Auntie Em Goes Running

Raining but warmish, probably mid 40s.  Towards the end of the run the sun actually started to come out.  I ran by the duck pond on the way home and all the little kids are out fishing.  I saw baby ducks and baby geese.  

New training plan:  I'll run when I feel like it (when nothing hurts), and I'll run as far as I want to and keep my form perfect.  As soon as the right foot/leg stop behaving and are unable to lift up properly, I'll either stop running and do some drills, or just gently bring myself back into good form while running.  I'll run with no Garmin, pace doesn't matter, but I'll keep the overall effort easy.  So, my mileages will be estimates, based on the time I left my house and the time I returned, plus my knowledge of the trails where I run.

Since this takes incredible concentration, I'll run alone, so that I can stay focused on my body as I run.  I'll do no conscious speed work.  I'll keep up my fitness level by doing tougher bike workouts, which means that I've got to start riding with a faster group and doing intervals.  No problem there; I've got a group I can ride with that rides at 19-20 and can easily join them.  

So, today, it was 5.5 miles before form started to suffer.  I didn't have to stop running, just did a few jogging drills to realign everything and continued.  It felt delicious to get wet but not cold and then have the sun come out! 

Just a few miles this morning, interspersed with running drills, and followed by yoga class.  I'm supposed to do a major interval training session on the bike today, so I'm waiting to see what the weather will be like.  I'd really like to be outdoors for the biking, but so far this morning it has POURED rain, sunshined, blown hard, and HAILED.  Not very predictable!

Will edit later after I've comleted the biking one way or another. Lots of busy work to do right now. 

PM Update:  The weather stayed wildly unpredictable, so I finally just did my bike ride here.  Rode for 70 minutes as:  15 wu, 4X5 minutes intervals with 2 minutes RI inbetween, followed by 27 minutes cd.  Easy riding was at 15-16 mph, and intervals were at 19-20, on resistance level 5, whatever that means.  I guess that this is my tempo workout.  Not as satisfying as running a tempo workout.  WHINE, WHINE. 

Three easy miles today, visiting with a friend.  Big strength and mobility session this morning, and abs to do tonight.

I made four pizzas, though. 

Busy day.  Did some hip strengthening (I am so sick of this routine), then went to yoga.  For weeks now, our teacher has been asking us to sit on our mats every day and ask ourselves why we want to practice yoga.  I have never been able to figure out why I want to practice yoga.  Then this morning it came to me!  I want to pratice yoga because it SCARES me.  It is actually one of the few things that scares me.  

After I got some work done, I met a couple of friends for a bike ride.  My schedule said EZ warm up and then "sustained hill efforts"X3, then cool down.  It is so much fun learning all these new bike workouts!  So, instead of doing what I was supposed to do, since I couldn't talk either of my friends into these sustained hill efforts, I just rode with them for 2 hours, then went to a good hill, which took about 12 minutes to climb at a hard, but not all out pace.  Did it three times.  I've got abs and glute stuff tonight.

I love days like this. 

Stretching and hip/glute strengthening this morning, then I met a friend at Galbraith Mountain for what was supposed to be 90 minutes.  It is only a mile or so from my house, so I just jogged over there.  The run turned into 2 hours, long steady climb then lots of twisty turny trails.  Beautiful running weather, not too much mud on the trails.  This is the longest run I've had in a while and I feel great.  It was good to do it on technical trails, because it kept my pace SLOW, right where it should be.  Another 8 days and I can try speed work again!

I am still tired from that bike ride yesterday. 

Day off!  Yoga only, lots of hamstring and hip stretches.  GOOOOD.

Up to the mountain for some skate ski practice.  We did the entire course about 1 1/2 times; they actually have it all tracked out so that you can do real skate ski practice on the Ski to Sea course!  It is a really hard course, all up and down, some quite steep ups and downs.  I feel that I have the skating thing down on the moderately sloped terrain, but on the steeper hills, I'm just running up on my skis!  I found a perfect training partner for this; she's done the skate ski leg of Ski to Sea for 23 years!  She was very helpful and quite good company.

When we were done skiing, I snowshoed (ran) around the course for awhile, just to relax.  Skate skiing is very difficult for the gluteal muscles, and running a bit seemed to help. 

Jogged over to Galbraith Mtn. (1.5 miles), and met a very large group of ladies for the annual Mother's Day Run!  There were probably about 40 of us, only about half of whom I had met before.   We ran up together, then separated into groups for either 50, 90, or 120 minute runs.  I chose 90, mostly because the people I wanted to socialize with were all doing 90.  We ran 7.8 miles in our group, then I jogged home for my Mother's Day coffee and breakfast in the sun.  Its actually going to be really nice today, so I'd better get out there and garden or something.

