Sunday, October 7, 2007
Mark's Results
Mark's finishing time for the Chicago marathon: 03:35:08 (net) @ Finish (unofficial). Pace 8:12. I heard from Joy that they were having a heat wave up in Illinois, so it must have been a tough course with those temperatures. What a great accomplishment - we are very proud of you, Mark!
Go Mark Go!
Today is Mark's big day - the Chicago marathon, where he is hoping to run a qualifying time for Boston. Wow. As we ran around the lake this morning our thoughts were definitely with the challenge he'll be facing in a few hours. Later today we'll be watching our email for updates...I'll post his times here later this evening.
The equivalent to a full marathon around our lake would be 30 loops. That is a sobering thought. It sure makes the seven we had to do today seem manageable! We did our run (9.8 km) in 67 minutes. We started out with a real easy pace, about 9 minutes per loop. Unfortunately at one point I actually got a stone in my shoe and had to SIT DOWN on a bench and TAKE OFF MY SHOE to get it out. Geez! That kind of threw our time off, but oh well, I was very happy with how we felt afterwards - we both felt up to doing a couple more loops if we had to (but we didn't so we very happily headed home)!
I was also trying out using sports drink for the first time. In theory I hate the idea of sports drink: you go out and work so hard to burn calories, why the heck do you want to be taking in extra calories in the form of sugar water? It seems to me it kind of defeats the purpose! I'd much rather eat something nice after my run! But my two running gurus told me that for any run that will go longer than an hour, you need to refuel with sports drink or gels to replenish carbs, electrolytes and minerals. The refueling should start about a half hour into your run. They also told me to start trying out some different brands because some can be hard on your stomach and make you feel nauseous. So by way of experiment, I tried Extran Cranberry drink today. Looking at the label it is mostly sugars, vitamin C, potassium, and salt. I started drinking it after we had gone three loops, and it tasted okay and didn't upset my stomach. Cool. For a 330 ml bottle you are getting about 200 calories, so it's basically like drinking regular soda. Ugh. But I did notice that I felt perky after our run, my stomach was fine, and I didn't feel hungry at all when we got home. So all in all, it was a successful trial run!
The equivalent to a full marathon around our lake would be 30 loops. That is a sobering thought. It sure makes the seven we had to do today seem manageable! We did our run (9.8 km) in 67 minutes. We started out with a real easy pace, about 9 minutes per loop. Unfortunately at one point I actually got a stone in my shoe and had to SIT DOWN on a bench and TAKE OFF MY SHOE to get it out. Geez! That kind of threw our time off, but oh well, I was very happy with how we felt afterwards - we both felt up to doing a couple more loops if we had to (but we didn't so we very happily headed home)!
I was also trying out using sports drink for the first time. In theory I hate the idea of sports drink: you go out and work so hard to burn calories, why the heck do you want to be taking in extra calories in the form of sugar water? It seems to me it kind of defeats the purpose! I'd much rather eat something nice after my run! But my two running gurus told me that for any run that will go longer than an hour, you need to refuel with sports drink or gels to replenish carbs, electrolytes and minerals. The refueling should start about a half hour into your run. They also told me to start trying out some different brands because some can be hard on your stomach and make you feel nauseous. So by way of experiment, I tried Extran Cranberry drink today. Looking at the label it is mostly sugars, vitamin C, potassium, and salt. I started drinking it after we had gone three loops, and it tasted okay and didn't upset my stomach. Cool. For a 330 ml bottle you are getting about 200 calories, so it's basically like drinking regular soda. Ugh. But I did notice that I felt perky after our run, my stomach was fine, and I didn't feel hungry at all when we got home. So all in all, it was a successful trial run!
Friday, October 5, 2007
Friday Fun Day!
