doot doot da doo

My favorite timesuck (besides FB) has decided to change formats today, and the new format blows (you know who you are).  I had a cancellation this morning that allowed me to get some work done, so here I sit with my iPod on Pandora.  La di da.

Ooooh, guess what song just came on?  The Fresh Prince of Bel Air theme!  SCORE.

Okay, focus.

Wait, this is the actual song version, not the TV show theme.  Similar, but not the same.  Still awesome.

Back to that focus thing…let’s see here.  I actually got up and ran 5 miles this morning, thanks to a certain beaglegirl who thought 530am was a great time to whine in her mama’s ear until mama thought she actually had to pee and got up to discover that no, beaglegirl did not need to pee…she just wanted to occupy 100% of mama’s pillow, as opposed to the 50% she had had before.  So I said F this, and went on a run. 

Said run turned out to be more of a walk, thanks to some GI issues.  that’s what I get for not pooping before I left the house…oops.  While I WAS running, though, I reminded of how much I like running before work.  It was nice and cool, and so quiet.  Can someone remind me of this the next time I turn the alarm off in favor of staying in bed for an extra hour or so?

Okay, time to go find some work to do…

So…

…what’s next? 

Ah, the eternal question.

Short term?  I’m pacing a quarter marathon next Saturday, and tentatively planning on a 5k the weekend after that and maaaaybe a local 5 miler on Memorial Day. 

Looking a little further out than the next month…well, my sister’s wedding is still staring me in the face.  August 11th is coming up way freaking fast.    In an effort to get in the best strapless kneelength bridesmaid dress shape I can get in, I have picked up a couple of yoga Groupons/LivingSocial deals and am hoping to use those to springboard me into some sort of strength training routine.

Why not just lift weights more a la New Rules of Lifting for Women, you ask?

Well, there’s a problem. 

I hate lifting weights.  I’ve tried.  And I hate it.  SO much. 

Instead, my evil plan is to get in a routine of actually going to yoga classes 2-3x/week which will in a perfect world make me more flexible AND improve my strength.  Assuming I don’t fall over while attempting to rock a downward dog, this could happen.

Plus, I need to do more crosstraining aka make my triumphant return to spin classes.  I miss spin class.

Racewise, there’s a local Color Run in July that I may or may not do (our annual giant cookout kegger may very well be that weekend, and I may be up to my eyeballs making Jello shots) and a Zombie Buffet 5k in October that sounds like fun…otherwise, I will probably end up doing the Columbus Half Marathon in October.  The last two times I ran this race I PRed so apparently its good luck for me   Otherwise, we’ll see what shakes out.

Most of all, though, I am rededicating myself (again) to eating better.  I have been seriously slacking off in this area recently and that has got to change if I’m going to rock that bridesmaid dress come August.  Game f’ing on.

Glass City Half Marathon recap

Yesterday morning, I ran the Glass City Half Marathon in lovely Toledo, OH.  It wasn’t my best race, but wasn’t my worst either.  Here’s the good, the bad, and the ugly…

So yesterday morning, I ran the Glass City Half Marathon in lovely Toledo, OH.  I didn’t have my best race, but it certainly wasn’t my worst.  Here’s the good, the bad, and the ugly…

The good-we (I rode up from Columbus with three girls from my running group) got to the expo around 3pm on Saturday.  It was held in the basketball arena on the Univ. of Toledo’s campus-since Glass City is a small race (maybe a total of 4k participants between the full and half marathons and the 5k) so the expo 1. wasn’t very big and 2. wasn’t very crowded.  We had no problem looking up our race numbers and picking up said numbers and our race packets.  The shirts are nice (though I noticed that the full marathon shirts are a different color than the half marathon and 5k shirts, but they don’t denote which race was ran on the shirt itself-it just says “Glass City Marathon” which is a little annoying), but there wasn’t much in the bag besides some coupons and ads for some stuff.  The vendors were decent for the small size of the expo, and a couple of us were able to get some good deals on stuff.  From there, we headed to the host hotel a few miles away…it wasn’t exactly a palace but was clean and quiet and for $75/night (and 3pm checkout for the runners, yay!) I can’t complain.  I had dinner with some friends (my usual pre race meal, cheese pizza) and hung out with them for a while afterwards…got to bed a little later than I had planned, but was up and at ‘em right on time.

The plan was to meet my running group at 5:45am for 6am departure from the hotel so we’d all have plenty of time to park and get to the start before the 7am start time.  We got everyone together to pose for a picture, I met up with Kate and her family to ride over to the race, and we headed over to the race.  Where we stood in the restroom line for a while before we connected with Kate’s group and off to the starting line we went!

