The Long Run

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April 30, 2006

Our Vices

Candy seems to be a much written upon topic on all of the eliterunning.com blogs. I'm pretty sure that my obsession with the sweet stuff is part of what contributes to yesterday's unhappiness with getting on the scale. Anyhow, in the fall, it's candy corn. All year long it is hard candy. At Easter, it's Peeps. Now, Peeps are available at nearly every holiday, but at Easter they are most abundant. We stopped doing Easter baskets years ago, but Peeps are always sought out in the first few days after Easter when they go to 75% off. Peeps are OK fresh, but the last few in the package are the best-when they are slightly stale. Tonight I am at the end of a package and the Peep that I had tonight was at the perfection of staleness. Starting tomorrow, that same self-control will go into the Mike & Ikes that are all over the office. I'm putting a limit on how many I am permitted per day. Right now, ten sounds like a good number.

This morning was one of those mornings that when I woke up, I really did not want to drag myself out of bed. I still felt tired (still do) but pretty much knew that if I went back to sleep, I would sleep so late into the day that there would be no way that I could get to bed at a decent hour tonight. Basically, I woke up right at that time that it was late enough to constitute sleeping but early enough that it wasn't that late. If I went back to sleep, it would have meant sleeping until an obscenely late hour.

As warned, my right calf was tender today. In fact, there is also a bruise on it where the knot is/was. I'm pretty sure that the know is still somewhat there, although nowhere near the proportions of yesterday.

Eventually, I got moving and headed over to the trail to run. I definitely started out gingerly since my body has been so beat up lately. I ended up feeling pretty decent, but didn't really do anything other than add a little bit extra on at the end. When I started out, there was a woman who was running towards me who appeared to by flying, although I'm not necessarily a good judge of what other people are actually doing. I'm one who is known to see someone and think they are running so fast, when in reality they are only running something like 9 minute pace. This is only of note because she was not a familiar face. In the end, I ran for an hour and didn't feel too bad. There were periods where I felt really hungry, but for the most part I felt fine. That's the price I pay for running before eating, but it is better than the alternative.

I ended up with 64 miles for the week. If I'd known that I was a mile away from an even number for the week, I may have run another mile somewhere in the week. Starting this week, my weekly mileage is going to plummet. On top of that, I'm going to start racing. A lot. One of my key races is next weekend, so this week is a taper sort of week. I'm looking for some races with lots of competition to go to. If I'm going to travel, I need to figure out where I'm going soon to make the reservations. Race season will be for the next month and then I'm going to shut it down. One of the races I really want to key in on for the fall is early, so that means that the summer is going to be rough.

Hope that everyone has a great week!

Posted by Blondie at 06:59 PM | Comments (2)

April 29, 2006

A Bit of a Wake Up Call

This isn't something that I try to write about on a regular basis, although the topic has crept in occasionally. Distance runners and weight have a bad reputation. Personally, I have gone through periods that may be on the other side of that fine line. One of the problems with that fine line is that when you are right there, that is when performances tend to be the best. The solution that has worked for me is to simply avoid the scale. Today, I gave into temptation-I weighed myself. The outcome was not what I would have liked. The scale I was on does tend to weigh a bit on the heavy side, but it was still several pounds over what I consider to be my prime weight. I know what my downfall is and need to work on the willpower issue, but I have not been all that happy today as a result of this discovery.

One of the nice things about race season, is that my long run isn't nearly as long. I do enjoy doing really long runs, but it gets lonely when nobody else is going as long as you are. This morning was supposed to be anywhere from 10-13 miles. I had arbitrarily decided that it should be 90 minutes, although my "directions" were to run with whoever was there and then add on some if necessary. We ended up having a nice sized group and perfect conditions. We did a museum/estate loop, something I haven't done since December. All of the flowers were in bloom and it was absolutely beautiful. The pace felt quick, but I though that was because my legs were absolutely trashed. M and G confirmed my suspicion that the pace was fast, which made me feel much better. It turns out that they did the same loop last weekend, only it was four to five minutes slower. When we got back, it was only 67 minutes, so I added some on in a nearby development. This extra loop confirmed that the pace had been fast the entire time since when I did it as a push it took 14 minutes and it took less than that today.

I only ended up running for 81 minutes, so it was short of my agenda. I kind of made the decision that my legs have felt like absolute garbage for a week and that ten extra minutes really would not do anything good for me. I could just see myself getting into a big hole and not be able to climb out of it. Since one of my biggest races of the season is next weekend, there really is no point to doing any extra running at this point. This really is more of a taper week.

After my run, I went to the gym and lifted. My arms are still on the sore side and I didn't have much time, so it was another quick lift. It is really sad that doing those arm circles completely threw my shoulders into a tizzy.

I had a much needed massage this afternoon. My calves had been feeling on the tight side all week. This is rather normal since I tend to do a bit of toe-running. Anyhow, I was brought to tears as she worked on my right calf. There was a knot the size of a golf ball in it that would not come out. My massages are painful in the first place, but this had me beyond the typical yelp. My therapist reminded me to drink plenty of water today and gave me warning that it could be quite sore tomorrow. She also reminded me to work on my right foot because it is tight and we don't want that to turn into something else. It's funny since it had felt tight last week, but I thought it had gotten better. Reminder to self-must do more stretching.

Well, my glass of water is empty...need to refill it to work out all of that crap that got flushed out of my legs today.

Posted by Blondie at 07:30 PM | Comments (2)

April 27, 2006

An Ending and A Beginning

Today marks the end of my doubling up for the spring season. This morning was my last morning run for several weeks. It was quite brisk this morning, but pleasant for running. I'm sure that I looked kind of funny out there wearing shorts, long sleeves, a hat and gloves. I just could not bring myself to wear tights in late April, although it really was long pants weather. My legs felt quite trashed this morning, so I tried to run easier, but it was the same time that it always seems to be. It is amazing how my body has become conditioned to 7:30 being an easy pace.

Since it is the end of the mileage phase of training, that means that it is the beginning of the speed and sharpening phase. This was making me nervous all day since my legs still felt trashed all day, especially my calves. The agenda tonight was to do 4 x 1000 and work on speed. The recoveries on Thursday are getting slower, but Monday is still push and cruise. Tonight's recovery was to be slower than a cruise, but faster than complete recovery. The 1000s were supposed to be quick, in other words, now we're working on getting my legs moving. They went well. There was a nice size group of us working together which always makes it easier. We started at 3:40, then hit 3:36, 3:35, and 3:36. Most of them we started out easy and brought the pace down. The third one started faster which is reflected in the time.

My arms are so sore. It can't be only from lifting yesterday because they were already sore before I did that. It must be from all of the arm circles and movements that R put me through on Tuesday. Putting my arms up over my head today was painful, I hope that it goes away soon.

There seems to be a little track meet going on this weekend up the road. I ought to be there right now, but instead I'm sitting at home. The last time I went up was the year that I ran Boston and didn't have to do a workout tonight. That isn't really an excuse, it is free and it is close. We considered entering it this year, but it just didn't seem like it was worth it. Racing a 10K on the track after 10 in the evening just didn't sound like it was going to bring a fast time. It might be fun, but this year didn't seem to be the year to do it. I've never run a 10K on the track and Penn might not be the place to make that debut. Plus, doing it after my bedtime ruins 2 days of work.

