Running and my other hobby

All three of us Heather, Sarah and I (Jen) have been so busy lately we have barely had a moment to sit down and chat with each other let alone update our blog as often as we'd like. But I am forcing myself to sit down create a calm for myself and do a little blogging. I always find inspiration through all of you bloggers out there and am excited to tell you what I have been up to.

My FIRST training plan for the International California Marathon Dec. 4th has been going good. Knock Knock... that is me knocking on wood. I haven't had too many complaints. I occasionally feel a little tired but then I typically either try to get more sleep, eat more spinach or back off on a cross training day and I seem to bounce back. My workouts this week are as follows.

Monday: NOTHING! I did nothing
Tuesday: 2 sets of 6x400's with 1:30 minute recovery after each 400 with a 3 minute recovery between each set.
    -This workout went well. My slowest 400 was 1:32 with my fastest being 1:27 but I pretty much was right at 1:30-1:31 the entire time.
Wednesday: Today I went on a 19 mile bike with my great girlfriend Stef.  She always kicks my butt but it felt good to have a nice warm ride.  Last week we rode but it was so cold I had to come home and take a 30 minute shower just to raise my body temp.... freezing!

Thursday: Tempo Day. 6 miles with a 2 mile warmup, 2 miles a pace (for me 7:30 or so) and then a 1 mile cool down.

Friday: Total conditioning.
Saturday: 18 miles and I haven't decided yet what pace I will run... slower but not too slow.

How is training for everyone else going??!!

Anywhoo onto my other hobby. A good friend of mine and I love to make quilts. We like to go find cute fabric, cut it up, sew it together and then slap it onto my Long-arm quilting machine and find a cool pattern to quilt on top of it. So this year, we have decided to sell some of our quilts. So for the last few weeks I have spent pretty much all of my free time in my quilting room quilting! Check out our store Jenny M's Quilt Company and let me know what ya think. =)

This is my quilting bud Meredith and I sitting next to Jack Nicholson, is he real or wax... I will never tell.

My Quilting room. I realize it needs some decorations... someday. And yes, that is my bike that I keep inside because I am crazy like that. And those are weights. Trying to fit in my strength is still a chore. Doing bicep curls while watching that huge machine quilt is sometimes the only chance I get to get in strength!

Only "some" of what I have been working on. We are madly quilting around here lately. 

Is anyone elses life out there CRAZY lately?

What are your other hobbies?

Happy Running... and quilting... -Jen

The 20 miler Newbie =) and what is Too Fast?

This past Saturday I was able to finally complete my first 20 miler of the FIRST training plan. If you remember (if you don't, i'll remind you) my last 20 miler I bonked at like mile 13 because of a ragin' sideache.  But live and learn right...

Also, Hoooray to my friend Tara who completed her first 20 miler this past Saturday. Woot Woot!! There is something special about running 20 miles for the first time ever.  I dunno why, it is kind of like some right of passage into long distance running world. Anywhoo, she ROCKED it. She ran her first 20 miler faster then most run any 20 miler. I was very impressed but not surprised, that girl has some skills.

Tara after her first 20. =)

My 20 was also good. According to my garmin I ran an 8:34 pace, but my garmin is always the faster beeping garmins out of my running club bunch so I'll just assume my pace was around an 8:38 or something. Either way, I felt good but I ran it much quicker then I needed to.

Because I hate carrying water, I decided to make my own water stations along the way. I had two of these stools set up with signs and water. It worked great! Anytime I can, I will do this from now on. =)

So....I have a question that I would like some feedback on. How do you know if you are running too fast? According to the FIRST training plan you should always stick to the pace specified by their training plan. I am shooting for a 3:40 marathon and according to my plan I should have ran that 20 at a 9:08 pace. Which is almost 30 seconds per mile slower then I actually did.

During the run I felt good but towards the end I did get tired. Who doesn't get tired after running 20 miles I don't care what pace you go. Sunday I wasn't sore and I felt good so how do you know?? I don't want to jeopardize the rest of my plan by always running too fast, but if I run too slow am I going to lose what I gained? I dunno... any suggestions?

