And it starts

I did it. First half marathon is officially paid for. Registration confirmation.

While I was at it I found a lucky leprechaun race 7k in March. 

Training has commenced!! 

Day 3 of the shred went well. I'm 85% eating clean and then I need a piece of chocolate. Its cool. 

What steps are you taking to reach your goals?

Day 1 New Years Shred

I did the 6 week Holiday Shred with Nhershoesfitness. I lost 8 lbs and changed the way I ate. Because I was so happy with the results and because I still have 9 more lbs to go to get back to prepregnancy weight I'm back at it with the New Years Shred.

Day 1 today! Healthy eating has commenced. It's not as hard as it was in the beginning of the holiday shred and I like myfitnesspal to track my calories. The workout was beyond intense. 3 rounds of 40x burpees, squats, push-ups, lunges, shoulder presses, tick ticks, tri dips, sumo jerk, and bicep curls. I did 2 rounds and that was enough!! 

I also signed up for the Prove it Challenge to train and run a half marathon with anothermotherrunner. Check out there website and sign up! Anothermotherrunner.com. 

Working towards my goals one day at a time!

Happy New Year!

I spent New Years Day at work helping someone receive an organ transplant to save there life. Not a bad way to spend the day. 

I decided to try the RW runstreak from Thanksgiving Day to New Years Day and I put my last mile in before work on Jan 1st. Last mile and first mile for 2014.

2014.  This year I have plans. It'll be the first year since 2010 that I won't spend part of it pregnant. I'm quite pleased about that. I love my babies...who wouldn't love these sweeties.

But I'm super happy to have my body mostly to myself. I say mostly because I'll spend a good chunk of this year breast feeding. That's cool I like providing that for my daughter. 

I'm in the camp of not really diggin New Years resolutions I like goals. I thought I'd write them down here. Writing them down definitely makes them real for me.

Running Goals

1. Run one half marathon

2. Run 1000 miles in 2014

3. Run 5 additional races

Personal Goals

1. Spend time alone each day with each kid

2. Make date night a priority. Alone time with husband at least once a month.

3. Become better at balancing work, mommyhood, and me.

Blogging Goals.

1. Blog at least once per week.

I have been slacking at blogging but honestly learning how to manage two kids and work and oh I don't know sleep here and there blogging has gone down on the list. I want to do better.

What are your goals for 2014?

Start of week 4 of the Holiday Shred

Yesterday was the start of week 4. It's gotten a little tougher mostly due to my maternity leave ending this last week.  going back to 10 hour shifts this past Friday made things kinda crazy.  

Leaving this wasn't easy either 

I've stuck with eating 80% healthy and the other 20% is actually pretty healthy just not the best choices. I'm ok with it. If I was 100% I'd binge eventually and all my hard work would be for nothing. My usual meal plan is:

Breakfast I'm obsessed with quinoa cooked with almond milk, pomegranate seeds, raisins, strawberries, and a drizzle of agave syrup YUM!!

Lunch: usually a salad with chicken or a quesadilla whole wheat tortillas, mozzarella cheese, avocado, tomatoes and corn 

Dinner: chili or crock pot shredded beef or salsa chicken

Snacks Ezekiel bread with almond butter, fruit, veggies with hummus

Runners world cookbook rocks!!

I started the Runners World Run Streak on thanksgiving day and am loving it. I run longer on mon, wed, and Saturday, the other days I stick with 1 mile and a weight routine. I'm loving the Holidayshred13 workouts. They are super tough but I'm feeling stronger.  I've also lost 5 lbs in the last 3 weeks. Woot woot! Results always make it easier to stick with it. 

This is the longest run to date. I finished at 7:45 min pace! Wahoo!

Tree decorating was a sweet success very fun:-) holidays are way more fun with kids for sure!

My favorite ornaments from my husbands grandma. Beautiful 

Happy Holidays all! Are you streaking?

Stache Dash Race Recap

It's been almost 5 weeks since I was cleared to run. Life has been chaotic and will not get more so when I go back to work in a week. Why can't maternity leave just last forever?? 😃 it's been a wonderful stress reliever to be able to run again. 

