« February 2005 | Main | April 2005 »

March 22, 2005

Post Race Update

Monday's Day of Local Biking

My right quad which is technically my non-injured quad was pretty beat up on Monday morning. My entire body felt fairly recovered and decent and I was able to walk around and feel great except that my right quad was cramped up and tight. I knew I would not really be able to run for the day. It was sad because I was surrounded by beautiful trails and the weather was perfect. I figured I would bike around to do my errands for the day and perhaps that would losen up my quads.

In the morning I biked to the store and to the post office. I had to pick up some dinner supplies and mail off a package in the morning. The biking felt really good. On my way home from the store I felt like the wicked witch of the west from the Wizard of Oz as I was lugging grocery bags on my bike and riding my bike up some steep hills in the lowest of possible gears. It was a beautiful day and I was thankful to be outside.

I spent the afternoon making lasagna and sushi for a dinner party Liz was hosting in the evening for her advising students. I was really happy to have the time to cook and actually help my sister out. In the late afternoon I went to visit some good friends of mine. I biked about six miles over to visit them and figured I would bike back to get a decent workout in for the day. I had a great visit and by the time I left it was dark and managed to get a ride back to Liz's house. When I got to Liz's house I spent the rest of the night with Liz's advising students and tried to play jokes and tricks on them. It was a fun and relaxing night and everyone liked my lasagna so I was really happy about that.

Tuesday - More Soreness and More Biking Riding

I woke up at 5:45 on Tuesday morning to do a morning run with my friend Chris on the ridge near my sister's house. Unfortunately my quad was so dead. I had to jog 10 minutes to meet my friend and when I met him I advised him that I should only run about 10 minutes and then turn around. He agreed because I was limping so much. I ran for about 24 minutes and went back to Liz's house and stretched and worked on some school work for most of the morning.

In the afternoon I met a good friend of mine on my bike and did the Paradise Bike Loop which turned out to be about 25 miles or so plus the 6 mile ride I had over to my friends house. My quad felt fine on the bike and it was so nice to be outside in the fresh air. It was another beautiful day. The temperature was about 75 degrees and it was nice and sunny and warm out.

After the bike ride I got a ride over to the track in San Rafael. I cheered for my friends as they ran their track workout and ran a 2 mile cool down very easily with one of my ultra friends. It was a great night. I really wished I had been able to run but it was fun to catch up with everyone.

Wednesday's Slow Return To Running

On Wednesday morning I got up at 5:30 and met a friend at 6 to run in Baltimore Canyon. I was still pretty sore but realized I could run pain free at an easy pace. I ran up to King Mountain on a fire trail for about 1 mile then ran on a single track trail around King Mountain for a 1/2 mile or so to the Lady bug trail which has great switch back trails that leads to Baltimore Canyon. Baltimore Canyon is a beautiful area that is surrounded by redwood trees and has a beuatiful river flowing through it. I ran through the canyon for a mile or so and then hit the road for the last mile to return where I started. It was really nice to get out on the trails.

I spent the rest of the day at Liz's school and met a lot of her students and heard a great speaker during lunch. It was really nice to shadow Liz and see what her day is like. I then went to practice with Liz and got to catch up with many of the students I used to coach. The students had a meet the next day so I got to do an easy three mile run with them around Phoenix Lake which is a beautiful area where the local reservoirs are that is surrounded by Mt. Tam and tons of beautiful trees and tall grass. I was still in a little bit of pain but by the end of the run could feel my stride again.

In the evening I met up with my older sister Kate in the east bay for dinner and the three sisters had dinner together. I stayed at Kate's house overnight and then went to the airport very early on Thur. morning.

Thursday - Traveling all day Long

I had no time to run on Thursday and was actually looking forward to a complete day off to give my quad a complete break.

Friday - 5 mile run in Vermont

On Friday morning I spent some time with my neice and nephew, Grandfather, and Mother. In the afternoon I drove up to VT to visit my friend. When I arrived it was about 4 o'clock and still light enough for a run. I did a five mile run and had to stop three times to stretch my quad. I think I was running about a 7 minute pace which explains why my quad was bothering me. Besides that irritation I felt fine and enjoyed running in a new area.

