more explanation. So here goes…
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Not too long ago I told you guys about my weight and my efforts to lose weight. I had been the heaviest in my life and not happy so I decided to do something about it. I managed to drop down quite a bit but have essentially been stuck at my current weight for a while now. At first I just had no loss or gain, and then all of a sudden an actual gain in fat for the first time in 2 years. To me, and many others this may seem odd, I work out basically everyday, run all the time, play basketball, swim, workout with a personal trainer, track my food, have very few cheat days…. you get the drift…an actual fat gain seems pretty impossible to me. So what is the problem?? It is calorically impossible in my opinion for this to happen.
I talked to my trainer, Will, about this a lot, he dug into what he knows and asked around as well and basically came to a consensus that I am overtraining and my body is in an adaptive mode all the time. So while I have fallen into a very healthy routine of exercise and eating right my body has too and has basically decided it is going to stay where it is. Thanks body – love you too!
Talk about motivation killer. I think I actually had a pitty party at the gym the day I was weighed and even broke down and decided exercise and everything I was doing was pointless and stupid, a waste of time.. blah blah blah. Ever feel like this??
I would say that this is similar to when people decide they have to make a change and come to a breaking point. Will asked me if it was feasible to take 2 weeks off from working out and move my body from adaptive mode and into recovery. I cringed of course. I have 2 half marathons in March, hence part of the problem, but I decided to do it. During this time I am going to do no running or cardio. I will weight train 2 times a week with Will and yoga 2 to 3 times a week. Getting my runner self to not run 3-4 weeks before a race is a little scary, but I am too frustrated to stay where I am and not try something new! I can’t help but think of the insanity definition here. Can’t keep doing the same thing and expecting something to change.
Also, Beth and I both joined MyFitnessPal this week. I have always tracked her food on myapex but I found that it is less convenient. Sorry 24 Hour Fitness! MyFitnessPal works super easy on the phone and has more food listed so it makes it much easier to track food better. So with the rest, I am also becoming more on point with food.
Anyone ever been through this madness before? Let us know! What did and did not work for you??
Trinity River Levee Run
March 5, 2012 by · 2 Comments
I woke up Friday morning with beginnings of a cold coming on. Ugh, not so perfect timing! But got to bed early for a 6 a.m. wake up call for the 10k. That seemed SO late considering how early Teal & I woke up for Princess Half!
First I should backup and say the packet pickup at Luke’s was pretty easy at Luke’s Locker especially since I heeded the advice from email to know my bib number before getting there. I walked up to the nice fireman, told him bib 962 and in under 30 seconds I was off and looking at the running clothes sale. 🙂 Kudos to this race for having firemen help with packet pickup! 🙂
I’d seen multiple things regarding driving directions to the race and I had every intention of following them until I found myself on the exact street it said to avoid. Oh, well! Quickly parked on the opposite side of the Margaret Hunt Hill bridge from where the race started, but ultimately I was glad because I got to walk across it twice in addition to running across it!
After crossing the bridge I found my friends Mary, Cory, Tom and Paige pretty quickly and in no time it seemed like we were off! Since Teal was on a field trip with her students I just assumed I’d be running this race by myself and I was totally wrong! Tom and I ended up running pretty much the whole race together. We chatted about anything and everything! Talking during races and even during training runs is not something I commonly do, so it was a nice change of pace. Tom kept me updated periodically on what our pace was. I knew I’d want to do another 6ish mile run later in the day so I was too concerned with pushing real hard in this race. Overall the course was fun, lots of awesome volunteers out passing out powerade and water. I don’t frequent that area of town all that much so it was fun seeing everything around there.
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Tom & I after the race - please enjoy the mess that is my hair!
The results for this race were a little tricky to find or maybe I’m just not that use to having to click on so many links to be taken to a word document containing a link that holds my results? My chip time was 57:41, 201st female to finish and 661st person to finish overall. The thing I was most proud of in this race was the kick I gave at the end. When I stopped my runkeeper at the end it said I had been running at a 7:14 pace! So excited to see the difference my hill and tempo workouts have given me in a short amount of time! Would also, like to give a shout out to Teal’s workout buddy, Cynthia I saw out there! Wish I would have seen you after the race!
After the race was over I made sure to take a picture of one of the three murals that Shepherd Fairey recently put up on Singleton Avenue in Dallas. Tons of people were having their picture taken with the murals so I got just this one with no one else in the picture before I headed out.
