Starting back to back days!

This week I'm going to transition from running every other day to two days on, one day off. We'll see how it goes!!

Sunday, March 25th
Rest day.

Monday, March 26th
15' run. Felt good, but I was pushing Will in the stroller so it definitely wasn't a fast run.

Tuesday, March 27th
16' run. Woohoo! First back to back run in the books. It was enjoyable and Will stayed happy in his stroller which makes the run infinitely better. ;)

Wednesday, March 28th
Rest day.

Thursday, March 29th
17' run.

Friday, March 30th
Rest day.

Saturday, March 31st
18' run.

Home Sweet Home

Will and I are both so happy to be home. It's always fun visiting Nana and Papa and seeing all the animals and scenery, but nothing beats the comforts and routine of home!

Sunday, March 18th
11' run at WRL. Nice and easy. Shins hurt but everything else was good.

Monday, March 19th
Rest day.

Tuesday, March 20th
12' run in the neighborhood. Shins still hurt, but it was nice besides that. I felt totally wiped when I finished but I think that's more of cumulative fatigue from some weeding I've done the past three days.

Wednesday, March 21st
Rest day.

Thursday, March 22nd
13' run. Nice and relaxed - felt good.

Friday, March 23rd
Rest day.

Saturday, March 24th
14' run. Pushed Will in the stroller so it was more tiring, but it was a good run.

Spring Break in Columbus

It's spring break for DBU, which means our nannies aren't around, so we are spending the week with my parents in Columbus. Will is obsessed with the cows and deer and 1000s of other animals out here, not to mention the tractor, lawn mower, and Polaris. This place is better than Disney World to him, so I can easily send him off with Nana or Papa for a while I get work done. Win win!

The hard part this week will be getting in my cross training. I don't have a bike and I don't have access to a gym, so my T25 videos will be it. I'll have to sneak them in during nap time because if little man sees me, he wants in and that doesn't work.

Here's a video of Will riding in the tractor with my dad. Will LOVES owls and my dad has two fake ones on his camphouse fence posts, so that's what he gets so excited about towards the end. 😍

Sunday, March 11th
T25 Alpha Cardio

Monday, March 12th
9' run - I jogged from the house to the gate to warm up today and my whole body was sore from so many squats and lunges in my T25 workouts on Saturday and Sunday. I thought, "man, I need a good, slow, easy run today". But then I remembered that I'm using my GPS app, I don't have the stroller today, and I'm only going 9 minutes... I have no excuse not to *run* it. So I *ran* and I *ran* hard. I worked and worked and worked going up those hills, which by the way take soooo much longer to go up than to go down. I finally got back to the gate assuming I'd be at or just over time, but it was like 7 minutes in so I kept going. I looked down a bit later to see when to turn around and it was at the SAME time! I had accidentally paused the run!! 😩 I cannot tell you how mad I was, hahah. I ran hard and it was all for nothing! I now have no idea how long or how far I ran. I may intentionally not take my phone with me on Wednesday and just run my 10' easy!
T25 Beta Speed 1.5 hours hiking. Before you say this doesn't count, it was much harder on my body than 25 minutes of T25! My dad's bucks are shedding their antlers right now and his biggest one (20 points) lost half of his a couple days ago. The property is huge, so we split up and went thru the brush trying to find them. I'm talking, limbo, squat, lunge, jump, etc in addition to constant walking for over an hour. And no luck today!

Tuesday, March 13th
T25 Alpha Cardio Rest day. First day off since last Sunday! I was planning T25 today, but I had a terrible headache last night and today it migrated to a bunch of stomach cramps with chest pain... and the headache stayed too. On the bright side, I found the antlers today! I'll try to get a picture of them to upload!

Got it - Here they are! SOOO heavy!

Wednesday, March 14th
10' run. I couldn't run in the morning because my parents were gone and it was 39 degrees... too cold for Will and too cold for the clothes I packed. But that ended up being a good thing because my stomach was still messed up (maybe it's because we eat so much junk here?!) and as they day went along it got a little better. Nice and easy (no stroller!!!) on the hilly road in front of my parent's property. No GPS today since it was so far off on Monday.
T25 Stretch

Thursday, March 15th - Saturday, March 17th
Rest - Stomach was cramping too badly for anything. :( 

It's been two years...

