Monday, May 25, 2015

Reading to hit the ground running...literally.

After listening to this little gem on repeat for the last couple days...


...I was anxious to get back to the workout grindstone. The last month has really just been garbage for me when it's come to consistently working out. It wasn't until about the last two weeks that my eating habits started to tank right alongside them. So, now that I'm done teaching for the summer, and I'm moving into "prep for next year mode" I can start to work some normal hours again and get myself back on track for the marathon.

My first race of the season is coming up this Saturday. I'm not out to write any records, just finish, get my mileage in, and get back into the race mentality. This last week my local RoadRunner hosted a free Adventure Run which was a lot of fun, and helped to get me back in the mindset.


As a side note, for anyone who is intimidated by doing some sort of run (because I was even a little nervous for this one), listen up. Every run will have all different kinds of fitness levels. Yes, I set goals for myself when I do my races, but I am far from a professional athlete. I do them because healthy people are happy people, and those are the kinds of people with whom I want to surround myself. Happiness is infectious and am trying to do all I can to help spread the disease. And my ultimate goal is always just to finish.

This is my current race plan for the next four months:

Saturday, May 30 FroYo 5k in Scottsdale, AZ (actually a 10k for me)
Thursday, July 9 Storm the Bastille in Milwaukee, WI
Sunday, August 2 Solana Beach Tri in San Diego, CA
Sunday, October 4 Lakefront Marathon in Milwaukee, WI

This next month I am going to focus on eating healthy, strengthening my body, and striving towards my ideal race weight. If you're looking for a great resource on heathy eating, check out Racing Weight Cookbook. There are a variety of different cooking ability levels, and the recipes are easy enough so that you aren't intimidated. Plus the writing is done in a conversational way which makes for an easy read.

Goals for the week:
1- Drink more water.
2- Stay the course on my plan for each day for the entire week.
3- Make sure I log 10k steps everyday.

Here's my plan for the next week:

Tuesday:
Fuel -
Pre-Run: Toast w/ peanut butter
Breakfast: Peanut Butter granola w/ greek yogurt, fruit
Lunch: Salad w/chicken, cucumber, mushrooms, carrots, egg, lite ranch dressing
Dinner: Lean Turkey Burgers

Fitness -
Cardio: Run 3mi, Swim 30 min
Lifting: Core, Upper Body

Wednesday: 
Fuel -
Pre-Run: Toast w/ peanut butter
Breakfast: Peanut Butter granola w/ greek yogurt, fruit
Lunch: Salad w/chicken, cucumber, mushrooms, carrots, egg, lite ranch dressing
Dinner: Lean Turkey Burgers

Fitness -
Cardio: Run 3 mi
Lifting: Core, Upper Body

Thursday:
Fuel -
Pre-Run: Toast w/ peanut butter
Breakfast: Peanut Butter granola w/ greek yogurt, fruit
Lunch: Salad w/chicken, cucumber, mushrooms, carrots, egg, lite ranch dressing
Dinner: Rosemary Garlic Chicken w/ brown rice

Fitness -
Cardio: Run 3 mi, Bike 45 min
Lifting: Core, Legs

Friday:
Fuel -
Breakfast: Peanut Butter granola w/ greek yogurt, fruit
Lunch: Salad w/chicken, cucumber, mushrooms, carrots, egg, lite ranch dressing
Dinner: Rosemary Garlic Chicken w/ brown rice

Fitness -
Cardio: Swim 30
Lifting: Core, Upper Body

Saturday:
Fuel -
Pre-Run: Toast w/ peanut butter
Breakfast: FroYo
Lunch: Salad w/chicken, cucumber, mushrooms, carrots, egg, lite ranch dressing
Dinner: Steak from Sprouts

Fitness -
Cardio: Run FroYo 10k, leisure swimming
Lifting: Rest Day

Sunday:
Fuel -
Breakfast: Nectarine & Sweet Cheese-Stuffed French Toast
Lunch: TBD
Dinner: TBD

Fitness -
Cardio: Walk 30 min, Bike 30 min
Lifting: Core

Monday:
Fuel -
Breakfast: Peanut Butter granola w/ greek yogurt, fruit
Lunch: Salad w/chicken, cucumber, mushrooms, carrots, egg, lite ranch dressing
Dinner: Spaghetti and meat and veggie sauce

Fitness -
Cardio: Rest, leisure swimming
Lifting: Core, Upper Body

Don't forget to follow me on Instagram!

Live. Laugh. Love.

<3Andrea

Friday, May 22, 2015

One week later...er...

I had such good intentions.

Then I drove to California. Oops.

My brother, sister in law, and niece we in CA for some testing on a bike that my brother designed the engine and exhaust system for. How cool is that? They are working at Roland Sands Design in Los Alamitos, CA. I wasn't allowed to take any pictures, but they've released a couple on their Facebook page now.

While the boys were "thrashing on the bike" the girls hit the beach for a little bit on Saturday. I was due for a run over the weekend, but I get to spend such a small amount of time with my little munchkin that I just wanted to soak in all the time with her possible. I mean, look at her! How could you not?



And then came this week. The last week of school for me, which is always crazy. And honestly I am just so exhausted from this school year that I really have a hard time finding the motivation to run. I should also mention that I live in Arizona. Now that might not seem like a huge deal, but the temperatures are rising (although this spring has been pretty mild, only flirted with 100 so far) and that means you either run in the morning or in the evening at dusk. 

Generally speaking, I'm not really a morning person, so the idea of getting up and running in the morning is just really rough in general. However, I think once school is out and I can get up and I don't have to be on my way to work by 6:30am, I'll be more inclined to run. I'm a fan of the 6am workout, I used to do that all the time at my last job. But the idea of a 5am workout...yeah, not so much.

