Saturday, January 28, 2012

Weekly Recap
Total Mileage : 43 miles
1/22/12 -1/28/12

Sun: 8 miles (Edwards Park)
- Ran great today. I decided to run at Edwards Park, which has a 2 mile course to run on. I need to run here sometimes to pick up some speed (id you want to call it speed). It give me a chance to lengthen my stride out rather than running on the trails with switchbacks slowing me down, however I believe it make me stronger. For some reason I always tend to run well on Sundays. I feel it's probably because I usually get a rest day before hand and tend to eat more on the weekends.

Mon: 6 miles (Raisin Woods)
- A little sluggish and sore from the day before. A little slower, but I probably needed the slower pace.

Tues: 7 miles (Raisin Woods)
- Felt great! Finally the sun decided to show itself after days and days of clouds and rain. Very warm also which helped. Also, ran in my NB minimus shoes, my feet are starting to come along and getting used to it. I feel a lot faster when I run in my minimalist shoes. Upping the mileage in them and soon will hopefully be upping the days running in them also.

Wed: 6 miles (Edwards Park)
- Bad day running, just felt slow and didn't really even feel like running. Could hardly to get my legs to go. Just one of those bad days

Thur: 6 miles (Raisin Woods)
- Felt good, nothing special. The trail was nothing but wet and mud. Another good day in the NB minimus shoes.

Fri: 10 miles (Raisin Woods)
- Decent run. Could tell it had been 2 wks or more since I've ran that long. Feels good to get a longer run in. Didn't get to go anywhere special this week. Hopping next week will be different. I may be sweeping up a trail for a mountain bike race. If I do so it will be the first part of the trail, so hopefully my stops will be minimal.

Sat: off
- Spent most of the day standing up working at the hospital. I really want to get into PT school. Every time I work over there it just confirms all the more it's the path I want to take my career!

Saturday, January 21, 2012

Weekly Recap
Total Mileage : 27 miles
1/15/12 -1/21/12

Sun: Off

Mon: 7 miles
 - Felt great this run. Took it a little slower than I could have gone. I just didn't want to kill myself at the start of the week. Plus my younger brother (freshman stud in high school) ran with me, and he is in the process of getting into shape for track season, so I stayed back with him to help push him along.

Tues: 5 miles (Starting to get sick)
- For the run I felt great, but right after it the flood of a stopped up head, chills, and aches came upon me. Felt like I could have been running a fever at night. Not a fun night.

Wed: Off (Sick)
- Running Nose, Coughing, Sneezing, Chills, Aches = Bed All Day and Catching up on How I Met Your Mother on Netflix

Thur: 5 miles (Sick)
- Starting to feel better. The run actually went OK. Probably should not have run at all, but I'm an idiot!

Fri: 5 miles
- Feeling much better, just wish my run would have done the same. Just felt tired and had dead legs. Maybe effects from being sick

Sat: 5 miles
- Did not want to run at all and the run reflected it for sure. I wanted to get a little bit more in for the week so I would be too far behind

Overall the week was plagued with sickness. My original goal was to get in 35 miles for the week, but 27 was not bad considering I got sick. Thank God it was my down week. Ready to put some miles up these next 3 weeks! 4 weeks till my 1st race of the year. I'm hoping to add in some leg circuits and general strength exercise to my routine.

Saturday, January 14, 2012

Week Summary
1/8/12 - 1/14/12

Total Milage: 45 miles
Sun: 7 miles
Mon: 7 miles
Tues: 8 miles
Wed: 5 miles
Thurs: 10 miles
Fri: 8 miles
Sat: Off

Topped off at 45 miles this week!!!!  It's been a long time since I've hit that mark. My body can also tell it hasn't ran that much in a long time also (A little sore). Sunday my younger brother ran with me which pushed me greatly that day (Took me awhile, but eventually dropped him). I felt great on Sunday, not sure if it was my brother with me or what, but it was one of those good days where you feel you can run forever and as fast as you want too. However, pushing it Sunday made my next three days (Monday - Wednesday) of running sluggish. Monday I was just outright sore, Tuesday I had nothing but dead legs, and Wednesday was also another dead leg day where I just couldn't seem to get a rythm at all. On Thursday my legs decided to come back from the dead a little, good for me since I decided to get 10 in, because I went to visit some old college friends that day and wasn't sure how Friday would go. Also for a side note Sunday - Thursday was nothing but stright rain, wind, and mud (luckly on the warm side though). Friday I had a decent run and it was a beautiful day, but it freezing cold with wind. Overall I had an ok week. Glad to have gotten in the mileage, but just felt a little slow with the exception of Sunday. Also, I like to add that didn't run in my minimalist running shoes. I wanted to let the bottom of my feet heal. Next week is my down week, so it will give my body a little rest!

I didn't go anywhere special this week. I just ran at Raisin Woods the whole week since the weather was not so great. Also had to work on Saturday which didn't help to get me going anywhere.

