Run Riri Run!

Getting faster!

2012-02-09T20:42:00.001-05:00

So far this week has been great! Monday was run for 30 min and Tuesday was hills. I also had physiotherapy on Tuesday which didn't leave me enough time to go outside and find a decent hill in the area, plus it was past 8pm, so I ended doing them in the gym. I warmed up for 10 min, then did 5 x 45sec climbs on 8% incline with 1 min recovery in between. I finished with another 10 min cooldown. Overall the workout wasn't too bad, but the hills felt much easier than outside. Maybe because I kept my speed constant across the intervals instead of running harder during the climbs? I don't know, I'll try to push a little harder next time.

Today I was craving another run, so I'm glad I had a challenging one. 40 min negative split which I did right after work. It was cold and windy and hilly, yet I did my negative split under 6 min/km with an overall pace of 6:11 min/km. This is the fastest I've ever run a negative split. I think I'm getting faster, it's encouraging! The reason why this makes me happy is because it's opening a lot more possibilities for running with a buddy, since I seem to be the slowest out of my runner friends. I'm catching up with them, yay! See Runkeeper link.

Ironman pro and not so much

2012-02-09T20:24:00.001-05:00

I learned today that Lance Armstrong is going to compete in an Ironman triathlon this year. He didn't say whether it's in a half or a full, but my guess is a full. Here are the news, from the horse's mouth.

In other news, I found out thanks to Steve that there is more than one Ironman organized yearly in Kona and this one, happening just this coming weekend, promises to be a blast. I wish I were there, at least to take pictures. Since the rules are so relaxed, maybe I'll make this one my Ironman goal, haha. I could have a relaxing holiday at the same time, wouldn't that be great?

Here's the link to Steve's post about this "Just for fun" Ironman. Seriously, I'd love to do this one day.

On the edge of reason

2012-02-06T21:02:00.001-05:00

I am either a glutton for punishment or I like living on the edge... of reason. Saturday was supposed to be my rest day, I went for a 6k walk. Yesterday I was supposed to do a 1h10 negative split and that went really well, I run about 10.7k but in the evening I went out for more and banked in another 7k walk. Tonight I run for 30 minutes and tomorrow I'm scheduled for hill repeats. Remember this post in about a week when my calf will be aching and I will be crying. How can I say no? This winter has been nothing like one. Look below, where is the snow? That's me, with a lamp post sticking out of my head.

I LOVE Burrito Boyz

2012-02-06T13:13:00.000-05:00

Today I went for a vascular test to see what's going on with my Raynaud's. Actually I have no clue why the doc sent me there, whether it's for confirming his diagnostic or ruling something else out. Anyway, on my way there I drove by Burrito Boyz and promised myself that I'd have one on my way back to work. See, this is pretty much the only place in the GTA where they toast your burrito and where you can find fish stuffed burritos. I remember asking for a "Hali" but I ended up with a "Haddie", whatever, tastes just the same. HOLY YUM.

Don't judge. I only go there twice a year.

Workout chatter

2012-02-06T12:59:00.000-05:00

Found these clouds on the Runkeeper blog. This is what people say after finishing a workout. Pretty neat!!

Switching gears

2012-02-04T10:00:00.000-05:00

Last night I switched gears, so we speak. My bike intervals went from 2/1s to 5/1s, which means pedaling hard for 5 minutes, rest for 1 minute and repeat 6 times. With a 5 min warmup and 5 min cooldown, I got a nice 45min workout. By the third interval I was starting to wonder whether my coach wanted me to reach my max heart rate or was doing some sort of evil experiment on me. Of course it didn't help that I chose level 10 on the bike to add some nice resistance and tried to stay above 100rpms for all 5 minutes at each interval. As a result I was sweating buckets of water and was about to pass out by the end, starving! I finished by biking 20.2km with an average pace of 2.14min/km. I felt proud, thus a blog post.

