The Long Run

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February 28, 2006

Not My Fault

Well, the dentist appointment wasn't as good as I had hoped it to be. It really was just a pipe dream that he would say everything was fine and not procedure was needed. The first thing he said was no crying and then he said that he completely blames my father's bad genes for this problem. His office is next door to ours and apparently he had come in one day shortly after my first appointment when I had already left. He told my parents that this problem can be genetic and that is what mine is. He did make me feel better that the recession isn't caused by something I did (or for that matter, didn't do).

Last night I got sucked into watching CSI Miami, leading me to staying up completely too late. Getting up early to run this morning was no picnic from being up too late watching something I didn't have to watch. We had a dusting of snow last night, but the roads were almost 100 percent this morning. There were a few spots that were a little bit on the slippery side, but nothing too slick. There was definitely some crunchiness going on, but the kinks did get themselves out. Five easy miles with no time and then a mad dash to get ready for work.

I was falling asleep at work this afternoon. The worst time of afternoon seems to be from about 2:40 to 4:00. This was the case at my old job as well, but I assumed that it was just from waking up so darn early, but that doesn't seem to be it. That time of day is just my lowest point.

Like the moron that I am, I decided that I would do an extra long run this afternoon. My fear is that I simply do not have enough long runs under my belt at the moment. Why doing something longer this afternoon sounded like a good idea I do not know, but I did it. My legs were extremely tight, especially my calves and achilles, and I was freezing. It really was not all that cold out, but I think I could be on the brink of coming down with a cold. I had to make a few stops to stretch out my calves because they were so tight that my stride was affected. The air felt so cold that it was burning when I breathed in and my body was freezing the entire time. One stop included some coughing that seemed to help the burning sensation. In total, it was 11 miles in 74 minutes giving me 16 for the day.

I was going to go to the gym to lift, but I decided that staying home was in my best interest. I don't need to be around all of the germs that float around the gym. Really stretching seemed to be a better idea than doing some lifting. I may even scrap my core exercises today so that I can get to sleep very early to fight whatever I could be coming down with.

Posted by Blondie at 07:39 PM | Comments (1)

February 27, 2006

Cold and Lighter Workout

The milder winter has definitely turned me into even more of a baby when it comes to the cold. In a normal winter, today would have been considered not too bad, but given this winter, it was downright cold. The high was below average for this time of year, but for the past few winters we have really suffered with extreme cold, so it wouldn't be that bad. It was probably right around 32 degrees tonight when we got to the track and the wind had died down, which it continued to do as the workout went on.

All day I felt sort of iffy about the workout tonight. There seemed to be some residual tiredness in my legs from Saturday's tempo run. In reality, that run wasn't really a long run, it was a workout. The legs just felt a little on the heavy and flat side. It's been two weeks since my last massage and I can tell it is time to get worked on again. After two weeks I can notice it, but I try to stretch it to three weeks between appointments for a few reasons-to save money and because the massages take a lot out of me. Later this week I'll call to set up an appointment sometime next week.

The workout on tap tonight was 800s with a 400 jog again. Everyone but me had 6 on the schedule, but I had 7. This was sort of a relief since I had thought that I would be doing 8 tonight. We started as a big group, pretty much the same group as last week, and did the first one in 3:02. Now remember, we're supposed to be doing these sort of Yasso-style, so not blazing fast. M, who hasn't been to a workout in about a month was there, and he likes to do his recoveries faster as well, so I ended up running with him. We slowed down the 800s but did the jog lap very fast. The rest of our 800s were: 3:06, 3:06, 3:03, 3:08, 3:04, and 3:06. Our recoveries ranged from 1:48 to 1:52 and we took turns leading 800s. Boy, oh, boy were 3:06s tough with the recovery so fast. Of course, this is the way the workout was supposed to be done and I have been spoiled by doing the recoveries so slow the past few weeks. We did notice that it stayed light much further into the workout. We still had light for the first three, spring is right around the corner!

Tomorrow morning I have to face the dentist again and see what he says about needing to have serious dental work done. Keep your fingers crossed for me....

Posted by Blondie at 08:26 PM | Comments (0)

February 26, 2006

Those Crazy Neighbors

The next door neighbors here are trouble. The street is a cul-de-sac and they are most definitely the bad seed of the neighborhood. Every neighborhood has one, but we are so lucky to live right next door to ours. The woman who owns the house isn't that bad, but she isn't in the best health or a spring chicken. Two of her sons live with her, and they are the problem. We've had problems with them for some time, but today their behavior was downright strange. The attic window was open and they were literally just throwing things out of the window. Strange.

This morning was much colder and windier than it was yesterday. It's a miracle with all of this changing weather that my health has been good so far. I went out and did what has become my usual Sunday morning route. Last weekend there was a tree down about halfway out and it hasn't been taken care of yet. This is somewhat surprising since the park usually takes great care in maintaining the land. Given yesterday's near race effort, I felt pretty good. The main goal was just to take it easy and flush the acid out of my legs and that goal was accomplished.

We had my uncle and my grandmother over for lunch today. Today is her 91st birthday, so we had a little lunch for her. It is such a shame to see how much her mental capacities have diminished in the past few years. For the most part she is with it, but at the same time she is in her own little world. I can not fault her at all, she has not had an easy life.

This afternoon I went out for a second run. It seems that it got colder and windier as the day went on. I can't vouch for the actual temperature, but with the wind chill it really felt quite a bit colder. This afternoon I wore my racing flats to gradually get my feet used to wearing them again. My legs felt much fresher than in the morning, a good sign.

A new record for laundry was set this weekend. Six loads washed, dried, folded, and put away! The putting away is the real accomplishment. It normally sits folded in the laundry basket for about a week before it gets put away.

Posted by Blondie at 07:17 PM | Comments (0)

February 25, 2006

New Shoes! New Shoes!

There is just something so exciting about getting a new pair of running shoes. Even more exciting, getting two new pairs of running shoes. It isn't even like I get different shoes, the same thing almost every time. Years ago I found something I like and that seems to work well for me, so I've been wearing Mizuno Wave Riders since 2001. I picked up one new pair of those, I did try them on even though I didn't need to, and a pair of the Asics Cumulus. I considered getting a pair of something I've never tried before, but it didn't feel right, so I stayed with something that I've worn in the past.

This morning was a bit different than most Saturday mornings. We met at a different spot, a spot that is twice as far from my house. We have been doing this run on this weekend for three years now. On Valentine's weekend we always do our ten mile tempo/marathon pace run. This weekend we do a 7 mile tempo run. Last weekend, I was wishy-washy about this run since it is really the last weekend that I have to get a long run in before a possible race. I've been feeling that my long runs have been lacking, so I sort of wanted to get at least two hours in. On the other hand, this morning was to be a real test of fitness that would not have been possible unless I entered another race. When J and I talked about this run the other day, we decided that doing all 7 miles at half-marathon pace would probably put me over the edge, but we wanted to have at least a good portion of it at that pace.

It was much colder this morning than it has been lately. One of the guys in our group was late showing up and took his time getting ready to warm-up, so I stood there practically convulsing because I was so cold. The warm-up was twenty minutes and I felt like crap. This caused some major concern about the tempo portion of the run. We were at a park that has an inside loop and an outside loop. The warm-up was about a lap and a half of the inside loop and the tempo portion was two laps of the outside loop. The first mile is downhill, the second mile is mainly uphill, and the third mile is all uphill so it is a challenging course. I didn't take any mile splits on the course, but certain mile markers seemed further apart than others. On those miles the main thought in my mind was "where on earth is that *&$*% (insert mile) mark".

