Speedwork Wednesday
Another exciting post in which I discuss running. Woohoo! Don’t worry. I’m including cute kid photos to keep everyone entertained.
Once a week I do some sort of speed work run. Today was that day. I set up the workout in my Garmin Forerunner so I would be ready to go this morning. This is one thing that makes the Garmin awesome. I can program a workout into it so that I don’t need to be paying attention to exactly where the distances are that I need to switch my speed. My plan was to do a 1 mile warm-up run. After that, I repeated this 4 times: a half mile in 4:38 (9:15/mile pace) followed by a quarter mile recovery jog. Then I set it to finish up with a 1 mile cool down jog. That’s a total of 5 miles. I also programmed the Garmin to tell me if I was below my goal pace for my half mile intervals.
It worked like a charm. When my warm-up mile was about done, my watch warned me that I would be switching gears soon. It would do that each time I switched from my fast running to recovery or to my cool down as well. Super-duper!
I got up at 5:20 and started out. I was a little apprehensive about whether I would be able to actually accomplish my goal pace. The warm-up was easy. No surprise there! Then it came time to kick it into high gear for my first half mile interval. It was hard, but I did it! I finished in 4:33. I was happy to be able to slow down for the next quarter mile. Each new interval felt harder than the last, but I pushed hard. I was also determined to do my best to hit my goal pace and to run the entire 5 miles even though I knew I would feel like falling over at the end of my last fast run. The challenging thing about speedwork like this is that you work really hard for the middle 3 miles, but you also have a mile on the front end and the back end. You need to have something left to finish that last mile.
Yes, I did feel like dying at the end of my last half mile interval, but it was for good reason! I completed my half mile intervals in 4:33, 4:30, 4:36, and 4:34. And then I finished my last recovery jog and cool down mile. I’m still a little high from the feeling of accomplishment. 
Now, how about some cute photos?
Isaac is not a full-time walker yet, but he did walk across the kitchen by himself yesterday. Crawling will be a thing of the past soon. His vocabulary is slowly growing. I heard him say, “Audrey” today. Poor Ethan. His name is harder to say. Audrey’s name sounds kind of like Daddy and Isaac says that all the time. It’s his favorite word. Speaking of vocabulary, Ethan used the phrase, “No Siree”, in a sentence yesterday. It made me laugh out loud!
For Ray and Dawn
Ray and Dawn Mikesell got to hold their newborn baby son, Caden, today. He was 1 lb, 14 oz and went to Jesus 45 minutes later. At Dawn’s 20 week ultrasound they discovered that Baby Caden had Trisomy 18. It’s a chromosomal disorder that causes many life-threatening issues with the heart, kidneys, digestive system, brain, etc., They weren’t sure if this baby would survive birth.
We’re thankful for them that they were able to have those precious minutes together.
Please pray for them. Dawn will be recovering from childbirth with no baby to take home with her. Physically and emotionally it will be very hard. I’ve never gone through anything like this, but I can imagine that there will be so many various emotions that they work through.
It’s a Monday
Nathan went back to work today. I had really gotten spoiled having him around last week!
The day started out well. I was determined to be productive. I only snoozed my alarm once and was out the door for my morning run by 5:40. By the time Nathan left, I had folded some laundry, started another load of laundry and decided that we would go to the beach today.
I planned to leave after Isaac’s morning nap. I laid him down, but he never fell asleep. While he laid in bed talking and crying off and on, I packed sandwhiches for lunch, gathered our towels and beach stuff and got Ethan and Audrey ready to go. Then I scooped up Isaac and we all headed to the beach.
We spent about 2 hours at Lake Waconia. Because it was overcast and not that hot today we only had to share the beach with one other family. It was a fun way to spend the morning. Isaac stayed awake in the car and gave me a good 2 1/2 hour nap when we got home.
My energy seems to have left me though. As I’m blogging, Nathan is picking up toys and cleaning. I’m very lucky to have such a helpful husband! I’m hoping I get a second wind sometime soon.
A little of this and that
I was so tired when my head hit the pillow last night. All that time in the sun wore me out! My alarm went off far too early. I snoozed it once before getting up to get ready for my morning run. Because this week was a taper week (a planned cut back in miles), I only had a 4 mile run this morning. I’ve been running Tuesday, Thursday, Sunday, but I’m switching that next week so that I can be on a good schedule for the week of the race in August. Instead of my long run being on a Sunday, it will be on Saturday.
