Tag Archives: cold weather

Boston Marathon Training – Week 5 in Review

Posted on January 18, 2011 | 3 comments

Hello blog world! How was your long weekend if you had one? Mine was very good. Just the right mix of busy and relaxation. Before I get into that, I want to do a quick recap of my fifth week of training for the Bostom Marathon because I felt as though I made it over a mental and possibly physical hump this week.

I had a rough start to training. My first two weeks, I could only summon the energy to run 14 and 17.5 miles in total. Not ideal and not how I wanted to start this training process.

Things started to get better in week three – for weeks three, four and five, I hit my weekly mileage total and ran five days a week. And then finally, last week I started to hit a groove where every run didn’t feel so tedious and running five times a week was almost actually routine. Here’s how my training is looking so far:

Last week, I ran 3.5 miles at the gym on the treadmill on Monday; 6.12 miles outside in Central Park on Tuesday morning; 4 miles at the gym on Thursday; a frigid (I’m talking under 5 degrees) 12 mile long run with Lauren on Saturday; and a 5.29 mile run outside again on Sunday.

I’m finding that mixing the treadmill with outdoor runs is keeping me from becoming bored with either one.

A quick word on the 12 miles run upstate this weekend. That was officially the coldest weather I’ve ever run in. Lauren and I took the cold weather VERY seriously and bundled appropriately. I wore my arctic tights (the warmest things ever), ski socks under my tights, a Nike base layer, a really warm hooded sweatershirt, a hat, gloves and a neckwarmer that I actually pinned to my hat so that it would stay up and cover my face. We looked fabulous:


We may have looked ridiculous, but I was very warm and toasty with alll of this on. The neck warmer covering my face was crucial! I was so happy I brought it and thought to pin it up.

For any people training from spring marathons out there – what are your winter running tips and tricks?

I’m feeling like winter is looking particularly messy this year and I can’t seem to remember how I made it through training last winter. I’m taking it week by week and coping with each weather set-back as necessary. I will say that winter training definitely makes you appreciate it when the spring weather finally rolls around. 🙂 Happy winter running all!

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So Long Daylight Savings – Back to the Gym

Posted on November 9, 2010 | 5 comments

Good afternoon all. Today I’m doing a lunch post since the morning completely got away from me.

I’ll do a short recap of Monday – it was a tough one. For some reason, I was just feeling a little down and frustrated. There are a bunch of things contributing to it, but I don’t really feel like talking about them.

I started off Monday with a breakfast of raspberry oatmeal.

Lunch was leftovers from the pasta the night before. I’ll tell you right now that I did not get up and run on Monday morning or this morning. Why is it soo hard for me?! Unless I am meeting someone for a run, my bed and sleep seem to win over every time. Can someone please sprinkle some magic morning-person dust on me?

During my lunch break yesterday and after work, I read a few Foodbuzz and  NYC Marathon recaps. Love them! I also convinced my friend to participate in the Marathon Monday Mania thing that ING was doing, whereby if you registered for the 2011 Marathon and completed a scavenger hunt item, took a photo of yourself doing it, and posted it to their wall between 12-3 p.m. you had a chance to qualify early for the 2011 NYC Marathon. Did anyone else out there do it?

In true sneaky fashion, they didn’t say how many people would be selected until after 3 p.m. Only 50 people! Alas, my friend was not selected. Bugger.

Not only was I feeling a little down yesterday, but then the crappy weather took it to a whole new level. Sleet/snow already?! I can tell this winter is going to be rough. As such, I figured it was time to face my fear of the dreadmill and head back to the gym for a post-work run.

My gym was pure insanity! Thank goodness I got there a little early, because by the time I was leaving, there were no machines or lockers available! I felt guilty running much more than 30 minutes (the gym limit on a cardio machine), so I pounded out 4 miles in 33:18. And the sweat was flying off of me. For all you runners out there, have you made the end of nice weather trip back to the treadmill yet? I avoided it as long as humanly possible.

We I got home from the gym, I made the lazy man’s dinner…

Yup – that would be grilled chicken (on the Foreman) with a side of corn and peas. Oh and by the way, it’s a poor man’s dinner, but also a stove/ovenless woman’s dinner as well.

Hope you’re all having a great Tuesday!

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Wave to the Camera!

Posted on January 29, 2010 | 11 comments

Good morning and happy Friday! I don’t know about you, but I’ve had a seriously stressful week and am ready for a nice weekend. And the best part is that my friend Kelly is getting married tomorrow, so the weekend is sure to be a blast! Congrats Kelly and Jerry – I can’t wait to celebrate with you tomorrow!!

Yesterday was definitely a less stressful day and I was very grateful. I started the day off with a great breakfast of oatmeal with almond butter and tons of blueberries. I love blueberries!

Around 10:30 a.m. I ate a banana – I was ravenous for some reason. Then we had a work meeting and it just so happened to be my co-workers birthday and my boss had purchased giant cupcakes for everyone. Now, those who know me well know that I simply can not pass up a cupcake. And I didn’t. Not only that, I chose the worst one: carrot cake cupcake with cream cheese frosting (sooo good!). These cupcakes were from Zeytuna and they were enormous. Seriously out of control…and I ate the whole thing. Once I started, I couldn’t stop. It was awful.

Needless to say, I was pretty full and felt gross for the rest of the day. And I also got a terrible headache (probably from such a huge rush of sugar) and then felt sleepy. Awful! Where was my self-control on that one?

Can you say no to sweets – especially when it’s your very favorite? It’s obviously something I need to work on.