Saturday - 6 miles of running

On Saturday morning I participated in a 5k road race in St. Albans, VT. I did not really race it because I knew that would be ridiculous when I was lucky to be running smoothly again. I decided to concentrate on a 7 minute pace and managed to run 6.44, 7.22 (hillier), and 7.10 for the race to run somwhere around 22.10 or so for the race. When I finished I ran the course again and ended up running about the same time after the race was over. My quad was tight for the first mile and acted up in the last mile of the race. During the cool down it felt better and during the day it was not too bad.
I spent much of the rest of the day relaxing.

Sunday - 18 miles of running on Dirt Roads

On Sunday morning I was able to run an easy 18 miles on dirt roads. I ran very easy and did not strain my quad at all. My legs did not feel sore but they felt tired. I did not push it at all and managed to keep a low heart rate the entire run. I ran on dirt roads for more than half of the run and had beautiful views of the local mountains. The weather was very very nice. I felt like I almost could have worn shorts. In the afternoon I sadly watched Uconn lose in the second round of the basketball tournament. This was a tough game for me to watch!

Monday's Day off with some Light Lifting

I returned to school today and had a bunch of work to catch up on and had to administer a tempo workout to the track athletes. If the athletes were running easy today I would have run with them but by the time the workout was over it was dark and I was feeling pretty tired. I decided a day off would not hurt me and decided to so some ab work and some light lifting. I am hoping to have a good 7 days of running ahead of me and then back off a lot before my 50 mile race on April 2nd.

Posted by mary at 12:20 AM | Comments (1)

March 14, 2005

Way Too Cool 50k and CA Update!

Friday, 80's, Sunny CA

I woke up to three dogs licking my face and jumping all over me on Friday morning. I am staying at my twin sister's house, Liz, who has two dogs, Cosmo and Zander plus she is dog sitting for my older sister's dog Macy. It was a little big crazy but they calmed down and I was able to get another hour of sleep. I spent the morning checking my email, unpacking, and drinking lots of water. I went outside multiple times to check the weather and the temperature. As the day wore on the temperature was getting warmer and warmer. It was so sunny and bright out and the temperature was rising above 70 very quickly. I got a huge bottle of water and spent an hour in the shade watching the dogs play in the back yard while I sipped water and tried to acclimate myself to the heat.

Around 2 p.m. I went for a two mile run with my sister's brother in law around the neighborhood. I felt lethargic and I felt very bogged down by the warm temperatures. I tried not to worry about it and just thought about how nice it was not to worry about slipping on ice and snow. We met Liz at her school. She was not there when we arrived and I had fun saying hello to lots of Liz's coworkers and students when they thought I was Liz. When Liz arrived we went shopping and grabbed a quick snack. In the evening we went to dinner with a bunch of our friends to get ready for our 50k race. It was fun to catch up with friends. I had a funny pre-race dinner of tuna and pizza. It was very good but I thought it was a rather funny combination. I went to bed around 10 p.m. because we had to get up at 4:30 to leave for 5 a.m. for our 50k race.

Saturday - Way Too Cool 50k

We left the house at 5 a.m. on Saturday morning, Liz, myself, Neal (Liz's brother in law), and picked up our friend Chris to drive up to Cool, CA which is about two hours North of my sister's house, just at the foothills of the Sierra Mountains. I drove to the race because I figured I was still on East Coast time so 5 a.m. was really 8 a.m. for me. My sister has an ipod which I have never used before so I really enjoyed listening to lots of cool music on the way to the race and I had fun catching up with my good friend Chris.

We arrived to the race at 7:20 and I had a lot of fun catching up with lots of my friends before the race. I was so excited to be in this beautiful mountainous setting and be at an ultra race. It seems like it has been so long since I have run an ultra. The temperature felt a little cooler and I decided to just not worry about it, pack some salt tablets, drink a lot in the race, and stay relaxed. Before I knew it Liz and I were lining up at the start. We saw all of the fast women at the start of the race, including Nikki Kimball, Bev Abs, and Luanne Park. We started near them and ran the first mile or so with a huge women's pack. The first mile of the race starts on a road. The pace was pretty fast but I hardly noticed because I was too busy talking to everyone.

