good start indeed!

congratulations, alison and nathan!  way to kick off your engagement while on a run!  log it!

good start

well, 6 miles this morning, which was a good start to the week. so, that was good. yesterday, i also redid the last push-up workout i did which was the one that killed me. so far, so good on the soreness factor. it makes me hopeful that i'll be able to do pushups tomorrow without getting destroyed.

running and the holidays

well, last week was kind of a bust. i did run once, and it was a workout, but i'm pretty positive that was the only time. i went over to school and did dungeons (though not in the dungeon...since it's all torn up...and will never return). dave and i decided that we're still going to have the teams do "dungeons" up in the rec, so we were trying to decide how to do them in lanes other than lane 1. i was the guinea pig, and it went surprisingly well. i did 16 at the equivalent of 31 seconds, and it felt good. i was struggling more at the end, which i thought was because i was getting tired, but i also changed lanes on the last 6 and ran those just slightly faster.

one thing i have learned about myself when it comes to training is that i'm a creature of habit and i do well with routine. right now, not having practice or the same work hours each day, it's easy to end up not running. so, my priority during december is just going to be getting out the door. i'm not going to worry too much about how far i'm going, though i think i should be able to get decent mileage in, and i'm definitely not going to worry about doing any workouts. if they happen on their own, great, but i'm not going to let that keep me from getting out.

turkey day!

given the holiday and travel situation, last week was okay.
monday was the aforementioned 7 mile out and back past the wind turbine
tuesday was a surprise day off after a last second decision to drive home a day early
wednesday: 7 miles at 7:00 pace - awesome, awesome run
thursday: 5 easy miles pre-turkey
friday: OFF, post-turkey
saturday: OFF, too much pie
sunday: OFF, drive home


Monday: off, lazy and bad timing. time to get back on my horse tomorrow.

also, i did my second 100-pushups workout last sunday before i left and i think i tore something because my pecs hurt like nobody's business for the rest of the week. i think i can finally do them again tonight or tomorrow, but wow...

Cold days in the 'Ville

I feel like I finally have some momentum going -- four consecutive morning runs (disclaimers: they were all short, and before noon qualifies as 'morning' when you're on vacation). I'm going to be in Madison for the next two weeks, which should make it easier to stay on track. Today, we're heading out to run for an hour or so, which will be our second week in a row with a longish run. To get a head of myself a bit -- below is a log plus a plan for this week and the next couple days, which will make this my first 20 mile week in a while (I'm not sure what emoticon goes with that statement...but I'm feeling happy about it right now, so I'm going with :)).

Monday - off
Tuesday - 3
Wednesday - 3
Thursday - 3
Friday - 2.5
Saturday - 6-7?
Sunday - 3?

long run / workout...

monday: lazy/off.  booo...

tuesday: 4 mi. easy

wednesday: 7 mi!
2 mi. warm-up
3 mi. tempo (5:30/6:00/5:30)
2 mi. cool-down

i tried to drop the last mile of the tempo down to 5:00 after the first 1/2 mi. but that wasn't happening, so i was back up at 5:30 for the last 400...  all in all great!  it was my longest run yet, and my best workout yet - all in one!

wind turbine give away

just finished a lovely 7.25 mile run in 57:44 (just under 8:00 pace). legs felt a tinge sore during the day today as a result of the long run yesterday, but then they felt amazing for the first half of this out-and-back run on wall street. i should have realized though, that the wind was kind of strongly (15mph) at my back. i began to suspect something fishy when i ran past the wind turbine facing the direction i had just come from and it sounded like a jet engine. when i turned around, i realized immediately why i had felt so great on the way out. i didn't look at my watch at the turn around because i didn't want to feel any pressure to try to hit a certain pace since this was supposed to be a recovery day.

i stretched when i got home and then i may or may not have ordered a gyro pizza from basils.

hint: i did.

made it...

made it to 30 this week with an easy 4 mi. tonight...

4 mi. @ 7:00-ish...

Nice Work! Time for a New Plan

Cassie and Steve - You are kicking our asses - nice work!

It felt good to get out for a 10k loop this Saturday morning - I have been getting short (3 mile-ish) runs in every couple-few days, but nothing much longer than that.... and the side stitches I got when I raced a 5k a couple weeks ago tell me that hasn't been enough. After flirting with it for a long time, I have finally reached the point that I recognize I need to commit to morning workouts. With a deep breath and soon-to-be-bloodshot eyes, I'm going to commit to morning workouts Tuesday-Friday this week to get it going. I'll plan on at least 3-4 morning workouts each week for the rest of the calendar year to give myself a fighting chance to make this a habit. Here goes...

good week

this was the first great week i've had in a while. i capped it off with a wonderful 10 miler with laura roach this morning. i thought we were kind of lolly-gagging, chatting away, but it turns out that we ran the 10.34 miles in about 78 minutes (7:32 pace).
Monday: 6 miles with a bit of threshold mixed in
Tuesday: 7 easy miles
Wednesday: 6 mile pr course
Thursday: 5 easy miles with Alison and Simone
Friday: 5 miles on the nationals course
Saturday: OFF, but ran 1 mile during warmup that I am counting so that the mileage hits 40
Sunday: 10 mile long run - felt slow and easy, but turned out to be a great run.
Total: 40 miles

also, i've been a lot better about stretching this week, which i have to stay on top of.

Weekend

didn't do much over the past 2 weeks... a 3-miler here and there. yesterday, nathan and i decided that we have been slacking too much so we dragged ourselves out of bed to go to the fleet feet run. did the 10k loop of the arb slowly, but got it done. i am definitely sore today from the hills. did 45 min. of yoga to try and stretch myself out.

quick-druple...

went out for an easy 4 mi., but once i got out there it felt like my breakfast tacos caught up with me...  while that may have been part of the problem, the other part was that i was inadvertantly running 6:10 pace...

4 mi. quick!

it's toooooo eaaaaaaarly... [biz's impression of the twins...]

4 mi. eaaaaaarly this morning with hooley...

felt good.

easy day...

chilled for 4 easy today...  achilles followed the reverse trend of yesterday: it started out a little sore and got better as i went...

easy day and future modifications

today i went an easy 5 with simone and alison. it was lovely and for the second day in a row, i totally overestimated (underestimated?) the weather and wore way too many layers. oh well; better too warm than too cold, i supposed.
on a side note, i realized that my pr course of 6 miles is too long. it's long enough that when i do it, i'm running the same pace as my long tempo/marathon pace workouts, which are actually shorter in length than that run. this tells me two things. 1) my long tempo workouts can be 6 miles instead of 4. 2) my pr course should be shorter so that i go faster. dave's recommendation was to have two different ones - one that is 4-4.5 miles (which is perfect since i already have that one that goes through suburbia) and one that is around 2 miles. i think that one will be kind of fun, once i get a course figured out. he also recommended that i do the shorter one a couple of times before i do the longer one and alternate them that way. i think that will be a much better workout. it's also pretty likely that i'll replace that workout with stuff on the track occasionally during the track season.

behind again...

ok - catching up again...

