Hard workouts are the BEST!

Yesterday I had a huge list of things I wanted to get done that day and I might have been feeling a little stressed/overwhelmed about it so Pete told me not to worry about my brick. That he would get home in time for me to do it in the afternoon so I could just focus on the other things on my list. Isn't he the greatest husband ever?!

It was so nice just to have the whole morning at home, and I got right to work doing laundry, cleaning the very messy kitchen/dining room and sorting papers. I got the kitchen all clean right around lunch time so Elle and I headed outside after that to dig up weeds and start getting mounds ready for our melons and squash and such. I had just gotten the first spot ready for a pile of diet when Pete got home! There was definitely a storm blowing in so he got home even earlier than planned so I could get out before it hit! Awesome! I finished with my dirt pile then went in and got ready to go.

It was SUPER windy but I hardly noticed it at first because I was going with the wind for most of the way out. It's so weird to have it be totally windy, then you turn and it seems like the wind's gone, but for some reason you're able pull a nice steady 25 mph on flat without really trying. Yeah, that was fun!

I knew it wouldn't be fun on the way back, but it's hard to tell how much the wind is going to affect you until your facing into it. The whole way back was against the wind. There were places I had a hard time going 8mph on flat! It was a slow push back home, but I didn't mind. I felt like it was just going to make me stronger. In fact, when I stopes to text Pete to remind him to pick the kids up and I commented on how windy it was he said "Wind builds character."

It took me 40 minutes to get to my turn around point, at about 12 miles, and it took me an hour and 3 minutes to get home!

Total distance: 24.5 miles
Total time: 1:43
Average speed: 14.6 mph

I was really tired when I got home and I only had about 30 minutes until i needed to take Mindy to ballet (Pete was trying to get some work done), but I've only got 2.5 weeks until St. George Tri so I need to stop missing my bricks,

I hurried and took my rain jacket off, changed my shirt because I hate running in the one I wore for the ride, and put my Bioms on. I was worried about them hurting, but they really weren't bad. My cycling shoes had actually hurt worse. I grabbed the Garmin and headed out the door. I didn't even think about my iPod, but I was fine without it. I looked at my pace when I'd gone about a block and it was 8:07! I was like, "wow, slow down there turbo," I knew I couldn't keep that pace up for very long so I slowed down, but I tried not to slow down too much since I knew it was going to be a short run. I felt good!

Total distance: 2.18 miles
Total time: 19:55
Average pace: 9:09 min/mile (I like the looks of that!)

It never did rain yesterday, but the wind was crazy! By the time I went to bed at about 9:30, my eyes were really irritated from all the dust in the air and I was just glad to close them. I decided then that I wouldn't get up and run early in the morning because either the air would still be really bad or it would be raining. I had a nice breakfast with the family, took the kids to school then headed over to the gym with Elle. I totally forgot that the childcare doesn't open until 8:45. We got there at about 8:30 so we had to sit in the car and wait for a while. It was raining by the way.

I was supposed to do 8 miles today so I decided to do 2 sets of 4 miles and see if that was easier for me to handle. It was really hard. For the first set, I started on 5.5 mph and just turned it up a click or two every 5 minutes. I don't even remember how high I got up to. I took one little break in the middle and finished the 4 miles in 40:22. I stopped and took a little break - went to the bathroom, drank a bunch of water and dried off as good as I could. Yeah, I was soaking wet! Even my shorts were totally wet. I was glad I wore my tri shorts since they're made out of swimsuit-like material. I was thinking "man, I probably would have stayed more dry if I ran in the rain!" oh well, this was what I was doing so I headed back out to the treadmill.

This set was so hard! I tried to just keep it at a 10 min/mile pace for the whole time, but that didn't happen. I stopped for a minute after two miles and again after three. By then I was just hoping to finish at all so I did a nice 12 minute pace for the last mile. I finished that 4 mile set in 43:10. I had about 10 minutes to stretch before the childcare closed! Phew, that was a close one!

Total distance: 8 miles
Total time: 1:23:32

I did my last 8-miler outside in 1:18:54! I like outside so much better! I need to remember this next time I don't want to get up early and run in the rain! But, again, when I texted Pete about this run and told him it was tough but that I finished it, he said,"Great. I'm glad it was hard." he wasn't saying that to be mean, but because he knows, and I know, that it's the hard workouts that make you the strongest. The harder my training runs are, the easier my marathon is going to feel. :) oh, and did I mention St. George Tri is in 2.5 weeks?! I'm excited for my first tri of the season. I hope I still remember how to do it all!

St. George Ironman is this weekend so good luck to everyone doing that! (if you are doing it, let me know because I don't actually know anyone doing it...) it's going to be brutal! (I mean, fun!)

My Dang Feet!

This morning Elle woke up at exactly one minute before my alarm was set to go off at 5::45. Thank goodness, I didn't have to hear that annoying sound! I put her back in bed, then hung around, debating whether it was worth it to go run instead of going back to bed. Finally going for a run won out. I was just scheduled to run 5 miles with 3 x 3:00 aerobic intervals. No problem. I had half a banana, got dressed and put my shoes on. Ouch. That kind of hurt my bunion!

I thought it might be ok, and headed out on my run. I made it less than a block before I had to turn around. It hurt too bad to run on. I felt like I was almost limping. I thought about just skipping my run for the day, but then I decided I'd try my old Pearl Izumis on and see if that was any better. And it was. SO much better! I couldn't even feel it at all. It was like a nice comfortable bed for my feet.

When I talk about "my bunion" you're probably picturing this huge disfigurement, but really it's not that big. Here's a picture:

You hardly even notice it. I had to circle it so you could find it. You wouldn't think it would cause so much trouble. Of course, the more I look at it, the worse it looks...

Anyway, I was able to run in my old shoes without any problems there. In fact, I was even planning out my ad for KSL.com to sell my Bioms because they're just too narrow for me. I thought I could sell them for half the price I paid for them and still get new shoes with the money. The more I thought about it, though, the more I realized that it probably wasn't their fault. Yeah, I could feel the sore bunion in them pretty bad, but I don't think they were what made it hurt in the first place. Remember, I didn't have any pain on Saturday. But then, Saturday evening I wore those red shoes again. The same ones I wore before having this same problem last time. So, maybe it's those shoes I need to sell. I also wore heels on Sunday so two days in a row did not help.

