build my base

Building My Base Week #9 & Skiing

/ Anna @ Piper's Run / 8 Comments

Last week was March Break in Nova Scotia, therefore Lilly had no school. We decided to take Hilary out of day care and I would take a week’s vacation. With Saï starting his new job as a casual Paramedic, he picked up shifts as they came in which kept him really busy.

Even with it being March Break, I managed a great week of workouts. I’m still kinda baffled how I got it all in. Some days didn’t go as planned, which meant other days had to be shifted around but I had a solid week.

Week #9

What was Planned v.s. What Really Happened:

Monday March 14th: Yoga | 5km Treadmill Run. I did some skipping to warm up before my run and whipped myself in the butt (literally). It really hurt and for a while that night. My run wasn’t good but I got it done.

Lilly was in a 1/2 day soccer camp Monday to Wednesday so Hilary and I got to hang out, run errands, go to the library, played at home and spent time with Saï.

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Tuesday: Yoga | Yoga. I managed to get to yoga class since my husband was home that day, however I had to rush home as he got called into work that night and needed to get a few hours sleep. (I’ll take that over him being away in PEI). Then we drove to Clay Café so the girls could paint a ceramic statue thing. THEN…we had four families (Mom’s and kids) over for a pizza party.

Busy and crazy day …. but I got my yoga in 🙂

Wednesday: Run | Nothing. I ran out of time to run as we had to pack that evening for our ski trip AND I watched Finding Nemo in the afternoon with Hilary. Around 9:20 PM I said to my husband that I still wanted to run but that would require me to shower and stretch. It would have taken me another hour or so to do all that and I was exhausted from the day before.

He suggested I run early in the morning before we had to leave….so I went to bed.

Thursday: Ski | Ran 3k at 6:15am & Skiing. We took off at 8:30 AM and drove 2 hours to Ski Wentworth. I spent the afternoon skiing on the bunny hill with Hilary (3) and Lilly (5) got her first proper ski lesson. Within minutes she was skiing on her own!! Saï and I got in 4-5 runs thanks to my parents hanging out with the girls.

Green for St. Patrick’s Day

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The conditions for skiing were not great but not terrible either. I had to work really hard at the bottom of the hill, slowing my speed down and carving more on icy spots. My thighs were burning on every run – felt great 🙂

Friday: Ski | Skied. We skied most of the morning on the bunny hill with Hilary. She just wanted to bomb the hill with us skiing backwards down the hill in front of her. It worked. She was loving it.

March Break Ski Trip 2016

Lilly had another lesson and went to the top of the hill with the instructor. We spent the majority of our day on the bunny hill with the girls. It was FANTASTIC! Sai and I got handful of runs in.

Saturday: Nothing | Ran 5k. This was a last minute planned run as we traveled back from our ski trip to my parents house. I had an hour to squeeze in a run and managed to do that, plank, PT exercises and 10 minutes of core workouts! My lungs hated the cold weather but I sure felt great afterwards.

Sunday: Run | Ran 8k. I wanted to run between 5-7km, really hoping to get the 7k in and managed 8. I ran out of my parents subdivision which is ALL hills and I was done after that, ha ha!

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Seriously, this was a HARD run. I struggled a lot and walked a number of times. As I got closer to their home and realised that I’d have to walk about .70 of a km to their house after hitting the 7k mark, I decided to keep running and get in 8k. Otherwise, I would have had to walk .70km to their house in the cold wind + being sweaty wasn’t going to be fun.

Times I ate out during March Break: Way to many to count. So sick of eating out. Or maybe I’m just sick with the portion sizes. I’m ready to get back to meal planning as well, especially now that Saï is home.

KM this week: 21 km

KM this month: 44 km

Though I struggled during all my runs this week, I’m happy with what I was able to accomplish and to be honest, that’s half the battle. I have one more week before I start my half marathon training plan but I’m moving into the same format this coming week of running vs cross training days vs rest days.

Oh – Happy Spring! We are expected to get a big storm today: 15-20 cm of snow and some freezing rain 😦 Fingers crossed it’s not too bad of a storm.

Week #8 if you missed it is here.

How was your weekend?

Anyone else on March Break? What did you get up to?

Anyone race? How’s training going?

 

Building My Base Week #8

/ Anna @ Piper's Run / 11 Comments

Hello???!?!!?!!!!

