Another Confidence Boosting Workout.

Surprisingly my legs felt pretty good after Thursday’s 20.3 miles.

I mean, my quads were a bit sore and my recovery run Friday morning was very slow, but all things considered I was up and moving and still agile. Although I may have to re-think going long on a work day, especially a clinic day, because I don’t think I ate enough Thursday night to compensate. Normally I’m not too hungry on long run days but at least on the weekends I can make myself small snacks. On a busy work day? Not so much. Bummer because I like being all hardcore and saying “I ran 20 before coming in today” hahah

I ended up doing a double on Friday, however, as part of the recovery of the long run.  According to my peeps over at RWOL in the Marathon Dailies, doubles are not only a good way to get the mile in (as if I needed help with that!) but “but also gets the blood flowing twice during the day thus speeding recovery”. So when the guy I’ve been running with texted asking if I was up for some easy miles after I got out of work I gladly said yes. Which I’m glad I did because my run post work was the same effort level but was ~60 seconds per minute FASTER than my early bird one.  Mental boost that my body is in shape and can bounce back from hard efforts.

Good thing because Saturday = Interval Day.

I was originally going to do some mile repeats but after reading what Jess did on Friday for her speed work I decided to copy her and do longer intervals.  Yet again, because I’m 99.99% sure I did the same thing last week with my Yasso workout.  She did 2 X 2 miles but she’s training for a half and suggested to me to do 2 X 3 miles for my marathon training. And according to another friend over at RW (who has a blog too: The Puerto Rican Kenyan):

I LOVE that type of workout [ 2 X 2 miles or 2 X 3 miles] for someone getting ready for either a HM or a full marathon. I fall along the camp that those running longer distances (HM and full) are best served by running longer intervals and threshold runs at HMP and MP, especially as you get closer to race day. By zeroing in a goal pace as the race approaches, you train your body to become more efficient at running at that pace. But since it doesn’t take a lot of time to accomplish that, these types of workouts are best done later in the training cycle rather than earlier. NACN

And with 35 (36?) days to go I figured it was good to give my body that type of training. BTW: Half marathon pace is currently 7:10 and GMP is 7:34 for the 3:18:08 time that McMillian thinks I can do.

I also mapped the “mile” route I did and it was .95mi.  Bummer, so it ended up being 2 X 2.85 (and all times below are PACES not what I saw on my watch.)

How’d it go?

1. 6:45 : The time on my watch said 6:25 and I said “holy #$@%”. I always go out too fast! And even though the actual pace is slower, it still was my fastest repeat
2. 7:03 : Yup.  I destroyed the chances of goodness
3. 6:52: Maybe not

MILE RECOVERY: 8:48

1. 6:52: Wow I wish I hadn’t taken that recovery mile. Hard to get back into fast!
2. 6:54: Nooooooooooooo, I have one more?!
3. 6:48: Holy $%$#.  (There were lots of curse words during this mile.  By this point the lactic acid was in full effect)

So I think it went well but it was hard! Like way hard.  By the end my legs were hurting from the effort.  Not pain but fatigue.

My average for the first “3” miles was VERY inconsistent but I kind of locked into a more steady pace for the second “3”.  It makes me a little nervous that the first set was bouncing around with the times but the paces were all around what McMillian calls my “tempo interval” pace (which based on my half time is 6:47-7:01) which is what this workout essentially was.

Confidence boosting? Yes and no. I do secretly (well I guess it’s not a secret if I’m blogging about it now) wish that the paces had been faster.  Even though I knew that the distance was likely off by a little and would affect the paces I was liking the fast numbers. And, in the end, the paces were faster than the HMP or GMP that I was thinking to be appropriate. So the paces weren’t half bad.

Gaaaah. I’m actually REALLY annoyed that the distance was off and am having a hard time getting over it.  I should have gone to the track, but in the end it’s best I didn’t.  Races (at least the ones I run in) aren’t on the track and it’s good for me to do fast stuff on rolling hills. But oh well that’s what I get for not having a garmin. I was going to ask for one for Christmas butttttt  I kind of want the airfare for WR more hahah.

I also took my VERY FIRST ICE BATH.  LIES.  My legs were tired and hurting after the workout so I knew that it was time to take the plunge.  And when I was half way to the store to buy ice I decided that I really didn’t want to do it anymore. So I walked back to my apartment and took a hot shower.

And, because I love Halloween (and celebrated with a costume dance party last night. Maybe that’s why the workout was hard? Hahah! Stay tuned for a few pictures of that as well as the Halloween cookies I made) here’s a theme picture. Because, who doesn’t like themes?! And pictures?

Thanks failblog, SODA DISPLAY WIN

 

First: GOOD LUCK RACERS. Go get ‘em!

