A Garmin Never Lies...But Sometimes I Wish It Would!

I tried to get back into my Saturday night routine of hydrating and getting to bed early so I could get an early start on my long run. I am using Ignite Naturals electrolytes right now and love it. My sister warned me it would be warm on Sunday so advised me to start early.

I was up early but started an hour later than I intended. I took almost an hour getting ready for my long run. What the heck was I doing? I have no idea but I definitely need to be more organized for next week.

I knew it was going to be tough since it has been awhile that I did a long run off the treadmill. The weatherman was wrong (shocking!) and actually I had nice cool weather with no wind. I started off quite slow and brought my phone, letting my son know he may have to pick me up somewhere. Since I had my (crappy) cellphone cam, I snapped a few pics.

I love being back on the trails. I know some people who have never run outside. 100% of their runs are on the treadmill! I always ask them why and do they know what they are missing?

This was my first long run in awhile without my braces since they removed them Thursday. I now have retainers that I wear 24/7 except to eat and I was not sure how to do my Gu with them so took them out for this run. It felt very strange and by the time I finished my run, it felt like my teeth moved (doc I hope you are not reading this!). It is possible they did since I had some braces taken out 1 week earlier and one of those teeth moved so much in one week, they had to adjust my retainer. Well, what does this have to do with running? No braces means I am now back to eating 100% of my regular diet and I feel great!

I tried not to think about how slow I was going, knowing my training will pick up since I am back to doing my runs outdoors. The treadmill never keeps me in as good of shape and JAW SURGERY = TOO MUCH TREADMILL RUNNING. All of that is behind me now.

At about the 2/3 mark of my run, I texted my boys that I would be finishing the whole run and not need a drive. That is when I became acutely aware of how tight my hip flexors were and made a mental note to stretch them this week. Why can't I get serious about stretching? I think the treadmill shortens the hip flexors, no? I walked a bit and found a place to try stretching them out since it was starting to shorten my already short stride (short legs you know).

I glanced down at my Garmin (I was trying not to watch it during my run).

What is the great thing about a Garmin? It never lies! I love that when I am having a great run...but not so much when I am not. I have been running long enough to know that this has given me a good training effect nonetheless. 24 km later, I finished and felt empowered that I finished it even though I had thoughts that I wouldn't. That is so unlike me since I can crank out long runs anytime usually. It is generally the speedwork and hills that kill me. 24km is usually not even considered a long run for me.

My Garmin confirmed my sloowww pace but I will get it next time. All long runs are valuable and people tend to beat themselves up too much when they have a bad one.

Don't you just love this pic?

you're only ONE RUN away from a GOOD MOODHave a great day!Retweet if you agree twitter.com/GlobeRunnersIn…
— Globe-Runners Inc. (@GlobeRunnersInc) May 19, 2013

High Hopes for Training this Week!

Do you know the best part of having a lousy week of training? Unless you are injured or sick, as long as you are determined, you will have better training the following week.

Last week was a disaster for me. At the beginning of the week, I came down with a bad case of foodborne illness.

I am certain it came from 1 of 2 places:

1. a well known coffee chain that served me a chai latte that had a funky taste (I suspect they did not give me my requested soy milk and substituted regular milk)
2. dairy - I cannot digest dairy well, therefore I do not eat it very often. When I do have it, it is in very small quantities. I had cottage cheese in my standby protein pancake that I have had a million times before. I felt fine after eating it but noticed my stomach was noisy.

Everything changed that night when I became violently sick the whole night and next day. I have low blood sugar so when I cannot eat, it takes days to get my body working back to normal. I was so sick, I had a very hard time looking at food and was still existing on cookies and ginger ale to keep my sugar up but was not eating anything else. I was so dehydrated, my shoes were loose!

That made for very bad  no training last week.

On top of that, I had a day filled with doc appointments since I am getting near the end of the whole braces thing/ broken jaw girl saga. I had many pretty pictures of my head, jaw, palate taken, analyzed, had docs poking around, testing it out. I also had some of my braces removed and all of my surgical hooks and extra bands are gone.

People who have had braces before are surprised at this since you are either wearing braces or having them removed. I am a special case...real special!

This week should feel like a crazy awesome week of training after last week's disaster!

Trail running should be hitting a high now. There is no snow left if I stay far from here.

I am so looking forward to being on the trails for the majority of my runs.

Run happy everyone!

Need Electrolytes Anyone?

Look what came in the mail!

I was given a sample of this product to try from Ignite Naturals.

This sample of electrolytes was in a tangerine passion fruit flavour. I added one level scoop as per instructions into 1 cup of water and shook it up with my shaker ball. It mixed easily with just a few tiny particles left behind. Then again, I did not mix it long so a few more shakes of the wrist may have done the job to perfection. 

