Tag: Training

Week 6 Recap- Really?

I know I picked a longer training cycle but how is week 6 over already? Picking a longer cycle seems to have been a good choice so far with work being crazy, my odd leg issues and other various issues popping up. The plan is detailed enough to give me guidance but flexible enough I can move things around. And things moved this week.

Monday- Rest

Ahh, glorious Monday Rest day. Coincidentally also Monday Pizza night. 😉🍕

Tuesday- 4 miles easy.

Like I mentioned in my last post, this run made me nervous. While my leg ached it didn’t outright hurt. I tried to focus on my form and make sure that my left leg was actually coming around and not just shuffling along. I pulled off a nice negative split for the run but gravity helped that along. 🙂

Wednesday- Rest

I have to start writing these recaps as the week progresses. I can’t even remember what I did other than work on Wednesday. I think pizza may have been involved. Oh, I got my CT results. Yeah, more on that next post.

Thursday- 7 miles long-ish run

I love half days. Granted, they mean working on a Saturday but those extra few hours on weekday rock. I decided to try and get my long run out of the way. With my leg still being achy, I had already decided that instead of the 10 that had been on the plan I was aiming for 7-8 miles. I headed to the lake path, while running multiple loops can be boring I would be near my car if my leg started hurting. It was warm but not too bad. There was one section of the lake that resembled the surface of the sun and I felt like I slowed in that section every time. I completed the first 5 miles by taking a .10 mile walk break after each mile to shake out my calf area. I noticed that walking wasn’t helping so for miles 6 & 7, I tried something different. I stopped my Garmin and started a new run. Instead of walking, I took a short 20-30 second pause if I needed to stretch. My running pace dropped by 20 seconds and overall it only added 2 minutes to my run vs the 5 minutes walking. Overall, I am not sure if I learned anything but it was an interesting experiment. 😏

Friday- Rest day

I lost the battle with the cookies.

Saturday- Active Rest day

The morning started with a drive out to Saturday work town. I headed home after work as my mom and I had plans to head to the fair for the afternoon. The fair comes once a year and runs almost 2 weeks. The town goes a little insane but it’s fun. I can usually hear the concerts out my window too, so bonus! I’m not huge on crowds so I generally only go once. I have to get my funnel cake and pretzel, it’s a fair tradition. 😄 We enjoyed our yummy fair food and took in all the sights. I will never ride a fair ride but I love taking pictures of them.

She’s real!!

I always try to go on a night where I wouldn’t mind hearing the concert a little better, too. This year that was supposed to be Alice Cooper and Motley Crue. Except they had plane issues so the concert was pushed back. From what I could hear from home- Alice Cooper started playing after 10 and Motley Crue around midnight. I wonder how many people stayed. I wore my Fitbit to the fair and we walked well over 5 miles. Plus that thing is notoriously short on steps. I feel zero guilt for that yummy fair food. Maybe for the purse I bought.

Sunday- 5.5 miles Speed work

Somehow I was up early for me and made it to the track by 10. I wanted to try to complete the speed work I had skipped by running long on Thursday. The plan called for a 30 minute warm and 8x 1:00 @10K pace with 1:00 recovery and then a 15 minute cool down for 1:10:00. As I type this I noticed 2 things- 1) that math does not add up at all and 2) I thought it was 10x repeats so I did 10, ugh. The 30 minute warm up turned into 35 and I rode the struggle bus the entire way. I could not get my legs moving and my lungs weren’t much better. I checked the temp during a water break and noticed the 65% humidity. Ok, I get the complaining lungs now. I really wanted to blow off the repeats but I figured I would at least start them and see how it went. Since I didn’t want to see 500 splits with an odd overall average pace I ended my first run after the warm up and started a new one. Honestly, I have no idea what my 10K pace should be but according to my PR 16 months ago it was around 9:00. Didn’t think I had a shot in hell of hitting that.

