Running Warehouse + Giveaway Winners

Posted on April 12, 2013 by HHRunner

Yesterday I came home to a lovely little box on my doorstep.

my favorite kind of box to have waiting for me

New running shoes make me very happy. You know what else makes me happy? The fact that running warehouse does free two day shipping. I’m an instant gratification kind of person, and since I always order my running shoes online because I can never make it to the store fast enough, two days is pretty instant in my book.

That box contained these:

be still my Brooks PureConnect-loving heart. I’m so glad they’re turquoise

New shoes meant I had to run, no matter how tired my legs were. Good thing it was a beautiful day. These are the newer versions of the PureConnects… I’m not entirely positive what they changed, but I can tell there’s a slight difference in them from the older models. I can’t tell yet if that’s good or bad. Hopefully good.

As soon as I got home from running, I turned around and completely undid all that calorie-burning with a couple of these:

not sorry one bit.

While Sean and I were taking advantage of happy hour, we were chatting with the two girls sitting next to us. One of the girls said that she was running a marathon this weekend. I was only halfway into the conversation, but at that point I was ready to talk any and all things running with her. So I asked her which one.

She said the Graffiti Run.

whomp whomp.

In other news, the giveaway winners from the Esprit de She giveaway are:

1. Patti

2. Brittany

Congratulations ladies! I’m sending your email addresses over to Lauren, who organized the Esprit de She giveaway, so that she can send you your shirts!!

Any fun plans this weekend?? I think for the first time in a long time we have a very low-key weekend ahead of us. I couldn’t be happier about having no plans!

weekly workout wrap-up

Posted on April 7, 2013 by HHRunner

Hey-o! I’m bloggin’ on a Sunday! I started off this week feeling a little “meh” about my workouts, but I feel like I really picked up speed at the end of the week and I finished everything out feeling really good, so I’m pretty pleased about that!

For whatever reason, my computer isn’t currently letting me pull any pictures into this post? So I guess we’ll just get right down to it.

Monday: 20 min HIIT running, BodyPump. I did do 20 minutes of HIIT – specifically, a 5 min warm up, 5 x 1 min @ 7:03 then 1 min @ 8:34, 5 min cool down. I hated all of this. It felt much harder then it should have, I was unhappy with how I was running and the 20 minutes felt like 45. So there was that. BodyPump, on the other hand, was delightful as always. I just really love the instructor.

Tuesday: 3 mile run before work, Jillian Michaels Yoga Meltdown after work. The 3 miles happened. For whatever reason, I couldn’t get the gym TV to work in the morning, so I started at a blue screen for a solid 26 minutes. And that was that. Yoga Meltdown happened after work and I thoroughly enjoyed it – I forgot how much I like that DVD. I was pretty stressed from work, though, and Jillian didn’t relieve all of that stress, so I laced up and headed out for a slow 2.53 miles. I just ran what I felt like running and then came back home. 3rd run of the week, 1st one that was OK.

Wednesday: 3 mile run @ Memorial Park + Happy Hour Spin Class (ob-sessed with that class now. I don’t even know why I was nervous about going last week). I’ve been running my runs at Memorial without the watch. I just check the time when I leave and then when I get back to my car. It’s delightful! I felt like this run was hard and when I got back to the car I realized there was good reason – I ran it in 24 minutes exactly, and I know that it always takes me a mile to warm up, so that means I ran the last 2 miles in the 7’s. Happy Hour spin is seriously one of my favorite classes to go to. I love love love the instructor.

Thursday: Jillian Michaels Ripped in 30. I didn’t want to work out at all on Thursday, so I guess it’s good that I planned such a short workout. And that Sean was running on the treadmill when I got home. There was no way I was going to let him work out and not suck up 20 minutes of my day for Jillian. Did it. Was glad I did it. And was glad I was done.

Friday: Friday 5k before work. Nope. I took a rest day. For one, after Thursday I could tell that I needed one. I also am currently taking a class on Friday nights, so that kind of eliminated any other time I had to work out. Friday is now going to be my rest day – at least for the next 7 weeks.

Saturday: Some undetermined amount of miles [maybe 8? then again, maybe 4…] + BodyPump. Initially I wanted to hit up my running group and run with them, but I ended up going to bed really late on Friday because I got wrapped up watching King of the Hill [don’t judge my high quality TV choices – there is not much on Friday nights], so I nixed the alarm and just let myself sleep. When I woke up I hopped on the treadmill, did a 1 mile warm up, then 2 miles alternating a 1/4 mile at a low 7:xx with a 1/4 mile at 8:34, then a 1 mile cool down. Then BodyPump happened at 10:30 – it was a new release and SO FUN! When I got home from grocery shopping I decided I did want to run 8 total for Saturday, so I laced up and hit the pavement for 4 more miles, which were surprisingly quick considering how tired I figured my legs were. Done and done.

