Shaping Up

I have been tracking my steps for the day with my phone, but I need to try to keep my phone on me more often. As I run around to get the kids to school I haven't been wearing it which could be 250-500 steps. My goal is 7,000 a day which is tough for someone who works a desk job. I have a lunch break and besides that I only walk to the bathroom, the break room for water, and every once in awhile to the copy machine. I have been trying to get up and talk to co-workers instead of IM or emailing, but I don't do that too often either. Wednesday I really wanted to do my best, and I am proud of the results. I started off the morning with a fitness routine found on Pinterest:

Source

I was able to get all the way to 20 squats. I had to look up what leg lifts even were, turns out they are really hard ab exercises. At lunch, I ate my sandwich at my desk and took 20 min to walk outside. It was a gorgeous day. It didn't help with the afternoon slump, but I'm glad I did it.

When I got home I knew I really needed to run today if I was going to do it 3 times this week. I mowed the front yard and then went for my 3+ mile run. I was tracking my steps and on run keeper until my phone died about a block from my house. I ended up logging 11,679 steps today, but I know it was more than that. I'm going to look into a pedometer or one of the new fitness gadget hoping to stay motivated. 10,000 steps a day is approximately 5 miles for the average person, so if I walk a mile that is 2,000 steps. Seems doable if I put my mind to it. My biggest worry is the Midwest winter will be here before I know it, do I have the guts to run outside in the cold?

Sept 20th - 5 on Friday

The Good Life Blog 5 on Friday

I decided since I'm lacking inspiration for a good post I would do the 5 on Friday for the first time. My 5 on Friday will be 5 things from my week:

1. No School.......Due to storms my son had no school today. It threw me for a loop but he was able to stay at daycare all day. I'm grateful that he doesn't go to before/after care at school because they weren't open either due to power outage at the school. Now I need to take this as motivation to stock supplies in case this happens at our house!

2. Feeling congested.....Since I went on a field trip last Thursday at a State Park I have had a stuffy/runny nose and a cough. I am so ready to be done with it! I've tried sinus medicine, hot tea, running it off, and taking it easy but it doesn't seem to go away.

3. Boys Scouts..... My son joined as a Tiger and it is 6 times more expensive then the Girl Scouts. I hope he enjoys this for all the money we are spending. I'm looking forward to being part of this group but I still feel like an outsider at this point.

4.Favorite Pin of the week:

source: ZippyCart

I hate all the candy that can come with holidays, kicking it off is Halloween so why not reinvent healthy foods.

5.  Mother Daughter 5K

 

My daughter and I finish our first 5k together and it was my best time yet. We didn't win any age awards but my daughter was awesome for doing her first race and only having about 3-4 weeks to train.

Cleaning Mud Run Shoes

I signed up for a mud run this year, thinking how hard can it be. Really hard! It had been raining a lot in the area and it was super muddy. I knew I was going to get muddy but I didn't expect 75% of the three miles to be mud pools. 20% was deep mud, sometimes putting me over knee deep. I'm not sure why they call it a run when you can't run in it! I tried not to stop because then it would suck you in and you might never get out again!

I don't think I would do it again. I prefer the Warrior Dash and I hope to do a Spartan race or maybe even a Tough Mudder someday.

What I did know was that I couldn't let this mud take my shoes. I needed them for the Warrior Dash! I ended up taking my shoes of during the race which was quite  hard to do with mud every where. It wasn't  too bad to run without shoes , until the end where they had a little of rocks.

So I got home with an extra 5 pounds of  mud, and here is how I cleaned them:

1. Dry out the mud by placing shoes in the sun. I think it also rained a little but they dried out again.

2. Bang the shoes outside in concrete to get off chunks of dirt.

3. Spray with jet nozzle of hose to get remaining dirt chunks off the shoes.

4. Dry out again.
5. Wear them (without socks because they are still dirty) around the yard while doing yard work.
6. Throw them in a pillow case and tie with a hair tie. Dry them again outside.
7. Wear them around again to re break them in again.
8. Do the Warrior Dash and donate them to a good cause!

Running Apps

In 2011 my sister ran her first half marathon.  As a girl with allergy and asthma all her life, I pretty much thought she was going to die.  I knew she worked out, but non of us girls were athletic in high school.  So when she actually survived and got a medal and all, I thought why not me?  So in February 2012 I signed up for the same half marathon, and I completed my half marathon in October of 2012.  I have never been much of a runner, and almost passed out doing laps for volleyball in eighth grade.  I kept asking my sister how she trained, but she told me she runs until she can't, then walks, and runs again when she is able.  That doesn't work for me.  I feel I will either sell myself short or push myself too far.  I decided that my iPhone needed to help me.

I tried a few programs, mostly free, to help me get off the couch and become a runner.

You can get a version of 5k Runner for free that lets you do 4 workouts equaling one week and a day of the running program.  I did really like how this was set up, however I'm doing a half marathon, not a 5k.  If I was just doing a 5k I probably would have bought the full program of this application.  One thing I didn't like: I thought the prompts were a little too quiet.

MapMyRun allows you to go on your computer and map where you will run, so you will know ahead of time how far your run will be.  This can then be sent to your phone for you to follow.  You can also just go out and run and it will track by GPS, where you went and how far, and how long it took.  I didn't really get into this application as much because I liked to plan my workout instead of my route.  Sometimes I would turn this app and my RunKeeper app at the same time, because it does have some contest type things from Shape you can enter online.  You can also log in your food with this one, how much water you have had and your weight.  Also if you log your run, it will subtract the amount of calories you burned from the amount of calories you ate that day.

Half Marathon Training was $1.99. I found it harder to navigate  I like the run/walk interval training for me because I still need to build my lung capacity.

RunKeeper is the app that I keep using. It is easy to set the different training sessions I want. You can set it as a number of repetitions, plus it syncs to the website. You can share on Facebook or with selected friends. I can view all my past activities (times I ran) and it does track calories when I run outside.  While running it will make this beep noise when to change to the next interval, and you can automatically add a 5 minute warm up and cool down. While running they show the time counting up for the total time and counting down on each interval, which is what helps to push me through when I don't want to run anymore. You can add a playlist to run to as well but I usually just play iheartradio or Pandora. I can still hear the beep for interval change through the music which was too faint on some running apps.

This year I don't plan on running and half marathons but I would like to run a full one sometime. This year I have done the 5k Glow Run and I have the Warrior Dash later this summer which is also another 5k. I hope to find another race to run since I ran 3 races last year.