Marathon Training Update

This week, I have run about 7 miles total.

Wednesday morning - 10 sets of 2 minute repeats with a 1 minute recovery. I was leading the Go Run and since everyone is a different pace, I found a loop that was about .37 miles. We just looped it as we did our 10 sets. We ended covering about 4 miles when you included the warm up mile and cool down half mile.

*The weather was much cooler, temp being in the 60's, so it felt nice to run. I really enjoyed it and I forgot my Garmin which for once, was kind of nice, because I wasn't worried about my pace. I just made sure that I was running hard.

This morning - mom and I ran together. We did a warm up mile. Then I had tummy issues. This is the 3rd morning I've gotten up and been ready to run and during the warm up mile, needed to, for lack of a better word, poop. So, we went back to my house and finished our training there. Today called for a ladder so we did our warm up mile, ran 30/60/90/120/90/60/30. Our run time = our rest time so we again, just did a loop. We finished with a cool down mile for a total mileage of about 3.5.


*One thing I've been nervous about is that my total weekly mileage isn't super high. It's usually 15-20 miles. But I'm just going to trust Holly on this and keep focused on what it says to do. I am supposed to run 150 minutes this weekend which I plan to do on Sunday. It's going to be hot but because of the wedding, it is what it is. I'm going to have to run in the afternoon. period.


I plan on loading up my camelback with water and food, heading on the swamp rabbit trail and just pounding the pavement. My run/walk ratio will be 3/1 because I've found i keep the same pace as my 4/1 but can go longer by reducing the run time by a minute. This will be my first run over 13.1 miles. It will be interesting.

Trip to Africa... Sezione Due

I don't know why I did that in Italian other than I just love the language :)

So, I think I've narrowed it down to where I what I want to do for my trip to Africa. I felt like I kept getting all of these signs for Kenya. It was always Kenya this, Kenya that, etc etc, but as I've done research, I think the trip that I keep circling back to is in Ghana

I LOVE the idea of helping an orphanage with their farm!! It would help feed the kids, give them an opportunity to make income (they sell the extras) and I could hang with the kids!!! 

I decided to Wiki Ghana and get some information about the country. Things I learned:

*The name means "Warrior King"

*it was listed as one of the fastest growing economies in 2011

*Ghana is culturally diverse with over 5 different ethnic groups

*They love Football (soccer) 

they are located in West Africa which is the exact OPPOSITE of where I've been looking

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uh... not sure I'd be doing this

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looks like they take sports seriously... mu kind of place

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I still have some time to decide and I'm continuing to do research, but that seems like an awesome thing to do. One thing I noticed was that the farming trip is 3 weeks, which I probably can't do. But the village trip is 2 weeks and I can work do lots of things there. Who knows... 

Clemson vs Troy 2011

Today's workout - 10 sets of 2 minute repeats with a 1 minute recovery - we did about 4 miles

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Today, I thought I would put up some pics I took this weekend. Many of you have been to Clemson games and have seen everything, but some of you haven't, so I thought I'd show you some fun things!!

These are my game day buddies. We have been getting season tickets together for the past 6 years, not to mention all of the games we went to during school. Blair, on the left, was my roommate on my first ever football road trip. Jen, to the right, well.... there's a lot I can say :)

Neither one of them wanted me to take this pic - it was 95 degrees and hot hot hot

the view from our seats. If I had a better camera, you could see Lake Hartwell and the Blue Ridge Mountains

the view of the campus and the infamous hill

our stadium about 30 minutes before kickoff 

you can see the balloons to the left. When I was in college, I was in charge of Pep Rallies and Balloons - yes... yes I was

people walking to campus. It looked better when I took the pic vs how it looks now

script Tigers

my dream - to one day, dot the i

To break down the game, we sucked in the first half and redeemed ourselves in the second half. Clemson has a new Offensive Coordinator, Defensive Ends Coach, Running backs coach and offensive line coach. We have freshman starting at all key positions, minus QB although this is his first year as well. I expected the game to look sloppy and it did take a while to get into a rhythm. 