As for me I did a lover-ly interval session.  I copied runjess’s workout from yesterday but used her suggestion of doing 2 X 3 miles.  It went well and it was hard! Like way hard.  I was likely going too fast.  And I just mapped the “mile” route I did and it was .95mi.  Bummer, so it ended up being 2 X 2.85. Annoying but then in means that my pace was a few seconds slower than I thought. My average for the first “3” miles was VERY inconsistent but I kind of locked into a more steady pace for the second “3”.

I’m actually REALLY annoyed that the distance was off.  Oh well that’s what I get for not having a garmin. I was going to ask for one for Christmas butttttt  I kind of want the airfare for WR more hahah

Thursday is My Favorite Day of the Week

For no particular reason other than it always has been.  And now that I’m in the working world, it’s extra special: every other Thursday is my payday and I had forgotten about it until I was checking just now to see if my purchase of flights and WR registration went through.  What a pleasant surprise!

Often I don’t have coherent thoughts in my head. It’s a bunch of random scattered bits that are connected solely because they’re my thoughts.  My brain likes to jump around.  It’s a wonder how I can pull together posts that make sense sometimes!

Therefore more bullets today.

• I’m in a baking mood. Again. Although honestly I don’t think I ever left it after this weekend.  Baking was just so….satisfying.  Now I know why Jess bakes every day 😉  Yesterday I re-created my PB Chip and Oats cookies from this weekend for a Celtics party (because I wanted to make sure it wasn’t beginners luck. It wasn’t hahah!) and this weekend, while not technically baking, I want to try my hand at making my mom’s Jello Creme Pie.

• Plus now that I’m officially in marathon training I can eat a whole pan of cookies and just say “well I just ran 20 miles”

• Because I did.  Yes that’s right: 20 point 3 to be exact.  I even got up early (Thursday is usually a “sleep-in” day because of clinic) to do so.  I was going to do intervals but wasn’t sure if I could run on the track at the high school while school was in session (I know in my hometown the police are called if you’re on school property during the school day (edit: The cops just escort you off the property. NOT arrest you hahah!) ) so I swapped my planned intervals and long run.  I’ll get some intervals done this weekend.

• The run itself was actually really great.  I got up just as the pre-dawn was happening and, since it was still 65* and muggy out –hello summer!, there was a lot of fog. Especially on the water.  Perfectly creepy seeing as it’s almost Halloween.  Although it did make me wonder if cars could see me!  Part of the run was along a nice bike path that was quite scenic. I forgot that I was in a city!

• My legs felt good for the whole time too.  There was the typical long run ebb and flow of feeling awesome to wondering how I was going to finish and, without fail, my legs felt “exhausted” in the first few miles.  All my really long runs are like that because I know that I’m going 20 miles but my brain and legs try to tell me that I’ve already gone 20 miles early on (if that sentence even made sense! My brain thinks in weird processes sometimes).  Oops.  I broke the run down into 2 segments and getting through the first one (13.5) made the rest of the run feel short and easy.

• 1st segment: 13.5 miles @ 8:43
• 2nd segment: 6.8 miles @ 8:28
• Total:                   20.3 miles @ 8:38

Not going to lie: I love those stats. According to McMillian (and I’m not sure how much faith I should put into McMillian but I need pace numbers shoved in my face at all times during training) I should be running long runs at 8:04 to 9:04 pace.  And that was right smack dab in the middle.  Most excellent.

• And I do have to say that after 20.3 miles of running a breakfast of milk and the aforementioned cookies sure hit the spot (I had put some aside because I knew they were going to go fast!).  Man, I don’t think I’ve ever wanted milk and cookies as badly as I did when I walked through the door of my apartment! Now don’t you worry: after showering I had a more traditional breakfast of oats and a pb & j & banana sandwich.  But I’m just saying that I think cookies should become an acceptable breakfast food

Yuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuum

• Oh and today is a work day. I just ran 20 miles. I am still wearing my heels to work.  Call me crazy because I’m 5’11” but I feel weird without them!

“So is miami the team to beat?” …

“Nah, I think we are.”

–RONDOOO

Thank you google images

That really has nothing to do with running but I HEART THE CELTICS. For real.  Plus I’m an (ex) basketball player and will always enjoy watching a game.

Plus the Celtics kick ass. End. Of. Story.

And if I’m going to running  a marathon in 38 (!!) days I need to start kicking some ass too.  And soon. Obviously trying to make up for lost time is a recipe for disaster. But every workout still needs to count. I’m in the process of what I want to do with training (and this post was initially going to be about that) but I’m going back and forth with what I want to get accomplished. I do know that I want

• Two 20 milers
• At least one speed session a week

But I will say that I’m leaning towards keeping the momentum going that I’ve had this fall in terms of running fast and that was on very “free thinking” training.  I got workouts in but they were never really planned for in terms of a written training plan. And if I’m thinking I really want to RACE then why fix what ain’t broke, right? And in the back of my mind I do want

• A) a better Boston seed time, which by definition is a PR
• B) sub- 3:20, I mean I know that I’m not going to be “properly trained” but I can dream big right?

