We then scooted down to Sioux Falls to help celebrate by bestie’s 28th b-day!

You can’t beat yummy wings, beer + olive + tomato juice and some cosmic bowling. Just like to point out that I broke 100 on my second game-I was on fire!

Friends since middle school-we’re probably just as goofy now as we were then. Just missing our NYC girl-Dani and it would have been a perfect photo! (thanks for the photo Kelly!)

A great night, but a late night. We hurried home though because an early morning awaited us with first service church and singing in the choir. Love being part of the choir but it sure makes for early mornings! Follow that with a little grocery shopping-because what else do you do after church?

Next up – a fabulous 7+ mile run with none other than my new running buddy, Megan. We decided to head out on the trails and to the nature park (read: old landfill!) for a little change of scenery and some trails. It’s not mountain running but we’ll take what we can get!

The trees kept the wind manageable and a favorable winter made most of the trails pretty clear and easy to pass. Hopping off the pavement every now and then definitely breaks things up and keeps training interesting. I still can’t get over how fabulous this winter has been for outside running – go figure it’s the first time in the last 3 years I’m NOT training for a March marathon! Oh well-I’ll take it! You can’t argue with a bike path that looks like this in the middle of February:

Today made for an easier day with a little strength workout. I’m looking forward showing running some love tomorrow with some speed tomorrow-interval run on tap. It’s been awhile since I’ve had a focused speed effort so I’m kind of looking forward to it. Big question is though – treadmill or dark morning run outside…the treadmill is appealing only because timing the intervals is so much easier than trying to look at my Garmin in the streetlights while attempting to not trip (sadly this has happened). Ah decisions!

Some days I wear these lovlies because winter feels like spring.

I’m learning to love running in these.

But some of the best days are when you can wear no shoes at all.

{run smart.run strong.}

My Running Lovlies

The quick story – I ran the Philadelphia Marathon at the end of November with this lovely lady and this lovely lady. It was as much fun as a marathon can be while running with your running besties. A perfect race weekend spent with some of my most favorite people. It couldn’t have been better – I PR’d the crap out of that race, ran the entire thing (!!!) and felt awesome doing it (well, until those last 3 miles). Injury-free running for the win! We did a short training cycle (only 8 weeks) and I ran a lot, felt great, cleaned up my eating and everything came together for a successful race. Except the build up was so great, followed by the perfect weekend and then the post-marathon blues set in. womp womp.

We clean up nicely. And like to match. Deal with it.

Much like the post-wedding blues – you spend so much time planning, working and thinking about it and then combined with a successful event, you’re unbelievably sad when it’s over. This was not helped by the fact that Jenn had to go back to a far away land the very next morning after the marathon. Color me sad.

So—here we are. December was a great month. Just not for running. I couldn’t find the drive to get back to it. I knew I needed to focus on triathlon training (1/2 IM in July-eek!) and I thought the variety would keep me going. It didn’t. Combine that with a pretty crappy diet (it WAS my birthday/Thanksgiving/Christmas/New Years/etc.) (Vegetables? What are those??) during the holidays and I was a hot mess. I did however get to spend some quality time with Jenn when she and the Mr. came home for the holidays – we even ran twice!

Ooops-more matching. But they're all my clothes so...

So things were good other than the whole training thing. I also can’t complain about the seriously awesome winter we’ve had – hardly ANY snow, amazingly warm temps for our SD winter and a serious lack of ice – should be a winter runner’s paradise. Again no dice. What is my deal!?!

I knew I needed to get with it if I was going to ever run a marathon in May. I then found out that my coach was having a weekend running clinic in Estes Park at the end of January – perfect! This would for sure get me back on track, light my fire and kick me into gear. The weekend was fabulous (more on that later!) and it did get me revved up.

ahh, mountains I love you.

For about two days. Seriously, Megan, get it together. I was getting unbelievably frustrated with myself. Why, oh why, was I making this so difficult.

After doing some soul-searching (read: whining and being mopey to the husband and one of my other favorite people-you know who you are!) and taking a hard look at everything that affects my training I finally came up with an answer.