So, my foot felt better in the old shoes, but I had a really hard time going fast. I was supposed to do intervals and it was hard for me to even keep an 8:30 pace for the whole 3:00. Then I would find myself dipping down into 11 minute miles, or slower, in between. It was a pretty short run, but by the end I could tell I was getting blisters on the bottoms of both of my big toes.

Blisters? What the heck? I never get blisters! Actually, I got a couple little blisters on my run on Saturday, but I didn't even feel them while I was running. Before that, I've hardly ever had problems with blisters. I could definitely feel these ones while I was running, and I was glad I didn't have to run farther. They are pretty sore, and I had a lot of yard work and house work to do today so my feet were not happy. I'm thinking about trying those injinji toe socks, but I've got to find the time and the money to stop by somewhere and get them.

Total Distance: 5 miles

Total Time: 50:38 (That included me going back into the house for a minute)

Average Pace: 10:08 min/mile

Today was another Meatless Monday. I totally forgot about it last week, but this week I planned for it. It was kind of hard, but we ended up having some good food. At least I liked it...

For breakfast, I had oatmeal cooked with honey and cinnamon, then I added frozen blueberries and peanut butter. Mmmm, I love oatmeal with peanut butter! Not having it every day really helps it taste better on the days you do have it too.

For lunch we just had peanut butter sandwiches, and for dinner we had Moroccan Style Stuffed Acorn Squash (minus the brown sugar) which is one of my favorites, but the kids hardly ate any.

I also made some yummy orange-strawberry-bannana bread. Want the recipe? I got it from here, but I kind of improvised so I'll give you my version:

SUGAR FREE ORANGE (strawberry) BANANA BREAD
1 c. whole wheat flour

1 c. oat flour
1 tsp. cinnamon

1/2 tsp. nutmeg
1 tsp. soda
1 tsp. baking powder

1/2 tsp. salt
4 mashed ripe bananas
1 (6 oz.) can frozen unsweetened orange juice, thawed
2 eggs, beaten
1 c. fresh strawberries, diced
1/2 tsp. almond extract

Mix dry ingredients. Blend well the bananas, orange juice, eggs and extract. Add dry ingredients. Stir in strawberries. Pour into greased loaf pan or pans. Bake in 350 degree oven for 40 minutes or until well done. Cool in pan 10 minutes. Remove from pan and let cool on rack. Slice thinly.

Um, at the end, I also thought it was a little weird that there wasn't any butter so I stirred about 1/4 cup butter in, and what was left of our cream cheese (about 1 oz.). I also greased the pans with butter.

We ate one whole loaf not long after it came out of the oven. Luckily we still have one loaf left. Despite having such a yummy, healthy treat, the kids were stressing me out and giving me a lot of trouble at bed time (They didn't end up going to sleep until almost 9:30. Their bedtime is 7:30.) so I ended up eating almost a whole sleeve of Thin Mints while I watched Cougar Town and folded laundry. I regret eating those, but at the same time I don't. Hey, at least we only have one sleeve left, then they'll be gone!

Awesome Weekend

My awesome weekend started out on Friday morning when it was raining, but it was ok it was raining because it was a swim day! Yay! On the way to the pool I was noticing my neck still hurt a little bit so, after debating about it for a few minutes, I reached in the glove box for one of our emergency Excedrin. Maybe that was what helped me have such a great swim, I don't know.

Here's what I did:

Warmup:

200 kick

200 swim

200 pull

200 swim

6 x 100 on the 2:00 (I know, I need to start doing them at like 1:50, but it's just so much harder to do the math that way!)

1. 1:35 (wahoo!)
2. 1:41
3. 1:45
4. 1:45
5. 1:45
6. 1:46

I actually don't think those were all exactly 1:45, but it was 2 days ago, I can't remember exactly! They were right around there, though, and I know my longest one was 1:46 and I was really happy about that! Next time I will do 7 or 8 of those.

2 x 400 (It was supposed to be descending, but it didn't workout that way)

1. 3:45
2. 3:48

300 easy pull

4 x 50 @ :40

At least that's what it said to do, but for the life of me, I could not get it any lower than :45. I'm getting there, though. Right?

Cooldown

300 alternating back and easy

Total Distance: 3000 m

Total Time: 1:10 (again, I can't remember exactly how long, but about that)

I shared a lane with this really fast lady pretty much the whole time. That probably also had something to do with me doing so well. I tell ya, I need someone fast to swim with regularly. When she got out, I told her she was really fast. She said she "used to be a swimmer, but that was 20 years ago." Wow, I wonder how fast she was back then. It was nice to share my lane with her.

Soon after I got home, my sister got there. Then we picked the kids up and headed to Heber to go get pedicures with my other sisters and soon-to-be step-mom. We dropped the kids off with my brother then headed to the salon. It was so much fun to hang out with them all and getting pampered. While we were there, I booked a massage since it was $30 and that's exactly what I had in my spending money. It was my first massage, and she commented several times about how tight my shoulders and neck were. It felt so good, but I could have used another half hour. She told me to get a massage whenever I can because I'm so tight.

We went back to my dad's house, had pizza and shakes, and watched Avatar. I was one of only 3 people in the country who hadn't seen it before. My brother and sister-in-law were the other two. It was fun to watch, and it was really good, but I was a little sad I missed out on the 3-D. I only ate half my shake at the beginning of the movie, and when it was over and I was getting ready for bed, my stomach was still hurting. It's just not worth it to make myself feel like that just to have a yummy taste in my mouth for like 5 minutes. I need to remember that.

Saturday morning, my sister, Katie, and I took my car down to Provo and my dad took us back up to the top of the canyon at Vivian Park. I realized on the way up there that my Garmin was about to die so I didn't even bring it with me. I was so mad at it because it had been turned off, why was it dead!? Arg! Oh well, Katie had mapped out our route for 13 miles so I didn't really need it. It was pretty much the route of the half marathon she ran a couple years ago, and most of the run would be on the course the Utah Valley Marathon will be. We were excited to do an all downhill run and to preview the course.

I wore a long-sleeved shirt and shorts, and it was perfect. It wasn't too cold, but there was a pretty cold breeze and a lot of shade that made me glad to have the long sleeves. The canyon was so beautiful, and it was such a nice day. Not a cloud in the sky. It got me really excited to run Utah Valley because it's going to be even pretty when it's all green. Right now the trees are still bare, but it was still pretty.

