Tag: Cross-training

Week 32:Upcoming Races-Rock n Roll San Jose Training Week 5

Fallon @ Slacker Runner6 Comments

Upcoming Races-

  • SLO ULTRA 5K-9/2
  • Rock n Roll San Jose 13.1 (Thank you BibRave!)-10/8
  • City to the Sea 13.1-10/14
  • Rock n Roll Los Angeles 13.1 (Thank you BibRave!)- 10/29
  • Monterey Bay Half Marathon (Thank you Bibrave!)- 11/12

If I had one word to describe this week, it would be- pain.

I think I watched more stupid movies than ever before.  Netflix shamed me with “are you still watching” a few times.  😛I kind of buried myself in a dark hole, I was barely even paying attention to those movies, I just needed background noise (there were some good ones though).

The plan for this week was 3 runs- 4 miles, 40 min tempo, 8 mile long run- and 4 Liift4 workouts.  Reality, however-

Monday- 2.5 miles 
I was looking forward to my run after work.  I thought I had 5 miles on the plan -oops – but I was on board with that.  The bottom half of me apparently was not.  Right from my first few steps, things felt off.  My legs hurt- not just sore but hurt.  I walked the first half mile hoping they would loosen up but no luck.  I tried running and it felt like the pain was deep in my bones.  WTH?  A little over a mile in, I stopped to try and stretch it out and almost screamed.   It hurt from my hips to my knees but in the bones.  I turned around and hobbled back to the car.     I didn’t know what was going on but it wasn’t worth risking an injury.

Tuesday- Liift4
My legs were still not right so I focused on my form and modified anything that required any jumping. I kind of do that anyway as I know my limitations but I really did it now.

Wednesday- Liift4
I drove to the lake path to run.  I had changed, I had my pack in my lap but I wasn’t feeling it.  Like deep down, really NOT feeling it.   I’m not a believer in there are no bad runs.  Yes, there are.   The times in the past that I have forced myself to run when I feel that against it I have either hurt myself or broken a piece of running gear.  I drove away without running but I wasn’t completely lazy.

Thursday- Migraine
Bring on the pain.  I woke up to the oncoming pain but hoped it would ease up.  Both because I had an early morning meeting and because I wanted to run after work.   I finally admitted defeat around 11:30 and did something I rarely do- I went home sick.  Then I spent the rest of the day napping, watching movies and alternating between being too hot or too cold.

Friday-Liift4 ish
I still had a migraine but I made it through work.  I attempted Liift4 in the evening but I only pulled off the lifting portion.  When it transitioned to the HIIT work, I tried one move and was like, umm, not happening.

Saturday-8 miles
Maybe it was the migraine that was still around but this was the hottest 8 miles of my life.  In hindsight, I maybe shouldn’t have tried for my long run after 2 days of pain.   I started my run around 9:15 and while that is early for me; it was already hot.   Miles 1 and 2 were good and I was optimistic.  I slowed during mile 3 but I was also entering the section I lovingly call the “surface of the sun” so that was to be expected.  However mile 4 went south.   It got super warm, I was too hot, I was feeling dehydrated and I almost threw up.    I was almost out of water and I was only 4 miles in.  I rerouted back to my car but I had slowed to a shuffle.  I refilled at my car and sat there a bit as it was fully in the shade.  By then I needed less than 2 miles so I dumped my pack thinking running without it would be cooler and just shoved my phone in a pocket and carried a water bottle and my pepper spray.  I then looped the river trail and the neighborhood until I hit 8.   This route needs some shade!

Sunday- Rest
I may have gotten in my long run but I was kind of broken the rest of the weekend.  Not only did the migraine not go away, it was a little pissed at me after those 8 miles.  The most strenuous thing I did on Sunday was clean my car.  Except it was so dirty, that really was a workout.

10.5 miles for the week.   I couldn’t have 2 good weeks in a row, could I.  Shake it off.

How was your week?

Week 32:Upcoming Races-Rock n Roll San Jose Training Week 4

Fallon @ Slacker Runner10 Comments

Upcoming Races-

  • SLO ULTRA 5K-9/2
  • Rock n Roll San Jose 13.1 (Thank you BibRave!)-10/8
  • City to the Sea 13.1-10/14
  • Rock n Roll Los Angeles 13.1 (Thank you BibRave!)- 10/29
  • Monterey Bay Half Marathon (Thank you Bibrave!)- 11/12

I was fussy, cranky and tired this week.   I had a few too many balls in the air at work at one point.   Home town was in the middle of an almost 20 day streak of over 100* weather and I was sleeping poorly.

