What I ate Wednesday

Another edition of What I ate Wednesday Tuesday, featuring my eats from June 19, 2012.

 It was a rushed morning so I grabbed a quick snack before I left for the train.

 I was lucky to have a freezer stocked with homemade banana and chocolate chip muffins which I enjoyed with my morning cuppa.

 Lack of leftovers plus a rushed morning yielded a toasted bagel with plain cream cheese and some carrots for lunch.

 Oh hey! Look at that sensible snack! YUM!

 Oh hey! Look at that non-sensible snack! YUM!

 This dinner plate looks horrible. It was amazing though. Both Alasdair and I had baseball last night and it was disgustingly hot. My parents came over to watch Fergus so that he didn't have to go watch melt. We enjoyed my mum's awesome potato and egg salad with corn on the cob and BBQ'd drumsticks.

 Oh, his plate looks better. Well, he's cuter! (the kids had brown rice as neither have grown the taste buds to enjoy the salad. Yet).

Post baseball game indulgence. A girl's gotta live twice in one day, apparently.

And there it is! My day of eating. I hope you enjoyed as much goodness as I did.

MidSummer Night Run Training weeks 1 & 2

I have been SO CRAZY BUSY with life and work that I've barely had time to read my work emails never mind blogger! I have been remiss about updating my training, so here is a quick and dirty post about my first two weeks of training for the MidSummer Night 30k Run.

Week 1: June 4-10

Monday: I started the training plan right with a tempo run! I ran a 12 min warm up, 20 min tempo at an average pace of 5:08/km, the rest to cool down/get home. This run did not feel easy and my tempo pace was all over the place. I really prefer running tempo on a treadmill. This was also the day after the Bread & Honey 5k race, so I'm sure my body was tired. 8.25k, 47:16

Tuesday: A lunch-time treadmill run was all I had time for as I had baseball later in the evening. 5k, 31:04

Wednesday: Cross train with some abs, push ups and lunges

Thursday: A loop through my neighbourhood using my alternative route past one of my good friend's houses (it always picks up my spirit to run by her place). 6.45k, 40:04

Friday: LSD! I took advantage of the fact that I work from home on Friday's and executed the LSD in the morning. The run was hot because I started too late in the morning (I had to drop my oldest at school). It is amazing how easy and quick 16k feels now. 16k, 1:38:11

Saturday: Rest (and drink too much at a friend's place)

Sunday: My first real hung-over run with the friend from the night before. It was hot and we started at 10am. She's a high school gym teacher and floated along on her long legs while I huffed and puffed and kept the vomit down. I felt AMAZING after the run though! 6.5k, 38:44

Total KM: 42.2, Total Time: 4h15m19s, Average pace per KM: 0:06:03

Week 2: Jun 11-17

Monday: Rest. Alasdair and I went to Wonderland with friends:

This is one of our last rides, in the rain: Spinovator!

Tuesday: Rest. I was tired, work was CRAZY.

Wednesday: Work was less crazy so I hit up the treadmill at lunch for a tempo run with a 10 min warm up, 20 min at 5:06 tempo and the rest to get to 8k. 45:38

Thursday: When I got home from work, I looked at my husband, looked at my crazy kids (going crazy) and did NOT feel like cooking or eating the tilapia in the fridge. East Side Mario's where kids eat free was a winner! I went for a run after the kids went to bed and the heavy food sat in my stomach making it feel worst than my hang over run the week before. Oh well, got it in. 6.3k, 39:11

Friday: LSD during work from home day again! I got out nice and early just after 6am and hit my new 18k route for a very pleasant and seemingly short run. Everything was just perfect during this run. I didn't even need any gels or chomps. 18.41k, 1:56:27

Saturday: Our first camping trip of the season, thus REST (and the beach and roasted marshmallows and spider dogs)

Sunday: The best part about our first camping trip of the season is that it is always at Rockwood which is about 20 minutes from home. We got home before lunch (due to threat of rain) and enjoyed a relaxing day. After the kids went to bed, I hit the humidity and the track for my first interval workout of the plan. I ran 5x400s with 200m rests in between. I had no idea what pace to hit for the 400s and just ran by effort. I ended up with the following paces: 4:24-4:10-4:16-4:18-4:21. Pretty good as McMillan says I should look to run at 4:18 pace. At least I have a goal for next week. 9k, 53:37

Total KM: 41.71, Total Time: 4h14m53s, Average pace per KM: 0:06:07

A pretty good first two weeks if I say so myself. I think running five days a week is going to be a challenge so I'm amping myself up to be okay with only running four days.

I hope you're enjoying the summer as much as I am!

WIAW



Today's post is brought to you by work from home and enjoy my long run Friday! I am blessed to be able to work from home most Friday's and so I make the most of losing my commute by getting my long run in. I ran 16k last Friday.

