This year will be the first time Adam and I have hosted a Superbowl party since 2008!

I flipped through old pics last night and was so SHOCKED at how young everyone looks at our last party!

I guess 2008 really was that long ago!

We were still in college!

I’ll never forget the 2008 party because we invited too many people over and didn’t have enough space for everyone to have a seat so I sat on the floor!

While the Red Solo Cup and junky snacks were featured at our old SB parties, this year we’ll try to go a bit healthier (but not too healthy since it is a Superbowl party after all)!

One fun Superbowl party related thing I’ve come across on a couple of sites are lists of Superbowl Fitness Challenges! Here are a few that I thought I would share with you!

From Active.com:

Touchdown Pushups – Every time your team scores a touchdown, do a pushup for each point they earn (so 7 pushups for 7 points). Every time the opposing team scores a touchdown, do DOUBLE that mount (14 pushups)!

Penalty Crunches – When your team gets a penalty flag thrown at them, you have to do crunches. Do one crunch for every yard penalized and multiplied by five. For example, if there is a five-yard penalty then you do 25 crunches (5 x 5).

Burpee Coach Challenge - If the coach of your team wins a red flag challenge you will celebrate by doing as many burpees as you can in one minute!

From Health.com:

Start of Each Quarter – Do five pushups.

First Touchdown of the Quarter (for each team) - Do 10 alternating lunges.

Whenever a Time Out is Called - Do 20 mountain climbers.

For Every Commercial Break - Do 10 jumping jacks.

Every Time There is a Touchdown – Do 7 burpees.

During the Halftime Show - Do a 1 minute wall sit.

From Huffington Post:

For Every Touchdown - Complete 20 pushups.

For Every Field Goal - Complete 20 squats.

For Every Extra Point – Complete 5 pushups.

For Every Safety – Complete 50 jumping jacks.

For Every First Down  – Complete 10 ab classic crunches.

If you scroll down in the HuffPo article you’ll see a bunch of other options from Interception Arm Circles to a Time Out Knee Highs!

Some of these are a little redundant, so you might want to just pick and choose your favorites from the master list and put together your own Superbowl fitness challenge. Once I get into the game I’m not sure how often I’ll remember to do any of the challenges, but it’s the thought that counts, right?

Aaaaaand just because I haven’t posted this pic in a while, here’s Cecil from 2008 right around the time we hosted our last Superbowl party :).

He would like you to know that he was merely tolerating the shirt. He says for me to use the #FirstWorldCatProblem hashtag.

Are you up for doing any of the Superbowl Fitness Challenges? Do you think your friends would call you crazy for trying to make them participate?!

I’ve been thinking about Sunday’s race and how the heck I made significant improvements since the Fort Lauderdale half in November. After all that was just two months ago and my training in December and January wasn’t the strongest.

Photo of the 2015 Miami Marathon & Half (credit: Miami Marathon Facebook Page)

Here’s a summary of the running related stuff that’s gone down since November:

• In December (and Jan) I missed a handful of runs due to holidays/moving/calf injury
• I ran a 5K PR right before Christmas
• I ran two 14-milers in December
• My longest run during the training cycle was 15 miles the first week of the year
• I took a week off in January for the calf thing
• I ramped up my avg. weekly mileage from the 20s into the low to mid-30s

(Okay, so maybe my training wasn’t as bad as I was remembering it to be…)

Here’s what was new for me during this 13.1 training cycle:

• Doing three long runs that were longer than the half marathon distance
• Ramping up my weekly mileage into the 30s

I think the key element that helped me PR two half marathons in a row was just running more…. running more miles at an easy pace AND running more miles at a hard pace.

I trust my coach 100% but the analyst in me cannot help but want to look over every aspect of my training and “figure it out.” 

I likely haven’t been running long enough to really know what works for me; there are so many new things that I can try, but this is the theory I’m building up right now!

Finding the Right Weekly Mileage (for Me)

Trail near my mom’s house.

Not everyone is cut out to run monster weekly mileage. My coach runs 50 to 70 miles per week (mpw) which is out of the realm of possibility for me. I don’t have the time, energy or need to do that. What I am learning is that I do have the time and energy to run mileage in the mid-30s pretty comfortably and when I do that my running improves.

During marathon training my weekly mileage was in the mid-30s and I improved my overall pace and ease with long distance running. I feel certain that’s how I knocked out a gigantic PR on Nov. 9th. Then, during this half marathon training cycle I stuck with weekly mileage in the mid-30s and PR’d again.

The best part about Sunday’s half marathon is that I never really hit the wall. The 13.1 miles felt like a solid distance, challenging but friendly. As Cheryl commented, that probably means I didn’t push as hard as I could have and I likely still have another PR in me. Hmmm… that’s a discussion for another day!

This week my mileage will be low as I recover from the race (18 miles in total), but I’ll probably start building my weekly mileage back up next week.  I’d like to get back into the low to mid-30 mpw range soon because, similar to the race over the weekend, that mileage feels challenging but friendly to me.

Days of the Week That I Run

A snap from part of my training log.

I run 6 days per week which means at 30 mpw my weeknight runs are usually in the 4 to 6 mile range, including speedwork sessions. When my mileage is only in the mid-20 mpw range my weeknight runs are usually between 2 to 4 miles and speedwork is the same. That’s not bad, but those 2-milers feel a bit short.

I could just run fewer nights per week to make the mid-20 mpw range work better for me, but I enjoy running almost every single day. It’s my favorite way to transition from work life to home life and it gets me outdoors which I love. I don’t see myself cutting down on days anytime soon.

