Easter

We spent Easter in Heber with Grandma and Granpa this year, and it was so great! I got so many cute pictures, it was really hard to pick which ones to share! Here are my favorites:

Dying the eggs Saturday evening. George was not feeling very well, and getting mollars so he was not happy a lot of the time unless he was outside. Luckily it was beautiful outside and there was usually someone willing to take him out.

After church. It is imposible to get my kids to all stand together and smile. This was the best we could do!

George got a headstart and found the first egg! He wanted to eat it right away.

Ready, set, go!

Counting their loot. (I think we were pretty good about not loading them up with tons of candy this year. They got more real eggs than candy ones.)

After the egg hunt, we went for a nice walk to the train tracks. It was such a beautiful day, we spent most of it outside! I put sunscreen on, but not enough, and did get a little sunburnt.

After our delicious dinner, we had a nice light white cake with whipped cream and strawberries. Yum!

Time For Speed!

I know I said I was just going to train by heart rate from now on. BUT I really feel like I need to do speed work to get faster. I mean, I was getting faster when I was doing speed work, then I stopped and I got slower. So it makes sence, right? I'm still going to do the heart rate/time thing for my long run and easy runs, but for my tempo runs and intervals I'm going to go by pace.

I found this website that tells you what pace you need to do your different distances to meet your goal time for whatever distance you put in. It's pretty cool. I need to be a lot faster! It also has some workouts for you to do, and one of them called, "Fast 400s" says to do 5 x 400m at 800m pace. My 800m pace is 7:03 so last Thursday I decided to try that on the treadmill, even though I can bearly run that fast at all! The good thing about the treadmill is that you set the pace, and it makes you stick to it. I wasn't going to do 5 so I thought I'd try for 3, and I did it! Well, I almost did it. I did back it off a little bit early on the last one. I was happy that I was able to even do it, though! I'm going to keep working on it.

Then, Monday, I did a 45 minute tempo run where I tried to run at my tempo pace (which is 8:54) for the middle 25 minutes. I thought I could do this, no problem! But, I didn't quite make it. It was really, really hard. I was able to do 4.58 miles in 45 minutes which is faster than I've done in a long time so that felt really good! But, my splits were:

1. 10:18
2. 9:05
3. 9:19
4. 9:50
5. 11:06

I almost did it on the first mile, but it just got more painful and slower from there. So, I'm going to go down to 20 minutes for the next one. Once I can do that, I'll add more time on.

Yesterday I had taken the morning off because the night before I was really tired and awnry. It was really nice to just spend the day with the kids anyway, since they're on spring break right now. We did go on a lesurly walk to the park, but that was it. But then, my friend from swimming, Chris, invited me to go with her to a track workout with the Desert Sharks Triathlon Club. I figured I had taken most of the day off anyway, and if I went I wouldn't have to wake up early the next morning to do speed work.

Chris had me meet her at Sugarhouse Park at 6:45, but when I got there she told me she had just realized it was the wrong track. So we got in her car, went and found the highschool where they were actually meeting. Luckily, we were only about 5 minutes late so we got to do half the warm-up. I could have used a little more time, but I started with them when they were ready to go! The plan was do to 6 x 400, resting for 1 minute between each one starting when the slowest/last person (ME) got there, then 4 x 200 jogging the rest of the lap then just going again when you hit the start line.

Those guys were fast! I took off with them at first, thinking, "I feel good, I can do this!" That feeling lasted for about 1/4 a lap, then the pain started. Chris and I ended up skipping the 4th 400 because we just needed a little more recovery time. I mean, come one, everyone else was getting 20-30 seconds longer to recover than me! :)

Here are my times (I didn't hit the button right on the first one, though)

400s:

? (7:30 pace)

1:54 (7:19)
1:56 (7:27)
1:59 (7:45)
1:53 (7:24)

200s:
:53 (7:04)
:52 (6:33)
:56 (7:20)
:49 (6:11) Oh yeah, look at that last one! :)

This was hard work, but it was actually really fun! I hope I can work it out to go with them again sometime! It was really good for me to run with such fast people, and they were all really nice and would cheer me on when I'd come in. It was also fun to hang out with Chris other than at the pool!

When I got home, I was still feeling it in my throat/lungs. It was a weird feeling, almost like I needed to cough or had a sore throat. It was hard going to bed after working out so late in the evening like that (7-8pm). I stayed up until 11, but then made myself go to bed. Then it wasn't like my legs were sore, but they almost felt like they were just humming with energy. It was like I'd had a bunch of caffeine or something. It was weird, and I had a really hard time sleeping even though I felt tired. I didn't like that so I don't know how much I'll be able to meet them and workout at night like that. I did get to sleep in this morning, though, luckily! Anyway, it was really good and I'm glad I got to do it.

Too Far

You know how in the middle of your run you feel so good, and it's so nice outside, and you're just listening to your music so you don't want to turn around and you end up running farther than you should?

Yeah, I did that today.

I went out for a 1:35 run, and for some reason I turned around at 1:00? Um, ok, math wizz! To be fair, it was uphill on the way out and I knew the way home would be faster, but not that much faster!

It was a good run. It was so warm and beautiful outside! I ran by temple square at about 7:30am where it smelled heavily of flowers, and people were already gathering for General Conference. It's always cool to see the masses who come from far and wide for this event!

I ran up City Creek, and kept my heartrate around 157-160 most of the time, which is running pretty hard for me. At least for that distance.

I was tired today, and kept having the urge to stop and walk on the way up which I usually don't have. Don't worry, I didn't do it! :)

I think I was extra tired because I did my long ride yesterday and rode up to the top of Little Mountain for the first time in a loooong time! I had almost chickened out and turned around before I got to the top because I was afraid I would run out of time, but I decided to go for it even if it made me a few minutes late since I'd already made it so far.

