Tag Archives: target practice

Training, Uncategorized

Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Target Practice

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Hi, friends! How was your Thanksgiving? Mine was filled with family and food — as it should be. I hope yours was, too. We got to my parents’ on Wednesday afternoon and came home Saturday. While we were there, I got in a few good runs with some nice scenery,
photo (23)

a nice gym workout with my mom, and some quality time with the extended family (unpictured, because I was busy enjoying the QT).

On the way home Saturday, we stopped a few times and got the vast majority of our Christmas shopping done. (No pictures of that, either, as the recipients of those gifts read this blog). Winning.

Today, we did the usual boring Sunday stuff but also got our Christmas tree up, and J did the outside lights while I ran 8 miles. Also winning.

Today is December 1, which means it’s time to see how I did on my November Target Practice goals.

Target Practice

I tag along with Fit.Fun.Femme. for these posts.  I think I’m going to make Target Practice a monthly post, because my goals don’t change much from week to week.

These were my goals for November:

Life: Hang out with some friends. Call the ones who live too far away to hang out with. I went to a party a couple of weeks ago. And I haven’t called anyone, but I have exchanged some texts. Grade: C-. 

Blog: Post a minimum of three times a week, and regularly update Twitter and Instagram. Well. That was ambitious for a month as busy as November. Nope, didn’t happen… unless your definition of “regularly” is everyone else’s definition of “occasionally.” Grade: D.

Health: Finish the Whole30. Figure out what’s been bothering my guts for so long. I got half of this one. I finished the Whole30, but my insides are still messy. I’m not sure what to do next. Grade: B. Because it’s really not my fault that my experiment didn’t work. 

Fitness: While my mileage is decreased, I want to gain some more strength. That probably means actually going to the weight room instead of to the dumbbells in my basement. Hey hey, I actually succeeded at one of my goals! I’ve hit the gym — the grown-up weights section — three times a week for the past few weeks. Score. Grade: A.

And now, for December goals:

Life: Enjoy all the holidays have to offer, rather than letting them stress me out. We all know that there’s a lot of stress that comes in December — a ton of events to attend — some of which we’d maybe rather not –, the end of the semester at work, shopping, blah blah blah. But there’s also a lot of fun stuff  — the events we want to attend, the time with friends and family, shopping on the Internet from the comfort of my couch — and I want to focus on the happy instead of the stressful.

Blog: I’m not going to put too much pressure on myself here (see goal above). I’ll be satisfied with twice a week, but I want to take more pictures and be more active on social media when possible — without letting my online life take precedence over my in-person life.

Health: Indulge mindfully. Because there are some flipping delicious things that only come around once a year, I will eat those flipping delicious things. But I don’t need to eat ALL the things. For the most part, I want to stay Whole30 compliant even though the “official” program is over, and indulge in the treats that are truly worth it.

Fitness: Work out every day in December. That will help balance both the stress and the indulgences. I’d like to do a December run streak, but if anything feels twingy, I’ll cross train instead. No need to create an injury just because I want to go streaking.


Not that kind of streaking. 

Those are my goals. If you see me slacking, yell at me, okay?

 

Tell me about your Thanksgiving!

What’s your favorite December event/tradition, or what are you looking forward to most this year?

 

Training, Uncategorized

Weekly Workouts and Target Practice

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I’m running out of creative titles for target practice posts. True story. And while I’m being honest, I might as well tell you that I’m not really feeling the blogging thing tonight. I got some sad news today (I may or may not blog about it later), and I’m just not in the mood. But if I want to get better at blogging, I have to do it when I have the time, even if I don’t feel like it, right?

Last week, I posted monthly goals for November instead of weekly, so I won’t check in on those goals yet. Instead, I’ll give you a workout recap for this week. I don’t think I’ve posted one since the marathon, so this will look a lot different than the last recap you saw!

