Well It’s a Start. The Story of Me (kind of) Finding Speed.

I’ve been M.I.A. lately. Duh.  So much so that I’d forgotten my password to log into my blog. Suffice it to say that I’m in the midst of some HUGE changes in my life (exciting, scary, sad, partying, frustrating) and posting…well it just was something I didn’t have time for.

But I’m back.  For the day. Maybe longer.  But those changes are still on- going until September so bear with me.  And no, that’s not me apologizing.  If you don’t want to bear with me then don’t.  But I’d like it if you did

Also back into life is speed-work.  This entire summer I’ve only done LSD.  Seriously.  My weekly miles are huge and slow (I know I didn’t do a monthly recap for June or July but the miles were 451.9 and 433.7 respectively with the average paces being 9:45 for each month or thereabouts). I’m okay with that, running has been one aspect of my dealing with life (dancing and karaoke with friends is the other) and it feels good to just kind of plod along and let my thoughts wash over me.

That said, for whatever reason during my run this morning (which was supposed to be a long run) the idea popped into my head to run track work today.  Since I was already 7 miles into my run I stopped that run, headed back to my apartment, and rested up for the afternoon (I figured doing speed-work immediately after 7 miles was silly).  Because I decided that I had to do it THAT SAME DAY or else I was liable to chicken out. Who knew when my next urge to run at the track would be?

Because my last speed work session was March 5th.  Like 5 months ago.

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH (thanks google images)

I chose to run 800s; mostly because they are my favorite track session.  I decided to do 4 of them because 4 is my lucky number.  And I decided to shoot for 3:30 for each one because it was…well there was no rhyme or reason but I wanted to go at 7 pace. That whole 5 months thing be damned.

How’d I do? Well, considering during my warm up mile around the track was painfully slow and I wanted to bail on the whole stupid thing, fine.  Not quite on pace but there’s that five month thing.

1. 1:54 + 1:52 = 3:46 (daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaamn I am slow. My first ones are usually the fastest! Wonder how the next three will go)
2. 1:54 + 1:52 = 3:46 (Seriously?! The same f$#%ing time?)
3. 1:53 + 1:51 = 3:44 (Better.  Kind of sort of)
4. 1:52 + 1:49 = 3:41 (Okay.  That hurt.)

Overall I can’t say I’m too upset.  Of course I want to be faster.  And I think I held some stuff back because I wanted to hit all 4 of them around the same pace.  Which I was successful of. Just wish I had been consistent in a faster manner. I never felt as though I was…well I hate to use the word sprinting because that’s not the point of track work…but I never felt as though I was going fast.

But 7:22-7:32 pace as the range for all 4 of them isn’t too bad. That’s my typical threshold run, or at least it used to be. So I do have a long way to go before I can say I’m my typical speedy self but I’m not beating myself up over it. If I don’t improve from here then, sure, let the beating up commence.  But for now I’ll just sit back, let my legs feel the good ole feeling of tiredness from a job well done.

As well get ready to go drink beer and go dancing tonight.

Also: I picked the perfect day to do this.  The temp when I went out at 1600 was 75* and cloudy.  When the sun broke through it literally looked like this.  I guess that’s a sign I should make a date with the track every week?

thanks google images.

I’ve Found the Way to Make Me Taper

Obviously it’s not a secret that taking it easy isn’t in my vocabulary.  And tapering is the time to take it easy.

But I’ve found the antidote to my gotta-run-lots ways

Pitcher(s) of Margaritas – 1, MM – 0

I’ve been told that one night of drinking erases a week of training.  Oopsies.  I sincerely hope that is not the case. And I hope that the thought of tequila someday doesn’t make my stomach churn.  I need to increase my points in the above tally! Preferably soon as I’ll be in TEXAS in a week!

But needless to say going out with my roomie and my bestie was fun and successful on Friday night.  In fact I spent all of Saturday laying on the couch (where I woke up no less) and would dissolve into hysterics throughout the day remembering the things that went down (and yes I can remember the night *thankyouverymuch*)

Okay: in all honesty, I didn’t actually spend the ENTIRE day on the couch.  I had wanted to still get in my speed session and around 1430 or so I felt up to trying.  Ambitious much? So I moseyed outside (in the bright SUN) to attempt

• Warm up
• 2 X ~3.3 miles @ GMP (or actually I wanted to target 7:25-7:30 which is slightly faster than the 7:34 of GMP McMillian says) with one mile recovery
• Warm down

The portion I was going to use for my warm-up of the legit workout felt pretty awful so I decided to just run how my body would let me.  And once I nixed going for those GMP intervals, the run actually turned into a very great run.  Yes my stomach was still turning but my head hadn’t been pounding all day at all so I was able to pound my feet.  The average pace ended up being 8:25! I tried to pick people off (success) and not get passed (double success)

I also did pushups ( 22, 30, 20, 20, 30) and situps ( 33, 42, 30, 30, 50) after the run

Interesting how my run on Friday, after a good night sleep and lots of Thanksgiving carbs, was wicked slow and Saturday, after a ehhh night of sleep and too much tequila, was wicked fast.  That said, I didn’t rack up many miles because A) I’m tapering and B) I could still taste the tequila and salt from the night before and didn’t want to risk revisiting them again.

Meaning that the workout got transferred to Sunday.  I normally hate doing quality workouts on Sunday.  Mostly because I want to use my Sundays to be lazy.  To do a quality workout on Sunday just seems so….productive.  Given that my Saturday was soooooooooo not productive I guess the switcheroo was okay.

The aforementioned workout was on tap and before I left I calculated out what the time elapsed would be to hit my paces: 24:28 to 24:45.

How’d I do?

Well after an obscenely slow warm up…

• 3.3 miles in 25:37 ( 7:45 ) Yeah…not so much.  I knew that I wasn’t flying and that my legs felt the effort but I was kind of – more than a bit actually- off where I wanted and needed to be.

• 1 mile recovery in 8:32 — trying to convince myself that I can do another one.  That I *want* to do another one.

• 3.3 miles in 24:55 ( 7:33 ) Better.  Trying to keep my mind in the game and focused. I will say that once I was done with this interval I was dry heaving.  Ugh

Well….I’m not going to lie: this kind of sucked.  I knew the second I woke up this morning that this would be one tough workout. A helluva tough workout.  And not *just* because I hate them. Usually even when I wake up not feeling like going fast, once the workout starts and I start kicking it I can feel good and turn my attitude around. Not today. I kind of regret not doing this workout yesterday because, despite running the risk of re-visiting my good friends Jose and Rita, my legs at least had some pep.  Just goes to show you that runs after drinking are always good in my book.

