P90X

The month of May has been crazy busy. The first weekend, we were completely consumed with Seth's high school reunion (both for the music department and then for his class). This past weekend, was one of intense travel. We visited with friends in Cambridge, and then visited on mother's for Mother's Day.

Of course, I'm still making time for the important things, like exercise. I did finish up the Les Mills Combat program (quick review: slightly easier than most Beachbody workouts but lots of fun). I decided to check out the free Combat 30 Live workout that I had received because we got the program directly from Beachbody. Not that exciting, I hate to admit. Almost all the sequences were re-used from other DVDs. There were only a couple of new moves (hammer, something about bear claws?). Also, oddly, the workout featured no cool down whatsoever. Kind of odd. But whatever; it was free. I might pop it into the player when I want a quick moderate intensity cardio workout.

The most exciting news, is that I've started P90X. Well, kind of. The thing is the weather is nice now, and I don't want to commit to having to do an hour-long workout everyday after work (in addition to my workout at the gym). The main reason is that I like to go for a post-dinner 40 minute walk during the nice weather, and I don't want to give that up.

Solution: I've been doing the P90X workouts every other day or so. The program is more resistance training intensive, which honestly is what I need. I love cardio and would do it every day, but weights are what I really need.

The structure of P90X has you work a set of muscles in a given workout. (ex. shoulders and biceps or chest and back). You do a set of three exercises and repeat it. You then move on to another set of exercises which you repeat.

The P90X folks are big into tracking your weights and number of reps, which is quite legit. I was able to download the P90X app for free during a sale, and you can easily track all of your reps and the weight you use in the app. You can also check off your workouts when you complete them and indicate the level of intensity. As a bonus, the app has a place to track what you eat. Kind of a nice bonus -- this is the only Beachbody program to have an app, and I find it very convenient. I especially liked that I didn't have to load 90 days worth of workouts into the exercise scheduler I normally use.

I decided that my first time through all the workouts is just a trial, so I have not been tracking my reps and weights yet. I've usually been using between 8 and 10 lbs. I know in some places I might want to go slightly (only very slightly) heavier because you don't do a ton of reps. However, I want to be conservative because you do two sets of each type of move and work a limited number of muscles in each hour-long workout.

So far, I've tried the first four workouts:

1 and 2. Chest & Back and Ab Ripper X: Chest & Back was really hard. My chest is probably  my weakest muscle, and it showed. There were many many push-up variations (wide push-ups, triceps push-ups, push-ups on a decline). There was also work with a pull-up bar or a resistance band (hooked up over a door). For my first time through, I opted for the resistance band. A good move. I will try the pull-up bar next time, but it was good to try the bands for the first run through. This workout was around 55 minutes in length. For those interested in a full moves list, you can view one here.

Ab Ripper X was also quite a challenge even through it was only 15 minutes long. They people on the DVD were doing far more reps of each move than I could manage. I had to go more slowly to maintain good form.  There were lots and lots of crunch variations and some moves that definitely worked my hip flexors, perhaps even more than I wanted. By the time we got to the v-ups, I was pretty much done. Again, a complete moves list can be found here.

3. Plyometrics: I was amazing at this workout! It was all cardio, so I was playing to a strength. This workout struck me as an easier version of Insanity. Some of the moves were the same, but you did things at a much slower pace. There was lots of jumping but, again, in a bit of an easier way than with Insanity. There were jump squats, tuck jumps (done at half the speed of Insanity), some slightly lower impact running moves, and many other similar moves. I felt moderately challenges and definitely worked up a sweat, but there weren't any points at which I needed to take a break. This is a nice hour-long cardio workout. I would do it as part of the P90X program but also just whenever I feel like doing some good cardio.

