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October 29, 2005
A high school moment
My own running leaves little to report right now, but at least my cc girls' running is exciting. Yesterday I just ran 3 miles with my team and went to their pre-Regional dinner. I got to experience what it was like to be in high school again! A guy that use to help coach our guys team 2 seasons ago came back from where he has moved and stopped by the pasta party to visit. What made this a great high school moment is that my girls found out that he use to like me (from one of their brothers who was on the team at the time), which thankfully I did not know until after he moved. The girls on my team think this is really funny and have even made up a song about it. The poor guy obviously was told about this at some point, since he could hardly look at me by the end of the evening. Not that the girls laughing and humming (since I would get mad if they actually sang the words) their special song everytime he entered the room, would not have made him wonder what was up. Today I ran about 5 miles at my girls Regional meet. The good news is they won the Regional easily (which was expected) and my top girl beat her rival again to win the race. The course was slow across the board, so they were kind of dissapointed with their times, but they all had good races (although their is one girl who I am worried about). When I got home, my husband and I walked for about an hour doing some errands and talking. Since than I have been working. I did not get finished with everything I needed done for tomorrow during the week. I need to go take a shower, since we have dinner reservations at this good chinese restaurant in less than an hour.
Posted by Ann at 7:39 PM | Comments (0)
October 27, 2005
Busy Week
I need to do a quick update for the first part of this week, since I have not gotten around to writing in here with everything that has been going on with work and cross country. My girls are getting a big freaked out about States and we have had a few injury scares these past few days, although it is looking like everyone is going to be okay. Monday, I ran about 4 miles plus some pick ups and plyometric drills, around my girls 8x400 meter workout that I was timing. That evening I had a sports massage and did some good stretching. The lady I work with is taking some classes that teach you do some muscle massage and stretching work on yourself with these smaller medicine balls. She needs test subjects for her class, so she offered to meet with me next week and teach me for free, if she can use me as a case study. It sounds like a good way to learn something new and keep focusing on stretching more. Tuesday, we drove to the Regional course and ran 6 miles while we were there. I also went for a walk later than evening, and I have to say summer is defintely over. Yesterday, I ran a fartlek workout with the girls. We did the almost the same workout as last week, 1,2,3,2,1 hard with the same rest plus 4 pickups. I was so tired last night, but I ended up staying up to watch the end of the World Series. As a Cubs fan, I don't know if I should be happy for the White Sox (since I can appreciate how exciting it would be to finally win another World Series) or not (since they are the "other" Chicago team). I should get back to work, we are doing this big activity for tonight with the junior high kids. We are playing Live Clue, which is pretty much a real life version of the board game. I need to finish up getting ready, since I need to go to practice in an hour.
Posted by Ann at 1:33 PM | Comments (0)
October 22, 2005
I need a vacation
Thursday afternoon, besides my gym workout, I just ran for about half an hour with the girls I coach. Friday, I did all my running before, during and after my girls League race. I am not sure what it added up to, but probably about 5 or 6 miles. This morning I went running at 6:45am with a friend of mine, C. I drove over to her house, which is near where I work, and we did a nice 10 mile run. It was cold, below 40 degrees, but the sun was out and all the leaves are changing color, plus the route we ran from her house was all out in the country. I took a quick shower at her house and got over to work by 9am. I just got done cleaning up from a paintball tournament that I put on for our junior high kids. It went good, the kids had a blast and no one got hurt. I am suppose to be writing up some materials for a meeting tomorrow, but I needed a little break before diving in. I should get working, since I have a break scheduled in an hour or so. My husband and I are meeting my brother and his wife (who are in town) for dinner and than I am going to have to do all the work I don't get done now. I was hoping to life today, but at this point I don't see that happening. I need to make sure I get it in tomorrow.