Guess we’ll see how that pans out on December 5th. At this point the best I can do is just go.

But even without a running plan in place right now I have flights booked and tentative plans for metting up with people.  So I know that it’s happening. No matter what happens in the race I’ll be there. Woot.

Clearly I am still excited.

Which is why I don’t really want to talk about the recovery run I had today.  Not exciting. It was slow and dark and muggy. Means I did something right yesterday? I wasn’t hurting on the run but I just didn’t have that spark to go fast.  But again, I didn’t need to go fast today because I went fast yesterday.

I also think the weather had something to do with it.  My body has spent how long adjusting to 30-40* morning temps? (too long as I’m sure you’re away because I complain about it damn near every day!)Part of me wishes that these past two days of warm weather never happened because it’s just going to get COLD again after today.  This morning was 67* and 94% humidity.  At 0430.  Ridiculous.

Although on a weather related note: what’s the weather going to be like in Dallas in early December? I keep imagining billion degree days but that is unrealistic.  Certainly warmer than here though (and I’ll admit to being a warm weather gal so it doesn’t  bother me).

Anyway that’s all I got for you today.  Nothing special (except the C’s of course) at the moment but definitely things in motion. I honestly cannot wait for race day to get here!

I’m definitely thinking about December 5th a lot. And then from what I’ll do December 5th to Boston Training Starting and then to April 18th itself. 

Oh wait! Speaking of Boston, I do have one more thing: I officially got accepted into Boston. YAY 🙂

The Post You All Have Been Waiting For….Part 2

First: Yay for y’all liking my cookie post. It makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.  Next up will be Oatmeal Raisin (my all time fav) or a legit PB cookie (because, and I think there was some confusion here, there were only pb chips in the cookies not actual pb). Or I may try something else.  Who knows. But I’m excited for it 🙂

But back to running.  Because I am not Cookie Maiden but Marathon Maiden.

Apparently it seems that you guys all thought my post on cookies was going to be about my destination marathon.  That thought honestly never crossed my mind.  Mostly because I was still debating whether or not I really had the funds to do so. Silly because the blog title has “marathon” in it.

But I was complaining to various members of my family about the agony of wanting to do a destination race but being on a VISTA budget (aka legit poverty) and the solution? Birthday and Christmas present rolled into one.

Therefore I immediately emailed my running sistaaaaaaaaaa to tell her that we needed to choose one STAT before I backed out due to financial scared-cat-ed-ness.  And after texting back and forth last night we have decided to do:

On December 5th

 

I think this is a good pick because:

• The only real weekend that truly worked for me was the first one in December (pushing off until January wasn’t good because of Boston) leaving Dallas and Vegas. I don’t think my wallet can handle Vegas.
• WARMTH and NO SNOW.  RI at that same time? Well I can’t say there will be snow on the ground but it’ll be cold. Hell it already is (or at least last week, today and tmrw are weird freak warm days).
• A bunch of people from RW Marathon Dailies are doing it and it’ll be nice to finally meet them in person.

Now I just need to pick a flight and figure out accommodations for that weekend.

But I’m excited. And feel a bit crazy.  I mean, December 5th isn’t terribly far away.  Do I have what it takes to run race a marathon at the moment? My workouts ( 20 miler, 10 X 800m intervals) suggest yes but there’s no way that I can say I’ve been TRAINING for this. Which puts me a bit uneasy as I’m such a planner.  And this is so spontaneous.  But all my other races this fall have been spontaneous (or at least in terms of no specific training / signing up for each race not in advance) and they’ve all been good.

Fingers crossed? I don’t really know what to expect.  Obviously not the most amazing race ever but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want to RACE the darn thing.

But it shall not be said that I’m in the process of at least semi-training for this race.  Obviously there is no way to make up for the fact that I should have started training earlier but, with 39 (!!) days until race day, there’s still time to get my body in some sort of fighting shape for this thing.

Hence why I did a tempo this morning. Maybe I was running on excitement from making a decision and planning flights and stuff like that but I wanted to go FAST and HARD. I also didn’t sleep well AT ALL last night (waking up every 1.5-2 hours ugh) and felt jittery, needing to burn off some energy. Since I had run intervals over the weekend (as well as had a semi-long run on Monday before clinic) I chose a tempo.  After all, when y’all were guilting me last week with my lack of speed work, some of the workouts were tempos.

Let me preface this by saying I HATE tempos.  I can never seem to hit them right or make them feel good.  According to McMillian, based on my half time from September, my goal tempo range is 6:53-7:11.  I’m really glad I didn’t know that until AFTER the run because it would have freaked me out.  I just figured I’d go hard and hold it. And I knew that, since I hadn’t done a tempo since Boston training, that I shouldn’t expect to jump into a 6,7,8, miles effort.  I chose to do my pathway, which is dirt as well as ~4 miles.

