Strength Training

It is more than acceptable to be just a runner! I was for a very long time. However, if you do any research on long distance running you will undoubtably read that your endurance and speed will improve if you add strength workouts to your training schedule. I added strength workouts to my training in January of 2012. I strongly believe that those workouts along with my consistent running with the group have made my running so much stronger! Since starting the strength training I took 8 minutes off my half marathon time, 5 mins off my 30k race time, and nearly 10 lbs off the scale. It's hard to argue with those results!

The group I run with worked out a deal with a crossfit gym in Oakville called Primal Athletics. It's a bare bones gym with nothing more than barbells, bench presses, & pull up bars. But it has two amazing coaches that have tailored two workouts a week to our running group. On Monday nights we focus on legs and Wednesday nights we focus on upper body and core. 

strength training workout - I'm in the blue!

Each workout is 45 minutes. The gym typically puts it's members through a warm up time, but our group runs for 40-50 mins prior to the session so we usually get right into the work out. At first we mostly used our own body as resistance. It's amazing what great of a workout you can get with nothing more than your body! Squats, lunges, plank, push ups, wall sits, etc. As time has gone on and we have gotten stronger we have added weights in. 

Example of adding weight: 

beginner me - wall sit with just my body
stronger me - wall sit holding a 15 lb weight in each hand 

beginner me - walking lunges with just my body

stronger me - walking lunges holding a 25 lb plate

beginner me - squats with just my body

stronger me - squats holding a 35 lb kettle ball

How many reps do you do?

Remember, getting up to these weights has taken me over a year of doing this strength training 2 times a week. Some weeks days feel better than others and I can push myself a bit farther. At the end of the workout I feel amazing! I sleep better and overall feel so much better about myself. I have really accomplished some great for just me! Which as a Mommy to twin boys is a great thing to have 2 days a week! This strength training as really strengthen my running. My legs don't get fatigued nearly as fast as they used to. I also feel that it has kept me injury free. . . KNOCK ON WOOD!  An added bonus is that I notice my physical appearance toning. My arms, back and chest are not quite as flabby as the couple years post twins. I'm working on my belly, but that's being done with nutrition. You can do a million sit ups and still not get a flat belly -it's a fact! Belly fat isn't lost in the gym, it's lost on your plate. What you eat and drink effects your belly fat. My plan is to work on that this summer and fall leading up to Chicago Marathon with the nutrition plan from one of the coaches at this gym. 

I would not do any of these kinds of workouts if it wasn't for this gym or going with my running group. I am someone that needs peer pressure and accountability to motivate me. I'm so thankful to have the running group and the coaches at Primal to do both for me! 

Do you do regular strength training? Have you always with your running? What benefits do you notice?

Mississauga Marathon Recap

No I didn't run a marathon yesterday! Mine is coming in October in Chicago. The hubby ran his first marathon yesterday in Mississauga (the closest suburb to Toronto). He did an amazing job! Here is a recap of the day in pictures. I can't speak for him too much about what the course was like, but I believe the first half is downhill towards Lake Ontario and then some rolling hills along Lakeshore Drive to the finish.

Here is a picture of all of the great pictures and messages he received from friends and family in response to my message out to all of them about a month ago. Read here about my message to them.

Marathon Messages

This marathon is quite small. The marathon only had 840 finishers. The half marathon at about 3000 finishers and the 10K & 5K had 1,200 each. It was quite easy to park at the start, walk up with him, give him a kiss good luck and head off to my first spot along the course to watch him!

At the start!

I went to a location along the route where he would be passing by twice 22k & 28k. It was perfect! He said he was feeling really good when I saw him at the 22k and started feeling tired when I saw him again at 28k. I asked him how he was feeling at 28k and he shouted to me "I just want to be done!" As you can tell from this picture it was a sunny day. Around 52 at the start and it warmed up to 75 later in the day. There wasn't a cloud in the sky and full sun so it got warm!

Lookin' good at 22k!

We were very lucky to know someone who got us parking passes to the Port Credit Yacht Club to park our car. It's right at the finish and made it very convenient to get close to the finish to see him come in! We set out to watch him finish as he was coming around this pond. I got a good look ahead at him coming and decided to run a bit with him as he pushed to the finish! 

Pushing through to the finish!

Here's his happy face at the finish!

The Finisher!

Hugs for the finisher!

He had an amazing first marathon finishing time! Boston qualifying time for his age group (35-39) is 3:10! Crazy fast! He did an amazing 3:34:54 for his first marathon! Way to go honey!

From a spectators point of view I thought this was an easy race to support a runner at. Marathons can sometimes be a hard spectator sport if you are trying to watch a particular person along the course. It was great to see Josh 3 times along the course. 

Have you been a spectator at many marathons? Are there particular races that are easier or harder for watching friends or family?