On my walk back to the car I took advantage of the time and snapped some more pictures of the Margaret Hunt Hill bridge or as I’ve already heard some referring to it as #largeMarge. I’m going to hold out and put one of my favorite pictures I took walking across the bridge to the race on Facebook only, so come find it on our Facebook page! And if you haven’t liked us on Facebook yet – why not??
Later that afternoon I headed out for a 6 mile run that I was hoping would include some hills. I set off on a bit of a new route for me, and to be honest in the beginning I wasn’t completely feeling this run. As I was nearing the halfway point of my run which also was the point where I was running down my soon to be monster hill to run up, I saw a police officer and contemplated asking him to give me a ride home if I wimped out on the hill. But let’s be honest – no matter how much I wanted to wimp out I wasn’t going to. The hill was hard, but once I did it and recovered from it I felt great! The whole last half of my run was fabulous! I get more of a high from running when I accomplish something hard out in the course than if it was just completely flat. Run #2 on Saturday felt like another victory for my tempo and hill workouts!
Hope everyone had a fabulous weekend! There were so many people out racing and Teal & I are both excited to see your race recaps! 🙂
Dr. Seuss, Levee Run & New Book
March 2, 2012 by · 5 Comments
So many things going on this Friday, but first of all – Happy Birthday to Dr. Seuss! So fun that we just got to visit Seuss Landing less than a week ago! Anyone going to see The Lorax this weekend? This is one movie that Teal will probably catch in the theaters despite not being a big movie person because The Lorax is her favorite Seuss book.
Tomorrow Beth will be running the Trinity River Levee Run 10k! Sadly, Teal being the good teacher that she is, will be on a field trip with her students and cannot participate in this run. 🙁
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The new Margaret Hunt Hill bridge is officially open in Dallas as of this weekend, and the 8th Annual Trinity River Levee Run is the kickoff to a day of celebrating. Part of the selling point for this year’s run is that this will be your only chance to run across the Margaret Hunt Hill bridge, well you know in a safe way were it’s blocked off for runners. It has also been a long time since either one of us has raced the 10k distance, so it’ll be good to get back out there and give it another go! But we’ll have to find another 10k to do so Teal can revisit that distance too! There isn’t really a goal for this race, but Beth’s 10k PR stands at 56:46. That PR was accomplished in the July Texas Heat, so guess there could always be hope of a new PR this weekend!
On a completely different note, perhaps aimed more at the people who are big readers – Beth’s sister Kate as of today is an author! About four years ago, Kate wrote a “chicklit” book, attempted to get publisher for it, and when that didn’t work she decided in today’s technology that she would self-publish! We are both really excited for her in this endeavor and so proud of her for following one of her dreams! The book is called Creative Chaos and will be available to purchase as an iBook & on your Nook today, and then to follow all you Kindle users will also be able to purchase it!
You can learn more about Kate over at her blog which also has some more details on the book! If you buy it you have got to let us know! And a big CONGRATS to Kate, the author! 🙂
Happy Friday to you all! What do you have in store for your weekend?
February Report Card & March Goals
March 1, 2012 by · 5 Comments
It’s that time! Here is how we did on our February goals…
Teal:
1. Let’s try this damn weight/fat loss thing again – I’ll keep it at 4lbs. Wish me luck, perseverance, and calmness through the frustration. I know this will fix itself eventually! F-: not sure how it is calorically possible but I have gained weight this month- that is all I can say about that. What fun.
2. Paint my bedroom and hang the pictures – I have had the paint and the frames for our prints since the end of December and they have tortured me ever since. I am actually going to give myself a B on this even though I didn’t do it BECAUSE – my brother moved out and I managed to get all that mess cleaned, the second bedroom organized and cleaned out, his room cleaned out and ready to be painted, the garage is free of his stuff, the laundry room was cleaned out from the dogs, and my house is generally in awesome condition. No paint yet but hey, that’s why we have March right?
3. Read about and become more knowledgeable about Clean Eating, general good nutrition and Gluten. I have purchased Wheat Belly by Dr. William Davis and Good Calories Bad Calories by Gary Taubes. The goal is to read both this month. B: Read and finished Wheat Belly- I’ll give you a recap later in the month. Very interesting! I am only half way through Good Calories Bad Calories because it is VERY hard to read. I almost feel dumb reading it because I have to keep re-reading pages to understand what I just read- if had I known how hard it was I would have just read it a different month but it is very informative so I will finish. God help me!
4. Make the foam roller my best friend and roll at least once a day, and complete ALL given Physical Therapy for my foot which includes stretching/tennis ball rolling at breakfast, lunch, and before bed and ice 1-2 times per day. A: I completed all therapy given and I am feeling better, although the 13.1 on Sunday did hurt, I still iced immediately! I did not ice 1-2 times a day but only because I felt like the therapy was working and ice was not as needed as before! I foam roll constantly and am making progress!
