Category: Run!

Festive Follow Through

Merry Christmas Eve Eve!!

In all honesty, the last two weeks of running have been more miss than hit. I started December strong but went a little off track once my vacation was over. I drive past the lake path every night and wish I was running there instead of the gym. Driving home last night I noticed that the sunset lingered a little more than usual. I then did a happy little cheer in my car once I realized the solstice was the day before. Here’s for gaining more daylight every day!

Between Christmas activities, shopping trips and my stomach, longs runs have been non-existent the past 2 weeks. It’s not like I have a 25K in 5 weeks right? Oops. Actually, that was the first time I counted and now I am scared! Now I am really glad I followed through tonight. 🙂

I have over 400 Christmas songs but I love these. So odd, I know.

By the time I was off work, I had lost all desire to run- at least on a treadmill. But it was my only option, so I told myself to tough out 3 miles and head to the gym. I have been tired lately, and reading 80/20, so I set it to a 10:46 pace after a short warm up. I had Christmas music playing in my ears and there was hardly anyone in the gym, so that was nice. I found myself distracted by one of the tv’s; it was playing a show called North Woods Law. I admit that the extent of my reality tv is the Biggest Loser so I had no idea what it was. After a few minutes I gathered that it was like cops but with game wardens. 5 miles later I was still watching.. and running. Sweet! A new episode had just started but I didn’t think another 5-6 miles would be the best idea. Driving home, it occurred to me that after my warm up of .5 mile, I ran the rest without any walking breaks. So my stomach let me run 4.5 miles straight, woo hoo, bonus Christmas gift!! I kept the pace easy but other than the usual treadmill aches, I felt good! Oh and my shoes came untied 3 times. Seriously? I really need to put new laces in my Sayonaras.

I hope everyone is all caught up and prepared for the upcoming festivities. Hopefully not too many last-minute details. As for me I am looking forward to a shorter day at work before dinner with my family. And a little bit of re-wrapping. Putting gifts under the tree early apparently was too much temptation for the puppy-Do you run to holiday music?

Ever have a pet open/ damage a Christmas present? When my brother and I were kids, one of the cats clawed open the wrapping on a Sega Genesis- we knew what we were getting that Christmas!

Are you ready?

2014 Review- The Shiny and The Dull

I have been dragging my heels on this post because the pessimist in me really wants to call 2014 the year of stall. Then I wrote a great version of this in my head one night trying to fall asleep. Unfortunately I remembered nothing in the morning.

The Shiny-

So once I momentarily got over my cynical nature I was able to reminisce on all the good things I accomplished this year. But how did I do on those goals I set for this year?

Run 14 races in 2014- CHECK!
Run 750 miles- CHECK!

I completed race number 14 in November and also cleared 750 miles at some point in November. 🙂 One of my races was a virtual race and I am on the fence about how much those count. I received a shirt for it though, so I am counting it! I had the chance to be an ambassador for the SLO Marathon and it was awesome. I loved that race, I didn’t do as well as I would have liked but it was a great experience.

This year I ran 7 5k’s, 3 10k’s and 4 half marathons. I ran road races, a trail race or 2 and 2 races on the beach. I age grouped placed in 3 of those 14 races. And a benefit of running small, local races- I was first female finisher at my 5k in July. I set a PR, finished strong even with my stomach and did it all while hearing Miley Cyrus sing Wrecking Ball for 27 minutes. Stupid iPhone.

5K PR- 27:48 –Wild Run 5k
10K PR- 55:40– Heart & Soles

Best Bling- It’s a toss-up, I love the SLO medal because I had been wanting to run the race for the previous 2 years. Plus running it as an ambassador was pretty sweet! As for the abalone medal- that thing is huge! The race was rough, ocean = humidity, but it was on my birthday and I got to run it with a friend. Strongest race-

Wine Country 13.1– Before I got sick, only slight asthma issues, finished at 2:07:08 for a 7 minute course record for me.

The Dull-

Goals-
Break 27 in 5K- FAIL
Break 2 hours- 13.1- FAIL

No lies, 95% of my races this year were rough in some form or another. After years of nothing my asthma reared its ugly head and it took more than a few races for me to figure out that cold and humidity were big triggers for me. My 10K PR was set under duress of an odd but severe bout of pain in my right Achilles. I went into 2 half marathons on heavy-duty antibiotics. My stomach, which had been fairly level for the last year or so, went psycho in June and has yet to level out. While I was able to maintain my mileage somewhat, I came to the conclusion that a faster pace was not in the cards. It ~~made me cranky,~~ it pissed me off and I wondered what the point was most of the time.

