Week in Review

Wow I get to write this early as I have my first day off in 7 weeks. This is much needed too and came at the right time. I was starting to feel a bit tired and banged up this week so I will be getting extra sleep, less miles and a big mental break from miles after mile of work.

Monday 8 easy
Tuesday 2 w/u, 6 mile Progression Run, 2 c/d + Strength Work
Wednesday 7 easy
Thursday 12 easy
Friday 8 easy + core
Saturday 17 miles - 2 w/u, 3 easy, 10 Steady State, 2 c/d - I ran this as apart of local half marathon that I signed you for like 6 months ago so it workout best to use as part of a long run workout.
Sunday OFF

Total Miles - 62 miles

A day in the life

So I was trying to fit in a coffee date with a friend today so I outlined my day for myself to see if we could find a block of time to meet. I quickly realized it may not be possible unless she could run with me ro do core work with me.

Many people wonder how I fit in 70 mpw plus core & strength & sleep well at night which in my opinion is as importanst as the running.

Here is what a day looks like for me -

6:45AM - Wake-up - Get kiddies ready for school
7:30 - Kiddies are out the door- I eat & drink my coffee, do a bit on the computer
8:30 - Get ready to run (pre-run exercises/warm-up)
9:00 - Run
10:30 - Complete Run & stretch, eat, shower, & change
11:20 - Lunch school with Joey
Noon - Y - core, hips, and strength work (lucky for me the school is around the block from the Y)
1:00 - Lunch with Christian
1:30 - Run
2:20 - Stretch, Eat and quick shower
2:45 - Kids off the bus
3:00-5:00 - Wrangling Children, bit of housekeeping and a bit of chill time on couch with an ice bag or two
5:30-6:00 Dinner
6;30-7;30 - Random time - used for anything kids stuff, icing, hanging with nick, hanging with kids, reading
7:30-8:30 Bedtime Rountine
8:30 - Hang with Nick, stretch, ice
10:00 - Bedtime for me

My workout days

So summer keep me inside on the treadmill a lot for workouts and than allergy season has also keep me doing more workouts than I would like on the treadmill and fingerscrossed in a week or two most all my workouts can transition to outdoors.

I thought about this while entering the gym to all the familiar faces that are always there when I am there. It very comforting in a way to see the smiles of acknowledgement from others at the Y. They all know I am there to work and work hard. They smile at me while I am grinding out tough miles, they give me the thumbs up, they reposition fans in my direction, and when I step off the treadmill I am blessed to received their smiles again and words of encouragment. I have really come to love these people and it almost like I settle in tough workouts and push harder because my environment is so loving. When I start hitting the road for workouts, I am going to miss my cheer squad. I will go far to say that I think I have made so much progress because the company I have been fortunate enough to have this summer & early Fall.

I was thinking about this while doing a progression run today at the Y. Love is the highest form of energy and I try to concentrate all my thoughts on love during tough miles. I focus on what I love, who I love, what I love, and thank god for all these things which gives me the courage to press and if my mind strays it helps tremendeously to have that sweet older lady pass by me giving a big smile or a Y worker that sees me working giving me the thumgs up - these interactions remind me to focus on the right things.

Today I endured to the tune off -

2.5 W/U

7:35, 7;25, 7;13, 7:03, 6:55, 6:36

2.5 C/D

Much gratitude to all my friends at the Y for so much love and support!!

Week in Review

Big week mileage wise but a bit shaded by the increase in wheezing and fighting through Fall allergy season.

The beginning of the week start great with the rain showers bringing allergen levels to point where I had easy breathing. Monday through Wednesday :-) were really great days! Than I start to feeling it my lungs and body working harder over all by Thursday.

I am feeling very good energy level wise which is super surprising. My legs are a bit tired but overall my body feels really great and is adapting well to this mileage level. I have 4 weeks to Detroit and 12 weeks to Jacksonville so it is a great base to build off of :-) Praying for another patch of rain showers to help me with a few good breathing days.