Monday: AM: 5.5 miles of treadmill intervals PM: Muscle Works class
Tuesday: 6.5 miles easy
Wednesday: 5 miles easy, quick dumbbell-and-bodyweight strength workout
Thursday: 5.5 miles easy, core work
Friday: I fully intended to leave work shortly after school got out and come home to run in the daylight. My to-do list had other ideas, though, and I got home at sunset. Cool. So I did this workout and added a half-mile run between sets for a total of 5 miles:
20121115151203-21(source)
Saturday: 7 miles easy, part of them back at my favorite park. It’s only partially open, but it’s nice to have at least a little of it back!
Sunday: 4.75 miles. Sundays are usually rest days, but I couldn’t resist
this weather. I’ll gladly cut tomorrow’s treadmill run to soak up 62 degrees and sunshine today.
Totals: 39.3 miles, 1:45ish strength

And now, the main event:

Target Practice

Target Practice is a weekly goal-setting post. I stole the idea from Fit.Fun.Femme. And by the bye, you should hop on over to Fit.Fun.Femme. and read Sara’s post about getting faster. She was sweet enough to include me in the post. I felt famous. 🙂 And I found two other blogs to follow!

Anyway, goals for this week:

Life: In connection  with the aforementioned sad news, this is going to be a rough week for my students. My goal is simply to be there for my kiddos.

Health: This is the last week of the Whole30, at least officially. I might continue with it a little longer before I start reintroducing foods. So my goal is to stick with the plan!

Fitness: Remember last week, when I said I wanted to start lifting like a grown-up? You’ll notice from my recap that I did not do that this week. I think I need a session with a trainer to show me how to do the lifts and use the machines so that I don’t hurt myself. My main fitness goal this week is to talk to my pals at the Body Firm and see what we can get set up.

 

Tell me something to make me smile. 

 

Training, Uncategorized

November (?!) Target Practice

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Can you even believe that it’s already November? That means we have two months of 2013 left. I’m pretty sure I just stopped writing 2012 like…a month ago.

October was good to me, though, so I hope November is, too!

Target Practice

I do Target Practice a la Fit.Fun.Femme. every Sunday, but at the start of the month, I like to set monthly goals instead of weekly. Although October went fast, it seems like a long time ago that I set goals for it. Here’s what they were and how close I came to meeting them. I’m grading myself again, because I ought to grade something this weekend, and it’s not gonna be the Animal Farm questions in my bag.

Life: Make and keep dates with friends. Why is this so hard for me? Friends are important. I had a few get-togethers with friends, but I still have not made friendship upkeep as high a priority as I need to. It’s just tough when everyone is so busy.

Or…maybe it’s because I am the socially awkward penguin. Grade: C-.

Blog: Take better and more relevant photos, and post twice a week. There was one week in October in which I posted only once. The others I made the twice-weekly goal. And I’m slowly but surely getting better at taking pictures.
photo (16)

See? Yesterday I even took the quintessential blogger photo of my running-shoed feet. And I posted it on instagram. Grade: C.

Health: Don’t get sick, and find some new, healthy recipes. Done and done. Thank goodness, I avoided the nasty stomach bug that was circulating the school a couple of weeks ago (knock on wood), and the Whole30 has provided me with a bunch of healthy recipes. Grade: A.

Fitness: This goal was dominated by the marathon: train well, taper well, race well, recover well. I give myself an A for this one.

And now, goals for November:

Life: Third month’s a charm? Hang out with some friends. Call the ones who live too far away to hang out with.

Blog: Post a minimum of three times a week, and regularly update Twitter and Instagram. I want to get better at this blogging thing.

Health: Finish the Whole30. Figure out what’s been bothering my guts for so long.

Fitness: I don’t have any major races on the calendar, but I’d like to get some shorter ones (10k to half marathon) scheduled for early 2014. While my mileage is decreased, I want to gain some more strength. That probably means actually going to the weight room instead of to the dumbbells in my basement. I haven’t used the big kid machines (like the squat rack) since high school weights class. Too bad this girl and this girl don’t live closer to me, because they are weight room monsters.

 

What’s something you want to accomplish in November?

Locals: Want to be my gym buddy (and maybe teach me what to do with things that aren’t dumbbells)?

Training, Uncategorized

Time to Taper: Target Practice

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Hi! Do you like the alliteration in my title there? I’m clearly on my way to being the next great American writer. Or not.

Target Practice

Anyway, I feel like the only posts I’ve done lately are Target Practice posts. (I stole Target Practice, my weekly goal-setting posts, from Fit. Fun. Femme.) At least I’m being consistent with something blog-wise. This was another busy work-week, as it was Homecoming week (file that under “Things That Were More Fun As a Kid), but I guess that’s kind of a blessing: It kept Taper Madness at bay.