The race started on time, blessedly.  We started off running through Ottawa Hills (think large, beautiful, older homes) before winding through one of Toledo’s metroparks.  Kate and I originally had similar pace/finishing time plans so we stuck together for the first few miles but at around the 5k mark I realized that if I kept my pace up I was going to crash and burn fairly quickly so I slowed down a bit and Kate kept going.  There were plenty of aid stations (that were well staffed/stocked) I wolfed down my tropical punch Shot Bloks at mile 7 and dug my headphones out of my butt pocket at mile 8.  Shortly after that, the half and full marathoners split and we wound our way back towards UT’s campus and we finished the race inside UT’s football stadium on the field, which was pretty cool.   I got my medal and a bottle of water, found Kate with her mom, dad, and son, and decided to go find myself a restroom.  On the way to the potty, I picked up my glass mug (which IS specific to which race you ran, as are the medals) and continued on my mission.  After Kate’s husband finished his half, we headed off to find the food/beer tent-pizza, bagels, apple slices, and beer.

The bad: Okay, maybe not “bad”….how about “not great”?  Let’s see.

-On the race website, they state that the host hotel is 7 minutes from the race start…but don’t mention that they mean 7 minutesdriving.  When not stuck in race traffic.  No one from my running group realized that the distance isn’t race-day walkable (almost 3 miles)until earlier in the week but thankfully we were all able to secure rides (and get parking) without an issue.

-Mile 8ish-12ish (or mile 22-25ish of the marathon) consisted of a paved path with railroad tracks on one side of us and a fence with some trees on the other.  Aka BOR-ING.  If I hadn’t brought my iPod, I would have been in deep trouble.

-While we finished the race on UT’s football field, I wasn’t kidding when I said all I got at the finish was my medal and a bottle of water (I could have gotten a foil heat blanket too if I wanted).  The post race food (fruit, bagels, pizza, and beer) were in the arena’s parking lot, and the portapotties that I had gone in search of after the race were on the faaaar side of the parking lot.  That was the LONGEST walk ever…or at least it felt like it. Many of the people I talked to that did the full marathon were pissed that they had to walk that far for any sort of food.  (speaking of portapotties…while I didn’t have to stop during the race, I heard no complaints about lack of restrooms from those that did)

-While there was plenty of food and beer when we hit up the tent, my marathoning counterparts found that the tent was out of fruit and almost out of bagels and that the pizza was cold by the time they got there.  That is, IF they got there…because there were no signs saying “Hey, here’s the food tent…food tent this way!”

The ugly:  Honestly, I can’t think of anything that was REALLY bad…just minor annoyances.  Which is a first.

Oops…almost forgot my official time   My chip time was 1:53:57…almost 2 minutes slower than my PR, but not my worst time by far.  As I mentioned, I slowed down at the 5k mark, but got an extra push once I turned my iPod on at mile 8 and was able to gun it for the last 4-5 miles and make up some time.  My #1 goal was to not finished pissed off, and I crossed the finish line happy so I honestly have no complaints.  While I probably could have gotten some more sleep the night before I really don’t think that had much of an effect on my race.  We had great weather for running (right around 40 degrees at the start of the race, with a little wind but not too bad…pretty cold once we were done running though!) so I can’t blame that either.  I just didn’t have a PR in me yesterday, and that’s okay.  Like I said I finished happy so that’s all I can ask for!

I wonder if this makes me mean…

My  husband woke up in the middle of the night last night with the pukes.  I had something similar last weekend but with less puking.

My thoughts today?  25% “I hope he starts keeping stuff down soon” type thoughts.  And 75% “I swear to the 8lb 6oz baby Jesus if I get this thing again heads are going to roll because I have a damn race on Sunday!” and other race related thoughts.  So I made sure to keep myself busy out of the house as much as possible-went to the gym, ran to the post office, took both dogs on a walk (separately, to spend more time out of the house), did laundry, etc.  And hopefullly that’s enough.

Because if its not, and I get sick again…I’m gonna be PISSED.

Breathe…

…yes, the half marathon is next Sunday.  The one you signed up for before New Year’s, remember?  The one you’ve been training for and planning for since December? 

Oh yeah, that one.  Where the F did winter go?  Oh wait…we didn’t have much of a winter.  Thaaaaaats right.  Thankfully, preliminary weather stalking for next weekend is turning up low temps in the mid 40′s which should be juuuuust fine come race day.  

As long as it doesn’t rain.  Or snow.  Please 8 lb 6 oz baby Jesus don’t let it rain or snow. 

