Tag: Training

Call me Calamity

I feel like I have written a similar point in the past. And I probably have. Case in point- the nice line of bruises running up my spine from backing into the side of a door last week. I have mad skills like that. 🙂

After getting off work on Tuesday, I headed to the gym. I wanted to run but wasn’t looking forward to the treadmill. I remembered my Garmin this time so I decided to see how it did tracking distance again. I just put my phone on the treadmill screen/ display- what do you call that? Every year it seems like it takes me a while to adjust to the treadmill. I always feel a little sore when I first start running. It wears off around a mile in but it’s still kind of odd.

I wasn’t feeling quite up to speed work but I decided to try to run as steady a pace as possible. I wanted to see how far I could get before taking a walk break. My lungs and my stomach behaved, woo hoo! Looking at my splits later, it was kind of like a mini tempo run. At least for what is my pace these days. 🙂 Barring a few issues, I ran 3.5 miles straight.

As for the calamity? I wanted to run but I was having issues. I kept the pace around 5.9 most of the time but kept punching the front of the treadmill. At one point, I over balanced and had to pull myself out of a fall. I think my arms were doing a little pin wheel at this point. I righted myself, upped the speed a bit and kept plugging on. Apparently my legs were feeling really good and wanted to go faster because I continued to run into the front of the treadmill. So much so that I accidentally punched the stop button and the treadmill came to a halt. How I didn’t smash my face against the front, I have no idea.

I managed to get the treadmill started fairly quickly and grabbed a drink of water while bringing it back up to speed. I shouldn’t multitask. The lid to water bottle went flying over a few treadmills and landed next to the ellipticals. Seriously?! I powered on for another mile before hitting what would have been mile 4 before I had to start over. I decided to start my cool down but instead of hitting the speed button I hit the cord from my ear buds and knocked my phone down. I watched it bounce on the treadmill and then slide offonto the ground. Ugh. Now I also had the attention of everyone running on the treadmills to my right. In my efforts to slow down, I once again hit stop. By the time I came to a stop, someone else had picked up my phone and handed it to me. Thank you, kind stranger.

I decided I was done for the night. I called it at 4 miles and just stretched out. I was worried about not cooling down properly but I was taking the hint. From everything I had seen on the machine readout and my Garmin, they pretty much matched minus my stop issue in the middle. I didn’t look at my splits until later and when I did I was kind of happy. I also noticed that I must have hit the split button at some point but don’t remember doing it. All I see is that outside of my warm up, my average pace was under 10. Woo hoo!!! I haven’t seen that in months!

I came to find a delivery. I’ve had a few fun mail days lately. First I ordered a few books. I am looking forward to reading 80/20. Then I found out that my 25k in January only has one aid station. I had to reassess the fueling situation, so I ordered myself a little something- well it’s not exactly small-I haven’t decided about it yet. I really wanted pockets on the front and while I got those, I am wondering about how comfortable it will be.

How has your week been?

Ever feel achy on a treadmill?

Ever punch a treadmill? Or worse- fall off?

Ever use a vest like this? Thoughts?

Who’s on First

This had been a pretty good week running wise. Got in a great 8 mile hike on Tuesday. Actually made it to the gym to run on the treadmill on Thursday and got in a solid 10k yesterday. Since I put in 3x more miles this week than the past few weeks, I chose to stop at three days running this week. My ankle is a little sore and I don’t really want to start training with an injury. Or I was just lazy. 🙂

Saturday I headed out for a run after a short power nap. I’ve noticed that my stomach behaves a little better after a short nap. Why, I have no idea but if I can snooze for 15-20 minutes and have a better run, I’m all for it. Admittedly, sometimes it backfires and I sleep through the timer. California has missed the fall memo so I was able to head out late in the afternoon in shorts and a tank. I know it won’t last much longer but it was pretty nice. I knew my mother was out for a walk somewhere so I figured that I may run into her at some point. I changed my route up a bit so I would run past places I knew she liked to walk. I got about 3 miles in and still hadn’t seen her so I sent her a text. Her response was that she was going down the backside of a street. Ummm, what?