Had a good 40 minute workout on the elliptical this morning, and then moved on to my strength workout. today I did the lat pulley first and then the leg press right after that, and then I was done with machines and only had exercises with dumbbells left to go: chest press, stationary lunges (I am still too wobbly for the regular ones!), something for shoulders (but I forget the name, bent over something), and then the one for triceps where you lift and lower the dumbbell behind your head (what's that called???). Obviously all this working out is not helping my memory much, is it? Oh well. Then I was finally done with those and could go lay down on the mat for the two ab exercises. But the crunch with the medicine ball is a killer! My neck still aches! I am looking forward to my rest day tomorrow!
Last night I was re-reading some parts of Make the Connection, the book that Oprah wrote with Bob Greene in 1996, especially the bits about her first half marathon. I love the part where she says: "I never experienced what it felt like to be in control of your body, to train it and have it respond. It was a great feeling. I felt like an athlete."
After that Oprah signs up to run a full marathon. After doing it she says: "Running a marathon is a metaphor for life, I think. It has its obstacles, moments when you feel like giving up, when you're tired, overwhelmed. But you keep going. Finally, you can see the finish line. The purpose is clear."
That's all we have to do...just keep going! Mark is going to do great on Sunday and we are all going to beat that bus on January 12th!
Last night I was re-reading some parts of Make the Connection, the book that Oprah wrote with Bob Greene in 1996, especially the bits about her first half marathon. I love the part where she says: "I never experienced what it felt like to be in control of your body, to train it and have it respond. It was a great feeling. I felt like an athlete."
After that Oprah signs up to run a full marathon. After doing it she says: "Running a marathon is a metaphor for life, I think. It has its obstacles, moments when you feel like giving up, when you're tired, overwhelmed. But you keep going. Finally, you can see the finish line. The purpose is clear."
That's all we have to do...just keep going! Mark is going to do great on Sunday and we are all going to beat that bus on January 12th!
Thursday, October 4, 2007
What a Relief!
My swimming workout went like clockwork yesterday, I swam for 30 minutes and did 32 laps, alternating breaststroke and crawl like last week. I was really tired in the evening after we came home and had dinner, so I left my oldest on his own downstairs to watch the latest episode of LOST, crawled in bed and fell right asleep!
This morning I was anxious to find out how the running was going to feel, so after making the round trip to school twice on my bike (Gillis forgot his swimming gear), I got right off to the gym to figure it out. Well, it was quite a relief when I got on the treadmill and my ankle felt fine! Yay! So I did my speed workout as planned: 7x 1 min at speed plus 2 min recovery. I ended up doing 3.3 km in 23 minutes; the highest speed I got up to was 12 km/hr in one segment (when "Walkie Talkie Man" came on my Mp3!)
I am starting to get sympathy nerves for Mark - he is going to be running the Chicago Marathon this Sunday! He has worked really hard and I know he is going to do very well. Stefaan and I will be thinking of him when we do our lake loops on Sunday morning! Good luck, Mark!
This morning I was anxious to find out how the running was going to feel, so after making the round trip to school twice on my bike (Gillis forgot his swimming gear), I got right off to the gym to figure it out. Well, it was quite a relief when I got on the treadmill and my ankle felt fine! Yay! So I did my speed workout as planned: 7x 1 min at speed plus 2 min recovery. I ended up doing 3.3 km in 23 minutes; the highest speed I got up to was 12 km/hr in one segment (when "Walkie Talkie Man" came on my Mp3!)
I am starting to get sympathy nerves for Mark - he is going to be running the Chicago Marathon this Sunday! He has worked really hard and I know he is going to do very well. Stefaan and I will be thinking of him when we do our lake loops on Sunday morning! Good luck, Mark!
Wednesday, October 3, 2007
Wet Wednesday
Well, it just started pouring out...and in one hour I have to bike up to school to pick up the boys. Ugh. Poor Florian had a school excursion for biology class to a local forest today, he'll be soaked plus he has his long bike ride home. Oh well...at least it was dry when we all left this morning and it's not cold out.
