February 2014 Promo Code Coupon Code Plated.com $30 off first order!

My husband and I have been trying to eat healthier lately.  Typically we are tired after work and just order take out or go out to eat because it seems easier than planning and making a big meal.

However, a new food service called plated.com has been a lifesaver for us!  You go onto their website and enter your zip code, choose a delivery date, and then pick what meals you want sent to you for that week!  You can order two plates per meal if you just have to people to feed, or a different number of plates all the way up to 6 plates per meal if you have a really large family to feed!  They have a lot of healthy choices ranging from vegetarian meals, fish, and meat.  They ship the box of food to you on the scheduled date and you can start making delicious meals with fresh ingredients.  Each box has detailed recipes in it for how to make these gourmet meals.  It's been fun for my husband and I to take the time to cook a meal together each night.  It's like having a date every night!

If you would like to try plated.com, they have offered my blog readers a $30 off promo code for their first order.  Just enter coupon code 65336e when you check out.

Essentially with this deal you can order two meals, two plates each (for a total of 4 plates) for only $30.  That's definitely cheaper than having two people go out to eat two nights in a row!

To Run in the Snow or Not?

Husband S and I have somewhat kept up with running. We haven't had much time to run together the past few weeks but we have ran on our own inside the gym. It's tough running in the gym on a small track. The turns come up too quickly and you are always working one leg more than the other. I should try running on a treadmill more instead.

Anyway, this post is about running an actual race, which we haven't done yet because there haven't been any races offered in our town to date. However, there are some offered in a nearby city on Thanksgiving day. I love the names of the races - Turkey trots and Gobble gallops. The thing is, it snowed recently up in that city. And I mean a lot. So the trails would be covered with ice and snow. We haven't ran in those conditions yet and I'm not sure it would be the best idea to run our first 5K race in those conditions. What do you think? Does this look like a good idea?

Is anyone else planning on running on Thanksgiving Day? It would make you feel better about eating all of that food afterward, wouldn't it?!

THE 5K!

Today was our 1 year anniversary and we ran a 5K!!!!! We skipped the week 9 sessions of 30 minutes and just went straight for the 5K today. We ran it up at our alma mater (the college we met at 5.5 years ago). This was our first time not running on the trails in our current town and I think it went well. We didn't run in an official race because there weren't any going on this weekend; we just ran it on our own using Husband S's iphone nike plus app.

The weather was in the 50's and pretty sunny when we ran around noon. But it was cool and I still wore my Nike running jacket for part of the run. The run wasn't so bad but at times it felt pretty long just because we didn't know the route. I knew the route would hit up with another trail eventually but it took longer than I thought it would to get to that trail. The scariest part was running over the foot bridge that goes over the Interstate (with cars and trucks going 75mph below you). I kind of have a fear of open bridges like that so it was almost harder for me to run over that bridge each way than it was to run the whole 5K. I just held onto Husband S's arm and didn't look down at the cars going below me, praying to God the whole time that the wooden bridge didn't fall down or something like that. It was pretty hard on the second half of the run because there were more uphill segments on the way back. Husband S kept telling me our distance and I felt like we were stuck around 3.6 km forever. It just took forever to get to 4km. The last 0.5km went by pretty fast. I actually thought we were going to have to run a bit further at the end but then the iphone said "Congratulations you have finished your 5K". And then Lance Armstrong came on and said something about it being a new personal best (that's because it's our only personal best at this time)!

I bet you want to know our time? I'm pretty proud of it. It was my goal to run our first 5K in under 35 minutes and we did just that. We ran it in 34:48. Pretty impressive for a first time 5K. We were both proud of what we've accomplished. I asked Husband S what he would have thought if a year ago on our wedding day I had told him we'd be running a 5K in a year. He said he wouldn't have believed me back then. I don't think I would have believed myself back then either!

We took a picture of ourselves just after we finished our race. We felt very accomplished but probably look tired since we are all red in the face. I'll upload it tomorrow if I get a chance. It's too late at night to pull out all the camera cords right now.

This just goes to show that anyone can become a runner! Even two lazy grad students who always hated running and couldn't even run a mile back in gym class in middle school or high school!

This RUNNER is going to bed now after a long but successful day! Goodnight all and good luck to everyone else still in the program! Keep on running!

W8D3

We ran W8D3 (28 minutes with the usual 5 minute warmup and cooldown) early this morning around 7:50. It was so cold outside. Maybe 50 degrees or less. I should have worn my running jacket but I didn't since I thought it was going to be warmer. It took about 13 minutes for my arms and hands to finally warm up. Next time I'll check the temp before I go out for a morning run!

I also made the mistake of eating some dark chocolate before the run. I had just woken up and I wanted to get that morning taste out of my mouth. The dark chocolate did not go over well while running. I ate too much and I felt like I had a stomach ache. So overall, today's run was slower and we ran a little less than normal distance-wise. The stomach ache and the cold temps really slowed me down!

One nice thing about running in the morning is that it really wakes you up and there are less people on the trail. However, I still think I prefer running in the afternoon better - around 4pm or 5pm.

