Tag: treadmill

About that…

On the heels of last weeks good but short speed work, I thought I would be running on Wednesday and Thursday since I couldn’t run Saturday. We were supposed to have our our work holiday party on Saturday evening and with working in the morning, I would have had little time to run. I would also be unable to attend Vine St with my family like we traditionally do. When the work party was canceled for a few reasons I was actually ok with that. I figured I could get in a6ish mile run after work and go to Vine st. Which was a doubly good plan because my stomach hated me on Wednesday so I changed it back to a rest day.

Thursday, unfortunately, dawned with more of the same. I refused to change my plan again, so I headed to the gym after work. I slogged through 3.5 slow, miserable miles before calling it quits. Which bites because NikeC was there working with the trainer and I have been wanting to tag along with them but there was just no way. But it was better than none!Thursday night- Friday was the “epic storm” in these parts- ha!! But I shouldn’t snark- between all the rain then and yesterday, streets have been flooded, power has been out and a giant boulder rolled on to the freeway last night hitting a semi- everyone is said to be ok. Saturday and Sunday were ruled by my stomach- not only was there no running involved, I almost bailed on Vine St. I tried to get my family to go ahead and then meet them. But I made it through- all the pretty lights- and did manage to complete some Christmas shopping on Sunday. This week is the stomach testweek- can we call it that?- so running will be hit and miss. After last weeks short 6 miles, that makes 2 short weeks. 😦 With Tuesday being prep day and Wednesday being the test, I had to breakmy own rule and hit the gym on a Monday if I wanted to get a run in. It actually wasn’t that busy. But then most people probably didn’t want to drive in the down pour. We Californians are babies in the rain, then again, I did hydroplane at one point so maybe they had the right idea. Another 3.5 miles in the books. 🙂

I can’t eat today and for some reason all I have wanted is pretzels. And pictures of pizza keep popping up on my Facebook and Twitter feed. Waah.

How has your week started?

What food are you craving right now?

How’s your weather?

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?

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?

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?

A Couple of Hot Ones

Man, were they hotter than planned.

The plan for Monday was an easy 4 after work at the lake path. My mother texted that she was going to meet me and she actually beat me there. Once I got my act together (you know shoes on) we headed out. It felt warm- 91ish- but not too bad, so I did not take my water, which for 4 miles is not abnormal. The lake path is a flat loop, so 4 miles is a little under 3.5 laps. I figured if I was feeling good, I would run 4.5 miles and then cool down. The benefit of the loops was that if I regretted my water decision I could just get it from my car on the next loop. Less than ¼ mile into the first loop, we were derailed.

Ok, time for a little off-roading. Once back on the trail, my mother wanted to know what the 5k course from the Wild Run was like. So we changed route and went off the trail up the street, turning my planned flat, loops into streets with slight rolling hills. I gave her the rest of the directions and pulled ahead around the .70 mile mark. Half a mile later and I was regretting the water decision. Oh and I forgot to put on my visor. After a couple of turns, I was on a street with a little bit more shade but had the bulk of the rolling hills. I think I walked twice. Once I was back on the lake path, I was doubting I was even going to hit 3 miles. I was so hot. I ran around the path until the broken bridge and stopped for a moment to take a pic. I could see my mother on the back side of the lake path and figured it would be easier to run back the way I came rather than trying to catch her. Plus I didn’t think I had another lap in me. But for some reason, I still didn’t grab my water. I told myself I would run to 3.5 miles or when I met with her, whichever came first. Yeah, when I finally met up with her I was at 3.8 so of course I had to finish out 4, turn around and then walk back to the car. My water had never tasted so amazing. Also after the first warm up mile, my pace was too fast for the warmth and lack of water. Stupid slacker.

Tuesday, I was aiming for 5 at the river path. Once again the temp did not drop. It was 96 when I started out. My mother met me again and brought a frozen bottle of water. I also asked her to bring me a hat; see, I was thinking this time. We set off for the warm up, and I walked a little more than planned but that was ok. Even once running, I kept it nice and easy. When I passed her on the way down, she hollered at me to drink water. I know! Running down I passed 2 skateboarders carrying their helmets. Umm, that’s not how it works boys. I do have to give one props for having a camelbak, at least he was thinking smart about something. It was hot and muggy and I had woken with a migraine in the morning so my planned 5 turned into 4 but I was perfectly fine with that. I was also feeling good about the average pace of 10:15 for the 3 solid miles that I ran. In that temp? I’ll take it!

Tonight was gym night with NikeC! I felt a little more competent with the weight machines. I am also trying to incorporate some the barre moves into the circuit. I hate those stupid step up things but noticed that the handle is at the perfect height for some of the barre exercises. This time I showed my gym ineptness on the ARC Trainer. I almost face planted into the control panel at one point. That would have been an interesting bruise to explain. That machine is harder than it looks but then I have also fallen off a treadmill. There were no grunters tonight but it was busier than usual. I feel awkward doing squats in public, and this hip abduction machines. Luckily they face the wall. 🙂

Hit any unexpected roadblocks recently? Literal or figuratively?

Anyone else have issues with the machines at the gym?