I'm moving.

Hello to anyone who might be following this blog.

I exported this blog over to wordpress. So far it's more userfriendly, except that I can't figure out how to change the font.

Anyway, find me here please: http://freak4fitness.wordpress.com/

Thanks for supporting me!

No aims; no expectations.

Yesterday was my long run day. It wasn't sunny like the past couple Saturdays, but I've got a goal to meet. So I threw on my winter layers and went for the long run in falling, flaky snow.

It's amazing how I've developed a new love for running in the winter. In past years I took my running indoors from November to April. I think since I've started blogging and tweeting about health/fitness/running it's lit a go-get-em-girl spark in me.

Since last week I ran 8.9 miles due to a malfunction in the imapmyrun gps app on the iphone, I mapped out a 8 mile route, and a 9 mile route ahead of time. The plan was to do at least 8, but go for 9. I also tested out a different gps app called runkeeper. This app was heaps more accurate, but did still manage to rob me some mileage. When I finished it said 9.3, which I was happy with. It's the furthest I have ever run in my life. How could I not be ecstatic about that?

I get home, I log my 9.3 run into dailymile.com, which also updates the facebook & twitter. Am I too connected? A couple hours later I analyze the route on the map and notice that on the last bend, the app got lazy and mapped me running through the woods, meaning I was robbed approximately a half mile. So in reality, I ran closer to 9.5, maybe a little more.

All in all, I think this was my best long run. My speed also improved from last Saturday. I managed 9.5 in an hour and 42 minutes. That's less than it took me to do 8 last week! I couldn't be happier with myself.

Next Saturday; 10 miles!

This is bananas.

This is bananas:

86 calories in a medium banana
1 gram of protein
3 grams of dietary fiber
26.9 g carbohydrates
23.9 g sugar
467 mg Potassium
43 mg Magnesium
27 mg Phosphorus
7 mg Calcium
1.3 mcg Selenium
.4 mg Iron
Also trace amounts of zinc, manganese and copper
95 IU Vitamin A
11 mg Vitamin C
22.5 mcg Folate (important during pregnancy)
.7mcg Vitamin B6
.6 mg Niacin
.31 mg Pantothenic Acid
.67 IU Vitamin E

Having braces and being a health conscious person is BANANAS!! It's challenging enough in life to be health conscious, but try adding braces to the equation.

The problem is that I can not eat most foods. I'm on a strict mush food diet. The pain in my teeth will not allow me to even bite into a turkey sandwich. I miss turkey sandwiches. I also miss broccoli, apples, GRANOLA, etc, etc. Mostly I live on oatmeal, eggs, soup, cottage cheese, yogurt, and barley. I can do soft fruits like an orange, a banana, or strawberry, as long as I dice them up into small toddler sized bites. You know how you go the extra miles to eat healthy in the first place? I feel like I go an extra 3 miles to eat healthy with my braces obstacle.

Anyhow. With that rant, I thought I'd do a blog on bananas. They're a pretty interesting fruit! I found the following information from: http://www.finetuneyou.com/Bananas.html.

• 3 medium size bananas weigh approximately 1 pound.
• A cluster of bananas is called a hand and consists of 10 to 20 bananas, which are known as fingers.
• As bananas ripen, the starch in the fruit turns to sugar. Therefore, the riper the banana the sweeter it will taste.
• Bananas are available all year-round. They are harvested every day of the year.
• Bananas are great for athletic and fitness activity because they replenish necessary carbohydrates, glycogen and body fluids burned during exercise.
• In 2001, there were more than 300 banana-related accidents in Britain, most involving people slipping on skins.
• Over 96% of American households purchase bananas at least once each month.
• The average American consumes over 28 pounds of bananas each year.
• There is no such thing as a banana tree. Bananas grow on plants.

Why bananas are good for you

Containing three natural sugars - sucrose, fructose and glucose combined with fiber, a banana gives an instant, sustained and substantial boost of energy. Research has proven that just two bananas provide enough energy for a strenuous 90-minute workout. No wonder the banana is the number one fruit with the world's leading athletes.

Depression: According to a recent survey amongst people suffering from depression, many felt much better after eating a banana. This is because bananas contain tryptophan, a type of protein that the body converts into serotonin, known to make you relax, improve your mood and generally make you feel happier.

