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April 27, 2007

Is that the finish line in the distance?

I like to think about life in running terms a lot. In fact, when I was interviewing for my first 'real' job after college, for which I had absolutely no qualifications or relevant experience except that I was cute, nice, and a quick learner, I answered every interview question with a running experience. For example, it might have gone like this (I have a bad memory so I don't remember exactly):
Interviewer: Can you tell me about a time when you were in a difficult situation and you had to use problem solving skills?
Barb: Well, when I ran on the cross country and track teams in college, our coach would blindfold us, drop us off 8 or 9 miles from campus, and make us find our way back. We had to use problem solving skills, apply logic, and use teamwork in order to make it back to school.

Now the interviewer probably just felt bad for my that my coach would do such a weird thing, but really it was fun! And although now I have relevant experience with which I can answer this type of question, I still think about life in terms of running and sometimes apply running strategies to issues, problems, and general situations requiring some type of strategy.

Thus, now that my sememster and my wedding will both be over in about two weeks, I feel that I can see the finish line and no matter how tired I am of writing papers, reading Victorian novels, thinking about flowers, writing thank you notes, etc., etc., it will all be over soon and I will have free time once again. During which I am very excited to train a lot, read magazines, maybe read some chick lit, read anything I want, stay up past 10:00 on a week night once or twice, stuff like that. It will be great!

Not that I am not excited about everything that is coming up, because I am. But I am also excited not to have to think about weddings. And class. However, I am really excited that my best maid, Betsy, is here for the weekend! It was so nice having a running buddy this morning! It is generally great to have Betsy here so we can hang out and chat and do all kinds of fun things that we rarely get to do since she lives in New York. So that will be great and I think we are going to have a really fun weekend.

And just because this blog is ostensibly about running, here are my workouts for the week. It has been a good one so far!

- Monday - 6 mile easy run, 30 minutes spinning, lifting
- Tuesday - 7 mile easy run in a pouring rain, very strange but kind of fun
- Wednesday - 8 mile easy run, 30 minutes spinning
- Thursday - 6/4 double (morning and after work). In my afternoon run I made a great discovery that one of my favorite trails now has a tunnel under a busy road, so you can run there during rush hour (instead of waiting for a break between all the cars which is mostly impossible)
- Friday - 5 mile easy run with Betsy. So fun!

The rest of the weekend is planned as follows:
- Saturday - Practice with the team at 7:00 am in Boulder. Realistically there is about a 60% chance that I will go what with all the maids coming over tonight. But either way I will be running tomorrow morning.
- Sunday - 5 mile easy run (in a race). I will be wearing my buns that say BRIDE on the butt. This will really tax my blogging skills as I am really going to want to post a picture of me and the maids in our cute outfits. I am going to attempt to do some semblance of a warmup and/or cooldown but I may be prevented by family obligations and/or a hangover. After I take Betsy to the airport in the early afternoon I will probably also bike since 5 miles is a pretty weak Sunday workout.

That is the week in Barb-Land.....

Posted by barb at 8:20 AM | Comments (1)

April 24, 2007

What is this, New England?!

Hoo boy, I had a miserable weather run this morning. It really felt like springtime in Maine - cold, wet, windy, cloudy - very odd for here. I actually didn't mind it too much except that it was pouring the entire time and I do not exactly have waterproof running gear, so my arms took a little while to regain their dexterity. Anyway I felt really hard core when I was running as apparently one of these weather conditions - if I had to guess, I would say the howling wind I could hear from my bed this morning - seemed to cause every other runner to stay inside. Which is honestly what I probably would have done if I didn't have a really busy day today at work, and plans afterwards. So I guess I exhibited hard-coreness out of necessity. Either way I am definitely really hard core!

I did have a really good workout/running week last week. I did not quite meet either one of my goals (running under 50 miles and taking one day off from running), but I got really close! I ran exactly 50 miles last week and had one day of running only four miles. What can I say, I am obsessive. I kept thinking that I am going to have at least one week of serious cutback in the next month, and that seemed like it would definitely be enough. I did a 30 mile ride on Sunday which was a lot of fun. I went with my friend M. and we had fun chatting and enjoying a beautiful day. I did hit my highest speed to date on my bike, of 32 MPH. Of course I raved about how awesome this was to my serious cyclist coworker, who said his all time high speed was 62 MPH!! I am still feeling pretty good about it. We are considering a 50 mile race/ride in June, and after this weekend I feel confident that we can easily finish.

I have been biking a good amount which is great, I think the only things I need to start doing for my tri are swimming more and trying a few brick workouts. I have a feeling that my first brick (when I bike and then drop my bike, change my shoes, and go for a run) will be a bit of a rude awakening. However, I think if I can practice a few times it will get much better.

That is about all that is happening. Matt is leaving for Mexico tomorrow morning for his bachelor party, and Betsy is flying into Denver Thursday evening for my bachelorette party, so it will be a busy weekend!

