Well.. hello!

Well hello there!! Long time no see. It’s been a good ol’ 6 months or so and here I am. back again!

I honestly struggled with having the motivation to write for the first half of this year. I’ve got a list of things I want to write about and a lot to say, but yet I couldn’t sit down and do it.  But I’m hoping with the gorgeous weather comes some more time and motivation to get you guys some good content!

I’ve got some posts planned and they’ll be coming at you soon, but until then here’s a summary of my 2018 in nice, organized bullet points. 🙂

• 2017 ended with the traditional New Years Eve 5k. I ran with some great friends and we had a blast.
  
• I ended 2017 with 1,050 running miles (a new record) and was thrilled to hit 1,000 yearly miles for the second time straight, especially since I didn’t run a full marathon in 2017!
• 2018 started with a new gadget! Well sort of. I participated in a research study and wore the Polar A370 fitness tracker for all of my workouts.  It was a cool experience and one post I want to share is a comparison of this device to my experience with Garmin running watches. 
• In February I registered for my fourth marathon. Eeek! I’ll be running the Steamtown Marathon at the beginning of October. I’ve got some big goals. Training kicked off last week (yes, already!) and I’m excited to get to work.

• March stayed chilly and we had lots of cold, rainy runs. But on the bright side, we launched a new website for the Nittany Valley Half Marathon.  I may have mentioned it before, but I help to organize this race in central Pennsylvania. We are working to make it better every year, so if you’re looking for an inexpensive, smaller race in Pennsylvania you should check it out!
• March also brought one of the coolest things I’ve ever done.  The Road Runners Club of America Level 1 Coaching Certification course! I took the two-day course, passed the written exam (with a 97% woo!) and got my CPR/First Aid Certification. This means I’m now certified to coach runners in helping them achieve their goals!! As part of that, I have launched my coaching business, called Change of Pace Run Coaching. I’ll have a blog post coming up about that soon too!
• March also included a warm Florida vacay and lots of beach front runs. 🙂
• In April I planned to run two races – the Hershey 10k and the Jim Thorpe Half Marathon. Unfortunately, neither of these ended up happening. Hershey got cancelled on account of snow, and the week of Jim Thorpe I got really sick and couldn’t run. I was definitely bummed to miss out, but luckily I had some fun on the horizon!
• April also brought with it the memorial service of a dear friend taken from us way too young from cancer. She was someone who inspired myself and many others to live our best life and enjoy every step we could run. Through the loss, myself and my friends continued to run because we knew that was the best way to cope. She will forever be with me on my run and races.
• May started with the Pittsburgh Half Marathon Weekend, and for the first time I ran the Steel Challenge, completing the 5k on Saturday and the half marathon on Sunday! It was a blast with a lot of my closest friends and the perfect way to continue enjoying life after a loss.  I’ll have recaps of this weekend coming up soon too!
• In mid-May my dad and I ran the Marine Corps Historic Half which was a tough race but so great! Race recap of this coming soon too! (Notice a pattern?)
• Memorial Day weekend included a new-to-me local 10k that was a killer – so hilly! But it was a great way to kick off the long weekend. 
• And here we are, June! I started the month running the half marathon relay at RunFest Philadelphia with a friend.  I’m gearing up for my birthday in a few days and am thoroughly enjoying the weather taking a turn and being awesome!

More soon!

Weekly Workout Recap 12/4-12/10

Happy Monday friends! I’m ready for a new week, how about you? Last week went pretty well – I was psyched to get in two GRITs and some strength training as well as obviously some running miles. I’m getting closer and closer to 1,000 running miles for 2017, so I’m pretty excited!!!

Monday – 9:30 am BodyPump + GRIT Cardio in the PM! 43 burpees — back to the challenge!

Tuesday – BodyPump + 3 miles in the AM. 45 burpees.

Wednesday – 4.5 miles in the AM & 47 burpees in the AM. GRIT Cardio + CXWORX in the PM.

