Energybits and my new 6 mile PR:#Bestfoot Link-up

Happy Monday! I am again participating in the #bestfoot link-up hosted by the awesome Run to the Finish, Darwinian Fail and Sweetlife Ericka. Each Monday we share how we put our #bestfoot forward last week. Please stop by the host blogs and check them out!

Energybits and a new PR!

After some social media communications, I was offered a free sample of Energybits to try in exchange for my review of the product. I did not receive any other compensation in exchange for my review and all opinions are my own.

I typically do my long runs on Saturday mornings and this past Saturday was no exception. However I had to do the run even earlier than I typically do as we were going on a day-trip with my mother-in-law and had to pick her up and hit the road by 8 A.M.

I thought this was be a good test for the Energybits as I really needed energy to make it through that long run and then drive 3 hours without a lot of time for relaxation or recovery (*I still did stretching/rolling before heading out on the road...you can't skip that!).

Energybits are unique in that they look like a supplement as they come in a small pill form, however they are NOT a supplement OR a pill. They are FOOD. They are made from 100%  spirulina algae, which contains the highest concentration of protein over any other food in the world and they have one calorie per tablet. They have been hailed as one of the "world's greatest superfoods" by NASA, the IHO and the UN. Apparently the rest of the world has figured this out, but here in America we are a bit behind on the algae front.

 

                                                Pic courtesy of www.energybits.com

I think one of the things that I've seen other exclaim about the most is that the recommended serving size is 30 tablets and if you are still not wrapping your mind around the fact that it is FOOD not a supplement, it seems odd. But, as the website states, think of it like having almonds, you're not going to have just one and expect that to do the trick, you need a handful. It's the same with Energybits as they're also food.

I took the recommended 30 tablets (just swallow with a glass of water, no need to chew!) and headed off to the park where I have been doing a 6 mile loop. I have to say that I noticed an immediate difference in how I felt and my energy levels. Normally I'm someone who takes a good two miles to really feel like I'm in the run, but it wasn't so this time. I felt great at the beginning and strong throughout. Lo and behold when I looked at my splits after...I had a new PR for this run...by 5:25!

I also managed two miles under 10 minutes without sacrificing the other 4, so I felt pretty awesome about that.

One of the other noticeable difference was how I felt afterwards. My general soreness was markedly decreased and I didn't feel a dip in my energy levels a few hours post-run which tends to happen to me. However the biggest thing was that I didn't feel hunger until lunchtime and my only breakfast had been the Energybits!

I am not a starve yourself person by any stretch of the imagination, but I also know that runners often feel a hunger and consume calories that are disproportionate to the actual amount of energy expended. Having such a pure protein source allowed me to avoid that.

All in all, I feel like I put my #bestfoot forward this past week (with the help of Energybits) with my new PR!

Keep checking back as I should have an Energybits giveaway coming to the blog shortly!


What was your #bestfoot this week?

Thanks for reading!

Friday Five Link-up: Fitness Goals

Happy Friday all and Happy Holidays to those that are celebrating a holiday!

I participated for the first time last week in the Friday Five Link-up hosted by You Signed Up for What?!, Eat Pray Run, DC and Mar On the Run. Thank you ladies for hosting this link-up and for giving us great ideas each week!

This week is 5 Fitness Goals. This was a great one and really got me to focus on my fitness goals are in general and for the immediate future. So without further adieu, here they are:

1- Complete My First Half-Marathon

I am registered for the Rock n' Roll St. Louis Half-Marathon on October 19th and I'm incredibly excited for it. Last year I went and cheered on some of my friends and sister-in-law who were all running and wondered, "When are you going to get there?" At that point I was just running 3 miles a few times a week and had a few 5ks under my belt with no real specific plans for more. After my first runDisney event a few weeks later, the race bug had taken full hold. So now here I sit with a few more 5ks, a 6k, a 5 miler, a marathon relay and a 10k under my belt and I'm feeling good about this goal!