1. 8:01
2. 8:13
3. 8:02
4. 8:12
5. 8:15
6. 7:55
7. 8:19
8. 8:21
9. 8:23
10. 8:21Well, that was unexpected. No lie, I walked the recoveries. I recently read another blog of someone much faster and stronger than me and they said they walked their recoveries. I swear it was like birds singing when I read that. 😊 That being said, I have no idea how I hit those paces when I was feeling so rough. I felt like a nasty, sticky mess when done so my cool down only ended up being half a mile. I was done. But all in all, it turned out to be a good run. Plus I love the track.

Over all, not a bad training week. I think I’ve finally accepted that I have some limitations right now so I am going to do what I can and see what happens. Going forward I would like to add in cross training and I think the stationary bike is the best option right now, I just need to get my lazy butt to the gym. Any bets on how long that will take me?

How was your week? Do you like the track?

Ever been to a concert that started that late? Would you have stayed?

What’s your fair food indulgence?

Week 4- A Little Early

I am kind of liking these weekly recaps. I feel like they are helping keep me on track. Particularly this week, I ran the gamut of craving a run to feeling like doing nothing but stuffing food in my face. Yes, I am a stress eater. There were donuts involved this week. And those Sweet Potato Food Should Taste Good chips. Both so yummy but so not on the approved list of foods. 😦

I alternated between heels and flats all week but my legs are still pissed. I rarely get to sit while training and I am feeling it. I don’t think my legs ached this bad after my first half marathon. Then I just couldn’t sit down…or get up without help. 🙂 I normally stand the good majority of the day but would usually sit for about 2 hours through out the day. Now I just fall into the comfy chair exhausted on my lunch. Trainee #3 starts on Monday so I need to figure something out. Unfortunately running shoes are not an option.

Monday– Actual- 3.5 miles -12:13, 10:39, 10:13 and change

I had to do some rearranging this week, which meant a Monday run. Oof, that was hard. Monday running just seems harder. Plus I don’t think my legs appreciated running the day after my long run. I usually rest the following day. I tried to treat it like a recovery run and keep the pace easy but I was all over the place. I even wore compression socks since I knew I was sore. Truthfully, I wore them all day. I might have to do that more often until things calm down.

Tuesday- Rest

I had blood work planned for the morning. This was part of why I switched up my running days. I didn’t think they were going take a lot but I figured I better err on the side of caution. Ugh, I hate needles. I got to the lab at 7:04, they opened at 7. I was the 15th person in line. Seriously?! I was actually late to work.

Wednesday- Speed work- sort of

The plan called for a 25 min warm up followed by 3 minutes at HMP, 1 minute easy jog x5, then 16 min cool down. Sounds easy enough but I just wasn’t feeling it. As I drove north, I was trying to decide what to run and where to run it. My mom called and she wondered if I would head out with her. No speedwork-yay! So we headed out for a short 3 mile jaunt. That turned into 4+ for me with some random intervals. I was planning on taking it easy but then I decided to just run whatever I felt like. So I ended up up with really random speed intervals while I looped around and occasionally met back up with my mom but it was fun. 🙂

Thursday- Rest

Hmmm, I am sure I did something interesting this day but I can’t remember anything so I guess not? I know I posted this.

Friday- Rest

I was at work by 7:30. I am on vacation Monday and Tuesday so I wanted to make sure I did everything I needed to do before leaving. I was out a little after 5:30 and I though about running a few miles but I did all my weekend errands instead. One less stress this weekend right?

Saturday- Rest – more than likely.

I am torn between running or walking a couple miles as a shakeout for tomorrow or resting. My legs are still super sore and I can’t decide which one would be the smarter choice. I also need to decide exactly what shirt I am running in tomorrow. And I am procrastinating packing my change of clothes while I type this. For some reason, I am can’t decide what I am going to want to put on after tomorrow’s race. #decisionsdecisions Whatever it is, it needs to be comfy enough to get me through a day of walking and shopping. Ok, maybe hobbling and shopping. 🙂 I had helping making a new playlist though-

Sunday- Shoreline Half..and my birthday 🙂

To be continued…

Happy Saturday!!!

