Tag: slacker

Goodbye July- Recap

July didn’t exactly go according to plan. It started great but that didn’t hold for very long. So with that being said, bring on the recap-

Races-

Wild Run 5K– 27:47 New PR- Sweet

Rock’n Around the Pier 13.1– 2:20:21- Mother of Ouch

After my rough half, I was feeling a little disenchanted with running. I like to think that everyone has those moments. Right? I played with the idea of taking a whole week off after the half because I was so irritated with myself. That resolve lasted 2 days; I was running again by Tuesday. I decided to let my feet do whatever they wanted to do and the rest of me was just along for the ride. That was supposed to last for a week but I let it linger all July. Why? Because I loved running again. If I am honest, I have been a little disappointed in how I’ve been running since April and that all came to a head in that half. I probably could have done a little better but I just gave up. Not a good reason.

I figured that this month was going to be my lowest mileage month of the year so far and I was ok with that. Running and I were getting reacquainted. I met up with my mom for a bunch of runs, and I discovered the wonder of the warm up. #littlelatetothegame I did my yoga DVD and tried a Barre DVD. I walked around the fair and ate fair food. I tested out a new pair of Wave Riders and met up with NikeC for gym nights. And I ran. With no real plans or goals, just to run. And it was awesome. I hit some average paces that I haven’t seen in months. I somehow also pulled this off-

I know that part of June and July’s issues were my current GI issues. I would like to say July was better than June but it wasn’t. I went home sick from work once and managed to wear pants only 2 out 31 days. I hate pants. Going forward into August, I will get this figured out. My appointment is now just weeks away, and the doctor is going to hear a lot from me. 🙂

How I uses to reward myself after speed work... oh and brown hair — How I used to reward myself after speed work… oh and brown hair

Running free was great for July but for August, I do need to get back into training. Long runs need to come back and I would like speed work to come back into play. I’m throwing out the other training plans. I loosely followed a Nike one for SLO and a Higdon one for Pier. All they succeeded in doing was stress me out. I hit my current PR of 2:05:57 last year by doing my own thing. I am a Slacker who is slightly dedicated and I should listen to myself a little more. When I set the goal to break 2 hours this year, I let the doubts creep in. Lot’s of thinking that other people were faster and with all these plans floating around, maybe I should follow those instead. It worked for them right? Except I am not them and should not measure myself by others (but it’s so hard not to!). I am a little odd, a little nerdy, my brain works in weird and random ways, a little lazy and a little rebellious. I am a Slacker who doesn’t like being told to run or that Monday should be 5 at goal pace with a Thursday 6 mile tempo, and extra stretching and strengthening on Tuesdays.

Now that my tantrum is over, it’s time to embrace my inner Slacker. I have another half in 5 weeks and a goal 10K (gulp-NikeC!!) in 8. Time to see what going off book can do. Fingers crossed, wish me luck!

Thank you for listening to my rambling, slightly whiny words here…If you made it this far. 🙂

How was your July? Are you ready for August?

Do you use other training plans or make your own?

Feeling Like a Slacker

Wouldn’t it be nice if weekends were 3 days long? That would be awesome. I would totally work 4 10’s. I say that now, but wouldn’t that make it harder to run? This weekend actually turned into 3 days for me but it wasn’t a good thing. Friday actually turned out to the be roughest I’ve felt in the last 2 months. I only made it about an hour and a half at work before heading home. I hate leaving sick or calling in, there’s a reason I have almost 150 hours of sick time accumulated. I particularly felt guilty because someone had to drive out to cover me. 😦 I tried calling my Gastro but they can’t see me any sooner and I am “managing” ok. Ugh!!!!! I slept for most of the day.

Kind of nerdy and maybe slightly narcissistic.

This ending up effecting my weekend. 😦 I had plans for an 8 mile run and a 4 mile over the weekend. Plus a little shopping and good food on Saturday. Instead, Saturday was spent doing laundry (so much running stuff!) and catching up on scrap booking my bib numbers. I felt like I needed to do something, so I headed to the gym for the treadmill; easier to quit if I felt sick. The treadmill sorely tested my new found appreciation for the warmup. It was sooo boring. I made it about .6 of a mile before picking it up.

I used this as a reason to break in the new pair of Wave Riders that I picked up in May. So much color! My feet really wanted to move, every now and again I would run into the front of the treadmill. Oops. But I was trying to be smart and ran a .9/ .1 interval. .9 of a mile at 6.00 and the .1 was a walk at 4.00. I felt ok, so I decided to do 6 miles. The only problem came in when I was nearing an hour. With the first warmup mile around 13 and each following mile at 10:30, I was running into the machine cut off. The last half mile was a race with the cool down setting on the treadmill. It would automatically lower it and I would raise it back up, this time to 6.5 just to get it done. Finally done, 6 miles in 1 hour and 5 minutes. Not bad for an off day and I made it through the whole thing! Plus the shoes were awesome. I like that this pair seems to have shorter laces than my white/purple Wave Riders– those laces were ridiculously long and I was just too lazy to change them. Slacker!

