The Long Run

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September 30, 2005

Willpower

Sometimes the weather makes it so tempting to go outside and run. When it is nice and cool, in the fifties, and sunny, all I want to do is lace up my running shoes and go out for a nice run. Today was one of those days. It was absolutely gorgeous outside, but I did not give into my inner wishes to run. I find that when I am running higher mileage, the day off becomes even more important. The opportunity to rest some allows the minor little aches and niggles to recover some and not feel so bad until late in the next week.

Instead of running, I went to the gym in the morning. I rode the bike for an hour to get the junk out of my legs from last night. I read a really trashy, slightly old (like two weeks) magazine to catch up on some celebrity gossip. Although, since it is two weeks old, most of the news in it is out of date by now!

Other than that, the day wasn't too exciting. I filled out yet another job application, a friend called and gave me a website about another job lead. Hey if you throw enough crap at the wall, some of it will eventually stick! I bought new running socks as well!! How exciting. I always let them go and then the next thing I know, they are pretty threadbare.

Tomorrow is one of the biggest XC invitiationals in the region. It is pretty close by, so I want to go to it. I was only planning to watch the varsity races, so I would have been able to leave around 2:15 or so, but J's son is running JV, so I feel like I should stay and watch him run as well. He's actually running the JV-B race, but that does not make much of a difference. J looks out for me so much, has come to races just to support me, and goes out of his way to help me, the least I can do is stick around to see his son run. It isn't like I really had other plans for tomorrow afternoon, but it just means packing more tonight.

Hope that everyone enjoys their weekends and good luck to anyone racing!

Posted by Blondie at 06:49 PM | Comments (0)

September 29, 2005

What a Strange Day

At least the weather today was very strange. There was a little bit of everything. Well, not quite everything-there wasn't any snow! It was warm, muggy and windy this morning when I got up. Around lunch time it was rainy and windy (but there really wasn't much rain). Finally, later on this afternoon it was sunny, coolish, and breezy. What a mixed bag of weather conditions.

I thought that it was going to be much cooler this morning when I went for my morning run. I had on a short sleeve shirt, but I wanted to take it off the whole time because it was warmer and more humid than I thought. As usual, my body just did not feel awake. It takes me about an hour to wake up and feel good to run in the morning, but on Thursdays when I do a short run before going to the track, I do it as soon as I roll out of bed. It took the first half of the run to get all the cobwebs out.

During the day I made a fresh tomato-basil soup that was quite yummy. I used a trick that I'd seen many times but never actually done. If you cut an X on the bottom of a tomato and put it in boiling water for about 30 seconds and then plunge it into ice water, the skin peels off so easily. I just thought that I would share that with all of you, in case you were interested.

Tonight's workout was 4-5 x 1,200 with a 600 jog. I was really apprehensive about this workout because of the wind. J called me earlier in the day and said not to worry about the time on the intervals because it was windy. His suggestion was to just let my watch run and push and cruise by feeling. I got some grief earlier as a result of Monday and not wanting to always be drafted off of, but it does get annoying to do all of the work. The wind was not quite as bad, but it was by no means a still night. I ended up running with two other J's (I swear that the men in our group have to be named with a J or an M, and most of them have the same names to boot). The wind seemed to be tougher on the odd numbered 1200s, they were all slower with what felt to be equal effort. We did our 1200s in 4:33, 4:30, 4:30, 4:29, and 4:33. Our recoveries were around 7:20 pace, so it was a pretty good workout. I wasn't that happy that the last one was slower, but it was the same as the first so it wasn't like we really fell off the pace. This was a longer workout than we have been doing, but it is also the kind that I really excel at.

Yesterday I did something that I have never done before, I washed a pair of my running shoes. The fact that running shoes are dirty usually does not bother me, but this pair was particularly offensive. This pair has been worn off road for almost every run and in the wetter conditions, so they are just foul. I scrubbed them with Woolite because after all, running shoes do need a gentle soap! I had them stuffed with newspaper to dry them out. They look about a million times better than they did yesterday. Watch them get sudsy the next time I wear them out in some rain.

My mom isn't on my list of favorite people at the moment. She brought home a bag of candy corn for me because she knows that I like it. The problem is that I was going to try to avoid it this year because I have a hard time exercising self-control around it. It is something that I just don't need to have around me. I'll just have this one bag and not buy any more. I have to find a nice way to tell her thanks but no thanks for the candy corn.

Posted by Blondie at 08:28 PM | Comments (2)

September 28, 2005

There's Something About Wednesday

Actually, it really has nothing to do with the actual day of the week. I would venture to guess that over 90 percent of the days that have some statement about feeling like crap in my log book are on Wednesdays. It could be any other day of the week for other people, but with the way my week is laid out, Wednesday is the crappy day. It is the day when all of the mileage and intensity of the week catch up with my body. It is a good thing that it is always an easy day for me.

This morning was so nice for running, yet I felt terrible. Nothing hurt or was bothering me, I just felt tired. This can also be attributed to being woken up extra early by the lawn mower. Our guy was definitely looking to make an extra buck because he cut the grass last week and there has not been any rain to make it grow since then. A little bit later on in my run when I was trying to figure out what was wrong, I came to a few realizations. The first is that I am not a particularly good morning runner. My body needs to be awake some in order to function well. Running in the morning is OK as long as it is a short run, but when I want it to be better, I need more time to get the blood flowing. The other realization had is that on Wednesday it is getting toward the end of the cycle before I take a day off. So I had Saturday's long run, Sunday's double (if I choose to do a double), Monday's hard workout, and Tuesday's double on my legs. For me, this added up to 53 miles in four days. This may not be a lot to some people, but other than this year, I usually would only aver 50-55 miles in a week, so it is a lot for my body. Taking it very easy today was exactly what was needed.

This afternoon I went to the gym and rode the bike for an hour. The time went by faster than normal because I had some interesting reading to do. After riding I wanted to lift, but it was getting late. I did do some lifting but the free weight area was being taken over by the meatheads while I was there. I felt like a total and complete idiot while I was bench pressing with the dumbbells. I decided to try to do some more weight than usual, so I was using the ten pound dumbbells and could not figure out why it felt so much harder than usual. I looked at the weights after the second set and realized that I had a twelve pounder in my left hand. Well, duh, no wonder it felt so hard. It is nice to know that I could maybe do some with twelve pounds, but it was very hard.

This goes back to a question that Alison brought up a few days or weeks ago; does anyone know anything good and tasty to do with butternut squash. I saw pre-cubed fresh butternut squash in Trader Joe's today and would like to try it. I don't want to get a "real" one and do all of the work getting it ready to find out that I don't like it, so I thought getting the pre-peeled and seeded would be worth it to find out if it is even a food that I would like to eat.

Posted by Blondie at 07:50 PM | Comments (4)

September 27, 2005

Fall-Like

Oh, man, today was beautiful! The weather was nice and cool and fall-like, which it should be since it IS fall. I don't want to be a complainer, but with the leaves falling because of the lack of rain, my allergies are starting to act up. Hey, it seems like it is nearly impossible to win with the weather. This afternoon I saw a segment on the weather that said that we have had the hottest September on record AND the driest September on record, like virtually no rain all month!

So with all this nice running weather, what did I do this morning? Run on the treadmill!!! I had to do some more of the wear testing today. It really is not fair to complain about this because the company is compensating quite liberally. I had to test three systems this morning. Two were systems that I have worn before that involve putting a transimitter that is already on the market into a bra that they are manufacturing. The third system is a transmitter that they have invented (I think), but they didn't have a strap or bra to put it on, so I had to wear electrodes for this trial. Since the trials usually involve wearing their bra (which is white), I usually wear one of my non-running sports bras over top because I'm not about to wear a white sports bra sans shirt. Anyhow, on the last trial I was freaking out because I didn't have much as far as support went, not that there is much to support! I ended up doing 35 minutes on the treadmill at a pretty good clip. When I first got on the treadmill the pace felt so fast, maybe because I hadn't been on one for so long. The second and third trials didn't feel as fast even though they were at the same pace. Because my morning run was to be the main run of the day, I still had some time left to run, so I went outside to finish up. I don't know if it is because I'd been on the treadmill, but I felt more tired when I got outside. I did 22 more minutes to give me just shy of an hour. If my OCD were really kicking in, I would have run another 3 minutes, but I was already at my car and the parking lot there is not safe enough to run around in.