I ran with my usual buddy J and T for the first two miles. Around this point, they both picked up the pace a little bit. About a half mile later, I passed J and T stayed the same distance in front of me for the rest of the run. Thursday night's hill definitely affected the run, but this was not supposed to be a race. J was walk/jogging on the inside loop when we were doing the workout. He passed by me right as I was coming up to the seven mile mark. I gave him one of those, "this didn't go the way I wanted" kind of looks to which he responded it was perfect. Later on he told me that he was surprised to see us coming up the hill when he did. In all, I finished the 7 mile course in exactly 45 minutes, over a minute faster than I did last year. This is the kind of workout that comparisons are good on, because it is a fitness test.

After the tempo portion, we did a lap on the inside together as a warm-down. I did a second lap on my own to get some more mileage in. I would have liked to get more total mileage in, but my legs were beat by the end of the second lap of the warm-down. In retrospect, this was kind of like a 10K race, but a mile longer, so the warm-down should have been pretty crappy.

After running, I went to the gym and rode the bike for 37 minutes. It was freezing for the first part of the bike since I still had my wet clothes on when I drove over to the gym. I lifted some, but really wasn't too much in the mood for it. The gym wasn't nearly as crowded as it has been recently. Maybe the resolutioners are finally falling off the wagon!

Today I did six loads of laundry, therefore I have tons of laundry to fold. Maybe, I'll even put it away since we are having company tomorrow. Anyway, laundry beckons....

Posted by Blondie at 07:09 PM | Comments (2)

February 23, 2006

No Comparisons

I was much better about getting in bed at a decent hour last night. I purposely checked out the figure skating results online today so that I would not feel the need to stay up and watch the finals. I sort of liked it better back in the days that we could not find out instantaneously what the results are and we had to watch the events on TV, it made the Olympics more exciting. Of course, I'm running very late tonight after the workout and having to go to the grocery store in order to buy necessary items for dinner tonight and lunch tomorrow.

Even with getting a better night of sleep last night, getting up to run this morning wasn't easy. The conditions outside didn't make it any easier. It wasn't that cold, chilly, but it was really damp and foggy. The entire run I was thinking about an article in this month's Running Times about what time of day is best to run and why. It basically said that the worst time of day is the early morning. Granted, my morning runs aren't all that early anymore, the theory is that immediately after waking up, the body is most injury prone. It also went on to say that most heart attacks and deaths are in the early morning. I believe the actual time is 4:00 in the morning according to the time you are used to, so it could be later if you happen to be travelling over time zones. Oh, my running this morning. The first half mile was pathetic, as always. It improved some, but last night's dinner was making it's presence known. I considered doing an extra mile, to do five, but decided that I would rather do the extra mile in this evening's workout. My body was making it pretty clear that it was only to give one extra mile for the day, not two extra miles.

Tonight we were doing our shorter steeper hills. Since this is the last week that I'm going to be able to do these hills, I was supposed to do five. Usually we start with three and work up to five over the course of six weeks. During the day it rained off and on until about three in the afternoon. This had me mighty concerned since I didn't bring a jacket with me. It finally cleared up and the temperature increased as well. My body felt pretty crummy during the early parts of the warm-up, but by the end of the warm-up things were running smoothly. At the bottom of the hill, I took of my long pants and one of my long sleeve shirts since I'm trying to toughen up about running in the cold.

I ended up doing all five, and my time after four hills was over a minute faster than it was two weeks ago when I did four. The first three felt really good, but at the end of the third one, two guys blew past me and my tri-buddy J. J went with them and left me alone. These guys were running way faster than I am capable of on the hills. Seriously, to get up the hill is an accomplishment for me, but in the last ten meters after it crests before we turn around I recover. On the fourth hill, I tried to stay closer to the guys, but it was way over my head, so the last two weren't as comfortable. I ended up doing the just over five miles of the hills in 36 minutes. I shouldn't look at my log from the past years to see what this workout has been in the past. That is one of the problems of doing the same workouts from year to year. This year is different, so it really can not be compared.

Tomorrow is my day off from running and my day to sleep in! In order to accomplish the second part, my outfit needs to get picked out tonight. Night, all!

Posted by Blondie at 08:36 PM | Comments (2)

February 22, 2006

Paying Attention to Signals

At this point in my life, I should know that getting to bed early one night does not fix going to bed way too late too many nights in a row. Since I have been increasing my mileage, I need to pay more attention to some of the "little" things like eating right, getting enough water, and getting enough sleep. The amount of water I've been drinking is sufficient for running in the 50 mile a week range, but it isn't enough for how much I've been doing lately. This is pretty clear since there haven't been many stumbling to the bathroom in the middle of the night trips. The drooping eyes around 2:30 every afternoon are a huge signal that staying up at night is taking a toll. Days like yesterday, my body snaps out of it once I get running, but on other days it doesn't.

Today was one of those days where it didn't snap out of the sleepy mode. That's fine, Wednesday is supposed to be one of the easiest days on my schedule. My goal this afternoon was to wear the heart rate monitor with the alarms on and to have the alarm go off for being under the low end of the ideal training range. Mission accomplished, the alarm was going off constantly for having my heart rate around 120. That was exactly what I wanted. Nothing hurt or felt really bad, I was just tired.

It was disgusting out, chilly and damp. I was cold all day which is definitely one of the signals that I've been skimping on sleep. Now my legs do feel a little bit beat up, so I'm going to use the stick and the foam roller to break up some of the tissue. It really is a shame that the need for massage goes up with mileage. I am very lucky that I have a therapist who charges a reasonable rate and gives very good massage. Of course, with how often I go, most therapists would probably give a discount due to volume.

Posted by Blondie at 07:29 PM | Comments (0)

February 21, 2006

Getting Lighter Every Day

It's staying light out just a little bit later every night. This is very exciting since it means that we are inching closer to spring and getting closer to the end of winter. It was light out last night for our entire warm-up and didn't really get dark until we were starting the workout. Today it was light out for almost my entire run-which was longer and didn't get started as early as planned.

Getting up for my morning run was not an easy task today. I stayed up later than I should have because the book I'm reading has been sucking me in. I didn't like it that much when I started it, but now it's getting addictive. It isn't even a serious book, but sometimes a light and funny, non-thinking book is needed. So, having stayed up too late, the snooze bar was very tempting. It did get hit once, but the alarm didn't go off a second time. According to the weather, it was 23 degrees when I headed out. It was cold, but I'm not sure it was that cold. The first half mile had a lot of crunchiness going on in it. This is probably from having only just gotten out of bed. Once I got warmed up and awake, it wasn't that bad of a run. I decided to do the extra little bit this morning, so it was 5 miles. I noticed at least three houses that still have definite Christmas decorations out. Come on folks, it's February 21! All of these houses were on the same street, so I'm thinking that street is in some kind of time warp.

