biking

Kicking Off Spring in a Healthy Way

/ Jess / 13 Comments

Happy Monday everyone! I hope you had a great weekend – I know I did! It was my first weekend without “having to” train, and I lived it up by doing what I wanted and when, and I loved every minute. It started on Thursday afternoon when I followed up my 3×3@3 workout with 40 minutes of cardio hell on the Arc trainer and 40 minutes of Runners Love Yoga‘s new Hip routine.

IMG_4737It’s a great 14 day Instagram program where they post a pose a day that focuses on opening up those tight runners’ hips. I started on Monday and in just 6 days, boy do I feel a difference! Hell – in my run yesterday I was easily able to start right up and fly from the start. I felt loose as a rubber band!

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I’m looking forward to seeing where the rest of this program will take me! By the time I got home Thursday night my head started to throb with a migraine – I get one once a month (ladies, you know what I’m talking about) and I ended up having to take off of work on Friday to stay in a dark room and sleep it off. I finally started feeling better after dinner so we went to Shop Rite to restock the kitchen with healthy staples and cook-ahead meal supplies. Once we were done with that, I listened to my body – and my body was screaming “Bedtime at 10pm please!”

I woke up 11 hours later on Saturday, 100% better and ready to run as far as I damn well pleased! It was a gorgeous, sunny morning, and I decided to layer up my Skirt Sports Marathon Girl skirt with a pair of my favorite capris (because this booty + that skirt = a running peep show) and created the perfect spring running combo. PS: they’re having a major Sale on clearance stuff over at Skirt Sports, so go check it out! And if you find any full priced-items you like, be sure to use my discount code SSJRH20 for 20% off (code only applies to full-priced items, not on sale stuff).

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I set out towards the park and just went by feel – and I felt great! The first mile clicked by without me even realizing it, at 10:43 pace, and I ran like I was light as a feather. If only I moved this well a week ago for my race! Ah, such is life.

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It was an absolutely gorgeous day down the park, the breeze was light and the sun was shining, and that runners high was in full effect. After a miserable winter like the one we had, I’m truly treating every nice day as a gift and taking full advantage of it by getting outdoors and being active!

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I breezed through the park and back towards home around mile 3.7, and coasted through the next few blocks for 4.05 and walked a nice cool down the rest of the way home.

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The rest of the day was spent helping my mom & dad move furniture and bringing a new mattress set from the store up to their 2nd floor (another workout entirely!), and then we had an awesome seafood dinner at The Barge in Perth Amboy. Highly recommended!

Sunday morning I had a date with my dad to head down to the flea market in Collingwood for some good old-fashioned daddy/daughter treasure hunting!

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We had a blast! My dad has always been super supportive of everything I do, including running, and we spent the whole time wandering the flea market aisles talking about training and sneakers and life and music and everything in between. I even found some awesome treasures too: a shelf-sitting mermaid (who looks like she’s doing a sit-up when you lay her on a flat surface!) and a copy of Circus magazine with my favorite band on the cover: The Smashing Pumpkins! I remember buying two copies of this when it came out in 1996 – one to read and the other to cut up and hang all over my bedroom walls. Today I got to take a trip down memory lane with the same issue for just 50 cents!!

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After that I came home for a nice lunch with hubby, and then we headed out to the park again to take advantage of this still-gorgeous weather! But this time instead of running, I brought out my trusty bike for the first time since last summer!

At first it was cold, but after a mile or so, I warmed up and fell right into the groove again while Mike walked a few laps. The park was packed with people enjoying the weather, so I had to stop a few times to get around large groups (and let’s face it, I had to stop and take pictures of the scenery!), but it was a great ride.

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I was just about to call it at 5 miles, but I couldn’t help it and powered through for another 1.2 to make it an even 10k.

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I had to laugh when I saw my final stats: my 6:49/mile pace is half the speed I ran last week’s race at, and it still wouldn’t be fast enough to keep up with the amazing athletes that led the Boston Marathon. I was cranking as hard as I could. To imagine running that fast? It’s simply unbelievable how speedy those folks are!

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When we got home I started working on dinner (and lunches for the next few days too): Ground turkey, stewed tomatoes, onion and chopped broccoli stir fry over quinoa!

