Almost the End to a Crazy week!

Like I said in my last post, my first test of the semester is tomorrow so this week has been very very busy with studying! I have stayed on track with my training despite the constant studying. Tomorrow I will run my long run for the week (after the test) but this week instead of doing 8 miles, I will probably just do 5. This week is a maintenance week for me since I am two weeks ahead of schedule after I switched race dates. I think this is coming at a good time. I am feeling pretty tired lately, probably because of my lack of sleep and my brain just being tired from studying. I hope that next week I can get things back to normal and have a better energy level~!Well in other news, I am officially going to Spring Break 2012 in Panama City Beach Florida with 12 of my physical therapy friends. I am really bummed Zach cannot make the trip, its going to be so much fun and it would be better if he were there. We are leaving February 25th which is only two weeks away! So I am really nervous that I have to get in a bathing suit in two weeks. I have not yet decided on what I am going to do about running while I am down in Florida. I really do not want to take a whole week off, but I will have to take a few off for sure due to the situation. The resort that we are staying at has a workout room but I know I am not going to feel like running while I am on vacation. Maybe it will be a good break for me. I think I am really going to work my butt off until vacation and take a few days off as a reward! I hope to blog again sometime this weekend. I hope my test goes okay tomorrow!

Alumni Weekend

This was a very busy weekend for me! I had a great time with my Gannon basketball alumni. I am also happy to report that my team won in the alumni game (those older players had no chance). It was really nice to reconnect with some people that I have not seen in a few years. Training wise, I was able to complete my long run for the week on Friday. It was sunny and about 40 degrees so I suited up and decided to run outside. I ran 7 miles outside and had one of the best runs that I have had so far this training. It took me about 1 hour and 6 min to complete the run. During the run, my knees did feel a little sore but i was really surprised how good I felt afterwards. I really didn't get too sore and I just felt really good overall after I was done. A good run like that is really a good motivator to keep up the training. I feel like my hard work is paying off when I get done with a difficult run like that. This week will be another challenge and I am looking forward to it! I hope that I can keep this up! I am a little nervous that I wont have as much time this week to train. I have a test on Friday so this will be the first week that I am super busy. Hope I can handle it!

Hurray for Hills!

The start of my week is going good so far. Now that it is Tuesday night, the two longest days of class are now over and done with for the week! Monday, I was able to find the energy to get to they gym and run for 3 miles. Afterwards I went to yoga for an hour which felt great after my run. Today, I did a short 20 min hill workout outside because the weather was absolutely gorgeous. The hill that is near my house is a steady incline and took about 45 seconds for me to climb. Even though it was super nice out, the wind was an issue. I felt like every time I climbed the hill, the wind was literally blowing against me. If anything I guess it made it harder so that is good in a way. I really tried to sprint up the whole hill and jog on the way down. I was able to complete this series about 12 times before I felt like my quads were going to give. I took a few min to stretch and ended up going to my gym to lift some weights. I lifted for about 30 min and got another good sweat going. I came home and relaxed and ate, and then went back over to the REC center to do some extra cardio before my basketball game started. I ran on the track about a mile and a half and then biked for an additional 25 min. Once I was done I was super tired. I was playing with the boys this game so I was really hoping they would not need me to play much this game which is what ended up happening, thank God. I warmed up and probably played only about 8 min. So today was a really long day of a lot of different physical activities. I feel pretty good though, my muscles are not too sore so far, but we will see how I feel tomorrow. Tomorrow I am done with class at 11 am so I am planning on lifting, running, and playing in my women's basketball game for the evening. I really should fit some studying into my workout schedule lol, but I really feel like I don't have much to study for yet. I am sure things will change soon. I am really looking forward to my Alumni basketball game this Saturday!