This evening I ran with the middle school kids. They're doing their six weeks of hills which are not nearly as bad as our six weeks of hills. The other nice thing is that I just run an even pace, meaning my uphill is slower than theirs but my downhill is faster. The grass on the side of the park we were in has a lot of ruts in in which means that I am more prone to ankle turns, but there weren't any traumatic twists. One thing that I have noticed when I run with these kids is that when we do striders and drills before the workout, they don't do the drills seriously. They run as fast as they can while I'm way back behind them, doing the drills right. I'd nearly forgotten how tiring doing high-knees can be!

I got 12.5-13 miles in for today. I'm not cutting back at all this week and probably won't cut down too much next week either. One thing that I have leanred about my body is that I do not perform particularly well with a big taper. I seem to be better when I am on the starting line a little bit on the tired side, my sense of pace is better that way. We're going to talk more about that this weekend or early next week. I have also re-evaluated my goal for Tufts. My original goal is not realistic based on the kind of shape that I am in right now. That goal has been moved to November, J and I both agreed that it is too soon for that goal. It isn't that I am lowering my expectations, but I would rather set a goal that is attainable and achieve it and then use it as a stepping stone than to put a goal out there that most likely will not happen and then get depressed that I can not do it.

Posted by Blondie at 08:13 PM | Comments (1)

September 26, 2005

Being Selfish

I admit it. I can be a very selfish runner. This is especially true when it comes to doing workouts. Tonight, for example, I didn't really care what the rest of the group was going to do-I knew what I was supposed to do, but I didn't care what they did. They could do what was on the schedule or whatever they wanted to do, it didn't affect me, so I didn't really care. There will be more venting about my selfishness a bit later, when it is appropriate for the running part.

Tonight's workout was supposed to be a tempo run, but J called me right before I was leaving to tell me that he didn't want me to do the tempo-he thought it was too close to the half-marathon to be tempoing again. He wanted me to do a full load of the 600s, and to not be too concerned with what the pace was on them. There weren't many people at the track and they all decided that they didn't feel like doing the tempo run, so they were going to stay on the track as well. OK, that's fine with me. One of these people is someone who I have written about before, I really try to like most people, and he is an OK person, BUT I can't stand running with him. He seems to love running with me. Isn't it always that way? I like to think of him as a "user"-he uses whoever he is running with, but doesn't help at all (more later).

I must mention that it was really windy on the backstretch. It was pretty obvious that a storm was coming, but the question was if we would be able to get done before the rain started. It was dark and windy and you could just feel the rain trying to break through. We started our 600s and my buddy sat right behind me. I was going through the 600 around 2:15s, so I was pretty much where I wanted to be. After about five of these, I was feeling pretty beat up by fighting the wind, so I asked him to do me a favor and block the wind on the next two because I was having a really hard time breaking it for him. See, he was using me to break the wind, even though I am the smaller one. I guess this is where I get selfish; a lot of the men I run with will take turns taking the lead with me, especially when the conditions are so awful. Well, instead of keeping the pace around 90 for the quarter, he took off and did about an 80 second quarter which I could not do. It did no good for me, I was still alone fighting the wind. The last I checked, what I said does not mean "take off and run as fast as you want". Whatever. I got all ten in and didn't care too much about pace.

It did start to rain on the warm-down. I'm pretty sure that it is going to rain for most of the night now. The radar on the weather showed a huge green area coming this way. The rain won't hurt at all, it hasn't rained much in the past month and a half or more. We didn't really notice that it hadn't been raining because we were so absorbed in the fact that it was so darned hot. Speaking of that, we have had something like forty straight days with a high over 80, but there is supposed to be nice, fall like weather this week. Yay!!

Posted by Blondie at 07:50 PM | Comments (0)

September 25, 2005

Adding Troubles

It isn't that I am bad at math, I'm actually not at all scared off by numbers, it has to do more with the fact that doing more than one thing at a time can cause inaccuracies. For example, I really can't keep track of pace while I'm running, I do much better knowing the checkpoints ahead of time, unless I'm running nice even minute miles. Today, while I was running, I tried to add up my weekly mileage. I somehow came up with that I had already run 61.5 miles for the week, which meant I would have to run 4.5 in the afternoon to hit 65. Um, OK, after I got done, I realized that I only needed 3.5 to get to 65 because my mind forgot to carry the decimals while I was running. That just means that I ended up with one more mile than planned for the week, but much worse things have happened.

I got off to quite a slow start this morning. My body took longer to wake up than I would have liked. Even once I got out the door, I still felt like my body was asleep. I had a pleasant diversion not even half a mile into my run when I ended up stopping to talk to K and H. Just standing there talking, being upright, helped my body to wake up some. I guess that it had to do with the blood flowing in a vertical direction as opposed to a horizontal direction that helped. It was a fall-like morning, cooler than it has been, but the humidity was still a tad on the high side, but I'm not going to complain after the summer we all suffered through. I just ran nice and easy, relaxed this morning to shake yesterday out of my legs. I wasn't wearing my watch, but I'm pretty sure that by the end I was moving at a pretty good clip.

During the day I watched the Eagles game. They managed to pull it off, but it was not pretty.

After the game I went over to a park that I really don't care to run in that much. The park is kind of small and the grass is really rutty which makes it easy to turn ankles. The only reason I chose to run there is that it is flat and I get bored there, so I couldn't run that long. I probably wasn't supposed to do a second run today, but I didn't feel bad, so I went for it. I managed to not turn my right ankle today, so that was an accomplishment. I ended up running pretty fast, but not intentionally. I finished my loop in just over 34, it was about 36:30 when I got back to the parking lot, so I ran for another minute so that I could call it a five mile run. I know that it was well over 4.5 and I was moving pretty well, so I can justify it. I think that I ended up with 66 miles this week.

Hope that everyone had a good weekend!

Posted by Blondie at 06:50 PM | Comments (2)

September 24, 2005

Not Sure Where the Day Went

Five minutes ago it was lunch time, I swear. I don't know where today went at all. Oh, yeah, that's right...I spent over an hour trying to figure out how long this morning's run was. I'm really not that anal about it, but I was curious. I knew about how far the main part was, but I felt good, so I added on which is where the mystery began. The computer was feeling crabby, so it was taking forever to load the maps. It got to the point where I was about to just give up and make a guess, which was actually pretty darn accurate!

So, this morning, we really thought that there were only going to be four of us becuase at 6:58 there were only four of us hanging out in the parking lot. Within the next two minutes about ten more people pulled in. We do need to start to get better about leaving on time again. A lot of people had other obligations today with their children, so there weren't that many people planning on running longer. My answer when I was asked how far I was running was the oh, so specific, "it depends on how I feel". I wasn't being a pain with that answer, it was the honest truth. The plan was to go at least 90 minutes as long as I didn't feel too beat up. If I felt really beat up, the plan was to do 75 minutes, but if I felt good to go close to 2 hours. It was much cooler than it has been lately, hopefully this means we will be in fall for good now.

I ended up feeling pretty good, but the out and back course was just not appealing this morning. My big fear was that I would feel like death again on the hills on the way back and really suffer during it. I opted to do our 13 mile loop that consists of a ton of climbing. I think that we did this loop about a month ago. It is one that does not get done all that often since we normally just will run out and turn around when we go that direction. K was complaining about all of the hills the entire time. I think that I would prefer to run up a hill and not have to deal with the ups and downs; I think that the undulating beats the body up more. We got back in just over 90 minutes and I felt good, so I ran out to the light and back and then ran around the building to finish up. I ended up running for just under 1:51, but was not too sure how far it was. My guess was something over 15.5 but under 16-the mapping confirmed that, so I was a good judge of pace this morning! I was surprised to run that long, I've never felt recovered enough after a half-marathon to have a decent long run the next weekend.

I went over to the gym to workout after running. There weren't any good magazines to read, so I picked two that looked OK, but I had read them before. I did the elliptical for half an hour and rode the bike for another half hour. I stretched with the bands and then realized that in my exhaustion I didn't get to write out the bills that I wanted to go out in today's mail, so I went home to do that before the mail man came. Just my luck, he was much later than usual for a Saturday, so I would have had enough time to do my regular Saturday morning, but I would rather be safe than sorry. I did lift some at home on my stability ball, so even though I didn't do as much, I might be more sore than usual.

Happy Fall!!!

Posted by Blondie at 06:57 PM | Comments (0)

September 23, 2005

Not-So-Lovely Rita

I don't think that I ever remember a year that the named storms have gotten this far into the alphabet. It very well could have happened, sometimes I just don't pay that much attention, but I really don't recall any year that we have had this many destructive storms. The path of Rita looks like it may be hitting and dumping more rain on an area that simply put does not need any more rain.

