Tag: sick

Week 11 Recap- Wait, what?

This was the kind of week that ran over me with a truck, backed up for more, then sped off into the night. Workout wise, the week actually started off pretty good, it was work life that was kicking me around. The I got sick and spent a lot of time sleeping. How come that is never as exciting as it sounds?

Monday- 4.3 miles

I was debating where to run when traffic made the choice for me. A fire started on the Cuesta grade Sunday and by Monday it had grown exponentially. It was heavily stressed that people find alternate routes home which sent them my way. I couldn’t even get on to the off ramp to change highways so I just took the back roads home. This was repeated for most of the week.

I was feeling nostalgic apparently and headed to my former work location and ran from there. Which is really just my home route backwards but it feels different for some reason. 😀 My calves were super tight for the first few miles of the run. I ended up stopping every so often to try and stretch them out. I hit a hill at the halfway point and alternated walking forwards and backwards up it. I wonder what the home owners thought when they looked out the window. 😋 Things finally felt like they popped into place a mile later. By then I was almost done. Soreness aside, my splits were good for an easy run and I felt good after the run too.

Tuesday- Rest

I didn’t get home until 8ish. I looked at the bike but nah.

Wednesday- 6 miles -intervals

I haven’t done speed work in a few weeks and I was feeling nervous. Since I couldn’t get to the lake path due to traffic, I headed to the gym. I figured the treadmill would help me maintain pace better anyways. Turns out I haven’t been to the gym in 182 days. 😁!!!!! They have a new system that tells you things like that now. Ouch.

The plan called for a warm up followed by 10 min @ HMP, 1 min recovery x3 then cool down. I knew I didn’t have that in me so I went back to a speed workout I skipped 2 weeks ago. Similar except only 8 min HMP x3. But yeah, that’s not what happened. What I did pull off was 6 min @ 9:13 pace, 2 min recovery x4 with warm up and cool down. Time wise, I hit the 24 minutes but my pace should have been 9:08. Still for my first attempt in 2+ weeks, I am calling it a win. It was also my longest run in my Pure Flow’s so far. Other than the general first mile achiness, they felt great. I always feel like it takes longer for me to find my stride on a treadmill. Anyone else have that issue?

Thursday- 7 miles stationary bike

I was feeling pretty good after Wednesday’s speed work but planned for a rest day. I was hoping I could maybe get my long run in on Friday so I wanted to stay off my feet. I started off the day feeling pretty good but things went south early in the morning. I started to feel light headed and nauseous and just exhausted. It only got worse as the day went on. I was supposed to attend a business mixer but just wasn’t feeling up to mingling. I was hoping I could sweat it out on the bike. I also figured if it made me worse, it was easy to quit since I owned the bike. 😃 I didn’t feel worse so that’s a plus right?

Friday- Rest

Or not. I still felt crappy on Friday. A coworker was feeling poorly too so we thought we were fighting a bug of some sort. I was drinking Airborne and Vitamin C but no luck. I didn’t even make it through the day at work. It takes a lot for me to leave but I just couldn’t do it. I went home and crashed, taking a 4 hour nap. Is it still a nap if it’s dark when you wake up?

Saturday- Rest

I had some errands to do in SLO and those hurt. I was so tired and just beat. Running was not happening. The furniture did finally get rearranged. Now, there should be no way I can run into the bike in the dark. I’m sure I’ll find a way though. 😃

Sunday- 5.5 miles Stationary bike

Grrr. I had a company picnic for most of the day so I needed to run in the morning. Yeah, no. The alarm went off, I checked the temp and saw 90% humidity. My lungs were having none of that. When did I become such a baby? I headed south for the company picnic. Hours of sun and sand later, and I was again exhausted. I didn’t even do anything! Watching the executives hula hoop was amusing though. It was around 100 when I got home and there was still Sunday dinner. Plus my gym closes early on the weekend so I figured a little time on the bike was better than nothing at all.

Overall, the week started pretty good and hit some speed bumps at the end. That said, it could have been worse, I still got in 4 workouts. Much better than it would have been without the bike. It seems like lately I have only been able to accomplish a long run or a speed workout during the week. One but not both, I really need to work on that.

Paleo- B-

I actually did really well until I got sick. I admit that something I always crave when sick is french fries. It’s my comfort food, something about the grease and salt make me feel better. Burger King happened on Thursday and In N Out on Friday. I do have to say that they didn’t taste as good as I remember. But that should help fight future cravings right? I got things back under control by Sunday. Tri tip and salad at the BBQ, I passed on the bread. I also really like subbing broccoli in for pasta when Sunday dinner involves pasta. Plus it’s super easy to steam and clean up so no extra work on my mom’s part since she’s in charge of Sunday dinner. 😉

This week has more testing for my current GI issues but it doesn’t seem very invasive so I am hoping to hit all my workouts. Fingers crossed! Plus I am attending an injury prevention seminar so that should be interesting. Now if people could just stop yelling at me, that would be awesome.

How was your week?

Does your company do annual BBQ’s or parties? Year’s ago we did formal ones, I kind of miss them.

Anyone else have some weird summer sickness?

Sunday Summit- A Little Lost

Finally.

