Friday Five: Cross Training

We all know that cross training is important to being a better runner, and it comes it many forms. Some of us hate doing anything that takes time away from running, and others welcome to variety. I LOVE running, but I also enjoy other forms of exercise. Below are my top 5 ways to cross train.

1. Yoga - I've liked yoga even before I liked running, and I find that when I take the time to do yoga, I get injured less. 
2. Kickboxing - I find kickboxing exhilarating. Even 10 minutes is enough to work up a sweat and leave me feeling energized. Sadly, I do not make enough time for this but I really need to because I just love it. 
3. Cycling - I started biking mainly for transportation, and love the added bonus of exercising while I commute (I love multitasking). Eventually I channeled all those miles into training for a duathlon and eventually triathlons, but they are not my cup of tea. I don't have the strength or speed to race on the bike, and I don't enjoy it as much. I much prefer biking at a slower pace with a destination in mind, but that's still a great workout.
4. Walking - I don't enjoy walking for miles just for exercise, but it's a good way to sneak in some extra exercise while I commute or when I am too sore to do anything else. 
5. Swimming - This is my least method of cross training, and it only made the list because I could not think of anything else =P The fact is that I find swimming relaxing and it's a great workout, but I became increasingly frustrated with my lack of progress and gave up. I'll try to pick it up again next summer. 

How about you? Do you enjoy cross training or maybe running is your cross training from another sport? What are your top 5 ways to cross train? 

Three Things Thursday: Crazy Active Productive Day

1) Thanks to all the veterans for your service, including my dad!

2) I've been crazy active today. While Jason slept, I did 20 minutes of kickboxing, about 10 minutes of push-ups and abs, and 25 minutes of yoga. After breakfast, we took advantage of the great weather and rode our bikes 15.5 miles roundtrip to Whole Foods for granola supplies with a quick stop at Target on the way home. 

3) We've also been crazy productive with our day off. 

• errands by bike in the morning
• made homemade granola
• cooked dry beans 
• massive closet purge of clothes and shoes we never wear
• trip to Track Shack:
• picked up my packet for Sunday's race
• dropped off old running shoes
• bought shot blocks and a new Skirt Sports running skirt, and I am really impressed with the compression shorts underneath. I hope to try it out tomorrow and may wear it for the race on Sunday.
• trip to Homegrown Co-op to pick up our organic and local groceries
• trip to Orange Cycle, where  I bought new cycling gloves with much better padding and a mirror for my road bike. 
• dropped off phone books and cardboard recycling 
• trip to Publix for more groceries
• trip to College Park Farmer's Market, where we got some yummy organic and local cupcakes
• dropped of clothes donations

Whew! I'm exhausted! We're now cooking dinner, pasta with homemade sauce and eggplant balls, and making homemade coconut ice cream for later.

Cold Weather

Today's NaBloPoMo prompt: "What do you like most about cold weather? What do you like the least?" I'm going to answer this as it relates to running.

What I like most about cold weather is that I can usually run faster with much less effort because my body is not working as hard to keep cool, as long as I wear appropriate gear to keep it from having to work hard to stay warm :) I also don't have to get up as early just to get in a run before it gets too hot. At the right time of year, I could go run at noon! Although not related to running, I also love wearing sweaters and scarfs :)

What I like least is having to bundle up to run when it's really cold. I don't feel very motivated to go for a short run in the cold when I have to spend longer getting ready than the running itself. It's hard to determine before starting just how much to wear to strike the right balance of staying warm and not overheating. I usually have it all figured out by the end of the season, but promptly forget and have to relearn it all the next year. 

Thankfully, I live in Florida so we don't have to deal with snow or sub-freezing temps. How about you? What do you like most and least about cold weather when running or in general?