1. I’m still figuring out my new job (which I’m loving) but our busy season is about to kick it into some seriously fast-paced and long days. How the heck was I going to fit in training? Insert an already stressed Megan about something that hadn’t even happened yet. No shocker there.
2. Besides the marathon in November-I haven’t had a successful, injury-free race in what seems like forever. My PR’s are moldy oldies and I don’t feel like I have any speed.
3. I’m wearing totally different shoes – hey AltrasI love you!! AND working on a
   

   We love Natural Running.

   completely new form (see also: correct. Ugh.). Two new things=some frustrating runs and lots of “thinking” while running. For someone who likes to zone out this is different for sure.

4. I don’t like my gym. I’m only there for the pool. I left a place I LOVED only because I needed pool access. I told myself it would be ok and so far my feelings haven’t changed L
5. I need to find/rediscover my love and passion for running. I love to compete. I haven’t done this in quite some time – gotta change that. (and by compete I mean beat my own times – definitely not an Olympian (I’ll leave that to the speedsters) or age-group winner. Yet!?)
6. This is something I CHOOSE to do. Why am I making this so hard/not fun/stressful? That’s just silly.

Conclusion: no marathon in May. I was planning to run my local race and shoot for a sub-4. Um, yeah. I already stressed myself out about this for all of the above reasons and had sucked the fun right out of that goal. There’s always next year. And so many more races – I’ve got time.

New plan: start over.

Find my passion.
Work on form.
Run some 5ks and 10ks.
Enjoy my workouts again.
Possibly go back to my old gym (I might have a pool alternative).
Get in crazy good shape.
Clean up my eating/sleeping habits.
Love training again!

Love. Coffee. Running. Life.

A big thanks to Coach Jeff for not firing me and let me flounder around while I came to this conclusion. He’s excited. I’m excited.

This will be good.

I'm out of fun photos-but this was Christmas Day. No snow. In SD. Pretty Sweet. As are my husband and puppies.

{run smart.run strong.}

Who’s that you ask? Why, it’s my 1BandID Ray! As part of Team PRS Fit I was hooked up with this sweet wearable ID. This is an item that I have meant to add to my running gear collection for quite some time but just never got it done-don’t ask why, just lazy? So I was pumped when our team was generously given a chance to try them out.

Fits so nice and snug.

The best thing about the 1BandID is that it’s just that – one band. I don’t have to strap anything extra on or worry about switching it when I switch shoes – basically I can’t lose it! I wear my Garmin for every outside workout and race I do so it’s always with me.

Red+Orange=my running buddies!

It handily velcros around the strap of my Garmin. I thought at first it would be bulky and bother me but I haven’t even noticed. I think Monte (my Garmin-what? you don’t name your electronics?) would actually look a bit naked now without Ray!

You can also customize your color and exactly what it says on there. So I of course put my basic info along with the husband’s number and my daddy’s – I figure one of them will answer in the event something happens

Ray in action!

! And bonus-I had room to put my little running mantra on there to remind myself to run smart and strong (something I have to remind myself a lot of when doing hard/long workouts and races!).

I was also happy to see our team name on there as well-a nice surprise!

If you’re looking for a no hassle way to be safe when you’re outside running, biking, hiking (or anything with your Garmin!) this is the ID for you. I feel silly for not having gotten something like this sooner but feel a bit safer when running in the dark and know that if something DID happen I wouldn’t be the anonymous girl!

So check ‘em out: 1BandID.com or on Twitter or Facebook.
And because they’re awesome and I love a good deal you can save with this discount:
“FromMegan53268″

Christmas is coming so maybe this is the perfect gift for the athlete in your life! (or a present to yourself-I love those!)

{run smart.run strong.}

*I was given my 1BandID as part of Team PRS Fit. I just wanted to share an awesome product and give come love-all thoughts are mine*

While I love food with a great passion, I am trying to eat a more natural diet and cut out some of the “less-than-good-for-me” foods. A more detailed post on this is in the works. But the short version is-I’m trying to eat even more veggies than I did before. One of my favorite ways to sneak in as many veggies as possible is to cut up whatever I have in the fridge, mix them all together, season and roast!

A few nights ago I posted my handiwork and had some questions on just how I made them! One of my secrets is that while things I make might look fancy, I truly only make things that I can dump together, require few ingredients or have easy recipes. I love food but don’t necessarily love cooking in my teeny, weeny kitchen!

