Biggest Loser

Posted on November 30, 2011 by HHRunner

This post is entirely dedicated to my love for the Biggest Loser. So if you have no interest then just go enter the RoadID giveaway and check back tomorrow Smile

Who else watches Biggest Loser?

I don’t post about it often, but I am obsessed with the show and I am even more obsessed with the Makeover Episode, which was last night. If anyone wanted to locate a huge sobbing mess last night all you had to do was come to my house and find me on the couch crying my eyes out at how wonderful everyone was and how awesome everyone looked and how proud I am of people I’ve never met.

Happy folks pre-Biggest Loser

The 5 contestants who made it to the Makeover Edition.

I love seeing people so happy over their accomplishments, and this episode always captures that perfectly. Which is why I was crying my eyes out on the couch watching them all reunite with their significant others as their spouses, girlfriends, etc saw them for the first time since going to the ranch.

I know there’s been some controversy over the show about how it’s not realistic for people to lose that much weight so quickly and the fact that it puts unrealistic expectations on people who aren’t able to exercise 8 hours a day, etc etc. But I think it’s like any reality TV shows – you have to take it with a grain of salt… they are on the show to work out and they prove that anyone can lose weight when they put their minds to it. My favorite part of each episode is when they show the contestant that was sent home and where they are now – they almost always have lost a good amount of weight in their natural environment and within their everyday schedule limitations.

So, now that the final 4 have been picked and it’s almost over, if you watch Biggest Loser who are your favorites??

I am o-b-s-e-s-s-e-d with Vinny. Every time he comes on the screen I tell Sean I love him. Because I do. He is the cutest thing ever.

And I also love John. I love that he’s real and he doesn’t cater to people, he plays the Biggest Loser game to win and compete.

Gah, they look so great!

Do you watch? Who do you want to win?!

If you don’t watch, WHY NOT!!

Merry (early) Christmas, from me & RoadID

Posted on November 29, 2011 by HHRunner

After a very lazy Sunday (I slept and ate. Period. I even woke up to drool at one point… TMI? Sorry.) and an equally lazy Monday morning where I slept in for entirely too long and procrastinated for most of the day, I did finally get up and do something productive with myself last night (well, I mean, I worked yesterday too, so there’s that) and did a round with Jillian and some abs.

I’m going through one of those weird funks where working out is just so unappealing. Not because I don’t want to work out though – I do – I think the timing is just all off. I don’t want to wake up early to work out right now (snuggling down in my warm comforter sounds SO much better) and I have a ton of stuff to do after work since I took the aforementioned Sunday to practice my napping skills, not my grocery shopping or laundry-ing skills. I want to work out at like 10 every morning, but having a job kind of gets in the way of that…

Hopefully tonight I’ll make a comeback to running with a great speed session though. Hopefully.

GIVEAWAY

In the meantime, however, I do have (what I believe to be) an awesome giveaway!

As someone who carries quite a few things with me when I run (mace, iPod, knife, fuel…) I ashamedly and admittedly never bring my license with me. Deep down I know that this isn’t a good tactic because what if something happens to me, but it doesn’t change that I still leave it in the car 90% of the time.

Lucky for me, though, the folks over at RoadID were kind enough to send me a RoadID of my own to try out. The cool thing about RoadID is that not only do they take the place of a license in terms of identification, but they also allow you to add in people to call in case of an emergency.

I listed out my name, the city that I live, Sean’s #, my mom’s #, and that I have no known allergies or medical history on mine. I know a lot of people put inspirational quotes on theirs as well, but I figured I will spend zero time admiring my chosen inspirational quote so the more helpful information on it the better.

When I ordered mine I ordered the RoadID slim in a small size. I only recommend doing this if you have the world’s tiniest wrists because it is TINY. Luckily, I have the world’s tiniest wrists so it fit me great. You can get it in all sorts of fun colors, so naturally I went with black because in addition to having the world’s tiniest wrists, I am also the world’s most boring person and I wanted it to match my black Garmin. Priorities, clearly.