Monday 8 easy
Tuesday 2 w/u, 2 X 4miles @ 1st- 7:02, 7:03, 7:03, 6:55 2nd Set -7:03, 7:03, 7:03, 6:45, 2 C/D
Wednesday (AM) 5 easy (PM) 4 easy
Thursday 12 easy
Friday 9 easy
Saturday 10 with 6 MP
Sunday 18 miles with 4 MP

78 Miles

Flexibility

I think flexibility is a core component of being a runner or just striving to be your best at whatever your passion.

Flexibility in the physical sense, Yes! Having the sufficient range of motion to perform your activity is vital to maintaining your longevity. It is something I place huge importance on. I intend to do this running thing and living strong a long time so I do what is neccassry to maintain my range of motion.

I am also refering to the flexibility in the mental sense. Going with the flow, allowing for life to happen, allowing for things to go off course, allowing for the day unfold in a miraclous way that does not look perfect.

Life does not happen perfectly, it happens beautifully!

A flexible mind will allow you to adapt to change, life, circumstances beyond your control, and enjoy even the unscripted moments that you wouldn't have planned but ended up so beautiful.

I think this mindset has helped me grow as a runner and as a person.

In my running, it allows me to let possibilites happen that I may have not considered when planning my run or day. It allows me to see the breakthroughs that are not visible to anyone else but me and my coach. It allows me to keep moving forward and not get derailed when events or runs to do not happen perfectly.

In my personal life, it allows me to see the gifts that God intends to bring in my life. It allows me to let go of the control and know that my life is unfolding perfectly as it suppose to be and they everyone in my life is suppose to be teaching me something - patience for that person is getting on my last nerve or immense love and compassion for a stranger that I met on the greenway that was running through her chemo treatment.

The flexibility that I allow into my life allows me to enjoy every moment, circumstance, and person - good or not so good.

Looking forward to breathing free & clear

Alas the temps are starting to really plummet here in the Carolinas. Morning running temps are now 60s-70s and much more enjoyable. I remember dreaming about these days in July & August. What would it feel like to run in the 60s? What would it feel like to run in cool to cold air. Well we haven't got that cool just yet but I am back to enjoying most runs.

Everyone describes what tends to happen to runners that train through the deep heat & humidity of the south as soon as the cool weather sets in your are going to feel so so so fast. Tempo pace will all of sudden feel like easy pace. Oh no, not so fast for me, I have yet to feel that fast feeling yet. I think even with the AM runnings a bit lower temps the humidity has still been a good 80-100% still add in high pollen and my chest is struggling to not cave in on easy pace runs.

I am looking at this as a good thing though. Yes, I would love, love, love to be feeling rockin fast outside but I think the humidity & pollen is keeping me slow which keeps me from going too fast on easy days and lets my body really absorb and recover from the high intensity & high mileage.

So in a way as I was so excited to being using this new fitness and flying through Fall. Not really feeling that awesomely fast has been godsend for my training and late fall racing goals. I am very happy that I have never let my ego push me outside of my easy to stick with the other runners in my fitness range who have been really killing their easy & long runs with impressive times in the summer heat.

So God is just holding me back a bit now so that I can go forward by leaps and bonds.

The Dream that is no longer my own!

While running today with a friend, she shared with me about how my running inspires her.

And I thought of everyone who has every shared with me, how much my running and passion has inspired them to purse big goals and be better than they thought they could be. I think of this older guy at the gym who struggled to run 3 miles and recently told me because my guidance and encouragement that he is training to run his first marathon, or the sweet teenage girl that shares her running with me when she keeps it a secret passion from everyone else, or my sister who is risking it all and opening up a business because she watched me go all in with my dream.

For me, this dream is no longer just for me, it is for everyone I might meet or cross paths with to maybe give them the inspiration or the courage to fight for their dream. This dream is very much rooted in the need to be my children's source of inspiration and strength. I want them to have the courage in their lifetime to do all the hard things and to be brave enough to keep reaching for BIG dreams. I want them to see my fail, hurt, pick myself up, try again & ultimately succeed. I want them to see me NEVER GIVE UP so that they will never give up on their own potential.