On my way up the switchbacks, as I was moving along at a very slow and steady pace, a guy with one leg dpassed me! Seriously! That was so inspiring!

I'm so glad I stuck it out and made it to the top!

There's a sign up there about the Mormon Pioneers who crossed this mountain, along with Big Mountain, just before entering the Salt Lake Valley. It boggles my mind every time I think of what they accomplished!

I had dropped Elle off at a friend's house, and George was taking a nap at home while Pete was working so I wanted to get back before he woke up, and had told them I would ride for 2:30.

I got to the top of the mountain in 1:36 so I had about 50 minutes to get back down. I wasn't sure if I'd make it, but I ended up getting back to my car (which was getting it's alignment fixed while I rode) in almost exactly 2:30! Sweet!

It was a hard ride, and the hardest part isn't even the mountain, it's going up 800 South where it is so steep I had to stand up and didn't know if I would make it. But I did make it! And it's so much fun to come back down! So fast!

Even though it was a hard ride, I didn't really think it had affected me that much until I got into bed last night. Then I realized my legs were sore. Then in the morning, I just had a little bit of a harder time on my run.

It ended up taking me 43 minutes to get home from my run instead of 35 which I guess isn't that much longer, but that last mile was particularly hard, and I had to slow down a bit. I just felt like I had given it all I had and there was nothing left. When I caught myself thinking this, though, I forced the thought out of my mind and pushed on. I realized that the mile closest to my house is always the hardest mile, no matter the distance. Crazy how that works!

I ended up doing 9.37 miles in 1:43 which is still a lot slower than I want to be, but I'm going to try to be patient!

Really, if I would have turned around 5 minutes sooner, the timing would have been perfect. Oh well. I was just happy to be home!

Now it's time for bed, and my legs are pretty sore. I plan on doing a lot of sitting around tomorrow since it's General Conference. If you've ever wondered what we Mormons believe, this would be a great chance to find out in the comfort of your own home. You can stream it live from lds.org.

Getting Serious & Training With Heart Rate

This getting serious buisness is getting serious! I have to say, I'm starting to get pretty ripped, though! This week has been an awesome week of training. I did miss one swim on Monday and one pilates session on Thursday, but I still logged almost 12 hours of training this week!

And I'm just getting started! Crazy!

The highlight of this week has been getting my heart rate monitor back from getting a new battery!! I used it a little bit when training for Coeur d'Alene, but I don't think I knew what my zones were, nor did my training plan give me specific zones to train in. The training plan that I'm doing this year is all in time and heart rate zones instead of distance and pace, and most of my workouts are in Zone 2. When I first read this, I thought Zone 2 would be really easy, and that I would need to hold back and go a little slower. I've been running really easy the past couple of weeks because of this.

Boy was I wrong!

My first run with heart rate was Thursday morning, and it was just supposed to be an easy 20 minute run. I forgot to check what my zone ranges were before I left for the gym. I had written them down a while ago, but then lost the paper. I seemed to remember zone 2 was around 150 so I tried for that. Turns out I can run at about my average pace at 150bpm, maybe even a little faster! What?!

Then I took the heart rate monitor out on my bike ride with George in the bike trailer and my friend, Ginny. Heart rate zones for the bike are a little lower then with running. I made sure to check before I left this time, and wrote it down on my hand. Zone 2 for the bike is 136-154. Turns out I've been going way too easy on the bike! I was breathing pretty hard to keep my heart rate around 140. Pulling the bike trailer with the heavy boy helped too!

Friday I went to masters swimming, but neither my coach nor my swimming buddy were there. I was sad they were gone, but managed to figure out my own workout. I did 2500 yards in an hour, wahoo!

Then I went home and got ready for my 1:30 long run. I didn't quite know what to eat. I usually have oatmeal before my long run, but I had oatmeal before my swim. I usually have eggs after swimming, but would that be too heavy before my run? Well, I was hungry so I made myself an omelet, but only ate half of it.

I dropped George and Elle (she doesn't have school on Fridays) off at my friend's house then headed out. It was cool starting from her house because it put me about a mile closer to where I wanted to run to, and I got to skip my least favorite part.

I ran up City Creek which I thought was fitting because everyone is so excited about the new shopping center downtown that just opened this week, and it's called City Creek. I haven't been there yet, but I've heard it's really cool so I might have to go check it out even though I don't have the time or money to shop in malls.

Anyway, I decided to keep my heart rate closer to 150 on the way up, then 160 on the way back so I could negative split my run which is what BJ Christiensen (my bike trainer class teacher) told me I should be doing. I knew it would be easy to negative split it with pace because it would be uphill most of the way out, and downhill on the way back, but I wanted to negative split it with heart rate/effort too.

I ran at what felt like a really good pace. I felt really good, but I also felt like I was pushing myself a little more than usual. When I got to the hill, I had to really watch and keep my heartrate down, though. The sweet spot seemed to be 153, but it would sneak up to 157 quite a bit.

On the way down, I tried to just breath, and fly down the canyon. I wish I knew how fast I was going, but it was really fun, and my heart rate seemed to stick at 160 really well!

When I got back, I had to run around the block once to get to my time, and I had also stopped at the bathroom on the way down so I definitly negative split that long run! Wahoo!

I was so excited and feeling good, but tired like I had really pushed myself more than usual, so I couldn't wait to look at the GPS app on my phone (Runkeeper) to see how far I'd gone. I was really thinking I might have made it 9 miles this time, which is what I'd like to be doing in 1:30.

When I looked at it, I thought there must have been some mistake. It said 7.92 miles. Seeing a 7 just made me want to cry. Or throw my phone. What the heck? I did 8.5 last week in the same amount of time. I can't beleive I didn't even do 8 this week. I'm really hoping my app just wasn't very accurate. Oh well, it doesn't matter. I'm training by time. It was a good run. I'll get there!