This afternoon I did something that it appears almost everyone else was doing-topping off my gas tank. Rumors that this storm could bring prices up even higher, as high as the $4 a gallon range made me run out before the weekend even though I still had half a tank left. Our gas prices are still outrageous...they have made the news that they are out of line with the rest of the nation. Our gas prices went up higher than almost every area and have not really come down. Last weekend my parents went to DC and the prices in the middle of the city were lower than they are here. Supposedly the attorney general wants to investigate it because there is no reason that our prices have been so high. Anyhow, I drove to the station that is reported to be the cheapest around, it was the same price as another station, but once I was in line there was no getting out. That's right, in line. I sat for 20 minutes to buy gas at the rock bottom price of $2.75 a gallon. A major pet peeve of mine is people who don't pay at the pump. I realize it is petty, but it takes so much longer because there have been so many drive-offs that the stations are forcing those who pay cash to go inside and pay first. This is quite time consuming when there is a long line for gas. A station that was only half as far was selling gas at the same price, but I did not know that until I was at the other station and the cars were all over the place, so getting out of the line was nearly impossible. I certainly hope that the track of the storm changes so that the residents of the gulf are not hammered as badly as anticipated.

This morning my legs were extremely stiff when I first dragged myself out of bed. No running whatsoever today. The day off is much needed. I went to the gym and rode the bike for 45 minutes to flush out some of the junk from the past few days. I stretched using the bands when I got off the bike which also felt good. The ice bath from last night was very helpful in recovery, but I was so cold all night from sitting in the ice water! Oh, what we do to feel good.

Hope that everyone has a wonderful and safe weekend!

Posted by Blondie at 04:20 PM | Comments (0)

September 22, 2005

Right on Target

So, the guy who cuts our grass apparently does not realize that 7 in the morning is early to be cutting somebody's grass. Yesterday morning I was awoken by someone riding a mower outside of my window at that time. Now, I do realize that not everyone can sleep until whenever they would like, but that is still an early time to be out cutting grass. Plus, this was two nights after the race, the night that I reall sleep. This caused me to sleep way later than I would have liked to sleep this morning. I was actually embarassed by the time that I woke up, not that I had anything really important to get to-other than my morning run.

Being so startled by what time it was, I felt like I had to get on the road ASAP to run so that there was a reasonable number of hours in between my runs today. My body felt so asleep while I was plodding along. In the final mile I did start to feel awake, but still ploddy. It was already getting warmer than I would have liked, but I just felt asleep.

I have been apprehensive all week about tonight's workout, to say the least. First of all, most of my workouts on the track have not been spectacular this summer. Secondly, running a workout five days after racing a half-marathon can be sticky. J advised me on Tuesday night that he would rather me cut the workout short and hit the paces rather than do the whole thing slower. He said that he felt I would get more out of it even if I could not do the whole thing. He said that if I wasn't hitting the pace or if it was a real struggle to stop.

The workout was not all that daunting: 5 x 1000 with a 600 jog, a pretty long recovery. J wanted me to hit right around 6 minute pace, but anywhere up to 6:05 was OK. There was the option of only doing 3, a very short workout, but to hit the pace. We did the warm-up nice and easy and chatty and then got started. I got started with the attitude that I was only going to do 3 because it is hard for me to think of an entire workout at a time. I did the first one in 3:46, but tried to hold back some and not really run it like a race. The next two were in 3:44. As usual I did try to keep the recoveries relatively brisk, not as quick as I would have liked, but not too ploddy. I told myself that if the fourth one was 3:47 or slower that was it for the day, so I ended up doing a 3:46 meaning I was in for all five. The recovery on this one was the slowest because I did pull off to the side to take my sunglasses off because it was starting to get dark. The final one was a 3:45, so I ended up right on target for the night. After the warm-down, it gave me a total of 14 miles for the day.

After the workout we were talking and most of the guys said they didn't like doing 1000 meter repeats, they would rather do 800s or miles, but I really like 1000s. I don't really concentrate for the first 600 and try to really work the final 400. Tonight there was a stiff breeze on the backstretch which really sucked, since that was the straightaway that we had to do three times at pace. I seem to really like the workouts that everyone else hates to do.

I got home and took my first ice bath since the race. Hopefully it will help to revitalize my body because my legs have been feeling pretty darn beat up for the past few days, gee I wonder why that would be?

Posted by Blondie at 08:45 PM | Comments (1)

A Classic

Yesterday when I was at the gym, I found some good, albeit, classic reading. In the racks there was a Runner's World issue from May 1987! It was a shoe review issue, the most expensive pair in the entire thing was $75!!! There was also a big article on the importance of whole grains, something that is still being written about today. In retrospect, I should have taken it. Don't yell at me, I do it all the time as long as the magazine is outdated.

Posted by Blondie at 10:17 AM | Comments (1)

September 21, 2005

It Just Does Not Make Sense

Why is it that when I don't have a job to go to, my life feels busier than when I have an obligation for 8 hours a day? There really isn't anything that I have to do most days, yet I feel like there isn't enough time in the day for all of the things that I would like to accomplish. For example, today I have plans this evening with my mother. It seems that the things that I want to do just are not during what would be considered "work hours" because these activities involve meeting with someone who has a normal work schedule.

Today, against better judgement, I ran. It had been suggested to take today off from "real" running. Running in the pool was OK, biking, swimming-anything that did not involve pounding. Instead of being stubborn and running, I should have followed the advice I had been given. In the back of my mind, I felt like I would be losing fitness by getting off schedule. In the back of my mind, I know that no fitness would be lost, it would probably be good to take today off from running, but noooo.....I had to run. It was not as bad as it could have been, but my legs and body were tired. My legs are very tight, in fact I plan to do the cheesy yoga video in a few minutes as well as work with the foam roller and stick. I slogged through 7 miles, very slowly. Timing it was a bad idea, but I wore my watch. The loop took about two and a half miles longer than normal, but there was no pushing at all.

Well, that's about all folks. There really isn't much to write about when you just updated before bed the night before!

Posted by Blondie at 01:17 PM | Comments (0)

September 20, 2005

Still Feeling OK

I was just finishing up an entry and somehow managed to delete the entire thing! Recovery has been going pretty well, but tomorrow is the real test. My body tends to feel OK for the first few days, but by the middle of the week, the trauma really hits.

This morning I did my regular seven mile loop. The watch stayed at home. There was no point in timing or worrying about pace on what is supposed to be a very easy recovery run. It was very humid, I was dripping sweat within the first five minutes. The only thing of note to mention was that on the way home, I saw one of my mom's best friends in the parking lot that I cut through. I stopped and talked to her and had to decline a ride home since I was finishing my run.

This afternoon I went to watch some of the high school cross country meets. I didn't run around the courses to cheer the runners on, just stayed at the finish line. The school I ran for had a meet as well as the school that the boys who ran with us during the summer. One of those boys was so excited to see me that he was calling out my name when they were in their circle stretching!

After that, I drove to the other side of town to another park to run with the middle school kids. Their workout was to sprint up the hill to the finish line and then jog around. My workout was to just keep on moving, not sprint. Before the first hill, my left contact folded itself up and floated up to the upper corner of my eye. If anyone did not know this already: running on trails when you can't see is very dangerous. I ran up to the cars and fixed my lens and then went on to finish my run. I think that I ended up with about four more miles this afternoon.

Now, the big news for the day....I met Beth's sister, B tonight. Not quite the same as meeting a blogger, but she is a regular reader and the sibling of one. We agreed that it could count for Beth because she is out in Pittsburgh by herself. We went for pizza and had a good time.

Posted by Blondie at 09:01 PM | Comments (3)

September 19, 2005

Recovery Day

I don't know if it's just me, or if I'm just weird (I am, but that is a whole other story). I have such a hard time sleeping the night that I have raced. It does not matter that I am up way earlier than I would be on a "normal" day, I can't fall asleep and once I do get to sleep, I just toss and turn and end up waking up just as early the next day. This was the case last night. My stomach was still feeling funky when I went to bed and still had a bit of funk left all day. It just feels, unsettled, I guess is the best term.

Anyhow, that meant being up really early this morning. There was no chance of sneaking a double in today. It wouldn't be prudent. The extra 12 hours of recovery are way more important than getting some extra mileage in early this week. I walked half a mile (maybe a little more) round trip to the store to buy the Philly papers for the results of yesterday's race. I always save the newspaper clippings although I do not have a scrapbook going. That just takes too much effort. Until about 2 years ago I was diligent in putting everything into a scrapbook, but now I just don't have the desire to do it. One of these days I will, when the newspaper clippings are yellow and falling apart.

