Tag: Training

Getting Back Into Things

Where did Thursday come from? I feel like I have been playing catch up all week! But, really I kind of have. I was excited to go back to work on Monday but a little anxious about all things I knew I needed to catch up on since vacation. It had suddenly occurred to me that I had taken off month end and month start– umm, oops. I only had a couple hundred emails. My boss, said “that’s it?’- ha! I was glad that Monday’s are usually rest days.

Tuesday turned in more of a workout than planned. The Christmas had been delivered last Friday and it was one of those high school fundraiser trees. The ones that you buy sight unseen a month before and hope isn’t horrible. They delivered it but it didn’t come with a stand. From what I hear, my coworkers went and bought a stand but couldn’t get the tree to fit without a saw. So it was still all bundled up and propped in the water leaning against the wall on Monday. My inner Christmas nazi ( my mother and former coworker’s nickname for me) was kind of freaking out. There were no decorations up and it December 8 and the tree just looked sad. But I couldn’t do anything about it on Monday. On Tuesday I was determined to get the tree up. Last years stand was one ofthose ones with the spike in the middle but we didn’t have anything to drill the tree.

Kimi with one of the two trees in my bedroom.

Necessity is the mother of invention, right? We had screwdrivers at work and I had a mallet in my car. We laid the tree across a chair so it was easier to use our poor attempt at a drill. It took us a couple of hours but we finally made a hole that would fit the stand. Then we had to use the mallet to try to make the stand fit better. Customers thought it was hilarious. We finally got the tree upright and unwrapped. It’s freakin’ huge! And a little crooked, well crap. A few phone books and paperclip containers later, it was as straight as it was gonna get.

'Taking down the Christmas decorations is just as much fun as putting them up'.....said no one ever!! I decorated it in between working yesterday and taking a bunch of tests I forgot were due by Friday. Take a test, hang the lights. Help a customer, hang the ribbon etc. As of today, the snowflakes are up, 6 of the windows are lit with lights, and the wall art is up. It looks so festive!! I don’t have the energy to hang the bells and garlands from the high beams this year though. Maybe that will be an every other year thing? And Slackerfail- I forgot to take any pictures!

Mile 2 was not that fast- the Garmin got a little cuckoo.

After Tuesday’s impromptu “hammering” cardio, I headed to the gym after work. I was hoping for 5-6 miles but was late getting out of work. Then I was stuck behind a car going 20 up the hill on the way home. So by the time I got to the gym I only had 30 minutes. I decided to try a tiny progression and see what my stomach did. So I tried the following-

*Distance*	Pace
.5 mile	Warm up
.5 mile	10:30
.5 mile	10:00
.5 mile	9:30
.5 mile	8:30
.5 mile	cool down

My stomach behaved which was awesome because it’s been a rough week in that department. I had my normal treadmill trauma though. Both shoes came untied at different points, almost snapped my head phone cords when trying to fix my shoes. I also managed to fling another water bottle lid as well. Seriously, what gives?!

Who’s excited about Friday? I work on Saturday.

Anyone getting in a last race this weekend?

Ever had a decorating fiasco?

Night Night November

Where did November go?! Today should not be the first day of December- I’m not ready! But, time marches on so here is my November Recap.

Miles- 55.1
Race- GREW From the Vines 5KHikes- 2 East Cuesta and Cerro Alto So November was kind of a toss-up. I started the month feeling a little under the weather, so only logged 3.4 miles the first week. I also figured that meant I finally wouldn’t be sick on vacation. The following week I started my training plan but the first 2 weeks were fairly easy. Last week was supposed to step up the mileage and it coincided with my first week of vacation. I tried really hard to stick to the plan but the stupid head cold of Thanksgiving came back with a vengeance Saturday and Sunday. Saturday wasn’t wasted because I did enjoy some shopping with my mother. I was a little confused- where were all the people who were supposed to be out and about? I may have treated myself to a new running outfit. Both pieces are by Reebok and the pants are super warm. The top is long-sleeved and the exact style of an original clearance rack cheapie I picked up almost 2 years ago. I have worn that light pink one so many times, my mother can no longer stand the sight of it. 🙂 Sunday dawned gray and rainy, and I had been up coughing most of the night. Between my asthma and GERD, every time I get a little cold I develop a hacking cough. Geez, I have issues, nice. I knew there was no way a long run was happening but I thought I could handle a good puppy walk. Except the puppy didn’t want to walk, she wanted to run. I finally just decided to jog with her. Every so often she would look my way like – “see, I can run with you”. It was a pretty good run. I also bundled up before heading out. I tested out the new pants and wore multiple layers on top plus an ear warmer over my ears. My bottom half was the warmest part of me, though. It only rained on us for a short while. Those 4 puppy miles brought my November total to 55.1 miles. Not what I had hoped for but better than October (by a mile)! Another bonus about November? I hit my yearly goal of 750 miles!!! Miles to date for 2014- 776.8!!