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I even roasted up some chickpeas for snacking in the coming week too. The result of all that cooking meant that the whole house smelled delicious when we woke up today!

And that was it for me! How was your weekend? Did you get outside to enjoy the nice weather? Did you race? Tell me all about it, I want to know!

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It’s Photo Contest Time!

/ Jess / Leave a comment

Some of you may or may not know, but I’m involved with an awesome group of inspirational folks called The Mermaid Club, and a part of my role in the organization deals with spreading the word about the club and helping to inspire others to Live Life and Make Waves in whatever fitness-related adventures they go on. And today I got to start a new project that I’m so excited about: the Mermaid Spotlight 2015 Photo Contest!

The Mermaid Club is all about living life and making waves, and 2015 is going to be a pretty epic year if we do say so ourselves. To get everyone excited about what’s in store, we’re opening up this contest and we hope you’ll join in. It’s simple: Send us your best inspirational, motivational, funny, or otherwise awesome photo of you living life and making waves: pounding the pavement, in the water, on a bike, or wherever! – for a chance to be featured in our new Mermaid Spotlight series and to win some fun gear, too! Here’s the fine print:

  • Pictures must include your badass self and The Mermaid Club logo or slogan (Live Life, Make Waves) in some way. Be creative! Collages, quotes, drawings, typography, we want to see it all!
  • Each photo will count as one entry, but we encourage you to submit as many different photos as you want.
  • You can post your photos to our Facebook page, Twitter, and/or Instagram – just be sure to use the hashtag #MermaidSpotlight2015 to ensure your pic is seen by our judges.
  • All entries may be used in future posts on our Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram feeds, with full credit to the original poster. If you’re so inclined, feel free to include a watermark or your name (or Twitter or IG handle) in the photo somewhere too!
  • At the contest’s end, the top 5 winning photos will be posted on our Facebook Page, along with instructions for winners on how to claim their awesome gear – and I’ll be following up with you for your Mermaid Spotlight “interview” via email, too!

We’ll be sharing our favorite entries as we find them throughout the month, so what are you waiting for? Get snapping, and submit your picture by February 28th for your chance to win!

Week 1 of 18

/ Jess / 6 Comments

Well I’m still here! I know I’ve been quiet lately (ok, SILENT), but it’s been a very eventful first week of marathon training and I’m really excited to share it with you!

So I’m officially following Hal Higdon’s Novice 1 plan, and I adapted it to allow for extra cross- & strength-training (and to accommodate my still-kinda-new-ACL). I started on Tuesday of last week – in this plan, Mondays are rest days. This works out perfectly because I’m usually pretty active during the weekend, and Sunday long runs keep me from going out drinking on a Saturday – so even my liver wins! So after mentally prepping and adjusting my diet accordingly on Monday, I was good and ready for an early morning 3.1 miler on Tuesday!

Image I know that it should be 3 miles, but does anyone else have a hard time just running 3 without the .1 to make it a 5k? No? Just me? Ok then. Moving on!

Anyway, it was hot. And humid. Frankly, it felt like I was running through chicken soup. I was leaking from every pore and slow and kinda hated it, but I kept telling myself to soak it in because it was my first training run for my first marathon. How stinking cool is that? I got to watch the sun come up over the bay as I ran loops around the park, said Hi to some little baby bunnies out for breakfast with their mom on the side of the path, and I got through it with a smile. Winning!

To enhance my training, I also decided to add 15-20 minutes of strength training in each day. Even if it’s 3 minutes at a pop in front of the TV while the commercials are on, I’m getting it in. Arms, abs, back, and legs, no body part left behind (ew). So I did my 20 minutes with some coworkers in the office gym in the afternoon, and topped off my day in the evening with my handstand challenge practice.

Come Wednesday, my knees were extremely achy from wearing high heels at work and the humidity. So I invoked my training plan tweak and opted out of running, choosing instead to get the mileage the plan called for (4 miles) done on the elliptical. This saved my knees a LOT of pain, and it worked out fantastically.

ImageYou can tell it’s working because I look like death!

I still got all the cardio benefits (I was dripping with sweat!) by keeping close to my running pace and loved it. When I added another 20 minutes of strength training and more handstands into the mix that day, I was shredded.