In the end I’m going to chalk today up to just a bad day and move on.  In exactly a week I’ll (highly likely) be done with the race and I don’t need mind games at this point (and trust me the desire to complain and be really frustrated/angry is so huge right now).  I’ve had stellar workouts this cycle. No joke.  So I know I’m ready.

It’s just a bit disheartening to leave it at that, especially since I have yet to really know what GMP feels like.  I sort of hit it last week with my longer, continuous GMP attempt and I sort of hit it today with interval numero dos. I mean, I know I’m in taper but that doesn’t mean the intensity goes down.

In light of that, there is a chance for quasi-redemption later this week as I wanted to get another GMP run in.  Similar to today but with shorter intervals.  According to the taper plan I was using as a guide I’ll be doing

• Tuesday: 2 @ MP, .5 easy, 2 @ HMP
• Thursday: 1 @ MP, 1 @ HMP

We’ll see how that goes.  Regardless I’m likely going to try and get something in the vein of GMP, likely Tuesday being 4 miles @ GMP and Thursday being 3 (or 3.3 because I have a route pre-done) at GMP.

All I know is that there is going to be no more of this until AFTER I cross that finish line

acoustic version because I couldn’t find an official video. Still awesome and you should youtube the song to hear the radio version.  I would have put that here but the videos were all homemade.

Well I Think I’ve Found A Workout I Hate More Than Tempos

Sorry Jess but the 2 X 3 miler is just plain awful.  That said, because I hate it so much, it must be doing something good for me.

I think I don’t like it because there’s the recovery time in the middle.  By the time I’m done with mile 3 of the first repeat I’m getting into a groove.  Then BAM the recovery distance (and I took a 1 mile one but the same holds true for ANY recovery distance) hits my legs like a ton of bricks and my legs — or maybe it’s my brain — just don’t want to rev it up.  It’s probably moreso my mind as you’ll see in the numbers that I really didn’t crash and burn. Sometimes during the workout I felt like this:

Thanks google images

But the wheels never truly came off.

The workout ended up being 2 X 3.15 miles.  If you remember from the last time I did this workout (over Halloween weekend I think) I had miscalculated the distance and it was short by .05 miles.  I wasn’t going to let that happen again so I mapped out a route that would get me .05 miles over

I really didn’ t have any goal time in mind for these.  I ran them too fast two weeks ago so I figured that around 7:00 would be good? So after a quick (eeeeeeeeer not in time but distance) warm up I jumped right into it (time of lap is first and pace in red)

1. 8:02 ( 7:39 ) Okay so this one is deceiving because, not only did I not realize that there was a 7%, .2 mile HILL in about 3/4 through the lap that, um, almost stopped me in my tracks, I overshot the side street I was going to take.  So I’m pretty sure that I ran more that 1.05 miles by a tenth or so.
2. 7:33 ( 7:11 ) Better even though that hill was killer
3. 7:27 ( 7:05 ) Didn’t feel terribly fast and my legs weren’t obscenely tired.  I even charged up the hill. Well as best I could.

1 mile recovery: 8:44.  This time went by WAY too fast despite it feeling slow.  I avoided the hill for obvious reasons.

1. 7:35 ( 7:13 ) Not too shabby considering it felt like it took me forever to get going again
2. 7:40 ( 7:18) I definitely got cocky on this one and totally didn’t push myself.  I know it. Still sub-7 though.
3. 7:26 ( 7:04 ) Final push? Interesting how the last lap of each repeat is the fastest. I suppose that says a lot about my endurance and capacity for long distances.

I took a very long warm down after that.  I’ve been taking shorter warmups and longer downs lately and I’m enjoying it.  I’m always chomping at the bit to just GO into the workout and I like having time to reflect on the warmdown.

Anyway…the long and short of this workout is that I can’t really be too disappointed.  Yes, NONE of the repeats were in the tempo interval zone (according to McMillian: 6:53-7:01) BUT that hill really just was like running into a brick wall.  My form suffered and I’m fairly certain that my pace suffered too.  That’s not to say that if I was on a flatter loop that I’d have made this workout hare like but given the terrain (and the wind along the canal) I’m going to have to force myself to be happy with it.

After the workout I talked to one of the peeps who originally suggested this workout and he said (after my complaining)

I wish that I could say that I feel sorry about that workout sucking, but I don’t, LOL! I wouldn’t be recommending or suggesting it if I questioned your ability to handle it. That workout is supposed to suck, just like [a mutual friend] has told me that he hates 800 meter repeats. And there’s no reason for you to try to run them faster, you should be aiming for HMP. 6-7 miles @ HMP is going to be tough, there’s no denying or avoiding it. NACN

Also: as much as that killer hill surprised me I’m actually really glad that it was there. I had been debating between hill repeats and intervals for today’s run and this was a good way, even if unplanned, to get both in.  I have no idea what the course is going to be like at WR so it’s a good thing I have at least 6 hard and fast hills under my belt.

So all in all, while the times in and of themselves do not indicate where I want my fitness level to be (at least to me at the moment) it was good and given the challenging nature of the route/loop it is EXACTLY where I think my fitness level should be, no?

I also did Week 1 Day 2 (W1D2) of both the pushup and situp challenges before heading out:

Pushups: 10, 12, 8, 8, max (14)

Situps: 15, 18, 15, 15, max (20)

Finally, but probably the most important part of this post: for those who have served, are serving or will serve:

Give Me Speed and Give Me Strength

I’m weirdly happy that you guys were intrigued by my laundry system.  It’s really not complicated at all and when saying it aloud makes me feel silly because in the end everything gets washed together.  Yes that’s right: whites, colors, line dry, washer friendly.  All together.  So far I haven’t ruined any clothes (or, more importantly because I’m about a billion feet tall, shrunk anything).  The only thing that gets separately washed is sheets and towels. But that’s because they’re on a different schedule.

Briefly (and I can’t believe I’m writing about this on my *running* blog) : I have 3 laundry baskets

Lucky for you I did laundry over the weekend so the baskets aren't overflowing!

One for anything that can go into the dryer safely.  One for things that MUST get line dried but are a worn once and done deal and one for work clothes that can be worn again (or things like jeans that duh can be worn again).  Essentially it boils down to two baskets for workout clothes and one for regular clothes.

