Mad Abs March!

For those of you who followed along with Fab Ab February ... even if you're a little late to the train ... look what I just found!

Rock on. Who's with me? I'm thinking 3-4x repeats this time around! Gotta get this gut looking good for the upcoming bathing suit season. :) On that thought ... anyone want to recommend some good booty exercises? I've got some saddle bags I need to unpack too (ha. horseback joke.). ;)

February Wrap Up and then some.

Well, I guess it's time to wrap up February since it's officially March now. I started writing this post last night, but I was just too darn tired after watching Ghost Hunters International and Face Off to finish it and post. Oh well. Here we go ...

Did everyone enjoy Leap Day? Did you do anything special? I was a little nostalgic in the morning because I realized it was the first Leap Day without my grandmother (mom's mom). It would have been her 19th birthday. Yes, she was a leap day baby. All the grandkids LOVED needling her over surpassing her in both age and height (she was also a SHORT woman). The joke in our family was that you were officially allowed to sit at the "big kid table" (none of us act like adults) once you were taller than Grandma. lol. My dad and I were pulling for my cousin's baby to be born yesterday just to spite K, but no luck.

Last night, I got sucked into another race, The Quantum Leap 2.9 Miler. It was put on by the Toledo and Fremont running clubs and the store where I've been going to group runs, Second Sole. I hadn't really trained specifically for it, but I figured yesterday was a speed workout anyway (I'll make up the extra mile tonight at group) and a new distance meant an automatic PR. *grin* There was a threat of thunderstorms, but we got lucky. Actually, we got doubly lucky because the temperature was in the low 50s! Sheesh! If it hadn't been so breezy, I would have worn a tee shirt with my capris. There were actually quite a few people there in shorts and tees! In February! *shakes head* It was a really fun race, though. I got there, signed in (relatively quick for the number of people there), and started my warm up before I realized who was standing less than 10 feet from me. My friend Mike and his wife (yes, Liz, the one I ran with the night I won my Saucony Nomad jacket at group!). He made a big deal out of how surprised he was to see me and I just raised my eyebrow and laughed at him. Another friend, also Mike, from dailymile, was there too, but we didn't get to talk much until after the race since he got there so close to the start. Unoffficially, my finish time was 29:43. That's a 10:10/mi average pace. Not too shabby. I'm sure the official time will be a little different since it was a gun start and I was a little ways back in the pack. I thought I started out a little too quick, but I was able to maintain my pace pretty easily as long as I didn't over-think it. I THINK the photographer got a picture of 2 with me in it, but we'll see when they're posted on facebook. I'll be sure to update here if/when. I'll go crazy pouring over the age groups once the results are posted too, so no worries.

Some of you know I've been experimenting with my nutrition and hydration lately. Some of it has to do with knowing I need to find a better (read - healthier) system as I increase my mileage and part of it is trying to avoid the migraine-like headaches I get from being dehydrated and electrolytes being out of whack. No joke, I used to get them after EVERY run, no matter how much water or gatorade I drank before, during, and after. The only thing I could do was take painkillers and crawl in bed for a couple hours, hopefully to sleep off the prain. It was horrible. Anyway, my latest thing to try out finally came in the mail yesterday ... nuun. A smaller shop that sells through amazon had a pretty great deal on a pack of 4 tubes plus 4 individuals, so I used some of my amazon credits. So far, I like it! I have tubes of tri-berry, citrus fruit, lemon-lime and orange. The individuals are grape and fruit punch (NOT my favorite flavor, but I'll try just about anything once). I tried out the orange before the race last night and lemon-lime later. I like that the flavor isn't overpowering. More to come as I try out the other flavors and work them into my regular life.

Wheeeeee! Fizzies! Yes, I'm mature. lol :D

Since it IS the end of February, I sat down with my weekly mileage tracker (woo, more excel spreadsheets!) and figured out my monthly totals. This month, I had 9.15 miles walked (warm ups and cool downs, mostly) and 62.68 miles run (in 11:55:14). Not bad. My miles walked is down from January (mainly because I've been better at planning and mapping my runs) but my miles run is up (53.64 in January). There hasn't been a whole lot of change in my pace, but my endurance is much better. My longest run in February was my 8-miler last Saturday where my longest in January was 5.1 miles (twice). I can feel the difference in my body, but I'll address that in another post (I swear. I'm writing it bit by bit every day).