Woo hoo! Time to move on to December. I have one last week of forced vacation 😦 and then it’s back to work for me. There is Christmas to prepare for, both of my parents have birthdays this week plus the plethora of Christmas/ end of the year parties are starting. I also have my colonoscopy to look forward to in a couple of weeks. All that being said, it’s time to step up the mileage.. and see if I can really follow through! Oh and it’s time to watch a bunch of silly made for tv Christmas movies. 🙂

How was your November? Are you ready for December?

Any Reindeer runs in your future or are you done racing for 2014?

Sticking to a Plan

I am really trying to stick to my plan. I want to go into 2015 and my spring races without feeling like I have to start from scratch after the holidays. That said, a big part of my plan is flexibility. So when my stomach was a butt head on Saturday, I ran 5 instead of 8. However, I still followed through with my back to back days and did the 6 mile Cerro Alto hike.

Tuesday, I ended up getting a way later start than planned and was only able to get in 5 miles before dusk. However, they felt pretty damn good. They weren’t the speediest but they felt solid. After a pretty great 5, I was eager to get running again on Wednesday. But I was questioning if I should. Vacation is hard, part of me wants to run all the miles but the more sensible part really wanted to stick my schedule and get comfortable with it. I never did find a nearby turkey trot but was planning on doing a couple of miles with my mother. Also, I knew that I would be spending Saturday or Sunday shopping so I started rearranging my running days in my head. I started thinking I could squeeze 6 out of Thanksgiving and then run 8-10 on Friday. With that in mind, I took Wednesday as a rest day since I know my body is not a fan of running 4 days in a row.

Oh such plans. Thanksgiving morning rolled in and I woke with a sore throat and a headache and scratchy eyes. I spent the day half in pajamas and half in running gear under a blanket on the couch. I was cold and it was a balmy 75º in my neck of the woods. My family had a very low key Thanksgiving. We hung out and watched movies- Into the Storm, Lone Survivor, and Heaven is For Real. Interesting choices, right? Luckily, we never really go overboard on Thanksgiving so I didn’t feel too guilty. 🙂 In fact, minor sickness aside, it was a pretty great day.

I don’t do the whole shop at night or at the crack of dawn thing, so I slept in on Friday. I still felt a little off but better than Thursday. After a small lunch and a couple of errands, I headed out for a few miles. 5 miles seem to have become my new go-to. With just trying to complete both races in January before focusing on speed for SLO, there is no speed work built into my plan right now. Plus, my stomach doesn’t really like it these days. So any speed work that happens is just based on how I feel that day. That said, I have been trying to work on a fast finish to most of my runs. Usually by the end of races and runs, I am done, I can never kick it in to the end. I figure my stomach should be able to handle that.

I will say it’s a lot easier on the treadmill. Turn the speed up and just hang on. Out on the road, I have to focus more. All I’m aiming for is a speedy last half mile before cool down. That’s not too long, right? I felt like I pulled it off the last couple of runs. My fast pace alert was vibrating my Garmin on Tuesday’s run but I never actually looked at it. But then it just averaged in with the rest of the mile. Urgh. So even though I was tired today, I used the lap buttons. The last half mile comes right after hill that always kicks my butt. I have never run it. It’s short but steep and just makes me tired. I hit the lap button as soon as I got to the top and started running. Oh,man that was hard. I felt slower than Tuesday, which made sense, and like there was no way I could maintain anything for a half mile. I hit 5 miles, pushed the lap button and stopped the Garmin. It wasn’t until I synced my Garmin with my phone that I figured out why it felt so hard. I did what?!

Holy crap! I realize that it wasn’t even a mile but still sweet! Also not the pace I was looking for, haha! I was aiming for the mid to high 8’s but I’ll take it! Probably couldn’t pull it off again or maintain it for a full mile, but it’s still kind of cool. 🙂

How was your Thanksgiving?

Anyone join the crush of crazy shopping? Any good deals?

