It’s time change weekend!! Woo hoo!!! Now I will complain when my complain when my alarm goes off on Monday… and Tuesday, etc but I am so looking forward to more daylight for my after work runs. I am sorry for everyone running a race this Sunday though.
Is anyone else watching Riverdale? Does anyone else feel old watching Luke Perry and Skeet Ulrich? Or is just me? 😛 And tell me, is that Zack or Cody?
For the first time in months, there is no rain in the forecast for at least 7 days. Yay!!! Now we just have wind. Boo. But the sun is marvelous. I really wish we had some sort of outside sitting area at work.
how about a sunset?
Speaking of work, the merger is going full steam. On a personal, whiny note, I learned that I have to start taking more normal lunches. Boo. My lunch is usually around 2:15 which is way past the 5 hour mark (CA law) but I signed a permanent waiver because my theory is that everyone else’s lunch was more important than mine. Well and I used to be exempt. I’ve adjusted to it over the years and now I like it. But things will change in April. But hey, maybe this will help my weird blood sugar issues?
I always start these posts with so much to tell you then forget half of it while I am typing. 😁
I may go shoe shopping this weekend. The Sayonara’s have worked but they aren’t awesome. My toes hurt after runs and my shins are not very happy. I am hopeful that Brooks fixed all of the problems with the Pure Flow 5’s and that the 6’s are much better. I’ve heard good things, so fingers crossed!
It’s Harvest Marathon week!!!! Dude, race planning is stressful and I’m not even really doing anything. 😁 I feel bad for the others.
With the time change coming and my race in 17 days (yikes!) I decided to do my usual Slacker thing until mid-November. I don’t want to change things too much and likely hurt myself. I also want to enjoy the last few runs I can get in outside after work. I am not a fan of the time change, I am not looking forward to treadmilling it 2-3 times a week. It kills my motivation. I’ve thought about the options for running in the evening or mornings outside but there are a few problems there. Yes, the biggest one is how lazy I am in the mornings. But beyond that, the roads I run in my neighborhood are trashed. I almost tripped 4 times on Saturday in broad daylight, low visibility may break me. There are 2 streets with sidewalks but the sidewalks are hinky- uneven and varying heights. Equally dangerous for a klutz like me. 😛
I realized I’ve become a middle of the pack runner. Which is cool because I used to be towards the back but all the people!!! I was always used to crowds thinning out at races. My average pace at races this year meant people were always around. Sometimes it’s cool and sometimes it’s overwhelming. Surf City never thinned out and City the Sea felt similar but there was about an 18,000 person difference between those two! For some reason I thought Big Sur was around City to the Sea size- it’s not. It averages 8500 runners. In my world that’s a lot. And 6:55 AM start time- waah!
I’ve been running without headphones lately. No real reason other than I keep forgetting them. It’s actually not horrible, I kind of like it. Not sure I could do it for a longer run or race though.
And now it’s Thursday. The Slacker strikes again. 😛 Actually it wasn’t my fault. I tried to work on the laptop but instead I had a lap cat. I blame Kimi.
There were 3 days in between Saturday’s run and last nights. I felt like I hadn’t run in forever. It’s interesting how your perspective changes the longer you’ve been running. When I first attempted running, I often still felt sore 3 days later. Granted, I had hell-acious shin splints which in turn led to a 2nd degree ice burn but that’s another story. 😝 I used to take a month off after a half marathon now I feel like I haven’t run enough in the last two weeks. I’ve been eating like I ran an ultra though and that’s not good. Well the food was yummy. 😉
And in good news, check out this weather forecast-
No 90+ temps in sight! 30-40 degree changes but that’s normal out here. 😃
If you made it this far after this rambling, drawn out thought process, thanks!
Seriously, how is September half over?!! Actually, I might be ok with that if it wasn’t for the heat.
