Tag: slacker

Week 4 Training Recap

Upcoming Races- Surf City 13.1

Focus this week- Long Run

4 weeks in and I already lost count. Oops. But I was just doing the numbers and this week was intense for a Slacker. 😃

Monday- 4 Miles Ugly, ugly run. It was the kind of run of that makes me feel like an imposter. I could not get it together. My head and body were in 2 entirely different worlds. I felt the beginnings of one of those weird asthma/ panic attacks. Maybe it’s a Monday thing? There’s a reason I usually take Mondays off. The last 2 weeks had rough Monday runs but how can I pass on running on a day off?

Tuesday- 11 miles Stationary bike- A recent obsession with Z Nation has been making these bike miles fly by. Who knew zombies would help me cross train?😀

Wednesday- Rest I had packed my gear to hit the gym and run but things went weird partway through the day. I just odd, just very not right for lack of a better description. I’m transitioning back to a lower carb diet and trying a new medication for my stomach issues. I think things just combined in a less than great way on Wednesday.

Thursday -12 miles Stationary bike- I was feeling better but just could not stomach the idea of heading to the gym and running on the treadmill. It was the last thing I felt like doing. I knew I had big plans for my long run this weekend so I figured an extra day off of the feet wouldn’t be horrible.😛

Friday- Rest Cookie Friday also won. #lowcarbfail

Saturday -12.4 mile long run!!!! 3.8 mile puppy jog Who got up and ran 12 miles in the morning?! This Slacker did! 12 miles is like my white whale. I chase it but never hit it. I think I have run maybe 2 or 3 12 milers tops since I started running. Maybe. And they were all miserable. With Surf City 2 weeks away, I really wanted to get a 12 miler under my belt. Both for training purposes and just to say I could do it. I had mapped out a route that was incessant loops or hills the night before. The plan was to meet up with my mom halfway and she would join me for a bit. My route would then double back to where she parked and we would head to lunch. Except when I texted her at mile 3, she said wasn’t meeting me. Well, crap. I had planned on getting more water from her plus now I had to change my route mid-run. Mid-run math always make my brain hurt. I knew I had to make it home so I was either going to end up short of 12 or over but I wasn’t sure which way it was going to fall. I tried to keep my pace as steady as possible aiming for between 10:45-11:15. My overall average pace was around 11:03 but my miles were all over the place. Mile 5 saw a 9:20 and mile 7 an 11:55. Oops. Mile 5 had me running across the bridge and hate the bridge so much that I usually speed up. Mile 7 had a long slow climb and I started having odd feelings in my toes. I also knew there was no way I was going to have enough water. Grr. Mile 9 had some drama with loose dogs too. It was one of the busiest streets in town and chocolate lab and wiener dog were running lose. A lady was trying to catch so I stayed with her for a bit. She then went on to follow them in her car and I ran on. I hope she was able to help them.

Ok, total #firstworldrunnerproblem moment. I was looking forward to seeing 12 miles on my watch, I needed to see it. Except my battery started to die. Seriously?! Finally I decided I didn’t want to risk losing my data so I stopped it at 10.2 miles, saved it and then started it over. It ended up lasting the whole run and I am glad I didn’t chance but I missed seeing that 12. 10.20 and 2.2 just doesn’t have the same ring to it. Plus I still ended up half a mile from my house when I stopped my watch the second time.

Sunday- 5 miles Stationary bike– All right, first 20 mile week in a long time had me feeling sore. I chose the bike over running as I didn’t want to push my legs too hard after a 16 mile Saturday. Plus I wore the wrong shoes on the puppy jog, so I was feeling familiar aches in my knee. 5 steady miles were freakin’ hard. But better than nothing right? Oh and I took a nap. 🙂

I am kind of proud of this week turned out. Running, cross training and I only had pizza once, I’m calling it a winning week! ✅👍🏽👏🏽 Question is, can I do it again?? Luckily I am only aiming for a 10 miler next weekend so I am hoping for 3 days running and 3 cross training. Which means I will have to go to the gym and use the treadmills. Grrr. I am counting down to the time change.

How was your week?

Do anything fun this weekend?

Do you have a white whale?

Week 2 Training Recap

Upcoming races– Castle to Coast 8.2 miles
Surf City 13.1

This week’s focus– Working on base building

Yeah, this will be quick.