Despite a number of momentary panic attacks, I’m as ready as I’ll ever be.  The training is done, and I’ve stayed (mostly) injury free.  I’ve done plenty of long runs in my bitchin’ new shoes, and am ready to rock. 

So now?  Keep the mental toughness in place.  Last spring, the wheels fell off in spectacular fashion-I went out too fast and imploded around mile 5.  8 miles of suck is no good, physically or mentally.  As long as I stick to my plan of not losing my shit and busting out like a bat out of hell…I should be good.  Maybe not PR good, or sub 1:50 good…but mentally good.  And sometimes, that just has to be good enough.

I do not need frozen yogurt (again), I do not need frozen yogurt (again)

Here I sit, watching UNC hopefully beat Creighton (I have UNC in the Elite 8 in my Sheet of Integrity, which for those of you who aren’t dragged kicking and screaming into this BS by your spouse don’t bother with this kind of stress means that I only filled out one bracket instead of 3+ like the rest of the crazy people including my husband did).  And trying to talk myself out of making a quick run to the closest self serve frozen yogurt place.  In a thunderstorm.  When I was just at this place yesterday, making myself a lovely concoction of vanilla yogurt, strawberries, blueberries, white chocolate chips, and sugar free hot fudge.  I DO NOT NEED MORE FRO YO.

Who am I kidding?  I’ll probably go after I feed the hounds, which will happen after I finish this post.  The wee black pittie is too stressed out by the current thunder to realize that its dinner time, though, so I have a few minutes.

So, this week was pretty much awesome weather-wise.  Temps in the 70′s all week, with some rainy days (Monday and Thursday, I think?) but when its 75 degrees in March a little rain isn’t so bad.  Plus, with all the rain we got this winter it doesn’t bug me anymore…unless I’m out running in it.

My body is slowly readjusting to running outside in 70+ degree temps…since its so early in the season, most of the trees in my neighborhood don’t have leaves on them yet, meaning I don’t get much shade.  Which means more walk breaks on my neighborhood runs…and who doesn’t welcome an excuse to take some walk breaks?  Me, of course

So, my recap of last week looks like this:

Sunday (I can’t remember if I included Sunday in last week’s post or not…so I’ll stick it here for good measure): 6 miles easy, with some walk breaks thanks to the heat.

Monday: Rest?  I thiiiiiink so.

Tuesday: 5 mi, mostly semi easy but with a little bit of bookin’ it to test out the new kicks

Weds: speed work.  It was supposed to be 1 mile warm up, 8×800 Yasso style, 1 mile cooldown…but I apparently can’t add correctly and told J I’d be home for dinner by 7:45.  Considering I got to the gym at 6:30…yeah, the above workout isn’t going to happen in an hour and 15 mins.  So it turned into 5 Yassos instead of 8 so I could be home for dinner as promised, and total of 4.5 miles instead of 6.

Thursday: Rest

Friday: 5 miles easy

Saturday: 10 miles at long run pace (aka approx 9:30/mile).  It was somewhat warm but overall went pretty well.

Today: 60 min yoga class.  Aka yet another reminder of how running is great for lots of things, but flexibility is not one of them.  Yikes.

Total miles-30 if you count Sunday, 25.5 if you don’t.  I originally planned on a recovery run today but wussed out after yoga. (Edited to add: math is not my friend.  24 miles if you don’t count Sunday, not 25.5 )

This week looks like (per the training program provided by my running group coaches)

Tomorrow: 5 miles progressive recovery run

Tuesday: 4 miles

Weds: 5 miles tempo run (will know specifics on Tues)

Thurs: Rest

Fri: 3 miles recovery

Saturday: 5 miles?  Apparently its dropback week.  I did that last week though, so will probably do around 10-11 for my long run.

Sunday: rest/cross train.

Total (planned) 32 miles.  Wheeee!

Re: the aforementioned new kicks…so far, I’ve worn them for their maiden voyage last Saturday, Tuesday’s run, and Yasso fun on Weds and they feel great!  I’m going to try to incorporate them into tomorrow’s progressive recovery run, Wednesday’s speedwork, and if I’m really feeling frisky Saturday’s long run and see how that goes…I’d love to wear them for Toledo if I keep feeling good.

side note:  so remember that thunder I mentioned at the start of this post?  I wrote that an hour ago…yes, I took me that long to get to this point.  Because pretty much right after I typed those words, the skies opened up, the thunder kicked up, and the tornado sirens started going off.  SWEET.  So I closed the windows, put the pittie’s Thundershirt on him, and barricaded the dogs downstairs in the family room with me.  Thankfully, all we got was the rain and the thunder…no tornados here.  But damn am I glad I put off going to get my fro yo!  The rain has stopped and the thunder is a faint memory, so once I feed the beasts life will return to normal

Monday Musings

Oh, Monday.  How do I love thee? 