After a mile the course veers to the right and you run down a big downhill for about a mile in order to run along a river. The pack moved ahead of me and Liz moved with them. I decided to keep the pack in site while I felt good but I wanted to stay within my own race. The course was pretty muddy and wet and the temperatures were rising. Around the 3 mile mark I stepped in a huge puddle and my foot became stuck. I could not yank my foot out of the mud. I was afraid I would hurt my hamstring so I stopped and yanked my foot out. My foot came out but my shoe was in the mud. At least three people who passed me laughed and said, "Mary your shoe is in the mud". That really cracked me up because of course I knew my shoe was in the mud. I had to stop and yank it out of the mud. It was a very thick orange mud. My shoe did not easily release from this mud pit. A few more people came by and told me my sister set a trap for me and I said yes, that is what must have happened. I finally got my shoe free and had to untie it and put it back on. Some wise guys asked if I was going to run the race with one shoe. No way was I going to run another 28 miles with just one shoe on. I wish I was that tough. At first I was annoyed to have to stop and get out of the racing mode to deal with this shoe issue but then I realized my heart was racing and I was really not racing my own race. I was supposed to be doing a training run. I needed to relax and run my own race. By the time my shoe was on and tied the fast pack of women were ahead of me and I had to run alone. I was relaxed and happy for the solitude.

I spent the next 5 miles running by myself and gradually passing runners on the course. The trails were unbelievable. Some parts were muddy but the parts that are not muddy are so runnable and have amazing views. Most of the course is very flat. There are wild flowers and huge hills on one side of you and a huge canyon with a river below you on the other side. The landscape was bright green which only happens this time of year in CA because by April the grass is already starting to burn into a deep yellow from all of the sun exposure. Mixed in the green grass are tons of beautiful wild flowers with very aromatic smells. When I was on the trail all by myself I was so happy and felt like I could run forever (of course this was about 7 miles into the race!).

I caught up to some of my faster friends around the 10 mile mark and they told me that Liz was not too far ahead of me. I figured we were in about 4th and 5th place for women. I was excited and decided if I felt good it might be fun to catch up to her and try to see if we could run comfortably into third place. Within a mile or two I caught up to Liz and realized she was not having a great day. She had thrown up already two or three times and her hamstrings were extremely tight and forcing her to slow down a lot. I decided to run with her for about three miles. We took turns leading and I soon realized that Liz may be dropping out of the race. When I realized this I decided to run my own race and told Liz to keep drinking water, hang in there, and get some help at the next aid station. She said she would be ok but it was not her day to race. I felt really bad to leave her but I also knew I needed to get a solid 31 mile effort in to prepare for the 50 mile race.

I spent the rest of the race running with various individuals and taking in the scenary. I caught up to the third place women but realized the pace was faster than I wanted to be running. I backed off and ran a steady pace for the remainder of the race. I ran through the marathon point of the race in 3 hours and 40 minutes and was happy with that effort considering the conditions of the course and my overall effort. Prior to getting to this point of the race there are two huge hills that are about a mile long in which almost everyone walks. They are tough hills that come at difficult points in the race.

I was really happy with my fluid intake. I had a large water bottle that I filled with Gu20 at each aid station. I also had a gu every 40 mintues and had a salt tablet at the half way point of the race. It was probably in the 70's during the race. In the shade I did not think the heat was a big issue but when there was no shade and you were exposed to the sun the heat was a bit draining.

After the marathon point my calves started to cramp up a little and my good quad which is uninjured started to get tight and feel the extra effort of its work. I feel like I overuse my good quad to compensate for my bad quad. My left quad which is the quad that cramps up on me at sub 6.30 efforts was very tight and weak for the first hour and then this sensation disappeared. For the middle two hours of the race I did not notice any pain and felt like I had pretty good control of my legs. In the last hour of the race both quads were getting sore from the distance and the pounding of the downhills but my good quad was especially sore. My last 5 miles of the race were probably my slowest but I was happy with my effort and did not feel any need to push the pace.

