Chelkie

It was a fantastic gift, homemade and useful! The best sort! One slight problem, it's too big. Not like huuuuuge but big enough it was sliding down and trying to slowly depants me the whole run. Never fear though, I shall get some safety pins and get it all doctored up this weekend. The good news is that when it wasn't trying to depants me, it was keeping my bum relatively warm, and the pockets fit my giant cellphone and my taser. One step closer to the ultimate Alaskan winter running kit.

Hahahaha, google is straightforward I like that, none of this "administrative fee" business, right to the honest bribes.

I'm pretty excited for this afternoon's run, as I got something pretty awesome in the mail yesterday. For Christmas my mom sewed me a running skirt! She was still tweaking it though so she just now mailed it to me, and its amazing. I looks extremely legit and has all sorts of pockets (one on the butt for a heating pack!) so hopefully this will help with the whole bum being frozen after all runs below 20 degrees. I'll keep you posted, also i'll take some pictures of it later.

tinkerer- Good to hear! I haven't purposefully slowed down, but I would imagine I do instinctively run slower and more cautiously because of the snow and ice. Guess we shall see come March 5th. I think i'm going to add in some speedwork in the next couple of weeks though, probably some intervals. This week has been going well, yesterday I ran my tempo run and today was an easy day. I've got another two easy runs planned and then a long run this weekend. This will be the real long run test, trying for closer to 9 miles but we'll see. I do already feel better this week energy wise than last week, I think my body is starting to adapt to no longer being able to binge on pasta and bread. *fingers crossed*

Congrats on your half! I think sub 2:30 is a fantastic time for being out of the game for so long! I find it both amazing and sad how quick our bodies forget how to efficiently run. Even only taking a year break I managed to lose a half hour off my half marathon time. The good news is that your body is also pretty good at getting that speed back, with the proper dedication. (Which is the hardest part I know) 4-5 runs per week has been doing me good, so I hope you find it equally as helpful!

Terinatum - Yeah, ever more running! I have a whole new respect for people who do even 50+ miles a week, i'm struggling with my 25. I'm sure part of the issue is my miles are so slow it takes me the same time to run 25 as some people run 50, but I have faith it will get better. tinkerer - Kicking butt, taking names, the usual. 7 weeks until my half marathon and i'm having a hard time guessing what my race time will be. One I always run quite a bit faster during a race than I do in training, probably from the adrenaline, and two i'll be running on dry pavement which I won't have done in about 5-6 months. I've been pretty slow though in my training runs, between 11-13 min/miles which is slower than I was running this summer. Do you find that you slow down in the winter? Or is this my lack of speedwork showing?

Had a wonderful long weekend, so my update is a bit late. Week Two! Run - Managed to only run 4 times this week, but one of those was a moderately legit long run of 7.28 miles, so i'm still feeling pretty good. Total mileage for the week was a little over 21. Counting - As hard as it was this week I counted every day, and was under by 2422 calories for the week. Eating Out - Ate out twice this past week, which is right on track. Keeping Up w/ Family - Called my mom and talked to her for about an hour, it was her birthday this past week so I called to say hello and happy birthday and then we chatted about the upcoming wedding. Overall I think it was a pretty solid second week, especially for being a holiday long weekend. I'm still having the hardest time getting out running on the weekend. Going to be the biggest hurdle this challenge I think.

Man this week i've been tiiiiiiiiired. I can only imagine it's my body adjusting to not having an unlimited supply of carbs anymore, but it's been pretty bad. I've knocked out an easy run and a tempo run this week, so I need at least another long run and an easy run, but if I can manage two easy runs would be better. Happy Friday everyone!

Congrats on a great week one! I was looking all over for you challenge in the Scouts and then I realized it would be faster to just go to your profile and find it there. Success! Guilds are kind of hard, especially if you either do a lot of different things or your focus shifts around steadily. I've hopped three times now, and its kind of frustrating (but also rewarding) to have to start all over again with a new group of people. Its curious they decided to split it out like this vs like every other MMO with guilds where the thing that ties people together is more friendship than actual categories. Not that there aren't like raid/pvp ect specific guilds, but most i've been in are a mix of just like-minded people who enjoy doing all the things together. Also, loving all the snow shots, I think you guys have more than we do right now!

tinkerer - Easier to run from wolves? Mostly ice this month actually, we're currently experiencing an el nino which in Alaska means warm icy winters that are super windy. Super glad I got the icebugs, but actually if anyone is considering them you will probably need to buy new shoelaces for them. I'm looking into some of those elastic ones for them because the material the ones they come with are really slick, and thus they are constannnntly untying. Super annoying. In completely unrelated news, if anyone else plays LoL you might appreciate this video about Lux: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VTaOzFVZIIY Lux has always been my favorite, rainbow laser beams of death? Yes please!

