BURPEES!

Vermont City Marathon: Training Week #16

- Mel

What’s a little “accountability Monday” on Friday? One of these weeks I’ll get back on scheduled (likely, during my taper).

Welcome to Des Moines downtown murals

Came upon this awesome mural on the backside of Exile Brewing Company during my downtown run.

Look, marathon training is not all awesomeness and easy and rainbows and butterflies. Even someone fit and focused and goal-driven can succumb to the exhaustion of a 20-week training cycle (IT: ME). I’m determined not to quit, but my wheels are falling off and I’m feeling some unnecessary pressure from… somewhere, I don’t know.

MONDAY I didn’t have a specific strength training workout scheduled, but my coach provides a couple GREAT ones — including one where I can use my kettlebell. I wanted to change it up a little bit, so I did a round of one those Spell Your Name workouts found all over Pinterest (yeah, it included some burpees!). I followed that up with a round of my coach’s KB strength workout.

training run in grays lake des moines
Peek-a-boo. I see you, Des Moines!

TUESDAY A little different scenery for my evening easy run, as I had the Grand Blue Mile on my schedule with my husband — he’s not a runner, so this was SO much fun for me. Beforehand, I finished 5 (humid) miles from downtown to Gray’s Lake and back. It cooled off A LOT before the Mile race started, so much so that I had to go back to my car to put on my long sleeve.

grand blue mile race downtown des moines

Grand Blue Mile results: 10:00.40

WEDNESDAY I needed another rest day. Just feeling… off. So, no speed workout this week.

THURSDAY My first meet-up with the Green Runners, as we focused on cleaning up the area around Drake campus — to coordinate with the Relays. What a fun time! These group runs happen almost every Thursday for the next few (warm) months, and rotate around different locations in the metro area. It’s a fun group that caters to all running abilities (and even good for walkers) — you should join us! But get ready to do some squats. 😉

Des Moines Green Runners

While it was mostly walking on this route due to the neighborhood and traffic, we got in a mile.

FRIDAY If I had any plans to make up workouts, it wasn’t tonight! Though I enjoyed hanging out with the husband, watching movies and fattening up on Jeni’s Pistachio & Honey ice cream.

SATURDAY It’s been a couple years since I took a DNS, but I decided not to run the Drake Half Marathon on Saturday morning. This impacted my plan for my 20-mile run, but I planned to recover some of that mileage on my treadmill at home. I ended up with 8.69 miles before the machine started smelling like burning rubber so badly that I had to turn it off. Seriously, can someone recommend a better brand of treadmills?

SUNDAY I needed some redemption on my missed mileage from Saturday and a skipped run from mid-week; and despite the TERRIBLE weather conditions, the radar showed about an hour of no rain on Sunday morning (though, still 40 degrees and high winds, because Iowa). I was able to get in 8 miles before the rain started again. I felt good DURING the run — and even my paces were faster than I expected for an “easy” — though afterward, WOW, I felt positively drained.

april miles des moines runner blog
Don’t I look thrilled?

Even after a recovery muscle soak, my body felt sore and awful. I don’t generally feel sore after running, so it’s annoying and a little frustrating. So, no double digit long run for me in week #16, though still over 20 miles and 4 runs for the week. AND another 100+ mileage month for April!

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WEEKLY RUNS: 4 runs
WEEKLY MILES: 23.85 miles
TOTAL TRAINING MILES: 325.57 miles
TOTAL APRIL MILES: 113.3 miles

Only a month away until Race Day! Still time to register and join me in Burlington, Vermont for the Vermont City Marathon: Use code BibRave10 to save $10 on your registration!

Accountability Monday: IT’S JULY! — and June wrap-up

- Mel 1 Comment

Wrapping up June first, I finally got back into a routine with my workouts — planning most sessions out from start-to-finish, being open to doing “quickie” ones instead of nothing at all, and maintaining the consistency that I lost months ago. I still have a few weeks left in the “off-season” before my half marathon training starts up again, and I’m feeling really excited with this momentum.

