Here Comes the Bride - in hiking shoes

Today was a special day because my dear friends, Jeanne and Brian, renewed their vows. They've been married for 13 years and we all hiked up to Rainbow Falls, Jones Gap, Marietta, SC. Actually, some of their close friends (including us) hiked up to the falls around 9 am (its an hour hike) and they came after. Jeanne came walking up to the falls and we all yelled "SURPRISE!!!!". She started crying and Brian was so excited that he pulled off the surprise.

The hike was a total of 2.1 miles, i think it has an elevation change of 1100 ft. It was a difficulty 7!! Which for me was great, just to get in a different kind of workout but also because my 2 stepdaughters, Neely & Jesse, did it too. They did great. They never complained at all!! It took us about an hour and 10 minutes to get to the top.

Here are some pics from the day:

This was at the bottom (James, Jesse & Neely)

so pretty!

Me, Neely & Jesse

We're getting close to the top.. no this isn't it

We still have a ways to go...

and we're here!!

part of the falls from the top

the ceremony

Only time you'll see Brian being nice (j/k :) )

yucky!

It was a great day and I was happy to see my friends so in love, even after 13 years!! 

p.s. I was 17 when they got married!

Do you like to hike?

What are some cool mountains/waterfalls in your area?

Buongiorno!!

"Long Run" - my plan today was to run for 45 minutes.
4.8 miles 53 minutes
bleh and I don't want to even talk about it

__________________________________________________________________________________


I'm sitting here watching House Hunters International and they are looking for places in Italy. Anyone who sees me on a daily basis, hello Jane Graybeal and Amy Brookshire, you know that I am obsessed with Italy right now.

I got a "learn Italian" app for my iphone and so far, I've learned how to count to 20, I've learned hello and goodbye, and that's it. I also got a gadget on my iGoogle page, an Italian word of the day... today was allievo (student). I think what I like the most about it right now is way Italian is spoken. 

My husband and I took a mediterranean cruise for our honeymoon and we visited Milan, Genoa and Rome. That's where I first fell in love. 

I love the people - they love life and aren't as concerned american desires... the love fashion and food and each other and LEISURE TIME
I love the country - it's beautiful:

Milan (source)

Venice (source)

Naples (source)

Rome (source)

I love the fashion:

source

source

source

So...

buonasera!!!

What's one of your fav places? 

Thanks Lisa!!

Thank you to Challenge Accepted for this nomination!!! So exciting!!!

I'm so excited to have found some awesome peeps in the blogging community!!!


The rules:

• Thank and link to the blogger who nominated you

• Share seven things about yourself

• Award your favorite bloggers and tell them you have done it

7 Things about me:
1) I'm trying very hard to be green in every way

2) I obviously love running

3) I really want to be a supportive voice to the weight loss community in a world that seems to be focused on skinny vs healthy

4) I also love fashion, although the pics I show don't necessarily show it!

5) Even though I don't discuss this as much, I'm really good at power lifting and my 1 rep max deadlift at one point was 265 lbs!

6) I don't drink

7) I am trying to become more "aware" and enlightened through my yoga practice


Some of my fav blogs that I'd like to nominate are:
http://www.inthepinkandgreen.blogspot.com/
http://www.aliontherunblog.com/
http://www.fitfoodiefinds.com/
www.jgiwc.com/
http://runninglizard.wordpress.com/
http://www.roadagainmegan.com/

Help, please

Ok, I'm going to stray from my typical blog topic to ask for help. I am trying to grow my hair out. I cut it very short just because I wanted to try it and while most people love it, I'd like to grow it out.

Fixed, it looks like this:

I'm the dark headed one :)

My problem is that when I run and it's not fixed, it looks like this:

bleh!!!

So I'm wanting to grow it back out. I just don't know what hairstyle to go for. Can y'all recommend anyone??

I have think, curly hair..