Alright everyone, Week one report! Base Building - Did pretty great on this one last week, ran five times for a total of 25 miles (this is actually a personal best) I ran a tempo, easy runs and I attempted a long run yesterday but I ended up only running about 15 minutes longer than normal because I started to feel sick. Oh well, try and try again. Count Calories - Did really well with this quest too, counted calories all week and ended with a deficit of about 2800, not quite the 3500 I was working on but still quite respectable for how hungry my increased running is making me. Eat Out Less - We ended up only eating out once this week for dinner and I didn't buy lunch, so i'm ahead on this goal. Keep in Touch with Family - Did soso on this quest, I was going to call my parents this weekend but got sidetracked. I did email both of them throughout the week though, so i'd say that's half credit. Oh also, here is the link to my new NF character! https://www.nerdfitness.com/character/58672 I like what they did with it, I can see it starting to grow towards more like this other site I use Habatica which is a really great checklist for life stuff.

tinkerer - I'm constantly thinking that, and then I see something cool and i'm like...well...I could use this. Princess Pineapple - I feel like that is the way most of the US is, it snows an inch in Georgia and they shut down the freeways, you see videos of cars getting into 100 car pileups, it's crazy. There is a big military base here in Anchorage and you can always tell the ones who got newly assigned here, because they are in the ditches. Went for another run yesterday and they finally buffed the ice down on the trails again so my shoes weren't mandatory, but still helpful. I was trying out a tempo run, and the extra traction was useful. I've come up with a schedule for the next 9 weeks of training, running 5 days a week, first 5 weeks its tempo, easy and long runs and the last four mixes some sprints and speedwork in. Hopefully this and my winter of base building will help me get at least close to the 2hr mark.

I once had to dig my car out of my office parking lot with my hands and windshield scraper, there definitely is such a thing as too much snow. The past 4 years have been really warm though and hardly any snow, or if we get snow we get a lot of it fast and then it melts after a few weeks. Ice is definitely easier to run with than deep snow though, so i'm not too disappointed. If it snowed that much again i'd need to take up snowshoeing instead of running...which the thought has crossed my mind.

- Also here for the science -

Strickland5 - I'm not sure we get much snow here either anymore...*looks outside and doesn't see any snow...in January* The last year we got a record amount of snow was in 2012 when we got 135 inches and this was a thing: I'm not sure if I miss it all that much.

I too feel you on the bottom falling out on running after a race. It's definitely harder to find motivation when you don't have that deadline looming over you, where you've put money and time on the line and you can't miss it. I think i'm going to try to counteract it this year by signing up for a race at least every two monthsish have one march, may, june, august and october, if all things go as planned. Either its going to burn me out or is going to be awesome. I'll let you know.

Thanks everyone! I'm a nice equal mix of excited, happy, scared and stressed. Elopement is seeming better and better the more research I do. Like why is a venue allowed to charge a certain price for a business dinner but if you mention the word "wedding" they are allowed to jack up the price like 6x? You guys are probably right, I schedule my other runs (1:30-2:30pm) every day and it helps not to have to think about when or if, I just lace up my shoes and go. The only problem is my love of weekend mid day naps. I'll have to tell myself no naps until the running is done. So I got some new awesome Icebugs for Christmas. They have these crazy treads and carbide studs, also they are made of water resistant fabric. I was worrying that I wouldn't get a chance to test them out because Alaska is currently experiencing an El Nino. Ha. This is what the trail looked like yesterday: My conclusion, the Icebugs are AWESOME. I hadn't really needed the studded shoes before, I mean I could get by with regular trail running shoes, but this week they were mandatory. I saw some poor other sap get onto the trail ahead of me in regular shoes and he was down for the count after about a 100 yards. The reviews I had read were right, the tops are definitely a bit stiff and could potentially cause chafing, but I think after I break them in they will be just fine. I'm a bit worried about transitioning from ice to asphalt after the ice melts a bit and it tearing up my studs, but the website insists the shoes are made of what winter tires are made of, and that they were designed to withstand the abuse of asphalt. We shall see, they are still really comfortable on asphalt from what i've experienced so far, though they are pretty noisy. I kind of like it actually, better than wearing a bear bell. These are definitely going to stay in my winter running arsenal and I would recommend them highly to everyone.