Sunday: NOTHING. I have no plans other than a 1.5 hour deep tissue massage. Well, all that nothing changed once I subbed out my rest day for Friday, so I woke up this morning and headed out for 5 easy miles. The only thing I told myself was that I wasn’t allowed to watch my watch. Which resulted in a slow warm up mile around 9 min, then 3 miles at flat 8’s, then a slower final mile.

Like I said earlier, this week didn’t start out at all how I wanted it to, but I really feel like I finished it up with some solid workouts. I’m trying to focus on balancing fun with working out and being healthy, and I feel like I achieved that this weekend.

How was your weekend?? Did you do anything fun?

Go enter the giveaway here. NOW.

Esprit de She 5k

Posted on April 5, 2013 by HHRunner

So over the past couple years I’ve had one focus: distance running. Even when I was sidelined, running long was all I could think about. However, when I started running, I was all about the 5k’s. I’ve ran many 5k’s in my time as a runner, but they kind of started to fall off my radar as I became more immersed in the world of distance running. I replaced 5k’s with 10k’s when it came to ‘short’ distance running, and as such haven’t ran a 5k since my brother and I ran one together two years ago.

When I was approached by Esprit de She about becoming an ambassador, I jumped at the chance. The race, which is held May 9th [a Thursday evening] is in City Centre, which is one of my all time favorite places to be. According to the lovely folks over behind the race, Esprit de She is “the nation’s premiere athletic event series for women.” They go on to say, “We are a community of active women connected by a shared desire to celebrate fitness and fun, sisterhood and strength.”

Really, who wouldn’t want to be a part of that?

First and foremost: all you lovelies in the Houston area should go sign up for the race. Let me make it really easy for you… do it here.

I’ll be attempting to run one of those puke-inducing 5k’s [which should be interesting considering I haven’t focused on running fast in a long time…]

Second: Esprit de She has offered to give away two shirts to two lucky winners!

I am a lover of t-shirts, so these are right up my alley. How cute are they?!

In love with the colors. Heathered gray = the best.

I’ll let the giveaway run for a week and will pick the winners next Friday.

To enter:

1. Leave a comment. Tell me how your last 5k went or why you don’t run 5ks. Or don’t. Just leave me a comment Smile

2. Blog about it and let me know!

That’s it! Nice and easy!

Hope you all have a wonderful Friday!!

Full disclosure: Esprit de She comped my entry to the race, but I probably would have ran the race anyway because it’s in City Centre, which I love, and because I’ve been looking around for a 5k. All opinions are all mine. I don’t do giveaways often, so when I do it’s something that I’m really pumped about!

RoadID Giveaway Winner

Posted on December 5, 2011 by HHRunner

I hope you all are having a lovely Monday! It’s a gray day here, rainy and cold. Perfect snuggling up on the couch in sweats with a book weather. Too bad that’s not really an option for me (that whole full-time job thing kind of gets in the way of leisurely activities!)

I’m still kind of recovering for the weekend (what is it about Mondays that make them so difficult?!). I want to tell you it was jam-packed and that’s why I’m lagging behind today, but the truth is I had a very laid-back Saturday that included hot yoga, grocery shopping, and then hours of reading and a nap. Which is precisely how I’d like for the rest of my Saturdays to go. Sunday I went on a 14 mile run with Britt that I was dreading before I even got out of bed. However it turned out to be a quite enjoyable two hours that went by rather quickly. The rest of Sunday I cleaned and then we had both sets of parents over for dinner.

All that for a very long-winded introduction to the fact that it’s Monday and thus time for me to pick a winner for the RoadID Giveaway!!

Congratulations Jina! Email me at happyhealthyrunner (at) gmail (dot) com and I’ll let you know how to get your free RoadID!

How was everyone’s weekend?

Anyone run any races? Britt and I almost raced a 5k but decided not to at the last minute and just ran our miles instead around the race area

December Goals

Posted on December 2, 2011 by HHRunner

I can’t believe it’s already December. To prove that I can’t believe that, when I stopped by the bank this morning to deposit a check and withdraw some money and I saw my available balance I just about choked. I spent the next 15 minutes of my drive to work trying to figure out what the heck Sean had bought and why the heck so much money was missing from our account. He said he bought shoes. Clearly it was more than shoes.

Oh yeah, it was our mortgage payment since it’s the beginning of the month.

Reality check over here, it’s December now.

NOVEMBER

I started out last month listing out my November goals, so I guess before I go into December I should see how I did with November right?

1. Improving my overall strength: check check. I’ve been strength training more – twice a week to be exact. I love strength training, and now that I’ve gotten back into it I’ve realized just how much I love it. Success.

