Tag: bike

Wheezy

Last week, I learned that I could laugh myself into an asthma attack. That was new.

Friday rolled around and we were all little stressed, tired and slaphappy at work. I had been going back and forth with someone at another office, trying to get a document right and each version came back worse. I finally lost it laughing hysterically. Then the wheezing; followed by the struggle. My boss actually figured it out first and went for my purse. Which, surprisingly had my inhaler in it. I admit I rarely carry it in my purse. I have one in every running pack but I rarely need it at work. Oops. But like I said, I luckily had it that day.

Last week wasn’t horrible in the training department. Well, not sure if I can call it training yet.

I rode the spin bike one day and decide to keep my Peleton membership now that the 2 month trial has ended. I don’t have a Peleton bike nor does my bike even have an onboard computer but I do like not thinking. The instructor on the app tells me what to do and I do it. Not thinking is great.

I also made it out for a run after work! Which is kind of shocking as it is only the second time I have run after work since transferring to this office. 9 Months ago. Ouch. But I did it! I made it out for 3 miles on Wednesday. I also said goodbye to a favorite pair of crops that night as the mirror in the work bathroom let me know they no longer pass the see through test. Oops. I ran with a quarter zip tied around my waist. Ha!

On Saturday I was going to head to the high school to help my mother swap out a tennis net or 2 as they are finally starting high school sports. Then I was going to run my Napa Valley virtual mile on the track. Except the track was full of people. So I headed out for a short run from the school. Except I got trapped in the school and ended up having to jump a fence to get out. Didn’t break my face but my mile turned into a 15 minute joke. Whatever, I’m going with it. 🙂

Sunday was another adventure at the state park. We didn’t get lost but my new shoes failed the test. After getting lost a few weeks ago, I knew the Topo’s weren’t for me so I did some research and ordered a pair of Altra Timps. They were fine going uphill. Once we turned around, I damn near took them off and ran barefoot. It likely would have hurt less. Between the surprising February heat and the dumb shoes, we didn’t meet our original goal. The plan was to do Oats Peak which is 10.8 miles round trip trail. We turned at the last trail break at 3 and headed back. I changed my shoes in the lot and we did another mile-ish on the Bluff Trail. Also found a cool little hidden cove I had never seen before. It ended up being just under 8 miles for the day.

So not a complete waste of the week.

Week 48- Lingering

And the pain lingers on.

Isn’t that a song? I feel like it’s a song lyric. 🎶

Last week was a little better than the previous week though not by much. I doubled the miles but when you run barely more than zero, double is still next to nothing. Which is problematic because filling all my extra time with Christmas movie watching has given me the most intense craving for sugar cookies with icing ever. I want them all. That’s not a good thing.

Last week was kind of odd anyhow. I had my interview on Wednesday which had interesting moments but not of the usual interview kind. Then Saturday saw my mother’s birthday and my dad’s is this week. I also had the world’s messiest oil change. Like my car was leaking oil for the next 3 days. I called the dealer it was so bad, thinking they had screwed something up. Nope, they just slopped oil everywhere.

Ok, so what were the piddly “workouts” I did last week?

Monday/Tuesday- Nothing but a little stretching. My leg wasn’t too happy and I wasn’t going to push it. I am embracing the flats life. It’s so boring.

Wednesday- 2.51 miles I meant to head to the gym for a few test miles but realized I forgot my headphones instead I ran outside. Slowly. My leg wasn’t screaming but it wasn’t marvelous. However I was just so excited to be out there.

Thursday- 2.16 miles Should I have run so soon? Yeah, probably not but I had to take the car back to the dealer due to the oil change fiasco so I was home sooner than normal and I couldn’t pass up the chance. My leg actually felt better than the previous day. Yay!! Oh and it pushed me to 50 miles for November, which considering how many days I deliberately didn’t run because of my leg, I’ll just say Hell yeah!

