Tag: injury

Week 17 Training Recap

Upcoming race– SLO Marathon 13.1

Focus– Keep working on the 4x a week and enjoy a step back long run.

Mission partly achieved. As for the other part- uh oh? For someone who has a propensity for colorful phrases, whether cursing or not, my training week ended with a very quiet, meek “uh oh”.

Monday- 3 miles 3rd day in a row and I was feeling a little tired. However, that was part of the plan so I kept moving. Mile one was super sluggish but I loosened up for mile 2 and 3. I finished strong and headed home. I did miss running with NikeC though.

Tuesday- 4 miles 4th day in a row?! Who am I? There is a method to my madness here, really. By the end of the work day I was not feeling like running at all. So I ran in work town; I knew that if I had to drive anywhere else, I would lose motivation and bail. My legs are not used to 4 days in a row yet so they were feeling pretty tired. I kept the pace easy and just tried to enjoy the view. By the time I got to the eucalyptus trees and shoreline I was glad I had stuck to my plan. Mile 4 felt the best to me which was funny as it is all uphill. I was just shy of 4 miles when I hit my car so I figured another loop of the block would get it done. Except I cut through the alley behind the police station. Should be safe right? And it was if you don’t count the crazy Husky that charged me. Seriously, what is my luck these days?! Someone called the dog off but he had the crazy dog look like he could snap at any time.

Wednesday- Rest Except my mother had a random Wednesday tennis match so without pizza night or running, I felt a little adrift. 😝 Ha! I ended up cleaning half of my car. It still needs to be vacuumed though.

Thursday- Rest I planned to run, I even changed into running clothes after work. My mother wanted to reschedule pizza night but I said I wanted to run first. Once again, she dropped the dad kryptonite. So I enjoyed pizza in un-sweaty running gear.

Friday- 10 miles I worked on Saturday and had plans to spend a day shopping in SLO, both of those things were stressing me out about my long run. I was able to leave early on Friday though for a partial day. As I was changing into my running clothes it started pouring in work town. Boo. I headed towards home hoping it would clear up on the drive. When I parked it looked stormy and threatening but was not even raining. A little rain is one thing, the pouring diagonal mess I drove in- not so much.

My first mile was super slow- more walking than running- I was mentally debating if I was going to run or bail. I didn’t have a mile goal in mind at all anymore, I was just out running. At every point where I could make the run shorter or longer, I would assess the situation. How did my legs feel and what did the skies look like? It was cold and windy but the storm clouds were holding. My upper left thigh felt a little off, kind of like there was a band around it. Nothing hurt, so I kept running. I was keeping a pretty steady pace and while it was faster than it should maybe have been, it felt good.

I was coming down a hill about a mile from my car when I felt it. Something in my left leg moved. I felt it shift on the outside of my upper thigh. I calmly said “uh oh” out loud and continued to run. Smart, right? It didn’t hurt but it felt very off if that makes sense. Good news was that the band feeling had gone away. I finished out 10 miles and stretched really well. At least I hoped so. I also attempted some butt kicks and high knees. Things felt weird. Oh crap.

Saturday- Rest I still wasn’t in pain but things weren’t normal. By midday, I was limping. But it still didn’t hurt? How does that even make sense? I chose to skip my planned easy run. Boo. If I didn’t have a race (SLO!!) next week, I may have pushed it.

Sunday- Rest For the most part, I felt better. Every now and again, I would feel an odd twinge but overall it felt ok. I spent the day schlepping around SLO and by the end I was exhausted. I haven’t slept well in almost a month so even though there was plenty of daylight when I got home, I passed on a run. I did however spend a very long time at The Running Warehouse, trying on all the shoes. At least it felt like that. The Launch’s and I broke up for good after that last cramp-tastic run. I hate returning shoes but I also can’t keep giving them to my mom. My budget is not that big!

So yeah, not the week I was hoping for but it could have been worse. I wasn’t planning on tapering for SLO but that will depend on my leg feels on my first run this week. It’s being weird so who knows? Fingers crossed?

Funny story, Friday I was sitting at my boss’s desk talking to her. I heard something behind me so I looked- crazy husky!!!!! He was in the building! Turns out he was looking for a treat. Small towns, right?

How was your week?

Ever have an odd, weird twinge? I’m thinking it’s my IT band.

Vacation Week 2 Recap

Started off with a bang and ended with a whimper. Whereas week 1 was crazy mileage for a Slacker like me, week 2 was more like my usual. Maybe I can say I embraced the relaxation vibe of vacation? Even though I didn’t go anywhere?