4. Shoulders & Arms: I loved this workout! This was a strength training workout that make me feel like I was working hard but also being successful. The Shoulders & Arms workout focused on shoulders, biceps, and triceps. We used hand weights and our body for resistance. We would do one exercise focusing on each group (three in total) and then repeat those exercises (here's a moves list). I was very pleased because I was using weights that were almost identical to the woman on the DVD. I used 10s where she used 10s or 12s (which I don't have). I used 8s where she used them or 10s. For the biceps I could probably go slightly heavier. I have 10s and 3s, so I could hold them together and do 13s instead of getting 12 pound weights. I'll have to consider.

I think that doing these exercises is going to be great. I'm glad to be doing more weight work. True I don't really like doing weights, but they are so good for me! I also think that doing this program as a hybrid with Insanity would work very very well. Building some extra muscle should work very well for my obstacle course race in June. 

Garden 2013

Today I took advantage of my day off (and last free day until the end of May) to plant my garden. I had dug up all the day lilies from the left-hand garden last week. I put in an herb garden.

 

I included basil, parsley, sage, rosemary, catnip, lemon balm, lavender, thyme, tarragon, oregano, and chives.

In the right-hand garden, my bulbs are already coming up. I planted some annuals to go with them: impatiens and tall snapdragons (for cutting).

So far so good. I'm glad the garden is all done. (I don't enjoy gardening, but I want things to look nice, so I put in a garden each year). I'm looking forward to when the herbs are big enough for cutting!

Daffodil Fun Run 5K

This morning, Seth and I headed over to Kendrick Park, on the northern side of downtown Amherst, so that I could take part in the 3rd Daffodil Fun Run. (Seth had planned to run the race too, but was feeling under the weather and couldn't train this week -- poor guy!.)

We arrived around 40 minutes before the scheduled start and the place was hopping. It seemed like a nice chunk of the community had come out to run and support Big Brothers Big Sisters.

We headed over to registration where we picked-up the free yellow daffodil t-shirt and my bib.

They were also handing out ribbons in observance of everyone who was affected by the Boston Marathon bombing. As someone who had a close friend's family member running the race, the events in Boston earlier this month had been quite emotional. Seth and I also each have some of our best friends living in Cambridge -- Seth's friend is a student at MIT and both of our friends live in very close proximity to the residence of the bomber. As a result, we felt very strongly about what happened. 

I also feel that the fact that people who came to cheer on the runners were the ones most likely hurt was even more affecting. One of the thing I think is amazing about running is the support of people who come to cheer you on. Running is one of the only forms of exercise I know about where you can get this level of support. When I'm feeling tired on a run, it's always a huge help to have people who come out to cheer me on, especially Seth. I was very glad to see this race, the first I was running since Boston, gave runners the opportunity to honor the people who had been impacted. 

I pinned a ribbon to my shirt for the run. 

We kicked off the run at a little after 11:30 a.m. The weather was absolutely perfect -- sunny and in the mid-60s. It was definitely the best day of the year. 

The race took us right along East Pleasant Street, up a gradual rise,  through the heart of downtown Amherst. People came out of their stores and cheered us on. We turned off Pleasant down Main Street heading out of the downtown area. This entire part of the race was downhill. We then turned off onto N. Whitney Street. This was a residential area where I had never been. The neighborhood featured so really nice houses, but I wasn't really focusing on that; I was focusing on the hills. This course had hills. After mile 1 the course was mostly uphill until the last 1/2 mile which was slightly downhill / flat. Between all the hills there were only some very slight reprieves. I have, in general, not been doing much running lately. I've been busy with Les Mills Combat, plus I prefer running outside to the treadmill and the weather had been lousy. I've been only running a couple of three mile runs a week on the treadmill, so this hilly terrain was definitely a challenge. I really pushed myself.

Seth took some excellent action shots of me crossing the finish line.

I ended up with an official time of 30:13, which is a bit slower than my sub-30 minute 5K, which are in the 29 minute range, but pretty good considering that I haven't been running a lot and the course was a bit challenging. All in all a good time. 

After the race, I was feeling pretty motivated, and decided to tackle a few projects at home before I had to head off to work. 

The first thing I did was to add some art to one of the walls in our office that was made blank by the changes we made to the room. We had purchased a collage frame while we were at the mall yesterday to see Giulio Cesare Live in HD from the Met Opera. 

