Category: Slacker

Week 3- Slowing Down

Week 3 done! I hit all the required durations ( and then some) but my pace took a hit. It was the first week with the new hires and I seriously underestimated what training 2 brand new people at the same time would be like. I felt like I was running laps all day. I had to change my heels for flats halfway through Monday and I wore flats the rest of the week. This made navigating the maze of chairs easier but seriously pissed off my feet and legs. Grrr, I missed my boots.

Monday- Rest

I love rest on Mondays. I had tried to change to being a Monday runner but it’s hard. Plus we didn’t get out of work until 6 and I felt like I had run 5 miles already.

Tuesday- Plan 40:00 Easy

Our area was hit with some odd monsoon weather so we had high temps and high humidity. Ugh. It was so rough my mother canceled her tennis practice. She never cancels so I knew it was ugly. I was debating going to the gym but decided for work town instead. Work town is consistently around 65* but I don’t like running there for a few reasons. 1- the humidity is always high (like 70+) and my lungs hate me. 2- I feel like I have to wear pants. I know it’s all in my head but the idea of running in shorts and having a customer spot me freaks me out. I am so weird. 3- I have one route. There are very few sidewalks and the roads have non existent shoulders.

This route is an out and back that starts with an elevation of 150′ and drops to 0 then back up again. My GPS had troubles getting a signal so mile 1 was way off. I ran with traffic for most of the out portion- that side of the street has a sidewalk. Once I hit the state park I thought I was going to have to cut my run short. There was construction in front of the Inn and I couldn’t see a way to the path that gets me to the beach. The street has no shoulders. I spotted what looked like tire tracks and bolted across to the path. Then damn near ate it on the slippery Eucalyptus leaves. Walk break!

I ran to the end of the trail this time instead of just the beach and found the best natural stairs. Seriously I did a little happy dance at the top. I love running in the dirt. Too bad the trail portion is maybe a little more than .5 mile. I took another walk break after I almost did the splits on the Eucalyptus leaves on the way back and then ran on. Mile 4 had 100 ft gain and I ran most of it with my lungs on fire but pulled off a 10:06. Which I think is the fastest I’ve run that even when I was in top shape. Sweet! 4.05 ish Miles- 42:37

Wednesday- Rest

TOM came to visit, I rested. TMI? 🙂 Plus I had a doctor’s appointment with my gastro and Atkins is here to stay. He is also ordering a new CT to see why I have had the odd, intense pains. Boo.

Thursday- Plan – Speed work

This time was a doctor’s appointment with my primary so I can have my thyroid levels checked since I take a nap damn near everyday. Sometimes on the floor. 🙂 I changed before leaving work so I could head straight to the gym after my appointment even though my stomach hated me that day. Then I saw something on Facebook that ~~pissed me off~~ hurt my feelings and the last thing I wanted to do was run. I just wanted to sulk in a corner and binge eat pizza. I went home first. Somehow I pushed myself out the door 45 minutes later. It was a slow, hot miserable run. Seriously it was a slower pace than my long run this week. And I was chased by a damn dog. If it hadn’t been on a chain, I would have been bleeding. As it was I ran into traffic which wasn’t smart. 4 Miles -47:52. Then I ate pizza. 🙂

Friday- Rest

More running around like a crazy person at work. It was so flippin’ busy. I am so jealous of everyone who had the day off.

Saturday- Rest

I wanted to run my long run in the morning but I wasn’t feeling well and had a headache. I enjoyed a calm 4th with my family and finally watched McFarland, USA. And I call myself a runner? It was really good and even more interesting when I thought I heard work town called out during their first meet. I did!!! They competed against work town! Man, that must have been a drive. Turns out the first time they went to the beach was actually 4 miles up from work town too. They changed the location in the movie. Still it was cool hearing that.