At work today, I enjoyed looking at Alison's pictures of cross country nationals. There had been a possiblity of the team that I race for going, but that fell apart with other's injuries and race plans. It doesn't bother me that much. It would have been fun, but also not so fun. We would have frozen! Given how I feel about cross country, it probably was best that we weren't able to go. The course didn't look as scary as the courses we run here, so I may have been able to handle it better.

This afternoon was my middle of the week, sort of longer run. I wanted to do a 9 mile route, but didn't have time to map anything out. So, I ended up adding a big loop of a development at the start of my run. I thought that a full loop was a mile, but I think that it may have been longer since it normally takes me about 14:20 to get to where I have to stop to cross a major road. Today, with that extra loop, it took 24:00, so I think that loop is more like 1.25 miles. Whatever, I'm not that anal about mileage, just curious. Early on, I felt very asleep, it took about fifteen minutes to get rolling. After that, I felt really good and went with it. On Tuesdays, I try to pick up the pace for the last two miles to pretty close to half-marathon race pace so that I know what it feels like. Today, the last two miles ended up being well under that pace, but it felt good and wasn't that hard, so it ended up being closer to 6 minute pace instead of 6:15 pace. The total run was just over 65 minutes and probably about 9.25 miles.

I had contemplated not going to lift today since I was so tired, but when I got home I sucked it up and went anyway. To clarify, I might lift a few days a week, but I don't do much. Usually it's one exercise for each of the major muscle groups in the upper body; three sets of ten. After my experience of overloading my legs over the summer, I haven't lifted legs. So, I might get in there to lift, but it isn't hard core lifting by any means.

Posted by Blondie at 08:12 PM | Comments (1)

February 20, 2006

No Day Off

It seems that today, though a federal holiday, was not a day off for most people. When I was working in the school, this was always our four day long weekend, something we all looked forward to in February. We were fake open today-we were there, but didn't answer the phone or have any appointments. Since there really weren't any interruptions or limitations on where to go, I got a lot accomplished. Usually I always feel behind, but today I felt pretty up to date when I left. The phone was ringing quite a bit, not individuals so much as other companies calling us.

It felt colder when I left the office for the track than when I got there. It was supposedly 39 degrees, but to me it felt a lot colder. The workout was 6 paced 800s, but I was supposed to do seven. I've done this workout before, alone, and it felt really long. Other workouts that come out to more mileage feel shorter than this, there is just something about 800s that tend to feel very long to me. Doing it in a group and taking turns leading made a huge difference in making it go by faster.

We were staying together pretty well for the first few 800s, but after about three the recoveries were the difference. I've been trained to run my recoveries pretty quickly, but the rest of the group can't run their recoveries as quickly as I do, so I would turn around and jog back after 250 meters. Our 800s were 3:06, 3:06, 3:04, 3:05, 3:05, 3:07, and a 3:03 at the end. J was giving us our 400 splits, so there was some adjusting going on to hit the 800 time that we were supposed to hit. I am concerned about how slow the recoveries are since these are supposed to be paced 800s, not speedwork. On the last two I ran the recoveries at my usual recovery pace, which was almost 15 seconds faster per 400 than with the group. For pace type workouts, I think that the entire thing should be pretty up-tempo. I'll have that discussion with J soon enough. He doesn't really want me doing too much by myself because it makes the workout harder than it needs to be.

At work I had to pay other peoples' bills, which reminded me that I have to pay my bills tonight. Fun times, it's going to be pretty painful.

Posted by Blondie at 08:10 PM | Comments (0)

February 19, 2006

The Miracle Cure-All

Of course, it isn't for the faint of heart. Ice baths. They do a body good, sort of like milk. Yesterday afternoon I knew that I had to do something so that my legs would even be able to go to the party, much less run today. Actually, it wasn't even an ice bath. The water comes out of the faucet so cold here in the winter that it's colder than when I put ice in during the summer. Adding a little bit of warm water helped, but it was still cold. Fifteen minutes of suffering in the cold water perked my legs back up to be able to party into the wee hours of the morning and stand at the party.

It was darn cold this morning. I thought it was windier than yesterday, but our lunch guests disagreed with me on that. Sunday is technically my off-road day during the winter. It seemed to be even more important to get off the road today after yesterday's effort, so I went over to the G trail to run. OK, the trail is so frozen that it is just as hard as road, but with rocks on it. I did my usual Sunday loop, out to the end of the trail, jump onto the road for about 3/4 of a mile to the bridge and turn around. I had to stop to climb over a tree that had fallen, much harder to stop on the way back when it was on the downhill. Given how bad I felt yesterday and how hard the run was, this morning went quite well.

We had a nice little lunch this afternoon for my grandmother's 91st birthday. We bought bread bowls from Panera and had different soups. The best part of the lunch was getting to eat the bowl! We also had my favorite dessert, angel food cake. It wasn't her real birthday party, but it was a chance for a woman who is a friend of my mom's to see her since it's been a long time since they've been able to get together.

This afternoon I decided it was time to start doing a third double in the week. It was still darn cold when I went out, so that seems to be the current trend. I considered doing a slightly longer second run, but remembered that I promised to stay flat and easy today, so it was a short run. Since we ate lunch later, I had some bathroom issues during the run. That isn't anything new for me, so it is to be expected. My total this week is the highest it has been in several months, 76 miles.

I need to go and get some new shoes. The New Balance shoes that I won in October don't cut it. They bother my ankle, they're way too stiff, and make me run "heavy". I had sort of retired them, but have resurrected them for some of my shorter runs. My main trainers are almost done too, so I'll have to get two pairs soon.

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

February 18, 2006

Sometimes I Don't Want to Know What Looms Ahead

Yesterday afternoon, I had been given a warning as to what this morning's long run was going to entail. It wasn't exactly what I had planned. My plan had been to just run long, like 2:15 to 2:20. J had other plans for me. Most of it was what I had been expecting, a long easy run. He had announced on Thursday night that when we run on the out and back course, it should be our longest and easiest run. Well, yesterday, I was informed that I was going to do the out and back and then I had a special treat, a mile on the track at half-marathon race pace. Yeah!! How fun!

Waking up this morning was not too bad. I made sure to move around some so that my legs could wake up a bit. It was definitely on the brisk side, actually right around the projected high for the day. It's one of those days that they don't expect to really warm up at all as the day goes on. The wind that had been whipping around yesterday had died down some, it must have been what brought in the colder temperatures.

The group this morning was a decent size, but most of the group was only running about 90 minutes. My tri buddy J was there, so he ran with me all the way out to the turn around. My legs felt flat and dead, to put it mildly. I'm pretty sure that the fast uphill miles on Thursday night were my undoing. I knew that a dead feeling day had to be coming sometime soon, the mileage has to catch up at some point. We stayed with the group for about the first six miles before they turned off and we kept on going. J had to use the bathroom at the halfway point. It just made more sense for him to go when there was a bathroom available then to wait and have to go in the woods. The run was supposed to be easy and slow, so it wasn't that big of deal. I took those three minutes to stretch out my hamstrings, calves, and quads-the tightness culprits.

The stretching break helped immensely as my legs did perk up a little bit on the way back. Even with all of the climbing on the return, we ran about two minutes faster without even really trying. The plan was to run around 7:45s on the way out and right around 7:30 on the way back. J said it wasn't that big of a deal to run 7s, but we wouldn't do the special treat at the end if that was the case. We were a little bit faster than the projected paces, but not so fast as to defeat the purpose. The entire way back I was hemming and hawing about doing the mile on the track. I felt like I could keep running and running, but to do a fast mile might be the nail in my coffin.