The end of February also means the end of Fab Ab February and Amanda @ RunToTheFinish's Appreciation Challenge. These were both eye-opening for me. FAF really showed me that I need to take more time to work on my core. Since I quit #plankaday (I got annoyed at being bitched at over twitter for not getting online and sharing every damn day. You don't like that my first instinct ISN'T to run online and tell you every time I do something? Too damn bad.), I need to come up with a plan of my own and stick to it. I'm working on it. The Appreciation Challenge really opened my eyes to appreciating the little things about myself and those around me. I'm really enjoying going back and re-reading some of the journal entries and thinking about WHY I was appreciating certain things and people each day. I realize how much the "little things" impact the rest of my day and my longer-term mood. I think this is another thing that I need to work on more frequently.

Alright. Lunch break over. With the University being on Spring Break next week, all the professors who do field work trips on the "week off" are in a tizzy over getting all their equipment ready to go. Which means the basement is pretty loud (even after our department chair got the construction crew to shut up during class hours) and I have to concentrate even harder to get anything done here on campus.

Eh ... an ok day.

I was SOOO excited when I woke up the first time this morning and realized it had SNOWED! It was only a light dusting ... but SNOW! Since it wasn't time for me to get up yet, I rolled over and fell back asleep for another hour and a half, hoping it'd still be there when I went out for my run. No such luck. It was completely GONE by the time I got up again. Grr. I wasn't in any hurry to get up and go out for my run after that, especially since dad and brother left the house early to go donate blood [which means mom and I had a nice quiet house].

My training plan called for 4 steady miles today, but I wanted to go for 5 since I knew my 6-mile run next Saturday will be nixed in favor of racing the Winterfest 5k. I decided I didn't want to look at my Garmin at all and covered it up with my sleeve as soon as I got going. I knew the distances along the village streets and trail cross-roads well enough that I could approximate how far I needed to go before turning around. When I finally did uncover my Garmin, I was already at 4.68 miles. Awesome. For not watching my pace at all, I'm not disappointed in my mile times. I know the first mile should have been slower, but I had to sprint across a couple roads and driveways in the village downtown area.

I've tried 3 of the Zipfizz flavors so far: Orange soda, grape, and citrus. I don't know that I'd go out of my way to buy orange soda or grape, but I really liked citrus. It reminded me of lemonade that someone snuck some orange juice into. I THINK I noticed a boost in my energy, but I've still been drinking my Diet Coke in the mornings. I'm going to try it tomorrow WITHOUT my normal morning caffeine kick. We'll see what happens. I'm going out tonight so I'm going to be TIRED tomorrow if I don't sleep in late enough. I AM loving the bottle, though. When not filled with Zipfizz, it's been put into the rotation of my water bottles with measurements on their side (making sure I drink enough water during the day).

Did you join in on Fab Ab February? I think I've settled into at least 4 reps of the written workout. Today's is 25 sit-ups (I've been doing bicycle crunches), 6 push ups, and a 20-second plank. I've been switching up regular and side planks.

- - -

2.3.12

I am proud of my ...

Heritage. I'm very proud of my German/ Czech/ Irish/ Native American background. A little closer to present day, I'm honored to be the granddaughter of 2 Korean War veterans, 3 if you count my father's mother who worked in the armory while waiting for Grandpa to come home from the war. I don't know a LOT about my family's earlier generations, but these things I do know and I'm very proud of. It saddens me that I've learned more about my Grandparents since they passed than I did in the time I had with them, but I'm still so thankful I had them in my life for so long. I had all 4 of my grand parents and my great-grandmother up until my freshman year of college. My childhood would have been completely different if they hadn't been here. Every little thing I learn about them just makes me appreciate them and the time I had with them all the more.

Who I appreciate ...

Whoever invented pinterest. It's the newest time waster, but a great way to share recipes, crafts, giggles, ideas, and motivation! I can spend HOURS on there just looking. If you want an invitation to join (and don't want to wait around for an invite from pinterest itself), let me know. Or, if you're already on the bandwagon, click the button on the right sidebar and check me out!

2.4.12

I like that I can ...

Easily make friends with just about any remotely-friendly animal. I suspect it's a trait I picked up from my dad. Most of the dogs in the neighborhood love me (and wait for me to pet them when I go by on my run). Also, I'm always hanging out with the horses when I'm up at camp. It's natural for me to be found wherever the animals are. lol. Our last dog was SUPPOSED to be a "family pet", but he was more attached to my dad and I than anyone else. He was super-protective of both of us and ran to us when a thunderstorm or something else bothered him. When one of us wasn't home, he'd wander back and forth between the person home's side and the front door, waiting for the other.

Who I appreciate ...

