Category: Slacker

Intervals and a Big Oops

Hooray, it’s Friday!!!!

Who’s racing this weekend?

Today was a pretty good day. I worked the early shift at work and was even able to get off a little early. I have an awesome boss. I mean I really do, yesterday, while parallel parking I bumped her car. Like our bumpers were kissing. I swear I checked before turning off my car. I never felt a bump, apparently I am just that skillful at backing up. Ha! No damage at all but it was a momentary panic attack. Did I mention it’s review time?! Part of today was spent doing battle with my usual Friday temptation-one day I will resist, I will be strong. It just wasn’t today.

I have however been strong on the no soda during the week. 🙂 I have not had any soda since I randomly quit at 10:00 AM Tuesday morning. No headaches to speak of, but I have been draggggggging. With that being said, I did make it to the gym on Thursday night for an easy interval run.

Normally I manually change the speed anytime I want but I decided to try the interval option instead. First question it asked was what my weight was? Nosy much? Why does my weight affect the speed settings on a treadmill? And why do they call it jogging speed? For the sake of all of our delicate egos they should call it something like “fast” and “lightening fast” not “jogging” and “running”. Ok, mini rant over. Having to push the button just once to change speeds was nice though.

My intervals looked something like this-

Length (miles)	Speed
1.25	5.8
.75	6.3
.25	5.8
.75	6.3
.5	5.8
1.00	6.3
.50	5.8

Total- 5 miles not counting warmup or cool down.

(glad to hear I’m not the only one turns off the watch for those!!)

I admit to taking it slightly easy. Even with having a cup of coffee in the morning, I am seriously missing the caffeine. While driving to the gym that night, I told myself I only had to run 4 not the 5 that I planned. Once I was running though, I figured I could run 5 and thankfully there was nothing freaky on the tv’s. Whoever is changing the channels needs to stop, Wednesday night, the tv had Devour-Return of the Man Eating Snake on. I thought I was going to have nightmares about albino pythons eating crocodiles. Yuck!

All in all it was a good run, it felt like productive miles not just filler miles. There were some runs in January that felt like mostly filler. Today was like most Fridays- a rest day. After leaving work, I fought the Friday crowd at Trader Joe’s- not a good idea- before heading home. The mail delivered presents!!!!!

Oh, wow that's pink — Oh, wow that’s pink

I just ordered them Tuesday night so the shipping was great! Have to say that these are my first pairs of compression socks. Oh the shame 🙂 Anytime my pics showed me in knee socks, they were derby socks. I am eager to test them out on my long run this weekend. The weather is calling for rain on Saturday so the timing of that run is a little up in the air. The rain wouldn’t be a problem if it wasn’t for my proclivity for slipping. But we desperately need rain, so no complaints here. Even if it means I have to dodge rocks on the road while driving to work 🙂

Any one have big plans this weekend?

Any ideas on how I can learn to like coffee faster?

Tiny Tempo Time

Happy Hump Day!!!!

After Saturday’s race, I was feeling a little sore and my left ankle was not the happiest camper. In an earlier post I had mentioned that I was was rethinking my training plan. While I liked the way the app worked and laid out the plan, it just wasn’t my cup of tea. It went from my Slacker to crazy a little too quickly. Plus I kind of felt like running had become work. That I had to meet certain goals at certain times. So while I was still following it I was thinking of other ideas. Going back to the original plan but with a little twist, so bring on the Slacker Reboot! But that’s for a later post 🙂

Yeah, that's how we do rain, haha — Yeah, that’s how we do rain, haha

With that in mind as well as the ankle uncomfortable-ness, I took it easy on Sunday as opposed to getting in a long run. While everyone else may have been excited about the Super Bowl, my excitement was brought on by waking up to rain!!!! Nowhere near what we needed but it was still great. I waited for it to warm up a bit so I headed out for an afternoon run. I ran right through kickoff!! Yeah, the Super Bowl’s not really my thing. This time I was prepared in full pants, my warmest long sleeve short and a big ear warmer. It was so much better than Saturday, but it was also 15º warmer. My goal was to take it easy and just enjoy the lightly misting rain. As I topped the last hill and was just shy of mile 4, the sky opened up. Overall I hit 4.31 miles. My splits weren’t the best or share worthy but I love the pace of that last little bit 🙂

Monday’s post was all about the awesome SLO Marathon and how excited I am but I did get in a run that day. It was day 1 of new plan after all. It was a very sluggish 3.5 miles on the treadmill. At least that’s how I felt. My average pace was 10:06 and as a rarity, I ran a negative split. Sweet! Now if only I could do it intentionally. I was actually supposed to do 4 miles but just wasn’t feeling it. I decided not to push it. I did a short cool down walk before leaving. I always turn my Garmin or Nike+ off before my cool down. I can’t decide if its overly prideful because I don’t want to lower my pace or if it’s silly and I am shorting myself mileage. What do you think?