Speaking of my running schedule, this is what I’ve been doing:
3 runs a week. (after this next race, if I’m feeling good, I’ll increase that to 4). The first run is a short 2-3 mile easy run at about a little more than 2 minutes/mile slower than my race pace. The second run is some sort of speed work. It’s usually 5 miles in total and starts with a warm up mile and ends with a cool down mile. The three miles in the middle are where I really push myself. One week I did mile long repeats at a certain speed with half mile recovery running in between and another week I did 3 miles at a little slower than my race pace, but much faster than my “easy run” pace. The third run I do is a “long run”. That’s run at an “easy run” pace. The purpose is to build endurance and strength. So, it’s not about finishing it as fast as I can, it’s about getting my body strong enough to sustain running for a longer period of time. My long run this coming week will be 7 miles.
If you’re interesting in seeing the caluculator for training pace, check out the McMillan running calculator. You need to enter a recent race time and it fills in the rest.
On my non-running days I cross-train by biking or walking.
I’m also working on the 100 push-ups challenge. I’ve finished the first two weeks. I started it last fall and didn’t complete it. This time I’m really working at it. I just finished my test for the end of the second week. I did 21 push-ups before collapsing on the floor. That’s girl push-ups, by the way! I have only attempted the modified version. It’s a fun challenge. It doesn’t take a lot of time and doesn’t require any special equipment.
I was really disciplined with my eating and exercise last week, but my weigh-in was not good. I was up almost 2 pounds. I was bummed, but I don’t think there was anything I could have done. Next week should be really good, right?
We enjoyed having Nathan off work this last week. I’m going to really miss him when he’s off to work tomorrow. We love having him around! He has also been working hard at watching what he’s eating and working out. He biked 15 miles one day! I’m very proud of the work he’s doing.
I guess that’s all for now. I’m feeling sleepy!
Is this Kansas?
I went on an outing with 9 other women from our church today. We took off early this morning and drove to St. Croix Falls and we canoed down the St. Croix River for about 7 miles. We took our time and had a picnic lunch a few miles down the river. The weather was warm, but not unbearable. It was fun to get to know some more people from our church.
I dropped my group off at church and noticed that it was starting to get stormy. I thought I should head home.
I headed west and noticed the skies were dark. I noticed one car was pulled off the road. Hmmm…. interesting. Maybe I should turn on ‘CCO. So, I dialed my radio to AM 830. They were talking about severe storms. Some folks were calling in with their eyewitness accounts on storm activity. The weather man on the radio was also talking about severe weather they were seeing on the radar. They said it was a few miles west of Watertown and heading east.
I live a few miles west of Watertown.
I was driving west out of Watertown at that very moment.
I could see a dark wall cloud looming up above just ahead of me. There were some little finger-like clouds coming down out of it. It started to hail a little (I should check the van to see if there is any damage– it wasn’t that bad so I doubt it). So, I’m hearing the people on the radio talking about a possible tornado while driving toward it. I started to pray. I’m not sure why I didn’t stop and get out of my car and lay down on the ground. I just drove faster. I wanted to get past the storm. Sure, I was speeding toward the storm, but that meant it would get beyond it faster. Right? My heart started beating faster as I got closer to the wall cloud. I drove by the polo field and the road turned to the left. I was heading sort of south at that point and the storm was a little farther north. I was past it. Whew!
Then the straight-line winds came. They are pretty strong out on the prairie. I passed a few more cars that were pulled off the road and a number of people who were standing outside with cameras. A few miles later I was safe at home. The storm had come east of Winsted and my family was blissfully ignorant of it. The sirens had never gone off. It’s 5 hours later and my heart still is racing when I think about it.
I’ve had enough tornadoes for this summer.
Here are some photos of the storm system:
http://wcco.com/slideshows/severe.weather.minnesota.20.1810429.html
And from the kstp.com viewer submitted photos:
More Demolition Photos
Once they started, it sure didn’t take long to level the building. I was amused by the paper on the garage that said that it would no longer be used for paper storage. The funny thing is that it’s the last thing still standing!
We had a fun day today. I woke at 5:30 and did my long run. I ran 7 miles today. My longest run yet. Woohoo! We went to church at 9:00 and then took a slight detour on the way home to try to figure out where some members of our church will be moving to here in Winsted. They are returning from Austria this week. It will be nice to have more people in town that we know. I think we figured out where they will be renting. This afternoon, Nathan ran 4 miles and Isaac and I napped. We rounded out our day by having Tom and Jen over for hamburgers and brats and a viewing of the movie Tron. A fun day!
The moment you’ve all been waiting for
Before and after photos to document my weight loss progress. I actually changed my clothes and did my hair and makeup at 6:00pm for this photo shoot. As you can see, Audrey also dressed up for the occasion.
The first photo was taken close to the time that Isaac was born.
Audrey and I tried to recreate the initial shot, but we didn’t remember how we were standing!
