Tag: Training

Weekly Recap 10- Hello Sun

Upcoming Races:

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

This week was a little over the place. When I think back on it, it feels more like a month than just 7 days.

Monday- Rest I woke up feeling broken. I hurt everywhere and felt exhausted. I felt like calling in sick but someone already had the night before so I knew I was going to work. I dragged myself in but just felt worse as the day went on. I made it through the day and treated myself to In N Out on the way home. One of the few times I allow myself it is when I am not feeling well.

Tuesday- Rest I was feeling a little better but still not right. I figured why chance it.

Wednesday- 2.5 miles I headed to lake path after work to get in a few miles. We have been having some crazy wind and for some reason I didn’t have my Buff. My ears were so damn cold. I admit I turn into a big baby when my ears get cold. I made it 2.5 miles before I called it. Plus I was still afraid of getting sick. With a half so close, I didn’t want to chance it. Being sick for pretty much all of December is still giving me flashbacks. Which is a bummer because my stride actually felt on point for that second mile.

Thursday- 4 miles I set out from work and told myself I was going to do an easy 3 mile run. Somehow that turned into the fastest 4 miler I’ve done in 6 months. Oops! Maybe it was the pre-workout from Beachbody I am testing? Maybe I was just feeling good? I don’t know. Don’t get me wrong, I’m still way slower than I was but it’s nice to see the numbers going in the right direction. Plus the State Park was open for the first time since Lucifer so I had to run through the Eucalyptus grove.

Friday- Rest Same ol’ Friday except I started the day in a great mood which is rare. It lasted until around 3 when work kicked me in the face. Thanks.

Saturday-10 miles The plan was to run early so I could finish at the high school and meet my mom for lunch after my run and her tennis practice so I dragged myself out of bed in the morning. A mile into my run, I was rethinking things. I was stripping off my long sleeve because I was already hot. I was keeping to 3/1’s but seemed to be keeping a decent long run pace. I think- I’ve taken the pace off my watch face. I ran into an old friend and stopped to chat for a moment. I did 2 laps of a hill, I ran across the the bridge at what felt like a restrained pace considering how I usually sprint across it. Pace wise and legs wise I was feeling good- however I was just past mile 5 and I knew I was going to have a problem. I was hot, too hot. 10 in the morning and it was pushing 75. Which, don’t get me wrong is amazing but it came out of nowhere and I was not prepared. I was overheating and running out of water. I slowed to a crawl going up a hill as I tried to cool down and figure something out. I texted my mother to see if anyone was using the high school track. My original route took the long way to the high school but had no stores or working water fountains along the way. The high school is the only place in town I know the water fountains work. I finally just decided to take the shortcut to the high school, empty track or not. I couldn’t maintain the 3/1’s anymore, I was just in survival mode. I made it to the school, refilled my water bottle and was able to finish my run on the thankfully empty track. I love the sun and the warmth but I was so not ready for it on this run.

Sunday- Rest Shopping around SLO counts as active recovery right? Plus some foam rolling. And I picked up some pretty new shoes, fingers crossed they work!

16.5 miles for the week. Slowly going up. I won’t lie, I’ve been in a running funk, I’m hoping DST gives me a good kick in the pants. Plus I have a new or old mentality so we’ll see if that helps too.

How was your week?

How was your weekend weather?

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 8 Recap- Sleepy Time

Training for:

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

This was a blink and you missed it week but it wasn’t without its own headaches. That said it wasn’t a bad week it was just odd. Well unless you count me finding out that someone has already filed a tax return using my social. 😒

Monday- Nada– I had big plans to run but it was cold and windy and I just couldn’t make myself get out the door. I usually love having Mondays off so I can get in a good run but the cold front rolling in just made me a big baby. My toes have been so damn cold!

Tuesday- Rest- The work day was straight chaos. With the power issues last Friday and this being the first day back after a 3 day weekend, things were nuts. I wore a pair of old faithful boots but by the end of the day my feet hurt so bad that I wanted to cry. My shoes turned on me!

Wednesday- 2.7 miles- I headed out for my usual post work route run. Except I hadn’t taken into account the cold and the wind. I wasn’t dressed right with just capris and a long sleeve. The winds were in excess of 20 mph and they almost took my Buff off my head twice. My wool Buff that I recently accidentally dried. I hit the spot where I take the sunset pics and decided it was too cold and turned around to head for the car.

