Trying To Get Over Myself...

I am trying...really trying...to ride this roller coaster of a marathon training cycle without letting my head get the best of me.  I really am.  But it is hard.  I have had some good runs lately.  I DID actually do ok on my 14 miler last week.  I ran it like I wanted to...2 hours 25 minutes...I was even, hovered right around the 11 minute mark the entire time.  My speed work has been difficult.  I've not consistently hit goal, but I'm getting close enough to know I gave it my best shot, worked hard & am getting stronger for it.  

But it is a constant struggle to keep my head in it & psych myself up to battle this never ending winter weather EVERY SINGLE TIME.  Don't tell me it's spring...don't even go there...because I ran through snow squalls & biting wind today.  And I let my head get the best of me.  I was out for a 16 miler and packed it in at 10 when my last 4 miles were at the 11:30 mark and my legs & mind felt dead.  My mindset is such that all of my runs lately have been within 1 mile of my house.  Seriously.  I can plan out 10-15 miles easy without getting much further than a mile radius.  I know...lame.  

And it really doesn't help that this time last year, my skirts were out and we were blazing up the trails.  Sigh.  

Ok...I do not regret my run.  I'm glad I did get in even a sucky 10.  There are people who can't run at all.  

But COME ON, MOTHER NATURE....enough is enough.

That is all.

The only thing that cheered me up today was finding this new in my Wegman's:

Ok, it is not all.  My neighbour just shared that there is ANOTHER storm coming this weekend.  I hate this. 

I Spoke Too Soon....

The last few posts have been upbeat...and rightfully so. I had been KILLING my torture plan workouts.  Last week, however, was a whole different story.  I have been tired.  REALLY tired.  And I have actually had a couple days when I had to FORCE (what?????) myself to work out.  I didn't even go in the pool last week. Slacker.  It all started with my 12 miler.  It was ok, but I just could not hit my splits...and it was only supposed to be 11:10 pace! I felt heavy & ended up with 11:16 splits.  Not horribly off, but I had been hoping it would feel easier.  It kind of messed with my head.

I have to chant this sometimes

Then I worked a couple days & came back to double torture speedwork. I was supposed to warm-up, then do 3x1600 @ 9 minute pace with only a 1 minute break between intervals.  I am actually happy about this workout (though it sucked big-time doing it) because it was freakin' cold & windy.  The temp was 16F & the road that is a perfect mile happens to be a wind tunnel on the best of days.  9:16/9:20/8:55 for those speed intervals.  I'll take it. But I am SO ready for winter to be over.  I hate it...especially the wind.

I did a couple easy 5 milers in there and some biking on the spin bike at the gym.  The gym I go to has a Top Dog competition every march.  It's mostly lifting but there are a couple running categories, a bike one & a swim.  The run I can no longer hit at 'Gold' level since they dropped the mile time to 7 flat and the 5K time to 23 minutes for my age group.  That's 30 seconds and 2 minutes faster that the goal times last year! So in lieu of embarrassing myself (and risking getting thrown off at high velocity from a treadmill) I decided I'd try the bike one.  It's a power:weight ratio thing.  Involves kilo's, watts and a lot of math....whatevah!....I just killed the bike for the 20 minute time frame, got my average watts reading and let the gym dudes do the math.  They pretty much needed a mop to clean up the sweat after that ride!  Lol!  But I did it....earned my t-shirt....and so far I am in the lead in my age category.  (and tell me how 36-45 is a fair age category for those of us skirting the top edges of it????). That ride killed my quads though....I couldn't run the next day and did a pathetic, low effort recovery ride instead.  Saturday was better.  Thing 1 had me run 8 miles at race pace.  I felt reasonably good with a 10:24 pace.

Yesterday I took Thing 1 to Cornell for the last open meet of the indoor track season.  He FINALLY went under 5 for the 1600 on the indoor track!!!!! 4:59.8   Yay! He's run faster on the outdoor track but the indoor one has been a frustrating struggle.  He was pretty happy.  I was the Mum on the track screaming splits at him...hey, he asked me to do it...he didn't say I couldn't enjoy it! After his race he helped out with the young kids in the local track club so I went for a run on campus.  I honestly don't know how XLMIC ran on this campus all the time! It was SOOOOOOO boring....and good Lord, so hilly.  So painfully hilly.  I'm pretty sure I ran uphill the whole 5 miles regardless of what direction I turned.

