HCG Day 1

From the time I was senior in high school, up to the time my first son was born I weighed about 175 pounds. I could eat cereal until the cows came home. I could play basketball for hours and hours with no side effects. When Kathy got pregnant with Tayson, and started gaining weight, I gained weight too. The problem was, when she had the baby and lost all the weight, I didn't. I slowly let myself get up to about 230 pounds last year. I started training for a half Ironman, started eating healthy, and did weight watchers, and got all the way down to 190. I felt great! I loved the comments I would get about how good I looked. Well, winter started, and my exercise stopped. Thanksgiving, Christmas, a Cruise later and I was back up to 220. A couple of months ago my sister-in-law Heidi started doing th HCG diet. She did the 26 day version and lost about 20 pounds. She looked great after had done it. So I started thinking, 26 days ... That would end the middle of April. Here is Utah, that is just when it starts getting nice enough to train outside. 26 days off would really help my aching knees and ankles recover. It could be a great kick start to a great summer. So I figured, why not?

I called around and found that Elase in Orem had the best prices on the initial consultation and the goods, so I called in and scheduled an appointment. I invited Kathy to come with me since she would be the one supporting and cooking for me. They gave me a paper that outlined what foods were acceptable and how much to eat when, and a printout of the original study. She said that it takes 3 days to really start working, so she could give me the first shot there in the office, which we did. Kathy gave it to me, and the needle was so small, I barely even felt that pinch you get when the needle pierces the skin.

Day one and two on the program are "Fat Loading" days, where you "eat to capacity". This seems counterintutive, but aparatly, its so during day 3 when I start the 500 calorie diet, it's not unbearable. I wish I knew this before my 4:00 appointment, as I was eating to stay under the 500 calorie mark for the day. I had a yogurt for breakfast and a handful of grapes for lunch. After finding this out we went to Chili's for dinner where I got the Chicken Crisper's and a full White Chocolate Molten Lava Cake. I also ate a bowl of cereal later in the evening.

Stay tuned for day 2

The Big Day

I can't believe that tomorrow is the marathon. Holy cow.

Last Long Run - 8 miles

Can I really call 8 miles a long run at this point? I don't think so, but it was on the schedule and tapering is feeling good. Saturday morning I ran 8 miles and my legs felt good.

I only have 3 more runs left until the marathon. Yes I am FREAKING out a little but as I look at the training program I've followed the program and done the work so now it's time to run the race and be done with this. I'm so glad that I'm still injury free at this point and I'm going to be careful to not hurt myself this week and try to stay healthy by eating good, drinking lots of water and going to bed a little earlier every night.

Catch Up

Saturday - 12 miles. As crazy as it sounds to me this was a pretty easy distance by this point in the training program. It was nice to only have to fill up my fuel belt once and not be sore after a run. I didn't even do an ice bath and felt fine...this taper stuff is feeling good :)

Monday - Easy run. I ran 3.5 miles after sleeping in since it was Labor Day. I ran around an 8:45 average pace.

Tuesday - Spin.

Wednesday - Tempo run. We did 5 miles total with 3 tempo in the middle. The training said to run it at 8:25 and we did it at 8:13. I felt pretty good during the run.

Thursday - Spin.

Friday - Spin.

Saturday I have my last "long run" until the race - 8 miles.

Speed Work - 7 miles

Today's workout kicked my freakin' butt. Seriously, I was dying during it and still am. We did intervals today 4 x 1600 at 7:57 pace. We've done this one before and it was hard but we still managed to go faster than we were supposed to and felt good once it was done. I'm not sure if it is the lack of sleep I got earlier this week (thanks to work and kids) or the fact that my body is just tired at this point in the training.

We did our warm up and it felt just like always the first speed mile was ok we ended up right at 8:01 (fine by me) then recovered for a half mile. Second interval was killer and ended on an uphill (ugh) but we still finished it at 7:58. Third interval was right on target at 7:57, although we were faster than that until the slight uphill at the end of that one too. Then the fourth was just KILLER I had no energy left in me and my legs felt sooooo heavy. Of course we still ran it and were doing pretty good until Lola (Traci's dog) got caught on a mailbox then chased 2 bunnies which threw us off a little but we still managed to finish the mile in 8:10 so I am perfectly happy with the workout.

The hard part is just how tired I am right now. I didn't have much steam before I got up this morning and now I'm completely dragging. I got a diet coke was too early this morning and ate a huge breakfast of french toast so hopefully I'll feel better soon. :)

My Last Long Run

Saturday was the last long run in the training program - the second 20 miler. Rather than figure out a new course we started at Traci's house ran most of our normal loop then headed out to the River Trail. We only overlapped on the trail for 6 miles (3 out - 3 back) so it wasn't too bad. For some reason this 20 was harder than the last one. We finished it at a 9:50 average which is right on with where we are supposed to be for the training (the goal was 9:57 pace). I didn't cramp up or bonk but I also didn't feel nearly as strong this time.

