Trail Mix and quick Race Recap =)

So, first here is the race re-cap.....

The CIM racers. From left to right (Amber, Doug, Tara, ME, Alison)

I went to Cali with my friends who I had been training hard with for 16 hole weeks! I was shooting for a 3:40 and came in at a 4:09. I was cold, and the run felt hard and I hurt so the marathon beat me that day, and I gave in. I stopped running at mile 16 and tried to figure out how to get to the finish line via cab, hitching a ride, borrowing a cell from someone and calling my aunt... (there were people talking on there phones while running and I was SO tempted to ask to use one).

But then along the way a nice soul saw me looking all flustered...(aka crying) and said to me. "you are not quitting, now lets get moving" This nice guy (who was struggling just as I was, and whose goal was to finish in under 4 hrs), talked me through enough miles to get me to the finish on my feet.  I don't think he has any idea how big of an impact he had on me. He helped me suck it up and just finish. There is a picture of him next to me on one of the marathon photos.... but because I am not willing to pay 50 dollars for a stupid race photo alas I don't have a picture to show you. But, his bib number was 6010. If you search  for his bib number at this website, you can see him. Also, he did not make his goal but he did not even care, he just wanted to finish.

Sometimes when you meet people along the way it helps put things back into perspective. I love running and I love marathons, regardless of what time I finish I just plan to keep running them until I am 100.

So all in all I ran another marathon, I can't wait to run another one again. Trying to conquer "race day" has always been a struggle for me and so the story goes... onto the next.

But before that. here is some DELICIOUS trail mix that you all should make and eat over this holiday season. My grandma made this for me, I took it home yesterday and it is almost gone already....

Pumpkin-seed Dried-cherry Trail Mix

Recipe:
2 Cups Pepitas (baby pumpkin seeds)
1 Cup Almonds
3/4 Cup Sunflower Seeds
6 Tablespoons Maple Syrup
1 Cup dried cheeries or cranberries

Toss the pepitas, almonds and seeds with maple syrup, and spread them on a baking sheet lined with parchment. Bake in a 300 degree oven for 20 minutes, until golden. After the mixture has cooled, stir in the dried fruit.

As for what is next. Sarah and I are running "The Goofy" in January which is 39.3 miles of total Disney Magicalness. We are not running for a time, we are running to finish and have too much fun while finishing. We are going to dress up, relax, and enjoy the magic. No watches, headphones or anything, just pure running fun =) I can't wait.

What should we wear? We are thinking of picking a Disney Character and going to try to replicate it into a running fashion.  Suggestions????

After the goofy, I plan to come home, run with running club and on my own and do whatever feels good. I will get back into running with no race specific plan.

Happy Running all and MERRY CHRISTMAS!

-Jen

Good Luck Jen!

Good Luck Jen you will rock it!  Have fun and good luck to all of you girls.  Wish I was out there running with you!

California or BUST!

Hey All!

This is Sarah here but I am doing a quick post for Jen who is sitting on a plane in Denver getting ready to head out to California for her marathon.  They are de-icing the plane as we speak.  Good thing they are leaving super early so they (her and her two girlfriends) have time to get to the expo and stuff.

She is going to send more pictures when she lands and I will give you an update!  She has been training hard with the RLRF plan and is shooting for a 3:40!  I know she can do it!  She is a way better pacer than me :)

I am really counting on her because I need her to pace me at goofy!!

Good Luck Jen!!

Too Good Not To Share

I just made these Healthy Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies and they were oh so good!  Plus NO SUGAR or BUTTER!  I seriously have already eaten 4-5 cookies not to mention some batter.

I found the recipe from Tara Stiles an awesome Yogie. My husband has a secret crush on her but I have him to thank because I never would have found out about her if he didn't met her.  I made them exactly as the recipe calls for.  I even used the same chocolate as Tara. 

Tara got the recipe from 101 Cookbooks. You can get the recipe HERE.

XX,
Sarah

PS Next time I might just skip the chocolate all together!

A Whole Foods and Plant Based Diet

So do you remember in my last post how I told you I just watched the documentary called Forks Over Knives? Well after watching it Scott and I had decided that we wanted to make a change in our diet.  First I must say that Scott and I try hard to eat healthy most of the time.  Our health is extremely important to us. Forks Over Knives shows you the facts about meat in our diets and how it is directly connected to a higher risk of heart disease, cancer and many other things.  It will really change your prospective on what you eat.

