Weekly Workout Recap: Countdown to my half has begun

My workouts this week have been dominated by thoughts of my upcoming half marathon.  It's only two weeks away and I'm starting to get slightly nervous.  And excited.  Mostly just to get to it!

On top of trying to continue to prepare for my half marathon, my nomadic husband has also been back out of town.  That means that when a certain 9 year old is having a complete breakdown over a homework issue, my plans to do step aerobics on the Wii get thrown out the window. Frustrating.  But maybe a good lesson about remembering I wear many hats and sometimes things will fall to the wayside and that it's okay when they do.  I'll live.

However, it did illustrate to me that the best way to be sure I get my workouts in is to get up early and do it before my kids get up.  Lesson learned!

This week I managed to get in two short runs, one long walk, one long run, one short step aerobics session and one kettle bell arm workout with grand central station coming through the room.

Grand central station during a workout is characterized by lots of noise, objects or people flying through the room and lots of question and answer session.  It periodically requires photos.  Like my son wandering through attempting to join in on kettle belling:

Grainy because it was dark in the room  and I suck at any kind of complicated lighting situation.  And yet, too funny not to lighten the hell out of and use anyway.

I told that crazy kid to back the train away from me because I wasn't interested in taking a kettle bell to the head if he loses control.  Especially when he gets distracted by the television.

I'm pretty sure only Mother of the Year candidates let their 7 year old  hold a 10 pound weight directly over their feet while watching television.

My two short runs were good.  My iPhone was mysteriously refusing to play music all week so I'm impressed that I was even able to complete my runs without it.  Thank heavens for friends that run with you at the crack of dawn and can shoot the breeze for 30 minutes!  It was cold outside too so maybe that helped me run faster!

I can't believe I now take photos of my watch after every run.  I'm concerned that I've officially become a total loser.  Can't. Stop. Photographing.  My. Arm.  Dork.  Alert.

I'm also thankful that my BFF Google was able to walk me through how to fix my iPhone (Slightly wet toothbrush gently cleaning out the connector so my phone stops thinking it's connected when it's not.  Genius!).

For my long walk, I wanted to see how many calories I burn.  Since I started wearing a Garmin on my runs, I've quickly come to realize that MapMyRun is way off base on mileage, speed and therefore calories.  I don't have a strap to do heart rate on my Garmin but I do have one for my Suunto.  But my Suunto doesn't do GPS mileage.  Hence this madness:

The only thing worse than photographing your watch after every run is photographing two at once.  My husband would like to know what kind of idiot needs two fitness watches?  He would also like to know why both of them had to have pink on them thereby ruining any chance of him being able to bogart one?

I looked that stupid in the park for a full hour only to discover that the Garmin came up with the same calories burned as the Suunto with the heart rate monitor.  Go go, Garmin.  And, yes, I do walk fast.  No worries that I somehow magically burned 600 calories strolling.  Fast walk.

My long run with week was my last long run before my half marathon.  My husband suggested I just do 8.  i contemplated 11.  And then I actually did 10.  But they were a good 10.  Last time I did 10 miles it took me 2 hours and 1 minute.  This week I did it in 1 hour and 49.  And I ran all of it.  No walking.  So that's beyond great is what I'm saying.  And, even better, I didn't feel like death when I was done.  I know.  Go figure.  Granted, I looked like death.

Always make sure you have a giant zit on your chin when you are going to photograph yourself.  It really gives the picture that something extra.

But that goes without saying.  But I actually felt pretty decent.  It gave me a surge of confidence that I really can finish a half marathon.  Holy crud, that's crazy.  Me.  Lazy me.  Big old lazy me.  Big old lazy me with 38 year old knees.  And I'm actually going to run a half marathon!  Wow!  I can do hard things!

Linking up with Little Girl in the Big World!