Out with the Old, In with the New

Happy Long Run Day!

Sadly, my Forerunner 210 conked out on me but it did me good for about 5 years so I can't complain too much.  After going through the fazes of shock, denial, sadness, and acceptance, I'm so excited to say that I finally got my new Garmin Forerunner 220!!

We've been having lots of bad storms in Jacksonville this week so I didn't get to test it out until this morning and boy did it deliver.  Except for one thing - I chose all the opposite of what I wanted for settings because I thought white meant highlighted, not green.  So I said I'm a male, I wanted kg/cm, km instead of miles, and so on and so forth.  That means that this morning while running 5 miles it was measuring in km and I could have screamed.  I didn't know what was wrong at the time and was sad thinking I got a glitched one but my friend said hmm maybe its measuring in km and the lightbulb went off.  THANK GOODNESS it was user error :) 

Kindly ignore the 8:32 average pace, that's per KM NOT miles, haha.  I kept joking with my friend we were setting PRs all morning.  And our part of the group was running way more than the rest of the group, haha!  

What I really love with this watch is that it has bluetooth to hook up to my phone.  So now I can see so much more about my run than I ever thought I wanted to know!  

Ok, I'll stop boring you with a watch most of you already have.  I know I'm behind the curve with technology but I'll catch up one day.  I'm sure now that I got this there will be an even more updated and fantastic one that comes out next week, haha.

Spending the rest of the day with errands, cleaning, and getting my hair cut - wahoo!  Happy running, ya'll!

Catch Up Post!

I've been a little behind since my last run on Thursday so here's a quick catch up -

7/18/15 : (3 miles) Galloway marathon training group at 6:00am.  We did a little over a mile warm up run 45 run 30 walk.  Then we did the magic mile to see how fast we could run 1 mile.  They told us to be somewhat comfortable but also pushing yourself and I think I did a pretty good job of being in the middle.  I didn't set my watch so that I would go on pure feeling, not competition with myself.  I ended up doing my mile in 10:11 and I was SO happy with that!  I've been running with the 12:00-13:00 group and was worried I wouldn't even be able to run one mile straight without walking.  Ended up doing about 3 miles total with the group.

7/19/15 : (3.5 miles) For my Dad's birthday/Father's Day we went out kayaking near Amelia Island and it was SO FUN!!  My legs got burned to a crisp but the weather was perfect and we had the time of our lives.  Out of curiosity I wore my Garmin and we were out a little over 2 hours and went 3.5 miles.  Pretty cool!  My new favorite way to cross train :)

7/21/15 : (3.4 miles) Got my butt out of bed this morning and went for a solo run/walk by my house.  I did 45 on 30 off and really liked it.  I LOVE my Brooks Versatile Lite  Tank.  Trying to resist getting more but the temptation is killing me!  Sadly, my Garmin finally broke this run.  One of the button covers half came off on Saturday and this morning it completely came off.  I can technically press it still but I have to push so hard and then it sometimes gets stuck.  This baby lasted me over 4 years and the sentimental value is higher than I thought!  On to the next Garmin Forerunner....!

An Early Morning Jogger Came Upon....

Don't you always hear on the news when a person is found it's by an early morning jogger?  Well, this morning I had my moment (and hopefully my last).  I drove to my friends house and we got started running around 6:05 this morning.  As we come up to an intersection in her neighborhood, we see a girl laying in the grass and a fellow walker/runner stopped on the phone with the police.  So of course we stopped to help out with where we were and being there if they needed something.  Long story short, she was moving but not responding or waking up.  When the police/firefighters got there they were able to get her up and moving after many attempts.  They said they've encountered her before and she lives about 15-20 minutes away so no idea how she got to where she was... She looked like she was under the influence and very out of it.  Very freaky way to start my morning!  Not to mention, we weren't able to run as long as we wanted, haha!  Anyway, I'm hoping that that was my one and only early morning jogger discovery because my stomach cannot handle it!!

Here's my stats from Tuesday:

Here's my stats from this morning.  We actually went out pretty fast and was just under 12:00 for a lot and then we got burned out and disturbed by the events so we just walked about ten minutes.  