Tuesday was a planned rest day and it was so nice 🙂 Today I hit the gym again after work and got in a nice tiny Tempo run. I ran 6 miles with a warmup mile and a cool down mile, with the 4 miles in between at a 9:00 pace. At least that was the plan. Warm up and cool down went according to plan, but the 4 inner miles were 9:30 pace. Oops. My ankle was a little stiff but it eased up as I ran. I was also a little tired since I randomly decided to quit soda today. I am still trying to force myself to like coffee. I am not sure how long this is going to last as I have tried numerous times before but we’ll see how it goes! I told myself I could have soda on the weekends. That would be allowed… So when is it Saturday?

I admit that I am so over the treadmill. Part of me actually wonders if it is contributing to my sore ankle. This lovely article from Runner’s World tells me I no longer have to put the incline at 2, so sweet!!! Today’s run was at .5. I rewarded myself after my run with this yummy smoothie-

It is really sad how tired I am right now. I didn’t drink that much soda anymore anyways. The Doc took away my diet soda, so I cut down to a small coke a day. My head is actually not pounding right now so at least that’s something!

How is everyone’s week?

Anyone else stop their GPS early?

Want to come run SLO? I have a discount code!!!!

Going on a week now

I last ran one week ago today. It was a pretty good 4.5 miles and I was looking forward to a long run a few days later. I had a plan, right?

In my previous posts I talked about being sick. Ugh, but I was optimistic that I would be better soon and able to get back to running. Tuesday morning I woke up and still felt crappy. My boss had a morning meeting so I made the trek into work, hoping I could leave when she arrived. I was hoping that another half day of rest would be enough to kick whatever was wrong. By late Tuesday evening I knew that was wishful thinking. 😦 I called in sick for Wednesday. Let me clarify by saying that I don’t call in sick. I can count on one hand with fingers left over the times I have called in sick in the last 7 years. Same for the previous job of 10 years. Now with my previously mentioned stomach issues, I have gone home early or come in a few hours late. But calling in? Very, very rare.

The plan was to get as much sleep as possible on Wednesday and feel better by Thursday. I woke up at 8:30 AM, and could not fall back asleep. WTF? I made it from the bed to the Comfy chair. My eyes were so swollen I could barely see (TMI?). I thought maybe I should call the doctor. So an appointment was made for 4:00. I dozed off and on in the chair until then. I was feeling really rough, so my pops had to drive me to the doctor. My mother later drove me to get my prescription. Sad but true, and I am very thankful. I looked like such a creature I kept my sunglasses on in the waiting room until I was in an exam room. That’s when I noticed this-

Even with beginning the medication, today was another sick day. 😦 More time spent in the chair with a blanket. Temperatures outside hit a record high for January (90º!) and I was covered up with a blanket. I did get some reading in though-

After that, it was time for an Arrow marathon with my eyes half shut. Now my goal is to get some more rest and hopefully make it to work tomorrow. Then, work on Saturday. Fingers crossed I will feel up to some really slow miles this weekend. Which, thankfully is a 3 day weekend. I have to run off the almost full bag of Lay’s I have consumed in the last 3 days. It figures that I get sick and crave crap food.

Good luck to everyone running Disneyland this weekend!

Thanks for listening to me whine 🙂

4 days and a wedding

I really wanted that to say miles not days. Actually I wish it said something around 8-10 miles but any miles would be great. But no, moving on to day 4 of icky-ness. Actually as long it is taking me to type this, it may be day 5.

Yesterday was day 3 of rest, I so wanted to run but the pressure in my head just wouldn’t quit. I just wanted to cuddle up with a blanket in my Comfy chair. But I put on the makeup (a bit) and did my hair and dragged myself off to a wedding with my mother. After she raided my closet that is.

