Almost a Treadmill Marathon in Jamaica

Hellooooo, blogging world! I'm now a married woman!!

I feel like I've fallen off the face of the earth in wedding bliss! :) A full recap with pictures is forthcoming, as soon as I get some quality time to sit down and blog... but as for now, I just wanted to pop in while I have some downtime in Dallas and post about how running went while on our honeymoon in Jamaica!

A small recap: the day of the rehearsal dinner, I ran a tiny mile.

I will post more about the rehearsal dinner, wedding, and wedding weekend later :)

Once we got to Jamaica, it only took me a day to realize that I needed to exercise every day so I wouldn't gain 50 lbs while we were there. Fortunately, there was a fitness center.. so I ran on the treadmill every day.

The first day - 3 miles was so hard!!

JW (my husband!!) being silly behind me, just 2 tiny miles. Happy about negative splits!

SUPER happy about 4 miles. This run felt GREAT.

Pumped about 5 miles! Don't mind my husband. :D :D :D

5 miles again! This was difficult, but faster than the 5 miles the day before.

4 miles - almost done!

I finished it off with 2.25 miles - sad to leave Jamaica!

Apparently I can't count in Jamaica, because I thought I ran 26.2 miles total, but according to my recaps I only ran 25.25 miles. Fail!! I guess if you count my 1 mile the day of the rehearsal dinner, then it totaled 26.25 for the month of May... oh well! I still think 25.25 miles while on a honeymoon is really impressive.

After I got back, I jogged with my dog in Dallas:

Short but fun! 68 degrees and not too bad!

And then forgot my hair ties when I went to Austin to see my sister in law graduate:

I was SUPER annoyed.

And then I didn't get a chance to run until today, back in Dallas, outside again with my dog!

Slow, but I figured it's okay since I haven't run outside in 80 degrees much.

Phew! Lots and lots of running- treadmill running yes, but something is better than nothing, right?

Tomorrow the Peters family and I leave for Hawaii and I won't be back until Memorial Day! I'm not sure if I'll be able to post until then, but at least I got to update this little bit! :)

Awesome Weather, No Outside Running

Friday must be my day to run, because I took to the treadmill again last Friday and pounded out 4 miles.

I really hate the treadmill because I feel like it's making my Nike+ misrecord my actual time. Google is telling me that misrecord isn't an actual word but whatever. According to the treadmill, 4.25 miles in 42 minutes and 31 seconds is an Average Pace of 10 minutes a mile, almost to the dot. But that's of course after I had already slowed down. But, according to Nike+, I ran a 10'11" mile. Not accurate!! I feel anal about it because it's messing up my totals, haha!

Even though we've had some awesome, AWESOME weather this past week, I still can't force myself to go outside and run. I've grown so tired of running around downtown, even though the last time I did it was back in November.

There's just something about running around the same buildings, getting caught by the same red lights, dodging around the same smokers, that really just makes me tired even before I walk out the door.

But damn, you really can't beat those views!

Yoga is going well - I've been every day (sometimes twice a day) since I started on January 13, for a total of 16 classes so far. I'm doing good and can feel myself getting stronger! Makes me SUPER sweaty though...

Ick- practically see through!

I know you wanted to see that!

How are your workouts going?

Treadmill Miles Lately

I've ran on the treadmill three times since I last posted about running, so I decided to bunch them all in the same post. Honestly it's nothing of consequence - just some speed runs, to make sure my running fitness stays the same.

Once I started daily yoga on the 13th, I hadn't touched the treadmill. 6 days total! It had almost been a whole week of no running, but because of my new resolution, I forced myself to go to the gym:

For this workout, I started at 6.0 and went up in .5 increments every .5 miles.

Mile 0-0.5: 6.0 mph

Mile 0.5-1: 6.5 mph

Mile 1-1.5: 7.0 mph

Mile 1.5-2: 7.5 mph

Mile 2-2.5: 7.0 mph

Mile 2.5-3: 6.5 mph

My pretty face after all this was done:

Yumm, the taste of sweat.

Yoga's been going really well - I went to two classes yesterday, Hatha and Power, 6 hours apart from each other. It felt great. I can tell that I'm getting more flexible, my jaw pain is gone, and it's slowly etching away at all the stress that's accumulated in my brain from all the wedding stuff.

Wedding To-Dos For January: 

Finish Registering (We spent 3 hours at Macy's on Saturday... still not even halfway done!)

Find a Florist (nobody is e-mailing me back!)

Find Speakers/Sound Board for Reception

Book Honeymoon! (this is a HUGE stress)

Talk with our officiant 

Address and Send out Save The Dates (these should be coming in tomorrow! Can't wait to get this done..)

How are your work-outs going?

Football & Footpain

When I ran 2 miles on Tuesday night, I ran in my Nike Air Pegasus 29's on accident. I kind of forgot that I had them on, and I was too lazy to go back to our apartment and change into my Mizuno's once I realized I had on the wrong shoes. So, I ran in really old running shoes for 2 miles on the treadmill.

I've definitely felt it in my right foot since then - that, plus dancing in 3 inch platform shoes every night hasn't really been great for my arches. I rolled my arch on a tennis ball for a little bit last night, but it still doesn't really feel great.

Because, yes, you needed to see our dirty carpet and my unshaved leg.

So last night, when I ran another 2 miles on the treadmill, I was definitely feeling the pain in my foot and I think my performance suffered because of it. I was supposed to run at a 10'10'' pace, but that just wasn't happening.