I had picked out some photos for the frame this morning, and Seth got them developed at the CVS in town while I was running in the 5K. We chose a handful of nice pictures of family and friends. 

I think it came out looking quite nicely. 

My second project of the day was removing all the day lilies from our garden. The garden on the right-hand side is doing fine -- our bulbs are coming in quite nicely, and I'll be planting my usual annuals (impatiens, snapdragons, zinnias) soon. 

The left-hand garden has gotten completely overrun by the day lilies. I spent almost two hours digging them up with a pitchfork. It was exhausting work, but I'm glad I did it. I never planted the day lilies, and they are way too big for that small garden. 

I'm planning on putting herbs in the left-hand garden. Seth and I like to have bread with olive oil with supper sometimes, so I'm hoping to plant herbs for that purpose. I'd also like to do other cooking herbs, such as basil for salad. No pictures yet (because the garden just looks like a plot of empty dirt), but I'll be sure to take some when everything is planted later in the month. 

April Round-up

It's been a whirl-wind of a month. With all the things we've been doing, there are one or two exciting things I've forgotten to share.

The most exciting thing was Seth's birthday on the 6th. We had a really fun day. (I extra enjoyed this because I had been kind of sick for my birthday, and we couldn't do a lot.) We spent a wonderful afternoon browsing the stores in Northampton, followed by dinner at one of our new favorite restaurants, Lumber Yard, in Amherst.

The meal started off with appetizers of poutine and something they call the chicken pasty, which is chicken in phyllo. Seth also had an exciting cocktail.

For our entrees, I had an eggplant dish and Seth had the hamburger he always gets when we go to the Lumber Yard. We got a small scoop of Cap'n Crunch ice cream for dessert to share. The best part was how they dressed it up for Seth's birthday.

 We followed dinner with a trip to the Amherst Cinema to see the Studio Ghibli film, From Up on Poppy Hill. A super fun day!

We followed the big birthday celebration with a big spring cleaning. Look how great everything looks!

 

We cleaned the house from the basement up and got everywhere. We cleaned the ceilings to the baseboards. I cleaned the glass on all the windows, took out the screens and vacuumed them, and even cleaned in the casements. 

I'm glad we cleaned the windows because I wanted them to look nice for when we got them measured. That's right -- we're getting new windows. Our condo board passed a resolution last spring requiring everyone to replace their windows in the next couple of years. We had been waiting, saving up money to put down, and are finally ready to go. We're replacing all our windows and our slider. (The slider was not required to be replaced, but our slider loses a lot of heat.) All our windows are original to our home, which was built in the 60s, so I'm glad they're getting replaced.

Seth and I also have a focus on eating very healthy as the spring rolls around. We usually eat fairly healthy, but want to start doing even better. Seth made us a tasty smoothie with melon and dairy the other day.

I've also been making us some very healthy toast. I've been toasting some Ezekiel bread then mashing up half an avocado and putting it on top. This plus a smoothie makes an excellent dinner.

Another fun healthy thing we're trying is a three month subscription to Bulu Box. There was a LivingSocial voucher for 3 months of Bulu Box for $15, so we decided to try it out. The first box came in the mail this week.

The box contained mostly healthy supplements, like vitamins and exercise aids. At first glance it's definitely not as cool as Kona Kase. For starters, when we subscribed to Kona Kase, we got a welcome letter from the owners, and we get a shipping notification and tracking information for each box. None of these things happened with Bulu Box.

Bulu Box is $10/month versus $15/month for Kona Kase. There are definitely more items in the Kona Kase, which makes sense because of the price difference, but I still felt like the stuff in Kona Kase was worth more than the stuff in Bulu Box (at the unit price level). I ate every single thing from my Kona Kase last month. I'm not 100% sure we'll use all the stuff in the Bulu Box.