I got down to Vivian Park so fast, I couldn't believe it. I stopped at the bathroom there and checked my phone to see how long it had been. It had been less than 40 minutes! When we were driving up, we talked about Vivian Park being about half-way. I told myself that couldn't be right, but it made me feel good anyway. I felt so good, and just got running again. From here on out, we ran on a nice paved path that goes along the river, and all the way into Provo. It was so nice to not have to worry about cars or anything for the whole run.

I was just so amazed at how good I felt, I didn't have any pain and I wasn't too tired. When I stopped, my knees were a little bit sore, but not in an injury kind of way. I took my phone out again and looked at the time. It had been 1:48. WHAT!? For 13 miles?! I was so excited, but inside I knew it really couldn't have been 13 miles. If it was, that was really fast!

While I stretched, I called Pete and drank my Recoverite. Then I drove a couple miles to a store to buy some ice while I waited for Katie to finish. She was done when I got back and she said the same thing I was fearing, "That had to be less than 13 miles." Unfortunately, she didn't have as great of a run as me. She was really tired and sore by the time she got to the end, and she didn't feel like she could have gone any farther. I kind of felt bad that I felt so good. I totally could have kept going, and I wasn't even sore. I didn't even use the ice, I just gave it to to her to put on her knees and feet on the drive home, then she used it for an ice bath. I didn't do any of that, and I wasn't even really sore afterwards. I guess all my hard runs during the week are paying off!

I didn't get a chance to get on mapmyrun.com to check out what our actual distance was until today. I kind of knew what was coming, but was still hoping for 13 miles. Turns out, it was just a little more than 11. I wasn't doing very well with mapmyrun, and ended up closing it before getting an exact distance so I'm just going to say it was 11.1 miles.

Total Distance: 11.1

Total Time: 1:48

Average Pace: 9:44 min/mile

Not nearly as great as I thought it was. It was still a great run, though. I had fun and felt great. I hope that means running 15 miles next week won't kill me!

That afternoon was my dad's wedding. It was so beautiful and fun and happy. My sisters and I sat on the front row and cried. They were smart and had grabbed a kleenex before it started. I was holding, Elle, and she was holding my hand so I couldn't stop the tears from just running down my neck. I was a little worried I would start sobbing. I didn't though. Elle was getting a little worried with everyone crying, and I tried to explain to her that we were crying because we were so happy. I'm sure that can't make sense to a 3-year-old though.

This is a picture of me and Elle that Pete took on his iPhone. Pretty amazing hu?

I am so happy for my dad. He's been single for almost 25 years since my mom died when I was 5. He has just been such an amazing dad, raising us 4 small children by himself and always putting us first. Angela is just such a sweet, loving, fun woman. I'm so happy she's part of our family now and that my dad won't be alone anymore. They're in Vegas for their honeymoon right now.

Bouncing down the Avenues

One of the reasons I love running up 2nd Avenue.

Last night I laid in bed with an ice pack on my neck for about half an hour to make sure it would feel better today. Of course, that was after I'd gotten into bed after 11 and Pete started coughing so much that I knew neither of us would get much sleep if it didn't stop so I went to the store and got some cough medicine for him, along with some eggs and bananas. So it was after midnight by the time I got to bed, and I didn't even bother setting my alarm for 5:30 so I could get up and run. I figured I'd be able to find someone to watch Elle later.

It turned out that Pete decided to take a sick day so I was able to go do my run right after dropping the kids off at school which was perfect because it started raining right after I got home.

My neck was hurting a little bit when I started running, just when I'd look for cars or something, but after a mile or so, I completely forgot about it. It must have felt a lot better because I didn't even remember I had a sore neck until I got into the shower. That was nice not to have to worry about that on the run.

I ran up 2nd Avenue and I tried to enjoy every minute of my run. I finally had my ipod again after forgetting it last week, getting it wet because it was hanging on my fuel belt Saturday, and then the battery dying after 1 mile on Monday. Elle had been playing with it and turned it off shuffle so I got to listen to the songs in alphabetical order by artist. It's kind of fun to do this because I don't remember everything that's on there. It started off with Ben Kweller, then went Black Sabbath (Ironman), Cake, and David Bowie. I turned around during "Changes", then Die Prinzen came on with Ganz Oben. That's one of my favorite inspiring songs to run to. It's in German so I don't quite understand it all, but I think it basically says that you will make it to the top. Or something like that. Pete could probably correct me here. Anyways, that was fun to start my downhill to.

Then I started flipping through, which was hard because I like all the songs on my ipod, but there's a certain song by The Knife that's been played at our house almost every day since Pete discovered it a week or so ago. It's so awesome, and I put it on my ipod right away, but had yet to have it come one while I was running. Today was going to be the day.

I flipped through Elbow, and Foo Fighters, but couldn't go strait through without listening to a couple songs. I went past Fraz Ferdinand, and the next song that came on ("I Predict A Riot" - very fun to run to) I didn't know the name of the artist so I didn't know where I was. I was starting to worry that The Knife would be in the Ts instead of the Ks like I'd been planning on or that it never really got transferred onto my ipod at all so I kind of forgot about flipping through the songs.

Then, when I had one mile left, it suddenly came on! That gave me new strength, and I tried not to let myself fizzle down too much at the end even though it was the hardest part of the run like it has been lately. Here's the video of the song. It's kind of a strange video (and those kids on the skateboards are crazy! Where are their shoes?!), but turn your audio up because it's a rad song:

If that song sounds familiar to you, it's probably because you've seen this commercial with the cover by Jose Gonzolez which is a totally different and beautiful version of the song:

I kind of wanted to listen to this song while I was running down 2nd Avenue because of the commercial. It seemed fitting, but I was happy to have it on the flat too. I felt like I was going to throw up at the end, but it was a good run. I'm glad I got to do it! Here are my splits:

1. 9:39
2. 10:01
3. 10:35
4. 10:45
5. 9:06
6. 9:03
7. 9:40
8. 10:00

Total Distance: 8 Miles

Total Time: 1:18:54

Average Pace: 9:51 min/mile

Wonderful Spring!

Yesterday I went for a run early in the morning, and it was so nice out. I wore a long sleeve shirt, and it was even a little too warm by the end. I ran up that steep hill to the capitol again. It's such a killer hill, and I got going pretty slow! I actually did stop and walk for a minute. I kept going up until I hit 2.5 miles, then came home.