I looked up the word - Inspire

1. To affect, guide, or arouse by divine influence.
2. To fill with enlivening or exalting emotion:
3. To stimulate to action; motivate:b. To affect or touch: The falling leaves inspired her with sadness.
4. To draw forth; elicit or arouse:
5. To be the cause or source of; bring about
6. To draw in (air) by inhaling.
7. Archaic
a. To breathe on.
b. To breathe life into.

How I fuel!

If you have been reading long enough, you might know about my struggle with getting in enough calories to support my running. I really have had struggled on & off especially when I am running high miles as I just don't get hungry and I am not a big sweet eater in the first place. I am not a gal that ever was a big eater and hours can go by without hunger so I have to be super gdiligent about fueling all day and getting the right kind of calories.

These are a couple items that have been helping.

The Perpetuem is crazy awesome!! It has 300 calories & 54 grams of carbohyrdates in one serving. What I have been doing, is making a drink first thing when I wake in the AM and drinking it before I do anything. That helps me kick start my metabolism and get some good carbs in. Than I get the kids ready for school and out the door and than eat breakfast & coffee.

The Accelerade that I use as both a sports drink and a recovery drink as it has a 4:1 carb to protein ratio. I really like the taste and tastes better and sits in my tummy better than gatorade.

Whey Protein that I mix with milk at night before bed. A high protein snack helps preserve lean muscle max and help with a good nights sleep.

These all boost my daily calorie intake by about 800-1000 calories. If I run between 70-80 miles a week that is about 8000 calories plus all the stretching,strengthening and core work requires that I am taking in enough calories for those activities. And if you are a mom, you know we rarely sit down during the day so I need calories to stay on top kids and household activities.

So if my daily calorie expenditure is the realm of 2500-4500 a day. I need to be eating and supplementing extra calories from different sources.

I ran slow

This AM on my long run I wasn't feeling very good at all. A little fatigued from 4 weeks in the 70s, well over 5 weeks without a day off, emotional fatigue from the fall out of working through yesterday's disappointment, allergies keeping me pretty tired, chest not recovered from yesterdays asthma attack(still have a tight chest & coughing), you name it..I didn't feel great and about 2 miles in I was contemplating turning around and going home declaring to husband and coach that I am tired, sad and I did not want to push myself for 2hrs. I was just going to do 3 miles and go home in defiance as I could not get by body to run faster than 10 minute pace. When I relaxed and let my body decide easy pace all of sudden I could breath, I felt comfortable, I felt normal running, I felt like ah I like running..ha! I remember an article I rad by elite women runner who clocked a 2:37 marathon time in Houston saying she let easy be easy and let her body decide what easy was for that day sometimes it would have her at 9 minutes and sometimes at 8 minutes but she never fretted over her easy cause she killed her hard days. So today I took this to heart and let my body decide easy, I never glanced at pace and just ran with an occasion look at distance. Wow I finished my run feeling super and relaxed and not fatigued.

I ran 13 miles in 2:05 - I won't reference the garmin for exact splits cause it hardly matters. I completed the distance and will be all the better for it. I'd say that is a much better outcome than forcing my body to run a pace it was not up for and calling it a day 3 miles in cause I felt like crap.

I have 2 more weeks of hard work ahead till I get those day off :-)

Week in Review

Sometimes you just want to be sad but know you can't afford to dwell in this place long as it can hold you back more than move you forward.

I didn't reach my goal yesterday but at the same time know that for some reason I needed to be there to go through it, feel it, experience it, and use it to move forward.

