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September 26, 2005

A new week

Saturday, after my run I stretched, took a shower and got my work done by dinner time. My husband and I went to dinner with my brother and his wife (who were in town for the weekend) and my parents at Bennigans. Afterward, my brother and his wife came over and we ended up staying up until 1am playing a game and talking. Yes, I know its a just a little lame that 1am is really late for me, but I rarely get to sleep in and I don't do well without enough sleep. Yesterday I had to get up early to get to work and I was feeling tired all day. Luckily for me it was my off day from running. I was going to lift weights, but by the time I got home just before dinner, I just could not convince myself to change and head back out to the gym. Instead, I went for a walk with my husband and relaxed around the house. Today it's rainy and cooler. Hopefully the rain will let up, since it would be beautiful weather for my 10 miler this evening, if we just were not getting soaked.

Posted by Ann at 10:06 AM | Comments (0)

September 24, 2005

Finally a good training week!

Yesterday, I just had my top 4 varsity girls doing the speed workout, since everyone else raced the day before. The girls ended up asking if they could repeat a workout I had them do earlier in the season when they were having major pacing problems in their races. What they do is start a minute apart from each other, so they are unable to pace off of each other and they are not allowed to wear watches. Since there were just 4 of them and it is a great exercise in learning their pace, I ended up timing, rather than running, to allow them to do the workout that way. I ran about 3 miles warming up and cooling down with them. When I got home, my husband was planning on doing a speed workout at the local track, so I warmed up over there with him, but than ran my own workout. I ran a 2000 in 7:40 (6:08 pace) and than ran 3x1000 in 3:46, 3:46 and 3:45 (6:00 minute pace)with 3 minutes rest. It is frustrating to me when I compare the times I am running to what I ran last fall (I was doing 5:45-5:41 for mile repeats with 4 minutes rest this exact week last fall). On a positive note, this was my first good week of training, and I am feeling really motivated to get back into racing shape...so at least I am starting. When I got home I stretched and went for a walk later in the evening with my husband. This morning I was going to run 10 miles with the girls I coach, but they decided yesterday that they all wanted to run at different times, so we canceled the group run. I called my dad last night and agreed to meet him near the trail loop that is part of my 10 mile route. I ran the longer direction to meet him, ran the loop with him and than finished up the last couple of miles home to hit 10 miles. With that run I got in 50 miles, with 2 runs of 10 miles or over and a speed workout in 6 days (so I can take tomorrow as a cross-training day). I also did much better with stretching and core work, although lifting regularly is the final thing I need to add in to feel like I am completely back on track with my training. I am looking at some races when my cross country girls season is done in November. Hopefully the weather will still be pretty nice then and I can get a few good races in before the snow settles in.

Posted by Ann at 1:49 PM | Comments (0)

September 23, 2005

Computer Problems

My computer has been giving me problems lately. Something about my wireless connection is not working quite right. This is the 2nd entry I have lost when I tried to save it when I was done writing. To summerize what I said: Wednesday I did not run in the morning, because I did a 13 mile run in the afternoon. I ran 7 with the girls I coach and than ran 6 more with my husband. The last 2 days have been really hot and I was outside a lot on both of them with cross country meets etc, and I think I got myself really dehydrated. I was sick to my stomach and dizzy for the last few miles of my run, even though my legs felt great. I drank a lot of water and ate some salty foods yesterday (my stomach was not handling even much water let along food that evening) and I am feeling back to normal today. Yesterday I just ran 4 miles with my girls at the meet, since Thursdays are my busy day and I wanted to take an easy day after the way I was feeling. Today I have a speed workout planned for the afternoon with the girls I coach.

Posted by Ann at 7:40 AM | Comments (0)

September 21, 2005

Hawk Island Park

On Monday, I did end up going on that 3rd short run, although we cut it shorter than 6 miles, since there was a storm blowing in. I did some core work when I got back. Yesterday, I decided rather than run when I woke up, to go into work early and leave a bit early for my kids cross country meet. I changed into my running clothes and drove over to a nearby park that everyone tells me is a great place to run, called Hawk Island Park. I got there and started running around the paved 1.5 mile loop around the lake, looking for the entrance to the woods and the non-paved trail. About half way around I found the entrance and started back into the woods. I was thinking how beautiful it was there and how I would need to start doing this a lot more often, when my trail ended. I backtracked, tried another trail and had the same thing happen. People either know something I don't about the trails or they don't run very far. I ran every little branch of the trails and backtracked multiple times, just to get 5 miles in. I was a bit dissapointed with the park, but it was still fun to run somewhere different and I actually did some pretty crazy trail running at a few points, when I got on some rough trail with some steep up and down hills, trying to find longer trails. I stretched for about 10 minutes and drove over to the high school to go to the girls cross country meet. I ran about 4 more miles with the girls at the race. They ran pretty good and beat both teams there easily, but the course was awful. This is the first time they ran on this course and pretty much someone just took a huge mower and mowed a path up and down a field. The footing was horrible and the course just ran back and forth right next to itself until you turned around half way and retraced your steps. Usually, I am a little jealous of my girls running these races, since I loved my years running cross country in college, but yesterday I was glad not to have to run on that course.

Posted by Ann at 7:50 AM | Comments (0)

September 19, 2005

Hiking

Yesterday, I got back from work a little after 3pm and since it was my off day, my husband I decided to enjoy the cooler weather and go for a hike. We hiked about an hour and a half on some local trails. They are ones I run and hike a lot, but it did not seem worth it to drive very far yesterday. It was still fun to be out in the woods and to get to just talk with my husband. I feel like I am so busy recently that we don't get those relaxing times together enough. Today, I went for a 3 mile run in the morning, just to loosen up my legs after a non-running day. I did not want to go very far, because I have a potential 3rd run this evening after practice. I just got back from running 4 miles with the girls I coach this afternoon (they have a meet tomorrow) and am sitting here in my running clothes waiting to hear from my possible running partner about whether we are going to run 6 miles in a few mintues or not. I hope he calls soon, since I really don't like taking more than an hour between runs (we are at about 45 minutes now), unless I am going to take at least 4 hours. It makes my legs tight to stop that long, but not long enough to rest them.