I feel silly typing that out.  It kind of shows that I’m not quite all there? But I’m a runner so it goes with the territory.

Back to running though… and I might confirm that I’m not quite all there because I had on tap for today a tempo run.  I guess this cycle Tuesdays are tempo days.  I still hate tempos and still don’t really quite know what I’m capable of on any given day.  Two weeks ago I ran my tempo @ 7:04 and last week was 7:16.  I think that I should be going slower than that, ideally GMP which is 7:34, and I kind of knew that I wasn’t going to do that today.  So the goal was to go and be in control for the tempo portion.

After a brief warm up (which was on the quick side) I dove right in.  Because I know certain landmarks on the particular route that I ran too I was able to track my progress over the course of the tempo portion.  After the fact of course as no Garmin for me (although THANKS to Megan for the Nike+ that I got in the mail yesterday )

Like I said above the plan the past two weeks has been to do the tempo between HM and GMP.  No different today. And luckily all the snow from yesterday had melted.

The Workout

• Warm up
• 2.2 miles in 16:02 (7:17)
• 2.2 miles in 15:03 (6:50)
• 1.2 miles in 8:17    (6:54)
• Warm down

Grand total for the tempo is 5.6 miles in 39:22 mines which is a 7:01 pace with 13.3 miles total and an average of 8:08.

Well, I went too fast. Big surprise there, right? Normally I’d secretly be happy with it and I guess in the grand scheme of things I am really happy with that pace.  It’s fast.  But not quite a tempo workout. I mean, according to McMillian my tempo pace workouts should be between 6:53 and 7:11.  And this was more faster. Obviously.

I’m also a bit disappointed on the whole “control” goal that I had.  I felt in control for the first portion and probably should have stayed at that pace for the rest of the run but I saw 16:02 and thought (wrongly duh) that it meant 8:00 pace and sped up.  The second portion then felt out of control and was way faster than it should be.  Between the second and third portion I had to stop to cross a road and I couldn’t get a good feeling after that.  The lactic acid had built up and those split seconds of not moving just attacked my legs.  Still I got a good pace on that last 1.2 mile bit.

Overall I can’t lie and say that I hate this workout.  I LOVE that I was able to run as fast as I could for as long as I did.  I love that my hips and legs felt the lactic acid at the end (maybe more rolling later?) But I can’t lie and say it was a true tempo.  I don’t really know what it is.  Maybe it’ll tell my legs to run faster at WR and absolutely smash any notions that I might have for this race.

I guess we’ll see in <4 weeks.  Eeep.

In addition to mega speed I  felt sufficiently bad about my LACK of strength work  the past few months (the last time I did lifting was…July? And core…August?) so I printed off some time efficient challenges: One Hundred Pushups and Two Hundred Situps. The gist of both challenges is that, over the course of 6 weeks, you should be able to do it.  Sounds simple enough.  I did the pushup one over the summer of ’09 and it was HARD.  I think I repeated some of the later weeks so it took me 8 weeks total.  But I did it.

I need to look like this again hahah

I chose these challenges because it wasn’t as time intensive as going to the gym (not that I have a membership) and I didn’t feel bad about not doing 45-60 minutes of lifting.  Today only took 10 minutes and because I was following a program I didn’t feel bad about it at all.  I’m starting with Week 1 Day 1 (W1D1) and column 3 (I didn’t do the initial test but I know that I’m strong enough to do the last column)

Pushups: 10,12,7,7,max(10)

Situps: 15,18,10,10,max (15)

I alternated doing pushup set 1 with situp set 1 until I was done with the whole thing.  My arms feel like jello now! Guess it’s been far too long since I did this stuff.  The funny thing is that when I looked at each set individually I thought “wow this is going to be easy” but I was breathing a little hard by the end.  Probably because on a couple sets I did one or two more than I should. Hello hubris

Google Images

But it was a good workout. And a great way to get back into … well I guess I’m rebuilding muscle now. Then it’s maintenance of it hahah.  And it was a nice way to cap off a really hard speed session too.  I’m at work right now and feel like I’m on top of the world

I’ll leave it at that because this post is long and maybe a bit rambly.  Maybe it’s the wicked strong coffee and I’m out of focus (possibly reflective in the writing of the post!) but if you’ve made it this far you should check out the giveaways from Marcia and Lesley and Sam

http://www.twohundredsitups.com/

Exceeds Expectations

As promised, a more exciting post than the one about my library card.  Not going to lie though: I’m still pretty excited about that.

Plus I can’t say “exceeds expectations” without thinking of HP. And then getting excited about it coming out. So already this post is more exciting than previously.

Today is not a Harry Potter day though and I exceeded my own expectations (which I’ve written that word several times already in this post and spellcheck has had to correct me each time! Oops.) with my workout.  Like I mentioned yesterday many of my fellow bloggers have been making me feel majorly guilty about my lack of speed work. Not intentionally of course, but through reading their posts it was making me more-than-acutely aware that my last date with the track was 3 weeks ago to the day.

I did tell myself when the alarm went off that I could skip it because I’m not training for anything.  But I guess it was about time to “nut up or shut up”.

TRACK TIME

I do have to say that I have a love/hate with the track.  It’s actually starting to grow on me and I’ll be sad when winter comes and plops 2 feet of snow on top of it.  I mean, I loved the TM for speed last winter but there’s something satisfying about hitting a time on your own.  Assuming, of course, that you can hit the times you want.

Lacey told me in her comment to my post yesterday to do 800s.  I didn’t get the comment until AFTER the workout but the originally plan *was* to steal the workout that Jess did earlier this week because I like it and she’s a fast runner. Yay Lacey for being on the same brainwave as me.  And yay Jess for making me want to run fast. I figured that to be fast you need to train like you’re fast so what’s good for her is going to be good for me.  Well that was the hope.

• Warm up (aka jog to the track)
• 6 X 800m (with 400m jogging recovery)
• Warm down (aka jog home)

According to McMillian my 800 speed workout could range from 3:02.5 to 3:15.2, depending on which recent race I used in the calculator.  With my half time of 1:33:58, the range was 3:06.5 to 3:15.2.  Since I’ve NEVER done 800 repeats on my own before (hello TM!) I wasn’t sure what to aim for, so I figured that hitting the upper end of the range was good (and to me that hundredths of a second doesn’t really mean anything to me, so as long as I didn’t see 3:16 then I considered the target hit) .

How’d I do?