Posted by Ann at 4:28 PM | Comments (0)
October 20, 2005
Off to the gym
Yesterday I ran a fartlek workout with the girls I coach. It is always funny the first time people hear the word fartlek, since no one wants to ask just what you said. The workout was good, we did 1,2,3,3,2,1 hard with the same amount of easy running inbetween. I can run with my 3-5 runners, who run as a pack, and I appreciate getting a good workout, but it is still so weird to me not to be able to keep up with my front 2 girls. You would think I would be use to it, but its hard after doing so many workouts with them, pushing them to run faster for the past couple of years. It is weird to think I may never be able to push my first girl again, her PR is faster than mine for a 5k now (hers is 17:46 and mine is 17:55). I hope to break that PR some day, but I am quite sure she is going to keep getting faster. After the workout with the girls I ran another 3 miles easy with my husband and than went back to work. I really did not feel like going back, but I had to deal with some problems with my intern that could not wait. This morning I am about to head over to the gym to lift weights again and than go from there to work. I am feeling very behind right now. I have a lot of work I have to get done for a meeting on Sunday, and I got pretty much nothing done yesterday between this situation with my intern, 2 very interesting staff meetings and the 13 phone messages and almost as many emails that were waiting for me since I left the afternoon before. So, enough complaining, time to get moving.
Posted by Ann at 7:49 AM | Comments (1)
October 18, 2005
Quiet run
Last night a good friend of ours ended up meeting us half way through the Red Wings game. It was fun to catch up with him, but lately he has been a bit weird about our friendship (even though we have been friends for 11 years). It's a long story, but it was still good to catch up a bit. This morning I did half an hour on the elliptical, stretched really well and lifted weights. I am really happy with myself for getting in the gym 3 times a week the past 2 weeks and am trying to keep it up. This afternoon I ran 7 miles with the girls I coach. The weather was that perfect fall running weather, sunny and about 60. We ran as a big group and I was really enjoying just running and being outside. I was really quiet during this run, even though I usually love to talk with people while running. I was just enjoying the experience and not having to think. I hung out with the girls and stretched for quite a while when we got back. I ended up spending most of the evening at my in-laws house, and now I want to head to bed early, since I am feeling exhausted.
Posted by Ann at 10:12 PM | Comments (0)
October 17, 2005
The Red Wings are waiting
Saturday, I did all my running at my girls' meet, again. They ran and won a city wide champtionship that had 38 teams in it. We were expecting the victory, but I was particularly pleased by 2 things. First, my girls scored only 34 points, breaking the lowest score record (guys or girls) for the meet by 23 points. Second, my top girl won the race, which is a big deal because of the best runners in the state runs for a team that is there. I feel pretty sure, she is amoungst the top 4 runners for the state meet, with no one who is out of range. My husband and I went for a hike on the local trails and then, we were going to go see a movie, but when looked up the times, Elizabethtown had just started and I did not feel like staying up late and watching the next showing. So instead we were really exciting and went to the gym and lifted weights. I was kind of in a bad mood about not doing something fun that day, since I had been gone at my kids meet all day, but I ended up enjoying it. I don't think I have ever been there when there was not a single other person in the weight room. Sunday, I ran 7 miles when I got home from work at 3 pm with my husband. The weather was nice for running and it was amusing, since I wore my GPS to measure the route we were running. I claimed the route was 6.9 miles (guessing off the time it took us to run it)and my husband tried to measure it on a computer program and got 7.25 miles. I am quite proud to annouce the route turned out to be 6.93! We had fun trying to figure out who was going to be right, it made counting the miles more interesting. Today, the best news had nothing to do with running. When I got into work, I had an email from my bosses' boss. It was a forward of an email that he had got that pretty much said the program I ran was the best this person had ever seen and that they particularly like me and my leadership! I was really excited to not only get that kind of feedback, but to have the person actually send it to the people above me, as well. As far as running goes, I ran 5 miles in the rain with the girls I coach. I need to get going, since my husband is waiting for me to go watch the Red Wings game at a local sports bar with him. Can't keep the Red Wings waiting...