Let’s check in on last week’s goals, shall we?

Life: Have a better attitude. Um. About that. There was some major grumpiness  happening. The extra activities this week were not exactly well-organized, and I was not exactly nice about it. I give myself an F.

I'm a jerk I'm sorry :( | sad panda

Health: Get some good, solid rest this week. I did a decent job most nights of getting to bed fairly early. And I slept in this morning. (I’m 95 years old and waking up at 6:30 a.m. = “sleeping in”). A few nights were later than necessary, though. Grade: B.

Fitness: Run the easy miles easy, get my two days of strength work back in there, and do my usual 4-5 days of core work.  Here’s how the workout week went:

Monday: Rest
Tuesday: AM: 40 minutes strength; PM: 5.1 miles of fartleks
Wednesday: 5 miles easy
Thursday: Tempo intervals — 3 x 1200m w/ 400m rest; 7 miles total; core work
Friday: 4.6 miles easy; 20 minutes body-weight strength work plus core work
Saturday: Spent the morning freezing at our home cross-country meet (I was the bib-tag remover. Though there were some near misses, no one barfed on me. I call that a win.) Then the sun came out, so I went home and ran 6 miles easy, then did 8-minute abs:

(If you’re one of the five people in the world who have yet to do this ab workout, go do it. It’s a decent workout, but I really love it because it’s so entertaining. That man with his capri pants and habit of calling everyone “gang” cracks me up.)

Sunday: 12-mile fast-finish long run. And that’s the last time I’ll run double-digits until the race!

Grade: A

And now for this week’s targets:

Life: Enjoy the less-stressful week. And don’t be a grump. And don’t check Sunday’s forecast 47,000 times. It looks good right now:

Health: The word of the week is “rest.” I want to be in my bed by 9:15 every night, and I want to wake up at the latest possible moment.

Fitness: Remind myself that the work is done, and pushing hard this week will hinder more than help. I’ve got one hard-ish workout on the schedule; the rest are easy. So my goal is to run them easy, as well as use some of the extra time to stretch and foam roll.

I hope you all have a good week! Also, blog-friends, I just want you to know that although I haven’t been commenting much, I have been reading your blogs. It’s just usually on my phone while I’m making copies or heating up my lunch. Or brushing my teeth. Someday, I will have a life again.

What do you do to keep taper madness away?

Ever puked or been puked on at a race?

How do you keep from being a grouch when things get stressful?

Training, Uncategorized

Good Riddance to This Week and Target Practice for Next

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I’m not going to lie, folks: I’m not sorry to see this week go. It certainly wasn’t the worst week ever, but it was busy, I was (am) tired, and calling my running “mediocre” this week would be generous. This coming week is Homecoming week, so it will be busy, too, but not quite as busy as last. Between meetings, games, and supervising the building of Homecoming parade floats, there was one night this week that I was home before 8:30. Since I get to work at 7, that made for some long days.

Also, I’m old. I had 12-13-hour days all the time in college, and I do not remember them wearing me out like this.

Anyway…normally on Target Practice days, I check in on the previous week’s goals, but last week I made goals for all of October. So we won’t do that. Especially since I already missed one (blog twice a week). Oops. So instead, here’s a look at my workout week:

Monday: Rest
Tuesday: AM: 35 minutes strength training PM: My training schedule said “fartleks.” My legs said, “No way.” So I ran 7 miles easy. My digestive system decided that since the legs didn’t have to work hard, neither did it, and it threw a fit. My stomach is a two-year-old. Awesome.
Wednesday: 11 miles with 10 at marathon goal pace. I was still tired but definitely glad I took Tuesday easy.
Thursday: 8-mile fartlek run…how my legs felt better the morning after a hard workout than after a rest day, I do not know. It was still harder than it really should have been, but possible.
Friday: 7 slow, miserable miles followed by 25ish minutes of wimpy, lackadaisical strength training. I was not feeling the whole “exercising” thing on Friday.
Saturday: 8 miles easy. It was cold and windy, but this was one of the best runs I had all week. I loved it.
Sunday: 16-mile fast-finish long run
Totals: 58 miles running, 1 hourish strength.