saturday: great day!  i went up to the ncaa south central cross country regional meet in waco with holdwick and nowinski!  ran about a mile (maybe more) around the course during the races.  also ran 6.5-ish mi. with nowinski in waco on an awesome river trail that had a twigonometry and an arb!  reliving the glory days all around.

total for the day: 7.5-ish

sunday: off.

total for the week: 31 mi. in 6 days!  woohoo - my first legit week.

monday: 6 mi. 2-1-1-1-1
2 mi. @ 7:00
1 mi. @ 5:00
1 mi. @ 7:00
1 mi. @ 6:00
1 mi. @ 7:00

i was hoping to do both of the "on" segments at 5:00, but i was tired and hungry, so 6:00 felt hard enough.  also, my right achilles started to get sore at the end.

tuesday: off (sort of accidntally, but later post-rationalized as on account of the achilles...)

wednesday:  5.5 mi. with the johns at 6:40-ish pace...  we thought it was 6 mi., but when i got back my watch said 35:59...  it's only 5.5. 

then when i got back to the gym, noah was there doing a crazy 400s workout on the treadmill, so i might have accidentally done that with him as well.  (hint: i did...)  8x400 @ 75 sec with 3 min. walking recovery 1/2 mi. cool-down after the final walking recovery.  not surprisingly, my achilles was a little bit sore again when i finished, but it feels better now.

total for the day: 8 mi.!

cemetary 6

today was my second try at my new 6 mile pr course. i decided not to look at the time i ran last time, since it was quite a while ago. it went okay, but my legs felt pretty dead from the get-go. not terrible, just like i was having a hard time getting my knees up so my stride felt really short and wimpy. i vaguely wanted to run faster than 42:00, but as i was finishing up and my legs felt very "meh" i decided i'd be okay with under 43:00. i was pumped to find out that i'd run 42:05 until i looked back and saw that last time i did this, i actually ran 42:01. bummer. next time, i definitely need to break 42.
still, 5.9, or whatever the mileage actually is, in 42:05 is not bad. last time i said that i ran 7:07 pace, so this was probably around 7:08.
since i've already gotten my two workouts in for the week and it's only wednesday...unheard of for me... my plan is to go easy milage for the rest of the week and to prioritize getting in my long run since it has been a couple of weeks since i have done one. maybe i can even do that on friday to make sure it gets done before we leave for nationals.

one hundred push-up challenge

monday - 6 miles with alison (smyth, not traff) with 3x4 min threshold mixed in. followed by 5 fast 50m strides, which felt awesome.
tuesday - easy 7. probably the slowest run i've had in a while pacewise, but it was a recovery day and i didn't really care about the pace too much. it was a really beautiful evening.

on a side note, i'm challenging my distance runners to follow the 100 push-up challenge over the 6 week winter break. http://hundredpushups.com/ by the end of 6 weeks, i should be able to do 100 consecutive push-ups if i follow the plan. actually, it should only take me 4 weeks since i get to start on week 3. step 1 is the initial test; you do as many as you can and then adopt a training plan depending on how many you were able to do. i did 27 and they recommend that anything over 20 start on week 3. we'll see how that goes, though; i'm terrible at push-ups. you guys should do it too, and when we see each other at christmas, we can bust out 100 push-ups in a row and impress the bystanders.

end of the week wrap-up

i ended up with no concrete idea of how much i ran. i did 4ish with the team on thursday and friday and then did their warm-up and ran around the course on saturday. all in all, not a great week, but the end of the season is always a bit weird. i guess i should make more of an effort to get in a real run on those days, not being sure how much i'll end up doing with the team.

workout in the rain...

on the trail...

1.6 mi. warm-up
3 mi. @ 6:00-ish
1.6 mi. cool-down

6+ mi. total (and balancing out that 5.75 mi. day from wednesday)

i guess i am a week behind...

 end of last week: nothing after thurdsay...  bummer 20 mi. in 4 days on the week.

this week so far:

mon: 4 mi. easy
tues: 6 mi. - 2 mi. warm-up / 3 mi. @ 6:00 / 1 mi. cool-down
wed: 5.75 mi. @ 6:30-ish with nowinski
thurs: 4 mi. pretty chill - 1 mi. @ 7:00 / 1 mi. @ 6:45 / .5 mi. @ 6:00 / .5 mi. @ 5:00 / 1 mi. @ 7:00

tomorrow: tempo workout with nowinski (3 mi. at tempo)
saturday: ncaa regional cross country meet at baylor!  (also long run of about 7 - fingers crossed)
sunday: off

woof

well, i did a workout today, but it wasn't as good as i had hoped.
5.5 miles total
1 mile up, 1 mile down
7 x 400m cemetary hills
92, 95, 94, 92, 93, 95, 94

i was hoping to do 8 or hoping to do them all faster, but i was feeling pretty crummy by the last one and decided to stop at 8.

november...off to a whimper

the past two weeks have been pretty mediocre. i finished up last week with a 6 mile run on thursday and nothing else. friday-sunday were days spent in austin, and they were lovely, but not very running-ful. monday was spent traveling and working before it got dark. eventually, i may have to become a treadmill runner for these days when i don't get it in when it's light out. for now, i'm thankful for daylight savings.
today, i was tempted, like most tuesdays to skip the run, but i got myself out the door and i'm glad i did. my legs (knees especially) were pretty stiff off the bat, but other than that, i felt pretty darn good after my 1/2 week off. ended up doing an easy 6 miles and calling it a day. i decided to reward myself for getting out the door by ordering basil's for dinner. i'm pretty sure the 600 calories i burned on the run will offset it, right? i'm hoping to do some push-ups, calf raises, core, etc later this evening post-pizza.

Well, it's November...

... man, the fall is flying by. This week was ok. Not great but I did manage to be active pretty much every day.

Mon: off

Tues: 30 Day Shred - Level 2

Wed: ran 2 with Nathan and then we walked a mile home... neither of us was feeling particularly great so we just called it and had a leisurely walk

Thurs: 30 Day Shred - Level 2

Fri: 20 min. of yoga

Sat: Didn't run but walked the 2 miles each way to and and from the Farmer's Market. It was lovely

Sun: Ran the Turkey Trot 5k. My time was about 25:30. I was slightly disappointed b/c I really felt like I should be able to go under 8:00 pace. However, this is a cross-country race and is therefore pretty hilly (not to mention the footing of running in grass w/o spikes) so I guess I'll cut myself some slack.

Going to San Francisco for 3 days next week so we'll see if I do anything...

surprise workout

got to work today and donna asked if i could run with one of the regionals team during practice. they were doing lactate threshold 2ks, so i was pretty sure i could. workout went great and i'm pretty sure that i was going around the right pace for myself as well as her, which was nice.
1.5 mile warm-up
2x2k at 8:05 and 8:14 (6:28-35 mile pace)
1.5 mile cool-down
good stretching

two notes - i felt a little badly since she was supposed to be running more like 8:35 pace...oops. whatevs. she was supposed to be the one setting the pace, not me. second- i'm trying to be more diligent about stretching better. my flexibility is atrocious. i'm going to get hurt if i'm not more careful.

weather...

the last couple of days have been the first trace of actual weather in austin in a while.  it feels good to run in the wind/rain/cool/etc...

