Hug Your Loved Ones

Today we are Celebrating the Life of this amazing man.  Grandpa we love you so much and have so many great memories of you.  Thank you for being such a great example to us all and you will be missed daily...

These two lovely ladies are our grandmas.  Are they just awesome!!! 

We had dinner last night with my Grandma and Grandpa Gormley.  Jen is lucky to live close to both sets of grandparents so she sees them weekly.  But I don't get to see them that often so when I do it is a real treat.

Of course we couldn't visit Jen without getting some killer workouts in.  Yesterday we went to a class at Lifetime and I think I almost passed out twice.  Total Body Conditioning it was called and the instructor was mean... in a good way. This morning I could barley move my arms. The picture below was right after running with Jens running club this morning.  We did a speed workout.  6x800's at a 3K pace.  It was tough.

Now off to Celebrate my Grandpa.  Life goes so fast.  Today remember to give all your loved ones an extra hug and kiss and let them know how much they mean to you.  I know I will.
-Heather

Family Ties

Last week I was away in Wyoming enjoying some family time with my moms side of the family.

Did I mention that I was able to shoot Guns while in Wyoming =) It was so much fun. 

Thank you Aunt Sandy and Uncle Duncan.

This week although I am happy to say that my sisters and I are all together it is for a sad reason. Our dearest Grandpa Robert passed away last week.  He was amazing and is already greatly missed. =( We love you Grandpa.

My dear Grandpa at one of our favorite Lunch Spots.  They have a some delicious fried shrimp. This restaurant has been around longer then I have been alive. This place is so "old school" they don't even have a website...

I am dedicating this week to Grandpa. If there was one guy I know who never gave up on life it was him.  My Grandpa overcame diabetes, lung cancer (he only had 1 lung for years), and prostate cancer. Towards the end his kidneys gave out and had to be on Dialysis 3 times a week for 4-6 hrs a time. It was also discovered he had lesions on his liver and pancreas along with spots on his lymph nodes and stomach. He was miserable. You could see the pain he had to endure and yet he still wanted to keep on living! He never gave up. Anywhoo.... so because he was such an inspiration to me while he was alive I am going to think of him always when I wanna give up and just try even harder not to. There are times when I can be a big giveruper.  So dearest Grandpa, please send me your non giving up vibes as I move forward with my life and try to be better.

I am excited to be with my sisters (and more family!!) this week and so far so good.  I picked them up from the airport on Saturday evening, and then Sunday we went into boulder to watch some good friends of mine kick butt in the Bolder 1/2 Ironman.  It was way hot and I was soo impressed by all of the hard work they put into getting through that race. It looked tough.

I nominate Heather and Sarah to sign up for an Ironman!! anyone else with me? They just look so natural standing in front of the ironman booth =)

We went for a walk with Grisz later that evening. Aren't we the best at posing for pics....

Sunday afternoon my family came over and my awesome Aunt Kim helped cook us up some delicious food.  We had some turkey burgers, salad, chips, brownies.... it was delicious. Thanks Kim. She is one of the best cooks I know.  I can only hope to be as skilled as she is in the kitchen.

Below is Kim mixing up some delicious Turkey burger heaven.  It was SOO good.  We ate it all before we realized we hadn't taken a pic, Whoops. Once she sends me the recipe I'll post it =)

Heather and Sarah doing there best to be useful in the kitchen.  All I saw was laughing and not much cooking.....

Today we are going to wake up early and possibly run a few miles and then head over to Lifetime Fitness for a Total Conditioning class. I have been braggin' up this class to my sisters for months so hopefully they finally get to see what all the hype is about....

Tuesday I am going to drag them to my running club and hopefully we can all get in some good speed.
Wish us luck.

Love you Gramps! -Jen

Check it out! I WON something awesome =)

Saturday night I went to the Redline Running Club's bi-annual potluck and WON the ROTHY =) 

Redline Runner

Of

The 

Half

Year Award!!

I can't believe it.  I am not quite sure why they picked me.... but they did and it made my whole day! I won something and I have the totally awesome shorts to prove it.  I plan on putting these puppies on and debuting them shortly.... stay tuned.

Thanks Redliners. Our club is amazing.  The peeps I train with are super motivating, inspirational and very fun to be around.  We all share a total obsession with running and have been able to build a support system through this club.  We really are a team and I just couldn't be happier.  YAY to our coaches Josh,  Doug, and Kim for putting up with all my crap and making me realize that I can be better.

Below is a lot of my fellow Redliners right after our Predict a 5k workout.