I was so tired for the rest of the day! I was so glad George took a really good nap when we got home so I could get showered then lay down for a while. The trouble with that, though, was that I didn't really eat lunch and I really needed to eat something good after that run! I will work on this.

Today I rode 35.8 miles on the Legacy Parkway Trail and it was a really, really nice day! I wore shorts and short sleeves! It was windy, but not as windy as last week, thank goodness! Last week's wind was insane! Today I knew there was going to be a headwind on the way home because I was just flying out there! It was so fun, though, and I still pushed really hard to keep my heart rate around 140. It was awesome to be crusing along at 20mph, see that my heart rate was too low and push it even harder! Last year I would have just seen that 20 and been content with that. No more, those days are gone. It doesn't matter how fast I'm going, I just need to keep a steady zone 2 effort going!

I made it to Lagoon in a little less than an hour! I'm pretty sure it would take me an hour and a half to get out there last year (I can't remember for sure though...) so that was exciting!

It was windy on the way back, and I thought that would help my keep my heart rate higher, but strangly, it had the opposite affect. I'm sure it was partly beause I was tired, but I think having that wind push against me just made me want to relent and go slow. I worked hard and kept my heartrate right around 136 (the low end of zone 2) most of the way back, until the last 10 minutes when I was back in traffic and let myself relax and cool down. It was such a beautiful day and a fun ride!

I put some chicken on as soon as I got home so it could cook while I stretched, then had a nice big chicken salad before I showered. I feel pretty good now, a little tired, but better then yesterday. I think it's really important to get that food in right away! And, now George is awake from his nap so I must get on with my day.

Here are my heart rate zones just so I don't lose them again:

RUNNING (Max HR 189)

Z4: 170 - 179

z3: 162 - 169 (this is the no-no zone)

z2: 141 - 160

Z1: 122 - 140

BIKING

Z4: 162 - 170

Z3: 155 - 161

Z2: 136 - 154

Z1: 118 - 135

Making My Own Training Plan

This month I have officially started Half Ironman training!

I have a book called, Be Iron Fit that I've gotten most of my inspiration from for my training plan, but I keep tweeking it. I'm kind of obsessed with it actually. If you must know. :)

I get obsessed with things way too easily. For example, the other night I laid in bed for like 4 hours thinking about wildflowers. Wildflowers! Seriously!? I had just gotten this idea that I'd like to have our family pictures taken somewhere there are yellow wildflowers since I plan on painting our living room yellow (which is a whole other thing I'm obsessed with!) and I could not stop thinking about it! It was crazy. We had also had brownies for our Sunday night treat, and I'm thinking that proably had something to do with it too. No more brownies at night for me! I was so tired Monday morning that I skipped swimming, and I usually am so excited for swimming!

Anyway, where was I? Oh yes, my schedule. I don't know if you can tell anything from this picture, but here's what my month has looked like so far (click on the calendar to see it larger):

Basically, I have still been doing swimming 2x a week, and I upped my biking to 3x a week, and lowered my running from 4x to 3x a week.

Wait a minute, what did I do to my running? Now it seems so silly to me that I would do something like run less when running is SO my weakness. It's really what I want to improve most this year. At Utah Half last year, I was pretty happy with my swim time, and very happy with my bike, but I want to cut half an hour off my run! Um, that's a lot.

My friends, Amber and Cheryl, have been running pretty much every day - 5 days a week. They run every weekday, then take the weekend off. I have noticed them getting faster in the past few weeks, while at the same time I've been watching myself get slower. They have totally inspired me to run more! So, I tweeked my schedule, and made it so I'll now be running 5 days a week too! Yay! This is my first week trying it out so we'll see how it goes. I see a lot of miles with the stroller ahead of me. :)

So, basically, here's my weekly schedule:

Monday:

6am: 1 hour master's swim (2000-2500 yards)

9am: 45 min run + intervals

10am: 30 min strength (Nike Training Club)

Tuesday:

6am: 1 hour bike trainer class

9am: 20 min easy run

10am: 30 min pilates video

Wednesday:

6am: 1 hour master's swim (2000-2500 yards)

9am: 45 min run + fartleks or tempo

10am: 30 min strength (Nike Training Club)

Thursday:

6am: 20 min easy run

7am: 30 min pilates video

9am: 1 hour easy bike ride

Friday:

6am: 1 hour master's swim (2000-2500 yards)

9am: 90 minute long run

Saturday:

9am: 2:15 long bike ride

Of course, all these times will be incrementing as I go, this is just where I'm starting out this week. With the added running days, I had to cut down mileage from my usual days too. I'll also be mixing things up a little after my half marathon in June which is right around the time the kids get out of school.

I'm such a creature of habit and just love to have everything planned out like this. I also LOVE that I'm done with all my workouts in the morning. I hate working out in the evening, and almost never do it.

This is really my first time making my own schedule (or at least tweeking one this much) so I'd really, really love to hear what you think about it! Am I doing too much of something, or too little? My A race is 23 weeks away, and you can see my race schedule to the right.

Is it bad to be doing the same things every week? Even if I'm adding on time/intensity?

Also, I'm not sure if a swim and long run on Friday are a good idea. What do you think?

I will try it this week and see how it goes. My friend, Brittany, has kindly offered to take Elle and George Friday so I can do my long run outside and without the stroller! I did my long run early last week. I don't live in an area where I feel comfortable (nor would Pete let me) running outside in the dark so I did most of it on the treadmill and track at the gym, and that just wasn't very fun. Even though it was nice to have it all done by the time the sun came up, I really missed having that long run outside, it makes my week feel more complete!

I feel like I've been doing a really good job so far getting my workouts in, and I feel really good. I'm excited to try this out and see if it makes me faster!

Lovely Anniversary Weekend

Our 11 year anniversary is coming up, but Pete's going to be away on business for our actually anniversary so we decided to celebrate it a week early. My dad offered to watch the kids for the whole weekend! I'm glad the kids went and stayed there one night a few weeks ago so we could kind of have a trial run with George. Since he did so well, I wasn't very worried about leaving him this time.