2- Get My Pacing Correct

I run about 10 minute miles. During my leg of the marathon relay, I ran 9:36 or under for the first 3 miles, but that's the most I've ever done at that pace. The thing is whether I'm tracking myself or not, that seems to be my pace and truth be told, I think I can run faster. I feel like I just have too much left over at the end of some of my runs. I know training runs are not supposed to be difficult, but I feel like I'm just kind of hanging in this space where I could be doing more. Last night I ended a 5-miler with a pretty steep hill. While it was awesome to feel so good finishing 5 miles, I know I should probably have left more out there. I'm not going to do anything about this until I meet with my new running coach (yay!) on May 6th. I do not want to assume anything and would rather go with what he prescribes after talking about goals and watching me run, etc.

3- Hold a Steady Plank for 2 Minutes

I know this seems like a small one, but I'm currently participating in the #plankaday challenge on Instagram and increasing my hold time is not going as fast as I'd like. I'm finding it's taking me a few days to hold 5 more seconds. I'd like to get to the place where I'm holding a plank for at least 2 minutes, steadily and with good form...which will hopefully be helped by my next goal-

4- Backin' it Up!

I, like so many others, do not focus nearly enough on my back strength and conditioning. It's so stupid considering it's the thing holding the rest of me together! When focusing on core strength, I tend to focus too much on ab work and throwing a few Supermans (Superman's...Supermen...who knows) in just for good measure, but I know to really achieve a strong core, it's all in the back!

5- Just Breathe

During my awesome runs I don't even notice my breathing too much because I am just in the zone and doing everything I need to be doing without doing a mental checklist. But I'll admit that as a new-ish runner there are times where I know that my breathing is off and that I should be more focused on getting it in line. I know I'll be a more effective runner with proper breathing so it's something I really want to work on as I move towards my half-marathon. This is also something I plan on addressing with my running coach.

Thanks for reading and have a GREAT weekend...hope Spring has sprung wherever you are...unless I randomly have some Southern Hemisphere readers then I hope that the Fall is treating you well!

Weekly Chase Link-up

Mindy over at the awesome Road Runner Girl has a weekly link-up entitled the Weekly Chase where you post your goals for the week just to give you a little added accountability ;)

This is my first time doing this, so I don't have goals to report on from last week, but here are my 5 for this week:

Goal #1- Get 20 miles of running in...this will be a slight increase to my weekly mileage, but I think it's a good aim as I move towards upcoming 10ks, 15ks, 10 miler and 1/2!

Goal #2-Roll and stretch daily. I'm haven't been good at developing a stretching routine so I used one that I found on Amazon Prime Instant Video called Ultimate Flexibility. It was a good one and has three different levels for differing levels of flexibility. (side note...I finally convinced Joe to roll yesterday and later in the day he said, "I didn't want to admit this earlier but my calf feels like 110% better..LOL!)

Goal #3-Do at least one day of yoga. I have done yoga in the past but really felt like I could not get out of my own head enough for it to be effective (if that makes sense). However, I know my running will likely improve with regular yoga since it focuses on flexibility and breathing.

Goal #4- Get at least three strength training session in. I'm obsessed with kettlebells so my goal is to get at leas three kettlebell workouts in at some point (I've even been known to bring them into my office!)

Goal #5- Eat salmon at least once. I know this seems like a crazy simplistic goal, but the truth is that while I don't hate salmon, I'm not a fan of fishy tasting fish. I know the health benefits are so high and I know that it's likely something that I'll love once I find different and interesting ways to cook/pair it.


What are you goals for the week??

I'll check back in next Monday to let you know how I did and what I'm working on for that week!

Marathon Relay Recap

So this weekend was the Go! St. Louis Family Fitness Expo and Races. I participated in the marathon relay event and I just have to say that I absolutely LOVED being a part of a relay team. While my goal is to run 1/2 marathons as they seem like the distance for me, I can see myself doing the relay event at this race each year, even though it's the big spring race in St. Louis and the 1/2 here is a big one.

Being a part of the relay added a whole other level to the race and it was just fun to get to be a part of  team and have accountability to others. I was a team-sport athlete all the way through college so I think being part of a team is just something that is ingrained in me.

