Super fast... for four minutes.

The other night (Thursday) I should have done a 5 mile speed work run, but I ended up running with my husband for 2.2 miles.  It was 8pm, 48F.

I wore my super-bright Lululemon Faded Zap Run: Brisk L/S, and my Run: Zoom Crop.

It was kind of windy, so I added my Momentum Vest by The North Face.

 

We took the first mile easy (a.k.a. super slow), walking for a minute or so then slowly making it up hill.  Half way through our second mile, my husband was appalled at how slow we were still jogging, so we decided to "sprint" to where the path ended at the road ahead.  

I checked my Garmin and told him how much we had improved our pace by in only .2 of a mile, and we ran the rest of the way home at this much faster pace.  It helped that it was downhill.  Check it out!  Particularly in the 19:00 - 23:30 range.

There was a 4-ish minute span where our pace was consistently around 8 min/mile, with several points below.  The fastest point was 7:19 (and some surrounding points were in the 7:20s, so it wasn't a fluke).  I was shocked and amazed!  It was so much easier to run super fast when I was chasing after/trying to beat my husband as opposed to checking my watch and telling myself I needed to run faster.  I will have to get him to come along with me on more of these runs!

Since I was supposed to do 5 miles of speed work on Thursday and I'm supposed to do a 7 mile run this weekend; I'll do my 5 miles of speed work tomorrow (Sunday) and tack on some extra distance for my cool down.  I had first thought about just doing a 7 mile easy run-- but I've got that distance down; I learned after this summer that it's the intervals and speed work that make you faster.

In unrelated news, Friday morning I swung by the bakery right by our apartment to pick up some kind of breakfast treat, but this chicken salad sandwich on a croissant caught my eye:

The chicken salad included red grapes, onion, and some kind of herbs.  And it was delicious!  I'm pretty sure I shouldn't eat delicious buttery croissants like this too often though.

Review: EMS Women's Summit Fleece

About 5 years ago I bought a the North Face Denali fleece.  Because I was a grad student and cheap, and on the short side, I bought a Youth Large instead of a Women's XS or Small.  I got it on sale for about $55 instead of paying ~$165 for the women's fleece.  I have decided that the youth size is a little too boxy for my liking though.

A good friend at work came in with a new fleece from EMS.  She had sent her husband to get her a TNF fleece, and he brought home the EMS version because it was $80 instead of twice that.  I tried it on and I really liked it!!

Here's the EMS Women's Summit Fleece Jacket.  I was able to pick it up while fleeces were 20% off, then there were some extra markdowns bringing it closer to $60.  Sweet deal!  I got in the angora/fossil color combination because I liked that it was different than the usual black.  And I have plenty of dark coats.

I'm on the smaller end of an EMS Small according to their size charts.  Since it's a relaxed fit jacket, I went with the XS.  It fits me well and has been warm on night time dog walks into the mid-to-upper 30s.  As you can see, it's got 2 side pockets and a chest pocket.  There is a drawcord at the waist to cinch it tighter if needed. 

It's made of Polartec 300-weight fleece which is the most heaviest Polartec makes, meant for cold weather activities.  It's very lightweight though.  This fleece is "SYNC-Compatible" so it can snap into certain shells (I don't own any of these shells) if you want even more wind and rain protection.

And: Good news, I was able to sell my (well cared for) North Face fleece on Ebay for a little over $40!  Who knew it would be such an investment :)

I just got an email about an EMS Friends and Family discount through 11/23.  Use the code FANDF2010 for online purchases.  It's 20% off full price and clearance purchases, but there are some brand exclusions.

Also, If you launch your order through Ebates, you'll get an additional 3% cash back.

Easy Peasy

I ran my 2 mile easy run tonight.

I wore my New Balance NBx Adapter L/S  (from Joe's New Balance outlet this spring) and my Lucy Impact Knee Pant (bought last year around this time for Spinning).  These pictures are dark, but I wanted to be sure the flash would go off to show off the reflectivity!