I like to sleep with the window open during the summer which is odd because I am also one of those people who tends to over react at every sound.   Unfortunately this week, some creature decided to come visit the yard every night a little after midnight.  And it was not a small creature.    I tried to tell myself it was a family of deer.  Which is likely was but I worry about the bigger felines.   I digress…it was every single night.  So eventually I would end closing the window but then it would feel super stuffy and sleep would still be crappy.  Grrr.

Ok, training.  This week called for a 5 mile run, 4 mile run, 7 mile long run and 4 Liift4 work outs.

So how did I do?

Monday- Liift4
I planned on running after work but work ran long and I was feeling cranky so I decided to push my run to Tuesday.  Then while I was driving home I was feeling guilty for doing that only to arrive in run town and then home town to realize they were both completely socked in with smoke from fires.  Combine that with the 3 digit temps and somehow my lazy choice was the smart choice.

Tuesday- 3.78 miles
Another hot day, it was around 95 when I started running and there was still a ton of smoke in the air.  I decided to stick to the run/walk intervals I had programmed since I had also forgotten any way to carry water on my run.   Short and easy miles, that was the plan.   My legs had other plans and those running intervals were some of the fastest paces I’ve seen in years.  Oops.  I did keep it relatively short though.

Wednesday-Liift4
I am sure I did something else but I can’t remember what it was.

Thursday-3.5 miles
I had woken with a gnarly Charlie horse around 1:30 that morning and it never really went away. That said, I still wanted to attempt a run. Oh, my gawd, I was melting.  I don’t know why.   It was 93, so this was coolest run I had had in weeks.  Or it should have been. It was so muggy at the lake path though.  I had 3 decent, consistent miles and even though I was able to stop at my car for water, I could tell I was overheating. My leg also hadn’t loosened up at all so I finished 3 laps of the lake and called it.    If the lake wasn’t so nasty I may have jumped in.

Friday- Rest
My tiredness and crankiness caught up to me.   Could the animal outside at night just stop?!  I told myself I was going to work out when I got home from work but I didn’t.  I just zoned out watching Netflix’s Insatiable.  That show is on crack, people.

Saturday- Liift4
I meant to do my long run.  I laid out my clothes and charged my Aftershokz.  I set my alarm- 5 of them.  I slept through all of them.  Grrrr.    I thought about running my 8 miles (I also had the number of miles wrong) in the afternoon/ evening but although we finally break the streak of over 100* days it was still hot. Also, ended up taking the cat to the vet so that took up some of the afternoon.

Sunday-7.4 miles
My mother was planning on cleaning her tennis courts in the morning so I figured that would be good incentive to actually get my butt out of bed and run to the high school to meet her.    75* should have felt amazing after the last few weeks but it was more humid than I would have liked and I felt a little wilted.

Pace wise, I was doing fine for a long run but by mile 5 I was feeling hot.    My mother was also feeling it on her end as she called me around that point saying she was done at the courts- it was too warm.  I convinced her to wait for me in the shade instead of coming to get me and I tried to pick up the pace to the school.    I am hoped for 8 to make for the run I shorted on Tuesday but 7 is just fine with me.

14.69 miles for the week.  Much better than last week and almost all the miles the plan called for.  So close!!

Now if the damn creature in the yard could just go away.

How was your week?

Week 29/ Rock n Roll San Jose Training Week 1

Fallon @ Slacker Runner12 Comments

That was a mouthful.  All right, when I said things were getting serious, I wasn’t exaggerating.  So let’s do this-

Upcoming Races-

  • Vintners 5 Mile-7/28
  • SLO ULTRA 5K-9/2
  • Rock n Roll San Jose 13.1 (Thank you BibRave!)-10/8
  • City to the Sea 13.1-10/14
  • Rock n Roll Los Angeles 13.1 (Thank you BibRave!)- 10/29
  • Monterey Bay Half Marathon (Thank you Bibrave!)- 11/12

Still with me? Ok, that tired me out just typing that up.   But I have a game plan.  I really do.

Remember how I mentioned in my San Jose post that I wanted to get as close to a PR as possible?  That is still my hope.  So with that in mind, I know I need to change things up.  Oh, so many things.

The real title of this post should be Shit Just Got Serious.

As my social handle suggests sometimes I lack motivation.  In my “about” section I mention that it was a competition with my mom that got me into the best shape of my life.  Well, outside of high school but we can never go back right? 🤣

So I put my money where my mouth is and joined a challenge group.    Now I have a partner I don’t want to let down as well as getting my jiggly butt back into PR shape. So how did week 1 go?

*If you’re interested, I am using Hal Higdon’s H3 training plan.

Monday-  AM- Liift4/ PM- 3.77 miles
Look who worked out in the morning??? 40 minutes of weights and a little bit of HIIT.   Who am I?