Gustav Heineman, the founder of Heineman Winery. They make my favorite wine of all time, Lake Erie Pink Catawba. It's local, delicious, cheap, and STRONG. Oh, and it's award-winning. :) The grapes are grown on the Lake Erie Islands and the nearby mainland and the wine can only be purchased directly from the winery out on South Bass Island (Put-In-Bay, Ohio) or from the Anderson's stores in the Toledo area, as far as I know. And the winery will ONLY ship to Ohio. If you go in person, there's a really neat crystal cave beneath the building that you can tour too! My day can be absolute crap and one glass of this while curled up in bed reading or watching a movie and I'm a deleriously-happy girl. I hadn't had a bottle in a couple weeks, but mom came home with some the other night because she knew I was having a really stressful day at school (stupid inter-departmental mail LOST my graduation application and several other grad students' thesis paperwork). I'm slowly working my way through trying ALL of Heineman's wines, but Pink Catawba will always be my favorite (even if it's just because the memories of this wine and my 23rd birthday out at PIB (-: )

Fab Ab February and Zipfizz

I've seen this calendar floating around Pinterest and Twitter for about a week now, but it has finally found it's way into the blogosphere: Fab Ab February.

For someone who has never done much core work or is just getting back into it, this is awesome. Since I'm not exactly in that category, I'm adjusting this plan for myself. I'll still be doing what is in the plan, but I'm going to do it MULTIPLE TIMES! I haven't decided how many yet since I just jumped on the bandwagon last night (hm, I seem to have jumped into a lot of things yesterday), but I'm thinking it'll probably be 4 or 5.

Another thing to check out on twitter is #plankaday. I've been participating for a couple weeks now and those darn @plankpolice have already caught me not logging my planks once. In my defense, I was logging into Twitter from my Blackberry (the mobile site, not the app) and I WAS tweeting. It just wasn't going through. *grumblegrumble*.

A while back, Steph @ Run On! hosted a Zipfizz giveaway and I was one of the winners. And guess what came via UPS last night ...

I don't know how Robbie, our UPS guy, found our porch and doorbell last night in the dark without hurting himself (we hadn't turned the outside lights on since we were all home already and weren't expecting anyone). But, then again, he HAS been here a LOT the past couple weeks. Between my running/ Amazon stuff, mom's stuff from catalogs, and dad and bro's new parts for the motorcycle, we've been getting packages either from UPS or the postal service pretty much every other day. LOL. I was so confused when Robbie said the package was for me, but then I read the side of the box and did a little happy dance. As always, be just laughed at me. Anyway, I've never tried Zipfizz before so I'm a little excited. My first bottle is in front of me right now (orange soda flavor) and I have 2 different coupons from Zipfizz in my email inbox for WalMart as soon as I decide which flavors I like the most. I was digging around on their website last night too and I'm LOVING that they WANT you to send back the tubes for recycling when you get 100! I'd probably do that even if they WEREN'T offering a water bottle. I think I'm just going to keep the box the bottle came in and put them back in there. :)

I'm really excited to see if I could take these on my backpacking/camping trips. Normally I can't function in the morning without my caffeine or energy drink. When I'm home, it's normally Diet Coke [parents aren't fans of the smell of coffee]. At camp or the bf's, it's coffee, but I need creamer and stuff to make it palatable (can only drink black coffee when forced at knife-point). I've tried taking canisters and packets of mixes on the trail before, and some are ok [G2 in the single-service packets = live-saver], but this MAY be an easier option. We shall see.

- - -
2.2.12
I appreciate my ...
Hands! I saw the Kohler commercial last night with the "Hands can do so many things" song and it got me thinking. My hands have so many scars, but each of them is a story, a chapter in my life. I have callous scars from my years of rowing, dog bite [the one and only time Patches EVER snapped at me], burn from working concessions for my friend's student government campaign, burn form the first time I made dinner with my "bf", the scar(s) from the surgeries on my finger after breaking it playing flag football, and so many more. It simply blows my mind to think about all the things my hands have done over the last 25+ years.

Who I appreciate ...
Another corny one, but Brad Paisley! I normally turn on my stereo to listen to Bob & Tom as I'm getting ready in the morning, but I accidently had the country station on this morning [stupid tiny buttons on the remote]. I wasn't feeling great when I got up, but as soon as I heard Brad Paisley's "Old Alabama", I started smiling and singing along. I love that song. I grew up listening to Alabama, have ALL their albums on my iPod, and even got to see their farewell tour when they played at the Lenawee County Fair years ago. Thank goodness mom had already left for work since I'm sure I looked and sounded like a fool, but it made my morning!