Posted by barb at 1:04 PM | Comments (0)

April 16, 2007

great weekend in running

I just love running when all the pieces seem to fit together, my body feels good, and I feel motivated and strong and happy! This past week was a great one. It was my highest mileage week all year (okay, it made it by .5 miles but it still counts), and yet by this morning even after my longest run so far this year of 12 miles I was feeling good. So that is nice. We had a good but somewhat hard workout on Saturday on the trails. A faster lady who is usually a group up the ladder from me (we are generally in four groups, and I am in the second slowest) ran with us because she had been sick and it was nice to have someone for whom the effort was pretty easy - she was entertaining. Meaning that she talked during our hard sessions so we didn't think as much about what we were doing. So that was fun, and it is always nice to run with people I wouldn't run with ordinarily.

We have a cutback week scheduled and the weather should be decent so I think I'm going to attempt to add biking where I am cutting running. And I really want to stay under 50 miles for this week with one day of no running. So I am going to try. Although sometimes I just cannot do the one day off from running thing.

Hope all my fellow bloggers are enjoying the week! I hope the weather becomes somewhat spring-like in the east this week.

Posted by barb at 4:55 PM | Comments (3)

April 13, 2007

when the forcast is completely wrong

This is so great. We were expecting 6-12 inches of snow to fall over night, which would have been nice except that fresh snow is not the best for running or commuting. When I woke up at 6:00 expecting a huge snowfall and winter playground, I found absolutely nothing on the ground! How surprising, in such a delightful way. I guess the storm is going south of us. It is actually snowing now but it's nothing to write home about - it's not sticking at all. So that is excellent news for my commute.

Anyway because of the lack of snow, I had a nice normal run this morning (5 miles as it is my 'rest' day). I was also able to drive to the gym at lunchtime to do some spinning on the gym's spin bikes. I hadn't been doing much spinning these days because the class times are inconvenient for me but just going in and using the spin bike when there's not a class is really fun. For some reason I find the spin bikes to be so much more comfortable than the other exercise bikes. I was on the bike for about 55 minutes and the bike computer said I rode the equivalent of 20 miles. I find that kind of hard to believe, but I guess if I rode outside on a totally flat and windless surface maybe I could go that fast!

So that was a good time. Yesterday I ran 6 miles in the morning and went to the gym at lunch for 20 minutes of easy biking and some lifting. I am becoming somewhat obsessed with lifting because I think it will make my arms look nicer, and because I am sure it is good for my running, biking, and swimming.

I am feeling good this week and hopefully the spinning will not have too much of an impact on my workout tomorrow. I had been considering skipping it what with the huge snowstorm but since it didn't materialize I am planning on going.

This weekend is shaping up to be busy but thankfully not as crazy as most weekends have been lately. We have dinners tonight and tomorrow night, and I am going to a bridal shower on Sunday afternoon. So that is like nothing! Plus practice, a car wash as my car is surely hating life right now, and a long run. Boy, I just don't know what I'll do with all this free time!

Posted by barb at 1:41 PM | Comments (0)

April 11, 2007

it's been a good week so far

I am excited about this week in running. So far it has been a nice one - three days of reasonably good mileage, the prospect of getting some cross training in before class tonight, and a weekend that is not so insane that I can't possibly even do some swimming. Nice! I am feeling like I'm in pretty decent shape these days - and my Monday runs are getting a lot easier. For a while after I had started speed workouts and long runs again (on Saturday and Sundays respectively), my Monday runs were pretty much death marches. However, lately they have been feeling pretty good. This Monday I ran 8 miles and felt decent the entire time, after running 10 Sunday afternoon. Yesterday I was in Minnesota for work and ran 7 miles on the treadmill in the morning, and I ran 8.5 this morning as my mid-week long run. I also did something kind of embarrassing. I was just running along, lost in space mentally, and tripped on the sidewalk (they are kind of uneven sometimes and I guess I just wasn't picking up my feet very high), and went sprawling on my hands and knees. Whoops! I would not really have cared except that I ripped big holes in my cute little running gloves. I think they can be mended so I may take them over to my mom's tomorrow. I would not really care about getting that done but I guess we are getting 6-10 inches of snow on Friday, so I may need them.

Speaking of which I am a bit annoyed at our 'springtime' weather. What the heck! It is a bit late in April for a blizzard. But hey, I am all zen with my surroundings, and I like running in the snow. At least being so late in the spring the snow should melt fast and we will not be having weeks and weeks of running on the roads.

That is about all that's going on. I just finished my reading for class this week - The Woodlanders, which is the most depressing Thomas Hardy novel I have ever read, with the possible exception of Jude the Obscure. I am interested to see what my professor has to say about it. Not so interested that I am actually looking forward to trudging downtown tonight until 10:00, but you know, it is always better when you enjoy the assignment.