Monday- Rest
Tuesday-Sick
Wednesday-Sick
Thursday-Sick
Friday-Sick
Saturday-Sick
Sunday- 3.65 miles

Well, that didn’t go according to plan. The sore throat I’d been fighting/ignoring for a week or so turned into so much more. By Tuesday, I felt horrible and ended up leaving work early. I treated myself to In-n-Out on the way home and spent the afternoon sleeping. Somehow In-n-Out has become my go-to sick food. Which considering I drive past one 2x a day, only getting it when I feel completely crappy is a win in my book. 😏

Wednesday, I felt slightly better and I headed to work. I finished out the day, came home, posted a blog post and was hopeful for at least getting on the bike on Thursday. The denial was strong at this point, my right eye was starting to swell. I went to bed with an ice pack and hoped for the best. Thursday morning arrived and my eye was damn near swollen shut. I hate calling sick on a regular day but we are also running short staffed right now and I was supposed to have lunch with my uncle. We have been trying to plan lunch for years but it never works out so the last thing I wanted to do was cancel. So I dragged myself to work. Bad idea. I made it half the day before being booted out the door. And I had to cancel on my uncle. Boo. Once again, I was on my way home early. No In-n-Out this time just more sleep. I learned my Up band is smart enough to know when I am napping though.

I made it through work on Friday only to go home and crash. Seriously when did walking to the copy machine become so exhausting? No lie, I slept for 11 hours on Friday night. 11! How is that even possible? I did feel a little better on Saturday though. That didn’t stop me from sleeping for a freaky amount of time on Saturday night though.

Today, I got out for a slow 3.65 mile walk. It was in the low 50’s and perfect running weather but I was bundled up like it was in the 30’s. 😝 But I had zero coughing fits! Which was great since I somehow forgot my water bottle on top of my car. Oops. And I could have checked the weather better as it started to rain on me on the way back. 😢

So, yeah not the way I had hoped to greet the first week of 2016. I seem to get super sick every January. 2 partial work days is better than I fared last year so calling that a win? Now the test is to ease back into things this week… oh with a race in 5 days. Sure no problem, right?

Tell me all about your running adventures this last week!

Or non running ones too, I watched way too much tv. 😆

Surf City Week 2-Christmas Lights & Sirens

I ran at night!! You guys- I went out in the dark and the cold and ran at night!! 😄😄😃😃

But before we get to that, here’s a brief recap of last week’s slacker-ness err, training.

Monday– Rest
Tuesday– Work holiday party
Wednesday– Treadmill 5K
Thursday– 2.70 miles – OUTSIDE!
Friday– Rest
Saturday-Unexpected emergency road trip
Sunday– Rest- tired, stressed and way behind

So, yeah still not awesome but that’s ok. Sometimes life rears it’s horns and you change your plans. I’m still playing catch up. But let’s talk about the exciting thing-

I ran at night! It was slow and short but it was kind of awesome. 😃😃 I had been considering attempting a night run for a while now. I’m a big baby when it comes to running in the dark. You never know what’s out there, right? But, I figured realistically I had a better shot of running at night than I did in the early mornings. One- I like my bed and sleeping until the last moment. Two-less likely to have a run in with a creature of some sort. Or at least that’s what I tell myself.

I packed 2 sets of clothes- one for an outdoor run and one for the gym if I chickened out. I don’t own any night gear and I didn’t want to buy anything because what if this was a one and done? I’m not sure what I was thinking though- I had purple pants, a coral shirt, black and yellow jacket, a coral headband and mismatched gloves. Maybe I hoped the tacky-ness would be extra visible? 😜 I had reflective strips on my arms and an ancient, tiny flashlight. My jacket was supposed to be reflective- spoiler- it’s not.

I parked under a light at a local business and headed for my route. I chose one of the busier streets in town but I chose it for it’s sidewalks, uneven as they are, a few streetlights and the sea of Christmas lights. I started out slow and I was presently surprised at how much light the Christmas lights gave off. The temp was in the mid 40’s and the jacket was too much. I stopped half a mile in to tie it around my waist.

The dark is funny- I felt like I was hauling but in reality I was putting along at an 11 minute pace. I laughed out loud when my Garmin buzzed at mile 1. I don’t usually run on the sidewalk on this street, if I run this street I am in the bike lane. I knew the sidewalk was uneven but dang! I stumbled a few times and there were a few times the sidewalk disappeared entirely. Hello!

