Psssst

Psssssst.

Hey! Yeah you.

Check out fitblogger.ca today.

Why?

Yours truly wrote a guest post for the Blog Spotlight.

Yeah baby!

 

Tell me about your journey to health!

 

50 for 50 and Inspiration for Beyond

This is my 50th post!

And I thought a little commemoration was in order.

Fun facts: I started this blog on July 13.  In the past 3 months I’ve logged at least 50 miles according to my MapMyRun app. I’ve already matched the number of miles I ran in September, and I still have two full weeks to go. I’ve started following well over 50 blogs, and am almost to 50 followers myself. (Sorry, I don’t know how fun those were but they’re all I can come up with right now.)

In other words, I’m feeling pretty good about my progress, both with my running and training, and with all this blogging stuff. I’m excited to see how I handle the challenges ahead; I just hope I’m learning the tools I need to keep going when things get hard and the mileage goes big. Which reminds me…

I’ve gotten where I am today because of community. My parents, close friends, and boyfriend have been incredibly supportive both by letting me yammer on about Chi Running and how great it is, and then still reading my blog.

The online community has also been pretty awesome. A big THANK YOU to all of you who come by, and keep coming by, to comment and like my posts. The #SweatPink, Healthy Living and Fitblogger forums have also been inspiring, helpful, motivating, and inspiring. (I know, I said it twice. It’s just so true!)

I came across another awesome community the other day that I’m contemplating joining and thought I would share in case anyone who ever finds my blog is also a beginner. Its called Inspired Running and I think it is a great idea. What is it?

“Inspired Running is an online community of beginning runners/walkers, offering personalized support, motivation & feedback to help you start running. [For a small monthly fee of $14], benefits include live coaching calls, real-time feedback, motivation & much, much more.”

This community was started by a woman who thought she hated running and could never be a runner but slowly started, tried, stuck with it and started Inspired Running to help others learn to love running. Reading her explanation felt like I was reading about my own story.

“The foundation of the community is built on helping you develop 4 key principals of motivation:

1. Cultivating Desire: Helping you create a true desire to run a.k.a. inspiration

2. Overcoming Obstacles: Giving you tools to break down real and perceived barriers that make running harder than it needs to be. 

3. Taking Action: Providing a clear, customized and doable set of action steps.  You’ll have access to custom training plans and lots of how-to’s. 

4. Getting Support: Surrounding yourself with others who genuinely support you and your goals can improve your success and your well being.”

I think this could be very beneficial. Why? By connecting with others who are also starting out on their journeys and by learning more about #2: overcoming obstacles. I definitely still have a love-hate relationship with running and as training gets harder it could be great to have some extra tools in the ‘ol belt to keep pushing. It sounds like I’ve talked myself into it!

Stumbling across this community has gotten me to thinking about inspiration and while that’s definitely a topic for a whole other post, I realized that I’m not sure what my inspiration is. I guess just finishing the half marathon–the accomplishment and proving to myself that I can do it–is my inspiration, but I wonder, is that enough? Is that enough to drive me to do my best and stick with the training? We shall see.

In the meantime…

What inspires you?

Day 14: Sunday Funday

For the 30 minute fun run scheduled for today D and I went up to one of the fancy neighborhoods in Reno to run on the Steamboat Ditch Trail. It’s a flat trail that runs along a now-dried up irrigation ditch; a nice respite from running roads but not too technical.

My legs were really tight and sore, and after a bit of a warm up the situation improved, but the whole run was challenging. We completed 2.5 miles in a half hour (12:21 pace).

One factor I realized as I was looking at the details of the run (thank you MapMyRun!) that may explain why the run was so hard was the elevation difference. Yesterday’s run at the Marina was at 4,400 feet, with virtually no elevation gain or loss. Today’s run started at almost 4,900, with a gain of at 200 feet over the run. That 500 feet plus the subtle elevation gain made a big difference!

But the run was another beautiful one. We got to see a taste of autumn in Reno. It’s beautiful here, in a high desert mountainy kind of way, but I always miss the fall foliage of home. There may be nothing better than fall in West Virginia, and it’s just not the same here.

At our turn around point we got to the overlook of the Patagonia Warehouse, a bunch of other warehouses, and a popular park by the Truckee River.

