Intersection sprints......

That was my workout tonight.

But first my day in food.  :-)

BREAKFAST

jar oats!!

-oats, 3/4 c water, 1/4 c milk

-mix-ins: walnuts, dried cranberries, ground flax and of course ALMOND BUTTER!

I meant to do my run this morning, but I hit that evil snooze button.  I really should remove that from my alarm.......

So it was off to work. 

Before lunch I had a slice of ww bread w/ PB.  (it didn't like the camera)

Lunch time I had to hit the Home Depot. 

My list of needed items included....

-huge bag of potting soil 

(that was fun to try and get in my work clothes, luckily some dude helped me)

-Osmocote (aka plant food)

-Soil Moist (magic water absorbing stuff that keeps the soil moist)

-new shower curtain

LUNCH

Had to find something in the cafe at work since I did my Home Depot trip and ran out of time to pack a lunch this morning. 

(also I cheated, forgot to take a picture.... this is a re-use of an old picture)

-ww wrap w/ chicken salad and loaded with veggies, side of carrots

-few unpictured sweet potato chips

After work I went to revisit these beauties form a couple weeks ago at the greenhouse. 

It took 2 trips but we used about 2/3's of these plants tonight. 

I had a crew of about 7 volunteers help me plant 17 of the 21 barrels downtown. 
I was running around like a crazy woman and didn't snap any pictures.... but they look kinda like THIS.......
I still have 4 more barrels to plant plus a fountain that we now use as a planter.  I think I should be able to get it all finished tomorrow after work. 

So this is where my intersection sprints came in.  The barrels are on traffic islands in the center of downtown.  We did this all basically during rush hour.  But that is the only time I have to get it done..... so rush hour it is. 

We made good use of the cross walk button. 

I tried to see how many times I could sprint back and forth with plants before the light turned green again.  So they were slightly weighted sprints.

Needless to say after doing all that I was a bit exhausted and hungry..... so no run tonight.  But I did get some sprints in.... right?

Once home I showered my dirty wet stinky self. 

And while my gourmet dinner was cooking snacked on some of this.....

One gourmet dinner coming up!

DINNER

Yep, frozen pizza. 

The dinner of health gurus everywhere.  ;-)
I need to get to the store tomorrow.  I got loads of veggies but need some something to add them to.........  well at least for the hubby to eat it. 

Hope you had a great day!

Last night I was in TOTAL freak out mode about the 5K I'm directing.  

I think it was abou midnight when I bolted out of bed and started jotting things down. 

There are just so many details to straighten out.....   

how many volunteers  I need, where they all need to be, how best to instruct them all, what items I need to purchase, getting all the donated items there.... food, prizes, etc., making sure my race vendors will have everything they need to make it a succesful event...... and so on. 

You get the picture. 

People have been hugely supportive though, so I am very thankful for that!

Have you ever organized a large event?  How did you keep yourself focused and not get overwhelmed by all the details? 

 I guess in some ways its almost like a wedding.... except I get to do it again and learn from this year!

Have a great night!

Britt

Reach the Beach!

First off, I highly recommend a relay race with friends. 

Its a great bonding activity, you never know what is going to happen. 

It can be a lot of work to organize, especially if it is a 24 hour race but it is definitely worth it!

There are all kinds of relays now but Reach the Beach and Hood to Coast are a couple of the original 24+ hour relays.  My running crew is talking about maybe doing one in Florida put on by Ragnar Relays, although I also found one that goes from Key Largo to Key West.... its a little shorter too and we could have a smaller team.  

Any how back to Reach the Beach.  

THURSDAY

We headed up to northern NH.  Luckily one of our crew has a good hook up, so we had a free place to stay.  I hit the hay relatively early, as I knew I wouldn't get much sleep Friday night. 

FRIDAY

I was up before 7am, showering and packing up. We had to be at the start close to 8am to get registered.  I was our team captain so I had to do all of our check-in, I also was our first runner too! 

My first run was about 8 miles so I had to fuel up for my run.

BREAKFAST

-poppyseed bagel w/ PB

We of course had to take a few team pictures........

And decorate our vans...

Although this year was a bit sad compared to past years.  We just didn't have much time to decorate or the motivation. 

But at least we had me & Tito.  ;-)

And then we were off!

Beautiful scenery along the way of course. 

This was one of the transition areas. 

If you don't remember my explanation.  There are 12 of us on a team, you can have less too but no more than 12.  If you have 6 or less you are considered an "ultra" team. 

We each ran 3 legs, the legs are split up by the race directors, you have specific transition areas.  Once you pick an order you have to stay in that order.  I was our 1st runner so I ran legs 1, 13 and 25.  

The total mileage of the race is just over 200 miles.  Each runner has a combined total of miles ranging from about 14 to just over 22.  I was the lucky person with just over 22 miles.  :)

While it may sound great that most of the first few legs have a lot of downhill.... you quads pay the price.  The start of the race, you are full of energy...... you are excited.... you are.... well stupid..... you go out too fast and later on when you have to run up hill during your later legs.... it. really. hurts. 

