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Tuesday, January 27, 2015

It's time to start Running!

I spent all of last week getting myself back into the groove of running. Now I need to get back into the groove of blogging! 

Last weeks runs were good. Nothing spectacular, but good. I decided to repeat week 3 in my training plan, since I'm still coughing quite a bit. 

So the plan for the week was this: Monday-rest, Tuesday- 3, Wednesday- rest, Thursday- 3, Friday- rest, Saturday- 4, Sunday- 7.

 The reality went like this:

Monday: Rest and whine about how lazy I feel.

Tuesday: 3 awesome miles. Contemplate going straight to the next week on the plan for the rest of the week.

Wednesday: Rest, and congratulate myself for getting back on track.

Thursday: 3 Miles. Feeling kinda eh, and crunched for time. Feel super frustrated about the fact that I was aiming for four, but ran out of time and had to go make dinner. Decide it's not that big a deal, there were only three miles on the schedule for the week you were originally planning on doing, so we'll just repeat that week after all.

Friday: Go out for drinks with a friend, realize after two drinks and a lot of conversation just how stressed out and over scheduled you've been. Make nebulous plans to fix that. Also realize there's no way in hell you're getting up at 6am to run outside on Saturday morning with the pace group. Add in the thought that you most likely shouldn't be running outside in the cold until the cough lets up. Argue with yourself about whether or not that's just an excuse, decide it dosen't matter, since it's now after midnight.

Saturday: Get buried in housework, realize half an hour into the Munchkin's nap that I should already be on the treadmill to get my 4 miles in. Contemplate not doing the run. Argue myself onto the treadmill. Halfway through an episode of Fringe, realize you didn't start the "workout" feature on the fitbit. Start the "workout" on the fitbit and shrug. Realize shortly after that that you never started your run in the nike plus app. Decide to run until the treadmill says three miles, start the nike plus app for speed tracking and distance estimating purposes. Run for approximately 55 minutes at an approximate average speed of 11'50". Treadmill says three miles. Decide to err on the conservative side and call it about four miles. Think more seriously about replacing stupid treadmill.

Sunday: Take Midget and her BFF to the Museum and Science center along with the BFF's Parents. Have awesome time running around after two Tornado's in Toddler form. Spend too much time on the recumbent bikes that light up lights when you peddle them. Return home late for nap time, super tired. Watched the movie Running Man on TV. Midget takes a short nap, resulting in a missed run. Decide to do run on Monday.

Monday: 7 long, slow, sloggy miles. Legs are dead tired and thighs ache. Realize long after run is finished that thighs ache from the "biking" done at the Museum. Decide I need to do more biking. Super proud of finishing out those 7 miles. 

Today I'm (hopefully) back to the training plan. The rest of this weeks schedule should look like this: Tuesday- 3, Wednesday- rest, Thursday- 4, Friday- rest, Saturday- 4, Sunday- 9.

Let's see how close to it I end up.


Monday, January 19, 2015

Living Dead Girl

Uuugh. I just lost an entire week of training to the flu. First, the Hubs went down at the beginning of the week, which meant I had to skip my run on tuesday, but no bigs I thought, one missed run. Then Wednesday it got me. I went down hard wednesday night, and just started feeling human again yesterday.

I'm still coughing quite a bit and have some chest congestion, but hopefully tomorrow's short run will be enough to get me back on track.

I'm super frustrated about it too, because my first week went so well! Even the seven mile long run felt good.  I'm debating how far to dial my training back, if I should repeat the last sucessfull week in the plan, or just start with the week I "missed".

Here's hoping tomorrow's run gives me some clarity on it!

Wednesday, January 7, 2015

You understand, they got a plan for us

Tuesday was my first run now that I've officially started back on my training run. I had a nice easy 3 mile run on the schedule, but what fun is that? I decided right off the bat that I wanted to try pushing my pace a little.

