The Long Run

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October 31, 2004

"The Race"

As I indicated many times earlier this week, I had decided to participate in a race this morning. The agenda for it was not necessarily set in stone, but running it in some fashion was set in stone. There were a number of variables that affected how seriously this event was going to be taken.

The first variable was the two parties I was to attend last night. Since more water was consumed than alcohol, a hangover was not going to be a problem. In fact, sometimes I think having a drink, or two at the most, the night before a race can be relaxing. Eating was a problem last night. At the first party I had a small piece of tomato
pie and some pretzels. When I got to the second party I was still very hungry, so I ate two rolls and some more pretzels. I kept grazing all night since no real evening meal was consumed. This presented a problem becuase my stomach usually is not receptive to eating late at night when I have to run in the morning. I did get home early and went to bed, but I did not sleep very well because I kept thinking that I messed up on changing my clock.

A second variable that influenced how hard I was going to run was how my body felt. While we were warming up, I was very stiff and tight. I just could not feel fluid, so my goals were dropping pretty quickly. The last variable had to do with what other runners were in the race. On the starting line, J told me I should scrap the idea of running it at tempo pace and go for the win since there really was not any competition there. There was a youth track club who I knew was going to go out hard, but nobody else.

The eventual outcome was somewhere in between. I was able to win, although the youth girls did go out hard. One of them was trying to outsprint me in the first mile, but I didn't care since I could tell that there was no way that she would be able to hang on for 8.4 miles running the way she was. I never felt really good and I was never able to run with anyone else. I literally was alone. T from our group was one place in front of me, but he was almost a minute ahead of me. The next person behind me was at least a minute back. I ended up running my "shut down" race pace. Every race where I run by myself ends up being around 6:25-6:28 pace. The course was completely along the bicycle path that goes around the Schuykill River. The final half mile is very dangerous with cyclists, walkers, rollerbladers, and random others along it getting in the way. Much of the course had a coating of wet leaves over it that I could just see myself slipping and wiping out on. In retrospect, I'm happy enough with how I did. I was tenth overall and the first female. I was going to run anyhow, and I put out a good effort. Not eating a real dinner last night and having an extra hour in the morning did not make my legs feel any fresher. J had an awesome run, and managed to be the first master. A felt great, especially after hosting a party last night. T didn't feel so great either, but he forgot to set his clock back last night!

When we got there he kept asking us what took us so long. He already had his flats on and his race number pinned on his singlet. Then he was saying isn't the race supposed to start at 8:30, why aren't you guys ready to go yet, it's late. Then we told him what time it was and he almost died, he forgot to change his clock back and had done everything thinking it was an hour later than it really was.

I am suffering from some serious race frustration. Workouts have been going really well. Long runs have been good for the most part. My races, other than PDR, have been terrible. Beyond terrible, really. My times in races are nowhere near where they should be based on my training. I will admit that I have done a number of races in which I run alone. I know that I shut down and run a certain pace in those circumstances. That might be something I need to work on, but mentally I find it extremely difficult to continually push when there is nobody even in sight. I know that even all of the foam-rollering in the world will not fix all of the tightness and muscle fatigue that have set in, hopefully this massage on Tuesday will help. My ankle still starts to balk when I try to run fast in racing shoes (it's a little sore right now). I have a few more bigger races planned this year (an 8K, two 10K's, and an XC race) and maybe a fun 5K to try to run at least close to what I should be able to do. I need to get my head on straight before the final races of the season. One positive note is that I have been racing well, even if my times have not been spectacular. Most of these races have been in less than ideal conditions on tough courses, but I have been able to run smart races-not go out too fast, place well, finish strong etc...

Well, I want to watch the Eagles now and see if they can make it to 7-0. I also have to keep an eye on the Redskins, since their game may have an affect on the outcome of the election according to some statistic I heard on the radio the other day. I won't say what it is, since I know that there are some Skins fans out there...

Posted by Blondie at 12:44 PM | Comments (5)

October 30, 2004

Sleeping Late

After an extremely stressful week at work, I needed to sleep late. Usually I do my long run on Saturday at an obscenely early hour. It really is not that obscenely early, but it is early for a Saturday and lately it seems so much earlier since it has been dark for the first 20 minutes or so. In any case, my body needed some rest this weekend. For some reason, I was tossing and turning for quite a while and was up around 5:30, but I forced myself back to sleep and the next thing I knew, it was almost 9:30! The fact that it is gray and damp outside was a definitive factor in aiding my sleep.

Since there is an "event" tomorrow, I flipped my days this week. I am such a creature of habit that I don't like to do this, especially twice in one week. I did what is my usual Sunday run this morning. I went out very easy and just ran. No watch, no time-just easy running. My legs did not feel good, but they did not feel exactly bad either. The weather was strange, very damp and humid. I'm not sure if I was warm or not. I had on long sleeves and could not decide if I wanted to have on short sleeves or not.

I got home and started to do laundry. While the laundry's been going, I did a lot of work with the foam roller to try to alleviate some of the sore and tight areas. Right now I'm feeling better, but I'm going to work more with the roller later on this afternoon.

Tonight is the offical night to "fall back". Everyone remember that we get an extra hour of sleep tonight and don't forget to set your clocks back an hour before going to bed!

Posted by Blondie at 12:46 PM | Comments (0)

October 29, 2004

An Attempt at Ellipticalling

I don't know how all ya ellipticallers do it. Seriously, I don't know how you do it. Since I don't run on Fridays and it was kind of dreary out, I decided not to go for a walk. Instead I went to the gym this afternoon after work. My plan was to do the ellipitcal for about 45 minutes. I was on one for about 15 minutes and then accidentally reset the machine and I kept getting to spin too fast. I tried another kind of elliptical that the gym has (they have about 5 different varieties) and nearly fell off the machine three times in ten minutes. Really, my feet kept coming off the pedals and I almost fell. My balance is not the greatest, but I didn't think I would be so bad that I nearly fall off of crosstraining equipment. I was trying to read for a while, but I was having trouble being able to focus on what I was reading. I also needed to have my hands on the bars to keep my balance so that I really would not fall off the machine. For my safety, I finally ended up on the stationary bike for 35 minutes because there was no point in ending up with an injury trying to crosstrain in order to get the lactic acid out of my legs.

I was hungry all day since I did not really eat any dinner last night. I didn't sleep too well either, since I had a bite to eat before I went to bed. I never sleep well if I eat too close to going to bed.

Not too much else is new. Tomorrow night I get to be a social butterfly. I have two parties to go to. Of course, since I am "participating" in a race on Sunday there is no acting like a rock star. We do get an extra hour to recover, but there running a race with a hangover is never any fun. Tonight I plan to get to bed early. After such a stressful week at work, I need some pampering. I should paint my toenails and nails. My poor second toe on the right foot has a pretty, black toenail. I never walk around without my toes painted since there is usually at least one funky looking nail, but I took the polish off last weekend and have been too lazy to repaint them.

As far as my race plans for the weekend: right now, I am only planning on doing it for fun, but things may change on the starting line. If it looks like I can win, I may do more than just run it at tempo pace. Generally, I would like to not think of it as a race so that I don't freak out. Anyhow, it is an odd distance. There is nothing to compare it to. Some years it brings out some real studs and other years there is nobody in it, so we shall see.

Hope everyone enjoys their extra hour of weekend!

Posted by Blondie at 5:57 PM | Comments (0)

October 28, 2004

The Bad, but Good, Habit

Recently I've fallen into the bad habit of going out for drinks after the Thursday night workout. This is bad for me because I usually do not order food when we're out. I'm picky and don't eat meat which makes for slim pickings on any menu. I also have to be very careful with salads, again making ordering out difficult given the issues of pickiness and no meat. I tend to gorge myself on pretzels, which happen to be one of my favorite foods. This is good for me since I have fallen into the contentedly-single trap. I'm just happy with who I am and where I am and don't mind being single anymore. Going out with some of the track folk on Thursday night forces me to be social and to interact with other people.