My plan was to keep it short, sweet and uneventful and it was working out to be that way. Until just shy of 2 miles. I was coming up on an intersection and heard what sounded like a school fire alarm. I stopped and tried to figure out where it was coming from. I finally pinpointed it to an older apartment building down the side street. I wasn’t sure what to do. I didn’t smell smoke and everything else seemed quiet. I finally took my cue from the people playing ping pong in their side yard. They didn’t seem alarmed at all, so I thought maybe this happens all the time at 6:30? I ran on down the street. I hit my planned turn around and headed back the way I came. As I came back to the siren intersection, I didn’t hear anything so I was relieved. Only to discover a fire truck now parked outside the apartment building! What?!?! Last time I trust people hanging out in their yard!

The route is short, so I was back at my car around 2.7 miles and part of that was already overlapping. So this would route would work more as a shakeout/ easy run than anything else. Plus, once the Christmas lights come down it could turn a lot darker. That said it was kind of awesome and it pushed my boundaries a little. I can’t wait to try it again. 😊 With a better flash light.

I had good intentions of running this past weekend but late night phone calls are rarely a good thing. My mom and I ended up heading down to LA for a family emergency. It wasn’t the best of days.

Sunday brought the realization of just how behind I am with Christmas shopping. And laundry. Seriously, I did 4 loads. So, like I said before- not the best training week. But again, I am ok with it. This week should be interesting as I have to head back to LA again. This time for myself though, I have another appointment at USC for my stomach. Nice timing right?

But it’s Christmas week!!! Are you ready?

Do you like running in morning dark or night dark?

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.

Vacation Week 1 Recap & Night November

Winter has arrived. The last few nights have been in the 20’s-yippie. 😓 I will adjust but haven’t just yet. My toes feel like Popsicles. Between a long, cold hike and the frozen Turkey Trot last week they still feel frozen. But besides that, I put more miles on my legs last week than I had in any training week in a long time. Yay for vacation!

Monday– 4.5 miles- progression. I chatted about that in this post but this was a good run. It wasn’t the speediest but it felt comfortable. I hadn’t felt that in a while while running. 😃

Tuesday– Rest. With 8 miles on Sunday and then Monday’s run I decided to implement a 2 days on/ 1 day off schedule for vacation. I figured my inherent laziness would kick in at some point but I also didn’t want to push too hard too fast.

Wednesday– 9+ mile hike/ trail run. More on that will be in Wednesday’s post. I’ll just say this- I had to climb up—out of a bat cave. With my iPhone flash to light the way.

Thursday– Turkey Trot! Also mentioned in my last post- so cold!! And all the miles caught up with me.

Friday– Rest. I really wanted to be outside hiking for REI’s #optoutside but my right leg was so sore and tight from #allthemiles in a short time, (for me) I could barely walk. I spent the day taking it easy and alternately cursing/ crying with my foam roller. 😒 Zero shopping was done on this #blackfriday.

Saturday– More rest. My right leg was still super tight and sore. It would actually buckle every now and then when my quad locked up. Fun. I spent the day wandering around SLO and made nice with my foam roller again.

Sunday-3.8 miles. Night 3 of sub 30* temps, there was no way I was running in the morning. I’d like to say I’ll get used to it but yeah, probably not. Winter is the time of year that running in the mid afternoon rocks. 😄 I was pressed for time as I was going to an afternoon movie but I wanted to see how my legs felt. The right one felt great, nothing at all like the past few days. The left on the other hand was back to it’s old tricks. I had to stop a few miles in to stretch out a super tight calf. Grrr. It loosened up for the last mile or so but I need to figure out why that calf tends to get super tight. Other then the tight calf issue, it was another good run. All of this week’s runs had zero walk breaks. I can’t remember the last time that happened. 😃

Weekly mileage- 23.42

Who am I? 😄 Throw in last Sunday’s 8 and my 8 day total hit 31.42. How many rules of running did I break there? 😃 To put that in perspective let’s talk about how November as a whole went.

Miles- 59.9
Races– Big Sur Half Marathon 2:23:26
Turkey Trot 10k- 1:04:49

So yeah, half of this month’s mileage happened last week. Oops. Seriously why can’t I run at 3 all the time? I know my treadmill motivation is seriously lacking. I run so awkwardly slow on it, it also makes my legs overly sore. New goal for December- conquer the treadmill. Either that or invest in a headlamp and brave the cold, dark mornings. Hmmm, decisions, decisions.

How was your November? Are you ready for December?

Anyone brave the shopping this weekend? Score any good deals?