Race Week

Hey Ya’ll,

I can’t believe the Boston Run to Remember is this weekend. I’m feeling really confident about being ready for this race. I’m REALLY hoping for a PR. I’m not telling anyone what my goal time is, because I don’t want to jinx myself. Ok. 2 hours. That’s not totally unreasonable.. is it?

Last week a had one of my highest mileage weeks since marathon training, which I was pretty excited about. I’ve been struggling with a few minor aches/pains the past few weeks, so I’ve made GREAT friends with my foam roller. I’ve self diagnosed myself with a tight psoas.

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So I’ve been spending about 20 minutes a night rolling out legs and stretching the hell out of my hipflexors, glutes, and quads. Here’s a great article on foam rolling by Runner’s World. I’ve noticed a lot of the tightness and pain in my lower back has gone away. Although, I may have been a bit overzealous with the stretching because I’m feeling some pulling in my hamstrings now. Compression shorts to the rescue (which I’m obviously wearing under my dress at work today. I’m so fashion forward)

Sunday Morning I woke up around 5:30 to get out the door for my last long run before the race.

Look how happy I am to be running!

I made a straight-up rookie mistake. A few month’s ago I was packing to go visit my family in California, and I didn’t have a small container to put my conditioner in. This kid is some unruly curly hair, and needs her conditioner if she hopes to have any chance of taming it. In a pickle, I used my fuelbelt water bottle. I figured they don’t cost much, so I would be fine buying a few more for my actual fuelbelt. I forgot about using my bottle for conditioner until about 10:30 on Saturday night, while preparing my gear for my morning long run. I knew I was running 12 miles and it would be sorta warm and I needed to bring along water. I didn’t have time to run out and buy new fuelbelt water bottles, so I cleaned them out and hoped they would be ok. Sunday morning, I set out for my 12 miler with two bottles of Strawberry Lemonade Nuun (which I had so smartly frozen so they wouldn’t be super warm when I needed them). At about mile four I decided it was time to start hydrating, so I took a sip of nuun. My nuun tasted like conditioner. Straight up chemical. So, needless to say, I finished my 12 mile run without any hydration. I ran a lot slower than I know I could have, but considering it was a training run, and I didn’t have water, I’m pretty proud of running 12 miles in just under 2 hours. Now I just have to remember to pick up some more bottles before Sunday. Jocelyn, don’t forget.

This week I’m keeping my mileage kinda low. I went out for 3 yesterday adn will probably do 3 or 4 today. 2 on Saturday. Stretching, foam rolling, beer drinking carb loading and trying not to get hurt before Sunday. Being as accident prone as I am, that’s going to be a challenge.

Anyone else racing this weekend? Are you feeling ready? Also, what do you use to carry water on your long runs? I love my fuelbelt, but maybe I need something that wont tempt me to re purpose?

Take Out

I haven’t gone grocery shopping in over a week. We are totally out of all food that one could deem “healthy”. We’ve eaten take-out for three meals in a row. I understand for some people that might be a regular occurrence. Not in my house. We don’t “do” takeout. We eat dinner out once a week, if we are lucky. Why? I like to cook. I REALLY like to cook. I like to cook healthy (read: KALE). And I also like to save money. I’m only a year out of grad school and not exactly rollin’. So, I’ve been having a hard time with the whole take out thing. Like, having anxiety attacks when I open my fridge to a growler (of excellent beer mind you), a jar of pickles and what looks like some wilted lettuce. No, I’m not showing you a photo. That’s embarrassing.

I’ve been SO BUSY lately, and I’ve yet to find a few hours to hit to grocery store for some much needed green food. But, a girl has to eat, ya know? For lunch yesterday I picked up some miso soup, and for dinner last night (AFTER A 3 MILE RUN) we opted for a 5 dollar cheese pizza, which we proceeded to eat the entire thing (WHO AM I?!). Today for lunch I was ACHING for something healthy, and remembered a new “fast casual” (I know, I’m so hip) joint opened close by. It’s called LeanWorks and I’m not sure if it’s a chain or not. If you’re local to Boston the store is located in West Roxbury. LeanWorks is committed to providing delicious food that wont break your calorie allotment bank. All of their entrees are fewer than 490 calories. And they’ve got a ton of options.