45 Easy

2012-02-02T18:58:00.000-05:00

So I am currently training for the Mississauga Marathon and there are 12.5 weeks left before the big 26.6. Last year I spent the summer training, but just before the marathon I got sick and had surgery, so now it's a new start, new program and a coach to keep me on track. My schedule is fairly simple for the moment, I do 2 bike workouts and 3 runs a week. Tonight was a 45 min "easy run" and I'm glad that I had a rest day after the hill repeats I did on Tuesday because my glutes were screaming at me yesterday. They calmed down since and I could do this run in peace. Pure bliss. A bit tough around the corners as I didn't pay too much attention to my breathing and had a few stitches here and there, as well as a bit cold by the end of it. Once I got home, hubbs said "you have sweat frozen around your face". Hmm. Underneath my outer shell I was drenched. Go figure.

Here comes the Runkeeper. The light was absolutely gorgeous, so I took a few pics. I even photographed the baby hill (4% incline) that I use for my repeats. I definitely have to find myself a better one as this one is on a major route without sidewalks and where everyone speeds. It is called Countryside Dr., literally. On the right, a corn field, on the left, our subdivision that is only 5 years old. I don't want to get killed.

Step Ahead Podcast Guest and a few Salty Facts

2012-02-02T11:25:00.000-05:00

A few weeks ago I was invited by Chris Luckhardt and Carol Levesque to be their first guest on the Step Ahead podcast. It was a great experience and to my surprise I managed to contain my nervousness and not screw up too many English words. Overall it looked like I was on drugs as I was giggling uncontrollably, but to tell you the truth, I was really excited and happy to talk about running (which makes me happy to begin with). There is video too!!

Most memorable brain slips : "neutral" vs "natural", "forfeit" (do you even say that for a marathon race?), "running" vs "run" (not quite sure when to use which), "well..." (at some point in time it seemed that I was starting all sentences with it), getting my Adidas shoes models backwards (the most recent being the adiSTAR Ride 3 and the older one, most comfortable, the Supernova Glide 2).

Last but not least, you may have wondered : "running better because of the salt"?? What in hell is she talking about? Did she really say that? Well... (hehe) I dunno. I was thinking that maybe the salt in the air was helping increase performance as there must be a highest concentration of it along the ocean. After all, salt is good for runners, right? I remember when I was a kid, growing up in Romania, I visited this salt mine that was a few hundred meters underground and that had a running track. Many of the Romanian athletes were going there to train because of... the salt? The naturally purified air? I have to find proof that works, if it's not more than an old belief. But given the large number of world records established by Romanian athletes when I was a kid, maybe there is some truth to that. Or steroids. Nah, that can't be it. Where is my Romanian pride, dammit?

There you go, found an article about the salt mine Salina Veche (Unirea) in Wikipedia:

After 1970, the mine becomes a touristic objective, offering exceptional natural conditions as a result of its microclimate rich in aerosols, which proved its well known efficiency in treating the respiratory diseases. The air-conditioning of the mine is natural, with a constant temperature during the whole year of 12 °C, an atmospheric pressure of 730 mmHg and a humidity with an average of 10% lower than the surface average.

[...] Some of the mine chambers were transformed in sport courts where athletes perform their trainings.

Meal snap

2012-02-01T20:21:00.001-05:00

Today's meals:

Cheese and ham omelet (with egg whites)
Trail Mix snack
Turkey sandwich
Cranberry/almond Thin Addictives cookies
Salmon and broccoli

Total cals: 1308
Protein: 113g
Carbs: 103g
Fat: 51g
Fiber: 16g

Two new recipes

2012-02-01T19:49:00.000-05:00

This week I took a few days off work because my physician thinks I need to relax. And what better way to relax than cooking a few meals? Although I don't like spending too much time in the kitchen in general, I am always eager to try something new. Today I came across this link for DYI Dried Apples. Since I love apples and I had a few sitting pretty in the fridge, I put myself to work and peeled, soaked, baked and ... voila!! 4h later in the oven at 175F (my oven wouldn't want to go lower than that), with a flip at half time, I have two dozens of apple chips. They are delish!