Random Thoughts

I'm too tired to write anything of substance, so a bullet post it is! :)

• How is it only Tuesday? It feels more like a Thursday.
• I guess it kinda is because Thursday is a paid holiday at work and we are taking a day off on Friday to enjoy a four-day weekend
• Tomorrow is a half day at work because we're having a work picnic in the afternoon. Looks like we'll have great weather for it. 
• I've packed a lot into these two days and I'm utterly exhausted, so this mini vacation will be a welcomed break. 
• I ran after work yesterday and it felt great running in the cooler weather. 
• We went to Disney's Boardwalk last night to hang out with a friend from out of town, and it turned into a mini high school reunion, so I was up past my bed time =P
• I biked to work on my road bike today; it makes such a difference in the effort required, but my back hates it.
• No getting enough sleep + biking to work + a day full of meetings = hard to stay awake at work
• We're planning to spend the day at Universal Studios on Friday. I can't wait!
• On that note, what are some unusual things you're likely to see at a theme park that make you chuckle? Examples: someone wearing a Disney shirt while at Universal studios; someone wearing high heels; family dressed in matching outfits

MBE: Race Places

Monday Brain Exchange (MBE) is sponsored by Jill, who blogs at Finishing Is Winning. This week's topic is Race Places.

Question: Where was the best place you have ever raced and why? Where is your dream place to race?

This is a great question, but I couldn't pick just one :) My favorite race location so far was probably San Francisco for Bay to Breakers. It is the only race I've done outside of Florida, and it was well worth the trip. The course was gorgeous and it was fun to watch everyone in costume. Coincidently, the Halloween Half Marathon I just completed in Miami Beach was another favorite. It was just awesome running alongside crusie ships while it was still dark enough to see their lights and then running along the ocean. The Breast Cancer Marathon in Jacksonville was another great locale. I only ran 5 miles as part of the marathon relay, but I think they were the best 5 miles of the marathon. It was all through beautiful neighborhoods and the support was amazing. I'm can't wait to run the full marathon by myself. Finally, my favorite local race has got to be the Run for the Trees. It is a point to point race and it ends under a canopy of trees on private property that is only open to the public for this race.

My dream pace to race has to be New York City. This was my dad's first marathon, and I was there to cheer for him before I even knew I wanted to be a runner. He talks fondly about it, and I know it is an incredible event that I want to experience at least once in my life. This question is very timely because I applied for the lottery today and took part on their Marathon Monday Mania for a chance at early acceptance. The regular lottery will be drawn in March, but those of us who took place in their Scavenger Hunt today have a chance at the first 50 spots that will be announced tomorrow. This is the photo I posted sporting my Timex Watch. Wish me luck!

September and October Recaps

This is a little late, but better late than never =P I cannot believe we only have 2 months left in this year, and I'm pretty excited that I've already met some of my 2010 millage goals! I'm shocked that even though I didn't run for 2 weeks in October, I still managed to run 61 miles and 12 more than in September. I guess in September I was still getting over injuries and building back up, and in October I did 2 long runs of 10+ miles and ran a half marathon. I'm slowly getting back into my routine, but now that daylight savings time is over I need to figure out when to run.

Accomplishments

• Halloween Half Marathon

September/October Stats

• walk = 29 / 31 miles
• run = 49 / 61 miles
• longest run = 9.5 / 13.1 miles
• bike = 179 / 170 miles 
• total distance = 256 / 261 miles
• total time = 36.5 / 40 hrs

2010 Goals Progress

To be on track, percentages should be around 83%

• run/walk = goal met!
• 831 /  700 miles 
• avg: 83/mo; 20/wk
• 594 run only miles; 106 miles to go (53/month; 14/wk)
• cycling = 75% complete
• 1315 / 1750 miles 
• avg: 131/mo; 33/wk
• 435 miles to go; 218/month; 55/wk
• tri 2010 challenge = 2147 / 2010 (goal met!)
• total exercise hours = 292 / 365 hours (80%)
• 101 things = 26 / 30 done (87%)

Race Report: Urban Dare Orlando 2010

This afternoon Jason and I completed Urban Dare Orlando dressed up as a priest and a nun (they had a costume contest too). I'm glad it was chilly and windy because these costumes may have been a bit warm otherwise. Urban Dare is like a 1-day Amazing Race where teams of 2 solve a set of 12 clues to find checkpoints where we take photos or perform dares in a race to the finish.

