HBBC Week 7 and .... Wait, HBBC is OVER?!

The first week of 2012 is finally over. Wow. I'm still not used to "2012" yet. Or maybe I'm just in a bit of a fog because my parents just let me make dinner and there were no jokes about someone dying from my cooking. I think dad actually LIKED it! *shock face*

Since it's the end of the week, I guess it's time to run through my HBBC points ...

There isn't a lot to say about it. I started off the week (and the year) with 2 awesome 5ks. I almost wish I would have put in a couple more miles on January 1 to take advantage of the double points for mileage that day, but I know my legs would NOT have been happy with me. They were already pooped and SERIOUSLY ready for compression socks and rest. Oh well. I did pretty good on my fruits and veggies this week. Like I said last week, it's so much easier when mom lets me do some of the grocery shopping and I can buy more stuff that I actually like and then CUT THEM UP and get them ready to eat right away. When things are ready to east and sitting on an eye-level shelf, it's much easier to resist the siren song of the candy dish (or, in this week's case, the huge tray of brownies mom baked "for the football games". bah). I bought some V8 this week too, which helps. My extra points from my Resolution Run didn't hurt, either. If it weren't for those points and my (somewhat random) cross-training, my points would have reflected how all-over-the-board my exercise really was this week. It's something I need to address.

And here's how my points totals stacked up for the whole challenge ...

I learned some lessons from this challenge. First of all, I had to constantly remind myself not to compare my points to everyone else's. It was a little difficult when I knew I was in the same category as people who ran double-digit several times a week, but I reminded myself that I was HAPPIER with my performance when I was "competing" against myself, not someone else. Another thing I learned is that I need to be more consistent in my cross-training. I really liked how I had my spreadsheet set up with the different cross-training and strength-training things that I regularly do and the point values (for HBBC) were automatically calculated based on the amount of time (I created a proxy for a number of reps on certain things). I did everything in 30-second increments to keep me from getting burnt out on a certain exercise and could do whatever I wanted on that list as long as I got a certain number of HBBC points for the day (and I hit every major body part at least once). I think I'm going to keep this system for my cross-training. It kept it interesting for me and constantly pushed me to fit in bursts of exercise whenever I could. 20 REAL push ups and a 30-second plank during every commercial break FTW! That's 0.05 HBBC points right there! lol ;) :P

PS, if you haven't already noticed, I have my "My Favorite (Running) Things" page up and running. It's a work in progress, but I'll continue to add and edit it as I get more experiences. Since everything I'm using, I've either bought myself or been given as a gift, I think I prefer this to doing a big review of everything. Now, if there are any companies out there that WANT to send me stuff to review and write on, I'd be MORE than happy to. Maybe someday.

HBBC Week 6 ...

I know. I've been pretty quiet this week. Sorry about that. This week has kind of thrown me for a loop.

Christmas was exactly what I expected. Just the 4 of us. Sitting around watching movies. Arguing over stupid crap. The normal. At least mom caved and bought a Honeybaked Ham! Yummy! Not going to lie, though, my parents spoiled me this year. Along with more Zensah, mom made a payment on my car loan and surprised me with tickets to see Beauty & the Beast (the Broadway show on tour) (Yes, I'm 25 years old but I'm a proud Disney kid and B&B was one of my favorites)! Dad, being his normal ridiculous self, decided my brother and I needed something that he and I had been seeing in stores for 2 months now and joking about ... Ohio State gnomes. If they have the other one next time I go into that store, I'll probably get it. I laugh every time I look at them.

<-- Mine              Little Brother's -->

Monday's run was supposed to be an easy 2 miles, but the only word I can think of to describe it is fugly. If you don't know what "fugly" means, feel free to ask your children (but don't be surprised if they don't want to answer you). Anyway, 5 minutes in, my right shin (outside ... not where it normally bothers me) seized. I stopped several times to stretch it out, and that helped a little, but it still hurt. For almost a mile, I felt like my left foot was striking normal but I was just dragging my right foot along. I likened it to the clomping of a horse's hoof or something. It took a LOT of self control to not freak out. I hoped it was just something about the angled road and not being completely warmed up that irritated my shin. As soon as I got home, I ace-bandaged a heating pad to it, stretched it out, and then pulled on my compression socks. It helped, I guess.