2. Becoming a faster, smarter runner: ummm I don’t really know how to guage this one because I haven’t run any races that I want to think about. I’ve been good about listening to my body and I had a fantastic 18 miler last week that I was much faster at then the previous week’s 15 miler. However I had a wretched half marathon. So I don’t know where that leaves me. Maybe success?

3. Managing money better: yeah no. I don’t really know where our money is going right now, but I kind of threw a budget by the wayside. Fail.

4. Improving the quality of the blog: I don’t think I’ve actively done anything different. Oops. No idea.

5. Stress less: Nope. Been mega stressed. Fail.

I think it kind of evens out. Some successes, some fails, some I don’t knows. Such is life.

DECEMBER

I wanna keep December short and sweet though. It’s going to be a busy month with lots of temptations so there’s no sense in making lots of lofty goals that are out of reach.

1. Run smart and hard for the 30k: I am both excited and nervous for next week’s 30k. I’m excited because of how wonderful the previous 18 miles I had went. I’m nervous because what if I can’t recreate that? What if it was a fluke experience? I don’t even think I have a time goal, I just want to finish feeling strong.

2. Maintain my current exercise/weight: Janetha is hosting Dedicated December, a little challenge to stay active during the holidays. She’s offering a lot of cool little giveaways for different winners, and it’s a fun way to stay accountable during the holiday season.

photo taken from meals & moves

3. Continue to run smart and train hard for the marathon: It’s in a little over a month and I really want it to go well. I’ve been dedicated in my training and rarely change/switch workouts in an attempt to run well. I’ve put so much into this and I can only hope I reap the benefits of doing so.

That’s it! Short and sweet!

Don’t forget: You still have a few days to enter the RoadID giveaway!

How’d you fare on your November goals?

What’re your goals for December?

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!

GIVEAWAY WINNER!

Posted on July 8, 2011 by HHRunner

And the winner of the Gotein giveaway as decided by Random.org is…

#2 – Jenna Z!

Congratulations! Email me your shipping address and information at happyhealthyrunner (at) gmail (dot) com and I’ll get that shipped out to you ASAP!

Hope you’re all enjoying your Friday so far… Can’t wait for the weekend!

Holiday Weekends Are WAY TOO SHORT.

Posted on July 5, 2011 by HHRunner

Seriously.

But first: go enter the giveaway.

I don’t understand how I can have one extra day and STILL feel like I need more time. I was a majorly lazy bum this morning when my alarm went off and I barely got up in time to run and even then I was seriously cutting it close when it came to running late to work (however there was no traffic so I was actually early).

It feels like this weekend was really short, but looking back we really did do a lot. And by do a lot I mean that I ate my freaking face off all weekend and tried to justify it with Saturday mornings run… but I’m getting ahead of myself.

Oh and I took next to no pictures because I am lame.

Friday when I got home from the longest drive home from work ever Sean and I drove over to Alicia’s Mexican restaurant to have dinner with Sean’s family. I just love them and love spending time with them. I really was not wanting to go anywhere when I got home from work but within 5 seconds of seeing their smiling faces I was so glad to be there, it was exactly what I needed after a weird work day. The whole drive home from work I was thinking about how I couldn’t possibly eat any more because my coworkers and I went to Fuddrucker’s for lunch where I devoured a buffalo burger and sweet potato fries, but this all went out the window right after I sat down and inhaled chips and salsa, fajitas and then ice cream. Can’t win ‘em all…

Saturday I woke up early and proceeded to do a 14 mile treadmill run. This was made OK by my fancy new set-up courtesy of the hubs.

Sounds horrible, right?

It actually wasn’t bad at all. I popped in the first Harry Potter movie and set out to conquer all 14. Since I went to the doc last week and he said to stay off the pavement til my leg feels better I’ve been diligently doing treadmill runs. I had water at mile 4, took shot bloks at mile 6, had water at mile 9 (by the way, I still haven’t mastered running and drinking – I got water up my nose every time), took shot bloks at mile 11, and then finished out the last 5k.

Glorious. I was on cloud 9. I ran the entire movie and then, per the doctor’s orders, did 20 minutes of Pilate’s (OK, he said stretching, but Pilate’s instead works for me), and then took a 20 minute ice bath. On the way to the gas station I drank a glass of cherry juice per RoseRunner’s recommendation in this post, and afterwards I felt AMAZING. No pain. WIN.

Then I went bridesmaid dress shopping with one of my best friends. We ended up going to lunch and having mimosa’s before I ventured back home to my husband. He has had poison ivy for the past week and has been a miserable mess and is finally starting to feel better. We ended up going to B-dubs to watch the UFC fight and then over to Stats and then over to my coworkers house… I skipped most of the drinking though and DD’d. We got home and in bed at a ridiculous time, but honestly being able to see my friends and hang out and catch up was completely worth it.

