high-five sun! awesome job!

Perfect weather for taking my long run outside.  The sun was shining, the birds were chirping and I was happy.

Oh, excuse me, I mean runS.

Yup, I totally made that word plural.

I ended up doing my 5 miles on Saturday, and then doing it again on Sunday.

Because I’m cool like that.

I’m happy to say that they both went great!

I ran to the track, around the track a few times, and then back home.

My neighborhood is pretty hilly, so I got to work on those little devils a little bit which was good.

On Saturday, I ran them in 1 hour, 1 minute and 30 seconds.

I was super happy with this – a 12 minute mile pace with some hills is good for me!

When I get a little bummed about how slow I am right now, I like to remind myself:

When I ran it again today, I shaved 2 minutes off and finished in 59 minutes, 30 seconds.

Woo!

My leggies are feeling  pretty sore now, but I’m ok with that.  Tomorrow is my rest day.

I’m sure you’re wondering what “moleskinny” is.

Welp, if you were to google that word you would get a bunch of pictures of day planners….what?

In actuality, I’m talking about this:

I googled the problem I was having with the insides of my feet rubbing when I ran, and someone suggested Moleskin.

On Saturday, I put some on and I was good until mile 3, when they apparently moved (I guess because I was sweating a lot).

this gal is weirdly excited about putting on deoderant

I was only slightly uncomfortable for the next two miles, but when I got home and took off my shoes and socks I noticed that I now had nice blisters where the moleskin was.

So today, I applied the moleskin and also used athletic tape to secure it to my feet.  This worked a lot better.  I’m hoping this will be my permanent solution.

Sure, it’s going to be a pain to do this every time I run.

There is another alternative that was suggested, which was tying my shoes tighter.

I felt the need to put a picture of a little kid tying their shoes because...well...I still tie my shoes like a child. Bunny Ears forever baby. (Shut up, husband)

Unfortunately, I recently stopped tying my shoes so tight because it was making my middle toes go numb (which is extremely uncomfortable).

Oh, me.

Can’t I just be normal?

Holla.

Fuck it – I’ll just keep taping my feet.

Remember me?

It’s been almost two months since I’ve blogged.  The holidays were nuts (as expected), and on top of that I was sick for a good three weeks.

You’re probably thinking that the title of this post is referring to the lack of blogging.

Wrong.

Remember how I said that a co-worker and I signed up for the NYC Half Marathon?

Well, we got in.

Don’t get me wrong, I am so excited and grateful that we were chosen (participants are chosen by lottery).

The problem is that I was sick for a few weeks and had not been keeping up with my running.

And now I have two months to go from being able to run 4 miles, to being able to run 13.1 miles.

Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeek!

While researching the NYC Half, we also found out that around 5 miles of the run is through Central Park, and is extremely hilly.

Double Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeek!

Needless to say, I will need to stick to a pretty strict training schedule if I’m going to make the 3-hour time limit.

Hopefully they won’t drive by and scoop me up before I’m able to finish.

And if I do get picked up, I pray the vehicle doesn’t look like this:

Creeptastic.

Anyway – here is this week’s schedule:

W – 3 miles

H – 3 miles

F – 3 miles

S – 5 miles

After freaking out about the hills and googling our faces off, we found a treadmill hill workout.  I made the following my 3-miler yesterday:

	Hills Brooooooo
Time	Speed	Incline
0:00-5:00	5	1
5:00-8:00	6.5	1
8:00-13:00	6	3
13:00-15:00	6.5	1
15:00-18:00	6	4
18:00-20:00	6.5	1
20:00-23:00	6	5
23:00-25:00	6.5	1
25:00-28:00	6	3
28:00-30:00	6.5	1
30:00-33:00	6	5
33:00-38:00	5	1

Yes, that says “Hills Broooooo”.

I could tell by looking at this that it would be incredibly difficult, so I decided going in that I would bump a lot of the speeds down to 5′s and 5.5′s.

(Sidenote: can you “bump” a speed down?  Or should I be using a different word there?  Ehhh, whatever.)

Even doing this, however, I found myself having to walk a bunch of times.

Holy balls.

PS I find it a little disappointing that I googled “balls” and not one actual pair of male balls came up in the first few pages.

Not that I really wanted to see a pair of balls.

Balls are gross.

I’m just surprised at the lack of perverted people out there.

The husband suggested I photoshop a pair of balls with a halo over them (for my holy balls comment).

It’s a great idea.

I’m lazy.

Visualize it yourself.

OK enough ball talk.  Back to hill talk.

I’ve decided to incorporate hill intervals into two of my four runs each week leading up to the half.  I really hope this helps!

It better help.

Or I’m screwed.

The title of this photo was “Mario Screwed”.  Haaaaa.

Welp, I’m going to go google something else now.

I just came back from my 3 mile run today, and the insides of my feet are killing me.

This was supposed to be my nice easy run, and instead it was torturous, and I ended up walking for a full mile.

It hurt so much I honestly didn’t even want to walk.  I just wanted to stop.

I swear one day soon I’ll be able to run without any ailments.