I love heat, I really do. I mean I use a space heater every day at work- every day. My favorite part of winter is bundling up in cozy sweats with a big fluffy blanket. But I am done. The heat kicked my ass this year. I never adjusted to it like I used to. It never felt comfortable. Normally I love 100* temps. Grrrr. Maybe it’s because I work in a town that rarely gets above 70. Or maybe because home town can have a 30-50 degree change throughout the day? Maybe I am getting old? Who knows. Monday it rained and it was awesome. When I started Tuesday’s run I was actually cold! It was awesome! I thought the temps were finally changing. I was starting to look forward to the 12 miler I need to run this weekend. Then came the news. The temps this weekend are projected to be a cool 100*. Waah.
Ok, deep breath, moving on. 😃
I like starting the week with my easy run, so that was the plan for Tuesday. I headed to the river path for an easy 4. The cooler air must have confused my Garmin because it said I had an elevation gain of over 550 feet for a 4 mile run. Yeah, um no. It’s more like 150. Luckily everything else seemed normal, I run this route often enough to know each mile point. Which is good since this turned out to be a run to remember. 😁
I started out with my usual walking warm up, but started running earlier. It was breezy and I was kind of chilled but it felt awesome. I laughed to myself that running more hadn’t really helped my first mile split but I was feeling good so who cared. I just kept trucking along and feeling good. No need for any walk breaks. Somehow my phone ended up on random and the song choices were amusing me. A song came on that I’d never heard before, I’m not even sure how it ended up on my phone. It was a little melancholy but I really liked it. I’ve been super stressed lately (and not hiding it well here on the blog) and something about it calmed me down and kept me running.
I did have to stop for a moment around 2.5 miles in. My stomach cramped pretty badly which wasn’t surprising considering I’d been eating Starbursts and cinnamon bears for 2 days. An older woman with a huge dog was heading my way and with my track record with dogs, I just decided to stay put until they passed by. No need to anger the dog right? Instead I scared the crap out of it. The dog jumped about a foot in the air when it saw me standing on the side of the path. What would it have done if I had run by?
That pause combined with the eerily timed song earlier had made me think. My fastest mile had been completed on this route in August 2014. I clocked in at 8:05. I suddenly wanted to beat that. Why? I don’t know, but I wanted to try. So I did. As soon as my watch buzzed for mile 3, I opened it up.
I knew I had a busy intersection in the middle of the mile so I my initial pace registered in the 8:20’s. It was feeling pretty good though. My goal was to pick it up just after the intersection. There was a line of cars so I skidded to a stop and paused my watch. The first car actually saw me so I was actually still sliding when they waved me on. In like a second I had slid, paused, un-paused and ran on. Half a mile left, time to fly. Except halfway down the path a dad was walking up with his toddler and a stroller. Between all of them they took up the whole path. I debated blasting through but the toddler was wobbling all over the path. Mowing down a toddler was not on the agenda. Another sudden stop and a pause to the Garmin. Didn’t people know I was attempting something here?!
Un-pause and run on. It was hard getting back into gear. My legs and lungs were protesting now. I ignored them and pushed on. I hit the end of the concrete path and headed for the dirt river trail. I almost ate rocks for dinner as I lost traction rounding the corner of the trail head. I got my act together and pushed on; I knew I was close. That was the longest 3/10 of a mile ever. But I did it!
7:48:9?! Holy crap! Would I have done better or worse if I hadn’t had to pause twice? I don’t know but it’s still awesome. 😃 I slowed to a walk but I didn’t feel like I needed to stop. I was breathing super loudly and probably sounded creepy since I was kind of hidden in the bushes on the trail. I walked for 1/10 of a mile before running it out for a total of 4.5 miles. I felt pretty good.
kind of a smile! not quite dead but kind of a ginger, too. ha!
So, while I may never ever do it again, I can say I got pretty damn close to my fastest mile ever back in high school. I really only had PE my freshman year of school but I was always stuck doing that Presidential Fitness test. I was so horrible at those. 😉 I’ve been thinking a lot about speed and my next half marathon so it was kind of cool to pull this off. I also think the cooler weather helped. The news just announced the predicted for Sunday has risen to 102 so hopefully the high from this run will get me out of bed early enough to avoid the heat.
Are you enjoying fall yet? Or still dealing with summer temps?’
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?
Slacker Runner 