I took it out with me on my long run on Saturday and completely forgot it was there, so I think it wins in terms of comfort, stylishness (obviously, since it matches me Garmin), and functionality (the less I have to carry the better. OK fine, it didn’t take anything out of my hands, but it could have if I was better about carrying my license). In case you need more reasons why you need one too, here are 10, taken from their website:

Lucky for you, the awesome people at RoadID also are letting me give one to one lucky reader. In my opinion (since I know my Christmas list is composed of 99% running related items and 1% everything else) this is a great gift for you OR a runner you love Smile

The giveaway will go through next Monday, December 5 and the winner will be chosen via Random.org. There’s three ways to enter… you can:

1. Leave a comment on my blog telling me what your top Christmas gift is this year

2. Tweet/blog/whatever about the giveaway (if you tweet it, tweet something to the effect of @HappyHealthyRun is amazing and incredible… or just mention me and that there’s a RoadID giveaway )

3. Tell me why you want to win!

Good luck!

18 is awesome

Posted on November 28, 2011 by HHRunner

Soooo… how’s it going? I guess I never popped back in to say “Happy Thanksgiving!”. Oops.

And I never checked in with Google Reader over the long weekend either (that was scary this morning). In fact, I took zero pictures, never once signed into my email, didn’t check Facebook, and only vaguely kept up with Twitter.

It was awesome.

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday, despite all the driving Sean and I do. We’ve carved out a little routine that involves me getting up early and fitting in a workout (this time it was 7+ miles of ridiculously tough speed work and 20 minutes of Pilates. I feel I was completely justified in over-indulging) and then getting ready and driving over to his family’s Thanksgiving. After eating mass quantities of food, spending time with family catching up, and unbuttoning the pants for a little breather, we head over to MY family’s Thanksgiving and do it all over again. I actually left feeling not too stuffed, which was a nice switch.

Before I get into any of the things I’m planning on blogging about this week, I have to put in writing that I ran 18 glorious miles this Saturday, despite all the cards being stacked against me. Since I rarely can describe my long runs as glorious this has to go down in the books.

When I ran 15 two weeks ago I averaged a 9:48 pace. I attributed this to all the hills in my new favorite long run spot. I ignored that I was seriously taking it easy too.

This past Saturday when my alarm went off I shut it off and snuggled farther down into bed and tried to forget about running 18 miles. 15 minutes later I rolled out and into slippers and ate some peanut butter toast (no banana because I was out) and then I went back to bed… Oops… Don’t know how that happened. Woke up a little while later and changed into my running clothes before walking outside to rain. Crap.

What do you do in that sort of situation? Naturally I woke Sean up and complained to him about the rain, about not wanting to go running, about everything. He told me to run on the treadmill. Heck no, done that before, not in the mood.

So I sucked it up and started gathering all my stuff.

Drove out to my spot and went to turn on my iPod. Dead. Of course.

No big deal, I’ll use my phone. No radio signal.

Am I really going to attempt 18 miles with no music? Um yes, I’m here, I’m trying.

Not even two miles in my stomach dictated that we stop. A few minutes later, back on track.

I stopped at mile 4 to take a Clif Shot (mocha – I have now figured out that I can handle mocha and chocolate, just not the fruity ones).

Mile 6 my stomach said to stop again. Sigh, ok…

At mile 7 I ran out of trail so I just kept running down the side of the freeway. It was actually pretty awesome. I ran all the way to mile 8.4 before I ran out of sidewalk to run on because there was a big sign smack in the middle of the sidewalk and I wasn’t about to run on the actual feeder road of i-10. So I turned around and headed back. The great and horrible thing about out and back courses is that there is only one way back to the car and that means you have to cover all the mileage. Smile Smart move on my part.

Mile 8, Clif Shot Bloks in Mountain Berry (or something like that – soooo good, just like gummy bears!). Same at mile 12.

Mile 16 I tried a GU in tropical island or something like that – never again. I got it for free at the RNR SA race expo and even when I opened it I thought it smelled like shampoo. For the 1/3 of the shot that I took, that’s exactly what it tasted like too. So I tossed it and kept going to 18.