When we got onto the track, J was there walking. I told him that I wasn't sure if it was a good idea to run the fast mile. I had been going through waves of feeling like I could do it and waves of thinking that I would never even be able to break 7, much less run a 6:15. The other J was whining that he couldn't do it without me, so the final decision was to at least start the mile and if it really wasn't happening, to just run again. It turns out, that I started a little too fast, but who can tell what a 94 second quarter really feels like after running 16 miles? J had me lead the first 800, then he took off on the third quarter and we ran the same pace on the fourth quarter. He did a 6:12 and I managed my 6:15. It hurt like hell. Another three quarters of a mile and we hit just over 18 miles.

I went to the gym after the run with the intent to ride the bike, stretch and lift. I did ride the bike very easily for half an hour. The, I did stretch well, but my legs still felt beat up. I didn't feel much like lifting. I was tired and just not in the mood. I did one exercise and decided that it wasn't going to happen. I remembered what happened over the summer when I felt this way and insisted on lifting after the run and just being beat up for days afterward.

I have been searching for new black shoes to wear for work since the black slingbacks I have give me blisters accross all of my toes. Over the past week, five stores have been strikeouts, so I ventured into the mall. Not only did I find a snazzy pair of black pumps (not interview-ee, not completely going out kind) AND a pair of tall black suede boots. Not like I need the boots, but I wear my tall black leather boots all the time, so I will wear them. Plus, they were on sale for $33 down from $169-I just can't resist sales.

Tonight is a party that one of the guys in our group has every year. It's always a fun time, although getting dressed for it is a bit hard. I've been prepping the appetizers that I'm bringing all day. Hopefully the one recipe that I'm trying for the first time turns out well.

Posted by Blondie at 03:36 PM | Comments (0)

February 17, 2006

Getting Kicked When Down

The blows just keep on coming this week. Today was my day off from running as always. I treasure it more when my mileage increases. The rest seems to agree with my body.

It turns out that I had not been to the dentist in almost a year and a half. This is probably due to the sh*t hitting the fan right around this time last year. Anyhow, their office is right next door to us at work and they called me on Wednesday to set up an appointment. The dentist doesn't work on Fridays (must be nice), so I saw my hygenist. In his practice, he tries to have the same person see you each time you visit. It wasn't too painful, my flossing does help with that. As soon as she finished and said, "your home care looks good..." I knew that I was in trouble. The but came. They've been watching my gumlines for years. I started going to this dentist in 1999 and this issue has been around since way before then. She's concerned because they seem to have receded more. I have to go back in two weeks to have the dentist look at my gumline and talk about the possibility of gum grafts. She also wants to check out a possible cavity. They'll know more about that after the full set of films they took today are loaded into the computer.

Great. I made sure she knew that I don't handle needles in my mouth well at all. The first time I had novicain, I screamed so loudly that I had to go apologize to the woman in the next room. This dentist told me that he wanted to be a fly on the wall when I had my wisdom teeth out because I absolutely freaked out when he even brought out the needle. We don't have dental insurance as part of our plan, but if I have to go to an oral surgeon it might be covered. This wouldn't bother me as much if I didn't take very good care of my teeth. I brush at least three times a day, floss every day, and do everything they've told me to do to stop the recession. I think that part of it is genetic since my father has the same problem. I also have very cavity prone teeth. Argh.

Things have got to get better. It's Friday...

Posted by Blondie at 07:36 PM | Comments (0)

February 16, 2006

Really Bad Way to Start the Day

If all of today had gone the way early this morning was, it would have been a very, very, very ugly kind of day. The actual act of waking up wasn't too bad, even having to get up a little bit earlier to do my morning run. After stumbling into the bathroom, things went downhill. Without my contacts or glasses, I am as blind as a bat. My former co-workers were amazed at how little I could see when I would take of my glasses, and they thought they were blind! I always put my right lens in first. I put it on my eyeball, blink, and it falls out. There I am, no contacts in, trying to find a flimsy lens in the sink. After about thirty seconds of trying to look, blindly, I put my left lens in. Now, right eye closed, I try looking in the sink again. Still no luck. Now I start to look for new lenses. Uh, problem, it doesn't seem that I have any spare lenses left where I keep them. I eventually found all of our leftover lenses in a drawer and did find one that I think is at least sort of close to my prescription. Calling the optometrist is pretty high on the list now to get a new prescription and order lenses. It was something that needed to be done anyhow since my vision seems to have gotten worse recently.

It was pretty chilly on my run this morning. On the way out, traffic wasn't too bad, so I had no trouble getting accross the road. About halfway through, my digestive system decided to wake up. That made the decision of adding an extra mile or not a very easy one. Getting home was more difficult since it was during the throes of rush hour. It took about four cycles of the light to be able to get accross the road. After standing and waiting for so long, I felt pretty stiff and even if I had decided to do the extra mile, it didn't feel good anymore.

This evening's workout was the uphill mile repeats. I must admit that I was sleepy feeling all day at work and not really looking forward to the workout. This workout is supposed to be done faster (for me) than the steep hill repeats. Being sleepy, running fast didn't seem like it would be possible. It was really warm this afternoon. Like shorts, long sleeves, and no hat kind of warm. By the end of the workout my gloves even came off. The last time I did this workout was during daylight, so I could see where to end. That time I was alone, so I'm thinking that the times should be about the same-I run faster during the day, but also run faster with other people. The schedule called for 3-4 and I decided to do four. On the first one, I stopped way too early. I knew that the stop point was right before a speed bump, but it turns out that I stopped at the wrong bump. The fact that it was a 5:48 should have been an indication that I stopped at the wrong place. On the second one, I still could not find the bump because it was darker and kept thinking that I had missed it. I stopped a little bit early on that one and finished in 6:20. There were cold patches and warm patches along the mile, and the cold areas were cold! For the third and fourth miles, I knew where to stop and did those two in 6:24 each. The first half is quite steep and I try to really work the third quarter, so on the last quarter, my mindset is "where is that darn bump!". I would have liked the last two to have been a bit faster, but I ended up running alone instead of sharing the work with someone. The full six miles of the workout were 38:25. After a two mile warm down, my night was 11 miles.

Tonight I would like to get in bed earlier than I have been the past few nights. I've been getting sucked into the Olympics every night and don't need to be. I make myself a deal every Friday morning, I can sleep an extra half hour if I don't dilly dally around in the morning. This means getting up right away and having my clothes ready to go. It really is amazing the things that I can do when I put my mind to it!

Posted by Blondie at 08:18 PM | Comments (1)

February 15, 2006

Split Up Run

On Sunday I was supposed to meet up with the tech guys to test out more bras. Now, for some reason, I don't know, fifteen inches of snow, the gym was closed. These bras were supposed to be tested by Monday, but that just could not happen. The techies could meet me this morning, so today it was. I tried to make it as early as possible so that I could get to work somewhat on time, but I still ended up being later than I wanted.