It's been two years since my last post, and for good reason. I haven't run! I haven't trained or worked out at all, really. I've had occasional two week stretches where I would work out for 15-30 minutes a day, but nothing intense and never consistently past two weeks.

I found out I was pregnant in early February 2016 and I wasn't one of the lucky ones who can train thru it. I had pre-existing labral tears on both hips and the pregnancy hormones made them act-up like crazy. I actually had to go to physical therapy three days a week and a chiropractor twice a week. I attempted walking every day up until around June, but by then it got so bad I couldn't even roll over in bed or stand up out of chair without grimacing, so I stopped that too. Basically from February to June I walked, and from June to February 2017 I did NOTHING. Surprisingly, I weighed less than I did before pregnancy when I went to my 6-week postpartum appointment and I still do today (bye-bye muscle!).

Our little man Will is now walking (and running) all over the place and it's getting much easier to do things for myself. Plus, my body is finally starting to get back to normal. I am still breastfeeding, so my hormones won't go back to normal for much longer, but for the most part everything feels like pre-baby Rachel. Minus the fitness. ;) Seriously, 5 minutes of running has me out of breath.

Anyways, I'm starting to think I should take better care of myself and running is still my preferred method! I don't have to drive anywhere, I don't have to sit uncomfortably on a bike, I don't have to worry about the nanny watching me fail miserably at T25 from the next room, yada yada yada. So running it is!

I am not expecting to be fast again and I'm not expecting to have a real training routine. I'm sure days will be missed, runs will be cut short, cross training will be hit or miss, and so on. But a little bit here and there is better than nothing.

Since I've literally done nothing for two years, I'm going to start by following my very conservative return to running from 2010. 5 minutes on day one, adding one minute per day, then jumping by half miles, etc.

Sunday, March 4th
5' run - I tried to run this decently hard, but since I didn't warm up first, it was probably somewhere around 8:30 pace. No garmin though, so that's a total stab in the dark. NOTHING HURT! Also, I don't feel awkward or stiff. Running feels very natural right now.
30' bike in the neighborhood

Monday, March 5th
30' bike in the neighborhood - OMG my butttttt. Oh, and I am definitely out of shape. Biking into wind on a gradual incline actually had me gritting my teeth and trying desperately to catch my breath. I was glad when I got to 30 minutes.

Tuesday, March 6th
6' run - No warm up again, but I used the Map my Run app today (for the first time) and it says I covered 0.81M averaging 7:26 pace. Whoa! Two reactions to that. 1. I think I can break 7:30 for the mile right now, which makes me feel like it wouldn't be totally humiliating to run in the Luke's Locker meets this spring for fun! And 2. I was definitely faster than 8:30 pace on Sunday. Now, I'm not saying this run was easy. It was hard and for the first 4 minutes or so it felt like I was running a race. So yes, I'm significantly out of shape, but also yes, my body still knows how to do it. My mind still knows how to turn off my muscles saying "wait, we're going to hard" and my muscles still know how to keep going when my lungs don't want to. :D
30' bike in the neighborhood - I still don't understand how this is so hard.

Wednesday, March 7th
30' elliptical bike in the neighborhood - I was going to give my butt a break today, but I just couldn't work up the motivation to exercise indoors. I was craving the sun and fresh air.

Thursday, March 8th
30' bike - I biked first today because I had just eaten a ton of food and wanted to give my stomach more time for it to go down. It was good that I did because I still spent the whole run burping it up. So gross.
7' run - Mixed feelings about this one. My legs felt super flat from doing the bike first, and the indigestion was really uncomfortable, but my effort level felt easier than last time even though the pace ended up being faster. 7:21 avg pace for 0.91M.

Friday, March 9th
30' elliptical bike in the neighborhood - I was planning to be home all day, but my afternoon nanny was sick so we left a day early for my parent's house. Slipped in the bike just before we headed out since I won't have it at all next week.

Saturday, March 10th
8' run - OH WOW. First run with the stroller in a while, AND it was on my parent's insanely hilly road. I know 8 minutes is so short that nothing should be considered hard, but this was hard. I felt like I was running uphill the whole time and when you have a heavy stroller with flat tires on a gravel road, that's not easy. 8:26 avg pace for 0.95M.
30' bike 25' T25 Beta Cardio