Back In the Saddle

Seeing the title I just chose, I kind of wish I could go horseback riding. I love horses and I've always wanted to know how to ride one. Maybe it's my inner cow-girl coming out.

Anyway, it's been a very long week... and it's only Wednesday! Let's start at the beginning, shall we?
Last weekend was the 100th year Anniversary Jubilee celebration for the Girl Scouts (the organization I work for). I spent part of Friday helping set up, all day Saturday working it, and then Sunday I went back to help take down (though there wasn't much to do). Saturday was a blast! Hectic, but fun! We had around 9,000 people show up to the event. I got up bright and early and was at the fairgrounds by 8am. Around 10:30am I helped lead the opening parade. By 11:30 I was tossed into the food booth to help field orders because the lines were over an hour long! Ahhh!!! After a few hours of that, I made it to the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) stage to help load and unload the performers. I also got to MC and introduce the acts as they came out. Rock on! By 6:45pm, we started breaking down everything in the STEM area as the day was finally over. I left the fairgrounds a little after 7pm, got home, had dinner, and went to bed.

Sunday they didn't have much of anything to do as far as clean up, so I headed home. Later that evening, we had to rush my father to the hospital. he had been having severe abdominal pain and couldn't move. At first, they thought it was his appendix. Turns out, it was his gallbladder. They ended up having to do emergency surgery on him Monday morning to remove it. He is still currently in the hospital (he developed a fever yesterday and is still in a lot of pain, but he's doing better), and we hope he is going to come home tomorrow.

I did manage to get in a very nice run Monday morning before I went back to the hospital. I did 2 miles in 28:02. I ran the first 6 minutes straight, then maintained a 2 run: 1 walk ratio the rest of the time. I chose that method for multiple reasons; 1. I haven't been running like I was last year, so my muscles and everything need to be re-conditioned before I start upping the ante, and 2. I chose to run faster for those two minute spurts and try and push myself more than if I tried to run 5-7minutes straight. I plan on doing the same thing tomorrow for my second run of the week.

I've also been trying very, very hard to keep track of what I eat every day and have been keeping up pretty well with MyFitnessPal (again, feel free to add me biggergirlsrun2). I've made a couple of new friends on there and hope to make even more! I'm a firm believer in the more support, the better. Since I first reported that I had gained a good portion of weight back, I'm happy to say that I have lost about 4lbs. Hooray! I'm sure once I really get into my training schedule, I will lose more. And I'm super psyched about that!

One of the forums on MyFitnessPal.com asked people to list what their summer fitness goals were. I thought that was pretty nifty, so I decided to share mine here and see what goals y'all might have as well.

My summer fitness goals are:

to train (intelligently) for my 2nd half marathon,

to run at least 50 miles,

to go rock-wall climbing (inside),

to go ziplining,

 to go for at least 3 really nice hikes,

and to try a new Zumba place.

What do you think of my goals? What are YOUR summer goals?

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!