But despite all this talk, I was able to recruit a newbie from my blog.....

Mrs. Our Life is Delicious donated her husband to the cause.  :)  

Or well he donated himself I guess. 

Yay Artie!!!  He even sported his "No Meat Athlete" shirt. 

A little action shot.... Artie jetting off on his first leg after the hand off. 

Soon it started to get dark..... and that meant dressing up in such fashionable items as

-reflective vest

-2 blinky lights... one front, one back

-head lamp

This is my sexy night runner pose.

I swear it did get dark on my run.

This was a leg or two  later when it was really dark out. 

My teammate Tom was getting ready to head out on his run.  It was one heck of a hilly run too... he started going straight up a hill that lasted at least 1/3 of a mile, went down for a bit and then right back up.  

So I have to admit, my eating was not all that spectacular.  For lunch I had a turkey, swiss, baby spinach and mustard sandwich.  It was camera shy.  Also had some trailmix and a chocolate chip cookie 

But after my 2nd run of the day, I got snacky and we had lots of snacks. 

Twizzlers......... evil.

Cheez-Its....... even more evil. 

But when you are living in a mess like this...... it kinda fits I guess. 

My van was lucky and we finished up our 2nd leg by midnight.  We headed to the next team transition area for some sleep.  Most of us slept in the van.... on seats, on the floor, outside in a tent... where ever we could find a place. 

SATURDAY

At 4:50am we got a call from the other van.  Their last runner was on course for her 7 mile run and I was on deck. 

I started my run just around 6am. 

 It was dark, but soon I could see a beautiful sunrise in the works.....

My team stopped by to give me some support..... 

It was my longest run, about 9.5 miles and the first half was pretty much all uphill.

This is at about the top of the hill section, right before I hit the downhill.

As you can see I was happy to see them and the downhill!!!

Me finishing up my final run and passing off our reflective slap bracelet "batton" to Mia

So my team thought it was odd that in my purchase of food for the van I got baby spinach.  I figured.... who wants just a meat & cheese sandwich, spinach is an easy addition and its like lettuce but even better for you. 

Well it became a running joke. 

At one point we showered one of our teammates with spinach during his run.

Here we are posing with our mascot vegetable....

Pretty much the answer to any problem involved....... baby spinach.... and sometimes hummus or baba ghanoush (which we didn't have any of but its fun to say).

Then we finally REACHED the beach!

This is the crew after we ran through the finish line together and got our medals. 

Our Stats

Overall Time: 28:48:42

Average Pace: 8:20/ mile

Runners: 6 guys, 6 girls.... ranging in age from 29-47

Overall an absolute blast!  :)

Let me know if you have any questions, its hard to fit it all in.  But hopefully that gives you an idea of how it all went.  

Britt

And..... I'm back......

Sorry about that.  

I'm a bad blogger when my life gets crazy. 

I'm back from a fabulous racing weekend!  Reach the Beach went awesome.  I'll do a separate post shortly. 

Today was about trying to get back to my routine.....

It kinda worked. 

6am I did Kettlebell!

This mornings workout was a good one for a Monda, I think. 

1 minute of each exercise (30 seconds each side when applicable), 1 minute rest at the end

Swings, rest

Swings, presses, rest

Swings, presses, slingshot, rest

Swings, presses, slingshot, squats, rest

Swings, presses, slingshot, squats, rows, rest

Swings, presses, slingshot, squats, rows, lunges, rest

Mini set of abs

overhead weighted situp, rest

overhead weighted situp, Russian twist, rest

overhead weighted situp, Russian twist, Sicilian crunch, rest

Then it was home for some breakfast!

BREAKFAST

Green Monster- spinach, ice, milk, almond butter, little greek yogurt, frozen mango and banana

Then off to work I went!

I headed home to make a quick lunch at noon time. 

 

LUNCH

-spinach flat out, turkey, homemade pesto, tomatoes, lettuce and roasted some strange vegetable from our CSA (didn't go so I yanked them out)
Left over roasted potatoes. 

After work I grabbed our crop share veggies for the week.  I was bad and didn't take a picture.  Yummiest watermelon ever though!!!

After getting our veggies & watermelon I had to venture downtown to prep the planters for tomorrow.  I have a crew of volunteers coming down after work to help me plant mums, cabbage & kale for the fall.  I had to remove all the summer plantings, which took me longer than I had hoped but I got it done!

I finally got home to make dinner around 8pm. 

DINNER

Pesto Turkey Burgers - just mixed in some homemade pesto with the ground turkey

Sauteed Turnips w/ olive oil & garlic

Yum!

Now to work on road race planning details.  I'm very glad Reach the Beach is done, now I can totally focus on the 5K I'm coordinating.... I'm getting a bit nervous, being a newbie at this race directing thing and all... I'm worried I'm going to forget something!

But first I'll do a race recap post!

Have a great night!

Britt