Run Update

Hello!!

So this week has been pretty good for running. I am finally healthy - knock on wood - and my runs are feeling better. Pete and I ran 10.5 miles on Saturday morning. It was a little tough because we had the BOB stroller, but we made it. I was very proud of both of us.

Monday I ran 4 miles on the dreadmill. It's been raining for months and months and months over here so no outdoor runs this week. I did another treadmill run this morning for 5 miles. Awesome. My plan is to run tomorrow, lift on Friday and then get in my long run again on Saturday. It's supposed to rain on Saturday so there's a chance it won't happen. To be honest if I don't get in my long run this weekend I don't really care. I have a 10 mile run scheduled with my friend, Elizabeth, for the following weekend and then I can do a 12 mile run the weekend after that. So we'll see what happens! :)

This week has been interesting - I'm seriously swamped at work. The Wild have been playing some crazy, late hockey games. We haven't been able to go out at night for walks like we were last week. Dang. I'm really looking forward to some better weather heading our way. A nice Sunday would really help. Hear that Mother Nature!? A nice Sunday please!!

I don't have any new pictures, but this picture from Easter is so cute of Kellan. He's saying - "look Mom at this super cool EGG!"



He is TOO cute - I die. Also - please note the weather. I would like a repeat of that please.

I participated in the April Plank Challenge and today I completed my 3 minute plank! WOW - that's an arm/shoulder burner. I will admit that I haven't been doing the daily plank for about the last week - but I made the 3 minute goal today. So a partial success.

We are going to go check out a few houses this weekend. We're casually perusing and excited to see where life might take us next.

I hope everyone is having a good week.

Anyone have any good runs planned out this week? 

Did anyone run the Get in Gear last weekend? How did you do? Leave a comment!

Catching Up, Running on Sick Lungs, Kiddo Stuff

Ok it has been WAY too long since I posted. I promise I'll get better, but life has just been crazy since I got sick. Last week I finally got on antibiotics and started feeling better. I got in a couple of runs after 12 DAYS of absolutely no running. My training definitely got stinted and my pace is a lot slower than it had been. I put in a few runs last week though and Pete and I were able to log a 7.5 miler over the weekend. It was slow, but steady. I felt good about it after the break. This week my runs have kind of been all over the place - but most of them have been really tough. I'm hoping for a good run soon - just to help out mentally if nothing else.

Easter was fun - we spent the day with Pete's family. The weather was incredible. We took a long walk over at Grandma's house and then came home, put some sunscreen on and played in the yard!!

On Monday I didn't have much time for my run, so I decided to go fast. It was INCREDIBLY windy that day. It seems to be a theme on my runs lately - spring winds - and I'm really ready for some calmer weather runs. Anyway I went 4.5 miles at an 8:10/mile pace. It was REALLY hard. I'm sure I lost a lot of cardio conditioning when I was sick and I think my lungs are still recovering, but WOW. At the end of my run I knew that I had put everything into the run because I DRY HEAVED hahaha. Oh my goodness I haven't done that in a long time. I really put it all on the table I guess. I was proud of my effort but wish it would have equated into a little bit better of a run.

Wednesday this week was my day off with the K man. It wasn't the best weather, but I loaded him into the BOB stroller in the morning and we went for a run over nap time. He stayed awake and enjoyed the first 2 miles of the run - kicking his legs and talking to me from his seat :) It's been interesting running with the BOB so far. Here are my Pros and Cons so far.

I feel like running with the BOB will ultimately make me a better runner, but right now it's making my runs pretty tough. I'm looking forward to being more conditioned to push it. Wednesday's run was really windy and the BOB stroller is like a sail in the wind making it really tough to run into a headwind. 

But we made it 4.5 miles - my running buddy got a little tired somewhere in there :)

Kellan and I went to Southdale on Wednesday afternoon to play at the Southdale indoor play area. Grandpa Lind met up with us. It was a fun day. 

Wednesday later in the afternoon Kellan had his 9 month check up. He weighed in at 20lbs 3oz!! The doctor took a look in his ears. He had previously been on a round of antibiotics for a double ear infection 3 weeks ago. Apparently his left ear was STILL infected. Poor guy. I thought he seemed a little off lately. So we started a new round of stronger antibiotics and I'm hoping he'll be as good as new soon!

Having an ear infection doesn't stop Kellan from getting his work done though. Priorities people! If only he would let me blog. But NOOOO he has all this googling he needs to get done all the time ;)

I promise I'll get on more often to keep you all updated. I have some running goals this weekend and into next week. I would LOVE to clock a 10 mile run this weekend. We'll see how that all pans out. I really should just commit to getting it done, but we'll see. Next week I need to start doing some speed workouts.

Have a great weekend - get out and enjoy the weather when it's not raining! :) 

Kellan is 9 months

To start - I've been sick for 10 days. TEN. I have not worked out basically at all, except for I did commit to the April Abs challenge and have been doing at least 1 plank a day - most days I do a set of 3. Pete and I took Kellan for a 3 mile run yesterday in the BOB too. The first family run of many I'm sure. :) It's HARD to push a BOB while running. It's also hard to run while sick. I spent a lot of the run coughing. Awesome.

Anyway - on to more important things. Kellan is 9 months old today. Here's a letter for him, from me.



Dear Kellan,

Today you turn 9 months old. I can't believe how fast your life is whizzing by. Every day you amaze me with the new things you can do. You are pretty independent and I love that about you. Even when you are off doing your own thing you look back to make sure your Dad or I are watching. We're watching kiddo. You're definitely our favorite and we're always watching to see what cool thing you'll do next.

You've graduated from sitting up unassisted, to standing at the table, to pulling yourself up onto EVERYTHING. You can walk around the table as long as you are holding on and you love to pull anything you can off the table, including cell phones, remotes, kindles. Anything you are not supposed to touch you really, really want to touch. Specifically laptops. You would think that's because we are on them a lot but kiddo WE ARE NEVER on our computer at home. But still, whenever we open that computer to google an address or turn on some tunes, you come cruising from any corner of the house to POUND on the keyboard. Ha! Have I mentioned how strong willed you are? Well.... you don't like to be put into your car seat or the BOB but once we get moving you love it. I think it's because you don't like to be TOLD what to do. You don't like it that I'm putting you in there and strapping you in. You don't like to get your diaper changed either. You're independent. And that's cool. You are cool, my dude.

So anyway - even though you don't love getting put INTO the BOB - you love going for walks and we recently learned you love going for runs too. I hope that sticks. You also love the outdoors and that is awesome. Your Dad and I are outside whenever the weather allows, so it's going to be a great summer!



You are crawling and standing and walking holding things. I got you a walk assist toy at Goodwill and you cruise around the living room with that thing. You love finger foods and you love to be able to feed yourself. You like to eat what we are eating, although you'll still demolish an organic baby food pouch. So far you don't have any food allergies and I've really been testing the waters there. (KNOCK ON WOOD). You'll still let me snuggle you when you are tired. I'll rock you in the rocking chair with your warm little head resting on my shoulder. I know I need to hold onto the memory of your weight and your smell and the sound of your breathing. It won't be too long before you won't want that anymore. But for now I relish that you do. Snuggling mom is cool, trust me!! :)

I can't believe that in 3 short months you are going to be 1. You are going to be walking soon and I am so excited for you. I'm nervous too. You are a daredevil and I know you are going to make my heart stop more than once. We have the house pretty "baby proofed" but walking will likely add a whole new dimension to that ordeal.

Every day that you've been in my life has been my favorite so far. We are so excited to watch you grow into your own little personality. I know you're going to rock! You already do.



I love you more than I can explain, but I know you can feel it. I know that you know.

Longest Run, Planking for April and a REALLY Sick Monkey

Hello friends and readers ...

So to start out - I AM SO SICK. My little monkey got a chest cold (among other things) and I have been STRUCK DOWN with such a bad chest cold. It's hard to breathe, hard to sleep, hard to exist. BLECH. Luckily I am on the final really bad day (I think) and so hopefully it gets better from here.

My kiddo got sick last week and we had to pick him up from daycare on Wednesday. I stayed home with him Thursday and  then on Friday he stayed home with dad. Friday afternoon he started to get really wheezy so we took him to the dr. My poor little guy had diarrhea, a double ear infection, and wheezing associated with the chest cold he had. The wheezing comes from the fact that he had RSV when he was younger. BUMMER. So they put him on Amoxicillan, an oral steroid for his lungs and a nebulizer that we had to put him on every 4 hours. It was tough. You parents out there know what I mean. Sick kids just break my heart... there was a lot of snuggling mixed in with some crying... :(

In true kiddo fashion - he still had a lot of good moments. He's awesome :) Here he is hanging out with his new friend, Albert. A gift from his great Aunt Karen. 