I’m still here even though it seems like I’m blogging less and less. This past week I ran less and less too! It was my busiest week of work and then the decisions to run vs not running did not go so well.

Having said that, I did what I could last week, fingers crossed I’m moving forward with some more consistent running and soon training.

Week #8

What Was Planned vs What Really Happened:

Monday Mach 7th: Yoga | Nothing as my hamstring was sore from Sunday’s 10k 😦 Feeling a little frustrated with my hamstring but I’m figuring it out as I go along.

Tuesday: Yoga | Nope! I really REALLY needed to go to this class and even brought my stuff with me. However, with a big day on Wednesday (100 attend a gender equity workshop), I had so much to do I worked through my lunch. To be honest, there’s been more hours going into work then I think I really had to offer between my normal work day and life with kids. It’s all good as the workshop was amazing!

Wednesday: Run| Nothing. Up until 2pm I was super excited to get out for a run once I got home, fed the girls and got them to bed. However, I made the mistake of sitting down during the workshop late in the afternoon and I felt like I was hit by a tone of bricks. With all my energy drained, I went to sleep at 9pm.

Thursday: Run | Ran 5k on the treadmill. Nothing amazing about the run but really happy to get it in!

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Friday: Run | Nothing. Bailed last minute on my run.

Saturday: No workout plans | Nothing active other than walking around Costco….so you could say I nailed today’s plans of not working out!

Sunday: Run | RAN!!!!!!! (Skipping, squats and lunges with weights). I finally got in a 5k treadmill run and it was great. Relaxing, comfortable and just what my body needed. I woke up today (Monday) feeling fantastic!

march13 run

So, another not so great week building my base but you know what…that’s life and I’m totally okay with it right now. I’ve got another week or two of “building my base” and then you’ll start reading about my training 🙂

Total km run this month (so far): 23 ….yikes…I’ve got to get running!

Week #7 if you missed it is here. 

How was your weekend?

How’s your running/training/workouts going?

Anyone else struggling like me?

 

 

Building My Base Week #7

/ Anna @ Piper's Run / 10 Comments

Your probably thinking “why is she STILL building her base”? Well, my answer to you would be that I’m just waiting to start half marathon training at the end of this month.

It wasn’t an exciting week. It wasn’t a good week running. It was however a busy week for work and home and minor injuries.

Week #7

What was Planned vs What Really Happened:

Monday Feb 29th: Yoga | Yoga. Yoga class is always one of my favourite things of the week. I love that it’s at the beginning of the week and usually the day after a good or hard run.

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Tuesday March 1st: Run | 5k Treadmill Run + 50 squats +skipping. The run wasn’t anything special but I was felt good afterwards. I skip for 5-10 minutes before I run on the treadmill…get’s my heart rate up and muscles ready to go!

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Wednesday: Run | Nothing. I spent most of the day limping and couldn’t quiet figure out why. The back of my right leg hurt from my hip to my knee, even walking bothered it but not all the time. It wasn’t my hamstring injury but I wasn’t convinced. I figured I needed a day to rest it as it just didn’t feel right.

Thursday: Run | Nothing. My leg was feeling 95% better but I still wasn’t convinced I should run.

Friday: Run | 100% Ditched running to hang out with my husband. I literally had been planning to run even though I had a long day at work (travel involved). I sat down on the couch with my husband for a moment and it only took a second for me to decide not to run. and then sat down on the couch with my husband and decided not to run. I figured I’d run in the morning.

Saturday: Early morning run | No running. Made pancakes for the family and stayed in our PJ’s for most of the morning. Getting lazy. Feeling lazy at this point 😦

Sunday: Run | 8k afternoon run outside! After lunch I slowly got my running gear together and realised my Garmin had a LOW battery. That’s what happens when you don’t use it for a month!!!!

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Anyway, I charged it up for a few minutes and then went out for my run. The first 5.5 km was great and then my Garmin died. Not that I was relying on my Garming, because I wasn’t but my run just started to struggle then. I was having a little pain in my right leg but in the front and only when I had to run on snow.

I got home to my girls and husband having a snack. We spent a little time stretching and foam rolling together. Seriously, these two LOVE stretching and foam rolling with me. I also opened my new watermelon nuun….so good!

March 6th foam rolling

Overall: Not a great week in activity. Meh…it’s okay. My right calf muscle is really sore which I’m thinking is why my right leg is off. Foam rolling, stretching and my compression socks seem to be helping.