Friday- Stupid I wore low heeled boots to work. Only about 2 inches but it was stupid and my leg did not appreciate it at all. Stupid.

Saturday-Birthday shopping with my mom. I could feel my shin talking all day. Why did I wear heels on Friday?? Grrrr.

Sunday- 10 miles bike My leg still felt off and truthfully I might have done something stupid and gone for a run but an unplanned afternoon nap changed that. Oops. So I hopped on the bike to try and work up a sweat. Except the cat decided she really wanted to be part of the exercise too. She kept trying to go under the pedals. Don’t do that!

4.68 miles run, 10 miles bike. As I type this I realize I have yet to run in December. Yikes! Come on leg, knock it off, it’s only 3 weeks to marathon training!

How was your week?

Any Christmas festivities?

Anyone race? I was having major RnR San Antonio FOMO.

Week 24- Heat Wave

It’s begun.

The work week was long and they are only going to get longer from here on out. I think I can, I think I can, I think I can. The last big conversion/ merger I went through was 4 years ago and I ended up falling back to running 1x during the week and both weekend days because I was putting in so much overtime. Oddly enough, that’s also when I was the fastest but I am sure the 2 have no correlation. 😛 Difference is, last time we were the company doing the buying not so there wasn’t a huge learning curve for me- it was just a super busy time. This time, I’m looking at a Grand Canyon of things I don’t know and not knowing what I don’t know makes me uneasy. I am trying not to stress about it though.

Trying. I need to read more. For relaxation I mean. So I ordered some new books.

Monday- 2.5 miles First day back at work. Couple hundred emails, schedule overload, work ran late, and we were down 50% of our staff. By the end of the day I had zero desire to run after work. Zero. But I changed, laced up and headed for home town. I turned it into a game- could I keep my heart rate in the green zone? Yeah, no. But I tried. 😛

Tuesday- Rest I meant to do something productive workout wise but I didn’t. And something about the shoes I wore to work pissed off my right foot.

Wednesday- Rest Meeting #1 of meeting/ training polooza of the next month. The day started abnormally early and by day’s end I was just living in migraine city. I left my gym bag full of running gear at work and just went home.

Thursday- 4 miles It had been too long since I ran in work town so that was my plan. Success! Similar MO to Monday- try to stay in the green zone. Hell for the first 2 miles I had trouble getting into the green. I felt like I was working but I guess the temp in the 60’s and a downhill made things easier than I thought. Then there was the climb in mile 4 and my heart rate went right past green and into threshold. Grrrr. Once home I did 8 minutes with my kettle bell. Ouch.

Friday- Rest Seriously 8 minutes with a kettle bell should not kick my ass that much.

Saturday- 9 miles bike I admit I slept in. Then it was 106 and there was no way I was running in that. I stuck to the bike. Except I still haven’t replaced my fan so I was still ended up a sweaty mess.

Sunday- 7.3 miles Long run fail. I headed out around 8 to get in my planned long run of 10 miles but it was already too late. It was 80 when I started. It wasn’t bad in the beginning but it never got any better. I started to feel the warmth around mile 4. My mother was supposed to meet me around mile 5.5 and she was going to walk while I finished the rest. She drove past me before I even hit 5. I took a shorter route to her but I knew I wasn’t hitting 10. I decided to try for 8 but at 7.3 when I was running- not sure what I was doing could be called running- brought me past the car again, I said F* it. It was 90 degrees and it wasn’t even 10 yet. I had somehow gone through 38 oz’s of water in 7 miles and both my packs were empty. I was done.

13.8 miles run, 9 miles bike, 1 strength workout

Not exactly what I was hoping for this week but also not too shabby for a Slacker like me. Now if I can just drag myself out of bed earlier on the weekends.

How was your week?

What’s your weather like?

Week 40 Training Recap/ September Wrap

3/4 of the year is done! Woah. Already my Facebook feed is full of countdowns to Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas. Knock it off people!!

