Just an update

Since I had my shoulder mishap, I've still been keeping busy with my fitness. I'm running each and every day, and have a 90 day streak going right now. It has been beautiful weather the past 5 days, so I've tried to get outside as much as possible and enjoy the sunshine and soak up some vitamin B. Yesterday I even managed to find a trail and get a few miles in.

Running the trails - outside - in February!

I have been keeping up with my yoga practice, working in Vinyasa and Ashtanga classes. I am happy with the progress of my practice, and feel more flexible with each class. Head stands are becoming easier, and I feel more confident to try some of the bind-poses.

I did make it back to CrossFit this week after taking almost 3 weeks off. My husband was traveling for the first week, and then I hurt my shoulder early in the second week. While the shoulder is still tender and I'm taking it easy, I miss the early mornings and need to get back to it.

What kind of fitness have you been up to?

Head Stands and Shoulder Fails

Wednesday mornings are great. I look forward to them. Specifically, 9:30am when my Vinyasa yoga class starts. I love it so much that it has a standing place on my calendar. Like, I won't schedule a hair appointment on Wednesday mornings. I said I wasn't available that day to volunteer at school. My yoga time is special and valuable to me, and I guard it.

This past Wednesday was no different. I showed up, mat in arms, ready to find my zen. Candy, my yogi, got us going with our Sun Salutations and flowing, and I was feeling great. With about 15 minutes left in class she announced that we were going to spend the rest of time working on inversions, namely head and hand stands. I grinned, and got excited, as I have been wanting to improve my head stands.

We started on the wall, using it to over come our fear of going inverted. I felt great and got some head stands done on the wall. I chickened out on the hand stands, but did get a head stand from the crow position, off the wall.

Head Stands

Head Stand Hair

I ripped up the skin on my toes from doing so many stands

About 4pm I headed back to the gym with my littles for their afternoon class. While there, I thought I'd be a cool kid and work on my head stands a bit more. Turns out, I'm not that cool. I could get up on my head, and dork around a bit, but I always fell. Like, a lot.

Trying to do a lotus on the wall pose

Head Stand

Turns out that when you fall, you can sometimes land hard on your shoulder. Ask me how I know? Oh yeah. Cause I fell hard on my shoulder. It didn't hurt at the time, but about 35 minutes later it started to hurt. Driving wasn't fun. Trying to sleep wasn't fun. Waking up the next day was terrible. You can bet that I was googling why my shoulder hurt. After a day of normal use, it feels better, but I can tell it is going to be sore for a while. Which means no head stand practice for a while. Or CrossFit. Or heavy things. But hey, look at those head stands!

Race Recap - Chocolate Rush Half Marathon 2.4.2017

On Saturday, February 4, 2017 I was the 2:45 pacer for the Chocolate Rush half marathon in Olathe, KS. It was a cold day, 25* but felt more like 18*. It was gray and overcast and the sun was hiding. I had on four tops, two pairs of tights, gloves, and a hat. And that wasn't enough. The wind was bitter and biting, so back to the car I went to dig around and see what else I could find to put on. I ended up with a pink puffy vest, a warm head band, and a neck buff.

We lined up about 7:50am for the 8am start time. I ran into a few people I know in the running community, and several pacers that would also be out in the cold, guiding folks to finish the race.

Ready to go at the start line

SmartPacing team

The race started out well. I had a few folks with me, but after a couple miles they found their stride and pulled ahead of me. I came into a couple of ladies and ran with them for a mile or so. But they hadn't trained as well as they had hoped, and were unable to keep up with me. So on I went. I ran for the most part alone, lost in my head, and enjoying the beautiful Indian Creek Trail system that the race was on. I encouraged each racer I came in contact with, and said "Good morning" to several folks who were just out for their normal Saturday long run on the trails.

I did manage to get in a jump towards the end of the race, around the 11.5 mile mark.

Race Jumpin'

I finished the race right on pace at 2:44:26. I headed inside for some yummy chocolate fondue and fixings, and enjoyed chatted with a few other pacers, comparing our race experiences, talking about upcoming races, and just life in general.

Oh, and I took home this beauty, so yeah me. I think it is a fun medal, and I'm happy to add it to my collection.

Medal Monday

Lifetime half marathon number 53 is in the books.

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Empire State Building Stair Climb

I've been working to vary my fitness this year. I've added more yoga and flexibility classes and also started to work on the stair climber a bit. I've been trying to get 10-12 minutes on the evil machine, which results in 800-900 steps. And I need to relate that to something tangible. How high is 800 steps? So I googled how many stairs are in the Empire State Building, and found out the answer is 1576. I tucked this fact in the back of my head, maybe to be used on Jeopardy some day. And then on 2/3/2017 I got on the stair climber again.

After 15 minutes I was right around 1100 steps. And what the heck - I went for it. It took 21:56 to go 1603 steps - just beyond the top of the Empire State Building! Sweet. Check that off the list of things to not do again.

Finished!

January 2017 Fitness Wrap-Up

January 2017 has come, and is now finished. Wow. That was quick. I had some lofty goals for this month, and while I didn't most of them, I worked hard and feel really good about my stats for the month.

To review, my goals were...

• 112.5 Running miles
• 8.3 Walking miles
• 12.5 Biking miles
• 13+ CrossFit classes
• 4 Yoga classes

Staying sharp and in focus

And my actually numbers looked like this...

• 101.71Running miles - I cruised to over 100 miles which is nothing to be sad about. But I didn't get in as many long runs outside as I would have liked.
• 7.47 Walking miles - Short less than a mile which I can make up easily.
• 0 Biking miles - I'm hoping to get these miles when the weather is warmer and I can be outside.
• 2749 Stairs - The Empire State Building is 1579 stairs, so I climbed that. Go me!
• 10 CrossFit Classes - Yahoo! 10 is great.
• 3 Nia Classes - My gym started offering it 1 x week, and it's fun!
• 14 Yoga Classes - I'm really loving Yoga and the stretching right now. I can see improvements.
•      9 Flexability  - a focus on stretching.
•      3 Vinyasa - my Wednesday morning class that I just love.
•      2 Ashtanga - new to me, and good so far.

Let's Connect!

Facebook - www.facebook.com/RunningWithHart

Instagram - @Running_with_Hart   I post here most often!!

Twitter - @RunningWithHart