My legs and body are greatly looking forward to my day off from running tomorrow. Almost as much as they are looking forward to their massage coming soon!

Posted by Blondie at 08:16 PM | Comments (0)

April 26, 2006

Ugly Run

Way back when Alison first moved to Medford, she wrote about the difficulty of finding new routes. One of her routes in particular, she described as one where she'd know where to bury a body if she ever needed to. My run today made me think the same things, although hiding a body where I was would have been really hard. I guess I thought that since it was just an ugly run and some of it was in a not so great area.

I had to go back to the lab today for them to run some tests. They were taking some kind of reading (I don't know what) and wanted to do it with the bra dry and the bra sweaty. After getting the dry reading, they set me up on the treadmill. After about five minutes, one of the guys came in and said that I might as well do my normal run. They weren't trying to get heartrate data at different intensities, they just needed me to sweat some, so they suggested going outside.

This was fine with me, but their office is in a not very nice area. It is very close to some nice areas, but it's actual location is the kind of place where you can be afraid of being shot. Besides that, it is on a pretty busy road with no shoulder. Once I got off that road, I was on a four lane highway, in the shoulder for a mile. Basically the first two miles out were ugly and not so safe. From there, I was close to where we start our Saturday morning run. I ran the opposite direction from there and went down to the track where we do our workouts and did a loop around the top of the park. I greatly underestimated how long this was going to take and it ended up taking longer than planned. The total run took just under 51 minutes instead of the 45 I had planned. In addition to the five minutes on the treadmill before I went out, I got 56 minutes in.

I have no clue how long this run was and it won't be easy to plot since part of it was on a bicycle path. My host from England wrote to me about how well his race went in London. He said that he didn't keep a training log at all, so he didn't really stress about the race. It was impossible to care about workouts that were missed because they weren't recorded, all he could do was remember the ones that were done. Of course, he also didn't drink at all. I think maybe that's the ticket to a 2:48! Anyhow, this is getting at that maybe I just need to do what I have always tried to do with running-go out and have fun.

So, I also lifted today. I really dislike lifting, but right now I think that my arms are looking pudgy. When this happens, I want to lift more to tone them up. Yes, it is shallow, but tank top season is coming and I want arms that look good exposed. My arms were sore from some of the exercises from yesterday, so I didn't lift that much. It doesn't make sense to push myself lifting when I'm already in a broken down state.

Posted by Blondie at 08:04 PM | Comments (2)

April 25, 2006

Yet Another Disgusting Experience

Since the mileage phase of my season is wrapping up, it must mean that getting up and running is getting easier. It isn't all that hard to get out of bed and get out on the road in 13 minutes anymore. The main problem with getting out the door so quickly is, um, well, some things just have not worked themselves out that quickly.

That was the case this morning, as it is on three quarters of my morning runs. It was really nice running weather this morning. It seemed that there were more cars out for the same time of day than usual. I know that I was under a minute later than normal since I made a last minute decision that it was sunny enough to merit sunglasses, so that required running back into the house to get them. It took a bit longer than normal to cross the major road to get to the development that is the course for my morning route. In all, it felt smoother than last night. Morning running is much easier when it is an hour that the human body is supposed to be awake. Since the above mentioned problem was present, no extra loop was added on this morning.

This afternoon was more treadmill running. They had to collect nine data points-three different levels of wetness at three different levels of exertion. It actually ended up being 18 data points, since we did those nine with just the bra and with extra compression. It ended up being quite a bit of treadmill running, most of it pretty fast. The first set was 2 by 10 minutes broken down into six minutes at 7:30 pace, 2 minutes at 6:40 pace, and 2 minutes at 6:00 pace. After that it was 4 by 6 minutes broken into two minutes at each of those paces. They commented about how sweaty I was after the first set of six minute collections. Of course you're going to be sweaty when you're running fast on a treadmill in a room that is set at a temperature that is supposed to be comfortable for work, not for working out.

Since that wasn't as much running as I had planned, I drove about a mile down the road to a better area to finish my run. I had orginially thought that I would take some of J's runners on a distance run, but they have Penn Relays this week and weren't doing a long run. It worked out just fine since I was later than normal and they were a good way through practice by the time I showed up. I went out on the same loop that we've been taking the kids on, but it was much faster than with the kids. It usually takes about 16:30 to get to the top of the development with the kids, but without them it only took 14 minutes. As the run went along, I must have gotten faster, since it only took 13 minutes to get back. This is where some obsessiveness kicked in, 31 minutes gave me a total of 75 minutes this afternoon, so that extra minute was necessary.

Before leaving the office/lab, I met one of the other guys working on this product. I was introduced as "the one with the heart". Apparently they are quite impressed with my data. Something about where my heart rate is at certain paces and how quickly it drops when activity stops. They are also extremely impressed by my resting heart rate. I guess this is supposed to be complimentary, but it is kind of funny being known as the one with the heart.

Posted by Blondie at 08:26 PM | Comments (1)

April 24, 2006

Rude Awakening

This morning I was rudely awaken before my alarm by thunder. Yes, thunder, in the morning. I have very few memories of early morning thunder storms. I remember plenty in the afternoon and evening hours, but can't really remember many in the morning. There was another thunder storm on my way into work. After lunch rolled around, the storms had rolled out and it was actually very pretty. It was a nice temperature for being outside, sunny and breezy.

Since I raced yesterday, I wasn't doing the workout at the track tonight. We had toyed with the idea of doing more than just striders tonight, but after the last race I did we thought that doing more ruined the rest of my week. It really was a game time decision, we weren't making the final decision until after the warm-up. When I woke up, my legs definitely felt like I had raced, but that feeling lessened as the day went on. During the warm-up, I felt clunky and tight, so that made the decison simple.

While everyone else was doing their 400s, I jogged two easy laps to get moving again. After that, it was 8 laps of striding out on the backstretch. I felt smoother on the strides than I did on the easy part. J wanted me to take the 300 easier than I normally would since the race was only yesterday. We made the decision to not even turn on my watch since that would make me want to try for 7 minute pace. Since there was still a lot left in everyone else's workout when I got done my striders, I jogged another two laps. That made it an even 3 miles on the track, since everyone knows that I like to work with even numbers for my mileage.

Posted by Blondie at 08:05 PM | Comments (1)

April 23, 2006

Working Weekend

If you have to work on a weekend in the spring, you should hope for a weekend like we had this weekend. Yesterday was practically a monsoon, so having to work wasn't too bad. Of course, today it cleared up by the time I got into the office. As much as I may moan and groan about working on the weekend, it kept me from spending money and my bank account will thank me for it in the end.

So, yesterday morning I didn't get to sleep in as late as I would have liked. There was only a short run on tap since I was getting ready to race today. I had a christening to go to, so I had to be home and showered so that I could go to the service. It wasn't raining too hard in the morning, kind of a light misty kind of rain, but I was still soaked when I got back. I purposely ran very easy, but that wasn't too hard since I went out the door all of 15 minutes after getting out of bed.

This morning I had to get up relatively early to go to my race. It was still misty when I left and rained some on the drive up to the city. The race actually didn't start until later in the morning, but I knew that parking could be an issue. I figured it would be better to get there early and be able to park than to be late and not be able to find a spot. Besides, I had to get money and buy gas before leaving. I ended up getting up way earlier than necessary, about two hours, so I spent a great deal of time sitting in my car to stay warm and dry. It turns out that the races were starting later since there was another race going on that utilized the same road for a portion of the race.