I finished in 4 hours and 24 minutes and some change.. I think it was a high 4:24:59. I found out when I finished that third place was about three minutes in front of me so I was a little frustrated that I did not go after her but I decided that I was just so happy to get the chance to be out on the trail and see so many of my friends, run in beautiful weather, and finish the race healthy and strong. I was anxious to find out if Liz was still in the race and found out from others that she was still running and would be finishing soon. Liz finished in about 4 hours and 50 minutes. She was really beat and exhausted. I felt really bad for her. She had asked about dropping and realized it would have taken her longer to drop out of the race and get to the finish then if she just ran and finished the race. I was really proud of her for finishing. As soon as she was done she sat down and stretched and rested until we left. My friend Chris finished less than 30 second behind me even though I did not see him the entire race. My sister's brother in law finished about 20 minutes after Liz. He too had a rough race and struggled with the heat.

Saturday evening I spent the night with Chris and his family. They just bought a new house and have an outdoor hot tub. I sat in the hot tub for a long time and enjoyed soaking my legs.

Sunday Pool Running and Visiting with Friends

On Sunday morning I met my old coach and great friend Frank and pool ran for an hour in an outdoor pool. When I woke up my quads were very sore especially my good quad. I was happy to loosen them up in the pool. The outdoor pool is so nice. It is surrounded by green hills and is at an amazing health club. After running in the pool with a vest for an hour I rode on a stationary bike for 10 minutes to loosen up my legs and then did 20 minutes easy on the stair master. My friend and I then went to lunch with his wife. I spent the afternoon and evening visiting friends.

My quads are still pretty sore. I am hoping they feel better tomorrow. Everything else feels great and not sore at all. Tomorrow I'd love to go for an easy run on the ridge near Liz's house. Liz is feeling pretty drained today and unfortunately has meetings all day long tomorrow.

Posted by mary at 2:41 AM | Comments (24)

March 11, 2005

Spring Break at Last!

Tuesday's Snowy Wintery Afternoon

We had yet another big winter storm on Tuesday afternoon. At least four inches of snow fell to the ground. The team was supposed to do a fartlek workout on the bike path but due to the circumstances we changed our minds and did a trail run instead. The team ran for an hour on the pond path and on the cross country course. It was very beautiful running in the snow and seeing everything covered in white. Tuesday was another very late night. I stayed up very late studying for a sports medicine exam.

Wednesday's Day Off

Wednesday I was supposed to get up and run with an athlete at 7 a.m. but had I done that I would have only gotten four hours of sleep and I did not want to take an exam with so little sleep. I canceled the run and slept in to get about 5.5 to 6 hours of sleep. My exam went much better than I expected. I had to run around all morning long and finally finished all of my work by the afternoon. I decided to take the day off to rest my body and take some time to relax.

Thursday's 50 minute treadmill run

On Thursday I had to run for 50 minutes on the treadmill at 60% of my VO2 max effort. This turned out to be an 8.06 pace which felt nice and relaxed. I got to work out with everyone in my class so I had fun talking to everyone and the time flew by. I had a hectic morning going to three classes. I then had to take off for Hartford, CT to catch my plane to CA. I left for CA at 3:30 and arrived in Oakland, CA at 10:00 p.m.

Way Too Cool 50k this weekend

It is now Friday and I tried to sleep in because I am in desperate need of sleep. Unfortunately all of the puppies at this house toppled me at 7:30 this morning. I stayed in bed for another 40 minutes or so and got restless because it is so sunny and bright out that I felt like I should get up and start my day. This afternoon I plan to run two miles with Liz's brother in law Neal. This evening I will go to dinner with a ton of friends to get ready for tomorrow's race.

Tomorrow I will be running the Way Tool Cool 50k with my twin sister Liz. I am excited but nervous because I feel very tired and have not gotten enough sleep all this week. I feel like race day adrenaline can get me through a lot but I don't want to ignore my body's symptoms of fatigue and push too hard and get injured or sick. I will have to carefully monitor my body's signs and signals throughout the race. Liz wants to run together. I may try that for awhile but I feel like her pace may be too fast and I want her to be ultra competitive in the event. I have another ultra race in two weeks in CA which is why I am not that excited about trying to race this race. We'll have to see. It is quite warm in CA, about 70 degrees which is a huge contrast to the 15 degree weather we have been having in MA. I am excited to see all of my friends and actually excited to finish the race so I can begin to relax and enjoy my vacation! :)

Posted by mary at 11:29 AM | Comments (3)

March 8, 2005

Weekend update

Saturday's Family Running

I stayed up very late on Friday after the meet at Yale to do some school work. I knew I had a busy week coming up and wanted to get a jump start on my projects. I was up until 3 a.m. and did not wake up until almost noon on Saturday. Fortunately I was at my brother's house in New Haven and had the entire house to myself. I am not sure it made much sense to stay up so late because it put me very far behind on Saturday. When I woke up I went to Trader Joe's to get some supplies to make home made pizza for my brother and his family. They were scheduled to arrive home from Florida at 3 p.m. I did not have much time. When I returned I did a small amount of work and before I knew it the family arrived home.