Anywhoo, my running Guru from club says I went too fast and to back off. So I probably will. I definitely don't want an injury or to overtrain.

But what would you do? Push harder or stay patient?

Happy Running all -Jen

We did a 10 mile loop twice so I used my car as a water station as well. One of our great running buds decided to leave us a nice note!  YAY for running friends. Lots of Love. Oh and I am trying to show you my nasty snarly hair. I have never seen hair like mine duplicated ever.  Anyone with fine ultra tangly hair out there..... or am I the only one?

Mud Brigade Recap and Jean Valjean!

This past weekend has been great! For starters, I was able to go see Les Miserables on Friday night with my family.  It was awesome.

Me and my Uber cute Niece. YAY for family outings.

One of the highlights was stalking down the actors after they were finished and asking for a pic. While waiting for Mr. Valjean to come out himself we talked to the Innkeeper for a while. He was telling us about broadway and his life on the road, very interesting!

Jean Valjean (J. Mark McVey)  and I. It was a family affair. His daughter was who played Cosette!

The Innkeeper (Joseph Spieldenner) and I. He has always been one of my favorite Characters. 

Then Saturday morning I was able to wake up and go participate in a race called, "The Mud Brigade". After my Sisters decided to give the Warrior Dash a try and loved it I thought I should probably find my own muddy event to attend.

The Hubs and I prior to the race. I came in 8th place out of the chicks. There was no age group category but I figure 8th out of 620 girls was good. 

A friend of mine came across this one and so we signed up and gave it out most. It was lots of fun. They had several obstacles that were indeed very muddy and required you to actually concentrate. Here are some of the obstacles.

-Climbing up a mud hill that required the assistance of a rope, (very slippery).
-Crawling under a blanket of chain link fences through a shallow mud lake.
-Swimming/Wading thew mud canals and then attempt to climb out of them. ( I could have used a rope again)
-Tight rope walking over a mud pit. Luckily they had a rope on top so you had something to help keep your balance.

So you get the picture. At the end of the race you had to run threw a shallow mini mud lake to which all spectators were yelling, "Dive, Dive, Dive" So I did my best. Bummer thing is I didn't get too many pics of the actual race.

A friend of mine and I after the race. We couldn't get pics right after because the camera was in the car. But this was us after we had hosed off in the horse barn......

This week I am back to the daily grind when it comes to the FIRST training plan. Here is my tentative plan.

Today - Total Conditioning
Tuesday - 3x1600's at just under 7 minute mile
Wednesday - Bike approx 15-20 miles (last time we rode we almost got hit by several cars.... people can be grouchy when commuting to work at 5:30 am. This week we are going out in no mans land to hopefully avoid that kind of situation...)

Thursday - 6 Miles with 3 miles at 7:35pace
Friday - Swim or TC. Not sure which yet.
Saturday - 18 Miles. (Hopefully I don't bonk!)

Have you all seen Les Miserables?
-If not, I totally recommend it. I love me a good musical every now and again.

Did you do anything fun this past weekend?
-The scheduled events I had this weekend were awesome. I love it when that happens.

Happy Running -Jen

Monday FunDay

I returned from Minnesota last night exhausted and very full from all the eating. Came home, unpacked and went straight to bed. Who knew walking all over the fair eating all kinds of foods would be so exhausting.

This pic to the left is a piece of cheesecake dipped in chocolate. it was so good. I don't normally love cheesecake but for whatever reason this was delish.

I am now into workout week #3 of my FIRST training plan. Here is how it's gonna go down.

Monday: Total Conditioning

Tuesday: 1 Mile warmup followed by a downhill ladder...typically I am used to going "Up" a ladder. But hey, I am not going to discriminate and starting with the longest interval first sounds kind of nice =)

         1x1200, 1x1000, 1x800, 1x600, 1x400 and 1x200

Wednesday: Swim for 1 hr. I typically ride my bike this day but I have been feeling my IT band while biking and felt it a little on my run last Saturday so I am going to give the bike a rest.... I may need some kind of strange adjustment.

Thursday: 7 miles with 1 mile warmup 5 miles at 8:05 pace and 1 mile easy

Friday: Not sure yet... either total conditioning or another swim.  