I warmed up for just over 2 miles and felt pretty decent. J had called me earlier in the week to give me what he thought I should run. His plan was to run even 6:10s, which sounded perfectly reasonable. This was negotiable, after four miles-I was allowed to really push it if I felt good and was on pace. I secretly was hoping to run under 38 minutes again, something that I haven't done in two and a half years. I normally don't take splits in a race, especially if the course is exceptionally hilly. Today's course is basically flat, a few slight rolls, but nothing that could really be considered a hill. It is just a straight out and back, which is kind of difficult mentally to know that you are just going in a straight line in each direction.

Anyhow...I tried to stick to the plan as much as I could. Of course there were lots of people who went out fast, something that I am usually guilty of. This always makes me nervous, but I did make my way up to where I should be around the mile mark. I went through the mile in 6:09, hit two miles in 6:12, and three miles at 6:22. During this point there was a boy who was running in front of me that every time I came up to pass him, he would sprint. It was pretty annoying, but after the fourth time, his sprints were getting shorter and shorter. At the cone to turn around, I passed him for good. I tried to get back on pace in the fourth mile, another 6:12. If there was a five mile mark, I missed it, and the same for six. The last 2.2 were 13:53, which works out to an average of 6:18, so probably another 6:12 and 6:22. My final time was 38:49, well short of what I secretly wished to run.

This is almost the same exact time I ran in October, at the beginning of my fall racing campaign. If I look at it logically, it isn't as bad as I'm making it out to be. This is only my third race of the season and I did not go in on rested legs. I think that I need to stop being hard on myself about racing. I was all alone after passing the kid this morning. It is progress that I'm running 6:10-15 when I'm alone in a race than the 6:25-30 I used to do.

Of course, I got a little bit lost on my way home, but not as lost as I have been before. The rest of the afternoon was spent at work. Even after working two afternoons this weekend, we aren't finished with the task at hand. I didn't mind being at work that much since the prodigal son came home this afternoon.

I've got to give a shout out to C, my host from my trip to England, who ran a 2:48 in London today. It is great that Deena won and broke 2:20, but I was honestly a lot more interested in the people who I knew personally. B ran an awesome 4:09, absolutely terrific for her age. C was thrilled with his performance and I'm inspired by it as well.

Posted by Blondie at 09:03 PM | Comments (2)

April 20, 2006

Hot, Hot, Hot!

Today was the first day that I would actually classify as hot. I would not complain if it stayed like this throughout the summer, there was virtually no humidity. The problems that we have with the heat come with the stifling humidity, so when the air is completely dry like it was today, it really doesn't feel all that bad.

I didn't do a morning run this morning, although the thought did cross my mind. I was having quite a bit of trouble sleeping and was up, so I seriously considered going out for a shake out. I made up my mind that if I was still up in an hour I would go out, but if I fell back to sleep that meant it was not meant to be. My alarm was set for not running, and I did manage to get back to sleep. Tired legs is a sign that it is time to start to cut mileage some and having a race this weekend is another reason to cut back. This isn't a peak race by any means, but I do want to run well.

Tonight's workout pretty much is the start of the change in our workouts. Up until now all of our workouts have been push and cruise. Now some of our workouts are faster than race pace with slower recoveries. Tonight, for example, was 1600-1200-800-400 with 800 jogs. The workout was supposed to start at 5K pace and then drop at least a second per quarter after that. We started out too fast and had to go from there. We hit the 1600 in 5:50. I made the mistake of trying to push and cruise and did my recovery entirely too fast, like a 3:30, and fell apart on the 1200. The group caught me at the very end of it, so we averaged the same time for the recovery and the interval. I learned my lesson and stayed with the group for the rest of the workout, even if the recovery felt a touch slow. We did the 800 in 2:51 and I pulled an 80 out of somewhere for the 400. My legs have not moved that fast in several years, it's probably close to an adult PR for me! I will say that this workout is a confidence booster for Sunday's race.

Some random things that I'm not sure how to tie in to anything:

-I checked out Alison's new site at work today. I can't really do too much looking around on it at home since we have dial-up and it takes entirely too long to really read any of the articles. I always appreciated her work at fast-women and men's racing, she found more articles than I have ever been able to find. I'm looking forward to checking out her site on a regular basis.

-I spent a good deal of time today trying to figure out how to track people in the London Marathon. It probably doesn't matter since by the time I get home from my race and the time difference, the race will be over by the time I can get to a computer on Sunday. I do want to see how my host from my trip, C, does as well as B and G who were surrogate hosts. If anyone knows how to do it, please let me know!

-I need to pay more attention to stretching. My right foot is prone to some plantar and I can feel it trying to rear it's ugly head. Part of it is completely my fault. I haven't been stretching and I've been wearing terrible shoes for work. Since my days are not spent running up and down the stairs, I've been wearing higher and skinnier heels on a regular basis. Terrible for my feet, but oh, so cute!

Posted by Blondie at 08:17 PM | Comments (3)

April 19, 2006

Looking Ahead to the Future

It isn't that I don't have goals for the here and now. I do. Yesterday I got to thinking and I really want to achieve some things after this year. There are some age group records that I would like to go after. The records in my current age group are a little bit fast. It isn't that these records are unbeatable, a few of them could be bettered if everything went right on the perfect day. It is just that I change age groups in less than 13 months and at least two of those records are within striking distance. In other words, I'm looking at the long-term, so if I don't hit my goals this weekend or this year, it is perfectly OK.

Today I decided that my heart rate monitor is basically useless. I know some people who do every single workout based on it, but for me it seems to be a waste. I tried to do my run by it today, but the readings weren't really making any sense. Because Wednesday is basically my easiest day of the week, I wanted to keep my heart rate low. I guess part of the problem was the wind, but it also seemed to be reading on the high side. I spent so much energy for the first five miles trying to keep my heart rate low that I was practically tripping over my own feet. At the light where I have to cross on the way home, I decided to forget about the monitor and run where I felt comfortable. The last two miles were around 6:10 pace and although it was beeping that I was "out of range", whatever that range is, I was just a little bit higher than when I was running nearly 8 minute pace because I was trying to slow down. What the heck is up with that?

After my run, I decided to go to the gym to lift since that has definitely gone to the side this spring. My arms were way sore on Sunday and Monday, so I know that I had definitely neglected it for too long. Today I did closer to what I used to do on a regular basis, so my arms ought to be sore again tomorrow. My arms also aren't looking as good as I would like them to look now either, so I need to make an effort to work on strength again. I know that it is completely vain, but vanity is what usually makes people change.

Ugh, I have to pay my bills tonight. Definitely not my idea of fun. I prefer when I get to pay other peoples' bills at work because it isn't parting with my money.

Posted by Blondie at 08:05 PM | Comments (2)

April 18, 2006

Beautiful Spring

This spring has been absolutely beautiful for running. I can't complain about anything, well, maybe the wind. This April has been unusally dry for an April. As a matter of fact, the meterologists have said that the lack of rain is probably going to cause problems for us come the summer since we are already getting into a drought. Today was yet another one of the perfect spring days-sunny, mid-sixties, breezy.