HAPPY MOTHERS DAY!  Being a mother has got to be the best and most rewarding job in the universe, even though its a bit underpaid. 

Yoga and 1 hour on the bike.  Was supposed to do intervals, but I didn't feel like it, so I did easy miles.  Yesterday's mountain run felt like the hard work, and I wanted an easy day.  I suppose this messes me up for the rest of the week now.  Next "hard" work is on Wednesday, for the hill repeats on the bicycle.  

Went up the mountain this morning for skate ski practice.  I was so early that it was still icy, as I'm sure it will be on race day.  Made the course a lot harder.  It is an incredible workout, and a lot of fun, but I doubt that I'm getting any faster.

Followed with running interspersed with two drill sessions.  

I'm coaching my third graders tonight and am planning a trail running "treasure hunt" to motivate them. 

Just a bike ride today.  Supposed to be wu, 2-3X sustained hill efforts, then cd.  I lengthened the wu and just did 2X hill efforts, then added some hill sprints on the way home, then cd.  I don't know why I did that, should have stuck with the longer hill effort, I suppose.  

I doubt I'll run or yoga today, because I have a lot of work to do, and its all indoor work, which I hate.   

WHOO HOO!  I ran STRIDES!  That means I ran fast, or at least a little bit fast for a short way.  AND WHAT THAT MEANS is that in a few days, I CAN RUN REALLY FAST again!!  WHOO HOO!  Sorry about all that, I'm happy.

Did a short warm up at the track, running and some squats, weights, crunches, etc.  Then STRIDES! and 6.25 on the trail.  I was happy, so it was hard to keep easy pace (8:42, 8:40, 9:07, 9:06, 8:13, 8:20, 8:38(last .25)).  

Off to Seattle today and taking my roller blades; there are some great places to skate there. 

11.7 miles of medium fast skating!  I really being able to occasionally have access to pavement for such a long ways.  I tried to keep the effort at about "easy running effort", but of course I'm moving much faster, because I was only skating for just over an hour to cover this distance!  I love skating, and it should be good for the ski skate preparation.  I'l get up to the snow again on Sunday.  Skating also seemed like a good way to "save" my newly healed up leg for tomorrow's longer run.

Run was supposed to be wu, then 2 miles easy, 4 and mp, then 2 easy again.  The strides during wu felt great; nothing hurt at all and I felt very good.  I felt good for the mp miles also, but started running them with this new guy in our group, and didn't realize that I was going WAY too fast.  Ran 7:42 instead of 8:28.  The, OF COURSE, I got busted by the coach, who just loves to pick on me anyway.  So I got a big lecture in the end about mental discipline and stuff, blah, blah, blah.  I was SO GOOD the rest of the time, just one tiny slip up on pace, not even on purpose, and I get IN TROUBLE.  Something about this situation just makes me feel like I'm in grade school again, disrupting the whole class.

Aside from that bit of unpleasantness, it felt so nice to run at a quicker pace again and have nothing hurting!  I stopped the marathon miles a speck early just because my leg felt a bit tight and I didn't want to push it.  I bit of stretching and I did the cd, then the bike ride home with no complaining from the leg.  YAHOO!

The bike ride to and from the workout was about 20 minutes each way.

 Have a nice weekend!

Nice long hip strengthening and stretching session this morning, then up to the mountain for XC practice. The snow was very soft today, and skating was SO HARD!  I am starting to rethink whether I want to skate in the race or just use my classic XC skis instead.  The hills in soft snow were so much more work.

Home to sunshine and an easy four running miles (8:48, 9:09, 9:03, 9:24), with running drills!  I feel as if I have had a whole day already and its only 1:47! 

Yoga this morning.  My legs felt tired from yesterday, I guess, but yoga helped reenergize them a bit.  

Track workout this evening.  I had to do this one on my own, as I had a meeting to go to when our group was working out.  It is the beginning of this series where we run intervals at 5K pace, separated not by rest intervals, but by quickly done exercises, like lunges, push ups, crunches, burpees, etc.  Tonight's assignment was to run 400m, then exercises, 400m, then exercises, 400m, then exercises, 400m, then exercises, and finally 400m.  400m were all at 5K pace.  

My target pace for the 400m is 1:40.  Actual times are:  1:41, 1:41, 1:42, 1:37, and 1:36.  Close but not perfect.  I jogged a bit on the track to cool down, did a barefoot lap, then did hip and glute strengthening exercises before heading out.  My legs are very tired now.  Weird, huh, when you look at how little mileage I did.   

Day off; just Girls on the Run coaching.  

I did try out some new shoes this morning!  Six pairs, to be exact.  My favorite ones were the Brooks Launch.  I went for a few miles in these while testing them, I liked them so much.  Then I felt I should buy them.  