I went into Ventura, cranky, ill and medicated, knowing I should have deferred. When it turned from running to walking 6 miles in, I had 7 miles to think and get my head on straight. The rest of the year was spent backing off a bit and slowing down. Getting back to basics and loving running again. I’m not loving the time change but I am loving running. 🙂

Roughest Race (s)-

HOB Fun Run– the 10K & 5K where people thought I was going to pass out. Yeah, possibly not my best moments.

So why Shiny vs Dull? Shiny is fairly obvious, and a Firefly shout out, but dull? Dull things can be cleaned, buffed, fixed- given a little TLC, a something dull can be made shiny. And that is part of my focus for 2015 but more on that later.

Thanks for joining me in my drama- issues- silliness- laziness- of 2014, I hope you stick around and see what happens in 2015. 🙂

What was your shiny/ dull for 2014?

About that…

On the heels of last weeks good but short speed work, I thought I would be running on Wednesday and Thursday since I couldn’t run Saturday. We were supposed to have our our work holiday party on Saturday evening and with working in the morning, I would have had little time to run. I would also be unable to attend Vine St with my family like we traditionally do. When the work party was canceled for a few reasons I was actually ok with that. I figured I could get in a6ish mile run after work and go to Vine st. Which was a doubly good plan because my stomach hated me on Wednesday so I changed it back to a rest day.

Thursday, unfortunately, dawned with more of the same. I refused to change my plan again, so I headed to the gym after work. I slogged through 3.5 slow, miserable miles before calling it quits. Which bites because NikeC was there working with the trainer and I have been wanting to tag along with them but there was just no way. But it was better than none!Thursday night- Friday was the “epic storm” in these parts- ha!! But I shouldn’t snark- between all the rain then and yesterday, streets have been flooded, power has been out and a giant boulder rolled on to the freeway last night hitting a semi- everyone is said to be ok. Saturday and Sunday were ruled by my stomach- not only was there no running involved, I almost bailed on Vine St. I tried to get my family to go ahead and then meet them. But I made it through- all the pretty lights- and did manage to complete some Christmas shopping on Sunday. This week is the stomach testweek- can we call it that?- so running will be hit and miss. After last weeks short 6 miles, that makes 2 short weeks. 😦 With Tuesday being prep day and Wednesday being the test, I had to breakmy own rule and hit the gym on a Monday if I wanted to get a run in. It actually wasn’t that busy. But then most people probably didn’t want to drive in the down pour. We Californians are babies in the rain, then again, I did hydroplane at one point so maybe they had the right idea. Another 3.5 miles in the books. 🙂

I can’t eat today and for some reason all I have wanted is pretzels. And pictures of pizza keep popping up on my Facebook and Twitter feed. Waah.

How has your week started?

What food are you craving right now?

How’s your weather?

Getting Back Into Things

Where did Thursday come from? I feel like I have been playing catch up all week! But, really I kind of have. I was excited to go back to work on Monday but a little anxious about all things I knew I needed to catch up on since vacation. It had suddenly occurred to me that I had taken off month end and month start– umm, oops. I only had a couple hundred emails. My boss, said “that’s it?’- ha! I was glad that Monday’s are usually rest days.

Tuesday turned in more of a workout than planned. The Christmas had been delivered last Friday and it was one of those high school fundraiser trees. The ones that you buy sight unseen a month before and hope isn’t horrible. They delivered it but it didn’t come with a stand. From what I hear, my coworkers went and bought a stand but couldn’t get the tree to fit without a saw. So it was still all bundled up and propped in the water leaning against the wall on Monday. My inner Christmas nazi ( my mother and former coworker’s nickname for me) was kind of freaking out. There were no decorations up and it December 8 and the tree just looked sad. But I couldn’t do anything about it on Monday. On Tuesday I was determined to get the tree up. Last years stand was one ofthose ones with the spike in the middle but we didn’t have anything to drill the tree.

Kimi with one of the two trees in my bedroom.

