Wife Mother Runner Garmin Archives

Marine Corps Marathon Training Round 2

July 15, 2016

Marine Corps marathon training is now under way. I had a great longer run recently. I contribute my success to the 21 Day Fix Beach Body program I am doing. I have lost a few pounds and I have been working out my lower body which is helping to make my legs stronger.

I did a long run using the heart rate training method I have been following for the past two months. I didn’t have my heart set on a particular route when I went out the door. I ended up running towards the reservoirs at the end of my street and decided to tackle the big hills for the return miles. I felt very strong on those hills. It was a very warm day but I held my pace within my heart rate range and was very consistent using my 30/30 intervals. I walked the large portion of the uphill and then ran the downhill. My intent is to run that part of my long runs each time I have a long run so that I build up my endurance for the hills.

While I was on vacation in New Hampshire I also took a route that was hilly and ran uphill rather than walk most of it. It was a very hot day so I did make sure to stay within my heart rate range; but I also wanted to push myself a little to run uphill. Funny when I compare the maps of the two runs the New Hampshire one doesn’t look as hilly as it seemed.

I’m planning on continuing to strengthen my glutes, hamstrings and quads with my Team Beach Body videos. Another Mother Runner’s coach Mary Kate also released a great video yesterday on how to use the bosu ball to work those delicate areas that runners have trouble with. Check them out from the Another Mother Runner blog. I’ll be trying these out and will let you know how they help me!

Injury Update – Making A New Plan

April 30, 2016

It’s been a while since I blogged and there are several reasons for that. One good reason was because I was on vacation with my family to Disney for Spring break and also to run the runDisney Star Wars Dark Side Challenge. I’ll have more on the race specifics in a future post. I have also been recovering from my recent bout with patellar tendonitis. I had been very good about resting it, icing it and doing various PT exercises to strengthen it. I did not run at all prior to the race; but wasn’t too concerned about conditioning for the race. I was able to walk around the parks at Disney with the family just fine and had my knee taped by my friend Merle while at the expo for the race.

That was great support for me while I visited the parks the two days prior to the actual races. I also took the advice of my chiropractor and purchased a knee strap for support to use when I run.

Once it was time to run the races, I felt good about the 10K. My plan was to run my intervals and see what happens. If things weren’t better, then I was going to walk the half the next day if necessary. I was running with Diana and Mandy and they were supportive of my needs. I ran the 10K with a few issues; but what I noticed with this race was that instead of doing my intervals, I kept running through them. I didn’t want to stop every 30 seconds. Part of the reason for that was because it was crowded and the second part was because I was feeling so good. I hadn’t run in three weeks and my legs felt fresh to run almost a mile without stopping for a walk break.

It’s when i stopped for the intervals that I was starting to feel the twinges. I also noticed it when I ran downhill. So I was very careful. All in all, I was very happy with my recovery and knew that I would be ok for the half marathon. I felt good the entire day after the race (despite the fatigue from being awake since 2:30 a.m.) and went to the Magic Kingdom with my family and met up with Diana and Mandy for pictures of us together for Dapper Day.

The next morning was the half marathon and I was going to take the same approach for that race. My legs were a little bit sore from running continuously but my knee felt ok. However, I had quickly gotten sick with some type of respiratory issue. I don’t know if it was allergies, or not having my oil diffuser with my in our hotel room; but I lost my voice and my lungs were very heavy. Once the race started I did ok for the first section and my knee survived it very well also; but by mile 6 I was deteriorating. I was very tired, I had trouble with my breathing and my throat and chest was burning from the illness I was fighting off.

I was not happy with my race results, and I am still processing this race mentally; but that will be left for a future blog post.

What I plan to do now that I am back home again and was able to go on a few runs with no knee issue is to put together my plan for the year going forward. I am signed up for the Marine Corps Marathon. I thought about my successes in the past and what I did to be successful with my races. The answer is to have a plan. So I went to my favorite website, www.jeffgalloway.com and printed out his marathon training plan and penciled in the dates from the Marine Corps Marathon date back. So now I have a plan. When I was successful with my races, it was because I used that plan religiously. I want to get back to that.

I am also exploring Heart Rate Training. I was listening to one of my favorite podcasts, Another Mother Runner and Dimity and Sarah were talking about Heart Rate Training, which Dimity has been doing a lot of because she is training for an ultra. They talked about Heart Rate training having benefits of better aerobic training, reduction in the risk of injury and an increase in your speed. They offer a heart rate training plan which I am going to join and give it a fair shot in addition to my Jeff Galloway training plan.

