Tag: tired

Weekly Recap 11-Slap Happy

Upcoming Races:

  • Livermore 13.1 -March 26!!
  • Destination Races Santa Barbara 13.1- May 13
  • Rock N Roll San Diego 13.1 June 4

So yeah, last week was odd.  Don’t get me wrong, it was a good week.   I got a lot done at work, more things were completed in preparation for the merger- those all turned into funny situations too.   I got in a good run and a creepy run.    My stomach was a total asshat at the beginning of the week and I was abnormally tired but I was in a super good mood most of the week.   Maybe I should have realized that was a sign of things to come but I’ve never been too good at actually listening to my body.  I mean for crying out loud Friday’s post went up unfinished!  Sorry about that by the way.  😞


Monday- 4.25 miles– I love daylight savings.  I headed to home town after work and was able to run this entire run in full sunlight.  I took it really slow in the beginning as this was my first run in the new PureFlow’s.  From there I ended up running a nice (for these days) progressive 4 miles- 13:22, 11:04, 10:37, 9:06.  I say these days because that same day Timehop also reminded me that 3 years previously I set my unofficial 5K PB of 26:35.  Which is a far cry from the 11:00 ave pace of this run.

Tuesday- Rest/ Detox Yoga–   I got so damn tired on the drive home from work that I stopped at Target and wandered around it a bit in order to wake up.     My stomach had been horrible since Sunday so once home I tried some yoga to help ease some of the pressure.

Wednesday- Rest- Stretching/Foam Rolling– My stomach was still being a total butt face and work went a little late so I just decided a low key night was in order.


Thursday- 3.5 miles-  Creeper alert!  I headed to the lake path after work and was hoping for 5 miles.   There were more people out taking advantage of the extra daylight.  My legs were a little sore.  I’d worn flats a couple days this week plus breaking in the PureFlow’s with 4mm drop made for some sore calves.  Not enough to deter my run though.  What did was the creeper in the gold Thunderbird who slowed while driving past me then parked blocking my path.   Cars park on the path all the time so I wasn’t totally weird-ed out yet, only halfway there.  When I ran around the car, which reeked of pot and engine grease, as I cleared it- it revved the engine.   It then peeled out, spinning dirt everywhere, slowed while passing me again before squealing it’s tires again as it turned up a street.  All right, peace out, I’m done.   It might have had nothing to do with me but I wasn’t taking that chance.    I managed to find a group of Eagle scouts out for a stroll and put myself in front of them.     I tried to stay near their group while I got back to my car but I also didn’t want to turn into the creeper.


Friday- Rest-  I worked open to close and towards the end of the day I was getting slap happy.   I was having troubles putting words together properly.  Which should have been a sign.  Some people get cranky when they are getting sick, I get slap happy.   Yet it still didn’t dawn on me until that night when my throat really started hurting, my nose stopped working and pressure built between my ears.  Oh crap.

Saturday/ Sunday- Sick  My alarm went off for my long run on Saturday morning but I could barely move.  Seriously, my face hurt where the ends of my hair touched it.  My whole body ached there was no way I was running 10-11 miles.  I shut it off and thought maybe I could run in the afternoon, ha!    I barely moved all day.  I may have watched more than a few episodes of The Iron Fist on Netflix.  Sunday rolled around and while I hurt a little less I was nowhere near running shape.   Boo.

So yeah, 7.75 miles for the week.   I am trying not to freak out while I type that.    I have Livermore Half in just 7 days and I really wanted another double digit run before race day.  Plus that weekly mileage looks sad.  This was not the week I had been planning.   I’d actually planned on moving back to running 4x a week but instead I ran just twice.   Grrr.

And now I still can’t breathe and my eyes are crossing as I finish this recap.   So with that I will sign off.

Tell me about your week?

Do anything fun this weekend? 

 

 

Rambling On 6

What up Friday?!  Woot Woot!

Ok, that was cheesy.  Sorry, it’s been an odd week.

So today is St. Patrick’s Day but it seems like everyone partied last weekend?  I was a little stumped by some things I saw on social media.  Then again, I’m kind of homebody so maybe I was the only clueless one.   I mean I can understand why you wouldn’t want to race the morning after St. Patrick’s Day.  Just ouch.

