Tuesday, November 29, 2011

New Title Explanation and other ramblings

You may have noticed that we have a new blog title - "Die Fische haben keine Beine".
This translates into "fish have no legs".

I know a certain Canadian living in Alaska that may get a kick out of this title, as this is one of the German phrases I taught her and she uses it well haha. It has no deeper meaning, just a product of me being a master of the obvious in German class ;-)

Just thought it was time for a change and since I'm usually rambling about us Fischers going running, it seemed appropriate :)

Speaking of rambling... I have some more for you!

Last night Lukas and I decided to check out "map my run" after I came home cranky and frustrated and needing to get out and work off some energy. I HATE that it is dark by the time I get home from work on Mon/Fri and none of the parks by us have lights. Seriously people, do you think all joggers have no jobs and only use the park during the daylight? Ridiculous... especially when we are still having 50/60 degree weather at the end of November... we need light!

So after finding no where to run, we decided we need to make our own running path and this is where 'map my run' comes into play. It is a free site where you can do just like the title implies - map your run. It will tell you the distance and elevation change and even your average speed and calories burned if you put in all your personal and workout information - not bad! We found a 3.3 mile loop from our house, up the road at about a 200ft elevation change, and back. A little nervous about this path because Lukas had run it before and said it is difficult with the constant incline on the way up and downhill all the way down, but if the weather dries up tomorrow night we may just give it a try.

Today is a yucktastic rainy day tho, so I will be attempting a 5k inside at the gym. Wish me luck... I'm sure I'll add to this post afterward to complain or share my good run ;-)
.........................................

Yep, definitely time to compain ... ahhhhhhhhhhhh! I made it 1.6 miles but the ITBS knee pain started and I forced myself to stop. I wanted to push through it and just keep going but I KNOW from experience that is just bad bad bad news.

I am so frustrated tho... I want to scream and cry and kick things :( I am going to go back down to just running 2 miles and see if I can get through that without pain... once I can do that I will work my way slowly up probably 1/2 a mile at a time if I can. Apparently jumping from 2 - 3.2 was a bad idea but man... it felt SO good last Thursday... I hate this rehab crap!!

*sigh* ... time to suck it up and get back to work... whine whine boo hoo...

Monday, November 28, 2011

5k time again, yay!!!

First of all - I hope everyone had a Happy Thanksgiving! Ours was good - good family time, good food, and good deals on Black Friday - can't complain! My dad and sister and her 3 kids came out to my mom's house for a few days and we went down 2 days to see them all. Stole some time with my dad on Saturday to take him out to lunch for his birthday and chat which was really nice. Always good to see everyone more than just once a year :)

Thanksgiving morning I went out and ran a 5k by our house while the hubby played football. I was so proud of myself that I was able to make it the whole way AND I ran it in 33:25 - only 10 seconds slower than my PR from October! YAY! I had a bit of knee pain for the last half mile but I couldn't stop at that point - fortunately stretching and rolling it out helped a lot and I felt fine for the rest of the day.

I did end up walking 3 or 4 times because I was running too fast at first and I also had some knee pain towards the end and needed a minute to let it calm down. Even with those few short walks tho I still had a great speed for me. Leads me to believe that I am getting faster inspite of the break I had to take for ITBS recovery and gives me hope that I can get to my goal of a 5k in 30 min early next year - we shall see!

Training plan is as follows: 5k 2-3 x's a week - 2 days on the treadmill and then saturdays outside - not pushing the tempo too much, just building my endurance and muscles back up from a month of walk/run/walk/run rehab. Once we get back from Germany in January we will start half marathon training so I need to be at a steady 5k pace by then. Soooo happy that my rehab plan is going well - just need to make sure I keep strength training on my legs.

3.5 weeks until we leave for vacation in Germany! Unfortunately our dog sitter needs surgery so we are on the lookout for a new one. A little stressful but we have a few leads so hopefully that will work out. Def. don't want to be worried about our big fuzzy monster while we are on the other side of the ocean :-/ Looking forward to a nice long vacation and it will be nice to see Luke's family and friends for the holidays. He is getting super excited whic makes me happy - it has been 2 year since he was able to go home so I'm definitely glad we were able to afford it this year.

Hope everyone's between holiday time is going well - remember to enjoy the season and time with family and friends!

Thursday, November 17, 2011

Kettlebells kicked our butts!

On Sunday we took dessert over to a new couple in our ward at church to get to know them a little better. She is super adorable and so nice so I decided we needed to be friends :) We had a great time chatting with them over cheesecake, yum!
At one point we were talking about hobbies and mentioned that we like to run and use the climbing wall. She chimed in that she really likes to exercise and as she is super tiny and fit I fully believe that!
Then yesterday I got an email from her inviting us to come to a Kettlebell class at the fitness center she attends. What is a kettlebell you ask? Well here is a picture for you:


So imagine alternating exercises with 1 and 2 of these, swinging them around, doing arm lifts, doing squats and lunges while passing them between your legs... yes, lots of craziness! Now throw in there jumping jacks, jackknives, flutter kicks, pushups and all other sorts of torture and that basically describes the 45 min class we took with her lol. Honestly it was a lot of fun and a great workout - inspite of the fact that I was one of the few people using a 5lb bell haha... Luke had 15lbs and our friend had 20lbs... so I'm a wuss, it is really ok with me :)

I am REALLY uncoordinated and Luke and I definitely ran into eachother a few times - awesome couple that we are haha.  If she isn't too embarassed by us hopefully we can go back again sometime, hehe. I really need an iphone to be able to document with pictures these silly things that we get ourselves into!