I went for a four mile run with my sister in law around the Yale athletic fields. The run was nice and easy and I got to update my sister in law on everything that was going on in my life and hear all about the family's disney world vacation. When we returned I went for a 5 mile run with my brother Kevin. He took off very fast on our run, he was running at least 7 minute pace but probably faster. I had no idea if I could keep up. As we continued running I felt better and better and by the end of the run I felt like I was in control and leading the pace. I had a great time running with him and we too got to catch up a lot. I was happy that I could run a faster pace like we did and still talk and feel comfortable. I had no quad problems so I was very happy about that. In the evening I made pizza for the family and watched the slide show of their vacation. Then we all went to bed.

Sunday Catching up with Grandpa, Mom, and Dad

On Sunday I went to my parent's house after making breakfast with my neice and nephew. Before I left for Middletown, CT I went for a quick three mile run with my sister in law. My 8 year old neice joined us on her bike which was a lot of fun. When I arrived at my parent's house I decided to go for my run right away. If I wait to do my run it will probably not happen because plans start to be made and conversations get started that don't end quickly. Initially I thought I would do my 6 mile loop but then I decided a mile into the run I might as well do my Christmas Tree 10 mile loop. My first mile I was dragging, I checked my mile time to confirm my fatigue and realized I just clocked an 8.23 mile. Yikes. Oh well, listen to my body. I did and just ran easy for the entire 10 miles. I finished with an 8 minute pace average so somewhere along the way it all evened out. I spent the entire afternoon and early evening visiting with my Grandfather, Mother, and Father. It was nice to see them as I have not seen them in awhile. Of course I got to school much too late. I did not return to MA until almost 10 p.m. at night. Once I arrived I had to write my literature review. I had read the articles and organized them somewhat but I spent much too long writing it. I did finish the review but it is very rough and needs a lot of work but at least it is a rough rough draft.

Monday's Florence Run and Striders

On Monday morning I was supposed to meet Alison for a morning run but fortunately I had the foresight to email her to cancel her on Sunday evening when I realized I would barely get enough sleep. I got up for my 9 a.m. class and was relieved and happy to hear that our class was canceled. I sprinted back over to my house and slept for another hour and a half. My day from there on was packed with work and classes. I ran an easy 7 miles with the team at practice at an easy conversational pace. When we returned I did 5 striders with the team which I never do and felt very good. I was so happy about that. Afterwards I did some ab work and then I spent the rest of the night studying for a sports medicine exam. I hate to take exams in graduate school. I feel like we should be doing research and writing papers not memorizing facts. Of course, I should keep up with my work and then I would not have to cram.

Tuesday A.M. Pool Run

This morning I was in the pool for about 50 minutes. I did 8 x 15 seconds hard after a 10 minute warm up and then did 8 x 1 minute hard with 30 seconds break. I felt pretty tired. I am supposed to run with the team this afternoon. It should be a light run. I have an exam this morning and then one more paper to write tonight and then I will be ready for spring break. I can't wait. I will be going to CA to visit my family and run a 50k race on Saturday. I am not prepared at all for Saturday's race but I plan to have fun and see what happens. If I could get 60 hours of sleep between now and Saturday I'd feel a little more confident. Right now I am banking on sleeping on the plane. Off to do some last minute cramming.