For the predict a 5k workout each individual picks a time that they will complete the 5k in.  We are not allowed to wear watches, music, or anything else that might give us a sense of what pace we are running.  All we get is to listen to our breathing and hope that through all of this training our bodies can recognize what pace we have chosen.  We weren't allowed to pick our actual 5k pace either.  Seeing as how I have the marathon coming up in 1 week, I chose my marathon pace.  Some chose what they would consider there 10k pace and others just picked a pace they figured they could feel.  And so as results went, the person who was the closest to there designated pace won, and the furtherest away lost. It was way fun and I highly recommend doing one on your own every so often to see how in tune you are with what pace is what.  Great workout =)

Also, I'd like to give a HUGE shout out to my brother James.  I sucked him into coming coming to Lifetime with me for 1 week to show him how crazy hard the classes were. So because he loves me he agreed and although Barbell and Total Conditioning kicked both are A**'s (literally, these classes are tough) he ROCKED it.  I was proud to be his little sis. 

So James, you are joining right =) 

This Pic was taken right after Total Conditioning class.  We were wiped out. Apparently doing 150-200 pushups with variations that include loads of mountain climbers, bear crawls, jumps, lunges, leaps, turns, body bars, bands....and the list goes on and on will wear you out.

and P.S. my Friday Night BBQ chicken sandwiches were delish.  Sweet potato, watermelon and roasted green beans for sides.... I love food.

Anyone else out there in a running club?

If so, have you ever won anything as cool as these shorts!?!

Who else is running Grandmas? We'd love to meet up!

What is your favorite Carbo loading meal? and why?

Anyone have a gym class that is crazy hard?

I find they are few and far between but for some reason I am lucky enough to live right next to the Lifetime fitness that employs a lot of there regional peeps including instructors.  These people are the ones they send out to train all the others.  I feel lucky.

Happy Running - Jen

Let the Training Begin!

Today is the first day in our 18 weeks of preparing for Grandma's Marathon. Jen will be following a more advance plan because she is working with a Running Club. Heather and I will be doing a beginners plan which will be perfect. Coming back from injury can be risky so it will be good to slowly get back into it. Heather has been running and has done longer runs and probably could get by doing an intermediate plan but she might risk injury. The goal always for your first time is to finish the marathon. This is the plan that Heather and I will be following from Runner's World. There will be a few tweaks to the calendar seeing how we rest always on Sundays but overall I will stick with this plan.

For my cross training I will be doing a mixture of Tracy Anderson and P90X. I will also try to hit up some yoga classes as well. Heather will be sticking with her Kinetic Edge gym as well as some yoga. As we move forward all three of us will explain more about our recovery runs, easy runs and our occasional speed work. Both Heather and I strongly dislike working on speed so you will hear more about it from Jen. Anybody up for the challenge with us? Questions? Finding local marathons? New comers are welcomed!
And let the games begin!

Oh and Happy Valentine's Day XX

Heart Rate and Recovery Runs

In my running club they are having us figure out our Maximum and resting heart rates for training purposes. Heart rate can be used for several different reasons. In our club, one reason would be to make sure on your recovery days you are actually recovering. As runners, I think a general mentality is to just always try to push to go faster and faster which at times can cause more harm then good. So staying within a certain zone on a recovery day can really be helpful for your body. For more information on what an actual Recovery Run is, please click Here.

BUT, I have decided I do not like running Long Slow runs. For these simple reasons.... they are long and extra slow! So what would normally take you 1.5 hrs now takes you almost 2 and for what... to recover???!!! How do you all feel about this? Yesterday was cold, I went 12 miles and I had a hard time staying warm and not getting stiff and I felt it was because I tried to go so slow and stay within what would be my heart rate recovery zone.....CRAZINESS I say!!

Although heart rate is important and so is recovery, I have decided to recover only from 4-6 miles. Then, I am going to turn my long runs back into a variety of tempo and general aerobic runs where you run your natural pace or faster. What do ya think?

On a side note....

This is me sporting my staying warm in the winter running gear. It is important to wear layers so you can shed if necessary. When running I have found all kinds of trees, bushes, etc. that provide excellent hiding spots for extra layers that were making me uncomfortable. Be smart and stay warm!

To Run with a Club... or Not too

I am a runner, I love to run races and push myself faster and further. I get A LOT of satisfaction out of it. So, up to this point I have bought books and trained myself using the tools from the books, websites, etc. I also am currently a member at lifetime fitness (WHICH I LOVE) where I go to for Strength and plyo-circuit training.

BUT-- there is a new running club forming in my area and I am going to give it a whirl. I can't afford both Lifetime and running group so I am giving up lifetime for a while. Is this a mistake??? Is running in a club all its cracked up to be? I guess I'll find out. My new group meets Tuesdays at 6:00am at the track for speed work. BRING IT. I hope I get faster.

=)

On a side note, I love to talk about my runs.... so today I ran 13 miles. I went nice and slow and felt fine except for the fact that it was soo cold outside my hands turned into bricks. They were so stiff I could not punch the code in on my garage to open the door. What the heck? I just bought these gloves and they sucked.

Hey Heather, do you think your lululemon would help me out in the glove department???? =)