Boy did I have a mess of a workout weekend, but some good came of it. I was very much looking forward to a strong, long stroller run on Sat and then my first real brick as preparation for my tri that is approaching way too quickly. I met my neighbor on Sat morning at 8am with Harper and the dog. My neighbor has her daughter as well. She is a bit faster than me, the humidity had to be at 100% and I went out way too fast. This equaled basically the run from hell. I was trying out a new waist belt with Fonzie and we were just a mess. We kept getting tangled. He was having a hard time with the heat and so was I. I think I also went out too fast to try and keep up with her. Needless to say I bonked miserably. By mile 4 I was doubting I could take another step. I dropped Fonzie off at the house, but I only made it 1 more mile without him. So, I did not get my 8 and I felt stitchy and sick. Just a bad run. But hey, it happens sometimes! So, I decided to eat something, drink a ton and go hit the pool to salvage the day. Well, don't you know I get to the pool and stinking water aerobics had just started! grrrr. So, I decided to buck up and take the water aerobics class as I was dressed for the pool. Honestly, I really really liked the aerobics class! So much that I would love to incorporate it in weekly, but just not sure I can fit it in. IT was really tough, lots of plyometric jumps and twisting core work. Loved it! So, the moral of the story is that you have to be flexible. Are you listening to me Tim!!! I think sometimes we get so caught up in our training schedules that we forget this is supposed to be fun!

Saturday night Gary and I dropped the kid off at the inlaws for her first overnight visit! We headed to Blossom to see my all time favorite band, Phish! I loved every minute of it and had so much fun. However, even though we were in the lawn, the smoke was out of control and I felt so ill from it being puffed in my face constantly. I don't know how in the world I worked in a bar for all those years. I cannot stand to be around smoke now. I thought I was going to puke. But we walked a ton and danced like crazy. We didn't get home until 1am. When I woke up around 8am on Sunday morning storms were rolling it. So, it was all too easy to skip my brick :( I am bummed now. But I enjoyed the rest day.

Work is super crazy so I am sickkkk of the computer. Hope you are all doing well bloggy friends.

Good morning Bloggy friends. I hope you had a great weekend. We certainly did. Saturday morning started with a bright and early 12 min stretch tape. Then I got the kid and husband up and we went to the North Union Farmer’s Market at Shaker Square. I’ve been to this market a few times, but considering I live 4 miles away, I haven’t been enough. The weather was overcast and threatening to rain on us, but we still managed to scoop up some goods including: free range eggs, homemade strawberry jam, some banana bread, asparagus and peas. From there we stopped by a few yard sales. We are in need of a cute dresser for our downstairs bedroom. We didn’t find anything. Once home, I headed to the pool and managed to swim 1000 yards in 28 mins. Not too shabby right!?! I lounged in the sauna afterwards and only let the totally naked woman, who insisted on laying down without a towel under her (ick), creep me out a little. The rest of the day was spent lounging and then I met a few friends including Trisaratops for a beer on a rainy patio at Brennan’s Colony. Good times.

Sunday morning I woke up to more rain, yuck. But Michelle and I managed to hammer out 4 miles together and then I did 2 more after she left. I played a game with myself and tried to run the last 2 miles in under 16 mins. and I did it! Well I did stop to catch my breath at the turnaround and stopped my watch, but still, I kind of did it.

Now it’s Monday and we’re back to the grind. I got up at 5am and headed to the pool. I was worried that the pool would be packed. I used to swim at the JCC in the am and I always had to share a lane and circle swim. I hate to circle swim. But today I was in luck, there were 3 other people there, but I had a lane alllll to myself. I again did 1000 yards. I am going to start to keep track of my swims so I can keep an eye on my progress, today I did:
200 kickboard warm up with fins
100 breast with fins
100 free with fins
100 breast
200 free
150 of 25 breast/25 free (did the free as fast as I could handle)
50 kick cooldown

I took a HUGE plunge and signed up for 2 triathlons today. I am a nut. I have been on my bike twice and in the pool twice in the past 2 years. Oh well, I know I can breast stroke my way through 500 yards. I signed up for the Summi Tri (where I got 3rd in my age group last time, despite breast stroking the swim) on June 27th and the Fairport Harbor Pirate tri on July 25th. I am very nervous about that Fairport one b/c it is in Lake Eerie. Which makes me want to pee my pants thinking about it. But everyone raves about this tri and it’s in the break wall so it’s not wavy. This will be a huge step to help me overcome my fears I think. In the meantime I better get out to Mentor headlands at least twice to practice swimming with no goggle visibility. Yuck.

