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Back Pain, Exercise, Race, Running, Swimming, Training, Triathlon

Thing’s don’t always go the way you planned them

Triathlon #2 is in the books!

Well… sort of.

You know, I’ve been talking about my swimming training a lot lately. Swimming is the discipline I’ve put the most work into over the last year since I last did the triathlon. I enjoy swimming the most because I’ve always been a fish and loved being in the water. I struggled some on the swim last year but I was ready to smash my swim time this year!

Well, Friday morning I was checking Facebook and I saw this:

No longer a triathlon, now a duathlon. Just like that. I suppose the water quality was too poor to be swam in safely as well as there being an issue with releasing water from the dam following the freak flash flood that occured in Ellicott City last weekend. Since the swim was cancelled, there a quick (uphill) quarter mile run added in place.

My initial reaction was a sinking feeling and utter disbelief. I’ve been struggling with so much pain, especially over the last week and so the swim was my only real chance to make a great improvement on my time from last year.

August 8, 2016 by meaganleanne

Recipes, Running, Swimming, Training

Peach Crisp, Weekend Shenanigans, and Training Update

Hey there Monday! How was your weekend? This summer is flying by way too fast for me.

Weekend Recap

Today I’m feeling really sleepy after a long day of ~~driving~~ sitting in the car watching my husband drive for 10 hours straight and then going to bed really late. But we’re back in Michigan and it’s only a few more days until Brady is officially done with PT school!

On Friday I finally got around to doing something with the peaches I bought last weekend. It was either crisp or pie and as my pies still have a ways to go before being Grandma status, I decided on peach crisp. I’ve made peach/apple crisps a few times but I always mess up the crumble by mixing too much so I was determined to get it right this time. Please tell me I’m not the only one who has struggled with this!

This peach crisp was a win! It was so warm, crumbly, flavorful and melt in your mouth delicious. I’m going to keep making this over and over until there are no more fresh peaches to buy. The pecans also added a something special to the topping. This recipe has a lot of added sugar so at some point I’d like to work on making it a little more healthy without compromising the yummy flavors. This is the recipe I followed but I used a couple less tablespoons of butter and tiny bit less sugar on the peaches.

July 25, 2016 by meaganleanne

Exercise, Running, Swimming, Training

My Fitbit is lying to me

Time for a workout update! I’ve been trying to focus on consistency, on getting out the door, and getting it done. Sometimes that’s the hardest part! So here’s my workout recap from the last 5 days. I also have a Fitbit question at the end if anyone wants to help me out!

Thursday, 7/14

I had every intention of going to the pool for a good swim but when we got there around 7:30, they were still having swim practice and the rest of the pool was really crowded. I didn’t get in until around 8 and I was pretty tired from a couple days of running so I decided to float instead. I think I swam 100m for fun. We left just after sunset and the glow on the pool water was <3

This photo makes me so happy.

Friday, 7/15

I had picked up my sister on Friday morning so we could go shopping for a handful of things I’ve been looking for including a dress to wear for Brady’s graduation in a couple weeks. I still haven’t found one. We went to Centennial Park intending to run but we got there so late in the day that it was hot, humid, muggy, miserable, and all around sucky weather to workout in. We settled for walking because we probably would have suffered from dehydration and heat stroke if we had tried to run. The animals were all out enjoying themselves though, we saw geese, squirrels, chipmunks, turtles, squished frogs, and various other birds.

July 19, 2016 by meaganleanne

Back Pain, Swimming

Dealing with chronic lower back pain

One week from today, Brady and I will be celebrating our 2 year wedding anniversary. My brain is having a hard time comprehending how so much time could have passed us by already, but here we are almost 2 years wed. I’ll share our wedding story next week, but today is a different anniversary to remember. Today marks 2 years since I herniated my L5-S1 disk in my lower back.

The story of how my back betrayed me…

It was set up to be the perfect beach day. Family had come from around the country and from the other side of the world to help me get ready. Some of the family staying with us had gone up to NYC for a couple days, so I planned out for the rest of us to head out to the beach for the day because we needed a break from everything wedding. I put together a noodle salad, some snacks and drinks, grabbed the beach toys and boogie boards and the caravan was off. I can’t say the pain came out of nowhere, because I had been dealing with a bulged disk in my back for about 4 months but I had been mostly fine for a few weeks.