There were two bras to test. Actually, it was the same bra in two different sizes-a small and a medium. I don't understand why they have me test the medium since it is so big on me that it really isn't getting a good reading. I only had to do fifteen minutes with each bra, so I didn't get too much running in during the testing. All of the testing is supposed to be done at the same pace, so it was at the 7:30 pace that I've been testing at for months. That pace was harder in the summer when I was out of shape after the marathon. Now, I try to run faster than the belt, so I continually hit my hands on the bar on the treadmill. It was really crowded in the gym this morning. We seem to go right at the time that all the mommies are there. This meant having to take longer between tests than we wanted since the treadmill I was using got taken while I changed bras.

After we were done testing, I wanted to finish my running for the day. Since it was so crowded in the gym and it looked beautiful outside, I decided to finish my run outside. Of course, I didn't pack outdoor running clothes. I had to scrape together something to wear-pants that I hate to run in because the crotch is way too low and the legs are too short, my long bra top, and a regular tee shirt. I had a hat, but no gloves, so I tried to pull my hands up into the sleeves of my long sleeve shirt. No watch because I only had my dress watch for work, but I knew about how far I needed to go to get my quota in.

It wasn't that cold out when I ran, and it got quite a bit warmer as the day wore on. I would have liked to run this afternoon, but today is a complete recovery day, so no double. I felt really good on my outdoor portion, very encouraging after yesterday's death march. I mapped yesterday's route and discovered that it was almost a mile longer than I thought it was, so that made me feel much better as well.

One last comment is that I have been in a crabby mood today and should have known that it would happen. I don't want to really say anymore about it, but there isn't anything that I can do about it.

Posted by Blondie at 07:45 PM | Comments (1)

February 14, 2006

What Holiday?

I guess that some people consider today a holiday. My opinion may be a bit skewed, after being single for the past several Valentine's Days. Even when I have a boyfriend for Valentine's Day, the fact that you're supposed to do something makes me not want to do something. Seriously, if you go out to dinner, everyone else has. Flowers are ridiculously overpriced. I would rather have something completely spontaneous, on a day other than February 14.

This morning's run went much better than I thought that it would. The development that is the early part is not as clear as other areas, so I added some onto the loop so that I could cut that part out on the way home. The next part was the most dangerous part of the run since it involves running along a major road for about a hundred meters. The sidewalks along this road aren't shoveled, so I had to run in the road. The rest of the roads were clear and I felt good. It turns out that I added on more than I cut off, so I ended up with five miles.

I left work early this afternoon since I knew that there were some areas that weren't completely clear. The thought of running on them in the dark wasn't appealing and my parents would rather me leave work an hour early than slip and fall on ice. Even though I left early, it took longer than usual to get home. By the time I got home, changed, and went to the bathroom it was 4:30. After thinking about this morning and running in the major road, I decided that it was not a good idea to run from my house. I drove over to the gym and decided to run from there. In retrospect, I should have driven pretty much accross the major road and parked on that side of the road and run from there.

Usually if I have a good morning run, I also have a good afternoon run. That was not the case today. It might have gone better if I had a route to run from the gym that is longer. The only loops I have from there are in the 20-30 minute range. I felt like I had been running for at least 45-50 minutes when I looked at my watch and it was just half an hour. Arggh, at least another half hour to go! It didn't help that I had to go to the bathroom and with the snow that was just not a possibility. First of all, there aren't really any wooded areas and second of all, with the white snow what I had to do would be completely obvious. The run ended up being a lot of loops. I may have been running much faster than I thought, since one section that I know is almost two miles took less than 13 minutes. I managed an hour, but was miserable and grumpy the entire time. I guess that my total for today was just over 13 miles.

I lifted since I was already at the gym. It seems that the cool kids don't go to the gym on Valentine's Day. It was sort of crowded, but nowhere near as crowded as it has been lately. I was able to do everything that I wanted to do and ought to be sore tomorrow. When I started to lift I wasn't in the mood to do it, but the more I did, the more I cheered up. I also did some balance exercises on the BOSU ball and noticed that my ability to balance on my right foot has significantly improved. Two weeks ago, I could only stay on for about two seconds, so anything is improving.

Posted by Blondie at 08:04 PM | Comments (0)

February 13, 2006

Not Quite a Track Workout

Given the snow yesterday, working out on the track was basically impossible. Our group doesn't have access to an indoor track, and even if we did, I personally wouldn't do workouts indoors. I have my reasons, but since it doesn't affect me here, I won't really delve into those reasons. The track where we do our workouts was covered in snow from the 15 inches that we got dumped. I jokingly asked J if he had shoveled out lanes 1 and 2 for us today since he still isn't back to work. As if shoveling is something that someone who has a back injury should be doing.

The workout was supposed to be 5 x 800 with a 400 jog, but I was supposed to be doing 6 800s. We had two options, to do the neighborhood loop with 3 minutes on, 1:30 off or to do parkway loops. We did that neighborhood loop a few too many times for my liking, and M also didn't want to go there, so parkway loops it was. The loop is just about 3/4 a mile around, if we're going to be picky, it's about 0.748 miles. When J talked to me about what we were going to do, we couldn't remember where the 800 mark is on the loop. His guess turned out to be a little bit off, so we ran more like 815s. We did a much longer warm up than usual since we had to get down to the loop and we had lopped off a big part of the warm-up for safety reasons. I ran with my tri buddy J, and we sort of messed up early on by going out too fast. It was harder to judge pace since there weren't laps or markers to base pace off of. I took a split for the first 1200 (4:38), but didn't know what it was until we finished. We did the 4.5 miles in exactly 29 minutes. The goal for me was to keep the entire workout up tempo, rather than taking really easy jogs like we have been on the track, more along the lines of how I normally do workouts. The loop was completely clear, but other roads on the way were slushy to icy. The warm down ended up being shorter than we thought, but it still ended up being over ten miles for the night.

Since I have a morning run on tap for tomorrow, I ought to go get stretching since my legs are going to feel this in the morning. Something about running faster than you have in a long time tends to do that to you.

Posted by Blondie at 09:07 PM | Comments (0)

February 12, 2006

Using that Thing Over My Shoulders

The meterologists didn't disappoint today. It wasn't the most that we've ever gotten in one storm, but there is enough to really mess things up. By mid-Atlantic standards, we got a ton of snow. I've lived in this area my entire life, but I would guess that the 15.5 inches we got is a lot by most people's standards. I can only imagine how much snow has fallen in the farther north areas, since New York City apparently had record snowfall. It was enough to really throw a wrench into my plans for today. By the time I got up this morning, the snow had pretty much stopped falling.

For some unknown reason, I decided to run this morning before the roads had really been cleared. If I had been thinking at all, I would have waited until the afternoon so that the roads were somewhat clear. Getting off my street was an adventure in itself since we live on a cul-de-sac, so we never get plowed. The snow practically came up to my knees, so my Yaktrax didn't really affect me. The development where I do most of my running was not what I expected. The side roads in were almost completely clear, but the main roads were sort of a mess. I think that it is because people were out driving on them before the plows really got to do their job. The Yaktrax were only slightly helpful, I kept getting ice balls stuck in them, so my traction wasn't that improved. It was hard to run normally because I had on so many layers on my legs. It wasn't too big of a deal since I was told to make sure whatever I did was short and easy today. Even though I've been feeling fine, we really wanted to be careful for today so that I can feel strong for the workout tomorrow night.