Tonight I wasn't doing the workout, not that it would have been a good idea after racing. During the warm-up, my legs definitely felt "crunchy". Once we got to the track, everyone else set off on their intervals and I did my 8 x 110 striders. The first three or four, my form felt choppy, but by the end I was starting to feel pretty smooth again. I did the warm-down, giving me 7 miles, plenty for a recovery day.

My neck and shoulders are the most sore part of my body. I think that I was bringing my shoulders way up towards my ears in the last miles of the race. This is one of my tendencies, even when my shoulders are relaxed, they are still higher than what is the norm. Everyone is just used to it now.

Thank you to everyone who had wonderful comments about yesterday's race. It is so much fun to get to do some of the premiere races in the country. I get jealous when anyone runs in a race with the big boys and girls. We have three of these races in Philly every year that I usually do. I could very easily go to others, but it would be so much more fun with other people, travelling alone isn't any fun!

Posted by Blondie at 07:59 PM | Comments (1)

September 18, 2005

I'm Unoriginal, I'm Borrowing Alison's Title

Her title perfectly expresses my sentiments about today. I'm not exactly happy about the race, but I'm not exactly unhappy with how things turned out. Thank to everyone who sent "run fast" vibes, and Beth, I tried to now show Deena up, it was hard! I waited to write because I never take splits on my watch and was waiting for the official results to be posted online.

Whatever the news stories say, I will tell you that it was definitely warm this morning. I haven't really read anything that was written about the race, but it was already at least 70 degrees as we were driving to Philly. I don't know about everyone else, but that is really warm to race a half-marathon, in my opinion. One of the changes this year as the race is under new management was a corral system for the start. This may work in theory, but it is not completely effective since many people lie about their estimated finish time. I always wish that there were a system that you had have proof of it, like at Boston, but that isn't going to happen.

I went through the mile in something around 6:22, pretty close to what I wanted to do. It felt comfortably hard, like I could probably hold that pace. I'm not really sure what my two and three mile splits were, but I went through the 5K in 19:29 (according to the results page) and 10K in 39:21. By this point the pace was feeling just about right. It was H-O-T in the sun, which we were at this point. Around 15K, I started to struggle. I went through 10 miles in 63:43 and wasn't feeling too good from this point in. By 11.5, I was pretty much in a marathon shuffle. My chip time was 84:19, slower than I had hoped, but I can't really complain about it.

Going in, I knew that I was by no means peaked. This week was a cutback, but that was it. When I woke up this morning, I was a bit on the dehydrated side. Even though I drank a lot of water yesterday, my urine was not anywhere close to clear when I woke up. The fact that water was in plastic cups at some water stations did not help matters at all. A slight mouthful of water doesn't do anything to help the fact that I sweat out god knows how many pounds of water by the finish (I looked like I had jumped in the river!).

Given the fact that this was a train-through race, I am as happy as can be with it. It is a well known fact that I do not handle the heat well. It is also kind of petty of me to complain about my time, as many people would give their eye teeth to run an 84 minute half-marathon. This is just the beginning of my race season and it does give me some confidence for upcoming races. I only had two long runs heading into today, one of which was really bad.

The field at the PDR is absolutely amazing. I highly recommend it to anyone who wants to run fast half. The course is fast, they bring in awesome athletes, and the weather usually cooperates. This is the fifth year I have run it-three years have had great weather, one year was awful, and this year was a touch too warm.

This afternoon I went out and jogged two miles because I didn't do a warm down after the race. My warm up consisted of three minutes of jogging, one wouldn't want to be too warmed up, now would they? The only reason I even went out was that my body felt so tight from laying around all day. My intestinal issues did not flare up until after getting home, a big improvement over previous races.

I hope that everyone had a good weekend and that the races that everyone who raced participated in went well!

Posted by Blondie at 07:44 PM | Comments (4)

September 17, 2005

Yet Another Crushing Blow to the Self-Esteem

Today I got yet another rejection letter from a job I interviewed for. I knew that the letter would come today or Monday, well it came today. I felt good about this job. I am qualified for it. Maybe too qualified. I know what the position requires and have done all of it, yet I still was not the selected interviewee. I've determined that there must be something wrong with me with the way that I can not get a job. Maybe I'll just give up. The thought of going for another graduate degree is looking more and more appealing, but the earliest I could start would be January, so I guess that at the moment all I can do is look.

It was really warm and muggy when I ran this morning. In other words, it was a really good day to be doing an easy, short run. I think that I would have wilted if I had to do a long run this morning. The good news is that it is not supposed to be as humid tomorrow morning. I would like it to be cooler, but the humidity is the real problem. This morning wasn't too bad. I decided to run on the G trail because two years ago when I popped a huge PR that is what I did. I told all of you that I am superstitious. This is the third consecutive year that we have had the remnants of some tropical storm/hurricane before the PDR. There were two trees, or maybe it was one that split, down on the trail that I had to stop to climb over. I tried to stay really relaxed and enjoy my surroundings today because there was nothing to be gained by going longer or harder. I ran out to the end of the main part of the trail and then came back. It's somewhere between 5.2 and 5.5 miles, but I'm not really sure and it can't be mapped. I ran for 38 minutes and called it a day.

This afternoon I went up to the expo. I guess that you could say it was a success. It was successful in the sense that I did not get lost. Philly is the kind of city that you really need to know where you are going or you can get terribly lost very fast. I can get around, but I am by no means completely comfortable in the city. The only mishap I had was that I did not trust myself. I thought I had passed the street that the hotel was on and got ready to turn around to go back and it was the next street. Parking was a royal pain, the host hotel is in the middle of Center City and there wasn't any on-street parking. I saw one lot, but it was a flat rate of $20 for the day, which I absolutely refused to pay. There was a garage around the corner which was by no means cheap, but it was much less money. It was obvious that a lot of people balked at the lot because I ended up parking on the 7th floor of the garage. There was nothing special at the expo, but I don't really like expos anyhow. The same vendors are at every one and the clothes usually aren't that nice. I seem to find better deals on nicer clothes at other places. The shoes really aren't cheap and if you don't like them you're SOL. I trusted myself getting out and didn't get lost. There may have been a slightly shorter way to get home, but I didn't want to risk it.

Tonight I have a nice soak in an icy tub planned. It's one of those things that I have done before some of my good races, so I do it before I want to do well. My goal for tomorrow is to run smart and hopefully fast. I would like something in the 1:22-1:23 range. I really have no idea what I am capable of at the moment. In the spring I always have a 7 mile and 10 mile tempo run under my belt before doing the hilly half in town. There have not been any workouts like that on my schedule since I have only really started to recover from May and train again. My minimal goal would be to run faster than I did in March, the course is significantly faster and the weather is nicer. I would like it to be cooler, but it is better than 35 degrees and windy.

Posted by Blondie at 05:37 PM | Comments (3)

September 16, 2005

Keeping Kalm

Today I really tried to keep my wits about me and not stress out over the weekend. Whatever happens will happen, tomorrow I can stress and write about it some more.

Today I rode the bike for 45 minutes and lifted. I looked back in my log book from the spring and saw this is what I did the Friday before the spring half marathon I ran. Is anyone else this superstitious? I try to repeat prerace rituals that have worked well in the past. This even applies to meals, sleep habits the night before, packing, etc. It probably doesn't actually help, but the familiarity of it makes it comfortable. Having a routine probably just takes one more worry out of the entire stressful race mentality.

Thank you to everyone who has wished some luck. It appears that RA already has a healthy membership without ever having an official meeting! The funny thing is that I have been asked to speak about tapering at a seminar, yet I am questioning my taper. This case is probably because this is not a goal race, just one to train through. I usually have some indicators heading into races, but none this time. I hope that the training, especially the past few weeks, pays off. My concern mainly stems from the fact that I have done very little since May, most of the races I entered were just for fun.

The only person who will be upset if things don't go well is me, in the grand scheme of things, the general public does not care if I have a bad race. As a typical runner, I tend to have high standards for myself, but as long as I can say I am happy with the effort, that is all that really matters. Doing that is definitely easier said than done. Immediately following a race, there are always doubts, but when looking back later there is more balance.

Time to cook some dinner!!!