Summary Saturday

I'm hoping to start and stay consistent with a Summary Saturday post each week. Saturdays are good days for me because I have the hubby home and the mornings have become my time to run, have coffee with the running group, and do kid free errands. I figure I can sneak in some blogging as well.

Each Saturday I plan to post a summary of my week including what my training was, any good recipes I tried, goals for the coming week and any fun things I found out in the the world (aka the internet). 

So here goes. . . Summary Saturday Week 1

Training
I was in a bit of a recovery mode this week after my half marathon last Saturday (read recap here). 

Sunday - Travel day back from Nashville

Monday - I took the boys to the gym after nap time and put them in the child care. I biked for only 8 minutes (I know not a long time, but my legs were fatigued and I didn't want to leave the twins in the child care too long), I did some foam rolling on my legs, stretching and then sat in the hot tub!  I love that the gym we belong to has a hot tub in the women's locker room!

Tuesday - 60 min restorative yoga class

Wednesday - Run: 20 min warm up, 3 x 75 sec hill repeats, 20 min cool down + 45 min upper body strength work out (I'll chat more in another post about my 2 hour Mon/Wed work outs)

Thursday -  went on a short walk with the twins to find our first geocache. Click here to read all about it!

Friday - met with a trainer at the cross fit gym I do my strength training at about a nutrition/meal plan.

Saturday - 10k easy run - we thought the trails were going to be dry because there wasn't much/any rain in the last week. We were wrong. Where the trail was mostly covered by trees it stayed moist - I mentioned that it was like we were out running a Tough Mudder race! 

Web Find
I follow Iowa Girl Eats blog for all her fantastic recipes and banter about living in the midwest. This recipe for raspberry lemonade crumb muffins caught my eye. I think I'm going to make some for breakfasts this week for the twins and take a few over to a neighbor that moved in over the winter and I haven't gone over to introduce myself. I feel like I need to come with something in hand and these muffins sound like a good thing to bring!

www.iowagirleats.com

Goals for the coming Week

* Go to bed earlier and wake up early. I did that this morning before my run. Instead of leaving myself only enough time to change, brush my teeth, grab a quick bite and drive to our meeting spot, I woke up with enough time to have a cup of coffee & oatmeal. I'm rarely awake when others aren't. It felt really good this morning to do that and I wasn't rushed to get to my run. I'm going to try that a few mornings this week - wake up before the twins and have some quiet time!

* Eat a healthy morning and afternoon snack. I'm not a snacker so I'm usually starving come lunch & dinner time and then sometimes don't make the most healthy choices just get something in my stomach. I believe that if I have a healthy snack in between meals I will be able to spend the time preparing a healthy lunch and dinner rather than eating the quick stuff which is usually processed or deep fried! 

Do you have any goals for the week or season? What do you usually bring to new neighbors? 

Have a great week!

New Running Shoes

I was probably due for a new pair of running shoes prior to the half marathon in Nashville. But by the time I realized that it was too close to the race day to get a new pair. 

There are many different opinions out there about when to get new shoes. I usually ask my Mom! Ha! She has been running since I was born - 34 years - so I consider her an expert in when is the right time to switch out shoes. 

The shoes I ran with for the half marathon in Nashville had trained for and ran a 30k race at the end of March. I got them shortly after the half marathon in Montreal so that was 7 months and lots of miles!

I went to a running store our group often ran from during our winter training program. It's an independent store in downtown Oakville, Ontario called the Running Company. Not to be confused with The Running/Walking Room. I really tried to avoid shopping at big corporate fitness places for something as important as shoes. I feel like they aren't often staffed with knowledgable people and could steer you in the wrong direction. Your feet are the most important piece of "equipment" in this sport of running so I don't trust mine to just anyone. 

I've got to know the owner, Greg at the Running Company well and feel confident that he is placing me in the best shoe for me. He is quite up front that if something isn't working with the shoe - even after running with it outside, I could bring it back for a new pair. I had similar service at an independent store in the Minneapolis area of Minnesota where we used to live called TC Running. 

So when should you get new running shoes? There are a lot of different opinions, but I think it comes down to how much running you are doing. A pair of shoes could last you a year or more if you are training for and running 5 or 10k's. You are probably not accumulating too much mileage on them. However, if you are training for and running a couple half marathons or a full marathon you may need to get new shoes every 6-9 months. 

I was ready to donate my shoes to Greg at the Running Company this week because of how wet they got at the Nashville Half Marathon (see my recap of the race here and read about my wet shoes here). But Greg recommended I get them dried out and then alternate when I wear my old pair with my new pair in order to get my new pair broken in, but not worn out for Chicago Marathon in October. He said I should wear my new pair for my Saturday long runs and wear my old pair for my weekday short runs. Sounds good to me! I will give it a try.