We grabbed Publix subs for lunch while we walked to the start at "The Other Bar" on Wall Street, less than a mile from our apartment, where we got our passport and bibs. After the costume contest, which we did not win, we were handed the clues sheet and we were off. Jason took a photo of the clues and sent it to Sean, who was playing along at home helping us decipher the clues. The clues are not in any logical order, so we needed to decipher them and figure out the optimal path to each checkpoint.

We tried this a few years ago and had a horrible time because I was in terrible shape and Jason is very competitive. This time we focused on having fun, wearing team costumes, and not even trying to run it since our paces are so different (a lot of teams walk). It went a lot better and we even stopped for italian ice at Twisted Bliss since it was right next to one of the checkpoints. :) We covered about 7.5 miles in 2:15:58 and placed 15 out of 70, which is far better than we expected. We were surprised that not even half of the teams had finished before us. Taking the time at the start to decipher the clues and figure out the optimal path to reach each checkpoint worked out great.  I wish there had been more dares or photo hunts, but we had a good time. Check out the photo album for the clues and challenges we faced. Below are a few previews (click to enlarge).

Holiday Bootie Buster Challenge

I just joined the Holiday Bootie Buster Challenge hosted by RuntoTheFinish. From November 20 to January 7, I'll be earning points on this challenge for the chance to win some fabulous prizes by doing the things I'm supposed to be doing anyway. The goal is to help keep me motivated to stay active and not gain weight during the holiday season. I did it last year on my own while training for a marathon, but I could use a little extra support this time because all the recent setbacks have hindered my motivation to exercise. 

I'm trying to get back into the groove, but it's hard when I have a good week followed by a bad week. I'm constantly afraid of getting hurt again and not being able to run at all, so I am even more conservative than usual at the first sign of illness or injury. I don't dare sign up for a race too far in advance for fear of being injured on race day. This helps keep me from throwing money away, being disappointed when I can't run a race for which I registered, or worse risking injury when I run it anyway unprepared. However, it also means that I don't have a tangible goal for my running. I know I shouldn't need one. I love running, but I also love setting and achieving goals, and seeing my improvement, all of which racing helps me do. Racing helps keep me motivated to run when I don't want to or when it's too hard because of time, weather, etc, so that I can achieve those goals.  I'm still going to try a few races, but this challenge should help keep me motivated the rest of the time. Join me!

Three Things Thursday: Running, Tooth, Weight

1) I ran 2.5 in 30 minutes yesterday and it felt pretty good. The soreness is gone, and only a little tiredness remains, but I was able to push through and run without any walk breaks at a pace faster than I expected. I know I have more speed in me that needs to resurfaced, but after everything I've been through I'm making peace with coming back slowly.

2) I went back to the dentist today because the tooth still hurts. The x-rays didn't show any complications, so he fixed the sealant on the temporary crown and my bite and said to give it a few days. It's normal to feel some pain because of all he had to do in there, but it shouldn't be more than a low dull ache. If it persists or gets worse, it is possible I'll still need a root canal. I'm hoping that's not the case, but part of me just wants to just to be done with this.

3) I put on a few pounds during the two weeks I was sick because most days I lived off crackers and chocolate. Jason was sick too, so most of our meals were at restaurants or frozen pizza. Combine that with the lack of exercise, and when I weighed myself on Monday after the half marathon I was at 132; I haven't seen that number in a while. I knew it was temporary and a lot of water weight since I was so sore, but I wanted to get back on track. Exercise is coming slowly, but after just 3 days of eating real food, avoiding processed foods and artificial sugar, I've already lost most of that water weight and I'm happily under 129 today. My goal is always to be under 125, but my body doesn't seem to like that unless I really stay off this stuff for good. Since life is too short to give up chocolate and bread forever, I settle for remaining under 130 most of the time. We'll see what happens after a month of this.

Race Report: Miami Beach Halloween Half Marathon

I completed my 5th half marathon last Sunday, on Halloween. This was my come back race, since I haven't raced since August due to injuries and illness, and my last half marathon was in May. I've been sick the past 2 weeks and almost had a root canal, so I my last run was 12 miles two weeks ago. My legs didn't quite appreciate jumping into a half marathon after that, but I finished only 8 minutes slower than my previous slowest half; I'll take it.