The plan was to go snowboarding, but it snowed a lot on Wednesday so Pete ended up going with friends Thursday night and Friday morning. On top of that, we knew that everyone would head up there Saturday so it would be really crowded. I don't really like it when it's crowded, it makes me too nervous that someones going to hit me or I'm going to hit someone! So, we decided to go to the climbing gym on Saturday instead. That way, I could still get my long run in too!

I dropped the kids off friday afternoon with my dad. It boggles my mind that there could be anywhere colder than Park City! It was so windy and cold there! I was happy to get back to Salt Lake where it was 17 degrees warmer.

That night, we went to the temple, and had really nice time there. Then we went to dinner at The Copper Onion which is my new favorite restarurant! Thier menu changes depending on what's in season which I love!

When we got there, they told us it would be a 45 minute wait, but that was fine since it's not like we were hurrying back for the baby-sitter or anything.

This is a terrible picture taken with my phone while we waited.

While we waited, they brought us appitizers. We had the Braized Pork Belly with Preserved Cherries. Oh. My. Gosh. Words can not describe how deliciously amazing this was! It made my mouth so happy, and I almost wanted to cry it was so good. Seriously. I would highly recommend it! So good.

They seated us at the chef's table which is basically a bar where you can watch them cook. We really loved watching them prepair all this delicious food! Pete ordered some oysters as another appitizer. I had a couple, but did not love them so I let him eat the whole thing. I just have never been a big oyster fan.

I ordered the Pork Chop which came with this crispy cornbread kind of thing, ancho chilis and an egg on top. It was so good! I also got a side of brussel sprouts which were all cut up and in a bowl like a cabbage salad which I thought was an interesting way to cook them. I didn't love them, unfortuantly, but they were ok.

Since it was our anniversary dinner, we had to order desert! I got this lemon corn cake with rasperries. It was so delicate and buttery and just pefect! Pete had the chocolate cardamom pudding which was really chocolatey and exotic tasting with the cardamom. Yum. Such good food!

We were so happy afterwards, but hated to leave! The Copper Onion is right next to a movie theater so we just went to The Artist. It was so fun to just do whatever we wanted and not have to hurry home to the kids. It was a good movie and a perfect end to such a perfect evening!

Saturday morning, I went and got our Bountiful Basket. I got a ton of fruit and veggies for $60, but I don't think I'll so it again since you have to go pick it up at 7:15am, and I found out about The Utah Co-op that you can go pick up Thursday, Friday or Saturday. Plus they have grass fed meat from a local farm that you can buy while you're there. I'm excited to try that out next week!

When I got back from doing that, I decided to do the dishes after eating my usual pre-run banana peanut butter oatmeal. Then I headed out on my run. I ran pretty much the same route as last week up to the mouth of City Creek, only I added in another hill. It was a really nice run. I tried to go really easy so I ended up doing 8.24 miles in the same time 1:30 it took me to do 8.4 last week. I need to keep my long runs in the aerobic range where I can build up my mitocondria. I don't totally understand how it works, but Pete gave me a really good analagy:

If we compare our bodies to cars, fat and sugar are the fuel. Sugar burns really quickly and we can't store very much, but we basically have endless amount of fat which we burn slowly so this is what we want to use when we do endurance events. We burn fat when we're in the aerobic zones, and sugar when our heart rate gets higher and we go into the anaerobic zones. What I need to do is get to where I can go faster while keeping my heartrate in an aerobic zone so I can burn fat and keep that pace up. But our bodies can only burn so much fat at a time.

My body has a 4 cylinder engine. We want the abily to use as much fuel as possible. Remember, we're not talking about prius' here, we're trying to build a race car engine that can convert a lot of fuel to a lot of energy aka speed. How do I upgrade to a 12 cylinder engine? By building a lot mitocondria. Mitocondria are what help us turn fuel into energy so I need more of them. How do I build up mitocondria? From what I understand, I just need to run a lot.

After my run, we hurried and went out to brunch at The Park Cafe which we love to go to for breakfast. We had to wait half an hour, but I felt like I needed something after my run so we bought 3 peanut butter cookies and shared them while we walked about a mile around the park. We got back just in time to be seated! I ended up choosing the healthy option, and getting an omelete. It was really good, and I didn't have to feel sick or bad about it later.

My Half Ironman training plan starts tomorrow! It goes off of heart rate and time instead of pace and distance so I really need to start training by heart rate, but all three of my heart rate straps are dead, along with my heart rate monitor watch so I'm not able to use them yet. We went to REI to see if they could replace the batteries, but they just told me to send them in to Polar. Arg! I will send them in to Polar tomorrow and hopefully it doesn't take too long to get them back!

Later we decided to go to IKEA to get the kids some nightlights. Of course, we ended up spending way too much time there, and planning out all the things we want to eventually buy! It was fun, though.

When we got done there, it was dinnertime so we went to another one of my favorite resaturants: Simply Thai. I got the red curry which is really good there! We got desert again since, after all, it was our anniversary dinner! :) I got the coconut ice cream. Yum.

We ended up just wanting to go home and relax after that so we didn't go climbing. I'm kind of sad we didn't go, but at the same time it was a really good day and we both enjoyed just spending it together.

We enjoyed church today without any kids to wrangle, and are just relaxing now that we're home. We'll be heading out soon to go get them, though. I miss my baby! My dad says he's just been a delight and has hardly cried at all the whole weekend. What a good boy!

George's First Haircut and Snowboarding

First things first, George got his first haircut last night! It was kind of a sad event, and I'm pretty sure Pete's still mad at me for doing it. Here's a couple before shots:



George did pretty well, and only fussed a little bit. Here he is with his short hair:



In a way I miss his long hair, but I don't miss it always getting food in it, and always having a big rat's nest in the back. Sigh. He's still our cute, sweet little baby and that's what matters.