Since I had to leave work early today for two things, I had to get an extra early start this morning. That meant getting up a little bit earlier for my morning run. Somehow this didn't translate to getting on the road significantly earlier than normal. In other words, I got up ten minutes earlier but only hit the road about four minutes earlier. It probably would have worked out just as well if I'd set the alarm for the same time because it took longer to get moving.

It was brisk this morning when I went out. Some people would have thought that it was warm, but in the mid-40s I'm still chilled. This morning I opted for shorts, a heavy top, hat and gloves. About half way through I started to feel a bit on the warm side, but it was better to do that than to freeze my arse off. I've been thinking about why my legs feel so dead and know that this week needs to be a bit of a cut-back, so I didn't do the extra loop this morning. I felt better than I did last night, a disturbing trend.

This afternoon started with running on the treadmill. Apparently this was the last test for a while, my techie said that he would call me or e-mail me if he needed more data. I have to send him what days I ran for them to get compensated. Given how nice this spring has been, it will be nice to be able to run outside every day rather than having to go on the treadmill. I ended up with 32 minutes on the treadmill, most of it at 7:30 pace. There were 4 minutes at 6:40 and two minutes at 6 minute pace. It feels comfortable at 6:40, but since I have to run on the dang thing for quite a while and Tuesday isn't supposed to be a hard day, 7:30 pace is just fine.

After the treadmill, I took the older distance runners from J's middle school team on their long run. They were supposed to be out for 25-30 minutes. We had to adjust midway through so that they all stayed together as a group. This week they didn't ask for a walking break, but we did have to stop for an "asthma" attack. Not too sure if this kid actually has asthma, J tells us if there are any really serious health concerns before we go out and we weren't told about it. It doesn't matter, the kid calmed down and finished the run. It was a very easy 31 minutes and then I finished up with another two laps on the track. I guess that I ended up with a total of about 9 miles this afternoon, 13 for the day. I'm not too concerned about the time in between running on the treadmill and going out with the kids since it was less than ten minutes, the lab is about 3/4 of a mile from the school where the kids practice and I got there about two minutes before we headed out on the run.

I had to leave work early today so that I could get my hair cut. It was out of control long. It has not been able to go into a ponytail in three years and as of this morning it could fit into a really puny, pathetic ponytail. The problem is getting my haircut is really expensive. I try to stretch it as long as possible in between haircuts so that I don't spend way too much during the year on it. One of my theories is to get it cut shorter than I want so that it can completely grow out in between appointments. The other problem is I really like the girl who cuts my hair; she does a good job on it, but she's just pricy.

Posted by Blondie at 08:06 PM | Comments (0)

April 17, 2006

Surprises Stink

Sure surprises are lots of fun when it's Christmas or a birthday, but when it comes to workouts, they stink. We have a schedule of workouts and pretty much know what is going to be done every week. Every now and then my workout will be different to put me out of my comfort zone. Those aren't too bad, but tonight was a different story.

I had myself prepared to do 16 x 400 tonight. My mind was ready for it and I had a plan of how to do the workout. After the warm-up, J announced that we were going to do something different tonight. It should not have been that hard, but it seems that my head needs to be examined because it was extremely difficult. We were doing 30 minutes of one minute on one minute off. This kind of workout absolutely kills me because I don't really have a set point to really know my pace. I had some serious digestive issues from lunch, and let's just say that it didn't taste nearly as good the second time around.

Part of the problem was also coming off of several consecutive high mileage weeks. My legs are very beat up and this must be part of the issue. The hilliness of Saturday is another factor. The main things, I think, are that I don't like that type of workout on the track and my legs are simply tired. I'm cutting back a little bit for the rest of this week since the plan is to race this weekend. My mileage will be starting to drop dramatically in another week or two since it'll be time to taper for one of the big races and then it's time to just lay it all out on the line.

I can't wait to read everyone's thoughts on Boston. It looks like Becky and Bridget did great. If the weather was anything like it was here, the curse of the hot weather broke and they had temperate conditions. I have to admit that this afternoon at work I was pretty preoccupied with tracking other people online instead of doing work.

Posted by Blondie at 08:14 PM | Comments (1)

April 16, 2006

Singing Bunny

Since we have not done Easter baskets for a number of years, we have done a small Easter gift for several years. This year, my parents gave me the Hallmark singing bunny. The main reason for this was my being a brat when we would watch TV and the commercial would come on. I would tell my mom that I wanted it and she'd tell me it was too expensive for such a silly thing. Anyhow, I came out from brushing my teeth this morning and said bunny was sitting outside of the bathroom! When we played the song, I smiled and laughed like I have not in years, prompting my dad to say that the bunny was worth every penny.

This morning I ran along the trail. It really bothers me when people are out with their dogs, not on leashes. It bothers me even more so now that there are prominent signs at every entrance that state that all pets must be on leashes. I encountered a puppy today that was about a quarter mile away from it's owner. That owner is very lucky that he took another trail since I was about to give him a piece of my mind informing him that I had no qualms on reporting him to the rangers. The puppy was nice and didn't snap, but not every dog off the leash is so nice and as an innocent runner, one never knows. I purposely tried to stay very relaxed this morning given how beat up I felt last Monday night. I checked my watch at the end of the trail before I hopped on the road to finish my out and back portion. The time was a hair too fast to be considered extremely easy, so I backed off the pace even more for the rest of the loop. Although it was a gorgeous morning for running, the trail wasn't too travelled this morning since most people were most likely off doing Easter activities.

I considered only doing one run today since my mileage was on the higher side already. I determined that my legs needed a little bit more to shake out, so I did a short afternoon run. I had to do that earlier than normal on a Sunday since we were having an early Easter dinner with my grandmother. I've had to be very careful on my second Sunday run lately since my legs start to feel perky by Sunday afternoon, so I tried to run what felt to be uncomfortably slow.

We had a nice dinner with my grandmother. It got me to thinking about three years ago where I was at this time. It was the year that I did that little race in the Northeast that happens to fall on the third Monday of April. We all went out to dinner (me, my parents, a few friends who were running, their significant others, and a couple of other random folks who just happened to be in town). That dinner wasn't so great, but there really wasn't too much that we could do, it was Easter Sunday and tons of tourists were in town. It also got me to thinking about that race. It was the last marathon that I actually trained for. I was probably in the best shape of my life, although my race was terrible. I managed to run all of my PRs immediately after that training cycle. Of course, that race was the one that made me decide that I was not cut out for running marathons. I did ignore that last year and suffered through one, but now all persons who are interested and involved in my training agree that it is a distance that should be avoided for at least two to three years. Having said that, I am interested in finding a nice fast race to run in a few years after achieving what I would like to achieve in other races. Starting around 12:30 tomorrow I will be chained to the Internet "watching" all of my friends; those who I have met in person and here, and cheering them on. It looks like the weather may cooperate this year. One of my friends said that it can't be hot four years in a row, but it could be.

Good luck to everyone racing tomorrow, I'll be cheering you on from the PC in the office!

