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!!

Reindeer Run for Fun Preview

If you recall, I had to tell Kaelynn that we wouldn't be running the Gobble Wobble 5k on Thanksgiving morning. She was very upset and asked me to see if there were any other races we could run soon. Luckily the Reindeer Run 5k takes places the first weekend in December each year. Fast forward to this past Wednesday and I had the following conversation with Kaelynn.
Me: Kaelynn are you absolutely positive you want to run on Saturday?
Kaelynn: Yes.
Me: Okay but just so you know the temperature is going to "feel like" 20 degrees.
Kaelynn: I still want to run it.

At this point I let it go and asked her dad to talk to her when he took her to school on Thursday morning to make sure she really wanted to run it before I registered us. So, he did just that and then he called me with her decision and shared with me the conversation that took place between the two of them.
Dad: Kaelynn are you sure you want to run Saturday?
Kaelynn: Yes dad.
Dad: You know the temperature is going to "feel like" 20 degrees.
Kaelynn: Yes dad I know mommy told me and I have gear for that.

So tomorrow morning Kaelynn and I will run a 5k together to make up for our punt on Thanksgiving morning. We may be slow moving but what matters is that we are out there having fun and exercising and we got a really cool shirt in the process!

We also got jingle bells for our shoes. Who doesn't love jingle bells?

And on a side note, it's official. I have paid off my elliptical and treadmill in full in less than a year and I did not pay one penny in interest! You have to love 12 months same as cash as long as you discipline yourself to make the proper payments each month!!

Stay tuned for a full race report including lots of pictures tomorrow!

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

Treadmill Anger Management

When I got off work today, it was raining cats and dogs! It was crazy, windy rain! I decided to stay out of the elements and hit the treadmill so I headed down to the basement and decided to find something to watch while running. I was thrilled to see that the last 45 minutes of Anger Management were on....perfect...I want to run 5 miles and it will take me about 45 minutes. I decided that I was going to mix it up on the treadmill so I wouldn't get bored and feel like a hamster running on a wheel. I decided to break my run up into segments. In the end it looked like this:

0-5 minutes @ 10:00/mile
5-10 minutes @ 8:34/mile
10-15 minutes @ 9:40/mile
15-20 minutes @ 8:20/mile (managed to open a snack for Grant while still running.)
20-25 minutes @ 9:40/mile
25-30 minutes @ 8:34/mile
30-35 minutes @ 9:40/mile
35-40 minutes @ 8:20/mile
40-45 minutes @ 9:40/mile

As much as I would have loved to run outside, I enjoyed mixing it up on the treadmill!

What's your favorite treadmill workout?

Motivated by Music

Once again I must thank Deb for being such a great friend. I had a lot going on today during and after work. She took the time to stop by my house to pick up my workout clothes. I went to help with Market Day at Kaelynn's school and Deb picked up Kaelynn and Grant for me and took them to her house. Not only did she do that but she also helped Kaelynn with all of her homework. Not to mention her husband made dinner for my kids. And Deb made dinner for me. What great friends! During the homework, Deb allowed me access to her treadmill for a workout!

Now to the workout. I planned to run three miles on the treadmill today. However, when I got to the three mile mark my Ipod had some really good tunes playing. I was motivated by the music to run another mile!

The songs that motivated me to run four miles today were:

~My Life Would Suck Without You by Kelly Clarkson
~Life's A Dance by John Michael Montgomery
~I Run For Life by Melissa Etheridge

Today I am thankful for the generosity of friends, a great workout, and motivational music.

Looking forward to running the Turkey Dash 5k on Thanksgiving morning!