Monday- Rest My ankle/calf was twinging from all the miles last week so I chose to rest. This also worked out as I ended up spending way too much time in AT&T stores this past week. My parents, brother and I share a family plan and have for years. One it’s more cost effective and two, I refuse to lose my unlimited data. It was time for my mom’s phone upgrade and since she needs me as the plan holder to make changes it worked out that I was on vacation. She picked out a shiny new HTC A9 or something another. She’s anti iPhone despite owning one the last 2 years. Her new phone was pretty until we realized over the weekend it wouldn’t send text messages. Well, that’s a problem. So, after hours of internet research and on the phone with tech support on Monda, the verdict was to give the phone back. Seriously, that’s what tech support said. 😒 So days later, after shipping fiascoes, rigged up iPhone 4’s, she is now the owner of shiny new, working, iPhone 6s.

Tuesday-4 miles More late afternoon running for the win. Well kind of. I headed out closer to dusk than planned but figured I would see how many miles I could get in before it got too dark. Parts of my run were great and other parts not so much. Once again my pace was better than I had expected and I didn’t need any walking breaks. However I stopped 3 times to stretch. My calf/ ankle thing is not happy at all and I kept stopping to stretch it out along the ways. Trees and curbs were all fair game. Grrr. The run turned out to be a nice little progression but my leg is not happy.

Wednesday– Rest With my ankle area being weird, I decided to try an every other day running schedule this week. Which works out as both my parents had birthdays this week. My mom’s was today. The brother and I took the parents to dinner that night. I may have eaten a few too many bread sticks at Olive Garden. 😉

Thursday 3.75 miles– holy ouch, batman. That rest day didn’t help the tightness is my ankle/ calf area. Once again I was using trees and curbs to stretch it out along the way. It started raining on me on the way back but I was too cranky to enjoy it. I shortened my run which made me cranky. I was hoping to hit 6 but there was no way. 😐

The weather man lied- it rained!! Oh and I saw this lovely sign. 🙂

Friday- Rest Pop’s birthday!

Saturday- Rest Unplanned, I was hoping for a run but I felt crappy. I had tossed and turned all night and felt exhausted. I also felt a little nauseous. I meant to take a 30 minute nap after lunch but ended up napping for 2.5 hours. Oops.

Sunday- Rest Sensing a pattern here? Part of me wanted to run and part of me wanted to be lazy on this last day of vacation. I still wasn’t feeling so hot so I wasted the day away watching cheesy tv Christmas movies. #sorrynotsorry

Somehow vacation has come to an end. Normally by now I am itching to get back to work. However I don’t feel ready to go back. I feel like there was so much more that I needed to do (like clean my car) but time just seemed to move quickly these past 2 weeks. Make it slow down! How is Christmas so close? And I seriously have no gift ideas. Normally by this time I am done shopping! I have wrapping paper but nothing to wrap!

So it’s back to work tomorrow. Back to treadmill running, boo. Back to better eating habits, hopefully. 😃

How was your weekend?

How is your Christmas shopping coming?

Any good calf stretches? I need help.

Call it Craos

Tomorrow is Friday!!!! Woo hoo!!!

Lately, I have been so tired and stressed, I have troubles putting words together. Or maybe it’s the blonde coming through, I don’t know. But I have made my co-workers laugh so then it’s ok right? The first moment was few weeks ago when I was trying say one of their names. Instead I stumbled over all 3 of them and somehow combined them all into “Renini”. 3 names into 1 just makes things easier right? Then since we have been borrowing people from other locations while we work on hiring, we have had people who are surprised by how quickly we can go from calm to crazy busy. I was trying to say welcome to the crazy but accidentally combined it with chaos. So craos. Hmm, that one kind of works- change approved. 🙂 But today was the real winner. I noticed that 2 of my coworkers were wearing similar skirts and looked nice. I said I felt left out since I missed the skirt memo as the 3 of them were wearing skirts and I was wearing pants. They all just stared at me for a moment or two. Not only was employee 3 wearing pants but I was wearing a dress! Wow.

I have lost my mind ... Thanks Pinterest.