4 mi. with the johns @ medium pace

can't wait for daylight savings

monday: 6 miles easy with karhu team
tuesday: 12 episodes of 30 rock. yikes.
wednesday: ? going to work. hopefully running later.

i don't really care much for running in the dark. maybe i haven't done it enough so i'm not comfortable doing it, but i feel like i have to pay more attention to what i'm doing, so i never really have that "lost in my own thoughts" feeling that allows time to pass by quickly on a solo run. everything feels longer and harder to me in the dark. i'm pretty pumped about daylight savings time coming up soon so that i can get back to running before work. right now, there just isn't quite enough time to get in the run, shower, breakfast before heading over.
i'm hopeful that i'll get in a run or two while i'm in texas this weekend, but we'll see. inevitably this will be a shorter week for me, too, so i probably should have made sure i got out the door yesterday. oh well. i had to get caught up on last season of 30 rock so that i could watch the first episode of this season before it got taken off hulu. modern times are hard times.

hmm...

3 mi. threshold

2 mi. warm-up
3 mi. @ 6:00
1 mi. cool-down

this was not easy for me but i made through.  at the end, however, my right achilles was a little sore.  not sure why, but i stretched it afterward and it seemed to help a little - more stretching to come...

6 mi. total - 12 on the week.  it looks like this is inevitably going to be a short week, so i am only counting on getting in 25-ish through friday...

several days...

saturday: 6 mi. long run with nowinski - felt great!
sunday: off (semi-unintentionally)

total for the week: 26 mi

monday: 6 mi. with nowinski - it felt pretty fast, but after consulting gmaps-pedometer, it turns out that it was just under 7:00 pace.  bummer...

overall an okay week

it seemed like i either had awesome days or crappy days. I ended up not running on Thursday, mostly out of laziness, but justified by the fact that I tend to take Tuesdays off, so I was already ahead of schedule and probably in need of a day off. Friday, I got out for a quick 5 miles, as previously blogged. Saturday I fell asleep in the morning before conference instead of going for a run. I did end up sprinting around the course, so it wasn't a total loss. Sunday was just a totally lazy, pitiful day. I didn't run, but I didn't really do much of anything else either. Long runs have been going well and are going to have to keep going well as they get longer. It will also be tempting to skip these in the winter when it is cold and snowy, and I will be better about getting them in each week.
overall: something like 25 miles in 4 (or 5 if you count saturday) days

Also...

I forgot to mention that I did some strides on Saturday. In the parking lot of the park.

The Week

Mon: 40 min. yoga, was seriously shaking by the end... Why is yoga so freaking hard???

Tues: off

Wed: 30 Day Shred DVD -- I did Level 2, which is my nemesis. I was sore the next day, so that's at least a sign that I actually worked hard.

Thurs/Fri: off, Thurs. was legit, Fri. was laziness

Sat: 3 mile run at Governor Nelson State Park. I headed over there after work and had a lovely run. It was the perfect fall weather and since it's not super warm there weren't as many people there as usual. Forgot both a watch and my iPod so I was super old school. And 3 miles is an estimation.

Sun: A little over 4. Ran an old loop that I haven't done in a while. Happy b/c I averaged under 9:00 pace w/o too much effort.

ditto...

same as yesterday...

3 mi. easy at 6:50

today gives me 20 on the week, so we'll see what happens tomorrow and sunday...

spontaneous workout, part 2

i ended up skipping my hill workout this week, which is a bummer, but i can try to get it in next week. today ended up being a quick run in between getting food ready for the team dinner tonight and going to help with karissa's halloween party. i had to hurry because i had apple pie cake in the oven; i did 5ish miles in 34:44. felt pretty good, but very sweaty. turns out it's not that cold out today. oh well.

day on is the new day off...

i have decided to try to take one of the two days a week i have been taking off, and just do 2-3 mi. easy instead of 0.  today was the first such day...

3 mi. easy @ 6:45

spontaneous workout

wednesday: 6 miles. one of the women on the team's running partner was injured so i jumped in and did the workout with her. 3 x 1200 on the ambroe mile at race pace. 1200 instead of 1500 because of the ridiculous amount of sand on the front end still. i was encouraged at how easy they felt, even though they were meant to feel not that hard. all in all, it was kind of fun to do something outside of my training box. after, i did about 4 barefoot strides on the indoor track (don't worry alison, it was only because my shoes were really muddy) which felt really good.
it wasn't until i was about to start doing this workout that I realized i did a workout on tuesday also. oh well. neither of them was particularly demanding. i still need to squeeze in a hill workout this week and that promises to be much more tiring. hopefully tomorrow.

mission accomplished...

pocket workout

2 mi. @ 6:45  warm-up
1 mi. @ 5:00  kablammo!
1 mi. @ 7:00-ish  cool-down

my goal was to do a workout the included a mile at 5:00 pace either later this week, or next week.  done!

chillin'...

4 mi. easy @ 6:45-ish

like it ain't no thang...

40 mph tailwind + 60 mph gusts = I AM SO FAST!!

it was SO windy! the plan was to run 6 miles and do 4 miles of long-tempo (marathon pace) in the middle. i ended up doing a bit more than that because it felt so darn good. dave was nice enough to drive me out and drop me off so the wind was at my back and it was a darn good thing he did since it was crazy windy. i took splits in kind of random places since i wasn't sure about mile marks. here's how it went down:
first 1.1 miles of "warm-up" to house 7:29 (6:48 pace)
start "workout"
next .66 miles to intersection 4:17 (6:29 pace)
next mile 7:01 pace
next .85 miles to the trail 5:50 (6:51 pace)
next 1.75 miles to the intersection at hwy 19 and hwy 3 11:39 (6:39 pace)
next .38 miles 2:34 through town, up the hill on 3rd street to washington (6:45 pace)
cool-down .36 miles to my house 2:53 (8:00 pace)

so, a little all over the place pace-wise, but i could tell a HUGE difference in how fast i was running when the wind gusted or when it was blocked by trees. all in all, it felt great - not hard at all. thank you weather for making me feel good about myself.

2 becomes 1...

2-2-1-1-2 style workout, but shortened for the weak and feeble.