So other than being sick and having a really sick kid at home, I completed my longest run. As in the longest run of my life! Ever! WHOO HOO! I completed 13.72 miles. My longest run previous to that would have been 13.1 miles a few times on race days. I've never been the kind of person to train for a race by running further than the race distance. I think my longest training run before a half marathon was always 11 miles. And then I would complete 13.1 on race day. So needless to say I'm pretty stoked and getting ready for this half marathon has been totally different than any other time I've trained. I'm not running my long runs fast.... at all. But getting in the miles has just been cool for me. I am on a running break this week due to my cold, but I'll be back at it as soon as these lungs clear up. 

I also took up the Fit Fluential April Abs challenge and I'm planking every day. The goal is to get to a 3 minute plank by the end of the month - which seems crazy!! But adding 5 seconds a day makes me think I can accomplish it. 

 Over the weekend we got to spend some time with family. Grandma Janet had a choir concert - so we went and hung out with the family and caught the show. Kellan loved hanging out with his cousin, Jameson and his Aunt Amanda. He had to keep his distance from his Aunt Carly, Uncle Mitch and little baby cousin Everett since he has a cold and I didn't want Everett getting sick.

We have lots of plans this week and I'll try to be sure to pop on and update you guys later this week. I have the day off from work tomorrow and I plan to spend it outside. At the zoo. Carly, Everett, Kellan and I will be tromping about learning about Lemurs. I am really looking forward to it. 

Anyone else have fun plans to be outside this week? It's supposed to be in the 70s tomorrow!

Running Update and a Sick Kiddo

Kellan has been sick. We had to leave work on Wednesday and pick him up from daycare early. Poor dude. Luckily he's still in a pretty good mood, just having a tough time napping and sleeping at night. On top of the stomach bug he has right now he also has a nasty cough. Bummer. I stayed home from work with him yesterday and he's home today with his Daddy. :) BOY DAY!

Anyway - I was able to hit the gym today. After a morning chat with a coworker about speed workouts I decided to do a tempo run.



Mile 1 @ 7.3 speed on the treadmill
Mile 2 @ 8.0 speed on the treadmill
Mile 3 @ 8.2 speed on the treadmill
Mile 4 @ 8.3 - 8.6 speed on the treadmill
Mile 4 - 4.5 @ 7.6 speed on the treadmill

I ran my first mile in 8:20/mile. I ran the next 3 miles with a pace of 7:19/mile. Then did a .5 mile cool down at about a 7:50/mile pace. I was really happy about all of that. Training is coming along nicely. Right now my general goal for the half marathon is to get a sub 8:30/mile pace. That's taking into consideration the fact that the Minneapolis Half Marathon course is known to be pretty tough and hilly. In all honesty my REAL goal is just to finish the half marathon, since it was a goal I set for myself while pregnant - to have a baby and then finish a half marathon. But I already know I'll finish so the 8:30/mile pace is just a bonus for now. We'll see how training goes and I may reassess the time goal as I get closer to the race date.

Have any of you been doing speed workouts lately??

I have a baby shower to go to tomorrow for a friend that lives in Fargo. I am really excited to see her - especially to see how cute she is while pregnant!! Other than that it's a family day on Sunday - just spending some quality time with Kellan and Pete and meeting Papa Steve out for lunch :)

We've been doing some house projects lately, so we might tackle a little painting or something. We'll see. It really depends on the weather. We got a TON of snow last night but if it melts and it's nice out on Sunday I'll definitely want to be outside soaking up the sun instead of inside painting.

What are your plans for the weekend? Do I need to do a giveaway to get people to start commenting?!?!?!

Weekend Recap, Tried Plated and Training Update

Hello Internet. We had a great weekend! A GREAT ONE! I think it had a lot to do with the weather. It finally got nice out this weekend. The nice weather is gone for the moment, but it was here for the weekend and we took good advantage.

Friday night Grandma Janet came over and had dinner with us. It was so nice to spend some time with her and then she was gracious enough to stay with our little Kellan dude while Pete and I went on a short date. We decided to grab an app and some beers at Freehouse which is in the North Loop. We both really liked it. I think Pete was drooling over owning a brew pub that cool one day of his very own. It was some really nice time together.



On Saturday we got a few house projects done, we took Kellan to swim lessons, we went for a LONG walk outside and soaked up some vitamin D. It was really nice. We also got a shipment from a company called PLATED. I tried out their service for only $20! They sent us all the ingredients, already measured out, for two recipes that I selected. You can try them too here: https://www.plated.com/invites/34af18 (that's a referral link - so no pressure - but in case you are interested).

Here are the recipes I selected:
I tried to choose things that looked really good to me but that I wouldn't necessarily normally cook at home.
Beef Bibimbap
Chicken Souvlaki Pitas

The Ingredients come already measured out for each recipe. Pretty awesome and all the ingredients were super fresh. I was impressed. 