THE WORKOUT (italics are my thoughts during the run/interval.  Normal font is post-run reflection.)

1st: 3:08.13

Holy @#$%.  That was fast.

2nd: 3:15.57

Whoa there. Clearly that first one was a bit trigger happy hahah.  This one felt much slower and I was worried that I had killed the workout with that first one.

3rd: 3:15.16

After this one half-way there! On the slower end but within what I wanted.

4th: 3:11.38

*Breathe* okay I can do this. It was actually starting to feel “easy” at this point.  Not effortless but I was feeling good in getting into a rhythm over the 800m

5th: 3:12.66

Shut up kids! There was some little kid soccer team practicing on the infield and one of the twerps shouted “hey weird runner! Keep running!”. Did I mention that I hate kids?  It took the utmost willpower not to shout something back.  It also made me wish that the high school girl from 3 weeks ago was there to tell me I was a good runner.

6th: 3:12.31

Heyyyyyy.  This isn’t so bad.  Let’s see how many I can do before my legs give in to fatigue!

At this point I knew I was done with the workout and that anything else would be icing on the cake.  I decided to do more until my times dropped off.

7th: 3:13.94

Okay so maybe I lied and my legs are almost done.  Let’s try one more to see if that was a fluke?

8th: 3:13.63

Oh hey there lactic acid!

9th: 3:11.28

Just. Hold. On. I really couldn’t tell you why I kept pressing on.  Maybe because 10 X 800 is that golden standard? But I’m VERY happy I did because this repeat was a good one.

10th: 3:11.53

So was this one.  Even though my times for the repeats never fell off I decided to make this one the last one.  My legs hurt more than the normal lactic acid build up, like the borderline of actual hurt.  And my recovery jog after this one was ~10 seconds slower than the previous 9 (they had all been in the 2:20 range and this one was 2:30.  Total time between intervals might have been an additional 20-30 seconds because I stopped to record times) so I figured it was time to call it a day.

Post-Workout

VICTORY

So I’m really happy with this workout.  I give myself a B+ for it.  (and since I’m a perfectionist that’s likely the highest grade I’ll EVER give myself!).

Repeats #8, 9, 10 were HARD.  I honestly thought that they were going to be in the 3:20 range.

But, yeah, really happy with this one.  If I remember correctly I did a 3 X (4 X 800m) workout during Boston training (aka 3 sets of four 800m repeats with 5 minutes recovery between sets, for a grand total of 12 repeats) and the pace for those was done in 7:08 pace, or 3:34 for the 800.  Sure I only did 10 today but they were FASTER and ON THE TRACK.

And there was some annoying adult fitness group that came and walking laps around the track and I had to dodge them.  I think that the last one could have been faster if I hadn’t literally run into one of the women.  Honestly though, if you heard the shouts (granted they were breathless shouts) of “Watch Lane One”, what would you do? Stay in Lane One?

Oh well.  I still rocked this workout.  My hips are telling me so! Like screaming such at me.

I think that it’s going to be a stretch, *foamroll* and read those library books rest of the afternoon. At least until my roomie wakes up and we can possibly decide of baking something.

And then going out tonight to “shake out my legs” hahah! I was thinking of taking an ice bath butttttttttttt we currently do not have any ice made in the freezer and I am FAR too cheap to go out and buy a bag or two. I gotta save for a destination marathon

So this is getting long and it’s Saturday.  Lots of relaxing to go do!

It’s Really Fall. And It’s Really Time To Run Fast.

Thanks so much for the kind words about my bailing on the speed session yesterday. It made me feel (slightly) better knowing that many of you have “postponed” workouts before.

I also got a few comments about taking the iron pills — which I should have expected and clarified yesterday.  This wasn’t just one bad run and I jumped to a conclusion.  Yes I’ve been telling you all the good stuff with my running and life (with the exception of the weather!) but my overall energy was suffering and if you want to see what the symptoms are for iron deficiency anemia you can on Wikipedia (LOVE that site).  I have a few of them and coupled with me having gone through this before I think a few days of iron is what I need.  I’m not going on something long term and my plan is to do two or three more days of one pill then MAKE SURE I take my multi-vitamin daily (I’ve been slacking hardcore since last winter or so).  Someone also asked if I knew what the root cause is and for me is likely menstruation with no intake of high iron sources to replace it.

And don’t worry: if this persists much longer I will make an appointment with my doctor.

Despite many of you saying that you’d nix a hard workout for the rest of the week (and I didn’t get any of those messages until after I did this morning’s workout! Oops!) I wanted a do-over.  Yes I know there are no such things as do-overs in life but whatever. I can try.

Yesterday’s rain was only that: rain.  No storm and no blowing over of houses.  Bummer.  But what it DID do was give New England the fall that it should be having at the moment.  When I awoke this morning (after SOUND sleeping. YAY) it was about 53* and 56% humidity.  Talk about weather quickly changing! Very nice to sleep in and very nice to run in as well.  I debated putting off the run until after getting something to eat in me but decided against it because I didn’t want my brain to do any negative or doubt-y talk.  So I laced up my shoes and off I went.

While I know I said yesterday that I was going to not think about doing mile repeats (which had been on the docket yesterday) that was what I wanted to do.  Yes I am crazy and a glutton for punishment.  And I knew that I wanted to do them on an actual track.  This made the warm up (and down after) a bit longer than I’d have ideally liked but I knew that going to the track would really help my mental game.

How can you not channel them when you're on the track? (and all images in this post are google images)

It was also a bit scary because I used the TM for pretty much all the Boston training speed work I did.  So I was off on my own and, in my mind, flying blind!

THE PLAN

• Warm up (~3.7 miles)
• 4 X 1 mile (target pace 7:00) with ~1/2 mile recovery
• 1 X 400 m (unknown target pace because I haven’t done these in forever! Maybe close to 6:00 pace?) with 400m recovery
• Warm down (~3.7 miles)

THE ACTUAL WORKOUT (dun dun dunnnnnnnnnn):

Warm up: 3.7 miles @ 9:24

Ouch.  I knew that my pace was slow and I’m glad that I didn’t do any mental math to figure out HOW slow I was.  I think I’d have bailed on the workout again

Mile 1: 6:43 (recovery = 4:56)

SLOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOW.  At least that’s how it felt.  I thought I was doing a 7:30 or even closer to 8:00 pace.  When I finished and saw sub-7, my first thought was I skipped out on the last lap! This did not feel as fast as I’d have thought a 6:45 to be.

