15 miles and my 1st Ice Bath

I can't believe I did it! I ran my 1st ever 15 miler AND I did my 1st ever ice bath!

I must admit that I was kind of nervous of how this 15 miler would go. After last weeks 14 miles giving me nausea and only being able to drink Gatorade and a coke for dinner, I was hoping that this weeks long run would be better than that!

I had made plans to run with a friend of mine for about 8 miles which means that I either needed to go earlier and crank out 7 extra miles or figure something else out. I decided to do 5 miles on the treadmill before the hubby came home, and then when he came home, I left to go and meet my friend. I parked about a mile and a half from out meeting place and ran to meet her. We ran 7 miles together, stretched, and then I ran the last mile and a half back to my car. That last stretch was hard, my legs were really heavy, not sure if it was the hour break between the treadmill session and the 10 miles, or what....but all in all I DID at least feel better than last week and did my last mile at 9:36! :) AND, NO NAUSEA! YAY!

Luckily, I felt good after the run...but I was NOT looking forward to taking my first ice bath. I HATE being cold!

I had called the hubby to ask him to start some hot coffee for me...he was so sweet! Thanks babe!

I have found a few of you with advice on how to do an ice bath, so I decided to follow your lovely advice!

•   I filled the tub up with cold water first.
• I wore my clothes.
• I prepared myself a hot beverage...although, I should have taken a shot of tequila like Marie at The Quarterlife Quandary
• I got into the cold water BEFORE adding the ice. I couldn't have imagined the pain if the ice were already in there. I think this stage is the worst part...even the cold water hurts getting in!
• I added the ice and stayed in that hell tub for 15 minutes!

Enjoy these lovely pictures taken by my 5 year old!

I think it really did help with the muscle soreness. I was only slightly sore in my hamstrings, but I think that was from pulling weeds on Wednesday and not from the run! The only think that hurts, is my left shin is a tiny bit sore. I wore my compression socks all night last night, and have been wearing them today also. I even iced this morning!

Thankfully week 8 of marathon numero uno is almost complete...just a short recovery run tomorrow! Next week is a fall back week so hopefully that will give my shin some rest! Happy Friday every one!

I can't believe it!

Well.............I did it! I ran more than a half marathon last night, and in a training run of all things :) I am thrilled!!! However, I have mixed feelings. Let me explain:


PRO's of my run

• Finished :)
• Overall pace (9:55) was pretty good, a little slower than I would have liked to run, but in the range of what the McMillian Calculator says my long run should be ran at.
• Felt like I could have run a tiny bit more.
• Gave me the confidence for the La Jolla Half on the 25th. Hey if I could do 14 miles when it was pretty dang hot out, I can do 13.1 in the morning "chill"!

CON's of my run

• For the FIRST time since I started training, I walked during a training run. I know that this is completely ok, and for the most part good for me, but I have some wierd issue with walking, like it means I am giving up. But my body needed it during this run! It was warmer than I was used to, and I was just plain tired! I walked about 5 times through out the whole 14 miles for about 30 seconds to a minute each. I also stopped twice to stretch for a good 3 minutes ( I stopped the Garmin at these times).
• My right foot and knee were giving me issues, which never happens, so this kind of scares me! Plus, it is sore this morning.
• I have been excited to eventually in the next year do a full marathon. This run really really makes me second guess myself. At the end of the run I was telling myself there is NO way that I could ever continue for another 12 miles! ( maybe 1) INSANE!

Here are my splits:
Mile 1~ 9:27
2~ 9:26
3~ 9:35
4~ 9:50
5~ 9:50
6~ 9:57
7~ 10:15
8~ 9:35
9~ 9:45
10~ 10:39
11~ 10:01
12~ 10:17
13~ 10:42
14~ 10:29

Anywho, those were my feelings on my run last night. I was thrilled and proud that I accomplished it, yet at the same time, I felt doubtful. Does that even make sense? I was excited to use my new handheld water bottle that I got.

I ended up getting the Amphipod handheld!

I really really liked it! It holds 12 ounces of water, and the pouch held my car key and packet of Gu Chomps. I could have totally put some other stuff in it too! I can't believe that I ran before with no water! I would have died on this run without it! Definetly a keeper! :)

Also, another new part of my run was the Gu Chomps that I tried. For the last 2 long runs, I have been experimenting with Gu. I tried the Chocolate and the Orange...both were nasty! I hated the texture of them and it took me about 3 miles to consume 1. Here are the chomps:  

I had the Strawberry, which were so yummy! They also have blueberry pomegranate, orange, and cranberry apple. The strawberry and cranberry apple are the only ones with caffeine in them...which is what I need! I would HIGHLY recommend these!

I hope everyone has an awesome weekend! And good luck to all those who have their long runs this weekend! This weekend is the Carlsbad 5000 and I will be working all weekend in the village. It is a great race, I did the 5k last year! It is really popular and there are tons of people in town for it. My work happens to be on the course, so we get to watch all the runners...very cool!

Carlsbad 5000

Hey, at least I got out there! ;)

Well, I wasn't able to get in my full 12 miles....but I did get in 10.31 miles. Thank God I was still able to get out there. It was raining earlier and then just cleared up! :) I was definetly feeling it at the end of my run, and couldn't wait until it was over! I knew that I wouldn't get the full 12 miles in, because I wanted to finish before dark (with the Chelsea King thing and all so close, I don't think I will be running at night for a while) :(
But I was excited to check out my Garmin when I got home:

Mile 1:  8:56

2:  8:56

3:  8:57

4:  9:13

5:  9:20

6:  9:12

7:  9:42

8:  9:26

9:  9:39

10:  9:38

Total Miles: 10.31

Total time: 1 hr 35 min 56 sec

Avg pace: 9:18

The reason I was so excited was that I felt so dang tired at the end, and now I know why!  My average pace was kicking some serious butt compared to even my half marathon race pace of 9:33! So eventhough I didn't get my full 12 miles in, I was happy with my run! :) Hope everyone else had great runs today!