This month's Bulu Box contained a supplement for aiding with concentration, a vitamin C spray, some cocoa powder to add to shakes (for the healthy benefits of cocoa), an energy shot, and a pre-workout energy boost. There was also a bonus $50 gift card to a website where you can download exercises. (That seems kind of exciting, and I will have to check it out.)

So far, we haven't checked out any of the stuff in the Bulu Box yet, but no doubt we will. I'll keep you posted.

The last exciting things that we did happened this weekend.  Seth and I have been wanting to redo our office. We long ago realized that we don't really need two desks in there. We wanted to free up some space and make the room a bit more refined.

Here are a couple of before pictures.

 

We took out Seth's desk, moved his computer to my desk, and then completely rearranged the bookshelves and disk chair. We also swapped out the curtains. (The old ones had been purchased in college for $5 each and have been much "loved" by Lily.)

Here's everything mid-move.

 Voila! Here's the result. We have so much more space. I think the room looks lots nicer.

I especially like having the chair in the corner -- it's a mini reading nook.

All in all, April's been quite the busy month. We have a couple more things left to do -- the Daffodil Fun Run 5K next weekend plus some work in the garden -- and then May is here.

Fitathlon

Today, I took part in an epic challenge -- my first obstacle course race (OCR), Fitathlon. I had signed up for Fitathlon a few months ago after receiving a Groupon that my boss forwarded to me. The race was a 5K OCR, and I thought it would be a good prep race when I was planning to do the Tough Mudder (before their customer service pissed me off too much).

Fast forward a few months to two days ago when I started to remember that I had signed up for this race and that, other than doing my normal twice a day exercise (once at the gym and once with Les Mills Combat after work), I hadn't really prepared. Regardless, I was undeterred.

I had signed up for the 2:30 p.m. Challengers group. Fitathlon divides participants into four groups: Newbies, Beginners, Challengers, and Competitors. Based on the group you're in, you might have to do more reps of an exercise or go farther or longer. I had chosen the Challengers group basically based on the time of day it started. It was at 2:30 p.m., and I was attending my step-mom's birthday party at 4:00 p.m. Since the Fitathlon was at Rentschler Field, about a ten minute drive from my Dad's house, this was perfect.

We arrived at Rentschler Field about an hour early and went for check in. Everything was organized very nicely. I quickly and easily got my blue bib (identifying me as a Challenger), and we were free to walk around. There were a few booths as well as a live band of average quality playing covers of pop songs -- everything from Journey to Kelly Clarkson.

The weather, which was supposed to be sunny and almost 60 degrees, ended up being very cool and windy while we waited. I kept my hoodie on as long as possible. At around 2:15 p.m., right before my heat was scheduled to start, we finally got a bit of sun peaking out. I took off my hoodie, downed three Clif Shot Blocks that I have received in my Kona Kase, and lined up on the starting line. Soon, we headed off for the first of eighteen events over the 3 mile course. 

I'll also be using the general write-ups that the race organizers sent me to introduce each obstacle. I'll then follow along with my comments. For the final (and best) piece, we're going to be joined by awesome vlogger + husband, Seth, who videoed the entire race.

1. Calisthenics - Squats, push-ups, crunches & burpees

a. Newbies - 20 of each

b. Beginners - 30 of each

c. Challengers - 40 of each

d. Competitors - ...50 of each

We kicked off the race at 2:41 p.m. (a few minutes after the expected 2:30 p.m. start time). We began by doing some calisthenics. I honestly wish I had started faster with my 40 squats. People flew through this, and I realized, a little bit later, I could be going more quickly. I cranked it up for the push-ups (which I did on my knees) and crunches. We did half-burpees, the kind without the push-up. This was definitely the hardest part of the opening calisthenics. 40 burpees is a killer amount of burpees. After this segment, I was pretty well warmed up and ready to jog over for obstacle two.

 2. Lunge lap - The distance varies by level. Guaranteed to make your legs burn. Take a rest if needed but you can only lunge - no walking. Competitors you're going over a ¼ mile with your hands behind your head.