We actually made the chicken pitas last night. It was fun because we were still cooking ourselves but we didn't need to pick up a ton of ingredients at the store and we didn't have a bunch of leftover product to try to use in another recipe. I think we will use the service occasionally to get a few meals. It was fun!

But back to the weekend. Saturday night we babysat the beautiful Eva girl. The kids played with each other - by which I mean they grabbed onto each other's clothes and pulled and looked at the same toys on the floor. Ha. They had a great bath together and I could tell they were both really interested in being in there together. Very cute. And we ended the night with matching fox pjs. Because how could we not? Elise and Tom went out to dinner for their anniversary and we were happy to have the time with our "niece". :)

On Sunday Mitch and Carly came over. We hung out on the back deck because the weather was gorgeous. We took the babies for a walk through the park to soak up the outdoors as much as we could. Carly made dog birthday cakes because it was Pepper's birthday and Wyatt's birthday is coming up on May 17th! Too cute. Those puppies really loved their birthday cakes from Carly!

Training is coming along. Pete and I were going to run outside with the BOB stroller on Sunday but the day got away from us and we were having too much fun. Monday I went for a 4.5 miler outside and today I got in 5 miles on the treadmill. The half marathon is inching ever closer. I've also started thinking about my other race this summer. We will be running Ragnar Great River in August. It's my favorite race of the year. I'll do a recap of our last Ragnar one of these days so those of you who have never experienced a Ragnar can see what it's all about.

Have any of you tried Plated? 

Do you have any fun races you are signed up for this summer?

I was chipped!!

This week has been a good week for workouts. I'm happy with myself. Whoo hoo. Go me! :)

Monday's Workout: 
Treadmill Run: 5 miles

I've taken to calling them DREADmill runs because I just want to get outside and run. Spring - PLEASE!!!

Tuesday's Workout: 
A serious lift session that included back, shoulders, abs, triceps and biceps. I'm still sore.

Wednesday's Workout: I had this Wednesday off with Kellan, but since it's our final Whip It Wednesday competition at work I did get a run in. I brought Kellan to a doctor appt in the morning and then dropped him at daycare just long enough to get in a run at LA Fitness.
Treadmill Run: 6.5 miles

After my run I went to hang out with my sister in law, Carly and my new nephew Everett. We had lunch and went for a long walk even though it was a little chilly outside. You know, just a couple of moms going for a walk on a Wednesday afternoon. Ha ha.

Anyway, I'm pretty happy with how my training for my half marathon has been unfolding. I just hope it continues to be as successful as time crawls on.

So! On Tuesday I came home from work to find this on my front step!

Right away I was excited because I love this brand. Food Should Taste Good has definitely graced my shopping cart more than a few times. And I knew what was waiting inside that box. Deliciousness. Healthy deliciousness. 

 Food Should Taste Good sent me a variety of their chips. SWOON! They make sweet potato chips that are made with all natural ingredients. Their chips have 25% less fat than other sweet potato chips. That means they are way better for me than regular chips. And here's the kicker - they taste awesome. We busted open the bag of Salt and Vinegar chips that very night and even Pete liked them. We can't wait to try the other flavors they sent - Sweet Potato chips in Barbeque and Salt and Pepper, in addition to the Salt and Vinegar that we already enjoyed. They also apparently make Kettle Corn chips. WOW. We are going to salsify some of those bad boys. SOON. I'll let you know how the other flavors are. I'm sure they are going to rock. Check them out at any store. I've seen them all over. Trust me - they are GOOD! And good for you! (And for those who care they are gluten free. I'm not. But they are.)

It's going to be a crazy week. My stepdad's birthday is tomorrow so we'll be heading to their house for a birthday dinner. Friday we have a baby sitter - whoo hoo - DATE NIGHT. Saturday night we are babysitting for Tom and Elise so we'll be staying in. Then Sunday we are going to get out and enjoy the warm weather that is supposed to be gracing us. Sunday night Pete is going to the Wild hockey game with Tom. I'll leave you with a picture of Kellan trying to play with Wyatt yesterday. Wyatt is very sweet with Kellan, but is much more interested in his toys. Just wait until Kellan can THROW your toys for you Mr. Wyatt. You may be changing your mind about this Kellan guy. He may well end up being your favorite person in the world. In fact I'm pretty sure that inevitable :)

Has anyone else tried Food Should Taste Good chips? 

Does anyone have any cool weekend plans?

Comment below!!