Tag: hot

25- Baby Steps

Last week was better.

Well, a mountain lion moved into one of the elementary schools but that’s far closer to normal than the previous week.

I was still coming up with any reason not to run. Too hot, too much wind. I ate too much, I didn’t eat enough. Don’t want to wash my hair, forgot my shoes. Yada, yada.

I knew I was in my head and spooked due to the previous week’s events but I couldn’t seem to shake myself loose.

I watched lots of Disney movies in the evenings in an effort to distract myself. And finally on Saturday, I ran.

I slept in but made myself run as soon as I got up. I headed across town to run the river path. Although the river bed made me nervous, I was reassured by the number of people out. I swear I have never seen so many walkers, runners, and cyclists out on the path before. It was kind of awesome. It was by no means crowded but the number of people was kind of nice. And everyone smiled as people passed.

As for the running, it was kind of rough, but really what can I expect considering how unmotivated I have been this year? But it was still a little over 4 miles.

I then somehow had a burst on inspiration and cleaned my car and overhauled my closet and dresser. Also forgot to eat until I was trying to figure out why I was so lightheaded. Oops.

Sunday, I headed out for a late morning run in my neighborhood. Forced myself to run in both locations this weekend. However I knew shortly after starting my run that it would be more of a walk. Apparently I am so out of shape that 2 days of running in over 80* temps was too much. Ha!

So 6ish miles for the week. Yep.

How was your week?

Week 45- Dark

Daylight savings never used to bother me. This year I feel like it smacked me in the face.

Which is odd because I thought it would be better now that I work so much closer to home. Doesn’t make a difference, I still don’t get off work until it’s full dark. Boo. Someone want to come run with me?

On the work front, things are looking up and we should hopefully be fully staffed in a couple of weeks. Fingers crossed, I think I can, I think I can.

I watched more Christmas movies this weekend. I am trying to wait until Thanksgiving but I am losing the battle. This is one way the stupid 80* weather is helping.

I also slept. A lot. I really mean a lot. I took the weekend to reset after a rough few weeks… well, truthfully I didn’t plan but that’s what my body dictated. Surprisingly no naps were involved.

Monday- Wednesday- Dark
I packed clothes to run after work but I kept putting it off. I told myself I hadn’t had time to test my lights since spring. I even went so far as to order new ones. I mean extra light never hurts, right?

Can you see me now?

Thursday- 1.6 miles
The plan was to run and then meet my mom for dinner. What I didn’t account for was traffic on the freeway being at a standstill. One fender bender had turned into 4 and they backed up both sides of the freeway. Thankfully it looked like everyone in the accidents were just irritated. I made it to my running spot but I only had 20 minutes. So I ran. Slower like I do in the dark… maybe I should use winter as a way to work on my heart rate?

Friday- Nope
Another open to close.

Saturday- 4 miles
It’s freezing overnight and 85 in the day. Should I be melting on runs in November? No! I rode the struggle bus the whole time. I know it won’t be long until I am complaining about the cold but right now, it’s welcome.

Sunday- 4 miles
I was so tired. I woke with a headache so went back to sleep. Even with that, by afternoon, I had zero desire to run. Hell, I didn’t even want to move. I wanted to nap. I forced myself to get up and drive to my running spot. Less than a mile in, I knew running was not going to happen. I could have thrown in the towel and quit but instead I walked. 4 miles and I even managed to negative split the thing. Better than nothing!

9.6 miles for the week. Not too surprising considering it was the first week of Daylight savings and it usually takes me awhile to rip off that bandaid. Missing a long run is what really killed the mileage. But let’s be real….when was my last long run??

How was your week?

Week 11-Bump in the Road

Otherwise known as sickness, heat wave and ouch-oh my.

2019 Race Schedule (so far):
3/24 Oakland Running Festival (Thanks BibRave)
4/28 SLO Half Marathon
8-11 Oaktown Half (Thanks BibRave)

Last week was rough. I had long days at work due to early morning conference calls. I ended up getting sick and then even when I felt better I was so damn tired. Like tired enough I slept through 3 of my alarms and had to get ready in 20 minutes on Friday. A similar story to Sunday when I set an alarm for an early morning run and instead dozed right through to 10AM. What?? That came back to bite me in the ass. Figuratively and damn near literally.

