Question: Will This Ever Get Any Easier?

Answer: Probably not.

In some ways I don’t want it to get any easier, because then it means I’m not pushing, but man: TEMPOS SUCK. I know I know, broken record.

Wah wah wah. Thanks google images

I guess so do GMP runs, because lately that’s all I’ve been able to muster.  Like yesterday’s workout:

• Warm up
• 6.6 mile tempo @ 7:33 (2.2 @ 7:40, 2.2 @ 7:20, 2.2 @ 7:39)
• Loooooooooooooooong warm down

I’m a little unsure of how I feel about it.

In terms of a workout it was GREAT. It felt hard at times and my legs were burning with effort.  But I’m eeeeeeeeeeeeeehhhh about the pace.  Because it sucks to see a slower-than-I-thought pace. Mostly because the first 2.2 was uphill AND against the wind.  Seriously. Like one of the two isn’t bad enough.  The plus side is that the second 2.2 was going back the way I came, so it was downhill and with the wind.  And the third, well, I was tired at that point and haven’t done a continuous 6.6 yet.  So no real excuse for that one, because I expected it to hurt.  And it didn’t let me down in that respect.

I actually felt pretty darn good during it and my legs were really tired and lactic acid-y afterward. So the effort gets a good grade for this workout, maybe B+, because my mind *did* wander a bit over life stuff despite my legs feeling like they should at the end. But pace gets a lower grade.  I really wish the weather would cooperate with me! Doesn’t it know I’m training for the Boston Marathon?!

Wouldn't this be nice? Thanks google.

But I’m slowly making peace with this idea of tempo / GMP.  I hate it but I’ve been doing it so regularly that it’s just a part of life right now.  So it better pay dividends in a few weeks.

Because I sure know that my recovery run this morning was slooooooooooooooooooow.  And the leg-os were pretty heavy too.  I actually got up a half hour earlier than Monday and ended only slightly earlier at the end of the run! Granted I ran a bit further than Monday’s recovery run but I guess LRs don’t take as much out of me as harder / faster efforts.  Maybe I should try and push the LRs more. But that’s a thought for another day.

I also went to the doctor yesterday (because I’ve been so tired, lightheaded, bruising easily etc) and *surprise* I was / am low on iron.  Which is what I expected. So for the next month I’ll be on iron supplements.  And I’m thinking that my running will improve (as well as my mood and energy levels). I just started today so I’m, obviously, not feeling it yet.  Maybe by my intervals tomorrow? I can only dream. But hopefully a semi-placebo effect will kick in soon so I get AMPED to go climbing tonight.

GOAL EQUALS

Holler. Thanks google.

I’m semi-kidding on that front.  Lizzy might make me change my mind and my climbing buddy is actually going to Yosemite this spring to do it.  Eeep.

Check out the giveaway from Jess @ Blonde Ponytail

Wednesday Was Not My Day

At least in terms of rockclimbing.  I went last night post-work and man, it was HARD! Maybe stress got to me or maybe it was that I went at 2200 after working 9.5 hours.  But in either case it was one of those nights where it was a struggle: even though climbing isn’t really about the upper body strength, my arms were really exhausted. But I’m glad I went.  Every once in awhile you need those days that kick your ass and remind you that you can improve.

Wednesday was the day, however, for me to kick my tempo workout’s ass:

• Warm up
• 5.6 mile Tempo @ 7:24 (2.2 @ 7:29, 2.2 @ 7:24, 1.2 @ 7:15)
• 1.2 miles easy
• 1.2 miles HARD @ 7:23
• Warm down

It was HARD to do this workout.  I was originally going to do it Tuesday but woke up feeling really run down.  After doing the warm up that morning I nixed it and postponed it to the next day.  My run Tuesday was really tough by the way, even though it was an easy “just-go” run. By the time Wednesday rolled around I still didn’t want to do it but after checking my watch after the warm I decided to at least give it a go.

And boy am I glad I did.

I was so surprised when I saw my time (because I knew that it was ~7:30 pace).  Granted, maybe I shouldn’t have been because I was running hard and the effort was great, but not over the top.  I was a bit worried that I wouldn’t be able to hold onto the pace but I did.  I kept having to tell myself that “I can do it” and to stay focused because it felt great in the moment! Obviously I would like my “tempo” pace to be faster (like where I was pre-WR) but this is a significant improvement from weeks past.