Posted by Blondie at 05:46 PM | Comments (0)

September 15, 2005

We Belong in RA

That's Runner's Anonymous, not Resident Assistant like in college. Reading Audrey's talk about tapering and how I feel about tapering right about now has spurred that thought. I know that the first thing to do when tapering at all is to trust your training. The thing is, right now I don't feel like I can trust my training. The good days are good, but the bad days are B-A-D. I've also come down with a (for me) severe case of mileage obsession. Before this year, I pretty much stayed in the 50-55 miles per week range (except for one 3 month period where I did ramp it up for a bit, after which I PR'd a lot). Now I've gotten so that if I'm not running at least 65-70, I don't feel like I'm really doing anything. I actually want to run twice most days. Case in point, today (more later). OK, I have to realize that I do have a race on Sunday. The idea was to not peak for it, but still I would like to run well and be a little rested for it. Sometime before Sunday I'll write more about my nervousness, because it can go on and on and on.

So, today. I woke up and it was pouring. I was not supposed to run twice today, as I tried to explain some above. My legs and body were so tight that I felt like I had to to wake it up some. There really was not anything that i could have gained from running this morning, but I still did it. It was raining and I really didn't feel like putting my contacts in, so I wore an old pair of glasses and a baseball hat. The hat really didn't help with keeping the rain off my face, so I could barely see by the time I got done running. I did a slightly different loop to make it shorter, about 3 miles. My body didn't even start to feel warmed up until almost two miles into it.

Tonight it was completely different outside. It was sunny and humid, not raining at all. Because of the nasty weather, I was quite happy to not have to do the actual workout. We did the warm-up, during which my legs felt flat. Once on the track, I was only doing 110 striders and floating the rest of the lap. I did eight of these and felt quite good. I think that my first mile was somewhere around 6:20, which would be a wonderful pace for this weekend. I stood around for a long time while everyone else finished their workout. By the time I started my warm-down, my legs were super stiff, but after about three or four minutes of moving I got going pretty well again.

In all I got in about 10 miles today, more than I should have. Tomorrow I need to think long and hard about how to approach the race on Sunday. That deserves it's own blog entry, so I won't start now.

Posted by Blondie at 08:06 PM | Comments (4)

September 14, 2005

Dripping and an Interview

What can I say about this morning? It was so humid outside that I think that I looked like I had jumped in a river instead of running.

I started off feeling pretty good, but by about 20 minutes into it things started to spiral out of control. My theory is that because I have spent most of the days that it is so outrageously hot and humid outside hiding on the trail that my body did not know what to do in the high humidity. Waves of nausea swept over me at this point. This is very unusal for me, even with my weak stomach, my problems are usually not related to the upper end, if you can read in between the lines. After the third wave of nausea, I turned off my watch and decided to just run when I felt OK and to walk if I didn't feel so good. There were only about two miles left in my course when I made this decision. I figured that this week is a semi-taper, so doing more would hurt me more than it would help. I'm almost 100 percent sure that the problem I was having with my quad earlier in the week was because I pushed on when my body was rebelling. By the time I got home I was dripping wet and just wanted to get in the shower.

For some reason every time I have had an interview it has been absolutely disgusting outside. When I was getting ready to leave for this interview it was pouring rain outside. For the life of me, I could not find an umbrella inside the house. I finally just ran out from the garage to the car. Then I remembered that my garage door opener isn't working, so I had to run back out to the keypad on the outside and try to not get too wet. The interview went OK, I think. They will be making their decision by Friday, so there really is no time to send a thank you note. Anyhow, there were five interviewers and I only remember two of their names. Everyone needs to keep their fingers crossed for me!

After I got home, I was feeling pretty tight, so I did my corny yoga video. Tonight my mom and I went to the gym. I rode the bike for half an hour and then lifted. On my way out I ran into my "boyfriend" from the 7th grade, if you could call him my boyfriend, we "went out" for a week and talked on the phone twice during that week and never actually went anywhere. Ahh, those were the days.

Posted by Blondie at 09:25 PM | Comments (1)

September 13, 2005

The Dog Park

This morning started much earlier than I had wanted it to start. After not sleeping all that well for two nights, my body was ready to really sleep last night/this morning; but NO, I had to get up to run today. Although there was not much going on during the day, I had to get my main run in early because I had an appointment at 9:30.

This morning's run was a big reminder as to why I usually lounge around on the couch for a while after I wake up. The first reason is it allows my body to wake up some. The second, more important reason, is that it allows me to avoid rush hour and all of the cars that are out to kill the pedestrians/cyclists. By running at rush hour in the morning, I seemed to have a big target on me for the cars to aim for me.

Today started my cutback, so I didn't do the regular extension that I would do on a Tuesday. I left my watch at home since I thought that I would get discouraged running one of my regular loops so early in the morning after a workout. My legs felt much better than last night, and my stomach was even better than the legs! I probably would not have been too upset if I had worn my watch, but why take a risk like that. When I got home, I took my shoes off to do some barefoot strides on the front lawn.

My massage was much needed. My calves don't feel as beat up as they did the last time she worked them. My butt was really tight, but it is always tight and the hills make it that much tighter. My sore quad is healing itself up pretty nicely as well. I think that I just overdid it on Saturday by pushing through the death march, that hip kind of got crampy towards the end of that run.

This afternoon I ran with the middle school team again. We did a different hill at the park, it was longer and really only steep for the last fifteen meters or so. I tacked on a little bit at the end to make the evening run 5 miles. My OCD kicked into high gear when I saw that if I ran three more minutes I could call it five miles for the night. I felt better than I have in a few days tonight, a good sign.

The part of the park we ran in tonight is where everyone comes to take their dogs out. There have been times that I have thought about borrowing a dog to take to the park in an effort to meet some of the cute guys there with their dogs, but starting a relationship out on a lie would probably lead to nowhere. Anyhow, as cute as some dogs are, my allergies would never be able to be around a dog that much!

Posted by Blondie at 08:07 PM | Comments (2)

September 12, 2005

Mental Toughness

So much of running is what goes on between the ears. I remember my high school coach telling us that racing was 90 percent mental, only ten percent of it was physical. At the time I really didn't want to believe her, but I also didn't want to do anything that hurt. Until my senior year, I didn't care if I was any good or not. To be honest, that was even questionable my senior year. I was perfectly content just as long as I was on varsity, I didn't really want any pressure from other people to do well. Back then, I would rather give up than be leading a race. I was so freaked out to be in front, so scared that someone would catch me and pass me, that I would actually stop and walk. Things have definitely changed since then, but the mental toughness is something that can still be a struggle when things aren't going so great.

Tonight's workout was one where mental toughness came into play. The rest of the group was doing something different than I was. I have a little bit of a different schedule than everyone else does, which is usually OK, but sometimes that leaves me by myself if it needs to be that way. Tonight T offered to run with me, which was good since my workout was the 4 mile tempo from last week plus more on the track at the end. During the warm-up I could tell that my legs did not feel springy at all. We've decided for the fall to not do doubles on the day when we are scheduled to do shorter intervals, the idea being to run them FAST and get my speed back.

The tempo was tough for me tonight. My legs felt flat and my stomach was not feeling right. It kept making a lot of noise and I kept burping. I know that what goes up needs to come down and it should all even out, but I swear that this course has more up than down on it. The last mile is particularly a killer since it is all uphill. I didn't look at my splits until the 3 mile mark, J told us no faster than 6:30 pace. T was checking and did ask me if the pace we were running was OK. I pulled ahead every time we went down a hill and he would pull ahead when we would go up. At three miles we were a little slower than I was last week. We did the last, uphill, mile in 6:30-this made me happy. T told me that we did exactly 6:40s for the first three and then picked it up on the last mile. I was barely making it up the hill on the way in, but I got a burst about 600 meters from the end and really worked it in. We ended up averaging about 6:37s; I finished about 15 seconds slower than last Monday when I felt good.

We jogged back down to the track, got a drink and then had 4 x 200 at 5K pace to do. J told us that he would get our times so that we didn't have to work with our watches at all. T and I both screwed these up...way too fast. After the first one we were told that we had made our beds and now we had to sleep in them-we had to do the next three just as fast. I managed to do all four of mine in 39-40, which is absolutely hauling for me. Speed is not my strength, I would like to get some of my pathetic speed back.

I did the warm down and then came home and soaked in an ice tub. My legs feel very beat up from all of the miles last week. This week is a bit of a cut-back, that is much needed. I have a massage scheduled for tomorrow morning that should really help me. I've got to get to bed early since I've got to run early in the morning. I also want to catch some of the Eagles game tonight before I have to hit the sack.