The product itself contains the following ingredients: don't sue me if any of it is wrong :)

Freeze dried cranberry, Freeze dried organic coconut water, Aloe barbadensis, Prickly pear extract, Pomelia, Lo Han Guo, Natural Flavours, Unprocessed Cane Sugar, Citric Acid, Stevia

Per Serving:

2 calories, 115 mg sodium, 453 potassium with less than 1 gram of cabohydrates. I never really understood those electrolyte drinks that are loaded with calories (sugars) so this seems like a better fit for me.

Right away, I need to say that this product had a big job to do. I will go into more details later, but let's just say it was perfect timing because I was very dehydrated at the time. That is on top of the fact that I am stepping up my training right now (read with me: endurance cycle training) and am a very salty sweater as I blogged about HERE.

I took a sip of the drink (actually a big gulp!) and was very impressed with the real food tasting fruity flavour. It did not leave a weird taste of artificial sugars (remember only 2 calories per serving) and wasn't artificially coloured either. I used this beverage for the next few days with my regular training and it did the job without any stomach upset.

Clean, pure, whole with a great taste; Ignite Naturals gets it right. There is also no fizzy effect like other well known low-cal electolyte brands.

Click here to Visit Ignite Naturals website

Oooh, next flavour to try is Prickly Pear! I must take a closer look at all of the other products they have as well.

Also, do not forget to visit their Knowledge Blog. It has lots of great information about nutrition and training.

Try it today; you will not be disappointed!

Paper Shower Review

I received in the mail a package from a company called Paper Shower.  

Inside the package were 6 individually wrapped Paper Shower products. Each one had a joined together but separately sealed moist towelette and a dry towelette. The moist one had "unscented" on the package. This is a plus because perfumed products on sweaty, salty, grimy skin is not a good thing. Chances are that it is going to be under these conditions we are using them since if we were clean, we would not need this product, right?

I gave one to my son to use at the gym and he gave it a thumbs up. He also said they did not stink (he is a teenager after all) and were a good size. The bonus was that it did not bother his skin at all (he can have sensitive skin at times).

Next up was my try with it. I used it after a particularly sweaty workout and was pleasantly surprised to see that it was enough product to use on all of me. That is no easy task since I am a super salty sweater and am often caked with salt stains after a workout. The wet cloth was strong with just the right amount of moisture. The dry cloth was very absorbent and was able to finish things off nicely.

What I liked about this product:

• they are separately wrapped so that, on a hot day, I could use the wet one and keep the dry one sealed for another time 
• they are a generous size (each are 9"x12") body wipe
• they do not make me smell like a perfume factory or the baby aisle in the drugstore; they just get you clean, pure and simple
• you can pop them anywhere since they take up very little space
• the cloths are strong, do not fall apart but are soft to the touch
• the price is reasonable at about $1 per combo
• they have very little alcohol (unlike traditional wipes)

If you are a reader of this blog, then you know that I am a shower lover. It is possible that I work out more than once a day to have an excuse to have more than one shower. 

There are many times that I could use this product in those situations where I do not have access to a shower.

This could be one of those days that I run with my sis and we always end up at a breakfast place or coffee shop afterward.

I have parked somewhere to run and will need to run into a store before heading back home (and choose not to scare a store clerk with my salt encrusted face, possibly with bugs stuck to me during bug season). This is especially important since I run trails a lot.

I have run too far in one direction and need picking up by my hubby since I am too far to run home. I could keep one of these in my long run Fuel Belt so that I could clean up and dry off while I wait.

They can be tucked into the car, backpacks, bicycle bag for those bike rides, hikes, kayak trips, days at the beach that necessitate a little freshen up at the end.

Overall, I think this is a great product and one that I will use again.

You can order these online (minimum quantity of 6) with free shipping.

 Click this link to go to papershower.com

Just Like That - Nice Weather is Here

If you are trying to make the switch from a night to a morning exerciser, this is the time to do it.

Last night (well truthfully, early this morning, went to bed late) I set my alarm for 4:45 AM. When the time came, birds were already chirping. If they were going to be so busy, then so was I.

The night before, I laid out my clothes. DON'T even think about trying to scrounge around the morning of because it is just NOT WORTH the HASSLE!

Notice what is missing? No jacket...love it...love it...love it!

I got out of bed and went into another room where my clothes were laid out. I text my sis to see if she is up for her run. I dressed quickly, gargled with some mouthwash, and headed downstairs. "Too early", thought my brain. Everything is just hazy.

Brainstorm at 4:50 A.M. I run back up the stairs (not quietly because my ankles sound like Rice Krispies cereal in milk) and throw my contacts in...and it's time to go.

I head across the intersection and there are no vehicles on the road. I run a little farther to the trail and see 3 dogs (with 3 dog walkers), 2 bunnies, 3 male ducks, too many Canadian geese and eventually 1 semi-sunrise. I finish up the run, make sure my son is up for school, make hubby's coffee, do a quick search for my wedding ring, make my lunch and eat my breakfast, and get ready for work. Starting the day with a run is starting the day right.