Posted by Blondie at 07:14 PM | Comments (0)

April 15, 2006

Good Friday and A Not So Good Saturday

Yesterday was a very good Friday in addition to being Good Friday. It was sort of overcast and drizzly for most of the day...perfect sleeping in conditions. All three of us have been seriously sleepy for the past week. So much so that one of us was wondering if we were maybe suffering from CO poisoning. All of us took advantage of the less than sunny morning and slept in. After sleeping in, my mom and I went shopping. Let me say that I was very restrained and did not make any impulse purchases. In fact, I did not buy a single item! We then lunched at Panera. Like Bridget, this is our favorite place to go to lunch. It looks like we aren't alone, since the place was packed. Whenever we go, one of us gets table duty-going to find a table while someone else orders since tables are hard to come by. The day was topped off by...more shopping!

Also, news from yesterday that I did not find out until today...my college roommate and her husband are now new parents! BNG was born around 5:30 last night. I'd been thinking about calling her since life has been terribly hectic these past few weeks. I seriously considered it when we got home from shopping yesterday, but something told me not to, for good reason. Everyone is healthy and Mom is looking forward to a quiet Easter at home...just the three of them. I think that I'll be going to visit in two weekends, just to see BNG since I know what she looks like!

Um, yeah, so this is supposed to be a running blog. This morning was muggy and warm. It was the first day this year where I really felt that it was too humid for my taste. We had an average size group, but nobody else was running as long as I had been instructed. We were running the back, hilly roads-really not my favorites. We really only had two distinct groups, one way fast running in the mid 6s, and then the rest of us running in the low 7s. Nobody in my group wanted to go long, only K wanted to even run for possibly 90 minutes. We ended up staying with the group that was going to do 75 minutes, but then added an extra loop on in the hopes of getting 90 minutes. Either we were running way faster than we thought or the extra loop was much shorter, because we got back to our cars in less than 80 minutes. I felt bad for K, I could harldy drag myself up the hills this morning. He asked why J has us run these roads-the uphills and downhills are so steep that it is very taxing on the body.

After I dropped K off at the parking lot, I still had quite a while to run. My "instructions" were to run at least 90, preferably 1:45, or if things went well, 2 hours. Since I'm stubborn and like to do the most, my agenda was to run for 2 hours. Even feeling pretty crappy, that remained in my head. I ended up running down to where we do workouts and then doing our warm-up loop backwards. Towards the top of the loop are bathrooms, I stopped there to use the facilities and splash some water on myself. It was really warm and I was sweaty profusely. This little bit of cooling made the last two miles (uphill) much more tolerable. When I got back to the parking lot, it was 1:57 so my OCD kicked in and I ran around the school to hit 2 hours. My legs did not feel fresh at all, probably since I've never managed two hours when we run out the back-my body is just too beat up from the hills.

When I got back, I drove, I know very lazy, over to the other side of the parking lot. J was having practice there and I had to give him some things. In addition to this, I had to give the re-cap of my run. I also guzzled a full Nalgene bottle of water in about three minutes. Needless to say, I was parched.

I hit the gym for the first time in about a month this morning. I rode the bike for half an hour reading Us Weekly and reading all about TomKitten. Since I haven't been able to make it to the gym lately I'm way behind on my celebrity gossip. I also lifted this morning for the first time in at least a month. Although I wasn't hating it as much as usual, I decided to take it easy. My arms will be sore tomorrow since I have not touched a weight in so long. I did some rows, dips, chest press, curls and shoulder exercises. I used the same weight as normal, not that it is a lot-ten pound dumb bells. I only managed two sets of chest press since it was so difficult.

Today wasn't so good since I felt so crummy. It's amazing how 16 miles can feel like nothing some days and a complete death march on others. I decided that it is time to start to subject myself to ice baths again, so I bought some ice on the way home. Our cold water is still much colder than it is in the summer, so it was difficult to even get into the water. Once I put the ice in it didn't even feel that much colder. My legs do feel better now, although I haven't done anything today.

I hope that everyone reading this has a Happy Easter!

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

April 13, 2006

Later than Last Year

There has never been a year that my taxes were done early. This year was no exception. Usually sometime around April 1 there is the realization that there are only two weeks left to file. Around April 7 my dad and I make a time to do them. This is usually around April 10. When we loaded up Turbo Tax last night we saw that we did my taxes last year on April 10, so we were two days later this time around. My former employer did add up the wages correctly since we were afraid that he would have more on the W-2 than I was actually paid. I did get nailed since some of my non-work pay was reported to the IRS, so I had to claim it. This also made my return more difficult since there were some other forms to complete. They're done now and have been mailed, so there are about 363 days until I have to worry about them again.

So yesterday I left work a little bit early so that I could run before going back to work on my taxes. It felt sort of cool when I went out, but according to the news it was 69 degrees out. I'm pretty sure that it felt cool since it was really on the damp side. It was just an easy day, my standard seven mile loop. I decided to try to wear the heart rate monitor again. I don't know how the dang thing works and can't turn of the beep. It was actually fairly windy, I didn't notice it on the way out. I don't know if this is because it wasn't windy on the way out or if it was because the wind was at my back. It's funny how if the wind isn't really strong you don't notice when it is at your back but it really makes it's presence when it is in your face. Anyhow, it was really windy on the way back in. This made my heart rate go up even though I was running easy and downhill.

This morning was an easy shake out run. The main thing that was different was that it was warmer in the morning. Even though the high has been in the 60s for the past few weeks, it's been pants temperature in the morning. This was the first morning run that I've been able to wear shorts. It wasn't a PR for getting out the door, but it was close. An easy four miles was it since I knew what was on the schedule for this evening.

Tonight was a track workout. I got the special honor of doing something different than the rest of the group. It was actually the same length of workout but done differently. The workout was 4 x mile with an 800 but I got to do 2 x 2 mile with 3 or 4 laps recovery. These were supposed to be done around 10K pace, but what that is is the big question. We guessed somewhere around 6:15 to 6:20, but that is just a wild guess. It was really warm, more like hot today, so it was the first real hot weather workout and I could tell. My mouth was parched during it! I started out for the first mile of the two mile with the main group since they were running the same pace. They went through the mile in 6:14 and I maintained that pace for the second mile for a perfect 12:28. I ended up taking the full mile for the recovery since the rest of the group was starting their third mile then and I would have some company to start. It is just much easier to not really have to think or work much for the first half and then push the second half than to be totally alone for the entire interval. Anyhow, they were slow and I ended up sort of leading. They picked up the pace significantly in the second half to try to get back onto pace, but still only managed a 6:23, but I didn't look at my watch. I did end up running a significant negative split, since this two mile was 12:35. I would have liked it to be at least the same as the first interval, but at least the pace got faster as it went on. In the second lap of my recovery (do you call it recovery when there isn't an interval after it?) it got really windy on the homestretch, so I was happy to have the intervals done. After the warm down it was 11 miles for the evening and 15 for the day.

Tomorrow we have the day off from work. I'm looking forward to sleeping in since I've been exhausted again lately. We're going out to lunch at Panera and then doing some shopping. Hope that everyone has a wonderful Easter.

Posted by Blondie at 08:22 PM | Comments (2)

April 11, 2006

Shorts

Running shorts are one of the more difficult items for me to find. I have a pair of shoes that are go to shoes. I have pants that are my go to running pants as well. Most any sports bra will do, since there really isn't much there. Shirts are shirts, most any will do. Shorts, on the other hand, I have a difficult time finding. Part of it is modesty. For the longest time, I would not wear split shorts since they were "too revealing". A few years ago I got over that. Now some of my issue is that most of the shorts I like are way too short on me. Too short as in cheek is hanging out. The other shorts I find seem to be basketball length shorts, down to my knees. There aren't too many in between. My favorites are Nike Tempo shorts. I know that they have been changed and I don't have any of the new style, but they still look to be an acceptable length. Maybe there just too much thinking here. Clearly, nobody will ever find me in buns.