Anyways, last week’s training started out great, maintained for most of the week then hit a big roadblock by the weekend. One I am still trying to figure out. Combine that with a truly craptacular week in sleeping and this one was a little rough. Seriously, each night averaged around 6 hours. 😕

Monday- Rest– I somehow got used to running on Monday’s and now resting on those days feels odd. However I was so abnormally sore to the point of painful after Sunday’s races that I embraced it. Plus the temps were in the triple digits everywhere so why put myself through that?

Tuesday- 4.2 miles– I was still sore so I opted for the lower end of what coach suggested. I kept the pace nice and easy and walked whenever my leg felt odd. To avoid most of the heat, I ran in work town. I really wish there was more trail through the eucalyptus grove. That said, it was a decent run and I managed to negative split, which considering it’s an out and back with the first 2 miles down hill is pretty sweet.

Wednesday- 3.75 miles. Float like a butterfly, pant like a dog. Speed work!

Thursday- 3.5 miles. Recovery run. In retrospect, maybe I should have just gotten on the bike and moved my legs that way. I was really trying to stick to the plan though. I crawled. My legs were not happy even attempting to run. I iced and rolled and stretched that night but I had a feeling it wasn’t enough.

Friday- Rest- Ouch. My left leg was pissed. I felt twinges anytime I moved. Which brought me to a very cranky conclusion-

Saturday- ~~5K race~~– Yeah, nope. I had planned on running the inaugural Run the Runways out at the airport but I realized there was no way my leg was up to it. I knew I would get out there and likely do something stupid. I did 15 minutes on the bike though. Work is attempting the Tone It Up challenge for October, I looked at the daily exercises but they all required more leg work then I was willing to do, so fail day 1.😢

Sunday-~~9-10 mile long run~~– 30 minutes bike Another one bites the dust. I woke up with a headache, tried getting up to run but no. Figured I would go out for a few in the afternoon and slept some more. Afternoon rolled around and my leg was not happy. I was trying to determine if it really hurt or if I was trying to be lazy and not feel guilty about it. I hopped on the bike for a very slow ride for 30 minutes. Judging but how my leg felt while riding, I made the right choice not running. Boo.

So now, I am in limbo. I have a half marathon on Sunday and I am hesitant about it. Plus side is that I haven’t registered for it yet. Downside- it’s one of my favorites. So this coming week will be interesting.

Since last week saw the end of September, I added up my mileage- 75.85. Not too bad. Not where I had hoped I would be but it is what it is and now it is time to focus on October. Which hopefully means that the high 90’s and triple digit weather is gone. Fingers crossed!

How was your week? September?

Any plans for October?

Funnel Cakes and cross training

So I survived my foray into the fair. Ate too much junk food and spent too much money, but hey, it only comes once a year right? So I countrified myself up and had some fun. I wore my shitkickers (haha!) there and they served a dual purpose. I fit in better, 🙂 and they helped support my ankle or shin, still debating which. Didn’t feel a thing all night. As opposed to its loud grumbling when I took my boots off. Not cool.

So Saturdays plan for a nice run was postponed 😦 Now I am fine with being a Slacker Runner when it is being lazy of my own volition; that is just me being me. However, taking it easy because something hurts just makes me cranky. It suddenly makes me want to run more! Anyone else like that?

It happened to be a rest day for the squat challenge as well, so that worked out. I figured if I couldn’t run, or shouldn’t, I would do some cross training. I had a funnel cake to work after all. I know that I should do cross training and I have it in my training plan, but I hate it. I really do. This is how I usually end up having 3 rest (slacker) days a week. So today I made myself get back on the bike. Stationary bike that is, did 8 miles and called it done. Ugh. So hoping to get in a few miles on the track tomorrow. Fingers crossed!

On the upshot, I had this awesomeness made at the fair on Friday. Super nerdy, I know, but I love it.