So without further ado, my super easy roasted veggie recipe:

Step one – choose your veggies (usually whatever is in my fridge!)
- In this mix: red baby potatoes, yellow zucchini, baby carrots and red onion
Step two – chop everything up into similar-sized pieces for even roasting (the smaller the better-roasts faster!)
Step three – throw them all in the bowl and drizzle with olive oil
Step four – choose your seasoning. I usually just go with what I think will go well with what I’m serving. In this case, I used the Tastefully Simple Dried Tomato and Garlic Pesto Mix sprinkled very liberally. Mix everything together.

Perfect on Veggies!

Step five – Toss everything on a cookie sheet lined with tin foil (for easy clean-up!). Keeping things in a thin layer also speeds up your roasting time.
Step six – Roast! I usually stick them in at 400 for about 30-40 minutes or when evertyhing looks tender. I like mine pretty roasted so I cut the pieces small and roast extra if I have time.
Step seven – Enjoy! I love making huges batches so I have leftovers for lunch.

That’s just one of my “creations” and I usually just go with whatever I’m feeling that day. Or whatever I see in the spice cabinet first…Another tasty combo I use alot with potatoes is olive oil with green onions, chives and garlic. Super simple to put together and lots of flavor. Even better if you’re cool enough to grow your own herbs (I was not this year, gardening and I are not in a good place. Yet. Next summer I will conquer it!)

I’m no Rachel Ray, but I do have fun with the challenge of coming up with new and interesting combinations in an effort to eat clean. Stay tuned for other cooking adventures and disaters!

What’s your favorite (easy) veggie recipe?

{run smart.run strong.}

Post-half workouts:
Sunday was not about speed and my legs didn’t care – they weren’t interested in doing much of anything. Goal: 2.5 hours. Accomplished: 5 miles.

Better than nothing and definitely more than I would have pushed myself to do normally. And I hurt worse after that then the race! (May have had something to do with the dancing that evening…perfect race recovery to keep the legs loose, am I right?)

Monday and Tuesday turned into strength and abs. No running involved-I had HUGE knots in the legs and had several hot dates with the foam roller that just about left in tears. However, all worth it-legs were ready to go for their next run.

Wednesday was a morning to eat intervals for breakfast. And I did – 5x7minutes @ 8:00/mile pace with 2 minute recoveries. Happy to report I did not die. Nor did I puke. Felt strong most of the way less a strange twinge in the right shin area. Left after the workout-so odd. Oh, and this? All on a treadmill, I like a constant pace when attempting to be speedy. Plowed through an episode of Parenthood and part of Glee-Hulu on the phone is such a treat and becoming a necessity to fight the monotony. Although, watching the older gentlemen of the gym play their man-on-man basketball is a bit humorous

Thursday was a rest day. I love them And thank goodness for that, because today brought some more speeeeeed. Except this one I tackled, wait for it…on the TRACK.

Track workout essentials: your workout + giant water bottle (and in this case, pants!)

Boy, does that take you back-I was not a track star. Forced into running hurdles I never got to show my star potential in the 400 or 800. Rude. The intervals today were progressive 2×600, 2×800, 2×1000 – with instructions to run FAST. Too bad the wind was a brat and made the back half of the track a bit tougher than necessary. I ran this workout in mostly dark which was a good test of pacing myself. Although, when you’re running at an “am-I-going-to-die?” kind of pace you just kind of push. Happy to report that all intervals came in mid-7′s. Could I have gone faster? Maybe. I blame the drag from my ponytail and my pants Pants, you say? Yes-my warm-up included going back to my car to grab some lounge pants I had packed for the weekend and wouldn’t have normally been in there because I wore shorts. Apparently 47 and windy is CHILLY. Loving the temps though-just need to adjust the wardrobe!

I’m trying to learn to recover more efficiently and quickly. Enter: the fruit smoothie.

Don't worry mom-I was at a stop sign. And yes, it was still dark when I finished my workout.