Saturday: 17 Miles around a 9:00 minute mile. My 15 miler felt so good last week I am interested to see how this one feels. I hope all my long runs feel great but as most of us runners know some just feel like crap.

I am also going to be cooking a lot this week (now that I have a menu) so hopefully I cook up some good treats! For dinner tonight, it is Roman Style Chicken. I haven't made this recipe before so I'll let you know how it is. But I typically find Giada recipes delish.

Happy Running and may you Monday be a funday.  -Jen


What is everyone else cooking for dinner?

How did Hurricane/Tropical Storm Irene turn out for everyone?
-We are SO glad Sarah and Scott are A.O.K and the only damage they have are water bubbles in there wall.... which apparently have shown up during previous rain storms.... Sarah, maybe call your landlord? that doesn't sound too normal.  Check out the pic here.

Is everyone ready for Fall?
-I am, I am ready for cool crisp air and pretty leaves. I love fall

School and Tempo, plus GIVEAWAY hints =)

How cute is my little guy. He started all day Kindergarten today. I am not sure what I am gonna do with myself but I will take these first few days to make sure my house is ultra de-cluttered and then probably find some kind of work.....I can tell already I am going to want something more to do. Taking care of Peter has been a blessing and a challenge for me and although I will still be taking care of him, I now have 6.5 hours where he is going to be preoccupied.

Next, I'll tell you how this workout week is going so far. GOOD! Monday I ended up going to Total Conditioning instead of a bike ride, (slept in) and Tuesday I went and battled myself on the track for my 3x1600m (1 mile) repeats.  

Splits: 6:52, 6:56, 6:59

The last repeat was ultra hard for me. I had no brain power left to convince myself to keep going but then during the last 400 I decided to just run as fast as I could and gladly came in just under 7. I had a 400m walk/jog recovery. I walked a little and then started a slow jog for the rest of my 400. Luckily I had my running Guru there during the last mile reminding me that I could do it.  If I was on my own I am almost sure I'd have thrown that last mile in the bag. Oh well, I did it and now I know I can. Once again I owe a big thanks to my running club.

Following that workout I ended up going to a barbell class. I loaded easy and focused on form.

Wednesday I headed out for a bike ride with a friend. It was awesome. Check out this hill we climbed. There apparently is a road race just because of that hill and when the time came to make changes to the road they made sure not to change that incline.  It was crazy! 

Anywhoo, today I woke up early and met up with my friends to run a 6 mile run with 2 miles @ 7:32 pace. We came in at 7:29 and felt great. I am SO glad I have running friends.

Below left to right is Tara, Allison and Amber. We are all running the California International Marathon together. Tara and I are shooting for 3:40 and Allison and Amber a 3:35. I am really looking forward to having friends keep me movin'. I also promised them I wouldn't put there pictures on the blog if they didn't look good. But how could they not! They are all smokin'. There husbands are lucky.

Here we are after our 1st successful tempo of the training plan. We are 2 workouts into this 16 week FIRST training plan.  Sometimes I get so excited about it I can't stop smiling...sometimes I wonder if I love running just way to much. 

Onto the GIVEAWAY. I hope you are all followers and check back often because this giveaway is gonna be great. It is going to be a giveaway "basket". So go ahead and try to see if you can figure out what kinds of things we'd put in a basket to send your way. Here is another clue, I live in Colorado, Heather in Minnesota and Sarah, Brooklyn.  Any guesses?

Who likes training with people?

ME. I would not push myself nearly as hard if I was on my own. I just love the energy coming from people who push themselves beyond what they are comfortable with. I find it very inspiring.

Did anyone have kiddos go back to school this week?

I still can't believe that my only child is now in school all day......I just can't believe it. I am so excited for him. He came over after he found his spot, hugged me, kissed me, and goes "Mom, I'll be great and I'll see you at 3" He has been so independent since he was 1 day old. 

Also, what are you guys cooking for dinner?

a friend of mine and I got together a few days ago and planned all our meals through september. Only problem is they don't start until next week.... so what should I cook tonight?

Happy Running -Jen