Where does the time go?

Well, we certainly have a lot of catching up to do....

For the 1 year anniversary, we had lots of fun, enjoyed our patio, a Riesling, and this (yum):

and ate some delicious seafood followed by a movie. Throughout our entire break, we just really enjoyed ourselves, both relaxing and keeping up with our training plan, and I'll even venture to say that I had even more fun than I did on our honeymoon (which is pretty good since unwinding on a beautiful tropical island is hard to beat).

After our stay-cation weekend, it was back to a full week of work for both of us. I think we were both a little worried about how well we could maintain a thorough training schedule. I won't lie, by Thursday, I really needed a break - but we both pushed through and had an amazing week. Here's what we did:

Mon - ran a shorter version of the Hyde Park Blast course - really helped us get a feel for the route before the race

Tue - cross training @ the gym

Wed - ran the full 4-mile course of the Hyde Park Blast - 54 minutes

Thu - spinning with "Jillian" @ the gym

Fri - recovery day (finally!)

Sat - Hyde Park Blast (more on that next)

Here we go!

We survived day #1 of running group! Today they offered 4, 5, or 8 miles to run- Brian and I both opted for the 4 mile loop. The humidity was disgusting already at 7:30 am, but it wasn't totally unbearable thanks to the mostly flat course. It was great running through a different neighborhood than our usual routes. Every week the training plan bumps up the mileage but starting out we do 2 weeks in a row of just 4 mile runs, which I'm very thankful for :)The sun is finally peeping out from behind the clouds. Brian and I have great plans for our 1 year anniversary eve:

plus delicious cake and a fancy dinner out. But more on that tomorrow. ;)

Twas the night before running club...

This has been the most physically active vacation I've ever had. :)

Tuesday - we went to spinning

Wednesday - we walked for 5 hours (no joke...but we did have a few breaks in there...)

Thursday - we went for 1.5 mile run followed by 45 minutes at the gym

Friday - okay, so Friday was kind of a "recovery" day, but here's why...

Saturday - we start our running club! That's right, we'll arise bright and early to head off to our first session of running club to really kick off our 1/2 Marathon training. We're not exactly sure of what to expect other than we will probably have our butts kicked. We're pretty much expecting this to be like boot camp. Minus the firearms.

Tuesday = Friday

I decided to take a few days off work (i.e. the rest of the week) so today, Tuesday = Friday. I had to work a little later than usual though to guarantee I wouldn't be walking back into a hailstorm of tasks Monday morning so Jen and I had to divide an conquer at spinning. She took the earlier class and I took the later. Fortunately, they run right into each other so I got a chance to see how incredibly sweaty I would be before it even happened. :)

We did a great climb tonight where we spent nearly ten minutes moving from 1st to 3rd position on the bike, adding road (resistance) at several intervals. Great prolonged workout of the lower body muscle groups. I'll likely be a little sore in the morning....

Summer hair

Something hit me today and it became time for a summer haircut. This might take some getting used to :)
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What time is it?

First of all, I just successfully setup the ability to blog from my Blackberry (I'm a little behind Jen and Wally on this one...).

Second, I wanted to talk up (a) a great birthday present from my wife and (b) a great essential for any runner.  Jen surprised me on my latest birthday with a brand new athletic watch - a Timex Ironman watch - so now we have the "his" and the "her" versions.  :)

(Brian's awesome new watch)

I've started wearing my new watch every time we go to the gym or head out for a run.  I don't know how I ever worked out without one!  (Jen knows - I would just constantly ask her to keep track of our time.)  Not only is this watch stylish and designed to fit perfectly around the wrist, but its various modes are becoming very useful.  Say, for example, that we are running a 5k and want to make sure that we keep our pace consistent throughout the race.  I can quickly slide over to Chronograph mode and use the Split key to record the time it takes to run each of our miles.  We can then adjust our pace as necessary to finish the race when we want at the speed we want.  At the end of the race, I can cycle back and see our time at each mile and our total race time - ingenious!  It definitely beats searching desperately for a clock tower at the exact moment you pass a mile marker during a race.  :)

Of course, the watch also features timer, alarm, and stopwatch functions which are all useful in their own right.  So be sure to check out this watch - if the Ironman puts a stamp on it, it must be useful.  Thanks, Jen - best birthday gift ever!

