Quarter Century!

Hello! I didn't take any pictures this week so I'm getting creative with the images. I hope you like memes. I sure do.

First off, happy birthday to me :) Cheers to being 25 today! 

Just doing a quick recap of "training" efforts this week. Welllllp, i didn't run. not one mile. Oops. Work this week was a total exhausting nightmare. A bunch of my team was either out sick or traveling, and I had to help train a new guy and work to meet a couple important deadlines. I left for JP every morning before the sun and got home every night welllll after the sun set... and then tackled computer work until I couldn't see straight. Oh well, excuses are lame. I didn't run and that's that. 

But I DID continue with my crossfit on ramp class. First I just have to say, I really truly love crossfit. It's quick, its intense, and every workout makes you feel like a total badass. 

Heh.

I always knew people got totally sucked into crossfit but the on ramp class at Commonwealth Crossfit really has been amazing. Each class goes ~an hour and a half. The first 15-20 is a warm up (stretches, jump rope, etc), then we work on new skills and techniques. Then we do the WOD (workout of the day) which takes about 15ish minutes, then we stretch. In the past 2 weeks we've gone over everything from double unders to handstand pushups to box jumps to burpees. This week was all about practicing form of the various lifting moves (dead lifts, power presses, front squats, back squats, clean jerks, thrusters, etc). For each, we'd start practicing good technique with a PVC pipe, then on to a light 35 lb bar, then we'd scale up to do an actual workout.

Today's workout looked simple enough, but my arms and legs were jelly afterwards.

• 50 double unders (or modifiy at 150 singles) 
• 40 front squats
• 30 walking lunges holding 25 lb weight overhead
• 20 hang cleans
• 10 power presses

I kept the weight light at the 35 lb bar for the front squats, hang cleans, and power presses because I really want to focus on my form, especially during this on ramp course. I'm also getting pretty good at double unders, though I didn't do the prescribed 50 (did about 10 then did 130 singles, not sure if I'm supposed to mess around with the workout like that but oh well). 

I was actually the first person to finish in the class (time 11:33), but that just made me feel like I didn't push the weight high enough. Crossfit's a funny thing. There's always something to work towards, whether it's faster or heavier. Now I get what people were saying when they said Crossfit makes lifters better runners and runners better lifters. 

Even though the weight was pretty low, I pushed hard to speed and was totally spent afterwards. Big pat on the back for working out on my birthday (especially after a beer filled Friday night last night).

Now it's time to get ready for Bill's company xmas party. I hope our neighbors like Ke$ha because there will be a lot of that playing around the house in the next hour.It's my birthday, i do what i want!

So. Worst blogger ever. I start a blog and then immediately forget about it for 3+ weeks.

But, here I am ! Better late than never. And I haven't been exactly sitting around and twiddling my thumbs for the past 3 weeks either. The end of November was filled with a lot of this:

and this:

A little bit of this:

And definitely some of this:

Yep! Bill and I spent 10 days in Ireland over Thanksgiving. 10 full and wonderful days of Guinness, meat pies, potatoes, cheese, whiskey, and...tummy aches. But all tummy aches forgotten, it was a great time. Running was not a priority whatsoever. I did attempt to go on one "run", though ended up dropping my iphone (most expensive mistake ever argh) after I was a mile out. Oh wells.


And now we are home. Happy and full and ready to be productive once again. The morning after we got back from Ireland, the jet lag was in my favor. I was up and ready to run at 5am, despite the freezing temps and pitch darkness The morning looked a little like this:

I tried doing warmups while my garmin took FOREVER playing this little game:

That morning i did a solid 4 miles. Then did another 4 last Thursday at the same time with the same condition.

I've been keeping the running a little slow because last week I also started a new fitness endeavor:

YUP crossfit! Last Tuesday I started my On Ramp class, which goes every Tues, Thurs, and Sat for 3 weeks. We learn the basics of crossfit including terminology, movements, safe lifting technique, nutrition advice, etc. I'll do a full review of workouts and first impressions later...for now it's dinnertime.

This is on the menu.

Night!

Just Do It

 The 2013 Boston Marathon is officially 155 days, 18 hours, and 53 minutes away.(Ahh!)

This will be my first marathon. (Ahhh!) I'm starting this blog so that I have a place to talk about it...because I know I'm going to want to talk..a lot. (And quite frankly I'm sure my boyfriend will get tired of hearing about it  sometimes :) )

Boston Marathon day in Boston is my favorite day of the year. Anyone who knows me knows that I'm like a kid on Christmas that day. This year it's time to stop talking about wanting to do it and just do it (no nike pun intended).

 

This blog will be where I'll

• log my progress in my training plan
• discuss the balance of training with work/relationships/my love of beer
• discuss the balance of running with other activities (Crossfit/yoga/biking/etc)
• vent about running when I hate it
• praise running when I love it
• write about why the heck i want to do this
• and whatever else I feel like  :)

So here is my (version 1) training plan, taken from Hal Higdon's website. I've used his plans a few times (for half marathons) in the past  and like them a lot:

GAH. that's a lot of miles.

I say version 1 because this will definitely not be my set in stone training plan for the whole 6 months. Between work, crossfit, weather (yes I'm a wuss when it comes to cold, heat, snow, rain, wind, darkess, you name it), and any other lemons life throws my way, some of the days on this plan will get moved around.
Stay tuned for version 2.

So! Before ending this post, I'll do a quick recap of today's run! Since the official training plan doesn't start for about a month, I'll be running ~3x a week to get ready.

Today I did 5 miles around Somerville, Cambridge, and the river. Weather was perfect:



Since I haven't run in a bit and my knee has been bothering me, I stuck to the dirt path along the river instead of pavement.

Donezo. Nice and slow. Happy Saturday!