I have attempted 2 runs in the last two weeks. Two.
The smoke rolled in pretty heavy around Labor Day weekend and then just stayed.
I headed out for an attempt the Thursday after Labor Day. The skies looked horrible but the local news insisted the AQI was beloe 100 as the smoke was high up in the atmosphere. That being said, I told myself to take it super easy. So easy, I forgot to take off my earrings, ha! Anyways, I was wheezing after 30 minutes of walking. And then low-key wheezed for another 3 days. Boo.
Oh, and I dyed my hair a while back.
The weekend was a smoky mess. Actually right now, I can’t remember what I did. Oops.
Last week started with smoke. I decided I wasn’t going to attempt running until I make it through the night with the window open without waking up wheezing. Yeah, that was Friday. And I don’t mean wide open, it was open less than 3 inches. I usually ended up closing the window 30 or say minutes after trying to go to sleep.
The smoke had cleared by Friday but the migraine I had been fighting since Wednesday was taking me out. Not gonna lie, I slept most of Saturday. Both by sleeping in and taking a nap. Also, I just bought black out curtains and oh they are amazing. Amazing.
Finally on Sunday, I headed out for a run. Haha! The smoke was gone but I was still on the struggle bus. Such a struggle, I ended up walking all of it. And not even power walking, more like leisurely walking. It felt damn hot which is sad as it was only 91. Two weeks of smoke filled skies and I lost any fitness gains I may have made on my vacation week. Boo.
I spent the last week sleeping in, not doing my hair, not wearing eyeliner. No alarms, no phone calls, no emails. Ok, that’s a lie, I checked my emails a few times.
I also ran/ walked more miles in the last 10 days than I did in July and August combined. That said, it was still less than I had hoped.
The original vacation plan was the 2 race weekends but COVID. The second plan was to road trip and visit some National Parks. I even ordered new trail shoes and a fancy new pack from Orange Mud. Not that I really needed an extra reason to buy those. But other things put those plans on hold. Reality was a staycation with a little shopping and a little adventuring. And a lot of melting… but we’ll get to that.
The vacation fun started with the previous weekend’s runs. I had planned on a run on Monday, but my stomach decided to remind me that it was an asshat. Boo.
Tuesday, I wanted to break in the new trail shoes but was still feeling a little off. So I headed for the lake path. I think it’s been more than a year since I ran there? I miss it but it’s no longer on my way home from work. Boo. I did 4ish laps of the lake, switching directions while testing my shoes. The lake looked good, I have to say that it had more water than I had expected. I really need to get back there more often. 4.88 miles. And yes, I could have run back and forth until I hit 5 but nah.
Wednesday, I rested in prep for Thursday’s adventure. My legs were slightly sore from almost 15 miles in 4 days. That was more than I ran in July.
Thursday was The Pinnacles! I haven’t been in years, my goal was to reach the top and not get lost. I loaded my pack, my mother prepped and we were off! We got there early in the morning but it was already hot. We’re in the middle of a heatwave here in CA, yay. We started the climb and boy it just got toastier. I was feeling pretty good actually. We got slightly turned around for a moment at the top but success! The High Peaks Trail at the Pinnacles throws all sorts of fun things at you- quasi steps in the rocks, a railing so you don’t fall, and even more tiny “steps” down. The plan was to do the High Peaks and continue on to the old trail before looping around the caves. It would have been around 10ish miles. There’s one last junction which will take you back to the parking lot around mile 3 but after that there is no shortcut. Period. My mother was having a rough time- and if she reads this, she’ll be pissed I wrote that- and I convinced her we had to take the shortcut. She was bummer but hey we got to go through a tunnel! We came out around 5 miles but I know my GPS had some issues.
Oh, Friday…. I had plans to run the 5K portion of the Giant Race Lou Seal Challenge but it was 110. Oh and the air conditioner in my house died. The Friday of the hottest weekend of the year. Oh crap.
Saturday, I was up and off to the beach for the 10K portion of the Lou Seal Challenge. I straight up ran away from the heat- we hit 117. I enjoyed lovely mild beach weather for all 6.2 miles. Yay! But more about that next post. Then it was back to heat.
Sunday, I meant to run the 5K. I mean it was the actual race day after all. However my beach run had left me with some nasty blisters. On both feet. The one on my right foot was the problem. I have never had a blister that big before. What the heck?? I wore the same shoes and socks I used for all my beach runs and never had a problem before- I even kept my feet dry until the very end. Boo. Staying in my house and being lazy wasn’t awesome- it was 93* in my house. My cats are miserable. The dog can be hosed off, they can’t. Every fan possible is running in this house.
So that brought my weekly mileage to just under 16. Not marvelous but massively better that the rest of the year. I’m not calling it a comeback yet. Will my motivation last once I return to work?
Anyways, lets back up. Most of the week was spent low key wheezing, trying to catch up on work. The winds had shifted again which brought back some back but I was focused on keeping my head down and checking things off my list.
My first PTO in over 9 months was coming up and I was focused. I have been so tired and while I love my job, I knew I needed a break. Granted my plans have changed drastically due to COVID- bye marathon- but I was looking forward to a break.
So Monday through Friday was just work and hoping I didn’t forget anything. I feel like I did but I set my out of office on Friday and I won’t be back until after Labor Day. Now if I could just tell myself to not check my work cell for email.