What do you like to do after a race?

How was your week?

Do you stand or sit at work?

Suddenly Shoreline

You know you’re a runner when you find out that a local race you’ve run the last 2 years on your birthday weekend is a week later this year and you’re bummed out. 2 years ago I ran the Rock to the Pier 10K the day before my birthday. Last year, I stepped up to the half marathon that was now on my birthday. The 10K rocked, the half marathon kicked my ass. Both were still awesome. There’s something about running a race on/near your birthday that is kind of awesome. Well except for seeing the new age on your bib, that usually stings a bit. 🙂

I was still planning on running Rock’n Around the Pier this year but I just wasn’t feeling very into it. The race has 12+ miles on the beach. Add the sand and the inevitable humidity and I was preparing for a rough time. Throw in a lazier than planned June and I was starting to dread it. Plus, last year I ran it with NikeC, that’s not in the cards this year. So I decided to do the smart thing, I figured I would run the 10K instead. It would mean the loss of bling, but it’s not all about the medals. Right?

2 weeks ago, I got an email. California has a half marathon series every year, and you can earn an extra medal at the end of the year at one of the Series end races for a variety of challenge. Pretty cool but the odds of me running any of the end races are kind of small. The emails let you know of upcoming halfs in the series though. The race at the top of this email was Shoreline Half. In Ventura. On my actual birthday. Could I, should I? Nah, no, that would be crazy.

Call me crazy. I registered. I found a sweet discount online and committed. I also adjusted my training. I had been aiming to hit 4 days a week and up my mileage but I stuck with 3 days and upped my long runs. So my last 3 weeks looked like this-

14 miles overall- 5+ long
16 miles overall- 8 long
18 miles overall- 10 long

Dang, that looks sad. But after 2 Slacker months, I wasn’t trying to break myself by being in a hurry. Plus this race is strictly for fun. For more reasons than just not hurting myself. I am not getting a hotel, I am driving down on race morning with my mom and S (one of her tennis players- she tends to adopt them). So hello to my first ever 3AM wake up call for a race. And hello to packet pickup on race morning. Cuz that won’t be stressful at all. 🙂 The race is flat, which most people would love but I find flat to be my nemesis. Oh and it’s on the boardwalk…along the beach. Hello humidity. #sorrylungs

You know you're a runner when... you are looking forward to a girls weekend that includes a half-marathon!

So am I crazy? Well, that remains to be seen. 🙂 I am hoping for a fun, pretty race. Some shiny new bling and then a day spent shopping and eating around Santa Barbara. Hello Lululemon and Lorna Jane- please take my money. 🙂

So, seriously, am I crazy?

Ever registered for a race at the last minute? I have but not this late for a half.

Do you run on your birthday?

Week 3- Slowing Down

Week 3 done! I hit all the required durations ( and then some) but my pace took a hit. It was the first week with the new hires and I seriously underestimated what training 2 brand new people at the same time would be like. I felt like I was running laps all day. I had to change my heels for flats halfway through Monday and I wore flats the rest of the week. This made navigating the maze of chairs easier but seriously pissed off my feet and legs. Grrr, I missed my boots.

Monday- Rest

I love rest on Mondays. I had tried to change to being a Monday runner but it’s hard. Plus we didn’t get out of work until 6 and I felt like I had run 5 miles already.

Tuesday- Plan 40:00 Easy

Our area was hit with some odd monsoon weather so we had high temps and high humidity. Ugh. It was so rough my mother canceled her tennis practice. She never cancels so I knew it was ugly. I was debating going to the gym but decided for work town instead. Work town is consistently around 65* but I don’t like running there for a few reasons. 1- the humidity is always high (like 70+) and my lungs hate me. 2- I feel like I have to wear pants. I know it’s all in my head but the idea of running in shorts and having a customer spot me freaks me out. I am so weird. 3- I have one route. There are very few sidewalks and the roads have non existent shoulders.