Thursday – BodyPump + 3 miles in the AM. 50 BURPEES!!!! This completed the 30-day burpee challenge!!!

Friday – 5 miles in the AM.

Saturday & Sunday – Rest days

Weekly Workout Recap 11/27-12/3

Hey there and happy monday. Hope you week is off to a good start!!

I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned it here before or not but I am one of the members of race organization team for a local half marathon. Yesterday was the race, so last week was a bit crazy with packet pickup and all the last minute errands and details. Needless to say, I had no open evenings last week so I fit in the workouts I could when I could!  I also sadly did not complete the burpee challenge last week as planned, but I am getting back into it this week to finish it. I WILL do 50 burpees!!!

Monday – 5 miles in the AM. 41 burpees.

Tuesday – BodyPump + 3 miles in the AM.

Wednesday – 7 miles in the AM. This run was one of the worst runs I’ve had in a while. I’m glad to have gotten in the mileage though. Inching closer to 1,000 for the year!

Thursday – BodyPump + 3 miles in the AM.

Friday – Total exhaustion hit, and I knew pushing myself to wake up early to run would be a bad idea. So, I took a rest day.

Saturday – 5 miles in the AM.

Sunday – (Race day) Rest day!

Whew. Here’s to recouping this week.

Weekly Workout Recap 11/20-11/26

Hey there! I hope if you had a longer holiday weekend you had a good one and if it was just a “regular” weekend for you, you still got to recoup from the week!! The three days of work I had last week were a little crazy, but I was able to totally disconnect on Thursday, Friday and through the weekend, which was really great and needed. I caught up on sleep and got in lots of miles (and burpees).  The burpee challenge is still going strong and I’m incing closer and closer to 1,000 miles for the year!

Monday – 5 miles in the AM, GRIT Strength in the PM. 29 burpees.

Tuesday – BodyPump + 3 miles in the AM. 31 burpees.

Wednesday – 3 miles in the AM. 33 burpees. No GRIT because I was exhausted from the (short) work week!

Thursday – Turkey Trot 5k!! 35 burpees.

Going into this race I knew I wanted to push the pace if I could and find that sweet spot of being a little bit uncomfortable with the pace, but sustainable enough for a 5k. I decided not to look at my watch at all and run by how I felt. I was thrilled when I looked at my watch when I finished and realized that I not only sub-30ed, but PRed by 8 seconds. 🙂

This was my second time getting a sub-30 minute 5k and there’s something about being able to do it more than once that makes it feel less like a fluke and more like something I CAN do.

Friday – 5 mile run + BodyPump + CXWORX. Benefits of not having to work. 😉 Burpee rest day.

Saturday – GRIT Strength + BodyFlow. 37 burpees.

Sunday – 4.5 miles. This run kicked my butt. The people I was with were flying and I was just trying to hang on! 39 burpees.

Have a good week friends!

 

Weekly Workout Recap 11/13-11/19

Happy Tuesday!!  I can’t believe it’s Thanksgiving week! I feel like it was *just* summer.  It’s gotten pretty chilly here in central Pennsylvania, and the days are getting much shorter. Winter is definitely here!!  Last week went pretty well.  I stuck with the burpee challenge, which has continued to get harder and harder!!! 19 burpees felt like a huge accomplishment and it HURT the first time. I can’t believe we have 10 more days to go!!! Crazy.

Monday – RPM + 3 miles in the AM, GRIT Plyo in the PM. 19 burpees.

Tuesday – BodyPump in the AM. 21 burpees.

Wednesday – 4 miles in the AM, GRIT Plyo + CXWORX in the PM. 23 burpees.

Thursday – 7 miles in the AM, BodyPump in the PM. 25 burpees. It was good to get in a longer run, but this felt so much harder than I expected it to.

Friday – BodyAttack in the AM. Burpee rest day!

Saturday – BodyPump + 5 miles. 25 burpees.

Sunday – BodyFlow. 27 burpees.