But this was just the warm-up. While I was preparing dinner, I told myself - why not make that quiche that I saved in my Training Peaks library for so long? Those baby spinach leaves are going to turn mushy before I schedule them for a meal! So I took out all the ingredients and prepared it as following:

In a pan, cooked 10oz of spinach with 1.5 portobello mushroom and some butter until they all melted nicely. Set aside in a bowl and added half a red bellpepper, diced. Added a cup of 0% Greek Yogurt (Liberte), 1 cup of egg whites, shredded cheese (I used the light 4 cheese blend) and grated parmesan. Mixed everything and baked at 350F for 45min. Result below. My hubby approved, so it shouldn't be bad at all. Apparently it tastes like cheese, no kidding!

There you go. Hungry much? Stop by anytime.

A Few Numbers

2012-02-01T15:41:00.000-05:00

One thing I noticed across all fitness blogs that I visited is that people love numbers. I am a geek at heart too, so I will probably share numbers with you, although I don't think I will go in too much detail as I rather post the links that do so. For example, if you want to see my splits on a particular run, I will post a Runkeeper link to that activity and you can see all the details there.

I will give you some overall numbers though so you can get the big picture.

-Been running since October 2009

-Run the following races so far (see race results on the sidebar)

Toronto Women's Run 5k (2010)
Island Girl Women's 10k (2010)
Longboat Toronto Island Run 10k (2010)
Toronto Scotiabank Waterfront Half Marathon (2010)
Around the Bay 30k Relay (2011)
Mississauga Half Marathon (2011)

-I am 5'3" and currently weigh 141lb (goal of 130-135lb)

-I am a mom, I have 2 boys, 10 and 12 yr old

-My 5k PR is 28:24

-The longest I've ever run was 3h in summer of 2011 when I was training for the Scotiabank Toronto Marathon. I could not participate because I had my gallbladder removed a week before.

-I completed four times the 60k Walk to End Breast Cancer benefiting Princess Margaret Hospital

-Played volleyball for about 10yrs recreationally, then did 10yrs of martial arts (karate and taekwondo) before starting to run

-I love to hike, mostly for the purpose of geocaching. I often go at night with a bunch of friends because well, the day is not fun enough. The longest hike I did was about 20k in a day.

-I can play a mean ping-pong.

Alright, that's enough for now. In the next post I will talk about one of my favorite subjects, food. For now, I gotta eat my snack.

Meal snap

2012-01-31T20:32:00.000-05:00

Today's meals:

Apple cinnamon oatmeal frittata
Lamb Rogan Josh Indian dish
Clementines
Liberte 0% Greek yoghourt
Salad with flaky spicy tuna

Total cals: 1431
Protein: 100g
Carbs: 170g
Fat: 43g
Fiber: 13g

A New Beginning

2012-01-31T14:23:00.000-05:00

I have been a blogger for a long time, ever since Blogspot came to be. I used to have a blog for many years, which I abandoned as my thoughts needed a more private space at the time and eventually, those ramblings faded to become non existent. They had lost their purpose, my life became rather uneventful, I became depressed and soon I changed my identity in the blogosphere to "unpublished". Like a relationship that turned sour, I pulled the plug that is, and stayed underground for many, many years.

In the meantime, Facebook came around and blogging became rather obsolete. Many of my blogging friends got converted into Facebook friends and the trend continued, blogs were abandoned left and right. It is just in the past few months that I got re-aquainted with blogging as I peeked into the fitness world. I discovered a few highly motivating, very funny and thoughtful folks and many of them inspired me to get back on the bandwagon and document my path to becoming an athlete, if you wish. This is not my first attempt though, I failed a few times before, so be warned, I may disappear one day just like that. Who knows what will travel through my mind, now set on a new goal. This goal is to finish a marathon, then a few triathlons, a half Ironman next year and wait for it... a full Ironman in 2014 for my 40th birthday. Yay! And ouch.

Will I succeed? Just hang around long enough and you will see. ;-)