Scott and I love animals but have always been meat and dairy eaters.  We stuck to mostly chicken and fish because I am not a huge fan of red meat but don't get me wrong, a juicy fillet or lamb chop every once and a while did sound pretty good.  So making the change to a whole foods plant based diet aka a vegan diet was going to be a pretty big change for us. 

We just started this week! Yesterday to be exact. I love my veggies but Scott is pretty particular on his veggie intake.  Needles to say this is important to him so he is trying harder.  He even had udon noodle soup yesterday with tofu, seaweed and green onions!  I was super proud.

I bought 2 books that were recommended to help me get on the right track. I also made a menu of what we will be eating this week.  I still haven't figured out lunch for Scott yet so he is on his own in the city during lunch break.  He will either have to stick with soups or hunker down and order a salad :)

One of the perks to living in such a big city is that there are a lot of vegans and vegetarians so I was happily surprised when I was at the grocery store to find lots of things I could eat.

We have been good about eating oatmeal or cream of wheat made with Almond milk in the morning and for our first vegan dinner last night we had tostadas. I got the recipe from the book below and just made a couple of adjustments.  It was a delicious dinner followed by grahams and dark chocolate peanut butter (don't worry no dairy.)

Small corn tortillas baked in the oven until crispy
Refried beans
Spinach
Tomato
Avocado
Salsa

I started with 2 and then ate 2 more and some chips.

I eat a lot!

Here are the two books I bought.  Both so far have been very helpful. In the Becoming Vegan book it has a list of the most common questions that vegans are asked and the answers to respond! Very helpful!  And what I love about The McDougall Quick and Easy Cookbook is that it doesn't require any weird ingredents and all the recipes take around 15 mins to cook.  This is great since I like to only leave myself 30 mins to get dinner ready each night.

Because we are making a huge change in our diets we decided to easy into it and try our best.  Example, we are going to eat Mexican with some friends Friday night.  We may or may not have cheese on something :) We don't want to be difficult and we still want to enjoy going out to dinner with friends etc so we will continue to make the best decisions we can moving forward but not get too upset if there is a road bump.

This weeks dinner menu.
Tuesday- Creamy Spinach Fettuccine (made with silken tofu)
Wednesday- Polenta with Veggies
Thursday- Bowtie pasta with Bean sauce
Friday- Mexican dinner out
Saturday- Spicy Mongolian Noodles

For lunch today I am having a spinach and avocado salad with tempeh and tomatoes.

My workouts.
Yesterday I decided to do NOTHING!  It was great!
Today- Ran 8
Wed- 5-8
Thurs- 8
Friday- Xtrain
Sat 10-12

I am open to new recipes and ideas so if you have any good ones please share!!

XX
Sarah

PS Question: Where are you going to get your protein from???
      Answer:  Soyfoods, Whole Wheat Bread, White Bread, Oatmeal, Lentils, Soybeans, Black, Garbanzo, Kidney and Pinto Beans, and many many other whole food items that are in our new diet!

Oh and has anyone started their Christmas list yet??
I did... I really want a TREADMILL!!  Any recommendations on a good one? I managed to find a nice little spot in my apt where I can put it.

Jumping the Gun

It has been 15 days since I ran the NYC marathon and during this time I have been thinking a lot about what exactly went wrong.  I was positive that the Run Less Run Faster plan was going to help me reach my goal so I was pretty devastated when I came in far from it.  Also I don't want to forget to mention that during these 15 days I have been enjoying myself immensely.  My parents were just here visiting with my Grandma who has not been here since 1946!  We ate, ate, did some sight seeing and ate some more.  It was GREAT!!!

So let me break it down....  One- I chose to use the 3:40 speed work program and then use the 3:30 long distance program.  This was a mistake.  I needed to pick one time and stick with it.  Two- Even though I was using the faster 3:30 program for long distance I was running them even faster than what was given.  Mistake! Three- My arrogance! I thought I knew better than the Run Less Run Faster authors on what I could handle and what I was capable of doing therefore I became EXTREMELY burnt out.  By the time the race hit all I could think about was ugh!  Let's just get this dam race over.  I do not feel like running. Which resulted in a 4:06 marathon.

