run
March 5k – Ann Arbor
Let me start by sending a big thank you to my friend, Angie, for inviting me to invade visit her home this weekend! She was a wonderful host, cook and chaffeur. I am in love with Ann Arbor now and seriously jealous of all the health food and fitness stores and walking paths and bike routes. Oh my gosh, heaven.
We went to the People’s Food Co-Op, Trader Joe’s, Plum’s Market and both Whole Foods Markets (twice to one of them!). If you live near a Whole Foods, seriously, GO. Go now. It’s AWESOME. Everything is colorful, beautiful and organized. It’s OCD, whole food, organic paradise.
I didn’t get any pictures of the fruits, but they were perfect too. I only got a few pictures at Whole Foods.
Since it was Saturday, all of the stores were sampling products. I tried some new things, pretty proud, especially since they were seafood items which I don’t eat all all. Last week, we tried Ocean Perch fillets and I was a little repulsed. My hesitation was a little high. However, I have been wanting to try Salmon for a while. It looks more like MEAT than the flaky white fish. I tried a Salmon Spread, Smoked Salmon and Scallops. YUM! Smoked Salmon is UNBELIEVABLE, but so expensive. (My next post will be about the my grocery purchases, promise!)
Maybe my rose colored glasses were on too, but it seemed like everyone who worked there had an appreciation for the food. All the demonstrators especially were super friendly and really into what they were doing.
Saturday evening, we reconnected with another high school friend, Dillon, and did some window shopping before dinner.
Then, we ate at a vegetarian restaurant. I thought eating there would be fairly easy. Vegetables, right? Wrong. Luckily, I looked up the menu earlier in the week and decided what I was going to order or I would have been overwhelmed with the non-paleo ingredients: cheese, beans and breads. I’m going to go ahead and say vegetarian places are harder to eat at than regular if you are going paleo. It was even MY idea to eat at a vegetarian place.
Since I never go to Ann Arbor and don’t get to experience these places, I did deviate from completely eating paleo. I won’t lie. However, I didn’t go wild (like when I really really wanted the fresh fired pizza at Whole Foods).
Sunday morning was race day. The weather was beautiful and the predicted rain held off all day. I think the temperature started in the 40s and topped out at 61°. Glorious.
We picked up my race packet on Saturday to avoid the early morning frenzy. It was nice being able to roll in about 20-25 minutes before the race.
The streets were full of runners, over 2000 people attended.
This race was the first time (other than obstacle races) that I didn’t run with my phone for music. I have to get used to not having that luxury because I can’t have it during my triathlons. Unintentionally, I forgot my heart rate monitor, so I was unable to check my pace on the watch either. I was running “blind,” but the route was challenging (lots of hills and turns) and there were tons of people. Basically, lots of things to distract me instead of needing music.
My last run was 33:35 and the goal for this race was under 33 minutes. Well, we thought my time ended up being almost exactly the same as the last when we checked out the race clock at the end. However, there were so many people, I didn’t cross the start line until a little later than the gun start, so I’m going by the chip time from when I crossed the start and finish. That time was 33:14! Not quite my goal, BUT this course was full of hills whereas the last was completely flat. I’ll take it! And I have another run at the end of the month, so another chance in March to get under 33 minutes. As long as I keep improving and moving forward, I’m definitely happy.
Tomorrow or maybe this evening, I will get my grocery list and pictures of my haul from this weekend posted and finally figure out how much I spent. Pretty sure I went over $100, but I went somewhere I never go and stocked up on some things too. I’ll get to see what I need to work on though.
Anyone else have a race this weekend or soon? What are your goals?
February 5k
Saturday was my 5k for the month of February. If you didn’t already know, I’m doing one community 5k a month for all of 2013 in addition to my obstacle courses and triathlons.
In January, my friend from high school and soccer teammate, Crystal, asked when my next race was, thinking I would say sometime in the spring. When I said it was in January, she was like, okay, I’m in! After that race, she said she wanted to join me for the next, so now, I think it might be our thing. 🙂
My husband had the day off so he came with us, camera in tow.
We were nervous about having to run on slush or packed snow. Road conditions varied a lot on our drive to the run, so we didn’t know what to except. Luckily, the course was completely clear and salted. Much appreciated by myself, as I have a huge fear of slipping and falling on my face on ice.