PMS: Forget the pills - eat a banana. The vitamin B6 it contains regulates blood glucose levels, which can affect your mood.

Blood Pressure: This unique tropical fruit is extremely high in potassium yet low in salt, making it the perfect way to beat high blood pressure. So much so, the US Food and Drug Administration has just allowed the banana industry to make official claims for the fruit's ability to reduce the risk of blood pressure and stroke.

Constipation: High in fiber, including bananas in the diet can help restore normal bowel action, helping to overcome the problem without resorting to laxatives.

Hangovers: One of the quickest ways of curing a hangover is to make a banana milkshake, sweetened with honey. The banana calms the stomach and, with the help of the honey, builds up depleted blood sugar levels, while the milk soothes and re-hydrates your system.

Heartburn: Bananas have a natural antacid effect in the body, so if you suffer from heartburn, try eating a banana for soothing relief.

Morning Sickness: Snacking on bananas between meals helps to keep blood sugar levels up and avoid morning sickness.

Mosquito bites: Before reaching for the insect bite cream, try rubbing the affected area with the inside of a banana skin. Many people find it amazingly successful at reducing swelling and irritation.

Stress: Potassium is a vital mineral, which helps normalize the heartbeat, sends oxygen to the brain and regulates your body's water balance. When we are stressed, our metabolic rate rises, thereby reducing our potassium levels. These can be rebalanced with the help of a high-potassium banana snack.

Warts: Those keen on natural alternatives swear that if you want to kill off a wart, take a piece of banana skin and place it on the wart, with the yellow side out. Carefully hold the skin in place with a plaster or surgical tape!

When you compare it to an apple, it has four times the protein, twice the carbohydrate, three times the phosphorus, five times the vitamin A and iron, and twice the other vitamins and minerals. It is also rich in potassium and is one of the best value foods around. So maybe its time to change that well-known phrase so that we say, "A banana a day keeps the doctor away!"

Technology is neat, but not dependable.

'The life that runs through everything in the universe is me"

Nothing gets me out of bed better than a beautiful sunny morning. Sure, it may be only 25 degrees out, but the sun just sings to me. With that inspiration, I got out of bed for my Saturday morning long run.

Prior to the run I downloaded the imapmyrun app for the iphone. Its features are to use GPS technologies to track your distance, time and pace. Neato, huh?

While on my run, I didn't look at it until I got to a point of where I was curious what distance I had covered. At this point it only said a measly 1.93 miles. Hmmmm....I should have been doubtful of it at this point. Because I have mapped out this run before with the website, and the website says that this point is 3 miles. I didn't dwell on it, just kept running.

And kept running.
and running...
and checked the GPS
and felt disappointed with the low mileage
but kept running...
and running....

One thing about this whole scenario that boggled me is the time it said that I took to run the low miles. It said that it took me over an hour to do 5 miles. My average 5 mile pace is 50 minutes, maybe a few minutes longer for a longer distance like 8, but definitely not over an hour. At this point I thought, "Well, maybe it's not accurate, I'll map it when I get home".

But the Jillian Michaels voice in me was saying, "Nuh-uh, you're running until that gadget says you've done 8 miles! Are you really going to do a half-marathon? Then you better finish these 8!"

So I ran for an hour and 47 minutes until the iphone claimed that I did 8 miles. When I stopped running, I looked at the route on my iphone, and I clearly saw the robbery it had on my miles. When running around a long bend, instead of running around the bend, the iphone thinks I run straight through the woods to the other side of the bend:



Darn technology, making me work harder! The good news is, is that I ran almost 9 miles. The bad news, GPS technology isn't quite there yet. It's pretty cool to think I only had 4 more miles to run to complete a half marathon.

Traveling isn't easy

Traveling is not easy. Period.

Especially for the health/fitness nut. Especially when you're a passenger in a co-worker's car and have no escape into the world to find HEALTHY food. At the moment I'm considering calling a taxi to take me to a grocery store & handing my employer the receipt--they did say everything would be reimbursed!!

When we first arrived this morning, the so-called continental breakfast was a granola bar. That's it. What happened to breakfast is the most important meal of the day? A granola bar is not going to get me anywhere.

Disclaimer to this rant; I was smart & brought a bag of dry foods, some oranges, strawberries, a jar of peanut butter, cans of soup, and some jello cups. So I do sort of have back-up, but it's not quite convenient.