Still experimenting with my favorites but whipped this one up last night: frozen strawberries, frozen blueberries (yu-um!), a pear, banana and a crap ton of almond milk (my new favorite). I’m thinking pears don’t like smoothies because they refuse to breakdown thus leaving a few chunks Experimenting will continue…

And because everybody loves self-portraits, proof of the baggy pants.

These pants are awesome. For yoga and lounging. Not running fast. Lesson learned.

Notice the super awesome arm crease sweat marks. Yep, 47 degrees and I’m still sweating-jealous? (P.S. the tank top underneath was just as you’d suspect-super awesome in all things sweaty). I will say I was sporting a new headband from here-love the bright color and it stayed on through wind and my super speediness (ha!). Cute colors (which are different from when I ordered), not insanely priced, probably going to need more. (Thanks Purpleshoe for the recommendation!)

I’m off to a sweet weekend with some fabulous ladies and wine. Happy Friday!

{run smart.run strong.}

Upon being literally blown north to Fargo, we managed to get to the expo without getting lost – I think I’m finally getting that city figured out. It was a bit windy:

It was small expo since it’s a fairly small event so packet pick-up was smooth sailing and took about 30 seconds. There was really only one vendor but they took the cake. The Fargo Running Company had set up some gear and were actually having some crazy good sales-50% off sale prices. So, even though I’m trying not to think about winter running (AT.ALL.) just yet, I scored a super sweet pair of turbo warm running tights for less than $24 (retail: $85)-color this girl excited. While I’m excited to use them, I can certainly wait a few weeks or hopefully months!

After, taking care of race necessaries – we headed to our hotel. Two blocks away. This is when we realized we had perfectly executed race weekend accomodations. The start and finish were literally outside our front door. So perfect. And the hotel was super reasonably priced, clean and overall pretty never mind the whirlpool was under construction and we had both packed proper attire to enjoy it

Fargo!

So we got settled in and immediately focused on our hunger – we were off to “our” Fargo pre-race restaurant: Toscana. I had an amazing bowl of seafood pasta – while I’m trying to transition my eating to a more natural diet I have figured out just yet what to eat pre-race and indulged in my tried and true angel hair.  We enjoyed our romantic booth for two and our ridiculously funny waiter Giovanni or as our ticket said “Jon”. We won’t tell

We were pumped for an early bed/relaxing night as we walked back to our hotel-we were conveniently located for everything that weekend! Except maybe Scheels. Upon laying out our race gear and perfecting our playlists, around 8:30p someone realized they had packed three tank tops but no shorts. Ooops! We sprung into action, grabbed the keys and headed across Fargo to get Jeri some beloved tempo shorts thus she did not have to run in her newly purchased winter running tights-crisis averted!

Finished!

Fast-forward to post race (read about the ACTUAL race here) and happy runner girls. Since we were staying another night there was no need for a hurried shower and check out. We hurried anyway because there was Mexican to be consumed!

mmmm Mexican-get in my belly!

This is also where I consumed the world’s longest taco. Thankfully I wasn’t able to finish off the monster platter of Mexican goodness but did enjoy a well-deserved margarita. Nothing tastes quite as good as Mexican goodies post-race.

Taco Goodness

After filling our hungry tummys we headed back to downtown to enjoy the Oktoberfest happenings. Unfortunately, even though my navigation skills had been stellar up until this point it took some wandering around to find it. We told ourselves that the walking was good recovery for the racing legs.

Oktoberfest Festivities

We finally found it and were able to enjoy yummy Oktoberfest beer and weiner dog races! That did not help my want for another dog (which I don’t need AT ALL.).

Running of the Weiner!

We were also informed that if we visited each of the establishments participating in the beer tour we could earn another medal. Color us pumped – we like a little bling!

Fast forward to several sad realizations – one of the bars participating, was in our hotel. Ugh. We could have started there. Another realization: we walked past several of the others while wondering around looking for the main area. Double ugh. Third realization: after having most of our stamps collected (don’t worry: beer was not consumed at all of them, thankfully that wasn’t a requirement!) one of the bartenders casually mentioned, “Oh, you know they’ve been out of medals for quite some time, right?” Uh, no. Lame.

Double Bling.

Thankfully we found new friends and were able to “borrow” some for picture-taking and participation purposes. Luckily we have the better medal to keep anyway. And don’t let this fool you, we had a perfectly grand time-it was the perfect afternoon/night for enjoying Oktoberfest.

