Tag Archives: Running

Xterra Trail Race #3 and…maturity?


As I reported a couple of weeks ago, I think aliens have invaded 16′s brain. Either that, or maybe there was a threshold of maturity crossed recently that appears to be sticking around. I’m crossing fingers for the latter, but not ruling out the former just yet.

He took the ACT test this weekend. And he CARED. He actually did a full practice test online! And? Since this was the ACT-no writing test he asked me to sign him up for the next full scale ACT and even…(gasp)…the SAT!!!

This from the kid who REFUSED less than a year ago to even CONSIDER taking the SAT when he knew computer majors didn’t *really* need it. And he insisted on the NO WRITING test too.

Suddenly he can tell you that his GPA is finally closer to 3 than 2.5 and that he WANTS to take all the normal college entrance exams.

Oh, and he thought the ACT no writing test was stupidly easy. Math was 8th grade level at best in his opinion, and he is no longer impressed if he hears of near perfect scores. He’s thinking that American schools are slacking. Yeah, probably so kiddo!

Anyway, I even marginally tricked him into doing the dishes twice this week without any whining. Again – WHO IS THIS??

Of course, even though he is now done with PT and is cleared to start running again on his newly repaired knee, he still wasn’t willing to join me on a mid-week jog around the block or an evening run tonight. So there’s still that.

Speaking of running…yes, I finally DID keep my promise to run on Wed night after work! It felt great, and I did my usual 2.3 mile hilly loop in record time without really trying to run too fast. Guess those long slow trail runs are helping my short course speed.

Meanwhile, instead of joining R2 for usual monster run this morning, I ran in my third in the Xterra trail race series. The first was Crystal Cove, the second was Mission Trails, and today was Black Mountain. It was a 6k route and just about in my backyard only 5 miles east of me. It was a nice change to not have to drive on the freeway to get to a race!

Unfortunately, someone turned on the cold and wind and wet again around here, AND this course was an ASS KICKER!

Come to think of it, Xterra only does ass kickers. The hills are always intense, and today was no different. 2+ miles barreling down down down with an occasional straightaway or small uphill only to go down again. The rule in running of course, is that what goes down, must come UP. And come UP we did. The last mile solid was UP UP UP. No switchback, no level off, just UP. I walked it. Wanted something in the tank to run through the finish line.

The best part was that as we all gathered before the start, I chatted with some lovely ladies who were also talking about going nice and slow. Having found some kindred spirits, I stuck with one of them most of the way and made sure to stay and cheer them in after I finished. Thanks to the wonders of the internet, we are now all facebook friends and will be following each other’s running exploits via blogs.

Also, I still ran with R2 – she has a new thing on her training plan – she does the long run in the morning then has another 1:15 in the evening. Just got home from that so I did 9.3 miles total today. OUCH. I’m going to make some tea and rest now. Enjoy the photos :)

Cold, gray, and windy at the start

Cold, gray, and windy at the start

Gorgeous in the canyon - more spring flowers in bloom!

Gorgeous in the canyon – more spring flowers in bloom!

5th in my age group! Dang it - could been 4th if I had known the course a little better. :)

5th in my age group! Dang it – could been 4th if I had known the course a little better. :)

New friends in running! Great job ladies! Thanks for the companionship.

New friends in running! Great job ladies! Thanks for the companionship.

 

 

 

 

Another running thresh hold crossed


Acacia

 

The acacia blooms are popping out all around. We saw an osprey with a fish in it’s talons flying around looking for a good spot to consume brunch. A hummingbird stalked us along one fence line. The ducks were doing interval flight drills from the center sand pit to the water and back – in unison of course. In other words, spring was springing out everywhere and yet it was just cool enough to be perfect running weather even with the sunshine.

Meanwhile we set out to make it another personal record Sunday. Audrey was there for the frist out and back (and out a little ways again to pop over her target distance) and Renee was on her last run of a very very long week of running so she stayed back with us most of the way and had fun taking pictures:

Heading out for the first loop.

Heading out for the first loop.

 

The low angle action shot - Audrey made me laugh as you can see - something about wishing she had shaved her legs :)

The low angle action shot – Audrey made me laugh as you can see – something about wishing she had shaved her legs :)

After sticking with it for 6.3 miles (!!) today, Audrey tapped out and went on her way. I dipped into my energy beans and went back out with Renee who had a 3 hour 15 run on her schedule. Don’t know what I was *planning* on doing, but all I know is that her sticking around with me and then Eve meeting us out during the last hour and using her fresh legs to pull us along, I ended up staying out the whole damn time. Which, for me was a grand total of 13.75 miles. Yup, blew away last week’s PR of 11.3 miles out of the water. And crossed that half marathon distance thresh hold. A line I didn’t think I would cross this year let along in March!