So when Thursday called for 3 miles, I was surprised (not really though) to find that my body was not having any of that. I got my strength training in, but suffered all day through my monthly migraine (any of you ladies experience the same hell as me every month?). By the time I got out of work, I wasn’t even close to motivated to run 3 miles. It was 95 outside, about 97% humidity, and I was out of Motrin. I call that The “Trifecta of Suck”.

BUT – when I got home, I put on my gear and told myself to get out there. Even if I did one mile, I’d call it a win. So I got out there in the soupy weather and walked for most of a mile, threw in 4 sprints of around 8:00/miles just to get my heart rate up, and as soon as that damn Nike+ app said 1.00, I called it. I was just not feeling it. But I didn’t beat myself up – I chose to be happy with my training and chalked it up to good experience, and looked forward to rest day Friday!

ImageInstead of 🙂 or 😦 I decided on the third option, not shown here-  :-/

After resting (and yes, having a slice of homemade pizza) on Friday, I attacked Saturday and Sunday with what I can only describe as an intense desire to KICK ASS. And kick I did!

Image I tackled Saturday morning with an 8-mile bike ride before breakfast, and felt unstoppable. It was my longest ride since before my surgery, and I felt like I could have easily kept on going! Then Sunday I attacked my 5 mile training run in under an hour:

Imageby 32 seconds, but it counts!

And then punished my legs just a little bit more with 2 hours of hiking and trail running at Holmdel Park.

ImageMy legs were so tired I tried to ride the deer home.

Then I finished the day with some more handstand practice and looked forward to resting today!

So that’s my Week 1 (of 18). It’s kind of scary to think that I have to keep this up for another 17 weeks (my god I’m starving and exhausted!) but I’m feeling stronger than ever and very excited to see where this training takes me!

How about you, are you training for anything right now? How’s it going?

 

 

From 2 Legs to 2 Wheels

/ Jess / 5 Comments

So back in 2011, I got a bike. Specifically, a good friend gifted me the bike as a wedding present. And it was one of the best gifts I’ve ever gotten!

I still remember unpacking that thing a few weeks after we got back from our honeymoon and putting it together with my own damn hands. I was so excited! I was going to finally get back in the saddle after almost 10 years, and I was going to jump right in! Well, once I figured out why the brakes weren’t working and if I could get the tires to stay inflated. Then winter came. I promised myself I would get back into it after the snow finally cleared out. Then we moved. OK, I’d get it all fixed up and hit the road once we were all moved into the new house. Then I figured I’d wait until after the AC Half Marathon. And then I tore my ACL and lost 15 months to rehab.

SO. Fast forward to this past weekend when I found myself laid up with a surprise ear infection the same day that my good “virtual” friend (and Mermaid Club founder) Helena completed the Ironman Texas Triathlon. I was inspired, to say the least! Since I’ve managed to incorporate cycling into the last 3 months of my training, and have found that I REALLY like it, I finally called my papa – AKA the Bike Doctor – and he swung by to give my pretty girl Maggie a tune up. 

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Yeah, that’s the bike’s name, so what?

A quick 20 minutes of tightening and oiling, and I was ready to hit the road! So the next morning, when I woke up feeling much better (thank you, modern medicine), I threw the bike in the back of the Honda and we went for our inaugural ride!

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Selfie time with Maggie!

I set out to ride on feeling, just to see how far I could get. I even found that I could use my Garmin for biking – score! And after one mile-long lap, I felt so good that I took the turn out of the park and went exploring. My knee felt great and I was having a good time, and before I knew it I had done 3.5 miles! I started to feel it in my legs after taking a few small hills, but I kept going and told myself to push for 5 solid miles as hard as I could go.

So push I did, and I completely surprised myself when I finished all 5 miles at a little over 6:10/mile pace! 

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happy biker

Needless to say – I’m hooked! I can’t wait to incorporate biking into my fitness plans, especially when I start getting into the thick of my marathon training and need to give my legs some good cross training. I’m already planning out new routes to test my limits now that I’ve transitioned from 2 legs to 2 wheels!

Tell me: if you’re a runner, do you bike too? What are your other favorite cross-training exercises? Give me some other ideas, I’ve gone exercise-crazy and I’ll try anything next!