Updated training log!

Just updated my training log and race highlights. The last week has been a whirlwind of emotions and traveling. My grandfather passed away a week from Friday so I flew down to Virgina with my mom and brother for the wake and funeral service which were on Monday and Tuesday (my dad had been in Virginia since before July 4th when my grandather went into the hospital). The burial was actually in Syracuse, NY which occured on Thursday. It was a tough week emotionally. It was also a little stressful since I had to miss a week of work.

 I drove back to school on Friday and went into the lab around 9pm. I also got to see my boyfriend! He's been at school for the past week and a half helping coach a soccer camp.  Yesterday there our track team held it's annual Summer Run- it's basically a run put together by the head coach for any townies or students on campus, but the primary participants are cross country and distance runners. It's a fun weekend though because everyone comes back to campus and after the race we all go out. The race went really well- I ran 18:36 for the 3 mile race. Afterwords we enjoyed a feast of subs, pizza, fresh fruit, pretzels, and LOTS of water- it was HOT.

I haven't really been taking many pictures- here are a few photos of tonights dinner. A few of the girls who stayed with me overnight went on a run this morning- a grueling 8.5 miles- it was HOT. We made the mistake of going at 11 so we got to run at the hottest point in the day- hungover- soo much fun. Anyway, all day I can't stop drinking water and I've been ravenous.

Since it's been awhile I don't know if I've mentioned that my mom bought me an ice cream maker! I tested it out a few days after bringing it home with the help of Allie's recipe. I just mixed equal parts plain yogurt and plain greek yogurt along with some cinnamon, vanilla, blueberries and strawberries- it was delicious!

Here's another random photo of lunch- same as usual- turkey and roast beef sandwich along with some carrot fries (juts sliced of carrots grilled on my george foreman).

Does anyone have any suggestions or recipes for my ice cream machine?

What are your favorite add ins to ice cream or frozen yogurt?

Done any fun races recently?

check out chocolate covered kate's giveaway!

check out julie golean's giveaway!

Thirsty Thursday

I started off this morning with another great run! We did a hilly 6.07 mile run in 45:22 (7:29 pace). It felt great and again, good conversation was had by all (my assistant coach, the local high school track coach, and a Penn state girl home for the summer). Same routine as yesterday- shower at the fieldhouse, scarf down breakfast, go in to work. Today's batch of overnight oats included 1/2 c. almond milk, 1/3 c. oatmeal, 1/2 tbs. chia seeds, cinnamon, and a pinch of salt. 

It was a rainy day here in Lewisburg, PA, so a nice hot grilled cheese sounded great. I made this with Heidleberg Oat Bran and muenster cheese. It was ooey, gooey, and delicious! I had it along with a pathetic looking salad, some carrot sticks, and an unpictured pear and warmed up mug of almond milk.

eaten with some dijon mustard and hot sauce for dipping

The professor I do research for is on her final stretches of submitting a paper to publish. Since she was working from home today I had a little more leeway in terms of the hours I worked. I went in from 9-12, went back to my room for a delicious lunch (pictured above) then relaxed a little and watched the first episode of Food Network Star on Hulu. 

I watched it while laying down in bed and actually dozed off for a few minutes. When I "came to" I got up, drove to the storage unit to pay my monthly rent, dropped of my most recent netflix dvd (Couples Retreat), then made it back in to work around 2:30. I stayed until around 5:30 then decided that today would be a great day to drive to our local mall to utilize a soon-to-expire American Eagle coupon for $10 off of a $40 purchase along with a giftcard I got awhile ago for my birthday. After trying on numerous outfits, I decided on:

a pair of pants

and a dress

Overall it was a relaxing, and productive day. I'm excited over the fact that it's almost Friday! I'm going home again this weekend to celebrate father's day. I still have to decide what I'm going to get for him... Any ideas?

Just realized that my post has NOTHING at all to do with the title, I originally typed it as I was chugging from my Nalgene. Usually I fill this up at two or three times a day but I just realized that today I only filled it up once maybe? Well.. off to pack my bag for tomorrow!

What are you doing this weekend?

What's you're favorite way to pass a rainy day?

By the way, check out gliding calm's giveaway!

Also check out say yes to salad's giveaway!

I love Muenster cheese!

I got to sleep in this morning until 8:15! C. Rob had a running date with the boys cross country team tonight at six so I made the decision to run this afternoon by myself. That means I had time to make myself a bowl of hot chocolate oats with some oiko's greek yogurt. I like to scoop out a serving of yogurt into it's own bowl then take a scoop of each. That's how I eat the whole bowl- scoop of yogurt, scoop of oatmeal. In this bowl was 1/2 c. unsweetened almond milk, 1/3 c. oats,  1/2 tbs. chia seeds, and 1 tbs. cocoa powder.

