My next race! The Women's Run 5 mile, 6 days to go!

By clicking  HERE  you will find the site for one of my favorite races. The race this year in on May 7th.  It is one of my favorites .for several reasons

1. Its a fast course, no hills only some slight elevation.
2. It's the first race I ever did.
3. It's one of the biggest, well probably is the biggest race I do. 
4. There isn't a lot of turns so you can really keep on eye on the people in front of you.

Last year I was 7th in my age group and  I think 16th overall.  My age group has some really fast runners! I am hoping it will be warm enough to wear my new running skirt (please please cooperate weather).  As of today it is forecasted to be 69 next Saturday, hopefully at 8 am it will be sunny and I will be happy with mid forties if it is sunny! However, it is calling for showers :(  My goal is to beat last years time of  36:01 by thirty seconds.  Not a real lofty goal I know, but I don't feel like I have done very much speedwork outside due to weather.

I haven't had a race since April 9th, so I am excited and raring to go.  May is full of races, so excited!

Where is Spring? and bodyrockin'

I was really hoping for a weekend as nice as last weekend, but I woke up so snow again this morning.  Boo.  That is the third time in eight days I have woke up to snow.  Forecast for today is high of 51 and chance of showers all day.  Plus cold wind. It looks super windy out there  I think I will wait until this afternoon to run when it warms up a little.  I don't mind running in the cold and I am tired of running in the cold and I want to run in the warm sunshine in my shorts and bare arms.  So, for this morning I will start with a Bodyrock workout. If you have never heard of Bodyrock.tv you should check it out. My big sis told me about it last October and I was skeptical until I tried it and since then I have been HOOKED!  They post new workouts every week as well as diet challenges (that I am not good about following, but that is another story). The workout for today isn't up yet so I will go back and do an old one.  There are easily over 300 different workouts to choose from.  They are designed for you to be able to do them at home with minimal equipment, a lot of the workouts are body weight only.  These workouts really kick my butt and best yet the site is entirely FREE!  Check it out at the link below and tell me what you think!

http://www.bodyrock.tv/

Some of my favorite bodyrock workouts include

1. Sexy Beast (dive bombers are my favorite)

2. Hotel Room Workout (great bodyweight workout)

3. Give Me a Reason

4. Survivor Workout

5. 550 Rep Workout

6. Hot Warrior Workout

7. Harder Than Ever (I discovered I COULD to clapping pushups!)

This is Zuzanna.  Her husband Freddy and her do the bodyrock site.  As you can see she is one buff looking chic. She swears all she does is her bodyrock workouts and she eats pretty clean.

I find her rather adorable and fun to follow.  I don't have all the equipment she does, but I have enough and can make things around make house work to mimic the equipment I don't have.

She also uses a sandbag a lot and I have an old tote bag filled with rice I use instead.  I have heard of others substituting backpacks full of weights, sugar etc, be creative!

I have learned a lot of fun new moves, like the one arm press up and dive bombers.  A lot of the workouts are high intensity interval training.  Most are twenty minutes or shorter, which is part of why I was skeptical.

 

I don't have the dip station but two chairs work almost as nicely.

When you are done with one of her workouts, you are glad! I have been a bodyrocker for 6 months now and still am not bored.  I never could do videos as after I had done them 5 or six times I was bored of the video.  Anyone else a bodyrocker?

My Trainer

In January of 2010 I cashed in my change bucket and "won" a Garmin Forerunner 305 on Ebay. I am always so excited when I win something on Ebay. I know I don't  really win" because I have to pay for it, but I bid on it against others and got it.  To me that is like winning! How fun right!

           Of course it was bitterly cold and windy when it finally arrived in the mail three days later.  I was so excited to use it, how did I not know about these before?  I had been running with a stopwatch, HA! Who really does that these days? Well, I was so there probably are others who haven't been educated too.  The heartrate monitor chest strap was slightly large so I had to tuck it into my sports bra so I didn't end up running with it flopping around my hips. I never really got used to it and quit using it after about 10 runs, but the watch transformed my running forever.
       
           No longer did I have to measure out runs with my car and hope it was right. No longer did I have to guess how fast, or slow, I was going because now I know! Occasionally I run without it now just for the joy of running, but it bugs me too because then the run isn't properly logged in my Training Center.  Once I even raced without it, but only because I got to the race and the batteries were dead.  Oops.  Although I did have a personal best at that race, I still will wear it to every race I can because I like to know how fast I am going and how far I have to go!  In retrospect I could have gone with the Forerunner 205 as it is all the 305 is but has no heart rate monitor.  Plus it is blue and I like blue better than red.  Someday I would like to upgrade to the 405.  I drool over the pretty green one every time I see it, but it's pretty pricey and I live on a tight budget.

      I know some people name their Garmin Forerunners, I never really did except I do refer to it as my Kickass Running Trainer  :) Maybe not real original but when you consider that before all I had was a stopwatch, my Forerunner 305 is really pretty kickass!  I love it. My only complaint so how bulky it is, I got the velcro strap to replace the band it came with and that helped quite a bit, but it still doesn't feel like a great fit.

1st Post!

I guess I have to start somewhere!  I have been finding all kinds of blogs about running and was awake in the middle of the night thinking I should really start my own to blog about what my husband calls my obsession with running!  First to tell a bit about myself, I am a

WIFE
MOTHER

SURGICAL NURSE

COWGIRL

BOOKWORM
RELUCTANT COOK, LAUNDRESS, AND MAID

AND OF COURSE RUNNER

I already have a blog about my kids, but I felt this blog should be separate since I have blogged for three years about my kids, it would feel weird to suddenly add in my running obsession and alter the focus of the blog.  This blog is about ME! Selfish perhaps, but as every mother knows if you don;t make time for you, YOU gets lost and forgotten in all of the time it take to be a mother, wife, and person of employment!

A little on my history of running.  I don't ever remember not running.  We ran around the yard, we ran around the hills.  I loved and still do the feeling of running.  Why would you ever want to walk when you can RUN! I ran cross country in high school and did sprints and jumping in track, which I was fairly good at and fairly fast. I would still have a school record in the long and triple jump if the school hadn't have been burned to the ground and all the records with it.  Boo! I ran for fun and fitness for years but after I had my second child I ran for stress relief and the opportunity to be by myself for a few precious minutes.  No one bugging me, needing things from me..just me and the blessed outdoors. 

        In 2009 I ran a 5 mile race but no more, but it started an ITCH an itch that had to be SCRATCHED! 2010 came around and I ran every race I could locally including my first two half marathons! The picture above is me after my first 5k of 2011.  I won my age group and had a time of 22:15  :)  I wasn't sure what to expect after a very long and very cold winter.  I have no treadmill only an elliptical and I live out of town so skipping over to a gym to use one is not an option. I am on a budget so I can't afford to anyway or to buy one.  Someday maybe :) I was very pleased with my time and went on to run the next two races even faster.       

        The Purple 5k two weeks later, which was really 2.98miles according to my trusty Garmin,  I ran with a pace of 6:54 minute miles.  My goal was to get under 7 minute miles so hooray on this one.  The next race GASP my Garmin was DEAD and I had to run all on my own!  Much to my surprise I ran it in 20:11 or 6:48 minute miles, but they messed up on getting my name torn off my bib number (no chip timing here) and I gave it to them 2 minutes after I finished so my official time was messed up and I don' have it on my Garmin so I feel like it doesn't really count.  tears of sadness.