Posted by mary at 8:30 AM | Comments (0)

March 4, 2005

Another Quick Update

Wednesday's Combination of Run's = My Long Run for the Week

I realized I had done a typical stunt I do in the summer when I have no plans and am not working. I scheduled four different runs for Wednesday and did not really feel like canceling any of them. I decided to do all four runs and count Wed. as my long run day even though all of the runs were not necessarily consecutive. I met an athlete at 7:00 a.m. and did the campus loop that is about 4.5 miles. It was a sunny bright morning and it felt so nice and refreshing to get up and be running. I could smell spring in the air as I heard the birds chirping. I was supposed to meet another athlete at 7:45 but she missed me. Logic would have told me to just skip the run and go have a shower and breakfast. However, I decided I was already out and ready I might as well run for a total of 1 hour so I went out and did a quick 24 minute run. I felt fine and still had time for a relaxing breakfast before class.

In the afternoon I did a 6 mile loop with the team that may actually be 6.5 miles. It is an extension of the campus loop that brings us to the back side of Florence. We ran nice and easy and everyone stayed together. Following this run I ran for about an hour and twenty minutes with Alison and Caitlin. I had no idea how I would feel since I had already run for almost two hours that day. I found that I felt really good and was feeling pretty energetic. I dominated the conversation by talking about my weekend but hopefully did not annoy Caitlin and Alison too much with all of the fun details. We did two different loops so that we could stay near campus. It is really hard to run at night especially with other people. I know I am not always considerate about announcing when I am crossing the street so I always feel badly when I spontaneously cross the street when I am running with friends. I was thankful to have Caitlin and Alison to run with because I am sure I would not have run again if they were not with me.

Thursday's Snow Run and Easier Day of Running

On Thursday morning I was supposed to get up and do a pool run but if I had gotten up at 6:30 I would have only gotten 6 hours of sleep. I decided to sleep until 8:30 and greatly enjoyed my 8 hours of sleep. My day was jammed packed from 9 until 4 when I met an athlete to run. We had an adventurous snow run. We ran the pond path loop and then ran on the road for about two miles and then hit the cross country course for the last two and a half miles. I am ashamed to admit that I have not been on the cross country trails all winter. I have not adjusted to being an east coast trail runner yet and just have not found it natural to hop on a snow covered trail and run. Yet I have to admit when I ran on the trails in the snow today I absolutely loved it and did not feel encumbered by the snow at all. I think I have to do this more often. After the run I wanted to run again to get another 5 miles in or so. I realized I was pretty tired from all of my nonstop work all day, 4 classes in a row, then teaching a class at 1 and from my combination of runs on Wednesday. I probably would not have run again except for the fact that I had to figure out how many calories I burn in one mile running. I am wearing a pedometer for a week and an accelerometer for one day. WIth the pedometer I have to record how many steps I am walking/running each day. With the accelerometer I have to record the number of calories I burn in a 24 hour period. I decided to go to the treadmill and warm up for a mile. I then ran one mile at 8 minute pace and recorded the calories burned, somewhere around 120 and then ran one mile at 7 minute pace and it was a little lower than 120. I don't have the data with me at the moment. I then ran one more mile for a cool down. That was enough running for me. I was spent and needed to get home to study.

Friday's Combination of Long Runs

Friday ended up being a repeat of Wednesday running. I met Alison at 7 a.m. and ran a nice one hour run with her through the conservation area. We ran on trails for about 40% of the run or so. It was really nice to run on the trails, I was inspired by yesterday and so happy that Alison was not intimadated by the trails. We had a great time on the run and as always found that we had a lot to talk about. Following the run with Alison I was supposed to meet an athlete at 9 a.m. for her workout. She showed up a bit early so I ended up doing a second run around 8:30 right when I left Alison. I ran a 10 minute warm up with the women on the team and then ran 3 minutes hard, 2 minutes easy, 1 minute hard, 30 seconds easy, 30 seconds hard, 30 seconds easy 4 times with the athlete. We then ran a 10 minute cool down. I felt much better than I expected. Fortunately I ate a granola bar in between the runs so I was not totally famished. By the time I ate breakfast however, I was very hungry. I had a huge bowl of oatmeal and a slice of bread with peanut butter.