This route is an out and back that starts with an elevation of 150′ and drops to 0 then back up again. My GPS had troubles getting a signal so mile 1 was way off. I ran with traffic for most of the out portion- that side of the street has a sidewalk. Once I hit the state park I thought I was going to have to cut my run short. There was construction in front of the Inn and I couldn’t see a way to the path that gets me to the beach. The street has no shoulders. I spotted what looked like tire tracks and bolted across to the path. Then damn near ate it on the slippery Eucalyptus leaves. Walk break!

I ran to the end of the trail this time instead of just the beach and found the best natural stairs. Seriously I did a little happy dance at the top. I love running in the dirt. Too bad the trail portion is maybe a little more than .5 mile. I took another walk break after I almost did the splits on the Eucalyptus leaves on the way back and then ran on. Mile 4 had 100 ft gain and I ran most of it with my lungs on fire but pulled off a 10:06. Which I think is the fastest I’ve run that even when I was in top shape. Sweet! 4.05 ish Miles- 42:37

Wednesday- Rest

TOM came to visit, I rested. TMI? 🙂 Plus I had a doctor’s appointment with my gastro and Atkins is here to stay. He is also ordering a new CT to see why I have had the odd, intense pains. Boo.

Thursday- Plan – Speed work

This time was a doctor’s appointment with my primary so I can have my thyroid levels checked since I take a nap damn near everyday. Sometimes on the floor. 🙂 I changed before leaving work so I could head straight to the gym after my appointment even though my stomach hated me that day. Then I saw something on Facebook that ~~pissed me off~~ hurt my feelings and the last thing I wanted to do was run. I just wanted to sulk in a corner and binge eat pizza. I went home first. Somehow I pushed myself out the door 45 minutes later. It was a slow, hot miserable run. Seriously it was a slower pace than my long run this week. And I was chased by a damn dog. If it hadn’t been on a chain, I would have been bleeding. As it was I ran into traffic which wasn’t smart. 4 Miles -47:52. Then I ate pizza. 🙂

Friday- Rest

More running around like a crazy person at work. It was so flippin’ busy. I am so jealous of everyone who had the day off.

Saturday- Rest

I wanted to run my long run in the morning but I wasn’t feeling well and had a headache. I enjoyed a calm 4th with my family and finally watched McFarland, USA. And I call myself a runner? It was really good and even more interesting when I thought I heard work town called out during their first meet. I did!!! They competed against work town! Man, that must have been a drive. Turns out the first time they went to the beach was actually 4 miles up from work town too. They changed the location in the movie. Still it was cool hearing that.

Sunday- Long Run- Plan 1:10:00

Again, I woke up feeling rough and could not get going. I kept telling myself to get out of bed but it wasn’t happening. I finally headed out for my long run around 3. I still didn’t feel great so even though I wanted 10, I was aiming for anything over 6. My mother was out on a walk so the first 4.5 miles of my route was looping around streets and meeting back up with her. Yay for walk breaks! Then she went on her way and I continued running. One of these days I will find a long run that doesn’t have over 800 ft of elevation gain. I also had my first snake sighting of the summer. I refrained from screaming like a little girl but I did run into the middle of the street again. Luckily it was a back road but I really need to work on that. Mile 7, I stopped and spoke with an older gentleman out working on his van. At that point I’d run past him 3x so I think he thought I was crazy. Somewhere along the line I got my math wrong so I hit my driveway at 10.5 miles- 1:58. Considering all the walk breaks in the beginning and a few hills towards the end and I was actually at the high-end of where McMillan says I should be? Sweet! I made it in time for Sunday dinner. Family doesn’t mind if you’re sweaty right?All in all, it was a slow but solid week. Not too bad. I also officially registered for Big Sur in November on Sunday. I booked the hotel a few months ago and followed through with the race. 🙂 Woo hoo! Now I just need to actually register for my goal race in October. Oops.