Well mostly the same. Over the break my boyfriend proposed to me and I said yes! Both my fiancé (which is still weird to say) and I agreed pretty much as soon as we started talking about the future wedding that we were both pretty unhappy with how we looked currently. So, before we take our engagement photos we wanted to focus on our diet and exercise goals and hopefully get into a better place. Also I’m exciting for these new NF challenge changes, 4 weeks vs 6 should be interesting. Hopefully it help some people keep their focus as I’ve noticed around week 4 people have a habit of straying for their goals. (I’m also guilty of this) So without further Ado, Goals! Goal 1 – Base Building I’m 9 weeks out from my first half marathon of the season the Lake Sammamish Half in the Seattle area. It’s supposed to be a super flat straight course, so I’m hoping for a PR. Well honestly my dream is to break the 2hr mark this year, but I’m not sure if it will be this race. So to prep for this upcoming event the plan is to spend this 4 weeks continuing my base building portion of training. 4-5 days of running with one threshold run and one long run. I’ve been really bad so far with skipping out on my long runs because I only have an hour lunch break where I run during the week, and I have a really hard time finding motivation to go out running on the weekends. This challenge though I shall suck it up and do a long run, hell or high water! Goal 2 – Count Calories I have the motivation of upcoming nuptials and my race for losing a bit of weight, so counting calories is pretty key. The past couple of months I haven’t been watching what I’ve been eating, and I have been putting on some muscle, but also a bit of a tire. The goal is to try to slowly chip away at this by having a deficit of about 500 calories after accounting for exercise. I feel like this shouldn’t be too hard if I’m running at least an hour a day, but upping my mileage does make me pretty hungry. Goal 3 – Eat Out Less I had this goal last challenge and it was fantastic. Not only did we eat much healthier but we also saved a bunch of money. Both of these things are good, especially the saving money part. From my small amount of research, wedding planning is freaking expensive! Yeesh. I’d like to keep this as a recurring goal until we can naturally eat out less without needing to monitor it. I'm going to try for one lunch and one dinner out a week. Life Goal – Keep in Touch with Family! Last year I was really bad at talking to my family and keeping up to date on their lives, this is just sad. I love my family and I want to be closer to them this year. I’m going to try to call my parents at least once a week! My starting stats: Weigh: 127.4 V02 max (estimate): 29.3 Body Fat (estimate) 26% Waist: 29.5 Hips: 36.5 Arm: 11 Thigh: 23 Calf: 14 Butt: 40

Oh right, I almost forgot Challenge totals: Run All the Things: Week 1 - Ran twice for a total of 11 miles, but I had bronchitis so I gave myself a pass Week 2 - Ran twice for a total of 10 miles, didn't give myself a pass, gave myself a big lazybum fail Week 3 - Ran four times for a total of 20 miles, not 5 times but way more consistent than i've previous done, so a pass Week 4 - Ran five times for a total of 23 miles, kicked this weeks butt! Week 5 - Ran four times for a total of 19 miles, still felt really good about this so a pass Week 6 - Ran four times for a total of 21 miles, also felt great about this. Total mileage: 104 miles - I'll give myself a B for this, didn't rock every week, but I rocked enough of them. Plan My Race Year: I did what I could with this one, I have a list of races i'd like to do both here in Alaska and in Nevada, depending on where I end up being. Overall i'd say it was a pass. Eat Out Less: Week 1 - Ate out once Week 2 - Ate of three times Week 3 - Ate out twice Week 4 - Ate out twice Week 5 - Ate out four times Week 6 - Ate out twice Total: 14/12 times, i'll give myself a B. Also I measure myself really infrequently but on Sept 1st they were: Waist - 29.5in Hips - 36in Butt - 38in At the end of this challenge i'm now at: Waist - 29inHips - 35.5in Butt - 40in So in the past 3ish months of running i've lost a half inch in my waist and hips and gained two in my butt. I haven't really been watching what i've been eating, so this was pretty much purely from all the running. I was a little surprised i'd lost any off my hips and waist, but I definitely felt the gain in my butt. Who knew running would put rather than take out junk from the trunk!