I started out with a nice 3.2 on my treadmill (as i've mentioned before those numbers don't really seem to correlate to anything in the real world...but it's what I've got to work with.) I settled into my pace nice and easy and was able to cruise for the first mile.

Then I got a little crazy, deciding to push the pace a little more, to a 3.5. I was able to hold that pace for the rest of mile two, then needed to drop down to a 3.0 for a rest. After I recovered a bit, I pushed the pace back up to a 3.2, and settled back in with the intent to just cruise for the rest of the run.

Then, with about 5/10 of a mile left to go, The Hubs and Munchkin got home. I did not hear them until they opened the door which is right next to the treadmill I was running on. After I recovered from the stutter step of shock, I was treated to my daughter giving me her usual pep talk: "You running mommy? You go fast mommy? I run too mommy? Go mommy go!"

Because, at this point they were waiting on me to head to the In-laws for dinner, I started pushing the pace up, to 3.5, then 4.0, trying to just get the run done.


I was able to finish out the run with negative splits (yay!), and an average pace of 11'40" (yay!) I also did not feel completely wiped out by the run, which was cool.


I did not however have time to properly stretch at all afterwards, which was kind of a fail on my part, so my legs are a little tight today. I'm going to try to do some yoga tonight before bed to remedy that.


Monday, January 5, 2015

New Year, New Gear!

The first three runs of the new year are in the books!

My New Year's Day run was supposed to be a quick three miles, but due to some miscalculations on my part turned into a nice four miles, followed by about a mile and a half walk home.

Before I headed out I suited up with a bunch of the running gear I scored at Christmas. A new buff, a new long sleeve base layer, new warm running socks, and a new UnderArmor Cold Gear Infrared vest. This was my first time running in a vest, and I was a little nervous about it's ability to keep me warm. It was cold out. And windy.

I started out going uphill, on a hill I usually walk up. It was definitely good for a warm up. By the time I got to the top, I was nice and toasty. I ran along part of the route I used to take when I was running to my parents, but turned at about a mile and a half, down a street that I thought would make up a short leg of a square. Most of the first part of my run was spent running headlong into the wind, which was gusting kinda strongly. I was really grateful for my buff, which, when pulled up over my nose kept the wind from making it hard to breathe.

I totally misjudged how far that leg was going to be. I hit the three mile mark right after turning the next corner. But I was still feeling good, and the vest was doing it's job and keeping me warm.  The wind was less of a factor at this point, which was nice.

When I made the next turn in my run, I could tell I was starting to run out of gas. I hadn't planned on a long run, so I hadn't fueled for a long run, and I hadn't brought any fuel with me, only my (also new) handheld Nathan bottle with water in it. I was also running out of water, so I decided to push through to four miles, and walk the rest of the way home.


Honestly the hardest part of the run was that walk home. I should have called for a pick up, but you know, pride and all that. That was one cold walk, although the only parts of me that got really cold were my upper arms and my legs (I was stupidly only wearing the one layer on my legs.) The walk was also the only time that I really felt the cold, so score one for the running vest!

All in all it was a great first run of the year, even if the wind did slow my pace a bit.

The other two runs so far were just treadmill runs, five miles on saturday and three on sunday. Nothing special really, except that I really felt good during and after each run. It was nice to be able to make the decision, while running on saturday, that I had enough in me to do the full five miles (I had the option of doing the long run saturday or sunday.)

Today actually marks the start of me officially logging my training in my training journal. Which is weird because it's a rest day. I thought about starting the log on a different day, but my training plan starts on a monday, with a "foam roller/rest" day. So I'm going to start my log tonight with an entry for a foam rolling session. I'm also starting on week 3 of the training plan, since last week I did the milage for week 2.

I've also been rocking the fitbit charge. I've been working on hitting my steps goals, which I've hit every day I've run, but missed the day I did not run (hmmmm.....going to have to work on that.) So far I like it, but I'll have to give it more time before I can give a solid review.

Taken right after I came in from the Epic NYDay Run.