Sunday- Long Run- Plan 1:10:00

Again, I woke up feeling rough and could not get going. I kept telling myself to get out of bed but it wasn’t happening. I finally headed out for my long run around 3. I still didn’t feel great so even though I wanted 10, I was aiming for anything over 6. My mother was out on a walk so the first 4.5 miles of my route was looping around streets and meeting back up with her. Yay for walk breaks! Then she went on her way and I continued running. One of these days I will find a long run that doesn’t have over 800 ft of elevation gain. I also had my first snake sighting of the summer. I refrained from screaming like a little girl but I did run into the middle of the street again. Luckily it was a back road but I really need to work on that. Mile 7, I stopped and spoke with an older gentleman out working on his van. At that point I’d run past him 3x so I think he thought I was crazy. Somewhere along the line I got my math wrong so I hit my driveway at 10.5 miles- 1:58. Considering all the walk breaks in the beginning and a few hills towards the end and I was actually at the high-end of where McMillan says I should be? Sweet! I made it in time for Sunday dinner. Family doesn’t mind if you’re sweaty right?All in all, it was a slow but solid week. Not too bad. I also officially registered for Big Sur in November on Sunday. I booked the hotel a few months ago and followed through with the race. 🙂 Woo hoo! Now I just need to actually register for my goal race in October. Oops.

This week, my goal is actually complete my speed work and have fun at my half on Sunday. And then eat cake- Because it’s my birthday. 🙂

How was your 4th?

How do you react to snakes?

Do you live in a hilly area or flat?

June Recap/ Mid Year Check In

June come back!! It should not be July right now. It just can’t be. I was in the doctor’s office yesterday and it boggled my mind that my 6 month follow-up was January…2016. Umm, wait, what? Then someone made it worse by saying that Christmas is now only 5 months away. Slow down!!!

While June felt more consistent than May, the overall mileage doesn’t show much of an improvement. I guess I embraced my Slacker-ness in May and June.

Miles-

Races-

Talley Vineyard 10K- 56:54

So yeah, more miles than May but just barely. Also disappointing because I thought I had 65 miles. I am a little neurotic on the way that I track my miles with my Garmin, and Nike+ and SmashRun. Nike+ had me at 65 on June 30 and I had no reason to doubt it. Until I uploaded my miles to SmashRun last night and it had me at 59.4. What? I pull up Garmin Connect and it agreed with Smash. Everything syncs from my Garmin so I was confused and started double checking all my runs. One uploaded twice to Nike and I didn’t catch it. Grrrr.

Oh and June saw my 2 year Blog-versary!

Mid Year Check In

Already!? Ok, brief goal recap. For 2015, I wanted to –

Run 1000 miles– Hmmm, at the end of June, I was at 423 miles. Only about 80 miles short of where I needed to be. I don’t want to give up on this goal but I would have to average 97 miles a month for the rest of year to hit 1000. Honestly, I don’t know if I can do that. Would I love to- hell yes, but I need to be smart about what I can accomplish.

Break 2:00 in a half- I managed a 2:06:08 at Wine Country which was thisclose to my PR. I was optimistic for SLO but between my stomach issues and my fall, that was off the table. Which is fine because I am still damn proud of how I managed to finish that race. 🙂 Even though I am currently training to break 2 in October, I still just want to have fun with running.

Non-Running- Read 15 books- I was behind on this until yesterday. 🙂 I started a book in the waiting room of my doctor’s office and since I waited a while, I got through 100 pages. I had intended for this post to go up yesterday but when I sat down to type, I just wanted to read. So I finished that book. It was book 2 of 3 so I decided to just start the third. Then I finished that one. Yeah it was a late night. So 7 books finished so far. Man, I remember when that number would have been much bigger.

Blog Redesign– partially done. I am still working out a few kinks. And I still can’t figure out Dropbox, ugh.

So moving forward? Right now my goals are to keep running, reading and living! Oh and did I mention I am running (not racing) a half marathon in 10 days?! On my birthday. 🙂

Did you make goals for 2015/ June? How are you doing so far?

Read any good books lately? I need a new one now. 🙂

Week 2 Recap- Finding the Long Run

And it’s ~~Sunday~~ Monday. That was a fast weekend. As much as I would love another day or 4 off, I am really looking forward to this week. 2 of our 3 new hires start ~~tomorrow~~ today- woo hoo!!!! The week will be crazy busy but yay!

