brunch – Slacker Runner

Upcoming race– SLO 13.1- May 1

Focus– Just keep running, just keep running.

This week was an improvement over last week. Since ignoring my little lung issue for pretty much all of January, I am trying to pay more attention to how I am feeling and actually listen this time. I am also refocusing on eating a low carb diet but more on that later.

Monday- Rest I had the day off and I usually like to run on those days but instead I rested. I had my doctor’s appointment followed by a chest x-ray. Yay for the labs being open on a holiday.

Tuesday- 3.4 miles The fallen tree run. 🙂 Another day avoiding the treadmill and running from work.

Wednesday- Rest It was also my cheat day for pizza. Sadly, it wasn’t as good as it usually is. Boo.

Thursday- 3.1 miles I had a meeting at the end of the day but on the upside it was in home town! I was able to make it home before 5, sweet! I planned on changing quickly and heading out for a run. However the dog had other plans. She went nuts over someone in the neighbors yard. It took me 15 minutes to corral her. Once running, I realized I had overestimated how much time I had until the sun set. Oops. And because I had been frazzled by the dog I had left my flashlight behind. Double oops. Even though the run was shorter than I had hoped it was a pretty good one. Again, I tried to keep my pace slow and easy. It’s kind of sad that mile 3 was around 10:00 min. pace and it felt like it was at tempo pace.

Friday- Rest Work was stressful and I was so glad to see the end of the day.

Saturday- 10.93 miles With Heather! Heather, Ashley and I have been trying to meet up and we made it work on Saturday. Ashley couldn’t join us for the run but we met up with her later. I met up with Heather early on Saturday morning to run one of her routes. I apologized from the start that I was going to be slow and wasn’t sure how far my lungs were going to let me get. I was hoping for 10. We set out at a comfortable pace and just kept trucking. I don’t usually run with people so I was concerned that I wouldn’t be able to talk and run at the same time. I don’t think I did too bad! The route was nice, we ran along parts of hwy 1 and streets in Pismo. Running past the cinnamon roll store was brutal- it smelled so good!! My lungs held up well on the way out but got fussy on the way back. I had to take more than a few walk breaks, boo. My legs and my body felt fine but every now and then I just had to slow down, it became too difficult to get in air. I kept apologizing for slowing down. But we finished! Back to the cars at 10.93 miles. I laughed over the mileage.

From there we cleaned up a bit before heading over to meet Ashley for brunch. We met at Custom House and I had heard really good things about their churro style french toast. So even though it broke all the diet rules, I had to try it right? Sadly, I wasn’t blown away. The bacon was amazing though. Know what else was amazing? Lunch with friends! We caught up on what’s been going on and planned some fun race trips for the future.

Sunday- Rest Ummm, I took a 2 hour nap. Can’t decide if it was an oops or awesome.

So other than I seemed to forget all about the bike this week, it was a pretty solid week. I was able to get in some decent miles that didn’t leave me hating either myself or running after. Looking to this week, the plan is to keep running easy and just take each run as it comes. I also need to get back on the bike and get in some miles there as well.

Food– I stopped talking about my diet for a while because let’s be honest- I wasn’t low carb or paleo at all. However in the hope of keeping myself accountable, I am going to start sharing a little recap on these posts. I am working on transitioning back to a lower carb lifestyle. With pizza thrown in once a week of course. This week was pretty good- I would say I was around 55/45%. Which doesn’t sound great but it’s epically better than I was previously. I also had a donut last week. When one of the company presidents makes a special trip to bring your location donuts- you eat them!

How was your week?

A few of my friends have May-June birthdays, and a few of their friends do too. So it was decided to get a group together to do a hike followed by brunch. The hike chosen was Bishop’s Peak in SLO. This would be followed by brunch at a fancy shmancy hotel a few towns over- in our dirty hiking clothes. 🙂 So, bright and early Sunday Morning, we all met up and jumped in the car and headed down.

There were people climbing the backside of the rockface

I have hiked this peak before and there are 3 different ways to go up for about the first mile. From there they all converge into a narrow, rocky dirt track and switchback the rest of the way up to the top. The trail head we chose is located in a residential area and parking was easy. It starts of with an easy dirt road before it starts to get harder. There were 7 of us out there and we just kept an easy pace going up. It was fun getting to catch up and talk as we made our way up. By about halfway we had split into a group of 4 and then a group of 3 a couple hundred yards back. It was fun taking it a little easier too, I tend to be a little crazy on trails, so this time I was able to enjoy the view. And what a view it was- seriously, I took over 100 pictures!

It really was great getting to talk to everyone. Bix and I were even able to reminisce about our loathing of switch backs (Firehouse 5K). About halfway up, at a particular tricky part, we cracked a joke that we should be singing “The Climb” by Miley Cyrus, but we couldn’t remember the words. Which was probably a good thing. 🙂 But we made it to the top! And I was crazy enough to climb up the last few rocks, too. After taking the obligatory top of the mountain pictures, it was all down hill from there.

I'm the only crazy one going up these rocks — I’m the only crazy one going up these rocks

Going down, we separated into a group of 5 and and a group of 2. D and ML and I got involved in a Supernatural discussion, more accurately our love of Dean. 🙂 More and more people were hiking their way up as well; quite a few made comments about our shirts, apparently we thought alike when we dressed that morning.

M and ML, a little blurry but I still like it

The way the trail wraps around, you can usually hear people long before you see them. About 2/3 down, we realized it had been a long time since we heard from the other 2 so we stopped and waited for them to catch up. It turns out they had gotten a little lost. Trail buddy fail!!!! We all met up again and then we had to step it up to get to the car, we had a reservation at 11! This is also where I couldn’t help it anymore and I ran. I love running downhill on trails, I really do. 2 miles up and 2 miles down and we were back at the start.

another selfie, D is more talented than I am

Then it was quick change time. Even though we had discussed going in our hiking clothes, 5 of us brought a change of clothes. So with the use of plenty of wet wipes (so handy!), we were changing in the car by the roadside. My apologies if I inadvertently flashed anyone. Then we were in the car and headed to brunch. The place was packed, we had to park on a side street. But as one of us pointed out, we had just hiked Bishops’ Peak, we could handle a few blocks.

Brunch was awesome. The company was amazing and the food was great. The service could have used some help and when the heck did brunch get so expensive? Then again, I don’t think I have been to brunch since the last century, so that could be part of it. We all ate too much and enjoyed our champagne and mimosas. I don’t really drink, so I’m usually the DD, but this time it was nice that someone else was. It’s still not my thing but it was fun. Overall, it was an awesome day.

I did have my Garmin with me on the hike. I didn’t care about pace but I had wanted the elevation profile. Well, this blonde had some problems. #1 was auto pause. I do not like that feature, I think that it was what tripped me up with my time at the SLO Marathon. During the hike, it paused when we were going through a cattle fence and never started up again. It took me almost 1/2 a mile to notice. Urgh. Bix had the great idea that I should just start it over at the top, so at least it would be accurate on the way down, and then I could double it. So I did that, but we stopped about a 1/3 of the way down so I paused it. Why? I don’t know but I forgot to restart it and didn’t figure it out until it buzzed with the power save warning. Ugh!!! So yeah, that didn’t work, but we went from around 350 to almost 1500 and back.

But like I said it was an awesome day and I can’t wait to do it again!

How was your weekend?