I really think ramping up my weekly mileage helped me during the last two months in preparation for the Miami Half. (It also helped that the weather was perfect on race day, I’m not discounting that at all.)

Of course, what works for me probably won’t work for you since we’re all different! I know plenty of amazing runners who do less mileage and run wayyyy faster than me (by “know” I mean I read their blogs, haha) and also those who run way more than me. I’m just trying to figure out what works for me and share a bit of it along the way.

Sooooo that was probably more info about my daily running than you wanted to see in one post, but I wanted to work through my thoughts on the topic so I know where to start when I begin training for my next goal half marathon!

Hope it wasn’t boring and maybe even helped you think deeper about your own training!

Do you have weekly or monthly mileage goals that you like to hit even when you’re not in a specific training cycle?

What’s the most you run during half or full marathon training?

You may have to admit to yourself that you have a bit of an Amazon problem when you come home after only being gone for two days and this is waiting for you.

If you’re around my age PLEASE tell me you got that reference and just sang the rest of Mailtime song from Blue’s Clues in your head!

Ah, the good ol’ days!

One of the boxed items that arrived was my RW Cookbook!

Thank you to everyone who commented earlier this week with your cookbook recommendations. The RW book ended up with the most votes so I went with and I can already tell I am going to like it.

Any book that starts by describing me so perfectly (“runners love to eat”) is my kind of book!

Today I was planning to do a whole post on Miami Half prep since the race is this Sunday, but truthfully I have not done anything to get ready yet!

I kind of, sort of have an idea of what I’m going to wear:

Who needs a top anyway?

My goals? Well, let me just throw ‘em out there:

A.) 2:59 (I achieve an exciting PR)
B.) 3:05 or less (I get in a decent training run)
C.) Finish with a smile (I finish half marathon #4)

I wasn’t planning to go for my A-goal this time since I had been dealing with a calf issue, but the weather is going to be SO NICE on race day that I don’t know if I can pass up the opportunity to try for a PR.

This time next month when I’m running the A1A Fort Lauderdale Half it could be 80 degrees. Heck, YESTERDAY it was 80 degrees! This cold front that’s rolling in and bringing the temps down to the 60s on Sunday is really too good to be true.

I don’t know if a PR will be in the cards on Sunday since my longest run in the past two weeks has only been nine miles but I’ll give it a try!

Have a great weekend!
Anyone have a BIG run on tap this weekend? A race or a really long run?

*** Runner’s World Cookbook link is an affiliate link. If you purchase the book through Amazon using my link I will make a small commission… we’re talking pennies! haha

Yesterday I was browsing the Miami Marathon website and THIS 2015 video just got me sooooooooooo PUMPED UP for the race!

The medals for this year were just unveiled too and they are stunning!

To tell you the truth, up until recently I’ve been feeling a bit unconnected to this race. Not only was I sad that it wouldn’t be a PR attempt, but I knew my training during the holidays wasn’t as strong as it could have been, and to cap it all off my grandfather passed away on Sunday night.

He went peacefully at the end of a long, healthy and happy life. The best that any of us can hope for really, but Adam and I will be making an unexpected trip out of town for the funeral.

You know what they say about race week… try to relax and don’t do anything out of the ordinary. I’m not sure I have that covered this time!

It’s okay though because I know the race on Sunday will be the happy ending to my week. 

I feel certain of this because running strong can be so many things — stress relieving, cathartic, euphoric, healing. It can be whatever you need it to be, and after the last couple of weeks I really need it to be ALL of those things.

A week ago I would have told you I felt unconnected to the race, but now I feel like I have a purpose for it again and am feeling totally plugged in!

I’m looking forward to running the causeway. I’ve driven over it so many times and have always thought it would be a great place to run!

See the cruise ship there off to the right side? That’s the Port of Miami!

Adam’s office is really close to there since he works for a cruise line. (Speaking of which, we’ll be cruising again SOON Can’t wait!)

Race day weather even looks really good!!!!

It’ll be in the 60s at the start and the high for the day is only 75 with clouds. What more can a runner ask for?

I heard last year it was brutally hot at the end for the middle and back-of-the-pack full marathoners, but this year it will be much nicer for them. I’m planning to stick around for a while at the finish line to cheer everyone on!

As I’m finishing the half, the leaders of the full marathon pack should be finishing too!

Anyone else racing this weekend? (Hanna, I know you are!!!)

What a weekend!

I’m supremely jealous of everyone who has today off of work, but I made the most of Friday evening – Sunday.

Friday after work I got together with a girlfriend to go see Into the Woods. In my opinion it was pretty bad, but I LOVE the dine-in theater with big comfy seats!

It’s awesome when you have a friend whose willing to let you eat the ice cream in exchange for giving her the whole brownie. That’s the kind of friend you keep for life.

On Saturday I got in a short but quality run. I pushed on the last mile but not super hard so I was REALLY pleased to see a mile in the 11s!

Saw this sign on my run — east Fort Lauderdale peeps keep an eye out so Molly can get back home ASAP!

Sunday I was planning to get my long run in early in the morning before the couch came and before the football games began, but I slept in until 9 “by accident.”

Ended up running all nine miles on the treadmill while watching poor Aaron lose to the Seahawks. The last two minutes of that game was pure BANANAS!

My long run wasn’t the easiest one ever. I felt really out of sync the whole time, which may just have to do with being on the treadmill. I’m not sure but I need to get it together because the Miami Half is this coming weekend!!!!

Even though I won’t be racing for a PR this time I still want to do the best I can! No more treadmill runs for a while!

Sort of off topic, but do you have a favorite cook book? I’m looking to purchase one this week!