How Fast Do You Run?

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Do you know how fast you run? I started using the Nike+ Running app a few months ago and now have a very complete idea about my pace and what changes it. When I started using the app, I was comfy at a solid 10:00 minutes/mile. Not too shabby, but nothing to write home about, especially in the marathoning world. Now, I am down to a 9:14 average! That is a pretty big deal for this yogi. I have never averaged that low. This is also super fantastic for me because I wanted to be at 9:30 min/mile for the Expedition Everest Challenge. Nailed it. 

Now that I know my speed, I have so many other questions... What is considered a good running pace? What is a healthy increase in my overall pace? Should run times decrease during long runs or short? How do people run a mile in 4-minutes? 

Some of these questions are still left unanswered (future posts, perhaps?), but I found a website that gave me a pretty good idea of what bracket I fit into running wise. Runner's World has a pretty great race percentile calculator for all you time needs. All you do is input your age, gender, run distance, and run time. Then, your percentile is calculated for you. Turns out that I am the definition of a happy medium at 52% for 27-year old women running 4-miles. 

52% is pretty darn great and all, but being 52% made me search out information on how to decrease run times in a healthy manner. I am sure there will be a blog post on that soon enough, but this article is great (albeit long) in the mean time. 

Love Your Legs

Happy Monday! I hope you had a fantastic weekend. We had lots of fun visiting my Mom with my Grammie. There was lots of eating, a few movies watched, and quite a bit of relaxing. We drove home last night and the hubs and I were able to make a last minute trip to the beach for sunset. It was cold, but absolutely beautiful! 

But now, it is back to the real world and lots of things to do this week. One of those things is this Tone it Up Love Your Legs Workout. Hopefully, we all love our legs already because of all the amazing things they can do, but, this will help make them a bit stronger. Oh, and it also works the bum. Of course it would catch my eye.

As long as everything goes right today, I will be completing two workouts and you will be hearing about one of them later on in the week. This workout may come in quite handy on Wednesday when things will be quite hectic and a 20-minute workout will work out perfectly. See what I did there? Hahahaha... 

Here's to a wonderful week with lots of great workouts and other productive things in the mix as well. Oh, and a pun or two, of course.  Happy Monday!

Workouts for the Weekend

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Happy Friday! I hope you have something wonderful planned for this weekend. We will be spending time with family and celebrating Easter Saturday evening with a big fish cook. The hubs and I are also in a competition with some friends for the first to run 75-miles in thirty days or less. This means that we have been running A LOT more than usual and will be running this weekend as well. 

Since Sunday is Easter, I figured we could talk about what workouts I have done this week and what we are planning to do over the holiday weekend. Will you be working out this weekend? My goal is to run on Sunday and do a nice hip opening flow on Saturday. Hips are one of my most sore areas when running more than normal, so prepare for a nice hip opening sequence on the blog pretty soon!

Here is what I already did this week!

Sunday: Rest day after Saturday's events. Yea, that was a good day! 

Monday: Run 4.5-miles

Tuesday: Hot Power Yoga Flow

Wednesday: Run 3.5-miles

Thursday: Nice hip opening yoga flow

Friday: Run 3.5-miles

Stability Cushions and if We Should Buy In

There has been a lot of press recently about stability cushions. Do you have one? And if so, do you like it? What first got me interested in stability cushion workouts is a fantastic looking workout in this month's Shape magazine. The entire thing looks like it will tone all those tiny muscles of the legs and bum, and all I want is to try it out. 

Stability cushions, also known as wobble or balance cushions are said to help build the core, decrease back pain, and improve recovery time of leg injuries or surgeries. It also helps children with special education needs. Wow, that is a lot of good stuff in one little cushion! The idea of a workout other than yoga that will help improve my joint pain is something that I have been wanting for quite some time. If you have ever been to physical therapy or know someone who has, there is a pretty good chance they used a stability cushion or something like it. 

These can also help build core muscles when you are not even trying. Place a stability cushion on your chair at work to help improve core strength through active sitting. Of course, anything that encourages us to balance as well as working out will improve our core strength as well. I think I will need to try this one out! If you already have one, what are some of the beneficial ways you use it?