When I got back I did my strength workout first. It was either that or clean up the kitchen, which was even less appealing. The workout went fine, I was a bit cautious on the calf raise but my ankle seems okay. This afternoon I will swim and then we will see how the running goes tomorrow.
So now it's time at last to clean up the kitchen (can't put it off any longer!), make some soup and get lunch going, so the boys have something hot to eat when they get home from this drizzly day!
When I got back I did my strength workout first. It was either that or clean up the kitchen, which was even less appealing. The workout went fine, I was a bit cautious on the calf raise but my ankle seems okay. This afternoon I will swim and then we will see how the running goes tomorrow.
So now it's time at last to clean up the kitchen (can't put it off any longer!), make some soup and get lunch going, so the boys have something hot to eat when they get home from this drizzly day!
Tuesday, October 2, 2007
Easy Run but not so Fun
Last week it was Jenny's turn, so I guess this week it's my turn...to have a run turn into a real struggle because of some physical problem. I biked up to the gym to do my easy run of 35 minutes on the treadmill. It was warmer than last week (14° C) but I didn't want to run outside because it was misty, raining lightly and I hate that insecure feeling I get when it's wet out like I am going to trip or fall flat on my face or sprain my ankle on the slick and slippery sidewalks (although I am aware that I do need to get some workouts in on pavement to be ready for that in the half).
So I got started running and noticed right away the inside of my left ankle was hurting, rather sharply. I kept going, thinking maybe it would work itself out, but it seemed to just hurt more and radiate up the front of my shin as I kept running and increased my tempo a little bit. So I backed off, took more frequent walk breaks and kept the running segments to a very slow tempo. While walking it didn't bother me at all, but whenever I picked the pace up to a run, it started again. I was so bummed! I figured the most important goal was to get the 35 minutes in, even if I had to do it slowly. I ended up doing 4.4 kilometers, which actually wasn't too bad, but I had been hoping to do about 5 like last week. Oh well.
I hope it's nothing serious - hopefully just some inflammation. I took ibuprofen and am icing it as I type this! I'll be really happy if I can do my speed workout on Thursday.
So I got started running and noticed right away the inside of my left ankle was hurting, rather sharply. I kept going, thinking maybe it would work itself out, but it seemed to just hurt more and radiate up the front of my shin as I kept running and increased my tempo a little bit. So I backed off, took more frequent walk breaks and kept the running segments to a very slow tempo. While walking it didn't bother me at all, but whenever I picked the pace up to a run, it started again. I was so bummed! I figured the most important goal was to get the 35 minutes in, even if I had to do it slowly. I ended up doing 4.4 kilometers, which actually wasn't too bad, but I had been hoping to do about 5 like last week. Oh well.
I hope it's nothing serious - hopefully just some inflammation. I took ibuprofen and am icing it as I type this! I'll be really happy if I can do my speed workout on Thursday.
Monday, October 1, 2007
Week 2
Only 15 weeks to go...which means 45 strength training sessions, 15 easy runs, 15 swims, 15 speed workouts, 30 yoga sessions, 15 cross training sessions, and 15 long runs. Oh yeah...and 15 rest days. I think I am going to need them!
Today I didn't get any biking in because the boys are all off school but I got my strength training in after breakfast and practicing piano...and then we went to the Ikea for the cheapie breakfast (1,50 euros and an early lunch for us!) and just poking around. Looked like a lot of other moms and kids were doing the same! Still pouring down rain now so we will be having a quiet relaxing afternoon at home. The boys are playing Legos and dying for me to finish my blog so they can have some time on the computer!
Hope everyone has a good week!
Today I didn't get any biking in because the boys are all off school but I got my strength training in after breakfast and practicing piano...and then we went to the Ikea for the cheapie breakfast (1,50 euros and an early lunch for us!) and just poking around. Looked like a lot of other moms and kids were doing the same! Still pouring down rain now so we will be having a quiet relaxing afternoon at home. The boys are playing Legos and dying for me to finish my blog so they can have some time on the computer!
Hope everyone has a good week!
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