Mile 2: 6:38 (4:45)

Starting this repeat I had the doubt that I missed a lap during mile 1 so I checked the split at the 800m mark and it was 3:19.  Yep I am fast.  This was exciting but sooooooo scary to see. I’m not used to seeing those times on my own on the track!

Mile 3: 6:43 (4:50)

I now had the boost of two good solid fast repeats under my belt and since I was on #3 out of 4, I was half way there! My legs did sort of wax and wane a bit but I stayed strong.

During this mile’s recovery a girl who, I’m guessing here, was on the high school XC team (there was some kind of team practicing on the track) was doing her own recovery going the opposite was as me.  And as she passed me, she looked at me shyly and said “you’re a really good runner“.  This absolutely MELTED my heart and I squeaked out a thank you.

Mile 4: 6:49 (4:50)

I had thought the girl’s comment would put some pep in my step but this ended up being the slowest mile.  My legs were pretty fatigued at this point.

400m: 85.63 seconds, which is a 5:41 pace (2:29)

Death. Vomit. Hamstrings very weak.  But I did check the split at the 200m mark and it was 44 seconds.  Meaning I negative splitted a 400m sprint.  Impressive? Maybe. I’ve always been told that the goal of a 400m is to go out hard and try to hold on.  Not progress like I did.  But I was happy with it because it HURT but felt AMAZING.

I don’t know if only doing one of them was worthwhile. I think I mostly did it as a mental thing.  It would have been nice if I could have done another 2 or 3 after.  But I didn’t want to!

Warm down: 3.9 miles @ 9:07

Decent. The beginning miles were uphill (GAH) and were no faster than a walk despite having warmed down for a quarter mile after the 400m.  I ended up finishing up the run on the pathway which was a nice way to end the hard workout I just completed.

THE REACTION

Or not.

Success? I think so.  I’m a bit perplexed at the “easiness” of the mile repeats though as I was never close to the target of 7:00. I’m not truly complaining here as I’ve always targeted 7:00 – 7:15 pace as acceptable.  It’s kind of exciting to be sub that, although I did just check what McMillian (which is what I’ve based my paces off in the past) says about mile repeats when I plug in my recent 5k time: 6:15-6:30 for middle distance runners and 6:23-6:37 for long distance.  I was hovering above that today.

That said, I checked the 800m splits for #2,3,4 and they were all slower than the second 800m.  Not by much (I’d still say I did a pretty even pacing job) but I never bombed in the second half.  Encouraging. Although next time I might have to push a little harder

But for the 400m sprint I did McMillian says that for mid-distance runners the target is 86-89 seconds and for long distance runners the target is 87-92 seconds.  And I was under that.  I’m not quite sure what that says about me as a runner.  I’ve always thought that my strength was the looooooong stuff.  But maybe the shorter stuff is just more familiar to me so I really go at it (I’m a sprinter by training: 100m and 200m in high school).

Interesting too is the fact that, based on my 5k time — which isn’t always the most accurate at all in predicting marathon time — McMillian says I can run a 3:14 marathon. HA (although this time give a 1:32 half time which is really close to my current pr).  With my recent half pr I can run a 3:18. HA again. Although it makes me want to sign up for one now

Regardless this was a great boost for me! I’m going to do another speed workout sometime next week.  Nothing as hard as the hills of this week or the mile repeats of today but just something to keep it in my head that I am FAST and STRONG and AMAZING.

That is all.

Hope everyone has a great rest of your Saturday! I have a friend who is coming into the city later this afternoon and this evening to hang out with me.  And possibly do a short run with me (<4 miles) too. Hopefully I can find the time to lounge for the rest of the day (not too hard with SUN and FALL WEATHER and a GREAT BOOK on the BALCONY!)  If we do end up running I’ll very likely take the day off tomorrow as I can tell my miles for this week are pretty high already!

In England An Elephant Stuck In Molasses

Another weird search term someone used to find me.  Seriously? At least I’m not really offended by it like I kind of was with “Drunk Girl Passed Out On Pavement”

Take care of yourself. Eat well, rest, train hard and smart, make time to think and breathe. Be intentional with your time.

Kristin Armstrong, Author and runner

That was my runnersworld quote for…yesterday? It was earlier this week for sure. It definitely came at a good time because this is how I was originally going to start my post:

Ugh.

Because that’s how I’ve been feeling the past few morning.  I don’t know if it’s allergies or lack of sleep or the changing of the seasons (HELLO FALL) but man I have been dragging lately.  And it’s not just in mental fogginess.  My body feels like it’s moving through quicksand.   It isn’t, of course, but I feel gravity’s pull.  To keep me in bed longer, to keep my butt glued to my desk chair at work etc.  I need to WAKE UP.

More coffee?

Which is funny because (and I know I’ve mentioned this is previous posts) I’ve been sleeping pretty soundly.  Like I am out cold within .00000000001 seconds of my head hitting the pillow.

I don’t have much exciting to report.  I think that the honeymoon phase of “real life” is over and I’m stuck with the reality that I am, despite me not wanting to be, an adult.  I’ve been in my new place for about 6 weeks and the newness has worn off.  I’ve already paid a round of bills, rent, parking and it’s no longer playing house or playing adult but being an adult.  At least with the whole responsibilities thing.

I am still loving my job and, while I worked MORE hours this week than last, it didn’t feel that way.  I guess I wasn’t working as many hours each day which can make a huge difference.  I cut hours earlier in the week because: guess what I got to do today? Or rather guess what happened at the clinic today that I had to go to?

PRESS CONFERENCE.  With the United States Senator.  Because he was really impressed with the clinic at some point earlier this year or last year and raised close to $100,000 for us.  Woot.  Normally, if I go into work at all on Fridays, I get to have a dress down day.  Because it’s just staff.  But today I got to look like this.

It's like the first day of school photo shoot!

And I’m trying to do the whole “hunch over haute-couture” model thing. And being a goof-ball instead! My roomie took this picture and she was being so serious about being the photographer! I called her on it (because she wanted to take sooooooo many shots and angles) and she said “Well if it’s going on your blog…” haha

Which really isn’t that different than what I normally wear on clinic nights (gotta look nice for those doctors ) but is totally different than all Fridays and more dressy than my regular office days.  Sadly I did not get a picture with the Senator because I am a lowly VISTA hahah!

