Life, Love, and the Pursuit of Running

When I posted about my new “start fresh” plan, I didn’t really go into the details of what it is all about. So I wanted to let you know what my plans are all about.

My 20K training plan: The running group and I all wanted to do a summer race before our next half in October. Liz actually found a 20K that she wanted to run with her brother. When she told us about it, it was the perfect tim7ng..and a 20K is 1 mile less than a half marathon! We also wanted to do something a little different after 2 years of running with basically the same running plan. So I looked up Hal Higdon’s training plan since I’ve heard such great things about it. We went for the intermediate plan since we know how to run halfs by now. The main new thing for us here is the speed workouts which we haven’t done before…I’m pretty excited because I hope this will help improve our running even more. I ended up doubling a bit of the plan because we have more weeks than there was on the original plan.

New Rules of Lifting for Women: I read this book about a month ago, and because of time hadn’t actually had a chance to try it out. The great thing about this book is that it lays it all out for you, from giving you what you should do in each workout, to pictures and directions for each exercise. They also have a template for you to fill out for each workout. I’ve only done one day of it, but man am I sore! I’ll keep you updated on my progress!

Lose It: I’ve been using Lose It for a month or two, but off an on. But that was mostly due me traveling for half of April. One thing I love about Lose It is that it has goals and challenges you can be a part of. I started to track my intakes for the month of May and I’ve actually done it every day..I’m in first place! (tied with all others who are also on track). This definitely motivates me. This week with starting exercising daily again I’ve been under my calorie goal every day. Hopefully I can keep this up!

Bob Harper’s Skinny Rules: I really enjoyed this book and so far following the rules, I definitely see how it is helping. The major take aways I’ve been doing is: Eating less carbs after lunch, drinking water before every meal and as soon as I wake up, eating berries and apples every day, eating a real breakfast, and NO processed foods. It actually hasn’t been as hard as I thought to make these changes. I definitely can see these rules being part of my every day life moving forward.

What I’ve been eating lately: Breakfast: Plain greek yogurt with berries and toast with nut butter; White egg omelet with spinach on toast and berries Lunch: Tuna on toast and green salad with chicken and both with cucumbers and hummus