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Exercise, Life, Running, Swimming, Weight loss

Morning vs. Nighttime Running

Hello! Short week is almost done! It’s been taking me half the day to wake up because I’m working again this week and getting dropped off by my husband just before 7 am so that he can make it to work on time. I am not a morning person. I used to be. I was the person at sleepovers who would wake up by at least 7:30 no matter the bedtime the night before. Nowadays, getting up around 6 is not fun. My body is rebelling against this new schedule. Sigh.

So today was my first run in about a week and a half because of the pains I’ve been dealing with in my left leg. It went better than I had expected. I didn’t push to go too far because I’m not sure where my knee is at, but we ran about 1.25 miles and walked another .6 in horrible humidity. It didn’t feel like Florida or anything but seeing as how we ran at 8:45 pm after the sun had set, it was pretty bad. My average pace for the running portion was like 12:02 min/mi BUT that included 2 minutes of walking so according to my eyeing of the pace chart, it was closer to 10:30 min/mi which is pretty decent for me. It was so hot that when we came back that I was drenched in sweat. Excuse me, I meant glistening. My sister claims she never sweats and she only “glistens”. Whatever. I read an interesting article in one of my magazines about working out in the morning VS at night and I’m going to continue that discussion below.

Tuesday was swim day. Lately I feel like it’s taking me much longer to warm up and fall into my swimming rhythm. I think part of it is that I’m (unintentionally) starting out at my fastest swim pace which is kind of weird because the first 100m feels like I’m swimming through molasses. It takes me around 300-500m to fall into a rhythm where it doesn’t feel like I’m fully out of breath every 50m that I swim. I’m not 100% sure what to do about this when I comes to the race because I don’t really want to wait until halfway through my swim to get it together. Is this why people run around a bit before they start? That’s the only thing I can think of to do at this point that might help. If that doesn’t work then I’ll have to do some more research into this. I ended up a little short of my planned distance by swimming only 900m because one of my earplugs broke its seal and it didn’t feel comfortable. My average pace, not including stops, was 2:02/100m.

Swimming was followed by a summer corn chowder bread bowl at Panera which is one of my favorite soups. I haven’t gone for a bread bowl in so long because it’s too much food but it’s rough because I really like sourdough, especially with this soup. I couldn’t eat it all but it was delish.

July 7, 2016 by meaganleanne

Recipes, Running, Swimming

Summer days and holding back when needed

Sometimes you have a plan but when your body says no, you have to listen. I had planned a run for this evening but my knee had been sort of bothering me through the whole day and I was nervous that if I went for a run, I would make it even worse and maybe even more serious. I interrupted the hubby while he was studying (he’s taking his NPTE board exam in less than 3 weeks!) and he did some tests to check it out and we’re figuring that my left IT band is really tight and it’s causing the pain in the knee. Or something like that. I don’t know all the fancy terms but generally that’s what’s up. It’s causing my knee to click every so many steps that I take and the more I’m standing on it, the more it hurts. This is a bit depressing but I’m hoping that with some heat/cold therapy, stretching, and rolling, it will be feeling better in the next couple of days.

I had lunch with my family at dad’s (and I suppose still technically mine) work in the cafeteria and then spent an hour at the mall with my sister. She’s obsessed with American Eagle and wanted to buy something with her birthday gift card. We also hit up Godiva for a post lunch treat. Shame on me 🙁 I’m not going to regret enjoying myself though, just the $6 dent in my shrinking wallet.

June 30, 2016 by meaganleanne

Exercise, Food, Healthy eating, Running, Training

Welcome to My Life as Mrs!

Welcome to the new blog, My Life as Mrs! This new blog has been a long time coming. I had been trying for so long to think of a good name to represent me and I’d had a whole bunch of inspirational ideas for a name but the domain name was usually taken whether or not there was a blog attached to it. Well I finally figured that I wanted a name that would move along with me as my life changed and I really liked the idea of incorporating “Mrs” because being a wife is pretty much my favorite thing. I love my husband and all of our adventures! Since we’re in an extremely transitional period right now with him just about finishing with school, about to take his boards, and starting a new job, a lot of things are going to be changing over the next few months and now is a great time to start documenting our adventures in a more dedicated fashion.

I’m in full swing for triathlon training since my sprint tri is coming up in 6 weeks! It’s been slow going to get into it because of pain in my back that I’ve been dealing with lately, but things are going well all things considered so I’m going to be sharing more updates and details as they’re actually going on so I can have a better training log of this training cycle.

So let’s start with Sunday’s run!