Monday- 3.1 miles
Starting the week out on a good note- I love the time change. I made it all the way to hometown before my run with plenty of light in the sky. I wasn’t sure if I was running 3 or 4 but settled on 3.1 so I could meet my mom for a late dinner. There were so many people out enjoying the extra daylight. My run was pretty decent- it actually ended up being a very short progression and the last mile was speedy for me these days.

Tuesday/ Wednesday- sick
I felt fine when I woke up on Tuesday but took a sharp decline mid morning. I was not ok, sick to my stomach, watering eyes and feeling feverish. I ended up leaving work early on Tuesday and barely made it through Wednesday.

Thursday- 3.5 miles
I was still feeling off and bordered on cranky. My new plan called for intervals but I didn’t think there was any way that was happening. I headed to the lake path after figuring it was easier to bail if I wasn’t feeling it. For some random reason, I pushed play on the interval workout. The first running interval almost killed me, ha! However I was able to increase the pace on each interval after that so yay? Granted, I am way off from the days when I ran paces of low 7’s, high 6’s for 1/4 repeats. I was struggling to hold a 9 minute pace but you have to start somewhere, right? Not cool was the numb left foot… again.

Friday/ Saturday- ???
Work was super long but I was abnormally hyper. It’s not the first time this has happened but it usually means I am still not feeling well. So no running but I randomly decided to rearrange all the furniture in the bedroom and closet. Moving dressers and beds is not exactly restive. Oh and I did push the limits of my lunch break on Friday and made it the Running Warehouse and back to pick up a new pair of shoes.

Sunday- 7.25 miles
Holy heat wave, Batman. It was almost 80*, I was so not prepared for that much of a jump. I had planned on running 10 miles for my last long run before Oakland but knew by mile 3 that wasn’t going to happen. I was so hot I was taking walk breaks more than occasionally. My pace actually wasn’t too horrible but I knew it wasn’t going to get any better. Good news is that there weren’t any issues with the new shoes. Bad news is that being hot wasn’t the worst- this turned out to be a chafe-tastic run. Ouch!

Just shy of 14 miles for the week but no cross- training. Unless you count sleep, haha. Not what I was hoping for when the week started but better than it could have been.

How was your week?

Rock n Roll San Jose Recap

Disclaimer: I received an entry into Rock n Roll San Jose as part of being a BibRave Pro. Learn more about becoming a BibRave Pro (ambassador), and check out BibRave.com to review find and write race reviews!

After the worst night of sleep or lack thereof, I was up and getting ready for the race. I was also regretting the Spaghetti Factory dinner from the night before. 😛 I got ready and headed off to the start line.

The race started at 8 and while the Slacker in me liked that, every other part of me was worried. That is late. I knew I was going to be slower than planned. I still had to check out of my hotel. Rock n Roll had sent out a heat advisory email the night before. Let’s get this show on the road! Except we didn’t. I can usually guess exactly what time my corral is going to start for Rock N Roll races but I would have been so wrong this time. There was some delay for the trains? Buses? I don’t know but I was confused. I didn’t cross the start line until almost 8:30 and it already felt warm. I hate humidity.

Miles 1-3 9:58, 10:42, 10:21, 11:05
Irritation fueled the first mile. I had a feeling I wouldn’t be able to maintain that. My legs felt ok but the rest of me felt off- just kind of not present. I was running and felt like I was pushing but I knew I really wasn’t. I was realizing just how many turns this race course was going take. We turned so many times. We ran through the San Pedro Market area which brought us past the Spaghetti Factory- nope, nope. Then it was another turn and we were coming back towards the start line. I heard a woman tell her running partner that it was too hot for her.

Miles 5-8 11:05, 11:21, 11:31, 11:23
So much flat road. We were running towards the SAP Center and into an area of apartments and strip malls. I found the perfect apartment complex- an Orange Theory and Papa Johns were across the parking lot. Replace the Papa Johns with Domino’s and I am sold! The things we think about when trying to not think about running. 😜 So many more turns and we were in Santa Clara. I felt like we were so far away the finish line. I needed a hill. Why was it so warm, it’s October! There were some damn nice houses we ran by during this block as well.