We jogged from the field where we did our first obstacle over to a section of parking lot in back of the stadium. Here was the lunge lap, definitely the hardest part of Fitathlon. We were forced to lunge all around the approximately 1/4 mile parking lot. Wow! My legs were spent. 

I was definitely, definitely grateful to Les Mills Combat's HIIT workout while doing this obstacle. Their HIIT workouts feature a lot of lunges and plyo lunges. I don't usually do a ton of lunges, so it was great that I've doing Les Mills Combat. It was great preparation for Fitathlon. 

 3. Long run - Not to long, only ¾ -1 mile of road running. Your legs will be so tired it'll feel like the last mile of the ½ marathon.

I had started the Fitathlon kind of in the back of the pack because of my slow squats, but here is where I caught up. A lot. My legs were tired after the lunges, but all the running I do gave me the ability to power through that and make this run count. Most people in my group were walking during this run, but I actually found that a quick jog felt great. I moved my way towards some fields in back of stadium where the bulk of the event was to take place.

 4. Transverse Wall - Not your typical wall. We gotta see you move in different planes. Hope you've tried rock climbing. Climb from one side to the other. The wall is angled not straight. Competitors if you fall off you must go back to the beginning.

What excellent fun! This obstacle was basically a rock wall that you tackled horizontally instead of climbing up. Not too tricky, but I was glad I'd semi-recently done some rock climbing at the Smith gym. The foot holds were a little slippery from the muddy ground but nothing unmanageable. 

 5. Tire Flip - 200lb+ tires. You have to flip it 4-10 times depending on your level. The tires are different sizes but pretty much weigh the same amount. You can do it solo or with help. It doesn't matter unless you're a competitor. Competitors must flip the tires solo.

This was the event I was most scared for, but it was okay. I had to flip the tire eight times. I flipped it solo the first and last time and the other six times with a partner. Good choice. They had tires of various sizes, and I don't think the one I had was quite at the 200 pound mark. It felt awesome to flip the tire myself that last time.

 6. Balance Beams - 4 inches wide and 8 feet long, simple except you have to carry a slosh pipe overhead. And you have to do it again and again and again. And then turn around and come back! Can you say core and balance? BTW your shoulders will be on FIRE. Competitors must keep the pipe up the entire time.

Okay, so this was hard. We had to go over four balance beams out and back with the slosh pipe overhead. The pipe was half-filled with water and probably weighted around 15 pounds. The hardest part was definitely not my shoulders; it was keeping my balance with the water sloshing around in the pipe and throwing me off balance. At the start of each beam, I'd try to get my balance and them move as quickly as possible before I could lose it again. 

 7. Wheel Barrel (sic) Push - It sorta looks like a wheel barrel. It's our version. Push it through grass for the designated distance and turn around and come back.

This wasn't that bad. The wheelbarrow was basically a plank of wood with weights and one wheel. It was a little tricky to balance but nothing terrible, plus it wasn't that heavy, and we didn't have to go that far. This was one of the less interesting obstacles, and I quickly checked it off the list.

 8. Trail Run- I guess you can call it a trail. You make your own way until you find the paved path. It's maybe a ¼ mile but.... You have to take your 25 lb ruck sack with you. I hope you've been training with a weight vest!

Most people seemed to walk through this event as well. I shuffled. Honestly, it was the fastest I could go. 25 pounds on your back is pretty heavy, especially for someone was small as me. We took a little loop through a wooded area with the backpacks on. I definitely had to watch my shuffling feet and side-step some debris in trail running style. Unlike most trail running, things were pretty flat, which was a big help.

 9. Speed and Agility Run - Tires, tires, tires. Add some cones, hurdles, hay and ladders. Let's see how mobile and agile you are.

I killed at this event! Thank you Shaun T for all the agility work you had me do in Asylum 1 and 2. The tires went great, so did hurdling the hay. I was cruising!

 10. Monkey Bars - Yup, time for some upper body work. Do your best. It's probably been a while. Competitors must go all the way through without falling.