Oh, I see they are not even on my shoe tracking yet; will have to add them.  Funny, but I've purchased two new pairs of shoes in the past week (I'm retiring some), and they are both Brooks.  I have never worn Brooks before, because they are WIDE, but now they make narrow.  I love both shoes.  The Brooks ST something racing flat were so amazing at the track last night!

Its been a restful and productive day off, but I am ready to get back in action tomorrow! 

Yoga this morning; I was so sleepy that I yawned all the way through class.  Felt great afterwards.  Yoga is so hard!  Sometimes I think that it is the hardest thing I do.

I was going to meet a friend for a 90 minute fast paced bike ride at 3:00, but just as we met it began to pour rain and wind like a hurricane!  We were both daunted and separated; I came home to my basement to do an interval workout on the trainer; he went to the swimming pool.  After my bike ride, I immediately put on my shorts and ran for a few miles in the rain.  It feels so awkward to do this, but I want to be used to it because I might sign up for a duathalon in July.

Still raining HARD.  Looks like maybe some thunder storm activity coming. I have hip and core strengthening still to do, and early am track workout!  I am very excited for the track workout.

We had a terrific windstorm last night; very disturbing!  Lots of rain too, but by this morning, the rain was almost gone, and the wind had died down a bit.  I got to the track a bit later than usual, 6:30, because I am trying to avoid seeing the coach.  Honestly, I think I'll have to quit this group because of the coach.  

Warm up (1.97 miles), easy pace.  Strides (.5 miles), fast pace.  3X800 at tempo pace.  Target is 3:49 (actuals:  3:37, 3:39, 3:42).   I always find tempo pace the most frustrating and impossible pace to get right, especially on the track.  I know these are way too fast, and I was a bit annoyed with myself, but I forgave myself already.  I do really try hard.  Cd was 2.06 miles, followed by some running drills.

I arrived at yoga about 25 minutes early, for a change, and actually took a little nap on my mat before class started.  I think I should do this every day between track and yoga!  It really energized me. 

An early morning; had to drive up to the ski area to take my skate ski clinic, and had a bunch of work to get done before I could go.  Skate Ski clinic was GREAT, fabulous teacher.  I feel like I learned a whole lot.  This was a very very active three hours; he really kept us moving.  I wish this had happened three weeks ago so that I could have more time to practice all the skills he taught us.

I stopped on the way home at my cabin in Glacier and did my run from there, since I haven't been there in awhile.  Its a bit higher than here, so Spring is just coming in the woods there.  The trails there are quite technical, and still muddy because we've had a lot of rain this week, so I got my brand new Brooks St somethings all dirty):

I am exhausted.

Have a happy weekend everyone! 

P.S. Just looked at my splits on the easy run  (8:46, 9:18, 9:34, 9:24, and 7:44).  Not bad; all but the first and last fall within my "easy" range.  That is progress. 

We didn't start running this morning until 7:30, which felt very late.  I was up at 5 as usual, so I had to eat something before 7:30.  I don't usually like to do this before I run, and still am not sure what to eat sometimes when I'm forced to eat first.  I had a handful of almonds.

Ran along Bellingham Bay; it was so pretty this morning.  Sunshine but still cool, with fluffy patches of clouds.  They are going to tear up part of this trail later this summer, so I guess its good we are using it now while we can!  This run was supposed to be wu, strides, 2 miles easy, 3 miles at 10, 2 miles easy.  I didn't want to do any more 10K pace this week, so I decided to make those middle miles marathon pace (8:17).  The first two easy miles were 9:23 and 8:52.  The middle three miles were 8:09, 8:10, and 7:58.  Last two were 9:27 and 8:17.  Couldn't resist having the final mile a bit faster!

Whenever I run Marathon Pace miles, I cannot imagine the pace for 26.2 miles.  I do not have this problem with 10K or 5K pace.  Both of those seem about right for the distance.  Maybe this is just because I am not really a marathoner yet (at least I don't have a lot of experience with it).  

Last skate ski practice before ski to sea relay next weekend!  Went up with two friends and 1 dog.  The course is 8K, so we skiied it 1 full time and then 1/2 the distance again.  It was much colder up there than it has been, so we dressed too warmly and had to stop and shed a layer after the first crossing point.  I just chucked my outer jacket and hat on the side of the course, but when I came back, the snow cat had sort of plowed them under!  They are up there today tracking out the course nice and wide so that 500 skiiers can all start at the same time next Sunday!  Anyway, today was supposed to be active recovery (not intended to increase fitness, just gentle exercise of about 90 minutes).  I guess this ski session will have to do for "active recovery".  I am not sure exactly what I am recovering from.