This coming week’s a busy one. I have back to back meetings all day Monday (8 am – 5 pm). Then I need to squeeze in a trip to the city for a friends parents’ funeral. I also have a big workshop Wednesday that we’ve been planning since September!!!! It’s about Gender Equity for women and girls…I’m really looking forward to that. Though it’s going to be a busy week, it’s going to be good minus attending the funeral.

Life Lately

Some other fun news that I meant to share last week but got out of the blog writing mode. Saï officially got hired on in Nova Scotia. This happened back in early Feburary but he’s been completing his orientation, ride-a-longs, driving and finishing up his shifts in PEI. He is now home for good…we’ll until I kick him out or he picks up extra shifts in PEI. We shall see which comes first, ha ha ha. It’s been an extremely busy few weeks for him so I’m happy he is able to slow down a bit and not be away from us ALL the time. The girls are so happy…as am I. Mama get’s to run whenever she wants now. Ha ha, kidding, we’ll not really.

We did nothing all weekend and it was lovely. Well, Lilly had a birthday party and the girls and Sai played outside in some fresh snow while I ran. Other then that we took it easy as a family. Some much needed time together.

How was your weekend?

Is the weather turning spring-like where you live? 

How long do you stay in your PJ’s on the weekend?

Building My Base Week #6

/ Anna @ Piper's Run / 11 Comments

It’s been six weeks of building my base for half marathon training which really doesn’t start until the end of March!  I’m hoping that if I keep this “building” phase going it will help me jump into a good half marathon training plan. At least that’s the idea.

The last six weeks have been all over the map. From extremely awesome to struggling to find my motivation, to battling head colds that take over your body and just life in general. Things are changing around here and I’ll tell you more about that in a few days. Don’t worry, it’s all good and no I’m not pregnant.

Building My Base Week #6 

What was Planned vs What Really Happened:

Monday Feb 22nd– Yoga | Yoga. Felt so good!!!! I managed to hold crow pose for 8 breaths and then birds of paradise on both sides for 6-8 breaths. Getting stronger. She did some more killer ab work.

Tuesday: Run | Ran 6k on the treadmill, good run…happy to have done it.

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Wednesday: Run | Ran 8k  on the treadmill. I’ve been skipping 5-10 minutes before I run lately to warm up and enjoying the challenge. It gets my heart rate up and my legs burning when I’m on a roll. It also hurts when I make a mistake and the rope whips my legs – ouch!

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Thursday: DVD Workout | Nothing. Starting to feel under the weather. Went to be early.

Friday: Rest Day |  Sick. Full of a nasty head cold.

Saturday: Run | No way I was doing anything today. Pounding headache, nose running, completely stuffed up. Actually, I shouldn’t say I didn’t do anything. I took the girls to our local indoor soccer facility where they have “open play time” each Saturday morning. So we played soccer, baseball, jumped, hoola-hooped and tag. Hilary loves playing tag and SHE can actually run fast. I was running to keep up!

feb 27 soccer dome

Sunday: Run | Ran 5k on the treadmill. It was a good run that I was happy to finish and not bother trying to run any further. 

Even with a nasty head cold, I’m happy with my workouts last week. The weather here has been spring like which is not normal for February. It’s a bit of a tease really.

I also signed up for a spring 10k at the Bluenose Marathon in Halifax (Nova Scotia). I was wanting to run a race before my June half marathon but couldn’t decided between 10k or Half. My brother wrote me a message the other day to say he signed up, so I literally dropped what I was doing and signed up right then and there.

Races I’m signed up for (to date):

  • 10k Bluenose Marathon, Halifax, NS.
  • Half Marathon @ Johnny Miles Running Event, New Glasgow, NS.
  • 5k & Half @ Maritime Race Weekend, Cow Bay, NS

That list seems so little to the 12 races I ran in 2014 and all the races I signed up for in 2015 but only ran two of them. It’s all good. I’ll sign up for a few more; 5k’s and maybe another half marathon, we’ll see. I’d love to do a race with my husband 😉

If you missed the last few weeks check them out here: Week #1 and Week #2, Week 3, Week 4 & 5. 

What’s your secret for getting rid of a head cold?

Can your kids run faster then you thought they could/should?

How was your week/weekend?

Happy LEAP YEAR day!