A sinkhole opened in work town!  Holy crap!  It’s a small one but seriously those things only happen on tv in other places.  So weird.   And freaky.

Speaking of freaky, have seen that Kripsy Kreme is making green donuts for today?   Ummm, I think they went too far.

Part of me wants to run a 5K this weekend.  Part of me wants to sleep in.  Am I really that lazy?    Or that I doubt my follow through for running another 8 miles after that to finish my long run.

What are you doing this weekend?

Anyone racing?  Any parties?

Anyone sleeping in? 😛

Week 9 Recap-Chaperone

Upcoming Races:

  • Livermore 13.1 -March 26
  • Destination Races Santa Barbara 13.1- May 13

This week was exhausting.  I feel bruised all over.  Man, I’m getting old.  I actually crashed around 9:00 3 nights this week which is unheard of for me.   This post is a day late because I just couldn’t finish it on Sunday, I was so tired.   So let’s get to the recap!

Monday- 2.5 miles– I headed for the lake path after work.  I had been watching the light as I drove home on previous nights and I thought I had enough time to get in 3 laps before it went full dark.    I knew I had my Knuckle Lights but I wasn’t sure what the vagrant situation might be so I didn’t want to push things.    Holy crap, I had never seen the lake that full!   I only ended up getting in 2.5 miles.  Partly because I jammed my ankle jumping a curb and couldn’t loosen it up by running it out but mostly because I was completely distracted by the sunset-I took about 30 pictures😛.   The sky was amazing.   My Instagram has more pics too.  



Tuesday- Rest  Gave my sore ankle a break.

Wednesday-Rest– Same as above.  But it felt better so I figured I would be ok to run the next day.


Thursday- 3.5 miles.  Mother of migraine.   I felt horrible all day.   I was torn between running and going home and sleeping.  I damn near called in sick to work.    I decided to try a few miles to see if it would help the pain and nausea at all.   I headed to the lake again figuring it would be easy to bail if it turned out to be a horrible choice.    I wasn’t breaking any speed records but for 40 minutes, my head actually felt ok.  Then I stopped running and the pain came back, boo.


Friday/ Saturday- California Tennis Classic  Long days.    My mom’s tennis team was in a tournament up in Clovis and I agreed to be her chaperone/driver.  Did I mention I still had a migraine on Friday?  Ouch.   2 days with teenage boys and rap music?  I did pack running gear with the hope getting in a 10 miler if the court location was in a good area on Saturday but this Slacker forgot her shoes. How!   Which was a bummer because the area around the school was awesome, I could have totally gone for a run.      What was less awesome was the serious lack of sportsmanship I observed by some of the teams.  I seriously thought 2 of the teams were going to come to blows.  It started with the players and then moved up to the coaches.   Yikes!   Then again, if I hadn’t been there as a chaperone I might have responded in kind when one got in my face because I didn’t respond fast enough.   Ugh, that condescending tone of voice gets under my skin.   The boys did well though, they ending winning their bracket. 🙂


Sunday- 8 miles.  I did not want to run.  At all.  I was exhausted.  But I couldn’t miss a longer run 2 weekends in a row.    I forced myself out the door and decided to just do what I could.   My shoelace came untied and I was rushed by a giant German Shepard in the first mile, I damn near said screw it and went home.    Especially when the man told me “excellent choice” when I came to a dead halt.  Once again, I restrained my first impulse to snap back extremely colorful words.  Put your damn dog on a leash!!    I kept running.   At the turn around for my 4.5 I pushed on to 5, at that turn around I pushed on to 6 then the 8 mile turn around.  I still had an option to shorten it if I started feeling tired.  A little past mile 5 I added in a modest hill repeat so I could avoid the killer hill at the end, I just wasn’t feeling up to it.  Or so I thought.  Come up on 6.8 miles and I realize I really messed up my mileage.  The easiest way to hit 8 miles would have to include the nasty hill.  I almost started crying.    I just couldn’t.  I turned around and looped a neighborhood and approached my house another way.    I still had a hill but instead of soul crushing I was able to run this one and not hate myself and running at the end.

