I took Thursday and Friday as rest days. I had planned for a 8-10 mile run on Saturday. Yeah, that didn’t happen. Call it another rest day. Which was not so good because my lunch may have looked likethis-
Not even sorry
Saturday night I was up late reading again, oops, so my alarm was quickly slapped in the morning. I had a BBQ to attend for work in the early afternoon. The weather was amazing and the view of the ocean from their back yard was awesome. I would have taken pictures but I felt that wasn’t cool doing that at an executives home. My ride had to be back early but even the short amount of time in the sun was too much. I guess when they put warning labels on medicine, they mean business.
I headed to the gym hoping for 8 miles but knowing that 6 was more realistic. Ha!! 4 very sluggish miles were all I could do. I warmed up with 1/2 mile walk then alternated between a 6.00 run and 3.8 walk. It was rough from the start. I never hit a groove, and it was all I could do to complete the 4. This not feeling well crap is beginning to make me cranky. I tried my Garmin again on the treadmill. I thought I turned off the GPS but apparently not. So I present to you the slowest mile, and actually it’s not even a mile-
Nice. Splits- 12:43, 10:56, 10:33, 10:41
So it is looking like I will end up with a 2 week taper for Ventura. I can’t decide if that’s a good thing or a bad thing. It’s closer to how I trained last year but I feel anxious missing that last long run.
Work has been a little stressful these last few weeks. My boss was offered a position at another location so now I have a new boss. So far it’s all good and I even took 2 full hour lunches last week, I almost didn’t know what to do with myself. Overall though, it still leaves you feeling a little wonky. I admit that I make poor food choices when stressed, so last week didn’t help that. Combine that with less running and I feel like even more of a Slacker than usual. It’s temporary and I will get back on track. Think positive right?
Hope everyone is having a good weekend! Do anything fun?
Have you ever had one of those weeks where you were just in left field? Like the world existed on one plane and you were on some other cuckoo level? Yeah that’s where I am at this week. Welcome to my planet. Today I actually told a coworker “that I had never forgetted” something. Seriously? Did my brain take a vacation without me? *Case in point- I published this without a title and had to correct it.
Last Friday, I had the start of a headache. Combine that with all of the sun from a 2.5 hour run on Saturday afternoon and a few hours at the beach on Sunday and you get a raging headache that arrived Monday. And it’s still here. It’s my good buddy now. Ha! Monday’s run, though stressful, helped a bit. On Tuesday I set out for another run. I met my mom after work at the river path, it made for a nice warm up. I kept it pretty easy though, so just 4.5 miles with warm up and cool down. I did push it a bit for mile 4. Thanks to my lovely stomach I can only go faster than 9:30 in short bursts. Anything more than that is just not working right now. Once again the headache eased while running only to return later. It’s like a bad penny!
still turning off the Garmin for cool down, I’m so odd sometimes.
Wednesday was more of the same but I refused to cancel on gym night with NikeC again. Plus it’s back to Wednesday nights now since my class was canceled due to low enrollment. Boo! I crawled a mile on the treadmill for a warm up before we hit the circuit room. I used slightly lower weights than normal but at least it was something. I also did a bunch of squats because those didn’t hurt my head, and I can so feel it in my legs today. Our gym offers a boot camp type class on Saturdays and NikeC went this last Saturday. I want to go but am waiting until after the Ventura half. The trainer came up to us while we were warming up and asked me why I didn’t go. I said I didn’t want to try anything new before the half. She replied that they had never had anyone get hurt. Maybe so but I am just plain clumsy. When I informed her that I currently had a sliced foot and had managed to cut my hand that day, she decided I needed an injury/ liability waiver. Nice.Today I just marched to the beat of my own drum apparently. And the drumstick was broken. For those who are thinking why doesn’t she just take something for her headache? I usually would if a headache lingered this long but I am currently taking the lovely (multiple) antibiotics prescribed by my doctor and figured that was more than enough pills. I made myself go to sleep earlier last night and slept with an ice pack on my head. But even with all that, today was a rest day. Tomorrow likely will be too. I tried running it out, so now I’ll try waiting it out. This usually happens 2-3 times a year, so it will pass.
