Weekly workout summary - September 30, 2012

Workout summary
Here's my summary for the week from September 24 - September 30. I'm going to try to do these weekly run downs (and aggregate them somewhere) to help hold me accountable. Overall, this was a pretty standard week for this point in my training. I hit all of my scheduled workouts--I'm currently giving myself two rest days per week. I may eventually make it only one rest day (plus a day of yoga), but this is working for me for now.

Monday: Ran 4 miles at 10:43 min/mi average pace. I was intentionally pushing this a bit after coming back from a cut back week (only 8 miles total) the week prior. I felt a bit of pain my joints (from asking them to move faster?), but overall felt like this was doable.

Tuesday: OFF--Dan's birthday! I made him dinner and peanut butter chocolate pie!

Wednesday: Ran 3.1 miles at 12:05 min/mi average pace. This was not a very pretty run. I was trying out a new route near work that I was not a very big fan of. Too many bugs, too many turns so that I couldn't really find my groove. Oh well.

Thursday: 1 hour yoga (vinyasa style). I used to be doing cross-training/strength training on Thursday, but I recently bought a yoga Groupon and have been trying that out instead. Thus far, it is feeling like a reasonable substitute for the short cardio/strength session I used to do. I have gone to a few yoga studio classes before, and tried some at home, but none of it has stuck. I'm really liking this studio so far, and I'm definitely feeling it as a great complement to all the running. Hopefully I'll stick with it!

Friday: Ran 6.2 miles at 11:44 avg. pace. Good run!

Saturday: OFF - in Baltimore for a family event.

Sunday: 15 minutes elliptical, 15 minutes circuit style training (see workout below), plus a couple of cable machines.

Today's workout
I started this by doing 15 minutes of hill intervals on the elliptical. I typically would do 20 minutes, but I was bored!

First circuit - do once all the way through, then repeat twice (total of 3 times).
5 burpees
10 squat w/ overhead dumbbell press (5 lbs)
10 dumbbell row w/ tricep kickbacks (5 lbs)
10 V-sit w/ side-to-side dumbbell taps (hold a dumbbell with one hand, do a V-sit, and tap the dumbbell on the left side, then the right side).

Second circuit (same routine as the first):
10 mountain climbers
8 static lunges (each leg) w/ bicep curl (5 lbs)
20 crunches

The second circuit kinda fizzled (I should have added an arms-only exercise but couldn't think of any I wanted to do at the moment!) but I still felt like I got my butt kicked. I finished it up with 3 sets on the hamstring curl machine and lat pull down machine.

Today's eats:
(I'm going to try to post one meal a day. Maybe.)
Homemade pizza for dinner: Wegmans' whole wheat prepared dough, pesto, shredded mozzarella, and fresh mozzarella. Plus some steamed broccoli on the side to attempt to counteract all that cheese. I had two more pieces after what was shown here (they were all pretty small--the whole crust [double what's shown] was about 330 calories worth, for reference. We roll it out super thin!).

Need to turn off football (sniff sniff Bills) and get a few things done before the end of the week!

Second 6 miler

On Friday morning I got up and got my long run in for the week. I took a day of "paid time off" (PTO) for a dentist appointment--and also because I just have a lot of days to use up before the end of the year! Even though I prefer doing long runs on Saturday, I decided to squeeze in the run on Friday because we were going up to Baltimore over the weekend to see family.

So this was my second 6 mile run ever (technically 6.2 since I decided to make it an even 10k). I felt fairly strong for the whole run, with enough energy left to kick it up at the end. I managed to negative split for the most part, but I think that had more to do with the fact that there was a slow gradual hill build up for the first 3 miles, and then turnaround and--yay!--gradual downhill. The hills are rolling but there's a net decline on the way back.

Here are my slow splits from RunKeeper!

mi	Pace (min/mi)	Elevation (ft)
1	12:25	87
2	12:07	1
3	11:45	-22
4	11:48	14
5	11:43	-8
6	10:52	-53
7	10:22	-14

I'm not really clear on how the elevation change works on RunKeeper because it says overall for the run the "climb" was 470 feet but if you add up the elevation column it certainly doesn't equal 470. 

Overall my average pace for the run was 11:44 with a total time of 1:12:41. I was happy with that and feel like I'm right where I want to be for the race at the end of October (4 weeks from today, wow!). 

I'm about to settle in for the Buffalo Bills game and hope to hit the gym later. I'll do a weekly workout round up later today!

To the blog!

