Back from vacation!

So late Friday night we got back from our trip to Seattle and Great Wolf Lodge.

We stayed a couple nights in a hotel in Bellevue that had a pool and Tegan and I were out swimming at 8:45am when it was 13 degrees out (C) because we are hardcore like that! :)

Next we made our way to Great Wolf Lodge. We stopped at Walmart and bought all our breakfast, lunch and snack food and then went out for dinners. Not going to lie it was a totally food and drink fest!! 

My goal on vacation was to get in two runs. Our days were so packed though it was definitely hard to get away. Luckily we spent so much time running up and down the stairs at GWL as part of the Magic Quest game! I finally got out for 30 mins on the 5th day of our trip. It was such a bad run! I felt like an elephant. I had no energy, my feet hurt, I ended up with blisters and could barely manage under 10 mins miles for 3 miles...so bad! I came back pretty defeated!

(my "well that was pretty crappy" look)

So the next day I though screw that I need a re-do! So I bandaged up my blisters and went for it. I only had 30 mins again but what a difference. I definitely felt a little bit of redemption! 

So in the end I did meet my goal of 2 runs so that was good. I dont think it nearly touch the calories consumed on chips and desserts etc...but it felt good not to be a total slacker!

We traveled home Friday and got back late Friday night. Saturday was a busy day with a birthday party, unpacking, meal planning and getting groceries for the week. I decided to try and new meal plan based on the book "Racing Weight" by Matt Fitzgerald that I read while on vacation. Yes I ate a ton of junk food while reading about healthy eating for runners...lol! I have 13 weeks till my next half-marathon and I'm doing a 4 week kick start of 1850 calories with 30% protein then I will switch to higher carbs for 9 weeks. According to his book my "ideal" racing weight for my age and height should be around 129 and 17% body fat.  I was 133.8 before I left and on his plan you should be able to lose about a lb a week and still maintain your training load (and not lose muscle). So I'll give it a shot. 

 I dropped the kids off at my dads and was excited to get out for a good long run on Sunday morning. I went to Westwood Lake and hit the trails. It was a beautiful sunny morning and I had a great run. I didnt go super fast and I actually stopped to take a phone call from my dad so my pace was slow but I had a good run and it was nice to really log some miles after being off plan for a week!

Then today was back to work. It was actually kinda nice to get back to the routine after all the craziness with the kids. I did my weights at coffee break and I also switched up my weights routine based on this book. He has strength training exercises he advises for runners so I'm working on doing those. I dont have time on a 15 mins coffee break to do it all but I tried to pick a few key exercises for each different group of muscles. I'm excited to see how switching up my weights routine works. I was definitely shaking after this first round...more core work than I'm used to, but that makes sense for running to increase your stability. I got out for an easy run with my running buddy at lunch and tomorrow we will do some speed work!

Vacation was great but I'm glad to be back and back on the wagon :)