Wednesday was supposed to be a 3-mile run day, focusing on speedy intervals. The same spot on the right shin got a bit achey just before mile 2, but it didn't really HURT like it had on Monday. I stopped to stretch it out a couple times. By mile 3, it felt almost normal again. I don't know if it was finally warmed up and stretched out or if the ibuprofin I took before leaving the house was finally giving in, but I was thankful.

I've done a little cross training on the days I wasn't attempting to run, but I've done better. I just haven't wanted to hurt my shin even worse this close to my races this weekend. I've been really good about my fruits and veggies this week, though. I guess it helps that mom let me do the grocery shopping on Monday and I made sure to stock up on things she wouldn't normally get. And then took the time to cut up the veggies and have them ready to go.

Tomorrow is day zero. Except for having lunch with an old friend who's in town for the holidays, I'm going to spend the day laying in bed watching movies and relaxing ... until it's time to go race. This thing with my right shin has made me more nervous, but I'm trying to stay calm about it all. I'll take extra care warming up and stretching out beforehand. All I can do it my best. Cross your fingers for a PR.

If you're also racing this weekend, good luck. If not, have a great new years and be safe. I'll have plenty to say about my 2 live races, virtual race, and resolution fun run next time. :)

HBBC Week 5 Summary and BAKING COOKIES!

I decided to post my HBBC summary a day early since I'm taking today off from working out. Yep, you heard that right. I took today off. Things needed to get done around the house (mom was home today, so I couldn't exactly focus on what I wanted to do) and tomorrow's run is going to be a challenging one for me. I've been loosely following a personalized training plan from RunnersWorld.com and tomorrow is calling for a 5-mile run. BUT, tomorrow is also Christmas Eve, which means I need to get in my virtual 5k. So, I figure I'll run my first mile (or half mile depending on how I feel) as a warm up, knock out my 5k, and then finish up my miles at the "recommended pace" (which seems obnoxiously slow to me). It'll be a good test for me to see where I am as my double 5k is next weekend. Yikes. That experience is just sneaking up on me.

Anyway, my HBBC spreadsheet nearly gave me a heart attack the other night (as those of you who follow my twitter know). My computer had a minor hiccup and I needed to force-restart it. When the computer came back up, it had saved my original spreadsheet as a .xlsb file. I didn't know what that meant until I clicked on the file to open it and IT WOULDN'T OPEN! I spazzed for a good 10 minutes about how I was going to recreate everything (it wouldn't have been a problem, really, between my weights spreadsheet and my dailymile) until I had a little lightbulb flip on over my head (hehe) and I tired just changing the NAME of the file to a .xlsx. Amazingly, IT WORKED. I'm pretty sure I was jumping up and down doing a happy dance. I started going back through this week's and last week's lists and realized I HAVEN'T BEEN COUNTING MY STRETCHING! HOLY GUACAMOLE! Oh well. I won't make that mistake in the future. Lol. I know I have no chance at having the highest points in my category (not even close), but I still like to put up as many points as possible.

The evil press. Apparently it only works for MOM!

So, along with the cleaning frenzy that was today, we talked mom into baking cookies! My grandmother used to be the cookie queen. She'd take DAYS to bake the dozens and dozens of multiple kinds of cookies. Every family, then, got their own BIG tin of the cut out cookies and smaller or medium-size tins of the specialty cookies. Plus any of us who were away at college got our own tins ... with extra of our favorite (and Grandma always knew which ones were our favorite). Imagine her doing this for our family, my uncle's (huge) family, my grandmother's siblings (whoever was left of the 13ish originals), and THEIR families! One of the best parts of December while growing up was helping Grandma make and pack all the cookies. And OF COURSE us kids got to eat the "leftover" dough and lick the beaters after every batch. That's the whole point of BAKING, isn't it? lol. Well, we miss Grandma more than ever around this time of the year. I've been begging mom for a couple weeks now to bake some press cookies (one of my favorites ... but I can never get the press thing to work right by myself) and I guess dad asked about peanut butter cookies (HIS favorite) so mom caved and baked today. I seriously felt like a 5-year old waiting for her to press the dough so I could sprinkle the sugar crystals and stick the cookie sheets in the oven. That was always my job when I baked with grandma and I still don't let anyone else do it. The red sugar crystals just sprinkled on the flower cookies and the green sugar crystals get sprinkled on the tree cookies, just like Grandma used to do. In our family, there is NO other way TO do them! Period. End of story.

