February in Review

February turned out to be quite a bit more successful than January.  One of my neighbors went on a nice tropical vacation which left another neighbor in need of a 4:45 AM running buddy so I agreed to join her.  Thankfully it was just the push I needed as I have not been motivated with my running at all lately.

February 2017 Stats
48.38 running miles
2.28 walking miles
50.66 total miles




Current 2017 Stats
57.96 running miles
4.61 walking miles
62.57 total miles


February brought with it some very cold runs and some nice warm runs (for February).  Overall it was an okay month but I really need to work on increasing my mileage!

Up next is March in Review.  I've been majorly slacking in the blog department!!


Keep running, you're simply the best, and you inspire me!!

Crazy weather leads to limited workouts

It is no secret that Mother Nature needs some Prozac.  The weather here in Ohio has been ridiculously snowy and cold the entire month of January.  This of course translates into less workouts and more time spent indoors trying to stay warm.  Needless to say, I have seen a lot of zeros on my dailymile training profile.

Not so sure why he looks so happy.  Yeah, zero...we get it

Now I will say that the kids and I and some friends went to visit our friends in Chicago for a long weekend so that also contributed to my zeros.  Since one of my missions is to run happy and stress free, I refused to let myself feel bad for not doing one single workout while we were there.  It was about spending time we our good friends and catching up with everyone.

The good news is that I have managed to get some workouts in this month.  There has been a bit of running as well as a little bit of cross training going on in my world.

I did my first kettlebell/treadmill walk workout about two weeks ago and I really enjoyed it.  The best part was I got a fantastic deal on my kettlebells at the local Aldi.

Best. Deal. Ever

Tuesday of last week I did manage to get a hill repeat workout done on the trusty old basement treadmill and followed it up on Wednesday with a kettlebell/stair workout.  Man was that workout both hard and awesome all at the same time.  I definitely worked up one heck of a sweat in those 31 minutes.  I never realized how handy the 15 stairs in my house are!

Not my steps but very similar to the 15 in my house

Of course we must fast forward to today when Mother Nature again forgot to take her meds and I wake up to this love sight on my phone.

Brrrrr!!

Seriously??  Come on now!  Obviously I was anticipating cold weather because both my school and my kids school closed today but I certainly wasn't expecting to see that!!  I had planned to run seven miles today with four 1 mile repeats included and I knew after seeing this that this workout would have to occur on the treadmill.  I quickly checked out the TV guide to see what was going to be on today.  The Bucket List at 11:00 AM.  Okay, I think I can tolerate the treadmill and not have the urge to rip my eyes out if I run while this movie is showing.  Overall it was a great workout.  I feel short on the last mile repeat as I was listening to my body and didn't want to make any stupid decisions  that would result in injury.  Afterall, it goes back to my mission of running happy.  If I can't run because I am injured then I certainly can't run happy! 

Very thankful for my Vision Fitness Treadmill when it's crazy cold out

Here's hoping that Mother Nature gets her meds figured out very soon.  I want to be back outside taking in all the beautiful scenery on a run instead of staring into the face of my flat screen TV in the basement.  There are only so many shows I can watch!!

Keep running, you're simply the best, and you inspire me!!

Marathon Training Week 2...Mission Accomplished

Today's 10 mile run brought week two of marathon training to an end. Overall, I had another great week! Let's hope there are 16 more great weeks ahead of me!

Monday- My favorite day of marathon training because it's a rest day. Of course we didn't have school on Monday so I didn't get any weight training (in the form of putting delivery trucks away) in.

Tuesday- My alarm went off at 4:30 AM for my 3 mile tempo run at the Y. Felt really good and enjoyed the run.

Wednesday- Once again the alarm sounded at 4:30 AM. Nice easy 5 mile run at the Y. Although, I didn't get the memo that it was "wear red to workout" day. It really was quite an entertaining conversation. You can read about it here. I loved the comments on my post that day! Everyone had such great perspectives on the issue! When I got to work a delivery truck was already there so I had a nice bonus session of "weight training" at 7 AM!

Thursday- For the third day in a row my alarm sounded at 4:30 AM. My brother stayed with us Wednesday night because he had a meeting on Thursday and our house was closer to his destination. After I woke him up and got him organized I headed down to the treadmill for my "hill" workout. 3 miles with two .25 mile "hills" mixed in. I was watching the end of The Bucket List and I had some trouble breathing during the cool down mile because the end of the movie is sad and I was trying not to cry. I wonder if watching sad movies while running is the key to oxygen deprivation training. LOL

Friday- Nice day of cross training. 30 minutes (2.5 miles) on the elliptical and 15 minutes of rope skipping!

Saturday- Headed down to the treadmill and ran a nice easy 5 miles while watching Fever Pitch.

Sunday- Last night the weather was calling for 12 degrees (feels like -3) for Jenn and I's 10 mile run today. Jenn texted me last night to see if I would rather run at 1:30PM instead of 6:45AM since it was going to be so cold. I had to text her back and tell her that it would have to be 6:45AM due to my schedule today. I didn't get to sleep until after 11:00 last night and when my alarm went off at 5:30AM I pressed snooze. I really wanted to stay in bed under the nice warm covers but I forced myself to get up because Jenn was counting on me to be there. I am so glad that Jenn and I do our long runs together because if I was running on my own today I would have gone back to sleep and would have had to force myself to get my 10 miles in on the treadmill later today. In the end, the weather wasn't all that bad. Once we got started we warmed up rather quickly. In fact Jenn took a layer off around mile 1. We had a great run today and managed to run 10:35 pace. Such a difference compared to our "lead leg" 11:26 pace 9 miler last Sunday.

Next week is a bit of a step back week. Jenn and I only have a 7 miler on tap for next Sunday. It's going to be so weird to be done so quickly. I have a feeling we are going to want to run further. However, we are two very smart women and we know well enough to respect the training!

Keep running, you're simply the best, and you inspire me!!