And – I even managed to keep on smiling even as I chugged up that last hill to the car.

Profile Pic

 

 

 

 

Hill repeats


A quick drop in on an errand filled day to share exactly what hill repeats look like on the Runkeeper Activity page:

Hills

 

The hill I ran is exactly 4/10 of a mile long and as you can see, I went down and up 4 times today. I thought that graphic representation of the run was kinda funny so I had to share.

Back later with amusing tales from what, on the surface, sounds like a boring day of necessary errands, but ended up providing belly laughs and a what could have been a massively critical brain fart.

Stay tuned….

Roses and Running and…Lease Extraction?


Heh – I was reaching for the alliteration to be complete in the title and just couldn’t get there.

New habit check in to start: $55 in the change kitty as of this weekend.

However, work outs? Oh, utter fail. I was thrashed after the 10 mile run and the Wednesday half day run didn’t happen because the half day didn’t happen.

However, I didn’t let that get me down – I knew there was a three day weekend coming up and I put it ON my weekend To Do plan – run all three days. I’m 2 for 3 and I don’t see ANY reason that I wont be able to get in another 5 miles tomorrow morning.

I ran 3.1 miles Saturday mostly doing hill repeats (5 times up and down the hill nearest my house).

I ran 8 miles on the usual Sunday trail run – there was time for another shot at 10 but I purposely wanted to save something in the tank for tomorrow. I want to get myself into the back to back to back running as I was able to do easily before October. In fact, I looked back on my Runkeeper and saw that the first time I reached the 8 mile mark was just before the final race of the season so I was at my fittest and I completed it a solid 10 minutes faster than I did it today. Not that I care about speed – but it lets me know what my fitness level really was before the fibroids slowed me down.

Ok, so I started in the middle so now I will jump to the end since it is boring but worth updating/semi-bragging over. Lease #55 – the FINAL one that needs to be done – is 3/4 extracted and will be finished tomorrow. That’s on the 18th – a full 10 days before the deadline I set for myself. YES!

There is just something about writing down a daily/weekly To Do plan. If it is written down in front of my, I *will* be compelled to cross it off. The way I did was that at work I would extract a lease, then do a non-lease task, then back to a lease and so on and so on. That way, I didn’t get COMPLETELY burned out working in the program non stop. The breaks helped tremendously.

Then, at home I challenged myself two nights a week to post one and then every weekend I brought home three. And suddenly, the list was done! Now we have a solid two weeks to work on pulling reports and testing the rent payment process. I know – boring, but I tell ya – it is huge.

The Silver Lining to all this hyper focused work? I now know this program so well that my next task – training a temp to cover the job – will be EASY. I never like managing people for a task that I don’t already know how to do in depth.

And now, the roses. So, there was this DAY this week that normally The Boyfriend and I ignore, BUT…he works for a company that happens to ship flowers so these arrived at my office on Thursday:

2013 Roses_day1

So pretty – AND – this is what they look like today – note that I followed every step of instructions that ProFlowers included. The vase came with the roses and there were two packets of food to drop into the water. One for day 1 – and then another for today after I changed out the water and cut the steps one more time:

2013 Roses_day4

Still  beautiful and all opening up!

 

 

10 miles!


10 miles run

 

I do not know WHAT I was thinking. The last time I ran for this long was before surgery when I hit the 9 mile mark. I figured I would aim for some 5-8 mile routes before even trying to up the distance to 10 miles.

Unfortunately, I have this…thing..in my brain…it wont let me stop once I start…I’m thinking it’s my own personal Energizer Bunny when it comes to running. When Renee texted me that the run for this past weekend was 2.5 hours, I hoped that Audrey would join us because there would be no way she would run for that long and I would tag along with her and pace myself properly. But no – she couldn’t come along and even worse, Tanja was there for the first half. She happens to think a sub 11 min mile pace is “easy”.

Um, no.

Anyway, I did start out hanging just a little behind them for the first mile, but then I forced myself to slow it down significantly. In my mind I was thinking I would allow myself to run for an hour, maybe 90 minutes and then walk.

Hah!