So anyway, back to the crap food that this hotel serves...I'm here for a two day IRA seminar by the way. (I'm a bank-teller by day). For lunch they served some pasta salad (PASS), salad with lettuce only. No spinach, no tomatoes, no cucumbers, just green lettuce. Gee thanks, oh and double thanks for the one choice of fatty dressing. They also served pizza and soup.

So I took some plain green lettuce, a slice of pizza and took the cheese off the top, just ate the bread part, and two cups of the SALTY-ASS-SOUP. Holy moly I've had my sodium intake for the month!

Mean while, I'm observing everyone else in the room. Wow, is the fact that soda has empty calories and an unnecessary amount of sugar not common knowledge? I'm amazed at how many people can suck down 3,4,5 cans of soda. It actually grosses me out. If those people quit soda, they'd probably lose 10 pounds in one year. Maybe more.

Besides the soda, they all took dessert. I'm not being the dessert police, but when you're at an IRA seminar and sitting for 4 hours at a time, I'd advise to pass on the cookie. That's just my opinion though, of course I don't know anything about their regular diets, how much they workout, etc, etc.

So after the seminar I headed down to their fitness center. There was one guy in there, we were both chatting while on the treadmill. For some reason I thought that if I changed the channel on my treadmill it would change all of the channels, so I suffered through the sports channel YUCK!!! Because of this, I ran faster because I wanted to get it over with, thus making it only 3 miles. What are the odds that he left after I finished 3 miles?

But I suppose it was a good thing, because I am long overdue on my strength training. I did some core exercises that made me go "OoouUUuucccCCchhh!!", but in a good way of course.

And now I'm blogging about it. I have another day of obstacles tomorrow. I can manage though, I'm strong willed & don't give in to CRAP!!

It was better than a rum & coke

Today was my long-run day, 7 miles were planned. It was 22 degrees out, light snow flurries, and wind. And it felt AMAZING to be running outside again.

Running outside is what makes this love for running even exist. If I only ran on a treadmill I think I would hate it. Stride for stride today, I did not want to stop. And at mile 7 I didn't.

I ran 8 miles today! That's the longest distance that I have ever run! It was an hour and a half of pure bliss. And if you read my blog from last night I can safely say that this run was more satisfying than the rum and coke drink that I was longing for.

On the run, it was fun to wave & say hi to other runners. I got passed a few time, all by men of course. How are they so much faster, and how do they make it look so effortless? What made the run the most enjoyable was the fact that the sun was out. For those of you who have never been to Wisconsin, let me explain. The sun is very sparse during the winter. Gray skies, day after day. So to see the sun, even in the frigid cold is an inspiration alone. Oh, and Christina Aguilera made me pick up the pace at about mile 4.

All in all, I'm relieved this run was a success. This was going to be my deciding factor on whether or not to register for the half-marathon. Consider me registered.


*photo taken with my cell phone and edited with Flickr's Picnik

I don't know what to do with myself.

This is sort of embarrassing to admit, but this is the first Friday of 2010 that I didn't rush home from work to begin a night of mixing cocktails.

Instead, I'm tweeting. And blogging. And thinking of how to spend the rest of my evening. Really lame, yes?

Well, I'm determined to run 7 miles tomorrow morning. I've got my route all mapped out thanks to www.mapmyrun.com. The weather isn't being cooperative, but I think I'll still be able to manage. It's supposed to start snowing tonight, but so far the word is flurries, no more than an inch. That's do-able.

Oh! Today I started reading The Runner's Diet by Madelyn H. Fernstrom. It was given to me by my friend's husband who ran a half-marathon last fall. I thought it would be a good book to read to keep me motivated & determined to run my own half-marathon. So far not so much.

So far it really focuses on weight loss. Currently I'm at a healthy 144 lbs. and don't intend on losing weight, though I won't mind if I do lose a couple more pounds during my half-marathon training. I will keep reading, hopefully it will get better. One thing that sparked my interest was this statement:

It takes only 100 extra calories a day to gain 10 pounds in a year

Whoa!! That's a scary little fact, huh? Definitely one to write down and hang on the refrigerator. Or even slap it on the debit card so I see it before making a poor decision. The one neat thing is if you reverse the statement:

It takes only 100 LESS calories a day to lose 10 pounds in a year.

Now that's more inspiring!

With that, wish me luck on my run tomorrow!!