Marathon Training Week 10

The weather has been terrible this week. Hot, humid, horrible. The one decent weather day, I really didn't want to run and cut it short. A couple of other days were cut short because of the heat. I keep trying to remind myself that sticking it out through these days will make fall running feel amazing - I just wish the cooler weather was here already!

Monday - Cross Training

Nope.

Tuesday - 4 miles

I didn't want to run at all. I spent a bunch of time at the laundromat (which doesn't have air conditioning) and it put me in a really bad mood. I compromised and ran 2 quick miles rather than doing nothing at all. My second mile was a 7:59!

2.04 miles @ 8:55 pace

Wednesday - 9 miles

The humidity was crazy. This run was miserable and I cut it short.

6.04 miles @ 11:30 pace

Thursday - 4 miles

I didn't want a repeat of Wednesday, so I took to the gym for my run. Podcasts, air conditioning, people watching, yes please!

4 miles @ 9:27 pace

Friday - Rest day

I'm the best at rest days.

Saturday - 9 miles

I drove down to meet up with my weekend running group. It was already 80 degrees and ridiculously humid when we set out at 8am. Several people had gone out early to get their long runs in, and we were all dragging. I knew my long run was going to be brutal on Sunday, so between that and the weather, I didn't push for any extra miles on top of our usual run.

6.4 miles @ 11:07

Sunday - 19 miles

A photo posted by Becky H (@ddreamb) on Aug 13, 2016 at 4:58pm PDT

The things we look into when we're marathon training! I checked the time of the sunrise, and what the weather was going to be like before I set my alarm on Saturday night. I knew the humidity was going to pretty much be terrible regardless of time since it has been all week.

I was up at 5am (one of my least favorite things is waking up early), had a cup of coffee and a piece of this strawberry rhubarb tart thing we bought at the grocery store, and tried to organize my hydration pack. I had a brief debate about how full to fill the bladder of my hydration pack (water is heavy!) and then decided that carrying a little extra weight was better than running out of water.

I managed to get out the door shortly after 6am, which is super impressive for me. I'm so bad about morning runs.

For about half of the run I wasn't sure if I was going to hit 19 miles. I figured as long as I had water I could keep going, and had my phone to call Tom for a ride home if I did run out.

I didn't run out of water.

I did:

• walk more than I wanted to
• make a few pathetic whining sounds
• listen to Catching Fire on audiobook
• end up with a bunch of little bug bites around the tops of my calf sleeves
• hit 19 miles

Considering the humidity this week (not to mention the heat), I'm really happy with how this run went. I'm not terribly happy when I look at the pace, but I decided that pace doesn't count on days like this.

19 miles @ 12:15 pace

Weekly Mileage - 37.48

The Escape Artist

The "real feel" hit 103 here today.

No thank you.

I drove to the gym for my run. Days like today are why I signed up for it in the first place.

It's fun to people watch at the gym. The number of people who get on a treadmill and walk/jog/run for less than 10 minutes confuse me. Are they just doing a warmup? Did they forget that they don't like running?

One older man was going around turning tvs off on ellipticals that no one was using.

A woman across the gym was doing some very, jerky/aggressive moves with a cable machine. I'm hoping she doesn't injure herself.

Before I left for the gym I went out in the yard to locate Scout. He was over the fence in the neighbor's yard! I grabbed a leash and went to get him. Fortunately he doesn't play the keep away game that Buddy likes to play when he gets out.

It turns out there was a spot in the fence that was high enough off the ground that he could slip under. When we put up the fence we only had Buddy, and there was no way he could fit under there. I have no idea how many times he has gone on adventures on the other side of the fence, but Tom fixed it so he can't go visiting the neighbors on his own anymore.

He's a cute little escape artist at least.

Marathon Training Week 8

I have been mentally all over the place with my training this week. It has ranged from extremely motivated to thinking it wouldn't be so bad if I just cancelled my hotel reservation and lost the race registration fee. I'm not even kidding.