I am a little worried about my long run this week.  14 miles.  I hope I have it in me & that the weather is reasonable.

It's been a rollercoaster couple of weeks.  But I guess that's just running.

Oh & today I pulled the trigger & registered for the Dunkirk Tri: Olympic Distance August 25th!!!!  Yikes!

Foto Friday...

This is an integral part of my training plan ;-D

....and the other.... Well, dogs in superhero costumes, how can you not like it????

Have a great running weekend!

...But I Didn't Get To Run.

Do you ever feel this way? I do. Even if I've gotten in a great alternate workout.  Yesterday winter visited us again & I would have been happy to run outside if not for the ice.  Lots of freezing rain.  As much as I hate skipping a planned run, I know I'd hate a broken ankle more.  So off to the gym I went & put in 47 sweaty minutes on the bike, did an awesome strength training class, then hit the pool for 1000 yards.  Still I felt cheated. I really wanted to stick to my plan and have a run in there too.  (and no, I could not suck up the dreadmill). 

Now imagine 4 people running daily!

Today, though, was a whole different day.  It was mild (above freezing), and only lightly snowing.  I had a tempo run scheduled on the marathon torture plan: 6 miles: warmup, 4x1600 @ 9:50 pace, cool-down.  I felt great today, and I know part of the reason was the cross-training yesterday.  Say all you like about sport-specific training but I KNOW that all the other stuff I do is making me a stronger, faster runner. I still don't have an ab, but one day I will ;-D

This is how it played out: Warmup mile: 10:23 Tempo splits: 9:51/9:47/9:47/9:15 Cooldown: 9:46

Best of all, I felt comfortable the whole time.  I was working, for sure, but it was a pace I could sustain.  I think Thing 1 calls it 'threshold'.  I'd have to ask him again & he'd probably roll his eyes so we'll just call it that. 

On a completely different note, as I threw the 2nd load of workout gear in the washing machine this morning I realize just how completely running & sport is enmeshed into our lives.  4 people running/training sometimes twice a day (half-iron training began for SD this week) makes for a LOT of laundry! Do you know I exclusively buy the Tide sport with febreeze in it?

Must go fold....don't know why I bother....

Feeling The Run...

This has been a good running week. I've hit my workout goals & I'm getting used to working a little harder when I lace up my sneakers. Training is very different from that between season, run what I feel, workout. I am kinda liking the challenges I'm putting my body through. That satisfaction you get from a hard workout is really a high I can get used to (after I get over the 'I'm gonna puke' phase, of course ;)). I've also been trying to figure out what different paces 'feel' like. I'm trying not to look at my watch & run by feel and see if I hit my goal. Yesterday I had a 10 miler @ 11:10 pace on tap. This was supposed to be an easy run so after that first mile beeped I pulled my sleeve over the watch face and just ran what felt comfortable. You should have seen the surprised look on my face when I hit stop at that 10 mile mark and found that I'd finished in 1:46 instead of the 1:51 that I had calculated out! Turned out I ran an average 10:41 pace! And best of all was that apart from that first mile or so, which always has me feeling crappy, I felt good the whole time! Comfortable! I am so happy with how this worked out that I'm planning on doing this for all my easy runs. I don't think I can do this when it comes to speed work or tempo runs, I don't know how these paces 'feel' yet (except painful!).

Another thing I'm trying to learn is to run in metric. I seem to do a race or two & some training up in Canada each year & although I grew up metric, I learned to run in imperial & when I run back home the km to go signs mess with my head. So to that end I've set my Nike app to km and am learning that pacing too. I think I'm starting to 'get it'. It was harder that I thought it was going to be.

Today was another easy run. Just 4 miles, and the temperature was hovering just above freezing so I took my new lulu skirt for a spin. There's nothing quite like a piece of new gear & cold wind on your legs to get you excited to run & moving fast! I ran 10:31, 10:28, 9:58, 9:57!!!!!!
Felt great!