I did an extended version of my morning out and back. On the way back, I had to stop at the Wawa to get some cheese for my mom. I was going to add on some more, but running home with a half pound of cheese in my pocket wasn't very comfortable. When I got home, my mom asked if I had gotten her message when I was running. Message, what are you talking about? She hoped I brought my cell phone with me so I could call in case I fell down. No, I don't ever carry my cell phone with me. Anyhow, she wanted me to get the newspaper since ours was ruined. The shoes went back on and I ran back to Wawa to buy the paper.

Instead of making bagels today like I had planned, I spent most of the day cleaning and working on my scrapbook. I now have a scrapbook of all the newspaper clippings that have been sitting around for years. It didn't take that much time, I don't know why I kept putting it off. Now, I just have to stay on top of it any time I do a race. Bagels would have been good, but this was more productive.

Later this afternoon I was very tempted to go down to the treadmill in the basement and do another three miles. There really was no reason for doing it other than wanting to have more miles this week. I finally used my head and decided against it. This week there was no need for doing a third double. Next week, yes, but not this week. This week was a hard week even if it didn't seem like it was. Messing with my body clock was just as hard as running workouts, so the only thing that would have been accomplished would be wearing myself out. Even without the double today and only doing a short run, my weekly total was well into the 60s. Next week is a big week, so a double today was uncalled for.

Posted by Blondie at 07:04 PM | Comments (0)

February 11, 2006

Pre-Snow Run

As always, getting up this morning was not easy. It turns out that it was for the best since it is now snowing pretty heavily and the national weather service is calling for a significant snowstorm. I shouldn't be complaining since apparently those in the Boston area are supposed to get hammered with this storm.

Our run this morning was supposed to be a ten mile marathon pace run. That's interesting, because I don't really have a marathon pace. Sure, I've run a few, but none have been up to any kind of standard. We were talking about that on our run this morning. Sometimes there are circumstances completely out of your control in a marathon that cause you to not run up to expectations. Not that any of this really mattered for me today anyway. I was supposed to just do a long run since my tempo/marathon pace run was last weekend. The parting words I got were along the lines of "don't do anything stupid". We went off in groups that were five minutes apart with the theory that everyone would finish together. Well, some groups were more than five minutes apart-I think there was an 80 minute, 75 minute, 70 minute, and sub-60 minute group. J advised me to run with the 70 minute group since M wanted to run about 7:20s and would be running with that group.

I headed out early to do a long warm up since the least running after getting done the ten mile segment sounded appealing. I did the normal warm-up plus a few laps around the track for about 23 minutes of warming up, probably a little over 3 miles. The ten mile course is an out and back, with the front half being much harder than the second half. A was running with us and giving us mile splits. Most of the crew wanted to run back faster than going out, not a terribly difficult task on this course. I didn't pay too much attention to what A was calling out, I was just trying to stay relaxed and not really go out of control. My legs were feeling Thursday night's hills and I felt like I needed a bathroom. Things were going fine until the sixth mile, completely uphill, which we went through in 6:49. The next mile was 6:42, then I started losing contact some. At nine miles we were catching the other groups, so I couldn't hear what A called out. Then she and my usual buddy J really picked up the pace and M was falling off calling to get me with her. I just didn't have that much oomph left in my legs, but the last mile was pretty quick. I finished the ten mile loop in 69:30, so just under 7 minute pace overall.

I stopped for a minute to take off my fleece and then continued running. I did about a mile on the track with J who went on to tell me that I ran it too fast, it should have been around 72 minutes. I put the blame on M since he told me she was aiming for that time and just ran with her. It didn't feel hard and my legs just didn't really want to run under 6:30s. After the mile on the track, I went out on the warm-down course and then did a few more laps on the track to get to two hours. J was still hanging around when I got back and I made a point to let him know that the ten mile portion didn't really affect the rest of my run. My guess is that it was about 17 miles.

I rode the bike at the gym for half an hour to warm up my legs again before I stretched. My butt felt really tight, I think from sitting so much. I was going to lift quite a bit, but didn't have as much time as I thought I would since I saw someone who I used to work with. I knew that I had to get back to shower and shave my legs before the massage that I got scheduled. She worked on my legs, which really weren't too bad. My piriformis was tight, but that is normal. It was actually tighter than it normally is. She also worked on my shoulders and neck because I've been feeling really tight in that area from trying to sleep on the plane and lugging around my luggage. The right side came out, but the left side is still all knotted up. My running form, my shoulders hunched up to my ears, did not help that situation at all.

It looks like tomorrow may be the first time that I get to try out my Yaktrax. If we are as snowed in as they are predicting, I'm going to be making bagels from scratch tomorrow. I love to make fresh bread, but only do it when it snows and I can't go anywhere. We used to do that when I was a kid and it is a tradition to me now.

Posted by Blondie at 04:33 PM | Comments (2)

February 09, 2006

Re-Training the Mind

One thing that I am guilty of, and I believe that most runners are guilty of, is comparing what they did today to what they have done at some point in the past. We tend to be the most guilty of this when it comes to actual workouts. Everyone has workouts that are sort of a staple in their routine-the ones that can be used to judge what kind of shape you are in. We all tend to compare when we do these workouts to how we did them in the past. Whether that past is a week ago, a month ago, or years ago-we know what we did each of whatever it is in and compare to that. This is good in that we can have benchmarks to aim for, but it is bad in that circumstances may not permit the same end result. This is something that I am trying to remember as I think back on tonight's workout.

This year we are doing our hill repeats differently than we have the past several years. Usually we do six weeks of the steep hills, starting at 3, working up to five working in two week segments. So we do three hills for two weeks, 4 hills for 2 weeks, and 5 hills for two weeks. Since some people seem to get injured when we do these hills, this year we are alternating the steep hills with longer gradual hills. Today was the first day of the steeper hills. Normally, the first week would be 3 hills, but given when the race we are looking at is, I needed to do four of them tonight. I'll only be able to get two weeks of these hills in, so getting them in is imperative.

My tri buddy J did the hills with me. He opened his mouth and told people that we were doing four, so a lot of them did four, even though they were not supposed to. I still felt a bit on the sleepy-tired side, but not too beat up tired. I actually felt strong going up the hills. The fourth one was a bit tough, J saved up his energy to "outkick" me to the top of the last hill after I pulled him up the first three. We did the four miles of hills in 29:40. This is where the comparison comes into play. I usually will do this workout in around 28:50. Now, after doing a hard effort on Sunday and travelling, it is not the same as usual. Also, I've never jumped into doing four right away, I always have at least two weeks of three hills under my belt before doing four. The main thing for me was to feel strong going up the hill, which I did.

Oh, I also did my morning run this morning. It was just four miles out and back. It was the first time that I have had to run in truly cold temperatures in a long time. As long as I was moving, it wasn't too bad. The problem came about half a mile from home when I had a dog/puppy encounter. It looked to be a puppy, didn't have on tags or a collar and there was no one around that looked to be an owner. It ran out into the street around me and then would run away. Finally, it ran accross the street to the park where a woman was asking me if it bit. I was so happy to be done with it that I yelled over to her that it isn't my dog, I don't know.

This afternoon I completely wasted my new haircut. My appointment was at 4:30, so I got my haircut and then immediately put on a hat to go run. What a waste. It will never look like she had it tomorrow. The haircut was much needed, my hair does not fit into a mini-ponytail anymore. I think that the next time I get it cut I'm going to get even more layers in it so that I don't have to do as much with it.

