Garmin | hellyontherun

Hello, hello!!! I do have TWO winners from The Color Run Giveaway!! Congrats to……

This Mama Runs For Cupcakes aka: Sue ❤
and
Magdalena Vargas

Congrats to you both!! I know you’re going to have a blast at the race!! Check your e-mails for some details..

Thank you to all who participated and if the The Shine Tour makes it your way, sign up!! It is the Happiest 5k On The Planet after all…

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I hope everyone else had a good weekend! Mine is still happening as I enjoy this Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday off from work 🙂

When I ran the Marine Corps Marathon last October, on my list was visiting the MLK memorial. I love literature and I love history and I seriously was so exciting about visiting so many places in our nation’s capitol.

The MLK memorial did not disappoint.

As you enter, the walls surrounding the memorial are engraved with some of King’s best quotes. I was delighted to recognize a few and completely moved by new ones I hadn’t heard before.

LOVE this!

Then, the memorial itself. It was quite impressive. I’m not a big architecture buff, my husband started out a major before switching to Chemical Engineering so he appreciates stuff like that a lot more. But even then, I know something good when I see it.

The structure is two pieces with the piece of King himself separated from the second part. I took it as a metaphor for him stepping out, going away from the norm to stand apart from the rest.

If you haven’t visited the memorial, make sure to put it on your list when you visit D.C. 🙂

Okay, back to our regularly scheduled recap lol!

It was a pretty uneventful but eventful week jaja! Monday was a rest day from running. I did a couple of ab videos at home and some wall sits and leg stuff but pretty boring day overall. Tuesday I met up with my run club and this time my husband was able to join me. I had 5 miles planned but my husband wanted me to run 4 faster ones so we could get home with plenty of time for bath day–the kids bath day that is. So 4 fast ones it was!

Wednesday I met up with my club at the track. They’d started Yasso 800s a couple of weeks ago but I hadn’t been able to make it until that day. So, I started right where they’d left off doing 6×800. I wasn’t sure what pace I wanted to do. My coach said to do an 800 at the time I’d want to finish my marathon but that meant choosing a specific time. The pressure!! I knew I had to choose something so I decided to just run the first 800 at what felt comfortable and see where that put me. 4:06. Okay, there’s NO way I think or plan to finish my marathon at that time but that felt comfortable for me during the workout so the next 5 800s I shot to keep my pace there. And guess what? I was +/- 2 seconds each 800!!

When I came home, I checked to see what pace a 4:06 marathon would be and was surprised that it was a 9:25/mile pace. Why did this surprise me? My last 3 long runs of 14, 14, and 16 were all +/- 2 seconds from that pace!

All I want from Phoenix Marathon is a PR and if all the stars align, a sub 4:30. My training has gone really well, better than what the two times above would get me, but I’m being very cautiously realistic with my expectations. You never know what the day, your body, the world will be like come race day and 26.2 miles is no joke. I’m still not sure what my “strategy” is exactly but I plan to start off at what has been my comfortable long run pace and just go from there. I’ve found in my two most recent races that going in relaxed and with no pressure-filled goal has yielded me great results.

Thursday I was thinking about all of this and really felt like going for a run. I didn’t want anything harboring my thoughts so I went sans watch. It was a run to just run.

Friday was my usual rest day and Saturday was Expo Day! I had a race on Sunday (that I’ll recap later but woohoo!!!) It was funny because Thursday was sans watch day and Saturday my NEW watch arrived in the mail!

Isn’t she lovely?? I took it for a mile test run 🙂

Overall, a pretty good week that was topped off by an awesome race. No PR on Sunday but I was pretty darn close–I’ll tell you all about it later this week but if you’re following me on Instagram or Facebook then you know that I am a very happy girl 🙂

Total Mileage: 23.4

Water Intake: A+

Success!

How was your running week? Did you race or long run?

Do you have today off from work (those stateside)? Have you visited the MLK memorial?

Do you ever run sans watch?

This week has been a week of up and downs (I know, it’s barely Thursday). On Sunday, my husband surprised me by announcing we were going to our running store to finally purchase the Garmin watch I had been coveting.

A few of my running buddies have the Garmin Forerunner 10, which they all rave about. It’s not a high tech watch, just a watch with the essentials—time, distance, pace, calories. I’ve used the Nike+ watch and didn’t mind it but like that the Garmin has a larger display (I had the old school Nike+–the one where you had to have specific Nike shoes).

I was like a giddy school girl walking into the store. The door saleslady asked, “Can I help you find something?”

“Garmin!”

She walked me to the watch display and there it was—the exact one I wanted. Sleek, simple, black.

“That one,” I said, pointing inside the glass case.

My husband knew I’d want to test it out immediately.

I decided an easy 3 mile run would be perfect. Finally being able to not have to hold my Galaxy S3 clunker of a phone felt liberating. I felt lighter, swifter….faster. I knew it was partly excitement that was carrying me through my run (my legs had been feeling achy the past few days) but it didn’t matter to me the reason, I was running with my Garmin and I loved it.

Sure enough, when I reached the end I looked down at my watch and saw that I had tied my time with my fastest 3 miler post pregnancy (and really a couple of years pre-pregnancy too!)

But I was hurting.

My legs felt tight and with each step in my cool down I was wincing in pain. This did not feel good.

I made Monday a cross training day hoping to give my legs some relief and on Tuesday night I hopped on the treadmill ready for my scheduled 5 mile run. As soon as I started I knew it wasn’t going to happen. I made it to 3 miles and turned off the treadmill defeated.

I made a pit stop to my trainer on my way out to tell him of my woes. He immediately knew that what was wrong was the ever dreaded shin splints. I had a vague feeling this could be it but in all my years of running, I’ve never experienced shin splints and I couldn’t understand why now this was happening to me. He said it was likely due to me accumulating a lot of mileage so soon and not incorporating enough cross training. No running for at least two weeks he said. He knew he was killing me with that news.

I trust my trainer; he knows me well. The pain wasn’t severe and I felt like I could continue to train but I knew that I could potentially make the situation worse. He knew I was debating this in my head.

“Don’t even think about it,” he said sternly. “You’re at a point right now where you don’t need to see a doctor but if you continue to run you’ll get there.”

It’s so frustrating because I feel like I was finally hitting a groove and with a race each month the next four months I know I’ve got a lot of training to do—and then there’s my first marathon in March.

I’m hoping two weeks is all it will take. I figure I can experiment with new workouts and include more of the ones I know and enjoy doing.

And hope I can have a positive attitude in the meantime.

hellyontherun

Tag Archives: Garmin

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