My nutrition was the same. No breakfast, accelGel at mile 8, shot bloks at mile 12, accelGel at mile 17. For the marathon I plan on pushing back the nutrition to miles 8, 13, and 18 and 23 if I need it. I took my endorolytes and did 5 water and 1 gatorade in my fuel belt.

I sat in my ice bath for 15 minutes instead of 10 just to make sure I got all the swelling out and during my bath I drank my recovery drink hot instead of cold. Traci gave me that sweet tip and it was fabulous. I stretched good and other than VERY tired legs on Saturday I wasn't sore on Sunday.

This morning we did a 3 mile recovery run and my legs felt fine. My left hip was pretty sore for the first 2 miles but then it finally let go. I really need to make sure I'm doing all my hip exercises to keep it strong enough for the race in 3 weeks. 3 weeks ..... OH MY GOSH!!!

Speed Work

I forgot to post this a few days ago....we did speed work on Wednesday. 5 miles total. First mile was a warmup then we did 3 miles at an 8:20 pace (we actually averaged 8:13) then a mile cool down. I didn't mind the distance at all since it was the shortest speed workout we've done in a while.

Tomorrow we run 20 again! Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh

Recovery Run

Today's run was a little over 3 miles. My legs are actually not sore at all after the half-marathon and I felt good on the run this morning. There was even a good size hill towards the end of the run.
We have another 20 mile run this weekend so I'm very glad my legs are feeling rested enough.

Park City Half Marathon

I ran the Park City half marathon on Saturday with the girls. This week is actually scheduled to be a recovery week in our training program and when we signed up a few months ago it sounded like such a great idea but as the day got closer I was dreading running 13 miles instead of 7 like we were supposed to. The goal was to run it like a training run so that we will be ok for our 20 mile run coming up this week.

I didn't eat anything in the morning and it was nice because we didn't have to take a shuttle just show up and run. The run was on a gravel or paved road up and back course. My feel got a little sore from the rocks - but luckily no blisters. The first 7 miles were pretty much all a gradual uphill but then it was nice to have the last 5 with a gradual downhill and only 1 uphill coming back. It felt good to stride it out and pick up my pace a little the last half of the race. I didn't cramp up at all and felt good even at the finish (much different from the Moab half). But my time was within a few seconds of the time I got in Moab - which is good since that time I pushed myself hard and hurt and this time I ran the same speed without hurting and pushing hard so I guess that means I've gotten stronger and faster during the marathon training.

I took 2 endurolytes before the run, drank about 30 oz of water/gatorade on the run, took and accelGel at mile 5 and shot bloks at mile 9 1/2. I drank my recovery drink after and walked around quite a bit after and stretched and I'm not sore at all today.

Recovery Run

Today was another 5 mile recovery run. My legs felt fine and aren't sore or tired anymore from the 20 miler. I'm loving my new shoes and I think they are a good part of the reason my knee and hip aren't tight anymore. I've also started taking glucosamine everyday just in case.

Spin - Endurance

Today we did endurance in spin. We started with a 10 minute over-under hill. Move up the tension for 3 minutes then attack the hill for 2 minutes then up the tension for 3 minutes and finish with a 2 minute attack.

Then we moved into hi-lows (2 minutes hill sprint - 2 minutes flat road sprint then 1 minute of each twice)

We did this whole thing twice and it was a great endurance workout.

Recovery Run

This morning was a nice easy 4 mile run. My legs took a while to loosen up - almost a full mile. My garmin is out of batteries so I have no idea what the pace was and honestly I don't really care. I just need to get a few miles in and stay healthy for a few more weeks.

Long Run - 20 miles

Holy cow - I did it. I ran 20 miles!!!

Rather than do the same out and back that we have done for all our long runs Traci found a course from Wallsberg to Provo Canyon. We left around 5:30 am and started running right around 6. The course had a lot of rolling hills and some fairly challenging hills between 9 and 11 miles. We tried to take the "adventurous route" off the road and over to a path but there was a guy in his truck at the fence so rather than climb it when it was clearly marked private property we turned back and ran on the side of the road the whole way. The funny part is that I was being a "ninny" about going off-road so when we started on this very rocky trail I was mumbling to myself about how I was going to twist my ankle and Gretchen kept laughing at me with all my complaining :) The bad part about running on the road was that it was longer than we needed so we ended up walking about 1.5 miles to get to the car for our cool down. It was good for me but that doesn't mean it was fun.

I didn't eat before the run just drank some water (and had to pee by mile 3 - oh well) I did my first AccelGel at mile 8 then did Shot Bloks at mile 13 and another AccelGel at mile 16. I drank about 60 ounces of water/gatorade on the run. Took 2 Endurolytes before the run and 2 at mile 15. No cramping during or after the run. Woo Hoo!!