On the TV: Conan, showing a spoof clip of the new Batman movie

According to the treadmill, I ran at a 10'57'' pace. According to Nike Plus, I ran at 10'24''. I still can't figure out - on the Nike app, why does it say that I hit 2 miles at 20:43 (the 2nd picture), but in my workout (the 1st picture) it says I did 2.07 miles in 21:32? Does that mean I did .07 miles in 49 seconds? And which pace do I go with?? 

Whatever. 

Today is a rest day, and so far I've spent it watching football. I rooted for OU this morning, and now of course I'm rooting for UT. So far it's not looking good. 

HOOK 'EM!!!

I Need Some Motivation

Sometimes I find that I have a really bad mentality about running. Lately, it's been "get it over with". Rather than getting excited about running and spending some time for myself, I've been sort of dreading it. Is this a sign of being burnt out? Should I dial back the miles? Should I forget about getting a PR in the half in December?

I've had a great excuse for running on the treadmill so much - the weather has been awful here lately. Rainy, cold, and the sun sets at 4:30pm. Yesterday, I had a full day on my plate - to add to it, I overslept. My voice lesson, which was 45 minutes away, was at 10- and I woke up at 9:15. Whoops. I had to quickly stop at the bank before I left, and miraculously made it to my voice teacher's house only 5 minutes late.

Well, you'd think that was the end of my problems- nope. The lesson ran long, I had to get gas on my way to my acting lesson, and I had nothing to eat. I had to run inside the gas station and grab the only thing that sort of resembled a meal - a box of Pop Tarts. Pop Tarts! It was that or a bag of Doritos. I mean... ugh. I had to call the acting teacher about 5 minutes before class started to tell him I was running late. When I got there, he gave all of us a lecture about what being on time meant. Yikes. The lesson lasted for 3 hours, which I struggled through - two Pop Tarts isn't the best kind of fuel.

After that, I had to run 3 miles and go to a yoga class. I got home and figured - just get it over with. So, even though I could have run outside, I ran on the treadmill. 3 miles, nothing special. No speed work, no nothing. Just mindless running.

My yoga class went really well. I finally did a headstand, and when I got home, got to a place where I could actually lift my torso up and start lifting up my legs! Yesss. I've been working on that for this whole month. I'd love to be able to do a handstand, but my upper body just isn't strong enough yet.

Well, this afternoon, this is what it looks like outside:

Beautiful, right? I have 6 miles on the docket to complete today and I'm just not feeling the motivation to go out there and run. I know it's cold, I know it'll be an hour of running (how funny that 4 hours of running seems like a lifetime ago) and I kind of just want to sit here and work until my yoga class at 6.

What's wrong with me?? Shouldn't I just be itching to go run outside?? Why am I so unmotivated? Is it because I'm about to go home for Thanksgiving? Is it because I'm stressed about taking our engagement pictures next week? (We finally booked a photographer - score!) Is it just completely unrelated and I'm doing too much running?

Le SIGH. Any motivation tips?

Cheesecake and Running

Last Thursday, JW surprised me by meeting me at the mall where my rehearsal was and took me to Red Robin where we split a hamburger, and then walked over to The Cheesecake Factory to get some cheesecake. Pre-birthday celebration!

S'mores Cheesecake

30th Anniversary Cheesecake

Then we walked over to Ruth's Chris and partook in their happy hour.

Yummy wine and lemon drop :)

our relationship in a nutshell

The bartender noticed it was close to our birthdays - JW's is on November 20th - so he gave us these Rattlesnake shots, which was Kahlua, Bailey's, and creme de cacao. It was DELICIOUS.

Rattlesnake Shots

After we walked back home, I decided it was a good idea to run 6 miles on the treadmill. Ha-ha! I had to stop 3 different times. Yeahhh.

It was a dismal run. Ugh. Soooo bad.

On Saturday I skipped my 5.5 mile planned run and just went right onto the 11 miler on Sunday. On the treadmill. May not have been the best idea, but oh well.

Felt a LOT faster on this run, and just better overall. I've been really slacking on running lately and I feel bad about it, so I hope to make this week a lot better since next week I'll be in Dallas and tapering for the half. Hopefully the weather will be nice enough that it feels good to run outside. I'm still kind of battling a semi-cold so I'm trying not to push it.

This'll be the first month since July that I'll be running less than 100 miles in a month - why does that make me feel weird?? I keep trying to find a way to fit in 30 extra miles but I mean, come on. That's not gonna happen.

I feel like this week will FLY by - I'm leaving on Sunday for Thanksgiving in Dallas, and until then, I'll just be catching up on work, running, going to yoga, and packing. Eep.

Feeling Sluggish

I feel like I've been kind of sucking these last few days. Not committing to my running schedule OR my yoga schedule (I didn't go from Sunday - Wednesday because of this sinus infection) has made me feel flaky and unorganized. I hate it!!

Yesterday I ran a dismal 3 miles on the treadmill. I suppose I was still "recovering" from the half marathon I ran on Monday, but still. I wanted to run 6, but NOPE. My body barely ran 3. I had to stop and walk. What is going on!!

Ick.

I'm taking a step in the right direction, though. I went to yoga this afternoon and am planning on running 6ish miles today to get back in the swing of things. This'll be the last week where I can get some actual training in before I start tapering the week of Thanksgiving. Can't believe it's almost here!

Tomorrow is my 25th birthday!! :D