2-1-1-1-1 (for a total of 6 mi.)
2 mi. @ 6:50
1 mi. @ 5:50
1 mi. @ 6:50
1 mi. @ 5:30
1 mi. @ 6:50

went great!  felt good!  foot felt fine!  ___!

stomach lessons

today: 6 easy miles in the arb. accidentally didn't start my watch when i left the house, so i have no idea what pace it is, but i also don't know exactly how far that loop is either. no biggie shorty.
at some point in this marathon prep, i'm going to have to start teaching my stomach to ingest gus or some other equally fuel-some substance. i don't really need to do that for a while - i'm thinking once my long runs get up around 12 or 13 miles - but i did start the prep work today. pre-run i ate several large handfuls of cereal and a lot of water. then, i got a package from steve's mom with a ton of halloween candy. so i ate a marshmallow peep ghost and a chocolate covered oreo. stomach felt glorious during the run, so i think that means i'm good to go (or good to gu).

wrapping up the week...

tuesday: 3 mi.
wednesday: studio review (= 0 mi.)
thursday: pocket workout 2 - 4 mi.
  1 mi. @ 6:45
  1 mi. @ 6:30
  1 mi. @ 5:00
  1 mi. @ 6:50
friday: 5 mi. on trails
saturday: 4 mi.
sunday: off

20 mi. total for the week in 5 days with 2 workouts.  feeling good, so hopefully next week is 6 days and 25-ish mi. ...

no pain

today was the halloween carnival so i went over and helped set up and then went on my long run once things got going. it turned out to be an awesome run. my legs felt a little heavy at first but warmed up nicely. i ended up going just over 10 (10.2) in 74:30 which came out to 7:18 pace. i was a little surprised at the overall time, but definitely felt like i was making some effort to pick the pace up just a touch.
overall: actually 38, but 35 if you count monday's long run in last week

cautiously optimistic

yesterday - 5 miles
today - 4 junky miles. the team did a time trial and i ran some on the way out and on the way back...sort of a real run.
the good thing was that i didn't feel my calf much at all today. i think i'll be good to go on my long run tomorrow. i'll probably stop and stretch early on and then ice cup really well after, but i think it will be fine.

calving

today i only went 4. my calf still felt tight, which i'm not happy about. i think i over-worked it a bit on the quicker long run that i did monday and then didn't stretch well at all. today i ice-cupped it pretty hard, and i could feel a ton of tension in it. i cut my run shorter than i was hoping (6), so i probably won't end up breaking 40 this week. i'm hopeful that if i heat it before i run tomorrow it will be just fine. between that, some good icing and stretching, i'm hoping to get this thing licked before it becomes any sort of problem
in the long term, i need to do more calf strengthening.

Consistency and Leprechauns

I'm not sure which you're more likely to find in Mobile, AL over the next couple of weeks.

I'm headed down to Mobile on Sunday and will be there for 10 days of pretty intense work. I'm going to squeeze in a couple more runs before I head out, and my goal will be to run at least 5 times while I'm there, any distance.

On not running...

So, I've more or less agreed to run the Green Bay Marathon with a coworker in May. Obviously, I don't really need to start training for a few months. I've decided in the meantime to focus less on running and more on overall strength. And I know we all say we're going to do that and then just go for a run anyway. So, I'm going to try REALLY HARD not to do that.

Over the past few months when I've had trouble running, my cardiovascular fitness has been totally fine. Feels like I could run forever. However, my muscles (leg, back, abs, you name it) feel fatigued much quicker than seems right and my perceived exertion level is just so high. Like it has just felt so hard to run 3 miles at 9:00 pace. And there's something not right about that.

So I'm hoping that a few months of minimal running and more of other things will help me feel more ready to go with the training come January/February. My goal is to work out 5-6 days/week for at least 30 minutes, and only 3-4 days of running. I'm having a hard time finding the time to work out... this semester has just been a bitch. So hopefully knowing I only have to get in 30 minutes of something will also encourage me to actually do something rather than being like "if I'm just going to run 3 miles again, I might as well just take the day off and study."

So far this week:

Monday - went for a 3 mile run

Tuesday - 30 min of yoga

Wednesday - Jillian Michaels' 30 Day Shred DVD (It's a 20 min. workout but super intense.)

Leaving for Philadelphia tomorrow for my first podiatry school interview (and a little Page/Brody visit), so Thursday/Friday will probably be off.

Later.

:)

this was a good run. i came up with a new pr course of 6 miles which i'm going to call spring creek 6 - basically, it's cemetery 7 from our house, minus the cemetery/carleton part. nice route, a couple mild hills with a long downhill finish and a short, steep uphill at the very end.
the best part about the run wasn't my time, though i was pretty happy with that - 42:01 (and it's actually 5.9 miles, so the pace wasn't exactly 7:00, it was 7:07). the best part was that i didn't really want to do this run today. i dragged my sleepy ass out of bed at 6:30 and started hydrating, planning to go when it was light enough (around 7:15). 7:15 came and i convinced myself that i could wait a little longer, which only made me more drowsy until i finally decided to just eat breakfast and try to squeeze the run in later. we met with a recruit at 9:45 and there was the perfect amount of time to go between that and lunch with her, so i made myself go. as soon as i started, i felt pretty good, but my left calf felt a little tight; since i strained a calf last fall and spent a couple of months not running, i was mildly concerned and started thinking...hmm, i could cut this off at jefferson parkway and make it the 4.5 mile pr loop that i used to do. i even started thinking about my blog post - planning to start it with a frowny face as the title and proceed to justify cutting the run short. when i got to jefferson, my calf had calmed down a bit and i told myself to stop being a wuss and just do the damn run.
now, i'm so glad i did, but i'm a bit concerned about having to do this again in two weeks and try to shave time off. actually, no i'm not. there's no way that was as fast as i could run. it was only as fast as i wanted to run.

running around northfield

so someday when i'm further along with this marathon training, my plan is to do at least 1, preferably 2 or 3, 20-mile long runs. it just so happens that running around the city limits of northfield (as close as possible on roads) from our house is just shy of 20 miles (19.8). i can't wait until i'm able to literally run around northfield.

day off and week plan

well, today ended up as a day off... i think that's okay since i should be able to get one in on saturday pre-time trial. to make up for it, i'm going to shoot for 40 miles this week 5 days at 6 miles and a 10 mile long run. i'm going to count yesterday's long run as being in last week and sunday's 6 miles in this week to avoid the two long runs in the same week bonus. i'm guessing that my legs will be tired by the time sunday rolls around, but i can deal.

short and sweet...

the pocket workout.

4 mi. -
1 mi. @ 7:00
1 mi. @ 6:00
1 mi. @ 5:30
1 mi. @7:00

went well, foot felt good, all is well...

weird days

well, last week was not great, but not awful. i ended up getting in 4 runs, though two of them were in the same day. i was going to go long yesterday but decided to wait until today so that i could run with the team. so last week looked like:
wednesday 5 and 4.5 (hills AM, quasi-"workout" PM)
thursday 4 legs felt WIPED after the hills on weds, so i cut this short
fri OFF - silly...should have run
sat OFF - no time between meet and helping Donna with Karissa
sun 6 - legs felt great at first, but then felt tired by about half-way. when i got back i suddenly felt super nauseous. unsure why. tried eating something but that made it worse. suddenly felt exhausted, like falling asleep while i was sitting there, so i took a nap. felt a little better when i woke up but not great.

so... something like 20ish miles in 4 runs last week. decent, but could have been better.

today: 9 miles with alison (smyth, not traff). great run with some thresholdy pickups mixed in. legs felt kind of tired, but it felt good to run with her. after, i had some coffee and a doughnut and now my tummy feels awful again. perhaps i need to stop eating right after my runs...

my week

i deliberately chose not to post each day so that i would feel obligated to get in a good week. i ran 11 miles this week, which i suppose is better. i meant to run this weekend, and i didn't. oops.

anyway, back to the grind...

glad to have you back nathan!

i went out for my run today planning on 5 mi., but i got back in a disappointing 37:41.  i gmap-pedometer-ed the route, though, and it turns out that i went further than i thought: 5.8!  awesome.