First things first, however was the expo! I love race expos, there is a such a great vibe and the most of the vendors there are so chatty and friendly. I had a seminar for work that was close to the expo center so I went during the lunch break to check it out. It was at Chaifetz Arena, which is the arena where St. Louis University plays their basketball games (Go Billikens!). I really liked having it in the arena there, however parking there is a nightmare! No, I don't want to pay an additional $5 to park for the expo after I've already paid my $75 entry fee...thanks very much! I chose street-parking instead, but that meant about a 3/4 mile hike in some pretty brutal wind.

The expo itself was great though, the vendors were, as mentioned above, very friendly and chatty. I got some fuel samples (Sport Beans and Gu) some Zoom Immune Booster supplements, a pacer tattoo to help you keep your pace without having to do math or have an app for it, some awesome lime-green shoe laces and a variety of coupons for local running stores and future race entries.

Of course I couldn't go and only get free stuff though, now could I?! The two big race expos in STL during the year are also the time when some of our local running stores have their best sales. I was on the lookout for a pair of Ghost 6's and wouldn't you know that I found a pair...in my size...for $85!! Score!

Love the colors and love the shoes!

I also snagged a Handana as I've been on the lookout for something like this for a while. The day before, in spin class, it was so humid that my hands were sleeping off the bike wheel and my towel fell off the bike twice. This worked really well for the race and was great at wicking away the sweat without absorbing it!

                                            image courtesy of Handana

So leaving the expo about $100 poorer, I was ready for the race!

Saturday we took it easy, I did some kettlebell work and took the dogs for a long walk to stretch out, but I didn't do any running. I had been fighting off a sinus infection all week and hadn't really decreased the exercise at all, so I thought it best just to take it easy before the race. We went to see the new Captain America: The Winter Soldier in the afternoon (I'd recommend it, I thought it was really good!) and then did an early birthday dinner for my mom. I had pasta primavera in a light olive oil sauce which was delish.

I hit the hay by about 8:30 to prepare me for the 5 AM wake-up call. I will have to say this was the tricky part about doing the relay when I was up, dressed and out the door before 6 AM, but not actually running until about 10:30. This made breakfast and warming up a bit tricky. I had a Greek yogurt and a cup of coffee before leaving the house then brought a banana that I had about an hour before I ran. I probably could have used a bit more food, maybe some peanut or almond butter on the banana...but overall it seemed fine.

It was pretty cold at race start (about 36) and the wind was kind of nasty. I was happy that I was the jacket Sherpa as it meant that I could wear my teammates jackets over top of my own to stay warm!

All of the relay stations were close to stops on our light-rail system, the MetroLink and travel on the link was free for race participants. So after each leg, we'd hop on over to the other one to watch our teammates in. Since I was the anchor, I was ferrying a lot of bags and the like, which also meant no pic were taking of my teammates (so bummed about that!).

When it got to my anchor leg of the race, I was so pumped that I foolishly took off like a bullet. My goal was to maintain 10 min/miles as this is a pace I'm comfortable with for 6 miles, however I did my first mile in 9:02, second in 9:19 and the third in 9:36. However after that my time began to increase and the course got hillier, my fourth, fifth and sixth miles were all over 10 with the 5th being 11:38 and basically uphill for the entire mile. Overall I ended up with a 9:54 average and I was really happy with that.

Despite the fact that we hadn't really come up with a plan for meeting, Joe managed to get to the finish line a few minutes before I arrived there and snapped some pics. I really like this one.

After the race we walked around the post-race festivities for a bit, although none of the food really appealed to me as it was all "St. Louis themed" and pretty heavy stuff. We decided to head to a local Mexican place to get some lunch and I attacked the chips with gusto and had a celebratory margarita!

I went home and rolled, stretched and iced my left knee (arthritis from an old field hockey injury) and we rented some DVDs from Red Box and got take-out from my fave Crazy Bowls and Wraps after hitting up Lowe's for some stuff we needed for spring landscaping. I made a comment to Joe that it was so funny how you reach a certain age and life is waking up early to run and spending an afternoon at Lowe's. What would our 21 year-old selves think of it?!