Reminder to all runners, walkers, cyclists or whatever other outdoor activity you are doing. It doesn't matter what time of day you are out there. You have to be on the defense. Keep track of all motion around you.

Watch this scary video.

Be careful everyone. Your life may depend on it.

Speaking of scary situations, what do you think these are pictures of?

That's right. One of modern man's scariest inventions. That was me taking a picture of myself in the car wash...alone...and hating every minute of it. Hopefully one of you will share this same dislike...just so I won't seem so weird!

Dodging the Worms

Last night, late at night, I set my BB alarm.

(pic of phone actually long after my run - note to self: make alarm earlier tomorrow) 

This is still a reasonable time right? Since I knew my run would not be crazy long, it seemed a good time without being insanely early.

Once my alarm went off, I rolled out of bed, put in my contacts, gargled with some mouthwash, and threw on my clothes, all of the time trying not to make noise, especially since hubby has not been feeling well lately.

I crept downstairs, put on my shoes and garmin and headed out the door. A little bit of rain greeted me. Ah yes, clean early morning air. Wait a minute; let me breathe in again. The whole neighbourhood had that awful wet worm smell. Why do worms smell anyway?

Can you smell what I did?

Why are you scratching and sniffing? You didn't really think that would work, did you? Take my word for it; not too pleasant!

I started my garmin and settled into the run at a nice relaxed pace. At first, I tried to dodge all of the worms on the road, tiptoeing lightly, jumping over them and sidestepping here and there. I gave up on that since it was ruining my momentum and cadence. I am nice to wildlife UNTIL it interferes with my run. I am not sure how many worms I stepped on (some parts of the road were covered) but I tried not to think about it while running. Since worms can't scream (now THAT'S a scary thought), as long as I did not look down, I was OK with it.

Shortly into my run, the rain stopped so I did not get too wet. It was a good thing since I went out the door without a coat, counting on the fact that it would not keep raining.

I bet you that I did not stay as dry as this:

Between all of the snow that we had late into the season and the rain with no warm weather to dry things out, I am not sure how much more water the local river can take. Some areas along the river have flooded.

I finished off my run and made my green smoothie. For some reason, even though I am almost certain that I made it the same as I have 1000 times before, it just was not as green as usual...but it tasted exactly the same.

Don't you just love the feeling after your morning run? It sets you up to have a great day!

You feel energized...

  ready to conquer the world...

    like you can do anything...

      perfect time to set new goals...

Are You a Morning Person?

The second half of this week has had things turned upside down a little and has me thrown off of my regular routine. That may not be so bad however since this week coming is the week that I switch all of my runs to the morning...the very early morning. It is a great time to switch all runs because we finally have

It is about time Mother Nature!

The only drawback to this is

1. Speedwork in the early AM is always super challenging for me and I need speedwork desperately right now
2. I won't see (or feel) the sun as much
3. I may make my night owl hubby cranky when I am shuffling around so early to get ready

Somehow I ran out of oats and have not taken a moment to go to the store to get more. I need my oats everyday and the recipe below seems to be the way I am eating them lately. I have no idea where I found this recipe but it is delicious.

I have seen many new runners in the neighbourhood and am always happy to see that. I try to tell people that running is so mainstream and can fit many people's needs and abilities, even if they do not think they are a runner. I will always give away an (almost) guaranteed surefire FREE beginning running program to anyone that sends me an email. If you know somebody that would like to start a running program and don't know where to start, send them my way.

Well, even rambling for today! This girl needs to go find herself some oats.

Just Follow Your Plan

When people ask how to fit it all in, I say

If you can fit that run in, the rest of the day WILL go much more smoothly. Promise.



Another piece of advice:

Ingredients of one that I am drinking these days:

• 2 cups baby spinach
• 1/2 cups egg whites
• 1/3 cup oats, uncooked (you can grind first but not necessary)
• 8 frozen strawberries
• 1 Tbsp Udo's oil  (or flax, chia)
• water as needed

...and just like that you have a portable breakfast that has your complex carbs, protein and healthy fat. So drink up and thank me later!

Drink lots of water. I aim for 4 litres in a day, including through foods. Everything just works better that way.

Eat healthy. Skip the junk. Eliminate processed foods and sugar.

Plan out your training, then stick to it! Something will always come up but it is just as important as any other thing that pops up (most of the time). Better yet, nothing else can pop when the rest of the world is asleep. If low energy, distractions, life keeps you from exercising at the end of the day, become an early riser and squeeze it in during the early part of the morning. Then you do not have to give it another thought until it is time to set your alarm for the next day. Give it six weeks trial and you may just morph into this early morning exercise nut that you knew (or didn't) that you always had inside.