This evening's workout was a strange one for me. Due to participating in race this weekend, we flipped our workouts for the week. Tonight we were supposed to to 8-12 x 400 with a 200 jog. Since my plan (which I may or may not stick to) for Sunday is to run at "tempo" pace, I was supposed to do more quarters. I probably should have done closer to 16, but since I have not done more than 8 on any week this year, I stuck to 12. I ended up doing all but the last 3 by myself because the annoying guy was there and I knew not to run with him because it is more important for me to run at pace than to race every single interval. J suggested to aim for 14 at 90+, I did 12 and held 89-90 for every one. These are actually a little bit faster due to the barrier up on the track. I lose all the momentum I have when I come to the barrier because my vision is so bad that I think that I am going to run right into the barrier.

My ankle was feeling much better today which was another reason that I did not want to push myself too hard tonight. I want to get this thing healed up ASAP. Six weeks is just too long to be running like a gimp. Sunday may or may not turn into a race effort for me. Either way I can't do the Monday workout, so I'll see how I feel once I get moving. I have a massage scheduled for Tuesday which should definitely help how I've been feeling the past couple of days. The day off tomorrow should be extremely beneficial.

I am so happy to hear that I'm not the only one out there who deals with inattentive drivers! I have actually been clipped a few times (none of which were my fault). Whenever I see a runner or a cyclist, I always make sure to give them lots of room on the road because I believe that what goes around comes around!

Posted by Blondie at 9:32 PM | Comments (0)

October 27, 2004

Please stop the mudslinging!

One thing I absolutely loathe about election years are the constant commercials, mailings, phone calls etc... Even though we signed up for the do not call list, we still get political phone calls from "nonprofit organizations" who support one candidate or another. The presidential campaign has been particularly ugly this year. One would think that none of the candidates could even be civil towards each other if forced. One of our local primaries was just as ugly, but it has significantly settled down because most of the mudslinging there was based within one party. After next week, I won't know what to do when every commercial is not for a politician. OK, enough of how annoyed I am with the campaigns...

Leilani, I try to get a good amount of fiber in my diet. The GI who I saw two years ago inquired about that, but he thought that my diet did pretty well on fiber. Jenandmats, I know I'm not alone, and I'm amazed that your marathon PR included a potty stop. Meghan, thank you for thinking about me, I'm doing much better today. So far, they think that this student may have been an innocent bystander.

I could have sworn it was May today. The sun actually made an appearance here today. We have had those dark, gray, dreary fall days for the better part of two weeks. At one point this afternoon it was very sunny. By the time I got out to run, it was partly sunny. It was also a touch warmer than it has been for the past few days. Although it was 60 degrees out, I wore long sleeves since I am a pansy and am always cold. I don't know how some of y'all wear shorts until it gets into the 30s! When it starts to dip under 40, I usually have at least an ear warmer on, if not a hat.

Wednesday is supposed to be an easy recovery day. The body was feeling much better today and I may pay for it tomorrow. Hey, you've got to take the good days when they come along! I did have to make a potty stop around 3.75 miles, but at least today there was a bathroom when I needed it. For the past few days I have been noticing how beautiful the colors of the leaves are. I hate to say that they are starting to fall off quite a bit. The one really bad part about this season is the allergies that go along with the leaves. My nose seems to be sniffly all the time. I ended up with 7 miles in 46:30.

Now I need to rant again. I don't know how many of you run in rather suburban areas. One of the developments I run through has a stop sign that I swear nobody ever stops for. This afternoon some guy was going right through it and saw me, then proceeded to give me a dirty look, as if I was doing something wrong! Buddy, pedestrians do have the right of way! This little intersection really scares me since cars fly right through it and don't even look to see if anyone is coming. I think that I'm taking my life into my own hands each day when I go for my run.

Posted by Blondie at 7:17 PM | Comments (3)

October 26, 2004

There's Something About Tuesday

When I arrived at work this morning, I received some very bad news about one of my former students. I had seen it very briefly in the newspaper before I left for work, but the name had not been released at that time. One of the police officers who works our school stopped by to let us know that some of the students may be pretty upset. To say the least, I was pretty upset. This student was by no means a model student, but he was so young.

Although I was exhausted this afternoon, I really needed to get out there and clear my mind. Since it is Tuesday it means two things:
1. it's supposed to be my back-up long run
2. my stomach is not going to like having my lunch in it.
Like any good runner who is a creature of habit, both of these things were true this afternoon. The forecast was for partly sunny, but it looked like impending rain all day, you just can't trust those weathermen! Overall, I felt pretty decent-not great, not terrible. A bit on the tired side, but that is to be expected the day after a workout. My quads are quite sore, I think that I'm going to make a call for a massage next week when I have a day off from work. Now onto my stomach. Anyone who has ever run with me can attest to the fact that I have problems with it. Today was not quite as bad as last week when I had to stop at the port-o-pot. Well, maybe I take that back, it was pretty close. Today the feeling did not hit me until further into the course. When it hit, it hit hard and I knew that I was in trouble. I was past the only facility on my course, so I had to get creative and find some shubbery to hide in. Once that was taken care of I knew that I'd be able to finish the course.

Since I really wanted to have a chance to think, I just took my time today. I know that the stomach issues did affect my pace early on. One of my goals today was to reflect and think which I got a chance to do. These are the kinds of runs that make me realize that I could never live without running.

My abs are so sore!! Since the core workouts had been slacking some, I did two hard workouts over the weekend. I think that I may have overdone it because yesterday it hurt to just breathe deeply. Today is a little bit better, but there is still some soreness. I'm making an effort to lift twice a week now instead of one time per week, so I went to the gym and did a light upper body circuit. I prefer to not really rest between sets, so I move quickly from one exercise to the next. It seems to give a better workout in less time, but it could just be me.

Tomorrow is Hump Day!!

Posted by Blondie at 7:42 PM | Comments (16)

October 25, 2004

Only one more week...

of candy corn. Even though you can buy the stuff all year long, I only allow myself to eat it during October. I realize that it goes on sale the day after Halloween, but I can't let myself eat it during November or the rest of the year. It really is the only seasonal candy that I get excited about eating. By limiting consumption to only a short period of time, I can truly savor it and look forward to it the following year.

I was wiped out today when I got home from work. I woke up before the alarm went off this morning. That usually is not too bad of a thing, but when it is 4:00 and you don't have to get up until 5:30 and can't get back to sleep, well, it's just a little bit on the early side. Not that 5:30 is exactly sleeping in. I tried to nap for a little bit in the afternoon, but just could not fall asleep.

After I worked on the foam roller for a few minutes, I headed over to the track. We actually started on time for once. We're supposed to head out on the warm-up at 5:30, but usually don't get started until more like 5:40. J made the decision that since a bunch of us are supposed to go to a race on Sunday that we should flip our workouts for the week, meaning do the longer intervals tonight and the shorter intervals on Thursday. This meant that we were doing 5 x 1000 with a 600 jog to make counting easy. Ideally these should be right around 10K pace. The track now has two barriers up out over the inside four lanes, one in each curve. We believe that these affect each quarter by at least 2, if not 3 seconds. Anyhow, my quads were quite tender from this weekend. I think that it is actually from running slower than I usually do on the downhill portion of the course. I was not too sure how these 1000s were going to feel. The first two I hit in 3:43 (take at least 5 seconds off, a bit on the fast side), the next 3 when I felt pretty beat up were pretty much right on target at 3:49. The 600 recoveries were quick, as I usually do. The one guy who jogs around in the football field was there and jumped in with me for numbers 2 and 3, but then jumped in on the two guys who were running a little in front of me for numbers 4 and 5. Mentally, this was a very difficult workout because I was running on my own and I was not feeling too fresh. Including warm-up and warm-down, the night came to 10 miles.

Since I only plan on doing the race on Sunday as a tempo effort, not a race effort, Thursday is not as much of a cutdown workout. I'll still do the shorter intervals, but I'll do more of them than everyone else. Tonight, I was probably the only person who was running the intervals at anything close to 10K pace. J said that his were closer to 5K pace and the two guys who were running in front of me were much closer to 5K pace. In the past year, I have gotten much better about trying to do my longer intervals at the right pace. Running them way faster than race pace does not help me that much. I have to get my body used to doing the pace I want to shoot for in a race. I think that I'm going to be doing a 10K in two weeks and would like to average just under 6s for the race. If I tried to do these 1000s much faster than I did it would not help me for the race.