Today was a wonderful day because Pete and I got to go snowboarding! Thank you so much to Amber and Ginny for taking care of my babies!


That's my man! :)

The mountains, as aways, were beautiful.

I was totally spoiled last time with the nice soft, deep snow. This time there wasn't really any powder and I'd get going much faster when I'd try to turn so it took some getting used to. We had heard they were getting dumped on up there on Saturday, what the heck?! I eventually got back into my groove, though, and we had a great time.

We did 3 runs, stopped and had some apples, walnuts, boiled eggs, and split a Ritter Sport before heading back up for 2 more runs.

We were sad to be done after that, but knew we needed to get back to the kids, and decided it was better not to totally leave everything up on the mountain. I didn't want to be dead for the rest of the day like I was last time! Of course, that may have been because I was sick too. Who knows.

Eat For Health

Yesterday I ran 8.4 hilly miles in the wind, and I thought about food the whole time.

Not in the way you would think like, "I'm eating a burger after this!" Or, "I deserve to make cookies when I get home." Quite the opposite.

This week Keebler cookies AND Oreos went on sale at Smith's, which is where I do most of my grocery shopping since it's a block away from my house. The first time I saw the huge display of the delicious E.L. Fudge cookies, I had to stop and look at the ingredients list to remind myself why I was NOT going to buy them, even if they were half off. Here's the list:

ENRICHED FLOUR (WHEAT FLOUR, NIACIN, REDUCED IRON, THIAMIN MONONITRATE [VITAMIN B1], RIBOFLAVIN [VITAMIN B2], FOLIC ACID),

SUGAR,

VEGETABLE OIL (SOYBEAN, PALM, AND PALM KERNEL OIL WITH TBHQ FOR FRESHNESS),

DEXTROSE,

CONTAINS TWO PERCENT OR LESS OF HIGH FRUCTOSE CORN SYRUP,

COCOA (PROCESSED WITH ALKALI),

EGGS,

COCOA,

SALT,

WHEY,

CORNSTARCH,

BAKING SODA,

BUTTER (CREAM, SALT),

NATURAL AND ARTIFICIAL FLAVOR, SOY LECITHIN.

Now why do you need all that junk in your cookies?!

They are not food.

I got home that day and told Pete that I think I need to stop shopping at Smiths because I'm sick of being bombarded by these things. I really do love E.L. Fudge cookies. They are one of my favorites, but I just can't feel good about eating that anymore.

Then he showed me this video:

I could go so far as to say this video is life-changing.

At least to me.

This lady basically cured her MS with food!

It is unbelievable to me that she had all the best care and medicine available, and yet she was still getting worse. She could hardly walk and was unable to sit up in a chair. She went from that to riding her bike 18 miles and riding horses in the Rockies in a year!

Seriously, how much money do we spend on research to find cures for things like MS or cancer or whatever in this country, when the answer is right here. Maybe we should spend more time and effort on educating people about this, instead of trying to treat the symptoms.

Maybe I'm over-simplifying it, but I don't think so. We need these nutrients to live and be healthy. One thing she said that really stood out to me is that we are literally starving ourselves. Here we live in this land of plenty and we are starving ourselves and getting fat and sick at the same time, while we're surrounded by all this good food.

And we are doing this to our children.

She also mentioned that these foods could help with behavioral problems. How many of us would LOVE for our children to behave better? I remember the day after Halloween, several people posted on facebook about how terrible their children were acting that day. Coincidence? On the other side of that, my kids have been so good these past 2 days! Coincidence again? Maybe. But they have been getting along so well, and obeying us so much better. Maybe they're just feeling better.

On my run yesterday, while I was thinking about all of this, I also thought about how grateful I am for my healthy body and that I'm able to just go out and run eight miles.

I want to keep it that way.

We are going to try to start building our meals around the vegetables instead of grains or starches. We don't need those things, and like she said, if you get all the vegetables in and you're still hungry, then you can have the grain. We are really excited about this.

Now, I'm not saying I won't ever have sugar again. I mean, cookies are my favorite thing, but they need to be a much more rare treat.

When I told my sister about this, she said, "You always do such weird diets." But first of all, it's not a "diet" and secondly, how is it weird to eat fresh, real food? I sent her the video, and I hope it helps change her way of thinking too.

Please try this with us! If you do, post on here and let me know how it's going or what you think of it.

PS - Building Mitochondria also helps with running!

Recovery Week & Return to Healthy Eating

Boy am I glad this week was a recovery week because I needed it! After snowboarding on Monday (which was awesome!) I got sick, and didn't workout at all Tuesday or Wednesday. I just tried to sleep as much as possible and think recovery thoughts. The trouble is that when I'm not working out, I have a hard time sleeping! Arg!

Thursday, I slept in again because I had a tough night, but did end up doing a trainer ride that night. I decided I would try out Downton Abbey because I keep hearing about it, and luckily it's on Hulu so I get to watch it! It even has the whole season so far on there so I don't have to miss anything! Nice.

It was a nice, easy, hour-long ride and Downton Abbey was fun to watch while I rode. I actually wanted to go for another hour so I could watch the next episode! But I had to get to bed so I could make sure and get to swimming on Friday. And what do you know, I slept really well that night!

Friday I did really good getting up early and getting ready for swimming, but then George woke up, and I couldn't get him back to sleep until after 6 so I ended up being 18 minutes (Yes, I know exactly when I got there!) late for masters. I just did a short warmup and jumped right into their drill set. Chris left early, but we did get to do a hard set of 8 x 50 on 1:10 first. Fun stuff!

Saturday I did a really easy run. I was going to go 6 miles, but on the way back I was still coughing and not feeling great so I reminded myself there was no need to push it, and took the shorter way home. I ended up with 5.41 miles, and I was tired! I hope next week I can be back to my normal self!

