Tag: Tom Cruise

A Little Running and a Little Tom

Seriously, where has this week gone?  Not that I am complaining that tomorrow is Friday but how is tomorrow Friday?    Yesterday felt like Monday all day long.   Nobody needs two Mondays in one week.

funny quote my week all mondays except friday and saturday
This week, yes. Thanks Pinterest

I still love my new desk even if it is taking me longer to adjust than I thought.  I make it to about 1 each day before I need to sit; but I have adjusted to the chair finally.  I almost fell off the dang thing on Monday.  Between the wheels and the higher height of the seat, I had a few rough moments.  My challenge gave my coworkers a good laugh though.  🙂

Tuesday’s run was rough.  Just ugh.    Not sure if it was partly due to tired legs or what but lets just leave it at 3.5 miles done.    Wednesday turned into a rest day.  I was supposed to go to the gym but I just wasn’t feeling it and work ran later than planned so rest it was.   I switched back to heels as well that day and for some reason, standing seemed easier.  I am so odd.IMG_6403

Tonight I had no desire to run the lake path so I headed back to my town and hit up the river path.   My initial warm up walk extended itself because I was a little nervous to run.  My last 2 4 “easy” runs have been the opposite of easy and throw in the Ventura half and I was just afraid of another rough run.  I couldn’t even decide on how many miles to run.  The Slacker in me was saying that 3 would be fine, the moderately reformed Slacker was telling me to do 5.   That tiny bit of fear was telling me to walk the whole thing.IMG_6407

I still have the 8:30/1:00 intervals set up on my Garmin, so after walking the first 9:30 I decided to stick with that and started running.   I tried to focus on my breathing and take slow, deep breaths.  I wanted to see if it helped any.  My old rule of thumb for most runs was to never be huffing and puffing even if it meant I was slower.  It worked for me last year, so let’s try it again!  I noticed after a mile or so that my form was better than usual.  I felt like I was running tall and it felt good.  Not sure if it was an added bonus of standing more  or if it was the shoes.   I was wearing my Sayonaras and I try to pay a little more attention to my form in them since they are a very neutral shoe and I tend to over pronate on the right side.   I was also running with Tom Cruise hands.  Why??? Again, I am odd.

I walked the 1:00 interval in both miles 2 & 3, telling myself I would try to run all of 4.  Sounds like a little thing but I haven’t run a solid mile in well over a month.   While I succeeded, I don’t think it counts.  At 3.5 miles I have to cross a street to get back to the path.  I tried to run across quickly but somehow my pepper spray leaped out my belt and landed in the cross walk.  I got to the curb and somehow paused both my Garmin and Nike+ app while spinning around.  I must have looked funny because every car was stopped staring at me.  What do I do?  Leave it or bolt and get it? I waved one car on and hoped no one on the other side would run over it.  I then bolted out grabbed it and ran back.  Dang it, that messed with my breathing!  And I finally lost the Tom Cruise hands.  🙂  I carried the pepper spray the rest of the way.  1/4 mile later, I saw NikeC running my way, so we stopped and chatted a bit.  So yes, I ran all of mile 4 but I had 2 breaks.   😦

Overall, this was the least stressful run I have had in over a month.  For once I didn’t feel horrible.   Now just to duplicate it and still take it easy.   Easy, peasy right?  Ha!

How has your week been?  Anyone else have an extra Monday?

Anyone racing this weekend?  Long running?

Ever Tom Cruise’d it up?

Risky business

Monday’s run was short.  And Slow and short.   I had originally hoped to run an easy 3 around the lake.  I knew that I would be tired after Sunday’s race craziness so I was aiming low.  You know that feeling your legs get when you first start running after a long run?  That stiff, heavy feeling?  Not painful but enough to make your stride feel off.  Yep, it went like that.  I made it for 2 laps before calling it.  2.3 is better than none, even if I was crawling.  This run was just supposed to get me moving again.  I ran the 2 loops, stretched out and headed home. I was tired and my comfy chair was calling.

I missed volleyball practice last week and I thought it was determined that we were taking a season off.    I was ok with that because things are busy right now and an extra night sounded like a good idea.   Friday rolled around and suddenly we were in league again.  Uh, what, why?  I didn’t want to be the kill joy so I sucked it up and last night we had our first games.

Funny Sports Ecard: Isn't Volleyball just an adult version of 'DON'T LET THE BALLOON TOUCH THE FLOOR' ???