Now I need to catch up on what everyone is up to. Only 8 more days until election day (and a day off from work for me!)

Posted by Blondie at 8:07 PM | Comments (0)

October 24, 2004

Striking Out

Yesterday's shopping trip was a strike out. There were so many great bargains, but nothing was flattering. There was definitely a case of having poor body image going on. Clothes shopping can be difficult. I didn't used to have the pants problem, but I seem to getting it now. Pants that fit in the waist are a little snug in the thighs. I have always suffered from the leg length problem-pants that fit in the waist are floods on me. No new clothes. Not that it is bad, I defintely saved some money. Going out wasn't too much better. My stomach was funny all day and the half glass of wine I drank was not helping matters. It sat in my stomach and made me feel pukey. No cute guys either. It was so embarassing for S and I when we were going in. The place is a trendy restaurant/bar. A family was leaving when we were heading in and the mother said to us, "there are lots of cute guys in there for you". We didn't think that we looked that desparate!

Seeing as last night was a very early night, this morning was not too bad. I slept in, as I always do on Sunday. On Sundays, I never head straight out the door to run. My body needs to wake up some, so I hang out and watch TV, stretch, whatever for about 40 minutes before I try to go out the door. Since there was definitely some stiffness from yesterday's long run, I stretched and used the foam roller some to really work the extra tight spots before I hit the road. The temperature was still cool this morning, but not as damp as yesterday. No watch, as usual for Sunday, this is the super-duper easy run of the week. My legs felt suprisingly good considering yesterday's 17 miler. There was some residual tightness, but nothing really bad. Some general fatigue, but again nothing more than should be expected. In fact, there was less tightness and fatigue than I expected. The two major road crossings were taken advantage of to stretch some of the funny feeling spots, but I have felt much worse on my Sundays.

This week has been one of my higher mileage weeks this year. I hit 59, I rarely go over 60. Considering I have been on the brink of falling apart for much of the fall this is a solid week. In retrospect, the races I've done are amazing. I've barely been able to do any workouts because of the stupid ankle problem. I know that I should not have done the grass loops the night I fell, something about doing them did not feel right at the time. There are four or five more weeks of training and racing before my long break time. I'll take a week off from running and then do pure easy base work for several weeks. Hopefully during this time the ankle completely heals and I can come back full force for the spring season.

Posted by Blondie at 11:23 AM | Comments (5)

October 23, 2004

Wearing Pants and not Ashamed

When it comes to cold weather, I'm a pansy. Really. I am notorious for wearing at least 2 pairs of tights, 3 shirts, a fleece, a jacket, a hat, and 2 pairs of gloves on a single run. Due to such layering strategies, I have an extensive wardrobe of running attire. My philosophy is that it is easier to take off a layer of clothes in the middle of nowhere than to suddenly fabricate a layer in the middle of nowhere.

This morning when I woke up, it was 44 degrees out. It was also very dark. I can't wait to "fall back" next weekend! So, debating which items of clothing to put on, I decided that I'd wear shorts with a pair of loose fit running pants over top. It felt a little bit bulky, but given my coldness I could live with a bit of discomfort. I finished off with a long sleeve shirt and a pair of gloves. I was so happy that I had on the long pants since the temperature felt like it dropped some on the course.

The course is an "out and back". The first 8 miles out have a few rolling hills, but is mainly a long gradual downhill. As the elevation dropped, the temperature felt like it was dropping as well. I was running with A, C, and P. Around 4 miles I knew that I was going to need a potty stop at the gas station at the turnaround. We got there in just about 58 minutes, which is slow for me. I was trying to run with the group, but A and C felt that the pace was a little too fast for what they wanted to do. I usually get to this point around 56 minutes when I'm running this course alone. So I made my potty stop (the decaf I drank on an empty stomach yesterday afternoon was not a good idea). The way back is a long, gradual uphill. Actually about a mile of it is a rather steep uphill. I've done this course enough times to know that if I'm running slower the uphills are more difficult. It's more taxing on my body to run slower, or out of my comfort zone, than it is to run faster. I had to run my pace, so I ended up running alone for the second 8 miles on the way back. I got back to the parking lot in 1:53 and change for the 16 mile course. Since I'm a sucker for nice, round numbers, I ran around the parking lots until my watch read exactly 2:00. In all, a total of about 17 miles for the morning.

I was happy with the attire I decided on for the day. I took of my gloves for the six minutes or so that I ran around in the parking lots. Other than perhaps the last few minutes I was very comfortable, temperature wise.

I taped my ankle up before I went out. I swear that it makes the biggest difference in how I feel. The only problem with doing so is that the tape is cutting up my left heel. I couldn't find my Neosporin to lube it up so that it does not get aggravated.

After the run I headed over to the gym and rode the stationary bike for an hour. I stretched some because I could feel that I was getting very tight and then I lifted. When I got home I rolled around on my new best friend, the foam roller, and then worked some with The Stick. I plan to do some more later in the afternoon when I can feel some more of the tightness. Taking yesterday completely off was definitely a good choice for my beat up body.

This afternoon I'm going shopping with S. Then tonight we're going to go out wearing our new finds and try to meet some nice, single men!

Posted by Blondie at 1:29 PM | Comments (0)

October 22, 2004

Getting Ticked Off

Last night I felt like doodie. It was cool and damp, in fact it started to drizzle on us a little bit about half way through the track workout. I think that the first sentence pretty much sums up my night. I don't want to write too much about it because I don't want to dwell on the negative.

The workout was one that I usually kind of like. It is usually kind of hard for me since you get a full recovery. I'm really used to running without long recoveries and keeping the jog pretty quick. We were supposed to do 1600-1200-800-400 with a 800 jog between each one. My splits were really pretty lame. I don't even know what I did the 1600 in since I had never cleared out my watch from the day before, so I didn't time the mile. I knew about 500 meters into it that it was not going to be a pleasant evening.

To make matters worse, one of the men was not running the recoveries. He would finish each interval and then just jog back and forth on the long jump runway and then jump in and race me on each interval. It was just a big slap in the face when you already feel bad and some guy is actually trying to race you. It makes me really mad when some of the guys who train with us pull this kind of stunt and then go and brag that they beat so-and-so.

Yesterday my ankle didn't feel so hot. I ran out of tape in the morning and didn't get to buy any until after school. It just felt really stiff and tight when I was trying to run fast. I had it taped all day today and it feels much better right now. I was going to cross train some, but given how poor I felt last night, I decided it was not in my best interest.

I know that the schedule I try to follow every week was significantly off this week. I think that having a really good run on Wednesday affected me last night. K and I went out for drinks afterward since I had a really hard week at work. There was no repeat performance from last week. I got home in time to watch CSI and Without a Trace. I let myself stay up late on Thursday night since there are actually some shows I like on TV and there is only one day at work left to suffer.

I hope that everyone enjoys their weekends!!

Posted by Blondie at 7:01 PM | Comments (5)

October 20, 2004

Finally...Back to Normal

Today I finally felt like myself again. I went out this afternoon with no agenda for my run. I did not make a decision on how far I was going to go until I had to, around the five mile point in the run. If I was feeling good, I would go longer, if I was feeling awful I would go straight home.

This morning I woke up five minutes before the alarm went off. Instead of taking advantage of that time and just laying in bed, I got up and got into the shower. I took advantage of the extra time to tape my ankle. It felt much better during the day. I made sure to take off my left boot and elevate my foot every now and then during the day. Of course this couldn't happen too much because the kids were absolutely crazy. I think that the extra support on it helped.

I kept the tape on while I was out running and it really was not bothering me. My stride felt fluid and my breathing felt so easy. No run can ever be perfect, so my stomach decided to act up. Just around 3 miles I knew that I would need to find a bathroom, soon. Lucky for me, there is a port-o-pot along the golf course just over a half mile down the road. I used that one, but it did not completely take care of the problem. About 20 minutes further I was having the same problem with no bathroom nearby. I had to stop for a minute to let the feeling in the pit of my stomach pass. For those of you who read my blog regularly, this is not an uncommon problem for me. I even ate my lunch earlier than normal to try to prevent this from happening today. Since everything else was going well, I decided to run 9 this afternoon. I finished in 58 and change which reinforces that my 15K the other weekend was a really, really bad day.