Posted by Ann at 6:56 PM | Comments (2)
October 14, 2005
It's the weekend
Yesterday, I ran with the girls I coach. They did 5 miles and 6x200 and 6x100. That was certianly the best part of my day. I worked from home during the day on Wednesday (due to the gas leak/furnace problems), so I had given my intern and assistant some things to get ready for a big presentation that I had to do last night. When I got to work I found out they had done just about nothing, so it was quite a stressful day. I ended up getting everything ready, but did not feel as ready as I would like for my presentation. I seemed to get a good response from people about my talk, but I tend to overthink what I said and what I think I should have said, so I ended up having trouble sleeping again. I slept in a bit this morning before going to work. This afternoon we just ran 3 miles at practice, since they have a meet tommorow. I followed this up with a workout with my husband. We ran over to the local high school track and ran 5x1000. I helped pace my husband, who ran 6:40 pace, so it was more of a tempo pace, but it was fun and helped me get some more mileage in. We cooled down back to our house and showered quickly. We stopped by the cross country team's night before a race get together, and than went out to dinner at a local Italian restaurant. I need to get things packed up for the race tomorrow, since we are leaving really early tomorrow, and get to sleep, since my sleep this week has been pretty bad this week.
Posted by Ann at 9:15 PM | Comments (0)
October 12, 2005
Rainy weather
We've had a lot of warm and sunny weather this fall for around here, but now it looks like we are getting more typical weather. Today it was 55 and rainy and that looks like what we are getting the rest of the week. I ran 8 miles at a pretty good pace with the varsity girls. The rest of the team was just doing 3 miles, since there is a JV race tomorrow. There is a lot of construction happening near the school we practice at, so we have been doing the same couple of runs everyday this fall. Since I had a small group, we decided to adventure through the construction and run one of the loops we use to do last year. It was fun to run somewhere different and no one got hurt, although there were a few scary moments when the kids were not all paying as much attention as they should in the construction area. I need to go get ready for bed, even though that is going to make my kitty, who is sleeping on my lap, very mad. I am really tired, since I had a horrible time sleeping last night, I did not fall asleep until 2am! Time to go catch up.
Posted by Ann at 10:34 PM | Comments (0)
October 11, 2005
Another cross country meet
This morning I did 30 minutes on the elliptical, did some yoga and stretching and lifted lower body weights at the gym. This afternoon my girls had their last dual meet. The team is the next best in our league, so we left our varsity in just to be safe. We had them run the race as a tempo and they paced our top JV runners. It turned out to be pretty fun for them and a number of the JV runners ran PRs, depsite the slow course. I did some running before, during and after the race. I am not really sure what it added up to, but I got some decent miles in. I should get going and get ready for bed. I need to get up and get an early start on the day tomorrow. I have a big presentation at work on Thursday evening and I have not done hardly anything to get ready for it, between the gas line leaking and all the hours spent at meets.
Posted by Ann at 10:51 PM | Comments (0)
October 10, 2005
No heat
This morning I lifted upper body weights at the gym. Than I talked with Consumers Enegry who spent the day digging up our yard, since we had a gas leak over the weekend. They ended up moving our gas meter from inside to outside our house, while fixing it, but at least that meant that we did not have to pay for that part of it. There is also something wrong with our furnace (all part of the same problem) so we have the furnace people coming on Wednesday, hopefully by noon, since I can't miss my girls practice in the afternoon. We now have warm water and with our little space heater, we are keeping the house at a reasonable temprature. I was freezing after I came back from my 5 mile run with the cross country girls, but after a warm bath and putting on a long sleeved shirt and wool sweater I am not noticing it anymore. I think I was so cold because I stood around and talked with one of our recent alumni from the team, who is home for a long weekend and came to run with us. It was fun to hear the details of how she and her college team are doing. She was the first grade I had for all 4 years cross country and track and she is the first girl I worked with year round (writing training schedules and doing workouts together in the off season), so it's pretty weird having her gone. I was starving when I got home, so I ate dinner and took that warm bath. Than my husband and I ran errands for the rest of the evening. Now, I am going to get ready for bed and read a bit.
Posted by Ann at 9:43 PM | Comments (0)
October 9, 2005
My cross country girls are #2!