Check out that giant glaring reflective strip down the center of the back!  There are also small reflective strips at the wrists.  There's a tiny little key pocket at the back right of the top.  You can also catch a glimpse of the reflective design on the back right leg of the capris (for most these are probably knee pants; for 5'2" me, the 16" inseam hits below my knee).

This is me simulating running to demonstrate the side-reflectivity.  There's the wrist reflective strip, a small logo at the left hip of the shirt, and a second reflective logo on the front left leg of the knee pant.

The oh-so-attractive bra you can see underneath (just kidding, it's not so hot- but it is supportive!) is the Fiona bra by Moving Comfort.  It is actually very supportive, but it is not racer back, so I only wear it in non-tank weather.  It has 3 rows of hooks on the back and straps adjustable by velcro from the front.  Bad news, if you're cold - everyone's going to know it, if you know what I mean.

Luckily, it wasn't too cold tonight!

In fact, it only got warmer from the time I got home from work until I went out for my run at almost 8pm.  It was warm (58), but a little windy when I set out.  It started to sprinkle a little bit.  Then it started to rain progressively harder throughout the rest of my run. Somewhere around mile 1.5 it was raining at me diagonally, pretty hard.  I was already wet at this point, so there was no reason to head home early - I just finished my short run.

This easy run was supposed to be 2 miles at 12:47.

I ran the first mile at 11:19, the second at 11:01...and the last .43 miles?  9:15.  What!?  That's crazy.  The rain was motivating, I guess.  While it was only just under half a mile, I don't know the last time I moved that fast.  I was pretty excited.

On an unrelated note, does anyone have experience with Zensah Compression Leg Sleeves? (Or similar) I've been reading a lot about compression stuff lately and I'm considering these maybe for my Christmas list - for recovery after longer runs.

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I'd love to hear your thoughts!

Drinking Lots of Water

Last week, I said I wanted to try to drink 48 ounces of water a day.

I thought I had found a cool tool on igoogle to track my water consumption, called Water Tracker.  This is what it looks like:

It seemed like it would be pretty cool.  It starts with 8 full glasses, and as you drink 8 ounces of water, you click on a glass to make it empty.   You are only able to do 8 ounces at a time (no half glasses).  It keeps track of the number of days you've been tracking your water.  Completed days are the days that you reached 64 oz.  Percentage is number of completed days over total days.  If you don't make it to 64 oz, it doesn't count.  It is good for keeping track of your daily water, but if you want to see that 2 days ago you only drank, say, 48 ounces - it won't do that for you.

Another way to keep track of your water is on The Daily Plate (now owned by Live Strong) - a free website (you can pay for a gold membership with added features).  I have only used the free site; it does require you to create an account with a log-in and password.

The page is kind of long so I broke it into two images.  Here's the top half of my page as of Thursday evening (before dinner)-

And here's the bottom half of the page, including the "Daily Water Consumption" over to the right.  You click on "Add A Glass" and it adds 8 ounces to your daily total.  This page will remember how much water you had, because it saves whatever you enter (i.e. a year later, I could come back to November 11, 2010 and see this).  It will provide you with weekly totals for food, but not water.

I don't use The Daily Plate daily, but I will enter what I eat for a couple days every few weeks to see if I have any glaring gaps in my diet, to see if I am eating enough protein, or if I'm eating too much of something bad.

Now to check in with how I've been with my water over the past week.  Here's a little graph. Check out my sweet Excel skills on Windows Live SkyDrive.  If I had actually paid for Microsoft Office on my mini laptop, I could wow you with more accurate Y-axis labeling.

Clearly, I've got plenty of room for improvement still!  This is strictly water; things like coconut water, milk, orange juice, etc. were not factored in.

Do you have any experience with the programs mentioned above?  

Or know of any others that are better?

PS- If you'd like a chance to win an Enell sports bra, check out the giveaway on Kim's blog, (Just) Trying is for Little Girls.  Here's a link to the giveaway post.