I got that really exhausted but energetic feeling in my legs for the rest of the day.  I was on a TOTAL cloud 9.  There’s something so amazing about pushing yourself hard and being able to handle it.  This run may or may not have gotten an air fist pump at the end…just saying.

Totally worth the struggle of a rock climb later that day!

Also: a couple people have asked how I come up with my odd distances for tempo runs. I map out areas that I know will be not-so-traffic ridden and such and that just happens to be how they fall.  Maybe someday I’ll be able to get a garmin but for now I’ll be sticking to my 5.6 mile loop where I know that, for example, my house to the end of the path is 2.2 miles, and a loop around my house is 1.2.

Rather than tell you about all the mediocre runs, other than my tempo, or go on about the stress in my life (still ongoing but I’m managing. Apologies again to the sporadic commenting. I promise I’m still reading! It actually de-stresses me a bit reading y’alls blogs.) I’ll leave you with this dessert, described as “crack” by one of my friends.  With a tall glass of milk it’s perfect after a long day…which after the way my Thursday night is going might just be my post-work activity!

Chocolate Caramel Saltine Crackers

(taken from a friend but I’m pretty sure you can find the recipe on AllRecipes or something)

Ingredients:

• ~40 saltine crackers
• 1 cup (2 sticks) butter
• 1/2 cup packed brown sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 12 ounces semi-sweet chocolate chips
• Sheets of caramel coating

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Line a baking sheet (with sides) with foil for easy clean-up. Place caramel down on foil and arrange saltines on top in a single layer and touching.
2. In a small saucepan, bring butter and brown sugar to a boil, stirring occasionally. Remove from heat and stir in baking soda. Pour over crackers, spread to coat evenly and bake 6 – 8 minutes.
3. Immediately sprinkle chocolate chips over and let them melt.  Spread with a spatula / knife to cover the crackers. Place in a fridge to cool and then
4. ENJOY!

This Is What It Feels Like To Be An Old Person

aka the words from my friend after our 20 miler on Sunday.

Which, by the way, was awesome.  The weather was pretty basically springtime: 45* and SUN.  The snow / ice was melting so there were lots of rivers to jump through.  And mud.  The smell of spring was in the air.

And the feeling of training within my grasp.

It’s probably not a shocker to y’all that I’ve been struggling with my mojo lately.  Especially with the running.  Without spilling the details over the internet, I’ll leave it that life has gotten pretty stressful over the past month.  *Nothing serious or earthshattering or bad*  Just really busy and, at times, overwhelming.  So naturally that’s been spilling into my running and lots of why I think my motivation has been lost.  And that the posting / commenting / replying has decreased slightly. I promise I’m playing catch-up!

But that taste of glorious.  It’s hard to not enjoy running and feel all gung-ho about training when it’s like this out

thanks google images

And what a run it was.  I was originally going to only do 18 or so but just felt like going further.  I actually ran the entire thing with a friend.  She was only going to run the first 13 with me but at that point she decided that she “was committed to the entire 20 with you“.  So props to her!

I’m not sure if I would have run faster or slower without her.  And we actually ran MORE than 20 but she was using her garmin ( it was awesome not running a pre-set route, exploring!, and mapping it out beforehand and pray that it’s not a highway.)   I might have to invest, or at least beg as a gift for some holiday in the future. and forgot to turn it off after a stoplight, so it was more like 20.8 or so.  But since I’m silly I convinced her to go 20.00 according to the garmin.  But we finished strong. And happy. I mean, it was spring here after all.

• 20 miles in 2:56:41 @ 8:50 pace

Sure, I wish that I was faster but there were the Providence hills and we hit just about everyone of them.  Not complaining here, on the contrary I need them!, but the garmin showed that we hit very slow paces going up them.  Especially when they hit at mile 17.

But I have the first 20 of the cycle under my belt.  And it feels good.  I am in training!  This week was the first good week of training that I’ve done: solid tempo on Tuesday, intervals on Thursday and LR on Sunday.  Hizzah. My legs did also feel shaky after the 20 which, to me, means I pushed myself.  And that feels good too.  Hopefully this can stay put. Especially as I gear up for my ever-so-favorite workout tomorrow: the tempo.