However, I may have hydrated way too much during the after that because I kind of bottomed out right before my run.  That and my run was extremely uncomfortable as I felt like I needed to pee the entire time.  It was supposed to be 4 miles but I could not hold it any longer.  I needed to be done and I needed a bathroom.  Lesson learned- don’t consume almost 200 oz of water in 9 hours.

Tuesday- Liift 4
More weights.  However I woke up with a headache so I snoozed for another hour so this workout was done after work.

Wednesday- 2.5 miles
It was a rest day from Liift4 and even though my next running day wasn’t supposed to be until Thursday but it seemed perfect to move it up so I didn’t have to double up.  I didn’t feel sore and the plan only called for 3 miles so easy peasy right?  Haha!  My legs quickly let me know they were not on board, all the soreness I had been missing suddenly showed up.   I could barely move and was just getting slower and slower.  I figured I wasn’t doing myself any favors and called it at 2ish laps of the lake path.

Thursday- Liift4
I slept right through my alarm- first and second ones- so that meant my workout was pushed until after work.  However, my family ended up texting me asking if I wanted to join them for dinner.  I am never one to turn down free food.  😛  Instead of being my usual Slacker self, that meant I was doing a shoulder workout at 9:30 at night.  But I got it done.

Friday- Liift4
Once again, I hit snooze one too many times plus I had an early morning lab appointment.   So after a long day of work, some slacking in the evening, I was again completing the workout after 10PM.   Part of that was also due to some animal drama outside though.

Saturday- Rest
I thought about getting my long run in.  I thought about going to the fair.  Did I mention the Fair is in town? It’s chaos, just chaos.   In the end, I did neither.  I had the beginnings of a bad headache that I really didn’t want to turn into a migraine.  So got my errands done, hydrated and just tried to rest.

Sunday- 6.2 miles
My fight to stave off the migraine failed.  My alarm went off to get up and run and any movement made me either want to cry or hurl.   I set the alarm for another hour and hoped for the best.  Nope.  Another hour and repeat.  Nope.   Finally I gave up and decided to push my run to the evening hoping the temps would drop enough- we’re under a heat advisory for the next week.

I headed out a little after 5 when the temps dropped to around 90.   I knew I was going to be moving slower than normal and I was ok with that.  That turned out to be true and it was hot but it was actually a decent run.

12.7 miles of the 13 on the plan.  All Liift4 workouts completed.  My training plan starts out on the lower mileage side and I am fine with that as I incorporate cross training in for the first time in years.   Only time will tell if this pans out.

How was your week?

Week 44- Lazy Lesson

Fallon @ Slacker Runner10 Comments

Upcoming Races-

  • Rock N Roll Las Vegas 5K
  • Rock N Roll Las Vegas 13.1!!!!!

Ahh, Daylight savings time.  Love the extra hour for about 2 days in the morning but hate it in the evenings for running.   However, since the time change didn’t take effect until Sunday, I can’t really blame the laziness of the week on that can I?  Nope, this was all me. 

Monday- Rest Silly Slacker forgot her Knuckle Lights and I do not go the gym on Monday evenings.   So I just headed home.  Bad idea.\

Tuesday- 4.3ish miles bike I had my gym bag from the day before and my previously misplaced lights but with it being Halloween I figured an outside run was probably not a good idea.    My gym also has a tendency to close early for every holiday (which I previously learned the hard way) so I admit I didn’t even try.  I aimed for some cross training instead.  Maybe the not running was for the best as barely 4 miles in I was running away sick.  Stupid stomach.

Wednesday- Rest Ok I can never miss my Monday run.  It’s just a downhill slide of lazy after that.   It was too easy to be talked out my run tonight.


Thursday- 3 miles I ran from work hoping to take advantage of slower sunsets except it was overcast and the summer barely came out. Boo.   Other than that it wasn’t a bad easy run.  And somehow even with the massive hill at the end I still kept my heart rate out of the red zone.  Tiny wins.

Friday- Rest I didn’t have to work open to close- wow that was nice!   Getting home was a little tricky as the league championship high school football game was being played down the street from my house.   Spoiler alert- the home town that has gone through head coaches in a year (so much drama) somehow pulled off an undefeated season.


Saturday- 3.1 miles  I am trying to prepare for Vegas for so it was another double afternoon run weekend.  Saturday went according to plan.   Not speedy and kind of chilly to start- odd storm clouds had rolled through on Friday but it cleared partially mid-run and suddenly I was overdressed.  Ahhh, the running outfit struggles.