Posted by Blondie at 08:01 PM | Comments (1)

February 08, 2006

Sleepy

Today I felt the way that I feel whenever I suffer from serious sleep deprivation. My eyelids were heavy feeling all day long. To make matters worse, one of my tasks at work today was poring over 600 deposits to find the mistakes between our side and the bank statement. Eventually all of the numbers started to look the same. I had to get away from it or else my eyes would cross and the numbers would blur. Needless to say, it was not the most productive of days.

Following my vow to really listen to my body, I wore the heart rate monitor today. The dang thing is more of a pain than a help. For whatever reason, it just does not register accurately for about the first ten minutes no matter what. My body really didn't feel too bad, but since Sunday was really only a slightly harder than tempo effort, I should not feel too bad. My legs are fine, a little tight, but not really beat up. The only thing bothering me is the sleepiness. It was cold and windy today, I was getting so spoiled with the spring like weather of January that I've gotten wimpier than I used to be. It was a nice, easy, 7 mile run. I didn't use the stopwatch function on the heart rate monitor, just the measure function. Doing this was the only way that I could run from the house. If I timed it, I would want to compare it to what I would normally do, and this week is all about just getting back to normal.

Tonight I want to stretch more and do core exercises. I thought about going to yoga, but wouldn't get home until after when I want to go to bed, so no yoga for me. I've been gathering my newspaper clippings so that I can get to work on my scrapbook. One of these days, I'll have it up to date. Other than those things, I plan to be in bed by 9:30 to catch up on sleep.

Posted by Blondie at 07:19 PM | Comments (2)

February 07, 2006

It Feels Like February

Today definitely felt like February weather. It is much colder than what it has been and the windy was kicking some today as well. Compared to past winters, this is tolerable. Also, being tired seems to make me more sensitive to the cold. The thermostat at home is also set lower during the day, so the heat was down during the day. I spent the day unpacking and doing laundry-the whole time wearing sweats and a hat!

I couldn't sleep very late this morning but still felt awfully tired when I got up. I wasn't sure if I was going to double up today on my runs or not. I decided to go out and see how I felt. If I felt OK, I would do a normal morning run, if I didn't feel too good, I would stop and walk home. Early on, I felt on the tired side, but not too bad. The further I ran, the better I felt. In the end, I did my four mile morning loop.

This afternoon I purposely did not run from home. All week I'm going to pay extra attention to any of the signals my body sends. The routes from home I would probably push too hard on, so I did one of the group run routes. I do have some times on these, but don't do those routes often enough to really know a normal time to do them in. My plan was to run anywhere between 30 and 60 minutes, depending on how I felt. Again, the beginning of the run didn't feel so great. This time I was just feeling sleepy. As I continued running, I felt more and more awake. I made a concerted effort to stay relaxed and just enjoy myself. I ended up running for an hour and called it a day.

I had wanted to go to the gym and ride the bike and lift this afternoon since I had the time to do it. After thinking about it for a few minutes, I decided that it wasn't a good idea. The travel can really take a toll on the body and the immune system, so I don't want to do anything extra that could push me over the edge into getting a cold or something. Tonight I plan to do some core exercises that I have neglected for almost a week and then get into bed nice and early!

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

I'm Ba-ack

I'm back and absolutely very tired at this point. During the trip I never got used to the time change and at this point I'm not sure what time zone my body is functioning in. It was an extremely busy weekend and I'll try to recap it as best as possible, but will probably forget tons of things to write about and go on too long in general, so who knows.

Let's see...Thursday is when I left. Shortly after lunch the airport shuttle picked me up to head to the airport. Going through security wasn't that much of a problem on this flight and I was at the gate in plenty of time. My flight got off on time and it wasn't too crowded. The middle seats in most of the rows were empty which made it a bit more comfortable. I took some Tylenol PM so that I could try to get some sleep on the way to my destination. Dinner was served and I tried to get some sleep. Tried is the operative word, since my seat was stuck in the upright position. Three or four hours after dinner was served, they came around and served breakfast. I tried to get some more sleep, but I only ended up with three or four hours sleep total on the flight. We landed at our destination...ready...Heathrow in the early morning. Customs wasn't too much of a problem and my two travelling mates and I found our ride with ease. He was standing with a sign to pick us up since we had no clue who he was.

We then went to his tiny car and loaded our luggage in and headed to our final destination. My hometown is part of a sister cities program, so we headed to our sister city which was a city/town that is outside of London. Depending on the mode of transportation it is anywhere from 15 minutes to over an hour outside of London. The traffice there makes me appreciate even our bad traffic over here. We got to the house where my travelling mates were staying, my hosts were at work, and got to know that host for a little while. Not too long after that, all of us headed out on short runs in the town where we stayed.

It was quite the interesting run. First of all, it felt like 4:00 in the morning to our bodies. None of us had slept much. I was hungry and it turned out that it was the third run I had done in less than 24 hours. All I really wanted to do was shake out my legs after flying and being in the same position for so long. It was not one of my better runs ever. All three of us are very different paces, so we couldn't even stay together and we all wanted to run for different distances. I ended up getting very lost since I had no clue where I was. I tried to never go more than 10 minutes in any direction so that I would never be too far from the house. Even doing that I got myself completely turned around. I kept trying to remember landmarks, but things started to look the same. I made it back in 37 and a half minutes, but probably only ran just over 4 miles. It was cooler and doing a misty/flurry kind of thing.

After getting back and showering, I ate some toast. I wanted to stay up as long as possible to get my body clock onto local time, but that was an effort in futility. I sat down with some crossword puzzles, but the next thing I knew, I was asleep. The nap wasn't that long and it was much needed. I woke up and ate some lunch with my host and then we all talked with the host.

Later that afternoon, we had a welcome reception to attend at the town hall. We got to meet the mayor of the town and the other guest runners from the other sister cities in other countries. It was very interesting given none of those runners really spoke any English. We learned some about the town and the history of the town. This is where my hosts picked me up. After the reception, we headed to where I was staying which was another ten miles or so outside of town. We got to their house and started to get ready for dinner and then I had another evento to attend.

We had a bowling game for all of the runners. Bowling was just like it is over here, but we spent more time drinking than anything else. I'm not sure how many pints we had, but all of us were quite happy by the time we had to leave. This evening definitely haunted us the next morning!

Saturday morning, I had to get up early since we had a busy day. C, my host, took me out for a short run along the canal near his house. It was warmer than it had been on Friday, but still not nearly as warm as it had been at home on Thursday. The path is at least 45 miles long, probably longer. There were some definitely rocky areas that C knew, but I was stumbling all over the place. We did four miles in around 31 minutes, about all I had wanted to do. The general theme of our house was that we were always running late, so we got back and I needed to hurry so that we could get to the train station on time.