The blah feeling and, well I was going to say quicksand but I will instead say molasses in light of the title of the post, feeling has sort of extended into my running.  I don’t think it helps when the weather is really muggy out.  Like I said yesterday: seriously New England? I don’t want humidity anymore! It’s fall.  I think it was 63* out at 0600, which is fine, but the humidity was 91%.  And at some points during the run I literally felt like I was running in water.  It wasn’t raining but the water on my face definitely wasn’t sweat.  At least not all of it hahah.

From Google

Again, despite not really digging the weather or feeling like my runs have been great in-run, the running is good.  I’m kind of kicking myself, thought, for not taking recovery form the 5k more seriously as my quads still are a bit sore.  I think I let my ego get the best of me and I really came back too fast/intense after the race.

Not that it’s hindered me at all.  The past few runs have all been decently distanced (8-10) and all run within 8:30-8:40 pace.  Which has morphed into my new easy pace.  Exciting for sure. True to my usual self I start out the first route just under 9 pace and end the last route just over 8 pace.  Progression.  I just wish I could *feel* that progression on my runs.

For example today’s run:

• 1st loop: 4.1 miles @ 8:54
• 2nd loop: 4.1 miles @ 8:39
• 3rd loop: 2.3 miles @ 8:12
• Total: 10.5 miles @ 8:38

With the exception of maybe the very first mile, every mile felt the same!  And clearly the first loop was much slower than the last one.  What gives? I’m thinking of going back to that 12% grade hill I showed a few weeks ago and doing some repeats tomorrow morning.  I need something to, like I said earlier, WAKE ME UP.  Not that being in an easy flow is a bad thing but I’m itching to do some focused running.

Hope y’all have great Friday nights! I’m debating skipping out on a Toga Party I’ve been invited too.  It sounds like fun and the people who are throwing it are awesome butttt I’m going into Boston tomorrow night and Lord knows that I could use BOTH nights to catch up on sleep.  We’ll see what I end up doing.  Maybe two nights out will snap me out of the UGH-ness.

Check out the giveaway from Mel

Oops. I Fartlek’d

….okay so that joke will NEVER get old

Woot to that video interview! Glad you guys liked it

And thanks for all the get-well good vibes! I sure needed them.  I don’t know what it was but in the past week I’ve gotten TWO 24 hour flu-like bugs.  This time, like last, all I have to show is some residual sinus pressure.  I did go to the doc (both last week and this week) and they told me there wasn’t anything they can do for me.  I just need to take it easy.  Did I mention that it’s senior week? Yeah, taking it easy ain’t going to happen.

Oh well.  I’m feeling MUCH better today.  A little sinus pressure but nothing major.  And despite me saying that the doctor I saw on Monday said there wasn’t much I could do, I do have a Rx for an antibiotic in case things don’t get better.  The deal is that I likely have a sinus infection, the large majority of which are viral.  So if my body can’t fight it off (which it appears to be doing though *knockonwood*) I’ll fill the Rx.  I’ve just been on soooo many antibiotics lately and, if I can avoid it, I will.  Plus antibiotics are over prescribed anyway.  But that’s a different topic.

Yesterday I got a great lifting session in as well as a solid run.  I’m saddened that my body is re-adjusting to the lifting and I don’t get the same soreness I did when I first re-introduced it.  I know I can always do something crazy, like switch up my routine, but that takes planning and to be quite honest I think I’ve killed my brain cells that do that function this week

And this morning I got up wayyyyy too early to do a 10 miler.  I had something important to do (which I’m going to be cagey about not to jinx myself but still be selfish and ask for good vibes) and I knew that the rest of my day today would be just as busy.  I didn’t intend on running 10 (haha that rhymed) but I was at 8.7 and I have a perfect 1.3 mile route that I decided to do.  Plus I had already worked my core for 3 straight days and I tend to run on a 3on-1off-2on-1off week with core.  So I had a bit of extra time.

The first few miles were crap but I think it was because A) it was much earlier than I’ve been getting up and B) it was icky out.  Now, don’t get me wrong I don’t not like running in the rain but seeing clouds in the sky, even overcast, just puts a mental damper on things.  Luckily it wasn’t raining, more like misting, but over the course of 10 miles a little misting adds up to soaked clothing and that ick factor.

The rest of the run ended up being pretty good.  Since it’s been 4+ weeks since Boston I figured that this week would be a good week to re-introduce speed work.  After all I’ve been doing LRs and lifting sessions for two weeks now.  And all the “recovery plans” I’ve looked at have said that W+3 and W+4 are good times to add some more intensity.  Granted I think these plans also want you to have a target race 4-5-6 weeks out and I do not, but hey.  Plans are plans and they make my world go round.

My world maybe but my body?Even though I’m feeling soooo recovered from Boston I still wanted to take it easy.  In this respect I’m kind of a beginner again.  Obviously I can’t, just like someone lacing up their shoes for the first time, jump into 5 X mile repeats or remember that killer workout I did during training: 3 X [4X 800m]? Yeah so do I.  Not something I really need to do right now. That and I pretty much knew that my body would want something less structured and more go-with-the-flow coming off this cold-esque dealio.

So I opted for a fartlek workout.  I didn’t really ever like fartleks because they’re not really formal or something that I could concretely describe in my log books.  But they do require lots of hard work and intensity and focus and it was silly of me to avoid them. Now some info about the fartlek:

What is it? Well it’s Swedish for speedplay and the gist is that you speed up / sprint / go fast for some distance. Nothing exact or anything, more like 20-30 seconds or, like I did today, the length of 4 telephone poles.  You can go farther or short, faster or slower depending on how you feel or what your goal is.

What is the goal? For me, the point of the workout was to just get my legs to remember how to do faster turnover but, in the past, I’ve used it to do harder sprinting and a less formal way to get those intervals in because you can change the intensity based on how you feel.  It’s also great for endurance work because you’re constantly in motion, every time you pick up the speed you challenge your cardiovascular systems and make gains. Yay for getting faster and more endurance-ified.

How do I do it? Head out for a run.  After going long enough to feel warmed up then push the pace *hard* for anywhere from 30-60 seconds.  Slow back down to your warmup pace until you’re not breathing hard.  Repeat.  For a beginner try maybe 5 (?) at first and as you get fitter you can increase.  For example I did 4 speed ups during my run.  I wanted to do more but my body was “eh”.  Like everything listen to your body

When should I do it? I like to do fartleks when I’m not in training for anything given the informal nature of the workout.  It is a speed workout so I wouldn’t do it before another speed workout such as intervals or a tempo.  Just because of my Type-A ways I favor more formal and tangible ways to get speed done during race training but you can definitely incorporate it that way if you choose.  Just remember that the sprinting portions would need to intense (ie at least 30-40 seconds per speed up).