A few weekends ago my dear friend Amanda, another mother of 2 and a new runner, and I decided to run the Stache Dash 5k. It benefited prostrate cancer which was a bonus.  I haven't ran a race since the MotherRunner 5k when I was 20 weeks pregnant. 

The day was the coldest yet this year and the wind chill only made it colder.  I've never been happier about a noon start. At least then it'd be a little warmer. Try 9 degrees instead of 5. Wind gusts were up to 20 miles an hour. Goal one not to get blown off the road. 😉 

It was well organized. Packet pickup was right across the street from the starting line at a bar. Runners were crammed in there listening to a band playing songs from our local radio station who was sponsoring. Southern Comfort sponsored to. I got a blinky southern comfort necklace to run with. Kinda funny that a booze company is sponsoring a race. 

The awesome mustaches we ran with! We renamed them snot catchers! 

The race was through a park so it cut the wind which was nice. There was one water stop that i just blew through. I might have stopped if they had hot chocolate.  Other than the 1 major hill that went on forever it was a pretty flat course.  I felt pretty good throughout, and was pumped when at the end I looked at my garmin to see I had negative splits! 

1. 10:10

2. 10:09

3.  9:30

After the race we decided to warm up with Starbucks! Who can argue with that. They were nice enough to snap our pic with the pretty sweet medals.

Rockin team sparkle skirts!! 

Anyone else enjoy a turkey trot or weekend race? I love races this time of year. Happy running!!

Nhershoes Holiday Shred

November 18 I began a 6 week shred through nhershoesfitness. Its clean eating coupled with tabata, HITT, weight, and running workouts. Bobbi even includes recipes. I've wanted to be better with my diet for some time but its hard to do. I've got to many distractions 

To be able to find new recipes, make a grocery list and meal plan. This includes all that and with a little prep work I've been eat the dishes all week. 

Hello pumpkin banana muffins :-) yum

This will hopefully keep me on top of things through the holidays. I really want to lose the last of these pregnancy pounds along with firming up the good ol tummy.

I'm also using her 10k training plan to train for a virtual 10k on Christmas Eve.

Week 1 is well underway and so far I'm not feeling deprived and whoa these workouts are amazing and painful. Hello 200 squats youch!

On the clothing front these athleta capris are amazing! Check them out.

Follow along on my journey! I plan on being better at this whole blogging thing!

Back at it!!

Ive actually been cleared to run for almost 2 weeks now, but everytime I get near the computer one of my kids takes my attention away. So I'm taking these 5 minutes where both my babies are asleep to tap out a post on my phone. I apologize for the phone post it is what if is right now.

Norah is almost 8 weeks old now I can't believe it! Time goes fast and slow all at the same time.  Managing two kids is a humbling experience. My oldest is 21 months and is quite jealous of N. He gets very upset when I'm nursing her. I've been trying different things but nothing has been foolproof to distract him. Its a learning experience for sure. Any suggestions??

My first run was wonderful and slow as heck, but I didn't and don't care because it finally happened. I pounded on the deadmill for 2 miles loving every minute of it.

My Halloween run :-) since they've been going pretty darn good I decided to sign up for a race. I'm doing the Stache Dash 5k in a few weeks and I'm super exited. I even got a fellow mommy friend of mine to do it with me.  

My first outside run in my new Guide 7s. Saucony makes great shoes and these updates are no exception. I love them. Flexible but still supportive. Pretty light for a stability shoe.  The colors are excellent as well.  

My life is very full. Full of chasing a toddler and keeping up with my baby's needs. Coffee is my best friend. Sleep is still a precious commodity that I'm not getting much of.  I love COFFEE!!!  I'm so happy to have my running stress reliever back again, and my ability to drink more than a cup of coffee. I love baby snuggles, but I'll be ok when the 3 am baby time comes to an end. 

Sweet baby E in his Halloween costumes.  Mr. Bones :-)