 There are only 4 teams this season and I figured the games would be fun and relaxed.  Yeah, not so much.  Last night felt more like a grudge match.   I am the type of player who goes after the ball no matter what.  Not the best mentality two weeks before a half marathon.  I bounced off the floor a few times, collided with a few other players, and even slid under the net once.  M and I always go for the same ball and usually collide, we’re both ball hogs.  🙂 At one point, I landed hard on my knee, so much for knee pads. 😦  It was rough but it was fun!

To top it off, my former volleyball shoes were trashed and not wearable.  I hadn’t had the chance to buy new ones so I wore an old pair of tennis shoes from years ago.  Not a good idea.  I was sliding across the floor so much I felt like Tom Cruise in Risky Business.  I may as well been wearing socks.  On the upside, I may have figured out a super lazy Halloween costume.

We didn’t win, but played hard.  Way harder than I had planned.  I was so tired this morning and my whole body felt bruised.  Ugh.   Then, work came around and 2 people are out sick.  I sanitized everything as best as I could, but who knows.  I cannot get sick right now!!!   Work was so crazy, I was glad I had planned on today being a Slacker day.

 

After finally getting home, and calling in the big guns (aka my dad), I finally got the damn headboard I bought 3 weeks ago on the bed.   I may be in my 30’s but my dad will always be a rockstar.  It took 3 weeks, numerous trips to Lowes and multiple bed stores followed by some very colorful cursing tonight but here it is!!

 

Took long enough!
Took long enough!

Now, on a confusing note.  Everyone’s been posting about domain names, I purchased my domain name back before I started the blog but never linked the two together.  Now that I want to, I can’t quite figure it out.  So, help, please!  Is it better to stay on WordPress and just link it (map) it back to the domain or is better to do everything through the hosting service that controls your domain name?  Any thoughts?

 seehere.blogspot.com_20cats_20_26_.jpg

Hope everyone is having a good week so far!!  Now, I need sleep.

Slow moving rant…

This post may be a little Rant-tastic.  Just wanted to give you a warning first.

Sunday’s treadmill run was slow but I figured hey I was still tired from Friday.  Yesterday, I had planned on doing speed work at the lake.  I was looking forward to running as it had been a crazy day.  I had slept like crap the night before and I knew the first day back from vacation is always spent catching up plus it being a Monday, I was prepared for it to be a very busy day.  I was not prepared however for someone to spend 20 minutes forcefully expressing their displeasure and disappointment with me.  So by the time work was done, I felt like I needed a good run.

ilovetorun.org | RUNNING CAN BE GIVEN

Got to the park and dropped my phone down the black hole on the side of driver’s seat.  So I wasted 5 minutes trying to fish it out.  Finally got it out and set off.    From the second I started running I just felt sluggish and tired.  For the past few weeks I feel like I am getting slower not faster and that is just stressing me out.   I have 2 races coming up that I had wanted to improve on my previous times.  Right now I don’t see that happening.  I was so frustrated and cranky last night that I quit after 2 laps, just 2.5 miles.  Lovely Mr. Nike gave me a pace update at the 2 mile mark and I told him to frak off.   ( Yes,  I talk to my Nike + App )  Plus come to find out, I had forgotten to take the Nike App off of treadmill mode, so my mileage was off from not using the GPS.    Ugh!!!!

Then there was spider monkey.  I was rounding the back corner of the lake on lap 1 and completely frustrated with my pace when out of nowhere came this guy.  He came running in from the side leaping from rock to rock.  While shirtless and wearing gloves?  After the rocks, he leaped to the railing of the bridge. Then hanging like a monkey from the side of the bridge climbing up and down and doing some pull ups.   He passed me again about a ½ mile later running with Tom Cruise hands, and then leaped from rock to rock again before ending up doing pushups on the tall parallel bars.  That was new, and at least it provided a distraction from my crankiness.   Not sure where he went after that, didn’t see him on the second lap around.

The second lap wasn’t any better than the first and I was just done, so I called it a day and drowned my sorrows in pizza 🙂 Today, I decided to look for some motivation and I found the best tweet!

 

I also had a doctor’s appointment to go over some neck x-rays I had last week.  Doctor recommended physical therapy but said nothing against running.  Woo hoo!  So tomorrow, I am heading back to the gym, hoping that maybe the treadmill will like me.  If not, then I will just keep running.  It’ll get better eventually right?