Smoothie for me and the big boy pre run.

I felt like I would need something more so I had some toast with butter.

Post run goodness. It was so hot on Friday and I was glad to come home to the powerade. That's a homemade oatmeal and chocolate chip muffin.

Lunch is pretty typical for Fridya's. I seem to always eat eggs or tuna. Fried egg with hot sauce on a bagel with cheese.

Afternoon snack. MMMM, this greek yogurt is so good. I mixed in my fish oil as well.

Glam shot of roasted peppers that we put on

A huge dinner salad with the peppers, cucumbers, croutons, goats cheese, grilled steak and balsamic

Friday night drinks!

Friday night ice cream! Chocolate Brownie from Chapmans.

And those are my eats on my work from home, long run Friday! I think I did a lot better with my snacks here.

Foto Friday

I was very focused during the Bread & Honey 5k race last Sunday and my lack of photos show that the photogs only love me when I'm thumbs up and smiling. Here is the best of the two shots I got:

Don't mess with me kids, I've got a PB to go get.

This week, I had Google in to do a lunch and learn with my department. My representative gave me some left over give away Google sunglasses afterward and I wore them for my run last night and this morning. I'm actually in love with them. They don't fog or bounce! The only draw back is that they don't sit as nicely with a hat like my Oakley's do:

New Sunnies!

Happy Friday! I've already done my LSD (this morning) so all I have on tap is my first session of track work on Sunday! I'm so pumped!

I hope you enjoy a lovely weekend!

What I Ate Wednesday

I missed the SENSIBLE SNACKING part of the memo (um, no I didn't. I knew about it, I just didn't DO anything about it. Sigh).

Kashi Go Lean with strawberries. We had no farmer's market this weekend as it was the street festival. Boo! I like the Go Lean Crunch better.

I'm giving you an old photo because I'm wearing the same outfit today!

Post run lunch: Mixed greens with balsamic and carrots, 2 slices of deli ham and that yogurt. I'm in love with it!

Sensible Snacking fail take one!

Sensible Snacking WIN!

Normal rushed Tuesday dinner. Homemade meat and veggie sauce over white pasta (my husband doesn't like whole wheat)

Sensible Snacking fail take two (post baseball!)

And that is what I ate on Tuesday, June 6th! I hope you did better with your snacks then I did!

Bread & Honey 5k Race Report

Yesterday was the Bread & Honey races. I had decided to make this race my goal 5k race this year even though I had spent the winter training for a marathon instead of training for speed. I was pretty sure I could PB at sub 26:50, but I really wanted to finish the race in 25:00.

The day/night before the race was spent at my parent’s house as we were having our house painted. It was a pretty relaxed day but I slept like crap (as I always do at my parents). Fergus must have known that I had a race because he was up at 5:43, 17 minutes before the alarm was set to go off.

I ate some breakfast and headed out to Streetsville with plenty of time to spare. I had brought a garbage bag to wear while waiting for the start because I didn't want to check a bag, so when I parked, I got my stuff sorted out and put on my bag. I walked over to the high school where the race starts and felt kinda silly with my bag as no one else was wearing one and it wasn't raining or even that cold. After my first bathroom stop, I realized that I didn't have any gum and headed back to the truck to get that and my sunglasses (and to drop off my phone and garbage bag).

I decided to do a warm up so I jogged for about 10 minutes from the parking lot, around the school and along some side streets. I just kept it easy and got some sweat going. I headed to the port-o-potty for a final bathroom stop as I didn't want to go back inside the school. From there I headed to the corral as there was only about 10 minutes to race time. I kept looking for Lyndsey and Henry from my marathon clinic, but didn't see either of them. I was lined up a bit far back as I soon discovered.

The mayor of Mississauga, Hazel was there to give the pre-race speech, making a joke about how the weather was holding off for us, but how it didn't for the parade the day before. Oh, Hazel, no wonder you've been Mississauga's mayor since Jesus was a teenager, wit and fiscal responsibility! But I digress.

The gun went and off we went. I was too far back and had to weave like crazy in the first KM. It was downhill so I wanted to ensure that I made use of that to my advantage. I looked up and saw a back that I knew and sure enough, it was the Principal from my high school who was running the 15k race. I told him who I was and he wished me luck and off he went (speedster, who knew?)! We turned onto Britannia Road and there was Henry (easy to spot for sure). I sped up to catch him and we chatted. I told him about my goals, he asked if I had taken his advice to warm up and we chatted a bit more before I told him to go as he's so much faster than me. He enjoyed his 15k race in his homemade duct-tape and cloth barefoot "shoes".