This afternoon I just ran the same course I ran with Alison in the morning minus some of the trails in the woods with the track athletes. Even though we cut off about 10 minutes of the run the course still took the same amount of time that it took for me and Alison to do the run. Even though I ran a lot today I do not feel that tired because I did not have to push too hard in many of the runs. I am happy that my body has been handling all of the mileage lately. Today I think I ran about 20 or 21 miles. My mileage for the week so far is 73 miles. Tomorrow I will probably run about 8 to 10 miles. So it looks like I ran a ton this week but it is not too high. I also had one day off of running. So maybe without the day off my mileage would be in the 90's. I really need to taper though because I am running a 50k a week from tomorrow. I have a lot of work to do this weekend. I need to finish my literature review, write a women's history of cross country running specific to Smith College, and finish two lab reports for my exercise physiology class. If I can get half of these things done I will be very happy. The only other thing I have left to complete before spring break is an exam next Tuesday for my sports medicine class. I am hoping to study for that this Sunday and Monday night. Now I am off to Yale for an indoor Track meet.

Posted by mary at 4:37 PM | Comments (1)

March 1, 2005

Quick Update!

This is unfortunately going to be a boring update because I do not have much time to write in great detail about my terrific weekend. I am swamped with work over the next two weeks as we are on the brink of our spring break which is the half way point in the semester. Time is flying by...

Saturday's Easy 7 mile run

Saturday was the day of the wedding. I slept in and had a great breakfast with all of Kim's friends. We had a delicious breakfast at the great bed and breakfast where we were staying in Stowe, VT. My friends and I spent about 3 hours at breakfast sharing stories about our friend and marveling at the good fortune she had to arrive at this day. We were all pretty excited about the wedding. After breakfast we all had to go out and get tights. I was relieved. I thought I was the only one who waited until the day of the wedding to get new tights. I then had about an hour to do a run. I ran very easy for an hour and ran right by the round barn where my friends wedding was going to be held. The roads were so rural and beautiful, mountains surrounded me and there was a light dropping of snow. I just ran really easy because I did not want to be tired out for the wedding. The wedding started at 3 p.m. I had to say a reading at the wedding. I was so nervous but in the end I think it turned out well. I gave a short introduction about myself and mentioned that I was going to give an essay about ultrarunning because of the many parallels that exist between ultra running and leading a married life but then I realized that perhaps I would be the only person who could relate to ultra running. Instead I decided what connected us all was friendship so I read a brief passage about the meaning of friendship and the importance of it in all of our lives and especially in the married life. The wedding was one of the best weddings I have ever been to - I had a great time with my college friends, my friend getting married was beautiful, the setting was perfect, the food was great. The old barn was rustic and classic at the same time. It was a late night. I did not return to the bed and breakfast until about 12:30 at night.

Sunday's Vermont Run

On Sunday I got up and had breakfast with my friend at the bed and breakfast. Again it was a great breakfast. I then went to my friends house for the day who lives about 40 minutes away from Stowe. From the house I ran the same 16 mile course I ran on Friday. I was so tired. I know I ran much slower than Friday. I ran an extra 10 minutes to make it maybe about 17 miles. My pace was nice and slow but I think it was good not to push myself because I really had not gotten enough sleep in the last week. I spent the day and evening at my friend's house. I relaxed and read books and my friend took me out to dinner. The area in VT is so beautiful and relaxing. I had a terrific time and did not want to leave.

Monday's Day Off

On Monday I had a bunch of work to catch up on and I had a few minor things to take care of throughout the day. My car was leaking transmission oil, I had to catch up with a lot of athletes at practice so I did not have time to run with the team, and I had to get my work organized.. all of which lead me to take a day off. I also wanted to get to bed by 10 p.m. so I could get 9 hours of sleep. I did get 9 hours of sleep which felt amazing.

Tuesday's Mini Workout

This morning I got up at 7 and met an athlete for an early workout. We ran 20 minutes warm up on the indoor track and then ran 6 x 800. We ran the first 800 at 3.20 and the second 800 at 3.30 and alternated in that pattern throughout the workout. I felt good the entire workout and the athlete I coached looked great during the workout. I only had time to do about 10 minutes cool down because I had to rush off to class. I was hoping to do a p.m. workout today but I had to get my car fixed and I know tomorrow I have about 20 miles worth of running planned so I did not feel too pressured to do a lot today. I did get my transmission fluid changed and get the leak I had discovered yesterday in the car fixed so that was a huge relief. I now have to work on my literature review for my thesis project and have to study for an exercise physiology exam that I have on Friday.

Posted by mary at 9:18 PM | Comments (2)