Virtual Run Date!

First, before I talk about my run date with my friend Misty from Life off The D List, make sure you check out her blog!


I want to talk about a LOCAL friend of mine, she's an inspiration to me, a source of motivation and a wonderful chica to have in my life.


All those things are awesome, but so is the fact that she has lost over 180 lbs so far! This is a big milestone for her, she is now under 250 and she's having a giveaway on her blog!


Please visit my home-chica Kris @ Kris Gets Healthy and you could win some awesome swag!

Now, back to regularly scheduled programming:


My virtual run date with Misty!


Misty and I were both up early and chatting on Gtalk. She told me she was finishing up breakfast and about to get up her kiddo and head out for trail running and a gym workout.  I was not even out of bed yet, I was chatting from my phone..(it was 6:30am here, gimme a break!)


Well, I told her I was going running, too..in about 90 mins or so.  She said, "lets make it a virtual run date!"  I said, yes lets and then lets blog about it! Woohoo!


We agreed. Let me tell you though, I was definitely planning to run on Saturday, but I wasn't sure when. I am *so* glad that Misty invited me on a run date and got me thinking about going right away, because my run was perfect, the weather was perfect, I was excited to take some pics and talk about it with you guys and share it with Misty...it was perfect.


Thank you Misty for getting my butt in gear first thing in the morning on a Saturday..it made the rest of my day awesome!

Here I go! Feet to the pavement!

No stopping me now!

Gorgeous Vistas, hahaha

This house has such pretty landscaping

There are lots of little birdies
on the run :)

HAPPY RUNNER!

Great weekend- salon, friends, sushi, motivation and running!

Happy Monday folks!

While I could spend the next week down in the dumps because my boyfriend is working in Shanghai til next Tuesday, I've been focusing on the positive and how great my weekend was!

Salon
First off, after being bummed dropping off Ryan at the airport on Saturday morning, I quickly got a smile on my face for the rest of the day after visiting my favorite stylist Crystal at the Ulta in Woodbury (MN).  Even though I live 35 minutes away now, I still go back to her every 6 weeks!

I got red foils on top of my red and blonde foils from six weeks ago, I love it!!!

Friends and Sushi
I got together with one of my best friends on Saturday night so we could catch up, enjoy some sushi and have fun!  We went to Sushi Tango in Uptown, sat on the patio and enjoyed funky drinks, I loved my pomegranate tangojito, and yummy sushi rolls!  My friend tried this cool roll called "flame" and it was seared on the outside, just a little bit, I recommend it!

After dinner we headed over to the Pizza Luce block party.  The party was super crowded and it was kinda difficult to get our food/drink tickets and obtaining a beer/slice of pizza took a bit over a half hour, I wish that was better organized. But, we had a good time listening to the last band and being outside on a nice summer night!

Motivation
Whoo boy, did I get a big kick in the butt of motivation from my friend Mariah this weekend!  Mariah races in triathalons! A few friends and I went to Lake Nokomis to cheer her on in the YWCA Women's Triathalon on Sunday. 

A few things I did not realize about triathalons:
1. People of all ages, shapes, sizes and athletic ability participate
2. Pretty much every participant I saw, while exhausted, was elated to be participating
3. People are there pretty much every leg of the way cheering on EVERYONE
4. I can ride a bike, I can run, I can practice my swimming...I can do one with some training!

Hmm, something to think about :)

Running
I did my first ever run all the way around a lake this weekend for my Couch to 5K, Week 8, day 1 run!!! Thank you to Corryn for commiting with me to a run on a hot (over 80!) Sunday afternoon run with me!  I wasn't prepared for all the people and the heat, I got through all my water and my pace was a bit slower than usual, had to walk for a minute a couple times.  I did it though! I went around a lake like a big girl! Lake Harriet to be exact, yay! I plan to do it again in cooler weather and see if that improves my time, I'm sure it will.

Oh! I also got a new running accessory this weekend a Nathan's Quickdraw Thermal Water Bottle. The bottle had a spot where I could attach my car key inside a zip in pouch, which I could definitely fit an ID or some money, etc in along with it.  My water stayed cold, it had a nice handle to slip my hand through, easy to use, loved it! Yay, now I think I can go on longer runs!

I hope everyone had a fun, fulfilling and active weekend!
<3 Merbear

Runner? Me?