5.8 @ moderate pace

felt good, stopped to stretch about halfway.  foot felt good too.

weekly total: 22.5!

Who could say no to a 20k...

...not this guy.

On Friday night a couple friends and I decided we should run around Lake Monona on Saturday morning, and it took surprisingly little badgering to get everyone to follow through with it. I was a little nervous about running that far in my Nike Frees (I had heard from others that they can start to take a toll on stabilizing muscles after 5-6 miles), but I didn't have any trouble. It was an awesome fall day in Madison -- 60s and sunny with a light breeze. And when I said 'morning', I meant that we were shooting for 10am and left by 11...

short day...

the streak continues: this is my 4th day in a row, and i felt great!

3 mi. @ 7:00-ish

foot felt great, legs felt great, lungs felt great...

doubling up

whoa... when it rains it pours, i guess. i wouldn't say i got in two "workouts" even though i jumped into the workout with the team this afternoon. the slowest girl on our team's running partner got injured during the workout and she seemed to be struggling, so i jumped in for the last two 1500s with her. between that, the warm-up, cool-down and recovery in between, i probably got in another 4.5 miles. the 1500s were at around 7:45-8:00 pace, so it really doesn't count as a workout. she's really not very fast...

rollin' w/ my homies...

5.5 mi. @ 6:45 with double johns this morning

i felt good, my foot felt good, and the weather was perfect!


so far so good on the week (13.7 and counting)...

first real workout

today was good.
5 miles total: one mile warm-up, 3 miles workout, 1 mile cool-down
6x400m cemetery hill (98, 1:44, 96, 96, 96, 90)
felt like i probably could have done a couple more or at the very least not had that 1:44 in there, but my legs definitely feel fatigued after and i can shoot for 8 next time.

as a side note, alison, you should encourage nathan to add a post...otherwise it's just SAC attack and i have a feeling that graphic would be considerably less cute than the killer cupcake. :)

kind of a bust

well...last week didn't go so great. i think i got in something like 15 miles in 3 days (mon, wed, thurs).
I haven't run since then - yesterday by the time I got back from the airport it was time for practice and it was getting dark by the time I got home. Today I was just fucking lazy. Got to get back on my horse!

Had a great chat with Dave about training. Here are the bullet points of my general plan:
-increase mileage to around 60 mi/week
-increase long runs to around 20 mi/week
- this will probably take a while...repeating distances some weeks
-once/week do a long tempo run at marathon pace, which i'm thinking will be around 7:00-7:30
- gradually increase the distance of this workout
-every other week do a hill workout, gradually increasing volume
-on alternating weeks, do some sort of a "pr course". this is a run that starts and finishes at the house and is a set distance that i can repeat and try to "pr" on. i have one that is 4.5, and another that is 9 (which i won't do for a few months) but i need to figure out one that is somewhere in between - maybe around 7.
-next spring/summer, try to get up to do long runs on marathon course

time to get cracking on this. if my legs feel remotely good tomorrow morning, once i've gotten warmed up, i'd like to do some hills.

hot and heavy...

the title describes how i felt on today's short run...

2.7 mi. @ 6:45-ish

ugh...

back to my mission...

end of last week:
- fri: off (unintentional - working to get ready for cassie to visit)
- weekend: off

weekly total: 10.  not bad for just over 2 days...


this week:
mon: 5.5 mi. with nowinski (no watch = no pace)

foot felt relatively good...

doing it...

4 mi.  chillin' - foot felt good.

on track...

catch-up and/or ketchup...

last week:
fri: off
sat: off
sun 7 mi. with nowinski - my longest yet, but my foot started hurting at the end

22 total for the week!  (but the excitement of this was marred by the bad wheel)

this week:
mon: off (for foot recovery)
tues: 2 mi. (foot recovery, but it felt fine)
wed: 4 mi. easy with the johns - foot felt good!

i'm on the road to recovery...

fun finish

well, it was a good week. finished off with a lovely 4 mile run with alison today. the whole day got me fired up to try the marathon next year. big fun!
sunday: 4 miles

weekly total: 33 miles in 6 days.

good consistency; now i just need to keep upping the miles. net week, it would be good to try to mix in some 6 mile runs during the week and to increase the long run, if i'm feeling good by then. of course, i'll be in austin friday-monday, so chances are good that i won't get all 6 days in, but we'll see. maybe i'll try to get the long run in before i leave on thursday.

about time for a great week

and this was it! i'll wait to do the full week recap until i see what i end up doing tomorrow with a-town, but so far so good. especially encouraging was today's run.
thursday: long 5 in the arb (making up for the short 5 on wednesday)
friday: 5 in the arb in the AM, lots of sprinting around the course in the PM - i'm guessing an additional mile of intervals, plus the mile of warmup that we did with the team.
saturday: 9 miles. i wasn't sure how my legs would feel after all of that sprinting around the course last night, but i got myself up and did my 9 mile long run today and was shocked at how good my legs felt. the weather was good, if a bit breezy, but it was mostly a cross-wind. i was alarmed when i got home and saw how long i had been running for until i confirmed that my route had not been short. 9 miles, average 7:34 pace and i felt like could have easily done the whole thing quicker if i'd wanted to.
now i'm pumped to go cheer and watch the marathon and run with/cheer for alison!

yesterday...

4 mi @ easy, except for 3rd mi. (1200 @ 6:30, 400 @ 5:30)

felt good.  i am at 15 mi. so far for this week, planning on 6 mi. long run on sunday, so today may be off...

no run, yes lifting

now i'm sore.
monday: fabulous 5 mile tour de arb. legs felt awesome.
tuesday: no run, yes lifting.
wednesday: short 5 in the lower arb. ambroe mile and lower trail is finally starting to dry out, but still pretty damp and mucky. good to work out some of the soreness from the lifting yesterday.

easy 5er...

5 mi. @ chill with the johns...

felt a little tired, but fine otherwise.

no run, yes bike...

semi-intentional day off due to campus lockdown...

the good: biked to and from campus...
the bad: ate tacodeli for lunch!
the ugly: smashed my foot on my bike pedal...

workout/longrun...