• 2.2 mile warm up @ 8:56
• 4.3 mile tempo @ 7:04 (2.15 miles @ 7:17, 2.15 miles @ 6:51)
• 5.6 mile warm down @ 8:39
• Total: 12.1 miles @ 8:08

I must admit that I think I nailed it.  My pace was smack dab in the middle of the given range and I ended STRONG.  My heart was pounding by the end though and my legs were tired.  It was such an effort to keep strong. I used the strategy I use in races: try to pick off the people in the distance ahead.  And clearly it worked. I ran the tempo portion on my pathway and looking at the time elapsed at the halfway mark I thought I was WAY off target, hence the speeding up.  But I was able to handle it. Go me 🙂

The weather cooperated too, for once it wasn’t freezing.  In fact it was 65* and muggy as anything.  Which I’m not complaining about except to say that my body is used to running in 35-40* temps.  Therefore I was a sweaty beast once I was done.

Nope no picture of that. And I apologize for the lack of pictures in this post. To make up for it here are LOTS of giveaways: Jess (Have Faith), Miss Zippy, Julie (HotLegsRunner), Sarah (SkinnyRunner), Shut Up and Run, Monica (RunEatRepeat), Erika (Dr Tri Runner), Matt (The Kitchen of a Runner)

The Post You All Have Been Waiting For

Or at least I hope you’ve been waiting for.  And if you weren’t, well, get excited.

MM baked cookies on Sunday. Therefore this is my very first cookie post.  And first *real* recipe post.  And my first time baking cookies on my own.  From scratch. Eeeek.

But first a bit of a wrap up on the running front, in bullet style because I know you want cookies.

• I woke up Sunday morning feeling not as sore as I was expecting.  And trust me I was expecting to be VERY sore.  There was some fatigue in my quads but no real signs that I had run TEN 800m repeats the day before.
• A few of you suggested (as you did before on my mile repeats workout) that I should decrease the recovery jog component of the workout and in the future I might.  But I like round numbers and the last time I did 800m repeats it was on the TM and I used 2 minutes recovery which was ~.2 miles so I extended that to .25 miles for the track.
• I don’t know how often I’m going to be doing speed work pre-marathon training so who knows what type of intervals I’ll do next.  But shorter recovery seems to be the theme of where to go from here.
• It seems like lots of you have 800m repeats as your least favorite workout.  I’m not sure if I could pinpoint my least favorite track workout (maybe 100m sprints like I did back in the day for T&F) but I was kind of digging those 800s.  Sure I’d LOVE to go longer (and mile repeats are likely my absolute fav) but there’s something hardcore about essentially sprinting for 2 laps.

But then again I might be a tad bit loca.  As evidenced by the fact that I made cookies.

I have no idea where this recipe originally came from.  In fact, I really have no idea where I got it from at all as when I called my mom to see if she had one, she thought my idea was “interesting”.

Because I wanted to make Peanut Butter Chip Oatmeal Cookies (note my mom said it was “interesting” because my family is a very unadventurous bunch of eaters.  The only cookies we have are in our lexicon are: chocolate chip, oatmeal raisin, sugar.  No variations on them either). If you try and google PB Chip Oat Cookies, the large majority of the recipes are for Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies.  Not exactly what I wanted.

So I mixed and matched some Oatmeal Raisin recipes (which are my absolute FAVORITE cookie EVER) and some Chocolate Chip recipes.  I mean, if you really don’ t know what you’re doing in the kitchen regarding baking then why the hell not mix a ton of stuff together and pray for a Hail Mary, right?

Recipe

• Margarine, 2 sticks
• Granulated sugar, 3/4 cup
• Brown Sugar, 3/4 cup
• Flour 1.5 cups
• Baking Soda, 1 tsp.
• Salt, 1 tsp
• Oats (rolled), 2.5 cups dry
• Eggs, 2 large
• Vanilla, 1 tsp
• Peanut Butter Chips, 11 oz bag

Note on the ingredients and other stuff related to it.

Oh and yes my landlord (well ex-landlord I guess since someone just bought the building) loves us that much and never put a deadbolt on the backdoor. Hence the thing-y proped under the doorknob

I halved this recipe.  As written above it makes 32 cookies.  And I did get 16 out of my half.  And they were pretty big cookies too.

Most of the recipes I looked at used butter.  I used margarine because it’s WAY cheaper.  Sheepishly I had to call my mom when I was at the store to ask if I could use margarine instead of butter.  As well as to ask her the different between light and dark brown sugar (she didn’t know and I highly suspect there is not one.  I ended up buying the light brown sugar because it was cheaper).

ALSO, I used baking POWDER instead of SODA for the recipe.  I actually didn’t realize this until I started (because I knew we had baking *something* in the cabinet at home) but after doing some googling it’s okay to substitute powder for soda but not the other way around, due to acidity.  Even though I halved the recipe I kept the powder amount the same because I know that to make the substitution I needed more powder than the written soda amount. Plus the cookies tasted fine so there 😛

And I used a bag of half peanut butter / half chocolate chips as they were the least expensive bag that had the pb chips I wanted in it. That wasn’t cut in half, though, because the more chips the better, right?

