Not too shabby

It was another long, long day at work today. More than 10 hours is too many with 12 toddlers.

I managed to convince myself to head to the basement for 4 easy miles after I got home. And then I didn't want to spend too much of my limited evening in the basement, so I ran faster than my training plan called for.

4 miles in 37:18 - not too shabby.

33 days until my race. I can already tell that I am going to be very nervous/excited when it gets closer. I've never really had a time goal other than faster than my last race, so declaring a goal is a little intimidating.

Tom sent me this picture of Buddy while I was at work - he was ready for Tom to stop working so he could play with him.

More house hunting

We went out looking at a few houses again today. I have been feeling like what we're looking for just isn't out there right now, but we finally had a couple with promise today.

House #1 looked cute from the outside, but was a mess inside. It had once been split into two apartments, so there was a second kitchen area in the upstairs. There were a lot of little things, like padding missing from under the carpeting, water damage, and generally just a weird layout.

House #2 was an old farm house that was really cute and had an old-school key for the front door. It felt really cramped, super low ceilings and a tiny kitchen that had a guest room off of it. There was also a "secret garden" according to the listing. We found a shady little area with some dead plants and a large key. People are weird.

                  

 

House #3 has potential. It is in a really good location and has a really nice yard. The layout is a little weird and the loft area that they call the master bedroom is open to the living room downstairs. The living room is really nice though!

House #4 is another old farmhouse. Like, really old. It was built in 1790. I was expecting it to be a wreck, but it was in pretty good shape. It's on 34 acres of mostly trees, so we would definitely have plenty of property! Overall, I liked this one, though it's a little more in the middle of nowhere, so it would make Tom's commute to the city a little more complicated (and cell service was a little questionable).

It's weird to look at places and think about living in them, and what you would change. I always look at the neighborhoods and think about running around them, naturally. I also wonder if there are running groups nearby since most of the places we are looking at will be too far away for my current group.

How long have you lived at your house/apartment?

That's funny, you don't look crazy

Humidity is my kryptonite.

My run with the group this morning was painful. The humidity was so high that I felt like I couldn't get a deep breath, and my legs felt like they were full of lead. I honestly felt like stopping several times throughout the run, and probably would have if I wasn't with the group.

Since we're looking at some more houses tomorrow, I decided to make today my long run day. After my super sweaty 6+ miles with the group, I planned on heading home and doing another 7 on the treadmill. One of the group said, "That's funny, you don't look crazy" when I said that was what I was going to do.

After a quick change to some dry clothes, I finished up my run and the second half of Pirates of the Caribbean.

And then I did something I pretty much never do - I took an ice bath. Granted, it was mostly just cold water, because I just used the ice we had in the freezer, but it was plenty cold!

I'm hoping it helps so I won't be too sore tomorrow.

I wasn't going anywhere, so I had a pretty sweet post-run outfit on. Nothing like a dress with compression socks and slippers.

Tom was very impressed.

It's ok to be jealous.

I made up a buffalo chicken pasta salad for dinner. It was super easy to throw together and it was really tasty! Plus it went well with our evening of beer and football.

A few mile repeats

It's been a while since I did any speedwork. Somehow my late days at work seem to coincide with my speedwork days (plus we were out of town last week). My race has been far enough out that I haven't worried too much about a missed run here and there, but now that it's getting closer am trying to stick to the plan a little closer.

Today was mile repeats. I didn't feel like I was going to die, but I was definitely ready to be done at the end.

It ended up looking like this: 1 mile warm up, 1@8:34, 800m jog, 1@8:34, 800m jog, 1@8:27, 1 mile cool down.

I ended up looking like this:

And Buddy took up his usual post at the bottom of the stairs.

He really doesn't like the basement.

I threw on a little Pirates of the Caribbean to distract me while I was running.

If you can have a theater screen by your treadmill, I highly recommend it. ;)

Do you like speedwork? What's your go-to speed workout?

A history of half marathons

I have nothing terribly exciting to tell you about today. I worked, and then I came home and ran. Oh, and Tom made dinner! Chicken tikka masala and saag paneer - my mouth is still on fire - it was delicious.

Since I've been thinking about my upcoming race (39 days away!) a lot lately, I thought I would tell you a bit about my history with the half marathon.

