Tag: funk

A Pretty Slog

Since I have come to the conclusion that I have troubles with taking it easy, I headed to the gym on Wednesday evening. I need to work on controlling my pace better when running outside but for the purposes of this run I relied on the treadmill. That is one good thing about the bore-mill’s, I made sure to never go above a 6.2 the whole time and spent a few minutes warming up as well. 4.5 miles in 45 minutes. It should have been 5 miles but I just wasn’t feeling it. Which is kind of funny because by the time I did my cool down I was at 5 anyways. What I don’t understand is why treadmills feel so hard? The belt is doing some of the moving for you but it just seems 5x harder. I know that a lot of people share this opinion but I really wonder why?

I wore the Adrenaline‘s yesterday and they felt pretty good. Tonight’s run was in the Wave Riders. They felt great however the run did not. The weather was gorgeous if windy and I was excited all day to get a solid 4 miles. Plus I was looking forward to trying out my new toy-

It's a Flip Belt!!!!!! — It’s a Flip Belt!!!!!!

Amazing shipping, I ordered it late Sunday night and it arrived yesterday. I have been eying it for a few months and finally decided to just buy it. It is heavier than I thought it would be but I was hoping that wouldn’t be noticeable on. And for the most part it wasn’t. My phone fit in it with the case on perfectly. It was also easy to get it in and out to take pictures. It was a little awkward with my pepper spray so I just kept that in my hand while running. Which is fine for shorter runs but that will be trickier when I carry water. I will be testing that this weekend on my long run, a long, slow run. (No race for me this weekend.) I am not forming an opinion on the belt just yet. 🙂

Tonight’s run was rough. Just rough. I decided to run the route from work, hoping for a good 4 miles. It started off downhill like always but into a stiff headwind. Ugh. I felt like I was running through a swamp. I was hoping it would get better when I rounded the corner– no such luck. Less wind but still swampy. It never really seemed to click. I turned around at the 1.5 mile mark and headed back. My goal was to take it easy this week anyways, right?

That's actually pretty good — That’s actually pretty good

Once I made it back to my car, I checked my Garmin and noticed that my pace actually was pretty good. I guess I just wasn’t feeling this run. It made last night’s treadmill run seem good. 🙂 Maybe I should have only planned on running 3 days this week and not 4 after last weeks rest and recovery time. My legs felt so heavy; nothing hurt which is great, it was just funky. My long run this weekend will be between 8-10 miles and I am planning on crawling… Really. I am shooting for distance over pace this weekend. I will rest tomorrow and one of the weekend days. Who am I kidding, Friday is always a rest day – 🙂

Today’s run may have been rough, but at least I was out there. Plus the view was awesome, so no complaints there. Now, I am ready for Friday!

Who else is ready for Friday?

Who is racing this weekend? LA?

Anyone else counting the hours until Daylight Savings Time???

Sadness and Cookies

Thank goodness it’s almost Wednesday.

Monday started on a sour note, coming in to work we learned that our fish- Mo Betta- had joined the great guppy in sky. He had been sick for a few weeks and we tried so many things but in the end nothing worked. I admit I refused to even look in the fish bowl (punch bowl) I let the others deal with that. We were all in a little funk after that. Have I mentioned the awesome customers? One felt bad for us and showed up a few hours later with a gift. Say hello to this little guy-

Confusion abounded while we tried to figure out what to do with him. A coworker refused to use the “death bowl” again and all we had were vases. Luckily that same coworker had a large glass jar thing. So that is currently his home, his name is also a work in progress. Wish us luck that he stays feisty.

It’s also that lovely time of year that tempts all healthy eating plans. Yup, these were delivered yesterday as well-

Girl Scout cookies!!! So much for no gluten. Not that I am allergic to gluten but it seems to be the easier way to manage this Low-FODMAP thing my doctor has me on since December. At least 85% of the time, I told him I’m not giving up pizza or a hamburger once a week 🙂 He rolled his eyes. And continuing on the healthy kick, I put spinach and kale in my smoothie tonight. Spinach!!! I hate spinach, have ever since I was a kid, can’t even stand the smell of it. I managed to drink the whole thing so woo hoo! 🙂

Today was rough for some reason. I was dragging all morning. I took yesterday as a rest day since I was still a little sore from Sunday’s run. So I wasn’t tired from a hard workout. Work turned a little crazy by the end of the day, too. I originally had plans to go to the movies tonight with a friend but that fell through. So I headed to the gym after work.