Hopefully you guys enjoyed this more informative post.  I know lots of those who comment probably already knew this stuff but I think lots of you have the same attitude I have/had about them: not “hardcore” enough.  But that’s the beauty: you can make them as hard or easy as you want.  Plus I have some readers who are more beginner based and thought this would be useful (and feel free to comment! I don’t bite. Hard )

Checkout the giveaway from Tricia

Another Interval Tuesday. Mojo = Back

Yup.  It’s official: I must have been delusional when I thought that this week would be a nice transition back into school.  And I guess it is if you like trial by fire.  Me? Not so much.

I’m feeling MUCH better about life in general though.  I did another night of “sweat out the cold” and I definitely think things are improving.  I took some benadryl too which I think helped the allergy portion of my ickyness.  If anything it knocked me out fast because I had to sleep with two pillows again. Blah.

I’m also feeling better after reading your awesome words yesterday about comparing.  I know it’s silly to do.  Which makes me feel *worse* because I know that comparing =/= good.  Like many of you said, running is really individual.  Sure people can compete against each other but, and this goes for me, running is about challenging *yourself’*.  I think I lost sight of that for a minute. It’s partly your fault though for running so many amazing races over the weekend

But I got my mojo back speed wise.  Yup. It’s interval Tuesday in MM’s world.  This week’s main course? Let’s check it out:

• Warm up
• 2 3 X [4 X 800m] @ 10k pace (7:08) w/ 90 seconds ( .2 mi )recovery between repeats and 5 mins (.6 mi) recovery between sets
• 3 miles GMP
• Warm down

I went into this workout thinking that I really didn’t want to do it.  Because of the sickness, allergies, legs, no real sleep etc I was tired to the bone.  After my early Spanish class I really wanted to go back to sleep.  My eyes were just so heavy.  Since it was rainy hardcore today I would have been in the gym anyway.  Plus after a week of running outside it was probably a good idea to use the TM to “baby” my leg.  So I told myself that I could do as much of the workout as I could and then just easy run or elliptical if I was truly tired. Running though has the funny way of giving you energy.  So while I am a bit tired in general from life stuff I felt great for completing it and it totally woke me up.  I had forgotten how running does that to me.

And Whew.  It was quite challenging.  In the past I’ve only done two sets of 800s.  I was tempted to do straight up Yassos but since the workout was on the TM, I didn’t think that it would be useful to me. So I kept those 5 minutes or so in (it probably was more than 5 minutes because, on a TM, I don’t want to have to think too much about when to start and stop the intervals.  I know that 90 seconds is ~.2 miles and 5 minutes is ~ .6 miles so I went with that to make the math easier.  Plus, I’m not going to lie: having extra recovery is not a bad thing so late in the training)

I was a little worried that my body would fall apart after the second set.  Yes I’ve done a hill workout following 2 sets before but hills =/= intervals.  Yes hills are hard but they are a different beast.  Although sidenote: I read in one of my training log books, which includes little factoids, tips and motivational quotes, that one should do hills BEFORE intervals.  Obviously I don’t think my doing it the other way is a big deal but it doesn’t say why that is.  Any thoughts? Pure curiosity on my part.

But the intervals went really well.  I don’t know what it is but the first repeat of each set felt like death but the last 3 were always good.  I suspect that even though extra recovery is nice I probably took too much haha.  But whatever, I wanted the math to work nicely.  I finished the sets really strong.  I doubt I could have done many more repeats buttttt I did 12.  No need to do more!

Even though I REALLY wanted to do hills this week: I didn’t.  After speaking to lots of people (including the sports med doc,  high school t&f coach, PT) it just seemed like too much a risk to push through hill repeats.  I even went as far as to write down the hill portion on my workout piece of paper! And I kept thinking of how to sneak in hills.  I’m just worried that I haven’t done hills the past 3 weeks and I don’t want all that hill-fitness to go be for nothing! As a compromise I chose to do some GMP work instead.

I figured that since the repeats took a considerable amount of distance that I would cut the warm down short (I hadn’t needed that long of a warm up either today, saving some more miles to “quality”) and make the GMP 3 miles long.  These miles weren’t really *for* anything.  I just think it’s important to show my legs and mind that I can handle this pace after a challenging workout and the distance of 3 miles is arbitrary.  No offense to those who consider <3 miles a run but I don’t.  I’m too much of a mileage junkie for that.  3 miles roughly a 5k so that seemed good enough for me.

The pace felt really easy (and duh after running so hard in the intervals) which is good.  Yes they were coming off faster work but it could have felt sooo hard if my legs were exhausted.  Clearly this wasn’t the case and is another pat on the back to me. Yay.

Also a couple of you mentioned a foam roller. While I resisted shelling out the $$ (I honestly don’t know how I’m going to pay for it when I get the bill) I finally caved over break and ordered one.  I think I got it for $25 (including shipping) so it’s not toooo bad but I’m hemmoraging money over here with co-pays and bills! *LeSigh*.  But I was happy when my PT suggested I get one and I could tell her that I had already ordered one.  Hopefully I find the time to use it and maybe it’ll jump start an overall stretching routine.

I also have purchased little ice packs.  You know the kind that you put in kids lunchboxes? I figured that a lot of days I’m not going to have access to an ice machine right after a workout (aka the weekends or any outdoor run) so this will be a makeshift way to keep the icing up!

Okay. I’ve sufficiently procrastinated on this quantum exam for long enough (and I doubt many of you have read this far since I write so much haha!!) Gotta get some work on it before LOST comes on.

Hope everyone is having a great Tuesday!

Oh Mr. Sun. And Some Paranoia

Aww thanks guys for all the support and encouragement yesterday.  Obviously the whole situation is a positive one but still, I really was expecting a lot of “what are you thinking?” stuff.  Or maybe I was just worried that my plan of action wasn’t a good one and you guys wouldn’t let me b.s. it hahah.

Anyway.  I had another busy day on tap?! What is it with this week? I have yet to not wake up to an alarm.  I mean, yes it’s partly my own doing because I want to workout before I start my day but sheesh.  It’s spring break yo.  I hate that I go to school far enough away that I can’t space these kinds of appointments out over the semester.  Oh well.  One more half semester so I guess that it’s the last time I’ll be dealing with it. Scary.