Total Distance: 5 miles

Total Time: 48:00

It was a good run, and I was relieved my feet didn't hurt during it because when I first put my shoes on they felt so tight! I felt like my toes were all smashed on top of each other. I don't know what the deal with that was. They've been fine until now.

I hurried home to take a shower, eat breakfast (made by my wonderful husband, thank you!) and take the kids to school in time to get ready and go to the Red Cross to donate blood. I made an appointment when they called me during my brick run the other day. I was totally happy to go do it. Did you know, by donating blood, you can save the lives of up to 3 people. That's awesome! Elle came with me, and just watched Lion King and ate the snacks they had there. She was really good, even though it took me about 15 minutes to give blood. For the rest of the day, I took it pretty easy, ate and drank a lot. I also went and got the jeep seats all shampooed. There was throw-up on there from when Elle was sick the other day so it was really nice to get that all cleaned up.

By the evening my foot was bothering me, and I had to take my shoes off (different shoes), and I noticed that my toes and the top of my foot by felt sore - like they were bruised, and maybe even a little swollen. I put ice on my foot for about half an hour before bed, and it felt better today. I guess it's still a little tender, but it feels fine.

This morning I woke up with a sore neck. I hate it when that happens! I still wanted to go swim, though. I was a little worried about making my neck worse so I took it pretty easy. I basically did my warmup (200 kick, 200 swim, 200 pull, 200 swim) to see how I felt. My neck would hurt when I'd pull with that arm, but it didn't get any worse so I kept going. I got done with my warmup set and thought about getting out, but for once I had my own lane! Of course, the day I have a sore neck I have my own lane. I just couldn't leave so I decided to do 300 more with the pull buoy. While I was doing that, someone did end up getting in my lane with me. I actually don't mind sharing a lane, but I wasn't going to stay too much longer. I finished my 300, then did 100 easy to cool down.

Total Distance: 1200 meters

Total Time: about 45 minutes

I always forget to take pain killers when I'm in pain. It took me until after I picked the kids up from school, when I was sick of my neck hurting, to finally remember to take some ibuprofen. When that kicked in, it felt much better. I do hope it's all the way better tomorrow for my run.

Here's a fun picture I took of the kids in the yard this evening. I was out watering the garden, and Pete was working on the chicken coop. That's right, a chicken coop. We're going to get chickens! Crazy, I know, but it will be good for the eggs! We're all excited for that.

Good Training Week & 10 for 10

This is the first week in a long time that I actually did all my workouts for the week! Here's what they were:

Monday: 4.5 mile run with hills

Tuesday: 2600 meter swim

Wednesday: 6 mile run with strides

Thursday: Brick! 13 mile bike/2 mile really easy run

Friday: 2450 meter swim

Saturday: 10 mile long run

That's a total of:

Bike: 13 Mi
Run: 22.5 Mi
Swim: 3.1 Mi

Pretty nice hu? I'm just so happy to be feeling really good this week! It seems like every week I've been sick with something or recovering from something or something. Not this week, though!

Hm, the last time I wrote was Monday. Sorry about that.

I do want to tell you about my swim on Friday. I did a warm-up then a 1500m time trial (that's 30 laps). Like always, when I started I felt like, "Oh man, how am I going to do 30 laps? That's so much!" But I just started swimming and kept swimming, and before I knew it I was half-way done. At around half-way, a guy joined me in my lane and started right with me. I could tell he was a little faster than me, but I tried to keep up with him as long as possible. I actually stayed with him for about a lap, then he started to pull ahead. He only did 4 or 5 laps, then he started doing drills. That actually helped me too because when I saw him doing 6x6s, first I thought, "Ug, I hate 6x6s!" Then I remembered what I learned from doing 6x6s and focused on that while I swam. I was able to keep going strong, and kept knocking seconds off my time which helped motivate me to push even harder.

I finished in 29:11! Wow, that's 31 seconds faster than my last attempt! It feels so good to actually see improvement like that! I love swimming. :)

I had put Elle in the daycare while I did that swim, and when I got her out, she was acting really mellow and sad, and she felt really warm. I asked her if she felt sick and she said she didn't, but that she was just tired. I continued with my plan to stop at Target then pick up Pete's contacts. When I got to Target, she was almost asleep, and I still kind of thought she was just tired, but she said she wanted to go to the store so I just had her lay down in the cart with her jacket as a pillow. I went there to try on a certain sports bra, but I didn't find it, and I hated the ones I tried on. I did end up getting a couple shirts, though, including a tank top that I wore today.

By the time I was done, I could tell that Elle was actually sick so I also grabbed a thermometer, some children's Ibuprofen and some orange juice, her temperature was 102! Yikes. I felt bad that I'd taken her to the daycare, but it just took me so long to even realize she was sick! I was really close to the eye place so I stopped by there still, but just left her in the car. When I got back, she said she felt like she was going to throw up so I brought her back into the bathroom, but then she was ok so we headed home. She fell asleep, but woke up when I moved her to her bed so she ended up watching TV for an hour until it was time to pick Mindy and Ethan up. I left her in the car again when I went to get them, and when we got back to the car she was crying, and had thrown up all over herself. Poor thing! I felt so bad. When we got home, I put her in the tub and that made her feel a lot better. She ended up staying in the tub for over an hour!

I talked to Pete and he talked to his brother who's a doctor and we decided we should take her to the doctor because of the incident on Thursday. What incident you ask? During her ballet class, while I was out in the hall talking to the other moms, I suddenly head Elle screaming. I looked in there and she just had blood all over her, her new tutu and the floor. She had bonked heads with another little girl, and gotten a really bad nose bleed. She was freaking out, and I can't say I blamer her. It was a lot of blood.

Once we got it stopped, and we went to the bathroom to clean her up, she said she felt like she was going to throw up and laid down in the hall while I washed her tutu. She just looked so sad all strewn out on the floor like that. Poor thing. We left ballet a little early, and I talked to her on the way home so she wouldn't fall asleep. After we got home, and she got changed she was totally fine. We had lunch and went on our bike ride. But then, her getting sick the next day kind of made us worry she'd hurt her head more than we though. The doctor said she looked fine as far as that went, though, and that she probably just had a stomach bug. He just said to watch her closely for the next day.

She had a hard night, with a temperature of 103, but after another bath in the middle of the night, I was able to get her back to sleep. She's doing much better, and is actually running around and acting very normal now. Thank goodness.