2-1-1-1-1
2 mi @ 7:00
1 mi @ 6:00
1 mi @ 7:00
1 mi @ 5:30
1 mi @ 7:00

legs were oddly tired after going easy yesterday and it was a little harder than i had hoped, but i got through it no problem.

a week that only happens once in a lifetime

well, we hope so anyway. my training was a bit derailed by the flooding, but pretty much just on friday, when it was all at its worst. it was a bit of an odd week, all around.
monday: planned to go 5, maybe 6, but bumped into simone and decided to give her a little company, even though it meant running a bit faster than i had planned. i'm not totally sure how far i ended up going, but i'm guessing around 4.5 miles. the first 2 were my normal pace and the second two were probably closer to 7 minutes. i figured that cutting off a bit of the mileage was an okay compromise.
tuesday: OFF - unintentional and lazy. have to be better about working the run into my tuesday schedule. maybe eat a bigger breakfast and go right after i leave work, which is usually right around noon.
wednesday: 6. great run in the arb before it started raining.
thursday: 5, very slow at first with donna, checking out the rising water. little did we know how much it would change in 24 hours.
friday: OFF - unintentional, but not lazy. spent the morning hauling things out of west and stadium as quickly as possible to protect as much as we could from the water. just ran out of time to go running, but got in some good lifting and a somewhat aerobic "workout".
saturday: indeterminate mileage at the griak meet, most of which was accomplished by sprinting around the course as quickly as possible. not really a run, but between that and the 5:30 wake-up, it was easy to make excuses when i wanted to take a nap instead of going running when we got home.
sunday: .25; started out on a 9 mile run and realized that the little blister i was starting to get on my achilles was only going to get worse since i could already feel it rubbing. instead of rectifying the situation with a bandaid/tape/moleskin solution, i had lunch instead. not a good compromise.
today i'll try wearing higher socks and see if that fixes the blister issue. hopefully i won't have to bandage it up everytime i want to go running.

Urban Assault Race

This race KICKED MY ASS. It was soooo hard. We only had 3 hours to hit all the checkpoints, which just didn't seem like enough. In fact, we had to skip 2 b/c if you didn't get back in time, you didn't get a finishing time, but you could take a time penalty for skipping points.

My legs are aching in the way that they do only after you worked out for longer than you should... ugh. But it was super fun.

the double secret...

just over 5 with nowinski @ easy pace.

new route, new double secret parking/starting place at the trail

that gives me 14 on the week in a measly 3 days...

better next week.

:(

saturday: (see above).

'yak attack...

no running today, but i did kayak for 1.5 hours!

catching up...

to round out last week i had a great long run with shaw: 5.75 mi over some relatively hardcore hills.  total last week: 17.75 mi. in 4 days, but with no elliptical.  oh well.

monday: off (semi-intentionally)
tuesday: off (completely unintentionally)
wednesday: 5 mi. of workout:
1.5 mi. warm-up (7:00)
1 mi. on (6:00)
.5 mi. off (7:00)
1mi. on: (6:00 first :30, 5:25 next :30)
1 mi. cool-down

great workout.

today: 4 mi. easy (7:00)

well as usual things are only "eh" for me. been busy with school and i may or may not have had mono for the past few months, so there's a lot going on.

however, went for a good run today -- approx. 4.5 mile loop from fleet feet through neighborhoods with huge-ass houses. no ipod, no watch... it was somewhat liberating.

nathan and i are doing the urban assault ride on sunday! should be fun!

things i have learned this week

1- it is imperative that i run before work... i think i keep saying this is a lesson i have "learned" and then i continue thinking that i'll get it in sometime during the day or after practice at 6. hopefully now that classes have started and things are a more normal schedule, i can actually make that happen.
2- days when we have meets that start before 11 are good days to take "off". even though it's likely i'll end up running around a course during the race, it's not a day when i'm likely to get a run in ahead of time.
3- missy buttry and andrew rock are super nice (and expecting a baby in march...that one's for you, alison)

this week was okay, but i took more days off than i would have liked and in general my legs felt kind of shitty. i need to stretch more.
yesterday - no run
today - 8 miles and legs felt pretty good, though a bit disturbingly fatigued at the end.

weekly total: 4.5+4.5+4+8, i believe. 21 in 4 days. okay, but not great.

nolliptical...

:(

it's a bad sign...

when it's been so long since you ran your normal route, that you forget how long it is...

tuesday was a semi-intentional day off. i was pretty busy all day - early morning practice, office until mid-afternoon, vet at 4:30 and then calling recruits that night. i could have squeezed it in before the vet, but i decided to take a nap instead. oh well.

wednesday was just a stupid day off. no good excuse besides being lazy.

thursday i had grand intentions of going 5 or 6, but i ended up only going 4.5 with the women during practice. legs felt really heavy and awful, so i just cut it short.

today i planned to go 5 or 6 depending on how my legs felt when i got to the turnaround point in my arb loop. when i got to that point, my legs felt crappy still, like yesterday, so i decided to turn around. it wasn't until i was 1 block from home that i realized that the basic loop is 4, not 5... dumb. i could have added on in the city, but decided to call it a day.

on...

4 mi. @ 7-ish...

felt good.  more quality time with the dreaded elliptical tomorrow...

off/on...

tuesday: (semi-unintentionally) off
wednesday: 4 mi: 2 @ just under 7:00, 1 @ 6:00, 1 @ 7:00

felt pretty ok...  good news so far.  (knock on wood)

planning to run at least 2 of the remaining 4 days this week and elliptical the other 2...

yep, definitely monday...

but at least i ran.

4 mi. @ 7-ish...

hip flexor loosened up (from its disagreement with the elliptical-ing yesterday) after about a mile.  after that i felt fine.

delinquent blogger

oops...so i didn't blog at all last week. mostly, i think it was because it was one of my worst weeks in a while. i did some sort of running pretty much every day, but it was mostly junk miles during practice or i'd do a warm-up with someone and then nothing else. i think i got in 2 or 3 actual runs of 4-5 miles, but i'm not even sure what to do about the rest of it. i guess that from here on, i won't try to count what i run during a cc meet or during practice since it's not continuous anyway.
i did manage to start this week off right with a lovely 4.5 mile run this morning. legs felt awesome and i went a bit quicker than usual because of that and a bit of a time crunch.
monday- suburbia 4.5 at about 7:35 pace average. i probably started off quicker, lulled a bit in the middle and picked it up again at the end.
the plan is to start going 6 days/wk with saturdays off and long runs on sunday. we'll see how that works out. we have meets most saturdays and in most cases that won't be very conducive to getting in a run ahead of time. this week i may be able to get it on saturday, though. ideally, i'd like to hit 35-36 miles this week (5-6-5-6-5-8-0).

that's a wrap...

mon: 4 mi.
tues: 3 mi. - felt my foot a little
wed: off intentionally
thurs: off unintentionally
fri: 5!  3 mi. warm-up, 1 mi cutting down from 6:30 to 5:50, 1 mi. cool-down
sat: 4 mi.
sun: 40 min. elliptical, .5 mi. cool-down

best week yet!  16 mi. total in 4 days + 40 min. elliptical (which i, as well as the machine i was on, am equating to roughly 4 mi. more).

last week was "eh" for me too. only got 11 miles. however, yesterday, nathan and i drove out to blue mounds state park (about 45 min away) and went trail running. super fun. i'd say we were somewhere between 6 and 7 miles, but i'm calling it 7 cause that's how i roll.

bad news bears...

ok so the end of last week sucked.  my total for last week was 14.  lame.

today: just under 3 @ 6:30 pace. 

not bad.  a little short, but i didn't know what exactly a 3 mi. route from my house would be.  now i know.

this weeks goal:  run more, faster.