Around mile 8 I kept thinking about how I was about to fall completely apart. It almost always happens at some point during my long run and it becomes a struggle. But that time never came. It didn’t rain the entire time I was running, just a light mist, and I honestly didn’t miss the music at all – it was so peaceful and pretty where I was running at that the time just floated by.

I don’t know what those of you that do long runs think about when you run, but I don’t really think about very much. I just zone out. Sometimes I think about my pace and I’ll check to make sure I’m on track, but I don’t have any earth-shattering thoughts going on while I run. My main goal this time was to keep the pace near 9 minute miles so that I’m on track to run a sub-4 marathon in January.

2 hours and 44 minutes later (at a 9:09 pace), I finished 18 miles. The second I stopped running I hurt – it was almost easier to keep running then to walk. And while I stopped for water at most of the water fountains along the course, had 2 bathroom breaks, and stopped 4 times to fuel up, overall I felt strong the whole time.

C’mon Houston Marathon, I think I’m finally starting to feel ready for you.

How was everyone’s Thanksgiving?

Anyone have any superb runs over the break?? Brag to me

I’d blog but…

Posted on November 23, 2011 by HHRunner

I’d blog but…I’m too busy looking through potential Christmas card pictures that my super talented SIL shot for us. If you want a sneak peek here you go:

This picture personifies us perfectly.

I’d blog but…I’m scouring the internet for the perfect chocolate chip cookie recipe because I have been craving them in a big way.

I’d blog but… I’m trying to finish up stacks of work so that I can get home and work on our soon-to-be-renovated workout room with my husband while baking cookies. We are taking our workout room from horrible to phenomenal… Goodbye…

I’d blog but… I’m too busy working on a little giveaway for next week.

Hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving break! I may or may not pop in to say Happy Thanksgiving tomorrow, but either way hope you spend your Thanksgiving with loved ones!

And one VERY IMPORTANT thing… you should all go wish Britt a VERY HAPPY BIRTHDAY TODAY!!!

Happy birthday friend! Thank you for putting up with my endless texts, letting me run with you, and scheming with me throughout each and every day! You are AWESOME!!! Also, we need a new picture. I think I have officially worn that one out…

this & that

Posted on November 22, 2011 by HHRunner

LARABARS

The problem with Larabars is that I don’t think they’re very filling. The one I packed for my mid-afternoon, pre-run snack is already gone because I ate it for my “lunch dessert” instead.

Fail.

On the flip side of that though, I think the Pecan Pie flavor is delightful!

LEO

Every morning when I get ready Leo hangs out on my bathroom counter to keep me company. And by keep me company I mean roll over every time I walk past in an attempt to coerce me into rubbing his belly so that he can purr loudly and shed hair all over the place.

The other morning I had one of those reusable grocery bags on the counter in his normal spot and that’s when this happened:

He loves to crawl into things like this and I love that.

He sat in the bag like that for a good 20 minutes, just sitting and staring out. Cats are funny.

He also loves sleeping in the bathroom sink, as you can see here:

Adorable.

STARBUCKS

I tried a ‘skinny’ peppermint mocha on Sunday.

Officially not a fan. I didn’t even finish it. I should’ve stuck to my gingerbread latte instead of branching out :-/

Fail on that one too.

GRIMM

And to end this random hodge podge of a post, I just started watching Grimm yesterday on my lunch break. Anyone else watching? I’m curious to hear if other people like it or not (Paula, any thoughts??) I think he is kind of cute:

Be still my heart. I am a sucker for dark-haired, blue-eyed boys.

Are you watching Grimm? What do you think?

Anyone else already in long-weekend-mode? Guilty.

Hills.

Posted on November 21, 2011 by HHRunner

I’ll be the first to admit that I don’t know a lot about hills.

And no, I don’t mean The Hills, I know plenty about that (it is a shame that show is no longer on, huge guilty pleasure of mine…)

I mean hills. When races give out elevation charts (what ARE those?! just kidding. kind of.) I usually glance them over but it really doesn’t mean much to me. I don’t know what’s considered a large elevation gain, and I can sure as heck tell you that when they said RNR SA was a “flat, fast PR course” (<— LIES!) that I vehemently disagreed – there were quite a few “hills” in there.