Sunday- 7.75 miles All aboard the struggle bus.  I set out in the early afternoon with a plan for 10 miles.  Mile 1 started out ok but mile 2 turned into a something different.  I couldn’t control my pace and my breathing was out of whack.  Just as my watch chimed mile 2, I felt like my blood sugar bottomed out and it was all I could do to stay upright.   I stopped and took a few moments.  I then changed my route so I was always near people and cars and I turned on the run/walk intervals so I could force myself to keep things easy from then on out.  That said, I still wasn’t sure how far I was going to get.   7.75 brought me back to my car and that seemed like a good number. Or better than nothing.

13.94 miles for the week, 4 ish on the bike.   Yeah, lazy week indeed.

And now we’re on to Vegas week!

How was your week?

Did you race?

Week 20- Oddly Inspired

Fallon @ Slacker Runner10 Comments

Upcoming Races:

  • Rock N Roll San Diego 13.1-June 4

I planned to take it a bit easy this week post Wine Country Half but other than some soreness in my quads on Sunday and Monday, I was feeling pretty good.  I’ve been fighting some achiness in my left leg though so I am trying to be smart for once with another half in a few weeks.

Work was busy last week, meetings galore and more to come this week.   Thursday started an hour and a half early- damn that was a long day.  Guess one plus to no longer being salary is that I actually get overtime for crazy days like that.   😛


Monday- 3 miles   I had new shoes- Adidas UltraBoost X to break in so I was looking forward to my run after work.    These are different than my past shoes in that they have a ton of arch support.  I took these miles slow as my feet were not entirely on board with the change.  I had to stop and listen the shoelaces as they felt super tight.  By the end of the run my left foot was on board, my right was still protesting.  I wasn’t worried about it though because it always takes me a while to break in new shoes.


Tuesday- 4 miles  AMGEN rolled into work town so we closed early and got the heck out of town before the chaos got too bad.   I had big plans for a Tuesday 10K at the lake but when I got there I didn’t want to run there.  So I drove to home town and the river path.    was still looking forward to the extra time to run but my legs were not on board.    They were stiff and just felt like boards.  I gave them until mile 3 to warm up.  When I still had dead legs at that point I called it at 4 miles.  It wasn’t happening and pushing it wasn’t likely to be beneficial.

Wednesday- Rest  After the dead legs of the day before, I figured I’d listen to my legs and take a day off of running.  I planned on some cross training but yeah, that didn’t happen.


Thursday- 2.6 miles I had 2 meetings at work and it ended up being a 10 hour work day.   My last meeting was in home town though so I rushed home and changed super fast to get out the door for a run.   It was in the 80’s but it felt ok.   I wore the Adidas again but this time with thinner socks to see if made a difference.  It did but it wasn’t all good.  On the flats and uphills, the shoes felt great but on downhills I was sliding all over the place inside the shoes.    That said, my legs felt great and I felt like I could have kept running but I forgot why I don’t run my neighborhood around 6- the elementary school is a death trap.  😕

Friday- Rest Friday brain had definitely set in.   I planned to cross train after work but again, that didn’t happen.


Saturday- 3.1 miles  I planned a low key weekend hoping I could catch up on the sleep I’ve been short on for 3 weeks.  I knew that may mess up my long run but  I was ok with that.    I woke with my alarm, turned it off and went back to sleep.   Oops.  I headed out around 3:30 for a short, slow run.  It was mid 90’s when I started so I my only plan was to take it slow and just start acclimating to the heat.  And to force myself to wear my Stride shorts.  😛   My legs felt great but yeah it was warm out there.  I wanted to run more but considering 70’s killed me at SLO, I forced myself to keep it short.

Sunday- 8 miles bike  Did you forget I had a stationary bike?  I kind of did too.  Last time I was on it was December.   My bad.   I stayed up late reading on Saturday night which meant an early morning run did not happen.  I still thought about heading out for 6 miles around 3 but it was 95.  Combine that with a sudden re-occurrence of the damn achy left leg and I chose another option.    However, I haven’t gotten my fan out of the shed and didn’t use the air conditioner so the room felt like a sauna while I was riding.  😛

Miles- Run 12.7   Bike 8    Ok so the miles don’t show it, but hot damn people, look at this week!  I worked out 5 times!  Do you know the last time that happened?  Because I don’t.   Surprisingly, I also feel like I caught up on a little sleep and I checked a few things off of my to do list.  Say what?!  I don’t know what came over me last week but I kind of like it.   Will it continue or was it a one time fluke?  I’ve been struggling with motivation this year and I’m kind of over it.   I just want to run… and I need that feeling to last longer than this week.  Oh and I wore shorts 3 out of 4 runs!  It the little things right?

How was your week?

What’s your weather like?

Anyone race?