Sad times. This event was canceled because the structure was kind of falling apart. Bummer. 

 11. Walls - The short ones - 5 feet. There will be help for everyone but the competitors. Everyone has 4 to climb.

I'm five feet fall, so the idea of scaling a wall five feet tall seemed a challenging proposition. Fortunately, there was a small foot step up on each wall. I used this to help get myself started and then pulled myself up and over. Getting my legs over the top of the wall was a bit of an ungainly mess, but I made it. 

 12. Chain Pull - 30lbs, 100 yards. You must pull it while backpedaling. Your hams and glutes will be on fire.

What a curious event. I wasn't coordinated enough to do this running backwards and couldn't manage to hold the chain in more than one hand most of the time. I power walked out and back. 

 13. Tunnels - 24 inches, 18 inches, and even 12 inches! Get in there. You might get a little dirty on this one. After crawling through you have to get up run/walk over a hurdle and do it again and again and again.

Here is where the finally got dirty. Quite dirty. The tunnels were rectangular rather than round (more like three-sided boxes resting on the ground). They didn't feel claustrophobic (which is not something I'm really scared of anyway), but I did have to shimmy along the ground to get through them. I did this by using somewhat of a frog-kick motion with my legs, dragging myself on my forearms. 

 14. Ropes - 40ft, 2inches. Slam it as hard and as fast as you can for the allotted time. Competitors if you bonk you get a 15 or 30 sec. penalty.

For this event we actually ended up doing 15 slams of the rope with each arm. I was terrible at this. The ropes were huge, I had never done anything like this before, and I was almost too small to manage. I tried my best. While I was slamming the ropes, a larger gentleman came up and did the event with me. He was awesome -- he showed me how it should really have been done. 

 15. Cargo Net - Balance, core and upper body strength will be on display in this obstacle. It's a simple 8 foot climb across the net. Again and again. With some jumping in between.

Another very fun event. We had to climb across a couple of nets suspended only a few feet above the ground. No athletic ability required here -- it was a blast. 

 16. Wall Climb - Big walls. 8 ft high. No worries you have rope to help you. You gotta do it twice.

I found this to be a fantastic obstacle as well. I actually though that this was going to be a bit harder than it was. I was able to use the rope to climb my feet up the wall with no trouble. The only hard part was re-positioning myself when I got to the top of the wall so that I could launch myself over the other side. I slipped the first time and had to do a pull-up move to get myself re-organized.

 17. Over/Unders - 100 yards of leaping and ducking. Over 2 foot hurdles, Under 3 foot hurdles. 48 hurdles in all!

I was starting to get tired from all the craziness by the time I got to this obstacle, but it was the second to last one, so I tried to power through. I definitely started off with a bang, but kind of faded a little bit mid-way. At that point, I reminded myself I was close to the end. 

My strategy for this obstacle was to quickly bend under the three feet hurdles and then vault myself, using hands over the two feet hurdles. This seemed to work fairly well. 

 18. Farmers Walk - 100-300 yards of an unbalanced walk. Ladies 25lbs., Men 45lbs. Bound to fire up your core.

Excited to be close to the finish, I quickly grabbed a 25 pound weight and got moving. The catch... you could only hold the weight plate in one hand. I was ready to be done, so I hustled my way along with as fast of a jog as I could manage (not that quick since I had this weight). Soon the finish line was in sight. 

I dropped my weight off and ran the rest of the way. Success!

I checked my time. I had finished in 53 minutes. Under an hour! I felt fantastic. My first OCR, and I finished in way less than the 90 minutes that race directors said the race was estimated to take. 

Fitathlon was great fun, and a wonderful introduction to the world of OCR. The race was challenging, but at no point was there anything I felt like I really couldn't do. Everyone was very friendly, there was an upbeat atmosphere, and all the people participating were very supportive. I loved the variety that OCR provides, and am 100% sure I want to do more of these kinds of events. I can't wait for the Superhero Scramble in June!

