Happy Monday!!

Saturday I was hoping to do an 8 mile dress rehearsal run.    Last longish run before my race and I was planning to wear everything that I want to wear for the race.    The perfect dress rehearsal would have been to run it in the morning but I had an early tire appointment and was still so tired from the week, that I slept as long as possible.   It wasn’t enough.   I was still dragging when I made it to the tire place.  After 10 minutes of running around, they informed me that the tires I had ordered never arrived and no one bothered to call me.

I have been told by family, friends, coworkers and former employees that I have a “resting bitch face” and sometimes I can make them feel like a bug that I am about to squash.  Yeah, those were their exact words.  😦   I have worked hard on improving my expressions over the years, especially since I work management in customer service.   I feel I’ve done a decent job, but Saturday I was tired and cranky and this was not the first time this tire place had messed up.   I think the bug squashing face came back because I left there with 4 new tires for the price I had been quoted (2nd quote because they lost the 1st one) for the 2 tires I had ordered.

I fit in a few errands and lunch with my mom before I had to head out for a work function.    With drive time and the function itself, it filled up my afternoon.  It was good getting to see everyone and put faces to names and voices on the phone.    However put a few hundred people in the foyer of performing arts center and the acoustics make the din just shy of unbearable.   The headache I had for a week came back with a vengeance.   The auditorium itself was much quieter.  🙂   It was a good afternoon.    Plus on the way down I was able to swing by the Running Warehouse and pick up a few supplies-

I made it back home by 5, changed and ran out the door to get in my 8 miles.  I knew I was tired so I was aiming for a steady pace.  My legs felt horrible; it was hotter than I would have liked and I was just so tired.  I lost track of how many walk breaks I took.  I have no pictures of the run because I was afraid if I stopped, I wouldn’t get started again.   A former coworker drove past me and I thought about flagging her down for a ride home.  I should have just done 6 and called it a day but I am not the smartest and pushed to the full 8.   8 miles with an average pace of 10:22.  Which for a long slow run is ok but I was just beat.  I tested the new handheld on my run too.   So not a fan, I wanted to throw it.   I am going to try again just to make sure that’s it wasn’t just user error.  🙂

I rewarded myself for completing my run by watching the new Veronica Mars movie.  Cue the inner nerd girl squeal!  Sunday I slept in, yay!!!! I thought about taking the puppy for a walk but I ended up helping my mother move rocks.  She is redoing their landscaping.  Let’s call that cross-training.  Lots of squats and bending and lifting.  Plus chasing errant rocks down the driveway before they went into traffic.    The backs of my legs ache in interesting ways today, haha.

Today marks the beginning of taper week.  After work I headed to the lake to get in a few miles.  I was torn between 4 and 6.  I figured I would just start running and see how I felt.   My legs were stiff from yesterday plus breaking in the new boots I picked up over the weekend didn’t help.   I also made this my “uncomfortable” pre-race run.   Brand new shirt and shorter than normal shorts.  I like to try to prepare myself for wardrobe malfunctions on race day.    🙂   My shorts were actually from Abercrombie’s new “active” line (haha) and I just figured they would be cute summer shorts but not actually good to run in.  I have to say I was pleasantly surprised.   They were light weight and airy and they never moved, never rode up.  Wow, I have never had a pair of shorts do that, I may have to try running in them again.

I started off a little stiff and told myself during mile 2 that I was just doing 4 miles.   Around mile 3.5 I finally started to loosen up, so I kept going.  Mile 4 was a little looser, mile 5 felt pretty good and 6 felt better.    I finished out a full 10K and walked back to the bars that I like to stretch on.   I knew I was looser and quicker towards the end but I didn’t know how much until I looked at my Garmin splits.  Negative split? Sweet!   Or should I call that a good progression run?

What makes me laugh about this Garmin data is that I ran the opposite direction on the path tonight.   I usually go clockwise but tonight I decided to go counter-clockwise.  It felt soooo much harder.  I tried telling myself that maybe the elevation was slightly different the other way.  Who am I kidding?  The average elevation gain was 6 feet.  6 FEET!!!!!  Seriously, I must be a big baby.

This should have been up earlier, but the nerd girl in me again was yelling at the tv while watching Teen Wolf.

How was everyone’s Monday?

Who else has “crazy” elevation?

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