Back
Front
Side
My awesome muscles.
Now that I’ve posted all these photos, I feel sort of vain. Oh well. I just wanted to document my progress. I don’t think I look like a supermodel, but it’s my journey and I’m embracing it! My official Friday weigh-in yesterday brought me within 3.8 pounds of my pre-pregnancy weight.
And so begins our Staycation
Nathan is using up the last of his vacation from this last year and he’ll be home all week next week. Woohoo! Nathan’s only request was that it be a “low-key” week. I think I can handle that.
I took the kids to Hyland Park in Bloomington today. We had fun, but it would have been more fun if I had a big person along to go with Ethan so he could do all the big chutes and ladders that I couldn’t do while taking care of Isaac. We’ll definitely go back and bring along more helpers. There are three different play structures: one for babies/toddlers, one for Audrey/Ethan’s age and one big one with higher climbing things and bigger tubes for bigger kids. Ethan just wasn’t ready to brave it all on his own. There was also a spray area. That was a huge hit! Ethan and Audrey spent about 30 minutes running around in the water.
How about a cute photo of our big kids? I took this while we were checking out the the demolition of old Holy Trinity Elementary school. It was just a block from our house and that made it easy to pop over and see the progress up close.
1 Year Weight Loss Update
I gave some information in my post a couple of days ago about this year’s ups and downs with trying to lose the weight I gained during my pregnancy with Isaac. Today is the one year point and I thought I would focus on the things I learned and some of the positive outcomes I’ve experienced.
I don’t have photos yet. Sorry. Nathan is working on our computer that has our photos and I haven’t taken any yet today. We’ll have time to do that this weekend.
So, the number that you’ve all been waiting for…. how much weight did I lose over the course of the last year? I usually do my weigh-in on Friday, but since t0day was my “anniversary” I thought I would weigh myself this morning and use those numbers to get my year total.
Here’s the “skinny” (hee hee):
Weight gained with pregnancy- 32 pounds
Weight lost without really trying- 13.6 pounds
Weight lost since I decided to “try” to lose weight- 13.8 pounds
Total weight lost in the last 13 months- 27.4 pounds
When I look back, I can see that I really tried hard for only about 3 or 4 months and those weren’t all in a row. I wasted a lot of time having to lose the same 5-7 pounds over and over again.
I think one of the biggest factors in losing the weight that I did was the support I got from Nathan and from my friend, Marie. Marie has also been working on losing weight and has lost almost 30 pounds in the last 10 months. Or something like that. She just kept working at it and logging her food. She didn’t take days and days and weeks off like I would. Guess what? She saw positive results from doing that. It’s hard to ignore the hard facts when she’s reporting every week how much she lost
I also found a new and powerful motivation. I have found that I enjoy running. I like to participate in races every so often. I’m competitive and I want to get stronger and faster. I want my next finish time to be faster than the last. Eating right and losing weight will help enormously with this. I’ll be carrying 10 less pounds at my next race than I had at the previous one. That’s also helped get me out the door at 5:30 in the morning to exercise. It’s not telling myself that I need to work out a certain number of times a week or minutes a day, it’s telling myself that I’m an athlete in training. Or something like that!
I’ve learned that I can feel good about myself and dress in ways that flatter my figure even if I have not made it to my goal weight.
I’ve also learned that having 3 babies changes your body and there are some things that I can do about it, but some things I wont be able to change. It’s a small price to pay!
Thanks for bearing with my weight loss journey updates! I really am hoping to post photos soon.
Independence Day Fun!
On Sunday, I got up early to run and discovered that it was pouring down rain. I decided to postpone my 6 mile run until after church. We would be back from church in time for me to hit the road by 11:00. It was miserably hot though. I hardly ever run that late. I usually set my alarm for 5:30 so I can beat the heat (as much as possible). It was unbearable to run with the sun shining high in the sky directly on me. I cut the run short and only did 5 miles and ran and walked. The upside was that I burned a lot of calories. That put me in good shape for eating a little extra as I wanted as a part of our holiday celebration.
We joined our friends for a 4th of July celebration that included a yummy lunch of grilled kabobs, hot dogs, and brats and other picnic fixings. After we filled our bellies, we had a water gun fight and followed that with a water balloon fight. We got wet. Very wet. It was hot though so I didn’t care!
Here are some photos from our day.
Ethan, Ezekiel and Zemirah- the three amigos
Ethan took the water gun fight very seriously!
Audrey spent most of the time in the water fun refill area (also known as a cooler filled with water).
Elaura did her own thing. Isn’t she cute?
Nathan and Isaac were there too! They just didn’t run around shooting people or throwing water balloons. Isaac will be ready to participate next year!