Yoga only today and lots of leg strengthening squats, lunges, etc, plus abs, hips strengtheners.  Pretty boring day actually.

Track workout.  wu, strides, 8X200m all on track, no hills.  It has been so long since I did these 200m that I forgot what pace I do them at!  They were .44, .46, .46, .46, .47, .47.  At least they were all pretty much the same!  When I got home I checked the target pace, and its .48!  Pretty funny.

I did my cd mile partly with shoes and partly barefoot.  Just as I finished it started to rain A LOT, and a really cold, icy feeling rain.  Which is weird, because it was rather warm today, low 60s I think.

 Before I went to the track, I coached my third graders.  They are coming along OK, but in just a few weeks, they have to run their 5K, and sometimes they don't want to run!  I showed them how to gradually accelerate into a stride, and we did that for awhile; they liked that game somewhat.  I am going to have to run this 5K with them, so that will be a challenge all of its own.  

I am sick of crosstraining!  I want to be able to run all I want, whenever I want.  Yep, I'm whining again.  Just when the right leg hamstring was perfect again, the knee bummed out again.  Dr. is not concerned, just taped it up and said back to easy miles, no fast work for a bit and lots more biking.  I'M TIRED OF BIKING!  He also said to lose all the stability and sturdy shoes, even for technical trail running, and just run in flats.  

Long run today, but I'm going to split it into two one hour segments, just to make all is OK with the knee.  I completed one segment at AP of 9:24 (9:23, 9:23, 8:57, 10:47, 8:54, 8:45, 10:09).  6.25 miles.  All felt great!  In fact, better than great.  It was cool and overcast this morning, felt kinda good.  I saw fox in the ravine at Arroyo Park; I have never seen one in there before.  Followed Dr. advice and ditched the trail shoes, even though parts of the trail this morning were technical.  The Brooks Launch actually feel incredibly stable for a lighter trainer anyway.  Maybe TOO much shoe.

I went immediately to yoga, then home to wolf down some food and get to work!  I'll run the other hour this afternoon at 3:30. 

Update for pm run: AP was 9:23 over 5.46 miles.  AP this morning was 9:24, so I am very consistent today.  I drove my daughter to an elementary school where some of the Girls on the Run girls were doing their practice 5K, so she could meet them and talk with them.  While she was doing that, I went for a run in a new neighborhood!  It was very pretty along the lake, very hilly (long hills), and all pavement.  That's a lot of pavement for me.  It was an OK run, knee did fine.  I am glad I decided to break this long into two pieces, though.  At one point, when I was almost at the top of a long, long hill, I noticed a police officer with two kids; he was showing them how the radar speed gun works.  One of the kids pointed it at me trying to get my speed!  I asked him not to tell me I was going too fast. 

Three easy miles

in the drenching freezing rain

I thought it was Spring!  :( 

90 minutes on the stationary bike trainer, with 4X90second sprints!

Ski to Sea Relay today!  Got up to the mountain by 7am, gun went off at 8am.  I'm the first leg, so all 500 racers are starting in a big pack on the snow.  The first 200 yards or so, I was just trying not to trip someone with my skis or poles and trying not to get tripped!  I have had a terrible cold this week, and the coughing started this morning, so I was a little concerned about that.  But, once in the mountain air with adrenaline in me, I felt great.  I felt pretty good about my race, considering this is a brand new event for me.  Unofficially, I raced 4.00 miles in 43:47, AP of 10:42.  The effort felt about like a 5K.  The course is so hilly!  I found that on the flats, I was skating well enough to pass quite a few people.

Funny story:  on one of the uphills, a guy came up on me from behind and accidentally tripped me up a bit with his pole.  Of course, in a race like this, its no big deal, happens all the time, noone really cares.  So, he apologizes, and I said "No Problem Dude", and we go on.  Well, on the next downhill, I see him just in front of me, so I get into my racer tuck, speed up behind him and yell: "I'm up again and coming to get you!".  He looks back, and the look of terror on his face was priceless!  Good to know I can scare someone still when I have to!

I think I came in 197 out of about 500 racers, don't know my division time yet.  Heading down to the Bay now to wait for our kayaker (last leg), and celebration! 

Update:  Added some bicycle miles riding downtown to see our kayaker come in home then riding home.  Our team came in 4th in our division!  That's OK.  Off to the after party now. 

Did a wet and muddy "brick" workout with my friend this morning.  She has a 1/2 iron man next weekend, so she's tapering, and this is her last brick.  I sort of had a free day, so I did it with her just to see what it felt like.  It was OK, except its too wet and cold here right now! 

 I am trying to post a picture of my Ski to Sea Relay Team here, but can't seem to make it work.  I'll try again later.