We did the majority of our run between a 9:20 and 9:45 pace then started feeling good at about mile 17 and picked up the pace the last 3 miles to about 8:30. It was a tough pace and there is no way I could have held it longer than 3 miles but I was so ready to be done running that there was no reason to slow down at that point.

When I got home I did a 10 minute ice bath, drank my Accelerade and hurried off to take 6 kids bowling for Tayson's b-day. My legs were pretty tired for a couple of days and the top outside of my quads are tight and tender when I use my stick to roll them out.

Now it's time for a recovery week!

Speed Work

Last Wednesday we did our speed work. 4 x 1600 at 8:02 pace. We started with a mile warm-up right about 9:30 pace and then did our first 1600 at 8:00 pace. Then we walk/jogged for a half mile then did our second one at 7:55 pace. Our third one was 7:47 pace and our fourth was 7:50. I was pretty darn tired by the middle of our 4th one but we just kept going to get it over with. Then we did our cool down. The full distance was about 7.5 miles. It was a very challenging workout but I feel like we went at a perfect pace and I felt pretty good once it was all over.

Recovery Run

Today we had a 5 mile recovery run on the schedule. We were all feeling good so we ran it a little faster than planned and finished the 5 miles right at a 9:02 avg. This week is our hardest week of the entire training program. Scary. We have an 8 mile tempo and 20 mile long run later this week.

I didn't take an ice bath after my 16 mile run last week and I'm still feeling a little achy. I'm going to try to stretch good the next few days so that all the soreness goes away before our long run.

Long Run - 16 miles

We had another 16 mile run today. We ran it at a 9:31 average pace and it felt harder but not too bad. I did the usual - drank lots of water, 2 endurolytes before the run, hammer gel at mile 8 and shot bloks at mile 13. I got new shoes and they felt great. My left hip is still hurting a little bit but once I get moving it lets go and I have a tight muscle in my left butt cheek :)

Next week is our hardest week of training and I'm a little nervous about it.

Speed Work

Saturday night Traci and I did our speed work since schedules are a little crazy this week. We started around 8:30 pm and it was still very hot outside. I drank water on my way over but I was still thirsty the entire run.

We did a mile warm up right around 9 min/mile then about 4.5 at 8:18 pace walked a little then ran back in around a 9 min/mile again. It was tough since we went faster than we were supposed to (8:40 was the goal) and it was sooooo hot.

Recovery Run

Today we were scheduled for a recovery run. We usually do 5 or 6 miles at a normal pace on these days. Today was a little different. One of our crew couldn't make it to the long run on Wednesday and no-one should have to run 18 miles alone so we figured out a way to run as much as possible with her. 2 girls met up with her than ran up the canyon and I drove my car up to a parking lot and met them there and ran back with her. It ended up being about 8.7 miles today but it was a nice easy pace and I felt fine. Good times and good friends - that's why I love running.

Tomorrow we do a tempo run. 7 miles total with 5 at tempo.

18 Miles

Another all-time longest run for me. I did my normal routine. Lots of water the day before, half a banana, 2 endorolytes and a big glass of water before the run. I drank almost 60 oz of water during the run, did an AccelGel at mile 8 and Shot Bloks at mile 15. No cramping in the gut or my legs. Which is just so great!!! We averaged 9:49 min/mile pace. I had to stop to pee at mile 9.5 and somehow managed to run under 8:30 pace for a good half mile trying to catch up and it actually felt good to stretch out the legs a little.

I really need to get new shoes. Mine are old and worn down and I think that's why my left knee and hip have been hurting.

I did a recovery drink, lots of water throughout the day and a 10 minute ice bath after the run. I stretched several times throughout the day and this morning I wasn't too sore. It was nice to earn a rest day today and get to sleep in (although I woke up on my own at 6:30 and had to make myself fall back asleep).

Tomorrow - 6 miles easy pace

Speed Work - 7 miles

Today was a freakin' long tempo run. It was 7 miles total with 5 at tempo (8:40 pace). Mentally on a Monday morning I wasn't excited...thank goodness I was meeting some awesome girls to get me out of bed.

I drank lots of water yesterday and a big glass before the run this morning. I also took 3 endurolytes. At mile 3 (mile 2 of the tempo) I took 3 Shot Bloks to keep my legs moving. We finished the 5 miles at 8:30 pace (faster than we needed too - woo hoo). The last 1.5 miles we kicked it up to about an 8:00 min/mile which helped our overall pace.

My left hip (inside) was killing me when we first started then after about 1/2 mile during warm up I felt ok until we stopped at the end of our 5 miles at tempo. We walked for a few blocks then we when started running again my hip hurt so bad I could barely run. UGH!

This week we have our 18 mile run!