Author: Fallon @ Slacker Runner

Week 5- Training Begins??

Training for:

  • Livermore 13.1 -March 26
  • Destination Races Santa Barbara 13.1- May 13

Or does it?     I was looking forward to putting my money where my mouth is as it were and hitting the marks during week 1 of training.   Or at least trying to.   I knew the miles were going to be hard and I knew I had a busy week but I was looking forward to the challenge.


Monday- 3.1 miles   Baby tempo!   You can read all about that enlightening run here.   I’m still debating where to run my tempo miles.    I’ll figure something out.

Tuesday- Planned rest day  My legs were a little tight after the attempt at speed the previous day.   I wore compression socks under my slacks most of the day and made sure to foam roll.

And here’s when things went south-

Wednesday- Intervals– rest  I woke up with a headache and stomach pain.  I held fast that I was going to run after work.    Except that I didn’t make it through the day at work.  It got to the point that I couldn’t even stand up straight my stomach hurt so bad.    Joy.

Thursday/ Friday- Rest   What I didn’t mention was that starting  Tuesday night I woke up every night sweating ridiculously.  TMI?  Sorry.    Maybe I was fighting something?  My brother had been sick, my boss missed a day being sick.  Whatever it was, my migraine wouldn’t quit and I felt weird.  I also had a doctor’s appointment where he ordered a series of fun tests.  Yay.

Saturday- Planned rest.   We were going out of town for my grandmother’s memorial.  I knew I wasn’t running that day.    It was a sad, nostalgic, interesting morning and a long day.


Sunday- 8 miles.   I didn’t want to run.  I still wasn’t feeling great but I also wondered how much of that was real and how much was just lingering inertia of the week.   I slept in in the morning and headed out a little before 3.  Yes, I was running during the Super Bowl.   😛     I was bartering with myself in miles 1 and 2, the week was already a wash so I could call it at 4 right?  I even slowed down in mile 3 which has a downhill and is usually a little faster.  Grrr.   But I kept running and something changed around mile 3.5.      I just kept going, mile 4, across the bridge- where I pulled a sub 10 mile.  This is only interesting because I average around 11:30ish until I hit the bridge and bring the pace down over the next .3 mile.   I swear I wasn’t sprinting.   Mile 5- still going and feeling pretty good.  Mile 6 and I ran an entire hill that I have never run all of before.    I celebrated on IG and my mother laughed at me.  Ok, so the hill less than 1/2 mile and only gained 92 feet but let me have my tiny victory!!!   Onto mile 7 and mile 8 and I still felt good!  Woo hoo!!   I have no idea what happened but I’ll take it!

11.1 miles for the week.  1 half completed workout, 1 fully completed workout.  1 missed run and 2 missed cross trainings.    I’m still on the long run high though so yay!  But I am thankful that this is a longer training plan now.  If it was the standard 12 weeks, I may be a little nervous but the longer plan is keeping me a little calmer.  It may be a false sense of security but only time will tell.

How was your week?

Did you watch the Super Bowl?  Puppy Bowl?

Tempo Troubles

Year of Challenge, right?

Training for Destination Races Santa Barbara started Monday.   After much deliberation and a little reworking, I am using a combo plan.  Primarily Run Less Run Faster with a little Jeff Galloway thrown in.  Kind of an oxymoron but I was hoping it would work for me.    The plan means 3 key running workouts a week, 1 tempo- 1 interval workout- 1 long run.

Sounds great, right?  Except it’s day 3 and I am already having troubles.

Monday opened with a tempo.  Probably not the best idea (also against the plan) considering I had run the previous 2 days but unfortunately that was how my schedule worked out this week.   That wasn’t the only trouble.   I suddenly realized I had no where to run said tempo.    I have no access to a track.   The treadmill tries to break me, even the idea of attempting a 5-6 mile made my calves seize up in imagined pain.  I haven’t been on a treadmill since the nightmare fiasco back in October.    Normally I run my tempo runs at the lake path…except thanks to the mudslides not only is my commute 15 miles longer each way due to the road closure but I can’t get to the lake.   A fact that did not occur to me until Sunday night.  Oops.