My first two KM felt fine. I was running faster than I ever had in my entire life, but it was no problem. We were on a flat stretch and I headed to the turn banking the corner and keeping to pace. I knew the water station was coming up and I was starting to feel a bit poorly, but I basically started telling my brain to shut the f**k up and to keep running. I told myself all kinds of things:

-Just run the damn thing, it's only 5k

-You have less than 15 minutes left

-Just keep your legs going, you'll be SOOO pissed if you slow down

-Um, did I just pee myself a bit (srsly! After two 9+lbs babies, I guess the bladder is forever changed)?

-Shut the f**k up about slowing down and run this mother

-wow, those plastic drink cups must suck (ya, that's what they had, not paper ones that could be squeezed)

-it is freaking HOT

-where is the sun? I can't see with my sunglasses on

-don't forget to chew your gum

-why do I hear Knocked Up on EVERY run?

Once I passed 3k, I just spent the time getting to 4k with either those thoughts above or no thoughts at all in my head. I only looked at my watch to ensure I wasn't going below a 5 minute per KM pace. I didn't care how fast I was running, just how slow.

Right after 4k, there is a slight hill on Britannia to get you back to Joymar for the home stretch (the race is an out and back). I was trying to use my arms to pump me up the hill but I was pretty much running through quicksand. Once I got up the hill, I told myself to let go and run.

RUN!

There was about 700m left and there was an eight year old in front of me and there was no damn way he was going to beat me. Unfortunately, there was a middle-aged man just in front of me and there was no way HE was going to let me pass him (he totally crowed me to the right side of the road, almost up against the curb). Finally we passed the kid and I took off my sunglasses, then put them on, then spit out my gum all the while thinking nothing (except "Jesus, dude it is NOT the end of the world if I come in before you, asshole).

I'm pretty sure I heard my name, but I just ran as fast as I could. I saw that the clock was at 24:XX and I knew I had it as I was pretty close to the start.

I speed through the finish and just kept walking. I felt exactly how I figured I would: slightly sick, very pleased, and confident that I couldn't have run any faster:

Time: 24:37 (2m13s PB)

Place: 111/715

Category: 6/61

As you can see, I could have caught 5th place, but I have a lot of work to do if I want to place in this category!

After the race I did run into Lyndsey who also ran a PB with her injury, so it was a great day all around.

I'll be back at this race again next year for sure! I love it!

Splits:

4:53

4:55

4:56

5:00 - effing HILL

4:46



Bread & Honey 5k Race Goals

I really had debated running in the Bread & Honey races this year, but made a decision to do so because I love the route and I have such fond memories of the Bread & Honey festival. I danced in the parade for many years as I took lessons in Streetsville from ages 3-18 and I enjoyed going to the midway as a teen as well.

My current 5k PB came last year at the Energizer 5k night race and is 26:50.

I have not trained for speed at all as my focus this winter has been on the marathon.

I have run two test runs in the past two weeks, a five km run with KM 2 at 4:43 and KM 3 at 5:07. I did a treadmill run this week with 15 minutes at 5:06/km pace. McMillan says (based on my marathon time), that I can run 3 miles in 24:15.

And so, my goals:

A+: 25:00*

A: PB at sub 26:50*

B: Not to crap my pants


*both goals depend on weather; Sunday's forecast is 60% POP with Thundershowers, 18C and 15 KM/hr winds.

I still have to decide if I'm going to pace based on my garmin, or just go by feel. If I'll look for a negative split or an even run. I guess all of that will be a game time decision. This will also be the first race where I warm up prior. How long should I warm up for?

Of course I'll be back to tell you all about it! I hope you enjoy your weekend!

MidSummer Night's Race 30k and Milton Half Training Plan

Yes, I've finally written my plan and not a second too soon as it begins on Monday!

The goal of this plan is twofold. I want to be able to race the MidSummer 30k at a pace of at least 5:40/km and I want to put in a strong PB at the Milton Half Marathon even though the course looks quite tough.

The key to this plan will be flexibility. The summer is a busy time for life and work looks like it is going to be crazy as well. I've already booked my outlook every Monday at lunch so that I can get to the gym to get that 8k tempo run in. I think Tuesday is the day that will present the most challenges as I'll either have to run starting around 8pm due to Alasdair's baseball game or run around 5AM because of my own baseball game later that night. Running TO my ball game is out of the question - it is not a safe route and I owe it to the team to be fresh and ready to play, not tired out by a run.

As you see, the LSD takes advantage of the fact that I work from home most Friday's and I will continue to use that time to my advantage, hitting the road around 6-6:30am to get the run in before the workday begins.

I also have left out my plans to turn some of those LSD's into longer tempo runs a la Daniels, but trust me, this will happen. I know the key to running faster is to run faster and I plan on doing just that.

It feels good to have a plan on paper. I've felt rather aimless these past weeks after the Marathon.

Next up: 5k Bread and Honey Race on Sunday. Goals to come!