That night, I went to the Banff outdoor film festival with Pete, and it was so much fun! We saw some great films documenting things like a 9-year old bouldering prodigy, a guy who took 3 years to cross Asia on horseback, and some guys who climbed an 8000 meter peek in winter. Wow, people can do some pretty amazing things!

I also made oatmeal chocolate chip cookies and have eaten like a million of them this weekend! Not good. I mean, they are good. They are SO good! But I don't feel good eating them, and I really want to get back onto the healthy eating train.

Pete and I did really well for a while, and we've kind of fallen off. For the most part, I still eat mostly really healthy food, but I just love cookies so much!

I just ran across this video that starts out kind of slow and cheesy, but they really have some good information! It explains really well what we try to eat, and why it's better to eat butter, eggs and bacon than a muffin or even "healthy" cereal. It's a good reminder for me to be more careful with my sugar intake and to eat more sweet potatoes. Yum!

They are going to make a spiel at the end to sell their program to you, and you can watch that if you want, but I'm not trying to sell you on that, and she pretty much says it all in the video.

Click Here.

PS - Gotta love Isabelle, she's awesome! :)

Snowboarding With Brittany

I love Brighton Ski Resort so much! Ok, so I've only been to one other place, and that was Wolf Mountain, but they are like apples and oranges! I had been planning a snowboarding girls trip to Wolf Mountain with my friend, Brittany, and some of her friends because we all had passes there for Monday, Wednesday and Friday this week. I was the only one with a pass to Brighton on Monday because we have different Pass of All Passes, and Pete couldn't go Monday so I was ok with just going with them to Wolf Mountain. But her friends both wanted to go Wednesday, and it was snowing in Park City (which usually means Brighton too) on Sunday! I asked Brittany if she would just go to Brighton with me Monday if I paid for half her lift ticket. That was a good deal for her, and still a good deal for me to be able to go to Brighton for only $25!

Monday morning I took my recovery socks off from the half marathon, and put on my snowboarding socks!

It was a beautiful day, and we were so excited to see all the pillows of snow on the trees! It looked really cool.

Excited to get going!

We did so many runs, I didn't even keep track of how many. Maybe 5 or 6? I don't know, it was just go, go go! Brittany was so fun to snowboard with. I would just follow her lead, making turns all the way down the mountain. It was awesome because I really felt like I was finally getting it! She was also really encouraging and fun to ride with, telling me to find a jump to try out and things like that. There was one particular place we got to where I was like, "It's pretty steep!" and she was just like, "go head." I started down, and she told me, "just cut it." So I did! I turned, and I made it! It was such a good feeling! I did do one little jump too. It was nothing big, but it was fun and made me feel good!

It's just so magical up there, I can hardly even stand it!

On our second to last run, I cam around a corner and heard Brittany calling my name. I saw her pointing and thought she was just letting me know where she was going, but then I got closer and saw a bunch of people stopped and something in the middle of the groomer. After a second, I realized it was a porcupine! (See the little dot in the middle of the above photo?) He was just walking around calmly like it was no big deal. Of course, this was his home! One snowboarder, got really close to him, and kind of shooed it off the path. It was just so calm and cute, but I didn't dare get very close so you can't even tell what it is in this picture:

As you can see, he was off in the trees when we went past, but he acted like he wanted to get back up on the packed snow, which I can understand - It's much easier to walk on!

We spent most of our time on Snake Creek over on the right side, but for our last run we made it way over to go up the far left run (I can never remember the name), and we got to cut through some fun powder on the way. We were lucky to get on since Brittany had a half-day pass which expires at 12:30 and it was like 12:38 when we got on the lift! They didn't even check, though, so that was nice!

It started snowing when we got to the top, and it was really pretty so we had to take some pictures (not that you can even tell):

As you can see, we're right off the lift, in everyone's way!

At one point Brittany said that she was starting to get tired, and I said, "Yeah, I think I am too." I said that because I knew I should be getting tired, but I really wasn't feeling it. It was weird! The only time I started to feel it was at the very end when we cut way back to the right to get to the lodge before heading home, and I was on my toe edge for a long time. Then my calves just started burning! Then I knew, even though I hated to leave, it was probably good to be done too.

It was just such a fun day snowboarding, I loved it! The snow was soft and beautiful, I did really well and only had a few soft falls, and I had great company! Hopefully we'll get to go out together at least one more time this year.

My legs were so sore that night! I wish I could tell when they were that tired while I'm up there so I know to stop. Maybe it's a good thing I don't.

That night I also starting to feel sick! I didn't know if it was just from over-doing it snowboarding or if I was really getting sick. The next day I knew for sure that I was sick. My body just couldn't regulate its temperature, and I just didn't feel good. My legs felt better, but now my neck, shoulders and biceps were really sore so I just tried to get as much rest as possible. Even though it was Valentine's day, I didn't really do anything special for dinner, I just got soup and sandwich stuff from the store. I did make heart pancakes for breakfast, though!

Today I felt much better, and even though I really wanted to go to swimming, I decided to take one more day off. Mindy was home sick today with the same thing I had so hopefully she's better tomorrow.

Outside The Ice Half Marathon - Race Report

Oh man, I totally slept in this morning! I set my alarm for 6am, but I guess I never turned it on. The awesome thing was that I was able to sleep in. George slept all night, and so did I! It was so nice. He had gotten back into the habit of nursing a couple times during the night because he got sick and I got soft. Finally, the night before last, we decided to have him cry it out again. He cried for over an hour before going back to sleep so I was ready for a repeat of that last night, especially since he's got a cough, so I was happily surprised when I suddenly woke up at 6:30!

I was also really happy that I hadn't woken up any later since I had agreed to pick Amber and Cheryl up at 7 for the race! Yikes, I got ready in a hurry, and just grabbed a Larabar for breakfast on the way.