Now I just have to try not to let myself eat all the cookies before we even get to Christmas. Mom's family isn't doing a party for Christmas Eve (for the first time in decades), so I don't have any distractions from those delicious cookies sitting in the cookie jar ... staring at me ... calling "Eat me! Eat me!" :)

HBBC Week 4 and Jingle Bell Hell Run

All I'm going to say about HBBC Week 4 is that I'm disappointed in the points, but not in myself. Life just got in the way this week. I couldn't make up for the day I took off with knee pain on the treadmill since it's closed up and shoved against a wall right now but that's ok. This week was about starting to get our house put back together and getting this semester finished off.

At least I started HBBC Week 5 off right with my version of XLMIC's Jingle Bell Hell (Virtual Fun) Run. While I didn't run the full 1/3 marathon distance, it was a long and very interesting run for me.

Here are the nitty gritty details from my Garmin, if you really care: http://connect.garmin.com/activity/134966829

How the trail looked when I was starting. Snow was
just starting to stick to the trees and longer grass.

Anyway, I had planned on getting up early and getting in my last LONG slow run before my New Years double 5k adventure (yep, that's how I'm looking at it now) ... preferably before the snow started this afternoon since the weather guys were disagreeing on how much we were going to get and when it was going to start. Well, I slept in 2 hours past my alarm (it was only 10:30 when I got up, give me a break) and woke up to find the snow had already started, though it hadn't started sticking to anything but the trees yet. Ugh. I scarfed down a packet of oatmeal (I normally eat 2 but didn't want to feel sick while running) and half a can of Diet Coke (I need the caffeine, dangit!), threw on my normal run gear (plus my bright orange raincoat with the logic that I didn't want to get wet, forgetting that I was going to drenched in sweat by the time I was done anyway), and headed out. And guess what? I actually took my cell phone with me so I could get some pictures (shocking, I know. I don't like running with my phone. I know it's a safety thing, don't lecture)!

I knew my 6.25 mile run wasn't really going to be "HELL" since I was sticking to the paved Wabash-Cannonball Trail (and this is NW Ohio ... we don't have real hills unless you want to run the man-made sledding hill in town. lol), but I decided to make it slightly more challenging for me to judge distances (I don't like looking at my Garmin while I run) by running WEST from Whitehouse instead of my normal EAST. I also stuck my iPod on my Christmas playlist (this will come into play later, trust me). Within the first half mile (and JUST out of "downtown"), I came across an older gentleman walking with his 2 overweight labs (who weren't on leashes *ahem*). The dogs were big babies and woofed at me so I bent down to pet them as I went by. The guy had been talking pretty constantly on his phone as I ran by, so I didn't really think anything of it when he raised his voice once I was past him ... until the chocolate lab ran into the back of my leg and almost took me out. Apparently he took off after me when I passed him and the poor old guy had been trying to call him back. Oops. lol. I ran back to the guy so the dog would follow and he decided it was probably a good idea to put both dogs on their leashes for the rest of their walk. Uh, yea. haha. Things were pretty uneventful for the next couple of miles if you don't count the occasional branch or twig getting knocked out the trees along the trail by the wind. Running the trail this direction my be more protected from direct blasts of wind, but that just means there are more projectiles that could get "thrown" in your direction. I'm aware of 3 smaller twigs landing on me, but it could have been more and I just didn't notice.

Right before I got the crap scared out of me.