I really tried to think positive thoughts throughout the day today. Work sometimes really gets to me and affects other aspects of my life. Tomorrow night is track night. We may go out afterwards again, but it will be nothing like it was last week. Tomorrow is the day before Friday!! Everyone enjoy!

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

October 19, 2004

Another "Ugh Day" Down the Drain

As I wrote last week, I really struggle with Tuesdays. They are much harder for me than Mondays. Today was definitely and "ugh day". It has been cool, damp, and dreary with off and on rain all day. Not exactly the kind of weather that makes me jump up and down because I want to go outside and run in it.

Yesterday I said that I knew I had to take it easy today after racing Sunday and attempting some kind of track work last night. I had this pipe dream that I'd be able to run an easy nine miles today. After all, Tuesday is my mid-week longer run day and I am a creature of habit, I don't like changing my days around. My legs balked at the idea of doing 9 miles this afternoon. In fact, they hardly wanted to run. Well, I should rephrase that, my stomach did not want me to be running. In addition to having stomach issues today, my ankle was feeling stiffer than usual. It's been feeling better in the mornings (not as stiff when I crawl out of bed) but has been feeling worse when I've been running for the past few days.

There were periods during my run where I felt decent, never good, but tolerable. Then there were the other periods (when I would have to stop) because I felt so bad. About a mile from home, I had to sit down on the street to take off my left shoe and massage my ankle. Of course as soon as I did that the rain started up again. The last part of my run involves crossing a somewhat larger road. Just my luck it was rush hour and I could not get accross the road for several minutes while I stood there in the rain.

I went to the gym and rode the stationary bike for 40 minutes and then did a light lifting session. If I feel better tomorrow, which I certainly hope that I do, I can always do my longer run then. I think that I need to stretch more than I have been. The foam roller has been helping me, but I still feel tight.

I know that right now I need to have a more positive outlook. For the past few weeks I've been very discouraged. Some workouts have been going really well, yet my race results have not really indicated the kind of shape that I'm in. I keep running races on days with not the greatest conditions. Some of my workouts are significantly better than my races have been. I know that I race my best when I'm surrounded by other people, which most definitely has not been the case in the past few races. I also know that I'm heavier than I was this time last year when I was racing really well. I just can not seem to lose those few pounds I gained. You know it's really bad when people tell you that you look good with a "little bit of meat on your bones". I really try not to obsess over these things, but that is really the only thing that I can tell is making a difference this year. My mantra for tomorrow is to think positive thoughts.

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

October 18, 2004

What Was I Thinking?

I have no idea what I was thinking yesterday when I thought that I'd be able to do quarters the day after a race. Sure, it was more of an up-tempo effort than a race, but it was still a hard run and a lot of miles for the day.

I didn't feel particularly bad when we were warming, but I did not feel particularly fresh either. We got on the track and I asked what I should do, the response was to basically see how I feel. I was aiming to hit 12 of them, but not to try to burn up the track, more of a half-marathon type pace. The barrier is still up on the top curve of the track, so you still have to veer around it. The first two I ran with J and D, but I was running my recovery so much faster than they were, so I ended up by myself. On the sixth interval my quads started to feel tight, so I stopped and stretched for a minute. I willed my self to do 2 more so that I could at least get 8 in. I didn't really time any of them since I didn't want them to be too fast. I know that they were all right around 95. After I finished I stretched for a minute and then jogged a mile while everyone else finished their workouts. I ended up with a total of nine miles for the night. I know that I have to take it very easy tomorrow and wednesday.

My ankle felt really tight tonight. I don't know if it is because I forgot to take Advil yesterday or because I did a lot of running on it yesterday. It could also have to do with wearing my racing flats yesterday. I'm icing it right now and I'm going to do some self-massage on it tonight while I watch some TV.

Not much else is new. I spent the day training a new employee at work. I'll probably be teaching her what to do for most of the week.

Posted by Blondie at 8:04 PM | Comments (0)

October 17, 2004

Short & Easy in the PM

This afternoon, partly because I was bored and partly since I felt like I've been lazy this week, I went out for a short run. I only did 3 miles and the whole time, though I felt fine, I kept thinking "keep it easy, you don't want to screw up for your workout tomorrow night". I didn't even wear my watch. My legs didn't feel beat up at all, though I don't want to jinx myself for tomorrow night.

I'm going to play with my new toys tonight while I watch "Cold Case". My back could benefit quite a bit from my foam roller right now. Tomorrow I'll probably only do 3/4 of the workout. We have 16 x 400 on tap, which may be quite a bit for the day after a race.

Posted by Blondie at 6:59 PM | Comments (0)

Go Figure

Yesterday I needed to do laundry so that my racing outfit would be clean for today's race. I like to hang my laundry outside on the line since the dryer has not been too nice to some of my running clothes. As I'm sitting folding my socks, I hear raindrops hitting the porch roof with all of my clothes out on the line!! I had to run outside and rescue my clothes from getting soaked again. There was not too much damage, the rain had just started and most of the clothes were almost dry. I felt like a housewife from the 1950s.

When I woke up this morning to go to the race, I turned on the TV to see the weather. I was not a happy camper when the weatherman said that it was about 40 degrees out with strong, gusty winds. I do not run well with wind. I'd packed most of my bag last night, but I added a few more pieces of dry clothing this morning. My racing flats are in the garage and I almost forgot them on my way out the door. Not that I would have cared because I absolutely hate my new racing shoes. The drive up was pretty uneventful since the race was about 25 minutes away from my house.

I got there and registered. This is a small race and is geared more towards walkers, but it gives a good amount of money to the top three overall men and women. It is never a good sign at a race when they are having the bagels, donuts, and coffee before the start of the race, instead of after. I ran this race last year and remembered that the course is somewhat confusing. It runs through local neighborhoods and has lots of turns. In fact, you make turns that do not go the way you think you should be going. I ran the course as a warm-up. I timed it and could not believe that it took so long, but then I realized that I had not cleared out my watch from yesterdays run! I met up with K who lives nearby and has been running track workouts with us for a few weeks and we hung out at my car to stretch, change shoes, etc. We stashed all of our stuff in my car since I was parked right next to the finish line. A few minutes before the start, I stripped down to my long bra top and shorts. I kept my gloves on since my hands were freezing. Actually, I was freezing. Some guy at the starting line kept offering me a jacket since I was shivering so much.

They were going to play the national anthem, but the race directors felt so bad for all of us shivering on the starting line that they just started us. The start goes downhill out of a driveway and then makes two kind of sharp turns, left out of the driveway and then an immediate sharp right into a development. As with almost every road race, kids went out flying and I was getting pushed around. I spent about the first half mile as the fifth woman. Around the mile mark (I couldn't find a 1 on the ground, but I saw it last year so I have a vague idea of where it should be) I tried to pass the woman who was in third. She put up a big fight, so I waited a little bit. About 300 meters later when we made another turn, I surged a little bit and she couldn't go with me. I picked off a few guys from this point in, but I was pretty much running by myself into the wind.

In the last mile, I was closing in on two guys who were in front of me. I could still see the woman who was in second, but she was not in striking distance. She qualified for the marathon trials and won this race last year. The two guys were getting closer, they were pretty much moving backwards, but they had been so far in front of me that I could not catch them. The finish went down a gradual downhill, then made a sharp left turn into a steep uphill driveway. I finished in 19:07. I really was not too happy with the time and the worst part was that I felt really strong and good the entire race.

K and I went over to my car, changed back into our training shoes and went on a warm-down. Since he lives nearby, he led me around. We were both complaining about how slow our times were. He finished 4th overall, but he was all by himself too. It seemed like the entire warm-down was uphill. Our pace was pretty quick for the warm-down. We went for just over 20 minutes, I was feeling pretty tired by the time we got back to the start/finish area. I need to attribute that to the fact that we ran so many uphills

I need to take the time in context today. The girl who won last year and finished second today ran 17:35 last year and 18:20 today. Last year I ran 18:20 and 19:07 today. It was not nearly as windy last year as it was today. I think that the men's times were slower accross the board as well today.

