ElJay

I got my run in yesterday, a best at 24:22, not quite as fast as you, Dawsy, but not bad for a post lift run! Today, I'll hit the bike and swim, methinks. I was thinking about getting a 6mi run in, but with a bit of tightness this morning, the swim could be just what I need to get loose!

Thanks! Yeah, it's May 19th. I ran the Rock N Roll half back in March when it was too hot, too hilly, and I was worn out from a great race the week before. That got me 9:35/mi. If I train & rest & eat smart for the next 12 days, I should be able to get that magic number, I hope. I've run 4 half marathons so far, each one has been a PR from the last. I know it won't always be that way, but this one really should be a great one...I hope. I just need to remember that good carbs are my friend next week.

I did. Considering I a) was ravenously hungry and wasn't sure where I was, I am okay with my pace. I mean, on one hand, it's phenomenal that I held the pace on a regular ol' long run without much (though by the end, plenty of) effort. It was hard enough, but it wasn't race conditions, so clearly I'm doing better than a month and a half ago. On the flip side, on paper, I should be able to run an 8:51 pace for a half, which clearly, that wasn't. But my head and my heart want me to get close to a 9:00 pace for Brooklyn in two weeks. Go out too fast, and I'll die at the end, and screw my goal over. Go out too slow and I'll never make up the time I could have gotten on what is a perfect site for a PR. It's flat or downhill the whole way. I really want to break 2:00. I really REALLY want to break 2:00 with room to spare. It would have been easier with my brother running with me who can definitely get 2:00, but last I heard, his achilles was acting up, and he may not run at all. Running may be a footsport, but it's definitely taxing on the psyche. I know I can do 6.2 at an 8:07 pace, but that was almost all out. Obviously I'll lose some time per mile to go 13.1, but it's so hard out of training season (which was a goal race of the 10k) to know what the fastest pace I can hold for a long distance will be. Plus, a running friend just broke 2:00 yesterday, so I have to kick her ass, right?

This is perfect. I have just under 2 weeks until my half. I'll try busting in some good speed workouts this week to get the run in. Bike and swim, maybe not this time, but I'll never say never!

[ATTACH=CONFIG]3149[/ATTACH] I'll just leave this here. The alt text on today's Natalie Dee comic is "pshht. That shit is easy. Show me the unmodified one."

Still traveling, and luckily got access to my husband's corporate gym. I had asked about them having freeweights and bars, which they said they had. They do. Kinda. Tons of dumbbells. Pulley machines. A smith machine, and a curl bar. So, I did the best I could with Stronglifts today. I used the smith machine for my squats and bench, and the curl bar for my barbell row. The squats, I realized, I had 20 more pounds on than I thought I did. I kept it there though, since I hear it's up for grabs how much assistance the smith machine gives you. One thing's for sure, I need to work on my arm position. My hands are narrow enough, but they drop down, along with my elbows, and then my shoulders feel tweaked. So I dunno, I was supposed to do 75lbs today, but I ended up doing 5x5 of 95lbs but in the smith. The bench press, I was up to 60 today, but put 65 on the bar, again, since I have no idea how much extra help the machine gives. Barbell curl I did at 75 (I think). I weighed the bar on the scale and it was around 20-25lbs? It was a doctor scale and the 100+50 did not equal the straight 150lb measure, and me + bar have to cross that barrier, if that makes sense at all, so I wasn't quite sure. At least I got the workout in, and it's back to my real gym on Wednesday. ------ Saturday and Sunday was a lot of running around, literally and figuratively. On Saturday, I ran long for the first time since the beginning of April. Got 12 miles in around some gorgeous lakes here in Minneapolis. I got a bit turned around trying to get back to the hotel, and so I lost a little time on the pace, but overall kept around a 9:35-40 pace, which bodes well for the half in a few weeks. Sunday we did touristy walking around, about 8 miles worth, all in all, which was nice. Got all dressed up on Saturday night for his work "prom" - no joke, big ball gowns for some people and everything. ----- Eating's been feast or famine. Not too much in the way of eating off-paleo, which has been good. Or at least as paleo as one can be when meals are being given to you. It's both liberating and terrifying being away from the scale. I think I'm doing alright though, for the most part. I try to eyeball and overestimate what I've eaten where I can for MFP, and then go from there. But yeah, breakfast has been scraping the bacon and egg off the bagel, lunches of bunless burger, but dinner - like a queen. Last night we went out on our own and I got an appetizer of two sausages, a salad (though it had some sort of dressing all over), and a petit filet some sort of broccolini, onion, and reduction. My foodbaby was so gigantic after the lack of big meals for three days prior! Today, I'll have to do something similar at lunch. I know that breakfast will be coffee and some sort of egg that was once on bread thing, without the bread. Tonight we're going to a Twins game, and though we're in a corporate box, it still means likely that I'll eat a burger or sausage, without bun. Lunch - I'll have to make lunch epic.