I'm telling my fears of becoming a picture-whoring narcissist to SHUT UP because I'm starting a blog, goddamnit.

Why start a blog now? It's 2012--sometimes it seems like if you don't have a blog yet, you've missed the train. Oh well. I'm hoping to accomplish the following by documenting my life for all (or no one) to see:

1) Get faster. I'm a supadupa slow "runner." I've been "running" for about a year, but have only really gotten consistent with it since June-ish. Right now I'm averaging about 13 miles/week, with my long run at 6 miles. I'm currently training for my first race--a 10k at the end of October. My typical easy run pace is 11:45 min/mile, with my pushing it speed at about 10:45 min/mile. I'll be happy to just finish my first race, but after that, I'd like to work on getting a bit faster (which for me, will be working toward 10 min/mile pace) and introducing this mythical thing they call "speed work."

As a side note, I sincerely regret not starting a blog when I was starting running last summer/fall. As a wheezing, struggling-to-finish-a-mile runner, I always wished there were blogs for people like me--it seems that a lot of running blogs are people that were either always runners or have already developed a consistent running habit and are now training for a big race. Obviously that makes sense, but I just wanted to read about someone having similar struggles with getting through two miles, as opposed to trying to finish that pre-marathon 20 miler. Since I missed that train, I'm hoping to at least a) revisit some of that early running time to share the lessons learned with others and b) start this now, pre-first race, while still slow, and hopefully be able to document improvement over time!

2) Use my time better. Oooo, guess what, the blog title has a PUN in it. In addition to talking about the physical act of running, I'm going to discuss my attempts to better RUN my life. So clever, I know. But lately I've just watched the evening hours tick by while I'm aimlessly clicking on the internet or watching a TV show I don't care about. I recently moved out to the suburbs and in with my boyfriend. My job is relatively stable and enjoyable, and I'm running/eating well/mother-effing-FLOSSING and generally acting like an adult. Buuuuut...I still feel a little aimless in how I use my time. I'd like to be more purposeful in my evening activities during the week and find time for things I truly enjoy (more on those later), vs. succumbing to the abyss that is the internet. So I'm hoping to document how I'm using my time and set intentions for how I want to use it (and then be publicly held accountable when I fail!).

3) Meet people! As mentioned above, I recently moved to the 'burbs (outside of DC in VA). And I live with my boyfriend (referred to as Dan, going forward...because that's his name). And our new apartment and surrounding community is surprisingly great! And living with Dan is awesome. And my amazing commute would make you jealous. But I don't really know anyone, besides my coworkers and Dan, that lives less than a 40 minute metro ride away. And things can get a little isolated and lonely sometimes. So even if I don't meet tons of people that live in my area, it'll be great to feel part of a (virtual) community and talk to people with similar interests.

Somethings that I'm hoping NOT to do:
1) Become completely self-absorbed and/or over-share-y. I really struggled with whether or not I wanted to start a blog. I'm honestly a fairly self-involved person, and I'm often embarrassed by my tendency towards narcissism (oh we are twenty minutes into drinks and I haven't asked about you? Oops). I've really tried to suppress that tendency in my adult life (because really, I am interested in what others have to say! I just forget sometimes), but I'm afraid that by posting about myself I'd be indulging that tendency somehow. Oh, also, I know what I'm doing isn't particularly original. I'm just another twenty-something white girl, running slow and living in the suburbs. Don't worry, I get that--I'm not sharing my thoughts because I think they are original or inspirational. I'm sharing them because I'm bored and need some accountability.

I'm also just super sick of the constant over-sharing, over-participating-in-things-together-ness of our current society (no my TV show does not need a goddamn #hashtag! I just want to watch alone!). I've been off Facebook since college and generally prefer privacy on the internet. But my science background tells me that there is an evolutionary reason to share our thoughts and generally be part of a community. So basically I'm blogging for science. FOR SCIENCE. And you know, all those other reasons I listed above.

2) Write when I don't have something to say, suck up to big time bloggers, or over-use emoticons. I don't want to commit all of the regular blogger no-nos. I am a regular poster over on GOMI, so I'm quite familiar with and critical of the major blogging sins. I'm going to try hard not to be another obnoxious HLB, though I fear that's what this will tend towards. I'll do my best to keep it real, not be boring, and write well. Except for puns. I can't promise there won't be puns. And double negatives.

3) Ditch this after three weeks. I have a problem with getting super into things and then ditching them a month in. I want to keep this up and stick with it. So here we go!

Also, my name is Holly. Hey! And welcome.