Also feeling good? How bamf I am at rockcliming.  I went rockclimbing in lieu of running on Saturday and, yet again, it was a blast.  But my arms were friiiiied by the end.  Such a pleasant fried though.  And the bruises that I’m racking up (which I don’t ever seem to remember banging into stuff) are soooooooooooo totally bamf.  I am sooo totally in love with climbing.  I cannot wait to go again!

Awesome

Today is the Day

To feel exhausted? Or sick? Or bamf? Maybe to all of the above.

I was going to post yesterday about the amazing time I had rockclimbing Wednesday night but work got busy so I didn’t.  But woooot to feeling like a nimble monkey.  My arms were a bit sore the next day because I did some harder climbs but it’s great and I love it.  And I was freaking conked out during the night.  When my alarm went off  Thursday morning I utter some words that might not bear repeating.

No so much love? Check out the icicles on my roof!

Regardless it wasn’t going to stop my training.  Luckily the roads were clear from the storms we had and, SURPRISE, I had enough traction on the roads to nix the idea of doing a straight up long run.  So I decided to do some intervals.  I was going to do them this weekend but we’re supposed to get another storm on Saturday.  No bueno for track/interval work.

I also saw this on my desk ( I got it a week ago) from Matty, Run Run and how could I not attempt a bamf workout?

And inside

Sorry for the sideways shots but wordpress isn't letting me rotate them

It made me amped to look at this before the workout.  Mostly because I’ve been feeling lackluster in the training department but also because I really hate this workout:

• Warm up
• 2 X 3.3 miles tempo intervals with 1 mile recovery
• Warm down

My splits for each 3.3? Well I was shooting for 7:00 because that’s a nice number, but I knew that I was shooting high for that.  Here’s what went down:

• 7:27 ( 7:40, 7:13 each half)
• 7:18 (7:35, 6:59)

So overall I am THRILLED with how this workout went.  Sure I’d have loved to be faster but, hey, I was much faster than I have been usually.  And it felt hard but that good hard.  Not “holy $#%^ let me stop!” hard.

I got that exhausted, yet energetic feeling in my legs for the rest of the day.  Good work MM. Thumbs up.

The rest of the day was really long and icky.  Work wasn’t too bad but I felt kind of dizzy, probably due to dehydration, for the rest of the day.  And I likely didn’t do much to make myself better because I work up with a splitting headache this morning.  Oh well. At least these were waiting for me when I walked into the clinic this morning

Yes you read that right: “Guinness with Mint Frosting” and “Chocolate Bourbon with Vanilla Frosting” cupcakes leftover from a Bakery donation last night.  Today might shape up to be not so bad after all.

And check out the giveaway from 26.2 is my cooldown

P.S. I know I’m very behind in replying to comments. I apologize and I’m hoping to have some downtime to reply individually!

Please Stop

Pretty please with a cherry on top?!

I’m currently curled up right now all snug and, in all honesty, probably being more productive than if I was at work. I was supposed to go in at 1400 for a staff meeting but I emailed my supervisor saying the roads are flooded (which they are) as well as all the work I would be talking about at the meeting.  Since I got the email saying “all set. Don’t come in” at 14:01 (and note: I was still in bed at that point) I’m a happy camper.

I do want to try and get a run in but the roads are pretty flooded / icy right now and the temps are expected to drop soon and that’d be unsafe.  And, given how terrible the traction was yesterday during my quality workout, a bit demoralizing.  By the way: thanks to all your comments saying that I’m not as slow as my run indicated and that running in inclement weather is not conducive to fast paces.  I knew that but it helps to have smart people tell you that you’re right.

I  do have rockclimbing tonight to pull me through working, as me and my friend rescheduled last night because the gym closed early and I don’t see why they’d be closed all day today.  And I have shoveling and de-icing to do.  I figure that if my car is parked in this driveway for as much as it is the least I can do is pitch in.