This race was at the Olympic Oval. It's inside, and there's an ice rink inside the track where the olympic speed skaters practice. It was interesting to see the different things they do to train.

All that rush and stress, and we got there with about an hour to spare so we just hung out, and took advantage of their nice restroom a couple times. Way nicer than your usual race port-a-potties! :)

I had made a playlist just for this half marathon that started out with the kind of slower songs, then had the fast songs in the second half. It was a 2.1 hour long playlist and I was excited to listen to it and try to pace myself with it, and hopefully not have it loop.


But when I started out, the music there and everything else going on was too loud so I could hardly hear my music. I could have turned it up really loud, but that seemed kind of silly since their music was pretty good anyway. So I just took my ipod off and put it with our stuff.

As usual, it took me a while to get warmed up and feeling good. After about half an hour, I passed Amber and Cheryl for the first time, and I was starting to feel really good and getting into a good rhythm. I told myself that I'd stop and get something at the aid station at 40 minutes, but I was just didn't want to stop so I put it off until about 50 minutes.

I really wish I would have remembered my own gel or shot blocks because they just had bananas, oranges and trail mix (what?). I grabbed a piece of banana, and it seemed like it took me forever to peal. Then it seemed like it took me forever to eat because it wasn't ripe at all. It hardly even tasted like a banana, and I had to chew it a lot! I was a little worried it would make me sick, but it was ok.

The track is 442 meters, so a half marathon is 47 3/4 laps. They had us start on the far side of the track, and I started counting laps when I first hit the timing mat. I guess I should have waited until next time around, though, because when I thought I was at 24, they told me I was on 23.

That was at about an hour in, and since I hadn't done 23 laps, I knew my goal to finish in 2 hours was probably not going to happen. It was hard because I didn't know my pace, and I never did the math to figure out how fast my laps needed to be to make 2 hours! Too bad I'm not smart enough to do that in my head while I'm running! Anyway, I was still hopeful that I'd make it because I had started out slow and was running faster now. The music seemed to have turned down now too, so I grabbed my ipod and fast forwarded to the fast songs.

At around 1:30, I was wanting some more energy, wishing they had just chocolate instead of trail mix (I didn't feel like eating nuts, and I don't like raisins) when I realized I could just grab the trail mix and pick out the M&Ms! So I did that, and that was nice. Next time around I grabbed some water to wash it down. Who knows how much energy it gave me, but I was able to keep going. I also stopped and grabbed an orange slice at one point, and that was really good, but it got all in my teeth! Haha

When I got to what I thought was 43, I heard them announce that I was on 42. I was like, "What!?" But I just kept going - 5 laps to go!

Then my left knee started hurting! Dang it! I tried to really run through it, ignore the pain, and keep pushing. I had a few slower laps, but I was able to push it hard at the end.

I felt good pretty much the whole time and ran at a pretty steady pace, averaging about 2:40 a lap until those last few. I felt good about it, but it wasn't fast enough to finish in 2 hours. It's hard running on flat for that long! I was really longing for some nice downhills to help my time out!

I did not love my time, but I may have done one lap too many. We'll see when they go over the times and fix any mistakes. Fingers crossed! :)

Amber and Cheryl were about 10 laps behind me when I finished so I just stretched for a few minutes and had some more M&Ms -uh, I mean trail mix, and water. They did great, I can't remember what time they finished in, but it was their first half marathon and they both finished strong!

I was so glad they came with me. It's so fun to have friends that run now! Afterwards we went to Apollo Burger and got way too much food! (Don't worry, I didn't eat all those onion rings, or all the shake)

My legs, and mostly my knees are pretty sore tonight. I'm sitting here icing them with my feet up. I'm excited to say I did a half marathon today, when I hadn't even planned on it 2 months ago! It was a great training run, and it was good to see how fast I could do a totally flat half marathon which is kind of reminiscent of Utah Half so that's good!

When the race results came in a few days later, I found out that I WON MY AGE GROUP! Oh yeah! That's the awesome thing about small races! :)

Also, looking at my Garmin data, I did run an extra lap. So I ran 13.37 miles which brings my pace up to 10:10 min/mile average.

Friday Flashback - Jordanelle 2007

Jordanelle Triathlon - August 25, 2007 - Sprint

This was me on my 27th birthday, after cutting my hair, 5 days after the race.

I remember working so hard to get to where I could run the full 5k for this one, and then just crying when I had to stop and walk. I also remember a lady doing the olympic passing me and giving me some encouragement that helped so much! I don't even remember what she said, but I remember her. And looking at my run time, it looks like I did really good!

Swim 750m - 21:07

Bike - 47:48

T2 - 3:02

Run - 27:56

Total Time - 1:48:27

I was #29 out of 59 in my age group.

I don't have any pictures of the race, but these were taken the day after when Elle was almost exactly 11 months old.

What a sweet little girl!

Quick Heber Visit

Today we went and visited my dad in Heber, and it was quite a beautiful day as you can see:

We didn't think there would be enough snow to bring snowsuits, but bare legs were a little extreme, Elle!

I ran 8 miles yesterday, and it was not fast. I'm a little nervous about the half marathon next week because I only did 8 miles for my last 2 long runs, and felt sore afterwards. Sometimes I feel like I have no idea what I'm doing! Let's hope I do and that I'll make it the 13.1 on Saturday because, as of tonight, I'm officially registered!

Friday Flashback - Spudman 2007

Spudman Triathlon - July 28, 2007 - Olympic

This was my first olympic distance tri! I thought it would be a good first one because the swim is downstream and the bike and run are pretty flat. It was still really hard to run that 6.2 though!

Pete did this one with me also, and it was really fun because we left the kids with my dad and just had a little trip by ourselves. We drove up to Burley, Idaho the night before and slept in the Jeep amongst hundreds of other athletes on the golf course which is right on the race course.

