WIAW - Jambalaya

 Happy Wednesday and Happy Leap Day! I really enjoy this extra day in February because it is an extra day to run.  It is another week and another round of What I ate Wednesday hosted by Peas and Crayons.




I have been slacking on taking pictures of my food and I have been not eating as many veggies as I should.  I mostly enjoy sharing my "What I are for Dinner" eats because most of the time I am trying out new recipes!  This past Sunday was no exception.

Breakfast: Chocolate Chip pancakes and three glasses of coffee

Lunch: Leftover Stuffed shells with Italian bread

Snack: Peanut Butter cookie dough and peach rings

Dinner: Sausage and Shrimp Jambalaya - My Brother in law made this recipe over Christmas and gave us some and it was delicious!  This recipe makes a lot of Jambalaya and it does take a while (~1.5 hours) to make.  But once you are done it is so worth it.

Lately I have been feeling really bad about my consumption of cookies.  I just have been lacking serious self control when it comes to eating cookies.  It didn't help that my co-worker brought in butterscotch chip cookies on Monday too.  Must. Stop. Eating. Cookies!

Adding up the days

I am currently 13 weeks away from the marathon (May 27th) and 9 weeks from the half marathon (April 29th) and the mileage increases have only just begun.

Crossing off the days of the training plan

Entering this training schedule, I was running 5 days a week which I had been doing for quite some time.  I was comfortable with 5 days a week and it allowed for a lot of flexibility in where I placed my rest day where I actually did not exercise at all.  During that time, my weekly mileage was around the high 20s/low 30s.

As I started gearing up for the marathon, I began to increase my mileage so that I would start my training with a base of 40 miles/week. It soon became very difficult to fit 40+ miles into 5 days of running. 

If you do the math
(40 miles/week) / (5 days) = 8 miles/day
where if you were to do the same mileage over 6 days
(40 miles/week) / (6 days) = 6.66 miles/day

So I have started running six days a week instead of five and I am currently on my second week of doing this.  I think the only way I am able to hold it all together and complete the workouts is because I keep my three easy runs VERY easy and continue to go to my weekly pilates and yoga classes.

It's not easy running almost every day of the week and of course there are advantages and disadvantages to both.

Advantages:
Keep up momentum gained by running continuous days
Three days hard, three days easy
Less miles per day

Disadvantages:
One non-running day
Less time for recovery between runs
Too many consecutive days of running

When I get the chance in the coming weeks, especially in my cutback weeks, I think I will try to scale back to 5 days to give my legs the extra rest.  Otherwise, so far I have been feeling good. The extra day has made scheduling runs easier and I don't feel like every run (except my long run) has to be at least 5+ miles.

And the extra day of running makes me feel like I can eat a few extra cupcakes (or cookies!)

Cupcakes from the wedding we attended over the weekend

How many days a week do you run?

Three Things Thursday

1. I think I have found the solution to the equation of increasing mileage = complete exhaustion. Going to bed early!  Now I have always been a 10pm bedtime person, but lately with the increase in mileage I have been getting to bed between 9-9:30pm and it really has been helping me to feel pretty rested.  Plus I think my co-workers appreciate it because I have been less grumpy.  Although the earlier bedtime is tough, it really makes me use my time wisely in the evenings. 

2. I am trying a new way of hydrating today.  My running buddy gave me some her Nuun stash and so I put it in my water today after my workout.  I have been noticing lately that although I am drinking water, I don't know if my body is actually absorbing as much as it could.  So I am going to try this and see how it works!  Today I am trying the lemon lime flavor and it is really good!

3. I finally gave in and started a Facebook page for Morning Runner!  This is all still so new to me so any suggestions or advice would be appreciated!

Happy (almost) Friday!!

WIAW

Happy Wednesday! Here's another round of What I ate Wednesday with my eats from Monday with lots of veggies (and fruits)!

Breakfast: Raisin oatmeal with Coffee

Morning Snack: Pretzel goldfish

Lunch: Leftover Minestrone soup - This recipe is so easy and delicious! One leftover Pillsbury crescent, pistachios, and 2 gingerbread cookies/1 peanut butter cookie

Afternoon Snack: Orange and Banana

Dinner: Cilantro Lime Tilapia Tacos - This recipe was also amazing and I can't wait to make these again.  Broccoli and leftover Cake mix vanilla cake with chocolate frosting.

Evening Snack: More cookies.

Overall this was a good day but I once again over did it on the cookies after dinner.  But these two new recipes that I tried this week were a great hit and I definitely will be making them again!

My Top Secret Revealed

A few weeks ago, I mentioned that I am training for a half marathon on April 29th which is true but I left out one little detail.

Four weeks after that half marathon race, 

I will be running in my first marathon.

A few of you have asked if I am training for one and I just could not keep it a secret any longer.  At first I wasn't even sure if I was actually going to go through with it because of my knee pain.  But then as I started to make my comeback and my knee pain subsided I thought that maybe I could actually run the marathon.

See here is what happened - my best friend and also my running buddy has wanted to run a marathon for over a year now but I really have not had the desire.  We kept putting it off until last November when she got engaged!  Plans were quickly formed for her wedding in October 2012 which kind of put a fall marathon out of the question. She mentioned that she really wanted to run a spring marathon and although I was apprehensive, I decided to sign up with her. 

It is still a long way off (14 weeks) and I am still incredibly nervous about my ever increasing weekly mileage but having a great buddy to do all the long runs with has definitely helped.  I honestly don't think I would have signed up for this if I had to train and race mostly alone.

I am not sure I will like the marathon distance, but I am going to try it at least once to say I have done it. We will see what happens after that.  All the training/running has already proved to be a big time commitment and I still have a long way to go.

97 days and counting....