What side is the backside? So I sent a text trying to clarify. Was she closer to street A or street B? Mind you, there are 6 blocks in between those streets. The next response- she’d gone around A and back up. Back up what? There is no up that street. So I head to where I thought she would be, no luck. Ok, I give up. I am just going to finish my run. In my last mile, I get a text from my mother asking where I was. My answer was by the school and that her directions made no sense. I paused my Garmin and hung out for a moment waiting for another text but nothing came so I headed home.

Going up the last hill I get a text asking where I was again. Completely done with texting, I stop again and just call her. Turns out we were a block from each other. I catch up to her and again say that her directions make no sense. She again tells me her route and I snap “learn the street names!”. Turns out what she was calling up street A is in fact Beach street, so not the same!! The other name was off as well. I got super frustrated with her and asked how she was ever going to give emergency directions by saying this street and that street, and around one corner or another. I even warned her our little snafu was going on the blog.

All that aside, I had a pretty good run. Other than my warm up mile and the little stops in mile 4- I can’t text and run at the same time- I kept a decent pace for all of the run. Woo hoo! That’s a big deal for me these days. 🙂 It was a good way to conclude my first, albeit rescheduled, week of training. I am looking forward to next weeks running. Even if I have a few after work commitments and am trying to figure when to run. I’ll leave you with cuteness- I bought Kimi her first cat bed and I think it was a win-

How was your weekend?

How is your weather?

Ever get completely frustrated by text directions?

Rounding up the Scary

~So I mentioned I was a little spooked by Tuesday’s trail in my last post. What I didn’t mention was the random hoodie hanging from an equally random tree branch about 2 miles up. Faded black and a little ripped, at a spot where someone could just run into the woods. Creepy.

~I felt good Wednesday after 8 miles the day before but had a big project for work. I figured I would use my rest day and just stay late after work; use the quiet to just bust it out. After a bit I decided to use the restroom and get some water. Ever been in a building that felt like it slightly moved when exterior doors were opened or closed? That happened while I was in the bathroom but I didn’t think much about it because I knew the doors were locked. When I crossed the doorway leading from the break room area, I heard a voice say hello. Aack!!!!!!!! I yelled no and dropped into a sumo-like squat*. Turns out the cleaners come early on Wednesdays. Oops, I almost threw my phone at her. I scared her about as much as she scared me.

If you were home alone in the middle of the night...
*And what do I think I am going to accomplish going into a squat? I did this same thing once on a run when a dog rushed me. At least then I was in shorts, this time I was in a skirt but figured a squat was threatening?! Seriously?!

~I was helping a co-worker with something the other day when his little boy came in to say hi. My coworker had just done something not quite right and we were laughing about it so I told his son that his dad was silly. He did not look happy about that. Come to find out that he later told his dad that his boss had looked mad. So now I scare kids too. Oops. 😦~Less scary but more shocking- I made it to the gym!! I am still not a huge treadmill fan but it felt like a good, solid 4.5 miles. I was a little bored about 2 miles in so I decided to step up the speed by .2 every song. 5.6 to 5.8 to 6.00 for mile 3 followed with .10 distance walk break. Then I did 5.7 to 5.9 to 6.1. Around mile 3.85 I went to 6.6 and stayed there for a few minutes. It wasn’t much but I was able to keep my stomach in check so I call it a win. See ya next time bore-mill.

Ever run by random bits of clothing?

Do you scare children or is just a skill I have?

Any suggestions for fun treadmill running?

Trail Tuesday!

I have to say that I am liking Mondays as rest days. Even when I didn’t do anything on Sunday to warrant it. 🙂With that being said, I was ready to do something on Tuesday. Just not too early. 🙂 The temperature dropping at night combined with a new set of flannel sheets makes it really hard getting out of bed in the morning. But eventually I managed it. I headed down to SLO for a little shopping and a good lunch. From there my mom and I headed for a trail that she has done before with my dad. This trail is at the top of the grade, and you just pull off the freeway and park. You literally have to climb a fence and gate to get to the path. The fence is more for livestock than people and the trail sites actually tell you to jump the fence so I’m not that much of a rebel. Still, I was spooked for 2 miles for some reason. I knew there were other cars parked so there must be people on the trail but it was over 2 miles before we saw anyone.