I ran east for exactly 5.05 miles. I ran into Renee coming back towards me just before then so she was with me at the turnaround and then for another 2.5 miles. Chatting with her made that time fly. So did watching all the runners who were doing the San Dieguito Half Marathon race which was on part of the eastern end of our usual route. That was nice because the streets were closed off from traffic and we had the fun of watching other racers (and had water offered to us and cheering along the way because people assumed we were with the pack despite not having race bibs on!)

Now, in all honesty thanks to some very comfy long compression socks, my camelback, and some energy beans, I felt totally FINE until somewhere around mile 7.5 Then the t-band on my knees started tightening up just a tad. I hit an official wall of OW right at the 8 mile mark and then I did start a routine of walk/run until mile 9 which opened up nice and flat and easy along the west end of the lagoon. My timing was great – I knew I could even walk the last mile and still come in under the 2.5 hour time.  Renee had taken off ahead of me again when my knees started aching and as she doubled back she picked me up again right there at the 9 mile mark. By this time well over 2 hours in – she was feeling the aches and was not moving quite as spryly as she usually does either. So we bitched and moaned our way through to the end crossing over mile 10 just before climbing up the last painful hill at the 2 hour 23 min mark. At that point we both called it “good enough” :-)

I came home and stretched and rolled my t-bands out (homemade tennis balls stuffed in a stocking roller thingy from physical therapy) and barely managed to walk without groaning all day. But, the stretching and rolling were effective and surprisingly today I am sore – but not horribly so.

I’m going to try to do my best to run 5 miles on Wednesday – I’ve got a plan to leave work a tiny bit early because I’ve been rocking it with the lease processing and I think I can take a tiny run break to get in a mid-week run vs just running on Sundays.

And hey – I ran 10 miles!!!

Recovery is fun!


Especially when your boys are willing to spend many hours playing card games with you to break up the time spent reading on your new kindle or in front of the TV:

Phase 10

 

We’ve had this game for awhile but at first our brains hurt or we were just too tired or something to want to figure it out. But with a long weekend looming for 16 and considering that he was (shock!) feeling a little bored with his Xbox, he brought this out. We’ve since played 6 games, one with 27 and had a damn fun time smack talking and laughing at the whole thing.

Meanwhile, I made the mistake Thursday afternoon of thinking that I could take a walk in the beautiful warm weather we are having. Since that was scarcely 24 hours after my surgery, it was not the best plan. It wasn’t awful, but I did feel some cramping happening as a result so I shut it down completely the rest of the day and on Friday. Saturday I ran some errands with 16 and felt no side effects. Renee checked in to see how I was doing and if I wanted to just walk on the trail while they did our usual longer Sunday run. They had to be out there for 90 minutes. I figured even if I could only stroll for a bit that since it was on my favorite birding trail – especially in the winter – then that would be a great test plus I could enjoy the sunshine.

I strolled for a mile. I mean, really STROLLED. Did stop and try to ID birds from memory. I didn’t carry binoculars or a bird book because I had put on my running shoes and was prepared just in case I felt well enough to pump up the walking pace.

Which, I did, so miles 2 and 3 I sort of started into my previous fitness walking pace of close to 15 min miles. That took a 65 mins and they would still be on the trail for another 25 so I decided to start alternating some light jogging segments with the walking. By the time 90 mins was up I had gone 5.3 miles and felt 100% FINE.

So how about that? I went from doing the K9 5K last weekend under a bit of duress from the fibroid symptoms (36 mins) – evicted the pesky buggers on Wednesday – and then today, a week after the 5k and 3.5 days after surgery – I walked/jogged for 5.3 miles in 90 mins.

I like that kind of recovery a LOT!

Oh, and new habit check in – I added $5 to the total this week so I have $21.55 saved.

After I get into finishing taxes this week I’ll put my mind into coming up with something fitness related. Even though the recovery has been encouraging, I am being honest about my limits to come up with something else until I am totally cleared after the 2 week post-op visit and once the larger tax chore is mostly completed since that will take up time and mental capacity :-)

K9 5K


20130114-124855.jpg

 

No, I didn’t get a dog (oh, how THAT would traumatize my spoiled kitties!!) But, I did borrow a dog to participate in another Just For Fun 5k event – The Petco K9 5K that was held Sunday at the racetrack just by my house. As you can tell from the pictures – it was COLD. We’ve been under frost warnings for the last three night/mornings and they were not kidding about it.

When we met up with Tanja and her dogs, the one I was going to run with – Miles – was just shivering! Eve had to take off her jacket and wrap him up for a bit to get him to stop.