On Thursday, I followed up my cross training with a 5 mile run in the afternoon with the cross country girls and 10 pick ups. Friday, I hit the gym again and did the elliptical, stretching and lower body weights (I did upper body on Thursday morning). I ran 5 miles at practice. Saturday, I ran a total of 8 miles during my girls cross country invitational. I was gone from early in the morning until late at night, so that was all I got in. The girls I coach won this huge invitational, which will insure they are ranked #2 in the State! I wish the #1 ranked team had been there, so we could have seen how we match up, since they won pretty solidly over the other top teams. I am so proud of these girls. They worked so hard for a whole year since they finished 3rd at States last year and I am just so excited to see it paying off like this. I know I probably talk more about my girls than my own running right now. I just feel very blah about my running. I am running consistantly and working at adding back in some of the little things like lifting, stretching and cross training, but I know that I am just not putting my full effort into it. I just never get caught up enough with work, espesialy with all the meets added into my schedule. Now, living through my girls running is everything I could hope for. =) I just need to make sure I don't forget about my own training, and keep moving forward slowly. I am just not very patient with things like this. I tend to be an all or nothing type of person, but I am working on that.
Afternoon update:
I got home from work today about 2:30 and was out the door to run by 3pm. My husband was doing his long run, so I got 7 miles in with him. The weather was beautiful, 55 and sunny, and I am really enjoying my husband wanting to start running consistantly and building up his training. I am really busy and miss spending as much time with him and it really helps to get me out running when I know I will get to talk to him the whole way. We are off to do some errands, the most important one to me being getting a new water bottle. I lost my nalgene bottle and have been doing horrible about drinking enough water ever since. I am going to finish up with some yoga later tonight, but we need to get going so the stores don't close.
Posted by Ann at 4:00 PM | Comments (0)
October 6, 2005
Back in the gym
This morning I finally went to the gym. I warmed up on the elliptical trainer for 20 minutes, did a good stretching routine and than lifted weights! I can't believe how long it has been since I lifted, seriously close to 2 months. It felt good to be doing the little things again. I am guessing I am going to be good and sore tomorrow. I am at work now and trying to finish up getting ready for my junior high program before practice this afternoon. I am still feeling tired from last week, espsially since I went to bed late again last night. At least this time it was because of doing something fun for me. My husband and I had a blast watching the Red Wings game and ended up sitting and talking at BW3's quite a while after the game was over. It was nice to actually finish a conversation with him, rather than always having to run off to the next thing.
Posted by Ann at 1:03 PM | Comments (0)
October 5, 2005
Sitting in my office for no reason
Today the girls I coach did a speedwork which consisted of a 400, 800, 1200, 800, 800, 400. We did all of these in the field or trails, and since the other coach forgot the wheel they were apporimate distances. I only did part of the workout with the girls due to complications in giving times to all the students on some of the routes. I ran a couple of miles cool down and than ran another 3 miles with my husband. I had to jump in the shower and rush back to work since I had an interview with a volunteer staff person at 7pm. I was able to get quite a bit of other work done tonight, since the guy never showed up. I just called him at 8:15 and he was at home. He just did not get around to emailing or calling me to let me know he was not going to be driving this way like he thought so he was not coming. It's funny how thoughtless normal responsible seeming adults can be. Well, I am going to get out of the office now. I think I will call my husband and see if he wants to meet me at a sports bar that is half way home to watch the first Red Wings game and make the best of driving over here tonight.
Posted by Ann at 8:29 PM | Comments (0)
Sitting in my office for no reason
Today the girls I coach did a speedwork which consisted of a 400, 800, 1200, 800, 800, 400. We did all of these in the field or trails, and since the other coach forgot the wheel they were apporimate distances. I only did part of the workout with the girls due to complications in giving times to all the students on some of the routes. I ran a couple of miles cool down and than ran another 3 miles with my husband. I had to jump in the shower and rush back to work since I had an interview with a volunteer staff person at 7pm. I was able to get quite a bit of other work done tonight, since the guy never showed up. I just called him at 8:15 and he was at home. He just did not get around to emailing or calling me to let me know he was not going to be driving this way like he thought so he was not coming. It's funny how thoughtless normal responsible seeming adults can be. Well, I am going to get out of the office now. I think I will call my husband and see if he wants to meet me at a sports bar that is half way home to watch the first Red Wings game and make the best of driving over here tonight.