Instead of dwelling on the not-so-awesome parts of the week, I’m trying to focus on the good. Like the fact that I ran more miles (even if a lot of them flat sucked) during my first week of taper than during the peak of training for this same race two years ago, when I set my PR. And now I’ve got two weeks of serious tapering until the race!

Here are a couple of other good things that also happened this week:

photo (8)This was actually last Sunday, but whatever. And it’s blurry because I was trying to be sneaky. Here’s the story: I love to have my house decorated for the seasons, and I love silk flowers. I have two big vases and several small ones that I like to change out each season. However, my lack of artistic talent makes this a major (and majorly frustrating) task for me. So my amazing husband, who is much more artistically blessed than I am but couldn’t care less if there were flowers in his house, put out all my fall flowers. They look fantastic. I am so lucky.

photo (9)My Boston finisher stuff finally came yesterday. It made me happy and sad all at once.

And I don’t have a picture for this one because I was too busy stuffing my face, but we just got home from my brother’s birthday celebration. We hadn’t seen him and his girlfriend for a while, and it was a really nice time. (Side note: They went skydiving yesterday. How cool is that for a 30th birthday present?!)

Now that I’m feeling better about life, let me set some goals for the upcoming week.

Target Practice

Target Practice is a weekly goal-setting post. I stole the idea from Fit. Fun. Femme. Speaking of Fit.Fun.Femme, Sara, who blogs over there, ran a PR half marathon this weekend. She’s a rockstar. Congrats, Sara!!!

Life: Have a better attitude than last week. I had quite a number of grumpy days. Yes, I was busy. Yes, I was tired. No, I did not need to let that make me snippy with my husband or my students. I will be less of a grump this week. Even if everyone (student-wise) is whining because I make them work during Homecoming week.

Time to stop being Grumpy Cat, Cassie.

Health: Get some good, solid rest this week. There were several days last week that by fifth period, I was just dragging. Which, of course, contributed to the grumpiness. Some more sleep–and some more down time before going to bed– should improve that issue.

Fitness: It’s taper time, folks! Last week wasn’t a huge cutback; this week, my mileage will be somewhere in the 40s. So my goal is to run the easy miles easy, get my two days of strength work back in there, and do my usual 4-5 days of core work. I really slacked on core last week.

And that’s that.

How do you deal with crummy weeks?

Tell me something cool you did this weekend. Even if it’s not as cool as skydiving. 

Training, Uncategorized

October Target Practice, or September’s Over Already?!

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Okay, I know that tomorrow is still September, too, but chances of my finding time to blog tomorrow are about equal to the chances of Northern Colorado actually becoming the 51st state. So tonight, I’m looking back at my September goals and setting some up for October.

Target Practice
(As always, credit for the idea of target practice goes to Fit.Fun.Femme.)

September’s goals were:

Life:

 1. Stay on top of grading and planning. Nothing is worse than getting behind and feeling like you’ll never catch up.  I’ve done pretty well with this one; I’ve not been more than a week behind on grades, and planning is pretty much a necessity for my sanity, so all is well here. Grade: A.

2. Make dates with friends. I tend to let my relationships slide during the school year, and I don’t want to let that happen this year. Errr…whoops. Dear Cassie: Stop sucking at being a friend. Sarah and I went to a book sale and lunch once. And we had a few people over for dinner…I think that was in September? Grade: F.

Blog:

1. Take more photos. Note the number of photos in this post. Yeah…still not great about that. Well, that’s not entirely true. I’ve taken more pictures…they just rarely fit in what I write by the time I actually write a post.  Grade: D-.

2. Get on a regular blogging schedule, posting at least three times a week. Well, I don’t know about regular as in same days every week, but I have posted three times a week most weeks. I think. Grade: B.

Health: 

Sleep enough. Eat well. Take vitamins and drink Airborne. Sanitize my hands, desk, doorknob, etc. In other words, DON”T GET SICK! Unless I wake up sick tomorrow (knock on wood), it’s safe to say I conquered those nasty germs. Phew. Grade: A.

An now, on to October goals:

Life: 

I’d like to re-make the friend date goal, but since October is an insanely busy month, I’m going to loosen the parameters and say that those dates can be phone dates, too.  I need some of those, anyway.

