Weeks 9 & 10

Now sure how two weeks have passed since I updated this but

NOT TO WORRY!

 

Although I was silent, I was training hard and making some major progress...

 

Wanna see? :)

 

 

Where do I start? First of all I got a new toy! Have you ever wanted a heart rate monitor? I have been oogling over one for a few months so I broke down and bought one. It's so cool!

This is the Polar FT40 model. I bought it because I wanted to know how many calories I am actually burning. It also has a really cool feature that will tell you if your workout is improving your fitness or your fat loss.

 

As most of you know, I am a body pump instructor. I have heard all of these stats about being able to burn anywhere from 600-800 calories during a body pump class. This is where I came in:

Say what??? 561 calories in a strength training class - yet another reason that I love body pump!

 

Ok ok enough about that, let's get down to running business. I tried a few new things these past few weeks. I was finding that my short runs were boring so I needed to switch it up. I decided to try some drills on the treadmill to increase my ENDURANCE. How did you do that Liz? Oh let me show you...

 

 

(Note fancy littel graph in middle of picture below)

 

What you are viewing is 53 minutes of hills and sprints! I know it sounds torturous but it made the time fly. I did 1/4 of a mile on a 5-8% incline, sprinted 1/2, and then walked 1/4 (ish) for my heart rate to recover. Do that five times = short run murdered.

 

I also decided to move some of my running adventures to the outdoors. I brought one of my dogs along with me one day:



Do you know how long I have been wanting to post pictures of my dogs in this blog?! It's been killing me not to photo bomb my posts with pictures of them. This is Leon, he's a total momma's boy and a hunk (obviously).

 

Alright, onto the juicy details. My LLLOOOOONNNNNGGGG runs (and oh so very long they were).

 

Long run #1 (first outdoor long run) = 10 miles of hell!

Wanna know the sad part? I have no proof. This was the most grueling, awful, pain staking run I have had yet. It was absolutely terrible. Get it? The best way I can describe it is feeling like I was running with bricks tied to my feet. Ugg! I think I was so wrapped up in how miserable I was feeling that I completely forgot to take a picture when I was done.

 

Long run #2 = 12 MILES

Yep, you heard me. 12 effing miles. This run was much more successful than my first long run outside. I was feeling pretty terrible for the last few miles, body was in robot mode, but it was awesome! I wasn't going to let this milestone training moment pass without lots of pictures....

 

 Yeah I finished! I like the one furthest to the right because it shows how I wasn't able to stand correctly due to the fact that I couldn't feel my lower body. I saved the best for last:

 



 

This is what I like to call my running hair. I earned it! Check out the frizzzzz. Thanks for reading. I can't believe I'm almost there! If you're out their training, good luck and keep up the hard work - it is totally worth it!