After Sunday’s race, I was pumped to run this week. I packed my gym bag every night and took it to work. Monday went off track though. Not only did Monday show more crazy CA weather, I hurt myself. Home town hit 105 and work town only made it to 59. That’s a 46º difference. Now work may be 45 minutes away by car but it’s actually less than 30 miles. What the frak?! Ugh, I wasn’t sure where to run. I’ve been feeling some odd left foot pain since I tried the Inspires. It hasn’t gone away with the new Riders. It doesn’t happen all the time but I have been trying to figure it out. I wasn’t sure if the new shoes started/ contributed to it or not. I had also picked up some store-bought insoles for the boots I wear most frequently, so maybe that was part of it. Monday I had the bright idea to take the left one out…but not the right one. Maybe that aggravated what happened later or it was when I lifted a heavy bag I shouldn’t have been lifting. But by the end of the day, I felt like my neck and shoulders were tingling and there was a band of pressure on the back of my head at the top of my spine. I felt off, not quite dizzy but not normal. It was odd. Between that and the heat, I decided to rest instead. Which worked out since my mother needed a ride from tennis practice as her car died on Sunday. 😦Tuesday turned into another rest day as I woke up feeling like I had pinched or pulled something in my neck. Grrr. Wednesday it felt a little better so I was hoping for a short easy run. Cue the crazy weather again. Work town was sunny but with high humidity. Then we find out that home town is under a thunder/ lightning storm warning and there was hail. Then the emergency broadcast system broke in and said that people in my home town should take cover. What?! It cleared up by the time I was off so I headed to run town hoping that the storm hadn’t moved south. The temp was nice in the low 70’s but the humidity level matched. Ugh. The air felt stale and stagnant. Kind of like the way the little remaining lake water looks. I struggled through 3.5 miles but was just glad to be out running. Today I took next week’s half day. I had been looking forward to running early but was feeling rough. I indulged in pizza last night for the first time in 3 weeks and my system was not happy with that many carbs. I decided to head home to rest a bit first. Arrived home to 94º. Don’t get me wrong, I love the warmth, I just haven’t adjusted yet. I decided to read some blogs as inspiration to get out the door, I fell asleep instead. Once I woke up, the last thing I wanted to do was run, but it’s become too easy to bail so I forced myself out the door. I knew it was going to be a slow, warm slog and I was ok with that. A little over 4 miles later and I was done. It was slow, it was rough but I was glad I had done it. 🙂

And now it sounds like the Army base up the road is playing war games and the house is shaking, so bring on more craos!! Also, I do realize that I have been freakishly tired lately and will be making a doctor’s appointment to see about that. But tomorrow is Friday, so woo hoo! I am picking up bagels on the way to thank everyone for their hard work, hopefully I don’t eat too many…that would be bad.

What do you think? Does Craos need an “h”?

How was your week? What’s your weather like?

Have any weekend plans?

May Miles

And just like that, May is moving on. In one way I am not ready for the year to be halfway over (almost) but I am ready for June. A new month and a clean slate. 🙂 So without further ado, here’s May-

Miles- 53.7

Races- Bands on the Run 10K

My SmashRun tells me that I ran 12 days and rested on 19. Hmm, a little uneven. So May was not my best month but I’ve already alluded to that on numerous posts so let’s just move on. 🙂 I made it out for 3 runs last week, so I am holding consistent there at least. Wednesday was a bit sad and I only ran 2.25 miles. My stomach was a big butt head at the beginning of last week so I got a late start. I wasted a perfectly good non work day on Monday by not running. I love running on holidays but I just wasn’t up to it. Thursday, I got out for a decent 4 miles followed by a .6 mile cool down. While the pace was decent, it felt hard. That could have been partly due the temperature warm up we had late this week. While the mid 70’s felt awesome, it’s been over a month since I ran in those temps. But I was so glad to warm, I didn’t even mind that it felt hard. 🙂Then Saturday’s run was in the mid 80’s. It started as a slow run, turned into a jog and then became a walk. I had planned on doing the usual run/ walk I sometimes do with my mother but 2.5 miles in I was just walking with her. It was warm and my left leg was feeling off so I decided that walking was just fine. Truthfully, my left foot and leg have felt a little off since I tried to break in those Inspires. Hmmm, I am telling myself that it is mostly in my head and just to take it easy. I still have 2 weeks before I start training for my fall half’s, so this is the best time to figure out what is making it cranky.

I feel like I should have run more on Saturday as I ate way too much movie popcorn that night. We went and saw San Andreas. I admit that I have an odd fascination for earthquakes. One of my favorite subjects in college was Geology and I briefly considered taking it further. The movie was essentially a Syfy movie but since it had the Rock, it made it to the big screen. I thought it was pretty good. My mom and S laughed multiple times throughout it though. I have to admit it got a little surreal when we decided to walk across the park after the movie to get some frozen yogurt. Part of downtown was leveled by an earthquake 12 years ago and seeing the new buildings after the leaving the movie brought a lot of that back. The town suffered heavy damage and loss and it took a long time to rebuild. It brought reality back into some of the far fetched scenes in the movie.

I planned on getting in a few miles today but ended up taking a nap instead. I really got to stop doing that! 🙂 But I did do a bit of unplanned shopping and picked up some new shirts to run in. I’ve started running in my Lululemon shorts and they are a little more form-fitting than my other stuff. Apparently I feel the need to compensate with looser shirts. 🙂 Plus, I’ve worn the same shirt just in various colors for the past 2 years, it’s time to branch out. Just like I decided that saving the Lulu for a special day was kind of silly, they are super comfy.

So, onto June and getting back on track! I already know I am not running tomorrow but I am doing something running related. But more on that later. 🙂 Oh and in May I was nominated for the One Lovely Blog Award by MostlyHealthyLiving so that will be my next post. 🙂 Thank you! You should go check her out!

How was your May? Goals for June?

Shirts with words/ sayings- yay or nay?

What movie are you looking forward to?