I have one last 8-10 miler that I would like to do this weekend and then it’s taper time!! I won’t lie, that actually sounds pretty nice right now. But right now I am looking forward to cookie Friday and a 3 day weekend!!! Which hopefully means sleeping in.
My last half kind of kicked my ass both mentally and physically. 13 miles of sand aggravated some shin splints I thought were mostly behind me. My confidence took a beating as well. This led to my change in thinking during July and for the most part it helped. My most recent attempts at long runs have kicked me around a bit, too. Today, I finally completed the 10miler I attempted twice last weekend. However, it was Ugly. However before we get there, let’s look back.
Ok, not so healthy but yummy
Thursday turned into a rest day instead of gym night, I was feeling a little under the weather. Earlier in the week, I had made a smart ass comment about something happening on Friday. I said that if all the stars aligned in the right way, I would buy everyone lunch. Granted, at the time, I thought there was no way. That being said, I followed through when I was proved wrong.
Saturday was a day spent shopping. I may have spent a little more than planned, but it was fun. 🙂 And when did my impulse purchases become running shoes?
I got the puppy a new toy, too
After getting home, I took my family to a local steak house for dinner, where we I might have eaten too much. I followed dinner with a late evening stroll with my mom and the puppy. Had to test out the new shoes, right?
Sunset on the walk
My stomach did not thank me for yesterday’s indulgence, so this morning got off to a rough start. I did manage to get out the door for my long run by 9 though. My mother wanted to meet at the track and do some laps. After I was going to help her change out a tennis net. I ran 8 on the track a few weeks ago and did not want to again. I mapped out a route that was 7 miles across town to the school and planned to finish the last 3 miles on the track. The downside was that I had to run across the main bridge in town. I hate running across the bridge, I feel like I am on display, it’s so noisy and just seems so long. In comparison to big cities I am sure that our bridge is tiny, but I think it may be the biggest in the county. Not sure if that’s more indicative of the bridge or the county though, hmmm.
Right from the get-go, I knew it was going to be rough. I had a shortcut option to cut 2 miles off before the school if I felt ill but I did not want to take it. After my warm up mile, I decided to test out the run/walk feature on my Garmin. Once I figured out how to do that I set it for 8:30 run and 1:00 walk. I was foolishly hoping that it would help the run seem a little easier. It did keep miles 2, 3, 5, 6 around 10:30 pace which was pretty cool for a long run. Mile 4 was my fastest at 9:29- the bridge mile- I just wanted it done. I hit 4 traffic lights in the last half of 4 and beginning of 5; I paused my Garmin at each one but let the Nike App run. I was curious to see how long they took. All in all they added 5 minutes to my time.
I completely ran out of gas by the end of mile 6. Since I was on a path and not the street, I had put in both headphones for a pick me up. Bad idea- a cyclist came up on my left and I never heard him. I felt his presence more so I took out a headphone as I turned my head, oops. I was hugging the far right of the path, so he had plenty of space. We chatted a bit, I apologized for the headphone gaffe (I swear I only ever use one!) but that I was in such misery I was hoping it would distract me. He agreed that it was a rough morning and already too warm. My pace slid off from there. Miles 7-10 all clocked in the 11’s. Even on the track. I have never run that slow on the track but I was just spent. I even thought about calling it at 8 and heading back out later to another 2 but I really wanted the run done all in one. I was so glad when I was done. I stretched some and then headed off to help my mother. Or try, turns out the replacement net was worse off than the old one, the replacement had been donated. 😦
We followed that up with some yummy Chipotle for lunch, have I mentioned we have a Chipotle now?! I also learned that you should never go to the grocery store after a long run. I wanted to buy everything!!! Luckily I wanted to buy all the fruits and vegetables but still there’s only so much food a person can eat. I didn’t look at my splits for a few hours because the run just felt so rough to me. Turns out my overall pace was pretty much near where I had wanted to be for a long run, the run just felt the total opposite of easy. It makes me a little nervous for the 12 miler I need to do next weekend.
How was your weekend?
Every make a statement you didn’t think you’d have to follow through on?
When I last posted, I hinted that Sunday may have not gone according to plan. Without further ado, here is my simple guide to fail a long run.