That chart is a lie, by the way, there was a nasty little climb at the end of the course that is NOT accurately depicted in that graph. LIES.

Because I live in the flattest of flat places, I rarely even worry about hills. But after SA I realized that I should probably start paying more attention to them. I tried to think of different ways to incorporate them into training, but when you’re only running 3 very specific runs a week (speed, tempo, long), it can be kind of hard to factor in another hard run. And while I realize that you can simulate hills on the treadmill I’m tired of running on the treadmill unless it’s a speed run.

Anyway, last Thursday I decided I needed a change of scenery during my run, so I Googled different places close to my work/on my way home where I could run an out and back run. And that’s when I found Terry Hershey Park… it’s a little over 10 miles long (perfect for out and back long runs!) and it runs along the Buffalo Bayou, making it pretty scenic. I’ve run there twice now and both times there were a lot of other runners and bikers out there, plus more than one police officer, making it feel… safe. (I also run with mace and a knife so don’t mess with me!)

And there were hills. The first run I did was an 8 mile tempo – 4 out, 4 back, easy enough. I managed to hold an 8:44 pace (goal was 8:40, I’ll take it) and encountered more than one hill in the process, but nothing that I thought I was dying during.

Then I went back on Sunday to do 15 miles. 7.5 out, 7.5 back, easy enough… right? Wrong. I managed a 9:48 pace and I was seeing numbers that I hadn’t seen in a long time, and not in a good way. I clocked more than one mile over 10 minutes, which is pretty slow for me, my long runs usually average around 9 minute miles. I took it in stride though, it was really humid and I had never run the trails before so I was trying to keep it conservative. And there were A LOT of very steep inclines and declines.

Now I don’t know how big of a gain 72 feet is, and if that’s a lot or a little (it’s probably not much), but for my untrained legs it was rough. So I will be back for you hills. And I will be back soon.

Hills: love ‘em or hate ‘em?

Try not to be too jealous…

Posted on November 19, 2011 by HHRunner

Try not to be too jealous… that Sean and I went to bed at 9:15 last night. We got really crazy and went out for cajun food and had two of these bad boys:

It’s my fault that we had two. But even as I ordered the second one I was telling Sean good night.

Try not to be too jealous… that we bought this movie last night:

Yes we splurged and bought it in Blu Ray. And no, I still haven’t seen it all the way through because I fell asleep at 8pm on the couch and got up at 9:15 to move to my bed.

Try not to be too jealous… that I had a burger and fries tonight from Five Guys for the first time ever.

I’ll be honest, I think I like turkey burgers more than regular burgers and french fries used to be my absolute favorite junk food but now my stomach just hurts.

Try not to be too jealous… that I’m probably going to be in bed by 10 tonight. I’d love to blame it on the 15 miles I ran today except that I didn’t run 15 miles today, I woke up and decided to put it off until tomorrow.

It’s taking every last ounce of energy to be awake right now and it’s only 8.

3 Things Thursday

Posted on November 17, 2011 by HHRunner

Oh Thursday, you kind of snuck up on me this week. I’m feeling a little unprepared… not that that’s a bad thing – I welcome you always because that means I’ve somehow managed to navigate myself through yet another week.

I’ve been a bit of a sad sack on the workout front ever since the debacle of a race on Sunday, and the one run that I’ve done this week (speed, last night) was done on some pretty tired legs (I blame all the squats I did the day before! Darn you Jackie!!!) but despite that I’m still going to hit all my workouts this week, even if it means getting just a teensy bit creative and/or doubling up on one day. Determination is one thing that I have a lot of and I will hit all of my scheduled runs and strength workouts (I hope, otherwise that’ll just look sad for me that I’m over here declaring to everyone that I’m awesome and I’m going to do amazing things and lalala)

On to 3 things Thursday Smile

1. Is it really already almost Thanksgiving? I don’t even feel like 2011 should be even remotely close to being over. Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays, so I’m glad in one sense, but I am nowhere near ready for Christmas.

Who wants to guess what year this is from??