This week, my goal is actually complete my speed work and have fun at my half on Sunday. And then eat cake- Because it’s my birthday. 🙂

How was your 4th?

How do you react to snakes?

Do you live in a hilly area or flat?

Week 2 Recap- Finding the Long Run

And it’s ~~Sunday~~ Monday. That was a fast weekend. As much as I would love another day or 4 off, I am really looking forward to this week. 2 of our 3 new hires start ~~tomorrow~~ today- woo hoo!!!! The week will be crazy busy but yay!

Monday-

Rest day. I thought about running. Packed my bag just in case but stuck to the plan. My food choices this past week or so have not been the best and my system has been letting me know.

Tuesday-

The plan called for speed work but half way to home town I knew I wasn’t up to it. I was so tired I decided to move my easy run to Tuesday and do the speed work when I was feeling more alert. This easy run kicked my ass. It was only in the high 80’s so I figured I would be fine plus my usual up and back has shade throughout so I though that would help. As I was heading out I saw a suspicious situation- think drug pick up like, or at least how I would guess one of those looked- so I knew I was going to take the longer way back which is a little more public. I though that extra 1/2 mile was going to kill me. I was huffing and puffing so bad I was actually worried about an asthma attack. Easy should not do that! I didn’t look at my splits until later since I was irritated. Ok, I guess it makes a little more sense now. Oops!Wednesday-

After the previous day’s accidental progression, I thought about skipping the speed work. The plan called for a 15 minute warm up then 4 x 2:00 @ HMP with 1:00 recovery in between then cool down. That didn’t sound too bad so I figured I would try one and go from there. Since I have such trouble doing math while running, I decided that my goal half marathon pace will be 9:00. It will give me a tiny cushion to hopefully break 2 hours and the splits will be a little easier to remember while running. 🙂

I'm not the only one who sees the bad math in this right? — I’m not the only one who sees the bad math in this right?

I did my warm up and then changed my watch to current pace so I could pace the intervals. They felt harder than I would have liked but doable so I kept going. My watch flashed low battery as I was finishing the 3rd interval so I stopped to save what data I had before continuing on. I finished my last interval and then did the cool down. I checked my splits as I was stretching and noticed that my intervals were all pretty consistent… and that either I wasn’t using the current pace feature or it was really wrong. I can only dream that my half marathon pace will be 8:30 one day. What the heck?

Thursday-

Planned rest. Another meeting about a race but this time other people showed up, woo hoo! And I got happy mail!!!!! Thanks Pavement Runner!

Friday-

I was off before 6 so I thought about running a few miles but I didn’t want anything to interfere with getting in a longer run on Saturday morning so I decided to stick to the plan. Instead I did all my usual Saturday errands and shopping so that there were really #noexcuses on Saturday.

Saturday-

I planned on running by 9 but slept horribly so I gave myself an extra 30 minutes. I was out the door a little after 9:30 in an effort to avoid the heat. It wasn’t early enough. The run started in the high 70’s and ended in the high 80’s. Doing 4 hill repeats in the middle didn’t help. I won’t lie, there was way more walking than there should have been. 😦 But 8 miles and my longest run since SLO done. My #runallday shirt was so comfy to run in, a little too big but that’s my fault. 🙂 Thanks to some freaky weather we’ve been having I still ran at the hottest part of the day. The temp dropped in the afternoon and it started to rain! Really?! Miles 1-7 averaged around 11:30 and mile 8 was 9:46. Umm, ok then.

Sunday-

Thought about running but some cleaning projects ran away with the day. On the upside my car is no longer an embarrassment. 🙂 I also worked my Hogwarts swap craft and it’s not coming along like I planned.

Second week of training- complete! My mileage is finally going up- woo hoo!

What are your plans this week? One thing you’re looking forward to in July? How is it almost July?!

Ever seen something shady on a run?

Anyone else’s car look like they live in it? I think I had 6 pairs of shoes in there.