GO

Thursday Random Day

Tuesday night, I woke up around 1 am and had some major sickness going on. I thought I had food poisoning, and I know it had something to do with what I ate... But it only lasted for like, 20 minutes and it was over. THANK GOODNESS

The whole time I kept thinking, I HAVE to help Charlie out with the wednesday morning interval group... I can NOT miss my first day, so suck it up sicky, food poisoning or not, you're running at 5:30 am, wednesday morning. And that's what I did.

Results: some of the best speed work I've done in a while and it felt really good.. weird.

The workout:

warm up lap: 10 minutes .95 miles

quarter mile repeats:
Lap 1: 2:04 pace: 8:24
rest: 58 seconds
Lap 2: 1:56 pace: 7:56
rest: 1:22
Lap 3: 1:57 pace: 7:54
rest: 2:10
Lap 4: 1:55 pace: 7:46
rest: 2:53

1 half mile interval
4:12 pace: 8:35

45 strides:
*8:16 pace
*7:33 pace


I love speed work. I just can't seem to translate my faster workouts to a faster mile-3 mile pace

Yums!!

I took a pic of the Caprese I made for dinner last night because I thought it was so delish and it looked good!!

It's so simple... the only difference is I used a balsamic glaze as opposed to a vinegar because i like the heaviness with the mozzerella!

Race Calenders suck....

One of the biggest issues I have is trying to find races in other areas. I'm not a local race kind of gal, haha. I like two pick 1 or 2 big races a year and train for them. And I like for those races to be out of town. My major races have been a half marathon trail run in Ft Yargo (GA), the Rock'n'Roll Country Music Half in Nashville and the Rock'n'Roll half in New Orleans. I have 2 other big races scheduled, the RnR Full in Savannah and the RnR full in New Orleans 2012.

All that being said, the reason I am writing about this today is because people ask me all the time about races and 5ks they can do. I never know where to look and while there are a lot of race calenders online, they're not my fav. So... my friend started a website that is kind of like facebook for runners. In fact, it links in with facebook.

Race Bucket

It's cool because I can see the races that my friends are doing. It's in the early stages right now, so people are continuously adding races. I'm blogging about it so people across the US can join and start adding races in their community. Once it's built up, it'll be a great way to learn about new races, coordinate races with friends, etc etc etc.

Visit this site and start adding races... NOW!

Yes Sir, Sargent, Sir

Day 1 of my HUGE training plan. The workout was run 4 sets of 6 minute intervals, RPE (i don't know what that stands for but I know what it means) 7 out of 10. I figured in my mind that I should be running at a 9:30 pace.

Before I start going into the workout, here's what is funny about me. I make a strict plan before I go out and run because if I allow there to be any room for question, I might talk myself out of doing something. So, this time, I decided to run to the left and ALWAYS follow the curb, to the left, no matter where it takes. And that's what I did. I. DID. NOT. STRAY. FROM. THE. PLAN.

Lap 1: (warm up lap) walk 5 minutes/jog 5 minutes 10:03, .82 miles
Lap 2: (1st interval set - 6 minute run) .65 miles 9:17/mi pace
Lap 3: (rest portion of first interval set) .26 miles 19:24 pace
*I swear I wasn't walking this slow, I stopped and took some pics and I seemed to do this a lot so I don't know what I was doing :)
Lap 4: (2nd interval) .63 miles 9:30/mi pace
Lap 5: 5 mintes .28 miles 17:33 pace
Lap 6: (3rd) .64 miles 9:21 pace
Lap 7: 5 min .22 23:05 pace
*so I think I like, stretched my calves, blew a snot rocket, I don't know what I was doing
Lap 8: .60 10:00 pace
*this was my last interval and I had a HUGE hill (thornblade... bleh...) I'll explain below
Lap 9: 5 min .28 17:53 pace
cool down lap: 3 min, .23 miles 13:00 pace

The last interval, I went into panic crazy running mode which I think looks like of likes this:

My breathing was out of control, I couldn't tighten my abs, it was just wild. So I stopped and started again, focusing on my form. My intention for this workout was to keep abs tight and keep hips tipped forward so I can prevent hip/back injury.