How To Make

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

In a medium (okay so the only bowl I had was LARGE so I used that hahaha) bowl, whisk together the margarine and sugars.  This can get messy, especially since our microwave isn’t working at the moment so I couldn’t soften the margarine before adding it.  I ended up using my hands (don’t worry I washed them!) and mixing that way.  Just as a side note: margarine and sugar make a lovely exfoliant / moisturizer.

Goop before I dug in with my hands! See how big the bowl is though? Granted those are only 3 ingredients but still, a huge freaking bowl.

Add eggs and vanilla and beat until combined, scraping down sides of bowl as needed. Add flour mixture beat until just combined. Then add oats, peanut butter and chocolate chips; beat until just combined.

Or I suppose you could use an electric beater.  I don’t have one so I used a fork / spatula thing-a-ma-bob.  If I’m going to make this a habit (baking) then I’m going to have to start to do some upper arm work to do all the whisking!

Yummy

Place batter on cookies sheet and place in the oven for ~12 minutes.  Apparently something else I didn’t realize was that we didn’t have cookies sheets.  So I used pizza trays (you know the round ones).  It worked.  And I had to keep an eye on the oven because gas =/= electric and I was worried that I was going to burn them because there’s literally a fire under them!

I ended up keeping them in the oven for the full 12 minutes, which burnt the very outside edges of them but kept the middles goopy (how I like them).

Cool 5 minutes on sheets; transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

Then EAT

Nom Nom Nom

RESULT

Despite me saying that I’m NOT A BAKER (hello box baked goods! Or, even better, pre-packaged!) I’m very pleased with this effort.  They tasted really good warm out of the oven (I didn’t wait the 5 minutes for them to cool before taste-testing) and I went to a Pats game party (Which, by the way, I’m likely to have a coronary if they play the rest of their season the way they’ve played so far!) and brought the remaining ones and, even though there weren’t a lot of us there, the cookies were gone FAST (like my running on Saturday hahah).  Granted I think boys will eat anything, but it feels good to have all the cookies devoured AND to have people like them. I believe the exact quote was “These are TO-DIE for” hahahah.  And “Why on Earth did you only make half”.  Not going to lie: that feels AWESOME 🙂

Which is good because I still have a LOT of baking supplies leftover.  And, weirdly enough, cooking baking on Sunday made me feel strangely adult.  Even when I was up to my elbo wrists in dough and licking the bowl. Very odd indeed.

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!

I Am The Proud Owner Of…

Well I wish I could say that it was something exciting like a BRAND NEW CAR.  But no.

A library card will have to do instead.

YAY reading!

I’ve actually been meaning to get one since I moved here but just never had the time.  After work I had some errands to do that were within walking distance of my apartment.  While on the way I realized I had some time to kill before my dinner plans (and clearly still do as I wasn’t going to post today because my running has been monotonous lately hahah) so I decided to walk to the library I pass on one of my running routes.  The alternative was do run again when I was done with the errands.

I’m pretty sure that this library I decided on is the furthest library from my apartment and in the end I’m pretty sure I walked ~4 miles so I’m not quite sure if my “no double to save my legs for tmrw” plan worked.

But I now have a library card and checked out some books that I’m pretty excited to read. YAY.

Major win.

In actual running news, however, isn’t as major a win.

CIM closed yesterday. Bummer. Any other suggestions for December? Preferably in a warm climate? I’ve gotten some suggestions already but the more the merrier.  I think that no matter where I decide it’s going to suck to be my bank account.  I just need to click the submit buttons on travel plans and registration fees with my eyes closed!

But I’m actually really starting to warm up and love this idea.  Even though I haven’t done any specific marathon training since Boston. No real specific training for anything really.  Which is unlike me to be so enamored with the idea given the lack of preparedness I’m at.  Sure I’ve put in the miles but is it really enough? Is the lack of speed work enough?

I ponder this because it seems like EVERYONE is doing speed work the past two days, either intervals (Jess, Lindsay) or tempos: Lacey,  Megan).  Okay so that’s only 4.  But  seeing as how I was going to do speed on Thursday — but opted to go long instead — and then rescheduled it to Friday — only to not do it due to being too cold.

It’s soooooooooo not a good excuse but I really wasn’t feeling speed so early, and with it being so cold AND early my mind was made up.  I just wanted to crawl back into bed.  I think that doing speed on the weekends is going to be my thing and do LRs during the week.  It seems at the moment to gel with my work schedule best and I don’t have to worry about rushing to work because the only way so far to get me to do speed work is head to the track. And overall that makes the process time consuming. At least during the pre-marathon training months.  I’ll revisit days of the week as training for Boston gets closer.