Today I did pretty much the same route as 2 weeks ago, only this time I didn't run up into City Creek to use the bathroom. I made it the whole time without a bathroom break! Whew!

I felt really tired by the end. Like always, it seems like the last mile is just so hard! I don't know why that is, but I really need to get over it. I ended up taking 2 minutes longer than last time. Dang it! Here are my splits:

1. 9:24
2. 9:49
3. 10:29
4. 11:33
5. 11:31
6. 8:52
7. 8:31
8. 9:14
9. 9:29
10. 9:43

Total Distance: 10 miles

Total Time: 1:38:41

Average Pace: 9:51 min/mile

Not very good. That run took a lot more out of me than I had expected! I don't know if it was the heat since I went in the middle of the day (it was 66 degrees so I got to wear my new tank top and my short tri shorts, and it felt pretty hot!) or if it was too long since I'd eaten (I was starving when I got home!) or if it had to do with the fact that I did actually do 6 workouts this week and I'm not used to that. Good thing tomorrow is a rest day!

Oh, I almost forgot. I wanted to do 10 for 10 again today since that would be a dollar for every mile I ran. If you have $10 to spare, could you please donate to Operation Jack for me? I'm trying to get 10 people to donate $10 each. That's it. If you are at all interested in helping out those who have Autism, please check out Operation Jack and make this small donation. :) Also, I've recently found out that Sam (the Operation Jack guy who's doing 60 marathons this year), is going to be the pacer for the 3:40 group at "my" marathon (Utah Valley). I guess if you're a female between 18-34, that's the sweet spot for qualifying for Boston. That would be awesome, but I'm not going to get ahead of myself. I'm just going to be happy with 4 hours! :)

Meatless Monday

This morning I got up at 6:15 (after only hitting snooze 3 times...), had a piece of bread and butter with water, and got ready for my run. I was supposed to run 4 miles with 7 minutes total uphill time. You have to run almost run 2 miles just to get to my hill so I knew I'd probably end up doing a little more than 4 miles. I was ok with that, though.

Starting out, my legs were really sore! Mostly my quads (I guess that's where the downhill gets ya!). I was also feeling some pain in my little bunion on my right foot. I had worried about that when I got the Bioms because they're a really narrow shoe, but it hasn't really bothered me until that last long run. If it doesn't get better, I'm starting to think about getting some wider shoes for the marathon. Of course, it could have also been aggravated by me wearing these new shoes on Sunday:

I don't know what would be worse, having to get new running shoes or not being able to wear these rad shoes again!?

Anyway, I hope it just gets better. I've had it bother me in the past to the point of going to see a foot doctor, and he said they could fix it, but that they'd have to fracture my foot to do it. Um, no thank you. I think I'll be ok. I hope.

My run was really hard, I went all the way up 300 north, and kept running past the capitol to get my 7 minutes of uphill in. That was serious uphill. Like the kind I would tip over on if I were on my bike. I managed to survive. Not only survive, I thrived going up those hills. I might have been slow, but it felt so good that I was pushing myself up there like that, and I knew it would make me stronger!

I also tried to keep pushing hard for the 2 miles home since those were the pretty much the same 2 miles that gave me such a hard time on Saturday.

Even with the hills, I managed a pretty decent time! Here are my splits:

1. 9:48
2. 10:06
3. 9:38
4. 8:56
5. 4:33 (half-mile)

Total Distance: 4.52 miles

Total Time: 42:59

Average Pace: 9:31 min/mile

When I got home, Ethan and Mindy were in the living room playing so good with Ethan's new Legos instead of watching TV like usual, and Pete was cooking eggs and bacon along with cutting up oranges for everyone. I was like, "Could I have a more perfect life?!"

I just have to say, since we cut out sugar and started having eggs instead of cereal, our mornings have been SO AWESOME. In our whole 9 years of marriage, I've only really eaten breakfast with Pete a handful of times before now because he's just always been so tired in the mornings. I had to drag him out of bed if I wanted him up any earlier than 9. Now, we've beed doing this for 3 weeks, and pretty much every morning (even when I've stayed in bed longer), he's up either making breakfast himself or ready to eat the breakfast I've made! It is so wonderful to actually see him in the mornings! It's also just so nice to have a real meal with the whole family before we all go our separate ways for the day.

Along with the extra energy, Pete's been losing weight. I don't think I've really lost weight, but I don't weigh myself very much, and I'm not doing this to lose weight. I just want to be healthier. We had a bunch of sugar on Ethan's birthday, and Pete couldn't even stay awake at the zoo. It was like night and day watching his body react to the sugar. I don't think it affects me quite as much, but I really can feel it when I eat sugar, and it's not good. The weird thing is that's how I used to feel all the time, and I didn't really think that I didn't have to feel that way. So, yeah, we've been doing this for 3 weeks, but I don't really see us stopping next week when our 30 days are up. This is going to be our new way of life, and we really LOVE it.

The other day, Pete and I watched a documentary called Food Inc. If you haven't seen it, you should go watch it right now. You can stream it from Netflix. It's about where our food here in America, mostly meat, comes from. It is really depressing, and I was literally feeling sick watching it, but I think it's good to see. Just how big and dominating the food companies are, and how they treat animals like a product is disgusting. Watching it, I was feeling really helpless, wondering, "what can I even do?"

In the end they tell you what you can do. Every time you go to the grocery store, you're placing your vote. We need to show the stores that we demand the good quality, real food. If we buy the crap, that's what they'll keep stocking for us.

They also link to this website at the end, and they give you these

10 Simple Things You Can Do To Change Our Food System:

1. Stop drinking sodas and other sweetened beverages.
2. Eat at home instead of eating out.
3. Support the passage of laws requiring chain restaurants to post calorie information on menus and menu boards.
4. Tell schools to stop selling sodas, junk food, and sports drinks.
5. Meatless Mondays—Go without meat one day a week.
6. Buy organic or sustainable food with little or no pesticides.
7. Protect family farms; visit your local farmer's market.
8. Make a point to know where your food comes from—READ LABELS.
9. Tell Congress that food safety is important to you.
10. Demand job protections for farm workers and food processors, ensuring fair wages and other protections.

One of those things was Meatless Mondays. Since I'm not quite ready to go vegetarian, and I don't feel like it's necessary, though I'm only going to buy grass-fed beef from now on, I thought it would probably be good to cut down a little on the meat we consume. I didn't really plan ahead to not have meat today, and Pete didn't know about it when he made breakfast so I just decided to try no meat for lunch and dinner.