We drove to Ft. Lauderdale Friday night and stayed with Jason's mom. We headed to Miami Beach Saturday morning to pick up our packets and check out the expo. Umm ... what expo? There were maybe 3-4 tables total, and I think only one was a vendor, but I did get some more free packets of biofreeze :) The race shirt is a really nice tech shirt (pictured to the right).

On race morning, we all got dressed up in our costumes: Dad was Lt. Dangle from Reno 911, Jason was a priest (he ran in a priest dress the whole race but took it off after and refused to put it back on for the photo), I was a catholic school girl, and Mom wore dad's race shirt (she was our photographer and cheerleader). When we stepped outside we immediately felt the humidity and the ground was wet with fresh rain. I was glad I didn't wear the clown costume I originally planned because it involved a huge hat that would have gotten hot and heavy quickly.

This was a point-to-point race, so we took a shuttle to the start from where we parked near the finish line. We were running late because we had to go back to the hotel for dad's bib # and chip, but we made it in the nick of time. The shuttle dropped us off at the start line with only a few seconds to spare. This turned out to be a blessing because the front runners took a wrong turn and ended up running an extra 1/2 mile, but it was fixed by the time we crossed the mat.

It was drizzling for the first few miles, which felt nice, but it didn't last. Most of the run was near the ocean so we had a nice breeze until the sun started beating down on us towards the end. We ran on the MacArthur Causeway for the first 3 miles along docked cruise ships at dawn. It was gorgeous seeing all the cruise ships lit up with the ocean in the background and the sun rising; I wished I had ran with my camera to take some photos, but I left my phone with mom since it was raining at the start. This also meant I had no pace data, except for manual splits on my stop watch. I missed the first mile marker (or it was not there) so I ran the first 2 miles a bit too fast. I slowed down after that, but never recovered.

We took a right turn when we got off the bridge and made our way to Lummus Park for an out and back along the Serpentine Walkway and Beach Walk Esplanades next to the beach. This was nice because I could focus on watching everyone's costumes to help pass the time until the turn around and looking for Dad and Jason. I saw mom around mile 4, and Jason and Dad somewhere on the out and back. They both looked like they were struggling too. Even though we had a nice breeze most of the time, it was still pretty humid and most of us were in costumes that didn't breath as well as regular running clothes. I felt like my shirt was suffocating me, so half way through I shed it, tucked it on the back of my skirt, and ran the rest of the race in the wicking tank top I wore underneath. I immediately felt better.

I knew I wasn't going to PR, so I didn't push myself too hard. I remember this being a conscious decision, thinking that I probably had more to give if I dug deep enough but I didn't feel the need for unnecessary suffering. I was hurting towards the end of the race regardless and really wanted to just walk the last few miles, but I pushed through and ran every single run interval even if it was slow -- mainly because I wanted to finish and walking that far would take too long :) There was a small hill just before the 13 mile marker, which was just cruel, but the view of the ocean when you got the top was well worth it.

I rounded the corner and it wasn't long before I saw mom and Jason. She ran along side me cheering and giving me the push I needed to finish strong while Jason took photos. I was hurting, but everyone was cheering for me so I dug deep and sprinted to the finish grunting because it hurt lol. I think that's the cause for my sore thighs :P I collected my coveted medal and then proceeded to refuel and rehydrate. They had a nice spread of food at the finish -- rice, beans, chicken, cookies -- but I couldn't stomach any of it at the time so I settled for some orange slices, plenty of water, and then stood in line for my free massage. There was also an after party with more food at Nikki Beach, but we never made it there.

Overall, this was a really fun race with great support. They had water at nearly every mile, with plenty of volunteers to encourage us. I loved seeing all the creative costumes, running along the ocean, and the medal rocks! I probably won't run it again because I'm not a fan of Miami Beach and it's a long way from home. However, I'll definitely want to do another Halloween race. I love running in a skirt, or maybe I just love dressing up, so I'm now in search for the perfect running skirt -- the ones I have don't have long enough shorts to cover my thighs.

Official results:

• Clock - 2:51:43
• Chip - 2:49:27
• Pace - 12:56
• Overall -  883 / 1092
• AG - 57 / 65
• Gender - 448 / 598