So now what?

Monday’s run called for a 1-2 mile warmup followed by 3 miles at short tempo pace with a 1 mile cooldown.  What was my tempo pace?  Well according to my last 5K- it should be 9:02.  Trouble.   Let’s all start laughing now.   People, I’m not in 9:02 shape not even close.  I would need a downhill with an 8% grade, a strong tailwind and maybe even skates to pull that off.   I went back to the pace chart.   Could I even maintain a sub 10?  Honestly, I wasn’t sure.  Ouch.

Next trouble.  I was running this in work town.  After work.   In the dark.  On the streets.  With cars.   Yeah, this was going to be very abbreviated and interesting.    What really happened?

.75 mile warm up
1 mile tempo
.2 mile gasp for air
.7 mile tempo
.5 mile cooldown

Holy crap, I was sucking wind.  My legs were so confused.  They were like, wait, fast running?  I thought we didn’t do that anymore, who agreed to this?    As for the paces?  Haha.    Tempo mile 1- 9:55.  Ouch.   I had hoped it would be a little better than that.  Except let’s be real, there was a 30 second walk break in there.  Ok, there was also a break.   Because when you come around a corner and see this sunset, you stop and stare a bit.


And try to stop panting.

That last tempo portion wasn’t a full mile partly because I decided it was too dark to run safely and if I stopped it there, I had a half mile cool down jog to my car.  That .7 mile of tempo came in at a 9:27 pace.   Somehow I improved going uphill, wonder if I could have held it.

So yeah, ouch.  I cut my 6 mile run in half.  Ran hard into the reality of how much work I need to do get faster.  I felt like toast just after those 3 miles.


However I still have the problem of where to run.   Until the highway opens back up, I can’t get to the lake path.     I could try the treadmill but I fear it would cause more harm than good.   I could keep running them at work until the lake path is available, they would just be way shorter than the plan says.  Something is better than nothing right?   The days are getting longer so I could the push the tempo portion to be a little longer each week.   I was looking forward to working on my training plan and now I just feel foiled.  Grrr.

What would do?

Where would you run?

 

Week 4 Recap-Finding Calm

Just like that, we’re 4 weeks into the year.  Dude, how.

The weather here is crazy.  On one hand we finally had a break from the crazy rain, yay!   Which made room for the hard freeze.    I hit ice twice on Wednesday morning… I screamed like a little girl the first time while the rear end of my car fish tailed all over the road.    We actually get freezing temps frequently out here but that was the fist time I’ve ever hit ice while driving.   Yikes!

In better news, I found out last week that I get to keep my job.  🙂Which is great news and while it will help with some of my stress; right now I admit that I have mixed feelings about the whole thing.  There are still so many unknowns about the merger as a whole.  I know that this was a huge part of what is stressing me out so I hope I can start to dig myself out of the stress hole I keep crawling into.  But it’s like quicksand, the more I dig, the more I sink.  I did sleep a little better last week, so there’s that.

Monday- News day.   I didn’t know I was getting the news about work and wasn’t feeling mentally prepared.  I went home and ate pizza.    🍕🍕

Tuesday- Rest.   I can’t remember what I did.  Oops.  I know I did my planks and push ups all week.  Still can’t hold a plank up to a minute without falling on my face but I’ll get there. Maybe.


Wednesday- 3.1 miles.  I love my Knuckle Lights.  Seriously, they let me run in work town in the dark and I really needed that run.  I called it a therapy run.   I wanted to run down to the Eucalyptus grove but the path was blocked off.  Boo.  I made due with a 5k but that’s ok.  It was enough.   I watched a few moments of the sunset and just enjoyed the views.

