Where's the Beach?

It's Tuesday, and I meant to post this yesterday. But Monday was a Monday all the way around down to having to walk back to work from home because my car battery died (again). At least it was sunny and warm and I didn't have to trudge the 9 blocks in "the boot." Upside right? Since I was officially out of the boot , I took full advantage of the spring-like temperatures we had over the weekend. Saturday started off with a girls only lunch with my sister, mom and niece. It was to celebrate our mom's birthday in January. We of course did a little bit of shopping after eating, and then when they left town, I decided to go for a much-needed walk. It was only 2 miles, and not anything close to running, but it did my mind and body good. Saturday night, Jason and I decided to have fun in the kitchen and made some veggie pot stickers and crispy tofu. Of course we dug in using chopsticks. That's a must right? Other than the giant mess we made in the kitchen, i...

I feel like I've been neglecting my blog lately. It wasn't intentional. It just happened. I didn't feel like I had anything important to say or share other than my marathon journey. I've wanted to write more about my feelings after my first marathon , more than just the race day recap. Honestly, it still seems completely surreal. I have that, "did that just happen" feeling. It's been hard for me to even respond to all of your incredibly kind comments (I will though; I promise). Everyone seems to want to know how my recovery went, when I'm signing up for another, IF I'm signing up for another, what's up next, and so on. I want to talk about all of that, but I also want to talk about the amazing 11 days off I had from work that started Christmas Day. What I learned most about the time off was how much I tend to miss when I let myself get into a rut. I tend to crave normalcy, schedules, timelines, but then when I don't have that, I reali...

Happy Friday! Dare I ask who's ready for the weekend? This week has felt longer than usual and I know that is in a large part due to some rogue dogs causing mayhem at night. But, it's Friday so let's have some fun! Here are my Move.Eat.Live. moments from the week. Move I had some pretty good training runs this week. Tuesday I got in 6 400s then knocked out my leg workout at lunch. Hello tired legs. I got in my upper body splits on Monday and Thursday but will admit that I am being negligent of chest workouts. Wednesday I took it slower and easier as recovery and also because I knew Thursday would entail a speedier run with my crazy running buddy. We enjoyed 8-miles meandering through the 'hood s witching up from our usual route. Eat Because we enjoyed the Tempeh "Fish" Tacos from last week so much, I made them again this week. I have a feeling they'll appear on the menu quite frequently. I didn't have any cherries to make the Cherry S...

Do you ever have those days when it just all hits you - you're tired. Completely done in. You've been logging miles upon miles, increasing your weights during lifting workouts, cross-training, stretching, rolling out those muscle not to mention going to work, cooking, cleaning, etc. Um, that's a lot of hours being busy and active. After yesterday's tough morning run - it was a good run, but a hard one. It was definitely not a long slow day. The speed plus the humidity wiped me out. I knew right after that run that a rest day was in order. I mean not even a single thought of working out has crept into my mind. I don't even want to look at my yoga mat for stretching. Sometimes I forget to embrace my rest days. I forget to look forward to them and enjoy them. Then my body will quickly remind me to take time and relax, enjoy, rest and reap the benefits. So today, I'm enjoying and looking forward to fun, looking forward to rest, enjoying extra sleep. It'...

Do you ever feel like you can be too strict with yourself, your routine, your "healthy" habits? I think that sometimes, in all our efforts to be the healthiest selves we can be, we forget to relax. (And I will admit, ahead of time, that I wrote this post and almost deleted it.) Last week, while in Perdido Key, FL , I let myself relax. Not only relax all day sitting on the beach, but also letting myself not get caught up in being super strict with my eating habits, not stressing out about missing my strength training or even core work for that matter. Let me first say that I try to eat clean, whole foods because it makes me feel better. Plain and simple. I don't log my food, I don't count macros, I just try to avoid processed junk (not to say I don't indulge in pizza or nachos), and eat clean 80% of the time. Ok, moving onward ...  On vacation, I relaxed (as already stated). I ate more Almond M&M's than one person should be allowed to eat, I dug into p...

It's amazing how quickly a vacation flies by isn't it? Last Friday we hit the road and drove halfway to our destination, Perdido Key, FL. Perdido Key is to the east of Gulf Shores. We love the area because it's far quieter than the hustle and touristy bustle of Gulf Shores or Orange Beach. We finished our drive Saturday morning arriving with plenty of time to enjoy the beach and ocean views and our first dinner of the week on the balcony watching the sun set. Sunday morning I woke up around 6:45 ready to run. The only complaint about the area is in regards to running. The sun starts to rise around 5:30, so by 7 it's already fairly high in the sky. It's humid, I mean, it's near the beach after all. The temperatures were hovering around 68, which wouldn't be too bad if there was any shade to be found. There is none. It's just over a mile on the main, very busy road to get to a neighborhood. The most dreaded parts of my run are on that main thoroug...

Hope everyone had a great weekend. Many of you are lucky enough to be off work today. No bragging please. It was another good weekend. Mostly low-key. Saturday morning I got in a crazy run with Amy. I wasn't sure how far I could go because of my knee. When I've run, I keep it uncovered and that sort of helps ease any pain. Anything that touches it hurts. And it might sound crazy to get out and run after that fall, but it does actually help to loosen my knee up. It gets really stiff and achy fast. It's still a little swollen, but the road rashes are really the worst part. And running doesn't seem to aggravate it any more. So... I met up with Amy at her mile 3. We were enjoying a really good run. It was about 65 degrees, with a cool-ish breeze. Heading east the skies were gorgeous. We stopped at one point to get a picture. To the west, however, the skies were growing dark and ominous. I had looked at the radar before the run, and was sure we had about 2 hours bef...