Monday - Cross Training

As usual, I didn't do anything. I have the best intentions, but I just haven't managed to get any consistent cross training in this training cycle. I spent the afternoon at the laundromat instead.

Tuesday - 4 miles

My cadence is finally starting to pick up again. This was a really good run overall, and I actually had a sub-9:00 pace mile at the end. I haven't seen anything faster than 9:00 pace in a long time!

4.01 miles @ 9:38 pace

Wednesday - 8 miles

The weather was brutal, so I drove to the gym for my run. Since the treadmill at the gym automatically goes into cool down mode after an hour, I had to split my run up. Fortunately, my gym is never very busy, so no one cares if I hog a treadmill.

We're pretty sure Scout was stung by a bee (no one witnessed it), because his left eye was swollen almost all the way shut. He had a vet appointment the next morning, so we gave him a Benadryl and aside from the swelling, it didn't seem to bother him. It was better by the next afternoon.

8 miles @ 9:37 pace

Thursday - 4 miles

This was another treadmill run. Fairly uneventful, I believe I watched Food Network while I ran. Does anyone else do that? For some reason that is my go-to channel when I'm at the gym.

4 miles @ 9:29 pace

Friday - Rest Day

I'm so good at rest days.

Saturday - 8 miles

I did not want to run. At all. I was full of excuses and almost didn't go at all. I did manage to drag myself out the door for 6 miles, and of course it wasn't terrible once I was out there.

6 miles @ 9:57 pace

Sunday - 17 miles

It was supposed to rain pretty much all day, so I didn't bother waking up early to run. The humidity was ridiculous, but the rain held off until after I got home.

I felt stronger on this run than on my long run last week.

This was after getting to the top of a killer hill that I pretty much always have to walk part of. It's at mile 14 and it is over a mile long. It's kind of terrible. 

17.01 miles @ 11:41 pace

Weekly Mileage - 39.02 

And because I know you need more dog pictures: 

Packing and Running

Things are busy busy around here!

Unless your name is Buddy, and then it's just business as usual.

My training plan has flown out the window and I'm getting a few miles in where I can. I find myself saying things like "well, at least I'll have well-rested legs on race day" and "maybe this extreme taper will make me run faster." Positive thinking, no?

My run today was a fun one. I ended up running 5 treadmill miles (it is super gross outside - hot and humid) and felt great! This is the complete opposite of my final run before my last race. That run left me feeling tired and not ready to run. This run made me feel good about racing in a couple days.

Race day is in two days and moving day is in four. No big deal, right? We're living in a sea of boxes (because we finally started packing) and I'm trying to find the balance between getting things packed and leaving enough things in the kitchen so we can still cook dinner.

Buddy is thoroughly confused about what's going on, and he doesn't like the look of all the boxes. Once he's free to frolic in his new yard, I know he'll be happy, but for now he's pretty concerned. Moving is stressful for everyone.

Now I'm off to take a break to watch the Bone season finale. I hate finale episodes because I don't do well with cliffhangers - I want to know what happens right now!

Practically a Habit

I was crabby when I got home today, so I decided to do my run rather than later.

I had mile repeats on the schedule for the day, so I did a quick change and hit the basement. I started off with the Lunge Matrix and some leg swings (that's 2 days, it's practically a habit now, right?). After a 1 mile warm up, I ran 3 mile repeats with 1/2 mile jogs in between followed by a 1 mile cool down - 6 miles total.

My overall pace wasn't anything too impressive (9:17 pace), but my miles were 7:54, 7:42 and 7:30! One of the podcasts I was listening to was saying that people tend to not slow down enough to actually recover during recovery periods, so I made an effort to really slow down in between miles.

My repeats were tough, but I felt strong today. It was a nice turn-around from my crabby morning!

Buddy has been up to his usual lounging today. He would really like it if we would stop taking pictures of him.

The pollen around here is SO bad right now. My car has a yellow hue to it every morning, and this was the crystal clear view out the windshield this morning.

Pretty, no?