Valentines/President Day Weekend

We had a pretty busy Valentines Day/President Day weekend! Friday, we went the the Wild Animal Park with the kids; Saturday and Sunday, I worked...and it was a busy weekend! A bunch of people were in town for the holiday weekend...so I made lots o' tips! ;) Here are a bunch of photos from our family trip to the Wild Animal Park on Friday! Hubby had the day off, and our year passes are going to expire next month. It was a beautiful day out and we met my cousin and her 3 girls for some Wild Animal Park fun! :) Kaitlyn & Mason got their faces painted...they LOVED it! Kaitlyn decided on swans, and Mason a lizard. So cute!

Valentines Day this year was kind of not really a priority, which is totally fine. We didn't make any plans...mainly because both kids were getting a cough. Since we havn't had a date night in a LONG while, hopefully when the kids get better, we can finally use our free movie tickets, and go out to dinner. That will be our post V-Day celebration! :)             Training this week was so-so. I didn't get in all my training runs that I had planned. :( I did get in my speed run and my long run, but ran out of time by Sunday to do my 5 mile run. Oh well! What can ya do, life happens! I still have 10 weeks until race day, so I am not too bummed about missing 1 run! I did get in a long run today of 9 miles. And sorry for you all that are dealing with snow right now, but dang...it was hot here in San diego today. Went out around 2 to the coast of Carlsbad, and it was hot! It looked like a summer day out! TONS of people out, especially at the beach! My run was not what I expected though. I was really slow, and tired by mile 5. I think it was that I had such a long and busy weekend at work...on my feet for almost 17 hours! Yeah, I was beat even before I went running. Here are my splits:
Mile 1- 9:40
Mile 2- 9:22
Mile 3- 9:36
Mile 4- 9:42
Mile 5- 9:40
Mile 6-10:00
Mile 7-9:54
Mile 8- 10:07
Mile 9- 10:00
AVG PACE: 9:47 min/mile

    I did try out a new GU. Chocolate Outrage. It tasted pretty good (like chocolate frosting), but I still have a hard time dealing with the texture of it. I nursed it from mile 5 to 7, and still hadn't finished it! Yikes, I think I will be sticking to my Sports Beans! But I am glad to have gotten my long run out of the way already...so now I just have to sqeeze out 2 more runs this week. (A 4miler and a 5 miler).

   Kaitlyn is really excited! She starts pre-school on wednesday! :) She can't wait, we will be going to Target tomorrow and picking out a "new" outfit for her for her first day of school. I will post pics on Wed! Ya-Ya also will be dropping of her new Jonas Brothers lunch bag she got her for Valentines Day...YES, my daughter is 4 1/2 and is already in love with the Jonas Brothers...GEEZE! And it will only get worse?! AHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

First "long" run with the Garmin

I was so excited to finally use my Garmin for more than 2 miles! It was pretty chilly when I left the house at almost 5 o'clock, so I wore a long sleeve shirt and just straped the Garmin on over my shirt, which actually made it more comfortable on my wrist bone. But it didn't bother me at all during the run! It was really cool to see my current pace and how far into my run I was. I also LOVE the auto-pause feature. I have it set up to pause anytime that I am not moving...which is great for all the stop lights!  I drove to the neighborhood I grew up in (because there are a lot of light posts, and I am scared to run in the dark, hehehe) and unfortunately, this neighborhood is hilly. But it is good training! :)
Mile 1:    8:59
Mile 2:    9:28
Mile 3:    9:56
       4:     9:47
       5:     9:38
       6:    10:16 (HILLY!)
      7:      9:35
Average pace of 9:40
     My schedule called for a "long" run of 7 miles this week, but since my 8 miler was really only 7.73 miles last week, I decided to make up for it on this run. It all evened out! :) Excited for tomorrows cross training day of kickboxing! :) Rouge Underground here I come! Off to finally shower and spend time with hubby!

Last Long Run Before Race

    Today was Sarai and my last long run before our race next Sunday...we usually run in the afternoon, but did a trial morning run instead today. The race starts at 7:30 am, so we tried an 8:30 am run...weather was very overcast and slightly misty at times...it was PERFECT! I hope the weather is like today's for race day! Tried to mimic what I plan on doing race day morning, to see if it would work for me. Got up @ 6am, had a cup of coffee, ate wheat toast with peanut butter on it, and drank a bottle of water. I took a shower and then got the kids up and made them breaskfast. Got dressed and dropped them of at Nana's to pick up Sarai. On the drive over to Carlsbad, I wasn't feeling too energetic :( Oh yeah, I also had half a bottle of "5Hour Energy"...I had never tried it before, but the ad says that you don't crash, so I thought I would try it!
    We parked at Christiansen St, stretched for a few minutes, and we were off! We ran to Pointsettia and back, which is 9 miles...we stopped for a quick stretch and water break at tower 31 which is at about mile 7.5.  I also ate about 4 sports beans. I was feeling great, felt like we carried a great pace. At that point, Sarai's runkeeper App on her ipod said we were keeping a 9:17 pace! We were pretty happy about that! :) I finished the run strong, and felt that I could keep that pace on race day...which was a great feeling. We are both soooo excited for next Sunday! Can't wait!!!!!