Blog: 

1. Take more photos and better, relevant photos.

2. Post at least twice a week. (The next two weeks are nutso … Homecoming is next week, so this week is full of prep stuff and next week of Homecoming stuff. My computer and I aren’t going to be seeing much of each other, so even twice a week for the next two will be a challenge. Please don’t forget about me!)

Health: 

1. Keep up the successful germ-avoidance.

2. Try some new, healthy recipes.

Fitness: My marathon is October 20, so I’m splitting the month into (uneven) thirds: taper smart, race well, and recover smart, too. I wrapped up my last peak week (70 miles) today with one of the hardest workouts of training (22 with 12 at goal pace). Now it’s time to taper, then race, and then eat Halloween candy take good care of myself to recover.

 

Did September fly by for you, too?

Any advice about meeting these goals?

What’s something you want to accomplish in October?

Training, Uncategorized

Target Practice. Back on Sunday.

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I am remarkably good at keeping a blogging schedule. I hope you’re not too jealous of my incredible time-management skills and ability to get out posts regularly.

But seriously. It’s Sunday, so let’s do some Target Practice and act like I always do it on Sundays, starting with checking in on last week’s targets.

(If you’re new around here: Target Practice is a weekly goal-setting post that I stole from Fit. Fun. Femme., whose blog is 87 times better than mine. But please don’t leave me, new reader.)

Target Practice

Last week’s LIFE goal was to do what I could to help flood victims. I feel weird talking about what I did/am going to do, so I’ll just tell local folks how they can help. The relief effort for Morgan County is really just getting organized and underway; for this first round, they’re requesting things like garbage bags, paper towels, safety masks, rubber gloves, etc. The full list of needed items is on Morgan County Disaster Relief’s Facebook. Caring Ministries in Fort Morgan is the drop-off location starting Monday. As far as I know, they’re not asking for manpower just yet.

My HEALTH goal last week was to continue eating clean and getting enough sleep. Overall, I did okay; I had a couple of unnecessary indulgences (I’m looking at you, concession stand popcorn), but otherwise did okay.

And my FITNESS goal was the same old: Follow my training plan. Strength train twice. Yoga once. Stretch and foam roll. This was a much-needed mileage cutback week. Here’s how it went:

Monday: AM:  7-mile fartlek run PM: Muscle Works class. So much soreness.

Tuesday: 6 miles slow (thanks to DOMS from Muscle Works) followed by core work and stretching

Wednesday: 10 Yasso 800s on the treadmill, 10.1 miles total, followed by core work. I don’t have easy access to a decent track (the one near where I live is locked up, and the one where I teach is a muddy mess…and it surrounds the football field where my students are practicing). I usually do speedwork at the park…

(from 9News)

Yep, that park. The one under the water. The water has receded, but the park is still closed and dangerous. And full of rattlesnakes who have been washed from their dens. So yeah, no speedwork there for me. I did my warm-up outside and then the Yassos on the treadmill, which worked out fine because right after I finished my warm-up, another thunderstorm rolled through.

Thursday: AM: 45 minutes bodyweight strength training. PM: 8 miles easy

Friday: Woke up suuper stiff. Ran 4.7 slow miles and then stretched and foam rolled for 15 minutes. I definitely needed more but had to go to work.

Saturday; 18-mile fast-finish long run. This is the exact workout that I did two weeks ago, and it felt easier this time. That’s a good sign. I also accidentally ran through a local 5k. Oops. I didn’t know it was there until it was too late.

Sunday: Rest.

Totals: 53.8 miles, 1:45 strength training plus some extra core stuff, and 2 stretching sessions. Again, no yoga. And given Friday’s stiffness, I probably should have done it.

Between Wednesday’s successful Yassos and Saturday’s better fast-finish, this week was a good confidence builder.  (For those who don’t speak Running, the theory behind Yasso 800s is that if you can hit 10 800m repeats in the same minute/second time that you’re hoping your hour/minute time will be in the marathon, you’re on track. My goal is 3:10:00, so I needed to run 10 800m repeats in 3:10 each. I’m not sure if they’re as effective on the treadmill, but I’m going to pretend that they are.) Two more weeks hard, and then it’s taper time. I can’t even believe it.

That was an unusually long workout recap. Are you still with me?

Good. Here are next week’s goals:

Life: J’s birthday is next weekend. He’s not a big celebrator, but I want to make him feel a little special all week.