I thought I'd do a super simple, perhaps fun post of some pictures so far from the week. Basically, my views thus far. I can't say we've been doing anything super exciting. But, that's exactly the point of this vacation. We pretty much spend the entire day sitting down on the beach with our toes in the sand. Jason has been doing a little fishing. I've been doing a lot of reading. We pack a cooler with lunch and snacks and take that down with us. So lunches are on the beach. Snacks are on the beach. Drinks? Yep, on the beach. I've yet to put on make up or real clothes. And I'm in heaven. It's fun to do people watching from our balcony. We often make up scenarios for people, even make up their conversations. Wine always tastes better with the ocean in the background. Nothing more relaxing than the sound of the waves crashing. Birds are fun to watch. My toenails match my chair. One happy camper. Very interesting find ...

Long Run & Pizza Saturday morning I had wanted to really sleep in. I made it to about 8 am because Maddie was barking like a crazy nut downstairs. It was really cold out, so I decided to procrastinate on my run. I just kind of piddled around the house wasting time. Jason and I finally set out for our long run around 11:15. It was sunny, but pretty windy and in the upper 40's. I of course ended up over dressing. I never seem to learn. We ended up getting in 7 miles together then I made a stop at the house to get more water, drop off my gloves, take a gel then headed back out to finish out another 3.25 miles. I almost went for 11 but stopped at 10.25. My body thanked me. I stretched out for a while before cleaning up and donning my compression socks. Then we headed out for lunch. We were both starving and feeling lazy about cooking or even re-heating leftovers. We ended up at a yummy pizza joint we love called Pizza Cafe. I'll admit that we rarely go there unless it'...

Running & Lounging  It's been a fairly low-key weekend for us. It's almost too hot to even be in the pool to be honest. When the temps are in the triple digits, it's really hard to want to do much of anything other than sit inside with the AC on and fans blowing. Saturday morning, I got up to get in a 4.5 mile run. It was 80 degrees already at 7:15. There was no luxury of sitting around, enjoying breakfast. If I wanted to run, I had to get moving. I had planned to go fairly slow. But ended  up averaging a 9:11 pace. I told Jason I must have been trying to run from the heat. After the run, I decided to run a few errands while Jason went cycling with a friend. Afterwards, our friends came by for some much-needed pool time. I actually ended up having to add in extra water to try to cool the pool down. 104 in the shade Frozen strawberry daiquiris were a nice, cold treat. Jason and I discovered that all you have to do is blend strawberries with ice and vanilla r...

One Busy Saturday It's been another great weekend. I can't believe it's almost over. How does that happen so quickly? Yesterday was a lot of fun, but really really busy. We literally hit the ground running at 7:15 am and didn't stop until we got home at 8:30 that evening. We got up and set out for a run early, but not painfully early for a Saturday. The plan was to do 4-4.5 fairly easy miles. What happened was the first mile was a 9:30 and the second one was 8:50. Um, clearly not the easy run I was going for. We sort of slowed it down a little, but the average still ended up being around a 9:10 pace. It sort of set the tone for the day I suppose - go go go. After the run we quickly cleaned up, packed up and headed out the door. We did have to make a stop at Dempsey's Bakery for Jason's mom. She can't have gluten, and really loves their bread. Since we were going to be making a stop by their house, Jason wanted to get some bread for her. The first st...

Today started off pretty much the same way as it has been starting since on vacation. I didn't really need to try to run again today. I put in 11.5 miles in two days and I know that's pushing it with my injuries. So, the plan was to just do the elliptical for a bit and watch a bit of Food Network before Jason got up. But, the elliptical is really basic (aka crappy) so I lasted about 30 minutes before moving to the treadmill. Normally I loathe the treadmill, but if I can watch something on TV that I want to watch, it makes it so much easier to handle. Yes, I just said I should not have been out running. So I did keep it scaled back. I only did 2.5 miles on the treadmill. And actually, I think it was maybe a good thing. It was a softer surface than the hard pavement I've been pounding. So for that reason, running inside wasn't such a bad idea. And it wasn't long. No intervals, no hills, nothing crazy. After the run, we packed up the cooler with lunch, lots of wa...

Saturday Recap Yesterday Jason and I hit the gym. In lieu of  long run, I went with a cardio-only gym day. I started with 25 minutes on the elliptical then moved on to another tabata style workout. I chose 8 exercises that included kettlebells. Each exercise is done for 20 seconds with 10 seconds rest then 1 minute rest after each circuit. I repeated 5 times for a 25-minute session. Alternating side squats (body weight) Single arm kettlebell swings Kettlebell squats with overhead press Side shuffles Kettlebell swing with squat Kettlebell squat with pull Walking lunges (holding kettlebell in both hands) Planks This was a really great workout that flew by. I think that's the beauty of HIIT workouts. After the gym, we hit the grocery store. That's about where our productivity ended for the day. Of course, if you count having fun with friends as being productive, then we were all over that one. We ended up meeting our friends out for a drink. The guys played darts...

Indoor Run What happened to spring? Today was 45, gray, and drizzly out. Not a motivating kind of Saturday I must say. I posted on Twitter and Facebook that this crappy weather is cramping my running style. I mean, doesn't the weather know I was planning to run 10 miles today? Shockingly, I did manage to convince Jason to actually go up to the gym with me today. Funny thing, on Friday the gym had left a message for Jason saying they'd noticed it had been a while since he'd been and to call if there was anything they could do to help motivate him to come in ;-) Anyway, today I had really hoped to get in a long run, but the weather was not cooperating one bit. I ended up hitting the treadmill instead. I did 2 miles, then I did 3 x (1:00, 1:30) athletic intervals. This put me at 3.8 miles so I did another 1.2 to round it out to 5 solid miles. I hopped on the elliptical for another 12 minutes for an hour of cardio. Jason spent some time on a spin bike then ran. He decide...