Lunch was easy. Elle had a quesadilla (actually 2!) and a banana and I had a peanut butter and banana sandwich with my homemade bread.

Here the kids are showing you how yummy my homemade bread is. I make it with half whole wheat flour and half oat flour (which I make by just dumping oatmeal in the blender!), honey, yeast, butter, salt, and water.

For dinner I made that Cilantro-Lime Quinoa again, along with some pickles, cut up carrots and cucumber and artichokes. It was a fun dinner because the kids all like eating the artichokes, but I'm also afraid they didn't really eat very much. Oh well, I guess they won't starve themselves. I don't think it quite filled me up either, or maybe it was just the kids stressing me out, but as soon as I got the kids in bed I broke out the Thin Mints and ate half a sleeve! I consider it a victory that they sat in the cupboard un-opened for 3 weeks, though! I am such a stress eater. The kids get on my nerves and I start going through the cupboards! I'll try not to eat any more.

Here are some other (healthy) things we've been enjoying:

We made this beautiful fruit salad for lunch on Friday. We made it with kiwi, strawberries, blackberries, grapes and fresh pineapple. Fruit is pretty much Mindy's favorite thing so she's loving all the fruit we've been eating lately. She could be a fruitarian if I let her. That fresh pineapple was SO good! Not really a local thing, though. I am going to try to start buying local and organic when I can.

This photo was taken several days ago, but I've had this salad at least 3 other times since then. It's my new favorite thing! You can't really see the salad in this picture because I've kind of overdone it with the chicken.

First I bought some the Baby Spring Mix at the store (and you can get it organic) which is just so much more appealing to me than just lettuce. When it buy lettuce, it just sits in the fridge and goes bad. I melted some butter in a pan, put salt and pepper on the chicken tenders then let them cook. I cut up a lime and squeezed all that good stuff over the chicken before flipping it and letting it finish cooking. To the salad mix I added some chopped up yellow bell peppers (so good!), green onions, cucumber, fresh cilantro and avocado. I put the chicken on top then squeezed a bunch more lime juice all over the salad. You seriously don't need dressing with the lime juice for flavor and the avocados for creaminess. Mmmmm, it's so good!

This was my last bite, and I was so sad it was gone! I had even added more lettuce because of how much chicken I had. It's a great lunch, I'm pretty much in love with it.

Does anyone else do Meatless Mondays? Or are you Vegetarian? If so, share some of your recipes with me. I'm really not used to not having meat for dinner! Or really any healthy recipes would be great!

12 Miles Downhill!

I got a new SD card for my camera! Yay, I can take good pictures again! Not that I have any for you today... These pictures are care of Mindy and Elle.

Here I am all ready to start my run. (Amy, do you see your boxes in the background?)

Pete and the kids took me up to Bountiful where they dropped me off at the temple, and I ran home.

Running from the top of Bountiful to Salt Lake is pretty much downhill the whole way. It's running from the mountain to the valley. On the way up I realized I had forgotten my ipod, but I decided to run without it and see how it went.

For some reason, for the first half, I had John Mellencamp's "Everything is so complete when you're walkin' out on the street, and the wind, it catches your feet and sets you flyin'. Flyin..." I don't know how I got that in my head, it must have been on the radio. Luckily Ben Queller popped in there about half-way, and I had Penny On a Train Track in my head for the rest of the time. I was happy with that, it's a great song!

The bad thing about getting dropped off for a run is that you can't go to the bathroom right before you leave, which is what I really need to do. I ended up making it for about 3 minutes, and I just couldn't take it any more so I ran off in the bushes. Then I felt much better, and got to just be excited for my downhill run!

On one of the steep downhills (where I get going 40mph on my bike), my fuel belt fell off! I was so annoyed with that thing! I was like, "That's it! I'm going to use Chicrunner's free shipping code to get an iFitness belt and just carry my water!" I think that would be good because then I could actually fit my iphone in there.

Last time my fuel belt was totally fine, but I'd only put two bottles on the front. This time I had all four bottles on the front and back, and it was really bouncing around a lot more. It also kept inching down and I'd have to pull it back up constantly. It was annoying, and I don't know why I didn't think to dump the back two bottles out until I was almost half-way done. I dumped them in the sink when I stopped at a gas station to use the bathroom again. It was much better after I did emptied them!

I hit 6 miles in 53:00! Wow, that was the fastest 6 miles ever, and It was so awesome! I felt great and had fun running fast without killing myself. I decided it would be cool if I could finish in 1:46:00, but I already had my main goal of finishing in under 2 hours. Pete was like, "If you can't do it in under 2 hours, we have a problem." Seriously, if I can't run downhill for less than 2 hours and cover 12 miles, I won't finish the marathon in 4 hours.

I took a gel at 45:00 and another serving half an hour later. I was starting to feel really tired so I had hoped that would help. I felt pretty good until I got to 9 miles, then I was back in Salt Lake. I was done with the downhill. :(

Having to run on flat after running downhill for an hour and a half was really hard! I was going really slow, and it was hard to even keep my pace at 10 min/mile. I even found myself wanting to walk at like 9.3, but I made myself keep running until I hit 10 miles. Then I let myself walk for 30 seconds. I ran another mile, and my dad called so I actually stopped to walk again while I talked to him. He told me he was bringing some of his strawberry plants for me, so I started feeling excited again and I really tried to push it hard until the end.

I got home at 1:54:07 so I didn't quite make my aggressive goal. I did make it in under 2:00, though! It was probably really close to 2 hours with all my stops. I was a little discouraged by that, but I'm hoping to have a little more energy on race day. (I've got to do something about this period...)

Here are my splits:

1. 9:49
2. 8:11
3. 8:39
4. 9:03
5. 9:03
6. 9:04
7. 9:10
8. 9:45
9. 10:11
10. 9:58
11. 10:40
12. 10:36

Total Distance: 12 miles

Totat Time: 1:54:07

Average Pace: 9:31 mile

Should I look at my trusty old marathon time calculator? (I'm nervous...)

Ah, 4:09:09. Not great. I slowed down way too much at the end! I'll give it another try. I just need to keep practicing the downhill, and the keeping going for longer than an hour.