I went to the gym after work yesterday expecting to do my strength training.

Unfortunately, the gym had other plans.

There are 5 benches in the weight training area at my gym.

Yes, I go to my local Planet Fitness.

There were 15 people (I counted) in the weight training area when I got to the gym yesterday evening.

Clearly no room for me to lift things up and put them down.

They were, for the most part, a group of high school boys – chatting with each other the whole time, therefore making their total workout time even looonger.

Awesome.

I didn’t  want to waste my trip, so I hopped on the treadmill and banged out the 2.5 miler that was supposed to be for tonight.

Only I did not have my ipod, so the run seemed a wee bit more painful and tiring and slow.

Even so, I finished the 2.5 miles at 5.5MPH (11 min/miles), and sped up at the end as per the usual.

My plannnnn was to get up this morning and do my weight training.

Only I suck at getting up early.

**Please note that I originally started writing the excuses for not getting up, and then just decided to roll with me sucking instead.

Sooooo I’m not quite sure what I’m going to do today.  Haven’t quite figured it out yet.

I’ll keep you posted.

In the meantime, let’s read about what I had for dinner last night!

Last night, I made this Three Cheese Chicken Penne Pasta Bake recipe.

I didn’t have/want everything on the ingredients list, so I changed it up a little and left some things out.

Anything involving cheese and pasta, and I am I-N.

Needless to say, it was obviously delish.

Add this one to the ole recipe box.

I really like the word “ole” today, huh?

Here is my rendition:

Three Cheese Chicken Penne Pasta Bake

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cups penne pasta
• 1 pound boneless skinless chicken breasts, cut into bit-sized pieces
• 1 teaspoon dried basil leaves
• 1/2 cup pasta sauce
• 1 2/3 cups diced tomatoes, drained
• 1 cup mozzarella cheese
• grated Parmesan cheese
• grated Romano cheese

Heat oven to 375 degrees.  Cook pasta as directed on the package.

Meanwhile, heat a large nonstick skillet sprayed with cooking spray on medium-high heat.  Add chicken and basil; cook 3 minutes or until chicken is no longer pink, stirring frequently.

Add pasta sauce and tomatoes; bring to a boil.  Reduce heat to low; simmer 3 minutes or until chicken is cooked through.

Drain pasta; return to same saucepan.  Add chicken mixture; mix lightly.  Stir in half of the mozzarella cheese.  Spoon into 8-inch square baking dish.

Bake 20 minutes or until heated through.  Sprinkle with remaining mozzarella cheese, Parmesan cheese and Romano cheese.  Bake 3 minutes or until cheese in melted.

Enjoy your day!

Yeah, we all have one.

Oh, well.

Little update on my 10K progress.

What I accomplished last week:

• Monday – 3 miles (treadmill – 5.2MPH and a little faster at the end) – Done
• Tuesday - 2.5 miles  (outside with work friend at a track – averaged a little less than 11-minute miles) – Done
• Thursday – 2 miles (treadmill – finished in 20:30 – around a 10:15 mile – woo!) – Done
• Saturday- 3.5 miles (treadmill – 5.5MPH and a little faster at the end) – Done

My last two runs felt nice and strong!

My only issue is that as the distances are getting a little longer I am getting kind of bored.

Maybe I’ll download some podcasts to listen to whilst I run.

Also, if you noticed, there was no strength training or cross training in there.

Whoops.

I’m going to try to stick those in this week.

Here is what my schedule is looking like this week:

• Monday - strength training
• Tuesday - 2.5 miles
• Wednesday - Zumba
• Thursday - 2 miles + strength training
• Friday - rest
• Saturday - 4 miles

I better not flake out on these strength training sessions.

And now to lift your Monday spirits, an oldy but goody:

As of the end of October, I am officially done with the Couch to 5K program.

You’ve served me well, old friend.

But I’m on to bigger and better things now.

What the ducks said.

I need to go further than 3 miles.

Especially if I’m planning on signing up for the NYC Half in March.

That’s right…a friend from work and I have decided we are going to shoot for the NYC Half in about 5 months.

A.  I hope we get in.

B.  I hope I can run that far.

I mean, I know I have 5 months, but I’m coming fresh off of a 5K program.

So last week I started a 10K program.

I am going to go straight from that into a Half Marathon schedule.

(Both Hal Higdeon – click on the links above to view them on his website)

Last week, I did:

• 2.5 miles on Tuesday
• 2.5 miles (the 4K I ran) on Saturday

I was supposed to do 3 miles on Sunday, but I was tired, and decided to do it the following day.

This week’s plan is:

• 3 miles on Monday (treadmill – 5.2MPH and a little faster at the end) – Done
• 2.5 miles on Tuesday (outside with said work friend at a track – averaged a little less than 11-minute miles..so proud!) – Done
• 2 miles on Thursday
• 3.5 miles on Sat or Sunday

I’m excited to be starting this new program and to be running longer distances.

But I am also nervous that my body won’t be able to do it.

Very nervous, actually.

Cross your fingers for me!

Why did Betty White come up when I googled “cross your fingers”?