After 11 days off (stupid flu!!!) I finally got out there and did something! I also made it to work on Thursday and Friday. Wowza, Thursday was rough, I was exhausted. No lie, I got through the day with a lot of Diet Coke. But anyways, on to Sunday.

With the 25k 7 days away, eek, Sunday was my last day to get in a trail run/hike. Plus I needed to test run my race day gear. Because of the narrowness on the trails and the chance for ticks, I am wearing clothing that is a little more form-fitting than usual. I also had a new hydration vest I needed to test. The first one didn’t work out so well. It didn’t fit right with water in the bladder and just didn’t feel like it was made well. I replaced it with a new one a few weeks back but hadn’t been able to test it yet. This one doesn’t have a bladder but has 2 water bottles in the front. I stashed snacks in the back pocket and filled the bottles. Success! Well, except I haven’t figured out how to easily access my phone. But I’ll work on that. 🙂

With me being sick and my mom being slightly hurt, we have readjusted our general time goal for the 25K. Sunday, the plan was to head out to the race course and hike part of the last out and back. According to the course map, that section is 8.4 miles. We had troubles finding the right trail head but we were near another one that my mom had hiked before and really wanted to again. The sign said it was 3 miles and it looked to be all fire road. Fine by me, 6 easy miles was probably all I was up for anyways.

It was freakishly warm! High 70’s and I was burning up! Being a fire road, the trail was easy but I was still coughing a bit. The trail ends near a worn down, beat up, old barn. It was equal parts creepy and cool. So of course we had to take a few pictures right? When we headed back, we passed a tiny, almost hidden single track trail head. My mother insisted she had hiked it before so we should do it too. Holy mother of incline. We gained 700 ft over the next 1/2 mile. Once we finally made it to the top, we found a picnic table. We took a break and ate a few snacks. And enjoyed the view. 🙂 We headed back down another way, hoping it was shorter way back. Ha!

Since we weren’t positive what mountain we were on, I pulled up a park map on my phone. It didn’t really help. Or maybe I just don’t know how to read it. Eventually we found our way down to a trail intersection. According to the map, the right trail led to a dead-end and the left trail was the backside of Hazard peak. We went left which meant we then had another climb in front of us. My mom’s knee was just starting to hurt and we coming up on 6 miles and we weren’t even at the top of the mountain. Our pace had slowed but we mad it to the top once again and enjoyed more views. There were some mountain bikers at the top discussing trails and I overheard one say that the trail we had not chosen led to another fire road. Really?! That would have been so much easier! Where were they when we could have used directions? Then it was time to head back towards the parking lot, down the front side of Hazard Peak. So at least we were able to check out the race course from that direction. Down hill it’s not too bad, but I am wondering what the uphill will feel like after 8 miles. Guess I’ll find out next weekend! We finally made it back to the parking lot- 9.65 miles later. We survived, haha! Even with getting a little turned around, going farther than planned,and getting a little sunburned, it was a good hike. I don’t think I would have hiked that far without getting turned around but some coughing attacks aside, it was great to get outside and do something again. Plus it was a good practice run for next weekend. It gave us a general idea of what kind of time to expect. Sunday’s hike was just that a hike and we covered 9.65 miles with 1400 ft gained and maintained a 17:00 pace. Next week the race will add some speed on the downhills but a little slowness when we climb Valencia Peak, but that’s only 1.5 towards the beginning, so fingers crossed? Sunday’s route took us from fire road to single track, packed dirt to loose shale and then loose sand. The surroundings changed from scrub brush to trees then to a Eucalyptus grove. The sun was shining and sometimes we could hear the ocean. I’d call it a pretty good day!

How was your weekend?

Ever got lost in the woods? (yes, I wasn’t in the woods but still) 🙂

And Still…

I have a new-found dislike for pajamas. And really that’s just sad. I mean pajamas are so warm and cozy and comfy, what could you possibly dislike about them? Even with all that, I am so over them. I miss wearing real clothes, I miss wearing running clothes. Ugh.

In case the above whining wasn’t enough, I am still sick. I only lasted 3 hours at work on Monday before heading home. I didn’t make it in at all on Tuesday or Wednesday. That’s not to say I didn’t try. I made an attempt to get up and ready for work at the usual time. It usually resulted in a text conversation with my boss before going back to sleep for a few hours. Then an actual phone call to work before more sleep. Ugh. But tomorrow I will be back at work, no more listening to the Harry Potter movies with my eyes closed. Hopefully I will look less like a creature. Otherwise I will be missing the sit down desk where I used to be able to hide myself. 🙂

So this is just a short whiny update- I miss running. I miss being too much of Slacker to want to run. Now I just want to run. Oh and I have spent way too much time on the internet these days. There are some odd things out there.

Thanks for listening to me whine, hopefully the next update will have some running in it!

Let me live vicariously through you- how awesome or good was your week?

Who ran? Anyone racing this weekend?

Of Choices and Coughing

I have a great new ab workout- coughing!

Oh, it doesn’t work like that? Well, it should. If you can’t count that than the only thing I have been even slightly productive at since my last is sleeping. And even that hasn’t been done well.