Posted by Ann at 8:29 PM | Comments (0)
October 4, 2005
Another cross country meet
Today I did all my running surounding my girls cross country meet. We took out our top runners, since the girls were enough faster than the team they were racing that they still took the top 6 places. I ran some with different people and the warm up/cool down stuff. I probably covered 6 miles total. When I got home I went for a walk with my husband and did some stretching while watching Amazing Race. I need to get to sleep since I am still exhausted from last week.
Posted by Ann at 10:57 PM | Comments (0)
October 3, 2005
Tempo Run
Today has been a productive day. I felt like I got so many things done today at work. It just seemed like I was able to get ahold of all the people I needed to talk to and we were able to quickly work out something. I was so tired last week with all the traveling and trying to fit my work and coaching in, but today I am feeling much more positive and like I might actually get caught up on things at work one day. This afternoon I ran a 4 mile tempo run with the top varsity girls. They have a meet tomorrow, but the team they are racing is not very good, so we are taking our top 7 out and letting JV run the race instead. So I took the varsity girls on a workout while the rest of the team did an easy 3 miles. It was fun to just have my little group of girls. It is certianly different having my girls be so fast and not being in as good of racing shape as past years. I get good workouts these days. The 2 girls I ran with finished in 24:35 for the 4 mile course. I was pleased to be able to run that close to 6 minutes, espesially since there are some good hills on that route. I am at home now, and am trying to motivate myself to take a shower and do some stretching. I need to get to bed early tonight, so I can start catching up on sleep from last week.
Posted by Ann at 8:04 PM | Comments (1)
Away 4 days of 7
This past week has been hard to keep up with. I was gone Tuesday and Wednesday at a Directors Retreat for work and gone on Saturday and Sunday for a trip I took the junior high students on. And I still had to get all the same work done as usual this week. On Monday night the weather did clear up and I had a great run. Afterward I grabbed a quick shower and met my husband and his parents for dinner to celebrate my husbands birthday. Tuesday, I had to leave so early for the retreat that I was not able to run in the morning, but I did get about 4 miles in at my girls cross country meet that I drove back for in the afternoon. Just a quick note, I am so proud of my team. They finally had that break through race where they used the potential that I know is there. I had a girl in the 17s, 1 in the low 18s and 3 in the low 19s! They worked so hard this whole past year and I am excited to see what lies ahead in these final weeks of their season. Wednesday, I hurried back from our retreat to get to practice, where I ran 10 miles on trails with the girls. I was so sleepy, since I stayed up way too late at the retreat tying to be friendly (I missed all the social time earlier in the day leaving to go the the girls meet). I was not paying attention to where I was steping, which is a bad idea on these trails. I did a nice nose plant on a downhill during the first mile. At least it woke me up and I did not really hurt anything, just some bruises, scrapes and lots of dirt. Thursday, I did about 800 meter grass loops with 2 of the girls who had to miss the workout on Friday. Friday, I did some running before and after the rest of the team's workout (which I did not do since I had done the same thing the day before), to get a run in. Saturday, became up day off even though I did not really need one since I had severl easy and short running days already that week. Even without a run, I only got 3 hours of sleep to be ready for our early morning departure on our junior high trip I was leading. We had great weather and we did a lot of physical work at the place we were helping. I also really enjoyed the campfire, smores and spending the evening outside in the country. It's been way too long since I have been camping. Sunday I got home from the trip (no running in the morning when you are the adult in charge of 20 students who are all 13 or younger) about 5:30. My husband did a great job of talking me out the door to run, like I told him to before the trip. I knew I would be exhausted, but I did not want to take 2 full days off in a row. We ended up running my 7.5 mile loop, although we walked a little towards the end, since his foot was starting to really hurt. That finally gets us caught up to today. I am off to work and than we have a hilly tempo run planned this afternoon.
Posted by Ann at 7:43 AM | Comments (0)