That’s where things are as of now, I’ll dig deeper into my race recaps, training plans and Disney vacation recap as soon as I can. Stay tuned!

Marine Corp Marathon Training is Complete Yet Incomplete

September 27, 2015

When I began running and participating in races I was very diligent with my training. I would follow the training plan to the T. But lately I have been veering from that plan and cutting corners with my long runs especially. I consistently get in 3-5 runs per week, but I am not running a 23-26 mile run prior to the marathon as Jeff Galloway’s training plans suggest.

There are several reasons for that. One is because mentally I burn out when doing 23+ miles prior to my race. The second is because I am having issues with my right leg and I think it is my IT band acting up. Third I just haven’t had as much time. That never was an excuse I would never let get in my way before.

My last run was on Friday and my intent was to do 20 miles. I walked the first half mile to warm up my leg. Then I began my 30/30 intervals. I was doing ok until mile 3 when my Garmin watch lost power. Just before I left my house I grabbed my watch and it was almost dead. I charged what I could and brought the cord and a portable charger with me. I didn’t expect to need it that soon into the run. I plugged it in to charge and used runkeeper for a while. But I didn’t have intervals working. I ended up needing to download an interval app so that I had audible cues when to do my walk/runs.

At first it was frustrating not having my watch working. But then I wasn’t keeping track of the distance as much. So there was a little relief. I wasn’t constantly checking it and doing the math in my head to guess what time I would finish and how much more time did I have left to go. It was a freeing feeling not monitoring that information.

I mapped out a route before I left the house so I thought it would be doing somewhere between 11-13 before I looped back to my house and started the last half of the run. When I got home and refilled my water and ice I checked my map online and completed 13. That was a relief. I only had 7 miles left. Instead of the route I had planned out for the last section I decided to stick to my route closer to home. I didn’t want to go too far in case I started to have issues as I was getting towards the end of the run.

Strangely, my feet were hurting me the most. I was doing more walking than running at times so I don’t know if that was the cause. It was bothering me quite a bit. I hope that won’t be an issue on race day.

I ended up cutting the training run a mile short because I ran out of road and I also felt like I was out there the entire day! I was out there from 10:00 in the morning until 3:00 in the afternoon.

After I finished I had my chocolate milk and showered and sat down to do some work for a little bit and to put my feet up. That felt good but I didn’t want to get stiff sitting around. Everything was ok and I wasn’t having many serious issues with my IT band.

The following days were good. I had some stiffness but it was the kind that feels good when you push yourself. I didn’t push myself in terms of speed but I was pushing myself to go farther than I have since January.

After I completed the run I was glad it was over but I still feel incomplete or unprepared for this race. This is the Marine Corp marathon. I feel like I am disrespecting the race. I have to Beat the Bridge so the roads can be reopened by 1:00 p.m. So if I can do that I won’t be as scared. I am running it with friends who also have the same goal of surviving so I am hoping we can all cross the line together.

Depending on how things go with this race will determine what I decide to do next year. When I finish this race I need to maintain my mileage through November and December for the Dopey Challenge in January. That means 2 more 20 milers at least. Marine Corp Marathon was on my bucket list along with the Chicago marathon and NYC. So I will leave it up to fate to determine if I will be training again next year for those races in addition to my Disney marathon in January.

EveryMove Fitness Tracker App

July 13, 2014

As a Sweat Pink Ambassador I am given the opportunity to review new apps, products and gear. Today I am going to tell you about a new app called Everymove. This app rewards you for your activities. EveryMove uses our favorite tracking devices and apps to earn points for daily activities. The points are then rewarded to you in the form of a discount off of products online. There are hundreds of activities you can choose from to earn points from yoga to yard work, cleaning the house, exercising or playing with the kids!

My favorite way to #sweatpink is to run and lift weights. I am also going to start incorporating walking into the days that I am not doing a run to help with my Dopey training for January. When I want to upload my latest runs I use my Garmin and Sync to it from the EveryMove App. You can also manually enter in an activity you completed or you can connect to devices you already use like a FitBit, RunKeeper, Garmin, Nike+, Strava and several others.

I choose to connect my Garmin activity to my tracker for automatic updates of my runs.

