Running Liv's Life

Workout:  None I love my family, and I love vacation.  Put them together and you have a great weekend!!:) We rented this house at Eagle Ridge Resort up in Galena, IL.  If you are local I highly recommend this place.  It is one of the most beautiful places in IL.  The resort "territory" has hundreds of gorgeous homes with amazing views.  Go get away for awhile - you won't regret it;) We ate and ate and ate.  Because what else could possibly be more fun?? The kids stayed up too late watching movies.  But on vacation bedtime doesn't exist.   And once the kids were settled I did what I do best:  Eat, read, and drink Coke!!  

Workout:  30 minutes on treadmill You know the other day it was so cold I didn't even want to go in the grocery store.  And I was at the grocery store!!!  I decided once I got there that it was too cold to run in and get the chocolate I was craving.  Yeah, true story.   I sit at home all day because it is too dang cold to go anywhere.  That, of course, leads to extreme boredom.  And my boredom has lead to this: Eating on the couch  This is normally a huge no-no in our house.  But I was bored and needed a change!!  I grabbed that oversized bag of chips and made my little guy's day.  We watched Team Umizoomi and ate our hearts out right there on the couch! Organizing   I don't know what it is about cabin fever that makes women clean and organize, but my boredom took me to a whole new level. I organized the kids' books by size, series, and genre.  Now my kids can't read them because I don't want them messing up the books;). B...

Workout:  3 miles in sunny "warm" weather!!!  You know the winter has been bad when running in a 25 degree temp feels like a luxury:) I feel like 2013 was a decent year for my running.  I was able to keep my knee pain to a minimum due to smart training.  Smart training meant keeping each run short.  Very very SHORT!!  I absolutely hate that I can not run more than 2-3 miles, but it is amazing what you can get your body to do with such minimal mileage!  So, I got my body to push through and get a post baby PR in the 5K!!  Yippie!  And, I got a yearly mileage PR! My special treat for reaching my goal....although I probably would have gotten one anyway. This is only the 3rd year I have kept track of my mileage.  I'm sure back before I had children I was busting out almost double this number.  But, I'm super proud of this for the following reason:  teeny mileage.  This number was achieved by running only 2-3 miles a cou...

Workout:  2 miles easy on the treadmill + 10 minutes core work Christmas is over and today we were to get back to our regular routine.  But then this happened:   Since my husband is a school administrator, he too, has the day off.  So our Christmas break is extended!!!! Here is our lone family Christmas photo....and it isn't even really a Christmas photo.  It is just a family photo.  And it is the only one we got of all 4 of us over the break.  Thank goodness I love it!! I just love the picture of Lyla staring up at the stockings!  She wasn't allowed to get hers down until her brother woke up.  Olaf was sticking out of her stocking and she was just dying to grab him! The headphones from Santa were a big hit.  She didn't take them off all morning. She listened to music while eating breakfast, and she even wore them while trying out her new nerf crossbow!  She looks like she is at a shooting range - ha! (Don't worry, I have never ...

Workout:  3.7 easy miles - random mileage, I know. My niece, Grace, is in town from southwest Florida for Christmas break.  My kids are obsessed with her, and so I pretty much made her come stay the night at my house for one night.  Grace is a runner so when she packed her bag to come stay with me I told her to bring her running shoes.  I wanted to take her out on a winter run!  Plus, she had just got the Garmin Forerunner 10 for Christmas and I thought this would be the perfect time to give her a little tutorial on how to use it. All I can say is, poor Grace!  Poor, poor, Grace!!  Here is how the morning started for the girl: Me:  Here, Grace, throw this on for your base layer. Grace:  What's a base layer? LOL!!!!  I was dying!!!  I know she lives in a land where the "cold" temps are around 45-50....and even that isn't too often.  But, I seriously can not even imagine not worrying about layers for running!  This ...

Workout:  None Thanksgiving morning my husband and I ran a 5K in his hometown of Evansville, IN.  I truely had no clue what to expect or how to set a goal due to the following: *knee pain *ankle pain *2 weeks of no running prior to the race *crazy cold temps Originally I wanted to break 24 minutes.  But now I didn't know if that was possible.  I have to admit that I was most concerned about the weather.  I don't run well in extreme cold and southern IN, just like the rest of the midwest, was FREEZING...I think about 18 degrees that morning.  I slept awful the night of the race because I kept trying to figure out a realistic goal.  I finally decided sometime during the night that if I could keep it just under an 8 minute pace I would be happy.   Then, morning came, and I realized I forgot to pack my Garmin.  Crap!  Now I was going to have to run by feel.  And instead of freaking out I reminded myself that I ran that way for the first...

Workout:  1.5 miles easy - don't judge until you read the post. By reading the title it is pretty safe to assume that I am injured.  I have had some crazy knee injury for almost 3 years now that doctors can't figure out what is going on.  It is extremely frustrating to deal with this.  Even more frustraing that I have spent hundreds of dollars on rehab that didn't do jack squat!   Okay, so I had been training hard core for  a Turkey Trot I am running down in Evansville, IN.  And by hard core I mean I found an advanced 5K training program that I pretty much followed to a T!!!  The only thing I didn't do was have my long run be 8-9 miles.  What??  It's a freaking 5K!!  So, I was doing awesome, feeling great, totally ready to go....and then it happened.  My knee started hurting.  Like really really bad:((  So, I did the smart thing and backed off.  I decided to rest my knee.   Now, when most people have an inju...