Health: Keep up the clean eating and sleeping. Especially Friday night, when I’m working the gate at the football game and am going to be tempted to grab that concession stand popcorn when I’m done.

Fitness: See every week since I started Target Practicing.

And that’s a wrap. Or something. Have a great week, friends!

What’s your concession-stand weakness?

Ever accidentally interrupted a race?

Where do you do speedwork? 

Training, Uncategorized

Back in the Groove: Target Practice

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I usually post Target Practice on Sunday nights, but it seemed a little inappropriate to go from “I’m worried about the flood victims” to “Look what I did and plan to do!” in the span of a couple of hours. I don’t know that a day is much better, but…

Target Practice

Target Practice is where I post my weekly goals. I “borrowed” this idea from Fit. Fun. Femme. I also give myself a grade on the previous week’s goals, because I’m a teacher and that’s what I do.

Here were last week’s goals:

LIfe: Call, text, and/or get together with at least one of the friends I haven’t seen in a while. Well, I did contact or was contacted by a number of friends I hadn’t talked to in a while, but not at all in the way I planned. Instead, I exchanged a lot of “You okay?” “Yep. You?” types of texts. (No grade here. Participation points only.)

Health: Eat clean and get enough sleep. I did fairly well with both of these. B+.

Fitness: Follow my training schedule, strength train twice, stretch/foam roll twice, and do at least a short yoga workout once. Here’s how the week played out:

Monday: AM: 3 x 3 miles at goal marathon pace, with 1000m recoveries. 12.2 miles total. Before work. I’m not gonna lie, folks, I felt pretty cool. PM: Muscle Works at the Body Firm. It kicked my butt.

Tuesday: AM: 30 minutes yoga PM: 9 miles easy.

Wednesday: PM: 4 x 2-mile tempo intervals, 12 miles total. I nearly died.

Thursday: AM: 8.5 miles easy, followed by some quick stretching and foam rolling. I intended to strength train later but…I didn’t. Our nieces were playing volleyball here in town, so we went and watched them and then went to dinner with the in-laws. I would have had time to strength train later in the evening, but I just didn’t.

Friday: AM: 7.3 miles easy

Saturday: 22 miles. Weird to think that a big chunk of those miles is now under water.
watch

Sunday: Rest.

Totals: 71 miles (new weekly PR! By one mile, but hey, a PR is a PR), 30 minutes yoga, 1 hour strength training

Grade: B. I missed a day of strength and only stretched once, but I’m okay with that during a peak mileage week.

Goals for this week:

Life: Do what I can to help flood victims.

Health: Continue eating clean and getting adequate sleep. Just one month until race day!

Fitness: Can you guess it? Follow the plan. Strength train twice. Yoga once. Stretch and foam roll. It should be a little easier than last week; this is a cutback week mileage-wise.

Do you celebrate mileage PRs?

Tell me a goal you have!

Training, Uncategorized

Sunday Target Practice

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Hello, friends!

Here we are again, all too soon at the end of another weekend.

The good news is that Sunday is Target Practice day, which means I get to set some mini-goals for the week, and you get to read all about them. So lucky, aren’t you?

Usually, I look back at the previous week’s goals and check in on how I did. Since last week was the start of a new month, though, I wrote some monthly goals instead of weekly. So instead of checking in on all those goals, let’s just talk about this week’s workouts, shall we? (Or should we not? Do you care about my weekly workouts? I always like reading other people’s, but maybe that’s because I’m a creeper).

Monday: AM: 8.4 miles of fartleks — one of the most fun (to do and to say) workouts ever!
Tuesday: AM: 9 miles easy PM: 45 minutes basement strength training, 15 minutes stretching/foam rolling
Wednesday: AM: 8 miles with 5 at tempo. Ouch.
Thursday: Exactly the same as Tuesday.  
Friday: AM: 8 miles easy
Saturday:
photo (7)

18-mile fast-finish long run. The first ten miles were at regular long run pace, and the last eight started at slightly slower than marathon pace and ended slightly faster. I’m not gonna lie, folks, this one was hard. I’ve got three more like it before the marathon; I’m hoping they get easier!
Sunday: Rest day. Maybe some yoga or stretching tonight, depending on how much grading I get done.
Totals: 60.4 miles running, 1.5 hours strength training, 30 minutes stretching

A word on those “easy” runs: People give me a hard time sometimes about saying things like, “I ran nine easy miles.” But “easy” is just running-speak for “fairly slow.” It doesn’t mean that I’m just prancing along like it’s nothing. Just FYI. 