Posted by Ann at 5:11 PM | Comments (0)

September 17, 2005

Organizing

Yesterday I did all my running at the girls' cross country meet. I warmed up with the varsity team, did some hard running during the race, than repeated with the jv team. This morning I ran to the local high school track, by going through our neighborhood and a short trail in the woods. I ran 4x1000 meters with my husband who is starting to train for a 5k (he usually runs, but has not raced much), so it was a little slower that I would normally do, but a good tempo paced workout. We cooled down back home the way we came. I spent the rest of the day doing some huge organizing projects that I have been needing to do all summer. I really should have been working, since I now need to go in early to work tomorrow to get some things ready for the meeting I have after our junior high program. However, it feels really nice to be organized again and to actually be able to find things. I started some of these projects in May and everything has been laying out since than. I also spent some time with a calendar and possible training plans. I am starting to put together what exactly my running plans are for the next year are. I would like to focus on running races from 5k to 10 miles. I have several spring races and some August/September races I would like to do. I am giving myself this next week to get the plan figured out, so my start date looks to be September 26. Until than I am just trying to get some solid running in, catch up on sleep and get back in the habit of lifting, stretching and doing cross training workouts.

Posted by Ann at 10:59 PM | Comments (0)

September 15, 2005

Lost my entry

It's late and I just lost the entry that I wrote and I don't feel like re-writing it right now. So I will just say that I ran 4 miles with the girls that I coach and tacked on 3 miles myself. Now, it's off to bed for me. I have a big day tomorrow with an important interview I am giving and my cross country team's first chance to run against the top couple of teams in the state.

Posted by Ann at 11:45 PM | Comments (0)

September 14, 2005

Trail Running

Last night I did get to bed shortly after 10pm and than it took me almost an hour to fall asleep. I think I was just worrying about things that I needed to get done today. I am still feeling like I am catching up on sleep, but I still have a ways to go. The weather finally cooled down, or at least upper 70s feels cool after all the high 80s and 90s weather we have been having. I did a 10 mile trail run with the cross country girls I coach this afternoon. We have the kids drive and meet us at a local park, which has 2 loops, each is about 2.5 miles long. Its a great place to run, but we were getting a bit bored of doing each loop twice, since this is the 3rd week in a row we have done this for our long run. So we ran 1 loop twice, but than explored down some roads off the 2nd loop, to add on. It was a less pretty run, but worth it for being less repetitive. I got home about 5:30 and was going to do some yoga, but my husband has a friend who is in town from California spend the night last night and apprently he did not leave like expected while we were at work. I decided to go to a coffee house and work until he heads out, so when I get home I plan to take a bath and do yoga before heading to bed.

Posted by Ann at 7:41 PM | Comments (0)

September 13, 2005

I love sleep

Last night I was in bed just after 10 pm, and slept until 7:30 am. I feel so much better after catching up on sleep a bit and am hoping that a good night of sleep will help me more than a morning workout. I ran 5 miles and 6 pick ups at cross country practice with the girls I coach this afternoon. I went back to work, but when I got home I just put on the tv and did core work and used my stability board. I am going to go to bed early again tonight (9:30 is my goal) so I can get up and go the gym and do the elliptical and lift weights before work tomorrow.

Posted by Ann at 8:45 PM | Comments (0)

September 12, 2005

Summer Update

I can't believe I have ignored this journal all summer. Even though I have started focusing on running more for the last 4 weeks, since coaching starting for the cross country season started, I just never got around to writing here again. For those who read about my spring and summer, you know my job situation was crazy busy. The guy I worked with left and I was doing 2 people's jobs. I thought things were going to get better within a month or two, but for various reasons they did not. It was the same day cross country season started (Aug. 15) I finally was able to hire a part-time person to help me. We had 2 practices a day most days for the first 3 weeks of the kid's season, since they did not start school until after Labor Day. So I felt like this past week was the first semi-normal one, but with all the catching up it's still leaving me pretty tired. Starting in early July my running was really random. I have never had a summer where I did so little in the way of real training and I did not even run one race. I averaged only about 25-30 miles a week from early July until mid-August and I ran it in the weirdest ways. I would run a 12 mile long run in the morning and another 4-5 miles in the evening one day and than not run at all for 3 days. Being a perfectionest, I pretty much stopped caring about my training by the end of summer, since I am not good at doing things half way. When cross country season started and I got to run with my girls, two of whom are in amazing shape, it reminded my how much I love really running. I miss that feeling you only get when you are in your best racing shape and you feel like you can run forever. I miss suprising myself at the times I can hit. I miss pushing a long tempo run and knowing I can go even faster at the end. I have been running a little bit more, 40-45 miles and some speedwork outs with the girls I train (which actually push me this year)these past 4 weeks, but am still frustrated with the lack on focus I have been able to put into my training. I am hoping things will settle down a bit more at work, but either way I am determined to step up my training. If I had any idea how long I was going to be working so much overtime, I would never have done it. It's one of those things you look back and can't believe you stopped focusing on what is important to you for so long. I plan to get 50 miles and some cross training in each week, and when the kids have races, to add in my own speed workouts, like I used to. Also I need to start doing the little things that make a big difference, like stretching, yoga, lifting and focusing on eating healthy.

Posted by Ann at 7:55 PM | Comments (1)