By the way, this image that I downloaded from my Gasparilla race photos (thanks to that 50% discount code) is EVERYTHING:

love running gasparilla race photos

Quick wrap-up for June: Set up my Achievement Wall in my home gym, started setting weekly goals (even if not a 100% success), had my first race in Iowa (a pretty terrible half for me, but happy to get that out of the way!), and didn’t have to worry at all about tracking my mileage for the month. 😉

This week’s goals were mostly a flop again, but I feel good about the work that was done.

MONDAY: REST DAY

TUESDAY: I was in an INSANE mood after work, and hearing the song “Roxanne” on my drive home got me pumped to do some more burpees. At my former CrossFit gym in Pittsburgh, we were introduced to this burpee routine – dropping down every time you hear the name “Roxanne.” It’s a great addition to warm up, and dang if it doesn’t actually make me smile when I finish.

That was only *part* of my workout:
I warmed up with 3×5 reps of inch worms, mountain climbers and alternating single leg bounds (thanks again to Runner’s World for a great idea to add to my routine).
Jump rope for 2 minutes
Ran 2 miles at a 9:30 pace (followed by a cool down walk for 2 minutes)
Roxanne burpees (one day I’ll count them!)
Ladder plank holds to Drowning Pool’s “Bodies” (ha, the RAGE!)
Workout 1 from the Strong & Fast movements from Runner’s World to “cool down”
And then some long stretches with my TheraBand

WEDNESDAY: My third golf lesson! Still working on corrections to my swing, but I’m definitely making more contact than I did when I first started.

THURSDAY: REST

FRIDAY: REST (dinner and drinks and fun at the golf club overruled my evening workout)

SATURDAY: BOO, RAIN! I was all set up to join the social run club at LifeTime in the morning before my massage, then it started raining at 6:30am, and… well, I’m not officially training for anything, so NO THANKS. This, unfortunately, blew up my goal this week to both run outside AND go out with a running group. Also, can you believe that there were NO afternoon classes to take after my massage? A 10:45 yoga class was it, and my 90-minute massage ended at 11:30. :-/ Alas, I went for my massage, and then sat around for most of the afternoon reading books, reading blogs, and planning out my vacation workouts.

In the evening, I did a 15-minute run on the treadmill with a 5-minute walk to warm up and a 3-minute walk to bring my heart rate back down – I’m loving the Parks courses that were recently added to iFit maps. Shout out to my girl (Pittsburgh City Girl, that is) Chelsea, I ran in Central Park!

Also, randomly, this was the first time that I tripped the breaker while on the treadmill. I, err, hope that doesn’t happen again because this is a new house. WTF?! While the boyfriend was resetting the breaker, I cranked out 20 burpees.

SUNDAY:
I have fallen trap to this “all or nothing” fallacy, where if, say, I have a mimosa in the morning, then I can’t do anything for the rest of the day (like, do my workout). It’s been a REALLY hard habit to break, to remind myself that I really only need 30 minutes and that having a drink at brunch does not negate the entire day. So sometimes that means doing your run at 9pm because you feel good and you’re awake — and dang it, you’re just sitting there watching the stupidest game shows on TV (now, sober). DO YOUR DANG THING.

Again, because I was in some kind of mood, I decided to do a speed test of my 5k PR pace (which is standing strong at 28:08 from last year). And I KILLED those three miles at a 8:56 pace. No joke, it was hard — but I need to be committed to do some of my runs at a harder pace or I will NEVER get faster. Like my cross country coach used to say about rewards: if you puke, you get a hamburger! Which I realize is really terrible advice for a 12-year-old.

Goals for this week:

  • Do ONE new thing
  • TWO workouts while traveling
  • Run THREE times
  • FOUR workouts total
  • One FIVE-mile run

Accountability Monday: 06/20-06/26

- Mel

Well, my burpees streak came to an end on Tuesday. I laid in bed that night thinking that I could quickly get in 20… but I was mentally and physically exhausted. My new job role has kind of sapped my energy as of late. And then over the weekend, I was playing with the cat on the floor, pushed myself up (think: regular ol’ pushup position) and felt my entire chest pop and tear (I know that I’m being hyperbolic, but definitely something got tweaked something awful). It was on fire for a couple hours afterward, too.