With EveryMove, sweat is rewarded with badges, levels, activity day bonuses, exclusive offers from top fitness brands, and charitable donation opportunities. I like the ability to select charitable donation opportunities. This would be a good way for me to give back by doing something that I enjoy doing. I will be researching into the donation aspect of this app more.

You can also join the online community and invite friends and family to cheer each other on and compete. They can use whatever devices or apps that they use and then connect in this community.

I have been using the app for a week so far. I see there are a lot of rewards to choose from and I have already earned my first reward and am working on my second one.

To learn more about EveryMove follow this link.

Follow EveryMove on Twitter or Facebook

Download the app for the iPhone

Download the app for Android

How Do You Know When It Is Time To Replace Your Sneakers?

June 11, 2014

Typically for me, I need to replace my sneakers anywhere between 250 – 350 miles. I try to keep a date in my sports software like Endomondo or Gamin. But sometimes my sneakers tell me it is time to replace them. When they are getting old, I sometimes feel it in my knees, shins or calves. Lately I was having calf cramps and then realized I think it was time to replace my sneakers Taking a look at the bottom of my sneakers also tells me when/if it is time for a new pair. When you get a new pair of sneakers, Nike in my case, they have little knobs on the bottom tread. Those begin to wear down with use. As you can see, the pair on the left have some good wear on them. They have about 275 miles on them. It’s never a good idea to try something new on race day, but I knew that breaking in a new pair of shoes isn’t an issue for me, especially when I am wearing the same brand, so I used my new pair for the Heartbreak Hill Half Marathon on Sunday and got a PR (for a hilly half marathon – a category of my own I made up!) I won’t say it was because of the shoes, but they do help! How do you know when it is time to get a new pair of sneakers?

My Garmin Debacle

May 12, 2014

So I was running the Simsbury River Race a few weeks ago and prior to the race I was sitting in Kim’s car with her discussing my race strategy. She asked me what my current running pace was. I pulled out my phone and starting to look at my stats and she told me, “Girl, you need to get a Garmin! It’s time to get away from all that phone crap.” (Well maybe not word for word, but that’s what she was trying to say). So I decided to use the birthday money my mom gave me towards a Garmin watch.

As soon as the race was over, I came home and pulled up the Garmin site and amazon.com and did some research. There were two specific things that I had to consider when purchasing a watch, battery life and interval training.

Well, I should have done more research because the first watch I ordered, The Garmin Forerunner 210 could only do interval training in increments of 10 seconds. It’s a nice watch, but I wasn’t really sure if it was going to suit my training needs.

So I ordered another Garmin, the Forerunner 310XT and when it arrive it was the size of a laptop on my arm! I wasn’t too happy about the size of that watch, but it had a lot of features I was interested in like the lap pace and other data on the larger screen while doing the interval training. So I figured worst case, I can wear it on my fitness belt and look at the data as I am running.

The other mistake I made was testing out the watch very little prior to my marathon. I had an epic fail on race morning because I charged the Garmin Forerunner 310, but didn’t put it in power save mode overnight. So when Gail and I got to the lobby on race morning it was dead! So we ran upstairs, she grabbed her watch, I grabbed my Forerunner 210 and we went back downstairs. I used it during the race with the 20/20 intervals, but when we hit 99 reps of intervals it stopped and I didn’t know what to do! I thought I lost all of my data. Come to find out, the data is still in the watch, but I have no idea how to restart the intervals. I did restart the timer but I assumed I was starting at mile 0 again and starting all new stats. We used Gail’s watch at this point in the race, but I was trying to capture as much data as I could because I like to review the numbers after my races.

My most recent purchase is the Garmin Forerunner 220 and so far I love it so much that I wore it as my every day watch.

It is simple to use, the battery life is great and I like the screen and information it provides me during my run. I like that I can select intervals for my own specific times for run and rest, and I came across a walk/run timer built into it today. I am still learning the watch, but it is very easy to use and some time on YouTube will really teach me a lot about it.

The watch is very light weight and is comfortable on my arm. When I first started running with a watch I hated the feeling on my arm. It really irritated me. Ironically, when I was running the Providence marathon with it on, it didn’t even bother me. I charged it when I received it last week and used it twice for running, and as a watch for time and it hasn’t required a charge yet.

The Garmin 220 is a keeper for sure. I already returned the other two watches and have no regrets. The Garmin Forerunner 210 is a nice watch, but when comparing the 210 to the 220 I’m all about the 220. Easy to read screen, cute colors and very light weight.