This weekend is shaping up to be very busy again, but I think I can start to see the light at the end of the tunnel. This summer is going to seem so quiet what with no wedding or school. I cannot wait! It will be the summer of tri and marathon training, so I will be busy, but it will all be fun stuff that will make me pretty jacked I think.

Anyway that is all of the news today.

Posted by barb at 2:50 PM | Comments (4)

April 6, 2007

it's raining!!

Oh I just love the rain. Every time it rains here (which is like three times a year) I miss New England so much. I remember the first time (I think it was fall of my freshman year) when it rained for like three days straight and it really rained, like heavy, big drops, and it was just incredible! So this morning when it was kind of misting through my whole run it was pretty sweet. I believe it will start snowing sometime today, but at least we got a little in the way of rain.

Anyway here is the week in running (going backwards):
Today: 4 miles easy in the rain, hooray!! I felt okay, not remarkably great or not great. I am proud of my restraint as I usually set out on Friday morning to run 4 miles but add on to have 5, because I am a mileage ho.
Thursday: 8 miles in a terrible wind. It was a good run but it was at that weird in between temperature (and the wind did not help at all) where you are either really hot or freezing cold.
Wednesday: 8 miles at 5:50 am, 25 minutes biking at the gym plus lifting at lunchtime. I had to read this ridiculous poetry for class, so I was reading on the bike but apparently did not retain much of what I read as I found it totally incomprehensible. I am a very bad Masters' student but I just could not get into Browning at all.
Tuesday: 7 miles in the morning. Unremarkable, felt pretty good, etc.
Monday: 7 miles in the morning. Did not feel that tired so that was good after a fairly strenuous weekend of running. Also biked for a little over an hour (17.5 miles) after work in a fierce wind.

You may notice that any run not done at 6:00 am was really windy. Basically in Colorado we do have four seasons, but we do not have spring - we just have the Windy season, in which it is very windy and temperatures fluctuate wildly between winter temperatures and summer temperatures. It is irritating. But I do feel that running in the wind makes me a bit stronger... well, maybe it does. I remember reading in Jack Daniels (whatever his famous book is) that wind is really a truly crappy running condition - it essentially does not help as much as it hurts.

This weekend is shaping up to be incredibly busy. Here is the preliminary schedule:
- Today - run to the mall at lunchtime to look at a second wedding dress (my wedding dress has become a big poofy disaster, so I am considering buying a second dress as a reception dress).
- Tomorrow -
1. Practice - track workout at 8:00. Hand in Chicago registration, woo hoo!! So exciting :)
2. Lift weights (my friend C. always lifts on our hard days, so I am going to give it a try also).
3. Dress fitting for the poofy monstrosity dress, get honest opinions of mothers and maids as to whether or not it really looks as bad as I think it does.
4. Lunch with my stepmom
5. Assorted errands, reading, school stuff
6. Go to Fort Collins for Easter Festivities

- Sunday -
1. Try to do long run in Fort Collins (I know there must be great running areas there, but Matt's parents do not live near them)
2. Easter festivities with Matt's family
3. Drive back to Denver
4. Drive to Castle Rock for Easter festivities with my family
5. Sleep!

It is tiring just thinking about it, but hopefully it will all get done. And I wonder why I don't blog as much anymore!

Posted by barb at 8:41 AM | Comments (2)

April 2, 2007

crazy week, beautiful springtime in denver

I am just loving Denver right now! Possibly even enough to stop obsessing for a while about moving to London and/or the East Coast. It is the nicest spring I can remember this year. Yesterday it was 70 degrees and sunny, and the forecast is the same for today. Great early morning running weather, and pretty solid afternoon biking weather as well. Sweet!

Anyway last week was a moderate cutback week (okay, I cut back by 2 miles from the week before, but I did not do a single speed workout). It was nice. I also started lifting again as I have restored my gym membership. That is excellent stuff, after hating lifting for many years I have finally decided that I missed it! Or maybe I just missed having my arms looking buff rather than flabby. But you know whatever it takes. None of my runs were too remarkable - just a pretty typical week of running. I had a very enjoyable 10 miler yesterday morning. The weather was delightful. I felt strong. I did have one of those unbearably sudden bathroom stops, but that is just one of the joys of running, right?! This morning I stretched my usual Monday recovery run from a little over 6 miles to about 7 miles. I was just feeling good and I did not feel that tired. Tonight after work I am meeting my friend M. for a bike ride.

We have a track workout this Saturday which is exciting. Also exciting is the fact that I should be handing in my Chicago registration to my coach Saturday so he can submit it. After my experience three years ago it is moderately surprising to me that I would want to run another marathon, but I'm actually pretty excited about it. I think the prospect of a BQ and a nice flat, fast course (and someone to run with) are all pretty exciting!

Posted by barb at 1:40 PM | Comments (2)