Three Thing Thursday

2 Days 2 Days 2 Days!!

Just in case you somehow missed it only TWO DAYS until I run my first half marathon! The plan is to drive to Springfield tomorrow night after work then Saturday morning we are waking up bright and early and driving to Champaign for the big race.  My lovely roomie was able to pick up our race packets so we don’t have to worry about that but sadly I won’t get to check out the expo.

I have to make this post quick, lots of packing and playlist making left to do! Today’s Three Thing Thursday is about 3 things I am concerned about..with regards to the race of course.

1. The Weather. I actually am not too concerned about this because weather.com is telling me that its supposed to be 51-57 from the hours of 7-9am with only a 10% chance of rain.  This sounds great but it also says WIND starting at 9 am.  I went to school in Champaign for 4 years, I know about the wind..and it can be bad.  But then again I have been training in the “windy” city so hopefully it won’t be too bad.
2. What to Wear: My sister bought us new running shorts but I am scared to wear them because you are never supposed to do anything new on race day.  I plan on buying some body glide to prevent any issues that may come with wearing new shorts.
3. The Drive: I am not worried about getting up early because I woke up at 5 today and I will wake up at 5 tomorrow for work so waking up at 5 on Saturday will feel routine.  I AM worried about trying to hydrate and being in the car for an hour and a half.  I am also worried about how stiff my legs are going to get on the 2.5 hour drive back to Chicago after the race.

Now that I reread those I guess none of those concerns are really too terrible.  I think its going to be a great day!

What would you wear for a race that will be 51 degrees at the start? 

Workout Wednesday

Sticking with the theme of the rest of this week today’s Workout Wednesday post is focusing on leg strength for runners.

Doing leg exercises as a runner can sometimes be a tricky concept because you don’t want to make your legs too sore for your running workouts but it is very important to do strength training exercises for your lower half to avoid injuries.  Some of my favorite’s are:

• Single Leg Squats
• Weighted Calf Raises
• Single leg deadlifts
• Band Walks
• Alternating Lunges on BOSU (can be done on flat surface as well)
• Squats on BOSU (can be done on flat surface as well)
• Jumping Lunges
• Squat Jumps

I would recommend doing at least five of these exercises 2-3 sets of 12-15 reps.  Add weight when you feel necessary.  Doing single leg exercises helps to build up the hip stabilizer muscles which are key for runners.

I think the best days to do leg work are either the days before a rest day or the day before an easy run.  Easy runs will help loosen up your sore legs so it is okay to strength train before that.  The only days I would NOT recommend doing leg strength exercises is the day of, or before a long run and the day of a hard speed workout.

If you run what are your favorite leg exercises and how do you fit them into your schedule? 

Surviving Lent

If you have been reading A Spoonful of Smash for the past few months you will remember I gave up chocolate and buying coffee for lent.  I was inspired by Julie’s post so I thought I would reflect on how that went for me.

1. Chocolate: This was by far the hardest of the two.  Before lent I was eating A LOT of chocolate, at least for me.  My roomates like to keep a candy jar stocked full of reeses in our kitchen so my candy intake has grown exponentially since living in this apartment.  Its awesome, but bad for my chocolate addiction.  It was really hard to give up chocolate simply because I always wanted something sweet at the end of the night and had nothing to eat.  I ended up making cookies to help fill the void.   I was curious to see if giving up chocolate would have any affect on my weight, nope still exactly the same! And since I am pretty content with my current weight I guess this just means I can add the chocolate back in with no worries! And trust me it is back in full force..

2. Buying Coffee: I didn’t give up drinking coffee completely because I don’t even drink it every day.  I just wanted to stop spending all my hard earned cash at Starbucks and Argo Tea.  This ended up working out pretty well because I just started making myself iced coffee drinks every night.  I think I ended up drinking more coffee during lent because I got really good at making it, now I think the coffee I make is better then the ones I buy! My coffee recipe = 1 cup coffee, 1 cup milk, 1-2 tbsp caramel machiatto creamer.  So it’s really more like a cold latte but I think its delicious.  I did cheat on this a few times and had people (aka boyfriend) buy me coffee and I bought 2 tea drinks.  Overall not that hard to give up and I am going to try and keep making my own drinks instead of wasting money at coffee shops.

My first purchased drink post lent

How did your Lenten resolutions go?

Random question: Does my subscribe button work? 

-I don’t know if my RSS subscribe button works or not and I can’t seem to figure it out.  If you are good at blogging stuff or have been able to subscribe to my blog this way please let me know!