14 miles for the week.  Better than last week and considering how crappy I felt the last half, I’m just going to take it and move on.   On the upside, it finally looks like the weather is on the on the upswing and one of my favorite days of the year is on Sunday-time change!   More daylight after work hours- woo hoo!

How was your week?

Would you have your tongue about the dog?

Do you like the time change?

Week 7 Recap- Hello Lucifer

Training for:

  • Livermore 13.1 -March 26
  • Destination Races Santa Barbara 13.1- May 13

So other states have winter storms with names but California never has.  Mostly because we rarely get storms out here.  We get earthquakes.  Well, last week California got their chance at a storm with a name- Lucifer paid us a visit.  Talk about over dramatic.   But in all seriousness, Friday was kind of like all hell breaking loose.  Flooding, landslides, sinkholes, etc.   The drive to work was sketchy at best with next to zero visibility between rain and fog and that was before I encountered the crazy wind.    Debris was all over the road, I really missed owning an SUV.   I was rerouted in work town due to downed power lines.  We ran without power for 3+ hours at work.  At one point, the entire town was out of power.   Trees were falling left and right, including our parking lot.  Work is one building over from the police station and one block up from the the fire department- I have never seen that much non-stop activity before.   One news report said that there was a new emergency call every 2 minutes.  All state parks and beaches were evacuated and closed due to falling trees.   Roads were closed for flooding all over the county.     And this was calm compared to some of California.

Monday- Rest  After the previous days long run, my legs were a little tired so I stuck to the day off in between workouts plan and rested.  As I drove away from what looked like an amazing pink sunset and decent temps for once, I couldn’t help but think that I should have run.


Tuesday- 3.1 miles   The slowest, most uncomfortable miles ever.     My stomach was being a total asshat but I forced myself to run anyways.   Or I tried… if you can call it that.   I couldn’t tell you the last time I ran that slow.  It was definitely not a confidence inspiring run.  What I haven’t mentioned is that my stomach has been a complete asshat these past 2 weeks.  Pretty much everything I eat makes me sick, boo.

Wednesday- Rest  After the previous day’s farce, I wasn’t even going to attempt it.

Thursday- Rest- More asshat-ness from my stomach.  Yay.  This time I listened to the cues from my body and just put my running gear back in the car and drove home.

Friday- Lucifer–yeah, no running.


Saturday- 4.5 miles  I had planned on running my long run but the break in the storm wasn’t as long as the weather app said.  Boo.   Then when I did head out, I could not get it into gear. I was so sluggish.  Even downhill; I slowed down downhill- who does that?   I know there’s a ton of moisture in the air which is not making my asthma happy but man I saw some numbers on the watch this week that just depressed me.  So I tried not to think about it.


Sunday- 8 miles– I slept like crap the night before so when my alarm went off to get up and run, I slapped that thing off, rolled over and went back to sleep.   I figured I would see how many miles I could squeeze in before the storm came back in the afternoon.    I won’t lie, I kind of wanted to skip the whole thing.   I told myself I could cut it short if I was absolutely miserable.    I was thinking about it during mile 2 but I kept pushing on.   Mile 3 picked up the pace a bit, same with mile 4.  Mile 5 saw some rain, a hill and a mini wall.  I slowed down but kept going.  I also let myself be distracted by a cute little house for sale.  Mile 6 was better but I knew mile 7 had a big hill.  Oddly, mile 7 was the exact same pace as mile 5.  I did an out and back loop kind of thing that put me just past 7 at the bottom of my driveway.   I had a sudden burst of energy so I ran past so I could hit 8 miles.     For a run I didn’t really want to do, it ended up being the best run all week!

15.5 miles for the week and actually 3 running days.  Now if I could just cross train.  😛  The miles went up and in some ways it was a better week then last week.   Have to look on the shiny side right???    Now if I can just keep the momentum going and not backslide.   Which may be hard, I admit I am struggling with all this rain.    There is still more to come.   I think I can, I think I can.

How was your week?

What did you do this weekend?

 

 

Carlsbad Half Marathon Recap

I put this race on my calendar back in November.  Something about it just looked awesome.  Then the December of flu happened and I ran a whopping 14 miles.   Well crap.   I took time off in November intentionally so that meant a long break with very little running.  Well, crap, what now?  Cue freak out.  I seriously debated a DNS but I couldn’t start the year like that right?   Right.