Greater Hartford 1/4 Marathon

Today, Seth and I drove to West Hartford Connecticut to take part in the Greater Hartford 1/4 Marathon. Seth had made a New Year's Resolution to run a 10K (6.2 miles) this year. We decided to do the 1/4 marathon for his resolution. At 6.55 miles, it was just over the 10K length.

The race was with the Hartford Track Club, which was the group I had done my Half Marathon with. I had been impressed with how organized and fun that race was and thought this would be a good first time experience for Seth. Plus, the race was only $25 each and included a tech shirt and finishers medal, a nice bonus, especially for a significant race.

I started off the day by having a pre-race breakfast of watermelon and toast with nut butter. I decided to try my toast with the Wild Squirrel almond butter I had received in my Kona Kase. The almond butter was chocolate sunflower seed flavored, and very interesting. There was a very strong sunflower seed taste and just a hint of cocoa. It was quite pleasant, although I wish that the sunflower seeds weren't so overpowering. The nut butter did do a great job filling me up for the run.

After breakfast, we headed out of the house and towards Connecticut. We arrived at the UConn Health Center around an hour before the 10:00 a.m. race start time. We had to park our car at the Health Center and were then bused over to the MDC Reservoir, where the race was to take place. Everything was very well organized, and we were able to immediately get on a bus and take the five minute drive to the reservoir.

The race volunteers had everything very well set-up. We were quickly able to check-in and get our bibs and shirts.

In addition to having a quick check-in, the race organizers very intelligently had a bag check. This was especially helpful because we had parked so far away. The day was lovely and sunny with only a mild breeze and temperatures in the upper 40s. Because of the bag check, I was able to keep on my very warm Nike Slouchy Sphere Hoodie (which I'm basically obsessed with) until the race started.

I was very excited for this race for a couple of reasons. First was that this would be the first long run in my new Altra sneakers.

More than that, I was very excited that this was going to be Seth's longest run ever. I had planned with Seth prior to the race to run the entire race with him. I was hoping to help keep him feeling motivated and upbeat during the race.

At around 9:55 a.m., we congregated at the starting line for the race. We planned to do 10:1 run to walk intervals during the race and keep a moderate pace, so we started more towards the back of the pack.

After some brief announcements, we were off! The 1/4 marathon course took us on a loop course. The course took us along a bike path that went through the forest and along the reservoirs. We ran the loop twice to complete the 6.55 miles, so we got to see the course twice. The run featured some gently rolling hills. Most of the run was paved, but there were a couple of spots where they were doing a bit of maintenance work and we had to run on a little bit of dirt. 

I have to commend the Hartford Track Club. As with the course for the Half Marathon, this course was very picturesque. We didn't really have to worry about traffic (except bikes). It was lovely to see the reservoirs and forest.

Seth and I averaged a 12:00 minute mile for the race. I had a wonderful time running the race with him. The pace was slower than my standard 10K pace, so I was really able to enjoy the race on a different level. I got to appreciate the scenery even more and have fun watching other racers and listening to my music. I had thought that I might not like doing a course where you have to run the same loop twice, but it was good to do the course once and then do it again knowing what was coming up. We continued around until at 1:18, we crossed the finish line.

Seth did a great job finishing strong. He had a great race and was very excited at the end. Running 6.55 miles for the first time was such an amazing accomplishment -- I'm so proud of him.

After the race, we met up with Dad, Lisa, and Greg and had a lovely lunch at Dad's house. We then headed back to Amherst tired from our busy day out. Lily helped us unpack. (She was very helpful.)

We continued to celebrate Seth's longest run by trying another sample from the Kona Kase, Tcho Chocolates. There were two milk chocolate ones and two dark chocolate ones. The dark chocolate ones were probably my favorites, although one of the milk chocolate ones (the blue one) tasted almost exactly like Cadbury. 

We had an entirely wonderful day. I definitely think we'll do the Greater Hartford 1/4 Marathon again again in 2-14. Our next race will be a 5K held the last Sunday in April. It's the Daffodil Fun Run and is going to be in Amherst. Stay tuned!