Heavy Legs and Shorts Shopping

I have a special request for the universe: please leave my toes alone, specifically those on my left foot. In the last few days I have dropped the dog gate on one toe and shredded the cuticle, buddy scratched one to the point of bleeding, and I stubbed another on the coffee table. I'm running out of toes, so please, give it a rest.

I did my run on Thursday in my Altras to give my poor toes some extra room. 4 easy treadmill miles.

On Saturday, I planned on doing my long run like I did last week - half with the group, and half after on my own. It was a beautiful morning, clear skies and about 50 degrees. And then when we started running, my legs felt like they weighed a couple hundred pounds apiece. I had to push pretty much the entire run to keep up with the group.

I was feeling a bit better by the end (around 6.5 miles in) and was trying to convince myself to go out for a few extra miles, when one of the guys offered to go back out with me. Up until last year I was pretty much a solo runner, and I never realized how much easier it is to run with people. We did another 4 miles, bringing me up to about 10.5. I was planning on 13, so I didn't quite hit that goal, but considering I wanted to stop after mile 2, I'm happy with 10.5.

The funny thing is that my running buddy had run before meeting up with the group and was heading back out for a few more miles after I went home. When I left he was almost at 17 miles for the day - and he isn't training for anything!

I went on a running shorts shopping expedition in the afternoon. I have a pair of shorts I use for treadmill runs, but they're not something I want to run in outside (they're short and spandex). I have always had problems with looser shorts riding up and driving me insane, but I also know that I won't get through marathon training this summer trying to run in my capris.

After trying on pretty much every single pair of shorts in the store, I picked up a pair of Oiselle Rogas. I'll let you know what I think once I get a chance to test them out.

I'll leave you with some springy pictures from the neighborhood:

The lonely white flower from a couple weeks ago has some company now.

Do you have running shorts that you love?

I Clearly Didn't Learn

It was downright hot here today. I think we actually hit 80! Well, the back deck hit 80 anyway, I can't speak for actual accurate temperature recordings. 

I had a tempo run on the schedule for the day and after my usual putzing around, I hit the basement. There's no way I was running tempos in 80 degree weather. I'm not built for that.

My ankle has been a little off lately, and I clearly didn't learn from the last time one of my ankles was hurting (it's the other one this time). I barely made it two miles in before I had to stop and do some serious (seriously painful) stick rolling on my calf. It may have brought tears to my eyes, but it pretty much instantly helped.

I managed to successfully finish my run - 6 miles, with 4 @ 8:20 pace. My calf is sore from rolling it, but otherwise everything feels pretty good. We'll see about maybe doing some stretching - I hear that's good for you. Right, Jan? :)

Buddy and I spent a few minutes on the deck after my run until it became way too hot - I need to re-adapt to warm weather.

I'm glad you guys appreciate my endless pictures of Buddy sleeping, because I can't stop taking them.

I don't have a shoe problem, I don't know what you're talking about.

Also, look how uncomfortable this looks:

Weird dog.

Tuesday Randomness

I have a bit of a random post for you today.

Monday and today I had a couple of easy 4 milers, which I did on the treadmill because I'm lazy. The irony of being a lazy distance runner is not lost on me. My next half is apparently in 18 days (I just bothered to check), so I'm trying to stick to my training plan even on my lazy days.

Buddy is now perfectly happy to go out on the back deck by himself. He goes where the sunshine goes - as long as we don't wander too far out of eyesight, he's good.

Tom has decided that he wants a barn when we finally move, so we went to a place in Connecticut that we refer to "the barn store."

Some of them are pretty neat looking.

It's officially, officially springtime - the landscapers came and mowed the lawn on Monday. I like the stripes.

Um, don't buy these. I ate them all really quickly. It's a problem I have.

And these are kind of weird. You can always depend on me to test out the new flavors of everything for you :)

Buddy is one spoiled pup. Tom moved his bed into the sunshine this afternoon. Buddy was in heaven.

And some pretty clouds to wrap up my randomness. I swear one of these days I'll have a normal post again.

Enter: Running

I'm so behind. I keep meaning to post and then time just gets away from me.

Sunday I was randomly super grumpy. It was one of those I don't like any of my clothes, everything is stupid and I don't know why kind of days.