5. Oh and on a “Non- Actual goal thing listed” I did Pass my Counselor Certification Test that I took the day of the Hot Chocolate Run that I had to miss!! So A+++ on that!
Beth:
1. HILLS! Do them once a week – for real this time! D-: Haha, I did them twice! Y’all what is my deal? Maybe I should make this stop being a goal and just know that each month I’ll tell you what I did hill-wise?? What do you think?
2. Wedding Schtuff – Part A: Get outfits settled on (for both of us) & take engagement pictures! Part B: Finish two of my three registries! <—Just want those things done and over with! Ha, is that a bad way to phrase it? A-: well, going into this month I had most of my outfits already, but Brent did not. We spent two Saturdays shopping for him because in general he just needed some new clothes and shoes. He starts a new job next week which is part of the need but he just needed new pants and shirts to add to his work mix and we made it happen. We took engagement pictures!! My dad is a photographer as well as a freakin’ awesome lawyer and he spent almost 4 hours with us one Sunday taking our pictures all over Dallas. We also spent a few hours one Sunday starting and completing our registry at Crate & Barrel. That was the only registry we have complete, but I am still proud! Another wedding thing to check off is we have a Best Man! We had a planned dinner with Brent’s friend, his wife and their son and got our first person in Brent’s side of the wedding party! So I feel like I still deserve an A range grade because a lot of weekend days this month were taking up with wedding related items!
3. Lose 5 pounds! I’m taking engagement pictures this month, so a few pounds off and working towards a smaller weight for upcoming races needs to happen! F: Yah, I am at the exact same weight. Ha. In all honesty, I meant to go get a scale to be more conscious of this and to meet my goal, but uhhh, yah that never happened. Oopsie??
4. Clean the craft/guest/whatever room! My sister and I have a guest room at our house and we each kind of have half of it to ourselves and then a teeny tiny twin bed sits in the middle of it. Ha, we are both former, big-time scrapbookers so we have got crafts galore in there! This will be my next room I conquer! F: Nope, just did not have the time for this! 🙁 If I’m going to get something on this scale done it has to be on the weekend and all the weekends this month were FAR too full to make this happen.
Joint goal:
5. Both participate in #FabAbFeb Well, Teal finished the challenge even if some days she doubled up on days she still finished it! Beth on the other hand missed the last week of it.
And now it’s time for March’s goals…..dun dun dun!
Teal
1. Paint Bedroom and quest room for real this time. Spring break should make this possible!
2. Survive my 2 week break from running and cardio by not cheating. I am going to give my body a true rest. I think it is overworked and is partially to blame for the plateau of weight-loss, my injury and that it is not fully gone, and from being tired from having 2 jobs and grad school. The break will be hard because rest is really not part of my vocabulary but it’s a needed part of life. Must get better.
3. Yoga 12 times this month. This will be how I survive the “rest” from running/cardio. Low impact, restorative, and a good way to focus on flexibility.
4. Finish Good Calories, Bad Calories by Gary Taubes
Beth
1. Run a sub 2:00 hour half marathon at Rock ‘n’ Roll Dallas!
2. Lose 5 pounds. Seriously, y’all!! I need to get SERIOUS about take some pounds off for my wedding!
3. Get a caterer for the wedding. You thought this one went away didn’t you? Well, I was all on track, got one approved by my venue and haven’t heard back from him after our initial phone call about my homes and dreams of wedding food. I’ve chosen to take that as a sign and look elsewhere just need to setup tastings!
4. Attend 3 to 4 yoga classes a week. You’re probably like whaa?? You yoga all the time! Well, technically I don’t totally have yoga goals like I did for all of 2011 and I took 2 weeks off when I hit my 200 and let me tell you my body knew it! So I want to see how I do with 3-4 times a week for a month where this blog holds me accountable!
5. Update my handwriting/calligraphy website. It needs a MAJOR change starting with a new theme that allows for a real blog inside the website. Change is a coming!
It should also be noted that I haven’t given up on my hills every week, but I feel like that’s annoying to keep putting it as a goal and not mastering it. And another note would be at the beginning of the year I gave myself a goal of reading 24 books this year which this has really been a goal of mine for a couple years now. I got close one year with 20. This are two things I kind of want to keep up to date with in these posts but make them different from the things I try to achieve that vary each month. Does that make sense? Can you handle that? I’m going to be busy this month!
We will see you guys on the flip side of this month with how we did! 🙂 Wish us luck!