I had also taken off work on Monday as it was opening day for our St. Louis Cardinals (big fans over here) and we had tickets to the game in the afternoon. I was glad because my legs were still a bit sore from my too-fast first few miles of the race, so I got some much needed walking, stretching, rolling, etc. in.

The weather was rainy and cold but the festivities were still in full swing downtown and we loved taking part in it. We met some of Joe's friends at a stadium bar for a pre-game drink then headed into the stadium early to watch the Opening Day festivities. One cool thing they had were a bunch of ice sculptures to commemorate the beginning of the season and our great season last year. Kind of cool, huh?!

The Cardinals won the game and we headed home. I hit the hay early as it had been a long day out in the wind and rain but it was great nonetheless!

Have you ever done a relay, and if so did you like it?
How do you fight the urge to head out fast when the racing adrenaline is high?
Are you a sports fan? Who are your teams?

Weekend Recap-03/31/14

Well March is mostly over and I couldn't be more ready. We had a ridiculously long and cold winter here in St. Louis, which I know is a common complaint amongst most of us that live in the Midwest, North and Northeast. I am so ready for spring, however now that we're getting our first glimpse of it, I'm also getting my first round of awesome allergies (good think allergy medicine was on sale at Target this weekend). If anybody does need to stock-up on their allergy medicine, all Up & Up brands were discounted, which I combined with a Cartwheel coupon for an additional 10% off along with my RedCard 5%, so it ended up being a good deal. Just FYI.


It was a pretty good running/fitness weekend, but of course Sunday had the nicest weather and was also my strength training day so I didn't get to run in the sunshine.

On Friday evening Joe and I did the Rock n' Roll Las Vegas Kick-off Weekend Virtual 5k. We decided to hit up Tower Grove Park, one of many city parks with a nice perimeter trail and pretty scenery (think fountains, lakes, gardens and turn-of-the 20th century pavilions). I was excited to do the Virtual 5k as it was my first "virtual race" but I felt like things were working against me from the very beginning. First I was wearing some of my "bottom of the barrel shorts". We had a back-up in our drain in the laundry room, which prevented us from doing a normal laundry cycle and really limited my gear options. I felt like I was tugging at them the entire time.

Secondly, I managed to get a rock in my shoe in the first 1/2 mile which required stopping and starting...annoying. Lastly I forgot to take my phone out of its case before putting it in my armband and by the time I realized it after the warm-up walking, I was already far away from the car so decided to just shove it in there...which made it stick out of the top of the armband and therefore it kept falling forward. So...this annoying combination lead me to an average pace of 10:45 which did not make me happy.

But not every run can be a great one and at least I did the 3.1!

Saturday was SUPPOSED to be nice, sunny around 65 for a daytime high and around 50 at 8:00 AM when I typically do my weekend run. Not so much. I went to my Weight Watchers meeting at 6:30 and there was frost on the car. I foolishly told myself it would still get to 50 by run time.

It was 31 at run time, which pretty steady winds out of the North. I've run in colder (if you want to run outside in  the St. Louis winters you need to be ok with below-20 temps) but as I was anticipating sunny and 50 it just felt cold and damp and yuck. I felt like I still had a good run though and did 6 miles with an average pace of 10:09, which I was happy about. However 10:00 is what I anticipate myself running as race pace, however I've been hitting it at most of my training runs because I have it stuck in my head for some reason.

After I returned from the run Coach Charlie decided he had to get right up in my face and help me stretch...

Question to those more experienced: do you think this means I need to speed up my race pace or slow down my training runs?

This coming Sunday is the Go! St. Louis Marathon weekend, and I'll be participating in the marathon relay as part of a 4 person team. I'm really excited to participate in this event for the first time and I really like the team aspect of it...we'll see how it goes.

How was your weekend, did you race?
When do you decide to take your pace up a notch?
To slow the training or pick up the race pace...what do you think?

Here we go...the year of the race.

Well, I told my husband I was actually going to do this, so here I am! I've done the "About Me" page to give an overview of myself but I realize that as a result of my blog title, people may assume that my name is Jaynie/Janie. It is actually Jayne and the only person that calls me Jaynie is my grandmother. I'll answer to pretty much anything though (within reason).