Posted by Blondie at 08:36 PM | Comments (0)

September 11, 2005

Record High

Last night was fun, although I didn't see any of the fireworks. It doesn't break my heart at all because I don't particularly like fireworks and never have. Regardless of that, it was still a fun (and late) night.

Even though I was up later than usual, I didn't sleep all that well. It was probably from eating later than normal. I can never sleep well when my body is trying to digest food eaten late at night. I was up pretty early and read the paper and just kind of putzed around for a bit. I finally decided to go out to one of the local parks to run. Most of my group thinks that I should run this park more often, but today confirmed that I'm not really a fan of it. It isn't that big, you end up doing lots of loops, it's overused, and a lot of it is out in the sun. I have a 7.5 mile loop there, but that was not my plan for this morning, so I shortened it. I ended up with a little bit over 5 miles, running for forty minutes. I felt much better than I did at the end of my long run yesterday morning. Towards the end my left quad/IT started to feel tight. I can't isolate what it is, it kind of shifts.

During the day I used the Stick and iced it. I tried to stretch it as well. It is definitely tender. Tonight I'll be doing more of the same.

Later this afternoon I ran with J's middle school team. We ran at another park where I have never run. He told me to run with two of his varsity girls, but I had no idea where I was going and they weren't too sure either. The pace was very easy, they were tired and have not run that long since this time last year. We ran for another forty minutes, but it may have been five miles. There were some hills and difficult terrain in the park where we ran. My left side didn't feel bad while I was running, but it did feel a little sore when we got done.

I ended up with about ten miles for the day. I haven't entered it into my log yet, but I think that this gives me something like 78 for the week, which I believe is a record high for me. Next week definitely will not be that high. I didn't really intend to double four days this week, but I did. Hope that everyone enjoyed their weekends!

Posted by Blondie at 06:59 PM | Comments (1)

September 10, 2005

Can You Say: "Death March"?

My long run this morning was not so great. It really wasn't all that bad, but definitely not good. There was only a small group this morning, people had various other commitments, I guess. There were only seven including myself. One guy was only going about half an hour because he is just coming back from an injury and most everyone else was only running about an hour-either from time constraints or that is all they really do. This left M and I to do my two hours.

It really isn't that I didn't mind doing two hours by myself. I was perfectly willing to do the 60-65 minute run and then add on by myself, but M was willing to go long. Part of it is that I don't really think that it is very safe to embark on a long run, especially this one, completely alone. There really isn't much on the route and I guess that I can get kind of freaked out by the cars. In general, it is safer to run with someone else or to have someone know where you are going. J has repeatedly told me to not do this run alone, he is more comfortable with more than one person doing the loop. It's OK if I do it by myself, but have other people doing the same course slower, they can always find me if something were to happen.

About halfway out I knew that this was going to be a long long run. My legs just did not feel very fresh or springy. We made it out to halfway in the same time that I made it out last weekend. On the way back I knew that it was going to be ugly. I barely made it up the hill. M kept telling me that I wasn't going slow, he is a very strong hill runner, but I could barely move up it. I was pretty OK on the flats, but the hills were absolutely killing me. I felt weak and run down on the hills.

I think that this has to do with the higher mileage this week and the hill workouts. After my two weeks of four hills, I felt good on the first Saturday and not so great on the second Saturday. I felt good on the first Saturday after five hills, and not so great on the second Saturday after five hills. The loop was only fifteen seconds slower than last week, so it was not a complete and total disaster, but it just felt pretty bad.

When we got done, M told me that he kept looking back when he would pull away to make sure that I was OK. Afterwards we were talking and I said that these kinds of runs are the ones that are the most important. The good runs are OK, but the ones that are tougher are the ones that really build character and strength. The not so great days are the ones that get you in better shape and able to persevere. My legs were tight and tired by the time we got done and I know that I need to schedule a massage soon.

I went to the gym after running, but didn't do quite as much as usual. I stretched as soon as I got there using the foam roller they have and the therabands. My foam roller is better, theirs is kind of on the softer side. I didn't elliptical because I thought that would cause some more trauma to my tender legs. I did ride the bike very easily to try to flush some of the lactic acid out of my legs. I stretched more when I got off and then lifted, no legs, just upper body. After the trauma I caused my legs after the last not-so-great long run, I didn't want to feel that way again.

My legs do feel better now. I took an ice bath with extra ice in it today. I also ate a protein-rich lunch to try to aid in recovery. Some walking around doing errands with my mom also helped some. I have to do my core exercises still and then get ready for a fireworks party.

Posted by Blondie at 03:29 PM | Comments (1)

September 09, 2005

Stiff In the Morning

Man, oh, man, were my legs ever stiff this morning. My middle of the night sleep walk to the bathroom should have been a clue as to what this morning would be like. I am usually tight in the morning, I've learned that it takes my body a little while to warm up and move around, but today was worse than normal. When I got out of bed, it felt like I needed to use my hands to move my legs. It wasn't really that bad, but I was tight. I knew that this might happen and I stretched more than usual last night.

I went to yoga this morning. It was very obvious that the summer is over and some people are back to work. There were only five people in the class. I was the youngest by far. Two were definitely retired and the other two looked to be stay-at-home moms. The room was so much colder than it usually is this morning. By the time the class rolled around, I had started to loosen up-I could touch the ground by this time. The stretching definitely helped, I feel much better now.

Later on in the afternoon, I could not let the beautiful weather go to waste, so I went on a long walk. I did my morning run loop as a walk. I can say that I much prefer to run it because it doesn't take nearly as long. I was getting bored doing the walking and wanted to run, but my stomach was full and would not let me even think about it.

Well, that's about all. I have an interview for the application that I had to get in on Wednesday. They need to fill the position ASAP so hopefully the fact that I can start ASAP makes me the frontrunner. Hope that everyone enjoys their weekend!

Posted by Blondie at 05:02 PM | Comments (0)

September 08, 2005

Ready for a Day Off

My body is so ready for tomorrow's day off. I probably won't completely take it off, as in sitting on the couch eating Bon-bons. Speaking of that, does anyone know if they still make Bon-bons? I tried to get them for my mom one day when she was feeling really down during chemo and couldn't find them in the grocery store. Anyhow, I digress...I'll probably go to yoga and maybe go for a walk depending on what the weather is like. Aboslutely no running!!! I've earned it!!!

Today was another double day. Since tonight's workout was a hard one, the plan was to try to be running around 8 this morning to get more time between runs. As is usually the case, things didn't really go according to the plan. My cell phone rang at 7 with someone who really only wanted to leave a message. I had some trouble getting out of bed when the alarm was set, but I only hit the snooze bar once. After getting out of bed, things took a little longer to happne than I had alloted, so I didn't really get out running until about 8:15. This wasn't too bad because there were less kids at bus stops. I felt like I was "butt jogging" (something that I had never heard of until yesterday) early on and almost tripped over my own shoelaces. After about a mile I started to feel a little bit better, but it is only the morning wake-up run, so the only point was to get out and get moving some. When I got home I did four barefoot striders in the front lawn. I kind of like doing them, they're very freeing and make me feel like a little kid again.

Tonight was the last night of hills on the schedule. To be honest, I've been looking forward to this since we started. I know that the hills are good for me and help me quite a bit. In fact, I PR'd at 5K and half marathon without even touching the track a few years ago after doing these hills, so they do something. There were only a few of us doing the hills tonight, and only T and I did five of them. Considering how much I have run this week, I wasn't sure if they would be better than last week or not. I can't really determine if they felt easier or harder than last week when I did them. They may have felt harder becuase they were faster, I don't know. The loop is just over a mile and I did my five hills in 35 minutes, so I was very happy with that.

My legs are very happy that I sat in the bathtub filled with ice when I got home. The ice and I had a fight because it wanted to stay in massive chunks and not come out of the bag that it came in. Whenever there are chunks in the bag, I fear that one of the huge chunks is going to come flying out of the bag and land on my shins, ouch!! It hasn't happened yet, but it probably will someday.

Night all!

Posted by Blondie at 08:52 PM | Comments (0)

September 07, 2005

The Post Office

Today I had to go to the post office to mail some supplies to a shelter in the gulf. I chose to go to one of the smaller post offices in the area. This particular post office also has lots of memories from my childhood, which brings the question of: if I don't really remember it, just hear stories about it, can it really be called a memory? Twenty-five years ago, when I was in preschool, we went on a field trip to this post office. They selected a child from the class to be a piece of mail to show us all how the mail was sorted, etc. That child was me. Apparently when the postmaster selected me I had this shocked and surprised look on my face that stayed there as he weighed me on the postage scale and got ready to stamp me. Now, seeing as I was all of three years old, I have no real recollection of this, only the stories that my mom, the chaperone, tells me. Whatever the case, I kind of like this post office.