20130114-124908.jpg

 

Pre-race photo – Tanja has her ridgeback Sarah. Last year they finished second, this year they were third but with a better time so for Sarah, it was a PR on the course :-)

20130114-125002.jpg

 

I was just having fun, not going for speed and once Tanja and Sarah were far enough in front of us that Miles could no longer smell his mom, he stopped running full speed and we settled into a nice trot.

Running with a pack of dogs is hysterical! Here’s a few things you never hear at other race events but which were the most commonly heard things at the K9 5K:

“Heel! Heel!”

“Good dog”

“Oh, whose a good boy?”

“Hey, stop sniffing that butt!”

“Water for you and your dog! Fire hydrants and porta potty’s!”

and my personal favorite made as both a question (because the runners forgot to bring their own):

“Poop bag? Do you have a poop bag?”

And then again at the water stops:

“Poop bags!! Get your poop bags!”

Yeah….I was giggling a lot. There were also the sights and smells of many dogs making use of the poop stops. Weee. Including one larger dog who decided he had to go NOW and that meant cutting across my path dragging his poor unwitting owner into the trees. I managed to keep the rubber side down, but it was a little more treacherous than the usual race courses!

Miles did great – he only tried to veer off a few times and a quick “heel!” got him back on track. I have no idea about our time because I wasn’t participating for that reason. It was just fun.

20130114-125055.jpg

 

Oh, and dinner with all the girls later that night topped off with some after dinner drinks? Just added to the fun of the day.

(No one knows why that photo is blurry..ahem)

It was a great way to launch into Eviction Plans, Version 2.0 which will mean shutting down the longer runs/workouts for a couple of weeks.  FWIW the fibroids staged a last ditch attack in the middle of everything yesterday but I refused – REFUSED – to let them keep me from doing what I wanted to do.

As of Wednesday they will be gone – gone I say! Gone to where the termites lay.

Bwahahahahahaha!

(Yes, more morbid loony tunes around here – whatever)

Motivation, perspiration, inspiration and iron ass hill


Ready to tackle the trail!

Ready to tackle the trail!

This morning I drove up about 60 miles north to Crystal Cove State Park and participated in a 6k trail run event. My motivation was to spend a day with my high school friend #651 – it was her birthday and she was treating herself – no, challenging herself – to achieving something new. She started off in January of this year walking in a 5k event that she was supposed to do with her best friend #649. That 5k walk was to honor #649′s mom who was battling cancer. Sadly, mom lost her battle so #651 had to swallow her fear of doing something so intimidating all by herself.

And she did it.

And that created a monster :-)

We’ve been trading tales all year of our events and training progress. She dove right into doing mud runs and obstacle course events – hard core – I haven’t done those!

In October she did this one insane event that I honestly don’t think I could have done. She wore a video camera on the top of her hat and shot some really amazing video of her journey through the course. She walked most of it, needed help getting over and through a few spots, but she DID IT!

After that one she posted that today’s would be her next event and that her goal was to jog “some” of it. She’s been really trying to up her effort from walking to jogging.

The trail today was HARD. If I had been intending to run it all myself, I think I would not have been able to. The first two miles were almost totally UP an intensely steep hill – 813 feet. It zigged and zagged and I know I would have alternated running and walking from onr switchback to another. Otherwise I would have had NO stamina to get back down!

Up UP UP we went. Slow and steady.

Up UP UP we went. Slow and steady.

Somewhere on the trail I dubbed this Iron Ass Hill because going up this thing gives you an Iron Ass whether you want it or not!

IMG_2744See that teensy white piece of paper on the shrub? That was the 2 mile marker. HERE, it finally started to level off. We then turned another corner and came upon a water/gatorade stand. We each took a cup and then…with level trail and mostly downhill left – she said “Let’s GO!”

So at around the 2.1 mile marker we jogged.

Stunning views

Stunning views

The weather was perfect. December on the So Cal beach trails brings cooler air temps, but the sun still heats it up just enough. #649 and I were a little bit ahead and we started yapping and the next thing we knew we had gone a mile. At the start of the jogging we had given #651 a few tips on posture and gait which she had picked up. She found her comfort zone and just kept moving. One foot in front of the other, up and down at a steady pace. Before we knew it, we could hear the finish line, then see it, and then at the last little bit we all sprinted across together.

She ran TWO MILES today. After having only gone a block at a time around her house before!

Smiling the whole time – feeling no major aches or pains – she just kept on moving.