I love this race! It's so fun swimming downstream, then jumping in the river after your done to cool off and play around. I was still nursing Elle so the main thing I remember is being really uncomfortable during the run because of not nursing for so long! Ouch!

Swim 1500m - 20:32 (about the same as my sprint times!)

T1 - 5:25

Bike 25 miles - 1:18:33

T2 - 6:21

Run - 1:13:09

Finish Time - 3:04:03

On the way home, we saw this crazy little cyclone!

Swimming, Running and Spinning in Circles

Elle likes to play this dress-up game and take pictures of her creations on my phone. I found this on there today.

Fitting. :)

Of course, Ethan was sick again yesterday, so I didn't get my run in, but I did go to early morning masters! Yay, I always love to swim! Here's what we did:

200 swim stroke

100 kick

200 swim free

2 x (200, 100, 50) first time with paddles and pull, second time free

500 ladder (started out with fins, but my foot was cramping too bad so I took them off and tried to keep up!)

2 x 50 all out for time (:42 both times)

150 cool down

1850 total

That boy is going back to school tomorrow!

Last night, Pete gave me a massage. Taking that couple's massage class back in like '07 was one of the best investments we've ever made! I never paid for a massage the whole time I was training for Ironman. I had kind of forgotten that Pete gives such a good massage, and my back felt so much better afterwards! It's still a little sore today, but not nearly as bad. I'm planning on talking him into another one tomorrow.

Here's a little article about what massage actually does to your muscles.

This morning, I slept in a little and had a hard time getting out of bed, but I made it! I went and ran on the track at the gym.

It actually wasn't this crowded the whole time. These ladies would run in every once and a while, do one lap, and run out. It must have been for a class that was going on or something.

I ran for 10 minutes to warm up, then I alternated fast/slow laps for 20 minutes, using my iPhone to keep track of laps and time.

Here's my first 4 laps:

And, here's the last 4:

This is such a good, hard workout. I love being able to run as fast as I can just for 30 seconds. I can actually focus that long and stay on track.

So, let's see, the track is 15 laps to a mile, so the 30 second ones were 7:30 min/mile pace, and the 50 second ones were 12:30 min/mile. Not too bad right? I mean, it slows you down having to turn so much!

A total of 32 laps is a little over 2 miles. Oh yeah!

Then another easy 10 minutes to cool down.

I really wanted to wear my heart rate monitor today for this, but I couldn't find the watch that goes with it in the dark. I'll have to try to find it before my next run.

After dropping the kids off at school, getting George down for a nap, and Ethan started on his homework (I really should have made him go to school today, but he said he still felt sick! It's so hard to know.), I got on the trainer and did an easy ride for 45 minutes with just a few 1 minute pick-ups at the end. It was good to just get on the bike.

And here's just a cute picture of George, he was in such a get-into-everything mood today! Such a sweet little trouble-maker!

Groundhog Day Treat

This is my Groundhog Day treat (Warning, this is very decadent!):

We do our family night on Wednesday nights since that's when everyone's home, and that's the night I get to make a treat! Last night we wanted to have brownies with ice cream. I found this recipe by Alton Brown. We love Alton Brown! Pretty much anytime I'm looking for a recipe, if I see one by him, that's the one I pick. These brownies are so chocolaty, there's more than twice the amount of cocoa than flour! Yes, please. (They were actually too chocolaty for Elle, she didn't like them)

I made this in muffin cups so we would have little individual brownies.

Then we topped it with Haagen Daz dulce de leche (carmel) and/or vanilla ice cream. We take our ice cream seriously! We love Haagan Daz because look at the list of ingredients for their vanilla: Cream, Skim Milk, Sugar, Egg Yolks, Natural Vanilla. That's it! And it's just so, so good!

Anyway, I wanted to have it again tonight with the left-overs. Then I got the idea to try making some chocolate syrup to go with it, and found this recipe using agave necter. I ended up adding another squirt of agave, and about 2-3 tbsp. butter, and it's really good! No sugar! :)

Put it all together, and OH. My. Heavens. Such a treat!

This would make a great Valentine's Day treat too.

What Today Should Have Been

Today I should have:

Gotten up at 5 and gone to my bike trainer class at 6

Come home

Fixed breakfast

Taken my wonderful children to school

Gone for an easy run

Gotten the house all clean

I didn't do any of that.

Well, I guess you could say I fixed breakfast, and I did get the kids to school on time, so there's something!

My back has been hurting since last Thursday, and I am getting really sick of it! I knew that riding my bike, especially doing high cadence intervals like we would, was not really going to help that.

Of course, neither did snowboarding.

Or swimming.

Or driving in a car for 10 hours.

Or belaying for a couple hours.

Or putting down/picking up a 23lb baby all day every day.

But I did those things last week anyway because I love them! (Ok, I don't love driving in a car for 10 hours, but I did love where it brought us!)

What I know would be good for my back is rest. Sleep. Lots and lots of glorious sleep. Plus, when I woke up this morning, I wasn't feeling very good and I worried I was coming down with our latest stomach bug. For those two reasons, I went back to sleep, and tried to take a nap during George's nap when I would normally have run.

I feel like such a slacker for doing this, especially since I just had a rest day on Sunday. Arg! It's ok, though. I think it's what my body needed. And even if it wasn't, it's not going to kill me.

My back feels pretty good now so I think I'll be back on track with Master's tomorrow, and I'll probably try to make up that easy run I missed today.

That is if Ethan's not still sick.

Yeah, he's throwing up tonight. What is it with our family and all this throwing up lately!?

Seriously, it is SO last year!

We were going to go snowboarding yesterday, but ended up not going because Ethan was sick. (Pete and George weren't feeling very well either) I thought he was better today, but he called me at lunch saying he wasn't feeling good, so I brought him home from school. Then tonight he was feeling good enough to go to swimming lessons, but now he's back to being sick, and I know he's not faking it. Arg!

What do you do when your kids get sick so you can't train?