In all honestly, I am not sure mentally I was ready to make this huge leap. It reminded of a tempo run I had in July which I bombed more out of not mentally not being ready to make that leap. My mind had not bought into the idea that I could do it so even though I attempted it, the workout was not ideal and I missed the mark. Even though Jeff knew that physically I could do, I hadn't made that connection yet. Which I think happened a little bit yesterday. I wasn't ready mentally to tackle it even though physically I have what it takes. I really had doubts and nothing I could think of would fully counter these doubts. One of the unknowns was my allergies & asthma, I didn't know how they would play out. I didn't want to them to be a factor so I tried like heck to ignore my wheezing through easy run this week and thought that just maybe if all my stars would be aligned then they won't be a factor. If it was meant to be, it would be like one of those magically days where anything is possible. I have days in the early Fall, that my chest would work for whatever reason, so I was hoping for one of these days. I hit mile 1 @ 6;57 pace and felt fine, good energy, happy and than somewhere in mile 2 there was a huge hill and my chest just seized. I tried not to panick and thought relax, relax, relax, just get up the hill and you can recover these lost seconds on the downhill and you can getting your breathing undercontrol. Alas that was not my fate, I struggled for breathe the remaining miles. For those that have asthma, you know that once your chest decides it it stressed than it really hard to get oxygen. I just had to keep my chin up, not give up and finish it out the best I could.

The effort has made me a bit lost and searching for answers but than again the only thing I should be focused on is moving forward and concentrating my training efforts on Detroit Half Marathon. I have 5 weeks to get my confidence in check and need just to keep working. As sad as I am that I am not racing well, I know that God is delaying my breakthrough and not denying me a breakthrough. It will happen when it is meant to happen. All good things take time.

Here is how my week went -

Monday (AM) 6 easy (PM) 4 easy
Tuesday 2 W/U 10X 800, 2 C/D
Wednesday 7 Recovery +Core
Thurday 12 easy
Friday 9 easy, 4X20 Strides, 2 easy
Saturday 2 w/u, 10K, 3 c/d
Sunday 13 easy

Total Mileage - 73

Dear God, Are you there it's me, Jamie

Tomorrow, you, me and 42:00 10K.

Are you being pushed or you being pulled?

I had this thought while running today about chasing your goals or dreams.

Are you being pushed or pulled is something that came to mind? Being pushed implies forced against your will or desire and on the other hand being pulled has more of feeling of nonresistant.

I think on days like this AM for me when the allergens are high & I felt really bad energy level-wise, headachy and chest feeling tight there was a thought on how I have to run 9 miles feeling this bad but I let my thoughts of my dreams and what I want to accomplish pull me out the door and onto the road to find that I didn't feel that bad and I am actually a pretty tough cookie. I didn't feel push to do it but I rather feel like strings were pulling me towards something bigger and shutting out the oh but you feel like craps that were trying to take over in my head.

Ah! I came home just feeling so happy that my dreams are big enough and strong enough to have such a strong pull that it can resist fatigue, sickness, excuses, fears, and doubts.

If you feel like your life is pushing you around rather it pulling in the right direction, you may want to sit down with yourself and listen to your heart a bit. It will never led you astray.

Got to face up to the fact that I THAT AM FAST

This sounds like such a strange comment but coming to terms with my increasing fitness has paralyzed me a bit.

My training paces have been really increasing lately at first I was freaked by new set of schedules which had a lot of work in the 6 minute range. I am not sure why but that freaks me out because I know I have done the work to get here and the thought of a fantastic marathon is always in my mind. And I have not had a problem doing the work in the 6 minute range but alas there is a part me that does not equate these paces as me being that fast. I still look at runners that I always considered fast with awe and now being in the same ranks of them and seeing myself there is a harder mental transition to make.

This all has been perkalating in my mind over the past couple of weeks but was really brought to forefront of my thoughts with a 10K race I have scheduled for this weekend. I got my pace goals from my coach yesterday and his plan for the race about sunk my tummy! GOAL 42:00-42:30 - OMG! WTF - Goal is go out at 6:50ish and maintain through the 2 miles - miles 3&4 - drop to 6:40 and miles 5&6 work very hard to crush the finish.

Now I have to find the belief that I am that fast. I know the workouts all point to these times, Jeff is NEVER wrong, I believe in him and I trust him, I am stronger than ever, I have my faith and if I hold tight to the faith than come what may I will be good to go on Saturday.

Reminder to me - Let your Faith be bigger than your Fear.

Go to work

I have a key workout today that has me all jittery. I guess this feeling is increasing a normal part of the training process especially when you have a coach that increasing pushes you as hard as mine does to me. Sometimes the paces he give me freak me out, not sure why but they do....