There was a gentle snow fall the whole race, which was very pretty. We lucked out and it wasn’t windy. The occasional breeze blew snow from the trees and houses, but it was a pleasant, flat course and fairly nice day despite being about 20°. Crystal and I both felt like our lungs were icing over.
I ended with my personal best time of 33:35. I’m really happy with that given that it was the coldest temperature in which I’ve ever ran. This was my 7th 5k since August. My slowest time was 37:00. I’m just going to keep setting small goals. Next month, I’d like to be under 33 minutes. I would like to be solidly under 30 minutes by the end of 2013. That would be amazing.
After the run, I posted this picture on my Facebook.
This is the most comfortable and at ease I have ever felt in my own body. I love it. I felt that I needed to share that revelation. I still have a lot of work to do, but I’m not focusing on how much I weigh anymore. The number doesn’t matter. I’m gaining muscle, shedding inches, dropping pant sizes… I thought that I had to get to a certain number before I finally felt happy with myself. Once I got there, I figured I would stop caring as long as I was getting fit and staying healthy.
I may still weigh 195, instead of 165, but I’m happy (and it’s WAY better than 240). I know that it is attainable now and I’ll get there. Slow and steady.
Boot Camp Class 1 & Fifth 5k
Four days later, and I’m still feeling the aftermath of Boot Camp. I actually had to hold the toilet seat to lower myself for a couple of days because my leg and butt muscles were so sore.
Despite the pain, I am so happy I signed up for this class. Pain just means I’m working those muscles more than I have been! The class has things I’ve done in p90x and Insanity. It was nice to have some familiar moves, so I didn’t feel completely out of my element.
Boot camp is every Thursday evening. I bring a set of 5 lb. hand weights, a yoga mat and a bottle of water. And after my first class, I’ll be adding a hand towel to the list. Literally, had sweat pouring down my face. Bananas!
The class has about 25 people. We start with some warm ups, running, high knees, butt kicks, grapevines… then we moved into a circuit style workout. There was something for every body part: lots of squats (so my quads were on fire), push ups, tricep push-ups, ab crunches, leg lifts, etc. I did struggle with some of it, but I still think it went very well for the first class.
Fast forward to Sunday morning for what might be my last 5k of the year. I was STILL sore and stiff from boot camp. Plus, it was down-pouring on the way to Portland, so I was like, “Awesome. This is going to be the best run ever.”
However, the rain departed just in time for the run, plus it wasn’t freezing like the one last week. I thought my time would be my slowest ever. It ended up being my third fastest of all fives runs, so really right in the middle.
On another note, I bought a used treadmill on Friday, so now I’m ready to run for the winter. More on that later.
Warrior Dash & Battlescars
As mentioned, I ran the Xtreme Muck Ruck on September 8th. The following week was the Warrior Dash in Walker, MI. A while back, there was a Groupon for it and I didn’t snag it fast enough before it sold out. I figured it isn’t meant to be. Then after the Muck Ruck, I joined the Warrior Dash Facebook page where I found a woman who couldn’t use her registration. For a discounted price, she transferred the registration to my name, I paid her via Paypal and voila! I was registered for the 3:30 wave of the Warrior Dash.
I went solo, because Scott had to work and everyone else was sick or had plans who I asked. Here I am getting ready…
This race was 3.31 miles. I finished in 1:06:59. Not a terrible time, especially since I had to wait in line on a few of the obstacles. I was in the bottom half of finishers but I don’t run to win. I run for the fun of it and to beat my own personal goals.
The obstacles were similar to the previous race, like crawling under barbed wire through mud. The hardest was climbing over wide floating buoys in water too deep to touch the bottom. I swallowed a good amount of nasty lake water and my upper body strength is poor.
There were a few pictures of me in the race photos, and here is the best one where I had just gone through the mud under barbed wire.
I asked another participant to take a picture for me after the race…
The drive home literally stunk. I smelled like stinky lake water. The showers provided at the Dash didn’t really get me very clean. I just wrapped myself in a towel on the way home and took my clothes off in the shower.
Doing mud runs on two consecutive weekends tore up my body. I have bruises all over my arms, thighs and calves. I only took a couple of pictures.
I definitely recommend obstacle/mud races if you want to break up the monotony of plain old running. The obstacles make it super fun and the sense of accomplishment when you reach the finish line is stellar. I’m so impressed by what my body can do when I decide to DO something. It’s thrilling!
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