I have pretty much always gone to my races alone, so I don't have the best pictures from some of my races. I do have prints from a couple of them, but I have no idea where they are.

Oregon Wine Country Half Marathon 2010 - 2:39:31

This was my first half marathon. I was not well trained. The longest run I had ever done before this race was 6 miles. And, because I had been sick, the longest run I had done in the month leading up to the race was 3 miles. I had no time goal, and was just focused on finishing.

I stopped and grabbed a pizza on the way home and then didn't leave my apartment for 2 days afterwards. There was much soreness.

Corvallis Half Marathon 2011 - 2:18:07

I have seriously no memory of my training for this race. I know I did some longer runs and tried to be more consistent in my running. I didn't have a time goal, but I hoped I would beat my previous time. I was shocked when I saw how much faster I had gotten!

Oregon Wine Country Half Marathon 2011 - 2:17:13

I seriously trained for this race. I followed a training plan and checked off each run as I finished it. I even have a training log somewhere in a box in the basement. I knew the course since I had run it before, and really wanted to beat my best time (there's a trend here). I somehow managed to run the last 3 miles of the race with an insanely painful cramp in my right calf, and judging from the pain I was in for weeks afterwards, a stress fracture in my shin.

Sleepy Hollow Half Marathon 2014 - 2:16:26

My first half in years. I trained, a lot. I'm not sure how I managed to get in all my runs as I was routinely working 10+ hours of overtime every week. This was my first race after I bought my treadmill. It definitely saved me this winter from the weather. There's no way I would have done as well if I hadn't bought the treadmill. I followed a Runner's World Challenge training plan, and it seemed to work. I was hoping to do well, and quietly hoped to beat my best time even though I hadn't raced in a while. You can see my full recap  of this race HERE.

Newburgh Half Marathon 2014 - 2:07:13

I still don't know how this happened. I kept my training up after the Sleepy Hollow Half, and started using a Runner's World SmartCoach plan. It had more speedwork in it than I would ever do on my own, and I also had been running with the group more. Some beautiful combination of these things led to an awesome race and another PR! You can read the full recap HERE.

I might actually get a picture at the race next time - Tom and my mom are planning on coming with me! As an added bonus, there is supposed to be beer at the end of the race - so they're pretty excited about that. :)

Watermelon Peeps and some race pace running

The kiddos were surprisingly mellow switching classrooms today. We only had to explain a few times that we would not be going back to the other classroom. They were used to just visiting the new room for a few hours and didn't quite understand that the change was for real this time.

I keep seeing these sour watermelon mini Peeps at the store. I have so far managed to not buy any, but they had individually packaged ones today, so I couldn't help myself.

It was actually pretty tasty and it's probably good that I didn't buy a bigger package, because I would have eaten them all.

I didn't run at all over the weekend, so I did a couple of easy miles in my Minimus shoes yesterday. And then I realized that those shoes are about a half size too small.

Today was supposed to be 4 easy miles, but I felt like going faster. I am trying to do more runs at my goal pace. It's way faster in my mind and I have been psyching myself out when I think too much about. The more I run at pace (or faster), the easier it will be to maintain on race day.

At least, that's the theory.

The room switching at work has also led to an unfortunate schedule change - I'm back to starting at 7am, which means my alarm is set for 5:30. That's too early.

Even long weekends end

We had a really nice weekend at the lake house. The weather could have been a bit warmer, but we still had fun out on the boats. We did a little tubing and Tom did some scary/fun turns with the jet boat.

We also did a lot of reading down by the lake. I finally read Born to Run - I'm behind the times - and it really made me want to get out and run. And maybe try a few miles in my minimal shoes (New Balance Minimus - mine are older) again. And now I'm on a running book kick and just started reading Running like a Girl.

It was a long ride home (Tom drove), so my grand plans of doing laundry and getting a run in have so far turned into playing on my computer and watching Top Gun. We'll see if I can find some motivation when the movie is over.

The house is super quiet, Buddy is still at the vet and we can't pick him up until tomorrow. It's weird without him following us around everywhere and snoring loudly.

Tomorrow should be interesting at work, the kiddos are all starting in new classrooms. It will probably be chaos.