Just don't look at my eyes... — Just don’t look at my eyes…

Made it through the ceremony only having to avoid one coughing fit. I probably shouldn’t have tried to sing along. The wedding was cute, so were the couple getting married. 🙂 Then it was off to the reception and along the way I discovered I had lost my sunglasses in the church. Ugh! I went back to look but no luck. The reception was actually at the lake I like to run so I was able to check out the conditions. Verdict- the lake is a puddle. I feel bad for the ducks. 😦

The reception was lovely and awkward because I had no idea who anyone was. But I didn’t feel up to chit chatting so it all worked out, right? My mother wasn’t feeling well either so we left shortly after giving the bride and groom our best wishes. It was then home to crash.

This morning was no better but I was stupidly optimistic so I packed all my gear anyways. Ha! I didn’t even make it through all day at work. I made the drive home, and crashed in the Comfy chair with a blanket. Yuck. Nike also told me just how much of a Slacker I was last week. I missed 3 runs last week. Ouch. Being sick sucks and this week isn’t starting out so great.

Ok, that’s enough moping by me, maybe I should get some sleep. Does dreaming about miles count?

Thanks for listening 🙂

How was everyone’s Monday?

For those who ran Disney, how’s the recovery going?

Finally a Reason

Friday morning, I woke up feeling like I had slept more hours but they were just as crappy. I just wanted to burrow under the covers for a few more hours. But I dragged myself out of bed and got ready for work. Since I was feeling crappy, I wore my newest skirt and my most comfortable boots to work. Fake it ’til you make it right?

Yeah, I rock funky socks, every day :) — Yeah, I rock funky socks, every day 🙂

Don’t worry, I push the socks down before we open the doors. 🙂 I was also treated to this morning view while picking up the cookies-

Shaping up to be a good day, right? By early afternoon, my headache had turned into a head pounder and my swallowing was so painful. Ahhhh, light bulb moment, I was sick. Maybe that explained the week of crappy sleep and the zoning out I did a few times at night. I watched Biggest Loser on my DVR over the week, but I couldn’t tell you a dang thing that happened. I don’t remember it at all. 😦 After leaving work yesterday, I crashed in the Comfy chair with a blanket. I was hoping I would be better in time for a long run today.

I had a little shopping trip planned with my mom; she wanted help looking for a wedding gift for one of her former players. I set an alarm in the hopes I could get a run in this morning first. Ha! My head and throat were worse. So I tried to get a little more sleep before getting ready for the day. Shopping went well, even if both my mother and I were feeling poorly and moving a little slower than usual. Even though my throat hurt, I was able to enjoy lunch. 🙂 She also found a great gift, which is good as the wedding is tomorrow. 🙂

She then needed to head to the Tennis Warehouse to pick up a few things for the team. Uhoh- danger zone! The Running Warehouse was literally 10 feet away. And I had been feeling the urge for new shoes. I was one of those rare runners who only had one pair of shoes. I wore them for every race, training run and occasional trail adventure. When they wore out, I replaced them. With my planned increase in training this spring and more half marathons on the schedule as well I was thinking about getting another pair.

The place was packed, but then the store front is small. However customer service there is amazing. I tried to resist, I really did. I ended up trying on the Mizuno Wave Inspire 10 and the Mizuno Wave Rider 17. I love my current pair of Inspire 9’s so I was optimistic for the 10’s. They felt like an entirely different shoe, tighter and flatter. Not cool. The Wave Rider’s on the other hand felt awesome! Restraint be damned!

The Wave Rider’s are a neutral support shoe so that is a change. So I will be trying them out on the treadmill for the first few runs. If I like them, I figured I would use them for the flatter, shorter runs and races. I can’t wait to test them out. Our shopping trip was longer than planned; I ran out of daylight. My mother cannot make a quick trip to Petco. I ended up wandering away at one point and having a conversion with a little boy about betta fish. He was excited because they are fighter fish. I told him we have one at work that likes to try to attack a coworker. He thought that was great. 🙂

Once home, I had absolutely no energy for the gym. So today became a rest day. I am hoping that I will feel better tomorrow and can get in some miles. Maybe not the 8 that I missed today but anything between 4 and 6 would be cool. It will have to be early though as I am my mother’s plus 1 for the wedding. My dad, well he’s not the partying type. Neither am I, really, but I fake it better. 🙂

How was everyone’s Saturday?

Was I really the only one with one pair of shoes?