As of right now, I have still not made it out the door for a run. It’s hot and I am tired but I am telling myself to get off my butt. I have a feeling that I may end up completing the yoga DVD instead. It’s been a week or two and I should get back into it. Or maybe when the temps fall below 96, I will feel inspired to get in some miles this evening. My next half is only 6 weeks away and it’s not going to run itself. Plus I still need to finish yesterdays scrapbook project. My new computer and my printer don’t like to get along.

Congrats to everyone who ran San Francisco this morning, I am sure you rocked it!

How was your weekend?

What do you do with your bibs?

Busting Out

Saturday’s fair trip took the place of running. I dug out my Fuelband and wore it just for the fair that afternoon. Just under 10,000 steps. Which means it was actually over 10,000 because the Fuelband hasn’t worked properly in months. Granted that wasn’t anywhere near enough to negate the funnel cake or the pretzel I ate but it only comes once a year right? Totally worth it.

Sunday, I was a little tired, so I headed out for my run in early afternoon. I did this run the same way I had the previous two. Letting my feet do whatever they wanted to do, and every now and again they were reined in by my stomach. Apparently my head was still not invited to the party. I set out to do 5 or 6 miles. Also on the plan was to meet up with my mom and the puppy for the first mile and then mile 4. Other those 2 miles which I knew would be mostly walked, I had wanted to keep miles 2, 3, 5+ around a 10:15 pace. That seemed like a good pace for an easy run for me. Well, that’s what my head wanted to do. Miles 1 and 2 went mostly according to plan. Mile 3, umm oops. Mile 4 brought a big hill and puppy time, so it was back to the plan. Except I would have thought it would have been a little slower than that- closer to 14:00. Mile 5- again, oops. So not 10:15. Maybe I should ignore my head more often? I shut off the Garmin at 5 miles and walked another ½ mile to my house.

Every time I walk up my driveway, I tell myself that it is the perfect place for hill repeats if I could just force myself to follow through. I totally get the point of hill repeats but they are just so damn scary sounding.

Monday was well, Monday and let’s leave it at that . 🙂 Since I usually leave work and head somewhere else to run, it is inevitable that when I get there I have the urge to pee. So annoying, and of course, there are often no available bathrooms. So I generally run the next 4-5 miles trying to ignore it. Great training for a half right? Haha! I planned on running tonight after work and at 3:30 I realized that I had already consumed 154 ounces of liquid. Ummm, oops? So I stopped drinking after that to see if it changed anything. I headed to the river path for a few miles. Even though I was running solo, I chose to treat the run like I was starting with my mother. I walked the concrete part of the path before hitting the asphalt and running.

It felt so much hotter than 80. They were quite a few people out today. As I was running up the hill, it felt harder than it should. As I was huffing and puffing and probably turning a lovely shade of red, I noticed about 3 people running towards me. 3 turned into 5 high school boys. A hundred yards later, oh look here comes the cross country boys team, complete with coach and assistant. Please don’t notice my poor form or the fact that a 9:30 mile is kicking my butt while you all fly by me. At least it wasn’t the girls team, that would just be perfect. Did I mention I felt like busted can of biscuits when I put on my running clothes tonight? Thanks “recovery” week. Few hundred yards later, oh look- I spoke too soon. Here comes the girls cross country team. And yes, I now feel giant, thank you very much.

I kept running until I hit the turn around point. My pace felt pretty good going back down but harder than I would have liked. I ran under a little tree, little not big, and my Garmin went cuckoo. My slow pace alert kept buzzing- 15:14, 14:45, 13:25, and on. WTF! I know it wasn’t right but it was pissing me off. For once, I really did need the Nike app as a back up. My pace was pretty good (for me) but I was tiring, so I called it at 4 and just walked the rest of the way back to the car. Which turned out to be good choice because I could the trail from the street and there were 2 roaming, off leash dogs. Safe!! My splits on Nike were pretty good actually. The Garmin had mile 3 about 35 seconds behind, but mile 4 was pretty close. How does that work?

My shin is still a little sore from last week’s half so I am thinking of trying to go other day now for a while. I even wore compression sock under my boots while walking around the fair on Saturday.

Speaking of the fair, I can hear Lady Antebellum through my windows right now. Last night was the only concert that I kind of really wanted to go to but couldn’t make it work with work right now. 😦 I was hoping I could some of it but it was the first concert that I couldn’t make out. All I heard was bass and drums, come on Florida Georgia Line, help a girl out!

How has your week gone so far?

Any good concerts on your horizon? Or even bad ones?

Rock’n Around the Pier 13.1- Recap

The one where I went into damage control at mile 3. 😦

If 2013 was the year of the PR, then 2014 is shaping up to be the year of the bonk. At least as far as half marathons are concerned. But I have to say that this is first race I ever seriously considered quitting. Even when I ran out steam at mile 7.5 at SLO, I still knew I was going to finish, it was just going to be slow.

For once, I felt like I slept really well the night before this race. I woke up on time and made it to pick up NikeC by 5:30. My stomach was being its usual self, so I did not eat prior to the race. This is typical though, so I don’t think it affected me too much. Parking was easy but time-consuming, the race was smaller than last year, it had about 200 for the half marathon and just under 1000 for the 10K, but parking was limited. Once parked, we geared up, met up with NikeC’s friend and headed to the bathroom. Which was where we were when the starting gun went off. Last year I was still running to the chute when the gun went off, oops. Thank goodness for chip timing. We made our way to the chute and were off.