I ordered a Black Bean Burger Wrap with Avocado and a side of sweet potato fries. I’m TOTALLY full and the food was pretty good. I might not order the fries again because it’s not worth the added calories. They were pretty mushy. I don’t love mushy fries.But I did love the wrap. If you live close by you’ve got to check em out.

French Fries = Ketchup Vehicle. Duh

 

Now I’m finishing up work then studying for my AFAA Personal Trainer Certification this weekend!

I’m really looking forward to the certification and being able to share my knowledge!

Then tonight I’m going to hit the gym for 6X400 on the dreadmill (aka treadmill….) and some lifting. I’m not sure what I’m going to do yet, but as we know, I wont leave home without a plan, so I’ll tell you more about that soon!

Then I guess I should go grocery shopping, huh? Oye.

 

Four Weeks. Let’s Do This.

Hey Blog world. Somehow my primary “Confessions of a Chubby Runner” was hacked. Someone stole my password and is holding it hostage. That’s fine. I’ll start again here at “Just for the Kale of it”, because honestly, I’m not really chubby anymore, and they can have that name if they want it. I dig Kale more than I dig being chubby.

Moving on…. I’m four weeks out from my first half marathon of the year, the Boston Run to Remember, and if you follow me on twitter you’ve probably heard enough about training. But then again, if you didn’t care about my training you would probably unfollow me, not click the links to my running blog and stop stalking me. Since you’re still here I will assume you care to read about my training. Right? Right.

I’ve been in a little bit of a run slump lately, and I’m not sure why. My job is really exciting and I know if I don’t wake up early for my run I’m not going to get on it. I haven’t really been very excited about waking up early, so I haven’t been running as regularly as I’d like. I hope I haven’t kissed my PR goodbye. According to McMillan’s Magical Race predictorI should expect a finish just under 2 hours. That’s what I’m shooting for. My fingers are crossed.

This is what I should do every night to make the transition from bed to street easier. But I don’t. Because I’m a slacker.

I ran yesterday afterwork. It’s about 2.5 miles to my gym so I ran there, lifted (more on that in a second), then ran home. It was a nice run and I enjoyed it. I don’t usually lift in the middle of a 5 mile run so the 2.5 miles home was interesting.

I’m always thinking about how important it is for me to incorporate more lifting in my workout schedule because I know it will make me a stronger runner overall. I am usually good about it for a week or so then I end up only running. I love running. I don’t love lifting as much, ya know? SO, yesterday I went to the gym and this is how my workout went.

The mountain climbers were sort of a “warm up” even though I ran to the gym. Then I did move a followed by move b as one “set” I rested 30 seconds between each set and completed 3 sets before moving on to the next set. Does this make sense? I hope so. It wasn’t a really challenging workout, but I’m definitely feeling it today. You should see me doing those pistol squats. It’s embarrassing. I have no balance.

Usually when I go to the gym to lift I bring a notebook so I can write everything down. I make a lifting plan before I leave home and then during the workout I write what I actually did and how I felt. It’s my way of tracking my progress and holding myself accountable. I also have to make a plan. Without a plan I just dillydally around the gym. I don’t like to carry things when I run, so yesterday I wrote my workout plan down on a piece of paper and snapped a picture with  my iphone:

Don’t mind my awful chicken scratch or the fact that I actually did different workouts then I wrote down. Some meathead was hogging the cable machine I was going to use for chest fly’s. Push ups work too. I also did the workout on Monday, not Friday. I know the days of the week. Stop judging me. I can feel it.

How do you track your progress at the gym? Do you make a plan when you workout or just wing it?