Don’t be fooled by how innocent they look. Because our cats despise when we sleep in, Sean and I were up by 9:30. We woke up our friend Matt (who crashed at our house), went to IHOP, dropped him off, and then I worked out while Sean did the yard.

Then we cleaned up and headed over to my parents. We played Scrabble (I won), ate some pretty rockin’ bacon-wrapped shrimp, drank wine, and played Scattergories until we looked at the clock and realized it was 12:30am. Are you kidding me…?

Went home. Slept. Woke up early again. Took the motorcycle out and met my parents (who took their motorcycle out) for coffee, went home, watched True Blood, I napped and fought the worst headache of my life, cleaned up, went to Sean’s friend Mike’s house to hang out in the pool/hang out with friends, went home, watched Criminal Minds, and then went to bed.

At several different point I thought about doing a 4th of July 5k, but honestly, hanging out with our families and friends really trumped racing this weekend. So now I’m on the prowl for a July race to do.

Anyone do any 4th of July races?? How’d they go?

If you haven’t entered my giveaway yet, you still can. Giveaway winner on FRIDAY.

Protein in the form of GOTEIN: Giveaway

Posted on July 1, 2011 by HHRunner

I mentioned earlier this week that there would be a giveaway on Friday and guessss what! It’s Friday! What better way to kick off a holiday weekend then with a little giveaway, right?!

A couple weeks ago the lovely folks over at Gotein contacted me and asked if I’d be interested in doing a review and giveaway of their products. I’m not one to turn down free stuff, and I love you guys, so it’s a win-win…

Enter: Gotein

What It Is:

Gotein is a portable protein supplement that comes in a powdered form that you can easily add to water for a post-workout protein drink or just for a to-go protein shake.

Why It’s Good:

I don’t know how you are about getting enough protein post-workouts, but I can tell you three things about me:

1. I used to be terrible about taking in protein after hard workouts (I’m much better now, by the way)

2. I prefer to eat my calories vs. drink them. I am a volume person and food really does it for me. That’s not to say I can’t be swayed though because…

3. I am obsessed with Honey Milk. Seriously, it’s a problem. Their light coffee flavor is ah-mazing.

Which brings me to Gotein. I was 100% skeptical about this. I’ve used powdered drink mixes before with moderate success, but I’m really picky about that kind of stuff.

And I’ll tell you right now, I’ve only tried 2 of the 3 flavors.

The Stats

Chocolate: 16g protein, 6g carbs, 24 vitamins and minerals, 110 calories

Vanilla: 17g protein, 5g carbs, 24 vitamins and minerals, 100 calories, gluten-free

Strawberry: 17g protein, 6g carbs, 24 vitamins and minerals, 110 calories, gluten-free

Not too shabby, eh?

Day One: Chocolate

I added it to my water and I shoooooooook it up. Still a little grainy so I shoooooook some more.

It was OK. Not wonderful, not horrible.

I’m 100% sure that I should have taken more water out because it had a slightly watered down taste to it. I drank it all though, if that tells you anything.

Day Two: Strawberry

Now would be a good time to mention that I hate strawberry flavored things. I’m not even positive that I’ve ever had strawberry milk but the thought of it grosses me out. And I have convinced myself that this strawberry protein mix is going to turn into strawberry milk (don’t try to make any sense out of it, it doesn’t make any).

So I improvised.

And made a smoothie! And it was wonderful! And pretty! And honestly – I wasn’t hungry again until lunch and if you know me at all, you know that I eat all.day.long. So not having my 11am snack is weird for me.

Success.

I saved the vanilla one because I adore vanilla flavored drinks and I want to try it after my long run.

What I Liked:

- I love anything portable because I am almost always on the go
- I always have a bottle of water with me, so being able to add in 100 calories worth of protein is a win
- There wasn’t the chalky, powdery taste that some protein supplements have
- The stats on them are pretty good for a protein shake

What I Didn’t Like:

- They’re pretty pricey
- There’s only 2 stores in Texas where you can buy them. You can find a list of locations to buy in store here and you can buy them online here

Where You Come In

Gotein gave me extras to give away to one lucky blog reader! You will get one of each flavor Cat not included. He just wouldn’t get out of the way.

What Ya Gotta Do

There’s always a catch, right? Of course. There’s 6 different ways you can win. Leave me a separate comment for each one and Random.org will decide who wins. Easy-easy.

- Like Gotein on Facebook and tell them I sent you!
- Blog about the giveaway
- Tweet about the giveaway (You know… @HappyHealthyRun is giving away Gotein!… Or something lame like that. Be more creative than me)
- Be a follower of this blog
- Let me know if you’re good, bad or indifferent when it comes to getting your protein
- Tell me your favorite way to get protein

I’ll announce the winner next Friday so you have a good solid week to get in. Enjoy your weekend!