This morning's run was another kind of tired run. I was dead tired and slept late. I think that this is what I get for running 53 miles in 4 days. My body is not used to that kind of mileage and I didn't intentionally run that much. I was really tight this morning when I woke up and that tightness lasted through most of my run as well. I ran on the G trail and tried to stay very relaxed, tomorrow is a hard workout and I would like it to be a good workout as well. The weather has been beautiful for running for about a week, we're finally getting some nice weather after those godawful days earlier in the summer. I ran my loop about a minute slower than normal today, but really tried to not worry about it. I know that the higher mileage and being so tired definitely played a role in that.

After running and going to the post office, I went to the gym to lift. My lifting day is probably going to have to move to Wednesday instead of Tuesday because I'll be doubling on Tuesdays this fall and really won't be able to find the time in the day to lift. I'd rather not do it on workout days unless it is after the workout, but that would be really late on Thursday, so Wednesday it will be. Hey, I can change. Once again, I opted to not lift legs due to the number of miles that I have run in the past four days. I stretched with the therabands when I got there and again before I left. My legs did feel like they were loosening up a little after the stretching. This is another aspect of running more miles. I believe that I have to schedule a massage for early next week. It is getting to my three week mark and PDR is next Sunday, so ideally I'll get a massage sometime on Wednesday.

I was going to go to yoga tonight, but I decided to talk to someone who I used to do a lot of work with instead. This is helping me find a new job, which in all honesty is more important than going to a yoga class. I will stretch again tonight with my strap.

All day today I have been starving. It has to be related to the fact that I have run so much more than normal. On Monday when I was at the barbeque I mentioned to my non-running friends that if I ever stop running I will need to re-learn how to eat. They never see me eat much becuase it is usually before a run, so they don't believe that I actually consume any food, just water. Portion sizes are so out of whack for me. Really, think about what our caloric needs are compared to the average person. They just don't seem to see that my portions are enormous compared to what they consider a serving. Just some food for thought...

Posted by Blondie at 08:30 PM | Comments (1)

September 06, 2005

Things That Make You Go: Hmmm

I knew that I was due for a day to feel not so great. Three consecutive good days, not to mention a great hill workout on Thursday, a tired day had to be in the cards soon. Today was that day. One thing that I can say is that my bad days are getting better. I didn't really feel bad, just tired and slow. A few weeks ago, when I had a bad day I could hardly put one foot in front of the other, so just feeling tired is a massive improvement.

I took my time getting out the door this morning since I didn't feel like dealing with the buses picking up the kids for school and rush hour traffic. There was a mini-catastrophe to deal with as well, I could not find my running sunglasses and it was super-sunny. The crisis was averted, as I did find them on a second check.

I did one of my extended loops this morning. I promised Audrey that I would write about it the next time I did it. The first thing I need to say is that I have not done this loop since April. My emergency bathroom on this route is no longer usable, the building was torn down and the bushes are gone. Just up the road from that is a certain donut shop. There is just something wrong about a donut being part of a run. I've even (sarcastically) named this loop after the donut shop. As Audrey said, there is just something wrong about donut shop named run. Since it was still breakfast time when I ran by, the smell of sugar coated grease was wafting out of the shop as I ran by, kind of unsettling for my stomach. I was shocked at how slowly I ran this morning. I did the route over five minutes slower than I usually do it. I really tried to not sweat it, figuring my body really needed an easy day.

There was a second run on my schedule for today. On Tuesdays this fall, I'm going to do most of my second runs with J's grade/middle school cross country team. It's fun to run with the kids, but I was there for an hour and a half to run for just over half an hour. They take so long to do their stretches and were so excited today about school that they wouldn't settle down. We did grass hill repeats, but I pretty much just ran up and down the hill. I ended up with about 4.25 miles with the kids and felt a lot better than I did this morning. All I can think of is that the run this morning got all of the junk out of my legs.

I am definitely due for an easy day tomorrow. My legs are not used to this much mileage, I'm actually on course for what will be one of my highest mileage weeks ever. I was wrong about the job application being due today, it's due tomorrow. The claim for the Department of Labor was due today and that did get filed. I was telling my mom that I am super sensitive about a certain thing because one of my co-workers had it, and lo and behold, I ran into her there. It's a good thing I was talking about it earlier and not there.

Posted by Blondie at 08:17 PM | Comments (1)

September 05, 2005

No Laboring Here

Happy Labor Day all! In light of it being a holiday, we moved our workout to the morning today. It just makes more sense to do it in the morning on holidays when the majority of people have off from work. It gives everyone the rest of the day to go to picnics, parties, pool closings, etc. Of course, this morning I moaned and groaned about wanting to sleep in later. It isn't that I had to get up all that much earlier than I would have (in fact, I was up when the alarm went off), it was the fact that I had to be somewhere at a certain time.

We were quite surprised at the number of people who came today. There were people who never come to evening workouts. There were people who never come on Monday. This seems to be a common theme for holiday workouts.

We weren't on the track this morning. The schedule called for a tempo run in the neighborhood accross the street. After a leisurely warm-up, we headed out on the four mile tempo run. The last time we did this, I was dizzy and couldn't finish, so my main goal was to improve on that. It was so nice out this morning, in the lower sixties, which made running very pleasant. I didn't really look at my mile splits (we actually have every quarter mile marked on the loop) because the last time I got too worked up over the first mile was too fast, the second mile was too slow, and so on. I did take a peek a little after three miles, but I don't know how far after. The last mile, which is the first mile backwards, is a long uphill-not how I want to finish a tempo run. It seems that there are more uphills on the loop than downhills, it just doesn't seem fair! I finished the four miles in 26:13, somewhere in the 6:32-33 range of pace. It was supposed to be at marathon pace, which we are basing off of a 3 hour marathon. The problem is I've never run a good marathon to really base anything off of. The tempo today does give me some confidence. After I got done the tempo, I jogged back accross the street, about half a mile, to the track to do 2 x 200 at 18:30 5K pace. I hit the 200s in 42-43 and they didn't feel that bad. After the warm-down I had about ten miles for the morning.

This afternoon was spent at a barbeque of some high school girlfriends. We sat around and caught up and brought out the old yearbooks, a very scary thing to do! The bride from the wedding a month ago did grace us with her presence, I almost had the nerve to ask where my thank you note was, but I didn't do it. I don't know if I'm being petty, and I know that you do have time to get the note out after the wedding, but I still have yet to receive one from her shower. Anyhow, I digress.

I got home and decided that to kill some time before dinner I would do a second run today since that was an option. I did a very easy four miler. I tried to stay very easy, but I had to run slightly faster than I wanted because the late lunch I ate was making its presence known, if you get my drift.

Tonight I have to work on a job application that is due tomorrow and get the info that the Department of Labor needs to file suit against my former employer, so I've got some stuff to do now!

Posted by Blondie at 06:57 PM | Comments (0)

September 04, 2005

Will I Become Itchy Again?

Yes, that is the $64,000 question.

After my first real long run of the season yesterday, I stated that I wanted to run on a soft surface today. So even though the weather was nice enough to run from the house, I went on the G trail. I don't know what came over me, but I decided that I wanted to do the cornfield loop. I am almost 100 percent certain that is where I picked up whatever poison rash I suffered with for close to 3 weeks. Any person with any common sense would steer clear of this loop, but no, I decided to take fate into my own hands. We'll see in two days or so if I got it off soon enough. The dermatologist claims that if you wash soon enough, I won't be afflicted with that awful rash. I did keep an eye out for those telltale leaves that can cause the problem, but who knows.

I felt amazingly good considering yesterday's run. It took me a little bit longer than usual to get out to the end of the trail, but that also involved an encounter with a dog off his leash. The owner was really apologetic about it and the dog was friendly. The cornfield loop will probably be off limits for a while. There is a section that is grassy and has not been mowed for quite some time, the grass was almost up to my knees. As soon as I got through that section, I stopped for a tick check. The area does have deer ticks and I know a few people who have gotten Lyme Disease back there, so stopping was a necessity. I did put on bug spray, but that does not prevent ticks from attracting themselves. After I was completely done the cornfield loop I did another tick check. As soon as I started to run again, there was another encounter with dogs. Their owner was riding horseback!?! These dogs were friendly as well, but it was unnerving. I don't know if it is a holiday weekend or because it was so nice out, but the trail was very crowded. I kept having to slow down to get through throngs of people. It doesn't really matter since today was supposed to be super easy. I got back a little bit before 54 minutes, so I ran until I got to 55. I kept the OCD tendencies under control and did not try to make it an even hour. If I had added up my weekly mileage before I may have, but I can settle for 64.5 miles instead of 65 for the week.