Not gonna lie, I slept in on Saturday and it was awesome. Then I just kind of felt lazy all day. I was going to run and then I wasn’t. But then I jumped up from a nap and changed in like 2 minutes and was out the door. It was a hard, hot slog but really what did I expect after 20 days off? It actually wasn’t as horrible as it could have been and I managed 3miles.
Sunday, I headed for somewhere different. My mother had never been to the Bob Jones trail, so we headed that way and just it a brisk walk. The ‘trail’ is a paved path of sorts that runs from one city to another south of it. Well, mostly. There were moments where there was no one on the trail and moments that there were too many people. And no one seemed to understand any form of trail ettiquette. Granted these bikers were more of the beach cruiser type but still. We also got a little sidetracked going off the trail but we made it back to where I had parked. 5ish miles for the day.
Then we went for a truly decadent slice of cake at the Madonna Inn. We also witnessed what could have been a horrible pileup on the freeway yet turned into a miraculous recovery. For reference, we can’t eat in restaurants in CA but dining is allowed in parking lots or street side. The Inn has a great lot but if you’ve been there, the 101 is right next to it. Which I used to my advantage that time I jumped out of the car on the freeway and hopped the fence to get to the race start years ago. But this also gave diners a front seat to a car spinning out into a 360, fishtailing into the center divider but somehow pulling out before wrecking and getting back in a lane. How they saved it, I have no idea. How no other driver hit them, I have no idea. Scary.
All though I loved the time I spent in the dirt on the trails last week, parts of my body did not.
The sun burn lingered for a few days but had mostly eased by Tuesday. What had not eased was the pain in my foot. To the point where even coworkers commented on my limping. Not good.
I wore flats all week instead of heals or boots and kept my feet up as much as possible at home. Which, let’s be real, that’s not too hard to do with my new recliner and general slacker-ness.
I did that for 7 days… Sunday through Saturday. I will say not running due to foot pain felt different than not running due to laziness. Ha!
Sunday, I wanted to test things out. I taped up my foot with KT tape and headed for a soft surface. I went to the beach.
Dude, where’s the pier?
A heavy marine layer meant it was not as crowded as I had feared but there were a ton of dogs out! They all wanted to play.
He was cute! Watched his family.
I started off real slow, with around 3/4 of a mile walking. From there, I moved on to intervals of 1 minute run, 1 minute walk. I tried to keep the pace real easy and focus on how I was landing. I also had the marine layer keeping my pace down- this is the same beach I’ve had a massive asthma attack on. I didn’t climb any rocks and turned around at the rockiest point.
My right foot- the injured foot- felt pretty good the whole time. And I did take my shoes off for the final .3 miles.
Not cool was that my left foot went numb around 3.5 miles in. What?! I had that problem at the beginning of last year but it got better. It did! Plus, I was wearing my PureFlow’s and those were the one pair of shoes that they never went numb in. Granted, I have turned this pair into beach running shoes but still. I slowed to a walk while I tried to stomp feeling back into my foot. It came back around 3/4 of a mile later. Grrrr.
Other than one of my favorite songs, that word rarely means good things.
At work I have a bad habit of saying that I focus on the big fires first than double back to the little ones. Figuratively, of course.
Except last week there was a literal fire in the parking lot. Really 2020?
All is fine and it was put out quickly with no lasting damage. But it did make me realize I needed to better acquaint myself with where the fire extinguishers are.
A heat wave also rolled in last week and made my usual slacker-ness even easier to do. It was so hot, I actually ate lunch in the building on Thursday and Friday. I usually eat lunch in my car.
After a week of hot weather and laziness on my part, I wanted a woodsy trail on Saturday. So I headed for Cerro Alto. I somehow forgot that Cerro Alto begins the canyon down to the ocean and retains our temps and not beach temps. It was 90 degrees. I was struggling 3/4 of a mile in and knew it was only going to get worse. I knew I could likely finish the 6 mile hike but I would also wreck myself. I wish I could say it was all common sense on my part but it mostly my absolute refusal to become a news headline. “Hiker rescued after becoming dehydrated, air lifted out”. Seriously, that happens all too often out here.
So I turned around and headed back to the trail head. 1.5 miles with around 350 elevation gain in the first half.
But I wasn’t done, I refueled both myself and my car as I hadn’t been planning on making a circle of the county and headed to Harmony Headlands. And the temp dropped to 60, so much better.
Harmony is pretty easy, the dirt path is well defined for 2/3 of it, so I have troubles considering it a “trail run” or a “hike”. The last portion does turn to single track but it’s still what I would call easy. I rarely even take water. I had my pack bladder filled for Cerro Alto so I figured I might as well use it. I power hiked, climbed some rocks and enjoyed some ocean views. 4.3ish miles bringing me to under 6 for the day. My watch tells me Harmony has an elevation gain/loss of 340 each way but I swear it’s flat.
While I didn’t end up dehydrated or with a killer heat induced migraine, I did wind up with a sun burn. Really??! My shoulders were fried as well as the backs of my knees of all places. It was the kind of burn that messes with your internal temp control so I just napped on Sunday. Not that I was super eager to brave the 104* weather outside.
It was little but it was a good week. Onward and upward.
Slacker Runner 