This is some 30-something realness for you: Getting injuries doing something completely unrelated to working out.

In any event, I continued with my overall consistency goal of running three times per week (hooray!). And here are the other weekly goals that I completely failed on (boo!): 108 Sun Salutations for Summer Solstice (I never had time to commit to a 4-hour marathon session yoga mala), take a new class (this was my rain plan for Saturday… and we ended up not getting any rain that day!), ride my bike over the weekend (uh… we opted for Sunday Lazy; except I did run before bed) and keep the burpees streak going (nope).

I’m really disappointed that I didn’t do my sun salutations because I really enjoyed the purpose and ritual that I got from doing them last year (also, OMG last year at this time I was in my marathon training!).

Anyway, I had to laugh at this: Why Summer Makes Us Lazy because HAAAAAAAAAA.

MONDAY: REST (dinner plans after work with boyfriend’s colleagues)

TUESDAY: I took my second golf lesson, which started off almost as terribly as the first. My instructor had to correct a few things with my swing and follow-through, and I was hitting a little better. But then she put a driver in my hand, and I just lost my focus to frustration.

WEDNESDAY: My weekly 15-minute run and hour of hot yoga combo at LifeTime. I didn’t really connect with the flow this week. Meh.

THURSDAY: REST

FRIDAY: The truth is, I wanted to work out in the morning because we had plans to go down to the Arts Festival after work, but… I just haven’t got to a point where I can function that early yet. REST (And some vodka lemonades. And a reminder to not schedule workouts yet for the morning because I won’t wake up.)

SATURDAY: I ran for 20 minutes, did 20 burpees, and then my Strong & Fast workout from Runner’s World that I typically do on Sundays. For this run, I did a little jaunt through Prague via my treadmill. I know that it’s been 10 years since I’ve been there IRL, but holy moly I don’t remember it being so hilly!

Later in the afternoon, we went to the driving range so I could practice what I learned in my lesson this week. Again, I am just overly frustrated and letting it get to me (but I did end with three really good shots with my driver, to end my practice!).

SUNDAY: I wasn’t going to let myself fail on ALL FIVE of my goals, so I ran 2 miles before bed to get my third run in for the week. I thought it would be best to take a day off from suspension training due to my chest tweak.

Goals for this week:

  • Keeping the consistency going: Run three times!
  • Take a new class (yes, recycling this one from last week). I’ll be at LifeTime for a massage on Saturday, so it just makes sense to take a class while I’m there.
  • Do you know that I’ve been running on my treadmill all this time? Well, this week, I’m taking one of my runs outside!
  • Adding to the above, I’m joining one of the local running groups for a social run!
  • Plan my vacation workouts! I’m going on a short road trip after the 4th, and I want to schedule my runs while I’m visiting two new cities: Know anyone that likes to run (or a run club) in Omaha or Kansas City?

Accountability Week: 6/13 – 6/19

- Mel

The most important thing for me this week was spending a little time on planning out my workouts — and I really enjoyed the process. I made some goals for the week, too… which included some burpees:

  • Run three times — including going to check out a new run club. No mileage requirements; do one interval/speed workout. — Except for checking out a new run club, I did three runs with one as a speed workout. I still would like to join up with a local run group and start building my community there, especially when it comes time for half marathon training again.
  • Do my regular Wednesday session of yoga — CHECK!
  • Two sessions of TRX — I only got Sunday’s in, since my Friday workout plans changed a bit (see below)
  • BURPEES with every workout — CHECK! In fact, I did them EVERY DAY.
  • Get through our BIG bike ride on Saturday — We didn’t complete anything NEAR the 78 miles of the course, but we got through our first trail ride in Iowa!
30something accountability week workouts Iowa
A Tale of 4 Workouts
MONDAY:
While today was really a REST day, I did my regular hip strengthening movements and 20 BURPEES before bed.