Therefore Saturday is going to be my speed work day and I shall head to the track.  Since 800s seem to be the interval workout of choice I’m thinking that looks pretty good.  Although I do really like mile repeats.  Hmmmm. Decisions.

I did get a “speedy” 10 miler instead aka faster than the usual 0530 runs.  It was surprising to be so “fast” in the early morning.  Which is why I got 10 in rather than the 8 I was planning. A little extra time although 2 miles was definitely pushing my time factor hahah. I think it was so speedy because it was so cold: despite wearing gloves my hands went numb.  Not completely but it made me wonder how I’m going to get back into my apartment when the real cold comes (aka unlocking the door because today wasn’t that cold and it was slightly difficult to turn the key!)

Nothing else terribly exciting going on.  I am planning that baking frenzy that will be this weekend.  It seems like everyone is baking stuff lately as well.  Or maybe because I really want to bake it feels that way.  Not sure what I’ll make as I currently do not own stuff for baking.

Hopefully between my baking tomorrow afternoon and my planned speed work I’ll be a bit more exciting next post 😉

As a treat here’s something that I found (and may actually have re-found as I may have posted this awhile back. Oops if that’s the case. I’m getting old and forgetting things!) and laughed at.  I’m so mean at laughing at others’ pain.  I love the caption on the actual youtube site: “Philip Idowo runs into stupid lady”

I’ve Been Marathon Thinking…

I mean, how can I NOT after registering for my next marathon this past Monday?! The thoughts of training (thanks to all who emailed me and gave me advice on training plans. I appreciate it all. You know who you are 🙂 ) and goal times (While I maintain that I’m shooting for a 3:29 I’m not going to lie: going for 3:20 or faster is in my head) and whatnot have been swirling around in my head I need to tell myself to relax!

I guess I have been relaxing somewhat because I’ve been feeling like doing nothing.  And that includes blogging! Therefore I have no witty or exciting or terribly interesting running things to share with y’all.  So this post is bulleted.  Because that’s what I do when I don’t have something cohesive to talk about hahah

• I’m being tempted with a marathon! I have been invited to head out to Cali and run a marathon with Liz. She’s been harassing me to fly out there for, oh I don’t know,  FOREVER (hahahah LOVE you running sistaaaaa) and now wants me to to run CIM in December.  Craaaaaaaaaaazy. Although this time fits perfectly for when I did feel the first tugs of the marathon again back in September. Ergo the allure of signing up is sooooooooooooooooo great. Especially since Cali in December > RI in winter.
• EDIT: CIM closed yesterday. Bummer. Any other suggestions for December? Preferably in a warm climate?

I want warmth and beaches please!

• I was sent this NY Times article on pushing past the pain (I am a loser and subscribe to the Tuesday Science Times section via email.  Among other science things from various sites.  Go ahead and make fun.  I am a proud nerd) and I thought I’d pass the link along.  Sarah posted about it too here and I think that this article describes the whole “I want to run so hard I’m going to vomit” thing for me.  I feel like throwing up because I’m overriding that mental thing that tells me I’m in pain. In any case I thought it was an interesting read.  I’d be curious as to your thoughts if you read it too: do you thrive on pain when running to push you hard?

• Not that my running has been anywhere that intense lately.  Slow and steady at this point.  Nothing spectacular about my runs yesterday and today.  Wednesday was pretty short and slow although it didn’t feel that way at all.  Interestingly enough the first part of the run felt the fastest and I think that’s because it was cold.  Thursday was a mid-long run (defined by my as 10-15), but more on the long side as it was 14, which was was very slow to start. The end miles felt great and I wish that my legs had warmed up earlier / I didn’t have to go to work so I could use that goodness in the leg-os.

• It’s time to break out the gloves.  Wednesday was all in the dark (darn you Mother Nature for being dark for so long!) and the temp (36*) actually felt 36*.  This is in contrast to today where I was lucky enough to run in sunlight so the 34* didn’t feel so cold and I could shed the gloves.

• Because it’s so cold I’ve been even more in love with coffee.  Nowadays you can always find me with a mug in my hand. I’m not sure if that’s good or bad just yet though.

• I’m in a baking mood.  What has gotten into me?! I’ve always maintained that I’m NOT a cook/baker etc.  And I’ve always maintained that I’m a straight-out-of-the-box girl.  But my roomie’s influence on me is too great and not only do I crave baking but I want to do it from scratch.  Nothing has been baked as of yet, nor will anything get baked tonight because of clinic, BUT I think I’m going to go on a baking binge this weekend.  Yikes. Send good vibes because I now have a gas stove (my one at my mom’s is electric and gas =/= electric!) and I have yet to cook ANYTHING the same way twice.

• My sister texted me to tell me to youtube this song last week.  Don’t lie you love it. Because I know I sure do.