2. Fall has been so weird this year in Houston. I mean, traditionally we have longer summers than most, and having lived here my whole life it’d be weird if we didn’t, but I feel like this is getting a bit excessive – we have yet to have cool weather stick. I’m hoping this latest round of cool weather is the one that decides to stick around, but no fingers crossed on that one.

3. I’m not a black Friday shopper at all. I really hate trying to fight normal Saturday and Sunday crowds, so the thought of getting up early on a glorious day off to fight massive amounts of people who are all vying for the same good deal just doesn’t appeal to me in the least. I know tons of people get up (or just never go to sleep) to shop and I just can’t fathom doing that.

There’s a throwback from my bachelorette party… H.O.T.M.E.S.S.

Bonus: Who’s running a turkey trot this year? I keep going back and forth… I don’t think I’d do it for anything other than just to have fun (until the competitive side of me rears its ugly, obsessive head) but I still can’t decide… Granted I have to clear it with the boy before I make any binding decisions. But that’s just a minor detail Smile

P.S. I need some good books to read – suggestions??

Are you a Black Friday shopper or do you avoid it?

Post RNR SA Race Reflections

Posted on November 16, 2011 by HHRunner

Now that I’ve had some time to decompress from my very anti-climactic RNR SA experience and analyze every last facet as to why it went so horribly wrong I’ve come to some conclusions. These are probably no-brainers and some of them I already knew but this just further reinforced it. And I promise this is the last post about SA.

What I Could Control

Sleep is imperative

While I got plenty of sleep the night of the race, I didn’t get plenty of quality sleep the two nights leading up to it. It took a major toll.

Distances longer than 6 miles mean no alcohol

I didn’t drink the night before a race (though typically I do have a glass of wine or a beer the night before) but I drank more than normal the two nights leading up to it (which also led to the aforementioned lack of sleep). This means that even though I was hydrated the day before, my body was still playing catch up and was not thrilled with my decision to try and pound out 13 fast-ish miles.

Traditionally I have done well in races where I have gone into it having drank way more than the normal, but obviously that doesn’t work for anything over a 10k. Noted.

Big races are not my favorite

I am a sucker for small races. I love them. I thrive on them. While there is a certain thrilling element to being immersed in 30,000 other runners, I like running by myself. I typically run by myself as it is and with the smaller races I inevitably end up running with no one around me (because I’m so speedy naturally. OK maybe not, it’s because they’re small) and those always pan out well for me and I typically perform well.

I started out too fast

I know, I know you’re never supposed to start out fast. I don’t know what happened. The best long runs that I’ve had have been where I start out slowly and then negative split the entire time. I’ve run many a long run at a much more consistent and solid pace then this entire, stupid race. I spent the entire race trying to hover around my goal pace instead of building up to faster paces and I burned out.

My heart wasn’t in it

This is by far the most important. I just didn’t care about the race. I wanted to care about it, but I had too much other stuff going on leading up to the race that was far more important to me that I never gave SA the credit it was due. I wasn’t even really excited about running it until we were on the way to SA and even then I’ve been more excited to run 5ks then I was for this race. And I think that played a lot into me mentally checking out of the race. It wasn’t fun for me and I wasn’t into it at all – the whole time all I wanted was to be done.

What I Couldn’t Control

I was sick

I never foresaw that one coming. I never get sick and it hit me like a ton of bricks on Thursday.

The weather

It was hot and it was humid. It is freaking November, so what that weather was doing here is completely beyond me.

And a VIP Side Note

My husband freaking ROCKS. The first thing he said when he saw me was that he was proud of me. When I told him I was bummed about how it went he told me that they can’t all be good races. He’s right. And he’s awesome.

And now I’m done rehashing SA.

What have you learned from bad races?

My History of Ugly Race Photos

Posted on November 15, 2011 by HHRunner

I always love when people post their photos from races because everyone is so different. Some people are masterminds when it comes to locating the photographers and smiling or doing some cutesy little pose. Me? Not so much. I have a knack for making the WORST faces ever during race photos. Since I haven’t done an entire post dedicated to terrible photos I’ve snagged from various race emails I’ve received… here you go (and you are welcome for making your Tuesday suck less).

Mistletoe 5k: December 05, 2010 (my first race)