But, yeah, I woke up before the sun again.  I didn’t place my alarm (aka my phone) where I normally do so when it went off I was all blurry eyed (hello 24 amazingness and staying up too late with my friend! So worth it though ) because of little sleep so I couldn’t find the damn thing.  And this was pre-family getting up too so I was extra crazy because I didn’t want to wake anyone up (not that they would do the same for me…)

I hit up the TM again today (third day in a row!).  First it was pitch black and I just don’t feel safe running in 100% darkness.  I think, as a female, that too much paranoia runs through my mind.  Girls are just taught to be on the lookout for creepers more than boys growing up so I think that’s it.  I get paranoid at night too.

Second, even though the monsoon had stopped: the flooding? Yup still there.  So many roads are still closed and I would have been running in knee deep water at points.  No thanks.  When I was driving to my appointments later today I had to “ford the river” many many times.  Ugh. (Anyone with that reference? aha)

Third, I wanted a softer cushioning for my shin.  I mean, even though I’m not in pain, I do want to stay smart. And seeing as how I had intervals (hard enough for me to get outside because of point 2 but I shy away in general from doing intervals outside) the TM just was what I wanted.

I feel the need to list those reasons because it was (and still is) BEAUTIFUL outside. After downpours for 3+ days the sun was glorious to see. My mood perked up about a billion points. So now I feel a little guilty for not getting out there butttt when I had the chance to run this weather wasn’t there. Boo. Oh well.

On schedule for today was 1600m aka the mile.  I’m iffy towards this distance in general.  It’s obviously a longer interval and yet, as soon as I start to feel good in it, the damn thing is over.  But I grinned and beared it. Going into the session I was kind of scared.  I mean, yes the doctor said I could keep running but at this point it really does become a cost vs benefit deal.

Therefore I nixed the traditional hills portion of interval day.  In the 11 full weeks of Boston training I’ve only not done hills 2x.  That’s a lot of hills.  So even though one of those skipped days was last week I figured that it didn’t matter. Like a lot of you mentioned I’ve done so much work already this training.  And since the last time I did hills the shin was a little aggravated (and I’ve read that hills aggravate shin splints and tendinitis, my two possible diagnosis) I’m okay with my decision.  I am, however, going to try for hills next week and then have that be it for hills.  I figure it takes 3-4 weeks for a workout to show up and next week is T-4 weeks.

But here’s the workout. Kind of non-exciting because I didn’t do much adding or craziness haha:

• 2 mile warm up
• 6 X 1 mile (5 @ 7:13, 1 @ 7:03) with .4 mile recovery between
• 3 mile warm down

Total time: 107 minutes
Total distance: 13.5 miles
Average pace: 7:56

Okay so I’m sure that many of you are scratching your heads and wondering how 13.5 miles can be considered lower-key (or maybe not if you’ve been reading for awhile hah) BUT it’s 4 miles less than last Tuesday.  A start to say the least.

The last time I did this workout was about a month ago and figured that I’d play it safe and keep it at 10k pace (current pr pace = 7:15).  I tend to like to increase pace every time I repeat a workout (especially if it’s 4+ weeks since the last time I did it) buttttt yeah.  I did go faster on the last one because I knew that if I kicked up the pace I could hit 8 miles in 60 minutes on the TM timer which was cool.  (I go warm up. Hit reset. Then start the intervals)

No shin pain.  Well no pain. During the warm down I could tell that my shin was getting fatigued which strengthened my resolve to nix the hills.  I tend to go wimpy brained during the beginnings of workouts when my body is adjusting and tell myself I can stop early and then by the end always want to add more. I probably would have done that today too if the shin didn’t tell me otherwise.  Again: NO PAIN.  But I was “listening to my body” and *wicked* paranoid about anything happening to my shin so I was hypervigilant is paying attention to it haha. Guess paranoia isn’t always a bad thing

So all in all a great workout.  I’m happy with it and I felt really good afterward.  I always think how amazing it is that I always want to avoid these sessions before they begin but once I’m done I am so happy with myself. I just feel so accomplished. I’m sure that you guys know what I’m talking about

And yes I know this is a(nother) lengthy post. But I do want to write a bit about a “second opinion” I got re: my shin.  My sister is on the track team and, although I didn’t get along with the head T&F coach in HS, he is knowledgeable about distance running.  So I went to pick up my sister and chat with him for the last 15 minutes of their practice.

Basically I told him my situation (including going to the sports med clinic yesterday) and relayed my fears of going into a taper this far out.  He told me that even if I took a full week off (like this week) that I shouldn’t be worried about my fitness and the race. Although he agreed with the principle of going into taper now (and preventing a potential stress fracture) he said that what I’d likely be comfortable with is to back off this week, go up to 60 or 70 for one or two then hit the taper hard.

He also suggested pool running to be the best thing for me.  I agree but my access to a pool is non-existent.  Yes my school has a state-of-the-art facility but it’s only open to the public for 4 hours a day.  4 hours that I have commitments.  Boo. I can try to find a pool for this week but will likely pay through the nose for a daily, or even weekly, pass. I do have unlimited access to ellipticals and bikes though which I’m sure would be good if I really feel the need to hardcore nix more miles.

Beyond this week (which he did suggest to be cut back by 40-50%) he said the words of the cycle: play it by ear. But I left the school feeling better knowing that both the sports med doc and the coach said the same thing independently of each other.  The coach (which I am on a first name basis with but because this is the internet I’ll just keep calling him anonymous stuff like “the coach”) also said that I could email him if I had anymore questions (because I did pepper him with q’s for a half hour!!) or if things went arry.

Interestingly he told me that he would advise running marathons at my age.  Nothing against me or anything but he would have suggested that after Boston focusing on halfs and 10ks.  Speedier stuff. He said that it would be good for me to let my body mature more before plugging into such heavy mileage.  It totally wasn’t said in a negative way or anything like that but I thought it was an interesting point.  Maybe I’ll elaborate on my thoughts (because I wasn’t totally opposed to the idea and despite my wanting to run an ultra I have been thinking along those lines too).  But in the interest of the fact that this post is VERY long I won’t.

Hope everyone is having a great Tuesday! I’m going to try to have a low-key night and grab a glass of wine while watching NCIS and LOST.  A perfect way to unwind after running around all day!

[ And I apologize for any typos or sentence/grammatical mistakes.  I was gone all day and don't want to proofread my novel haha!]