My Fitness Pal

                 Have no fear, fellow bloggers, my training plan is here.

I had a few requests to post up my new training plan, so I did. I even put it on it's own page. Feel free to check it out, follow along with me, etc. I have to say, I like the fact that the traiing plan incudes easy walks in them. Sometimes it's nice to go out and just take a short, relaxing walk to keep the muscles warm and stretched. If I hadn't mentioned before, the plan is actually one designed by Jeff Galloway (though I think I tweaked one or two things). I was doing some research about different training plans online and came across this one. I really liked it, so decided to go with it.

He does include a few runs that have "MM" next to them. "MM" stands for Magic Mile. Basically, the Magic Mile is a one mile timed trial run that you do at a good, but hard pace for yourself. You take that mile and multiply it by 1.2 (for half-marathon training pace). This gives you a pace time for your training runs. There's a whole explanation HERE, along with a handy calculator that lets you see different paces/times for different races. It also gives you a walk/run ratio that seems easy to follow (depending upon your MM).
For me, my fastest mile when I push myself is about 13minutes. Therefore, my training pace will be 17:54/mile. When I do "MM" runs, my goal will be 15:36/miles. Make sense? It took me a bit to wrap my head around as well. ut, I think it's a pretty nifty guide.

Another thing I wanted to discuss today was this app I have on my phone called My Fitness Pal. Does anyone else have it? I love it. I was tossing around the idea of doing Weight Watchers online, but I'm cheap and didn't want to pay $20 a month for it decided I liked My Fitness Pal app better (plus, it's free!). I plug in my current height, weight, daily activity level, and how much I would like to lose per week. It then calculates how many calories I should be eating per day. From there, I input what I eat and drink either by searching food, or using my camera to take a photo of the barcode where it auto-searches the product for me. I can also input my cardio and strength training. Just like with Weight Watchers online, if I exercise, I get more calories to eat back. So, if I know I want to have a small bowl of ice cream tonight, I know I will want to burn some extra calories at the gym beforehand. It's pretty sweet.

My favorite part though? You can connect with friends who have the app as well and leave comments for each other. I can see exercises that friends have done and send them supportive reminders when I see they haven't logged in for a few days. It also has a corresponding website http://www.myfitnesspal.com/ that's user-friendly and has some great user forums.

I've been using it for awhile now to try and get myself back on track. So far, it's been a huge help! I suggest checking it out, and feel free to friend me on there (biggergirlsrun2). We can help each other out! YAY!