Thursday- Rest   I had to sit through a class on driving for the school district.   I’m chaperoning a trip for my mother’s tennis team and I had to be re-certified.  Mostly I spent the class thinking how I wanted to redo their entire PowerPoint.

Friday- Nothing 😛


Saturday- 8 ish miles   I decided to try last Saturday’s run again, same route, same plan to end at the high school and catch a ride from my mother.  I need to stop planning.  I was 15 minutes late getting out the door because my Garmin wouldn’t turn on.  What?!  It had been fully charged on Wednesday.   So I plugged it in and ran with Strava instead.  I turned on the voice cues and auto pause so I didn’t have to fish my phone out of my belt at all the stop lights.   It reminded me why I dislike autopause.  It turns on too soon and takes too long to turn off.   I also realized how much I like my 3/1’s on this run.  Without my Garmin I was trying to estimate the 3/1’s by songs and it just wasn’t working.   I like that the watch does all the thinking for me.  Such a whiny problem I know but I missed my watch.    This run just felt more tiring than I would have liked.    I think it was mostly mental but I was just dragging for most of it.  Almost getting hit by a car at the halfway point sure didn’t help matters.  The guy never even saw me.  He was too busy staring at his lap.  I’m guessing he had just left the Wendy’s drive thru.  Whatever, I was pissed.   Grrrr.


Sunday- 3.6 miles  I planned a nice, easy 4 mile recovery run.    Yeah, plans.    I set out with my mom planning to walk a bit and then run ahead and double back like we used to do.  Half a mile in, my stomach let me know it was having none of that.  I cramped… bad.   Grrrr.  The me of 2015/16 would have turned around and called it.  Instead I slowed way down and it turned more into a wog, heavy on the walking but I got something done.

Weekly total- 14.8    That puts me exactly where I wanted to be for January and there’s still 2 days so that’s not so bad.   Training for Santa Barbara and Livermore starts this coming week so I know my mileage will start to increase.    I’ve also realized that I need to rework my training plan thanks to the landslides but more on that later.

It was an interesting week and this likely to be another interesting one too.   Will I actually get in 5 workouts????? We shall see.

How was your week?

Is your weather crazy?

Share something fun!

 

Run to the Music 6

I’ve made no secret that I’ve been a little stressed the past few months.  Between work and waiting for news about my job, all the rain, the longer commute and just life in general; I’ve been kind of a hot mess.   I’ve started taking my Fitbit off because I don’t need to see my heart rate numbers climb like that.

Enough is enough.    I’m doing what I can to take back my calm.  Music is huge in my life.  A lot of memories are tied to songs and a lot of songs remind of books and times past.  I sing way louder than I should in my car.  And sometimes at work.   So in an effort to help myself calm down I made myself a new playlist.  I called it “Calm the Frak Down”.  You know, in case I needed a reminder.  😛

It’s an odd mix of Bebe Rexha, Rise Against, Papa Roach and Florida Georgia Line.  Eclectic but it’s working for me.  I tend to only listen to country in the summer when it’s 110 outside and the Fair is in town so I’m usually always a year behind when it comes to Florida Georgia Line.  When I was working on my playlist I saw they had a new album… oh nope-2016, oops, I’m behind a year again, damn.  I clicked buy without even previewing it.  Why not?  It’s not summer yet but let’s shake things up.

I heard this song on my way to work thinking that the words fit my mood.  So I played it again.   Then I actually saw the name of the song and started laughing.   Well isn’t that fitting.

The other song I have on repeat is Bebe Rexha’s “Sweet Beginnings”.  Little different vibe though.  😛

How do you calm down?

What are you listening to?

 

Week 3 Recap- All Wet

For a person who chose the word Challenge as a guiding principle for the year, January is doing a great job of laughing at me.  I’m chalking it up to job stress and hoping that learning way or the other in the next week or so will help some of the stress go away.   Maybe, hopefully…oh who knows.