For lunch the same sandwich I had a few days ago but this time with muenster cheese. I LOVE muenser cheese! It's so creamy and mild, and the full fat kind definitely has a much better flavor and melting capability than low fat cheese. Alongside my sandwich I had roasted carrots made on my george foreman. I like the way they start to caramelize. I usually grill them until they get a little juicy but are still crunchy.

For dinner I utilized my muenster cheese again in a grilled cheese sandwich and melted on some frozen microwaved broccoli and cauliflower. I also made Perdue chicken tenderloins sprinkled with some Cajun Foreplay. This spice is awesome. I use it on burgers, fish, chicken, and rice and beans. 

For dessert I had a fresh peach and two pieces of endangered species dark chocolate. This chocolate is awesome. When I was younger I used to pick a bar based on the animal, but now I'm more into the type of chocolate- 88% is awesome. 

I have to go back to the lab for a little bit then I think I'll enjoy some Gilmore Girls before going to bed :-) Hope you all have a good night!

What's your favorite kind of cheese?

Do you like running by yourself or with other people?

Garmin and strands stats

Figured it might be cool to post my weekly strands log as well as Saturday Garmin stats! I ran Saturday from my house, the first mile is all down hill, then it's a LONG uphill back to my house.

 

What type of running gear do you use?

I use a Garmin and just purchased a pair of compression socks which I love and will review later!

Do you use any online training programs?

I use strands which I like- it keeps a daily log of your training as well as a weekly, monthly, yearly, etc. log. It's easy to use and has a nice layout which makes it convenient to look back at old workouts. 

Tempo Tuesday

So today I did my first cross country workout of the summer! On the schedule was a 2-mile tempo run at 6:10-6:40 pace. I woke up bright and early at 6:15 and biked over to the field house with my breakfast and bagged for work. I met my assistant coach at 6:45 and after a quick dynamic warmup we were off to do a 15 minute/ 2 mile warm up. We ran to a neighborhood deemed the Kenya loop because tempo training is the foundation of Kenyan running. I did a couple of strides, then the workout began. We ran the first mile in 6:12 minutes and it felt great. The next 800 meters I really focused on staying loose and relaxing my shoulders. The last 800 meters of the loop are all uphill so I had to really work on maintaining my pace and staying relaxed. I finished the two miles in 12:29 (6:14 pace). Overall this was an awesome workout! I finished feeling accomplished, and like I had put in a great effort but with enough energy left at the end to perhaps do another one? That's for later on in the season though.

After our two mile cool down, we did about 8 minutes of ab exercises, push ups, and some leg strengthening exercises. I jumped into the showers at the field house and got dressed quickly since my stomach was grumbling. I don't have any pictures, but for breakfast I packed overnight oats made with 1/3 c. oatmeal, 1/2 cup almond milk, 1/3 c. plain greek yogurt, cinnamon, a pinch of salt, and 1/2 tbs. chia seeds eaten alongside a nie ripe pear. Then it was off to start my day. Sorry for the lack of pictures, I'll try harder tomorrow not to scarf down my food so you have more to look at than crumbs and/or dirty napkins. Here's a picture from a few days ago- a flatout wrap with laughing cow, string cheese, and peas- delicious!

Hope you all had  terrific Tuesday! We're almost halfway done with the week!

Whats your favorite type of workout (running or not)?
Do you like working out in the morning?
Also if anyones interested in a post on ab and leg exercises for runners let me know!

Anyone out there?

Hello from home! This summer I was awarded a grant to stay at school and do research with one of the professors in the biology department. I actually did this last summer and I really enjoyed being at school. I met a lot of great girls and that's actually when I started running and what prompted me to join the cross country team. This summer there isn't really anyone I know so it can be a little lonely. This week was crazy in the lab and I probably worked over 40 hours which kept me busy. I also found a yoga class which I went to Tuesday and Thursday. Anyway, I decided to come home for the weekend to relax, see my parents, and get some good food. The dorm I'm living in only has a kitchen in the basement so I've been confined to using a microwave and george foreman to cook most of my meals.

I got to sleep in this morning until 9:30. When I woke up, I got dressed and went for a quick run. The weather is so much cooler here. It was nice to run out of the sun and humidity of Lewisburg, PA. When I got home my mom was just about to go do gardening work but I convinced her to do some abs, core, and leg strengthening exercises with me. Afterwards, I made breakfast. Sorry I don't have any pictures. I had a poached egg on a flatout wrap with muenster cheese and an orange. It was delicious! By the way, have any of you tried microwaving a poached egg? It's so simple and comes out perfectly.

