Elf for Health and Weekend Recap

I signed up for Elf for Health a little late in the game so I started this ridiculously fun and motivating challenge in week 3. We are now in week 4 of the challenge. During my first week of participating I ate lots of veggies, scheduled work outs with a buddy, paid it forward, donated to a charity, and made sure I had lots of water. Loved the different daily challenges and have really enjoyed getting to know my Elf. This coming up week we are making healthy cookies (do they exist?), sneaking veggies into our favorite casseroles, sharing our favorite circuit workout with our elf and treating ourselves to a treat we have been craving. It isn't to late to sign up for Round 3 of Elf for Health. Click here for more info.

Over the weekend I was scheduled to run with a fellow MRTT member. She has been cancer free for one year and wanted to celebrate with a 13.1 run. I volunteered to run with her for part of it. I decided I would do 5 miles with her since my Elf (see above) was running a 5 mile race the same day. All the other people who were going to run with her had to cancel at the last minute so I was going to try to go as far as I could with her.

Mile 1 went great. We started with a nice warm up walk since we thought we would be running for the next many miles.

Mile 2 went a little different. Due to knee problems that have been bugging her for some time we ended up walking on and off.

Mile 3 we attempted to run and walk when we needed to.

Mile 4-8 running was just hurting her knee too bad so we did a fast pace walk to finish off the day. I loved the company but was a little bummed that I couldn't get the long run in that I had been wanting to do. Running with friends makes running multiple miles more fun.

I need to find someone in the area who is willing to run with me 4 or more miles to help keep me accountable and help push myself to great distance than the easy 3 miles around my house.

How do you push yourself to get out of just doing the normal amount of miles?

12/12/12 and other upcoming runs

Today is 12/12/12 How are you going to celebrate it? Run 12 miles,12k or 1.2 miles at 12:12?

I stole this nice graphic from Run with Jess

My husband was suppose to do a 12k but ended up doing nearly 10 miles. He did it on the 11th and finished after midnight so he counts it as 12/12/12. A little tidbit about my husband is that he loves to walk and hike. He walks between 5-8 miles every night. I say night because he is also an awesome dad and tucks the kids in to sleep and then heads out for his "me" time. Super proud of him :D Ok back to my running stuff! Hoping to run at least 1.2 miles today. I would love to do more but I have work today, kids to watch while my husband works and my husband has a meeting tonight so hopefully I get a fun. Don't worry if I don't get time to run then I will do 12 extra pushups or squats in honor of 12/12/12.

Another exciting run that I am really looking forward to is on Saturday. A woman in my MRTT running group is celebrating her one year cancer free anniversary! She is going to run 13.1 and wants friends to join her. We were suppose to celebrate last weekend but the weather turned on us and we rescheduled. I come from a long line of awesome women who have fought cancer, some more than once. My beautiful Mother has been cancer free for almost four years! I am happy to support any victory over cancer. 

Do you feel passionate about a cause? What fun runs do you have planned? 

Weekend Runs

Yesterday during my lunch break at work I took advantage of my awesome work location and ran on the greenbelt. I have only run on the greenbelt once before so I didn't want to detour to much and get lost. I didn't want to be late getting back to work so just did an easy 3 miles. I now know I have time for a lot more.

Today I had a meeting with my Mom's RUN this Town chapter. We had a great meeting and planned some great runs such as one to work on hills, our chapter 10k, and a 13.1 run to celebrate a fellow members one year being cancer free! I can't wait for the next few runs! Oh and I won free athletic bottoms from Old Navy! We did an easy 2.6 mile run then I ran half way home. A total of 4 miles! I still have lots of training to do before my 10k but I am excited about the challenge!

How did you workout this weekend?

Happy December!!!

I am loving December!!! Sure it has only been three days but so far awesome! I am doing great on my squat-a-thon, 25 days of running, and my planking streak is going strong. It helps that the Frosty Fitness Challenge this week is 200 squats (over the course of the week) so the squat-a-thon challenge totally works for both (yay multitasking).

I am on day 5 of my plank a day, I started out with 1:02 and wanted to get to 2 minutes by Christmas. Well today I was able to do 1:45!!!! Awesome in my mind and I am going to kill my goal!

I ran three days in a row. Being a busy working mom, it has been hard to find time to get my runs in. Three days in a row is a huge victory for me! I think I will try for 12 days if not the whole 25 days of running.

I am growing tired of most of the songs on my workout playlists. Does anyone have any good suggestions on new music?

Frosty Challenges and Group Runs

This week for the Frosty Fitness Challenge we were challenged to do 100 push ups over the course of the week. I have been slacking on my push ups for the last three weeks so this was exactly what I needed to help motivate me. I have done 100 push ups every single day this week except Tuesday. I have one day left in the challenge but I have already done 600 push ups this week!!!!! I can't wait to see what the challenge is next week!

Since it is December, I will be starting a few other challenges starting today. One is an instagram challenge that will help everyone get in the holiday spirit with a #HolidayADay challenge. For more information on the instagram or twitter photo challenge click here. I also plan to take part in the Squat-A-Thon for December. For more information on the Squat-A-Thon click here. I will also be challenging myself in doing a plank every day. I have been doing it for four days and have already improved my time by 30 seconds! It pays to plank every day.

This morning I went on a nice run with my wonderful Mom's Run This Town chapter. We did an easy 4 miles and got to enjoy the company of each other. We ran on the beautiful Greenbelt system. It was awesome running with a group outside of a race setting so we could just enjoy the scenery and go at a very easy pace. I can't wait for my next group run!!!!

Are you doing any fun challenges? Do you prefer to run in a group or solo?