I look like I’m falling asleep but the sun was right in my eyes! About 2 seconds after Brady took this photo, I realized that my shoelaces and my top were pretty much exactly the same color. Yay for color coordination! I haven’t been running a whole lot lately due to the aforementioned pain but when I have been, I’ve been running to push for speed because I really held back on that last year when I was training. However, when I run for a faster speed like in the 8:30-10:00 min/mi range, I usually don’t run for more than 3-5 minutes max in an interval. So for Sunday’s run, I really wanted to see where I was at if I focused on running for an amount of time instead of speed. I managed out a decent 20 minute run with no breaks at a 12:26 min/mi average pace. I was getting some nerve problems down through my right leg the last 3 minutes of running and I’ve been a bit sore in my quads and hamstrings today but I’m actually really satisfied with that run considering it hasn’t been a consistent endeavor lately.

June 28, 2016 by meaganleanne

Exercise, Healthy eating, Running, Training, Weight loss

Too Young for Back Troubles

14 months ago, I herniated a disk in my lower back. One week before my wedding.

2 months of PT, 2 MRI’s, numerous doctors visits and loads of medical bills later, I still had a herniated disk. Every single medical professional that I have seen has told me that I’m too young to have this problem. Yay me!

Surgery was suggested but not a reality at this point so I went on an expedition to lose weight and do the best that I could to alleviate the pain in my back and legs.

I spent 3 months preparing for the IronGirl triathlon and I did lose weight (about 1/3 of my goal) as well as finding a new passion for exercising and living healthfully.

Things were going well until one morning, two weeks ago, I happened to lean forward in just the wrong way and aggravate an already temperamental herniated disk. I spent the next few agonizing days in bed feeling discouraged as well as frustrated that I couldn’t just go for a run and have that, “My body accomplished something great today!” sensation.

I’ve had a lot of time to think about my situation and I’ve come to realize that good health is a blessing that not everyone has and is too often taken for granted.

Yesterday I was reading a blog post by Run to the Finish about training secrets and one of her points really emphasized this thought.

Realize that you don’t “have to” run. You are a lucky person that “gets to” run. You have people in your life that make it possible for you to have the time to run, you have a body that allows you to run, and crazy people like me who encourage it. This is your choice.

So although I’m out of action for at least a few more weeks, I’m learning the valuable lesson of patience as well as not jumping back in too soon. I’m also reminded to be thankful for all that I do have and to never take being healthy for granted.

September 10, 2015 by meaganleanne

Exercise, Running, Training

How I Got Under Armour Socks for Free

Well… Almost free. Does $1.05 count as really paying something?

Anyways, for the past few months, I have been tracking most of my exercises with the MapMyFitness apps. Specifically Map My Run and Map My Ride.

One of the things that you can do through this app is join public challenges. For example, one of the ongoing challenges is the BMW X1 Ultimate Fitness Xperience Challenge, in which you have to use the app to record 19 workouts in 6 weeks. If you complete the challenge within the time period, you will be entered to win a $500 gift card from Under Armour and a personal training package from Men’s Health.

I was recently entered into the 30/30 Challenge where you had 30 days to complete 30 miles by logging exercises of 20 minutes or longer. Because I had been training, I logged over 80 miles and was in the top 15% of 152,000 challenge participants.

Today I got an email claiming that I had “crushed” this challenge and I was being given a promo code for 15 dollars off any purchase from the Under Armour online store. All I had to do was spend $15.01 or more to qualify. I set out to find something I could get for free and I found this set of long socks that I thought would be great since the weather is getting colder. It was $15.99 for the pair.

I used a 30-day free trial from ShopRunner to get 2-day free shipping and the grand total for my purchase came to $1.05.

I don’t know exactly why I got the $15 off and I don’t know if it will come around again or not. But I do know that I got a ~~basically~~ free pair of socks just because I worked out this past month… and that’s pretty cool.

August 24, 2015 by meaganleanne

Exercise, Running, Training, Triathlon, Weight loss

Envisioning the Finish

Today I had a horrible run. It’s been raining all day and the roads were steamy, the air was muggy, and my body felt like it was in a sweaty hell.

For the past few months, I’ve been using Active’s Couch to 5k program and today was day one of the final week. The last week! Today’s run was a straight 30 minute run with a 5 minute warm-up and cool down. I wanted to give up before I even started running. It was so hot, I’d been feeling mildly sick all day, and I was still a little tired from my workout the day before. Each step was miserable.

I reached the top of the first long hill and spent the next 5 minutes trying to work myself out of the cramp in my side. Meanwhile, my face was dripping in sweat and I had to keep wiping it off on my T-shirt turned sweat-rag.

I forgot to bring my headphones so I spent the run thinking about the next couple of weeks and how much work I feel like I still have to do to get ready for this triathlon. I started to envision the finish line and how amazing it’s going to feel to reach that goal. I began thinking about how two months ago when I started this program, I could barely run a minute and a half without feeling like I would never be able to take another breath. I also realized that I’ve managed to lose 15 pounds from working out this summer.

So while it did feel as though I was running through a swamp, all of my positive and happy thoughts kept pushing me forward toward my goal.

I can’t wait to finish this race!]

July 29, 2015 by meaganleanne

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