Tag: races

Fast

Where did January go? How is this even possible?

Hell, considering I started this post on Monday and it’s now Friday that you are reading it… where did the week go?

I did not get in the miles I had hoped in January. I ended the month with 25 ish miles. Which if we are being honest, is kind of on par with the last few months. Stupid 2020.

I really had hoped for more but the month went by stupid fast. I think I have whiplash, ha. Work got a little chaotic-like. First general busy-ness then a surprise inspection followed by a big maintenance project that I totally wanted but wasn’t ready for. Don’t get me wrong, I am glad it was done but wow was I unprepared for one day to become last week. And this week.

January saw road miles and dirt miles. 2 very different views of the Pacific Ocean, both good. Still on the fence about the trail shoes but hopefully getting there.

With my time flying realization, it also occurred to me that I have races in the next few months, I should probably get on a training plan for. Oops. I have the Napa Valley Perfect Pairing (virtual), the Oakland Marathon half (virtual) which I should downgrade to the 10K. Then a maybe IRL race- Saguaro Half Marathon out in Tucson. All in the next 8ish weeks.

Proving that I still don’t look at calendars well.

Week 9-Close

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 a mixed bag.

Some things went like I hoped and others not. My leg was angry for more days than I would have liked. I know it’s due to the stool I was using at work. Last week I switched back to the desk chair, which is only slightly ridiculous as I have a counter height desk with a Varidesk on top. It usually takes a couple weeks to unkink though. I attempted cross training but didn’t check that box as much as I hoped.

It also rained quite frequently which put a damper on some of my runs.

I did sign up for 2 more races though. I also finally got my tires rotated. Oh and I paid off my bed so there were plenty of positive things too.

Wednesday- Liift4
Haha, I was so sore after this. Starting it over may be harder than I thought.

Thursday- 2 miles
Wanted to run at the lake which meant a shorter run. I am anxiously awaiting the arrival of the time change. I ran a fairly easy 2 miles and called it a night.

Sunday- 8ish miles
I headed out for a long run but wasn’t really feeling it. I was aiming for between 6-10 miles and would see what happened. A car parked at the end of one my frequent roads had me rerouting so I turned down a street I’d never run on before. I did have a vague idea of where it would let me out though. However I soon realized that if I kept running the adjusted route, I would be short of 8 miles. I also failed to resume my watch after a picture break so the mileage is at least a half mile off. Grrrr. Also around mile 4, I noticed that my feet were going numb. What?? It hadn’t happened since Surf City where I blamed my old shoes. Well, I was running in newer shoes this time. So much for that theory. I walked until they felt normal and then would run on. This repeated for the next couple of miles until they felt completely normal. I finished my run and everything felt fine. What gives?

So, 10ish miles for the week. Not great but better then the beginning or middle of February.

How was your week?

Week 29/ Rock n Roll San Jose Training Week 1

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?

Keeping Track

Disclaimer: I am promoting Athlinks 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!

We runner love our numbers. At least I know I do. 😁

When I first started running, I would scrapbook every bib with race dates and finish times. But let’s be real, I soon ran out of steam with that one and now that scrapbook languishes at the bottom of a hope chest in the closet.

I have pages dedicated to race times and links to recaps on the this blog (look up) but sometimes I fall behind on keeping them up to date. Then there was the time a couple months back when I accidentally deleted the entire page that listed all my races prior to 2014. Ack!!! What do I do?!

Tah dah- Athlinks!!

Athlinks works like a database and pulls all your race results together and keeps them in one place for you. At least that was what it did when I signed up years ago.

It’s so much cooler now! Yes, it still tracks all your races and it’s super easy to claim them- well as long you don’t have a common name, which I don’t 😋. Now you can follow your friends and they can follow you. Anytime you run a race with them, they become your rivals. I don’t how much of a rival I am as everyone I follow and vice versa is faster than me but it’s fun!

mission add

Another cool feature is that you can add upcoming races so those friendly rivals 😀 know what your upcoming races are. Who knows, they might be running the race with you. And if that race doesn’t immediately pop up, it’s super easy to add it. For example, my race this Saturday is on the small side and didn’t pop up when I searched. So I added it. I added all the distances- 13.1, 10 mile, 5k and then I added myself to the starting list for the 10 miler. It took less than 3 minutes. Easy, peasy.

PRS — haha, remember the hot mess 25k????

There’s even a Statistics tab that keeps track of all your PR’s for you. My 10K PR is not accurate since I set it at a super tiny race but it’s close enough and since I’ve slowed down, I can still use it as incentive to make that number drop! Also, I somehow forgot my marathon finish time. I thought I was slower than that so seeing it there is kind of awesome… and again, incentive to make that number drop. 😋

Now, I have run some super tiny races (I mean how else did I first OA female one??-tiny) , so not all of my races report times and data so Athlinks doesn’t have those. Heck, some of those races didn’t even have timing clocks or bibs but the majority of my races are available. So, I look forward to adding to my stats over time.

You can set your profile to private if you want and still take advantage of all the awesome tracking capabilities that Athlinks has. Public or private- either way it’s awesome!

Do you use Athlinks?

2017- The Shiny and The Dull

It’s that time again- time to recap the Shiny and the Dull of 2017.

Let’s get the Dull out of the way first.

So yeah, remember that post 12 months ago where I said I hated goals, that I considered them 4 letter words so I wasn’t making any? No? Well, here it is if you’re feeling really bored. I was going to make 2017 the year of Challenge. Ha! More like the year of complacency.

Instead of running all the miles in 2017, I didn’t even clear 650.

Did I find my old pace? Yeah, no.

I was turned down for 2 jobs I applied for.

Should we even mention the weight I put on? I’m less irritated about the number and more irritated about how uncomfortable I feel in my skin.

Had migraine issues, thyroid issues, leg issues, back issues, bed issues. Maybe I’m the issue?

Ok, enough with the dull.

Shiny!!!!!!

I ran 10 races, 8 13.1’s, one 5 miler and one 5K. If I had to pick a top 3, they would be –

Las Vegas! I went to Vegas! I ran a half and a 5K in one weekend. I finally met Kate in real life! We ran her first half together. I met Helly! I hung with Mai and other BibRave Pros! There were lights and miles and good times and it was awesome. Tiring but awesome. And I am a bad blogger because I don’t have the pictures.
Rock N Roll San Diego 13.1– My first Rock n Roll race and it was great one. I loved the course and the whole experience. I met Mai and Emily and made the We Run Social photo on race morning. And I met Chelsea! It was also my fastest race in a few years. Until…
City to Sea– Home town love. Yeah, I consider the entire county my home town. 5th time running this race and I still love it. Somehow pulled off my fastest race of the year too. Still don’t know where that came from.

Honorable mentions- Salinas Valley Half Marathon, SLO Ultra 5 Miler

I had the opportunity to work with BibRave again in 2017 and it is a great group of people. Plus I tested some pretty awesome products. I’d have even fewer miles if BibRave hadn’t pointed me in the direction of my Ultra Boost X’s. My running store doesn’t sell them so I wouldn’t have found them on my own. I’m on pair 2 now.

I was also given the chance to be an ambassador for Miles and Pace. If you’ve been around this blog for the last few years, you may have noticed that I am pretty attached to my Miles and Pace trucker hats so I was stoked. My current hat count is 4.

As for work, I have a Rock star crew, so can’t complain about that.

So 2017 did not go like I hoped but then again I maybe got a little too comfy in the comfy chair and rationalized my way into being a little too Slacker like. I mentioned on Twitter the other night that I have a tendency to get in my own way.

As for 2018? Time to Sound the Alarm.