BUT, look at the long run I did last year on Ethan's birthday. I ran 12.9 miles in 2 and a half hours with an average pace of 11.6 min/miles, and it was my first long run where I dared run up the Avenues. Look how far I've come! That makes me feel better about my run yesterday!

I was good and took a 15 minute ice bath when I got home, which was the worst part of the whole thing! It was so hard keeping my legs in that cold water! And Pete just kept bringing more ice in. Ouch. I survived, though, and had to hurry and get out to get ready for Ethan's birthday party. I didn't have nearly enough time, and I was still making the frosting for the cake when everyone got here. Luckily they were just my family and they don't care.

I made Ethan a race track cake. Not the best looking cake I've ever made, but it was fun, and all the kids got to choose a car off the top so they were all happy. He turned 6 today!

We opened presents, then went to the zoo.

After the zoo, we went to Pizza Factory for dinner. It was a really fun day, but very full!

Even after the torturous ice bath, I was still pretty sore by bed time, and I can still feel it today, but it's not bad. Who knows how much the ice helped, maybe I would have been really sore!

Easter

Sorry it took me so long to post about Easter. I've wanted to, but didn't have the computer to put the pictures up. We had a lot of fun. We went to my dad's house Saturday morning, listening to General Conference on the way. We got there just in time for the second session since we stopped at ikea on the way. It was nice to watch it with everybody. Well, it was kind of nice, kind of chaotic! My brother and his wife, Heather, were down from Logan with their 2 little kids, and my sister, Katie, also came from Logan. Click here to watch General Conference online.

I ended up going shopping with Katie and Heather while the men went to the Priesthood session of Conference and my dad's fiance, Angela, watched all the kids. That was a lot of fun! We tried on dresses, but Katie was the only one who bought one. Actually, she bought 2! But they looked great on her! On the way back, she stopped to get shakes, and I was so good and just didn't get one. Too bad when we got home and they had shakes, everyone else wanted one so Angela went on a shake run and Pete and I decided to let the sugarfest begin and share one. We got a chocolate, peanut butter, oreo. Oh my goodness, that was so good!

The next day was Easter, and since it was General Conference we weren't going to church, but we got the kids all dressed up anyway.

Here are all the cousins. What well behaved little children! :)

I just love the succession of the next two pictures! I mean, Baxter's heavy, but not THAT heavy!

Mindy, looking beautiful.

Here's Elle with all the snow we got the night before! Snow in April? When does that happen?! (Ahem, oh yeah, every year!)

We made Peep Sushi, or Peepshi, which was pretty awesome. I got the idea from here.

Elle's sweet bunnies before they were beheaded.

Here's the beautiful strawberry cake I made. I did only use half the sugar in the cake, and cream cheese frosting so it wasn't as bad as it could have been.... It was really good, though! I might have had 2 pieces....

I also made a low sugar (well, except for the cream cheese frosting I put on top) Fragrant and Healthy Carrot Cake. It was really dense and yummy even though I usually hate raisins in my cake. We had it for breakfast before we had found any eggs to eat, and actually didn't feel too bad about it! So that pretty much covered the dessert that I was in charge of. I love being in charge of desert!

Happy (late) Easter! Here's a wonderful video with modern day Apostles and their Testimonies of Jesus Christ - the real reason we celebrate Easter.

Womanly Issues Week

Sorry guys (if I have any guy followers), I'm warning you right now that there might be mention of some girl stuff that you may not want to read about. Just skip down to then end if you get grossed out easily, and you should be safe!

So, I was scheduled to do 5 miles with hills on Monday, and I did get up early to do it, just not early enough since Elle had gotten in bed with me and was all cuddly when my alarm went off. For some reason I find it really difficult to get up in these situations! When I got up, I asked Pete if I had time to run before his ride came and he said probably not, so I just stuck around and helped out with breakfast. Pete actually ended up not getting a ride at all so I just told him he could take the car. I knew this meant no run for me, but I was feeling pretty yucky Because my period had just started anyway and didn't really want to do it. He suggested I get a friend to watch the kids (it's spring break so all the kids are home) and still go, but I just didn't bother. When Elle went to sleep, I laid down and took a nap too. I was seriously bleeding so much, it was a little scary! It took a lot out of me. I had really bad cramps and body achs and I was tired and couldn't get enough to eat. On one hand I felt like having it be my time of the month was a really bad excuse not to work out, but then on the other hand, bleeding profusely is a pretty good excuse!

Tuesday was the same story, but I just kept thinking about how much harder my long run on Saturday would be if I missed my week day runs so I decided to go do the 5 miles on the treadmill. I dropped the kids at the childcare, and they were so excited to get to go. I ran the first mile nice and slow, but then I had to stop and walk! I was thinking, "this is going to be a long 5 miles!" I started running again, and I made it another mile before I had to stop again. This time I had to go to the bathroom. When I got there, I realized my shorts were pretty much soaked with blood! luckily I was wearing my black tri shorts so you couldn't tell. I had forgotten to bring an extra tampon, and they didn't have any dispensers in there. I even ran out to my car to see if I had any in there in case of emergency, but nothing! Well, there was no way I could stay, and I felt like I might pass out or something anyway so I just got the kids after half an hour and went home to get cleaned up. I guess 2 miles is better than nothing, but arg! What a day! I felt pretty terrible the rest of the day, and just could not belice how much I was bleeding. It was hard not to wonder if something was wrong! It's so weird how quickly we forget things. It's like when it snows in April and everyone just can't believe it, but I was looking back on my archive of last year at this time and the weather was exactly the same!

So, my question is: is it normal for your period to interfere with your training? I feel like such a baby, and that I'm the only one who let's it affect me so much, but is that just because it's embarassing and no one wants to talk about it? What do you do to make it through your time of the month?

I just hate it with a passion, but I've always had really bad cramps. In fact, when I was first in labor with Mindy, I thought it wasn't so bad, it's just like bad period cramps but they only last 30 secods at a time then you get a break! I thought that break was nice. So yeah, I seriously want to cry when it comes around every month.

Ok, that was my rant, I'll stop talking about that now!

Tuesday I also ate pretty much a whole box of Samoas. Yeah, I'm pretty sure those have sugar in them. As the first ingrediant. After that I've been good, though.

Yesterday I still didn't feel up to running, and Pete took the car again so I did an hour on the trainer. I also rode my cruiser with the kids to the gatway and back because it was finally a really nice day! We brought sandwiches and watched the fountain while we ate them (of course Mindy and Ethan got all wet too), then we got the girls some shoues that will go with their flower girl dresses for my dad's wedding. It was great to get out!