As you can see I went with the exact same pair of shoes this time around. I have really narrow feet and running shoes are naturally wide. Asics run more narrow than other running brands. I have ran in Nike & Mizunos before and I have liked these Asics as of late. My Mom ran for years and years in New Balance. To me they were THE running shoes, but they are much too wide for me. 

Another thing to note is that most often you will buy a pair of running shoes that are a size or more bigger than your everyday shoes. This is to give your toes more room to move and avoid those dreaded bruised toes and/or lost toe nails. I wear a size 7 every day shoe and my running shoes are a size 8.5. My toes are really sensitive and even with all that room I still get bruised and lost toe nails! But it's better than when I first started running in size 7 running shoes. 

Click here for a really good summary (articulated better than I just tried to do) about when to ditch the old running shoes on the blog for the group I run with. If you find yourself looking through the blog you will also see a post on me! 

How often do you change your running shoes? Do you alternate between pairs? Are you loyal to a particular brand?

Geocaching

Today was an absolutely beautiful day! The sun was shining & it was 70 degrees! I have a helper on Tuesday & Thursday mornings so I thought today would be a good day for an adventure. I have been wanting to try out Geocaching with the boys for.ev.er! Today was the day and I'm so glad we did it. 

What is Geocaching you ask? According to Geocaching 101: 
"Geocaching is a real-world, outdoor treasure hunting game using GPS-enabled devices. Participants navigate to a specific set of GPS coordinates and then attempt to find the geocache (container) hidden at that location."

I downloaded this official Geocache app ages ago. You don't need the app to participate in Geocaching - there is a website as well.

I did a search for Geocaches near us and found one that was highlighted as a "beginner" cache. That's us! 

We drove to the park near where the cache should be. It said it was a half mile from our house, but that's a lot for little 3 year old feet so I decided to drive. Which I'm glad we did because we had a nice little walk to the cache from the park.

The app guided us along in the right direction and gave a description of what we should be looking for. 

Then we found it! The boys were excited to look at what people had left inside (I forgot to take a picture of that) and they felt proud that they found the "treasure". 

I'm really excited to do more of these with the boys. There are several just around our house, but they are all over the world so I see this becoming a life long activity for us! Just another way we are teaching our children that living an active lifestyle is not only good for you, but can be fun too!

Have you ever gone Geocaching? What "adventures" in nature or fitness have you done with your family?

Drying out your Running Shoes

To say my running shoes are wet is an understatement! It's Wednesday - 4 days after the race (see recap here) and my shoes are still damp. On Monday I went to purchase new shoes. I probably needed to prior to the half marathon this last weekend, but I let it go too long and I didn't want to run in new shoes for a race as long as a half marathon. 

I was prepared to give my shoes to the store to donate, but the owner said that I could get them dried out. He suggested taking the soles & laces out and then stuffing them with newspaper. I'm to change the newspaper as I notice it getting soaked with water. That probably won't happen now that I'm doing this 4 days after the race, but I bet it would have soaked up a lot just after the race. 

I'll give it a try. They are pretty smelly right now from the rain water so I may need to spray them with something to get that to go away or let them sit outside in the fresh air after they have dried.

I came across a couple other suggestions people had for drying out wet athletic shoes:

• Place in front of/near a dehumidifier or fan with laces loose or removed and tongues up.
• In a plastic bin that seals well place an inch of dry rice in the bottom. Place your shoes on top and then cover the bin. The rice will suck up the water out of your shoes and air. The rice will work for more than one drying. (This sounds like a similar idea to what people do to dry out wet cell phones)

One thing I came across quite often was to NOT put your shoes in the washer and/or dryer! I guess the heat from the dryer can speed up the break down of the shoes' material - causing them not to last as long. If your shoes get muddy you should use a cloth or toothbrush on them if it bugs you - not the washing machine. Duly noted! I just spent $160 on a new pair so I want them to get me to the Chicago Marathon! More about when to buy new shoes and where I buy mine in my next post!

Do you have any tricks for drying out wet athletic shoes? Do you obsess about them being clean? 

St. Jude Country Music Nashville Race Recap

I scheduled this trip to Nashville in the dead of winter in Canada. My friend told me that it would be hot at the end of April so we should only plan to run the half rather than the full. As this Canadian winter dragged on and on I got more excited about my warm weekend in Nashville.

Then the week before the race came and rain was in the forecast. I don't mind running in a bit of rain and I was actually happy for the cool down it would bring since I hadn't ran in shorts since September!

I arrived in Nashville on Thursday evening and we attended the expo on Friday. I can't say for sure if things were set up differently this year than past in terms of security because this is the first time I was at this race venue. My friend and I were commenting on how this would be the safest race we have ever run similar to when flying after 9/11 was the safest time to fly.