Monday-

Rest day. I thought about running. Packed my bag just in case but stuck to the plan. My food choices this past week or so have not been the best and my system has been letting me know.

Tuesday-

The plan called for speed work but half way to home town I knew I wasn’t up to it. I was so tired I decided to move my easy run to Tuesday and do the speed work when I was feeling more alert. This easy run kicked my ass. It was only in the high 80’s so I figured I would be fine plus my usual up and back has shade throughout so I though that would help. As I was heading out I saw a suspicious situation- think drug pick up like, or at least how I would guess one of those looked- so I knew I was going to take the longer way back which is a little more public. I though that extra 1/2 mile was going to kill me. I was huffing and puffing so bad I was actually worried about an asthma attack. Easy should not do that! I didn’t look at my splits until later since I was irritated. Ok, I guess it makes a little more sense now. Oops!Wednesday-

After the previous day’s accidental progression, I thought about skipping the speed work. The plan called for a 15 minute warm up then 4 x 2:00 @ HMP with 1:00 recovery in between then cool down. That didn’t sound too bad so I figured I would try one and go from there. Since I have such trouble doing math while running, I decided that my goal half marathon pace will be 9:00. It will give me a tiny cushion to hopefully break 2 hours and the splits will be a little easier to remember while running. 🙂

I'm not the only one who sees the bad math in this right? — I’m not the only one who sees the bad math in this right?

I did my warm up and then changed my watch to current pace so I could pace the intervals. They felt harder than I would have liked but doable so I kept going. My watch flashed low battery as I was finishing the 3rd interval so I stopped to save what data I had before continuing on. I finished my last interval and then did the cool down. I checked my splits as I was stretching and noticed that my intervals were all pretty consistent… and that either I wasn’t using the current pace feature or it was really wrong. I can only dream that my half marathon pace will be 8:30 one day. What the heck?

Thursday-

Planned rest. Another meeting about a race but this time other people showed up, woo hoo! And I got happy mail!!!!! Thanks Pavement Runner!

Friday-

I was off before 6 so I thought about running a few miles but I didn’t want anything to interfere with getting in a longer run on Saturday morning so I decided to stick to the plan. Instead I did all my usual Saturday errands and shopping so that there were really #noexcuses on Saturday.

Saturday-

I planned on running by 9 but slept horribly so I gave myself an extra 30 minutes. I was out the door a little after 9:30 in an effort to avoid the heat. It wasn’t early enough. The run started in the high 70’s and ended in the high 80’s. Doing 4 hill repeats in the middle didn’t help. I won’t lie, there was way more walking than there should have been. 😦 But 8 miles and my longest run since SLO done. My #runallday shirt was so comfy to run in, a little too big but that’s my fault. 🙂 Thanks to some freaky weather we’ve been having I still ran at the hottest part of the day. The temp dropped in the afternoon and it started to rain! Really?! Miles 1-7 averaged around 11:30 and mile 8 was 9:46. Umm, ok then.

Sunday-

Thought about running but some cleaning projects ran away with the day. On the upside my car is no longer an embarrassment. 🙂 I also worked my Hogwarts swap craft and it’s not coming along like I planned.

Second week of training- complete! My mileage is finally going up- woo hoo!

What are your plans this week? One thing you’re looking forward to in July? How is it almost July?!

Ever seen something shady on a run?

Anyone else’s car look like they live in it? I think I had 6 pairs of shoes in there.

Training Win?

You know summer has arrived and it’s hot outside when you are the only person outside. I don’t just mean outside running, last week on a few of my runs I was the only person outside period. No one in their front yards, no one in backyards and no kids playing. And with the town/ state on water restriction, no lovely sprinklers to cool off with. I know hotter temps are coming so I figure I may as well get used to it. I love the heat but I am not adjusting as well this year. Maybe I’m getting older? 😬. Or three years working in a town that averages 30-40 degrees cooler a day is just confusing my system. Who knows, but I did complete my first week of training last week.