One of the main reasons I wanted to start this blog was to keep motivated toward my goal of 10 races this year. I've completed two so far and have 4 more that I'm registered for, so I will need to add a few more to get to goal, and I already have some in mind.

The year started off with the Stan Musial Memorial Bridge Run here in St. Louis. It was a run to open a new bridge over the Mississippi River that was awesomely named for Stan "The Man" Musial, a long-time Cardinal great/Hall of Famer and hometown hero. His number was 6, so the race was a 6k in honor of that number. It took place on February 8th, and even though the race time temperature was 14 with crazy wind chills, it was so much fun.

Unlike a lot of annual races, this was a one-time only opportunity. A few hours after the race was over, the bridge was open to traffic and became part of the interstate system...no little feet to ever pound over its lanes again (hopefully...you really shouldn't run on interstate bridges). Plus the race started in Missouri and ran into Illinois...so I basically ran from one state to another (that counts as something, right?).

I am in literally 0 of the pics they have tagged on the race result site (apparently they thought A LOT of different people were me, of varying heights and genders) so I don't have any fun "action shots" to post but Joe (my awesome husband who ran with me) did snap this one on the bridge (oh yeah, it had snowed that morning too!)

I finished the race at 37:37 which is right about a 10 minute mile as a 6k is 3.7. I was pretty happy with that time as I've picked up some speed over the last year or so and being right around 10 feels good for me right now.

Two weeks ago was the St. Patrick's Day Parade Run in downtown St. Louis, which is a 5-mile race that precedes the parade along the route. This one is really awesome as the parade spectators are mostly already out and they are awesome cheerleaders (it might be because of the tendency of the spectators to have an early morning adult beverage or two, but hey...cheering is cheering).

This also randomly happens to be the largest 5-mile race in the country with over 20,000 runners (some of who pull a keg with them). It was a great time and I ran it in 51:13, which is just over 10 minute miles. It was significantly better weather than the February race, but it got pretty warm toward the end, into the 70s by parade time!

Before the start with two of my gal pals, Jessica to the far left (who is running the Boston Marathon in a few weeks) and Shannon

Next up for me will be the Go! St. Louis Marathon weekend on April 6th where I will be participating on a marathon relay team with my friend Courtney and two of her cousins. This will be my first relay and I'm really excited to be part of a team event like this, although I hear logistics getting from one leg to another can be a bit annoying when you want to support your other team members.

Here's a copy of the course Go! sent out to the runners, I can't decide which leg I'd prefer as the shorter legs are the hillier ones...of course.

After that one is the Girls on the Run 5k during which I'll be supporting my niece who is running it for the second time...so proud of her! Here's a pic from last year's race.

Over Memorial Day Weekend Joe and I will be heading to Door County, WI for a long weekend. This is where we were married about 6.5 years ago and we try to get back there for long weekends when possible. Not only do we love it, it's a great place to take the dogs! While there we've decided to run the Jacksonport Maifest 10k, which looks to be a really scenic run in and around Lake Michigan.

The jewel in my race crown this year, however, is the runDisney Tower of Terror 10 Miler on October 4th. This is the race that I knew I wanted to do as soon as the race bug bit me. Joe and I are both signed up and pumped for it. I'm a bit nervous as it's a night race and it will likely be pretty warm (not that STL doesn't get ridiculously hot, just not typically during race seasons) but the excitement far outweighs the nerves. This is NOT a race pic but just to give you a sense of our love for Disney...here's us at Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party in 2012. We typically make it to Disney twice per year and LOVE it!

In July, I'll be joining a local running store's 1/2 Marathon training program to prepare myself for the 10 miler and hopefully the Rock n' Roll Half-Marathon that will be taking place in St. Louis in late October. I've cheered on friends there before and it seems like a really great first half-marathon.

I'll fill in with some other races, but that's what's on the books for now! Ok, that's a really long first post, hopefully you made it all the way through, I promise to try and be less wordy in the future.

I'd really appreciate comments and feed back! To get the conversation started:
What races are you looking forward to this year?
Have you ever run a Disney race?
Have you ever run a night race and if so, how did you modify your training?