After that awesome class we decided we REALLY like classes and want to do more. That gym might be a little out of our price range but the YMCA by us is a little more reasonable and has lots of classes so we are going to go take a tour and try one out next week if it works out. They don't have a kettlebell class there, nor do they have our friend, which makes her gym much better... but I'll take what I can get.

Another awesome thing about this class and others like it is the cross-training opportunity that I've been wanting and really needing! My thighs are SO sore today but I can tell that all of the sore muscles are ones that I've been needing to strengthen for running - fantastic! If I could do classes like that for a couple months I really think our Spring half-marathon training would be a lot more successful. We'll see in the new year... maybe a gym membership can weasel its way into our budget :)

Until then, Luke is taking a rest day and I am off to decide if I want to attempt a jog or just go for the elliptical. I am on day 4 of gym days for the week and feeling good about getting a full 6 days in this week! 5 more full weeks to lose those last 5lbs I've been carrying around since Winter 2007... I can do it!! And my running rehab is going ok... I overdid it on Tuesday and had sore knees yesterday so I'll have to scale back if I do run today (or tomorrow which is more likely after that butt-kicking class yesterday haha).

Yay for progress, yay for new friends, and yay for butt-kicking classes! :)

Wednesday, November 9, 2011

Germany here we come!!!

Some news that has nothing to do with jogging for once.... we are going to Germany for Christmas! Yay! We will stay there for about 11 days which will be a really nice break from work and nice for Luke to see his friends and family. Will be hard to stay with other people for so long but as it is over Christmas and New Years I'm sure the time will fly by since we will be so busy. We got non-stop tickets which is fantastic too... hate all of those layovers when we are flying overnight... makes it easier to sleep if you never have to get off the plane!

We have an awesome dog sitter that will come stay with Winston so I won't have to worry about him too much... even tho I probably will because that is what I do hehe. I will miss my big fuzzy dog but I'm looking forward to the vacation for sure!

15 days until Turkey Day - looking forward to seeing my dad and maybe my sister and her kids if they come too - let the insanity begin! :)

Rehab running, I'll take what I can get!

I was good all last week and did not run at all at the gym but in the nice sunny weather on Saturday I could not resist! Lukas and I went up to the reservoir and I ran 1.1 miles (1 lap) with him and then walked 2 more laps and then ran another .25 at the end. Probably that last part that ended up making my knees hurt later... silly me. I couldn't resist tho... I'm an addict and this withdrawl is bad stuff! haha

I forced myself to just do the bike on Monday and have been using the foam roller daily and stretching which seems to be helping. Soooo I decided I should start running this week :) I came up with a great plan for walk/jog/walk but then ignored it once I was at the gym haha.

I was able to jog 1.8 miles of my 5k and still did the whole walk/jog 5k in 36 minutes so I was pretty happy with that. Walked between 13-14 min/mile and ran at 10 min/mile. I think the alternating between walking and jogging is really going to help in my rehab, lets me run so I don't go insane, but keeps my IT band and knees from getting stressed out. Will try to tone it down a bit tomorrow and not go overboard like yesterday but *sigh* it is just so hard to walk sometimes when you just want to RUN :)

One thing I'm still neglecting is my strength training... that is going to be essential for staying injurgy free when I start jogging so I really need to get on that. I keep saying I will do it at home but it never happens... maybe tonight? Maybe tomorrow? haha

Tuesday, November 1, 2011

No race day for us :(

The sad truth is that we will not be racing this coming Saturday. My IT Band issues are worse and I couldn't even run 2 miles without it being a problem and making me limp on that side. Glad I gave up after 2 tho and just did the elliptical because it was sore and painful on Sat. and Sun. ... don't even want to think how much it would have hurt if I had tried to run more!

I cried a little at the gym when I told Luke I needed to stop and the compression band was not helping... fortunately it was our work gym and no one else was there on the weekend. He gave me a hug and I stopped being a baby ;-) I am just really frustrated and disappointed but o well... it happens to seasoned runners too so it is not like I did anything wrong or there is anything wrong with me. I will just have to stay off the treadmill for 2 weeks, stretch a lot, and hope to slowly build back up to a 5k by the end of the month with luck. I guess the elliptical and the stationary bike are going to be my new best friends for a few weeks.... LAME haha but better than nothing.

Luke decided not to do the race either - we will both train over the Winter and shoot for a faster and stronger half marathon in the Spring together.

All in all training was great and I made A LOT of improvement... here are a few highlights:

March - started at 15 min/mile - could barely run 1 mile
Now - My fastest 1 mile pace is 9:24, my fastest long run pace (8 miles) was 10:30/mile, my best outside 5k pace is 33 min, and my longest run was 9.5 miles total - not too shabby for 6 months of work!

I also lost 15 lbs and went down 2 jeans sizes which is always good... 5 more lbs to go until all of my "graduate school" weight is gone and I'm back down to around what I was 4 years ago when we got married. Very enjoyable side effects :)

So... I'll stop my whining, be grateful for what I've accomplished, be smart about resting and rehab and will start again in December at a slower pace and build up my strength and speed and kick that half-marathon's butt in the Spring! :)

Good luck to all my friends racing this weekend and in the upcoming 30 days - so excited for all of you and the progress you've made! You are going to rock your races!!