I like doing temp/speed work on regular terrain because honestly, when is a race ever like a track? Never. So it helps for me to learn how to push it on hills and make up for lost time on downhills. And as I was saying, Thornblade is HILLY... like, HILLY, like seriously, HILLY.

But it's beautiful, it's a rich neighborhood, so look at the pics I took.

pretty house in one of my culdesacs I visited... must follow left curb

another one. I hope they weren't wondering why this crazy girl was taking pics of their house

the little doggy that visited me

an example of the hills, although it doesn't look as treacherous here as it does in person. Especially when this is all there is... up and down and up and down

I'm totally loving the Irises this spring.. may be my new fav flower

Is it hilly in your area?

Do you do any tempo work?

What's your fav spring flower? 



My Last Day of Willy Nilly

As many of you know from my blog, when I don't have a race to train for, my training is a whole lot of weird, whatever I feel like, not super consistent blah. This week, I did two crossfit workouts, 2 runs, 1 yoga class and a nike training club workout. It went like this:

Monday: 3.1 miles in 32:36 on a super hilly course
Tuesday: Nike Training Club - essentially 30 minutes of circuit training
Wednesday: Morning intervals with my Stoix running group, I also did a shoulder press workout at lunch
Thursday: rest
Friday: Crossfit - Fight Gone Bad style workout
Saturday: rest
Sunday: ?? I may try to get a little easy, not timed, don't care about distance run

My next big race is going to be the Rock'n'Roll Savannah on November 5th. I'm sure there will be others in between but that's the main goal. I have a 20 week training plan courtesy of Holly Di Giovine and that starts June 19th. Until then, I'd like to focus on getting a strong 6 mile base. I can do that now, but I'm hoping that by training for the next 7 weeks, I can get a little faster so the longer runs will be a little easier and more comfortable.

I've experimented with a couple of training plans but this is the type I continuously go back to and the one I'm sticking with from now on.

Speedwork: This is comprised of repeated intervals that range anywhere from 30 seconds sprints to 120 second sprints. Sometimes, they're up a hill, sometimes, they're downhill, sometimes they're flat. BUT, they is always a starting point that I return to and each attempt, I try to go further. That way, I'm building up intensity with each interval. My output is going to be around 85% or an 8-9 on a scale of 1-10

Temp work: This is very similar to above but the time intervals are between 2-8 minute so my output is going to be less. It will probably be 65-75% or a 6-7 on a scale of 1-10. I STILL use the same starting point so that I can build intensity by increasing distance each time. I also force myself to have a timed recovery which will help me build my cardiovascular strength and recovery time.

Long Run: Self Explanatory - this is my long run. Each week, I build upon distance, taper, then build again. That's why I like 20 weeks as opposed to 12-15 because it gives me time to reduce mileage and build up again. It makes my base stronger.

I obviously didn't come up with this on my own, this is the training plan Holly Di Giovine has given me and it made me PR by 9 minutes in my 3rd half. This will be my first full, so I'm not sure what to expect. I'm an average to slow runner that teeters around a 10 minute mile. As my distance increase, my time slows so my goal for this full is to finish under 5 hours. Ideally, I'd like to be around 4:30-4:40 so we'll see.

Lastly, I'm going to be trying to figure out how I want to attack the race. For my half, I ran 4 minutes, walked 1 minute and finished in 2:17:07. I'm not sure if I should do that for the full or if I should try some other things. One thing I was thinking about doing was running an 8/2 for the first 10 miles, a 4/1 the second 10 miles and then see how I feel the last 10k. So, I'm going to start my training doing that and adjust as my distance increase. If I can use this 7 weeks to get a strong 6-7 mile base, that will help. I did my last 10k in 60 minutes. It was kind of an easy course, only 1 uphill, but training in the foothills of SC will prepare me for any terrain :)

So... today, I can do whatever I want because starting tomorrow... I. AM. ON. A. REGIMENTED. SCHEDULE.

How do you train for races?
Have you done a full?
Any advice :)??