There was a lot at the Expo about supporting Boston. There was a photo booth, lots of apparel with support Boston messages, and we were all given bracelets to wear during the race. 

After the Expo we went to check out the country music scene in Nashville. I really enjoy country music, I always have so this was one of the reasons I wanted to do this race. There is a street in Nashville that the course runs down called Broadway. There are several - like 3 blocks - of bars and restaurants that start playing live music at 10 a.m. and go until 3 in the morning! It was fun to walk along the street and hear the live music coming out. I was moved by the music to buy cowboy boots! 

We headed back to the hotel to rest a bit before dinner. The idea was to take a little nap, but I found Steel Magnolias on TV and we rested watching the movie. I forgot how much that can make you cry at the end! 

Then we checked the weather to prepare our gear for the morning. This is what we saw:

Really?!?! 100% Rain! Ugh! So we prepared for the worse and figured we would make adjustments in the morning if things changed with the weather. I again used the Runner's World What to Wear tool. There was a difference in what to wear depending on if it was going to be a light rain or a heavy rain. So I prepared for both. I set out shorts for sure and was going to decide between a short or long sleeve shirt in the morning. I got a vest just before getting on the flight and was glad I did. It helped with the rain a bit. 

One of the security measures that was put in place for the race was using a clear plastic bag that we were given at the Expo. We were told at the Expo and again in an email that the only bag that was going to be allowed at the bag drop would be the clear plastic bag we were given, no exceptions. Our bags were also going to be searched. It felt like this was going to be a very safe race.

We woke up at 5 a.m. on Saturday morning and the weather had not changed for race time. So I decided on shorts, a long sleeve shirt that I knew I could push the sleeves up easily if I got warm, & a vest, visor to keep the rain off my face. Oh and a very fancy garbage bag to attempt to stay dry and warm until the race started.

Luckily our hotel was right at the start so we stayed inside until nearly 10 mins before the race started.

The race started in waves based on the corral you were assigned to. I was in corral 9 so luckily I didn't have to wait too long to start. My chip time was around 11 mins off the gun time so not long. There were 36 corrals I believe, so there were people waiting quite a while in the pouring rain. 

Corral 8 was 2 minutes a head of us so and I happened to be at the front of our corral. I started out the race pretty slow because I felt like people sprinted at the start with such a wide open space in front of us. It was a crowded race as well, 26,000 runners so I was taking my time, seeing what it was going to be like to run in pouring rain and trying to warm myself up a bit.

I kept the garbage bag on for about the first mile and then I had to bite the bullet and let it go. I was instantly soaked! At first many of us tried to avoid the puddles around and then realized that really splashing through a puddle was not going to make us any more wet than we already were. Every step I took I could feel the sloshing of my soaked socks. Fun!

I felt really good through the entire race. I walked through every water stop for my walk breaks even though I didn't drink at all of them. I was afraid of getting too much water into my tummy and not sweating it out. I have done that before and it's given me such a bad stomach ache. The course was hilly - not steep hills, but several rolling hills. It was a challenging course, so I was really happy I wasn't running it in 80 degree weather.

I usually try to find someone I can chat with a bit during the race, but everyone was really quiet. Just listening to their music or concentrating on not slipping on something. I listened to my music until my ear buds got so saturated with water I couldn't really hear out of them anymore!

Around mile 9 I realized that I was running a pretty good time despite the conditions, but I was going to have to maintain a faster pace if I was going to finish in under 2 hours. So I kept an eye on my watch and kept it as close to 5:10/km as I could. I was less than a mile to the finish line and my watch ticked closer and closer to 2 hours. I was getting nervous that running in this weather was going to get me close to sub 2 hours, but not quite. I ran as fast I could muster with still keeping myself safe in all the puddles. 

I crossed the finish line with my watch saying 2:00:36. Crap! That is still a PR for me, but I was SO CLOSE to making it under 2 hours. I hoped that my watch was off.

And it was!! My official chip time was 1:59:48 - just a hair under 2 hours - I'll take it!

I had very crazy split times. I definitely got faster as the race went on - but look at that difference between mile 10 and the finish! A minute faster pace - Whoops! I should have been doing that the whole time! Oh Well, Blame it on the Rain (cue Milli Vanilli song)

 Here we are in the shuttle that our hotel had for the runners at the finish - we are sopping wet, but we both ran personal best times and we were headed to a warm shower! 

I'm not sure I would run this race again - I would recommend it to others, but I think my experience is unlike any other year. Usually it's warm/hot and this year wasn't. Nashville is a really fun place to visit! Hopefully I can go back someday with better weather conditions!

What are the craziest weather conditions you have ever raced in? Is there a particular kind of weather you enjoy running in most?