Oh well.  I hope everyone is safe and warm.  Apparently (and y’all probably know this already because every other word out of anyone’s mouth is this) this storm is covering about 99.4543452% of the country.  Crazy. But in order to make up for the lovely winter check out the giveaway from Marcia. Maybe if I win it’ll make up for this winter dragging on and on and on.

So the rock climbing didn’t happen last night because the gym closed early.  Rescheduled for tonight. Currently I’m curled up right now all snug and trying not to think about the fact that, despite working from home for the past couple of hours, I have to go into work for a staff meeting real soon.

Previously on MM…January 2011

Oops. Guess I fell off the grid this weekend.  I stayed with a friend Friday afternoon post-work until…well technically since I haven’t been back to my apartment, I’m still staying.  And since I didn’t bring my computer with me blogging fell by the wayside.  And my commenting. And my replying to comments. Which sucks because I love y’all but I was having fun so I can’t *really* apologize

Story of my month of January I guess.  I’d guesstimate that I spent about half the days not at my place.  But story of January running wise was good, and even though I typically post these posts on the first of every month, I got a really good run in before the sun came up. So my month of running is done.  And I really didn’t want to give a play-by-play of my weekend.

I will say that this weekend (and lots of January too) reaffirmed my whole “I seem to run well on: no sleep, lots of alcohol the night before and greasy foods” as my friend and I were jonesing for a “Philly” cheese steak (with fries) on Sunday.  Very weird because I never crave cheese, or steak.  But we walked downtown for a couple hours trying to find a place that served it and succeeded and it was the best idea we’ve had yet.  Given that I yet again had a good run post-bad-life-habits-that-affect-running, I think it makes it an even better idea.

Anyway, onto January. I wasn’t recovering from WR anymore but I wasn’t yet in training.  I started re-introducing tempo and LR before last week (which was T-12 weeks, so I’m at T-11 today. Eeeeep) and I also actually introduced XT in the form of winter activities such as skiing and snowtubing

and then there was ROCKCLIMBING.  Yes: rockclimbing. I went with a friend on Saturday night because he joined a climbing gym at the beginning on January and had only been doing the solo climbs, which aren’t as fun.  So I tagged along to be a belaying buddy. And I’m definitely going back.  Hopefully tonight.

thanks google.

And I had a blast. As a bonus, because I’m a runner and have really strong legs, I was not sore on Sunday.  Surprisingly there’s actually very little arm strength involved.  It’s all in the legs to propel you up, the arms just hold on.  So you can bet your booty that I’m going to keep this trend going on beyond January.  In January I also took a couple *complete* rest days which I rarely (if ever do).

I also did lots of baking this month. Like I’m hoping-my-pants-still-fit-tmrw kinds of baking My favorite recipe that was made was the apple crisp, although I did make afair amount of cookies. Like 3 different kinds.  And brownies. That may not be a lot to you but to me that’s a ton.  In all fairness I have been actually cooking dinners, like real dinner too (this one has been made at least for or five times!).

Let’s talk training and January.  Like I mentioned above training for Boston started this month.  More like last week but I’d been slowly reintroducing a training set up to my week: aka tempo Tuesdays, LR Thursdays. I have yet to do a speed work session so far.  I was going to do one this weekend but my motivation has been lacking. I want to mail out this letter:

Dear Motivation,

Anytime now.

Love, MM

Maybe the snow and cold was a factor. We have been hit with three separate and big storms this month (with another coming Tuesday night. And supposedly this one is supposed to be the worst of them all. Ugh!) Who knows. That said, January was a decent month mileage wise:

January 2011:

• 355.4 miles
• 51 hours 28 minutes 10 seconds
• 8:56 average pace

Compare that to January 2010

• 397.1 miles
• 58 hours 58 minutes 17 seconds
• 8:54 avg pace

Less miles this time around (-13%) but roughly the same pace.  Considering that my Boston training was going on during the whole of January 2010 I’m still going to say: all in all a GREAT month.

And above were just a few of the highlights.  The running wasn’t spectacular (nor was my sleeping patterns) but I feel happy with how the year is starting. I did fun activities that I’d never done before and baked lots of goodies. And that’s a great thing. I also got a hair cut.  Which is a big deal because I go forever between cuts.

So YAY January. Even if it’s going to look like this. Again.

thanks google.