And with that have a great Thursday y’all! It’s my favorite day of the week, even with a long clinic day. And now that I have Adam Lambert stuck in my head it’ll be even better. And no, that’s not sarcasm 8)

I Apologize

for the haphazard way my post yesterday was.  I re-read it this morning and was like “I  WROTE THAT?!”

But the point of it was

• I am registered for Boston (after the ulcer inducing process!)
• I recovered nicely from my 20 miles on Saturday

The rest was just…well I don’t know what it was.  But it took me a billion words to say what I just so succinctly wrote above.

I should have broken it up but whatever.  I should have said that everyone who is running Boston 2011 should meet-up that weekend.  But I didn’t.  Hopefully y’all were able to get through that post and will forgive me by meeting up in April!

Post Race Euphoria. And a plea to meet up in April 🙂

The irony of signing up for a race, such as Boston / so far away from now, is that while I have definitely NOT decided on goals or training or ANYTHING, clearly hitting submit that I just want to GO and jump into training RIGHT NOW.  So I’ve been musing some things even though the race is soooooooooooo far away (but likely will be here before I know it!)

Like I mentioned in my last post, but was likely hidden from all the BOSTON EXCITEMENT, is that I need to find a training plan.  One which I will stick too and not end up with massive shin splits and the fear that I’ve fractured them.  I was debating following the same plan I did last year (found here — or not as it’s a BAA plan and the website is still set up to tell ppl that registration is closed…I’ll repost / edit this later once I can find the plan) but *actually* following it.

I’ve also debated creating my own, and I know that Jess has written a post on doing so which I might try to do, but honestly? I think I’m too lazy to do that myself.  Any takers want to do it for me hahah? But if I did that at least I’d know that I’d follow it 🙂

The general gist of what I want is (and I’m NOT making anything more detailed right now as I’d very likely jump into training immediately which is something I don’t want to do):

• 12 week plan
• 3 quality runs: intervals, tempo, long run
• ~80 mile weeks

Which is basically the plan I followed last year.  Or at least the theory of what I did.  I used a 16 week plan and peaked around 100 miles.  Since I’m actually working rather than being a student this year I think that 80 sounds good for miles and, with my base, 12 weeks sounds good.  I think this cycle, while it *will* be hard and intense, is going to be about fine tuning which is what the last few weeks of marathon training is about, right?

I’m also going to have to start looking for a  (cheap) gym.  Winter is brutal in New England (as I know it is in other parts of the country as well) and I’m not going to have my school’s gym to fall back on in the event of a blizzard or negative temps.  I’m thinking of using the Y because, as a VISTA, I know I can get a really good deal.  And since I’m tough as nails (hahah) I’d only be using it for the occasional lifting session (must start those up again!) and to get a quality run in in bad weather.  So a cheap price is extra important so I feel like I’m sort of getting my money’s worth.

That’s about it in terms of what I’m thinking.  It’s nothing concrete, of course, but the excitement of having a submission number for Boston is making me want to plan.

Of course I do have a time goal of 3:29:59 — just like last year — although after plugging in my recent races from this fall the allure of going even faster than that is enticing as my recent half marathon in April indicates a 3:18 is possible.

 

Or maybe I'll just win the damn thing like that girl asked me last year hahah

Until then I’m going to still try and keep running light and fun.  Yes, there will be structured runs like LR and intervals but I’m hoping that I can keep the pressure off of myself to kill myself over workouts.  Easier said than done given my personality.

And of course having a submission number also makes me want to run far.  Which is normally my inclination, duh.  Since today is a clinic day I got to do a longer run than the office hour days, I did 13.5 miles.  It felt good and, aside from the first 3 or so miles, it felt strong. This was the first time since Tufts that I felt really really good during a run so I’m thinking that I’ll do a light speed session later this week.

Who knows when it’ll happen though because the weather is staying consistently cold overnight every night and I suspect that we’ll get the first frost soon.  Unlikely for snow as snow has been arriving later and later every year (I remember it snowing on my birthday when I was little!) but the cold is already on it’s way.

Gosh I really need to get out of New England if I’m already bitching about the temps.  It isn’t even cold yet!

Aaaaaaaaaaand a bunch of you asked for a picture of the cookies I baked this weekend. Welllll they’re all gone.  BUT my roomie and I baked last night too and here are the chocolate chip oatmeal cookies that were produced.  Sorry for the poor quality picture but I remembered to take it when I was at work hence the baggie.  But I did remember to take it before they were scarfed down 🙂

Yum

I. Am. Registered.

For Boston.

Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep.

Post Boston 2010 Euphoria

After major hemming and hawing (and talking to some amazing peeps from the RWOL marathoners dailies) I bit the bullet and registered.  I don’t think I’m technically registered yet — as they need to confirm that I qualified but I entered.  I guess the biggest thing in getting me to register was talking to some of my RW peeps and having them tell me some really nice things.  So if you’re one of the guys that pushed me to do this and consider myself a good runner to RACE Boston then thanks, you know who you are 🙂

Plus I want OUT of New England by next summer and I don’t think I’ll be able to afford a trip back East anytime soon.