We hung out at the awards. I was looking for some coffee, but it was all gone. I wanted something warm to drink because even though I had changed into dry clothes, I was still shivering in the wind. I had to get my check ($150) and picture taken with the other women. I really should not complain that I did not run well since I still got some money. I made the drive home with the heat cranked all the way up and then got right into the shower and used all of the water in the hot water heater.

I think that I might run a very easy 2-3 miles later on this afternoon. I feel like I have not done anything this week. I never run doubles, but I want to get my track workout in tomorrow night. I think that if I can run really easy this afternoon and stretch well it might shake some of the lactic acid out of my legs.

I've been thinking now about what I want to do for the rest of this year. I'm planning on running the Rothman 8K which is part of the Philadelphia Marathon the weekend before Thanksgiving. Our club has an XC race the Saturday after Thanksgiving that I have to run (I don't enjoy this one, I hate running XC). Other than that, we were thinking about doing a club race on Halloween that is a very odd distance. I don't know if I'm going to do this race seriously or just run it for fun with the group. The first weekend in November there are two races I'm considering. One is 5 miles and the other is 10K. Both races have prize money. The 10K has deeper and more money, but chances are that I won't finish in the money based on previous results. The 5 miler has less money, but I won it two years ago when it was a 5K. I'm going to think this over for the next few days and then make a decision. J wants me to run the alumni XC race at the county meet that weekend, but I have no desire to run it. It is free, but it does not start until noon and running XC is not very nice to my tender ankle.

The ankle was feeling pretty sore by the end of the day yesterday. I wore new shoes on my run in the morning and I don't think they were tied tight enough, so my ankle was wobbling around then whole time I was running. It didn't hurt too much today, but I still iced it when I got home from the race.

Posted by Blondie at 12:52 PM | Comments (2)

October 16, 2004

Nutrition

I admit that I do not have the best body image/relationship with food. Every day I walk a very fine line. Many times I don't make the best food choices (candy corn, for example). A great deal of my issues comes from my childhood, I frequently got sick after I ate so I don't eat much because I associate eating with getting sick. Although I still struggle with it, I make an effort to eat meals with regularity. I've found what will work for me and eat pretty much the same foods at the same times every day. Since I run in the afternoons during the week, I usually eat small meals for breakfast and lunch (my stomach balks very easily) and a larger dinner after I run. As a result of skipping dinner on Thursday night, Friday was not pretty. Having my lunch taken made it even worse. I essentially went from dinner on Wednesday night until dinner on Friday night without a larger meal.

This morning I paid dearly for my nutritional mistakes. My tank was literally on "E". I've had this happen before and know what the cause is. My legs weren't tight, my lungs felt fine, my heartrate was not particularly high-I just had no energy. I thought that I wanted to run 80-90 minutes, but by 25 minutes or so I knew that was not going to be realistic. Lucky for me, most of the group was looking to run 60-70 minutes. The problem with most of our Saturday morning courses is that the shorter courses have the awful hills while the longer courses tend to be flatter. In other words, I may not have run as hard, but I had to pay for it with the hills. I actually had to stop, stretch out, and reset myself about 10 minutes from the finish of the course. My body just could not go anymore. The guy who I was running with ran his first marathon last Sunday and wasn't feeling too good himself, so he stopped with me and we were able to finish

I've found that, at least for me, it is harder to run slowly than to run my regular pace and stop when I need to. If I'm running any slower than 7:15 to 7:30 pace, it feels worse. When I'm feeling really bad, I'll go as long as I can at that pace, stop and stretch, then return to my regular pace. My form seems to alter too much when I slow down that it feels much worse and harder for me to run.

After I got done running, I did my usual Saturday morning stationary bike ride and lifting. This time the gym did have some nice trashy magazines for me to read while I was on the bike. I read Star weekly and got caught up on most of my celebrity gossip. It isn't like I really need to know who's dating who, but maybe one of these days it will come in handy. I also did my Saturday morning ice bath routine. It's getting harder to do it now since it's getting colder.

On the topic of being cold. I've decided that it isn't that I'm always cold, I just like to be warm. I was freezing this morning. I don't know how some of you out there wear shorts until it's in the 30s out. It was 50 degrees this morning and I considered wearing thin tights. I never got warm, in fact I was borderline comfortable.

In light of the fact that I only ran 8.5 to 9 miles this morning, I am almost positive that I'm going to race tomorrow morning. Hopefully there won't be too many fast runners at this race and I can do it more as a tempo effort. Since I raced last weekend, that means I'm doing laundry to get my racing outfit clean again. Laundry is a chore I absolutely loathe. I hope that I can get a long warm-up and long warm-down in to make up for my shortened long run today. I'm not too obsessed with my mileage because the base is there, but I do like to get a few longer efforts in each month.

Posted by Blondie at 12:49 PM | Comments (0)

October 15, 2004

Late Night

Yesterday, as usual, was the "longer interval" night at the track. Earlier in the day, I was concerned about even being able to run at night, much less do a workout. When I woke up for work it was pouring. In fact, it poured for most of the day. It was raining so hard that I would not have gone out to run in it. I don't mind some rain, but very heavy rain is another story.

Anyhow, I got there and we had a really small group. For some reason, Thursdays have less runners show up. We did our usual warm-up, which I never time, but I've been told that it is right about 2.5 miles. The workout was 4 x 1600 with an 800 jog. This week was supposed to still be "push and cruise" so the jogs are still on the quick side. Next week we do a workout where the jogs are slower, but I digress. There were actually two guys running with me. I wrote about one of them earlier, he'll sit on my shoulder and then race the last 200 meters. He was driving me crazy on the first interval. He kept coughing and moaning during it. Anyhow, he's racing Saturday morning, so he didn't do the full workout and decided that he wanted to really let it rip for a while. The other guy who I was running with and I didn't mind at all and just let him go. On the third mile, another guy who has never ever finished a workout with the group decided to jump in after the first 400 and push the pace since he had fresh legs. Believe me, I was ticked. One of my pet peeves in our group is the people who do selective workouts, jump in and out and then ask why you don't want to race the last interval.

OK, enough b*tching about how much other people at the track got me mad last night. The school had the one barrier up, so we had to run out to lane 4 on the top turn. I find that it stops most of my momentum when I have to veer out and then make the sharp turn back into the inside lane. My times are all a little bit slower because of this, but I would have been happy with these splits without the barrier up. I hit the 1600s in 6:10, 6:07, 6:10 and 6:15. All of my recoveries were around 3:43 for the 800 so I did keep the pace up on the jog. In the middle of the third mile, the annoying guy says "geez you really know how to pace, we've been dead on for each of these". I'll take it as a compliment, but then he dropped the hammer about 100 meters later. I don't check my splits at each quarter since I want to learn what the pace feels like without having constant feedback because you can't check at every 400 meters in a road race. The guy who I was running with said we took the last 1600 out in over 3:10 so it would have been faster. We finished up with the 2.5 mile warm-down for a total of 11 miles for the night.

After the workout a bunch of us went out for drinks. Stupid me who rarely drinks had a few drinks on an empty stomach and never ate dinner. The end of the night was not really pretty. To make matters worse, I took a nap yesterday afternoon and when I set the alarm for this morning, I set it for PM not AM. I woke up for work at 6:45 when I need to be there by 7:00. I made a quick call to let them know I overslept and would be in soon. Thankfully, I live pretty close, so traffic wasn't too bad. I took a quick shower, threw on some clothes, dried my hair, made my coffee, and made it to work at 7:20. By lunch time I was starving, so I went down to the kitchen to get my yogurt and it was gone! A girl who I work with thought it was hers and opened it, licked the lid, said yuck and gave it away. She didn't even look at the flavor to know that it was not hers. Of course I would not have eaten it after she licked the lid, that is so nasty.

Today is my regularly scheduled day off. Since it is pretty gross out and I'm pretty beat from my wild night I decided not to do any cross-training. I'm playing with the idea of jumping in a 5K on Sunday. My legs feel pretty good, so I might do a not quite as long as usual run tomorrow and then race on Sunday. Tonight I am definitely not doing anything, last night was a night out enough for a few weeks!