Thanks for posting this. I'm almost positive I had the bar TOO low, and was thus "mashing" my deltoids. I have excellent flexibility, and as a result, I think I was pulling the muscle in a weird way. I'll definitely try to get my elbows up more on Monday.

Day 4 & 5 I've been up since early o'clock with travel, and yesterday was a lot of pre-travel stuff. Nonetheless tons of good stuff. I'm now through two weeks of Stronglifts! I definitely am finding that 90 seconds isn't enough rest on some of my weaker areas, like overhead press, so I'm starting to stretch the rest intervals to closer to 3 minutes where it's warranted. Definitely still fine at 90 seconds with the deadlift, so I'm still on target to get to my goal. Bigger excitement was taking part in the scout challenge. I can honestly say I wouldn't have tried to sprint a mile right now if not for this group, but I am so glad I have done it. I ended up running a total of 3 miles (1 pre-lift 2 post), then biked the mile on a gym machine (not recumbant), and then dove right into the pool and swam my four laps. Now, at the time I go, the other folks in the lane were PAINFULLY slow, enough that I won't swim much unless I have to, but it was nice to get back in. I swam a bit in high school, and was always in the slow lanes, so it's nice to be the fast one for once. The biggest coup though was that mile. 6:42. Unfathomable. That was without a warm up, and knowing I had a full workout ahead. I'm so excited to see where I can go with this. If I can get it down to 6:28, and hold it for another 2.1 miles - damn. That's a 20 minute 5k. I had no idea I could do it, and now I'm just...getting speedy! Not too bad for someone who was running 10:40 slow runs for her marathon last year. Today was a travel day, but I did about 2-3 hours of walking and exploring. We'll see if that bites me in the ass tomorrow, when I have my first 12 mile run in about a month (I've done other runs in that time, but had cut back a bit to avoid an injury) and a 'prom'-like event for my husband's work all night. I think tomorrow afternoon I shall sleep. A girl can dream, right?

Not really - my main spring goal race was this past Sunday, and was a 10k, so my miles are already lower than I'd love for a half. I'm doing a 12 on Saturday, and will throw in another shorter run the week before the race, but I'm already mini-tapered. Eep. And thanks for the kudos!

I do Stronglifts MWF (two weeks in the books!) , and have been doing a quick mile pre & post just for fun, but I'll likely slow those junk miles down once my summer running program kicks off on 5/15. Depending on what the coach puts on there, I'll be running Tuesday nights and long runs Saturday mornings, with another run probably on Thursday to get my mileage in. I haven't done too much more than notice I was inadvertently doing IF, and definitely don't want my runs to suffer as a result. I still have plenty of BF% to lose, so I may get more intentional with IF down the road, but for now, Paleo is enough of a radical change for me on it's own. Plus, I really love having the increased fat in my diet. It'd be so sad to chop it down now! Hahaha.

Added a bunch of my times - thanks for putting this together!

Done!

All three done! Swim: 1:40 (crappy pool clock, so I think that's right. 3:16 bike - at the gym on level 10 random, so seems ok. But the coup for me, my fastest mile ever: 6:42. With a few weeks time, I bet I bust that number even lower. We should do this again at the end to see how we improve! So much fun.

This was a rest day, so aside from running around to parent-teacher conferences and the like, no exercise for me. I will say that it's the first day since going paleo that I struggled to eat enough calories. On a one-off day though, I'm not terribly concerned. It's amazing what dropping my morning sweet potato will do to the overall total. I just wasn't hungry for more. Also, I have a big travel weekend ahead where meals are being provided for all of us. I'm not planning on eating poorly, but my options may not be phenomenal - OR there will be a lot of temptations for snacking. I did dress up again, and people certainly noticed. Usual playgroup attire is a tee and jeans. I had on nice slacks and a pretty blouse, makeup and all. I even told the other parents my goal to be presentable, and others chimed in that they wished they could. With a snotty nose rubbing on my clothes the whole time, the temptation is there for sweats, but I was proud of myself for dressing the part of a confident woman. On tap today? SCOUT CHALLENGE ACCEPTED! Granted, I'm not gonna break any records, especially doing all three activities PLUS Stronglifts in one session, but doing all three of swim, bike, run is pretty cool, right? Oh, and funny story. I've been reading the IF/Leangains thread and trying to find out what it's all about, since I am trying to lose fat and gain muscle, at a current 33% BF. I'm apparently inadvertently doing it a bit without meaning to. On workout days, I don't eat until 10:30, after my workout (though I eat RIGHT after my workout based on that magical 15 minute post-run window I had heard about), and my last meal is over by 7:30. That's 9 hours. I also eat less carbs on non-workout days. Now, I haven't gotten into the macros and what not, but it was interesting to see.