Fun Friday and Easy Saturday- Sunday

Friday ended up being a long day for me. I had a lot of time to kill since I only have class until noon. So I was able to get in my long run relatively early. The run went well. I completed my 6 miles, in about 55 min. I wish I was my running time was a little lower but I tried by best. I tend to struggle during my run the most around the 30 min mark. This is the hump that once I get over, the time usually passes quicker. Anyway I was able to go home and relax before Zach came home and he wanted to go lift. I wasn't sure if I was up to it but I decided why not since I wasn't doing anything else. I ended up lifting for about 40 mins with Zach and did a full body workout of high repetitions and lower weight. I am trying to be toned rather than try to increase my strength. After we came home and relaxed again for a while. I again had nothing better to do so I decided it would be a good idea to go to yoga to get a good stretch. Boy was I wrong. I have been going to yoga again for the past two weeks and this class was by far the hardest! We did a lot less stretching like we normally do and did a lot more endurance/strengthening exercises. I was so freaking tired. I literally wanted to leave because I felt so exhausted. So I admit it, I think I went a little overboard and probably should not have gone, so I took Saturday and Sunday off this week to recover. This week looks to be another good week. I have three basketball games scheduled for Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, plus an alumni game on Saturday. I also plan on running 7 miles for my long run this week on Friday. I will hopefully implement some yoga into my week as well. This week I am planning on trying to get my travel arrangements set for staying in Charlottesville. The next couple of week are going to be when my training really starts to kick in because I will increase my mileage to about 15 miles per week rather than 11 or 12 miles a week that I have been doing.

Basketball vs training

Today I ended up attempting to run after playing two games of basketball. I didn't last long. Today I ran for about a mile and a half before giving up. I did an extra 12 min on the crosstrainer to make myself not feel as guilty for not running as long. Either way I wanted to save some juice for tomorrow because tomorrow is my long run which is up to 6 miles this week. I know that I should be putting my training first but I find it hard to do when I love playing basketball so much. Its almost the weekend and I am excited to see how my long run goes tomorrow.

Tired

Today I found myself pretty exhausted. This semester, my classes are less demanding than they usually are so I find myself having a lot of more time to do things. So now that I have extra time, I have been going to hot yoga classes at a studio in town. I think this type of yoga is awesome for training because I can get a really good stretch and It helps a lot with core strength. I have been going to these classes on and off since last year and I have really enjoyed it. I also started playing intramural basketball this week. I know that this is risky, considering the fact that I am training and I really really do no want to get injured. But I am too competitive and too in love with the game to stop. I have about three games per week because I am playing in the girls and in the guys league. These two factors are making my training a little more strenuous than planed. Today was the first day that I realized this. At 430 I went to an hour long yoga class which I didn't think was terribly challenging. Right afterward I went over to the REC center to play in one game of basketball, in which I played the majority of the game. During the game I became very winded. I consider my self in pretty good shape in the sense that I can run long periods of time without stopping, but when it comes to sprinting up and down the court, I wasn't as trained as I thought. I found myself very exhausted. It was a very intense game though so maybe that is something I have to consider. (we won by 1 point by the way). So after the game I found myself wondering if I could even walk on a treadmill let alone run. So I changed out of my sweaty clothes to change in to new ones. I dragged myself up to the cardio room and got on a treadmill. I only lasted 10 min before I felt like my legs were dead. So I at least ran about a mile, then opted to go to the elliptical machine for another 10 min. I was pretty tired at the end of the day today. To make matters worse, tomorrow I have two basketball games because the men's team I am on and the women's I am on both have a game. So now I have to decided if I should workout before I play two games back to back or after... judging by today, I should probably workout first and just suck it up for the games. We will see how this goes.....

Getting Back on Track

Now if you have not noticed already, The National Half Marathon did not end up working out. I found myself pretty broke until I received my student loan money at the beginning of this month, and around that time, the race was sold out! Monika and I had a quick freak out but found ourselves excited for a new opportunity to run in Charlottesville, Va. So now instead of running on the 17th we are running April 4th. I decided to take two weeks off from blogging to give myself some time to settle into my new school schedule and to offset the time difference between races. The past two weeks I have been maintaining my training program but not progressing because of the date change. So now, this week puts me back on track to where I was in training for the National Half Marathon. Yesterday, I ran 3 miles and a very steady pace. I have been doing excellent injury wise (knock on wood) and I have not into many major set backs which is always good. This week I am planning on running 6 miles, which is the most I have ran in since beginning my training after Christmas. I will do that at the end of the week. For now, I am glad to be blogging again and I am glad to be back on track with my 12 week training program (with two maintenance weeks thrown in due to the race semi-crisis). Today, I am not running, It is one of my days off! So instead I am heading to work after a long day of class!