Posted by Blondie at 4:31 PM | Comments (0)

October 13, 2004

New Toys

Several weeks ago Alison had suggested a foam roller to help with muscle tightness. I just got around to ordering it last week and it came today. While I was at it, I ordered a new Swiss ball since I thought the one I had is kinda flimsy. I had so much fun playing with my foam roller this afternoon after my run! The tops of my quads are really tight and I probably wouldn't have really noticed it if I didn't get the roller. I'm going to have my dad help me with inflating my new ball since he likes to feel useful.

My run today felt much better than it did yesterday. I ended up running with K who I haven't seen in a long time. We used to run together frequently, but she has other priorities in her life right now. It was really nice to run with someone else and just relax. I ended up doing the same course as yesterday, but I turned off my watch as soon as I ran into K. I would rather have the company than push myself too hard on an easy day. I know that if I had been by myself I would have pushed too hard and not be able to do my track workout tomorrow night. Unfortunately, the weather gods are going to turn on us tomorrow. We've had beautiful weather for about two weeks now. They're calling for heavy rain on Thursday and Friday.

Not too much else is new. I'm getting ready to go out shopping with my mom for a little bit. We need to go to Bed, Bath, & Beyond and Trader Joe's. I need to get some of my cinnamon Puffins. I don't even put them in milk, I just eat them right out of the box!

Posted by Blondie at 7:07 PM | Comments (2)

October 12, 2004

A Case of the Blahs

Today was one of those blah days. The blahs won out too. I think it's because it is Tuesday. Sometimes I think that Tuesdays are the hardest day of the week. On Monday, you just had the weekend. On Wednesday you keep thinking that after the day is done, the week is almost over. On Tuesday there just isn't much to look forward to, or to catch up on. At least this is how I felt all day today. It could also have to do with the sea of negativity surrounding me today at work as one of the miserable women was out yesterday and came back today.

My run definitely was suffering from the blahs. I try to do my mid-week longer run on Tuesday. I had planned to do my 10 mile loop this afternoon. I got out and my legs just felt, flat. Not really bad or heavy, just flat. The further I went, they started to feel more and more tired. I made the executive decision to abort the longer run and just do 8. I had already added on the first extra loop, so I decided to skip the second addition. This course really is closer to nine miles, but I call it my 8 mile course. Towards the end my ankle was feeling stiff. Since the swelling is gone and it doesn't hurt most of the time, I've been slacking about icing it. I also didn't take anything for it today. If I feel better tomorrow, I can do my longer run then.

Afterwards I went to the gym and rode the stationary bike for half an hour. I was ticked because there were no trashy magazines to read, so I was bored to death. I did a light lifting session and then went to the drugstore and bought some candy corn! Tonight I have to do a good core workout. When I was getting dressed this morning I noticed some of those awful love handles that I had gotten rid of by doing good core workouts. Lately I've been letting those workouts slip since school started again.

Posted by Blondie at 7:43 PM | Comments (1)

October 11, 2004

Candy Corn Withdrawl

I haven't had a chance to replenish my stash of candy corn. Yesterday I was planning on running into the grocery store and picking up candy corn among other essential foods when my friend S called and said that she was on her way over and wanted to go shopping. We went to Anthropologie instead. She shopped, I just looked because I couldn't justify buying something that I can't either run in or wear to work. So now I'm going on four days with none of the sweet stuff. I guess that it won't kill me to deprive myself of it, I'll just appreciate it more when I re-stock.

A big thank you to everyone for all the good luck wishes and congratulatory messages. As Beth put it, one of the best things about running a new distance is it will definitely be a PR. I know that the next time I race that distance I have something to shoot for. Looking back I realized that I run that 6:20ish pace anytime I shut down in a race. When I am by myself for long periods of time, I just go to that pace. Today I know that I could not have put all that much effort into the race because I did not feel beat up at all. I felt fine. By the time I was really warmed up I felt like I could have done a workout.

Since I am smarter than trying to do a real workout the day after a "hard effort" kind of race, I did go to the track, but didn't do the workout. I did the warm-up, then J and I did 12 laps with the backstretch as striders and jogged the other 300. Then we did the warm-down for a total of 8 miles. J and I were talking and I said that I should have realized I was in trouble when I said that I thought the warm-up pace was fast yesterday. Tonight wasn't anything too exciting.

I have to finish my job application. This thing is turning into a nightmare. I have to get my SAT scores from high school which are long gone and sumbit them to the department of education, aghh. I also need to write my letter of interest and get to bed at a decent hour...

Posted by Blondie at 8:03 PM | Comments (0)

October 10, 2004

Tecnically a PR

I set the one and only PR I'll probably set this fall. Of course, it is a very soft one and when taken in comparison with some of my other PRs, I feel a little bit guilty even referring to this as one. I've never run a 15K before, I've done 10Ks and 10 milers, but there are not many 15Ks around here.

I got up early this morning to get myself moving before the race. I got there relatively early and registered. A group of us headed out to warm up. I warmed up for 19 minutes with J and M (M hasn't run a race in about 5 years and wanted to do something she'd never done before). While we were warming up I had on long pants and long sleeves and was getting very hot. We got back to our cars and I stripped and changed my shoes and socks. I wore my old racing flats that I like. Of course the flats I liked were discontinued and the replacements are not nearly as good. I did a quick nerves pee and put on my number.

J and I ran the first mile together. We went through in around 6:15. The plan was a little bit faster. I knew that I was in trouble at this point because I felt like I was laboring. This course is flat, but ugly. It goes through some not so nice neighborhoods, including right by where I work. It kind of has lots of little loops and an out and back. I had the misfortune of falling in no-man's land. After 5K, I was running in third. At the turn around I got a wake up call because the 4th woman wasn't that far back, and call me shallow, but I didn't want to finish out of the money. During the last 2 miles everyone coming towards us on the out and back kept telling me that second was tired. Like I wasn't tired too!? She wasn't getting any further ahead, but she wasn't exactly coming back to me either. Since I was alone it was hard to try to pick up any more pace. Just past the 8 mile mark, I knew that I wasn't going to catch her and I wasn't going to overextend myself to just make it a few seconds faster, so I essentially shut it down and just tried to finish strong. I managed to finish in 59:43, which is not all that bad, but my 10 mile PR is 61:49, so it is not stellar either.

J, L, and I warmed down for 20 minutes and hung around waiting for the awards. After the warm down I started to get that shaky, I need some sugar feeling. J gave me a little bit of watered down Gatorade. The full strength stuff upsets my stomach. I also ate a few bites of a bagel to try to stave off the shakes.

Looking back, it was not that bad of a race. I never felt good. I couldn't really find a pace. I was running by myself. All things considered, I didn't start to recover from the PDR until this past week. My left ankle *still* is bothering me. The ankle is probably the most worrisome issue. My pace really didn't slow down from the first mile, so it was not a stupid race. My parents came and watched after having a busy weekend themselves. Sometimes I don't want them to come, but this was one where I kind of wanted them to see me run. They were out late at a high school reunion last night and still got there before the race started at 8:30 (neither of them are morning people). Of course they thought I did great and looked good, but that is their duty as parents. I did finish strong and put some distance on 4th in the last 5K and finished in the $ (fifty bucks).

I want to go buy some candy corn (I finished my bag) and need to put Neosporin on my chub rub and chafing. My feet need some TLC too, a couple of blister-ee things from wearing flats.

Posted by Blondie at 11:57 AM | Comments (7)

October 9, 2004

Nothin Much

The title pretty much sums up today. I did an easy 4 miles this morning. It may have been a touch faster than it should have been. I planned to run it in 30 minutes, but got back in about 28:50. The first half was easy and slightly faster the second half. I think that most of my runs are progression style as jenandmats introduced. That sort of running just makes more sense, as my body warms up, I can pick up the pace.

Tonight I have an ice bath on tap and just chilling out before racing tomorrow. I also found it interesting that in the article on Kim Pawelek she mentioned candy corn as one of her favorite foods. What is it with women runners loving the stuff?!

Posted by Blondie at 12:51 PM | Comments (2)

October 8, 2004

The Switch

Today was the official switch day. By switch day, I'm referring to the day in which wardrobes are swtiched. Since today was a day off and it is October and there have been several fall-like days, it was the day to put away the sundresses and bring out the fall/winter clothes. I have not put all of my summer clothes in the attic yet, they are in the hall closet since the forecast is calling for highs in the 70s next week. The next day off from work isn't until election day and I know that fall clothes will be needed before then. The switch is not one of my favorite tasks.