The peanut butter ones are made of pure crack. That's the truth.

I know, right? So that means I'll do my mile warm up, then Stronglifts day 6, and maybe do the bike as my post Stronglifts mile - then cool off in the pool for a quick sprint. DAMN YOU CHALLENGE! MAKING ME MORE AWESOME, HOW DARE YOU?!

I'm actually pretty psyched to see how it goes. My brother ran it last year when they only had a field of 3-5k or so. This year it's 15k runners, so it'll certainly be a bigger deal.

Oh wow, with a 100m swim, it's so tempting to go for a trifecta...hmmm. How much time should I spend at the gym tomorrow?

No joke, my husband has had a half-kill bag of peanut m&ms sitting on our dresser for three days. I put them in his briefcase today so they would stop calling to me. Also - who the hell can half-kill a bag of m&ms?

We have very similar half marathon time goals - I wish I could just get a bunch of us together to run and keep on pace. It helps so much!!!

I'm in for running! I may even take a stab at the bike this weekend, but it will be for fun, not speed since it'd be at the gym anyway. Any other time, I'd go for the pool as well, but I know I won't get the chance to get in the pool before Sunday.

I was RAVENOUS at first, but I listened to everyone who said to add more fat to breakfast and lunch to stave off afternoon hunger, and it totally worked. I rarely even snack now. It helps a lot, for me.

I knew that doing strength twice in a row would be a challenge, but you know what? Life is a challenge, and it beats not showing up. Stronglifts Day 5 Squat: 65lbs Bench Press: 55 Barbell Row: 75 I felt a bit tweaky in my right shoulder from the low bar position. I'm pretty damned flexible, BUT that means it's easy for the bar to pull my arms wherever it wants. If anything this was the only tough part of two strength days in a row. Wednesday is a day off, and in the worst case, I can keep the bar a bit higher for Thursday's squats. Then I have an extra day built into my weekend, since I don't lift again until Monday. (Gotta find a gym I can drop in at - but I have a lead on a few. Hotel machines won't cut it!). Bench press was still easy relative to the other two, but starting to feel the weight a bit. Barbell row was an abomination for pulling it up all the way. I can pull halfway, but not all the way to my chest, so I'm happy to repeat it next time, and deload if need be. I'd rather have good form than half-assed gains. On a mega plus: There was a trainer there with a client (on the squat and leg press machines, sigh.). He actually watched my row set while his client rested between sets, and remarked how perfect my back position was, even with the weight not getting up. That compliment made me feel so great - because I can tell I wasn't pulling all the way, but at least I wasn't breaking form to get there! Mile warm-up at 7:29, cool down at 7:54 I won't push this hard on my runs every day, since I need to also make sure I'm getting my distance in as well. Only 2.5 weeks until my half. I have a 12 miler on Saturday. Traveling with my husband for his work, and the office has an organized long run for all the out of towners coming in. I'm hoping to get a bit over my goal race pace, but we'll see what the pack does. A long easy pace won't hurt me either. Project De-funk Errr, my pants are getting a little loose. Luckily I have smaller shorts and jeans. Pants? Oh well, it's summer. Who needs pants, right? My hair is all shaped up and roots touched up. And though I really wanted to skip makeup yesterday, since I was cutting it close on time, I'm glad I didn't. It takes less than 5 minutes, and I feel better about myself. Wednesday is a "rest" day from exercise, but really only because I have a ton of things to do today during childcare hours at the gym. But on the plus side, I think it's a good thing for me to take today off anyhow. I am the WORST about taking rest days, because exercise feels so good to me.

I am sure I speak for many others when I say, "HOLY SHIT". That's awesome.

I've been trying to log more miles, even one at a time for now in my Vibrams. I'm hoping my calves thank me too!