Alright so run just under 4.3 mph, but that's averaged out with 5 minutes warm up and cool down, I bet at my fastest I'm 4.5 mph or so, maybe? I need to get that Polar or Garmin soon so I can figure out the speeds on the different legs of my run....okay, yeah that does make me sound like a runner.

I'm done with 7 weeks  of Couch to 5K, I have 2 full weeks left.  This week with the 25 minute runs was a bit of a struggle, but I kinda tested myself today, it was hard to finish the 25 minutes, but after 4 minutes of a cool down brisk walk, I was able to run again! I think I can make it the 30 next week and the 35 in two weeks, I want to run 5Ks, the whole thing, so badly!  Yeah, that makes me sound like a runner, too.

Also, ALSO....I got up this morning, before WORK, gave up SLEEPING IN, and went running! ME! Miss loves bed, miss loves to lounge with my kitties, read my phone, snuggle in....I got up and RAN! Oh my gosh, I feel so good today that I did that! I just feel energized and happy that I'm done with my cardio, wow, love it!

So pretty in the morning!

Pounding the pavement

What is this tree?  It has bean things!
Sorry,I got my phone sweaty.

Anyone wanna tell me a running story? Are you just EXHAUSTED when you finish running? When is your favorite time of day to run or exercise outside? Do you pick a path ahead of time or do you just go with the flow and turn around halfway?

I'm excited for C25K to be done, so that I don't have to time myself and just run when I want, walk break when I want, run some more, etc..I think I'd get a lot further and faster!

Whoa baby hormones and some running of course! :)

Can I just start with I ran OUTSIDE for 2.45 miles, I could have done the treadmill easily, but now that I'm on week 7 of  Couch to 5K , its 25 minutes of running and its just gonna be longer and longer intervals of running, so there aren't intervals to keep me *entertained and engaged* and its easy to time 25 minutes, etc...so I figured I better start getting used to being outside if I'm actually going to be doing 5Ks OUTSIDE this fall :)

Heehee, I'm really proud of myself for keeping my cravings in check with my calorie counts, but I definitely had to do some food swaps today. I didn't fuel myself as healthily (is that a word?) as I should have but at least I'm not overeating.

Popcorn and a couple small pieces of dark chocolate replaced my Chobani today, hehe..oh well, I'm satisfied and I guess I'll have salad for dinner :)  

I lifted weights today and rocked out 5mph for 20 minutes on hill intervals on the treadmill this morning, too RAWR!!

Run Run Run!

Yesterday I ran 25 minutes nonstop to finish out Week 6 of Couch to 5k!


I looked head to see that week 7 is three more 25 minute runs, so okay its improve my speed week apparently, I can do this!


I've been mostly running on a treadmill, except for one run in Washington last week, it was gorgeous outside and the temp was perfect, that is not happening in Minnesota for awhile, but I want to be ready to run outside when I do!


Things I love about the treadmill
 - controlled environment
 - holds my water bottle
 - holds my music
 - tells me how fast I'm going
 - tells me how far I've gone
 - tells me how much time I have run and how much time I have left
 - great for controlling speed and doing intervals since it controls *me* by how I set it


Things I don't love about the treadmill
 - I feel like a slave to the speed I've set
 - boring when I'm doing long runs
 - I can tell I'm going to get tired of the treadmill when I'm not doing intervals
 - too many people around me on some days
 - I have to go to the gym to use one, fine on weight training days, but I want running to be   more natural


Things that kinda freak me out about running outside
 - I don't know my stats at the end of the run, I love knowing my pace!!!
 - I don't know how long I've been running or how much time left without messing with my ipod
 - I don't know my current pace, or if I've gotten to the pace I'm working towards, etc
 - I can't check my heart rate, if I work to hard, I might not make it through the end if its a time goal
 - I can't stress enough I serious need to know how well I did during my run to be able to keep myself motivated during my run and for future runs, I'm a goals and stats girl!


These are things I think I need:


1. HRM

- so you people that post those awesome maps of your routes and your speeds on each leg of our runs and all that, can one HRM do that or are you using multiple tools? I mean I could run with an HRM on my wrist and carry my phone for map my run I guess?

2. Hand held water bottle

3. Running pants with some kind of pocket cuz I need a place for at least keys


4. Road ID


Where should I get these? What do you have? Any suggestions of things I should add? Also, I'm planning on doing a 5k trail run in September, I need to go get different running shoes for that, right?

Okay so I know this was lots of questions, I hope you guys out there can help me, but I'm also going to do some research and try and answer them, too.