One thing that was nice about running the trail this direction, I got to run past my good friend's house. Now, you should know that K and I have a history of pulling pranks of each other. We've been doing it as long as we've known each other (since kindergarten, basically). When I ran past her place on the way out, she was outside working one of her horses (the one that I normally ride when I go over there, actually) and we waved at each other and kept on our merry way. Thinking back on it now, I really should have been more warry on my run back. Not long after I turned around (just past 3 miles), Trans-Siberian Orchestra kicked on in my playlist. I had turned the volume up a little bit before my run since most of my Christmas songs are a little quieter and I wanted to be able to hear and enjoy them, so when TSO started, it was pretty much blasting in my ear. When I hit K's property again, I could see that she wasn't out in the jumping ring any more and I didn't think any more about it. The trail was pretty in this area so I decided to slow to a walk and get a picture of me. I had just started running again when I felt something grab my hair braid hanging out from under my headband and hat! Of course I spazzed and spun around freaking out. That brat K had jumped her horse over the creek, snuck up on me (easy to do with my music being that loud), and encouraged Shotzi (yep, thats the horse's name. Long story.) to nibble at me! Once I knew what was going on, I just about fell over laughing, but THEY SCARED THE CRAP OUT OF ME (a real possibility since I hadn't relieved myself before leaving on my run and had already had the "is this a fart or do I need to pull a SUAR and start looking for a secluded spot" thought train)! The funniest part (for K, at least), was that Shotzi was so darned proud of himself. He was prancing and tossing his head as if he was thinking "Ha ha! I got you! Did you see me, mom? I got her!" Yes, in my mind, he has the voice of an excited little boy. He usually acts like it too. lol.

The rest of my run was (thankfully) slow and uneventful. And I realized my brother was home as soon as I ran up our driveway ...

I guess since we aren't really putting up Christmas decorations this year with all the renovations going on, little brother decided it was necessary to at least decorate the front porch. Yep, Santa rides a Harley at our house. It let me end my run on a smile, at least. :)

HBBC Week 3 Summary and New Shoes!

It doesn't really show in my HBBC points, but I'm a little disappointed in my workouts for this week. After my run last Saturday, I crawled in bed and didn't surface again, really, until Monday night. Stupid sinus infection. I've been feeling the after-effects of the sinus issues and my lack of healthy eating while I was sick for the rest of the week.

Also, I've been thinking for a while that it's time to buy some new running shoes. My trail shoes still have a ton of miles on them, but my road shoes (my asics) are already starting to break down and I wanted a spare pair of shoes to wear when I run through a puddle (or snow/slush) and my shoes don't dry out over-night. With a new pair of shoes, I can dedicate the new pair to JUST running and use my older pair for x-training as well.

So, when Dave's Running was having their "Black Friday" sale on that epic nasty and wet Tuesday not that long ago, I went and bought myself an early Christmas present ...

They're Saucony Progrid Ride 4s. I was a little irked about having even more PINK in my workout wardrobe, but I'm loving these shoes so far. I've never had Sauconys before (I was pretty loyal to Adidas before I started running and gave asics a try), so I wasn't exactly sure what to expect. I took them out for the first time today (wanted to wait for a nice dry day) and LOVED THEM! I could feel the difference in the cushion under my heels and my knees didn't ache after. Even with running into the wind for half the time, I set an awesome pace for me, 11:07. If I can hold that pace for my 5k on NYE (actually, I was running the course for that race today), I'll PR. *crosses fingers*

Holy Guacamole, Rain Gods and HBBC Week 2 Summary

To use my darling cousin's phrase, "Mother Nature was PMSing again" Tuesday. [Oh, and I don't want to forget to mention that his using that phrase started a fb conversation between his wife, step-mother, and I that ended with him digging himself a hole so deep he had to cook his own dinner. lol] We literally had torrential downpours all day Tuesday and it is STILL making life a little difficult here in NW Ohio.

Yea, this is from the edge of my neighborhood looking north towards the village limits.
Of 4 ways out of town, 3 were flooded. Lovely.
And, yes, that is a car stuck in the flooded part of the road. Idiots.

