A day of firsts

Yesterday was pretty exciting. Not only did I start my half marathon training program with Fleet Feet Mt. Pleasant, but I also got my first box of produce delivered from Backyard Produce. It obviously doesn't take much to excite me.

But I am pretty excited about the training program. The people seem great, the trainers are experienced and informative and I have a feeling they are going to get me that sub-2 hour half marathon. Tuesdays are going to be a mixture of speed, hills and other intense workouts and Saturdays will be our long runs.

Yesterday we went to the track and after a warmup lap we went into some dynamic stretching before starting the sliders. I had never heard that term before but it came down to sprinting the straights and jogging the curves on the track, and we did that for 20 minutes. I have been so bad about speed work in the past that I'm positive this is going to help me reach my goal.

Then after that endorphin high, I came home to a box of fresh produce! I immediately popped the kale in the oven and made a batch of kale chips with olive oil, basil and shallot salt. Yummo! I also made a beautiful salad with the romaine and peppers for work today. Seriously, can you get any better than produce straight to your front door? Don't think so.

Kale chips, the dieters popcorn.

A little fruit and veg goes a long way

My eating had started getting out of control - Chik-fil-a stops on my way to work for waffle fries (10 WW points!!), overindulging in my favorite vice - sushi, and neglecting to track every BLT (bite, taste and lick!) - and the scale wasn't budging from the high end of my acceptable weight range (you know those 4 pounds that you juggle between). So, I had to do something and my mom sent me just the thing - Women's Running 3-day healthy cleanse diet plan. Score!

What it really comes down to is a whole lot of fruit and veg over 3 days to get you back on track. Exactly what I needed. And the soups are delicious! I will definitely be making the carrot soup again sometime and I highly recommend you check it out. I'm not a huge fan of ginger though, so I left that out. Check out the original post if you would prefer ginger in yours.

Carrot Soup

Needed:
-1.5 pounds of carrots
-1 onion, chopped
-1 zucchini, chopped
-4 cups of water
-Garlic
-Any additional spices you want to add - I went for basil and savory
-toppings to put on completed soup - i used avocado, sunflower seeds and tomato

1. Bring the water to a slight boil, add all the ingredients and let it simmer until soft - about an hour.

2. Add all the cooked veggies and half of the broth to a blender and blend until desired consistency. Done.

It's that simple.

Top it with whatever your heart's desire and that is the only thing that has Weight Watcher point values. It makes a lot, but they said you can freeze it and use it another time if you get a little overwhelmed by too much carrots.

I'm on the third day of the plan and I feel so good. The scale is back where it should be and I feel a new urge to eat healthy. Awesome.

Today is the broccoli soup. I'll let you know how that turns out.

Yasso 800's

If you've never heard of The Yasso 800 workout, I'll try to explain it. It's supposed to be a pretty good measure of estimating what time you're capable of running a marathon in (as long as you put in the training, of course) based on how fast you can run 800 meters.

Sounds simple, right? It's actually more challenging than you'd expect. You don't just run that 800 meters once, you do it 10 times. Not sounding so simple now, is it?

This is what you do - say you want to run a 4-hour marathon (like me!). So, you need to run 800 meters (or half a mile) in 4 minutes, then jog for 4 minutes and that is one round. And like I said, you work your way up to 10 rounds of that. A 3-minute half mile would equal a 3-hour marathon, 3 minutes and 30 seconds would equal 3 hours and 30 minutes, etc. I'm currently at two rounds, building a base, and I'm slightly dreading adding that third round. This is definitely going to be a lot of work, but so worth it if it works!

Adding to that, I'm looking into a half marathon training plan to get me under 2 hours and I'm going to be a lean, mean running machine! Fingers crossed!

On the food side of life, I have to tell you about my amazing discovery. There's this local business online called Backyard Produce and for $25 a week they deliver fresh, locally grown fruit and veg to my door. I don't think it's possible to beat that deal. You have the option to get their variety box and they'll send you what's best that week, or you can custom order what you want. My first delivery should show up this week and I'm so excited! I have a feeling I'm going to be coming up with all kinds of new recipes!

In case I don't post again for a bit, Happy Halloween and good luck on YOUR Yasso 800's!

Debooted

I went to the doctor this week and they gave me the go ahead to stop wearing the boot! Woohoo!

I celebrated with a 5-mile hill workout over the bridge in Mt. Pleasant and it just about kicked my butt. But it felt so good at the same time.

I also celebrated with some new shoes. I've been rockin'the Saucony Kinvaras for a couple years now, but the new model isn't really my taste. So, the good people at my local Fleet Feet talked me in to trying the Pearl Izumi E:Motion N2 Running Shoes.

I'll give them a shot and let you know.

And I don't even want to talk about the way I've been eating lately. Let's just say it's a good thing I've been given the thumbs up to start running again, otherwise I'm going to start packing on some serious pounds. I need to get back on track.

Baby steps

I went for my first road run since the Air Force Marathon, and foot injury, last night. I took it verrrry easy at a non competitive pub run with my local running store. I did a sloooow 3 miler and no pain! And the cheap beer afterward didn't hurt, either.

I'm going to continue to take it easy for a couple more weeks before I jump in to training for my next big race - Charleston Marathon in January.

Until then, I'm going to keep up with my weight training, otherwise I might go crazy!

Broken, but trying

I'm still booted for at least another week, so I'm trying to make the most of it.

Today, I brought back my weight training routine that I had fallen off the wagon with when my marathon training picked up, so no better time than now to bring it back!

If you want the full explanation with pictures, check out this post, or here's the highlights and modifications I did today:

-20 lunges (10 for each leg)
-30 pushups
-30 sit-ups
-2 sets of 10 squats
-3 sets of 10 bench press with 10lb free weights
-3 sets of 10 bent rower with 10lb free weights, again (do 1 set of bench press then 1 set of bent rower, 3x)
-2 sets of 8 dead lift squat (25lb free weight)
-3 negative resistance with 7 second lowers
-2 sets of 8 military press with 3lb free weights. I have a shoulder injury from the military, so you can easily do more weight
-3 more 7 second negative resistances

Then I rolled out my poor stiff legs with my foam roller. Me and the hubs are also gonna go for a walk this evening and hopefully I'll be back in action next week!