Slowly as there were 100 yards of softer sand to get through at the beginning. Once on the hard pack, it was easier to run. I lost both of them fairly quickly. One moment they were to my left and then they were gone. Last year’s race was overcast, this year the sun was shining and the ocean was gorgeous. Last years 10K went so well (easy) that I had minor hopes for a birthday PR but I knew my speed was iffy thanks to my month of stomach issues. Realistically, though, I was aiming for under 2:10. So all I had to do was stay under a 10 minute mile- I got that right? Ummm…

Mile 1- 9:45 -ok, slower than I’d like but there was soft sand
Mile 2-9:45– hmmm felt way faster than that, but consistent at least. If only this stomach cramp would go away.
Mile 3- 9:51 felt like I had already run the full 13, shifted to a run/ walk method
Mile 4– 10:02 I just choked on air, walk break, take a few pictures. Now the cramp is on the other side.
Mile 5– 10:09 Wheezing, need air, where’s my inhaler? Yes nice man in front of me I see the dolphins (which now I think was awesome but then, not so much.)
Mile 6- 9:47 I refuse to hit the turnaround (10K) past the hour mark, pick it up!
6.2 mark– Turn around 59:08-Man, I wish I was doing the 10K.
Mile 7-10:18 oh, my god, why is this so hard
Mile 8– 10:24– my run .9/ walk .1 is falling apart, walking more often and longer
Mile 9– 11:09 another sudden need for my inhaler. Man the water is so much closer now.
Mile 10– 11:25 oh hell, I could take my shoes and socks off and just walk leisurely back to the finish. I’m mostly walking anyways. Oh fisherman, please don’t cast your reel at me, that would hurt.
Mile 11– 12:15 Oh, what hell is this? To make 13.1, we had to go up through the dunes to run a mile on a paved path. I could have crawled faster through the sand. Is it hot? Why am I so hot?
Mile 12- 11:57 Made it to a 9:20 pace on the pavement, soft sand on the way back to the beach brought me back down.
Mile 13– 11:15 Why is this mile so long!! I feel like I have been staring at the finish line in the distance forever. Ugh, just keep running.

Finish- 2:20:21 Ouch. Literally and figuratively. My calves were on fire. Even with running in compression socks, I was so sore by the time I crossed the finish line. My chip was cut off as I was handed my medal. It’s freakin’ awesome! That helped alleviate some of my irritation. I drank some water and chatted with my family while waiting for NikeC to finish.

Running a race with a friend was awesome. It was great at the starting line, and we passed each other twice on the course which was a great little pick-me-up. The finish line was fun too. I am looking forward to our next race. 🙂

The race course itself was amazing. Blue skies and blue ocean, and the beach, come on. Seagulls and dolphins, too. Given how close the water was on the way back, I understood the early start time more. There was plenty of water stops. They had volunteers directing where to turn around and when to turn off the beach. My only 2 slight negatives were- no on course bathrooms, and I never saw a mile marker. Now I was pretty much head down in misery from mile 3 on but I still think I would have seen at least one. As for bathrooms, I realize that it was on the beach and I have never used a bathroom during a race but it’s nice to know they are there if you need one.

For the cost of this race, 50 bucks!, the swag was amazing and I think the medal may be my new favorite. Plus there was live music and an amazing breakfast buffet at the finish line, eggs, sausage, orange juice, etc. I only wish I felt like trying some of it.

We headed out shortly after that. I was having a little shindig that evening for my birthday that I had to get ready for. Yesterday I was oddly sore in weird places. My butt and my lower back hurt, guess I ran differently on the sand this time than previous races.

Overall, this race was part of a great day. Yes, I was seriously disappointed in my performance but hey, I didn’t quit! I need to figure out what is going with my stomach so I can get back to speed work. Right now I have no idea how ever ran a 2:05 let alone trying to fathom breaking 2:00. My next half is in 8 weeks, and it’s flat and paved, so fingers crossed, my time will start heading in the right direction.

Anyone else race this weekend?

Ever run on the beach?

Cake’s a Carb, Right?

Short and sweet tonight!

So, I learned today that glass scales are made of tempered glass. They still shatter into hundreds of pieces when dropped on a tile floor; but there way fewer sharp edges. My big toe still found a sharp one. 😦

Today was fairly calm for a Friday- woo- hoo!

My coworkers bought me these beautiful flowers-As well as pizza for lunch, they know me so well.

Then there was this cake. Tomorrow’s race may just be fueled by cake. Cake’s a carb, right?I managed to sneak out for a break around 4 to pick up the race packet. That was also the first time I saw tomorrow’s new age in print, yikes! However, the swag was kind of awesome.Then it was back to work before heading home. This is when I had a wardrobe conundrum-Now, my gear is packed. A new playlist is ready (no Wrecking Ball), my Garmin is charged, and it’s off to bed for me. I have a 4:30 am wake up call. Ouch.