Sunday Summit- Cerro Alto

Since the 25k is all trail, I gave myself some wiggle room in my training plan. I can sub a climbing hike in as one of the longer runs. So with that in mind, my mom and I headed out early Sunday morning to hike Cerro Alto. We had last done Cerro Alto in January of 2013 and I remember it being a climb but pretty easy. Either my memory is seriously faulty or I am completely out of shape, that climb kicked my ass. Maybe my legs were tired from the previous day’s 5 miles or I was just tired but man that uphill seemed to go on forever! In reality the hike we chose was 3 miles up to the top of the mountain and 3 miles down. According to my Garmin, we gained 1700 in elevation. However my Garmin crapped out for a 1/4 mile on the way up and 1/4 mile on the way down, so who knows. The trail is measured fairly well and we have done it before so I know it should come in around 5.9 miles. I never could tell where exactly it was that my watch had troubles, I was paying more attention to where I was putting my feet but I know it was after the 1.7 mark, because it was dead on until then. My mom and I kept pace together and power walked/ hiked up. I honestly don’t think I could have gone any faster though. In the end we got to the top in 58 minutes. Which we were both kind of butt hurt about. But looking at last years time, I noticed that we were 10 minutes faster, so woo hoo! Did I mention that my mom wants to run the 25K too? Well, hopefully. After hanging out at the top a bit- and of course taking pictures- we headed back down. The views were amazing, and the skies were clear but the top is super windy. You get cold really fast. No one really spends too much time at the top, as opposed to Valencia Peak where people often eat lunch at the top before heading back down. Coming down is where things got sketchy. We were looking to increase our pace and get a good idea of what we could maintain for the 25K. About 1/4 of a mile down, the trail narrows and gets rocky and even more uneven. You really have to watch where you put your feet. At some point my mother stepped wrong coming off a rock. Not sure exactly how it happened, but she went to walk ahead, froze and let out a 4 letter word. Uh oh. Stretching out and shaking it out didn’t help. Every other step down the mountain was accompanied by pain and some colorful language. I felt bad that I couldn’t do anything to help but also bad because listening to her was kind of funny. She later agreed that she probably sounded interesting to anyone else on the trail. But hey, at least we weren’t the 3 college age girls stopping to crack open beers at the mile 1 marker at 11 in the morning. Nothing wrong with the beer but get to the top first! Or better yet, get to the top and then back down first. Every mountain we’ve hiked so far has had memorials on it. And the news frequently has stories about hikers having to be rescued from the local mountain trails. Even with my mom being in pain, we were able to get back down the mountain in about 45 minutes. Not too bad considering she was limping. In fact, that was the only thing marring a great hike! Unfortunately, she couldn’t rest just yet. She and I then moved on to SLO to do some shopping while waiting to meet my dad and brother at Olive Garden for dinner. I was treating my parents for an early birthday dinner. Their birthdays are only 2 days apart in December. I told her to make sure to RICE once home and take it easy the next couple of days.

I meant to get this up Tuesday but time just got away from me. Have a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Anyone running a Turkey Trot? I wanted to but the nearest one is an hour away and that just won’t work on Thanksgiving. 😦

Gone on any hikes lately?

Talking about Training

Most of my online feeds are full of training talk these days. I don’t remember reading this much last year. Then again my only goal last November and December was to not take a long break from running like I had in previous years. I was constantly starting over every January. In November 2013 I ran 60 miles and 34 in December, not much but miles above previous years. My first race was always in March so I usually felt like I had time to catch up. Beyond that was always up in the air.

This year is ending a little different. With a 25K the last weekend in January and a half the following weekend I need to get my butt in gear now. Combine that with wanting to finally break 2 at SLO in April, and they seem like pretty large goals for this Slacker. Particularly when you factor in my track record with training plans.

Up until 2014, I trained my own way. For the most part it worked for me. But this year I had goals and goals need plans right? For SLO, I used a Nike+ training plan that was just too much mileage for me. I tried Higdon’s intermediate plan for Rock’n around the Pier in July. It didn’t work out so well. Ventura was an effort in denial regarding my stomach and lungs. Oh and remember this gem? Could I have made it any harder to understand?

I started training 12 weeks out from my 25k. Following Surf City, I aim to take a week off before getting back to training for SLO. That’s 11 weeks. With my stomach still dictating most of my pace and never having run back to back double-digit races, my goal for January is to just finish both races- no real speed or time goals. The plan is simple- run 4 days a week, try to cross train once. The tricky part lies in the weekends- back to back runs of at least 6 miles per day, topping out at 12. Even just typing that made me tired. There’s a reason I call myself a Slacker. 🙂 I would like to throw in a speed workout every other week but that will be up to my lovely stomach.

If I can stick to this, I ~~think~~ hope that I will be starting the year with a solid base. Hopefully that base will make me a stronger runner and I can really focus on speed for SLO. Fingers crossed. As for my plan- looking back I realized that my strongest half of the year was Wine Country in March. Granted, I was also the healthiest then. Barring an asthma issue during miles 5-7, I felt strong and ran 95% of it. Damn stupid hill at mile 12. And I trained my way- it was amazingly head game free- and I want to get back to that.

Pretty easy first two weeks. Next week steps up.

And how am I tracking my plan? A 90 cent student planner and pens because that is how I roll. 🙂 I’ve bought expensive logs and only used them a month. I tried Daily Mile as a way to track and never followed through. This fits in my purse, doesn’t take up a lot of space and I am hoping will be great incentive to keep it up! What can I say, I like filling in the purple for following through!

Happy weekend!

How do you train? Any suggestions?

What are your plans this weekend?