Now let me get to the point of the title to this post.  If you would like to see the effects of jumping the gun when the race starts... well here it is.  My splits.  As you can see after mile 1(which was uphill) I quickly jumped to a 7:22 pace.  Ahhh not 8:00 which was what I was aiming for. Miles 2-7 were all under 8. So by the time the 8th mile was over I was feeling way tired.  Then as you can see my splits were all over the place.  One of my weaknesses with running is keeping a consistent pace.  I am pretty terrible at it and should have focused more on that during my training.  I also felt like I was going up and down, up and down the entire race so I posted my elevation as well.  As you can see I don't climb a whole lot but it is up and down.  This added to my tiredness in the end.

What have I learned from all this....  STICK TO THE TRAINING PLAN.  

So to redeem myself and have a little fun I signed up for the GOOFY with my sister Jen!  I seriously cannot wait.  I don't even care about what time I am going for, all I want to do is run a fun race.  Enjoy the distance.  Enjoy the scenery and crowds.  Plus is will be so fun to have Jen run with me.  She is an expert when it comes to numbers and time so she will be the perfect pace partner.  Oh and I told her that she can wear her watch and I am not going to. (I may change my mind later tho. Ha!)

What have I been doing for exercise in the mean time?  Well I am back to 4 days a week.  Last week because my family was here I only got in 3 days but this week I am going for 4.

This is an example

Monday- 8

Tuesday- Xtrain

Wednesday - 6-8

Thursday - 8

Friday- Xtrain

Saturday - 10 (I will add 2 miles each Long run getting up to 18 miles two weeks before the race and then I will taper)

I plan to run up the bridge hard for strength and work up to running comfortably 7:45-8:00 miles. Right now I am around 8:20 because I am still recovering from my last race and I don't want to push it to hard.

So that's it! Long post but had a lot to explain!

Here is to Goofy or BUST!! (Ps I better not bust cuz I am seriously considering the RnR marathon in DC this March :) Who's with me?!

XX
Sarah

Oh and I just watched Forks Over Knives.  Post coming soon about my new diet plan. :)

The Hardest Plan EVER

Hi all, This is Jen here. Long time no blog. I have been out of my mind lately trying to keep up with all the happenings around my house. But, I have really been wanting to blog to let you know how my RLRF plan has been going for me.

here is my thought. IT IS SO HARD! Although it may be easy to assume this plan is doable because you "only" run "3 days a week" I say don't assume as much.

This plan is hard, here are my majors reasons why:

1. You still need to for sure cross train to some extent on the non-running days which may seem easier then it is. Sometimes it is easier to just go outside and go for an easy run, no planning involved. But when you need to get motivated to either get your rear to the gym or dig out your old home workout video it can be a chore.

2. All of the runs are very very pace specific. There is no real room for an off day or a not feeling it phase. I have had a little of both and did my best to suck it up and get through it but then the following week it is hard running again, and again. There is no room for running where you aren't looking at your watch every .25 mile or so......

So those are my 2 main reason why this plan is hard.

Here is why the plan is good.
- I am getting faster. Here is a good indicator of what this plan has done for my short distance so far.
Back in May I ran a 10k at a 7:48 pace. That pace at that time for me was tough. Just the other day I went out my door and ran 5 miles (I could have gone 6.2) at a 7:20 pace. It felt comfortably-hard and was a great indicator to me how much I have progressed as a runner with this plan. Also, during my speed sessions typically I have been coming in faster then I need to and with the minimal recover this plan gives you (and I mean minimal) I have been able to keep it up despite the fact that sometimes after the last repeat I lay down on the track and wonder what the hell I am doing, and remind myself I choose to do this!!!

I am still waiting until my marathon on Dec. 4th to see how this all is going to play out for the long distance. Will I be able to run my goal of a 3:40 or will I be able to go faster... or will I BONK? I have no idea. All of those thoughts have come and gone through my mind at least 1000 times.

Anywhoo, as the marathon gets closer I am getting very excited to see how this is all gonna go and wanted to give an opinion of the plan and hear if anyone else feels the same way.

Who has done the RLRF plan and seen it through?

What were your results?

Do you still use this plan or something more traditional?
Although this training has been HARD it has also been very fun and I had made some good memories with my buds.

Alison and Amber before a run.... early in the morning in the dark.....

Tara in her car getting ready to go out for a run early in the morning in the dark......

This is just a new little treat I discovered that is DELICIOUS! Roasted sweet potato sandwich with grilled red onion and jack cheese. try it. it is good =)

P.S. This may or may not be a hint as to wear some of the ATTrio may or may not be running their next race ;)

Happy Running -Jen