Green Mugs!

Also cool-we had special green mugs for running that day. Everyone else had orange – we win.

We closed our night with some super yummy pizza from a local joint. All-in-all a successful weekend of racing, Oktoberfest-ing and road-tripping. The best part is, the next race weekend Jeri and I have together will be with our other racing buddy-Jenn! Only 37 more days, but who’s counting

Ready to do this.

A double bonus for this race: location of the start and finish. Out our door thankyouvery much.

Best race hotel ever!

So not only did this race have a later start (8:50 heck yes!) we could literally walk out our door and be ready to race. All of this aligned for a pretty great morning less Jeri’s unfortunate intestinal troubles. But all was good by the time we started.

With the late start we were able to sleep until almost 7 and that sadly IS sleeping in for this girl. It also allowed me to hit up the free continental breakfast at the hotel because we weren’t leaving before it started (win again!). Thankfully I only really wanted something to slather peanut butter on (I haven’t figured out a good Paleo race morning hotel breakfast option just yet) because the “healthy options” were a bit slim and landed upon an English muffin. Never mind I wanted to head start toward the powdered donuts (how are those things even still legal?) but stayed on course. Grabbed some hot coffee and headed back to the room to make myself race-ready.

Once we were all put together we headed over to the civic center to get organized and get ready run! Took in a banana (barely-whewf), ditched our stuff and headed to the starting line.

Running is Life.

The temps were just perfectly cool (5-10 degrees cooler wouldn’t have been the worst thing) and the wind seemed minimal. After the ridiculous winds from the previous two days this was a relief. We positioned ourselves (sadly, too far back, lots of weaving) and before we knew it we were off!

The first four miles clicked right off – thankfully as my shins were not super excited to be running. I had two non-running days prior to race day and I think that’s one too many. I was coming off of a hard two weeks of training so I understand the coach’s logic, too bad my shins didn’t! Noted for next time-shake out run is a must).

1. 8:56
2. 9:06
3. 9:10
4. 9:04

I took a shot block at about 2.5 and 4.5. I decided to run with my hand-held because I’ve been using it on most of my long runs and any time I run at home (read: gravel roads, no water fountains!) so I’m pretty comfortable with and frankly like to drink on my own schedule (what? I’m a bit particular when it comes to race day nutrition). This proved wise and I felt like there could have been one or two more water stops on the route. Although, have to say the ones they did have were well organized, well stocked and the volunteers were more than helpful making sure you got what you needed and cheering you on.

Up until mile 6 I was about .05 over on distance-no big deal. Cue mile 6 – spot on! Not sure how that happened or if I became the best tangent runner of all time but that made me pretty darn happy and it stayed this way until about mile 10 and even then I was only a bit off. Something I could definitely live with. This course involves a LOT of turns, curves and zig zagging-which I actually like. Long straight-always bore me and mess with my mental game. A lot. So just another reason I love this course-no boredom here! And have actually become a pretty smart tangent runner and can usually keep the distance difference (say that 10x fast!) to a tenth or so. Go me!

Took another shot block at about 6 or so and the mentally prepared myself for the back up Clifshot gel I stashed in my hand-held (another smart move! I’m on fire!). I was still feeling pretty strong and had plans to push the pace if things felt good – I figured a goo would be good insurance that I wouldn’t run out of steam to early. I managed to choke down the yummy fuel (lying-it was only manageable. However, the mocha gels I use are the least offensive I’ve found) and wash it down with water. Oh, hand-held have I told you how much I love you yet?

5. 9:06
6. 9:13
7. 9:09
8. 9:14

Things were still feeling surprisingly good at this point and the miles were clicking off. Legs were loosened up and feeling strong. For most of the run I felt pretty mentally there and don’t recall too many moments where I wasn’t sure if I was going to be able to keep up the pace.

Another smart move I made was deciding to wear my older pair of shoes. I had gotten a new pair a few week ago (that’s a debacle for a future post) and long story short-they just don’t feel right and have caused unnecessary foot issues I think. Running in the trust pair was perfect, no foot problems at all and I didn’t worry about them at all during the race.