I was doing this but I was under trained, out of shape and freaking out.    I had no idea how this was going to go.   I was too tired to even pull off a flat runner, how about a pile?  😛  The longest run I had done in months was 7 miles.  The farthest I had run in my Sayonara’s was also 7 miles.  This was going to be interesting.    I told my mother I was going to take awhile, how long I wasn’t sure but that she shouldn’t even start looking for me until the 2:30 mark.


Race morning dawned all too early and a little cold while standing around in the corrals.  I knew it would feel good when we started running though.   The race had a wave start and the announcers were upbeat and trying to keep the crowds entertained while we waited.   Which I appreciated until the man introduced corral 4 as the “back of the packers”.  Corral 4 contained the 2:00 hour pace group.   WTH? I was in corral 5 in between the 2:20 and 2:30 pace groups.  His comment did not go over well with the runners around me.  Grrr.

Mile 1- 11:05

The plan was to run the first 2 miles and then go to a run/ walk of 3/1.    Mile 1 had a pretty decent uphill and I was pretty proud of myself for almost running the whole thing until I remembered that I had another 12 miles to go after this and probably shouldn’t flame out after mile 1 just due to stupid pride.  So I forced myself to walk that last part of the hill.


Miles 2-5- 10:30, 11:18, 10:37, 11:17

The course has 2 decent inclines (mile 1 and 7) but otherwise it’s a nice rolling course, which is kind of my jam.   My plan of 3/1 was kind of thrown to the wind and I was just running when it felt good and walking when I needed to.  The views of the ocean to the right were pretty awesome and the village of Carlsbad was pretty cute.  Aid stations were on point and there were surprisingly more people out cheering than I thought.   There were also bands playing music along the way.  I was warming up too but it felt good to be running in a tank top though.

Miles 6-7- 10:49, 11:41

Well crap, I can see that hill coming, sure looks fun.   At least it has a decent downhill leading up to it.     I also had a moment where I mentally checked out.   Not in a bad way but in a nostalgic, spiritual way.  The 15th was my grandmother’s birthday and there was something about the way the sun was peaking through the clouds that gave me pause.  And peace.   Then it was on to the hill… and a fair amount of walking.  Well, until Last Resort by Papa Roach started playing on my phone and then I randomly started bounding down the course.


Miles 8-11- 11:21, 11:22, 11:42, 11:37

Know what I forgot?  Humidity.  Yeah, silly, you’re running next to the ocean, it’s going to be humid.   My lungs let me know they weren’t happy.  Inhaler time!  I was feeling surprisingly ok though.   I was tiring but that was to be expected but I didn’t feel bad.    I knew there weren’t any hills (by my definition, only rollers) ahead and I had a good downhill towards the finish.   I had no idea what my time was, I had my watch face on my intervals.  I just knew that the 2:30 pacer was still behind me.  But they had also started behind me so that didn’t necessarily mean anything.    My 3/1’s had never fully formed and I was still running whatever I felt like.

Miles 12-13- 11:29, 10:45

Damn, my toes were kind of hurting, boo.   Well, it could be worse.  I was so close!  And a downhill was coming!   Just as I was coming up on mile 12 I noticed the 2:30 pacer coming up on my left. No!!!  I bolted.  It helped that we were coming up on the downhill section even if it seemed shorted than I thought.  Alright, I got this, lift and coast.  Weee……Baaaaam!!!    Halfway down the hill, someone came to a complete stop right in front of me. I couldn’t stop, I slammed into them.  How neither of us hit the ground, I have no idea.  I went pinwheeling while colorful words spilled out of my mouth.     We briefly checked on each other before moving on.  I kept running towards the finish.   I ended up taking a walk break not too long later, I felt like I had wrenched my right leg in the collision.  Boo.    I tried to shake it off so I could run it in to the finish.  Except I had to dodge a woman with a giant purse meandering through the course!  What?!   Finally around her and to the finish.

Finish- 2:27:49


Sub 2:30? Where the hell did that come from?!  I mean it’s miles from my PR but it’s also a helluva a lot better than I thought I was going to pull off going into this race.    I know I have a lot of work ahead of me this year but maybe this was the race I needed start the year with.     🙂😀   I can do this.