Weekly totals

So yesterday I ended up getting in about 4, which I believe put me at 32 or 33 for the week. I'm too lazy to add it up. Legs feel good and I think that going 4 or maybe even 5 days in a row will be just dandy. I intended to take today off (to go with the 4 day in a row thing), but ended up doing some running at practice; probably only a couple of miles. I'm going to count it - both as a day off and as mileage. Figure that one out.

steve, stop checking out boobs

so camp turned out pretty awesome as far as my own training went. i think they had a good time as well. wednesday, i ended up not running because of the time trial and scheduling. thursday, they did a recovery run on some trails, so i hopped on. friday, we went into duluth and did a hill workout on some trails - very unstructured, just going hard on the uphills. this morning we got up early and did an easy run on the roads by pigeon lake, and i am going to try to run again tomorrow. it makes a lot more sense for me to take monday and saturday off than sunday/friday. i think i'm good to go on the 4 days in a row, 1 day off plan. i was surprised how good i've felt the last couple of days.
wednesday: 0
thursday: 7 easy on trails
friday: 7 on trails - "hill workout"
saturday: 5 easy on gravel roads

since you've been gone...

well, actually, i guess it's more appropriately "since i've been gone..." but nevertheless...

last weekend with nowinski i ended up going 2.5 @ ugh!  it was stupid hot and humid.

mon: 4 with the johns @ just over 7:00 (around campus)
tues: 3 @ 7:00 (working my way down to 6:30 over the last mile (treadmill)

feeling good, but fat.  consistency is the key.

notable event of the day: i saw a girl at the gym with RIDICULOUS fake boobs.  like, walking-funny-because-she-could-hardly-stay-upright ridiculous.  the weird part was not the fake boobs (this is the university of texas, after all, it was that she looked totally pale and nerdy other than the boobs.  weird all around...

the end of summer

Yikes, it has been a while. Here's how last week finished up and this week started out. I figured I had better get caught up since I'll be gone to Pigeon Lake for a few days.
Thursday: 4 miles - I don't remember anything about this run, so it must have been fine.
Friday: 7 miles - this went pretty well, given that I didn't eat a very good dinner the night before. I was feeling it a little by the end of the run, but that could also just be that it was the first time in a long time that I had run 7 miles.
Saturday: 0, planned day off
Sunday: 5 this run started out awesome and ended up not so awesome. i was running late for a meeting with donna and the captains and decided to do the whole thing a little up-tempo. i was feeling good from the get-go, probably because i ran at 3 instead of 8 AM so my legs were more warmed up and ready to go. however, it was pretty hot and humid, so by about 1/2 way through the run the heat caught up to me and i found myself slowing without realizing it. i still averaged about 7:30 pace, but I'm guessing it started off more like 7:00 and ended more like 8:00+.

Weekly total: 26 miles, and my first week of running what I was supposed to each day! yay!

So far this week...
Monday: 4
Tuesday: 4 - planned to go farther, but legs felt shockingly fatigued. No idea what from, but I decided that I'd cut it short on the off-chance that I end up having time tomorrow to go for a run between our arrival at camp and the time trial. With preseason starting, my training this week could be awesome or terrible, it just depends on how camp transpires. We'll be back sometime Saturday, so I should be back on track by the weekend, if nothing else.

This Week

This week was better. I ran 15.5 miles total. Unfortunately, I still have only run as far as 5, and I need to be able to run 10 in a month. Hmmm...

I also did 20 minutes of yoga in the morning 4 days this week. It was actually a nice way to wake up my body. I'm going to try to keep doing it somewhat consistently.

lost in austin...

the title of this post is pretty descriptive of my plan to get in shape so far, but i took a couple big steps in the right direction this week.

wed: got a gym locker
thurs: off after a strenuous wednesday (joking...)
fri: 2 mi. @ 7:00 pace / .5 mi. @ 6:30 / .5 @ 7:00  - felt good, comfortable
sat: 2-3 with nowinski

fall?

first off, sorry steve, but it's beautiful here. it was 55 degrees when i woke up this morning! yay fall!
monday - 5 miles, easy in the arb. started off a little tight, but loosened up nicely over the course of the run.
tuesday - 0 miles, planned day off.
wednesday - 5 miles, easy in the arb. cool weather! legs felt good, but didn't feel especially peppy. felt like my stride was really short, but it got a little better over the course of the run.

Good Start

Well, last week seriously sucked. I worked a ton so I basically didn't run at all. Ran a little over 5 today, though, which is a good start to the week. It was uncomfortably close to feeling like a long run but at least I got it in.

first decent week in a while

with the exception of a slight moment of weakness on friday, this was a good week. wednesday was a planned day off; thursday i went 4 instead of 5 when my legs felt kind of crappy, expecting that i was going to go 6 on friday. that didn't happen, so i went 6 on saturday and it was awesome. today i went 4 and it was decidedly not awesome. it was only moderately hot, but it felt much worse than it was - maybe a little dehydrated.
Monday- 4
Tuesday- 5
Wednesday- 0
Thursday- 4
Friday- 0
Saturday- 6
Sunday- 4
Weekly total: 23
If all goes great this week, i'd like to hit around 25 or 26, but we'll see

blech...

2+ mi. with shawbee @ slow.

good news: foot felt fine
bad news: i am slow
solution: run more...

rollin'

Monday: arb 4 - new loop that starts in the upper arb and ventures a bit into the lower arb before heading home via the rec center and through campus. the old upper arb loop was good, but it was getting boring, plus this one is much easier to use as a "base loop" which can be extended into 5, 6, etc.
Tuesday: arb 5 - base loop, plus a mile extension.
both runs felt awesome - monday started off a little sluggish, but felt good by the end. today, my legs just felt a little peppier, which was a nice change.

i'm back....

2 mi. with shaw!  it's nice to run with someone after spending 8 months running by myself (when i actually went, that is).

slow but nice...

Mileage this week

10.5 for me... ugh

end of the weak

plan for saturday:
farmer's market; putting together the documents needed to change my name, running, lunch, various other tasks.
actual saturday:
farmer's market; 7 unsuccessful hours spent looking for my passport and birth certificate, grocery shopping, dinner. no run and not even a birth certificate or passport to show for it. suck.
sunday: 5 mile run. odd thing that happened during my run- i was gaining hard on this woman in the lower arb, and just as i was about 10 meters behind her, worried i was going to scare the shit out of her as i passed her, she started making these bizarre noises - somewhere between hurting and worried about pooping. i was so caught off guard, i stopped and stretched for a bit to give her some space. i passed her on the way out of the arb as she was stretching (i think) and all seemed okay.
weekly summary: a whopping 10 miles.