The rest of today has been just hanging out at home. My mom and I went for a stroll this afternoon. We walked for about half an hour. She is trying to start a little bit of exercise again. The walk pretty much wiped her out, but she has done very little exercise since December, so she has to ease into it. It was nice to get outside and stroll with her, though.

Posted by Blondie at 06:53 PM | Comments (0)

September 03, 2005

Taking a Big Jump

Today marked a big jump in my long run. Since April, I have been content to run somewhere from 60-75 minutes. Over the past two weeks, this number has increased slightly, to just around 90 minutes. This morning, that jumped even higher, to 16 miles, or almost two hours. Is this the smartest way to increase mileage? Probably not. Conventional wisdom states to make mileage increases no more than ten percent. I like to think that rule only applies to those who are on the newer side to running. Of course, making that leap with very little behind it and after increasing speed work this week, was a bit much.

It was absolutely gorgeous this morning. Mid-sixties, sunny, one could hardly ask for much better running weather. It was, dare I say it, even nippy in the shade! I ended up running by myself since the others doing the 16 mile loop were running at a pace that I didn't find comfortable. I made it out to the turnaround in 57:45, which is pretty conservative. While there, I got some water out of the spigot on the wall. Even though this route is considered our flat course, it is hardly flat. A better way to put it would be "the less hilly route" as the mile and a half of straight up climbing around 11-12 miles is a bitch. There is no other way to describe it. My goal was to run faster on the way back and feel strong on those hills. I finished the course in 1:54, actually slower than I usually run it. About three and a half miles from my car I started to feel thirsty, but there wasn't anything to do about it but suck it up and get back to my car with the big water bottle in it.

This last statement leads into my next thought. I find that when I run the same courses over and over again, I start racing against what I know that I have run said course in. This probably is not a good habit to get into, but I think that all of us tend to do that to some extent. I have run this course in under 1:50 (being pushed by a friend) and usually come in somewhere in the 1:52 range. That being said, I really was not trying to run fast today, just to get some miles on my legs. Any other time I have run this course there are more runs in the 90 minute range and not as much speed work going into it. Whatever the case, tomorrow I want to go short, flat, and soft.

After running I got myself over to the gym. I am much happier that the road construction on the short route has finally been completed, so I don't have to loop out of the way. I did the elliptical for half an hour and then rode the bike for half an hour. Most of the reason that I do this things is to try to shake some of the lactic acid out of my legs. I stretched some there and then lifted.

Tonight I tried a new food. For anyone who knows me, they know that this is a huge deal. I'm so picky when it comes to food and tend to stick with what I know I like. Tonight I prepared some spaghetti squash and added bell pepper strips and tomato. It was really good. Preparing it was a bit of a hassle, but it would be easier if I had known what I was getting into and started earlier. I definitely got my quota of veggies today!

Posted by Blondie at 07:18 PM | Comments (0)

September 02, 2005

Life Needs to Go On

As upset as I am about the soaring gas prices, life needs to go on. I've always been pretty good about only driving when I need to drive. It isn't something that I really enjoy doing and I've been complaining about gas prices for quite some time. I remember not that long ago when gas was well under a dollar a gallon, now it is going up by whole coins in just hours. Last night I was really upset about the entire situation. There needs to be some serious work done on using alternative sources of fuel. I'm very scared that this is not going to happen and we are going to live with these outrageous gas prices for the rest of our lives.

There are some things that I can do differently in order to save on gas. I've always been pretty good about clumping errands together and doing trips that are close to each other in the same trip. When I was working at the school, I had to drive there-it was not exactly in the safest neighborhood and a girl on a bike would be a super-easy target. Oh, yeah, it was also still dark when I had to go to work. I could stop running with the group at the track, but doing a track workout alone is not too much fun. Half of the reason I go is to hang out with other people who have similar interests. I could run there, but the road that I would need to get there is most definitely not safe for pedestrians-cars go in the 60-70 mile per hour range and there really is not much of a sidewalk. My life is much more valuable than saving a few dollars in gas. The darkness factor comes into play with this too, it would be dark on the way home and there is the hill too, not something I want to deal with on my warm-down.

My bike will be getting more use now. Again, this area isn't all that friendly towards non-vehicular transportation. The main road in the area isn't that bike friendly. Audrey knows, she saw it. My bike is pretty similar to this one, it isn't exactly built for comfort riding. Mine is a little bit older and is one of the WSD bikes, but this is the most similar model. Tomorrow morning I believe that I will be investing in a lock so that it can be ridden a bit more for some commuting.

Oh, I did do some physical activity today. I woke up pretty stiff and hungry this morning, but that was to be expected. Today is my day off from running and given that this week is going to be a much higher mileage week, I wanted to take advantage of the rest. I walked for four miles because it was really nice out and I couldn't really let such a nice day go to waste. This afternoon I had to do the running for my parents. I chose to park in a residential area and walk all of the errands, probably another 2.5 to 3 miles.

My thoughts are with everyone who has been affected by Katrina. I am in the process of trying to figure out something that I can do to help. I hope that everyone has a wonderful and safe long weekend!

Posted by Blondie at 05:16 PM | Comments (0)

September 01, 2005

Retarded Computer

The computer is acting so retarded today. It is doing better now that it has been turned off and then turned on again. I swear that this computer is more stupid than other computers. Do not tell me that computers are not people and only do what their users tell them to do, this computer is retarded. OK, maybe not the actual computer, but the internet connection is. We still have dial-up because we have to have it. Our phone line is crappy and old which means unusually slow internet connection, so you basically take a regular dial-up connection and put it in slo-mo, that's what we deal with here. Today it decided that it would dial-in, but not actually connect to the internet, just sit and think.

OK, that is enough ranting about the computer. Today was the start of building into higher mileage. This morning was the first day of doing doubles again. Let me tell you, doing your morning run around 8 is much easier than having to be on the road before 5 in the morning. I had to think about when I was in grade school as I was running by all of the kids at their bus stops. There was a man who used to run by our bus stop when we were waiting for the bus and we used to torment him and tell him that we could run faster (of course, we probably could-this guy still runs and I can kick his butt!). I kept thinking to myself that what goes around comes around. As I went by all of the bus stops I kept trying to think of a great comeback to use if a kid did try to torment me, but couldn't come up with one.

Tonight was another week of hills. We didn't have a really big group again. In addition to adding a morning run, I added a hill this week for five. I looked in my log this morning to see how I did when doing five in the spring and saw that I didn't do five at all this spring-the weeks that were scheduled for five were tapering and recovering from a race. I had the usual be careful phone call this morning, telling me to just tuck in behind someone and let them pull me up the hill. I kind of did that, but T was running a bit faster, so I just focused on his back going up the hill. He only did four, so I was on my own for the last one. I really tried to not let myself fall into the "I can just get up on this one" mindset and worked all five. I was really happy to do the five miles in 35 minutes and change. Seven minute pace may not sound fast, but these hills are really nasty. Anyhow, with the two runs I ended up with about fifteen miles for the day.

I have been a bit confused lately because my track workouts have been terrible, but I have been having the best hill workouts of my life. This makes me nervous leading into race season becuase that means that my sense of pace may not be so great right now. I have to think positively-my long runs have been going well and the hills (which are always difficult for me) have been good.

I have to say that I was shocked when I went out today and saw how expensive gas was. I didn't go anywhere until I went to the track. I saw on the news that prices had gone up, but I didn't know how much they had gone up even during the day. I called my parents and told them how much gas was at one station and they said that it was less when they went by it earlier in the day. The station nearest my house went up 12 cents between when I left for the track and when I came home. I know that this complaining is selfish considering what the entire gulf region is going through-I mean they don't have any gas, not even the police, so I really don't have any right to complain. That being said, even with my newly washed car, my bike is going to be used much more now as a mode of transportation. It can't hurt, it's better for the environment and I'll get a little bit more exercise in by doing it.

Posted by Blondie at 09:03 PM | Comments (0)