New Site

Hi friends! I just wanted to let you know that Maureen Gets Real is no longer being hosted on WordPress.com. Don’t worry, I’m not done blogging but you’ll have to resubscribe to the new site in order to get all of my posts! It’s still just maureengetsreal.com but hosted differently. It’ll be a new and improved site once I’m used to everything but that’s where I’ll be blogging from now on! Thanks 🙂

Philadelphia Marathon Training Week 1

Hi everyone! I hope you’re having a nice weekend. In case you missed it, I announced that I’m signed up to run the Philadelphia Marathon this November. In order to document this journey for myself, I’m going to be documenting my training every Sunday on the blog. As of today there are 18 weeks until the marathon.

Sunday – Rest day
Monday – 4 recovery miles with Alex
Tuesday – 9.71 miles – 1 mile warm up, 10 x 1 km repeats (don’t ask me the average pace… I was about to die from the heat lol), 3 minute walk in between, 1 mile cool down
Wednesday – 25 walk with Bailey
Thursday – 6 recovery miles
Friday – 4 recovery miles
Saturday – 12 miles (6 miles @ pace, 3 miles @ pace, 2 miles @ pace, 1 mile cool down)

Week 1 Mileage =

 

 

Weekly Obsessions XXIV

Happy Friday! I was honestly surprised that this week went by as fast as it did. I thought it would drag after being off last week but luckily it didn’t. What do you have planned for this weekend? Tomorrow I’m getting an early lunch with a friend in Princeton which will be perfect after a 12 mile run haha. The rest of the weekend is a little up in the air. Bailey is getting spayed today so I expect a low key weekend giving our girl extra love and cuddles.

Before the weekend starts, I want to share some things I’ve been obsessed with this week. Let me know something you’ve been obsessed with in the comments! Have a great weekend 🙂

Peanuts and Cashews

I prefer unsalted or lightly salted nuts while Alex tends to go for salted nuts. Thus why we have a bag of salted peanuts and a bag of unsalted cashews in our cabinet. This week I’ve been mixing them together to get the right mix of nut and salt. It’s been perfect to add to my snacks at work. I put them in a container, shake it up and throw it in my bag.

The Keepers

This show is awesome! I had seen a trailer when it first came out but kind of forgot about it. When we were visiting my family, someone mentioned that it was good so Alex and I tried it out. It does not disappoint! It’s a seven part docu-series that digs into the death of a nun, Sister Cathy, who was murdered in Baltimore. It goes into a potential cover up, the murder of another young women just days after Sister Cathy’s and interviews her former students. If you like true crime then watch this show.

Peanut Butter Cup Halo Top

Bailey wants in on this stuff too!

Peanut butter and chocolate is my all time favorite flavor combination. You just can’t beat it in my opinion so I was a little nervous to try out this ice cream. Personally I only buy Halo Top when it’s on sale because I can’t justify $5 on a pint of ice cream. They were on sale last week so I grabbed this at the grocery store and it was a fantastic decision. There’s swirls of peanut butter in the ice cream and the flavor is on point.

Question of the day: What’s one thing you’ve been obsessed with this week?

 

Outdoor Reading + Leftovers

Hi friends! It seems like I haven’t shared a day in the life style post in so long! I mean it has been about 2 weeks now haha so that is kind of a long time. Have a great day 🙂

A few weeks ago, I shared that Bailey was acting as our alarm clock at 5 am or earlier during the week. We left the crate door open last night and she wasn’t crazy super early, yay! Alex and I think she may have just been sick of her crate at night so that’s why she would bark at us. The extra sleep was much needed so I woke up feeling pretty refreshed. Once I was ready for work, I made my usual breakfast of scrambled eggs and a muffin.

This week, my appetite has been huge. Maybe it’s because I was eating more junk food than normal last week but I’ve been hungry so much in the afternoons. In my attempt to not snack all night, I packed some peanuts and cashews to enjoy with my afternoon yogurt. Considering I didn’t go home and immediately break out chips and salsa, I’ll consider it a win.

When I got home, Bailey and I went for a walk and then I grabbed my book to read outside. I started reading The Atomic City Girls by Janet Beard and it’s excellent. It’s a historical fiction novel set in World War II about June, an 18 year old who goes to Oak Ridge, Tennessee, a city that doesn’t officially exist. She goes to work but has no idea what her job does. June adjusts knobs to keep them in the range they are supposed to be in. She eventually meets a physicist, Doctor Sam Cantor, who lives and works in Oak Ridge with her. It’s related to the Manhattan Project and there’s even black and white pictures at the end of each chapter that the Department of Energy gave. I wish I could just read all day to see what happens.

For dinner, we kept it easy with leftovers from Sunday night at Alex’s parents house. I roasted some potatoes and made green beans to go along with our ribs. To end our night, we watched an episode of The Keepers on Netflix. It’s a docuseries on students who are looking into the murder of a nun that was a teacher at their school. We’re on ely through 2 episodes but love it. Then I got ready for bed and read some more before calling it a night.