What works and doesn't work for vacation

I have another vacation starting tomorrow, its 5 days, with my family and friends in Washington state.

On my trip a couple weeks ago to Cleveland, I was visiting my boyfriend's family for the first time, visiting Cleveland for the first time, and attending a wedding.  So a bit of uncomfortableness that could have led to eating, a wedding which usually leads to eating, and touring a city that can lead to "try this speciality and drink this specialty!"  Well guess what, I had some extra food at the family potlucks, I tried a corned beef sandwich at a special deli, I even tried local beer...and well, I had fun, didn't feel stressed out, put on about 2 lbs and lost it within 1 1/2 weeks of coming back from my trip. 

No harm, no foul? That's what I'd say!

How is Washington going to be different?

1 - I am the tour guide for my boyfriend, I can pick where we go and also what do you eat in Washington SUSHI AND SEAFOOD! I'll be in tasty, healthy heaven!

2 - I love everything in Washington, but I also grew up there and have visited every year since we moved away, there is nothing there that I feel the need to stuff in my face, gorge on, drown in, etc

3 - Unlike Minnesota the weather is BEAUTIFUL there right now, yeah it might rain, but so what, rain there is awesome...but its not all day everyday, so I can run outside and be able to breathe fresh oceany air I'm so excited!

4- My family is staying in a vacation home with a full kitchen, we will be grocery shopping for ourselves when we get there, so I don't even have to pack a bunch of safe foods, my family is a bunch of healthy eaters! YAY! (hehe, my boyfriend may OD on being offered veggies, Hahahahaha!)

5 - No stressful feelings about this vacation cuz there are no new people, my parents rented and put together everything, I just had to get my own rental car and schedule visiting some of MY friends, YAY!

So....this trip should ROCK. It is a vacation I may indulge in a couple local brews on my "treat" day, but I think this is gonna be awesome!

I may check in with some photos while I'm gone and some reports of my eating and exercise!

Coming up Next Week:
I want to buy a HRM, I'd really like one that'll do GPS...think about the ones you like and be ready to talk me through a purchase! (Oh I also have  Polar discount that I got from Jen - A Priorfatgirl so I will most likely be buying from them

I also won a prize from Kris@KrisGetsHealthy and it has lots of cool stuffs in it! I'll tell ya'all about that next week, too!

Hot Fun Food Run

Hello from the hottest/highest dewpoint in the world for the last for days! Minnesota! Can you believe it?

Today our heat index is 110 and the temp is 95, both are higher than the Amazon rainforest...yup, lovely.


I spent most of my weekend indoors packing up my apartment or just staying cool in AC..except for Saturday evening, whoo even after 5pm it was hotty boombalotty!


I was going to try and do my run on Friday, but I was still sore in the calfs and hips from getting my butt kicked in a leg workout on Thursday morning, Plus, I fell asleep after dinner for a few hours and slept a full night after that. Yup exhausted, probably from staying up super late on Thursday night seeing Harry Potter!


Saturday was my busy day this weekend! Lots of errands in prep for two parties I was attending!


I first popped over to Muddy Paws Cheesecake and picked up a "hand selected slices" cheesecake made up of Nutella, Raspberry Swirl, Chocolate Decadence and Key Lime for my friends. I also picked up a "toffee sampler" cheesecake to be delivered to the birthday party I was going to! Oh man, it was so hard not to eat them in the car!!


Then it was vet time, Shorty was great, only disliked the thermometer in the "bum" but Isis hissed, batted and growled, she didn't hurt anyone, but we did a very quick exam so she wouldn't stress out. Poor girl, she hates being anywhere but home.


Got my nails done, aaah its nice to have a little bit of a mini vacation at an inexpensive nail salon while they soak your feet and you get to sit in a massage chair, its the little things people!


Finally, I popped on a sundress and headed over to Tiger Sushi 2 in uptown for a birthday party, yes it was still 90 degrees outside, but we were on a covered patio so we enjoyed the hot temp and the breeze, but no beating down sun.  It was nice to enjoy sushi and cool drinks in the warm weather.


I had a custom roll here it is!

Does that look yummy? I love sushi, its my favorite food. When I have a craving for a specialty type of roll I will only get one because they always have some extra caloric treats in there like tempura, spicy sauce and probably extra rice.  I'll then round my meal out with some edamame or seaweed salad.

If I'm feeling like I need more than "one" at a sushi restaurant, I will get a combo of sashimi (which is just fish), some nigiri (which is fish on rice), and some basic maki (fish, rice, wrapped in seaweed).  My favorites are yellowtail and super white tuna!