Then I hopped on the spin bike at the gym. 11.2 miles in 44 minutes. While I was very unattractively sweating like a pig on that bike, I noticed that most everyone else on the treadmills, regular bikes & ellipticals weren't sweating. Like at all. I, on the other hand, was having my ass handed to me by a spinning bike and my shirt was soaked and sweat was dropping in puddles around me. Is this normal? Either I'm the only one trying hard or I have a sweat problem. And really, how can you read and bike or treadmill? First, my book would be soaked & second, I can't concentrated on a page when I'm up and down in the saddle all the time or running. I don't get it. Ok, that's the end of my rant.

What's it like at your gym? Sweat or no sweat?

Can you read while biking or treading?

How warm does it have to be/or how short a run does it have to be to go tightless in the winter?

Haha! My legs are almost as pink as my shoes!

Mother-son run day...February

Being Presidents Day, & since there isn't school, today was the perfect day for Thing 2 & I to go on our February run! Not only that but I got to take my new (& totally awesome looking) Pure Flow 2's out for their 1st run!

Best Valentine's present ever!

He's so excited!

We rocked our February run

We had 6 miles to do according to Thing 1's Torture Plan: warm up, 4 miles @ 9:50 pace, cool down. It is pretty cold out today but the sun was shining...it took a good chunk of that first warm-up mile to find a comfortable groove. Then we picked it up a bit. Hit our tempo miles @ 9:42, 9:50, 9:51, 9:23! Had to ask Thing 2 to help me keep on pace and not slow down that last mile and we finished our last tempo mile strong! Yay! Our cool down mile was hard too because it is a 1 mile climb to the top of our hill. That is always really tough for me but with Thing 2 pushing me and trying to get me to finish under 1 hour, I got through it. I didn't quite make it (1:00:14 @ the 6 mile mark) but it was close. I definitely would have made it if I hadn't chosen the route with the mile long 300ft climb. I'm a nut job, I know.

Because someone asked for more sock pic's ;)

As for the Pure Flow2's...they were super comfortable right away. I LOVE LOVE LOVE the hot pink! (Goodbye icky purple) the tongue & lacing is unusual in that it is off Center and one side of the tongue is part of the top of the shoe. That made it a little harder to get on but I'm sure it's just something I'm not used to and will get comfortable with soon enough. The nice thing about the tongue being that way is that it doesn't move around or bunch at all. So that is a nice upgrade. I was a little worried the toe box would be narrower. That's one of the things I love about pure flows is that nice wide toe box. The new shoe appears narrower, but that must be an illusion created by the off kilter laces because it feels fantastic. Nice and roomy!
Even though I only have 6.5 miles on them, I have a feeling they are going to be my favourite yet.

In honour of President's Day

Day 1 of Thing 1's Torture Marathon Plan...

So true

On the weekend Thing 1 looked over my training plan and decided that I wasn't likely to meet my goal time without some 'improvements'. He hacked away with his instrument of torture pen & then presented me with a plan that would ensure my early death 'make you work at it a little'.

So yesterday, after my strength class I set out with my assigned speed workout: 6 miles: warmup, 3x1600 @ 8:30 pace with 800M jogs, cool down.

Smartcoach, revised :-0

I was told that the speed pace shouldn't feel like I'm racing. It should feel pretty hard but not completely all out. I was scared and not at all confident I could do this. I didn't. I hit 8:45, 8:55, & 8:56 on my speed intervals. I got a 'that's not bad' from the kid so I guess his plan did work and pushed me harder than I normally would have. Last week, my speed intervals were in the 9:teens. He still thinks that if I work at it I can hit 8:30.  I will continue to try.

I particularly like the easy run crossed out  & sub'd with  13.1 @ race pace! lol!

With a new sense of purpose, I set out today on my assigned 9 mile easy run @ 11:10 pace.  I hit all my splits, felt good and ended up doing 10.7 miles @ 11 even overall! Yay me! Then I hit core class & almost died. LOL! Those classes are killer!

My foot is feeling ok.  I still have to mind it and do my stretching and ice when it flares up, but overall, 1000% better! Hope you all have a fabulous runs today!

Haha! This is me!

Happy Running!