Just follow these fool proof, slacker tested steps-
Enjoy a rest day prior to the planned run. Along with this indulge in some movie watching and popcorn eating
Consume your body weight in popcorn, or at least come close.
End up spending most of the night reading a book. Why? Because so much popcorn made you ill and at least the book is a productive use of time when you can’t sleep.
Oversleep due to being ill as well as finishing previously mentioned book.
Put off run until later in the afternoon. Start run when it’s 93 outside but due to your over tired self, it feels like 105.
Try anyways- walk a lot- only finish 6 miles.
Congratulations, you’ve successfully failed a long run. #longrunfail
That hill is evil
After my failed attempt on Friday, I was planning to run the 10 miles on Sunday. Other than work and foam rolling, I stayed off my feet as much as possible on Saturday. Too much popcorn was an epic fail which resulted in a long night followed by sleeping in. Truthfully I kind of did not want to run at all. I finally forced myself out the door after 2:00. And I knew that if I didn’t go then, I wasn’t going at all.
Such pretty splits, ha!
I warmed up slowly but never really got into it. I met up with my mom a little after mile 3, that combined with a hill meant I walked most of that mile. It was awesome. Then it was more running, oh and some more walking. I knew 10 was so not happening, so it was another 6 miles in the book. I took a 16 oz bottle of water which is more than I usually take and I drank the whole thing. Ugh. This was just not my week for a long run. I’ll try again next week. 🙂
What about you guys?
Ever bail on a long run? How about eat too much popcorn?
I start a new class in a little less than 2 weeks and unfortunately it falls on Wednesday nights. Boo! So last week NikeC and I moved gym nights to Thursdays. We were hoping that it might be a little less busy but instead it looked like everyone was trying to get in one last workout before the weekend. We weren’t able to warm up on the ARC Trainers so we tried the stationary bikes. We used the recumbent ones, so I was wondering how much of a workout it would be. I was sweating within 8 minutes- ok maybe a bit of a workout. 20 minute warm-up- 4 miles-done. Then it was onto the circuit room, which was busy. There was even 2 grunters in the circuit room, using the machines in very odd ways. For the most part, everyone was using the room right, woo hoo! After a good work out there, we moved onto to the ab room. I admit I have zero skill there and always do my crunches wrong, so I hung out on the ab roller. It’s kind of fun and I could totally feel my abs (sore!) the next day. I also posted my very first throwback Thursday pic- and got the hashtag wrong. #fail But anyways, I finally found a pic of my very first race-I worked this Saturday, so I was able to go in later on Friday. I was super excited about this because I wanted to get my 10 miler done in the morning, that way I could have a lazy weekend of a rest day and a 6 miler. I slept until a little after 7 before getting up. I was feeling off but told myself I was just trying to be lazy. After getting ready, I knew it was a little more than that, so I ended up crawling back in bed. Now if you knew me really well, you would know that I have a few idiosyncrasies, or neurotic tendencies as my mother likes to call them. One of those is to only get in bed after a shower, even if it’s 3 in the morning and I am dead tired, I take a shower first. Even the few times I have come home sick from work, I take a shower first. My mother tells me I am going to be single forever. 🙂 I say it’s a holdover from all those Taco Bell years and coming home smelling like a burrito. The fact that I crawled into bed full of sunblock; I probably should have skipped the run. But after a little more sleep, I dragged myself out the door. I was under fueled and under hydrated, so I brought along some Gatorade and made sure to keep it slow. For once I had zero trouble following through with a longer warm up. 🙂 It was warmer than I would have liked for 9 in the morning, but it was not a horrible run. All in all, 10K done and I was still glad I made myself get out the door.
And the Garmin had issues tracking again.
Even though my long run failed, I still treated Saturday as a rest day. My left leg has been a little more sore than usual, so rest sounded good. Plus after getting off work and running the usual errands, I decided to go see Guardians of the Galaxy. Have I mentioned I am serious nerd for the Marvel movies? seriously that Disneyland Avengers Half would awesome but I would need to sell a kidney for it. 🙂 Anyhow, the movie was really good and I indulged in too much popcorn. Yummy. And I still had Sunday for that 10 miler. Well, that was the plan…
Slacker Runner 