Mom On The Run

I’ve been hanging around the blogosphere and twittersphere for years.  Almost too many to mention.  Ok – at least 5.5 yrs because I remember writing a blog post about my first pre-natal Dr’s appointment when I was pregnant with Sierra back in November 2004.  See – here’s that post.  Over the past 5 yrs that I’ve been blogging I have become very friendly with a great number of people that I have never physically met.  I call them my bloggy friends.  I chat with my friends on Skype, Twitter and through our blogs almost daily.  I really really want to meet my friends – in person, but we’ve never really had the money for me to go visit my friends – there’s always a more important bill to pay. 

This year a great number of my friends are going to the BlogHer Conference (yes – a blogging conference, can you believe that I have NEVER been to a blog conference?).  The conference even has a 5k Fun Run that I’m putting together a learn-to-run forum and clinic to help other bloggers train for this run.  I really really want to meet my friends in person, and meet the people that I’ve helped train for this event. In particular I really want to attend this seminar: “Fitness Blogging: Motivate yourself and Your Readers“.  But, I can’t afford to buy a ticket to go.  Hubby has enough air miles for me to get to NYC, but we don’t have enough cash to pay for my conference ticket.  But wait!  There’s a contest!

I want to go to this conference and meet my bloggy friends so badly that I’m entering a contest to go.  Moomette, who has a product reviews and giveaways blog can’t go due to other commitments, so she’s giving away her conference pass!!  Moomette – please pick me so I can meet my friends, run the 5K and cheer on the gals I’ve helped train for this run!  Thanks!

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As you may be aware, I’m training for the Mississauga Half-Marathon (May 16, 2010). When I tell people this I’m often asked how I train for a half-marathon. Being as sarcastic as I am, I often have to stop myself from responding: “By running”. I think what these curious bystanders really want to know is how do you build up the running distance? How do you build a half-marathon training program? So below is an outline of how I structured my training program. I started my program in January only able to run 3k! I hadn’t ran in 4 months and when I last ran in September my average distance was 5k. I only run 4 times a week. I now can complete 13k easily and my pace has improved by an average of more than 30 seconds/km (I’ve also lost 7 8 lbs).

I’ve phased my training because SPEED is a combo of ENDURANCE and STRENGTH. You can’t build strength without endurance and you need strength and endurance to build speed.

Jan & Feb was my endurance phase. On December 27th I began running after being sedentary for 4 months (I had fallen and broken a few rbs and they needed some time to heal). 3k was HARD! However I pushed myself every weekend to run a few more k’s and was finally able to run 13k this past Sunday. My long runs are slightly slower than my mid-week runs by about 20 seconds/km. I did this because my goal is speed – if I train long and slow I will perform long and slow.

March – my focus will be on strength while maintaining my endurance. I’ll be doing this by doing hill repeats on Wednesdays and my weekend long run will remain consistent at 13-15k.

April – this will be my hardest training month, and this is the month that injuries often appear, so I will need to listen to my body. I will be bringing all of the hard work form the past 3 months together on Wednesdays to do speedwork on the Ching Track. I will run 800m as fast as I can followed by short rest intervals. My weekend long runs will be consistent at 15k-18k.

May – this will be my two week taper – I will slowly decrease my running distances during the two weeks. That said, recent research has indicated that the shorter distances should still be run at a high intensity to maintain the speed that was built up. It’s possible that speed and strength is lost faster than endurance is. (I think this was in the March issue of Runner’s World).

Taking my phases into consideration, I’ve structured my training program to alternate hard/easy/rest days to allow progress while hopefully perventing injuries:

Mondays: Easy around the park 2-3 laps depending on how my legs feel.
Tuesdays: Yoga stretching and lengthening of muscles (I call this my “active rest” day).
Wednesdays: Longer run 3x around the park or Hills or Speedwork
Thursdays: Powerwalk with weights (sport specific strengthening of the upper body, as this contributes to running speed) or if my legs are sore I swim with pull-bouys.
Fridays: Easy around the park 2-3 laps depending on how my legs feel.
Saturdays: Long run – I’ve built up my distance from 3K in late December to 13K now – I will continue to build up my distance over the next 8 weeks to 18K
Sundays: REST!