Monday–

Rest day. I wanted to run but the plan said rest. Still I packed my running stuff for after work. My stomach is usually a little iffy on Mondays (too many carbs on the weekend) and this day was no different. Since I needed to pick up a prescription after work and there was no way I could run then make it to the pharmacy, I decided to take the rest day. Halfway there it dawned on me that I could have changed at work, picked up the prescription then run in home town. Duh. I briefly considered changing in the Target bathroom but hell no, I’ve seen porta-a-potties cleaner than that place.

Tuesday-

This was supposed to be a 40 minute workout with pace intervals in the middle. The first kink in the plans was that Community BBQ nights started at the lake park where I like to do my speed work. Everywhere else is hilly or on busy streets. I avoid the park during the BBQ nights, no need to run around 100+ people having a party. I headed towards hometown knowing it was hot. It was 94 when I parked my car and that was with a pretty good wind. I reassessed the pace workout to an easy 40 min. I felt like I was crawling. I’ve noticed that it’s taking me longer to warm up during these hot runs. I usually walk for 5 minutes, the last few runs have been 10 minute walks. Shouldn’t it be the opposite? Ugh. 3.55 miles in 40 minutes.

Wednesday–

Yeah, short- hot panic fest. But we’ve talked about that already. 2.31 miles in 30 minutes.

Thursday-

I was supposed to have a meeting about a race so it was a planned rest day. The meeting was at the high school and my mother had tennis practice so we planned to meet for dinner after. However, the other party did not show up so after walking around the school wondering if I had the wrong meeting place, I waited for her in the front of the school in the shade. A nice janitor told me I shouldn’t have waited that long. 🙂 I told him I was now waiting for my mother and at least the shade was cooler than sitting in my car. But yes I was the one sitting out front like a sad puppy. Oh, high school- I don’t miss you. I mostly typed last Thursday’s blog post on my phone and took a cranky selfie. So it was moderately productive. Then I drowned my irritation in Mexican food. #sorryatkins

Friday-

I got to come in later than my new normal of 7:30 and I briefly considered running with that extra hour of sleep but nah, I hit snooze. Work was a usual crazy Friday and once off I headed home. I was tired, it had been a long week but for some reason that “motivational” quote popped into my head.

I made it home by 7, changed and was out the door 20 minutes later. Say what?! My stomach was cranky, partially due to the previous nights indulgence and the cookies on Friday, and I had been in high-heeled boots all day and I knew it was going to be less than pretty. But even with all that it was awesome. It was a good way to end the week and I was glad to see that there wasn’t any residual issues from Wednesday. 3.75 miles – 40 minutes.

Saturday-

Turns out running the previous night was a good thing. Saturday started with work followed by the usual errands. I try to do all my shopping on Saturday. Then the family headed down to SLO for an early Father’s Day Dinner at Olive Garden. I mean early, we were there by 4. I may have indulged in too many bread sticks. Oops, #sorryatkinsagain. It’s been 3 months since I’ve eaten pasta and I really don’t miss it. Luckily my usual go-to at Olive Garden is their Garlic Rosemary Chicken. So yummy. Dinner was followed up with frozen yogurt for desert. My poor stomach but it was all so yummy. 🙂 I pushed my long run to Sunday.

Sunday-

The plan called for a 50 minute long run. Ummm, that’s not long. I realize it’s only week 1 of 17 and most half marathon plans are 12 weeks but still. I wanted some structure to my summer runs so I picked 17 weeks. But, yeah, those 50 minutes kicked my ass. I actually headed out around 10am since I knew it was going to be hot. It was already in the 80’s. I huffed and puffed my way through 5 miles in 56 minutes. Yes miles 1 and 2 had times where I met up with my mom and the puppy and walked more but what was with the other 3? I have to figure out this heat thing or I am never breaking 2. I did like having the run done earlier though.

So, week one done. Bring on week 2. And maybe some speed? *sorry about the random picture sizes, I am having troubles figuring out Dropbox. 😦

How was your weekend? And Father’s Day?