Now most everyone prepares for the physical part of a hard training run - eat right, hydrate, warm-up etc..but for me the key in hard workouts is the mental prep I do before a hard workout. Getting yourself in the right frame of mind to do the workout is really key and can be the difference in you killing it or it killing you.

Sometimes the nerves in preparing for a key workout can be overwhelming that you have to work so so so hard to shutdown that negative chatter that seems to intensify as you prepare to do something hard, unknown and grueling.

For me during my warm-up, I am constantly working to shutdown that chatter and know once I get into the work out the nerves will settle. I try too distract my mind during my warm-up cause it can itself so worked up that it distracts me from what I need to be doing. Although the warm-up itself is a nerve soother as well.

I often think that workouts are the days my mind has to work way harder than my body. These are the days that I really test what lies beneath and I think that is where the nerves come from - today will it be there? will I be able to tap into that strength when the hurt sets in? will I be able to suffer a little more today than I did in the last workout? will I be able to shut out that chatter that screams enough? will I be able to relax and stay calm?

I will say a quick pray out loud - Lord Willing I will met the challenge of 10X800 @ 3:05-3:10.

Thank you Lord for the strength, courage and your presence everyday and in everyway.

Week in review

I am excited to write this week in review cause I had a really good week where I hit everything mileage and workout times.

Monday 7 recovery
Tuesday 9 easy
Wednesday 2 w/u, 8 miles - 7:13, 6;58, 7:13, 6:55, 7:19, 7:03, 7:13, 6:49, 1 c/d
Thursday 5 Recovery (AM) 4 Easy (PM)
Friday (AM) 10 easy (PM) 3 Recovery (SLOW)
Saturday 10 with 8 @MP - 7:35, 7:30, 7:30, 7:30, 7:28, 7:24, 7:19, 6:54
Sunday 16 easy with 7X90 second surges @ 6:30 pace

Mileage total - 75 Miles

I LOVE the work I get to do

I love the work I get to do! I just had to say that as I have been feeling it in my heart for the past two weeks. So blessed and happy! Kids are back to school and I am training pretty regularly with just a couple bumps in the road this week.

Okay I have to say it again - I LOVE THE WORK I GET TO DO!!!

I love that I am living my dream life!

Really balancing childcare and training during the school year is such awesome bag of having the best of both worlds.

I get to get up with my kiddie kats, snuggle them and send them off to school feeling loved and cherished. Than I get to focus on me and what needs to happen in my training for that day. I can get to go to the grocery store and get a constant supply of fresh food. Than be home for those kiddie kats to have a safe & loving place to come home to after school where they can unwind and play with friends.

Than I get to put them to bed at a decent time, maybe get in that second run or stretch session while spending time with hubby.

I LOVE THIS LIFE!! It is simple and pretty boring to some but for me, it is the life I dreamed of living!!

The week ahead

It is said that you need to prepare ahead of time to succeed in anything. So I am thinking ahead to the 3 workouts I have this week. I need to be eating enough, sleeping enough, getting in all my flexibilty & mobility stuff in before & after runs, and stay in a positive frame of mind all week which should help me perform these key workouts.

The most imidating of the workouts is on Wednesday which is a 8 mile alternating tempo at aggressive paces.

I plan to spend the next 2 days eating well, rehydrating, resting as much as possible and keeping the positive vibes in and around me.

Week in Review

Good week mixed with some awesome workouts and tough weekend of running in the hottest & most humid temps thus far but very happy to hit the mileage for the week. I keep reminding myself that this mileage is going to pay off when the temps come down. I try like hell to keep my chin up when the weather conditions make me feel out of shape.

Monday (AM)8 easy (PM) 4 easy + Core
Tuesday 2 W/U, 4 X 1.5 miles @ 6:58, 6:58, 6:55, 6:50, 2 C/D
Wednesday 6 Recovery
Thursday 8 Easy
Friday 2 W/U, 2 X 3 @ 6:58, C/D + Strength Training
Saturday (AM)7 Recovery (PM) 3 Recovery
Sunday 14 Easy

Mileage Total - 70