Question of the day: Are you a fan of leftovers?

I’m Going To Run A Marathon

Happy hump day! I hope you’re all have a great week so far. After my half marathon in April, I never shared what was next for me in terms of running. I knew what the plan was the whole time but I wasn’t ready to share. Something tells me I won’t be able to hide it much longer though… I’m running my first marathon!

The rest of this post was written on March 2, 2018. Less than 24 hours after I signed up for the Philadelphia Marathon on November 18, 2018.

If you told me this time last year that I would be signing up for a marathon, I would have laughed in your face and thought you were crazy. I didn’t run. I thought I hated running since I never truly loved it despite being on the cross country and track team for all of high school. Looking back, I think I didn’t like running 6 days a week and having generic workouts. Nothing was geared towards me. Granted you can’t personalize workouts for 120 girls who run 6 days a week. But I think that’s what I needed to discover that I love running.

Instagram is a huge reason I discovered my love for running. Yes I realize how ridiculous that sounds but hear me out. Somehow I found Melissa one day. As I’m sure most of you do, I started scrolling through her feed. She became so inspiring to me. She has run 7 marathons and has run 4 Boston qualifying times on the day I’m writing this. Guess what – she wasn’t always a runner. She isn’t naturally fast either. Melissa worked hard and fought to get where she is today with her fitness levels.

A few times, I saw her post about her coaching business or her athlete’s successes. I was intrigued and considered it but never did it. Then one day I looked in the mirror and just knew something had to change. I wasn’t thrilled with the girl looking back at me. It had nothing to do with my life either. At this point Alex and I were so happy and had signed the lease to our first apartment,  I was about to graduate from college with a full time job and my family was so supportive of everything I did. But I needed something else. I needed an outlet. I emailed Melissa and we started talking about her coaching me.

When I started running, my “long run” was 2.5 miles. And it was intimidating to be honest. I know it’s just 2.5 miles but I didn’t run at all at that point. I started chugging along and running to get miles in and build up my endurance. The more I ran, the more I enjoyed it. Granted maybe I didn’t love it during my run in 90+ degree heat but after I felt so good.

Once I started to enjoy running, I decided to race. So I did a 5k for charity mostly because it was in Alex’s hometown and he knew the family that runs the foundation. Then I decided to really challenge myself by running a 10 mile race. 10 miles seemed like a good place to start for a long race and it went well! Training was great and I beat my goal by almost 4 minutes which felt amazing.

The next step seemed to naturally be a half marathon. So I signed up for the Rutgers Unite Half Marathon at my alma mater for April. I trained hard. I was killing my training paces and Melissa started to make them faster. I stepped up and delivered on the faster paces. The entire process was amazing. I loved the feeling of it all.

At the end of 2017, I told Alex I think I want to run a marathon. Once he got over the shock of me voluntarily wanting to run 26.2 miles, he said he’d support me. A marathon is a commitment in terms of training so I knew that his life would be affected a little bit due to early bed times and me not participating in late night outings. Plus I’d probably bug him for foot rubs and calf massages more than I already did.

I looked into some races for fall near me. I wanted something close and not have to deal with traveling for a race. The Philadelphia Marathon seemed like the perfect race. It was close to home and a big race. I looked into reviews and it sounded like there are a lot of spectators which seemed like a reason enough. So I decided I would sign up.

Then registration opened at the end of February. I went on the website to look into it and got scared. Was I really going to do this? Was I really going to spend months training myself and working towards a new and big goal of mine? So I chickened out and didn’t sign up. I figured that it was just nerves about signing up. Once I paid it was official right? I had to run the whole darn thing. I said I would think about it more and then decide what to do.

On March 1st, I had a phone call with Melissa just to check in on half marathon training. She knew I was considering running Philly and so we talked. Once I heard her say that she knew I was ready for it and could do it, it gave me a confidence boost. Keep in mind I have never met her. We only interact via phone calls and texts and she sees my workouts on Final Surge. For someone who I know “virtually” to say that made me think I could do it. But I was still scared to sign up.

Later that day, I had a tempo run. On it I just kept thinking of the marathon. Yes 26.2 miles is a lot but I don’t just run it tomorrow. I have training to go through to get myself ready for it.  While running, I decided I was going to run Philly and that was that so just sign up. After dinner that night, I grabbed my computer, credit card, and glass of wine and signed up. It was official. I’m going to be a marathoner.

Don’t be fooled, I’m scared to run 26.2 miles. I’m nervous for how my body will react to running for so long. I’m scared to somehow fail. But at the same time, I am ready. I’m ready to work hard towards a new running goal. I’m ready to train and see what my body is capable of. I’m ready to crush new distances and achieve small goals along the way. I’m excited.

There is a lot that I don’t know yet about marathon training. But I know I have a great support system around me, my training will go well and when I cross the starting line in November I’ll be prepared. Maybe the race won’t go the way I want or I won’t achieve the time goal I have set for myself. I’ll finish though and be able to call myself a marathoner.

Question of the day: If you have run a marathon, do you have any tips?