TUESDAY:
I planned for some deadlift reps (4 rounds x 12 reps; I used dumbbells) and a fun EMOM workout. The EMOM workouts, or “every minute on the minute,” workouts were popular in my CrossFit box, and a GREAT way to get in a high-intensity, quick workout. I started with a EMOM warm-up with 4 inch worms / 5 mountain climbers / 6 squats for 5 minutes total. Then I found a fun Odds & Evens EMOM online — in the odd minutes, you do 10 burpees; and in the even minutes, you do 10 overhead squats (again, I used dumbbells).

Cooling down, I stretched out my lower back by rolling backwards over my exercise ball (I think this feels really good after these types of workouts), and then some light yoga pose holds and twists to stretch everything else out.

WEDNESDAY:
My usual Wednesday ritual at LifeTime — run for 15 minutes on the treadmill (with a 5-minute walking warm-up and 2-minute walking cool down), followed by an hour of hot vinyasa flow. It was hotter OUTSIDE than it was inside for hot yoga. That’s intense, Iowa! Also, they switched instructors for Wednesday nights now, but I like the new instructor a lot. I felt really strong in this class (and sweaty) — and she taught us how to set up for side crow, WHICH I WAS ABLE TO DO ON BOTH SIDES! Holy crap, all someone had to do was show me the set-up.

After having my chocolate milk at home (my usual post-workout recovery), I got in another 20 burpees.

THURSDAY:
I intended to join a local social run for Saucony try-on night, but I hadn’t had a good night of sleep for the entire week. My body was too exhausted for a run, so I pushed it to Friday. My legs needed some foam rolling, so I spent about 10 minutes doing that (I know that I should be doing this with more regularity, but baby steps). AND: I did my 20 burpees before bed!

FRIDAY:
I ran for 3.5 miles on the treadmill, running a Pittsburgh street view map that I created on iFit that started at my old house (awwwww). This worked out almost too perfectly: It was my Pittsburgh CrossFit Buddy’s 56th birthday — and on birthdays, we do BURPEES! Maybe I should dub this workout my Pittsburgh WOD?

Afterwards, I stretched out with the resistance band from TheraBand that I received this week. I’ll be using this piece a LOT in my exercise routines!

SATURDAY:
We took off around 9am for the BACooN ride, and cleared almost 20 miles before the boyfriend crapped out from the heat and some numbness in his wrist. I was feeling pretty good — though it was hot. Finishing the full 78 miles definitely would’ve been a challenge, but I feel as though I could of at least made it to Linden (30 miles from the start in Waukee). It will be a fun challenge to see where our biking fitness levels take us in the next year. #goals

I also did 20 burpees before bed (trying to be really quiet because the boyfriend was already asleep, and I just kept cracking myself up; plus, I had a couple ciders that night).

SUNDAY:
Why change a good thing? I basically did the same as last Sunday’s workout: jump rope for warm-up, TRX for arms and shoulders, burpees (though only 20 this time), a speed workout on the treadmill (this time, I ran on The Strip in Las Vegas), my Strong & Fast workout from Runner’s World, and some yoga stretches to close it out. LOVE this workout!

For the speed workout, I did some fun ladder drills: run a minute, walk 30 seconds x 2, run two minutes, walk a minute x 2, run three minutes, walk a minute… you get the picture. I increased the run speed every 30 seconds until I felt like my legs would fly off. lol Overall, I got a great 20-minutes, and about 2 miles.

I definitely spent some time foam rolling my calves at night.

Hey, that’s a total of >> 206 << burpees for the week! Holy crap. Should I keep the streak going? I’m already 7 days in a row!

Goals for the week:

  • 108 Sun Salutations for Summer Solstice (YEP!)
  • Run 3 times
  • Take a new class! I have a couple things in mind here. Stay tuned! 🙂
  • Ride my bike once, over the weekend
  • Keep the burpees streak going?