The other main item on my agenda for the day off from work was to do laundry. Laundry is something I absolutely despise doing. In fact, in college, I used to go out and buy new underwear in order to avoid doing laundry. I was pretty much out of the socks I prefer to run in which indicated that it had been a long, long time since I did laundry. I prefer to hang my laundry outside since I've had a tendency to shrink some items by accident in the dryer. Half of it is dry now, the last portion is still outside on the line. There isn't much sun left (pretty much the only not great thing about fall).

B, my friend from high school called last night and sounded terrible. She wasn't feeling too well, so we put off our plans until a later day. She's one of those people who has a hard time saying no. She is involved in her church, teaches piano lessons, is the silks director of a high school marching band, and is planning a wedding. Needless to say, she needs her rest.

As usual on Fridays, I didn't run at all. My legs were definitely feeling tight from yesterday's fast quarters, so I went for a 4 mile walk this afternoon. I was going to run in the pool today, but the weather was beautiful. As long as the weather is nice, I'd like to do outdoor activities.

This weekend is packed with great road races. A group from this area is competing in the Steamtown Marathon on Sunday. Of course there is also Chicago on Sunday. On the local front, we have one of the more prestigious local races on Sunday as well. Out of the group I usually run with, about 90 percent of us are racing somewhere this weekend.

After my quarters yesterday, I got to thinking about running form. My form is not too bad, at least from the waist down. People who are used to running with me know that no matter how relaxed I am, I still look like I am tiring in the upper body. My arm carriage is on the high side and when I start to get tired my shoulders come way up towards my head. I look like a neckless creature out running. My arms also tend to cross my chest a little bit. People cheering are always telling me to relax my shoulders. As I've gotten stronger and worked on lifting my shoulders have dropped some, but I still tend to run with them up too high. The folks I run with have just realized that it is normal for me, but I would like to work on dropping them some more since after races my back and shoulders are so sore.

Posted by Blondie at 5:41 PM | Comments (0)

October 7, 2004

Whoops!

We made a big whoops this afternoon doing the workout. J decided that we should do quarters this afternoon since we are both planning on racing this Sunday. Thursdays are usually longer intervals, but he thought we should do shorter intervals for sharpening. The goal was to do 8x400 with a 200 jog right around race pace, which both of us determined to be about 90-92. Most of the year we do "push and cruise" type intervals where you push but keep the pace of the recoveries faster. Our idea is to be stronger. The final phase of each season focuses more on speed with very slow recoveries. I guess that it is sort of a Lyriad-inspired training philosophy.

So J and I warm up. Definitely not feeling too hot during the warm-up. Maybe I ran a touch too fast last night during the group run, I'm not sure. We got back to the track and I changed into my flats. He insisted on leading the first 400 since he said he didn't trust my pace instincts. I should not have trusted his pace instincts since we hit the first quarter in 86. I didn't do too much of a better job hitting the mark for the second one, since we hit that in 87. We alternated leading and did the rest of the quarters in 85, 86, 85, 87, 86, 87 and kept our recoveries right around 53-54. He had to remind me that the next time I do quarters, this was only half of the workout. Of course doing 16 I probably would not run quite so fast. The first one felt really fast, but I kind of got into a groove for the next five. Numbers seven and eight were pretty tough.

Now I'm second guessing myself. I'm starting to worry that I ran too fast for racing this weekend. I usually do 200s before a race. J and I were kidding around that the last time we did 400s was this time last year. We were being serious too. All spring I did longer intervals since my focus was a half-marathon. Actually, neither of us has done many track workouts this fall at all. We're both still trying to get back into the pacing of being on the track.

I am looking forward to my day off from running AND work tomorrow. I'm supposed to meet up with a girl who I went to high school with to do something. We aren't sure what we're going to do yet, maybe lunch or shopping. Most of the public schools are closed tomorrow. Today was a statewide inservice day. Some districts have inservice again tomorrow and others have off. She's completed all of her required development/training hours, so she has the day off. She is one of the directors of a marching band that has a game at night, but she has the afternoon free. It should be good to see her again. The last time I saw her was at her engagement party in July.

Posted by Blondie at 7:16 PM | Comments (0)

October 6, 2004

Group Run

Every Wednesday night there is a group run from the local running store. I used to go to these on a somewhat regular basis, but I found that I usually ran way too fast since there wasn't really anyone at the right pace to run with. I have the mentality that I intended to run with other people, so I better be with other people, not by myself. I find that it is easier to run too fast than too slow, so I would frequently do these runs way faster than I should.

Anyway, I haven't been up in almost a year because I would run too fast and I would get home past my bedtime. Since I can sleep a little bit later tomorrow, I decided that I would be social tonight and do the group run. It turns out that the group was wear testing a new shoe tonight. It isn't that the shoe was bad, it just was not a good shoe for me. It was heavier than I like, more stable than I can wear, and way too stiff for me. The rep was completely understanding since not everyone is meant for one particular shoe and when he heard what I usually wear, agreed that this was not a shoe that he would try to sell to me.

Anyway, I ended up running with one of the guys and didn't run way too fast. I could have dropped the hammer at any point and decided to race this run, but that most definitely would not be in my best interest. S and I chatted the entire run. He and I have met many times, but we've never really had a chance to talk or run together. I enjoyed the company and may be going back more often since there is a bigger group with some people closer to my pace now. The main problem is that the run does not start until 6:15 and I get home from work at 3:15. I don't really like to run in the dark. I fall easily and I don't really want to get hit by a car. I don't regret going. The group is a lot of fun and they tend to go out afterwards for refreshments at the pub next door (this is why it goes past my bedtime).

Speaking of bedtime, it's closing in fast on me. I get to sleep later tomorrow, but I still want to get a good night sleep with a race coming up this weekend. After tomorrow I'll have a better idea of what I'm looking at for Sunday.

Posted by Blondie at 8:51 PM | Comments (0)

October 5, 2004

Over the Humpday

At least for me anyway. This is a short week at work, so the hard part is over now. We have staff development, otherwise known as inservice on Thursday, which is from 8-1. Then we have off on Friday. In other words, I get to sleep in 2 days in a row!!! This is a very exciting prospect for me. Friday has nothing planned so far and since Saturday is the day before a race, there is no need to wake up at the crack of dawn to get a long run in.

Fall is slowly creeping in. Long sleeves were selected for the running wardrobe today, but short sleeves may have been ok. Since I'm one of those chronically cold people and had been freezing all day at work, I decided that I would wear the long sleeves just in case. The temperature was actually warmer than my usual long sleeve rule calls for. Yes, I do have cutoff temperatures for what kinds of clothes need to be worn. I could go into great detail as to what the criteria are. It even goes into what kind of running I'm doing and the temperature. Maybe one day I'll write a dissertation on running outfits in relation to speed and temperature.

So this afternoon was to be the "longer mid-week run". This was not supposed to be quite as long as the usual longer mid-week long, but still longer than the everyday recovery run. I did my 8 mile course which I'm pretty sure is longer than 8 miles, although my 9 mile course is probably shorter than 9. I know this because each time I time these courses the times are very similar, like within a minute or so. When I started out my legs felt awful. After about a mile they started to wake up some. My ankle was stiffer today than it has been because I didn't really get a chance to sit with the ice pack on it last night. After I stretched it out some at the light I felt much better. I ended up feeling really good on my way back in, so good that the last 2 miles were right around 12:10. I think that many of my runs end up being progression runs as my body eases into running. I start out slowly and then pick it up to a comfortably hard pace.

I went to the gym to ride the stationary bike for a little while. The main reason I went over to the gym was because I had to hit Trader Joe's today and I didn't want to only make a trip there, I wanted to do something else en route. So I did a bit on the bike and then picked up some much needed groceries. What fun!

Posted by Blondie at 7:28 PM | Comments (0)

October 4, 2004

Confidence Builder

For the past three weeks, my body has felt less than stellar. Recovery was taking quite a bit longer than expected. There were flashes of normalcy, but for the most part everything felt like a bit of a struggle. That all changed today.