How long do you usually train for a half marathon?

What do you consider a long run?

No Need To Panic

I consider myself a fairly calm person in emergency situations. This has also been tested a few times and been proven mostly true. Earthquakes, car accidents, electrical panels catching on fire, customers trying to beat up employees, etc, I stay calm. Even my first car accident when I was young and dumb, I stayed mostly calm. I calmly came to, assessed the damage ( I hit a wall) and tried to turn the car off and take the keys out of the ignition to cut the power. Too bad I wasn’t thinking about the fact that the car had to be in park to accomplish all that. 🙂 I was also calm when I saw my passenger lying on the ground. I knew he had to have gotten there on his own and he had. He got out and went and laid down. No, none of us had been drinking. I stayed fairly calm through all this but lost it when I called my mom- so mostly calm. That big earthquake that damaged town years ago? I was working when it rolled through, I told everyone to take cover and I went to turn off the large open gas range. We then evacuated, still calm. My point to all this is that I am not one who panics easily. So imagine my shock when I ran myself into a panic attack a couple years ago.

I did a good majority of my runs on the high school track that summer. I would run in the evenings after work. The football team was usually practicing but they never said I couldn’t be there so I would just run in the outside lane minding my own business. The track used to be my happy place and favorite place to run. I headed there one evening for an easy 5 mile run. The team was there as usual and my mother was as well, she was going walk laps while I ran. It was hot but no hotter than any other day. I remember feeling pretty good and keeping a good pace. 2 miles in I started to freak out. For no reason. First, I had trouble breathing. I knew it wasn’t an asthma attack but I could not catch my breath or calm myself down. Then I started crying, I mean full on sobs, again for no known reason. I had plenty of water and didn’t feel dehydrated. In fact my body felt fine other than the emotional freak out. I had no idea what was going on and it was scary but I could not calm down. But I’m wasn’t very smart, so I finished my run, thinking it would help calm me down. I hadn’t discovered the online running community yet so I did the only thing I could think of when I got home. Google. I read stories of people having similar experiences but no clues as to why it happened. I was nervous to run for a while but it never happened again so I put it out of my mind. Until Wednesday’s run.

Summer has definitely arrived and temps in home town have been in the high 90’s to 100 range. While I am loving it, I have been taking things a little slower. Wednesday was day 3 of my training plan and my second run. The plan called for a 30 minute easy run but I was aiming for 40. My weather app said that the temp at the lake was 81 so I headed there to run. It lied. It was more like 91. Still, I was fine with that, I had had 90 oz of water at work and had a full bottle for my run. I used plenty of sunblock and wore my hat, I felt good and ready to go. I walked my usual little warm up and started to run. Then stopped 20 yards later. Walked some more, then tried running again. Only to stop again. Repeat numerous times over the next mile and a half. My head was totally in the game but I could not get my body to do what I wanted it to do. It was like it was refusing to run. The more I tried to push, the more it pushed back. At mile 1.5, I felt it again. My breathing was becoming erratic and it wasn’t from exertion. Maybe it was because it happened before but this time I recognized that I was about to have a panic attack. For no reason, again. I knew I had plenty of water, wasn’t dehydrated and was still sweating so I don’t think the heat had anything to do with it. It hadn’t been a stressful day and my stomach has been feeling better lately. Then, trying to force myself to calm down was just making things worse. Being smarter now (just a little) I just walked back to the car and stayed in the shade while I got everything under control. What the hell?!

Once again, I have no idea what caused it. I didn’t feel like it was too hot, but maybe my run the day before was too hot? I always clear a minimum of 120 oz of water a day, so it’s not like I was dehydrated. Yes, work has been stressful but no more than usual. Sleep is the same as always so it couldn’t have been that. Grrrrr. Granted, it’s only happened twice but it’s still freaky. It doesn’t make sense. And now I am nervous for my next run. Grrrr.

Ever have a panic attack? Running or not?

Favorite place to run?

How much water do you drink on average?