Half Marathon Training ~ Week 4

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This weekend I spent all day Saturday scrapbooking. It was such a great time, very relaxing, lots of laughter AND I got a lot done too! I happily had a busy weekend with no time for posting my week of training. Therefore, I am giving you last week's training update this week.

Here is how things went for me last week:

Another successful week in my opinion! I did not work on my speed training at all this week. I have decided for right now I am going to focus on the distance and let the speed go. I have to make sure I keep my IT band on the upward trend vs a downward trend. Right now that is what is happening. 

This week I was able to increase my mileage and complete two 3.2 mile runs as well as my increased (from last week) long run of 9.5 miles. My IT band did OK with it all. It bothered me a bit during the last 2 miles of the 9.5 mile run. I did do some walking. I am OK with that. I am really having to let go of my pace and my speed and just focus on the distance. It is a little bit hard as I really want to finish this race in under 2 hours. We will see what happens.

I am taking some advice from a friend who has been there with IT band issue and trying to finish a half marathon as well. I have begun using my foam roller morning and night everyday. I have also begun icing after every run regardless of if there is any pain or not. I had been using my foam roller before and after each run and icing if there was any pain. She gave me the advice as it had worked for her. Doing those two things enabled her to go from running a max of 7 miles (because of IT band issues) to being able to finish many half marathons. 

Well, there you go, week 4 is done. Only 15 more weeks to go!

If you are just joining in on my training, you can view my half marathon training plan here or view other weekly updates here.

If you don't want to miss a thing, follow me on facebook, twitter, or via email or an rss feed to get the latest. I would love to have you join me on my journey. I do post every training run through  facebook  and  twitter  if you want the latest!

Have a great week and happy running to you!

  

Blogs I've linked up with:

I Scream, You Scream, We all Scream for Ice Cream Centerpiece

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If you joined me last week for making pom poms, you may remember I was trying to come up with a summer centerpiece for our table. I wanted to do something different that reflected summer. Two things that reflect summer to me are the beach and ice cream. I was able to combing the two together in this centerpiece.

I started with the idea to have ice cream cones apart of the centerpiece but not much plan for how I was going to put it all together. I cleaned the table and set out all the things I thought I might use. Do you see that ice cream cone candle in the center? I really wanted that in this centerpiece, it was the inspiration. It didn't make it which is a little bit of a bummer, but I like the way the centerpiece turned out and so does the whole family, so it isn't a total bust.

To make the cone for my pom pom ice cream cone, I found some brown scrapbook paper that reminded me of an ice cream cone. I cut a portion of it into 1/4 of a circle and rolled it up to look like a cone. 

I like making our centerpieces on one of my serving plates or trays so when we need the table cleared for our school work or projects it is easy to do. For this centerpiece I used a white round serving plate. I stole borrowed the glass container from my craft table which I recently re-organized. I added some 'sea glass' to the bottom of the jar to hold the ice cream cones in place. Sand was poured around the glass container on top of which were added shells, more 'sea glass,' and votive candle holders. 

I found the little blue votive candle holders in the dollar bins at Michael's. I think they are so cute. At times they kind of remind me of trash cans on the beach, which I can't decide if that is a good thing or a bad thing. Lol!

There you have my latest centerpiece for our table. Beach, summer and ice cream all rolled into one.

  

 


Blogs I've linked up with: