Up all night...

It's been a rough couple of days.  My daughter got sick mid-week and she has been getting progressively worse and then of course my son got the "plague" too.  It's an upper respiratory type thing, croupy sounding cough and congestion.  Natalie seems to be on the mend now but Daniel is not fairing as well.  If tonight is as rough as last night he will be going to the doctor tomorrow.  He goes into horrible coughing fits at night and wakes up crying several times a night.  This is totally NOT normal for my normally heavy sleeper!  The coughs sound like his throat should be bleeding... breaks this mommy's heart! :-/

That being said, there was still a long run to be accomplished on Saturday.  I woke up at 5:15 Saturday so I could shave my legs and get dressed to be at the Y when they opened at 6 am.  The treadmills get surprisingly busy first thing in the morning.  I had everything I needed to have a fantastic run - a movie on my tablet, fuel, water, propel zero, and a comfortable running outfit.  Unfortunately, even with the best of planning sometimes your body just won't give as much as you would like.  I set the treadmill just under 10 minute miles and ran pretty comfortably for the first 3.5 miles.  At 3.5 I took my first walk break, then at 4.12 miles I had to take a bathroom break.  After that it just never got comfortable again.  I ran a large portion of it, but the walk breaks were more frequent than I would have liked.  I got through this run, one promise at a time.. "get to mile 7, then you can walk for a minute," "get to mile 8 and you can walk for a minute" etc...

Note the crooked sweating, has anyone seen this before?!  It's WEIRD and I don't get it! 

My run came in at almost 10.5 minutes per mile.   I am sort of torn about how I feel about that pace.  On one hand its slower than what I was running during my training for my first half marathon and feels SO much harder.  On the other, its actually about the pace the McMillan calculator suggests I should be running for my long training runs.  I guess the frustration is in a slower pace feeling harder.  I am trying to trust in the training, knowing that its recommended to run the slower speeds on your long runs.  I am trying to prevent injury, and from everything I read the biggest thing is to slow down and not push your body too hard. I am hoping that the "hardness" comes from the fact that these runs have been done on a treadmill while my training runs last time were outside.   Either way I am just going to stick with it and do the best I can to get the miles in and see what happens come April and May when I have my first two halves of the year.

I came home feeling sorry for myself, but decided to let it go and plan what was on the menu for dinner... the answer may come as a surprise to many of you who know how much I despise veggies...

Food Photographer, I am not!

Cauliflower Crust Pizza! 

This recipe was SO good and we will definitely be making it again.  We will probably use less cheese in the crust next time.  It was very tasty but we think you could easily reduce the cheese and it would still be as tasty.  Looking forward to trying this with a variety of toppings in the future.  The best part - Natalie ate it!  Typically she won't eat vegetables or pizza with sauce, so the fact that she ate this is nothing short of a miracle!  

Reader Poll:  Does anyone have any experience with how slowing down your training runs affected your time for half marathon distance races? 

Mad Scientists and the Ice Queen

I hope everyone had a pleasant weekend.  This weekend, hubby and I decided to take the kids to the local children's science museum.  Its not very big and there aren't a ton of things to do there, but they had fun and it was a great use of 2-3 hours of our day on Saturday.  Just a few pictures from the museum:

Today I had plans to do a long run.  I hadn't really set any expectations for what I wanted to accomplish, but I was hoping for 6ish miles.  I started out and it was SO cold (I think it said 9* when I started!) and I was trudging through snow on the sidewalks.  My fuel belt was falling of and I had to head home at 2 miles in for a potty break... I was SO ready to give up, but miraculously I made myself head back out the door.  All it took was to remember Sherry Arnold, the runner who never returned from her run... tomorrow is never guaranteed, so don't let fears and doubts hold you back.

It wasn't my fastest run, and it was PAINFUL to run in the snow, I can't believe how much harder it seemed. my quads and calves were burning, so I decided to head to the streets.  I was nervous about running on the streets but since its my neighborhood I figured I would be safe as long as I was aware of my surroundings.  So, I took one of my earbuds out and kept on trucking.  

I had to stop at mile 5 to take my fuel (Chocolate #9) because it was a frozen rock so I had to massage it in my hands to take it.  Then I stopped again at mile 7 because my water was frozen in my fuel belt and it took some wrestling to get water out of it.... But, other than that, it was a pretty uneventful run.

Once I hit mile 6 and I realized my legs weren't really tired I decided to shoot for 8-9 miles, and once I hit 8, I decided I had to push to 10 miles!  This is my first double digit training run since September 8!  Since then I have run 3 halfs, a 9 miler, and a handful of 6 milers.  Mostly though I was running shorter distances due to injury and recovery.   This was a well needed reminder that I have what it takes to run a half marathon.

When I finished my 10 miles, I realized I was covered in ice... my hair, my bondi band, my face, eyebrows, etc...   I guess that makes me the ice queen? hah!  Just a few pics... notice the pepper spray in the second picture, you just can never be too careful!
























My splits were ALL over the place today, but like I said, I was just happy to get it done.. that is a HUGE success regardless of anything else.

Split	Time	Distance	Avg Pace
Summary	1:33:43.3	10.00	9:22
1	9:29.9	1.00	9:30
2	9:38.2	1.00	9:38
3	9:13.7	1.00	9:14
4	9:22.6	1.00	9:23
5	9:18.7	1.00	9:19
6	9:20.5	1.00	9:21
7	9:27.7	1.00	9:28
8	9:18.7	1.00	9:19
9	9:22.2	1.00	9:22
10	9:07.9	1.00	9:08
11	:03.2	0.01	8:18

A couple last minute thoughts... this weeks challenge over at A Mama's Goals was a success, I managed to get in at least 8 servings of fruits/veggies and 90+ oz of water each day.  I am going to carry this over into the rest of the year, maybe not 8 servings every day but I definitely want to work on increasing my fruit/veggie intake.   This next week's challenge will be interesting, its all about cleaning and organizing... two things I am NOT very good at!

I also realized today that I should be in my official training schedule for my half in April, WHOOPS!  I think I will be okay, but I need to get onto a schedule... I am just not sure what to do, looks like I could start at week 4 and progress from there.  That would have me running 4 days a week this week with my long run  being only 5 miles.  I wonder though if I shouldn't do like 8 instead and then bounce back up to 10 to increase my double digit runs before the half.  In the training schedule I have, there are only 4 double digit runs.  I always struggle towards the end..... decisions decisions!

What would you suggest as my training plan?  My race is April 7 so I have 10 weeks to "prepare." 


Also, anyone have any experience using a treadmill to "mimic" hills on a course?  There is a monster hill at my next half and I want to be ready for it!