Happy Friday Eve!  Ready to get through this work week because on Saturday we're doing the Magic Mile and running 4 miles I believe bright and early at 600!  Let's get it done!

Marathon Training has Begun!

Yesterday morning I met my Galloway group for our FIRST marathon training long run!  Let me just say how happy I am that I did the getting started group beforehand because we ran/walked a fast 3 miles and I wouldn't have been able to do that 2 months ago.  I joined the 1300/mile group that was doing 45 sec run/ 15 sec walk.  I knew pretty quickly we were running much faster than that and when we did a mile I saw it was 12:13.  Once we did the turn around at 1.5 miles the leader slowed down quite a bit so we evened out a little more.

I was excited to find my friend shortly after arriving and it was cool that there were a ton of people there.  It was so hot and humid already at 700am that I can't wait for us to start at 600am for the next few months.  Next week we're doing the magic mile to see what our true pace is and I'm a little nervous!  I haven't run a mile straight in a long time...  

I'm still a paper person so I printed off the training plan and got to organizing my calendar!  It really helps me to pick out which days I intend on running during the week so that I'm well prepared.  

Hope you had a great weekend! 

Rainbows and Banana Bread

Happy Humpday Eve!  

Yes, that's a rainbow.  Yes, that's a FULL rainbow.  Yes, it looks like a dome over the world.  And yes, it was on 4th of July weekend making it even a little more magical :)

I can already notice a change in the sunlight during the morning/evening slowly moving towards darker and darker.  For the last few months I can wake up at 600 and it's pretty light out and now it's dark making it harder to wake up... but I did get up this morning and run 3 miles!  I really wanted to do 4 but I honestly could not get my butt out of bed in time, boo.  Maybe Thursday!

I like this route because it's extremely close to my house and it's a straight shot with a lot of room to run.  I can just go forever without thinking about where to turn or dodge traffic. 

I LOVE running early in the morning when there's no one else out and I feel like I'm getting one step ahead of every person that slept in that morning.  Plus I love the crisp air and enjoying not being stressed by the issues of the day, yet.

My legs felt entirely too heavy.  I think I'm still recovering from my race on Saturday!  I was slightly happy with my time compared to what I have been doing but of course I compare it to my college days and I'm quite a few minutes too slow still.  Working on it!  I'm just proud of myself for getting out there and Galloway Marathon training starts on Saturday with a 3 mile run so I need to make sure I can get it done easily before then! 

My mom and I are cutting back on sugar intake.  No treats, and if we do eat something with sugar in it like yogurt, milk, etc, it needs to be ideally less than 5g but definitely less than 10g.  In the spirit of sugarless healthiness I baked some sugar free banana bread and boy is it sugar free!  Not sweet AT ALL.  But the texture is awesome.  I'm sure it will get eaten somehow!  

Independence Day 4 Miler

Happy 4th of July!!  

I had my 4 mile race this morning that I've been looking forward to for a couple months now.  Overall, it was a great morning!  Here's a little breakdown with lots of pictures:

Part of the fun of a race is getting all of your things prepared the night before.  I thought my local US hat was perfect for America's birthday :)

All of my tech gear.  Garmin, HR monitor, iPod, and gym boss.  I got a reflective belt to carry my phone so I could take pictures of my parents along the way - it worked out very well and didn't move around too much

Walking around getting ready for our race!

It was an out and back so we got to run past each other at one point - lookin good momma!

It was harder to get a picture of my dad cause he was surrounded by people

She's crossing the finish line!

He's crossing the finish line!

Really cool medal!  It's sparkly around the edges and a pretty substantial size!

Here's my stats for the race.  I finally hooked up my Garmin to the connect website for Garmin and got to see how I did.  Pretty fun stuff!  I was happy with my time, more specifically, my 2 mile and 3 mile times were better than they have been lately.  My average pace has been in the 12/13 range so I'm happy to see it just under 12:00.  I just noticed it autocorrected Indep. to Indeed Day 4 miler, haha!

Now I'm off to celebrate with lots of food, family, and friends!  Happy holiday weekend!