I told myself I would do an easy 4 miles to wake myself up and get me going for the rest of the week. Once I got going, I felt pretty good. I have been foam rolling often and I found a new (to me) yoga/stretching routine that seems to helping to. Things never really hurt, just sometimes I feel a lingering soreness. My easy 4 turned into an easy 5 for the night. 5 miles- 50:53. Oddly enough there was a guy running on a treadmill near me who would throw boxing jabs while running. That was interesting. 🙂 I made sure to foam roll tonight as well, plus my newest torture device-

In other news, Run or Dye is coming to town in May. I am on the fence about how I feel about these runs. Having never done one, I can only speculate. I am already stressing over the logistics of not staining my car seats or my shoes. But I have always promised C that we would run a race in tutu’s and this seems like the perfect opportunity. We actually have quite the team growing, C’s husband and NikeC and ME and more, so it should be a fun day. And colorful.

How is everyone’s week so far?

Any thoughts on color runs?

Any helpful betta fish hints?

Accidental Tempo

First off, I want to say thank you to everyone for the thoughts left on my last post, they really helped 🙂

Today, I set no alarms. After the past couple of weird days I just wanted to get some sleep. I was hoping a good rest would help. It wasn’t the best but I felt a little more level this morning. Not to say that I didn’t have random moments throughout the day but I ignored them.

I met my mother for lunch where I did indulge a little, tri-tip sandwich and onion rings, yes please. Then we hit up a favorite antique store for a little browsing. I hadn’t realized I hadn’t been there since early November, so many things had changed. I went in with the intention of spending no money, I didn’t need anything and as always, Christmas was more than I planned for 😦 I held strong to this until one of the back stalls. I found this little beauty. Then I saw the price. 30 bucks??? It’s mine. Way too good of deal to pass up. Plus I will never turn down extra storage. Like I mentioned before, slight hoarding tendencies.

I was still kind of full from lunch but I knew I needed to get a run in. Not only did my training plan call for it, but I needed one. I was torn between doing the 8 that was on the schedule or backing it down to 6. I had been text messaging with a friend who commented that her legs weren’t ready to run in shorts. I agreed that mine were the same, hello Holiday 4 7. So what do I do? I decide to try out my new running skirt. So I changed and was out the door.

The plan was for this to be a slow and steady run between 6-8 miles. So when the first 3 came in under 30 minutes, hills and all, oops. My head knew what I needed to do but my feet were not listening at all. Luckily I ran into my mother out walking Zoey again, perfect reason for a walk break to slow down. Of course they were going up that damn hill from New Year’s again, but oh well. We walked for a bit then I ran on. Again my feet ruled my head and I went left up another hill, actually the same one I ~~ran~~ walked up 10 minutes previously.

I looped around and then ran up another hill. Stupid feet. Coming down, I hit 6 miles. I was tired and feeling the too fast pace and hills. I headed for home slowly, telling myself I was done when I hit my driveway no matter what the GPS said. I was tired, my legs were heavy, I had had a too big a lunch, and my upper thighs had been regretting the skirt since mile 5. Once again my feet ruled and when I ran passed my driveway, the Garmin said 7.57. So I ran another .25 mile out and then back. I stopped the Garmin as I began the crawl up my driveway. I was so done. But I felt good in a sore, tired kind of way.

Where's the escalator? — Where’s the escalator?

I started out way too fast and was crawling by the end but I finished it. My feet chose to not listen to my head and maybe I needed that. The true measure will be how sore I am tomorrow. It should be a rest day, but I may try to make up some miles, but they will be really slow ones, I promise. I rewarded myself with a nice hot shower (oh the sting!) and a yummy smoothie 🙂

While on my run, I passed an older lady out for a walk and she told me it was too hot for me to running. It is January 4th and I ran in a skirt and tank top, 72º. I can’t decide if her comment was funny or freakishly correct 🙂

Hope everyone had a good Saturday!!!

Anyone else like antique stores?