Necessity is the mother of invention, right? We had screwdrivers at work and I had a mallet in my car. We laid the tree across a chair so it was easier to use our poor attempt at a drill. It took us a couple of hours but we finally made a hole that would fit the stand. Then we had to use the mallet to try to make the stand fit better. Customers thought it was hilarious. We finally got the tree upright and unwrapped. It’s freakin’ huge! And a little crooked, well crap. A few phone books and paperclip containers later, it was as straight as it was gonna get.

'Taking down the Christmas decorations is just as much fun as putting them up'.....said no one ever!! I decorated it in between working yesterday and taking a bunch of tests I forgot were due by Friday. Take a test, hang the lights. Help a customer, hang the ribbon etc. As of today, the snowflakes are up, 6 of the windows are lit with lights, and the wall art is up. It looks so festive!! I don’t have the energy to hang the bells and garlands from the high beams this year though. Maybe that will be an every other year thing? And Slackerfail- I forgot to take any pictures!

Mile 2 was not that fast- the Garmin got a little cuckoo.

After Tuesday’s impromptu “hammering” cardio, I headed to the gym after work. I was hoping for 5-6 miles but was late getting out of work. Then I was stuck behind a car going 20 up the hill on the way home. So by the time I got to the gym I only had 30 minutes. I decided to try a tiny progression and see what my stomach did. So I tried the following-

*Distance*	Pace
.5 mile	Warm up
.5 mile	10:30
.5 mile	10:00
.5 mile	9:30
.5 mile	8:30
.5 mile	cool down

My stomach behaved which was awesome because it’s been a rough week in that department. I had my normal treadmill trauma though. Both shoes came untied at different points, almost snapped my head phone cords when trying to fix my shoes. I also managed to fling another water bottle lid as well. Seriously, what gives?!

Who’s excited about Friday? I work on Saturday.

Anyone getting in a last race this weekend?

Ever had a decorating fiasco?

Tired Legs- Step 1

I finally pulled it off! My head cold may have set me back a bit but I woke up Monday with a plan. I decided I may as well make the most of this last week of vacation running wise. So I headed out for a long run in the afternoon.

I was still feeling a little yucky so I was planning on taking it slow and walking whenever I needed too. I wanted to run between 5-8 and then get the puppy and run/ jog with her for another 2-4. Ok, maybe I was overly ambitious but I was going to run loops around my neighborhood so if I needed to bail I could.

Great start to Tuesday's run before the storm came back- — Great start to Tuesday’s run before the storm came back-

It wasn’t exactly cold but it wasn’t warm either. We have been enjoying some lingering rain systems here which is great because we desperately need it but hard because it’s so not the norm. I figured I would be ok in shorts and I decided to test out the new long-sleeved top that I has picked up. I knew I had to make myself keep it on though. 🙂 I figured I would get hot soon and I did around mile 3. I kept an easy pace and took some walk breaks. I felt tired but pretty good. I have been running the same 5 mile route lately so I know where all the splits should be. I noticed that my Garmin was lagging a bit, guess it didn’t appreciate the cloud cover. The mileage geek in me had to re-map my route after my run since it seemed off. Oh, and while I may have felt warmer on top, my legs stayed a little cold. I had a minor chafing issue? What gives, it wasn’t 100º and that is usually the only time I have issues with my legs- ugh!

Puppies don't do selfies or pose very well — Puppies don’t do selfies or pose very well

It took me a little longer (1:15:58) to complete 7 miles than I thought so I had to hustle to get the puppy. My mom had her ready so I grabbed her and off we went. Due to the rain and setting sun we only managed a little over 3 miles. We were slower than the day before but that was all me and not the dog. 🙂 When we turned around to head back she looked sad that we weren’t going farther. 😦 But long run officially done!!

Tuesday was another rainy one- woo hoo! In keeping with my plan to get used to running on tired legs, I headed out for a run. I have never run the day after a longer run so I wasn’t too sure how it was going to go. My pace was actually better than I thought it would be but wow, my ankles were kind of tired. That was the only part of me that was really achy. There were clouds rolling in and ridiculous wind- I damn near lost my hat3x- so I called it at 5 instead of 6. I am kind of digging this 5 mile route. Too bad I am about to only get it on the weekends.

So 3 days in a row meant Wednesday was a rest day for me. I don’t want to push it too much. Plus that worked out well because my mother had her end of season tennis banquet and I help her a little with that. Oh and if we are counting- I have now watched 4 cheesy Christmas movies- love it!

How’s your weather? Do you like running in the wind?

Am I the only one watching an excess amount of holiday movies right now?

Happy Wednesday!