(Jen's equally cool watch)

Racing to Read

This morning was our second annual go at the Racing to Read in Covington, KY. B and I ran in this 5k last year, a week before our wedding. It hit us this morning when we picked up our packets and we got to wait in the same line - pick-up lines were organized alphabetically by last name. :)

(Brian at packet pick-up, it was super sunny this a.m.)

We seriously kicked butt through the first mile. B says we ran it in 9 minutes but I think he may have started his watch a little late, I had more like 10.5. After the first mile I remembered quickly how much I actually hate this race. I feel bad about it, the race does have lots of great things to offer. For $20 pre-registration you get: a technical top, pancake post-race breakfast, a scenic route along the Ohio River, and to help the literacy programs of Northern Kentucky -good thing, I'm sure they need it ;). I guess what I hate about it is the 3-4 (can't remember off the top of my head) rediculously steep hills that I'd rather punch myself in the face than run up. And the increased humidity from being near the water. And that it's in KY; are you noticing a theme of how I truely feel about our southern neighbor? :)

All in all it was a good race and we both finished better than last year: B=34:45, J=36:10. Too bad we don't get to go to St. Lucia in a week for a honeymoon again like last year.

P.S.- I went to bed at 9pm last night. I guess an early morning workout was a bit much for me on a Friday :)

I did it!

Today was revolutionary- I went to the gym at 5am! I've been trying to get myself motivated enough to fit in a before work work-out since I joined the gym back in November and today it all clicked. I got a good 30 minute cardio workout in before Brian even woke up :)

The Mystery of the Hyde Park Loop

Just in case you are wondering, no, this isn't my latest attempt at a mystery novel.  :)

The Hyde Park Loop is one of our classic runs.  In fact, most of our other runs in the area grew out of this basic loop.  Some nights we just like some familiarity in our workout so we'll break out this straightforward loop.

But we still like to mix it up a little.  So this week, we ran at a faster pace than we had ever ran the Loop before - hoping to get a new finish time record, of course.  We were clipping along at a strong but even pace the entire route.  We finished proudly and out of breath, breaking out the high-fives; a new record time on the Loop.

Thanks to the ingenious, albeit ad-filled, MapMyRun, we were reminded that this entire loop is less than 2.5 miles.  And that is the mystery of the Hyde Park Loop:  only 2.5 miles and somehow we are always stretching to just make it to the end.  Strange when you consider we do okay on 5k (3.1 mile) and 10k (6.2 mile) races....

Regardless, this is still a great classic to have up our sleeves for a weeknight run!

Wear sunscreen

B and I are now fully stocked with sunburn (and skin cancer) preventing SPF 15 to protect us during our summer running. We should probably use SPF 30 but I prefer 15 and how its less sticky feeling than 30.

Our second 5k of the year is Saturday so guess what we're doing tonight...yep, going for a run. Hopefully the thunderstorms are done for today!

19 weeks

Brian and I have been pretty consistently running 3 miles twice a week lately. I'm assuming that the training group that we'll be joining in a couple of weeks will want us to be able to start at 3-4 miles on day one, so we're trying to get a bit faster than our usualy 12 minute mile pace. Now that the weather is beautifully warming up my breathing is becoming more and more of an issue. I can run 3 miles with only a little bit of wheezing, but beyond that I've been really struggling. Brian has convinced (i.e. forced) me to finally see an allergy & asthma specialist to see if I can get an inhaler for running days. Unfortunately I have to wait until July when our new insurance benefits kick in, so until then I'm sticking with 3ish mile runs.

Yesterday I let my running partner sleep in and I cheated on him with this lady:

Karen was in Cinci for a wedding this weekend so I was very lucky to get to hang out with her Saturday a.m. We walked/ran 3 miles, gossiped about Miami people, drank some Caribou Coffee, and plotted Brian and I's eventual move to Atlanta ;) We also decided that very soon we plus Rose need to run a race together, and what better one than the San Fran Nike Women's Half or Full Marathon? Supposedly there's chocolate stops along the route, and you get a finishers Tiffany necklace? Sounds awesome! Only catch is you have to enter a raffle to get registered because it's so popular. Maybe we'll start trying for next year?

Bootcamp

I am fitness boot camping myself as pre-training for the half-marathon training. I haven't seen any blue post-it notes on the fridge yet... ;)
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Mobile blogger trial

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