Enter: running.

I hit the basement for a few miles (and some sprints thrown in for fun) and felt about a million times better after I was finished. Isn't it crazy how a good run can turn your whole day around?

On Monday we had an insane amount of rain. It down-poured all morning, which divided all the usual hyper-aggressive New York drivers into two groups: those who continued to drive as if everything was normal (way too fast), and those who drove 25 miles an hour on the freeway. It was fun.

The parking lot I was in flooded, so I had to fully submerge my shoes in several inches of water to get in my car. Also fun. I drove home barefoot.

My run was supposed to be an easy 4 miles, but I was feeling it, so I ended up running 5 instead. I also managed to remember to do some Post-Run Power Exercises - they're feeling easier, so that seems like a good sign.

Today I was psyched to run all morning and then when it was finally time, I dragged my feet. What is that about? I had an easy 3 miles with the Gilmore Girls and then Buddy and I hung out on the back deck while I cooled down.

It's definitely looking springy around here

Dinner tonight was salmon (from Kodiak, thanks Mom!) with a worcestershire/butter glaze, broccoli and green beans. You should be jealous.

What's for dinner at your house?

Running Things

I'm glad I spent so much time outside on Monday, because yesterday was rainy and today was overcast. Spring is so all over the place weather-wise. At least we're (probably) done with snow for a while.

I had a super short run (2 miles) on the training plan for Tuesday, and ended up doing 2.5 easy miles in the basement.

Today was a tempo run. It took me forever to get motivated, and I couldn't run as fast as my tempos a few weeks before the race. I still have the tail end of a cold and when I get running too fast I start coughing, so I guess I shouldn't expect to be at my best.

6 miles total with 4 at 8:34, I'll take it.

I'm running a 10k trail race this weekend that is being put on by REI. I have no idea how the trails are (rough/groomed), so I'm going to play things by ear and just enjoy it. It sounds like a bunch of other people from Rivertown Runners (my weekend running people) are going to be there too, so it should be fun.

That's a Lie

It's taper week! That means I have less miles to run and more fidgety energy to burn - a dangerous combination. I also have a cold, which isn't related, but it's still true.

Let's take a minute to review the absolute terror that is the West Point elevation chart.

Note that it is in meters. That means the course climb is actually 1,437 feet. Remind me why I signed up for this race?

I decided that since it is my first race of the year, and will most likely result in death by hills anyway, I'm going to run by feel and not worry too much about time.

That's a lie of course, I will care a little bit about time.

Today was an easy 3 miles on the treadmill. I know I need to get outside one of these days, but my laziness is pretty impressive.

Not as impressive as Buddy's, but still.

Things are getting springier around here. 

It's even supposed to hit 60 on Thursday! And it's supposed to rain. You win some, you lose some.

What's the hilliest race you've run?

Traffic and New Shoes

This is from yesterday afternoon, but I forgot to post it. 

It was a pretty afternoon. Apparently most of the neighborhood down the hill from us lost power from the wind last night - guess we lucked out!

Traffic around here is so unpredictable. If I leave with what I think is "plenty of time" then I'm almost always a few minutes late. And if I leave super early, I hit no traffic and end up sitting in my car for 15 minutes. I mean, there are spots where there's always traffic (why is merging so hard for people?), but in general it's really hit and miss.

I have been really good about not buying more running shoes lately, but several of my favorites are reaching their mileage limit. Since I've been doing plenty of research (aka endlessly perusing shoe websites), I found a good deal and gave myself the go ahead to get a new pair.

They got here this afternoon!

They're Altra Superior 1.5s, and they're really cute.

They're my first pair of Altras, so I'm excited to try them out. They are zero drop and have a foot shaped toe box - so much freedom for your toes!

They're technically trail shoes, so I'll definitely have to take them outside soon :)

I went against their nature and ran an easy 4 miles on the treadmill this afternoon - I like them so far, new shoes are one of my favorite things!

Have you tried Altras before? Are you loyal to a certain brand of shoes?