I'm honestly really looking forward to the next month of working out. I have about four weeks before I head up to Wisconsin for a little visit. Looking forward to seeing some family and friends that I haven't seen in awhile. REALLY looking forward to seeing my Ironman-in-Training, Jacque B. I haven't see that girl in over 14 months and we are LONG overdue for a catchup session in real life. Anyway...

I'm planning on spending as much time at the gym as humanly possible until then. I LOVE my gym. It is huge and beautiful. It has indoor and outdoor lap pools, as well as regular indoor and outdoor recreational pools. So my plan is to get my running in, then either bike or swim, and then enjoy some time poolside reading and getting my tan on. It's going to be glorious. Don't get me wrong, there will be plenty of schoolwork to do for next year as well, but workouts get to by my number 1 priority again which is wonderful.

Last week went pretty well for goals. I hit the green smoothies four out of five days. I missed the last one trying to get my car packed and ready to head right to LA after school and still make the morning faculty meeting. The watering went great! Well, the plant watering did, the person watering not as much. The squash is starting to sprouts, which is really exciting. I also got a couple flower plants too. I'm really starting to love my patio area. Didn't get all the miles logged, but we have a new week coming to get back on the mileage horse.

Goals for the rest of this week:

- DRINK MORE WATER. Seriously Andrea, you live in the desert. Drink some more water.
- Get the rest of the runs in for this week. LOG YOUR MILEAGE.
- Finish writing out my training plan for the next four weeks, including lifting.

Live. Laugh. Love.

<3Andrea


Sunday, May 10, 2015

Run. Eat. Sleep. Repeat.

In my mind, I've been writing posts consistently since last December. In reality, most of those posts were written while I was running or driving. However, neither of those two activities are actually very conducive to blog writing. So here I am now. May 10, 2015. 7:56pm. Started my first blog post in, well, let's just say "quite some time." 

My marathon goals are still alive. I'm about two months into my training. Tomorrow officially marks the 10th week of training already. The last two weeks have been really tough. Stuff at school has gotten extremely busy. Trying to cram an outside run in has been tough. I've been forcing myself to keep the runs outside to try and become somewhat accustomed to this dry desert air. I chose to drop my training for the week that our school put on it's spring musical. (I direct and run sound and design the lighting, etc.) It was just getting to be too much physically and mentally. I put forth a less than desirable effort to pick it back up this past week, but I'm ready to hit the ground running...pun intended...this week. 

With my less than stellar running the past two weeks, has come a less than stellar diet. When you're physically and mentally exhausted, it's really easy to succumb to the quick and easy food (I'm looking at you mac and cheese!). But that doesn't help you at all, because you aren't getting what your body needs to reboot! My one standby that I hold onto for dear life is sleep. And I held onto that like there was no tomorrow!

Speaking of tomorrow, tomorrow is my re-boot. Kill the bad eating and workout habits of the last two weeks, and re-boot on both fronts. Green smoothies are prepped and ready to go in the freezer for each morning this week (Shoutout to Sprouts for having their blackberries on sale for 75¢ this weekend!). Pork roast is in the crock with lots of veggies for lunches and dinners (Yes, it smells as good as it looks). Greek yogurt and fresh fruit is stocked in the fridge for pre-workout snacks. 

I've decided that I'm going to try and update the blog once a week. This seems to be a reasonable and attainable goal. Each week I'll list three goals that I'm focusing on for the week. If you need an extra helping of this crazy cat, head on over to my Instagram account. Each run or workout usually gets its own post. I've also been known to frequent the brunch scene, travel, and/or display my love and obsession for good coffee. You know, just to keep it interesting.

The last tri we did together in June of 2013,
though I was the only one to complete the entire tri.
(The swim got cancelled after I finished
due to dangerous waters.) Since then
we've moved to opposite coasts
(Me: West Coast, Her: East Coast),
but I hope we can do another race together again!
The end goal is the marathon. It seems like a lofty and attainable goal all at once. Usually when people hear that I'm training for a marathon they either thing I'm completely crazy and ask why anyone would ever want to run that far, OR they are super excited and ask about my training and why I decided to run a marathon. (But I'll save that last one for another blog post). Just to keep the training interesting with some cross training, I'm going to be throwing a spring tri in there as well at the beginning of August. This isn't my first tri (and most definitely NOT my last), and the goal is simply to finish. One of the best ladies that I know got me into triathlons about four years ago. Feel free to follow her race to her first ever Ironman! She'll be completing her race a day before my marathon. She's my go to for anything and everyone triathlon related, whether it's matters of the bike or matters of the heart. She makes sure that I always #rememberwhyyoustarted. What a peach.

Here are the races I'm currently signed up for:

Registered Races:
Saturday, May 30 FroYo 5k in Scottsdale, AZ (actually a 10k for me)
Thursday, July 9 Storm the Bastille in Milwaukee, WI
Sunday, August 2 Solana Beach Tri in San Diego, CA
Sunday, October 4 Lakefront Marathon in Milwaukee, WI

And last, but certainly not least, here come the weekly goals. Hold on folks, we're in for quite the ride! (or swim, or run...)

Weekly Goals:
- Water, water, water...yourself and the squash you planted today.
- Log all training miles for the week. (Tu: 2mi, Wed: 3mi, Th: 2.5mi, Sat: 5.5mi...total of 13 miles)
- Green smoothie breakfasts, greek yogurt + granola snacks.

Live. Laugh. Love.
<3Andrea