9. 9:11
10. 8:59

Then we hit the worst/my favorite part of the race. Due to some construction, they had to add on a two mile loop/out-n-back on the end which meant you had to run RIGHT BY THE FINISH LINE. Pooh. Having two miles to go yet is still a significant chunk of time but I quickly forgot about the finish line and got to finishing this thing. The upside to this arrangement is that I got to see people heading in toward the finish. Most people would hate this – I, however, seemed to feed off of their energy and used it to power through. For the last mile or so a girl in orange (hello there short-term running buddy!) had hung with me, we continued to push each other and celebrated hitting mile 12. Then I promptly sped off. Oops! So thanks for pushing me girl in the orange! Also at this time, I finally passed a girl I’d had my eye on for most of the race. I remember her because she had on the race shirt from the last half I ran just a few weeks ago. For whatever reason I wanted to beat her. No rational reason, no idea that I would stick with her but as I surged away from orange girl I took her down as well. Mission: accomplished! Those are the mind games I play to keep moving forward and it felt good to make them happen!

11. 9:09

Sadly, I didn’t get to see Jeri during this loop and I thought for sure I would but apparently we were running closer together than we thought! But naturally I worried that maybe she had had to ditch to a port-a-potty and I had passed her and then immediately felt bad for possibly not having noticed her. She at this point had also decided that maybe I had had trouble with my knee and fell behind-thankfully neither was the case! And as she put it-”apparently we’re worriers!”

So after I put my worry aside I got to finishing this race! I did some quick math and knew that PR was a good possibility if I really hustled but I was also having a strange twitch/spasm/random pain in my right hip and I knew that this race wasn’t worth blowing my hip out and making the final weeks of marathon training excruciatingly awful so I didn’t blow it out of the water but finished strong enough for an effort I can live with.

12. 8:52
Final time: 1:59:22 (9:07 pace)
(chip and Garmin were spot on-go me!)

Stats:
319 out of 727 runners
134 out of 411 females
23 of 76 in age group (25-29)

And as soon as I crossed the finish line I saw Jeri’s smiling face and knew that she had not died a terrible death on the course We promptly grabbed our mugs (see: post-race celebration efforts) and some food and collapsed on the floor to discuss our awesome sweatiness and pretty-gosh-darn-good races. Not a PR for either of us but a very respectable showing. For sure.

Done!!

And because this has become a novel about not-a-whole-lot I will save pre-race and post-race recaps for future posts (just to keep you in suspense).

Love some race bling.

I count this race as a huge success for these reasons:

• My PR is from this race and is only :56  seconds better than this effort (slightly different course but I’m not sure that really counts in this)
• In 2009, this was my last good race. The race following that is where my knee let go and I then spent over a year rehabbing and conditioning my leg into letting me run. That’s no way to run.
• I ran another smart mental race and kept my head in the game and put forth a solid, and rather consistent effort through the whole race.

Happy, sweaty girls.

I’m really hoping this is the beginning of some serious racing and PRing because it’s been two years and I’M READY!

{run smart.run strong.}

So without further ado here are my realistic goals:
A Goal: Sub 1:55, this would be a PR for sure and awesome to see. Will I, we’ll know tomorrow.
B Goal: Sub 1:58:26, my current PR which is a moldy two years old and from THIS very race!
C Goal: Run a smart race. Listen to my body. Learn to run uncomfortable (as my coach puts it).

Realistically anyting sub-2 will work for this girl. I feel like I’m just getting back in to racing shape, form and mentatlity so I’m trying not to get too worked up or crazy about my expectations. This weekend will be fun no doubt because we’ve built an extra day into our race weekend to participate in the Oktoberfest activities happening in downtown Fargo. Post race beers in the fall-pretty great idea if you ask me

{run smart.run strong.}

New running gear FTW!

A little early birthday present from the husband! I may have basically told him I neeeeeded this shirt and that he should order it quick because Beth over at Shut Up & Run (one of my regular blog reads) was only offering for a limited time. Since it showed up today and I head out tomorrow, I’m taking it as a sign. And don’t worry-I’ve already washed it and worn it around the house so I’m qualifying it as good to go for race day. I think it has perfect race vibes don’t you?

{run smart.run strong.}