All posts by Lauren @ mostly i run

About Lauren @ mostly i run

Wife. Web Developer. Kitty Momma. Runner. Singer. Triathlete. Shoe Collector. Blogger.

workout update

core challenge, i like to run.

On Tuesday night, we had 10 hill repeats on the schedule. If you haven’t been following along,  we’ve been running 200 meters up a bridge. My prescribed pace is 63 seconds, and most of the time, I’ve been hitting or exceeding my goals.

We had another rainy day and I really wasn’t looking forward to it. But it wasn’t quite as cold as last time. And I really didn’t want to run my hills on the treadmill again!

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Yeah … that last lap only looks like it was  too slow.  There were only four of us that braved the rain (that turned to drizzle and stopped) … Two guys and two girls. The guys were faster, and one of them thought it would be funny to move the marker on us. We ran about .01 too far. It makes a difference when you’re only running for a minute!

My only other run was on Saturday this week. It was a sunny day, about 60F. Lovely!

We didn’t have too much time so we just planned a loop through town for a little over six miles. We had to get back in time for another boot camp session!

There’s a trainer in town that offers occasional free classes. I’m going to try to do them as often as I can since they’re really good workouts!

We started with a half-mile warmup run around the track (well, we were already warmed up, but I always like the extra mileage!) and got to work.

After a variety of exercises including push-ups, tricep dips, sideways stair-climbing, medicine-ball passing and tethered running, we had a decent series of ab exercises. Perfect for my core challenge workout!

Core Challenge Week 2 Day 2

I don’t know the names of all the exercises we did, but they included reverse crunches, bicycle, passing a basketball from overhead to our feet and passing a 10-pound medicine ball from overhead to our knees. We finished off with a one-minute dolphin plank hold.

I’m pretty sore today. That means it’s working, right?

weekly winners: in the yard

furry babies, weekly winners,

weekly winners badge

When I was doing some yard work last weekend, I noticed the sunlight hitting the flowers. I had to take a break and snap some photos!

jane magnolia

jane magnolia

daffodil

We grilled and ate outside, and had some dinner guests. They were hoping for some leftover tuna!

Meadow is a stray that has lived in our yard since we bought our house almost nine years ago. We had her spayed and continue to feed her.

meadow

Little Guy started showing up close to a year ago. He’s really friendly so at first we suspected he was lost, but he’s still here pretty regularly.

little guy

Visit Lotus to see more Weekly Winners!

core challenge: week 2 day 1

core challenge

Wednesdays are normally rest days for me.  But I wasn’t sure when I’d be able to get my core workouts in this week.

I got started a bit late since I didn’t get home until almost 10pm, but it was definitely more productive than sitting in front of the TV with my laptop!

Now onto the workout …

I went old school today.

super stomachs

Yes, it’s really cheesy. And the music is horrible. And Denise Austin is wearing a scrunchie.

But the workout itself was quite good. It was about 30 minutes and mainly worked the abs, but incorporated some back exercises and stretches as well.

I could really feel it during some of the exercises, especially in the lower abs. Yes, I definitely will do this one again.

Next time I’m going to have to try another long plank. I was just trying to do something quick tonight!

race report: cherry pit 10 miler

i like to run.

It’s kind of nice that I so often run races without any expectations.  It’s even more exciting when I have a good race!

Today I ran the Cherry Pit 10-Miler — a local alternative to the Cherry Blossom 10 Mile Run in DC, also held today.

I ran the Cherry Blossom race once, and it was nice (though it rained that year!). I’m just as happy running my club’s version. It takes about 15 minutes to get to get there,  rather than at least an hour. And I don’t have to deal with the Metro and crowds. Plus today, I waited in line for less than five minutes for REAL restrooms. When I raced in DC the port-o-pot lines were so long that I didn’t get a chance to go before the race!

Our little race (less than 400 finishers) starts just south of Annapolis, but the surrounding area quickly changes from residential to farmland.  There’s beautiful scenery, I love running past the horses and cows. And we had a perfect day. The sun was shining, and it was probably in the mid-50s or low 60s when we started running.

I, of course, was a tiny bit overdressed (capri tights and long sleeve tech shirt layed under my race team singlet), but I was comfortable with pushed-up sleeves once it started warming up.

There was a bit of a tragedy just before we started. We went outside to line up, and my beloved Garmin wouldn’t turn on! A friend of mine said that happened to him once. Apparently if it’s being charged and there is an interruption in the power, it will shut itself down. I had it charging overnight, and didn’t turn it on until we lined up since we waited indoors.  He couldn’t remember what to do to fix it, so I had to run Garminless. (It’s fine now, I just had to look up the reset sequence.)

Luckily, I’m a gadget dork and I had backup — my iPod with Nike+. Unfortunately, it’s not always the most accurate  tracking mileage. Sometimes it tracks way too long, especially when I’m running slow. Lately I’ve been coming up short. It’s usually happy with my race pace  (well, my 5K race pace) — so I was hoping for the best!

It was helpful to have the timer … but I have no splits. I couldn’t even mentally do them because mile two was placed wrong — it was more like 1.5. We are positive we weren’t running seven minute miles!

The other markers seemed about right. We hit mile three at about 28 minutes. Not bad, not bad. Mile four was around 37. I didn’t catch my time at mile five, but it was well under 50 minutes, which would be in line with my previous 10-mile PR. I wondered if I could keep it up! (Also, if those mile markers were right!)

I kept hitting the miles at good times. When I had two miles to go, I pretty much knew I was looking at a new PR. And this is a hilly race!

I kept moving, and was feeling good.  There was little twinge in my hip flexor (which is not unusual), but fortunately mild. And a little achilles pain — likely due to the slope of the roads. But  not bad enough to slow me down.

I know at least once I accidentally paused my timer. I wondered how far off I was from the race clock. But the numbers were still good when I crossed the finish line.

Official time: 1:35:02

Previous 10-mile PR: 1:40:12

Now my first thought was that the course was short.  I checked with a couple people with functional Garmins, and it was spot on. My iPod didn’t do too badly today either,  with 10.14.

Awesome.  I had no idea I could carry a 9:30 pace for 10 miles!