Miles 9-12 12:58, 11:33, 12:26, 12:02
Oh, what the hell? My right hip/ sciatica seized and I ground to a slow crawl. I spent mile 9 mostly walking and punching myself in the butt. 🤣 I kind of wonder what I looked like to the runners behind me. I ran more in mile 10 but 11 was more of the same. Grrr. My stomach cramps from the morning also returned. Really?? What else? I was taking more walk breaks trying to loosen up my hip area. I was drinking water and Gatorade at every station and dumping water on my Buff then shoving it down my shirt to cool off. Classy, right? This course had an abundance of cheerleaders and they were needed as I was fading.

Mile 13 11:15
Around mile 11.5, the 2:30 pacer passed me. Umm, excuse me? I know they started after me and I was on pace for a 2:30 so they had no business passing me. I picked up the pace a bit because I was so ready to be done. Sure enough I passed the pace group in the last stretch to the finish line as they slammed on the breaks.

Finish – 2:30:00 on the nose

I was done, I was hot and my hip hurt. I made my way through the long finisher’s chute, getting my medal and food before finally making my way out and meeting up with my mother. In one good thing, the finisher chute pretty much dumped us out right at my hotel parking lot so I didn’t have far to hobble.

If you love flat, this is the race for you. I did like running through the neighborhoods of San Jose and course support- aid stations, music and cheerleaders. But I need hills. I don’t know if they would have made much of a difference that day but I missed them. Also, I haven’t been that sore post race in years- even after both marathons. 😛

Big Sur Marathon Training-Week 13

Ok, I lied, you get the training recap before the race recap. Oops.

It’s coming, really! It’s never taken me this long to write a race recap before but maybe that’s because my brain checked out last week. I was so tired and just couldn’t figure out why or seem to catch up on my sleep.

I had wanted to move my 20 miler up a week to this weekend as it just fit my schedule better that way but between some leg issues and the extreme tiredness I was getting the feeling that was probably not a good idea.

Monday- 2.5 miles I planned on a few shake out, easy miles to get my legs loose from the day before. I was aiming for 3-4. My leg had felt ok during the day at work but it quickly let me know that it was not on board with a run. Not at all. I was hoping it would loosen up but instead it steadily grew worse until it felt like the pain was in the bone too which alarmed me so I called it short and just headed back to the car.

Tuesday/ Wednesday- Nada I was giving the leg a few days to see what it would do. Working at my desk makes it very, very angry. I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again- stand up desks are not all they are cracked up to be.

Thursday- 4.5 miles I headed to lake path as I had a feeling that the dirt path would be more forgiving than pavement or concrete. I started slow and kept it nice and easy. Because spring had suddenly made an appearance and it was 80 degrees at 6 PM, going slow was not an issue. In fact I needed a few walk breaks due to the warmth. However those breaks pointed out that my leg was ok once in motion, it really does not the stops and starts of walk breaks. Which is problematic as I know I will be walking part of this marathon.

Friday- Stupid For some reason I was so freakin’ tired this week… and it was making me stupid. And slap happy. I took a nap on my lunch but it didn’t help. I had a feeling my long run wasn’t happening on Saturday.

Saturday- 2.2 miles I was still super tired and my leg was sore but this was supposed to be longer. But we got a little lost. My mom and headed to do a trail but the one we did a few weeks ago is closed, boo. So instead, we did the Pine Mountain loop. It gains almost 500 feet in the first 1/2 mile or so but the path is fun with a couple of random off shoots. Once we made our way to the top, we took one of the random off shoots thinking it would make the path longer but instead we had climb over and under some downed trees before it deposited us almost in someones front yard and on the highway. Oops!

Sunday- 10 miles My leg was sore and I was still so tired, I pretty much knew that 20 wasn’t going to happen early and I was going to stick to the plan of 12. But when my alarm went off in the morning, my head was pounding, likely due to hormones from that TOM, so I rolled over and went back to sleep.

That had me heading out for my run in the afternoon. It was over 80. I didn’t think it would be that bad. And it wasn’t until mile 5 and then it was all downhill from there. So much walking. I was so damn warm. I had 2 bottles of water in my pack and I drank them both. I even took a few moments iny a lone shady spot to just try and cool off. But no luck. It took me so long, that I ended up only having time for 10 miles before I needed to head back for Easter Dinner.

19.23 miles for the week. Not great but not horrible considering how my leg felt on Monday.

How was your week?