Construction in our house is progressing. The dining room and living room have their first coat of green paint (which is still a bit of a shock, but I like the color ... I just don't like dad's idea to add the beadboard in the dining room) and most of the cracks and gaps in the drywall everywhere else are either filled or in the process of being filled.

And now onto the sum-up of HBBC, Week 2.

I didn't do 30-Day Shred nearly as much as I would have liked, and I included a lot of the time I spent packing boxes and moving furniture. I REALLY need to work on eating my fruits and veggies too. I guess I'm still learning.

Wish I had more time to write right now, but I'm just not feeling all that great right now.

Good luck to everyone racing this weekend.

HBBC Week 1

Week #1 of Holiday Bootie Buster Challenge was the kick in the pants i needed to be more consistent with my workouts. My goal for the entirety of the challenge is to do SOMETHING 6 days per week. So far so good.

Here's the run-down of this week's workouts and their points for HBBC. Note that I'll tally up my points for 30-Day Shred at the end because each workout spans several categories. My run-down will probably be much shorter next week, but I wanted to run through everything this first time and decide on a format that I like and will be able to continue using though the entire challenge. :)

Saturday, Nov. 19

- A sweet early morning run at Oak Openings with Dan. I was a bit miffed when my Garmin died after 3 seconds and even more so when I was a mile(ish) into the run and realized my side was hurting because we were keeping up a quicker pace than I normally do. Grr. At least I've run that trail several times before and have an approximate distance. (4 miles = 4 points)

Sunday, Nov. 20

- Jillian Michaels' 30-Day Shred: Level 1

- 1.5 mile walk on the treadmill while watching football (1.5 points)

- 2 mile run on the treadmill during halftime (2 points)

- I'm going to count my packing and moving boxes as part of my workout because it kicked my butt! I was still sore the next day! (45 minutes = 2 points)

Monday, Nov. 21

- JM 30-Day Shred: Level 1

Tuesday, Nov. 22

- Treadmill - walk 1.857

- Treadmill - run 2.553 ... I wanted to run further, but I was getting hungry. lol

Wednesday, Nov. 23

- I got in 20 minutes of weights before loading up the truck and heading to Illinois for Thanksgiving (1point)

Thursday, Nov. 24

- I got my recommended servings of fruits and veggies (1 point)

- and 2 miles walking (2 points)

Friday, Nov. 25

- I got my recommended servings of fruits and veggies (1 point)

So ... 2 days of JM 30-Day Shred = 2.4 points assuming Jillian's system is correct and you're doing 9 minutes of strength, 6 minutes of high impact cardio, and 3 minutes of abs.

In total, 21.31 points for Week 1. Not bad. I really want to work on getting my recommended servings of fruits and veggies and my consistency with working out. This week was a bit of a fluke with traveling for 3 days, but here's hoping I just keep getting better.

Holiday Bootie Buster Challenge Starts Tomorrow!

Holiday Bootie Buster Challenge starts tomorrow! Is it weird that I'm this excited? I already have 4 bonus points from the tweeting, facebook posting, and putting that lovely HBBC badge (you see on your right) on my little blog, but I want to get an early start. I'm planning on getting in an early morning run over at Oak Openings. It should be beautiful ... but a tad bit nipply. Luckily, the temperature will be right around where it was on my 11/11/11 run, so I know how to dress to be comfortable. I may even have some company. Annie volunteered her new husband, Dan, "BECAUSE he asked [her] if [she] wanted to, like he was excited about the idea ... and and he's been complaining about wanting to run since the beginning of this summer." Yep. Direct quote from the conversation on my facebook status. Haha. I warned him that I still run pretty slow, but he blew off my warning, so we'll see what happens. I want to do a 30DS as soon as I get back to the house after the run. If I don't knock it out right away, I know I won't find time to do it later in the day.

I'm still trying to figure out how to assign points to my workouts. JM's 30-Day Shred is a little bit of everything so I may just have to tally that up by week instead of day-to-day. Anyway, I plan on posting a weekly run-down of everything here (hopefully on Fridays) so you all can follow along and keep me on my toes. :)