Wednesday, June 6, 2012

Teaser... Or is it Spoiler?

Coming to you at 5:47 am... quickly. Hard to believe that summer break is upon us, and I seem to be just as busy as ever. In fact, I am waiting for my husband and 8 year-old to get back from swim practice, so I can head out for a run before the pavement starts melting.

That's right. My boys are at a swim practice, which started at 5:30 am. That's the price they pay for being such studs!

First, for visual interest... I present to you a picture of my latest kitchen gadget.

Yonanas

This thing is awesome! It's called Yonanas, and what you do is freeze a crapton of bananas and other fruit and then shove it in here and it makes an ice cream/frozen yogurt sort of deal. Delicious! Definitely recommend it if you are into kitchen gadgetry, ice cream, and healthy eating.

Next, my back is better!!! I called it... I said it was going to take until the end of May to heal, and sure enough, it did. Right around the last couple of days of the month is when I noticed it no longer ached during runs. 

I did my first long run on Sunday alongside an injured buddy who was completing her first marathon: RNR San Diego. I ran from my hotel to meet her at Mile 15 and then did the remainder of the race with her (total of 14.86 miles). I thought it might be a bit of an aggressive goal, however, she was struggling with a knee injury, so I knew we'd be completely CHILL on the pace. It worked out great! That is until I got physically shoved off the course by a Competitor Group "bouncer" at the finish line chute. See Facerant below, which no one from RNR San Diego or Competitor or whoever has responded to.

Count me out in *any* RNR races in the future.

So what is this spoiler business about?

On Saturday, I took a trip up to Carlsbad (from our hotel in San Digo) and had some cool fitness testing done at a place called The Fit Stop Lab. The owner, Ken, had offered his normally $200 Cardio-Metabolic Profile test for $85 on LivingSocial, so I nabbed the offer.

It was fascinating and will take me a while to sit down and explain it all. Basically I learned that I have a pretty good engine, I'm an efficient runner, and I have a high threshold heart rate. While 170 bpm for someone else might be busting his/her hiney, for me, it's not too taxing. The test provided a bunch of heart rate zones for my workouts, which I will explain in the next post.

Yep. 6:08 am and my other two kiddos are up. I'm outta here!    


8 comments:

  1. Yikes, 5:30am swim lesson? That's brutal! Thanks for the updates- I was wondering how you were doing. So glad to hear your back is better, but that race experience is crazy! Looking forward to hearing more about your test results!

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  2. Very glad to hear about your back.
    The race official ... oh my gosh!! I totally understand watching for race bandits but that's ridiculous!
    Ahh, summer sports ... who needs sleep!!

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  3. Great news on the back! And testing like that is really cool--so much good insight.

    One of my son's practices starts at 5:45 this summer also and it's at a pool about 20 minutes away. Not sure if that's one he'll be doing or not--he is NOT keen on the idea!

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  4. I can't wait to hear about the testing and heart rate zones!

    Congrats on your back--I'm jealous--I still felt mine on my 90% Alter-G run this morning. It's definitely better, but I can't say the magic words "pain-free" yet.

    Another reason to avoid RnR races.....

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  5. What the heck happened? How dare they touch you!! And how was the back on the run (off topic)? And why did they shove you? They better get back to you and NOW. Nobody has any right to shove you--you were running for poops sake. Im so sorry A. What a bummer to an otherwise great weekend!

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  6. I want that machine! Plus, that is crazy that they pushed you. Not cool, RNR. I'm running one of their races in Nov. Better remember to wear my bib.

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  7. so glad you are back running!! that testing sounds awesome!! I'm going to be in san diego in July...might have to find time for a trip there. We'll see. That is ridiculous that you got shoved off the course! I hope they respond and figure out a better way to 'police'. Either that or they might end up with a lawsuit someday.

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  8. Yes...I have heard that the RnR races are pretty strict with pulling off bandits. They must have thought you were a bandit. :)
    Cool that you got the heart rate test done! I am near death at 170. Ha! Everyone is so individual. Now I will enjoy seeing what you do with the info. And then getting re-tested periodically...:)

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