If I make it through these without drowning hopefully I can do the oly at the Cleveland tri, but again that’s in Lake eerie, so I don’t know….

Also on a foodie note, I have been a vegetarian for over a month now. I am madly in love with these 2 soups and have had them a few times a week. If you’ve never tried them, get yer butt to Whole foods.

Hey there Bloggy friends. I am sooo ready for the weekend! Aren’t you! It’s going to be hard to top last weekend. My mom visited and we had a built in babysitter so the hubby and I took 2 long bike rides, ran a 5.25 mile road race and saw a movie. It was great. But this weekend, its back to the norm. My plan is to get into the pool tomorrow. I am so nervous. I wonder if I can even make it 100 yards! Then on Sunday I have an 8 mile trail run planned.

Not too long ago I did a vegan, gluten, sugar free cleanse. My goal was 21 days, I never made it that long. But I made it 14 days twice. I haven’t had meat since I started with those cleanses. So, it’s been about 6 weeks since I had meat. Anyway, my point is that I feel yucky. I keep eating junky carbs and it is amazing the effect you can see once you have cleansed. My energy level is so different and my gut feel sluggish. I almost wonder if I don’t have a gluten intolerance. I know I have a dairy one. I threw away the meringues and mini biscotti I had in my desk and I need to really try to back away from the packaged foods again. Yuck.

What is your favorite vegan snack?

Testing 1, 2,3. Does anyone still have me on their blogroll? I decided to give up monicaonthego.com and come back to my nice free easy to use Blogger address. I just couldn’t stay away from talking about myself :) To bring you up to speed. I am not back at work full time and Harper is going on 14 months. Oh my goodness does time fly. She is a wonderful little girl and doing great at daycare.

I have kept up my running and even did a marathon 6 months post partum and had a fat PR at the Cleveland half marathon a earlier this month. I am currently training for a half marathon in Sept and maybe for the Wineglass marathon on Oct2nd. I am not sure if I will really get all my miles in now that I am working again, so not sure if that will pan out.

Just this past weekend I got on my bike for the first time since before I was pregnant (so almost 2 years!). I forgot how much I love biking and really how “good” I am at it. I was never super fast, but biking comes a lot easier to me than running. I did a hilly 21 miler on Saturday and then a hilly, rainy 23 miler on Monday. It was great. Biking is in itself a lot scarier than running and I did fear for my life on the Monday ride since we were on a small street with steep downhills. But being out on my bike made me miss tris….so maybe a tri is in my future. Let me get back in the pool first!

Hi there Bloggy friends, I am making the move from blogspot to my very own Blog. I am going to try really hard to do this blogging thing for some extra income. First step is to get my site up and running and people reading it, then try and round up some sponsers. So if you would please update your blogrolls to reflect my new site I would really appreciate it. For those of you who do a blogpost introducing my site I will send you a special gift in the mail (some food items), just please leave me a comment that you did so.

monicaonthego.com

Also - I am going to move my blogroll over, if for some reason you don't want to be on it, please don't hesitate to let me know.

Well no PR today, but close, I ran it in 25:45 , and the best I ever ran was 25:23 at that same race 2 years ago. But for me any race where I maintain under a 9:00 pace the whole run is a big success to me. I really didn't feel well out there today, I felt nauseous and really couldn't seem to push myself. One of these days I will feel great and get below 25, its coming soon I know it. Maintaining 8 and 7 something miles is getting easier for me and I really think a lot of it has to do with running with Fonzie. I got to do a little warm up with the super fast Salty and Eva who still beat me even though they are over 20 weeks pregnant, lol. Oh well they were twice as fast as me not pregnant, so it makes sense. Espeed had a PR and got 1st for females. So happy that everyone had a good day out there today. Afterwards we hit up the Original Pancake House and I ate as if I had just run a marathon. I can't pass up pumpkin pancakes, just can't do it. In the pic everyone is pregnant except for me (black hat/vest, Espeed in the front on the right and Christina, teeny one in back row all the way to right). There is something in the water around here!' In total I ran about 5.5 miles today and tomorrow I have 8-9 planned and power yoga.

Right now I am sitting in the kitchen next to Harp in her high chair and she is trying desperately to feed herself puffs, but just can't quite get it. Too cute. G is playing golf, when he gets back we are going to go see Santa at the mall, should be interesting!