Do you prefer to run at a specific time? Any reason why?

Looking forward to the full 30 minutes on Thursday or Friday! I'm excited to see how far we actually can run in 30 minutes. I am not sure if it will be a full 5K but I'm hoping it's close!

W8D2

We ran W8D2 this evening: 5 minute warmup, 28 minute run, & a 5 minute cool-down. It was unusually warm this weekend for our state. In the mid 80's! Usually it's like 50 degrees this time of year.

Because of the nice weather we spent much of the weekend outside and were very active. We dog-sat for a friend and walked the dog a lot (2x/day). We went to an apple orchard and picked up some pumpkins and mum flowers. We went to a state park and climbed up about 500+ steps to get to the top of a cliff/bluff and take photos. So, we were very tired by the time our run came around on Sunday night.

It was a very hard run for me. I just felt physically exhausted by the end. Like a 10 on those exhaustion scales they have up on posters in the gym. Husband S said I could have ran more but I am not so sure. I kept having him reassure me throughout the run because I wasn't sure I would finish strong. I just wanted a walking break. Even a 30 second walking break would have helped!

I'm sorry if I haven't been writing lately. I feel like there isn't much to update on here now because it's clear to me that I can run for 25 or 28 minutes at a time. It wasn't a hard transition at all for me to go from 25 to 28 minutes. There isn't much difference day to day now besides the fact that some days I have more energy than others. Anyone else feel the same?

This weekend is our wedding anniversary. The goal when I started this program was to be able to run a 5K by our 1st anniversary. I got a little off track in the program and instead of finishing W9 by our anniversary I will now be finishing it a few days later. But I think it is safe to say that I could run the full 30 minutes by our anniversary. Whether the full 3o minutes is enough for me to finish a 5K remains to be seen. Husband S has the Nike GPS app (I'm not sure what it's called). It tracks our distance and speed. I think we are running a 5K at about a 33 minute pace. Or somewhere around there. So we are pretty close to running a full 5K by this weekend if we can run a full 30 minutes. Yay for us. Happy Anniversary Husband S. I'm glad we did this program together!

W7D1

Today was the best run yet! It was such a good run. The weather was perfect - upper 60's and sunny, but not too sunny because the trees were shading the trail partially by 6pm. The air was crisp and it felt like fall, my favorite season.

We started off our run by sprinting pretty fast. We joked around that we should run as fast as we could the whole run. That only lasted about 30 seconds and then we fell into an actual pace that would allow us to last 25 minutes. Still, we had a much faster pace today than previous days and it showed. We were able to get farther on the trail than any other runs. We made it all the way to the old apartment building we lived in. Maybe ~2.7 miles total today?

The bad thing is that my heel started to hurt on the way back. Just after the half way point, I stopped to tighten my shoe because it was sort of moving around and I thought that might be causing the problem. That didn't really fix it though. While I was running I could feel my heel starting to hurt but I just kept working through it. However, a few hours later now it is really hurting when I put any weight on my left foot to walk. I hope I didn't do something to my Achilles or a bone. I don't want to get injured! I want to keep running. I'm scared though. It doesn't feel right.

I think our next run will be Saturday morning and I'm really hoping that my foot is better by then. I want to make that run just as good as today's, if not better! I feel like we could do the 5K now. We probably could've done it today! I'm excited about the fact that soon we will be able to run that far, even if we haven't technically signed up for a race yet to run that far! Am I the only one who is doing this program who hasn't signed up for a 5K yet?

W6D3 and procrastination

Oh man, we sure are getting behind in our program. We aren't giving up, it's just that we've been busy lately and haven't been getting home on time to run. By the time we get home it's after 6 and then we just want to eat dinner, not run, stretch, and shower for an hour. So we were supposed to do W7D1 yesterday. We didn't get to it. We were supposed to do it tonight then but instead we had a date night. So tomorrow we must do it! We have to! No way out this time, no matter what!

I'll write first about W6D3. We ran this on Sunday afternoon, maybe around 1pm. It was very sunny outside. Clear skies. I remember thinking it was going to be cold out so I brought my running jacket with. But then as we walked half a block outside we both decided it was warm and we went back to the house to drop off our jackets so we wouldn't have to run with them. We are so indecisive in this fall weather. It was a good decision to ditch the jackets because it did end up being very hot on the run!

The 25 minute run was difficult. That's our longest run ever! But I will say that it wasn't impossible. I just had to pace myself. It was a rather slow pace sometimes. But I still kept up the motions of running at all times, even if it may have been faster to just power walk.

I was happy because we made it our farthest distance yet on that run. We went past the farthest bridge and around the corner of the trail to where we could see the old apartment building we used to live in. It was always my goal to run that far and I was glad we finally made it there. I always thought we'd make it there earlier in the program but I'm glad we at least made it that far at some point in the program. My new goal is to get a little bit beyond that point every time now. It will mean I'm running farther and improving my pace each time. I can see us getting closer and closer to the 5K now. I estimate we are running about 2.6 miles right now in the 25 minutes. I think we will get to the 5K pretty soon!