After fun times at the sushi restaurant, my boyfriend and I headed to a suburb in the NW corner of the cities to gather with old friends. There was beer (I only had one!), ribs that were smoked all day, a freshly made kale salad (so good! I've never had one before!), and lots of catching up.  Once the sun started to set, the temp outside was *only* in the low 80s so it was a lot more tolerable, so we actually sat on the patio until us girls decided to go inside and get away from the mosquitoes, the boys were roughing it, haha. 

On Sunday I did my first 20 minute, non-stop run on the treadmill! It was week 5 day 3 of C25K and I did it! I ran a little bit slow with an average of about 4.1 mph total (4.3 mph running, but also a 5 minute cool down and warm up during the 30 minutes).  I'm so happy!! I've never ever run more than 8 minutes all in a row so this is such an awesome milestone for
me!

Yay 20 minutes!

Thanks for reading my weekend wrap up, I hope you all had awesome weekends, too!

Recovered from vacation, running, treats?

Yay! I weighed myself this morning and its not an official weigh day yet (Fridays) and I'm back to my pre-vacation weight! w00t!  I still have two days to get to *this weeks* weight loss, so I'm pretty sure I'll post a loss of new weight..(well new within the last few years, hehe). I'm so glad I can make up for a vacation gain in about a week, that makes me feel more confident going forward about maintaining and vacations.

The app/website I use for food tracking is My Fitness Pal and according to the program's predictions I will be down another 5 lbs within the next 5 weeks if I keep eating the same, so I'm happy with that! That means in about 9 weeks I should be in a new decade, which makes me feel even better!

As I've mentioned before I do the Couch 2 5K program...but I'm actually using the ipod version that was done a few years ago. I do the one from http://www.ullreys.com/robert/Podcasts/ on my ipod. I'm on week 5, which started with three 5 minute runs, then two 8 minute runs, and then Friday or Saturday I will do my first continuous 20 minute run. I'm really nervous.

Does anyone have any tips about this? I think I can make it 10 minutes as I can do 8 and still have a bit of oomph left in my legs, but 8 minutes bumped up to 20....how much should I slow down? Or should I not? Hoo boy, I'm nervous!

Treats treats treats, I like treats!

I would NOT be able to keep on my healthiness journey if I didn't have treats, I would fail within days, I can go a couple days without a treat, but if I don't have something sweet, most likely chocoately after a few days I want to eat everything on the planet until I get it!

Yesterday I succumbed to a Snickers bar, but I actually had the calories for it and it was a workout day so I lifted weights and ran on the treadmill shortly after eating it.  I wish I was more prepared though, I bet a Dove dark chocolate square or a mini candy bar would have sufficed, but I didn't have time to leave my floor at work and I had nothing in my desk! 

What should I keep at my desk? (I don't have a lot of cravings, so I wouldn't just mindlessly eat stuff, so don't worry about that!)

I won the Kris gets healthy birthday contest on her blog, I am gonna get a bunch of sweet stuff, I'll tell you all about it when I get it from her, I'm sure we'll just meet up since I'm lucky enough to live in the same town! :) Thanks again Kris!

Lesson Learned or The Story of Too Many Workouts?

Ooooh boy today was a doozy. I thought I'd be okay, I got in my two Couch 2 5K runs on Sunday and Tuesday while I was on vacation, I did an upper body/core workout yesterday morning, then this morning I did a legs workout...

I dunno if its that I'm a few hours behind on sleep from vacay, the fact that I lifted weights two days a row and then tried to run, or that it was a leg day and I shouldn't try to run on a leg day (this was the first time I tried that), or most likely a combination of all three....but I made it into 16 minutes of my Week 5, Day 1 run...just a few 5 minute runs, not that big of a deal, I was doing 5 minutes and 3 minutes through Tuesday already. Anyway, I could hardly catch my breath, moving my arms hurt (sore from lifting yesterday), my legs were starting to get tired from my leg workout...I just couldn't cut it...I had to slow down, so I let myself walk for 3 minutes to see if that was all I needed, I tried to run again, could only make it a minute...yup...DONE.

So I did not count this as Day 1 of Week 5, I just chalked it us as "a run" and I tried....we'll try again Saturday....this was the first time I couldn't finish a C25K workout...I wont' be doing them on leg days anymore.

Has something like this happened to anyone else?