Now she wants to repeat all the events again in 2013. Only she wants to do MORE jogging than walking.

I think she’s got this :-)

 

 

 

 

If I’m a runner, why are my arms so sore?


Because I sort of forgot that I am not 17, or even 27……and yesterday AFTER a nice 1+ hour trail run and then some serious latte drinking and burrito gulping….Renee, Eve and I were feeling the need to go for a walk to not feel so stuffed. So we walked to the school and park near me where – hey look! There are MONKEY BARS!!

(I swear we didn’t spike our lattes with any booze – really!)

I think it is good that no one thought to take any pictures and that the one video I did take didn’t actually record as I expected (you are so lucky Renee!) because we spent quite a bit of time goofing off doing pull ups and just generally hanging from the bars and rings on the playground. Yeah, we thought were big time gymnasts or crazy cross fit elites or some such. Actually, Renee kind of is pretty good at that and pulled off quite a few hard core pull ups. Way more than I could.

BUT – the thing is that I COULD do some! That is largely thanks to the weight training that I started a couple of years ago so once I realized that I COULD, I had to repeat it right?

Lord…

Lemme just say that around 2am I woke up with a burning pain in my neck and shoulders like no other! It’s taken two 800 mg doses of ibuprofen to calm down the pain to a tolerable level and still I moan if I have to lift my arms even a teensy bit.

This is all my way of saying – hey, wanna come join our crazy group of nut job fitness geeks who think sore muscles are the bomb?

OK, we don’t really think that, but anyone who knows me knows that getting me to graduate from walking to circuit training and then to running was not an easy psychological leap for me.

It took the motivation and then the support of a cool group of people to get me motoring along. It doesn’t matter how far away you are, if you are even remotely interested in getting or keeping fit, please sign up here:

http://my.corporatetriathlete.com/

It’s free and you can drop in and read and post questions in the forum and find people who will be able to answer your questions and help get you motivated. Here’s a snapshot of the topics in there now:

See? Not intimidating at all! It’s really for people who want to get started just moving in general like I did.

And no, you don’t need to make yourself as sore as I did! Also, there is a GREAT link to a cross training video workout (30 mins) that anyone can do at home. That’s in the Cross Training topic. I’ve done it twice now while watching TV and it’s fantastic. I mean, it’s not EASY – but it’s also totally something you can build up to and do.

Meanwhile, I am going to stay away from those damn monkey bars. Evil things.

I am SUCH an only child!


Why do I state this?

Because the best way for me to regain some semblance of sanity when I am feeling anxious over being in limbo..or stressed…or in any way out of sorts….the BEST thing I can do for myself is get as far away from people as possible.

It doesn’t have to be for long, but it needs to just BE.

So today since I had a mid-day appointment with the final exterminator, I decided I didn’t want the hassle of driving back and forth from work. So I took the day off.

I still got up at 6am and listened to the radio show I like.

But instead of going to work, I drove down to the local trail.

And I ran.

No music, no more radio show, just me, my breathing, my thoughts and the trail.

I initially thought I might run for 3 miles. But about 1 mile in I decided on 5. The temperature was perfect. I’d planned ahead and drank plenty of water and ate some energy beans for breakfast #1 so I knew I was prepared nutritionally to just go. So, I did.

I ran slow – 12 min miles. But I never stopped. Up and down one end of the trail and the other and part way back again to reach the 5 miles total almost exactly at the 60 minute mark.

And OH IT FELT SO GOOD!!!

My brain churned over and walked through and then let go of all the crap.

And my feet kept churning along too.

I genuinely smiled and said good morning to everyone I met on the trail (and for 8am on a Wednesday there was quite a lot of trail traffic!) I took note of every bird and lizard and rabbit that crossed my path. I inhaled as I passed the bales of hay – twice!

As much as I love running with my friends there are just days when, well, I NEED to run alone.

At the 5 mile mark I was feeling my left knee tighten at the t-band and it still does feel sore even after stretching and rolling. It’ll be fine. We have regular 8 mile Sunday morning runs starting this weekend and I wanted to be ready. After not running in 10 days and that last run being rather horrid, I really needed something before Sunday to know I could keep up.

After the run, I went up to Starbucks, ordered Breakfast #2 and then…I sat down in a big leather chair in the shop and just relaxed.

Sipped my gingerbread latte. Ate my breakfast sandwich. Scrolled through twitter on my phone. People watched.

Almost and hour…just sitting. And being.

And pardon my french, but damn that was so fucking amazing and necessary!!!