Happy Easter!!

Happy Easter!! Nothing like a day to celebrate by eating a lot of delicious food and boat load of candy lol! I know.. I know.. It's a lot more than just food and candy. This day is to celebrate that Jesus rose from the dead (Yes I did just get religious on you). Regardless of whether you believe or not, it's a day of hope, happiness, and love. So what better way than to celebrate the day with family!

So, yesterday I was supposed to run with a local running group, but I decided to sleep in instead. It was probably the best idea ever. My body definitely needed it. So I snuggled in bed with my wonderful husband and slept for an extra hour. Once I woke up, I warmed up by taking the dogs on a jog around the block. After their jog, I left the house for my 6 mile run Garmin-free. It was awesome. I always say that we get too caught up on time and distance, and we forget about just running. I definitely want to have more workouts that are Garmin-free so I can enjoy running again.

After my run, I got some work in and just relaxed. I finished my day with a fabulous dinner: Portabello Mushroom burger. I've been having the weirdest craving for it (which is so beyond weird because I've never had it - and no, I'm not pregnant). Since it was our first time making it, we followed the directions to the T. It was absolutely FANTASTIC!!! For the recipe I tried, go here: http://allrecipes.com/recipe/portobello-mushroom-burgers/.

Today, I did partake in eating a lot of food and candy, but I tried to restrain myself from overindulging. My day started out by seeing my wonderful mother and stepdad for a little while before they headed up to Orlando. After church, my husband I met up with his family and had brunch together. I'm still not hungry from brunch lol. After another nap, I got a workout in with my bike! It's definitely been a while.  My workout consisted of 5 minute warm-up with 5 minute "hill intervals" with 2 minutes of rest in between. My workout was about 45 minutes long which was perfect! Gotta to get ready for triathlon training :)

Tomorrow is the start of another work week. Here is to smooth sailing!!

.....Overwhelmed.....

This week has been overwhelming. I worked my butt off and was just exhausted from not being able to sleep well. I didn't get to work out Wednesday and today because I honestly didn't have time.

My workouts this week have definitely suffered. Now, I probably could have woken up early to workout but I couldn't even bring myself to do that. Yesterday I actually tried to get in a hard workout. I did 6x200 meter repeats with about .2 rest in between sets. Since the weather outside was beautiful, I ran around the neighborhood instead of on the track.

Tomorrow I am doing a training run with a local group. I run with them before and they're pretty awesome. Sorry for cutting this short, but my eyes are closing as I'm writing this...

Biggest loser finale!!!

I am motivated to blog as I watch the biggest loser finale!!! Watching these contestants on their weightloss journey is absolutely incredible. One of the best quotes of the night was "your journey is never over" and I couldn't agree more.

At this point in my journey I am taking it easy. I am not running as much or as hard as I typically do; I am actually enjoying my workouts. For today's workout I ran 4 miles on the treadmill. I would have loved to run outside, but it was raining and ridiculously humid outside. Running on the treadmill is typically not fun for me, but I have found a new trick to keep me preoccupied: watching random shows on my iPad. I downloaded the abc play app and have been starting to watch the show revenge. Even though I have no idea what going on, I am completely entertained watching the show on the iPad.  I put  my headphones in so that I can tune everything out and not overpower the tv my husband is watching outside.

Another typical thing I do on the treadmill to entertain myself is to try different speeds during my run. I'll start off at around a 6 speed and with every 5 mins that elapses, I raise the speed a little more.   By the time the workout is over,  I have raised the speed by more than 1.5 points from where I started. Every workout is different, but that's pretty much how it works when I'm on the treadmill.

Tomorrow I will workout to Jillian michaels body revolution :) I'm mental preparing for the pain..


Mile repeats

This week has been a productive week as far as workouts are concerned.

I started the week doing a nice three mile run. I didn't want to take it too fast and ended up with a 24:57. On Tuesday I completed one of Jillian Michael's body revolution DVDs. That women is such a beast, I love it. Wednesday morning I woke up and did a speed workout. The workout consists of a 5 min warm up/cool down followed by 10 minutes of 30 second sprints followed by 30 seconds recovery. These short recovery times help to increase the cardio level and are hard as hell. Thursday I did my Jillian Michael's 30 day shred at level 1 because I felt like a weenie. Then Friday I rested :)

That gets me to today's workout! Today I wanted to do some variation of speed work, so I opted for mile repeats (only 2). My goal was to start off with a 10 min mile and incorporate under 8 min miles in between. I stated my first mile at a 9:51 which wasn't too bad and hit my goals for both mile repeats and my recovery times. I ended up doing 5.5 miles and took the last half mile easy.

I'm not really too sure what I'm doing for tomorrow's workout but it needs to be hardcore. I need to burn a good amount of calories since I'm going to the Miami fine chocolate and food festival. I'm super excited. I'll try to post tomorrow night about all the glorious chocolate!

My Muscles are Crying

So as I stated earlier, I want to take a break from long distance running. I wanted to try something different, and have been working out to Jillian michaels body revolution DVDs. Since I haven't gotten past week 3, I popped in week 4/5 workout video for a change of pace. Change of pace = muscle failure due to fatigue.

You know a workout video is off to a bad start when it tells you that you won't die when you do this video lol. The sad part is that this video is only about 30 minutes long. Smart marketing by Jillian's team because no one wants a long workout. So I popped it In and after the first circuit I was tempted to stop my workout and just do abs. I realized that this was the lazy way out and so I stuck it out. Granted I did some modifications, but overall I did it. Once I was done I laid down the floor for about 15 mins but who is counting? My muscles automatically felt sore.

Tomorrow I'm doing a long distance run (3-5 miles). I'm hoping my muscle don't rebel against me because of this video.


 
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