In other news, it is still dumping buckets here in CA.  Which would be awesome if I could stay at home under a blanket with my cats all day.  But I can’t so yeah.  I miss my night runs, who knew I would ever say that??  My boss and I were supposed to attend a Chamber function after work on Friday night but the storms and wind were so bad that we both agreed it was smarted to just go home.  Somehow there was a break in the weather that lasted right until I got off the freeway in home town- best idea ever!

I had troubles keeping my blood sugar regulated this week as well.  If you’ve been following this blog since the beginning (if you have, thank you!) you know I had this problem a few years ago.  It’s been a long time since I bottomed out like that so that was fun.  It happened Thursday and Friday…what gives?!     Last week ended up being more Slacker-ish then I would have liked.

Monday- Rest–  Haha, I wasn’t this sore after my marathon.  This is what happens when you run 13.1 miles under trained.  😛


Tuesday- 4.5 miles  I had a vacation day from work so I was able to enjoy a longer run in the middle of the afternoon.   I really do love those.  My shins were a little sore but I ran it off within a mile or two.   I enjoyed being back on the river path for the first time in months.  Come on spring and time change, where are you??


Wednesday, Thursday, Friday- Rest.    Yeah, that wasn’t planned but that’s what happened.  I actually did some pushups and a plank all of those days but I am not sure those count.   I packed my bag and while it actually left my car but I never changed into my running gear.   Grrr.


Saturday- 7.65 miles  Reality moment run.  We had a break from the rain but it was still cold so I thought an afternoon long run sounded good.   I planned 8 miles where I left my house, ran across town, ending at the high school and hitching a ride with my mother at the end of tennis practice.   I don’t know where I went wrong.  I swear I left my house with plenty of time.    I felt like I was running a steady pace, the bridge mile faster like always.   I was stopped at traffic lights but it didn’t seem like an inordinate amount of time.    I did get distracted on the river trail.  Water!!!!   In all the time I’ve been running that path, there has never been water in the river let alone moving water; I had to stop and admire it for a moment.  Or 2.   Climbing the last big hill I got a text message from my mom asking where I was.  Then I saw the time.  What the hell?!!  Not only was I not going to get in a leisurely 8 miles, I was still well over a 1.5 miles from the school and would have to haul ass just to get there and still be late.  So I tried.  I did…but there was no haul in my legs.  I literally felt like I was running with a stick up my butt.   TMI?  I don’t know if it was because I was cold and my legs felt frozen, maybe I was tired, whatever, I could not move faster.  With 1/2 miles to go I get another text.  “Where are you”.  Again my response is trying.  Her answer is “meet us in front”.  Oh great, so now I get to share my red face, huffing, out of breath, out of shape self who didn’t hit 8 miles with her AND whichever tennis players needed a ride home.  Oh boy.   😞  They caught me at the streetlight.   Yeah, reality check moment.

Sunday- Rest  I woke to the power being out.  Yay.   I was hesitant to run because I wasn’t sure my water heater was 100% gas and the idea of cold run followed by a cold shower followed by a cold house… yeah, umm no.  So I ran some errands then took a nap.  I kept pushing my run back hoping the power would come back on.   Then PG&E called and said that it wouldn’t be back on until Monday.  What?!?  So then it was hitting the store to find flashlights and ice for the freezer while wishing that I hadn’t gone food shopping on Saturday.  Not that I buy much but still.   All this to get close to my house to find the traffic lights back on…ummmm?  So, power was back!   I guess it could have been worse- my neighbors rented a hotel room and had just left to check in when the power came back.

Miles 12.1  Ouch, that’s sad.  That’s like one good long run.   That said, I am on track with the mileage target I set for January so I feel decent with starting training for Livermore and Santa Barbara Wine Country on the 30th.    Also hopefully by then the rain will calm down and I may have an answer on the job front, fingers crossed.    If low numbers get me through January while I face all its other Challenges, so be it.

How was your week?

Anyone else totally unprepared for power outages?