Last night when I got home we went out to dinner at Rogue's Harber. I wanted the black angus NY spiedies but when I ordered them the waitress informed me they were all out! I had to choose on the spot what I wanted so I ended up ordering the Atlantic salmon: fresh, boneless side cut poached in white wine and served with caramelized onions and wilted greens, choice of potato. It was great, but no spiedie (or steak)! I also had a glass of Pinot Grigio, bread, and a side salad. Afterwards we went to get Purity ice cream. I ordered a small coffee cone with chocolate sprinkles. I love getting sprinkles on my cone but I wish there was a way that I could have a few with every lick! Not just a ton on the first scoop. Anyone else have this problem? 

picture from google images- similar to my meal last night

Overall, it was a great dinner and dessert. It's sometimes hard for me to have my food prepared by other people such as in a restaurant, or to order dessert. I start to feel guilty and find myself second guessing myself- "should I have ordered that? sprinkles add a lot of calories (probably not true), this ice cream is definitely full fat." I find that the only way to deal with this is to just talk against the voices. It's frustrating that I still have thoughts like this, but I'm glad I was still able to enjoy my meal and ice cream cone. 

imagine this in a cone covered with chocolate sprinkles

I'm not sure what the plans are for today. Ithaca has a great farmer's market and I usually feel the need to go to Wegman's when I'm home since the closest one to school is thirty minutes away. Hope you all have a great Saturday and if anyone's out there I would love some feedback??

How do you deal with eating out/ ordering dessert?

Whats you're favorite kind of ice cream?

Do you like sprinkles?

Running and weight gain

image source:http://www.runnersworld.com/article/0,7120,s6-242-304--11903-0,00.html

So I woke up this morning at 6:30 am to meet one of my assistant coaches- C.Rob for a lovely run. We took it slowly and chatted the entire time. One of the topics we discussed was running and weight. A lot of people talk about an "ideal competition weight." For some this ideal weight is less than they weigh and for others it's more. He told me about a runner that went to my school a few years ago. Since then, she's moved on to bigger and better things yet running still remains a huge aspect of her life. In a conversation with C.Rob, she told him that since college she's probably gained about five pounds but is currently running better than ever.

I have yet to finish my story, and will continue with it later on today, but one of my goals for the summer is to gain some weight. I know that I need it to be healthy, but I also think having the extra muscle will help me. It's been difficult running and trying to gain weight. It is also difficult, as some of you may know, to deal with the changes your body goes through as it is gaining weight. I have found from past experiences that I have to just allow myself to feel uncomfortable with the extra "padding" and in time I will get used to and learn to love it. I think that this is something I just need to keep reminding myself of. In addition, I need to focus on the benefits of gaining weight as well as the dangers of running while underweight. I need to remind myself that with weight gain and good nutrition comes better bone mass (less risk of stress fractures), better iron levels (no iron deficiancy/ lead legs), and more muscle mass. All of these things will serve to improve my running performance. I will keep you updated on how I plan to gain weight as well as my progress. One thing that has helped with the mental aspect is to look at strong runners. So many elite women runners look emaciated or underweight, I think that it's important to have healthy looking role models. I hope that this was a semi informative post! See you later!

Molly Huddle- American 5k record holder- 14:44.76- you bet she has muscles to power her through that!

I'm pretty sure most people know who Kara Goucher is- but look at her leg muscles!

Emma Willard is an amazing and muscular steeplechase runner

Have any of you struggled with gaining weight while running?
How do you deal with the mental aspect of gaining weight?
Who are some healthy role models you look up to (athletes, celebrities, real people)?

Peace of mind

I woke up this morning at 7:15 so that I could run before going in to work at 9. I brought my breakfast, clothes to change in to, and a clean towel to the field house so that I could go straight to work after my run. This week I'm aiming for around 30 miles. I ran 27 last week, so I'm slowly trying to build up. With a day off this week, that means I'm aiming to average around 4.5-5.5 miles a day. Yesterday I ran around 5 and it was HOT! For some reason, in Lewisburg, PA the highest temperatures always occur around 4-6.

This morning however, it was a cool and crisp 68 degrees. This morning I ran 4.7 miles at around 7:13 pace. It was so peaceful. It was one of those days where I felt like I could run forever. I was a relaxed and let my mind wonder. Even though it was an easy pace, I was still pretty sweaty when I got back. At the field house I did some abs and the mandatory pushups then hopped in the shower to continue my day.