Now trail may be a misnomer. While the sites claim it’s 4.6 miles up with an elevation gain of 1200’+, the trail is actually a dirt road. A well maintained dirt road. Why so maintained? TV towers!! Can’t lose access to those right? 🙂 Also I forgot my Garmin. Fail!! According to my Nike+ app which is kind of working again, it was 4 miles up with just under 1200′ elevation gain. On the way up, there is a steep drop to the right as you wind up the hill. You can see 101 but eventually the cars turn into ants and then you can’t hear them at all. I won’t lie, something about the climb and the trees bordering the side, I was waiting for the something to jump out at us. I am not sure what I was expecting more- a very real mountain lion or some mythical evil creature. You know you watch too much Supernatural when you start cracking jokes about wendigos and Sasquatch’s. Then a woman rode up behind us on a bike. I shrieked like a little girl and jumped 3 feet in the air. Seriously Fallon?! Get it together! We power walked up and power walked down enjoying the views along the way and at the top. It was overcast and chilly but still had great views. From the top we could see all of SLO. This put into perspective just how high up we were. I could see all of the two most well-known peaks in SLO- Madonna and Bishop’s Peak. They looked so small! At one point on the way down I looked west and realized I could see the rock and stacks in work town too! Kind of awesome! I wasn’t feeling well, so we kept the pace easy and stopped to take pictures and I usually didn’t pause the Nike app because it’s kind of a pain. Even with that we still completed the 8 mile trek in 2 hours. That’s not too shabby! I would like to go back again and try running it next time. And maybe keep my cool a little more. 🙂 I also need to remember my Garmin for more accurate data. I am trying to figure out where the other .5 mile is. There was a point when the trail went 3 possible ways right near the end. Plus we lost the mountain biker for a while. She ended up passing us on the way down. She had to have taken one of the other 2 ways.

All in all, I’m happy with an 8 mile day. 🙂 Now if I could just get to the treadmill.

What about you?

Ever jump a fence? With or without permission?

Afraid of things that go bump in the woods?

Call me Crazy

Starting with the smiles-

Never be a naysayer! I said that I didn’t think there was any way that my location would win an award in the Halloween contest at work. I was wrong! We won the “Funniest Location” award. I think it helped that a customer put himself in our chalk outline while the executive was there checking us out. And that wasn’t the only customer who was willing to get down on the floor for a photo opportunity. Turns out the CSI theme was a hit. We get lunch catered in sometime soon as our prize. 🙂

Followed by coming clean-

Hello, my name is Fallon and this is Slacker Runner. Some may have seen the change when I comment on other blogs. Back when I started this blog I was aiming for a little anonymity. So I misspelled my name and blurred my race bibs. Then I got real. I mean, seriously, I was sharing race times, race dates and names of races, etc. Doesn’t take much more than that and there’s my name. Plus it wasn’t even spelled that different. I’ve been meaning to update this for a while but the Slacker in me won for a while. I finally followed through. There a few things I am going to update on the blog in future actually. Fun fact- Falyn came about years ago when I wanted to be a writer and was playing around with pen names. I have a few more stashed away. 🙂

And ending with the crazy-

Last night this happened-Woo hoo! I am stoked. I have wanted to run Surf City for a few years now but always had a reason why the timing wasn’t right. It’s still not right but I’m not going to wait anymore. I am looking forward a fun race. It will also be the biggest race I have run so far- 20,000 runners- that’s a lot of people! This will not be a goal race of 2015, my only goal is to cross the finish line.

Wise Oscar Wilde's words: life is now, stop waiting! — Can always count on pinterest for motivation

Which brings me to why it is still not the best timing. As of right now, I am running a 25K trail race with 3200′ elevation gain the weekend before. Insert sheepish face here!!!! Both of the races will be more like long runs than races. I am both nervous and super excited for them. And yes I understand the insanity of this undertaking. I think. I am currently working on adapting the half marathon training plan that I started yesterday.

Once getting through both of those, I plan to take a week off of running. Then it’s time to train for my goal race for Spring- SLO Marathon Half. Maybe I can break 2:00? I am kind of nervous about having plans like this so early. I rarely plan that far in advance! On the upside, this gives me the perfect incentive to keep working hard through the holidays. Which means I won’t start the new year feeling fluffy and in a training hole. Well, hopefully. 🙂 I have to follow through and get my butt to the treadmill.

Now onto you guys-

Ever sign up for something crazy? Got any training suggestions?

Ever run Surf City? Or SLO? Or back to back race weekends?

No, seriously, training ideas?