Here is my one concern: our offensive line is full of juniors and seniors. They should not be getting pushed around by Troy's defensive line. I think that they have years of bad coaching to get through, but I certainly hope they can get it together. The only people that were outstanding for this game were the freshman - which is exciting and also discouraging. Rashard Hall got hurt which is not good since he's our leader in the secondary. What I'm hoping is that they continue to improve just as they did in the game, and they get tough. 

T.G.I.T.

I'm excited the work week started off on a Tuesday! That means, only 4 more days left in the work week, woot woot! I hope everyone had a relaxing Labor Day weekend. I went to a football game Saturday, which I'll talk about later in the week probably (i'm just being lazy and don't feel like loading the pics). Sunday, I did some shopping for a friend in Iraq and went to an AWESOME yoga class and Monday - I got the best massage ever.

First - yoga on Sunday. I'm going to be honest with you guys. I was a little nervous when I knew I wouldn't be doing hot yoga anymore and would be solely focusing on one studio. I haven't done that yet, probably because I am afraid of commitment, it's weird. BUT I kind of fell victim to the whole, will it be as hard and will I get the same benefits mindset that I usually dislike in others. I know... hypocrite. I know in my head that the poses are the poses and that the benefits I get from them are what they are and don't depend on the temperature of the room or how quickly you move through the poses, but I would be lying if I didn't get a little nervous about leaving behind my 90 degrees. Let me be clear of the benefits I mean:

1. obviously, the physical strength
2. the flexibility - will I not improve as much on this if the room isn't heated
3. the meditative aspects - will I be as diligent in breath if I'm not forced to be from severe heat

Let me tell you that in all of my classes, I have gotten all three. This Sunday, the class was so awesome, I left very calm and Monday morning, I WAS SORE. I have also improved in flexibility so much just in practicing a little every day. Thank you Lynne for an awesome yoga class Sunday at Yoganize!! And also, for dispelling my notion that I can only hit my goals in a hot yoga class. And also, I need to maybe change my goals a bit too which brings me to another point.

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My workout schedule has been messed up. Here is my problem - I am having a hard time finding time to workout. My mornings, I have been really tired. My evenings have been full which leaves me lunch. It's hard to ride my bike or swim at lunch so I haven't been doing anything. I thought, why don't I just go to the gym and do the bike or the elliptical but sometimes, I think THAT'S NOT GOOD ENOUGH. I don't know why, but in my head, if every workout isn't so hard that I'm on the verge of puking, I feel like it's not good enough. I struggle with that so much and in the end, I end up not doing anything at all because I can't fit it in. My goal this week is to break that mindset and do whatever it is that I can do to get in a workout - some cross training form of workout. At lunch today, this is what I did:

Elliptical, 45 minutes

2 minute intervals so, 2 minutes hard, 2 minutes easy

During my hard 2 minutes, I would go as hard as I could for 10 seconds and recover for 5 seconds. By the end of the 45 minutes, I was exhausted. I thought, wow, maybe i can get in a good workout on the elliptical! It didn't solve my messed up thinking about every workout needing to be intense, but it did change my thoughts about only being able to get a good workout in on my bike/in the water. 

The rest of my week looks like this -

Monday - I got the massage and didn't want to ruin it

Tuesday - 45 minutes on the elliptical

Wednesday - 10 sets of 2 minute repeats, recover 2 minutes - yoga in the evening

Thursday - stationary bike or something at the gym at lunch

Friday - hill ladder (30s/60s/90s/120s/90s/60s/30s) run time = recovery time 

I have to try to figure out this weekend. I've got to run 150 minutes. I also have to help lead Go Run. I also need to pick up my Rain barrel I won at the same time I need to do both. Oh yeah, and I have a wedding to go to in Atlanta Saturday night. So when in the world am I going to do all of this? I have no idea :(

what do you suggest??