I have a 5K in the morning. I am a little nervous. It is my last race of the year (out of 4 total, wowza ) and I really hope to have a good PR. It would be a nice way to finish out the year. After the race I get to have some breakfast with some other ladies I know from tris/running/blogging and I am really looking forward to it. 5 of them are pregnant right now, 2 with their seconds. I guess they're all drinking the same water, I better watch out. My goal was to run 4 days a week and with the 5K tomorrow I will reach it, I ran with Fonzie on Sun, then on the treadmill due to rain/cold on Wed & Thurs. I also hit up a weight lifting class and balance/pilates class. Tomorrow we are going to take Haper to get her santa photo...should be interesting.

I kind of don't like the holidays. I mean don't get me wrong. I love being around my family and the togetherness of the holidays, but I don't like the food. I am one of those people with absolutely no willpower. I am strong enough to not bring junk in my house, but if I am around it I mindlessly stuff myself. Anyway, I am glad Turkey day is over, now just to make it through Xmas. We only go to my Family's place on T-giving, whereas at Xmas we hit up 3 family houses and then 2 other extended family parties. I hope to be down to my goal weight of 125 by Xmas so that if I gain a few, it won't put me back up into the 130s. I stand firm at 128 right now and I barely worked out this past week. I got in 1 good run while I was home with my BIL, we ran a cross country course. I very rarely run on grass, nice to mix it up sometimes. T-giving was great, my sister made a weight watchers pumpkin pie that was yummy and I didn't overdo it too bad on my moms olive cream cheese dip and candied sweet potatoes! Today I am back on the wagon, but unfortunately I am sick AGAIN.

I am so sick of being sick, do any of you take any good immune system boosters? I take a pre natal vitamin and an Emergen C packet (most days, when I remember). But this is like the 6th time I have been sick in 2-3 months, its getting in the way of my training for this Jan half mary! I was supposed to go do the course yesterday but woke up with the worst sore throat and a nose full of cement, so back to bed I went. Ugh. I must say I have been running really strong though. I did a 5K the other day and did it in 26:03, which is my second fastest time ever. I am doing another 5K this weekend and I really hope to get in the low 25s. I was supposed to do a half marathon last weekend, but changed to do this 5K for charity (girls on the run) but then there was a snafu and I didn't get a partner so I just raced the race. I wish I had done the half, just to see where I am now speed wise. I am about 10 lbs less than I was for the Akron half. There is a 30K in PA in the spring that I might have to go do...I am contemplating doing either the Pittsburgh or Cincinnati marathon on May 2. I won't sign up for either until much closer b/c admittedly if I end up back at work, I may not get enough miles in to worry about a full. But if I am still at home most of the training time, I might be able to pull off one more 26.2 before going back to work. Seeing where my body is now at 128, I really think I can get closer to 120 and I think that will help my race times dramatically. I hope so! Looking forward to getting my runs up to 5 days a week. Starting this week I will make sure I run 4 days a week and then in Jan, add that 5th day. That's my plan for now.

These pics are from Salty's son's 1st b-day party. How cute are those babies! Yummy. Also my neighbor took a bunch of wonderful shots of Harper to try and help me get a xmas card shot. Below is the one I chose to send out! It was the first time her ever shot an infant and he did awesome! Last but not least, big shout out and good luck to IRONTRISH who is doing Cozumel today, can't wait to see her finish.

What a gorgeous day we are having in Cleveland. I fully believe it will be our last nice weekend until ohhhh June. So, I made sure to take advantage of it. I started the day with a 7 mile trail run at North Chagrin Reservation. Met a few friends and took Fonzie. I was afraid it would be too much for him b/c he's never ran hills and only ran 5 miles, but he handled it like a champ and could have gone further. He had so much fun. Too bad he tried to bite my guy friend, sigh, this dog is a nipper, really have to figure out how to break that. He was fine with everyone as long as they didn't mess with him, but the lone guy (hes not big on strange men) went to pet him and he tried to nip his leg, but I gave him a leash jerk first, shoo. He doesn't aggressively go after people, but gets a little scared and slowly nips. It stinks. Anyway, the run was great. The leaves were gorgeous and it was like 55 degrees and sunny. The run felt good and I was worried b/c I am just getting over being sick. But I was able to run fast without a lot of effort and bounded up the hills. Woohoo.

When I got home G and I headed to Chagrin Falls with Harper and did some window shopping and strolling. We also shared some Carmel corn and a milkshake. So much for those lbs lost while I was sick! Hope everyone is having a nice weekend.