Since a race is on tap for this weekend, and a race that I'm trying to do something in, this week is a bit of a cutback week. The nice thing about this race is that no matter what I do in it, it'll be a PR. I've never raced at this distance before. For the past two years I've done the Tufts 10K on Columbus Day, but I didn't have anyone to go up with this year and we don't have Columbus Day off from work. It would've been cool to go up and meet Becky and Alison, but Alison'll be out of town too.

During the warm-up tonight, the legs still felt on the tight and stiff side. The ankle was fine all day, but the plantar fascia on my right foot was a bit tender which is not a big deal, just need to work on stretching some more and a bit of ice. I made the decision not to wear flats tonight on the track since my body hasn't been feeling all that great recently. The workout was supposed to be 400s, but J told me on Saturday not to do them this week with the race coming up. I decided to do 4 x 800 with a 400 jog. I ended up running with this really annoying guy who I *really* hate to run with. He's the kind of guy who will sit on my shoulder for the entire workout and then try to kick it in on the last 200 of each repeat and then let it all rip on the last 200 of the last interval. He has no shame in letting someone else do all of the work for him. Most of the guys I run with will take turns with who does the work, but not this guy. I hit my 800s in 3:02, 3:01, 2:59, and 2:57. They didn't feel all that hard. As I've stated before, I tend to do my recovery on the quick side, so my 400 jog was right at 7:00 pace. The annoying guy does have a hard time keeping up with the faster recovery. One note: the 800s were all about 2 seconds faster than what my watch said. The track we run on is at this ritzy private school and the CFO of the school puts these barriers up on the track. Sometimes they are up all over the track, sometimes there are only a few. Tonight there was one barrier up that forces you to run out in lane 4, so you can run on the inside for most of the lap, but then you have to veer off to the outside to get around this barrier. When they are up all the way around the track, we have figured out that it adds about 5 seconds per lap at 6:00 pace.

I feel so much better about the race this weekend after this workout today. One day this week I'll do a workout similar to what I did a few days before the PDR with 200 striders around race pace.

The new job situation is looking pretty darned good. I need to find copies of transcripts. They'll take unofficial copies, but I can only find one from grad school. I think that I'll just order an offical from undergrad since they're going to need that anyhow. I have to call back the woman from HR who called while I was out at the track tonight.

I must say that I am thoroughly enjoying my candy corn!

Posted by Blondie at 7:52 PM | Comments (2)

October 3, 2004

Long Sleeves

As many others have stated, fall is probably my favorite running season. The temperatures come down, the humidity is way down, the skies are bright blue and clear. Of all the things I love about running in the fall, I get to wear shorts and long sleeves! When I was a little girl, my mother never let me wear my shorts with a long sleeved shirt. She always would say that if it wasn't hot enough to have on short sleeves, I should wear pants. She had some other strange rules for dressing, I could not wear a sleeveless shirt with long pants for the same kind of reasoning-if it was hot enough to not wear sleeves, there was no reason to have on long pants. Well in running, long sleeves and shorts is my outfit of choice. It could be rebellion from my youth or that simply we are into "comfortable" running weather.

This morning was the first time I've gotten to wear my long sleeves with a pair of shorts to run. A few weeks ago at the PDR the temperature was right for it, but it was a race, so I had to wear "race clothes" (I am *so* mental). This morning was clear, in the mid-50s and breezy. Since Sunday is intentionally an easy run, there was no need to worry about getting too hot and wanting to take off the long sleeved shirt.

This morning was a very easy 7 miles. I must not have been running as slowly as I thought I was since I had to stop to relace my shoes and didn't get back any later than I usually would have. My legs were quite tight from yesterday's quick long run and standing for such an extended period of time. The ankle is improving, albeit slowly. Still subjecting myself to ice at least three times a day and lots of ibuprofen.

On a non-running, but oft-mentioned blog topic, I bought my first bag of candy corn for the season. I absolutely love the stuff, but won't let myself have much of it. It has to get rationed out since it is so sickeningly sweet that it can cause an OD very easily. The mallocreme pumpkins are da bomb too, but I didn't want an entire bag of those and I don't like chocolate so the harvest mix bag was not going to cut it for me. So I had my daily small handful as dessert at lunch, so no more candy corn until after dinner tomorrow!

Posted by Blondie at 12:44 PM | Comments (2)

October 2, 2004

I didn't fall off the face of the earth...

Wow, it's been a long time since I've been able to update this. For some reason, whenever we get a hard, heavy rain, we lose phone service at our house. Tuesday was definitely a hard, heavy rain. We got over 8 inches of rain from 3:00 in the afternoon until midnight. There were two confirmed tornadoes around here as well. Thankfully, nobody was hurt in either of the tornadoes, but there were a few deaths from people trying to go through the deep water. The phone company gives us a hard time every time we lose service, and even though we complained on Wednesday, they would not come out to fix our phone line until this morning. Since we are decidedly low-tech, we have dial-up Internet service, so no e-mail or blogs for me.

Seeing as we had so much rain on Tuesday afternoon, and I was getting a much needed massage, it was a good day to take off. The massage was much needed. She did see some swelling in my ankle, but said that it was not anything too severe. I still have a bruise on my right calf. She does such deep tissue work, but it makes me feel so much better. After the massage, I did go to the gym and ride the stationary bike very easily for an hour and then lifted. I tried to stretch really well after the massage.

Wednesday I ran 15K with the race director of the 15K that is coming up soon. I wanted to see the course first, so I got in touch with the RD for a course tour. I got a nice surprise day off from work since there was so much flooding. Part of the course was flooded out, but at least I got to see the course so that I'm familiar with it on race day. We started out easy and gradually picked it up to my usual pace for the last few miles. Afterwards, I went to Spinning. My legs were not ready for a hard hill workout in class, but I wanted to go for some non-impact cross training.

Thursday was an aborted workout. My stomach was upset all day. I looked so bad that our secretary asked me if I wanted to leave early because I was so pale. Anyhow, I got to the track and ran the warm-up. I knew then that it was not going to be pretty, so I didn't even bother putting my flats on. The workout was 2x3200. I was 600 meters into the first one when my stomach went on me. I ended up taking care of business. I ran a hard mile and tried to start the second interval, but my ankle just was throbbing. One of the guys tapering for a marathon next weekend rubbed it out for me some and I ran the easy warm down. I decided that it was not worth trying to push through the discomfort and my stomach was still feeling rumbly.

Friday is my usual day off, but I felt lazy since I had already taken off on Tuesday and aborted the workout on Thursday. The weather was so nice that I wanted to go out. I ran a very easy 4 miles and really tried to hold back since I knew that I was going to be running long today.

Now on to today's long run. I planned to run our out and back course, but nobody wanted to go with me. I didn't get up early to run two hours by myself. I decided to run the hour with the folks I started with. Of course we ran a hilly course and did not run it easy. I then went on to do a 7 1/2 mile hilly course to finish up. Around 1:40 in I made a potty stop and massaged my ankle since it was starting to feel tight. I had to run the last mile and a half up a hill (this was two hilly courses put together, my legs were pretty beat as I was finishing). I got back to my car at 1:57 and change and it was starting to rain. The thought of running around the parking lot in the rain for 2 minutes wasn't too appealing, and 1:57 hard is better than 2:30 putzing.

I headed over to the gym and did the bike really easy for an hour, stretched and lifted. The biggest cross country invitational in our area is about 2 miles from the gym, so I went over there after my workout. I wanted to cheer on the guys who ran with us all summer. A has been my Saturday morning partner for the past three summers, so I wanted to cheer him on as well as some of the other HS runners who trained with our group this summer.

The weather is just damp and cool today. I was getting chilly by the time the JVs were getting started, so I left after the varsity races. My ankle was feeling sore since I hadn't iced it yet and I was standing for over two hours. I got to take a long, hot shower and now I'm typing this with an ice pack on my foot.

I'm feeling better about the race next week. I've seen the course and I got another long run under my belt. If I rest, ice, take anti-inflammatories and take care of myself, I expect a decent race.

I hope that we don't lose our phone service again any time soon. There's my bare bones update on what I've been up to this week for running.

Posted by Blondie at 3:26 PM | Comments (1)