It was pretty chilly, according to my standards when I did my morning shake out. It went better than expected after last night's workout. It was close to a record getting out the door-13 minutes from the time the alarm went off to going out the door. This morning included the extra loop which is pretty standard for Tuesday morning.

Today was another day of going to the lab in the afternoon. It turns out that I didn't need to do a whole lot of running today since they were testing other transmitters. I think that they have some of the femal employees wear the bra at work with the other transmitters to see how well they register in just plain movement. I only had to run twice for ten minutes each; three minutes at 7:30 pace, two at 6:40, two at 6:00, and three at 7:30. In between runs I had to do all sorts of exercises.

J had suggested maybe cutting back today since last night didn't go as well as I wanted. He didn't think that I looked bad, there weren't my characteristic signs of struggling, my legs just felt flat. Anyhow, twenty minutes was not enough to justify, so I had to do some more. I went down to the track and did the river route. Towards the end I wasn't sure why my legs felt so beat and I felt so tired, so I just slowed down some. This route usually takes about 48 minutes, when I got back to the track it was only 45:30 which explains the absolute dead leg feeling. Instead of doing what I would normally do, hop on the track to hit 50 minutes, I decided that I had enough and called it a day.

In a way it is nice to be able to do a run like that and not really feel like I'm pushing it. On the other hand, I would rather have a day like that when it is supposed to be a workout or a race. It is getting to be race season for the next six weeks or so, so workouts are going to be faster and easy runs are going to be easier.

Posted by Blondie at 08:12 PM | Comments (2)

April 10, 2006

Procrastinating

I don't really think that I am a true procrastinator, but to outsiders, I may look like one. My taxes are not yet done, there are still five days to do them. I wake up at the last possible minute that I can and still make it to work on time. I never register for races ahead of time, I don't like to commit. I will admit that I was procrastinating in trying to come up with a title tonight. There really wasn't anything that seemed appropriate to but in that title line.

To be blunt, my workout sucked tonight. It wasn't that terrible, but things just were not going right. I felt kind of off during the warm-up. I know that my allergies are starting to act up, since it is that time of year. Our workout tonight was 400s. The problem with 400s is that you have to do a lot of them. My mind really wasn't in it as much as I was trying to tell myself that it was. I was supposed to do 16 of these quarters. The agenda is to do the quarters at a pace close to what you think that you can do a 5K in right now, which would be around 10K pace at peak. For me, for what we have been aiming for, that would be just under 90 seconds a quarter. The 200 is supposed to be a float-not slow, pretty quick. I was hitting them in 88 and change and my recoveries were on the quick side. The 200s aren't really even, we go cement post to cement post, one side is a little bit longer than the other. My recovery was ranging from 50-52 for each 200. About half way through I had to pull off into the field, one of the guys running with me wasn't very consistent and decided to bust out some 83s and I started to panic. I ended up doing 14 because it just wasn't happening.

My legs do feel more beat up now than they did earlier. I think that running very easy on Saturday affects me in a bad way. I felt very fresh yesterday, so it was harder than it would normally be. I know this goes against most training theories, but I need my long run to be a relatively hard effort in order for my Monday workout to be any good.

As for the procrastinating...I'm doing my taxes on Wednesday.

Posted by Blondie at 08:19 PM | Comments (0)

April 09, 2006

After the Storm

Yesterday was typical April. Heavy rain all day long. It was just relentless. Today was the kind of day that you look forward to on days like yesterday. Granted, it was chilly this morning, but as the day wore on it became very nice. Bright sunshine, a light breeze, a high in the mid-fifties. I couldn't ask for much better.

I was definitely tired last night and needed to catch up on sleep. I'm embarassed by how late I slept in, but it was definitely necessary. I read some of the paper so that my body had time to wake up before venturing out to run. I went out to the trail to run. I was surprised when I got there that there were so few cars in the lot. In the first few minutes I didn't really see anyone, but as the run went on I ended up seeing five runners who I knew. The trail was soft, but not too mushy. I did the regular Sunday route that I have on the trail, making sure that it was easy. My legs felt surprisingly good, but it really should not have been that much of a surprise since yesterday's effort was not all that hard.

Right after running I made a much needed trip to Trader Joe's. I've been making due with little bits of food for the past week, so I needed to make a stock up trip. My bill was so high, but hey, a girl's gotta eat. Since it was a day to face demons, I had to do laundry as well. It just piles up so high so quickly. Doing doubles a few days a week makes it accumulate even faster.

This afternoon I went out for a second run. It was my usual morning run loop with the extension on it. I saw some party or neighborhood association event in one of the parks that I run by. They had a huge air slide set up and were grilling. Even though I don't eat meat, the smell made me hungry since it was almost dinner time when I went by. The five miles this afternoon gave me 72 for the week.

Posted by Blondie at 07:31 PM | Comments (2)

April 08, 2006

What a Long Day

Here it is, 7:30 on a Saturday evening and all I want to do is curl up on the couch and read a book, or maybe watch a movie. This is the first time today that I've really had any time to myself to simply decompress. It might be nice to go out and spend some time with people my own age, but right now that just does not sound like fun. I'm often referred to as the "fun killer" since I need to go home early to go to bed because I get so tired so early.

Yesterday was a horrendous day at work where absolutely nothing went the way it was supposed to go. My massage was a highlight of the day, although it was pretty clear that I have not been rubbed out for over a month. My massages are usually uncomfortable, but not painful anymore. The first one with this massage therapist was definitely painful, but by having regular appointments, my body is never that tight anymore. As soon as she started, she commented on how tight my legs were. It never got any better. I made sure to drink tons of water and then took a walk later on the day to flush all of that junk out. I drank so much that I swear that when I went to pee in the middle of the night I fell asleep on the toilet! That just goes to show how tired I was and how much I drank.

The weather this morning was a concern for running. It was supposed to be one of those days when it is warmer in the morning and the temperature drops over the course of the day. There was also supposed to be significant rainfall during the day. I have to agree with Beth, that it would be nice to have one kind of weather, not warm one day and cold the next. So, when I woke up it was in the 60s with a huge green area showing just to the west on the radar. When I went out to the car, it was rather warm, but I had on long sleeves just in case. I also threw on a baseball cap even though it was just drizzly.

The agenda for my long run today was to do an easy 12 to 13 miles, then go on the track and do a 2 mile push. It wasn't supposed to be all out race pace, but it was supposed to be enough to make myself uncomfortable. Finally, a short warm down, like half a mile. I ended up running with K, we did a loop that is about 13 miles. We did stay pretty relaxed on the loop. It was hard to stay so relaxed towards the end, since the natural inclination is to finish faster and stronger. I had to keep reminding K to stop picking up the pace, although the mile I timed at the end was a 7:10. When I got back, I grabbed a sip of water and then headed over to the track. It had started to rain about halfway through the run and had gotten steadily heavier to the point of being a pretty heavy rain by the time we finished.