woof

Yikes. It's been a rough week. So, last week, we went to the Grand Canyon on Saturday and Sunday, which meant no running those days because I am a weenie. We did walk/hike at least 5 miles on Sunday, so that's something, I guess. Something like 11 or so miles that week.
I hoped to get back on my horse when we got back to Phoenix, but I got lazy and it got hot. 0 miles Mon-Thursday. I did get up and go 5 this morning, which was slow as balls, but my legs didn't feel too bad over 5 miles. We'll see how tomorrow goes, but I'm hoping to switch from 4 miles as my basic run to 5 and start going 5-4-5 on my 3 day cycles. After a bit of consistency there, the plan is to add in another day. At this point, my short-term goal is to build on the days in a row, rather than the miles/day. Maybe even start getting in some "long runs"? Now wouldn't that be crazy?

taking the arb and moderate temps for granted

so far this week has been sort of a mixed bag. monday was a planned day off; tuesday was an unplanned day off. to make up for that, i went 5 on wednesday, including a mini hill "workout". i ran to the 4-way intersection in the lower arb and did that hill 5x. nothing crazy, but it was good to get in a slightly longer run and to do something other than easy running. thursday was a short easy 3, plus a 3+ hour flight to phoenix with an additional 1+ hour spent sitting in the plane at the terminal while they fixed the latch on the cargo door. today i had planned to do an easy 5 in phoenix, but i think i waited a little too long and the heat got the better of me. i turned it into an easy 3 and ran through a crazy-nice neighborhood, mostly on sidewalks, with a little bit of dirt path.

8.2 0
8.3 0
8.4 5 miles, including 5x short (30secs) hill
8.5 3 easy
8.6 3 slow, but not easy

Airborne SNAC attack!

Potentially the first of our posts from a plane...I'm on my way back home from San Diego. I managed some training this week --Sunday - hot 5, Monday bike 15, Tuesday hilly 3...Wednesday & Thursday bust. I'm still unsure and bothered by the neck business...I broke down and let Alison schedule a chiropractor appointment for me next week. Still need to schedule something with the real sports medicine and PT folks.

high-fives and -heart rates...

rough day at the office paved the way for a rough day on everybody's favorite 2 mi. of phoenix sidewalks.  while the run was rough, it wasn't all bad.  i started out feeling like doms was punching me in the right hamstring, but its stopped after about a mile, and the rest was good.  the mile back was much faster than the mile out.

2 mi. @ increasing pace (overall faster than moderate)

notable: saw jp at the 3/4 mi. mark - he was on his way back and i was on my way out.  we high-fived.

- incidentally, "high-fives and -heart rates" would have made a good training blog name...

As of today, I have agreed to pace one of my co-workers in a 5k on Labor Day weekend. (Cassie - this is the race I originally had you write me the workouts for.) She is 37 and really wants to place in her age group. We think this will take about a 23:00 5k, so it shouldn't be that hard, but now I'm super worried I won't be able to do it! Today was hella hot, so I decided to do a "workout." I ran one mile out really hard, walked around for a couple of minutes, then ran a mile really hard back.

week summary

7.31 arb short 4
8.1 short 3...really more like 2.5. i meant to go 3, but miscalculated and ended up only running for 20 minutes. oops.

weekly total (mon-sun):
around 17 miles in 5 days.

nothing earth-shattering, but i'm up to 3 days in a row and feeling good about it. i'm going to do that cycle again next week and then try to bump up to 4 in a row. i may try to start going a little longer one day/cycle, depending on how it goes. i'll be in phoenix at the end of this week and the first part of next week, so that will inevitably make it harder to get the runs in. we plan to go to the grand canyon next weekend, so i'll probably substitute several-hour-long hikes for my 30 minute runs. seems like an okay trade.

too 'soon, yet not 'soon enough...

i missed the heaviest part of today's monsoon by about 15 minutes, so by the time i got out to run it was just sprinkling.  partway through the run it started up again and i caught the second wave, which was good, but not as good as it could have been.

2 mi. @ a little slower than moderate (i was in no hurry to get out of the rain)

foot felt fine.

notable event: monsooooooon!

also: strength workout today, which consisted of bagging and then carrying 300-400 lbs. of paper in the form of old drawings etc. out to the dumpster for will.  8 or 9 large black trashbags full (like, all the way full!) of heavy paper.  it was definitely the most lifting i have done in a long time.

off tomorrow: safety first!

weekly total: 4 mi. (14 mi.)

an 's' away from 'fast'...

a disturbing reflection of a my silhouette today was enough to get me back in the saddle (and by 'saddle' i mean stupid-hot-even-though-its-9-at-night phoenix sidewalks)...

2 mi. @ moderate pace

i could have done 3 but 2 didn't feel awful (despite the red-hot-blues-induced acid reflux) and i didn't want to push my luck.  foot felt good...

notable event: ran past 2 gangster-looking 14 year-olds that smelled bizarrely, surprisingly, strongly, and pleasantly of cologne...  so odd that it made my run.

Back in the Game

My training took a nose dive after I crashed my bike about three weeks ago -- I've only managed a few short runs, a bike ride, and no swimming. Today I went to the doctor (well, technically a PA) because I had lingering neck and back pain and got some good news. Nothing seems broken, though I skipped the x-ray, and I got the go-ahead to ease back into training...unless anything starts to tingle. So, mostly good news, a new prescription, a couple referrals for PT and sports medicine...and I'm back in the game!

the bad and the good

7.29 OFF - unscheduled...
7.30 arb short 4 - felt great. didn't run especially fast, but legs felt good.

7/28

3 mile run at 8 pm

Negatives: slow and my stomach hurt b/c I just ate dinner

Positives: I haven't run at night in a long time, and it reminded me of summer in Northfield when we used to wait until, like, 9:30 to go running.

mid-week update

7.27 OFF
7.28 arb short 4 with laura roach. legs felt kind of shitty, but it was nice to have someone to run with.

salad n cad

i second alison's post...

Cookies n Cream

As I sit here eating ice cream out of the carton and studying for O Chem, I keep telling myself "I will start running again tomorrow." We'll see if that happens.

Day 1

I've been going back and forth between being highly motivated to get back in shape and a complete lack of motivation that results in stretches of extreme sloth. I'm hoping that having something concrete to train for will serve as proper motivation. However, I've said in the past that I was going to train for this race or that race and it hasn't happened or for one reason or another it didn't sufficiently get me going. So, I think I need to be scared shitless. Preferably, fear for my life or at least all of my pride would be helpful. In that line of thought, I've decided that I am going to do the twin cities marathon in 2011. Of course, I don't have to sign up for it for a little while yet, so technically there is still time to back out, but now it's on the internets, so it's official. Thanks training blog! I'll probably do a couple of races between now and then- maybe Gary Bjorkland and the Lumberjack days 10 mile.
Embarrassingly, I'm pretty much starting from scratch as far as training goes. I've gotten myself in trouble in the past by biting off more than I can chew because I want to believe I am in better shape than I actually am. So, I'm trying to be cautious and gradual this time around. 15 months is plenty of time to not do anything stupid. Not that that will stop me. Right now, I'm working on building up to running 6 days a week and gradually increasing mileage.
Here's what I've been up to so far, since the "get serious" decision:

7.22 arb short 4
7.23 arb short 4
7.24 OFF
7.25 arb short 4
7.26 3 miles easy

Clearly, I've gotten very serious.