We took the train into London to go sightseeing. The trip on the train was much nicer than the drive had been, it only took fifteen minutes versus close to an hour driving. Us three Americans went on our own, which was fine with the hosts as long as we made it back to the train station on time. We had the huge advantage of knowing the language and two of us had been to London before, so we knew where we were going. Most of the morning was pretty bad since we were all grumpy and slightly hung over. After our lunch, all of us perked up and we headed out to do the Griswald European Vacation version of London. We walked all over town and saw most of the major sights in London: Big Benk, Parliment, Westminster Abbey, Traflagar Square, Leicester Square, the ferris wheel, Buckingham Palace, St. James Park, and Hyde Park. After that, our long male said no more walking! We headed into a pub to get warm and sit down. It was also the day of the England-Wales rugby game, so the tube ride back to the train station was quite interesting-nearly every drunk person in London was near Victoria.

We got back, went home for a little bit and then had to go to the pasta dinner. I've never really gone to the pasta dinner for a race before, so I wasn't really sure what to expect. It wasn't what I thought it would be-lasagna, sausage and lots of heavy foods. The hall was freezing for most of the dinner, but that also could have been due to sheer exhaustion. After getting my number, my host noticed that I looked like I was about to fall asleep, so we headed home so I could go to bed.

Sunday morning was the race. It was the local half-marathon. We were warned that the course was difficult and had seen the course profile. It really didn't look too bad on paper, so we weren't too scared of the course. It was strange because I had no idea where to line up or who to be near. There were signs for different paces, but the fastest sign was for 1:30 and the people standing there did not look like they could run anything close to that. Not to be judging a book by its cover, but many of these people did not look like they were in any kind of shape. I decided to line up about three lines back from the front line of the women and master's men starting line. We headed off on the course.

My goal was to stay in control and not race. I didn't really want to look at many splits because it wasn't a race. It turns out that looking at splits wouldn't have done any good on this course. The first mile was really downhill and I was nervous when I saw that it was a very relaxed 6 minutes. From this point on the hills started. Ridiculous hills. It was easily the hardest course I have ever run. The hills were obscenely steep. There were five major hills on the course that were all steep. Most of the course was on country roads and I couldn't really tell you now where the hills fell, but they were everywhere. I went through patches where all I wanted to do was walk and then times when I felt really very good. Around ten miles my lack of fitness and base hit me. This is probably where I would have felt pretty bad no matter what, so I don't think that it was so much that I was running too hard. There was a hill between 11 and 12 that was pretty much the final straw for me. By the time we got to the top of that hill, there really wasn't anything left. We got back to the park and still had a mile to go. I kept looking and looking for the finish line and tried to keep it together as much as possible to the finish line. I ended up 6th in the ladies division in 1:25:48, which was faster than I thought I was capable of at the moment. That time would be significantly faster on any course that we run over here. I somehow managed to jog the five minutes back to my bag and changed.

We had to walk the mile over to the post race party which probably helped my legs loosen up some. Here we ate, hung out with the clubs who put on the race and had some pints. By the time we left there, I was pooped. We went home and had some dinner and then I was in bed.

Yesterday I had to get up early to catch the bus back to town since my hosts had to work. I went for another run in town and didn't get quite as lost this time. I meant to run for about 45 minutes, but ended up out for 52. I was pretty tired but that was to be expected.

Our flight back was yesterday. The big news was that I was picked for two random security checks. The first one was in Heathrow and wasn't too bad since it meant that I got jumped to the front of the line. The second was in the US coming through customs which wasn't too bad either. The flight was long and bumpy. It wasn't the best flight that I've ever had, but I forced myself to stay up and watch three movies.

I was wired when we got back but crashed pretty hard. My bosses were nice enough to tell me that I didn't have to come in today so that I could unpack and take care of everything that needs to get done. Now I'm hungry and need to eat something. I know that I didn't do my trip justice at all, but there was so much to write about that it could take a novel to write about everything.

Posted by Blondie at 11:22 AM | Comments (3)

February 02, 2006

Before I Jet Off...

Literally. The shuttle is supposed to be here in a little over an hour and I still have to shower and get the last items packed.

This morning's workout went significantly better than I anticipated it would. Historically any time I try to run a workout alone in the morning it ends up being a complete disaster. Given that, I had very low expectations going into it. I purposely got up about an hour before I planned to start my warm-up so that my body would at least be a little bit awake. Although it's warm out now, it was pretty darn nippy early this morning. It was clear overnight which seems to allow the temperature to drop lower.

My warm-up was pretty pathetic. The warm-up is actually almost a mile longer when we do these hills since we have to run all the back down to the bottom before the first one, making the warm-up nearly 3 miles. Every quarter mile is now marked going up the hill, but since it is on a hill and the grade varies, I didn't even bother checking out splits, the effort can be harder but the time slower given the grade. Anyhow, it's a mile up and J had thought it was about a half mile around back to the start again. The hills aren't particularly steep, but they are a long gradual uphill. I hit them in 6:36, 6:27, and 6:26. The down/recovery is actually 0.45 which I discovered after mapping the hill later. At first, I thought that the downhill was much shorter since I was doing them in 3:05-3:10, but I also tend to do recoveries pretty fast. My warm-down was a case of serious glycogen depletion. I hadn't eaten anything since last night, so I was pretty beat up. In all, it ended up being a little over 10 miles for the morning.

I went to work and got a little bit of stuff done. Then I did the banking for the business and tried to buy traveller's checks. That didn't happen since they only sold them in amounts more than I needed, but I ended up chaning my accounts. It turns out that I still had a junior savings account that gained 0.2% interest, so now my account is set up as an adult account. Woohoo to that! I'm growing up!

When I got home from work, I managed to get my second run in. Only four miles, but my legs still felt a bit beat up. The combination of bonking so much for my warm down and only having a few hours between runs definitely had an effect on me. Plus, I'd only had a small breakfast, so I was hungry yet again.

OK, got to go shower etc...will write when I get back!

Posted by Blondie at 02:27 PM | Comments (2)

February 01, 2006

It Must be the Adrenaline

That has to be the reason that I do this every time something has to be done. I'm one of those people who plans and plans and plans, but always seems to be scrambling at the last minute. I make tons of lists of things that need to get done, but those things always seem to get done at the latest possible moment. Every day I've been saying that I need to pack, yet here it is the day before I leave and I'm only half packed. How typical. In reality, I probably have more packed than I think I do, most of what needs to be packed can't be packed until tomorrow.

Today was a very easy 7 miler. It had to be easy for a few reasons. First of all, we didn't eat lunch until 1:30 at work, so my lunch was feeling pretty heavy in my stomach. Secondly, I have to do my workout early tomorrow morning. I couldn't care less about the times in this workout, since it is in the morning and it is a hill workout, but... Finally, Wednesday is supposed to be easy. It wasn't as bad as it could have been. I wore the heart rate monitor, which continued to act up for the first ten minutes. My screwy body felt more relaxed running at higher heart rates than at lower heart rates. The theory I came up with is that when I'm keeping my heart rate down around 130, I have to run so slowly that I'm stumbling over my own feet. At rates more like 145, I can move my feet.

Lately my hair has been growing out of control. The girl who cuts my hair is back from having a baby, so I made an appointment with her for next week. The real sign that it is getting too long is that it fits into a puny ponytail. Well, the first sign is that it just does not cooperate with what I want it to do, so the second sign is the ponytail. Right now, the top of it fits into a two inch ponytail, so it needs to get cut. Maybe my vitamins are doing something for me.

Well, I really need to get packing now. No more excuses. It MUST get done tonight.

Posted by Blondie at 07:25 PM | Comments (1)