The rest of my afternoon involved little food – some Triscuits with laughing cow cheese and a Chobani yogurt with Kashi Go Lean cereal.

In the afternoon  I received an email from the NYRR photographer site notifying me that the pictures from last weekend’s half marathon were ready. I always check them out just to see how terrible I looked. There were a ton of pics of Lauren and me. Some were pretty awful, but then I came to this one, which made me laugh out loud:

I actually remember doing this. It was at the very beginning of the race, maybe at the first mile marker, and I saw the photographer right in front of me. But there were so many people taking pictures that day, that I didn’t think the guy was definitely one of the event photographers – umm yeah he was. Ha!

Anyway, I digress. I made it through the work day in a slight sugar coma (actually is was really bad). And then I trudged to the gym after work. This week has been terrible as far as my marathon training goes. I am supposed to finish up at 22 miles for the week and I’m at 11 right now. And I will not be running 11 miles tomorrow – maybe 6-7.

Anyway – I hopped on the last available treadmill and pretty much told myself I’d have to stop at 4 miles because people would be waiting. Miraculously, after 2 miles, the treadmills cleared out and I was able to run 5 miles (43:03) without feeling guilty.

Then I did some ab work and some arm free-weight exercises with a 5-pound weight.

I left the gym feeling much better (sugar coma gone) and started walking home and holy coldness!! The temperature had dropped tremendously! I got home, did the dishes, vacuumed and tidied up and then made some dinner. I already had some cooked pasta ready, so I just added a ton of veggies and stuff to it: cucumber, carrots, grape tomatoes, cheddar cheese and apple. I then drizzled it with Newmans’ Light Balsamic vinaigrette.

Perfection! Dessert was the second half of my grapefruit with a packet of Truvia on top.

I also had a handful of semi-sweet chocolate chips as well.

I was considering getting up early today and hitting the gym for a 4-mile run to make my weekly mileage total, but my legs were feeling tired and so was I last night. I figured why push it? If my body was telling me to rest a bit, then I would. That way, I’ll be extra rested for my cold run upstate on Saturday morning. I don’t even want to check what the temperature will be – it will certainly scare me. I am simply preparing to layer-up like crazy.

And then after that it will be party time!! Do you have any fun plans this weekend or will you just be trying to stay warm? 🙂 Have a good one everyone!

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Posted in Dessert, NYRR, Running, Uncategorized

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My First Race of 2010!

Posted on January 9, 2010 | 21 comments

Good morning – happy Saturday! I’m back from my first race in 2010 and I have to say it went surprisingly well, much better than I expected. I was very nervous last night and slept terribly – I was actually up before my alarm even went off. So I got up and had some breakfast before the race.

Then I commenced with the layering. I had spandex pants with knee-high socks on underneath. On my top half I had a Nike base layer, a long sleeve shirt and an outlayer jacket. I also had a hat, neck warmer and gloves. I was very hot by the end of my layering.

I headed out of the house around 7:30 and got to the start right around 7:50 a.m., which was perfect timing. So here’s the race recap:

Race Recap – Fred Lebow Classic (5 miles)

When I got to the starting area up near 98th I looked for my corral. They had asked what our fastest mile time was and I had put down 7:45. I found my corral, which was closer to the start than I expected, and then I got nervous that perhaps I overstated my capabilities and everyone in my corral would run me over. I tried not to worry about it too much. After much talking and singing of the national anthem, they finally started us.

Even though I was closer to the front than expected, it still took me about 1 minute to reach the actual starting line. And then it was really time to run. I started my Garmin and got to work. It was COLD! I totally forgot to mention that. When I left the house it was 21.6 degrees outside. But I quickly started to warm up as we started racing,

At 1 mile my Garmin beeped and I looked down to see that I had run the first mile in 8:29. Not too bad, but I wasn’t sure if I maybe wanted to go faster. So I started to pick it up a bit during the second mile. The second mile flew by and so did the third. But, as I got to the fourth mile things started to get tough. We were on the East side and things started moving up hill. We hit the BIG hill around 73-79th Street and it was HARD. I was thrilled when we reached the top and hit mile 4 at just about the same time.

From 4-5 I was able to pick things up a bit. I checked my Garmin and saw that we had hit 4.5 miles and so I really kicked it in. Finally, I hit the finish and felt wonderful that the race was over and I could head back to a warm apartment. Here are my race stats:

Mile 1 – 8:29
Mile 2 – 8:01
Mile 3 – 7:57
Mile 4 – 8:10
Mile 5 – 7:51
Total – 5.04 in 40:44

Yup, my Garmin said I actually ran a little over 5 miles. I didn’t stick tightly to the inside of the Central Park loop, so I can see how that would be right. So overall, I’m pretty happy with my times. It was the first really cold, winter race I’ve ever run and it didn’t feel awful. It at least makes me a little more confident that I’ll be able to finish the half marathon in two weeks. I’ll have to check the NYRR site tomorrow to see what my official time was.

I’ll just do a quick recap of yesterday’s eats and then I want to relax a bit!

Breakfast was oatmeal with raisins, almond milk and agave with a side of light cranberry.

Lunch was leftovers of the previous night’s Ham and Brussels Sprout Bake:

As well as Chobani yogurt with granola.

Later on I had a Larabar – the Banana Bread flavor. I really liked this flavor.

After work, I picked up my race packet and came home and made some dinner.

Pasta with carrots, goat cheese, artichoke hearts, grape tomatoes, raisins and walnuts. YUMMY!

So that was my night, then I headed to bed early for my race. Now I’m going to go enjoy my Saturday afternoon and a fun evening. Have a great weekend everyone!

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