My hope that resting on Thursday would get me through my long runs turned out to be in vain. I was miserable all Thursday night but made my way into work on Friday. I have this thing about calling in sick, I hate it and rarely ever do it. Particularly on a Friday or Monday. That’s a huge no-no for me. But with a 45 min to an hour commute, I really need to get over that. I made it 3 hours before heading home. I proceeded to spend the next 2.5 days alternating between my chair and my bed. It turned into some cold- flu thing and I have had body aches and chills and a pounding headache. I spent a lot of time sleeping and it wasn’t even good sleep. Ugh.

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Running did not happen at all this weekend. I am hoping that I feel up to a few miles on Tuesday but I know they won’t be easy. The last time I was sick was actually last January and it kicked my ass energy wise for a few weeks. Doing laundry exhausted me today. This has me a little nervous. The 25K is in two weeks and I was already doubting it.

My left leg has been a little achy lately, and my mother has had a bum knee. She is ok going uphill but as we all know, down hills can be evil. And the 25K has a lot of downhill. She did see a doctor about it but he left it up to her. One of the points of the 25K was that we were going to do it together. Now I am concerned that both of us may push too hard when we really shouldn’t. This weekend was supposed to be a 18-20 mile weekend, half road, half trail. I feel unprepared and don’t think I can catch up. Plus there is the fact of Surf City 7 days after the 25K.

I am torn. I feel like backing out would be the smart idea but it feels icky. Between coughing fits and naps today, I went online to look at other races my mother and I could do in the area. We are pretty sparse on trail races but I did find a half marathon on an army base in a month that looks like a better fit. Just not as scenic. So yeah, torn.

Alright, sorry for the downer of a weekend update!

Tell me how awesome your weekend was? What kind of running did you get in?

Thoughts on the race conundrum?

Sticking to a Plan

I am really trying to stick to my plan. I want to go into 2015 and my spring races without feeling like I have to start from scratch after the holidays. That said, a big part of my plan is flexibility. So when my stomach was a butt head on Saturday, I ran 5 instead of 8. However, I still followed through with my back to back days and did the 6 mile Cerro Alto hike.

Tuesday, I ended up getting a way later start than planned and was only able to get in 5 miles before dusk. However, they felt pretty damn good. They weren’t the speediest but they felt solid. After a pretty great 5, I was eager to get running again on Wednesday. But I was questioning if I should. Vacation is hard, part of me wants to run all the miles but the more sensible part really wanted to stick my schedule and get comfortable with it. I never did find a nearby turkey trot but was planning on doing a couple of miles with my mother. Also, I knew that I would be spending Saturday or Sunday shopping so I started rearranging my running days in my head. I started thinking I could squeeze 6 out of Thanksgiving and then run 8-10 on Friday. With that in mind, I took Wednesday as a rest day since I know my body is not a fan of running 4 days in a row.

Oh such plans. Thanksgiving morning rolled in and I woke with a sore throat and a headache and scratchy eyes. I spent the day half in pajamas and half in running gear under a blanket on the couch. I was cold and it was a balmy 75º in my neck of the woods. My family had a very low key Thanksgiving. We hung out and watched movies- Into the Storm, Lone Survivor, and Heaven is For Real. Interesting choices, right? Luckily, we never really go overboard on Thanksgiving so I didn’t feel too guilty. 🙂 In fact, minor sickness aside, it was a pretty great day.

I don’t do the whole shop at night or at the crack of dawn thing, so I slept in on Friday. I still felt a little off but better than Thursday. After a small lunch and a couple of errands, I headed out for a few miles. 5 miles seem to have become my new go-to. With just trying to complete both races in January before focusing on speed for SLO, there is no speed work built into my plan right now. Plus, my stomach doesn’t really like it these days. So any speed work that happens is just based on how I feel that day. That said, I have been trying to work on a fast finish to most of my runs. Usually by the end of races and runs, I am done, I can never kick it in to the end. I figure my stomach should be able to handle that.

I will say it’s a lot easier on the treadmill. Turn the speed up and just hang on. Out on the road, I have to focus more. All I’m aiming for is a speedy last half mile before cool down. That’s not too long, right? I felt like I pulled it off the last couple of runs. My fast pace alert was vibrating my Garmin on Tuesday’s run but I never actually looked at it. But then it just averaged in with the rest of the mile. Urgh. So even though I was tired today, I used the lap buttons. The last half mile comes right after hill that always kicks my butt. I have never run it. It’s short but steep and just makes me tired. I hit the lap button as soon as I got to the top and started running. Oh,man that was hard. I felt slower than Tuesday, which made sense, and like there was no way I could maintain anything for a half mile. I hit 5 miles, pushed the lap button and stopped the Garmin. It wasn’t until I synced my Garmin with my phone that I figured out why it felt so hard. I did what?!

Holy crap! I realize that it wasn’t even a mile but still sweet! Also not the pace I was looking for, haha! I was aiming for the mid to high 8’s but I’ll take it! Probably couldn’t pull it off again or maintain it for a full mile, but it’s still kind of cool. 🙂

How was your Thanksgiving?

Anyone join the crush of crazy shopping? Any good deals?