And now, for this week’s Target Practice:

Target Practice
(I stole this idea from Fit. Fun. Femme.)

LIfe: Call, text, and/or get together with at least one of the friends I haven’t seen in a while. One the my September goals was to not let my relationships take the farthest-back seat now that school is in full swing, so I want to start making good on that goal.

Health: Eat clean (the marathon is just over a month away…no room for junk!) and get enough sleep. I’m super excited for this week’s forecast:
photo

Look at those glorious 70s! That means more evening runs and fewer 4:15 alarms. I’ll still have to do the earlies sometimes, when there’s too much going on in the evenings, but I LOVE running after work (it’s the best stress relief) and am very much looking forward to it.

Fitness: Same old, same old: follow my training schedule (this week is a pretty hefty mileage week), strength train twice, stretch/foam roll twice, and at least a short yoga workout once. This week, I cut the strength training 15 minutes short to work in the stretching and rolling. I’m not sure if that’s the best idea or not, but it worked for this week, anyway.

Did you do anything fun this weekend? I didn’t, really, so tell me your stories!

What do you want to accomplish this week?

And seriously, do you care about reading my weekly workout recaps? 

Training, Uncategorized

Target Practice on Tuesday. Because I Like to Keep You Guessing.

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At first, I was writing my Target Practice posts on Mondays. It made sense to me to write out my weekly goals on the first day of the week. Then, the school year started back up and Mondays got crazy busy, so I  decided to move Target Practice to Sunday night. This Sunday came and went with no time for blogging, so here we are on Tuesday. If you like consistency in your blogs, then maybe this is the wrong place for you.


Me, too, Bearcat. Me too.

Target Practice
(As always, thanks to FIt. Fun. Femme. for letting me jump on the T.P. bandwagon. That phrase sounded better in my head.)

Let’s look at last week’s goals. I’m grading myself because I’m back in teacher mode:

Life: Blog three times. I made it twice. Grade: D.

Health: Eat clean, including avoiding the candy dishes at work. Overall, I did okay.  I did hit the candy dish twice, but two bite-size pieces of chocolate in a week will probably not cause any major damage. I also ate old-fashioned (refined) spaghetti at a fund-raiser dinner and shared some cake with J at our nephew’s baptism. That’s moderation, not failure. Grade: A-.

Fitness: If you’ve read these posts for a few weeks, I bet you know what my goal was: run a lot, strength train twice, yoga once, stretch/foam roll once. Last week looked like this:
Monday: AM – 8-mile fartlek run PM – Muscle Works class (which was killer last week!)
Tuesday: AM- 6 miles easy PM- 30 minutes yoga
Wednesday: AM- 10 miles — 1.2-mile tempo intervals
Thursday: AM- 6 miles easy PM – 60-minute strength workout in my basement because I was too dang hot and tired to go to the gym
Friday: AM- 5 miles easy PM- Considered stretching/rolling and did not
Saturday: 21-mile run
Sunday: Rest
Totals: 56 miles run, 2 hours strength, 30 minutes yoga, another fail on the stretching. Grade: B.

Now, for this week:

Life: Let’s try blogging three times again and see if I can do it. We had standardized testing yesterday and today (yes, it’s only the second week of school. Welcome to the world of testing education), so I was able to get caught up on grading. You know, until tomorrow, when all my students turn stuff in again. But maybe the smaller grading stack will open up blogging time.

Health: I have got to figure this sleeping thing out. I go to bed like a 90-year-old, but getting up at 4:15 to work out is still rough, and I’m tired and afraid I’m going to catch the nasty diseases my students are already spreading about. I realize that I could run after work, but after work it is 95 degrees and stays that way until dark. Weather.com says the temps will start lowering next week. Don’t let me down, September. I’m counting on you.

Fitness: Well, I’m just gonna keep on repeating the same old goal until I hit it. Creative goal-setting is not for me.

Do you feel like you get enough sleep?

What’s something you want to accomplish this week?