Alright final update! Final week turned out great, was quite proud of myself! Ended up having to work about 60 hours which is about 15 more hours than usual, but I still managed to run 21 miles. I only ate out lunch once and dinner once, so I was right on schedule. I looked through my credit card statements, and I managed to save about 500 dollars this 6 week challenge by not eating out so much. Its amazing how the little things add up! I can't believe this challenge is already done with, the holiday ones always zoom by so quickly. Curious about this change of rules that is coming, I have hoped since they announced the Academy that it would spread to the normal nerdfitness. I very much like the idea of quests and having a little character. I actually use Habitrpg (now Habitica) which is similar but more of a checklist thing vs fitness. I think for next challenge i'll try to keep my mileage up for the first half and then start adding some serious speedwork as i'll be getting quite close to my Half in early March. Thanks everyone who followed me these last 6 weeks and I hope your challenges went as well as mine!

Have been running Monday, Tuesday and today, so far so good for this week! I even did another threshold run, the snow has been quite nice this week, hard packed and no new stuff, which makes running a lot more appealing. tinkerer - Yeah i've found my running heart rates might be a tad high, maybe because i'm out of shape or maybe because I drink coffee in the morning and the caffeine is still bouncing around in my system. My zones from what i've found using my garmin forerunner 225 is aerobic - 140-180 threshold 180-185 and max around 200-205. I do still enjoy the days where I can just start the watch and just go at my own pace though, especially in the winter, the problem with a heart rate watch is that there will always be that cold part of your arm that you have to leave exposed if you want to see your readout. As for food, i've been quite good, only eaten out lunch once this week! My boyfriend is done with his finals now, so he has been nice enough to take charge of dinners.

Week 5: Ran 4 days for a total of 19 miles. Got in one less run than I was hoping to because I had a crazy weekend. Office Christmas party where I drank enough to be hungover on sunday, and then I recovered enough to watch Krampas and have D&D night with my friends. Next week I shall be better! Someone mentioned a race this summer called Lost Lake that I checked out, but i'm on the fence about it. It's 15.75 miles, and they are all difficult trail miles, so difficult and treacherous that they ban headphones on the course so that you can hear people (and wildlife) coming. It's beautiful...but i'm not sure if I actually can run without listening to something, it's so motivating. I guess I should probably try one run without them, see if it's even possible. Last week was really terrible for eating out, finals week for my boyfriend and December is the busiest month at work, I usually end up working 60+ hour weeks. Excuses excuses I know. >.> ate out 4 times. I'll definitely do better next week, I swear! tinkerer - I use the term speedwork loosely here, I ran a threshold run which is around 180-185 bpm. The past month i've kind of just been feeling out winter running and doing an hour during my lunch break at about 160bpm. I think i'll probably be able to do some real sprints, when the trail conditions are a bit better.

I may run in more snow than you, but your heart rate vs speed data is way more impressive than mine! My average speed at a 160 heart rate is more like 11 minutes, 7:33 miles would probably kill me. Also, beardcicles are an Alaskan staple. I've always wondered how warm a beard was, I don't see a scarf or a muff, so it must be doing something!

We had to implement it after my father went out and bought pretty much everything we had already bought him for Christmas. It's hard enough trying to buy the perfect gift! Went running yesterday and wowee my legs were sore. The day before I had tried doing some speedwork for the first time in a couple months, I forgot the sweet burn of lactic acid.

Woo! Thanks everyone! Scout of the Week...now i definitely can't slack. This week has been super busy at work, but I've managed to run both Tuesday and Wednesday. The trails by my office are really amusing, the first mile is terrible, giant footprint holes molded into the ice, then covered in powder and then compacted. Makes for treacherous potholes and oh shit moments when you hit a patch of hidden glazed ice. Around about mile 2 it runs into a popular lake and from there on its a whole different trail, still icy but its "maintained" or "groomed" or whatever you may call it, but they come in with what seems like a giant sandbelt and buff the ice down and give it texture so your shoes can grip it. Amazing. Ran a 13 minute mile on the first mile and the second mile was 10:30! The things good traction will do. All of these things seem worth trying, yaktraks, screws, or studded shoes. (I came across some called Icebugs that seem really cool, deep traction + embedded carbide studs) but i've reached the Christmas dead zone. From Thanksgiving to Christmas day it's a family rule that no one is allowed to buy anything for themselves. So I shall have to slip slide around for a bit longer...though honestly it still just really isn't that bad. I keep expecting to run into conditions where i'm like, noooooope, and turn around, but it just hasn't happened yet. Maybe a blizzard?