By the time we got to the Rehoboth Beach after a 2.5 hour drive, I was so, so, so uncomfortable. I was determined to have a good day and hoped that floating in the water for a little while would bring some relief. I love body surfing and boogie boarding but I was only able to do it a few times since it felt like the pain in my lower back was growing with each minute that passed.

We had come to the beach with my cousin Mark and his family including his 5 year-old daughter, Sianna, who was going to be my flower girl. I hadn’t seen them all in almost 5 years and it was so fun being able to spend time with them. I was trying to treasure the time I was getting to spend with them because I knew it would probably be a long time before I was able to see them again. Later in the day I was down by the water lifting Sianna over the waves and playing with her which wasn’t helping my pains but a really special moment for me.

July 13, 2016 by meaganleanne

Back Pain, Running, Swimming, Training

Training with Back Pain

Happy Monday!

It’s always sad to say goodbye to a lovely weekend and hello to another work-week… but here we are again. I try not to live for the weekends, but it’s hard not to when my energy dies so quickly during the week. This weekend was a battle between pain and training because I woke up on Saturday morning barely able to walk. I’m hoping it’s a phase and that I can stretch and strengthen my way out of it. Usually, if I lay down for a little while, I “re-align” and it helps a lot but even that wasn’t working. I try not to take my pain meds unless I really, really need them and I suffered through training and the weekend without them. I went to the pool yesterday which is probably why I’m surviving so far today.

Since I’d been having a rough day on Saturday, I was only going go for a walk that evening, but my sister was running and I really wanted to as well. I feel like I keep falling behind in training. I started walking and felt a lot of the tightness ease up after walking for around 10 minutes so I did a light 11:00 min/mi for 8 minutes. I ended up walking for like 30 minutes in the glowy sunset light. I finished off the evening by having a movie night with my siblings and watching National Treasure: Book of Secrets.

July 11, 2016 by meaganleanne

Exercise, Life, Running, Swimming, Weight loss

Morning vs. Nighttime Running

Hello! Short week is almost done! It’s been taking me half the day to wake up because I’m working again this week and getting dropped off by my husband just before 7 am so that he can make it to work on time. I am not a morning person. I used to be. I was the person at sleepovers who would wake up by at least 7:30 no matter the bedtime the night before. Nowadays, getting up around 6 is not fun. My body is rebelling against this new schedule. Sigh.

So today was my first run in about a week and a half because of the pains I’ve been dealing with in my left leg. It went better than I had expected. I didn’t push to go too far because I’m not sure where my knee is at, but we ran about 1.25 miles and walked another .6 in horrible humidity. It didn’t feel like Florida or anything but seeing as how we ran at 8:45 pm after the sun had set, it was pretty bad. My average pace for the running portion was like 12:02 min/mi BUT that included 2 minutes of walking so according to my eyeing of the pace chart, it was closer to 10:30 min/mi which is pretty decent for me. It was so hot that when we came back that I was drenched in sweat. Excuse me, I meant glistening. My sister claims she never sweats and she only “glistens”. Whatever. I read an interesting article in one of my magazines about working out in the morning VS at night and I’m going to continue that discussion below.

Tuesday was swim day. Lately I feel like it’s taking me much longer to warm up and fall into my swimming rhythm. I think part of it is that I’m (unintentionally) starting out at my fastest swim pace which is kind of weird because the first 100m feels like I’m swimming through molasses. It takes me around 300-500m to fall into a rhythm where it doesn’t feel like I’m fully out of breath every 50m that I swim. I’m not 100% sure what to do about this when I comes to the race because I don’t really want to wait until halfway through my swim to get it together. Is this why people run around a bit before they start? That’s the only thing I can think of to do at this point that might help. If that doesn’t work then I’ll have to do some more research into this. I ended up a little short of my planned distance by swimming only 900m because one of my earplugs broke its seal and it didn’t feel comfortable. My average pace, not including stops, was 2:02/100m.

Swimming was followed by a summer corn chowder bread bowl at Panera which is one of my favorite soups. I haven’t gone for a bread bowl in so long because it’s too much food but it’s rough because I really like sourdough, especially with this soup. I couldn’t eat it all but it was delish.

July 7, 2016 by meaganleanne

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