And there were some views of downtown Reno. You can faintly see the skyline.

So overall it was a decent run that lived up to its name. My form continues to improve each time I get out there. I am still battling my own inner demons and tendency to quit when the going gets tough, but so far I’ve triumphed each time and pushed through. No walking yet!

Today marks the end of 2 weeks of training for the Surf City Half. In that time I’ve run 8 days for a total of 23 miles. In the three weeks prior to starting training I ran a total of 11 miles during 6 runs. Hard to not be pleased with that progress.

I’ve got some exciting posts planned for this week, but for now I need to read Chi Marathon to see what Week 3 holds for me. Stay tuned…

Do you get to experience autumn where you live?

Nevermind, don’t tell me. I’ll get too jealous. :)

Day 11: 1 + 1 = 2

2 workouts on Day 11. Running in the morning and yoga in the evening. How’d it go?

Well, I don’t know why, but my Thursday runs never feel that great. I always feel extra stiff and struggle to get into a rhythm with my movement and breath. Yesterday morning I felt like I was bouncing and stomping down the road, but I managed to pull out 2.7 miles in 30 minutes, about a half minute faster than my Tuesday pace. I was definitely pushing it the last mile, alternating my focus on leveling my pelvis and lengthening my neck. When going faster I didn’t do a great job keeping my form though, so there’s still much work to be done.

Then yoga last night ended up being a good, albeit different class than I was planning for. The class was focused on lots of hip openers and twists, rather than vinyasas or working through a series of poses a la Ashtanga style. But it was a great change up from my recent yoga experiences and I had a breakthrough! I was finally able to do side crow. I couldn’t hold it for very long, but I could get into the pose on both sides!

Source

I’m sure I didn’t look like that, but I’ve been trying to get into this pose for months now and my flexibility and strength are finally allowing me to do so! I can’t wait to keep practicing and get to the point where I can do this:

Source

Onward and upward. Resting today, 4 miles on Saturday, and fun run on Sunday. Stay tuned….

Have you had a yoga breakthrough? What pose?

Why is my second run of the week always so rough? Do you experience something similar?

Sweating Pink!

Well, I am officially back from vacation and getting right into the swing of things.

We returned Saturday night and Sunday morning I went for a run. My first in….9 days….ack! Although I didn’t run at all on vacation I took long walks on the beach (seriously), went swimming and kayaking, and “tried” surfing (I paddled on a board for a while and then rode it into shore on my stomach). So even though I didn’t run, I was marginally active, but going into Sunday’s run I was a little nervous about how I would hold up. It was a bit of a rough run–I was pretty winded during my run intervals–but I ran/walked just over 3 miles and didn’t feel sore Monday.

Monday morning that crazy thing happened again. You know, that thing where you wake up wanting to go run? Well, it happened to me for the first time a few weeks ago and it was shocking. Taking my newfound inspiration, I decided to set my timer for 25 minutes and just see how far I could get, or to see how fast I could run two miles, whichever came first. After warming up (deep breathing, joint looseners) I set off and it felt good. I rotated through the chi focuses–picking up my feet, midfoot strike, posture, core, arm swing–and alternated between listening to the metronome and rocking out to 80s pop. I finished my run at just under an 11 1/2 minute pace. Not too bad, considering it’s only a half minute slower than the pace I ran my first leg of the Reno Tahoe Odyssey, and it’s about a minute and a half faster than the first mile I chi ran about a month ago.

Patience and persistence pays off. But I tell you what, those first few months are so hard! Patience is SO hard. But now I’m continuing to feel good and inspired by my progress.

Another inspiration that’s lit another fire for me is pretty exciting. See that badge on the top right side of the page that says I’M A SWEATPINK AMBASSADOR? Well, that’s right, I’m now a Sweatpink Ambassador, with Fit Approach, which means that I’ve joined an awesome community of women who stay healthy and active and who, for the most part, blog about it. I’m really excited to see where this will take the blog, and I’m extra excited about the built in community support and added accountability. So far everyone has been very welcoming and I’m looking forward to spending some time reading new blogs and getting a better feel for my fellow SPAs (Sweatpink Ambassadors). Onward and upward, while #sweatingpink!

Speaking of reading blogs, my next post will highlight some of my favorite go-to’s since I started this blog two months ago. So stay tuned…