This morning I made sure to get up early enough to run outside because I couldn't stand the thought of 7 miles on the treadmill again! Ileft at about 6:40, and the sun wasn't up yet, but it was pretty much light so that was nice! For the first half I just couldn't get going very fast. My feet hurt and it was like my legs had forgotten how to move fast! I plugged along, though and ran up 2nd Avenue. When I got to 3.5 miles, I noticed a 7-11 just a block up from me! I never knew that was there! I knew they'd have a bathroom and I was about ready for a stop so I ran the extra block uphill to get there. It did indeed have a bathroom and a very nice lady was working there so I was really happy when I headed back down. I stopped at about 3.6 miles and it had taken me 38 minutes. Pretty slow.

I was able to speed up and have fun on the way home, though, and it only took me half an hour!

Here are my splits:

1. 10:17
2. 10:31
3. 10:46
4. 9:46
5. 8:42
6. 8:49
7. 9:16

Total Distance: 7 miles

Total Time: 1:08:11

Average Pace: 9:45 min/mile

I love running downhill! I have a fun point to point run planned for Saturday where I'll get to run downhill pretty much the whole way! It will be good practice for The Utah Valley Marathon, and it should be fun!

10 for 10

This is going to be a quick post since I'm on my iPhone. Keep that in mind if you see any weird misspellings...

Friday was Autism Awareness day so I wanted to make sure and remind you that that's what I'm running for this year. I personally don't have any stories or anything about autism, but Sam does so go check out his blog.

This Saturday I got up and had my usual pre-long run breakfast of oatmeal with a little brown sugar, banana and peanut butter. Actually my usual long run breakfast would probably be oatmeal with blueberries, but that hasn't been sounding as good since I discovered the the peanut butter veriety. I should go back to the blueberries, though because the antioxidants help you recover, and that's always good, right?

Anyway, I headed out on my run at about 7:30 and this time I made sure to bundle up better. I'd rather be a little too warm or just take stuff off than be cold like I was last week. I wore pants, a jacket over short sleeves, gloves and ear warmers. I did end up taking the ear warmers off for like the last mile, but not because I was hot. They were just soaking wet and not doing much good any more. I was fine without them by then, though.

I ran through downtown, up North Temple and was siprised to see how many people were already gathering at the conference center for The General Conference of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. It didn't start until 10:00 so they were more than 2 hours early! On the way home it was so crowded I had to slow down to make my way through ll the people. It was a cool thing to see, but it made me feel bad that I was just out running when all these people were all dressed up and there early, and a lot of them probably traveled a ways too. I did go home and listen to and watch pretty much the whole thing when I got home and the next day, and it was really good, but it made me think that it would be good to try to go sometime while we're living so close. It would be a neat experience to see the prophet and apostles in person. Maybe when the kids are a little older and can sit for 2 hours better.

From North Temple, I ran up Memory Grove and onto Bonneville Blvd, up that and onto 11th Avenue, then I got to turn around and come back down! I took my Gel at about 45:00, and right now I can't even remember where I was at that point, but this is where I was at almost half-way:



I had to stop and take this picture at the top of Bonneville Blvd. because it was so impressive! I felt really good that I had run all the way up there! (I live down below the Capitol)

It was a pretty long hard hill to run up, and pretty much the whole first half of my run was uphill so it was pretty slow. (I gained a total of 739 ft.) But I got some pretty good times on the way home! Here are my splits:

9:58
10:06
10:44
11:34 (I'm amazed it was this good, I glanced down and saw it in the 13s!)
11:31
8:42
9:12 (this would be better but I took a detour up City Creek to use their restrooms.)
8:10
8:41
8:54

Total Distance: 10.1 miles
Total Time: 1:36:40
Average Pace: 9:39 min/mile

I'm ok with my times because it that was a pretty good hill! I'm just happy that I felt so much better than last week! It was a great run! Taking that detour to use the bathroom on the way back was nice too because then I got to 10 miles a couple blocks from home so I got to stop and walk a little ways.

So, if you're impressed that I ran 10 miles on Saturday, and in honor of Aitism Awareness Day on Friday, would you donate $10 to Operation Jack for me today?That's just $1 for every mile I ran, and I won't even ask you to donate $26.20 for the amount I will be running in 2 months.

Go here to donate.

Thank you for all your support and for stopping by to read my blog. I always look forward to telling you my latest acheivments!

Lamest April Fools Day Gag: Its Christmas Day! April Fools!

This was our little April Fools joke the weather played on us this morning. Isn't it beautiful!?



At breakfast I told the kids, "Merry Christmas!" They were like, "hu?" That sure got the "April Fools!" jokes flowing. It was a fun day.

After dropping the kids off at school, I took Elle over to my Primary President's house so she could play with her little girl and I could go to the General Conference Primary Presidency Workshop. (or something like that) That's right, I didn't tell you, I got called into the Primary Presidency in my ward. We have a whole new presidency and I'm the 1st counselor. Fun stuff! I'm actually really excited about this and hope I can do a good job. The workshop couldn't have been at a better time since I really don't know anything about being in a primary presidency. Here's the beautiful building I got to for the meeting:


It was such a great meeting, and I just really feel that the children are so special and so important and being in the primary is such an important job. I'm excited to get to know the kids in our primary a little better and be able to serve them.

The lady who sat next to me came down from Oregon for this! I guess she probably came down for all of General Conference which is this weekend, but still. That is so awesome! I just feel so blessed to live so close to the Church headquarters so that I can go to things like this. It was cool to be in the same room as the General Primary Presidency. At one point, the president was talking and she said when she got called he told her she was going to be taking care of all the children in the whole world and did she think she could handle that. She said she knew she couldn't do it, but that with The Lord she can. I'm grateful to be able to help out with that here in our little ward.

When I got home, Elle and I had lunch then we watched The Swan Princess and I rode my bike on the trainer for 50 minutes while we watched it. That was fun. She's just so cute! We had to stop it early to go pick the kids up, but we finished it when we got home, then cleaned up the basement.

As a reward for helping clean, the kids got one of the popsicles I made yesterday.

So, they weren't quite as much like banana cream sickles as I would have liked. They were more icy than creamy. But they were good, and I think the kids were pretty happy with them.