On the track, I took off my long sleeves even though I was kind of cold. I was so wet and the shirt was heavy. My main desire was to change my socks because they were soaking. I started my push, but after about 2 and a half laps, I knew that it wasn't going well and I was grumpy. I knew that I was going to be frustrated and unhappy. There really wasn't enough motivation to do it on the track, so I put my wet shirt back on and went out on the road. Initially, I was going to just run until two hours, but once I got out on the road, I felt pretty good. I ended up doing a two mile loop at a good clip, well under 7 minute pace. While I was out, the rain got even heavier and the wind picked up. When I got back to the car, I was shivering because the temperature had dropped so much.

This morning we had to go to a memorial service for my grandmother's boyfriend. He died in December, but they just had the service today. The family behind us had four young children with them who could not sit still or stay quiet. I just don't understand why parents bring young kids to things like this, if they can not handle it.

Since yesterday was so terrible at work, I had to go back this afternoon to finish what needed to be done. My plan was for two hours, but it ended up being five instead. I had wanted to go to lift after a bit of work since that has gone by the wayside of late. That didn't happen, I'm not done all of the stuff at work and it was time to go home to eat dinner. Maybe tomorrow...

Posted by Blondie at 07:36 PM | Comments (1)

April 06, 2006

Sticking With It

Despite all of my efforts to sleep more and better, I have come to accept that it is something that is out of my control. Sometimes my body gets into these funks where I don't sleep much or the quality of the sleep that I do get just isn't as good as it could be. Instead of stressing about it, I'm just trying to go with the flow. Eventually I'll get tired and sleep for a long time and very well.

This morning it was still chilly, but the wind wasn't nearly as strong as it had been for the past two days. I was pretty groggy when I got out of bed, but was able to get out on the road only twelve minutes after the alarm went off. I noticed that I must have gotten a slightly earlier start than normal becuase the people I usually see leaving for work were not walking out of their front doors when I ran by. I'd like to think that it was because I was running faster, but that probably was not the case. Since my legs felt pretty good and I was early, I seriously considered doing my extra loop. Then I thought better of it. The last two Thursday night workouts have not gone well, so I thought it would be better to save my legs for the workout tonight.

Tonight's workout kind of looked long on paper, but it really wasn't that long. It was 5 x 1000 with a 600 float recovery. It seemed like it was really long, but in fact it is shorter than what we usually do. My target was to do 90 second pace for the first four and then try to go faster on the last one. During the warm-up I didn't feel that great, I've been trying to drink more water and felt kind of bloated. The bloated feeling pretty much stuck with me throughout the entire workout. I sort of ended up running with T, who is notorious for not having a sense of pace. He said that he was going to run my pace and led the first 1000. I looked at my watch at the 400 and was 4 seconds under pace, I tried to compensate and get back on pace for the last 600, but still ended up with a 3:41. I led the next one and tried to compensate so that it wasn't too fast, but sort of compensated too much, so we ended up at 3:48. The next two were 3:45 on the dot. T said that he wasn't ready to do a fifth one, so I was on my own for it. I gave it everything that I possibly could, a 3:41. Our recoveries weren't too slow, but I'm not too good at figuring out what kind of pace 600s are-I think our recovery was around 7:20 pace. After the warm-down, it ended up being 14 miles total.

I've got to get cracking for the rest of the night. I need to get to work early tomorrow so that I can leave to get my massage.

Posted by Blondie at 08:37 PM | Comments (1)

April 05, 2006

W Stands for...

So many words that start with the letter W are appropriate for describing today. First of all, it is Wendesday. Secondly, we had wild weather. Actually, most of the words are words that describe the weather today. I should have known what we might be in for from Beth's description yesterday. It started out sort of sunny, around 8:15 it got really dark. Then it started to snow! We had thundersnow, something that is supposed to be a very rare phenomenon, but we've had three times this winter. It is basically what it sounds like, thunder during a snow. We ended up with about an inch of snow early on. The rest of the morning had intermittent flurries. By the afternoon, the sun was back and the wind was there. This year seems to be windier than any other year I remember.

I didn't get out of work when I wanted. In fact, it was quite late by the time I got home. This put a wrench in my plans since there were a number of things that I wanted to do right after running and before dinner. There was no way to do the errands, so they'll have to wait until another day. I've learned my lesson, last night I didn't get to eat dinner until after 8:00 and was absolutely starved. I went out with the intention of just running easy by feel and that is exactly what I did. No watch, no heart rate monitor. Since it was so windy I knew that the heart rate monitor would freak out when the actual work level wasn't that hard.

I was very lucky that most of the bad headwind was on my way out. There were two segments that I found particularly bad. You know, the kind of wind gust that is so strong that even though you're moving your arms and legs you don't actually make any forward progress. I got in my regular 7 mile loop, which I actually have not done since last Wednesday. Between racing over the weekend and doing the trials on the treadmill on Tuesdays, I haven't been doing my standard loop.

I finally got my massage scheduled. My feet are very tight as are my calves and my butt. It is definitely past time, but I kind of get scared to go for a massage when I'm fighting a cold. I've been known to end up with a full blown illness after doing that.

Posted by Blondie at 07:44 PM | Comments (1)

April 04, 2006

Getting Used to the Time Change

Every year I swear that I won't be as affected by setting the clocks ahead. Every year it gives me a swift kick in the rear end. It probably has to do with going to bed at my normal time on Sunday night is really going to bed obscenely early according to what my body thinks. So, on Sunday night I was tossing and turning and could not fall asleep at all. It's OK, I'll take the extra hour of daylight.

Last night was an "active recovery" night at the track. It wasn't the workout, but it wasn't just an easy run. I did a three mile run, on each lap starting at the mid-point of the curve I was to start accelerating and then run hard and stride out along the straightaway. The rest of each lap was regular running, so it ended up being about 150 meters of relatively hard running. The idea was to get just on the other side of being comfortable. I felt fine at first, so started out too fast. After six laps, my legs reminded me that I had raced and done a lot of miles on Sunday. The last mile felt like the end of a marathon, my legs felt dead. The 3 mile run took 20 minutes, but my mile splits weren't exactly even.

At some point last night a front came through that affected the weather. I woke up from the wind in the middle of the night. It must have been really windy to be keeping me awake. Sure enough, when I woke up to do my morning run, the thunderstorms were gone, but the wind was still there. It was in the mid-forties, but the wind was so strong that the windchill was in the mid-thirties. My legs felt quite a bit fresher than last night. The wind was present, but for the most part it wasn't as bad as it could have been. There was one point when I was going into a gust and working so hard but not going anywhere.

This afternoon I had to do some more trials on the treadmill. Luckily today's sessions didn't involve any synthetic sweat. He had me do two fifteen minute trials running my regular 7:30 pace for five minutes, 6:40 pace for two minutes, 6:00 pace for two minutes, then 7:30s for the last six minutes. The 6:40s felt comfortable, but that is around what I usually do on Tuesday. The 6:00 on the treadmill felt really awkward. My form doesn't seem to like running that fast on a treadmill. It took a minute to get used to it, so the second minute would actually feel more comfortable. After the 6:00 pace running, 7:30s felt so slow. The last trial was only 10 minutes, three minutes easy, then the two faster segments and three minutes easy.