 

No, seriously.  Having Mondays off when the rest of the world usually does not is actually kind of glorious.

 

The fact that my husband is not currently off on Mondays kind of sucks, especially considering the reason I changed my day off in the first place was because HE was off on Mondays…but we’re working on that. 

 

The only thing that would have made today better would have been a lack of rain.  But with sunshine and temps pushing 60 on Saturday and 70 yesterday, a little rain had to come sooner or later so I’m just glad that happened while the temps are still near 70.  Our heat has been turned off since Saturday evening and that’s pretty freaking sweet.  To celebrate, I went to Target (picked up, among other things, a new sports bra and a pair of argyle St. Patricks’s Day knee socks to wear on Saturday) and Barnes and Noble (for gossip magazines-I had $8 left on a gift card) and then headed to the gym.

Until I found out the hubs was home from work for his break already.  So I told myself “Okay, I’ll just go to the gym after he goes back to work” and picked us up some lunch.  At Wendy’s.  Oops.  One spicy chicken sandwich and medium fries later, I was napping happily on the couch.  I have since decided to make today my rest day instead of tomorrow, and plan to spend the rest of this evening on said couch, hanging out with two very lazy dogs.  In trying to rationalize not working out today, I reminded myself that I’ve ran the last four consecutive days…so why not take a rest day?  Right?

Speaking of the last four consecutive days, here’s what last week’s workouts looked like:

Monday-60 min on the elliptical

Tuesday-rest

Weds-rest

Thursday-speedwork.  1 mile warm up, 2×2 miles at tempo pace with 100m surges at the end of each mile (with two lap walk around the gym track after 2 miles), 1 mile cooldown for a total of 6 miles.

Friday-recovery run/walk.  2 miles at 10:30 pace, 2 miles walked at 15:00 pace and 4% incline on the TM.  So total 4 miles of my legs actually moving.

Saturday-very slow, easy 6 mile run with walk breaks.  Why this instead of my usual long run?   You’ll see.

Saturday-less slow but still easy 6 mile run with walk breaks on the uphills.  It was the first truly “hot” run I’ve had so far this, ahem, winter…meaning it was 70 and sunny for the whole run.  I didn’t bring water and didn’t want to overdo it, hence the walk breaks. 

Total mileage: 20.  This was technically my “cutback” week so I’ll take it. 

 

This week’s workouts will (hopefully) look like:

Monday (aka today) rest

Tuesday-5 miles.

Weds-at least 5 mile speed workout…not sure what said workout entails yet but I fear it may be 8 Yasso 800s.  Eep.

Thursday-4ish miles recovery

Friday-some sort of crosstraining for an hour.  Probably elliptical, maybe bike. 

Saturday-Long run day, so 10ish miles.  My schedule says its supposed to be a progressive run, but if the weather permits I may do some easy miles with the early bird crew at my running group and then race a local 5k…the same one where I last PRed.  3 years ago.  I’m not sure if I’m in the shape to beat said PR (25:02) but I’d like to find out.

Sunday-Probably 4-5 recovery miles, plus yoga class.

Total mileage: 28-30. 

All of the above may fluctuate depending on the success of my runs in these bad boys…

http://www.brooksrunning.com/Brooks-PureCadence/120104,default,pd.html

Yep.  After eyeballing them and hemming and hawing for months, I finally took advantage of a 15% sale and the remainder of a gift card and picked up these bad boys at Fleet Feet (yay for “we just moved into a HUGE new space” sales!) on Saturday.  The owner (who is also one of the guys that runs the group I run with) suggested that I run the Glass City HM in them next month, in addition to shorter runs, speed workouts, and at least one long run before said HM.  I tested them out Saturday (hence the slow run) and other than some Achilles and calf tightness that subsided when I took care to make my footstrike more midfoot instead of heel focused, they felt great and I think I’m in love    I’m going to try them out for my 5 miler at the gym (assuming I get up on time tomorrow morning) and depending on how that goes may try them out for Wednesday’s speed workout.  And if THAT goes well, I may try my long run (or shorter run plus 5K race) on Saturday in them.  We’ll see.  So far so good though…they seem to be a great lightweight minimalist type shoe for those of us who need some stability and don’t want to touch Vibrams with a 10 foot pole aren’t quite ready to make the jump to Vibrams yet.  More to come on my new lovelies   Yay for new shoes!