Funny moment on the way back- if I am coming up on an intersection the same time as a vehicle or two and don’t want to play the “no you go, no you go” game, I stop before and stretch or fake tie my shoe. This time one of those cars was a cop car and I guess they thought I looked shady. I got the stink eye for a moment when I straightened back up. 😛 Nothing to see here, move along. Even though when I damn near had an asthma attack 2 blocks later on a street corner I was wishing they could come back.

Thursday- 5 miles. Blood work test fail #1. Doctor said that I did not need to fast for a glucose test. He even wrote it on the work order. I took time off work in the afternoon and headed back to home town for the testing. He was wrong, the lab refused to do the testing. Grrr. Now what? I went running! I dressed a little smarter this time but could have used another layer. I’ve determined that as long as we have rain in the forecast, speed is not likely because my lungs just can’t handle the moisture in the air. No sooner do I accept that than Strava informs me that I broke my previous record for 400m and wasn’t even trying…

Friday- Rest Glucose test fail #2. And then success. I tried to get the process started in work town before work but was unable to, the line was insane. Luckily my boss is awesome so once everyone got to work I went back to the lab and got the process started. And then went back and forth for the next 3+ hours. I didn’t finish the glucose testing until 1:30. By then I was hangry and already bruising. My lunch was around 2 and I went through a drive thru intending to treat myself to some french fries but I ended up being lured by a picture of giant burger so I ordered that and some fries. Instead of feeling stuffed after eating it, I still felt oddly empty. It was very odd. I was so hungry all day.

Saturday- Rest. I crashed hard the night before around 9:30 which is odd for me. Normally I am up late reading and catching up on tv on Friday nights. I slept for 12 hours! It wasn’t un-interrupted but that’s a little ridiculous! Even when I did get up and get going I had zero energy. After doing a few errands I ended up taking a long nap. I had planned on running both Saturday and Sunday but decided that my body was trying to tell me something.

Sunday- Rest Yeah, this was just a total lack of motivation on my part. I kept telling myself to change and get out the door for 10 miles but I couldn’t actually do it. It was cold and my toes were frozen in my slippers in my house and no matter how much I berated myself I couldn’t make myself run. I just kept pushing it back later and later. #longrunfail

7.7 miles for the week. I’m not going to say ouch because missing my long run was entirely up to me. Was a case of the blah’s worthy of missing a long run? Maybe, maybe not. Only time will tell. I do know I am over the cold weather. Timehop keeps showing me pics from last year and I was running in shorts and a tank. I miss those days. This weird cold front and crazy wind, rain just needs to take a break. I’m not saying it’s entirely responsible for my lagging motivation but it’s part of it.

How was your week?

Do you have warm weather? Wanna share?

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?

Rambling On 3

I really like these brain clearing posts. Or maybe I’ve just been so scattered lately that they help me loosen some knots in my brain. 😛

Happy Friday!!!

I was supposed to run a half marathon this weekend but the Slacker in me forgot to take into account the extra time needed to get every runner security clearance to run on a army base. Slacker fail. But then with all the rain that is predicted to fall over the next 5 days maybe that was a good thing?

My road to work is open and it is freaking awesome. It’s still under construction in the mornings and there are little mountains of dirt everywhere- they removed 20,000 tons of rock and dirt from the hillside!!- but it’s open!! That was the longest month. That longer drive was really getting to me.

So Monday was interesting. I was on the street side of the building when I heard a loud noise outside. We all looked outside to see what was going on. A truck had just driven over a big dip in the street and looked to be dragging something under it. Had it lost part of its engine? It slowed then blew through the intersection without stopping. By now we are all staring out the windows, then my coworker looked out the door and it all became clear. Dude has slammed into her parked car, tore it up and continued driving! He was dragging pieces of her car! WTF dude?!

I went for a run on Tuesday. Wasn’t the best but I mean come on…look at this…just awesome.

I redesigned my blog. Still working out a few kinks. But be honest, how do you read this? Phone? Laptop? WordPress app? Bloglovin?

I’ve had to reassess my training for a few reasons. More on that in my weekly recap but I think finally admitting it has lessen my stress level a bit.

It’s a 3 day weekend, woo hoo!!!! Is it sad that I am looking forward to sleep the most? Then running?

Do you have a 3 day weekend? What are you doing?

How do you read blogs?

Ever observe something crazy?