Booyah!!

Booyah: an exclamatory statement, often said when someone is extremely overjoyed.


Overjoyed to say the least; I think I finally figured out how to run with a stroller.  Thanks to my dear friend Megan and all of her awesomeness, I was able to successfully run with a jogging stroller today. Sami still helped out, but I can honestly say that it felt awesome.  

This here is Megan, she is basically a godsend; seriously, she is an amazing woman, wife, mother, friend, runner, crafter, coffee lover ..I think God put her here just to keep my sane really.


So after a few frustrating stroller runs earlier this week, Megan suggested that I let the front wheel swivel and try running off to the side of the stroller a bit.  Magic!  It worked and it felt totally natural and comfortable.  I will be forever grateful for her advice.  Today's advice from Megan was not to get discouraged about a slower pace while running with the stroller, it's actually good that on non pace run days I keep my heart rate down to recover faster.  Seriously, don't you wish you had a friend like Megan?


On another note, you won't see me post much about weight on here, but I do want to note that 10 months after having a baby I was about 5 pounds under my prepregnancy weight.  Most women would be saying "booyah!" to this, but not me.  You see, I'd rather feel incredibly fit and weight 10 pounds more than my prepregnancy weight than weigh less and not be fit.  So, in the last 2.5 weeks, I have put on about 2 pounds, even with all of this running and working out.  Am I upset? Noway! I know that those pounds are muscle and that makes me one happy girl!  For the first time in a long time, I am so incredibly aware of my body and its strength.  Now that right there is motivation for the next 11.5 weeks.

The adventures of the new stroller!!

So I finally got a better running stroller.  I was super pumped and really thought I could just bust out at least 5 miles with it ...WRONG!!

So yesterday I searched for "Techniques for running with a jogging stroller", I didn't really find too many techniques but I did find a list of things to know when running with a jogging stroller.  I can tell that just from my 3 mile run this morning (only pushing for half of it because Sami is so awesome that she pushed the other half) these things are true:

1. Most runners get awesome leg workouts but hardly have time for upper body workouts.  Not the case for a stroller pushing mama, pushing a stroller is an upper body workout for sure!
2. When first running with a jogging stroller it will feel like you've never ran in your life.  You basically have to learn to run again.  Yep, so freakin true.
3. People LOVE a baby in a jogging stroller.  Makes sense, I'd love to pass a super cute baby on my run too.  I'm waiting for the "Go Mama Go!" encouragement that comes with this.

Overall, learning to run with the jogging stroller has been a difficult process.  Every time Brian asks how my run went, I respond in a disgruntled voice, "Awful!"  It's incredibly frustrating to have to stop and try to align the stroller so that it isn't working against my run. It's even more frustrating that my pace could actually be below 9 minutes a mile for 3 miles, but with the added stroller frustrations it's still a little more than 9 minutes.

I will figure this out though.  And hearing my sweet little girl sing and hum the whole run is the best sound in the world.

Day 1: Half Marathon Training

Okay, so technically it's Day 2: Half Marathon Training, but day 1 was REST!!, so does that really count as a training day? Oh, and technically, the race is 14 weeks away and my training program is a 12 week program, but I wanted to get an early start, so I decided to start with the Week 1 workout. Today's workout was 3 miles/30 minutes (whichever comes first). I can usually run about a 9 minute pace, so I when my alarm went off at 6am this morning, I thought, 3 miles, easy peasy, I'll just run it with the stroller when A wakes up from her first nap.

So that's what we did, except that by 10am, the sun was BEATING down and the temperature was up to 83 (felt like 88). So, we only made it 1.15 miles, an our pace was definitely not 9 minutes. It's alot harder to push a stroller (one that claims to be a jogging stroller by the way) especially when its so humid outside. Lesson of the day: When your alarm goes off at 6am, Get Out of Bed NOW, and do not the comfiness of your bed outweigh the benefits of running early in the morning. Seriously! I could have ran in 74 degree weather, with no sun or stroller.

So about this stroller, we LOVED it! It's a Britax B-Agile in black. Seriously, the best stroller ever for walking and running errands. It folds up super easily, it works with Britax carseats (you can buy adapters for other carseats too), which is awesome for a baby that fell asleep in the car on the way to the destination. Anyways, since we have to get a jogging stroller (I'm talking a real one this time) now that I'm training for the half marathon, we are selling this one for $150 or best offer. So all in all, my morning run was a disaster, but not a waste by any means, I learned alot: Wake up at 6am, get a better stroller, and avoid the direct sun. Since the heat doesn't calm down until after dark here, I will be forced to complete my training indoors today on the treadmill. If you know me, you know that I HATE the treadmill. So you can guarantee that I will be out of bed by 6am for my next run on Wednesday (because tomorrow is a cross training day). I will win, I will not let the sun and unbearable Ohio summer get the best of me and my half marathon.