Off the topic of running I finished a great read. I finished Tim Tebow's Through My Eyes. What's crazy is that I finished it on the night he won in overtime againist the Steelers. I highly recommend it. As I'm typing this the Broncos are currently getting destroyed, but despite that fact he is truely a competitor and is a highly dedicated individual of becoming better in all aspects of his life. It's inspiring to read how hard he has worked to overcome the adversity he faced.

Sunday, January 8, 2012

Weeks Mileage: 39 Miles
1/1 - 1/7
Sun: Off
Mon: 7 miles
Tues: 6 miles
Wed: 8 miles
Thurs: 7 miles
Fri: 11 miles
Sat: Off

I had a great week upping the mileage a little. To be clear I didn't start at 36 miles last week, I started roughly 4 weeks ago getting very low mileage in the 20s, getting up to last weeks total of 36 miles. I'm just ready for the point where about an hour is minimal of what I do for a run. My workout plan for running is upping mileage for 3 weeks then tappering down for a week, and picking it back up the following week.

On Monday me and my dad had big plans to go up to Woody Gap on the Application Trail, and run from there to the top of Blood Mountain. Beautiful day by the way, but when we arrived we didn't take into account how cold it would be. Cold is no problem running in, but whenever you add in the wind, it is stright aweful and dangerous (especially trial running). It was 24 degrees with wind blowing 20 to 25 mph, plus wind gusts being at 45+ is definitally a no go. Just imagine running on a distant trail, getting warm working up a sweat underneath your layers of cloths, then falling breaking something, not a good situation at all. The run would have been an 18 mile total run, really not a problem I used to run this part of the AT over a year ago to train for the StumpJump 50K, but in reality I didn't need to overdue myself in this run. So, later I had to opt for the usual Raisin Woods Mountain Bike Park, which I ran for the whole week with the exception of Friday.

Firday was a great day to run on the Pinhoti Trail, which is not far from my house, and ran from Snake Creek Gap to a little past Pilchers Pound to get in 11 miles. Great trail, but very technical though. I was going to do my long run on Saturday but rain was expected and I didn't want to run in the mud. It was a rough run, more of a mental run. I never could get a rythm or anything, plus I kept tweeking my right ankle 4 or 5 times that I badly sprung (heard a loud pop when it happened) about a month ago. Lets just say way off of my usual time. On the bright side it was a beautiful warm day making it pleasent to be in the woods and I was being active.

                                                            Pilcher's Pound (5 miles in)


Finally Finished

Sunday, January 1, 2012

Well cheers to a Happy New Year! 2012! Wooo! I figured I would start blogging for reasons I really don't know why. I believe it's more or less for me to inspire myself and hopefully others in running/staying fit/living healthy. I made this blog awhile ago but never seemed to feel like writing till now. I intend to mainly to use this as a training tool to keep me on my toes and hopefully add in other things along the way. Not going to lie, I mainly got the idea of doing this by just looking at only 2 blogs, and keeping up with them, lately. The first is Anton Krupicka (highly recommend, his blog truely inspires me to keep running) and Coach Jay Johnson (I just enjoy reading about different workouts/coaching, pretty much anything that deals with the sport of XC).

So, to start off a little about me, not the best at grammer/spelling (hoping to get better with every blog lol). I'm a recent college graduate with a degree in exercise science. I have been running ever since I started in middle school. I was fortunate to be able to run in Junior College and also Division II. With that being said I am by far not crazy fast, but had worked hard to be able to achieve running in college (always last on conference team, but hey I made conference team!!! lol). I am currently trying to get back into shape, but more for the longer distances (I like to say I have retired from 5K and 8K, give me anything from half marathon plus). Current goal is to compete in the Rock/Creek Trail Series. Also, other life goal besides running is getting into Physical Therapy School (just one pre req and GRE test left before apply later in the year). Overall, I just want to be healthy and fit (notice my Blog name) and running is how I do that. It truely has been part of half my life. However, I am human and I lack in certain areas like lifting and nutrition, which I know and one day will tackle it all I hope.

This Weeks Total Mileage: 36 miles
 12/25 - 12/31
Sun - 5 miles
Mon - 7 miles
Tues - 6 miles
Wed - 5 miles
Thurs - 5 miles
Fri - off
Sat - 8 miles

I had a great first week. All the mileage was at Raisin Woods Mountain Bike Park in Dalton, GA. It's a great place to run trails that is close. Also, for Christmas on Sunday I got the New Balance Minimus shoes, what can I say I'm an Anton Krupicka fan and am jumping on the band wagon. I ran Sunday - Wednesday in the minimus shoes (knowing I should not have done that, but did anyways) and had to switch back over to my regular ones for the rest of the week. However, for the most part I am very pleased at how well I have adapted to them, yes it is the first week, but being at low mileage I know has benefited me greatly into the minimus transition. I can tell a big difference in my feet/ankle/calf how minimalist running shoes are working me compared to regular running shoes (and yes the book Born to Run got me curious in the whole minimalist running idea, a must read by the way)

Old Picture (I'm the blonde in the middle in purple)
"Oh How I Miss The Junior College XC Days" - Go Young Harris Mountain Lions!!