So yeah.  I’m doing Boston again. It took FOREVER for me to enter too and I wasn’t sure if I would get it because I didn’t enter until late in the day(I think it was a bad link?) but I’m in. Now I need to find a training plan. And hope that the BAA doesn’ t charge my credit card for the billion attempts that I made.

Which is semi-exciting after having that 20 miler on Saturday under my belt (and I think I miscalculated and actually ran 20.6 giving me the full marathon for the weekend 🙂 ).  Obviously I won’t start training until late January or early February as it’s highly likely I’ll only follow a 12 week plan given how strong my base is already.

Post-20 miler I’m feeling quite good.  There is some soreness (mainly quad and I’m pissed that all the hills I’ve been running — both up and down — didn’t make it less soreness!) but I think I’d be fooling myself if I said it wasn’t to be expected. But I did a lot of walking last night while out (because drinking and drive is NOT cool so I’d rather walk a billion miles to the bars.  Which I did) and some *gasp* stretching.  Not much but I’m sure it helped a lot.

Which is why I went out for a semi-quick shake out run when I first got up and before an event that I was going to go to for the clinic (gotta represent VISTA man).  The run actually wasn’t too bad at all and was surprisingly even paced: the first portion that I timed was at 9:04 pace and the second was at 8:59 pace and the whole thing averaged out to 9:01.  Silly pesky :01…or rather :02 as I’m becoming elitist when it comes to where I want my paces to be.  Oops.

But the overall pace was slightly surprising given how much slow I was during the days that followed the Tufts 10k.  But I guess different types of effort.  I feel like I can run FOREVER.  But give me a short and fast race? Different kind of running.

And then after running I headed to the coast to participate in a 1 mile walk along the coast where the money raised was going to the clinic.  The weather (which was perfect, yet again, for my run this morning) was also perfect for the late afternoon walk: by the time we started it was probably in the low 60s with the sun shining BRILLIANTLY down.  There was a nice breeze off of the ocean too which felt great.

And you really can’t beat the smell of salt water.

Here are some pics of the area.  I really wish that I lived closer to here / I knew about it sooner / I was training for a marathon because the place is sooooooooo beautiful and I’d LOVE to do a long run here (a long run is really the only way I’d justify driving so far).  Maybe once the winter thaws out during Boston training? Though knowing New England that’ll never happen!

I think I’ll miss fall the most when I move out of here! The changing of the leaves (despite most of them being green in this picture) is something you really don’t get anywhere besides the NorthEast.  But NorthEast = snow in winter and I’m looking to stay away ahahah

For most of the walk I jumped from rock to rock that’s seen in the right of this picture.  It made me feel like a kid!

As did this NEMO KITE!

A candid that my coworker snapped right before I jumped off the rocks. My hair is a hot mess. Thanks wind!

All in all I’m really glad I went.  I was ambivalent about it on Friday but I’m really happy that I ended up going and spending my Sunday this way. It would have been better spent watching my men play (and what a game it was! I wish I could have watched it live!)

 

butttttttttt I’ll take what I can get I suppose.

The rest of my Sunday was entirely dedicated to relaxing and doing as little as possible.  AKA catching up on NCIS and The Office.  I was WAY behind but now I’m not.  Although it did make me sad that I have to work late on Tuesday and Thursday nights.  Not that I have a tv that shows television (it’s DVDs only).  But an excellent way to end the weekend nonetheless 🙂

It didn’t however do much to make my Monday morning run any easier.  I had to get up at 0530 (never fun) and the entire run was in darkness.  I got some pre-dawn by the end buttttt no sun.  Now, of course, the sun is really bright and I’ve had to close the blinds.

Not much to note on the run itself.  Slow-ish but not slog.  I think that’s important.  The overall pace can be whatever but as long as I don’t feel like crap the run is doing something for me.  The most exciting thing was that I saw two full grown adult raccoons!

I was going to put a picture of a rabid raccoon here. But I figured that would be prejudicial as I'm sure most raccoons are not rabid despite what my parents told me If you're really interested check out google images!

It promptly scared the living bejeezus out of me.  When I was little it was drilled into my head that ALL raccoons were rabid. Something that is apparently ingrained in me to this day as I hightailed it OFF my pathway onto the road.

I guess that put a little pep into my slow step this morning.

In other random news I have a Halloween costume.  And I’m excited. October 31st needs to get here now.  Or at least the weekend that we’re celebrating Halloween. Hollllleeeeeeeeeerrrrrrrrrr.  But such a tease because I’m not going to share.

That’s how I treat my readers for reading this monstrosity of a post that probably reads like a stream of consciousness with no structure or semblance of outline.  I’m so nice 😀

But you can check out the giveaway from Tricia and HotLegsRunner.  Clearly nicer than me!