I finished my afternoon run by running for 35 minutes with the oldest runners on J's middle school team. They wanted to take walk breaks, bathroom breaks, shoe tying breaks, etc...I'm the mean one and wouldn't let them stop. We didn't lose anybody, but I only had four kids to keep in my group. In all, it ended up being about ten miles for the night.

Posted by Blondie at 08:43 PM | Comments (1)

April 02, 2006

Sort of Disappointed (Again)

This seems to be a recurring theme anytime that I've entered a race lately. OK, that is only really twice, but still. I don't feel that my race times have at all reflected the training or level of fitness. There have been extenuating circumstances, but as far as I'm concerned, those are just excuses. I hate excuses.

Soooo, this morning was a small 5 mile race. Last week, J had called me and asked what I thought I could run for 5K, 5 miles, and 10K right now if I had to race. I gave my honest opinions, which were on the conservative side. This year's training has been based on strength more than speed so far, so being conservative was fair. When we talked about racing this week, we knew that the goal was not to run something along the same time as in Monday night's workout.

This race is only in it's second year. It was a big race about fifteen years ago, then it didn't have the support anymore. Someone within the community brought it back last year. It was one of J's favorite races back in the day and I can see why now. There were only about 80 runners this morning. We were greeted to brisk, somewhat cool conditions with a lot of wind. One guy said that he wasn't going to be doing all the work into the wind, he'd learned his lesson. Let's just say that the portions into the wind were quite stiff. The course was described as "flat and hills, moderately challenging". What the heck does that mean? It was definitely more than moderately challenging, it was one of the most difficult 5 mile races that I have ever run. I didn't look at my watch at all because I knew that mile splits would be all over the place based on the elevation profile. I don't completely trust the elevation map, because after running it, I know that it wasn't completely accurate. Anyhow, according to the map, the course climbed over 300 feet in the second mile. According to that map, the hill ended at the two mile mark, which it did not. Also, according to that map, it was mostly downhill from 2 miles on in. It wasn't. What was it really? The first mile was flat. The second mile was completely uphill, just like the map had indicated. The hill was sort of gradual at first, then it leveled off some, then it got steeper. It was the steepest just after the two mile mark. After we turned off the hill road, we had some downhill and it rolled for a long time. We still had some short and steep climbs until just before the four mile marker. From there on in, it was relatively flat to slightly downhill. Tomorrow I want to map it to see what the elevation is according to g-maps.

I knew going in that I wasn't going to PR. Five miles is a difficult distance for me to pace, I just can't seem to find the right pace for it. The course where I ran my PR may have been short, but my next two fastest times aren't that much slower and those courses were definitely legit. I honestly thought that I should be able to run around 30:45. I didn't feel great on my warm-up, but it wasn't that bad. I went about halfway up the hill. It took almost a minute and a half longer to go out than it did to come back. The two lead guys are on the same racing team as me, they were out of sight. The next two guys were in my sight the entire race, they never really got much further ahead than they were at the mile marker. I had some guy running wit me. He was ahead of me going up the hill, then he was right on my tail until the last mile when I opened it up some. Short story, I ended up fifth overall and first among the women. My final time was 31:53. P and I were talking after the race and he thought that the times were at least a minute slow. He ran a half marathon two weekends ago at a faster pace than he raced today. The hills and the wind definitely affected our times. I can see why J liked this course so much, he isn't the speediest but he is strong and very good on hills. I'm not nearly as good on hills, so this kind of course is harder for me to do well on. In short, if you take P's theory, I'd be right around where I thought I should be, but in reality I ran a minute slower. Theory and reality are two different things.

This afternoon, I wanted to get some easy running in since I scrimped on warm-up and warm down. It was perfect running weather. The wind died down some this afternoon, so it was nicer to run. I think that I ended up with about six miles that felt much better than this morning's race. My total for the day was 16 and 66 for the week, I think.

Bridget had asked if there was a marathon this year. The answer is no. Unlike the majority of bloggers, I have no love for the marathon. It has done some really awful things to me in the past. I don't mind the training, but the actual race has wreaked havoc on me in the past. There is a good marathon somewhere in me, but I'm not ready to do that to myself again. This year I have decided to focus on my goals for 5K, 10K, and half-marathon. Some of these goals are very ambitious, so it is going to take a lot of work to try to achieve them. If I get to where I'd like to be in those shorter races, my marathon will come. The other day they (they being J and a few of the guys who I train with) had a discussion that my best marathon will be well into my 30s and that I need to be patient. At one of our club functions it was mentioned that if I really put my mind to it, there is no reason that I can't run a marathon in the 2:50 range, but I don't want to put my mind to it just yet.

Finally, Barb ran a great Cherry Blossom. I can't wait to hear all about it. I'm not sure how Matt did since I don't know his last name.

Posted by Blondie at 07:57 PM | Comments (3)

April 01, 2006

Not a Joke

I ran four miles today. It felt awful. Most of the awfulness was probably my own fault.

We (more like J told me) on Wednesday that it's time to do a race. The ideal situation would be a 10K on Saturday. We prefer Saturday races because then Saturday and Monday aren't shot. We looked around. The best we could find was a 10K trail race today. There was no way on earth that was going to happen. It would not fulfill the objective of racing this weekend. We decided to do the next best thing-a race on Sunday. We didn't think that a 5K was a good idea. I haven't really done enough fast workouts yet to be able to race a 5K, so we were looking for a slightly longer race. It appears that the 10K is a nearly extinct racing distance in our area, maybe not in other regions. I was willing to drive almost an hour to race, but there wasn't anything that popped up.

We aren't peaking for tomorrow. This wasn't really a taper for it, just a one day cutback. We were discussing my issues on Thursday nights. My main theory is that I'm not getting enough sleep during the week. Last night definitely had enough sleep, close to eleven hours. Hopefully having two days nearly off will help me feel normal again.

I'm not really sure what my goals for tomorrow are. It will completely depend on how I'm feeling. If it's anything like the past few days, my expectations will be very low. Even though it was only four miles, today was sort of a death march. Part of it was my own fault. I had on long sleeves. It was 65 degrees out. I was chilly when I got started. Two miles in, I was roasting. It was windy, again. Hopefully the wind isn't present tomorrow. It doesn't seem to bother me as much in races as it does in training. Maybe it's the adrenaline.

At my turnaround, I had to stop to fix my shoes. My feet are pretty skinny and for some reason after a few weeks, my shoes always seem to get wider on me. I had to relace to make them snugger. The toenail on my second toe on my right foot is suddenly black. I discovered this because (1) it's sore (2) I need to repaint my toenails, so I took the nail polish off last night. I think that it isn't because my shoes are too small, instead they are a bit too wide, so my foot is sliding around in it. Hopefully, today's relacing fixed this problem.

Good luck to everyone who is doing Cherry Blossom this weekend. One of these years I'll get around to doing it. It just doesn't seem to fit the schedule that I've been following, I'm not truly recovered from my spring half-marathon and it could be detrimental to my spring 10 miler. Of course, I'm still not recovered for tomorrow, but whenever I do longer races I have higher expectations than in shorter races. Shorter races take the place of workouts, longer races are something to peak for.

Today is a sad day-we lose a precious hour of sleep. Remember to set your clocks an hour ahead tonight!

Posted by Blondie at 02:12 PM | Comments (1)