I would be more than happy to help coach you and anyone else who wants to learn to run! I am working on completing a learn-to-run forum where I can offer you advice, tips and a training program. If you’re interested, sign up for my newsletter (in my sidebar) so that I can help you on your way!

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Last week winter FINALLY decided to show up here in Toronto! Yay! Hubby was away in LA, so the kids and I spent 2 nights and one day of his business trip sledding. It’s been AGES since I wrote about the kids or even shown you pictures of them, so below are a few that I took (yanno, in case you were in Sierra & Brooke withdrawl):

Sierra & Brooke's Big Ass Snowball

Brooke & Her Sled

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Wow!  Everyone did a fantastic job in Week #1 of the Healthy Challenge! 

Getting the results took a little bit longer than I had expected, so for that I apologize.  There was a four way tie for first place between: Amanda, Colleen, Kia and Sylvie!  Way to go ladies!  Because there was a four way tie, I had to use Random.org to choose a winner:

Yay!  The winner is Colleen from http://kennedyandzach.blogspot.com/ ! Way to go Colleen!  See – eating your fruits and veggies gets you free stuff too! I’ll contact you via twitter for your address so that I can send you one of these cute water bottles:

Week #2 will be finished tomorrow night – I also want to remind you that this is a week by week contest.  Each week you start fresh, so don’t worry if you didn’t get all of your servings in all 7 days, you can try again fresh each Monday.  Also, if you are new to the Healthy Challenge you can still enter for Week #3.  

Here’s how you can participate:
1.  Complete the form on the original post.
2. I’ll send you an email next Monday asking you how many days you were able to eat all 7-8 or 8-10 servings of fruits and veggies (Monday to Sunday). You will have 24 hrs to respond. If you do not respond then I will assume you aren’t participating.

Good luck everyone!!!

Here are the results.

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And the winners are….

#9 – Tricia of http://www.desperatelyseekingsilence.com/
#1 – Kia of http://bodhibear.blogspot.com/
#7 Keita

Congratulations ladies!

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As a mom I feel it’s my job to make sure my girls are never embarrassed by showing up unprepared.  If its library day at school – it’s my job to remember to pack the library book Sierra borrowed the week before to return, etc…  I know at some point that I will need to transition that responsibility to her – but she’s only 4.  Over the next few years I’ll slowly introduce her to the process of thinking about what she’ll need for the day.  That said I’m also all for tough love – having her show up empty handed a few times will reinforce that the ultimate responsibility is hers, though she’s still a bit young for that.

This week my responsibility was Valentine’s Day.  More specifically to make sure Sierra and Brooke had Valentine’s Day cards to hand out to all of their friends.  This seemingly simple task is complicated by the fact that Sierra needed to bring cards to both her daycare class, and her Kindergarten class.  (She goes to full day Kindergarten Tues/Thurs and generally every other Friday).  Her schedule is a little wonky to say the least.  I needed to make cards for close to 50 kids for Sierra and another 21 kids in Brooke’s daycare class.  Due to the volume of cards, I didn’t even bother addressing the cards – I simply wrote “To My Friend”.  Now this where we get to how mommy screwed up.

Wednesday night at 11 pm, I was dog tired from 3 busy week nights but I was up in my PJ’s addressing cards, slipping tattoos into the corners of the cards and taping heart-shaped lollipops to the cards.  The Type-A part of my personality simply won’t allow me to just have the kids show up with the bare minimum of what’s required for the event.  Oh no – they need to have the best cards and something a little extra for their friends.  On his way to bed hubby hugged me good night and I got all pissy on him.  Why should I be up doing this while he gets to sleep?  They’re his kids too!  Anyways, he goes and looks at the schedule and tells me that Sierra has Kindergarten (big school) on Friday.  This meant that all of the three Valentine’s Day parties were going to be on Friday and none of the cards were due the next day.  I happily packed everything up, went to bed and didn’t give it anymore thought – I finish all of the cards Thursday night.

The schedule Sierra’s Kindergarten teacher sent home was wrong and Brooke’s class changed their schedule… both of their class parties were on Thursday. Only Sierra’s daycare class party was Friday.

Both girls came home sad Thursday night – ‘cause mommy screwed up Valentine’s Day.  Sigh – this parenting gig would be a hell of a whole lot easier if the school and daycare would at least send home accurate schedules.

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