I’m not the only one who’ve had my feet overrule my head right?

Kettle Bell Ouch

I just didn’t feel like riding 8 miles on the bike on Monday but the nagging part of me said I should do some form of cross training. Or something. So I decided to work in a bit of strength training with a kettle bell work out. It was short but intense and I felt like I had done something productive. At least until Tuesday morning.

Oh crap, it hurt to move. My thighs were in pain, hehe. I spent the day trying not walk like a duck and wearing heals was not helping. Needless to say, Tuesday night’s run was a little rough. I completed my 3.5 miles but my legs were so stiff and sore. I think I hurt less after my last half marathon. How sad is that? Each lap around the park just seemed slower and slower. In reality there was only a 13 second gap between mile 1 pace and mile 3, but let’s be honest, they started out slow. Wednesday was a much needed Slacker day.

Which brought me to Thursday, my long day. After work, I planned to run there before heading out to class. My legs still hurt; seriously?! I left work, running the same route as last week, however this time I didn’t get lost. I figured I would base my distance on my pace. If I was still dragging and feeling lame, I would turn around at the service road, the 1.75 mile mark. If I was feeling ok, I would push on to the 2 mile mark then turn around.

The day was bright and sunny, so opposite of last week’s heavy fog, same temperature thankfully. I enjoyed the scenery along the way; it was pretty in the sunlight. I felt good, so I pushed on to the natural history museum before turning around. I knew I was going to slow down a bit on the way back as it was mostly uphill, but I pushed on. Last week I took 2 brief walk breaks and this week I just powered through.

Got to my car and was pretty pumped, figured I at least beat last weeks’ time. So I checked my Nike+; and nope. I was slower by 28 seconds. Ugh.

I feel like I am in a running funk. I just feel frustrated with the workouts I have completed the last week or so. Maybe if I didn’t have 2 big races coming up, I wouldn’t care. But I do and right now I feel like I am getting slower not quicker. I realize that any run is better than no run but I had finally started to see progress these last 6 months. I still have a 6 miler that I need to do this weekend, maybe I should just do that as an easy run?

On the upside, we got out of class early, which means I made it home before 10 last night. And I got to see this view on the way to work this morning:

Running out the funk

So, yesterday’s girls night was cancelled and it was just downhill from there. The day started so good, and I was just in such a funk by the end of it 😦 If I had had my running clothes with me, I probably would have gone for a run, but I didn’t. When I got home, I had no desire to go to the gym that I pay for but never use. I was in a funk and a treadmill wasn’t going to help it.

This morning was tough and the funk was still around. Trying everything to get over it, I pulled out a really poppy upbeat, possibly annoying CD from forever ago for my commute. Why is it that I can’t remember why I just went to the kitchen, but songs from some Swedish pop band from 12 years ago, I know all the words? Anyways, it kind of worked.

A coworker and I started the morning talking about donuts. I really wanted a donut but was not about to go buy them. She was in the same place. It’s easy to have willpower when the food is unavailable. However, our customers must be mind readers. Around lunch time, a customer brought us a dozen donuts. Sweet! Since I didn’t pig out last night like planned, I had a donut. It was so good! Until I choked that is. Seriously, who chokes on a donut?!

My running friend was unable to meet me today, so I left work intending to run 3 miles with a few hills. No flat trail. The route was one that I had run numerous times before so I know it well. Hit the one mile mark and heard silence from my Nike app, hmmmm. So I check my belt… I never hit start!!!!! Well crap!

WTF (fyi, check out this website, pretty cool!)

So I finally hit start and kept going. Ever have a run that just feels right? It’s not about how fast or how slow or how far. It’s just those times when your breathing is right and easy, your legs feel good and it all falls in line? Today I got that 🙂 Got to the turnaround point and thought maybe a little more. Hit 3 miles and 4 and kept going. Hit 5 and figured I better head back to the car. I wasn’t hydrated properly and my pre run snack was a second donut! But I felt like I could keep going.

Nike had me at 4.56, so adding in my mile goof up, that brings me to 5.56. Not bad for a funk filled hump day. Maybe it was the sugar of the donuts that gave me an extra kick, (ha!) but I think I may have out run the funk! Hope everyone else is having a funk-free week!